Catalonia Independence Referendum - Democracy or Unity?

Indeed, if Madrid wanted Cataluniya to become independent, they would not behave differently. They created martyrs, they gave people a tangible cause to fight for, they increased the very schism that underlays the independence project.

Yes, it's strange. I keep thinking about how Putin would have handled it. My guess is that he would have had none of independence and would have stopped it by all means, keeping the country from disintegrating. But he would do it in a smart way and he would sure do everything for reconciliation afterwards. Instead of draconian punishment for the separatists, he might have pardoned them, even given the reasonable ones a post, and get a stimulus program for the region going so everyone's happy and united. OSIT!
 
To my knowledge, there is still no clear poll indicating that a majority of Catalans want independence from Spain. Should Spain let one proceed in order to 'settle the issue'? Is it worried about what happened the year before in the UK, when the people 'voted the wrong way'?

What do our Hispanosphere members think of all this?

I live about 100kms from the hispanosphere, so I'm eligible! In the indy ref. in 2017, only 43% of voters actually voted, and of those 92% voted yes for independence. So slightly less than 40% of the people in Catalunya actually want independence, a whopping 57% don't care either way, apparently. So if, somehow, Catalunya became independent, it would not be the will of the majority of the people, at least according to 2017 sentiment. That may have changed since then of course, and you might actually have a majority who want independence today.

I don't see any absolute rights or wrongs in this scenario. Yes, Madrid cracked down on the ref. with some brutality in 2017, and yes, the sentenced imposed on the indy leaders is WAAAY out of proportion, but I can't help thinking that the entire indy movement is more ideological and abstract than anything else. Catalans are NOT suffering in any significant way under Madrid's stewardship, and little if anything concrete would change if they were independent.

From Madrid's perspective, if Catalan 'leaves', then contagion would likely spread to other regions (Basques, Galicians etc.) and there would be a real risk of Spain becoming 'balkanized' and no longer existing. You can understand why the powers in Madrid do not want to see that happen, and even a good majority of Spaniards who identify as and like being Spanish. The EU is also very wary of any independence movements inside the EU, for the same 'contagion' reasons.

The other thing to consider here, from a broader perspective, is the number of protests occurring in recent weeks around the world. Hong Kong, Iraq, Lebanon, Ecuador, Chile, France (yellow vests and more recently fire service members) 'extinction rebellion' (everywhere). So there seems to be something 'in the air' these days that is motivated, at least in part, by something that is not limited to any specific grievance, but rather specific grievances are being used to give vent to some other kind of collective 'angst'.
 
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My general opinion on the matter is, first, that independence was a bad idea. As I understand it, Catalunya is one of the richest regions in Spain. They were not being 'oppressed' as far as I can tell, so the motivation for independence could only come from a mix of regional, 'ethnic' (are they really a different ethnic group?? I doubt it!) pride, and a sense that they were being treated unfairly by the central government, having to carry on their shoulders the rest of Spain economically, so to speak. Well, that doesn't seem to me a good enough reason for independence, given all the trouble and unforeseen consequences such a move would imply. Surely there were other options to sort whatever grievances they had?

However, second, the Spanish government has reacted in the worst possible way, since the days of the referendum, plus what we have seen in recent days, with police violence over the top. And ultimately, even if independence is a bad idea, shouldn't the decision ultimately belong to the Catalans? Or at least, shouldn't there be a more civilized dialogue between the parties? Free will and all that. For whatever reasons, good or bad, at this point the masses of Catalans have crystalized around this idea, and to a large extent the Spanish government has its own actions to thank for that.

Now I've heard here and there that the Catalans have been manipulated by their leaders and George Soros. I'm generally reluctant to give Soros-type conspiracies too much credit - I mean, the guy is real, for sure, and he does pump a lot of money into a lot of 'left wing' organizations, and many of those do push certain toxic agendas in different countries, like 'regime change' ideas and so on. But how much influence do they really have on the people? Are the masses so stupid that a single set of influences coming from Soros can drive them to revolt? What I'm saying is that Soros may be one element of the equation, but that it shouldn't be exaggerated cause there are a myriad of influences and circumstances that can drive the people into doing what they do.
 
Something else I was thinking in regards to the Kurds in Syria (but that could also be applied to Catalunya) is that as a general rule, independence and new countries formed on the basis of ethnicity (or religion, language or culture) alone is a very bad idea in these days of modern democratic states. Just look at Israel! The state for the Jews means that non-Jews will always be second class. If the Kurds had their own state, Arabs on their land would be in the same situation. And in the case of Catalunya, there's a division in Spain that historically shouldn't really be there, as far as I can tell. Unless the Catalans have other objectively good reasons of their own that I may not be aware of.
 
Thanks for starting this conversation, the more I see the news coming out about Catalonia, the more confused I feel, I feel someone’s playing me.

As I see the situation, I am of two minds: one, absolutely! if the people of a country vote for interdependence then they should be allowed to have it. Plain and simple. Think Crimea (although the context is very different)

On the other hand, where’s the country? How large is the nation that should make the decision? Is it just Catalonia? Or is that something that concerns all of Spain? And if so, shouldn’t they be a national conversation and not just regional?

From what I’ve learned throughout, the independence fervor isn’t as cut and dried as presented. There’s corruption within the ranks of the generalitat who are trying to find a way to get more power and the best way to pressure Madrid is to incite separatist fervor in the minds of those who will listen.

That is not to say that there isn’t corruption or inadequacy in Madrid by any means, but I keep coming back to the question, who’s decision should it be?

Then I hear the argument, “well but Catalonia was always an independent entity within Spain” and sure... but how long ago? And if one uses that same historical cherry picking, then perhaps it should go back to France since it spend some time as a French province, or to the Syrians, since it was controlled once from Damascus, or Italy.

The point I’m trying to make directly above is that, while one should understand the history of a region to understand the current happenings politically and socially, it falls short because you run into the issue of when to make a cut in the historical flow of events to justify your leanings.

Does that make sense?

The violence in the response, it’s awful... but I also go back and think of the euro maidan for instance in Kiev, wouldn’t a more stern response perhaps have meant a different outcome? maybe, Maybe not. I was recently discussing it with someone who mentioned that that the forces responding (this time) are not from Madrid, that they’re actually from Catalonia. So is that the violence is being responded to and incited by the same group of people. So again, I feel confused and need more digging around.

But the same violence has been witnessed from the other group, there’s that famous video of the old lady being punched to the ground by some kid who didn’t like that she was holding a Spanish flag and saying “you’re on Spanish ground”.

As far as the trial, I’m not sure I’ve heard draconian, to measured and strategic (by the Russians), to extremely fair. The whole thing is so muggy in my eyes because, a criminal trial is based on laws that equalize society, where “sure you want to hold a referendum, but that’s illegal and has consequences” but they did it anyway. But trials can also be meaningless and managed to get a desired outcome.

So, today I feel confused with more digging to do. What I will say is that, as Niall pointed out, what’s happening in Catalonia seems to be the next outbreak in division over ideological lines that’s taking over the western world. Nationalist/right wing/conservatives who feel they should protect their nation on the one hand and liberals/left wing/ who are fighting for independence at each other’s throats.

We’ve seen that in the USA and in Venezuela for instance and it doesn’t bode well.

My two cents, hope the above was clear enough.
 
Because it's all about the money i think they will never accept that Catalunya will be independent.... I like very much that Catalan people can stand together for them own rights. If they want to be sapparate, because of the freedom i see it ok, but if in there are people who they want to be seperate, becuase of the money or they don't want to be unity i don't see it ok. Maybe they know for what the money goes and that's why some of them wan't to be sepperate... When i live i Catalunya i saw that there are living a lot's of awake people so i think nothing is happenig without any reason :)
 
What do our Hispanosphere members think of all this?

The short version of what I think is that the independence of Catalonia has always been a tool of the Spanish elite (where the local Catalan elite is included) for its own particular purposes and in the last two years foreign influence has taken control of this movement: German companies financing independence, former French Prime Minister Manuel Valls creating a Catalan party and running for president of Catalonia, and of course the shadow of Soros behind independence groups and associations and left-wing Catalan and Spanish parties.

So we have different interests, or perhaps the same ones, among the European elite, the Spanish, the Catalan, which does not bode well for Spanish citizens.

They have fanned this fire many times, and then they have put it out, because they see that the Spanish population is not going to accept their plans. So maybe this will stay on nothing or maybe it's time to implement the changes they want for Spain. I will go into detail about what these plans might be in future messages.

In between those extremes, however, there is a sizeable mass of ordinary Catalans who either want Catalonia to secede from Spain, or who are at least protesting against how Madrid has dealt with this movement.

Also, there is a sizeable mass of ordinary Catalans who don't want Catalonia to secede from Spain.

The big difference is that they are completely alone and helpless, neither have the financial support of the Catalan government nor foreign support. In addition, the best thing they can do is hide their thoughts if they don't want to have problems. I believe that if someone has to be defended it is all these good people who are being trapped in an atmosphere of hatred and hysteria on the part of both the extreme right and the extreme left.

To my knowledge, there is still no clear poll indicating that a majority of Catalans want independence from Spain.

There's a 50/50 marginally in favor of the non-independenceists. In the last Catalan elections the most voted party was a non-independence party. Adding the votes of the independence parties, they reached 48% and the non-independence parties 52%. And it would be necessary to add all the people who do not vote and that it is evident that they are not independentistas either. I speak from memory are not exact data, but I can search for them.

The police/authorities, just like two years ago, have cracked down hard, prompting escalation from protesters who have blockaded streets, particularly in Barcelona.

The police two years ago were national, the police from now until today, were Catalan... they are different police officers. The events happened the other way around, the protesters blocked the streets, paralyzed an airport, some behaved violently and then the police repression began. The televisions were connecting live, we all saw it clearly. The same thing when the next day they began to cut the streets, destroy urban furniture, burn containers, make dozens of bonfires in the middle of the street and we saw live the Catalan police still, doing nothing, when everything began to get out of control even more, the repression began.

I came to see live Catalan police totally quiet while young savages insulted them, threw objects at them, firecrackers ...

I have a family living in Barcelona, they can't go to work, they can't take their children to school, the main roads are cut off. More than 50% of Catalans who don't give a shit about independence have to put up with this chaos, all for freedom and democracy I suppose.

Should Spain let one proceed in order to 'settle the issue'?

That's what they'll do, they've created a problem and now they'll come up with the solution.. Wait and see.

So, she was part of the 8% minority that voted 'no' during the 2017 referendum.

And to tell the truth, 8% represents nothing, because the majority of Catalans did not go to vote because it was an illegal referendum and it was known that the police were ordered to paralyze it. I think there were about 2 million voters, out of a census population of 5.8 million.

Indeed, if Madrid wanted Cataluniya to become independent, they would not behave differently. They created martyrs, they gave people a tangible cause to fight for, they increased the very schism that underlays the independence project.

I totally agree. The national government has consciously promoted this independence madness. Even the independentistas themselves recognize it: "the Spanish government is a machine to make independentistas". When one speaks of a fascist state that represses the Catalans, it is completely false and it is not knowing the reality of the Spanish state.

The Spanish state has no power, it is a weak state and is completely defenceless against the interests of both local and foreign powers. We Spanish citizens are completely abandoned, we don't have a government (either left or right) that defends the interests of the majority against local and foreign agendas.

If there is one thing that is clear to me, and I think it applies to any country that is a slave to the Western Empire, but at least in Spain I am very clear about it because I have been suffering from it for many years: there is NO major event in Spain that has not been planned in advance.
 
RT says:

“When supporters of Catalan leaders jailed for organizing a democratic vote advance on Barcelona airport, media make a fuss over 'separatists' causing chaos. When the same tactic's used in Hong Kong, it's a 'pro-democracy' protest.”

Well, if they recognize that it's the same tactic, I wonder why for the anti-establishment media when there are violent manifestations in Hong Kong it's due to foreign interference that wants to destabilize a country and when it occurs in Catalonia they are spontaneous manifestations fruit of people's discontent.

I don't understand why anti-establishment media when a gentleman presents himself in a park in Venezuela and proclaims himself president of the Venezuelan republic clearly they see that as a coup d'état, but when a gentleman declares in Spain the independent republic of Catalonia it is about democracy and freedom.

Just as I'm Spanish, I'm not being objective, but I'm surprised by the inability of alternative media to see the "color revolutions" when they occur in the Hispanic world, since the American Independences, as now their modern version in Catalonia.

Several points that the alternative media ignore when analysing the crisis in Catalonia, from my point of view:

- The police who are holding back the violent protestors are the "Mozos de Escuadra", that is to say, the Catalan police at the service of the Catalan independence government, and not of the national government, which has not yet intervened, but is going to have to do so because the situation is unsustainable. It is one of the many poppycock of this prefabricated crisis, the Catalan government incites the independentists to assault the streets to be beaten by the police sent by the Catalan government itself. The Spanish state has nothing to do with the repression, for now.

- The condemnations of Catalan politicians are not only for sedition, but also for the misappropriation of funds, that is, to use public money for partisan purposes such as independence propaganda, to finance independence groups and associations, etc…

As @Ariadna published above, the politicians in prison intended to create the Catalan hacienda by diverting the money destined for social issues.

- The independence movement is not like the Yellow Vests, there is not a single social demand, they only demand independence. The rest will come by magic when they are rid of the Spanish fascist state, as if the Catalan government were not an accomplice and participated in the system of systematised corruption in Spain (including Catalonia).

- Protests in Catalonia (and Madrid) are being coordinated from a newly published mobile app by an anonymous account created a month ago on Twitter: @tsunami_dem

We don't know who's behind it, but RT in Spanish points to the president of Omnium Cultural, an organization I'll talk about next. RT in Spanish also reports that it is a state-of-the-art app:

The two other major organizations that have convened the protests are the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and the aforementioned Òmnium Cultural, both linked to Jaume Roures, founder of the production company Mediapro, which in turn is linked to our dear friend SOROS.

Òmnium Cultural is certainly the one who created the video of "help catalonia", compare it with the video of the Ukrainian girl and find the 7 differences:



- They are not political prisoners, they are not detained for their ideas, and they have been defending independence ideas with total freedom for 30 years. It is not the fault of the Spanish people that they have never obtained a majority support to put their ideas into practice. I would like to know if any German user can inform us whether independence parties are allowed in Germany, because I understand that they are not. I would like to know if any French user knows what the prison sentences are in his country for the crimes of sedition and rebellion, because I understand that they are higher sentences than in Spain. I would also like to know where the French languages are, because the Spanish languages (including Catalan) are all still alive and have been living together in peace and harmony for centuries, provided that foreign agents do not come to manipulate the population. There is a lack of perspective, it seems to me, when it comes to talking about the Spanish fascist state.

- When a local power tries to take power away from a state in an anti-democratic way, as was the proclamation of this illegal and unguaranteed referendum, and furthermore this local power proclaims itself as an independent republic, we are talking about a coup d'état. If the embezzlement of public funds is also demonstrated, that is to say, corruption, what sentences do alternative media find acceptable for this type of crimes? There is a small print in the sentences that the alternative or generalist media don't explain, which is the application of the "third degree", this means that Catalan prisoners can leave prison with only 25% of the sentence served. In other words, Catalan politicians can be perfectly at home this Christmas. Moreover, it is the Catalan government that has to decide whether to apply the third degree to its prisoners, because, surprise, only Catalonia has competence over its prisoners, the rest of the communities in Spain do not have that privilege. So the REALITY is that it is a very generous sentence, for anyone who knows the law, in my opinion.

To tell the truth, in all this third degree procedure there is a step that depends on the Supreme Court, but we can say that this sentence has given practically all the power to the Catalan government over what it wants to do with its prisoners. The question is whether or not the Catalan government is interested in keeping its prisoners in prison in order to continue nourishing the victim image of independence at the international level.

- The crime of Rebellion, according to some jurists, is applicable when an armed force (in this case the Catalan police) supports a illegal act (referendum), I don't know about laws but there are those who can consider that the judge have been quite generous in the sentence by not sentencing them for Rebellion. Specifically from Sputnik in Spanish a Russian academic considers that the sentence has been so soft because it was intended to lower the tension. But it was impossible to stop this tension, regardless of the sentence, the bodies that control the independentists have been preparing for months to generate chaos after the sentence, as I will try to demonstrate in the next message.

Also from Sputnik in Spanish, the editor of a Russian magazine 'Russia in Global Politics' defends that:

"The Supreme Court's sentence against the Catalan pro-independence leaders shows that Spain is a democratic state capable of defending its territorial integrity."

RT in Spanish now tells us that the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, warns that any attempt to divide his country would result in "shattered bodies and bones ground into dust", this is what a leader who cares about the sovereignty of his country does, what has the supposed Spanish fascist state done to prevent the division of his country? NOTHING. It has allowed it, supported it and even financed it, and all this is known because the trial has been public and the revelations that have been coming to light have revealed the complicity of the national government with the Catalan.

Most people who have an opinion on Catalonia have neither followed the trial nor read the sentence. So it is impossible to have a solid opinion on the sentence. My opinion, after listening to jurists who deserve all my respect and confidence, is that corruption and sedition in Spain are punished with great generosity: 2 years of preventive imprisonment and in two months they are all in their homes.
 
Yes, it's strange. I keep thinking about how Putin would have handled it. My guess is that he would have had none of independence and would have stopped it by all means, keeping the country from disintegrating. But he would do it in a smart way and he would sure do everything for reconciliation afterwards. Instead of draconian punishment for the separatists, he might have pardoned them, even given the reasonable ones a post, and get a stimulus program for the region going so everyone's happy and united. OSIT!

The first thing to say is that the incidents come from a false referendum, illegal and undemocratic. Catalonia is not a colony nor and has no relation to the case of Scotland. Obviously, the intervention of the Spanish and Catalan police has been violent, but that is what always happens when the laws are broken (and the separatist leaders knew it, and wanted the violence). The states have the monopoly of legal violence. If something like that happens in France, I think they would act even more firmly. But in Spain the separatists use a certain type of propaganda to position themselves as alleged victims: the black legend and Francoism as synonyms of Spain (processes in which the Catalans have participated in the same way as the other Spanish regions). The real problem is that there is no democracy (which are rules of a constituent game: separation of powers and authentic representation of voters) throughout the European Union...We may have to start talking clearly and deeply about democracy and other political terms to understand each other here. There are too many emotionally manipulated people who believe in the oligarchs just because they put boxes to vote. No, democracy is not about voting (necessarily), but being able to control power and have representation. And there is less democracy (rather the opposite) when everything is a circus of state parasites that just want to earn more money using the masses. You have to distrust psychopaths like Quim Torra, who asks the leftist groups to go out and destroy the streets of Barcelona when he simultaneously sends the police to repress them. A true psycho.
Separatism is very low on energy lately, and elites take advantage of the excuse of an unfair condemnation (unfair because separatists have to be condemned for rebellion and not just sedition) to generate violence, praying to God and the devil to provide them with dead people in the streets to then requesting European intervention. The people in the hands of real fascists, both right wing and left wing.

I totally agree. The national government has consciously promoted this independence madness. Even the independentistas themselves recognize it: "the Spanish government is a machine to make independentistas". When one speaks of a fascist state that represses the Catalans, it is completely false and it is not knowing the reality of the Spanish state.

The Spanish state has no power, it is a weak state and is completely defenceless against the interests of both local and foreign powers. We Spanish citizens are completely abandoned, we don't have a government (either left or right) that defends the interests of the majority against local and foreign agendas.

If there is one thing that is clear to me, and I think it applies to any country that is a slave to the Western Empire, but at least in Spain I am very clear about it because I have been suffering from it for many years: there is NO major event in Spain that has not been planned in advance.
Very true. Spain is a kind of American-Zionist protectorate without own power. What the spectacle of separatism shows is the desperation of all local politicians to destroy the Spanish nation-state to give way to a European federalism of small regions. A totalitarian monstrosity, but that can start effectively in Spain, since its ruling classes are totally pro-EU and without any attachment to their own country.
 
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Thanks Orange Scorpio for your post. I think it was necessary information to be told. In Spain we say put things black on white, that is to put things in their place. I am sick of lies and distortions regarding the Catalan issue. Never, in democracy has the Catalan people been repressed in their ideology, culture, language or ideosincracia. Quite the opposite. It is normal for citizens to have to go to the Constitutional Court so that their children can have Spanish as a vehicular language in Catalan schools, at most 25%, within the Spanish state itself ?, for example.

That independence fervor is quite recent, it came with the economic crisis of 2006. And the disagreement of Catalan politicians with the Spanish Government in reference to regional financing. Then the Catalan political parties undertook their independence campaign in search of votes. The motto "Spain steals us" was known, as if the rest of Spain did not suffer from the economic crisis.


Everyone knows that Catalonia is one of the regions of Spain with the highest per capita income. Large Catalan families were enriched at the time of Franco's dictatorship, while workers with barely rights, came frfor om poor regions such as Andalusia or Extremadura to work in their factories. They got rich, before democracy and now they want to be richer and more powerful.

 
I was thinking, how it looks so different this issue from the outside. I can hardly believe it. Painting that image of Spain as a fascist and oppressor seems like a second black legend that operates to internal and external interests.

Surely Spain it is not a perfect country, but I doubt that others in the European environment can be called better democracies, possibly some, but I think it would be hypocrisy. It seems that Spain has to prove that it is not a fascist state only because this catalan politicians say that Spain is a fascist country.

These politicians with Puigdemón at the head have broken all the laws of the Catalan parliament, the Generalitat, and the Spanish Constitution that they have found convenient. They have disregarded all the legal reports inside and outside their chamber, they have ignored all the warnings that the Spanish government has made. They used the Catalan police to facilitate the illegal referendum of the 1st of Otubre, disobeying the order of the judges to prevent the electoral colleges from opening and more. Leaving the dirty work in the hands of the national police and waiting for what happened to create his victimist narrative.

If we had a president of the Putin category, I doubt they would get that far. The Spanish government is responsible for allowing them a lot, in exchange for being partners in the central government when they have needed them and nobody knows what economic interests have been behind.
 
It is important to see the similarities of the antifa in Barcelona with the fascists of Pravy Sektor who took control of the Maidan in Kiev. They follow the same script of all the “color revolutions” engineered that end very badly.

My wife is a Catalan separatist since early adolescence, and I have militated on the Argentine left, and we are no longer fooled by laboratory revolutions. Anti-fascists in the US, Europe or Hong Kong are pure fascism, cultural supremacism for the benefit of imperialist elites. What can be done? For now, maybe only report how they divide societies and don't participate in polarization.
 
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Independence and violence

The violence of these manifestations is the most extreme that the independence movement has shown so far. Roads and railways cut off, airport paralysed on Monday, more than 110 cancelled flights, bonfires in the streets... and all this happens simultaneously in different cities of Catalonia.

It is evident that all this chaos has been coordinated, not spontaneous. When we started watching the bonfires in the streets of Barcelona on Tuesday night on television, were appearing simultaneously in other cities. We have seen adults trying to put out the fires and young people assaulting anyone who will try to . Because most of them are young, dozens of young people acting wild.

It is very difficult to know who is generating the violence, in addition to the three groups mentioned above (who control practically the entire independent movement: ANC, Òmnium Cultural y CDR), there are anti-system groups, anarchists, extreme left, extreme right, anti-system groups of young foreigners from France and Germany, more groups of young people are expected from Greece, Italy, etc....

Sott in Spanish reported in August how popular militias were being created to create permanent mobilizations to constitute powerful commands to take control of airport infrastructures, telecommunications, social security, AEAT, customs, etc.

But the most prominent and best positioned group on the streets are the CDR, a heterogeneous body, I dare not say that they are all violent, but they have radical members who have been generating chaos for a long time.

The altercations between the CDRs and the Catalan police have been gradually repeated over the last two years.

Here's an April 2018 RT news in Spanish like example

A large police deployment dealt a blow to the CDRs in Catalonia on Tuesday. The Mossos d'Escuadra (Catalan regional police) arrested six people for assault on authority and public disorder.

The CDRs have become more and more prominent in the streets, with the approval of the entire independence movement.

And this is very serious because a few months ago, several members of the CDRs were arrested for possessing elements that could be used to make explosive devices and were accused of planning terrorist attacks. The independentists came out in their defense because their Catalan television had told them that everything was a manipulation of the Spanish fascist government and that the detainees only had innocent firecrackers in their homes.

The CDRs are linked to the CUP which is the most radical independence party, they define themselves as anti-system but then they give conferences about Syria where they tell us about the brave moderate rebels and the evil Assad.

What is most worrying is the alleged link between the Catalan government and the CDRs:

The prison orders of the seven members [...] of the RDCs suspected of terrorism provide substantial news on the investigation, offer new details on the degree of involvement of each of them, and splatter both the former president of the Generalitat escaped from justice, Carles Puigdemont, and the current president of the Catalan executive, Joaquim Torra. [...] The person with whom the suspects met on 15 September 2018, which could have a "dangerous component" [...] she was the sister of former president Puigdemont. A "secret" meeting with the intention, according to the brief, "to deliver sensitive documentation and establish secure communications" between the expresident himself and Joaquim Torra.

Three weeks ago, Spanish Sott echoed a news item in "El Confidencial" that assured that the violence was going to increase very soon:

The Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Òmnium Cultural, the two civic entities that move the world of independence, have opened the ban on controlling the streets of Catalonia. Opposite, they have the committees for the defense of the republic (CDR), which, managed by the CUP, want to recover the protagonism lost in the massive mobilizations of activists. The awaited sentence of the 1-O trial is the opportunity that everyone is waiting for to increase the tension in the streets of Catalonia and for the sovereignist world to boil again. War is served: it will be between independence and Spain, but also between two sides of sovereignty.

While ANC and Òmnium emphasize the need to apply non-violent techniques in order not to damage the image of independence, CDRs advocate active disobedience to Spanish laws from institutions and street revolt. They are the ones who advocate that if barricades have to be erected, they will be erected, because "without tension there is no liberation".

The increase in tension in the streets is the key to revitalizing the independence galaxy once again.

The protesters blocked the streets, paralyzed an airport, some behaved violently and then the police repression began. The televisions were connecting live, we all saw it clearly. The same thing when the next day they began to cut the streets, destroy urban furniture, burn containers, make dozens of bonfires in the middle of the street and we saw live the Catalan police still, doing nothing, when everything began to get out of control even more, the repression began.

And one can see that most are young vandals. I don't think anyone should support the violent behavior of all these young people. And at the same time, I find it difficult to judge the behaviour of the Catalan police here, how should they act to establish order in the face of young people who are destroying and burning urban furniture, who insult and throw firecrackers and all sorts of objects at the police? I don't know where the limit should be, the truth.

In these night manifestations, you don't see families, as we do see in the peaceful demonstrations during the day, at night the working class is sleeping because they have to get up at dawn to go to work if they are lucky that their cars have not been burned by the flames and if they find a street that is not cut by debris and ashes from the night war.

Here you can see a short video of how Barcelona dawns

 
The 78th regime

The independentists say they are fighting against the fascist regime that was created in 1978 and is still in force today. This means that instead of going from a dictatorship to a democracy in 1978 as the official version says, Spain went from an obvious dictatorship to a disguised dictatorship. And up to this point I am in complete agreement. The problem is that independence is the fruit of that regime of 1978 and is maintained thanks to it. The independentists don't realize that they are going against themselves.

Among the anti-democratic measures and/or measures opposed to the interests of all Spaniards that were taken in 1978 is the dismembering of Spain into 17 autonomous communities. This type of territorial division, according to experts, is unique in the world. It is close to the federal model but remains a particular model of Spain.

In practice it means that in Spain, instead of a corrupt and psychopathic government as most countries have, we have 17 corrupt and psychopathic governments that compete with each other, and those wealthier like Catalonia and the Basque Country have a better chance of destabilizing to the state to get privileges. In the official version what we see is the terrorism of ETA and the Catalan and Basque independence. From my point of view.

The consequences are that in Spain we are not all the same, there are first- and second-class citizens, it depends on how much capacity your local government has to threaten the central government. Today, the Basque Country and Catalonia have greater powers and privileges than the rest of the Spanish communities, and apparently they don't think it's enough. If the Basque Country is being quite calm in the face of this Catalan crisis, it is because they have already achieved what in Spain is called the "Basque quota", more fiscal privileges and competences, in addition to transforming ETA's terrorism into a political party that sucks the teat of the State, the money of all taxpayers.

In addition, each community is divided into provinces, each with a local government, so in the end we have an endless number of governments, all corrupt and struggling to get more power and this is unsustainable.

The waste of money that it means for the Spaniards to maintain this whole web of corruption is unsustainable.

Catalan independence is essentially asking for more local power, and what we Spanish citizens (including Catalans) need is precisely the opposite, to put an end to all this clientelism and to reduce the enormous expenditure that causes us to keep this enormous political caste.
 
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