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Catalonia to split from Spain within 48 hours of secession vote

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Just jumping in here, but what an awful response by the government and subsequently the police.

What was to stop them from just allowing it to go ahead but discrediting it as non legally binding?

You've now got a situation where 700+ (!) citizens have been injured and that's only going to inflame the argument from the independence side.
 

Nete

Member
AwBpBg2.png
 

mavo

Banned
Just jumping in here, but what an awful response by the government and subsequently the police.

What was to stop them from just allowing it to go ahead but discrediting it as non legally binding?

You've now got a situation where 700+ (!) citizens have been injured and that's only going to inflame the argument from the independence side.

Cataluña has had non legally binding referendums before, the difference today well is right there in the OP, the threat of declaring independence based on the results of today referendum.
 

megateto

Member
From here:

It may all get rapidly worse. Separatists in the Catalan parliament threaten to declare independence within 48 hours, even though the results of a referendum held in such circumstances may be widely deemed invalid. A unilateral declaration of independence might, in turn, lead to the regional government being taken over by Madrid.

Rajoy is now seriously considering that the Catalans are ready to declare independence and calling article 155 (their government being taken over, all means considered) if PSOE supports them. If not, Rajoy will call the national elections.
 

Pancake Mix

Copied someone else's pancake recipe
No way that referendum was conducted validly. Where did the voting list come from? Someone posted pictures of blatant voter fraud going on earlier as well, and there's no real reason to doubt that took place. There were no international observers. There also weren't nearly enough polling stations open either.

While non-violent, unlike the central government's responses, it being pushed through with "Catalan-only legality" is what a third-world country does as well.

So just...this not pretty. Everything about this is not what you'd expect to happen in Western Europe in 2017.
 

Dierce

Member
No way that referendum was conducted validly. Where did the voting list come from? Someone posted pictures of blatant voter fraud going on earlier as well, and there's no real reason to doubt that took place. There were no international observers. There also weren't nearly enough polling stations open either.

While non-violent, unlike the central government's responses, it being pushed through with "Catalan-only legality" is what a third-world country does as well.

So just...this not pretty. Everything about this is not what you'd expect to happen in Western Europe in 2017.
Everything about this situation is messed up. A disgrace that sets an unfortunate precedent.
 

Pancake Mix

Copied someone else's pancake recipe
Everything about this situation is messed up. A disgrace that sets an unfortunate precedent.

Yes, I'm sure Putin is chuckling Sovietly right now. A divided and weakened Europe plays into his hands.

Not condoning the Spanish response here either. Embarrassing.
 

Vamphuntr

Member
It's quite telling that if the pictures and the videos from today's police brutality where from Russia, the Middle East or somewhere on the African continent that most countries in the world and the UN would have been disgusted and publicly commented on it.
 

tzare

Member
From here:



Rajoy is now seriously considering that the Catalans are ready to declare independence and calling article 155 (their government being taken over, all means considered) if PSOE supports them. If not, Rajoy will call the national elections.
I think Puigdemont will try to give some time to UE or any other international organization to force Rajoy to negotiate, before declaring Independence.
For starters there's a strike planned for Tuesday in Catalonia. We will see

Btw. Long time pal
 

Cocaloch

Member
That's a fairly nonsensical way of looking at things though.

It is by modern understandings, but it absolutely made sense in the time's conception of politics. Since we're comparing it to what people at the time thought the later is absolutely quite important. Anachronism is the reason non-historians generally run into so much trouble with their historical comparisons, especially in intellectual and cultural matters. What happened in America at the highest level of ideas, and not in the more operative material level, is the country movement convinced people that the old system had been too corrupted by "Tory" "interests". They in general they weren't fighting to create something new, though Paine eventually began pushing some people to think this way, but instead to "restore" the "rights of Englishmen".

Americans really wanted their existing structures to exist at the same level as Parliament and under the crown. But this couldn't have worked, because the entirety of the preceding 90 years politically had been about establishing a stable state headed by the Crown-in-Parliament. Americans simply didn't really understand politics in Britain. Their entire conception of the constitution was based on a mixture of Coke and Locke, when what was actually going on in Britain was a lot less abstract and a lot more practical.

Why would Americans own land in Britain?

If they want the vote they could pay for it. Much like someone that wanted a more impactful vote, or even a MP itself, could simply buy land in a more represented borough for just that reason. For instance look at how vastly underrepresented places like Manchester were in Britain. Or the entirety of the country of Scotland!

Why shouldn't land ownership in the colonies count if the colonists were equal other Englishmen?

This is the fundamental misunderstanding. The vote wasn't about the individual, it was about property, and really mostly land, and the "interest' that property gave in the state.

This is all also ignoring the fact that requirements of owning land to vote was a valid complaint made by many of the more radical revolutionaries who were pushing for universal suffrage.

Who weren't really driving the revolution or in control of it. There was somewhat of a radical Wilkite movement that somewhat preceded the Jacobins, but that emerged as a reaction to the conflict more than as a driving force.

The war was ultimately about diverging conceptions of the foundations of the state. The attempt to make this some radical war about freedom, or a revolution on the same scale of that of the French, is the result of a mixture of political propaganda for more radical revolutionaries later and the building of a myth history for the US.

The average white American, and requiring that adjective must always set alarm bells off, was more free in the US than in Britain in 1790 mostly in the sense that he had an easier time acquiring a stake in the state because land was significantly cheaper, and "movable property", and this includes some rather obvious issues including a rather famous fractional compromise, was more highly regarded.
 

Pancake Mix

Copied someone else's pancake recipe
The response is not okay and not how a true democracy handles things, but let's not pretend that the Catalan government was conducting a valid referendum or even had the resources to.
 

Ethelwulf

Member
At last this thread delivers sanity. Some crazy claims early during the day. These acts are horrible no matter where you stand.
 
The response is not okay and not how a true democracy handles things, but let's not pretend that the Catalan government was conducting a valid referendum or even had the resources to.

That's why the correct response would have been to just not give them acknowledgement. If they had just ignored this movement odds are the vote would have failed anyway. By basically taking over the region with riot police and beating civilians left and right it makes the Catalan people feel threatened, and more likely to support independence.
 

Pancake Mix

Copied someone else's pancake recipe
That's why the correct response would have been to just not give them acknowledgement.

I agree wholeheartedly.

If they had just ignored this movement odds are the vote would have failed anyway.

I disagree because I don't find it plausible the Catalan nationalists were ever going to run a fair referendum if they were willing to hold this farce with limited access.

By basically taking over the region with riot police and beating civilians left and right it makes the Catalan people feel threatened, and more likely to support independence.

I agree wholeheartedly again.
 

megateto

Member
I think Puigdemont will try to give some time to UE or any other international organization to force Rajoy to negotiate, before declaring Independence.
For starters there's a strike planned for Tuesday in Catalonia. We will see

Btw. Long time pal

That would be a great scenario for all moderate people.

Buenos ojos me lean ;).
 

Mr.Mike

Member
By the Catalunyan government:

2,262,424 votes.
2,020,144 for yes (90%)

People who might have voted no would have probably stayed home since the government was trying to stop the vote. Morality of the governments actions aside, it's hard to imagine the results of the vote are truly representative of the will of the people.
 

Business

Member
Not bad considering 400 polling places were locked and the fear factor. Anectodal but my wife stayed home with our baby because the Spanish police was close to our home shooting rubber bullets.
 

Kiraly

Member
It's quite telling that if the pictures and the videos from today's police brutality where from Russia, the Middle East or somewhere on the African continent that most countries in the world and the UN would have been disgusted and publicly commented on it.

Within a single day? The disgust will come, just give it some time. Never understood people saying what a disgrace it is that <insert political entity> has not come out and condoned the action while not even a single day has passed. Drafting up statements and shit takes time.
 

tzare

Member
For reference, the Estatut of 2006 was voted by 2.5 million people in Catalonia aprox. A legal referendum.

And latest election to catalan Parliament,in 2015, 4.2 people voted approx. With little less than 2 million voting for independentist parties (JPS & CUP)
 
I don't know enough about the arguments for or against independence to have a say, but it seems that the government's insane response is just going to drive people to independence.
 

mavo

Banned
Don't speak Catalan but with my Spanish i think they just said that the catalunya congress will decide if they declare independence or not.

edit: yes they did.
 

Kieli

Member
The response is not okay and not how a true democracy handles things, but let's not pretend that the Catalan government was conducting a valid referendum or even had the resources to.

Whether the referendum was valid or has legal basis is an orthogonal issue. No peaceful polling warrants such violence.

This both sides argument is infuriating to me.
 

Raging Spaniard

If they are Dutch, upright and breathing they are more racist than your favorite player
Some questions:

How reliable is the TV3 info? Their bias is pretty apparent. This is regarding voting numbers and number of injured. If people could print out their own votes from home ... well, Spain does have a history of corruption for a reason.

Does it trouble anyone that Assainge seems so pro Catalunya?

Does anyone actually expect a split to happen? I dont have a real stance on this, Im mostly confused and appalled by the violence and the incompetence PP has displayed
 

Occam

Member
I think the people who want Catalonia to become an independent state (which would also mean exiting the EU) are insane. This idiotic local patriotism (fueled by right-wing numbskulls) is an anachronism that makes no sense for a region that has been part of a country for hundreds of years.
This is more crazy than California exiting the United States, or Bavaria leaving Germany.
 

cebri.one

Member
Some questions:

How reliable is the TV3 info? Their bias is pretty apparent. This is regarding voting numbers and number of injured. If people could print out their own votes from home ... well, Spain does have a history of corruption for a reason.

Does it trouble anyone that Assainge seems so pro Catalunya?

Does anyone actually expect a split to happen? I dont have a real stance on this, Im mostly confused and appalled by the violence and the incompetence PP has displayed

Russia Today is good benchmark. Basically a TV controlled by the Catalan Goverment.

Very sad day as a Spaniard. Nationalist have won the media game thanks to the complete lack of strategy of the Spanish govement to manage this situation. Dark times, not only for Spain for Europe as a whole, nationalism was at the root of the worst times of our history.
 

Pancake Mix

Copied someone else's pancake recipe
Whether the referendum was valid or has legal basis is an orthogonal issue. No peaceful polling warrants such violence.

This both sides argument is infuriating to me.

But I'm not claiming the violence is remotely acceptable, I'm just annoyed by people here thinking the vote had validity. Two wholly separate issues.
 

tzare

Member
Russia Today is good benchmark. Basically a TV controlled by the Catalan Goverment.

Very sad day as a Spaniard. Nationalist have won the media game thanks to the complete lack of strategy of the Spanish govement to manage this situation. Dark times, not only for Spain for Europe as a whole, nationalism was at the root of the worst times of our history.
https://twitter.com/Gabrielopev/status/914512352573345792

Not to mention the rest of Spanish media. Vs a local tv.
 
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