Time for a bit of a political rant. Haven't commented on the latest developments in a while...
So, to sum it up, after referendum, the Catalan government didn't really have a plan and after messing with different options and waiting to see if Spain wanted to negotiate, they declared independence but were unable to actually implement it. Right afterwards, the Spanish government suspended the Catalan autonomy as per article 155 of the Constitution, but actually didn't implement it as it was written and just did as they pleased, mentioning that what was done before was unconstitutional while not following it themselves. They also started to arrest these politicians on charges of violent revolt and other such bullshit (the violence came from the Spanish police, ordered to do so). Some people went to prison, some people ran away to some other European countries.
The Spanish government sent arrest warrants for the people living in Europe, and for the moment European countries have looked at them and correctly indicated that the charge makes no sense, there's no equivalent charge on their countries and let the people go free. Spanish "patriots" have accused Europe of lack of collaboration, but basically the rest of Europe has a better grasp of what a democracy means and how powers need to be separated. Also it seems Europe made Spain control a bit more what they were doing with the article 155 and forced new Catalan elections instead of ruling Catalunya indefinitely.
Catalan parties had a lot of infighting, elections happened, pro-independence candidates still won the majority of the parliament, nothing was solved whatsoever apart from repressing conversations about independence and Spain and their fascist groups starting an escalation of repression, accusing anyone who criticised for example the behaviour of policemen during the referendum as supporting terrorism and hate speech.
In general, it was shitty. Spain did what was expected by many (but surprisingly enough, not expected by Catalan rulers) and devolved into a totalitarian cesspit regarding this matter, and Catalunya did nothing whatsoever and just complied.
The Spanish government also launched an offensive against free speech and separation of powers, accusing and condemning with jail singers, artists or people that made any criticisms to the king and so on.
Here we need to clarify again the parties involved in all this:
PP: The Spanish right-extreme right, heirs of fascism (really. Their founder was a minister during the fascist dictatorship. Most party members are sons and daughters of fascist politicians. Some current members voted and talked against the Spanish constitution), supporters of fascist behaviour and repression, very corrupt, very conservative party. When all this happened, they were the government.
PSOE: The Spanish fake left, actually moderate right/centre. Quite corrupt and old-fashioned, defends some leftist ideas (same-sex marriage, abortion, a bit less repression....) while being completely pro-capitalism and free market, and controlled by the major Spanish corporations. They supported PP without doubts regarding how to act in Catalunya and how to repress people, and didn't criticise this.
Ciudadanos: PP version 2, new party even more to the right of PP, based on hating Catalunya and Catalan culture while defending "Spain's sacred unity" and also saying PP is too nice with the workers and we should have even less rights and more privatisations. While not evidently corrupt yet, they have protected PP and PSOE in the most corrupt areas that the old parties controlled, and while having a belligerent discourse with PP, they have been their main supporters during these years of government. They're also controlled by the major corporations and most Spanish press also supports them shamelessly, since it's the major corporation's solution to clean the right of evident corruption by moving votes from PP to Ciudadanos and not losing control of Spain. Their only complaint regarding what has been done in Catalunya by PP is that repression hasn't been hard enough. They tell evident lies with a straight face and have a neo-fascist rhetoric.
Podemos/Comuns/Izquierda unida: New parties created from the Spanish protests against the corrupt system plus the old communist party. They defend good ideas and present a lot of nice initiatives to the parliament. However, they have done mistakes and judgement errors, while also not being consequent with their words sometimes, although they have a much higher moral ground than the other 3 previous parties. Regarding Catalunya, they didn't understand properly the situation nor the problem nor the origin of the independence movement. Since the independent movement includes one party from the right that is also corrupt and has done plenty of shitty things, they tend to attack independence from this angle as if it was only this party's idea and also accusing the other independence parties of joining and helping this corrupt party. Their public position is that independence parties did something as bad as the repressive forces (PP, PSOE, Ciudadanos), and even accused them of "awakening" the dormant Spanish fascism (same argument as saying the woman in a rape is at fault for dressing slutty). However, they're the only ones with a decent program that could improve things in Spain at this point. The cities ruled by them (Madrid and Barcelona for example) have managed to reduce their debt greatly, reduce the power of the bigger companies and lobbies, reduce corruption and increase the budgets dedicated to social help.
Rest of the parties: Here we include independence parties, basc country parties and other more regional parties from other sections of Spain.
Now, back to the explanation....
During all this repression, PP Ciutadans and PSOE were applying the article 155 where they dissolved Catalunya's autonomy and repressed people and ideas. Because of last election, these 3 parties together control more than half of the parliament, and the other parties did not have decisive influence.
However, in other topics, it was harder to agree. PP was ruling but didn't have enough representatives to rule alone. Adding Ciutadans, they still fell short of absolute majority, and there were several topics that they had to pact with other right-wing formations from the rest of the parties, and also rely on PSOE maybe not voting with them bus abstaining to vote. I mention this to indicate that they were being maintained in a position of power by Ciutadans and PSOE too.
While all this happened, every day new people from PP were being accused and arrested regarding corruption charges. This had not impacted PP much actually, but one of these cases was rather big, the Gurtel case, a corruption case involving several high members of PP. PP manoeuvred from the government to move judges that were more neutral away from this case and put judges that had participated or supported PP in the past, quite like a mafia. Still it seems it was not enough, and the final verdict was taken last week. The verdict condemned several high positions inside PP, but also officially condemned PP as a whole, as a party, as a criminal organisation kind of, as having reaped the economic benefits of this corruption.
In any other country with democratic tradition, PP members would have resigned already long before this from all the corruption cases and irregular financing that were open against them. However that's not the Spanish way, and even after this verdict, nobody resigned.
Still, the scandal was too big. Ciutadans wanted to retire support and request new elections, knowing they were stealing votes form PP and they would have more representatives this time. PSOE instead directly opened a no-confidence motion, proposing to remove the current PP Spanish president and put a PSOE president and government. Ciutadans didn't agree to that and did not support it, but Podemos went with it unconditionally, because they though removing PP from power was a priority. However, even with Podemos support, the number of representatives between these two was also not enough on their own and they needed the smaller parties too.
The doubt was about the rest of the parties, which includes independence parties. They had been mistreated by PSOE too. Some people even said that PSOE was counting on not getting their support, so nothing happened while pretending to do something. However, almost everyone agreed, PP was much, much worse. So these parties voted to put the PSOE leader as the new Spanish president.
PSOE is still an old party. PSOE is still corrupt. PSOE is still in favour of how article 155 was applied. PSOE is still controlled by the big corporations. Podemos doesn't forget that, or at least some of its people do not. The independence parties do not forget that.
However, PSOE is not PP. PSOE is not Ciudadanos. PSOE is a stepping stone into a path to move to a more progressive situation.
PSOE will be forced, in order to keep votes, to agree with progressive proposals made by Podemos. PSOE will be forced, in order to pass laws, to talk with independence parties sometimes. And also very important, PP, PSOE and Ciudadanos, the parties of repressions, of the article 155, the parties against voting (not even independence, just against voting), the parties that are trying to keep the current Spanish corrupt repressive status quo, are infighting, fucking each other and disagreeing.
So, PSOE is not good. PSOE is not a beacon of hope. PSOE will not regenerate anything or allow progress to happen.....on its own.
However, in this situation, PSOE is good news. For the moment.
100 times better than PP or Ciutadans, that's for sure.
So, to sum it up, after referendum, the Catalan government didn't really have a plan and after messing with different options and waiting to see if Spain wanted to negotiate, they declared independence but were unable to actually implement it. Right afterwards, the Spanish government suspended the Catalan autonomy as per article 155 of the Constitution, but actually didn't implement it as it was written and just did as they pleased, mentioning that what was done before was unconstitutional while not following it themselves. They also started to arrest these politicians on charges of violent revolt and other such bullshit (the violence came from the Spanish police, ordered to do so). Some people went to prison, some people ran away to some other European countries.
The Spanish government sent arrest warrants for the people living in Europe, and for the moment European countries have looked at them and correctly indicated that the charge makes no sense, there's no equivalent charge on their countries and let the people go free. Spanish "patriots" have accused Europe of lack of collaboration, but basically the rest of Europe has a better grasp of what a democracy means and how powers need to be separated. Also it seems Europe made Spain control a bit more what they were doing with the article 155 and forced new Catalan elections instead of ruling Catalunya indefinitely.
Catalan parties had a lot of infighting, elections happened, pro-independence candidates still won the majority of the parliament, nothing was solved whatsoever apart from repressing conversations about independence and Spain and their fascist groups starting an escalation of repression, accusing anyone who criticised for example the behaviour of policemen during the referendum as supporting terrorism and hate speech.
In general, it was shitty. Spain did what was expected by many (but surprisingly enough, not expected by Catalan rulers) and devolved into a totalitarian cesspit regarding this matter, and Catalunya did nothing whatsoever and just complied.
The Spanish government also launched an offensive against free speech and separation of powers, accusing and condemning with jail singers, artists or people that made any criticisms to the king and so on.
Here we need to clarify again the parties involved in all this:
PP: The Spanish right-extreme right, heirs of fascism (really. Their founder was a minister during the fascist dictatorship. Most party members are sons and daughters of fascist politicians. Some current members voted and talked against the Spanish constitution), supporters of fascist behaviour and repression, very corrupt, very conservative party. When all this happened, they were the government.
PSOE: The Spanish fake left, actually moderate right/centre. Quite corrupt and old-fashioned, defends some leftist ideas (same-sex marriage, abortion, a bit less repression....) while being completely pro-capitalism and free market, and controlled by the major Spanish corporations. They supported PP without doubts regarding how to act in Catalunya and how to repress people, and didn't criticise this.
Ciudadanos: PP version 2, new party even more to the right of PP, based on hating Catalunya and Catalan culture while defending "Spain's sacred unity" and also saying PP is too nice with the workers and we should have even less rights and more privatisations. While not evidently corrupt yet, they have protected PP and PSOE in the most corrupt areas that the old parties controlled, and while having a belligerent discourse with PP, they have been their main supporters during these years of government. They're also controlled by the major corporations and most Spanish press also supports them shamelessly, since it's the major corporation's solution to clean the right of evident corruption by moving votes from PP to Ciudadanos and not losing control of Spain. Their only complaint regarding what has been done in Catalunya by PP is that repression hasn't been hard enough. They tell evident lies with a straight face and have a neo-fascist rhetoric.
Podemos/Comuns/Izquierda unida: New parties created from the Spanish protests against the corrupt system plus the old communist party. They defend good ideas and present a lot of nice initiatives to the parliament. However, they have done mistakes and judgement errors, while also not being consequent with their words sometimes, although they have a much higher moral ground than the other 3 previous parties. Regarding Catalunya, they didn't understand properly the situation nor the problem nor the origin of the independence movement. Since the independent movement includes one party from the right that is also corrupt and has done plenty of shitty things, they tend to attack independence from this angle as if it was only this party's idea and also accusing the other independence parties of joining and helping this corrupt party. Their public position is that independence parties did something as bad as the repressive forces (PP, PSOE, Ciudadanos), and even accused them of "awakening" the dormant Spanish fascism (same argument as saying the woman in a rape is at fault for dressing slutty). However, they're the only ones with a decent program that could improve things in Spain at this point. The cities ruled by them (Madrid and Barcelona for example) have managed to reduce their debt greatly, reduce the power of the bigger companies and lobbies, reduce corruption and increase the budgets dedicated to social help.
Rest of the parties: Here we include independence parties, basc country parties and other more regional parties from other sections of Spain.
Now, back to the explanation....
During all this repression, PP Ciutadans and PSOE were applying the article 155 where they dissolved Catalunya's autonomy and repressed people and ideas. Because of last election, these 3 parties together control more than half of the parliament, and the other parties did not have decisive influence.
However, in other topics, it was harder to agree. PP was ruling but didn't have enough representatives to rule alone. Adding Ciutadans, they still fell short of absolute majority, and there were several topics that they had to pact with other right-wing formations from the rest of the parties, and also rely on PSOE maybe not voting with them bus abstaining to vote. I mention this to indicate that they were being maintained in a position of power by Ciutadans and PSOE too.
While all this happened, every day new people from PP were being accused and arrested regarding corruption charges. This had not impacted PP much actually, but one of these cases was rather big, the Gurtel case, a corruption case involving several high members of PP. PP manoeuvred from the government to move judges that were more neutral away from this case and put judges that had participated or supported PP in the past, quite like a mafia. Still it seems it was not enough, and the final verdict was taken last week. The verdict condemned several high positions inside PP, but also officially condemned PP as a whole, as a party, as a criminal organisation kind of, as having reaped the economic benefits of this corruption.
In any other country with democratic tradition, PP members would have resigned already long before this from all the corruption cases and irregular financing that were open against them. However that's not the Spanish way, and even after this verdict, nobody resigned.
Still, the scandal was too big. Ciutadans wanted to retire support and request new elections, knowing they were stealing votes form PP and they would have more representatives this time. PSOE instead directly opened a no-confidence motion, proposing to remove the current PP Spanish president and put a PSOE president and government. Ciutadans didn't agree to that and did not support it, but Podemos went with it unconditionally, because they though removing PP from power was a priority. However, even with Podemos support, the number of representatives between these two was also not enough on their own and they needed the smaller parties too.
The doubt was about the rest of the parties, which includes independence parties. They had been mistreated by PSOE too. Some people even said that PSOE was counting on not getting their support, so nothing happened while pretending to do something. However, almost everyone agreed, PP was much, much worse. So these parties voted to put the PSOE leader as the new Spanish president.
PSOE is still an old party. PSOE is still corrupt. PSOE is still in favour of how article 155 was applied. PSOE is still controlled by the big corporations. Podemos doesn't forget that, or at least some of its people do not. The independence parties do not forget that.
However, PSOE is not PP. PSOE is not Ciudadanos. PSOE is a stepping stone into a path to move to a more progressive situation.
PSOE will be forced, in order to keep votes, to agree with progressive proposals made by Podemos. PSOE will be forced, in order to pass laws, to talk with independence parties sometimes. And also very important, PP, PSOE and Ciudadanos, the parties of repressions, of the article 155, the parties against voting (not even independence, just against voting), the parties that are trying to keep the current Spanish corrupt repressive status quo, are infighting, fucking each other and disagreeing.
So, PSOE is not good. PSOE is not a beacon of hope. PSOE will not regenerate anything or allow progress to happen.....on its own.
However, in this situation, PSOE is good news. For the moment.
100 times better than PP or Ciutadans, that's for sure.
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