Declaration of War

 We're at war and we don't know it. 

 For a long while now we've been at war. And it's a world war. And we're losing it. It's a war with casualties from mostly one side only, but it's a very civic war. In this war, most of the time, it's not like someone will come to us and shoot us, oh no. That's not polite. In this war we lose little by little, our lives and our time. Although in some areas you do get shot, where the fight is in its worse shape. It's an asymetrical war, both sides are rather different in numbers and power. But it's a war nonetheless. 

This war has been raging for all our history. Sometimes there's calm periods and truces. Sometimes there's small victories. But lately it's going worse for us, after a period where it seemed we could achieve some level of victory, or at least a reasonable truce. 

 We've had recent battles in plenty of places. In Brazil, we lost to ignorance and stupidity, and because of its current culture it may take some time before any victories can be achieved. In Chile there was a recent stand off that gives us hope after a long period of darkness, but it needs to be developed and to grow into a victory, and it may not be one just yet. In Bolivia we won after almost losing an important battle. Hong Kong seems lost, the battle continues but the enemy is too brutal in there. In USA we were defeated so long ago nobody remembers our side, but lately there's been some movements towards a change, although it's still in its infancy, and the latest results are not really a victory. Poland was never in our side but maybe after the latest abuse some reaction will be triggered. I'm not informed enough to talk about countries in Africa but it seems there's been an ongoing change in there too, little by little, in some of them small victories for us. Turkey has been conquered after a period of hope, and we need to recover it but won't be easy. Russia had some chances but the opportunity was not taken. Most religious-based countries mark a huge defeat for us.

Spain was lost since 1939, and is still lost to this day. Catalunya has a chance to be a small win, but Spain will fight us to the death. 

One side is always the same: Fascism, dictatorships, unchecked corruption, economic power, religious power. The other is just the average person. 

The war is simple: Average people want to have nice lives. Lives where you do work, but you also have free time, health, friends, and where you can work with what you like. Lives where you can allow yourself presents, for you and your friends and family. Where you can have vacations and visit places. Where you can have moments of rest and calmness. Where you can believe whatever you want and no one imposes their views on you. Where you can retire and you don't need to die right away. Where people help each other. and where we can collectively decide things for ourselves. Then we have internal struggles about how to achieve these objectives, but that's the idea.

The other side wants to have these things only for a few of themselves, the chosen ones, and everyone else should suffer and die slowly to provide these things to them, It's a simple as that.

 Maybe this seems simplistic or evident. But what I want to remark, is that this is WAR. When people get kicked out of their houses, people DIE. When factories are closed down, people DIE. When hospitals are privatized and medicine is not affordable, people DIE. Those are casualties. When some rich or powerful bastard takes a decision to withheld resources for the common people, this person is PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE for the impoverishment, misery and death of these people. Same way I would be accused of not helping someone that was bleeding to death in my house if I ignored them and didn't call an ambulance nor did anything at all.

All this was to explain a few things regarding the current struggles:

 1-This war is all the same war. Catalan people wanting to vote and getting beaten by police is the same war as Hong Kong people wanting to decide for themselves and getting beaten by police. It's the same war as BLM in USA. Its the same war as medical professionals asking for more resources. It's the same war as workers asking for better conditions. It's the same war. So, support all of them and don't be blinded.

2-A lot of idiots are supporting the wrong side because in their little evil minds, they think they're part of the powerful side and that they will get better lives through it. The reality is that they will be squashed and discarded with all the rest, but since they will not be the first ones and the first ones are a group they don't like, they think this is good and later they'll be spared. 

3-Being neutral or equidistant, or "centrist" here means support to the powerful. As they say in Germany, a table with 1 Nazi and 9 people that let them be there is a table with 10 Nazis. And thinking the one doing the beating is the same as the one being beaten is morally abhorrent. 

4-Civility is not an option when it results in one side always winning because they're the only ones that can be nasty and violent and brutal while the other side is expected to put the other cheek and accept their fate and "be nice". Doing a "smart" economic operation that can force a building full of people to be kicked out to the streets should be responded with the same rage and pain that it has caused and the person responsible should suffer horrible consequences for it.

5-The current health crisis is making everything on hold, but we should not forget that we're at war, and you can see whose lives have been the most affected and who's reaping benefits from all this, and understand then who needs to be defeated. 

Any approach that doesn't take this into consideration, that doesn't understand this is a war, that doesn't understand that we're all going to suffer and die unless we turn the tide strongly to the other side will not succeed. To go back to USA, the current election results will not achieve anything at all, things will just get worse a bit more slowly in there, the important defeat there was in the democratic primaries and after that one the end result would be bad or horrible, but never good.

The "agree to disagree" and moderation is for cake, not for the worth of human lives. And Nazi Germany was not defeated with hugs and good intentions.

Interesting Times

There's this English saying, with unclear origins (read more here), that says that there is this curse: "May you live in Interesting Times". Terry Pratchett used it in one of his books too. The idea, of course, is that the history moments that are most studied and explained are those of turmoil, chaos and strife.

We are indeed in one of these periods. and I'd like to talk about two subjects related to that, the election of a new President in Spain and the latest judicial verdicts and actions by the UE tribunals and parliament.

First, it seems finally a President has been elected in Spain. This President has been very difficult to elect, since the party he belongs to didn't have enough representatives in parliament to be elected on their own. This means the party needed to pact with others, and traditional parties in Spain are really against that. They're used to order around and dictate, starting from a clean majority, if possible an absolute one, to rule whatever they want, regardless of the program they had. This party, PSOE, is no different.

PSOE has been defended during this period as a leftist party, and the election of this president has been indicated as a triumph for progressive forces. However, this is totally false. For a long time now, all around the world, powerful forces (aka rich people and the newspapers and news agencies/broadcasters they buy) have been moving what is considered the centre of the political spectrum more and more to the right, to accept certain policies as "moderate" when they're clearly right-wing and conservative, and to promote neo-liberal economies. Because of this, PSOE is being considered as "left", but that's blatantly false (at national level at least. it´s different at regional or city levels).

PSOE has accepted authoritarian ways to rule, has maintained laws that restrict freedom of speech and has used repression as a tool while governing temporarily in this period without majorities. PSOE also reformed labour laws in Spain in favour of the big companies, have delayed retirement age and all around applied neo-liberal policies for some time now, refusing to act on things like house prices or bank control. PSOE has refused boats full of rescued refugees that were at sea. PSOE has done nothing to tax more or stop giving public money to the Catholic Church. Their attitude till now regarding Catalunya has been exactly the same as PP, the extreme-right wing party of Spain, of sending police and tribunals and twisting legislation to punish people. And so on.

The only thing that PSOE has done that can be considered more "leftist" has been defending abortion rights, defending LGBT+ rights and Women's rights, and proposing to legislate on issues like Euthanasia or drug use. While these are noble causes, these alone do not define a leftist party, and plenty of moderate or right parties in Europe nowadays defend some of these positions too, so it's not like revolutionary radical leftist of them.

What's more, PSOE had the chance of ruling with a true centre-left party, Podemos, since last elections, but because they're centre-right they wanted instead to pact with Ciudadanos (another right-wing party) or rule alone, which is why they repeated elections. Problem is they lost votes and Ciudadanos sank even more, so these two options were definitely not possible and they were forced to pact with Podemos instead and, all of a sudden, defend themselves as "progressives" when they're far from that.

Having said that, this is better than the alternative. The alternative was the three extreme-right-wing parties of Spain (yes, we have three of them, we don't have a "new extreme right wing" now, we always had it, it´s just now split in pieces and that's good) ruling together, but thankfully they have been fragmented and don't have a majority to rule even if they pact. PSOE alone will not do much, but since it will have issues governing, the fact that they need to pact and negotiate is a good thing. We will see if Podemos and the other leftist parties can twist its arm enough for them to actually act and do some progressive things.

There´s people in Catalunya that say that PSOE is the same as PP, and to let them rule is bad. This reminds me on the campaign started in USA to convince progressive voters not to go to vote Hilary using targeted ads, that infamous scandal. While I agree that PSOE is not good, the reality is that the possibility of the extreme right parties ruling again is catastrophic. I´m not sure whats the best course of action really, but seems to me a scenario where they need to pact with left and independentist parties is better than one where all right-wing parties ally themselves and rule.

However, as a final note: This government won't push leftist policies enough and will still pretty much protect the powerful. If you want real change, PSOE is not the party, you need to vote more left. There's several options there (which is a problem, when there's this fragmentation too), but there are better left options. It's a matter of selecting one. And yes, they're not perfect. The curse of the left is that there's no perfect ruler, instead of the right where this doesn't matter because you just obey your leader. But still, vote the best left option that there is, or change is impossible.



As per the second topic: The UE tribunals have ruled that three Catalan politicians that could not swear on the Spanish consititution because they were in exile or in prison are members of UE parliament, regardless of the fact that they could not swear on it becasue members are elected by people voting, not by posterior procedures, and therefore the Spanish tribunals cannot prosecute them without the approval of the UE parliament. Two of them are exiled and will join the parliament on 13th of January, and the third one is in prison in Spain, but this verdict makes his trial void (and would need, legally, to be repeated after UE parliament allows it).

This has been followed by the UE parliament ordering Spain to fulfil the law (indicating without explicitly saying that they need to liberate the prisoner), since the UE Tribunal is the highest instance and the Spanish tribunals need to follow it.

This links nicely with my previous post. The problem of how Spain reacted to the Catalan independentists is that it's not legal, it's not democratic, and in general it's not how a progressive democratic country works. Spain has acted like a dictatorship, has twisted laws, bypassed rules, done whatever they wanted however they wanted it, ignoring their own legislation and just going for punishment, revenge and blood. Anyone defending that doesn't understand about democracy, regardless of your opinion on independence, and that's something that I really hope that those who do not defend independence understand, finally, with he help of Europe: Every Single Time that Europe tribunals have been involved, since they're really independent and democratic, Spain has been shown to not follow the law and to act incorrectly. Every time. And there's more to come, once other sentences reach UE tribunals too.

What's more: For all the ones that say they defend legality: As per the law, this prisoner should be freed and given access to UE parliament. I'm not going to say all laws are just, because I've previously stated that you should always question them, because dictatorships also have laws. But if you're not hypocrites, now you should defend his liberation, and ask Spain to follow the law. Or ask for the Spanish Government and the Spanish Tribunals to be accused and judged, same way you asked for the Catalan politicians to be judged.

Or you truly, really, believe that Spain is a better democracy with a better judicial system than all the other UE nations combined?

Time for questions

So I haven't written in a while, especially about politics, because mostly the current situation can be summarized by screaming to the void at top volume for 4 hours....but I'd like to try to explain some things.

You probably have seen that the people that organized a referendum in Catalunya have been condemned by Spain to lots of prison years. And that people here got tired of this crap and started to protest in a more hardcore way, blocking roads and stations. And then police started to beat people up, and people responded by barricading and setting things on fire, and we're still in this situation.

So, let's start by saying that Barcelona is not a war zone, you can live perfectly well here unless you're right next to some  very conflictive point. So, yeah, newspapers are exaggerating the situation to make it look so much worse than it is.

However, it's bad what's happening yeah. And it's bad only when police act. Otherwise, there are no issues. So, police is doing a horrible job, because they're supposed to keep the peace, but instead they're guaranteeing there's problems and chaos. Police is used as a punishment for protesters instead of trying to establish normality, and it shows.

Anyway, I'd like to try to explain that what is happening should horrify a lot more people than it does, and why.

So, let's say you're not pro-independence. That is fine, each person can have their opinions. You feel that Spain is a nice country, or you feel that Catalunya will do better with Spain, or you're against Spain losing Catalunya. Or some other reason like that. That's fine, I repeat. But even then, there are things that I believe concern you.

The Spanish government and judicial system condemned people to lots of years for organizing a vote,  debating it in parliament, trying to organize a protest and declaring "independence" without any real chance to back it up for real, kind of symbolically. That's it. That's the summary.

Now, you may say, "oh no, but the vote was illegal/declaring independence was illegal". Well, first of all, that's debatable, Spanish laws could be interpreted either way about this. Second of all, laws are not pillars of morality. Laws are rules written by governments. Dictatorships have plenty of laws. If something is illegal, sometimes it's good to also ask yourself, why is that, and if it really should be. As mentioned before in other posts, to assume all laws are just and good is dangerous, submissive and can give birth to horrible monsters like Nazism and Stalinism. And well, when is a vote something that should not happen, really? Why voting is so bad? Could you ask yourselves that? You may say that all of Spain should vote, which is fine, but then why not get the region's opinion first since we're at it? Doesn't it sound...fishy, that you cannot even vote? Today it's this topic, but tomorrow it can be another important one (like reducing CO2 emissions or transitioning to green energies) and the result may be the same, "oh it's illegal to vote about this!". This is a slippery slope, really. It's ok to vote but only if you like it? That's the thing here?

Then you could say it was not the vote, that it was the independence declaration. Only thing, it was symbolic. No administrations changed control. No infrastructures were taken. No efforts were made to change taxation mechanisms nor implement any type of real independence. The declaration was made and then nothing was done to implement it. While I could accept that declaring independence is illegal under the current constitution, the point is that it was not implemented. So, with no effort to do it properly, they should be condemned to lots of years just because they said it?

Then you could say it was the protest a few days before where some police cars were vandalized. Which is true, but the people condemned didn't personally do it either, and they asked for tranquility and peaceful protesting at all times.

Then on the trial, the main argument about violence happening in Catalunya was to say that 1-Screams and looks of the people were "violent" and 2-that the police brutality was the cause of organizing the vote. The first argument means that "violence" can be anything now, as long as the people in power decide something is violent. So you cannot protest against anything that you consider unjust, because it's "violent. The second point is the same defense rapists use, "she was asking for it".

Also on the trial, it was not allowed to use videos or images that contradicted the witnesses statements. They were shown later. So no witness could be considered false and to be removed from  the trial during the trial itself. And there's a lot other things that happened during it that plenty of international organisations have condemned, saying that it didn't guarantee proper rights. I mean, I understand you may be against independence and you didn't like the fact that people tried to vote about it, but isn't it...troubling, how forceful it was? The Spanish government disagreed with the idea, accused people and then proceed to not follow their own laws and checks and balances to make sure these people would be condemned. Isn't it worrying this can happen, regardless of who's being tried and for what?

This was a vengeance, plain and simple, not really a justice matter. Isn't that something that should not happen at this levels, inside the justice system, regardless of your political believes?

Then there's the matter of  the following protests. Of course there has been protests, and there's been people organizing them. They have been disruptive, they have been intense and they have been a lot of them. Well, guess what, that's how all protest that achieved something have worked. That's how we got the 8-hours workday. That's how some other regions and colonies gained independence. So, that's how protests work, they're disruptive or they're useless. Did they put bombs or killed people? No. Did they use firearms? No. Did they enter into direct fights with the authorities? Well, some people have, but the vast majority haven't, and the ones that have are mostly using it as defensive strategies. There has been burnings and fires, yes, and it's not good they happened, but not with the intention to harm others, just to protect from police charges. The thrown objects are bad, ok, but again, these things have been more as defense from charges.

Well, this is now being considered terrorism (not a joke). And again, let's say you agree, those stupid pro-independence bastards are bothering you. Thing is, next time you want to protest because you have a shit salary and rent is being controlled by investment funds that want to make you pay a lot more? Forget about protesting. Any demonstration, any type of road blocking, any type of disruptive action can and will be considered terrorism. Don't you think this is worrisome? That it's establishing precedents? That real democracies should not consider this terrorism?

Let's also talk about the police charges. You can also say that police tell protesters to leave and if they don't they should be hit and arrested because they're not following the law. But then, police are hitting people on the head, on the neck, on other areas where it's clear in their procedures that they cannot hit. Isn't it a problem that the law doesn't apply to them then? Isn't it curious that rubber balls are banned in Catalunya and police used them anyway? Doesn't make you wonder,  that police can arrest anyone in the street,beat them up, jump on top of them, touch them (to women usually), and that's all fine? Is police above the law? And then, why is wrong to defend from them also not following the law? Are you ok with all this because "they would never do this to me, why would they?". Because this is for protesting, for demonstrating, with ideas that are not the officially approved ones. Should you be hit in the head for not running away fast enough when police charges to make people move? Is this proportional? Is ok to beat anyone in the area just in case, even people that are leaving?

And following also this topic, isn't it weird that fascist have been running around Barcelona and beating people up, and in these cases there has never been police beating them or stopping them? Or that when unionist, let's say, have slapped pro-independence people in front of police, police did nothing whatsoever? Isn't it a problem how friendly police is with fascists? And also the same fascist, how friendly they are always judged when they beat someone up and such things? Similarly when it's about rapists that belong to police forces, as shown in La Manada?

Then, considering all this, and consider how the Spanish government refuses to talk. About anything, really. Isn't it strange that no one on the Spanish side is willing to sit down with no pre-conditions, and try to see what can be agreed on or what can be done to improve the situation? Not saying agreeing to anything, I'm just saying to talk.

I will also add for those that put both sides at the same level, do you think it's the same to hit someone and to defend yourself from someone hitting you? Is it the same to control police charges than to have some people among thousands that do fight back? And even then, do you think it's at the same level, police charging and people protesting? An organised force beating civilians is the same that a few disorganized violent groups? And given the last images, is it ok that police infiltrators are trying to rile up these people so there is some fights and some chaos? Do you think it's the same to organize a voting and send police to beat people up? Do you think it's the other's side fault when, during a negotiation, one side just says "No" without further comments and proposals?

Also, consider this: It has been proven that the Spanish government, in the past, has used police to try and incriminate people, accuse them, make sure that minimum you get big news about it by filtering information to the press, prepare charges, etc. Doesn't this concern you a bit? Doesn't this makes you doubt the whole judicial process?

I keep adding: Spanish tribunals are usually decided by the two main parties that are in charge of all this repression and that have alternated ruling the country for the last 40 years. A lot of these judges have been members of the party "in the past". A lot of these judges have clear preference with a certain political spectrum. There's even some that are the same ones that were ruling during Franco's dictatorship, they never moved or were never removed from the position. Isn't that something to make you wonder about the quality of Spanish judicial system?

Just to finish, there's Catalan politicians that left the country and are staying in Europe to internationalize the conflict. Spain has send extradition orders to several of them. Don't you find it curious that Germany and UK and Belgium have, in general, ruled that the detention orders were wrong/didn't apply? Don't you find it disturbing that, in places where there should be separation of powers, the Spanish government is threatening diplomatically other governments about the outcome of a trial in their respective country, which is made by the separated judicial power? Do you think it's normal that the Spanish judges have only asked for the detention of certain people, and that they have withdrawn the petition depending on the political moment?

Now that there's other protests in the world at the same time: do you trust China's and Chile's Governments regarding their actions and declarations with their respective protests? Whatever are your thoughts about independence, don't you see parallelisms between all three cases and how police and governments are acting? Do you disagree with how Hong Kong people is being treated when they protest certain laws? Do you like that Chile protesters have been shot?

Do you still think independence is the problem here? Do you still think it doesn't apply to you? Do you still think Spain is being fair and just with their reaction? Do you still think that, when the time comes, your protests will be treated differently because yours will be just and necessary?

Do not defend independence. If you don't want it, that's ok. However, wonder what is at stake here, because it ain't about the independentists.

Argumenting

Things are getting tense in Catalunya.

The Government has approved a law to organise a referendum on Independence on 1st of October which proclaims Spanish legislation cannot touch it. Spanish government and tribunals have reacted by indicating that anything referendum-related is forbidden and that the law is suspended.

There's more details, but well, the most probable outcome at this point seems a vote happening on 1st of October nevertheless, where "yes" wins.

The Catalan laws were approved with questionable procedures that limited the possibility to debate them....but then again it was done like this because Spain was indicating that even debating such things was illegal, and therefore there were no other options.

In all this mess, several newspapers have started a misinformation and lying war against independence, while several people have made articles or comments where they attacked the referendum.

And in all that, what I have not ever seen are arguments about why we should not vote, or vote "No", that could stand on their own. So I want to comment on some of the arguments said and why they're bullshit....but I also want to point out that there are arguments, valid ones, and it's just mind-boggling that people that I though were smart are not mentioning them....

1-Because it's illegal:

-This one is the first thing that lots of people mention that are against the referendum, and it's really really stupid. For starters, its legality is a matter of interpretation. However, let's say it was clearly and without doubt illegal. So fucking what? As lots of people mentioned, legality is not an indication of morality or ethics. People say that one should respect the law in a democratic country, but I disagree on mindless obeying. First question to ask regarding anything illegal, is to ask why is it illegal. Is it morally or ethically wrong? Is it harmful? Is it plain stupid? If you check this, it's rather evident that some laws make perfect sense. You cannot rob, kill and/or rape because it's ethically terrible. You are not allowed to do drugs because it's a danger for your well-being. Of course there's already shades of gray, and for example maybe rather than forbid drugs for that last one it is better to control and regulate them..this could be debated, and that's why some laws are a must, but others can be debated. Why is a referendum illegal? Because it would leave the integrity of Spain int he hands of Catalan people. And why is this bad? Well, here is where it fails. The only reason this is bad is if you believe in frontiers, in countries, if you feel patriotism for Spain without any other reasons than being Spanish and feel personally insulted by the though of Spain not having some piece of land that was theirs before. I consider patriotism idiotic, since where you are born is a rather random thing to be proud of, it's the same as being proud of having 5 fingers, as if you are personally responsible for them. A referendum is also illegal if you believe people should not decide things, which is antidemocratic as hell. And there's plenty of things that were illegal and should not have been, like women voting. Legality cannot limit ethical causes, and if that's your main reason, what should change is the law.

2-Because it's nationalistic propaganda/patriotism, which as you said it's rather stupid.

-First of all, Spanish nationalism is SO much worse than Catalan one. Second, while there may be some people that really want to be independent because they don't feel Spanish at all and are really really proud of being Catalan, this is also patriotism, which is stupid. However, if you check the general opinion among independentists, the nationalism aspect is not that important compared with the chance of self-governance. Currently, Spain's government and institutions are a cesspit of incompetence and corruption, unable to do much apart of behaving like a corrupt dictator, with the novelty that they do so in group. This is fairly evident for anyone not suffering from brain damage, and that includes a big chunk of the Catalan people, who want to get rid of that and be able to promote a better management and better laws. Lately a lot of progressive laws that could have improved life in Catalunya have been suspended or nullified by creating another law that supersedes them. The problem is that in Spain at the moment we do have a lot of brain-damaged people apparently, and the main parties that are corrupt, dictatorial and useless keep getting votes, so there's no clear solution for Spain. A clean break from that sure would solve the issue for Catalunya.

3-Because in the context of the European Union it makes not sense to put more frontiers, and in general frontiers are stupid.

-Indeed, frontiers are stupid. For example, the Spanish frontiers are not allowing refugees and are also kicking them out back to the sea on the heat of the moment, something that has been declared as illegal by international right. Controlling such frontiers in Catalunya would not be to close the region to the world, but to open it a lot more than what Spain is allowing.

4-Because it's right-wing propaganda and it will become a dictatorship/neo-liberalist hell worse than Spain (so what you say about making progressive laws or opening frontiers won't apply).

-The independence moment is really transversal, and if you check any demonstration or statistic you will see that people of all ideologies are supporting it. What's more, this movement has forced the traditional right-wing party of Catalunya (which disgusts me) to move toward the centre and become much more progressive (but I don't trust them at all still and I know they have corruption, but not as bad as the Spanish one). Also, the parties that have always been more supportive of a referendum and independence have always been more on the left side of the spectrum.

5-Because it's left-wing propaganda and it will become a lawless/communist hell like Venezuela

-Again, the movement is transversal and you can see that a lot of ideologies are involved. It is true the left has more supporters in Catalunya and inside the independentist movement, but the left parties involved have been very calm and rational in the last years while ruling, promoting more social justice and never advocating for pure anarchy, trying to follow a model more north-European if anything.

6-Because the law of the referendum and its conditions have not been agreed with Spain.

-This one is the most used by people more in the middle/undecided, or against the referendum as it is but not against the idea of voting/doing something political to solve the issue instead of just illegalizing it. The problem here is that this depends on Spain. Spain has a tradition of being authoritative and is not used to negotiate much. Let's be clear: The left lost the civil war against fascism because there is a lot of fascists tendencies in Spain, a lot of patriotism for the wrong reasons, and there's only one accepted way to be Spanish, and since then things have not improved greatly about this topic. For a big group of people, Catalunya is not Spanish enough, instead of thinking that Catalunya is another interpretation of Spain, as valid as any other. The current government has the support of such people and any negotiations would be considered as weaknesses. That's why in the last years the Spanish Government has never even considered any negotiations, and has just said Catalunya should shut up and behave, basically. The Catalan government has offered to negotiate until the last minute, but Spain has never offered or proposed anything. So, how can this be negotiated if one of the parts negotiate by saying "no, end of discussion"? Some of the people defending this argument say that this is now, but that we should work to change this dynamic, and vote to put into power people more open to negotiations. The reality however is that with the latest election results we are very far from having a big majority of parties open to that. One of the parties currently not ruling that is defending this argument or proposing other solutions ruled for 8 years and did nothing of the sort, so their promises feel pretty much empty. Asking to pact is asking for people to wait maybe 40 years while renovating the parties, to reach an unknown situation where maybe things improve...or maybe they don't. People defending this option are way too optimistic about it, I think, based on previous experiences. However, I can understand to a certain point people defending this.

7-Because independentism excludes and divides people.

-This one I've heard it from several newspapers that I thought were better than this. This argument, similar to the patriotism or frontier argument, assumes or tries to tell that independentism is about Catalunya being isolated and defending "proper Catalans". However, this is easily disproven by the fact that there's a lot of independentist that are immigrants and children of immigrants. This movement has always been inclusive, and you can see that people in Catalunya just love it when newcomers integrate. One of the best things that Catalan government has promoted since Franco's dead is the fact that, to be Catalan, you just need to live and/or work on the region, and this attitude is clear in all the movement. Most of the divisions come from the unionist side's attitude, where statistics show that the emotional component of feeling Spanish is the most common reason to want to avoid independence, and therefore tend to act in more emotional and extreme ways (although lately it is true there has been some extremism on each side)

8-Because Catalunya will be kicked out of EU.

-First of all, as long as people remain Spanish (which is an option available), they will be part of the EU. As for the theoretical new country, you don't need to be in the EU to have some of the benefits of the EU, as Switzerland or Norway show, but also it's unlikely that EU will not manage things to include a rich region that would be in the top tiers of GDP compared with the rest of European countries.

9-Becasue Catalunya will become poorer.

-Of course if Catalunya becomes poorer, EU may not want to accept it. However, the general consensus is that industry and business in Catalunya is strong enough that there are 2 likely outcomes: If Spain negotiates with Catalunya, Catalunya's economy will rapidly grow from the start. If Spain penalises Catalunya, Catalunya's economy will have problems for a short-term period until it regulates the situation and then it can grow at medium-term.

I could list more reasons that I heard these days, but most of those are over-simplifications of the situation or just plain wrong. The only one that might kind of work is number 6, but it ignores reality too much....which brings me to one reason I have not heard yet, but it is actually good, and I'm surprised no one has mentioned loudly yet, that I know.....

10-For solidarity towards the poor Spanish people that will be left with the brain dead, conservative and corrupt Spanish traditional parties.

Now this is a reason I can get behind to defend not separating. Catalunya is a very progressive area compared with the rest of Spain. The current vote estimation for Catalan elections indicates that  around 60% of the people would vote a party on the left spectrum. Checking the results of the last Spanish elections, Catalunya gave around 2.100.000 votes to parties from the left-centre. In Spain in total, there were around 11.700.000 votes to parties from left-centre. Almost 18% of the total votes for the left came from Catalunya, while the region represents only 14% of the total votes in Spain. Losing those votes, even if you also lose the votes of the Catalan right, means it's much harder to implement changes on Spain, especially since the party that seems to really want to change things in Spain (they're not perfect but so far they're at least trying) was the most voted party during these same general elections in Catalunya.

Basically, separating from Spain is a bit like abandoning any hopes of changing it. It's admitting that the system is too corrupt, too biased, to change it from inside. It's a bit like admitting defeat. And it's leaving all this great nice Spanish people more at the mercy of a group of bastard.

However, there's an alternative approach to this. Spanish politics are stuck in a bad place, for too many years. Breaking from that would be traumatic yes, and would leave the progressive side weaker in Spain. Nevertheless, maybe that's what is needed to make people in Spain react, and see the old parties for what they really are: A bunch of useless corrupt assholes.

Maybe a shock therapy like this can put some life into this old and outdated system....

The Art Of (Mis)interpreting Polls

It's been a while since I commented on Spanish politics, because Spanish politics are still really really shitty and it just gets me mad. There were 2 general elections in a row (first one didn't work out so well) and, big surprise, the usual parties won. The most corrupt party actually improved their results a lot. The almost as corrupt party lost support but still had more than enough to be relevant, and at least the new corrupt party didn't win as much as the polls said. Anyway, these 3 parties never had any intentions to associate themselves with the new left party (which may not be perfect but it has some good ideas and could improve the situation), because they would have to stop with the corruption and such things, and in a predictable move they kind of allied with each other. The only good part is that the most corrupt party is ruling in minority, so the almost as corrupt party and the new corrupt party are happy with destroying some of the damage the most corrupt party had done by undoing their previous laws and pretending to be very different in this way, and that's at least a bit decent.

Anyway, Spain is ruled by corrupts and far-right patriots and traditionalist, and I've abandoned all hope of this changing in the next 50 years. The next hope is to just separate from that.

So these days there has been an interesting poll about what Catalans think about the independence process and, more particularly, about doing a referendum, plus also which parties would they vote in a theoretical new local election.

This poll was done by a newspaper with a center-left bias, but big supporter of the almost as corrupt party. This party is against voting to see what Catalan people want to do regarding independence, so the newspaper had to give results that reflected that this vote was a problem for Catalunya.

Here the thing is that the poll said otherwise, so the newspaper had to present it in a bad way to try to reinforce their ideas that voting to decide Catalunya's future was bad and divisive.

So, they wrote that "The Referendum splits the Catalan people", saying that around 49% of the people were in favour of doing a referendum unilaterally without consulting Spain, and 48% were against this idea.

Of course, if you say it like this, it seems it's a 50-50 matter. But they had to publish all the results after all, and as some other have pointed (link in Catalan, sorry), the reality is that a staggering  84.6% of the Catalans DO want to vote. It's only that of those 84.6%, there's almost a half that want to vote in a Referendum negotiated with the Spanish government, and are against doing it without consulting Spain.

If you put it like this, it is quite clear what is the will of the people, that are pretty much united in their intention to vote. However, all the corrupt Spanish parties do not understand the "democracy" concept and are against letting the vote happen. They're paralysed in their fear of the "Yes" winning, and instead of negotiating, campaigning for "No" or proposing a better relation between Catalunya and the Spanish government, they close their ears and hope that by making voting illegal (yep, that's right) they can solve the issue. Meanwhile, they keep rescuing private companies with public money, and they keep neglecting inversions in Catalunya, and they keep trying to judge and condemn politicians for trying to discuss and debate the independence topic.

So every day, people are more and more tired of this, and independence gains supporters.

Other results that the newspaper "forgot" to reinforce as quite brutal and tried to diminish their importance or applied make up to them:

-When voting for independence, the "Yes" would win with 54.8% and "No" would get 45.2%.

-The first poll indicated what people preferred, but if there was an unilateral Referendum, 68% of the people would vote anyway, regardless of their previous wish. If you then count what people would vote in this case, "Yes" wins by more than 80%.

-More than half of the people that support parties that are against voting would be in favour of voting anyway.

-56% of Catalan people believe Spain is not a democratic country because they're not allowed to vote on a Referendum.


Now, on the second part of the polls, people were also asked what party would they vote right now in case of elections. The results were that, out of a total of 135 representatives, between 88 and 94 would be from parties considered left or centre, with right parties being relegated to very small numbers . If you count parties in favour of the Referendum, you would get between 84 and 89.

Polls are not exact and who knows for sure what will happen. But it seems to me Catalunya has a chance of something...different. Really different from conservative Spain.

And some people are scared shitless about it...