This is so fuckin tragic, Spain should just fracture and become something similair to the U.K, its been in decline ever since Napoleon, political Europe was always made up of many chunks of land, and few massive chunks of land in Europe have for the most part result in some sort of representative oppression, especially with the existence of the EU, the two Councils are ridiculously hard to hold accountable
Texas has the right to vote to split up into smaller Texas’. It’s in the agreement.
Also and seperately, and from outside the EU, i consider the EU to be a good model for regions with divergent interests to cooperate and increase freedom - somewhat more independent of the arbitrary lines of history and war - so this violent reaction is pushing me towards supporting secession, from this distance. I can only imagine how much respect the region is given at budget making time.
That ought to make them want to stay
Good. Let Rajoy have it.
As a reminder, rubber bullets aren’t Nerf foam-rubber bullets. They are often rubber-coated metal, and can still break bones, harm internal organs, blind or paralyze - and even kill at close range.
Indeed the similarity in naming is spooky.
This is the kind of thing that drove ETA (Basque nationalists) to change from peaceful protests to terrorism.
Any history nerds want to school the rest of us how this is similar to and/or different from what happened during the Spanish Civil War?
failing that, water cannons might work.
A preliminary report says 89% voted for independence:
Right? There are so many reasonable ways to approach this… this is not one of them.
My dad is a retired MO state trooper. We would get catalogues for LEO supply companies all of the time. I would look through them and dream about all of the “cool” stuff I would buy for, say, $100. I don’t remember exactly when it started, but there was a definite time when these crowd suppression devices really took off (rubber bullets, sand bag rounds, tasers). The reality they have engendered is just horrifying.
Isn’t this more of an internal affair, not an EU one?
Well, I know that if I were Catalan, and were in any way on the fence, thinking that being a part of a larger polity is a good thing, and that maybe we’d put the Franco years behind us, this would certainly disabuse me of any such notions.
I agree. I am still not sure whether it is more or less horrifying that protesters don’t use that gear also.
it’s significantly more an EU affair than an US one
All their doing is creating unnecessary civil unrest in a time where there’s no short supply of it, my smypathy goes out to the Catalans, even the language has come close to dying out because of the central gov
For something as important as an independence vote, I think that a quorum, and a fair, transparent election process is really, really important. Apparently, Spain has a vested interest in making sure that this doesn’t happen. Shame on them.
But:
the wikipedia article says:
According to Catalan officials, around 2.26 million out of 5.34 million voters were able to vote, a turnout of 42.3%. Of those who voted, 90% backed independence.
Compare that to the recent Scottish referendum
Yes 1,617,989 44.70%
No 2,001,926 55.30%
Valid votes 3,619,915 99.91%
Invalid or blank votes 3,429 0.09%
Total votes 3,623,344 100.00%
Registered voters/turnout 4,283,392 84.59%
That’s an referendum that people can respect. 85% turnout.
Yes, in the wake of Brexit, the opinion has changed. But at the the time, it was a clear and convincing result.
This low turnout certainly has nothing to do with the fact that the Spanish government sent cops to shoot at people who were trying to vote. 90% voting in favor is because the people who would’ve said no knew they were going to get the shit beaten out of them by cops for no reason and probably pushed anyone who was anywhere near the fence far on the Catalan side.
