Catalonia Independence

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

I have family vacationing in Barcelona, and they are reporting explosions. Confirmed they are not fireworks, one person there is EX-Navy. Don’t see much in the press about anything substantive???

[nimdabew]

I am betting they wish they had a stockpile of rifles. This is going to turn ugly in no time if the Spanish Supreme Court tells them to pound sand with the idea of Independence and Catalina says no.

[Whiskey_Bravo]

Should be interesting to see how Spain handles this.,

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

In the big picture, since Yugoslavia disintegrated, how do you keep the EU together when the individual countries can't stay together???

That and I'm starting to wonder how much the Russians are antagonizing things like this. Not saying that they are causing it, just that we know that they are pretty good at taking base movements and trying to catalyze them. A fractured EU and NATO is definitely in their interests.

[Averageman]

Spain has been in trouble for a couple of decades.
I visited often in the 80's and 90's and it was a Socialist Utopia at the time, but they were heading for trouble the last time I was there.
Everybody can't retire at 50 and expect to be taken care of until they expire, but that seemed to be the norm unless you were wealthy and or ran your own business.
I actually planned on retiring in Fofe Pont Vierda, I'm glad I didn't.

[nimdabew]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41780116

Direct control. Somewhere in the article it said hostile takeover of Catalina finance, police, and public news organizations. Money, legal arm of government, and the message. That's the basic trifecta right?

[Sam]

I have family vacationing in Barcelona, and they are reporting explosions. Confirmed they are not fireworks, one person there is EX-Navy. Don’t see much in the press about anything substantive???

So far there NO news report on any explosions. There are several articles regarding the Catalans declaring their independence.

[yoni]

Screw Spain!

They back a Palestinian state on my land.

They are ready to go to war to keep Catalonia.

Hypocrites

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41780116

Direct control. Somewhere in the article it said hostile takeover of Catalina finance, police, and public news organizations. Money, legal arm of government, and the message. That's the basic trifecta right?

Except the trump card of the military...


So far there NO news report on any explosions. There are several articles regarding the Catalans declaring their independence.

Trying to get confirmation and see if they heard anything else. I still think it was probably celebratory fireworks. Like I said, relative there is ex career Navy, but not the BOOM part.

[Firefly]

#RemovePaella
#Venceremos
#InnaWoods

I expect this to be a domino effect given everyone's frustration with Europe

[sundance435]

I think it's pretty fascinating to see people turning globalization on its head - they want the economic benefits, but not the social/political integration. Should've been well on our way to "One World" by now, right? It'll be interesting to see what a 21st Century, 1st-world revolution looks like, though it doesn't sound like there's an overwhelming "Independence" faction. The ultimate question becomes commitment - what are they willing to sacrifice to get it?

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

I think it's pretty fascinating to see people turning globalization on its head - they want the economic benefits, but not the social/political integration. Should've been well on our way to "One World" by now, right? It'll be interesting to see what a 21st Century, 1st-world revolution looks like, though it doesn't sound like there's an overwhelming "Independence" faction. The ultimate question becomes commitment - what are they willing to sacrifice to get it?

What is the ‘get’? For all the anti-trade sentiment, people vote with their pocketbooks and keep going to Wal-mart. Local control? The only thing worse than federal control is the mish-mash of un-cool kids from High school that make up local politics from the state level down. If politics is for ugly people, local politics is for ugly and dumb people. Those comments are specific to the US, but I’m guessing play pretty well in other countries. I have a major competition based in Spain. We think that they are getting big subsidies to keep jobs there. They are in Catalonia, I wonder what happens to that money.

Yep, I do think that people don’t understand how good they have it and we are in for a 30s style trade-war with few winners and big net loss.

[Moose-Knuckle]

My wife has a grandmother who's family fled Spain for Mexico during the civil war (1936-1939). They never went back . . .

[sundance435]

Puigdemont is now in Belgium...definitely the type of leader you'd follow to hell and back. I'm waiting to see what kind of role the King will have in this (he's already stated Catalonia will remain "Spanish"). Felipe VI is relatively new to the throne, though his father, Juan Carlos, was/is very popular.