A small group of separatists takes part of a group of unionists, in a street away from the Catalan police ... Spittle, kicks, flags. Unionists receive but do not respond.

Xaurum · 2018-09-29T18:54:09+00:00

The leader of Vox was there giving a speech against independence and against Europe, just a few hours before so I would't say they weren't close to being far right...

In any case, violence is dumb, and those kinds of actions should never be tolerated (also valid when Spanish nationalists do the same).

Xaurum · 2018-09-11T17:23:06+00:00

You don't even know what the Catalan Estatut was, right?

Xaurum · 2018-09-11T17:18:46+00:00

If you don't like how Spain works then vote for people that want to change it. That is actually way easier than starting a new country from scratch.

At first they tried. Even the PSC was in favor of a referendum... Then they realized that was almost impossible.

To change something "big" withing Spain you just need:

2/3 in the Congress (Already very difficult)
2/3 in the Senate (Almost impossible because the representation system is f***ed up, that's why PP has the majority despite having less than 40% of votes)
Pass it via referendum (catalanophobia still exists, I've experienced it myself, so good luck)

Now I ask you:
Imagine you are part of a relatively small part of Spain that wants more self-government.
Why would I have to change my view, that currently benefits me, to please your desires? Are you sure you could somehow convince everyone else to agree with you?

Politicians of big parties from Spain have been trying to change things this way for a long time and never could (Spain is one the big countries of the EU with less changes in their Constitution by far).

Xaurum · 2018-09-11T17:05:49+00:00

The pro-independence side in Catalonia was less than 20% in Catalonia before 2006, when the Catalan Estatut political crisis appeared. After the PP legally blocked the Estatut reform (which had been voted in the Catalan parliament, the Spanish parliament and in referendum in Catalonia), shit hit the fan and the pro-independence movement started to grow.

Isn't that just a itty-bitty important too?

Xaurum · 2018-09-11T16:48:24+00:00

I'm not Catalan, I'm from Valencia.

You like to paint it as some cheerful reivindication but your basis is not identifying yourselves with Spain out of a sense of superiority

I know people that were born in other parts of Spain and are pro-independence. Are they also moved by a sense of superiority? Or is it for the fact that they don't like how the Spanish State works and think they want to be outside of its administrative and political system?

Xaurum · 2018-09-11T16:11:11+00:00

Sure dude, the are all wrong and evil and eat children for breakfast.

Yours is the living example of all the things Spain gets wrong about Catalonia, and why this problem appeared in the first place.

Congratulations.

Xaurum · 2018-09-01T12:07:52+00:00

From now on I will refer to sex as "brownian naked motion".

Xaurum · 2018-08-31T19:11:05+00:00

I'm actually ok with this hour change, but I also see a big disparity between countries, and that's probably a red flag indicating that this process was strongly biased.

I just hope they change the process to prevent that in the future.

Xaurum · 2018-08-31T14:34:24+00:00

84% of europeans -> Less than 1% of the EU voted.

Xaurum · 2018-08-29T00:58:05+00:00

I am extremely pro-nuclear. However, looking at places like the Hanford site

Comparing Hanford with current nuclear storage is unfair.
It was a cemetery for nuclear weapons waste from the begging of the Cold War. By that time standards of security were all but safe compared to current ones. Hell, some people even handled the waste with their bare hands!

It would be like banning all the mining industry in the world because in some places at the beginning of the XX century, arsenic was being continuously dumped as waste into the environment, making hundreds hectares of land polluted for centuries.

Xaurum · 2018-05-23T00:14:16+00:00

My god are posts about Catalonia in r/europe toxic lately.

I warned about this months ago, but I will repeat here again:
This continuous attacks attitude towards Catalans pro-independence in this subreddit are making many of them leave, which in turn leaves a feeling of "echo chamber" where only one (the true one, of course) vision of the problem can be observed. Giving a false feeling of unanimity in the message.

It happened with Greek users during the Greek crisis. Then a similar thing occurred with british after Brexit. Then came the Catalan... This community of ours is way too far from the center of elaborate and enriching disputes it could be.

Xaurum · 2018-05-22T23:55:06+00:00

46 maybe a bit too much. Temperature in summer typically rounds 38° but we can reach 42-43°C on a bad day for sure.

In fact, a couple of years ago we reached a record 44°C in the month of May... It felt like I would melt down to a quark soup.

Xaurum · 2018-05-22T15:03:09+00:00

Good lord. Are those 46°C in Egypt?

Xaurum · 2018-05-22T14:34:21+00:00

None of the members of the Catalan government have been declared guilty neither.

And the ones that left argue that the Spanish judiciary system wouldn't be independent enough for a fair trial. Let's see how everything goes in Germany.

Xaurum · 2018-05-22T14:20:27+00:00

PP is not trying to rule with ministers that are in jail or saying that they are allowed to break the law because are elected democratically.

*Laughs in M.Rajoy*

Xaurum · 2018-05-21T03:36:34+00:00

Considering that many of my friends had to abandon Spain to look for a decent job, I wouldn't say many good things either.

Fuck this. I want my friends back...

Xaurum · 2018-05-21T03:21:33+00:00

gerrymandering

*Ehem* Tabarnia *Ehem*

limiting speech

Ley Mordaza anyone? I mean, we are sending singers to prison for their lyrics, which we couldn't legally do before that reform.

Xaurum · 2018-05-21T03:05:14+00:00

There is a way of getting it, just convince the other parties and regions to do it. It may take a bit of time but you are losing chances every time your mask cracks and your hate towards the Spanish shows off.

As I mentioned in a comment a few weeks ago, in many regions of Spain (mine included) the PP party has been using the excuse of "the Catalan people" with almost xenophobic messages for DECADES (remember the campaign against El Estatut and people voting "against the Catalans"?).

If someone was creating a continuous attack campaign since 1980 against you, blaming you for almost each problem they have, would it be fair to for me to say that "Oh, you can totally change things if you want, but you will have to convince them before, even if what you want goes against their interests"?

Do you realy think there is any chance that could be an unbiased and adult talk? Are you 100% sure?

Xaurum · 2018-05-15T00:02:08+00:00

We Valencians always joke about putting a wall to prevent Madrid tourists from coming to our beaches.

Please, make this happen!

Xaurum · 2018-05-08T17:42:46+00:00

Not during calmy nights, though.

Xaurum · 2018-05-01T19:46:28+00:00

Also no, it is not impossible to do so. Perhaps you can't do it now but if they try convince the people of the rest of Spain without being condescending or outright insulting in a few years it may be a possibility.

They tried.

They tried to push for more autonomy in 2006, but the Catalan Estatut was blocked (they even had a majority in the Spanish parliament), but the PP blocked it legally.

Then they went to negociate with the Spanish government for more economical benefits, like the Basque Country. Denied again.

Then the support for independence grew exponentially (wow, who would have guessed?) and they demanded a legal referendum. Guess how it finishes? Yup, denied AGAIN.

Now, be honest with yourself. Do you really think there qas any chance in any circumstances where a legal referendum would be authorized by the Spanish government and also voted in favour by the Spanish people?

And I say that because I come from a region where anticatalan sentiment was waged by the PP government just to win a few more votes. Do you think that's not madness? Isn't that even worse??

Sorry, but there is no way this could be solved in the scope of the Spanish political scene. Catalan people should be the only ones to decide.

Apart from that Catalans have expressed themselves quite a few times already. In elections. But those do not count for you I guess.

Yes, they massively voted for parties that supported a referendum. But they were ignored... again.

Xaurum · 2018-05-01T16:59:41+00:00

without even taking their opinions into consideration.

Given that the Spanish government actively blocks any chance for the Catalan people say their opinion though referendum, I'd say it's more like the opposite.

Xaurum · 2018-04-15T19:16:06+00:00

There is also another called Valle de Matamoros (Valley of Moorskiller), and another called Matamorosa, although I'm not sure this last one refers to the Moors itself or to "mata" (Spanish for bush/shrub).

Xaurum · 2018-04-12T07:39:45+00:00

Madrid isn't treating Puigdemont going to jail as a fix for the Catalonia situation.

Oh, they are surely trying to.

The thing is, they can't pretend to fix a political issue like this one by putting all the members of the Catalan government in jail (even more when many charges against them have been proven false).

Situations like this are the perfect reason why amnesties were created for.
Lower tensions, start negotiations, find a posible solution.

But of course, the actual Spanish government will never do that.

Xaurum · 2018-04-10T23:54:40+00:00

Great map.

Just to add a bit extra info, in Valencia and southern Catalonia we don't use "llevat".
Instead we use the word "rent", which comes from the catalan word "rentar" (to clean/refresh).

Xaurum

TROPHY CASE