Beast of Burden
The Catalonian government is actually quite conservative & neo-liberal & there is a significant element of nativism in Catalonian separatism.
Just got back from two weeks there actually. Down near Tarragona for the vote and was in BCN for the general strike & protest march.
yurp
What's Catalonia like compared to the rest of Spain, in terms of its economy? Relatively more affluent, or less?
Tight but Polite
Somewhat more, overall. AIUI this isn't the main driver for the independence movement, but it's not irrelevant.
Shub-Niggurath, Please
Barcelonians have easily the worst hair in the world. Like, terrible even by general Spanish standards. This has to figure into it somehow.
Doin' the Lambeth Warp New: DISSENSUS - THE NOVEL - PM me your email address and I'll add you
Beast of Burden
Slightly higher average income, 20% of Spanish GDP, 1/4 of all Spanish investment.
Barcelona sits somewhere between Milan and Paris in terms of architecture/pop density/wealth. Clearly a well off city, but has its share of squalor.
I've spent a few months to the north the Costa Brava and the wealth seems more evident up there. Perfectly preserved, unspoilt well turned out towns, neat fields, exemplary roads. More akin to Northern Italy than anywhere else in Spain.
My mate who's lived over there for years says that Catalonians are more industrious and get a lot more shit done than the rest of Spain.
Beast of Burden
What was striking about the demo on Tuesday was the youth of the protestors. Id say the average age was early-mid 20's. Extremely peaceful. Little or no radical presence from what I could see, just tons of kids draped in flags, smoking weed & drinking beer.
Beast of Burden
Beast of Burden
Hooray, Austrian voters are to a great extent stupid. They elected a charlatan who out-xenophobe'd the traditional Austrian xenophobes from the Freedom party, despite the fact that this person - Mr. Kurz - was minister for immigration for the last fucking 6 years!!! - and deflected the voting public from his puppet masters, the national chamber of commerce/Austrian industrial association (who, not surprisingly, are already grinding the axe for further social security cuts), the same chamber of commerce which pumped endless money to the tabloids/private TV to beat the propagandadrum for the "new conservative movement" of Mr. Kurz, formerly known as Austrian's people's party (somehwhat comparable with UK's Tories).
The stupidity of voters the last few years throughout the western world is astounding.
Last edited by firefinga; 16-10-2017 at 05:40 PM.
lala
We had the electoral register knocking on the door yesterday.Originally Posted by firefinga
"Is that democracy knocking?"
"Tell em we got plenty already"
Shub-Niggurath, Please
Not Europe, but it's all kicking off now in Kirkuk after the Kurdish independence vote a few weeks ago.
Doin' the Lambeth Warp New: DISSENSUS - THE NOVEL - PM me your email address and I'll add you
Beast of Burden
one right wing talking points is that the soros backed forces of the left use immigration to tilt the demographics of countries and make them more left wing (immigrants love hand outs) but the likely consequence of massive immigration from eastern europe to the UK is probably the opposite.
Beast of Burden
So I was on an intensive course in educational practise this week. My fellow students included an Iranian Urban planner, three Chinese electronic engineers, a French linguist, a Finnish Vet, an Italian mathematician, a guy from Kazakhstan, a Gazan professor, an anglo-Japanese philosophy professor, a Spanish lecturer, a Canadian engineer & a Dutch biologist. The curriculum involved a load of radical learning techniques which required tons of teamwork and I got to interact with them all on a personal level. One of the most fascinating experiences of my professional life.
Beast of Burden
This is a gripping read on the stirrings of Republika Srpska in the new world of insurgent right populism in Europe (and the world). Dayton could die.
“A multicultural Bosnia was a compromise that Republika Srpska’s leaders had been forced to accept by international pressure, at a time when they had been openly pursuing genocide and ethnic cleansing. In truth, they’ve never really accepted it,” Emir Suljagic, a survivor of the Srebrenica massacre who later served as deputy defense minister of Bosnia, told me recently at a cafe in Sarajevo. “In the Balkans, any call for redrawing borders or declaring statehood is a signal for violence, and everyone knows it. Ordinary people may not be ready for war, but their leaders are banging the drums nonetheless.”
Indeed, the resurgence of right-wing nationalism in Europe has turned Bosnia’s war into an object of lurid nostalgia — a model for the future, even.
“The Serbian nationalist cause in the 1990s was a hobby horse for the far right in Europe. In their view, Bosnia was an avatar for the types of political developments that they wanted to see happening in the continent,” said Jasmin Mujanovic, a political scientist focused on the region who wrote the recent book “Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans.” “After the Cold War, the next great ideological struggle for the far right was going to be about the question of the nation and identity. The idea of having a genocidal ethnic war like that which occurred in Bosnia — to use their own language, a ‘race war’ — was the whole point. As a result, they continue to sympathize with the people who advocated, perpetrated, and continue to defend that genocide.”
lala
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