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How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

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Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#511
post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Catalan here. Quite a bad description, I think. We should remember that Catalonia had its own language forbidden to even speak in the street for 40 years during Franco's dictatorship. Language and culture was kept alive thanks of people keeping it in secrecy. When "democracy" returned, some of the competences they had before the war were returned to the government. After 6 years of demonstrations of 2-3 million (ou…

"We should remember that Catalonia had its own language forbidden to even speak in the street for 40 years during Franco's dictatorship." We should remember this is a false myth. Catalan was never banned. There were many works in literature and music using Catalan as language during Franco's dictatorship (1939-1975). For instance, you can check the full list of works that won the Lletra d'Or awards, to the best year…

> What Franco did was to ban Catalan language from public institutions.

Like schools. An entire generation missed out on learning Catalan at school like my own mother. Call it whatever you want but that to me feels like forbidding a language.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#512
post #419
post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People voted for a dramatic improvement in the status quo, not necessarily for a perfect document. It was drafted by 7 hand-picked representatives, 4 of which were basically franchists, and ratified by franchist institutions before being put to a popular vote. Had it been written in a more democratic way, by an assembly of people elected democratically, maybe it would have been different and more respectful of differ…

That is pure revisionism. > It was drafted by 7 hand-picked representatives, 4 of which were basically franchists Two out of the seven writers of the Constitution were Catalan (~1/3 of the writers for ~1/6 of the population). One of them a communist. The other one, exiled during the dictatorship for supporting Catalan nationalism. > ratified by franchist institutions before being put to a popular vote Before being pu…

> The francoist party of Fraga only won 16/350 seats in that Congress;

The prime minister was still an ex-Franchist and the UCD had plenty of old hands around. The Franchists still had huge relevance in the army. The drafters were still moving with a somewhat limited room for manoeuver.

> could tell the writers to go back to their drafts until the result was to their liking.

Not really. These things don't happen in a vacuum, the longer the process and the higher the risk that it things could go pear-shaped. There was active terrorism and of course cold war activity. Compromises were made, which were good for the times but not necessarily the best overall.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of left flavored parties are for "income equality, except for foreigners" PVV in the Netherlands or Dansk Folkeparti in Denmark come to mind. I don't know enough about Podemos to know where to put them, but there's nothing contradicting about left leaning parties and nationalism.

For the the record: your position here is really fringe as far as the science goes. Most political science analysts agree that both PVV [1]and DF [2] are right-wing populists, not 'left-flavored' at all. See the very first line in both of the Wikipedia articles. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_for_Freedom (PVV) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_People%27s_Party (DF)

Well the article on DF also says "While overall considered part of the radical right, its policies on most economic issues would rather place the party in the centre to centre-left."

We try to squeeze too much meaning into the 1-dimensional "left-right" that it really doesn't mean anything at all.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#514
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard pro-independence people twisting facts for over 20 years... Not surprised anymore. Democracy is deciding new law based on current law following people's desires... Like it or not, every day meter of Catalan soil belongs as much to a Catalan woman as to an Andalusian man... Nobody in his right mind would say that Catalonia is an oppressed region by Spain's government... Quite the opposite actually.

> Like it or not, every day meter of Catalan soil belongs as much to a Catalan woman as to an Andalusian man Like it or not, Catalonia will break away from Spain if it wants to and there's nothing Spain can do to stop it short of murdering thousands of people. That's the choice Spain will have to make when it comes down to it.

> there's nothing Spain can do except murdering lots of people

That would be horrible, for sure, but don't worry. Using my disheveled imagination I think that asking the people responsible of breaking the laws to explain their behaviour in front of a jury could be one (very obvious) thing that Spain could do. It seems that they are doing it yet, in fact.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#515
It's interesting how Russia and Assange are backing every movement that weakens the West (Trump, Brexit, and now this):

http://www.businessinsider.com/julian-assange-catalonia-inde...

Russia wants to break apart the bloc with Germany at the center to dominate its neighbors. It's a replay of Russia's tensions with Europe that date at least to the Napoleonic wars, and include WWI and WWII.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#516
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In any democracy or lawful state, independence movements are just a matter of nationalistic feelings. It's normal they are a tricky thing. They do not obey the principles of solidarity (in this case) or rational thinking. They live mainly from either supremacist or victimization arguments.

I completely disagree. Perhaps to Americans, wherein the concept of 'ethnicity' is culturally foreign concept, it can be complicated to put into the local, American framework for understanding identity. People are different, cultures are different, ethnicities are different. Why do you think that after 1000 years of war (in the case of the 'Germanics' - you could say 2000 years, i.e. against the Romans) - that places…

> Why do you think that after 1000 years of war (in the case of the 'Germanics' - you could say 2000 years, i.e. against the Romans) - that places like 'Germany' still exist as a relatively coherent entity? Even when they were not 'a single state' they were allied.

When has "Germany" been a "a relatively coherent entity"? The "Germanics" the Romans fought against have just as much in common with today's Germans as they do with the French or the Dutch–the French get their name from a Germanic tribe (the Franks), the principal historical difference between France and Germany is that the Germanics who invaded the Roman Empire ended up adopting the language of the people they had conquered, whereas those who remained beyond its borders kept their original Germanic language.

Moving forward, what we call "Germany" today is just the Prussian-dominated part of the Holy Roman Empire–"Austria" being the other main component–the separation of "Germany" and "Austria" is fundamentally due to dynastic politics (the Hohenzollern dynasty ruling Prussia vs. the Habsburg dynasty ruling Austria) and religion (the former being dominated by Protestants, the later dominated by Catholics)–the differences between Austrians and Germans are really no greater than the internal differences within each country, and the fact that they are two separate countries today is more an accident of history than anything deeper.

The only time that historic Germany has ever been a "relatively coherent entity" was in the Nazi period. (I think Hitler's role in Austria-Germany relations was sort of paradoxical, in that despite briefly unifying the two countries, he ended up associating the whole idea of unification with his own odiousness, such that Austria-Germany unification is a lot less likely now than it would have been had Hitler never happened.)

> The boundaries of Europe for some reason always seem to 'snap back' to something resembling an ethnographic map.

Yes and no. On the one hand, political boundaries often (but not always) end up following ethnic boundaries. On the other hand, ethnicity is often a deliberate political construction. Look at France – for many decades, even centuries, the policy of the French central government was to suppress regional ethnic/cultural/linguistic identities in favour of a homogenous notion of Frenchness. If people on opposite sides of France see themselves today as having a common ethnic identity, that is due to the deliberate policy of the French state, rather than something that happened naturally.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#517
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

150 years after the US civil war, the confederate flag is still flying around. I wouldn't be to hasty to call it eventual.

While that's true, its only a small, mostly racist white minority that is really serious about secession. And don't forget that the Catalan people have their own cultural identity for hundreds of years. i.e. they have a legitimate claim of being different from other Spaniards and thus wishing for their independence.

> the Catalan people have their own cultural identity

Spain is divided into 17 communities. Each has their own cultural identity.

What I like about travelling around Spain (and I must do the Canaries and Balearics some day) is the microcosm of different regional flavours, e.g. Asturias and Galicia have bagpipes, the Basque country is a foodies delight, Andalucia has flamenco & Moorish palaces, the Canaries have a whistled language etc.

Now I get the Catalans feel "different" but when I see the graffiti around the place saying "X is NOT Spain", I wonder which Spanish identity they're referring to.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#518
post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part that makes it even more confusing for me is that their party, Podemos, is a real left party which you'd expect to be against increasing income inequality. I expect that the situation in Spain is much more complex than we give it credit for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podemos_(Spanish_political_par... EDIT: added link, changed "socialist" to "left"

Downvoted because "their" is a very misleading word. Podemos is not particularly Catalan.

Thank you for the correction.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but you don't see signs demanding "democracy" or secession (except perhaps in Texas, and not really much there either). That is, while there are confederate flags, there isn't a active, ongoing independence movement in the US south.

But there’s no chance a binding secession referendum would be allowed in the U.S..

Sure it would, if it got popular enough.

All you got to do is change the constitution.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then, let us Catalans be stupid and go to extintion ourselves. We will probably be fine. If you want us to be in Spain, please seduce us instead of forbid us everything. I haven't heard of any new independent country asking to be part again of the former one.

> if you want us to be in Spain, please seduce us Yeah, the tiresome "seduce us (with mo' fresh money)" argument again. I have a better idea, why you don't try to seduce me instead to call me thief (Spain stole us) and abuser (Spain oppress us and do not let us be free) and hit me all the time with a new surrealist occurrence (don't buy spanish products, here are a list of the evil companies that you must avoid if yo…

It sounds an awful lot like things aren't working out then. Perhaps a split is better?

Then you don't have to deal with them.

A vote is happening. There is nothing that the government can do to stop it unless they send in the tanks and start killing millions.

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