re: Catalonia region of Spain (Barcelona) has voted to declare independence from Spain

quote:

---

That, and they have cultural differences with the rest of Spain. But mostly the money thing.

---

It runs deeper than that. There is a lot of bad blood to this day related to the Civil War. You could find yourself imprisoned or worse during Franco's era just for speaking Catalan.

quote:

---

That's not to mention the fact that there were multiple reports that people were just voting over and over again. Even the "observers" confirmed that there was an extended period where their electronic lists were unavailable, and they had a two hour window after the poll close to try and remove multiples.

---

Yeah, there's a town with about 400 residents that recorded over a thousand votes. A city official also created a wordpress blog to record votes. Some were told to print ballots and drop them off, no ID or voter registration needed. You could go from polling station to polling station putting votes in.

It sounds ridiculous, but this is the narrative Catalonia wanted. Of course turn out was poor, and of course the only people who did show up to vote were in favor of independence. International media jumped all over the photos of police using force, which Catalonia is happy to show to the world as evidence of Madrid impeding democracy. They don't mention that a region in Spain is not legally allowed to vote on leaving, or that in 1978 Catalonia overwhelmingly ratified the Spanish constitution.

It's hard to have a conversation about it here without risking being called a fascist or a traitor. Politics is still a very touchy subject in Spain, since Franco died not too long ago. Remember, they became a democracy in 1978...

quote:

---

Franco stripped Catalan of its autonomy in 1938 and the Spanish courts and government have been blocking restoration ever since.

---

Franco stripped everyone of their autonomy when he won the war. But before that, Catalonia had autonomy within Spain. As they do now, as laid out by the 1978 constitution that Catalonia ratified.

quote:

---

So since you are supporting Franco's position on this I see why you are concerned about being misconstrued.

---

I'm really not supporting Francoism by defending the constitution. If Catalonia wants to be independent, by all means push forward with changing the constitution. But voting in local officials who ignore the constitution and create their own laws... yeah, I get why that's not going to go over too well.

All that said, I'm not Spanish, so I'm really not too concerned with getting involved.