I am beginning to believe that PM Rajoy wants to push Catalonia into a unilateral declaration of independence. For he is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and it makes no sense.
Around the time of my last post, before the earthquake, the Spanish State was winning the battle. Public opinion polls were trending against as late as June. Local officials were negating support for the referendum. Madrid was in a perfect position to sit back, watch the vote, and shrug its shoulders even if happened. A few kind words in favor of autonomy would have killed the whole damned thing.
Instead ... and I am posting this only because I suspect some of you do not read Spanish news obsessively ... Spanish national police just raided Catalan government offices and arrested 13 officials. This is ... crazy. If I were Catalan that would not get me to support secession, but by God it would make me angry.
In that, I suspect I am pretty well normal. But in my absolute ideological rejection of secession I do not think that I am pretty well normal. Meaning that you could not do better to push people towards secessionism than to raid their government offices and arrest their politicians.
Imagine this in an American context. Calexit, somehow, gets on the ballot. Instead of ignoring this bit of West Coast silliness, the Trump administration starts insulting everyone in the movement. This is followed by Jeff Sessions mobilizing the National Guard to confiscate all pro-Calexit posters and pamphlets, ordering USPS and Fedex to suspend sending out any California election material, and sending in the FBI to arrest Californian officials. They grab a bunch of high-placed people in John Chiang’s office, grab a bunch of Betty Yee’s advisors for good measure, and top it off by arresting Gavin Newsom’s right-hand man.
That could turn a sideshow into a serious independence movement. But Catalonian independence is already more than a sideshow. Madrid should be very quiet right now. They should be quietly making an active case for Spanish unity, with no reference to the illegal referendum. Government spokespeople shouldbe quietly pointing out that independence would bring economic disaster, but they should only point that out when asked. They should put out short declarative statements that the referendum is nice but of no import, but again only when asked. And ... end.
Instead, we have what looks like, what, an attempt to have a second Civil War? What in the name of God and the madre patria are they thinking over there?
This is all beyond stupid.
Las pendejadas no acaban, seguramente Antonio Garci podría escribir un libro por año de historia de México y demostrar que este es un país, como lo dijo Bretón, surrealista, en el que cualquier cosa puede suceder.
Posted by: Michael Smith | October 17, 2018 at 06:06 AM