Hey Stefan. Here an Spaniard and a Donor (please please donate;^)
I listened the podcast about The truth about Catalonia Independence Referendum very carefully and it was funny hearing you being wrong (I lived to see you going wrong, hurra!). Not in your act of reason, but in the starting points, in the facts. Don’t misinterpret me but what you told was not all the truth. What I can tell you is that you focused the issue with certain naive assumptions. You would have told all the truth if...:
1.- If every Catalan were separatist: No. Last "Estatut" (the constitution-like law that gave Catalan politicians -not the people- more politic competences) were approved in referendum (legal one and ordered in a legal way) with an ashtonishing (ironic) suport of 36% of the people with the right to vote. In the last (2017) referendum, separatists obtained a 90% of "yes", a typical percentage of banana republics; yes, only they counted the votes; yes, it smells bad; yes, it´s a trap. I have to recognice it: they did a very, very good work of (international) propaganda. Now we know that most part of injuried during referendum were faked. That Police were not violent at all in general. That Separatists were not suffocated. But they wanted a visual narrative of repression, and stupid central government of Spain gave it to them.
2.- If Catalans were exploited by the rest of Spain: Not true. Pensions and official salaries (schools, hospitals, Police, etc.) are paid thanks to the rest of Spain, because... Yes: Catalan autonomous goverment is broke. Spain had to buy the Catalan debt that no other country wanted to.
3.- If Catalans would play economically better outside Spain: Not true, since Spain is the captive market of Catalan industries, and since Catalan industries have been privileged during hundred of years until now. Oh, yes, they talk about fiscal balances, but avoid talk about commercial balances, because is against their narrative. Catalan enterprises and business have been privileged even during Franco Dictatorship. He put industries in Catalonia (apparently against all odds, because they tell everyone Franco hated Catalonia): textile industries, car factories, pharmaceutics, Chemical industries, all went to Catalonia after Spanish Civil War. A lot of people from other regions of Spain had to go to Catalonia to get a work. And the rest of Spain became a captive market, Spain had to buy to Catalan industries instead of anywhere else. And they where watered with money from the taxes of Spanish People. I hope they don´t expect Spain be their captive market after independence, although they don´t believe in free market.
4.- If Catalans were a different people than Spanish. Separatists are identitarian because they came from Spain but they don´t want to be Spanish to the point that politicians preferred Moroccan an Pakistan immigration over latin-american immigration because the latter weren’t going to learn Catalan Language because they already know the language more extended in Catalonia: Spanish. The results: Catalonia is the principal European center of Islamic terrorism, and nowadays in Catalonia you can´t put a sign of your bussiness in Spanish language (yes in German, yes in Arabic, yes in Catalan, not in Spanish).
5.- If Catalans wanted Democracy: No: Separatist goverment (composed by an alliance of separatist right party, extreme left party and antifa party) want a system as democratic as Spanish system (ironic): They want a party-cracy, an oligarchy of parties (like Spain´s: lack of separation of powers, no representation, no responsibility and not revocability: people don’t exist in the politic arena, only parties, that are full of officials, people who hasn´t been in a bussiness in their entire life, and that is the root of the Spanish problem).
6.- If Catalans (or Catalan Goverment, which is pushing Catalans to independence) were seeking freedom: No they aren’t. I´ve already said they have a new “Estatut” (2006) that gives them more auto-government greater than Germany´s Babiera State has. In the other hand, Spain is not an authoritarian country but a “Democracy” in European way. They don´t lack freedom more than a Spaniard from other region. But Catalan politicians do lack freedom: Estatut has 223 articles (Spanish constituion 169; USA constituion only 7!) but Justice is a competence of Central State, and they have a long history of corruption, the LARGEST of any other region in Europe according to European Comission. And they want to rule and regulate everything. They don’t seek liberty, they dream with their political Tiranny. They are state-ists, they praise and were praised by Maduro´s Venezuela; their invented flag is a copy of the Cuban flag; Their state education competency (since 1978) allows them to manipulate children making them to literally hate Spain to the point to create a new Catalan invented history. But their freedom of speech where never attacked since 1978, and Spanish Constitution protect Autonomy Regions from any Central Goverment Injerence: Catalan goverment could spend billions of euros in the seek of the filosofal stone and Central goberment could do nothing about it.
7.- If Catalan Goverment were great in their duties with the rest of Spain: No: Catalan Goverment owes Central Treasure of Spain fifty thousand millions (fifty billions, one five, ten zeroes). And I´m not counting the external debt.
Catalan Independence is not about liberty nor freedom nor democracy. Catalan Independence is about a nationalist tyranny scaping from the long and winding road of Separatist corruption. Catalan Independence is about give more power to State (regional State). Catalan Independence is about a inminent negotiation with Central Goverment to get more money, more power. Catalan Independence is about demagogy and lies rooted in a identitarian hate.
Sorry everyone for my English, un afectuoso saludo, un abrazo, un beso y mi absoluta devoción.
