Spain
Early Returns: A bittersweet victory in Spain … the Catalan secessionist parties have won a majority in the regional elections, but it looks like the CiU will lose 12 seats in parliament:
“Nationalists in the Spanish region of Catalonia are set to win in regional elections, partial results show.
With more than 95% of the votes counted, the ruling CiU had 50 seats, short of an absolute majority. The separatist left-wing ERC had 21 seats.
Both are nationalists keen to hold a referendum on whether the region should break away from the rest of Spain.”
Update: Walter Russell Mead is claiming that the CiU lost seats, but the four secessionist parties combined won a huge majority, up to 95 of the 135 seats in Catalonia’s regional assembly:
“Exit polls from the regional elections in Catalonia show that pro-independence parties are winning a huge majority: up to 95 of the 135 seats in the regional assembly, according to analysis from the Financial Times. Worse, from Madrid’s point of view, the radical pro-independence forces are doing unexpectedly well. The next Catalan government will now be convinced that it has a mandate to hold a referendum on independence that Madrid says is illegal.
In a worst case scenario, the provincial authorities will attempt a referendum that the national government tries to block. It will be interesting in such a case to see whether the police obey local authorities or listen to Madrid. At the moment, no one knows what comes next; there is zero trust between Barcelona and Madrid right now . . .
Spain must now come to grips with an angry and increasingly ambitious Catalan national movement — even as the country attempts to calm foreign creditors and implement difficult economic reforms. It will be hard — it may be impossible — to get it all done. Failure will be much more consequential than anything that has happened or can happen in Greece; we are on the edge of our seats as we wait to see what comes next.”
Note: Catalonia is 12,399 square miles. Alabama alone is 52,419 square miles. In terms of population, there are 7.6 million Catalans to 4.8 million Alabamians. There are around 3.5 million White Alabamians.
The GDP of Catalonia is $314.4 billion. The GDP of Alabama is $174.4 billion. The GDP of Georgia is $403.1 billion. The GDP of North Carolina is $407.4 billion. The combined GDP of New England (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts) is only $800 billion.
The GDP of Texas is $1.3 trillion. The GDP of the ex-Confederacy plus Kentucky, West Virginia, and Oklahoma is $4.7 trillion. Yet in this Union there are 12 senators from New England and 2 senators from Texas.
Catalonia is a mouse compared to Texas.
Stonelifter says:
I know a number of Southron old school liberals who favor secession. Of course their version of liberalism isn’t the godless version that appears to be the normal up north….”
That’s a type, very known to southerners, but that doesn’t translate at all into northern terms. To them, “liberal” is a euphemism for Eastern European, usually Jewish, communists.
The white southern “liberalism,” that comes from the patron experience, is an entirely different animal.
The Southerner is motivated by a “big picture approach,” sophistication in the sense of knowing about many types of people and positions, in order to run a society). The “liberalism” of the “left,” is motivated by trying to apprise people in power of the underclass’s worth, of their pain, their contributions, etc.
In a sense, the current “liberal” stories, mythologies are interesting to the “old southern”— because to have effective power, it helps to know about the people in the society). They would RATHER hear this, than “try to fight for themselves.”
Like, how in “wn” they go on about not being allowed to have “white clubs.” To the Old Southerner this is a horror— a real sign of having LOST all power. As long as they don’t have a foreign government giving them a “white club,” they can sit back and study the groups (a position of power).
Truly, the whole thing doesn’t translate to the northeast experience, nor the northeast politics— they are southern types, very known to southerners, that the north simply doesn’t know about.
—Was trying to say that the “liberalisms” can look the same on the surface. But the motivational force behind the Southern old-school liberal that SL mentions, and the Northeast “liberal” are night and day.
“Texas takes OK, Kansas grabs OK, NE grabs onto Kansas, WY grabs onto NE.
I’m, really, pretty much thinking all the Great Plains and Mountain West states (ex. New Mex and CO – or maybe CO, at least the eastern part, can come too if we excise the Front Range …”
Barb,
While the South would be happy to have Y’All, this would sure hinge on a lot of “ifs”. The people in those independent states have as much of a right to decide for themselves as we do.
Based on the petitions, Wyoming/ Montana/ North Dakota have the strongest showing of all the states, percentage-wise. Y’All could cook up your own territory easily enough.
Jmho, but it would be a good thing for there to be different regions seeking secession, simultaneously. It would divide the resources of the federal government and help to wear them down. Coordination between regions would be a plus. The possibility of a “corridor” seems reasonable enough. How that could play out with the influx from south of the border (trying to reach their yankee advocates in the blue states) is a question. They are prone to violence and have no respect for the law, period. Even with an “agreement”, the lefties are vindictive enough that they would do nothing to discourage it (witness the silence wrt black on White violence of 0bama’s/ Holder’s “people”). The upside is that there aren’t a lot of niggers there- yet and maybe ever.
If your spirit is with the South, then maybe the thing to do is move back to consolidate, but I don’t think Y’All *need* to do that if you don’t want to. It really isn’t practical to try and maintain unity/ defend 2 areas so far apart (look at Gaza and the West Bank. And even that is just a fraction of the distance.) Each region has it’s assets and is home to each of us.
Nations of Catholic religion always had and have a stronger familial culture than Protestant ones. Feminism hit Spain the same time as northwestern Europe not making much of a dent in Spainards putting family first.
In the Spanish and Portugese colonies of the New World it wasn’t legal to tear apart slave families and sell individuals. Their pro family culture emanates so much deeper than the rest of Europe that I wonder if it could be genetic.
Feminism first originated in England and spread to other Protestant nations quicker. Feminism birthed in England isn’t surprising as its traditional culture emanates more on the antisocial NIMBY personae.
The Spanish and Brits/Irish/Welsh share a very close bloodline.
Could be the Swedes and German influence that influenced.
The Spanish are quite insular though. Or should it be called Peninsular?
Assertive domineering women are an American specialty though. The Marms of New England might be worse in that regard.
They always told me Anglo-Saxons were Germanics. I don’t know about the Celts and Gaels though.
One surprising finding of an isolated group of Northern North Pole located Europeans, the Sami peoples, found their closets relatives were the Basques.
Just found out the feminist cause burned as brightly in Enlightenment France. The noble Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, a really good mathematician, but without much sense, touted ideas of equality further insane than the Jacobines. This site (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/histfem-condorcet/) tells that,
This guy was responsible for unleashing Haitian Hell and Hunter ought to do some more research on this guy.
But as for more of feminist origins, some sources credit this to Christine de Pizan of 15th century Italy. But it really took off from the interest of an English noblewoman named Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the 17th century. Then the infamous Mary Wollstonecraft then lit the blazing fuel of rapid fire to the first organizers of the feminist movement.