What's Going on in Catalonia?

here's how you scroll http://bost.ocks.org/mike/scroll/

Also, the big difference with Scotland is the Constitution. All citizens are subject to it and in it the existence of a single state is established quite clearly. Not so for the Scots, rather the opposite. That is why their referendum made sense.

Notice that in the same constitution is stipulated that there is no right to carry out a referendum by anyone except the Spanish Government.

What will take place tomorrow is a travesty because only the people willing to say yes are encouraged to go to the stations. The others have absolutely no interest in taking part in a unilateral decision.

Yes, great photos and lots of people. And so what? There have been lots of people meeting in Spain for many other reasons which are not shared by the majority necessarily.

What is the way forward? I do not know but it is never a travesty of legality, which is what shall happen tomorrow.

However, the conclusion it makes me draw is that Catalonia want to ditch Spain almost entirely due to the economic downturn (see the graph of independence popularity). And to be fair, the Spanish government did make it worse and more painful, but is Catalonian electorate much different in terms of preferred economic policy?

To be fair, it looks really nice. But having scrolled through it twice and being annoyed by the hijacked scrolling and autoplaying video with sound, I still have no idea what this is about.

They want to keep be part of the EU, which is not that simple, open borders, same currency, use Spain's army instead of building one, football clubs to play on La Liga (this a very big deal for most Spaniards).

As someone from south Spain, I'm totally up for them to become independent if that's what they feel like. However, they shouldn't expect Spain's help at all.

The site is obviously catalan, but the bigger picture is way more complex than that.

Catalonia is a region of Spain wealthier that the rest of Spain.

In the middle ages they would buy raw materials to the rest of Spain, like wool, manufacture fabrics with high added value and sell it in the Mediterranean.

When Castilla colonized America, the Catalunian industry were one of the main beneficiaries. As they had access to a big market and again they bought raw materials.

When American colonies got independent, Catalunya was the region with highest repatriated capital.

Catalunia was very Spanish patriotic beneficiaries at the time as the number of Volunteers for Cuba's and north of Africa's war testify.

Losing the colonies was a disaster for Spain in general and Catalunya in particular. Lots of social turmoils happened as the Catalunya burguesia accumulated most of the wealth from the industry.

Catalunya became famous for the number of anarchists and communist it generated.

In the 1930s the gobertment of Cataluyna declared independence, mainly supported by the burguesia that thought it was going to control the independent state and the wealth themselves.

But soon they realized the workers took the control, seizing the goods of the burgueses, and declaring a dictatorship of the proletariat.

The burgueses panicked and gave all the support to dictator Franco that won the civil war.

Franco controlled Spain for 40 years, banned the use of Catalan language but heavy industrialized Catalunya putting there the manufacturing plants of Seat car manufacturer and other industries, making it the wealthiest region of Spain by far.

When democracy came, Suarez created a voting system that benefited minorities (including nationalists) over the majority.

This means that any majority needs the minority to govern the State.

Any president of Spain but the last one, from the left and from the right has required the nationalist support in order to rule.

So the nationalist asked for more power, in particular the power over education, the power over half of the taxes collection. Central gobertment gave in.

When nationalist controlled the education, they forced everyone to study in Catalan(inmersión lingustica), and created their own History, the Aragon's kings became the Catalan's kings, Valencia and Balearic islands and even Naples became the catalan's states.

The nationalist party also controls private media there with over 70% of their income coming from local government ads and public libraries subscriptions.

After 30 years of this most of the people there believe that they are being stolen by the state.

They will refer to data like "over 50% of PIB of Spain is generated by Catalunya" so they believe they are much better off getting independent.

What they omit on their analysis is that if they get independent they will be also losing their main market, and that a significant amount of this PIB number comes from companies that operate all around Spain and pay taxes just in Catalunya, that will flee the country if it get the independence.

The "right to choose" is misleading when not a single word has been spoken about the conditions of independence that they could get. The nationalists leaders want a blank check and burn the bridges,so they could later fill it with whatever they want.