{"id":26298,"date":"2017-09-30T18:24:30","date_gmt":"2017-09-30T23:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26298"},"modified":"2017-09-30T18:24:30","modified_gmt":"2017-09-30T23:24:30","slug":"dark-days-ahead-for-catalonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26298","title":{"rendered":"Dark Days Ahead for Catalonia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dark Days Ahead for Catalonia<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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It isn\u2019t just about what happens on Sunday; it\u2019s about the ensuing days and weeks.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The next 72 hours could be crucial not only for Catalonia, but also for the rest of Spain and Europe. For now, the cards are overwhelmingly stacked in Madrid\u2019s favor. The central government enjoys the outward support of all European institutions, key Western partners and has the full power of the law on its side as well as the full arsenal of state repression at its disposal.<\/p>\n

After confiscating millions of ballot slips and thousands of ballot boxes, and launching what Wikileaks\u2019 Julian Assange has termed<\/a> the \u201cworld\u2019s first Internet War\u201d against Catalonia, freezing telecommunications links, occupying telecoms buildings and censoring hundreds of websites, the Rajoy administration has made it logistically difficult, if not impossible, for the region to hold a credible referendum.<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s constitutional court even went so far as to ask Google to shut down the app that allows Catalans to see where they have to vote on Sunday. Even the two main civil associations behind Catalonia\u2019s push for independence have begun to tamp down expectations, conceding that the police operations have made it \u201cvery difficult\u201d to hold a meaningful vote.<\/p>\n

Now, all the government in Madrid has to do is sit back, watch and enjoy as the referendum\u2019s organizers struggle to achieve a turnout even close to that of the purely symbolic consultation it held on November 9, 2014. Then, on Monday or Tuesday, Rajoy, with a small dose of humility, can launch political negotiations with Catalonia\u2019s representatives from a position of strength.<\/p>\n

But he probably won\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The Spanish government\u2019s strategy so far has been to use the full extent of Spanish law to crush each and every attempt by Catalonia\u2019s independence movement and regional government to organize this vote. It\u2019s unlikely to stop now, when it\u2019s winning.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dark Days Ahead for Catalonia It isn\u2019t just about what happens on Sunday; it\u2019s about the ensuing days and weeks. The next 72 hours could be crucial not only for Catalonia, but also for the rest of Spain and Europe. For now, the cards are overwhelmingly stacked in Madrid\u2019s favor. The central government enjoys the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[117,5660,378,2001,495,672,9099,743,4255],"class_list":["post-26298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-catalonia","tag-don-quijones","tag-google","tag-julian-assange","tag-madrid","tag-referendum","tag-secession","tag-spain","tag-wolfstreet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26299,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26298\/revisions\/26299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}