{"id":27377,"date":"2017-10-28T11:02:18","date_gmt":"2017-10-28T16:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27377"},"modified":"2017-10-28T11:02:18","modified_gmt":"2017-10-28T16:02:18","slug":"catalonia-and-spain-enter-dangerous-uncharted-territory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27377","title":{"rendered":"Catalonia and Spain Enter Dangerous Uncharted Territory"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2017\/10\/27\/catalonia-and-spain-enter-dangerous-uncharted-territory\/\">Catalonia and Spain Enter Dangerous Uncharted Territory<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p><strong>Emotions are running high on both sides of the divide. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Today was one of the strangest days of my life. I woke up in a constitutional monarchy called Spain and will go to bed, the same bed, in a newly proclaimed republic. Catalonia\u2019s impossible dream has finally come true, but it could be extremely short lived, and it could have very damaging long lasting consequences.<\/p>\n<p>Spain\u2019s Senate responded to the Catalan parliament\u2019s declaration of independence this afternoon by ratifying the activation of Article 155 of Spain\u2019s Constitution, the nuclear button everyone has been waiting for. This will allow the central government to take full rein of the region\u2019s institutions and levers of power, including parliament, the police force, the exchequer (already done), public media, the Internet, the education system, and telecommunications \u2014 at least in theory.<\/p>\n<p>There is no telling just yet how Mariano Rajoy\u2019s government intends to stamp its authority on 2.5 million of the Catalans now in open rebellion, or for how long. Given the law\u2019s ambiguity, there are few constraints on its application, but trying to subdue a region where most of the 7.5 million-strong population are hostile to the basic notion of direct rule from Madrid is going to be a tall order, especially if the EU, which refuses to recognize Catalonia, expects Rajoy\u2019s government to bring Catalonia back into line through \u201cthe force of argument rather than the argument of force.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The force of argument is not exactly Rajoy\u2019s forte. In all likelihood, his government\u2019s first act will be to try to arrest the Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, suspend his ministers, and assume direct authority over the regional government. To do that, it will probably have to take full control of Catalonia\u2019s regional police force, the Mossos d\u2019Esquadra.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Catalonia and Spain Enter Dangerous Uncharted Territory Emotions are running high on both sides of the divide. Today was one of the strangest days of my life. I woke up in a constitutional monarchy called Spain and will go to bed, the same bed, in a newly proclaimed republic. Catalonia\u2019s impossible dream has finally come [&hellip;]<\/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":[5,6],"tags":[117,5660,968,743,4255],"class_list":["post-27377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-catalonia","tag-don-quijones","tag-independence","tag-spain","tag-wolfstreet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27377","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=27377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27378,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27377\/revisions\/27378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}