The streets of Barcelona
Philip Roddis
One of my most enduring friendships is with Pete, who in 1976 took off to Barcelona and never came back. A passionate Catalan separatist, whose knowledge of the city and Catalan history puts many a native to shame, here’s his view from the barricades.
*
One or two people may be curious about what is happening in Catalonia these days and why.
It’s a long story.
Leaving historical grievances from the Compromise of Caspe in 1412 to the continuist transition of the late 1970s behind, we might say that today’s circumstances stem from the trashing of the Statute of Autonomy in 2006 and the extreme right-wing PP’s drive for votes. The idea behind the reform, agreed with the then President of Spain, was supposedly to revise and reform Catalan self-government.
That is also quite a long story; suffice it to say that a Catalan proposal was approved first by the Catalan Parliament and then admitted as a formal proposal by the Spanish Parliament. The PP filed a complaint to the Constitutional Court which threw out 14 articles and imposed mandatory interpretations on others.
That led to a massive demonstration in Barcelona of more than a million people under the slogan in Catalan Som una nació. Nosaltres decidim (in English, “We are a nation. We decide”).
Then it was negotiated again, reapproved, except for the right-wing PP and the disgusted Catalan nationalist parties and finally approved in a referendum in Catalonia in which participation was under 50%, an unprecedentedly low figure for this type of vote.
People here were pissed off.
Meanwhile, the leader of the PP was travelling Spain collecting votes against the use of Catalan for teaching in Catalan schools. Backed by a mass-media campaign “Do you know they force Spanish children to speak Catalan in school in Catalonia” “Spanish is under attack in Catalonia” he drummed up the latent anti-Catalan sentiment common across Spain, which had already been inflamed by the Statute of Autonomy negotiations.
This is a little story in itself.
First off, using Catalan as a vehicular language in school was largely promoted by neighbours’ and other popular associations of people who had moved to Catalonia from across Spain. (And therein lies another tale for another day: “the deliberate dilution of Catalonia”.) They rightly argued that any attempt to segregate by language would cause rifts and split society. The Catalan government also had plans for “normalising” the widespread use of Catalan, which had been prohibited since 1939. Catalan became the language of education, administration and even, up to a point, the legal system.
Secondly, Catalan kids get significantly higher marks in Castilian Spanish than Spanish kids do. Nowhere else do they question the fact that people who learn more than one language as kids find it easier to learn others. (And there’s another story that would fill a few pages, because outside Catalonia people really dislike our speaking another language. And I should know, because as a guiri, or foreigner, they openly speak of this dislike and ask poor me how I’m bearing up with “those bloody Catalans”.)
Thirdly, Spanish is hardly under attack. If you walk around town, you’ll hardly hear Catalan spoken at all. Add the many TV channels, YouTube, the rest of the Internet, the influx of South Americans, the Erasmus students and you might be able to work out which language is under attack.
The PP won the elections and directly set about attacking Catalonia.
“We’ve got to Hispanify those Catalan kids”, said the Minister of Education. Budgets were withheld, investments frozen, European infrastructure plans blocked. The deep state started working overtime spying and lying, poisoning public opinion.
This deflected attention from the massive corruption scandals involving public works, banking, real estate that the PP was mired in.
It also gave the independence movement a massive boost.
The annual 11th September marches have since congregated over 2 million people in totally peaceful, fiesta-like demonstrations. People of all ages attend them. In wheelchairs, with prams, with granny walkers, with papooses…And there’s never as much as an empty beer can on the street afterwards.
As the movement grew, so did the demands. The then conservative Catalan government was faced with a choice, support it or lose votes. They sort of supported it. A non-binding referendum was held in which participation was more or less confined to people with separatist ideas: 80% yes, 10% no.
The movement continued to grow on the streets and in Parliament. Eventually, pushed by the grass roots movements a referendum was organised for October 1st, 2017.
Before that, the police raided the Catalan Treasury to search for documentation on misuse of public funds. There was a mass demonstration to prevent them. Two grassroot leaders tried to stop the crowd from preventing the police from doing their work; https://twitter.com/i/status/1184838979603927041.
The PP government, true to type, swore to stop the vote and failed. The wily separatist movements had the ballot boxes in place on time all over the country in a feat of organisation that left the State’s forces flatfooted. There were even comic scenes as when the President swapped cars under a bridge and the police helicopters followed the wrong one to the wrong place.
So, having imported thousands of riot police from across the country (who embarked to chants of “Go and scrag ‘em” from their neighbours) the State decided to confiscate the ballot boxes.
Again, the vote was attended by people of all kinds and ages; school children who had camped out in the schools to prevent occupation, grannies (there’s no revolution without our grannies!!), old codgers like us, workers, students and even a few who came to vote no and carried Spanish flags, to the applause of the crowd.
Soon, we had scenes of police smashing up schools, jumping two-footed on prostrate ladies, coshing grannies over the head and generally doing what they do best. This upset a lot of people who, while not being separatists, switched to defend the right to have our say. Some of these are on the streets as I write.
Despite all this, very few ballot boxes were confiscated.
(Why did the state take this route? Wouldn’t it have been easier to allow the vote and disqualify it or simply ignore it? Talk about it? Search for an alternative. No. They never have, and they never will.)
Catalonia has a history of pacts, agreements, deals, treaties and generally looking for a way of working together. Up to a point; and don’t forget we’re talking 40 years of this last phase alone.
Castile has a history of conquest, of centralised dominion from its perch atop the meseta. Madrid was artificially created to that end. To dominate, control and exploit.
The PP has consistently centralised all rail and road communications to ensure that everything has to go through Madrid, even the European Mediterranean Corridor running from Morocco to Finland. It has tried to standardise and Hispanify Catalonia. That’s its nature.
Andalusia is Madrid’s theme park, Levant its beach and Catalonia and Euskadi its industrial and creative money spinners. And nothing else.)
After the vote and under pressure form the widespread grassroot movements, the government made a big mistake. It declared independence and then “suspended” it in the hope of negotiation and naively, some kind of mediation from Europe.
The state shutdown the autonomous government, imposed direct rule and gloated about “decapitating the Catalan independence movement”. Elections were set for December and the separatist parties again won a majority.
And so, after the police violence, judicial violence. 9 politicians and grassroots leaders were jailed for 2 years before going to trial and then sentenced to up to 9. The Speaker has been sentenced to 9 years for permitting the debate and vote.
The retired Catalan public prosecutor, not a sympathetic figure and certainly not in favour of independence or the vote said
First the sentence is for sedition, which is not an offence similar to rebellion, because it is against public order and not the Constitution. But then, the Court gives a political dimension to sedition to avoid ruling on a simple question of civil disobedience.”
And:
Sedition is an offence against public order and not the Constitution. A public order offence can never deserve a harsher sentence than murder or rape. If the convicted people serve all their sentence, they will be in jail for longer than rapists and murderers, which they do not deserve. Even people who are not in favour of independence can see this.”
And so we took to the streets. What else can we do?
As Jordi Cuixart, one of the grassroot leaders said in court,
Do you think you can stop this by sending us to jail? You, who are conniving in the prosecution with self-declared right-wing extremists against people who organised a popular vote? People who are in favour of a democratic solution to this conflict? It’s my responsibility to say here and now that we’ll do it again.”
I’ve just dashed this off with no editing.
It’s been a long week for us. On Monday, M took care of her Mom and I finished a load of work. Then we were cutting of the traffic in Diagonal/Passeig de Gràcia. Then we tried to get to the airport but the pollies had shut down the railway and metro.
So we cut off the traffic at the end of the Diagonal and when all the students who had thronged there left to walk 13 km to the airport , we went and had a bite before heading to Plaça Sant Jaume for the 7 o’clock demo, which, as there was not a pollie in sight, was perfectly peaceful.
After a curry, we headed to the central pollie shop on Via Laietana to chant “Forces of Occupation out!” and there was no violence at all. Until the pollies knocked down their own barriers and chased the -till then- peaceful crowd.
M got carried away in the crush into a nearby building and I, having lost sight of her and casting around, was quickly surrounded by 4 pollies, 3 of which laid into me with verve and gusto.
This had nothing to do with me. Even when I was walking away they came at me from behind, hitting to hurt for no reason. After about an hour the people in the building were allowed to leave one by one, hands in the air.
That was the first outbreak of violence and since then, they have all followed the same pattern. People standing or often sitting have been repeatedly beaten and charged. If the pollies aren’t there, there’s no violence. When they show up and start shooting, clubbing and running people down, it breaks out.
(Above: President in functions visits Catalonia, sees injured police, not injured Catalans, is shouted out of hospital by doctors and nurses and leaves with windows down and machine guns at the ready. Spain is a fascist state.)
On Friday there was a general strike and the columns of people who had walked 100 Km in three days along the main roads of all Catalonia reached the city. Officially, we numbered 575000, but, compared to the 11th September official figures of 1.5 million, there were far, far many more. And not a beer can on the ground.
Since then, we’ve been out every night; sometimes quite by chance at a safe distance. Clothes stinking of burning plastic. We’re off out later…
Meanwhile …
Minutes after this beautiful moment the police has charged against us with their vans at max speed almost hitting lots of us and cornered us in the middle of Pl. Cataluña surrounding us with the vans so we cannot scape and shooting at us. Is this democracy? #SpainIsAFascitEstate pic.twitter.com/6rbOtKLJNX
— Memir (@merinomiro) October 18, 2019
… there have been big demonstrations in the Basque Country …
#ErreferendumaEzDaDelitua
Jendetza Kataluniaren alde Donostiako manifestazioan, eta jende gazte asko. #AltsasukoakASKE ere presente pic.twitter.com/7Jkv2ztLpe— Ahotsa.info (@AhotsaInfo) October 19, 2019
… and in Madrid! where the pollies had no end of a good time. I wonder why?
You can say one thing for the pollies though; they don’t discriminate. They hit anybody of any age, standing, sitting or semi-conscious. The press, usually young, are also taking a pasting and being arrested.
UPDATE Oct 21: Four people have lost an eye to rubber bullets, of which thousands have been fired. 28 in jail, nearly a thousand arrested and nearly 600 wounded, not counting those like me who did not go to hospital to get a report.
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This is absurd barbarism .Here I thought that Spain was a civilized country.Absolutely shameful .
This week Spanish dictator Franco (1892-1975) was exhumed, transported by helicopter, and reburied. The Spanish PM stated this was “a great victory for democracy”. If moving a coffin 56 km (35 miles) is a great victory for democracy then what is a small victory?
The burial site of the dictator was decided 45 years ago. I daresay that if the corpse needed moving, an agreement with other political parties could be found, and some quiet diplomacy with the Franco family might have borne fruit. Instead the Spanish socialist PM unilaterally blew up an agreement made 45 years ago. Under these circumstances, what is an agreement with the Spanish Labour party worth?
Let the dead rest in peace. How would you feel if your late relatives were dug up on the say so of some slag politician who wanted to do a bit of virtue signalling? I’d find out where his relatives were buried and desecrate the graves. If that’s the way things are going to be, find the grave of some politician you disagree with, like Thatcher, Heath, or whoever, dig up the body and throw the remains around. If we have to live in a world devoid of a shred of human decency, so be it. Let’s just go the whole hog and start desecrating graves as a bit of fun entertainment.
I’m all for democracy and independence, however, I recall that the Catalan referendum polled less than 50% in favour, I think it was 45%. Sorry, but that’s not enough.
The number you show only applies (more or less), when you would consider all non-voters to have voted ‘no’.
The actual result was this
The referendum question, which voters answered with “Yes” or “No”, was “Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state in the form of a republic?”. The “Yes” side won, with 2,044,038 (92.01%) voting for independence and 177,547 (7.99%) voting against, on a turnout of 43.03%.
Ah, but 92% wasn’t enough.
Like 52% wasn’t enough in the UK.
Anyhow, Vlad The Bad rigged it all, apparently.
This piece immediately put in mind of the famous King Lear descent into the nakedness of madness scenes – essentially alone on the heath (with his Fool), his world falling apart, civil war in the background, death and tragedy breaking all around – in his final realisation that he has been the architect all along of the psychic storm that rages without as within. But still seeking to disburden himself from the bulk of the blame (“a man more sinned against than sinned”) before the final madness descends. Cursing the weather and challenging it to do its damnedest: “Laws of Nature: why will you not obey me?” Ok: I might have been a bit liberal with my reinterpretation of Shakespeare. But as with Lear: so with Catalonia. The established measure of quantifying ecological footprints is the ‘global hectare’ (gha). Which is the approximated amount of land – in hectares per… Read more »
“at the beginning of May in Barcelona, Trotskyists and anarchists had exchanged gunfire with the forces of order of the Generalitat and the republican government. He knew that they had proclaimed the revolution and that they had been defeated after six days of fighting that left more than two hundred corpses in the streets of the city, all anti-fascist.” From “Los pacientes del doctor García”, by Almudena Grandes. This is an extract from a Spanish historic novel about the Spanish civil war. Yes, they called themselves antifa back then, too. To me, the events in Catalonia and Brexit are one and the same: people want power to return to the local level. They want their identity back, too. You might call it localisation, the opposite of globalisation. Right now, we have three issues which are divisive: global vs. local, climate change vs. prosperity, migration vs. identity. Civil conversation about these… Read more »
The author of this article, full of inaccuracies, disinformation and fake news, shows a PROFOUND misunderstanding of the secessionist problem in Spain and the situation in Catalonia. Although it will be too long, tedious and, given the ‘fanatic’ nature os most of the readership, not very profitable to correct and respond to all the drivel and garbage tossed in this text, it is important to clarify, if only for the record, certain points. 1- Franco DID NOT ban the Catalan language, something that, even if wanted, would have been IMPOSSIBLE. He just REVERTED to old policies for the use of a single OFICIAL language for the whole of Spain, like it was done in most of the other ‘civilised’ countries with significant linguistic minorities (France, Britain, USA, etc…). 2- One of the MOST important factors in Franco’s victory in the Spanish Civil War, was the division created by the Catalan… Read more »
Great points, but the revolutionary Trotskyists here will downvote you regardless.
That’s right. Many people have made up their minds, mainly because they think that any demonstration that waves a few fake ‘red’ flags or confronts the police for whatever reason is, automatically, a ‘good’ thing, an act of ‘just’ rebellion or even a ‘revolutionary’ cause worth supporting. The truth is that, the Catalan and other secessionist processes around the world, are profoundly conservative and ‘counter-revolutionary’. They are rebellions of ‘feudal’ strata of society.
Apparently the color revolution in HK is good.
Do you agree
This is the typical piece of crap, written by the typical PEDANT that, living like a ‘vegetable’ in a new country for a few years, thinks that has managed to integrate himself and be part of the ‘picture’. No doubt, this poor ignorant man, has been taken for a ride by his ‘Cata-Nazi’ friends, as they are called in Spain. Catalonian secessionists (secessionists that think that they have a better DNA than the rest of us and that those who speak Spanish are ‘beasts and have a defective DNA’, as today’s President of Catalonia once said), have been mobilised, with generous funding and support, by one the most RACIST AND CORRUPT oligarchies of Spain, Europe and the World. An oligarchy that, under threat of investigation by the judicial authorities, responded with a political process of ‘independence’ in a bid to save their immense fortunes, juicy positions and absolute power. Catalonia… Read more »
The recent spat of secessionism in Catalonia is only a reflection of the feudal methods that the Spanish corrupt oligarchy uses to dominate Spain
well, if they want to escape from a corrupt feudal oligarchy, then they must obviously be nazis.
conversely, are you sure you aren’t actually a falangist?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falangism#Nationalism_and_racialism
They are an integral part of that Feudal System… they are the feudal Lords… some of the worst.
Hey Slobodan,
Well, that’s what you acuse the Croatians (and Slovenians and the rest) of being, for their “crime” of wanting to leave Serb-dominated, corrupt, articifially-created post-WW1 Yugoslavia!
Catalonia = Croatia
Spain = Yugoslavia
Bloody hypocrites.
“This is the typical piece of crap, written by the typical PEDANT that, living like a ‘vegetable’ in a new country for a few years, thinks that has managed to integrate himself and be part of the ‘picture’. No doubt, this poor ignorant man, has been taken for a ride by his ‘Cata-Nazi’ friends, as they are called in Spain.”
Pete has lived in Catalonia forty-three years. How long have y been there?
There is an old Spanish proverb that says: ‘You might have entered in Madrid, but Madrid has not entered in you’… meaning that it is not good enough to ‘be there’ to understand, apprehend, master or discern the nature of a situation or place. In Britain, for example, there are many people that have been ‘living’ in the country without even speaking the language or experiencing other things than the rigours of their close communities. Similarly, many British ‘colonials’ (or ‘tourists’ today), were well known for their lack of comprehension of the countries and cultures in which they lived or, even, managed. The ‘presentiality’ argument is not a guarantee of anything, as we have tried to show in our previous comments, if only because nobody can be everywhere at once and, so, it can be turned on anyone by asking in this case… ‘In which part of Catalonia has the… Read more »
There is an old Yorkshire saying that “he who begins a BTL comment with ‘this is the typical piece of crap written by the typical PEDANT that, living like a ‘vegetable’ in a new country for a few years,” is not a person seriously interested in civilised debate.
This latest comment,espartaco, is a little less juvenile, a little less ad hominem. You also make a fair point on the Six Counies (Ulster is nine, btw). But it ends with a statement that Pete’s “text shows a poor grasp of the background and history of Spain in general and of Catalonia in particular.”
I’d dispute that but it is beside the point. What Pete wrote was an eyewitness account from the streets of Barcelona. In my view and that of many others he does a pretty good job of it.
Given the disrespectful tone of the article and its many LIES and FAKE NEWS about the situation, about Spain in general and about the MAJORITY of Catalans (that ARE NOT secessionists), we will be forgiven to start some of our comments with the forceful language required to shake, those who believe this infantile misrepresentation of the Catalan problem, from their ‘slumbers’. Our earlier comments have pointed out only some of the gross inaccuracies contained in the article and in an interpretation that is extremely biased and naïve. It might be that there is a case for independence in many regions of the world, including Catalonia, but certainly it cannot be based on distortions and misinformation. The author is in urgent need of a more critical and calmed thinking.
Au contraire, Espartaco. Such puerile ad hominems, far from shaking anyone from their ‘slumber’, have a positively soporific effect.
Great write up by Pete.
You are not alone all Europeans are long interlinked. They have had the same masters for millennia. Differences of local language or geographic dispersal doesn’t mean that the yokes were thrown off.
That is why revolutionary moments arise at the same times across the nations. When the poor have so little to lose.
Normally the peasants are murdered on mass and a little ground is given to the survivors. That is then reclaimed after a generation or two so that the ancient exploitation continues, until the next uprising …
You are not alone, the coming one will be the greatest one of all so far.
No pasaran!
Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable. Now that the Catalan people have seen all avenues for peaceful change blocked off by Madrid’s Fascist Thugs, they are entitled to take whatever action is necessary to secure their rights and dignity. The Spanish state lost all legitimacy when it sent in its Boot Boys to smash up polling stations and club down old age pensioners waiting quietly in line to cast their vote. The corrupt, politicised Francoist judiciary should be treated with the contempt it deserves. When democratically elected politicians are subjected to illegitimate kangaroo courts and imprisoned for years, the time has come to draw the obvious conclusions and repay these people in their own coin. The Fascist Police Force and all institutions of the Madrid Regime should be treated as an alien occupying force that remains in Catalonia entirely at its own risk. Any and all… Read more »
Astonishingly hyprocritical that you support Catalonia to escape from the Spanish “thugs”, yet do not afford the same rights for Croatia to escape from the Yugoslav (Serb) thugs.
Croatia was never more than a shitty little Nazi satellite. It has a lot in common with the present coup regime in Ukraine. Now it is just another NATO/ CIA playground and terrorist support base. Any “Serb thugs” probably come in a poor second to Ustashi thugs. Federal Yugoslavia was quite a civilised place (Tito was a Croat.) It had a mixed economy, with private companies employing up to 25 people permitted, reasonable standard of living, people allowed to travel and work abroad freely, widely respected throughout the world. It was deliberately broken up into a patchwork quilt of satellite statelets without any vestige of sovereignty directly controlled by Washington and Brussels in their own interests. The same fate that has been planned for Syria, Iraq, Libya, and even China and Russia. The destruction of Yugoslavia provided a template for aggression against so many other countries. The misery that was… Read more »
A bunch of countries that were forcefully put together after WW1, dominated by one nationality, one religion, one self-appointed “royal family” and where all the money earned by the others would disappear into a black hole. It was never going to stay together.
Oh, and they had their own concentration camps too where countless thousands of non-Serbs died too.
Keep on drinking the Serb koolaid though, and wearing those Trotskyist rose tinted specs.
Trotsky wouldn’t have lasted long in Yugoslavia.
There is a lot of atrocity kool aid that has been drunk about the BBC’s concentration camps and 100,000 genocided Kosovans.
I’m just surprised they couldn’t come up with a bit of sarin or novichok as well.
Or at least a few bodies turned into soap.
Acte 50 here today in France, the 50th consecutive week of gilets jaunes protests (and a lot of people were on the streets all across France); and a lot of solidarity with what’s going on in Spain, with lots of Catalan flags on display. Also solidarity with what’s going on in Chile, Ecuador, etc. The psychopaths who rule us must be crapping themselves.
Even more so because 100 gilets jaunes came over to the UK to join the protest on Monday outside Westminster Magistrates Court, where Julian Assange was in the dock.
Every picture tells a story. How different are the people in this picture to the one above.
I often wonder what language/s the Iberian tribes spoke before the Romans invaded.
Wikipedia is your friend: The Iberian language, like all the other Paleo-Hispanic languages except Basque, became extinct by the 1st to 2nd centuries AD, after being gradually replaced by Latin due to the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. Iberian is unclassified: while the scripts used to write it have been deciphered to various extents, the language itself remains largely unknown. Links with other languages have been suggested, especially the Basque language, based largely on the observed similarities between the numerical systems of the two. … According to the Catalan Theory[3], the Iberian language originated in northern Catalonia, where the earliest Iberian inscriptions are documented (600 BC). [So, a 2,000 year old ethnic feud between the Basque Lingo-group and the Italic Lingo-group; even longer than the feud between the Britonic Lingo-group of the Highlands and Islands vs the Germanic Lingo-group of the English Flatlands. Incidentally, the Franco Latin “Chanson de… Read more »
Celtic-speaking peoples also lived in northern to central Iberia from about 500s BC onwards and in some parts of the peninsula various communities of mixed Celt-Iberian ancestry and culture existed.
Jen, again from our webby friend, ” Italo-Celtic is a grouping of the Italic and Celtic branches of the Indo-European language family”.
So what we are seeing is the unconscious racial memory of an Ancient Iberian language ethnic group still trying to resist an overwhelming inroad by the Ancient Italic language ethnic group. The ghosts of ancient Language Families still stalk the earth; with the irony that Catalans now speak an Italic language (Spanish or Catalan), the way most Celts in the UK now speak a Germanic language (Anglish). They can all take heart from the Jews in Israel, who have revived a modern variant of their ancient Semitic Language.
Historical context: The scenes that are emerging this day and age r extremely similar to the scenes that occurred circa 1900 all around Europe. Working class and peasants alike were demanding a fair and more equitable distribution of wealth. La nuova bourgeoisia the new bourgeoisie( which most historians would call the Gilded age) had expanded to the point where it created the largest wealth gap in the new Industrial age.Here we are today where the richest 26 entities posses more wealth than have the worlds population(UN Stats). Perfect example Chile is in the top 30 nations in the world with the largest wealth gap between i ricchi e il resto del popolo. With regards to Catalonia it has always been and still is the largest economic force in the Spanish /Iberean economy. Remember that during the Spanish civil war Catalonia was the last standing area against Franco’s fascisitc take over… Read more »
I seem to recall that early on in this recent effort by Catalans (many of those who are definitely among the bourgeoisie are those most desirous of separation) that one of the reasons given by the Catalan Separatist leaders for wanting to exit Spain as a political entity was that (too much) to their taxes were being “given” to the poor in Andalucia – Heaven Forfend. I mean, the bourgeoisie have far greater need of their money. How could they afford their goodies otherwise? I have no stake in this game (I doubt that the Catalan Separatist leaders are largely kindred in their political worldview with the Barcelona Anarchists during the Civil War), but I also seem to recall hearing on the Beeb (not, of course, a disseminator of truth on anything) that when the referendum for separation/independence was held not only did the majority of Catalans not vote but… Read more »
@AnneR
Simple rule of thumb > If the legacy media and msm take issue with something then question it? It is all based on their Goebbelsque methodology to steer events.
Simple old rule divide and conquer.
My point is that we in the west have real bread and butter issues IE: he paradigm shift that is being imposed on we the sheeple. AI ,singularity ,the death of the fiat monetary system, the wealth extraction to the 1 percent and the constant social engineering that is beiong rammed our throats.
POST SCRIPTUM: More and more sheeple are wising up .Is it enough to bring about a posiitve outcome?
Only Allah knows.
The lack of intellectual honesty and the blatant gas lighting that is occurring speaks volumes to the systemic degradation that is occurring hear in the dying western sphere of the world.
Falcemartello – I am most certainly aware that the MSM, whether corporate owned or government funded (by taxes), has been in the business of ensuring that the hoi polloi are distracted, misinformed, disinformed and ultimately uninformed, that the “news” they disseminate is “Newspeak.” Full of lies, obfuscations, distractions, deflections, rerouting and omissions. It is essential, however, to listen (or read or watch if those are the preferred media) to the propaganda they spew in order to know what is indeed being fed the vox populi, that the status quo be maintained. Then one turns to the “alternative” media in hopes, at least, of getting the other side(s) perspectives, views and thereby getting some idea of what really is the truth of any matter. As I wrote, I’ve no skin in the Catalunya game. I only hope that the working class and poorer Catalans don’t get screwed by the bourgeoisie, Spanish… Read more »
A EU could works wonders if they allowed Catalunya straight in, same for Scotland, but they won’t.
Spain/ Madrid is scared to fall to “pieces” even being in the EU? It is surrounded by water, who is going to invade?
This is one of the reasons why the EU is useless, as it enforces top down power and remote micro management. And right now they encourage illegal immigration from Africa and Asia, probably their biggest mistake.
Off-topic What is wrong with Media-Lens? I used to think they were pretty good. And now they are saying in their latest media alert that ‘The leftist website, OffGuardian, which hosts extreme climate denial (see here, here and here), commented this month: ‘Remember – when the MSM don’t want you to support a protest movement they just don’t tell you about it. Think #giletsjaune. ‘#ExtinctionRebellion is theatre – we’re invited to take sides, polarise, but never question what actually lies behind the movement’ Ironically, this favoured left take is also popular with hard-right corporate media. A recent comment piece in the Telegraph was titled: ‘Extinction Rebellion exposes Left-wing activism as a global elite sham’ My question, why does Media Lens want to brandish all sceptics who oppose the Thunberg phenomenon into the camp of the ‘hard right wing’. Why can’t they look into the (IMO) valid critisicm that what Thunberg… Read more »
Media Lens swallows the narrative of catastrophic fear – flagged to carbon dioxide – and reinforced with directed guilt and hate at the oil sector, while manipulating an indoctrination of environmental ‘religion’ of human self-hatred that sacrifices to the sustainability of the very system of scarcity and control that actually poisons, degrades and kills – rather than the computer modelling nightmare scenarios that are injected into the media feed without regard for truth for over 3 decades. Manipulation by guilt and fear targets energy production, usage and control under a de-industrialised hi tech world order. The Internment of Things offers ‘smart cities of population concentration for the incentivised dispossession of people from their homes, their land, their cultural identity, their mind. No one in their Right Mind would support such an agenda and so the means to induce wrong minded fear, guilt and division are developed and deployed. Hatred of… Read more »
The mind is a lens and a medium of communication
Even the mind is limited, as we will all find out when AI takes over. Thanks GoD there are realms beyond the intellect. Till we reach there we have to apply our own minds critically on various mental nightmare scenarios. It is going to be different.
Well the human mind is already a kind of mechanical intelligence, running instead of life – as the modern idea of the Matrix or Plato’s Cave. Orwell’s slavery is a price willingly paid to escape room 101 – just that most people learn where not to question, ask or go to – from tacit social communications. It is the presumption of separation of self and Life – as a separate life – that must always seek outside itself to sustain the sense of control of a self-possession. As if without such imposition of judgement of censor and control – hell would break loose – or break in. But in any inspired activity we can realise that such control only gets in the way and generates blocks or false trails – such as to NEVER ‘reach there’ in your terms of fulfilment. War on ‘whatever’ is the way to persist and… Read more »
By the way – to the topic of the article: A true identity is extended and received not polarised against. If we want equality we have to live it or else we seek to bring down another as the way to bring ourself up. Grievances and fears are often undercurrent to then flag onto all sorts of associations – real or imagined. These ‘threats’ then generate defensive or offensive reaction instead of a willingness to attend more honestly. Fear of loss is always undercurrent to an uncertain or untrue sense of possession. No one wants to lose – and in that they all unite under the idea of lack and division instead of seeking win-win solutions in the art of the possible. The Catalonian (or any distinct cultural domain) deserves acknowledgement and respect of its right to be. That does not automatically extend a right to political or territorial independence… Read more »
Brian, you are a pearl amongst …
future pearls.
Oh, AI is going to “take over”, is it? Good luck with that in the age of the Long Descent.
Indeed. But there is that human foible of giving power to wishful belief that this or that will save us from our selves, or answer those problems that define us in a denied sense of ourselves. Why do we so readily give power away and in consequence suffer the ages of Long Descent as a Separation or Fall by definition? Is it not because once given power, ideas and beliefs operate as powerful in our unwitting self programmed sense of self of beliefs made real by reaction? IE: They run as internalised structures that are invisible – and set the frame by which we then interpret, perceive and respond or react? In this way I see the world we are making – which we may call a cultural development or logical unfolding of inherited idea – as an explication of already active internalised structures of belief – running as if… Read more »
You’ve touched on a central – indeed possibly THE central – mechanism of propagandist guidance in the West i.e. it isn’t “The Right” that signals what the capitalistically compliant governments are going to do. It’s the designated opposition. To give a simplified hypothetical example: the government wants to slash wages by a quarter. It announces a proposed slash of a half. Riots ensue and “The Left” steps in to campaign for smaller cuts. The government – after a a big show of reluctance – makes a big display of grudgingly giving in to demands and decrease the cuts to a quarter. And “The Left” trumpets its “success” and the people go away thinking, “Yeah – WE showed them!” In this case, “The Right” deny climate change and “The Left” deliver doomsday scenarios while proposing a solution that is ever so acceptable to the corporate elite. Those two positions are the… Read more »
@ George Mc
Oldest trick in the book. IE: during ancient Rome post the Carthegean demise. there were senators who were calling out the then elite for the graft and the way they were enslaving the average roman citizen. Pompei uprising ,Viterbo uprising and Perusian uprising were all brutally destroyed. 2 senators who managed the popular uprising thought they were safe and were brutally knifed to death in the forum as they were going to the senate to propose a new statute to protect the peasant tenement farmers who with every generation after the creation of the republica romana were becoming poorer with every new generation.
POST SCRIPTUM: Same as it ever was
DOCIUS IN FUNDEM: U still think we defeated fascism in ww2?
George, there is only top and bottom.
The very few and the very many.
It is a 3 dimensional pyramid of human control.
All at the top aim to control all below through this classic power nexus. With willing stooges lining up to fill the bottom of their pyramid and play theit assigned roles.
When the 3D is flattened into a 2D triangle and that is squashed down to a 1D line, the left-right lie comes into being.
Relax, Media Lens are just 2 guys who are doing a great job – nothing healthier than having different points of view across the alternative media.
God forbid we should move toward the kind of Groupthink that defines the MSM.
I followed some of the Off-G / Media Lens spat on Twitter – was mildly surprised by it, but regard it as no more than grist to the mill when big subjects are tackled.
Needless to say different points about climate change BTL at Off-G as well.
The voice of sanity.
Exactly so, bevin. Thanks for the common sense, Harry.
As a realist, I would answer you by saying that there’s very few people who can’t be bought.
The ones who stand out in history are those who really can’t be bought.
Medialens describe themselves as: “We reject the idea that journalists are generally guilty of self-censorship and conscious lying; we believe that the all-too-human tendency to self-deception accounts for their conviction that they are honest purveyors of uncompromised truth.” They strongly disassociate themselves with conspiracy theories and consequently see OffGuardian as pro Russian, conspiracy theorist, climate change sceptics. Luke Harding’s laughing his ass off.
“They strongly disassociate themselves with conspiracy theories and consequently see OffGuardian as pro Russian, conspiracy theorist, climate change sceptics. ..”
How do you reach this conclusion?
It is extraordinary that Media Lens, one of the most reliable sources of rigorous criticism of the propaganda which infects society, that comes in not just for criticism-which is always welcome- but for unsubstantiated smears.
The moral of the story being that ruling class propaganda is what triumphs when it is mimicked by its critics. Media Lens is on your side. Or at least the side that you affect to be on.
Get over yourself. My “conclusion” is their own statement/rules of play that “In seeking to understand the basis and operation of this systematic distortion, we flatly reject all conspiracy theories and point instead to the inevitably corrupting effects of free market forces operating on and through media”.
If you flatly deny conspiracy as playing a part in propaganda, you might as well join the LibDems.
“we flatly reject all conspiracy theories” is a colossally stupid statement. Are we supposed to assume that “systematic distortion” and the “corrupting effects of free market forces” both operate as subconscious or transcendent force manipulating people without their awareness? Michael Parenti was good at noting how this conspiracy phobia seems to lead to a notion that people operate as zombies shuffling around and therefore innocents prey to malign spiritual entities. Yes there are market forces, structural tendencies etc. But these matters and conspiracies are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, it’s hard to see how “the market” and politics can operate WITHOUT conspiracies. I am so sick of this knee jerk aversion to the word “conspiracy”. And every time I see it, I automatically feel less interest in the ones who react this way. And no – I don’t think that THEY are part of a conspiracy. They’ve just been duped by… Read more »
“we flatly reject all conspiracy theories” is a colossally stupid statement. After the propaganda campaign for the Iraq War, now openly admitted to be a pack of lies, wherein the “facts” were manufactured to justify the previously-decided policy, it’s more than colossally stupid, it’s active chomskyite disinfo. Michael Parenti was good at noting how this conspiracy phobia seems to lead to a notion that people operate as zombies shuffling around and therefore innocents prey to malign spiritual entities. here’s the reference, which everybody who is not yet a Coincidence Theorist should read: https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:The_JFK_Assassination_-_Conspiracy_Phobia_on_the_Left I am so sick of this knee jerk aversion to the word “conspiracy”. And every time I see it, I automatically feel less interest in the ones who react this way. Indeed. “knee-jerk” hardly covers it, the way they’ve been trained to compulsively reject any suggestion that the ruling class and their various hired flunkeys, stooges, and… Read more »
I agree with all that apart from the reference to “everybody who is not yet a Coincidence Theorist”. Everyone IS a conspiracy theorist already e.g. Whoever is behind 9/11, it had to have involved a conspiracy. And the whole thing about Russian cyber interference also has to involve a conspiracy, whether it’s true (in which case the Russians are behind it) or false (in which case it’s a home grown American scam). “Conspiracy theory” is so universally applied, that there’s no point in referring to the term – apart, of course, from using it as a smear.
Of course, theories about conspiracies are only “conspiracy theories” to the extent that they deviate from the Official Story.
Hence, the standard usage as a smear against the minority of people still capable of thinking for themselves, when doing so might produce conclusions other than those desired by the ruling class establishment.
To mention only the most obvious current example, the theory that Trump is secretly controlled by the Russian government, which would obviously be a conspiracy of a high order, is not a “conspiracy theory”. On the contrary, it is DENIAL of this evidence-free Official Story that qualifies in establishment discourse as a “conspiracy theory”, which is perhaps an implicit acknowledgement of the amount of collusion that must have been necessary to propagate this ridiculous faery tale.
Wasn’t the term “conspiracy theory”invented by the CIA ? or was that a conspiracy theory ?
If I were to join the Lib Dems I would be very likely to run into you. Or at least others who think like you in rejecting socialist ideas.
Is not the operation of market forces in the media, conspiracy enough for you? The way in which journalists are schooled into playing the roles assigned them by the ruling class, controlling the capitalist system. Is that not enough?
In place of this perfectly serviceable explanation of the intellectual products of capitalist society you seem to wish to proffer more exotic explanations: ‘conspiracies’ based not on self interest and class allegiances but on…. what?
you seem to wish to proffer more exotic explanations: ‘conspiracies’ based not on self interest and class allegiances but on…. what?
Surely you can’t really be this obtuse. Of course the “conspiracies” are based on self-interest and class allegiances; what else would they be based on? Or do you wish to argue that the ruling class and the state never hold private discussions about how to further their self-interest? Everything is completely out in the open, and all Official Stories are honest and truthful? The CIA and similar agencies don’t exist, or if they do, they never do anything illegal?
You misunderstand my post. No doubt the fault was mine. But I am making exactly the same point: the conspiracy is that of an exploiting class against its victims. Does it mask its planning from them? Of course, but the existence of the ‘conspiracy’ is not a secret but the essence of class rule.
One of the problems of this controversy is that people mean different things by “conspiracy” and “conspiracy theory”. My quarrel is with “theories” in which conspirators are brought together by , for example, their common catholicism, or Judaism or gender or race.
I refer you to George Mc who has stated in the clearest terms possible, why you are wrong.
“If I were to join the Lib Dems I would be very likely to run into you. Or at least others who think like you in rejecting socialist ideas.” Part of the conspiracy phobia scam is to drive a wedge between conspiracy theory and the Left i.e. to associate conspiracy theory with the Right. And you are right there with that “rejecting socialist ideas” slur. “Is not the operation of market forces in the media, conspiracy enough for you?” “what is enough” is a very curious comment. Are we watching a movie? Have we had “enough” sex and violence or whatever? It’s not a question of “what is enough” but of figuring out what actually happened. To decide in advance that there was no conspiracy is to preordain the outcome. “The way in which journalists are schooled into playing the roles assigned them by the ruling class, controlling the capitalist… Read more »
the conspiracy phobia scam
here’s the foundational document of the “Conspiracy Theory” conspiracy, right from the (CIA) horse’s mouth:
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Countering_Criticism_of_the_Warren_Report
see also here:
Lance deHaven-Smith — Conspiracy Theory in America
Bevin, whilst I agree with what you say here (about Media Lens) it is perhaps naive to infer that they are not corruptible?! Just about every organisation that once stood on the side of right has now been totally corrupted. Be it Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, GreenPeace, and on and on and on.
I know, let’s give the Nobel Peace Prize to Media Lens…
Of course Media Lens, its principals, and, for that matter, most of us are susceptible to corruption. I do not suggest otherwise. The entire matter of ‘climate change’ is one that requires deep and honest evaluation: I have many, many differences with the XR people but the basic idea that we live in a new era in which humanity’s exploitation of the planet’s resources needs to be taken under democratic and rational control is unexceptionable. I am aware that in this crisis the barbarians are well organised and control the commanding heights of the system-the Devil has always known a good tune when he hears it- but to deny the reality of climate change is a mistake. Capitalism destroys and at its highest point it destroys the world itself. That is what its historical mission is, to eat and excrete everything. And everyone. Those involved in XR need to be… Read more »
the basic idea that we live in a new era in which humanity’s exploitation of the planet’s resources needs to be taken under democratic and rational control is unexceptionable. The question is how to approach the urgent and enormous problems caused by capitalist degradation of the biosphere and how to focus popular energy on dismantling capitalism. news flash: XR doesn’t in any way propose that the planet’s resources need to be taken under democratic control, or that capitalism is the source of the problem, and needs to be dismantled. If they did, they would be socialists. Their actual demand is that the Responsible Authorities, meaning the capitalist state and large corporations, use their authority to magically solve the problem. By pure coincidence, as always, the solutions implemented will have the totally unforeseen side-effect of producing greater power and enormous profits for the same capitalist state and corporations, whether or not… Read more »
That winteroak publication is quite revealing that there is no such thing as an Organisation that is willing to safe the planet. It is also quite revealing that medialens hasn’t seen this publication and wrongly interprets Cory Morningstar and Off-G.
I hadn’t thought of the comment, mentioned above that leftism is all about steering away the right from far right decisions, in which way the left ends being right of center. To me, this is the situation that media lens finds itself in. Whether that is intentional or not is difficult to say. Suppose it is not, then it is still an incredibly stupid situation to find yourself (as the credible left) into.
Well, we all make mistakes… I do not know how to say this in English, but one can always change his mind for the better (beter ten halve gekeerd dan ten hele gedwaald)
“news flash: XR doesn’t in any way propose that the planet’s resources need to be taken under democratic control, or that capitalism is the source of the problem, and needs to be dismantled. If they did, they would be socialists.”
Again, this is the point that I was making. It is the central problem with XR and its fans and suggests a strategy (as many others have noted) to use the climate crisis in order to institute fascism.
“And right now they encourage illegal immigration from Africa and Asia, probably their biggest mistake.”
“Mistake” or “planned strategy”?