A leading president or a crumbs manager?

Catalonia´s puppet government outflanked by GOS new policies

Although it was known and expected that once in charge of the Government of Spain (GOS), Mr. Rajoy's Partido Popular (PP), would set up new centralist policies, Mr. Mas' puppet government reaction has been timid and confusing. Even worst, it seems to consider them as minor reforms only. However, with the excuse to deal with the deficit, new GOS is committed to scrap the few autonomous powers still standing after the 2006 Statute of Autonomy disaster. No one understands Mr. Mas invisibility in front such an scenario. In fact, due to PP announced reforms, the President of the Generalitat of Catalonia will become just a mere manager of a Catalan budget, that will required a GOS approval before its final pass.

As usual, PP has spoken loud and clear. They defend Spain as One Nation only, and that no (Catalonia's) right to decide exists and will ever exist. No "fiscal pact" exists either. The same for (Mr. Mas) so much referred, "national transition". Or may be CiU's national transition project heads towards Spain instead of Catalonia?

In any case, those that favour autonomy and sit at Government table, are the first who have to explain the collapse of autonomy. A scenario, by the way, thatReagrupament announced some months ago.

To a serious -as Mr. Mas likes to present himself- President, we only ask him to recognize the gravity of the situation, and change strategy accordingly. Forget gestures, rethoric and appeals to people's will, and practice true President's responsibility. President Mas should be loyal to the people that elected him, and not to a political party (PP) that openly wants to destroy Catalan Identity, Language and Culture. President Mas should be loyal to the people, not financial lobbies, not to a partner with interests in the Spanish ministries.

There is an adult and complete nation, full of problems, debts and challenges, but willing to stand up and exercise their rights within an European democratic framework. Other nations who share similar scenarios to Catalonia's, for example, Scotland, count with leaders decided to end dependency. And we, the Catalans? Do we have a president ready to lead the nation towards freedom and the right to decide? Or a sad manager just satisfied with the crumbs of the crumbs.

Authored: RCat web team

Translation: JS

IMPERIUM FAIL!

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WHAT IS REAGRUPAMENT?

Reagrupament Independentista (RCAT), is an association fully committed to Catalonia'sIndependence and Political Regeneration. Though we are not properly a political party, our project is to promote electoral options (local or national lists, coalitions, platforms, etc) to contest elections in order to form a majority at the Parliament of Catalonia willing to pass aUnilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI).

RCAT considers that the only way to preserve and promote Catalonia as a nation, is to access to Independence, Statehood, EU and UN memberships. Under the Spanish rule, there is no future, but a more or less slowly process of minorisation, first, and elimination as a people, in the end.

During the last decades, the formation of new states has been a feature of World politics. It is the outcome of globalization and democratization. The new Catalan state, in this sense, will promote democracy and cultural diversity.

RCAT as an association was formed in 2009. Since then, four national assemblies have been celebrated. The I Assembly (october 2009) elected the National Executive. In the II Assembly (march 2010) a political roadmap was approved. In the III Assembly (july 2010), was decided to support an electoral list to contest to the parliamentarian elections. Finally, in the IV Assembly (June 2011), a new National Executive was elected and a reviewed Political Platform was approved.

Joan Carretero i Grau (1955) is the current President of the association. It was so elected in the I Assembly, and again in the IV Assembly. Professionally he is a Doctor working in the Catalan Health Service. He lives and works in Puigcerdà (Cerdanya). Politically, he is a former Puigcerdà Mayor (1995-2003) and a former Catalan Minister of Governance and Public Administration (2003-2006). He doesn't consider himself as a professional politician, but a professional in politics.

RCAT considers that support to Independence is ideologically transversal among the Catalan society. That implies that we can find pro-independence supporters of different ideological perspectives. In this sense, RCAT considers that these ideologically differences must be put aside until the Declaration of Independence. As a consequence, RCAT members come from a diversity of political spaces. We have decided to emphasize those values we share: the fight for Independence, the Political Regeneration and the ethics of Work.

In coherence with the principle of political transversality in the fight for Independence, RCAT has developed a political strategy consistent in building coalitions with other groups and political parties that also promote independence.

Unfortunately, a first offer to build such a coalition made by Mr. Joan Carretero to contest to2010 Parliament of Catalonia election, was rejected by others groups. The lack of a Pro-Independence transversal list was severely punished by voters. The number of pro-Independence MPs fell from 21 to 14. This electoral outcome contrasted with the growing number of pro-Independence supporters showed in media and academic polls and surveys.

Things changed a little bit for 2011 Local election. RCAT members successfully built local coalitions with a number of other pro-Independence groups. In the National Capital,Barcelona, UnitsXBarcelona (UxB) list, a coalition including RCAT, ERC and DC, managed to gain 2 seats. In Girona, RCAT won 1 seat, in a list shared with CUP.

Totally, RCAT saw about 60 local candidates wining a seat. Numbers aside, what really mattered was that a first step to independentists unity had been done. Political analysts and journalists, in this sense, emphasized RCAT capacity to reach agreements with virtually all groups and parties that favour independence.

This experience was so positively valued that facilitated the formation of a new coalition to contest to 2011 Spanish Parliament elections. Now, the coalition was formed between RCAT, ERC (who had changed its leadership just days before), and Catalunya Sí (a citizens platform). Early polls gave to the coalition no representation at all. However, perspectives grew after the first electoral campaign week. Finally, the coalition managed to gain three seats at the Congreso de los Diputados chamber (2 in Barcelona, and 1 in Girona).

To sum up, however modest the outcomes have been, it is well evident that RCAT has been instrumental to reverse a negative trend. Now, the challenge to form a Pro-Independence unity coalition to contest next Parliament of Catalonia elections (scheduled, in principle, in 2014) is unavoidable. RCAT will do its best to make it happen.

Don't vote the referendum! (or else)

The Barcelona Decides initiative is a non-binding referendum (not authorized or approved by Spanish law) which will take place on the 10th of April 2011

Should Catalonia be independent from Spain?
Should there be a referendum which the law does not permit?

Watch the video and decide for yourself

Just a proof

Just a proof.

DOCUMENT SUBMITTED TO MEP IN BRUSSELS, 05.03.2009 

(ENGLISH VERSION)

All Catalans here present, and those who have not been able to travel with us, but are here in heart today, have come here to proclaim that we want Catalonia to have a place in the World, alongside the other nations of Europe. We are here because we want a free nation, a modern nation, one which is advanced just, responsible, cultivated, open to the World and proud of itself. Because we have full right to this and beacuse we want a state of our own.

From the Middle Ages to the XVIIIth Century, the Catalan nation, the Catalan countries, had its own independent political identity. As Pau Casals remembered at the United Nations in 1971, Catalonia, birthplace of European democracy, was the first nation to have a Parliament, even before England. At the outset of the Modern period, the Catalan nation entered a confederation with the crown of Castile and, despite the imperialist ten

dencies of Spanish monarchs, for centuries maintained its own state until, through the force of arms, the Spanish king, with the help of France, conquered Valencia in 1707, Catalonia in 1714 and Majorca in 1715. They then proceded to dismante our institutions of government and our Parliament and did their utmost to wipe out our language and our identity thus converting us into Spaniards.

From then on, the Catalan nation has been submitted to Spanish rule, and the most recent attempt by President Francesc Macià to constitute a Catalan Republic, within the federation of Iberian nations, en 1931, was brought to a cruel end by the Fascist alliance of dictator Franco with Hitler and Mussolini.

Once democracy was recovered, in 1977, Catalonia recovered her dream of of regaining her political status within a democratic federation. However, as a result of the Coup d’État of February 23rd 1981, Catalan hopes of reaching a bilateral relationship with Spain have been progressively dashed. This has become clear in the appalling episode by which our Statute of Autonomy has been mutilated, a process which will doubtless be confirmed by the forthcoming sentence of the Spanish Constitutional Court, in which a body made up of biased judges at the service of the Spanish parties shall decide against the will of our people as expreesed at the polls.

Depence on the decisions of the State of the Spanish people is leading us to a desperate situation. Daily the Catalan language is losing vigour and prestige as its social usage is progressively reduced as Spanish institutions launch campaigns of cultural homogenization highlighting the idea that there is one language, theirs, which is superior. Parallel to this, the difference between the taxes our citizens have to pay and the public services we receive in exchange is a case of outright spoliation defying comparison in the western world. It daily affects the lives of millions of people and puts social cohesion at risk.

The survival of Catalonia, as a nation, and Catalan as a thousand-year-old language of culture which is part of Europe’s heritage, are at risk. The Catalan people must opt for pacific mobilisation in defense of our individual and collective rights.

All of us have understood that it is the moment to say “enough”. The Europe of States is being consolidated along the lines of the will of the States that make it up and the dream of a Europe of People and Nations has been swept away for many years, if not forever.

We have come to Brussels with two objectives. Attaining them depends on us Catalans alone.

We want the Catalan national parties to once and for all place independence as an objective on their election programmes and self-determination as a priority in its Government action. We do not want government agreements which fail to make clear that the Government of Catalonia will promote self-determination with a view to obtaining independence to enable us to become state in the European Union with the same rights and obligations as the rest of current member states.

From here we wish to show the World that there is a conflict in Catalonia, a conflict of a pacific nature. The catalan people have the right to self-determination and wsh to exercise that right. We want to have the chance to decide our own collective future. We want to vote on this.

Europe has to know that the Spanish Sate will never be a democracy if it denies us the right to decide for ourselves. All we are asking for is a real democracy, we want to freely decide our own collective future as the citizens of Montenegro and Greenland have recently done, and as the Slovakians, Slovenians, Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians did a few years ago, and as the Irish, the Poles, Finns, Hungarians and so many other nations of Europe did beforehand, as they progressively recovered their freedom.

With hope, with strength and with courage, we want to raise our voices and say:

We are a nation, we want to exercise our right to self-determination, we want to vote on this!

We want a State of our own, Long live Catalonia! Visca Catalunya!

I'm fed up with you, guys

After having read many times The Economist’s piece “How much is enough?” (November, 6th), I can only say "I’m fed up with you, guys". It is an example of biased journalism. Well, to be truth, this is not journalism. It comes straight from a Spanish government-contracted PR agency.

Your approach to the issue is clearly committed to one point of view. So, now, it seems that Liberty has degrees, right? Of course not. Liberty has no degrees at all. You’re free to choose your own future or you’re not free, and someone decides your future on your behalf. That is the key question.

From the author’s point of view, Catalans do not deserve the same rights as Slovenes, Slovaks, Finnish, Lithuanians, or Irish peoples. Are Catalan human beings, with dignity and rights , or only subjects to tax extraction, cultural annihilation and economic and social impoverishment?

If, as the author states, Independentism is marginal, why the Spanish government, politicians and media oppose to a Catalonia self-determination referendum?

Are Catalans not entitled to decide their own future? Are we different from other Europeans nations?

After more than three centuries of Spanish and French aggression, we’re still alive. We’ve survived, and yes, we have failed to gain statehood. But also we have overcome extinction. Sometimes paying a big price, in lifes and pain. So here we are.

And believed it or not, Spanish credit is exhausted. The autonomy model will be killed in a matter of weeks, thanks to the Constitutional Court sentence. The federal model is a bad joke. No one is federalist in Spain.

The only “great Spanish project” is the one that sees Madrid as the cosmic, universal center of the World, even though they have failed to be an Olympic City (sorry, amigos, I think that 2016 won’t be your turn… again).

The only “great Spanish project” is a racist driven vision of the cultural diversity principle. A vision that considers there are cultures and languages not only different, but superior than others. And that those inferiors cultures fate is extinction in a more or less tolerant way.

The only “great Spanish project” is the one that exists in the mind –and the pocket- of those puppet Catalan politicians like Mr. Narcís Serra –implicated, by the way, in the dirty war against ETA, that is in the state-sponsored terrorism in the eighties- or like J.A. Duran i Lleida –whose party faces very serious judicial problems due to corruption accusation-, that deny to their own people the right to a better life, with liberty and dignity…

In fact, what this article shows is the fear and terror that Spanish politicians and media have that sooner than later a vast majority of Catalans will opt democratically for Independence. And to the fact that to oppose such a decision, the Spanish government won’t be able to use the army, since that will be condemn by NATO and EU partners, and of course by public opinion -may be with the exception of The Economist, that will applaud it.

(And because the Spanish state lacks the economic and military resources needed, other than the puremacho element, that is “balls”).

Is it necessary to remind you that Spain has not yet recognized Kosovo Independence? You may say that Catalonia has nothing to do with Kosovo. May be you think that they belong to different planets. But that’s not true, I know for sure. What’s more, they belong to the same continent. Of course they are different cases. But precisely because they are not the same cases, why Spain is afraid to recognise Kosovo Independence? Because they know perfectly well the implications of such recognition.

The next Independence wave, in the following decade, will include Quebec, Scotland –less probably, Wales- and, yes, Catalonia’s. Also it will see the break-up of Belgian federation and Ireland reunification.

So I advise you to sit in a couch and try to assimilate it. Because you will see it, and better to accept it in the name of Liberty and Democracy. On the contrary, you will have to swallow all of it. From the beginning to the end, my friends.

Note: First published at Bloc Gran del Sobiranisme

LOOK, LEARN AND ACT ACCORDINGLY

CONGRATULATIONS, PEOPLE OF KOSOVA

CONGRATULATIONS, PEOPLE OF KOSOVA. 

KOSOVA NOW, TOMORROW CATALONIA

TODAY, THE GLORY IS YOURS

TOMORROW IT WILL BE OURS!

GLORY TO KOSOVA PATRIOTS

GLORY TO THE FALLEN

WE MISS YOU

WE HONOUR YOU,

EVEN IF WE DON'T KNOW (MOST OF) YOU

A PATRIOT IS EVERYWHERE A PATRIOT

YOUR FUTURE IS IN YOUR HANDS

YOU DESERVE IT

BE PROUD OF THAT

PAST GENERATIONS ARE LOOKING TO YOU

FUTURE ONES WILL BENEFIT

WE, CATALANS,

WILL JOIN YOU

AS THE MOMENT WILL ARRIVE

SOON BETTER THAN LATER

TODAY, THE GLORY IS YOURS

CONGRATULATIONS, PEOPLE OF KOSOVA

JOSEP SORT, CATALONIA

http://josepsort.blogspot.com

http://aclearcutcase.blogspot.com

NOTE: This is a (poem?) I've just send to the following web: http://www.kosovothanksyou.com/