Catalonia: Cui Bono? by JD

As I have said, there is no point in trying to write anything sensible on this issue as the propaganda war has been won by the separatists. Puigdemont is a journalist so he is well versed in the art of manipulating public opinion. Since last week's 'referendum' the promised Declaration of Independence has not yet been announced. They were thinking about it; then there would be an address to Parliament on Monday; the Constitutional Court cancelled Monday's session; then it was announced the Puigdemont would address Parliament on Tuesday afternoon; latest news is that they have decided to think about it some more. The word farce has been used a number of times over the past week and the longer it takes to make a decision the more it will look like a tragic pantomime!

So while we are waiting for something, anything, to happen here is a synopsis of future events -

Mister Puigdemont in this video explains in detail why he has no alternative but to declare war on the 'oppressors' in Madrid-



On 1st September Puigdemont and other 'separatists' in the Catalan parliament approved la Ley de Transitoriedad which would allow for a declaration of independence from Spain. The law was subsequently disallowed by the Constitutional Tribunal because it did not receive the required number of votes in favour as well as being against not only the Spanish Constitution but also against the Constitution of the autonomous region of Catalonia.

(The law to allow last Sunday's referendum was also illegal in that it received only 72 votes in the Catalan parliament against the required 90 votes.)

Puigdemont intends to declare independence using this particular Ley de Transitoriedad which will allow him to become 'supreme ruler' of catalonia.

Why does this remind me of Arthur Scargill?

"How far he would go in his solitary hall of mirrors to ensure a constitution which placed him at the centre of all things many have reflected on."
 - http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/418/scargills-papal-project/

It also reminds me of something else-

"Fools dwelling in darkness, wise in their own conceit, and puffed up with vain knowledge, go round and round staggering to and fro like blind men led by the blind."
- Mundaka Upanishad.

'Knowledge' in this context refers to 'lower' knowledge defined by Paramahansa Yogananda as - "The lower knowledge is the knowledge of the phenomenal world. In reality it is ignorance, for it does not lead to the Highest Good."
 - http://yogananda.com.au/upa/Mundaka_Upanishad.html

I can hear Emperor Carles now, standing on a balcony somewhere in Barcelona shouting "Long live Freedonia!"



=================================================

Well, who knows? It might happen!

Above I wrote that the Separatists have won the propaganda war and a week on the TV and newspapers are still echoing that propaganda, especially on the subject of the Police's heavy-handed, brutal tactics. No dissenting voice has questioned the images presented to us.

Over recent years 'conspiracy theorists' have seized on events in the news and scrutinised every image and film clip in forensic detail to produse their own version of what happened, always finding an alternative. It even happened last week with the gunman in Las Vegas. But nobody has questioned the images from Barcelona last Sunday. I wonder why?

Allow me to shed a little light.

Start with the woman who had her fingers broken one by one. This was widely reported but no details of who she was or which hospital treated her injuries. Well, her name is Marta Torrecillas. She appears in TV images being dragged down a shallow flight of stairs and shortly afterward she reappears on TV waving a heavily bandaged hand and shouting at the cameras. Unfortunately for her the TV networks and newspapers have had great fun over this past week examining the videos and photos and finding very large holes in her story. Eventually she was obliged to admit that it was all lies.

http://www.mediterraneodigital.com/identitarios/ultimas-noticias-identitarios/identitarios-4/marta-torrecillas-reconoce-que-se-invento-que-la-policia-le-habia-roto-todos-los-dedos.html

The MSM and bloggers have ignored the truth of this story. The only thing I can find in English is this from the Metro-

http://metro.co.uk/2017/10/05/woman-who-claimed-police-assaulted-her-during-catalan-riots-exaggerated-injuries-6978901/

There were a lot of photos shared on Twitter showing alleged Police brutality. The most familiar and cited by bloggers and journalists was one of a confrontation between Police and Firefighters. The photo was first published in 2013 and was taken at an anti-austerity rally. All of the other photos, as far as I have been able to ascertain, were taken at other demonstrations going back to 2011.

In the matter of hundreds of injuries suffered at the hands of Police and Guardia Civil, I have been reading and reading and as far as I can see only two people needed hospital treatment and one of those was for a heart attack. Where were the 'hundreds' treated and who recorded the numbers?

It would seem that journalists and bloggers and the twits on Twitter are not reporting things they believe to be true but things they want to believe are true!

It seems time to rephrase that old saying, "There are lies, damned lies and there is Twitter!"

A brief word on the 'politics' of it all. Jose-Maria Aznar said this week that Mariano Rajoy was incapable of making decisions. Felipe Gonzalez said that he would have annulled the Catalan Regional Parliament and transferred all powers to the central government (under article 155 of the Constitution) and he would have done that last Sunday. Alfonso Guerra, who was deputy prime minister under Gonzalez, was more forthright. He said last Sunday was an attempted coup d'etat by the Catalans.

I could go on but the saga is not yet complete so this editorial in El Mundo is a good account of the story so far.

La ola que devora Cataluña ( the wave that is devouring Cataluña):
- http://www.elmundo.es/opinion/2017/10/08/59d9201dca4741d76b8b4637.html

UPDATE (23:41 8 October) - JD adds:

Don't know if you saw the Catalan parliament session. Within about five minutes of Puigdemont starting to speak I knew he was the one who had blinked first. And so it proved, he rambled on for ages about conciliation and peace and tranquility and this week's most overused word - dialogue! At the end he declared independence and then suspended it for a few weeks to allow for this famous 'dialogue' And then they all made a big show of signing the piece of paper telling the world they were a new 'nation' Ha!

A few brief and hasty obsevations:

Inés Arrimadas, leader of Ciudadanos, and the main opposition leader spoke immediately after Puigdemont."la crónica de un golpe anunciado. Nadie ha reconocido el resultado del referéndum. Nadie en Europa reconoce los resultados. Esto no iba de urnas, va de fronteras. Ustedes son de lo peor del nacionalismo. Son la antítesis del proyecto europeo". "the anouncement of a coup d'etat. No one has recognized the result of the referendum.No one in Europe recognizes the results.This was not a ballot. You are the worst of nationalism. You are the antithesis of the European project." Those are pretty strong words.

Miquel Iceta of the PSC (socialist party of catalunya) said tonight 'the problem is not Europe nor is it Spain, the problem is us, catalans'

The CUP who are the most extreme left party within the coalition called it a betrayal to declare independence and then suspend it for a few weeks. I noticed that the members of the CUP didn't join in the standing ovation at the end of Puigdemont's speech. They are the largest party within the coalition; I think they are, but they are the ones whose support Puigdemont relies on.

This looks as though the members of the ruling coalition will start fighting among themselves and Puigdemont could be replaced. He was not their choice, he was appointed by his predecessor Artur Mas after Mas was barred from holding public office for two years after organising an illegal referendum in 2914. He is currently under investigation for fraud.

Catalan politics is very confusing and trying to understand the shifting alliances is like trying to unravel a plate of spaghetti.
If I were Rajoy or his advisors, I would sit back and do nothing and watch the unfolding farce. It might end up with regional elections in Catalonia. As you are probably aware a lot of large companies are moving their head offices away from the region to Madrid or Valencia or Alicante or Mallorca. The big one is SEAT who are considering moving their assembly plant out of the region and Nissan would certainly do the same. An independent Catalonia would be out of the EU and those two car makers would then be liable for trade tariffs if they remained.

I read somewhere earlier today that Catalans are historically forever picking fights with people and always losing them. Can't find the link now because stories are appearing and disappearing rapidly with the changing events. But it reminded me of what Ortega y Gassett wrote - the catalans are not capable of governing their own affairs and did not have the necessary strength of character to create a unified nation as Aragon and Castilla had done.

It will probably all change again tomorrow :)

Exhibition Road was an accident waiting to happen

We were there yesterday morning, before the minicab hit eleven people outside the Natural History Museum, and remarked even then how unsafe Exhibition Road felt.

We were visiting the V&A but came before opening time, so strolled up the road past the NHM - already there was a long queue of families waiting to get in there; it was much longer when we came out of the V&A after noon.

For most of its length, Exhibition Road has no curb (so much for "car mounted pavement" in the Guardian and Daily Star) or traffic lanes.

What look like "pavement" demarcation lines in the above photo from the excited coverage in the Daily Mail five or six years ago are actually drainage, and now from ground level they are almost invisible, as seen in the more recent picture below:

Image cropped from Google Maps Street View

The criss-cross pattern in the block paving seems expressly intended to confuse boundaries - and it was! The "continuous shared space" - an idea adopted from Holland - was to make "motorists take more personal responsibility for their own actions and drive more attentively", i.e. make accidents easier to happen. The same logic would have local Councils mist-spraying pavements in icy weather so that people would walk more carefully.

Whichever authorities govern the road, they have resiled somewhat from the bash-nanny approach and now there is the odd metal post and concrete flower box to give us hedgehoggy pedestrians some assurance that we're not standing in the middle of what old Brummies used to call "the 'orse road". But yesterday it wasn't enough.

There may well have been other factors in that collision; this was another one.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Saat Masaale* by JD

*Seven spices (Hindi).

Here is a miscellaneous potpourri of music which defies categorisation but it is all good!

FRIDAY MUSIC: Rhiannon Giddens, by JD

Yet another excellent 'hidden' gem of a musician by the name of Rhiannon Giddens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhiannon_Giddens

As can be seen in the Wiki profile she covers virtually every musical genre you can think of. As well as playing fiddle and banjo she has a magnificent and soulful singing voice. And anyone who can make a kazoo sound like the most raucous jazz/blues instrument you have ever heard is clearly a musical genius!

A letter to the National Archives

The National Archives

Kew

Richmond

Surrey,

TW9 4DU

Tuesday, 26 September 2017

Dear Sirs

75^th anniversary publication request -  document AIR 20/4870

As you know, in 1944 the writer H E Bates was commissioned to write a monograph on the defence of Britain during the Blitz of 1940-41, which was titled "The Night Battle of Britain."

May I ask whether this study by a now world-famous author, written so close to the events it describes, will be made available online in time for the 75^th anniversary of its completion, i.e. 2019? That year will of course also be the 75^th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

Alternatively (or in addition), would the National Archives consider permitting hard-copy facsimile publication?

FRIDAY MUSIC: Hillbilly Moon Explosion, by JD

YouTube always offer their 'recommendations' as well as the music you are actually looking for. Occasionally there appears something interesting and one such was Hillbilly Moon Explosion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillbilly_Moon_Explosion

A strange mixture of Rockabilly, Reggae, Swing and other pop styles mixed in with 1950s style smoochy, cheesy 'Dolce Vita' type ballads. Very bizarre and very different but it works!

A Transsexual Coincidence

One thing leads to another. It certainly did last Wednesday, when blows were exchanged at Speaker’s Corner between transsexuals and feminists who don’t wish the former to have the rights they enjoy themselves.^[1] These TERFs^[2] don’t seem to realise how old-fashioned their prejudice is.  For transsexuals play a key part in a novel from 1960 that took nearly 50 years to get published.^[3]

Murray Sayle’s “A Crooked Sixpence”^[4] tells of an Australian journalist who comes to London following a girlfriend and manages to get a job on a newspaper, the Sunday Sun.^[5]  Largely based on his own experiences from the 1950s^[6], the book describes the underhand stratagems by which “human interest” journalists got stories to titillate their readers, regardless of the damage they caused to obscure individuals in their hypocritically moralistic exposés.^[7]

A game-changer in the tale is a transsexual who offers to tell his/her story, naively hoping for fair coverage. (This was very modern: in 1961 the Charing Cross Gender Identity Clinic - the first in the UK^[8] - was still 5 years into the future. But the successful fashion model April Ashley was just about to be outed as a transsexual - in the Sunday People.)^[9]

The brutal editor, Barr, gives O’Toole his brief: offer £25 and “that bollocks about explaining his tragic plight to the public”, then turn on the trans in print:

“I see the angle like this: “This disgusting pervert has had himself mutilated to get money from the innocent British public. He even had the nerve to ask money for the revolting details of his sickening operation. You ought to be in a prison or a mental home, you're not fit to breathe the same air as the decent people of Britain, you contemptible beast.” With this twist, it ought to make a page lead.”

More than half a century later, the decent TERFs of Britain are turning on the often tremendously brave transsexuals, in a location famously dedicated to the principle of liberal tolerance.

---

^[1] http://metro.co.uk/2017/09/17/woman-injured-as-feminists-and-transgender-groups-fight-at-speakers-corner-6933812/

^[2] “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists”

^[3] Originally published in 1961 but pulped almost immediately because of an attempt by a broke toff to sue the publishers: Michael Alexander was the model for “Michael Macedon”.

^[4] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crooked-Sixpence-Murray-Sayle/dp/0955823846

^[5] Based on The People, which was taken over by Mirror Group in 1961. Now called the Sunday People: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sunday_People

^[6] He quit in 1956, like his fictional hero James O’Toole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Sayle

^[7] There was another book about Fleet Street - “The Street Of Disillusion” - published three years earlier (in 1958) by a man called Harry Procter. Like Sayle, Procter left the profession in disgust; but Sayle was to return a few years later and earn distinction in serious investigative journalism.

^[8] https://youthtranscriticalprofessionals.org/2016/08/30/fifty-years-on-the-charing-cross-gender-identity-clinic-and-the-funding-of-a-category-without-parallel/

^[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Ashley#Model.2C_scandal