Green Stained in Blood

The below is an article of Josep C. Vergés, you can read the original version published in the Racó Català following this link. (cat and eng). It is a bit strong for my liking but on the whole I agree with Sr Vergés that the communist falacy of ICV has to be exposed. I also fully support the idea of Green policies becoming mainstream and not a concept hijacked by unreconstructed marxists. My friends in Catalonia must be having a good chuckle right now reading this! Guys, do not worry too much: I am a shark -but still have a conscience.
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"Don't go to the lagoons, because today there are hunters," I am warned on World Bird Day in the Ebro delta. The environment ministry of the Catalan government, controlled by the former communists of ICV, celebrates that we have the park with the greatest number of birds in Europe by killing them.

Greens have been the left wing appendages of socialists in Catalonia and all over Europe which uses proportional representation. When Angela Merkel failed to win a majority together with the Liberals last year in Germany, there was some desultory talk of bringing the Greens in, but the love-hate relationship of Greens and Liberals prevented any serious discussion. As liberal Oswald Metzger explains: “Both parties fish in the same pond and have similar basic principles. The Green voter base today is what once Liberals claimed for themselves: well educated, well off, well established and, of course, better paid. “

ICV in Catalonia, originally the communists and the bad guys in George Orwell's “Homage to Catalonia” during the Civil War, are still the bad guys today as far as I can see. In 1994 they added green to their traditional red flag to avoid extinction, which is what happens in democracies when voters can choose between freedom and despotism. The red-green Daltonic view of the world is really unadulterated Marxism as the ICV programme states: “We want a society built on democracy and socialism, sustained by true left values. The current economic system based on the profit logic and continued growth systematically destroys its own conditions for survival. We are the inheritors of the democratic and national trajectory of the communists and of a long tradition of the most select and noble values of Marxism, socialism, euro-communism and communism. Times have changed and the left must adapt in order to survive.” That is, the ICV excommunists cannot go on with State control, worker power and market controls for fear of the voters. Greens all over Europe have swallowed whole this bankrupt economic Marxism.

Once a year the entire Swiss government goes on walkabout to meet the people. This Summer I caught up with them at KZO College in Zurich Oberland. One graduating student, with a master project forming a real company –a trendy bag small-scale manufacturer- provided the gift carrier bags for each member of the Bundesrat, as they are known, in each party's colours- red for socialist president Moritz Leunberger, yellow for liberal Pascal Couchepin and green, no not for the Greens who are not in this collegiate body, but for firebrand Christoph Blocher, because his SVP was originally an agrarian party. In separate one hour meetings with student classes the latter gave a not very encouraging description of a politician. Asked whether he ever told the truth: “You are not yet of voting age so I have no problem telling the truth to you.”

Swiss politics is truly a fine art, but even finer is the evolution, the first I know of, of some Greens towards liberalism. Since 2004 there exists a new Green Liberal party: “We are green, but we serve caviar with our salad. We are the bridge between green politics and economic sense. Our heart is green but we are liberal in economics. Freedom lies at the centrepiece of a liberal point of view. If we take responsibility for ourselves this should be enough to be able to live together.” Green Liberals split from the Greens because of their Marxist policies. Green Liberal Parliamentarian Martin Bäumle: ”Green cannot be exclusively left of the socialist party.” The Swiss Green coordinating body calls the new party “irresponsible” and with Soviet efficiency has voted 100 to 1 not to have any contacts stating that the Greens stand clearly to the left and that the differences with the Green Liberals on economic and financial policies are too large. Green co-president Tiana Moser: “Our diverging objectives and paths are not compatible.” So it is heart warming to learn that in Switzerland some greens are willing to stand up and fight for freedom. Of course if they succeed there will be a diplomatic problem in the next Swiss government walkabout. What colour bag should they be given full of economic liberties? The Green Liberal breakthrough in Switzerland makes more sense than the regurgitated Marxist fare of the greens all over Europe and worse still in Catalonia with ICV celebrating World Bird Day rifle in hand with their green flag stained in blood.

Thin-skinned candidate leaves interview in a huff

My goodness, there seems to be no shortage of news stories in this heated election campaign!

The story of the last hours is the following.

Xavier Sala i Martin (english) is a Professor at Department of Economics at Columbia University. He is something of a celebrity in Catalonia and in Spain because:

- He dares to challenge the Left on their ‘social’ economic policy.
Just to put you in the picture, in Catalonia it is becoming something of a struggle not to be a communist or a pseudo-socialist, progressive, anti-globalisation, pseudo-leftie. The word liberal (which in the US the Right uses to refer to the Left or the Progresives in a derogatory manner) in Spain and in Catalonia is used as a quasi-insult to refer to those who believe market forces is often a better resource allocation mechanism than the State. This simple concept is anatema to many in Catalonia and Spain, where some people still fly the Communist flag as a symbol of freedom. For them, private capital is bad and public good is achieved through public allocation and management of resources.
Mr Sala is a liberal, or worse still, a neo-liberal! (A neo-liberal in Spain is like a neo-con; bad). His work on global wealth distribution and poverty indicators is often quoted in the FT, The Economist, etc.

- He was interim President of the FC Barcelona at last elections. He has a few good pictures of himself with the club touring the USA on his website.

- He wears extremely colourful jackets. Check his site if you want to see the ultra-bright jackets for yourself.

Now we know a wee bit about colour-mad Mr Xavier Sala i Martin.

La Vanguardia is a Barcelona-based, Spanish-language newspaper. It is a middle-of the road, quite centrist newspaper, as opposed to the left-leaning, PSOE-controlled El Periódico and El País. La Vanguardia is against independence but moderately in favour of improving the political settlement between Spain and Catalonia towards a more devolved framework. La Vanguardia has a good business and literary section but its sports coverage is rather poor. La Vanguardia was the only Catalan newspaper that was not banned under Franco. Its owners have always had the ability to get on well with whoever was in power: Franco, or PSOE or CiU or more recently the tripartite coalition in Catalonia. La Vanguardia is pragmatism and moderation.

Now we know a little bit about La Vanguardia.

Well, La Vanguardia commissioned Mr Sala to conduct interviews with the 5 main candidates at the next Catalan elections.
Mr Sala interviewed the socialist candidate (José Montilla, PSC-PSOE).
It turns out that Sr Montilla lost his temper during the interview and left in a huff accusing Mr Sala of being “sectarian”. The newspaper published the interview except the last exchanges, in which Mr Montilla insults Mr Sala. The word in the street is that this was due to lobbying by the PSC-PSOE apparatchik. Being a true liberal, Mr Sala duly uploaded the interview onto his own website at the University and also a transcript in Catalan and Spanish. Sadly, Mr Sala has not found the time to translate it into English for the benefit of his University colleagues. Perhaps he wants to avoid the ignominy of having to explain to them that Mr Montilla will probably become President of Catalonia on November 2nd.

An mp3 file of the interview can be found here (mp3 file, 9MB). The interview was conducted in Catalan.
An audio transcript of the interview in Catalan can be found here. And the translation in Spanish, here.

All in all, it is quite amazing stuff. What surprised me when listening to it is how quickly Mr Montilla loses his temper; how he struggles to keep composure under intense questioning (for Spanish standards anyway, nothing of the kind of interviewing you find on the BBC). I fear to think what could happen to our thin-skinned candidate if he ever appears in the BBC News 24 Hardtalk programme or in Radio 4 ‘The Moral Maze’. No way José!

Mr Sala also questioned Artur Mas, the candidate of the CiU party. This is the party (two parties in fact) that ruled Catalonia for 23 years. It is a pity we cannot hear the audio of the interview. But in print at least, Mr Mas appears to have more resilience to answer uncomfortable questions than Mr Montilla. Now, Mr Sala has been accused in the past of being close to CiU, and probably he is, if not by conviction at least by default: he would find difficult to support any of the three left-ish parties or the Spanish nationalists of the PP).

The campaign is being quite nasty for Catalan standards. There is a lot of vile and aggression. Whoever is the most voted candidate, it will probably fall short of an absolute majority. A coalition government after all what is being said will not be easy, although we all know by now that politicians have a short memory span…

I want a state for Catalonia: because we deserve better

A month in Catalan politics is a long time.

A local meeting of the PP in Martorell (a town 25Km from Barcelona) is met with a protest outside the venue. Tempers flare and some punches are exchanged.
The PSC-PSOE expels a youth militant that was part of the protest outside, even though there seems to be no actual evidence to the extent of his involvement.
Surprisingly (or perhaps not) the PP fails to expel a local councillor and member of the party (and not of the youth wing precisely) that was caught on camera throwing a right hook. Despite the glaring evidence, the party fails to take any action and even give this violent man (his name is Xavier Garcia Albiol) its support. Then it transpires that this same man had been involved in another (cat) violent incident in his local town of Badalona, just north of Barcelona.

The message is clear: a PP sympathiser is allowed to use violence and nothing happens; meanwhile other folk standing in the street shouting are branded terrorist just because they happen to exercise their right to freedom of expression against the PP.

Not surprisingly, this was topped up by our sectarian press as “radical pro-independence hooligans”. Yet, there were many PSC-PSOE supporters participating in the protest.

Thus, both parties achieve their objectives: PSOE-PP, and their pro-unionist media, working in tandem to tarnish the image of the pro-independence movement and to portray the Spanish nationalists of PP as victims of 'Catalan' intolerance. However, the TV images don’t lie: Mr Albiol is a violent thug yet his party is happy to condone his antics. Again. And the only individual member of a party that has been caught in the fracas is a former member of the PSC-PSOE.

Then, we have the moderate nationalist, regionalists or whatever they want to call themselves now, of CiU. In case you are new to Catalan politics, this is the coalition (they are two separate political parties) who ruled Catalonia for 23 years. After 3 years in opposition, they have changed many internal structures, and brought in new people and, apparently, new methods.

Their campaign manager is David Madí (cat). He is a typical rich kid of Barcelona’s bourgeoisie. It appears he has lived in the US. He has had the idea of launching a DVD, “ConfidentialCAT”, to launch the electoral campaign of CiU. I have not had the pleasure to watch the video -my audio driver is gone and I can’t find another one!

Some folk are saying it is a Goebbelian manipulation. Some others say it is just the plain truth of 3 years of incompetent government. It is a 55 minutes “documentary” split into different chapters, each chronicling an episode of the last tripartite coalition government until the end. Even a TV news broadcaster has threatened (cat) to sue for improper use of his image.

Then I read that the PSC-PSOE candidate has the temerity to say that “Companys would be happy with the Estatut”. Lluís Companys (eng) was the president of Catalonia (by ERC) that proclaimed the ‘República Catalana’ What an insult to the memory of the great president Companys, who was later captured by the Nazis in France, and handed over to Franco. Companys was duly executed, 66 years ago today. And now this man, José Montilla, wants us to believe that the great Companys would be proud of the miserable Estatut we have achieved. Some people know no shame, and in the case of the Spanish labour party (the PSOE) this is more true than ever.

Again, I am of the opinion that there is only one party that will defend our interests, both as individuals and as citizens of a stateless nation: Esquerra.
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Comic strip from El Periodico.cat (a newpaper supportive of the PSOE...)

I want a state for Catalonia – Vull un estat propi per a Catalunya

And this is exactly why. Read the link from the Barcelona Reporter. Another example of how intolerance and fascism is ingrained in the mainstream of Spanish society and politics.

Pepe Rubianes is an actor. He was born in Galicia, northwest Spain, north of Portugal. He moved to Barcelona and now is an adopted Catalan. A few months ago, during an interview in the Catalan TV station TV3, he made some ‘tongue in cheek’ remarks about the Spanish far right, saying, translated loosely, that “they can go to hell and fuck off”, “they can stick their sacrosanct unity of Spain up their arses”.
This, let’s remember, referred to the Spanish Fascists, Hitler’s Allies, that executed Federico Garcia Lorca, the great Spanish poet. As it is clear from the video clip, and the subsequent declarations of Rubianes, he was referring at all times to the fascists that kill Lorca. His latest play, ‘Lorca eran todos’ is about the great Spanish poet, killed by Franco’s troops in a field in Granada. His remains have never been found.

A big storm generated in the Madrid-based media. The radio network COPE, owned by the Spanish Catholic Church, and other media in the right started a campaign of hate mail and public pressure to stop his play about Lorca from performing in a Madrid’s theatre. Hate mail, dead threats and calls for a boycott in a campaign with the support of the right-wing press (COPE, El Mundo, ABC, La Razón and other smaller, regional newspapers) and the Partido Popular, the Spanish right-wing party founded by Manual Fraga, a Franco’s minister in the 70s.

Last week, finally Rubianes cracked under the immense pressure and announced that he was pulling out the show. At the same time, the regional president of the Madrid region, owners of the theatre the play was to be performed, said that he was also banning the play to be performed in the theatre.

Let’s be clear about this. Rubianes is not a supporter of Catalan independence. He has been critical of the whole independence movement before. . If anything, he is an uncompromising figure, a bit aloof, a harmless leftie. Rubianes is nothing more that a leftish actor. Yet, he has been banned from performing his play. Nevertheless, he has been criminalised by the Madrid-based right-wing press as a Catalan separatist and insulting Spain. Anti-catalan sentiment in Spain is rife and widespread, as this shameful case illustrates this again.

Now, like 70 years ago, the Spanish right bans artists because of their political ideas.
Now, like 70 years ago, the Spanish right threatens Catalonia with commercial boycotts, the deployment of the army, and the suppression of our institutions of self-government, banning artists, attacking our culture and identity.
Now, like 70 years ago, they are in a crusade to obliterate our nation from the map.

This is precisely why we need to wake up and break away from Spain. Spain is rife with anti-Catalan feeling. They hate us. They want us removed from the history books.

That’s why I want an independent state for Catalonia.

I also want a state for Catalonia – Jo també vull un estat propi per a Catalunya

Today, thousands of Catalan bloggers across the world will unite under a common message: “Jo també vull un estat propi”, I also want a state for Catalonia.

For almost two centuries, Catalonia has tried to establish a fair settlement with Spain. There have been numerous parties that believed that Spain could accommodate us. They tried to negotiate, to dialog, to compromise, to pact. They all have failed.

Spain will never accept our culture, language and sense of identity. We, if we want to survive as a nation, have to pursue the independence option: we need to have our own state and be a free nation in the European Union.

The campaign was started by Xavier Mir and there have been numerous adhesions of support. Tonight sees the start of the campaign.
We are just a week away of commemorating our National Day. 11 of September 1714 is the day when the city of Barcelona fell to the Spanish troops supporting the Borbons. They proceeded to suppress our national institutions of self-government and implementing their policy of cultural genocide and extermination of the Catalan nation. If you want to read more about Catalan history, I recommend you read Free Catalonia, select language (English, Spanish or Catalan) and go to the ‘Our history as a nation’ section.

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Catalan language and blogs

By the way, it is worth mentioning that according to this organisation, there are about 123,000 bloggers publishing in Catalan in the internet. That puts our language second in the blogosphere, behind English.

Some voices have questioned whether these numbers are accurate and if the algorithm used by this organisation is correct. Jokingly, some have gone as far as suggesting that the algorithm counts as Catalan all blogs published by our Spanish neighbours full of hatred and racism against us.

I have had a look at the methodology used and I have to say that the 3-word (trigram) algorithm used looks a bit dubious. Looking at the TextCat meta-file used, there seems to be many inaccuracies in the Catalan language text used to identify a published text as being written in Catalan.

I will keep an eye on this matter and advise of any developments.

In any case, blogging is a very popular activity and the internet is the only place where we can be a free nation, without being constantly attacked by Spain. Perhaps that’s why so many Catalans have taken to blogging in great numbers.

Effective Catalonia

The below is an article by Josep Vergés, it was published in the Catalan web portal, Racó Català. I agree wholeheartedly with his views. Sadly, independent voices like him are silenced in the Spanish-controlled, pro-unionist Catalan media.
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Effective Catalonia
Enterprise is risk, but without entrepreneurs a country does not advance. Catalonia progresses, not through politicians profiting from the money of others, but from thousands of businessmen risking their own money. Some businesses go very well and others not because it is the law of life to grow and decline. This dynamism, not natural resources which we not possess nor our own State which we also do not have, gives us our wealth and strength.

In Madrid the word risk does not exist, because behind everything they always have the State: behind Iberia the gift of Terminal IV in Madrid or behind Endesa, the former PP electricity monopoly, which prefers to be in German than Catalan hands, as though Berlin were closer and more easily influenced than Barcelona. The Madrid entrepreneur lives off politics and bureaucracy. The Barcelona-Madrid shuttle has tried unsuccessfully to integrate Catalans in the Madrid economics because Catalans are viewed as suspiciously in Madrid as Jews were in Berlin when this was the capital of fascism. Catalan politicians -some to enrich themselves and if not ask Duran Lleida or José Montilla why both are multimillionaires if they have never worked- have copied the Madrid model. We have public companies like TV3, and staying in the same branch, private like Avui enormous loss makers, but certainly 100% servile. But Catalonia grows not through political pork barrel, but through entrepreneurs taking risks.

Josep Jane Sola is a typical Catalan entrepreneur who founded his own dynamic bank, finally victim of a stock exchange crisis. He is also a well known economist, for many years president of the Catalan Economics Society, part of the Institute of Catalan Studies, where I was secretary until 2005 when Jose Montilla imposed Mr. X of GAL State terrorism, Narcis Serra, as president of socialist Caixa Catalunya which sponsors our Catalan Economics Prize. “Effective Economics” (Milenio, 2006) is the massive homage in two volumes, 1,466 pages and 116 contributors, which we economists dedicate to him. Dr. Jane shows me the front cover of himself as a young mountaineer and says that mountains teach about living: “The measured effort, the calculated risk, to reach the summit and, above all, to know how to get back.” In his dedication he writes: “The best secretary-collaborator I have ever had and what constant support and farseeing and unbreakable loyalty.” The Festschrift is promoted by Fabia Estape, of Port Bou by the way as his stormy mind shows, Juan Velarde Fuertes, Josep Vilarasau of la Caixa, and Jesus Timoteo, editor of the book with his son Oscar Jane. Populariser of economics and of the popular participation in the economy, he follows the observation by John Maynard Keynes: “What changes the world are not interest rates but ideas.” The effective economy is what makes the world go round.

His model of an effective man is the inventor of the peseta Laurea Figuerola, born in the county of Anoia, in Calaf, and he in Igualada. He imposed the Catalan peseta eliminating the chaos of 97 Spanish coins. On the centenary of his death, February 28th 2003, we presented his book in homage. Apart from the peseta, he reformed foreign trade, freed education from the Church and even gave back Citadel Park from the military to Barcelona, something which present day politicians have still failed to do with Montjuic Castle, the other symbol of Franco-Spanish repression of Catalan freedoms. There is nothing that last longer than the provisional. A provisional, and liberal, government installed the provisional, and liberalising, peseta which lasted for 133 years. What is never provisional is proper work. What will remain of 23 years of Jordi Pujol, incapable of getting anything permanent for Catalonia? History will look more kindly on Josep Tarradellas, who found the way to force Madrid to break with the fascist past by restoring the Catalan government. He was a provisional president, in exile and after his return, but what remains is the return to legality, like what remains is the initiative of liberal entrepreneurs who reach the peak for an effective Catalonia.Josep C. Vergés27.8.06

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Links
http://www.racocatala.cat/articles/11838

Spain's institutional hatred against all things Catalan

http://www.avui.cat/avui/diari/06/ago/23/245782.htm

The link above is from the Catalan newspaper Avui. I am sorry I don’t have a full translation in English but you can always try a Catalan-English e-translation in Translendium or a Catalan-Spanish e-translation in Softcatalà.

The article explains how the Speaker of the Spanish Parliament and its Registry department systematically refuse to accept any letter or documents written in Catalan or Basque. However, they are happy to accept and translate official documents in other languages like French or English.

Amazingly, the European parliament accepts correspondence written in Catalan. Yet, this is not possible in the so-called “plural” state of Spain.

Once again, irrefutable proof of the institutional hatred the Catalan nation has to suffer at the hands of Spain. How can anyone harbour any hopes of living in a multinational, multilingual Spain (like a Switzerland of the Mediterranean) when Spain's higher institutions of government, regardless of who is in power, have a systematic policy of persecution and obliteration of our language and culture?

Spain will never change. They want to exterminate any traces of national identity left in Catalonia as they have almost done in the rest of the Catalan-speaking areas, likeValencia or the Balearics. They are following the lead of France, whose successive governments have almost succeeded in eliminating the Catalan language in the counties north of the border.
We are next in Spain's policy of cultural genocide.

Will we ever have the guts to stand up and say ‘enough is enough’?

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Post published in the Racó Català: http://www.racocatala.cat/articles/11791

The Bottom Line

Nowadays, with the Middle East conflict in full swing again, one is overwhelmed by the scale of the horror unfolding in the region.

In the past, I had a lot of sympathy for the Palestinian people. Not any more I am afraid.

There is a fundamental difference between the Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims and the Israelis/Jews: the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) does not deliberately target civilians. Hamas and Hezbollah, on the other hand, do target Israeli civilians.

Muslim terrorists (whether Hamas, Hezbollah or Al-Qaida), train children to be suicide bombers, would-be martyrs of their cause. They even have set-up "Martyr schools" for that purpose.
The Israelis/Jews do not send suicide bombers to blow themselves up in a packed restaurant.

The Islamic terrorists are hell bent on destroying the Western world and anyone who is not a Muslim.
The Jews just want to be left alone in peace. They are the only true democracy in the region, and the only nation in the Middle East where women (whether Jew or Muslim) have equal rights.

More importantly, from a self-defence perspective if nothing else, the Jews will never send suicide bombers to the West to kill as many innocent civilians as possible.
The Islamist fanatics send commandos trained to cause as many civilian casualties as possible: New York, Madrid, London, Bali, Egypt, Mumbai, the list is endless.

That’s the bottom line: a group of people will not hesitate to kill me, to kill you, if given the chance. That’s why I could not care less anymore.