The shit in Spain falls mainly in the fan

[crazy canuck]

The company I consult with is noticing an uptick in debit/credit card declines in Catalonia.

Can you ellaborate? Like today or for the past weeks, or...? Is it a large uptick?

Go get some cash and stock up on the essentials 

[Barrister]

The Union would have had every legitimacy in the world if it said "it is monstrous to hold human beings as property.  They should be given their full voice, and we're prepared to go to war to see this happen."

I actually think that is basically what happened. It was not that direct of course, but the South seceeded BECAUSE a large enough portion of the greater population had said essentially that abolition was coming. Allvia the democratic process, and all while that same process denied the rights of people who would have a rather vested interest in the question the right to express their opinion.

Indeed, it was actually worse than that, since the system in place actually made it so that to the extent they WERE counted, they were counted in a manner that gave their 60% voice to the very people who used it to try to keep them enslaved.

And *despite* all that, the writing for slavery was still on the wall. The south seceeded because they could read that writing as well as anyone else.

It was always about slavery, start to finish.

And the North went to war to preserve the very Union that had just basically said "Yeah, slavery is going to end at some point, and certainly will not be allowed to spread further".

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union

Perhaps you're right - that the Union was always going to free the slaves and what Lincoln said above was sophistry.  Lincoln did sign the Emancipation Proclamation a few months after writing the above words.

But his words above, and at other times, were pretty clear on the subject.

[Josquius]

Can we have a new thread for the ACW stuff please?

[Barrister]

Can we have a new thread for the ACW stuff please?

This is Languish.

ACW hijacks are what we do.

[Duque de Bragança]

Maybe there's more legitimacy to our Wessex nationalist cause than I guessed. 

I'm afraid France will only use it as a bargaining chip for the Brexit negotiations.   

[garbon]

Maybe there's more legitimacy to our Wessex nationalist cause than I guessed. 

I'm afraid France will only use it as a bargaining chip for the Brexit negotiations.   

Fuck France.

[celedhring]

The Catalan Government has finished a 5-hour meeting without no decree being publicly issued, nor replying to Spain's approval of the intervention. Strange.

It's for the best, I guess.

[HVC]

The separatists didn't seem to have planned very well for this.

[Iormlund]

There are calls for boycotting the elections from CUP (extreme left separatists). Separatists have 20 days to decide whether they participate in elections of a state they don't recognize anymore, or risk losing all major power centers to unionists (mass media, education, police). And we will see for sure incidents like the ones on Oct 1, but now in reverse, as separatists try to close down voting centers.

It's a complete reverse of the referendum situation. It seems the central government had planned this very carefully, while the separatists are adrift.

[Duque de Bragança]

HVC, master of litotes.

[HVC]

HVC, master of litotes.

[Barrister]

HVC, master of litotes.

I learned a new word today.

[Duque de Bragança]

Glad I was able to help.

[Eddie Teach]

You'll probably have to look it up again next time you hear it 20 years from now.

[grumbler]

I agree with all of this. What I disagree with is that the separatist movement of Catalunya is somehow illegitimate because it can't spontaneously generate an elusive "overwhelming majority" (hence the allusion to American Independence).

No separatist, racist, or neo-Nazi movement is ever illegitimate, because popular support is irrelevant to legitimacy.  Groups gain legitimacy by declaring themselves legitimate.