As a former news junkie and politics geek I don’t seem to concern myself much with the news nowadays. I’m too busy deciding what my next destination is going to be, which hostel to stay at and where to set up my office for the day. I do scan the headlines of the British left-leaning ‘quality’ press, that flog us just as much bollocks as other outlets with whichever inclination or paymaster and I’m not quite sure why I actually bother. One recent news story I got rather worked up about is the faux-democratic shenanigans around Catalonia’s independence referendum.
The faux- Democratic Diet
We folks in ‘western democracies’ are being force-fed so-called liberal democratic ideas and ideals pretty much from when we are able to read and write. We learn about the French Revolution, nationalism, the emancipation of the working classes and how political rule has transferred from the few to the many. Besides that we, the people, apparently rule ourselves, we also have so-called freedom of speech, freedom of press, the rule of law and all those other wonderful aspects a ‘free-society’ should have. Then we have the EU, which has been in the making since the 1950s. What started out as a small economic association grew out to a political union, in which the perceived rule of the many was transferred back to the rule of an unelected few. We get to freely move, study and work within the EU prison, which seems a bone juicy enough for most to pliantly accept the EU dictatorship, but I’m digressing slightly.
It must now be quite obvious, that not only when it comes to countries with brown and black people and plenty of natural resources, the so-called beacons of the free world turn a blind eye to non-democratic aspects and (in)action. Even in Europe, the will of the people can be forcefully denied if it’s not to the liking of the state. In the case of the Catalonia independence referendum, Spain might as well still be lingering in Franco- fascist- dictatorship times.
Democratic Terror State Spain
A bit less than a month ago, the Spanish autonomous region of Catalonia held a referendum on its independence, which was approved by the Catalan parliament, yet declared illegal by the Spanish state with the argument that it was in breach of the Spanish constitution. The referendum was held nevertheless and voters were forcefully removed by the National police and the Guardia Civil. If this had happened in Russia or any other’shady’ state, this action would have been universally condemned. With a voter turnout of 43 per cent, 92 per cent of the votes were cast in favour of independence. Now you might think, that if less than half of the electorate could be bothered to vote, could one consider that a mandate? In the first place, many voters were forcefully prevented to cast their vote, so we don’t know what the turn out would have been if the brute that is the Spanish state would have allowed and actually encouraged a truly democratic process. In the second place, in American presidential elections, on average 25 per cent of registered voters- so not 25 per cent of all the people, not even 25 per cent of the electorate, but 25 per cent of the registered voters– get to decide via an electoral college who the country’s president is going to be. That is considered a free and fair democratic process. In the UK about 30 per cent of the votes decide, which party gets to rule the country. That too is considered a legit process in a liberal democracy.
Instead of declaring independence straight away, Catalonia has been dragging its feet and wanted to negotiate with a state that displays terrorist tendencies. Then, yesterday, the Spanish terror state dissolved the democratically elected Catalan parliament and calls new elections, with the argument of ‘restoring democracy’. Opposing the will of the people to restore people’s rule, is a case of double speak not even George Orwell could make up. A Facebook friend made the analogy of an abusive relationship; while Catalonia wants a divorce, the Spanish state uses violence and abuse to maintain the union and at the same time claims how much respect it has for the autonomous region. Meanwhile, leaders of the ‘free world’, US, UK and the EU super state, force-feeding ‘democracy’ abroad, have stated they won’t acknowledge the democratic will of the Catalan people. In case I was still hanging on with a pinky finger, I got off the fake-democracy band wagon for good.
Democracy is a farce. There is no such thing as people’s rule, only the appearance of it. Let the walls of prison dissolve.

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