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Somewhere, probably across the border into France....there’s boxes of ballots secretly waiting to be delivered during the night prior to the election. You can figure that virtually every single cop will be on a 24-hour shift and trying to halt or hinder the election.

The Spanish federal government could stop all of this by going to a redistribution system over taxes, and returning the wealth generated in Catalonia...back toward that state. If you go and figure out the deal...roughly twenty-percent of the national taxation income...comes from a region with roughly 10-percent of the population.

What I would worry about long-term, assuming the federal government wins in this episode...is that Catalonia will eventually convince a 2nd state to follow them and make this a wider issue.

Note as well, around Europe...there are probably twenty different regions which would like to break away and a successful Catalonia breakaway really hypes up the idea for other regions.

If you go and figure out the deal...roughly twenty-percent of the national taxation income...comes from a region with roughly 10-percent of the population.

So in other words, Socialists upset about the effects of Socialism. Go figure.

For a long time, the threat of “independence” was Jordi Pujol’s method of getting more concessions out of Madrid. But there has always, since the days of Esquerra Republicana and even before, been a powerful radical leftist influence in this, and many of them even dream of making Catalonia the next (Communist) Albania. I dont know why they’d want to be like that wretched, unsuccessful place, except that it was the most despotic and closed of the Soviet bloc countries.

Catalonia was completely controlled by the Soviets and Barcelona was the scene of some of the ugliest acts of the Spanish Civil War, committed by a combination of the Soviets and native Catalan communists and anrchists. These people never entirely went away and have revived, especially now that they’ve gotten together with Podemos.

In any case, one thing they never mention is the flip side, which is that Catalonia receives more government money per capita than any region in Spain. (Probably thanks to Jordi Pujols, who is now on trial for tax evasion.)

Also, speculation is that if it does become independent, it will soon become a Muslim enclave, since it already has the highest Muslim population in Spain. Friends of mine who live there are really afraid right now.