The declaration of Catalonian independence lasted exactly 56 seconds. 39 of them were takwn by applause. And then, it was retracted. The faces of the people gathered in the streets and cheering the independence only to discover immediately that it was being walked back are painful to watch.
Puigdemont is using them to wrangle more power and money for himself out of Madrid. And those poor sumbitches got their asses whooped to facilitate his self-enrichment goals.
Moral of the story: come out into the streets for your own interests. Don’t let yourself be duped by some slick bastard looking to sell you out for a handout.
Clarissa's Blog 
In American football parlance, Pudgeydemon punted…. and it was fumbled and they’re in terrible field position.
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Jeez, can’t even trust you to get your american sports metaphors right. You punt the ball to the other team, and if they fumbled, that is good for you.
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You punt when you don’t think you can make a first down to try to make sure the other team has a worse field position when they get the ball.
In this case the snap was fumbled and now Rajoy has much better field position.
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I can’t shake the feeling people are making fun of me with this. I guess I’m a real American now! It’s all about me.
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“I’m a real American now! It’s all about me”
Now you’re gettin’ it! Catalonia, that’s all about European resistance to Trump, doncha know….
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I am very glad that so far the Kurdish leadership hasn’t made a complete hash of its independence referendum like Catalonia. I guess Europe isn’t as superior to the rest of the world as it and US “progressives” think.
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Some of us who have absolutely no skin in this specific issue would love to see the Kurds get a free, independent nation that takes deserved territory from Syria, Iraq, and Turkey. But since two of those countries are nominal “allies” of the United States — one of whom is in NATO and the other dependent on U.S. support to fight ISIS — there will be no American support for an independent Kurdish state in the near-term future.
Israel is currently the only Middle-Eastern nation advocating for an independent Kurdish state, which Israel knows would be a welcome ally against Iran.
The Kurds are so far playing their cards reasonably successfully. Let’s see if they can continue to do so until time is in their favor.
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As somebody who was in 1991 in Yugoslavia in exactly the same position as Spain and Catalunya are now, I think that Puidgemont is simply trying to prevent a war, such as those that happened in Croatia, Bosnia, etc. Spanish government said they will do a complete takeover, including with military force, if independence is declared and given how they do not want to even talk, I believe there is a high probability of war. Surely noone wants that, so I think Puidgemont actually did a very clever thing to buy time to find a less violent solution.
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I really hope the government will not buy into this absurdity and provide more money to Cataluña!!
Puigdemont is not trying to avoid a war! He truly doesn’t care…actually, having a violent confrontation is his plan B, to force mediation from other countries or EU.
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I agree. Puigdemont is just a self-serving SOB.
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