Due to social media, the mainstream media can no longer hide what happens. But they can attempt to frame our perceptions of it. What happened yesterday in Catalonia is that paramilitary forces attacked voters who were trying to vote. The mainstream media has universally decided to call the voters “protestors” rather than voters. So next time you go to your polling station, apparently what you are doing is protesting. This kind of distortion through misuse of language is absolutely deliberate by professional mainstream journalists. In a situation where thousands of peaceful voters were brutalised, can anybody find a single headline in the mainstream media which attributes responsibility for the violence correctly?
This was a headline on the Guardian front page at 10.29am today. The people who wrote it are highly educated media professionals. The misleading impression a natural reading gives is absolutely deliberate.
Maintaining the Establishment line in face of reality has been a particular problem for picture editors. The Daily Telegraph has produced a whole series of photos whose captions test the “big lie” technique to its limits.
Note the caption specifically puts the agency for the “clash” on the people. “People clash with Spanish Guardia Civila…”. But the picture shows something very different, a voter being manhandled away from the polling station.
Actually what they are doing is preventing voters from entering a polling station, not preventing a riot from attacking a school, which is the natural reading of the caption.
In fact the firemen are trying to shield people walking to vote from the paramilitaries. The firemen were attacked by the Guardia Civilia shortly after that.
Sky News every half hour is repeating the mantra that the Catalan government claims a mandate for Independence “after a referendum marred by violence”, again without stating what caused the violence. In general however Sky’s coverage has been a great deal better than the BBC; Al Jazeera has been excellent.
I strongly suspect that were it not for social media, UK mainstream media would have told us very little at all. This is an object lesson in how the mainstream media still seek to continue to push fake news on us in the age of citizen journalism. They no longer have a monopoly on the flow of raw information; what they can do is to attempt to distort perceptions of what people are seeing.
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Those illegally voting protestors were persistently going up and headbutting the truncheons of hardworking policemen.
The mainstream media are fascists.
They too enjoy telling everyone what they should be thinking, but don’t much enjoy discussion.
Well they’re Liberals – turns out it’s the same thing, who knew?!
The remarkable thing is just how peaceful the voters were in the face of the fascist violence directed against them.
I suspect it’s a tactic long learned from years of resisting the forces ranged against them.
Passive resistance.
This is the first foreign paper I checked (sorry, not in English):
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/referendum-in-katalonien-katalanische-regierung-trifft-sich-zu-sondersitzung-1.3692096
It’s not just the media who are trying to distort our perceptions. Labour politicians are repeatedly referring to “police violence”.
It’s state violence. Pure and simple. To call it police violence is to allow the Francoist Madrid government to distance themselves from the events. At least to the degree that they can spin it to make out the violence came from a mix of over-zealous police commanders and provocative indy supporters.
The violence was specifically ordered by Spanish PM and his ministers.
State violence. Got it?
I think a lot of it was police violence. Did the state order the police to kick people who were on the ground, or randomly beat people who were no threat to them? Did the state order the police to attack a man in a wheelchair or break a woman’s fingers? It looked to me like some officers were enjoying the beatings they handed out.
Now technically the referendum was illegal and maybe the Spanish government had the legal right to try to prevent it, but that did not give the police carte blanche to do what they liked.
Fortunately the world was watching and lots of cameras were recording events.
Of course it was police violence. But I’m saying it was state directed police violence. Ergo state violence.
Yes.
The govt are saying that the police response was “proportionate”, and had you been watching Spanish TV you might have believed it.
Spanish TV were seeking out isolated incidents of scuffles involving voters and police which they then relayed to the Spanish population as if the voters were to blame.
Catalan TV was all bloodied voters and fascist paramilitary police hammering them.
Please make a distinction between Guarda Civil (anonymous, faces hidden, no numbers visible) and those Police Officers behaving as we would expect police (faces uncovered, accountable and trying to protect the public). It is clear that many were heartbroken by what was happening and tried to uphold proper policing.
I don’t think Guarda Civil deserve to be called police.
Misuse of language is a terrible thing, good for you to denounce it. Yet you misuse the term “paramilitary force” when you refer to the national police force.
I am disgusted by the brutal force implemented by the Guardia Civil yesterday and instigated by the terrible right-wing party we have ruling Spain. But if scholars and experts in politics misuse language as does the press, we aren’t contributing to at all to developing any form of understanding.
How is it misused.
They’re similar to the French Gendarmarie and Italian Caribinieri, are they not.
Admittedly they’re a bit more cute in their cocked berets with the wee string thing hanging round their neck than they were in the tricorn hats.
They’re a paramilitary force, undoubtedly.
Encyclopaedia Britannica:
“Civil Guard, Spanish Guardia Civil, paramilitary national police force of Spain, engaged primarily in maintaining order in rural areas and in patrolling the frontiers and the highways.”
To explain the significance of ‘paramilitary’ in this case, it is that “it is organised as a military force charged with police duties under the authority of both the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defence” (wiki). That is slightly different from the French Gendarmes, who are solely under the authority of the Ministry of Defence. I don’t know how the Carabinieri function. However the Gendarmes in France are hard to describe as paramilitary, though technically they are. They are really just another police force, better equipped than the Police Nationale. I used to live next to a Gendarme post about 20 years ago. But if you’re going to get beaten up in a demo in France, it will be by the CRS (Compagnies républicaines de sécurité), which are actually part of the Police Nationale, and not the Gendarmes at all.
The significance of the issue is that there was an article yesterday which claimed that if Madrid had used the army to suppress the demonstrations, the EU would have had to suspend Spain’s membership, for using its military forces against its own people. To call them paramilitary would suggest Spain had indeed used its military forces against the Spanish people. But it’s a rather nice question, as these ‘military’ forces are of quite ancient origin in Latin Europe.
Antonio Tejero, the leader of the attempted Franquista coup in 1981, was a lieutenant colonel in the Guardia Civil. He is still alive and living in Spain, and currently opposes the Catalan independence movement.
He was accompanied by some 200 members of the Guardia Civil in briefly occupying the Spanish parliament’s building in 1981.
“French Gendarmes, who are solely under the authority of the Ministry of Defense”
Not any more. SInce 2009 the Gendarmerie Nationale has been entirely under the minister of the Interior, but gendarmes do still indeed retain a military status.
BBC News Channel yesterday lunchtime (1 Oct). Newsreader intro: “Voters clash with riot police”.
I think you’l find that the correct construction is:
“Riot police clash with voters”.
BBC, up to their old Orwellian tricks as usual.
Fearghas, was that quote from Tom Burridge? He seems to be setting the tone for the BBC :
Analysis: Tom Burridge, BBC News, Barcelona : “Given the chaotic nature of the vote, turnout and voting figures should be taken with a pinch of salt.”
The BBC’s Tom Burridge in Barcelona witnessed police being chased away from one polling booth after they had raided it.
A witness in Barcelona sent this photo to the BBC’s Tom Burridge – the man had been caught up in scuffles at a polling station.
[this was Tom’s caption for a picture of a man with blood streaming from his head, the only photo portraying violence in the BBC’s “Catalan referendum: In pictures”]
“Voters clash with riot police” was one of the short opening headlines. Familiar female presenter, I am sure just innocently reading the autocue.
I didn’t blink a the use of ‘paramilitary’ to describe these police.
In the UK we have a quaint notion that police are rather comically dressed in tall pointy helmets and armed only with a short truncheon [quite an effective weapon in it’s own right] and a whistle.
These goons have guns, riot gear and sticks almost a metre long. When you live abroad and routinely see armed police and riot police on standby it is a different feeling entirely.
It is correct and necessary to call out the journalistic weasel words but the pictures speak louder. You can see who is ‘violent’. How many pictures of injured police have we seen? Any? Where are the rocks thrown by angry ‘protesters’? The Molotov cocktails? The blazing barricades? The restraint shown by those desiring only to vote is remarkable.
I am shocked by the silence of both the media and the politicians at the clear and unprovoked brutality against young and old, men and women in one of Europe’s most popular cities. It tells me that they know the police were given permission to behave in this way and they did nothing to prevent it.
We must all wake up to the increasing militarisation of police forces across NATO countries, which has progressed in tandem with our increasingly fragile freedom of speech!
I totally agree with this statement and welcome these comments which you have made. Thanks
Craig
This post is so full of tendentious bullshit it’s difficult to know where to begin. So let’s take something from the beginning as a good example.
“What happened yesterday in Catalonia is that paramilitary forces attacked voters who were trying to vote.”
What you mean is that we saw police (love that loaded term “paramilitary”!) endeavouring to uphold the law , ie, to prevent people from voting in an illegal and unconstitutional “referendum”.
It is the task of the police, in democratic countries, to uphold the law ( in some countries like Russia their task is to do the opposite).
As for alleged “brutality”, the nationalist elements in Catalan society who allowed themselves to be duped into “voting” by a gaggle of neo-fascist Catalan politicians on the make can thank their lucky stars that they only had Pussycat Rajoy’s govt to deal with and not the late Caudillo…..
The Guardia Civil are legally under the authority of the Interior and Defence, so are military in some sense.
Only illegal under the laws of the old Falangist guard in Madrid.
Protests, then self determination through a democratic vote, this is how countries are created. Better that way than all out conflict, of which I see the old Franco guard implementing as soon as Catalans declare independence.
Will Europe turn a blind eye?
“Only illegal under the laws of the old Falangist guard in Madrid.”
Actually the referendum contravened at least 20 articles of the Catalan government’s own referendum law which they passed in September.
If that’s the case then why did 90% vote yes to Catalan independence?
When people were told they could print their own ballot papers and vote in any polling station, in contravention of Catalan law passed in September by the Catalan parliament, it’s hard to say how many people voted.
Who voted what has no bearing on the legality of the referendum however.
“It’s hard to say how many people voted.”
42.3% or 2.2 million people, of course more would’ve voted if the fascist paramilitary thugs hadn’t beaten some of their fellow voter half to death before the vote.
Illegal under the present-day Spanish Constitution which is of course a post-Franco and democratic Constitution (if it were not, Spain would not have been admitted into the EU).
Catalonia, by the way, is par excellence the region where the various political factions (Socialists, POUM, Communists, anarchists…) spent more time fighting each other than fighting the Caudillo during the Civil War.
Yeah, that’s called the 1936 Spanish revolution. Turned on by fascists, communists and social democrats. Funny enough, the communists turned on the revolution at Stalin’s command cause he didn’t want to upset the European social democratic states.
Surely “a gaggle of neo-fascist Catalan politicians on the make” is slightly loaded too, if your aim is to present a balanced argument against Craig’s use of “paramilitary”.
@ Habbabkuk October 2, 2017 at 13:21
‘…As for alleged “brutality”, the nationalist elements in Catalan society who allowed themselves to be duped into “voting” by a gaggle of neo-fascist Catalan politicians on the make can thank their lucky stars that they only had Pussycat Rajoy’s govt to deal with and not the late Caudillo…..’
I have politely asked you before if you are a Fascist, as you laud the acts of Franco and Pinochet. You did not reply.
So in the above comment you made, you again seem to be lauding Franco and his ‘methods’.
Yet you call the Catalan leaders ‘Neo-Fascist’ (with no explanation or evidence). So can I assume you believe ‘Neo-Fascists’ (not that I accept the Catalan leaders are such) are bad, whereas full-blown Fascists are good?
What do you make of the following – do you think it’s Jim Dandy for a European country to allow this sort of demonstration, with Fascist salutes and a Fascist song, to take place in Madrid?
Madrid’s Fascists strut their stuff:
‘Cara al Sol y saludos fascistas en la concentración “unionista” de Madrid’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POd8w4WrSqM
‘Cara al Sol’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cara_al_Sol
‘Spanish anti-separatists in Madrid protest with fascist arm salutes while singing far-right song’:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/catalonia-independence- referendum-polls-open-vote-protests-barcelona-madrid-police-guardia-ci vil-a7976791.html
Simple questions.
Media has always been a weapon and governments have been increasingly more efficient in manipulating it. Governments hold a monopoly on violence and violence is the foundation of control. Nonviolence is interpreted as violence. Government violence is interpreted as keeping the peace.
Very true.
well spoken, Paul, those above who don’t realise that there is an EU law forbidding violence against one’s own peaceful citizens are apologists for such violence.
The BBC covered it as if to say’ see, this is what Independence movements are getting, not mentioning Scotland made it more obvious.
I’m appalled at the politicians turning their backs, full well knowing that it would go ahead, seeing the preparations by Rajoy to clamp down and pretending not to see what is going on, just as the police in Twyford Down, turning around when protesters were sexually assaulted by hired security thugs.
It’s article 7, but it does have a get out claus, ie nations mustn’t use MILITARY force against its population. Say snothing about the plod.
Mind you I’m going to play devils advocat here and say, it’s no secret just what bastards the Spanish police are, anyone calling a referendum that can be perceived as illegal know that the police will get violent with voters, therefor the violence was a planned part of this vote in order to drive sympathy for a Catalonian independence stance. Not saying it’s right or wrong just saying the Indies new people would get hurt. So it’s a PR move as much as a vote.
The Catalan “independence vote” was unquestionably illegal. Therefore the police acted to uphold the law. Would you rather that the police did not uphold any laws at all, and that anyone and everyone could do whatever they pleased with no interference from the forces of law and order.
Yes the Spanish police are violent, much more violent than UK police forces. This is not a good thing, but it is reality and that reality was well understood by all of the protesters/voters/law breakers.
Calling them voters is in fact a gross insult to the democratic process. All those in favor of obeying the law chose not to partake in this charade. Or maybe that is the way forward – only allow people to vote who are going to vote the way you want them to vote.
The mainstream media are dedicated servants to the cult of mendacity – the alternative media is supposed to provide at least a scintilla of truth and reason. This post is as mendacious and vacuous as anything that could appear in the MSM. It is written from an ideological perspective by someone who is patently ignorant of Spanish history and Spanish culture.
Very much seconded!
@ Habbabkuk October 2, 2017 at 13:47
Birds of a feather….
That’s because Craig’s posts on the matter are really about Scottish not Catalan independence. He understands full well that the prospects of Scottish independence are fast disappearing over the horizon and is now living it out vicariously via the Catalan situation.
The same thought had occurred to me. It is deplorable when people try to use events of whose background and true mobiles they know very little to somehow back up something they wish would happen in their own back garden.
That nonsense.
Holyrood has a mandate for a second indyref.
It will be all down to timing (Brexit outcome) when exactly it will be called.
Those of us who support Scottish independence have been following events in Catalonia for several years, we have a certain affinity with the Catalan people.
If Holyrood has a mandate then it should use it. Sturgeon didn’t have to cave in so obsequiously to May’s comments.Sturgeon’s problem is not to do with having a referendum, it’s the fact that opinion polls show no real increase in support for independence despite the Brexit vote.
One word…timing, it makes a world of difference.
Oh god the parliamentary SNP are a neoliberal party and part of the British establishment. They will never call another ref, their entire raison d’être is too keep Labour out of power. When the Blairites were in control they attacked from the left, now Labour have swung left, they’ll attack from the centre.
If you want to make a difference folks Scots can join Corbyn’s Scottish Labour Party for a quid and put the wind up Blairites *and* the Tories
https://scotlandjoin.labour.org.uk/
The SNP is aminority government, so actually does not have a mandate, and they’re unlikely to get a Section 30 order before Brexit in 2019. The choice then wil be remain in one union or be out of both. I can’t imagine that Sturgeon fancies that.
They already secured a mandate for a second indyref, with help from the Green party.
There is a majority of MSPs in the Parliament – 64 SNP and 6 Greens – who were elected on a pro-independence ticket. Earlier this year they passed a referendum bill which gives the Scottish Government a mandate to hold an indyref.
Correction. 63 SNP. Still a majority of pro-independence MSPs.
@ Busted Flush October 2, 2017 at 16:46
A Free Scotland could always join BRICS.
Why the fuck should anyone care if people want to spend their Sunday participating in a vote for whatever? And why should anyone obey a law that says such an activity is illegal?
Organizing a vote for whatever should be well within the civil liberties enjoyed by anyone living in a democracy.
Of course the Spanish government should be free to ignore the result of such a vote, since it has no legal force. But using state violence to try to stop it only shows that the constitution and/or government is broken.
@ Mattias October 2, 2017 at 14:32
Agree totally.
“The Catalan “independence vote” was unquestionably illegal.”
Illegal in the eyes of whom? The Spanish government.
Tell me this then, how many people does it take to decide in a democratic vote that they do not want their region to be part of a greater country, 5 million? 10 million? A 100 million?
According to your logic no amount would matter as long as it contradicted the laws and constitutions of the government.
The Catalan “independence vote” was illegal in the eyes of the Spanish Supreme Count and indeed in the eyes of the Catalan courts. The government is not free to ignore the law and hence it had no choice other than to deem the entire exercise illegal.
It is illegal under the terms of the Spanish constitution. In order for such a vote to take place legally it is necessary to firstly change the Spanish constitution. This can be done – but it cannot be done by Catalans alone. There are 17 Autonomous Communities in Spain and they all rank pari pasu with Catalonia.
So the simple answer to your question is that it requires a majority of Spaniards to decide in a democratic vote that they are willing to contemplate the secession of one particular region. Why is this strange? You and I cannot vote to make ourselves immune from the laws of the land in which we live. That is not how democracy works. How many defendants in a criminal trial advance the defense that prior to committing a crime they democratically voted themselves immunity from the law?
On what basis should one constituent part of Spain be able to direct and control the actions and views of the other 16 constituent parts ?
Your new found love affair with Catalonia brings you dangerously close to arguing that Catalans are some kind of master race and all other Spaniards are untermensch. I note that people that expound your views readily resort to smearing anyone that disagrees with them as fascist, whilst resolutely refusing to accept that their own position is directly comparable to Nazi ideology.
“Your new found love affair with Catalonia brings you dangerously close to arguing that Catalans are some kind of master race and all other Spaniards”
Well if you calling keeping an eye on Catalan independence since about 2013, then yes it’s a new found love affair.
Scots who favour Scottish independence have been following the Catalans attempts to hold a indyref. Catalans have come to Scotland and marched in many a indyref since 2013 possibly even earlier.
Whilst Scots have shown solidarity to Catalans by visiting the region and backing independence.
Indeed ex-Scottish MP’s and MSP’s were in Catalonia yesterday watching and supporting the Catalan people.
But I’m sure you know a lot more than I do about the Catalan region and the will of its people.
I know that the Catalan government is utterly corrupt, and as another poster points out a lot of their desire for independence is really a desire to escape Spanish justice.
For what possible reason other than narcissistic ego massaging would Scotland show solidarity with Catalonia? Why not show some solidarity with Extremadura or Andalucia – whose inhabitants will suffer some of the most adverse consequences of Catalan independence.
Scottish independence and Catalan independence is as a shark is to a sheep. Do you sheer sharks or fish for sheep? Maybe that could be a huge boost to the Scottish economy – invite over some Catalan tax dodgers and offer them expensive sheep fishing trips on your many lochs.
Nobody as yet has talked about the PP party of Rajoy and its problems in the supreme court currently, that Rajoy might have to call an election before December due to the financial irregualrities being investigated against a very long standing party member who is accused by a local magistrate in Valencia.
This person now being investigated might have to step down soon, having a 24 year career in local and national politics investigated.
Rajoy needed to be seen as the strong man in charge, his actions are ideological necessity as much as stubborness towards Catalan citizens and he knows that he is already in an election.
The blood of the Catalans has just being used to paint Rajoys electoral slogans and however righteous our Loony might want to appear, the Spanish Government is as insecure and centrally rotten as this UK Government, dead from the neck down.
@ Loony October 2, 2017 at 17:47
My understanding was that it was the Nazi’s whose favoured form of politics was street thuggery (at least initially).
“The Catalan “independence vote” was unquestionably illegal.”
As Craig has said, virtually an worthwhile political enterprise starts off by being illegal.
And pretty well all the disastrous ones.
Nothing’s perfect. You want the whites back in power in South Africa, do you?
If I were a Boer, I probably would. Happy to ramble away from the topic with you, and point out that SA still has problems, with nice multiethnics in charge.
Don’t think Verwoed would have let this happen…what say you?
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/watch-violence-erupts-at-anc-eastern-cape-conference-20171001
Good article.
People need to understand how effectively language can be used to manipulate people.
I’m surprised they didn’t describe polling stations as “compounds” and the Catalan Government as a “regime”; seems to me that’s the usual wording for the “bad” side.
Unfortunately, there are many trying to justify the sickening violence. If we accept it we are all complicit.
Good piece Craig about media lies.
@ morag October 2, 2017 at 13:54
Re media lies, the following promises to be an extraordinarily good meeting. I suggest booking soon because I can’t imagine tickets lasting long.
MEDIA ON TRIAL with JOHN PILGER: https://www.facebook.com/events/1855814831414265/
Also speaking will be Vanessa Beeley, Paul Henningsen, Peter Ford (ex British Ambassador to Syria, and others.
Rajoy praises police actions as “appropriate”, even when the whole world has seen them roughing up female and elderly voters. Contrast with those strange scenes in England in summer 2013 when police stoically endured being pelted and abused from a couple of feet away. UK police still have a number of problems that need straightening out, but by global standards they are exemplary. One of the dwindling number of things Britain has left to be proud of.
@ joel October 2, 2017 at 14:01
You are right that by global standards our police are good, and also, as you say,they still have a number of things that need straightening out. Remember the Miners Strike?
And at the pickets of News International (I live very close to the NI), a friend of mine and a friend of his were peacefully watching some Latin American (I think Chilean) performers doing some sort of entertainment on the picket, when a cop hit my friend’s friend across the temple with a truncheon, from behind. There was absolutely no cause for it, my friend told me. Another policeman said the cop should not be on the force, but wouldn’t be a witness. The guy they hit could easily have been killed.
Then of course, of all the deaths in police custody, no cops have been found guilty of wrongdoing (I don’t suppose any in Spain have either!).
Nobody knows what pressure the EU put on Madrid. if madrid was having its arm twisted all the more reason for the UK to leave the EU. I don’t agree with stopping free movement or free trade. Those are additions by the racist and imperialist Tories to what we voted for them to do, which is leave the Federal monster of the EU.
For that matter we don’t know what pressure the EU put on Mrs May either. maybe they told her she couldn’t come out of the federal EU without leaving free movement and free trade. If you don’t want things to go horribly wrong, it’s better to work within the rules of the unelected authority you have signed up to. things will go horribly wrong for the UK over Brexit, and things will go horribly wrong over Catalonia too.
The press is being more objective than Craig, who keeps on refusing to answer any of our questions as to why it’s preferable to belong to the imperialist war-mongering iceberg of the EU than the imperialist war-mongering iceberg of the UK. The reality is that it is time to un-pick the power of the Federal EU before it becomes the devil that the US has come to be. Kow-towing to the EU is what the EU expects its members to do. Not for member states to all parts of the iceberg to drift off like pack ice like Scotland or Catalonia.
I don’t see why the EU should have intervened in an internal Spanish matter at all. Verhofstadt was quite clear yesterday – “I don’t want to interfere in the domestic issues of Spain, but I absolutely condemn what happened today in Catalonia”. He struck the right note, I thought.
translate from political speak: “I want to interfere in the domestic issues of Spain, but I absolutely do not condemn what happened today in Catalonia “. Politicians are paid to mouth slime which makes people feel good while actually undermining us and pocketing illegal revenues.
I agree with Laguerre that our friend Guy struck the right note the other day. Especially when one considers that his condemnation of “what happened today in Catalonia” might also mean that he condemned the holding of an illegal and unconstitutional “referendum”…….
yes he struck the right note but he was talking bol***s-ticks, wasn’t he? He was saying what you want to hear while actually thinking your opinion doesn’t matter and disagreeing with you anyway.
“I don’t see why the EU should have intervened in an internal Spanish matter at all.”
Have you any idea of how hypocritical a statement that is?
When the EU through nation state members of Nato, constantly interfere in nations around the globe to suit their agenda.
NATO is not the EU by a long chalk, though they may share many of the same members. NATO is run by the US. As you may have noticed, the US is in the course of losing its main agent in the EU, and doesn’t exercise full hegemony over it.
In any case, I was only replying to giyane’s assertion that the EU was indeed pressurising Madrid.
“NATO is not the EU by a long chalk, though they may share many of the same members.”
Now you’ve just contradicted yourself, and I haven’t even pointed out yet, that “may” is actually not may but “do.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_NATO
RoS
Have I contradicted myself?Really?
Wouldn’t you think that the prospect of Spain losing its most economically active region and its successful second city might be motive enough for Madrid to tread on the project? While the EU probably doesn’t like the idea much anyway, I doubt it’s the main player here.
A bit of a double-edged sword here, Craig, if you don’t mind me saying. I might be a voter but also a separatist, which means that I don’t want to be ruled by the central government, wherever it may be. No sweat or misunderstanding there for me. I take that on board, whilst remembering Lewis Carroll’s ‘the meaning of words is exactly what I want them to mean.’ But if you call the Guardia Civilia (It’s Civil, btw) the Spanish Guardia Civil, you might be (mis)representing a part for the whole. I am currently fighting, and have been for years, to make sure that I’d mean the Spanish government’s Guardia Civil and not the ‘Spanish’ Guardia when I refer to the institution itself. I think it’s a huge mistake to use the synecdoche when, as modern thought should dictate, a distinction ought be made. We might be playing right into our ‘rulers’ hands when we refer to governments institutions as our own. Anyway, we should, as you imply if I’m not wrong, think about we say before we commit to paper. Best wishes
I think you’re reading too much into these captions which anyway were probably written by a junior or unpaid intern and not by a highly educated media professional. Such people tend to be the exception these days. The caption of the picture outside the school for example says “riot policemen” which is what they are, you agree on that, it doesn’t mention a riot which is clearly not happening. Likewise with what we already know about yesterday’s appalling events would “Guardia Civil guards clash with people” really have given readers a different perspective?
“I think you’re reading too much into these captions which anyway were probably written by a junior or unpaid intern and not by a highly educated media professional.”
A very poor attempt to defend the biased media I think.
The media know exactly how to word the events in Catalan, to make it appear as though the voters were at times the agitators, using photos handpicked to back up the narrative.
Of course social media clearly shows that not to be the case, and you fine well know it.
Social media as we well know to be totally unbiased and objective.
More bias from the BBC here:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-41463955/catalonia-referendum-violence-as-police-block-voting
I’ve not seen or read anything anywhere that attempts to blame voters, protestors whatever you want to call them for the violence.
Anyway I thought you were ignoring me.
“Social media as we well know to be totally unbiased and objective.”
Of course the oldest propaganda machine in the world the BBC, isn’t…eh?
The link to the photo on the BBC you provide, doesn’t encapsulate anything of what actually went on in Catalonia yesterday. Trust the good old BBC to find the only image where the fascist Guarda Civil didn’t cosh or shoot someone with rubber bullets, remarkable.
However for a more concise approach on the fascist brutality, in Catalonia yesterday, here’s a few more images.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/homage-to-catalonia/
Sorry you didn’t get around the reading the captions.
The images on WOS have been widely reproduced in the MSM, including the BBC, which is where of course WOS downloaded them from. You don’t think he has access to original content do you?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41460037
The terrible images of fascist brutality, were shown here yesterday, long before the British media realised it had to report something.
https://mobile.twitter.com/CatalansForYes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwingsoverscotland.com%2Fheres-to-you-mr-robinson%2Fcomment-page-1%2F%23comments
The BBC report is also dated yesterday (1st October). The images on WOS have also been cropped from those on the BBC and other MSM outlets.
Yes what would we do without social media keeping people informed of the facts.
https://twitter.com/___m______1___/status/914609558122897409
While I agree with your views most of the time, your posts concerning the mainstream media seldom hold up to the high standards you apply to them. The very short headline you show doesn’t attribute blame and it doesn’t have to. It entices to read on, plain and simple. I agree with parts of your assessment of the captions though.
At the moment you can find a good analysis about yesterdays events on the front page of the guardian that clearly lays the blame for the violence where it belongs:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/02/ripples-from-catalan-referendum-could-extend-beyond-spain
“Human Rights”… which one talks about, readily! Perhaps, but maybe we should not talk about that as if it’s a fact of life? Just like “perfection”, it is a GOAL, rather than a reality!
Thank you for giving the situation in Catalunya the correct perspective. For your readers’ information, the riot police (Guardia Civil) emerged from a hotel (one of many in which they were garrisoned) in Calella, Maresme, this morning and gratuitously started to beat citizens with their batons. The riot police were in civilian clothes and were obviously bent on revenge for the images which went around the world during the previous hours, and for the fact that they achieved only a small proportion of what they set out to do (in attempting to destroy the referendum).
Have been happy to make a donation to your defence fund, and I hope others will follow suit.
It is entirely evident why the Guardia Civil should have been deployed to uphold the law in Catalonia following the provocative and illegal staging of a so-called “referendum”. It is because there were the strongest indications that the local Catalan police had no intention of following the govt’s order to do their duty and uphold the law on Sunday.
Mind you, it is perhaps understandable why the local police was unwilling – after all, they live among the neo-fascist nationalist elements and their excitable dupes and would undoubtedly be the subjects of post facto intimidation had they carried out their duty.
It is also understandable why some Catalan politicians should be flogging the “independence” horse – after all, it mist be much more appealing to become a big fish in a small pond rather than remaining small fish in a big one…..
@ Habbabkuk October 2, 2017 at 15:13
‘With anti-Semitism Rampant, Yews Should Rethink Spanish Citizenship’:
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.683675
So your fine with a government that allows this sort of thing? Oh, yes, of course, you as much as admitted supporting Fascists previously…
Just because an activity is illegal doesn’t mean to say it is right I do not agree with violence or people subjecting themselves to violence from others. If you have arrived at violence you have already lost your intellect and your cause. The root of the problem of anger is annoyance with oneself for agreeing to something you decided to take a risk on against the good advice of others. Better to make a mental note not to repeat the mistake. The British government only tried to kill Craig Murray for whistleblowing on US and EU torture.
Mental note to self#1:: do not underestimate the criminality of corrupt political institutions again. Mental note to self #2: follow what hard lessons of life have taught me to do. Mental note to self #3: yes I’m talking to you.
A VERY well written article that clearly shows The Spin Doctor at work as employed by the state.
As for the violence meted out by the Spanish Civil Guard it is utter bollocks to say that they were just ‘following orders’ They were knowingly preventing people from voting in a democratically arranged process by physically abusing them. NUREMBERG said it all then and says it all today – IT IS NO DEFENCE ! They are all individually responsible for their actions and I doubt ‘Millgram’ could be used to save them.
All I can say in connection with Catalan Independence is, It’s about time !
2 min youtube (1 Oct):
Ada Colau, Mayor of Barcelona, denounces police violence and calls for Rajoy’s resignation.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JrWlJp2CHd4
Back in the day before phone cameras, in the North of Ireland, there was worse brutality by the Crown forces and the British Government always referred to as ” an internal matter”. If the SNP were to call a similar referendum how would the UK Government react? I suggest it would not be much different, sadly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtyp0boutJk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paoXAB16x8M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHnMU8oa694
@ Sean October 2, 2017 at 15:55
I’m English, but it was the ‘Bloody Sunday’ atrocity that brought me into Human Rights campaigning (now ‘Truther’ campaigning). Previous to that I knew diddly-squat about politics, and cared less. It also began my slow healing from a very traumatic part of my life, and got me thinking about others, rather than myself. I am now totally committed to ‘getting the Truth out’.