12-09-26 Nation, Failed-Nation, Un-Nation, Business, or Pimped Prostitution...

Meditations on nationhood in Barcelona. 

a.  b. 

a. El Mundo daily: Artur Mas, the Catalan civilian leader, surrounded by leaders of the Spanish “Military Association”, the power base of Franco´s fascist regime, who staunchly and openly oppose the drive for Catalan independence, during the official mas for La Merce' last Sunday. b. The copy on the Spanish poster for Brad Pitt’s Killing Them Softly, is “the US is not a nation, it’s a business.”

Barcelona, September 26 – the peaceful dialogue on Catalonian independence continues:

• The headline of the conservative El Pais, paper edition, in Barcelona, like all local papers, is “Mas propone consultar al “pueblo de Cataluña” la creación de un Estado” – Mas proposes consulting the “People of Catalonia” on creation of a state.  The local El Mundo edition carries a similar headline. In contrast, the headline of the Spanish online national edition of El Pais is, “La vicepresidenta, ante el desafío de Mas: ‘La respuesta será firme y serena’ ” – The Vice President, in opposition to Mas’s challenge, ‘The response is firm and serious’ “.
• El Mundo, local paper edition, also carries on its front page a photo of Artur Mas, the civilian leader of Catalonia, and the leader of the Spanish Associacion de Militares in an unfriendly pose, seated side by side in the front row of the official central mass for La Merce last Sunday.  The caption of the photo refers to Mas as the leader of the Catalan independence drive and the generals, as the leaders of the “Old Tradition.”
• The local paper edition of the left-wing La Vanguardia carries a very large photo of the same occasion on its front page (not to be found in the online national edition).  However, the photo provides a different perspective of the same scene in the official La Merce mass.  Here, Artur Mas is seen seated surrounded by five representatives of the Associacion de Militares, almost under siege.  The caption's headline is “Entre militares” - Among the military - and it explains that Artur Mas and the leadership of the Associacion de Militares were seated that way in accordance with protocol, and that the scene “invoked moments of the tyranny”.

In short – the Catalan People are peacefully but firmly asserting their nationhood, in the face of repeated threats of violent oppression by the Spanish fascist “Military Association”, which still holds a formal, central place in the political structure of Spain. 

In the meanwhile in Brussels, the Catalan papers report that negotiations continue between the Spanish government and the bankers, regarding the bailout package, which Catalonia has already rejected. And in the neighboring Portugal, large demonstrations against “Austerity”, imposed by the bankers, continue.

For leisure, I was reading John le Carré's The Constant Gardner, which focuses on abuse of the People of Africa by multinational pharmaceutical corporations and the complicity of the British Foreign Office.  In one scene, a finely bred, Eton/Oxford grad, junior Foreign Office consul is lecturing in Oxford on UK foreign policy vis a vis the Third World nations.  During questions and answers at the end of the lecture, the focus is on the morality of such policies.  Finally, the lecturer states that a government of a legitimate nation is characterized by establishing some basic guarantees to the People, among them, some minimal level of the rule of law, and also shows genuine concern for the peace and welfare of the People. If such characteristics are missing, he concludes, the People should be regarded as “Failed-Nation”, or “Un-Nation”.  At the same time, he consents that today the Foreign Office makes no such distinction in dealing with various regimes.

On the same subject, the streets of Barcelona are decorated now with posters of the recently released Spanish version of Brad Pitt's movie with the copy, “ 'America, no es un pais, es un negocio', Jackie Cogan” - the US is not a nation, it is a business.

For those, not given to high fullutent abstractions of nationhood, economics, and foreign policy, the question can be boiled down to this: Is there a moral distinction between a wealthy patron hiring the services of a prostitute, and the same patron hiring the services of a pimp, to violently coerce a woman into prostitution?

The moral dilemma regarding pimped prostitution is equally applicable today to the United States, and the relationship between banks, government, and the People in view of the “Foreclosure Crisis”, the “Bailouts”, the unprecedented corruption of the state and US courts, the enormous Gulag that is in place, and the oppression of the People at large and truthers in particular through police, prosecutorial, and judicial misconduct.

LINKS:

[1] Mas propone consultar al “pueblo de Cataluña” la creación de un Estado

http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2012/09/24/actualidad/1348505305_585382.html

[2] La vicepresidenta, ante el desafío de Mas: “La respuesta será firme y serena”

http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2012/09/25/actualidad/1348560419_147632.html

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Joseph Zernik, PhD

Human Rights Alert (NGO)   
The 2010 submission of Human Rights Alert to the Human Rights Council (HRC) of the United Nations for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Human Rights in the United States was reviewed and incorporated in the official HRC Professional Staff Report with a note referring to “corruption of the courts and the legal profession and discrimination by law enforcement in California.”  

The 2012 submission of Human Rights Alert to the HRC for the UPR of the State of Israel is titled "integrity, or lack thereof, of the electronic record systems of the courts of the State of Israel'. It is scheduled for review in January 2013.

Human Rights Alert online:  
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