In Latest Political "Coup", Catalan Parliament Votes To Secede From Spain

Zero Hedge

In the aftermath of last month's Brexit vote, there was an outpouring of concern in Europe that the British decision would embolden similar separatist movements across the continent. Earlier Wednesday, this is precisely what happened when Catalan nationalists voted to approve a plan to secede from Spain, defying the nation’s Constitutional Court and challenging acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who is currently in political limbo as he struggles to form a government.

The decision was approved by 72 regional MPs out of 135. Ten MPs from the CSP group linked to Podemos, Partido Popular and Ciudadanos walked out of the assembly and the Socialists did not vote. A recent poll shows that 48% of the Catalan population currently supports independence compared with 43% against it.

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5 US independence movements inspired by Brexit

Politico

As the United States celebrates its independence from Britain, this year the holiday comes with a historical twist: Britain has just declared its own independence from Europe. And the sudden, dramatic decision is inspiring a number of local movements in the United States.

The spirit of Brexit — the people of the U.K. throwing off the yoke of an oppressive empire across the water — has invigorated secession movements across America, knots of people from Vermont to Hawaii who envision a future in which they break off from a nation too big, too distant or just too weird to feel like home anymore.

“It is now important for Texas to look to #Brexit as an inspiration and an example that Texans can also take control of our destiny,” wrote Daniel Miller, president of the Texas Nationalist Movement, in a statement he released the day after the Brexit vote. “If Britain can leave the EU then New Hampshire can leave the U.S,” the leader of the newly founded NHexit movement (as in, New Hampshire exit) said a few days later, as he staged a secessionist protest in front of a federal building in Manchester.

It’s unlikely any of these states will actually secede, no matter how inspiring Britain’s example; the Civil War showed that the government in Washington doesn’t take these attempts lightly. In the 1869 Supreme Court decision Texas v. White, Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase wrote that the federal Constitution “in all its provisions looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States.” The case effectively established the legal principle that no state can secede from the Union.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t keep trying. In the spirit of Independence Day, here are a few of the states that see in Brexit a renewed sense of hope for their own independence movements.

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Washington’s Support for Right-Wing Secessionist Movements in Countries Targeted for Destabilization

Wayne Madsen
Strategic Culture Foundation

Washington constantly accuses Russia of backing «secessionists» in eastern Ukraine against the right-wing and fascist-backed regime in Kiev. However, when it comes to backing secessionists against countries targeted by Washington for destabilization, America’s Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon wrote the book on such operations.

From supporting the secessionist movement in Katanga that sought to destabilize the government of Patrice Lumumba in newly-independent Congo to its backing of Ahwaz and Baluchi separatists against the government of Iran, the United States has no room accusing any other country of supporting secessionist movements to achieve foreign policy aims…

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What Separatism Means

Lew Rockwell

Ivan Daraktchiev sent me several of his papers in appreciation of my work which he views as expressing many ideas similar to his. There’s good thinking and insights in his work. Naturally, one may not agree with all of his ideas. There are ideas of my own that I’ve expressed over the years that I may now disagree with.

The strength of his analysis is to take a broad view across many countries in order to understand events. Having lived through Communism in Bulgaria before leaving for Belgium, he is familiar with the devastation caused by a bureaucratic class of parasites, the nomenklatura, that destroys a society, both morally and economically. This idea aligns with the Austrian analysis. After years in Belgium, he realized that the EU was similar to the Communist system in being taken over by a nomenklatura. In fact, many western democracies are in the same position. He calls this parasitic and destructive political system “nomenklaturocracy” and says Orwell was right about it. So have been Mises and Rothbard and Rockwell and many others in the intellectual movement toward freedom, better societies and better political arrangements.

With this idea in mind, that all governments are controlled by ruling classes that attempt to insulate themselves from their subjects, the differences between communism, fascism, and representative democracy become only matters of degree. Lengthy disputes between democrats and republicans become trivial. Notions that a republic will outdo a democracy become off target since both involve constitutions and representatives, and these lead to party control and nomenklaturae. The key question is always the extent to which a nomenklatura has turned government into a nomenklaturoracy. The key question is the extent to which a government has been captured by those in the government so that the people have lost control of it.

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Disunited states of America: In Crimea's footsteps, 29 U.S. states want to be independent

Voice of Russia

Over 300,000 US citizens ,which represent a total of 29 states, have signed petitions for their states to withdraw from the United States of America.

They make references to the Declaration of Independence, whereby a situation may emerge when it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, to ensure security and happiness, the federal media report.

They want to be granted the right to peacefully secede from the United States or allowed the holding of a referendum on such secession. Those who have signed the petition feel that President Obama's economic reforms have proved ineffective. They claim the government has violated the rights and freedoms of Americans in the past two years.

Texas, a state boasting the best economic performance, was the first to start the secession movement. Almost 70,000 Texans had signed the petition on the White House website by Monday. They want Barack Obama to allow their state to peacefully withdraw from the United States of America, or allow them to hold a referendum on secession. They explained to the President that they have been prompted to seek self-determination by the federal authorities' inappropriate policy, weak economic reforms and the obvious violations of Americans' rights. The petitions are signed both by Republicans, the once loyal to Obama African Americans and liberals from 29 states.

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