What's going on in Catalonia (Catalunya, Cataluña) / Spain?

This post advocates freedom for Catalonian Citizens.
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Fact: Spain is one of the oldest countries in Europe. The region of Catalonia has been part of Spain (Hispania, Spania,...) for 2,000 years, in different forms, and has been part of modern Spain since 1714. Catalonia was not a Kingdom and the most recent and relevant kingdom they belonged to (many Centuries ago) was the Kingdom of Aragón, which is another Spanish region.

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Fact: Catalonia has had significant and increasing autonomy since the death of the dictator Francisco Franco in 1975 and the re-instatement of democracy. Their degree of autonomy meets and in many aspects exceeds that of Landers in Germany and States in the U.S.

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Fact: This autonomy and constant transfer of competencies has been used by Catalonian Separatists to contravene the spirit of the 1979 Spanish Constitution; the Separatist true intentions seeked to replicate Central Government functions, thus creating a country within a country, facilitating independence from the administrative front. All this, at the expense of Spanish taxpayers.

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Recent History: Separatist politicians have used the transfer of competencies, funds and power for their true intentions: Indoctrinate, brainwash, re-invent/write history, eliminate Spanish language (well over 500 million speakers) and only allow Catalonian (7 million speakers?), persecute anything related to Spain, and a long list of authoritarian, totalitarian and fascist tactics. Their schools teach a deviated form of history, limited to Catalonia and applying great imagination to invent a past that would somehow sustain their demands for a country of their own.

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Stating the obvious: Lesson 1 of this tactic has been to create an enemy. "Spain robs us" is something that the separatists like to say. They seem to forget that their "Abraham Lincoln", namely Jordi Pujol, their first Regional President when democracy was re-instated in Spain, turned out to be the greatest of  thieves, robbing millions from all Spanish taxpayers for decades. A minimum of 3% of all public works was charged as a commission for the pockets of the Catalonian Separatist politicians. Not to say the millions spent on enforcing Catalonian language, persecuting anything that could remotely seem Spanish, opening Catalonia "embassies",... why worry about unemployment, people losing their homes, meal assistance, paying the regions debts, healthcare, improving transport and communication, and the likes? But he is only one of the many thieves.
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More on corruption: this has been a great problem during the recent economic buoyant years in Spain and fortunately the corrupt politicians are being brought to justice. Catalonia has the highest number of corrupt politicians (303), DOUBLING the second region, Andalucía, and even though the later has a greater population. Madrid, the country's capital, central government and where there is most political activity, is just under half that figure.
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On we go: Pujol's successor was Artur Mas. He regained power for the party a few years after and was the son of a rich and corrupt entrepreneur with contacts in the Catalonian Government, sentenced for lying regarding family accounts in tax havens... Luckily for Artur Más, Minister of Economy for Catalonia at the time, the offense had prescribed. Saved by the bell. Just before the Pujol, Mas and other scandals came out, separatists oddly pushed hard for independence; they could not afford a judicial system that was not under their control.
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And more: Perhaps we will write more about Artur in the future: his failure in the private sector, his privileged life and education, and the constant corruption scandals through-out his political life and those close to him. Suffice it to say he was responsible for Public Works and the Ministry of Economy during the period that the President Jordi Pujol was provenly cashing in 3% of public contracts and works, for himself and his family...
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Fact: Fact has it that Separatists have spent millions and many years attempting to brain-wash their people and silencing the majority. As occurred in pre WWII Germany, they promote a culture of hate to others (the Spanish, in this case),  they promote the "we are better", the "Aryan" Race and silence the rest.
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Fact: You will see many Separatist flags on buildings in Catalonia, and yet NO Spanish flags. Does it mean 0% of Catalonians do not feel Spanish? No. In the last consultation, the majority of Catalonians did not vote for independence. It simply means that hanging a Spanish flag out your window will get you "in trouble",... we really can't say what "in trouble" means, because you will not see those flags... You will find examples of the violence of the Separatist Movement on Youtube: verbal abuse and physical violence on children, teenage girls, politicians, etc. I dare anyone questioning this violence to wear a Spanish National Soccer Team t-shirt and walk the streets for a while. Today, the citizens of Catalonia are not free to express their views.
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EU: Catalonia has been a beautiful and great part of Spain for Centuries. A single country benefits all. Or even in the impossible scenario in which they joined the EU, do they think 8 million Catalonians will have greater influence (and votes) than 48 million Spaniards? Who will defend their interests affront the other EU countries?
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Reality: The Separatist Government has purposefully dilapidated Spanish taxpayer Euros in an attempt to "prove" their point, which is basically that by not contributing to the Spanish central solidarity fund, they will be better off. They deny the benefits of belonging to Spain, with a domestic population 500% larger than their own and greater influence in the world, and that it largely outweighs the benefit of not contributing to the central solidarity fund. As an example, Catalonia exports more to a single adjacent region (Aragón), which is merely one of the 17 Spanish regions, than they do to France.
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Thankfully, most Catalonians feel Spanish and their region, culture and people are admired by the rest of their country.
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The future: Politicians must finish this endless transfer of government competencies to Catalonia, which has only resulted in redundancy, where separatists focus on creating a country within a country, instead of addressing the many needs of the people they represent.

Spanish 15M no longer exists...

...what was formerly an open, spontaneous, healthy, innocent, naïve, "non-denominational" movement of people of all sorts that demanded simple and true "justice" from Spanish Politicians and Establishments has in the past few months swerved and is now full of left wing opportunistic and / or extremist or plain rude and violent thugs and the likes. They have occupied the place of the movement that allowed for all kinds of people. A peaceful and open movement has now been "occupied" by those that auto-proclaim themselves to represent the identity of 15 M. Some yell, spit and throw stones at police; others enjoy getting together to get blasted: alcohol, drugs, whatever; others like creating as much chaos as they can - the purpose can be to have a little violent fun, looting, beating, and the likes.
15M has disappeared and those of us that truly and at heart made up this fantastic movement can no longer support these beasts; they are becoming more menacing, more radical, less tolerant, and instead of proposing realistic solutions to confront and overcome the crisis, these great minds can only think up they want more assistance, more money, greater unemployment checks, they demand the government incur greater expenses, they demand companies and "the rich" pay more taxes ("rich" being anyone that earns more than they do)... an endless list of pathetic, violent demands. These people did not and do not represent 15M. 15M is gone and dissappeared when these beasts stepped in.

So, what's the problem with Spain these days....

The true problems in Spain are:
- An inept political class. They have no vision, no true principles, most are unprepared to uptake the responsibilities thay are assigned to. Very especially, there is no accountability. All Spanish citizens are equal; unfortunately, some (specifically, politicians) are more equal than others.
- An inefficient, unjust, very slow and biast judicial system. It takes years for court cases to resume, it's costly, there's too much uncertainty. Judges are no doubt above the law.
- Decentralization. The Autonomous Community model in Spain has created too great a replication of functions and activities, and thus costs. There is also a loss of focus on important issues.
- Savings Banks (Cajas de Ahorros). Banks have tempered the crisis well in Spain. The problem is those banks in hands of politicians, that is, savings banks. Politicians have been allowed to guide these institutions in their own interest, losing millions, and no-one is accountable.
- Justice. Who audits and cares for fraud? Banks, telco's, construction company, etc. It's worthwhile to carry out fraudulant business practices. Because of the slow and unjust judicial system, most cases don't reach court, and those that do are expensive, slow and not always just. So it's profitable to rip people off. The government does not watch over these abuses to assure it's kept down to a minimum.
- Unemployment. Can only remain as high due to a large submerged economy. Instead of lowering taxes in order to favor declaring income, they opt for the opposite, further bleeding those that pay taxes and, more important, reducing tax payer benefits.
There are more I shall address in subsequent posts.