Voters in Scotland have turned down independence for now, but separatist movements continue across Europe, possibly threatening to dismantle Spain, France, and Belgium as well as the UK. The next milestone will be an independence vote on Nov. 9 in Catalonia, the region on the northeast coast of Spain which includes Barcelona; separatists are expected to win handily, but the vote is not binding on the Spanish government. Slate has a neat map showing what a completely redrawn Europe would look like, if accommodations were made for all movements that have joined a loose collective called European Free Alliance; a more complete but visually less satisfying map, including EFA holdouts such as Northern Ireland, appears in Wikipedia. The Washington Post has thumbnail descriptions of eight movements.
(Score: 5, Informative) by WizardFusion on Tuesday September 23 2014, @09:20AM
That map from Slate is just awful. Too many colours are close to each other, so trying to make out the land/sea borders is hard; Rivers the same colour as land borders; No actual country labels.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by AnonTechie on Tuesday September 23 2014, @10:33AM
Second that ..
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 1) by VLM on Tuesday September 23 2014, @01:40PM
first of all thats E-F-A's map not slates. Slate is just pimping it for ad clicks. L+M cigarettes used to continually run an ad with the statue of liberty in magazines, but that doesn't mean it was L+M's statue.
http://www.e-f-a.org/whos-who/member-parties/ [e-f-a.org]
Or its like claiming its actually zerohedge's map, solely because ZH was posting it roughly daily in the month leading up the scotland elections. Maybe still is, haven't checked today. Probably posted today as usual on ZH, probably with Catalonia commentary again.
ZH has had a fixation on this "problem" for a couple months. There's a lot of discussion of irregularities in the scotland vote because everyone expected it to be the fuse for the powder keg. By rigging the vote and intimidating voters enough and using the BBC for propaganda in the worst way seen since WW2, they might "save" the status quo for maybe another extra year, maybe two rather than it all unraveling this year.
Of course bottling up pressures just makes for a bigger explosion later. See our entire world wide financial system, the country of Iraq, the GD middle east in general, the Ukraine, etc.
One interesting result of the scotland election thats carefully not reported anywhere but ZH and some offshore sites is the "stay in the union" vote mapped almost exactly like newspaper delivery over age. So if you're 25 the odds are about 90% that you voted for independence and you do not real a legacy paper printed newspaper, and the graph is a straight line to 75 where the odds are about 90% that you voted to stay in the union and you're a lifetime legacy printed newspaper subscriber. The newspaper data is interestingly the same percentages in midwestern USA. Please spare the the agony of pointing out I rounded to one sig fig and the actual number is 7% subscriber vs 87% independence or whatever, I'll end with that disclaimer that I'm well aware the vote wasn't precisely 90.0000000%. The general point stands, once people grow up and have no idea WTF a printed newspaper is (like my kids) then a successful independence vote is utterly inevitable.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday September 23 2014, @10:48PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 5, Informative) by Gorath99 on Tuesday September 23 2014, @09:39AM
It's an interesting map, but some of these movements are very marginal indeed. For instance, East Fisia [wikipedia.org] has about half a million inhabitants, and the party pushing for East Frisian interests [wikipedia.org] has only about 90 members.
(Score: 4, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday September 23 2014, @10:02AM
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Tuesday September 23 2014, @10:19AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23 2014, @02:39PM
plenty of ex-pats
I see what you did there
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23 2014, @11:06AM
Not to mention that it loads different pages every time I try to scroll (I'm a keyboard user).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by jimshatt on Tuesday September 23 2014, @10:21AM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by lhsi on Tuesday September 23 2014, @10:56AM
I wonder what the world would be like if those separatists in Boston didn't ruin all that tea...
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday September 23 2014, @12:49PM
The states would be like Canada, so basically exactly the same.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday September 23 2014, @01:27PM
"basically exactly the same"
On the up side, better health care system (everywhere but Somalia is better than USA), and more polite.
On the down side, poutine.
I wonder if the UK would trade and let scotland out if they let us back in.
Honestly I think this is the most likely very long term outcome of the whole health care disaster in the USA. Once we totally crash the system and prove we're utterly unable to manage our own healthcare, in comparison to now where we're only mostly obviously unable to civilize ourselves, we'll probably join the canadian system / let them take our stuff over. One state at a time we'll just join the canadian system as if we're provinces. Probably some political BS were we "sell" them some kind of north american union Schengen area scheme in exchange they get monopoly health care rights over the USA, or maybe we'll "trade" timber rights somehow, like we get to cut timber there in exchange they get to administer health care here.
I have to ask myself, as a dude living in a state bordering Canada... if they invaded and took completely over, I really wouldn't mind. Not exactly a "red dawn" scenario, as long as they behave themselves I'd be pretty happy Canadian citizen. I'm not quite waving signs asking them to invade, but I'm getting pretty damn close. All they have to do, is a better job than D.C., which isn't going to be a very high goal to achieve. Mexico invaded and nobody was permitted to complain, so letting Canada do it is only fair.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23 2014, @06:45PM
Poutine is fucking wonderful, and puts our healthcare system to work. ;)
I hear some of those sentiments from (more liberal) Americans fairly often, but that kinda shows that they don't know the state of Canada. We're probably on our way to an economic collapse that will make the USA circa 2008ish look like a minor market correction. We have record amounts of personal debt which is only increasing, our housing market in urban centers is absurd, and because of the way our unemployment rate is measured, we have more people unable to join the workforce than actually represented.
We may have bounced off the bubble a little lighter than everyone else, thanks to our wonderfully mismanaged resource industries, and some financial regulations that our current government is happy to chip away at, but when this one pops, we're in for a bad time.
(Score: 1) by pkrasimirov on Wednesday September 24 2014, @12:28PM
That would be the most polite invasion ever :)
"Sorry, would you mind me putting this flag over here? I hope it doesn't ruin your view, sorry... And may I recommend you these French lessons we offer! Yes, they are free, of course. Also... OMG is that a beer 6-pack you have over there?! So much beer only for one person? You drink that per week?? Hmm., I see... Well, just so you know you can always get help at that number here, anonymosity is guaranteed. Okay, great! Sorry, I hope you will excuse me now, I have to conquer a few other places around now. Afterwards I'm all yours, we can have BBQ or someth.. HEY, YOU!! YOU LEAVE THAT RABBIT ALONE, NOW!! The poor animal!"
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 24 2014, @02:05PM
Also their women are stereotypically beautiful and fit, compared to our own (seriously, are there any ugly canadian women, at all?) so just send the girls over with maple syrup bottles and canadian flags and it'll all be over. Another excellent reason for the USA to submit to domination by Canada.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23 2014, @11:24AM
I want a more web pages like Slate!
The big pop up that comes to block everything and tell me that Slate loves me.
What a wonderfully, slow, moving user experience.
(Score: 2) by fadrian on Tuesday September 23 2014, @02:12PM
I'd like to see where the break lines would be here, too.
I'm getting to the point where I believe that the philosophical divide between the red and blue states are too great to be bridged in a purely political process. In this case, divorce is more useful than trying to hold the family together. Or you can wait until the next Civil War - probably fomented over some bullshit issue in our never-ending political arguments (GLBT issues, abortion, gun rights, etc.) that distract from the real issues (economic disparities, government surveillance, foreign meddling, etc.). It's my contention that a split would force an end to much of the debate on the side issues, as each position in the debate would have an overwhelming majority in their own political regions.
I say this as a proud blue state liberal who loves his country but sincerely believes that the red state conservative political viewpoint is just wrong and I will never be convinced otherwise (Really. I've heard all the opposing arguments. To me, they're all bullshit. I'm sure many red staters would say the same of me and my views). Nor do I believe that the red staters will ever change their views enough to co-exist peacefully in a regime I would like to live under. As such, I believe we would be much happier living in separate countries without each other. It's not like this isn't personal for me, too - four of my siblings would (probably) become red-staters, as it suits them more politically. I'd still have other blue-state brother to keep me company. Let everyone keep the current constitution (to start with), but agree to a peaceful split with a negotiated settlement over resources and property. Let people keep their property and give the sates a reasonable time to set up programs to help with the inevitable relocation effects.
To me, it seems that the only way we actually preserve the ideals of this country and to prevent revolution is to split it, because this red-/blue-state division (which is real) keeps us from uniting on other matters of import.
That is all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23 2014, @02:37PM
The main division is between country and city. Look at a colored (red/blue) county map of the USA after a major election, it looks like an ocean of red with pockets of blue. That's because there are many sparsely populated rural counties, though not so many in the northeast. Even in states like Texas and New York you'll see blue around the big cities and red in the countryside and distant suburbs (aka 'exurbs').
(Score: 3, Interesting) by CRCulver on Tuesday September 23 2014, @02:40PM
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday September 23 2014, @03:52PM
Yeah, that's why China is slowly steamrolling over all those tiny European nations, right?
Oh wait...they aren't. Hell, China couldn't even invade Mexico; half the planet would take up arms against them if they tried. Maybe a hundred years ago that would have been true, but both halves of a divided US would still have enough allies to hold off that sort of invasion -- almost certainly including each other. And the military-industrial complex wouldn't vanish either. Lockheed Martin isn't going to just pack up and call it a day...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Tuesday September 23 2014, @02:46PM
FREE CASCADIA!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_(independence_movement) [wikipedia.org]
Also, Stephen Maturin would be stoked on the Catalan vote. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Maturin [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MrGuy on Tuesday September 23 2014, @03:26PM
Scots have had a people and cultural identity separate from England for centuries-to-millenia. Similarly, Catalonians have been a distinct people (with their own language and culture) much longer than an accident of geography made them part of Spain. The Kurds have been a distinct people without a homeland for centuries.
The current Red State/Blue State divide in the US? Not so much.
There's not a massive majority group in ANY state - even the reddest states voted around 65%-35% in the last election (similarly for the bluest). And that's when people were forced to identify one way or another - the rabid democrats/republicans are a distinct minority even in the most extreme states. Not exactly the cleanest division. And fundamentally temporary - what happens when Hispanics become a near-majority in Texas, for example?
But more importantly, the differences are not exactly long standing, nor are the representative of a deep philosophical alignment. The Dixiecrats held most of the South for the democratic party through to the '50's, for example. Rand Paul and Ralph Nader are good illustrations of the divisions even within the "red" and "blue" groups - some love them, some hate them (even on "their own" sides).
Sure, the political discourse has gotten increasingly uncivil, but there's a huge difference between Scotland (for centuries independent and even within their current structure recognized as an independent nation) and (say) the states that are currently republican majority in the south taking their bat and ball and going home.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday September 23 2014, @04:45PM
I agree with the rest of your post, but this argument doesn't really hold. The majority party in those regions flipped because the positions of the parties themselves flipped. It wasn't because the majority ideologies in those regions changed.
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Tuesday September 23 2014, @04:50PM
Which is my point.
The geography of "who belongs with who?" isn't some fixed thing - it changes over time. In this case, it changed with the change of party platforms. Making long-term decisions based on present-day political boundaries is a fool's errand, because those political boundaries (history tells us) are highly likely to change.
Oh, and by the way, I'd argue the "parties themselves" didn't flip or reverse positions. It was that the Democrats went from "paying lip service to civil rights" to "actively advocating civil rights" in 1964.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday September 23 2014, @09:31PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 24 2014, @06:00AM
The parties didn't really flip positions; the Democrats put forward a Catholic candidate, Kennedy. The South was solidly Protestant; the Catholics were in the Northeast. The South switched to Republicans because Lincoln's party wasn't as bad as a northern Catholic.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Tuesday September 23 2014, @09:48PM
I have to roll my eyes at the ignorance here. There's two problems with this. First, when someone's point of view is "wrong", it's generally because you don't understand it. I think that's the case here. Sure, there are times when things are clearly wrong such as the people in charge oh, murdering six million Jews or executing people because they wear prescription glasses. But here, people are just "wrong" because they're on the other team. Oh sure, I bet you have all sorts of straw men rationalizations for why you believe whatever it is you believe. I just don't care.
Second, how would the blue country feed itself? By importing food from the red country. Such a dependency has a habit of creating long term strategic tensions. After all the "society is three meals away from collapse" observation is a blue country problem not a red country problem. Resources in general would tend to be on the red country side as would most of the nuclear weapons.
Similarly, the blue country would have the population and perhaps industry to build a huge military advantage. So we have a really bad combination of considerable weakness and considerable strength on the part of the blue country. That tends to lead to wars rather than peaceful break up. And the only sort of war that the red country would be likely to come out ahead in would be a nuclear war - due to its dispersed population.
(Score: 2) by hash14 on Wednesday September 24 2014, @05:25AM
I completely agree with this. It is far beyond obvious that the US is too large and polarized to function as a proper nation.
On one side of the broad spectrum, you have clear-minded individuals who aren't really liberal by any absolute measurement, but are still more rational and sensible than the opposite far end of the spectrum. These individuals are still frequently corrupt or just downright stupid/pro-lawyer, but they might just pass as a politician from the far-right wing in another country.
Then on the opposite side, you have absolute, downright nutty morons whose positions are based on lunatic dogma including conservative radicalism, xenophobia, anti-literacy, religious fairy tales (with no respect for the tradition of non-theocracy in said country), a refusal to
accept anything remotely humanitarian or "socialist" (a term they don't even understand), and simple, stubborn obstinacy to be a jerk to everyone else. And many other reasons as well. While normal parts of the country are trying to invigorate science and technical literacy/education, these nutcases are trying to put fairy tales into science and history textbooks. And they're going completely backwards on environmental preservation and climate science, amongst many other political issues.
Naturally there are many more politicians in the middle as well who sometimes demonstrate enlightened decision-making and at other times, Neanderthalism. But these two extremes just cannot and do not operate cohesively and I honestly feel like it shows that the country would be better off if they didn't have to acknowledge each other. Of course the last few years shouldn't be taken as a trend for the indefinite future, the country is so polarized that they can't even pass common sense laws (see: net neutrality) or budget bills. And the best part of a break-up would be the (potential) dismantling of the surveillance and civilian oppression agencies who are protecting their underlings from free thought, justice, and civil liberties.
I could see the country broken up as such:
* East of New York
* Pacific Coast states
* Atlantic Northeast (Maryland and everything north)
* Western Great Lakes (Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and maybe Iowa - they could call it Monsantoland)
* Desert/Mountain region (Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona)
* South (the remaining shitholes nobody cares about)
This seems like the most logical division of geopolitical distribution that I can think of. There are certainly edge cases to be decided (states on borders which could go either way, and the question of what to do with all the other territories). Though I can also imagine potential dangers of this new world, like corporations economically sieging smaller nations into serving their dominion, but this is a start worth considering I feel.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by richtopia on Tuesday September 23 2014, @03:48PM
If you are looking for the second nerdiest game (EVE is #1), look at Europa Universalis IV. You play Renaissance Europe and annex all of these tiny minorities into your empire.
Admittedly, I do know a lot more about European history thanks to this game.
(Score: 3, Informative) by TGV on Tuesday September 23 2014, @04:52PM
I'm surprised that Catalunya is joined with the region beneath Valencia. Also, there is no Andalusian separatist movement, as far as I know, and Euskal would be quite a bit bigger than as it's drawn on the map. The Frysian separatist movement tends to think of the entire stretch from current Friesland until and including the Danish west coast, sort of like this: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friezen#mediaviewer/File:Friesische_Seelande_um_1300.png [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday September 23 2014, @06:31PM
Breaking all these little sections off into their own state is probably the best thing that could happen to Europe, more specifically to the EU.
Nothing will hasten the restructuring, re-imaging, re-engineering of the EU into a viable economic superpower more quickly than breaking up the huge countries into smaller ones, who's only hope for continued existence would be to immediately join the EU.
The EU in turn would then more closely represent the people of Europe rather than the Governments of Europe.
Its unfortunate that such small little states would be based on legacies of hostilities and conquest, but simply giving more people an equal seat at the table will probably strengthen the EU rather than weaken it.
In the end, EU can't long maintain this fiction of unity AND the heritage of sovereign countries. Choose one or the other.
(let the flame war begin).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday September 23 2014, @07:28PM
I fail to see how splitting the EU up into smaller chunks based on ethnic boundaries inside of existing countries would strengthen anything. All I would expect it to do is add more of the red-state/blue-state stuff that the USA has to deal with.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday September 23 2014, @07:57PM
It would strengthen the EU.
Once these little states got out from under the thumb of whoever they perceive as their current unjust masters they would realize that they can not survive on their own, and they would join to the EU as equal participants.
The red/blue stuff in the US is purely a temporal issue, and one you only object to because it prevents complete domination of your personal point of view. What you view as something wrong and divisive is actually strength.
One of the reasons the US has assumed the status it has in the world is that it was a collection of small states where no big one could dominate any of the others. With the increased power of the federal government this is slowly being erased, by people who want to use the Federal Government to impose their view on everyone. If fact that pretty much half of the people in the country disagree with what ever opinions you hold dear upsets you, its a sign that some personal growth is long overdue.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Tuesday September 23 2014, @09:42PM
I am way happier with how I can see the system run (and fail, but everyone can see that, and it's easier to fix) in a country whose entire population is only one fifth of the city where I was born and grew up.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday September 24 2014, @04:19PM
Thanks for putting words in my mouth. I said no such thing.
I object to the polarization of politics because it prevents people from working together. That each side seeks to "dominate" in politics is the entire problem here. This is exactly the problem you are trying to solve over there in the EU. I agree that splitting countries up into smaller units will help prevent the big groups from trying to stomp on the rights of the small groups.
In the US the polarization at the national level isn't state-vs-state it is cultural and ethnic groups within each state. The red/blue split developed because certain states tend to be dominated by one group or another. Federal courts and the constitution are the only thing that keep the dominant groups from being too abusive. However there is still a mix of political and philosophical mindsets in each state. I do not know enough about EU politics if this equally applies to the EU or not.
The United State's dominance in world power is more due to the fact that it did not get bombed back to the stone age like nearly every other major power during WWII.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh