Here Comes Spain, Again (Rest of Europe Next)

[Rakhmetov]

The Spanish youth are on the move! The old men with their Viagra can't lead any insurrection; it is always the youth who have the revolutionary ardour to make change. You don't begin to get revolutionary ideas when you are middle-aged. All power to the Soviets!!!


It is not only in Spain where democratic rights are being trampled. Not long ago Cossiga, who was Christian Democrat Minister of the Interior in Italy in the 1970s, later President of the Republic, and now life Senator, was asked what should be done about students’ demonstrations. He answered:

“Let them get on with it for a while. Withdraw the police from the streets and campuses, infiltrate the movement with agents provocateurs who are ready for anything, and leave the demonstrators for about ten days as they devastate shops, burn cars and turn the cities upside down. After that, having gained the support of the population – making sure that the noise of the ambulance sirens is louder than those of the police and carabinieri – the forces of order should ruthlessly attack the students and send them to hospital. Don’t arrest them, as the judges will only release them immediately; just beat them up and also the professors who foment the movement.”

http://www.marxist.com/spain-rebellion-of-youth.htm

[caramelpence]

What Soviets?

Honestly, get a grip.

[Mindtoaster]

Enormous demonstration forming in the central Madrid. Protests are set to be outlawed for election day in a couple of hours, but the number of demonstrators is growing. Looks like a massive show down is in the making

Heres a live feed

http://www.soltv.tv/soltv2/index.html

[Tommy4ever]

This isn't a revolution ... it is however an extremely important moment for the raising of class consciousness in both Spain and Europe as a whole. In that sense, it is very exciting. Just don't set your expectations too high Comrades.

[redhotpoker]

Are they as large as what we saw in Egypt or Tunisia?

[crazyirish93]

Should be interesting how this plays out 43 percent of Spanish youth are unemployed.The government has said the protests cant continue because they say they would unduly effect the voters.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13466977

[Os Cangaceiros]

The old men with their Viagra can't lead any insurrection; it is always the youth who have the revolutionary ardour to make change.

Onward virile youth!

[Die Rote Fahne]

Will the CNT get involved to a large extent? Or have they already?

I am not up to date on what's happening in Spain.

[Os Cangaceiros]

http://libcom.org/news/its-our-moment-may-occupations-disobedience-continue-spain-cnt-21052011

^statement by the CNT on the demos

[punisa]

What can we expect to happened? I'm not very informed on situation in Spain, apart from the unemployment statistics..
Any left wing groups active on the scene?

[Ele'ill]

That live feed is pretty neat.

[punisa]

Just listening to FRANCE 24 news. They say that socialists (socdems in power) will probably loose everything and that conservatives will come to power.
I don't know... that doesn't sound too good, right? :(

[Nolan]

Just listening to FRANCE 24 news. They say that socialists (socdems in power) will probably loose everything and that conservatives will come to power.
I don't know... that doesn't sound too good, right? :(

Apparently they want in the hotseat.

[Red Future]

Just listening to FRANCE 24 news. They say that socialists (socdems in power) will probably loose everything and that conservatives will come to power.
I don't know... that doesn't sound too good, right? :(

True .....though if you think about it the Conservative Popular party are more likely to implement a more anti-youth agenda through the "inevitable" cuts which will only Hieghten class consciousness.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

conservatives will come to power.

Power, yes, legitimacy, no.

What we're seeing here is similar to a process that initiated the French Revolution - it's called a People's Veto. (Though back in 1789 the Veto took more brutal forms.)

Since the People of Spain have no way to express themselves except by a Veto (symbolic so far, rather than violent), the thing to look for tomorrow is the number of abstentions or invalid ballots. One or another party may come to "power" but it will be a Pyrrhic victory to the extent that they will have no legitimacy; and when a "democratically" elected government is seen as illegitimate, that's when the next phase begins. This, BTW, is why the presence of workers in municipal services like the firefighters at these gatherings is so important: the implication is, suppose a conservative or socialist government comes to "power" locally and decides to cut those services, the firefighters and such may well decide that the decision is not legitimate, which gets very interesting, indeed. One of the early slogans in '68 was "You don't negotiate with an illegitimate power."

[LewisQ]

Very excited by these developments, but still concerned that the movement (as unfocused as it is) could make a turn to the right. It also seems a conscious rejection of left-wing ideologies.

Good solidarity protest in Dublin today, about 1,000 people in the centre of the main street (big turn-out for this country.) About 50/50 Spanish and Irish.

[Ele'ill]

Is there a live news ticker/twitter somewhere covering this? I'd like to be able to know what's going on in advance of the live feed.

[Red Commissar]

Some photos from Spain


http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/05/a-defiant-spanish-revolution/100070/


http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/spain052011/s_s02_RTR2MLBG.jpg
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/spain052011/s_s03_14445916.jpg
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/spain052011/s_s05_14421612.jpg
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/spain052011/s_s10_RTR2MH2U.jpg
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/spain052011/s_s13_14400649.jpg
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/spain052011/s_s15_14417811.jpg
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/spain052011/s_s18_14454190.jpg
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/spain052011/s_s22_14420865.jpg
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/spain052011/s_s26_RTR2MNLQ.jpg
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/spain052011/s_s31_RTR2MN1B.jpg
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/spain052011/s_s32_RTR2MNZA.jpg
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/spain052011/s_s34_RTR2MOHQ.jpg
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/spain052011/s_s36_RTR2MOJI.jpg
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/spain052011/s_s39_14470101.jpg
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/spain052011/s_s40_RTR2MONP.jpg
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/spain052011/s_s43_RTR2MONL.jpg




Is there a live news ticker/twitter somewhere covering this? I'd like to be able to know what's going on in advance of the live feed.

There's a combined one here along with a live feed, though it's in Spanish:

http://www.soltv.tv/soltv2/index.html

And here's a "map" with spots where demonstrations are planned in Spain along with sympathy protests elsewhere.

http://www.thetechnoant.info/campmap/

[Os Cangaceiros]

Good pictures. Politicos y banqueros don't seem to be popular, lol.

[dernier combat]

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/spain052011/s_s03_14445916.jpg

I don't trust that sign in the top left corner.

[Nolan]

I don't trust that sign in the top left corner.

You're gonna get some of those.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Conservatives were elected in Spanish municipal elections, defeating the "socialists"...

Youth too busy rallying to vote? Or the CNT abatension a factor?

[bailey_187]

You're gonna get some of those.

some of what? what does it say?

i dont speak spanish

[caramelpence]

some of what? what does it say?

i dont speak spanish

"Immigration", I presume.


Youth too busy rallying to vote? Or the CNT abatension a factor

I doubt it, all the reports I've seen say that the turnout was higher than the last elections and it seems implausible to think that the CNT has such influence or membership that a decision or call to abstain could have a major impact. The demonstrations, according to everything I've read, and impressive as they are, especially in terms of their modes of decision-making, have generally been limited to tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands or millions, so the decision of their participants not to vote has probably not made much of an impact on either turnout or the overall result either. Moreover, the photos that have been posted and the lack of any set of demands indicates that the protests are as yet inchoate and are driven more by instinctive disgust at the current government and issues like youth unemployment than sustained ideological commitment.

[hatzel]

some of what? what does it say?

You mean the sign that says 'immigración' on? :rolleyes:

...to be honest, we don't know what else is written on the sign...maybe it's 'I love immigration'...

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

In San Sebastian, the recently formed Bildu party (for Basque independence) came in first. Overall, Bildu came in second in the Basque Region, after the conservatives. (30% vs. 25%). It appears that a number of the smaller parties did quite well.

[Delenda Carthago]

Conservatives were elected in Spanish municipal elections, defeating the "socialists"...

Youth too busy rallying to vote? Or the CNT abatension a factor?
Ok, dude, bad news for you. 2011 is NOT 1936. CNT is NOT the syndicate with 1.000.000 members. CNT today is a group of 10.000 (half lunatics if you ask me) that doesnt really count that much. CGT(slpit from the original CNT, less ideological and political) is more solid, since they have like 80.000 members or smth...

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

the cnt didn't vote and i didn't see any reason for communists to vote in the first place. the left illusions in the vote are an absolute embarrassment and are something we need to break from quickly.

[pluckedflowers]

Conservatives were elected in Spanish municipal elections, defeating the "socialists"...

Youth too busy rallying to vote? Or the CNT abatension a factor?

From what little I know of the Spanish socialist party that was defeated, I don't think the youth in the rallies would have had any reason to vote from them anyways. It's unfortunate that European conservative forces are advancing these days, but as far as I can tell it will be a good thing if the continent is purged of all these fake socialist parties.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Ok, dude, bad news for you. 2011 is NOT 1936. CNT is NOT the syndicate with 1.000.000 members. CNT today is a group of 10.000 (half lunatics if you ask me) that doesnt really count that much. CGT(slpit from the original CNT, less ideological and political) is more solid, since they have like 80.000 members or smth...

CNT has 50 000
CGT has 80 000

[Nolan]

some of what? what does it say?

i dont speak spanish

You don't have to, obvious cognate is obvious.

[chegitz guevara]

Where are we at today?

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/507.php

The B u l l e t
Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 507
May 25, 2011


Spain: The ‘Indignant’ and the Paris Commune


Atilio A. Boron

Perhaps it's one of history's surprises that the popular uprising surging through Spain today (and which is beginning to reverberate throughout the rest of Europe) was sparked on the 140th anniversary of the Paris Commune, a heroic moment in which the fundamental demand was also that of democracy. But a democracy conceived as a government by, for, and of the people, and not as a regime serving the interests of patronage and in which the people's interests are inexorably subordinate to the imperative of business profits.

This is precisely the reason that the demands of the ‘indignant’ resonate in a way that immediately brings to mind those who, with weapons in hand, came out to defend Parisian women and men during those heroic days in 1871, culminating with the constitution of the first working class government, albeit one restricted to the confines of the city of Paris. A government that lasted barely more than two months and was later smashed by the French army, with the open complicity and cooperation of Bismarck's troops, which had just inflicted a humiliating defeat on the heirs of Napoleon's armies. The cruelty against the Parisians who'd dared to storm heaven's gate and establish a true democracy was terrible: it's estimated that more than 30,000 members of the Paris Commune were put to the sword, in summary executions without trial. The Commune was drowned in a river of blood, and to atone for its ‘crimes’ the National Assembly decided to build the Sacré Coeur cathedral on the most prominent hilltop in Paris, at Montmartre, with funds collected from public donations throughout France, to honor the Parisians. Only a tiny amount was collected from the martyred city. Paris was defeated, but the Parisians were not brought to their knees.

The Commune did not believe in bourgeois institutions, viewing them as incurably deceitful, because it knew that this cumbersome framework of laws, norms and governmental agencies was solely concerned with consolidating the wealth and privileges of the dominant classes and with keeping the people under submission. It demanded direct and participatory democracy and the repeal of parliamentary government, that vicious warping of politics turned into a black hole of thievery and all kinds of compromise and negotiation completely foreign to the wellbeing of the majority. It demanded the simultaneous creation of a new political, executive and legislative order, based on universal suffrage (men and women treated equally, not as later occurred in democratic capitalism where ‘universal’ referred exclusively to males) and with representatives who were directly accountable to – and removable by – their constituents.[1] The members of the Commune wanted a real democracy, not a fictitious one, in which the representatives of the people such as those in a state bureaucracy would not enjoy any kind of privilege at all and would be paid the same wage as an average worker. And other things, such as a lasting separation between church and state and universal free, secular and compulsory education for females and males alike.
Today's ‘Indignants’

Just a glance at the documents from the ‘indignant’ of today is enough to show how surprisingly similar they are to the demands from the Commune and how very little capitalism's policies have changed. The young and not so young who have occupied some 150 plazas in Spain are not ‘apolitical,’ or ‘anti-political,’ as a certain press would have us believe, but people who are profoundly politicized. They take the promise of democracy seriously, and this is the very reason that they rebel against the false democracy that sprang from the bowels of Francoism and was enshrined in the highly touted Moncloa Pact, paraded before Latin Americans as an act of exemplary democratic political engineering. It is a democracy that those camped in the plazas denounce as a hoax, a sham that hides a persistent cruel dictatorship under its perfumed robes, a dictatorship that discharges the burden of the crisis unleashed by the capitalists on the shoulders of the workers.

What the ‘exemplary’ Moncloa democracy proposes as a way of confronting the crisis is market despotism, the irreconcilable enemy of any democratic project: by facilitating worker layoffs, salary reductions, slashing labour rights, freezing pensions, and raising the retirement age, cutting public employment, health and education budgets, privatizing governmental businesses and programs and, to top it off, reducing taxes still further on the wealthy and businesses so that the excess money might be invested in new undertakings.[2] Once again, the famous and endlessly refuted ‘trickle-down theory,’ which takes people for idiots and does not take into account that if the rich have more money at their disposal it would take a miracle for them not to succumb to the temptation of the global financial casino instead of investing in the creation of new businesses that would generate new sources of employment. Experience shows that the temptation is too great.
“Enough!”

The response from false Spanish democracy – in reality, a sordid plutocracy that the young people in Spain want to overthrow and replace with a democracy worthy of the name – to the crisis provoked by the insatiable greed of the bourgeoisie is to extend capitalism by applying IMF prescriptions until a society bled and drowned in despair and misery will accept a ‘neofascist solution’ to reconstitute the lost order. No change is possible within Spanish pseudo-democracy because its famous bipartisanship has proven to be nothing more than the two faces of a single party: that of capital. But now the collusion between the Spanish PSOE (Socialist Workers' Party) and the Partido Popular has run up against an unexpected obstacle: encouraged by the winds crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa, the young people – the main but not exclusive victims of the pillage – “have said 'Enough!' and have begun to march,” as Comandante Ernesto “Che” Guevara once said in his famous speech in 1964 before the U.N. General Assembly.

Now nothing in Spain will be the same again. The disparaged political class seems to have reached the point of no return and the crisis of legitimacy within its pseudo-democracy has reached unfathomable depths; if Egyptians and Tunisians were able to rid themselves of their corrupt ruling cliques, why wouldn't the ‘indignant’ be able to do the same? The obscene ethical incoherence of the true dean of the Spanish economy, the IMF, can only result in the irritation and mobilization of increasingly large numbers of citizens; citizens who are suffering from all kinds of cuts to their incomes and labour rights while the IMF bandits decide to award Dominique Strauss-Kahn a severance payment of $250,000 because he stepped down ahead of time ... for having been involved in the serious crime of sexual assault on a female African worker in a New York hotel! In addition, he will enjoy a luxurious retirement that is denied to millions of Spanish and European citizens in Portugal, Greece, Ireland, and Iceland ... And these are the people who say they know how to get the world out of the worst economic crisis in its history!

The ‘indignant’ need not have read the Marxist classics because life has taught them that under capitalism there is no possible democracy and that capitalism is incurably antagonistic to democracy. History has pronounced its unassailable verdict: more capitalism, less democracy, in an opulent and industrialized North as well as in a global South. Life has also taught them that when they combine their efforts, organize and educate themselves in debating ideas in order to overcome the dumbing-down of the masses programmed by capitalism's cultural industry, their strength is capable of paralyzing party bureaucracy and putting in check the pseudo-democracy with which they've been deceived. If they continue in their struggle, they will also defeat the arrogance of capital, and eventually, begin a new stage in history, not only in Spain but in the rest of Europe. People throughout the entire world have their eyes set on the streets and plazas of Spain, where a decisive battle is beginning. •

Atilio Boron is an Argentine political scientist and sociologist. He has been a professor of political and social theory on the Social Sciences Faculty at the University of Buenos Aires since 1986. He is a senior researcher at CONICET (Argentina's National Council for Scientific and Technical Research). This article first appeared in Spanish on his blog – AtilioBoron.com and in English on the tlaxcala-int.org website.

Endnotes:

1. It's worth remembering that Germany and the United Kingdom introduced women's suffrage at the end of the First World War, in 1918. Austria did it in 1919, the United States in 1920, Spain in 1931 and France in 1944. Seventy-three years after it was decreed by the Paris Commune! In Italy, it was achieved in 1946 and in Switzerland, every so often held up as the great democratic model, in 1971!

2. Vincenc Navarro, “El movimiento democracia real ya y la hipocresía del establishment mediático” [The Real Democracy Now movement, and the hypocrisy of the media establishment] available at www.rebelion.org/docs/128839.pdf.

[RedSonRising]

I don't trust that sign in the top left corner.


...Which? The ones around there say "It's not a crisis, it's a scam", "Nationalize Banks and Houses," and "You're spoils, my crisis!" Which one were you referring to?

[DDR]

In this post was made some coverage from the very first day:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/spanish-youth-take-t154865/index.html?t=154865

[dernier combat]

...Which? The ones around there say "It's not a crisis, it's a scam", "Nationalize Banks and Houses," and "You're spoils, my crisis!" Which one were you referring to?
The one mentioning immigration.

[RedSonRising]

The one mentioning immigration.


Oh I see it now. Hopefully working class sentiments from the dominant Spanish population don't take an integralist turn and start demanding culturally oppressive measures. It seems this guy was drowned out by more class conscious protesters, though.