London public meeting - The Lessons of Spain

[Scottish_Militant]

The Lessons of Spain

How the War in Iraq brought down the Government

Saturday, March 20 at 5:45pm
Old Shades Pub
37 Whitehall
London SW1
(three minute walk from Trafalgar Square)

Speakers:
Jordi Martorell (El Militante, Spanish Marxist paper)
Espe Espigares (Spanish Student's Union)

[The Feral Underclass]

Who's organized this?

[BOZG]

Socialist Appeal

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17 2004, 11:25 AM
Socialist Appeal
and how does this differ to the Socialist Alliance?

[Scottish_Militant]

http://www.socialist.net/

Have a look at the website and judge for yourself, or why not get along to the meeting and speak to people.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17 2004, 12:23 PM
http://www.socialist.net/

Have a look at the website and judge for yourself, or why not get along to the meeting and speak to people.
My plane to africa leaves from Gatwick at 22:15...maybe i could drop by...will you be there?

[Scottish_Militant]

Unfortunatley not, I live in Scotland and cant get time off work. Hope things go well in Africa though!

[Danton]

I'm going to go, incognito of course, will report back here with comments..

[Danton]

Well the Old shades pub was certainly relief from the furious winds that whistled around Trafalgar..

There was no "Espe" but a speaker named "Pablo" and the afformentioned "Jordi"..

Pablo was an accomplished speaker but Jordi's talk covered thing's more from a Marxist perspective.. The main thrust of the thing was "How things change quickly" and how 3milion voters effectivley changed their minds over the course of two days.. And perhaps how we may see similar effects in Britain next year..

The feeling is that since the PP so cheaply manipulated people's feelings and maintained that the attack was by ETA - an attack on working class citizans - that they tried to make political capital out of the situation prompted this truly massive backlash.. In actuality perhaps only a million swung from PP to socialst, the 3 million increase was mainly previously apathetic voters, this was a very high turnout...

Spain has a thing called "Reflection day" the day before a general election when no political statements are to be made by politicians or citizans alike, it is actually illeagal to do so.. But what we saw in last Saturday(13th) were mass illeagal demonstrations agianst the PP..

"The bombs of Iraq are falling in Madrid!"
"You go to war - we pay" Were some of the slogans used .. These demo's undoubtabley effected the result..

Jordi expanded upon topics such as "Why terrorism is reactionary" & "Why Venuezuala is more advanced than Spain Italy or Britain" But by then I had drunk four pints and my notes are a mess.. Check out thier web page for further reading and more lucid thoughts than mine..

http://www.elmilitante.org/

[Scottish_Militant]

El Militante has alot of influence in the Spanish students movement, I recently attended a meeting in Edinburgh where Pablo spoke on the strikes of the 80s, this was just before the attacks in Madrid and shows the correctness of dialectics and marxist theory

[Danton]

Hey thanks for the tip man, it was time well spent and I met some cool people, those Spanish dudes were impressive.. If you get anymore info like that It'll be well appreciated..