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Peripherals Revolt: Spanish Square Occupation Movement Challenges Austerity and Worthless Elections

category iberia | economy | news report author Friday May 20, 2011 23:22author by Paul - WSM Report this post to the editors

Since the demonstrations called last Sunday, the central squares of cities all across Spain have been occupied by camps of protestors, furious at austerity and the uselessness of all the existing politicians and the pointlessness of this coming Sunday's local elections. [Italiano] [Nederlands]
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The movement consists mainly of young people, both students and unemployed or precarious young workers calling themselves by names such as Juventud Sin Futuro (Youth Without Future) and #DemocraciaRealYa (Real Democracy Now!). Bypassing existing organisations, whether political parties or trade unions, the participants have organised themselves via Facebook and Twitter, in the manner of the Tunisian and Egyptian activists of the Arab Spring.

The camp in Madrid's central Puerta del Sol square was cleared out by brutal police attack on the first night of the occupation, last Sunday. But this only provoked greater numbers to come out and retake the square the following day. The movement, now calling itself the May 15th movement - after last Sunday's beginning - has camps in squares across Spain, including in Barcelona, Grenada, Seville, Valencia and many other cities.

After the failure of the police assault on the Madrid camp, the state has responded with further threats of repression. Last night the electoral commission ruled that the occupations were illegal in light of the local elections on Sunday, and people should leave at once. The news, when announced late last night was met by boos and defiance by the assembled protesters who refuse to be silenced and treated like cattle, expected to suffer in silence the economic desolation of their lives and communities for the profits of the banks and the Euro bosses.

Furious at the burgeoning unemployment and a political system that offers them nothing but two main parties who only compete to out do each other in the savagery of the cuts they propose, the protesters have called for a boycott of both main political parties at the elections. For the rest they are creating their agenda by means of mass assembly meetings, using horizontal and grassroots democratic methods. The corporate media is completely unnerved by their inablility to find any leaders or figureheads amongst the movements and the wildest of conspiracy theories about who might be "behind it all" circulate in their reports. But the protesters themselves are completely united on their determination to express themselves and participate in creating change directly, without need for representatives or intermediaries.

Solidarity demonstrations have taken place in other parts of Europe, in Italy and in Berlin. Today Spanish people living in Ireland announce to RTÉ that they will meet at The Spire on Dublin's O'Connell Street at 2pm tomorrow to join a silent protest in support of the demands of the May 15th movement.

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Sat 20 Apr, 12:32

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460_0___30_0_0_0_0_0_icea_col_300cas_1.jpg imageInstitute of Economic and Self-management Sciences 01:33 Fri 04 Sep by ICEA 0 comments

The Institute of Economic and Self-management Sciences (IESS from now on, or ICEA in Catalan and Spanish) is a cultural entity working within the limits of the Spanish country, in which we develop activities related to teaching and research on political economy, as well as workers’ and social self-management.

The IESS bases its principles upon assemblies, federalism, solidarity and mutual aid. The IESS is a non-profit organization, it receives no State subsidies and the activities it organizes are absolutely free. To the IESS can belong students, degrees and doctors on Economics, other social and human science professionals (sociologists, political scientists, historians, philosophers, jurists, psychologists, etc) and workers in general.

The IESS is open to all those who are interested in finding a real explanation for economic and social issues. It intends to make its contribution, as well, to change the current capitalist society into another in which nobody shall be exploited, going into the study of alternatives based on self-management in depth, both at a theoretical-historical level, and at a practical and present one.

textEspagne - 5000 manifestants contre une réforme du travail 00:35 Mon 10 Apr by hertje 3 comments

Samedi 1er avril, les anarcho-syndicalistes espagnols de la CNT ont manifesté. Les travailleurs sont arrivés en autobus de tout le pays pour dénoncer une proposition de loi qui facilite les licenciements massifs et autorise une diminution des indemnités.

imageFrom libertarian communism to corporate socialism Dec 20 by Miguel G. Gómez 10 comments

Alasbarricadas - We echo this historical review on the various positions that the CNT-FAI took along the Spanish Revolution. It is not usually easy to understand the complexity of a historical moment in which so many things were happening at the same time. We consider basic to understand the tactical ups and downs of any revolutionary movement in a historical moment in order to be able to learn something for our future struggles.

The article is not an academic one, but it sheds light on some little-known facts about how the CNT navigated 1938, in terms of tactics and strategy. This period has usually been completely erased, automatically branded as obscure, shameful, claudicating or bureaucratic without any attempt to understand what the libertarian organisations were actually doing. It is assumed that the drift of the war and, as the article says, the pessimism that surrounded the organisation from mid-1937 onwards, resulted in a shift in the strategic line of the libertarian movement to approaches as different from libertarian communism as could be the "trade union state" or corporate socialism.

We know that this article is the tip of the iceberg of a world that cannot be explained in a struggle of the good guys against the bad guys. Everything is full of nuances. We miss an explanation on the opposition to this shift. But to have treated that opposition as it deserves would have diverted the article from conveniently (and at a manageable length) presenting us the official line of the Movimiento Libertario Español (MLE) of '37 and '38.

And by the way, even if this history presents us with an unclear evolution towards bureaucratism and centralism, we are still amazed at with the enormous capacity of those people who built up our organisations and managed the daily lives of millions of people. Because, it must be said, when there was supposedly no social revolution any more, there were still hundreds of thousands of people living in collectivisations and a large part of industry was still under workers' control.

In order to give you an insight into the debates and to be able to elaborate further in-depth studies, https://mega.nz/folder/FwRXkQBS#xk2IN6lpYZmEJYP-IaTW3g.

imageSpain: Not waving but drowning - bailout Jun 09 by Paul B. 0 comments

Spain began this week in bailout territory. Despite the increasingly shrill warnings of imminent catastrophe from Madrid, the battle of wills between the Spanish capital and Brussels, Berlin and Frankfurt has managed to avert the hour of judgement thus far. But can they achieve the aim of preventing the fall of Spain before the second Greek election? [Italiano]

textReport: Portugal on the brink of social, economic and political disaster May 12 by Manuel Baptista 0 comments

In Portugal, the situation is such as the big finance is unopposed, and had an easy job in forcing the government doing what they wanted. [Italiano]

imageCrisis, austerity and labor reactions –Spain in the spotlight Nov 04 by Luis Buendía 0 comments

With an unemployment rate over 20% of the active population, a falling labor share in national income since the 1970s, and an estimated poverty rate of around 20% of the population, Spain is, along with Greece, Ireland and recently Portugal, a country where European austerity plans are attacking workers’ living standards most severely. Not only is Spain an interesting case due to the size of its economy (almost double the size of all the other European peripheral countries together), but also because its economic expansion was cited by many conventional economists inside and outside Spanish borders as a positive model.

imageOn the government's new apprentice contract Nov 30 0 comments

The labour reform already in progress will lead to an unprecedented casualization: €426 a month, no unemployment benefit, no holidays, no maximum hours limit, no insurance, no paid bank holidays and no time off. This reform will simply swap a contract with rights for a new one which is cheaper for businesses, without any protection for workers. [Castellano]

imageSpanish government's "shock plan" to create employment is a joke Feb 16 CGT 0 comments

For the Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT), calling the executive order approved today by the government a "Shock Plan" to promote stable employment is merely making a mockery of the 4.7 million unemployed people in the country. The measures approved by the cabinet is the product of an anti-social pact made a few days ago by the Socialist Government, the Spanish Confederation of Employers' Organizations (CEOE), the Spanish Confederation of SMEs (CEPYME) and the UGT and CCOO unions. [Castellano]

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