OUR MAN IN SPAIN.

   

     It is difficult to find out what is really going on in Spain at the moment. The mainstream media, as usual tells us about uprisings in far away places, but never too much about unrest right here in the EU. So ann arky is appealling to blog readers who have any first hand information of what is happening in Madrid, Barcalona and Bibao to send in your account. One such account came in from a friend, "our man in Spain", it is brief but still welcome.

      It is only by communicating across borders that we can learn from each other and know what other resitance groups are doing and how best to support each other. The working class has no borders, no country, we are trans-global.

FROM OUR MAN IN SPAIN.

    "Really frustrating not being able to catch up much on what's going on in Madrid and Barcelona and to a lesser extent Bilbao. I suppose you saw what happened when they tried to evict people in Barcelona. From what they've told me in Bilbao there's a bit of everything but there does seem to be a genuine belief in a horizontal form of organising which, let's face it, is the only way any resistance movement has a chance of getting anywhere. Something positive and creative certainly seems to be taking shape. Time will tell but the signs are encouraging. Don't really know if the PSE lost votes to the PP in the recent regional government elections or people simply didn't bother voting for them or voted for some of the small progressive parties."

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LIBRARIES OR BOMBS??

     

      While the Cameron/Clegg public school thugs shout cuts, cuts, cuts, Cameron's little Libyan war has become Cameron's killing fields. The “No-fly zone” has now escalated into a continual bombardment of Western Libya. NATO has just completed its heaviest bombardment of the city of Tripoli since the so called, “protect civilians” campaign began. How do you protect civilians in a densely populated city by heavy bombardment of weapons of mass destruction? Perhaps the citizens of Tripoli are worth less than the citizens of Benghazi.

      All this killing doesn't come cheap, oh dear no. While the millionaire duo shout, “We can't afford” social services, libraries, education, child care, etc. the bill for Cameron's violent little ego trip, is reckoned to cost around about £1 billion by the autumn. Experts state that the cost to date is around the £300-£400 million with the bill rising by about £38 million a week. A far cry from smug low life Osborne's figure which he quoted at the start of the killing that it would only be in the tens of millions. To people of his ilk, that's just pocket money, he could probably pay for that himself.

WHO NEEDS SOCIAL SERVICES?

        The true cots will not be known for some weeks yet, when the Defence Officials make their announcements. Of course all the cost will be understated as we are about to escalate this affair with the announcement that we will be now using attack helicopters. Another little very expensive military toy that we can obviously afford.

A HOSPITAL??

       Why do we tolerate “our” government spending over £1 billion in six months on the destruction of a country and the killing of its people. This continual free spending when it comes to foreign military intervention and slashing and cutting at all our social services while muttering, we can't afford, we can't afford, lays bare the unbridled hypocrisy of this millionaire cabal of public school thugs.

        This is the situation that capitalism and its bed partner, party political politics, has given us, an elite bunch of pampered parasites controlling everything and showing complete disregard for the ordinary people. However, wonderful sparks of hope keep springing up, with the latest being Madrid and some other cities in Spain. Support appearing in other cities across Europe, with the ordinary people beginning to realise their power and the growing awareness that with solidarity we can change this world. We can create a fairer and more just world freed from the capitalist greed and profit motive, we have the power to create a world we would be proud to leave to our children and our grandchildren. As the world is at the moment, being raped, plundered and polluted, all for profit for parasitical shareholders, we fear for the future of our children and our grandchildren. It doesn't have to be that way, there is an alternative, all we have to do is all come together and discuss the world we want for the future.

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TAHRIR SQUARE, MADRID, EDINBURGH, ---???

      Sunday saw a large march and demonstration in Edinburgh in support of the popular uprising in Spain, you can read more and see more photos on Indymedia Scotland here are a couple of photos to start you off.

Photos from Indymedia Scotland.

     There were also demonstrations of support in other cities across Europe. Is the sleeping lion about awake and rise?

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MADRID ECHOES THE SPIRIT OF TAHRIR SQUARE.

The following was taken from A World to Win site. Where is the rest of Europe in this "awakening"?

Madrid echoes the spirit of Tahrir Square

     The Real Democracy Now movement that has sprung up across Spain, with a main square in Madrid under occupation since Sunday, is a key moment in the developing global struggle against the failure of the political and economic status quo.    

 Drawing their inspiration from Tahrir Square in Cairo – where the Egyptian revolution began – thousands have organised themselves into a people’s assembly in Puerta del Sol to discuss a way forward. The movement, which is independent of political parties and the trade unions, used social networking sites to mobilise for the occupation.

SOLIDARITY.

      A pamphlet distributed by organisers said they "do not represent any political party” and that "we want a new society that prioritises life over economic and political interests. We advocate a change in society and social consciousness." Fabio Gándara, the spokesman for Democracia Real Ya, a 26-year-old unemployed lawyer who is studying to be a civil servant, said: "What we're denouncing is the lack of real democracy and the tendency toward a two-party system where corruption at all levels is simply scandalous.”

     

       With tents, mattresses, a kitchen, a workshop and even a pharmacy, protesters have refused to budge, defying the decision of regional election officials that they should leave the square. They have also organised their own security teams to keep order in the square. There are at least 57 so-called "Sol campsites" that have popped up across the country in solidarity. Spaniards living abroad have also set up camps outside Spain 's embassies in Berlin and London , and in Amsterdam 's Dam Square . 

       In Spain – just as it was in Tunisia and Egypt , where the Arab spring began at the start of the year – the movement is driven by the “lost generation” of educated but unemployed young people. An estimated 45% of them are without work while average unemployment at over 20% is the highest in Europe .

      They are the victims of a global capitalist recession which has devastated Spain ’s economy which floundered when a gigantic property bubble burst in 2008. And they are casualties of the post-Franco dictatorship politics too.

      

       The fascist regime was replaced by los señores Tweedledum and Tweedledee – aka the Socialist Party (PSOE) and the right-wing People’s Party (PP). Only fewer and fewer Spaniards can tell the difference between them. Both parties are endemically corrupt and have shared the role of integrating Spain into the global market-driven capitalist economy.

        One result is that Spain is close to following Ireland , Portugal and Greece in seeking a bail-out from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. That would spell not only the collapse of the eurozone but trigger a new global financial collapse.

      That is why Real Democracy Now is saying “Don’t vote for them” – the PSOE and PP – in Sunday’s regional and local elections because neither represents the interests of ordinary people. This is an astonishing indictment of a parliamentary democracy that was only established in 1977 after Franco’s death two years earlier.

      This, naturally, poses the question of if not this “democracy”, then what type of political system should replace it? The protests in Madrid , Barcelona , Seville and other cities, popularly known as M-15 as they began on May 15, have started that debate. In Sol Square there is a “democracy wall” where people have stuck hundreds of notes with their thoughts on them, declarations and statements.

     In Egypt , the dictatorship was overthrown but power remains out of reach, resting in the hands of an army that owns a large chunk of the economy. In Spain , a 35-year-old parliamentary democracy leaves real power in the hands of the corporations and banks who use politicians as a front.

      For a “real” democracy to work, it must involve the transfer of economic and financial resources into the hands of ordinary working people, alongside the replacing of the capitalist state by forms of popular power. Many took up the fight against Franco’s fascists in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s with that aim in mind. The revolution was cruelly betrayed by Stalinism and then defeated. Puerta del Sol signals a chance to put history back on course.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor
20 May 2011

Corinna Lotz
Secretary

A World to Win  07871 745258

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ONE BIG UNION.

       Building a new society in the shell of the old. Continuing the necessary policy of a pan-European struggle it makes sense to have that great big ONE union. I keep saying how the opposition, the corporate world and its minders the state are well organised and work together to achieve their aim, control of all assets on this planet, which would be a disaster for both the planet and all of humanity. We have to fight like with like, they are organised across national borders, so likewise we must do the same. From London to Glasgow, to Berlin, to Madrid, to Rome, to Brussels, to Athens and the rest. One way to achieve that would be ONE BIG UNION, focused on the creation of a society that sees to the needs of all, and gets the pampered parasites of our backs.


One Big Union:
* A union that’s open to all workers.
  Controlled by members in their own class interests, rather than by bureaucrats or politicians.
  Membership dues to suit wages for part-time and full-time workers.
* Information, solidarity and the will to win.
* Members throughout the country and across the globe.
Contact us through iww.org.uk

From the IWW constitution:

Industrial:
The industrial process is simply the production and distribution of goods and services. Whether you clean the office at night, serve coffee over the counter, stand behind a desk or sit in front of a computer screen, feed a press, sit in crane, drive a taxi, a truck, a van, or study for qualifications that could put you in a job, you are part of that process. In jeans or apron, overalls, uniform or suit, you are an industrial worker.

Workers:
We define workers by their relationship to how things are produced and distributed. If you don’t hire and fire other workers, if you are looking for work, studying for work, or retired from a lifetime of work, then you are a worker, and do not have the same economic interests as those who control jobs.

of the World:
The ownership of the means of production and distribution of all the essential goods of life is being drawn into fewer and fewer hands, and our lives are increasingly controlled by global corporations. Wars are directed to control natural resources, raising profits regardless of the real cost. Political democracy seems to be part of the problem rather than the solution. Only the working class has a vested interest in building an international organization based on workplace democracy to administer society in the interests of all. join us. Help build a new society in the shell of the old.

Download the application form at iww.org.uk

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