Protest in my city of northern Spain, one of many all across the country....

OVIEDO, Asturias, Spain
9/29/12

I missed the first wave of it since I was serving a table at my cafe. The first wave had what had to be miners throwing what are the equivalent of 1/4 sticks of dynamite into the air. The protest was against austerity measures and in solidarity with Madrid.

Police presence sat back in their vans. I counted at least 12-14 cops in each van....only 2 vans though, but there were plenty on foot walking around the neighborhood.

It started at the palace of congresses (regional government HQ) down the street from us where everyone gathered. Then they moved to city hall on the other end of the street and gathered in a small plaza in front of it and made a ruckus. Then the cops got out and got in front of them and issued warnings and set up a human wall.

They are still there, going on 3 hours, but are clearing out now. See them mañana.....

These days, and especially on the 25th, cops seemed on edge and in force in every city in Spain. Quiet and watchful, but ready for all hell to break loose. They didn't know what to expect.

We have been having mass protests all over Spain. This has been going on for months now. What has changed?....they now all do it together and in solidarity with Madrid.

It used to be small groups, like doctors one day and health care people, then miners, or whatever....

now they go together under a common cause.....GET OUT!

Things are getting pretty insane here. Nothing the media says is accurate and honest.....civil war is brewing.

reply to post by BIHOTZ


Good luck my friend! The media in the US is being very silent on covering ANY of this.........

Kinda makes me think they don't want us to see it coming........my guess it will hit the US within a year...

Tysm for the information. I like these News post better...straight from someone that is there. Hopefully Spain will get rid of evil the correct way and we'll follow in your foot-steps.

The Presidential election is a joke. America and the few running it are running us into the ground and killing us daily. People still in the gulf are dying from Dick Cheney's crew....Parrish LA is getting pushed around....

And it goes on and on and on.....

God bless you my friend...my thoughts and prayers are w/ you....

Stay blessed & safe...S&F

Trace

reply to post by BIHOTZ


Hey,

I'm from the US and a few of my best friends from high school are studying abroad in Barcelona right now.

Any insight on whether these protests could escalate? How do people in Spain view Americans? Specifically, is there any blame directed at the US for triggering the recession?

reply to post by PatrickGarrow17


There is a sense of anti Americanism.....Nothing big, but I notice it. Our culture is mocked by Europeans in general. Barcelona is different altogether. They are more of a global community and really want nothing to do with Spain since it has mistreated them for decades.....They are marching for independence. They are separatists. Tell your friends that they might actually get it if the rest of the country is in revolt. Have all their original paper work like passports, birth certificates, ect....if they plan on staying. Oh, and know the best route to their embassies just in case.

It can get bad if both regional and central governments can't agree.....one might say good bye, and the other to hold on a minute....all the while the rest of the country will be escalating in protests and demonstrations, calling for the central government to resign....so....be prepared for Spanish passions and government incompetence to complicate a semi stable situation....

even the protest in the vid, people were chanting and grouped immigrants with banks.....bad blood brewing. My Mexican wife and I are going to get the hell out of here before December.....

I'm afraid it won't get better as long as America's economy is in the toilet. America is taking a dive to level the playing field for the world. The unintended consequences of which is the world economy suffers. America loves to vacation and buy stuff they don't really need. At the moment that is pretty much on hold until the economy comes back, if the economy comes back.

Independent live coverage from Spain, Greece, Portugal. Viva la Revolution
camera 2


I wish you all the best,

tlap

We don't know what we want, we don't know how to get it, but we want it now!

I cannot help but be reminded of a brilliant post by LiveForever

Originally posted by LiveForever8

The Greatest Crimes Against Humanity Are Perpetrated by People Just Doing Their Jobs

The greatest crimes of human history are made possible by the most colorless human beings. They are the careerists. The bureaucrats. The cynics. They do the little chores that make vast, complicated systems of exploitation and death a reality. They collect and read the personal data gathered on tens of millions of us by the security and surveillance state. They keep the accounts of ExxonMobil, BP and Goldman Sachs. They build or pilot aerial drones. They work in corporate advertising and public relations. They issue the forms. They process the papers. They deny food stamps to some and unemployment benefits or medical coverage to others. They enforce the laws and the regulations. And they do not ask questions.

Good. Evil. These words do not mean anything to them. They are beyond morality. They are there to make corporate systems function. If insurance companies abandon tens of millions of sick to suffer and die, so be it. If banks and sheriff departments toss families out of their homes, so be it. If financial firms rob citizens of their savings, so be it. If the government shuts down schools and libraries, so be it. If the military murders children in Pakistan or Afghanistan, so be it. If commodity speculators drive up the cost of rice and corn and wheat so that they are unaffordable for hundreds of millions of poor across the planet, so be it. If Congress and the courts strip citizens of basic civil liberties, so be it. If the fossil fuel industry turns the earth into a broiler of greenhouse gases that doom us, so be it. They serve the system. The god of profit and exploitation. The most dangerous force in the industrialized world does not come from those who wield radical creeds, whether Islamic radicalism or Christian fundamentalism, but from legions of faceless bureaucrats who claw their way up layered corporate and governmental machines. They serve any system that meets their pathetic quota of needs.

These armies of bureaucrats serve a corporate system that will quite literally kill us. They are as cold and disconnected as Mengele. They carry out minute tasks. They are docile. Compliant. They obey. They find their self-worth in the prestige and power of the corporation, in the status of their positions and in their career promotions. They assure themselves of their own goodness through their private acts as husbands, wives, mothers and fathers. They sit on school boards. They go to Rotary. They attend church. It is moral schizophrenia. They erect walls to create an isolated consciousness. They make the lethal goals of ExxonMobil or Goldman Sachs or Raytheon or insurance companies possible. They destroy the ecosystem, the economy and the body politic and turn workingmen and -women into impoverished serfs. They feel nothing. Metaphysical naiveté always ends in murder. It fragments the world. Little acts of kindness and charity mask the monstrous evil they abet. And the system rolls forward. The polar ice caps melt. The droughts rage over cropland. The drones deliver death from the sky. The state moves inexorably forward to place us in chains. The sick die. The poor starve. The prisons fill. And the careerist, plodding forward, does his or her job.

I have to admit, after I finished reading the above article I was left feeling a little bemused.

On the one hand I found myself agreeing with a lot of what it had to say, there is no doubt that these 'yes men', these people who are merely "following orders" (be it shredding mundane looking documents or committing mass murder) are contributing to the demise of humanity.

On the other hand, who am I to judge? I go to work everyday and do just that (I mean following orders, not mass murder). And the reason I do it is probably for the same reason most of them do it - to put food on the table for my loved ones, etc.

Albert Einstein once said: "The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don't do anything about it." That's not to say that we are all "little Eichmanns," but I do think that at some point we have to draw a line and say "enough is enough!"

Afterall, how long can self preservation last?

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Thoughts?

edit on 5/8/2012 by LiveForever8 because: (no reason given)

reply to post by usernamehere




Great post....
nice.

My thoughts on that and what it means in terms of the events happening in Spain....

Every dog has his day, and sometimes they travel in packs. The lone wolf is not the problem anymore. The lone wolf has learned to become an alpha and bring his friends.....The little guys are waking up and forming the mass that will spew forth a giant, again.

Some people in my area say that the ones being arrested in Madrid are not from there, but more to the point, they are from the north. They are from Cataluña and other such places. I say.....what? A separatist will just wait to see who wins the overthrow of the government? Not likely. They are not the problem, even if they are organizing it, which I doubt is the source of this all, they are there like the many unemployed will be as soon as this Madrid protest lasts longer than a month.

I keep throwing that time limit up. Less than a month before Europe must react. Then they will, IMO, give all the fuel to the fire of a full blown Spanish revolt. That will spread, interconnectedness is a bitch too.

reply to post by talklikeapirat


thanks man, and good on you for the live feed. I like it so far, nice group this guy is following.

It seems it's about to get hot.

"commencing crack down"

reply to post by BIHOTZ

It used to be small groups, like doctors one day and health care people, then miners, or whatever....

Why is it we never hear of the military or the cops actually joining a protest?

reply to post by jiggerj


they have a sense of duty, and a steady pay check.

When cut backs target them, you know that
1, your government is full of dumbasses, and 2, all hell will break loose.

The fire dept in Madrid had cut backs and unpaid hours...the mayor was a pompous bitch about it all, ON CAMMERA while attending a gala. She might make that mistake with the police and military in the long run....I don't know why people have so much confidence in her.

Civil servants and your military are necessary for power to be maintained. Here, they cut everyone's pay or increase work load before losing the "life style"....dumb.

If the EU sends armed assistance then you might see a division in the ranks. The protestors will suffer, but ultimately it will provoke mass Euro skepticism which will not go away.

Like if the UN is ever dumb enough to send troops to the US....no one likes to be told what to do at gun point by a foreigner.

reply to post by BIHOTZ


ola amigo,
here's the protest in granada is still going, from todays "ideal". it's implied that the protest is about university cuts.but as you can see it's all cuts. this was on friday apparently

www.ideal.es... /granada/procesion-protestas-manifestantes-201210011034.html

Nothing on the "real" news of course

reply to post by discolo


HOLA!

thanks for that. Yeah, you notice how all we get is BS all day then on the nightly news they show a little bit of Madrid, and then nothing. The newspapers are all but completely ignoring the mass protests all across the country......if it wasn't for cell phones with cameras we would not see a thing.....It is almost insane!


Have a great day and stay safe.


EDIT:
Link not working.....

reply to post by discolo




here it is...I think.....

www.ideal.es...

reply to post by BIHOTZ


Yeah that's one of them. There's another on the same website.
I'm trawling the net trying to find articles or news mentioning other protests locally.
I know they're happening in Malaga and Sevilla as people left to go to them on Saturday evening.

Here is a blog with pictures and videos from Granada
storify.com...

Stay safe yourself! Might meet you at the barricade.

reply to post by jiggerj


Here are the LOCAL POLICE, NATIONAL POLICE AND FIREMEN PROTESTING in Granada on the 28th of september.

NOT ON ANY NEWS

The US media does not want to up the chance of a Civil War. A civil war would be a giant pain; it would strain all security the government has. There by increasing the chance of someone leaking or finding sensitive info and there by discrediting lots of people not just in the US government but all over the world.

reply to post by ObjectZero



it is a sobering reality. Rather than grab the situation by the balls, they are pussy footing and letting radical opposition grow. They will be in a sudden and complete Isht storm when it erupts.....

they now have less than 2 weeks before Madrid becomes a national rally call for revolution...more so than now. They can't ignore this like they did the economic crisis. They lost many points there.

Now, they will be blamed for the ignorance and incompetence by their future supporters.
Spain will need more than moors this time. They will need UN troops and EU troops, which will escalate this into a EU revolt....Euro spring...

If they want to contain this, they need to do so now, and use only Spanish troops. That will not be enough though. They also need to give in a little and Germany better see that, or this will reach their beloved father land.

I thought that by the time I enlisted and deployed I would be on my way to meet our Chinese friends, I think I will just get a round trip ticket eventually back to Spain. This is mind boggling how retarded it is being handled.

I can hear the old ladies that supported franco in their day sitting now in my cafe as we speak, giving their support to the protestors...they are sooooo screwed.