Saturday, May 21, 2011

Live from Puerta del Sol (Madrid)

Not sure how good is live streaming for blogs but here it is for the taking:




Last is that probably the demos will be allowed to stay (the ruling party does not want to risk a slash back on Sunday if people start being killed or whatever by police charges all through the state just because a tribunal has decided so). But nobody is really sure of what will happen.

Also images from Pamplona (City Hall Plaza) at Ateak Ireki.


Update: an interesting review of the role of journalists in ignoring as much as possible the demos and popular takeover of the Puerta del Sol and other city plazas is available at Cuba Debate. The author says that journalists act more like bodyguards of politicians than as true journalists, however reality is stubborn and even mercenary journalists eventually yield:

Coverage (orange area) of the M-15 protests in major Spanish newspapers (first page)


On the other hand, it is so worrisome the lack of a program of the movement that there is serious fear that it will dissolve too easily as soon as politicians begin courting the various sensibilities, what is already happening (not in vain there are local elections in less than 24 hrs).

I'd say that the initial platform Real Democracy Now, essentially claimed a radical reform of the electoral system that essentially impedes candidates from minor parties from achieving anything. This hypothetical reform would mostly benefit, in principle, to United Left (some communists and ecolos but so social-democratic indistinct as of late that they are losing votes massively anyhow).

But what really has all those people in the streets day and night, besides the thrill of taking part of a once-in-a-lifetime (maybe) experience, is misery and hopelessness. Most discourses and banners I find talk of unemployment, impossible housing prices, low income, bad job conditions... in other words: objective conditions for the class war.

The subjective conditions (consciousness) are poor, indeed, but what this movement is showing is that they are not so poor after all. Yet, in spite of the hash tags, I would not expect a revolution to happen any time soon, at least not in what is left of May.

Maybe in June?

The movement still needs a lot of work, not that it should be stopped for that reason... because action is practical work... but it needs more thought about why a revolution is needed and what goals do we want to achieve.

Essentially a "party" (functional revolutionary movement) has to be built from scratch... because there are many tiny parties but nothing beyond a few committed (and often also bitching) friends each, sadly enough.

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