Chanting “si, se puede,” Occupy Congress protesters in Madrid, Spain, are in a standoff with police as their all-day protest of austerity measures has now continued into the evening.
A livestream of the events shows clusters of police in riot gear attempting to hold back the crowd of “indignants,” with reports that they are firing rubber bullets into the crowd. Congress itself has been barricaded with metal gates around all entrances.
The twitter hashtage “#S25″ reveals that Occupiers stateside are watching the scene intently, referring to it as “breathtaking” and “the greatest thing I’ve ever seen”:
The BBC reports that the protesters are angry over Spain’s austerity measures and social program cuts. There are growing fears that the country may require a bailout in the coming months:
One of the main protest groups, Coordinadora #25S, said the Indignants did not plan to storm parliament, only to march around it.
The Coordinadora #25S manifesto reads: “Democracy has been kidnapped. On 25 September we are going to save it.”
Pablo Mendez, an activist from the 15M Indignants movement, told the Associated Press news agency: “This is just a powerful signal that we are sending to politicians to let them know that the Spanish bailout is suicide and we don’t agree with it, and we will try to prevent it happening.”
Another demonstrator, Montse Puigdavall, said: “I’m here because of the situation we are living in now, because of all the social cuts and rights that we have lost, that took a lot of hard work to achieve.
The Occupy Congress protesters in Spain are calling for Parliament to be dissolved and new elections.
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I’m afraid all I can offer the “occupy” movement these days is an eyeroll and a condescending “aw, aren’t they cute” sentiment. They are a bunch of children, throwing a tantrum and holding their collective breath.
“…all the social cuts and rights that we have lost”
This equivalence (linkage?) between social spending and rights explains a lot about the left. It is quite insane.
““…all the social cuts and rights that we have lost…””
Yeah, tell me about it.
Nowadays too many people think they have the “right” to other people’s hard-earned money – or rather, the “right” to keep sucking off the government trough at taxpayer’s expense…
An entitled society is one that will fall apart at the seams… and then collapse, like the Roman Empire did – all from within.
These people are insane.
And that includes the ones in the States following along on Twitter.
You don’t like capitalists? Who exactly do you think your precious cell phones, tablets, overpriced coffee, electricity, etc., come from, a goat in the Mid-East?
Idiots.
You don’t like capitalists? Who exactly do you think your precious cell phones, tablets, overpriced coffee, electricity, etc., come from, a goat in the Mid-East?
B-b-bu-but, Sparkly® the Unicorn said those should all be provided to us for free.
…and Skittles, too.
If we only tax the rich more.
Hernan Cortez would not be amused.
Spain was the first canary of the credit bubble . They went from peasants under a right wing dictatorship to credit card carrying cosmopolitans under a left wing love -in set in one generation.
Like greece their economics is a mirage.
My absolute favourite Spanish fact is that they filled their 2000 gold medal winning intellectually disabled basketball team with ‘hoillbillies’. They just went up to the population reduced hills & recruited villagers none of whom actually was disabled -just thick.
Hence the Olympics for athletes with an intellectual disability is no longer .
I’m a fascist capitalist, fair enough, but I take offense at the ‘bloodsucking’ charge.
Boy, where’s the Spanish Inquisition when you need it? These Occupiers would never expect that.
Seven years under socialist Zapatero just wasn’t enough.
And when the money is all gone and all they’ve got is the socialist ideas they’ve been taught, they will … what?
One of these countries is going to fall to the protesters and then things will get really interesting.
“fascist capitalist” No such thing exists, or ever has. The two are diametrically opposed. Fascism is a form of Socialism where the government controls the economy by proxy. Unlike Marxist Socialism where government takes direct control of corporations, under Fascism corporations are still nominally independent but government controls every detail of their business through regulation.
Which is pretty much exactly what the D’s are imposing on the US. Obamacare is a power grab by the federal government whereby the entire health insurance industry will be controlled by government bureaucrats by proxy.