"Esta mierda no es democracia"

“This shit is not democracy!”

This is what crowds in Madrid were shouting earlier this week.

“NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH REVOLUTION.”  Proclaimed one placard. Utterly wonderful!

Here you can find comments and links to videos showing police clearing peaceful protesters and here you can find photos.

According to the AP news wire this morning, despite having been cleared out by police and a ban imposed on protests in the run up to the elections thousands are back in Puerta del Sol square

Thousands of Spaniards have defied a ban on demonstrations and have mounted a protest camp in the heart of the Spanish capital to express anger at political parties and the country’s handling of the economic crisis.

Does this sound familiar at all? Tahrir, Puerta del Sol, where else could we find in Europe to send a clear message?  The Spanish protesters are confronting the corruption of a broken and oppressive democracy. One in which you can chose between two parties whose only real differences withered away long ago and now survive only in empty phrases. Left, Right they are pantomime politicians.

This was posted from Spain, on Reddit, an hour or so ago,

“The issue is rapidly becoming popular here, on monday nobody knew there even was something going on in Madrid, yesterday there were a shitload of people in madrid and hundreds on every major small town 

This morning the whole thing is the largest thing on the frontpages of all major spanish newspapers 

Oh, to clarify, this protest is not just about the money or the handling of the crisis anymore

We did a lovely and organized protest the 15th about that and our two party system that had almost no repercusion, and some people that day stood in Sol and slept there. they were forcefully removed at 5AM and then shit went down and everyone started coordinating protests around spain so it’s kind of chaotic right now. We are now mostly protesting about the two party system which is starting to become as much of a problem as in the US.”

Is it any different in Greece or Portugal, Ireland the UK or America? Whose lies do you prefer Tory or Labour, Republican or Democrat? Does Obama do the bankers bidding with a more winning smile? Is his brand of lying insincerity more sincere than his predecessor’s?  How about Mr Enda Kenny in Ireland, does his petrified toadying to the Banks, ECB and IMF slide home more comfortably for you than that of the odious charlatan he replaced?

Left and Right is irrelevant. What matters is if any of them are willing to uphold the rule of law, stand up for their people and their nation and allow real democracy.  If they won’t, if there is no way of having a real debate and be offered the chance to say “No, I will not bail out your banks” then the Spanish are right – this shit is NOT democracy. In which case we owe such a charade no allegiance at all.

Democracy is Europe is being betrayed by Left and Right alike. We are at a moment of true crisis. While across North Africa people are fighting to gain Democracy, we in Europe must be willing to fight to preserve it. The institutions and political system of Europe have grown fat and stupid and care for nothing now save their own comfort, wealth and privilege.  The social and political contract across Europe has been broken and nullified and therefore we, the peoples of this wonderful varied and vibrant place, the people who make it so, have the right and duty to take to the streets and the squares to defend all that is good here and to burn down and cast out what is attacking it.

14 thoughts on “"Esta mierda no es democracia"”

  1. Hi Golem, a while back you commented on the Danish bank Amagerbanken AS and its bankruptcy – with no bail-out of bondholders!!!.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-19/six-danish-banks-downgraded-at-moody-s.html

    With a 41% loss for the bondholders, "haircuts" does not quite describe it, I think we lack a metaphor for cutting off everything from the chest and above.

    I take the 41% as indication of what bondholders in general are facing, whether creditors to nations or their banks.

    Seems the international financial community is enraged; downgrading and no more funding from abroad for Denmark. As expected….

    The Bloomberg piece, I'm sorry to say, offers yet another example of the strength of their ideology production, and so they have made Economy Minister Mikkelsen see what the financial classes see: That one must "sidestep Europe’s toughest winding-down rules" (to protect bond-holders, to secure financing in international markets….).

    I guess Denmark will soon be a bail-out nation again, together with its European neighbours…. What do you think?

  2. Did arrive the SPRING?. BBC compared the revolution in Spain with Egypt. List of proposals: to punish absenteeism of the politicals, remove the privileges in tax and pensions to them, eliminate immunity, which do not prescribe the crimes of corruption, divide the work up to a less than 5% unemployment, retirement at age 65 and unable to raise that age to be removed from youth unemployment, expropriation of unsold homes, prohibit and return the bank bailouts, raise the taxes to the banks, punish speculation, raise the taxes to the big fortunes, change electoral law … See:
    http://aims.selfip.org/spanish_revolution.htm

  3. Yeah!

    "This shit is not democracy!"

    I love it, brilliant!

    The shining light of truth. Doesn't it sound great in Spanish too 🙂

    Thanks for your post, Golem, I hadn't seen this.

    How long can main stream media churnalists keep pretending otherwise?

    (Seems the penny's dropped for Mr Myers – '…two successive governments have behaved like kapos, the trustee prisoners who, for what seemed to them to be sound reasons, did the bidding of (and thereby made life easier for) the concentration camp commandants." Strong stuff!! )

  4. I am also concerned that the protests in Greece and Spain go largely unreported. The bank haircuts in denmark went largely unreported.

    Ok on this blog we read around places like zerohedge and this blog, one of the few last bastions of sanity,but what percentage of the population are we?

    Oh well I will plough my lonely furrow and spread the word as far as I van. VIVA the keyboard warriors.

    bill40

  5. I read, years ago, a speech made by an american politician about the political system imposed on cuba after the spanish american war- badly paraphrased – o they can have democracy and elections they can vote for whom they damn well please whoever they vote for will be our man and he will know the price of not doing our bidding. What I never saw [wood trees] was this is what we had too, a false dichotomy, apparantly opposed, always serving the same masters, managing through 'leadership' the consensus of whats "politically possible" manufacturing consent apparently
    I cant number the tumbleweed moments I've caused trying to talk about this shitstorm

  6. Great post Golem!

    "The institutions and political system of Europe have grown fat and stupid and care for nothing now save their own comfort, wealth and privilege. The social and political contract across Europe has been broken and nullified and therefore we, the peoples of this wonderful varied and vibrant place, the people who make it so, have the right and duty to take to the streets and the squares to defend all that is good here and to burn down and cast out what is attacking it."

    Amen!

    Here's a link to a webcam set up in Puerta del Sol, if anyone wants to see the state of play in real time:

    http://www.soltv.tv/soltv2/index.html

    Fairly chilled at the moment…

    (The report on CNN only showed images from in front of the Courthouse in the north of Madrid (not Sol), where fewer people are protesting for the 7-10 people that got arrested Sunday night – not sure if to deliberately make it look like there were less)

    The "electoral board" has voted to declare the protests illegal as of Saturday and Sunday…

  7. For me this is the essence:

    "Left and Right is irrelevant. What matters is if any of them are willing to uphold the rule of law, stand up for their people and their nation and allow real democracy. If they won't, if there is no way of having a real debate and be offered the chance to say "No, I will not bail out your banks" then the Spanish are right – this shit is NOT democracy. In which case we owe such a charade no allegiance at all."

    Golem, I think you commented recently that it was surprising socialists and libertarians enjoyed some measure of agreement. If you include in your paragraph quoted above the principle of a free market, it might be even more surprising. Except those principles are basic assumptions for honest people.

    I include the free market, but that raises hackles, and I suspect is a deal breaker for a united opposition to the theft.

  8. Golem XIV - Thoughts

    shtove,

    I think you are right that 'free markets' are the deal breaker. But I wonder if people would be willing to discuss some notion of 'markets' other than the libertarian, anti society 'free' markets?

  9. ITS GREAT Watching it on live stream in Madrid right now 12.30pm it looks like Tahir all over again and seems to be breaking out across Spain. Just had friend in san Sebastian send me a picture of crowds gathering

    On the sites the word is REBOOT EUROPE! This is something at last to wake up the idiots in charge

  10. Golem said:

    "I think you are right that 'free markets' are the deal breaker. But I wonder if people would be willing to discuss some notion of 'markets' other than the libertarian, anti society 'free' markets?"

    Well, this is how the deal is broken – two people agreeing that liberty is the goal, but both disagreeing over the relation between the market and people.

    I'm not especially libertarian, but the market as society seems the fairest – least corruptible – way to analyse our relations.

    I stick with the idea that you enter into bargains of your own will and take the consequences. If the bargain is not of your own will, then the consequences are mitigated are nullified. But that doesn't require politics, just a rule of law. And the rule of law requires juries to make the decisions – should be increasingly simple with electronic communication, but we're heading in the opposite direction.

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