The Light That Cracks The Darkness

Twenty five thousand marched in Granada. In Seville they numbered fifty thousand. In Zaragoza seventy thousand took to the streets, while eighty thousand gathered in Valencia.

In Barcelona, four hundred and fifty thousand Indignats flooded the streets of Catalunya’s capital city. In Madrid five hundred thousand Indignados swarmed through the city, before converging once again on their beloved Puerta Del Sol. By day’s end, more than a million people, from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, marched in cities across the country, coming together to tear at the darkness that looms over them.  

This is what democracy looks like.

On Sunday the outraged returned to the streets of Spain. They returned to remind us all what the defiant energy of the downtrodden feels like; what the unwavering voice of dissent sounds like. This army of street kids and grandmothers, of workers and students, of anarchists and activists, returned to make it known that they are still here, they have not forgotten, and they are definitely not finished. 

If it was ever a question of whether or not they had given up, it’s been answered. If notions lingered in the minds of the politicians these past few weeks that the people -- turned backwards and forwards by Spain’s short but strange winter, a schizophrenic mix of unseasonable warmth and chill -- might have fallen into lethargy or a tired acceptance of the hard times plotted out for them, those notions were erased on Sunday. 

Newly elected Prime Minister Rajoy and his Partido Popular might have thought they had escaped without wounds on 20^th November, the default victors of a pantomime vote that offered the people a twisted play on democratic choice. In reality they were asked if they preferred to drown or to suffocate. This sham election was rejected by 10 million voters. They chose neither. They rejected the illusion.  These new public officials might have mistaken the unwillingness of so many to legitimise their own suffering as a mandate to replenish the coffers of high finance; to force the people to bow down, as they do, in worship of the markets.

If such a mistake was made, this return of outrage on the streets corrected it. 

What the Indignados did afford their fledgling government, was time. A few months to plot out a new course, to offer up a hopeful alternative, to lay new cards on the table and present ideas not designed to break the backs of the under classes. What their new leaders came to them with was an admission that they have nothing new to offer, and never intended to. In their eyes it’s business as usual; more of the same. "Reforma Laboral" that takes rights and wages away from the people; that affords corporations convenient new tools to rid themselves of older, poorly paid employees in order to replace them with desperate new blood that will work for even less; a fire-to-hire scheme as an answer to mass national unemployment, that amounts to little more than rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship. 

On Sunday, the people kindly rejected their proposal. 

The Spanish refuse to sit by and watch as the same measures that have left mothers giving up children they can’t feed in Greece, that have more and more signing on for the dole in the United Kingdom, and that have already put more than half of their own youth out of work,  are forced upon them while executive pay is capped at 600,000 euros annually. They will not be locked into financial slavery and routinely humiliated. They have seen what these failed ideas have done to Greece. They will not have the same done to them. Not without a push back. 

The sun is shining in Spain again, and the air gets warmer from one day to the next. The ruling classes don’t have to change this course of protecting profits at all costs; of recouping their losses by scavenging from those with the least, but if they don't they should expect resistance. Summer is coming, and with nearly a quarter of the population out of work and angry, there’s ample opportunity for mass action. There is no hiding from it. Expect the acampadas to return -- sooner rather than later.

The return of 15M and Los Indignados should be well observed by the Occupy movement also. The manifestations that grew from a few hundred in Puerta Del Sol to hundreds of thousands taking the streets and squares across Spain in 2011 laid out the blueprint and inspiration for the occupations that exploded across the western world. Now, as Occupy struggles with irrelevancy in cities like New York, Toronto and London, it is time to rediscover your focus, to draw inspiration from the outraged here in Spain, as you did before. March side by side with union members rather than be co-opted by their leadership. Resist the plans of special interests, and of the democratic wing on the bird to manipulate you into a mass lobby group; a tea party to call their own. Reject the subtle manipulations of billionaires looking to turn you into a violent mob, and ultimately, the engine powering an agenda that will only lead to deeper control for the elites and their puppets in office. To find your voice and your resolve again, look to Spain. Mira a España .

This is what revolution looks like. 

Panic on the Metro

An inconvenient game of "chicken" is brewing amidst the metro lines and bus routes of Barcelona. Who will flinch first? And will there be an app to follow the drama on?

The 2012 Mobile World Congress is set to descend upon Barcelona the weekend of 27th February. Some 60,000 attendees will flood the Fira - Montjuic area of the city, eager to test out the newest trinkets and gadgets on display from the giants of the mobile technology world. New smartphones from the likes of HTC, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson will be unveiled. A potentially company saving, game changing operating system from RIM will be previewed as Blackberry attempts to stave off irrelevancy in the face of the Android and the iPhone. Sleek new tablets will be plentiful. Except for the iPad. 

Apple is staying at home this year. 

The keynote speakers for the conference include major power brokers from across the digital playing field. Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, and Facebook CTO Brett Taylor plan to address the corporate hordes in attendance, and those are only the companies with the most "cool" factor.  The list of CEO's, CFO's, Presidents, and Chairmen speaking is long, and relatively unattractive. I can't confidently say why the CEO of Citigroup is coming to address the crowd, but I can confidently say that his mere presence may cause many banks in Barcelona to declare insolvency and demand a bailout to be forked over by the taxpayer. To my local friends, I suggest emptying your accounts and hiding the money in your mattress until he leaves town. 

The conference has called Barcelona home for a few years now, and on 22nd July 2011 confirmed it would remain in the city through 2018. The event is a grand feather in the cap of the local government. It ushers in wealthy big wigs willing to spend lavishly on hotels, high class restaurants, and the finest cava they can find. I am mildly curious to find out if the working girls in Raval see a spike in revenues over the weekend, but getting official numbers from them might prove difficult. The conference directly employs roughly 1,500 people for each day that it runs. Millions in revenue is expected to flow into the city as the rich and innovative discuss new apps and the future of various technologies. 

This year, though, attendees may find themselves walking a bit more than usual. Bring good trainers. 

The CGT (Confederación General del Trabajo) anarcho-syndicalist trade union and employees for the TMB (Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona) have voted in favour of striking during the congress, as a result of TMB management attempting to deny them wage increases agreed to by both parties in their last collective agreement. The bold decision to effectively bring public transit to a grinding halt during such an important event for the city has set off a fierce panic among all affected parties. The MWC organisers are scrambling to find alternate methods for transporting attendees about, the city's hoteliers are in a rage over the possibility of lost revenue from the union's proposed action, and city mayor Xavier Trias has called on the workers to "apply common sense" and hold their strike action on a more convenient date so as not to tarnish the city's image. 

In other words, do as we say, not as we do. Apparently the bosses don't enjoy the taste of their own medicine. 

There's no denying it's an aggressive move by the union and the transit employees represented within. They are pushing back at TMB management and the municipal government by threatening a hugely profitable event for the city, essentially playing the one trump card they have. 

Opinion on the strike is sharply divided amongst the public as well. Many support the workers and are quick to point out that they are asking for only what was promised to them. On the other side of the divide, many are questioning how they will get to their own jobs without access to public transit. Those in direct opposition to the strike, management and the city, are stoking the fires; playing worker against worker, accusing the transit employees of holding the city to ransom, in an attempt to divide and conquer.  TMB Management contends they cannot afford to give what has been rightly earned. The company line is an echo of similar austerity measures stifling the poor working classes, and the squeezed middle classes, throughout the rest of Spain. We have made mistakes, you must pay for them. 

Workers have started fighting back, and this conference represents an ideal opportunity to show the power they hold as the engine in the societal machine that makes a city run. Those in control should hardly be surprised. You can only beat someone down for so long, before they come back at you in a similarly brutal fashion. 

While the order of the day in Spain continues to be great sacrifice by the masses in order to right the wrongs brought about by the controlling elite, expect the people to answer hard line tactics in kind. Expect a bite increasingly more ferocious than the bark. 

For the CEO's, presidents, and chairmen still anxious to make the trip, I offer words of calm. I walk everywhere here in Barcelona, it's a fantastic city to experience on foot. However, if you powerful heads of the techno-empires aren't so keen on that idea, might I suggest picking up a Bicing card for the weekend? 

Mossoflautas!

When the police can't afford to beat you, they join you 

This past Friday some 50 members of the Catalan “Mossos d’Esquadra” regional police force marched into Barcelona’s largest police station at Plaça de Espanya to stage a sit in. Over the last eighteen months the Mossos have felt the pinch of a 5 percent cut in their wages, as the Generalitat de Catalunya marches along the austerity path in lock step with the rest of Spain. They entered with placards, and blew tiny plastic “flautas” in unison. One Mosso was quoted warning that “If they won’t negotiate, we’ll fight”. Still, by all reports it was a generally peaceful affair.

The problem is, the last time I saw 50 Mossos in the same place, they were beating peaceful 15M protestors bloody with truncheons:

That was 27^th May 2011, when under the guise of cleaning the grounds before the weekend's Champions League celebrations, the Mossos escorted city cleaning crews into the 15M encampment at Plaça de Catalunya, Barcelona’s central square. While they told the 200 or so Indignats camping there that they would be allowed back in, the cleaning crews began tearing down and removing the tents and other makeshift areas the protestors had constructed. Thousands of supporters descended on the square in a show of solidarity. It wasn’t long before the skull cracking began. 

Plainly speaking, when it comes to stifling dissent, the Mossos don’t fuck about.  

On 15^th June 2011, the Mossos fired rubber bullets on crowds seeking to block politicians from entering the Catalan Parliament situated in Barcelona’s Parc de la Ciutadella. Reports surfaced after the event that the Mossos employed the use of "Agent Provocateurs" during the march; a theatrical, subversive tactic used by police across the globe to turn peaceful protests into chaotic riots, effectively contaminating the public's view of a movement in an effort to turn the dissenter into a common enemy -- a shady villain to be feared and loathed rather than listened to.  

The Mossos cast an imposing shadow at these protests. Clad from head to toe in black riot fatigues, thick kevlar covering their torsos, their faces obscured not only by the visors on their helmets, but by police issue balaclavas. This is the strange paradox of the riot police and the protestor; only one side ever comes prepared for a fight, and the public is made to believe those in heavy armour are the brave ones. You start to wonder who needs protecting from who? 

On 19th June 2011, when the Indignats had once again converged on the Catalan Parliament buildings, I took a place along the barricade that separated the Mossos from the Indignats, standing across from one officer for about 30 minutes; his mouth and nose hidden under the black cloth of his Mossos mask. I could only see his eyes, permanently fixed on me. He stood completely at the ready, waiting for me to jump over the barricade. I half wondered if he was hoping I would.

Yet now, after months spent introducing their truncheons to the skulls of those calling out unfettered greed, and the strangle of austerity measures forced on the many to pay for damage wrought by the few, the opressors have become the protestors.

There is a rich irony in the Mossos being made victims of the same measures imposed by the elites they are made to serve, often toward violent and repressive ends, and embracing the spirit of dissent as a result. Feeling the sting of these same sharp cuts to their livelihoods that the Indignats have laboured under for years should be a lesson to them, and moreover, to police officers everywhere.

While the uniform, the badge, and the billy club may provide the illusion of power, ultimately the police remain members of the same under-classes they are frequently ordered to pummel into submission. To the elites they are a private army to be used for their protection, but ultimately, like the rest of us, they are expected to foot the bill for their folly. There is no justification for meeting peaceful protest with violent thuggery. “Just following orders” does not cut it.

For these 50 or so Mossos, and inevitably for police in every city where the people are rising up against the austerity disease, the question is simple. The next time you are ordered to crack the skull of a Perroflauta refusing to forfeit their right to be outraged, or to pepper spray a row of kneeling students at a university, will you remember that these same people whose orders you are “just following” can, and probably will, turn on you at any time?

D'Hondt Let Me Down

Ever get the feeling you’re being followed?

I do, at this very moment. I have come to believe that the right wing is stalking me, hunting me down as if I were the last Javan Rhinoceros, eager to mount my head on its wall. It’s either that, or I’m a curse for progressive thinkers and revolutionaries. You’ll forgive me if I prefer to think I’m being chased.

When I left Toronto times were grim. The city was a few months in to what's best described as the end result of former Provincial Premier Mike Harris’ final “fuck you” to the city he so loathed. The Harris “Mega City” amalgamation of Toronto proper with its surrounding suburbs delivered the city into the hands of a mayor who hates cities, progressives, art, culture, even bicycles. Mayor Rob Ford was the Harris regime's inevitable parting gift to the downtown core. If you listened closely, you could almost hear Harris crying out “from hells heart, I stab at thee!”

Similarly, though no less baffling, shortly after I left the country the federal Tories led by Stephen Harper, finally fooled enough Canadians, or lulled enough to sleep, to win the majority government they had craved for so long. No longer confined by the restraints of a minority parliament, and with no need to pay lip service to the idea of bipartisan co-operation, Harper and his cabal could drive through any legislation it liked. These were dark days for my city, my country, and my home. While these weren’t the reasons I left, they certainly worked to reaffirm the decision to go off and explore the world around me. Now, just seven months later, that same black cloud, the darkness on the edge of town, has tracked me down in Spain.

The national elections on the 20^th of November delivered Spain into the hands of the Partido Popular, a party formed in the burning embers of the old Franco regime when it fell in the mid seventies. For some here in Barcelona, it brings back sinister memories. A Catalan friend of mine, angry over the results and no doubt fearful of what’s to come, sent a message stating “La oscuridad se cierne sobre nuestro pueblo.”

The darkness looms over our people.

The results, while disappointing for many, come as no surprise. Sit down for a chat in a café, or a bar with nearly anyone you meet here to discuss the nation’s political parties and you will learn one thing very quickly: They are two sides of the same coin, ultimately controlled by Santander, the largest bank in the Eurozone. In essence, there is no choice at all.

The outgoing and thoroughly embarrassed PSOE had long ago shown that they were progressive and socialist only so long as it was convenient to be. When the pressure was applied from “Merkozy”, Zapatero quickly played the obedient dog. What is coming from New Prime Minister Rajoy and his party is simply more of the same crippling austerity measures applied by Zapatero in order to appease the creditors, to appease Chancellor Merkel, and to appease President Sarkozy. The people of Spain have been living under and fighting these efforts to sell them into financial slavery for some time now. Swapping out one set of thieves and opressors for another doesn’t mean much to them.

Far from a victory for conservative ideals, these election results stand as a punishment of the former bosses for abandoning their own ideals and turning their backs on the people in the face of relentless pressure from Chancellor Merkel. There were more nullified votes, blanked votes, and outright abstentions than there were actual votes cast for Rajoy and the Partido Popular. More people in this country feel that there is no one they can trust to represent them. They no longer place faith in the democratic process because it no longer belongs to them. It has been taken over by the financiers, the corporatists, and the neutered politicians who serve them.

When asked to choose between the person who wants to punch you in the stomach and the person who wants to kick you in the face, the vast majority of us would opt for neither. The people of Spain were being asked to vote for austerity, or more austerity. Many made the only choice they could. They said no.

It was a strange day here in Barcelona -- election day. The streets were quiet. The tourists were there of course, they always are. They walked up and down Passeig de Gracia as they do every single day of the year. No sense of what was at stake. To them this was not a day of any particular importance, just another lovely day in sunny Spain.

The locals though, the vibrant and rare lifeblood of this city, the ones that make it hum, were taking sides in a conflict of ideologies. Those who believe in the system, the ones that feel it’s working just fine, went to the polls and cast their ballot for more austerity, more crippling service cuts –- more of the same. On the other side of the field stood those who see themselves as prisoners, and the election as nothing more than a changing of the guards. The jailers faces and the names on their placards may have changed, but their plans and schemes all come from the same cold and sinister warden.


Those who refused to vote made a hard choice. They will not give consent to forced financial servitude. They have opted to show those in charge that if you abandon your ideals, and your promise to the public, forcing the people to pay the price for your corruption and that of the money men who hold the purse strings, the people will take you to task, any way they can. This was the harsh lesson the inevitable losers learned on election day, and it is the lesson the default winners should take to heart. Sooner rather than later.

On Sunday, 20th November 2011, millions of Spanish citizens made it clear that they will not be complicit in the methodical dismantling of their democracy. If the politicians don't have the courage, or the conviction to stand up for the people, they are more than capable of making their time on the throne extremely uncomfortable -- and very brief.

And here… we… go!

Let’s get down to brass tacks; it’s a rather chaotic state of affairs, isn’t it?

Everywhere we turn these days we are met with situations and images that inspire, nauseate, induce dread, and provoke apathy all at once. Societal revolts in the Middle East leave us cheering on rebels fighting for human freedoms, while also questioning who ultimately gains from the outcome. Austerity measures being forced down the throats of the poor and downtrodden across Europe and North America provoke rage in one city, peaceful assembly in another and tacit acceptance in the vast majority. 

As the angry and disenfranchised react exactly as the powers that be want them to, we then watch as bloated and out of touch policy makers strive to limit our abilities to discuss and organize through the world wide web, while they remain all too happy to learn everything they can about who we are, what we view, and what we think using the very same tool. 

As if this weren’t bad enough, we have other terrible things like Jersey Shore, the works of Michael Bay, Fox News, Reality TV, Glenn Beck, and the Tea Party movement assaulting our senses with abject stupidity, lies shouted loudly and often enough that they kick the truth in the balls and send it screaming for mummy, orange skin and discount hair gel applied all too liberally. It sends a cold shiver down one’s spine. 

This mind numbing assault often makes one want to hide under their bed with a bottle of Jameson to suck on while curled up in the fetal position.  

But rather than do that, I've decided to drink my bottle of Jameson while typing reams of shite, smoking lots of cigarettes and staring out at the sky from my little enclave… somewhere in the world.