Intercepted Transmissions

This Wednesday, I published the first in a series of articles touching on Barcelona's history of civil disobedience, anarchy, and full on dissent against the forces of oppression that have helped to shape the political and cultural "mind" of the city. The series will be appearing at the ultra cool (and very new) ChilliPaprika.com, a new Politics, Art & Culture magazine. 

To learn more about ChilliPaprika, visit them here. 


Here's a little snippet from the article... 


Barcelona: the Revolutionary City

Part One - La Canadenca 

Barcelona’s El Poble-sec barrio sits in the shadow of Montjuic, a large coastal mountain that dominates the skyline when looking southeast toward the Mediterranean Sea. The neighbourhood, whose name means “the dry village” in Catalan, was one of the first new areas developed during the city’s 19^th century expansion, predating the vast Eixample district, which now makes up Barcelona’s central core. The barrio is divided from the neighbouring Sant Antoni area by the famous Avignuda del Paral-lel, a wide street that descends from Placa Espanya, separating the dry village from the city’s other barrios before bleeding out into the port areas at the foot of Las Ramblas... 
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You can also find me posting, not nearly as often as I would like, over at London Progressive Journal, a non-partisan journal of the left. You can devour all sorts of interesting pieces from a wide spectrum of talented writers and, for some reason, me right there with them. 

Now off you go and read.

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. 

You say you want a Revolution?

The great unwashed have reached their limit. In different nations, different cities, and for different reasons, people are coming to the same conclusion, at roughly the same time: This system is broken.

 In Greece citizens have marched, been assaulted, and died in an effort to stop crippling austerity measures being forced upon them by their leaders, the same people who allowed the banking system that holds their leashes to hurl the nation into a black void of debt. In Tunisia and Egypt, the people have risen up in search of a voice, full stop. They demanded freedom of speech, an end to police and military brutality, and the right to vote. In both cases, they fought and they won. In Spain, from the sprawling city streets of Barcelona and Madrid, to the quaint and picturesque towns of Figueres and Soria, the 15 de Mao movement, with its Castellan “Los Indignados” and Catalan “Els Indignats”, fought a happy revolution, occupying the grand squares of their ancient cities in a non violent, extended sit in. They erected make shift barrios, complete with libraries, canteens, daycare facilities, and media centres that allowed them to keep the message online and global twenty four hours a day. In Barcelona I saw first hand how pacifist and joyous these revolutionaries were. When the police came to move them, they did not raise a hand. When they were forced from the square, they returned immediately. They weren’t there to fight, but they refused to be chased away. Before long, it moved across the pond, where protestors in Santiago, Chile turned student protests over the state of education in the country into a full scale revolt against the country’s political system.

Now, it’s come to America.

  By now you know the details. It started small, with the vast majority of the American mainstream media doing it’s best to ignore the gathering in Liberty Plaza Park. Then, hemmed in protestors were needlessly pepper sprayed by the NYPD. Before long, no media outlet could ignore what was happening, not even FOX News.

  Now 23 days in, the movement grows in New York daily, and like Spain before, it’s spreading. As of October 7^th, similar movements have cropped up from Washington DC to San Francisco. They are taking to the streets in the windy city of Chicago and in the mile high city of Denver. From the swamps of New Jersey to the desert in Albuquerque, Americans are rising up and joining the rest of the world to tell the governments, and more importantly, the corporations, the banks, and the disgustingly rich who run the show behind the curtain: Enough.

  Three years ago we all watched as corporate greed broke the back of our neo liberal system. We watched as the world’s largest banks, all complicit in driving us into the greatest economic collapse since the great depression, had hundreds of billions turned over to them because they were “too big to fail”. For our efforts, we watched them use the cash to pay out millions in bonuses to the same high level bankers and investors that brought the economy to its knees. All that mattered to them, all which ever mattered to them, was getting rich, no matter the cost to the rest of us. If it was ever really in doubt that the rich, the powerful, and the fortunate have crafted a world where they thrive off the toil and struggle of those underneath them, there can be no such illusion left. The only thing they didn’t count on, unsurprisingly, is that this time they have pushed us to our limit. At least we should all hope they have.

  If this revolution is to succeed, there can be no let up from the will of the people. One day, one week, one month is not going to be enough. 100,000 protestors, while impressive, will not get them to listen. This truly has to be a revolt of the 99%, on a global scale. Every one who has been foreclosed upon, or had their young lives crippled right from the start by insurmountable debt, must take to the streets. We cannot just be Tunisians and Egyptians or Greeks. We cannot just be Castellan and Catalan. We cannot just be Chileans and New Yorkers. This is not a case of “your” revolution or “mine”. It belongs to all of us, and must be embraced by all of us. If you cannot take to the streets to be heard, take your voice online. If you cannot march against consumerism and the greed that it fosters, stop buying useless shit you don’t need. If you want a true change of the system, it starts with breaking free from the system.

  On October 15^th, people across the world will come out from their homes and into their streets to raise their voices in support of the occupation of Wall Street, in support of the student protestors in Chile, in a reflection of the happy revolutionaries of Spain, and above all else in support of each other. Whether you are there for an hour, a day, or a year, make your self heard. You are not just one.

You are the 99 percent.