People and Power: The Indignants

Why Spain’s young people took to the streets in protest at the economic crisis gripping their country. [And were joined by Spanish citizens of all ages and backgrounds.]

Posted on english.aljazeera.net

Demonstrations, marches, rallies. For months now hundreds of thousands of Europeans have been expressing their anger at government imposed austerity measures. 

Recently those voices have been especially loud in Greece, where the administration is trying to implement a savage programme of spending cuts to avoid the country defaulting on its loans.

But it is in Spain that the protest movement has gained most traction. In mid-May demonstrations that started in the capital Madrid soon led to mass rallies in other major cities, in some cases occupying public squares for almost a month.

The “indignants” as they call themselves, dismantled their last camp in Madrid on June 12, but their commitment shows no sign of waning and many more marches and rallies are planned for the weeks ahead.

So what is driving them? And what do they hope to achieve? A team from Televisio de Catalunya filmed through the first weeks of the May protests in Madrid and Barcelona, and found people angry at their country’s economic and political elites.

*Video Link:  http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/peopleandpower/2011/06/201162282514394230.html 

This video, interspersing commentary by the protesters in Spain and by analysts, has much to say about our own situation in this country.

Highly recommended.

Here’s a song from the video we might want to adopt:

To the tune of “If You’re Happy and You Know It”:

They call it democracy but it isn’t
Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes
They call it democracy but it isn’t
Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes

Kevin Zeese wrote a new post Is the United States a Representative Democracy or a Mirage Democracy.  It’s from Kevin’s post, also worth reading, that I found this video and the song.

*Due to tecnical limitations, WAMMToday is unable to post the actual video.