Click here to access article by Guy Aitchison from Open Democracy (UK).
This morning I surveyed a number of articles regarding the protests in Spain that have been occurring in that country in about 60 cities for over a week. There has been almost no mainstream coverage of these events in US media. I chose to run this article because I think it offers a general perspective that provides the best understanding of this phenomenon.
These demonstrations were timed to correspond with national elections held on Sunday, May 22nd. The main parties in Spain appear to be similar to the choices we have here in the US--choice of poisons. The demonstrations mostly attracted people under 30 years of age, were non-political, and focused entirely on protesting the austerity policies, public spending cutbacks, bank bailouts, etc.
The two main political parties consist of the current ruling party called Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spanish Socialist Workers Party), a social-democratic party, and a center-right party called Partido Popular. The latter won Sunday's election. So you see, people in Spain as here in the US have really only an opportunity to vote against parties. They have no real positive choices.
(Notice that the words "socialist" and "workers" are included in the name of the first party. Such naming is popular in Europe because of the strong popularity of socialist ideas in European history over the past century. Even the Nazi party translated into English was called National Socialist German Workers’ Party.)
The fact that the demonstrations were non-political received some rather cynical reviews by leftists (seeth is).
Click here for many photos of the demonstrations.
