Friday, September 22, 2017

Barcelona is Tahrir Square 2017

The mobilization in Catalunya is very impressive, massive, total, truly revolutionary, a true constituent moment in the making.

Barcelona, yesterday night.


Against that what can the Spanish state, with a corrupt government with minority backing in Parliament, representing more than ever before the (barely reformed) Fascist nature of the state? Well, they are throwing in everything they have, which is brute force. Thousands of police agents have been moved to Barcelona and hosted in three cruise vessels... like this one:


Total failure, right?

It's "Brand Spain", also known as "ACME". And this is the most likely result:



It's not just a "marketing" failure, it's not just surrealism at its best (or worst), it is that with every single repressive move more and more people join the rebels. People who were not in favor of the referendum now favor it, people who were not in favor of independence now say they will vote for it, even in Spain proper the mobilizations in favor of Catalonia are much larger than those against it, which so far have not gathered more than a handful or two of fascists. 

The dock workers have rejected to serve the three police ships, Catalan unions have called for a general strike beginning on October 3rd (the referendum will be on Oct. 1st), in Madrid a demonstration aiming to "surround Congress" has been called for Oct. 5th, these days we have seen thousands of people demonstrating in solidarity with Catalonia all around the rest of the Spanish state, plus also very large protests against local issues (Murcia) or general most serious affairs (Linares). If Madrid keeps the repression against Catalonia they are going to see how the Catalan fire expands to all the peninsula, there's no way around that, particularly because there is no end to the Catalan "Procès" other than independence (or its defeat via referendum, most unlikely at this point). And they just do not have enough cops...

Remember that moment in the Tunisian Revolution of 2011 when the protesters realized that they were many many more than the cops, pushed back and won?

Remember that moment in the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 when the police van shooting water cannons against the demonstrators run out of water and had to retreat, allowing the People to take Tahrir Square again?

That moment will happen, somehow, at some point, also in Catalonia and maybe even in Madrid soon, the rage is just too big and the regime too stagnated, corrupt and discredited. The #MAMBO has just begun. Pay attention because this is most important not just for Catalonia, not even for Spain, but for all Europe.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Catalonia: Spain escalates repression, shoots itself on the foot.

Military police car taken over by protesters
Telegraphically: This morning the Spanish state has assaulted the Catalan Government (Generalitat) and arrested 12 people, including many high officers of the elect government. Last minute info indicates that masked police forces have surrounded the offices of the radical left independentist party Popular Unity Lists (CUP). Several separatist parties have abandoned the Spanish Congress as result. The center of Barcelona is full of people in spontaneous demonstration. Protests are being held in other places as well, including here in Bilbao (Basque Country). The only de facto all-Spain opposition party Podemos has called for a conference of mayors and other elect officers tomorrow in Zaragoza (the Spanish nationalist right-wing parties PP and Ciudadanos have not been invited, the Spanish nationalist center-left PSOE has rejected to go but all other forces are going). While we can't say the situation is "revolutionary", it is certainly most anomalous and in many sense "pre-revolutionary", particularly because the Spanish state cannot effectively fight against the peoples, much less with the extremely low level of legitimacy it has after so much corruption, austericide and repression. We cannot exclude at this point that a general strike of political nature could be called, even if the main unions are quite sheeply and definitely unionist.

The situation is definitely critical in any case. Some relevant Twitter hashtags: #ReferèndumCat, #MAMBO.