Last Thursday night, Madrid’s city centre offered a glimpse of what Western democracies have become, as thousands of unarmed nonviolent civilians with their hands up in the air shouting “these are our weapons” and “this is a dictatorship” were beaten by police commandos in full riot gear. Continue reading
While “Europe’s slow-motion financial collapse”—as Mother Jones magazine described it in a June 6 article—continues to unravel, Spain, like other European states continues to implement anti-social-neo-liberal policies with strong opposition from the citizenry. Continue reading
On Friday the 27th of May, five days after an overwhelming victory by centre-right political parties in the local and regional elections across Spain, the country woke up to the bitter reality of how nonviolent movements calling for economic democracy, political justice and peace are going to be dealt with by the country’s police forces in this new era of right-wing political dominance. Continue reading
I assume that to some, I dare say, to the majority of Western citizens, it must be a relief to see that ‘our’ force for good has not lost its momentum—that humanitarian benevolence which characterizes the self-portrait we paint of our societies as we ponder on our own exceptionalism, our magnanimity. Continue reading
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The ‘people’s microphone’
Posted on September 30, 2011 by Pablo Ouziel
With the current ‘Audacity of Hope’ entering its terminal phase, Americans engaged in social movement activity are finally catching up with their brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. What took a long time to flourish—despite the numerous calls from academics and activists from within the United States and from outside of its shores—has finally erupted into what is rapidly becoming the turning point in the relationship between people and markets (and people and government), at the heart of America’s unstable empire. Continue reading →