The public policy of voting, voting rights, and new immigrant pathways to voting rights is the Gorilla-in-the-Room issue in Spain as in US. We shout over and over how our US elections are rigged during CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA as in Maryland where a super-majority of citizens do not vote because the only candidates allowed to participate in major election venues are those captured global Wall Street CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA players that Democratic voters and Republican voters do not want in office. So, they have not voted. When our Maryland Senators or our Baltimore City Mayors win with only 17-20% of registered voters -----these 20% become what national media and polling corporations call 'LIKELY' voters and they are the only ones polled et al. When 80% of registered Democratic voters do not vote then a candidate winning has only garnered that 20%. National media will use PERCENTAGE OF VOTER VOTING ----and say that candidate won with 45% of voters. So, out of the 20% of voters coming to the poll ---that candidate won only 45% of 20%-----
THAT IS VERY LITTLE OF VOTER SUPPORT BUT THAT 45% IS MADE TO SOUND LIKE CLOSE TO A MAJORITY.
All of Maryland pols are elected with these small numbers and as we see below so too was this CATALONIA REFERENDA FOR EXIT. The CATALONIA EXIT citizens claim 90% of voters support this EXIT REFERENDUM when only 43% of Catalonia citizens came out to vote.
'The Catalan independence referendum saw 90 percent of voters come out in favor of independence of Spain, though turnout was only around 43 percent, with many opponents choosing to boycott the vote. Madrid had also declared the referendum as illegal'.
The Catalonia citizens with the red X on their mouths were really that 99% of Catalonia citizens NOT WANTING EXIT. That same situation is in US for that 80% of Democratic voters forced to sit out elections because they don't want a global banking candidate.
Those not supporting Catalonia EXIT would not have come to the polls as well as those feeling that vote was illegal. MAS claiming that EXIT MANDATE is like our Congressional right wing claiming a mandate when simply winning a majority. There was no mandate for EXIT from this EXIT referendum.
October 3 2017
After Barcelona's separatist vote, a war of words in Spain
Barcelona: A day of violence and voting in northern Spain has been followed by a war of words, as pro-independence Catalans sought to capitalise on Sunday's referendum.
More than two million Catalans voted for independence on Sunday – nearly half of the region's registered voters and ten times the turnout for 'No' - despite attempts by Spanish police to disrupt the poll
The Catalan government has called a general strike for Tuesday, suspending non-essential public services. Unions, universities and football clubs announced they would join the action, which will include public demonstrations against the Spanish government.
FC Barcelona announced it would join the strike and not train on Tuesday.
The Catalan parliament will debate whether to declare independence in a sitting either late this week or early next, Lluis Corominas, chairman of the JxSi political alliance and the parliament's vice president said on Monday.
After proclaiming independence the Catalan government would begin negotiations with the Spanish state to set up a roadmap for separation, including the drafting of a constitution and new elections for the first government of the Catalan republic.
The precise timing would be determined at a meeting on Wednesday, he said.
Catalan president Carles Puigdemont called for international mediators to help with the discussions with Spain, saying he did not want a traumatic break with the rest of the country.
He said he would set up a commission to investigation alleged abuses of fundamental rights during the referendum, which was marred by police violence.
He said 893 people had been injured in police action against voting stations. Four people were hospitalised and two were in a very serious condition.
It was "the biggest wave of unjustified violence in 40 years", he said.
Reportedly, one voter lost an eye when shot with a rubber bullet by police.
However Spain's ruling People's Party disputed the figure, saying the actual number of injuries was four.
Spain's interior ministry said 431 members of state security forces – police and civil guards – had been injured by bruises, scratches, kicks and bites from would-be voters.
Amnesty International said police had reacted "in an excessive and disproportionate manner" against voters who were passively resisting police orders to leave voting places.
It called for an immediate and exhaustive investigation.
Puigdemont called for the 10,000- extra Spanish police officers deployed in Catalonia in advance of Sunday's referendum to leave as soon as possible.
"Tomorrow's general strike will reinforce what we did yesterday as well as what is yet to come
He insisted the referendum result was valid, and said it was "regretful" that there had been no contact with the Spanish government.
"We have a political problem, not one for police," he said.
But the Spanish government insisted it would not recognise the vote, which it said was illegal and provocative.
Spain's federal police said they would "identify and photograph" members of the Mossos – the Catalan police – who had not followed orders to stop voters from entering polling stations.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he had called for a plenary session of parliament to discuss the crisis next week.
Spain's opposition leader, the Socialist Party's Pedro Sanchez, said the "time for inaction is over" and the prime minister must "negotiate, negotiate and negotiate and reach an agreement" with the Catalan government.
The territorial integrity of Spain was now at stake, he said.
European parliament president Antonio Tajani said the parliament will hold a debate this week on the Constitution, rule of law and fundamental rights in Spain in light of the events in Catalonia
A spokesman for the European Commission said the referendum had not been legal and if Catalonia became independent it would leave the EU.
He called on "all relevant players to now move very swiftly from confrontation to dialogue".
"This is an internal matter for Spain that has to be dealt with in line with the constitutional order of Spain," he said.
A group of European parliamentarians who had observed the vote said they "were impressed and reassured by the patient, determined and non-violent behaviour of the huge number of people who came out to vote across Catalonia".
They expressed their abhorrence at the "brutal" violence against voters and the removal of ballot boxes. And they said adequate steps had been taken to prevent double voting.
"We would hope that in the near future the Spanish Government will enter into genuine negotiations with the Catalans," they said.
EU president Donald Tusk said he had spoken to Mr Rajoy and "sharing his constitutional arguments, I appealed for finding ways to avoid further escalation and use of force".
Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister in the left-wing Syriza government, criticised the EU response asking on Twitter "What message does the Commission's implicit support of violence against peaceful crowds send to authoritarian governments in Hungary/Poland?"
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The next point to remember is this----in Catalonia as in US cities -----the election of mayors is as captured to global banking 1% as our US city mayoral elections----every single US city mayor is now global 1% ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE ------and we can be sure this is true in Catalonia as well. These mayors have their political machines as the crony elections in Baltimore who bring the heavily biased EXIT VOTERS to the polls while those 99% of Catalonia citizens NOT WANTING EXIT do not come. If Catalonia is like today's US elections----ballot box rigged/fraud is adding to those GLOBAL BANKING BARCELONA EXIT vote totals as well.
So, these mayors are being called revolutionary because they back global banking 1% with their EXIT policy.
Catalonia referendum: Separatists rally around mayors in Barcelona
The mayors have been called in for questioning by prosecutors for agreeing to facilitate the vote locally.
They could be arrested if they do not attend and prosecuted for using public funds if they help stage the ballot.
Madrid has promised to block the vote, saying it is unconstitutional.
Catalonia's regional government insists it will take place as scheduled despite a growing clampdown by the Spanish state.
Some of the mayors gathered with Catalan President Carles Puigdemont outside the headquarters of the regional government, the Generalitat Palace, as supporters waved the lone-star flag of the independence movement.
"We stand firm against threats, censorship and prosecution and repeat this: we want to be a free country," Mr Puigdemont told the crowd, according to a tweet by the Catalan National Assembly grassroots independence movement.
Chants of "We will vote" could be heard from the crowd.
Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau, who supports the right to hold the referendum, also turned up.
"It's a disgrace that we have a government that is incapable of dialogue and instead dedicates itself to pursuing and intimidating mayors and the media," she said.
Ms Colau announced on Thursday that people in Barcelona would be able to vote without civil servants involved risking their jobs but did not explain how.
'It won't happen'
On Friday, the Spanish government gave the regional government 48 hours to abandon its "illegal" referendum plans or lose budgetary powers.
"If, 48 hours from now, there's no compromise that falls within the law, from then on the Spanish government will take over responsibility for making Catalonia's payments," Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy later told a meeting of his Popular Party in Barcelona.
"My friends, I say this both calmly and firmly: there will be no referendum, it won't happen."
Mr Rajoy also announced that police from Spain's national Guardia Civil force had seized 100,000 referendum posters.
No government in the world, he said, could accept one of its regions unilaterally scrapping the nation's constitution and its laws.
Attempts to block the official referendum website have continued.
Thousands of ballot boxes are said to have been hidden by referendum supporters. Police have been hunting for them but Toni Castejon, spokesman for the Catalan police force, admitted "right now, we have no idea where they are", the Reuters news agency reported.
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We have shouted since Trump's election that FAKE ALT RIGHT ALT LEFT are creating this civil unrest around extremist groups or citizens----in US we are told citizens are either far-right wing MARXIST or far-right wing FASCISTS when our US 99% are really NEITHER. We simply want our political parties back so we can vote right wing conservative or left wing social progressive -----with whatever dash of right wing fascist and left wing MARXIST there really is.
We are reading Spanish populist voices and a 99% of Greater Spain ---Basque and Catalonia separatist regions ARE FEARFUL OF AND DO NOT WANT A RETURN TO FRANCO FASCISM.
Who wants FRANCO fascism? Spain's global 1% and global banking. This is why media claims far-larger support as occurred in US with ALT RIGHT ALT LEFT GROUPS. Spain's 5% to the 1% creating the political climate those global 1% want ----including civil unrest civil war.
Europe says OXI
added 11 new photos — with Jose Filol and Momo Al-Amin Marong Samateh.
October 8 at 8:57am ·
If you weren't sure yet about the nature of quite a lot of the pro-Spain protesters that have been going into the streets over the last days (although it should have been clear as they are basically protesting against a people's right to vote), here is a compilation of those protesters doing Nazi salutes. From men to women, from elderly people to little children.
Oh, many were also singing "Cara el Sol", an anthem of the Falangists. You know, the party that supported former dictator Franco.
Yep, that's what the militant, pro-Spain camp is about: pro-Franco fascism.
(p.s. most anti-independence protesters in Barcelona today came by bus from outside of Catalonia, organized by the Spanish government, Spanish PM Rajoy's PP party and fascists)
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Barcelona prides itself to be well on the way to being that SMART CITY----its goal is complete AUTOMATION as is true of all US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zone. The growing anger from 99% of Catalonia citizens being left unemployed as Barcelona global 1% bring in those HIGH-SKILLED FOREIGN WORKERS mirrors that feeling in the US. Barcelona is very clear----its goal is total AUTOMATION---ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE----so in Catalonia as in US these 99% of Spanish citizens KNOW they are not going to be re-employed and/or will be losing that employment this decade or so.
WHAT IS MADE TO LOOK LIKE A BARCELONA WITH OPEN DOORS POLICIES IS REALLY ONLY AN OPEN DOOR TO THE GLOBAL 1% AND THEIR 2%---AS WE SEE IN SAN FRANCISCO.
Do we think 99% of Catalonia citizens want EXIT when they see the writing on the wall for their being pushed out of Catalonia? Of course not especially when unemployment is highest in Western Europe in Greater Spain.
Tech is making life in Barcelona better, even if you don’t know it’s there
By Jenny McGrath -- Posted on July 24, 2017 3:03 am
Your city is dumb. The potholed streets, coin-operated parking meters, and drafty brick buildings many of us interact with every day haven’t changed much in a century. But it’s finally happening. From Oslo to San Diego, cities across the globe are installing technology to gather data in the hopes of saving money, becoming cleaner, reducing traffic, and improving urban life. In Digital Trends’ Smart Cities series, we’ll examine how smart cities deal with everything from energy management, to disaster preparedness, to public safety, and what it all means for you.
Does a smart city require savvy citizens? The goal of many smart cities is to make residents’ lives easier, be it finding a parking space easier or paying for a ticket online instead of through the mail. But Barcelona doesn’t just want an easy-to-use app. The people using the solutions are providing data, and they should own it, Francesca Bria, Barcelona’s digital chief, told Alphr.
Barcelona is trying to get its citizens involved as it evolves into a smarter city, including through its waste management initiatives and Fab Labs, maker spaces focused on helping residents produce goods usually shipped in from the outside.
An Olympic legacy
In 1992, Barcelona hosted the Olympics. In preparation for the event, officials installed 310 miles of fiber-optic cable and worked to revitalize the run-down industrial neighborhood known as Poblenou . Thanks to their efforts, Poblenou is now the site of @22, a with green space, subsidized housing, and mixed-use buildings. is still underway, and is set to be the location of Cisco’s Innovation Center. The company has heavily invested in Barcelona, and the Center houses a lab for developing projects aimed at smarter parking and energy management, as well as a space to demonstrate how these solutions would look in the real world.
“Barcelona has probably come up there as one of the one or two smartest cities in the world.”
Barcelona just completed its first “superblock.” It’s a bit like having a block party, every day. Pedestrians are a priority, and while vehicles can use the streets, they’re restricted to 10 kilometers (about six miles per hour), according to The Guardian. Picnic tables, trees, benches, chairs, bike racks, a running track, and ping pong tables are all planned for one area, El Periódico reports. None of that sounds particularly tech-y, but it reflects Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau’s agenda and priorities. Colau has built upon the previous mayor’s interest and focus on technology but also made sure that citizens are involved in the process.
“What we’ve been seeing in the past year is really a renewed focus on including citizens, including the different neighborhoods of Barcelona in the definition of this smart city strategy and making sure this smart city strategy is designed by and for citizens,” Cyril Maury, manager at consulting firm Claro Partners, told Digital Trends.
Previous Mayor Xavier Trius and his smart city team had originally identified 12 areas for intervention and improvement, including transportation, energy, waste, and water. Today, the city’s roadmap to 2020 focuses on using open-source technology that is “more democratic and accessible” to find solutions for “long-term social and wage inequality, climate change, scarcity of natural resources, and employment.” According to the report, “The current government does not renounce the work done” thus far in making Barcelona a smart city but wants to go further in making it “open, equitable, circular, and democratic.”
Some of its goals include closing the “digital divide” that shuts out some residents, like elderly residents who don’t have internet access, from modern amenities. It will also implement more responsible water-use practices, and helping bring down rents by identifying vacant and illegally used buildings.
With plans to improve everything from transportation to waste management, it might be easy to forget how connected the city already is. “Barcelona, I would argue, over the past five years, has probably come up there as one of the one or two smartest cities in the world,” said Arvind Satyam, Cisco’s managing director of smart cities and digitization division. He said Trias was a driving force. “The thing that got Barcelona on the map was not the city, it was the leadership.”
During his administration, Barcelona became known as one of the smartest cities in the world.
Barcelona’s Eixample District is home to the cities’ first “superblock”. (Photo: Iakov Filimonov/123RF)
What waste?
Cisco has been involved since 2011 and has been operating its Smart+Connected Digital Platform in stealth-mode for three years, publicly launching it last November. “It connects and collects all the data from different sensors and devices — water sensors, parking sensors, street lights, waste bins, environmental sensors — and brings that data and provides an API to different existing applications in a city to improve productivity and efficiency,” said Munish Khetrapal, managing director of Cisco’s smarter cities and IoT department. “When you’re deploying a smart city, for us what is very important is you don’t have to replace your current waste management application and systems, but you improve and enhance their capability.”
“You don’t have to replace your current waste management application and systems, but you improve and enhance their capability.”
Barcelona has 19,500 smart energy meters, more than 1,100 LED streetlights (many of which can monitor noise, weather, and traffic), sensors embedded in the asphalt that relay parking information, sensors that detect rain for less wasteful irrigation systems, Wi-Fi on its buses, and one of the most innovative waste management systems around.
Barcelona was spending a fortune on waste and recycling – 1.5 billion euros over four years. In an effort to reduce cost, city officials approached Cisco for a solution. They wanted to know if it would make a difference if they only emptied trashcans more than 50 percent full.
“The answer is absolutely,” Satyam said.
Now, sensors detect how full the bins are, and trucks empty them accordingly. “Sustainability is probably the area where they are most advanced,” Maury said of Barcelona. It’s also an area that requires heavy citizen participation. Homes often have five different types of waste bins: one for glass, one for paper, one for plastic, and so on.
“This is a good example of a way to have people do the right thing, the sustainable thing, precisely because it is very convenient,” Maury said. “It doesn’t add any more complexity to their life.”
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While the US during CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA saw our US cities deliberately held in economic stagnation with high unemployment so too in Greater Spain. Where was the economic growth in US? In Texas and San Francisco Foreign Economic Zones------Catalonia and Basque region has maintained that industrial ----
MADRID as the capitol of Spain had no power and allowed those Catalonia and Basque regions operate under global Foreign Economic Zone laws------as Texas, Silicon Valley, and Maryland made a GOLDEN TRIANGLE with global Wall Street with the massive Federal agency frauds fueling that growth the rest of US cities were allowed to wither. This gave Texas, California, and Maryland more power than greater US-----so too Catalonia and Basque as compared to greater SPAIN.
Spain after 2008 economic crash had the highest unemployment with Greece and never recovered. We always say please do not believe these unemployment figures as they only reflect workers receiving UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS and not the actual number of citizens UNEMPLOYED, Greater Spain today see 99% of citizens in the worst of impoverishment----young Spanish adults are being forced to become EX PATS and we KNOW our 99% of Catalonia and Basque see this coming their way as SMART CITY BARCELONA AND BASQUE CREATE MASS UNEMPLOYMENT.
This same system of mass unemployment moved our 99% of Latino citizens from Latin American nations becoming global labor pool workers and that is what we see happening in Spain----the SEPARATIST nations seeing the same with only global 1% and their 2% being brought in for smaller pools of jobs.
The Mystery of Spain’s Perpetual Jobs Problem
Peter Eavis @petereavis MAY 2, 2016
It was welcome news Friday when Europe’s economies reported higher-than-expected growth. The region, after all, has had to deal with rolling debt crises, terrorist attacks, an influx of refugees and migrants, and the possibility that Britain may vote to leave the European Union.
Then there is Spain. Across Europe, economic growth has helped bring the unemployment rate down. But in Spain, the rate is 20 percent, according to European Union surveys, and has been above that level for over five years, even as the country’s economy has been recovering.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that such a high level of joblessness, weighing on families for so long, would have caused the country to crack by now. The jobless number is so much higher than the rate for other economic laggards like Italy (11 percent) and Portugal (12 percent).
Certainly, some of Spain’s unemployment is overstated because some workers have off-the-books jobs. And people may feel optimistic because unemployment has fallen in recent quarters, from 25 percent two years ago.
A government-run job center in Madrid last week. The unemployment rate for the young in Spain is 45.5 percent. Credit Andrea Comas/Reuters
Still, Spanish officials recently said they did not expect the jobless rate to fall below 15 percent until 2019. And there’s the matter of the country’s youth unemployment (those under 25): an almost incomprehensible 45.5 percent.
A new government in Spain — once it is chosen after almost half a year of discord — may end up pursuing smarter and bolder policies that reduce joblessness to levels that exist elsewhere in Europe.
But the chances of that look slim.
Spain’s unemployment is so high partly because of particular local forces that have existed for decades. Marcel Jansen, an expert on labor markets at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, notes that unemployment above 20 percent is not uncommon in Spain. In fact, it has been at that level in three periods since Spain’s transition to democracy in the 1970s. And, ominously, from the previous unemployment rate peak in the 1990s, it took 14 years for it to decline to the wider European level, Mr. Jansen notes.
One cause of the high rate became embedded in Spain’s labor market over the last 40 years. A significant proportion of Spain’s workers emerged from the dictatorship years with ironclad job security. Many of those protections remained, Mr. Jansen said, but much of the new hiring in the democratic era took place through temporary employment contracts. Just before the 2008 financial crisis, around a third of Spain’s workers were on temporary contracts, far higher than the European average.
When the crisis hit, it was very easy to lay off the temporary workers. True, during the recent recovery, the high use of temporary contracts has most likely spurred Spanish firms to bolster their hiring. But the persistence of overly protective labor contracts alongside temporary ones with too few protections has probably also created inefficiencies within Spanish companies that have dampened economic growth.
Mr. Jansen’s preferred solution is to introduce a new contract that could increase protections for temporary workers and loosen them for many permanent workers. But he said Spain’s politicians had shown little support for this idea.
Something else is making matters worse right now. Much of Spain’s working-age population does not have an education beyond high school. And many of those people have remained unemployed for multiple years after the financial crisis of 2008. (Nearly a fourth of the unemployed have been without work for four years or more.)
Such workers are increasingly losing contact with the industries they worked in, and that will make it even harder for them to find jobs. And hiring in Spain’s construction industry, a big employer before the crisis, is not likely to return to precrisis levels anytime soon. Mr. Jansen says helping the long-term unemployed requires a substantial overhaul of Spain’s retraining programs. But this costs money, and Spain has one of the largest budget deficits in Europe.
This is where we bump into the big economic debate that looms over the Continent. On one side are those who insist that struggling countries must pursue policies that cut government spending and free up markets, to spur strong and sustainable growth. As we have learned, Spain’s labor market could certainly do with some big changes. But as we have also seen, these changes are far from imminent. They are expensive. They threaten entrenched interests. Spain’s leaders are so divided that they can’t form an administration that could attempt bold moves.
Economists on the other side of the debate emphasize the need for the European Union as a whole to come together to introduce big top-down actions. Such policies include debt forgiveness and far greater fiscal stimulus. Spain’s sky-high unemployment has not moved Europe’s leaders to take such steps by now. Then again, Europe can’t count on Spain — or any country — to tolerate this high level of joblessness forever.
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While the US has its own rounds of protest over growing police brutality and for our black citizens unjustified homicides-----Spanish citizens have seen these conditions to a much higher degree. If we read the history of Spain/Catalonia we see how brutal the far-right wing extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXIST regime of FRANCO was------these 99% of Spanish citizens KNOW THIS and that is what brings hundreds of thousands of Catalonia, Basque, and Greater Spanish citizens to rolling protests when police acted brutally during the EXIT referendum vote. The Spanish citizens don't sit on the fence---they act as CITIZENS.
The Barcelona EXIT citizens claiming they are going to separate to ESCAPE these FRANCO far-right MARXIST tactics are simply going to purge these separatist regions of all those 99% of citizens. SMART CITIES is no WALK IN THE PARK regarding global corporate fascism so Barcelona, Basque Foreign Economic Zones being made to SMART CITIES are actually moving faster towards FRANCO FASCISM then Greater Spain.
SO TOO US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
Who received all the massive fleecing of Spain of trillions of dollars? Barcelona------just as Silicon Valley/Houston/Dallas/Washington beltway received all those tens of trillions of dollars fleeced from 99% of US citizens.
'With unemployment at 25%, however, and the economy already set to shrink for the next two years, Spaniards see no end to the tunnel of misery'.
US citizens tied to race and class look at who the citizens are being hit hardest today and of course our US cities are largely black and brown citizens -----we see here this global 1% ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE FOR ONLY THE GLOBAL 1% will bring all 99% of citizens black, white, and brown down.
COME TOGETHER AS A 99% VS 1%!
Spain reels at violent tactics by riot police
Officers lash out at passengers and austerity protesters as they storm into Madrid rail station
The middle-aged man sitting on a railway station bench protects a younger man by wrapping his arms around him as he shouts desperately at the helmeted, baton-wielding police officers running up and down the platforms at Madrid's Atocha station.
"Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!" he bellows repeatedly in a video that shows how police charged into the station during violent demonstrations that shook Madrid last week.
On the other side of the ticket barrier a younger man is whacked with truncheons by two policemen. "I don't know whether he is a passenger or a protester," one of them admits. A third man who was waiting for a train is bundled down the platform by police officers as he asks: "And what have I done?" A youth points to blood running down his face. "What the hell is this?" he asks.
On Friday, police told a judge they had needed to chase a group of violent protesters across the railway tracks and had later arrested some in a nearby bar. They, too, had suffered injuries. "People who had been hurling stones at police tried to hide in the station, passing themselves off as normal passengers," a spokesman said. "We had to go in."
As Spaniards respond with dismay to the violence shown by demonstrators, who launched attacks on police, and the response of some riot police, during scuffles in the area around Madrid's parliament building last week, the long-running drama of the country's deflating economy has lurched into a newly confrontational stage, amid fears that there will be more violence to come.
While police and the conservative government of prime minister Mariano Rajoy were accused of authoritarian behaviour, radical protesters from both the far left and the far right were putting a hard, street-fighting edge on to the once peaceful protests of the civilised but ineffectual indignados.
Cristina Cifuentes, the government delegate in Madrid, had warned before the protests that they were being infiltrated by violent members of Spain's far right and were attracting the country's most radical leftwingers. But protesters later pointed to a group of undercover policemen who, they claimed, had been at the front of the protest waving red flags and encouraging others to violence.
Other police certainly thought their undercover colleagues were troublemakers, and there is also film of one of them being dragged out of the crowd to be arrested and shouting: "I am a colleague! I am a colleague!"
On Saturday, a 72-year-old man was among some 30 demonstrators who had been accused of attacking police and given bail. "But I was sitting down when they arrested me," he said.
The radicalisation came amid worries that the ratings agency Moodys would downgrade Spain's creditworthiness, reigniting the pressure on its debt and sending the interest rates that it must pay spiralling up again.
Ministers have said that €10bn (£8bn) of cuts and tax increases must come in next year's budget just to cover a leap in interest payments. On Friday night, they said a coming round of bank bailouts, paid for by the eurozone rescue fund, would send the country's debts soaring by some €50bn. Spending is to be cut by 7% next year, bringing another wave of cuts in health, education and other welfare services. Yesterday, Spain's civil servants heard that, for the third year running, their wages were being frozen.
A period of calm in Europe's more troubled economies created by the European Central Bank president Mario Draghi, when he announced plans to buy the debt of countries who asked for bailouts in the future, also seemed to have come to an end. And with the threat of Catalan separatism adding to worries about Rajoy's ability to control events in Spain, many now expect him to ask for a full bailout for the country – placing it in the hands of those who have forced Greece, Portugal and Ireland into round after round of spending cuts.
Budget minister Cristóbal Montoro presented an austerity budget to parliament on Saturday, with analysts widely seeing it as an attempt to pre-empt the conditions that Spain would have had imposed on it anyway for the bailout. "Reducing our budget deficit is essential," he said.
With unemployment at 25%, however, and the economy already set to shrink for the next two years, Spaniards see no end to the tunnel of misery.
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'A reference to the "'umble' Uriah Heep is the arrant hypocrite"'
BARCELONA/Catalonia is suffering the same thing our US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones are----those dastardly global banking 5% to the 1% killing 99% of WE THE PEOPLE. Add captured national media and ALT RIGHT ALT LEFT groups deliberately keeping citizens mis-informed-----and we have ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE FOR ONLY THE GLOBAL 1%.
Remember, global CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA as in Spain's ASNAR/ZAPATERO/RAJOY------lying, cheating, stealing, no morals or ethics, no Rule of Law, no GOD'S NATURAL LAW ---not even pragmatic-----NIHILISTS.
Uriah Heep was that NIHILIST character created by Charles Dickens living in what was a really bad time in Western nation industrialization but nothing so bad as ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE DARK AGES.
Uriah Heep - Stealin' (Lyrics)
The song Stealin' performed by Uriah Heep with lyrics.
youtube.com
THAT IS VERY LITTLE OF VOTER SUPPORT BUT THAT 45% IS MADE TO SOUND LIKE CLOSE TO A MAJORITY.
All of Maryland pols are elected with these small numbers and as we see below so too was this CATALONIA REFERENDA FOR EXIT. The CATALONIA EXIT citizens claim 90% of voters support this EXIT REFERENDUM when only 43% of Catalonia citizens came out to vote.
'The Catalan independence referendum saw 90 percent of voters come out in favor of independence of Spain, though turnout was only around 43 percent, with many opponents choosing to boycott the vote. Madrid had also declared the referendum as illegal'.
The Catalonia citizens with the red X on their mouths were really that 99% of Catalonia citizens NOT WANTING EXIT. That same situation is in US for that 80% of Democratic voters forced to sit out elections because they don't want a global banking candidate.
Those not supporting Catalonia EXIT would not have come to the polls as well as those feeling that vote was illegal. MAS claiming that EXIT MANDATE is like our Congressional right wing claiming a mandate when simply winning a majority. There was no mandate for EXIT from this EXIT referendum.
October 3 2017
After Barcelona's separatist vote, a war of words in Spain
Barcelona: A day of violence and voting in northern Spain has been followed by a war of words, as pro-independence Catalans sought to capitalise on Sunday's referendum.
More than two million Catalans voted for independence on Sunday – nearly half of the region's registered voters and ten times the turnout for 'No' - despite attempts by Spanish police to disrupt the poll
The Catalan government has called a general strike for Tuesday, suspending non-essential public services. Unions, universities and football clubs announced they would join the action, which will include public demonstrations against the Spanish government.
FC Barcelona announced it would join the strike and not train on Tuesday.
The Catalan parliament will debate whether to declare independence in a sitting either late this week or early next, Lluis Corominas, chairman of the JxSi political alliance and the parliament's vice president said on Monday.
After proclaiming independence the Catalan government would begin negotiations with the Spanish state to set up a roadmap for separation, including the drafting of a constitution and new elections for the first government of the Catalan republic.
The precise timing would be determined at a meeting on Wednesday, he said.
Catalan president Carles Puigdemont called for international mediators to help with the discussions with Spain, saying he did not want a traumatic break with the rest of the country.
He said he would set up a commission to investigation alleged abuses of fundamental rights during the referendum, which was marred by police violence.
He said 893 people had been injured in police action against voting stations. Four people were hospitalised and two were in a very serious condition.
It was "the biggest wave of unjustified violence in 40 years", he said.
Reportedly, one voter lost an eye when shot with a rubber bullet by police.
However Spain's ruling People's Party disputed the figure, saying the actual number of injuries was four.
Spain's interior ministry said 431 members of state security forces – police and civil guards – had been injured by bruises, scratches, kicks and bites from would-be voters.
Amnesty International said police had reacted "in an excessive and disproportionate manner" against voters who were passively resisting police orders to leave voting places.
It called for an immediate and exhaustive investigation.
Puigdemont called for the 10,000- extra Spanish police officers deployed in Catalonia in advance of Sunday's referendum to leave as soon as possible.
"Tomorrow's general strike will reinforce what we did yesterday as well as what is yet to come
He insisted the referendum result was valid, and said it was "regretful" that there had been no contact with the Spanish government.
"We have a political problem, not one for police," he said.
But the Spanish government insisted it would not recognise the vote, which it said was illegal and provocative.
Spain's federal police said they would "identify and photograph" members of the Mossos – the Catalan police – who had not followed orders to stop voters from entering polling stations.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he had called for a plenary session of parliament to discuss the crisis next week.
Spain's opposition leader, the Socialist Party's Pedro Sanchez, said the "time for inaction is over" and the prime minister must "negotiate, negotiate and negotiate and reach an agreement" with the Catalan government.
The territorial integrity of Spain was now at stake, he said.
European parliament president Antonio Tajani said the parliament will hold a debate this week on the Constitution, rule of law and fundamental rights in Spain in light of the events in Catalonia
A spokesman for the European Commission said the referendum had not been legal and if Catalonia became independent it would leave the EU.
He called on "all relevant players to now move very swiftly from confrontation to dialogue".
"This is an internal matter for Spain that has to be dealt with in line with the constitutional order of Spain," he said.
A group of European parliamentarians who had observed the vote said they "were impressed and reassured by the patient, determined and non-violent behaviour of the huge number of people who came out to vote across Catalonia".
They expressed their abhorrence at the "brutal" violence against voters and the removal of ballot boxes. And they said adequate steps had been taken to prevent double voting.
"We would hope that in the near future the Spanish Government will enter into genuine negotiations with the Catalans," they said.
EU president Donald Tusk said he had spoken to Mr Rajoy and "sharing his constitutional arguments, I appealed for finding ways to avoid further escalation and use of force".
Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister in the left-wing Syriza government, criticised the EU response asking on Twitter "What message does the Commission's implicit support of violence against peaceful crowds send to authoritarian governments in Hungary/Poland?"
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The next point to remember is this----in Catalonia as in US cities -----the election of mayors is as captured to global banking 1% as our US city mayoral elections----every single US city mayor is now global 1% ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE ------and we can be sure this is true in Catalonia as well. These mayors have their political machines as the crony elections in Baltimore who bring the heavily biased EXIT VOTERS to the polls while those 99% of Catalonia citizens NOT WANTING EXIT do not come. If Catalonia is like today's US elections----ballot box rigged/fraud is adding to those GLOBAL BANKING BARCELONA EXIT vote totals as well.
So, these mayors are being called revolutionary because they back global banking 1% with their EXIT policy.
Catalonia referendum: Separatists rally around mayors in Barcelona
- 16 September 2017
The mayors have been called in for questioning by prosecutors for agreeing to facilitate the vote locally.
They could be arrested if they do not attend and prosecuted for using public funds if they help stage the ballot.
Madrid has promised to block the vote, saying it is unconstitutional.
Catalonia's regional government insists it will take place as scheduled despite a growing clampdown by the Spanish state.
Some of the mayors gathered with Catalan President Carles Puigdemont outside the headquarters of the regional government, the Generalitat Palace, as supporters waved the lone-star flag of the independence movement.
"We stand firm against threats, censorship and prosecution and repeat this: we want to be a free country," Mr Puigdemont told the crowd, according to a tweet by the Catalan National Assembly grassroots independence movement.
Chants of "We will vote" could be heard from the crowd.
Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau, who supports the right to hold the referendum, also turned up.
"It's a disgrace that we have a government that is incapable of dialogue and instead dedicates itself to pursuing and intimidating mayors and the media," she said.
Ms Colau announced on Thursday that people in Barcelona would be able to vote without civil servants involved risking their jobs but did not explain how.
'It won't happen'
On Friday, the Spanish government gave the regional government 48 hours to abandon its "illegal" referendum plans or lose budgetary powers.
"If, 48 hours from now, there's no compromise that falls within the law, from then on the Spanish government will take over responsibility for making Catalonia's payments," Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy later told a meeting of his Popular Party in Barcelona.
"My friends, I say this both calmly and firmly: there will be no referendum, it won't happen."
Mr Rajoy also announced that police from Spain's national Guardia Civil force had seized 100,000 referendum posters.
No government in the world, he said, could accept one of its regions unilaterally scrapping the nation's constitution and its laws.
Attempts to block the official referendum website have continued.
Thousands of ballot boxes are said to have been hidden by referendum supporters. Police have been hunting for them but Toni Castejon, spokesman for the Catalan police force, admitted "right now, we have no idea where they are", the Reuters news agency reported.
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We have shouted since Trump's election that FAKE ALT RIGHT ALT LEFT are creating this civil unrest around extremist groups or citizens----in US we are told citizens are either far-right wing MARXIST or far-right wing FASCISTS when our US 99% are really NEITHER. We simply want our political parties back so we can vote right wing conservative or left wing social progressive -----with whatever dash of right wing fascist and left wing MARXIST there really is.
We are reading Spanish populist voices and a 99% of Greater Spain ---Basque and Catalonia separatist regions ARE FEARFUL OF AND DO NOT WANT A RETURN TO FRANCO FASCISM.
Who wants FRANCO fascism? Spain's global 1% and global banking. This is why media claims far-larger support as occurred in US with ALT RIGHT ALT LEFT GROUPS. Spain's 5% to the 1% creating the political climate those global 1% want ----including civil unrest civil war.
Europe says OXI
added 11 new photos — with Jose Filol and Momo Al-Amin Marong Samateh.
October 8 at 8:57am ·
If you weren't sure yet about the nature of quite a lot of the pro-Spain protesters that have been going into the streets over the last days (although it should have been clear as they are basically protesting against a people's right to vote), here is a compilation of those protesters doing Nazi salutes. From men to women, from elderly people to little children.
Oh, many were also singing "Cara el Sol", an anthem of the Falangists. You know, the party that supported former dictator Franco.
Yep, that's what the militant, pro-Spain camp is about: pro-Franco fascism.
(p.s. most anti-independence protesters in Barcelona today came by bus from outside of Catalonia, organized by the Spanish government, Spanish PM Rajoy's PP party and fascists)
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Barcelona prides itself to be well on the way to being that SMART CITY----its goal is complete AUTOMATION as is true of all US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zone. The growing anger from 99% of Catalonia citizens being left unemployed as Barcelona global 1% bring in those HIGH-SKILLED FOREIGN WORKERS mirrors that feeling in the US. Barcelona is very clear----its goal is total AUTOMATION---ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE----so in Catalonia as in US these 99% of Spanish citizens KNOW they are not going to be re-employed and/or will be losing that employment this decade or so.
WHAT IS MADE TO LOOK LIKE A BARCELONA WITH OPEN DOORS POLICIES IS REALLY ONLY AN OPEN DOOR TO THE GLOBAL 1% AND THEIR 2%---AS WE SEE IN SAN FRANCISCO.
Do we think 99% of Catalonia citizens want EXIT when they see the writing on the wall for their being pushed out of Catalonia? Of course not especially when unemployment is highest in Western Europe in Greater Spain.
Tech is making life in Barcelona better, even if you don’t know it’s there
By Jenny McGrath -- Posted on July 24, 2017 3:03 am
Your city is dumb. The potholed streets, coin-operated parking meters, and drafty brick buildings many of us interact with every day haven’t changed much in a century. But it’s finally happening. From Oslo to San Diego, cities across the globe are installing technology to gather data in the hopes of saving money, becoming cleaner, reducing traffic, and improving urban life. In Digital Trends’ Smart Cities series, we’ll examine how smart cities deal with everything from energy management, to disaster preparedness, to public safety, and what it all means for you.
Does a smart city require savvy citizens? The goal of many smart cities is to make residents’ lives easier, be it finding a parking space easier or paying for a ticket online instead of through the mail. But Barcelona doesn’t just want an easy-to-use app. The people using the solutions are providing data, and they should own it, Francesca Bria, Barcelona’s digital chief, told Alphr.
Barcelona is trying to get its citizens involved as it evolves into a smarter city, including through its waste management initiatives and Fab Labs, maker spaces focused on helping residents produce goods usually shipped in from the outside.
An Olympic legacy
In 1992, Barcelona hosted the Olympics. In preparation for the event, officials installed 310 miles of fiber-optic cable and worked to revitalize the run-down industrial neighborhood known as Poblenou . Thanks to their efforts, Poblenou is now the site of @22, a with green space, subsidized housing, and mixed-use buildings. is still underway, and is set to be the location of Cisco’s Innovation Center. The company has heavily invested in Barcelona, and the Center houses a lab for developing projects aimed at smarter parking and energy management, as well as a space to demonstrate how these solutions would look in the real world.
“Barcelona has probably come up there as one of the one or two smartest cities in the world.”
Barcelona just completed its first “superblock.” It’s a bit like having a block party, every day. Pedestrians are a priority, and while vehicles can use the streets, they’re restricted to 10 kilometers (about six miles per hour), according to The Guardian. Picnic tables, trees, benches, chairs, bike racks, a running track, and ping pong tables are all planned for one area, El Periódico reports. None of that sounds particularly tech-y, but it reflects Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau’s agenda and priorities. Colau has built upon the previous mayor’s interest and focus on technology but also made sure that citizens are involved in the process.
“What we’ve been seeing in the past year is really a renewed focus on including citizens, including the different neighborhoods of Barcelona in the definition of this smart city strategy and making sure this smart city strategy is designed by and for citizens,” Cyril Maury, manager at consulting firm Claro Partners, told Digital Trends.
Previous Mayor Xavier Trius and his smart city team had originally identified 12 areas for intervention and improvement, including transportation, energy, waste, and water. Today, the city’s roadmap to 2020 focuses on using open-source technology that is “more democratic and accessible” to find solutions for “long-term social and wage inequality, climate change, scarcity of natural resources, and employment.” According to the report, “The current government does not renounce the work done” thus far in making Barcelona a smart city but wants to go further in making it “open, equitable, circular, and democratic.”
Some of its goals include closing the “digital divide” that shuts out some residents, like elderly residents who don’t have internet access, from modern amenities. It will also implement more responsible water-use practices, and helping bring down rents by identifying vacant and illegally used buildings.
With plans to improve everything from transportation to waste management, it might be easy to forget how connected the city already is. “Barcelona, I would argue, over the past five years, has probably come up there as one of the one or two smartest cities in the world,” said Arvind Satyam, Cisco’s managing director of smart cities and digitization division. He said Trias was a driving force. “The thing that got Barcelona on the map was not the city, it was the leadership.”
During his administration, Barcelona became known as one of the smartest cities in the world.
Barcelona’s Eixample District is home to the cities’ first “superblock”. (Photo: Iakov Filimonov/123RF)
What waste?
Cisco has been involved since 2011 and has been operating its Smart+Connected Digital Platform in stealth-mode for three years, publicly launching it last November. “It connects and collects all the data from different sensors and devices — water sensors, parking sensors, street lights, waste bins, environmental sensors — and brings that data and provides an API to different existing applications in a city to improve productivity and efficiency,” said Munish Khetrapal, managing director of Cisco’s smarter cities and IoT department. “When you’re deploying a smart city, for us what is very important is you don’t have to replace your current waste management application and systems, but you improve and enhance their capability.”
“You don’t have to replace your current waste management application and systems, but you improve and enhance their capability.”
Barcelona has 19,500 smart energy meters, more than 1,100 LED streetlights (many of which can monitor noise, weather, and traffic), sensors embedded in the asphalt that relay parking information, sensors that detect rain for less wasteful irrigation systems, Wi-Fi on its buses, and one of the most innovative waste management systems around.
Barcelona was spending a fortune on waste and recycling – 1.5 billion euros over four years. In an effort to reduce cost, city officials approached Cisco for a solution. They wanted to know if it would make a difference if they only emptied trashcans more than 50 percent full.
“The answer is absolutely,” Satyam said.
Now, sensors detect how full the bins are, and trucks empty them accordingly. “Sustainability is probably the area where they are most advanced,” Maury said of Barcelona. It’s also an area that requires heavy citizen participation. Homes often have five different types of waste bins: one for glass, one for paper, one for plastic, and so on.
“This is a good example of a way to have people do the right thing, the sustainable thing, precisely because it is very convenient,” Maury said. “It doesn’t add any more complexity to their life.”
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While the US during CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA saw our US cities deliberately held in economic stagnation with high unemployment so too in Greater Spain. Where was the economic growth in US? In Texas and San Francisco Foreign Economic Zones------Catalonia and Basque region has maintained that industrial ----
MADRID as the capitol of Spain had no power and allowed those Catalonia and Basque regions operate under global Foreign Economic Zone laws------as Texas, Silicon Valley, and Maryland made a GOLDEN TRIANGLE with global Wall Street with the massive Federal agency frauds fueling that growth the rest of US cities were allowed to wither. This gave Texas, California, and Maryland more power than greater US-----so too Catalonia and Basque as compared to greater SPAIN.
Spain after 2008 economic crash had the highest unemployment with Greece and never recovered. We always say please do not believe these unemployment figures as they only reflect workers receiving UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS and not the actual number of citizens UNEMPLOYED, Greater Spain today see 99% of citizens in the worst of impoverishment----young Spanish adults are being forced to become EX PATS and we KNOW our 99% of Catalonia and Basque see this coming their way as SMART CITY BARCELONA AND BASQUE CREATE MASS UNEMPLOYMENT.
This same system of mass unemployment moved our 99% of Latino citizens from Latin American nations becoming global labor pool workers and that is what we see happening in Spain----the SEPARATIST nations seeing the same with only global 1% and their 2% being brought in for smaller pools of jobs.
The Mystery of Spain’s Perpetual Jobs Problem
Peter Eavis @petereavis MAY 2, 2016
It was welcome news Friday when Europe’s economies reported higher-than-expected growth. The region, after all, has had to deal with rolling debt crises, terrorist attacks, an influx of refugees and migrants, and the possibility that Britain may vote to leave the European Union.
Then there is Spain. Across Europe, economic growth has helped bring the unemployment rate down. But in Spain, the rate is 20 percent, according to European Union surveys, and has been above that level for over five years, even as the country’s economy has been recovering.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that such a high level of joblessness, weighing on families for so long, would have caused the country to crack by now. The jobless number is so much higher than the rate for other economic laggards like Italy (11 percent) and Portugal (12 percent).
Certainly, some of Spain’s unemployment is overstated because some workers have off-the-books jobs. And people may feel optimistic because unemployment has fallen in recent quarters, from 25 percent two years ago.
A government-run job center in Madrid last week. The unemployment rate for the young in Spain is 45.5 percent. Credit Andrea Comas/Reuters
Still, Spanish officials recently said they did not expect the jobless rate to fall below 15 percent until 2019. And there’s the matter of the country’s youth unemployment (those under 25): an almost incomprehensible 45.5 percent.
A new government in Spain — once it is chosen after almost half a year of discord — may end up pursuing smarter and bolder policies that reduce joblessness to levels that exist elsewhere in Europe.
But the chances of that look slim.
Spain’s unemployment is so high partly because of particular local forces that have existed for decades. Marcel Jansen, an expert on labor markets at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, notes that unemployment above 20 percent is not uncommon in Spain. In fact, it has been at that level in three periods since Spain’s transition to democracy in the 1970s. And, ominously, from the previous unemployment rate peak in the 1990s, it took 14 years for it to decline to the wider European level, Mr. Jansen notes.
One cause of the high rate became embedded in Spain’s labor market over the last 40 years. A significant proportion of Spain’s workers emerged from the dictatorship years with ironclad job security. Many of those protections remained, Mr. Jansen said, but much of the new hiring in the democratic era took place through temporary employment contracts. Just before the 2008 financial crisis, around a third of Spain’s workers were on temporary contracts, far higher than the European average.
When the crisis hit, it was very easy to lay off the temporary workers. True, during the recent recovery, the high use of temporary contracts has most likely spurred Spanish firms to bolster their hiring. But the persistence of overly protective labor contracts alongside temporary ones with too few protections has probably also created inefficiencies within Spanish companies that have dampened economic growth.
Mr. Jansen’s preferred solution is to introduce a new contract that could increase protections for temporary workers and loosen them for many permanent workers. But he said Spain’s politicians had shown little support for this idea.
Something else is making matters worse right now. Much of Spain’s working-age population does not have an education beyond high school. And many of those people have remained unemployed for multiple years after the financial crisis of 2008. (Nearly a fourth of the unemployed have been without work for four years or more.)
Such workers are increasingly losing contact with the industries they worked in, and that will make it even harder for them to find jobs. And hiring in Spain’s construction industry, a big employer before the crisis, is not likely to return to precrisis levels anytime soon. Mr. Jansen says helping the long-term unemployed requires a substantial overhaul of Spain’s retraining programs. But this costs money, and Spain has one of the largest budget deficits in Europe.
This is where we bump into the big economic debate that looms over the Continent. On one side are those who insist that struggling countries must pursue policies that cut government spending and free up markets, to spur strong and sustainable growth. As we have learned, Spain’s labor market could certainly do with some big changes. But as we have also seen, these changes are far from imminent. They are expensive. They threaten entrenched interests. Spain’s leaders are so divided that they can’t form an administration that could attempt bold moves.
Economists on the other side of the debate emphasize the need for the European Union as a whole to come together to introduce big top-down actions. Such policies include debt forgiveness and far greater fiscal stimulus. Spain’s sky-high unemployment has not moved Europe’s leaders to take such steps by now. Then again, Europe can’t count on Spain — or any country — to tolerate this high level of joblessness forever.
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While the US has its own rounds of protest over growing police brutality and for our black citizens unjustified homicides-----Spanish citizens have seen these conditions to a much higher degree. If we read the history of Spain/Catalonia we see how brutal the far-right wing extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXIST regime of FRANCO was------these 99% of Spanish citizens KNOW THIS and that is what brings hundreds of thousands of Catalonia, Basque, and Greater Spanish citizens to rolling protests when police acted brutally during the EXIT referendum vote. The Spanish citizens don't sit on the fence---they act as CITIZENS.
The Barcelona EXIT citizens claiming they are going to separate to ESCAPE these FRANCO far-right MARXIST tactics are simply going to purge these separatist regions of all those 99% of citizens. SMART CITIES is no WALK IN THE PARK regarding global corporate fascism so Barcelona, Basque Foreign Economic Zones being made to SMART CITIES are actually moving faster towards FRANCO FASCISM then Greater Spain.
SO TOO US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
Who received all the massive fleecing of Spain of trillions of dollars? Barcelona------just as Silicon Valley/Houston/Dallas/Washington beltway received all those tens of trillions of dollars fleeced from 99% of US citizens.
'With unemployment at 25%, however, and the economy already set to shrink for the next two years, Spaniards see no end to the tunnel of misery'.
US citizens tied to race and class look at who the citizens are being hit hardest today and of course our US cities are largely black and brown citizens -----we see here this global 1% ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE FOR ONLY THE GLOBAL 1% will bring all 99% of citizens black, white, and brown down.
COME TOGETHER AS A 99% VS 1%!
Spain reels at violent tactics by riot police
Officers lash out at passengers and austerity protesters as they storm into Madrid rail station
The middle-aged man sitting on a railway station bench protects a younger man by wrapping his arms around him as he shouts desperately at the helmeted, baton-wielding police officers running up and down the platforms at Madrid's Atocha station.
"Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!" he bellows repeatedly in a video that shows how police charged into the station during violent demonstrations that shook Madrid last week.
On the other side of the ticket barrier a younger man is whacked with truncheons by two policemen. "I don't know whether he is a passenger or a protester," one of them admits. A third man who was waiting for a train is bundled down the platform by police officers as he asks: "And what have I done?" A youth points to blood running down his face. "What the hell is this?" he asks.
On Friday, police told a judge they had needed to chase a group of violent protesters across the railway tracks and had later arrested some in a nearby bar. They, too, had suffered injuries. "People who had been hurling stones at police tried to hide in the station, passing themselves off as normal passengers," a spokesman said. "We had to go in."
As Spaniards respond with dismay to the violence shown by demonstrators, who launched attacks on police, and the response of some riot police, during scuffles in the area around Madrid's parliament building last week, the long-running drama of the country's deflating economy has lurched into a newly confrontational stage, amid fears that there will be more violence to come.
While police and the conservative government of prime minister Mariano Rajoy were accused of authoritarian behaviour, radical protesters from both the far left and the far right were putting a hard, street-fighting edge on to the once peaceful protests of the civilised but ineffectual indignados.
Cristina Cifuentes, the government delegate in Madrid, had warned before the protests that they were being infiltrated by violent members of Spain's far right and were attracting the country's most radical leftwingers. But protesters later pointed to a group of undercover policemen who, they claimed, had been at the front of the protest waving red flags and encouraging others to violence.
Other police certainly thought their undercover colleagues were troublemakers, and there is also film of one of them being dragged out of the crowd to be arrested and shouting: "I am a colleague! I am a colleague!"
On Saturday, a 72-year-old man was among some 30 demonstrators who had been accused of attacking police and given bail. "But I was sitting down when they arrested me," he said.
The radicalisation came amid worries that the ratings agency Moodys would downgrade Spain's creditworthiness, reigniting the pressure on its debt and sending the interest rates that it must pay spiralling up again.
Ministers have said that €10bn (£8bn) of cuts and tax increases must come in next year's budget just to cover a leap in interest payments. On Friday night, they said a coming round of bank bailouts, paid for by the eurozone rescue fund, would send the country's debts soaring by some €50bn. Spending is to be cut by 7% next year, bringing another wave of cuts in health, education and other welfare services. Yesterday, Spain's civil servants heard that, for the third year running, their wages were being frozen.
A period of calm in Europe's more troubled economies created by the European Central Bank president Mario Draghi, when he announced plans to buy the debt of countries who asked for bailouts in the future, also seemed to have come to an end. And with the threat of Catalan separatism adding to worries about Rajoy's ability to control events in Spain, many now expect him to ask for a full bailout for the country – placing it in the hands of those who have forced Greece, Portugal and Ireland into round after round of spending cuts.
Budget minister Cristóbal Montoro presented an austerity budget to parliament on Saturday, with analysts widely seeing it as an attempt to pre-empt the conditions that Spain would have had imposed on it anyway for the bailout. "Reducing our budget deficit is essential," he said.
With unemployment at 25%, however, and the economy already set to shrink for the next two years, Spaniards see no end to the tunnel of misery.
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'A reference to the "'umble' Uriah Heep is the arrant hypocrite"'
BARCELONA/Catalonia is suffering the same thing our US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones are----those dastardly global banking 5% to the 1% killing 99% of WE THE PEOPLE. Add captured national media and ALT RIGHT ALT LEFT groups deliberately keeping citizens mis-informed-----and we have ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE FOR ONLY THE GLOBAL 1%.
Remember, global CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA as in Spain's ASNAR/ZAPATERO/RAJOY------lying, cheating, stealing, no morals or ethics, no Rule of Law, no GOD'S NATURAL LAW ---not even pragmatic-----NIHILISTS.
Uriah Heep was that NIHILIST character created by Charles Dickens living in what was a really bad time in Western nation industrialization but nothing so bad as ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE DARK AGES.
Uriah Heep - Stealin' (Lyrics)
The song Stealin' performed by Uriah Heep with lyrics.
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