joedirt said:
endlessness said:
I tried to explain it
here earlier in this thread about what happened with police action
In any case, first thing that is wrong about the title: There was no "clash" between police and protesters, there was a violent action from the police while protesters sat peacefully. The word clash is very misleading.
Also, 37 police injured is a lie. Specially this part is a huge lie:
"I can assure you that there was aggression against the police with rocks, bits of wood, blows, shoves, with violence, with sprays," Puig said."
This is the politician responsible for ordering the attack, he's trying to cover his own ass. Just look videos on the internet, including the one I linked, and you can decide for yourself who was attacking who. Also all the national press is for the most part on our side, which is quite impressive to see.
Any force used against the police was some isolated incident that is ridiculously overshadowed by how amazing 99% people were just sitting and receiving blows and still holding arms together with each other sitting down without any physical response (I guess its in the interest of the press to show how bad protesters are, to justify police action and make us lose legitimacy in the eyes of the general public, otherwise this might spread around the world). And I say this not because I would blindly defend fighting against police, I was in a very different protest earlier this year that turned violent, with people throwing stoned and strongly fighting back, and I completely disagree with how it turned out, it was childish action from protesters, just giving them more reason to act how they did. This time it was very different, the movement is very mature and people are acting exactly as they should, with very few exceptions
Also its not 84 injured protesters, its 120, 4 of them in very serious condition, one person was being operated last night because he had a serious injury, his lungs were damaged from police blows and was spitting blood, I hope he is alright. There were a 3 or 4 people with open fractures, and a dozen more other strong but not serious injuries.
Its good that nowadays with all the cameras we have all the evidence on our side. We are gonna get through this and history will tell who's right
Oh and, a detail but important: This isnt a protest about economic stagnation, this is a protest against our unsustainable system in general. This is beyond money. We want to change the self perpetuating unfair political system that does not require, allows for or promotes citizen participation, the corrupt politicians that continue being elected, the big corporations stealing resources and the sub-standard payments, the bankers and their absurd uncontrolled profits, economic help to banks but not to families, etc etc etc
I would remain peaceful right up until the time a police baton hit me......wish I could say that I was a big enough man to allow them to actually hit me, but alas I'm not. The moment I believed I was about to be assaulted is the moment that I'd start fighting with everything I had in me. I will never stand by and allow another human to assault me. As stupid and masculine and silly as it sounds I'd fight until I died before I gave into another human like that....or allowed them to do it to other peaceful protestors for that matter.
Ironically the police are hoping and hoping that the crowd doesn't really turn violent. Even 200 people with guns is no match for thousands of mad angry citizens.
I sincerely hope you all prevail with your non-violence...it is without a doubt the best way.
Hmm...You know that story about socrates? He was sentenced to death, undeserved and when given the possibility to escape, he didn't.
The reason being that he felt morally obliged to obey the law.
I never understood how a man could be that stupid. This comment makes me see why: Spain isn't syria, a civilised nation isn't like syria or libya. In a civilised nation, the military isn't being send to murder it's own people. And you want it to stay that way.
Now, i'm not a person who likes power, although i'm known to often defend people in power on this site in all kinds of discussions on killing osama etc.
Some people may see me as conservative for this reason. What they don't see is that i'm actually rather on their side than on the side of people who like power, and that exactly because of that, i have to defend those people sometimes.
Here is why: In medievel times for instance, you had these farmers, people who worked on the land etc. They had to give the master who protected them, let's say 10 percent of whatever they grew on their land. If they would not do this, they would have ofcourse have been free men, but then there always would have been the risk of another master stopping by, demanding a higher percentage.
Protection is the first basic principle of every government and even society. It is more basic than all of the other things governments and society's do, that are morally of a higher order like providing healthcare or education. In afghanistan hospitals and schools are being blown-up, proving this point in an all too ugly manner.
If the government fails to protect the people, society fails. Anarchy like in unfortunately many places in the world is the result. Now i know that there are many people here who like the idea of anarchy, but if living in a failed state would actually be such a pleasure, you at least would expect there to be a ballance between people migrating to and from such places. The net migration result of failed states show that this is not realy the case.
Protection means, that you'd have to accept the rule of law to a certain extent.
In other words, if you don't want spain to become like syria, you're not gonna fight with the police, because then the police will have to move-up to the next level of violence and the point is that the majority of the people will always demand this of the police.
If the police would have been whiped of the square by protesters, then there would have been an immediate political crisis and the government would HAVE to move-up to the next level of violence, or they'll be replaced by another government that will.
In other words: if the police would have been whiped of the square by protesters. The next protest they won't be firing rubber. And there'll always be a next protest.
This is not the way i like it, it is simply the way it is. The far-right is on the rise in europe, and liberals don't stand a chance against them as long as they won't take a tough stance on crime and security. As a liberal i may not like it, but that's simply the way it is. Obama and Clinton never would have gotten elected if they would have said they where in favor of less cop's on the street and lower prisoncentences. That's just the way the system works.
As long as liberals in europe don't say they're for more police, etc, the far-right will win. That's why we need people like clinton and obama who're not the perfect liberals like we would want them to be and like some of us may have hoped.
I'm not a man who likes power as i said. I'm rather a man who likes ideals, virtue's or idea's, like most of the people on this site. But people like us, who like idea's need people who think in brick and morter and ballistic missiles, like clinton and obama to be able to live with those ideals and to be able to do something with those ideas, like what the protesters in spain are doing.
To be able to do what they are doing, they'd also need the rule of law and to accept this.
And then the rule of law is in the end likely to act in their favor, as endlessness sugests, with judges and lawyers investigating this.
If the protesters would have whiped the police of the square, rather then the other way round, then likely instead of judges and lawyers, a group of generals and hardcore franco worshippers from the partido popular would have been investigating this and eventually gaining legitimacy in this by their next series of electoral victory's.
I think that the victory of non-violence clearly shows that at a deep level these people all know that this is so.
) and what coverage it is getting is really misrepresenting the true unity of the protestors, imo. This is because the "protectors" do not want others to get the idea of what can be done. I will go one step further and say that, even if this was widespread global news, this isn't/wouldn't be possible in America. There would be police terrorism against civillians easily on par of any of the world bank/IMF, G-8 conferences regardless of how protesters acted. I hope Americans can see the strength in numbers, but even if they do, America is, has, and (imo) always will be an incredibly violent society and that always comes out in protests, whether incited by police or protesters.