STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 30 March 2012

[Ghost Dog]

40. No, actually, this very small group of violent 'provokers'

Last edited Fri Mar 30, 2012, 04:45 PM - Edit history (1)

(delinquents, basically, and/or agents provacateurs, unrepresentative of the political anarchist movement generally, much less the striking/demonstrating/protesting mainstream of the left - 'anti-system' they're called around here, 'anti-sisteme' in Catalan) are the same group that, through their acts of violence (that of course get widely published in the mainstream Spanish & international media, overshadowing the rest of the story) have a lot to answer for already due to the part they played in undermining the Spanish 'indignados' movement - precursor to both the Arab Spring and your OWS, but moribund here now.

Me, I'm back in Spain, in the mountains of the north of Catalonia. I entered yesterday, after a long fast drive down through mostly rural France, through a 'back door' on minor roads up in the hills - my preferred route, but also because the main highway frontier was blockaded by pickets and trucks were held up, blocking that road. Of this latter action I, of course, approve: solidarity with peaceful protesters and strikers. But there would have been no justification at all for any crazy violent types to have, for example, set fire to a truck (or injured a trucker). That would only have brought opprobium down on the heads of legitimate political actors and would have wiped out their message.

I hope you get the point, although I'm surely expressing myself badly, what with all the language changes I've been coping with recently.

People across the political spectrum in Spain are very very very worried about the near- and mid-term future. Civil upheaval, to say the least, is not to be ruled out. Everyone is very aware of all the corruption that has been behind what has been going on. The young see no way forward. But, one step at a time. There will be further industrial action, of that you can be sure.

The middle-class Brits, by contrast, are very smug, there on their little house-proud densely-populated island, and riding for a fall, perhaps.