European Spring: Spain Marches for Dignity as Thousands Walk to Madrid for 22M Demonstration
Last edited Sat Mar 22, 2014, 07:47 PM - Edit history (2)
We want to live and work with dignity in our land with our people!
To defend all that is and should be ours, struggle is the only way!
Bread, a roof, rights and dignity for all workers.
More at revolution-news.
A reminder: the marches are being organized by the likes of 15-M (the indignados) and PAH (platform against evictions). 15-M has 75% popular support, according to El Pais. This is gonna be big, in Madrid and in Spain. I'm curious to see how the MSM treats it. Read about it at rev news first, did see a segment on RT just now. If people have other sources, please add!
Ah, I see El Pais (in spanish) has an article about it.
On edit: given the turnout, I added European spring to the title.
"Either the government responds to our demands or it must pack its bags," he said.
They were joined by many civic groups that emerged out of the mass "Indignados" protests of 2011 and 2012 when the crisis first hit. The Indignados were seen as forerunners of the "Occupy" movement that spread around the world.
The organisers hired hundreds of buses and at least four trains to transport protesters on Saturday, while the government deployed around 1,700 police.
Al Jazeera video: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/03/anti-austerity-protesters-march-spain-2014322192956618925.html
pic at rev news:
3 photos taken at the same time. From top to bottom: Atocha, Cibeles and Colón full at the same time.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Hi,
I only have information in a few spanish media (for the big ones is not a new, it's more important Belen Esteban ;P ).
There are a few info (the majority in spanish):
- http://marchasdeladignidad.org/
- http://revolution-news.com/spain-marches-dignity-thousands-walk-madrid/
- http://www.publico.es/actualidad/509394/las-marchas-de-la-dignidad-entran-en-madrid-la-mayoria-silenciosa-quiere-hablar
- http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2014/03/20/actualidad/1395348626_590580.html
- http://www.20minutos.es/minuteca/marchas-de-la-dignidad-22-m/
- http://www.eldiario.es/sociedad/Vamos-Madrid-enfrentarnos-paro-injusticia_0_240776880.html
I need to close the computer because in few hours i take a bus to Madrid 
Saludos!
...
They were joined by many civic groups that emerged out of the mass "Indignados" protests of 2011 and 2012 when the crisis first hit. The Indignados were seen as forerunners of the "Occupy" movement that spread around the world.
The organisers hired hundreds of buses and at least four trains to transport protesters on Saturday, while the government deployed around 1,700 police.
Do you happen to see any US or UK MSM coverage, Koko? Zilch on the Guardian at first look, nothing on rediff from anglosaxon sources. RT has this great pic:
coverage in belgian MSM:
commercial paper De Morgen: tens of thousands protest in Madrid.
state media VRT: Manifestation in Madrid ends with clashes.
Is time just an illusion, and is this Sol 2011, and have we been living in this moment forever?
I say "yes" to your world awakening. Or us awakening to it and us. It feels as if the drops are coalescing - into critical mass.
I'm not surprised Bruce resonated in Spain. A proud people, and the wrong ones to mess with. Orwell was in Catalonia the last time around they fought the fascists, by the way. Are you aware of the anti-protest laws recently passed in Spain?
good to see you
Check out this awesome photo gallery.
Good to see you as well 
link is in dutch, sorry.
Occupy, again:
Some is reports from AP and Reuters but they have photos and a LIVE Twitter Feed at the site...
Also they have the full transcript of the "MANIFESTO"
------------
Published on Saturday, March 22, 2014 by Common Dreams
Spain ‘Marches for Dignity’: Massive March Against Austerity
"No More Cuts!"
- Common Dreams staff
LINK TO ARTICLE WITH TWITTER FEED AND 80 COMMENTS SO FAR:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/03/22-1
Massive crowds gather during a protest against the Government in Madrid, Spain, Saturday, March 22, 2014. Hundreds of thousands from different parts of Spain marched towards the Capital to join a large anti-austerity demonstration, demanding the resignation of the Government and to express their anger at government financial cuts, its housing rights policies, and the high unemployment rates. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)
Hundreds of thousands of people have trekked across Spain to protest austerity they claim is destroying their country. Under the banner of "No More Cuts!" the protesters are calling for an end to the Spanish government’s "empty promises."
Six columns of protesters, some walking; others in trains, cars and buses — each from a different region of Spain — arrived at the outskirts of the city early Saturday before heading for Colon square, carrying banners bearing the slogan M22 or ‘‘Marches for Dignity.’’
By late Saturday afternoon, Madrid’s main boulevard, Paseo del Prado, was completely packed with loud chants against austerity policies and cuts to social programs.
Reuters reports:
"I'm here to fight for my children's future," said Michael Nadeau, a 44-year-old entrepreneur, among the throng of protesters.
"For those who are in power we're just numbers. They value money more than they value people," he said, shouting to be heard above the din of chanting, singing, whistling and drumming...
"Bread, jobs and housing for everyone", read one banner, "Corruption and robbery, Spain's trademark," said another.
"
I'm here because) I'm sick of this system they call democracy," said Jose Luis Arteaga, a 58-year-old teacher whose wage has been cut 20 percent. "I want things to change."
* * *
could Demand against our Bankers, Wall Street, Debt Reduction/Austerity Promoting, Anti-Human Rights for Women and LBGT, Koch Brother's Worshiping Republicans!
-------------
This is the text of the Marches for Dignity's manifesto:
No to pay the debt
No more cuts
Out governments Troika
Bread, work and shelter for all
We’re starting 2014 with no improvement for the workers, sunk in an unprecedented capitalist crisis and without any measures on the part of this illegitimate government other than misery, precariousness and repression, rulers who act as reall representatives of big banks, employers and big business, of capitalism, under the order of the Troika (the European Commission, the Central European Bank and the International Monetary Fund)..
We’re living in a situation in which every minute we’re being pushed to brink, a situation against which we must all start to give a real, collective, mass answer, by fighting from the grassroots, from our different territories but with one voice. Because with every day that goes by the situation is getting more agonizing, more difficult.
In the Spanish State there are hundreds of thousands of us who have lost our homes or who don’t receive benefits for dependents. There are more than 6 million of us without paid work and unemployed. We’ve got tens of thousands of working people without any unemployment benefits at all. There are more than a million of us who are living below the poverty line – and all that’s going down while the “Popular Party” continues with its cuts, destroying and robbing the health system, education, culture, pensions, closing down local television stations that are essential to the survival of minority languages and other public services. And they go on privatizing anything that’s profitable and giving tax benefits to the rich (bankers, big business, the Church, etc.)
There are more than 500,000 of us, young and not so young people, that have been forced to emigrate in order to try to eke out our living in one way or another. And despite this, they go on shutting down small and medium businesses with impunity, destroying most the real productive fabric, both industrial and agricultural, which could give work to the majority of the population.
In this context women have long had fewer rights: the right to live without male violence or to decide over our own bodies the right to family planning.
In our country if you were born somewhere else in the world, if your skin’s a different color or you have another religion, they take away your fundamental rights (healthcare, education et.) and can even shut you up in an Internment Center, even though you’ve committed no crime.
Simply for speaking our own minority language, simply for wanting to live in accordance with the culture of our land, we can be fined or even thrown into prison like during Franco’s fascist dictatorship, but now they call it democracy.
Fines and criminal penalties, imposed just for exercising the right of freedom of speech or the right to disobey unjust laws, are heavy, but the corrupt élite never go to prison and never have to pay for the damage they cause.
While the Government continues to hand out cash to big building firms, to the energy companies, to bankers and to corrupt businessmen etc. They’re leaving us with no work, no house, no health care, no pensions, no university grants, no schools, no education, no future: in a word no life.
They’re raising taxes, the price of energy and basic products for the poorest of use, while they’re reducing to a bare minimum employers’ social security contributions, to “create” work, they cynically say, and they turn a blind eye to massive fraud, corruption and capital flight. And without money we’re left with no house, no job and no wherewithal to survive.
Both the so-called Popular Party (PP) and the so-called Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) are the culprits. To reduce us to this situation they made the constitutional reform in 2011, a Treaty with the European Union and an Organic Law to guarantee payment of the debt and, if need be, to suppress any public institution (like the Statute of Autonomy of the Valencian Country), if it doesn’t reduce its debt (and so its provision of public services) whenever and however they want.
We fought with great sacrifice to gain our social rights and we’re just not prepared to lose them. We demand from politics the transformation of our economy to make it an economy at the service of humanity and to guarantee that these rights can be universally exercised.
That’s why we demand:
The abrogation of all the counter-reforms that have been forced down our throats (labor laws, laws affecting pensions, education the right to safe legal abortion, the 15/97 act which commoditizes health care, the law of civil repression etc).
A realistic plan against unemployment and a law establishing a basic income.
Stoppage of all evictions, the guarantee of the fundamental right to housing and to the basic utilities of water and energy.
Universal, free and high-quality public services.
Realistic and effective policies to ensure equal opportunities, regardless of a person’s origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, diversities or age.
A guarantee of the reimbursement of the loans made to banks and their nationalization along with the nationalization of all strategic companies and sectors.
A fiscal policy whereby those that have more, pay more and public social expenditure is guaranteed above everything else.
A guarantee of the right to decide, in all spheres, as persons, workers, peoples. Because we demand real democracy.
In order to advance in the construction of unity and people’s power … we must advance in the Marches for Dignity so we can arrive in Madrid on March 22 from all cardinal points of the Spanish State!
We want to live and work with dignity in our land with our people!
To defend all that is and should be ours, struggle is the only way!
Bread, a roof, rights and dignity for all workers.
Great write-up, also about the press, but specifically about what has been going on since the march. It seems police mainly fear encampments going up again, and there has been another general assembly. There's a call to re-occupy Sol, and the same in several other cities.
I don't really get why not more people care, here. Every day ten threads about the (rightwing-colored) revolution in Ukraine, but a leftwing movement...meh
But thank you for caring!
Globilization Chicanery between US/EU and the Efforts from both to dumb down the populations while they continue the same policies that led us into all this mess.
They put down the protests in Greece & the Early Protests in Spain and Europe against Iraq Invasion and other places which were not "sponsored" by Government/Military, Industrial Complex Interests early on.
THEN...they Shut Up the Financial Gouging of Wall Street Bankers by shutting down "Occupy Wall Street" and EARLIER all the US Protests against the endless wars (in particular the Iraq Invasion) and they Re-Write History to remake it in their own views of their HANDLERS.
(Sorry ...this is a jumbled post...don't have time right now to do better with verification...it's a top off of my head from reading..) 
I'm a little late in kicking it, but I'm glad for this continuing trend. It is a very good thing.