Image by @Popicinio via Flickr
PressTVGlobalNews · May 4, 2013
Spanish people are giving life to many schools which have been abandoned for years, forsaken factories, foreclosed and empty buildings and many more places.
The local citizens of Madrid refurbish these abandoned places to express themselves, to fight, to manage the struggle, create new possibilities for the residents and carry out various projects.
They create these spaces to use as social centers, to held social workshops, cultural programs, classes and assembly meetings and also provide services to fellow citizens.
This, as the Spanish society is struggling with double-dip recession, fierce austerity measures and 26% unemployment can create a great refuge for the citizens and social activists.
***
Cooperatives, Another Mode of Production
PressTVGlobalNews · Apr 27, 2013
There is little flashy about the offices of the Basque country’s biggest industrial company, but then there is nothing normal about what is now the world’s biggest workers co-operative with global sales of 15bn Euro. Whereas workers at other Spanish companies must answer to shareholder needs – often by sacrificing their jobs – that is not true at Mondragon, which acts as the parent company to 111 small, medium-sized and larger co-ops.
And as Spain struggles through double-dip recession, fierce austerity and 26% unemployment, this is one company that is not about to collapse. Nor has it shed many jobs, with the workforce remaining steady at around 84,000 people worldwide – about a sixth of them outside Spain. The crisis in Spain has also forced the corporation to think creatively about surviving the economy’s other major drama – a credit squeeze that has seen many companies close while waiting for clients to pay bills, especially public authorities.
see
Marinaleda, Spain: All Equal + Mass Austerity Protests Hit Spain
Worker Owned Businesses Point to New Forms of Ownership
The Real News Network’s Interview with Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo, Spain’s Robin Hood Mayor
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!Non pasaran!
?
“No Pasaran means ‘they shall not pass’ – the phrase comes from the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, and was used by the Republican troops (the left-wing soldiers fighting against Franco and the Falangists) as a rallying cry in defense of Madrid…” from Yahoo! answers
Thanks, David. My question is why did she post that here?
Oops, my fault. I thought her comment was on another post. So sorry, Nadia.
When systems of oppression and control fail, when their technologies of violent extraction, false artifice and brutality fail, when the privileged and pampered rich, who depend on dishonest and ignominious henchmen to suffocate legitimate criticism and fulfill their perverse desires, when they can no longer summon the authority to rule by diktat, by threat, by the “escamotage” of power ~ then communities self-organize.
Necessity quickly teaches us we possess innate resources and capacities, means we may never even have realized were possible to exercise.
The atrocity reported to have occurred in Al-Hawija, Iraq on April 23rd last, is a searing example of the utter moral bankruptcy of the present international regime, that is in its death throes ~ even as the next imminent catastrophe rolls out in neighbouring “Syria.” We are at the cusp of an eruption of public awareness such has never been experienced in modern times.
What emerges from this dramatic transition will determine the shape of future global societies. The final trump of the fascistic elites is suppression by force ~ through devastating destructive means. This too is failing, because the two great motivators that underwrite this entire imbecile enterprise of unnatural power ~ “Greed and God” ~ are also crumbling to dust as the propaganda peels and its sanctimonious poison begins to penetrate the addled brains of the very robotic perpetrators who deliver the goods ~ rendering their bearers confused and vulnerable.
We must break free from these ghettos of impotence that are maintained by fear, by drugs of persuasion and “priestly superstitions.” What are these “superstitions” and who are these “priests?” They are the peddlers of technologies that undermine life, and deny the integrity of the creative will to aspire to something truer, deeper and nobler than the facile corporate myths that are killing us here and now in the name of pseudo-science; this war is not about now, it is a desperate attempt to coerce and compromise all future generations by entombing us in the illusion of our own limitations.
David , we are on the same page on technology . i plan on writing part 3 of my critique of techno-autism called ”Gadgets will bury us all”.
this techno singularity in all of its Orwellian uniformity that passes as freedom to be in touch with everyone globally is insane !
the power elites know this and are using it .
my tech friends say look ”Egypt was liberated by the internet and cell phones and smart phones , and blah blah blah … but it pseudo liberation . ..by what you call ”’peddlers of technology that undermine life ”.
there were honest to goodness critics of the industrial revolution . where are the ones of the tech revolution ? oh ….they say .” you don’t get it rocket …technology is neutral , it just depends on how you use it ”. Bullshit ! that is like saying guns don’t kill people , people kill people . this techno autism is just that. it is causing a ”SHUT DOWN “” of real face time human communication , and is a major distraction to the task at hand . ..which is to really make the world a better place. … by re-humanizing it .
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