Ordinarily, I wouldn't put up anything from the AP because they have behaved like complete dicks for many years and are reactionary tools serving the corporatists who own them.
But this is pretty good.
The miners of Asturias and Leon in Spain have been fighting back against the imposition of greater and greater levels of suffering and suppression sent against them from Madrid for some time. This video essay gives some idea of what is at stake and what the miners are doing.
Just as in 1938, the Spanish are some of the only people to physically fight back against the Neo-Fascists.
¡Viva! los mineros!
[Note: picked up the link to the video over at Naked Capitalism in a post by Matt Stoller.]
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I'd also like to know more about those rockets and rocket launchers they're using. They appear to be homemade bazooka-like launchers, made out of welded and painted pipe. The rockets appear to be fireworks. The miners seem to have figured out how to manage aim and range pretty well, and the rockets do explode when they reach their intended destination (or before, or afterwards.)
Of course, if any rebels tried such stunts in the USofA they'd be droned to oblivion in a twinkling.
What a great and at least momentarily uplifting post; the last two were a skosh depressing. Go, Mineros!
ReplyDeleteStill, 1300 cops is kind of like a drone.... I think these guys will be detainees of one sort or another in due time.
Sigh.
Neo-fascist premier Mariano Rajoy has got quite a tiger to ride, and exactly what the upshot of the miners' rebellion in Asturias and Leon will be is anyone's guess at this point. The rebellion is over the destruction of whole communities to satisfy the rapacity of the banksters; I don't know that fireworks rockets launched from painted pipe will do the trick, but at least it is something...
ReplyDeleteThe rest of Europe is watching Rajoy's performance for clues to how best to suppress internal revolts elsewhere in the EU as harsher and harsher austerity measures are imposed everywhere -- eventually, in Germany, too.
The Guardia Civil pulled out their truncheons and teargas when the miners marched on Madrid, and things got pretty nasty. Still, compared to our highly militarized police squadrons, the Spanish civil police are kind of goofy. The people call them "cowards," and they don't really seem to take the police with as much gravity as Americans often do.
Just like here, though, the Spaniards are forever reminding their police that they'll be facing cuts in salary and loss of jobs and pensions too, soon enough, if they don't start fighting back now.
At least in Spain and Greece and the rest of Europe there are people alive today who faced much more unpleasant circumstances. And some of them fought back.