It Began in ***land

I’m behind with my revolution updates.

I keep meaning to buy a newspaper to catch up with things.

I pick up a freebie on the tube and am delighted to see they’re actually covering the Spanish protests.

Oh no, my mistake.

It’s just a few ‘gentlemen’ having a brawl over some ladies at Ascot.

But the #greekrevolution has made it to the headlines at least.

Not in Greece, but here in England.

The Greek media are reportedly treating the protestors like naughty children e.g ‘Hush hush, give back all your toys and stop being silly.’

When it’s not money it’s usually oil that lures international attention.

Evidently the olive variety doesn’t count as events in Spain are still being largely ignored.

The disgraceful leader of the Catalan police, Felip Puig, won’t resign despite thousands of petitions against him.

Last week he even handed out medals to his men for doing such a great job.

A great job of beating unarmed citizens with batons that is. Well done guys!

Puig has also ordered that the undercover videos of police brutality be taken offline.

Mysteriously, videos that previously had thousands of hits have now less than a hundred (though they continue to have thousands of 'likes').

“I’m probably the only one who understood what happened on the 27^th of May,” he said.

That should give him an inkling that something went very wrong.

What era does he think he’s living in?

Can someone remind him that Franco died in 1975 please?

To add insult to injury, telemadrid are trying to manipulate the public by showing videos of fighting Greek protestors and pretending they’re Spanish.

‘Not such pacifist are they? Judge for yourself,’ the smug presenter says, happy to ignore the obvious Greek flags and Greek police in the video.

On the bright side, the beatings by the Mossos d’ Esquadra, probably injected a fresh batch of energy into people, who may have felt their spirits dwindling after a week camping in the city.

The demonstrations will continue.

This Saturday 19^th June people are set to take the streets once again all across Spain.

It's coordinated by Democracia Ya (Democracy now), which has composed a manifesto for 'real democracy'.

Their web pages include long lists of participating cities across the world.

I’m curious to see how the day will unfold. Will it be covered by the newspapers?

Mostly, I hope it's peaceful.

Peaceful demonstrations are powerful.

Look at Iceland.

The extraordinary People’s Voices movement led to Parliament being dissolved in 2009 and elections being held.

The Icelandic government didn’t bail out the banks.

They held a referendum and the people voted against it. Their government drafted up a new constitution which allowed citizens the opportunity to be involved in its writing process through social media.

The Spanish press is still being criticised for keeping quiet about that story.

Fortunately in these times of internet it is harder to keep people in the dark.

“When we grow up, we want to be Icelandic!” the Spanish protesters cried when they took to the streets on 15^th May.

It's harder to keep things quiet now, but judging from the mysterious disappearance of online videos and eye witness accounts, it's not impossible.

We must stay switched on!

The Video from Saturday 19th July

by Oli Benet