

Tens of thousands in austerity protest in Spain - chailatte
http://www.ctpost.com/business/article/Tens-of-thousands-in-austerity-protest-in-Spain-1380467.php

======
saool
Spaniard here. Male, 24. People are mainly protesting against bipartidism not
addressing the country's problems and working together for the greater good of
the country, since they only play dumb and fight childishly.

The party in charge hasn't done shit about the whole economic crisis. First
they tried to fool the people into thinking there was no crisis. When it was
so obvious they couldn't keep lying, they passed some stuff that didn't really
address the main problems (rigid two-tier labor market, too much spending on
pointless bs, almost no-value added economy, too much regulation, and so on).
They prefer to spend their time battling oh-so-important problems as fierce
copyright laws or populating our roads with pickpocketing speed traps. Oh yeah
right, and wether we should be able to speak to a civil servant in any of our
languages (spanish is not the only language spoken in spain, almost every
state has its own regional dialect/language, which are for the most part
mutually intelligibility, but hey, let's make a big deal out of it anyways,
who the fuck would care about easing conditions for the self-employed or the
start-ups, right?).

The opposition, luckily in such a good place to just play the nice guy part
and thus get the job with a few good proposals, are drowned in their own pile
of corruption-related shit and instead of making easy proposals to win voters
back, they prefer to try countless aggressive ad-hominem attacks against the
prime minister and his clique wishfully hoping they'll eventually step down.

And while they all are pulling each other's hair as if this were a playground,
there's +20% unemployment, +45% unemployment for young spaniards and a whole
lot of just plain misery sweeping the country. I'm talking tonight-there's-no-
dinner misery.

~~~
lyudmil
Since you'll likely be directly involved politically in this issue (by
protesting and/or voting), I urge you to read the comment I left as a reply to
another comment further down the thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2558318>

It's important to understand the reasons for the crisis. Your leadership
should take responsibility for what happened, but the voting public should
develop and demand different policies from their successors. I think it's
crucial to realize austerity could only make things worse and that it's
currently being forced upon a number of the poorer EU countries (I'm also a
citizen of one). I'm sure corruption is a problem, but in this case it goes
much deeper and runs right into the almost religious adherence to neoliberal
economics throughout Europe and the US.

~~~
saool
While fine-targeted spending can foster growth and productivity, that thing
you've thought of about having one person digging and other one filling holes
is completely wrong.

How do I know? The idiot in charge in my country spent thousands of millions
of euros developing that near-sighted idea to no avail. He just kept the
housing-bubble men busy for a while longer.

And then along came deficit.

~~~
lyudmil
It's clearly a dumb thing to do, I agree. I'm just arguing it's better than
austerity.

------
unsigner
"I have several degrees and speak many languages and still can't find a high-
paying job" - well, maybe you should turn to whoever told you several (very
likely liberal arts) degrees are in causal relation with a high-paying job?

~~~
alvatar
Well, your assumption is wrong. There is actually such a high degree of
unemployment that affects professionals like: biologists, doctors, architects
and even engineers. I do have friends in that situation. I'm living in Madrid,
just 10 minutes away from where everything is happening.

~~~
unsigner
I live in Bulgaria, and we have many people in the construction business -
starting from architects all the way to hard-hat workers - out of job - but I
attribute it to the construction boom that pulled way too many people towards
that area; we don't actually need all that concrete crap built. But doctors?
This is surprising. The "common wisdom" around here is that the EU needs all
the doctors it can get, as virtually all the medical graduates emigrate
quickly.

------
spottiness
They won't solve any problem by protesting. Moreover, they're probably
protesting for the wrong reasons. Spaniards are asking the government for jobs
and decent salaries as if bureaucracy could solve these problems; and the more
the government does, the worse it gets, because what the government should do
is "nothing" but just get out of the way and let the free market take its
course.

~~~
alienfluid
I believe what people are protesting is that austerity measures, more often
than not, are enforced upon services that benefit the middle to low income
working class, rather than on the corporations that were complicit in creating
the problem in the first place.

They are protesting for a more balanced approach.

~~~
uriel
I'm sorry, but it was the middle class that went along with the insane bubble.

The big Spanish banks, unlike banks in most other places, acted relatively
responsibly and have not needed to be bailed out (the 'cajas', which are local
banks controlled in part by politicians on the other hand are totally bust).

------
johnnyg
You can't protest your way out of being broke, which is the ultimate truth of
this situation.

~~~
kongqiu
On a material level, no, protest cannot create any new goods. But on a
sociopolitical level, protest can force change that can lead to different
allocations of resources (or human rights, a la the Civil Rights era in the
US).

------
pmarin
I wonder what had happened if the the government were the PP...

------
spottiness
To those that degraded my comment: what I said is what I believe. Disagreeing
is not a valid reason to put down the other person's opinion. If you want a
debate, let's have it, but you have to respect what I say unless you prove
that I'm wrong.

~~~
VladRussian
>you have to respect what I say unless you prove that I'm wrong

the ideology is like a religion, both are outside of the realm of reason, any
attempts to prove something in that realm is stupid and futile.

Respect it? What for?

~~~
spottiness
VladRussian, I welcome your comment and your questions, and I responded. A
question for you: Did you down-vote my comment?

~~~
VladRussian
Of course, and i explained why. You posted an ideology bit, a propaganda, and
it litters discussion. Hundreds years ago, considering the body of knowledge
back then, the ideas of the flat Earth or the ability of free market to exist
on its own magic without necessary role of government were a reasonable
theories. Today these ideas exist only as components of religious or
ideological platforms, well outside of the body of scientific knowledge.

>Religion is very easy to prove wrong, using logic, facts, and science.

No. Check any good book or university course on the philosophy of science.
Religion and "logic, facts, and science" are completely disjoint realms, and
have no connection, intersection or whatsoever relation. Just for illustration
: any of the following 5 ideas for example - "God created evolution", "God
doesn't exist", "The Earth is flat as created by God", "There is only one
God", "There are five Gods" - aren't in logical contradiction with each other
as they belong to the realm of religion which is outside of the world of logic
and science where notion of logical contradiction exists and limited to. The
same way, any and all the 5 together of these ideas have no relation to or any
effect on or affected in any way by any of the established scientific facts,
like for example, evolution, pie=3.14... or "the Earth is round and flies
around Sun" - as the facts belong to the realm of science which is disjoint
with the realm of religion where the above mentioned ideas belong to.

>Respect if you don't have a better argument. Better in terms of logic, facts,
and science. Respect if the other person is following logical implications.

once you have it and do it, i guess you'll see the respect you want.

~~~
spottiness
We can't talk if you have a magic button that fades my comments away and I
don't. Thanks for your honesty though.

As a way to balance our powers, I left you a blackspot for everyone to read at
<http://www.spottiness.com/spots/JEM5U01L>

If you had your email address in your HN profile, I would have sent you a code
that allows you to respond.

