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Podemos and Spain’s Unlikely ‘Democratic Revolution’
21st Century Wire says…
Back in January, 21WIRE reported how Spain’s political crowd-funding fledgling sensation, Podemos, drew 100,000 to an anti-austerity rally in Madrid.
Many mainstream pundits and political ‘experts’ expecting a flash in the pan which would quickly disappear as fast as it appeared, only that’s not what’s happening. Global Research reports this week:
“According to some current polls, Podemos, though founded only in January 2014, is the strongest party today with an almost 28 per cent voter approval, one year before the parliamentary elections.”
(Image Source: Politica El Pais)
“What is more remarkable about Podemos than the poll results, which can merely be volatile snapshots of the moment, is the social mobilization that the organization set in motion. 900 Podemos base groups, so called circles, have formed throughout the whole country. Almost 10,000 people took part in the party’s founding congress in October. And in municipal district assemblies hundreds of neighbours discuss the crisis, capitalism, and ‘real democracy’ – and in this case ‘neighbours’ means literally neighbours. Podemos has left the subcultural milieus behind.”
Whatever one’s feeling about Podemos, or any other new and emerging grass roots political movement in Europe, the recharged political conversation is undeniable. Writer Raul Zelik explains:
“Even if one almost always goes wrong with such prognoses, the fact is that the Spanish state is facing the biggest rupture since the end of the Franco dictatorship.“
“The level of debate is astounding, determined as it is, on the one hand, by a pragmatism directed at the 2015 elections and, on the other, by sharp criticism of neoliberalism and bourgeois political routine.”
What’s next? By destroying the economies of southern Europe, Brussels bankers and their bureaucrats have almost guaranteed that Podemos will not only hang on this year, they will grow and thrive well into the foreseeable future.
Whether this will be a catalyst for improvement in the country’s economic and social woes remains to be seen.
READ MORE SPAIN NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Spain Files
21st Century Wire is an alternative news agency designed to enlighten, inform and educate readers about world events which are not always covered in the mainstream media.
Source: http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/05/08/podemos-and-spains-unlikely-democratic-revolution/
