Spain criminalizes protests- including "insulting the state":

[cali]

The Spanish government has approved draft legislation that sets fines of up to €30,000 (£25,000) for offences such as burning the national flag, insulting the state or causing serious disturbances outside parliament.

The bill, presented by the interior minister, Jorge Fernández Díaz, has been heavily criticised by opposition parties, judicial and social groups as an attempt by the conservative government to muzzle protests against its handling of the severe economic crisis.

The measures, which update a 1992 law, also include fines of up to €1,000 for insulting or threatening police officers during demonstrations. Similar fines are planned for disseminating photographs of police officers that endanger them or police operations.

Spanish cities have experienced weekly protests, the vast majority of them peaceful, since the onset of the crisis in 2008.

<snip>
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/01/spanish-government-approves-law-demonstrations

Read the entire article- very disturbing.

Fuck the 1% and fuck their lackeys.

[L0oniX]

1. Fuck you Spain. Oh noes ...now I am a criminal.

[Chrom]

2. Blackstone group is heading to spain to buy up their foreclosures next

"In one move, it bought 1,400 houses in Atlanta in a single day. As of November, Blackstone had spent $7.5 billion to buy 40,000 mostly foreclosed houses across the country. That’s a spending rate of $100 million a week since October 2012. It recently announced plans to take the business international, beginning in foreclosure-ravaged Spain."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/11/26-5

Some people think the economic situation in this country was an accident, but when you see the same tactics
by the bankers happen around the world it seems very deliberate.

They are intent on smashing democracy worldwide and stealing all of the money to hoard it.

I don't know why or who wants to live in the world they are creating.

[CFLDem]

3. Fascism is in the march again n/t

[treestar]

4. So next time someone starts calling us a fascist state

Remember such a law would not be allowed to stand by our courts.

[cali]

6. so you think this is the only indication of fascism??? Yikes

do you even know what fascism is? Never mind. I know that you don't.

[treestar]

10. You don't if you are saying the US has any characteristics of that

and you ignored my point.

[Chrom]

7. US House approves $5,000 fee for official drilling protests, less federal authority over fracking

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1rbbqm/us_house_approves_5000_fee_for_official_drilling/

[treestar]

11. Has the Senate passed it and the president signed it?

And who wouldn't take it to the courts?

Anyone can suggest anything.

[socialist_n_TN]

14. Well for that matter, neither has the Spanish Parliament........

HOWEVER, just proposing it itself should be a crime.

[socialist_n_TN]

15. And BTW, how do you know the SCOTUS wouldn't approve.......

of this type of law here? With the current makeup of the Court, I don't think it would be a stretch to conclude they might just approve it.

[treestar]

16. Even they would not risk their credibility on something like this

First Amendment jurisprudence is way more sophisticated than would allow for that.

Even during the Chimpadministration, the Court invalidated some of his efforts to claim he could hold unlawful combatants, etc.

[malaise]

5. General Franco is back

[geomon666]

9. Looks like it.

I mean what kind of shit is this?

[LittleBlue]

8. That's Europe for ya

On many issues they are far behind or borderline Orwellian.

I'm surprised this flies with the EU. Turkey's membership is being held up with the major criticism being their laws against political criticism. The EU should look just as vigorously at Spain's laws, and anyone convicted should appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. Even if there is a slight chance of prevailing it will embarrass Spain that their citizens need ECHR protection.

[HereSince1628]

12. Isn't it interesting that the comments here go to Facsim and not other miserable things

about human institutions and governance that might also be explanatory.

I remember reading thingx about Spain and heresy and the inquisition...which all seem terribly tyrannical, but not fascism.

I'm not a social historian of Spain, yet I wonder what's being missed by not considering other possible explanations for the squelching of popular protest?

[msongs]

13. the spanish 1% and its corporations are behind it, just like in the USA.... nt

[DrDebug]

18. The Fascism - Communism fault line in Spain is very deep

It's like a grand canyon because it was related to the Spanish Civil War were the military under the direction of Franco and aided by Hitler and Mussoluni tried to overthrow the government and only the communists offered resistence. Because Franco was unable to capture the major cities, it was a very slow coup-d'etat with many atrocities and large scale purges mainly on the side of Franco.

That war was followed with years of dictatorship when the liberals were brutally repressed. Franco's handpicked successor got blown up by the ETA and he thought that the former king would make a good alternative, however the King instituted a democracy. Nevertheless the Conservative Party (PP) headed by Rajoy and under W. by Aznar is Franco's party. The old Franco clique was never held responsible and continued as the "People's Party."

That is also the reason why protests in Spain are on massive old-fashioned communists scales with often 100,000s of demonstrators. And it still Fascist vs Communist which has been renamed as Conservative vs Socialists.

I remember a Spanish girl a decade ago who proudly said that she was a communist and you should hear the screams from the Ameuro crowd who didn't know that in Spain the communists are still often considered the good guys.

[Cleita]

17. Even though Franco is gone, it seems fascism still runs

the political system in Spain.