Spanish jobless protests eclipse election campaign

[villager]

Source: CTV

Spanish jobless protests eclipse election campaign

JONATHAN GLEAVE - The Globe and Mail

Thousands of young Spaniards angered over unemployment have taken to the streets across the country, demanding a boycott of the big political parties in local elections on Sunday.

The movement, co-ordinated through online social media, marks a shift in Spain, where people have until now scarcely protested against the European Union’s highest jobless rate, a stagnant economy and government spending cuts.

Most of the protesters are young, from what the International Monetary Fund has called Spain’s potential “lost generation,” given youth unemployment of 45 per cent.

“We want politicians who are concerned about our lives, not their own political and economic interests,” said a spokesman for one of the protest movements, tomalaplaza.net, surrounded by campers who spent the night under awnings in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square. The man, in his 20s, declined to give his name.

Thousands of protesters who filled Puerta del Sol on Sunday and Monday were removed by police on Tuesday, then more returned on Tuesday night. Protesters called the plaza “Solution Square” and covered it banners demanding “Real democracy now” and slogans such as “Don’t vote for them.”

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Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/generic/generated/static/business/article2027093.html

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Not that the corporate media here wants you to know much about this, or anything...

[Citizen Worker]

1. When will it start here? It's well past the time when we should be in the streets.

[stockholmer]

2. last summer, over 51% of 16 to 24 year-olds in the US were unemployed, higher than Spain

It does go down in the fall and winter, we shall see what it is this summer.



In July, 51.1 percent of Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 years old were unemployed, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) http://www.bls.gov/news.release/youth.nr0.htm . This marks the first time since 1948, when the government first started collecting this data, that less than half of all U.S. youth were employed in July.

[starroute]

3. Here's a photo that's bound to go viral

[villager]

4. Replete with hashmark for Twitter updates!

Viral, indeed! Thanks for posting... ;-)