The blockade of the Catalan Parliament has split and discredited the Take The Streets movement. Still suffering from the images of their brutal attacks on the Pl Catalunya the police left one gate unprotected, hoping the demonstrators would attack the Deputies trying to enter, on camera. A whole gang of police provoicateurs also took part (video now censored from Utube, see previous post).
Even so the mainly pacifist crowd let the deputies through, only shouting insults and spraying one communist with red paint. Just a little.
This was enough for the parliament to demand police charges, and for everypaper and media channel in the country to raise a horrified hypocritical howl of VIOLENCE AGAINST DEMOCRACY.
The politicians were gathering peacefully to vote a budget which will evict, throw out of work, leave without treatment etc 1000’s of people. Most entered dramatically in riot vans or by helicopter. The plot worked, especially as the demonstrators accepted guilt, apologised, etc..
About 5 people were arrested during the ‘incident’ and the police have promised exemplarary 10 year prison sentences. The irony is that they have discredited an obsessively pacifist youth movement as being criminally violent.
The Free 