Slashdot Mirror
Madrid's HiTech Shanty Town
Alien54 writes: "As reported in CNN, a hi-tech shanty town has arisen in Madrid, Spain, complete with pirated utilities and computer access. Known locally as El Campamento de Esperanza (The Camp of Hope), it is now a village of about 1,200 inhabitants, with libraries, bars, hot showers and cafeterias serving daily meals. They are skilled engineers and technicians, formerly employed by Sintel Telecommunications, a Spanish telecom company that filed for bankruptcy protection in 2000. With a mixture of ingenuity and tenacity, the workers have transformed their claim to $10 million in unpaid wages and refusal to accept forced resignations into a national issue, by squatting on the property where they used to work." Such a thing could never exist in the U.S. for longer than it took to load up the tear gas grenade launchers.
They are living there since January 29... And that camp is huge! And is the first impression you get when you arrive to Madrid. But things are really hard there, with 34 people died since January, and 7 suicides... :( And one cool message: They have a huge sign at the entrance of the campground saying "Sorry for any inconvenience... We are currently improving the Society!"
Sintel was a profitable comp. with big contracts with Telefonica, the ex-monopolistic Spanish telco. The Spanish right wing government sold it very cheap to Mas Canosa, yeah... the miami cuban mafioso, who proceeded to dismantle everything for as much he could get and forgot about the company. So what the workers are asking the geovernment why the fuck did they sold the company to that scumbag....
Uhh, you can't protest illegally in the US without being a criminal, as should be pretty self-evident. You can of course still protest legally all you want. Occupying someone else's building is not a legal form of protest, so of course they'd be driven off if this were to happen the US. I'd be pissed if a bunch of "protestors" were camping on my front lawn too.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Uh, that he did it? Regardless of whether or not he went to jail, he did it, and cops all over America are commiting other crimes as well. I think what got that guy was the media. If it hadn't been reported nation wide, his own police unit probably could have covered it up enough.
So by your logic, since cops are evil since a few cops commit crimes, black people are very evil, because many black people commit crimes. Yay for collective labelling.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
And many people also don't know that the cops were firing tear gas in response to Molotov cocktails and golf balls being thrown at them. The protestors only stopped throwing them when they RAN OUT of molotov cocktails and golf balls.
Hell, even the ironically named "Indymedia" admitted this.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
OK, nice points from a foreign country, now let me explain this to you.
I live in Spain ans I work on a internet tech company.
1- Living here in Spain is as expensive as living in usual places in the US, but far more cheap than living in NY or in SF.
2- Most of the companies here doesn't permit siesta, that's a wonderful image created in foreign countries by people of the south of Spain, in big cities (like Madrid or Barcelona) people get 1 hour to eat, 2 hours as maximum (depending on the company policy) and in this time you cannot do siesta
3- This tech people have gone to unemployment and they have offers to go to another companies, but they are in their right to protest because the company that went to bankrupcy is owned by a country company (Telefonica), and they don't want to pay the pendent wages, that's quite miserable from the government and Telefonica (considering that telefonica is miserable per se).
4- Get off your image of Spain, come here and try to do some work, you'll get amused.
That are my 0.02 Euros =P
May the source be with you!
Blaming the US for the Quebec police is stretching things.
Ever hear about the Quebec or Candian police doing anything like that when the US isn't involved? The meeting may have taken place in Quebec, but it was about North American free trade. The main proponent of which is the US, who also tends to deal with its citizens like that when they protest.
Of course you always have a few bad incidents, and with a watchdog media that needs to fill the insatiable news demand of america, any incident gets blown out of proportion.
Exactly how do you blow out of proportion a dude getting sodomized with a broken broom handle while in custody? Nobody needs to sensationalize that, that's just plain torture. Also, while you talk about the crimes cops commit in a very blase way as "a few bad incidents" I have to wonder how many times this sort of thing happens and it's never reported. You probably prefer the american cops to other countries because here in america they don't use nazi tactics, keep people's rights away from them and torture them. Oh but wait...they do.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
1) unarmed black (or white) men shouldn't run away, at night when an arrest warrant is being served. If he hadn't run, he wouldn't have gotten shot.
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see the logic that running away from a cop deserves the death penalty. It's all so clear now.
2) The guy who sodomized the poor guy with a broken broom handle is now serving a lengthy stretch in a state prison, so what is your point?
Uh, that he did it? Regardless of whether or not he went to jail, he did it, and cops all over America are commiting other crimes as well. I think what got that guy was the media. If it hadn't been reported nation wide, his own police unit probably could have covered it up enough. That's another thing that makes me sick about cops. Their loyalty to one another forces them to lie for one another even when they know that one of their members is in the wrong.
Cops are people, and people break laws, what is important is that they are punished when they do.
But only when they get caught, which isn't very often. And even when they do get caught, it's a citizens word against a cop's. Who is the judge listening to?
4) Last I heard, the guys that beat down Rodney King are doing a stretch in a federal prison.
Whether or not cops are in prison has nothing to do with what I'm talking about, which is that they are often extremely brutal motherfuckers that are often willing to do some pretty nasty things to people. Cops are often small, small human beings. The type that got made fun of in junior high and could never get dates. Give them guns and clubs, and you get the crimes that I listed. Just because somebody went to jail for them doesn't mean they're any less horrible or any less likely to occur in the future.
But then again, you're probably a middle class whiteboy who doesn't have to worry about these types of things, since you're never a target. What do you care?
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Now I know why I like Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, and William Gibson so much: This story reminds me so strongly of various plots and settings from their works. Highly cooperative high-tech squatter camps? Now if they just moved to the Golden Gate Bridge, or just outside of a high-tech research facility in Lousiana, or a bunch of floating junks orbiting a privately-owned surplus aircraft carrier, I'd really come down with acute deja vu.Cyberpunk is fun to visit, but sometimes I'm not too sure I'll want to live there.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
Siesta isn't lazy hours, it's sanity. Your body's natural rhythm is to slow down at around 2PM.
And just *imagine* how much nicer your life would be if you could knock off for a little nap in the midafternoon. Hell, give it a try for a month -- I'll bet you'd *never* want to go back.
One of the problems with the American headspace is that "live to work" is the meme, instead of "work to live."
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
IIRC, in Max Headroom, it was mandatory for citizens to own a television, and it was illegal to own a television that had a power switch to flick off. These Spanish protesters are there voluntarily, and only have their comforts out of ingenuity.
< tofuhead >
--
It is still the dark of night.
This sounds like something out of Max Headroom, where even homeless people had TVs lying around.
Hear hear. I go to a college with a slightly insane curriculum, and my classes get out by 2 PM every day. At 2:30, I sleep until about 5ish. This is a Very Good Thing(TM), because I usually only get four hours of sleep a night due to various forms of insane work for whatever reason.
:)
Between the hours of about 2 and 6, I cannot function while awake. It simply does not happen. I like these brief stops in my work in the afternoon, because my dorm is really quiet and, quite honestly, it's the only time I can rest (I live in the party dorm this year, and though it's pure insanity most of the time, people go out to class and work in the afternoon while I sleep).
It's complex, but it works, and it works amazingly well. I rue the time when I will have to get a job in the working world, not because of what I'll be doing (I love my work, don't get me wrong), but because I will have to change my sleeping schedule so drastically that it will be some horrible form of physical torture for me.
No, I'm not kidding. I'm that weird.
-- BlueCalx | http://nickd.org/
"The days are very long and you have to keep yourself busy," said Jose Maria Casado, who used to install cellular antennas.
One can sympathize with the protesters, but they have to understand, that's business, and over here in the US it does happen regularly (people getting laid off without pay) and shamelessly by many in the technology industry [see FuckedCompany] however most people here simply move on to other jobs.
Are things that bad in Spain where they have to protest in such fashion because there are no jobs or something? Personally I would get another job and move on with life. Perhaps after I got another job I would use my own money to take them to court in an appropriate fashion as opposed to sitting around waiting for someone to listen.
Yes I know protesting for a cause is semi politically correct, but being without work isn't going to pay my bills, and I'll be damned if I forcefully made myself live in a camp town when I could do as I said, make money then take them to court. They're lucky Spain doesn't have FEMA over there or that shit'd be over quickly
Want Root?
Actually it has everything to do with what he was saying, because he's missing the point entirely. This Madrid shanty town has nothing to do with protest rights and has everything to do with fundemental flaws in the Spanish Economy, which despite its hurculean efforts towards reform still has some problems. His jest at the US is completely ludicrous, and it is symbolic of the liberal rant that dominates this site.
Someone you trust is one of us.
All of which doesn't have a god damned thing to do with what he was saying. Since your reading comprehension appears to be straight out of... well, a US public school, let me help you. His statement was in reference to the fact that you can't protest in the US anymore without becoming a criminal.
Sigs are awesome huh?
.....you realize a bunch of squatters living under blue tarps in a self-created techno-ghetto probably have faster Internet access than you
It is high time we got over the "if it's good for GM, it's good for America" propaganda bullshit and realise that corporations need to be held accountable for the damage and destruction they have on people's lives. Corporations think that destroying the lives of thousands who loose their jobs to make a buck (Pan Am) is commonplace, but they also think nothing of mass murder (Union Carbide in India) supporting dictators (United Fruit and many others in Central and South America) and slave labor (Various Oil companies in Burma).
The attitude of "anything to make money is OK" needs to stop. If that were REALLY true, GM would sell crack, which is pound for pound more profitable than a truck. The law can and should stop corporations from hurting people, whether it be selling crack or leaving people jobless and destitute because they stole the money due to the workers.
We say that this is a country formed by the people, for the people but act as if it is just for the rich and elite. The time has come to start thinking like we, the people, count more than the corporate Power Elite and look to these people as examples.
Anarchy?
The US has a drug war.
The US has more people in prison, by percentage, then Stalin did in the former USSR.
The prohibition laws against drugs and alcohol were proposed by the USAs cult leaders, who complained that "one could not properly serve the lord while under the influences of these substances"
America's prison industry is the fastest growing segment of the economy.
Treatment, not tyranny.
Free America's POWs. End the drug war.
For more information, see:
http://www.lycaeum.org/drugwar/buckley1.html
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Here in the USA, many people seem take the attitude, "Get over it and work for a living or If you any good, you'd get another job.
How many times have you walked by a building with two people picketing and not paid attention to why they were picketing? It seems as though many people don't care about an issue until it effects them.
Fight Spammers!
in response to Molotov cocktails and golf balls being thrown at them
Bullshit - I was in Quebec. I saw ZERO acts of violence aimed at the cops. The most I personally saw was some kids pulling ads out of their 'place' in busshelters.
I was on the other hand teargased. I saw people with broken limbs and split skin from rubber bullets. I *PERSONALLY* saw a person get clubbed by 3 cops and drug away by their hair and whatnot.
Dont give me your bullshit... the police violence *FAR* outweighted the reported violence of some people. Furthermore, I personally feel that some of the molotov throwers (and others acting this way) were in fact *COPS* themselves - you cannot justify 4500 teargas cans without some kind of violence can you. Simply tearing down a fence doenst make quite the headlines as molotovs... hence someone made sure some were thrown. Besides - even if SOME people were throwning molotoves - that does *NOT* give a police force the justification to treat non-volent people the way they were, even if they were standing right beside the thrower.
The cops in Quebec were animals.
I haven't grown up all over the world, but I have visited all over the US, and I've had cops point guns at me and treat me generally like shit more times that I can count. Once, when working a trade show in San Jose, I had to get a cheap hotel room on the "bad side of town" because all the rooms in the city were full. The next morning the cops busted in with six guns pointed at me, drug me out of the room in my underwear and then searhed my room immediately after I denied them permission. Why? Because I rented a car the day before that had been reported stolen a year in the past. The cops were rude and very rough, and after I showed them proof that I had just rented the vehicle, didn't even apoligize. I've had several similar run ins with the law in Europe (The Netherlands, Spain) and I can say that each time the cops were much more polite. The best thing: when I reach into my pocket or bag for a passport or something, they don't freak out and point their guns at me!
Pardon me, Mr. or Ms. Burbilog, but if you'll read the blinking article, you'll see that the sqatters aren't "demand[ing] guaranteed jobs from government," they're asking the government to force their former employer to hand over the back pay it owes them, and to punish that US-based employer for (as they see it) screwing the workers by abandoning the Madrid company.
This is one of the problems with this particular global economy, and with the corporation as an economic unit. The corporate structure separates the owners of a business with the operations of that business, and allows for no accountability for corporate actions. The "globalization" that protesters complain about is simply a further separation of work from money, so they're in separate countries, so them that calls the shots don't even need to think about them that does the work.
We in the US need a similarly robust culture of protest against corporate injustice. It existed in the early 20th century, the era of the muckrakers, the Sherman Antitrust Act, and the labor unions (yes, I know unions have gone way off track, but the impetus to form them was real). What we need is a squat-in like in the article, not a sit-in by rich kids in some president's office at an elite ivy-choked institution, but by laid-off workers at a corporate site. Whoo hoo!
Fight for your right to read books!
"2) The guy who sodomized the poor guy with a broken broom handle is now serving a lengthy stretch in a state prison, so what is your point? "
Uruk replied:
"Uh, that he did it?"
Not to mention that not a single police officer that heard Volpe bragging about the incident reported it. This, to me, is more telling than the act itself. Sodomizing Louima was the act of one coward. Everyone keeping silent points to an entire system which teaches cops that such things are tolerated. I can't condemn an entire force for the actions of one, but I can sure as hell condemn them for not throwing that one to the lions. And yes, you did address this, I just wanted to elaborate a bit.
Uruk added:
"But then again, you're probably a middle class whiteboy who doesn't have to worry about these types of things, since you're never a target. What do you care?"
While the AC is clearly either naive or a troll (his "If he hadn't run, he wouldn't have gotten shot" logic is hilarious), ad hominem attacks aren't much better. I thought far more of your post before I got to the end.
My .02,
My
Limekiller