Police Start Shooting Protestors in Spain w/Rubber Bullets- Still Not News in Japan

Astounding. The peaceful demonstrations in Spain are over. The people have begun beating people and shooting them with rubber bullets. As usual, Japanese news is eerily silent on the matter. What's going on here? 

THE CLASH - REVOLUTION ROCK

Google reports that the government has sent in police in Barcelona with truncheons and they are beating peaceful demonstrators and shooting them with rubber bullets. Google reports:

Police fire rubber bullets at protesters in Barcelona

BARCELONA — Spanish police fired rubber bullets and swung truncheons to disperse anti-crisis protesters in a Barcelona square Friday as cleaning crews cleared their tent camp.

Catalan police in anti-riot gear moved in after about 50 protesters sat down on the street to block a convoy of cleaning trucks leaving the Plaza de Cataluna square with remnants of the encampment.

Police, some with plastic shields, were shown on television dragging protesters along the street and swiping with truncheons at activists, who had been chanting: "They shall not pass."

An AFP reporter at the scene saw rubber bullets fired.

The protest blockade was broken up within minutes but about 100 protesters regrouped in the square. They were surrounded by two police cordons blocking hundreds more people from entering from nearby roads.

Demonstrators chanted: "The people, united, will never be defeated!" and "No to violence!"

Cleaning crews with 10 lorries dismantled the last of the tents under police surveillance. Later, police left the square and let thousands of demonstrators flood in.

By the evening, at least 5,000 people were in the square protesting against the police intervention, some having put up tents. A dozen police vehicles were in streets leading to the square.

"What happened today was awful but it is a warning" for the country's leadership, said Ramon Deltran, 50, a psychiatrist.

I predict that this situation is going to seriously escalate and, like I wrote on May 21 in Massive Anti-Government Protests in Spain Spreading to Italy! No Mention at all in Japanese Press, the exact same thing is going on now! 

Ultimately, unemployment, taxes and austerity measures have caused these huge demonstrations that are, as one protester said, "... against the criminal behavior of the central bankers and IMF. Taking tax money from the people and giving it to rich bankers have finally made the people take to the streets...."

Yet, this news is nowhere to be found in the Japanese news services in English or in Japanese.

I predict that this demonstration in Spain will collapse the Spanish government.

There's no way unemployment or the situation with government debt, which will lead to higher taxes and more austerity measures in Spain is going to go away anytime soon, so these demonstrations are going to go on. The government, by taking a heavy hand are just escalating the situation. They are toast.

But, once again, not a word about it in the Japanese press! I checked both Yahoo! Japan and NHK and cannot find any mention of this news!

Here's a screen capture of NHK news site:

Quick translation from top to bottom:

Anti-Nuclear Demonstrations Prompting Closure of Nuke Plants

President Expected in Poland

Tourism promotion delegation sent to China

U.S. envoy continuing investigation of food shortages in North Korea 

Honda in Canada leaks personal information

The state of the last shuttle maintenance announced

"The strange quiet of territorial negotiations"

Syrian crackdown as police fire at protesters

Democratization and  assistance in the Middle East

Massive demonstrations protesting the army in Egypt

U.S. Secretary of State visits Pakistan

......Nothing about police shooting people with rubber bullets in Barcelona Spain. How about Yahoo! Japan?

Well, what do you know!? Yahoo! Japan does come through and has a story about Barcelona! (Marked in red)... Yippee... Er, well, not exactly about demonstrations and the police rousting people out like the Nazi Gestapo, but about how some soccer team from Barcelona won a soccer championship for the fourth time beating Manchester United..... .....Yawn!

Unemployment in Spain is the highest in the EU at over 21%, the entire country is about to go bankrupt and these stupid people care about who wins some professional sports title? Are you kidding me? Morons. 

Who was it that wrote something about "Bread and Circuses for the masses"? 

Massive Anti-Government Protests in Spain Spreading to Italy! No Mention at all in Japanese Press

UPDATE! LIVE FEED OF PROTESTS IN SPAIN AT BOTTOM! 

IS THIS SITUATION IS FAST SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL? MUST SEE!

The demonstrations in Egypt weren't nearly this big! In Europe, first Greece then Iceland now Spain! Massive demonstrations and protests have broken out all over Europe. There's not a word mentioned about these huge protests in the Japanese media or in the US media either! See the live feed at the bottom of this post. These demonstrations are huge and the news about them seems to be blocked all over the world!

Twitter comment about the protests from Poland

The demonstration first started out in Madrid but have now spread to Barcelona, Valencia and other cities in Spain. The Spanish government cannot withstand this pressure. 

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE - WAKE UP

Elections are tomorrow but the protesters have said that they will continue to protest until they get what they want... I'm sure the elections will not satisfy their demands. What's next? This and events in Portugal and Italy bode ill for the Euro and the world economy. This will certainly hurt Japan's already faltering economy.

These massive demonstrations continue to grow and have turned quite ugly and violent in Greece and have now been banned in Spain (which has only served to increase their size). In Spain's case, the government has banned these gatherings, but absolutely cannot afford to send the police in and kick these people out. 


Ultimately, unemployment, taxes and austerity measures have caused these huge demonstrations that are, as one protester said, "... against the criminal behavior of the central bankers and IMF. Taking tax money from the people and giving it to rich bankers have finally made the people take to the streets...." 


Yet, this news is nowhere to be found in the Japanese news services in English or in Japanese.


I predict that this demonstration in Spain will collapse the Spanish government.


Hence this blog post.


Mish Shedlock has an excellent write up about it: 


"After passively submitting to the crisis, young Spaniards have finally taken to the street. Breaking out on the eve of municipal elections, the protests of recent days have been inspired by those in Iceland that led to the fall of the government in Reykjavik.

One morning in October 2008, Torfason Hördur turned up at what Icelanders call the “Althing”, the Icelandic parliament in the capital city, Reykjavik. By then, the country's biggest bank, the Kaupthing, had already gone into receivership and the Icelandic financial system itself was in danger of going under. Torfason, with his guitar, grabbed a microphone and invited people to talk about their dissatisfaction with the freefall of their country and to speak their minds.

A movement spawned by the Internet

But those voices calling for real democracy are not just being raised in Iceland, a country of about 320,000 inhabitants. Here in Spain, the umbrella organisation for various Spanish movements – Democracia Real Ya (Real Democracy Now) – already lists among its proposals some 40 points ranging from controlling parliamentary absenteeism to reducing military spending through to abolishing the so-called Sinde law (a law restricting on-line infringements of copyright).

Spain demonstration yesterday. This is not news in Japan!????

The demonstrations have broadened spontaneously, as was the case for those who rallied under the umbrellas of the "alternative globalisation" movements, and have evolved, one decade after the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on a more modest stage than the one demonstrators faced in the past at the World Economic Forum of the global elite in Davos, Switzerland.

All this is happening at astonishing speed via the Internet, which has amplified the echo of discontent and opened the lanes of cyberactivism to groups such as Anonymous, notable for intervening against companies like PayPal and Visa during the advocacy campaign for Wikileaks chief Julian Assange. Yet it was also there at the beginning of the revolts in the Arab world, to help people get round the censorship of the Tunisian and Egyptian dictatorships.

“When we grow up, we want to be Icelanders!" cried one of the leaders of the organisation during the march on Sunday May 15 before a column of young – and not so young – parents and children, students and workers, the jobless and pensioners. Many Saturdays in Iceland were needed before citizens won the changes they had demanded. Spain’s first Sunday has taken place, and was followed by a Tuesday [May 17]- but there’s still a long way to go.


Protests have now spread to Italy and beyond.


Why these massive outpourings of discontent for government policies are being ignored in the Japanese press is a real curiosity. Here is a screen capture of NHK News English site. As you can see, not a word about it mentioned but there is a story of vital interest about Brazilian students sending letters to survivors of the Tohoku disaster!

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW

And here's a screen capture of the Japanese language page. Nothing about protests in Europe:

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW

Let's see: Something about the Hague Convention member states welcoming something called "the Buddha policy," Asia's largest exhibition of Naval Weapons, special trains, Japanese children in Brazil... Oh! There's demonstrations! No. No. Those are in Thailand. Nope. Nothing about demonstrations in Europe.

Quite odd, don't you think?

MISH SHEDLOCK posts this: "SOL TV has a continuous direct broadcast from Puerto del Sol in Madrid, where today's gathering has just started."

Madrid Spain time is 7 hours behind Tokyo, Japan time

More information and additional links (in Spanish) can be found here:http://www.soltv.tv/soltv2/index.html
Use Google Translate to translate any of the links. You can use a link, not just portions of text.

The summer of 2011 has started. It's going to be a very hot one too. Got gold?

Here's a map and more information about the global insurrection against banker occupation. There's even an event planned in Tokyo today!!! http://www.thetechnoant.info/campmap/ 

Egypt Riots and Made in USA... Will Japan Explode Someday Too?

I don't really want to write about what's going on in Egypt as this is a blog about Japan and Marketing... But I do feel that I need to comment as I believe that these events will have serious repercussions in Japan too:


1) I think that what is going in in Egypt and the people power demonstrations and revolutions going on all over the world (especially now all over the Middle East) will have a profound effect on the Japanese people and economy. I think these events point to what I have been saying all along: 2011 is the pivotal year for Japan. Either we default on our debts or we get hit with massive inflation - or both. 

2) The other thing I want to say is that Japan definitely needs to get away from the USA and the American Empire. America is just, as Clint Eastwood would say, "A clusterf*ck, sir." Sticking with the USA, through thick and through thin, is a bad idea. Especially since the government of the USA is stark raving mad. Japan needs independence; unfortunately Japan needs to remilitarize and needs to rejoin her Asian brotherhood as an equal partner. Japan can never do that as America's weak little sister.


The riots in Egypt show us just how messed up US policy is and just how foolish it is for Japan to stick with it... 


The government doesn't allow peaceful assembly in public places so that means that the only alternative for the people is violent demonstrations. Here's what happens when the authorities start to kill:





This will on serve to inflame the people.


The demonstrations are now taking over Europe and the Middle East. The government's response to demonstrations that start out peacefully is violence... In Egypt's case, siding with the USA is a sure loser too. Why? Because while the Egyptian authorities shoot and kill civilians... They also shoot them with tear gas and other weapons... Many of these weapons have "Made in USA" written on them.


Think that makes the Egyptian people the friend of the USA? 


Proof that gas canisters in Egypt have "Made in USA" written on them:

The people are rising up and revolting all over the world. The government's are bankrupting the people and taking our money and giving it the big bankers. Somethings got to give. 


(Read: Former Managing Director of Goldman Sachs: Egyptians, Greeks, Tunisians and British Are All Protesting Against Pillaging of Their Economies)

Egypt today

Narita Japan 1971

People think the Japanese are docile and do not revolt. It has happened before... As they say, history repeats:

Puss TV - Watch Video

Once again, I am reminded of an ancient Chinese curse; "May you live in interesting times."


My friends, we are living in very interesting times.

Thanks to Daily Bail and What Really Happened 

Chinese Anti-Japanese Demonstrations Starting to Focus on Real Problems

A friend writes about my recent post concerning anti-Japanese demonstrations in China:

The fact is that it's not happening in Beijing or Shanghai but mostly in central China.  Why?  Because more than 25% of college graduates in China can't find work.

China is experiencing a hell of a lot more economic pain than they're letting the world believe.  Rather than admit it to their citizens and take the blame for the anxious climate, they use their propaganda machine to focus every one's negative energy on Japan.  Better Japan than themselves, right?

Your take on why Japan is so impotent fills in the rest of the picture.


I agree with this whole-heartedly. The Chinese government allows these sorts of demonstrations as they deflect public opinion off the domestic problems (what government in the world doesn't do this?) and onto some foreign target.

But, now, it looks like the Chinese government might have allowed this Pandora's Box to open up a few unexpected surprises for them. Now the demonstrations seem to be evolving into protests against inflation and local government corruption. This, as my friend writes, is the true crux of the problem in China.


As Japan Times reports:


Hundreds of Chinese staged protests against Japan on Sunday in Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, stirring more discontent after demonstrations in Sichuan Province the previous day. The situation took a strange twist, however, as protesters in Baoji, Shaanxi Province, appeared to vent their frustration with China's widening income gaps and corruption, carrying green banners that read, "We oppose corruption in the bureaucracy" and "Curb high housing prices."


This is not a "strange twist" that these protesters would vent their frustrations with the problems that actually do affect their personal lives... I wouldn't doubt for a moment that the Chinese government does the same thing the US government (or most governments do, for that matter) and use agent provocateurs to drive these protests into the directions that benefit the government in the media and public eye.

The Chinese government certainly does not want these demonstrations to deal with China's real problems.

But, in China, as in France, many of the people who aren't asleep do recognize what the real problems are that they are facing in their daily lives... Could it be that the Bread and Circuses routine is coming to an end in China too?