International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

What remains of all our outrage?

Esther Vivas — 2016-05-19T13:55:15Z

It's been five years since the massive occupation of May 15, 2011 that gave birth to the movement of los indignados, 15M. Five years of faltering progress with many advances and set-backs along the way. Five years of a tremendous crisis, civil unrest and mass protest. So, what remains today after such a sustained period of outrage?

- IV496 - May 2016 / Spanish state

Catalonia: Barcelona, epicentre of the change

Esther Vivas — 2015-05-25T13:19:32Z

This “yes we can” that has for months rumbled in the squares and streets after the indignant spring of 2011 has now come as an earthquake to the institutions, something unimaginable then. The victory of ComÃº in Barcelona, with Ada Colau at the forefront, has overturned the political chessboard.

- IV484 - May 2015 / Spanish state, Catalonia

Of the class struggle and the things we eat

Esther Vivas — 2014-11-04T12:11:39Z

Do the rich and poor eat the same? Do our incomes determine our diet? Today, who is overweight? Although often, and from certain quarters, the call for healthy and wholesome food is viewed with disdain, as “a fad”, “posh”, “hippy” or “flower power” the reality is rather different than these short-sighted comments imply. To defend ecological, local, peasant food is most “revolutionary”.

- IV478 - November 2014 / Ecology and the Environment, Food crisis

After Scotland, Catalonia

Esther Vivas — 2014-09-24T16:12:12Z

Scotland has already voted, will Catalonia? On Friday, September 19, 2014 the Catalan parliament approved the law on consultations that allows it to do so. And 78.5 per cent of the chamber gave its support. And, what is more important, 1,800,000 people demanded it on September 11, 2014 in a massive mobilization in the Catalan capital.

- IV476 - September 2014 / Spanish state

After the abdication of the king, it's time to checkmate the regime

Esther Vivas — 2014-06-16T11:57:26Z

The regime is collapsing, it is dying and in its last-ditch struggle to survive, the king has abdicated. Never has the regime resulting from the Transition [1] been as widely challenged as it is today. The pillars on which it rests, the monarchy, the judiciary, bipartisanship, have been greatly delegitimized for some time now. We no longer believe in their lies, those lies with which they are trying to hold together a system that is falling apart. What seemed not so long ago impossible appears today as a reality. Let us push with all our might to widen even further this breach that the economic, social and political crisis has made possible.

- IV473 - June 2014 / Spanish state, National question

2014: Not a Prosperous New Year

Esther Vivas — 2014-01-04T14:08:57Z

We have entered 2014 a little poorer. For those of us with a job, our salaries have been frozen, or even cut; only a few can expect a rise in the New Year. Furthermore, the price of electricity, public transport and water are increasing.

- IV468 - January 2014 / Spanish state

Catalonia: a Constituent Process to decide everything

Esther Vivas — 2013-10-23T14:08:53Z

Nobody said that it would be easy, but it is necessary to try. And this is precisely what is being done through the Constituent Process in Catalonia, led by the Benedictine nun Teresa Forcades and the economist Arcadi Oliveres, along with many other people. To create social consciousness, to mobilize, to promote civil disobedience and to raise a political alternative that defies those who monopolize power.
Its objective is to construct a new politico-social instrument, based on popular self-organization, loyal to those of at the bottom and able to contribute, in diversity, to the social and political left as a whole. On the horizon, if things work out, it expresses the will to compete in the next elections to the Catalan Parliament, with a broad candidacy, the result of the necessary confluence of many people, some currently inside and others outside the Process, that aspires to transform social discontent into a political majority and to establish the bases to promote a constituent process, that allows us to collectively equip ourselves with a new political framework in the service of the majority.

- IV465 - October 2013 / Spanish state, National question

Catalonia: independence from Spain, independence from capitalism

Esther Vivas — 2013-09-16T17:00:07Z

Hundreds of thousands turned out last September 11 to demand independence for Catalonia. Some decided to surround the Caixa, form a human chain around the largest bank in Catalonia and third largest in Spain, to demand not only independence from Spain, but from capitalism.

- IV464 - September 2013 / Spanish state

They want us poor, silenced and straight

Esther Vivas — 2013-07-24T07:11:26Z

The governing Popular Party (PP) is on a crusade – not only against fundamental rights such as health, education, housing, work, but also against sexual and reproductive freedoms. The PP wants to impose a model of society, not only at the service of capital, but sexist and homophobic to boot. It wants us poor, silenced and straight.

- IV462 - July 2013 / Spanish state

United against the Troika

Esther Vivas — 2013-06-05T19:58:47Z

On the 1st of June demonstrations against the Troika are taking place around Europe on the call originally of the movement in Portugal “Lixe a Troika” (usually translated as “Screw the Troika”) under the slogan "People United against the Troika" and movements in the Spanish state against the imposition of the harsh austerity programmes by which the Troika pretends to solve the problem of the Eurozone crisis.

- IV461 - June 2013 / Spanish state, Global Justice, European Union