Numbers still swelling in Athens

BIGGER numbers than ever have packed the centre of Athens for the seventh night of the real democracy protests.

Reports From the Greek Streets: "According to corporate media and blogs, about 50,000 people participated in the rally in Syntagma Square.

"Thousands of people still there at the moment. Earlier the rally surrounded the parliament and a lot of demonstrators blockaded the gates.

"According to corporate media, police hesitated to attack to the people who blockaded the entries out of fear for riots from such a large crowd of people.

"So several MPs who had been trapped in the parliament had to leave the building from the back door through the national garden, while others had to leave the parliament after midnight, when the gates were not blockaded any more.

"People who noticed the ‘escaping’ MPs start chanting ‘thieves!’ ‘thieves!’. Earlier, professors of the University of Athens gave public speeches on the Propylea of the university in front of thousands people, supporting the rally of Syntagma.

"The speakers and the crowd marched from Propylea to Syntagma and merged with the ongoing rally there, while the people’s assembly of Syntagma Sq. carried on for seventh night."

Spanish 'revolution' gains momentum

THE PEOPLE have again taken to the streets all across Spain to reject neoliberal rule and call for real democracy.

Spanish media reported that at least a thousand people, of all ages, returned to la Puerta del Sol in Madrid on Tuesday night - this time they were not attacked by police.

The people's assembly there decided to keep meeting every night at 8pm and keep the street revolts going until at least Sunday (a day of local elections), with the view of staging an even bigger mobilisation on Friday and Saturday.

Similar scenes are unfolding across the country.

This enormous wave of protest, of which young people have been at the forefront, is clearly of huge significance for both Spain and Europe.

Despite this - or perhaps because of it - the movement is thus far receiving virtually no press coverage in the English-speaking world.

One of the few reports, on Euronews, stated: "Hoping to repeat the success of Egyptian people power, various groups in Spain have occupied Madrid’s main square of 'Puerta del Sol'.

"Students, workers and the unemployed have called their protests the May 15 movement signifying when they first came out onto the streets in 50 cities across the country.

"Like the Arab Spring activists they use twitter and the internet to rally support.

"Calling for fewer police and more education the demonstrators say their arms are their weapons.

"Discontent with Spain two-party system and the country’s high unemployment rate has galvanised the disparate groups.

"While mainly peaceful there have been some clashes with police and an several arrests."

Meanwhile details of the London solidarity protests have gone online at realdemocracylondonblogspot.com

Supporters of all nationalities are urged to meet at Sloane Square tube station at 7pm every night from Wednesday May 18 to Sunday 22 to march on the Spanish Embassy.

Israel 'backing Syrian ruler against protesters'

AS PEOPLE power in Syria threatens to topple autocratic leader President Assad, Israel is hoping that he stays in power.

That's the anaylsis in an article by Edmund Sanders in the Los Angeles Times.

He writes: "Syrian President Bashar Assad's race to tamp down public unrest is stirring anxiety in Israel that is even higher than its hand-wringing over Egypt's recent regime change.

"Unlike Israel and Egypt, Israel and Syria have no peace agreement, and Syria, with a large arsenal of sophisticated weapons, is one of Israel's strongest enemies.

"Though Israel has frequently criticized Assad for cozying up to Iran, arming Lebanon's Hezbollah movement and sheltering leaders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, many in Israel think their country might be better off if Assad keeps the reins of power.

"Several Israeli government and military officials declined to speak in depth about Assad, fearing any comments could backfire given the strong anti-Israel sentiments in the Arab world.

"That's what happened when some Israeli officials attempted to bolster Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak before he resigned Feb. 11."

Meanwhile, Assad has been claiming that conspiracies involving Israel and the USA are behind the insurrection.

Protests countinue to mount and further bloodshed is predicted over the coming days as the President clings to power.

Resistance, repression and real democracy

DEMOCRACY needs to be vigorously reclaimed for the interests of ordinary people, a Cambridge University academic has warned.

In a hard-hitting piece in The Guardian, Priyamvada Gopal writes: "Like everything else once held as a resource in common – schools, industries, utilities, woodlands, libraries and universities – democracy is turning into a feature of, for and by the market.

"The principle of bestowing citizens with the means to control their lives is reduced to rhetorical pieties about 'empowering' communities when local government funding is savagely cut.

"When real democratic expression from below does emerge, it is met with alarm and threats.

"Victorian broadsheet denunciations of the 'dangerous sentiments of the Democracy' were echoed in some media descriptions of recent anti-cuts protests as 'mob rule'.

"There's talk of banning student demonstrations on policing grounds. Union action to represent working people invites red-baiting, experienced most recently by Len McCluskey, who called for widespread resistance to austerity measures.

"The 'kettling' recently faced by protesters outside parliament aptly symbolises current attempts to contain democracy and empty it of its real content – the interests of ordinary people.

"Only if it can be reclaimed by vigorously asserting the prior claims of we, the people, to the commons – our public spaces, our economic rights, our political processes and our shared resources – will demos (people) kratos (power) win the day."

Mexican town kicks out police chief

PEOPLE power in the Mexican town of Tepoztlán has seen the local police chief kicked out after an increase of violence, reports Narco News.

The mayor of the town, which is located 80 kilometers south of Mexico City, removed the police commander and seven of his subordinates after a mobilization from residents.

Now the security of Tepoztlán is in the hands of citizen brigades, bringing back a period from the 1990s when the crime rate was lowered dramatically due to the departure of the police.

Between 1995 and 1999 the town was governed by the customs of the people. During those four years Tepoztlán declared itself an autonomous municipality and expelled all the authorities—including the police—after they joined forces with real estate companies to try and build a golf course in the town.

At that time the security of the town was dependent upon the residents, and according to some of them, there has never been a safer period.

This time, on October 30, the people mobilized to close the highway to Cuernavaca and all of the entrances to the town in response to the police corruption.

During the mobilization they forced the Institutional Revolutionary Party mayor, Gabino Ríos Cedillo, to fire Fuentes Bahena and his subordinates, many of whom were ex-police from Jiutepec. Tepoztlán will continue to have some police officers, but they are subject to supervision by the residents themselves.

The mobilization against the Tepoztlán police is happening as other places in the country are organizing for similar reasons.

Says Narco News: "Perhaps now the people will relive Tepoztlán’s golden years when there were no crimes because there were no police to cover up or defend the crimes."