Los Indignados

Its mostly youth that make up "The Indignant", a protest group that is p!ssed about the unemployment rate, economic crisis, and the housing bubble burst amongst other things. In a run up to some kind of election the protests started in Madrid with the Indignados occupying Puerta del Sol and moved on to everywhere in Spain. I posted previously about what i saw in Madrid when i was there when it first started. Now here is a look at Plaza Catalunya in Barcelona a few weeks later after elections. It's looking pretty sparse and seems most people have moved on. I don't have a finger on the pulse of "the revolution" mainly because I don't speak Spanish and i'm not Spanish so I care a lot less about it. To me it looks like the credibility of this protest is gone and that the misguided youth of Barcelona are still living in Plaza Catalunya. From time to time i will see small marches or protests around Barcelona with the Indignants banging on things. I see tons of dreadlocks, instruments, tightropes, yoga mats, sleeping bags, camping gear, beer, tattoos, piercings, cigarettes, dogs, and all the other hippie trappings. It looks like a giant hippie fest where people have lost sight of the goal, or a goal. Again, I don't know what's happening, maybe there is a reason and effect this is all having. I'm just stating what it looks like with my eyeballs. If any of you out there do know what's happening let me know.



This happened a while ago, the European cup football match was to be played the next night and FC Barcelona was a favorite to win and Plaza Catalunya is where the footie fans go to celebrate only it was occupied by the indignados. So the city claimed they wanted to clean the plaza before it was flooded with thousands of footie fans if Barcelona won the next night. Is that true, or did they just want an excuse to go in with some good ol' police brutality. What do you do when a thousand people will sit cross-legged on the ground and refuse to move? drag each on out personally? This video show a little of what i saw on the news here but there are parts missing like the police hitting women, the police finally ordered to leave and people throwing things at them and the police not being able to do anything but keep walking away like they were ordered to. To me this looks like a bad move by the po-po.



Fast forward to weeks later. Two indignados walk through a significantly reduced camp.



Plaza Catalunya is just one giant hangout floor now that people wallaw around on all day and night





the Guy Fawkes mask from the movie "V for Vendetta" has become a symbol of the revolution just as it was in the movie. Fawkes is famous for being the guy that was supposed to light the fuse to blow up the British Parliment and kill King something. He also fought for the Spanish for a few years for something or other. I saw on the news at some point some hackers hacked something kind of important and used the guy fawkes mask as the sign too.



Daycare





This is another day a few weeks later. Generating power by bicycle. A crowd of 6 people listens to an old dude. Is it hard to see how it looks like the fire is gone? It looks like shirtless dudes hanging out on the porch of the circus the day after its left town.



library for the indignados



great job you guys, you're really making a change and making us all think this hasn't turned into an 8 year old boys dream world by lounging around in that giant hammock for adult babies all day. It looks like the set of "Hook" only dirtier and less charming. I know i'm being harsh but it's hard for me to take them seriously when i see this. I mean, WTF are they doing?!!!?



the defacing of public property has some kind of meaning I know, but weeks and weeks after the main protest? Now you're just making your city look like garbage. Barcelona is super small so doing this is like sh!tting on your own doorstep no? People have spray painted protest slogans and what seems to be just random defacing of stuff with spray paint all over the city making it look like Gotham city pre-Batman coming in to clean sh!t up.



We're not anti-system, the system is anti-us



Here is this video again. You can see it in high quality if you click through to the Vimeo website, they show a crappy version when you view it from another website. 'm putting my videos on Vimeo now because they have the best compression quality so you can see higher quality vids. the Bob Dylan song was actually playing at the time furthering the hippie comparison.



next to the Barcelona Cathedral there are frequently breakdancers and such



this guys cup of coins spilled out twice in 1 minute while i was there making me think he is one of those pickpocket dudes that make you spill his coins on the ground and the robs you. He masquerades and a super stupid and sad homeless guy.



random fashion show that was horrible. Here they are dressed up like that picasso painting of women.



Santa Caterina Market's cool roof.



street behind marco's house



sometimes it looks like im waking up to the apocalypse in my room.



gallery miscelanea near the statue of colon and la rambla. they had a cool illustration exhibition.





i really like outsider art for all the reasons people like outsider art.



Albert, Miquel, and Aitor, the party guys. Albert, Aitor, and Marco are all roomates. I like to call them Los Calle Comerc Cabrones. Aitor is from Valencia and has a basque name. Miquel is catalan. Albert and Miquel are going for a year to New Zealand to do a working holiday