those miners have got balls, look at them firing fireworks at the police on the hillside, it looks like PIRA or ETA back in the 80s!

hahaha.

the Spanish state is actually subsidising the coal industry to a HUGE extent, otherwise the miners would already be out of work (& a fossil industry put to sleep).

I'm not doubting the value of resistance and community solidarity, and I understand the concept of Just Transition, but we mustn't forget the huge human costs (for current and future generations) of such polluting industries. Romanticism's easy.

Rose, you're talking nonsense and nobodies romanticising anything. This is a class war, the capitalist state versus the people. To quote the old song (search 4 it on You TUbe) "Whose Side are you on"?

Arthur, is that the capitalist state that is subsidising the miners that you are talking about, or the one beating them up?!

And you may call what I said green bullshit, but what I'm talking about is a future for all, including the miners.

So who's side are you on!!

Rose, you step outside of the motor of history by imposing your utopian romantic position in a completely innappropriate way on the class war. Unless you choose sides and clearly identify with the oppressed your position allies itself with the bosses and you become the class enemy. These are the facts of the matter.

The class war is ongoing and there is no 'nice future for all' till the political & boss classes are dumped into the dustbin of history (in case you missed it they own and rule the world and have fucked it up, they will not give it up without a fight).

no more romantic utopian green bullshite please.

Hi, I am the guy who is actually posting all the updates about the conflict.

I do agree in the fact that under the current circumstances our support must be on the side of the miners BUT, that does not imply that we should not be critical with the many flaws this conflict indeed bears. The environmental one is very real. Being not a miner myself but coming from a family of peasants it always struck me as very sad to see the river in my village literally dark with shit because of the mining pits washing the coal on it. In central Asturias many rivers, including the two major ones along which the main mining pits are located (Rivers Caudal and Nalon) has suffered the destructive impact of mining activities and other industries for over a century.

In other order of things the conflict indeed has a lot of flaws that must be criticised in the most dialectical way. For example, the fact that the main trade unions still control the workers and remained unchallenged (although this is also changing lately). Mainstream unions in Spain have been nefarious for the working people. Nearly everybody hates them and recognise in them more the structure of some sort of bureaucratic mafia than a proper Union. They are among the main responsibles of the poor conditions the Spanish workers find themselves now a days after having sign one "labour reform" with the bosses after the other for the last 30 years... now they are afraid of becoming useless as a n instrument of the state and capitalism and so stage a massive spectacle aimed at recovering at least a minimal degree of credibility. THIS IS ALSO TRUE.

However there is no doubt the miners are figthing with their best intentions, an increading number of them trying to challenge UGT and CCOO as much as they can, and displaying a level of tactical prowess unseen in any part of the country (and big chunks of Europe with the exception of Greece I'm afraid) for a long time. They are showing us that if we organise well and overcome fear, the sky is the limit. It is doable, the state and capitalism can be overthrwon.

I do not doubt the side Rose is in and I totally understand her concern.

Good luck to everyone...

AND FUCK THE OLYMPICS!!

Rose does not have a point. There IS a worldwide environmental crisis, but this struggle is a veryveryveryvery small part of it <.0001%. Trying to tie in utopian Green issues into the political economic battle between workers and bosses is nonsense.

Where the miners have lost before the worldwide struggles for liberation are not better off as a result, and therefore the answer is not handwringing nonsense about how 'we should save the world man'. It is in the real direct struggles for better futures that the future can be at all influenced, and anything else, is batting for the other side.

Thanks Mohawk, for your comment and also for posting news on UK Indymedia.

It's exciting to read about militant resistance against the way things are - we need more of that.


Arthur - it's not utopian to wish a sustainable work future for miners, and us all, which doesn't contribute to the 300,000 a year who directly die from climate change. Yes, I said DIE, a fact you seem to be happy with ignoring. That's far worse than neutral!

I'm not hand-wringing, nor saying "save the world, man". That's just in your head.

> It is in the real direct struggles for better futures that the future can be at all influenced, and anything
> else, is batting for the other side.

So you're saying people struggling for a continued 301 million euro subsidy (which the Spanish state wants to cut to 111m) to the coal industry (no such subsidy is available for renewables) which will kill their children, and is today killing people on the other side of the planet, is the side you're on?!

It's actually more complex, isn't it. Sigh. I give up.