Common Dreams reports
After months of massive flesh-and-blood protests against Spain's draconian new "gag law", deemed "the worst cut of rights and freedoms since the Franco regime", enterprising activists held the world's first virtual protest, with thousands of ghost-like figures marching before the Spanish Parliament to prove that holograms will soon have more freedom than people. Almost 100 groups organized the action under the monikers Hologramas Por La Libertad and No Somos Delito--We Are Not A Crime.
The controversial Citizen Safety Law, blasted by human rights groups since its approval in the Spanish Congress, is scheduled to take effect on July 1. Its oppressive measures [are essentially the] government's over-the-top response to widespread anti-austerity, pro-democracy protests known as the 15M. The law's three texts--The Penal Code, the new Anti-Terror Law, and the Law on Citizen Safety--ban and punish with heavy fines and/or jail a vast array of fundamental freedoms of expression and assembly.
[...]To many, the surreal hologram protests perfectly capture the Orwellian quality of the restrictions: In the new Spain, says one protester, "If you are a person, you can not express yourself freely--you can only do (that) if you become a hologram."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:10AM
Four boxes of liberty [wikipedia.org]
Soap, ballot, jury, ammo
You jumped the gun.
Podemos (Spanish political party) [wikipedia.org]
Give it 1 more election cycle and see if the really-pissed-off 99 Percenters of Spain don't take back their government.
-- gewg_
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:34AM
That's a nice meme you have there.
Soap: they ignore you, no matter what you say.
Ballot: your candidate loses, every single election.
Jury: you fail jury selection, are not allowed to serve.
Ammo: they fucking kill you, for being uppity.
ALL FOUR BOXES DO NOTHING
But please, continue repeating your worthless moronic meme, because you're not just full of shit, you are shit.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:39AM
Only violent revolt has ever changed anything.
The "boxes" are for you to tell them who their opposition is before hand (specific people they need to get rid of).
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:46AM
First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
Then you win.
Then you ignore them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by M. Baranczak on Tuesday April 14 2015, @05:03AM
Violent revolt usually changes things for the worse. It should be the last resort.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @05:24AM
In non-violent American elections, voting for Change only changes the president's skin color and nothing else.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday April 14 2015, @09:05AM
In non-violent American elections, voting for Change only changes the president's skin color and nothing else.
I think it did hasten the US's slide to an abject history lesson. That should be comforting to the people who think the US is the worstest problem in the world.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @10:52AM
Just remember who was on the other side of that election.
None of us had much of a choice in that election.
It was the frying pan or the fire.
Ok, this makes this post flamebait... the other guy, a one-percenter investment banker, was so bad people would rather have a ****** in office than have him in there.
In this case, we voted for the one who we felt would do the least amount of damage.
"None of the above" was not an option. If it was, I am quite confident it would have gotten 99% of the vote.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2015, @03:49AM
Then put someone worthwhile on the ballot. Yes, it takes work. Lots of work. It's easier to sit and bitch, which is what most people do, because to do otherwise is, well, hard work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @03:51AM
Here's the guy who wrote the book.
Unlike your childish opinions, he actually looked at the data.
His research says that non-violent protest succeeds about half the time.
If you use violence, your chances of success go to 1 in 4.
Gene Sharp, PhD [google.com]
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:02AM
Define succeed. Many peaceful protests go and go without any success. Just imagine how easy it would be to change things if all you had to do is protest a few times to get 90%+ confidence of success.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday April 14 2015, @09:06AM
Just imagine how easy it would be to change things if all you had to do is protest a few times to get 90%+ confidence of success.
And imagine how easy it would be to change things, if all you had to do was shoot a few people.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:54AM
Oh look, it's an appeal to Dr. Authority, PhD. Riding the shirttails of the successful in the hopes that success will rub off on you?
Follow the stupid trend: Success.
Disagree with stupid trend: Failure.
Mod trendy bullshitter up, up, up!