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Forums - Politics Discussion - Spanish mayor fights austerity by stealing from grocery stores

This is an interesting one, to say the least

A Spanish mayor who became a cult hero for staging supermarket robberies and giving stolen groceries to the poor on Thursday began a three-week march that looks set to embarrass the government and energize anti-austerity campaigners. 

Juan Manuel Sanchez Gordillo, regional lawmaker and mayor of the town of Marinaleda -- population 2,645 -- in the southern region of Andalusia, said food stolen last week in the robberies went to families hit hardest by Spain's economic crisis. 

About 1,000 marchers set out from the town of Jodar - the town with Andalusia's highest unemployment rate - intending to walk across the region in blistering summer heat to persuade other local leaders to refuse to comply with government reforms, deputy mayor Esperanze Saavedra told NBC News.

"We want the government to be sensitive to us and think more about those who are suffering than about the banks," Saavedra said.

He plans to tell mayors to skip debt payments, stop layoffs, cease home evictions and ignore central government demands for budget cuts, a message that infuriates Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government as it tries to convince investors in Spanish bonds that he can fix the battered economy. 


Sanchez Gordillo and those working with him say they wants to draw attention to the human face of Spain's economic mess - poverty levels have risen by over 15 percent since 2007, a quarter of workers are jobless and tens of thousands have been evicted from their homes.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/16/13310581-spains-robin-hood-mayor-on-march-sparks-outrage-after-supermarket-heists?lite



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

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kowenicki said:
Spanish local politics..... Just about the most corrupt there is.

Oh, let's go with the topics just from the beggining!

Do you know anything about that man? Or why did he do that?

¡Inglés tenías que ser! **sighs** 

Oh, and just to be clear, I didn't know anything about this man until the events happened, nor I know why that happened (other than maybe put pressure to the government that was still debating the renewal of a mesure that helps people that have been without a job for a long time), but I do know that he didn't stole anything.

Yes, as a member of the union that did that, he was one of the instigators and he even went to that store, but he didn't take an active part in it simply because he didn't enter in there.



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kowenicki said:
Spanish local politics..... Just about the most corrupt there is.

While the truth is that the majority of the spanish politics are corrupt, and said corruption is the ultimate cause of the economical problems in Spain (even more than the housing bubble), I don't know anything about him or why he did it (popularity? or maybe he's one of the few politicians that actually cares abut the people?).

Right now things look really bad for people in Spain.

 





Player2 said:
kowenicki said:
Spanish local politics..... Just about the most corrupt there is.

While the truth is that the majority of the spanish politics are corrupt, and said corruption is the ultimate cause of the economical problems in Spain (even more than the housing bubble), I don't know anything about him or why he did it (popularity? or maybe he's one of the few politicians that actually cares abut the people?).

Right now things look really bad for people in Spain.

 


If he's stealing (or endorsing/condoning stealing) from a business  (which already has to go through a tonne of shit in the Spanish/European taxation/regulatory code) to give to others... he only cares about a certain group of people.



kowenicki said:
Spanish local politics..... Just about the most corrupt there is.

i live in chicago!



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Congrats.

What happens to the poor farmers that raised the crops? How will they get paid to continue to farm since the crops were stolen at the stores? How will the stores recoup the stolen cash?

That kind of mentality is exactly why they have a near-25% unemployment rate. For being the smartest continent, they sure do have a lot of economically impaired leaders.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

mrstickball said:
Congrats.

What happens to the poor farmers that raised the crops? How will they get paid to continue to farm since the crops were stolen at the stores? How will the stores recoup the stolen cash?

That kind of mentality is exactly why they have a near-25% unemployment rate. For being the smartest continent, they sure do have a lot of economically impaired leaders.

I don't think it's meant to be a long-term thing. It's not the act itself so much as what it symbolizes: screw the rules, care about people. The bigger thing is his efforts to convince local governments to ignore debt repayments and not lay people off, or as he said "to think about those who are suffering more than about the banks."

Not to say that theft is ever justified, but the protest is more important.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

Spain is a mess
and is full of hicks
Politics are a joke,
they convince people to vote for them with dirty tricks, and they win elections, after winning, they favor the companies they form part of, or supported them in the beggining
theres no democracy, its just idiots getting brainwashed, and politics stealing wealth from the people

but its no different from most countries in the world...sadly :(



The mayor of Marinaleda is the only honest politician in Spain, he fights for the rights of the low class
Marinaleda is like a little paradise in a rotten apple



kitler53 said:
kowenicki said:
Spanish local politics..... Just about the most corrupt there is.

i live in chicago!

What a lucky-duck you're! (No, seriously, I love Chi-City!)

Errrrr... can't he just, you know, demand groceries for the poor instead of doing this? xD