Puerta del Sol, protests May 22 相簿

I went to Madrid in part because I wanted to see these ongoing protests for myself. Let no one say this was a mob; it was a functioning anarchist community, with distribution of food, security, even cleanup crews. I don't believe in every slogan I saw here -- but it is wonderful to see people reclaiming a town square as a place to discuss the issues of the day. The main activity was simply reading all the messages plastered on every surface; some radical, some witty, some revolutionary. Everyone from young people to grandmothers was engaged in consuming or producing messages, outside the mass media system. I never got close enough to photograph my favorite slogan, written in English: "SPAIN IS NOT A BUSINESS. WE ARE NOT SLAVES." And they love the interwebs. Facebook pages and Twitter hashtags are everywhere, as are references to "rebooting the system", "upgrading the system" and more. If you thought the internet was producing a generation of passive mouse potatoes, it seems not. They instead seem to be learning to expect systems that are more transparent, more flexible, more efficient, and more personal.