by When Class Consciousness Meets Cloud Formation
In a stunning display of ideological commitment that even Karl Marx might find excessive, Spanish Marxists have begun protesting the weather, declaring sunshine a tool of capitalist oppression and rain a manifestation of bourgeois privilege. The movement, which started in Barcelona and has spread to dozens of cities, represents either revolutionary fervor taken to its logical extreme or a collective mental breakdown disguised as political activism.
The protests began when theoretical physicist and part-time revolutionary Carlos Mendoza published a 847-page manifesto titled “Meteorological Hegemony: How Weather Patterns Reinforce Class Structures.” The document argues that good weather disproportionately benefits the wealthy, who can afford beach houses and outdoor cafes, while poor people are stuck experiencing weather “in an exploitative context of labor.” The manifesto has been praised by seven other Marxist theoreticians and ignored by everyone else on Earth.
Protesters gathered in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol last Tuesday, shaking their fists at the sky and chanting “The clouds are not our comrades!” One demonstrator, philosophy student Marina López, explained the movement’s logic while holding a sign reading “Seize the Means of Precipitation”: “When it rains, the rich stay dry in their luxury apartments while workers get wet waiting for buses. This is weather apartheid.”
The movement has developed an elaborate theoretical framework that would impress scholars if it weren’t completely insane. According to their analysis, warm temperatures encourage outdoor consumption at capitalist establishments, while cold weather forces workers into climate-controlled shopping malls, creating what they call “thermal coercion into consumerism.” One particularly dedicated activist has written a dissertation arguing that wind patterns are “literally blowing class consciousness away from the proletariat.”
Spanish meteorologists have responded with a mixture of confusion and concern. “We just predict the weather,” said Dr. Elena Ruiz from Spain’s National Weather Service. “We don’t control it, we can’t change it, and we certainly aren’t part of some capitalist conspiracy involving atmospheric pressure.” According to official meteorological data, weather has been happening regardless of economic systems for approximately 4.5 billion years, but protesters dismiss this as “bourgeois science.”
The protests have taken various creative forms, including “revolutionary rain dances” designed to redistribute precipitation more equitably, and “solidarity sunbathing sessions” where participants lie in the sun while reading Marx, thus “reclaiming good weather for the working class.” One group attempted to unionize clouds, sending demands into the sky via helium balloons that read “Fair wages for fair weather.” The clouds did not respond, possibly because they are clouds.
The Spanish government initially ignored the protests, assuming they would dissolve once participants realized they were yelling at atmospheric phenomena. However, the movement has gained unexpected momentum, with branches forming across Europe. French Marxists have begun protesting “elitist sunshine,” while German communists declare that “fog is fascist.” According to European political analysts, this represents either a new frontier in leftist activism or evidence that too much political theory causes brain damage.
Critics of the movement, including more traditional leftists, have suggested that perhaps Spanish Marxists should focus on actual class issues rather than atmospheric conditions beyond human control. These critics were immediately denounced as “weather collaborators” and “sunshine sellouts.” One protester explained, “If we can’t change the weather through collective action, what’s even the point of revolutionary politics?” to which several economists responded, “Literally changing economic systems, that’s the point.”
The protests reached peak absurdity last week when demonstrators demanded the Spanish government “nationalize the sun” and “redistribute UV rays according to need.” The government’s official response was a single sentence: “That’s not how any of this works.” Undeterred, protesters announced plans to escalate their demands, potentially including requirements that rain apologize for its class bias and that temperature be democratically voted on each morning.
As the movement continues to baffle observers, traditional Marxist scholars have distanced themselves from the weather protests, with one prominent theorist stating, “Marx wanted to change the world, not yell at it for being cloudy.” The protesters responded by accusing him of “betraying revolutionary meteorological consciousness,” proving that no ideology is immune to being taken to its most ridiculous extreme.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/marxists-in-spains-protest-weather/
SOURCE: Marxists in Spain Protest Weather (Aisha Muharrar)
