Another murder, this time in the working-class Poblenou district. Street fight got ugly and somebody stabbed somebody else. Dumbass Socialist mayor has stupid plan to turn Poblenou into "22nd district", high-tech area, convert warehouses to lofts, that kind of gentrification crap which only works if it isn't planned. So here's a letter to the editor from today's "20 minutos", which is a free paper they give away every morning.

Still recently shocked by the death of a youth of 17 years on my street for looking the wrong way at his girlfriend's ex, of 19 years, which led to a cold-blooded murder and then an attempt by several dozen people at a lynching, makes me wonder if the capitalist system that we have imported from the USA, which Aznar declares so much love for, isn't leading us to their errors.

If the precarious labor market and unemployment, development speculation, ultracompetition, crisis, frustration and the lack of future prospects are not leading the youths, and with them all of us (just look at the tension there is in sports stadiums, discos, and entertainment centers) to self-destruction in the forms of drugs and alcohol or, simply, the loss of values or the most primitive violence inherent in the neoliberal system itself. Is this the kind of society we aspire to? To all the political parties and government bodies who have supported the free market, welcome to the new 22nd district. Welcome to the Bronx.

Raül Landeras Alfonso
Barcelona

Looks like if some punk stabs some other punk in a brawl in a Barcelona slum and the locals try to lynch him, it's America's fault.