Off to Spain, then. I can just remember fascist Spain under Franco in the early 1970s - desperate poverty, asses carrying goods rather than the Commer vans that we had, wrinkled grannies in black doing dreadful things to children, fear and religious superstition, the secret police, and Franco's victims uneasy in their hidden graves. We had 10cc, Suzi Quattro and Genesis. They had torture. It was a third-world fascist shithole. Growing-up seeing the depths of degradation that far-right zealotry could bring to a European people, Spain left me with a lifelong hatred of fascism, far right authoritarianism, the racial purity nutters, the National Front (in those days) and anyone who wanted to control what I did with my own willie. I cheered when Franco died.
Years later, in the Easyjet age, I saw the forensic tents over pieces of undeveloped scrubland beyond the city boundaries, exhuming the victims of Franco's death squads before the pile-drivers moved in to buid new apartments or industrial sheds. The sight moved me beyond words, and cemented my loathing of fascism.
Now Franco's raddled corpse itself is to be removed from Valle de los Caídos, a vast egoistic memorial to Franco and the unknown rapist. Well, good. Except, as politico-eu reports, the fascists are still with us, protesting at the desecration of their saint. At least it seems that the lady-fascists shave their pits these days, or perhaps the boy-fascist to her right is hiding her pit-hair under his nose? Hey ho.
27 comments:
Radders
It seems unbelievable that within living memory such obscenities were being practiced on our doorstep.
And yet there are plenty who would imply that the mere fact of being a brexiteer puts you in the same moral corner as Franco.
Here in Italy there are skeins of Mussolini-ism, still amongst otherwise decent intelligent-seeming people. Of course Mussolini lacked the intensity of evil that was incarnate in Franco and Hitler, and having achieved considerable feats of inustrialising Italy in the interwar period, threw it away through his stupidity, narcissism and ignorance. And came to a suitably sticky end.
More than occasional idiotic comments about Mussolini, the concern here is nasty outfits like Casa Pound. Fortunately the populist gvernment the Italians seem to have managed to elect for themselves should act as a safety valve for the more extreme tendencies, a phenomenon that Merkel for one ought to have had the sense to realise.
Cuffleyburgers - Nail. Head.
Yep - suppressing, demeaning, belittling and undermining legitimate popular concerns just feeds the dark-net goblins. British people are genuinely liberal, tolerant and pragmatic - but don't block the safety valves, as pressure will just continue to build and it gives the fascists space to grow.
You can see this development around the world. The so-called liberals are still blaming the voters for Trump, Brexit and any other "populist" (I hate that word) uprisings. If a government doesn't genuinely address majority concerns and continues to plough on with doctrines that have no effect whatsoever on the rule makers, then they shouldn't be at all surprised when Trump wins and the UK votes to leave the EU. Shock, horror!! How did that happen?
Spain? Well as the saying goes, "the ghost of old Franco is never far away". And the practices of other EU countries in very recent memory, leaves a lot to be desired.
I have just written to our PM - "Consider, if the government doesn't act on the will of the people why should the people act on the will of the government?"
I expect that writing that makes me a far-right extremist and equivalent to a religiously-inspired truck driver or bomber.
Most wise, Radders.
Your feelings about Spain/Franco mirror mine with Germany and especially when I hear the crypto-fascists of the AfD talking (there's a difference between 'populist' and ' fascist' despite what the German MSM would have us believe -who btw described that 'pro Trump' march in London the other day as having 'joined with a right wing extremist march').
Before you get too overwhelmed by emotion Radders you would do well to remember that fascism IS socialism and that Franco was one more manifestation of the evil genie unleashed by that sack of shite Karl Marx. Musso was after all the Golden Boy of Italian Marxism before he decided to found his own cult. Nor did he leave his roots far behind.
And the economic ravings of most "fascists" could have been written by the British Labour ( and these days BluLabour too) Party.
I used to say "without the antisemitism" " but even that is no longer true.
So be keeping your powder dry for real enemies not worrying about the 4000 strong BNP or some bunch of Spanish silly cows enjoying a numbnuts photo opportunity.
And you can fuck off Ketch.
If not wanting your country filled with stabby, rapey 3rd worlders--as a prelude to being taken over completely once they out-import and outbreed us helped on by our taxes --makes you a "fascist"--then so fucking be it.
Go tell your whining to the 17 year old Norwegian lad who was working in a Co-Op in a tiny town in the far Norwegian north. It is permanent sunshine up there now but the youth won't be seeing the Sun's ray's ever again because he was stabbed to death by another 40 year old adolescent imported from Stabistan.
as a prelude to being taken over completely once they out-import and outbreed us helped on by our taxes makes you a "fascist"--then so fucking be it. Mr Ecks
Import and outbreed? You mean like rats? https://rheinischepostleserbriefe.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/ratten-ewiger-jude.jpg
Whilst the AfD and to some extent the CSU take the danger of Islamification seriously at least, it tends to slide into 'the old ways' far too easily -an ever present risk that perhaps is unique to those countries which have had a virulently fascist government in the past.
I thought Franco was fighting the communists. I feel that if Spain had fallen to the communists, they would have a far worse fate, and for longer.
DP111
Thank God I have never directly experienced Fascism, Nazism or Communism. Like Mr Ecks I regard all of these ideologies as variants of socialism. Partly that is because of the experiences of my parents, my in-laws, and older work colleagues who had been soldiers during WW2. I have got to the age where I feel the urge to pass on what I know from my own forebears. So I feel no compunction in imposing on you.
One of my father's WW2 jobs was a PoW Commandant in East Africa in the Gulf of Aden area and the Ogaden. The PoWs were Italian. Most opposed or disagreed with Mussolini, but he said there was a hard core of 10% - 20% who were as dangerous as the Germans. This was an area where the Fascist Italians recruited local tribes to inflict terror by torture, including flaying, and murder. Some of Europe's current crop of immigrants appear to originate from that area.
I have previously written about my father-in-law who escaped Katyn by impersonating a private and so was incarcerated in the USSR's Gulag for two years. He and his comrades were secured by Churchill, and fought in General Anders Polish army at Monte Cassino. He and his daughter (now my wife) returned to Poland a few times, as soon as he secured British citizenship, so she has direct knowledge of how a communist state works.
I met and talked with many ex-soldiers when I started work. They were veterans of WW2 (fighting against Italians, Germans, and Japanese) and the Malayan Emergency. Those who suffered the most were the least talkative. No wonder those men wanted a staid peaceful country, something many baby boomers failed to understand.
No, I will not joining in the fashionable establishment frisson of denouncing fascism as though it was unique - evil creeps up on us in many guises. Religion can be evil, but godless ideologies have no restraint at all.
Ok. so franco was a shit but he kept them out of a world war, stopped communism destroying another country and as for the graves, for every fascist one there is a grave full of murdered priests,teachers,businessmen and everyday folk right next door courtesy of the left.
Ketch--I don't need to look at your link. I think it is likely the Nazi film with Peter Lorre in "M" and swarming rats.
If you think that in anyway equates with my remarks about being "out-breed" you are scum.
The average British woman has one kid or one or more abortions by the time she is 40. Our dear guests start at 16 (or sooner) and have nearly two generations for our one. And have up to four women in tow. A receipe for trouble in this country/culture--but peace is kept by culture endorsed male violence in others. Of course a white bloke with four wives would be in jail. Which is why the RoP's marriages should be recognised as UK equivalent and put under UK law.
So yes outbreed is correct.
Points taken, all - you're quite right, fascists don't have a monopoly on these kinds of evils. But if the Libertarian course I try to steer annoys the ideologues of the far left and far right equally I guess I must generally be going in the right direction.
I loathe Nye Bevan every bit as much as Franco - he was a gulag apologist, who defended Stalin in the House long after the facts of the Holodomor were known here. I wish we'd dig him up as well - and throw what's left into London's sewers.
To Mr Ecks: "fascism IS socialism"
I disagree. There can be right wing Fascists and left wing Fascists. Franco, the Hungarian Fascists, Pinochet and the Assad family are examples of right wing Fascists. Mussolini was the classic left wing one, and there are plenty more.
The distinguishing feature of Fascism is the belief that violence is the best solution to most problems. This goes with extreme authoritarianism.
Don Cox
Don Cox--"The distinguishing feature of Fascism is the belief that violence is the best solution to most problems. This goes with extreme authoritarianism."
Socialism has murdered 150 million human beings and ruined the lives of hundreds millions more.
Your beliefs are incorrect.
JK's casual equation of the AfD with fascist tendencies is par for the course social-democrat smearing. And he claims to be au fait with Germany... England could do with an AfD equivalent right now - and/or invite Matteo Salvini to start an English Lega. Let's face it, the Tories and Labour are so contemptible they need to be put down.
To Mr Ecks:
I was talking about Fascism, not socialism. Not all socialists have been Fascists, although many have -- obvious examples being the evil trio of Stalin, Hitler and Mao. Neither Clement Attlee nor Harold Wilson, for examples, were Fascists.
Nor again are all right wing rulers Fascists.
Fascism is independent of Left-Right. It is about how to rule, not about economic or social policies.
Don Cox
Wilson/Atlee were milk and water socialists--more out of the Christian Socialist tradition. But they still believed at base all the same shite they all do. The fact that decency won out in them rather than the naked evil of the creed is merely a circumstance.
Trusting your and your loved ones to circs and personalities would be the mark of a supreme fool. Let the cult be ended for good in all its forms.
That way we won't need to worry.
What is is apparent is once fascist dictatorship collapses, the country is quick to recover. Not just the economy, but its soul.
Now look at ex-communist states - Russia for instance. The communists killed 40 million of their own, +/- 10 million. The country was and still is a wreck. Its agriculture, culture, and economy wrecked. So to the environment, as the land is still disfigured by poisonous chemicals of all kinds including nuclear. But worse, so demoralising is the state that communists leave a country in, the birth rate falls.
If Franco stopped the communists, he did the Spanish a huge favour. So too the now reviled Tito.
DP111
Italy too was ruled by a "fascist" dictator. But like Franco, Mussolini did not cold bloodedly murder tens of millions of his countrymen, on the basis of some ideological theoretical excercise that called for the extinction of any group that was designated a hate group, fpr achieving a communist defined utopia.
Italy soon recovered once Mussolini's rule collapsed.
DP111
@DP111
After the fall of communism there wasn't exactly a rush to assist in the rebuilding of Russia and it's economy/infrastructure by the West. Quite the contrary - they took every opportunity to increase the internal distress of that country in the hope that it would collapse entirely and be 'easy meat' for the avaricious West.
Given the global reticence (made entirely worse by American sanctions against anyone who wanted to trade with Russia) the Russians have done remarkably well to get where they are and would be a vastly more powerful and wealthy country sans all the underhand dealing to limit their growth.
Even now, the American MIC will accuse Trump of being a traitor for trying to prevent the potential for conflict instead of giving the MIC the opportunity for increased sales and the prospect of more deaths.
Yes, communism is abhorrent but the aftermath of any fallen political construct is heavily dependent on how the rest of the world accepts/adopt/rejects what's put in place to replace it. Russia isn't as backwards as people may believe - you need to see the state of many areas of America to make a judgement.
Hmm, Radders, A lot of people tend to forget the Ustashi:
https://dirkdeklein.net/2016/06/16/ustase-the-fascists-that-made-the-nazis-look-like-boyscouts/
These "isms" are all essentially the same thing. The methods of punishing non-compliance differ but that is about it.
The thread that is common to all is mass authoritarianism. The NHS is a beautiful example of an ism... We mustn't dare question the reality, but the concept has turned all of us from independent citizen to slave citizen.
The joy of sex determines that some of us have an independent mind (leavers) and some of us look to a higher authority (remainers).
We are already slave staters, it is just a matter of degree, but essentially there will always be fantasists who think that a civil service career is equivalent to being Mother Teresa. The reality is that they have to be fed and they suffer from all of the contradictions and weaknesses that we all do, and as a result never give value for money. Neither are they are ascetics.
I just wish that we would pay more attention to the idea that natural human instincts can not be removed.
The animal kingdom (other than pets and farm animals) do not discuss such things and do not suffer from the problems that we do.
Individual, family, tribe, village or town, nation, region.
If we organised around the first three, the rest would take care of itself.
Ah, RW, you won't find any disagreement from me ..
"To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country, and to mankind."
Right-writes, Well said. As Dr Johnson intimated, you can tell who is a scoundrel by his lack of patriotism.
Indeed, RW, Radders, and Budgie.
Maybe our Scots-Irish brethren have it right, here?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iP27eatYxE
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