http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/228021-baltasar-garzon-judge-dock Today, the Falangist Spanish Team (originally FET & JONS, Traditional Falangist Spanish Offensive National-Sindicalyst Joint) has won the trial against the spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, who was investigating the crimes of the fascist regime of Franco, plus the corruption in the Valencian Country and doing an endless fight against ETA terrorist, and the judging against Pinochet and the argentinan crimes. It seems like he could defeat GAL, ETA, Pinochet and Videla, but seems that Franco has won once again, like always in this country. Fascist are untouchable. Anyway, another big hit for our "democracy".
Yes, it exists as Falange Española, Las JONS and as the Partido Tradicionalista, it has a quite big and growing neo-franquist base, with the biggest group being España 2000.
wow... I guess living in Barcelona kind of skews your vision of Spanish politics as everybody there seemed to be very left-wing or even communist... amazing. By the way, "deceased" is not the right word here, I'm sure
Actually "fascist" is the wrong word technically. Although totalitarian his regime tried to keep the old values (selectively even) instead of introducing new progressive ones. He was an asshole no doubt though. Also, I was under the assumption the most people disliked Franco's actions and the history books had been written to reflect this reality, no? Are there still pro-franco folks? what's their age group/locale/political affiliation usually?
Yes, technically fascist is a wrong word. Technically, we should talk about a post-war militar-captillist national-sindicalyst falangist autocratycal government, in the 50's and 60's about a traditionalist, conservative catolical-nationalist government, and in the 70's about an organical / corporativist democracy. But the truth is that in all of those years public liberty, press liberty, expression liberty, speaking in general terms, the freedom of the spanish inhabitants, was compeltely forgotten. I'd would be able to tell loads of histories about what I'm saying, since civil war to the 80's. The idea of a conservative government was nothing more than a quite well done face for the outsiders. The actual internal scene haden't changed much over all the years. The bases of the governmental power were, until the late seventies, still the military, the eclesiastycal powers, and the Movimiento, the main ideologycal base of the franquist government. The Movimiento Nacional was the idiologycal support of the government, it was the base of what every Spanish citizen had to be: - Catholical roman apostholical, a non catholical or atheist was not an Spanish person, as the franquist law said. - Follower of the Movimiento, being it the comprehension of the political, idelogical and sindicalyst ideas of corporativism and falangism. The Movimiento was the main method of adoctrinating the society. It was teachen since the first years of school education: the submision to the leader (Franco, Great General of the Spanish Empire thanks to the Grace of God), the traditional ideas of the inferiority of women, people from other races, the hate to anarchist, communist, social and republican, the submission to the statements which were in a higher possition than you (being the most near one your father, then your teachers, etc, etc, until arriving to the Great General), etc. The Movimiento HAD to be followed, many, many institutions were created for the only thing of checking that it was correctly followed. The national anthem had to be sung before the start of a school day, before the opening of the university, before the start of a police patrol, etc. Any show of support to democracy, socialism, liberalism, communism, anarchism, catalan, euskeran or galician nationalist, etc, was quickly taken down, usually with tortures (most used way of getting the information for dissolving those groups), and death sentences were done until the mid 70's for ideological reasons. Be it technically whatever or not, it wasn't what many story books tend to say, for the good or the bad. And yes, there is some people who still support franco. Not as much as in the 70's and 80's, but still a quite big number of people who OPENLY support him. There are groups as Falange Española, Unión Tradicionalista, JONS, CEDA, etc, with quite marginal percentages of people on there, and the group España 2000 which, sadly, has quite a big number of members and the support, and for example, in my city they always go to hit the socialist, liberal, nationalist or anarchist people in concentrations for whatever reason, under the approving look of police (last time was a concentration for claiming the stop of the demolition of a classical and very important culturally-wise neighborhood for the construction of offices and such, and when the local govt was bored of us, including liberal and socialist goverment deputies, those fuckers just had to come for having everyone run from a legally convocated concentration, with the police's approval watching how we had to run from those damn neo-nazi...). Most of those people is in a 20-50 range, but those are again, the ones who are nowdays (XXI century) recognising it. Most of the conservative politicians were active members of falangist assault groups until the 80's or so, when all of them saw that under the democracy they would have a way more clear path...
It sucks, I been following this for a while and I've to say that Spain really dissapointed me. Unlike the countries in Latin America, Spain got a lot of help, both financially and politically from the EU. In comparison the US doesnt give a fuck about Mexico, Argentina or anyone south of the border, and the "intervention" the government did in Chile was just awful. That scum like this continues to exist is a big problem, specially considering in the near future Spain could go down as hard as Greece did, propelling these idiots back into the stage. Anyways, last time I was in Barcelona I went into book shop and they were selling Mein Kampf right there in the open. It wasnt banned, nor was anyone offended by it...
I am dissapointed of Spain, spaniards are dissapointed of Spain. And what you know from the outside, unless you actually know Spanish and check our press, is probably just a tiny leftover of what really happens over there. Everything in this country is just a fucking huge joke, our politicians just laugh their ass of on our faces and no one cares, why? Because most people alredy know that in this country, whatever you do won't do any change at all, and if you do and try to succeed, get prepared because you are fucked up. Do you know one of the reasons why has been this judge deceased? Because franquist can't be thouched by the justice because of a law created in the late 70's. Thanks to that lovely fact now we have politicians who were politicians with Franco, and the ex-Minister of Own Affers just left politics three or so years ago... And yes, of course that Mein Kampf is completely allowed over here. Welcome to Spain.
That bald fucker at the front looks like a nazi version of mr.potato. What I found troubling about spain is the xenophobia against foreign-born spaniards coming from other spaniards. I've seen how, ironically, the sons of the spaniards that escaped civil war, poverty and went to live in latin america in the last century are now going back to spain for roughly the same reasons. This contrasts with the way the spanish immigrants were received in those countries decades ago, and its just too fucked up when you consider that spain like the rest of europe has a natality deficit and serious problems with illegal immigration from african and middle east countries. To reject whats essentially their own blood seems ridiculous to me, considering that getting their own people back is the best possible solution for depopulation.
We don't use to like extrangers, but not only of other countries, Spain is a unity-forced country with five or so countries inside it, and there is a lot of xenophobia specially from Spanish to Catalan and Basque (I'm Catalan myself).
Yes I know, but if you think about it so is much of europe, so is kinda stupid that people sticks to such archaic conceptions at this time. I mean look at the balkans, see how much that helps...
Yes, well, one has to live for many years in this country to understand it... And if I went to live to another country inside Spain I'd probably take some time to adapt, so imagine how hard is the Spanish situation to explain to foreigners... xD
