Posted on 06/18/2018 5:23:43 PM PDT by BBell
Madrid (AFP) - Spain's new Socialist government is determined to remove the remains of Francisco Franco from a vast mausoleum near Madrid and turn it into a place of "reconciliation" for a country still coming to terms with the dictator's legacy.
"We don't have a date yet, but the government will do it," Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said late Monday during his first television interview since being sworn in on June 2 after toppling his conservative predecessor Mariano Rajoy in a confidence vote.
He recalled that a non-binding motion approved last year in parliament called for Franco's remains to be exhumed from the massive Valley of the Fallen mausoleum some 50 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of Madrid and the site turned into a "memorial of the victims of fascism".
"Spain can't allow symbols that divide Spaniards. Something that is unimaginable in Germany or Italy, countries that also suffered fascist dictatorships, should also not be imaginable in our country," Sanchez added.
Earlier on Monday Socialist party spokesman Oscar Puente said the mausoleum should be transformed into a "place of reconciliation, of memory, for all Spaniards, and not of apology for the dictatorship."
Franco ruled Spain with an iron fist from the end of the country's 1936-39 civil war until his death in 1975, when he was buried inside a basilica drilled into the side of a mountain at the Valley of the Fallen, one of Europe's largest mass graves.
Built by Franco's regime between 1941 and 1959 -- in part by the forced labour of political prisoners -- in the granite mountains of the Sierra de Guadarrama, the monument holds the remains of more than 30,000 dead from both sides of the civil war, which was triggered by Franco's rebellion against an elected Republican government.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
The communists have gone full on destruction of anything historical to rewrite history to make them the winners.
Correction. Sam Adams.
Thanks to Vladimir Putin and his loyalists in the West (plus some horrid precedents set by our own F.D.R during the war) the horrors and atrocities of Stalin and the Soviets have been overshadowed (and in some cases justified) by Stalinist Russia's contributions to the Allied efforts against Hitler.
from what I read, there were many splinter groups pulling Spain apart when Franco stepped in...he did literally bring the country together...
Yup.
“Spain’s new government to remove Franco’s remains from mausoleum”
What, they have American democrats there?
“The communists have gone full on destruction of anything historical to rewrite history to make them the winners.”
- Not just current communist states like China, but former ones like Russia. It does a huge disservice to their people from moving forward and a huge disservice to humanity as a whole. And it’s probably for this reason above all I really cannot stand their current governments.
“China gifts Marx statue to Germany on philosopher’s 200th birthday”
https://nypost.com/2018/05/05/china-gifts-marx-statue-to-germany-on-philosophers-200th-birthday/
“Putin: Communist ideology similar to Christianity, Lenin’s body like saintly relics”
https://www.rt.com/news/415883-putin-communist-ideology-christianity/
Spain is proof positive that leftist ideology leads to insanity.
OK since Ernest Hemingway is passed, who will write “For Whom the Bells Toll II?
I’ve read your post several times now, and it still doesn’t make sense to me. I’ll stop right there before I fall into the “mind-reading trap” that Scott Adams warns us about.
From where I sit, the people who are loudest in condemning Putin here in the US are the same people who are most likely to excuse Stalin’s crimes. Maybe that will give you a clue why I don’t understand your post.
There is a such thing as celebrating Stalin and his power — without adopting Marxist-Leninist economics. But who’s to say the difference? Look what Putin said in an interview in January when asked about Lenin’s body still being in open display in Red Square:
Putin: Communist ideology similar to Christianity, Lenin’s body like saintly relics
https://www.rt.com/news/415883-putin-communist-ideology-christianity/
Francisco Franco, who is still dead.
“If Franco had allowed Hitler in to seize Gibraltar, Hitler would have been able to bar Allied access to the Mediterranean.”
Laughable. It would have been like assaulting Iwo Jima. One, the nazis and Spanish had no capability to attack the rock, and you can’t starve them out either. But for fun, let’s imagine the blockheads and Spanish trying to assault the rock. What exactly to you think the Royal Navy might have gotten busy doing?
Nothing Franco could have done could have facilitated a Hitler victory. I mean nothing.
The Med was already a British lake. The Germans played hell trying to supply Africa. The Italian fleet was rusting on the bottom. The Germans could occasionally sneak a sub into the med here and there but it wasn’t easy. And those neutral Spanish bases the kraut subs used would have also faced the Royal Navy.
I’m not the world’s biggest fan of the Brits, but taking on the Royal Navy wasn’t in the cards for ANY European enemy.
All Franco could have done was get himself the same treatment the reich did.
EXACTLY. Hence his difficult, yet successful, resistance to Hitler’s entreaties for him to declare war on Britain not only saved British lives - but prevented Spain from being destroyed by the Allies.
Franco’s Spain was also still recovering from the devastating Civil War.
“He is absolutely one of the truly heroic figures..”
As an American, I’m not going to lionize an actual Fascist dictator just to spite a communist dictator/movement I hate just as much.
The real hero was Jun Carlos for putting an end to the strife.
“the people who are loudest in condemning Putin here in the US are the same people who are most likely to excuse Stalin’s crimes.”
I can’t make any sense of that. Are you seeing anyone who attacks Putin, but somehow likes Stalin? Maybe a few retired NKVD 90 year olds somewhere who think Putin is too soft or something. I haven’t seen anyone defend Stalin at FR in any case. You really don’t even see that in society at large. Even full on communists pretty much try to change the subject.
There is merry debate on Putin, but not Stalin.
For some odd reason, the communists I see apologetics for in US society are the brown ones like Che’, like Fidel, and oriental ones like Mao or Ho Chi Minh. They also still like the spanish republican cause, but not like in the old days on the 30s. Franco was no good, and was also a dirty monarchist. But the republican army organized by the NKVD was worse, just as horrific as being in the Red Army. A lot of Americans went there and became disillusioned when they experienced serving in the red army. They expected comradeship, utopianism, all the crap they heard back in the USA...etc. What they got was secret police, arrests, radical atheism and summary executions. Hemingway was one and was accused of betraying their cause for showing them as the mass murderers they were.
I’ve seen a lot of Mao and Che on DNC walls. Hillary dresses like Mao. But I’ve never seen a Stalin poster or T-shirt.
“Franco’s Spain was also still recovering from the devastating Civil War.”
Didn’t even consider that. Spain was in no shape to do anything right then. Good point.
Franco was no good, and was also a dirty monarchist.
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Thank God his forces won though. His ascendancy was only a temporary halting of Spain’s descent into cultural obliteration. Spain’s economic “recovery” is built on typical socialist thinking. They’ve had descent real GDP growth and low inflation since the last economic crisis, but their unemployment levels are a joke compared to the U.S. They still hover around 16% overall unemployment with a staggering 35% plus unemployment rate among Spanish youth.
Culturally, they’re as decadent as it comes. According to European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), Spain has among the highest rates of drug abuse in the EU. Pornography (including the forced “human trafficking kind and child version) is also a major industry there.
The way I look at it, if a nation is too slack to worry about God and morality, it deserves to go down the toilet.
Franco was 2% better than the Republicans. But too bad for Spain that they had to live under a tool like him for so long.
you said
Beyond disgusting. Franco saved the nation from - LITERALLY - being handed over to Stalin.
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But that is no where near my understanding of the situation. And I have done a considerable amount of study on the matter. In fact, I have even been to that exact church where Franco is buried and stood outside the red velvet rope that marks his burial site. And I have seen Spaniards move the pedestals that hold the rope over a few feet so they can “stand on his grave”.
As recently as 15 years ago Spain was deeply divided about whether Franco was good for that country. But he certainly was no Abraham Lincoln.
I believe he was a despicable, cruel and sadistic tyrant who was guilty of what are now called “war crimes”. He was able to make enough of a deal with the U.S. to ensure his autonomy.
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