Posted on 09/28/2020 7:07:01 PM PDT by marshmallow
An entirely self-imposed handicap.
Sure - as it is all over Western Europe (and here now as well).
Sorry!
I watched a documentary of the siege of the Alcazar in Toledo early in the war; it described “international” fighters traveling there from Madrid, taking a few shots at the fortress while posing for pictures, then returning to Madrid. It stood for months until Franco arrived from the south to relieve them, and was a real indicator as to the eventual outcome a couple of years later.
When Franco was asked if rescuing the troops and civilians there might jeopardize taking Madrid, he responded that he had promised them he’d relieve them, and it was very important to show the enemy that when the Nationalists put their minds to an objective there was nothing the left could do to stop them. It was a slow, slogging war but in the end, he was correct; the communists rarely took any new territory, and were just slowly ground down. The southern and northern Nationalist forces linked up in 1936, the Basque country fell a year later, in 1938 the Nationalists cut the republic in two - and there was nothing the communists could do to stop any of it.
Nowadays, the problem is that the globalist policies of the last three decades destroyed the political base that Reagan and Thatcher relied on. Trumpian populism aims to remedy that by creating a new political coalition to defeat the Left's identity politics and lifestyle radicalism.
Those paying close attention recognize that Trump's efforts deeply resonate throughout the Western world because the ill effects of globalism are spread widely and evoke similar responses across national boundaries. So far, Ireland though seems to remain deeply ensnared by globalist thinking.
Ireland seems resigned globalism because like many of the smaller EU countries it can’t compete without being part of a larger bloc.
Socialism in Europe (and now in the US) has one trademark that dooms it: The birthrate of people paying such high taxes is very low, so the model is unsustainable.
All too true. And the Irish liked the subsidies provided by the EU.
That was a real problem; they took thirty pieces of silver to develop their infrastructure, and in relatively short order legalized divorce, “gay marriage”, and abortion. They lost their independence and their souls.
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