Posted on 03/16/2006 5:02:26 AM PST by Cannoneer No. 4
LOL! Yeah, yeah, yeah... so what?
Lindbergh was the most famous celebrity on the face of the planet at the time..
He collected awards and trinkets whereever he went...
Nowadays, the only idiots who are dumb enough to believe that "Lindbergh was a Nazi" crap are the fringe lunatic neomarxists, and even THAT is pretty much restricted to those who are perpetual victims of homosexuality.
LOL! Post that crap all you want... it says a lot more about YOU than it does me!!!
%%%%%
People just did not want to open their eyes to this fact. Even though we human beings go through examinations Before we get on an airplane - not when we get off the plane. DPW bought the contracts to handle "baggage" and thought that they could do it efficiently enough to earn a profit.
Would a dirty bomb exploded at a gate close the gate or the entire airport?
This could happen anywhere today, without any particular ownership of any area. Yesterday a 150ft barge loaded with rock broke away from its moorings in the Severn River near Annapolis, Md, and floated up alongside 2 pylons of the massive Interstate 50 bridge over that river. Until the barge could be moved and the damage could be assessed, all traffic on this bridge and one just downstream was instantly stopped. All those people driving along attending to their own business were unavoidably detained! Stuck! This could happen on any bridge or tunnel in America as a result of terrorist action, should a terrorist so desire. That does not mean that we stop using bridges and tunnels. It does not even mean that we put armed guards at every bridge in America. We just get on with life.
The amount of hysteria and ignorance of port operations in our country has really depressed me.
Good post, No. 4. I suppose now we'll be treated to attacks on VDH.
IMHO, it's misleading to describe Franco as an "ally".
But in a bipolar world, Franco was an isolated fascist who was intolerant of communism.
It was merely a matter of expediency for Ike to take advantage of that situation to secure a stategic location for military bases during the Cold War. This relationship had little or nothing to do with Spain's later transition to democratic rule. The Fascist dictator didn't relax his grip until after he died. And even then, Juan Carlos didn't institute reforms until AFTER failing to suppress populist protests.
Well, at the very least, it is similarly a matter of expediency for Bush to take advantage of the situation to secure a stategic location for military bases during the War on Terrorism, don't you think? My question, however, was Ike a "true conservative" for said arrangements (if you prefer that word to "ally") with Franco?
IKE didn't jeopardize national security by leasing any of our port terminals to Franco, did he?
Franco "relaxed" his grip sooner than his (official) death. Here's some info on how Ike ended Spain's isolation which directly led to the "Spanish Miracle":
http://www.answers.com/topic/spain-under-franco
The End of Isolation (1953-1957)
The increased tensions between America and the USSR in the 1950s, forced the American government to search for new allies in Europe. Franco's was a proclaimed anti-Communist, which made him a very reliable key ally on cold war.
Isolation was broken in 1953 when President Dwight Eisenhower visited Spain and the Spanish government signed the Concordato agreement with the Vatican. Several treaties allowing opening of military bases in Spain were signed in 1953. The American government in return gave Spain economic aid, part of it as donation, part of it to be returned.
In 1953 Spanish wealth reached back the pre-war levels of 1935, leaving behind the disasters of the war and the struggle of isolation. Spain joined the UN in 1955.
The Desarrollo, the Spanish Miracle (1957-1973)
The Spanish Miracle (aka Desarrollo) was the name given to the Spanish sheer economic boom between 1959 and 1973 and it is the most remarkable phenomenon and the most important legacy left by Francoist Spain as Spain largely surpassed the per capita income that differenciates developed from underdeveloped countries and induced the development of a dominant middle class which was instrumental to the future establishment of Democracy.
The boom was bolstered by economic reforms promoted by the so-called technocrats, appointed by General Francisco Franco, who put in place neo-liberal development policies from the IMF. The technocrats were a new breed of economists linked to Opus Dei, who replaced the old Falangist guard.
The implementation of these policies took the form of development plans (planes de Desarrollo) and it was largely a success: Spain enjoyed the second world highest growth rate just after Japan and became the ninth largest economy in the world, just after Canada. Spain joined the industrialized world and left behind two centuries of poverty and endemic underdevelopment since the loss of Spanish Empire at the beginning of 19th century.
Albeit the economic growth produced noticeable improvements in Spanish living standards and the development of a middle class, Spain remained less economically advanced relative to the rest of Western Europe (with the exception of Portugal, Greece and Ireland). At the heyday of the Miracle, 1974, Spanish income per capita peaked at 79% of the Western European average, only to be reached again 25 years later, in 1999.
The recovery led to an increase in (often unplanned) building on the periphery of the main Spanish cities to accommodate the new class of industrial workers brought by rural exodus much similar to the French banlieue.
The icon of the Desarrollo was the SEAT 600, the first car for many Spanish working class families, produced by the Spanish SEAT under FIAT licence.
Franco's last years (1973-1975)
The 1973 oil shock severely affected-oil dependent Spain, and brought the economic growth to an halt in 1975. This caused a new sprawl of strikes (nominally illegal at the time).
Franco's declining health gave more power to Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, but he was assassinated by ETA in 1973. Carlos Arias Navarro took over as President of the Spanish Government, and tried to introduced some reforms to the decaying regime, but he struggled between the two factions of the regime, the bunker (far-right) and the aperturists who promoted transition to Democracy.
But there was no way back to the old regime: Spain was not the same as post war times and the model for the now wealthy Spaniards was the prosperous Western Europe, not the impoverished post-war Falangist Spain.
Neither did Bush - I can make the argument our ports will be LESS safe now without DPW - you still didn't answer my question about Eisenhower, I note.
Well thanks... but I've been a FReeper for almost 8 years now...
I honestly don't have time to sign-up on yet another minor blog just to refute some ranting nutball...
Sheeesh, it's already tough enough keeping tabs on some of the kooks in the Land of the Banned.
LOL! It seems like those poor souls keep starting a new forum every month!!!
No doubt.
So?
I think we pretty much know who the ranting nutball is.
Whoa... not so fast...
It looks like you're falsely giving IKE credit for a miracle that was actually engineered by the Vatican:
The technocrats were a new breed of economists linked to Opus Dei, who replaced the old Falangist guard.
I like IKE, but he wasn't the Pope.
And frankly, it was the Vatican's initiative that opened the door for IKE's military bases.
We are very fortunate that the Church is anti-communist.
And you have lots of time on your hands, Willie.
We should go collectively insane about something much more important....closing our southern border.
That may be true, but too many people have let their anger over that issue color their judgment on the DPW issue. Basing decisions on purely emotional reasons is something I thought the lefties did, not us. What happened here is the equivalent of people kicking their dog because the boss yelled at them.
Do we want to close it, or just make sure everybody who comes across has legitimate business here?
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