Chilling Echoes of Past, as Spain Cranks Up Political Repression

As the European Dream continues its slow descent into dystopic nightmare, leaving millions of economically disenfranchised Europeans languishing in the gutter of misery, public anger is growing. Nowhere is this more evident than in austerity-ridden Spain, where political protests have been a constant thorn in the side of the country’s knee-jerk authoritarian government.

Yesterday that government hit back with a declaration that evoked chilling echoes of Spain’s not-so-distant past. In response to a query by a member of parliament, the Ministry of Interior announced that during a public demonstration the police can confiscate any filming device if officers have reason to believe that it could be used to “commit an illegal act.”

That illegal act, one assumes, is the filming of the police as they “execute” their duties. That’s right: Spain could soon become the first supposedly democratic nation to outlaw the filming of police officers. It is one of a raft of new offenses included in the decidedly Orwellian-termed “Citizens’ Security” law, more popularly known as the “Gag Law” (Ley Mordaza). The new law proposes fines of up to €30,000 for using slogans against the country, the King or State, and up to €600,000 for organizing unauthorized street protests.

jmacusa:

Just what makes you hallucinate that you are a FORMER liberal. Maybe you have become a tad more of a tightwad than you used to be. Maybe you have decided that the borders really ought to be enforced.

However, so long as you have a problem with Franco's volunteers in Legion Azul hunting and killing Russian communists in Russia after Stalin sent communists to Spain to kill Spanish Catholics and patriots on behalf of the "Republican" government of Spanish communists, socialists, anarchists and other scum of the earth, I call phony on your claim to be conservative.

Wanna match conservative resumes? Ready when you are. I've never been a liberal even as a teenager eons ago.

BTW, American allies have included Admiral Pinochet who disposed of the execrable Salvatore Allende who died manning a machine gun in his presidential palace, Chiang Kai Shek, Franco during the weak Eisenhower era, Somoza, and a wide variety of other folks in many countries in which the enemies of Western Civilization simply, ummm, disappeared. Chiang was our very long time ally. Check out the festivities during "The White Terror" of April, 1927 and the killing by Koumintang Forces under Chiang of tebns of thousands of communists at Shanghai and an estimated million in the boondocks of China at that time. The Shah of Iran favored over the despicable communist tool Muhammed Mossaddagh whom we overthrew and placed permanently in house arrest. Juan Peron of Argentina and later more anonymous military juntas who "disappeared" their communist opponents. Take a stroll down the lane of South Vietnamese leaders after the murder of the saintly Ngo Dinh Diem.

I don't blame you for running with your tail between your legs since you haven't much of an argument other than emotional liberal tears and flapdoodle against Franco and against many of the most solid allies of the US. Of course, you do put together lengthy streams of insults. Sorta like Obozo and Axelrod.

I also don't remember any expression of regret or condolences out of you over the slaughter of 7000 Spanish priests and many seminarians and the rape and murder of the nuns while you are caterwauling in favor of nicr treatnment of the rapists and murderers. Apparently that does not bother you in your capacity as Mr. Foreign Civil Liberties. Nor do I remember any reference by you to the 50 million killed by the soviets and primarily Stalin. Check out the bibliography on Amazon of work on the soviets by the distinguished historian Robert Conquest. Also try the US Senate sponsored study: The Human Cost of Soviet Communism.

Just what makes you think you have a brain? I was a liberal at one time in my life. Voted a straight Democrat ticket in local, state and national elections. Forty years ago my father was a two term Democrat councilman in the town I grew up in. I’m not running anywhere bozo. You presume to know me and to know history and in reality you know only the sound of your own voice and convoluted logic. Do 7,000 dead Spanish priests me? Historically it’s a human tragedy. But do some more objective research and you’ll discover as I dead quite a number of the clergy were involved in turning in and denouncing their fellow Catholics. There’s blood on everyoneâ€™s hands when it come to Spain from 1936-39. As to the Shah, America put him in power and then Jimmy Carter, a man I once voted for(I did vote Republican in 1980 though) and a man more responsible than any other, next to Mohammed himself, for making possible the rise of Islamist terror pretty much left the Shah to his fate.As to Chiang Kai Shek, well he was a son of a bitch but to take a phrase from Harry Truman, ‘’he was our son of a bitch’’. I lean more towards General ‘’Vinegar Joe’’ Stillwell’s(do you know who he was?) opinion of him, he derisively called him ‘’peanut’’. It wasn’t a term of endearment. Did you know Juan Peron had lots of help being the bastard he was by former SS General Otto Skorzeny? (did you know who he was?) “Saintly Ngo Doa Diem? Ha!. He might have been ‘’saintly to you but he was every bit as corrupt as all of Vietnams rurlers had been. And that looney wife of his. I’ve “Gulag Archipelago and “Day In The Life Of Ivan Desonovich’’ thank you. Want to read to good books on the late(and unlamented) Soviet Union read Harrison Sailsburys “The Nine Hundred Days’’ and David Remnicks “Lenins Tomb. The last Days Of The Soviet Empire’’. And stop bothering me, your a boor.

Harrison Salisbury of the New York Slimes? I'll stick with Solzhenitsyn over NY Times "journalists." You claim to place a big premium on living there in regard to Spain. Who do you think lived under Lenin, Stalin and their successors---Solzhenitsyn or Salisbury? Hmmmmm?

You said you were finished with this conversation which translates as running away with your tail between your legs, I notice you have trouble keeping your word. No problem.

BTW, I do not "presume to know" you. I merely respond to what you decide to post here. That's fair game.

Forty years ago was 1974, AFTER the McGoverns seized control of the Demonrat Party. It was no longer the patriotic party of your grandpa or mine.

You find excuses for the communist "Republican" army to murder 7,000 priests, as well as many seminarians and their rape murder of entire convents of nuns. You seem to suggest that priests were involved in "turning in and denouncing their fellow Catholics." Did communist sources tell you that? Why would communists kill informers?

No, the probability is that the communists were upset when communists were reported to Franco. That is communists not "fellow Catholics." I don't give a damn whether they were baptized Catholic like most Spaniards as babies. What did those informed on do as adults? In our own time and in our own country, whatever they may say, neither Nancy Pelosi nor Kathleen Gilligan Sebelius nor John Did You Know He Served in Vietnam? Kerry nor the late Edward Moore Kennedy nor Rep. Rosa DeLauro nor many other poseurs are actually Catholic.

They are excommunicated latae sententiae for their support of abortion among other things. Your Spanish who may have been informed upon would have had the same status. Read Pope Pius XI's Quadrigesimo Anno and Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum. Reporting communist-leaning "Catholics" to Franco requires the response: Viva Cristo Rey!

As to Skorzeny, he does not seem to have played a major role with Juan Peron, but he does seem to have lived a very interesting life. It would make a great movie. He had the responsibility of saving Mussolini in 1843, was unsuccessful in his attempt to kidnap Josef Broz Tito (had it been otherwise he might have had the noble task of exterminating Tito who certainly deserved it). He forced the resignation of Admiral Horthy in Hungary by kidnapping his son. See also as to Tito, the book and movie Eleni, by journalist Nicholas Gage (ca. 1985) which richly details the reasons.

Skorzeny also had the privilege of fighting and killing the communists of Russia on the Eastern Front (something that always seems to bother you, tovarisch. He was tried by a war crimes tribunal at Dachau at the end of the war merely for wearing and ordering his men to wear stolen American uniforms in the runup to a battle in which they wore their German uniforms. When a British war hero testified for the defense that such behavior was also common among Allied troops, Skorzeny was promptly acquitted.

In 1952 when General Reinhard Gehlen, formerly a major intelligence figure on the Eastern Front under Hitler and under Adenauer and who was NEVER a Nazi, was working for the CIA, Skorzeny worked under him. Skorzeny, Gehlen, AND Adenauer were all Catholics. Gehlen was a Knight of Malta. Skorzeny had been adjudged to have been de-Nazified.

He served as a bodyguard for Juan and Eva Peron and was probably a superb choice given his resume. Skorzeny had post-war warts. He did work to get former colleagues in the war to Latin America and apparently had not given up on re-creating the Nazi movement. Nathan Bedford Forrest had a similar attitude about re-creating the Confederacy after the late unpleasantness between the states. Forrest was an honorable man occasionally given to foolish fantasy. Ditto Skorzeny.

BTW, Otto Skorzeny was never a general but topped out at colonel.

You lean toward Stilwell who imagined that he was empowered to take from Chiang Kai Shek control over the Chinese military. Stilwell was fired from his position in China after years of futility and insubordination and constant controversy with allies such as Chiang. No loss. He got along with NO ONE but no one died and left him dictator in China whatever he may have hallucinated. He did win "The Battle of Alcatraz" in which he used US Marines to take Alcatraz back from prisoner control during the revolt of the prisoners. Maybe he could have gotten along with Tito. We'll never know.

Ngo Dinh Diem never married. I think you mean his sister in law (Madame Nhu as she was known) married to his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu who was head of the secret police (who blew out the brains of a communist in an alleyway and was photographed doing it if you remember).

His brother Ngo Dinh Thuc was Archbishop of Hue and primate of Vietnam. Ngo Dinh Diem and Ngo Dinh Nhu were assassinated after attending Mass by Vietnamese military men (Buddhists) by soldiers working for General Duong Van Minh during an overthrow of the government. The Kennedy administration effectively approved the assassination in that Henry Cabot Lodge the Younge (aka Henry Sabotage) approved it as US Ambassador to South Vietnam. He reported the coming assassination to Roger Hilsman at the Southeast Asian desk at the State Department.

Ngo Dinh Diem was a martyr. He will not be canonized as a saint because his brother, the Archbishop, claimed that the Vatican also approved the assassination (of which there is no evidence) and became the leader of an international schism. OTOH, how did Diem's assassination benefit the West or benefit Vietnam? The liberal democrats and the liberal Henry Cabot Lodge were itchy because Buddhists were protesting and the liberals wanted to be inclusive. Then 50,000 Americans died. Liberalism as usual.

See A Death in November regarding the assassinations.

When you were busy voting for Jimmuh Peanut in 1976 (many years later) and being a liberal Democrat after the McGovernite takeover of your party, I was a Reagan State Chairman against Feckless Ford. If Cahtuh had faced Reagan in 1976, he would never have been POTUS to your grave disappointment. It is good for liberals to convert and vote the right vote, at least in 1980 and 1984, but it ill behooves the converts to instruct the faithful who created the partisanship that attracted them.

As to credentials in history, I graduated magna cum laude with a B. A. in History. Did you?

I then took a J. D. at a major law school. I spent about 25 years practicing law and represented 1100 arrested very militant pro-lifers most charged with felonies of whom about 30 were convicted of anything and most of those convictions were infractions, the equivalent of a parking ticket. Most of the thirty refused to pay fines or sign papers for their release from custody and had any attempt to collect dismissed. The rest either won at trial or had their entire cases dismissed. The heroic resistance of the defendants earns most of the credit for the results.

I note that you have not taken me up on matching resumes as conservatives. No surprise. The previous paragraph is a very small sample of mine. You also seem to substitute name-calling for argument. Always a tipoff.

First of all Poindexter my tail isn't between my legs but your head is stuck up in a place where the sun doesn't shine.I'm not running away from a conversation, I'm trying to get away from you and your convoluted logic.I keep telling you to take a walk and you keep coming back. Further more I don't have match my conservatives bona fides to anyone, least of all you. I also told you I used to vote a straight Democrat ticket, Carter,Mondale(I don't think even Wally voted for himself but I did.) I voted for Dukakis and Clinton. I voted for him twice. I did vote for Reagan in'80 though, only because I was sick of Carter. I also told you a conservative is a liberal who was mugged. 9/11 mugged me. I believe in limited government, low taxes , The Second Amendment and a strong military. I believe marriage is between one man and one woman and that homosexuality is an abomination before God and nature. I believe that although abortion is a medical procedure that may save a woman's life( I'd like to see the stats on that, sounds fishy to me) but I think abortion on demand is murder. Hell I believe in prayer in school because chasing God out of the classroom sure didn't usher in the Age of Reason. And get this trough your thick skull Poindexter I loath communism and fascism and any and all forms of totalitarianism. Show me where I've said otherwise other then your obsession to say I am. And this obsession with 7.000 priests. I told you that was a tragedy of history but as I also told their blood is on many hands. You're a lawyer, research the whole story. As to SS Major Skorzeny he had quite a lot to do with helping Peron consolidate his power. Skorzeny trained Peron's police in many forms of Nazi interrogation and torture methods and he was screwing Evita on the side. He also had a base of operations in Madrid in WW2 under Franco. Skorzeny was Hitlers favorite commando and during WW2 he was considered ''the most dangerous man in Europe. Hitler gave him the ''privilege'' of killing communists? He also gave Skorzeny the ''privilege'' of killing Americans during The Battle of The Bulge too you moron. This is what I mean by your convoluted arguments and your inability or unwillingness to see the irony in the positions you take. You call yourself a conservative and you venerate dictators. If you feel Skorzeny was given the'' privilege'' of killing communists and America soldiers by Hitler then by rights you think highly of Hitler. You're not a conservative, you're a Nazi sympathizer , how dare you question my conservatism. You accuse me of name calling and yet your whole tone is one of conceit, condescension and gratuitous aspersions. I'm not responding to you anymore, you're a looney.

We shall see whether you walk away any better now than the last time you promised to do so.

Another classy and well reasoned first paragraph, I see. Poindexter served Ronaldus Maximus but you spent most of the era voting for Carter 1976, Mondale (1984 AGAINST REAGAN???), Dukakis 1988 and Clinton 1992 and 1996> Wow! Breathtaking!

All this and yet you believe in "limited government, low taxes, the Second Amendment, and a strong military...(that) marriage is between one man and one woman, and that homosexuality is an abomination before God and nature and (let's shorten this one) that abortion on demand is murder." Well, you do know how to recite the conservative litany. OTOH, you are worried about Colonel Skorzeny canoodling Evita Peron; but you voted for the Arkansas Horndog TWICE???. That's like getting worked up over some utility infielder hitting a home run in a season when Babe Ruth hits 60.

Me? Take a walk? I don;t take orders from liberals here or anywhere, tovarisch!

Your efforts on this thread do not substantiate your claim to loathe communism. You have a hissy fit each time someone kills whether in Spain or on the Eastern Front.

7,000 priests murdered by your pals in the Spanish "Republican Army" with the government's knowledge and approval. The there were the seminarians and entire convents of nuns raped and murdered by the same thugs. I am s Catholic. The slaughter of each POS responsible was justice. Had they been rabbis or ministers, I would have held the same resentment. Christ was a rabbi. Ministers are his followers as are priests and nuns. Viva Cristo Rey!

Battle of the Bulge? Skorzeny fought for his country. Americans and Brits fought for theirs. We won. Skorzeny lived to continue his colorful career. As to folks who died fighting for their country, my mother's eldest brother and the star of their family was killed when the destroyer USS Buck was torpedoed by a German U-Boat off Salerno in 1943. Further research indicates that the U-Boat in question was sunk the following year. Also, the commanding officer of the U-Boat lived until 2002, as I have just discovered. I bear his memory no ill will since the mere fact of his status in the German Navy meant that it was his job to sink the Buck (and necessarily kill my uncle).

If my uncle had been killed by Colonel Skorzeny, I would also bear him no ill will. The war ended nearly 70 years ago. Give it a rest.

"If this, then it must be that" games with Hitler does not work. Hitler killed 6 million Jews and 5 million others, not counting war casualties. Stalin, his predecessor and successors up to Brezhnev killed 50 million not counting war casualties. Chairman Mao in a shorter time killed 75 million not counting war casualties. The world would have been a far better place if each of them had been killed before taking power.

You have figure out the contemporary conservative litany. Congratulations! Now you must live accordingly. That is how you accumulate a resume. If you had a resume, we would be hearing about it. You don't and therefore we won't hear it. Fine, your a neophyte or a poseur. Which is it? I am not looking for "conservative bona fides" but rather a conservative resume. What have you DONE not what are your opinions? Did you also vote for algore before you were "mugged on 9/11/01?"

You are far too touchy to survive on a CONSERVATIVE website. If you keep your promise, buh-bye!

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