BS: relocation of Franco's remains

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Dec 19 - 11:52 PM

If only it were that simple, Mrrzy.
But if it's Spain, and Franco, that means
there is an unholy tangled web of things,
and no small amount of corruption.

Consider the Valley of the Fallen situation.
There is more going on there than
a mausoleum and a memorial.

There is actually a Benedictine abbey there, complete with abbot and monks.
I'm afraid to pursue my curiosity and look at how this religious order got mixed up with the Franco regime and all.
I expect I would find something as sinister as the dear old Inquisition from centuries before.

If you're bothering with this thread in any detail,
then you know that Franco's remains have left the mausoleum permanently.
He is now next to his dear departed spouse's remains, his own having been transported by helicopter.

I recall a news report that before the City of Madrid prevailed, and got the coffin et cetera moved, that Benedictine abbot at the Valley of the Fallen
tried to stop the whole exhumation thing in its tracks on religious grounds of some sort.
Which meant a big public gesture intended to make the Vatican take notice.

And if I read right,
the Vatican looked in the direction of the Madrid Benedictine abbot,
shook its collective head,
and said,
where were we before we were so rudely interrupted ...

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Dec 19 - 12:17 PM

Wait, terrorism is OK as long as it's the downtrodden doing it to the mighty?

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: keberoxu
Date: 04 Dec 19 - 12:14 PM

… and some of the families of
those buried in crypts in the Valley of the Fallen
want to get the remains of their loved ones out of there.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: keberoxu
Date: 03 Dec 19 - 06:16 PM

It wasn't a joke after all.

For Spain, Franco's exhumation causes consternation

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Oct 19 - 12:39 PM

and from the
It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over category
(with apologies to Yogi Berra),

The authorities are now rushing to get Franco's remains
moved and relocated
BEFORE the upcoming elections,
and there is even talk of
getting a helicopter to move them faster.

I smell a really bad joke in there somewhere,
but I'm not going to get my shovel
and dig it out.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Oct 19 - 05:55 AM

Two inreresting insights into the subject from this morning's Irish Times letters

"Okay! a magnificent reason for Warrenpoint, Enniskillen, Birmingham, "Guilford, Warrington.....the motives of the lads were pure."
No Al - a background to what happened and why
I see ypur list doesn't include those who died at the hands of the Unionists and the British Army and you faill to mentio that 'The Troubles' started as Peacful Civil Rights marches which were leg through stone throwing mobs by the police
Forgotten by you and most people
Jim Carroll

SPAIN AND FRANCO’S LEGACY
Sir, - I was disturbed by Frank Giles’s defence of the fas¬cist Francisco Franco as a “statesman” (Letters, October 8th).
I grew up under the Franco regime and can assure him that the terror that regime inflicted on its citizens was immense and long lasting.
As a schoolchild, I was forced to give the fascist salute every day at assembly.
During my compulsory civil¬ian-military training, I was taught that Hitler and Mussolini were great men who brave¬ly stood up to an international conspiracy directed by Jewish socialists.
Citizens of the state were le¬gally murdered (often by garrot¬ting) by Franco’s executioners. In Franco’s police state, dissent¬ers were regularly tortured (of¬ten to death), civil liberties were non-existent, and a grind¬ing, joyless poverty was stand¬ard. Franco’s coup against a democratically elected govern¬ment emboldened European fascism and was the first step to¬wards the concentration camps and a world war. - Your, etc,
MARIA JIMÉNEZ FONT,
Dublin 8.

Sir, - Frank Giles writes of the “stability of the Franco re¬gime” and the importance it played in Spain’s economic growth and eventual transition to democracy. In order to se¬cure this “stability” during the dictatorship, it is important to highlight some of the measures taken to achieve it.
The regime was responsible for mass shootings all over the country. This was an attempt - which was successful in many cases - to wipe out opposing po¬litical ideology. Republicans and dissenters were sent to Nazi-controlled concentration camps, Mauthausen in Austria among them, The dictatorship also established labour camps of its own across the country where people opposing the re¬gime were exploited through forced labour.
At least 30,960 babies were taken from their families in or¬der to re-educate children of re¬publicans and instil the “values of new Spain”.
This, along with the imposi¬tion of a monarchy without the consultation of the people, is Franco’s real legacy.
Rather than brushing off the exhumation of Franco as a “cyn¬ical political move”, I would sug¬gest Dr Giles watches the bril¬liant documentary The Silence of Others. It depicts the pain and anguish that still exists to¬day among family members of victims of the dictatorship. This may help him understand why Spain needs to deal with its past first, before it can overcome the many challenges the country faces in the future. - Yours, etc, PAUL SCANLON, Santander, Spain.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Oct 19 - 03:30 PM

Okay! a magnificent reason for Warrenpoint, Enniskillen, Birmingham, Guilford, Warrington.....the motives of the lads were pure.

unless you're on the receiving end.

Thread drift, I guess.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Oct 19 - 01:19 PM

"How can you prove that Saudi's chopping off folks heads is morally different to the IRA, or the British Army,"
The Saudis are a dynastic Dictatorship seeking to suppress opposition - the IRA were a Guerrilla Army originally fighting the most powerful Empire on the Planet, and later, irregulars fighting a powerful, well armed state with a standing army
THyey used the tactics all guerrilla fighters and resistance fighters have always used when fighting overwhelming odds
Why conine your arguments to the IRA - the Unionists weer the first to introduce the gun into twentieth century Britain and the first to let blood in the 'Trouble' - and they did it with the full co-operation of the RUC and later, the British Army (who did a fair amount of civilian slaughter themselves)
There's a seven part series being shown by the BBC (over here at least) e
entitled, ' The Secret History of the Troubles (can't wait for episode 5 tonight)
It showed from day one how the British Army which went in to keep 'the warring factions apart' sided with the Unionists - from the Magilligan butchery, Bloody and Sunday right through to the Dublin bombings
Not often mentioned in polite circles
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Oct 19 - 12:31 PM

I'm not sure. How can you prove that Saudi's chopping off folks heads is morally different to the IRA, or the British Army, or the police shooting that bloke that killed all those folks on Westminster Bridge.

They all reckon they've got fantastic reasons. They all claim the moral high ground. its just value judgements and if you're the poor sod getting the chop, i suspect the motive for chopping your head off is of little importance.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Oct 19 - 08:27 PM

"Its just that the bloke was saying what he thought in a measured tone. I don't think he deserved to be compared to a member of the John Birch society."
It was McCarthyism language Al - invented to serve a political purpose
I would have thought the fact that "Free Russia" is now the most unequal country in Europe and thatit now poses a far greater threat to world peace than Soviet Russia ever did would have been indicative that these questions are far more complicated than Cold War Rhetoric can aver explain
No system can claim a humanitarian high-ground - the Soviets were no more brutal to their people than were those who sent a generation to die in the mud of Europe - our history is full of brutalities
In the long run, it's why they did what they did that will be what they are judged on, in my opinion
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Oct 19 - 03:28 PM

My apologies about the article link
that won't let you read more than the first paragraph.


There is still some disagreement, according to that
unattainable article,
about the alternative resting place for Franco's remains;
disagreement, that is, about
which blood relative he ought to be buried next to.

These are family members, of course, who survived Franco himself
(died 1975)
and have died between then and now.
Franco was once married, and had one child, a daughter.

The daughter managed to have her remains interred in a cathedral,
for all that she was once arrested
trying to smuggle her father's medals through the airport in Madrid.
She died as recently as 2017 at a great old age.
She did manage, however, to have ten children.

As to the widow Franco, she is not interred in a cathedral.
A Madrid cemetery, in the El Pardo district,
has her remains in a crypt, and that same cemetery
has the graves of:

Luis Carrero Blanco
Carlos Arias Navarro

Nine or ten years after his assassination,
Dominican Republic dictator Trujillo was buried there

and at least a dozen of Franco's ministers, officers, and supporters.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Oct 19 - 04:23 PM

Its just that the bloke was saying what he thought in a measured tone. I don't think he deserved to be compared to a member of the John Birch society.

Quite agree about it not mattering which bastard shoots you.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Oct 19 - 06:42 AM

"That is SO abusive and unnecessary, and untrue."
The language that the statement was exactly that of McCarthy and the JBS - Cold War Rhetoric
I wasn't one of those "mudered by Stalin' but I lost a grandfather to the trenched, and my step-grandfather, who carried the news of his death to my grandmother and later married her, would never look up from the floor when we visited because of the horrific facial gas burns he received while fighting in a dispute between too squabbling Royal Families over which of them should own the riches bit of the planet
Whence the difference Al ?
I hate what Stalin did to Communism as much as I hated what teh Empire did to a generation of young men who gave their lived to make the powerful more powerful
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Oct 19 - 06:29 AM

'Stop putting out statements of behalf of the John Birch Society'

That is SO abusive and unnecessary, and untrue.

I suspect if you were the one being murdered whether by brutal English landlords, Stalin's thugs, hitler's thugs, the US marines -qualitative judgements about the beautiful dreams in your murderer's head would be the last thing on your mind.

People just need to behave with human decency.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Oct 19 - 04:36 AM

"Some people just can't cope with analogy."
I use it all the time
Stalin became a part of 'The Cult of Personality' which eventually ruined Russia's attempts to achieve a Socialist society
People are now attempting to use that same 'cult of personality' to make respectable the return of European fascism
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Mr Red
Date: 07 Oct 19 - 03:51 AM

You didn't have much problem with 'drifting' when you made your Cold War analysis

Some people just can't cope with analogy. Forever showing how it differs. Well, that's analogy for you, imperfect in an imperfect world ........... Just like political football.

Here's another from this parish. keberoxu's thread on Thomas Paine. Relevant with the same analogue flavour.





now, how did the mention of the treatment of Stalin & Krushev after death become a cold war issue? Was it some mendacious attempt at analogy? And it is a good job the pulling down of statues was not mentioned - Jeeze - Imagine the vituperation that would ensue.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 Oct 19 - 05:21 PM

You know what else I am reminded of?

Thomas Paine, he who wrote
"These are the times that try men's souls..."
during the American War of Independence.

William Cobbett decided to appropriate Paine's remains from the former Colonies
and bring them back to Great Britain.

And now nobody knows where said remains are,
because Cobbett managed to literally ship them across the ocean
and then somehow misplace them ...

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Oct 19 - 03:42 AM

A fairly recent occurrence in Dublin was the stealing of a Crusader's head from the vaults of St Michan's Church in Dublin
The corpse was a close neighbour of Lord Leitrim, reputedly the worst English Landlord Ireland has ever known
It was returned a few months ago
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Gurney
Date: 04 Oct 19 - 11:55 PM

Last night on TV there was a guy who is determined to find Sir Walter Raleigh's remains. Just a few points.

Why? 400yrs on.
He was buried at sea, in Panamanian waters, and shat himself to death.
He was English, and the searcher is American.

Ah. It seems the searcher is a pirate enthusiast, and has deemed Sir Walter a pirate. He did do time for piracy, but that was politics deeming it so, I think.

Some people can't leave anything alone.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Oct 19 - 11:47 AM

And now, and I actually think this is pertinent, someone has stolen Mahatma Gandhi's ashes.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Charley Noble
Date: 04 Oct 19 - 10:03 AM

Thanks, Jeri, for that irreverent video.

Am I the only one here that thinks Franco should have been buried in a can?

Charlie Ipcar

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Oct 19 - 03:59 AM

"Still drifting are we? Franco must be turning in his grave."
Are we ?
I would have thought that understanding Spain was an essential part of understanding how his remains are still being used as a symbol of Fascism
You didn't have much problem with 'drifting' when you made your Cold War analysis

Reburying him as nothing to do with 'laying him to rest' - it is very much part of what is happening in Europe's 'Populist New World' - pert of mm LePen's 'United Facism'
Wonder where Mosley's phlebitis riddled corpse is (or Viscout Rothermere's)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Mr Red
Date: 03 Oct 19 - 03:43 AM

Still drifting are we? Franco must be turning in his grave.



But soon he will be laid to rest...................

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Oct 19 - 03:03 AM

The 1950s were rich in Cod War b&w movies
Whether what Stalin did "needed to be done" was used as an excuse for what he did,, whether they did is a moot point - the argument was "You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs"
WW1 saw off a generation of young men on the same basis - in the end it depends on whether the ommlette is worth it, I suppose
Stalin's despotism was no different than many others but his greatest crime was to place himself above the philosophy he was supposed to be working for and eventually smashing the dream
Spain was always a shining example of betrayal on both sides; half-hearted support from Russia and obstruction from Britain and America
With Russia it was a part of their 'Socialism in one country' policy and with Britain Spain was part of the appeasing of 'Herr Hitler'
Hitler could have been stopped, or at least slowed down had he not been able to train his new Luftwaffe pilots on Geurinca and Madrid
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Oct 19 - 10:15 AM

"the evidence is above."
No it isn't - your opinion is above, nothing more
You don't want it challenged ?
Stop putting out statements of behalf of the John Birch Society
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Mr Red
Date: 02 Oct 19 - 03:28 AM

Yours is the Russia of yesterday's black and white 1950s movies

Er make that 1940s, it was when the war was on, and there were plenty of archive B/W footage there. All I hear about Stalin was that he was a political "bruiser". He did a lot of things that needed to be done, but they were done in a brutal way.

At the end of the day we are not defending a position we have already made and won't back off, even if it relates to eras that are not compatible.

Or are we? I know I am not, but.................

The subject is Franco's remains and my comment was what history tells us about that kind of political football. Any other subject is just someone making an argument about something else because they want to disagree, and has nothing to do with the subject. Now disagree with that - but I remind - the evidence is above.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Oct 19 - 07:27 AM

Cromwell betrayed the cause his followers fought for but his crimes measured small next to those they were attempting to suppress
The problem with history is that it doesn't always move forward
Ìn the end you have to judge it by the direction it should have taken rather than the direction it did - my feelings about Thee Soviet Union
The Cold War Was fought by the West not against the horrors of Stalin but the threat posed by the 'Spectre of Communism" that was still "Haunting Europe"
Nobody worried too much about 'The Soviet Gulags' (that were actually set up by the Tsars) when 'Uncle Joe' was an ally
Prior to that, even Hitler and the Nazis were regarded as "a bulwark against the threat of Communism"
The Soviet Union never posed the threat to world peace that 'Free Russia' does today - and Russia is now the most unequally divided State in Europe - so much for being free
I was delighted to read this morning that, while a number of the old Communist States have fallen into the hands of the up-and-coming neo-Nazis like Orban, Austria has kicked them up the arse firmly
A small victory, but one to be treasured, in the light of Johnson and his coup's take on freedom
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: BobL
Date: 01 Oct 19 - 03:25 AM

We all have blots on our history - England's biggest was probably Oliver Cromwell. An idealist who achieved much but earned himself undying hatred in the process.
And look what happened to him come the Restoration.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Sep 19 - 03:55 AM

"Well - maybe a person who didn't see the documentary on PBS America (in the UK on Freeview) would say that."
The feller who bothered to go out and find out for himself does
In order to do what you claim it would take nearly as many loyal lackeys standing by to carry out such a ridiculous claim -- an armed guard behind every disloyal citizen
Yours is the Russia of yesterday's black and white 1950s movies
It is a sad fact that Stalin was one of the most loved despots the twentieth century has known - "Uncle Joe" (even in the West) - "The Father of Russian people"
Wasn't it one of yours (I assume you are a H. S.) who said "You can't fool all of the people all of the time?"
Russia changed for the better radically after the revolution - their constitution even included the right of having a roof over your head
Stalin's crimes were largely aimed at slaughtering his rivals - Simon Sebag Montefiori's biography of him (no admirer of either Stalin or Communism)

Stalin started out as an ignorant, unstable Zealot dedicated to a cause whose ruthlessness and ignorance drove him mad
Even so, he was part of a Russia made up largely of peasants who hardly owned the wherewithal to work their land, to a modern, progressive contender on the world stage
The ruthlessness he used to build a new Russia was easily equal to that used by the Western Powers when they slaugheterd a generalisation in the mud of Flanders to settle a squabble between two royal families over who should own the larger slice of the world, or before that, the ten million Congolese rubber workers who were butchers so the Emperor of 'Gallant Little Belgium" could swell his bank balance
The West went on by polluting two major cities with radiation - killing off and deforming children decades later
That went on to pouring burning petrol on peasants for political domination, slaughtering for oil.... and all the other aspects of modern civilization that makes today such a comfortable and friendly time to be around
THe difference between what happened in Russia and our world is that theirs was a beautiful dream that went wrong, ours was never about anything other than giving those who already have too much, more
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Sep 19 - 03:17 AM

would be so passive and stupid as to stand and allow a nutty leader to send 24 million of them to heir deaths - for Christ's sake

Well - maybe a person who didn't see the documentary on PBS America (in the UK on Freeview) would say that. Maybe the documentary makers were lying, maybe the figure of 20+ million that is trotted out whenever the question of why Russia hates Germany is voiced - is just maybe all phooweeeeeee..... And Leningrad was a myth.

Maybe, Just maybe, Russia was desperate enough to torch all their factories before the German army advanced far enough to use them. And move 1500 factories 1000 kilometers east.

Maybe war is a viscous game where "friendly fire" is acceptable compared to unfriendly fire, just maybe, modern warfare includes the populous.

I have never heard intelligent comment on Stalin that didn't include several words like "brutal", "autocratic" OR "gulag". No maybe on that...

Franco was no wimp but by comparison, the political football of his remains is also less of an impact too.

As for forgiveness, it is all relative. And relatives tend to side with relatives. William the conqueror has not been truly forgiven in Anglo-Saxony, and his henchmen where no wimps. Don't get me started on Lundun (innit?)

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: robomatic
Date: 29 Sep 19 - 03:33 PM

I'm reminded of a Russian pretender whose remains were dug up, loaded into a cannon, and fired toward Poland.

The Spanish have spent long years coming to terms or even not coming to terms over the Franco years.

There's an Irish saying "It's Handy When People Don't Die." I take it in this case to refer to the permanent generation spanning hatreds engendered by injustices that cannot be remedied due to the passage of blood.

Where there's life, there's hope, and a greater chance of forgiveness.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Sep 19 - 11:20 AM

Trump is both

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Sep 19 - 11:04 AM

It will teach all who see it to know the difference between an ass and a hole in the ground.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Sep 19 - 11:00 AM

I have designed the Trump Memorial. It is an inverted pyramid that towers down into the Earth.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Sep 19 - 11:00 AM

"I hope I'm around long enough to pay my respects to Trump"
You'll have to go some to match a couple of farmers with a memory that stretches as long as a century Gilly
We've learned the hard way that while an Irish plumber might forget to turn up to fix your tap, he'll never forget what the Brits did to Ireland :-)
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: gillymor
Date: 29 Sep 19 - 10:47 AM

That's a good story, Jim, I hope I'm around long enough to pay my respects to Trump in the same manner but then again, according to the Steele dossier, he might like it.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Sep 19 - 09:22 AM

Sorry - didn't finish
--- came out zipping up their flies
Seeing Tom, they told him "We always like to pay his lordship our respects when we visit Dublin"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Sep 19 - 09:20 AM

Whenever I think about burying history's monsters I always remember Tom Munnelly's story of Lord Leitrim - arguably the worst English Landlord in Ireland
Leitrim (Clements) was notorious for his evictions just after the Famine and was accused by locals and a priest of resoring the medeaval right of Droit du seigneur (first-bit of the cherry right of 'breaking in' the bride when two of his tenants got married)
Local tenants ambushed him but failed to shoot him, so they beat him to death, drowning him in a pool of water to make sure   
He was interred in Dublin's St Michan's Church, near Smithfield
To went to hear two elderly Donegal fiddle players performing at the Tradition Club and found himself walling behind them on the way home
As they passed St Michans, they nipped into the church ans shortly after, cae out

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: gillymor
Date: 29 Sep 19 - 08:02 AM

I always took comfort in those SNL updates on Franco's status and am getting to the age where I can better appreciate Garret Morris' aid for the hearing impaired.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Sep 19 - 03:49 AM

Thanks for that Jeri - cheered up a damp Sunday no end
That's way up there with Lehrer, Newhart and Prior
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jeri
Date: 28 Sep 19 - 03:35 PM

9+ minutes of milking it to death

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jeri
Date: 28 Sep 19 - 03:25 PM

Oh hell. When I saw this, I thought maybe he wasn't still dead.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Sep 19 - 02:50 PM

"28 million dead Russians, just 1940 - 1945, might have something to say about that. Maybe 5 million of them died in combat"
You've never really got up from behind the table of McCarthy's American Activities trials, have you Mr Misnamed Red ?
Do you honestly believe that a people who walked away from a war, fight a civil war and change a semi-feudal Empire into a modern world contender.... would be so passive and stupid as to stand and allow a nutty leader to send 24 million of them to heir deaths - for Christ's sake
I thumbed my way right across the Communist Bloc in the sixties and never saw signs of such passive stupidity
In Russia, they still referred to WW2 as "The Great Patriotic War" and when we were in Lenigrad, we were taken to the park by pride-filled locals and shown photographs of the many hundreds who were handed during the siege
Do me a favourt and, if you can't be bothered to use your common sense, at least stop quoting undigested chunks from the Cold Wart
Free Russia is not only the most dangerous threat to world peace on the planet today, but it's also the most enequal country in Europe
Think on't
Really !!!!
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Mr Red
Date: 28 Sep 19 - 02:01 PM

It's equally as dangerous to equate fascist Spain with Stalin's or even Khrushchev's Russia

Hmmmmm. 28 million dead Russians, just 1940 - 1945, might have something to say about that. Maybe 5 million of them died in combat. The rest where those shipped far from the occupied territories to live under canvas, on meager rations. The effort was to shift whole factories far from the Germans, but it is questionable that they would have built better tanks (eg) and more of them, if they had been well nourished.

Stalin was not universally liked, just feared. Study Ukrainian history. Solzhenitsyn (decorated soldier) was sent to the gulags for voicing the plight of the workers.

My point was not to equate the dictators, or the regimes, if the post is read properly, it equated the game of political football. Older than time immemorial, Richard the 3rd got the treatment until 700 years later, the well-known painting of him is testament. And the Romans did it, routinely.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 28 Sep 19 - 01:41 PM

I think it is good, and did so myself last year, to VISIT Spain as a respectful tourist, but the English, Germans and other immigrants who in recent decades have priced young Spanish couples out of the property market should be repatriated - PEACEFULLY. My poem, from WalkaboutsVerse, "Repatriating - Australia to England"

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 Sep 19 - 09:43 AM

Because gay is not supposed to be used as an insult these days. PC and all. Now, in the 50's...

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Sep 19 - 03:08 PM

I was introduced to my favourite modern novelist C J Sansom via hi book, 'Winter in Madrid', an account of Franco's concentration Camps which were still in existence after long the War had finished
A horrific exposure of Franco's fascism is Paul Preston's 'The Spanish Holocaust'
Jim carroll

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 Sep 19 - 02:33 PM

Remember Federico García Lorca,
amongst so many others.

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Sep 19 - 10:40 AM

"I thought limp-wristed was out as an insult..."
Why ?
I was called that as an apprentice back in the 50s for stopping an engine mounting
In those days 'gay' meant happy, mind you
I found the The Civil War section of Barcelona Museum incredibly moving - it was showing 'Even the Olives re Bleeding' on a loop
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: relocation of Franco's remains
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Sep 19 - 10:05 AM

I thought limp-wristed was out as an insult...

I spent the summer of 88 in Barcelona doing research on Spanish-Catalan bilingual stroke patients. The Catalans remembered him with great venom.