Half wit?
Kept that well hidden.
The Supreme Court in Spain has ruled that the government can exhume the remains of General Francisco Franco, who became dictator after the Spanish Civil War in 1939 until his death in 1975. Franco, against his wishes, was buried in an enormous cathedral and mausoleum built into the side of a mountain in the Valle de los Caídos …
Franco, against his wishes, was buried in an enormous cathedral and mausoleum built into the side of a mountain
Reminds me of the bring out your dead scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "I'm not dead."
You never read or have been in combat then. Many people are blown up with very little left to identify them. Or because of the battlefield situation, it's impossible to get them all buried rather quickly. It is said there's still many bodies still unburied since WWI and WWII in places.
However, with the advent of DNA identification, that is changing for many militaries.
As half-wit, would-be dictator buried by UK judges
It's the best - and most accurate - one-sentence synopsis of today's ruling I have seen.
I can't agree with the "half-wit" appellation though; that's merely a façade to delude, deceive and discombobulate the gullible and those who un-ticked the 'critical thinking' checkbox.
"merely a façade"
Is it? He's a damn fine actor, then. And has managed to keep it up for decades, too. That is an extremely difficult thing to do ... some would say impossible. There was a dude who lived in Ockham a while back who would probably have muttered lex parsimoniae under his breath about here ...
@jake: He is indeed a damn fine actor. He even has a stage name (you know "Boris" isn't his first name OR the name his friends call him?). And he HAS managed to keep up the facade for decades.
Consider: Johnson's family were well able to afford to pay full fees for little Alexander to attend Eton. They did not pay those fees, because he passed what is often held to be one of the hardest exams in the world, to be a King's Scholar. One of the benefits of that is reduced fees. You can buy a place at Eton, but you can't buy a King's Scholarship.
You can't buy a scholarshiip to study Literae humaniores at Balliol Oxford, either. He won that. This despite school reports complaining of his idleness.
So... applying Ockham's razor, which is the simplest explanation:
1. he is a halfwit who has somehow managed to bluff his way through one of the toughest exams going, and get a 2:1 from one of the world's top universities
2. he is so staggeringly bright that despite documented laziness and general incompetence, when tested on academic brilliance he passes well beyond the top 1%.
If he really were a halfwit, I'd worry a lot less about him. He is lazy, over-entitled, dishonest, lacking in any empathy and entirely out for himself, but "halfwitted" he is definitely not.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was getting the plebs to call him "Boris" and making them believe he was a buffoon.
Oh, please read some history -- proper history, not popular 'as served up on TV". One of the Fascists selling points is that the ideology was anti-communist which made it difficult for the Russians to organize an anti-Nazi coalition. Coupled with that you've got the general level of affection of the 'nice' ruling people in countries like Britain for the organized, disciplined Fascists.
Everything is pretty easy to understand, you don't need to put revisionist "they're all the same" noise, it just serves the purpose of today's fascists (....so you thought they went away in 1945.....big mistake.....)
Please read some history too. Your knowledge is severely lacking and still imbibed of communist propaganda.
I never said that nazism was better the communism - they are pretty equal - just look at my other post. Yes, they are all the same. Lenin and Stalin were no better than Mussolini and Hitler. Those who try to assert communism was better despite the *facts* still dream of communist dictatorship. Frankly, I prefer a liberal democracy which keeps both far, far away.
Fascism used the communism fear to obtain power - that's history. Just that fear had strong ground in reality. Lenin and Stalin killed, deported, and enslaved millions. And that's history too. Maybe it's missing in your little books printed in Moscow? Of course letting fascists take power was no better than letting communists, and brought the same bloodbath. Utterly wrong and deadly solution to an actual problem - but there are people who are very able to build on fears and obtain power. Just look at today.
Just, in the end, it didn't protect part of Germany to fall under the communist dictatorship - East Germany had to suffer that too - and shown what could have been a communist Germany. STASI is still a word that means the worst kind of dictatorial control. And that's history too.
A communist Germany, under Soviet control, would have been no less dangerous than a nazi one, and equally aggressive. Russia was aggressive - just ask Poland, Finland and the Baltic Republics - that's history too.
Stalin would have used it to attack the rest of Europe too. World dominance wasn't in Hitler mind only.
I wish we could today avoid the same dangers, but as long as there are people that think that fascists or communists are "very fine people", I'm really scared.
Orwell became disgusted with Stalinism in Spain. Stalinism isn't communism, it's just another dictatorship. I'm not a communist, I just know some fairly pleasant communists.
[Has anyone else noticed there are very few political and current affairs articles here now? It's mostly tech articles for some reason.]
Stalinism WAS communism in the 1930s. He had total control on communist parties - and actively killed whoever tried to take it away from him.
And communism, even without Stalin, was and is a dictatorship not different from fascism. After all, Mussolini too came from the socialist party.
You can have met some pleasant communists or fascists, it doesn't really change what communism and fascism are.
Stalinism wasn't communism in the 1930s, and you already admitted that in your reply - he wouldn't have had to murder so many communists if you were correct.
Communism is a dirtier word, more extremist, in the US than in the UK.
I've got a slightly funny, slightly telling, anecdote for you.
I was stuck for hours in a stifling hot crowded summer US consulate applying for a holiday visa in the eighties. The wee granny in front of me hadn't filled out her application so the clerk had to shout out the questions to her so he could fill it in.
"Are you, or any member of your family, ever been a member of the Nazi party?"
"No, son, we never liked the Nazis"
"Are you, or any member of your family, ever been a member of the Communist party?"
"Well, yes. My man was the head of the Ayrshire miners union, and he was a Communist. People would come around looking for his help. But I wasn't, and I forbid them from talking politics in my living room. I just want to visit my daughter, she's working in Texas and I haven't seen her in years".
To the credit of Reagan's America she got her visa. It just amuses me that she was forced to shout her dead husband's politics in a tiny crowded room.
Where is the usual devil-may-care, what-me-worry attitude that made these forums one of the wonders of western civilization? Especially when there is an obvious pun just hanging out there, begging to be used in connection with this story.
I give you--Franco-stein! (Urrhhh, friend gooooodddd, communists bad!!)
Maybe it was my upbringing, a childhood warped by a mother who had a tendency to throw things at the television whenever Franco appeared on it, but I was brought up to understand that Franco was a fascist in the Hitler/Mussolini sense. He was installed by open help from the Nazis and passive help from democracies like the UK and France who regarded an elected socialist government in Spain as an evil that needed rooting out. Franco survived WW2 merely by not actively participating in it -- at least not in the war against the UK and US (the Spanish did send a couple of divisions to the Eastern Front, part of 1941's 'Coalition of the Willing').
Anyway, to everyone today, I know you've been steeped in anti-communism, anti-trades unions and what have you from the cradle but flirting with fascism is a really bad idea. These people are not your friends, they will promise you prosperity and status but they do not have your interests at heart (they just have the finance to buy really good propaganda!).
Anyway, to everyone today, I know you've been steeped in anti-communism, anti-trades unions and what have you from the cradle
Too true - The amount whatabouterist fearmongering concerning Labour of late and comparisons made of the EU and Germany by some, and the promises made to the public lately have just lacked stylized depictions of happy 'Volk' or joyous hard-working peasants in fields to look like early 20th Century propaganda.
I'd say we're ten years off the running war of politically charged gangs, but they'd probably all be stabbed in the back by drugdealing youfs eventually if they tried that right now.
Umm.. No
Braindead Boris would have problems out thinking one of the zombies from Shawn of the Dead.
Franco might have been the utter bastards utter bastard, but one thing he wasn't was an idiot. He was a very astute politician who managed to play off most of the rest of Europe during and after the war (not exactly rocket science to be sure) - including playing a game of hide and seek with Hitler and the Allies that kept Spain out of the war and completely unharmed (bar being broke from the SCW) - so it's deeply unfair to liken him to Bloody Stupid Johnson.
I'm in no way saying that I support the guy in any way and it wouldn't surprise me to find that Priti Patel has a poster of Franco on her bedroom wall (that she strokes lovingly with claw like fingers), but likening Boris to Franco is the same as likening "Duh-fender" McGovern and Ettore Bugatti.
I was brought up thinking WWII was a just war against fascism but the fact is we left fascists in power in Iberia and worked to install them elsewhere.
My old dad still hates Germans so much I had to ask a German girlfriend to pretend to him that she was Swiss, embarrassing for all of us.
It's a sad fact that the far right has been on the rise in the UK for the past two decades, is becoming more violent and will need to be slapped down. The Brexit chaos for us is an intellectual debate but for them it is an entry point to leverage for recruitment.
There are two Scottish books I recommend about Franco. "Homage to Caledonia", about Scots in the International Brigade, and "Granny Made me an Anarchist", about a Scot who tried to assassinate Franco in the sixties.
Spain is pretty much due south of UK and should be on same time zone as us. The reason for Spanish time being one hour ahead of UK is because in 1934 Franco wanted to be on CET the same as Nazi Germany. So on the next occasion that you have to get up stupidly early for your flight to Benidorm it will be because literally Hitler.