Pretty scary thing here for me is that basically all the lessons from 1910 to 1950 are being forgotten. No political faction is ever really extinguished - the same ideas gain or lose power over time. There is always ongoing balancing between liberty and authority, the power of the individual vs. power of the army vs. power of the community.
But based on the generally forward motion of time, there aren't going to be many enough people floating around who can sensibly identify which brands of ideology are the dangerous ones.
As Orwell quite eloquently identified - there are some ideas hiding in socialism that are legitimately dangerous if they become ascendant. They were so thoroughly crushed through the latter part of the 20th century I'm not sure the body politic can recognise them any more.
The acquiescence of basically everyone to the building digital security state is also alarming.
> Pretty scary thing here for me is that basically all the lessons from 1910 to 1950 are being forgotten.
This becomes even more scary when you realize that the 1910-1950 happened because people had forgotten all the lessons of the 1800. Every generation feels that they are above repeating the errors of the past. Yet every generation does.
The history of the world between 1800 and 1950 is so vast that unless you articulate what lessons you have in mind, it's not possible to follow your conversation.
Nevertheless, it is possible to reply to one aspect of your commentary, which is your use of the term "scary", or "more scary".
Would you say electricity is scary? Exposure to only 110 volts from the wall can kill even the bravest, strongest human. But most people, and virtually all electricians, are not "scared" of mains electricity, because they have learned a few basics about how it works, and what precautions can be taken.
Likewise with automobiles. A collision at 60mph can kill the bravest, strongest human. And yet, the freedom to drive at that speed and higher across the world's highways is responsible for vast amounts of goodness and communities.
Perhaps we can take the political issues you are concerned about and find some similar insights, or ways of thinking about them that take us to a level higher than just "scary". But first, can you say what these issues are?
My source of deeply scary and chilling things is German and French authors from the interwar period (twenties and early thirties). The state of mind at the time was essentially optimistic. "After the great war, and the advent of large-scale international commerce, another war is simply unthinkable." "English and French students go to spend the summer in beautiful Germany and vice-versa; everybody has actual friends all around Europe." "Modern armies are so powerful that nobody in their right mind would ever think of them fighting for the currently well-delimited pieces of land in western Europe." "Moreover, why would you go to kill people in the neighboring country which is full of friends of yours?" "We are in 1930, not in 1910 where countries were so isolated." "Each country depends essentially in products produced by other countries, any war would be a net loss for everybody so it won't happen." You can read thousands of pages of such drivel, which is chillingly similar to what you can read today. More chillingly, you will realize that the exact same zeitgeist happened at the turn of the century, way before the great war.
There's lots of writings on the subject. The most out-worldly chilling stuff I've read is still Écrits sur l'Allemagne by a young french philosopher Simone Weil (sister of celebrated mathematician André Weil), describing her experiences in Germany in 1932-1933. Basically, she says that shit has already shit the fan and that it is already too late to avoid major conflict in Germany. Notice that, at that moment, many German jewish scientists like Einstein were still working in Germany. She expresses her dismay that modern citizens of Europe are so confident in permanent peace that they have forgotten the lessons of the previous century. Incidentally, a few years later she joined the International Brigades (alongside George Orwell) to fight the fascist uprising in Spain.
I agree that, overall, modern life is much better, especially thanks to our knowledge in biology and medicine. The human victories against smallpox, polio, etc. are major things to be proud of. Technology is a double-sided sword, but undoubtedly has had a positive influence. But we have not yet "grokked" history, and we seem set up to repeat the errors of the past, and this is sad.
I am honestly struggling to understand why this publication is even being allowed in a forum about programming, computers, technology and such. This is just old politics of a very specific country.
The government downplayed the COVID-19 pandemic and allowed marches, concerts and meeting of big groups of people (the VOX political party meeting for example). The government also seized the healthcare competences of the autonomous communities, only to be revealed that they were incompetent, and make old people die in assisted living facilities.
There is an all time high unemployment in young people…
You can’t take the prices of the last year when many people started working from home, and leaving big cities, and hence rent has decreased.
Left leaning propaganda is pretty much alive in Spain, where you can’t criticize the left without being labeled as “facha” (as this case).
> The government also seized the healthcare competences of the autonomous communities, only to be revealed that they were incompetent, and make old people die in assisted living facilities.
Eh, there have been compaints from both left and right that the competences left to the autonomous communities have done more harm than good. To say they have not had a lot of competences is misleading, they do have a lot more decision power than in other countries. Spain is de facto very decentralized.
> There is an all time high unemployment in young people…
Indeed, but unemployment overall is not the highest in the last years. You need to be specific when talking about data.
> You can’t take the prices of the last year when many people started working from home, and leaving big cities, and hence rent has decreased.
Yet in most of other EU countries it has went up sharply. We're not doing as bad as you think.
> Left leaning propaganda is pretty much alive in Spain, where you can’t criticize the left without being labeled as “facha” (as this case).
Honestly I agree with you here, but still, you can't say misleading statements that contradict the data. If we want to see real improvement the first step is looking at data and being honest about it.
Having countries with more unemployment, worse vaccination rates, or higher house prices doesn't make the situation "good".
You are cherry picking statistics to say that Spain is better than other countries. Being better off than Afghanistan doesn't make you a great country.
The thing is that the self-called Spanish left has disappointed its voters and blamed every problem on Franco and male sexism.
PP is left leaning. They haven't had a conservative or libertarian ideology in decades, perhaps never. So basically most of our democracy has been a parade of left leaning governments, especially the last 25 years.
Still there are hundreds of corpses buried in unknown places all over Spain and right wing parties don't want them unearthed, identified and given to the families, also continuous homages to the dictator from the right wing parties claiming that dictatorship was a time of order and peace.
What’s stopped the Zapatero administration (2004-2011) or current prime minister Sánchez (since 2018) to make excavations and recover the remains? Nothing. They keep alive this topic because it’s convenient to get some more votes and polarize the society.
No government (not even Franco regime) has excavated, looking for corpses. In fact, while looking for “Republican” bodies, some times even have found “Nationalist” corpses [1]
I refuse to be in one faction of a war that occurred 80 years ago because some old-fashioned politician says so.
Well, I’m focusing in actual important things, like the continuous decrease of purchasing power of Spaniards.
The war was more than 80 years ago, the Franco regime ended 46 years ago, and there was an amnesty/treaty with all political parties to work for the country forward.
Now, about the monuments/homages: There are also monuments for the Che Guevara, La pasionaria, Carrillo (remember Paracuellos war crimes), etc. would these monuments be banned also?
Largo Caballero made some controversial statements another opting for Revolution instead of democracy:
> “La clase obrera debe adueñarse del poder político, convencida de que la democracia es incompatible con el socialismo, y como el que tiene el poder no ha de entregarlo voluntariamente, por eso hay que ir a la Revolución“
Should we ban all parties that have him as an important figure?
No, Franco regime symbols have already been removed, his tomb removed, and the democracy has rooted in Spain for almost half a century, why don’t left-leaning parties solve actual people problems?
There are statues, monuments and streets with the names of falangists and fascists all around the country and the right wing parties are against removing their names, in fact recently the president of the PP , a supposedly right wing democratic party, defended in the parliament the dictatorship as a good time with law and order.
Also the people that forget their past is condemned to repeat it and right now in Spain the PP is governing in part of Spain with a extreme right wing party and I'm thinking too in important things like Spain not converting in a neo nazi state like Hungary , whih the Spanish right wing parties have just given support in front of the European union voting next to to the extreme right wing parties.
You mean, that the German an Italian neighbors helped support a failed fascist coup in neighboring Spain while the rest of the world watched? At least some brave men like Orwell had the presence of mind to be on the right side.
If this is not what you mind by "neighbors", I find your interpretation of the events extremely offensive. Like saying that jews and nazis were "neighbors" that sadly hated each other.
SPANIARDS. I mean Spaniards killing each other. I don’t care who supported what. It was brothers killing brothers.
And a kind reminder of how terribly wrong you are about bravery at war: it does not distinguish armies or colors, it’s an individual attribute of the soldier. It’s never an attribute of the army or a faction. Talk to any professional military if you have any doubt.
This is not really what happened. My city was bombed continuously during three years by the Italian navy and air force. No "spaniards" bombed my city. My grandmother was 10 and she was wounded and half her schoolmates killed by an Italian bomb. Through her life she had a huge scar on half her body and many pieces of shrapnel deep inside her. She considered all humans her brothers, as well, not only the ones that had the same passport as her. Yes, including the italian guy who killed her friends.
My grandmother was almost raped and killed by Italian comunist/partisans in the Spanish Civil war.
Both sides reached out for allies and got resources, men and machineary from them. National military front got in bed with Nacional-Socialsm and Fascism, and Republican with URSS.
The Second Spanish Republic was a failed try to make a modern country whithoug having some kind of agreement between different political parties. All political parties were extremely polarized, the first coup failed (1934), and the second one (1936) succeeded.
The civil war started 40 years of iron-fist totalitarian right-leaning regime (allied to USA). Fortunately it's been 50 years since that ended, although some politicians (soem in PSOE and almost all in Podemos) like to bring the topic up again, and again, and again... Only for divisive reasons and electoral motives.
Spaniard here. There was reactionary right wing military coup d'etat that try to take control of the country, and failed. So, we had endured a bloody civil war. On the one side, the nationalists, there was mix of right wing factions... Carlists, monarchic, right wing republicans, falangists (Spanish version of nazis). On the other side, there was a mix of force loyal to the republic and far left wing factions... socialists, communist and anarchists.
Both sides, did some awful and unmoral things, but the nationalists did a lot more awful things. Like bombing fleeing refugees. Also, the nationalists ended consolidating around the falangists and pro-nazis ideologies, and getting military help from fascists Italy and Nazis. When we ended the civil war, we had to endure a fascist regime to the end of 70's. And we endure yet some sequels of this.
So, please, don't reduce the civil war as "hate and violence between neighbors in the name of extreme political ideas". It's was an bloody military uprising against the legit government that the people elected, that ended with fascists on power.
Edit: However, fighting because of what faction was worse in a conflict that ended more than 80 years ago is nonsense. This comment was made only to remind all that both factions made war crimes.
Franco supporters' oppression aginst the losers side ("Republicans" and Communists) was worse after the war, from what I know.
One of the factions can be worse without the other being perfect.
All my grandparents were pro-Franco (some more openly than others). I have done my own research and I have concluded that no, they were the baddies. Of course the other side were not all angels. They never are.
> ended more than 80 years ago
The problem is that that conflict from 80 years ago had ramifications that continue to exist today, even present in our Constitution.
I don't know, but for anarchists and for POUM [1], Franco could be part of "the baddies" (things are never so simple like good and bad), but "Republican" (with support for the URSS) members were the ones that killed them.
The simple idea of “the political faction I don’t like did more unmoral things” completely disqualifies your argument.
In the case of Barcelona and Levante the lack of a strong Spanish State during the war and the prevalence of anarchists had as a result a lot of “experiments” around governance. These “experiments” lasted from a few months to years, and ranged from forbidding private property to killing the land owners and businessmen. It was not the land of freedom and peace described by some Anglo journalist and writers. It was a hell on earth because it was a Civil War.
This discourse supporting and whitewashing fascism should not be supported. There was a democratic government running composed by differente parties, and military and fascists prepared and achieved a coup d'etat. Government had to take a decission as mandated by their voters in democratic election so a war started.
Just saying both parts where opposite extremes is a plain lie like saying police at the congress detaining Trump/Qanon fans at this winter riot was just a crash between two "extreme political ideas".
They failed and the next two years were a sequence of minor scale violent events that ended in a war in 1936. Of course, the coup by the military forces is not justified, but the caotic situation made them choose what they thought was the "lesser of two evils".
I’m not justifying the coup. Once the war started both political extremes believed they had the mission to prevail whatever it took. That’s why it became a Civil War and the end of the Republican Spanish State as the way to keep law and order. That’s when the butchery began.
The Civil War atrocities came when the Republican Spanish State collapsed and a plethora of “experiments” started to pop up around the country driven by local communist, socialist and specially anarchist leaders trying to do the revolution on their own. The atrocities from the National (rebel) faction started from day one of the coup and they were driven by a centralized and unified alternative “national state” that prevailed because it was better applying law and order, even having very low support from the Spaniards.
The Anglo journalists and writers saw how some of these “experiments” worked. It’s not strange to see how they enthusiastically supported it at the beginning and how they changed their mind of even became critic with socialist mindset.
Painting both sides as equal, when one was democratically elected, and the other a military coup is extremely inaccurate, to the point where it suggests some strong biases. My guess is this is why it comes accross as you justifying the coup.
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But based on the generally forward motion of time, there aren't going to be many enough people floating around who can sensibly identify which brands of ideology are the dangerous ones.
As Orwell quite eloquently identified - there are some ideas hiding in socialism that are legitimately dangerous if they become ascendant. They were so thoroughly crushed through the latter part of the 20th century I'm not sure the body politic can recognise them any more.
The acquiescence of basically everyone to the building digital security state is also alarming.