Tag: Francisco Franco

Langston Hughes in Spain

Idealism vs realism as a Stalinist hack copes with the Italian bombing of Barcelona but struggles to explain why Moorish peasants are slaughtering Spanish workers in the battle for Madrid.

Langston Hughes in 1936.

Samaranch

Check out Liga Loca on silent minutes and Manuel Stimulo on how “a stupid communist French idea about promoting peace among nations through sports events in which their citizens would participate as amateur idiots [was transformed] into a powerhouse steamtrain of propaganda for competition, professionalism, the Triumph of the Will, battering the weak into submission,…

Catalan language policy: Marxist, Stalinist, Francoist or fascist?

The precedents for, and some possible implications of, the Catalanisation of Barcelona’s cinemas. Plus some crowd-pleasing video of the Quebec language police in action. (Allez! Allez! Allez! And the hell with the economy!) All in somewhat fevered response to an article by Martin Dahms in the Tages-Anzeiger.

Spanish judicial independence

Judge Garzón would be ineligible for appointment to the judiciary in England and at the European Court, so why is he tolerated in Spain?

Franco and inflation

‘It is said that on inaugurating the great ENSIDESA steel concern, Franco exclaimed, “And to think that this cost nothing more than two kilos of paper…”‘ (Manuel Ortínez, Una vida entre burgesos. Memòries (1993)) How can people still get so worked up about a vulgar thief?

Franco in English

Apparently this is the dictator doing a Kurt Schwitters parody: Unfortunately there’s no sound on this machine – Pyrenean Telecentro. (Thankyou Shanghai L)