Showing posts with label Spain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spain. Show all posts

Thursday, November 23, 2023

2023 Elections In Other Countries.


May 15, 2023

Turkey


Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has governed the country for twenty years, is headed into a runoff election against Kemal Kilicdaroglu, having failed to secure 50% of the vote.

May 22, 2023

Ulster


Sinn Fein made big gains in local election in Northern Ireland this past week.

May 29, 2023

Turkey


Erdoğan unfortunately won the run-off election in Turkey.

May 30, 20223

Alberta, Canada


Danielle Smith's United Conservative Party won provincial elections yesterday. 

July 23, 2023


Spain exhibited cheating the prophet in that, contrary to predictions, there were no clear winners in its election.

The With center-right Christian Democratic Party, Partido Popular (PP) came in first, winning 136 seats. The far-right Vox party, which was predicted to be a kingmaker, won 33 seats and it might through in with the PP.  The ruling center-left Socialist party won 122 seats, with likely coalition partner Sumar at 31 seats.

But there's no telling, really.  The Socialist Party is in power. . . it might throw in with the PP.

So, it's hard to tell who won.  They're working out the deals now, but chances are that whoever won will not be in power long.

October 16, 2023


Left and center left parties took   248 seats in the 460-seat lower house of the Polish parliament, compared to the 200 taken by the governing Law and Justice party and 12 by a right wing partner.  

The government of Poland will accordingly change in the first European defeat of the king of right wing populism/National Conservatism that most notably emerged in Hungary and recently can be imperfectly argued to have gained ground in several other European countries.  It had made statements about openly following Hungary's lead.  As recently as 2019 it was gaining ground.

And it might still be.  Parliamentary politics are not the same as republican politics. The Law and Justice Party still was the largest vote getter, and the number of votes for it increased.  Effectively, it has 212 seats to 248 seats held by various other opposition parties that cross a political spectrum.  A government still has to be assembled and it will remain a major voice in the parliament.

November 23, 2023

Argentina.

Difficult to describe, socially conservative, a member of the Austrian school of economics, and sort of a libertarian, Javier Milei won the Argentine presidential election.

This election is so sui generis that it's hard to put in an international context.  The temptation is always to view these sorts of shifts as to the hard right, or hard left, and this would sort of be hard right, but it also reflects a rejection of Argentina's political history going back for 90 years or so.

The Netherlands.


The Dutch Party for Freedom made big election gains in the Dutch parliament, signaling a large leap to the far right in the country. While being expressed as a shock, this has been going on in the Netherlands for some time.

This victory makes it possible that its leader, Geert Wilders, could become prime minister of the country, but only if he is able to put together a coalition with other right wing and center right wing parties.

The party is strongly anti immigrant and wishes to leave the European Union.

Sunday, November 12, 2023

Sunday, November 12, 1623. Josaphat Kuntsevych, Bishop of the Ruthenian Catholic Church (Ukrainian Catholic Church, was martyred in Vitebsk, Belarus.

On this day in 1623 Josaphat Kuntsevych, Bishop of the Ruthenian Catholic Church (Ukrainian Catholic Church, was martyred in Vitebsk, Belarus, which was the part of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth.

He had been ordained in as an Eastern Catholic priest in 1609.  Living in a region in which the Orthodox Church had been strong, he faced opposition in his clerical duties but movement towards union with Rome was building in the area and as there was building assent to the Union of Brest.  In 1620 this began to be opposed when Cossacks intervened in the region.  In 1623, Josaphat, by then a Bishop, ordered the arrest of the sole remaining priest who was offering Orthodox services in Vitebsk which resulted in his murder by some Orthodox townspeople.  Some have suggested that, however, Lithuanian Protestants were secretly the instigators of the action.

His body is in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, and he is recognized as a martyr by the Church.

This points out a lot of interesting aspects of history that in the United States, and indeed many places, are poorly understood.  For one thing, there have been repeated efforts to reunite the East and West in Apostolic Christianity, and on several occasions they've been highly successful.  The seeming final breach between the East and West did not really come until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and indeed at that time the East and West were largely reunited. Following the return of the schism, over the next 500+ years various churches in the East have returned to communion with Rome.  The Schism should have completely ended following the Council of Florence, in which the Eastern Bishops agreed to reunion, but resistance at the parishioner level precluded it, just as can be seen to be a factor here.  Resistance higher up, sometimes violent, has also had an impact, however, as at least in one occasion Russian Orthodox Bishops affecting a reunion were murdered.  At the present time, it seems clear that the Metropolitan of Constantinople, the senior Bishop of the Eastern Orthodox, would end the schism as to his church but for fear of parishioner and cleric level resistance.

Rodrigo de Arriaga professed vows to become a Jesuit Priest.  He was one of the leading Spanish Jesuits of his day.

Monday, October 9, 2023

A thought about not thinking things through on Indigenous Person's Day.

Wyoming politician Bob Ide is saying he's going to sponsor a bill to take the Federal domain into state hands, requiring, as if Wyoming can require the Federal Government to do anything, the fulfillment of a promise that the Federal Government never made at the time Wyoming became a state.

In fact, the opposite was true.  Wyoming promised not to seek any more Federal land than it was getting.

But a promise was made regarding those lands. . . to the Cheyenne, Arapahoe and Sioux tribes. . . that being that they could keep them for hunting grounds.

And a larger reservation than they currently have was originally given to the Shoshone.

In her campaign to displace Liz Cheney, Harriet Hageman emphasized the hardworking nature of her family and forebearors, and has been a standard-bearer of conservative and populist values in her brief time in Congress. She's from, she related, a fourth generation ranching family.

But most families that have been in agriculture in Wyoming that long, outside the descendants of British remission men, are remote beneficiaries of a gigantic government system which used Federal agents, in the form of the U.S. Army and Federal Indian Agents, to dispossess the occupants of that land, sometimes by force, and remove them to where they did not want to go, so that the land could be transferred free or cheaply to European Americans.  Those original European American occupants, we might note, in the case of homesteaders, were not the wealthy and were perfectly willing to take advantage of a government program.

My point?

Well I don't mean to be one of those who are going to engage in hagiography of any one group of American people, Natives nor European Americans, but on this day it might be worth remembering something.

The "pull up by the bootstraps" argument that the middle class, or lower upper class, so frequently states, or imagines about themselves, fails pretty readily upon close examination.  Almost every class of American with longstanding roots in the country that have been here for quite some time benefitted from a government program, whether that be homesteading, Indian removal by the Army, the mining law of 1872, the Taylor grazing act (which saved ranching in the West), the GI Bill, and so on.

That is, in fact, the American System.  Not the Darwinian laissez-faire economics that libertarians so often proclaim.

I'm not demanding reparations, or that injustices committed to people of the past be retroactively lamented.  Indeed, that's pointless.  What I’m suggesting instead is that justice be done for those now living, and that as part of that we admit when we are vicariously beneficiaries of some Federal program in the past, as I am.

And as part of that, I'm also suggesting that we don't engage in myths or hagiographies about our own predecessors.  Nobody carved a civilization out of an empty wilderness, unless we go back in North America 15,000 years.  Nobody promised that Wyoming could have the public domain.  None of us are as independent or virtuous as we pretend, if we pretend that we are, and nobody's ancestors were hearty bands of go it alone giants.

Shoot, even Columbus, if you prefer to ponder him on this day, was on a state funded mission.

Thursday, September 21, 2023

Friday, September 21, 1923. Oklahoma standoff, Lee's Ferry, Coolidge Press Conference, Dr. Fidel Pagés.

The Colorado River was photographed at Lee's Ferry.


Things were getting worse in the standoff between the Governor and the Legislature in Oklahoma.


.President Coolidge delivered an address to the Press.

I am reminded that when I came here I did a good deal of wondering whether I would be able to be helpful to the members of the press in these conferences that we have, and especially as to whether I wouldn’t find it more or less of a bore on my part and, perhaps, not particularly pleasant. I haven’t found it that way at all. In fact, I have come to the conclusion that I rather look forward with pleasure to having you come in twice a week, in order that I may talk to you, give you a little of the idea I may have of what the Government is trying to do, and satisfy you, insofar as I can, on the questions that you ask.

I am reminded too that my boys have returned back to school. They are just such boys as some of you have, I have no doubt. I hope that they can remain there at school without much of anything in the way of publicity. When they are here anything that they can do to be helpful, or that we can do, we are glad to do but I sent them up to Mercersburg, which is a very excellent school. They have always been in the public schools at Northampton and would have been there now, had we remained in Massachusetts, but there is no one in Northampton now, but my housekeeper. I wanted them to be under more supervision than that, so I sent them up there in order that they might be out of Washington and have that opinion, which I think boys are entitled to have, of privacy in their school affairs. Dr. Irving has been very helpful to them up there, and I presume that if you make any application to him, or any of your associates, to get any story about the boys up there, he will have to tell you that we very much prefer that they be not subjected to publicity while they are there.

Now I have several inquiries here – more than I do sometimes.

The veteran inquiry about the Governors’ Conference. I have practically determined that I shall adopt the time when the Governors are meeting in their annual conference, which is in the middle of October. I have adopted that as a result of some communications that I have had from Governors, indicating that that would meet their convenience, and that it would be of very much greater assistance to them, than should we call it at any other time.

Q. Where do they meet?

A. They meet in Indianapolis. I think it is the 16th or 15th of Oct.

Q. The meeting will be after that?

A. I am not sure yet whether it will be right after or right before. I am under the impression now that it will be more convenient if we have it immediately following.

Q. Do we understand that they will come here or you go there?

A. Oh, no. I shall not go there. The conference will be here.

I have several inquiries about an extra session of Congress, Nothing new has developed on that. I have already expressed to you quite a good many times that I couldn’t see any reason at the time I was speaking, nor do I now, for calling an extra session. There are many questions to come before Congress but I think, so far as they have been presented to me, they will be able to wait. Now as I said before, I don’t want to foreclose a session, and should it be disclosed to me that on account of some condition Congress might render a great public service by coming into session earlier than about eight weeks from now, I will take that instance up and decide it when it comes. At present, I don’t see any reason for an extra session.

An inquiry about the Oklahoma situation. So far as I know, there have been no representations made to Washington in relation to that situation, and an inquiry as to whether there is any Federal observation being made on it – not any that I know of. It wouldn’t be necessary to do it from Washington, of course, because the Executive is represented there by the Marshal and the United States District Attorney, as he is in every other jurisdiction, and should there be any violation of the laws of the U. S., why, of course, that would be the tribunal before which said violations should be brought.

Regarding the shipping board policy. I have no new policy about that. It really isn’t the business of the executive, as I understand it, under the law to try to formulate a policy for the Shipping Board. I am glad at all times to confer with, different departments, give them the benefit of any judgment that I may have or any information that may come to me, and assist them in every possible way. The Shipping Board has certain directions under the law for carrying on the shipping business of the U. S. to – generally speaking to try and get into private hands as soon as possible and to liquidate it. The plan that they had appealed to me, especially because they represented it to me, and it was my judgment that it was, perhaps, a first step and the best step that we could take towards private ownership and private operation. It has appeared that it isn’t possible to put it int o effect under the present statute. I haven’t conferred with the Board yet. I got that opinion from the Attorney General yesterday, I think – today has been Cabinet day. I am going to confer with Chairman Parley or any other members of the Board very soon, and see if I can help in any way. I don’t know whether they will desire legislation about it. Of course, one of the main elements of their plan was that it could be put int o operation without the mediation of Congressional action, that it could be put into operation immediately. That was the essential of it. Whether they think they want to pursue some other plan, if it is necessary to secure legislation, I do not know. Of course the Board had the plan that was explained in the Shipping Bill last year and which was debated in the Senate, but never came to a final vote. I suppose that represents the idea that the Shipping Board has of the kind of legislation they would like to have, rather than forming another, but whether they think it advisable to do anything about that legislation in the coming session is something I Couldn’t give you any definite opinion about now.

An inquiry also about Mr. Ahister and his conference with me. That leads me to say a general word about matters of this kind. Of course, the people that come here to see the President come because they have something that they want to lay before him. Something they want to tell him. Not because they expect to get information from me. That being so, I give them the opportunity, insofar as I can, to tell me what it is that they have in mind. Very much as you come in and get information from me, not by all talking to me, but by permitting me to talk to you, and it is the reverse of that operation that goes on here when any one comes to see me. When they go out they are, of course, at liberty to make such representations as they want to. They are not supposed to quote the conferences with me, but sometimes they undertake to do that and sometimes they don’t. Now, I shall have to adopt the rule, of course, of not being responsible for what people may say when they go out. They are good about it, I know, and mean to represent everything just exactly as they understood it, but if I should undertake to follow up all those things and correct them all, I don’t suppose I would have an opportunity to do very much else. So I am not going to do that.

This inquiry is in relation to railroad consolidations. I haven’t been into the particulars of that. Senator Cummings has it under consideration. He is a veteran in the study of railroad problems, was one of the authors of the present law, and I should want to confer with him and with others, of course; with the Interstate Commerce Commission, also, before I could have any mature opinion about railroad matters.

There wasn’t anything that came up today at the Cabinet Meeting that is of any particular interest. We discussed a lot of small details as to when we might be able to meet and take up some questions, but there were no decisions made, and while I had expected to take up the agricultural problem especially at this meeting of the Cabinet, I was not able to do so because Secretary Wallace hasn’t completed his survey of the wheat situation.

Another inquiry about the Merchant Marine problem. I have already spoken about that, and I can’t give you any more information as to what the next step will be.

I have already spoken about the Oklahoma situation. As I said, no representation, as far as I know, has been made in Washington at all about that, and it would be very unlikely that any representation would come from anyone except the Governor.

Further inquiry as to what may be done about profiteering in coal. The Federal Trade Commission, as I have already said, has all the facts that were gathered by the Fuel Commission. They are studying those, and undertaking to see if they can make any representations that would be helpful. On the 24th, which is next Monday, the Interstate Commerce Commission meets, I think, at Pittsburgh, in order to consider rates, especially of coal. I think that has firtually covered the things that you had in mind.

I am reminded that the Conference of Governors is at West Baden instead of Indianapolis. I assume that Mr. Welliver is right. He almost always is.

The pressman's strike in New York City ended.

Spanish military physician, Dr. Fidel Pagés, only 37 years of age and the developer of the technique of epidural anesthesia, was killed in a traffic accident in the town of Quintanapalla.  He was returning from a vacation with his family.

Friday, September 15, 2023

Saturday, September 15, 1923. Strife

Miguel Primo de Rivera sworn in as Prime Minister by King Alfonso XIII, who suspended the Spanish Constitution at his behest.  The appointment was in an effort to give the recent military coup the cover of legitimacy.


Oklahoma Governor Jack C. Walton declared statewide "absolute martial law" in order to combat the Ku Klux Klan.  Habeaus corpus was suspended in Tulsa County.

Marguerite Albert was acquitted of murdering her husband, Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey at London's Savoy Hotel.  You'll recall that she killed him on July 10, showing how quickly such maters proceeded in an earlier era.

Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Thursday, September 13, 1923. Spanish democracy collapses.

The Spanish government was deposed in a coup led by Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, 2nd Marquis of Estella, a military officer.  The coup came about as it's leaders were upset with the Spanish government's inability to deal with the economic conditions which were a precursor to the Great Depression.


Coming during the last days of Spain's Bourbon Restoration, Primo de Rivera secured the support of the King and a significant percentage of the Spanish population and ruled until 1930, when an economic boom brought about during his dictatorship foundered and Spain began a return to democracy.  He died later that year, at age 60.  The Bourbon Restoration itself would end the following year with the establishment of the short-lived Second Spanish Republic.

Perhaps instructive for us today, the period overall saw increasing tension between Spanish leftists and Spanish conservatives, with the middle ground increasingly evaporating.  The government was seized first by the monarchical right, and then restored to democracy which lurched increasingly leftward, resulting finally in a collapse of democracy entirely and a right wing coup which brought Francisco Franco to power.  

Interestingly, we just dealt with something similar happening in Chile in 1973 the other day.  In both instances, the society in question was unable to deal with increasingly radical opposing forces and the middle more or less evaporating.

In common accounts of the period, little attention tends to be given to the fact that the revolution that brought Franco to power was, in some ways, a continuation of one that began on this day in 1923.

A revolution was also occurring in Bulgaria but was put down by the put down by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization

Some experimentation was engaged in on this day with tanks converted into tractors.





Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Wednesday, August 22, 1923. Sloppy Thurston in the 12th Inning.

The Spanish war department announced that Spain had landed 5,000 additional troops in Morocco in support of its position in the Rif War.

Hollis "Sloppy" Thurston struck out three Philadelphia A's on nine itches in the 12th inning, pitching for the Chicago White Sox.

Thurston pitched the screwball.  The Nebraskan played ball, in the majors and the minors, until 1938.


Sunday, August 13, 2023

Friday, August 13, 1943. Resumption of bombing of Italy.

A two week Allied hiatus of bombing of Italian targets came to an end.  Milan and Turin were struck by the RAF, which also struck Berlin for the first time since May 21. U.S. bombers began a heavier attack on Rome and a precision bombing attack on Italian rail yards at San Lorenzo and Vittorio.  The US bombed an Austrian target for the first time.

Fr. Jakob Gapp, age 46, was executed by the Germans.

Fr. Gapp was an Austrian with outspoken anti-Nazi views and had gone into exile, first in France and then in Spain, as a result.  He'd been kidnapped by German agents posing as refugees needing help to cross the Spanish border and sentenced to death.  He was beatified on November 24, 1996. 

In Natrona County, the high was 87.4 F and the low 52.3F.

Thursday, July 6, 2023

Western angst and spinning history.

I don't know if it was the anniversary of the raid, or what, but my Twitter feed for some reason picked up a link to a story about a large raid by the Barbary Pirates on the coast of Ireland.  In 1631 the pirates raided Baltimore, Ireland, in the County of Cork.  The town was not large, but between 100 and 300 of its inhabitants were abducted.  Only two made it back to Ireland, in part because the English government had just enacted a law which forbid paying ransom, which was often the goal of such raids.

The article that was linked in was scholarly, and noted that what would have occured is that, for the most part, children would have been separated from their parents and everyone sold into slavery when it became obvious that they would not be ransomed.  The male slavery would have been of the grueling work variety.  Women would have largely been sold as sex slaves, which the articles like to call "concubines".  

The reason that I note this here is that the author, again it was a scholarly article, felt compelled to blame the raids on the Spanish expulsion of the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula.  That process has commenced in 1492, and it was completed, effectively, in 1614.  The entire period wasn't a peaceful one, and in the Mediterranean various nations raided each other.

The final stages of the story are more complicated, in Spain, than might at first be imagined, as by the 1600s the "Moriscos" weren't actually Muslim, but rather Spanish descendants of Berbers and Arabs who were Catholic, but who retained Berber/Arab ancestry. Some claim they were "crypto Islamic", but more likely they were Catholics who retained some folk connection to their ancestor's prior religion.  Indeed, it'd be worth noting that Islam itself has a murky origin connection with Christianity, and this may have been confusing at the street level.  Anyhow, the last stages of this seem to be an ethnic spat, but it did have the effect of expelling Moriscos to North Africa, where they were absorbed ultimately into the local population, or to distribute them across Spain where the same thing occured.

Anyhow, blaming the Baltimore, and other Barbary Pirate, raids on this event is stretching it.  I suppose you could argue that the general belligerency of the Mediterranean contributed to the raiding atmosphere, and both sides did that, but that traces back to the rise of Islam in the first place, which was spread by the sword.  That this process went on, in one fashion or another, for a thousand years, and in some cases to this very day, does not mean that much except that the long arch of history and the fact that events play out over decades or centuries is the rule, and only seems to be odd to us, as we're used to everything occurring rapidly.

Anyhow, the author claimed that the children were treated with "utmost kindness".  Really?  Separating them from their parents, sending their fathers off to early grueling slave induced deaths and selling their mothers as sex slaves?  And then they'd end up slaves themselves, with boys often ending up enslaved soldiers and girls. . . sex slaves.

What BS.

The same author claimed that the women were sold into "concubinage", which is sex slavery in this context, and lived lives of "relative luxury", as if this weird image of the Playboy ethos had the women looking forward to this life of chattel status while they still retained their desirability.  The reality of it is that they had value as they were exotic, and bought for their physical attributes alone.

Why this story has to be spun in this fashion is really remarkable. We're supposed to feel some guilt for the story of the kidnappers and slavers, and even look kindly upon some of the grossest examples of slavery that are around.

None of this is to excuse Western conduct, whatever might be sought to be excused. Slavery was common amongst all Mediterranean societies, Christian and Islamic, but what played out with the Barbary pirates was not.  They engaged in slave raids, and forced sex slave status of captured women was endorsed by the Koran, although frankly probably not really in the form that was practiced here (it likely applied to women captured as a result of warfare, not that this makes it a lot better).  Putting a gloss on any kind of slavery, moreover, is bizarre.  When people attempt to do that, as many once did and a few still try to do, in regard to American slavery, we're rightly appalled.  This isn't any better.

The West has had a hard time reconciling an imperial past with its democratic values, and one way it tries to cope with it is by making Westerners always be the baddies.  The story of empire is a complicated one, but the 100 to 300 inhabitants of Baltimore didn't have much to do with it, and neither, really, did the Barbary pirates. Slavery was always bad and this sort of slavery gross.  Kidnapping people is always bad.  There are always bad people.  The Barbary Pirates don't need to be portrayed as if they're Captain Morocco, or something, in a Marvel movie.

Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Sunday, May 9, 1943. Mothers Day, Franco suggests Peace, German pilots defect, Training accident.

It was Mother's Day in the United States.

Mother's Day Mass st Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia in 1943. From the collection of Charles E. Emory & Ronald L. Glendinning Photographs (COLL/2439), Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections. Marine Corps Photograph.

Spanish dictator Francisco Franco delivered a speech in which he favored a restoration of the peace, claiming that "neither the Axis nor the Allies could destroy the other".

As shrewd as Franco was, there's reason to believe that he did not believe that, but perhaps he was rather hoping that the war would conclude at this point before Spain was dragged in on the doomed Axis side.

Ju 88 with Lichtenstein radar.

A crew of Luftwaffe defectors flew a Ju 88 fitted with new Lichtenstein radar to Scotland.  This story, even now, is shrouded in mystery, with it being only really clear that two members of the crew intended to defect, while a third may have been an unwilling passenger.

The aircraft was significant in allowing the Allies to study German aviation radar.

Wilmeth Sidat-Singh was killed in a training accident.


The USS Robalowas launched at Manitowoc Shipbuilding Co., Manitowoc, Wisconsin,


Sunday, April 30, 2023

Friday, April 30, 1943. Operation Mincemeat

The body of "Major Martin", a fictional British Major carrying fictional papers, was released from the British submarine HMS Seraph off of Spain.  In reality, the body was that of Glyndwr Michael, a vagrant who had died from eating rat poison.

The operation, known as Operation Mincemeat, was designed to deceive the Axis on plans for the invasion of Sicily, and was highly successful.

The US took Hill 609 in Tunisia.

The Bermuda Conference concluded.  The topic of the conference between the US and UK, which had commenced on April 19, was Jewish refugees who had been liberated by the Allies, and the remaining Jews in Axis controlled territory.  No substantial agreement on what to do was reached, other than to win the war, US immigration quotas would not be raised, and the British would not lift the prohibition on Jewish refugees going to Palestine.

Participants in the conference.

Saturday, March 25, 2023

Thursday, March 25, 1943. Axis allies looking for the door.

Germany warned Finland, through Joachim von Ribbentrop, that German would not tolerate Finland making a separate peace.

Sarah Sundin reports that Spain closed its border with Nazi occupied France.  

She also notes:

Today in World War II History—March 25, 1943: Battle for convoy HX-231 begins (through April 8), the first time an Allied Atlantic convoy beats off German U-boats without loss.


Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Sunday, February 14, 1943. The Battle of Kasserine Pass.

The Afrika Korps launched a surprise assault on U.S. forces at Kasserine Pass, ultimately causing US forces to withdraw 50 miles and causing massive American material loss.

US troops were green and poorly led and poorly supported by air cover.  Rommel's German and Italian forces were experienced and well led, and well supported by air cover.   It was the first major U.S. engagement against the Afrika Korps and an embarrassing failure of American arms. It would also lead to immediate shakeups in the American command.


Part of an overall Afrika Korps effort, the Axis forces profited from the American defeat in real terms.  It interestingly was part of an overall German pattern of commencing offensives on Sundays.

The Priestly Society of the Holy Cross was founded by Spanish Catholic Priest St. Josemaria Escriva.  It would become an integral part of Opus Dei, which he also founded.  Opus Dei has been an influential Catholic organization which seeks to sanctify its members through their secular vocations.

Friday, January 27, 2023

Saturday, January 27, 1923. Nazis meet for the first time, San Marino temporarily ceases to exist, Rifian POWs released.

Samuel L. Rothafel, Director of Capitol Theatre, New York, using Western Electric microphone, January 27, 1923
 

The German National Socialist Party, the NASDP, commonly called the Nazi Party, held its first party congress.  It was held in Munich, where the party was centered at the time, and drew 6,000 members.

The tiny Republic of San Marino was forced by local fascists into union with Italy.  The micro state has since regained independence.

The Republic of the Rif released the remaining 326 prisoners of war it held to Spain, in exchange for 4,000,000 pesetas. 261 POWS had died in Rifian captivity.

The Country Gentleman had an age-old theme.


Of interest, that style of winter hat is still very popular with outdoorsmen and agriculturalist.  I have two of them.

The Saturday Evening Post had an extraordinarily boring cover.



Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Something in the wind, part 1 of 3. The rise of the radical populist right. A second look at the Italian election. . . and a bunch of other stuff.

 

Meloni says she's not a fascist, and compares her party to the British Tories, the Israeli Likud, and the GOP.   The American GOP aside, which is in turmoil and which we'll discuss a little in round two of this fascinating series, the FdI, whatever it is, definitely isn't the British Conservative Party or the Israeli Likud.

Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion. And the scepticism of our time does not really destroy the beliefs, rather it creates them; gives them their limits and their plain and defiant shape. We who are Liberals once held Liberalism lightly as a truism. Now it has been disputed, and we hold it fiercely as a faith. We who believe in patriotism once thought patriotism to be reasonable, and thought little more about it. Now we know it to be unreasonable, and know it to be right. We who are Christians never knew the great philosophic common sense which inheres in that mystery until the anti-Christian writers pointed it out to us. The great march of mental destruction will go on. Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face. We shall fight for visible prodigies as if they were invisible. We shall look on the impossible grass and the skies with a strange courage. We shall be of those who have seen and yet have believed.

G.K. Chesterton, in Heretics

This quote, but not in its full length, is getting a lot of traction right now as it shows up, in Italian, being quoted by Giorgina Meloni, in a truncated form, which takes from the following:

Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.

I was surprised to find Meloni quote Chesterton, as I don't think of Chesterton as being a fan of, or useful to, fascists. But perhaps this puts us on the uncomfortable slope where Falangist slide into a certain type of conservatism and trying to define the difficult differences between the Mediterranean post World War Two far right, and Hungarian one, and the American one.

Italian and Spanish fascists were corporatists or syndicalists, which is a hard concept to explain to Americans.  They didn't eliminate free enterprise but rather controlled it, with a concept that everything was subordinated to the good of the state which was supposed to work for the good of the people.  By the people, it usually meant only the nation in the ethnic sense.  In other words, Italian fascists might make common cause with, let's say, Spanish fascists, but that didn't mean that they thought of themselves as the same by any means. The Italian fascists worried principally about ethnic Italians only, which of course ultimately lead to an attempt to expand the Italian empire at the expense of non Italians.  Spain's Franco era (Franco was not a fascist, or a Carlist) pretty much started off that way right from the onset, i.e,. Spain's empire was for the Spanish, not for Moroccans.

Falangist are a subset of fascist, with some distinct beliefs. Their basic core tenants were set out in the Twenty Six Points they issued, which stated the following:

NATION - UNITY - EMPIRE 

1. We believe in the supreme reality of Spain. The strengthening, elevating, and magnifying of  this reality is the urgent collective goal of all Spaniards. Individual, group, and class interests must inexorably give way in order to achieve this goal. 

2. Spain has a single destiny in the world. Every conspiracy against this common unity is repulsive. Any kind of separatism is a crime which we shall not pardon. The existing Constitution, to the degree that it encourages disintegration, weakens this common destiny of Spain. Therefore we demand its annulment in a thundering voice. 

3. We have the determination to build an Empire. We affirm that Spain's historic fulfilment lies in Empire. We claim for Spain a pre-eminent position in Europe. We can tolerate neither international isolation nor foreign interference. As regards the countries of Hispanic America, we favour unification of their culture, economic interests and power. Spain will continue to act as the spiritual axis of the Hispanic world as a sign of her pre-eminence in worldwide enterprises. 

4. Our armed forces- on land, sea, and in the air- must be kept trained and sufficiently large to assure to Spain at all times its complete independence and a status in the world that befits it. We shall bestow upon our Armed Forces of land, sea, and air all the dignity they merit, and we shall cause their military conception of life to infuse every aspect of Spanish life. 

5. Spain shall once more seek her glory and her wealth on the sea lanes. Spain must aspire to become a great maritime power, for reasons of both defence and commerce. We demand for the fatherland equal status with others in maritime power and aerial routes. 

STATE - INDIVIDUAL - LIBERTY 

6. Our State will be a totalitarian instrument to defend the integrity of the fatherland. All Spaniards will participate in this through their various family, municipal, and syndical roles. There shall be no participation in it by political parties. We shall implacably abolish the system of political parties and all of their consequences- inorganic suffrage, representation of clashing groups, and a Parliament of the type that is all too well known. 

7. Human dignity, integrity, and freedom are eternal, intangible values. But one is not really free unless he is a part of a strong and free nation. No one will be permitted to use his freedom against the nation, which is the bulwark of the fatherland's freedom. Rigorous discipline will prevent any attempt to envenom and disunite the Spanish people or to incite them against the destiny of the fatherland. 

8. The National-Syndicalist State will permit all kinds of private initiative that are compatible with the collective interest, and it will also protect and encourage the profitable ones. 

ECONOMY - LABOUR - CLASS STRUGGLE 

9. Our conception of Spain in the economic realm is that of a gigantic syndicate of producers. We shall organise Spanish society corporatively through a system of vertical syndicates for the various field of production, all working toward national economic unity. 

10. We repudiate the capitalistic system which shows no understanding of the needs of the people, dehumanises private property, and causes workers to be lumped together in a shapeless, miserable mass of people who are filled with desperation. Our spiritual and national conception of life also repudiates Marxism. We shall redirect the impetuousness of those working classes who today are led astray by Marxism, and we shall seek to bring them into direct participation in fulfilling the great task of the national state. 

11. The National-Syndicalist State will not cruelly stand apart from man's economic struggles, nor watch impassively while the strongest class dominates the weakest. Our regime will eliminate the very roots of class struggle, because all who work together in production shall comprise one single organic entity. We reject and we shall prevent at all costs selfish interests from abusing others, and we shall halt anarchy in the field of labour relations. 

12. The first duty of wealth- and our State shall so affirm- is to better the conditions of the people. It is intolerable that enormous masses of people should live wretchedly while a small number enjoy all kinds of luxuries. 

13. The State will recognise private property as a legitimate means for achieving individual, family, and social goals, and will protect it against the abuses of large-scale finance capital, speculators, and money lenders. 

14. We shall support the trend toward nationalisation of banking services and, through a system of Corporations, the great public utilities. 

15. All Spaniards have the right to work. Public agencies must of necessity provide support for those who find themselves in desperate straits. As we proceed toward a totally new structure, we shall maintain and strengthen all the advantages that existing social legislation gives to workers. 

16. Unless they are disabled, all Spaniards have the duty to work. The National-Syndicalist State will not give the slightest consideration to those who fail to perform some useful function and who try to live as drones at the expense of the labour of the majority of people. 

LAND 

17. We must, at all costs, raise the standard of living in the countryside, which is Spain's permanent source of food. To this end, we demand agreement that will bring to culmination without further delay the economic and social reforms of the agricultural sector. 

18. Our program of economic reforms will enrich agricultural production by means of the following: 

By assuring a minimum remuneration to all agricultural producers.

By demanding that there be restored to the countryside, in order to provide it with an adequate endowment, a portion of that which the rural population is paying to the cities for intellectual and commercial services.

By organising a truly national system of agricultural credit which will lend money to farmers at low interest against the guarantee of their property and crops, and redeem them from usury and local tyrants. 

By spreading education with respect to better methods of farming and sheep raising. 

By ordering the rational utilisation of lands in accordance with their suitability and with marketing possibilities. 

By adjusting tariff policy in such a way as to protect agriculture and the livestock industry. 

By accelerating reclamation projects. By rationalising the units of cultivation, so as to eliminate wasted latifundia and uneconomic, miniscule plots. 

19. Our program of social reforms in the field of agriculture will be achieved: 

By redistributing arable land in such a way as to revive family farms and give energetic encouragement to the syndicalisation of farm labourers. 

By redeeming from misery those masses of people who presently are barely eking out a living on sterile land, and by transferring such people to new and arable lands. 

20. We shall undertake a relentless campaign of reforestation and livestock breeding, and we shall punish severely those who resist it. We shall support the compulsory, temporary mobilisation of all Spanish youth for this historic goal of rebuilding the national commonwealth. 

21. The State may expropriate without indemnity lands of those owners who either acquired them or exploited them illegally.

22. It will be the primary goal of the National-Syndicalist State to rebuild the communal patrimonies of the towns. 

NATIONAL EDUCATION - RELIGION 

23. It shall be the essential mission of the State to attain by means of rigorous disciplining of education a strong, united national spirit, and to instil in the souls of future generations a sense of rejoicing and pride in the fatherland. 

All men shall receive pre-military training to prepare them for the honour of being enlisted in the National and Popular Army of Spain. 

24. Cultural life shall be organised so that no talent will be undeveloped because of insufficient economic means. All who merit it shall be assured ready access to a higher education. 

25. Our Movement incorporates the Catholic meaning- of glorious tradition, and especially in Spain- of national reconstruction. The Church and the State will co-ordinate their respective powers so as to permit no interference or activity that may impair the dignity of the State or national integrity. 

NATIONAL REVOLUTION 

26. The Falange Espanola Tradicionalista y de las JONS demands a new order, as set forth in the foregoing principles. In the face of the resistance from the present order, it calls for a revolution to implant this new order. Its method of procedure will be direct, bold, and combative. Life signifies the art and science of warfare (milicia) and must be lived with a spirit that is purified by service and sacrifice. 

As can be seen, in the Spanish example, religion was mentioned, but suppressed as subordinate to the overall goals of the state.

Italian fascism did not even go that far, but regarded, oddly enough, the Church as a sometimes intellectual ally in that Italian fascism, while radical in many ways, argued for a return to cultural traditionalism, even though it did not regard that as supporting a religious state.  Essentially, to a relatively small degree, Italian fascism regarded some of the Church's emphasis as traveling on a somewhat intersecting road.

That's not the point of this article here, however, but it serves to point out that while something is going on in the entire Western World right now, it's not really the same every place it pops up.  Consider again the clip we had of Meloni from the other day.

That's one of the most Un-American speeches you can imagine, although a lot of Americans wouldn't realize it.  Not that Meloni would deliver an American speech, she's Italian, but she's not only complaining of the post 1968 liberal changes to the accepted culture, which she is, she's blaming it principally on consumerism.  

This view isn't completely unheard of in the United States.  People will take shots at consumerism, but it's usually people on the left that do it, and they don't link it to feminism and the LBGQT movement like Meloni is.  Not usually.  About the closest I've ever heard of that is the essay that somebody wrote some time ago, I've forgotten who, that homosexuals were regarded as the prefect citizens by liberal elites, as they consumed, but didn't reproduce, and lacked the messy personal nature that the 98% of those with normal inclination have.  That approaches this statement, but it doesn't go anywhere near as far as Meloni did.

Meloni is definitely tapping into something here, however, in that what she's espousing is the concept that post 68 liberalism is at war with human nature, and she's not wholly incorrect in that either.  That's also what partially, but only partially, given rise to populism in the United States.  The part of her speech here that doesn't deal with economics would find a sympathetic ear in some parts of the far right.

Indeed, it finds a sympathetic, if surprised, ear from some who are in the Chestertonian camp, or more appropriately at his stammtisch.  One twitter commentator, for example, noted upon hearing this that in his view he wasn't saying anything that was fascistic, but rather a string of things in line with Catholic social teaching, with which he approved.  This definitely isn't the case for the American Trumpist wing of the GOP.

Is she therefore not a fascist, but rather somebody who would be more comfortable with Chesteron and Belloc?

Frankly, we really don't know.  She hasn't been in power, yet, and her party hasn't been, either.  What may distinguish it is its willingness to act democratically.  That, in the end, has tended to be the defining matter distinguishing very far right political parties from fascist ones, even if the former does not really meet the overall fascist definition.  The Falangist and Italian fascist were hostile to democracy, there's no two ways about it.  Is the modern FdI?  We don't know yet.

For the same reason, we can't say if the FdI is in favor of Illiberal democracy.  Progressives could look at this and immediately say that of course it is, but it's really not that simple at all The FdI may be very far right, without being favoring Illiberal democracy.  Favoring political progressivism and having a liberal democracy are not the same thing, even though progressives seem to feel it is.

At the end of the day, Meloni may end up being a flash in the pan.  As Italy is a parliamentary democracy, her party, while gathering the most votes, only has about 25% of them. The center left party has nearly as many.  The remaining 25%, more or less, of votes she needs from other Italian right wing parties do not all come, by any means, from ones that have the same outlook.

But this will prove interesting.

All over Europe, this trend has been occurring.  Just last week, the Sweden Democrats, which have neo-Nazi roots, became the second-largest governing partner in the Swedish government.  It's a very hard right nationalistic party.  We've already discussed Viktor Orban's Hungarian government and it's espousing of Illiberal Democracy.  Poland's largest party is the Law and Justice Party, which is a right wing populist party.  Slovakia's largest party is the right wing populist Ordinary People and Independents Party.  And France, of course, has the National Rally Party which threatened to take office during the last French election and which is the second-largest party in the government, only slightly behind that of the largest party.

Then we have the current GOP.

Perhaps the real distinguishing thing about the current Trump wing of the GOP, which is the dominant branch right now, is that these other parties, which are not all the same, are at least pretty open about their views, which they can be as they're in a parliamentary system.  In the case of the Trumpist, the views remain partially camouflaged.  And the other major factor right now is that these European parties save for one, Orban's, all seem to be comfortable with full democracy, although I'd certainly hold the question open for the Sweden Democrats on that query as its history would suggest that it wouldn't be, if it were in power.

So, once again, what's that tell us?

It's hard to say, but as noted earlier on this blog, it seems to be an upset with the results of the post 1968 liberalization of the Western World.  People feel it's taken from them and forced them into things they don't agree with and don't want to be. And to at least some extent, they feel that it's brought about a culture that's at war with natural culture.

In short, people feel what Meloni expressed:

Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.

All of that were things that conservative parties already held, however. They weren't, however, very successful at doing anything about their views in a massive way. All of these groups promise to.

And maybe they actually would. . . but in the American case, what does that actually mean and do people really know what they're suggesting? We'll look at that next.

Saturday, September 3, 2022

September 3, 1942. Germans take Pitomnik


By this day in 1942 the Germans had taken 1,500,000 since the commencement of Operation Barbarossa.

The Germans took Pitomnik Airfield in Stalingrad on this day.  It would become the main German airfield during the battle, although there were six additional ones.

The British suffered setbacks at Alam el Halfa when an attack went amiss, leaving the British without armor support.

Franco removed Phalangist Ramón Serrano Suñer as Spanish Foreign Minister due to the Basilica of Begona incident a few days prior.  As a result, Franco now had full control of the government.  The sacked foreign minister remained active in far right politics and died in 2003 at the age of 101.

Tuesday, August 16, 2022

Sunday, August 16, 1942. The mystery of the L-8.

The Navy blimp L-8, put out earlier that day in search of Japanese submarines, coasted into Daly California without its crew.


The blimp and its crew of two had taken off at 06:03 from Treasure Island off of San Francisco.  At 07:38 its crew radioed that they had seen an oil slick off of Farallon Islands, Point Reyes.  A Liberty ship and a fishing boat both later reported that the blimp descended to about 30 feet above the slick and then headed east, rather than its planned route, which would have taken it northwest.  It was next spotted at 11:15 off of Ocean Beach, by which time it lacked a crew.  The blimp contained its parachutes and life raft, so the crew had not bailed out.

They've never been found.

Official speculation is that they were trying to deploy a smoke signal when one slipped out and the other went to rescue him, with both going into the ocean, or some variant of that. This seems fairly likely, although other theories abound.

The 101st Airborne Division, provided with cadre from the 82nd Airborne Division, was activated.  The 82nd had been converted organizationally from a conventional infantry division to an airborne division the day prior.

Shoulder insignia of the 101st Airborne Division.

The 101st had come into the table of organizations during World War One, but just existed for nine days on the charts, having been created immediately before the end of the war.  In contrast, the 82nd "All American" Division had seen action in World War One and included in its ranks the famous Alvin York.

Shoulder patch of the 82nd Airborne Division.

The USS Alabama was commissioned.

The Alabama in 1942.

The ship avoided being scrapped in 1964, which the Navy intended to do, and was acquired by the State of Alabama where she became a museum ship.  In spite of the original scrapping intent, a provision of the Navy's transfer of her ownership was that she could be recalled if needed, and in fact when the Iowa Class battleships were reactivated in the 1980s, some of her engine parts were cannibalized by the Navy as they were needed for those ships and were no longer manufactured.

The German Navy began Operation Wunderland with the goal of entering the Kara Sea, an extension of the Arctic Ocean, in order to attack Soviet ships that took refuge in the region which was iced up ten months out of the year.  The German Navy also sank three ships off of Aracaju, Brazil, operating under the belief that Allied ships were operating in neutral territorial waters off of eastern South America.

The Japanese, operating off of faulty areal reconnaissance, dispatch the 28th Naval Infantry Regiment from Truk to retake what they believe is a mostly abandoned Guadalcanal.

The U.S. Army Air Force bombed Axis targets in Egypt for the first time.

What started as a Mass to commemorate members of the Begona Regiment who had died in the Spanish Civil War degenerated into a riot between Falangist and Carlist factions in which a Falangist member, who had hand grenades with him, through two resulting in the wounding of thirty people.

Saturday, October 2, 2021

Boars

Wild board have invaded Rome.

And Barcelona, apparently, where singer Shakira had to take one on for stealing her purse.

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Wednesday September 15, 1971. The introduction of Woodsy Owl and Boopsy



Riffing off of its successful Smokey the Bear campaign, the Forest Service introduced Woodsy Owl to combat pollution, to which to some extent essentially meant littering in context.

An assembly of Spanish Catholic clergy demanded the establishment of grater civil rights in Spain. 

In Saigon, a devastating nightclub explosion occurred.  It was blamed by the government on the Communists, but some local business owners attributed to rogue ARVN soldiers acting as extortionists.  

The first actions by a group now known as Greenpeace took place as the protest activist group set sail to protest US nuclear testing in the arctic.

BD introduced Michael Doonesbury to Boopsy for the first time in the cartoon Doonesbury.