Tag Archives: correspondent

AVT demo in Madrid: pure class, again

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Sunday - 25 February 2007

The BBC deigned to report on the AVT's demonstration in Madrid at which between 7,000 and 110,000 activists marched against the early release of José Ignacio de Juana Chaos, after he wrote threatening articles which named some judges. What's interesting about the way the protesters and the BBC presented this demo was that it was somehow to do with de Juana Chaos's previous offence, the murder of 25 people during his career in ETA. Ostensibly, however, that was not the aim of the march at all. After all, de Juana Chaos has served 18 years of his sentence for that crime and, were he any other prisoner would be out early. So yet again, a demonstration called against one thing ends up being really about another thing completely. Or a multiplicity of things, as there were the usual banners around alluding to some kind of Zapatero involvement in 11M.

The AVT has no credibility as a politically independent pressure group.

It was nice to see the 7,000 enjoying the sunshine in Madrid's streets. Nice to see them waving their flags (some of them replete with fascist emblems). Nice to see their Nazi salutes while they sang the anthem of the armed forces. There's no doubt about it: the AVT rent-a-mob are a classy bunch.

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One more thing: does anyone have any recent opinion poll stats on this topic? I haven't been able to find anyone but was reliably informed by the BBC's north American Spain correspondent that 'the vast majority of Spaniards are against de Juana Chaos's release'. That's fine if it's backed up with statistics… I just can't find them. Much obliged to anyone who can enlighten me.

Wearing their swastikas on their sleeves

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Monday - 5 December 2005

As if the last week of 'Spain Herald' weren't reactionary enough, top fascist writer Pío Moa today set the seal on their being ignored by this correspondent from now on.

In an article which accuses the Socialist party of being terrorists and anti-democratic, Moa states the case for Francoism in modern Spain.

Needless to say, this sort of rampant fascism is as utterly revolting as it is in denial of history. Y esta.

Gate Gourmet, Venezuela, Lost

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Wednesday - 17 August 2005

Interesting how on yesterday's BBC News 24, the correspondent reporting on the Venezuelan air crash nearly slipped in a big pile of news dung when he was asked about reports that all the passengers were French. As all the passengers were from Martinique, which is a department of France, they were all French. The journalist seemed on the verge of explaining how the passengers weren't really proper French citizens, but then wisely shut his trap.

The Gate Gourmet strike talks collapsed yesterday after memos from last year were leaked, some containing evidence that the management of the company had put in place a plan to antagonise employees until they went on illegal strike, and then sack them. This revelation, along with numerous other allegations about the company's behaviour (including one which claimed that low-level workers were promoted to management roles and then fired immediately – allowing the company to claim it was cutting back on the number of managers) – have totally vindicated all the people involved in the original strike, and the BA workers who struck out of solidarity for them.

Vindaloo tonight, accompanied by some Penedès Cabernet Sauvignon and two episodes of Lost. Quite enjoying that, actually. It's almost soothed the pain (shame?) I still feel when I think about how much I enjoyed Point Pleasant, even when everyone else thought it was crap, and then it was pulled :-( (((