…or apparently he did, anyway.
Yes, it seems that Spain's fascist dictator lost a testicle when he was injured during a battle in 1916. Which was, curiously, the same year that Hitler is alleged to have lost one of his.
Could it be that the loss of a testicle in 1916 made an under-skilled military man predestined to become a vile monster?
Perhaps they should dig him out of his slave-built mausoleum in the Valle de los Caídos to check. They could knock that awful place down while they're at it.
Today's photo opportunities news stories revealing an RAF Typhoon Eurofighter intercepting a Russian Tupolev Bear-H bomber are the latest in a long series of incidents between the two countries. Ever since the Litvinenko incident, via the restart of Russian bomber patrols and the recall of diplomats, we seem to be going through a period of particularly poor relations with Russia.
But sub sole nihil novi est – Britain has always had poor relations with Russia. Since the cold war, since the Revolution, since the Great Game, since the Anglo-Russian war, the two countries have probably spent more time in hostility than in friendship. So it's almost beginning to look like good fortune that our Eurofighters, delayed for years, were designed in the Cold War to fight Soviet bombers.
Realistically, there's no other country which could be considered a threat in the western hemisphere. The US missile defence program which has caused so much anger in Russia (and which the UK is a party to) is obviously aimed at containing Russia. It is Russia, after all, which is believed to have a stockpile of up to 18,000 intact atomic warheads. It is also Russia which seeks to operate diplomacy by doing things like switching off gas supplies to neighbours. Potentially just as worrying, Russian society is becoming more and more politically extreme. The growth of fascist, ultra-nationalist and Putin-youth groups all point to a radicalisation in Russian society.
Five days ago, the Sun newspaper launched a salvo against Russia which shows that relations have certainly reached a new low: they're using their worst insult against the Russian leader. They reckon he might be gay. By the way, check out the slideshow… it's not far from the sort of thing that used to be written about Hitler.
This guy is my ultimate hero. He briefly replaces Father Jack, who's sent off to 'Jurassic Park' after he catches the hairy hands disease. Father Stack is thoroughly obnoxious and does stuff like waking people up at 3 am by playing incredibly loud jungle while simultaneously drilling holes in the wall.
Example quote:
Father Stack: I want to listen to some music.
Ted : Oh, that's fine, you go ahead there.
Father Stack: I wasn't asking for permission.
Video after the jump…
"Do a commercial, you're off the artistic roll call, every word you say is suspect, you're a corporate whore and eh, end of story." Bill Hicks.
Davina McCall, can you hear me? You know that hair colourant which you do the commercial for? Where you talk with your 'Mum' about how great the hair colour you've achieved is? And you're not in character… you're just Davina? And you say 'love you' to your 'Mum'? And how much did they pay you to say that? Hopefully it was a lot of money. I imagine it would be. You wouldn't sell your feelings for your 'Mum' for just a few grand. Those feelings must be worth a lot of money. I hope they paid you every penny. So now, when you say 'love you' to your 'Mum' you can think of the money you were paid for the time you said that. LOVE YOU.
There is something inherently wrong with selling your emotions to a company who will use them in order to market a product. There is something immoral about writing a song for someone and then selling it to a company who will then use it to market a product. When you make the decision to put a price tag on your emotions, you say 'you can buy me for this'. All this ought to be obvious. Indeed, there are many songwriters and artists who do not sell their emotions like that.
But what about beliefs? Is it right to sell your beliefs to people? Example: if I am a socialist, is it right for me to CAPITALISE on my beliefs by selling them to other people? Case in point: badrash.com (no, not this website! I'm talking about the usurpers, badrash.com).
The guys next door. They are self proclaimed lefties. Gay rights, veganism, not being a Republican: nothing is too extreme or alternative for them. They are literally subverting normality with their radical ideology. Their motto/catchphrase if you will is "Anarchy to vegan. In and out. And all ends except right". Clever huh? I bet you feel utterly subverted having read that. Do you see what they've done? They've managed to say that they represent every possible position in the political spectrum. Except the right wing. Genius. That's what you've gotta love about these guys. Their hearts are in the right place. Not the "Right" place like Hitler or Bush, no: I mean the correct place. IE we are totally down with the kids. Buy our stuff.
And just to prove how utterly committed to socialism and all anti-capitalist movements (yes, every single one), they are selling LEFT-WING BRANDED MERCHANDISE on their website.
Way to go, boys. Like Tony Blair, you've found a reliable way to CASH IN on left wing sentiments and MAKE MONEY out of them. So you and your fellow pseudo-socialists can all go in uniform, branded identically like good little soldiers of capitalism.
Salient points:
(1) we are not all united on the left. Indeed, 'the left' itself is something of a myth created by those with more reactionary and conservative opinions. In fact, the spectrum of ideologies represented in the left wing make it logically impossible that you could support all at the same time. It is people like this who have no coherent beliefs and a simple "CONTRA" attitude who give socialism a bad name. Grow up.
(2) it is not cool to be a profiteer. No one likes a man who turns up at the barricade with t-shirts for sale. You cannot be on both sides at once. Make up your minds.
(3) it is illegal under equal opportunities law (which was introduced across the world on the back of decent trade union members campaigning for equality for all – a truly noble cause) to design your website in a way that it is not accessible to disabled people. Particularly in the cases of businesses, but also for all other websites, it is illegal and immoral to deny access to people unable to read text-images. Any website – particularly one pretending to be down with the kids, and not a profiteering shop – would be well advised to at least provide a text based version of the site available for those who need to use a special browser to view html pages. Or do you just hate disabled people?
On BBC Breakfast this morning there was a feature about how France and the US might be about to repair their damaged relations. Reporting from New Orleans, the journalist spoke to a number of Americans about how they felt about France. Most people seemed to recognise that the two countries would always be allies – through good times and bad. But one giant fallacy has permanently poisoned this friendship – and perhaps goes a long way to explaining the dislike of Americans held by many citizens in western Europe.The story goes "We saved their country – they should be grateful. I can't believe they wouldn't help us in our time of need."
The premises of this argument are (1) the USA saved Europe from the scourge of Nazism;
(2) because of this act of salvation, Europe owes the USA a debt of gratitude;
(3) this gratitude would be best expressed by supporting any and all military action proposed by the USA, even sixty years later.
(1) When considering the story of the second world war, it is easy to focus on the mythology of the war rather than what actually happened. By the time the USA entered the war, Hitler had lost his main weapon – the element of surprise. The Blitzkrieg had been very successful, but it had failed when Germany attempted to invade the UK. American citizens (though not the US government) assisted in the defence of England, as did Indians, Africans, Canadians and Carribeans. With the Battle of Britain won, a stalemate ensued which was only changed by Hitler's insistence on trying to invade the USSR. Russia did more to defeat Germany than any other nation – and by the time the US organised and assisted with the re-invasion of the continent, British troops had won the large African victories necessary to knock Italy out of the war. It's not that we don't think the Americans helped us – we know that – but when Americans claim that without them we'd be speaking German, they're simply wrong.
(2) The good Samaritan does not seek gold after helping people. If America, as we are so fond of being told, did the honourable thing by leaping to our aid at the last moment – when we stood on the brink of darkness – why can't they do the honourable thing now and stop banging on about it? Do you help your friends out because you want to help them, because you can see the value in making friends, or because you can gain strategic power? This is a purely moral issue, and I don't fool myself that the US really stepped in out of anything approaching altruism. It ought to be clear therefore that the Americans surely have their reward – a western Europe largely dependent on them, consuming their exports, housing their military bases, drinking their Coca Cola, and generally not being communists for fifty years. What more can they ask for?
(3) Does a true friend always agree with you, even if he knows you are utterly wrong and misguided? I think that the answer to this question must surely be no. The suggestion that because America assisted Europe defeat the evil of Nazism, Europe should comply with and assist in the invasion of Iraq is completely fallacious. Firstly, there was never any agreement, formal or otherwise, stating that France would participate in such military action. Secondly, the French explained time and time again their reasons for not supporting the invasion: the evidence of WMDs was too sparce, the evidence concerning aiding terrorism was non-existent. Iraq was a war of vengeance for the Americans: your people attacked New York, therefore we will rain fire and death down upon your whole region. Except the Saudis, of course. The French, ever in favour of more – shall we say – diplomatic measures were never going to show much interest in America's war.
Just how long can America continue to claim a debt from Europe? 200 years? Longer?
Maybe then they could consider the role the French played in assisting the American side during the war of Independence? Perhaps we will hear La Marseillaise playing out on Pennsylvania Avenue one day in the future.
There is an excellent column in today's El País about Franco's legacy. Unfortunately, I can't copy any of the text to here, but if you visit http://www.iht.com/pdfs/elpais/ep2.pdf today, you should be able to read it.
Benjamin Prado makes some very interesting points about how if you look around these days you could almost believe that Franco ruled for 36 years "in absolute solitude" – so few are those who admit to having been supporters of the fascist, treacherous dictator.
Articles like Prado's, which actually focuses on the current drive by the ruling Socialist Workers party to remove Fascist images and statues from Spain, always stir up a strong sense of indignation, anger and righteousness in me. Is it something I learned as I grew up? That however conservative boarding schools and naval colleges are, English conservatism is bound not to fascism but to liberalism. Don't get me wrong – there were fascists in the Tory party right through the last century, and even some who admired Franco and Hitler. But in England, this was always extremism. In Spain, it's sad to say, it wasn't.
Indeed, there are many members of Spain's 'conservative' Popular Party who were actively involved in state fascism before Franco died. Not least Manuel Fraga, premier of the region of Galicia – and party grandee. Fraga was minister of propaganda under Franco, and one of the most fervent fascists Spain had. Even now he wields considerable power. There seem to be far too many people around who are not willing to criticise Franco's regime unless pushed to. In many families, almost half a century of recent history is never, ever discussed.
When Spain became a democracy again (remember: Franco overthrew a democratically elected government), it was agreed that all the groups who had been involved in the civil war and the dictatorship would accept an 'act of forgetting'. It seems that the fascists could hold the socialist republicans to this because many atrocities were carried out by anarchists under the republican flag. To be fair though, the anarchists and the republicans certainly seem to have paid for their sins – a 36 year dictatorship which was marked by brutal oppression and tens of thousands of murders by the state.
So what Spain has been left with is a living memory of fascism, but laws to prevent anyone being punished for the overthrow of a democratically elected government, a horrific civil war, the suppression of human rights, state-sponsored murder, destruction of regional cultures and rape of the environment.
Perhaps before Fraga dies, the Socialists would be kind enough to introduce an act of remembrance so that at last Spain can truly bury its dead. If this doesn't happen, this country genuinely risks slipping back towards a time that everyone seems to be forgetting.
In response to The Guardian's curious project in reaching-out to US voters (which legally provided the contact details of voters in one small county in Ohio, the hope being that readers could get in touch with them and discuss the election), the message boards of Bush supporting websites have gone into overdrive, pouring out lashings of bile, wild claims and ill-considered arguments.
The best I've seen so far is Tim Blair's Operation Guardian, a huge page of diatribes and smug stupidity – albeit with a sprinkling of sensible questioning (e.g. what was the Guardian really expecting? and didn't they worry that this could damage either Kerry's chances of winning, or Americans' feelings about the UK?).
Yet again, it has been shown that when the right wing get angry, they get silly.
It's silly to say that the British shouldn't express any opinions about the US because Americans died in the second world war: they died in the defence of freedom, but so did the British and French soldiers. As did the thousands of European citizens who were murdered by Fascist bombs and gas. These criminal wars were started not by Europeans but by men: it is folly to pretend that given the right circumstances, thugs like Mussolini or Hitler could not be born Americans.
It's silly to say that just because some of the ancestors of Americans came from Britain, it must be an awful place: Britain has changed a lot in two hundred years, as has America. The Americans are no longer exterminating the native peoples of their continent… they pretty much completed that job. But we don't want to dwell on the past. Never mind that the land of the free – the home of democracy and free speech – only allowed blacks the vote in the 1960s. You see, in Europe, we are prepared to accept that you have moved on from such abominations. We don't continually draw attention to your previous failings because we feel that you learnt the lesson, and nothing would be gained for any reasonable argument by harping on about them. But this is the key: we don't think that we in Europe are essentially any different from you. Sadly, it seems that the bulk of correspondents on Tim Blair's site genuinely believe that they are different to – and immeasurably better than – European citizens. It's just not true.
It's silly to make wild claims like "If the president isn't re-elected, you and the rest of the eurotrash will be living under Islamic law within the decade". It would be easy to say that 'Erp' (mailto:erp617@yahoo.com) was probably joking with this bizarre assertion. But honestly, I don't think he or she was. Clearly a stupid thing to say, but on closer inspection this is very revealing. Europe's recent history is one of increasing secularity. Not only have we succeeded in separating Church and State, but larger and larger numbers of Europeans no longer subscribe to the faiths which were previously institutional. The only western democracy actually drifting towards religious fundamentalism is the USA, where the electorate now demand unseemly evangelism from their commander-in-chief, not sober, consciencious, thought.
It's silly to say that all British people have bad teeth. Most British people I've met have benefited from years of open, free, public health – a system only now being ruined (in the American model!). Personally, I couldn't care less. If, as a response to a reasoned argument, you are faced with this:, "if you insist I could make fun of how only one out of ten britons has straight teeth. i could do that. i could make fun of how pasty and pale their skin tends to be to where i might actually be taken for a black man by mistake if i stood next to a guy from wales. i could make fun of how a briton got his head knocked around so bad at the last soccer game (that's football for my limey buddies our there) it gave him permanent brain damage and so he went to the pub and drank himself into more brain damage and then went on a twenty minute rant about how violent and idiotic americans are." – then what are you supposed to think?
This theme, which I have mentioned in these pages several times before, is present throughout the right-wing. It can be summed up thus:
Dissent is inherently illogical. IE any argument that disagrees with or attacks my system of values or my political standpoint is, by virtue of its opposition, wrong.
This rhetorical position is quite obviously untenable when faced with continued enquiry and logical argument. As we have seen, the natural progression from a viewpoint of blind ignorance is to insult and eventually physically attack the reasonable thinker. This is what happened to Miguel de Unamuno, one of Spain's most eminent thinkers, when he voiced his opposition to exactly the same viewpoint held by the current US administration:
"At times to be silent is to lie. You will win because you have enough brute force. But you will not convince. For to convince you need to persuade. And in order to persuade you would need what you lack: Reason and Right.".
Using the immaculate (and politically uninterested) tools of logic, it is not hard to show right-wing political ideas for what they really are: hate, anti-intelligence and physical aggression. But be careful: these guys are dangerous.
Before I start, yes I remember how rabidly against the war I was. But a few conversations with a few people wiser than myself at least gave me the chance to think a little critically about my own standpoint.
But now it's just so common to be 'against the war' – that it's not a critical standpoint at all; far more something that people just drift into. A counter-war standpoint is the Robbie Williams of politics… and given that politics is the Jamiroquai of thought… well lets just say that being against the war is seriously uncool.
As always, the sexiest position is that of the shrug. The I don't really care either way. It was good that they got rid of the most murderous man alive, and now they should probably leave Iraq as soon as possible. Perhaps they should also tackle Saudi, Syria and Iran before they become too much trouble.
The truth is that 'our' way of life is good. I think it is better (perhaps this is the attitude that made me an abysmal anthropologist) than the way of life of poor people in China, Iran or India. I think that most of the poor people would probably say something like, "Yes, Tom. Your way of life is far more comfortable than ours. You are much less likely to die at the age of forty five. You have a varied diet, fresh, clean water – just for showering in, fruits and vegetables from all around the world. You have a television, a DVD player and a computer with which you can access the internet. You have a flat, furniture, rooms and amenities just for your and your girlfriend's use. You have a benign oligarchy running things in your country, perhaps skimming a little off the top now and again, but generally managing finance, industry and society as well as it can. You have a police force genuinely interested in your protection. You have street lighting, integrated public transport, an office job, a loving family (none of whom are starving or 'missing'), travel, bars, hospitals, trade unions, elections, freedoms, people who clean the pavements, firemen, electricity, gas, compact discs, and many other things besides. You know, Tom, just because we live in a different country, and just because we have religion or 'traditional beliefs', it doesn't mean we don't want to have a way of life like yours."
Perhaps the mission to take liberal democracy to the middle east is politically difficult to justify. Morally, it seems the only thing to do. A global philanthropy, whereby we help our brothers and sisters in other lands start to lead lives like ours, is quite a good idea. It will remove from power brutal dictators, murderers, genocides and extremist 'clerics' who do nothing but punish their charges, like Saddam Hussein, the Ayatollah and even Fidel Castro.
I don't like Bush either. But he's no Saddam, and he's not Hitler. Let's put things back in proportion.