Faux News Talking Head Called Franco A Socialist...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

As I understood it Franco was a fascist, a rather benign one , but a fascist still the same...

Where do they find these guys?

[boobooday]

1. At the Young Republican Cotillion

Where they eat cheese and talk about Ann Coulter as a "hottie."

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[MSchreader]

2. There was nothing benign about Franco

Read Orwell's book on the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia, or Felix Morrow's Revolution and Counter-revolution in Spain.

Franco was a butcher, just like his allies, Hitler and Mussolini.

Martin

[Darranar]

3. The guy was a fascist...

the communists and socialists DESPISED him.

"Fair and Balanced", I suppose.

[flamingyouth]

4. Just more of Faux's continual attempts to rewrite history

It's not enough for them to rewrite the present. They've taken the term Orwellian to stratospheric new heights.

[mitchtv]

5. I have to agree with the poster who says

mothing benign about Franco see guernica

[goondogger]

22. Picasso captured it best . . .

[SharonAnn]

6. I think the talking head didn't know any better. Basically

ignorant.

So, people who get their news from Fox News are getting it form the ignorant. That explains it.

[lastliberalintexas]

16. I have to disagree

This is just one more example of the RWers' attempts to both re-write history and to demonize Socialism. They bloody well know that Franco was a fascist, but that would put him on the right side of the political spectrum, along with their latest idol Shrub. Much easier to label him a Socialist for an uninformed, uneducated American public who then associate yet another evil with Socialism.

[chocolateeater]

7. Great. Someone else on TV who knows nothing about history.

:shrug:

[IndianaGreen]

8. Franco was a Fascist, and there was nothing benign about him

Spain has her share of butchered by Franco.

[La_Serpiente]

9. Franco was a big time facist

and with the support of the Catholic Church, the wealth of the rich, and the size of his renegade army, they engaged in mass murders. When Franco was losing to the Communists and Socialists, he asked Hitler for help. Franco said that Hitler could use a small town in Northern Spain as "target practice". Hitler, being the madman he was, did not turn down the opportunity.

It was a very sad day. Pablo Picasso, who was from Spain, created a painting in response to the bombings that would be remembered by many around the world.

Guernica

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. I'm Not An Expert On Spain And I Don't Like Franco...

but he protetcted his nation's Jews during WW2 and allowed some Jews to emigrate to Spain...

He also cooperated with the Allies....

He was no Hitler or Tojo....


That's all....

[IndianaGreen]

17. Jews were not permitted to practice our religion openly in Spain

As a matter of fact, Protestants were not permitted to practice theirs either!

[mitchtv]

26. wasn't he turned down by hitler?

what cooperation with the Allies?. See "the disappearance of Garcia Lorca"

[Stargleamer]

19. and Federico Garcia Lorca numbers one of his victims

Love your picture of Garcia Lorca!!

[La_Serpiente]

21. Thanks

:hi:

[jpgray]

10. Remember that valley called Jarama

Franco was not benign, nor was he a socialist. Our news agencies are filled with some truly empty heads.

[tobius]

11. A benign fasist? wow.

kind of like a cuddly tyrant?

[tabasco]

12. Did they say Franco invented Spaghetti-O's too ?

Why bother with Faux news?

[rockymountaindem]

13. The confusion usually generates from the term "National Socialism".

N.S.D.A.P- National Socialist Deutchland Arbeiters Parti- National Socialist German Workers' Party- Nazis

Yes, the Nazis and their Italian, Spanish and other allies were Fascist, however the party name of the strongest Facist party, the Nazis contained the word "socialist" in it. This is a cause of great confusion for the Repubs who have only a shallow and slanted view of history. I guess they believe Hitler since he supposedly labeled himself a socialist. The first leader of the NSDAP, Anton Drexler (overthrown by Hitler one year after the party's founding in the 20s), included the communist overtones because the communists/socialists had considerable popular support in Germany, and Drexler wanted to fool everyone outside the party into thinking the Nazis were something other than what they actually were.

This misnomer rubs off on other Fascists like Franco, and even Mussolini, the creator of modern Fascism.

Put it this way... under socialism, the state and "the people" take care of the individual, and things can be mostly democratic (Scandanavian welfare states, for example). Under Fascism, it is the job of the individual to take care of "the people" and the state. Franco kind of blended the two in some ways, such as the 1938 "Labor Charter". The Charter mandated that it was the state's responsibility to create enough jobs for everyone (socialist position), and also that everyone was required to have a job in order to support the state (fascist position). However, for the most part Franco was a fascist through and through.

On edit:
As for the "gentle Fascist" line, consider the root of the word "fascist". The word comes from the Latin word "fasces" (pronounced fas-kees), a Roman symbol of a hatchet bound up in a bundle of rods. When carried by a Roman army, the fasces symbolized the power of that army to enforce the will of the Roman government by any means necessary; i.e. it gave the Romans license to be even more brutal than usual. Basically the fasces is a symbol of "might makes right, kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" thinking. It was the symbol of Mussolini's fascists. FYI, there is a depiction of the fasces hanging on either side of the speaker's podium in the US House of Representatives. I am of the opinion that these should be removed from the Capitol building.

Do you know where there are no Fascists in Spain?

In the town of Pablo.

[HawkerHurricane]

24. Fasces...

were symbols of JUSTICE, not military power. 39 sticks bundled around an axe, they were the symbol of the Roman Senate (yeah, I know, not the most just group). They symobolized the punishments of Roman courts... Punishments went from lashes (no more than 39, to avoid going over 40) to execution by beheading.

Like the Swastika, the original meaning has been usurped and distorted by the political movement.

[rockymountaindem]

25. Ok, yeah I came across badly in that post.

They were symbols of that army's power (granted by the Senate, not every army carried one on every expedition) to impose Roman law (i.e. justice) by whatever means necessary. There was no due process, no court system, just Roman officers arbitrarily deciding punishments. Sounds like a great system to me...

15. isn't "benign fascist" an oxymoron?

[IndianaGreen]

18. It is!

just like "compassionate conservative"!

[jpgray]

20. Bush praise, perhaps? (nt)

[DemocratSinceBirth]

27. All I Meant Is That Spain Didn't Have Xyklon B And Cattle Cars...

If you stayed out of politics you were o k...

I would rather have lived in Franco's Spain than Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia...

That's all...

[MSchreader]

28. No, they simply shot their opponents on sight

The Falangists killed anyone who was a Communist, Socialist, Trotskyist, anarchist, anarcho-syndicalist, trade unionist, secularist, democrat, liberal, etc. They didn't need cattle cars or Xyklon B because they didn't take a lot of prisoners.

Martin

[ithacan]

23. Hitler and Mussolini backed Franco

in the Spanish civil war against the democratically elected government of Spain... When Franco and the fascists defeated the democratically elected government...