When Spain lost it's colonies at the end of the XIX century, Filipinas and Cuba, a feeling of depression, a lack of confidence in our country, had spread throughout Spain. But I had never understood what that feeling was. I know it now

It is so depressing the situation in Spain rightnow..... that many of us feel that socialism -if we can use that word in a capitalistic society- in Spain, once again in our History, is spitting over our country, showing a total lack of loyalty with Spain, showing no respect for those citizens killed by this bunch of asessins, ashamed about the way our PM hide, in a very humiliating way, our national flag.

Many of us are still waiting for an explanation regarding our PM lamentable profile:

"With an undistinguished academic and political record, little travel experience and no foreign languages--a man even Socialists didn't expect to win--he was once dismissed as the "accidental prime minister."

IMO this PM is just a treason to Spain. Socialists know, for sure, they are one of the 2 parties, with true posibilities to rule the country, How did they choose this retard then? It can be only because they care a [crap] about Spain. They had to choose the best among them, the best qualified, with the best skills and not the worst
Why this candidate, when there were many, many other within the socialist party of Spain, with all the requirements that are needed in a PM? Why this man with an undistinguished academic and political record, little travel experience and no foreign languages, when there are dozens with all the skills and what is more important, IMO, goverment experience................Every single reason I find, in order to understand this lamentable socialist party behavior, only lead me to treason.
I hope History will punish our PM as hard as History can. I really hope so.

I felt ashamed, as many spaniards, when he remained seat while the US flag was in front of him, -how you dare to give the world the impression that España is not polite with other countries?- Why did he insulted a nearly 300 million population country in our name? Why did nobody tell him that he is acting in the name of España? The explanation is that he's got no experience, folks, that's the only reason. He believes he is sixteen years old and refused to take off that Che Guevara T-shirt, even when it stinks. Imagine your son passed his driving license exams yesterday, would you buy him a Ferrari Testarrosa tomorrow as his first car?

Can you imagine how we felt after the Madrid airport attack, last 30.12. 2006, folks? A feeling of surrender,.... so disgusting.
For the first time since 1960, he is the first spanish PM that is ready to give ETA what they've been asking for years, including the death of Spain, and ETA, in exchange for this superb achievement, blew up our brand new airport terminal in Madrid.
What would have happened in your countries? A terrorists gang is negotiating some sort of peace proccess after 40 years and suddenly, boooom, two dead people and an enormous amount of money in the rubish bin.
Would you still say that the peace process was still on? We sat down with terrorists in order to have peace and they blew up the airport, I don't need anything else to end the peace proccess and to give straight orders to Police and Secret services to search and hunt down all these bastards.
But after all theses facts, my PM -what a disgusting coward!!!- .................still want to talk with them!!!!!!!!

The socialist party of Spain sent us once to a civil war. They didn't believe in democracy and they acted as antidemocratic fascists, that's why Franco took power, not because he was a fascists and didn't like the spanish República, but because the spanish left behavior, back in those years, ......folks, I just coudln't believe it 'till I read it. How they stole the fourth more important gold reserves in the world. How they did spend our money while lots of spaniards that had to leave Spain when Franco took power had not a penny to live with.

A couple of questions, Jabato...

1. What do you feel Zapatero and Socialistas are doing inside of Spain to make life poorer for Spainards? Do they support certain policies that enable this type of state to exist?

2. Do you feel that this probelm with the Socialist party and the people could lead to a further social problem again (e.g., those problems that led to the most recent two civil wars in Spain?)

__________________
"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
Isaac Asimov

Actually you should be asking him to backup his words with some facts.

In case that someone is interested in the Spanish Civil War, its causes, and who was who in it, there are a couple useful wikipedia articles.

This is on the Second Spanish Republic:

Second Spanish Republic

And this one is on the Spanish Civil War:

Spanish Civil War

You may notice they don't support IN ANY WAY Jabato's statements. The PSOE actually was a minor force in the coalition that won de 1934 election; whereas the war was started by military coupists, supported by fascists (real fascists) and traditionalists.


Additionally, PSOE abandoned Marxism in 1974 (Britain's labourist party did it in... 1997!), and has been a social-democrat party since then.

Further detail in PSOE's article at the wikipedia:

PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party)


->And yes, Jabato, it's me with another name. A "little bird" told me you were here and I just wanted to avoid that someone mistook your anti-PSOE bigotry for reality. Spain already got enough real problems without foreigners believing your bunch...

(Oh, and emptypepsi, thanks for worrying about our country)

Its funny. Sounds like the argumentation of some of our dear ultra conservatives in Austria.

It was not the power hungriness that lead the Austrofascists to abolish democracy unleash civil war. They just wanted to defend democracy and the whole country against the undemocratic socialists...

Our civil war luckily did not take long however.

PS:
The last time I had a look at it, Spain prospered economically. Doesn't look like the change in government hurted the developement in any way. Zapatero is also considerably more respected within the EU as Aznar. But perhaps this is a sign for betrayal of Spain as well in the eyes of some people?

PPS:
Does Aznar and the peoples party still claim that the train attacks were carried out by ETA?

__________________
"Every country gets the cuisine it deserves"

Well, let me say that I am only recently (as in, the last year) coming to learn about the History of Spain, let alone the current political landscape. I am, however, familiar with the Civil War. Thanks for the link on the Second Spanish Republic. Lo leeré con placer.

I will be interested to hear Jabato's reply. I do not know what you may know about him, but one must appreciate different inputs on the topic (Jabatos included) and I was simply wondering further why he feels the way he does. Ya sabes...

But, all that aside, let's try and refrain from labeling things like "bigotry", unless you can provide us with something to verify it with. In short: let's keep it as civil as possible, guys.

In regards to worrying about Spain - el gusto es mio.
Your country is the one I want to visit the most someday.

EP

__________________
"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
Isaac Asimov

Economically, Spain has been doing well for over 15 years. Our current Economy minsiter is Pedro Solbes, who is exactly the man who set the current policy 15 years ago... his economic recipe has ran along 4 different governemnts, 2 PSOE and 2 of the PP (People's Party).

As for 3/11 and ETA... Aznar's party, the PP, has been silent since the trial began. Roughly as the conpsiracy theory has been blown to bits, PP has been keeping a policy of no comment...


Wel,, I too would be interested to know why he feels the way he feels. This thread -and my presence here- is a cross-feed from IAP. First I wasn't going to reply, but when Jabato caught some attention.... well, if someone goes aorund telling nonsense about your country, it's nice and polite to warn the readers of it, and offer them some unbiased data.

Don't know if you ever heard of the tale about two dudes who had a quarrel and were envious of each toher, and the king told them that he would give them whatever they wanted but the other would get it twice, so one asked the King to remove him one eye so the other lost both eyes... Spain is plenty of "patriots" who are like this, more interested about destroying the other than about Spain. They gleefully crap on Spain in order to blame the enemy for it...

Well, it's that cross-feed thing. There at IAP jabato has started several threads with the same intent as this one. We've had several arguments in Spanish too, as he apparently can't refrain to post crap on the socialists alhtough he knows that I am the only one who is going to answer and of course I disagree of him. The problem is that he just needs to read his paper and listen to his radio to warm up and get stuff agaisnt the PSOE, whereas I do have got better things to do than listen to PSOE propaganda against the PP...

All in all, their tactic is to make a lot of noise to kill the signal. FAI, he won't tell you that the Socialists have so far...

... approved a law against genre violence, a law which had been demanded for the last two years of Aznar's mandate, but Aznar's people couldn't worry themselves about it...

... given equal rights to homosexuals as to heterosexuals, including the right to marry and to adopt children

... tried, but eventually was a near miss, to eliminate the last condition under which a woman could be sent to jail for aborting (instead than for trespassing abortion laws)

... approved the Law of Dependence, which is by far and long the most amazing and influential piece of social law ever written and approved in Spain -basically a law that will improve the life of dependant (disabled) people and the relatives taking care of them.

... for the first time in history, Spain's unemployment rate has left the 2-digits and still is steadily shrinking.

... have kept the growth of Spanish economy at its comfy rate of >3% per year since 1993.

... and of course, although controversial, Spain's troops formerly deployed in Iraq now are where Spanish people (67% of them) always wanted them to be: anywhere but Bush's illegal war.

Instead they will make a lot of noise about nonsense. You know, take me one eye but render the Socialist blind...

Emptypepsi wrote:
1. What do you feel Zapatero and Socialistas are doing inside of Spain to make life poorer for Spainards? Do they support certain policies that enable this type of state to exist?

First of all there is not socialisms in Europe. They label themselves as socialists but they aren't. They are fully capitalists and we all know for sure, that socialisms was born to fight capitalism. So we are not talking about socialisms as an economic and social system to rule human being lives.
What Zapatero is doing inside of Spain is what your son, who passed his driving license exams yesterday, and you've bought him a Ferrari Testarrosa as his first car, would have done with such a powerful car: crash it or brush it. Now let's see Spain instead the Ferrari and our son instead of Zapatero and the equation is solved.
When he remained sat in front of the US flag, he brushed the Ferrari. When he ordered the withdrawal of our troops in Irak, he crashed the Ferrari once again.

Emptypepsi wrote:
2. Do you feel that this probelm with the Socialist party and the people could lead to a further social problem again (e.g., those problems that led to the most recent two civil wars in Spain?

Absolutely not. But for sure our PM is doing his best to confront spaniards. His talks with ETA terrorists has been a total mistake. But who the hell believe a bloody terrorists? Only fools or aficionados. In both cases, terrorists will succed

Titus Andronicus:
And yes, Jabato, it's me with another name.

(Ironic mode on)
Oh.....it's you.......for God's sake..........with another name.......no, no.......I'm so scared.....I need some help, to face such an enormous threat.......
(Ironic mode off)

¡Mira pibe deja de joder la paciencia and let people simply express their points of view, even if you do not share them.

Slartibartfas wrote:
Its funny. Sounds like the argumentation of some of our dear ultra conservatives in Austria.

If you could be more specific...................you know, in order to have a proper debate.

Slartibartfas wrote:
The last time I had a look at it, Spain prospered economically.

When was that "last time", because spanish economy is going rather well rightnow

Slartibartfas wrote:
Zapatero is also considerably more respected within the EU as Aznar.

This is just an opinion, that I deeply respect but I do not share.
The fact is that this teenager with absolutely no previous goverment experience -I mean my PM- has insulted Angela Merkel, has had problems with Sarkozy, with Poland....and IMO is seen in Europe simply as an aficionado.
On the other hand, Aznar gave Spain the most profitable period in the whole spanish democracy. Aznar negotiators were very tough and did fight in Europe very hard for our country. Mr Giscard was clear when he said: Spain has been the most beneficiary country after Niza. Aznar's goverment staff was formed by a bunch of very intelligent and efficient group of people. A very tough negotiators

Slartibartfas wrote:
Does Aznar and the peoples party still claim that the train attacks were carried out by ETA?[

Too long and too difficult to say it in english but for sure, socialists goverment has done everything in his hands to avoid ETA responsability.
The trains has been destroyed. Do you know how many evidences have we lost thank to that behavior? Why the destruction of evidences? Did you know that other evidences had been cleaned up with bleach?
What about CSI Las Vegas, don't they watch TV?

These arguments, if I may say so, sounds familiar. It sounds like the same things we heard here in SA when FW De Klerk started negitioating with the ANC. The fact is, years of fighting with ETA has not solved one thing.

So I do not see why your PM is wring in trying to negotiate. Yes, the bombing of MAdrid Airport was a very bad move by ETA, but still a peacefull settlement should be sought.

South Africa and Norhtern Ireland should serve as an example of this. In both countries it has become clear that figthing will not solve the problems, but negotiations will.

So tell me why you think it is so wring that your PPM negotiate with ETA?

AH

__________________
“The subject no longer has to be mentioned by name. Someone is sick. Someone else is feeling better now. A friend has just gone back into the hospital. Another has died. The unspoken name, of course, is AIDS.”
“From the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, the AIDS problem has already been solved. After all, we already have a drug which can be sold at the incredible price of $8, 000 an annual dose, and which has the added virtue of not diminishing the market by actually curing anyone.”