Riding the Wave, 20. How Quickly We Forget.

In the past couple of weeks, two open letters, from retired Army and Air Force officers, were received by the King. In both of them, the complaint is that the government, run by "social-communists, lovers of ETA, and secessionists," is bringing the country closer to a dissolution, and a divisiveness never before seen. They re-affirm their loyalty to the King, and promise their help. All of those who signed graduated from military academies back in the 1960's, under Franco, and are retired, which means they are free to voice their personal opinions.

They reflect exactly the position of the extreme right party, Vox. In fact, if one were to take away the names of the signees, one could just as easily replace them with members of that political party. That such a letter was sent to the King is one thing. Another thing is a chat room where ex-officials of the Air Force, most of them signees to one of the letters, promoted their own ways of "making Spain great again."

In it, their discontent with a leftist-leaning government is more than obvious. One says, "I think that shooting 26 million isn't enough!!!" (Creo que me quedo corto fusilando a 26 millones!!!). There are other gems. "I prefer the Republic because we would have more room to repeat the manouevers of '36." (Yo prefiero la República porque tendremos mas oportunidades de repetir las maniobras del '36.) "The manouevers of '36 gave us some years of progress, even if some had a rough time. Spain is full of ungovernable people, and the only way possible is culturizing people which is impossible with the left. It's sad, but it's the Spanish reality." (Las maniobras del '36 nos proporcionaron unos cuantos años de progreso, aunque algunos lo pasaron mal. España está llena de gente ingobernable y la única forma posible es culturizar a la gente cosa que es imposible con la izquierda. Es triste pero es la realidad española.) "The way things are, the only way to stop it is to extirpate the cancer!!!!" (Tal como está la situación la única forma de atajarla es extirpado el cancer!!!!)  

There were other mentions, such as bombing the association that in Catalunya is promoting independence. There were also many reverent mentions of Franco, calling him the "Unrepeatable" the Irrepetible. Thank God for that, at least. Somehow, some way, a reporter got hold of the chat, probably let in by a minor official that was uneasy about some of the proposals. It's been published, and the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, has referred the entire case to the Attorney General, the Fiscalía, to determine if criminal lines were crossed. 

Along similar lines, but more menacingly, yesterday Trump published a 46 minute speech on social media calling for the election to be overturned, and all the Democrat votes to be nullified. He says that "[the Supreme Court] will do what's right for this country." Yet, every court has thrown out every case brought to them by his lawyers arguing voter fraud, because no evidence has been presented. I think only one case was allowed to proceed, but on a very minor detail that will not influence the final result. No case will reach the Supreme Court because there is no case. 

I didn't listen to the speech because listening to him is like listening to nails on a blackboard, but I've scanned the transcript. He even mentions that forty European countries don't allow mail-in voting. (Yes, they all do, and it's quite simple to request.) He simply rambled a mass of lies that are as preposterous as his presidency has been. The worst part of this is that his hard-core followers are sending death threats to poll workers. Some Republicans have asked him to tone down his rhetoric because, otherwise, people will get hurt. 

Is it that the conflicts we suffered eighty years ago have been forgotten? Have we forgotten the divisiveness that led to them? It looks like we have, and that history has come full circle, again. Hopefully, we will have learned even just a little, and these hot heads that spew hatred and nonsense will not be allowed to stoke the fires any further.

Life continues.