Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.
The tag 'Spain' is associated with 9 posts.

The New World Ordoliberalism, Part 7: To QE, or Not to QE, That is the Ominous Question

As the Euro­pean Cen­tral Bank (ECB) con­tin­ues to wres­tle with the deci­sion of when and how quick­ly to wind down its quan­ti­ta­tive eas­ing (QE) pro­gram while infla­tion remains stub­born­ly below the 2 per­cent tar­get and like­ly to stay well below 2 per­cent for the fore­see­able future, it’s worth not­ing that there’s a new night­mare to add to the equa­tion: The euro has surged in val­ue this year, a move that not only depress­es exports in recov­ery economies like Spain and Por­tu­gal but also depress­es infla­tion. And one of the things hold­ing down the val­ue of the euro is the ECB’s QE pro­gram. So if the ECB tapers off the QE too ear­ly and quick­ly it’s going to make an over­ly-strong euro even stronger while drag­ging infla­tion even low­er, poten­tial­ly derail­ing frag­ile recov­er­ies in the aus­ter­i­ty-inflict­ed mem­ber states. And that means not send­ing the wrong sig­nals is a key goal of the ECB is things are going to go smooth­ly. Guess which sig­nals are being sent.


FTR #828 Miscellaneous Articles and Updates

As the title indi­cates this pro­gram brings up to date a num­ber of sto­ries cov­ered in the past and intro­duces some new top­ics of dis­cus­sion. The top­ics cov­ered include: JFK’s 1963 attempts at nor­mal­iz­ing rela­tions with Cuba; new infor­ma­tion cast­ing doubt on the “lone nut” the­o­ry of the 2001 anthrax attacks (which fin­gered Bruce Ivins as a “lone nut” per­pe­tra­tor); Span­ish Prime Min­is­ter Mar­i­ano Rajoy’s sup­pres­sion of polit­i­cal dis­sent, echo­ing the poli­cies of Fran­cis­co Fran­co; a Catholic mass held to hon­or the mem­o­ry of the mur­der­ous World War II Ustachi leader Ante Pavel­ic; the glob­al eco­nom­ic elites’ pur­suit of the same eco­nom­ic poli­cies that drove peo­ple into the arms of fas­cism in the 1930’s; Ayn Rand’s role in inves­ti­gat­ing the 1940’s movie “It’s a Won­der­ful Life” as pos­si­ble cryp­to-Com­mu­nist pro­pa­gan­da; the GOP’s imple­men­ta­tion of fraud­u­lent “dynam­ic scor­ing” eco­nom­ic eval­u­a­tion; the­o­ret­i­cal physi­cist Stephen Hawk­ing’s warn­ing that the devel­op­ment of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence could threat­en the exis­tence of human­i­ty; Mr. Emory’s 1995 warn­ing that the devel­op­ment of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence could threat­en the exis­tence of human­i­ty.


FTR #825 Generalissimo Francisco Franco May NOT Be So Dead, After All

Fas­cist dic­ta­tor Fran­cis­co Fran­co passed away decades ago, yet his polit­i­cal lega­cy lives on. Through­out Spain, memo­ri­al­iza­tion of Fran­co and his sol­diers con­tin­ues. The per­pet­u­a­tion of that lega­cy is evi­dent in the polit­i­cal resume of Mar­i­ano Rajoy, the son of a Fran­co judge. Rajoy’s Pop­u­lar Par­ty is a “kindler, gen­tler” edi­tion of Fran­co’s Falange. In addi­tion to jin­go­is­tic saber rat­tling at the British ter­ri­to­ry of Gibral­tar, Rajoy is join­ing with Argenti­na to pres­sure the UK over the Fal­ka­lnd Islands. By danc­ing in tan­dem with Argenti­na, Rajoy is embrac­ing the geo-polit­i­cal lega­cy of Hitler, who select­ed Spain as his first tar­get for con­trol because of its influ­ence in Latin America–Argentina in par­tic­u­lar.


FTR #801 The Sportin’ Life

With much of the human race foam­ing at the mouth over the World Cup com­pe­ti­tion cur­rent­ly under­way in Brazil, we pause to note the pro­found con­nec­tions between the world of sport, inter­na­tion­al fas­cism and orga­nized crime. After high­light­ing fas­cist soc­cer fans in atten­dance in Brazil, the pro­gram notes the cesspool that is the Inter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee, imprint­ed with fas­cist par­tic­i­pa­tion by Juan Anto­nio Sama­ranch, Fran­cis­co Fran­co’s for­mer Min­is­ter of Sport. The 1972 Olympics mas­sacre in Munich fea­tured pos­si­ble com­plic­i­ty by ele­ments of the Ger­man gov­ern­ment and the Under­ground Reich. The pro­gram con­cludes by look­ing at Amer­i­can orga­nized crime links to the milieu of the NFL and the prob­a­ble Mob fix­ing of Bob­by Rig­gs and Bil­lie Jean King’s “Bat­tle of the Sex­es.”


Is a “Deep Falange” at Work in Spain and Argentina?

Eco­nom­i­cal­ly beset Spain is wax­ing aggres­sive toward British-gov­erned Gibral­tar, using that prin­ci­pal­i­ty’s “fis­cal irreg­u­lar­i­ties” as jus­ti­fi­ca­tion because of the nation’s “EU oblig­a­tions.” The Rajoy gov­ern­ment is coor­di­nat­ing its efforts with Argenti­na. The coop­er­a­tion is mil­i­tary, as well as polit­i­cal. Rajoy’s Peo­ple’s Par­ty evolved from Fran­co’s Falange. It does not appear to have alto­geth­er shed its fas­cist her­itage.


Surprise! It’s not the Cyprus crisis anymore. Welcome to the EUrozone crisis: This is what a shakedown looks like

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The EU’s lead­ers want to wel­come you to the new “New Nor­mal”.


History Teaches Us that We Learn Nothing from History, Part 2: It’s 1931 all over again

Fol­low­ing last week­end’s announced $125 bil­lion bank bailout in Spain, the ever present ques­tion of “what’s next” has been loom­ing larg­er than usu­al this past week. So has the past. As we all know, the past is indeed pro­logue. Espe­cial­ly the parts involv­ing mind numb­ing stu­pid­i­ty.


Official opposition to the eurozone austerity fetish becomes a bad joke

Sup­port­ers of Berlin’s aus­ter­i­ty dri­ve across the euro­zone were relieved by Ire­land’s approval of the ‘Fis­cal Com­pact’ on Thurs­day. But this ‘good news’ coin­cides with a grow­ing back­lash by key lead­ers an offi­cials against the end­less calls for aus­ter­i­ty with­out a ‘pro-growth’ com­po­nent. Except, as usu­al, not real­ly.


Falange — The Secret Axis Army in the Americas

In 1936, Reichs­mar­shall Her­mann Goer­ing observed that “Spain is the key to two con­ti­nents.”