innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2006
- Messages
- 15,069
Another election on this side of the pond, another case study on decomposition of a two-party system, and the attempts to control that process. This will be held next weekend.
Spain has a (distorted) proportional allocation of seats on its parliament. It used to have a large "left-wing" party, PSOE, and a large "right-wing" party, PP. Now it has 5 largish parties, and the usual smaller regional-based ones. The 5 larger ones are:
PSOE - "socialists", likely winner
PP - old recycled francoists
VOX - new francoists
Podemos - "new left", more successful than the disastrous Syriza in Greece
Ciudadanos - "nationalists" especially coddled a few years ago by the EU as a counter to Podemos.
Podemos and Ciudadanos ran as "new parties" on a "fight the corruption" idea. one with left-wing and the other with right-wing ideas, trying to overthrow the two traditional parties. Both renamed smaller that the ones they challenged, at least so far.
One interesting recent development is that former high state officials are on trial now over having spread propaganda smearing the leader of Podemos with false accusations. Here's a piece in english about the issue. At the time Podemos really scared the ruling elites of the country.
This is just one example of the typical smears deployed against leaders of left-wing parties that seem "threatening", state officials and presstitutes working together to turn the public against them...
The other recent development of interest for these elections will be to discover who has been backing Vox, and just how much support it will get. Given that the right-wing in Spain traditionally already had PP for housing the more extreme ideas, and Ciudadanos for the "liberal-technocracts" playing unpolluted virgins, this small splinter group from PP should not have gone far. There are rather interesting reports of links to funding* that ultimately would have come from the CIA through one of its pet terrorist groups. Considering that Gladio was very much a thing in Spain I cannot dismiss these reports, but neither have I seen the evidence.
One election worth following for what it may reveal of the european pathologies. Things are not quiet on the political fronts.
* To be fair most spanish parties received funding from outside, and were duly indebted for the favour, at some point in the past. The PSOE received vital support at the start from the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung who would support the socialists provided they were "moderate". The rival UCD, predecessor of the PP, was to a smaller degree backed by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung... Incidentally, this has been the root of the europhilia in several southern european countries. So direct, albeit discreet, interference from other countries in the political system is nothing new. Perhaps the problems started right then, as political leaders can find it hard to serve properly different masters: either the local population or the foreign backers...
Worth quoting a newspiece from 1984, now online:
tl:dr The government of Germany budgeted 3000 million pesetas for buying influence and manipulating politics in Spain, between 1980 and 1985. And no one carried out years-long official investigations on it. Good old times... same as the new, really. Fast forward 30 years, they complain about those corrupt politicians in southern Europe
Spain has a (distorted) proportional allocation of seats on its parliament. It used to have a large "left-wing" party, PSOE, and a large "right-wing" party, PP. Now it has 5 largish parties, and the usual smaller regional-based ones. The 5 larger ones are:
PSOE - "socialists", likely winner
PP - old recycled francoists
VOX - new francoists
Podemos - "new left", more successful than the disastrous Syriza in Greece
Ciudadanos - "nationalists" especially coddled a few years ago by the EU as a counter to Podemos.
Podemos and Ciudadanos ran as "new parties" on a "fight the corruption" idea. one with left-wing and the other with right-wing ideas, trying to overthrow the two traditional parties. Both renamed smaller that the ones they challenged, at least so far.
One interesting recent development is that former high state officials are on trial now over having spread propaganda smearing the leader of Podemos with false accusations. Here's a piece in english about the issue. At the time Podemos really scared the ruling elites of the country.
This is just one example of the typical smears deployed against leaders of left-wing parties that seem "threatening", state officials and presstitutes working together to turn the public against them...
The other recent development of interest for these elections will be to discover who has been backing Vox, and just how much support it will get. Given that the right-wing in Spain traditionally already had PP for housing the more extreme ideas, and Ciudadanos for the "liberal-technocracts" playing unpolluted virgins, this small splinter group from PP should not have gone far. There are rather interesting reports of links to funding* that ultimately would have come from the CIA through one of its pet terrorist groups. Considering that Gladio was very much a thing in Spain I cannot dismiss these reports, but neither have I seen the evidence.
One election worth following for what it may reveal of the european pathologies. Things are not quiet on the political fronts.
* To be fair most spanish parties received funding from outside, and were duly indebted for the favour, at some point in the past. The PSOE received vital support at the start from the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung who would support the socialists provided they were "moderate". The rival UCD, predecessor of the PP, was to a smaller degree backed by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung... Incidentally, this has been the root of the europhilia in several southern european countries. So direct, albeit discreet, interference from other countries in the political system is nothing new. Perhaps the problems started right then, as political leaders can find it hard to serve properly different masters: either the local population or the foreign backers...
Worth quoting a newspiece from 1984, now online:
tl:dr The government of Germany budgeted 3000 million pesetas for buying influence and manipulating politics in Spain, between 1980 and 1985. And no one carried out years-long official investigations on it. Good old times... same as the new, really. Fast forward 30 years, they complain about those corrupt politicians in southern Europe
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I suppose there is more than one or two with ties to Franco.
