I have nowhere called anybody in Spain in the 1930s “liberal-democratic.” I am simply talking about Del Toro’s re-envisioning of that era, placed into his haunted fairytale. A recap or arguments over the interpretation of early 20th century history of Spain is totally unnecessary, because the movie could care less about historical accuracy. The use of the movie’s historical setting tells us about today’s political views, not the past’s.

And my understanding of “liberal-democratic” is not a silly MSM notion. I am not talking about Rush Limbaugh’s vilified “liberal democrats,” because as a supporter of a certain kind of massive managerial bureaucracy (at least when his party is in power), he could be easily labeled as an “l-d”. I will define that term for you if necessary, but it would be best to consult Paul Gottfried’s After Liberalism instead.

Agreed. Werner knows what he is doing. Enjoy your Antarctic adventure. Wish I could join, really.

Interesting views on Werners film of McMurdo. It was a beautifully made film as far as the camera work went. I live on Britain’s largest base 100 in summer and now 21 for winter. (Tiny compared to McMurdo) I am going to hopefully make a film about wintering in Antarctica as this is where you get closer to the wild of Antarctica. 21 of us are left to live together for seven to eight months of winter and during this time no ships or airplanes come to visit. At the moment I am keeping a video blog of the adventures we have on base. It’s going to be a bit like “big brother on ice” lol.

http://kirkoftheantarctic.wordpress.com/
Have fun
Kirk
PS I am not a hippy

The Spanish Civil war is a bit more complex than you have made out. The “leftist” parties that won the 1936 election were not quite “liberal democratic”, nor communist. It was a coalition, including the centrist Republican Union Party, various other groups dissatisfied with the domination of the Catholic Church, and the Communists. Franco’s coup, in 1936, led to the Spanish Civil War, in which Franco was supported by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. After 3 years of fighting, Franco won the war in 1939 and became dictator for life.

In the aftermath of the Civil War and during World War II, Franco assassinated tens of thousands of his opponents. These included not only the “liberal democrats”, but also people who had been sympathetic to the Republican cause. And, of course, it included Spanish intellectuals and atheists, but I don’t expect you to mourn their loss. He imposed the Spanish language and carefully selected Spanish customs such as bullfighting and flamenco over the entire nation, banned all other languages from Basque to Catalan, and ruthlessly obliterated cultural and ethnic minorities. The Basque ETA goes back to this period, for example, they had nothing to do with “liberal democrats” but rather were protesting against the dissolution of their cultural identity.

Further thousands were sent to forced labor camps, not to mention the hundreds of thousands who fled to exile in France and across the world. During WWII, he supported the Axis, pretending neutrality while allowing German ships to harbor at his ports, and encouraging Spanish volunteers to fight for Germany against the Russians.

After all this, it seems fair to say that he must have had a significant number of enemies, of different political stripes. And yet you make them out to be the villains here, dismissing them as “communists”. If you read a bit more, you may find out that the resistance during the WWII years (when this movie was set), especially in the mountain villages, was from maquis, who were mostly Republican loyalists who had fled to France. These were not all communists. Many of them had chosen not to fight Franco at all, but simply escaped with their lives. Things changed after the Franco persuaded the Vichy government to capture them, and at least 5000 of them were turned over by Franco to be gassed to death in the Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Nazi Germany. The resistance grew, and many of those who had been satisfied to just flee the Spanish dictatorship went back to fight.

But Franco did support the Catholic Church, and this allows a fair bit of history to be swept under the rug. You do it so shamelessly. I often wonder when reading articles by people like you if you are evil and your readers are dumb, or if you are all in it together, building this alternate history.

Finally, I am not surprised that the nightmarish fairy tale world of this movie instantly strikes you as a “liberal democratic fairyland”. This is the common response of many Christians when they come across things that they do not like. However, liberal-democratic fairylands are not very different from others, they also have happy endings. They might not be your version of praising-the-lord happy, but they are happy nevertheless.

No, the nightmare fairyland you saw in the movie is something else altogether. It is the original “fairyland” of myth, of the Brothers Grimm, of medieval fairy tales. Like when Cinderella’s evil stepmother was forced to wear iron shoes heated red hot in a fire and dance in them until she fell dead. Or when the witch in Hansel and Gretel actually ate lost kids, with the cooking process described in loving, exact detail. By the Brothers Grimm, before such fairy tales became sanitized in modern times. And I assure you, the Brothers Grimm were by no means liberal democrats.