Wolf, you are wasting your time. Ignacio is so poisoned with hate that he will never listen to anything that an American has to say. Did you notice that his next post first thing he did was refer to his fellow Spaniard as a brownnoser? After all we are "unsophisticated brutes."

Desert,

I can't help but believe that Ignacio isn't really as anti-American as it may sound. I wonder at times if he isn't playing devil's advocate with the intent of learning more about us.

I did notice the brown noser comment, and kind of shook my head. It was about the last thing I would have expected from him, but I suppose the fact that some Spaniards are seeing the implications of what is happening is beginning to bother him and others.

The parade issue may not seem too big in some areas, but I think it sparked a lot of issues from it, if for no other reason, than the US and Spain have been staunch allies for so long.

I just hope things can be resolved and that our nations become friends like we were. I can't think of any people in Europe outside of the UK and Spain that I'd rather have as friends.

Wolf

I tend to agree with the comment about Ignacio perhaps playing devil's advocate and I also think that Ignacio does what many of us do when we feel strongly about something - and that's to get emotional.

Over the course of at least one year, Ignacio has been an active participant on numerous subjects and like so many of the Spanish speakers (first language) here - his command of English is extremely good.

However, when we get emotional our command of our native language slides - let alone a second or third language.

I think thats something we all need to remember - perhaps it goes hand-in-hand with not taking things too personally.

Besides - if I tried to discuss some of these subjects in Spanish you would all be hysterical

If the comment about being a brownoser was directed at me never mind. Coming from whose is comming it is not an insult but the highest appreciation.

As for the parade it is really not that important. It would be an anechdote if not done by the president of a country. It can't be a good example in a country which is usually very intoxicated against the US.

It is a matter of education. The more cultivated one is, the less he care about such propaganda, which has its roots in times were the left in Spain was clandestine and received support (financial and moral) from the USSR. They have yet to mature and abandon their current ideologic line: "there is only democracy when we are in the government".

Fernando

Fernando says

IMHO, that is a statement that can (and should) be applied to the critic and analysis of many political party agendas world-wide. What a sad commentary it is ....

As I looked back on this thread, I began to realize that there was one group of Spaniards that were not honored, like they should have been, from their actions during WWII. A group of Spaniards who fought against heavy odds at Girone, and so impressed the French that they offered them their most honored military award. Instead, these soldiers, all volunteers, who took up the gauntlet against the Nazis, asked that the award not be given to them, but instead to their flag.

This battalion was called The Guernicas, and the award was given to the ikurriña, the flag of the Basques, who had fought so gallantly.

I believe they should have been represented in the parade because of their heroism. But, they weren't, while those in support of the Communists, and the Nazis, were represented.

Therein lies the problem with Spain and it's methods of dealing with the Basques. You cannot ignore them, and expect them to accept the wishes of the government.

Wolf

Wolf, believe me but the problem is not reduced to a matter of honoring the ikurriña for a battle. It would be great that to solve every feud the basques have with the rest of Spain we could honor their flag (which is already done in countless situations).

There were basques who fought on the republican side. Remember how Guernica was harrased by the Luftwaffe for example. The contrast were those basques and navarres who fought on the national side with Franco, which were known for their fierce commitment to the battle.

The same happened in WWII. As other spaniards, some basques volunteered to the Blue Legion, while others died fighting the Wehrmacht.

As an american, you must know how cruel it is a civil war. Spanish Civil War broke families and throw into battle thousands of spaniards to fight each other. Military powers (Germany, Italy and the USSR mainly) participated in the conflict as a test for their weapons and training for the WWII.

Franco's dictatorship idealized the winners (nacionales) demonizing the losers (republicanos), and in the democracy it has been just the opposite, picturing ones as members of a coup d'etat and evils, and the others as freedom fighters.

In the end nor ones or the others were "good" or "bad". Both sides had their reasons to fight, there were good people in both sides, and good people died in that war. My grandparents will tell you a handful stories to forget about both sides (prisoner camps, executions, murderings,...).

I really hope to see a day in which that conflict is seen and considered with the perspective of the history, putting aside those feelings that may rise on us based on partial stories we heard to our great-grand-parents.

Fernando

Fernando,

I agree. But is there a better way to heal old wounds than acknowledge the actions of those who served in all theaters of operation?

To be honest, I don't believe the Zapatero government wanted to honor these soldiers simply because they were Basque, and served under the ikurriña.

I believe it was a political decision made in poor taste.

But, since it wasn't my decision, and it's not my country, Zapatero and his party have the right to do whatever they think is best for the people of Spain. Even if it means slighting brave soldiers who served as bravely as those who marched in the parade.

Wolf

Yes, there were basque in both sides, but only the ones who were republicans fought under the "ikurriña", and those were never honoured, unlike the fascist that fought under the fascist red and yellow.

Well, Aznar is no other thing. His servile behaviour with Junior has ashamed the country, as much as his not being able to improve his super poor ENglish and still give pathetic clasess or interviews, his speaking spanis in Texas trying to imitate Texan-Mexican accent... (My God that was really ashaming, it would be great for a caricature show in the TV, but it WAS real!, did you see it?) or his endless phone calls to GWB until he was received, to show he had not just been used and thrown away. But he's dead in Spain and Europe and he knows it.

He´s just a frustrated dwarf with a cultivated Hitlerian appearance and Mussolini's concept of state and "liberties".

Sometimes I have to play it. It would be easy to go with the flow, but every story has two sides, and the media only show the side their owners want to show each time. I intend to give the other side's point of view.

But no, I am not doing this to learn more about you, it would be like manipulating and I wouldn't do that. Although it's true that through the debate, all of us learn many things.

No, Aznar is simply that, he likes been seen in the photos with important people, like GWB, and that's what made him get us into that d*mned war, but it's not only him. When GWB came some years ago, people were VERY ashamed of the servile behaviour od (then) Minister of Foreign Affairs Piqué, who was making kind of reverences. It was pretty commented and the photos circulated through the net.

If you say so because it's kind of an insult, I regret, the spanish (in slang, from spain) translation, which is what I meant would be "pelota" (like "ball"), which is not considered an insult, but a lesser remark on an attitude. I guess "brownnoser" is a too graphic adjective, with stronger connotations for you.

Well, nations are not friends. In the old times, the USA was such an uncontested power that you had to be friend wether you were friend actually or you were a little hostile. Nowadays, the economic and politic parameters are changing and, thus, countries are no longer in a block but they all express more freely their government's ideas, so alliances are changing, although not drastically.

European people and most european governments don't share and will never share the middle america ideas, we learnt to be peaceful and respectful to other countries through a terrible history and we have learnt the lesson. We will never be friends while those guys keep on be ruling the country. But I feel friendship and feel very close to the progressive americans.

I don't hate americans because americans are all kind. I don'r hate the idea that your Constitution gave of democracy, liberty et al.

I hate what América has became in spite of this, a leech that sets prices and exchange rates that allow them to keep most of the world ruined while they get richer and richer, and when their unfair behaviour is denounced, like in the OMC, they look for another way to keep up sofocating them (us), or don't sign agreements like Kyoto environmet agr., or simply look for an excuse and invade another country to steal their resources.

It's that America that I hate, not the america the "fathers of the Nation" dreamed, nor the americans who have a conscience and who cry the dead of their rogue Governments.