In this case, about the Spanish Civil War – from CNA:

A new film on the Spanish Civil War falls short in portraying the brutal persecution that the country’s Catholics underwent, says author Robert Royal, Ph.D.

“This is a part of Catholic history that has been long neglected,” he said, but “the movie is too nervous to tackle it.”

Released to theaters on May 6, the historical epic “There Be Dragons” was directed by Roland Joffe, known for his work in the acclaimed 1986 film “The Mission.”

“There be Dragons” shows the intense conflict that arose in Spain between the Nationalists attempting to protect the establishment and Republican revolutionaries seeking regime change in the 1930s…

Learning the truth about Spain in the 1930’s is difficult because the losers gained complete control of the historical narrative – mostly because the victorious Franco regime was stained by cooperation with Hitler and Mussolini…something that could never be either ignored or erased. It is said that the Spanish Civil War was a conflict both sides deserved to lose…and there is a great deal of truth in that. But not all truth.

While there were gigantic, unresolved passions and hatreds in Spain – legacy of a series of 19th century, and even older, national conflicts – the bottom line for starting the Civil War lay with the narrow election of a center/left government which proceeded to govern as if the people of Spain had opted for a full-blown socialist and anti-clerical government. Civil War became inevitable as this government – well meaning, it must be said – ran roughshod over long-standing Spanish traditions. While the leftist narrative is that a tiny group of Spanish officers were corruptly trying to maintain their own privileges, the fact of the matter is that the Nationalist and Republican armies were fairly equal in size, and both sides fought with a supreme disregard for personal safety which demonstrates that both sides had deep wells of popular support (the sublime courage of the Republicans defending Madrid is equaled by the Nationalist defenders of the Alcazar…and these are just two among hundreds of examples)

One of the most heartbreaking events of the Spanish Civil War which still does not come out – and is apparently glossed over in this new movie – is the savage persecution of the Catholic Church in Republican Spain. This persecution started before the Civil War with the burning of churches and various legal restrictions on the Catholic faith – and once the Civil War started, it became what amounts to an attempt to erase the Church from Spain. Priests were murdered, nuns were raped, Church property was pillaged and destroyed, the public celebration of the Mass was banned…thousands of Catholic, lay and cleric, were murdered or otherwise persecuted for nothing more than being Catholic. It was as bad a persecution as that the Russian Orthodox Church suffered in communist Russia…and far worse than the persecution of the Church in 18th century revolutionary France. And it has been pretty much dropped down the Memory Hole.

The “why” of this is obvious – it is bad press to have the Republican side in Spain being seen as persecutors. The narrative is that selfless, humane, kind Spanish Republicans fought the good fight against Franco’s fascists. And that is all we’re ever supposed to know about it. But the truth is the truth, after all, and the longer we allow a lying, leftist narrative about any event the continue, the harder it will be to get at the truth. This isn’t, after all, the only effort which has been made to air-brush out leftist crimes in order to paint a false picture…the crimes of the left are glossed over, or explained away, and thus we have people in 2011 who assert boldly that a leftist course would be nothing but light and reason…and I’ll bet that most on the left don’t even suspect the crimes which are buried in the Marxist graveyard.

History has to be “warts and all”, or it isn’t history. You have to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. While all sides will take their lumps in this, the side which stands to lose the most is the left…because most of the left’s crimes have been thus-far successfully covered up, at least to some extent. But the blood of murdered millions cries out to us – to tell the truth; to let the whole world know what really happened so that we all may learn from the past, and do better in the future. It is a pity this new film failed in this charge – but perhaps the upcoming Cristiada will open the door to truth, at least a little bit.

From NFIB:

The month of April marked a second consecutive month of decline in small-business optimism; NFIB’s index dropped to 91.2 in April – a much smaller dip than the previous month, but still another sign of the nation’s anemic economic recovery. While reports of net jobs created by small firms stayed positive, the numbers posted did not match the surprising gains cited in last week’s Labor Department report. This suggests that the bulk of new hiring is happening in larger firms and the smaller counterparts on Main Street—the ones traditionally responsible for leading the country out of recessions, are still struggling to hire…

So, the Magical Mystery Recovery continues…as long as you close your eyes, click you heels three times and repeat “I believe in Ben”, you can see all the recovery you want…for the rest of us, not so much.

HAT TIP: Mish’s

http://videos.mediaite.com/embed/player/?layout=&playlist_cid=&media_type=video&content=ZXXH42059BV7LH8H&read_more=1&widget_type_cid=svp

On the other hand, the guy who says he doesn’t want it means he may be best for the job…

Government gets involved, government screws it up – from Smart Money:

The government’s recent $8,000 cash incentive for first-time home buyers has proved even more costly for recipients than for taxpayers, according to data released Monday. Typical buyers have lost twice as much to price declines as they received from the program.

The median home value fell to about $170,000 in March from $185,000 a year earlier, according to Zillow.com. That means a buyer who closed on a house just before the tax-credit program expired in April 2010 collected $8,000 but has since lost $15,000 in value. Those who bought earlier in the program have done worse; the median price is down $20,000 from March 2009…

There is nothing quite so asinine as a government attempt to fix the economy. It just can’t be done – not ever. You see, no matter how smart the people in government are, no matter ho much information they have, they will never be smart enough or have enough information to determine what will happen when tens of millions of people live their lives. It is why socialism – of whatever stripe – never works. The trick just can’t be done – there is no way to know, at any given moment, what millions of people will do with their time, labor and money.

All government can do regarding the economy is protect against force or fraud in the market place – police the transactions to make certain that people aren’t being cheated, and then just leave everything alone. If a company is going to fail, then let it fail – if it is making massive profits, then don’t impose a “windfall profits tax”; things will be as they will and as long as no one is being defrauded, government has no place.

From the NY Daily News:

Escape from New York is not just a movie – it’s also a state of mind.

A new Marist College poll shows that 36% of New Yorkers under the age of 30 are planning to leave New York within the next five years – and more than a quarter of all adults are planning to bolt the Empire State.

The New York City suburbs, with their high property values and taxes, are leading the exodus, the poll found.

Of those preparing to leave, 62% cite economic reasons like cost of living, taxes – and a lack of jobs…

They’re voting with their feet – liberalism just doesn’t work and no one who isn’t poor enough to be on welfare or rich enough to not care can live under it. I dug in to census data yesterday and found this to be a nation-wide trend. States with the most liberalism gained the least population over the last ten years. Texas, for instance, gained population six times faster than New York between 2000 and 2009. And when you go in to those liberal States and look at the cities and counties, the areas of the liberal States which are most liberal (like, say, San Francisco in California and Detroit in Michigan) actually lost population.

Liberals these days puff themselves up because the most liberal areas of the country have the highest per-capita GDP…but what they are crowing about is leftovers…economic facts which were developed prior to the uber-liberalization of those areas, and the facts are now showing that those high GDP areas are soon to be outpaced by other, more conservative places. You can’t live on inherited wealth, welfare and a Culture of Death, people…you have to work, each generation, to build anew. And in doing that you can’t have too many people on the dole, nor can you set in place policies which positively discourage family formation and child rearing. The most liberal areas of America are pretty much the same as most of Europe…and Europe is dying; dying of liberalism.

The future belongs to those who wish to work and build – those who have hope and a desire to do; for themselves and for others. And, so, the future belongs to us…if nothing else, we’ll simply outlast these liberals.

From Gallup:

By a 47% to 19% margin, Americans say they would want their member of Congress to vote against raising the U.S. debt ceiling, while 34% don’t know enough to say. Republicans oppose raising the debt ceiling by 70% to 8% and independents by 46% to 15%. Democrats favor raising the ceiling by 33% to 26%.

My goodness, that is an astounding result. The American people have figured it out – raising the debt ceiling has nothing to do with whether or not the bills will be paid, but only with whether or not liberals will get to spend even more money. There does not need to be an increase in the debt ceiling unless your whole point is to shove America further in to debt. Democrats are trying to sell the notion that the world will come to an end if we don’t go further in debt – but the reality is that what Democrats really want is an endless supply of money to pay off cronies and buy votes.

Fight it out; right here and right now.

From the New York Times:

President Obama and his legal advisers are deliberating about how the United States military may lawfully continue participating in NATO’s bombing campaign in Libya after next week, when the air war will reach a legal deadline for terminating combat operations that have not been authorized by Congress.

Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, a president must terminate such operations 60 days after he has formally notified lawmakers about the introduction of armed forces into actual or imminent hostilities. The Libya campaign will reach that mark on May 20…

Talk about things coming back to bite you. Liberals passed the War Powers Resolution – I believe over Nixon’s veto – to ensure that when North Vietnam was ready to conquer the South, the United States wouldn’t be able to stop it. It was, after all, a long-standing goal of American liberalism to ensure that South Vietnam was betrayed and crushed, and America defeated. A weakened Nixon couldn’t stop them, and so they got their way. But fast-forward 40 years and you’ve got a liberal President who wants to keep fighting a war without Congressional authorization – what to do?

The logical thing would be to seek such approval – Obama would get it. While some Republicans would vote again, most would vote in favor. Combined with Democrats similarly inclined, Obama would have his authorization. So, why not do it? Because Obama doesn’t want to demonstrate the rift which has built up in his party. Probably half the House Democrats would vote against. A divided party is not what Obama wants heading in to 2012…neither do any of the other Democrat leaders. They want everyone to pretend that all is well and everyone over in Democrat Land is one big, happy family with nary a word of censure between them. This is vital because if the economy tanks, Obama doesn’t want to draw a serious primary challenger.

But, on the other hand, Obama doesn’t want Gaddafi marching on Benghazi and winning the war. A humiliating loss in Libya would harm the President – it would be just the sort of hit to Obama’s executive ability which GOPers would be able to massively exploit. So, a bunch of liberals are forced to find some way around a law liberals wrote to prevent precisely what Obama now intends – fighting a war without Congressional approval.

The GOP should make an issue of this – after all, the law is the law. If liberals don’t like the War Powers Act, let them propose repeal and we’ll debate that. But right now that is where the law stands…and we should force Obama to seek Congressional authority for further military action. Put them on record; make them own the effort and the results. Don’t allow them to slip away, using their utter contempt for law to find an escape hatch.

From Zero Hedge:

…what (former Fed vice chairman) Blinder says makes one wonder just who is on the tenure committee at Princeton – when asked how we bring the deficit in without austerity, the Princetonian responds: “Unfortunately I think it is very subtle for most political processes especially for the political process in the US. What we should be doing is somewhat more fiscal expansion but at the same time legislating into law fiscal consolidation for the future. Starting 2 years from now, 3 years from now, 18 months from now. But not now.” Of course never now: why bite the bullet now when it can be kicked to some other administration in the indefinite future? Especially when tenure money and/or Wall Street bribes are at stake…

Basically, let’s just incur as much debt as possible now, and eventually it will get better. And this is happening now almost 2 years after the recession supposedly ended. Naturally, there will be no fiscal expansion: not with the current political set up. Which leaves just one option – monetary stimulus. And since Blinder is very close to the Fed, we are confident that the two-way dialog between academia and Federal Reserve is already under way, making it clear that if no fiscal stimulus will be forthcoming, then QE3 certainly will have to take its place. Especially now that the Economy has once again taken a turn for the worse…

Lost in all the discussion – but endlessly referred to at places like Zero Hedge – is the fact that the way “quantitative easing” has been executed is by the Federal Reserve printing up money and then buying US bonds. This has kept interest rates low, provided massive liquidity to the financial markets, boosted stock prices and bank profits…and caused inflation. It hasn’t done much to help the economy – though US manufacturing has got a boost because with our dollar collapsing in value, US exports have become much cheaper in the global market. If the money spigot is turned off – and the Fed says it will turn it off in June – then stock prices will fall, bank profits will dry up, the dollar will rise in value…and we, the people, will get a little easing in our cost of living. But where is the upside in that for the bankers, well-connected politicians and others in the Ruling Class? Especially as we’ll almost certainly drop in to officially recognized, full-blown recession just in front of Obama’s re-election effort?

No one really knows if the Federal Reserve will go for “QE3”. Officially, it is still a big, fat “NO”. But with the way things are trending – ie, a slow drift back in to recession – the pressure to do something to avert the worst possible outcome (the loss of the White House…possibly to someone who doesn’t give a darn about the banks) will become immense. I agree with Zero Hedge on this – this is a shot across the bow; a trial balloon to see if anyone is willing to try and stop it before it starts. They can’t get any more fiscal stimulus because the GOP controls the House…and if they don’t get some sort of stimulus to puff up a dead economy, then official recession looms. They’ve got to do something, right?

There is not much anyone can do in official terms to stop the Fed – our central bank is set up in such a manner as to preclude direct, prohibitive action on the part of government. But if the GOP starts calling hearings and starts putting out the word on what is involved in money printing, then we might be able to scare them off. It can be stopped – and it should be stopped. Yes, we’ll head back in to recession – or, more accurately, will just finish off the recession and get to the economic rock bottom, from which we can start to genuinely recover. But if we don’t stop them, then we might get even more bags of money printed, more banks living off of us, more inflation…and eventually an even worse recession than if we just let things take their course.

From Rasmussen:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 64% of Likely GOP Primary Voters believe the gap between Americans who want to govern themselves and politicians who want to rule over them is now as big as it was between the American Colonies and Great Britain in the 18th century. Just 16% disagree with this sentiment, and 20% aren’t sure…

…Eighty-seven percent (87%) say the federal government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests. Just six percent (6%) don’t share that view.

Two-out-of-three GOP voters (67%) think big business and the government often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors…

Overall, 76% of likely voters trust the people more than the government – but the sentiment is clearly strongest among GOP voters. The bottom line is that we don’t trust them – and “them” is the political as well as economic Ruling Class. We really are ready for change we can believe in – we just know we won’t get it from the current crop of political leaders. It is time for a revolution.

A revolution, it must be said, at the ballot box. By a providential act, the men who set up this country turned out to be people of rare wisdom – they created a system which, in spite of a century of liberal efforts as subversion, is still ultimately responsive to the will of the people. If we rise up in 2012 and beyond, we can put in to power people in tune with our ideas – of small government, less corruption, no special dealing…a government of, by and for the people.

As an aside, I do think we’ve already got a ready-made theme song. Using it, in and of itself, will cause liberals to choke with rage…and that is a good thing, all the time.