Franco is a good example of how normalized a dictator can be. I’m not old enough to really remember Franco, but as far as I recall Americans didn’t think anything about Spain or travelling through it or why it was fucked up in 1974.
Part of it is the normalization, but I’m sure part is also the information age.
Everyone would be getting videos of atrocities on the reg. That surely would have affected the general sentiment about Franco and Spain.
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The Lazlo letters (prank emails by Don Novello - aka Father Guido Sarducci) to Franco are pretty funny.
Well maybe that wasn’t his funniest work - but a lot of them are pretty good.
counterpoint: videos of atrocities in iraq, syria, donetsk, kashmir, minsk, myanmar, phillipines, etc. are not really getting out and those that do are not going viral in the west.
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Yeah, but those aren’t white people. I’m only half-joking.
On a serious note, I don’t think it would have been enough to topple Franco, but I do think there would have been more general awareness and the perception would have been somewhat different.
Who’s the closest modern day corollary to Franco? Maybe MBS? Authoritarian head of state, executes dissidents, and an alliance with a genocidal and warmongering military power.
It can’t really be MBS, because Saudi Arabia was never really open before him and still isn’t. It’s not like you could ever just travel through Saudi Arabia, the way microbet describes with Spain.
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It’s still not very close in the same way. People don’t just go to Saudi Arabia for a vacation. Spain was not thought of that much differently than any other Western European country at the time. The closest now is probably China.
I wasn’t factoring ease of travel for foreigners within the country as much as you and Melkerson. And to the extent I was, I was kinda lumping in the UAE with SA, because of the amount of tourism/travel that goes through Dubai. I understand where the two of you are coming from tho.
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I know I can’t compete with the Lolstralians here but jfc I’m under attack in my own home…
Here in S.America we’re entering the tarantula season. Have no problem with them, we mutually respect each others space when we cross paths. Snakes too, I think they’re beautiful creatures and there are no venemous ones in my region. When one gets in the house I always show them the way out gently (at broom handles length).
So 'bout 3.50am I am awoken by some weird noise that doesn’t belong. I am sleeping in my boys room (because lol broken marriages) under a mosquito net, and I can make out a dark blob about half way up the net. Switch on the lights and it’s a fucking bat…99% sure it’s a vampire bat (or has covid ldo) but the little fucker starts flying around the room as I try and get a good look at his face.
Not ashamed to admit I shat myself (creepy noise when they flap their wings), opened the window, slammed the door shut and got in to bed with my boy and future ex Mrs Miliboo. Thought that would be the end of it.
Just finished my dinner and the fucking thing has reappeared (fortunately no one else is in rn). At least I hope it’s the same one. It’s currently trapped in the bathroom. Trying to summon up the courage to trap it, get a photo and let it out.
Bonus photos of a lizard we trapped eating my hens eggs last week. We took it to the far end of the farm…haven’t lost any eggs since.
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Fucccckkkkk it’s no longer in the bathroom afaict. This fucking bat is gunna poz me I just know it.
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I saw Tim Minchin at a free concert to kick off the Adelaide (Arts) Festival on Feb 28th this year, at Elder Park in the centre of Adelaide. The Festival is highbrow stuff like opera and dance but there’s also, concurrently, the Fringe, which I think is the second biggest Fringe in the world after Edinburgh, Scotland. The idea of a Fringe is that it’s various arts still - theatre, cabaret, circus, stand up comedy etc - but it’s all the stuff that is not highbrow enough for the Festival. As you might imagine, the Fringe rapidly became a bigger deal than the Festival. COVID restrictions hit Australia in the middle of the Fringe, leaving a whole bunch of people who had travelled from places like the UK out of pocket on their travel expenses and looking for a way to get back home. So the Minchin concert was one of the last big public events I went to before that all happened.
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Places to visit
A̶u̶s̶t̶r̶a̶l̶i̶a̶
Bakersfield
Colorado City
Helmand Province
Saudi Arabia
Tigray
U̶r̶u̶g̶u̶a̶y̶
West Palm Beach
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What people forget about lolstraya is that it’s a continent, the place is massive. The areas where basically everyone on this forum lives, I mean you get a few venomous snakes around the place but I go hiking a lot and have seen snakes in the wild here a handful of times. You get a few sharks but moreso in regional areas. Sydney you get funnelweb spiders but you can easily live there for a decade or two and not see one.
Up in north Queensland - which is tropical, like much of South America - you get: aggressive and deadly snakes, huge (though harmless) huntsman spiders, insanely dangerous jellyfish, sharks, huge crocodiles, stinging trees which deliver pain so intense that horses have been known to throw themselves off cliffs to escape it, stonefish, cone shells, cassowaries and - perhaps worst of all - Queenslanders.
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Man From Snowy River or Crocodile Dundee?
I am no longer afraid of bats! This thing is cute af. Found it in my sons room again, behind the wardrobe.
Any chiropteroligists itf?
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Yeah, I spent 6 months in Oz many years ago. Greatest country on earth: 10 billion flies can’t all be wrong.