[HN Gopher] A new documentary about the history of forced psychi...
___________________________________________________________________
A new documentary about the history of forced psychiatric treatment
in Spain
Author : binning
Score : 145 points
Date : 2025-11-16 13:44 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| 3rodents wrote:
| A familiar story even today in the U.S:
|
| https://time.com/6997172/teen-torture-max-abuse-documentary/
|
| "They are often a last resort for parents struggling with
| children with behavioral problems, suicidal thoughts, and
| substance abuse issues. Depending on the state, these rehab
| centers--a multi-billion-dollar industry--have few regulations,
| and there are no overarching federal standards governing them.
| Many are faith-based facilities designed to convert teens into
| born-again Christians and are therefore exempt from regulation in
| some states."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn-About_Ranch
|
| https://helpingsurvivors.org/troubled-teen-programs/turn-abo...
| mothballed wrote:
| Yesterday a popular post here advocated that your kids finding
| porn means you are guilty of 'neglect.' That's a serious
| criminal charge and accusation. People will take drastic steps
| to avoid prison.
|
| Natural result of that is catch-22, parent can't actually stop
| teenage kids from such activity except through what amounts to
| torture. As always either way, the parent is damned.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Damn, my whole country must be guilty of neglect then!
| mothballed wrote:
| Lol this is the USA. I've been interrogated when a stranger
| drove past my rather remote property, in the middle of
| nowhere, and saw that my child was walking about 50 feet
| "by herself" on her own fucking property(I was actually
| watching her, just from further away, so I was able to
| intervene before they called CPS).
|
| Welcome to America where you must watch the kid every
| second until they turn 18, except at the moment they turn
| 18 they must be booted from the house to figure everything
| out all at once with nothing more than a minimum wage job,
| a gun, and rents that reach the stratosphere.
| Duwensatzaj wrote:
| Free Range Kids organization has been fighting against
| this, and a number of states have passed laws around it.
| bumblehean wrote:
| >Welcome to America where you must watch the kid every
| second until they turn 18
|
| This must be a regional thing?
|
| I live in New England and I always see kids out and about
| with no adults around supervising. Especially from 1-3PM
| on weekdays when school lets out. Maybe a side-effect of
| walkable infrastructure.
| twodave wrote:
| Sounds like either someone with very young kids or else
| someone with a dismissive/naive parenting style. For kids
| born since the mid-80s "hiding the porn" has been a lot
| harder than locking magazines in a closet. It's not a matter
| of if, but when. And however you feel about porn, it's
| infinitely more important to help your kids feel safe talking
| to you about it than to try and prevent them ever seeing it.
| Kids who don't feel safe or tolerated will lie almost 100% of
| the time, at which point you can no longer help them. I say
| this as someone whose parents would rather have believed I
| wasn't watching porn and therefore didn't make the effort to
| normalize talking about sex at all. My wife and I do limit
| our kids' access to the Internet quite a bit, but we aren't
| naive to the fact that they'll all see something at some
| point either.
| mothballed wrote:
| >Sounds like either someone with very young kids or else
| someone with a dismissive/naive parenting style.
|
| Increasingly this is what the tyranny of the majority is in
| the western world. People who don't have kids, or only
| limited experience with kids, declaring that parents are
| neglecting or abusing their children because they don't
| behave the way the hypothetical ideologically pure parent
| would. Almost every single one of them has a cell-phone and
| the second they see something they disapprove of they can
| call CPS at the drop of a hat and make your life a living
| hell, even if you are 'innocent' of even whatever BS they
| made up.
|
| As always, it's just a smug attempt at moral superiority.
| They want the intoxicating power rush from threatening and
| imposing on parents, with none of the responsibility, and
| the state is all too happy to provide it to them. Just
| punish and then rest soundly knowing you have no kids of
| your own for which you could be prosecuted.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| > People who don't have kids, or only limited experience
| with kids, declaring that parents are neglecting or
| abusing their children because they don't behave the way
| the hypothetical ideologically pure parent would.
|
| From what I've witnessed, the most common complainants
| were authoritarian mothers who treat their own child(ren)
| as helpless irrespective of biological age, and teachers,
| usually with families of their own, who treat non-violent
| "quirks" beyond their comprehension as a sign of
| malfeasance. In both cases, lack of familiarity with
| children is not the issue. Instead, their previous
| "successes" with raising/teaching children cement a
| narrow and selective expectation for how children must or
| must be made to behave. The motivation in either case is
| a desire for control. The ideological/cultural angle is,
| at best, a sincerely held rationalization, but is more
| likely an instinctual employment of thought-terminating
| cliches/kafkatraps to justify getting their way or make
| dissenters look/feel unreasonable.
| vacuity wrote:
| Based on the relative numbers, how would this be
| possible? People who don't have kids can only turn into
| people who have kids, and as people grow older, they are
| more likely to have kids. Surely the parents aren't a
| minority that are being surrounded and cut off.
| plqbfbv wrote:
| If anybody wants to read a comic with the perspective of
| someone that went through one of these places and spent the
| years after fighting against them, I stumbled upon this one a
| few years ago: https://elan.school/
|
| I am not in any way affiliated with the author, it's just one
| of the few books with real content that I've read in a long
| time.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Great comic and there's a documentary about that place. Very
| messed up that's it's a whole child abuse industry.
| nekusar wrote:
| Might take a karma hit for this, but whatever. Its the
| truth.
|
| Christians are more concerned about *causing* extreme child
| abuse, and then turning around and claiming its to "save
| them", so the abuse isnt reallllly abuse.
|
| Most of these camps cited are christian. And the people
| running them? Dogmatic christian fundamentalists. And these
| are the same types that run "pray the gay away" camps too.
|
| And my inflammatory, albeit true comment also goes right
| back to the heart of the article:
|
| "Reformatories were institutions where girls and young
| women who refused to conform to the Franco regime's
| Catholic values were detained - single mothers, girls with
| boyfriends, lesbians. Girls who'd been sexually assaulted
| were incarcerated, assuming the blame for their own abuse.
| Orphans and abandoned girls might also find themselves
| living behind convent walls."
|
| Extremist Roman Catholic "values", demonization and
| imprisonment of 'unruly women', anti-LGBTQ. Same damned
| thing, again and again.
|
| When are we going to actually look at these issues
| dispassionately and realize that religion itself is the
| problem?
| LexiMax wrote:
| > When are we going to actually look at these issues
| dispassionately and realize that religion itself is the
| problem?
|
| Because it's not.
|
| I've been interrogating this sort of question for most of
| my life. I am a queer agnostic who grew up in a religious
| part of the South and saw shades of this kind of abuse
| firsthand, mostly around queerness.
|
| At first, I did blame religion, but with the benefit of
| hindsight, I realized something. In the context of
| queerness, almost nobody I ran into growing up hated
| queer people because they heard their preacher say so and
| thought it must be true. They hated them because they
| were massively insecure. They were terrified of being
| labeled gay. They were terrified of guys hitting on them.
| They were terrified of hitting on a woman who turned out
| to have been born as a man.
|
| Religion isn't the problem. Instead, religion gives these
| sorts of insecure people a trump card that requires very
| little interrogation. However, if these folks weren't
| Christian or weren't even religious, I have no doubt that
| the underlying insecurities would remain, and simply
| manifest in a different way.
|
| Once I realized this, it was actually a massive weight
| lifted off my shoulders. In particular, I was no longer
| confused as to why my friend groups that were majority
| Christian continued to be nice to me and treated me with
| respect, despite me being a atheist queer at the time. It
| opened the door to connecting with them on a deeper level
| of understanding, as well as leading to me dabbling with
| my own forms of non-Christian spirituality.
|
| So yeah, religion isn't the problem. It's merely a
| mechanism that allows shitty people to be shitty.
| dang wrote:
| > Christians are more concerned about *causing* extreme
| child abuse
|
| > religion itself is the problem
|
| Religious flamewar isn't allowed here, so please don't
| post like this.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| ---
|
| Edit:
|
| It also looks like your account has been using HN
| primarily for ideological/political/religious battle.
| That's not allowed here (see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort
| =byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... for more
| explanation), and we ban accounts that do it.
|
| If you'd please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use
| HN as intended, we'd appreciate it.
| nekusar wrote:
| So we're supposed to simultaneously discuss the article
| (General Franco's extremist Catholic task forces), but
| not identify the religious tropes behind this?
|
| I read the article, and discussing the article. And as
| hackers, im curious as how to fix the problems.
| dang wrote:
| You can discuss things like that without denouncing
| entire groups of people and without inflammatory
| rhetoric.
|
| It's not hard to understand where the line is if you've
| reviewed https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| and genuinely want to use HN as intended.
| fairramone wrote:
| I had no idea about Elan School. The comic is absolutely
| amazing and I've just spent the last several hours reading
| the first half of it. Absolutely amazing and hard to just
| imagine the horrific physical and psychological abuse that
| occurred at this "school."
| rayiner wrote:
| Meanwhile, we have a crisis in the U.S. of people sleeping and
| dying in the streets because we shut down all the mental
| hospitals and involuntary commitment. Every system will have
| some percentage of adverse outcomes. Approaching the issue
| emotionally instead of dispassionately and with a view towards
| typical outcomes is an anti-social and dangerous approach.
| areoform wrote:
| > Meanwhile, we have a crisis in the U.S. of people sleeping
| and dying in the streets because we shut down all the mental
| hospitals and involuntary commitment. Every system will have
| some percentage of adverse outcomes. Approaching the issue
| emotionally instead of dispassionately and with a view
| towards typical outcomes is an anti-social and dangerous
| approach.
|
| Please correct me if I'm wrong. But are you saying we should
| abuse young people and children en masse because mentally ill
| homeless people exist? > Approaching the
| issue emotionally [..] is an anti-social and dangerous
| approach
|
| This statement should be incompatible with a place that
| values curiosity and freedom.
|
| It is alarming to read such things on HN. When the heck did
| we go from the hacker spirit / "information wants to be free"
| to authoritarian lap dogs?
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I'm sorry, but you are completely strawmanning the parent.
| Nothing they said is typical of an "authoritarian lap dog".
| The point being made is rather modest: that sometimes
| involuntary commitment is necessary to help someone when
| their brain is working against them. Obviously this kind of
| power can be abused, but the current approach leaves those
| who need that kind of help to fend for themselves.
|
| But I guess involuntary commitment makes people feel icky
| so fuck those guys, right?
| cyost wrote:
| The purpose of a system is what it does.
|
| You seem to believe that these are adverse, uncommon, and
| unintended outcomes rather than part of the machinery of the
| troubled teen industry, the school-to-prison pipeline,
| poverty, and capitalist/protestant propaganda in general.
| Involuntary commitment would be a threat and weapon in the
| current political environment, as in the thread OP where the
| same was used in Francoist Spain.
|
| Perhaps you should investigate your own biases and emotions
| toward the people chewed up and spit out by society before
| calling out a comment as "emotional" and "anti-social".
| AlexandrB wrote:
| You should read: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/you-
| call-that-compassio...
| cyost wrote:
| I actually have (and a few of his other articles
| besides).
|
| If we were to involuntarily take someone into society's
| care, the process must be benign with a good outcome. As
| things currently are, the exact opposite (or a system so
| thoroughly financialized as to be almost the same) is
| present. The capacity to reverse this seems non-existant.
|
| Most calls right now to reinstitute involuntary
| commitment are the same thought process that results in
| the societal rot present in how we deal with poverty,
| homelessness, and addiction; they just want them even
| further removed from themselves so they don't have to
| witness it.
| rsynnott wrote:
| ... I mean, on what are you basing this assumption? Mass
| psychiatric institutionalisation has been phased out pretty
| much everywhere at this point; if your thesis is correct, how
| do you explain differing rates of homelessness (and in
| particular unsheltered homelessness, where the US more or
| less leads the developed world) between the US and other
| developed countries? Like, it seems more likely to be some
| other factor.
|
| Ireland, for instance, had the highest rate of psychiatric
| institutionalisation in the western world in the 60s (some
| Warsaw Pact countries were likely higher). It was rapidly
| phased out in the 80s and early 90s. Homelessness (though a
| persistent problem since the 19th century) remained rather
| low until the early tens, then rose rapidly. I've never heard
| of anyone attributing this to the mental hospitals closing 30
| years previously (this seems to be a uniquely American
| belief); it is generally attributed largely to _shortages of
| housing_ (itself due to the near-total collapse of the
| construction industry for a decade after the financial
| crisis).
| vacuity wrote:
| I think GP has a fair assessment of the reality today, not a
| distant extrapolation or hypothesis based on emotions.
| stuckinhell wrote:
| She threw molotov cockatails I don't think it's similar at all.
|
| she was lucky she wasn't imprisoned or executed
| maxldn wrote:
| Why do you keep saying she wasn't imprisoned? She was
| imprisoned in a convent and then in a mental institution.
|
| Edit: clarification
| tiahura wrote:
| [flagged]
| jrjeksjd8d wrote:
| She was a child who resisted the fascist Franco regime and was
| subjected to torture. Is that better for you?
| delichon wrote:
| I can only hope I would have done the same in Franco's
| dictatorship. But I'd have expected prison rather than a
| convent.
| mothballed wrote:
| Parents don't want their kids executed or sentenced to life
| in prison because they ended up burning people to death. And
| there is no way to ensure arson only burns fascists. They
| were probably desperately looking for a way to save her from
| that.
|
| Can't say I'd have done the same choice, but it makes it more
| understandable.
| graemep wrote:
| Its not that simple. I do not know about Franco's Spain, but
| violent rebellion does not usually make things better. Most
| violent revolutions end up replacing one dictatorship with
| another.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > Most violent revolutions end up replacing one
| dictatorship with another.
|
| Don't those new violent dictators also tend to be more
| aligned with the people revolting?
|
| Anyway, it kinda makes sense to me that the people
| advocating for change through violent means don't suddenly
| stop being violent when they get to power.
| analog31 wrote:
| >>>>> Don't those new violent dictators also tend to be
| more aligned with the people revolting?
|
| Empirically, no.
|
| "Popular dictator" is an oxymoron. The dictator is always
| focused on their own survival. They are never able to
| completely wipe out their opposition, and end up
| collaborating with the powerful, and repressing the weak,
| in order to retain power.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| Even when it's gone really badly, like the Russian
| revolution, the revolution was a huge improvement.
|
| 80% illiteracy. I think revolutions almost always go well
| because you usually have to be really terrible to cause one
| to happen.
| mothballed wrote:
| I would not characterize the Russian revolution as
| 'better.'
|
| Under the czar successful farming resulted in high taxes.
|
| Under the communists, successful farming made you a
| kulak, you died / starved to death, and then everyone
| else did too.
| HeinzStuckeIt wrote:
| The Russian Revolution you are probably thinking of is
| the October Revolution of the Bolsheviks. But the tsar
| had already been overthrown by the February Revolution
| earlier that year, and some of the initial steps towards
| improving Russian literacy like the drafting of an
| orthography reform were already accomplished under that
| regime. Russia may well have seen major strides
| regardless, and the Bolsheviks are widely seen as one of
| those revolutions that did more harm than good.
| lkey wrote:
| Choosing to substitute a general principle instead of
| reading about the particular event as it happened 50 years
| ago... that likely informed the formation of that
| principle...
|
| When you have nothing to add, say nothing:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_transition_to_democra
| c...
|
| Or have the courtesy to do the reading.
| graemep wrote:
| A Wikipedia article would not give me sufficient
| knowledge to judge the effect of violent resistance.
| There was a fairly peaceful transition. Would teenagers
| throwing Molotov cocktails have helped or hindered this?
| Would peaceful protest or passive resistance have been
| better? I do not know.
|
| The general principle is more than adequate as a counter
| to the comment I replied to. You should not assume that
| is what you would do if you lived in a dictatorship.
| lkey wrote:
| Shorter you: I'd rather not learn things, even a little,
| before commenting. Did you even read the entire article?
|
| | You should not assume that is what you would do if you
| lived in a dictatorship.
|
| No, one cannot. That said, there are people here that
| have made those decisions, and that are making them right
| now. It's strange that you have assumed of me that this
| could not be true. I will only say that I've made my
| decisions and my conscience is clear.
|
| What you _can decide_ right now what your principles are.
| One of mine is that resistance against a violent
| authoratarian state, _including violent resistance_ , is
| morally justified.
|
| Whether it is _most effective_ or not is a matter for
| organizers, historians, and arm-chair quarterbacks like
| yourself.
| graemep wrote:
| What you are missing is that it could actually be
| harmful. You may have noticed that "fighting terrorism"
| often provides governments with an excuse for greater
| repression.
|
| Have you read the comment I replied to? it was saying
| that violence was definitely the right thing to do.
|
| > One of mine is that resistance against a violent
| authoratarian state, including violent resistance, is
| morally justified.
|
| Without even considering the consequences? I believe that
| one of the criteria for morally justifying violence has
| to be that the consequences or using violence as better
| than any available non-violent alternative. I think that
| is a fundamental different of values.
|
| > and arm-chair quarterbacks like yourself.
|
| I have lived in a country where 1) multiple groups of
| people were using violence to do what they considered to
| be fighting oppression, 2) I have come pretty close to
| bombs they planted, and 3) the end results not only
| included huge numbers of deaths, but also let the
| government get away with things such as disappearing
| journalists who opposed them. I am a lot less of an arm-
| chair observer than I guess you are.
| AllegedAlec wrote:
| Yeah I don't think anyone thinks this was a good program, but
| saying someone performing acts of terrorism is just 'a free
| spirit' is a bit... BBC of them.
| estebank wrote:
| One person's terrorist against the Franco government is
| another person's freedom fighter against the Franco regime.
| AllegedAlec wrote:
| "Mr Bin Laden was just a bit of a free spirit, until the
| Americans decided to kill him in the middle of the night"
| BirAdam wrote:
| Perhaps the modern world has softened the term fascist dictator
| by using it for regimes to which it only partially applies.
|
| The generalissimo used forced labor not unlike the DPRK, made
| widespread use of concentration camps, and was quite fond of
| executing dissidents. All religions other than Catholicism were
| outlawed and all political parties were outlawed.
|
| Why would opposition to a murderous dictator be a bad thing? It
| isn't as though the protestors/rioters/rebels were the ones
| escalating the situation. The government was already killing
| people. This could easily be viewed as justified violent
| opposition in the pursuit of stopping more murder.
| DFHippie wrote:
| Note, the article doesn't say that _she_ threw molotov
| cocktails. She was put into induced comas, tied to a bed, kept
| in social isolation, etc. because she didn 't want to live
| under her parents' control.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Isn't that relatively normal? They're really easy to make.
|
| The 'throw molotov cocktails' are mentioned in the same
| sentence as 'hand out leaflets', which makes me feel the
| surrounding people were generally not panicking about the fire.
| Hard to say without reading the book though.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| no
|
| throwing molotov cocktails is in NO way "normal"
| layer8 wrote:
| Under a dictatorship it ought to be.
| usrnm wrote:
| "Killing people I don't like is ok" is not a very nice
| line of thinking
| hitarpetar wrote:
| > Killing people I don't like is ok
|
| it's so sad that the allies killed so many Axis soldiers
| in WW2 right? wasn't very nice :(
| josefx wrote:
| Sadly the article doesn't paint them as heroic:
|
| > and when the police turned up, scatter in every
| direction.
|
| Whoever they set out to burn alive was very likely
| defenseless.
| aaomidi wrote:
| I hope you never experience living in a fascist society.
| TylerE wrote:
| A fascist dictatorship is not a very nice goverment.
| lkey wrote:
| Wow, didn't know that teenager's protesting Franco is
| actually worse and has a higher body count than...
| _checks notes_... the Franco Regime.
|
| Any other insights you'd like to add?
| squarefoot wrote:
| Yes, not normal in a normal context. However if you're
| fighting against a dictatorship it fully qualifies as
| heroism. When dictatorship comes to your country (madness
| is growing everywhere so be prepared) you'll be grateful
| for anyone fighting against it, or one day you'll be the
| one writing "... then one day they came for me, but there
| was no one left to fight for me".
| noelwelsh wrote:
| Do you think "My mum was a 17-year-old free spirit - so she was
| locked up and put in a coma" could perhaps be the words of the
| person they interviewed? Could this perhaps by why it is
| written in the first-person? Where in the article does the BBC
| claim she was an "ordinary free-spirited girl"?
|
| What do you believe the purpose of this article is? Do you
| think it is advancing a policy agenda, in which case which
| policies is it advocating for? Or is it perhaps just
| documenting what happened and the impressions of those effected
| by what happened?
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| The BBC has editorial control over their headlines. The
| wording in the article is unclear and it may not be a
| mischaracterization. But, assuming that it is, 'someone lied
| to us and so we put it into our headline' is not a defense
| that turns bad journalism into good.
| Latty wrote:
| It's an obvious quote, unless you think people are going to
| misunderstand and think that the BBC as a publication is
| talking about it's mother somehow. Quotes are generally
| well understood to be the view of the person giving it, not
| the publication.
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| I think people are going to expect the BBC to validate
| the correctness of quotes that they elevate into
| headlines. The interviewee didn't decide that that quote
| should be a headline, that's a creative choice by the
| BBC. By putting it there, they are implying that it is an
| accurate description of the story that follows. Is that
| incorrect?
| noelwelsh wrote:
| The quote:
|
| 1. Indicates this a human interest story
|
| 2. Is by definition of an accurate representation of the
| words of the person they are quoting
|
| 3. Is a reasonable overview of a complex story, given we
| understand that "free-spirited" is subjective and that,
| again, this is a human interest story and conveying the
| feelings of the people involved is part of the point.
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| I don't know what you're getting at with 1 and 2. If the
| person they were quoting claimed to have been abducted by
| sasquatch, you could still make these two points. Would
| you still be arguing that it doesn't reflect poorly on
| the BBC to put that false claim into a headline?
|
| If you would, that is probably the heart of our
| disagreement. If not, I guess it comes down to an agree
| to disagree on whether the subjective window of the
| personality trait 'free-spirited' can include 'active
| participant in violent resistance against a
| dictatorship'.
| Jcowell wrote:
| > If the person they were quoting claimed to have been
| abducted by sasquatch, you could still make these two
| points. Would you still be arguing that it doesn't
| reflect poorly on the BBC to put that false claim into a
| headline?
|
| No? That's a very good headline for an article about
| someone who believes that they were abducted by a
| Sasquatch. It would be a missed opportunity for a
| newspaper to NOT do.
| wkjagt wrote:
| I spent some time in Northern Ireland in 2001 (Derry mostly).
| At one point there was a sudden fire in the back yard of the
| youth hostel I was staying at. When I mentioned it, the owner
| of the youth hostel said "it's just a Molotov cocktail".
| crazygringo wrote:
| I think there are points on both sides.
|
| I think you're right that the BBC is being irresponsible in
| putting "my mum was a 17-year-old free spirit" in the headline
| -- even though it's a quote, it does imply a level of BBC
| editorial agreement with the characterization. It makes her
| sound like she was just an innocent hippie or something.
|
| On the other hand, this wasn't vandalism for vandalism's sake.
| It was political protest against a dictatorship. It's not like
| she was engaging in criminal acts for the fun of it or for
| personal gain, so the snippet you choose is similarly
| misleading without the context of _why_.
| scoofy wrote:
| Violence isn't speech. Calling Molotov cocktailing a street
| "protest" is absurd. It's effectively armed conflict.
| 7jjjjjjj wrote:
| Armed conflict against fascist dictators is a good thing.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Where did I say anything about speech? Were you under the
| impression that protests are inherently non-violent?
| Violent protests are absolutely a thing. That's why "non-
| violent protest" is a term.
|
| And of course it's armed conflict. But the point is that
| it's armed conflict against a fascist dictatorship killing
| over 100,000 civilians by most estimates -- which is what
| makes it considered _legitimate_ violent protest by many
| people.
| arp242 wrote:
| > It's effectively armed conflict.
|
| How do you think Franco got in power? By peacefully using
| his free speech rights and persuasive speeches? How do you
| think he stayed in power for all those decades? Do you
| think some people's free speech rights and avenues of
| protest might have been a teensy tiny bit curtailed?
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Because in her position you would have licked Francisco
| Franco's boots instead?
| lkey wrote:
| A) She was still a child. Her parents had full control over
| her.
|
| B) She was imprisoned, and tortured, as the article discusses.
|
| C) What POV would you prefer?
|
| D) This was Franco's Spain, what do you imagine yourself doing
| at a time like that?
| rayiner wrote:
| Similar stories were used to shut down mental hospitals in the
| U.S. and look what happened after that.
| youdunnowhat wrote:
| What happened? And please, make sure to demonstrate your
| position empirically, specifically drawing a causal
| relationship between shutting down torturous mental
| institutions and whatever outcome you think that has.
| stuckinhell wrote:
| "Soon, Mariona joined her new friends on "raids": a few of them
| would block off a street, throw Molotov cocktails, hand out
| leaflets, and when the police turned up, scatter in every
| direction."
|
| okay she threw molotov cocktails, she was lucky she wasn't
| imprisoned.
| hitarpetar wrote:
| it's Francoist Spain. people were imprisoned for much less
| (hence the molotovs)
| lkey wrote:
| A) She was still a child. B) She was imprisoned, repeatedly,
| and tortured, as the article discusses. C) Is it your opinion
| that everyone was "lucky" to live in 1968 Spain under Franco.
| Or just her?
| scoofy wrote:
| Nobody wanted her tortured except the criminals torturing
| her.
|
| Throwing Molotov cocktail is trivially an criminal offense.
| OP is making it clear that framing it as she was a "free
| spirit" is ridiculous.
| arp242 wrote:
| > Throwing Molotov cocktail is trivially an criminal
| offense.
|
| This is a protest against a fascist regime we're talking
| about. I don't know the exact context of any of this
| because I'm not Spanish, don't speak the language, and
| don't really know all that much about the nuance of 1968
| Spain. I'm fairly sure you're just as ignorant of this as I
| am but the difference is that I'm withholding strong
| judgement one way or the other instead of jumping on one
| detail.
|
| I do know that throwing a bunch of tea you don't own in the
| sea is also trivially a criminal offence. Kicking the shit
| out of an SS-officer is also trivially a criminal offence.
| etc. etc. You can have a long discussion about when
| violence is or isn't justified. I don't know enough about
| this specific situation to have a strong opinion. But
| pretty much everyone agrees that at some point you need to
| look beyond the law and trying to reduce this to just a
| matter of the law is massively naive at best.
| lkey wrote:
| | Nobody wanted her tortured except the criminals torturing
| her.
|
| Oh, word? It's dope you know the inner thoughts of everyone
| involved.
|
| | Throwing Molotov cocktail is trivially an criminal
| offense.
|
| Article didn't say she threw them herself, 'a few' of a
| group she was part of did. Glad you're taking the
| maximalist, guilty until proven innocent, position on
| conviction by association in the Franco Regime.
| scoofy wrote:
| I don't think she's guilty of anything. If I had a
| daughter that was engaging in violent political uprisings
| as a young teen, I'd try my best to get her help. That's
| presumably why her parents sent her to a reform program.
|
| My point is the story is disjointed and sad, but there is
| little cohesive theme aside from pure tragedy, and the
| narrative presented makes no sense.
| lkey wrote:
| You did not read the article, and it shows.
|
| You: "help", "That's >- presumably <- why her parents
| sent her to a reform program."
|
| The article: | [her parents] were so conservative they
| wouldn't even let Mariona wear trousers.
|
| | "For them, it was a scandal, a stain on the family,"
| she says. "After that, they wouldn't let me out."
|
| | [after she ran away] They immediately reported her as
| an underage runaway to the authorities, and the moment
| Mariona was about to board a boat back to Barcelona, she
| was arrested.
|
| | Mariona wasn't given any explanation [for sending her
| away] - she only remembers her parents' rage.
|
| | her [second] escape was short lived. Within hours she
| was bundled into a car with her father and an uncle, and
| driven back to Madrid.
|
| | Now aged 20, she vowed to never live with her parents
| again.
|
| | "We suffered a lot too," [her father] told her when she
| asked him about the family decision to have her locked up
| in Madrid.
|
| Her parents only care about themselves, 50 years ago and
| today, if you can't see that, there's something wrong
| with you.
|
| ~~
|
| You: "My point is the story is disjointed and sad, but
| there is little cohesive theme"
|
| The purpose of the article and the film, _as written in
| the article_ , which you did not read:
|
| | Reformatories were institutions where girls and young
| women who refused to conform to the Franco regime's
| Catholic values were detained - single mothers, girls
| with boyfriends, lesbians. Girls who'd been sexually
| assaulted were incarcerated, assuming the blame for their
| own abuse. Orphans and abandoned girls might also find
| themselves living behind convent walls.
|
| | The film has contributed to a groundswell of calls for
| the interned women to be formally recognised under the
| law as victims of Spain's dictatorship.
|
| | "Women come and tell their stories - it's like a door
| opened to something unknown, and that's very powerful,"
| says Marina. "People think what happened in their own
| home was an isolated incident. We try to say: this
| history isn't individual, it was systematic."
|
| | Her mother Mariona still doubts her memory sometimes.
|
| | But, she says, _" seeing it all reflected in the film,
| that gives it the weight of truth."_
| scoofy wrote:
| >Her parents only care about themselves, 50 years ago and
| today
|
| >>Oh, word? It's dope you know the inner thoughts of
| everyone involved.
| HiPhish wrote:
| > A) She was still a child.
|
| Please don't call a 17-year old person a child. It's not as
| if on the night between 17 years, 11 months and 30 days, and
| 18 years humans undergo some sort of metamorphosis.
| arp242 wrote:
| Yes I agree, which is probably why we should treat 18-year
| olds more as children than adults (although obviously they
| are in-between the two). Brains continue to develop to the
| age of about 25.
| danaris wrote:
| Brains continue to develop through our whole lives.
|
| The study that _appeared_ to show them stopping
| development at 25 _did not have any participants older
| than 25_.
|
| The difference between an 18-year-old and a 24-year-old
| is much more comparable to the difference between a
| 24-year-old and a 30-year-old.
|
| We should be treating teenagers much more as _adults-in-
| training_ , in the sense of meaningfully giving them the
| tools to succeed as adults, rather than treating them
| like pure innocent children who must be sheltered from
| absolutely everything hard, scary, or taboo.
|
| However, as it stands we generally do _not_ do that--
| hence, in this case, she was indeed a child, and should
| have been given compassion, better tools, and better
| chances, not locked up.
| wtcactus wrote:
| So, people should only be allowed to drink and to vote at
| 25?
|
| (And probably also drive, it always stuck us in Europe
| pretty weird you allow minors to drive in the USA as the
| car can be a very lethal tool).
| foobarchu wrote:
| The brain does not fully develop until 25, 18 is simply
| one of many thresholds where we've decided (in the US) to
| start officially transitioning children into adulthood.
| Others include 14-16 (driving), 21 (drinking), and 25
| (car rental).
|
| So if 17 can't be called a child, what can? You have to
| draw the completely arbitrary like somewhere. Do you
| chose the legal 18 (in the US)? The Hebrew 13? Some other
| metric?
| corpoposter wrote:
| I find this a profoundly odd response to the story. Is your
| intent to excuse her abusive treatment by the religious,
| medical, and government authorities of a totalitarian regime?
|
| Your comment is treating her with full agency (i.e. "she
| shouldn't have done anything bad or disruptive") and completely
| ignoring the agency of the institutions that harmed her (i.e.
| "what did she expect in response?").
| hexbin010 wrote:
| Any discussion about Franco always attracts cool heads and
| reasoned discussion
|
| /s
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| what is this thread
|
| people supporting a totalitarian fascist regime, blaming the
| victim...
|
| "Shouldn't fight against the regime, violence is bad mmmkay"...
| "she threw molotov cocktails, she deserved it"...
|
| what is happening, i feel like i'm taking crazy pills
| throwawayohio wrote:
| Kind of on brand for this site these days, tbh. A brand of anti
| social that believes disruption done for anything but monetary
| gain deserves extreme punishment, regardless of circumstance.
| Herring wrote:
| I don't know why you're surprised. This place is primarily
| about making money.
|
| Businesses are set up like tiny little fascist dictatorships.
| They are always trying to pay less taxes, evade regulations,
| layoff workers, monopolize, destroy competitors etc. They don't
| know anything about the public sphere, or common good, or
| government, or democracy, or rule of law etc. They suck at
| that, it goes against all their training and instincts.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| You're not wrong about the strong emphasis on money making
| and profitability in HN comments (it _was_ started as much as
| a forum for startup or wannabe startup founders as a tech
| forum), but it 's also had a significant libertarian
| (little-l) streak. It's kind of hard to square that
| libertarianism with the apparent support of Franco's regime
| seen in the comments here today.
| pessimizer wrote:
| There's very little little-l libertarianism here. It's
| always anti-Communist Reagan-Greenspan style Objectivism
| disguised as little-l libertarianism.
|
| They can seem like libertarians because they believe that
| they themselves should be able to do whatever they want
| whenever they want, but any activism is of the consumer-
| rights variety i.e. "I can do whatever I want with my
| property!"
|
| Under Franco, the mean HNer would be upset that they
| couldn't buy (or create) whatever book they wanted or any
| piece of art they wanted. That's it. They'd even preface
| that objection with an "admission" that most of the books
| or art that Franco would ban were terrible and shouldn't be
| read or looked at.
|
| Franco himself was weak, soft, and like the 3rd choice to
| rule fascist Spain. His position and his government was due
| to the tacit support of people very similar to HN users
| today. _At least he 's keeping the Russians away..._
| Herring wrote:
| Study your history, because that's an old story. The
| Puritans who fled England and settled in Massachusetts Bay
| did not try to establish religious freedom in the modern,
| pluralistic sense. They just wanted freedom to practice
| their own religion. They were intolerant of dissent and
| quickly established their own orthodoxies. Individuals who
| challenged their religious and civil authority, such as
| Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, were banished. Quakers
| who arrived later were brutally persecuted, with some being
| executed.
| scoofy wrote:
| You're reading people, like myself, who are upset with the
| articles framing, because it has created a causal link between
| the _reasonable concern_ that a parent would have with a child
| engaging in political violence, with the result of a corrupt
| reformatory program.
|
| Yes, being raped and given electro-shock treatment IS BAD. It's
| also _very much not_ what her parents signed her up for by
| turning her into a reformatory.
|
| Nobody here is defending a fascist regime. We're just
| complaining about horrible editorializing.
|
| _Edit: these downvotes... SMH_
| jaybrendansmith wrote:
| Anybody imagining themselves as alive during the Franco regime
| and not considering throwing a Molotov cocktail or two doesn't
| believe in freedom, equality, or democracy. It's disturbing to
| see how many fascists seem to comment on Hacker News. Begone,
| you contemptible Francoists!
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| Was there ever a relatively peaceful and prosperous period in
| Europe for a non elite average person? Maybe only the 1990s and
| only in France, (Western) Germany, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland?
| spacechild1 wrote:
| Actually, most of Western, Northern and Central Europe since
| the 1960s. Notable exceptions are Spain (under Franco) and
| Ireland (until the 1990s).
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| Greece and Portugal weren't particularly prosperous or safe
| either. Italy was only rich-ish, but unsafe.
| wtcactus wrote:
| What do you mean Portugal wasn't safe?
|
| I wholeheartedly agree it wasn't prosperous, but not being
| safe? Where did you take that from?
| tiagod wrote:
| Enormous child mortality, colonial war, persecution by
| the political police, hunger.
| spacechild1 wrote:
| Greece is in Southern Europe ;-) Italy is a complex case
| because of the great disparity between the North and the
| South. You're totally right about Portugal, though!
| HiPhish wrote:
| > "We suffered a lot too," he told her when she asked him about
| the family decision to have her locked up in Madrid.
|
| Ah yes, good old "it hurts me more than it hurts you".
| emsign wrote:
| Ugh! This is so disgusting. Look! Fascists are even seeing women
| as their enemy. But that makes Fascism everyone's enemy, they're
| actually in the minority but the way they are staying in power is
| by making everyone hate on each other more than hating on them.
| Be aware of people spreading hate on one group of people after
| another, it's their takeover plan. Divide and conquer.
| robotshmobot wrote:
| Some of you in here blaming the victims of a fascist regime
| couldn't make your sexism any clearer
| wtcactus wrote:
| I'm not going to comment on the words chosen by BBC to portray
| the case - I think there are a lot of other better entries on HN
| where BBC bias (or the lack of it) can be discussed.
|
| But I see a lot of comments here about what Fanquismo was and
| wasn't, and I believe it comes out of ignorance about Spanish
| history. Many comments here make it look like this was a choice
| between Franquismo/Fascism and personal freedom and democracy. It
| wasn't. It was a brutal struggle between Fascists and Communists,
| and good people that wanted freedom were caught in the middle
| right since the beginning. The choice wasn't between Fascism or
| Democracy, the choice was just between two major evils: Fascism
| or Communism and that's why it divided Spanish society
|
| It can be argued that when this happened (1968), the bloody and
| brutal Spanish Civil War (that started with major violent acts
| from the communists' side after fair elections, BTW) was long
| over and the country should already be way on the path to
| democracy (and I agree if that was the point being made), but
| let's not pretend that she joined good company and proper people
| that just wanted to liberate Spain.
|
| People commenting here really need to read about the Spanish
| Civil War to understand how it went down. Communists were so
| destructive that in the middle of the war, they started fighting
| and killing each other instead of fighting against the Fascist
| forces. Major atrocities were committed on both sides. POWs were
| routinely rounded up and executed, both by the Communists and by
| the Fascists.
|
| The only group that seemed to have some sense when it came to
| defend basic humanity were the anarchists (although they did have
| a lot of other issues). Read Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
| for a beautiful and sad description of a small part of this
| conflict.
|
| There's this old 6 episodes TV Series from 1983, that really
| gives a good perspective of how awful it all was:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_I6C-VbFvI
| Stevvo wrote:
| "that started with major violent acts from the communists' side
| after fair elections"
|
| This is simply false. The Spanish Civil War started in 1936
| with Franco's fascist coup against a democratically elected
| government. Check your own ignorance before accusing others.
| wtcactus wrote:
| As you might understand (or avoid to). Franco didn't wake up
| one day and decided to start a civil war out of nowhere. In
| the period of 1933-1936, there was major violence against the
| legitimately elected Right-Wing government from Marxist
| groups that adopted a revolutionary approach to take power in
| Spain:
|
| "The defeat in the elections and its consequences led to
| disenchantment with parliamentarism and radicalization within
| the Socialists. The increasing militancy within the Socialist
| workers was followed by Francisco Largo Caballero's adopting
| a revolutionary Marxist rhetoric which justified
| revolutionism as a way to combat rising fascism,
| uncharacteristic of European social democratic mainstream and
| the reformist traditions of the PSOE.[69] The CNT adopted a
| similar rhetoric in the wake of the elections, threatening
| with a revolution if "Fascist tendencies" would win the
| elections.[70] Open violence occurred in the streets of
| Spanish cities, and militancy continued to increase,[71]
| reflecting a movement towards radical upheaval, rather than
| peaceful means as solutions.[72] A small insurrection by
| anarchists occurred in December 1933 in response to CEDA's
| victory, in which around 100 people died.[73]
|
| [...]
|
| Fairly well armed revolutionaries managed to take the whole
| province of Asturias, murdering numerous policemen, clergymen
| and civilians, destroying religious buildings including
| churches, convents and part of the university at Oviedo.[75]
| Rebels in the occupied areas proclaimed revolution for the
| workers and abolished the existing currency.[76] The uprising
| was crushed in two weeks by the Spanish Navy and the Spanish
| Republican Army, the latter using mainly Moorish colonial
| troops from Spanish Morocco."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Civil_War
| bgnn wrote:
| I would have never thought to see a Franco apologist with
| my own eyes. Wow, thank you for this unique moment.
|
| Anyhow, Franco was a fascist trash and allied with Hitler
| and Mussolini. Revolutionaries were mainly anarchists (NOT
| communists). In fact it's because of Stalin and the
| communists following him starting an infighting with the
| anarchists led to the fascist victory.
|
| If the revolutionaries have won, Spain would have been an
| experimental socialist/anarchist republic. We don't know if
| ot would have been ended up like USSR. Maybe.
|
| In 1968 though the flight was pretty much about fascism vs
| democracy.
|
| Oh, last point: Torture is torture.
| wtcactus wrote:
| > "If the revolutionaries have won, Spain would have been
| an experimental socialist/anarchist republic."
|
| I tend to agree with that, because nothing shouts
| "experimental socialist/anarchist republic" like
| "murdering numerous policemen, clergymen and civilians,
| destroying religious buildings including churches,
| convents and part of the university".
| Stevvo wrote:
| That is historical context, not justification for 39 years
| of fascist dictatorship.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| > There's this old 6 episodes TV Series from 1983, that really
| gives a good perspective of how awful it all was
|
| Playlist of the miniseries from the same channel:
|
| https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxZAPogJjW_h2JbgYOgO3GZiI...
|
| _The Spanish Civil War_ (1983)
|
| https://imdb.com/title/tt1718608/
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