Beppe Grillo's Blog

The end of democracy

Read the whole speech
One of those who spoke at V-Day in Bologna was Massimo Fini. He expressed a concept summed up by Charles Bukowski: "The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting."
If representative democracy is the best of all possible worlds, its degenerated Italian version is the worst of the best possible worlds. In Italy the citizen counts for one, but is worth nothing.
Text
"I am obviously in agreement with the three basic tenets of V-Day, namely, that there should be no convicts in Parliament, that no Parliamentarian should be permitted to serve more than two terms and that we should go back to choosing our own candidates. I believe that this is one way to make presentable something that is not currently presentable, something that is indecent, a form of fraud. This is called representative democracy. I have always defined representative democracy, and continue to do so, as a way of scr...wing people with their permission, especially poor people. Above all, we have never really understood precisely what representative democracy is. Norberto Bobbio, who dedicated his entire lengthy and laborious life to this subject, cannot get to the bottom of it. At various times, he has indicated sometimes nine, sometimes six and sometimes three elements as being essential for a representative democracy. Whatever the case may be, we will look at two elements that are generally accepted as being essential for democracy, namely, all votes must be equal or, as the British say, one man, one vote, and everyone must be free to vote. Well for starters, all votes are not equal: consensus is simply an illusion. The definitive reason why all votes are not equal was amply illustrated by what has become known as the Italian Elitist School of the early nineteen hundreds, namely Gaetano Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto and Roberto Michels. Mosca states that: “A hundred people who always act in unison and by agreement will always manage to overcome a thousand others acting freely” Consensus is not free because it is widely affected by the mass media, not coincidentally also called the instrument of consensus, which is in the hands of the usual handful of well known people. In reality, representative democracy is a system of oligarchies, organised minorities and masked aristocracies that trample the individual citizen, the free man who does not with to humiliate himself by become a slave of these oligarchies, parties or other economic or criminal groupings that are so often linked together. Representative democracy should be the very thing that free thought would want to enhance, namely, merit, ability and potential, and the ideal citizen in a democracy becomes its designated victim. Without delving too deeply into theory, the fact remains that we are all aware that we count for nothing and that our voice is not being heard. Some years ago, in Piazza San Giovanni, a million people were brought together because of ad personam legislation, a very difficult topic indeed, when it is, in fact, far easier to bring people together for economic reasons. Well, there was no response whatsoever, neither from the right, nor from the left. On the contrary, in the left wing it was often said “non mi confonderai con un girotondino” (surely you’re not calling me a girotondino), as if street demonstration were not the citizen’s primary political right, even before the right to vote. The problem is one of global democracy, in the west, however, as Grillo has so ably demonstrated, the Italian system has suffered a certain intolerable decay. Hans Kelsen, who is neither a Marxist nor a Taleban extremist, used to say that representative democracy is simply a set of illusions, and he maintained that the apparent function of democratic ideology is to provide citizens with an illusion of freedom. He also asked himself how long this extraordinary division between reality and ideology could continue. This is the very same question that I have been asking myself for quite some time now. Naturally, the kind of democracy founded on bloodbaths have put on a conceptual lid, a kind of closure regulation, maintaining that democracy is the be all and end all of History and that we are all, therefore, condemned to die as democrats. I, instead, believe that sooner or later it will all come to an end, as does any system that fails to comply with any of its premises. It won’t be a unique event, like this wonderful event organised by Beppe, nor will it happen in Grillo’s lifetime, or mine for that matter. But sooner or later a fraud such as this will have to be eliminated. Thank you." Massimo Fini

Comments

I fully agree with the previous Cynthia's post. The English Grillo's blog side is also a place that allows us to take a further look how foreigners see Italian status and affairs... Since the italian press don't allow us to know!

---to divagate--
One straight example might be the matter of overtaking Spanish. In that case I did prefer our premier "acted" the last as bit as an "European leader" and made his congratulations to the happy result for another european country (first) then used this matter to mark down the needing for past forward with restructure of Italian's system.
He simply said something "Tutto a posto, nessun problema... ": were still rich and happy as ever. Did the berlusconi opponent's press said something about this?
No, he governed Italy for past 5 years... give "too much" details on italy economy will be....improper to them. and then, in favor of the "quieto vivere" has decided to challenge in the usual method prodi: funny jokes and show to increase the *happines level* of the italians.
--/divagate--

For this reason we need a real international comparison, at least here .. With many people as possible. English language and Grillo great attraction may allow us to. But to do this we need at least a solid basic reference (a proper communication in the reporting done by Beppe); even if comments grammar quality will lower (as mine, of curse. btw: sorry if all this sound a bit messy), t least there will be attempts to share thoughts instead of fold with: "too complex even for Italians themself"

Posted by: Alessandro C. | January 7, 2008 11:27 AM

Ho una proposta da fare, si puo' pensare di mettere i parlamentari che resteranno dopo la pulizia del Parlamento, non piu' in sfarzosi palazzi come l' attuale Camera e Senato ma in semplici costruzioni in modo da evitare che si montino la testa per la posizione coperta e per poi fare danni al Paese Italia nonche' risparmiare un bel po' sulla spesa pubblica dovuta a queste strutture. Grazie.

I've got a proposal, we can think to put all the parlamentaries remaining after the Parlament cleaning in normal buildings instead of huges palaces like the actual Camera and Senato in order to avoid the way of think theirself at the top and moreover save a good part of the public spending. Thank You.

Posted by: Paolo | January 6, 2008 11:46 PM

Beppe....

You and our Obama have a lot in common...CHANGE! Cambiamento! Auguri per tutto quello che fai!

Posted by: Matthew Platania | January 6, 2008 03:31 AM

Beppe, you are an absolute hero but why do you carry on? I am English and I have just read La Casta. I love Italy but having read this book I feel that this lovely country is doomed. Am I wrong or am I right?
Keep up the good work!

Posted by: Arthur Hooper | January 4, 2008 11:40 PM

Italian Goernment=The Late Night Show
Running shorts of story-lined due to writers strikes, Jay Leno is using Italian Senate Discussions to fill the scripts shortage.
Ratings of the shows are going through the roof, discussions are truly hilarious while Senators are actually better than real comedians and for free by the way (They are already subsidized by you thanks!).
The future looks bright wear dark shades
Thanks

Posted by: Giacomo Chiametti | January 4, 2008 06:27 PM

Hello everyone,
I don’t have to remind anyone, that these Italian Tyrannosaurus Politicians are already extinct, although they behave so arrogantly only because You’ll are powerless.
I also don’t have to remind any of you, they do not have anything to loose, and since they are already dead while still collecting handsome money for their retirement status while legislating.
As for you’ll, I am afraid, inaction is not an option, taxes to pay, mortgage to pay, kids to grow and last but not list, guarantee these Incompetent the retirement monthly paycheck.
Something needed to be done yesterday; by tomorrow there will be another nail in Italy coffin.
Oil at $100 PB, Inflation at 2.6%, Purchase Power at -10% (Italian salaries only!) Milan’s borsa -10% in one year, are you sure Mr. Prodi statement was talking about Italy growing again?
The future looks bright, by now is almost brilliant wear very dark shades for eyes only!
Thanks

Posted by: Giacomo Chiametti | January 4, 2008 04:57 PM

Hello everyone,
Really, the blog about Democracy is the cherry on the cake!
No worry, nothing did and will happen, or at least until money will keep flowing into the pockets of these Incompetent, Inept and Idiotic bunch (The 3 I’s for Italy!).
Democracy in Italy (Look into the Dictionary Definition, it says look anywhere outside the borders of Italy!) please crack me up, gag me with a spoon, the above mention group knows about Democracy because they vacation in the Caribbean, Kenya, Thailand and similar places.
Stop the flow of your money to these Incompetent, than you will see some action!
The future looks bright wear shades, very dark please otherwise you will see to clearly.
Thanks

Posted by: Giacomo Chiametti | January 4, 2008 01:25 PM

Fini's speech is a profound and disturbing truth. Democracy as we know it in the west is indeed only a partial reflection of the concept, an ideal that by almost mass concensus we concur with, probably out of fear of shattering the illusion.
All we can do as intelligent people is to look at our existing 'democracy' and accept that it only exists in part and work to change that.
As a British woman living in Italy I am in a state of almost permanent shock at blatant media manipulation, propaganda and distortion but these are part and parcel of our lives in most european countries to a lesser or greater degree.
Defining political choices is very hard in Italy, is it really a choice when you have to decide between the lesser of two or three evils?

Posted by: francesca carboni | January 4, 2008 01:07 PM