State funerals
(2:17)

The only live eye with its own inner light still shining at the funeral was Sandra’s. Only one eye, her right eye, because her left eye was bandaged. In the "Dio Padre" Church in Milan 2, the last rites were pronounced for the tightwads in Power. Everyone who is anyone was there. Raimondo Vianello’s death was a good excuse for everyone to get together one last time before being overtaken by history. The living dead presiding unknowingly over their own funeral. They were not there to mourn the dead actor, but rather to mourn for themsleves. This was the first plastic funeral of the Second Republic, as well as the last. With a corpse dressed up like a Findus fish-finger, the claque, the applause, the fake hair, the wolf-like cheekbones of wannabe actresses, slightly dull crimson lipstick, tending to grey in deference to the occasion and floral tributes to the deceased, all laid out in no particular order. The Prime Minister was there, as well as the President of Rai, the “Ricchi e Poveri” band and Morticia Moratti with her make-up bag.
As always happens to him at other people’s funerals, the main protagonist was the psychodwarf. And when Monsignor Carlo Faccendini said, live on Channel 5 TV, that it was "Unnatural to think of them being apart", the psychodwarf naturally assumed he was referring not to Vianello’s tear stained wife, but to psychodwarf himself, one of the walking dead, and so he tried to climb into the coffin, only to be held back by his bodyguards. All of the symbols of the Italy of scoundrels, which we have now been living with for the past twenty years, were all present and correct. The scribbler-for-hire press, the boobs-bums-and soccer television, the Mediaset repeaters, the Craxism, the Mafia in Parliament, the cowardly and brazen freemasonry, the Vatican in our bedrooms and the court jesters. The faces of an ageing Italy that is ready for its final walk. Raimondo’s funeral gave me a sense of optimism. He wasn’t there, but if he had been, he would have agreed with me. The bells were tolling for everyone. There are certain events in the history of mankind that are a watershed, a clear dividing line between what came before and what comes after. Their importance only becomes evident with hindsight. The discovery of America, the taking of the Bastille, Stalingrad, and Vianello’s funeral. The Lambro River reduced to a tip, mirroring the Italian Republic, was flowing by very close to the parish church full of cut flowers who’s fragrance invariably reminds us of funerals past. A river devoid of any life, raped by the affluence of the few. It seems impossible that children once dived into its waters while their fathers fished in the river on Sundays. Nearby, Milan 2 lay as a distant memory of better times. Then, with the coffin borne on shoulders, outside the church, applause erupted from the crowd.

PS: On Saturday 24 April, starting at 21h00 at the PalaCep at No.14, via Benedicta, Genoa, (Circolo Arci Pianacci), the Genoa Province and Anpi will be holding the Liberation Day Festival. We will also be there, gathering signatures for a referendum against the privatisation of our water resources and collecting foodstuffs on behalf of the Music For Peace projects.