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Good day to you all. Today, as usual, we could talk about many things and I would like to start by excusing myself for the one hour delay, but I have just got back from Tuscany, from Versilia to be precise, where Il Fatto Quotidiano’s 3-day event only ended very late last night. This was an important weekend that included Beppe Grillo’s “Cozza Day” event, which was totally ignored by all the newspapers except for ours, namely Il Fatto Quotidiano that dedicated two full pages to this event. I have to say that, as Santoro reminded us yesterday during his address at Il Fatto Quotidiano’s gathering, the metaphor of the mussel is rather appropriate because the mussel is actually an excellent representation of this system because it is closed, encrusted and insightful by nature and the mussels clings obsessively to the rocks, just like the hordes of mussels that we often see clinging to ropes hanging submerged in the sea.

How to cut the bonds of the mussels
The problem, therefore, is not how to loosen the grip of the mussels one by one, but rather how to cut the bonds and destroy the rocks that they cling to. It seems to me that the weapons of traditional politics are no longer able to break those bonds that the politicians themselves have contributed to establishing and we therefore obviously need something from outside the political system, perhaps from below, but something that is in any event independent of the political system.
In order to fulfil the hopes and wishes of his voters and his senior colleagues, yesterday Fini should have stood down as President of the Chamber in order to throw down a challenge to the right wing and to prevent the votes that Pdl and the Lega are losing at a dizzy rate of knots because of their total failure from simply adding to the discontent, abstentionism or the fence-sitting that they like to call anti-politics but that is, in fact the new politics. Instead, Fini was unable to pluck up the courage to do so, so he will continue to sit in Parliament like a stuffed trophy, as President of the Chamber, and will probably give up the chance to be a real catalyst for the many centre-right voters who would never vote for the left but who, at the same time, will never again vote for Berlusconi or for Bossi since they have been so beautifully taken for a ride by these guys. On the left, we see a total impotence amongst the major players of the centre-left, and here I’m talking about the Democratic Party, which, on the one hand has been seriously check-mated by the Penati affair, and the rot continues to spread day by day, and on the other hand appears to be unable to do anything other than meekly mumble while the government, and unfortunately also our Country, continues to fall apart. I think that, given the indecency of a government such as ours, even the most idiotic opposition in the world would somehow be able to launch initiatives that are far stronger and more visible than the mumbling and dawdling that we are currently seeing from the Democratic Party, not even to mention Vendola’s so-called radical left, which has gone totally extinct and become totally deflated in recent weeks because they appear to be obviously unable to find the right words to describe what they want to do, assuming, of course, that they are allowed to do anything.
So, fortunately, this past weekend, on the one hand we had the Movimento Cinque Stelle and Beppe Grillo beating the drum, and on the other hand, thanks to press patriotism, we had thousands of people who came to join in Il Fatto Quotidiano’s festival, which, unlike the usual, semi-deserted political party festivals, was not all about ballroom dancing, entertainment, fritters and roast suckling pig, but a festival based on culture, politics and economics. Yesterday afternoon I participated in a marvellous meeting with Magistrates Davigo and Greco and former Magistrate Tinti. The meeting was chaired by Antonella Mascali and Marco Lillo and we talked about the real root of the problem, namely financial crime and tax evasion, which Public Prosecutor Greco defined as the real reason behind the zero growth-rate in our Country. If you care to go and take a look at the film clips of Davigo, Greco and Tinti, you will discover that a number of solutions were proposed although, unfortunately, the problem is no longer how to find solutions because the right solutions are disarmingly simple and elementary and have already been written. They are natural solutions and obvious in a Country such as ours, so, what do we have to do in order to defeat tax evasion? Well, we must increase the number of audits, increase the penalties, extend the statute barring deadlines for these kinds of crimes, we have to go after the people who hide their money in tax havens and we have to fight against the tax havens themselves, but how do we do this since we can’t exactly bomb them out of existence? Well, Greco proposes that we impose a 100% tax surcharge on financial transactions involving the Countries on the Tax Haven Black-list, everywhere from Monte Carlo to the Cayman Islands and everything in-between, rather than rewarding such transactions. Then we must also impose harsh penalties, perhaps in the form of additional levies, on banks and Italian companies that have questionable shell-subsidiaries registered in Monte Carlo, in Lichtenstein, in Ireland and in other Countries that have tax structures that are totally different from ours, all of which are far more advantageous and with no transparency, which is precisely what makes them tax havens. That is what we should do, but why? Well, because, as Tinti showed by quoting some calculations done by the Ministry of Finance, official calculations in other words, Italy has some 41 million taxpayers. Of these, around 35 million are company employees who contribute some 92% of the total tax revenues and who cannot evade tax because their taxi s deducted at the source, in other words directly from their pay-packets by their employers. So these people are not the tax evaders. The tax evaders are the remaining 5 or 6% of taxpayers who only contribute around 8% of this Country’s total tax revenues but who are also, on average, the wealthier echelons, namely the independent professionals, those with VAT registration numbers. It’s a sad fact. I must hasten to add that not everyone with a VAT registration number is automatically a tax evader, however, it is safe to say that all tax evaders are holders of a VAT registration number, but why? Well, simply because there is no way that they can be company employees or pensioners and that’s why Public Prosecutor Greco stated that “Both here in Italy and worldwide, but above all here in Italy, the trend is for the poor to support the wealthy. The tax evaders govern while the honest taxpayers pay”. Now I’m no expert but I do believe the Assistant Public Prosecutor of Milan. Go and take a look at the film clip of the debate. These are not merely the words of some or other self-professed expert or populist or terrorist or self-serving subversive, they are the words of a Magistrate who has spent the past 30 years dealing with financial crimes and financial criminals and who is now saying, quite rightly, that the main problem is the money that the tax evaders and bribers are hiding from the public. While we’re on the subject of bribers, and just to prove to you how simple the solutions really are if only there were any politicians who could afford the luxury of adopting them, Davigo reminded everyone that in other countries, in order to nab those individuals involved in bribery and corruption, they make extensive use of sting operatives who are charged with setting traps to test the honesty of public servants, but what precisely do these operatives do? Well, just a few months after an individual has been elected to public office, an individual suddenly appears, pretending to be a businessman who is interested in a particular tender contract and who then proceeds to offer the public servant a bribe. If the public servant kicks him out or lodges a complaint against him, then it means that we are in good hands and that the public servant in question is honest whereas, if the public servant accepts the bribe that is being offered, he will land up in jail because it means that he is potentially open to bribery and corruption. That’s how you go about fighting corruption, with extreme means and extreme remedies. These sting operatives are the magic bullet. Let’s go and find out whether or not the people we elect to public office are inherently honest. There are other solutions too. When Rudolph Giuliani became Mayor of New York, the city was in total chaos as a result of gang warfare. So he came up with the concept of “Zero tolerance”. Every broken shop window leads to another broken shop window and if we replace the broken window, people will think twice about breaking another window, but why? Well, because the people will realise that we are living in a context of law and order, which obviously goes hand in hand with repression and zero tolerance against the crimes committed by the dregs of society. Simultaneously, Mayor Giuliani declared war on corrupt public servants. For example, as tends to happen worldwide, taking backhanders was common practice in the higher echelons of the parastatal refuse collection company. Can you imagine the financial muscle and the power wielded by those responsible for refuse removal in a city like New York, one of the largest cities in the world? Okay, so what did Mayor Giuliani do? He stipulated that anyone hoping to be appointed by the Municipality to work in New York’s refuse removal company would have to sign a declaration in which they accepted that their telephone conversations and their mail could be monitored at any time and for the entire duration of their mandates. Individuals were obliged to sign this declaration if they wanted the job and anyone who refused to sign would not be appointed to the job. In other words, if you want to become a member of my club, I get to set the rules and you will have to live by my rules. If one of the rules of my club is that you must wear a collar and tie, either you wear collar and tie or you simply won’t be allowed in. I made the rule and that’s that and no one is forcing you to come to my club if you don’t like my rules!
Similarly, if you want to become a public servant, you first have to agree to the fact that your calls and your mail will be monitored, but why? Well, because certain of your predecessors stole public funds and because of their theft I am no longer able to remove the refuse from the streets, so either you agree to being monitored or you won’t be appointed to public office and you will have to find some other job in the private sector. That’s how you apply extreme measures. The solutions are very simple, so what’s the problem? Well, the problem is that a Parliamentary majority is required in order to adopt these solutions and in order to get such a majority, we would need to have a majority of honest people in Parliament, elected by honest voters who are well informed regarding the honesty or otherwise of the candidates and using a voting mechanism that would enable the voters to select their own representatives rather than allowing the political parties to simply appoint their own chosen candidates who may or may not be entirely honest. So what we need is information and a democratic electoral law, not the one we have at the moment, as well as honest, smart voters. Even a thief should realise that it’s not a good thing to be governed by other thieves because, at some point, there would be so many thieves that they will even steal from him. We, instead, have a serious problem, namely the millions of tax evaders and construction fraudsters, in other words mass criminality and you can imagine what this means at election time. That explains why no illegally constructed buildings, or rather very few of the millions and millions of them have been knocked down in recent years, why the politicians so often defend the culprits by preventing the demolition of their buildings, and why, for the past 20, 30 or 40 years the politicians have made a point of demolishing the repressive legislation that landed the tax evaders in jails. That’s why there are 0 tax evaders currently in jail. Go and take a look at the film clips of yesterday’s discussion, which reveals how both the left wing and the right wing have protected the tax evaders for the past 20 years, but why? Well, because these are their voters, that’s why!

Time for a trim? The Electoral Law
Most of them vote for the right wing because the right wing even grants regular amnesties, but some even vote for the left wing where even the most rabid trade unionists have always been very protective of tax evaders thanks to some very generous pension top-ups handed out to the INPS as a form of social welfare, which helps to keep the people quiet, instead of merely a payback of actual contributions that individuals have paid in over the years. And so this contribution evasion has created the current INPS pension deficit, a contribution evasion that has unfortunately been tolerated for many years, as has absenteeism within the companies and the public service and even by the trade union movement. But then that’s what happens when many of your voters are just simply lazy, tax evaders, contribution evaders, milk quota evaders – and here just think about how the Lega protects those who evade milk production quotas -, as well as corrupt tax evaders and mafia members, what is clear is that these criminal lobby groups, especially the mafia ones have an impact on the evasion policies, but why? Well, because while the mafia members may only number in the tens of thousands, they also happen to control some hundreds of thousands of local votes in certain areas, and not only down in the South, but also in Milan, the suburbs of Milan, as well as Turin, the Valle di Susa and even part of the Aosta Valley and a large chunk of Emilia Romagna, the Lazio coast, etc. Does anyone actually know exactly how many votes the Mafia controls? Perhaps a few hundred thousand. How many votes do the tax evaders control? Millions, simply because there are millions of tax evaders, after all, it would be impossible to get to a figure of some say 120 and others say 160 million Euro unless millions of people were evading taxes.
All of these are amongst the ranks of the independent workers and professionals, all amongst those that have VAT registration numbers. This is the real problem. Clearly there is a problem and, as in the case of the mussels clinging to the proverbial rope dangling in the sea and that are virtually impossible to extricate, what we need is a pair of scissors, which can only be provided by those outside the system. At this moment in time, this can only come in one of three ways: 1) a referendum against the so-called “porcellum” electoral law, which is not ideal since it would only reinstate the earlier so-called “mattarellum” electoral law that was based on proportional representation but was still preferable to what we have now, what are the alternatives? None at the moment. For the next elections, either we must use the Calderoli abortion that allows 5 party secretaries to appoint all their buddies, their lovers or their sugar-daddies, those who blackmail them, as well as their whores, servants and protégés to Parliament, or we can use the so-called “mattarellum” electoral law, which, while it doesn’t allow us a great deal of choice, at least it allows us to choose from amongst two or three potential candidates within the constituency. Certainly we didn’t choose these people, unless the parties hold primary elections, and that’s why I’m in favour of the dual-round system where, in the first round, each of the parties nominates their own candidate and the voters can then choose their preferred candidate, these are known as the primaries, where the voters get to decide whether they prefer the candidate put up by the smaller party because he may be better or more prestigious or more honest than the candidate put up by the larger party. Thereafter, during the second round, the candidates with the highest number of votes battle it out amongst themselves and you, the voter, will probably land up no longer voting for the candidate whose ideas are necessarily closest to your own, but for the one whose ideas are least distant from your own, or you may choose not to vote if you don’t like either of the candidates. However, with the so-called “mattarellum” system, at least the candidates have been chosen in some way rather than simply being appointed and you get the chance to write your preferred candidate’s name on your ballot paper or put a cross next to his name and this has to be better than the current system. So, in order to bring back the earlier system we have to go down to one of the stands and sign. There were stands at Il Fatto Quotidiano’s festival too, where the Democratic Party was obliged to set up a stall notwithstanding the Democratic Party establishment’s hostility to the idea of stalls. There were stalls at the Italia dei Valori party festival and even at the Futuro e Libertà’s do held at Mirabello, against the wishes of Casini and Rutelli’s Third Pole, who didn’t want to know about allowing the voters to express their wishes, since when?
Anyway, since Casini himself pushed for and voted in favour of this so-called “porcellum“ electoral law, it would seem rather strange for him to now call for a referendum aimed at revoking a law that he originally voted in favour of. In any event, there are stalls all over the place where you can go and sign the call for the referendum. I signed yesterday and I believe it is the right thing to do, but why? Well, because if at the next election we vote to send those gentlemen that the parties have already chosen and nominated de facto to Parliament, it like not going to vote at all, just like the last few times. This is the first thing to do in order to sever that rope full of mussels and make the mussels fall off.
The second thing to do is to support the existing and potential future movements that will grow in stature, such as Beppe Grillo’s “Movimento Cinque Stelle”, which is already gaining ground and, according to various polls, supposedly enjoy around 5, 4,or 6% support, even thug the polls don’t place much emphasis on the movements because they never seem to be able to accurately gauge exactly how many people will actually go and vote. There are still a few months to go to the elections so the results of the polls are neither here nor there, but if they are already showing some 5% potential support for a brand new movement that has never stood in any election before now, and this one and a half years prior to the next elections, it means that this is definitely another tool originating outside of the current political system that could somehow break that hegemony between right wing and left wing that has become outdated, withered, mouldy and rotten to the core.
The third and final tool that I can see at the moment for cutting that rope and freeing us from that disaster that is majoritarianism and the equally disastrous opposition is a new kind of information, information that comes from below and that begins on the Web. That is why I am particularly pleased that Santoro was shown the door by RAI and had the door slammed in his face by “La 7”, which would have been more of the same. Obviously Mediaset has become little more than an impenetrable fortress for the common man, so I’m pleased that Santoro has taken the advice that Beppe has been giving him for some time now and has opted to go on the Web. Please note that what Santoro announced yesterday and that the newspapers have labelled as something that will be going on Sky and that is paid for by Murdock is utterly false. Indeed, it is precisely the opposite. It is a television channel that is totally separate from the television service as we know it, but works via online streaming, precisely like the Passaparola programme that you’re busy watching right now, but obviously with more television appeal because you can’t screen a prime time television programme that consists entirely of a person sitting behind a desk, but via direct streaming, with the added possibility of viewing a recording just moments later on YouTube. But this is not produced by someone who controls what is screened. It is produced by an independent party, such as Il Fatto Quotidiano, which doesn’t need to get prior permission from any bank, any FIAT, any Ligresti, any Caltagirone, any Berlusconi, any Bersani or indeed anyone else! In the same way, this television programme will open a direct channel, which could be followed by other free programmes and any of the existing television channels are free to pick it up and run with it as is. They can air it but without having any right to control the programme content or the choices, which are made exclusively by the journalists, writers, cameramen, directors and the editors that produce the programme, all those in front of the cameras and those behind the scenes, those whose job it is to inform.
This truly is a Copernican devolution. Whereas before one had to beg and editor for permission to come in because he was the boss of both the medium and the programme and, therefore, of his employees too, here we have something totally different. Independent professionals working for themselves, funded by pure publishers, people who do nothing other than publish, like Il Fatto Quotidiano, local television channels like Telelombardia, Telenorba and all the other local television channels that will come together to form this network to cover the entire country on the terrestrial digital system. Then, if Sky should choose to screen the programme even on only one of its channels, which would undoubtedly be beneficial for Murdoch, as well as for all those who subscribe to Sky and who, in addition to the various films, sports events and documentaries, will also be able to watch Santoro’s programme. If they don’t want Santoro’s programme, it will be available in any event, on the Web and on terrestrial digital TV, but why? Well, because the programme exists, notwithstanding the television bosses and, in fact, you’re going to see two things happening now: first of all, undoubtedly there will be a veritable defamation and denigration campaign unleashed against those who produce and those who support the programme; 2) there is bound to be some sort of legal attempt to muzzle the programme, passed off as some sort of regulation to control Web TV because obviously, it’s one thing if I, as a novice, sit behind my desk and talk on Web TV, but it’s a totally different matter when the person sitting behind the desk talking is Santoro who, when he was on the traditional TV, had 8 million viewers tuning in to listen to him for 3 hours in prime time and who, when he presented events such as “Tutti in piedi” with Fiom, or with RAI and, as occurred on one evening last year, in Bologna, where he had no less than five million people who struggled to find the transmission on live streaming or on the local TV stations or on the “Current” channel when it was still up and running before they shut it down in June this year, then clearly, when the No.1 show host leaves the traditional TV broadcasters and video bosses to go out on his own, then these guys get very nervous indeed, but why? Well, because those that stay behind will suddenly be seen for what they are, namely people who are happy to kowtow to the bosses’ diktats, which those that work with Santoro are no longer obliged to do.
In order to reveal the things that Berlusconi has done, it will no longer be necessary to invite his attorneys into the studio to shout insults and interrupt you in an attempt to prevent you from speaking. It won’t be necessary to invite Bersani in order to be able to discuss the scandals afflicting the centre-left. You can invite him along if you wish to put some questions to him, that is if he agrees to come along of course, but you don’t have to invite him because the journalists are responsible for informing people, not the politicians, so finally Santoro’s programme will no longer be obliged to pay the kind of tolls he was forced to pay in recent years, a heavy toll too I might add, namely having to invite along the usual gaggle of politicians, which represented a tax to be paid in return for being able to conduct inquiries and discuss what those politicians and their buddies had done. As you know, the minute that Milena Gabanelli, who didn’t even do any political debates between politicians in the studio, dared to speak ill of Tremonti in one of her programmes, she was immediately attacked by the Agcom (the Italian television oversight committee), that ridiculous committee stuffed with loudmouths and political has-beens appointed to the committee by the various political parties, and was forced to do another episode of “Report” where everyone only spoke well of Tremonti, but why, you ask? Well, apparently there was no one in the studio on the first occasion that could support Tremonti! But hang on a minute, where is it written that if you speak badly of a politician then you have to later speak well of him in the interests of fairness?

Truly free information in order to tell the story of a Country
A journalist must only speak well of a politician if that politician deserves praise whereas, if a politician deserves to be spoken badly of, then we have to speak badly of him, that’s what freedom of information and freedom to criticise is all about. The right to criticise was hard-won through a series of liberal revolutions that gave us freedom of the press and the right to disagree, the right to criticise. The right to praise is granted even in dictatorships because there is no need for any freedom to applaud those in power. The difference between dictatorships and democracy is that, in the case of dictatorships, there is only the right to applaud whereas, in any democracy there is also the right to criticise and to blow raspberries. In recent years we have witnessed the progressive erosion of our right to criticise and, if someone dared to criticise, then they also had to praise, or if someone was criticising, then there had to be someone next to him who would praise the individual, otherwise it was an infringement of the equal opportunity rule. This is no longer applicable once an individual becomes an independent on Web TV where, if someone has something to say, he/she simply says it. In these past few years I have been able to present hundreds of episodes of Passaparola and I have been free to criticise whomever I wished, without anyone coming up to me and saying “next time you have to speak well of him, okay”, why is that? Well, the answer is very simple. It is because while Agcom has jurisdiction as the Boards of Directors of RAI, like a bunch of Sanhedrins put there by the parties under various pretences to control the content of televised information, they have no jurisdiction over the Web or over this programme, which will be called “Comizi d’amore” (literally “A meeting of love”) and will be predominantly screened online. Then, if someone should choose to broadcast it, and I think that a number of local television channels will undoubtedly want to broadcast it for business reasons, and we’ll whether or not Sky is truly independent, in other words whether or not they will also want to broadcast it, but why? Well, because when the free market operates properly it is absolutely relentless and if someone has a loyal viewership who watches his/her programme, those viewers will also see any advertising that is included in that programme, so the advertisers will be attracted, but you will remain free because you don’t need the advertising revenue anyway. If the advertisers, or their bosses for that matter don’t like something that you say in your programme, then it’s their hard luck, not yours, if they choose not to advertise on your programme.
Il Fatto Quotidiano has very little advertising yet we continue to do very well for ourselves, precisely because when any advertiser try to blackmail us by saying that they will only advertise with us if we speak well of them, then we say “Okay, then don’t place your advertising with us”. At the end of the day, the clever ones continue to place their advertising with us because they realise that this is a free and prestigious newspaper and when you advertise in a free and prestigious newspaper, some of that prestige rubs off on your advertising since everyone is patently aware that anyone advertising there gets nothing more in return for that advertising. The same thing occurs when a programme is free and independent, so between the contributions of public shareholders, the 10 Euro minimum contribution that Santoro asks, the contributions from any television channels that may want to broadcast the programme, and any revenues arising from the advertising that may interrupt the programme from time to time, that is what creates television content that is beyond the normal television content and the normal television circles. That is the third tool that will help us to sever that mussel-encrusted rope that currently appears to be inextricable, because that’s how democracy works.
We will go and vote knowing who we are voting for. If I know that one of the candidates is a delinquent, then I simply won’t vote for him, unless I am either equally delinquent or totally stupid because even delinquents like to have a monopoly and doing other delinquents a favour is not always a good thing. I know who the candidates are. I vote in a free and informed manner, so a better class of politician gets elected to Parliament, a class of politician that adopts good laws that, as I explained earlier, don’t need to be written by rocket-scientists but laws that are, perhaps paradoxically, very simple, rather than adopting the kind of crap laws that have been adopted over the past 20 years, and that’s all we need: a political class, intelligently elected by well-informed people, which can afford the luxury of making laws against corruption, against the Mafia and against tax evasion and thereby reel in those billions of Euro that will be needed in the coming years in order to balance the budget and avoid being kicked out of the European Union.
But what about Columbus’ egg? I sit a pipe dream? I don’t know, but in any event we currently have an opportunity that we cannot afford to miss and we have to do everything in our power to turn those opportunities into reality, namely free programmes via the Web, free newspapers – and we’ve so far managed to have at least one -, an electoral law that is at least less indecent that the current one and that at least enables us to make our mark, and the movements that put pressure from below because only that kind of pressure is capable of forcing this regime to backtrack and allow some freedom.
I would like to end by reminding you what was said on 8 September a few years ago when the very first V-Day event was held in Bologna, and once again on the subsequent 25th April at the second V-Day event, but what was that, you ask? Well, we said “Away with the convicted criminals in Parliament”, “Away with the Gasparri Law that condoned monopolies and the conflicts of interest”, “Away with public funding for the political parties”, “Away with this obnoxious electoral law”, “a maximum of two terms in Parliament” and then a number of other very simple things, such as the referendum that we voted for: equality for all before the law, no special privileges for the caste, no more “ad personam” laws, water resources to be a public asset, no to nuclear power and yes to alternative energy sources, that’s it. I remember when Grillo spoke about these issues at the first V-Day event. The next day he was lambasted, and you can go on the Internet to see what he said, by the likes of Messrs. Scalfari and Panza who likened him to Mussolini. They said that fascism was making a comeback and that this was the start of a new march on the gates of Rome by a bunch of ruffians, they were just youngsters! Youngsters who, upon hearing these simple, common sense ideas, went straight out and immediately signed the call for a referendum and the popular law initiative. Now these very same topics are the order of the day for the politicians and even the politicians themselves are mooting the idea of limiting the maximum number of terms for parliamentarians, some mentioning three terms and others two terms, but they are nevertheless talking about it, as they are about freeing television broadcasting in order to change things, changing the electoral law and the public funding of the political parties, not that they are wanting to cut it, you understand, they’re not about to cut the funding but merely talking about cutting it, but why? Well, because they know that this is something that their voters want and since they cannot do it, at least they’re talking about it, meaning that the pressure is building from below and it is starting to produce results, but why? Well, because it has brought this issue from the ghetto in which Grillo was hiding to the attention of millions of Italians, a veritable horde of people who are now demanding the very things that only Grillo and the youngsters gathered before the podium were asking for at the V-Day event. Now there are millions of people, including left wingers, right wingers and supporters of the Lega, the Pdl, the Fli and the Udc, all of whom are demanding these things, so much so that everyone is verbally at least wanting changes to the electoral law, cuts to the cost of politics, separation of legitimate election reimbursements from illegal and thinly disguised public funding for the political parties. So the mere fact that the seed was planted and nurtured is extremely important in itself and, had it not been for that battle, no one would even be talking about these issues, so we have to carry on.

So, with this three-pronged shear made up of movements that are gaining ground, a referendum that could truly eliminate this “Porcellum” electoral law, and independent information such as that provided by Il Fatto Quotidiano on the newsstands and “Comizi d’amore” on television, it may not be enough, but at least they provide new avenues that raise our hopes of being able to do something positive. Whether or not we will succeed remains to be seen, but it is certainly worth a bash so that in the future each one of us can honestly say “at least we tried”. Spread the word!