On September 10 2011, there’ll be the dish of peppered steamed mussels in Rome. At 3:00 pm the lay procession will leave piazza Navona. Each person holding a mussel. In Indian file. In good order on the pavement along via santa Giovanna D'Arco. The mussel will be deposited in a big basket in piazza Montecitorio. I will start first with my load of shells of fresh mussels delivered from Livorno. It’s important to be disciplined. Don’t jump the queue. Give the impression of a calm force that no power can intimidate. Don’t give the System any alibi.
The depositing of the mussel at Montecitorio is a cathartic, symbolic exercise. It will be useful for purifying the air, to breathe deeply and to look up towards the eternal blue sky. The mussels are forming a wall. A tangle of mussels-gone-bad attached to the same rock face. Politicians, bankers, journalists, concessionaires camouflaged as entrepreneurs. The economic disaster obliges them to support each other. If one gets detached from the Palace, they will all get detached. Politics from the bottom, the participation of the citizens makes them frightened. For them it’s a leap into the unknown, into the dark from which they come. A settlement of accounts that has been put off for decades. Here there’s the creation of the new Italy or the 150th anniversary of the Nation will be the first year of its disintegration. It is they who are the crisis. It is they that have created it. They cannot resolve it. The change cannot come from the bankers or from the magistrates. This has been seen in recent years. Corruption increased after” Mani Pulite” {Clean Hands}. The economy has been devastated even though Ciampi and the Bank of Italy’s Dini have been President of the Council. The Country can only be changed by politics but not by this lot of politicians. Italians have to be able to exercise their democratic rights, as they have done for the referendum for water and for nuclear. It’s like what they asked for with “Cleanup Parliament” a proposal ignored by all the parties for 4 years. The power has to return into the hands of its legitimate owners: the citizens. The party-ocracy is a different form of dictatorship, more insidious because you fool yourself that you are in a democracy. The parties have taken possession of the country. Parliament has been appointed by 5 party secretaries. Is this democracy?
In piazza Navona a few stands will be present starting in the morning. One for “Cleanup Parliament” and the others for the proposals of the 5 Star MoVement taken from the Programme.

For anyone who wants to taste a parliamentary dish of peppered steamed mussels, here’s the recipe:
Carefully wash the parliamentary mussels using public water. Repeat a few times.
Once they are clean, place in a large casserole with high sides to protect against “ad personam” laws, add a few spoons of extra virgin olive oil and two squashed cloves of garlic.
Cover the pan to prevent the escape of any Montecitorio mussels and turn on the lively democratic heat.
While cooking, mix the mussels around: take hold of the handles and shake with a movement from below.
You just need the time to get the mussels open and the dish of peppered mussels is ready, once you have dusted it with a lot of freshly ground black pepper right there and then.
Accompany this with slices of lemon and pieces of toasted bread.
At this point the Clean Parliament is served.

Make a date with the dish of peppered mussels tomorrow in Rome, piazza Navona at 3:00 pm. They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we.

PS. Participate in real time in Mussel Day on Facebook and Twitter using the hash tag #cozzaday.