Beppe Grillo's Blog

The arse in power

Enough! Please, that’s enough with the presumed whores, the presumed schemers, the presumed favours, the alcoves, the photos with G-strings, tits and backsides. Do we want to get the former President of the Council out of our hair? It is right and fitting, but there’s no need to transform Italy into a hard version of the Decameron. Every day a new “red light” episode. To understand which Prosecutors Office is carrying out an investigation (Lecce, Bari, Rome?), and about which “escort”, and where is (but above all who is) Lavitola, it’s necessary to read the summary of the preceding episodes. Otherwise you can’t understand anything. The premier has persuaded a witness to lie, an under-age girl has been fucked, he had a shower after intercourse, he fucked eight in one go? Page after page of intercept records and lasses who have never been convicted in the courts, but who have become prostitutes by journalistic rights. If “not guilty” is the outcome, if there is no crime, will someone pay them compensation? Bagnasco has entered the field. “licentious behaviour, the air needs purifying”. He starts, as does the Church that has taken all possible economic benefits from this government, to keep silent on the world paedophilia scandal that is not written about only in this papist Italy. "Tarantini and free wives. For the Re-examination Tribunal the jurisdiction is Bari, not Rome." Can someone of sane mind tell me why this news is on the front page today? The economy is sinking. This would be enough to topple the government. There’s no longer any talk of the mafia, 'ndrangheta and camorra unless to say that their turnover is about 130 billion euro a year. “The money will be recovered” the politicians explain. But how can they even just say it if the political scene has often and willingly been in collusion with organised crime? This government has more skeletons in the cupboard than an ossuary, but no one is taking the risk to open this cupboard, because it contains tibias, skulls, malleoli, and ribs shared with the Opposition. It’s better to talk about arses and tits, to attack on a front on which the former President of the Council has an undoubted advantage ever since the time of the Fininvest showgirls. We know nothing about the criminal record of a deputy, but we are being informed as to whether he is homosexual or homophobic, whether he goes looking for transsexuals and in which area of Rome. The fantasy in power has been substituted with the arse in power. And the “Questions to il Cavaliere?”. Unmissable! Always 10, never one more, perhaps the journalists can only count using the fingers on their hands. Never an uncomfortable question, but just soft porn of the type you get in today’s La Repubblica: “Why do you hide your charitable actions, if they are really that, behind secret and mysterious agreements?" or “Why do you use the RAI and its directors to obtain favours from young women?” If tragedies often end up in farce, ours is ending in cows.

Le mani sulla città {Hands on the city} – by Gianni Barbacetto and Davide Milosa
The 'ndrangheta master of Milano
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Comments

Whoremonger politics

Berlusconi’s political death seems near now.
While Italian economical situation is cracking down, we are watching Berlusconi’s tragic last act. And it isn’t a comforting show: After more than twenty years of political, economical and cultural hegemony, Berlusconi offers us the sad image of the leader who is loosing control over the successful system that he created and managed to lead.

He, the controversial figure who has ruled his country always too near to that dangerous grey zone that characterizes Italian vested interests and power play; but also the able and expert power administrator who, under his “reign”, could unify so many different interests and powers. He, the “clown emperor” who had always ruled with general consensus. He, the leader who had just friends, from the worker to the Pope, is at the end of his career.
Today Berlusconi has lost his magic appeal and the actual internal instability seems to open a possibility for a renovated political scenario. But will it be anything new?

Small and big politicians and journalists and columnists and showmen and bankers and industrialists and syndicates and bishops and citizens’ associations – all are screaming something at the same time.
All accusing each others, all blaming the system.

How is it possible that all Berlusconi’s old friends are suddenly running away from him?
Did Italians (and above all Italy’s balance of power) become abruptly aware and tired of his excesses and lack of morality (which were already really well known)?
Paradoxically Berlusconi isn’t collapsing because he damaged Italy politically, culturally and economically: he is collapsing because of women. Despite the fact sex has always been a natural complement to Italian image of power and the “super Latin lover” personality was probably one of Berlusconi’s most successful public images. But now that some balances are changing, Berlusconi is getting killed in the only way that was still possible in his country after his cultural revolution: Gossip, boobs and asses. Panem et circenses.

Power is reorganizing itself and probably Mr. B won’t be its façade anymore, but I wouldn’t be too sure that Berlusconi’s end will be also the end of the established Berlusconism.
“Everything has to change so that nothing changes”

Posted by: Daniele Cavallari | October 2, 2011 12:49 PM

No, Beppe (or whoever), it is not all about "arses and tits". It is all about abuse of office, misuse of power and a complete lack of care or interest in the well-being of "ordinary" (i.e. not in the coterie of "friends" with places reserved in the Arcore mausoleum) Italians. The stories give "ordinary" people some kind of a handle on the attitudes to the role of government displayed by 'the gang' of politicians seeped in the history of theft and abuse that has riddled the political establishment in Italy since the 1950s.

Berlusconi has an extremely low popular appeal at the moment - due in no small measure to his "bunga-bunga" shenanigans. So, yes, there is a point in the various news outlets repeating the never-ending tales of debauchery and depravation that emanate from the halls of power here. How else would 'ordinary' folk understand what is going on under their very noses, in the light of the misinformation that is continually spewed from the 'Good News' office of "Minister" Brambilla, Fido (sorry, Fede) and Minzolini, etc.

The point is more that there is still no viable alternative to the political caste that has held on to power for so long - the left certainly have no obvious desire for change, least of all Berlusconi's long time ally in the TV business, D'Alema.

But then, long-term memory is not a popular attribute in the world of politics, is it...

Posted by: Peter Gee | September 29, 2011 06:47 PM