March 09, 2009

Strike one to educate a hundred - Marco Travaglio

Text:
"Good day to you all.
The day before yesterday, Silvio Berlusconi gave an interview to the Spanish newspaper “El Mundo” in which he stated that Judge Gandus who pronounced Mills to be guilty of having been corrupted by Berlusconi, is a left wing campaigner and thus there are doubts about her impartiality but, he adds: “I am absolutely certain that I will be absolved when the trial restarts.” And anyway if and when that trial should restart it will not be Judge Gandus presiding because as soon as she has written the grounds for the decision in the Mills case which will have to deal with the role of the defendant for having corrupted Mills, that is the defendant Berlusconi, she will become incompatible. Then he added: “unfortunately a part of the Italian magistracy is politicised and it has used and still uses its power as a weapon in the political battle against its adversaries, in particular against the only person in the Centre Right who can have the upper hand with the Left. The politicised judges have tried to overturn the democratic result and they succeeded in 1994, with the accusation from which I was naturally completely absolved, after 10 years of trials.” It was the famous story of the corruption of the Finance Police. Then he gives the usual imaginary facts about the trials he has been through and says: “Conclusion: I have always ended up innocent because, fortunately, the impartial judges are in the majority.”

Naturally, since we are dealing with one of the greatest fibbers in the world there’s no need to underline how many fibs there are in these affirmations, however one fact is interesting: we have often talked about the results already brought about by the campaign of recent years against the magistrates that are dealing with the powerful people to apply the law in an equal manner for everyone, for them as well as the poor souls. They have been exterminated. Di Pietro was obliged to leave the magistracy with the well known blackmail of the dossiers in the Brescia trials, Clementina Forleo has been thrown out of Milan after having dealt with Unipol, Luigi De Magistris has been thrown out Catanzaro after dealing with criminal political-judicial filth in the region of Calabria, the Salerno magistrates have been thrown out after having put their noses in those affairs; so basically, we have always used a slogan that we borrowed from Mao and the Red Brigades: strike one to educate one hundred, strike two, three, five, seven, ten, fifteen to educate all ten thousand of them."

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Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:45 PM in Information | Comments (3)
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March 02, 2009

The perpetual plot machine

The perpetual plot machine - - Marco Travaglio
"MAFIOCRAZIA", the THIRD Passaparola DVD is now available

Text:
”Good day to you all.
Today we will present a few news items that you will have found in the newspapers falsified, turned upside-down or in fact not mentioned at all. They are all news items that belong to a new tendency of Italian journalism. Always with the ever rarer exceptions that are due, that is, that if a trial finished up badly for a powerful man it’s not talked about or it is trivialised. If it finishes well for the powerful man who comes out OK, then there is great emphasis on it.
It’s talked about with a huge clamour and excitement; but on the other hand, the trials against the poor souls can only go one way: badly for them, because if it goes well for them there is a great hullabaloo and immediately there’s a clamour against the easy-release-from-prison, easy-absolutions and do-good-ism.
Anyway it’s what always happens when there’s a powerful man on trial: the trials against the powerful regularly end up with furious polemics about the magistrates, both when the trial ends up with a “not guilty” verdict, or with a “guilty” verdict or when they are sent for trial.

The perpetual plot machine

Why do I say this? Because they have invented the perpetual plot machine. I’ll give you an example: if a powerful man is under investigation and is sent for trial, there you get the polemics about the levelling of the judge who is siding with the ideas of the public prosecutor and thus it is necessary to make sure there are separate careers because the fact that the judge considers the public prosecutor to be right, indicates that the magistrates have been plotting together. That happens if there is a guilty verdict or if the person is sent for trial, basically if there is a negative outcome for the powerful man.
If a powerful man is investigated and then the case is dismissed, or he is found to be not guilty, then there are polemics because he has been persecuted for years and now finally a judge has recognised the truth, and has brought down the hypothesis of the public prosecutor. That is the proof that there was a plot."

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Posted by Beppe Grillo at 09:21 PM in Information | Comments (1)
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February 28, 2009

The silence is mafia-like

Yesterday this blog posted an interview held with Gioacchino Genchi, who is accusing the secret service and certain politicians of involvement in the deaths of Falcone and Borsellino. Genchi is not some or other nobody. According to the psychodwarf, he is the man that wiretapped 350,000 Italians’ telephones. The greatest spy in history since Mata Hari.
I knew that there could only be two possible reactions to Genchi’s words, which were some of the harshest ever uttered against that which we insist on calling and thinking of as the State. Either to make him out to be a mythomaniac, or to drop a veil of absolute, mafia-like silence in all the newspapers and television channels.

”Omertà” (conspiracy of silence) has prevailed. No one saw or heard anything. Not Mieli, not Riotta and not Mauro.
The Genchi video has become the most often viewed clip on YouTube in the past twenty-four hours, yet none of the national media bothered to report on its content. An information paradox. If they shut down the Web, then darkness will descend upon this Country. The Cupola of the Press is stronger and more united than the Cosa Nostra. Genchi told the truth and proof of this lies in the fact that, as far as the media are concerned, Genchi doesn’t exist and the names of the people behind the murders of Falcone and Borsellino cannot even be mentioned.

Genchi said the following:
"This is the perfect opportunity for the day of reckoning to come to Italy. Beginning with the via D'Amelio massacre, through to the Capaci massacre. Because the time has come for Italians to know the extent of the ongoing collusion that has taken place between the Government’s secret services, criminals and politicians."
Genchi was present in via D'Amelio, he saw the charred remains of Borsellino, he handled the investigation regarding the signal that set off the bomb, so what he says is not hearsay. Borsellino was threatened and he went to his mother’s house every Sunday, yet the State didn’t even close off the parking area in front of the building with a barrier. Genchi was not the only person to speculate that the via D'Amelio massacre signalled the beginning of the Second Republic.

Antonio Ingroia, Public Prosecutor of Palermo:
"The truth must be uncovered at all costs. It is my belief that the so-called Second Republic is founded on the blood shed by many public servants, magistrates and police officers " (*).

From the decision handed down by the Administrative Court of Caltanisetta in the Borsellino case-3:
"It was precisely for the purpose of facilitating the establishment new political contacts that it was necessary to eliminate those who, like Borsellino, would have discouraged any attempt to approach the Cosa Nostra and backtrack the anti-mafia activities, standing up and revealing, even publicly from the lofty heights of his professional status and the nobility of his commitment, any sign of surrender by the State or its political representatives " (*).

If the information doesn’t exist, then let us become information sources. What we need is a new CLN. A National Liberation Committee for information. Post the text of the interview with Genchi on your blogs, translate it into all other languages and forward it to other foreign blogs that you know. Create a link to the video on Youtube. Create your own videos with your own analyses and observations.

They may never give up (is it in their interest?), but neither will we.

(*) Texts drawn from the book entitled "L'agenda rossa di Paolo Borsellino" by Lo Bianco/Rizza.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 07:56 PM in Information | Comments (6)
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February 27, 2009

Gioacchino Genchi makes accusations

There’s nothing more to say about this interview.
Beppe Grillo.

Interview held with Gioacchino Genchi:

"For the past twenty years I have worked as a technical consultant for the judicial authorities, a job that began almost by accident when, with the advent of the new penal procedure code, this position was created in terms of articles 359 and 360, which grant the Public Prosecutor’s Office the option to use the services of technical experts in any field whenever there are important activities to be performed. I am sorry that Martelli forgot, but Cossiga actually reminded me of the fact that it was the very same new penal procedure code that President Cossiga himself promulgated that made provision for this post, which is a very modern type of post at that. A post that exists in the most civilised and advanced legal systems and so, whereas previously the Public Prosecutor’s Office had been very limited and could only make use the services of the Criminal Police Department for any special investigations, now the new penal code made provision for this type of post.
Therefore, when it comes down to finding out the truth in any criminal case, finding out the truth also meaning in favour of the person under investigation or the accused, the Public Prosecutor’s Office is no longer limited as regards whose services they may use. I held this post within the Department of Public Safety.

We did some important work with Arnaldo La Barbera, with Giovanni Falcone and then also regarding the massacres. When it became necessary for the Public Prosecutor’s Office to bring in an outsider, perhaps someone who would not be influenced by the executive powers, and here I am referring specifically to investigations involving white collar workers, magistrates and top political figures, the Public Prosecutor’s Office preferred to avoid the possibility of any political entities and executive powers influencing any choices taken by the public administration departments where the various people worked.
In accepting this appointment, I made an ethical choice, in other words, I chose to give up my career and my salary so as to concentrate all of my efforts on my work for the magistrature. Instead of being appreciated, this choice on my part was instead used by my detractors who, until very recently, proceeded to attack me in Parliament.

Minister Brunetta had no choice but to admit that the granting of the unpaid leave of absence that I had requested was perfectly in order and had been considered by the various State Departments, by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Public Service Ministry and by the Office of Prime Minister Berlusconi, in other words, by the very same people that then proceeded to attack me in such a violent and absurd manner, telling those lies about me that made the Italians laugh about this entire hullabaloo surrounding me, this apparent national danger constituted by one person that has been working with the judges and the Public Prosecutors on Mafia cases, massacres, homicides an some of the most important mafia and political activities that have taken place in Italy.

Perhaps for them it is a national danger! For all those people that attacked me, and this is the best part (and here I will keep quiet because I cannot say too much since I am sworn to secrecy), It makes me laugh because all those gentlemen journalists that attacked me, from Farina through to Luca Fazzo, to Lionello Mancini of the Sole 24 ore newspaper, to “La Stampa” journalist Ruotolo, are none other than the main role players in the matters that I was looking into. This is the part that is so absurd!

The very same politicians that are now busy attacking me are none other than the main players that I was investigating at the time. From Rutelli through to Martelli, the Martelli that was well known at the time of Falcone. We are talking about people that that fell within the scope of my activities. Martelli because his name appeared in Falcone’s computers when they were tampered with and Rutelli because he is a friend of Saladino and his name cropped up in tapped telephone conversations between Saladino and Mastella, because of the evidence that we all know about, and so forth. Later I will talk mention the names of those that spoke during Question Time in the Chamber, that journalist that drafted the press release, what a joke! By the bye, these guys don’t even have the common decency to get someone else to come in on their behalf.

No, they appear in person! They do this knowing full well that they were personally under investigation. This is absurd. It makes me laugh because the Italian population sees this great wiretapper who supposedly spied on all Italians, but why would I have wanted to spy on all the Italians? Just to hear them admit that they cannot get to the end of the month on their salaries? To hear them say that their children have lost their jobs and are now unemployed? That we are in the middle of an economic crisis? I ask the question again, why would I want to spy on the Italians? Who precisely are all these Italians that are afraid of Gioacchino Genchi?

The only ones that are afraid of Gioacchino Genchi are those with a guilty conscience and those with a guilty conscience are precisely those that attacked me. Not to mention the fact that all they have achieved by attacking me is to confirm all of my suspicions about them. Indeed even more suspicions than even I was aware of so I probably underestimated the Rutelli’s role in the “Why not” inquiry.

Rutelli has shown that he probably has a skeleton in his cupboard and that is why he behaved as he did. When the truth eventually come out into the open, then we will understand the precise nature of Rutelli’s relationship was with Saladino, what Senator Mastella’s relationship with him was, the role played by his son, the one who made use of telephones belonging to the Chamber of Deputies... everything will become clear! From beginning to end. That is another reason why they had to abolish the practice of wiretapping at all costs and why they had to strip the magistrates of their power to authorise wiretaps, especially given the results that had been achieved, namely as regards Vallettopoli, Saccà, Rai, etcetera. However, without any problems, the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office immediately began instituting proceedings against Dr. Genchi, a matter that was completely outside their jurisdiction and had about as much to do with them as cabbage for tea. Instead it had everything to do with them because the ex Chief Public Prosecutor of Catanzaro, and let me say “fortunately ex”, used these printouts like a fig leaf in order to hide all his misdeeds and later as a parachute by not using them in Catanzaro, where the new Chief Public Prosecutor would probably have immediately sent them through to Salerno.
The truth is that those printouts constitute proof of their criminal guilt. Their guilt, not mine. So, he didn’t send the printouts to Salerno, which had jurisdiction, he didn’t send them to the Public Prosecutor of Catanzaro, who would then have had an opportunity to view the printouts and thus discover what was in them, he didn’t send them to the office of the Public Prosecutor of Palermo, from where I did my work, but he sent them to Rome, which has nothing to do with the matter.

So what he does is parachute these printouts and misses the landing because the Public Prosecutor’s office he chooses is one that cannot do anything right. Also because those printouts also contained, amongst others, inquiries regarding the Public Prosecutor of Rome! Whom we are busy investigating. So now the Public Prosecutor of Rome is investigating not only me, but also certain magistrates working for the Public Prosecutor of Rome. This is a repeat of what happened between Salerno and Catanzaro, and what had already happened between Milan and Brescia at the time of the investigations regarding Di Pietro. With one difference, namely that, at the time, the body responsible for the investigations was known as the “Gico”, whereas now it is known as the “Ros”, but essentially nothing has changed.

In the final analysis, however, I must say that I nevertheless have faith in our justice system. They have attempted to turn everyone against me and they tried to say, for example, that because there was ongoing collaboration with the Public Prosecutor of Milan, and between De Magistris and the Public Prosecutor of Milan, as well as personal friendship between De Magistris and Spartaro, that Spartaro’s printouts were acquired. How absurd! No such situation has ever existed. Not even maybe! How can they deny De Magistris the support of the associated magistrature? Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that he did take Spartaro’s printouts. How can we set the Upper Council of the Magistrature up against De Magistris? Let’s say that he took Mancino’s printouts. What then?

Now the “Ros” people are saying that in the printouts that I took there are heaven alone knows how many lines belonging to the Upper Council of the Magistrature. We never acquired any printouts concerning the Upper Council of the Magistrature, what we did acquire were certain printouts pertaining to magistrates themselves, that we did, and amongst them were a number of very specific individuals from the national anti-mafia prosecution, two of them, only two of whom have any contact with the Upper Council of the Magistrature.

He investigated the “Quirinale”! Since when? However, if someone within the “Quirinale” made a call to, or received a call from one of the individuals that we are legitimately investigating, then we need Upper Council of the Magistrature to find out who the person within the “Quirinale” is that has been in contact with these people, but it doesn’t mean that I have acquired printouts concerning the “Quirinale”. Irrespective of whether or not such a thing occurred, it would in any event have been completely legitimate because, to be clear, in Italy, investigations are not only conducted on drug addicts, preferably immigrant ones, or on those that come ashore at Lampedusa, against whom anything is permissible, including the creation of lagers.

Everyone is equal before the law. All of us are subject to the law! Just to be clear on that point. They need to understand this. The minute anyone dares to touch any of these gentlemen, even as lightly as a feather, these gentlemen immediately rebel and attempt to destroy those with the courage to simply do their job.
The Italians have understood this. They have also understood that how they have been vilifying this Dr. Genchi, and now I will publish all of my work. I will publish everything from beginning to end, including all of the rulings handed down by the Court of Cassation, the Courts of Appeal, the Administrative Courts, all of the Courts that have handed down hundreds of years’ worth of sentences thanks to my work.
But the rulings that I am most proud of are not the guilty ones, but rather the not-guilty ones! Those people that were unjustly accused also thanks to the work done by the people of the “Ros” and that were facing life sentences, but who were eventually found not-guilty thanks to my work! Those people that were in prison. People who were in jail because the mistook the owner of a SIM card. Yet now these gentlemen come along and accuse me of doing the same things as they have done..., but they are totally wrong!
The worst is that all of these lies and this stream of hogwash has been perpetrated within no lesser organisation than Copasir! The body that is charged with overseeing the security services, not the consultants and magistrates that do their work within the security services! We discovered evidence of collusion between members of the security services and certain companies that work for the security services, that work in the field of wiretapping and that build barracks on the basis of privately negotiated contracts worth millions of Euros, that is what we were working on! We were working on that when they stopped us because they were all about to be caught with their hands in the cookie jar! That is the real truth.

That is the honest truth and they have now provided me with the perfect opportunity to reveal the truth because, as a person who is under investigation, I am no longer subject to confidentiality clauses since I have the right to defend myself! I have to defend myself against a prosecution that cannot get anything right due to lack of jurisdiction, namely the Public Prosecutor of Rome, so I will defend myself at the Roma Prosecutor’s office.

However, the truth will most certainly come to light! And there is no need for any archives or additional information because there are three or four simple facts. The required recordings of Saladino’s pnonecalls, about ten in all, made prior to the time when De Magistris began his investigations, which are very telling indeed! The attack against me originated precisely from those individuals that I identified on the evening of nineteen July 1992, immediately after the massacre in via D'Amelio, while I could still see Paolo Borsellino’s corpse burning and poor Emanuela Loi that was falling apart within the walls of number nineteen, via D'Amelio, where the bomb went off. I am still seeing the same people, the same individuals and the same matter now that I found at the time!
No one has yet told me that I am insane. Indeed, I may well be dangerous or terrible, but no one has yet told me that I am insane. Therefore, the things that I’ saying are not the words of a madman, because I can prove all of these things. This is the perfect opportunity for the day of reckoning to come to Italy. Beginning with the via D'Amelio massacre, through to the Capaci massacre. Because the time has come for Italians to know about the ongoing collusion that has taken place between the Government’s secret services, criminals and politicians.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 07:17 PM in Information | Comments (6)
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February 23, 2009

Roundabout patrols

Text:
”Good day to you all.
There’s lots that could be said about the various things that have happened, starting with the sad things happening around the morgue of the Democratic Party.
I would tend to let that go so as not to be a real bore and make you run away from this presentation. It strikes me that the best sound bite came from Matteo Renzi, the young man who won the primaries against the established party names for the Florence council, who said in relation to poor Franceschini: “they have elected the deputy disaster”.
Enough. Let’s finish that there.
Let’s talk about stuff that is more serious and more worrying., that is of the issue of immigration mixed up with criminality that has given rise to a measure that like the one that authorizes the private patrols of citizens who go round the city on patrol and it’s not clear what they do. They go around with the air of substituting or helping the security forces and cutting down crime and dissuading criminals.
On many occasions we have already dealt with the issue of criminality, in fact I can let you know that the third volume of our Passaparola – called Mafiocrazia has come out. It covers the end of last year and the beginning of this year.
You can recognize it and distinguish it from the other volumes by the rose colouring, even though the content is anything but rosy.
In relation to this topic, I would like to start with a great article written by Luca Ricolfi in La Stampa. I don’t always agree with Ricolfi but I have to say that this time he has been spot on.
He says that basically crimes are tending to go down and that the only time when they went up, as we had widely forecast, was with the Great Pardon.
Now the Great Pardon has lost its usefulness as the number of people in prison is the same as it was before the Great Pardon with the additional bad thing that we have had a lot more crimes in the period after the Great Pardon. Instead of relieving the conditions o f the overcrowded prisons it has made things worse for the honest citizens who are outside and who have suffered more crimes than they would have done if it hadn’t been for the Great Pardon and if different policies had been implemented, like having new prisons, or different destinations for certain types of prisoners, like non-European-Union people and drug addicts.
Anyway, this is not the topic under discussion.

Thanks to the Great Pardon

Ricolfi writes that the rate of criminality among foreigners is much higher than among Italians, even because the foreigners that come to Italy are not a representative sample of their nations.
The people from Romania who are in Italy are not representative of the Romanians who stay in Romania. The people from Morocco who are in Italy are not representative of the Moroccans who stay in Morocco.
Just like the Italians who went to America were are not representative of the Italians who were here in Italy. Anyone who is escaping from their own country to go to another one, unless they are obliged to do that for political or religious reasons or because of war, usually belong to the most vulnerable sectors of their society, those that don’t manage to get the chance to make a living in their own country and who go to another country in desperation to seek it there.

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Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:54 PM in Information | Comments (4)
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February 22, 2009

Naples: in the dark at mid-day

It’s night-time and they want to have us believe that it is mid-day. They have even taken the night-time away from you. You can’t even still say “A da passà a nuttata”. Rubbish has become a publicity stunt. The Camorra has become an information business, cinema, a seller of books and newspapers. By now the Camorra is literature. The names of their leaders have become popular like those of the Indians. Legendary. A long way away. Reassuring. Toro Seduto {Sitting Bull}, Sandokan, Cavallo Pazzo {Mad Horse}, Cicciotto è mezzanotte {Cicciotto is midnight}, Geronimo. Campania is a permanent newly released film. A government neo-realism that has overtaken Rossellini.
Campania is a non-region. It exists, but it doesn’t exist. Rubbish is no longer a problem. The Chiaiano residents, the “no global” people, the irresponsible people, the uncivilised inhabitants of Chiaiano are the problem. The unauthorised rubbish tips with radioactive waste are no longer a problem. The inhabitants of the Death Triangle of Acerra, Nola and Marigliano are the problem. If they have to die of cancer, let them do so without causing a disturbance, without exhibiting their pain in an obscene way. What have you got left if you cannot cry out in your own desperation?
Italy does not hear. It doesn’t know and perhaps it doesn’t want to know. It is afraid of the contagion. But it doesn’t know that it is already infected. That we will all go down together. The Impregilo company that is on trial, is still doing business, still doing incinerators, rubbish tips, pestilence, illnesses. In June, the one under investigation, Bassolino will go to Europe. Like Mangano, he too is a hero, rewarded for his silence, for his “omertà” by Veltroni and D’Alema. Ms Iervolino, the little monkey that doesn’t hear, and doesn’t see, but unfortunately speaks, continues to be the mayor. One of her Cabinet members committed suicide. Five have been arrested, but her hands are clean. The shit slides off straight away. She uses an incredible hand cream.
Campania has been brought back to normal, militarised, taken back into Europe. Anyone who says the opposite is not a patriot, does not read the newspapers, does not watch the TV. The factories are closing down, but they don’t say this. Since August 2008, Fiat in Pomigliano d’Arco has been open for just 4 weeks. In the last few days, the workers have been demonstrating as they fear they will lose their jobs. They occupied a stretch of the motorway and they were beaten by the cops. Fathers of households reduced to desperation and beaten up like criminals. It’s true, for half an hour they did stop the flow of traffic, but then why don’t they send the army to take control of the Salerno-Reggio Calabria motorway that has been in the hands of organised crime and corrupt police officers for thirty years? A motorway that will never get finished and that kills the motorists with landslides that have been predicted.
Minister Maroni will not send out the Po-Valley-patrols to Scampia, to Secondigliano, or to Casal di Principe. The green shirts are only dealing with the non-European–Union-people. They are wicked, even perfidious with the carers from Moldova that don’t have a permit and with the Roma children. A bit because they are Italians and above all because they shoot on sight. Borghezio would roast them in the oven, like he wanted to do with some non-European–Union-people.
I have seen the desperation in the eyes of the people of Acerra who willing be living next door to the biggest incinerator in Europe. Billions of euro have passed to Campania destined for the environment, to purifiers, to differentiated waste collection. Where did this money end up? Does the region of Campania know anything about it? Politics in Campania is nourished by crises. It lives by managing crises that it itself has created. Politics is by now a form of marketing, and information control. And now that the truth is starting to come out, the only thing remaining to the politicians is the maintenance of public order. The army is standing guard over the rubbish and beating up citizens. It is dark at mid-day and they are selling us sunglasses.

LIVE FROM CHIAIANO WITH BEPPE GRILLO: CLICK!

PS: Today, Sunday 22 February, at about 5:30pm, I will be at Chiaiano for the public meeting about the rubbish tip. Read the details.

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Posted by Beppe Grillo at 07:50 PM in Information | Comments (1)
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February 19, 2009

Millsgate and il Corriere della Sera

Il Corriere della Sera and the Mills trial

In the 1970s, Il Corriere della Sera was in the hands of the P2. Its owner, Angelo Rizzoli, had the P2 card with sequence number 532. The CEO, Tassan Din had card number 534. And Franco Di Bella, the editor, had card number 655. Today, in 2009, who controls Il Corriere della Sera? Who is it that suggests the editorials of Panebianco and Battista? Who ordered Miele to remove the journalistic investigations about "Why Not" from Carlo Vulpio without any apparent reason? Who is the P3 that controls Il Corriere della Sera? Where is the new list of Castiglion Fibocchi?
Yesterday, all the newspapers in the world reported the news of the verdict that Mills is guilty. The lawyer corrupted by mister B. They explained that the psycho dwarf was not on trial because of the lodo Alfano. A made-to-measure law that he did to make himself untouchable. They argued that no premier suspected of corruption to avoid a conviction in two trials would still be in post in a normal country, in a democratic western one. If he hadn’t resigned, they would have booted him out. Read for yourselves El Pais, The Guardian, Le Figaro, The Herald Tribune. The reputation of a country is just as important as its economy. And we have lost our reputation. If the United States has had its Watergate, Italy has its own Millsgate. If Nixon under suspicion of corruption had imposed a law on Congress to establish his own impunity and the person corrupted had been found guilty, Nixon would have been booted out in two minutes flat.
Can you imagine the Headlines in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times if that had happened?
However Il Corriere della Sera is differently a newspaper.
Il Corriere della Sera touched rock bottom with its front page yesterday. Better than Pravda.
The main headline is: "Veltroni si dimette, il Pd è nel caos" {Veltroni resigns, the PD in chaos}. The editorial of Panebianco the Lion Heart: “The weight of the Oligarchies”. In the centre of the page there’s “Wiretapping, Mancino attacks”. Following that in order of size: “Animals of RAI fiction are badly treated” (just the headline is 15 x 2.5 cm), "Benigni, a political show on Berlusconacci and the gays" (9x7.3 cm), "Mori is preparing anti-round rounds" (13x3.6 cm), Giannelli’s cartoon (9x6 cm), "Rome: they shoot at the legs of Calvagna, director of 'Lupo' " (5.7x5.5 cm) and "The founder of the Islamic TV: ‘I chopped off my wife’s head'" (5.7x5.5 cm).
The news about Berlusconi, President of the Council, a defendant in Milan at the Mills trial in which the person corrupted is found guilty and sentenced to 4 years and 6 months has a box measuring 3.5x9 cm. In the headline Berlusconi is not even mentioned: “Mills was corrupted. Sentenced to 4 and a half years”. Even the colour of the header for a piece the size of a postage stamp is designed so that it doesn’t attract the reader’s attention: pale blue instead of the stronger blues and reds used for the others. Finally, the article is on page 21, after the gossip and the regular news.
Licio Gelli said: “True power lies in the hands of those who control the mass media”. Who is controlling Il Corriere della Sera and with what aims? Is the list of the P3 in via Solferino 28, Milan, or at some other address?

Front page of Il Corriere della Sera 18 February 2009

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 09:21 PM in Information | Comments (6)
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February 16, 2009

The law of the Cosca

Summary of the presentation:
The “ad sistemam” laws
Regulations borrowed from the P2
Censorship for Magistrates and for journalism

Text:

"Good day to you all.
Let’s start from here: from the report of the Court of Accounts at the inauguration of the judicial year of administrative justice that, if you are interested, you can find at the website “cortedeiconti.it”.
It’s a bloodcurdling report as regards the system of corruption in Italy and as regards the waste of public money in the sectors of consultancy, of health and of refuse.
They talk of enormous amounts of public money that are disappearing: we continue to pump the money from our taxes into a leaking aqueduct, full of holes, a type of Gruyère cheese and the money comes out at all levels with hardly anything arriving at its destination.
If you read this report and then read what the newspapers and politicians are talking about, you will realise why this aqueduct, unless they change things radically, is destined to no longer see any result in relation to the enormous efforts that we are called upon to make by contributing to the expenses of a State that by now no longer exists.
Because in a normal and serious country, the newspapers, once they have recognised what the Court of Accounts is saying, should be recording declarations of great alarm from the politicians and the government but above all from the Opposition with some concrete proposals to put a stopper in this great haemorrhage of public money that makes Italy the most corrupt in the West, as was said by the American Ambassador Spogli when he was leaving Italy – “A corrupt country” – as all the international research studies say, as for example a great German newspaper has recently defined Italy as the “putrid boot”.
Instead there is no trace of even a tiny attempt to remedy this dramatic denunciation by the Court of Accounts, in fact, they are working to create more holes and chasms in the aqueduct of our money.
Above all, they are working to try to prevent in every way the security forces and the magistracy from discovering who is creating these holes and who is sucking out our money from the water pipes.

The “ad sistemam” laws

A few years ago there was talk of “ad personam” laws. They did “ad personam” laws and the definition was technically perfect because the laws made in the 2001-2006 legislature by the second Berlusconi government were all designed to save the President of the Council and his accomplices from trials.
In this legislature, we have seen “ad personam” laws like the Lodo Alfano - and let’s hope it will soon be swept away as it is unconstitutional filth – but what they are preparing in Parliament now with a myriad of measures, that all seem unconnected and improvised, has nothing to do with the logic of the “ad personam” laws.
These are “ad sistemam” laws, if you can say that. They are laws that are very organic that are not aimed at saving Mr X or Mr Y from trials but they are aimed at saving the whole establishment, the whole Caste... let’s say the whole “cosca” {gang}, let’s use its real name because by now it is answering to laws that are no longer the ones that are imposed on us, thus it is a gigantic political and economic Cosca, with the financial guys at the driving wheel and the politicians in tow.

...

Regulations borrowed from the P2


...


Without observing that the heavyweight delinquents are happier to collaborate more willingly with the magistrates that they trust: Buscetta wanted to talk to Falcone and no one else; Mutolo wanted to talk to Borsellino and no one else; the kick-back folk in Milan queued up outside the door of Di Pietro and no one else’s. Those were magistrates that could be recognised, well known for their ability, even infamous if you like, and thus the criminal who is a man of power feels that they can trust in someone who on the other side represents the good power, who has “broad shoulders” will be difficult to budge, and thus is a person that you can count on and use as a point of reference.
Gelli had written that “it was necessary to have a decree for a series of urgent measures to reform the justice system” and the second that he inserted in order of importance was “forbid the naming in the press of magistrates in whatever role they have in the judicial proceedings”.
Gelli was not a slob. Gelli or someone on his behalf (because the “Piano di Rinascita” {Rebirth Plan} was written by Gelli with his consultants who always stayed in the shadows) had understood exactly that this idea of silence about the names of magistrates was fundamental to guarantee a country where on a formal level the law is equal for everyone but where underneath it all, there are friends who sort things out for the friends of friends.

Censorship for Magistrates and for journalism

Another regulation: what is a possibility for a magistrate to defend himself? The possibility of speaking out, to talk about, not the investigation that he is carrying out, but to denounce what they are doing to him.
Think of the really famous interview by Borsellino with Lodato and with Bolzoni, at the time of L’Unità and La Repubblica, that denounced the dismantling of the Antimafia team of judges at the end of the 1980s with the arrival of Antonino Meli to head up the office in place of the well-favoured Falcone.
Borsellino said: “they are dismantling the Antimafia team of judges”, thus the magistrate has enormous possibilities, when he is a man of prestige, one who is recognised, to be able to denounce something that is not right.
OK, now there’s an infinite series of limitations to the possibilities of magistrates speaking out if the magistrates speak without talking about their investigations, as has happened with Forleo and De Magistris and they find excuses and send them away anyway.
If they talk about one of their investigations, without revealing anything secret but giving to the citizens, information that they need, the investigation is taken from them. This is a regulation that is in the law on wiretapping. Just think. They arrest the gang that set fire to that Indian immigrant near Rome, they arrest the rapists, the assumed rapists or those who have confessed to rape like those of the other day: usually the magistrate and the Police Forces hold a press conference in which they provide information to the newspapers and the citizens. “Don’t worry, we have captured them, these are the items of evidence, they have confessed, we have found the weapon used in the offence.”
No, he will no longer be able to do that: if the magistrates says one word even to give two or three items of information to the general public he immediately loses the investigation, and it lands up with someone else who has to start from the beginning.
If then the defendant raises an objection about this in relation to his prosecutor not at the beginning but during the trial, then obviously the prosecutor has to go away and someone else has to step in, someone else who has not followed that investigation and who thus has to start from the beginning.
Thus the magistrates will be afraid of even saying their own name. They will recite their identification number only, like the military prisoners do in certain films.
Finally, we have the law (but you know it already because we talked about it at the time of the Mastella laws) that is within the regulations that prohibit journalists from talking about current investigations.
If this law gets passed, we will no longer be able to tell you that they have arrested the rapists in that case or in that other case. We will no longer be able to tell you that they have arrested the gang that burned that immigrant. We will no longer be able to tell you that persons A, B or C have been captured, investigated, searched or had goods sequestrated.
We will no longer be able to report the wiretapping to explain how it happens that all sorts of people finished up in prison like the entrepreneur of the Angelucci clinics , the governor Del Turco, and the politicians arrested in Naples together with Romeo.
We will no longer be able to say anything about current investigations relating to normal criminal proceedings nor about cases of white collar crimes apart from “someone has been arrested”. If I say that they have arrested someone, I will be able to say that it was for the crime of rape but I can’t say his name. I can either say the crime or the name of the person who is accused of having committed it, so basically I will no longer have the possibility to give to the citizens a full account in real time of what is happening.
So when they arrest one of your neighbours for paedophilia, you will be able to find out that he was arrested for paedophilia only 5 or 6 years later when the trial begins.
You will understand that it changes the life of a family to know or not to know that a neighbour is suspected of paedophilia, because for 5 years you watch out for where the children are going when you look the other way, if you know. If you don’t know, you don’t watch out, but naturally when we then have cases of paedophilia, rape, or other things due to the fact that people have not taken precautions because they were not adequately informed, well then we will know who we have to get angry with.
Let’s remember that and spread the word. Have a good day.”


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Posted by Beppe Grillo at 07:28 PM in Information | Comments (2)
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February 10, 2009

Berlusconi’s Third Republic

Text:
”Good day to all of you.
Not even today do I intend to talk about that young woman who for 17 years has been suffering in a condition that no one can know if it is still life, if it is apparent life, apparent death, vegetative life.
These are all things that are bigger than us, even bigger than the greatest scientists and I have not the minimum intention to poke around in these things that should be left to conscience even though they have turned into a reality show.
I don’t even want to say the name of this young woman, because I believe that she has already been violated enough and she will continue to be so right up until the last moment.
When you hear the President of the Council expatiate about her menstrual flow and about the possibility of her having children, I believe that we have to feel an immeasurable shame, given that our President of the Council does not know what shame is, not even the term “shame”. I believe that his face has never flushed red even because if it were to, his red face would be covered with tons of greasepaint.
However, I would like to talk about what is happening around the issue of this young woman, who instead of being left to the care of her family and the doctors, the only ones who can decide, only the family know the young woman in depth as they have lived with her for many years. Only they can know, can have intuition, and can foresee her wishes. Only the doctors can know exactly about her state of health. Instead of being left to this small group of people who should be able to decide in an intimate situation with prudence, and on tip toes, we have transformed all this into a great hullabaloo, into a great melodrama that is once more making Italy into the laughing stock of the world. It is not the first time, but I believe that the fact that we are becoming a laughing stock even on such dramatic and sensitive issues is an indication that we have reached a point of no return.


Naturally, behind this hullabaloo, there is not the attempt to save a life. You just have to look at the face of our head of government and his mates when they are talking about this issue.
You can clearly see from their eyes that they don’t care a bit about the life of this person. They are using this person, or what remains of her, as a human shield for their dirty trafficking, for their dirty business, for their dirty profits, just for a change.
In these fifteen years, everything has been used by “il Cavaliere” for his dirty profits. Anything that happens and he immediately turns it round to his advantage and for his private business dealings.
Eluana is a pretext – there I pronounced her name, I will not do so again – to do business, to sort out paperwork, to multiply immunities, to give the final shove to the justice system.
In fact, there is absolutely no question of whether or not to save a life, that will take its course once the procedures have been started.
Here, what is at stake is a principle: that the definitive verdict of the magistracy is applied without interference from politics.

...


I’m thinking: if they have denounced Di Pietro for what he didn’t say in Piazza Farnese, what should the criminal court rooms do when faced with the fact that the Head of State is practically being accused of being a murderer.
But the Head of State knows that if he wants to make peace with this gentleman {Berlusconi} he has to let him pass the laws that he’s interested in. And as I will explain next time, in these laws, there’s also a codicil that will save him from the consequences of a possible conviction for the lawyer Mr. Mills. Spread the word. Passate parola."

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:49 AM in Information | Comments (5)
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February 03, 2009

Ranked seventh in the Web World by Forbes. Thanks to you!

Thanks to all who follow, write, denounce, propose, get raving angry, send videos, help someone on the blog. Thanks to you, Forbes magazine has ranked us seventh in the world on the web. a world of a billion people who are connected on the Internet.
Italy, among the bottom of the table as a nation for connectivity, for the spread of the Internet culture. A country of old on the inside, without the freedom of information, without a wide coverage of broadband, without services on the Internet. A country that has known how to express the portal “Italia.it” (“Plis visit our counttri” by Rutelli), designed by Stanca, the head warehouseman and relaunched by Brambilla. A country with “ditalino terrestre” {raising a finger to digital terrestrial??}, founded on the advertising of the psycho-dwarf’s TV networks. A country like that, that gets ranked by Forbes in the seventh position for the Web, still has some hope.
They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we.

PS. Tomorrow there will be the funeral of Giuseppe Gatì, at 3:00pm in the Chiesa Madre di Campobello in Licata.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:33 PM in Information | Comments (9)
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Impossible wiretapping and free crime

Summary:
Who will be able to ask for wiretapping?
A word of advice for the criminalsi

Text:
”Good day to you all.
Today we are going to talk about – guess what? About wiretapping. The topic is not a new one but as long as that lot are talking about it, we need to do so as well because they are changing the law again and above all they have managed to convince nearly all of the newspapers that the new text, with the new amendments, is much better than the previous one.
And, it is true at the first glance it seems to be so, it seems that the most devastating part has disappeared, the part that listed the crimes for which it will no longer be possible to do wiretapping. Now this list, thanks above all to the “pressing” by “Alleanza Nazionale” and especially by the president of the Justice Committee for the Lower House, Giulia Bongiorno, and by a part of the Lega Nord who realised, very late, what terrible damage the first Alfano project was inflicting on the war against criminality and thus against the security of citizens.
OK. This first danger has been avoided, but in the meantime, further points have been inserted and paradoxically they make the situation worse: in theory, it is written that it’s possible to do wiretapping for all crimes that have a sentence greater than 5 years, just as it is now. So it means that once more it’s possible to do wiretapping on people who are under investigation or who are suspected of all the “street” crimes: robbery, theft, bag snatching, drug dealing, extortion, kidnapping – and including the white collar crimes like corruption and financial crimes.
Do you know what the problem is? It’s that on paper everything is possible. But in practice, they have invented 2 or 3 mechanisms that on their own are not significant, but when put together they will make it almost impossible for the judges to set up wiretapping.


I’ll explain: the new text that was presented to the Justice Committee with the government’s amendments, basically sets out 4 points.
The first is who has to set up these wiretaps. Today it is the prosecutor who asks the GIP {Judge for the preliminary investigations} to have the authority to do wiretapping and persons A and B on all the equipment that they use, in the home and their mobile equipment – the GIP weighs things up and authorises the wiretapping that can last fifteen days or at the most twenty days and if they want to make it longer, either because they hope that they will say more, that they will start to speak, that they go on saying interesting things as they have done in the first period, the GIP weighs things up and if he or she reckons that there are the necessary elements, then he can agree to the further period.
He can allow a number of extension periods: if an investigation lasts six months it is absurd that the wiretapping cannot last six months, even because very often the crimes are drawn out and last a long time. There is no criminal who gives himself a final deadline for a crime.
It is possible that the planning of a murder lasts months, that the planning of a robbery lasts months, that a kidnapping even last years. Can you write down how long wiretapping lasts? No, because the criminals don’t write down how long their crime is going to last.
The wiretapping needs to last as long as the crime lasts and perhaps even longer, given that there are people who talk about a crime that they have committed a long time after they have committed it.
The judge decides and gives the necessary extension.
In the future, one GIP on his own will not be enough, there’ll be the need for a college of three judges to set up wiretapping.
You could say “OK, that way there’s more guarantee, six eyes can see better than two”. Certainly, if we were to have a hundred thousand judges. But we have ten thousand, and we have a lot of tribunals – eighty - the small ones that have less than twenty magistrates.
And that means that the magistrates have to act as the prosecutor or the judge. Some are only prosecutors. Obviously because if one is a prosecutor he cannot be a judge. He can become a judge by changing his role, but not in the same time frame.
The people who are judges are either civil or criminal judges. If one acts as a GIP, the Judge for the preliminary investigations, he cannot also be the “Gup” that is he cannot handle the preliminary hearing for sending the defendant for trial nor for the abbreviated procedures.
In an investigation, there has to be a judge who acts as the GIP, another that acts as the Gup, three who act as the re-examination judges and decide on arrests, house arrest, search warrants and sequestrations, and a college of judges for the trial for the most serious crimes, or a single judge for the less serious crimes.
If there are twenty judges in the whole tribunal, how can they manage to find one to act as GIP, another to act as Gup, three who are the re-examination judges, three who do the hearings and now three instead of one to decide on the wiretapping?
It’s obvious that there are not enough and you would have to have one taking on many roles in the comedy. Result: he will become incompatible because he will be declined: “You cannot decide on my wiretapping because you arrested me. You cannot decide on my arrest because you already wiretapped me. You cannot decide on the sequestration of my documents because you have already decided on my wiretapping. You cannot judge me in the courtroom because you were my GIP.” What’s created is an intricate mess of incompatibilities that will lead to the complete paralysis in that Tribunal and they won’t be able to find three judges that are not dealing with the case so that they can decide on wiretapping, on arrests, and on the trial.
Naturally what would be needed is to have a Minister, that is not to have Alfano, given that the Minister should be engaged in ensuring the functioning of the Justice System, not how to change the careers of the judges and attacking magistrates. The Minister must make the Justice System work: provide the pens, the paper, the photocopiers, the police cars for the judicial police, the offices, the chairs, give a coat of paint where it is dirty, to put in props where the tribunal is falling down. This is what the Minister has to do.
If we had a Minister, instead of this “Guarda gingilli” {play on words – Keeper of the Baubles – instead of Keeper of the Seals} that we have, who is anyway in a long tradition of inept and “ad personam” Ministers when they are not under investigation, if we had a real Minister, he would take the map of the Tribunals in Italy and he would take the little ones, and get rid of them and merge them at least with those in the main towns of the provinces, so as to avoid having micro-tribunals where the judges should do everything and can do nothing because they end up with incompatibilities.
But we do not have this luck. We have this Minister who goes around and spouts off about things that have nothing to do with him.

Second, the duration. Today the duration is what is decided by the GIP, and rightly so, on the basis of the requests of the prosecutor and on the basis of what comes out of the first 15 days of wiretapping: there’s a decision as to whether to go ahead or to stop there.
At times the GIP makes a mistake: for example, when Guariniello put the Juventus directors under surveillance in the Turin side of the “calciopoli” scandal - if I’m not mistaken, in the summer of 2004, he discovered that Moggi called Pairetto, the person who assigned the referees to the matches, to choose the referees for himself, even in the pre-championship matches.
”I want the referee Pieri for the Luigi Berlusconi trophy.” That Sunday Pairetto assigned the referee Pieri. Even for the friendlies, do you see?
With such compromising telephone calls, when the championship started, who knows what would have been found; instead Guariniello, the prosecutor, came up against a GIP who did not understand, who had not picked up the depth of the business because it related to football and he thought it was a “burletta” {comic opera}. Anyway it happened that he didn’t allow him to go on with the wiretapping.
At the best bit, Guariniello had to stop. Luckily, the Naples Procura {prosecutors department}, without having any knowledge of what Guariniello was doing, were following the traces of the Gea – the company of the procurators of the family of Moggi, Lippi etc – and had attached bugs and stuff for more or less the same people (and even more of them) as the ones that Turin had had to remove. The wiretapping went on even though the one lot didn’t know about the other lot. They managed to capture the whole championship season.
For the whole championship they heard that Moggi, during the championship, was doing even more than he had done for the friendlies: to Bergamo, the other nominator of referees, he dictated the preliminary grid for the football fixtures, and he brought about all that we found out about three years ago, the same stuff that they are trying to make us forget about by inviting Moggi here, there and everywhere to tell whopping lies.
Anyway, the trial is ongoing in Naples.


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Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:40 AM in Information | Comments (4)
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February 02, 2009

Giuseppe Gatì

A young man has died, electrocuted while he was at work. He was called Giuseppe Gatì. To him I dedicated the first post of the year. What struck me was his desperate shout for judge Caselli and the Antimafia judges in the face of the indifference and the hostility of dozens of people. Giuseppe was stopped, identified and kept in a room for hours. It has been reported that his death was due to an accident and that an inquest has been started. The blog will follow the developments.
While I’m writing this, I have in my mind the words of Fabrizio De Andrè’s song "Canzone del maggio" {May song}:
"And now if you believe – that everything is as it was before – because you have voted again – for security, for discipline – convinced that you are distancing – the fear of change – we will come again to your doors – and we will shout even louder – even though you believe yourselves to be absolved – you are forever implicated...".
Yesterday a comment about Giuseppe was added and I’m giving it here.

”Giuseppe Gatì died this morning. Incredible isn’t it? We saw him with our own eyes and yet we still can’t believe it.
Giuseppe died while he was working: he went to get milk from a farmer and he died electrocuted while he was turning on the tap of the refrigerated milk tank. He died in a dirty wooden shed. A friend has died. A decent person. With high principles. Anyone who had the chance to know him knows what sort of rare flower he was.
He wanted to defend his land. He didn’t want to abandon it. He stayed in Campobello di Licata, a small village in the province of Agrigento. A village that offers little and that can easily be escaped from. He worked in his father’s cheese factory, with his “signorine”, with his Girgentana goats that he took to pasture. He was an HONEST lad, with solid principles on the rule of law and justice. He had done everything to involve the sleepy young people of Campobello, so that they would rebel against this dirty and mean society. He was too clean to live in the middle of this stench and this filth.
He had shouted out “VIVA CASELLI! VIVA IL POOL ANTIMAFIA!” {Long live Caselli! Long live the Antimafia judges!} and he was even criticised for this, but he had budged these putrid and stagnant waters that are suffocating us.
He was a very gentle lad, he gave love, he wanted love.
Today, his father, shattered by anguish, in tears, said: “I have always been proud of my son, even though at times I had to tell him off, just because I was worried about him. But I am proud of everything that he has done.” Giuseppe knew this.
And we too, Alessia, Alice and all his friends, we are proud of him. We don’t know how to express our sadness. We still cannot manage to believe it.
We leave you with his words:
'Our moment has come, the moment of the honest Sicilians, of those who want to fight for a true change, against those who have reduced and who continue to reduce our land to a desert, we have the moral obligation to rebel against them.' ”

Facebook group dedicated to Giuseppe Gatì.

Previous Post: "Upside Down Italy"

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 09:54 AM in Information | Comments (6)
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January 29, 2009

Borsellino and the scent of liberty

Yesterday in Piazza Farnese no one offended Napolitano. You can see that from the videos that are available on the internet. If necessary, the thousands of people present can bear witness to that. However, it is true that a long banner carrying the words: "Napolitano dorme .L'Italia insorge" {Napolitano sleeps. Italy rises up} was removed by the police. The next time we will write: "Napolitano è sveglio ed è anche un bell'uomo" {Napolitano is awake and he is also a handsome man}.
Yesterday in Piazza Farnese the relatives of the mafia victims spoke. It was not a political demonstration. I was invited and I joined in, as did Travaglio, Vulpio, Di Pietro, and others. Yesterday in Piazza Farnese the important words were those of Salvatore Borsellino and Sonia Alfano and their accusations with the full names of those who occupy high positions in the State. Not one of their words has been reported by the news media. Schifani expressed his solidarity with Napolitano for an offence that was never made against him. The Senate, reduced to a pitiful group of people who appear, stood up to applaud. There was no word in the Senate for those who fell at the hands of the mafia, for the serious facts that were denounced by their relatives.
Our employees are almost so sweet when they are just disgusting. Disgusting mixed with sweetness. We are taking their toy away from them and they get in a paddy.
Salvatore Borsellino’s speech in Piazza Farnese will be remembered as the funeral address of the Second Republic.
They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we.

Text:
Thank you everyone.
Above all, I’d like to thank all those young people that I have met here today that come from all over Italy. They are those young people that I meet when I travel around Italy to shout out my anger and try to stir up in people that indignation that I believe we all should have in seeing the abyss that our country is tumbling into.
You see, yesterday, Sonia Alfano telephoned me and said “We need to show a video containing raw images, images of the slaughter of Paolo.”
She asked me if she could do that. If I would somehow be hurt or shocked. No indeed. Those images do not churn me up. I would like them to be shown every day on TV, so that people realize what has been done. So that they can understand whose blood it is on which this shameful Second Republic is founded, so that they understand that it was founded on the blood of those dead people. It doesn’t churn me up to see those images. One thing disturbs me: to see those images after seeing those two people who earlier were laughing after speaking of Dell'Utri, and of the bombs that were planted by Mangano.
They laughed, they sneered at those things. That disturbed me.


I would like those two people to be put in a cell like the one where they put the assassins in “Clockwork Orange” and that they have their eyes opened so that they are obliged to see, to see, to see, to see those slaughters in continuation. There. That’s what I would like. Today I saw those slaughters and I remembered something that Gioacchino Genchi told me. He arrived at the scene of the slaughters two hours after they happened. It took me 5 hours to find out that my brother was dead because the television gave contradictory information: perhaps a judge has been injured; perhaps men guarding him were injured. It was my mother, who, five hours later, telephoned me from the hospital and said: “Your brother is dead.”
However, there was a person called Contrada who knew just 80 seconds later that my brother had been killed and I would like, I ask, I shout out, I want that these facts end up in the courts of justice!
That there are trials for this complicity that has happened within the State!
Have you heard what Berlusconi and Dell'Utri talked about: that is why they want a prohibition on wiretapping, so that we cannot, must not hear those things.
We must not hear those things, otherwise we will realise the nature of the political class that is governing us. We would realise who has occupied the institutions. The greatest public insult against the institutions is that those people unworthy of occupying those positions, are occupying those positions. This is the public insult against the institutions and the State.
It is the fact that a person who was called “Alpha”, in a trial that could not go on because it was blocked, like all the other trials that relate to the secret and external brains behind the crimes, can occupy such a high position within our institutions.

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Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:27 PM in Information | Comments (7)
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January 28, 2009

I know. Piazza Farnese.

Text:

Guys, I want to give each of you a big hug because you have done something fantastic.
We are the great losers! We are the losers! Look at your faces. Where do we want to go with these faces? Nowhere.
Where are in a square where from his super-attic, Previti, under house arrest, is watching us and is sniggering!
People, we are those that arrive at the catastrophe with optimism. I can see that groups from all over Italy have arrived. You are fantastic. People who have come from Calabria, from Salerno-Reggio Calabria: you can recognise them because their cars are still full of earth.
I have seen those from Naples, the Naples MeetUp: you can recognize them because they are phosphorescent with their toxic waste.
There are Sardinians, who didn’t know anything about this demonstration because they have got digital terrestrial and they don’t know a fig about anything that is happening in the world.
I want to thank the relatives of the mafia victims. We have sent to prison Riina and Provenzano but the brains behind them are still in a Palace in this city.
I mean that they have done laws, we who are jinxed, miserable wretches and losers are slightly frightening. We frighten them with our webcams. We frighten them with the Internet.
Today a citizen is excluded from any decision that can influence his or her future.
We have done V-days, popular petitions, we have done referenda. I have taken to Rome’s Court of Cassation the signatures for the referenda and in front of me I had an 85 year old judge called Carnevale. A judge – do not whistle! - who recommended to me Totò Riina telling me that he is a respectable person.
This country is upside down. We are talking about Justice. We have heard Kryptonite Di Pietro who is the only one who is doing a bit of Opposition.
Parliament is closed! Parliament no longer does laws! We have in the government dwarfs, psycho-dwarfs, ballerinas, ruffians, we have everything!
One psycho-dwarf (psycho-nano) was not enough, now we have the other nano, Brunetta: the nano iPod!
He is one who in order to put his hands in his pockets, has to sit down
Look at your neighbour: he cross-dressed. We no longer understand who we are, what we are. It’s a country that no longer exists. It’s a country where three days ago Fiat announced that it has bought 35% of Chrysler and the shares collapse on the Stock Exchange. Today it announces that it has to get rid of between 60,000 and 100,000 people.
It’s a country that no longer exists. Where we only know the truth at the last minute. With Obama we have got 100 years older. Obama is talking about the Internet, about grass roots democracy, a week before making them official, he puts the laws on the internet so that they can be discussed.
We have the psycho-dwarf who does the election campaign in Sardinia at the expense of the State. A premier who does an election campaign for a party. Italians!
I don’t want to shout. I want to calm down. I want to be good and not even say one naughty word. I don’t even want to say the name of Napolitano; otherwise they would say “Grillo attacks the President”.
I want to say nothing. Maroni has given an order that there can be no gatherings in squares. It’s no longer possible to do a demonstration in a square with a church.
Practically in all the squares of Italy there is a church and where there is no church they will put a statue of the Madonna hidden in the corner.
Maroni who sends the police into the schools, sends the police in riot gear against the citizens.


...

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 11:44 AM in Information | Comments (5)
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January 27, 2009

I know. Marco Travaglio.

Now available the second Passaparola DVD : "Senza stato, né legge..."

Order Marco Travaglio’s new DVD: "Passaparola Vol. 3 - Mafiocrazia"

Text:
“I know that once again they are taking us for a ride, it’s just that they are not doing it with the usual everyday fibs.
This time, they are organising a big disinformation campaign styled on the Soviets or the South Americans, if you like.
Or Italian. We can even say Italian-style. Italianesque.
They are doing this because they are afraid of the voters who have perhaps started to have an intuition about the great big yuck that they have to hide, or what a gigantic mass of muck they have to hide with this mess-up law against wiretapping.
For the first time, Berlusconi and his accomplices have not managed to convince the general public that they want fewer wiretaps in Italy.
For obvious reasons of intelligence and their security, the Italians know that it is right and a duty to go without a tiny scrap of our privacy to put a few cameras around, to be able to apprehend more delinquents, to put telephones under control to apprehend more delinquents.
But also, possibly, to discover thanks to the wiretapping, if there is some innocent person who has unjustly landed up in an investigation.
It’s possible to make a distinction between the responsibility of the guilty and the innocent, so the wiretapping for those who have nothing to hide is a resource.
On the other hand, for those who have a lot to hide, it is a danger.
They haven’t managed to get this through. Not even the gang of thieves that has been hammering us for 20 years has managed to convince us that we have to accept, for our own good, fewer wiretaps for the crimes of their lordships, and thus also for street crimes.
It seems that even the Lega voters – luckily, (better late than never) are rebelling and are putting pressure on their representatives not to sign the yuck that Berlusconi wants to do.
And the newspapers are telling us that the game is all about whether the crime of corruption will or won’t be among the crimes for which there can be wiretapping.

A yucky thing to be thrown down the toilet

The problem is not just the crime of corruption: in the draft law presented in July by the Council of Ministers, as we have already said many times but “repetita iuvant”, there’s a prohibition on wiretaps for crimes like rape (in recent days there has been a lot of talk of rape) Berlusconi even promises a soldier for every beautiful woman and in the future maybe for every old woman who goes to pick up her pension, for every old man who goes to pick up his pension, for every housewife who goes shopping.
So basically, there’ll be half the population as a soldier and the other half getting robbed.
And anyway, who will do the thieving? We would have to import the delinquents from abroad. It’s madness.
But as regards the prohibition on wiretapping, the Council of Ministers’ draft law forbids this for rape, kidnapping, associating to commit a crime, extortion, receiving, fraud, theft, theft in an apartment, robbery, bag-snatching, small-scale selling of drugs, culpable homicide and all financial crimes.
The problem is picking up this gigantic yuck and throwing it down the toilet. This lot should be a serious party, even accepting that the Lega manages to do that every so often, instead of staying there to retouch a crime here (yes) – and another one there (no).
These are all crimes for which right now there can be wiretapping and in fact, already we have problems in discovering the guilty ones because we need more wiretapping and connected investigations.
Instead, because of the continual reduction in resources and funding, we always have less and we have only a few people revealed to be guilty.
Just think when we won’t be able to even do wiretapping, how many criminals we will have at liberty: we will have to barricade ourselves in our homes once this law gets passed. We’ll need “chevaux de frise” and sand bags at the windows to do our own justice.
This is the state they want to lead us towards.

The lie of the Big Ear

So, given that people have not already swallowed the hoax about the wiretapping, they are exaggerating, they are getting close to the sound barrier, they are going beyond the limits of decency, assuming that they have any.
That is they are feeding us another super-lie to convince us that we are subject to “Big Brother”, the Big Ear, the spy of spies, the black man, who, hidden in an office in Palermo, is intercepting everything and everyone with great violation of privacy.
Putting democracy in danger.
This monster is called Gioacchino Genchi. He’s a deputy police chief on sabbatical. And since the times of Giovanni Falcone he has been collaborating with the magistrates who are most involved in a whole series of investigations that have something to do with computing and telephony, because he has accumulated experience on this matter that is unique in the whole of Europe.
He helps the magistrates to cross-match the telephone calls and the printouts in trials for murder, robbery, mafia, 'ndrangheta, camorra, kickbacks, and slaughter.
Why is someone like him useful and indispensable? Because it’s not enough doing like so many animals with a pen in their hand do on the newspapers: take a wiretapping chunk and do copy and paste and display it on the page of a newspaper or have it heard on the TV.
The wiretap information needs to be read and above all to be understood.
On the telephone, many people even try to use a conventional language, or even if they aren’t trying to do that they end up doing it: people speak very badly on the phone, often, you can understand very little.
That is why it is important to understand what time that phone call took place, in what location, after which other telephone calls and before which other telephone calls that one comes.

...


You will understand the enormity of the lie that you are being told with one additional thing: Has Genchi got tens of thousands of users under surveillance? I have already told you that that is not true.
In his whole career that has covered 30 years, it is possible that Genchi has handled hundreds of thousands of telephone calls. He has been receiving wiretaps and printouts and cross-matching them for 30 years.
Of people under investigation, of people not under investigation, “colaterals and in-laws” as Totò would have said.
It is possible that at this very moment, given that he has a lot of work from many Italian prosecutors – cases of murder, robbery, mafia, camorra, 'ndrangheta, kickbacks, tax dodging, slaughter, association to commit crime, drugs, various crimes – it is possible that overall he has thousands of items of information.
It is clear that if he is working on some investigations involving someone who has a rapport with Berlusconi, there will be Berlusconi’s number.
Exactly like when investigating Saladino, the printout had the number of Rutelli, and that of Mastella etc.
Has he listened to them? No. The magistrates listened to them and then they passed the information to him to do the processing.
You can understand how, starting from an innocuous issue, in fact a positive matter, for which we all should be grateful to Genchi for what he is doing – they are doing an artful creation of an astounding case of disinformation not just to stop him from going on doing this work, that is useful for all of us, that is to capture the criminals.
But they are also trying to use this case to dismantle, to destroy that bit of law enforcement that still guarantees that every so often, some delinquents are caught.
We’ll meet again on Wednesday in Rome’s Piazza Farnese. I urge you: spread the word! Passate parola!!"

PS Give support via Facebook Manifestazione per la Giustizia a sostegno del Procuratore di Salerno Luigi Apicella {Demonstration for the Justice System in support of the Salerno prosecutor Luigi Apicella}

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:39 AM in Information | Comments (2)
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January 19, 2009

Borsellino: State murder?

Summary:
The near-arrest of Provenzano in 1995
Is the State united in the fight against the mafia?

Text:
“Good day to you all,
Today we are talking about a trial that disappeared a forgotten trial. In fact, it hasn’t been forgotten at all. Actually because those who have the duty know and don’t talk about it. And afterwards you will understand why.
In Palermo, in a courtroom of the fourth criminal section of the Tribunal, there’s the trial of the former head of the civil secret services, that is the former head of SISDE. He’s a Prefect, but also a General in the Carabinieri and he’s called Mario Mori. He’s a small man, a courageous officer, who has worked with Dalla Chiesa during the years of terrorism, and he has worked with R.O.S. {Reparto Operazioni Speciali =Special Operations Unit} of the Carabinieri. He led R.O.S.
He has been decorated and given many medals for the capture of Riina and other mafia-people on the run, and yet it seems that he is hiding some secrets. That’s what it seems. No one can say for certain, the trial is ongoing. But I’m fairly certain in as much that this is one of the top investigators that we have had in Italy. And evidently during the season of the mafia slaughters he was given powers that we don’t know about – that’s why I say “it seems” that he is hiding secrets – relating to the task, the invidious task, the terrible task of negotiating with the mafia while Italy was suffering terrible violence with bombs, in Sicily in 1992 and on the mainland in Milan, Rome and Florence, in 1993.

Now he’s not on trial for that. He’s on trial for another matter that could explain that negotiation and that could explain that mysterious episode that was the subject of another trial that immediately preceded the episode for which Mori is now on trial, the failure to search Riina’s hideout after he was captured. This trial refers to another episode, that is two years later than the failure to search Riina’s hideout and that is in 1995 and exactly on 31 October 1995. What happened on 31 October 1995? A Colonel of the same R.O.S. of the Carabinieri, thanks to a mafia person whom he trusted but who was undercover who was infiltrated in the mafia but trusted by the Carabinieri – managed to discover where Provenzano was hidden. In 1995, two years after the capture of Riina, two years after the last bloodbaths, Provenzano was the undisputed head of Cosa Nostra. The trusted person tells the Colonel in the Carabinieri, who is called Michele Riccio. The consultant is called Luigi Ilardo. The Carabinieri officer manages to find where Provenzano is hiding. What’s more he meets up with Provenzano. He has an appointment with Provenzano in a hut in Mezzojuso. It’s a place in the country about 30 kilometres to the South of Palermo. Then he says: “I’m about to meet up with Provenzano. Follow me so that I can let you capture Provenzano!” Colonel Riccio talks enthusiastically with the top brass in R.O.S., that is with Generals – there’s Colonel Mori who is the operational head – there’s Mori’s right hand man who at that time was Major Mario Obinu, and they decide not to capture Provenzano, but simply to have the trusted man shadowed at a distance to see where he goes, and then to try and capture Provenzano when they are all ready. Unfortunately, once that opportunity went by, Provenzano did not give them another chance. Until, eleven years later, just after the elections won by the Centre Left almost three years ago, Provenzano was captured, or he was handed over, or he gave himself up, or he let himself be taken. Because, you know, the capturing of the bosses in Sicily always raises questions, doubts and interpretations like that of Pirandello, like the game of mirrors, where you never manage to understand who it was that did what. Exactly as for the capture of Riina in 1993.


Here we are, this trial, if one knows about it, allows people to understand – not just the experts - but ordinary people - to understand what happened between the State and the mafia in the last fifteen years.

...

Spread the word! Passate parola!”

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:36 PM in Information | Comments (7)
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January 17, 2009

Europa 7, the television channel that isn't:

Click on the picture

They continue to take us for a ride. Rete 4 is illegal while Europa 7 is legitimate. RAI, together with 700 local broadcasters, excluding Mediaset, will make one frequency available, which according to Francesco Di Stefano will cover 15% of the territory. In other words, little or nothing and heaven alone knows when. The citizens of Italy will be left to pay the European fines for Rete 4. Rete 4’s advertising revenue will be pocketed by the psychodwarf. Misinformation is the last form of defence open to this system that is rotten to the core. They may never give up (is it in their interests?), but neither will we.

"The television channel that isn’t has been assigned a frequency that doesn’t exist. In other words, channel 8 as they call it doesn’t exist in Italy at this moment in time. What is required in order for this channel to exist is for Rai and the other seven hundred local broadcasters to move aside so as to create a space for this channel. This will apparently occur by July, but we have certain doubts as to whether it will happen. If this were to happen, it would mean that we would finally have a channel on which to build a VHF network, in other words on the same frequencies as those operated by Rai Uno. What it means is that we will have one channel on which to build a national network while Rai Uno has ten channels! You can just imagine how we can hope to set up a national network with only one channel when faced with Rai that has no less than ten! Take into account that a channel starts broadcasting from one position, in other words from a mountain top, but cannot broadcast from the next mountain top because it constitutes interference. So we’re back to the same old story, namely a great rip-off.
What is required is that the channel becomes free throughout the whole of Italy and, I repeat, I have numerous doubts because it does not appear that this will happen. Once a channel is freed, one single channel in the whole of Italy amounts to a coverage of more or less fifteen to eighteen percent of the territory. Why? Because at least three channels are required in order to provide adequate coverage of the whole Country. Let me give you an example, if you set up a channel in the Veneto region that broadcasts out towards Emilia, another from Milan and a third from Bologna, where these channels cross a service can be provided with these three channels. With only one of these instead, only one of these channels will go live, the result being that the service will only cover part of the territory and not the rest of it. In other words, in nineteen ninety-nine we won a Ferrari in order to compete in a race against other Ferraris, namely a network that offered eighty percent coverage in Italy and ninety-five percent of the population, while now they are offering us a bicycle with which to race against Ferraris, with fifteen percent coverage of the territory. In this way, granted but not guaranteed that we may one day be able to go to the circuit to enter the race, all the others will trample us and squash us, and that will be the end of that.
Look, I have a very clear impression about this entire episode: the impression is that, in this Country, interests win over rights time and again. Above all and only if the interests in question are those of a very powerful force. In this case in particular, they are those of the most powerful forces: political, editorial, economic and financial. Foreign television stations have said enough about us. All of them, and continuously. The one party that has paid little attention to us is the European Commission! The very party that should have immediately resolved the problem. Firstly with Monti, if you remember with “Super Mario” Microsoft, but thanks to Berlusconi, we never even saw this Super Mario. Anything but! And then with Groetsch, which declared the Italian Government to be in default and telling it that: “you must repeal the Gasparri Law! It does not comply with European directives.” The Government’s response was: “You are right, we will make arrangements”. But these arrangements were never made. I am referring to the matter for which we will have to pay certain fines. But Groetsch did not continue on this track. It ended after issuing a motivated opinion that warned the Government that: “I will give you two months to comply, after which you will be referred to the European Court of Justice”. It ended no less than one year and three months ago. Meanwhile, on 31 January 2008 the Court of Justice handed down a ruling which stated that: “The transition period that has allowed Mediaset to continue to occupy the frequencies used by Rete 4 and broadcast an analogue signal is illegal!” Therefore, at least since '97, the time of the Maccanico Law, Rete 4 has not been allowed to broadcast. This was the decision handed down by the European Court of Justice. Please note! Decisions handed down by the European Court of Justice are law. From the very next day! Laws that apply to the Italian Government just as they apply to all other member States. Therefore, given that transition periods have been classified as illegal, the other member States have rushed to comply. In Italy instead, the very Country to which the decision refers, neither the Ministry, nor the Authority, nor the judges have (as yet) made the necessary arrangements. The same ruling goes on to say that: “All of the Laws – the Maccanico Law, Law sixty-six of 2001 promulgated by the Amato government, the Gasparri Law, Berlusconi’s “save Rete 4” legal decree, etc – drafted in such a way as to prevent Europa 7 from taking over the frequencies in question, are themselves illegal. They have to be revoked”. Have you seen any signs of this happening? When the European Court of Justice’s ruling was issued that the twenty-percent VAT rating on motor cars had to be changed, the Cabinet of the Prodi government took the necessary steps the very next day. Just a few months later, the very same Prodi government held a Cabinet meeting to implement all of the rulings of the European Court, that is, all except one: the one in question here. And Minister Bonino, who was the responsible Minister at the time, responded to a direct question by saying that it was not a matter of urgency. That ruling came into effect from 31 January 2008, meanwhile, in April she was saying that it was not a matter of urgency.
What about Executive Committee that should have made a decision by May? Instead of making the decision, the Committee approached the European Court of Justice as follows: “We believe that the Gasparri law fails to comply with the European directives in the matter of these ten points – please note that we would have included five of these points, so they must have been convinced – however, because we are unsure we are asking for your opinion. The European Court responded as follows: Yes, you are right "- Thus expecting the Executive Committee to take the necessary steps immediately! Instead they did nothing of the sort. Indeed, the Committee told the Ministry that: “Since Di Stefano won his case in the Regional Administrative Court, which required you to give him an answer – the ruling stated that he was entitled to answer after nine years of waiting for one, don’t you think? Given that I have never spoken to the Ministry – Give him an answer …” in application of the fact that you must give him eighty percent of the territory and ninety-five percent of the population. And “comply fully with the ruling of the European Court of Justice”, namely, turn off Rete 4 and hand over the frequencies to Europa 7. Naturally, the Ministry failed to comply. Not only did the Cabinet thus fail to force compliance with the ruling handed down by the European Court of Justice, but what we are saying is that they claimed to be complying while directly failing to do so. Now, given that the Ministry has failed to comply, we expect the Cabinet to do so, right? You have made the request, you gave them a chance, yet they have once again taken us for a ride … Our hope is that this time the Cabinet will say: “OK, you have failed to comply, so I will appoint a commissioner and I will ensure that we comply”. Our only hope is the old one: hoping for justice. All in all I must say that we obtained true justice from the European Court, not from the political Europe but from the European Court, which is arguably the most important Court in the entire world. There is no way to overturn this ruling! While a Constitutional Court decision can be overcome by promulgating a government law, especially when someone like Ciampi signs it, and to recover it involves going to the Constitutional Court, a ruling by the European Court of Justice is sacrosanct. No Italian judge will ever be in a position to permit Rete 4 to continue broadcasting. The fact is, however, that Rete 4 continues to broadcast while we do not! Simply because no one in Italy has applied the ruling! I repeat: neither the Ministry, either in the person of Gentiloni or Scajola after him, nor the Authority, which is the guarantor of Corrado Calabrò’s communications, so it is up to the judges to meet and make a decision. Therefore, the Executive Committee must, must, must apply the ruling! The European Court of Justice must apply it! The European anti-trust must absolutely apply any ruling of the European Court of Justice. So much so that Groetsch said in April that: “we will continue to be vigilant until such time as the ruling has been fully applied”. Well, from January to April it was not applied. What kind of vigilance is this then?" Francesco Di Stefano - Europa 7
Ps. On Sunday 18 January 2009, at 10h30 in the Ouverture Hall at No.22 Via Tripoli (Nomentano area), the Amici Beppe Grillo Roma Association will be presenting the draft ROME 5-STAR CIVIC LIST and discussing various issues with local citizens and organisations, ranging from Public Water provision - Connectivity – Renewable energy sources - Mobility – Zero refuse – Political programmes

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 06:54 PM in Information | Comments (3)
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January 12, 2009

Ten Little Indians

Text:
"Good day to you all.
I’m sorry, but I have to talk to you again about the so-called Salerno-Catanzaro case because there are astounding happenings and given that they are amazing, you don’t know about them.
Where else will you find the news except on “Passaparola”?
This is the very reason why this column came into being. So today we will talk about a very important news item that has been available to the newspaper editors and the agencies since Friday evening and it has not been reported by any Italian newspaper.
You will remember the latest episode, the last link in the chain that started a year and a half ago with the removal and the allocation upwards in the line management system of Luigi De Magistris’s two main investigations.
The latest action, last week, is that Minister Alfano, the so-called Minister of Justice Alfano – has blurted out charges against the Head Prosecutor in Salerno, Luigi Apicella and against his two deputies, Gabriella Nuzi and Dionigio Verasani who have done wrong by being in charge of the investigation that came into being on the denunciation of De Magistris, that half way through December, led to the search in Catanzaro and the confiscation of the documents of the Why Not investigation, that the Catanzaro Procura had not handed over for months and months, even though it had been asked to do so by Salerno.

Alfano is asking for the ousting of the Head of the Salerno Procura

Minister Alfano has asked the Council of Magistrates to throw out of the magistracy – not to move him, but to throw out of the magistracy, the Head of the Salerno Prosecutors Office.
It’s the most serious sanction that can be thought of. Usually it should be used for magistrates who have relations with the mafia, or those who steal, or who sell their verdicts.
Well, this gentleman has had no relations with the mafia and he has sold no verdicts. He is an elderly magistrate who all of a sudden sees his name highlighted in the newspapers simply because he allowed his deputies to work on an investigation that he evidently felt was being done well and with good foundations.
He is guilty of not blocking his deputies and of having backed up their decisions.
The Minister wants the Council of Magistrates to get him thrown out of the magistracy, out, away from the magistracy and as well he has asked them to have his salary stopped straight away.
To take his salary from him straight away. The only thing missing is the execution squad.
While, being bountiful, the Minister is asking for the transfer to another location of the 2 magistrates who actually carried out the investigation, that is Verasani and Nuzzi
Explaining the reason for this really serious sanction for the environmental incompatibility of these two magistrates, the Minister writes, based on the reports of his inspectors, that Apicella and his deputies Nuzzi and Verasani have been guilty of “absolute prejudice, a lack of balance and abnormal acts in regard to an uncritical defence of the Prosecutor De Magistris with the intention of redoing the trials that were taken from him”

...


A dangerous precedent

But here we are talking of something else. We are talking of the fact that what was written in the warrant for the search and confiscation by the Salerno Procura was not pleasing to the Minister, and for this reason, he is asking for the magistrates to be moved.
You will realize that here we are faced with a really dangerous precedent: it is really dangerous as well because no one has noticed it and no one has denounced it.
In 2001, the Milan Tribunal issued two orders in the trials which had as defendants Berlusconi and Previti for the famous corruption of the judges Squillante, Metta, etc... and in the trials relating to Mondadori, Sme, Imi-Sir.and so on. And they established a certain interpretation about the law of the rogatory letters that in fact thwarted it and they also established a certain interpretation of the verdicts of the Constitutional Court that declared to be nullified certain hearings during which Previti had not participated because he declared that he was busy in Parliament.
Those interpretation orders issued by the Milan Tribunal were denounced in Parliament by representatives of the Centre Right and in the end, I think it was the 5 and 6 December 2001, but you can find it in “Mani Sporche” where we told this story well, the Senate voted on a motion that criticised these orders from the Milan Tribunal.
The Association of Magistrates, at that time, a bit more vigilant and more active than the current one that has a flat encephalogram., noticed the seriousness of what was happening , because it was the first time in the history of the Republic that the Senate put to the vote, a measure taken by a judge.
The governing body of the Association of Magistrates resigned on the spot, reminding everyone that this had happened only once and that was in 1924 after the Matteotti crime and the in the authoritarian move by Mussolini.

Not even during fascism

Bear in mind that fascism did not dare to formally tamper with the independence of the magistracy: fascism received the previous codes and added to the ordinary Tribunals the infamous Special Tribunals for the political crimes.

...



One item of news that you only get from Passaparola

Against this order for confiscation, the only thing to do to declare it illegitimate, null, unfounded, abnormal, macroscopic, prejudiced, lacking in balance, and uncritical was to take it before the Court of Re-examination

...


De Magistris cannot be right

One says: and if De Magistris is right? Here we are: De Magistris cannot be right.
And anyone who gets information, not anyone who stays with De Magistris, anyone who gets information or deals with De Magistris without hammering at him unreasonably, has to be got rid of.
You will notice that the history of this year and a half, by reading the books by Vulpio and by Massari on the happenings in Calabria and in Lucania, it’s the story of the “Ten Little Indians” by Agatha Christie.
Bishop Bregantini was ousted because he denounced certain malpractices between politics and the world of crime.
Prosecutor De Magistris was ousted. First they took away his investigations then they took him away.
Then they removed his consultants, one after the other.
Then they got rid of the Carabiniere, Captain Zaccheo, who was transferred to Abruzzo.
Then they got rid of Ms Forleo who had the courage to appear on TV and defend De Magistris.
Then il Corriere della Sera prevented Carlo Vulpio from writing about the De Magistris case and as he had written a book on the topic he understood something about it.
Then the Salerno magistrates discovered that De Magistris could have been right and they discovered evidence to support what he had denounced and “they” even want to get rid of the Salerno magistrates.
Now, let’s see if they will get rid of the three judges of the Court of Re-examination who have just confirmed the order. But obviously before they get rid of them, it’ll be first necessary to talk about this order.

...


Spread the word. Passate parola."

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:59 PM in Information | Comments (7)
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January 09, 2009

No RAI licence fee, give notice

A new year has to start off with good resolutions. And what better resolution than to give notice of cancellation of paying the RAI licence fee? It’s difficult to find a better one. The licence fee is used by the parties to tell you that it snows in January and that you go on holiday in August. Of the Mills/Berlusconi trial or the Bassolino trial, there’s not a glimpse. Magistrates Forleo and De Magistris are treated like deviants and ball breakers. The early evening is devoted to the thoughts of Gasparri and Cicchitto. Journalists (?) like Riotta and Mimun become Heads of whole swathes.
The strings of the news are in the hands of the parties. The RAI is a propaganda tool of the PDL and of the PDminusL. The RAI is also an orgy. They pair up among themselves in order to multiply. Lovers, sisters, brothers, sons, former wives and future husbands. Thousands. A kamasutra that is always on the airwaves. The RAI should be a public service but it is an advertising service. More for advertising then for the public. Do they want advertising? Let them do without the licence fee. Do they want the licence fee? Let them do without the parties. At the moment there’s nothing missing. Advertising, party censorship, families, cheap journalisms and Saccà-style fiction.
A public information service is necessary, but in order to be a public service, it must not depend on Veltrusconi. The business models are there, like the BBC, just follow their example. From now up until November it’s possible to give notice of cancellation of paying the licence fee. We no longer pay for this regime shit. In November, the RAI has to close or change. To have two channels without advertising and not controlled by the parties seems to me to be a good objective. Any who gives notice of cancellation of paying the licence fee can sign up to the Facebook group: Cancelliamo il canone RAI. {Let’s get rid of the RAI licence fee }
instructions:
- Take hold of the RAI licence fee document without tearing it into a thousand pieces
- Copy out the reference number of the TV licence fee document. If it’s not there ask for a duplicate using a registered letter and ask for a receipt of delivery to the TV licensing body (1° ufficio entrate Torino - S.A.T. Sportello Abbonamenti Tv - Casella Postale 22 - 10121 Torino)
- Don’t have outstanding issues like fines or late payments
- Buy a postal order for 5.16 euro and give the reason for the payment as "per disdetta canone numero"{to give notice of cancellation of paying the licence fee} (then write the appropriate reference number)". Beneficiary: S.A.T. casella postale 22, 10121 TORINO; l'agenzia di pagamento: TORINO VAGLIA E RISPARMI
- From the licence document remove the tab marked “d” (or "b" if it’s new) labeled "denuncia di cessazione dell'abbonamento tv". Put an X in box number 2 where there’s the request for sealing the TV and fill in the spaces indicated and give the number of the postal order and the date the payment was made
- In the space below that, there’s space for the date of sending the card: write the date and your signature. On the other side of the card write the full name and address of the person who is cancelling the payment of the licence fee If needed, correct the old address URAR TV in S.A.T.
- If the “card for giving notice of cancellation of paying the licence fee” is missing, use the card for generic communications, and write:
"Il sottoscritto (full name and address) chiede la cessazione del Canone TV e chiede di far suggellare il televisore (numero di ruolo:...) a colori detenuto presso la propria abitazione. A tale scopo ha corrisposto l'importo di 5,16 euro a mezzo vaglia postale n.... del.../.../... sul quale ha indicato il numero di ruolo dell'abbonamento"
Make a photocopy of the card (both sides). The original card has to be sent off in registered post with notification of receipt to the address given.
- Wait to receive the receipt of delivery.
- Using registered mail with notification of delivery, send to the S.A.T. address the complete original licence fee document with all its contents, keeping at home the receipts for the payments made in the last 10 years (or from when you started paying the licence fee).

The notice of cancellation must be given before 30 November 2009. When faced with all that has been described above, the RAI can respond by asking for your details (name, address etc.) (again?) , the brand name of the TV to be sealed up and whereabouts it is to be found.
They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:23 AM in Information | Comments (6)
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January 05, 2009

Our Bettino who art in Heaven

Text:
"Good day to you all,
Those of us who happened to have been unlucky enough to tune in to “Canale 5” yesterday evening, will have noticed a little show worthy of Kim Il Sung’s Korea, a sort of TV version of an equestrian monument to Bettino Craxi on the ninth anniversary of his death.
A bit of film put together by some members of his family and obviously broadcast with great pomp and it’s worth saying, broadcast by Mediaset.
The devotion of Mediaset to its patron saint is very clear. Without Craxi, Berlusconi would not be where he is, Mediaset would not exist given that it survived the various violations of the law that first Fininvest and then Mediaset have perpetrated in spite of the regulations.

...


Craxi’s treasure
To compensate, Craxi had treasure and he had two bank accounts in Switzerland, the “Constellation finanzier” account and the “Northen Holding” account managed by his school-mate Giorgio Tradati, on trust – it was a nickname – where he accumulated the money from the kickbacks paid to him from the biggest Italian companies.
From Fiat, Olivetti, Fininvest, the Ligresti Group, the Torno Group... various big construction companies as well as medium and small one.
His money, not Party money. Then there was also the money from kickbacks for the Party that was managed on other accounts, still in Switzerland, by another handler, who was the Party Treasurer, Honourable Vincenzo Balzamo.
Craxi’s own money then got cleared away by a Portofino bartender that was appointed by Craxi to replace Tradati, when in 1993 he feared that Di Pietro and the Milan team of magistrates would confiscate his property.
That is our property that he had appropriated for himself.
Raggio was sent to Switzerland: he was the fiancé of the Countess Vacca Agusta, an old friend of Craxi’s who lived in Portofino. He cleaned out the accounts and took fifty billion lira that Craxi was holding at that time and he went to Mexico, where he stayed as a fugitive for a couple of years.
Once he was captured, he confessed and made a list of the money spent, thus showing that Craxi was not using that money for the Party but for himself, and in fact the judges then reconstructed that shopping list.
A list that is quite shocking if one thinks of the fame that they have constructed around this presumed statesman, who in reality was a common thief, if “thief” still has the meaning that we give it in the dictionaries: a person who takes money belonging to others.
He had purchased apartments in Barcelona, New York, La Tuille, Milan, and Madonna di Campiglio.
He had bought a private airplane for one and a half million dollars. He had made a gift to his friend Ania Pieroni - we can call her that – a TV. Not a TV to watch but a TV network, Roma CineTV that paid at a hundred million a month.

...


Craxi, the Statesman who made History
As you have seen, they attributed to Craxi all the great happenings of the last century, the only ones missing, because of when he was born, were the First World War victory at the battle of Vittorio Veneto or the Crimean War at the time of the Risorgimento, or a decisive role in the Congress of Vienna.
But only because he wasn’t born then, otherwise we would have seen him popping up even at the Congress of Vienna with a great wig.
However to make up for that they attributed to him the fall of Pinochet, the return of democracy to Chile, the Prague Spring, the battle of the West against the missiles of the Soviet Union.
If the Soviet Union had to disarm and then collapsed, it was thanks to Craxi.
They gave him the praise for the outstanding victory of Solidarnosc in Poland, and they even worked out his paternity of Blair.
They figure that Blair was Craxi’s godson. Blair doesn’t know that but he is godson to Craxi. They see him as responsible for the fall of the Berlin Wall, triumphs in the whole world and the whole Globe, land and sea.

...


At the end you see the beach at Hammamet, the sea, the sunset and every so often there’s a quick view of portraits of Mazzini and Garibaldi, as though they are saying: “do you see now, this man is not a fugitive but an exile”.
Unfortunately, Mazzini and Garibaldi did not steal. This is the difference: they did not flee from Italy because they had been stealing but obviously for political reasons.
For those who want to find out more, I don’t need to tell you that there are books, documents, court verdicts (we will put more on our blogs) .
Keep in mind that there’s a reason why it was broadcast now.
We haven’t even got the round figure of 10 years. Only 9 years have passed since Craxi’s death.
The reason why this hagiography was broadcast is because, together with Licio Gelli, the Craxi-project is taking shape: presidentialism plus political control of the magistracy.
To those making the decision, it seemed right, after the grand return to the TV of the Unique Grand Master Licio Gelli, even with his identifying clothes, to pay homage to another person who inspired these mephitic and foul times that we are living through.
Spread the word. Passate parola."

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 09:57 PM in Information | Comments (6)
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December 30, 2008

The 2009 Lay Saints Calendar

Introduction to the 2009 Lay Saints Calendar:

”If you run through the list of Lay Saints, the first reaction is one of dizziness. An impression that you can only experience when faced with an abyss, of the emptiness of a bottomless precipice. It’s not a simple list. It’s a really long list. A list of murders of carabinieri of police officers, magistrates, politicians, journalists, priests, and citizens. It’s a river of blood that runs through our history. A massacre on which our Republic was born and on which it is living. Close your eyes and think of these men and women that have sacrificed their life for the State. And imagine their role in the leadership of this Nation, if they were still alive. Borsellino as President of the Republic, Falcone as Minister of Justice, Don Puglisi as Cardinal, Ambrosoli as President of the Council, Fava as editor of Il Corriere della Sera. Then open your eyes and see the desolate reality of “prescritti”, mafia folk, and convicts in Parliament and journalism in the hands of their servants. You will ask why so many gave up their lives. What motivated them? I believe that it was the conscience of each one that obliged them to do that. They simply had no other choice. They couldn’t turn the other way. Many knew that they were condemned. In this they were similar to Christ in the Gospels who accepted martyrdom, even though he could have escaped it. The honest ones are accepted only if they don’t denounce the System, that galaxy of organised crime, deviated Freemasonry and political corruption that governs Italy. Up until yesterday, in secret, today, in a shameless, blatant way. The System acts towards the honest people in stages. First it tries to buy them, then it threatens them. If it fails, then it isolates them, and if this is not enough, after isolating them, it kills them. Isolation by the institutions and by the media is an alarm bell. The last call. Hundreds of people have heard it and have kept going straight ahead. The streets and squares of Italy should be named after them. Those streets that the politicians want to dedicate to the fugitive Bettino Craxi. In front of Montecitorio there should be a plaque with their names in gold letters, in alphabetical order. My wish for 2009 is not to give up, to longer give up doing what you need to do, any more. No one is above the law and the delinquents need to be called by their names. Don’t turn away to the other side. Stay on your side. The Lay Saints, from up there, will give you a hand.
”No, don’t say that you are discouraged, that you no longer want to know about it. Think that all this has happened because you didn’t want to know about it anymore…” From the letter of Giacomo Ulivi, partisan, assassinated by the fascists in Piazza Grande, Modena on 10 November 1944".

The calendar is available as a free download in pdf format or at a freely-chosen price in the printed on glossy paper.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 07:59 PM in Information | Comments (1)
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The Mandarins of the Caste

"Good day to you all.
This is the last date with Passaparola in 2008, so it is a moment to exchange good wishes and to talk about a couple of things that today relate to the trials and the investigations that are affecting the Democratic Party in various parts of Italy and how they are reacting.
It has to be said that Veltroni’s initial reaction was good and civilised, exactly what is expected from a leader in a normal democracy, that is maximum trust in the magistracy, let’s do some self-criticism, let’s consider the moral issues, let’s avoid theories of plots.
Then slowly, as each day passes we have arrived at the recent outbursts, that started on the release from house arrest of Luciano D'Alfonso, mayor of Pescara.
At that point, the position of the PD { Democratic Party} started to deteriorate, I would say not into a “Berlusconian” position, but very nearly.
Meanwhile, they nipped Di Pietro’s son and a few of Di Pietro’s collaborators in the Naples investigation and it turns out that the son and some collaborators gave to this superintendent for public works, the names of friends for positions.
It is not a crime to give the names of friends for jobs but it is malpractice, and thus Di Pietro did well to give his son a ticking off.
In his party, as in the other parties, there should immediately be the intervention of the Board of Arbitration who examine the cases that are not criminally significant - those are dealt with by the magistracy – and decide sanctions and possibly classifying them and establishing in advance what the risks are if you behave in a certain way.
It’s not enough to give a severe reprimand. You also need concrete measures, above all in a party that wants to present itself to citizens as a party that is different from the others.
It is clear that the others, as they never do anything, give authority to anyone who wants to be different and to claim the glory for that simply in the presence of tiny signals, but it is time to start to reason as though we were not in Italy but in Germany, in the United States or in England and not to care a fig that the other parties do nothing and start to do strong things in one’s own house.
Having said this, we have various types of reaction: if a Centre Right politician is picked up it’s a plot, if a Centre Left politician is picked up well it depends on the day, on the humidity in the air, respect for the magistracy, almost a plot, half a plot.
When someone is discovered, even though not committing a crime, someone in Di Pietro’s circle, he starts ranting and raving but after that, as I have said, there should be temporary or definitive suspensions from the party according to the gravity of the unwanted behaviour.
One point, however, is interesting, and that is who must decide on the arrest of a politician.

...


Naturally, all that is used by Berlusconi to embrace the Centre Left in the hope that they give him cover for the law on wiretapping that he has recently threatened to bring in once more.

...


Berlusconi needs cover from the Centre Left, because if he has Di Pietro and the PD who are thundering against this law then the people who want more security and more legality will start to understand that Berlusconi has a conflict of (judicial) interests that make security impossible.
In fact, he wants to destroy a fundamental tool like wiretapping.
This is why it’s necessary this year to be committed to making it known to people in parliament, in the Centre Left and also in the Centre Right that it’s not OK. Are you aware that the Lega and a part of the AN do not want to go along with this? We need to strengthen the position of those who want to oppose this, both within the Centre Right majority coalition and obviously, on the benches of the minority coalition.
The only way is to write to parliamentary representatives, to flood their email inboxes – if you go to the website of the Lower and Upper Houses you will find them all – to make it known that: “we will no longer vote for you if you sit back or if you don’t stand up against this devastating project on wiretapping, against the security of citizens.”
This is the wish I have for you: that we take charge of the situation, each citizen as an individual and all together.
That we take on board the principle of equality. That we let them know that we still all want to be equal before the law with no exceptions.
This is the only wish that I feel like expressing: let’s hope to find ourselves in a year’s time celebrating the birth of the year 2010 in a country where the law is still equal for everyone.
Spread the Word. Passate parola. Auguri."

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 11:58 AM in Information | Comments (1)
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December 28, 2008

Google Italia’s soft censorship

Click on the image


Censorship is alive and fighting against us. In the newspapers and the TV, “censorship is news”. The mayors forbid me to use their public buildings for my show “Delirio”, as happens in Pavia, as I’m a person who is not welcome. On the Internet, they are having a go. First with the Levi proposal, then the Cassinelli one. This blog is blacked out inside many big companies and public authorities. The topics on the blog are ignored by all the media.
All this can happen in the Veltrusconi regime. But there’s one thing that I really cannot swallow. That the search suggestions in Google Italia (ONLY in Google Italia) delete me and prefer Beppe Maniglia and Beppe Quintale to me. Crikey, it’s a scandal. Why Quintale and not me? I believe that the directors of Google Italia have had a suggestion or perhaps Google doesn’t work in Italy. Why don’t you ask Google? Send an email to press@google.com.
While waiting for a reply, use another search engine.

“Dear Beppe,
I am informing you that you are officially censored in Google. In reality it’s “soft” censorship, but I still feel it’s significant... as I’ll explain. For some time now, in the Google search engine there’s a “helper”, so that when you are typing in the word you are looking for in the search field, straight away you see about a dozen results that could help speed up your search.
For example, If I type in “b”, some results appear (based on some obscure criteria that I don’t know) that go from “Belen Rodriguez” to “Banca Intesa” to “Babbo Natale”; if I type "be" the search gets narrowed down and together with “Belen Rodriguez” among others you see “Berlusconi” and “Benetton”... and so on.
The surprise comes when you get to typing in "Beppe"... Beppe Gambetta, Beppe Bigazzi, Beppe Fiorello... but there’s no trace of “Beppe Grillo”. Let’s keep going.
"Beppe G": and there’s just Beppe Gambetta and Beppe Gabbiani (?).End of story. The same result for "Grillo".
But the great thing is that in the bottom right hand corner of Google Italia there’s a link to "google.com in english" (the official American site) where it’s enough to type in “bep” and magically standing firm in the top position there’s BEPPE GRILLO.


In fact when you write "grillo b" there’s a great "grillo blog", and happy Christmas to the censors... I’d say it’s ridiculous.
And in the end this “mini-censorship” just affects you. Travaglio, Ricca, Massimo Fini, Gomez, Di Pietro, Barnard, Sabina Guzzanti, Santoro, Dario Fo... they are all there.
Greetings for a Happy Christmas and I’m glad to be able to give you a hand. I have already got tickets for the Turin show in January. And don’t forget, make it a good one!! Ugo

Ps. Thanks to your e-mails, Google corrected the censorship. (h. 11.32, December 29th 2008)

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 06:46 PM in Information | Comments (16)
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December 25, 2008

Wartime Information

Athens – clashes outside Parliament


What have these got in common: Iceland, Greece and Ecuador? A war-time economy.
Iceland has gone bust, Greece is revolting and president Correa of the Republic of Ecuador, has declared the country to be in “default”: the State bonds due for repayment in 2012 will not be repaid.
Greece has been blacked out by the media. It’s not known what is happening there. They pass off a revolution as a demonstration by turbulent youth of “no global” agitators and anarchists. Greece is near to economic collapse and for this reason it’s necessary to "soothe, chop..., chop, soothe". The contagion is frightening.
In Italy, two auctions of BTPs {State Bonds} were deserted and a third one only sold a third of the Bonds. Did you know that? Nooooooooooo? I understand. The TV News programmes were too busy explaining that it snows in the Alps in December and in describing the frenetic rush to make purchases.
The world is at war. An economic war. Not very different from that fought with weapons. Wartime information is used for reassuring. The Alpine troops were about to break through at Stalingrad and the very next day they effected a swift strategic retreat towards Italy. By now, this State is running only on lies. It’s last frontier. Get your shoes ready for throwing in 2009.

”Dear Beppe,
I am a university student from Genoa doing an Erasmus exchange in Iceland. Here I’ve met many people who live and work here and I can see with my own eyes how the financial speculation has destroyed a country that up until last year was defined by the United Nations as the first in the world for well-being. The billions of dollars that the speculators poured into this country for years got interrupted at a certain moment and within the space of a few weeks the main banks of the country went bust. The value of the currency collapsed and inflation and unemployment which before this were virtually non-existent have reached two figure percentages. By talking to people here I have been astounded to hear that this Scandinavian country is afflicted by the same problems as us, a political class that was colluding with the banks that instead of protecting the citizens tried to cover up the actions of those who are squandering savings and who want nothing to do with the idea of abandoning power, not even now when the citizens for the first time in the history of the country are going out into the streets to ask for the resignation of the government that brought the country to this point. But the news item that made me write this letter is the one that appeared today in a small local newspaper that talks about a journalist who had to resign because after following an investigation into the people who caused the financial crisis, his editor decided to publish the article after it was modified otherwise the newspaper would have been forced to close down. Forced by the people who were denounced by the journalist. Not even can news of the suicides that are becoming ever more frequent, be published.
This experience has given me to understand that even though we live in different countries with different traditions and political structures the problems that are plaguing our society are the same in all Europe. The blog already has international relevance, why don’t you dedicate some space to the other European countries? I am sure that the people and the news would not be lacking and this would contribute to make it grow even more, together with the people who do not give in to this system that asks us to no longer believe in the justice system and to become like them, getting rich by exploiting and duping people. If I have decided not to be like them and to construct my life by fighting injustice and by helping those who defend the truth, it is also thanks to all the stuff that you have shown us over the years, first on TV (I was tiny, but I remember when you decided to go away and talk in the theatres so as not to be subservient to them) and now with the blog and the shows. Keep going like that!”
Federico A.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 09:21 PM in Information | Comments (4)
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December 22, 2008

Cross-eyed National Association of Magistrates

Text:
"Good day to you all.
Today, in this final presentation before Christmas I would like to concentrate once more on the happenings of Salerno and Catanzaro because, quite rightly, I continue to receive requests for further clarification, in relation to what we have managed to show, I believe it has been very important, in last Thursday evening’s Annozero broadcast.
A broadcast that is already creating an earthquake in the magistracy down to its very roots.
Anyone who gets information or who knows a magistrate can get to know that the behaviour of the secretary of the Magistrates Association has left many of his colleagues dumbfounded, especially because the Annozero reconstruction has shown where the rotten apples are among the prosecutors offices of Catanzaro and Salerno.
However, the fact that the official representative of the Magistrates Association has continues to take it out on Salerno without saying anything about what happened at Catanzaro has left many people bewildered, and in fact there are those who are asking for a change at the head of the ANM {National Magistrates Association}.
Some self-criticism would be appropriate.
Afterwards we will look at the things that we didn’t discuss last week, however, I think that what is happening, that is the fact that magistrates like De Magistris have been left isolated in the face of unheard of political attacks – I don’t think that (apart from the magistrates in the “Milan pool” during the mid 1990s) there has ever been a prosecutor who has been attacked by dozens and dozens of interrogations and parliamentary questions, followed by inspections, by an enormous quantity of disciplinary measures, without mentioning the practice of being transferred – all of that would not have been possible.
And it was possible not because the ANM wanted to attack De Magistris, but because it was guilty of ignoring the situation of Catanzaro for too many years.
It wanted to provide cover for the CSM that was guilty of ignoring the situation in Catanzaro. Then it was led by judge Luerti, whom it has been discovered is a close friend of the main person being investigated by De Magistris, Antonio Saladino, the leader of the “Compagnia delle Opere” in Calabria.
Not just a friend, but as we heard in the reconstruction that was broadcast on Annozero with actors who read the text of Luerti’s interrogation in front of the Salerno prosecution. Luerti actually was living in a community - and he still lives in a community - first at Catanzaro and then in Salerno – of the “Memores Domini”, a confraternity that is part of the organisation “Comunione e Liberazione”.
Monks of “Comunione e Liberazione” who have taken vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
The fact that in the search warrant written in Salerno to go to Catanzaro to collect documents that there is a mention of this part of the interrogation, where there is talk of the vote of chastity of this magistrate, does certainly not mean that his colleagues wanted to investigate his private and emotional life: it means that they have simply raised the issue that, perhaps, a magistrate should not be in the position of having an embarrassment that now arises for him as he is part of a confraternity of which there are members who are involved in judicial affairs.
If you take a vow of obedience to a confraternity, it’s necessary to see to what extent you are obedient to that confraternity balanced against to what extent you are obedient to the law.
I believe that Dr. Luerti is a person who is absolutely respectable, but it certainly isn’t enough being a respectable person, you also need to appear impartial when you are a magistrate.
Just think when he was a magistrate in Catanzaro and he was living in Saladino’s house and Saladino was then shown to be a person who was quite casual in mixing business and politics – even though we don’t know whether he has committed any crime.
And now he is a magistrate in Milan, in a region that is led by a very influential member of “Comunione e Liberazione” who for years has said publicly that he has taken vows of chastity and that he too is a member of this confraternity.
The fact that this Luerti is the leader of the Magistrates Association has surely influenced his position when he has had to give statements on what he was doing to De Magistris.
De Magistris was removed from his investigations and the ANM in fact did not take the position that it should have done.
The investigations were taken from him, probably illegally or in an unorthodox way and the ANM kept quiet, and in the end he was dragged in front of the CSM with laughable accusations, as we have said, and even transferred on the basis of those ridiculous accusations that remind one a bit of those that are being used to crucify the Salerno magistrates right now.
For having written too many pages in a search warrant, for having made presumed mention of the private life of this or the other person.
Basically, silly stuff while on the other side there is a mass of worms at Catanzaro with people who should no longer be allowed to be magistrates.

...


I think that the only hope for Calabria and for Basilicata to get a bit of justice in certain palaces of justice is really connected to the fact the Salerno magistrates, (whether or not they have exaggerated is not important right now) can get on and finish their investigation.
If they finish their investigation, we will still be able to say that there is hope in Italy that the law is equal for all.
If after De Magistris, they too are blocked and if the ANM does not change its approach and admit that it has made a mistake, it means that the year that is about to begin, is starting off under the worse sort of cloud.
Thank you and spread the word!”

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:40 PM in Information | Comments (2)
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The Grand Duchy in underpants

No to nuclear, yes to renewables


The Grand Duchy had Lorenzo the Magnificent, still left are the DSinDioxin-ites, the left wing banks and the unemployed. The sackings rather than coming like rain are falling more like hail. They are hitting just about everywhere a bit like individual grapes. “Alla do coio, coio”.
Art and tourism just on their own, could make Tuscany the richest lands in the world. But the administrators of the PDminusL cannot be satisfied with so little. For development, they want regasifiers, incinerators, bricks and cement and car parks, and even better if they are in the historical centre.
Tuscany has a great opportunity. To transform itself from “Chiantishire” to “Nukeshire”. The Tuscan children will be able to do “twinning” with the youngsters of Chernobyl. The Tuscan Archipelago could in fact welcome a nuclear power station on the isle of Pianosa. One of the many that the psycho-dwarf wants to gift to the people of Italy. It’s like opening up a rubbish tip at the “Ponte Vecchio” in Florence or like creating a Ligresti building in Pisa’s Piazza dei Miracoli. Crikey, I don’t want to have put ideas in the heads of this lot. The Tuscan bison charge like "Maremma maiala". You can’t even stop them with bullets designed for wild boar. You can already hear them from Rome. They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we.

FLORENCE: 158 jobs at risk in Telecom Italia
FLORENCE: hundreds losing their jobs in the hotels because of the collapse of tourism
FLORENCE: out of work 38 employees at Meridiana
PRATO-PROVINCIA: 27 workers out each week
PRATO: sacked 14 employees at Albini-Pitigliani
PRATO: 14 sacked at Becagli
LIVORNO: excess workersi Telecom Italia
LIVORNO: 15 employers sent home because of the closure of Delta
LIVORNO: 50 in excess at Liburnia
LIVORNO: unemployment for 150 workers at Giopescal
LIVORNO: 16 sacked at Misericordia
MASSA: redundancies at Evam
CARRARA: 24 sacked in the marble industry
CAMPI BISENZIO E PONTEDERA: 40 redundancies at the food counters
PISA: researchers at the University researching our future
PISA: 63 sacked at Abiogen

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 11:12 AM in Information | Comments (3)
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December 15, 2008

The justice of the rich

Text:
”Good day to you all.
The President of the Council has announced it when he was presenting a book by Bruno Vespa published by himself and in fact he said: “Buy it to make the publisher happy!”
In this joyous occasion, amidst applause and bad jokes, at a certain point our premier announced that he will rewrite the Constitution in his own image and likeness. Thus just imagine how he will rewrite it, and above all with blows from the majority.
Given that his majority is himself he will rewrite it himself.
Naturally he said: “I am aware that to rewrite the Constitution you need to have two thirds of Parliament.” Otherwise you have to first go and put this reform to the citizens in a referendum where there’s no quorum, so the verdict is clear.
Either the citizens approve the reform and it becomes part of the Constitution, or they reject it and it is swept away as Bossi’s famous devolution in 2006 was swept away.
Formally the President of the Council has in his mind the existence of article 138 of the Constitution that prevents him from going it alone and using "50% +1" actions from the Majority.
He has certainly got an ample 50% but only a bit more than 50% and he certainly hasn’t got that two thirds needed with two readings in the Lower and Upper Chambers to be able to reform the Constitution within Parliament without involving the citizens.
So someone will say “OK he can do it, he will do it.”
Why is there this race to involve the Opposition? For the numbers game.
It is true that we are a people that is decidedly soft in the head, not everyone but a good part.
It is true that we are a people that has never shown great affection for the Constitution just as for the Institutions and the system of checks and balances.
It is also true that when we were called to vote for or against a constitutional reform like the devolution, we voted against.
And we voted against because anyway the capacity to mobilize around the principles, and not around money, luckily still exists among those who want to defend the 1948 Constitution just as it was gifted to us by our Founding Fathers after two years of work.
Then the possibility that it is to be rewritten by folk like Calderoli, Cicchitto... P2-ists, people under investigation etc. still makes you feel strange.
And above all because the referendum would be held, given the time frames needed to approve the reform in Parliament that are very drawn out, in three or four years time.
If we can learn from history, in three or four years Italians will be wanting to get their hands on Berlusconi.
I hope they don’t do it, naturally, even because everyone against one person would be unfair. But as happened the other time when he was governing for the whole 5 years from 2001 to 2006 it was evident that Berlusconi is not capable of governing.
It’s not that he does it on purpose because he is bad: it’s really just not his field. He couldn’t care less. He’s not interested in the topic.
He nods off during ordinary administration.

...


Let’s not forget history. How in Italy we have the great drunken scenes under the balcony of the current leader: in 1945 we had Mussolini in Piazzale Loreto pelted and spat upon by those who had been cheering him right up until the day before.
In 1992-19993 we ended up in Hotel Raphael with the throwing of objects, coins and bank notes at Bettino Craxi. Of course they were fake or he would have ended up picking them up.
Thus it is very probable that there ‘s the risk of a new version of these unexpected and pretty traumatic moments of falling out of love, so stay alert because Berlusconi will need defending from his current fans who will be after his scalp.
He knows that when there is a vote for the referendum to confirm or reject his constitutional reform of the justice system, people will be fed up to the back teeth with him and they will vote against even in spite of the contents of the reform, but simply to give him a kick up the backside and to accelerate his departure from Palazzo Chigi.
We have already seen this scene and it will be repeated just in the same way this time.

...

This Joint venture Violante-Angelino Jolie has produced a diabolical and really dangerous idea: now, the prosecutor directs and coordinates the Judicial Police. It is he who has in his hands the criminal trial process. It is he who propels forward the investigations.

...

And what if I’m innocent and I’m poor?
If I’m rich, with my lawyer I can do my own counter-investigation for the defence and I can get my point of view across. But if I’m poor with the State-provided lawyer?
Can you see an official lawyer who pays a detective, and sets up a counter- investigation to dismantle the case presented by the prosecution and supported by the accusing lawyer?
But only anyone who can afford to pay out millions will be able to come out as innocent at the end of a trial, if the prosecutor becomes the accusing lawyer. Today the prosecutor is obliged to do investigations to see whether or not I am guilty or innocent. It is not laid down that he acts as the accusing lawyer.
He supports the accusation only when he is convinced that that is a guilty person, but before that he has done all the investigations to see whether I am guilty or not.
How many times has the prosecutor asked for the absolution or the archiving of an investigation. The accusing lawyer will always ask for a conviction! He is programmed to get a conviction.
Then if someone is guilty or innocent it doesn’t matter, in fact read the newspapers: they say “we will give more power to the lawyers to do defence investigations!” Certainly, to the lawyers of the rich defendants who can afford to be innocent and to demonstrate that. The poor, even if they are innocent, will not manage to demonstrate that because it will be up to them to demonstrate that they are innocent and not the prosecutor.
Let’s have a think about this. Because the direction that we are moving in is no longer the democracy that we have known, it is no longer the State based on the Rule of Law.
The justice system that we are moving towards is justice for the rich. In times of crisis how many rich people are there that are looking for a system of justice for the rich? I hope very few.
There’s a high level of alarm. Let’s keep it high.
If you are interested, together with Massimo Fini we have launched an appeal about the dangers that our democracy is facing with the Constitutional reform by blows from the Majority. You’ll find everything on the website of “la Voce del Ribelle”, Massimo Fini’s monthly or on the regular voglioscendere.it where there’s also an email address you can use to show your support.
Spread the word. Until next Monday.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:05 PM in Information | Comments (7)
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December 14, 2008

Paolo Mieli’s hotline and the red light information

Carlo Vulpio
Click on the image

Carlo Vulpio is a journalist. Since the beginning of 2007 he has been engaged with the "Poseidon", "Why Not" and "Toghe Lucane". investigations. He was writing for il Corriere della Sera. On 3 December he was sacked. In his last article he gave the names of magistrates, politicians and entrepreneurs involved in the investigations of the Salerno Prosecutors Office following the denunciation by Luigi De Magistris. Straight after that he received a telephone call from Paolo Mieli, the editor of il Corriere della Sera, telling him he was sacked. There were too many names. The stink was too much to bear even for the readers of il Corriere della Sera.
Mieli, say it here on the Internet before they reduce you to be like the servile newspapers of the powerful with Cassinelli’s fxxk the blogger law. Tell us who telephoned you to invite you to get rid of Vulpio? One of those on the list? A member of the RCS Board of Directors? Or did you do it all on your own? Elsewhere, in other countries in France or in the United States, a gesture like yours would not be appreciated. They would have sent you away. Here they will reward you perhaps by making you the director of TG1. Reading Vulpio’s list, from the CSM, to the Court of Appeal to the Court of Cassation is like lifting up the manhole cover of a sewer. In Italy we are all below any suspicion.

From Carlo Vulpio’s article on 3 December 2008:
It has never happened before in Italy that a Prosecutors Office has been «surrounded» like a fortress of the criminal world. Yesterday it happened to the Catanzaro Prosecutors Office, and for the whole day and right up until late in the evening, it was literally surrounded by a hundred carabinieri and a score of police officers all coming from Salerno. With the carabinieri of the Operational section and the police officers of the DIGOS, there were seven magistrates that entered and among them were the Salerno prosecutor, Luigi Apicella and the leaders of the investigation, Gabriella Nuzzi and Dionigio Verasani. They gave out “avvisi di garanzia” {notifications of impending investigations} and they searched homes and offices of the magistrates of Calabria who had snatched the "Poseidon" and "Why Not" investigations from the former prosecutor Luigi De Magistris (now re-examination judge in Naples) and from the magistrates who inherited these investigations, in order to «dismember them, to disintegrate them and to favour certain investigations», as the Salerno prosecutors have written. Among the “favoured” people under investigation, the former Minister of Justice, Clemente Mastella, the national secretary of the UDC, Lorenzo Cesa, the former governor of Calabria, as well as the former prosecutor of Reggio Calabria, Giuseppe Chiaravalloti, the Guardia di Finanza General, Walter Cretella Lombardo, the former Undersecretary assigned to the CIPE, Giuseppe Galati (Udc), Giancarlo Pittelli, Forza Italia deputy, the boss of the Compagnia delle Opere per il Sud Italia, Antonio Saladino.
But this is just the people from Calabria. The magistrates from Salerno, in fact, are doing investigations in two other directions.

...

In the search warrant that was put into operation yesterday, 1,700 pages, the prosecutors of Salerno are accusing the following people: - the Catanzaro prosecutor, Mariano Lombardi, the adjunct prosecutor, Salvatore Murone, the current general prosecutor, Dolcino Favi, the parliamentarian Giancarlo Pittelli and «the everywhere man» Antonio Saladino. They are accused of collaborating in corruption of judicial acts – for having “illegally” removed the investigations "Why Not" and "Poseidone" from de Magistris. But they are also accusing the substitute general prosecutor Alfredo Garbati, the substitute general prosecutor at the Court of Appeal Domenico De Lorenzo and the prosecutor Salvatore Curcio for having taken on in inheritance those boiling hot investigations with the intention of destroying them. And it is alleged that the general prosecutor Vincenzo Iannelli and the Section President of the Tribunal Bruno Arcuri got busy with things including the “illegal archiving” of Mastella’s situation.(“whose name on the list of those under investigation was however written out of duty”) but also for having defaming de Magistris and disintegrating him professionally”. Then, the prosecutors from Campania say Iannelli, for a reason dear to his heart, gets the intervention of Chiaravalloti in relation to Patrizia Pasquin, judge at the tribunal of Vibo Valentia, who was then arrested. Thus from one magistrate to another, just like peer to peer.." Carlo Vulpio, www.carlovulpio.it

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 06:55 PM in Information | Comments (2)
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December 13, 2008

Trentino Alto Adige: dismissals at high levels

Click on the picture

The happy isles are no longer so. The provinces of Trento and Bolzano are also a part of Italy, an Italy that is clownish and charlatan. We have gone from being children of the wolf to children of the ostrich. We have to fall in the crevasse before we actually realise it’s there.
The sound of the mountain buffalo’s hooves can also be heard on the plains and they are echoing hooves. “Trentatre trentini entrarono a Trento tutti e trentatre trotterellando” (twist on an Italian tongue twister). Thirty-three thousand Trento and Alto Adige workers will leave the factories, all thirty-three thousand of them reeling. Where will they all go? Shopping perhaps, in order to re-launch the economy as urged by the Government? Perhaps using their brand spanking new Social Cards?
The extent of the unemployment problem region by region is assuming biblical proportions, way beyond human comprehension. Which factories will still be running one year from now? And how will the millions of families manage to put food on their tables? No one has the answers to these questions.
Were Cesare Battisti to come back to life, he would demand that the Trentino Alto Adige area be annexed to Austria.

TRENTO PROVINCE: 40 thousand temporary workers at risk
GARDOLO: 95 retrenchments at Whirlpool (691 across Italy)
BOLZANO-TRENTO: 70 retrenchments at Telecom Italia
FOLGARIDA MARILEVA: more than one third of the 170 funivie employees’ jobs at risk
ALTO ADIGE: 1,340 employees laid off since October in a whole range of companies
ALTO ADIGE: from January to October 2007 there were 12,757 requests for unemployment subsidies, while during the same period in 2008 that figure jumped to 18,553 (+ 45,3%). Requests for unemployment benefits went from 5,037 to 6,922 (+37,2%).

Previous postings:
- Between the Emilia way and the West

- "La Serenissima" unemployed

- That thing in Lombardy

- The hooves of the buffalo

Ps: today's video clip is dedicated to the young people of Abruzzo. This weekend, in Abruzzo, elections will be held to vote for a new Regional Premier.
I'm rooting for Carlo Costantini, pass it on!

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 03:58 PM in Information | Comments (6)
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Raw milk and boiled information

Dr. Fausto Cavalli. Unpasteurised milk and disinformation.

Whenever the financial interests of large corporations such as Benetton, Impregilo and Granarolo are affected, then the political parties immediately come to their aid. What this amounts to is an exchange of interests. The exchange vote has pretty much become obsolete because these people now elect themselves and that is why these laws serve no other purpose than to protect the interests of the lobby groups. In other words, the politicians make laws to suit their lord protectors and, in turn, the lord protectors graciously allow the politicians to serve them.
If a citizen is a hothead and dares to sort his refuse, install solar panels or, God forbid, drinks unpasteurised milk from his own cow, then he is obviously being subversive. The media is on their side but we have the truth on our side. A person that drinks unpasteurised milk lives to be a hundred years old and saves up to thirty percent on the cost. An automatic milk dispenser for every Municipality. If you want it, it will happen.

"Dear Beppe,
After having eliminated the incentives for the use of renewable energy sources, now they also want to take away our access to unpasteurised milk, the kind you buy on tap, where you bring you own bottle and fill it up at the retailer. That is why, the Telethon held from 6 to 8 December came out in support of the Consortium for the Protection of Unpasteurised Milk and the Lombardy Region: for every two litres of milk that is sold, the cost of a third litre is to be donated to genetic illness research.
Notwithstanding this important initiative, the situation is extremely serious: to put it bluntly, it is disinformation. In recent days, the television networks and the national newspapers have broadcast reports or published articles discrediting this valuable foodstuff, thereby harming both the breeders and the producers. They have used phrases such as "Milk on tap, bacteria alarm" or "Unpasteurised milk - it must be boiled" or even "The Ministry considers a ban on milk sales", have become the order of the day.
Nine cases of haemolytic uremic syndrome caused by Escherichia Coli O 157, are being used as a pretext for circulating the idea that there is a direct link between the ailment and the consumption of raw, unpasteurised milk, thereby setting off a major media offensive aimed at generating uproar, insecurity and alienation, in other words the perfect conditions for some sort of legislative intervention aimed at introducing some of the most unjust restrictions.
The "Amici di Beppe Grillo di Brescia" Meetup has gathered a number of statements made by Dr. Fausto Cavalli, zoological agronomist and co-ordinator for Bevilatte Srl, an Agriculture Service Agency. His experience tells us that these high-profile cases are all nonsense, particularly because nothing has ever been proved (in 2008, analyses conducted by the Healthcare Authority encountered absolutely no presence whatsoever of Escherichia Coli O 157 in any of the 1,423 samples analysed) and indeed the producers affected continue to sell their milk perfectly legally, in some cases after having lodged a complaint against a number of ASL (NHS) officials at that time who forced them to keep the dispensers shut down.
WE have been asking ourselves what the reason could be for this insistent denigration campaign. The unpasteurised milk on tap phenomenon began precisely in our city, namely Brescia, and has now spread to include more than 1,000 dispensers countrywide (405 in Lombardy alone). Each of these dispensers sells about 100 litres of milk per day, 365 days per year. A litre of milk from these dispensers costs around 1 Euro, in other words 50 cents per litre less than the fresh pasteurised milk bought at the supermarket (source: www.clal.it). 18 Million Euro per year disappearing from the pockets of the large scale distribution chain and the dairy product multinationals, to the benefit of we citizens who now pay less and enjoy a healthy drink, as well as rediscovering a direct relationship with farming.

Why I drink unpasteurised milk, extract from Dr. Cavalli’s letter.
"The situation regarding unpasteurised milk is rather serious: ongoing articles on the Web and in the national newspapers are continuing to discredit this important foodstuff, to the detriment of the breeders and producers. In essence, the theory being expounded is an attempt to prove that the consumption of unpasteurised milk is extremely hazardous to your health ... wanting to force people to boil the milk prior to consuming it. The truth of the matter is that the consumption of unpasteurised milk has been recommended for many years, precisely because only then can we benefit from some of the un pasteurised milk’s most important nutritional properties..." Read the entire letter.

.

We will continue to purchase unpasteurised milk on tap and we will continue to get our supplies from the dispensers in town. In order to protect our right to do so, we will sign the petition to Agricultural Policy Minister Zaia and undersecretary Martini, as promoted by the Consortium for the Protection of Unpasteurised Milk against the possible shutting down of the unpasteurised milk dispensers.
We hope you will forgive us if, just this time, we don’t use your normal term, namely “the strawberries are ripe”. Today we prefer to say that: “The cows have been milked”. They will never give up, but neither will we." The Amici di Beppe Grillo di Brescia Meetup Group

SIGN THE PETITION AGAINST THE SHUTTING DOWN OF THE UNPASTEURISED MILK DISPENSERS

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 05:57 AM in Information | Comments (3)
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December 08, 2008

Final Clash between politics and magistracy

Now available: the second Passaparola DVD

Text
“Good day to you all.
I don’t know whether you have noticed the superficiality of this debate on morality.
The return of the debate on morality: the newspapers are overflowing with interviews from the various people like Pomicini, De Michelis, Di Donato.
Various relatives of Craxi.... even Capezzone who says that Veltroni should apologise to Bettino Craxi.
The moral issue, as usual, is used to throw each other’s shameful acts at each other, rather than to take a look at them and then to possibly stop doing them.
So much so that the greatest response that the leaders of the PD have managed to get when Berlusconi looked at the moral issue – obviously only looking at their faults and not his own that is just so massive that he cannot even manage to see it, given his height among other things – was “but you brought into Parliament those under investigation and those who already have a criminal conviction”.
Naturally they forgot their own.
The most that they can say is “we have less than you”, as though they can defend themselves or even go directly into attack by saying: “We have fewer of those under investigation and those who already have a criminal conviction than you have.”
What they should be able to say s: “We have none.”
When Grillo and many others proposed this popular initiative law to throw out the convicts from the electoral lists, even though this time the signatures collected this time were the right ones and no one could question them, not even Carnevale, Parliament has taken its time, so much so that they haven’t even got round to a discussion on the topic.
Let’s ignore these long-winded political parties that are clearly unravelling, crumbling, breaking up, without even being aware of it, and let’s see if we can talk about the other great topic that has been occupying the newspapers for about a week.
That is since last Wednesday when the Salerno Prosecutors Office went to Catanzaro to sequester the documents in the “Why Not” investigation and to make it known to a good number of magistrates from Calabria and from Basilicata that they are under investigation for the mega-plot that has been identified against Luigi De Magistris."

...

Above all it concentrates on three important investigations that De Magistris carried out and according to this procession of people who have been denounced, they are full of every kind of nastiness.
The “Poseidone” investigation, on the purification plant that should have been constructed in Calabria that were financed by the European Union with 800 million euro and with not even one having been seen.
The investigation into the “toghe lucane “ {the judges of Basilicata}, for the business groups that connect the magistrates in Basilicata, for which it is Catanzaro that has the competency to investigate which is why De Magistris was doing the investigation. And then the “Why Not” investigation, the one that as well as the various fixers, former-P2 –members, secret service officials, Finance Police officials, politicians, colluding journalists, some passing mafia-people, had as its main defendant Antonio Saladino, the head of the Compagnia delle Opere that is the financial-business arm of “Comunione e Liberazione” {Communion and Liberation}.

...

Luckily the Catanzaro magistrates cannot investigate themselves. They are investigated by those from Salerno. If then, those in Salerno commit irregularities, they are investigated by Naples. And Rome investigates Naples, and Perugia investigates Rome and so on.

...

But even De Magistris denounced things to those in Salerno: he in turn denounced his superiors and some of the people he is investigating and their lawyers and journalists who are following the people he is investigating and his superiors, who according to him are considered to have discredited, defamed, isolated and expropriated his investigations.
Basically, that they first created the conditions to first remove the investigations and then to remove him himself.
So the Salerno magistrates cannot do otherwise, because they received these denunciations from De Magistris and against De Magistris, since it is within their competency they have to follow up to see which have foundations and which do not. The law obliges them to do that. They are obliged to take action.
If you receive a denunciation, you are obliged to verify it.
Thus they start work, and for months and months no one knows anything about what is being done in Salerno. They work silently, no one has ever seen them on TV, no one has heard them being talked about, no one even knows what the prosecutors Gabriella Nuzi and Dionigi Verasani and their line manager look like.

...

Luckily, truth is stronger than any pressure, so even when a door is closed on it, it comes out of the window, when the window is closed, truth breaks through the glass.
Thus, whoever thought they could put a lid on the De Magistris case and the Forleo one that is connected with it, is once more worried because having sent away the two magistrates, the truth is coming out again even stronger than before.
For those who want to have an in-depth knowledge, I would like to suggest some books for Christmas: “Roba Nostra” by Carlo Vulpio, published by Il Saggiatore; “Il caso De Magistris”, by Antonio Massari published by Aliberti; “Il caso Forleo”, also by Antonio Massari and published by Aliberti.
Then there’s our old “Toghe Rotte” by Bruno Tinti, that explains the mechanisms, and there’s our “Mani Sporche” where there is the beginning of the De Magistris case. Then all the developments are to be found in a book that is about to come out “Per chi suona la banana” published for Garzanti. That collects together the articles that I devoted to these issues in the newspaper l'Unità.
Greetings to you, and as usual, after you have read this, spread the word!"

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:27 PM in Information | Comments (2)
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December 06, 2008

The 98 -billion Euro hot potato

Marco Smiroldo, magistrate with the National Audit Office

Yesterday, the blog and one of its representatives were at the National Audit Office hearing. There were very few other journalists there. 98 billion Euro of alleged tax fraud by the slot machine concession holders obviously don’t warrant very much attention. Three annual budgets’ worth of money. I wonder why? Could it perhaps be that there are certain political parties are involved in this matter, because if this were indeed true, then suddenly everything else would make a lot more sense. The administrative proceedings ended in a decision to let someone else make the decision. In essence, the National Audit Office left the decision regarding who should decide on the precise extent of the fraud to the Court of Cassation. Perhaps, in a few years time, this Court will, in turn, place the decision under the jurisdiction of the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, the National Audit Office or to the normal justice system.
Just two weeks ago in Milan, an Italian woman with no previous criminal record was arrested for stealing a few dozen Euro’s worth of food because she was hungry.
Do you hear the sound of the buffalos? The thundering of their hooves is becoming ever louder.

Text:
D.Martinelli: I am here in Rome where a National Audit Office hearing ended just a few minutes ago, a court hearing held by the financial judges regarding the slot-machine scandal, involving ten concession holding companies that managed the slot machines between 2004 and 2007, three years in other words, and that, according to Public Prosecutor Marco Smiroldo who is overseeing the investigations, were allegedly involved in tax fraud amounting to ninety-eight billion Euro, excluding accumulated fines. Today that amount is bound to have increased somewhat, given the fact that the information dates back to January this year. The fact remains that today’s decision was expected to establish the precise amount to be paid over to the State by these companies but, instead, the proceedings were suspended and turned over to the Court of Cassation. Let’s take this one step at a time: meanwhile, on the day, there were very few journalists present. I had a video camera, then there was a small crew made up of two youngsters sent there by Giovanni Minoli and finally a couple of colleagues from the printed press. The National Audit Office employs accountant magistrates as opposed to criminal judges. Marco Smiroldo is one such magistrate and the one who placed a monetary value on this tax fraud by virtue of the investigations conducted by the Financial Police over a period of months, and he established that a number of the slot machines were unrelated to the State Monopolies Board, with a number of officials from the State Monopolies Board thus facing charges. So, what then was the concession holders’ defence strategy? They immediately appealed to the Lazio Regional Administrative Court. Last April, the Lazio Regional Administrative Court handed down a ruling requesting that the Public Prosecutor reduce the amount to be demanded...
G.Rigido: ...then there is the matter of the culpable behaviour of the Public Monopolies Administration that waited until the National Audit Office intervened before demanding penalties and everything else, with these penalties mounting up all the while, until they reached these inordinate figures, through no fault of the concession holders, to the point where the Regional Administrative Court said: let’s re-calculate these figures, taking into account the needs of the individual concession holders and keeping in mind that for two and a half years there was no network in place. In other words, some of the blame also lies at the door of the Administration that failed to start levying the penalties earlier.
D.Martinelli: ...the Public Prosecutor then proceeded to recalculate the value of the tax fraud and came up with another figure (which we do not know because it is classified information), obviously then submitted this figure to the judges (we were not able to find out today by virtue of the decision handed down by the Lazio Regional Administrative Court) and the concession holders’ attorneys raised certain doubts regarding legitimacy, telling the National Audit Office judges that: "you do not have the jurisdiction to quantify the extent of the alleged fraud. The extent of the fraud must be established by the Lazio Regional Administrative Court". Therefore, after meeting in chambers, the judges granted the request and have forwarded the entire matter to the Court of Cassation, which will now have to decide who will make the final decision regarding the extent of the fraud. Okay? In essence, it is much like the situation where someone who gets fined by a municipal policeman lodges an appeal because he believes that he should have been fined by a Carabiniere instead and the judge then approaches the Court of Cassation to decide whether the fine should rightfully have been issued by a municipal policeman or by a carabiniere. That is the situation we’re in. This suspension will result in further delays since the Court of Cassation could take as long as six months, one year or even two years to hand down its decision, and even then we don’t know whether the Court will rule that the National Audit Office must quantify the fraud or whether the matter must be handled by a normal magistrate. And so we wait! This was the ruling and anyone that was expecting some sort of quantification was sadly mistaken. I close by simply reminding you that the figure of ninety-eight billion Euro is equivalent to three annual budgets for the Italian Government. I would also like to remind you that in Minister Tremonti’s most recent Budget amounted to 35 billion Euro and included a three-year plan, while here we’re talking about ninety-eight billion, so work it out for yourself. At this point I will love you and leave you, leaving you with a few statements I got from the Public Prosecutor and a few of the attorneys.
M.Smiroldo: ...the department that is charged with protecting the economy of the Republic, in other words the community of citizens that pay from their own pockets in order to ensure not only that the required services are provided, but that they are provided properly. We have now discovered that this service that the concession holders were supposed to provide has not in fact been provided as expected and that the party that was supposed to keep tabs on the service has failed to do so. This has resulted in certain damages and, in any law-abiding country, the extent of the damages is directly proportional to the value associated with the legality of specific behaviour. It will be up to the judge to establish the extent of these damages and, in this regard, I am confident that the Court of Cassation will rule in our favour. Thank you.
D.Martinelli: so, are these ninety-eight billion Euro then in actual fact the missing amount, or what?
M.Smiroldo: it is an estimate of the value of the tax fraud. What should have been done was not done properly and therefore certain damages were caused. An extract from one of the companies’ defence attorneys’ contentions: ...if this liability is contractual in nature, then the public prosecutor is usurping the responsibility of the current administration and is asking this Court to apply penalties that fall within the jurisdiction of the said current administration.
D.Martinelli: and you, as attorney, have nothing to say?
Attorney: no, because the company is quoted on the Stock Exchange and any news reported in the press could contain confidential information and, as such, the public relations department handles all press releases.
D.Martinelli: what I would be interested in is to obtain some sort of statement regarding the current proceedings, as regards some of the things you have said.
Attorney: no, no, I’m sorry... you know how keen I am on journalists (laughter) so, what I am trying to say is...
D.Martinelli: that you will grant us an interview?
Attorney: I’m sorry but I won’t be granting any interviews.
D.Martinelli: Oh, so no interviews?
Attorney: no, I cannot.
Other attorney: no no... I have always been willing to be interviewed, but this time we have been asked to refrain from saying anything, also because some damaging things have been said in the past...
D.Martinelli: the public prosecutor is alleging a tax fraud amounting to x billion Euro, but now instead the issue seems to be focusing on jurisdiction.
Attorney T.Varrone: it is not only a matter of jurisdiction, in other words whether it is up to the Court of Cassation or the National Audit Office to quantify the damages, but the fact of the matter is that in reality no damages have been incurred since the penalties are essentially in the process of being applied.
D.Martinelli: if there are in fact any penalties being applied, then it must mean that some sort of mismanagement has in fact occurred!
Attorney T.Varrone: there are certain penalties, but very minor ones. The main application, the one that gave rise to this stratospheric increase in the claims lodged in court, cannot even be applied because there was never any commission that could have applied the penalties, and the subsequent arrangements have led to these laughable levels.
Judge M.Ristuccia: ...given that the Lazio Regional Administrative Court has already established its jurisdiction regarding such matters... provides for the suspension of these proceedings and postpones any provisions decided on by the judges in their chambers. The public hearing is now closed."

Previous postings:
The hunt for the tax evaders

Government gambling dens

The power of silence

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 06:40 AM in Information | Comments (3)
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December 04, 2008

Open Letter to Rupert Murdoch

Sky and the increase in Sales Tax

To Mr Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation

“Dear Mr. Murdoch,
You know that the TV is in the process of dying and that advertising is migrating to the Internet. And that newspapers and TV stations have their years counted. Perhaps 5, perhaps 10, no more. Your experts have certainly kept you informed. Anyway your actions speak for that. You have invested 580 million dollars in MySpace, a social network with worldwide coverage, while the psycho-dwarf bought Endemol, a producer of old TV programmes. You have got your hands on the Wall Street Journal, declaring that you will develop it online with the 200 best journalists in the USA. Your nickname is Shark and your goal is profit. They say that you are ruthless, but there’s an indisputable fact in your favour. You have not become Prime Minister to protect your TV stations. You have not made the country, Australia, go bust. The psycho-dwarf, that gentleman that wants to double the sales tax on Sky because Europe wants it, is taking Italy to the knackers’ yard. One of his TV stations, Rete 4, is abusive. Did you know that? Have your TV stations talked about that? Even on this case, Europe has given an opinion, but no one is taking any notice. In Italy, the conflict of interests and the reasoning of the State have become the same thing.
Obama is hope. Without the Internet, he would not have become President of the United States. Before the elections you said of Obama: "He is a rock star. It's fantastic" "I love what he is saying about education." On the Internet, Mediaset does not exist. And how could it? Information can be checked, the contents are chosen freely by the one who is surfing. The quality and the credibility are the only two coins that can be spent. Mediaset has billions of euro, but it doesn’t have those two coins. The Internet and thus the future of information are beyond his possibilities. Murdoch, you should know that the psycho-dwarf is a joker. He tells jokes that are often confused with official declarations. One of the best, after the request for 500 million euro in damages from YouTube, is his wish to take to the G8 a proposal to “regulate the Internet”. His Minister of the Interior, Maroni, has announced an “ID number” for every Web user. An idea that comes from afar, from the indelible number tattooed on the arm of the Jews in the Concentration Camps. You are warned. Unless there is a denial, the MySpace users will have to identify themselves and perhaps, pay a tax. In Italy there’s need for rules except for Mediaset. For that, the ad hoc laws are enough.
Why am I writing to you and telling you all this? You are not the white horse that can save Italian information, but it’s always better than nothing. Sky has transmitted the live broadcast of my speech at the Telecom shareholders meeting and more than once it has given space to my denunciations. A minimum of space, hardly noticeable, but anyway space. I want to propose to you the periodic use of film clips that my blog has been producing for years. By now there are hundreds of them. Denunciations that have never appeared on TV. Blacked out by the cloak of Veltrusconi. You can use the film clips free with just two conditions. No advertising within them and that you cite the source. In exchange I ask for nothing. You know that the future is the Internet and that Berlusconi is the past. In the world there will be only 5 or 6 multimedia groups on the internet in a few years time. One is probably yours together with the BBC and YouTube. Mediaset will not be there and neither will the RAI. I await your reply. Greetings." Beppe Grillo

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:50 PM in Information | Comments (8)
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December 01, 2008

Mediaset uber alles

Text
”Good day to you all.
Every so often there is some enlightened thinker who makes out that Italian TV doesn’t count.
That owning a TV station in the end is marginal. That “il Cavaliere” hangs on to his stations like that, because he’s fond of them, but that in reality they don’t change how things are nor do they change elections. That may be true, however, for the last few weeks, while there is a terrifying crisis hanging over Italian politics or rather the financial crisis should be hanging over them like it is for the other political classes who are dedicating all their energy to it, our political class is concentrating its energy on TV topics.
The parliamentary committee for supervision of the RAI, for which nominations will probably come from the committee itself and from the Majority, with the collaboration of the usual quota of Opposition collaborationists, before Christmas.
And now the tax on Sky.

...


To finish off this little chat, I was reminded of what Montanelli wrote prophetically back in 1994. He was one of a limited number writing in “La Voce”, to talk about “regime” as soon as Berlusconi came to power.
A few months after Berlusconi took over, as soon as he had taken control of the RAI, by appointing Letizia Moratti, who was anyway immeasurably better than the class of leaders that is currently displayed by the people of the Centre Right.
Montanelli already lucidly understood that when those who control nominate those who are controlled and when those who are controlled are hand in glove with those who control, and when competition no longer exists because Company A is also busy with Company B, its competitor, it is a bit as though Fiat could appoint the top brass in Toyota.
OK, I made a note of Montanelli’s words, and I published this in an article I did for Micromega dedicated to the regime lickers in these first six months. On 20 September 1994 and on October 1994, Indro Montanelli, wrote two memorable articles that could be published exactly as they are even today with no problem.
”This time as well, it’s a matter of carving things up. Carried out completely autonomously, it’s true, like a killer shoots completely autonomously, given that the gun is his, and it is his finger that pulls the trigger. ..”

...

And then he launched into a forecast that is the one I want to leave you with so that you can reflect on this: “We have to get ready to present our apologies to Emilio Fede. We have always described him as a bootlicker, in fact as the archetype of this frivolous fauna, with the complicating factor of joyousness.
Often the bootlicker, having done the licking, and when their masters cannot see them, pull a face and become moody. Not Fede.
Once he has done what is needed, he smiles he gets ecstatic like a joyous goose..But I’m afraid that in a short while we’ll have to think again about him, to lament his interventions and identify them as models of objectivity and moderation.
Certain TV and radio programmes of the RAI already give us this idea (just think – this was in 1994 – what would he say if he had seen what they do on radio and TV today?) when without even waiting for the installation of the new bosses they adjust to the new climate of ‘it’s all OK, my Lady’ – the optimism that “il Cavaliere” talks about - that they have to make themselves into the ones acting as guarantors.”
Today, to set up a regime, there’s no need for a “March on Rome” nor for a blaze at the Reichstag, nor for a “coup” at the Winter Palace. It’s enough to have the so-called communication mass media: and among those the sovereign and irresistible one: television. (...)

...


We, however are inside this TV drama of “borgatari” (marginalised city dwellers), and we will soon be getting ready to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the great Montanelli, and in the meantime, so that we don’t become borgatari as well, let’s spread the word!
Ciao"

PS Thursday 4 December, the blog will be present as a reporter at the Court of Accounts for the hearing on the slot machines and the 98 billion that they are thought to owe to the State. The video will be published on the blog. See the post of 12 January 2008: “The hunt for the tax evaders”

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:29 PM in Information | Comments (4)
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November 28, 2008

Political bulletin number seventeen

The Winter Campaign is about to commence. On 25 November I met with Carnevale in the Court of Cassation. I was informed that the number of signatures we managed to collect was insufficient. However, there was one thing that I understood only too clearly. What we should have done was collect at least twice or three times the number of valid signatures required in order to be assured of obtaining the desired result. Just as happened with the “Clean Parliament” popular law. Next time around, there will be only one referendum, namely for the abolition of the Gasparri Law and the television autocracy. The signatures in support of the popular law for a Clean Parliament have finally been handed to the Senate Commission. Every Senator serving on the Commission will be called to account by this blog. One by one. Right through to the very last one (of them). 350,000 citizens have the right to see their law discussed within the Senate. 18 finally sentenced individuals are living the high life in Parliament. Millions of honest Italians are in the process of losing their jobs, perhaps precisely because they are honest people. On Tuesday 2 December I will be posting the symbol for the 5-star Civic Lists, which I registered for the 2009 local elections. The objective is to ensure that we have honest, capable councillors serving on the Municipal Councils. Councillors who are willing and able to check out the situation and report back to the citizens. The Town Councils are our Bastille. The breathing on their necks must also come from within. It must change from breathing on their necks to breathing down their necks. The social network reflected on the civic lists is almost in place, about another ten days of patience are needed... With effect from next week I will be launching the Municipal Primaries. I will be proposing a number of discussion points regarding energy, mobility, education, healthcare, social policies, the environment, construction, connectivity and water. Your comments will form the basis for the Municipal Programmes. A reference document for the Civic Lists. A meeting between the individuals whose names appear on the Civic Lists and the members of the MeetUps has been scheduled to take place in Florence on 31 January, barring any changes. "La porti una lista a Firenze, the city that is always in my heart...".

They will never give up (is it in their interests?), but neither will we.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 04:01 PM in Information | Comments (6)
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November 24, 2008

D'Alema, the one more equal than the others

Text
”Good day to you all.
Before starting off I want to give you all a good bit of advice for what to buy: just published is the collection of the second batch of nine episodes of "Passaparola".

It’s called "Senza stato, né legge..." {With neither State nor law}. I’m saying this because we are self-financing like this and it’s fair to make it known to anyone who wants to, anyone who wants to keep the series of our presentations, perhaps they even have difficulty in getting a good connection or of going online, that this is possible. We get by like this, and if there is someone who gives us a hand we can continue into the future and we can keep this space alive.
Today I’m going to talk about one gentleman, in fact about two gentlemen but one is tied to the other. The one does not exist without the other and they are creating an earthquake in that little that remains of the Opposition or what is presumed to be that in Parliament. Of this couple: D'Alema and Latorre.

...


Meanwhile, what are we talking about? About the fact that in the summer of 2005, protected by the governor Fazio and by Premier Berlusconi, but also by the top brass of the DS and the Lega Nord, a bunch of adventurers, speculators real estate people, owners of buildings, decide to get their hands on a piece of publishing, the biggest publishing house that was independent of politics, that is Rizzoli - Corriere della Sera, and on two strategic banks like the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro and the Banca Antonveneta.
Apparently the takeover-ists acted on three fronts, but in reality they are criss-crossed and the three takeover bidders were just one attempting to redesign in the image and likeness of Fazio, Berlusconi, D'Alema and Bossi, a piece of capitalism and a piece of Italian publishing.
The hands of the parties, that are by now vassals of these financiers, on a piece of the banking system and a piece of the publishing system.
The operation didn’t succeed because fortunately there was the Milan prosecutors’ office that asked for wiretaps and fortunately, there was a judge like Clementina Forleo who gave permission for that, so all of them were caught red-handed while they were all violating the criminal code and the rules of the Stock Exchange.

...


The fact that in bad faith, Italian parliamentarians of the Centre Right and the Centre Left have deceived the whole European parliament, gives the idea of what a bad situation we are in and above all of how we would be in a much better situation if at least these people who it is known for at least three years have been concocting financial scandals, were to be sent home. Instead, if all goes well, Veltroni will lose the European elections and the PD will take in D'Alema and Latorre.
Spread the word”

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:30 PM in Information | Comments (3)
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November 20, 2008

Fabullo is in Florida

Fabullo’s mother has written to me. So that, through me, she can thank all those who have offered a contribution to help Fabullo. The fund for medical care has reached 412,000 euro. Fabullo has been able to go to Florida. He is recovering motor activity. I feel happy. You should be happy. I thank you. Today is a really great day and I am not feeling the cold. Crikey, if I write another line, I’ll end up getting all emotional.

”Dear Beppe,
Fabullo and I are in Florida and we will never stop saying “thank you” to you. We’ve only been here a month and he has already had more physiotherapy than he had in two years in Italy and don’t let them come and tell me that it’s only the quality that counts. In less than a month his left hand side is already less spastic and he moves his right hand side better and he each day he is better at sitting up. Taking into account that in the first few days he had to get used to so many things it doesn’t seem so little. It’s true here that the health service only functions with payment, but it’s also true that in Italy when I wanted Fabullo to start eating again after his ictus I found the speech therapist to be really good (seriously good, believe me) but I had had to pay her anyway!!! And I tried trusting the local health service because before deciding to look for a freelance person we waited nine months and not three days.
Now, however, I am now trying not to think that all this could have been done close to home, so that, for example I didn’t have to leave the other child, but I am just thinking of my little boy who is working so hard here thanks to the help of so many people who have decided to help us like this, without even knowing us and without asking for anything in exchange. A big hug.” Angela Aimo

Previous posts about Fabullo :
Fabullo
Fabullo’s mother

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 11:41 AM in Information | Comments (0)
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November 18, 2008

G8: self-absolution of politicians

Text:
”Good day to you all.
We are not in a bunker that killers have riddled with holes, we’re simply in the studio that you have always seen, that is in the process of being remodernised. Today I would like to talk about two verdicts, but in reality to not talk about them, because one deserves silence as it tackles a question of life and death, that is, it enters directly into a private home, to a bed where there is a person, Eluana, who has been in a vegetative state for many many years, where a judge has established that with her informed consent, in the past, and her father’s consent today, to save her from life-prolonging treatment. I have no position in relation to this story and neither do I envy anyone who is taking a stand in relation to this because I believe that anyone who is speaking out about this is doing so out of turn.

...

The other verdict that it is right to talk about, even out loud (when it is issued however) is the verdict on the G8 in Genoa. Or rather, the one that was delivered the other day by the Tribunal of Genoa that related to tens of men of the security forces on trial for savage violence, taking place in the Diaz school, to the detriment of unarmed citizens who, anyway, were sleeping.

...

But in a normal parliament. In a serous parliament. In a parliament like the American one where the harshest Commissions of Enquiry on the activity of the administration are normally presided over by the companions of the president’s party, of the president and by the head of the administration. We have a parliament in which they don’t want the truth. They want to fabricate convenient and party-oriented or faction-oriented truth. They want to use the parliamentary commissions to cover their backs, to blackmail each other and to get to the end with a tidy result, where the truth counts for nothing. In the last twenty years or so the parliamentary commissions have usually but not always been used to entwine relations between the majority and the minority. Each party has its “truth” and thus they blackmail each other. For heaven’s sake, let’s not do the same thing for the events in Genoa! We have at least 13 people convicted, we have at least a verdict that is arriving and that could reconstruct the facts, let’s leave it all like that! The commissions in recent years have been used to cancel even that tiny bit that the magistrates managed to discover. Instead of opening up the spectre of the judicial truth that is really narrow to the political truth that is very broad, the parliamentary commissions give themselves the task of even cancelling out the truth coming from the trials, that little bit that the judges have discovered. In the trial of Andreotti, the verdict established that Andreotti was a mafia person up until 1980, the crime was committed but “prescritto” {timed out by the Statute of Limitations}. The Commission of Enquiry on the Mafia, instead of opening up the fan, by going to see even there where there was no actual crime but serious political responsibility, it closed down even that tiny opening that the magistracy had created. The Forza Italia president of the commission has written in black on white that the verdict revealed Caselli’s hypothesis for the prosecution to be false. That is, he used correction fluid on even that little bit that the magistracy managed to prove beyond any reasonable doubt. Let us hope that they don’t want to repeat the same experience with the G8 because, if right now, those 13 convictions seem so few, when a parliamentary commission has gone over them, we will hardly remember them. Spread the word.”

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:51 AM in Information | Comments (9)
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November 15, 2008

That thing in Lombardy

Bison in the middle of a road
Click on the picture

Do you hear that sound of hooves? They come from Piedmont, from the Veneto and from Lombardy. Two million, or perhaps three million people will lose their jobs within a year (they are already in the process of losing them). They will lose their jobs in the North, obviously, because that’s where the jobs are, while in the South they cannot lose what they don’t have. Those that go from being employed to being unemployed from one day to the next occupy the stations, hold meetings and take to the streets. However, their protests remain in a vacuum. The media prefer not to mention the problem, after all, they are ashamed to show fathers out on the street. They use gentle terms, such as “technical recession” or “reduction in GDP” to soften the blow.
Politicians and journalists (and here I’m talking about those that are mere servants to the majority) are two job categories that are immune to the crisis. Why then should they concern themselves with it? It is a problem that always only affects other people. The only consolation for the newly unemployed is that they will no longer die on the job, they will only die of starvation. An epidemic has exploded in Lombardy, where the banks are holding on to their money and no longer grant any unsecured loans, foreign companies are leaving and the Italian ones are losing market share. This may well be a war bulletin, but it is simply the tip of the iceberg. Read on, you won’t believe it!

BASIGLIO - MILAN: Astrazeneca, a pharmaceutical multinational, announces cuts involving 315 employees.
ASSAGO - MILAN: 55 employees already sitting at home (236 throughout Italy), employees of IT sector company Engineering.
ALBINO - BERGAMO: the Honegger cotton mill announces 240 retrenchments
BRESCIA PROVINCE: 180 employees of “Franzoni filati” in ESINE, 132 of “Feltri” in MARONE, 260 of “Niggeler & Kupfer” in CETO, 36 of “Henriette” in CASTENEDOLO, for a total of 606 workers in the Brescia area whose layoffs have just been announced.
SAN GIULIANO MILANESE - MILAN. The San Carlo company dismisses 19 workers.
SUZZARA - MANTOVA: Temporary contracts not renewed for 160 employees at IVECO.
MILAN: the Gabetti Company has announced the dismissal of 110 permanent employees (500 throughout Italy).
CERIANO LAGHETTO - COMO: 230 employees of Rhodia on the dole.
JERAGO - VARESE: 90 employees of Meccanica Finnord on unemployment benefits.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 03:02 PM in Information | Comments (8)
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November 10, 2008

Mafiocracy

>> SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:
On Friday 14 November, I invite all the people of Milan to go to the office and to school by bicycle. It’s the fastest, cleanest and cheapest way. Anyone going by push-bike does not depend on the price of petrol nor on the dis-service of public transport. The bicycle is revolutionary. I will be in Milan in the early part of the afternoon with my powerful legs. No to polluting vehicles that you have to pay for. No to childhood leukaemia. Yes to clean air and to the freedom to move about without the risk of being mown down. How many Milan town councillors and cabinet members go to work by bicycle? If there happens to be one I’m waiting for them to call me to speak. Beppe Grillo <<

Text:
Good day to you all.
Finally, you could say, the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission is starting off again. You know that it has been since the beginning of the 1960s that the Italian Parliament has put in place the bi-chamber Anti-Mafia Commission to fight the mafia, especially in its relationships between the mafia and politics.
There’s a contradiction: politics fighting against the relationships between the mafia and politics is like saying the mafia is fighting the relationships between the mafia and politics.
And in fact, at least in the last fifteen years, it has never fought them; from the time, that is, that there has been no strong Opposition against the ones in Government but there are, on the matters that count, pretend divisions between the majority and the Opposition and then substantial unanimity.
In fact, as we know, in the last fifteen years, all the serious regulations in relation to the fight against organized crime are those contained in Totò Riina’s “papello” {his list of conditions)..."

...


A day after that, on 10 June, Calvi escaped from Italy, and as we know he ended up hanging under Blackfriars Bridge.
Nine days after Pisanu told Parliament “it’s all under control, there’s no problem for the Ambrosiano Bank” - his government, that of Fanfani, put the Ambrosiano Bank into insolvency. It was declared insolvent and thousands of savers who lost everything they had, found themselves destitute.
Then, both the Ambrosiano Bank and the Andino Bank had a normal bankruptcy.
The P2 Commission, whose president was Tina Anselmi, summoned Pisanu because Angelo Rizzoli, (the publisher, and at that time the owner of Il Corriere della Sera, P2 member, then involved in the collapse, and he too was arrested) said: “in relation to the Andino Bank, Calvi told me and Tassandin (the P2 man at the top of Il Corriere della Sera) that it was Calvi that made Honourable Pisanu’s present his speech in Parliament. Someone told me that to make that speech Pisanu received 800 million from Flavio Carboni".
This accusation that is later brought up again by Calvi’s flunkey, Pellicani, has never been confirmed, so we can consider it to be false or not proven. But the issue is political: Pisanu is the gentleman who went public. It was he who went to Parliament to say that the Ambrosiano Bank was marvelous while it was on the verge of collapse.
All because of his conflict of interests, that is his relationship with Carboni, with Calvi and with Berlusconi.
In the P2 Commission there’s an unleashing of the Oppositions: the most vivacious were Teodori, of the Radicals and Tremaglia, of the Movimento Sociale, who have a variety of colourful words about Pisanu.
If you want to, you can find in "Se li conosci li eviti" the details of those terrifying days, so much so, that they are shouting “resign, resign, resign!” and in the end, on 21 January 1983, Pisanu resigned from his position as Under Secretary to the Treasury.
Then later he comes back into another government and is recycled by Forza Italia, because you know that nothing in Italy is thrown away!

...


Why am I saying all this? Because it is evident that a serious Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission, wanting to deal with the relationship between politics and mafia, could, for example, start with the Cuffaro case.
And in the case of Cuffaro, find out whether there were institutional deviations.
And perhaps summon Berlusconi and Pisanu. But if the president of the Antimafia is Pisanu, could he summon himself? Yes, he would have to look at himself in the mirror and ask himself questions and give himself the answers. Spread the word!" Marco Travaglio

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:40 PM in Information | Comments (0)
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November 09, 2008

Niki is no longer with us

This is the testimony of a mother who has lost her son, and it is arguably the most appalling testimony ever posted on this blog.
I hear what she is saying, yet I cannot believe it.
A young man with no criminal record, arrested, locked up in a maximum-security prison without anyone being allowed to speak with him or contact him in any way. He died three days later. According to official sources, he committed suicide.
I cannot believe that such things can happen in a Country that claims to be democratic. I would like to hear from the Public Prosecutor that signed the arrest warrant, as well as the prison governor and the attorney. I still want to believe that this was simply a tragic error.

Text:
"My son was arrested in Cattolica on 19 June 2008. Since that day I was never again able to see him nor speak with him. He was arrested and when I was eventually allowed to see him, what I saw was an experience that I don’t wish on any mother! My son was arrested for an alleged offence and he was in protective custody. The word custody says it all! They should have given my son back to me standing on his own two feet, just as he was when they took him away. Instead, from the moment of his arrest, everything became more complicated and nothing was ever the same again. I was told that he had been arrested and taken to the Rimini prison, and that he was only transferred to the Sollicciano (FI) Prison the following day because they needed him there to be questioned by the magistrates. The first statement is false: my son was never in Rimini. My son was arrested and his first stopover in jail was in Sollicciano at 19h45. He was arrested in Cattolica, having been called by the mother of the owner of the firm for which he worked because her son had been arrested the night before. She had asked him to go and see the attorney in order to find out what was happening.
My son, the one who was acting in total good faith, the one who made no attempt to escape, but went directly to this attorney in Cattolica, was arrested the moment he came downstairs and went through the door. From that moment on, he was allowed no further contact with his family. In the prison admission report from the Sollicciano prison, we see that he told them that he had an attorney and that he had telephoned his family, but I received no such telephone call from Sollicciano. It is also stated that his mother should be contacted in case of need or any other eventuality. In other words, me. Why then was I not contacted? I only found out about the events on the following day. I was told that he had been transferred. All good and well, and thus began the telephone calls putting pressure on me in an attempt to get me to change attorney. I tried to find out the name of the company’s attorney in order to find out what was going on because, at that moment, my entire world was collapsing around me! Everything was escaping me. So I telephoned the company’s attorney, a certain Mr. Marcolini, who was the person that had originally told me that Niki had been arrested, however, not even he knew anything. We had to wait for the police interrogation in order to find out precisely what my son was being accused of. I wanted to move to San Marino because I live in Avezzano, but the attorney told me: “No Madam, you won’t be allowed to see him or speak to him in any event because he has been placed in solitary confinement for three days”. Therefore, we would only be able to find out precisely what he had been charged with on Monday morning, once he had been questioned. Meanwhile, pressure was being put on me to change attorney, but I refused, asking “Why?” By that Sunday I couldn’t stand it any longer. I went to the attorney’s office, spoke with him and I mentioned the fact that perhaps a telegram should be sent to Niki, suggesting that he change attorney. Marcolini told me not to worry about it because when a prisoner is in solitary confinement, he is not even able to receive telegrams. Why, instead, was another telegram delivered to him? A telegram that I only got to see a few days ago (November 2008 - Ed). It stated that: “You must appoint attorney so and so..” Must! It was an order. Well, during those three days my son changed his attorney, appointing the one whose name appeared in the telegram. Meanwhile, Marcolini had been recused.
During the course of the interrogation, this new attorney came down and told me that, at that time, Niki should exercise his right to say nothing, just as the others had done but, instead, he was talking. The attorneys I had brought along left at this point, while I stood around waiting outside. After a while I saw the armoured Police van moving in to pick up my son and I ran toward the vehicle. All I wanted was to see my son. We understood each other perfectly and a single glance would have been enough. I wanted to say to him: “Don’t worry Niki, I’m here”. However, those officers in the police van pushed me away with needless violence. They told me: “Go away, otherwise we’ll arrest you too, you must remain at least twenty metres away from the police van”. Then I saw my son exit the building, he turned towards me and they proceeded to turn his head the other way. Who had they arrested? A 26-year old young man with no criminal record! He had never before been in trouble with the law. Never! This was the first time ever! What would have been so bad about allowing him to look at me? This was the last glance we ever exchanged. I then waited for this new attorney, a woman, and I asked her: “What did Niki say? What happened?” She answered me as follows: “Niki wanted to talk, stating that he wanted to collaborate because he wanted to get out of there. So I let him talk. I asked him to explain to me precisely what was going on”. She then said: “Madam, I need to examine the case since I was only appointed the other day …”. That was precisely what the company attorneys that I had spoken to told me would happen. Clearly she could not have known this … I also had some clothes to take to the prison because Niki had taken nothing with him. I again appealed to the lady attorney saying: “try to see whether I can speak to him even just for a moment and even with you present, I don’t care how. I also have some clothes for him”. The attorney tried her best, however, I found out that 48-hours notice had to be given even for the clothes to be accepted in a super-prison. My question is WHY? Why was my son taken to a super-prison? First offence, no previous criminal record. There is no way that my son would have committed suicide in any event, but even less so without leaving me something in writing. Nothing makes any sense here! If this was such a major investigation, precisely what role did the telephone service providers play in this matter? Why were they never mentioned? They are mentioned in the arrest warrant. In addition to the Internet sites, a job that my son was very good at, he had also been involved in the deals with the telephone service providers. But how come their names were never even mentioned in the newspapers? And why was no application submitted for a rogatory to be held in San Marino? In other words, I go into a thief’s house, I arrest the thief but I don’t bother to look for the loot. Does this seem right to you? The rogatory was necessary in order to seize the computers that could perhaps help to explain precisely what was actually going on. Why did this not happen? Twenty days after my son’s death, I sent my husband and my brother-in-law to talk to the owner of the apartment in San Marino where my son had been living. It turned out that the apartment had been totally cleared out. Not even a single one of my son’s socks was left behind. I was not even able to lay my hands on something that smelled of my son. So, who was it that was so keen to clear out that apartment? Perhaps the seventeen other people arrested, whose situation could have been aggravated? Or perhaps someone who was afraid that they could land up in jail because of the information stored on those computers? They disappeared with everything! Everything! I didn’t even get back the keys to my own house. How am I supposed to defend him? How am I supposed to try to make head or tail of what happened when I have nothing left? What am I supposed to do? Please help me, I can’t do it alone! The person that sent the telegram and the person that burgled the apartment, do we know who they were working for? It costs very little to arrange these things. What I want to know is who gave the order to get my son to change attorney. Who gave the order to have the apartment cleared. I want to know who is behind it all! We cannot keep hiding behind monsters speaking of names. Are there any existing recordings of tapped telephone conversations? When a telephone call goes from one number to another, it means that there are two people speaking on the line. If you and I talk to each other, then why am I the only one that gets arrested? Nevertheless, by mid July these excellent suspects were still at work, doing precisely what they had done before. My son, instead, has been lying under two metres of soil since 24 June. The Solliciano prison medical officer, Doctor Franco Corleone, stated in an interview with La Repubblica that he had spoken with the prison governor who, in turn, had told him that just after the exercise period – and here it is important to understand the timing because the exercise period lasts from nine-thirty to ten-thirty – when my son had just made use of the opportunity to grab a breath of fresh air, he had then, according to the official verdict of suicide, gone back to the bathroom and hung himself. In that same interview, Franco Corleone added that: “You know, Niki had already shown signs of psychological collapse when he changed attorneys”. Dear Doctor Corleone, that was no sign of psychological collapse. He was ordered to change attorney. He would not have done so of his own accord. What did Doctor Franco Corleone say to the prison governor? Why did the autopsy show that death had occurred at 10, while the “118” emergency services were only called out at 11:15. Does that mean that you could have saved him? Could he have been saved? Believe me, absolutely nothing tallies! The prison gave me the archived records, but I ask myself, how can you archive something when nothing tallies? Just the day before his death, my son had asked to be placed in a cell with other Italian inmates, preferably non-violent ones. What does this tell you? Did he want to stay alive or not? In my opinion he did, otherwise he would have said “Put me with whomever you wish”. I know precisely what he would have done had he really wanted to commit suicide. The statements made by Niki’s two cellmates also don’t tally. One apparently asked the other: “Where is Niki?” and the other apparently answered: “He went out for some exercise”. In the other cellmate’s deposition, in response to the same question, he answers: “Niki went to the bathroom to wash his clothes”. I have to ask myself precisely where Niki actually was? Furthermore, there is also another statement from one of the prison warders, in which he states that: “Niki spoke to me. He appeared to be quite relaxed. He asked me “When are they going to question me again?” according to the warder, this questioning session took place at 10. The exact time that my son apparently died. I have to ask myself when exactly did this warder talk to my son? And where, because it is not specified? I appeal to all you journalists out there. Don’t concern yourselves with the idiotic news reports that we hear on a daily basis on the television, rather act like serious journalists. Stick your heads into these prisons. Reading through the “Prison Information” booklet, I discovered that all sorts of things can and do happen during the exercise period, since all of the cells are open and inmates have access to cells other than their own. My son was supposedly in custody. Who was looking after him? " Ornella Gemini

Ornella Gelmini's blog: nikiaprilegatti.blogspot.com

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 07:09 AM in Information | Comments (0)
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November 04, 2008

The P2 is alive and is fighting us

Text:
“Good day to you all!
I have been leafing through my documents that relate to the P2, because you know that the P2, I’m not saying that it is coming back, for that you would have to suppose that it ever went away and in reality it has always been there and it has always been fighting with us.
Perhaps it would be interesting to understand the reasons why some people are worried about the return of Licio Gelli to the TV in place of Aldo Biscardi: the evolution of the species is remarkable – and what the P2 was.
Unfortunately, anyone born after the finding of the lists, has heard it talked about but they didn’t experience the climate.
I remember that the P2 lists were found in the office of the venerable master Licio Gelli in Castiglion Fibocchi in March 1981 by the Finance Police, who were sent by two Milan magistrates, Giuliano Turone and Gherardo Colombo
First of all, what was the P2? It started off as a regular lodge of the Grande Oriente d'Italia, it became “border line” and in the end, after the discovery of what they had got up to, completely rejected by the Grande Oriente d'Italia.
Licio Gelli was considered to be one who was a deviant in relation to the rules: it was a Lodge that was not only private but super-secret.
It was an "atlantic" Lodge, that is it was super-faithful to the Atlantic Alliance and thus very pleasing to the United States: Gelli was present at the festivities for the election of Carter, thus at the election of a President in the Democratic Party, he had close ties with the Argentine Generals and with the South American dictators.
At the time of the liberation war in Italy he was at the same time a fascist and an antifascist. He naturally pretended to be antifascist but he played the role of double dealer that he has always played.
The P2 was not at all a subversive organisation in that it wanted to overturn the established order: in fact it wanted to maintain and stabilise the established order.
It’s not by chance that the "plan of democratic rebirth", was according to Gelli in a way the political-institutional programme prepared by Gelli and his advisers at the end of the 1970s in great secrecy.
It was handed to the Head of State, who was Giovanni Leone, and Gelli was friendly with many politicians like Andreotti, he often met up with Claudio Martelli, and he communicated with Bettino Craxi.
He was not at all an opponent of the established order wanting to overturn it: it was a subversive Lodge in as much as, to maintain and crystallise the status quo it was willing to empty out the Constitution and Italian democracy from the inside, to transform it into something else, into a model of a modern authoritarian State still governed by the same: Christian Democrats, Socialists Party and allies to prevent the arrival of the Communists

...


Anyway, and here we come to the last part of today’s Passaparola, it’s not only Gelli who is in circulation. Gelli spreads out his blackmail, his allusions, his winks etc.
But what is news is the fact that it makes the news. In recent years we have heard the same things that he is saying. But if it’s someone else saying them, well then, it’s OK.
I always ask myself how we can be scandalized if Gelli has a TV programme in a small TV channel, while we are not scandalized if his favourite pupil is in Palazzo Chigi.
And yet he says and does things that not even Gelli ever dreamed of saying or doing.
And Gelli is not the only active P2-ist who is active. I am not in favour of purges, you need to evaluate case by case. But it is interesting to know who are the characters who formed part of the P2 Lodge.
Because if you get to know who they are , at least you can act accordingly and you can try to understand the reason why they are in the positions they have.
In alphabetical order, I will mention just a few of them: Silvio Berlusconi, membership number 1816, payment received for joining up and for the regular payment in 1978, degree one apprentice.
Who had presented him to Gelli? Roberto Gervaso.
Fabrizio Cicchitto, membership number 2232, handwritten membership application, membership card suspended for lack of photo. This was written down.
Now Cicchitto is the leader of the Popolo delle Libertà {PDL} in the Lower House and he talks every evening on all the main TV News programmes. Why him and not Gelli?
He was in the Socialist Left and when poor Riccardo Lombardi discovered that one of his favourite pupils was in the P2 he put him outside and made him cry.
Maurizio Costanzo, membership number 1819 – he was only three numbers away from Berlusconi – but he was at third degree: Master mason. He was at the highest degree just below Gelli.
While Berlusconi was only an Entered Apprentice.
This is the interview that Costanzo did with Licio Gelli in Il Corriere della Sera: “For the first time, Mister P2 is speaking, the discreet fascination of the hidden power”.
A photo of Garibaldi, a photo of Cagliostro.
Whereas this is the interview that Costanzo did a few days later with another famous P2-ist, Silvio Berlusconi, still in Il Corriere della Sera, that as it happened was controlled by the P2 through the editor Tassandin, the director Franco Di Bella and Umberto Ortolani who was Licio Gelli’s Right Hand Man.
Donelli Massimo, membership number 2207, he too was at the first degree: Entered Apprentice. OK, this Donelli is very important today, he is the director of Canale5.
Do you understand?


...


In the P2 list there were also 13 magistrates who were disciplined by the CSM {Governing Body for Judges}, but not all of them were sent away: there’s one of them in Rome and he’s called Giuseppe Renato Croce, at the Real Estate Section of the Rome Tribunal.
A few years ago he asked many times for the archiving of a trial that was close to the heart of Dell'Utri against a judge who was judging Dell'Utri in the Court of Cassation and had confirmed the definitive conviction for fiscal fraud. He too was in the lists, membership number 2071, signed up in 1979.
This in tiny chunks is the picture of the P2. Today the P2 no longer exists but the P2-ists do.
Some will say that at times they come back. No, I would say at times they stay!
Thus, let’s ask ourselves how is it that in the United States they are about to elect a President who, whether it is Obama or McCain, is new and unknown, and until last year unknown to the political press and we are still here in 2008 and we are raking up the people like Cossiga, with the strategy of tension, with those like the marbled Andreotti in TV as we saw yesterday, with those like the embalmed Licio Gelli.
Why is it that for us the past never passes away?
Spread the word.”

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 12:39 PM in Information | Comments (3)
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October 31, 2008

"Get out of there, Francesco"

Francesco a Piazza Navona

09:41. The Government says: "No infiltrators in piazza Navona"
Infiltrators in piazza Navona? In his report back to the Chamber regarding Wednesday’s clashes, Francesco Nitto Palma denies it categorically. "The suspect is a young man from the 'student block' and he is currently under investigation ". The undersecretary then went on to speak about the truck carrying right wing extremists that entered piazza Navona: "It is a perfectly normal occurrence during any kind of demonstration for trucks to somehow get into the squares ". from Repubblica.it

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 05:10 PM in Information | Comments (6)
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October 30, 2008

Maroni and the detailed instructions

The “agents provocateurs” and the State Police


Yesterday in Piazza Navona there was a lorry that the Police permitted to enter the square.
In the lorry there were helmets, truncheons, perhaps knuckle-dusters and a score of “agents provocateurs”.
“Agents provocateurs”, not students.
The “agents provocateurs” beat up the students in full view of the Police.
One of the “agents provocateurs”, has affectionate relations, great friendship with the Police, as though they are colleagues.
The square was really full. A lorry with truncheons and hooligans could only have been there in two possible scenarios:
- because the Police permitted it in response to the orders of someone.
- because the Police were not in control of the square
Maroni, Minister of Home Affairs, who accepts detailed instructions, one who carries out the orders of the psycho dwarf, should explain to us what happened and after that he should resign.
Politics has gone bust. The citizen can only have a dialogue with a police officer in anti-riot gear.
If the Police is not enough, then the infiltrators arrive, that way the newspapers and TV channels of the regime can shout about the “encounters between students”
Journalists, are you not ashamed? Your words are worse than the “tricolour” truncheons of the fascist thugs in Piazza Navona.

PS: Can anyone manage to identify the person in the red circle in the video? Leave a comment.


Testimonianze da Piazza Navona


Declarations from eye witnesses in Piazza Navona

From Curzio Maltese’s article on Repubblica.it:
…. I’m following the group that is moving in front of the Senate and comes across a leading official. “You can’t stand still while they are beating up my students.” are the words of protest from a white-haired lady. A female student raises her voice: “And tell him to protect them, that you want encounters!” The official shouts: “Learn some manners, bimba!” The teacher gets angry: “Do your job, put a stop to those who are being violent!” The response of the official: “But the violent ones are left wing”. The people cannot contain themselves: “Left-wing? With the swastikas?” The white-haired teacher shows him a big crucifix that she has round her neck: I am Catholic. I have been teaching for 32 years and I have never seen a violent action from my students. There are people with sticks who are beating up unarmed youngsters. What does it matter if they are left wing or right wing? It is a crime and you must intervene.”

LATEST: The response from the Maroni’s Lega: “Really serious are the words of Grillo, the preacher. Let him put a stop to these words that sound like those of an irresponsible people-leader: there’s no need for someone to contribute to rousing the spirits and cynically throwing petrol onto the fire.” Says the Lega Deputy, Carolina Lussana, vice president of the Justice Commission at Montecitorio…. “I invite all the various chattering Grillo-followers to stay silent and stop throwing shadows onto the work of the security forces who are trying to guarantee the safety of the demonstrators and all the citizens.”

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 07:03 PM in Information | Comments (3)
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October 27, 2008

Immortal Rete4

Good day to you all.
Today I want to talk about two court verdicts that you will have hardly heard about.
You will have heard of one of them, without knowing the ins and outs. Of the other one I believe that you will never hear about it.
Let’s start with that one.
A few years ago, Antonio Di Pietro said, as many of us have said, given that we know the facts, that Rete4 is abusive.
To be clear: Rete4 according to the Constitutional Court, for exactly 14 years should not belong to Berlusconi, or if it should still belong to him, it should no longer be broadcasting on digital analogue, on channels that we see when we press 4 on the remote control of the TV.
Because no private individual can own more than 2 TV channels and Berlusconi owns three.
After that, it is broadcasting thanks to laws done specifically to allow it to broadcast.
Thus, from the point of view of the laws, what is happening is strictly legal. In reality it is unconstitutional and for the last few months, since January this year, it is also illegitimate as it is incompatible with the European regulations that, as you know, have precedence: the European laws have precedence over the national laws, so they should send him away.
I’m saying this because each time that someone says that Rete4 is abusive, even though it has been legalised “ex-post” to do what it is not allowed to do, Mediaset takes action for defamation.
I have had a lot of court actions, many people have had court actions for having said this simple and elementary truth.
OK, usually these court actions turn out for the best in as much as we take along the verdicts of the Constitutional Court, and now of the European Court in Luxemburg and the judge finds in our favour.
This time something extra happened. Di Pietro found that the finding was in his favour and the case was archived. The case was brought by Mediaset because he said “Rete4 is abusive”, the judge wanted to add something extra.
Let’s see.
The verdict is 4 pages long and it was given on 15 October. The Milan judge for the preliminary investigations, Vincenzo Tutinelli, took note of the request coming from the Milan Prosecutors office that the case be archived, and also that Mediaset was opposed to the request for archiving. He held a hearing and decided to archive the case.
Why did he decide to archive the case? Because it is not defamatory to say that Rete4 is abusive. Why is it not defamatory? Because Rete4 is abusive, thus to say so is not defamatory but it is saying the truth.

...


Certainly, if someone starts to use insults… but if one uses the appropriate terms, one can even deliver the harshest criticism.
Why? Because the freedom of expression protected by article 21 of the Constitution does not protect the right to applause, but above all, the right to criticize.
And that is the first verdict. The second, at least you will have heard the heading. It’s that one about Calogero Mannino, former regional secretary of the DC, former DC Minister, one who moved peacefully from the first to the second Republic and today is happily seated in the Senate with the UDC.
The Union of Cuffaro, Casini and Cesa. And also of Mannino.
OK. The other day he was absolved in the second appeal trial having been accused of external collaboration in mafia associating.
The wording is the same one they use when they absolve a politician who is covered with evidence: they say that there is not enough proof.
It is the usual comma 2 of article 530 of the code of criminal trial procedures, the same that they inserted into the verdict at the first level that absolved Andreotti, also for insufficient proof.
The same wording used when they absolved the president of the Province of Palermo, Francesco Musotto.
The same wording used for so many trials against Berlusconi, obviously for a diversity of accusations, starting with the verdicts of the Court of Cassation in relation to the kickbacks to the Finance Police.

...

The usual ending: spread the word.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 09:04 PM in Information | Comments (0)
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Congo reviolé

Mass rape in the Congo

The world has stopped in the Congo. A country where there’s a new word: reviolé, raped again.
The biggest mass rape in history is happening in Africa between a news item from Wall Street and a fall in the Nikkei from Tokyo. Ms Muhindo from the “Olame Centre” in the Congo, said: “It is a shame not just for the Congo but for the whole of humanity.”
In the Congo, rape has been a weapon of war since 1996, when five million people died. Since then, it has been endemic. Used by all parties to the conflict.
The West, like the stars, just look on. One of the most important UN bases is found in the Congo. It has 17,000 soldiers. Their official mandate is to use every means to protect the civilians. But they don’t lift a finger.
The central government and the numerous armed groups to the East of the country are in permanent conflict and tens of thousands of women, of any age, are both the prey and the weapons involved in the fighting.
Many of them, having survived the preceding conflicts, are raped once more, “reviolé”.
The law in the Congo does not have the crime of rape. To be raped with a gun or to be shot in the vagina is not mentioned in the criminal code. Vénantie Bisimua, the founder of "Network of Women for the Defence of Rights and Peace" in Congo explains that the government has other priorities. The same as those of the foreign States that eagerly tap in to the Congo’s mineral resources and do nothing.
In Afghanistan and in Iraq there’s fighting for oil. There’s witnessing of the massacres in the Congo so as not to disturb the multinationals and the raw materials.
Anyone wanting to help the women of the Congo can get in touch with " Social Aid For the Elimination of Rape (SAFER)" at the University of Toronto.

Read the article about the “reviolé” in The The Globeandmail.

PS: But wasn’t Topo Gigio Veltroni going to go to the Congo?

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:14 AM in Information | Comments (2)
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October 24, 2008

Kick Cossiga out of Parliament

"Non dovrebbero avere pietà e mandarli tutti all'ospedale"

"Maroni should do exactly what I did when I was minister for Internal Affairs. In the first place, he should just leave the high school students alone, because, just think what would happen if a youngster were to be killed or seriously injured... Leave them be (the university students - Ed). Pull the Police forces off the streets and out of the University, then send in some “agents provocateurs” to infiltrate the movement, people that are up for anything and leave the demonstrators for about ten days or so to ravage the shops, set fire to vehicles and lay waste to the cities. Then, having gained the support of the public, the sound of the ambulance sirens must drown out the sirens of the Police and Carabinieri vehicles. This is because the forces of law and order should not show any pity whatsoever and should send the lot of them to hospital. Don’t arrest them, after all, the judges would immediately allow them back onto the streets. Rather, you must beat them and also beat up those lecturers that are spurring the students on. The lecturers above all. I’m not saying the elderly ones, certainly, but the little girl teachers yes... this is the recipe for democracy: put out the flames before the fire takes over ".
Interview with Francesco Cossiga. Honorary President of the Italian Republic and senator for life.

Cossiga has finally confessed. This must be noted. At the end of the day, you have to admire his sincerity, because not even Totò Riina ever risked this much. All he did was say what the majority of Italians already knew: Italy is not a true democracy. Perhaps it never was. How many lies have they told us ever since the days of Piazza Fontana? Regarding the events surrounding the G8 meeting in Genoa? Who was it then that set the timer running for the Government sponsored massacres?
Cossiga has given us a masterful lesson in applying the strategy of tension. Now however, after those statements, he should be kicked out of the Senate and his nomination as honorary president of the Italian Republic should be withdrawn. I am keen to see whether or not any member of Parliament or Senator will bother to propose such action to Parliament.
If Cossiga retains his position, it will be shameful for the country and an insult to the professors and their students. He should not be beaten because he too is an elderly lecturer. He should simply be taken off to a private retirement home. I would suggest villa Wanda in Arezzo so that he doesn’t feel too much alone. There, together with Licio Gelli, he will be able to re-live the old days and talk about Gladio, Moro and the secret services...

Just a word of advice for the youngsters: take video cameras with you to the demonstrations and always film anyone you see committing any acts of violence. Then we will all be able to see precisely who they are, where they come from and whether they are "ruffians" as the psychodwarf likes to call them, or rather "agents provocateurs up for anything" as Cossiga suggests.

This blog will remain available to the students and the professors who want to send in their video clips of interviews, demonstrations and beatings (of which there will be many, I am sure). On the top toolbar, headed "La Scuola in diretta", the video clips will be scrolling continuously over the next few days. Post your video clips on YouTube and send a notification to the blog.
They will never give up, but neither will we.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 07:18 PM in Information | Comments (11)
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October 22, 2008

The School Live

Student protest - piazza Cadorna -Milan


The name of Piero Calamandrei, perhaps will not mean much to the students who are protesting against the seventy year old decrepit people who have stolen their “here and now” from them and are wanting to take the hope of a future as well.
His name, perhaps, will not have meaning for the young lads and lasses who are seeing the top brass in the institutions, in the world of the economy, of journalism in their country who are people with previous convictions, servants and lackeys.
Calamandrei perhaps means nothing to our youth who see the Constitution betrayed by Parliament, thousands of those who have died at work each year, millions of precarious workers and their father, or perhaps their mother, sacked.
Calamandrei was a professor during fascism, one of the few who had never asked for the party ticket. He founded the Action Party and he was a member of the Constitutional Court. The same Court that today is a unit of exchange between the psycho dwarf and Topo Gigio. In 1950 he delivered a speech about school, words that seem to have been said today about the School of the P2.

Calamandrei’s hypothesis
”Let’s put forward the hypothesis, just as in the abstract, that there is a party in power, a dominant party, which, however, formally wants to respect the Constitution, and doesn’t want to violate it, in fact. It doesn’t want to do the March on Rome and transform the Chamber into lodgings for groups of men; but wants to set up, without appearing to, a veiled dictatorship. So, what’s to be done to take over the schools and to transform the State schools into Party schools? It notices that the State schools have the defect of being impartial. There is a certain resistance; in those schools there always has been, even underneath fascism it has been there. So the dominant party follows another path (it is all a theoretical hypothesis, let’s be clear). It starts to not take care of the State schools, to discredit them, to make them poor. It lets them lose blood and it starts to favour the private schools. The schools of the party, of its party. So all the care starts to go to these private schools. Care in terms of money and privileges. They even start to advise the youngsters to go to these schools, because they say, basically they are better than the State ones. And perhaps they give rewards, as now I will tell you, or they propose giving rewards to those citizens who are disposed to send their offspring to the private schools rather than the State schools. To “those” private schools. The exams are easier, there’s less to study and the success is better. So the private school becomes a privileged school.
The dominant party, not being able to openly transform the State schools into private schools, lets the State schools go to rack and ruin to give the advantage to the private schools. Take care, friends, in this conference, this is the point that needs to be discussed. Take care, this is the recipe. We need to keep an eye on the cooks of this base kitchen. The operation is done in three ways: as I have already told you: ruin the State schools. Let them collapse. Make their balance sheets impoverished. Ignore their needs. Relax the supervision and the controls on the private schools. Don’t check up on how serious they are. Allow them to have teachers without the minimum requirements for teaching. Allow the exams to be ridiculous. Give public money to the private schools. This is the point. Give public money to the private schools.” Piero Calamandrei
Speech delivered by Piero Calamandrei to the Third Conference of the Association in Defence of the National School, in Rome 11 February 1950.
They will never give up, neither will we.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 06:44 PM in Information | Comments (4)
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October 20, 2008

North Korea Information

Text of the talk:

“Good day to you all.
Many people on Beppe’s blog and on my own blog voglioscendere.it, have asked me to talk about my conviction at the first level for defamation in relation to Cesare Previti.
I don’t intend to do that as I don’t intend to use this space for my own business.
I believe that to defend oneself in a trial you need to go to the trial and if you don’t agree with a verdict you should appeal against it. The verdict does not exist yet. It has not yet been deposited. That will happen in 60 days.
It’ll be possible to read it, and to understand what this judge found that was defamatory, in an article that is on my blog, so that anyone wanting to, can get an idea.

...


Let’s go on because the news items that you will never hear are mounting up. For example I don’t know whether Riotta feels called to account but there’s the Financial Times that reckons that in Italy, Berlusconi receives from the media, the TV channels and many newspapers, “ treatment ... nearing North Korean levels of adulation.”
Who knows whether the journalist, Guy Dinmore, who writes from Turin has ever seen TG1 to get this idea according to which Berlusconi is treated equally as well as the Dear Leader, Kim Il Sung as they call him in Korea.
Let’s see if he was referring to TG1 or not: “North Korean levels of adulation.”
I don’t think another really significant fact has ever been told, that news item from abroad that helps us to understand what is happening in Italy in relation to other countries and what are the standards of democracy here with us as opposed to normal democracies. Normally the foreign news is done by the guy with the curls from England, they talk about strange characters – some who are good people - but others who are very strange who think that as they are abroad that they have to add colour, superficiality and they have to be friendly.
They are always talking about some murky affair in the European royal houses, tittle tattle and gossip. Foreign news has become gossip.
For example: Mandelson, the king of aluminium and the super-yacht. New scandal for the former European Commissioner.
”The Labour politician, as soon as he has been called back to the government by the Prime Minister Brown, risks having to resign for the third time.” What will he have done this man who was Blair’s collaborator, Minister of Business? He’s done something so enormously bad, so much so that there are those who are betting ten to one on his early departure.
For four years he was Commissioner of the European Union for Trade and now an unedifying indiscretion hangs over him.
He spent the summer in Corfu in the Rothschild villa and so far nothing bad.
”But one great evening attached to the quay of the villa is Queen K, the super-yacht owned by the Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska, also known as “the king of aluminium”.
What did Gordon Brown’s intrepid Minister do? He went on board the yacht for a few hours. According to some, for a drink, according to others even for dinner and to spend the night. He accepted hospitality for one night on the yacht of a Russian oligarch. Now they are asking whether he should resign as a Minister.

...

Another item of news from abroad: Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin has lost ground, beyond what she lost for her ignorant remarks every time she opens her mouth, because it has been discovered that in Alaska, where she is the governor, there is an investigation by the American Congress, that relates to the sacking of the Chief of Police for the State of Alaska, Walter Monagan.

...

And obviously I hope that you will take action to ensure that this news gets circulated because unfortunately TG1 has not given this news.
Spread the word.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 07:08 PM in Information | Comments (3)
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October 18, 2008

The price of honesty

Case e cadaveri
Clicca l'immagine

The price of honesty is becoming increasingly intolerable. In order to be honest in Italy, you have to pay protection money to the Government. Someone kills your father at work and all that happens is that they are sentenced to pay you some compensation. However, the company’s insurance policy had expired at the time of the accident and the owners are penniless. Having won the court case, the family is condemned not only to pay their own court fees, but also those of the guilty parties, who claim to be completely destitute. 9,000 Euro is the price to be paid for honesty, and for the death of a person.
Samantha Di Persio’s book "Morti Bianche" (Workplace Deaths) is freely available on this blog.

"Dear Mr. Grillo,
I am writing to you because, while I was browsing on your site today, as I do virtually every day, I noticed the book that talks about "Workplace deaths". On the morning of 28 April 2000, my mother received a telephone call advising her that my father had been injured in a serious accident at work and that he had been taken to hospital. From then, my father spent another 42 days in a coma before sadly passing away on the morning of 9 June 2000. The owners of the company where the accident occurred were insured, however, the policy had expired on the very day of the accident, and so, notwithstanding the many “reassurances” given by their insurance broker, the insurance policy was obviously declared null and void.
The two joint owners of the company were condemned (an investigation had been conducted) and subsequently lost a court case instituted by my family and I, during which the judge also established the amount of the compensation to be paid to the widow and her children (although this would never bring back my Father, who meant the world to me!).
And what do you think happened after this absolute tragedy struck us and changed our lives forever? We never received any compensation (even though, I repeat, my Father meant the world to me) because the then former owners of the company shrewdly decided to arrange things so that, to all intents and purposes, they had no personal assets and so, by law, there was nothing that could be attached. It would appear that one of these two is now earning a salary (apparently a starvation wage) working for a company registered in his father’s name, while the other has gone into hiding and also does not appear to have any personal assets to his name (even though it seems that there is even a boat registered in his son’s name).
Is that the end of the story then? Nooooo…, not even maybe! Two years ago, an account arrived by post, at my home, from the Tax Authorities, demanding payment for certain unpaid court fees owed to the Court of Livorno and amounting to some nine thousand Euro. Through my attorney, I asked what the meaning of this was, since we instituted and won a court case in which the judge ruled that my mother, brother and I were entirely in the right. The response? “Certain costs have been incurred and the court is not particularly concerned about who won the case and who lost, the important thing is that these costs are reimbursed! And so, since the two guilty parties appear to have no personal assets and are, therefore, untouchable in terms of the law, guess who now has to pay up? Kindest regards." Luca Giacomelli

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 03:51 PM in Information | Comments (7)
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October 15, 2008

Clean Stock Exchange

Would you entrust your savings to a convict unless he was pointing a gun at your head? To a person waiting for a verdict on crimes of fraud, bankruptcy, tax fraud, usury? Anyone who buys shares needs to have a guarantee. The integrity of the people who are managing the company in which the investment is made is an economic item of data, not just a criminal item. In the world of business, reputation is everything.
The criminal record of the administrators must be visible on the request to buy shares. One can choose based on the crime. I have a bit of money on one side and I asked my brother where it was best to invest, whether in a fraudster, a usurer or in a bankrupt. He suggested the Casalesi.
On the Stock Exchange, there are about 270 companies. Each one has a CEO, a president, a director general and a Board of Directors. Consob should publish on its website the list of the convicts and those who are waiting for a verdict. The Stock Exchange must be CLEAN. Otherwise, its better to go to the gambling hall and it’s more ethical, or to entrust our family wealth to organized crime, it’s safer.
Below I’m citing a few names. They are among the Lords of the Stock Exchange. The ones who make decisions about the future of your money. The list is much longer. Parliament compared to the Stock Exchange is a centre of gentlemen.
Clean Stock Exchange. Let Draghi give himself a shake. This is the favourable moment for a law on ethics in the Stock Exchange. Let him ask for consultancy to the psycho-dwarf’s family.
- Roberto Colaninno. Sentenced to 4 years and 1 month for bankruptcy in the Italcase-Bagaglino collapse in December 2006, with prohibition on holding public office for 5 years, the penalty then condoned thanks to the Great Pardon. He is President of IMMSI and of Piaggio and is a member of the Board of Directors of Mediobanca (source: Italian version of Wikipedia entry)
- Salvatore Ligresti. Involved in Tangentopoli, arrested and convicted for kickbacks. After having negotiated 2 years and 4 months, he was under the supervision of Social services, and returned to the activity of construction, then Board member of Unicredit, Immobiliare Lombarda and Premafin Finanziaria. (source: Italian version of Wikipedia entry)
- Cesare Romiti. Sentenced to eleven months and 10 days in prison for irregularities related to the period in which he was CEO of the Fiat Group, Board member of RCS Mediagroup and Impregilo.
- Cesare Geronzi. In the trial for the collapse of Parmalat he is under investigation for aggravated usury and fraudulent bankruptcy. In the collapse of Cirio, he is under investigation for fraud in relation to the issuing and placing of Cirio ‘bonds’ through Capitalia. For the Italcase collapse convicted at the first level for bankruptcy and sentenced to one year and 8 months plus the prohibition on exercising the office of Director in any company for 2 years. He is president of Mediobanca. (source: Italian version of Wikipedia entry)
- Paolo Scaroni. In July 1992, the years of Tangentopoli, he was arrested and accused of having paid kickbacks to the PSI on behalf of Techint. In 1996 there was the trial in which Scaroni asked to negotiate the sentence: one year and 4 months, under the threshold for imprisonment. In 2006 he was on trial in the Tribunal of Adria, as CEO of Enel at the time of the events, for having allowed the Porto Tolle generating station to pollute the territory of the Po delta. After that he was sentenced to a month in prison as an indication of his guilt, but the penalty was converted into a fine of 1,140 euro. CEO of ENI, Board Member of Assicurazioni Generali. (source: Italian version of Wikipedia entry)
IMMSI, Piaggio, Mediobanca, Unicredit, Immobiliare Lombarda, Premafin Finanziaria, RCS Mediagroup, Impregilo, ENI and Assicurazioni Generali are all companies that are quoted on the Stock Exchange.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:57 AM in Information | Comments (6)
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October 13, 2008

Carnevale in the Court of Cassation. Falcone and Borsellino in the cemetery

Text:
”Good day to you all.
Today I am thanking some journalists because we still have one or two, thank goodness.
And that’s good because at least we don’t feel useless. The first journalist that I would like to thank is Milena Gabanelli.
Not just for last night’s splendid edition of Report, in which we saw the collapse, at the second or third question, of the great patriot Colaninno who was to have saved Alitalia.
Last night we learned that as yet there is nothing decided, that the price that they are offering to take the healthy part of Alitalia has still to be verified.
But above all we learned that the famous commitment by the sixteen patriots of the CAI consortium in reality is a lie.
When Gabanelli placed the CAI plan under the nose of Colaninno asking him where it is written that the sixteen are committed to not selling, Colaninno started to laugh, as though he was saying “you too know that it is there!”
However, not even he managed to find it.
We also learned that the official purpose of CAI up to this moment, is to deal in haberdashery, that to me doesn’t seem to be synonymous with aircraft.
But Gabanelli needs to be thanked, above all together with Giovanna Bursier who looked after the Alitalia report, for having discovered what even the parliamentary Opposition had not discovered.
You will say: “Well that’s not difficult… the Opposition hardly exists…”.
Just think that when Di Pietro voted “no” to the constitutionality of the Alitalia decree, the Democratic Party found nothing better than to abstain.
They even abstain for the Alitalia filthy law.
OK, in this decree, at the last minute, as usual, there has been inserted – with the favourable opinion of the government – according to the Chamber’s official transcript – an amendment that the newspapers have called save-Tanzi, save-Cragnotti, save-Geronzi.
The problem is that with all the shadow governments, all the big brains that there are in the Opposition, but also all the big brains that Tremonti has in his head and around himself, no one noticed that the government had given the green light to this amendment that means throwing in the sponge for all the trials for bankruptcy even if fraudulent.
In order to be criminally responsible, those who have led their companies up the creek or those that administered them, it is necessary that these companies are declared bankrupt.

... "

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October 12, 2008

Excellent Municipalities, good news

Operazione "Fiato sul collo" a Rivoli (To)

Now that the tidal wave of debt, bad payments, public debt, variable rate mortgages, unemployment queues and retrenchments has finally caught up with us, this is the right time for us to look to the future, starting with our local Town Councils. Starting with our own areas. In order for us to claw Italy back, metre by metre, from the hands of the politicians that are rotten to the core. If we don’t do it now, when will we then ever be able to do so?
Municipalities have the power to change the whole of Italy. Excellent Municipalities, good news. Whatever happens in one Municipality can be replicated in 8,000 other Municipalities. It is like a good virus, the virus of knowledge.
In the coming weeks, this blog will be starting up two initiatives, as follows:
- a social network, in which the blog’s civic lists will be able to share experiences and contacts
- a book by Marco Boschini, entitled "Viaggio nell'Italia dei Comuni a cinque stelle" (A voyage through Italy’s 5-star Municipalities), which is freely downloadable on line and describes the activities of all the virtuous Municipalities throughout the whole of Italy.
Today we have received some good news regarding three virtuous Municipalities: Colorno (Parma), Settimo Rottaro (Turin), Correggio (Reggio Emilia).

"Colorno's 'Environmentally friendly crèche'":
The municipal crèche in Colorno has begun implementing a new initiative called the “Environmentally friendly crèche”.
The project involves the trial use, during October and November, of washable nappies instead of the biodegradable disposable ones, which were introduced by the current Town Council with effect from the last school year. The washable nappies offer a number of advantages all at the same time, namely: the children’s wellbeing (they are made of natural fabric without any synthetics), a reduction in the amount of refuse and a cost saving.
An intervention for the benefit of the environment and the health of the citizens.” www.comune.colorno.pr.it

"Settimo Rottaro, 'Fountain delivering both natural and sparkling water'"
A public fountain delivering both natural and sparkling water has been inaugurated at Settimo Rottaro.
The fountain will enable all of the residents of the town to take back control of a precious asset, namely water, while reducing the amount of waste produced by the use of bottled water. The fountain is able to deliver chilled natural or sparkling water. This proves that concrete, financially viable and sustainable actions do not always have to remain a pipe dream." www.intornoallago.it/Settimo_Rottaro

"Correggio, 'The solar-powered Municipality'"
From 2005 to the present, a number of energy saving interventions have been undertaken, involving renewable energy sources. Solar-power systems have been installed at the secondary schools, as well as solar heating plants at a number of sporting facilities.
These interventions have been accompanied by the upgrading of public lighting in the area. Here are some of the more significant data regarding energy savings: Approximately one thousand 125 Watt, metal iodide (white light) light globes have been replaced with 70 Watt, high-pressure sodium (yellow light) light globes. As regards the overall power usage, this has gone down from 602 kW to 538 kW, which is an energy saving of some 64 kW; the amount of energy consumed in one calendar year has dropped from 2,509,019 kWh down to 2,314,991 kWh, a difference of 275,028 kWh, which is equivalent to avoiding the emission of some 184 tons of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in a single year. The overall level of ambient lighting has indeed risen from 6,000 lumen (unit of measurement of light intensity) to 6,600: therefore, thanks to new light fittings and sodium light globes, energy has been saved by means of better lighting." www.comune.correggio.re.it

With the collaboration of Marco Boschini, Comuni virtuosi.

Ps: Antonio Di Pietro oggi lancia il referendum contro il "Lodo Alfano" a Piazza Navona. Potete seguire la diretta dal suo sito. Firmate contro la legge che protegge la banda dei quattro.

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October 06, 2008

The ethics of blown up balloons

I’m publishing the first part of Marco Travaglio’s presentation.
“Good day to you all. Today’s password was issued the other day by “il Cavaliere”. I will quote it word for word because it is a sensitive issue: “We must absolutely bring back ethics to the world of finance”.
Make a note of it, keep it in mind.
Silvio Berlusconi, President of the Council, 4 October 2008: “Bring back ethics to the world of finance”. Perhaps it was the feast of St Francis of Assisi that induced him to these thoughts that are so distant from his own world. Or perhaps it’s the closeness to his daughter Barbara, who just in recent days launched a conference on the topic “ethics in finance” at the university. And she even brought her mother, because maybe someone didn’t believe that the one organizing a conference on ethics in finance could be the daughter of Berlusconi.
“Ethics in finance” this is the teaching that the premier wanted to deliver …”
...


*PRECISION ON WHAT I SAID IN TODAY’S PASSAPAROLA
So far there have been 17 trials for Il Cavaliere {Berlusconi}: 5 are ongoing (Saccà corruption, corruption senators, Mills judicial corruption, Mediaset secret funds, Telecinco in Spain) and 12 that have already finished, and then various investigations that have been put on file (6 for mafia and recycling, 2 for the mafia slaughters in 1992-93 etc.). So bringing things together in detail. In the 12 trials that have already finished, the absolutions on the facts were just 3: 2 with a formula involving doubt (comma 2 art.530 Cpp) for the secret funds of Medusa and kickbacks to the Finance Police (“insufficient evidence”), 1 without reservations for the Sme-Ariosto/1 case. Other 2 absolutions- – All Iberian/2 and Sme-Ariosto/2 – carry the formula “the action is no longer seen by law to be a crime”: the defendant decriminalized it for himself (false accounting). For the rest: 2 amnesties for false testimony about P2 and false accounting regarding the Macherio lands; and 5 time-outs for the Statute of limitations, thanks to generic extenuating circumstance, that are conceded to the guilty and not to the innocent: All Iberian/1 (illicit financing to Craxi), Lentini case (false accounting with the time limit for the Statute of limitations halved by the Berlusconi reform) Fininvest 1988-’92 accounts (same as above) 1,500 billion in secret funds in the consolidated Fininvest (as above), Mondadori (judicial corruption of judge Metta through Previti, both of whom were convicted). Marco Travaglio

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October 02, 2008

Have you too been wiretapped?

Enter your name in the search engine.

Has Telecom Italia wiretapped you? From today, you too can find out.
The blog puts at your disposal a search engine.
Anyone who has possibly been wiretapped, with the simple entry of his first name and surname will be able to find out if they are named in the 371 page document of the Milan Public Prosecution deposited on 14 July 2008. A basic document in the criminal trial against 34 people, including Ghioni, Mancini and Tavaroli and against two companies: Telecom Italia and Pirelli, but not of their administrators (?). The wiretapped person will find out on what page of the Prosecution document they are cited and they will be able to gain access to the document.
Those who have been spied on are about 5000 people, an average small provincial town, and they belong to all social classes. Bankers, journalists, managers, footballers. In the list there are also ministers and top level Carabinieri. Those who did the wiretapping didn’t bother about anyone’s status, if they were to be wiretapped they were wiretapped. But they didn’t take orders, they had no bosses. They used Telecom like a taxi without even paying the fare.
Tronchetti and Buora didn’t know, couldn’t ,didn’t want to know. However they benefited from colossal salaries, bonuses e stock options.
The search engine can be used to find out if your next door neighbour has been wiretapped, or your wife, or your husband. You can discover a heap of stuff. If someone has been wiretapped and they don’t know, you can send them an email with their data.
My lawyers tell me that whoever has been wiretapped can bring a court action against Telecom Italia. A prudent calculation of the compensation that the wiretapped could ask for with a class action is two billion euro. If I were Franco Bernabè I would take action now, before a possible court case, with a letter of apology in the name of the company to all those who have been wiretapped and with compensation.

PS Insert in your blogs the search engine to find the wiretapped.

Insert in your blog <div style="width:150px; height:90px; border:1px solid #A0A0A4; background-color:#fff;margin-top:3px;"><a href="http://www.beppegrillo.it/intercettatitelecom"><img src="http://www2.beppegrillo.it/intercettatitelecom/mt-static/testata_banner.jpg" /></a><center><form method="GET" action="http://www.beppegrillo.it/intercettatitelecom/search/sessearch.php" id="search-form" style="border:1px solid #A0A0A4;width:125px; margin-top:4px;" ><input type="text" name="q" id="search" value="Enter the name" onclick="if (this.value=='Enter the name') { this.value='' }"/ style="width:100px; vertical-align:middle; align:middle; border:0px;font-size:10px;" ><input type="image" class="form_search_go" src="http://www2.beppegrillo.it/intercettatitelecom/mt-static/submit.gif" value="submit" alt="Cerca"/ style="margin:2px;vertical-align:middle;"></form></center></div>

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:35 AM in Information | Comments (4)
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September 30, 2008

With neither State nor laws

I am publishing the first part of Marco Travaglio’s presentation.

”Good day to you all,
I’m just getting this sheet that I am printing out as I need it for this presentation. It has been another great week. To read the newspapers and listen to the TV News you’d think Alitalia is safe! In reality Alitalia no longer exists. It is a company that is being liquidated and, as I hope can now be understood after the Annozero programme, it has been gifted at our expense, to a consortium of strange gentlemen who have no competence, no interest in air flight, but who have a great deal of competence in political relationships and political favours. Active and passive favours. And there’s a massive need for favours for our political class in relation to that flight as you have seen, Rome-Scajola-Rome, that Alitalia guarantees while Scajola is a Minister, and thus even now. Everyone is wrapped up in saving Alitalia that is not saved because it no longer exists and that will probably cost us more than three billion euro, which equals the cuts in spending on schools for the next few years. We are cutting three billion for schools and losing thousands and thousands of elementary teachers and employees to go and pay the debts of a public company that is gifted to sixteen flag-waving brothers.
Everyone is so tied up with joyous celebrations that instead should be funereal and it was not at all inevitable if the healthy part of Alitalia had been placed on the international market, the part that has been gifted to the 16 crafty ones. Probably the foreign carriers like Air France, Lufthansa, or BA, would have liked to buy the whole lot.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 01:08 PM in Information | Comments (2)
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September 29, 2008

Employees of the town, we are coming…

Fiato sul collo: {Breathing down your neck} Pozzuoli



The “Breathing down your neck” initiative is getting proselytes. Antonio Di Pietro is not just a supporter but he is also making available his mayors, cabinet members and town councilors. Anyone who wants to, can go and ask for their help to film the council sessions.
I have created an area "Fiato sul collo " {“Breathing down your neck”}. with a banner to be spread over the Internet. I will publish the up to date list of the transparent towns that, on their own initiative, publish videos of their council meetings. Don’t be intimidated by any scoundrels, do your filming and publish your videos on YouTube with the tag: "Fiato sul collo" {“Breathing down your neck”}.

"Dear Beppe,
In Italy, information is disappearing and with it the citizen’s wish to fight for it. The population is disillusioned, tired and hypnotized by a thin layer of indifference and resignation. Piazza Navona was a strong signal (and we’re back there on 11 October for the referendum against the Lodo Alfano) just as the V-days have been, The wish to fight exists but the newspapers and the media are suffocating it by making it seem that this country is aligned and in favour of the dictatorial direction imposed by a political class at its moment of sunset.
I and my party are giving our all, we will not stop and they will not stop us.
On 6 September you wrote an article on your blog called “Municipalities: masters of our own homes!”. As I was watching that and seeing the video of the young people of Vicenza being moved away while they were filming the town council meeting I was not surprised. As soon as I leave the closed world of politics, from Parliament, from the conferences with this media, I receive a thousand signals of a desire for change.. People in the street embrace me. I am getting hundreds of emails supporting me every day. The Internet is as though everything is known. Outside Parliament I and my parliamentarians, we don’t feel alone, but with the citizens on our side and there are so many, millions.
I have invited the town councilors, the cabinet members, the mayors of Italia dei Valori throughout the land to become promoters of the Comuni Trasparenti {Transparent Town Councils} initiative. The right to inform and to be informed is allowed by the Constitution. No one can prevent a citizen, and our elected representatives to film or to arrange for the filming of sessions and public events like the town council meetings. Even the sessions of the Chamber and the Senate are in live streaming. Any rule that allows the contrary at a local level is waste paper. Anyone who uses the security forces to move away anyone who is doing a recording is guilty of an abuse of power. As part of the initiative I have offered legal assistance to anyone to whom this right has been denied. This is valid for those young people of Vicenza and for others in the future.
I invite anyone who finds obstacles placed in their way while recording town council meetings to check and see if there is an IDV representative in their town council, to contact them and to present themselves with that councilor at the next session of the council. With renewed expressions of esteem."
Antonio Di Pietro

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September 26, 2008

Kill us All

Our youngsters are the only ones that can still save this Country and this is our last remaining chance. Without their commitment we have no future. Sonia Alfano is asking for help for the young people of Calabria involved in the "Kill us all" movement, who are fighting alone against the "monsters with all the money and the power". They are fighting against the mafia groups, against the lack of justice and for freedom of information. They are risking their lives on our behalf too. Now they are asking for our help.

"Dear Beppe,
It would be great for us hold a discussion concerning the logic behind all of the battles that we are fighting through the Meetups, through the associations, through the civic lists and through the various movements. Also, before asking us what we want to be “when we grow up”, wouldn’t it be great to also ask us how, for whom and with whom we intend to undertake our civil disobedience battles. I have asked myself this question many times while considering what is happening to the Kill us All movement, an anti-mafia movement into which I and numerous other family members of mafia victims have brought our experiences and our hopes and that is now, unfortunately, no longer able to survive on its own.
If you take the time to read the letter written by Aldo Pecora and Rosanna Scopelliti, it will feel like you have been punched in the gut because every word oozes both dignity and bitterness all at the same time.
The whole of Italy felt admiration for these youngsters on the day after the Forugno murder in Calabria, quite rightly holding them up as symbols of a Country that has been humiliated but still retains a great desire to be re-born.
All the politicians mollycoddled them, initially accompanying them to all the demonstrations and then, as soon as these youngsters publicly denounced this exploitation, they then tried to drag them into court, by sheer weight of lawsuits. Not to mention the numerous mafia-style “warnings” sent to these youngsters indirectly.
Since then, began an unequal battle, above all in Calabria and defined by Aldo and Rosanna themselves as a battle against “those with all the money and the power, leaving us increasingly relegated to the sidelines of the studios, the professions, employment and the rights of the citizens, while others with decidedly inferior qualifications but far more friends in high places has been able to obtain degrees, consultancy contracts, commissions and sponsorships. Their “army” is getting stronger and more invincible by the day, while ours is jumping through hoops simply in order to survive and support the activities of those magistrates and members of the forces of law and order that find themselves having to pay out of their own pockets for petrol for their squad cars and toner for the photocopiers in their barracks, police stations and Public Prosecutors’ offices”.
Thanks to the Internet, however, they have managed to survive and launch the www.ammazzatecitutti.org website on line, which, over the years, has become Italy’s top anti-mafia social network. At the same time, the Web presence gave rise to support from various regions, leading the group to establish more “Kill us all” groups throughout the whole of Italy.
Although isolated from everything and everyone, they were nevertheless the first to reveal the connivance between the 'ndrangheta and politics in Calabria, on the Internet, courageously revealing the names and surnames of well known personalities who were later arrested and are awaiting prosecution. In the same way, it is only thanks to them that there is a possibility of the re-opening of the investigation into the murder of Judge Antonino Scopelliti, Rosanna’s father, murdered by the 'ndrangheta on behalf of the Cosa Nostra soon after he first laid his hands on the documentation regarding the Maxi-court case in the Court of Cassation.
That is why, in 2007, I decided not only to join them, but also to become the Movement’s co-ordinator for Sicily and to actively participate in its spread to other regions by getting involved in national co-ordination activities.
We were first in line when it came time to show support for Public Prosecutor Luigi De Magistris, when we took to the streets of Catanzaro with thousand of young people and various associations and set up stands where signatures were collected in support of the man. We helped him to feel less isolated by proving to those that wished to eliminate him that he had tens of thousands of honest citizens standing behind him.
Now it is we who are at risk, because we need to collect at least 30 thousand Euro in order to enable us to pay our creditors and to fully ensure the future of the website, which has been targeted on numerous occasions by all sorts of computerised attacks.
In their letter, Aldo and Rosanna are rather provocatively asking all our supporters to become “shareholders”, promising in return that the Kill us All movement will never be allowed to go the same way as have Alitalia and Parmalat.
We only have two weeks left. For me it is enough to have gotten to know these splendid youngsters in order to strengthen my resolve. Now I am asking you and the friends of the Blog to not leave us all alone”. Sonia Alfano, National co-ordinator of the “Kill us All” anti-mafia Movement and President of the National Association for family members of mafia victims.

To contribute to the self-funding of the Kill us All association:
- ON-LINE by CREDIT CARD, click on the link:
Paypal_Donazioni_Ammazzateci_Tutti
(It is not necessary to be registered with Paypal in order to make a contribution on line, all you need is a MasterCard, Aura or Visa Credit Card)

- BANK DEPOSIT:
BancoPosta
ASS.NE "I RAGAZZI DI LOCRI - AMMAZZATECI TUTTI" - IBAN: IT14X0760103200000080253792 - ABI 7601 - CAB 3200 - c/c n. 80253792 - CIN: X – enter the following in the “reason” box - "Donazione Autofinanziamento 2008/2009".
For deposits from abroad, kindly include the BIC/SWIFT Code BPPIITRRXXX

- POST OFFICE CURRENT ACCOUNT SLIP:
ASS.NE "I RAGAZZI DI LOCRI - AMMAZZATECI TUTTI" – Post Office Current Account No. 80253792
Reason - "Donazione Autofinanziamento 2008/2009"

- DEPOSIT INTO "POSTEPAY" CARD No. 4023 6004 6083 8552

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 06:24 PM in Information | Comments (2)
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September 23, 2008

Mills on trial, Berlusconi convicted

I’m publishing the text of Marco Travaglio’s presentation:


”Good day to you all. Today I should have still been talking about Alitalia, but we will talk about that on Thursday on Annozero, when we start again, on RaiDue, and we will have the opportunity to reflect on that. Today I would like to talk about an issue that links Israel and Italy. Perhaps because I heard, at the end of some TV News programme, that Prime Minister Olmert has resigned as he had promised.

According to the newspapers, Olmert was under investigation for corruption. In reality, in Israel, the crime of illegal financing and corruption are the same thing so he is accused of having taken money without recording the money in the accounts of his election campaign.
He has been accused after he became Israel’s Premier following the ictus that struck the previous Premier Ariel Sharon. He has not yet been sent for trial, that is, he has not yet been formally charged, he has already been interrogated three times and each time it was he who rushed to the magistrates.
In the end he decided that in that situation he could not stay as President of the Council of State in Israel. He announced his resignation and then precisely he resigned and will be replaced by the woman minister Tzipi Livni.
Why am I talking about Olmert? Because this summer the inverse has happened in Italy: as usual, with us, in similar situations dissimilar results follow – in fact the opposite happens.
Berlusconi, defendant – he was sent for trial, already in an advanced stage of the discussions at the first level for judicial corruption of a witness, the Englishman David Mills – under investigation for having bought – or tried to buy Centre Left senators a year ago.
A defendant with a request for being put on trial for having bought the services of a director of the RAI that is the competing company, that is also paid by us, in relation to his company - and is in turn sent for trial in another trial for tax fraud, false accounting and misappropriation – the trial of the Mediaset rights, the one in which he is accused of having disproportionately inflated the real price of scores and scores of films bought in America, not directly by his companies but that were bought by misty companies of the Fininvest Offshore division that passed them from one to the other and each time the film passed from one misty company to another, the price increased.
At the end this whipped cream of surplus price in relation to the real price, ended up, according to the accusation, in the pockets of “il Cavaliere” and his family members.
OK, a gentleman in these conditions – two trials happening in the Tribunal and two preliminary hearings happening in Naples and in Rome not to mention all that comes before, that is the 6 time-outs for the Statute of Limitations, the 2 absolutions on the basis of the decriminalisation of the crime of false accounting that he did – let’s forget that … - a gentleman in those conditions, he too decided that it was not appropriate that a President of the Council has investigations and trials that are ongoing.
It’s just that instead of resigning, he cancelled the trials that were happening with the Lodo Alfano.
In Israel they didn’t have the same idea, it didn’t occur to Olmert to do a Lodo Olmert to abolish the investigations against himself: he had the good thought that a Premier under investigation is the one who must go.

...


Who tells the story of the scandal of a law done especially for Berlusconi to block a trial that he continues to block even now that he is out of it?
Who tells the story of the scandal of a Parliament that is called together and sent away according to the hearings and trials for Mills and no longer for Berlusconi?
Who tells the story of the scandal of a Premier who freely lies in front of the justice and in front of the Italian People?
Have you found any trace, apart from the gossip about the young and delightful female lawyer, in recent days on the TV?
It seems to me that we haven’t known anything, as we have not known anything about Alitalia, in fact the TG1 news continues to lick the feet , to say no more, of the government consortium, directly calling the strikebreaking commanders to talk against their own unions in favour of the government.
It’s 360 degree regime information and naturally there’s the same antidote: spread the word!"

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 12:39 PM in Information | Comments (1)
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September 15, 2008

The politics of whores

Good day to you all,
This "Passaparola" is dedicated to Abdul, he was 19 years old, an Italian citizen, but he was born in Burkina Faso
He was with his family in Milan. He was showered him with punches to murder him shouting: “die dirty negro” a few uncouth Italians from the Po valley, two days ago, suspecting him of having stolen some biscuits in a bar.
I don’t think I’ve heard anyone calling for security: usually when there is a crime with the roles reversed, they talk about security, zero tolerance, exacting searches in certain environments.
Well, here we should do some searches among certain uncouth Italians from the Po valley of Arian race environments, of white skin, but evidently mayor Moratti is a lucky woman.
Just think if it had been the other way round, if it had happened that a black skinned citizen, even though Italian, rather than being the murder victim had been the killer.
By now we would have had the TV and the newspapers overflowing with humanity about this issue, instead of Abdul’s security who has had the security of being killed accompanied by the shouts of “dirty negro” and there are no shouts neither from the right nor from the left.
Close brackets. It is exactly about security that I wanted to talk because this has been another great week.
We have these Ministers who take it in turns so we have a week each with brilliant ideas.
We have this lady, signora Mara Carfagna who unimaginably is Minister of Equal Opportunity.
If you look at her, she has these fixed eyes full of amazement, like brackets, that denote the surprise with which she herself heard the news that she had become a Minister and it has stayed printed on her face.
She doesn’t even manage to get rid of this amazed expression: “But what ? Me a Minister?”. They’ve all got eyes popping out on stalks, even Angelino, even Bondi, Calderoli.

………….

Instead of going to see the true problem, that is: does the law function? They promise us that the law will produce this effect: will it really produce this effect? No, this is too serious as a set up.
Usually the newspapers and the TV channels provide a debate with pros and cons: is it right to arrest the prostitutes and their clients?
Well then, VIPs, sub-VIPs those who frequent whore-houses, pimps, former pimps, pimps-in-training who put in their spoke by saying: “ah yes, I have tried it, the prostitute is useful.” : “ah yes, I have tried it, it was useful but it’s no good any more.” “No, it’s not right” “Yes It’s OK”
And no one goes to look, really, to see whether the law works or not.
A few years ago, already the debate was in full swing about the crime of being clandestine. There were those who said “let’s do it”, there were those who said “no”.
No one has the courage to do it because, exactly, it would mean arresting hundreds of thousands and so what did they do? The La Turco-Napolitano law and then the Bossi-Fini law, that were practically identical in that respect, they decided to punish not those who were in Italy without documents, but those, in Italy who did not show their documents when they were stopped by the Police.
The crime was failure to show identity document without a justified reason.
What happened? That the judges saw before them, thousands of immigrants who had not shown identity documents to the police officer or the Carabiniere who had stopped them.
Why? Because it was obligatory to arrest them. It was a crime with obligatory arrest.
It’s just that it was exactly like the crime of prostitution on the streets, a crime with impossible proof, thus with obligatory absolution.
The judge questioned them and said: “but you didn’t show your document”, the other one says “yes”, the judge: “why not?” Did you have a justified reason?”, “Yes”.
And what is the reason why you didn’t show your identity document?”
”I don’t have an identity document.”
Does it seem like a justified reason or not, for one who does not show this document, that fact of not having the document?
Sure it’s a justified reason! So, according to a school of thought in jurisprudence anything but impulsive, they were all absolved, until the Court of Cassation came along to get some order into an issue that didn’t relate to goodie-goodie judges who absolved immigrants, but politicians without brains who wrote laws with their feet and then marvel if they don’t work or if the judges don’t manage to apply them.
That’s why we continue to hear talk about security from the time we had short trousers and we don’t see a scrap of security
Because we cannot give security for reasons that we have explained on other occasions: we will be secure when Berlusconi and the caste of the unpunished are no longer secure.
And they in their turn, in order to be secure with their crimes unpunished, cannot allow justice to work to give us security.
So – OK – take it away with the adverts.
The only way of breaking this vicious circle that gives popularity to a government that doesn’t do one just thing, is that of spreading the word.
So spread the word!
See you next Monday!”

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:34 PM in Information | Comments (2)
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Spontaneous organisations throughout the territory

MeetUps throughout the world
Click on the image

The number of spontaneous groups throughout the territory is growing. There are 505 in the whole world. More than 73,000 people. In Italy they are all over, from Ferrara to Siracusa. MeetUp is now in Italian. Even Rutelli would understand it: "Pliis, visit ouur mitap!" The Internet has come into reality with the MeetUps. The citizens who have no representation can now represent themselves. They can do films, make denunciations, make proposals. And make themselves available through the civic lists for managing their own town.

MeetUps in Italy
Click on the image

Democracy done by delegating to the secretary of the party, without even the possibility of choosing the candidate is tomfoolery. 7 or 8 people conditioned by the lobbies, the mafias and Masonic groups decide everything. From water, to energy to justice. This period of our history will be remembered as that of the forgetfulness. The Italian is forgetting he is a free man and that he has been at the centre of Civilisation for centuries. They want to transform us into a people of slaves. They have written that I want to go abroad, but it is they who will go abroad. Craxi has prepared the rut even for the others.
Create islands of direct democracy in your towns or sign up to the existing MeetUps.

Propagate and multiply yourselves. The future is you!

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:46 AM in Information | Comments (2)
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September 13, 2008

Drab Grey Nights

Town peripheries house peripheral people, but nevertheless important ones. Far away from the historic town centres and the residential quarters, the outlying peripheries have a social function. They are the city’s trash bins. Those that live there are the dregs of society, those that are often swept under the carpet of indifference, such as the non-EU citizens, the druggies, the pensioners living on the minimum state pension, the unemployed and the temporary workers.
Town peripheries have no Christmas lights, nor do they have soldiers patrolling the streets. Oftentimes they don’t even have streets. You are unlikely to ever hear anyone say: “Let’s go for a stroll in the periphery”. There are no lights, shop windows or stars in the night sky in the town periphery. There are no trees either. The periphery is neither a town nor is it a village. It is a state of being, but those living there are not dead souls.
Nothing will grow on a bed of diamonds, but flowers do grow on a bed of compost, and that is why the rubbish dumps are always situated in the town peripheries. The gulls and the crows and the rats live in the town peripheries. The poor people and the illegal immigrants and the gypsies live in the town peripheries. They are capitalism’s new ghettos. The bus service doesn’t go out as far as the town periphery, nor do the Police’s squad cars. Stolen cars are abandoned in the town periphery, where they become makeshift homes.
The people living in the town periphery are all very different. Withn the town itself, the people are all very much alike. The buildings in the town periphery are all also very much alike. Tall, grey and ominous buildings, facing onto a dirty pavement and designed by an architect who specialises in designing prisons. Town peripheries are growing constantly, but they will never grow enough to become a town. They can, however, become a community. The town periphery is a place where, in order to survive, people need to help others and accept help in return. Town mayors organise “White Nights” (all night shopping) in their towns, including bright lights, excesses and gifts. All that happens in the town periphery, however, are the drab grey nights.
For tonight, I have organised the first “Drab Grey Night” as an alternative to the “White Night” arranged by the Municipality of Genoa. This is the first of many to be held throughout the whole of Italy. It will be held, starting from 21h00, in the “Centro Edilizia Popolare” (Public Housing Estate) at No. 14, Via della Benedicta, at the premises of the Consorzio Pianacci. It will take the form of a public meeting to discuss the degradation that is occurring to the west of Genoa. The meeting will also be attended by local priest Monsignor Giorgio Parodi and bio-architecture expert, architect Alberto Sasso. Entrance is free and any donations received will be handed over to the Sisters of Saint Maria of Calcutta and to the local Aid Association that is hosting the event.
Ps: You can send your video links on this topic to the section entitled: "Send in your video clip". These will be listed in sequence at the end of the posting. The aim is to provide comprehensive video footage, YOUR video footage, within 24 hours or the length of time between two successive postings.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 07:54 PM in Information | Comments (0)
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September 11, 2008

Coal Towns

The operation "Fiato sul collo" {"Breathing down your neck"}is producing the first effects. Mayors and town councillors who are used to managing the town as though it were “Their Thing” are reacting. Not by talking to the voters, but with denunciations and court actions against the citizens. Who can vote but cannot be informed, and cannot film PUBLIC meetings of the council.
Our administrators are piranhas who are swimming around in waters that are muddied by the compensations, the deals, the favours. They are, almost all of them, piloted by the parties. An incinerator in the territory can give rise to the position of deputy in the next legislature. A new rubbish tip and you find yourself in the Senate. The State companies like ENEL and the municipal companies have precedence over the rights of the citizens. If it should happen, (very unlikely), that some magistrate should want to clarify the town council discussions, there’s his transfer. If it should happen, (almost impossible), that an administrator ends up under investigation, he is promoted to be a parliamentarian for having distinguished himself on the ground. Faithfulness to the party is a sure investment.
Today I am publishing the video of the Desio town council meeting. The citizen who recorded his employees has been called by the Carabinieri and threatened with a court action by two town councillors.
And, today, I’m also giving space to the inhabitants of Tarquinia denounced by the town administration after a civil protest carried out during the town council meeting of 13 August to protect health and the local companies, so as not to die of cancer because of the coal fired power stations.
On that occasion, the majority of the Centre Left that is leading the town decided to give complete authority to the Mayor to accept economic “compensation” from Enel, in compensation for the really serious pollution that the coal fired power station at Civitavecchia will cause.
From the website Nocoketarquinia:
”The mayor is not protecting the agricultural and tourist companies and is choosing coal, this has emerged from the numerous communications of the town of Tarquinia that chooses polemics rather than responding to the solid topics that relate to the conversion to coal of the Civitavecchia power station, like that related to the economy. To honour the truth, it is however necessary to have clarity on a topic that our mayor uses even too often, on which he would like there to be a sort of reassuring role: the “monitoring”. The mayor of a city has full power and the duty to put a stop to the TVN power station. But by choosing to take the money dirtied by coal, it is evident that the mayor of the town of Tarquinia has not chosen the protection of the territory: he stays on one side and watches the environmental monitoring, that by law is within the competence of the regional and national institutions. A mayor should protect the citizens and their economy, rather he is giving better explanations about the relation that there is between the technical role of the monitoring and the money that he intends gathering in from the Enel agreement. Let him then explain why he is taking money from Enel for an institutional role that is not within his competence, the monitoring, perhaps with the control centres bought exactly from the electricity company that gets itself controlled by the same mayor that is accepting their money. Hello! We are not as stupid as you would like us to be. In fact in the discussion of 13 August, the mayor was not delegated by the town council to do the monitoring, but to take money from Enel, it’s not possible to mystify the reality to this point. The mayor of Tarquinia could have chosen to stay on the side of the citizens and of the economy of our territory. He chose to stay on the side of Enel, on the side of those who take money and he has nothing else to do but “monitoring”.
The companies that exist in the territory involved in the fallout from the use of coal will not hang around to watch their own economic collapse and they will get organised without their mayor.
Thus the town instead of doing polemics about 2 words shouted out in the town council meeting and managing to even denounce their own voters, they should say how to save the economy, the flourishing agriculture, the thousand years of history of this marvelous little city that has deep roots in the history that is rich on archeological treasures of a value that cannot even be guessed at.
The two women entrepreneurs who were denounced have been inundated with messages of solidarity. This for all of us is the right stimulus to continue to fight against coal and against all of those who support it, including the mayor.” Tarquinia No Coke campaign group.
PS You can send the links to videos in the section "Send your video" for the post that it relates to. They will be inserted in sequence at the end of the post. The aim is to have complete video information, YOURS, in 24 hours, the time elapsed between one post and the next.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 09:08 PM in Information | Comments (4)
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September 10, 2008

Regime information, citizen reporting

Click on the image

La Stampa has published an interview with Milena Gabanelli with the headline: "Io non prenderei mai i soldi dei cittadini" {I would never take money from the citizens}.
It’s easy to talk about community journalism, citizen journalism or phrases like that, in Italy tormented by the antipolitical fury, of the lack of trust in relation to the castes, of the widespread perception that journalists are quite different from guard dogs, domestic dogs, they are ever more frequently, part of power. And definitively, is it truly a better world the one in which the journalists, rather than being paid by the publishers – which in Italy are massive economic groups, or by the State – they take money directly from the citizens who read their work?
Milena Gabanelli, in her home which is the programme called Report, is famous for being a great pain in the neck, and of being a journalist who is proverbially close to her public. Not so close as to be paid by the TV viewers «I couldn’t accept this, because like that I could land up being paid by interest groups. Even citizens can form an interest group. In Report, we receive so many sponsorship proposals from campaign groups, from No-TAV, from so many civic groups. But it’s not something that I could ever tolerate, if I am paid by a campaign group and it would surely damage the interests of other citizens who are outside those interest groups».
The parties pay RAI journalists indirectly. There’s no difference between Cicchitto, a parliamentarian, and Riotta, the director of the News programme Tg1. They are both employees of Berlusconi. Milena Gabanelli, one of the few people who still does journalism, could not do so without the money from the licence fee paid by the citizens and without the benediction of Topo Gigio Veltroni.
Dear journalists, the citizens always pay, even the ones who don’t read your work or don’t watch you on TV, but the information is decided by your bosses.
The citizen who provides information via YouTube of the release of toxic substances into the Dora is a JOURNALIST. The young people who film the town council meetings are JOURNALISTS and that is why they are taken to court. The citizens of Naples who provide online information about the lies relating to the rubbish in Naples are JOURNALISTS. They have no publisher who pays them. They are not “interest groups” Information is in their hands, truth has no price, while the lie is costing ever more dearly.
From today the blog is asking you to send in links to videos relating to the topic of the post. They will be inserted in sequence underneath the post’s image. The aim is to have complete video information, YOURS, in 24 hours, the time elapsed between one post and the next.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 07:45 PM in Information | Comments (4)
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September 08, 2008

Angelino Jolie

I’m publishing the text of Marco Travaglio’s presentation. “Good day to all,
Some friends of Voglioscendere and of Beppe’s blog are asking me: “Don’t always give us bad news. Every so often give us some good news!” Today I want to do that, because I am really ecstatic about this. We have a Minister who is fantastic. It is true that the government leaves a bit to be desired, but there is one who, truly makes up for the others because he is grand. It is Angelino Jolie, called Alfano. He is truly a genius. We treated him badly in the last “passaparola”, but this time we have to change our minds. Here we have a superior brain. A great reformer, an innovator. A man who invents futuristic solutions for problems that unfortunately no one has ever managed to solve.
Just think, yesterday, that is on a Sunday as well, he donates his Sundays to us for free – it sprung to his mind how to resolve the problem of the overcrowding of the prisons. That of course is returning just as it did two years ago, in spite of the extra large mega Great Pardon, that he himself voted for, among other things, given that it was a speciality of the Centre Left and in reality it was voted for by part of the Centre Left and a part of the Centre Right, including Forza Italia and including Alfano. In fact, it was really Forza Italia that insisted that the Great Pardon was for three years, otherwise Previti would be still under house arrest – and he’s not well – poor man.
What did he think up on Sunday? Just like that as soon as he woke up, he gets these illuminating flashes of lightening that are really brilliant. He thought that by expelling the non-EU detainees and by giving electronic bracelets to a series of convicts with short sentences or those with only a few more years to serve in prison before getting out, he could thin out the prisons and return them to having a fullness that is proportional to their capacity. You know that our prisons to say a lot can hold 40 to 45 thousand prisoners, and right now we have almost 60 thousand and it’s calculated that in a couple of years we’ll have even 70 to 75 thousand, that is almost double their capacity, in relation to the places in cells.
Let’s start at the beginning. Because in Italy, every year the problem of the overcrowding of prisons is put forward, even though Italy has seen 40 or so measures of amnesty and pardons in 60 years. Otherwise, obviously we would have “explosions” in prisons if we had not every so often released the pressure with measures of amnesty and pardons with this frequency that – you understand – is the frequency of once every one and a half years. Once every one and a half years, in Italy, you have the certainty that thousands of criminals are set free. Which is, among other things, an invitation to commit crime. It means that if someone gets caught at regular intervals he never serves the whole sentence, because an amnesty or a pardon always gets triggered. In any case, Alfano is repentant about the Great Pardon. “It has been useless”; he told Previti that it had been of no use. For Previti it has been extremely useful! And also for all the delinquents who have got out and who have been able to return to their old habits and in part, but only in part, have been recaptured, the Great Pardon has been very useful. It has been less useful to the victims of their crimes. Just the other day it was calculated that more than a third of those who got out for the Great Pardon thanks to Mastella who lauded that measure and is keen to give it his name, went back to committing crime, have been caught and taken back inside. Which makes us think that just as many, at least another third, have returned to committing crime and have not been caught. Imagine almost 50,000 people who got out of prison or who saw the revocation of alternative sentences, of being put under the control of criminal justice control services or under house arrest, what a party! OK, now they are all repentant. “That’s enough with pardons, let’s have electronic bracelets and the expulsion of non-EU citizens”. What an idea! No one had ever thought of that! At least that’s what Angelino Jolie believes, as he’s like a man from Mars who has just landed on the Earth: he hasn’t got the faintest idea that what he is putting his hands to right now is a topic that has been under debate for decades. There are his illustrious (or nearly) predecessors, who had already said: “expulsions and bracelets!” Because no one was convinced but they had to do it for Previti, to send home the delinquents. The problem is that the two solutions thought up by Alfano, have not only already been looked at but they have already been rejected because they are no use. We have arrived at the umpteenth announcement of something that will never be done, at least we hope so, because if it is done it will be like a camouflaged pardon. You know that this government is great at doing “lifting”, anyway its President, with transplants and “lifting” is all fake and doesn’t even have a square centimetre of original skin. But legislative lifting is the speciality of this government.

…

Do you realise whose hands we are in? And these claim to be the government of security.
What’s more, this affects 4700 convicted people, non-EU citizens to be repatriated, and we are talking about an enormous problem like that of the prisons which, if we get to 75 thousand prisoners, removing 5 thousand means going down to 70 thousand. What have we resolved? Nothing, because we still have almost 30 thousand in excess. And what will we do with those? You will realise that here we need seriousness, elbow grease, a policy that examines the problems on the basis of scientific data and not on the basis of fairy stories and above all that we don’t entrust them to men from Mars. Basically, we should become a serious country governed by serious people. These are clowns who unfortunately put their hands into our life and our security. Spread the word. “

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:30 PM in Information | Comments (1)
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September 07, 2008

Tiny coup d’état

A blogger has told me about a change in the Criminal Code that abolishes the crime of “coup d’état” . It happened two years ago, with the next to the last government of the psycho-dwarf. But no one noticed. I admit it, not even I did. Not even the newspapers and TV stations full of journalists and P2-ist directors did. They turned the other way in the face of the turning-upside-down of article 283. Since 2006, parties, undercover masons and organised crime can do a coup d’état without consequences. As long as they don’t use “violent acts”. They can do it with corruption, with deviated information, with criminals in Parliament subtracted from election choices because of the abolition of preferences.
These folk, whether they are PDL or PDminusL have taken precautions for the future. Just think if things change in the future. If democracy takes hold in Italy. And if someone asks for an account of these unpunished ones for their actions, even about the tiny coup d’état that they have already done. In that case, they would have recourse to the new Criminal Code, the P2 Code, in the name of justice.

Dear Beppe,
On 13 March 2006, various articles of the Criminal Code relating to attacks on the State were modified. Surely the country felt a great need for these modifications. The most interesting is that of article 283 of the Criminal Code. It said:
’Anyone who commits a fact aimed at changing the Constitution of the State, or the form of the Government, with methods not allowed for by the constitutional arrangements of the State, is punished with imprisonment for a period not less than 12 years.’ It was been altered to say: ’Anyone, using violent actions, who commits a fact aimed at changing (and appropriate for that) the Constitution of the State, or the form of the Government, with methods not allowed for by the constitutional arrangements of the State, is punished with imprisonment for a period not less than 5 years.’
With violent acts, not going via the party of which he is the boss or by corrupting parliamentarians by using their lovers. Get ready for the Coup, but don’t fear the ‘violent actions’, it will be perfectly ‘legal’. By pure coincidence it brings to mind that it was article 283 that brought the P2 to trial.”

PS On 25 April 2008 the TV stations of the whole world recorded V2 Day. In Italy only the Digos recorded it on closed circuit TV. The Australian TV broadcast an hour long programme. Even the Aussies know what is happening in the ‘Bel Paese’. I have extracted and subtitled 10 minutes of the broadcast. It is a great show!

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 07:41 PM in Information | Comments (5)
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September 03, 2008

Prostituting oneself

Sex is changing. The pimps are disappearing. Each person is the prostitute for himself or herself. The do-it-yourself porn portals are climbing the charts in all the countries of the world. Each position of the kamasutra is explained live by tens of thousands of players who publish their sexual performance to promote their love-making capacity or for exhibitionism. It’s possible to choose the partner nearest to your home, they appear in lists that take account of the locality from where you connect, and you can use chat to invite them for a drink. What happens after that is decided by him, or her. Or them.
Sex can even be free. Free sex with a person we have chosen. It’s possible. It’s enough that you give authorisation to record the action and put it on the Internet. Our anonymity is protected by wearing a mask over the face.
The old porn market is disappearing. No longer red light cinema with the pensioner who is an usher to get a bit of pocket money. The sale of porn DVDs and magazines has collapsed. The market has changed. You sell yourself on your own, if it’s useful or if we like it, without the need for publishers or pimps. It’s the new sexual liberation. If before this, porn touched a few million people, now there’s hundreds of millions who connect every day to the Internet to publish, look, make contact.
The old social barriers have collapsed. Before the arrival of the missionaries, on the island of Tahiti, there was no sexual taboo. Sex was natural, like drinking or eating. How many people do we shake hands with, even distractedly, in a day? We don’t take note. For them, sex was like a handshake. It didn’t exist. The homosexuals were the third sex, the mahu. With dignity on a par with the other two. There were no conflicts, child trafficking, prostitution or skinheads hunting the “different”.
The Internet is democratic. Anyone can sell their own body without passing by the cartel of organised crime. Prices go down without the costs of intermediaries. Sex is a planetary market and it has a universal language. You can see before purchase. Just think if this were possible even for the plumber, or the electrician or for the politician. Sex sight unseen or on the sidewalk is experiencing sunset. Pandora’s Box is opening. One, a hundred, a million Tahiti.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 09:40 AM in Information | Comments (2)
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September 02, 2008

Alitalia: an Italian comedy

Text of Marco Travaglio’s presentation


"Good morning everyone. We are returning to our weekly appointment after the holidays. I hope that you got the chance to have some rest, all of you or at least almost all of you, because this year, there’s a lot to do. Perhaps you have seen on Beppe Grillo’s blog that we have collected together the first 10 episodes of “Passaparola” in a DVD. If you are interested you can find the instructions on how to get it.
Today’s news is that the Alitalia operation is a great success for the government. Who said that? The President of the Council, Silvio Berlusconi who is praising himself to bits all on his own. Even because from the experts he has just received raspberries and criticism, not to mention the press and all the international operations that measure things according to the free market and not according to the despotic little Italy that is coming back together with the regurgitated bits of fascism that have been rightly denounced by Famiglia Cristiana. It’s not easy to understand what he is celebrating, this gentleman, given that in the last 15 years he has been President of the Council for about 7 of them, that is half: in these 15 years, Alitalia has lost 15 billion euro of our money, thus half of the money lost is his fault, of his governments, and the other half is the fault of the Centre-Left governments, because politics has always kept its hands on Alitalia and as we shall see, it will continue to keep them there even after having made it collapse innumerable times.
Prodi and Padoa Schioppa, one of the few good things done by the Centre Left government, had found the arrangement, they managed to convince AirFrance to take the whole thing. That would have meant no bankruptcy, no need to rely on the Marzano law on loss-making companies, the creation of a very big European group including AirFrance, KLM and Alitalia that could have been of a decent size for the international markets where, by now, the airlines are big, in consortium, based on alliances between a number of companies. We would have got away with 2150 excess personnel: that was according to the plan presented by Monsieur Spinetta, and that’s what would have happened if the negotiations with the French had been concluded straight away, at the beginning of spring, whereas now we have 6-7000 personnel in excess, that is triple the number. AirFrance would have paid one billion 7 hundred million to buy Alitalia shares and it would have invested 750 million. Basically it would have shelled out and there would have arrived from France the great sum of 2 billion 6 hundred million. Now we see that, instead, that money it’s us that has to give it. It’s not just that we don’t get the cash, but we lose it. What’s more, Malpensa would have been saved and restructured and the airport at Fiumicino would have been strengthened. This, in short, was what had been agreed between the Prodi government and AirFrance and that went up in the air because of the arrival of Berlusconi and his henchmen and because the Trades Unions, completely blinded by the short term, did not know how to choose between the tiny sacrifice today and an enormous blood-letting tomorrow, which is what we will have instead.

...
We have another consolation, that is the fact that communism is returning: Berlusconi who calls together the entrepreneurs, changes laws, organises consortia, the government that directs the affairs of private companies, sorts out debts, moves employees, does 15-year plans etc. it brings back so much the memory of the great Soviet Union of Stalin, of Brezhnev, of Chernienko. The Putin model is coming into Italy and “dirigisme” is coming back, soviet planning. “Il Cavaliere” who does not know and has never known what the free market is, is bringing back, if God wishes, State industry. The last true communist is him. Spread the word." Marco Travaglio

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:37 AM in Information | Comments (8)
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August 31, 2008

A Beretta a day keeps the dead at work away

Beretta: Fatal accidents at work, in italy 50% are in transit

Maurizio Beretta

Maurizio Beretta is a former journalist of the regime. Maurizio continues to disinform for the Confindustria in his new role as Director General. Those who die at work transformed into a war of numbers. A cut of 374 who died at work, a falsified comparison with other European States, transforming those who die in a construction site into traffic accidents. A link disappeared from the Inail website. The game is done. The dead person no longer exists and Italy is in the forefront of safety at work. Marco Bazzoni, the workers’ representative for safety, responds to Beretta point by point. Lie by lie.
Read the book "Morti Bianche" {Dead at work} by Samanta Di Persio that is available on the blog at a freely chosen price.

”Respected Director General of the Confindustria, Maurizio Beretta,
Reading the news item yesterday by the Asca agency: "INCIDENTI LAVORO: BERETTA, 500 MORTI L'ANNO. MENO DI FRANCIA E GERMANIA", {accidents at work: Beretta, 500 die each year, less than in France and in Germany}, and watching the videoon YouTube "Beretta: Morti sul lavoro, in Italia il 50% in itinere" {Beretta, dead at work in Italy 50% in transit},
I would like to say to you, as I have said once (always by letter) to the Minister of Labour Maurizio Sacconi, that it is absolutely not true that 50% of the fatal accidents at work are in transit, that is on the journey home/work – work/home, but that is much less.
At the following link, there was publication of the data of the last 10 years about accidents at work, thus including those on the journey to and from work (fatal or otherwise).
http://www.inail.it/repository/ContentManagement/node/N670419722/Andamento_storico.pdf
However, now, “strangely”, it is no longer possible to open this table. Is this a coincidence? However, no problem, I had made a copy at the appropriate time of the of the fatal accidents on the journey to and from work.
1997 (1392, in transit 104, with a percentage of 7.5%).
- 1998 (1442, in transit 104, with a percentage of 7.2 %),
- 1999 (1393, in transit 102, with a percentage of 7.3 %),
- 2000 (1401, in transit 53, with a percentage of 3.8%),
- 2001 (1546, in transit 296, with a percentage of 19.1 %),
- 2002 (1478, in transit 396, with a percentage of 26.8 %),
- 2003 (1445, in transit 358, with a percentage of 24.8 %),
- 2004 (1328, in transit 305, with a percentage of 23 %),
- 2005 (1280, in transit 279, with a percentage of 21.8 %),
- 2006 (1341, in transit 266, with a percentage of 19.8%).

While in relation to the data for the year 2007, the number of fatal accidents was 1210 (provisional data, deaths in transit 296, thus with a percentage of 24.5%
Thus this is far off the data that you supplied which was 50%.
What’s more, it sounds strange to me that the companies invest 12 billion euro in safety at work. I just didn’t know that.
Going back to the fatal accidents on the way to and from work, according to me, it is right that they are considered fatal accidents at work, because a worker is not going to have fun, but is going to work and is coming home from work.
It almost seems that most of the blame for fatal accidents at work is to put on the roads and not on the companies, but things are just not like that, dear Director Beretta.
What’s more, to die in a construction site for a road, is not that one who died at work? Finally, how can you say there are 500 who die at work each year, less than in France and Germany?
You just have to open up the annual report of Inail for the year 2007. Go to page 12 and read what is written in the table "Infortuni mortali avvenuti negli anni 2006-2007 per gestione e tipologia di accadimento:” {fatal accidents in 2006-2007 by management and type of event}: in 2007, it says: fatal accidents at work= 874, and not 500.
Awaiting your reply, greetings.” Marco Bazzoni - workers’ representative for safety. Email: bazzoni_m@tin.it

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:01 PM in Information | Comments (3)
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August 28, 2008

Water is not merchandise

Whoever controls the basic necessities of life, controls the society. PDL and PDminusL know that very well. Without water, you die, but if water is privatized, the parties live better. The concessionaires know how to give recognition, votes, money, armchairs financed by the increase in the price of water at the expense of the citizens.
The blog’s civic lists will have water as a fundamental part of their programme. It’s not possible to privatize it. It’s not merchandise it is a right. Like breathing, talking, loving. Jesus transformed water into wine. Veltrusconi wants to transform it into business. Blessed are those who thirst for justice because they will see the water thieves in prison. They will never give up, nor will we.

Dear Beppe,
In the heart of this torrid summer and in this land of Calabria, working with the young people in the cooperatives of bishop Brigantini (in Locride) and in Arca di Noè {Noah’s Ark} (in Cosenza), I’ve just been hit by the news like a lightning attack in a serene sky, the news that Berlusconi’s government is giving its blessing to the privatization of water. In fact on 5 August, the Italian Parliament voted for article 23 bis of minister G. Tremonti’s legal decree number 112 that in comma 1 states that the management of water services has to be done according to the rules of the capitalistic economy. All this with the support of the opposition, in particular of the PD, in the person of the shadow minister Lanzillotta. (A decision that I find outrageous, but doesn’t surprise me, given the response of the honourable Veltroni to the letter about water that I sent him during the election campaign!)
Thus, the Berlusconi government with the absence of the opposition, has decreed that Italy is today among those countries for which water is merchandise.
After these years of battling against the privatization of water with so many friends, with local and regional campaign groups, with the Forum and the World Water Contract… this news is like a punch in the stomach for me, and it hurts me. This is a betrayal by all the parties! What is still more serious is the fact, underlined by the friends R. Lembo and R. Petrella, that the “Decree modifies the very nature of the State and of territorial collectivities. The towns, in particular, are no longer responsible territorial public players who are managing public goods, but they become players who are owners of competitive goods in a logic of private interests, so their first duty is to guarantee that the dividends of the enterprise are higher in the interests of the town finances.” We are even destroying our Constitution!.
Basically what does this all mean? We see in the dramatic news coming from Aprilia (in Latina) which shows us what happens when water finishes up in private hands. Acqualatina, (Veolia, the biggest water multinational has 46.5 % of the shares) that manages the water in Aprilia decided in 2005 to increase the utility bills by 300%. More than four thousand families from that time have been refusing to pay the Acqualatina bills, and instead they are paying the money to the town authorities. A long and hard battle of resistance on the part of the friends of Aprilia against Acqualatina! Now in the middle of summer, Acqualatina sends out its teams of armed vigilantes and carabinieri to cut off the meters or to reduce the flow of water. All this with the approval of the town authorities and of the province of Latina! The aim? To force those who are contesting to go to the Acqualatina pay point and pay. It is an heroic resistance and you can learn this from Aprilia: the people feel that they have been abandoned and left on their own. We cannot leave them isolated!
Summer brings bad news even from my Naples and for the region of Campania. Cardillo, the cabinet member of the Naples city council with responsibility for accounts, has launched a proposal that will become operative in January 2009. Arin, the municipal water company for Naples, will become a multi-service company to include Napoligas and a company for renewable energy. So that this pill is digested, Cardillo is promising a “Robintax” for the poor (lower tariffs for the more vulnerable). With the privatization of water it is necessary to create citizens of the A division (the rich) and of the B division (the poor), as has been said by the economist M. Florio of the Università degli studi di Milano.

…
On the issue of water we are putting everything into the game!
Starting from the bottom, from the battles in defence of water at a local level, we have to start again with a great surge that will oblige our Parliament to proclaim that water is not merchandise, but a right for everyone. Let us set to work so that it is life that wins! Father Alex Zanotelli

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 07:27 PM in Information | Comments (5)
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August 27, 2008

Jurassic media

The journalist De Gregorio has taken the position held by Padellaro. He will be the head of l’Unità. A newspaper assisted by public charity. Anyway, like the others. They get by on advertising which is ever decreasing and from the taxes of the Italians. Soru, the governor of the Centre Left, will finance his newspaper with income tax. Ours not his. In a free market, l’Unità would have already been closed down with the albums of the figurine of Topo Gigio Veltroni. Others, like Libero, Il Riformista, Il Foglio would never have got off the ground. Public financing of newspapers is not public. In as much as the decisions are not taken by people. No one would give financing to a charity called Polito or one called Feltri. The almoners of the press are the parties and the lobbies. They are ALL newspapers with affiliation. Il Sole with Confindustria, la Repubblica with the PDminusL, il Corriere with the refined salon of Geronzi and of the Tronchettis. If you take orders you take money, otherwise you close down. In the next ten years the newspapers, not just in Italy, will disappear. We will remember them like a Jurassic era together with Scalfari. All over the world, the big publishing groups are cutting their personnel, reducing the number of publications, transferring their investments online. Advertising is migrating to the Internet. In 8 to 10 years the process will be complete. Media that is not controllable. It’ll be the citizens creating the news. The infrastructure will be decided by the surfers. The more you are credible, the more you are visited as time goes by. I’m not being optimistic. That’s what’s happening now.
Marco Travaglio said that l’Unità has reached a daily average of 48,000 copies. Because he is modest, he didn’t add that most of the copies are sold because of him. In recent years, many people have bought l’Unità just to read Bananas or Uliwood Party. In fact, Travaglio has not been appointed director of l’Unità. Travaglio is participating in this blog with “Passaparola” once a week. Often, without the support of an editing team, directors, journalists, proof-readers and lackeys, 170,000 viewings on YouTube as well as those who follow on live streaming. Without getting anyone to pay taxes. Four times the number of copies per day for l’Unità. Without publishers, without a license fee, without advertising. It’s the Internet, beautiful. Who wants to can pay if they want to pay.


The first ten “free conversations” of Marco Travaglio, about three and a half hours, have been collected together, with the title: "Ci pisciano addosso e ci dicono che piove" {They piss on us and tell us it’s raining}, in the first edition of the “Passaparola” series that is available from today on the blog.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:18 PM in Information | Comments (1)
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August 25, 2008

5 Star town: Acquanegra

Carate Brianza town council meeting


Democracy in Italy no longer exists. It’s not by means of a new party that things will change, as some people believe, including some on the blog. Everything will change when we change. In our every day life, in what we put in our shopping basket, in our behaviour. The parties are the past. The citizens are the future. Democracy must be participation; it must be put in place. put in place by me, by you, by everyone. Delegating to Veltroni or to Berlusconi just produces monsters. It’s the dream of democracy. By now, it’s a farce. There’s no one on the other side of the wall. You will find economic interests, bankrupts, mafia people in double-breasted jackets, masons, unloaded industrialists, nuclear generating stations, incinerators and ignorance.
We can no longer turn the other way when faced with the destruction of our society. We have to turn THIS way. And do something. We don’t need another “duce” and another king, but just employees who CARRY OUT our programme.
We have to start with the towns. In 2009, the blog will support the civic lists that are inspired by its programme. In September, the election campaign will start. Without the administration of the towns, the parties will empty like a balloon with a hole in it. The piranhas will no longer have water to swim in. The virtuous towns exist already, they are true five-star towns. I will publish the experiences on the blog.
A final thing: FILM (and add subtitles) the sessions of the town councils and put them on the internet. It is one of your rights. If the mayor does not allow you to do so, denounce him.

”Acquanegra: the water in the taps at home.
Our journey in Italy of the five-star towns starts here, Acquanegra Cremonese, a town of about 1500 inhabitants in the province of Cremona. The adventure of this small community to reduce its own ecological footprint starts with water, from the par excellence common good, so mistreated over time and made into merchandise for the interests of the usual folk.
The town authorities, a year after taking office, are launching the project: “Chiare, fresche e dolci acque… del rubinetto” {Clear, cool and sweet water… from the tap}. After distributing a flyer to all the homes explaining the environmental and economic advantages of using tap water instead of bottled water, a public meeting was organised with the head of the laboratory of the company that manages the water network, during which there was a comparison of the chemical characteristics of some commercial mineral waters with those of water samples taken from taps in private houses. On that occasion chemical analyses were also presented for tap water after filtering with an appropriate jug
To convince ever more families to use tap water, the initiative (that is still going on) will see an intervention by the town authorities in two ways: the supply for free to those citizens who ask for it, and who have bought a set of three filters, of filter jugs; the reimbursement of part of the cost to install a composite filter, that complies with legal requirements, to be applied under the sink. About 10% of the families in the town have signed up to the initiative, most of whom have chosen the jug.
If we imagine an average consumption of 1.5 litres per family per day, it is possible to estimate that in these three years there’s been a “saving” of about 55,000 plastic bottles.
Even the schools run by the local authorities have been involved in the initiative, getting the teachers involved with the advantages that result from using tap water and on the health guarantees of the filtered water and installing in two school canteens composite filters.” By Marco Boschini

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:24 PM in Information | Comments (3)
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August 21, 2008

Olympic Nationalisms

I have to confess, the Beijing Olympics, but also the previous Olympics give me nausea. I would abolish them. They are a fantastic economic ramshackle thing that goes round the world every four years. Where the circus arrives, they build stadiums, roads, sky scrapers, metro lines, whole cities. The Olympics are a triumph, a cement orgasm.
The lighted torch is no longer a symbol of peace. The world continues its wars, its extermination with six circles. Tibet and Xinjiang have finished up under the carpet of the sponsors. Georgia and Ossetia have been annoying events, they have taken space away from table tennis and synchronized swimming. The Olympics are a maddened train. If you ask the engine driver what is the next station. He won’t know how to reply to you.
What annoys me about the Olympics are the fake records, the Olympic sports that are only done by a handful of people, the drugged athletes, the enthusiasm of the crowd on command, the prize-giving in lines of three. More than any other thing, however, it’s the nationalism that really gets my goat. The nationalism of the sportsperson who cries as their flag is going up, with hand on heart, the eyes lost gazing upwards. The nationalism of the media who always give space to national athletes, even in improbable disciplines (do you know someone who plays badminton?), even if they are a long way from the podium. The Olympics are a simulated war.
I would like athletes without flag. Without sponsor. Without a President who greets then at the start and who receives them as triumphant people when they return. I would like that those who use their armies to kill other human being DURING the Olympics be expelled with infamy and for ever from the Games. The Russians who invaded Georgia, the Americans who invaded Iraq, China who squashes Tibet have no moral right to participate in or to host the Olympic Games.
Man is no longer the centre of the Olympics, the Nations have taken his place. The great media madness of the medals and the little medals makes us feel more Italian, more Mexican, more Korean. More different. The best. The chosen race.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 04:03 PM in Information | Comments (8)
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August 06, 2008

Defame one to educate a hundred

Click on the image


In Italy, defamation pays. It is the backbone of disinformation. The stick to use against enemies and against friends who are too entrepreneurial. A club that has hit just about everyone. The mad Bossi who attacked the mafia guy of Arcore in the early 1990s. Fini, the young career man who wanted to do things on his own, with the new companion pilloried by "Striscia la notizia". The young man with beautiful hopes Azzurro Caltagirone, reduced to a smudge. For the enemies, and here you understand enemies to be those who have not allowed themselves to be “bought”, the ration is doubled, tripled, so basically, really abundant. Whoever is not for sale is dangerous. They cannot be blackmailed. And how can you trust a person who you cannot blackmail? In the times of bombs and the Corleonesi mafia, you had them explode into thin air. One strike and it’s done. But at that time, information was not completely under control. They were crude but inevitable mechanisms. The machine gun for Dalla Chiesa or the TNT imported for the military that was brought from the continent to via D'Amelio, are distant memories
These days, the motorways are useful for imposing the State “pizzo” by means of the Benetton concession. To destroy them when a judge is passing by, as happened at Capaci, creates economic damage.
The nutriment for defamation is (false) facts, (one-sided) opinions, adjectives to disqualify. Ms Forleo becomes psychologically unstable, and above all she cries. What guarantee is offered by a judge who cries? A weak and fragile woman. Whether she is right is not relevant. If she touches D'Alema she is to be transferred, far from Milan, to Cremona. De Magistris had put his finger in the sore of the exchange vote, of the European funds shared out with the local criminals and the parties. He was attacked for being active, accused of having violated the code. He was absolved of every accusation and anyway transferred to Naples. The politicians from Calabria under investigation have not been transferred. Calabria is full of clean swimming pools in the villas of power and full of turds floating on the beaches because of the purification plant that have never been made to function. With the accusations against me, you could fill an encyclopedia. The great thing is that they are all false.
The defamation of the adversary has even the aim of moving the attention from MY problems with the justice system, to YOUR (non-existent) problems with the justice system. From MY corruption to your (non-existent) abuses. From MY closeness with people convicted of mafia crimes to YOUR justicialist rages. The more they are lurid, the more the shit I throw on my adversaries, cleanses me.
The System is united. Repubblica and Emilio Fede are not different. Belpietro and Padellaro are Siamese twins separated at birth and united in the defense of the master.
We cannot go ahead like this. Hard and soft defamation has to be fought. It is by now a virus that infects the mind of the Country. People believe what is decided by Berlusconi and De Benedetti and the powers connected to htem. People are intoxicated. Anyone who puts themselves forward to change the System is attacked by the media with the absolute certainty of remaining unpunished. The most they risk is a fine. Nothing to destroy a reputation.
From today there’s an active area of the blog called "Sputtaniamoli" {Let’s discredit them}.
Insert the false articles, the links and the information about the journalist who signed them. I will make it a fixed column in the blog.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:18 PM in Information | Comments (7)
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August 02, 2008

Vicenza: The Lega and the truncheon

”No dal Molin” – response to the Cabinet’s decision

Vicenza does not want the new Dal Molin military base. The people of Vicenza are set to confirm as much in the referendum scheduled for next autumn. In the meantime, they are protesting against the decision in favour of the base, as taken by the Cabinet and enduring “thinning-out” attacks, in the sense that they are being truncheoned, in the manner of the “ndo cojo cojo”, by the MPs.
Certainly, the people of Vicenza should not take over the local railway station. They must find another way to make their point. Another way of explaining that the American occupation of Italy has been going on for the past 63 years. That the 90 atomic bombs made in the USA and now sitting at Ghedi Torre and Aviano are an offence to the collective civil conscience of our Country. That Vicenza is set to become the largest military base in the whole of Europe. And that, from this very base, the American bombers could take off on their killing missions.
Our Constitution specifically rejects war, so on what grounds does this Government simply go ahead and grant authorisation for Italy to act as America’s aircraft carrier, used today to bomb the Middle East and tomorrow, who knows who is next in turn? The Berlin wall may well have fallen, but now, twenty years on, the American Army is still here. How long must we wait for Italy to be free of all foreign armies, the hundredth anniversary of the end of the Second World War perhaps?
Maroni has the people of Vicenza truncheoned, simply because they don’t want their land to become a place of war. This has got to be the height of contradiction. The Lega, arch-enemy of globalisation, lays out the red carpet to welcome the armies from across the ocean. No to Coca Cola, but yes to atomic bombs. We are masters in our house, but with 90 nuclear bombs spread between Brescia and the Friuli Region. Masters of what? Collecting fingerprints from gypsy children? The Lega of the truncheon and of the Government (La Russa will bring along the cod-liver oil). Being strong with the weak and weak with the strong.
Government Commissioner Paolo Costa has arrived in Vicenza. In future, if the people of Vicenza dare to hold any peaceful demonstrations against the military base, the army will be sent in without delay. Already before the last elections I warned that Berlusconi would use the army against the population of this Country in order to govern, however, it won’t continue for very long. Stand up magnagatti (“Cat-eaters”, a nickname for the people of the Veneto Region). Say no to the “Dal Molin” military base.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 07:59 AM in Information | Comments (11)
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July 31, 2008

Schifani, un-nameable, untouchable,unjudgeable

Dario Fo talks about the mess-up

Renato Schifani, President of the Senate, has taken action against Marco Travaglio for one million three hundred thousand euro.
Schifani wants compensation for alleged damages resulting from an article by Travaglio and from an interview given to the doormat Fabio Fazio in the programme “Che tempo fa”. Travaglio cited contents of the book “I complici” written by Lirio Abbate and Peter Gomez in which Schifani is mentioned many times, and that is on pages 14, 70, 71, 72, 74,7 5, 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 84. Lirio Abbate is living with a police escort because of mafia threats and the book of which the first edition came out in February 2007, as far as I know, has not been withdrawn.
Schifani has pre-announced a libel action against the former President of Villabate town council, Francesco Campanella, under investigation for mafia because of relations with Mandalà and Provenzano.
He did it for Campanella’s declarations to the Palermo judges when he said that the new planning regulations for Villabate are thought to have been agreed by Mandalà with Schifani.
So we have two trials (plus a third one).
Trial number one: Schifani against Travaglio, for damages referring to his articles and his interview.
Trial number two: Schifani against Campanella, a libel action for his declarations.
Trial number two could (I say could) decide that Campanella spoke the truth. In which case Travaglio would be right and would win in Trial number one.
But Trial number two, if it were to decide on Schifani’s responsibility (I’m still saying “if”), would not be able to take place in the next five years thanks to the lodo SchifoAlfano. Schifani had already tried in 2003 with the lodo Schifani to give immunity to the top officials in the State. The Constitutional Court threw it out. At times, things come back.
Then there’s Trial number three, the one that can never take place. In fact Travaglio cannot take a libel action against Schifani for the accusations against him because he is immune from trials.
If it happens that Travaglio is found guilty, I will open a public subscription to pay the one million three hundred thousand euro.
“I Quattro dell’Ave Maria” can get trials against the citizens. The citizens cannot get trials against “I Quattro dell’Ave Maria”.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:26 AM in Information | Comments (5)
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July 29, 2008

The Torquemada of Italian mediocracy

”The offensive started off with the grillist "vaffa-day" on 8 July, that took as a (just) pretext the rotten laws of the premier to develop a frenzied (and senseless) battery of “enemy fire” against the PD, against Veltroni, and above all against the Quirinale. … Finally in a crescendo of “qualunquismo” and of “pressappochismo”, it was Beppe Grillo who returned to the “crime scene”.
And this time not with political criticism, but with personal insult. “Is Napolitano in good health?” is the question asked by the new Torquemada of Italian mediocracy in his blog. He asks the question and he gives the reply. “His health can be the only justification for his behaviour. I would like to be reassured whether he is capable of still exercising his role and for how long. If possible to get hold of his clinical records. These are words that provide comment on themselves. And they would not even deserve a reply. After the 8 July demonstration we talked about a “subculture” creating the indignant reaction of the grillists on the Internet. In the face of the new outburst from the “Grande Imbonitore”, we wouldn’t know how to find a better definition.” L'ultimo insulto, {The ultimate Insult} front page Saturday 26 Massimo Giannini, deputy director, email: m.giannini@repubblica.it.

”Is it possible to criticize the behaviour and the decisions of a President of the Republic? Certainly you can, in Italy as in any other democratic country in the world. It’s happened that I have done that more than once, with Gronchi, with Segni, with Saragat, with Leone. Even with Pertini, of whom I was a friend and admirer.
So I see nothing that is inconvenient in the criticisms that some political men and some opinion leaders have put forward about President Napolitano on the occasion of the promulgation of the Alfano law on the immunity for the 4 institutional positions.
Grillo’s insults and offences are another thing, for those there is the crime of public insult that it is the duty of the magistracy to follow up.” La calma del Quirinale baluardo di libertà, front page, Sunday27 July 2008 , Eugenio Scalfari, founder.

Two editorials on consecutive days in La Repubblica last Saturday and Sunday. Dedicated to my post “Steve Jobs and Giorgio Napolitano”. Both on the front page. Written with the pen of the Great Intellectuals of the Left Scalfari and Giannini. Thank you so much. Giannini accuses me of being the Torquemada of Italian mediocracy.
Forgetting that mediocracy is in the hands of his publisher Carlo De Benedetti and Silvio Berlusconi. For Giannini blog and grillini are "subculture". The intellectual racism by the thinkers of the left, before or after always comes afloat. Like shit. Scalfari would like me in jail for the offence of denigration. La Repubblica accuses me of "qualunquismo", "pressappochismo", "personal insults" the President of the Republic, "offenses".
On Napolitano I said three things, which I repeat for the couple Giannini-Scalfari:
- Pertini would not have signed the "Lodo Alfano"
- Napolitano should have gone to Chiaiano for his birthday, rather than entertaing himself with two people under investigation (the wife of Mastella and Bassolino) in Capri
- I have doubts about his health conditions, as may be natural for a person of 83 years.

If you know someone who reads yet the Republic (funded by the state) tell him to STOP.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 11:19 AM in Information | Comments (4)
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July 26, 2008

Steve Jobs and Giorgio Napolitano

Clicca l'immagine

At his last public appearance, 53-year old Steve Jobs looked really thin and pale. Steve Jobs has been battling pancreatic cancer for some time, although he appeared to have beaten it. Steve Jobs is the man behind Apple. Many believe that he is the true innovator, the only real genius behind the Information Technology revolution, and not Bill Gates.
Steve Jobs is Apple. His health is not simply a private matter, but also an economic matter of worldwide significance. Apple does not release any statements regarding Steve Jobs’ state of health. Financial analysts and shareholders would very much like to know whether or not Jobs will be able to hold down his post as Chairman of Apple, and for how much longer. One analyst commented that if Apple insists on classifying Jobs’ health as a private matter, then it should go back to being a private company and have itself de-listed by the stock exchange.
In his most recent public appearances, 83-year old Giorgio Napolitano, thirty years older than Jobs, has been looking more distant and ethereal. Giorgio Napolitano is apparently in good health, however, looking into his past, there is no apparent justification for his recent stand on certain issues, nor for his most recent actions. He announced that he objects to the way in which court proceedings are being turned into show business, while the various Public Prosecutors’ departments are being attacked by the government. Without even batting an eyelid, he went ahead and signed the Alfano Bill, which is an unconstitutional law. He spent his birthday happily sitting in a little square on the island of Capri, amongst the musicians and individuals under investigation, Mastella’s wife and Bokassa Bassolino amongst them. Giorgio Napolitano represents Italy. His health is not a private matter. His health could be the only reason for his recent behaviour. I would like to be sure that he is still able to hold his post, and for how much longer. Perhaps even get to see his medical file.
A weak (and ailing?) State President that can be manipulated is particularly useful for both the PDL, who can get as many racist and non-constitutional laws passed as they like, and for the PD-without-the-L, who prefers to have a State President with a social democrat background, in other words a member of the family, rather than some or other Schifani. As a matter of fact, Should Napolitano decide to step down at some point, his place would taken by Berlusconi’s employee who currently also happens to be the leader of the Senate. Rather Napolitano than a Schifani bursting with health.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 05:59 AM in Information | Comments (7)
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Silvio is no longer with us

Silvio Tobia

Silvio died recently in a motorcycle accident. He was one of the signatories for the popular law for a Clean Parliament, together with myself and many other friends of the Meetup in Roma. One never knows quite what to say in such situations. Sooner or later, Parliament will once again be clean. And that’s a promise.
Arianna remembers him as follows.

"It late already, but Silvio is no longer here. I will never again see those sincere, piercing eyes that looked upon the world with love and vitality. And all because of a motorcycle accident, one of those that leave you no chance of survival.
I am mourning for a true friend, one that was always sincere, and someone that was always telling me that you should not smoke during your pregnancy, someone who watched over and loved my two tykes with an endless love. Someone that, notwithstanding …., came along anyway on the 25th April and worked alongside his best friend Valerio, purely because of their friendship, nothing more and nothing less. Friendship alone. Those same eyes that were like a wide open window looking out over the world, those same eyes that looked at what was happening around us, those oh so big eyes have now been closed forever.
If there is a God, and if He is watching now, he must also surely hear the profound cry of pain coming from all of us, from the person who called me on the telephone, crying and sniffing... you are unjust, you are unfair, unjust and cruel. That is if God even exists.
I am in pain, I’m alone and I’m far from those that are near him.
Silvio, because of the deep love I have for you, my hope is that you can fearlessly race on a motorcycle made of dreams and fresh air and ride off into an infinite eternity.
I will never again eat your “Arrabbiata” sauce and you will never again prepare that Roman dish for me, the one whose name I cannot remember because of the tears.
I will never see you again.
It is not right... but, my great little friend, I loved you so very much, I remember you wherever we went together and I am writing this because I am unable to shout out loud the terrible pain that I feel inside. The twins are sleeping in the room next door and I promise that, one day, they will know that they once had someone who protected them while they were in the womb by scolding their silly mother because of her stupid habits.
Say hi to the light on my behalf, Silvio... and, dear friend, please drop and pay us a visit if you can, be the gentle breath of the breeze that caresses my cheeks at sunset. I will know that it is you and I’ll smile at you." Arianna

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 05:33 AM in Information | Comments (2)
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July 23, 2008

Morti Bianche, the book

I advise you not to read the book: “Morti Bianche”{literally “white deaths” or deaths in the workplace} It’s a dangerous book. The witness statements of the families of the victims at work, assassinated at work, are so shocking that after that you will no longer be the same. After that, if your mother, daughter, sister go off to work, you will be counting the hours that separate you from their return. Perhaps, it will be spontaneous for you to ask them to let you go with them to protect them.
When a person dies, the word most frequently used is “fatality”. When a person dies, the adjective most frequently used is “tragic”. Tragic fatality. 1300 tragic fatalities every year, 50,000 invalids every year. Thousands of families reduced to poverty, widows with young children to bring up, to feed, to love, treated like beggars. Liquidated with a few thousand euro.
We are not in the Middle Ages, we are in the New Italian Age. At a point in time and space in which if a Rumanian rapes a woman, the country is indignant, but if 5 labourers die, at the most, and anyway for only a few hours, the country is sad. A tear flows down from the Stage of the Authorities.
Our Modern Age is not born from nothing, it’s origin is clear as the sun: filthy lucre. The death of a man is a risk for the enterprise. How much does it cost to make plant safe, the training for their own employees, the equipment to keep them safe? Much more, enormously much more, than the eventual compensation for the death of a person.
The companies know that, they take that into account. It can happen. In that unfortunate case, the minimum necessary is paid out. The law companies against the lawyer of the widow or the mother. It should be the State to provide legal protection for the families of those who fall.
If the death of an employee were to cost more to a company than investment in safety, almost no one would die. It’s the economy of death. If it’s worth little, then you can take the risk. It’s the price of life that is worth less than production.
The triumph of the self-regulation of the market. The lack of rules. The classification of blood. A soldier injured in Afghanistan deserves the front page of the newspaper. Three who die at work, a little square on the fifteenth page.
The Maroni law (done when he was Minister of Labour), the law 30, called the Biagi law has a great responsibility in the “morti bianche”. A precarious worker is a natural candidate to die at work. There are two reasons. The first is that he cannot complain about the conditions in which he finds himself, or he would be immediately sacked.
A survivor of the Thyssen Krupp blaze declared that the extinguishers were empty, that the shifts were punishing, but he couldn’t say anything if he wanted to keep his job. Anyone who has a family thinks about the children, bows his head and hopes that it won’t affect him. The second reason is that a precarious worker has no time for instruction or training.
He’s taken on for a few months, or even for a few weeks. It’s not economical to invest in someone who is passing through. Many “morti bianche” happen in the first few days at work, among precarious workers, among the non-Europeans in sub-sub-contract with at the top of the chain, public administration officials.
Buy the book "Morti Bianche" and you set the price.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 09:56 AM in Information | Comments (26)
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July 22, 2008

Lessons on the Rule of Law from Albania

Text of Marco Travaglio’s speech:


Good day to everyone. Anyway, happy holidays: today is the final edition of Passaparola before the holiday season that will last until the first of September when we will meet up to have a look at what has happened over the summer, which meanwhile will have donated us further shame. Within view, tomorrow, we have the impunity law, and we have already announced for September a super-reform that is really so “super” that it should in fact prevent the arrest of the Presidents of the Regions who are accepting bribes.
It will truly be a weighty thing. Luckily, after the vulgarity and triviality of Piazza Navona, there’s the return of elegance. Yesterday, Lord Brummel, in real life, Umberto Bossi, gave a great signal of civility and of civic pride, really, by saluting the national anthem with a raised finger.
Then they have even failed his son in his “maturità” {High School diploma}, and thus it is the fault of the high school teachers from the south, but now we will have the judges and the teachers elected in Padania {the Po Valley}, so finally they will let the donkeys pass.
Unfortunately we are still obliged to talk about justice, because, basically, tomorrow we have arrived at such a violent act that we have never yet suffered: a law that makes four people immune from any consequence for any crimes that they will commit. Those that Beppe Grillo (and we can wish him “Happy Birthday” as I think that today he celebrates his 60th birthday) calls “The Band of Four”. It’s interesting to start off with an article in il Corriere della Sera by the ambassador Sergio Romano who, given that he has been an ambassador, should be one who has traveled the world. We can see that he has traveled but that he hasn’t noticed anything because he explains that there is a problem in the whole world and that is the obtrusiveness of the magistracy. The magistracy that invades, that meddles. He says: "Ask Aznar, Chirac, Kohl, Bush, Kissinger, Olmert, or if he were in a position to respond to you - Sharon, what they think of their magistrates or of those who try to incriminate them in front of the tribunal of another country. They will tell you, in private, using responses not far off the words with which Berlusconi has used polemics over the years with the Italian magistracy” Because there is a war of the justice system against politics.
There you are. It is possible that these people in private say bad things about the magistrates, the fact is that they never say them in public and above all, when they have a trial, they undergo it, at times they resign, never do they attack their judges and never do they change the laws to give themselves immunity.
This is the difference, but ambassador Romano does not notice that. He is too refined in his way of reasoning to notice this really banal difference. So much so that another guy who has traveled the world, but unlike Romano he understood it, and that is Furio Colombo, yesterday wrote: “In the United States’ election campaign, expressions like ‘war between politics and justice’ – basically the stupidities that are being written by folk like Panebianco, Sergio Romano, Ostellino, Galli Della Loggia, Pierluigi Battisti, the anti-toga troops of il Corriere della Sera, cannot be translated. In the New York Times they wouldn’t even be able to translate them into the English language.” In fact, the two candidates of the big American parties who are battling out the election, have no position on justice, except for guarantees and human and civil rights of all citizens. “They don’t have and they must not have a position because everything is already established in the American Constitution, and furthermore, because the candidates for the American elections are fighting to obtain executive power and not judicial power.
When President and Mrs. Clinton ended up under investigation for bankruptcy on a small property in Arkansas that was managed together with unfaithful partners, America didn’t stop for a second. There was no conference. The President was travelling back and forth between the White House and the Grand Jury, the body collecting the evidence where he had to be interrogated, and he went with speed, otherwise impeachment would have been triggered, if he had been late at the hearing in front of the magistrates and in the end he was careful not to denounce persecutions.”

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:34 AM in Information | Comments (2)
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July 18, 2008

Signatures from 25 April in Rome

In the beyond-the-grave media silence last week I went with a truck to take the referendum signatures to the Constitutional Court in Rome. Unloaded by hand like a true port-labourer. Someone helped me but I did my bit of the work. Crikey. The 60 boxes, sprayed with anti-moth, are now lined up in the cellars of the Palazzo. In October there’ll be the decision as to whether the referenda are admissible according to the Constitution. If they pass muster there’ll be a count and the validation of the signatures.
It’s the second popular democratic act performed by those who follow the blog, the MeetUps, the free organisations of citizens, the non-party civic lists in ONLY 8 months.
8 September 2007 seems like a far off date. Distant. Since then, all sorts of things have happened. The government has fallen. Two across-the-board business groups have formed, PDL and PDminusL. For each action of the movement there has been an equal and opposite action. To separate collections of refuse, the reply has been incinerators. To a Clean Up Parliament, there’s an increase in the number of those under investigation and those convicted. To the reform of the election law to choose our own candidates, there’s been a “vaffanculo”. And, in fact, with the proposal to extend the appointment of the deputies (lovers, wives, mafia people) by the party secretaries also to the European Parliament. To the cancellation of the Maroni law (but named after Biagi) with an increase in the number of precarious workers and deaths (assassinations) at work. To the request to reduce the military presence with an increase in military spending, to the new base at Vicenza, to the commitment in Afghanistan.
To the abolition of the shameful laws that stop any conviction with the delirium of the psycho-dwarf and his intentional, pigheaded, stubborn destruction of the laws and of the magistracy.
They noticed that the walls are starting to give way. The PDL and PDminusL business committee has decided to construct a big wall. To ignore the requests of millions of people. Disgusted from the heights of their sovereignty. The equal and opposite action, the wall of the post-communists and of the evergreenP2-ists, has produced its effects even on information. Of the movement, and of Beppe Grillo, they either don’t talk or they demonize. We are a “subcultural” product as has written the great intellectual, Massimo Giannini in Repubblica. Irascible, foaming at the mouth. That’s how we are described by the reformists, rationals, intellectuals.
After 25 April, the European Community has confirmed that Rete4 must let Europa7 have its frequencies, that the Gasparri law has to be changed. There would be no need for a referendum or for a VDay every day to change Italy. It would be enough to apply the laws and to have honest representatives in Parliament. In September I will ask to present to the Senate the three popular laws signed by 350,000 citizens as laid down by law. Convicts out of Parliament, choice of candidates, a maximum of two terms of office.
Have you noticed? We’ve got one result: our employees no longer laugh and Berlusconi no longer tells jokes. He seems to be devoured by Saint Anthony’s fire {shingles} They never give up, neither do we.
P.S. The wall has its cracks. I repeat: The wall has its cracks.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 01:24 PM in Information | Comments (24)
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July 15, 2008

The pigs are more equal than the others

I’m publishing the text of Marco Travaglio’s speech:

Good day to all. This has been another great week for Italian information. They have managed to say that in Piazza Navona there were only a few people, whereas Piazza Navona was full on 8 July.
They managed to say that in Piazza Navona they did a great favour to Berlusconi, then Berlusconi contradicted them by labeling as “rubbish” those who demonstrated against him. They managed to say that in Piazza Navona there was insult and public defamation against the Head of State, the Head of a foreign State, that is Pope Ratzinger and poor Veltroni.
Instead they forgot to talk about the topic that gave rise to the demonstration, that is the scurrilous laws and in reality, as everyone knows, there was talk almost exclusively about Berlusconi, of the “Caimano” and of his scurrilous laws and if there was talk of other people, it is because the others are voluntary or involuntary allies and are a help in explaining his resistible third rise or rather his second resurrection.
They told us that people escaped in shock from Piazza Navona whereas no one went away.
That people didn’t applaud, while in reality they applauded with enthusiasm. And at the end they told us that for Italian citizens the priorities are not these, that the Italian citizen couldn’t give a toss about justice, about the rule of law, about the law being equal for everyone.
That they are indifferent about the lodo Alfano on the immunity of the 4 “jobs” in the State or rather going on Berlusconi’s line, defining demonstrations as “rubbish”, the 4 “rubbish tips” in the State.
Then, by luck, well hidden in il Corriere della Sera, with a tiny wee heading, a survey by Renato Mannheimer that shows the following: 29.4% of Italians shared the ideas of the demonstration.
Take note that the Italians responded not about what actually happened because the YV News and the newspapers did not tell the story of what actually happened, but what they wanted to have people believe happened.
OK, even with that completely distorted image of an orgy of insults, of attacks, of violence, of outrages against democracy and the institutions, a third of the Italians said they were in favour.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 07:30 PM in Information | Comments (5)
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July 14, 2008

The Concrete Party

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In Liguria "Forza DS" is working very well and the results are visible. Instead of the coast, there’s Concrete . La Casa della Legalità {Legality Group} has sent me a letter about the book: "Il partito del cemento" {The Concrete Party}.

”Dear Beppe
Nothing is more true than what you affirmed on 8 July. The problem is not so much Silvio Berlusconi, but the transversal Business Committee of which he today is the guarantor and it stays unchanged whoever is in Palazzo Chigi {official meeting place of Council of Ministers} whether it is Prodi, D'Alema or any other expression of nomenklatura, whatever the structure of the government, the film director is and remains that occult and obscene business committee that is devastating the country.
In his most recent book, "Il ritorno del Principe", {The Return of the Prince}, Roberto Scarpinato states: “some of the most well known trials that have been celebrated in recent years have demonstrated that the occult transversality of the handling of power in our country is not the history of the past, determined by transitory pathologies, but a structural reality….
The visible power thus risks becoming the bastard son of that invisible power, generated in turn by a myriad of secret marriages of interests or of under the table transactions….
An integrated system of subjects who are individuals and groups. A sort of table where there are different figures seated, not all of whom necessarily having specific criminal professions: the politician, the top public sector director, the entrepreneur, the financier, the wheeler dealer, leaders of the institutions and not infrequently, the spokesperson of the mafias…”
But given that the Power is very careful not to let the reality be visible, offering marvelous theatrical events, a concrete example is needed, otherwise the trickery of the Power will continue to make it seem as though there is a Majority and an alternative Opposition, when in fact they are complementary.
The book : "Il Partito del Cemento" by Marco Preve and Ferruccio Sansa explains how invasive and destructive is the mixing of interests that bends the public interest to the private interest. It talks of the concrete (three million cubic metres that is planned to be used) that will cover the little bit still remaining of the Ligurian coast and hills. Little ports, sky-scrapers, residential complexes and garages, roads and landfills, will change the look of Liguria for ever. Already according to Istat {national statistic office} between 1995 and 2005, 45.55% of the free territory has been wiped out with construction, while tourism is in crisis because the “beauty” of the landscape is vanishing. Speculation that is happening with the complete subjugation of the Local Authorities in the interests of the wheeler dealers.
The Urban Plans and the Plans of the Territory or those to protect the countryside and the coast are in fact cancelled and rewritten directly on dictation from the speculators, on the basis of their needs, often ignoring the risks of the hydrogeological disturbance of vast areas of the territory." House of Legality

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 11:12 AM in Information | Comments (15)
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July 12, 2008

The Black cloaks

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The reaction to the Piazza Navona event was unanimous. Had I limited myself to attacking only Berlusconi, it would have been a political triumph. What I exposed was fifteen years’ worth of rip-offs jointly orchestrated by Forza Italia and the DS. It turned out to be a triumph of anti-politics.
It is not only Berlusconi that doesn't want to be dragged into court; it is the entire political class that doesn't want to be dragged into court.
Veltroni single-handedly resuscitated the psychodwarf, lost the election and proceeded to destroy the entire left wing. Now he is busy completing the task. He is now also busy destroying the opposition. Oops! Am I perhaps not allowed to say things like that? Topo Gigio appeared on the television screen, getting himself interviewed by one of Berlusconi’s employees. Lecca lecca (Lollipop) Mentana showed an old clip of the Bagaglino programme where Antonio Di Pietro is busy getting hit in the face with a pie. Di Pietro equals clown; that is the subliminal message. Topo Gigio approves, proceeds to attack his ally shamelessly, right in the old P2 member’s own back yard.
Veltroni hints to Di Pietro that he should return to the “intellectual and reformist enclosure”, and stop demonstrating in the town square. The enclosure houses all those that support Veltroni. People such as Scalfari, Moretti, Maltese and Lerner. His guard dogs. One nod of his head and they immediately start barking, indeed baying. The only ones that have remained in Topo Gigio’s enclosure are the true intellectuals, apparently the only true reformers. They have no hope of ever being able to understand the population, or for that matter the town square demonstrations. Should the people in the town square by chance applaud Travaglio or Grillo, then it’s a “disaster”.
In the film “Manto nero” (The Black cloak) a Jesuit priest asks an Indian lying on his deathbed to allow himself to be baptised so that he could enter into Paradise. The Indian asks whether there are any black coats (Jesuit priests) in Paradise. The Jesuit priest says yes. The Indian then refuses to be baptised because he has no desire to spend eternity with a bunch of black cloaks. The opposition will not die as members of the Ds party.
Moretti accused the organisers of “having sullied everything and obscured the true objectives of the event by allowing Grillo Ms. Guzzanti to have their say … When I arrived, Beppe Grillo immediately began speaking and I left immediately. I would very much like to know what the people’s reaction was to those offensive and meaningless comments. ”I didn’t offend anyone, I simply stated a few political and economic facts. Pertini would never have agreed to sign the SchifoAlfano Bill (he would rather have had his hand amputated that do such a thing), while Veltroni instead managed to single-handedly destroy the very concept of opposition. Oops! Am I perhaps not allowed to say things like that? Berlusconi may well have helped a few of his lovers over the years, but at least he never released one of his films containing a scene showing him busy sticking it to some or other actress.
”La Repubblica”, financed by public funds, including mine therefore, as well as yours, misses no opportunity to attack me after having witnessed the failure of the dialogue (much vaunted) between its champion Veltroni and P2 member Berlusconi. Maltese in his “paid for” article entitled “Show business sul palco”, published in a “paid for” newspaper, which is paid for by the advertising revenues, explains that “the events created by Beppe Grillo cannot be classified as political activities … and that the majority of Beppe Grillo’s targets are marginal individuals… and that the blog is not a tool for the political struggle and sharing of opinions, but simply a phenomenal sales outlet”. Perhaps what Curzio is alluding to is the “Gruppo l’Espresso”. If the truth be told, at least no one pays me for my articles and there is no paid advertising on the blog.
In “L’urlo del populismo”, ”Lampooner” Lerner talks about ”The pasquinade in piazza Navona” and adds: “how can we ever forget that, in October 2007, it was the very same Beppe Grillo who was inciting (INCITING!!!) his supporters (SUPPORTERS!!!) to rise up against the “invasion of the Rumanians”, claiming that there was no place for them in Italy and that it would have been better for us to reject them with an (impossible ) moratorium?” Lerner lies, and he is well aware that he is lying. Many other European Countries have instituted the (impossible) moratorium. I wrote about the gypsies and not about the Rumanians. In the interests of clarity, you need to know that I have two Rumanians working for me. The situation was critical and exploded just one month later. Prodi himself told the Financial Times that no one knew at the time precisely how many people had come across the border from Rumania.
They talk about Grillo, but nothing gets said about the phenomenal rip-off that has allowed the post-communists to share power with the evergreenpeetwoists for of fifteen years. My dear black cloaks, my dear intellectuals and reformers, you are more than welcome to stay all on your own in the enclosure, just you and your Uolter.

Ps: Today I delivered the referendum signatures to the Court of Cassation. Video clip to follow soon. Thanks to all those that added their signatures.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 05:35 PM in Information | Comments (4)
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July 08, 2008

Berlusconi’s pizzo

I’m publishing the transcript of Marco Travaglio’s speech.

”Good day to all. Today I’m in an airport: it’s the moment for travelling. Tomorrow everyone has to be in Rome at 6:00pm in Piazza Navona, to demonstrate against the shameful things that are happening. I’d like to start at the end.
In Sicily, when a citizen doesn’t give in, they get their car tires slashed. If they understand, OK. If they don’t understand, their car goes up in the air. If they understand, OK. If they don’t understand, they get a paper bomb under the blinds of their shop. If then the guy doesn’t want to get blown up together with the shop and all his family, he has to accept dialogue. It’s just that in Sicily it’s called “pizzo”,, it’s called “racket”, it’s called “extortion”. The dialogue men arrive and they make a proposal. They say they have heard about the attacks, that they are very sorry and that they offer protection. From whom? From themselves. It’s they who plant the bombs and it’s they who offer protection, from themselves. Dialogue has a price. The businessman has to pay so much a month to the extortionists to avoid further problems.
In the end, if he pays, what has he won? It’s the mafia that has won. He hasn’t won. He hasn’t won the dialogue. It’s violence that has won.
Transfer this system of operations to Rome. In Rome the same things happen, it’s just that the words change.
There’s a gentleman in power and immediately he starts to ruin the justice system, to smash everything up. He presents a law to throw 100,000 trials into the air, because he too has one.
Then he does another law that prevents the magistrates from doing wiretaps and from uncovering crimes, and from uncovering the evidence to nail the people guilty of these crimes. Then he goes on TV and says that if they are not finding the people guilty of crime it is the fault of the magistracy that is in a state of metastasis, that is politicized, that is a cancer.
It’s the fault of the judges that are lazybones. It’s the fault of the judges that are only dealing with himself. It’s the fault of the judges who are anthropologically different from the human race who are mad, who are psychologically unstable, who are coup leaders, who are fascists, who are terrorists. And not by chance, in the opinion polls, their credibility goes down. At this point, the magistrates raise their arms. But that’s not enough. At this point, he makes a law, but he gets it presented by Tremonti, who cuts the funding to the justice system, by up to 40%. 10% the first year, 20% the second year, and then he cuts the salaries of the magistrates, who are already paid a third, a quarter, a fifth of the pay of a tiny manager in a small company.
At this point, having got them prostrated and reduced to ruin, someone turns up to offer a dialogue. And they say: “Well, we have learned that they are stopping you from doing your job, doing your trials, doing the wiretapping, they are preventing you from uncovering crimes, they are insulting you. Do you want dialogue? For a small sum: it’s called the Lodo Alfano.
If you forget the trials against the President of the Council, if you forget, - or if you allow to evaporate, or you eat them or you burn them, or you place them in the waste paper basket – the wiretaps of the President of the Council (indirect wiretaps, he’s not the one whose phone is tapped, but the usual scoundrels with whom he is often speaking, because they are all his friends)
OK, if you accept to pay this reasonable sum, this tiny sum, then we’ll have dialogue: we will let you do the other trials, we’ll let you do the wiretaps, perhaps we won’t even reduce your salaries and we won’t even take away your funding. Perhaps we will even employ a few office workers. Perhaps we will even pay the petrol for the cars that have to go out and do investigations, with the police inside them. It depends on you. Do you want dialogue or conflict?” Here is an extortion technique that is called racket in Palermo, but in Rome it is called dialogue. In the end, if the magistrates give in, who has won? Is it harmony that has won? Is it peace that has won?
It’s the extortionist, who, from a political viewpoint, in this case, is the President of the Council. Our President of the Council who is up to one a day, when he’s not doing two, and who needs to hide this chilling reality that is in front of everyone’s eyes but is being seen by no-one - also because many journalists and commentators pretend they are not seeing it.
Exactly like many intellectuals pretended not to see fascism at its origin. And they have been remembered in the history books because they were those who talked of other stuff, they were those who said not to exaggerate. Those who said it was necessary to have a dialogue with Mussolini.
They were the ones who said “well anyway, he too will do good things. But well, it’s true he’s a bit brusque, however he does have a consensus. He has gained votes.”
There. It’s these people who will be remembered in the history books for not having done anything and for not having done anything at a stage like this. It’s they who are the principal allies of the regime.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:29 AM in Information | Comments (4)
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June 29, 2008

Interview with Gian Carlo Caselli

This Blog interviewed Gian Carlo Caselli, High Court Prosecutor of Turin, regarding the latest legislation proposed by the Government concerning the justice system.

"The legislation concerning telephone tapping is only a draft Bill as yet, so the ball is still rolling on that one. The rolling began with far more disturbing signs. The Prime Minister stated publicly that telephone tapping must be restricted only to investigations revolving around Mafia activities and terrorism. It would thus have excluded cases involving national health scandals, poor administration, corruption, extortion, etcetera. Then, in the draft Bill submitted subsequently, the utility pool for telephone tapping was expanded, leaving out certain crimes of serious social concern, such as criminal association, usury, kidnapping, common theft, exploitation of prostitution, etcetera. Now, it is true that there is a problem in principle with telephone tapping, which is that you cannot use, and even less so reveal any information that is not directly linked to the case in question, in other words getting to the truth, or relating to third parties that have nothing to do with the case, as well as with conversations that, although involving individuals that are involved in the case, nevertheless contain information that is not pertinent to the case itself.
In my opinion, prohibiting the utilisation and the revelation of conversations involving third parties and regarding facts that are not pertinent is an inescapable duty and, in this regard, the draft Bill is moving in the right direction by establishing certain limits. However, we must be careful! This draft Bill prohibits the publication of all tapped telephone conversations, including those that are pertinent to the case. In this regard, Article 2 of the draft Bill states that: "It is prohibited to publish any information obtained, even partially, in summary or included in the content of the preliminary investigation documentation or in the prosecution or defence files, even where there are no existing grounds for maintaining confidentiality, until such time as the preliminary investigations have been concluded." What this means is that it would even be difficult to reveal the name of the individual under investigation. Never mind the nature of the crime for which he/she is being investigated or even any of the exculpatory proof gathered by the defence. Even in the case of material that is no longer deemed to be confidential, we will not be entitled to know anything about anything for many months, or perhaps even years, until such time as the investigations have been concluded. This is extremely dangerous! Not only because it sweeps aside every last vestiges of freedom of the press, but also because any public authority, and the justice system above all, must be open to so-called public scrutiny. We need to know what the justice system does and precisely what it is doing at the moment. This is so that we can decide whether what it is doing is right or wrong. If I as the Public Prosecutor am allowed to work in the utmost secrecy, without anyone knowing what I’m getting up to, then I will be able to carry out the most iniquitous of iniquities without anyone being any the wiser, is this what we call democracy?
To me this situation seems to be extremely dangerous. Another aspect to be taken into account is that telephone tapping operations will only be allowed to continue for 3 months. Allowing telephone tapping for 3 months, in other words for a time period that in many cases will not be sufficient time, to then have to cease the tapping just when things are starting to happen, does not mean prohibiting the entire operation, but is tantamount to making it meaningless or to emasculate it in the sense that, as regards its impact on the investigations, such an action could be dangerous. But there is another point that is even more striking due to its seriousness: if, for example, a telephone tap is authorised in terms of an investigation into a robbery and, while the alleged robbers’ conversation is being monitored, the robbers themselves admit to a murder and provide the listeners with precise, concrete proof regarding the murder under discussion, well, now this evidence will no longer be admissible in court! The draft Bill establishes that the only information that will be admissible is that which directly concerns the case for which the tapping was originally authorised.
Therefore, if the individuals whose conversations are being monitored happen to mention a murder, during an investigation into a robbery case, then nothing can be done about the murder. One would have to take this information and throw it away or block his ears, how should I know... Undoubtedly there are also problems relating to the cost of telephone tapping. Here I am not quoting my friend Marco Travaglio who, like myself, is suspected of being an executioner, but rather, I quote the Corriere della Sera and I quote Luigi Ferrarella, from the article entitled “A string of legends” as being only two of many who state that soon all our conversations will be monitored! This is not so. For example, the Turin Public Prosecutor’s Office handles hundreds of thousands of cases, yet only 0.2% of these include the monitoring of telephone conversations, and this in a Country that is still experiencing major problems with organised crime and major problems with serious white collar crime, and where, not entirely coincidentally, the greatest use made of telephone tapping is in Palermo, Catania, Reggio Calabria and Milan.
Telephone tapping costs too much, yes it’s true, it is an expensive exercise! But why is it so expensive?
Every time the State requests a telephone call listing, it pays over 26 Euro to the telephone company, and then it must pay the service provider 1.6 Euro per day in the case of a normal landline, 2 Euro per day in the case of a mobile phone and 12 Euro per day in the case of a satellite telephone. Funny enough, no one has bothered to find out what happens abroad in this regard, where almost all of the Governments either pay the telephone operators a flat rate or, in some cases, even oblige the service provider to agree to special tariffs at the time of issuing them with an operating licence. I grant you a public concession, but when I request a service that is in the public interest, I demand to pay only a fair amount, as occurs everywhere else in the world. That is not the case here in Italy, and so we pay too much. Now, allow me to make one final observation. In return for the costs, there are also certain benefits. Staying with Ferrarella, the Antonveneta investigation, the cost of the investigation, 8 million Euro, monies recovered from the 64 suspects in terms of a plea bargain, 340 million, tens of millions of which were handed over to the State to be allocated to the creation of new nursery schools. From this we can see that reality is actually far more complex than what they would have us believe. Reality cannot start from this basic tenet. Telephone tapping is an essential activity and is often decisive in terms of getting to the truth. The truth often means the security of the citizens. We talk a lot about security. Good! Let’s at least be consistent! We must not only talk about security when addressing certain issues, for example the gypsies, yet fail to mention security when discussing the issue of telephone tapping. If security is the issue, then security it must be, but always in the same manner. The suspension of court cases is the result of an amendment introduced in the security Law. All good and well, we freeze the court proceedings regarding kidnapping, extortion, robbery, burglary, bag snatching, criminal association, rape and sexual molestation, illegal abortion, fraudulent bankruptcy, exploitation of prostitution, tax fraud, usury, forgery of public documents, corruption, breach of confidentiality, computer fraud, sale of counterfeit products, possession of paedophilic-pornographic material, illegal possession of unregistered firearms, culpable homicide resulting from violation of traffic laws, slander, European Union fraud, arson, illegal handling of refuse, and tampering with foodstuffs, almost all of which have something to do with the security of the citizens. What about those people who have experienced the consequences of these crimes and who see nothing happening in terms of the associated court cases, which have been suspended for one year? How can these people ever feel that their right to greater security is being safeguarded, by the acknowledgement of the guilt of the person that perpetrated the crime against them when, after a year of delay in the court proceedings, we are suddenly faced with a scary backlog of cases to get through? No one quite knows precisely which cases will be suspended: the National Magistrates’ Association estimates that the suspension will affect some 100-thousand court cases. A veritable mountain of work, which, a year from now when the landslide commences, as it will have to do, will cause an truly unbelievable bottleneck that will further aggravate the Justice Department’s problems instead of helping to sort them out. Former US President Bill Clinton, the most powerful man in the world, went through 7 court cases, 6 of which saw him come out unscathed. During the week he was constantly embroiled in a matter that was part public and part private, yet it never even flashed through his mind to take it out on the judge hearing his case. In all democratic countries, the law may well be criticised, but it is also respected at the same time! Agreed! That is because the law is a pivotal part and one of the foundation stones of Democracy and good neighbourliness. If it is true that these things are only happening in our Country, then this concept of Democracy that cannot but arouse more than just a little concern." Gian Carlo Caselli

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:16 AM in Information | Comments (19)
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June 28, 2008

Three years (and a few months) later

More than three years have passed since I began beating on the keyboard of a PC with my fingertips. Since then I have written literally thousands of postings. I have received two million comments. Published book loads of complaints. With you at my side, I have fought a hundred battles: from the re-opening of the Pedavena brewery, through to the expulsion of Antonio Fazio from the post of Governor of the Banca d’Italia (the Italian Reserve Bank), and from the murder of Federico Aldrovandi through to getting some help for an unemployed mother with a disabled daughter. I went to Brussels to lodge a complaint about our Parliament that is filled with condemned criminals and about an unconstitutional law that doesn’t allow us to choose our own candidates. In Strasburg I asked the European Community to stop sending money to the various Mafia organisations. Together with a bunch of truly marvellous people I organised two V-day events to demand a Parliament without any condemned criminals and to demand freedom of information in a free State. 74,000 individuals from the Meetups in 364 towns are following the progress and developing ideas for the blog on topics such as the justice system, the public administration system, the environment and energy. I delivered 350,000 signatures to the Senate, for a popular law aimed at evicting all convicted criminals from Parliament. I will be asking to present this proposed law to a public sitting of the Senate. I am still busy gathering your signatures for a referendum on freedom of information and the abolition of the Gasparri Law. I will be submitting these signatures to the Court of Cassation in July. I launched the civic election lists so that YOU could take back your towns from out of the hands of corrupt and incompetent politicians. I attended the Telecom shareholders meeting in order to defend those minority shareholders that have seen their investment capital decimated by the likes of the Tronchettis and the Buoras of this world.
In return, politicians and the media alike have tried to destroy my public image. Fatso, fat cat, lout, boor, populist, political cynic, but also fascist and extreme left-wing hanger-on. My brother has catalogued at least five hundred different insults aimed at Beppe Grillo.
Anyone in a similar position to mine would be questioning whether or not to carry on regardless. I am certainly not doing this for the money. I could earn at least ten times as much by advertising processed cheese wedges. Nor is it for the happiness, or even for the affection. Many of my old friends have stopped calling me and have stopped coming round to visit. My family says that someday someone will make me pay for my actions, and that I should spare more than just a passing thought for the wellbeing of my children. Subpoenas have become a normal part of my life. These days my attorneys are usually working on three court cases at any one time, as a result of all the charges laid against me. At the end of the day, I am about to turn sixty. Hey guys! I know I look as if I have just turned forty but, unfortunately, reality is what it is. I have worked in management since I was twenty years old. I could cheerfully just sit back and enjoy whatever time is left to me. Often I am tempted to do just that. But then I look at Ciro, who is only 7 years of age, and I suddenly realise that I really have no choice. I cannot simply stand by with my hands in my pockets and watch while my Country goes to the dogs. What would my children think of their father one day when they grow up?

Ps: I will be looking out for you on the Trip to Rome on 25 July 2008

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:06 AM in Information | Comments (1)
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June 23, 2008

The Berlusconian praying mantis

I’m publishing the text of Marco Travaglio’s speech.

”Good day to all. There’s a word that is over-used, abused and by now creates annoyance when people talk about it. The expression is “conflict of interests”. I’m saying straight away that we need to change its name. We should call it Tom or Dick of Harry, whatever comes to mind. The important thing is to revive the attention of people about this concept that has become really boring and unpronounceable.
Thos on the Left can’t stand hearing it spoken of, because their representatives betrayed their popular mandate and didn’t create the laws to resolve the conflicts of interest s. In fact they multiplies them by creating their own conflicts of interests. For an example, look at the Unipol case.
In the Centre-Right as soon as someone hears talk of conflict of interests, they say “there you are, a communist has arrived, one who has it in for Berlusconi”. It’s as though the conflict of interests was just a single thing about Silvio Berlusconi’s TV channels. That’s the biggest, but it’s not the only one.
Thus it is the conflict of interests that relates to the size of the playing field where the Right and the Left have to play the game, that is relation to the rules, and it has become a sort of political war.
A war between gangs, so it’s a bit like when they are talking about justice. They say: “there you are, this one is Left-wing!” In fact, talking about justice is not Right-wing or Left-wing. It’s a matter of pre-politics about keeping to the rules.
These are all examples given by the Magistrates Association in a research report on the effects of this law. A law that above all does not suspend the trials just for a year. It says that they are suspended for a year, then in reality they have to be reinserted in the list of trials. The statute of limitations is blocked for a year. After that, all the dead-time, years and years, needed by the tribunals to put them back on the list of trials, will result in all those trials being suspended for a year but then they will rest in peace and will finish with time outs for the statute of limitations. Including Berlusconi’s trial.
That’s what I said before. It’s very easy to see from these examples, that so as to block the Mills trial, a third of the trials that are really going on are blocked (or a quarter or a fifth). We are anyway talking about an enormous portion and all the victims that were expecting to have justice from those trials will be told: “Too bad. To make sure that Berlusconi goes free, your criminal too will go free.” The conflict of interests is clear straight away. It’s really easy to understand. It’s in our interests that those trials go ahead.
It’s in his interests obviously that those trials don’t go ahead because that way neither will his, and he won’t get a verdict and a penalty. And he knows what his sentence will be. Next week we will see. They are writing it right now, We will see what will be the consequences and what lies they will be telling us in relation to the Lodo Schifani Bis.
The Lodo Schifani Bis is in preparation and they are deciding which other top positions to include. Because five seemed too few so now it seems that they want to include nineteen, perhaps even the president of the hunting society or perhaps of the Salvation Army. There are various organisations to be given immunity. And probably, since he put on his panama hat, like Al Capone and asked a bishop to allow him to receive Communion even though he is divorced, it’s very probable that in the Lodo Schifani Bis there is also the right to receive Communion for those who are divorced and have a first name starting with “S” and a surname starting with “B” and their head covered with tar.

Thanks and spread the word.”

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 01:00 PM in Information | Comments (3)
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June 17, 2008

Political Press Release number fourteen: referendum

Topo Gigio Veltroni, the weakest leader of the opposition in living memory, has finally reacted. The psycho-dwarf has brought in the iron curtain between the politicians and the justice system and information. It cuts the country in two. On this side: the unpunished ones of politics. On that side: the citizens. Topo Gigio then declared: “It would be a mistake to let us be squashed into positions on the round-about” but also: “I don’t think that there is a positive climate” and even still: “Too many blows, like that, the dialogue goes up in the air”.
How many blows against the Constitution and against the laws do we need before the Veltrusconi mess-up goes up in the air? It’s Topo Gigio who tells us. In fact, let him say nothing more, let him save us from his third-world adjectives, from his berlusconist adjectives and let him resign. In the United States, after the impressive series of defeats that he has suffered, Ueltròn would be a doorman at the cinema in Hollywood.
The psycho-dwarf has declared war against the country. Not because he is wicked, but out of necessity. Prison is not a pleasure to anyone. This is why he wants to send the journalists and the magistrates there in his place. The draft law on wiretaps definitively buries the (little) bit of free information existing in Italy. We won’t be able to know anything. Nothing. Unipol, Abu Omar, Santa Rita, the Telecom espionage centre, Saccà, Parmalat. Trials will become State secrets. The psycho-dwarf uses prison to stop the publication of what is public information. Not just of wiretaps, that in fact will be eliminated. In fact, all the court documents of the preliminary investigations “even though there is no longer any secret” will not be allowed to be published and not even “partially or in summary form”. No wiretapping for penalties below 10 years in prison. No publication of public court documents. This is the security of the new government. Having the military on the streets is an insult to the police forces. The aim is not to defend the citizens but to create a precedent. The military will then be able to be used for