Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Gelli Beans
Once upon a time there was a pseudo democratic Country called Italy.
It was located at the very border of the Free Western Empire and because of that it was very much subject to the risks coming from the bordering Evil Red Empire.
Since the inhabitants of this Country didn't completely agree on which side to support, the ruling Free Western Empire had to spent a huge effort (both in economical and political help) to keep the Country under its influence sphere.
As a consequence the political life of the Country stayed for 50 years frozen in the hands of the Christian Democracy party, while safety and stability where assured by precise and harsh actions led by some governament guided right-wing paramilitary groups.
This worked for a while, but later it became clear that it was more easy, in order to keep the power over the Country, to fill all the society spheres with trusted men rather than facing the Evil Empire with direct brutal force.
In this Country was living a Venerable Master.
He was a peculiar character: during the last war he used to play for both fascist and anti-fascist sides (even if he preferred the first one), while right after the war he started collaborating with the Free Western Empire intelligence service, and then ended up being at the intelligence service of his own Country.
Someone claims it was this Venerable Master that helped the Empire in building a thick control net over the Italian society, using his acquaintances in the Freemansonry world.
His covert lodge was very powerful and it included very important state officers, politicians (also ministers and deputies), military officers.
The aim of the network was to subvert the political order in Italy and lead eventually to an authoritarian turning by steps: creation of two big parties, gain control over the media and judges, ask for constitutional reforms, bench reform, abolition of provinces and study qualifications.
"Unfortunately" the network was discovered after five years and the lists of associates were made public.
Notably, the then future Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was on the list.
A couple of times the Master had something nice to say about him: "The real power lays in the hands of who control the Media", "All is becoming a reality little by little, piece by piece. To be truthful, I should have had the copyright to it. Justice, TV, public order. I wrote about this thirty years ago..." or "Berlusconi is an extraordinary man, a man of action. This is what Italy needs: not a man of words, but a man of action."
Today, after 25 years, our Venerable Master has been asked to go public and to run a TV program, Venerable Italy, where he's going to teach Italian history, from the Fascism to these days.
Special guests for the first episode will be controversial former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, and the co-leader of Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, Marcello Dell'Utri, convicted for collusion with the Mafia (pending appeal).
Together, they are going to explain us their version of Italian history.
Is this good or bad?
Is this a chance for enlighten people to see the real connections between present and past powers in Italy, or it's a sign that by now in this Country you can say whatever you want and full as many people as you can, telling them your own truth?
I'm not sure actually.
Personally I'm pretty interested in listen on what he has to say. It's more or less like to listen to the devil's teaching. He definitely knows a lot of our Country's dirty secrets and he's probably going to play with them.
I think the interesting thing will be to see who he's going to address his stories to.
Normal folk or non-disinterested politicians?
Anyways... they all lived happily ever after.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Francesco Cossiga on Democracy in Italy
On Thursday, October 23rd, commenting over S.Berlusconi's intimidation (denied righ after by he himself) to use police force against university demontrators in Italy, former President of the Italian Republic (and currently lifetime senator) Francesco Cossiga stated the following on an interview (here the original text):
President Cossiga, do you think that Berlusconi has gone too far in threatening the use of State force against the students?
That depends, if he believes he is the Prime Minister of a strong State then no, he was right. But as Italy is a weak State, as the opposition is no longer the rock-like PCI (Italian Communist Party, which changed name and broke up in 1991) but the evanescent PD (Democratic Party, led by Walter Veltroni, formed in 2007 from the remains of the old PCI together with other centre-left forces), I'm afraid that his words will not be followed by action and that Berlusconi will just end up with egg on his face.
What should happen now?
At this point, Maroni (Roberto Maroni (Lega Nord), current Home Minister) should do what I did when I was Home Secretary.
What's that?
Firstly, forget the high-school students... can you imagine what would happen if a 10-year-old kid got killed or seriously injured...
Instead, the university students?
Let them get on with it. Withdraw the police from the streets and the universities, infiltrate the movement with agents provocateurs ready for anything, and allow the demonstrators to run loose for a week or so, devastating shops, setting cars on fire and causing havoc in the streets.
Then what? Then, with public opinion on your side, the sound of ambulance sirens should drown out the sirens of police and carabinieri cars.
In the sense that...
In the sense that the forces of law and order should massacre the demonstrators without pity and send them all to hospital. Not arrest them - the magistrates would set them free straight away in any event... beat them bloody and beat the teachers storring them up bloody too.
The teachers, too?
The teacher above all. Not the older ones, of course... the young girls. Have you any idea of the seriousness of what's happening? There are teachers indoctrinating children and encouraging them to demonstrate - that's criminal behaviour!
But you realise what they would say in Europe after something like you suggest? "Fascism returns to Italy", they'd say.
Rubbish, it's the democratic way - put out the flame before the fire spreads.
What fire?
I'm not exaggerating when I say I truly believe that terrorism will return to bloody the streets of this country. And I wouldn't want people to forget that the Red Brigades (BR) were not born in the factories but in the universities. And that the slogans they used were used before them by the Student Movement and the trade union left.
So you think it is possible that history will repeat itself?
It's not possible, it's probable. That's why I'm saying: let's not forget that the BR were born because the flame was not put out in time.
Veltroni's PD is on the side of the demonstrators.
Look, I can't in all honesty see Veltroni taking to the streets and risk getting a cracked skull. You're more likely to see him in some exclusive club in Chicago, applauding Obama.
He won't take to the streets with a stick in his hands, sure, but politically...
Politically, he's making the same mistake that the PCI made when the troubles (The widespread progressive protest movement which began in the late 1960s) started: it backed the movement, deluding itself that it could control it, but when it too became a target, as was bound to happen, it soon changed its mind. The so-called hard-line adopted by Andreotti, Zaccagnini and me was suggested by Berlinguer (Leader of the PCI from 1972 to 1984)... But today we've got the PD, an ectoplasm led by another ectoplasm. And that's another good reason for Berlusconi to be more prudent.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Vedea ceffi di birro in ogni volto.
Yesterday the American Freedom Alliance, a right-wing US think tank, announced they were going to give an award to Geert Wilders, the Dutch anti-immigration politician sadly famous for his short film Fitna.
In the note it is said that the Freedom Award is given to individuals or organisations which defend world freedoms.
All this sounded to me pretty odd: you actually call Freedom to be against human rights?
I would say no, but it turns out that this word (freedom) is often used for right oriented political groups generally against basic freedoms.
There are six political parties in Europe recalling Freedom in their name; in most (but not all) of the case they mean individual freedom in economics, liberalism, but in all the case they are populist parties. This probably tells us that the word freedom is a bit abused in order to touch easy emotions of people by calling simple principles on which everybody has to believe.
The funny thing of this is in fact that all this so called freedom parties have in their declared intents the will of fighting freedom.
These are the parties:
1. Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ, Freedom Party of Austria): the populist and nationalist party held until 2005 by Jörg Haider, against asylum system, against EU policy in Austria, pro restriction in Austrian citizenship law, against Turkey in EU;
2. Frihedspartiet (FP, Danish Freedom Party): founded by the former pastor of Faderhuset evangelical church, Eivind Fønssagainst, against freedom of abortion;
3. Il Popolo della Libertà (PdL, Italian People of Freedom): the party by and with Silvio Berlusconi, against the freedom of being clever and Italian at the same time;
4. Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV, Dutch Party for Freedom): led by the already mentioned Geert Wilders, it's against Europe, Turkey (or anyway them both together), double citizenship, immigrants in The Netherlands;
5. Freiheits-Partei der Schweiz (FPS, Freedom Party of Switzerland): against immigrants (especially black people), for a "law and order" approach to crime and drugs;
6. Freedom Party (FP, English): very smll populist anti immigration party.
We could notice that all of these parties are actually pretty small and they refer to a very small, radical and extremistic, part of the population.
All but the Italian one which just took 37.4% of the votes (and it was not the only populist party).
What does this mean? That our populism is better than the others? Or that we are more populist than others? (If so, who's fault is this?)
But for one thing we, as Italian, can be proud: despite the fact that Freedom House consider Italy as the 34th of the Countries ranked by Democracy Index, and consider ours a Flawed Democracy, we can claim to be the freest in the world, since most of the people in Italy apparently believes in Freedom and in its champion, Silvio Berlusconi, that for all his life tried to fight for (his) freedom.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
The Little or the Big Planet?
How will you make the planet if you could do it? Maybe with a lot of sackboys and sackgirls hanging around. Well, if you have a PS3, now you can do it. Well, not really now, but in a couple of weeks. Not now because Sony decided to postpone the launch on the market of its new game, Little Big Planet, because of some text contained in the soudtrack. This game is a real revolution and it is supposed to be the killer app for the PS3 console, revolutioning the game experience and expecially the share and multiplayer gaming. The plot is very simple. You are a small sackboy that goes around the world, not differently then Mario used to do. But, you are not alone. Other sackboys and sackgirs are going around with you, and you have to cohoperate in order to succeed the level (video. Also, and this is the big news, you can build your own world. Not with an editor, but during the game (video). After, you can share your world with others, online, and let them play it, while you are playing theirs. Check on youtube what people managed to do, it's really impressive. The point is that one betatester noticed that in one song there are some quotes from the Coran, and he pointed it out in the sony forum. Immediately, Sony decided to stop the release of the game, already printed in blue ray and delivered to many stores, recall all the beta copies and postpone the release date with a patched version that will not contain the song. Many discussions about this event has grown in the web, and many hypothesis about why this really happened popped out. Some people think that muslim reaction was exagerated, as at the end it's only a game and there were only few sentences. Some people think that Sony didn't stop the production because of the Coran itself but because of the meaning of these sentences :"Every soul shall have the taste of death" and "All that is on earth will perish" that may have affected the "family" sticker on the game (with consequences on the number of sold copies...). Some people think that it only a fast way to get some advertisement (I wouldn't say cheap, anyway). The composer of the music is a muslim musician, and he claimed that: "It's quite normal to play music and be inspired by the words of the Prophet Mohammed. It's my way to attract and inspire people towards Islam", which I think make sense. Nevertheless he got a fast reply from the islamic community: "Muslims believe the Qur'an to be the actual word of god and give it utmost respect. Therefore if it were to be used with the accompaniment of music or if it were to be used in a game or a commercial - that would upset and cause offense and hurt to many, many Muslims." . This, applied to christians, will end with forbidding most of Chrismas songs and cartoons... Is it the belief of the most or just of the few who like to speak and to be center of the attention? I agree that respect must be given to all belief and traditions, but all this mess for a game and not even the game itself, but only a very tiny part of a song? By the way, here you can listen to the song that creates this hype... What do you think?
Friday, October 17, 2008
Kleptocrats and pornocracy
The biggest argument against democracy is a five minute discussion with the average voter.Since I've been hit by the stone thrown by Eleonora in the previous post, I'm here going say what I think about voting right in Democracies.
W. Churchill
In a few occasions during the last couple of years, I found myself thinking that a very easy general-culture test taken by the voters just before expressing their vote, would have avoided irrational decisions.
Smart politicians are often good in move and manipulate stupid hordes of people by frightening them with populistic arguments. Sometimes people just vote against something or someone they fear without knowing what they're signing for.
So I use to think a couple of random and very basic questions (such as: "Who's the current President of this Country?" Think that the question "How many regions are there in this Country?" would have cut S. Berlusconi's vote out!) before the vote could be used to weight the political influence of every person.
Of course the matter is not an easy one.
We would like to be very careful in chosing the questions in order not to discriminate people from their wealth (rich people tend to be more cultured of course), race or sex.
Then that would become easily a strong weapon in the hands of the current politicians that will try to have a profit out of it so we'd need strong rules for that.
For example sometimes in the past, the right to vote has been limited to people who had achieved a certain level of education or passed a certain "literacy tests" in some states of the US.
In practice, the composition and application of these tests were frequently manipulated so as to functionally limit the electorate on the basis of other characteristics like wealth or race.
This tells me that a culture test would not work for what I said before: a poor woman of the south of Italy may don't care about litterature and economics but, if she shows interest, she still deserve the right to be represented in the parliament, doesn't she?
But it would be not easy to convince people to weight their vote.
To me the argumentation would be: when you go for a surgery you let discuss and decide all the procedure to the medical staff. In the same way it would be way better if poeple that knows something more about a specific subject had more decision-power.
But on the other hand this would be not a democracy anymore: democracy is giving the power to the folk that elects its representatives to deal with hard topics in their place.
If people are stupid on average (and they are), they will vote for inept politicians.
And they want to keep doing it.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Scripta Manent
After a very long silent, mainly due to lazyness, here a new post about something I already treated several time here: the language in the web. Although I am interested to it, it is not such a useless subject, infact many groups are thinking and studying it. For example google. Google just released a new web application you can use in your gmail account that forbids you to send mail that you will regret after few seconds (tipically, in the very moment you press "send"). This application, available on the google labs, is called Mail Goggles, and obliges you to solve some small mathemathical problems, in a short time, before you can actually send the message. If you don't succeed solving these problems, than the mail is archived and is not sent. Many people don't think much before talking and, as the web provides a very fast way to communicate, almost as fast as speaking, people tend not to think before sending stuff in the web. But, unfortunately, sending stuff on the web is not at all the same as speaking. If you send a mail or post a video or a entry in your blog or whatever, it stays there. And even if you delete it later, it is probably going to be too late. This google service should help the impulsive employee not to lose his job sending a angry mail to his boss. Or it can save love stories and friendship. It is indeed very useful. The only thing that it does it to give you some extra time to think about what you are doing. It is surprising that in a service like the email you need that, because normally you should have all the time in the world. But facts reveals that people act before thinking, so what google offers ir a real precious service. Talking of this, just in conclusion, I just throw a stone about a similar subject.... wouldn't it be better to add a similar test, maybe on general culture, before allowing people to vote? Make a test and then weight the votes depending on the results?
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