Newsgroup: it.media.tv
Titolo: Un bel quadretto (Tranquilli destri: capiterà mai che capiate due righe d'inglese)

ITALIAN BORDEL - Our country as seen by the "Foreign Policy" magazine
The American magazine edited the following article written by James
Walston, professor of international relationships at the American
University in Rome, who makes a "painting" of our corrupted country and
gives a real description of our political crisis as well as of the
little story of the Lybian motor patrol vessel.
The Bordello State
Italy's descent under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. 
BY JAMES WALSTON | SEPTEMBER 14, 2010 
Ahi serva Italia, di dolore ostello, nave senza nocchiero in gran
tempesta, non donna di province, ma bordello! 
Quoting Dante is, I admit, the last resort of a scoundrel or at least
the indolent scribe. But this one, from Purgatorio,* is too apposite not
to use. Roughly translated, it reads, "Alas enslaved Italy, inn of
sorrow, a ship without a helmsman in a great storm, not a queen of her
provinces, but a whorehouse." It was also the title of a book by Paolo
Sylos Labini published posthumously in 2006; Sylos Labini was not only
one of Italy's most distinguished economists, but a man of absolute
integrity who consistently and very openly refused to compromise with
Power (even "power" with a small "p"). His last work described, analyzed
and criticized the Italy of five years ago. "Why have we sunk so low?"
he asked. "I exhort my fellow citizens to carry out an unflinching
critical examination of our civic consciousness if we want to rise from
the abyss." His appeal was more or less an economist's defense of the
market economy and its rules, which defend the community against
unbridled economic and political power. Italian prime minister and
billionaire Silvio Berlusconi's massive conflicts of interest have made
a mockery of these rules. 
Today's Italy has been battered by even more internal storms, as well as
the obvious international economic ones; since then, the prime
minister's residences have become brothels -- and not just
metaphorically. Above all, the ship of state is close to being
rudderless. So I am not the only person in Italy quoting Dante these
days. 
There has been a lack of clear leadership since the end of July, but
over the last fortnight the lack of direction has become paroxysmal. For
most of August, Berlusconi threatened elections in order to bring
Gianfranco Fini, the rebellious former ally who broke with the prime
minister in July and formed his own party, and his followers to heel.
Then, as polls showed that the only real winner in an early vote would
be Umberto Bossi and the Northern League, which favors autonomy for
Italy's north -- and, worse, that there was a good chance that
Berlusconi would not win a majority in the Senate -- he started
backpedaling. These last few days, his public statements once again
refer to "three more years in order to carry out the Great Reforms." The
immediate aim is to pass a motion supporting a five-point plan
concerning the economy, the South, fiscal federalism, justice, and
security. The most controversial issue is "justice," which for
Berlusconi means giving the himself immunity from prosecution ("in order
to get on with the job of governing," he says). Devolved spending powers
are fundamental for the Northern League, but others in the center-right
are worried that poorer parts of the country will lose support. 
Berlusconi boasts constantly that his personally run foreign policy is
the envy of Europe, but the reality is different and as
counterproductive as much of his domestic policy. Last week, he used his
presence at the Kremlin-organized Global Policy Forum in Yaroslavl,
Russia, to take a swipe at Fini (without naming him), saying there were
some who had created "little political businesses" (aziendine) in Italy;
then he made the complaint that "communist judges" were stopping him and
his people from governing; and finally, to cap his effusive welcome to
Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi two weeks ago, came the remarkable
statement that his hosts Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President
Dmitry Medvedev were "God's gift to democracy" (pity that the Economist
had beat him to it with a cartoon showing Putin's real love of democracy
and the press). More embarrassing still was the news that one of Libya's
Italian-donated coast guard launches had machine-gunned an Italian
fishing boat. 
Meanwhile, Berlusconi's domestic woes are multiplying. The editor of one
of his own papers, Vittorio Feltri in Il Giornale, criticized the prime
minister this week for being indecisive and lacking leadership. Worse,
his personal approval ratings are at 37 percent (down 4.9 percentage
points since June), with his People of Freedom Party below 30 percent
(down from 33.2 percent in June and 37.4 percent in the 2008 elections),
according to an early September Demos poll. We will know whether the
"three more years" proposal has any chance whatsoever at the end of the
month when the Chamber of Deputies, Italy's lower house of Parliament,
debates Berlusconi's five-point plan and votes on it. In the meantime,
the prime minister appears to be on a shopping spree, hoping to pick up
independents to make up the loss of defectors to Fini -- he needs 19 to
have a secure majority. 
If anyone can pull off this feat, it's Berlusconi. Given his financial
and media resources along with other forms of political patronage, there
is little that he cannot offer. He has experience in convincing
parliamentarians to come over to his side, as recent revelations about
the so-called P3 are showing. (The P3 is an alleged secret cabal whose
members were active three years ago in trying to promote Berlusconi's
public and private interests through underhanded means. One allegation
holds that in, late 2007, in another political shopping spree, the P3
began throwing around money and favors in an effort to bring down the
left-leaning government of Romano Prodi; his coalition duly fell apart
in January 2008.) But the revelations of its moves to oust Prodi are
themselves proof of the changes in Italian politics since then. Unlike
on similar occasions, when indicted politicians were very tight-lipped,
it seems that most of the accused are singing as if they were in La
Scala -- and suggest rats fleeing from a sinking ship. 
It's a shame Berlusconi is so preoccupied with his own survival, because
his country is in big trouble. Italy's relative decline began almost 20
years ago, when it became clear the economy was not able to face the new
challenges of globalization, but every year production figures go down
with respect to Europe, and of course China and the other emerging
economies. Last week, the OECD -- the developed world's think tank --
calculated that the country's GDP would decline 0.3 percent in the third
quarter (making Italy the only G-7 country with negative growth) and
grow by a miserable 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter. The World
Economic Forum reckons that a real recovery has not begun and puts Italy
in 48th place for global competitiveness, just behind Lithuania and
ahead of Montenegro. Youth unemployment grew to 29.2 percent in May, up
4.7 percentage points from May of last year. Berlusconi's minister for
economic development resigned four months ago and still has not been
replaced. And as the school year begins, teachers are on the warpath
over budget cuts, as are the police. There are plenty of real issues,
but Italy is nave senza nocchiero, "a ship without a helmsman." 
So is Italy once again "enslaved," as Dante lamented 700 years ago? And
is Italy a brothel instead of queen of her own provinces? A new book by
a Princeton University scholar argues that Italy is very much the
bordello. In La libertà dei servi, Maurizio Viroli writes that Italy has
succeeded "in the political experiment of transforming, without
violence, a democratic republic into a court which has at the centre a
feudal lord surrounded by a plethora of courtesans admired and envied by
a multitude of people with a servile spirit." 
In Verdi's Rigoletto, the protagonist curses the courtesans with his
wonderful aria "Cortigiani, vil razza dannata!" but today it is the
courtesans who are in control. Even Fedele Confalonieri, probably
Berlusconi's best friend and closest associate, described him in 2004 as
"an enlightened despot … a good Ceausescu, but decidedly anomalous as a
democratic politician." Six years later, with a changed electoral system
that makes all parliamentarians beholden to him and a new, enlarged
party completely under his control, the quote is even more apt. 
Last week, a center-right deputy in Fini's group accused some of her
fellow MPs of having prostituted themselves to get into Parliament. She
withdrew the statement immediately (even though a deputy from
Berlusconi's party said that he saw nothing untoward if anyone had), but
in any case Veronica Lario, Berlusconi's second wife, and the Fini think
tank FareFuturo had made the same point in April of last year. The real
point, though, is that the problem is not that some women got into
Parliament through a bedroom; it is that men and women, journalists and
professionals, have given up their minds and principles rather than
their bodies. 
Dante is oft quoted here for good reason. 
* The original version of this article stated that the quote at the top
of this article was from Dante's Inferno. 
-- 
Roberto Rosoni


Di sicuro sarà scritto da un comunista che McCarthy non fece in tempo ad 
"eliminare" :)