Newsgroup: it.arti.cinema
Titolo: (OT) Italian soap-opera

Italian soap-opera
By Tariq Ali
February 22, 2007, Guardian (UK)
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tariq_ali/2007/02/neoliberalism_and_war_in_italy.html
The states of western Europe continue to resist harmonisation.
On the same day that the chicaneries of every antiquated
careerist vying for the New Labour deputy leadership were made
public, each justifying his/her grotesque decision to support
the war and occupation of Iraq, the centre-left Italian
government - not yet a year old - fell after a debate on
foreign policy in the upper chamber.
It was not Iraq that was at issue here. Unlike New Labour
(protected by undemocratic electoral laws), the whole of the
Italian left and 80% of the population opposed that war. The
dispute this week concerned two issues: Operation Enduring
Freedom - the satirical self-description of the NATO/UN
occupation of Afghanistan - and the expansion of the US
military base in Vicenza in Northern Italy.
Two leftwing senators voted against the government in the
Italian senate after Prodi and his foreign minister D'Alema
had made the vote an issue of confidence, arguing that
Afghanistan was a legal war because it was supported by the
United Nations. He meant, of course, the Security Council with
its iron-fisted monopoly of power still firmly under the
control of five countries who were victorious in the second
world war. His arguments failed to sway two dissenting
senators from the left.
As a result, a weakened Romano Prodi, the prudent spokesman of
an immoderate bourgeoisie, has resigned. His popularity was on
the wane (36% as against 44% who backed the coalition) as was
that of his neo-liberal finance minister, Tommaso Padoa-
Schioppa (30%) whose attempts at casualisation and short-term
contracts for workers have also divided the government, many
of whose supporters and a few ministers participated in the
mass protests of last November in defence of universal,
publicly-financed social services and against any restriction
of social rights.
Could it be that they wanted to be defeated so as to re-jig
the coalition by attracting a moderate centre- right party to
join their ranks and dumping Rifondazione Comunista (the
refounded communists)? It's a risky operation, especially as
the RC leader, Fausto Bertinotti (drunk with happiness at
becoming a dignitary of the state) has kept their principles
under heavy wraps, but the next few weeks will tell.
Only a week earlier, Prodi had explicitly forbidden any member
of the cabinet from participation in the mass demonstration
(100,000 people according to La Repubblica) protesting the
extension of the base. Now the crisis within the left is out
in the open: 62% of Italians and 73% of the government's
supporters want to withdraw all Italian troops from
Afghanistan.
Like centre politicians elsewhere Berlusconi, Prodi and
D'Alema are united in ignoring public opinion. Were it not for
factional divisions on other issues (especially patronage and
corrupt commissions) the opposition would have voted with
Prodi. But Italian politics remains volatile and unpredictable
while grandees of the centre-left and their equivalents on the
right exude the stench of putrefaction, the muck of their
fatherland.
The EU is too weak a political entity to provide any serious
assistance and Latin America, where new alternatives are being
discussed and implemented, is geo-politically remote.
-- 
www.iaciners.org

 Italian soap-opera
La tesi e' che il governo e' stato fatto cadere per cambiare la presidenza 
di bertinotti e aprire al centro.
-- 
www.iaciners.org

AP wrote:

ma Bertinotti non e' mai stato cosi' moderato da uqndo e' presidente della
Camera
casomai, se complotto dalemiano e' stato, e' servito a ridimensionare il peso
della cosiddetta "sinistra radicale"
N.

"il cuggino di Nico" <miocu...@a.b.c> ha scritto nel messaggio 
news:45DECCC7...@a.b.c...
(...)
Dialogo in ufficio subito dopo la notizia che D'Alema era andato sotto 
sull'Afghanistan:
-"Nuccio, ce l'hai ancora la versione 2.68 delle paghe?"
-"Sě, perché?"
-"Sbattila sul sito come 2.70 che si torna alla vecchia finanziaria"
-- 
Aramesh 

 della cosiddetta "sinistra radicale"
infatti. per questo chi si riconosce nella sinistra radicale credo si
riconosca meno nel governo attuale...
-- 
Holden, "lo Stanley Kubrick dei tacchinatori" (copyright GAbriele)
http://www.iaciners.org
 (e holden è la mia email)
"cos'è sto film di sta tipa in bagno?"
(mia suocera, leggendo di "lady in the water")