Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: La risposta dell’Europa a Berlusconi è stata la codardia

Europe replaced the terrors of totalitarianism with human rights
conventions and peace treaties. It is easy to become exasperated by
the monotony of its composite resolutions and interminable meetings.
But tens of millions accepted the chance of trading national
sovereignty for freedom from the dictatorships of their day.
That deal is no longer on offer. The dictatorships of our day come in
many types, but the dominant form is a state capitalism or oligarchy
in which the boss or ruling clique control public assets and the
sinecures that go with them. Strictly speaking, they are not full
dictatorships. Rulers tolerate elections as long as their results can
be manipulated and allow criticism as long as it does not reach the
masses.
The campaign group European Alternatives defined modern crony states
thus: "In a country where television channels represent the only
source of information for over 80% of the population, control over the
media must not of necessity assume the draconian and totalitarian
methods its 20th-century precedent. Manipulation of the principal,
mass media of a country can today perfectly coexist with the
maintenance of dedicated 'Indian reserves' of opposition, flag bearers
of a merely procedural freedom of expression."
If the authors sound like high-minded European liberals lamenting far-
away miseries, I should add that they were not discussing Putin's
Russia or Chávez's Venezuela but Berlusconi's Italy.
Because the British care so little for Europe, no one apart from
constitutional lawyers studies the Charter of Fundamental Rights in
the Lisbon Treaty. In Brussels, however, Eurocrats pretend to take it
seriously. Article 11 guarantees freedom of the press and media
pluralism, but Europe is happy to see Berlusconi exercise direct
control of the three Mediaset private channels, his publishing house,
advertising company and cinema distribution business and indirect
control through his sycophants of Italy's public television channels
and the vast advertising budgets of the Italian government.
Last week in the European Parliament, socialist delegates tried to
turn the rotten state of Italy into a European issue, only to see the
"moderate" conservatives of the European People's party turn on them.
Nicolas Sarkozy's ally, Joseph Daul, was outraged that leftists could
dare suggest Italy was anything other than "a democratic country where
the rule of law was respected". The supporters of Angela Merkel
refused to accept that Europe needed to defend Italians' fundamental
rights. So angry were the supposed moderates at the insult to
Berlusconi's good name that they not only argued against intervention,
but tried to prevent the debate taking place.
When David Cameron led the Tories out of the European People's party
to march in step with the SS veterans of the Latvian Fatherland and
Freedom party, I and many others accused him of abandoning the
European mainstream. I should have added that the mainstream in
Brussels has dark depths of its own. When its outwardly respectable
democrats find that a fellow conservative is creating a crony state at
the heart of Europe, they do not protest but direct all their energy
and passion into berating his opponents.
You could say, and "moderate" conservatives were saying in Brussels,
that the Italian judiciary had proved Italy remained a liberal
democracy by stripping Berlusconi of immunity from prosecution. Yet
Berlusconi has seen off the judges before. In any event, even if he
falls or, more likely, retires, Italians will not expect his corrupt
system to go. Berlusconi's private channels are unlikely to become
beacons of public-service broadcasting after his departure. The
quaintly titled "post-fascist" leader Gianfranco Fini will not give up
a system of patronage and censorship in which the state can organise
advertising boycotts of critical papers and force out editors who
report unwelcome news.
The most telling feature of the caudillos of our day is the ease with
which they put aside nominal ideological differences and recognise
each other as members of an international freemasonry of autocrats.
Berlusconi denounces investigating magistrates as "communists" and yet
calls the former KGB man Vladimir Putin "his great friend". The
nominal socialist Chávez allies with the Islamist reactionary
Ahmadinejad. What unites the boss men of the 21st century is more
important than what divides them.
Democratic Europe, however, will not unite against them by standing up
for its best values. Its silence about Berlusconi – by turns both
cowardly and compromised undermines its ability to stand up to corrupt
politics anywhere else in Europe, most notably in the weak democracies
of the post-Soviet east, and makes a nonsense of its condemnations of
abuses of democratic rights beyond its borders. For the first time in
its history, Europe's reputation as a force for good in the world
feels precarious. Soon it will feel fraudulent.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/11/nick-cohen-silvio-berlusconi
dai, che magari il nano si lascia sfuggire la magica parolina che lo
fotterebbe definitivamente.

 Il Guardian avra' una gastrite o e le emorroidi,
o forse ha semplicemente ragione. l'Europa unita è cresciuta con la
democrazia (nel passo che ho cuttato, c'era una disamina storica di
come nella UE siano entrati nuovi paesi solo dopo l'uscita dalla
dittatura, tipo Spagna, Grecia, Portogallo o Europa Orientale dopo
l'89. Continuare a far finta di niente sul morbo mafioso-piduistico
berlusconiano è un pessimo segnale per l'intera Euripa, non già per la
strafottutissima Italia.

 Beh, il fascismo mediterraneo non e' una categoria inventata invano,
e allora se riconosci che c'è, perchè ti lamenti con Cohen se dice che
l'Europa se ne sta fregando per codardia?