Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: Il Washington Post si domanda come facciano gli italiani a votare il nano

La Dolce Berlusconi
By Anne Applebaum
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Silvio Berlusconi has been accused of bribery, tax evasion, corruption and 
subversion of the press. His wife has left him on the grounds that he 
consorts with prostitutes and holds orgies at his villa in Sardinia. He 
makes embarrassing jokes (and then repeats them, as he did with the one 
about President Obama's "suntan") and periodically disappears to undergo 
more plastic surgery. He is at war with the Italian legal establishment, 
with almost all of the journalists who don't work for him, and with the 
Catholic Church. Last week the Italian constitutional court lifted his 
immunity from prosecution, which means Italians can look forward to a whole 
new series of lawsuits and scandals.
Yet by far the most interesting thing about the Italian prime minister is 
this: Italians keep voting for him. The somewhat ragged coalition he 
leads -- Il Popolo della Libert�, the People of Freedom -- won a decisive 
general election victory in 2008 and trounced the opposition in European 
parliamentary elections in June 2009. Whether or not you agree with his 
daughter, who says he "will go down in the history books as the 
longest-serving and most loved leader in the history of the Italian 
republic," you cannot argue with the fact that he has been the dominant 
force in Italian politics since he first became prime minister in 1994. But 
why?
There seem to be several answers, some of which are connected to the weird 
impasse that brought him to power in the first place. In the early 1990s, 
Italy's political system unraveled following a series of judicial 
investigations that revealed profound corruption permeating the entire 
Italian political class. As a result, all of the major political parties and 
all of the leading political figures vanished overnight, sometimes 
literally: Bettino Craxi, leader of the Italian socialist party for nearly 
20 years, fled to Tunisia to escape prison and eventually died in exile.
Berlusconi stepped into the vacuum, promising to talk about issues no one 
else had dared touch -- notably mass immigration from North Africa -- and to 
deal with problems no one else could solve, including the convoluted tax 
laws and notorious bureaucracy. But in retrospect it is clear that 
Berlusconi (whose record on actually carrying out any of his reforms is 
pretty slim) has also brought the counterrevolution: He had made his career 
under the old system -- as had many other people -- and, once in power, he 
brought an end to the judicial purge. Italians, journalist Beppe Severgnini 
told me, "were afraid of their own bravery." They were also afraid of chaos, 
and in a country that has had, on average, a different government every year 
for the past six decades, Berlusconi, a familiar figure for many years, has 
come to represent a kind of stability. The Italian left is disorganized, the 
center-right is paralyzed, and a lot of people prefer the devil they know.
Of course, Berlusconi also has at least one tool that none of the others 
have: popular television. He controls three mainstream channels and various 
digital channels because he owns them. He also in effect controls state 
television because he is the prime minister. There are newspapers, magazines 
and late-night talk shows that criticize him, but they don't reach the same 
numbers of people: Much like his friend Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime 
minister, he doesn't try to exert influence over all of the media, just the 
media that reach most of the voters.
That may not determine the outcome of elections, but it sure helps. It has 
also made Italy the center of the largest movement for press freedom outside 
the former Soviet Union.
But in the end, even that dominance can't explain all of his votes. There 
has to be something appealing about Berlusconi himself as well. Severgnini 
has called him a "mirror" of modern Italy, and one sees what he means: 
Nouveau riche (like almost everyone in the country) and not afraid to show 
it off (remember that Sardinian villa); a lover of women and soccer (he owns 
the team A.C. Milan); loyal to his friends (even protecting them from the 
law); and clearly enjoying himself at those parties and on his yacht, 
Berlusconi leads a kind of caricature version of the ideal Italian life. And 
precisely because he is a caricature, he gets away with things that other 
people can't. One hears Italians regale one another with Berlusconi stories 
and then howl with laughter.
Besides, with Berlusconi as your prime minister, you don't have to take 
yourself too seriously. You don't have to trouble yourself with geopolitics 
or the state of the planet, or poverty and failed states. You can stay at 
home, remain unserious and argue about the latest legal scandal. And maybe 
that, too, is part of the Italian prime minister's appeal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/12/AR2009101202390.html
-- 
"Contro la stupidit�, neanche gli dei possono lottare."
[Friedrich von Schiller - "Giovanna d'Arco", Atto III, Scena 6]

malefik ha scritto:
Nel mio piccolo me lo chiedo anch'io :-D
-- 
Strike: il disonesto di IP
"Un autonomo che non paga parte di tasse non ruba soldi a nessuno" (Strike)
Strike: "Mi spiace, ma ti sei rovinato con le tue mani, quel "di loro 
volontï¿œ" non mi appartiene, l'hai aggiunto tu per sottolineare che non 
li ha mandati via Soru, ma sei un gran bugiardo."
La realta': 
http://groups.google.it/group/it.politica/msg/e5db751d1af1a427?hl=it

 Tuesday, October 13, 2009
meriterebbe una traduzione in modo che anche ai minus habens venisse 
offerta la possibilitï¿œ di capire in quale abisso di ridicolo Berlusconi 
sta trascinando il paese.
ma temo sarebbe tempo sprecato.
bogie
-- 
Membro del Luigino Fans Club
"Non ho niente contro Dio.
Sono gli iscritti al suo fan club che non sopporto."


--------------------------------
Inviato via 
http://arianna.libero.it/usenet/

 [Friedrich von Schiller - "Giovanna d'Arco", Atto III, Scena 6]
mi permetterei di segnalare (solo per dovere di cronaca) anche la c.d.
"manhunt" della marina
che affranta per il padre, ha ritenuto opportuno privilegiare il times
(re: 12 ottobre)
è una famiglia che non riesce a star zitta...

 (re: 12 ottobre) � una famiglia che non riesce a star zitta...
Marina e Piersilvio, titolari di due tentacoli della piovra di societ�
offshore che berlusconi, come ogni grande criminale, possiede, parteciparono
alla TRUFFA ALLO STATO del 2005 alle Bahamas, mentre il loro papi governava
.
Le due soiet� si chiamano CENTURY ONE e UNIVERSAL ONE.
Il Puttanier Berlusconi nei forum internazionali tuona contro le societ�
offshore. Ridono tutti: che pagliaccio!
E Frattini e Lupi e Cretino Gasparri se ne vantano pure.
e
