Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: l'articolo del NY Times

"In Italy, the Rerun of Berlusconi"
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
The richest man in Italy did two small things on his way to an
international political conference on the French Riviera. Before
boarding his Gulfstream jet, Silvio Berlusconi stopped in at a Milan
courthouse where he had been called to testify in a trial of two of
his employees charged in 1994 with committing perjury. (He didn't
answer any questions, however, pleading an Italian version of the
Fifth Amendment, as was his legal right since he is a defendant in a
related bribery case.)
------------
PRESENTAZIONE PERFETTA
--------------
As he left, surrounded by a jostling horde of aides, bodyguards and
reporters, he paused long enough to help a distraught woman. She
grabbed his sleeve and begged for help, tearfully explaining that she
had left her abusive husband, had no job or house and risked having
her 5-year-old taken away by welfare authorities. Berlusconi instantly
invited her to Arcore, his 18th-century estate outside Milan. "Today,"
he told her with the beaming magnanimity of a television game-show
host, "is your lucky day."
--------------------
COMINCIA LA PRESA PER IL CULO DEL POPULISTA MEGALOMANE
-----------------------------
It was a classic Berlusconi moment, blending the beneficence of an Old
World padrone with a more modern sense of media spin. His day in
court, part of an endless legal saga that bores most Italians,
received perfunctory news coverage. But the media homed in on Filomena
Esposito, 33, who with her young son and other relatives in tow, did
in fact receive advice and, ultimately, $2,500 in cash, a watch and an
AC Milan soccer ball from the busiest man in Italian politics.
---------------------
QUELLI HE SONO "BORED", OH YES!!!!
------------------------
Silvio Berlusconi, 64, is a self-made billionaire whose private
holding company, Fininvest, controls, among other things, the AC Milan
soccer team and the country's three largest private television
networks. As the head of Forza Italia, the insurgent conservative
party he built from scratch, he is confidently preparing to become
Italy's next prime minister in parliamentary elections next month.
Should he succeed, as is widely expected, it would
mark a revanchist return to power after his first conservative
government collapsed in 1994 after only seven turbulent months in
office.
---------------------------
MEMENTO SULLA PROVATA INCAPACITA' POLITICA DEL "BILLIONAIRE"
--------------------------------
Then, Italy's bloated, debt-ridden economy was the laughingstock of
Europe.
Few believed the country would ever straighten its finances enough to
qualify for membership in the Euro. It did, just barely, in 1998. When
Berlusconi left office, the country was in the throes of Tangentopoli
("bribesville"), a vast criminal investigation into political and
financial corruption that traumatized the nation and eventually
toppled an entire political class that had ruled Italy without
interruption since the end of World War II.
----------------------------------
BERLUSCONI CI LASCIO' NELLA MERDA...
---------------------------
Italy has changed over the past seven years, and so has Berlusconi:
both are a little calmer, better organized and more in tune with the
rest of Europe.
But Italian politics remains bafflingly baroque. And so does
Berlusconi.
----------------------------------
GLI UOMINI SONO SEMPRE QUELLI...
------------------------------
He is easily caricatured, but he cannot be dismissed or narrowly
defined.
His economic platform is familiar -- a blend of tax cuts and
free-market capitalism borrowed from Margaret Thatcher and Ronald
Reagan. His regal-populist style, however, is more startling, even by
American standards: on the stump, he comes off like a wired Steve
Forbes with a touch of Eva Perón.
-------------------------
AHAHAAHAH!!!!! EVA PERON A BERLUSCO NON GLIEL'AVEVA ANCORA DETTO
NESSUNO!!!! GRANDE!!!! (Forbes è un miliardario che perde sempre le
elezioni americane)
------------------------------
For the last seven years, as leader of the opposition, he has held
center stage as the beleaguered leftist government's most assiduous
adversary.
Promising to shake off what he calls a straitjacket of taxes,
bureaucracy and state regulations, Berlusconi says he wants to strip
down the inefficient Italian state and make it a model for the rest of
Europe.
Italians are less optimistic, but they do yearn for change, as long as
it is not too tumultuous. Berlusconi describes his candidacy as a
"sacrifice," his "gift" to the Italian people. He says he genuinely
believes that he -- and he alone -- can transform the nation. Italy
needs an entrepreneur, he tells voters, not a smooth talker.
------------------------
...he tells! MEGALOMANIA ACUTA...
----------------
Berlusconi, as it happens, is both. His charm is legendary, a sudden
high beam of warmth and enveloping attention. "America? I love
America," he gushes to an American reporter in a gold-and-cream
reception room in the 17th-century Baroque palace that is his Roman
pied à terre. "I am on whatever side America is on, even before I know
what it is."
He laughs self-mockingly as he speaks, the kind of engaging good humor
shared by the best Italians -- the art of laughing gently at others'
foibles while including themselves in the joke. But Berlusconi also
speaks with braggadocio, an unfettered self-aggrandizing streak that
alienates many ordinary Italians.
-------------------
"BRAGGADOCIO" E' MILLANTERIA!!!
-----------------
Berlusconi recently lamented to reporters that he had never mastered
English and knows only French, Latin and Greek. "I am a Greek
scholar," he said. "I used to compose Greek verses off the top of my
head." That brashness, along with his Reaganesque, flag-waving
patriotism -- taboo in Italy since the days of Mussolini -- makes the
Italian intelligentsia cringe.
Berlusconi even invented a word to describe himself -- entusiasmatore
-- an adjective that conveys the high-energy salesmanship that helped
him rise from real-estate developer in Milan to Italy's richest
tycoon. His fortune, estimated at $12.8 billion, won him 14th place on
Forbes magazine's list of the world's richest people. He made his mark
-- and much of his wealth -- by creating Italy's first commercial
television networks, introducing striptease quiz shows and American
soap operas to Italian viewers.
-----------------
ABILE VENDITORE E SPANDITORE DI SOAP OPERA
------------------
His opponent in the election, Francesco Rutelli, 46, the former mayor
of Rome, offers a liberal platform that is a gentler version of
Berlusconi's: more cautious tax cuts and a steady liberalization of
the economy. But Italy's leftist coalition is so internally divided
and unstable (four governments and three prime ministers in the last
five years) that only Rutelli's own pollsters -- who include Stanley
Greenberg, a campaign adviser to Al Gore, Tony Blair and Ehud Barak --
express much confidence.
Berlusconi, on the other hand, says he is so sure of victory that he
is already meeting with European prime ministers, seeking the
international legitimacy that eluded him in his first term. Indeed,
Europe is edgy about several aspects of a Berlusconi government. His
center-right coalition includes former Fascists led by Gianfranco
Fini, as well as Umberto Bossi, the volatile leader of the Northern
League. So far in the campaign, Bossi has been on his best behavior,
but his platform and own past statements are veined with
anti-immigrant, antihomosexual sentiments that are too close to
those of Austria's Jörg Haider for comfort.
-------------
FSCISTI, RAZZISTI... CHE BELAL COALIZIONE
---------------
And then there is Berlusconi's money. Except to shrug it off as a
political attack, Berlusconi has never acknowledged the conflict of
interest presented by his three networks, a film company, Italy's
leading publishing group and a financial network that spans insurance,
real estate and banks. He has said he would resurrect a 1994 proposal
in Parliament to resolve the matter, but it is hard to see how. State
television has been privatized a little, but top network executives
are still political appointees, and Berlusconi could well go into
office with all of Italy's major networks -- public and private -- in
his pocket.
--------------------
TUTTE LE TV = DITTATURA
-----------------
He has talked about putting his assets in a blind trust, but what he
really seems to want Italians to do is elect him on blind faith.
"Italians think two things, and this shows up in the focus groups," he
says. "One, it is better to send someone into office who doesn't need
to steal because he is already rich. And they think that anyone who is
under the spotlight can never get away with going against the general
interest to favor his own interests." Growing exasperated, he adds: "I
don't see how anyone can think that it is possible to do something
against the interests of others and in favor of myself. It's
impossible! Impossible! I would instantly lose my consensus. It is a
nonproblem and a false problem."
----------------------
COMICO! FOTTETTE LO STATO NEL 1994...
--------------------------
His supporters, however, put it differently, arguing that what's good
for Fininvest could be good for the country. "He knows his business
well," says Carolo Corassa, a prosperous farmer from Emilia-Romagna
who attended an agriculture conference on mad-cow disease in Rome.
Corassa stood and applauded vigorously as Berlusconi swept in, two
shades tanner than any farmer in the room. "If he can do well by
Italians while doing well for his own business," the farmer said,
"that is fine with me."
----------------------------
"QUELLO CHE E' BUONO PER LA FININVEST, E' BUONO PER IL PAESE" CHE
SQUALLORE!!!!!
-------------------------
Berlusconi is a great performer, whether the audience is a room full
of Forza Italia "seniors," his party's senior-citizen group, or a news
conference with less doting reporters. Unveiling his campaign pledge
to increase the minimum retirement pension, he sat at a table behind a
giant campaign poster and confidently fielded questions about his
conflict-of-interest problems, tax-cut proposals and dubious political
allies.
In the course of the news conference, a man stood up, introduced
himself as a reporter for an obscure monthly, L'Attualità, and
delivered a lengthy diatribe about the Italian phone company's
decision to lay off thousands of workers. (In point of fact, the
workers were not fired but merely furloughed at almost full pay.
Firing workers in Italy is extremely difficult, one of the
inflexibilities of the labor market that Berlusconi promises to fix.)
Berlusconi ignored these complications, instead expressing his
admiration for the antifascist writer Gaetano Salvemini, whose
followers founded L'Attualità. He then cited a Salvemini bon mot,
mocking the mentality of Italian industrialists: "Profits are for us
alone, but losses are shared by all." Berlusconi paused and then
uttered grandly, "When we are in power, these things will not happen."
------------------
AHAHAH!!!!! NE SUCCEDERANNO DI BEN PEGGIORIU!!!
---------------------------
Even in style-conscious Italy, Berlusconi's attention to image stands
out. Standing only 5 feet 6 inches, he is self-conscious about his
height. When he sits down at a conference table, his aides slip a
cushion onto his seat to ensure that his height aligns with the
others. When they stand for a group photo, Berlusconi rises on tiptoe
just before the camera lights flash.
---------------------------
NANO!!!!! LO PRENDONO PEL CULO...
----------------------
There is an electoral strategy beneath the strutting, however.
Berlusconi was treated for prostate cancer in 1997, a fact he revealed
only last year, explaining that he has fully recovered. Running
against Rutelli, a telegenic opponent who is almost 20 years younger,
Berlusconi sometimes jokes about the contrast, but mostly he tries to
dismiss it. "My doctors tell me I have the physique of a 40-year-old,"
he proudly assured a television interviewer.
-----------------
PER GAMBA....
---------
Berlusconi knows how important a bella figura is to Italians. "He
understands the weaknesses of Italians because he shares them," says
Indro Montanelli, 91, Italy's most respected conservative columnist.
Montanelli edited Il Giornale, Berlusconi's newspaper, but was forced
out for failing to lend sufficient support to the political ambitions
of his boss. "I had a lot of fun with Berlusconi," Montanelli recalls,
almost wistfully. "You cannot imagine his ability to lie. Not
necessarily to cheat you, just for the sheer gusto of it. He persuades
himself at the same time he persuades you. But he is a brilliant
salesman -- he can persuade Italians that he will deliver on promises
that are unkeepable."
-----------------
GRAN BUGIARDO!
-------------
He persuaded enough voters in 1994 to get elected, but his
not-ready-for-prime-time government quickly collapsed under the weight
of criminal investigations that followed him into public office. He
still faces trials on corruption charges but blames a broad left-wing
conspiracy for his legal troubles. Most Italians really don't care,
either because they agree that the prosecutors have a political
motive, or because they assume that Berlusconi was only taking the
same illegal shortcuts that most entrepreneurs used in the 80's and
90's to succeed in business, Italian-style.
---------------------------
ITALIAN STYLE, UN CAZZO! SONO QUESTI MALFATTORI ALLA BERLUSCONI CHE
CREANO L'IDEA DI UN ITALIAN STYLE DELLA TRUFFA E DEL RAGGIRO!
-------------------------------------
In the most humiliating moment of his public life, Berlusconi received
an aviso di garanzia, an official notification that he was under
criminal investigation, while he was presiding over an international
conference on organized crime in Naples. Berlusconi still broodingly
refers to that incident as a "coup" and talks so passionately about
the red menace that one has to pinch oneself to remember that the
Italian Communist Party lost in 1948 and never did get a chance to
erect gulags on the Lago di Garda. "He doesn't see the attacks against
him as just political," his spokesman, Paolo Bonaiuti, explains. "For
him, it is very personal."
But when he resigned in December 1994, it was because of an in-house
insurrection. Bossi, his current coalition partner, pulled his support
in Parliament, calling Berlusconi a "dictator" and "Berluskaiser."
Berlusconi ran again in 1996 but lost to Romano Prodi, who, like
Berlusconi in 1994, campaigned as an outsider but carried far less
ideological and personal baggage.
----------------------
NON HAN POTUTO SCRIVERE BELUSKATZ PERCHE' GLI AMERICANI NON AVEBBERO
CAPITO. FORSE DOVEVANO SCRIVERE "BERLUSBULLSHIT", o "BERLASSHOLE..."
.-------------------
Prodi and his successors managed to straighten out Italy's finances.
But major efforts to fix the pension system, reform the electoral laws
or streamline the judiciary were thwarted both by the center-right
opposition and by the government's own querulous coalition partners,
who spanned the ideological range from Catholic centrists to
Communists.
-----------------------------
PRODI HA RISANATO IL PAESE
-------------------------
The Italian economy, powered for the most part by small, family-owned
companies, is remarkably vigorous given the hurdles of regulations,
red tape and high taxes, like a one-legged skier who learns to shift
his torso to slalom. But its productivity lags in the new Europe. The
Italian political system, rigged to prevent any one party from
accruing too much power, makes it almost impossible for any government
to see through needed, long-term reform. Instability is the one
constant for Italian governments, of which there have been 58 since
the end of World War II.
--------------------------
INSTABILITA ITALIANA? 50 ANNI SEMPRE DI DC...
-------------------------- 
Some critics predict that for all his ambitious plans for economic
growth, public-works projects and modernization, Berlusconi will face
the same endemic political obstacles as his predecessors, namely
having to rely on allies who could bolt and bring him down.
Umberto Bossi says he has given up his dream of having Northern Italy
secede in exchange for Berlusconi's promise to introduce a federalist
system. So far, Bossi is acting like a more reliable partner than he
has been in the past, telling his supporters that he was wrong about
Berlusconi in 1994 -- though he tends to do so with a roguish twinkle.
He remains a politically incorrect ally, and a volatile one. 
-------------------
BOSSI E' VOLATILE... MAGARI UCCELLO PADULO...
----------------------
Berlusconi says he has tied Bossi down with so many incentives, pacts
and joint programs that he would never pull out. But the ropes and
chains crisscrossing their alliance only underline Bossi's Houdini
side. Berlusconi's strategists admit that they need Bossi's strength
in the North to win a definitive mandate.
But they also insist they will have so many of their own parliamentary
seats that they won't need Bossi's to govern.
----------------
BOSSI HOUDINI SI POTRA' SLEGARE E TORNARE A COLPIRE..
---------------
Bossi says the opposite. "If at the last minute he wants to drop us,
he can win the election," he says. "But he wouldn't be able to govern.
He would have to strike accords with the old Christian Democrats, and
he would never be able to bring about real change. Without us, he will
fail."
-----------------------------
... E BOSSI DICE PROVA A SCARICARCI E VEDRAI:::
---------------------------
Berlusconi is far better positioned to govern than he was in 1994.
Back then, Forza Italia was at best a loosely organized marketing
vehicle for his candidacy. Now he has built it into a real political
party, with grass-roots organization and credible candidates. Unlike
in 1994, Berlusconi's coalition has hashed out a program of cutting
income tax, eliminating the inheritance tax and enacting other
measures meant to stimulate growth.
But Italy doesn't have the same freedom to reroute economic policy
that Reagan and Thatcher wielded. Last year, Italy's ratio of public
debt to gross domestic product was 110 percent, nearly twice as high
as Germany's.
Any tax cuts would need to be offset by spending cuts to avert a
collision with Brussels. "This government has already cut taxes
significantly," warns Francesco Giavazzi, an economist at the Bocconi
University school of economics in Milan. "The only realistic way to
cut spending is to reform the pension system. Until I know what
Berlusconi intends to do, I remain worried."
------------------
ALTRO CHE PREOCCUPATO: SE FA QUEL CHE PROMETE E' IL BARATRO: MA NON LO
FARA'... FOTTERA' I GONZI CH LO HANNO VOTATO
---------------------------------
Berlusconi has promised to increase the minimum monthly pension check
to $500 a month (from about $350 now), under the slogan of "more
dignified pensions." But he has not unveiled what he will do about a
pension system that eats up 30 percent of government spending and
threatens to collapse under the weight of the country's aging
population and low birthrate.
Off the podium, he can be quite frank about why he won't discuss his
programs. "Look, Europe is going to make the decisions for us," he
says.
"When that happens, we'll do what we have to do. But in an election
campaign, we do not discuss the program because it doesn't bring us
votes."
------------------
OFF THE PODIUM... IN SEPARATE SEDE IL BERLUSCO CONFESSA CHE FREGHERà I
GONZI CHE LO HANNO VOTATAO E  NON MANTERRA' LE PROMESSE: FARA' QUELLO
CHE VUOLE L'EUROPA, PRIMA DI TUTTO QUINDI NIENTE TAGLI ALLE TASSE!!!!!
---------------
He also grows flinty on the subject of his fortune and what he could
gain in public office. Instead, he muses about what he has already had
to give up.
"Let me list some of the things that politics took away from me." He
proceeds to tick off a long list of companies that he was discouraged
from acquring or forced to divest -- Omnitel, one of Italy's largest
cell-phone companies, three pay-TV stations, another TV network, radio
stations and the newspaper and magazine division of Mondadori, a
publishing group that he bought in 1990 and that then owned 14
newspapers, including La Repubblica.
"I am the businessman who was most punished by politics in the history
of the republic, no doubt about it," he says.
Asked whether he shouldn't take Fininvest public, a move that would
earn him money and bring some transparency into the dealings of the
family business, Berlusconi lets loose. "No, look, excuse me, but I
have worked my entire life," he says. "I am doing my country a favor.
I don't need to go into office for the power. I have houses all over
the world, stupendous boats, including Murdoch's yacht, which I just
bought. I have beautiful airplanes, a beautiful wife, a beautiful
family."
He adds: "I am making a sacrifice for my country, and then I also have
to take away the fruits of my labor from my children? I pay $2 million
in taxes a day. I am the Italian who pays the most, and they still
want to punish me? Let them all go to the devil."
-----------------
Oh POVERO!!!! SI SACRIFICA PER NOI; SALE SULLA CROCE! E INTANTO
BLOCCHERA' I PROCESSI, EVITERA' LA GALERA E DIVENTERA MOOOLTO PIU'
RICCO CONVINCENDO I GONZI DI ESSERE L'UOMO DELLA PROVVIDENZA... finchè
ci penserà la Natura o qualcuno non lo appenderà per i piedi...
-----------------------------------
Alessandra Stanley is the Rome bureau chief for The New York Times."
-------------------------
Gli Americani ridono di noi, ridono del Nano che si crede un gigante e
l'Italia fa un bel balzo indietro nella credibilità internazionale ch
Ciampi e Prodi le avevano fatto guadagnare.
Ernesto
-La libertà non ha casa-

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Sei proprio scimunito, continui a postare l' articolo del nyt e i
solti articoletti su mangano.
Fatti luce sulle novità jugoslave. Un bel alrticoletto,
documentazione, descizione del ministro dini, del fassino(ah ah ah), i
rapporti tra il governo italiano e il criminale serbo, i soldi portati
tutti in contanti, di cui un tre o quattro valigie sono sparite tra i
meandri dei trasportatori e di chissà chi altri... Questo sarebbe un
bel articoletto.
--
manetones

solti articoletti su mangano.
Si vede che finalmente l'hai letto l'articoletto e ti sei accorto che
dicevi le solite stronzate che dici sempre sulle cose che non conosci.
Adesso sai che il NY Times prende per il culo il Nano e tutti noi che
votiamo un simile figuro insieme agli ex-fascisti e ai tangheri della
Lega.
Almeno hai smesso di scrivere che sai l'inglese, che l'articoletto era
elogiativo.... e tutte le altre fesserie quotidiane.
E' gią un passo avanti.
E.
-La libertą non ha casa-

Si vede che finalmente l'hai letto l'articoletto e ti sei accorto che
Tu parli sempre di cose che evidentemente conosci benissimo, un ma
però, non le hai mai capite e continui sul solito tono e all'
infinito, è il buco che c'è nella tua mente. Non riesci a concepire
altro. Tu leggi qualcosa solo se attizza il tuo odio su berlusconi,
per esempio non parli mai dello scandalo della telecom e di milosevic,
perchè non è coinvolto berlsuconi, ma solo dini, fassino (ah ah ah) e
d'alema.