Beppe Grillo's Blog

You can�t die from an earthquake! Interview with Giampaolo Giuliani

2012-05-29T17:40:55Z

You can�t die from an earthquake!
(11:12)

Giampaolo Giuliani is able to identify that an earthquake is about to happen 6-24 hours before it does so. His research on seismic indicators has saved the lives of all those who listened to his warnings in 2009 in Abruzzo and in recent days in Emilia Romagna. The earthquake kills because of ignorance. Often you don�t know the level of seismic risk in the area where you live. More frequently, you don�t know how to behave if there is an earthquake warning. If the weather forecast tells us it�ll rain tomorrow we keep an umbrella close at hand. But if the risk of a strong earthquake isn�t even announced, why don�t the Local Authorities tell us how to behave? What�s needed is the �Prevenzione Civile� (preventive action for civilians), not only �Protezione Civile� {the Civil Defence Unit}

Interview with Giampaolo Giuliani, a seismologist and one who does research into seismic precursors.

The so-called experts infuriate me
I am particularly angry this morning because I am hearing comments on TV from people who say they are experts and yet I don�t agree with them. That zone is not one with a low level of seismic activity. It�s not true to say it is. The fact that no earthquakes have taken place for many years doesn�t mean anything. In fact it was not indicated as an area with a seismic risk, when there were strong earthquakes in the area in the 19th century, the 16th century, and in the the 20th century, in the years 1960/70. This should at least have been considered a high seismic risk region, as has now been demonstrated and it should be an area where preventive action should be taken with the people living there. This is not happening anywhere in Italy, nowhere at all!

...

�The bullshit that they are saying is causing people to die!�
The civil defence unit intervenes after the strong earthquake. Even today, this is still not well understood in Italy. Prevention means getting people ready. If people die who is going to reconstruct what has fallen down? For the last 30 years, we haven�t done prevention across the land, in relation to buildings, to any construction work where men go to work and can die because of the earthquake. The most serious thing is that we haven�t taught those men how to defend themselves and how to recognise the strong dangerous earthquakes and when an earthquake is about to happen. This is even more serious. What is more serious still is that these gentlemen, those experts that talk on the TV and say that they are the greatest experts in the world in relation to earthquakes, then say that they are unprepared. That�s not acceptable!

...

There are some serious responsibilities. We�ve been dragging them around for at least 20 years and these liabilities will cause even more deaths. Why do I always have to be the one that is out of step? Thank you. " Giampaolo Giuliani

Passaparola - The future of the massacres - Nicola Biondo

2012-05-29T04:25:41Z

The future of the massacres
(15:30)

"We need to understand what the future of those massacres will be, what they have taught us and what has happened to the Mafia now. The Cosa Nostra no longer exists. The criminal organisation that we got to know no longer exists. In recent years in Palermo, every time they tried to set up a new hierarchy, their attempts were thwarted by yet another round of arrests. Yet the Mafia has not died. Instead, it seems to have dissolved or camouflaged itself. They still have their arsenals, their control over certain areas, towns and town councils, but they are constantly being hammered yet they don�t seem to react. Their wealth, however, the money that they churn out every day has been legalised. The future of the massacres lies in all the money that we see flowing through our hands and all around us on a daily basis." Nicola Biondo

Journalist Nicola Biondo's Passaparola

Are those bombs still going off?
Good day to you all. My name is Nicola Biondo. I am a journalist and for more than 15 years now I have been investigating organised crime and terrorism. Twenty years have passed since the Capaci and Via D�Amelio massacres took place. Now, twenty years on, I believe that it is extremely urgent for us to understand whether those bombs are still going off, what results they have achieved, what they taught us and what has happened to the Mafia now. In these past twenty years they have provided us with the perfect guilty parties. How can anyone fail to hate the faces of Provenzano, Riina and Bagarella? How can we not breathe a collective sigh of relief at seeing these guys behind bars and not convince ourselves that they were indeed the ones, the only ones guilty of sowing death and terror? As if these men were mere tumours in an otherwise healthy body, like evil aliens that landed here on Earth or inhuman monsters that are genetically very different from us. Perfect scapegoats hung out to dry in order to anaesthetise us and make us feel better. Making them the centre of attention and laying the blame for the violence entirely on them, and them alone, has been very useful. It was useful in terms of concealing a very basic truth: not letting us realise how inept ad criminal our ruling classes have truly been. The ruling classes that have allowed and indeed aided individuals like Riina to become someone to be feared, someone more than a minister, more than a president and indeed more than the essence of power itself. It has been a diabolic game of smoke and mirrors, a perfect crime that has resulted only in the conviction of the killer and not the person that sent him.
Now, twenty years later, I believe that the urgency is very different. We need to understand what the future of those massacres will be, what they have taught us and what has happened to the Mafia now. The Cosa Nostra no longer exists. The criminal organisation that we got to know no longer exists. In recent years in Palermo, every time they tried to set up a new hierarchy, their attempts were thwarted by yet another round of arrests. Yet the Mafia has not died. Instead, it seems to have dissolved or camouflaged itself. They still have their arsenals, their control over certain areas, towns and town councils, but they are constantly being hammered yet they don�t seem to react. Their wealth, however, the money that they churn out every day has been legalised.
The future of the massacres lies in all the money that we see flowing through our hands and all around us on a daily basis. The ISTAT (the Government Statistics Services) states that the level of corruption in the public administration and in politics here in Italy is far, far higher now than it was at the start of the Mani Pulite inquiry. This is great for the Mafia bosses because their contacts within the institutions simply can�t wait to sell their souls for money. In the past, the Mafia could even resort to threats in order to ensure that tender contracts were awarded to them, but today that is no longer necessary. The old-school Mafioso no longer goes in to the municipal offices, a municipal technical department or the premises of some or other company with gun in hand. They have their own companies that are run either by their children or by the usual proxies. In turn, they are surrounded by a veritable army of professionals including attorneys, notaries, bank managers, accountants and EEC fund consultants. Many of these revenues and these success strategies could be hit, but is this ever likely to happen? What would happen then? If we add together the Mafia�s turnover and the turnover from corruption, it adds up to a staggering amount, one that is even almost impossible to write down. The Financial Police have tried to do so and the resulting report was decidedly discouraging.
The Financial Police�s final report states that even if we were only able to recover 10% of these amounts, Italy would fall into a huge, totally unmanageable abyss. Consumption would collapse, there would be a major flight of capital and the banks would be unable to guarantee liquidity. Think about it! Just imagine what would and could happen if, by magic, the Cosa Nostra were to suddenly cease all its legal and illegal welfare activities and its trafficking. How many banks, businesses, professional practices and entire production chains would suddenly collapse overnight? Would the Italian Government be able to provide the necessary cover and fill this gaping hole? Would they be able to respond immediately to the needs of an economy that has relied on these avalanches of money for the past sixty years? The Cosa Nostra has a very democratic view of the economy, namely �if you agree to toe the line then we will help you�. Success is near at hand for anyone who turns to the Mafia.

There are no mysteries in this Country, only secrets.
Do you honestly believe that the Italian Government, the banks and the local authorities truly promote free enterprise, reward innovation and support superior performance? The fact is that one can choose not to play ball with the Mafia, but one cannot choose to ignore the Government�s rules. Today, the Cosa Nostra may be facing a crisis in terms of leadership, direction and objectives, yet it would appear that it is not a totally spent force because its methods have created a gap and it has become the dominant culture.
Today the anti-Mafia prosecutors� pool no longer exists, so it is no longer necessary to decimate them, as occurred with Falcone and Borsalino�s anti-mafia prosecutors� pool. While crocodile tears are being shed for the two judges who were killed twenty years ago, very few people know that the Palermo Public Prosecutors Office is being drained due to a regulation introduced by the CSM (Upper Council of the Magistrature), whereby after a maximum of nine years service, a public prosecutor can no longer work for the anti-mafia section in the same Court. Based on this ruling, after having been instrumental in setting up the maxi-trial, Falcone and Borsellino would no longer have been permitted to continue their work in Palermo.
At the Palermo Public Prosecutors Office there are a number of valiant public prosecutors who have conducted investigations that have either resulted in convictions or that are still ongoing. Well, due to this regulation introduced by the CSM, these prosecutors are no longer handling Mafia-related cases but have instead been relegated to dealing with cases involving petty crimes. They are essentially being told �You have become extremely good at your job, so now you have to go�. That�s the message that is being sent. That is the silently engineered future of the massacres. Obviously someone is desperately trying to erase all memory of the anti-mafia battle. It would not take much to ensure that history is not repeated once again. All it would take is for this hideous regulation to be repealed.
Let take a look into the future. The members of Corleone�s Mafia will die in prison, and all the politicians, public servants and administrators associated with them will come crashing down too, witnesses both to what happened in the past and will never happen in the same way again. Paying attention to what will happen a few months from now, between now and the next general election could help us avoid a repetition of that hell. Let�s try to name some names. There are certain politicians and local councillors (some convicted on charges of corruption and others currently under investigation for Mafia collusion after being caught making deals with known mafia members) who could well be put forward as candidates for re-election. Let�s name names. They include individuals such as, for example, Lombardy Regional Councillor Ponzoni, described in one inquiry as �share capital of the �ndrangheta�. Then there�s former Sicily Regional Council Chairman Bartolo Pellegrino, nabbed while meeting with known mafia members and convicted on bribery and corruption charges before the case was statute barred. Senator Antonio D�Al�, currently on trial for mafia activities in Palermo. Then there is another Senator, this time a Democratic Party Senator by the name of Mirello Crisafulli who was caught having meetings with a Mafia boss from Enna (meetings that were video recorded by the Police and have been made public and are available for all to see). The next name is that of IDV Parliamentarian Gaetano Porcino who was caught asking members of the �ndrangheta in Piemonte for votes. Then, for example, there is also the name Cosentino, which you all know about. These are the politicians and there are many, many more of them involved in the thousands of investigations that reveal the black heart of this Country, and they could all potentially stand for re-election once again.
Once again, twenty years on: is the kind of future that we want to repeat once again? There are no mysteries in this Country, only secrets and if we had had this same political class for the past fifty years, many of these secrets would have already been uncovered.
It won�t just be wonderful words that save us, but rather how good our actions are. Just a few days ago, the Paolo Borsellino Foundation attempted to bring the Judges words to life and proposed some changes to the law that punishes any dealings between politicians and mafia members. Today, in order for that to be classified as a crime, you would have to prove that the politician paid over a sum of money to the mafia member in exchange for votes. However, since this is something that simply does not happen, this law is absolutely useless. What the Foundation has proposed is that it should be deemed that there is an agreement between the politician and the mafia member the minute there is any benefit gained, not only if money changes hands. Said benefit could be constituted by the employment of certain people indicated by the Mafia boss, or the tabling of specific Bills, or even the funding of a number of different businesses. Via thousands of e-mails, the Borsellino Foundation�s proposal was forwarded to members of Government and parliamentarians. This a way of not only showing Paolo Borsellino�s intelligence, but also of preventing the Government from claiming once again on the one hand that they are determined to break the Mafia while on the other hand doing absolutely nothing to provide the tools with which this can indeed be achieved. I would like to remind you of what Paolo Borsellino used to say, namely that �The State and the Mafia are living in the same territory, so either they must make a deal or they make war�.

The right to happiness
Falcone and Borsellino�s anti-mafia pool was first put on trial and then disbanded by the CSM. The methods have not changed one bit. Now, the Magistrates of Caltanissetta have tried to put the powers that be on trial, but all they have received in return is disciplinary action against them. They themselves are now under investigation simply for having proved that there were indeed dealings between the State and the Mafia and that someone, indeed a number of people, continue to battle to keep it secret.
�We will not be intimidated� said our State President, �Just like we did not allow ourselves to be intimidated back in �92�. But this is not strictly true. Back in 1993, thousands of mafia members escaped the clutches of Clause 41bis, but that was not the only deal that was struck. Let�s think back to another one that took place in 1994 and that Luciano Violante only spoke about in 2003. A deal that was struck outside the Parliamentary chamber whereby it was agreed that no one would raise the issue of Silvio Berlusconi�s conflict of interests. Are things still the same today? It won�t just be wonderful words that save us, but rather how good our actions are because, otherwise, in the end, the future of the massacres will merely be an exact repeat of what we have already experienced, in other words, as the living-dead.
We must ask ourselves whether these closed or soon-to-close investigations are really solely and exclusively about the Mafia or whether there is perhaps something more to them, whether they perhaps also reveal the future of this Country, the future that we can choose. One thing remains undeniable and that is that the State has been disloyal towards its own citizens, as if they had set a mincer in motion in which men, women, our dreams, our past and our future have all been ground to a pulp and I have to ask myself what government will be able to challenge a disloyal State. One of the clauses of the American Constitution entrenches �The right to happiness� and it states that it is right to rebel against any government that fails to guarantee the citizens� basic liberties. At this moment in time, continuous reference is being made to the issue of �legality�, which essentially refers to a conflict that has been going on for decades (and that is precisely what makes it so scandalous) between the citizens on the one hand and the mafia groups on the other. However, this obsession for the word �legality� has led us to forget that the Mafia was in fact legalised some time back already and that the Mafia�s money has become an integral part of our financial system. Furthermore, we are also forgetting another very important thing, namely that often, indeed all too often in this Country, the issue of �legality� has not exactly gone hand in hand with either �dignity� or �truth�. In this regard, we have already gone way beyond the point of no return and the reason why we reached that point of no return is because we have certain laws that are repugnant and are therefore impossible to honour and respect. Perhaps we should actually invent a whole new vocabulary. When the Mafia charges the same interest rates that the banks and even the tax authorities charge, then the term �legality� has no meaning whatsoever and becomes something intangible. When the State sits back and allows a situation to arise whereby entire generations will not have any pension to look forward to, then there is no legality, not to mention any chance of finding happiness. In the final analysis, what these investigations show is that it is despicable for any State to behave like some or other Mafia group.
This Country has an exceptional baggage of knowledge, some of which is truly devastating. Some of our greatest men have been hit and we are obliged to face up to the black heart of this State on a daily basis. However, we also have to be happy and we can put this into practice every day by trying to live in a more dignified manner and refusing to take the short cuts that this sick system seeks to tempt us with each and every day. Let�s try to reject compromises and favours because, in that world in which success must be achieved at any cost, the only winners are the mafia and the powers that be. That is a strategy of profit at any cost. Let�s try to reject that because, in doing so, we will have done something that is really worth living for and will make up for everything that they have taken away from us. We must fight for what we want. Spread the word.

The walls

2012-05-27T18:15:59Z

The wall - Pink Floyd
(03:18)

The mental walls seem insurmountable, but sooner or later, they collapse. You won�t believe it but there are still those who vote for the Lega or the UDC and who believe that Andreotti was absolved and not let off because of the Statute of Limitations.

The taxi arrives. I get in and say "Torino Porta Nuova". The taxi driver wants to talk. There are two types of taxi driver: those that greet you briefly and those that don�t stop talking for the whole journey. This guy was one of the latter. He talked and talked and at a certain moment he started talking about the TAV in Val di Susa
�Ah yes, you�re right on many points (without however naming any of them), but these anarchist insurrectionists where do you place them? They do well to keep them in prison!�
�They�re normal people who are defending their territory .... It�s the TAV that�s useless. It costs 22 billion for a line where the volume of goods traffic has been decreasing for the last 15 years. And anyway, there�s already a line there ....�
�Look, I don�t know this, but progress can�t be stopped, and then there�s this story of asbestos. But how much asbestos have we got in Turin. And I�ve reached the age of 65.�
�The money for the TAV is coming even from your taxes. It�s an enormous amount. Doesn�t it annoy you that it�s of no use?�
�In Italy they throw money everywhere. At least this will be there in the future. Think of your grandchildren that�ll be able to have goods from all over France!�
�I don�t want to be impolite but the volume of traffic has been going down on the current Turin-Lyons route for at least the last 15 years.�
�And what about the road traffic then? (things are hotting up ...) Do you or do you not want to get the HGV onto the trains for goodness sake and eliminate pollution?�
�Even the volume of road traffic is falling sharply.�
�You are reasoning like a politician who wants the votes from the extreme fringe, the ones who have always caused harm to this nation.�
�I�ll tell you again the sum of 22 billion in public money that will be shared out between the lobbies and the 'ndrangheta - even if you are OK with that, the people of the Susa Valley aren�t OK and neither am I."
�Ah - it�s easy to talk about the people of the Susa Valley ... There are people of the Susa Valley and people of the Susa Valley. Those who live in the lower levels of the valley really want the TAV. Scalfari said so on TV. Now you�ll tell me that even Scalfari doesn�t understand anything. You are a bigot.�
�Basically, you�re not listening to me. If you like, I�ll send you all the figures to convince you. Give me your address or your email.�
�Hey, the figures. All manipulated. Are you one who still believes in the figures after everything that has happened with the economy in the last few years? You are na�ve. In fact, I�ll ask you a question �Do you like fish?�
�What �s that got to do with it? Yes, anyway I�m really happy to eat fish!�
�There you are. If in the future, you�re in Turin and you go into a restaurant and you order fish, how are they going to get it to come from Portugal without the TAV?�
�From Portugal?�
�Yes, from Portugal. If we were all like you, we�d have anything but progress. We�d still be in the Stone Age!�
I pay the fare and run off.
(*) This dialogue really took place.

Equitalia? No thanks!

2012-05-25T18:00:10Z

Oristano, Sassuolo, Sorso, Bari, Valle di Cadore, Calalzo, Morazzone, San Don� di Piave, Zanica, Merate, Thiene, Ottana. What have these places got in common? They liberated themselves from the chains of Equitalia in advance. They have become free, humane and efficient.
From 01 January 2013, the law 201/2011 lays down that the towns must manage the task of gathering in taxes. Why wait? There is not a single good reason to entrust the task to Equitalia. The town of Oristano provides the proof of this. The direct handling of taxes has brought both a saving on costs amounting to 150,000 euro (the town council that gathers its own taxes does not have to pay the commission to Equitalia), as well as an increase of 650,000 euro in the amount collected. Lower costs, higher receipts. Not just that, they even have more liquidity in their coffers. �Resources immediately available, unlike what happened with management by Equitalia when the settlement of the sums due took place within two years from the time the register was issued.'', from a note written by the local authority of Oristano. In the light of these figures, the question to ask is �What use has Equitalia been in all these years? What has been the use of an intermediary that has placed itself between the citizens and the institutions? To increase interest rates? To grab back the houses? To provide administrative slowness? Oristano is an example, but it�s not the only one, of the uselessness of turning to Equitalia for the body that entrusts them with the task of collecting taxes. If citizens and towns are not getting any benefit from Equitalia why go on? And above all, whose was the brilliant idea to disintermediate the payments to a third party? What�s the point?
The Town authorities are not an impersonal entity, they are in the territory. They often know the person paying taxes and they know the difficulties he has. If there�s a family that is very poor, they can, if needed, suggest spreading out the payments or even cancelling them. That�s called humanity. The towns should speed up the exit from Equitalia now in 2012 and get themselves ready for January 2013. Equitalia is not responsible, it�s a target. The ones who are responsible are those that set it up.

Casini�s IQ

2012-05-24T16:28:59Z

The tertian fever that has struck Bersani who is rabbiting on about the �non victory� has also struck Azzuro Caltagirone, whose stage name is Casini. Back story: the MoVimento 5 Stelle {5 Star MoVement} has in the past refused election expenses to a value of one million seven hundred thousand euro for the regional elections and it will renounce reimbursements for the next national elections, that could have a value of more than 100 million euro with the current voting predictions. Thus the M5S does not want the money. That�s difficult for the parties (that live on money) to understand. But it�s "Tutto Vero� {all true} like the headline in �La Gazzetta dello Sport� after the victory of the national team, that then went to Berlin. The move denominated �piercasinanda� (copyright Travaglio) is that of a truly accomplished politician. Just think about it: if the M5S doesn�t want the money it�s thus necessary to have an �ad hoc� law to prevent them from getting the money! The UDC has put forward an amendment that relates the payment of financing to the existence of a Statute, that all the parties have, as is obvious and thus it�s �ad hoc� for the M5S. The Lower House has given its enthusiastic approval with 342 in favour, 104 abstentions and 54 against. The MoVimento 5 Stelle {5 Star MoVement} has a Statute of only 7 points that does not even mention the existence of a treasurer, nor does it even consider electoral financing. It�s called the �Non Statuto", but it is in fact a fully fledged Statute. I�m suggesting that the parties use it as a model and I�m not going to claim copyright. Instead of cutting the financing amounting to a billion euro going to their parties, they�re cutting the financing to the M5S that doesn�t want financing. Brilliant idea!
The UDC amendment even contained an appeal to democracy. The Statute (the one that makes it possible to take the money) must be �in accordance with democratic principles in the life of the party with particular attention to the choice of candidates, the respect of minorities and the rights of signed up members�. But this is an �own goal�, a move worthy of Tafazzi, of Casini�s IQ. The party candidates are in fact �appointed" by the party secretaries thanks to the "Porcellum� electoral law, quite the contrary of giving expression to democracy within the party, thus they will no longer be able to receive the expenses. Right? Right! Oh by the way, can someone lend me some money for my breakfast?

The Dodos

2012-05-23T17:01:14Z

It�s getting more alienating to look at �cicciobombi� and �labbra turgide�, megaphones of the parties on national TV channels, on the TV News, and on the talk shows. They provoke a sense of small things that are in really bad taste. They call to mind the perfume of rotten flowers, the sharp stink of boxwood lining the avenues of the cemeteries. The shapes that jitter around behind the screen with the extreme vitality that at times precedes the final hours of life, remind you of the dodo, the extinct bird, or the last few Japanese that went on fighting after the end of the war in 1945 in some atoll in the Pacific.
Up until now, they have carried out their role as spokespersons and amphitryons, very well. They have transformed characters like Lupi, Formigoni, Alfano, Veltroni, Alemanno, and Fini into giants of the political scene. They have kept them alive. At times of difficulty, they have carefully rushed in, as attentive as Red Cross workers, to bring them the intravenous drip. The parties are now dying. They are falling like autumn leaves. The TV hosts are pet animals (parrots?) forgotten by their owners after moving house.
Their workspaces, where for decades they have manipulated public opinion, are bare and sad. The parties send them second rate characters to provide a presence. The TV hosts are obliged to interview each other and to share the opinions that are of no interest to anyone. Santoro interviews Lerner. Ms Annunziata interviews Santoro. Lilli Gruber interviews Mieli. They have invented closed circuit information.
The MoVimento 5 Stelle�s programme on news relates to them directly and offers them an escape route, the chance to get to grips with a real profession, it�s never too late. A few points relating to TV:
- no TV channel with national coverage can have majority ownership by a private entity. The shareholding must be broadly spread with no more than 10% in the hands of any single entity
- TV frequencies are to be assigned by a public auction every five years
- abolition of the law brought in by the D�Alema government that requires a one per cent contribution on the receipts of those to whom the TV frequencies are assigned
- sale of two public TV channels to a broad base of shareholders, with a maximum holding of 10%
- a single public TV channel that is independent of the parties, without advertising, providing information and cultural programmes
- abolition of the Gasparri law.
They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we. See you in Parliament.

Fried gnocchi in Parma

2012-05-22T17:21:30Z

The undead (*) (but almost dead) of a party that was never born. Bersani said that he �unwon� in Parma, Comacchio and Mira. He has explained this with incontrovertible words: �We have unwon because there they were governed by the Centre Right.� Clear? Is there perhaps any need for explanations? Call an ambulance for a spot of �involuntary treatment� The PDminusL�s affirmation �It's a victory with no ifs and buts.� Bersani however is overcome. He will no longer be able to construct the umpteenth incinerator in his beloved Emilia. In Parma there will not be a tumour-factory as in other cities governed by the PDminusL as with the ebetino {little idiot} in Florence. The chicken who believes himself to be an eagle has thus returned on his electoral war horses �We will not give in to the populisms and the qualunquisms� and to the political argumentation about the victory of the MoVimento 5 Stelle {5 Star MoVement} in Parma due to �a right wing that in Parma dressed itself in new clothes by supporting the �grillino� �. The �grillino� dressed itself in new clothes. Crikey, Bersani is beating Vendola in eloquence, 5 to 0! It doesn�t end here. For the undead (but almost) the crisis of the Right provokes �an air pocket�. Basically the fart into which the parties are dissolving. Bersani then explained to the journalists �Because if we are stopped we will not go far". No one, after this statement then accompanied the good man to the first park bench with a paper bag of bread crumbs for the pigeons, in fact the journalists that were present kept straight faces and even continued taking notes when he stated there�s an unanswered point with Grillo: work. We have a rate for the unemployed plus those who have lost interest and who are no longer looking for work, that reaches 20%. Who created unemployment? The 5 Star MoVement or the twenty years of mess ups with the PDL, of investment in Fiat�s old bangers and in the cementification of the country, instead of in innovation? Who else but D�Alema sold off Telecom in exchange for debts, condemning it to industrial dwarfism? Who blessed the law about �precarious workers� in the past and the "restructuring" of article 18 today? Who allowed our companies to shift production abroad, to China to Romania but allowing them to keep the label "Made in Italy� on the products? Who obliged a generation of young people to emigrate (second in Europe after Romania)? Before talking about work, Bersani should work. He should try it. In the future he�ll need to.
PS: In Parma, after the second ballot, they have brought in a new dish for the citizens: �Fried gnocchi�.

(*) The undead - also called the �not dead� or �walking dead�, is a monstrous creature generated by the resurrection of a corpse. The acceptation of the word �undead� can refer to various types of fantastical creatures, as for example zombies, vampires, mummies, or PDminusL-folk.

Passaparola - Anarchy and Power - Ascanio Celestini

2012-05-22T06:08:29Z

Anarchy and Power
(11:30)

"We should not change the people who are in power and thus lame one in order to scare another. We should rather view power as a mechanism that moves forward thanks to those that wield it and that we should attack power itself and its inherent authority, not so much the individuals that are part of it, or are not part of it but are believed to be by others." Ascanio Celestini

Theatrical actor and writer Ascanio Celestini's Passaparola.

Far from an anarchic idea
Firstly I would like to greet all the regular visitors to Beppe Grillo�s Blog. My name is Ascanio Celestini and I do theatre, I write and now they have asked me to comment on what has gone on in the past few days.
Let�s start by saying that, as usual, many things have gone on, indeed far more than would fit in a newspaper, a blog, a television programme, a TV news report or even in a full day of reading and research on the Web, in the newspapers, on TV or even down at the bar.
One thing that has struck me in the last few days has been the kneecapping of Adinolfi, and above all the claims of responsibility made by this Olga Unit of the FAI. It struck me for a number of reasons, the first being that it seems strange that this group would call itself the FAI since the FAI that we have known for the past decade or so is a totally different thing altogether, namely the �Federazione Anarchica Italiana� (literally the �Italian Anarchist Federation�), which was last armed during the Second World War, at the time of the battle for national liberation and the partisan war, after which this movement laid down its arms. This is the first thing that struck me in that there are so many other names they could have chosen: if a 16-year old starts a band he/she knows that there is some chance that they may choose a name that has been used previously, but there is no way they would ever call their band �The Beatles� because everyone knows only too well that The Beatles already exist. This is the first thing that made me wonder: why would they step into someone else�s shoes, and that while that someone is still wearing and walking in those shoes?
The second thing is the very idea of an armed anarchist group, in the sense that anarchist action, or anarchist attacks if you will, somehow seems to be a part of the history of the last century and even two centuries ago. There is a somewhat believable article in the anarchist �A� magazine, which explains the position of the anarchists in this Country who somehow still honestly believe that, in this day and age, they can still arm themselves shoot at someone. This kind of action, inter alia mainly by individuals, may have been understandable in the historical, political and social times of Gaetano Bresci who, moreover, made a point of explaining that it was an individual act and that, therefore, he had no intention of representing anyone, whereas the thing that is so striking about these would-be anarchists of the Olga Unit is that it�s almost as if they are the vanguard of a population that is ready to take up arms and start a revolt or a revolution. This is not the manner of the anarchist, but more like the manner of the armed party, the Armed Communist Party. It is indeed much more like the armed party and the Red Brigades than an anarchist idea. The true anarchist does not take orders from anyone. As De Andr� used to say, �I�m not saying that the State should not exist, but what I am saying is that it should keep well away from busting our chops�.

The problem of the prisons
So, the anarchist essentially sees life in this manner: they don�t believe in either giving or taking orders from anyone, or sometimes they even see themselves as the self-appointed representatives of an entire population or group of people.
Furthermore, they also have their own ideas about judging the behaviour of others and, therefore, the judgement becomes a kind of People�s Court or the Court of the few, or part of the people. This is very far removed from not only the anarchism of the nineteen hundreds, but also from the very idea of anarchism, namely that someone rises up and sets themselves in judgement over someone else. It was once again De Andr� who, in a song written as a follow-on to the Spoon River Anthology, said something very simple but very profound with regard to what the anarchist believes a judge to be.
This said, obviously this violent act has led to a negative change in the way justice is viewed in this Country, even though this has never been a particularly humane Country in the sense that Italy is the worst country in Europe when it comes to not only our prisons system but particularly to our view of justice and our justice system. Believing that our prisons are the hell-holes that they currently are here in Italy purely as a result of administrative problems, lack of funding or some lousy laws introduced by some dodgy politician is tantamount to believing that Auschwitz was nothing more than a minor bump in the road. In fact, Auschwitz was the result of Nazism, the mental asylums were the result of the psyche in this Country and our prisons are the result of the view of justice that is rife in this Country. Therefore I would like to remind you that we currently have 144 inmates for every 100 available places in our prisons and that this is the second-worst figure in the whole of Europe, after Serbia, where the figure is only marginally higher at 150 inmates for every 100 available places. In Germany this figure stands at 92 and although even their prisons are not particularly civilised, the spread is quite considerable is it not? Whichever way you look at it, there�s quite a substantial difference between the 92/100 places in the German prisons and the 144/100 places in the Italian prisons. 44% of the detainees are immigrants while a further 30% are drug addicts and, as a matter of fact, the Italian prisons, and indeed the Italian justice system are using imprisonment as a sort of social State: seeing that we are unable to turn these people into 100% real citizens, we simply reclassify them as detainees. 40% of the detainees are immigrants because an 80% legal immigrant rate is unacceptable and, therefore, by law in this Country illegality is the norm for immigrants, so it is perfectly normal for them to land up in jail.
Very often in our prisons the drug addicts (the other 30%) don�t even have access to methadone, so many of them die or simply commit suicide just to get high because a drug addict is a drug addict every day and if they land up in jail things get even worse for them since in these hell-holes, to keep the guys in check, there is a major underground drugs trade. Here, as at the CIE (the former CPT), this solution was tried and tested in the mental asylums so it works equally well in the mental asylums� sister institutions.

Illegality offers its services to legality
In this Country, Law No. 180 led to the closure of many of the mental asylums, however, we still have criminal asylums, which they call the PGs and there are still quite a few SPDCs (Psychiatric Diagnosis and Cure Service centres), which essentially work precisely like mental asylums, so much so in fact, that they are often colloquially referred to as �repartini�, as if they were little lunatic asylums because, while it is true that a person can be admitted for TSO (Trattamento Sanitario Obbligatorio � Compulsory Health Treatment) in an SPDC for a maximum period of a couple of weeks, in fact this often turns into a month and often the same individual lands up in there for two weeks in January, another two weeks in March and then one month in May, etc. So, to all intents and purposes, these places become like mental asylums, albeit with swing-doors, but little else changes because all too often, the people working in regional services and with individuals that have a history of psychological problems, make these places feel like mental asylums, with nurses dressed in mental asylum uniforms. In recent days the discussions in Parliament have once again turned, not to the actual re-commissioning of the mental asylums, but attempting to do what amounts to taking several steps backwards in terms of the provisions of Law No. 180. Half of the detainees are actually awaiting trial so, in effect, one out of every two detainees in this Country are in fact doing time without ever having been convicted of any crime. Unfortunately all this came about as a result of the collapse that began a few years ago, particularly after the �Mani Pulite� (literally Clean Hands) affair and, therefore, from a certain justicialist attitude, from a kind of revolt against power that has indeed done little or nothing and that, above all, did not and could not manage to find a way out from this institutional and justicialist phase. When all is said and done, the fact is that the problem of delinquency cannot be solved by means of incarceration.
In Italy � and not only in Italy but especially here - the full gamut of illegality has become not so much an area of total illegality but rather a kind of illegality that offers certain services to legality, starting from drugs and prostitution and going all the way through to politics, major tenders, etc. Therefore, as regards the claim made by this would-be anarchist group, first of all I have to ask myself how any group that assumes the right to represent a population or a part of a population and thus appoints itself as judge, jury and executioner can ever call itself anarchist. Then, and above all � and this lesson has been taught by two centuries of history that has included revolutions, insurrections and revolts � we should not change the people who are in power and thus lame one in order to scare another. We should rather view power as a mechanism that moves forward thanks to those that wield it and that we should attack power itself and its inherent authority, not so much the individuals that are part of it, or are not part of it but are believed to be by others.
If possible, spread the word!

The Five Star MoVement in The New York Times

2012-05-20T17:54:01Z

The New York Times came to Garbagnate Milanese to follow the second ballot and it has dedicated a long article to the Five Star MoVement. Isn't that great news? (Right now the NYT prints a million copies and has a million unique visitors to its website.)

"Caustic Comedian Alters Italy�s Political Map"
GARBAGNATE MILANESE �
A rapt crowd gathered in this drab town in the Milanese hinterland one evening this week to hear the Italian comedian Beppe Grillo serve up his characteristically caustic take on Italian politics. And he did not disappoint them.
�Take away money from politics� he barked, as the crowd tittered. �Take away the careers. If someone wants to make money or steal, well, they should choose another job.� With no financial gain, he said, �politics becomes about passion.� Mr. Grillo pointed to the row of fresh-faced Italians � candidates with his Five Star Movement competing in run-off elections here this weekend � on the makeshift stage behind him. �These kids, they may be inexperienced, they still haven�t learned how to rig a budget, or give contracts to their friends �,�
What they were, he said, was the product of the �hyper-democracy� that he has been promoting through his blog and the plethora of Internet sites that have aggregated like-minded Italians bent on proselytizing political activism in a new form. And it�s through a deft mixture of mordant humor, righteous anger and grass-roots organization that Mr. Grillo�s movement is proving that it is no joke. Although it was founded only in October 2009, the Five Star Movement has quickly become a force to be contended with in Italy�s fractious political arena. In the first round of local elections on May 6 and 7, candidates from his movement ran in 101 of the 941 cities, and they captured nearly 200,000 votes � a national average of 9 percent � becoming the second- or third-ranked political force in various municipalities across Italy. The party won one mayoral race outright, in a small, but strategic, stronghold of the Northern League, the populist party whose leader, Umberto Bossi, was formally notified this week that he is under investigation for fraud.
�We�re at the beginning of something new that will change everything. The Web is sweeping everything away, toward a world most people don�t even know exists,� said Mr. Grillo, a popular comic for more than four decades, who has more than 550,000 followers on Twitter, and nearly 850,000 on Facebook. �It�s difficult to understand. Maybe we will in five or 10 years.�
Spawned from Mr. Grillo�s popular blog, which he started in 2005, and molded through various Internet incarnations, the Five Star Movement is rapidly becoming a vessel for Italians� impatience with traditional political parties, which are seen as having lost touch with the needs of the people. Italians commonly refer to the political elite as �the caste.� Polls show that confidence in the nation�s political parties has plunged below 5 percent, and Mr. Grillo�s anti-politics message has found fertile ground. (Politicians do little to help themselves. A debate this week in the lower house of Parliament to discuss cutting public funds to political parties mustered the interest of just 20 of 630 lawmakers, newspapers reported.) Angelo Pellegrino, a plumber who had come to hear Mr. Grillo, said: �Politicians are thieves, clowns, buffoons, they live like kings. Although we are also to blame. We did after all vote for them.�
Political commentators have been tempted to dismiss Mr. Grillo�s movement as a national protest vote against entrenched interests, not unlike dissident movements elsewhere in Europe, from Germany�s Pirates to the far-right Golden Dawn in Greece. But the movement�s members reject the characterization and enthusiastically hawk their agenda � an environmentally friendly, anti-consumerist, pro-education platform, articulated with plenty of local variations. Community chapters decide which issues to emphasize for themselves and then elect a �spokesperson� to represent the ideas in electoral races. �The novelty is the use of the Web as a constituency, the idea of new democracy, with a direct relationship between the elected and the electors,� said Federico Fornaro, a historian who has written about the Five Star Movement, �a model of party in franchising,� he added.
The focus on local issues accounts in large part for its success so far. Of the three cities where Five Star Movement candidates made it to runoff elections, the most closely watched is Parma, a wealthy city in the agricultural heartland hobbled by a decade of scandals. Mr. Grillo describes the vote in Parma as �our Stalingrad,� a reference to the 1942-43 World War II battle between Soviet and German forces that marked a turning point in the war.
Federico Pizzarotti, who is representing the Five Star Movement this week in Parma said �It�s important to have open ears and listen to what people say.�
Mr. Grillo and his followers are also setting their sights on national elections next year, which will pose new challenges to the movement�s ability to organize and mobilize its leaderless membership. �The moment there�s a hierarchy, it all falls apart,� warned Gianluca Perilli, a Five Star member in Rome. �Political parties are the cancer of politics.�
Finding a common message to deliver to the electorate will also test the glue of this hyper-democratic movement that refuses to define itself through labels and elaborates its political positions through online sites �where everyone counts as one.� �So far, they�ve only won in small cities,� said Paolo Natale, a professor of political sociology at the University of Milan. �It will be interesting to see whether the utopian vision they now propose can be incarnated for the national elections.� The reliance of the movement�s followers on the Web as a point of contact is �both their strength, and their strong weakness,� he said. �They can be a bit na�ve.� Mr. Fornaro described the movement�s shift to the national level as a �triple backward somersault with no net below,� he said. He added: �It�s one thing to raise a ruckus, another to govern.� None of that bothers Mr. Grillo, who is happy to admit that the movement is a work in progress and insists that he is not first among equals, and even less the �guru� that his critics have labeled him. Yet it is undeniable that the comic�s pronouncements � he is open, for example, to Italy leaving the euro � send regular shockwaves through the movement. He advocates, moreover, forcing Italian politicians to stand trial before a popular jury. �There is no forgiveness in a popular movement,� he said.
The Internet is also unforgiving, and has an inherent system of checks and balances, said Gianroberto Casaleggio, the Web consultant responsible for developing Mr. Grillo�s online presence. �If you�re credible and popular like Grillo then your message has wide diffusion on the Web,� he said. �It�s a Calvinist movement. If you lose your credibility, then your message has no future.�
Here in Garbagnate Milanese, Mr. Grillo wound down his speech. �Who knows where we�ll end up? I don�t know, this is direct democracy,� he said, his voice growing hoarse. �We�re not a political movement; this is a cultural revolution that�s going to change society.�

> Complete article in The New York Times

Parma�s incinerator

2012-05-18T19:35:11Z

The wheel is turning
(01:09)

Incinerators kill. This is affirmed by doctors. Evidence is provided by the increase in the incidence of tumours in adjacent areas. So how can you define a would-be PDminusL mayor who wants to construct an incinerator and actually in Parma, in the �Food Valley�, sending out dioxin into the air and onto the food?

�In an auditorium packed to the rafters with citizens, the would-be mayors of Parma in a face to face about the incinerator. The positions came out very clearly.
Vincenzo Bernazzoli, the centre left candidate, confirmed his unconditional �yes� to the incinerator, however he never entered into the merits of the proposal from GCR, he never challenged the figures that show that not only is it possible to do without an incinerator, but it�s also OK economically. He never demonstrated the hypothesis with solid evidence. In Italy we are moving towards the solution without incinerators: Reggio Emilia, Sicily, the Province of Lucca. Europe foresees a block on the burning of material that can be recycled or composted from the year 2020.
But in Parma there�s the rule of the "Legge Vincenzo� {Vincenzo�s Law}. Bernazzoli doesn�t even respond to inconvenient questions: �Where will you put the toxic ash from the incinerator?� It�s not known. They want to put the heavy ash in bricks (in Treviso they have knocked down an infected house ...). Today they are talking about �bio-edilizia� {green building} with biomaterials using hemp (but what does it matter ...). 39,000 tons of ash will be taken out of the province each year as will all the organic material: and the self-sufficiency that is so acclaimed? Bernazzoli denies the evidence relating to health. He affirms that the facilities are safe. But the Federazione Ordine Medici Emilia Romagna {Medical Association of Emilia Romagna} is asking for a moratorium. The advice from the organisation called Moniter is not to build new facilities. For the old candidate of the system, it�s just terrorism. The serious worries of the doctors don�t affect him.
The sorting of waste is used to bring savings to the citizens and to save resources. Instead, at Ugozzolo, only 17% of plastics are recovered and the rest will be burned. With the incinerator we are obliged to get rid of refuse and suffer other costs that wouldn�t exist if we were to recycle the material rather than eliminate it.
For Pizzarotti, the incinerator is a mistake that has to be remedied. The site has to be reconverted and there must be acceptance of the proposal from Multiutility, the Dutch company that has repeated its availability to help Parma in moving towards correct management of refuse without incineration.

...

Who would entrust their health to the Stock Exchange and a company with shares?" Associazione Gestione Corretta Rifiuti e Risorse di Parma - GCR {Parma's Association for the Correct Management of Refuse and Resources}

The lucky devil

2012-05-17T18:13:34Z

The wheel goes round
(01:09)

Lusi declared he gave 70,000 euro to Renzi who denied this. In any case it�s an item of �non-news�. As far as I know there�s no law that precisely controls the use of the billions of euro in �reimbursement of election expenses� received by the parties. If, for example, the money were used for the election campaign of Florence�s Mayor, that should be perfectly legal.
Lusi defends himself by attacking and explains that he was obeying orders. He doesn�t need to. I don�t believe there�s a single deputy, a single senator, a single politician in Italy that doesn�t know that the treasurers are only executors. If there�s a crime, that doesn�t absolve them, but it would be necessary to go up the chain of command to the ones giving the orders. The treasurer has taken the place of the majordomo as the guilty one in Agatha Christie�s novels Guilty of what however? Of managing money stolen from the citizens by others? In that case, then the first ones to be involved are the party secretaries and the institutions that are always as silent as Michelangelo�s Moses. As far as I remember there�s no President of the Constitutional Court, or of the Constitutional Court, or of the Court of Accounts, or of the Council, or of the Republic, or of the Senate, or of the Lower House in the last twenty years who has publicly denounced the theft to the detriment of the Italians that�s called �reimbursement of election expenses� and not financing to the parties. And yet the fraud was obvious and against the will of the citizens expressed in a referendum. The coffers of the parties have received billions of euro of public money of which only a tiny part has been to reimburse expenses. And the rest? Why has no one paid it back? What�s the use of the institutions if not to watch out for the will of the people and make sure it is respected? This is the question to ask ourselves.
I believe Lusi when he states �I was doing what they told me to do�. Whereas I don�t believe him at all when he states �I can make the centre left collapse�. The PDminusL has need of no help for it to collapse. It�s Renzi who is working towards that, the �ebetino� {the little idiot} who is in favour of incinerators, an affectionate nickname, picked up by Gianni Brera who associated it with Giancarlo Antognoni to distinguish him from Gianni Rivera ("l'abatino� {the golden boy}). The �ebetino� compared me to Savonarola: �Before Beppe Grillo becomes Savonarola he�s got a long way to go. Savonarola lived with a sobriety that I don�t believe belongs to the valiant Beppe Grillo.� I�ll willingly leave the part of Savonarola to Renzi, and especially his gruesome end. The former president of the province of Florence (but doesn�t he want to abolish the provinces?) in the distant past of 2004 belonged to a party that had always taken the money for the reimbursed election expenses "cum summo gaudio�.

PS: Follow the tour "Ballottaggi 2012� {tour for the second ballot}. Participate using the hash tag #m5sTour on Twitter and on Youtube or using the tag "MoVimento Cinque Stelle� on your photos and Facebook posts.

Today, 17 May I�ll be at the Duomo in Comacchio at 6:00 pm and at 9:00 pm, I�ll be in p.zza S.Nicol� in Mira.

No one must be left behind

2012-05-16T16:48:48Z

New words are needed. Important words. Solidarity, social participation, sense of community, sense of national identity. No one must be left behind. The entrepreneur who commits suicide, usually so as not to have to face his inability to provide for the family (how can you tell your wife?), is a curse that he doesn�t deserve and neither do we. The court of miracles, of beggars, that is thronging in our cities is getting even fuller of Italians. Even the people from outside the European Union are leaving Italy. One in four has gone back to their country or has gone elsewhere to seek their fortune.
We have lost a war for democracy. Many people fought for it on our behalf after the war and were killed for this. The list is never ending from Impastato to Ambrosoli, from Puglisi to Borsellino to Vassallo. The civil war didn�t finish in 1946, it�s been going on right up to the present. It has given rise to thousands of deaths, dozens of slaughters, the occupation of power by the P2, the end of the sovereignty of the State in the regions where organised crime reigns. And now the economic collapse of Italy. We have to create a social protection network to tackle the perfect storm that awaits us. We cannot tolerate the death of a citizen because of poverty, debts or loneliness. We either do things all together or the country will disintegrate into a thousand egoisms. A new dictatorship is possible. The citizen must feel protected by the State (and that�s not so), equal before the law (and that�s not so, it depends on his income and on the law firm he can afford), respected as a tax payer (not taken for a ride by an infinite series of amnesties and by the Fiscal Shield). The citizens must be able to recognise themselves in the State. It must be our mirror. We are the State. The time of carefully prepared desserts, of declarations of affection, of fabulous TV shows, has come to an end. The truth, that no one wants to say or even hear said, is that Greece will soon be in default and from that moment onwards, everything is possible. Meanwhile our politicians are entertaining themselves without making any real cuts and amassing useless costs for the citizens like the war in Afghanistan, the bomber planes, the parties, the newspapers, and the TAV starting from 22 billion euro. Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

PS: Follow the tour "Ballottaggi 2012� {tour for the second ballot}. Participate using the hash tag #m5sTour on Twitter and on Youtube or using the tag "MoVimento Cinque Stelle� on your photos and Facebook posts.

Today, 16 May, I�ll be in via Milano, quartiere Quadrifoglio in Garbagnate Milanese at 9:00 pm.

Monti and the spring clean

2012-05-15T19:27:52Z

source: Financial Times

Even Monti can do something right, the problem is that when he does, no one recognises its merits. So he gets demotivated, he gets sad and he calls in ABC for a game of snap at Palazzo Chigi (where it�s always Casini that wins). In April a law came in to forbid board members from having more than one position on the Boards of financial companies. A law against the conflict of interests and one that obliges people to give up 1,500 positions (that�s more than the locusts of the Nile), in the various Boards of the quoted companies as well as the unlisted ones. The Boards of directors are an orgy where it�s always the same people practising active sex, while the small shareholders restrict themselves to the passive part. This law, even though it�s a long way from being decisive, is at least a step forward in thinning out the ranks of the masters of the Stock Exchange. Quoted companies like Unicredit, Mediobanca, Generali, Mediolanum, IntesaSanPaolo were sharing some Board members among themselves. Bazoli, Bollor�, Doris, Nagel, and Palenzona have had to resign from multiple positions.
The Programme of the MoVimento 5 Stelle {5 Star MoVement} has other points relating to quoted companies including these:
- Abolition of the system of Chinese boxes in the Stock Exchange
- Abolition of multiple positions by the people on the Board of directors of a quoted company
- Introduction of structures that really represent people with small shareholdings in quoted companies
- Forbid the possibility of mixing up the holding of shares between the banking system, the industrial system and the news media system.
- Bring in the liability of financial institutions in relation to the products they propose with a share in the losses if there happen to be any
- Prevent the purchase of a company mainly using debt (eg. Telecom Italia) - Introduction of a ceiling for the salaries of managers in the companies quoted on the Stock Exchange
- Abolition of stock options
- Abolition of private �de facto� monopolies, especially Telecom Italia, Autostrade, ENI, ENEL, Mediaset, Ferrovie dello Stato
- Forbid the appointment of people with definitive criminal convictions (eg. Scaroni at ENI) as administrators in companies that either have the State as a shareholder or are quoted on the Stock Exchange
One of the problems of our economy is the lack of foreign investment. But who would play the game knowing that the cards are marked and the dealer is a cheat? Monti keep going. Bring in the Programme of the MoVimento 5 Stelle. As ever, advice is free!

> Discover the network of the people on the Boards of directors with "the Map of power"

Passaparola - The sleep of the monsters - Oliviero Beha

2012-05-14T15:27:47Z

The sleep of the monsters
(06:10)

There�s a famous painting by Goya that says that the sleep of reason produces monsters, however, what we have here is Goya in reverse, in other words the sleep of monsters, which is obviously the fact that the Caste has ruined this Country and has played a major role in denuding the Country of any point of view that is creating reason. The sleep of these monsters is in fact producing reason, which is manifesting itself in the form of protests and democratic intervention by the MoVimento 5 Stelle in the National public life, albeit purely at the municipal level at the moment. Oliviero Beha

Journalist Oliviero Beha's Passaparola

Upstanding people, average Joes
Hello to all Beppe Grillo�s friends. I am Oliviero Beha, but what do I do for a living? Well, for the time being I am merely trying to survive, given the current situation, but beyond that, I am a journalist, I write books and whenever possible I also present radio and television programmes.
What has been happening in recent days? Well, a lot has actually been going on, which I can summarise as follows: there�s a famous painting by Goya that says that the sleep of reason produces monsters, however, what we have Goya in reverse, in other words the sleep of monsters, which is obviously the fact that the Caste has ruined this Country and has played a major role in denuding the Country of any point of view that is creating reason. The sleep of these monsters is in fact producing reason, which is manifesting itself in the form of protests and democratic intervention by the MoVimento 5 Stelle in the National public life, albeit purely at the municipal level at the moment. This is it, a call for reason, saturation point, people saying enough is enough, no more drafts. In a book entitled �Il culo e lo stivale� (literally �The arse and the boot�), I spoke about these Italians and about the appropriateness and the resistance of these Italians. I believe that the MoVimento 5 Stelle has managed to capture the essential nature of public participation from below, something simple, normal, between upright people, average Joes, although the adjective �average� is no indictment and has nothing to do with the meaning that they assign to the term in an attempt to discredit everything. After all, the Caste is bound to defend itself.
To put a football spin on what has happened in the past few days, we could say that Beppe Grillo has played the role of attack centre-forward and has scored something resembling a goal, which is the main objective in any game of football, namely scoring goals. Now, in the case of the Caste, they very often score own-goals, but never mind that for now, let�s just stay with the MoVimento 5 Stelle for the time being.
For a number of years now, Grillo has been playing a tactical game, as he already did back in 2007 with the first Vaffa � day, and then? What have his actions been other than one man against the Caste, highlighting weaknesses, people, criminal records and all in all a frankly repulsive situation that would not be tolerated in any normal, decent Country. That is what he did, he tackled the man rather than the ball and, in a certain sense, he went after these individuals, so what happened? What happened is that the Caste defended itself, firstly by ignoring him, then by demonising him and continuously categorising Grillo and the MoVimento 5 Stelle as something that worked by tackling the man rather than the ball and playing off the back foot. However, in the past few years, while perhaps giving the impression that he was playing the man rather than the ball and playing off the back foot, the entire movement backing up centre-forward Beppe Grillo has begun to play inside the scoring zone and has occupied the territory as if they were on a football pitch. That�s how football is played, you cover the playing zones, you defend the various zones, the pitch is subdivided into areas and each player plays his part and does his duty. Tactically speaking, that�s precisely what the MoVimento 5 Stelle has done. The recent election results are telling us that the territory has been well occupied, whereas, because God always drives those that he wants to lose crazy, the Caste continues to treat Grillo and the MoVimento as if they were the only opponents in the game, playing the man rather than the ball and playing off the back foot, but they are not only nasty in every sense of the word, but they are also rather stupid and this is one of the main reasons why there are now some very real opportunities for change.

Genuine and honest occupation of the territory
Now I am going to use another highly political and highly cultural football analogy. In France, a second division team is playing in the cup-final, a team with no money, but how can that be? With all the money that does the rounds in the top French football league, here you have a team with little or no money making it to the Cup Final game, and the reference here is very clear indeed, namely that you don�t have to have lots of money to be a powerful force in politics. The MoVimento 5 Stelle is busy demonstrating just that at this moment. So, at this point I would be careful about worrying about the future as many are currently doing, dishonestly saying: �But what will become of them, what will they do, what are they going to propose?� and other such bullshit. Meanwhile, they are genuinely and honestly going about their business of occupying the territory with the aim of clearly revealing the other guys� lousy politics, which is a form of vigilance over the Municipal Councils, Regional Councils and so on, which is the first point, but secondly, they already also have a policy platform in place. All of this with no money, which is the most serious indictment of all against the Caste that has always and only relied on money, our money above all - but not exclusively since they have also colluded with the banks and Foundations and have gotten up to all sorts of things that the Followers of this Blog know all about.
This is the first issue, but a further issue is that of the Internet. I don�t know whether or not you know this, but I believe that a few years ago, still in France, there was a soccer team that was being trained via the Internet, without any trainer on site. Now, I don�t know whether this example is perhaps a step too far as an analogy for Beppe Grillo who acts as a highlighter, a detonator, a resonance chamber or an attack centre-forward, but maybe it doesn�t really matter anyway. What is certain, however, is that the Internet undoubtedly has a major role to play. For some time already the Internet has made certain things possible, even in a country like ours that is somewhat backward in this regard, and not purely by accident either. The Internet must continue to improve and must become like the �meat and blood� of the man in the street so that it doesn�t just remain a technical tool. This is something that has to happen because if it doesn�t, they will continue to mess us around!
Oh, I almost forgot, please remember to spread the word!

#OccupyParma

2012-05-13T18:31:05Z

Parma is our little Stalingrad. If in this city the one to become the mayor�s spokesperson is a respectable person, a disinterested citizen who as a child wanted to make the world a better place, like Federico Pizzarotti, then everything is possible in this wretched country. Direct democracy will be able to get established in each Italian town and in the institutions. Parma �Caput Mundi�. For some astral coincidence, it seems that in the last few days, everything has been happening in this beautiful and proud city. The conclusion of the Parmalat trial, the biggest financial collapse in Europe, with Calisto Tanzi reduced to a shadow, and Bernardo Provenzano�s mysterious suicide attempt in prison. Both are symbols of the sunset of the Second Republic and its connections with the Mafia and with the economy. "Night is the only way to reach dawn" This particular night, that has lasted for decades, is about to end. Parma, a city at the end and at a new beginning.
Parma is a city in debt with a serious budget deficit. The {5 Star MoVement} is a leap into the unknown, into tomorrow. The others are the continuation of the past, the certainty of assisted suicide. Vincenzo Bernazzoli, the PDminusL�s candidate is the current President of the province of Parma (but shouldn�t the provinces be abolished?) (so if he loses he still hangs onto his job) and a supporter of the incinerator (that causes neoplasias), has explained that the future of Parma lies in getting Parma into greater debt with the banks and that (never fear) his men know how to deal with the bankers. �The banks have stopped providing credit transfers for the City authorities and associated bodies. They are no longer supplying money as they fear that the City is insolvent ... Without liquidity it�s not possible to pay suppliers and already in June, a lot of stuff is at risk of going wrong. And even salaries could go up in the air: basically Parma is on the brink of bankruptcy. People need to know that. To get out of this mess, what�s needed is to convince the banks to provide a bridging loan to make it possible to overcome the risk of collapse. And we have people who are both capable and members of civil society who can ask for this money .... people who are competent and able to negotiate with the banks.� I have no doubts. Banks and parties are Siamese twins.
Friday 18 May at 9:00 pm in Piazzale della Pace, the list of the MoVimento 5 Stelle {5 Star MoVement} will conclude its election campaign in Parma. I�ll be there for a brief introduction, but you should listen to them and their proposals. If you vote for them, vote for yourselves. However, anyone who votes for them, has to put something on the line, to participate in the improvement of their city. The time of giving �carte blanche� to the parties is over. The time of participation has begun.
If it can be done here, it can be done anywhere.
It�s up to you, Parma ... Parma...