How will Italy be saved?

international | politics / elections | news report Friday February 17, 2006 13:50 by iosaf

A very short reminder that Italy celebrates a general election later this year.
& for all intensive purposes its a very simple contest.
In the right wing reconstructed popularist fascist corner :- Berlusconi.
in the left wing reforming newly democratically legitimate centre pitching corner :- Prodi.

Berlusconi is more than a politician. He is a billionaire who has exploited weaknesses in the post war Italian constitution to extend unwarrented power in all directions. Put very simply he is a "product".
Regardless of what socio-economic class an italian comes from the "product" is still deftly targetted.
Regardless of whether or not the targetted consumer likes or dislikes Berlusconi, the brand name has been completely absorbed. On the shelves of Italian newsagents one can buy a book of anti-Berlusconi insults, compiled by his office published by his press. His emergence has been one of the most serious challenges against XXI century democracy in Europe yet. & fighting him thus meant the development of new and interesting tactics.

For the first time an opinion poll has placed Berlusconi slightly ahead of Prodi the same day that Berlusconi announces a fresh electoral pact with Alessandra Mussolini the direct descendent of the dictator. It is a sign of how he plays the "fascist" tradition in Italian culture. So I'd like to inform the readers whats going on & maybe encourage "italian interest" contributors to indymedia ireland to expand and clarify the themes touched -
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It has been many years since the writers' group Luther Blisset and the parallel associated group "Q" and others burst on an underground scene articulating anarcho-syndicalist and "hard core" post marxist analysis. & their thoughts have too "been internalised". Their product branding found its mark, regardless of whether or not the targetted consumer agreed or not.

Prodi's tactics are the tactics of the centre left a typified in europe in the last decade:- the legitimisation of an illegitimate process by pretending it is what is not : "Open" - "responsive" - "transparent" &c..,
Thus his candidature to lead the mainstream left alliance was not decided by a heirarchial structure of inner party cadres, nor the pressure of lobbyists, nor even the whispering of retired party grandees or the nod to the future and inclusion of analysis of the "micro-left".

Instead, the Italian electorate were invited to vote for his candidature. & they did. Of course they mightn't have heard about any other candidate. Prodi is as much a "product" of the Berlusconi machine as any other. He is "the opposition candidate product".

He has also now issued 2 important elements to his manifesto.

1) withdrawl of the Italian contingent from Iraq.
2) referendum on the Italian constitution.

Under (and before) Berlusconi, Italy was almost split, the extreme right wing of the north moved to seperate and the Berlusconi "product"'s response was to begin an attack on the post war constitution, placing more and more power in the office of the prime minister (his own) whilst reducing the independent powers of the judiciary (which on average once a year brought cases of corruption or monopoly against him).
Prodi has now collected 700,000 signatures for a referendum to reverse those reforms and instead move Italy to a form of "federalism".

Prodi has assured those concerned with the TAV project in Turin (an unpopular high speed rail link) that they will be listened to.

And Prodi, in a long interview in the newspaper "Il Gazzettino" of Feb 16th, raised the principal themes of the Unione's electoral campaign. He started with the TAV (high speed trains) issue which is raising huge problems: "In our program we go beyond the problem," Prodi said, "sure enough it is written that we will complete the great European axes of communication. Through Italy we have Corridor 5 which goes from Lyons, to Trieste, to Budapest. For us this is a work we must accomplish. The example of Brennero had been used only in its explicit function, but I can ensure that this is our program. The fact remains that when carrying out a large public work the local community must be heard. Last week I received at the Fabbrica all the mayors from the Val di Susa area, we spoke of the workd but I also listened to their more general problems. We will have construction going on for years and it will cause problems that we will have to resolve together".

you may read / see Prodi interviews here
http://www.audionews.it/notizia.asp?id=137882
http://www.gazzettino.it/VisualizzaArticolo.php3?Codice...prodi
or straight from the horse's mouth here
http://www.ulivo.it/cms/index.php?id=9

you may learn more about the TAV in indymedia italy's ecology section or directly here.
http://www.notavtorino.org/
http://italy.indymedia.org/features/eco/

It is felt in "far left" corners that Prodi's games of "legitimisation" have come far too late.
After so many years' rule by one equally judged unfit to govern in the eyes of both left and right, near and far, perhaps Italy is after all "too sick" to continue in the "liberal social democratic model" of musical chairs. "We just finished our go, now you clean up the mess".

It is also felt in "centre left" corners that Prodi might yet "flop" as John Kerry did. & for good reasons the double day referendum on fertility which saw over 75% abstention in 2005 and even the Berlusconi product decide to "not vote" at the last moment showed the power of a new element in Italian power brokerage - The Vatican of Ratzinger. It really was quite curious, that Mr B. at the last moment jumped in a plane and went to his fortified villa in Sardinia taking in mass first rather than not vote in his government's referendum. C/F http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=70263 Indeed, the fortification of the villa and the addition of its bunker in the last two years seemed to many to imply "Mr B's not for going".

So I wonder, are we to call the bluff. Is Italy a democracy?
It has been a long time since even "The Economist" declared it sick and Mr B answered "nope we're playboy".
C/F http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=70017

Or are we to continue the farce and give diplomatic support to Prodi
solely in the hope of a "regime change"?