Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald explains why Italy, out of all Eurabia, is a special case:
What makes Italy a special and hopeful case? All kinds of things. Compared to other countries in Europe, it has a much lower incidence of those two mental pathologies, anti-Americanism and antisemitism, which have been exploited so cunningly by those promoting Islam and the Arab cause, or causes. There is also the unusually high prestige accorded the profession of journalism, which goes back more to the days of Garibaldi. From Luigi Barzini to Indro Montanelli, journalism has been practiced as a high art. Montanelli's "Stanza" (La Stanza di Montanelli) in the Corriere della Sera was a repository of his own, but also of collective, memories, about the Fascist period (il Ventennio) and after. If one wanted to know what Ciano had said to someone, or whether Croce was not blameless, or what Adolfo de Bosis, the father of Lauro de Bosis, taught, or what the Rosselli brothers did in southern France, or how the referendum on the monarchy affected De Gasperi, or why Forlani was around for so long, or what happened at the Fosse Ardeatine, or why Italy had to stick by its friend and protector the United States -- well, La Stanza would tell you, and if you were a young Italian, you could learn a lot, in a very pleasant way, about the 20th century history of your own country.And Italian newspapers, especially on the "terza pagina," where cultural articles used to appear (and which today appear much further in), are of a level unknown anywhere in the English-speaking world. The poet Montale and the prose-writer Dino Buzzati both wrote elzeviri (feuilletons) for the Corriere; Buzzati was on its staff. And so many others might be listed -- such as Manlio Cancogni. The word "journalist" in America means the lowly likes of Tom Friedman. In Italy it means something else. These things matter.
There has been a lot of nonsense in the Italian press about America and about Israel, but a lot less than one routinely finds in the English or French or Spanish press. What about Islam? Here the effect of two people stands out. One is the indomitable, high-cheekboned Oriana Fallaci, who in book after book has singlehandedly expressed what millions thought -- but ne'er so well expressed -- and what other millions had not thought, because they had not given a thought to the matter, but recognized in Fallaci's description the truth of many matters. She is one of the most famous journalists in Italy and has been for forty years, because she traveled to the most dangerous places and interviewed all the heroes of the Italian Left. They were heroes, of course, merely because they were seen as anti-American and third-world, not because they had any intrinsic merit -- such figures as Arafat, Castro, Khomeini, Khaddafy. But because of that, and because she herself had written a book about her lover, the Greek left-wing figure Panagoulis, who for years limped because of the bastinado inflicted on him by his Greek jailers, she had the credentials, all the credentials, she would ever need to fend off accusations of being "fascist" and "right-wing." And she was, to boot, anti-clerical, the descendant of a long line of Florentine Republicans. As a girl of fourteen she even participated in the Resistance against the German soldiers who mined the trees and bridges of Florence when they retreated before the Allied advance.And the second figure is the Egyptian-born "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslim, Magdi Allam, who writes for the Corriere, who appears on the RAI (state-owned television), and who has been particularly good on exposing the taqiyya of local imams and Islamic leaders both in Italy (e.g. Adel Smith) and elsewhere in Europe. See his Lettera aperta a Tariq Ramadan -- a fellow Egyptian Muslim by descent, but the real, Muslim-Brotherhood, thing.
There is Il Foglio, run by Giuliano Ferrara, whose belly belies his intelligence, and which is full of good articles on Islam.
There is a Pope who is not blinded to the nature, and therefore the menace, of Islam by single-minded focus on Soviet Communism -- as was his predecessor The quiet cashiering of Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, who had headed the Vatican's "dialogue" with Islam, a few months ago is not the only sign that those who have taken in reality are now on top, and are not about to give in.
This matters for Italy. But it also matters for French people touring Ravenna and Venice, and Germans on Capri, and British in Livorno, looking for Shelley in all the wrong places. For they will pick up, most likely, some of the local attitudes, and realize that yes, it is all right to be deeply suspicious, and even hostile to Islam.
And perhaps even more important is the effect on a certain American gratin, both academic and Hollywoodish, from the very strata of American society least likely to contain admirers of George Bush, and most likely to contain those mechanically opposed to the Patriot Act, Republicans, Christian fundamentalists and those who, as at this website, warn darkly and seemingly exaggeratedly of the dangers of Islam. Of course such people ignore the fact that the men they love to hate -- Bush, Cheney, and so on -- have not understood the full menace of Islam, and have sent others on the fool's errand of creating a Light Unto the Muslim Nations through "democracy" and lots of toys and good things to eat delivered by the Americans, the hardworking and endlessly innocent Little Engine That Could.
These are the very people most anxious about appearing to do the right thing, creatures of intellectual and moral fashion. Willing to be against those who warn about Islam, but also willing, should those fashion winds shift, to take a different tack, and trim their sails to fit that fashion.
Now just imagine what could happen if George Clooney at his villa in Laglio, bought from Heinz Kerry (and where, to the outrage of the locals, Clooney tried to have the waterfront closed to the public so that he could have it for his own private enjoyment -- George Clooney, who Dares Speak Truth to Power, as long as that power is the HUAC back in 1954 and not a member of it is still alive, George Clooney, affable man of the people, as much a man of the people as check-pocketing Bill Clinton, or John Kerry himself -- all of them men of the people). There he is, sitting having his morning collation, his charming Italian servants bustling about, and perhaps he engages one in conversation about what's happening in Italy, something beyond the crash of a Ferrari as it took a lakeside curve at 4 a.m. up the road in Moltrasio. Now perhaps he will open the discussion up to her (that maid) or to him (that waiter) to see what they think and feel about the world. And if he does, and if the conversation gets around to the war on Iraq, and then one of them begins to speak, animatedly, about how that war "e stupido" and he asks why, and instead of giving him the answer he would expect, begin to raise their voices about how "purtroppo, a problema e qui, in Europa, in Italia" and then begin to tell him of the Muslims who demand this and demand that, are to be found in all the big cities, and now are spreading out so that they are even in places like Como, and soon will be in Moltrasio, in Laglio, at the gates of the Villa Carlotta. And why, George Clooney asks, is that such a problem?
And then he will get an earful. And if he is intelligent (and he is intelligent) he might actually listen, he might take some of it in. He might begin to realize that you can keep all kinds of views intact, and still share the views on Islam of such famous former left-wing writers, or freethinkers, such as Fallaci or Fortuyn, and perhaps you ought to jettison your prejudices and prefabricated ideas about those who warn about Islam. He could, and so could all the other salon Bolsheviks, learn a thing or two for those who actually have to take the subway or ride the busses or walk the streets in Rome and Milan and Turin, or who send their children to public school in Marseilles or Lyon, or who live in small towns where the mayor, who is not a fascist, nonetheless wishes to ban the burqa. You might even begin to think -- well, perhaps those who feel most keenly what fascism, what totalitarianism, is all about are those who most keenly sense what is so alarming about Islam. Clooney won't learn about that in Hollywood, but he might, from his servants, and so might other salon Bolsheviks, as they are waited on in their European salons.
And if it could happen to the spoiled denizens of Hollywood, it could also happen to professors, even those who still read with pleasure The New York Review of Books, at that summer house near Lago di Trasimeno, or in a hill-town near Todi or Pisa, or perhaps while on a long or short stay at one of those places -- I Tatti, the American Academy in Rome, Bellagio, where in the common room you can pick up a Corriere and make out what is written by Fallaci or Magdi Allam or someone else who agrees with either or both of them. You can discover that it's okay to dislike, to fear, to worry about, the belief-system of Islam. It's okay to wonder what would happen to the artworks, to the civilization, of Europe -- and even to your ability to spend time in that Europe -- if and when the demographic changes lead to ever more unpleasant and expensive and physically dangerous conditions for all of Europe's Infidels.
And so you return home. Some to Hollywood, some to universities. And you see things now in a new light, a light that your daily life in America, where you must think as The New Duranty Times or Bandar Beacon instruct you to think, does not contain the only take on reality that is possible. Tiens! you say to yourself. And who knows -- you then might, just might, begin to do a little reading, a little thinking, about the matter on your own. It's been known to happen.
Most people, most of the time, have no thoughts about anything. Intellectual fashion, the received ideas of the age, can be followed -- you can choose the Liberal Outfit for Autumn, over here, or the Fall Conservative Collection, over there. If you are truly daring, you can occasionally wear a conservative scarf with that blouse, or that suit. But don't mix 'n match too much -- the colors and styles will clash, and we can't have that.
So all those glasses of fashion (half-empty and half-full) and molds of form will return home with a new, a European fashion -- a fashion picked up in Italy. So that's where it stands, ladies and gentlemen. Be the first on your Malibu Beach block, or is it your ranch in Colorado, Montana, or Texas, or your villa in Laglio, or perhaps even a house a few hundred yards down the road from Beetlebung Corner, where you are working on your next book, after that wonderful summer in Italy. And you hope to be the first on your campus block who, having returned from that villeggiattura, will be surprising guests at dinner parties and Seders and commencement-week hilarities, with your new and surprising views on Islam. Learned at a waiter's knee, the waiter who serves you the cafe and cornetto, or possibly from what you could glean from the Italian paper, or from the some animated discussion on television about the state of Italy and the world.
It may not matter much how people arrive at having, or at least pretending to have, the right views -- the views that will push public opinion, and those who make the laws, in the right direction. Even if it just starts out as being fashion, picked up on a stay in Italy. The deeper understanding may, in some cases, follow.
In war, one uses every kind of available and effective weapon. The weapon of fashion is also a weapon. The realization that many people will never think for themselves, but will follow fashion, or what they think is fashionable, or what they think they should think, should lead one to embrace even this use of fashion to create support for what is, after all, the truth. In the case of getting people to support the right measures to deal with the menace of Jihad, it is not how people came to hold or express the right views, but that they now do so. It is not the journey, but the arrival, that matters. And through the artful exploitation of all kinds of indirections leading toward that final goal, one can give the right directions out.
Now don't you feel like taking a rest after all this? I know I do. Let's have a caffe con latte, or maybe even a cappuccino, if I can find enough change in my pocket -- no, please, it's my treat, right here, at this cafe, where we can sit and watch half of the town's population walking, arm in arm, talking animatedly, as they perform the passeggiatta. That table looks free. Would it be all right if we sit here?
Hugh, the thought of Clooney and the half-empty glasses converting America, listening to servants, such a vision---and then I recalled that it's April Fools Day.
But keep writing about Italy, anyway.
Islamophobobia is the new black!
While Italy offers hope, I just saw the following item on Expatica.com about less hopeful circumstances in Germany:
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=26&story_id=28932&name=Police+brought+in+as+teachers+lose+control+at+Berlin+school
The expatica article linked by Howard et al above deserves a thread.
"...Arabic and Turkish speaking social workers have been rushed into the school..."
From the above link by Howard, Fine &..
"Social workers" from al Arabia in the fatherland. Unbelievable!
Great minds think alike Howard, I sent the BBC report in early this morning before I saw your post.
That is a classic line.
ack, beat me to it.
Granny,
Thanks. My jaw dropped when I read that article. How much longer can EU governments avoid addressing the real problems that are undermining European society?
30 years ago my husband was stationed in Berlin. Frankly the Russians sounded easier to deal with.
"Islamophobobia is the new black!"
Yes, but Islam is the new Green, and I fear that all the waiters and dumbwaiters in the world will not be able to put a George Clooney together -- for the first time, let alone again.
Terrific and very human post.
oops - "Islamophobia", not "Islamophobobia" (which sounds a bit like a new dance craze or something:-))
Much of what you say is true, Hugh, but I think I had better caution you all, things might still go wrong big time. There is one dreadful force, even in Italy, which works in favour of all the PC, pro-Muslim, pseudo-leftie garbage; and I mean Italian provinciality and inferiority complex. You are right that the press in Italy has high traditions (although the years of savage internal struggle, for or against Berlusconi, have coarsened and radicalized it, with both La Repubblica and La Stampa becoming unreadable). But the unthinking prejudice in favour of all things foreign, especially north European and north American, mean that Italians will happily swallow any ideological concoction coming from their superiors. I have personally seen Dan Rather and George Clooney interviewed by the Italian press with bated breath and taken absolutely at their own valuation. And you who know what the New York Times is would be astonished at the way it is treated in the Italian press. The blind acceptance of the point of view of the NYT and the like, in turn, fuels anti-Americanism. And now, if we finally, please God, get rid of Berlusconi, we shall have a government half of whose majority is composed of communists, greens and radicals. Mind you, the base of the Communist parties has sent several loud and clear messages to their bosses that they are sick of Muslim crime and arrogance. But these are also the men who read IL MANIFESTO. And it is likely that they shall be governing Italy for the next five years.
I like the ending where George Clooney goes down with his ship in the Atlantic ocean better.
Mr. Fitzgerald,I live in Italy and I guarantee you that this time you got it all wrong: this country dhimmifies itself as much as any other one in europe and it's also one of the best fit (geographically and demographically) to be overwhelmed by arab colonization in the short period. Is journalism a sacred profession in Italy? Stop with this naive exoticism: no journalist in this country fights for any cause,everybody just adheres to the leftist MSM truth because if you don't,you are automatically labeled a fascist. By MSM truth I mean the usual cocktail of politically correctness,dhimmitude and filopalestinian propaganda mixed with a strong dose of veterocommunist revival. Guess how they call Giuliano Ferrara? Had our healthy youths the freedom to do him what the noglobal antagonist parties tell them everywhere,he would end up dead hanging by his feet in Milan: same hate-filled polarized propaganda that USA liberal media target Bush with (and same agenda for Oriana Fallaci too,which again is depicted by our MSM as some kind of psychotic killer monster). And speaking of fascism,one of its remnants in Italy is the fact that journalism is not a profession,it is a corporative order: as for doctors or psychoanalists,there is a leadership of the order that decides whether or not you can be in and legally report news. Our press and universities are chock-full of happy post-communists living in the iron curtain era,dreaming the myth of the students' revolutaion of 1968 forever. You as a reader have nothing to battle them but to flee and in fact most of our newspaper would have met a crackdown if they weren't aided by state funds (same for Il Foglio,because people basically don't care about anything no more). If journalism holds a sacred place in Italy,then Bush/Berlusconi/Israel are its satan to be stoned at Mecca. Don't underestimate Italy's antisemitism and antiamericanism: MSM conspiracy theories that tie the two are strong,in particular the first is often masked as a political position against israel while the second...let's put it into clear terms. There is a craze of antiamericanism right now and there has always been a lot because of the soviet background of our teaching,welfare,news and everything-statal system. You cannot seriously be pro-american in Italy without being called an idiot or a bastard,which is my country's widely shared opinion of american people: Michael Moore really had nothing to teach in here. The French proved coward as usual and betrayed you,now please do not repeat the same error and wipe away your idea of an european culture-heaven which you can count on far away,to dream of not being alone willing to do the right thing in the world. This place is a den of bastards and sooner or later it will need the same treatment of Afghanistan. Leftist trumpets are already working overnight to teach us that our work-force is no longer enough to sustain Italy and we need help from outside. That immigration is an historic phoenomena and therefore unstoppable. That we do not have enough babies born anymore,so we need immigration to pay our pensions. That we are racist if we don't. What's more,even if Italy is best known in the world for its exported high style and flavours,you could never say so from the inside. You know that these things are "good",certainly,but in a trash-compactor setting. Nobody lives the way italians do in Hannibal: it's all an highly partisan second world country with vast economic problems,ignorance and strong violence in form of organized crime and total lack of plans concerning the future. You know what,I would have liked to conclude saying that there's still hope because media and people stand on different levels anyway,or that we are doomed because no matter who's in charge and what's being said on TV,the italian system and italians per se cannot be changed. But I guess the truth is that our people's minds are simply too busy to mind for anything so trivial as what's happening around them...busy in cheap international appeasement,soccer,fasts of a glory long past,dreams of the revolution and portable cellphones.
In the hope of reincarnation is real - I pray to come back as an Italian. And I hope George Cloony gets a chance to be an Muslim .. with a distant memory of wasted freedom bothering him all his livelong days.
Vota Bauer interesting post. Its funny how you mention how the elite in Italy are trying to sell immigration to Italians so they can justify bringing in more muslims. There are so many Italians in America and South America. I know its almost impossible to get the ones in the states back but how hard could it be to lure back Italians from Argentina. In twenty years if Italy's population keeps on shrinking there may be more italians in Argentina. Actually the same can be said for all the southern European countries Portugal, spain and greece. There are so many of their countymen outside of their borders the demographic catastrophe can be alleviated or possibly avoided if they actively try encouraging these people to come back. But instead all of Europe is hell bent on killing itself.
Vota Bauer overstates the case. But at the same time, I have to say that my previous-bar-two comment made things sound better than they were, at least to judge by Hugh and Eliahu's responses. What I wanted to suggest was the beginning of a change of heart, not a whole-hearted awakening. A country of sixty million, full of rooted interests and superstitions, is harder to turn around than any supertanker, and the revolt of left-wing voters in places like Sassuolo or Colle Val D'Elsa is at best the harbinger of things to come. The loathsome Berlusconi has done his best to ruin the notion of responsible conservative politics, and it is a bloody miracle that a large amount of people still vote for the right. Vota Bauer is seriously wrong about two things: anti-Semitism is not a major problem in Italy, and the stupid attitudes to Israel are mainly the result of the MSM idiotically purchasing all their news abroad, which means that they tend to repeat the lies of AP and France-Presse. And s/he gives the noisy and emotional left more weight than it really has, only because it manages to fill the screens with staged events.
Howard:
From the link you gave
The were throwing stones at journalists.
Well what can you expect from children from the Gaza or the refugee camps in Lebanon. Its all they know.
I'll take mix 'n' match fashion any day over a totalitarian burqa.
The pessimism of Vota Bauer about Italy is extreme. When one begins to find articles in La Repubblica that are not favorable to Islam, when at La Stampa there is Fiamma Nierenstein, at the Corriere not only those manifestoes similar in tone to Garibaldi, circa 1861) of Oriana Fallaci (whose books are sold at railroad stations and at news kiosks) and the insider view that unfoolable Magdi Allam provides a lucky Italian audience (there is no equivalent figure in England, France, or America) of what goes on at the mosque at Viale Jenner, and what Tariq Ramadan is saying, and how he is connected to the Musliiml Brotherhood, and so much else, and then others, such as Ernesto Galli Della Loggia, continue to appear on the front page, and none of the soft appeasement that can be found in the columnists of The New Duranty Times and The Bandar Beacon is any longer in evidence -- that is a good sign.
There remains the problem of the politicians. Berlusconi is a comical crook, whose act has worn thin. But his opponent is Prodi, and Prodi is a former E.U. bureaucrat and an appeaser of Islam -- see his atrocious speech at the Infidel-financed library in Alexandria (a library that no one uses, that will forever remain a monument to monumental Egyptian and Muslim indifference to scholarship and uninhibited inquiry). What to do? There is the Lega Nord, which has some wild characters, and the crazy Bossi. There is Fini. There are some former prosecutors and magistrates. There is the Pope, and there are those who have, following his lead, started to speak out about Islam as it is, and not as everyone would wish it to be.
All I was attempting above --- and that was the briefest view, with all kinds of liberties taken, coarsenesses allowed, complexities simplified, for the sake of raising the issue -- what makes the Italian situation so much more hopeful than that in France or England. Of course among the many things I left out, and of which I am painfully aware, is the obvious one: there are far fewer Muslims in Italy than in France or England. And the numbers count. The truth is easier to tell and write when there are a milliion rather than five million. One more reason to move heaven and earth to halt any further increase through migration, through the unhindered conduct of Da'wa, and through the large families permitted to live, and thrive, on Infidel-taxpayer supplied benefits of the welfare state. There are ways to deal with all three of those matters. But that cannot happen until a sufficient number of people become sufficiently alarmed. Nonetheless, there is hope.
It just doesn't seem right. A casa loro, we would do what they ask of us. In our house, Italians with unclouded clarity think, Muslims should not make demands for changes here. They should either adjust, as all others have adjusted, and they could be accepted if they demonstrate an interest in, affection for, loyalty to, Italy. If not they should leave. End of story. When in Rome... I think it's called. But they don't demonstrate that interest, that affection, that loyalty. So, why should they be permitted to stay? On what theory?
I would say there is more hope in Holland than Italy.There is a growing negativity towards Islam and any more incidents like the slaughter of Van Gogh (very likely) would just push the Dutch over the edge into a healthy and absolutely necessary zero tolerance. The Dutch are not wimps and they're fast getting fed up with aggressive, criminal Muslim thugs.It's a small country and they are feeling very threatened. 40% of Rotterdam is Muslim.
Islam Beheaded, The Information Superhighway and the Death of Mohammedanism.
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20936
If you havent read the above, it is well worth reading.
Hugh, Prodi is a figurehead. The really important thing is who will win in the ramshackle coalition assembled on an ABB (Anyone But Berlusconi) basis: the Catholic left or the Zapaterista, anti-clerical Socialists, Communists and Greens. It is an inherently unstable gatherum of forces, and if the Zapateristas have their way, we can look forward to the pleasure of the PC sale of Italy. As I said in another post, I refuse to vote, since both coalitions seem to me equally poisonous, corrupt and incompetent.
Hugh-
Don't forget Mussolini was also a journalist (and even a one-time novelist) first.
samson-
What will the fed-up Dutch do with the 40% of Muslims in Rotterdam? (And the million or so Mohammedans at large in The Netherlands?)
Why did they ever let them in?
Too much blonde lebanese or black afghani?
"Mussolini was a journalist..."
-- from a posting above
It was one point among many: that in Italy, the profession of journalist is a higher calling, with journalists the members of a guild. Minimum standards of literacy and of mental cultivation --and the appearance in the press of writers (Eco or Buzzati or Montale), and journalist/writers with long experience of men and events (Montanelli, Fallaci)quite different from, for example, Friedman's "conversations" with some locals sent to flim-flam him, or his lightning trips to Bangalore or Shanghai or wherever it is that he takes the pulse of the universe and then breathlessly publicizes his findings to a waiting world.
There is more sense being made of Islam in the Corriere than in any American newspaper, and sense is also being made, here and there, in other Italian newspapers. In France, so far, it seems limited to Yvan Rioufol and a few others at Le Figaro. In America, it is limited so far, in the largest sense (leaving out the declared promoters pinning their putative hopes on "moderate Muslims") to this website.
Hugh wrote: "In France, so far, it seems limited to Yvan Rioufol and a few others at Le Figaro."
What about Alexandre del Valle?
Aaahh, Mr. Hugh Fitzgerald and Italy!
If I could only describe it like you do!
Moltrasio, the Hotel Imperiale, or Harry's bar at the first exit from the Autostrada, Como Nord, Villa d'Este, (harder to to afford it as the prices go up year by year) and of course that 'magic' Bellagio, where old Italians do the passagiare and walz along the promenade flaunting their expensive fur-coat'es...
No. I don't share you optimism about Italy being different. My Italian friends tell me 'its a big problem' just like the few extended relatives I have in Alsace Lorraine, in Metz, Nancy & Strassbourg, in Hagenau & Colmar, who tell me about the 'invasion of les Mussulmans' who make everybody's life so dangerous, so insecure, and so expensive... (Your words...)
But if I ever meet you there, (since you're not taking up my invitation to come to Australia) I shall be happy to buy you the best champagne or a bottle or Tignanello or Brunello de Montalchino (whichever vintage you choose!) right there and then.
In the meantime, keep your nose to the grindstone, as they say in the US of A, or don't they...?
Of course, the press in Italy is not uniform, and I agree with Hugh that Corriere [and I would add LaStampa and Il Foglio] are superior to the NYTimes in general and in regard to Islam in particular. The two web sites linked to below aim to monitor the Italian press in regard to Israel, usually critically but often in praise when they think it fitting.
http://www.israele-dossier.info/
http://www.informazionecorretta.com/
I find Romano Prodi to be a very distasteful person. Simply as a person, I would rate Berlusconi above him, although I cannot of course consider myself an expert on Italian politics. One thing to hold against Prodi is his loyalty to the European Union and all its follies and foibles. In particular, he defended the EU against Berlusconi's charge that the artificially maintained high rate of the euro was harming Italian exports. This happens to be true, even if Berlusconi meant to be self-serving and was trying to deflect criticism from his own govt. The high rate of the euro is harming exports from other eurozone countries, not only Italy. So Berlusconi's point holds in this respect. Prodi has never questioned, as far as I know, the harm done by the EU's billions given to the palestinian authority.
Elyahu. Nonsense. Hugh is a lot closer to the facts by describing Berlusconi as "a comical crook", but there is nothing funny about it for those of us who have to live under his catastrophic misgovernment. That you take his self-excuse seriously says something about your anti-EU prejudice (I am a strong supporter of the idea of European Union, like the vast majority of my countryman, although I abhor the PC dhimmi creeps who have hijacked the structures of the Union) and more about your ignorance of matters in Italy.
Last Christmas I went to visit relatives in Rome. I took a walk through the city centre - the famous shopping streets, Via Vittorio Veneto, Piazzale Barberini, Via del Corso, Via Condotti - and I had to cut it short because of the shock and depression it caused. EVERY THIRD SHOPFRONT WAS CLOSED AND DUSTY, clearly unoccupied for months. This in one of the world's once greatest sthopping districts. I can remember Italy in the seventies, with 25% inflation and more than two million unemployed, and this is worse than it ever was then.
As far as Islam is concerned, you have to remember that, beyond being a crook, Berlusconi is hardly a person at all. He has no spine, no personality, no centre, no resolution except the resolution not to go to jail. He is a series of masks with nothing behind, including the nationalist mask and the multi-culturalist mask, each of which he wears in turn. He is not so much a liar (as Giovanni Agnelli characterized him to our last president, Oscar Scalfaro) as a lie.
Oh, and about your crap about exports from Europe being harmed by the Euro, do you know which country, last year, was the greatest exporter IN THE WORLD? Exporting more than the famed economies of China and India? Germany, of course. If Germany can live with the results of the Euro, and this in spite of having to carry the economic disaster that is the East, there is no fucking reason whatsoever why Italy should not; the only difference between the countries is the vile mismanagement of Berlusconi and his accomplice Tremonti, who briefly sacked himself - and then had the nerve to come back - after it was found that he had deliberately falsified the national budget to cover a three-billion-euro deficit. This, not any crap about the Euro being overvalued, is murdering the Italian economy. Do not believe the American right-wing lies about European economies being on their last legs; they just wish they were, because it would justify their assaults on workers and unions.
Hugh: Montanelli was not only a journalist, but a first-rate historical novelist (read his IL GENERALE DELLA ROVERE) and Italy's leading writer of popular history. As a historian, he got better as he got older, although he still wrote his history from a fairly narrow viewpoint; but as a writer, he was a master. In fact, I would say that written Italian is having its golden age right now, and that largely thanks to people trained in journalism, like Pietro Citati, the late Fruttero and Lucentini, and (though he has been going quite insane of late) Giorgio Bocca.
"a first-rate historical novelist (read his IL GENERALE DELLA ROVERE).."
-- from a posting above
I'd like to say that I had read it. But I haven't. On the other hand, as the Peter De Vries title has it --"No, but I saw the movie."
Paolo you are almost as boring as mr mortadella. If you haven't understood by now that you have to chose and only ONE side is against muslim invasion, you have really no right in talking about how to improve italy.
In every EU or not-EU country it's always the RIGHT that doesn something against wild immigration and security and certainty of jail time. You are rallying for the opposite side, thank you very much. Your grasp on reality reaches very high levels.
You would be better placed in some left-wing, no-global, PC board rather than here.
There you can join the useless fluff of anti-berlusconism.
PS: if you think that in Sassuolo things will dramatically change you are even more a fool than you show. They will keep on voting the left, believing to be the true gem of DIAAAALOGUE and later complain. Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Umbria are like stalinist russia. They want to be the champions of welfare for everybody, nanny-state and DIAAAAALOGUE, well then keep the muslims and shut the fuck up.
I hope you aren't foolish enough to believe that George W. Bush is a man of the people.
Anyway some of us liberals actually are aware of the dangers of islam.
Poisonr: if you do not have enough brain cells to understand that Berlu-scummy is the very type of the dhimmi and coward - having been a quivering coward throughout his life - the state of your brain beggars description. Further I refuse to say to you; but if anyone with an actual functioning mind asks, I will tell you a few things I know about the scum. Berlusconi has to go, for the same reason why a tumor has to be operated. He is a disease. As for you, you and your likes deserve to be robbed blind and ruined and then sold down the river to Gheddafi by scum like Berlusca and his accomplices.
...'not any crap about the Euro being overvalued, is murdering the Italian economy. Do not believe the American right-wing lies about European economies being on their last legs; they just wish they were, because it would justify their assaults on workers and unions..."
from 'Paolo' above.
Paolo uses expletives a lot.
He hates Berlusconi, like all commies do.
As one who imported goods from Italy for 25 years now I can safely assure you that the Euro has killed my business here in Australia. I am closing down later in the year because of that. For you that is 'crap'...
No, European economies are not on their last leg yet. Somehow, miraculously, that 'safety-net' of unions and 35 hour weeks and 6 week holidays and early retirement has not yet collapsed.
Keep on borrowing, keep on feeding the overblown unions and make sure the commies bring you that socialist workers paradise you so richly deserve...
Paolo, show me ONE single episode where members of the left showed balls towards muslims.
I bet you can find ZERO, therefore, as I told you already you have NO place here since you are siding with the ones wishing to be dhimmis.
Secondly, a communist like yourself should be the least to talk about freedom and democracy. I bet you can melt very well with the totalitarian islam.
Other than that, I haven't insulted you like you did to me, and that explains it all. I bet it's the liberal italian left at its finest.
Stain in your red coop and suck the tit state and prepare for when your commie friends will sell your ass to the muslim brotherhood. But don't come here whining.
Vota Bauer wow !! that was a good description of France.... oops I mean, Italy !!
I also think Spencer got it all wrong about Italy but hey, it is sometimes nice to imagine that some places are not entirely rotten... for a long time I have been trying to find THE country which would be less dhimmi than the others but I must admit I only found the US and maybe I am wrong.
(sorry i said "spencer" but it was an article by Hugh, apologies)
Howard wrote:
While Italy offers hope, I just saw the following item on Expatica.com about less hopeful circumstances in Germany:
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=26&story_id=28932&name=Police+brought+in+as+teachers+lose+control+at+Berlin+school
Howard, that article is incredibly not politically correct ! I am astounded.
"A problem in German schools is that especially Arab male students often refuse to respect the authority of women teachers, education sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur."
"It is often Hauptschulen which are hit with difficulties because they have a concentration of problem students and high number of foreigners which means that the boys are often being raised in a home environment which glorifies violence," said Struck in an NDR radio interview".
In France anyone who would say that would be sued !
"While sheer chaos dominated behind him, the mayor talked about the failures of the 1968 generation," jeered the Berliner Kurier newspaper. " That makes my day !
Paolo,
an Italian here in Jerusalem explained why they call Berlusconi the Cav [il Cavaliere]. What I was saying is that Prodi is more distasteful to me. I can't forget the billions of EU money going to support mass murderers, plus all the other contempt for our rights expressed by the EU. If you want to know some other EU politicians whom I loathe as much as Prodi, well, there's Chris Patten & Javier Solana [think of his trip to Saudi Arabia to apologize for the Danish cartoons, etc.].
About Berlusconi, it should be pointed out that after 9-11, he said something about Western culture being superior to Arab-Islamic culture. Then the Arab ambassadors in Rome got angry at him and complained, and he backed down or took it back. Nevertheless, Prodi is repulsive in his overflowing sanctimonious hypocrisy. He should represent the British Foreign Office. Or maybe he does.
As far as the Eurozone economies are concerned, not only Italy but France and even Germany -despite its high export figures that you adduce-- have high unemployment. In Germany and France too there are structural problems in the economies which many people resist changing, as in Italy. So, no doubt the high euro is not the only source of the slowly increasing impoverishment in the Eurozone. And I never said so. Yet it stands to reason that an overvalued currency discourages exports and encourages imports. When we were in Rome, my wife and I saw Gucci imitation ladies' handbags for sale cheap on the sidewalk at the Colosseum. Designer brand name sunglasses too [imitations no doubt] were on sale by peddlers on the street. I bought a pair for 5 or 6 euro. Hence, imported imitations of Italian goods were challenging Italian goods in their home market. Next point, I am not unsympathetic to workers or unions, and have been a manual worker and a union member. But unions too can be very corrupt organizations. And a worker is a human being like anyone else, and thus prone to err --as in To Err Is Human.
By the way, I saw Il Generale della Rovere years ago. It was a very interesting film, although I probably didn't understand it properly at the time.
in the Eurozone, I believe that it is the veteran members, not the new member countries, that are going backwards economically. I'll trust the Sheikh to tell me if I'm wrong.
Oh, and I forgot to mention the bureaucratic, non-democratic decision-making in the EU. The stronger that the EU gets, the less democracy the peoples have.
Eliyahu:
"...in the Eurozone, I believe that it is the veteran members, not the new member countries, that are going backwards economically. I'll trust the Sheikh to tell me if I'm wrong..."
You are not wrong. For more than 10 years now a lot of the production and industry already moved to Poland, Rumania,Slovenia, Chec-republic etc. where people are happy to work long hours for a fraction of what companies have to pay in western Europe.
But Paolo's reasoning is selfcontradictatory:
First he states:
"Last Christmas I went to visit relatives in Rome. I took a walk through the city centre - the famous shopping streets, Via Vittorio Veneto, Piazzale Barberini, Via del Corso, Via Condotti - and I had to cut it short because of the shock and depression it caused. EVERY THIRD SHOPFRONT WAS CLOSED AND DUSTY, clearly unoccupied for months. This in one of the world's once greatest sthopping districts. I can remember Italy in the seventies, with 25% inflation and more than two million unemployed, and this is worse than it ever was then..."
And then in his next posting he claims this has all nothing to do with the Euro, with the overall rip-off, the grossly inflated hotel-prices and the commie-mentality that threatens everyone & everything constantly with strikes and endless demands.
Which one is it, Paolo?
Sheikh yer'mami is evidently a man of faith. The fact that European economies have not "yet" collapsed only proves to him that they will - some time in the future. Obviously there is not much point in arguing with a man so practiced in the heads-I-win-tails-you-lose attitude; especially as he is so free with the expletive "commie".
Eliyahu - what on Earth are you talking about, about an "overrated" euro? Let me explain you the facts of life, son: the value of valuta is set by the international markets. If they have confidence in a valuta, they will buy it. If they do not, they will sell it. They evidently have confidence in the Euro.
Even more incredible is the notion that designer goods should be able to compete in price with their counterfeits. After I read that passage, I had to read it twice over to make sure I had not by any chance hallucinated it. It leaves me little faith in your ability to understand economics or business.
In my life, I have run a business more often than I have been employed. I understand perfectly well the situation of employers. (I am currently a single trader.) I still find ignorant ideologues of the yer'mami kind odious. And if I may remind them, I am a lot more apt with insults than they are, so it does not pay to start using them.
Finally, it is MY country, AND I DO NOT WANT THE SCUM OF THE EARTH RUNNING IT. Berlusconi is morally and intellectually unfit to run a whelk-stall, and that would be the case whatever colour he had chosen to present himself under. It may interest yer'mami that he has done absolutely nothing that may remotely be described as reducing the weight of the State in the Italian economy, as opposed to Prodi and the other left governments, who carried out all the privatizations. Berlusconi's whole political action has been aimed at destroying the independence of the judiciary, which he desperately needs, because he and several of his accomplices have been proven in court to be criminals, and unless he used his parliamentary majority to change the laws, would have gone to jail. This is your hero. And I hope your countries soon get to enjoy his kind of governance.
What is at the heart of the pathetic delusions shown by many people on this thread - that the cowardly crook Berlusconi could in any way be of use, whatever his other crimes, in the struggle for freedom - is over-reliance on politicians. You expect them to lead. As well expect a spare tyre to drive the car. Apart from the peculiar depravity of Berlusconi himself, none of them will show moral leadership; they are trained to follow public opinion, not lead it. And until the anti-Islam movement comes, so to speak, out of the catacombs, politicians will only pay attention to the visible powers - newspapers, big business, their own party structures (riddled with Muslims and dhimmis right and left - Grover Nordquist is no less a dhimmi than Al Gore) and, last but hardly least, Arab oil money.
What you can expect from politicians, the crook Berlusconi has shown. He once opened his mouth about the superiority of Western culture; finding that what he was saying was unpopular, he promptly went back and we have not heard a peep out of him since. If any of you is sad enough to imagine that such a person can lead anything except a stampede for the exit, I feel truly sorry for you.
The only hope is from below. The anti-Islam movement must rise by its own strength, and by the strength of facts - for facts have this nasty habit of trumping pious assertions and convenient hopes. At present is still restricted to bloggers and internet addicts; it has little or no mainstream presence outside places such as www.townhall.com, and even there you can find your Larry Kudrows and other supporters of business as usual.
That is why I find it heartening to see signs of discontent and anger at the popular level, from the rise of Sweden's maligned Democrat party and Norway's equally ignorantly insulted Progressives (both mendaciously described as "far right") to the silencing of dhimmi left Italian politicians by their own constituents. Politicians only say what is convenient; if they find that their electors really do not like Islam, they will not wait long to start criticizing it. But do not look to professional politicians for guidance; they only lead in the sense that the prow of a ship leads it.
Paolo above, in typical Italian fashion, immediately goes on a rampage. Why waste time and try to convince your opponent with logic and rational thought?
I also like Spagetti puttanesca, Paolo, but not with Curry & bratwurst and Sambuca, that's the kind of dinner you serve, according to your posting above.
I like it plain, simplice, naturale...
"...Sheikh yer'mami is evidently a man of faith..."
True, I may be blessed and very fortunate.
But I am not a man of faith. I am the very essence of the infidel, a Jew nevertheless, (blood is thicker than mud) but still the ultimate unbeliever, less superstitious than you will ever be...
You object (quite correctly) to Eliyahu:
"...that designer goods should be able to compete in price with their counterfeits..."
indeed! The counterfeits are only good enough for the Italians. Why NOT allow the Senegalese and all the other Mussulmani to make a (tax-free) Euro here and there? I
taly is a tolerant country, is it not?
As long as the stupid Asians keep buying the real thing why worry?
You answered it already, above. Why should I point you to the empty shops again? Via Condotti rings a bell?
"...I still find ignorant ideologues of the yer'mami kind odious..."
Me, an 'ignorant ideologue?' Hahaha!
Hardly!
The rest of your post is a lot of huffing and puffing and more of the very same hatred for Berlusconi, but I don't see much substance and frankly, I do expect more from you.
If you have something to say, put it in words. If you know something about Berlusconi you would like to share with us:
PLEEEEZZZE post it.
paolo i am still waiting to know what your "brilliant" left has done to stand up to muslims.
I remember a swimming pool in Emilia Romagna (red territory) who kindly offered one day a week for muslim women (that needs privacy and no men around to swim with their burqa).
Please enligh us on what the mighty italian left (with their red coops, magazines, newspapers, unions) can do to protect our culture and values from the islam invasion. You can use Prodi's way of babbling if you want, or the words of Vladimir Luxuria.
Your beloved left is planning to give away citizenship for the new born immigrants. That's how great the left is.
Impressive though yer'silli's faith in the Almighty Free Market is, his chutzpah is even more awesome. He refuses to answer a single point I have made, and then claims I have made no points. He actually slices away most of my comment about his use of the heads-I-win-tails-you-lose argument, and tries to pretend I said something else from what I did, in spite of the fact that the comment is right there a couple of items above his, and anyone can read it. All through his oddly written response (you don't suppose he could possibly regard himself as a literary artist, do you?) he does nothing that could count as answering or reasoning; and he prefaces this with charging me with going on a rampage. Well, I thank heaven that the Yiddish language has gifted English with the word chutzpah, because there really exists nothing else that can describe his behaviour.
As for the other moron, I do not "love" the left. I have said in so many words - not that I suppose you can read - that the whole Italian ruling class stinks. The point however is that Berlusconi has to go. He is, like you, pure poison. As for the cretins who will replace him, they shall be forced by events to abandon their stupid policies. Meanwhile, moron, look at what five years of Berluscummy have done to Italians' belief in democracy. These are the results of a recent giant poll on the atttitudes of various nations to their institutions and democracy as such:
Do you feel that elections in your country are free and fair?
Percentage yes
Denmark - 90%
France - 69%
Germany - 73%
Italy - 46%
Portugal - 81%
United Kingdom - 70%
Bosnia and Herzegovina - 28%
Kosovo - 74%
Russia - 22%
Israel - 65%
Pakistan - 21%
United States - 54%
Mexico - 23%
Canada - 66%
Would you say that your country is governed by the will of the people?
Percentage yes
Denmark - 57%
France - 26%
Germany - 18%
Italy - 28%
Portugal - 40%
United Kingdom - 30%
Bosnia and Herzegovina - 13%
Kosovo - 46%
Russia - 18%
Israel - 49%
Pakistan - 25%
United States - 37%
Mexico - 20%
Canada - 36%
Paolo sez:
"...Meanwhile, moron, look at what five years of Berluscummy have done to Italians' belief in democracy..."
Please tell us what makes him (& his crew) worse than 50 (?) + post-war governments? Do I have to mention Andreotti?
I repeat my previous posting:
frankly, I do expect more from you.
If you have something to say, put it in words. If you know something about Berlusconi you would like to share with us:
Please post it!
and keep your humor...
Do I have your promise that once I have written this the whole dumb display will be over? Do I have your promise that you will not try to teach me about my own country, or about my own past (for I have lived for decades in full knowledge of Andreotti and much worse than him)? Do I even dare hope that your ridiculous vanity will not impel you to deliver the umpteenth retort-that-is-not-a-response? Well, no, nothing of the kind. You're so vain, you probably think this thread is about you.
Anyway.
I remember the First Republic very well. I was there. And I remember what one of the most honest and courageous women I have ever known, who opposed the corruption of the First Republic and taught me to oppose me, said to me as Berlusconi was beginning his final climb to Montecitorio: "These people are going to make us all miss the worst of the Christian Democrats." She has not changed her mind since, and neither have I. Compared to Berlusconi, Andreotti was a statesman of the stature of Bismarck or Richelieu. And if you try to ridicule this statement, it will only mean that you know even less of Italy and Italian politics than you have shown thus far. But by all means, indulge your vanity.
Paolo,
first of all, as to the exchange rate of the euro, one of the factors in that rate is the interest rate fixed by the european central bank. And that is what I was referring to as "articially high." Other factors in the exchange rate can be the fundamental health of the economy. But reputation and prestige can overcome those factors. Just look at the USA with its huge state debt, unfavorable balance of trade, etc. Yet the dollar does NOT collapse. You were suggesting that a currency is simply a commodity with a market price like any other commodity. At any rate, I am far from alone in saying that the ecb is keeping the euro currency too strong for the health of Eurozone exports.
Paolo & Shaykh,
maybe I chose a bad example by mentioning luxury goods when speaking of the invasion of Eurozone countries by non-EU goods. However, even in the area of luxury goods, if the price gap between the real thing and the counterfeit is not great, then many people will choose to pay more for the "real thing," the real Gucci or Pucci, in the expectation of better quality. But when the price gap gets too wide, then many people simply cannot afford the real thing. Especially when they have lost their jobs because the export markets have dried up and the domestic market too is drying up.
Now, since the problem is not only found in Italy, then you can't blame all the problems [or the whole problem] on Berlusconi and his government partners.
Paolo, I suggest that you consider not only the exchange rate problem, but the economic and other problems caused by the centralized, bureaucratic nature of EU decision-making.