True love

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has long been an admirer of America and especially of its current leader, George W. Bush. Berlusconi, whose name in the early 1980's was discovered on the lists of the secretive, far-right organization P2 (led by the noted fascist Licio Gelli), is an ideological soul mate of our War Criminal-in-Chief.

At the recent meeting between the two in Washington, Berlusconi could not control himself and gushed: "You will go down in the history books as a hero, George!"

Silvio Berlusconi and George W. Bush at the White House

W then turned to Silvio and said that there was still much to be done in the few months that remained of his presidency. There were the billions, even trillions of dollars to be pillaged from the U.S. Treasury and distributed to Paulson's buddies on Wall Street, so that they would never have to suffer the effects of their risk taking. The Republicans, he sadly admitted to his little Italian friend, would not be in power much longer.

"But the people don't understand you, George, not like I do", whispered Silvio, with a lump in his throat.

Seven Days That Shook The World

Much has happened in the last week. In seven days I’ve seen the beginning of the end, the mother of all deflationary spirals and the shape of things to come. On Monday, the US Congress at first rejected a 700 billion dollar bailout for Wall Street only to pass that very same bill (with an additional 100 billion in pork to sooth the nerves of some rebellious Republicans representatives) four days later. Then on Thursday there was the surreal debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. Surreal as only a debate between two politicians can be, when both are pledging their support for the working class (the hockey moms and the six-pack Joes) while their respective bosses, John McCain and Barack Obama, are doing everything they can to get the bailout (a bill which gives everything to the mega rich and nothing to the common man) passed.

US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's new hairdo after the Wall Street bailout

Over the weekend the “Sub-prime” tsunami picked up steam and in Europe leaders of the major economies were meeting to see if they couldn’t forestall the inevitable with a coordinated bailout of some of the continents major financial players. Sarkozy, Brown, Berlusconi and Merkel met in Paris and essentially agreed in a quintessentially European way not to agree on anything. It’s every man for himself in the crash of 2008 and bank nationalizations (the Fortis Bank in the Netherlands) and failures (the colossal Hypo Real Estate company of Germany) are the order of the day. Iceland is on the brink of bankruptcy and has seen its once strong currency plummet against the dollar and the Euro. In Ireland rumors of a run on the nation’s banking system forced the government to declare that it would cover all personal deposits, which it probably wouldn’t have the money to do if everyone did try to get their money out, but something had to be said.

Finally, in an effort to calm the markets before they re-open on Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced with her finance minister that the government would, like Ireland, cover all personal accounts in German banks. In doing this she pledged to insure about 500 billion euros, more or less the amount that the US Congress had refused to hand over to Wall Street on Monday. With Merkel having to make that kind of guarantee it’s no wonder that the objective of the Paris meeting (a coordinated, pan-European bailout plan) came to nothing. The Germans know that the worst is yet to come and have decided to first take care of their own. If the banks in Greece, or Italy, or Spain start to fall, it will be up to their governments to save them if they can.

I could be wrong but I can’t help thinking that the world is about to enter a period of prolonged economic depression. The Banksters have bitten off a bit more than they can chew this time. The high priests of “turbo capitalism” have led us all, willingly or not, to the edge of the cliff and over the precipice. And as any truthful economist will tell you, once all the bubbles have been burst there’s really nothing you can do to stop a system from de-leveraging. No bailout will ever hold and the house of cards built with deceit and the purest strains of capitalist greed must fall.

The world as we know it is about to change and whether we are all eventually governed by corporate dictatorships or finally decide to throw off our chains and live as free men has yet to be seen. The choice is ours.

Che ti dice la patria?

Hard times in “Il Bel Paese.” This morning I read an article in the Corriere della Sera, which said that the Italian government has now declared a national “State of Emergency” because of illegal immigration. The official communiqué from the Council of Ministers explains the decision as an attempt to deal with the “persistent and exceptional inflow of non-EU citizens”, most of whom have been washing up on the shores of southern Italian beaches, some alive but many of them dead.

Illegal immigrants in a boat off the Italian coast

Of course, without knowing anything about Italy or its present government a reader might think, “well, yes, that is a problem.” Every country has a right to its own immigration policy and rules are rules. You can’t just float up on a beach, half dead from the sun and the salt, and perhaps even after having seen your friends and family drown and expect to be welcomed by the local authorities. Bruttissima figura (very bad form) as the Italians would say.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi

Order will be maintained and Silvio Berlusconi, being the savvy politician that he is, knows that in economically difficult times one of the best ways to distract voters and keep them in a state of fear is to persecute those who are different or disadvantaged. It works in the USA, where we’re building a reinforced concrete wall between ourselves and Mexico, and it’ll work in Italy, too. In fact, not only has the government decided to zero in on illegal immigration, they’ve also singled out the Rom or “gypsies” for special attention. Another government law, this one from the 11th of July, decreed that there would be a national census of all the Rom, children included, living in the outskirts of major Italian cities. This decree, according to the Berlusconi government would finally deal with the “gypsy question”, enhancing the security of all of Italy’s citizens.

The fact that at least a quarter of the Rom in Italy are Italian citizens, and have been for generations, and as such have the right to go wherever they please in the country doesn’t seem to bother anyone in the government. The equation, gypsy = thief (or worse) has been not so subtly reinforced in people’s minds and that’s all that matters. A convenient scapegoat has been found, and if the cost of living in Italy is sky high and families are finding it harder and harder to save or even make it to the end of the month, well, then at least they know that there’s someone below them in the social pecking order.

Having lived and worked in Italy for over twenty years, I am sad to see this happening, but it's not totally unexpected. Berlusconi’s pogrom against i diversi (the different) is a part of a worldwide trend, a planetary disease pitting the rich against the poor.

Of course, you could say that this isn’t the first time that the Italians have led the rest of the planet boldly into the future. Back in the 1920’s they were at the forefront of another social trend, but then history never repeats itself, right?