Beautiful Horizons

A Lesson Still Unlearned

One of the inexplicable characteristics of the right these days is the fetishizing of CEO's, especially as potential political leaders. It's patently absurd: there is no system of checks and balances in the business world. CEO's need not depend on congress to implement policies. They do not have to forge consensus and compromise if they do not wish to do so; they need merely decree in most instances.

If that is not sufficient to convince anyone, I have two words for you: Silvio Berlusconi.

Forgot Algeria, Morocco, Syria and Libya: Is Italy Next?

It is an ongoing mystery to me why a nation such as Italy continues to be led by the likes of Silvio Berlusconi. Granted, some of this is explainable: Italy's opposition is disgracefully weak and inept, his media empire gives him a huge forum, something I observed while on vacation there a few years ago and he's generally willing to align himself with some of the worst elements of Italy's political culture.

It appears now that Italy may have had enough and women may be leading the protests:

The protests were organized by women's groups and publicized by internet. The turnout surprised the organizers, who didn't want the demonstrations to be political, though that's what they became.

One woman who came with her family to the Milan rally told CNN that she was "fed up with the way women are portrayed as objects in the Italian media. The way that young girls are glorified by their looks and youth and then what? I don't want my daughter to grow up thinking that that is the only way to be ... that the only thing that matters is to be pretty and show off their legs. ... We are more than that."

In Milan, demonstrators had banners that said, "Stop the merchandising of women," and "Berlusconi enough. You bring us shame."

Many of the speakers at the Milan rally criticized the way Berlusconi's sex scandal made Italy look, his behavior towards women and his promoting ex-show girls to high government positions.

I'm not particularly sanguine about the prospects of actual change in Italy. As I mentioned before, the opposition is incompetent and is also filled with infighting. In addition, weak governing has been a hallmark of Italian politics since World War II. There have been more sixty changes in government since 1945 and this is hardly the foundation on which to build a stable society.

That notwithstanding, it's still gratifying to see Berlusconi squirming. I hope it's the last time he squirms as Prime Minister.

Gomorrah

Gomorrah

This may be one of the most extraordinary films I have seen in some time. Based on Roberto Saviano's Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System, a brave and breathtaking account of the Camorra, the Neapolitan crime organization that preys upon the citizens of Naples.

Disturbing, boldly understated, yet relentless in the violence of everyday life it paints an image of Italy that you won't find in guidebooks. Why is the Veneto and Tuscany so spotless? Because the toxic waste from that region is dumped illegally in Campania.

Don't miss it.

Not the Way to Go

As much as I detest Silvio Berlusconi, I certainly don't condone this:

An attacker wielding a statuette of the Milan cathedral struck Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in the face following a rally in Milan on Sunday, and hospital officials said the blow fractured his nose, sliced his lip and broke two teeth.

Television images showed bodyguards helping a stunned and bloodied prime minister into a car after the attack, which came as he greeted supporters after delivering a rousing speech to a rally of his center-right People of Liberties Party in central Milan.

As it appears that the accused has a history of mental illness, it appears that this, one hopes, is an isolated incident. No one deserves this.

Please, More of This

Lots more of this:

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered Saturday in Rome to express their exasperation with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is on trial on corruption charges and who was politically bruised this year by scandals involving younger women.

Many of those who gathered after a call on Facebook to demonstrate expressed indignation about what they perceived as Mr. Berlusconi’s autocratic style in governing Italy. Others complained that after years in power, Mr. Berlusconi had done little to better the country.

“This started with civil society, people who are touched by problems like unemployment and the economy and the environment and want things to change,” said Elisa Tottone, a teacher who lives in Rome. “Berlusconi is not dealing with Italy’s real problems. He only cares about his own.”

But this is also right:

One analyst, Roberto D’Alimonte, a University of Florence political science professor, said he did not believe protests were the way to topple the prime minister. “The way to do it is to create a credible alternative to him,” he said. ”You can’t just oppose, you have to build a coalition.”

That's absolutely essential. The opposition in Italy is fragmented and obsessed with infighting. No one is more happy with this than Silvio Berlusconi. It ensures the status quo.

Berlusconi On the Hot Seat

It's probably the ultimate in schadenfreude to watch Silvio Berlusconi squirming as Italy's highest court struck down a law he and his cronies ginned up to provide him with immunity from prosecution while he is in office:

A day after Italy’s Constitutional Court struck down a law granting him immunity from prosecution, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi defiantly called the ruling “absurd” and said his government would “forge ahead calmly.” But now that he faces fresh prosecution on the corruption charges that have dogged him for decades, the normally charismatic and cheerful Mr. Berlusconi seemed anything but calm. In radio and television interviews, the prime minister, also under pressure from sex scandals and restiveness among his own center-right political allies, seemed so embattled that many Italian observers wondered if he was losing his grip — if not on the country then certainly on his temper.

Can you imagine the outrage if any US president - regardless of party affiliation - made the following comment:

Calling in to a television talk show on Wednesday, Mr. Berlusconi unleashed a highly unusual attack on the nation’s mild-mannered president, Giorgio Napolitano, 84. He accused the president, who is normally considered above the political fray, of stacking the court with leftist judges — remarks that prompted Mr. Napolitano to call a meeting on Thursday with the speakers of the House and Senate to help avert an institutional crisis.

When a guest on the same show, Rosy Bindi, a high-ranking member of Parliament from the Democratic Party and a former health minister, protested that Mr. Berlusconi’s attacks had undermined the authority of the office of the president, he told her curtly, “You are always more beautiful than intelligent.”

Ms. Bindi's response was sheer genius:

Ms. Bindi, 58 and one of the few women in Italian public life with gray hair, responded dryly, “Mr. Prime Minister, I am a woman who is not at your disposal.”

Berlusconi is noted for putting piedi in bocca. Indeed, there is a compilation of his ten worst gaffes here. This, however, may be the best Freudian slip since Dick Armey called Barney Frank, "Barney Fag":

Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, on Friday made an embarrassing gaffe when he said he had spent millions of euros on "judges" as part of an impassioned plea that he was the most persecuted man in history.

Of course he corrected himself, but one wonders. What is distressing about all this is that there are real issues that need to be addressed in Italy, but the focus appears to be on Berlusconi and not the issues, while an opposition that could be charitably described as feckless appears to be more interested in being an enabler. As the tenor of the coverage seems to indicate, don't expect anything to change. That may be the saddest news of all.

Book Recommendation

In February 2007 while we were staying in Florence, Italy, we took a day trip by bus to Siena [ed. note: A traveler's tip: travel by bus to Siena is better than travel by train. Trust me]. From the highway I noticed something that I was unaware of: The Florence American Cemetery and Memorial. I was, frankly embarrassed by not being aware of the cemetery. My sole relative killed in WWII was a great uncle killed on a submarine.

I was also embarrassed by my lack of knowledge about the military campaign to liberate Italy from the Nazis. I knew some basic place names: Anzio, Monte Cassino, San Pietro and Salerno. I knew a few facts such as the Nazis destroying every bridge across the Arno in Florence except for the Ponte Vecchio; that Rome was left an open city when the Nazis fled. I did not know much of the details including the wholesale and horrid destruction of Naples by the Nazis.

There is no better nor readable book on this subject than The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 by Rick Atkinson. The book is not light reading, but it is comprehensive and, indeed, one can marvel at the amount of detail invested in the book: there are some 135 pages of endnotes.

One of its greatest strengths is the ability to draw the reader into the lives of soldiers of all ranks: hundreds of personal narrative from enlisted men, NCO's, lieutenants through the 5th Army commander, General Mark Clark are interwoven with accounts from the enemy and civilians.

While many of the participans are glorified, you cannot read the book without feeling a sense of the appalling waste of war: the wholesale destruction of the countryside, the tens of thousands of lives destroyed, the horrific human suffering both among the civilian population and the military. One need not deny the necessity of driving the Germans out of Italy by being horrified by the events that took place in order to effect the liberation.

There is no greater human failing than war. As Bill Mauldin witnessed General Lucian Truscott on Memorial Day 1945 at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery in Nettuno, turn on his back on the living and addressed the dead:

He apologized to the dead men for their presence here. He said everybody tells leaders it is not their fault that men get killed in war, but every leader knows in his heart that this is not altogether true. He said he hoped that anybody here through any mistake of his would forgive him, but he realized that was asking a hell of a lot under the circumstances . . . .He promised that in the future he ran into anybody, especially old men who thought death in battle was glorious, he would straighten them out.

Amen.

Berlusconi - The Latest

At the risk of changing this blog's name to Berlusconi Watch, here's some more news on Italy's embarrassment:

• He believes that Rupert Murdoch is waging a vendetta against him because Italy's government (i.e., Berlusconi) doubled the VAT on Murdoch's Sky Italia network.
• He appears to make Bill Clinton look like a eunuch by comparison.
• He needs to grow the hedges a bit higher at his villa in Sardinia.

There's a simple solution to the first issue: put your businesses in a blind trust while you hold office.

Despite his behavior, he keeps getting put in office. This article may have the best explanations, but here's one of the compelling reasons:

Today, there is no ideology and no network; there is only Mr. Berlusconi, and you are either with him or against him. Compared to the old order, Mr. Berlusconi’s political class is seen as a modernizing force. Mr. Berlusconi’s rivals accuse him of being on the wrong side of the law, and he in turn accuses them of being on the wrong side of history. Those two things shouldn’t cancel each other out, but often do.

The members of the Italian left have been infighting since the collapse of the Berlin Wall and are so weak and ineffective today that some in this land of byzantine conspiracy theories believe that Mr. Berlusconi must be paying them off.

There's precious little alternative to him, sad to say.

Good God II

Tom Lehrer said that satire died when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize. Apparently some Italians want to drag satire out of its grave and mutilate the body:

Ever since the Italian media began peering into Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s personal life — and found a host of attractive young women — his supporters have been furiously trying to change the subject.

Among them is a small group with a big plan: to nominate Mr. Berlusconi for the Nobel Peace Prize.

“An Italian hasn’t won the Nobel Peace Prize since 1907,” said Giammario Battaglia, a 36-year-old lawyer who helped start the initiative a few months ago. “We think it’s a good moment.”

He appears to be serious.

Here's their website. I really don't know what else to say.

Who Knew?

Portuguese Nobel laureate, José Saramago has a blog. Unfortunately for non-Portuguese speakers, it's only in Portuguese. If you can read the language, it has some gripping entries.

Moreover, he has published these entries in book form and has incurred the wrath of Silvio Berlusconi:

Jose Saramago has launched a blistering assault on Silvio Berlusconi, whose publishing house has dropped the Portuguese Nobel laureate’s latest offering because it describes the Italian prime minister as a “delinquent”.

The Einaudi publishing house, which is part of Mr Berlusconi’s Mondadori empire, has published all Saramago’s works in Italian for 20 years. But it declined to publish El Cuaderno (The Notebook), a compilation of Mr Saramago’s blog entries, because it contained “accusations that would be condemned in any court”.

Only in a court that has laws passed to keep the likes of Berlusconi from being prosecuted. This is good:

Mr Saramago, who won the Nobel literature prize in 1998, said yesterday he was relieved to be no longer contributing to Mr Berlusconi’s fortune.

The 86-year-old then let rip: “I find it strange that a man like that who uses the worst methods and wins millions of votes hasn’t produced a social movement of revulsion in protest at the simple fact that he’s ruined the prestige of his country,” he told El Pais. “How much longer must we put up with him?”

Apparently as long as he can whore himself out to coalitions like the Lega Nord. Of course, Berlusconi, a man about whom The Economist  published this cover story

stands for nothing other than his shameless and contemptible lust for power.

He even taints the beautiful game: Mangiare merda AC Milano!