Many have waken up in the last years to the real deal about globalization in politics, which in very short terms is that the left-right paradigm acted out by the leaders has no actual sense anymore, and that the real struggle is the one of the elite against the constitutions of the nations of the formerly called free world and against the people's rights (in favor of super-national authorities that are never questioned, even when they decide to bomb Belgrade or whatever.)
"Many" is not enough anyway, and in reality many is a very little figure. In Italy though it is even less, here everything is ruled by the false paradigm: every little local power, left or right, unionist or made-by-media is barricaded to defend its own role and its own little garden of historical battles, and a incredible load of energy is wasted everyday debating false issues and pretended oppositions. Example being that every italian blog who stands for the left or the right comes with a bunch of hired opinions and expected ideas (that its readership, faithful to the same ideas, will safeguard against the authors themselves), while those who blame corruption for everything (Beppe Grillo et al.) are in fact helping to trash the Constitution and the system of guarantees that seem to be the real enemy of the elite.
Thing is, comedians and politicians and media moguls and independent bloggers are hired in Italy by the "new world order" project or whatever you wanna call it without even knowing what they are fighting for. (I am sure our average politicians and rulers don't see more clearly than anyone else, their eyes and voices prove it.)
All they have to do is to sell ideas to the masses in order to go further with the project. Clear example being the recent statement by Vice Prime Minister Rutelli, someone who pretends to be on the left, when in reality he is nowhere, who said that it is now necessary to enforce a national DNA bank in order to fight crime.

Now, aside of the sheer stupidity of the idea (assuming that everyone is a criminal to help the police to investigate? thanks a lot) this statement is hypocritically (and hysterically) made possible by the numerous unsolved or hard to solve crimes that are everyday on the newspapers and that make people indignant and frustrated. So just like in central America, where the "war on drugs" is used as a pretext to implement the police state, and in north America, where the "war on terrorism" is used for the same purpose, elsewhere politicians use different pretexts: be it immigration, "global warming" or "rampant crime".

What remains is that the pace of this global change towards technologically-driven authoritarianism is faster then ever, and should be the first serious reason to worry in this strategic moment for everyone who pretends to be interested in politics.

Just a glimpse: US doles out millions for street cameras; cameras to scan emotional behavior are being designed; US presidency gets another surveillance “blank check” (and they want more); China gets from the US a massive human tracking system; and my city cries for its own too; while scientists seem to devote themselves to design new weapons against citizens and new weapons to terrify other citizens; while internet is being used to stop dissidence in a simulation of free speech (Mao Zedong style); soldiers tell about atrocities but nobody listen to them; and a new hoax to justify satellite weapons is being prepared. Etcetera.

Just like the other one, this pope is stupid. He keeps coming out with stuff that has no sense, hollow words only full of the masonic meanings that few initiated can use to recognize each other.
When I lend him an ear, it's always like I'm hearing elaborated phrases about nothing: "hi corpodibacco, didn't you know it that today the purple hare flew to the castle of dung?". and I: "sure Ratzi, and the finned ship of pure rotten desire just sunk in the sea of radiators."
We can convince anyone that we know what we are talking about, since the hare and the radiators are a dogma.

One of the most gigantic idiocies we are forced to listen to over and over it's the one about the 'Christian roots' of Europe.

"Virgin Mary full of grace," asked the pope, "...be an ever vigilant keeper of Italy and Europe, so that from their ancient Christian roots the populace will be able to get nourishment to build their present and future." (from AGI)

It's the old polemic about the European Constitution not mentioning the Christian roots in its preamble. The pope speaks about the Virgin Mary full of grace when in fact he's speaking about politics, God knows if the Virgin will forgive him.
I'd rather have him going a bit into the details of the virginity of Mary, but that's what we deserve.

Now, I have nothing against the Christian European tradition. I spent most of my wasted life of student and teacher studying the Italian arts of the Renaissance and the middle ages. I can't think of anything more beautiful and living among the dead things of this country than an altarpiece painted by Tiziano or Bellini.
If it wasn't for the restorations (that's a too painful argument).

What would have been of that long moment of our history without the spiritual milieu that pervaded this land, which is the christian culture? If you go into the Basilica of Frari in Venice, and look and the mentioned Virgin Mary rising in the marvelous Tiziano's Assumption you must recognize immediately the power of spiritual faith, and the deep connection between the reasons and the energies of those pieces of art and the Christian culture.

That said, this pope is really stupid. There is no such thing as "Christian roots". And I am not even going into the pagan origins of our culture, from the Greek to the Romans to the dozens of other people and religions that made Europe what it is or what isn't anymore.

The point is that the History of a continent it is not shaped like a tree or a fungus: it has not the roots at the beginnings and the branches at the end. In fact, what are the beginnings? Where is the end of the branches?

It's the wrong metaphor.

The History of a continent it's like a slowed down gurgling tempest, or a noisy hurricane. It certainly comes down from some altitude and ends up smashing things at the bottom end, but that's about it with the similarities.
It is a sequence of countless contradictory events that only temporarily have the aspect of a path or a growth. And only because humans are small, busy or blind they cannot grasp its entirety, which is probably for good (we have limits)
Didn't the Romans had the same sensation? After all their tree was taller and their roots deeper.

Tomorrow we will have to hear the stupidity of muslim or jewish roots, or orthodox roots. They're all the same hollow wrong metaphors to me. Like it wasn't true that there isn't a single idea which hasn't be growing from another idea.
I'm not like Dawkins, I can afford to have a religion in my world. A religion is a poetic idea, sometimes even intense and alarming, or fruitful as the History of Arts can prove. I for once, am not at all sure about the origins of anything and I am open to the suggestions of spirituality.

But the religions of the popes and the churches it's not about spiritualism. It's about the privileged politics of determinism, and that's really depressing. And stupid.

So it comes down to finally, all the Italian soldiers coming back home from Iraq. 32 of them died in action since 2003, with 7 other Italian civilians (journalists and other agents).
39 is a little figure compared to what the Iraqi people suffered (in the order of half million people killed since 2003), so it's fair to say that we are, as a nation, coming out quite unscathed by this 'mission'.

Considered how unjust this war was in the first place, based on lies and motivated by greediness and imperialism; considered how the 'peaceful' mission of the Italian army consisted basically in garrisoning the prospect of two million barrels in Nassyriha in the name not of our democratic constitution but of ENI, the Italian energy agency, it really was about time to put an end to this shame.

But the shame does not end here, obviously. It never ends. Who will now defend the Italian interests there? What sort of deal ENI is striking and with whom? Mercenaries? Foreign armies? Local mafia? Terrorist groups?
And what about the Italian constitution which states at the Article 11:

Italy repudiates war as an instrument offending the liberty of the peoples and as a means for settling international disputes; it agrees to limitations of sovereignty where they are necessary to allow for a legal system of peace and justice between nations, provided the principle of reciprocity is guaranteed.

I mean, why are we getting out of Iraq now? Because our leaders said that the war was 'wrong', because we never managed or even tried to favor a 'legal system of peace and justice' there.
And who is going to pay for the mistake? Who bypassed our boring old constitution?

I bet the politicians who voted for this war are convinced that the price has been paid already, by those 39 fellow citizens and so they're even. I wish they were wrong -- although they are right of course.

One of the most florid business in Italy is the production and the import-export of guns. Beretta (see intimidating picture below) is one of the world leaders in Guns manufacturing. We export luxury pistols even to China. All the economy is recessive but guns industry.
Still, not like the U.S., and like most of Europe, in Italy guns are not very much widespread. Well, of course they are an everyday tool among Camorra 'Ndranghet Mafia boys, but aside of that only few fanatics, paranoids, jewelers, hunters have guns.

Now I find this blog where a blogger Fabio refers to one article of the italian constitution I didn't know of, that ensures to anyone the right to use guns (and only guns, "armi da fuoco") for self-defense. He then uses as an excuse for his pro-guns argument the recent violence we all heard of on the media, perpetrated on a student of the University in Bologna, to argue that, since the American constitution always worked well, it's pretty logical the italian constitution imitated it both in gun possessing and freedom of speech; he argues that in such situations of violence a stronger application of that article of the constitution is very much desirable.
In other words he would greet a larger circulation of guns in Italy, as in the U.S.

All right. Let's demolish this argument once and for good. And without even touching the whole Columbine routine.

Coming to the pretext, violence on women and the recent example happened in Bologna: it's still to see where and how guns would have helped. Aside of the fact that there are other means for self-defense, as all those anti-rape sprays and stuff, I bet in the US the rate of violence against women is just the same as in Italy if not worse: guns do not help.

Why? Simple: because men hold guns, not women. And with a gun violence and rape are quite easier.

Let's review the scene together. Here's how the things went in Bologna: She climbs down the bus, he follows her to a darker corner, grabs her from behind, drag her across the street to a solitary spot, she cry for help, cars pass sounding the horn without even slowing, in a matter of minutes she is being beaten and raped.
Now, let's say guns are widespread among the population in Italy and replay the scene: who do you think has a gun of the two?
She climbs down the bus, he follows her, points the gun at her threatening to kill her, and, as we said, the rape is even easier.

I think my confutation could easily end here, no need to add more carne al fuoco. But I'll be generous.

Guns may help this or that innocent man to win his self-defense battle, but will always work against women. Particularly in Italy. Here, everything that gives more strength and self-reliance to women is seen as a sly demolition to men's virility.
Paranoid men see as a menace "painless" childbirth, "painless" abortion, self-defense items or trainings, challenging women, women who have opinions, women that make it alone. Old story. They keep the guns for themselves.

Sometimes women too use weapons: more than guns, non-ordinary weapons. At home, where most of the violence against them is perpetrated, by their husbands and boyfriends, without witnesses, one uses what is at hand.
But there is no way one can react to violence at home as any robbed shopkeeper, shooting at the first intimidating act: first it has to be knocked over an entire world of habits, solidifcated fears, chained relationships, traditions, money, affections, etc.
And when the exasperation really reaches a peak, there's no need for a legal gun (plus that would be "his" gun): but a blade would do, a kitchen knife, a cutter, a screwdriver, an axe, the car, scissors, poison, a rope, fire.

All those are good self-defense weapons, but, strangely enough, no guns supporter, no constitutionalist considers them. And no one makes Associations in Support of the Domestic Poison for Self-Defense.

The announced reform of the Italian Constitution has been approved by the italian parliament. When the President will sign it, it becomes law. It will be operative after the next elections (April 2006).

There would be many things to say about this reform (particularly because I have been away from the blog for few days, and many things happened in the meantime): About the widening of the north-south divide; about the ridiculous increase of powers of the prime minister, in the hope to entice all the gullible middle-class nostalgic for a strong single man in charge; about the birth of a imitation of a Federal Senate; about Rome that won't be anymore Italy's capital, but the capital of the Federal Republic of Italy; about how the President, once a crucial figure dedicated to monitor the respect of the Constitution is now demoted to a simple notary; how magistrature will be partially elected by the parliament (breaking the supposed autonomy of the two forces); about how the number of parliamentarians will be reduced. And about how all of this is part of a major plan to turn Italy into a soft dictatorship, devoted to Mafia and the US foreign policy. Probably the first of its kind into the new United Europe.

There's also this aspect: parliamentarians will be younger (the President too) and fewer. I couldn't figure out the reason for this until I realized: the final goal will probably be to have a soccer team, possibly the Milan team, owned by Berlusconi, to seat at the parliament instead of all those guys with all their blockheads full of words. Just a fistful of young, ignorant obedient fellows to pass the ball around in the Chamber: That'd be a dream.

But in the end all these reforms, as the one of the educational system, are done in a hurry with the sole purpose to redeem the government by the suspect of having worked only on Berlusconi's business, saving he and his friends (with special laws) from charges of corruptions, false accountings and embezzlements, and by making him enormously richer (from 5,000 billions € of debts he had before going into politics to the 29,000 billions of introits he has now, after 10 years of what he calls his hard "fight against communism").

The left opposition announced a referendum, a pool to the entire population to check whether we approve. Possibly, the referendum will cancel all Berlusconi's constitutional reforms (there's still hope). But this is not a real problem for him. Because the only reason for these reforms to be right now is to keep the electorate of the xenophobic "Northern League" and the Neo-Fascist "National Alliance" (Berlusconi's major allies) quiet: and to endure the next electoral campaign with something "efficient" to herald.

If they can go on TV and make a show of all the important reforms they have done, there's even a slight chance they can win... and that we are actually going to be citizens of an imaginary 'federative' homeland (federation of non-existent states that never federated together), born from the nightmares of a bunch of madmen from the rich provinces, who didn't want to share their richness with the mafia-ridden regions of the south.

With the words of Pasolini to Italy (translated here):

"...subside in this beautiful sea of yours, clear the world"

Yesterday the parliament began to approve the worst, most illegal, misleading transformations to the Italian constitution since Mussolini's times. Right before the whole thing started, Daniele Luttazzi described the operation on his blog. Notes and links are mine, as the translation. From Daniele Luttazzi News:

Today at the parliament the majority will try to change 55 articles of the Constitution in 6 hours. Devolution, unlimited premiership, Federal Senate, downsize of the President prerogatives, new technicalities in the approving of laws. An orgy that risks to outshine Tigellinus' ones.
Let's taste the abysses:

The parliament will be no more. The government will make laws since it will appoint which measures are considered indispensable asking 'for the trust'. If the trust is not given, the government dissolves the Chambers¹

The Chambers will be able to 'give the mistrust', but only if it a new premier has been recognized in the current majority. Thus, any opposition is useless. This kind of 'mistrust' limited to the majority does not exist in Europe.

The premier will be elected by the people².

The President of the Republic will be turned into a notary, who certifies the papers that the premier gives to him. He won't check on the lawfulness of the actions. And he won't be able anymore to send back to the chambers unconstitutional laws, like the Castelli-Gelli amendment, that the President Ciampi sent back to the Chambers 7 TIMES because UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

The Federal Senate is in the unknown³. It examines only regional laws. If there's a conflict with the House of the Deputies, a special Commission will decide, in fact a sort of third Chamber. If the third Chamber does not work either, all is sent to Vespa⁴

Devolution. Northern League members wrote it, therefore it is unintelligible. They were four in a cottage on the mountains, with the genepy, who knows what happened⁵. The organization of Public Health will be competence of the Regions, but the Tutelage of Health will be competence of the Federal State. The same for the Educational system. How? Nobody knows. How all the provinces will end up? It's everybody's guess. Maybe they will end up in the same place with the 'Great Ventures'..

To top it all: the Regions will be able to melt together. And they will be able to change boundaries. If the town of Piacenza wants to go with Lombardia, the Region of Emilia won't be able to oppose. Piacenza will go with Lombardia, bringing Hospitals, business, revenues from taxation, banking sources, professional sources.
- Where do you live? - In Reggio Calabria. - Oh, in Liguria!

_{1. According to the italian constitutional system, the parliament makes the laws, while the magistrature and the government should be limited to propose and enforce them. 'Ask for the trust' it's a emergency action the government can take to force the parliament to approve a certain measure. If the majority does not 'gives the trust' (by voting on behalf of the law), the chambers are dissolved and a new government is needed. Up till now, only the President (who guarantees the respect of the constitution) was allowed to dissolve the parliament, not the government itself.}

2. This may sound good, if you like to be beguiled by a single shitty face instead of many. But it is the obvious first step toward tyranny.

3. The italian parliament is divided in two chambers: a House of the Deputies and a Senate. Up till now, the double-chambered system was meant to double-check on the approving on the laws. The Senate is smaller and composed only by experienced parliamentarians who would monitor the House of the Deputies activity. The new so-called Federal Senate, which is being approved with this 'reform', is unheard in Italy before, since Italy is NOT a Federal Republic.

4. Bruno Vespa. Host of the major political program of the public TV. He's a boring, hypocrite, ignorant, abusive, sacerdotal brown-noser of the political oligarchy. Blessed in the past by a phone call from Mr. Woytila in person.

5. Real news: Last year four leading members of the Northern League wrote the draft of the so called Devolution of Powers for the Italian Regions, while wintering in a cottage in the Val D'Aosta mountains. The Genepy is the famous occitan booze locally produced.