Even Italy’s President Napolitano is a bit miffed with Italy’s eternally slow moving, if very highly paid, politicians. Today, once again, Italy’s old new president told them to pull their collective fingers out. Well, they have not bothered up to now, so there’s not a fat lot of hope they will do so now.
The situation is grave, and the coffin will come soon if things don’t start changing and changing fast.
Economic gloom is still looming large over Italy and the black cloud is growing bigger as time flies, but despite lots of pretty words and retreats to Tuscany for bonding sessions, not much is being done by Italy’s politicians. Not that much has ever been done really.
The Berlusconi PdL party’s contribution to solving Italy’s woes was to come up with a most novel and utterly time wasting anti-crisis measure in the form of anti-wiretapping laws. While the buzz word for Berlusconi and his minions is ‘responsibility’, evidence of such has yet to be seen. PdL cronies have been trying to convince Italians their nation’s future is not directly linked to the legal troubles of party leader Silvio Berlusconi, but few believe them, not even their coalition partners, the disintegrating leftish leaning PD party.
Much time is being wasted over the IMU property tax thing. Berlusconi wants it to be scrapped, but anyone with an ounce of sense knows this would be utter madness in view of Italy’s huge, and growing, national debt.
Italy’s hated Politicians
Last week, one of the Berlusconi brethren, a former topless model who was Italy’s equality minister while Berlusconi was at the helm, one Mara Carfagna, was reportedly insulted while in a supermarket. The ex-minister called the cops, but the person who had offended the ex-ministers sensibilities had evaporated into the ether, if that is, the person ever existed. Still, Carfagna’s colleagues in the Pdl wasted no time at all in condemning the attack as part of the atmosphere of hate Italy’s politicians – read Berlusconi party politicians – are facing. Proposing useless anti-wire tap anti-crisis measures won’t have made matters much better, one is certain.
The hate which the PdL lot claim is being directed at them has been entirely self-induced. Had these PdL people actually bothered doing something positive for Italy, they would not now find themselves in the position of not being able to go out in public. They don’t seem to get this though.
Corruption cases involving the appropriation of public funds, often by members of Berlusconi’s PdL party, though not only, are reported in Italy’s papers almost daily. Few of those facing accusations of theft and fraud ever seem to be excluded from political parties though. Such irresponsible behaviour won’t do much to reduce feeling of hate, one suspects. Actually, there’s not so much a feeling of hate in Italy so much as one of frustration and mounting anger at politicians who a) continue to ignore voters and b) are virtually useless.
Banning Beppe Grillo
Stop reading, start speaking
Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.
Talking of hate, the Beppe Grillo 5 Star Movement, which is a reaction against traditional bad Italian politics, may well be legislated out of existence. New laws, being proposed by the left leaning PD party which are supposed to promote higher levels of transparency for Italy’s traditionally opaque political parties, will be used to eliminate ‘movements’ from Italian politics. To survive this sly little attack, if the law ever makes it through Italy’s parliament, movements, such as that led by Beppe Grillo, will have to become official political parties.
Expect a scathing attack on this attack on his movement from the fiery Beppe Grillo shortly. If you read the papers in Italy, the impression is support for Beppe Grillo’s 5 Star Movement is dwindling, but if you listen to Beppe Grillo himself, the opposite appears to be true. Without Grillo and his movement, there will be few political parties worth voting for.
Berlusconi and his fan club party are more or less responsible for the mess Italy now finds itself in, and the only substantial opposition party is the lacklustre left leaning PD which appears to be on the point of fizzling away to nothing. The other parties are mere tiddlers and would never gain enough votes to rule Italy.
On the subject of votes, it’s looking as Italy’s election laws have been unconstitutional ever since they were drawn up by a Berlusconi ally, not far short of 10 years ago. If the present election laws are confirmed as being unconstitutional, one wonders whether the governments produced by these laws were unconstitutional too. Can unconstitutional governments which should never have existed pass laws? Apparently so, but then the only way round the issue would to be to use a time machine. It’s a farce, isn’t it?
What’s next?
Some attempt to get Italy’s youth back into work is being discussed. A new election law is being argued over, and may end up merely being a re-hash of a previous law which didn’t work too well anyway, and appears to have been illegal.
There’s a VAT rise on its way. A new trash tax will dent wallets, and not much else. It’s no wonder Italy’s President is not overly happy with what Italy’s ever dithering politicians are never up to. Oh, and the government may collapse at any time.
All that Italy’s politicians seem to have done is to have dug a grave for Italy. Soon they will begin building a coffin. Expect earth to be piled on top of the coffin as soon as its finished.
Poor Italy, it could do so much better if it had decent people running it.
