Berlusconi

Jasmina Tesanovic RSS / 12.05.2009. u 20:44

How can one write about Silvio Berlusconi?

He is beyond any taste and above any doubt.  Berlusconi, Italy's longest-serving Prime Minister ever, has been in or near power for years on end.  It seems as if he will stay there forever. The damage he has done  to this beautiful country with its wobbling democracy is beyond repair.  With his clown face and cheeky ignorance, he matches Bush and Mussolini.

 When one thinks of modern Italy, one inevitably thinks of Silvio Berlusconi as its personification.  Forget la dolce vita, the Trevi fountain,  spaghetti and pizza,  fine wines like Barolo, Chianti and Barbera: think rude and ignorant politicians,  sex scandals, mafia-style palace intrigues, the dark times of an empire.

However, these days, after thirty years of a so-called happy marriage with three children, the couple Berlusconi seems to be in a divorce. Berlusconi -- Italy's most powerful media mogul ever --  of course still dominates the screens and front pages of his  own media machine.   But now he's roasted by the opposition media, with his teenage girlfriend pursued by paparazzi.

The wreckage of public opinion in Italy's unfree press can scarcely be called a real "opposition," but it still understands a sex scandal.    Italians witness endless TV news and tabloid coverage of  Berlusconi's latest infidelity to "his Veronica"  -- this time, stunningly, with the underage daughter of a Berlusconi courtier, a woman who turned 18 just a week ago.

        She calls the president of Italy "Daddy."   The paparazzi adored Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, but this preposterous effrontery beats everything.   No room left in Italian media for the weary tales of African clandestini on their homemade boats, pitchforked from the coasts of Italy as they flee here for their miserable lives:  a historical turn for Italian politics.  Another historical turn for Italian  politics is the mass-action lawsuit underway in Torino for the asbestos damage to the lungs of thousands of workers, inflicted by a factory which never recognized any guilt for two thousand dead.  Of course that number is slowly rising, like some apocalyptic horror story.  It's a slow,
complicated horror, the kind the media doesn't like and can't sell from kiosks with banner headlines.   The relatives of the two thousand dead -- some of them also  sick -- bear their witness in tears,  in bitter arguments in front of the public attorney: but the bench of the accused is empty.  Today's traumatized capitalism lacks a face, but a prime minister's divorce has three faces.  One of them is eighteen years old.

    This is a Catholic country.  So, even while there is stunned public mayhem over an underage dalliance by a 72-year-old national leader,  Pope Benedict XVI mounts his throne around the corner to forbid the faithful their condoms, not to mention abortions, divorces or blowjobs.

      The people of Italy are more Catholic than the Pope.  They're also more Moslem than an ayatollah, for recent polls suggest that six out of ten Italians still support Berlusconi and his Viagra harem.   His wife took public offense when Berlusconi stuffed his cabinet with right-wing go go girls.  Signora Berlusconi is his second wife, and a former TV star herself, so she was not enchanted by the mediated spectacle of pretty young women used as sex-toys in power.    Berlusconi's current cabinet -- packed show faces -- looks young and lively compared to the gray, nostalgic earnestness of  Italian leftists.  But the sudden earthquake eruption of an 18-year-old girlfriend makes that whole effort look sick and sinister.

      Berlusconi claims that all politics is mere media:   his foolish wife has been manipulated by the cunning opposition to create a phony media scandal.   He jokes -- Berlusconi always jokes -- that the alleged girlfriend calls him "Daddy" because "Grand-daddy" would have been even worse.  
         Will  that be a national catastrophe -- like the recent earthquake in  L'Aquila?   That shattered  city is still wracked with tremors, and yet Berlusconi plans to host the next G8 meeting there, with all the major world leaders, on camera.  A media mogul in power ruins everything, then he builds fresh publicity from the ruins.

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niccolo niccolo 20:56 12.05.2009

Predivna dileja...

On left-wing voters at a conference of retailers during the 2006 campaign:
"I trust the intelligence of the Italian people too much to think that there are so many pricks around who would vote against their own best interests."

At the launch of the 2006 campaign:
"I am the Jesus Christ of politics. I am a patient victim, I put up with everyone, I sacrifice myself for everyone."

Promising to put family values at the centre of his campaign:
"I will try to meet your expectations, and I promise from now on, two-and-a-half months of absolute sexual abstinence, until [election day on] 9 April."

To German MEP Martin Schulz, at start of Italy's EU presidency in July 2003:
"I know that in Italy there is a man producing a film on Nazi concentration camps - I shall put you forward for the role of Kapo (guard chosen from among the prisoners) - you would be perfect."

At the Brussels summit, at the end of Italy's EU presidency, in December 2003:
"Let's talk about football and women." (Turning to four-times-married German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder.) "Gerhard, why don't you start?"


On judges pursuing former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti on charges relating to the Mafia:

"Those judges are doubly mad! In the first place, because they are politically mad, and in the second place because they are mad anyway.

"If they do that job it is because they are anthropologically different from the rest of the human race."

On his alleged conflict of interest as prime minister and one of Italy's biggest tycoons, with major media holdings:
"If I, taking care of everyone's interests, also take care of my own, you can't talk about a conflict of interest."

On himself:

"There is no-one on the world stage who can compete with me."

"Out of love for Italy, I felt I had to save it from the left."

"The right man in the right job."

"I don't need to go into office for the power. I have houses all over the world, stupendous boats... beautiful airplanes, a beautiful wife, a beautiful family... I am making a sacrifice."

"The best political leader in Europe and in the world."

Uvek se odvalim od smeha na njegove izjave i postupke....
cassiopeia cassiopeia 21:05 12.05.2009

...

Telegraph.co.uk wrote about his top ten gaffes after the L'Aquila earthquake.

he said the thousands of people made homeless should act like they are on a camping trip


What kind of a man can say something like this? I asked myself does he have a counselor for public affairs.
cherga92 cherga92 06:21 13.05.2009

freakarama



Jos jedan ludak... koji drzi vlast u rukama.
leopold_lady leopold_lady 08:12 13.05.2009

Mene sramota....

što sam rođena 29.09. - kad i on... Jeste da mi je druga godina na krštenici nego njemu.... Sramota me ....

Ja ne znam dokle on misli tako da se ponaša ....
antonacci antonacci 19:46 13.05.2009

Every country has a...

Every country has a Velja Ilic. The Italian version is called Sivlio Berlusconi.

To paraphrase Svetislav Basara: don't bet mad at politicians, because they represent perfectly those who voted for them.






ps

Ma quello che mi sembra più assurdo sia che a molti italiani ancora adesso piace Berlusconi, dopo tutte le cazzate che ha fatto. Sei da dieci italiani voterebberro per lui un'altra volta. Straordinaria stupidità!

Arhiva

   

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