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I'll repeat once again that throughout his life Berlusconi has had only one program: to enrich himself and his friends by any means possible.
Veltroni's program is not identical to Berlusconi's. What's wrong in Italy is so obvious and elementary that it is perfectly normal that any program to address issues would resemble another, especially in a globalized Europe. Does Grillo have a novel solution for the deficit? Or the lowest wages in core Europe? I'm afraid Grillo is demagogic on this. At least Veltroni would do his best to follow through on his promises.
he is catalytic though, because people are using him as mouthpiece and springboard, he's hot, and some of his ideas are surfacing in veltroni's speeches, tho' i somehow doubt he'll give him credit.
veltroni lacks flash, just as prodi did, and to appearance-obsessed italians, berlu looks more 'splendido' (barf!).
i wish prodi could have stayed, he was doing real good stuff, but the media found him dull, and beppe rudely named him 'valium'.
the italian mind is often flighty, excitable and inconsistent, italy really needs serious solutions to very difficult, intransigent problems, starting with energy. from where i stand dull is a very positive virtue for politicians, give me plodders, as long as it's in the right direction!
veltroni brought up the scandalously incestuous media panorama here, and also brought up the baroque system of laws, committing to pare down the absurd number to something more like france or germany, between 6-9000, instead of the 120,000 he quoted!
he made many other good points, but what really got to me was when he'd mention berlusconi there was a rolling roar that started growling in the crowd, they really wanted to vent their fury, but he shushed them and told them not to go there, on several occasions.
there was something else i found myself nodding affirmatively to, namely his lack of demagoguery. watching bertinotti foaming and fist waving like something out of the thirties, in front of his rainbow flag, it felt sad and hollow, whereas walter didn't really play the crowd cleverly, there were times when he could have let them applaud him, but he talked through it, never basking or working that groove.
at first i thought it undermined his talent for glomming onto big issues and addressing how to change them, then i gradually came to admire the artlessness of it, he spoke mostly without notes, and his language was sensible, lacking polemic, but making up with common sense what it lacked in fire and spin.
the nationalism was wearisome, the usual symbols were trotted out, but it seemed a bit by rote, and not especially pavlovian in effect, tho' that was undoubtedly the intent.
old paradigm...when he mentioned energy, it was way too brief, and while nodding towards green, glossed right over how unless that is sorted, we can kiss most of the rest bye bye. there was also depressingly little crowd reaction to that brief segment.
gah.... that's where a bit of righteous demagoguery would have me doing a happy dance around the tv!
75% of italy's energy comes from abroad! in a such a heavily indebted country the capital flight daily is another alitalia, writ even larger.
it's a frickin' hemorrhage!
and the sun shone on and on and on.... "These days, there's nothing more ridiculous than the truth." Leonard Pitts Jr
One key issue has been the presence of criminals in parliament and government, people condemned or on trial for crimes, at times extremely grave such as association with the mafia, extortion, bribery.
This battle has been going on for over two decades but was seen as a fringe issue until Grillo ranted about it over and over again.
Finally, this year the Democratic Party and it's allies did their best not to present candidates that were condemned or on trial. It had become a public issue. Finally!
On the contrary Berlusconi and Casini flaunted this issue to the point of seeing Casini declare, "We're not going to let judges decide candidates!" As if judges dish out browny points. It's a matter of a candidate's integrity and people like Cuffaro, Dell'Utri, Mastella or Ciarrapico are unpresentable. The present electoral law allows parties to put any damned criminal they want in parliament without popular mandate thus assuring immunity and impunity.
the other issue he's wailing on is the matter of a paid-by-the-state press, and media conglomeration here in general. (also referred to in walter's last speech.) wimax italia! "These days, there's nothing more ridiculous than the truth." Leonard Pitts Jr
