Revolution

What can I say?

He's right. Certainly right.

Protest in the street now is useless. 

With the media that we have now we could really invent something new.

What would happen?

Io non mi sento italiano

Fuck you

This song by Lily Allen is, first of all, a moral declaration.

This “fuck you” is for all those who discriminate against homosexuals (so much so that it’s almost become an anthem against sexual discrimination)

 But it also applies to all the bigots and racists around us.

We are tired of listening to your narrow-minded views. We’ve had enough of the hatred and fear that you spread like a mental plague.

Fuck you!

In the world we’ll build there is no space for you!

We are greedy

Scenes we’ve already seen

There is a weird atmosphere in Italy.

Luckily, I’m one of those people who still have a job and a decent life, and I rarely have the time to worry about those manifestations on the streets and in the harbors of the country. 

On the 21^st of July the unemployed of Naples, marching and pleading honest jobs, went as far as diving in the sea to stop the ships packed with tourists sailing towards the islands of the region.

What worries me, however, more than the daily frequency of these protests, is the reactions these manifestations cause.

Firstly I’m scared by the increasing use of force to forbid even the most civil protests. If we all agree that we can’t defend acts of vandalism by the protesters, we can’t defend police attacks on common and harmless people either.

It happened with the population of L’Acquila after the earthquake, but also with groups of students.

Not only.

Now the fear of independent voices is such that the police goes as far as stopping people who MIGHT protest.

It happened a few nights ago in Milan.

The police didn’t allow some people to reach Piazza del Duomo because they had already protested against Berlusconi.

For hours they were kept away from the “scene of the crime” (the presentation of an award to our Premier) by some sixty cops. They – all in all 20 people without banners or flags – could have shouted unwelcome words. They could have!

Leaving a curious parallelism with Minority Report (where Tom Cruise arrests criminals before they have the chance of committing a crime) this piece of news has the same nostalgic taste of those documentaries of the Istituto Luce.

Only difference: now, instead of those grey and black shirts, we have suits and ties, or maybe a nice jumper. The substance, however, seems to be the same.

Extract from “The Iron Heel” by Jack London

`Five men,' he said, `can produce bread for a thousand. One man can produce cotton cloth for two hundred and fifty people, woolens for three hundred, and boots and shoes for a thousand. One would conclude from this that under a capable management of society modern civilized man would be a great deal better off than the cave-man. But is he? Let us see. In the United States to-day there are fifteen million⁸ people living in poverty; and by poverty is meant that condition in life in which, through lack of food and adequate shelter, the mere standard of working efficiency cannot be maintained. In the United States to-day, in spite of all your so-called labor legislation, there are three millions of child laborers.⁹ In twelve years their numbers have been doubled. And in passing I will ask you managers of society why you did not make public the census figures of 1910? And I will answer for you, that you were afraid. The figures of misery would have precipitated the revolution that even now is gathering.

`But to return to my indictment. If modern man's producing power is a thousand times greater than that of the cave-man, why then, in the United States to-day, are there fifteen million people who are not properly sheltered and properly fed? Why then, in the United States to-day, are there three million child laborers? It is a true indictment. The capitalist class has mismanaged. In face of the facts that modern man lives more wretchedly than the cave-man, and that his producing power is a thousand times greater than that of the cave-man, no other conclusion is possible than that the capitalist class has mismanaged, that you have mismanaged, my masters, that you have criminally and selfishly mismanaged. And on this count you cannot answer me here to-night, face to face, any more than can your whole class answer the million and a half of revolutionists in the United States. You cannot answer. I challenge you to answer. And furthermore, I dare to say to you now that when I have finished you will not answer. On that point you will be tongue-tied, though you will talk wordily enough about other things.

`You have failed in your management. You have made a shambles of civilization.

The 2nd of August

The 2^nd of August 1980 was my fourth birthday.

It took a long time before I came to realize that, on that day, 85 people had died, and more than 200 had been injured, victims of what was called political terrorism.

I believe this has been one of the darkest pages of the already dark Italian history. A vile attack against common people.

Try to think about what it must have been the train station in Bologna on that day. Tourists were leaving, for the Adriatic coast or for the south. Bologna was, and still is, a crossroad for the entire peninsula. There were whole families, grandparents and grandkids, couples, and friends. Surely most people were happy and relieved for the long-awaited summer holidays.

But at 10:25 a bomb with 200 kg of explosives blew up. The lives of hundreds of people were to be changed forever.

The direct culprits of all this were two neo-fascists. But, besides them, condemns were issued against Licio Gelli, Francesco Pazienza, Pietro Musumeci, and Giuseppe Belmonte for throwing the investigations off track. They were all members of the infamous freemason lodge P2, the last three were even secret agents of the State.

They tried to throw the investigations off track by making up a Palestinian plot. A shameful action to hide the responsibilities of the P2 and the Movimento Sociale Italiano (father of Alleanza Nazionale).

Nowadays the PDL has put in practice most of Gelli’s program, wiretaps have shown the new face of the P2, and it’s fundamental to remember the responsibilities of these people.