4 July 2009

Is Italy the only one to be blamed?

Here comes a recent letter I wrote to a journalist who was talking about our beloved Prime Minister:


Dear Dr. Geoff Andrews,

My name is Antonio Napoli.
I am a young Italian researcher in the field of telecommunication.
I just finished to read your very interesting article, hereafter reported:

http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/berlusconi-s-scandla-italy-s-tragedy

and I would like to discuss few points with you :

In your essay you clearly describe some truth concerning the current status of the modern Italy.
Your analysis is certainly much deeper than many others I have been reading in the last years, and in particular in the last weeks.

You pointed out several issues that may arise in case Berlusconi's leadership terminates in the next weeks/months, by comparing it with what happens to Mussolini the 25th July 1943. Well, the situation is very different, and apart the fact that Berlusconi may be betrayed by his allies I don't see any other relations between the two men. #Mussolini was a dictator that lead Italy to a dramatic war, but, at least, Mussolini loved, although in a very particular way, Italy. On the other hand Berlusconi loves only himself and money, and he has no interest in his own country.

You mentioned that even if Italy will be one day free from Berlusconi's regime, the country will still suffer a dramatic decadence.
In this concern, you are fully right. The Italian society has been destroyed by more than 20 years of complete and extensive brain-washing.
The brain of Italians is nowadays as the Latin said like a "tabula rasa", an empty and cleaned blackboard.
If one day Berlusconi will resign or die, the Italian society will be, probably, not ready to deal with the current modern world.
Moreover, already many people, in particular many young researchers, left Italy, and the country will suffer because of the dramatic
lack of knowledge in technology, medicine, mathematics and whatsoever is needed to build an advanced economy in this second millennium.

Berlusconi's televisions imposed a model of life where to reach success you do not need to work hard and study.
Meritocracy is an unknown word to the ordinary Italian.
His model tells us that everything you need is your beauty, luck, and astuteness.
Moreover, Berlusconi convinced Italians that honesty and respect of the law is something dumb.
These two "strong achievements" of his televisions and many others have set dramatic limitations to the future of modern Italy,
which will lead to a terrible crisis under all the thinkable aspects. Italy is likely going to live its worst crisis since the end of the Roman empire.

This is surely something sad, and something that in your article has been reported.
By the way, I have a simple request for you, since I recognize the deepness of your article, I think we can move forward and mention other issues, so far neglected, in order to provide your readers a complete picture of causes and effects.

I have the impression that in the article you've never mentioned the key-points of Berlusconi atypical government or maybe better say regime. Berlusconi is the main outcome of the influence and interference of other countries (mainly GB and USA) on Italy.

Here is the weblink of an example written in italian
http://www.movisol.org/08news019.htm

here is another one in english
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3182451.ece

GB and USA were extremely afraid of the power of the communist party in the 70s, and they planned (please have a look at other recently declassified documents of the GB secret service), in case Italy would have democratically elected a government formed by the democratic and the communist party, to overthrow it with a coup.
I think you may agree with me that as Berlusconi represents something atypical, also the interfering in the interior affairs of another government is also something atypical. Moreover, we are talking about "plans" to overthrow a government, which is one of the worst crime a government can ever plan.

During the 1970s Berlusconi was selected in order to realize the goal to take the power through a "white coup", in other words without killing anyone. This had to be done through the television and other tools. About this you might be interested to read something about P2 and Licio Gelli, who was the head of a masonic illegal association named "loggia P2", and Berlusconi was one of his member.
The "Loggia" had plans to bring Italy to "modernity" and the plans were consisted of five main points. Berlusconi was able to fulfil all of them,
and he received the congratulations from Gelli himself as a proof that the connection between them is not only a "mere conspiracy theory" but a well clear and stated fact.

So far, It is not official, since not all the documents have been declassified, that P2 + (GB + USA) secret services worked together in order to destabilize the weak Italian Democracy.
Here we could, unfortunately, and hopefully for the next few years, only conjecture about the dramatic secret operations occured in Italy in the 1970s in order to defend the western world from the danger of communism. In other words, we cannot state that Gelli + Berlusconi + CIA + MI5 surely worked together.

BUT...we certainly know two facts:

  • first, GB and USA were afraid of the Italian communism, because it could have show, as well as Allende in Chile, that there was a third way opposing the capitalism of western countries and the communism of the USSR. From official declassified documents we know that they planed as an extreme solution even to overthrow the democratically elected Italian government in case the communist party would have been part of it.
  • second, in Italy there was an association which had, as main part of his program, the introduction of a media-based dictatorial regime, result that has been fully achieved.
Therefore, although we do not have all the documents we need, since we are person endowed with a brain, we can put together all the pieces of this big puzzle, (see also memories of Aldo Moro's wife concerning the fears of the former Italian statesman about Kissinger), and build the whole picture of the latest part of Italian history.

Of course, in the modern history of Italy there is not only one subject which is guilty.
That is to speak out that not only the GB and USA secret services are the causes, but also the structure of Italian society itself with all his characteristics made it possible. But you know, you cannot blame a child who gets a lung cancer if his father smokes all the time.

With this email I would like to invite you to consider also the aforementioned aspects, which are not negligible issues.
And please ask GB and USA citizens not only to criticize and blame Italy, but also to criticize their own governments for what they did to us.
It would be nice, if some of the journalists, writers, and professors of the Anglo-Saxon world start,one day, to mention the responsibilities of their own governments and if one day they finally stop to describe Italians just as a flock of sheep unable to make any real changes.

I am shame of my country, and that's way I left it, but I know that a significant part of its guiltiness comes from foreign interventions.

Thanks a lot for your attention,
Yours Sincerely,
Antonio

10 comments:

Walter said...

ciao antonio, ho letto (a fatica, col mio finto inglese alla Alberto Sordi) questa tua pagina, e intervengo brevemento su un aspetto marginale, la parte in cui scrivi "Berlusconi's televisions imposed a model of life where to reach success you do not need to work hard and study".
Da un po' sostengo che la portata (anti)culturale delle tv berlusconiane sia più ampia. Più che aver imposto semplicemente un modello di vita è stato imposto un modello di pensiero, tramite uno stile di comunicazione basato sulla velocità, a scapito delle sfumature e in sostanza di qualsiasi spazio di riflessione, di rielaborazione. E' il modello del cinema d'azione trasportato in televisione. Un modello che ha avuto successo, come sempre ha successo ciò che asseconda la pigrizia umana, e che è stato prevalentemente adottato anche in rai. Quindi: battute brevi, frasi sovrapposte, interruzione pubblicitaria nel bel mezzo del concetto (se c'è), domanda e risposta preventivate. Il tutto ha educato al "piatto pronto", alla soluzione senza la comprensione, a "chiudere" senza la fatica necessaria a capire, oppure al non chiudere il discorso ma senza farlo notare, nella ridda di informazioni superfiuciali che si propongono. Un modello di pensiero che è quindi un modello di non-pensiero. Non è un caso che oggi, in Italia (non so altrove) è impossibile che venga proposto alle 21 di sera un film girato negli anni '70, a meno che non si tratti di Bud Spencer - Terence Hill. Perchè? non è tanto un fatto di tecnologie (qualità della fotografia e cose del genere) ma un fatto di lunguaggio. Perchè molte cose datate oggi appaiono lente? Perchè nessuno riuscirebbe più a guardare un vecchio sceneggiato rai in bianco e nero? non per il bianco e nero in sè, ma perchè in questi anni si è spinto sull'accelleratore, diseducando la gente ai tempi di elaborazione necessari a qualunque attività intellettuale. Ha vinto lo stile "drive in", con effetti assolutamente non relegati al solo ambito televisivo. Quando Moretti dice che Berlusconi "ci ha cambiato la testa", dal mio punto di vista si riferisce più al tipo di linguaggio che ha promosso che non alle ballerine con le tette al vento, o non solo a quello. La complessità e lo spessore di Sordi o Manfredi è stata sotituita dal cabaret di Zelig, che è divertente, ma è l'unica proposta oggi fruibile, perchè non impegnativa. Vorrà pur dire qualcosa. ciao. Walter

Filippo said...

Dear Antonio, I hope you'll excuse my english not fluent as yours.
Like you I graduated in italy in electronic engineering and I tried
out researcher life for a while. Finding it impossible to afford I
looked for a good job here and found it.
I read you article and I found it really interesting. Anyway for the
sake of clarity I'd like to add a few points.
1- If we take for true the deep involvement of MI6-CIA in Italian
political affair we can't overlook the KGB involvement. KGB was deeply
connected to the italian communist party and CIA-MI6 fought their battle
against USSR not against italians's free will.
2- If our schools system and cultural climate are so deeply rotten how
is possible that italian researcher are indeed valuable in foreing
country ?
3-I really don't understand your blaming and screaming
against Italy without taking into account how much this country gave
you. Are you Italian or are you not ? Did you study here or you didn't
? Did you prefer leaving Italy for better place or remaining here
fighting your battle for democracy ?
4- Can I guess you preferred leaving italy to find a good job as a researcher ? ultimately for good money and that you "hate" Italy, just a little, because you were not able to find the job you wanted at the pay you liked ?

Please note on the point 4 I'd perfectly agree with you. If you did left our country for a good job you did well!

Thanks a lot.

Filippo

Antonio Napoli said...

Ciao,

rispondo per primo a Walter, per questioni di precedenza temporale:-)

L'analisi mi e' piaciuta, ma non credo che riesca a porre ancora la parola fine alla distruzione della societa' italiana perpetuata dalle televisioni di Berlusconi. Quello che dici e' vero, ma ho paura che ci sia dell'altro. Credo che oltre al linguaggio, che comunque gioca un ruolo fondamentale, ci sia anche il linguaggio delle relazioni con gli altri. Giusto per fare un esempio, credo che le soap-opera abbiano distrutto la maniera di relazionarci con gli altri, ed in particolar modo con il sesso femminile per noi uomini, e viceversa per le donne.

Credo comunque che l'opera delle TV del criminale d'Arcore sia ancor piu' vasta, raggiungendo ogni punto ed angolo del vivere civile. Anche la questione legalita' e' stata costantemente toccata al fine di mischiare onesti con disonesti, per fare credere a tutti che alla fine essere disonesti non e' poi male.

Ho paura che la societa' italiana difficilmente si rialzera'. Puo' farcela, ma sara' molto dura.

Grazie mille per il tuo commento!
Antonio

Antonio Napoli said...

(second part)

POINT 4:
It is not about money.....Now that I earn quite well, I didn't change my style of living at all. I still buy a new pair of shoes only when an old one is totally destroyed. I still buy jeans for 20€ when one is broken by the cheapest shop of the city (C&A) and I do the same for more and less everything. I have only one bag to go to work. I don't have a car, but I have a bicycle. I and my girlfriend we are thinking to buy a car, second hand and with gas (i.e. natural power). We are thinking to buy a Grande Punto or Bravo. I don't have the last mobile phone, I don't have sun glasses from Prada, Gucci or whatsoever, I don't buy things from Valentino, Armani, etc.
The only thing were I spend a bit of money are books and some DVD...but always under the price of 10€!!
Moreover, I can finally donate money to poor people by paying scholarships and I am thinking one day (before 50) to leave Europe, take the risk to lose the retirement, and go to a poor country and to do finally something useful.
Shall I continue or are you satisfied?
I just wanted to leave Italy because I didn't feel at home any more and I decided to come to Germany, because I like this country. Of course, Germany presents its problems. But I like the honesty of the most of the people here, and I believe that Germans are not cold, but just a bit shy:-). A glass of bier may help:-).

yours sincerely,
Antonio

Antonio Napoli said...

I think I lost, somehow, the first part. If it is necessary I can try to re-write it....

Antonio

Filippo said...

I Hope you can summarize it, without reading it would be extremely difficult to say if it was necessary.
But indeed your question may sound like "are you reading ?" the answer is "yes I am".
Let me take this opportunity to add a couple of things to this conversation. You keep saying the the Italian society is lost and it is extremely difficult if not impossible for us to regain back our freedom of thinking. I would agree with you if the Italian society was the one represented on television by TV programs like "Big Brother" but I don't think this TV reality is real at all. Italy has lot of excellence in its guts if you understand what I mean. I agree with you it's a pity we aren't able to market ourself. Anyway, taking the same argument from the opposite side other "Big Brother" in different country show much or less the same kind of people. One may thinks that the average person tend to be mean. Incredible. Unfortunately everybody votes in democracy even who is only "average" Trying to change it would lead to a dictatorship, a very good form of government as long as you can find illuminated dictators.

Antonio Napoli said...

part 0:


Dear Filippo,

thanks. I try to summarize it for you:-)

First of all thanks for your mails. I appreciated the frankness although I don't know you.
So I restart from your point 1 to move forward to the others.
(By the way your English is really good!)

POINT 1:

You are definitely right. In Italy, due to its strategic position and history, there has been one of the cruelest battles of the cold war. The western and the eastern block fought through four decades and fortunately the western won.
I think I wrote already this aspect in my post, even if not explicitly. What I was trying to say is the following:
In my opinion USA and GB didn't want that the Italian communist party together with its strongest ally (the leader of the catholic party Prof. Aldo Moro) had the chance to show that a third way (with respect to the colonialism-capitalism of the western block and the communism-dictatorship of the eastern block) to organize the living and the economy of a country was possible.
In order to avoid a possible success of a government lead by these two statesmen they even planned to overthrow a democratic elected government in Italy.
In my opinion in the brutal assassination of Aldo Moro there is the participation of the CIA. Moro himself, answering a question about why the government wasn't able to catch the red brigades members, during a parliament session, mentioned that it is was not that easy since they had the evidence that they were protect by CIA agents. Interesting CIA and red brigades together...
Moreover, few years before, after a meeting with Kissinger in Washington, Moro referred to have being threatened that if one day he had allow the communist to take part into a government, the USA would have done whatever they could in order to stop him, and Kissinger underlined that when they say "whatever" they really mean "whatever"....
I think that these two facts are already quite helpful to understand the truth.

On the other side, we cannot forget that the secretary of the communist party suffered an attempt too. It happened in Bulgaria, and if I well remember was 1973. The attempt, of course, has never been admit by KGB...but if you think that Berlinguer told the higher exponents of the communist party in Moscow that they betrayed the revolution to transform their self in a monster capable to kill tens of millions of persons, you can imagine that the Russians did not like Berlinguer at all. Moreover, after this discussion the USSR decided to interrupt the financing of the whole communist party, and they start financing only the extreme-left wing (i.e. Cossutta)...who continue to get money from them until the end of the USSR. Last, but not the least. Berlinguer had NO strong contacts with the other communist parties in Europe and in the world. He was mainly in contact with Willy Brandt, Mitterand, Gonzales and Olaf Palme, all of them socialist and not connected with the USSR.

Antonio Napoli said...

part 1:

Point 2:
I think Italian university is not the worse in the world. But the quality of the universities has surely been dramatically lowered. When I was pursuing my PhD I had to correct exams, and you cannot imagine what we found in those exams...The plan of P2, that Berlusconi is realizing, included this aspect too.

Point 3:
Did you read carefully the title of the post?;-)))
I wrote that Italy is not the only one to be blamed....
By the way Italy gave me a lot...but growing up I felt that it was not my country. That is..
I had to study hard to obtain what I have now, and I received nothing was free...My family was not rich at all...and my parents had to make enormous sacrifices to allow me to study... I remember to have suffered very often jokes of classmates because, during the high-school period, I was, sometimes, studying even over the week-end...my ex classmated made fun of me...they said I was wasting my time...I think that the time showed that I did the right thing:-)

About the fighting for the democracy...after 13 years of insults, offenses, etc. etc. I decided to gave up, at least from a geographic point of view. I don't want to live there any more. That's. I think Italy could become a strong country and good country under the government of Romano Prod, but unfortunately for you he couldn't govern...
Now I can, maybe, spend my holiday in italy, but nothing more than that. I am sorry, but I really feel ashemed of my homeland....I also have a foreign girlfriend, and when I read the proposal of this nazi-fascist party called "Lega Nord" I feel so embarassed....you cannot imagine....how can I explain Fang Fang that in Milano they proposed trains for italians and train for foreigners? how can I explain her that if a woman, illegally entered in Italy, deliver a baby, she wiil be deprived of her own baby?

Your sincerely and thanks for the nice discussion
Antonio

Filippo said...

you're welcome

walter said...

vorrei aggiungere qualcosa sul tema del linguaggio televisivo. Tu hai sottilineato in particolare la degradazione del contenuto, io del "contenitore", cioè del linguaggio stesso. Il "cosa" di dice, ed il "come" lo si dice.
Le due cose vanno per lo più a braccetto, ma il fatto è che a me preoccupa in particolare l'aspetto del "come", perchè lo ritengo un problema molto più subdolo, verso il quale non abbiamo sviluppato difese, e molto più difficile da sradicare una volta assimilato.
La "velocità" del linguaggio televisivo asseconda la nostra pigrizia, e quindi siamo noi stessi ad accettarla a braccia aperte. Questo anche perchè l'uomo tende a evitare la riflessione - che comporta conflitto, e spesso il riconoscimento di non sapere - per avere risposte nel modo più facile possibile.
Un esempio: il programma "le iene" viene valutato dai più in modo positivo, perchè evidenzia episodi di corruzione e così via. Il mio parere è opposto, perchè dietro a meriti oggettivi si nasconde una banalizzazione e impoverimento del linguaggio al quale è difficile sottrarsi, un linguaggio venduto al Dio della velocità, del montaggio in stile videoclip, nella totale assenza di spazi di rielaborazione per lo spettatore. Questo è evidente in tutti i momenti della trasmissione, vedi anche le "interviste doppie", a ritmo serrato, che vendono al telespettatore una generica impressione su quanto ascoltato e allo stesso tempo la quasi totale impossibilità di ricordare COSA si è asoltato. Ufficialmente si sono dette delle cose, ma non ha molta importanza: il tutto si è ridotto ad un intrattenimento al servizio di una soddisfazione istintiva e quasi animalesca, una specie di fast food della comunicazione.
Questo tipo di programmi portanno pure affrontare questione serie, reali, ma ci privano nello stesso tempo della capacità di discernimento, abituandoci ad un piatto pronto, sintetico, spezzettato, ammiccante, "ggiovane".
Sarebbe molto difficile vendere facilmente contenuti avariati in un contesto realmente aperto alla comunicazione.
Il regresso della qualità del linguaggio televisivo ha permesso l'affermarsi di non-valori, e di non-politiche.
IL linguiaggio di Berlusconi, per quanto egli sia protetto e tutelato dalle televisione, è un linguaggio già di per sè televisivo, perchè non approfondisce, perchè vive di battute rapide, di interruzione dei discorsi altrui. Tuttò ciò è già potenzialmente presente nelle caratteristiche stesse della televisione, che contrariamente alla carte stampata è un mezzo molto molto pericoloso. La superficialità, in televisione, è già in partenza avvantaggiata.
Il linguaggio della tv commerciale ha dato soddisfazione alla pigrizia umana, e l'ha alimentata tanto da rendere molto difficile, forse impossibile, porvi rimedio. Ad un sempilice non-valore si può porre rimedio nel tempo, ma alla degradazione del linguaggio forse no, questa è la mia impressione. LA tv pubblica, poi, ha dovuto quasi del tutto uniformarsi ad un taglio povero e volgare, e dà lì non ha voluto nè potuto tornare indietro.
Sono convinto che ci siano molte più persone conscie della povertà dei contenuti in tv che non della povertà del linguaggio.
L'umanità è teledipendente e si specchia nella televisione, senza nemmeno rendersene conto. Un problema che riguarda la tv, riguarda pericolosamente tutta la società. La tv commerciale di Berlusconi, forse solo anticipando i tempi, ha deformato la struttura stessa del nostro pensiero, ne sono convinto.
I non-valori che la società ha poi acquisito sono un fatto grave, che abbiamo assimilato di conseguenza. Finchè non cambia il "come" non cambierà nemmeno il "cosa". ciao