The new chat thread - now with bitter arguing

[Outstreched Fingers]

The New Build, We (right wing) won the (italian) election, celebrations are in order!

Cheers to everyone who knows me and love me sooo much

 

[Taliesin]

The powers of propaganda, hard at work. Italian politics scare the shit out of me

 

[rahvin]

Are you all waiting for comments on Italian politics?

I don't really have that much to say. On the one hand it's impossible to disagree with Taliesin: Italian politics are indeed a little scary to watch, but I'll elaborate on that in a minute.

As far as the actual results are concerned, nothing much happened that didn't happen before a number of times. Voters in this country have always been too shy to run to the extremes on either side, and would like nothing better - generally speaking, that is - to find easy reassurance in a composition of political forces that strongly refer to traditional values (both socially and economically). This is the reason why, for a long time since the seventies until the early 1990s, a coalition of up to five parties revolving around a strong center-right/center-left core managed to rule the country without any opposition worth mentioning. This is also the reason why Italians are still torn between the center-right and the center-left option every single time: they don't differ much in the kind of message they send to the people and usually after a more liberal-oriented legislature there follows a slightly more welfare-oriented one, since there is no chance in hell the public is going to be satisfied with whatever the most recent government just did, regardless.

The main problem with this - otherwise quite healthy - swinging back and forth of popular approval is the fact that not enough voters ever swing one way or the other, and both factions retain an extended version of their core voters no matter what they do or say. Assuming that about 80% of all valid votes reach either of the two most likely candidates, the percentage is usually split in the following way: the winning coalition gets between 42 and 45%, and the losing coalition gets between 35 and 38%. It becomes extremely hard for the winning side to actually do something with the greater issues, mostly with economics, in this situation. Which, in turn, makes it hard to spot possible major differences between the two blocks. Last Sunday's vote unfortunately confirmed this, so I can't say I agree with Taliesin's other point, the one about propaganda: not many people were swayed away from their own stable convictions by either Berlusconi or Veltroni's constant hammering of idiotic remarks.

The scary parts are, in my opinion, the constantly-plummeting quality of everyone's appeal to public consensus and the worrying amount of disregard for the rule of law. Italy is indeed "special" in having an astounding amount of condemned felons still milking the cash cow in the Halls of Parliament, something that is rightfully seen as utterly third-world-ish by other European countries, where scandals and exploitation also occur, but the culprits are forced away from the corridors of power once exposed.
And then there's the fact that Italy is certainly leading the way in terms of sheer ignorance of its political representatives: the school system starts to show signs of failure, the quantity of education in the country does not improve in point of fact (because poorer and poorer teachers are employed at every level), and the ruling class is conforming to the level of utterance (and the lack of intellectual honesty) that they've come to expect from their supporters, who are barely more capable of rational thought than any regular soccer fan.

 

[Taliesin]

Honestly, I know little to nothing about Veltroni, but the fact that someone like Berlusconi gets re-elected leaves a lot of people here in disbelief. I mean, not only is he a criminal, he also changed the laws to avoid punishment. I didnt quite follow this through to the end, but apparently, his plan worked out. Im sure the fact that he controls one of the biggest media conglomerates in italy helped avoid a possible general outcry for justice.
A few days ago, I read an article about how everyone in the european parliament is shocked, because Berlusconi is going to return and represent Italy again. During his initial speech at the parliament, he got criticised by the german politician Martin Scholz, who he then called "Well suited for the role of a german concentration camp officer" for a movie that was being shot at the time in italy. During Italy's presidency of the EU parliament, Berlusconi refused to propose solutions and compromises, thus bringing the political life to a total stop. Instead he made bad jokes and suggested they talk about women, beer and football. In the end, he called his presidency "one of the most glorious presidencies the european parliament has ever seen".
Personally, I think the guy is a joke. An egomanical, incompetent and sadly, a criminal joke. He's put friends in important positions, he's bribed politicians and judges and now he gets re-elected? I mean what does it take to lose political credibility in italy? Is it lack of independent media? Dont the voters care at all? Or is the alternative even worse?

 

[Lina]

Honestly, I know little to nothing about Veltroni, but the fact that someone like Berlusconi gets re-elected leaves a lot of people here in disbelief. I mean, not only is he a criminal, he also changed the laws to avoid punishment. I didnt quite follow this through to the end, but apparently, his plan worked out. Im sure the fact that he controls one of the biggest media conglomerates in italy helped avoid a possible general outcry for justice.
A few days ago, I read an article about how everyone in the european parliament is shocked, because Berlusconi is going to return and represent Italy again. During his initial speech at the parliament, he got criticised by the german politician Martin Scholz, who he then called "Well suited for the role of a german concentration camp officer" for a movie that was being shot at the time in italy. During Italy's presidency of the EU parliament, Berlusconi refused to propose solutions and compromises, thus bringing the political life to a total stop. Instead he made bad jokes and suggested they talk about women, beer and football. In the end, he called his presidency "one of the most glorious presidencies the european parliament has ever seen".
Personally, I think the guy is a joke. An egomanical, incompetent and sadly, a criminal joke. He's put friends in important positions, he's bribed politicians and judges and now he gets re-elected? I mean what does it take to lose political credibility in italy? Is it lack of independent media? Dont the voters care at all? Or is the alternative even worse?

Meanwhile, the only American media attention to European politics lately has regarded Angela Merkel's scandalous (!) display of cleavage.

 

[rahvin]

I mean, not only is he a criminal, he also changed the laws to avoid punishment. I didnt quite follow this through to the end, but apparently, his plan worked out. Im sure the fact that he controls one of the biggest media conglomerates in italy helped avoid a possible general outcry for justice.

He virtually made insider trading legal. The thing is, he didn't do it, they did. And by they I mean the political class almost as a whole. Many benefited - and still benefit - from that change, and not all of them belong to Berlusconi's entourage or even faction.

He's still to be hold accountable on several other accounts, though, and I'm positive he won't as long as he's a big shot in the national scenario. Again, I agree with you that this part is scary, but it's certainly not limited to Berlusconi: getting away with criminal stuff (obviously it's mostly white collar crimes, but I'm not really worried about 70-year-old Senators going on a killing spree anyway) is the norm if you belong to the ruling class. Not in the way you could call it normal in other countries, where I'm sure powerful people always have it easier by definition as well, but normal as in "there are no consequences if you do".

A few days ago, I read an article about how everyone in the european parliament is shocked, because Berlusconi is going to return and represent Italy again.

I know about the kapo' incident you mention later, and of course it was despicable. I'm sure on a personal level the representatives at the European Parliament have all the rights to be annoyed and even disgusted, since Berlusconi is most certainly an arrogant clown. However, the platform he represents is not without merits, especially when compared to the other one. I really couldn't say which program is best for the country, mainly because it's hard to find some tangible data under all the coating of populistic lies, but I'd say both sides are neck to neck in being absolutely horrible.

An egomanical, incompetent and sadly, a criminal joke. He's put friends in important positions, he's bribed politicians and judges and now he gets re-elected? I mean what does it take to lose political credibility in italy? Is it lack of independent media? Dont the voters care at all? Or is the alternative even worse?

The voters don't care much, no. Bad times will come - I guess - and then I suppose people will start caring a little more since they will see their quantity of leisure time greatly diminishing, but until now voters are quite reckless. Also, some of them see that the center-left platform is laughable and decide to overcome their personal feelings towards Berlusconi and vote for his coalition anyway. While I don't endorse this kind of reasoning, I can't condemn it either, but you'd probably have to live here for a while to experience how irritating the other side can be, since they're not as known outside of Italy (yet).

 

[plintus]

This is the best shipment mistake ever.

I've got 3 Laphroaig 30 y/o bottles instead of one.

I thought I was still dreaming.

Clearly, it was a shipping mistake, and I got back in touch with the guy, so I'll ship 2 back.. but tonight I'm taking these babies home for a photosession.

It's like WOW

 

[DisplayofCharacter]

@Rahvin: Wow. Could either of you put this into context for me. I understood (to a point) that the Italian political system was a bit messy and corrupt (and whose isn't?), but a convicted felon got elected to a presidency? How does that even work?

 

[rahvin]

@Rahvin: Wow. Could either of you put this into context for me. I understood (to a point) that the Italian political system was a bit messy and corrupt (and whose isn't?), but a convicted felon got elected to a presidency? How does that even work?

Well, I'm venturing into uncharted waters here, because I'm sure I don't know half as much as I should on the subject, but here goes my attempt at explaining a bit of it.

First of all, he was never convicted. The Italian judiciary system was almost completely rebuilt after WWII to be as protecting of civil rights as possible, mainly because the shattered Fascist regime was a burning reminder of how bad things could turn if you gave someone the chance to dispose of their political enemies through false charges and mock trials. In order to protect the innocents from persecution, many safety catches were added to the procedure needed to investigate, put under arrest, detain, prosecute, and ultimately convict any individual, and even more were given to members of either House of Representatives, so that they could not be tried for anything remotely resembling a political stance, no matter how unpopular. While all of this certainly sounds good on paper, three issues contributed to help it degenerate into the sorry mess we're in right now: one, the Public Administration's inclination to supply tons of baroque, byzantine bureaucracy where basic common sense would have sufficed - which resulted in bottlenecks paralyzing the activity in courts of law; two, the uncanny ability of guilty parties to take advantage of technical loopholes to indefinitely procrastinate the final result of any trial; three, even after a final sentence politicians are protected from being "taken away" from public life in the case of certain types of crimes, on which I'll elaborate momentarily. To get back to my original statement, Berlusconi never got convicted for a combination of the reasons mentioned above: alleged crimes that would have led to incarceration took ages to go through the system, he wriggled out of some of them by postponing the sentence until the statute of limitation applied, and he was finally found guilty of only some of those that do not result in immediate removal from any office.

Let's now take a look at the kind of "felony" we're talking about and how it is normally perceived in society.
As mentioned in my previous post, I'm referring to the so-called white collar crimes. Unlike "normal" crimes against property or the individual, they are seldom perceived by the public opinion to be the sign of a shady character you're better off not crossing in a dark alley, partly because the object of the crime is apparently quite immaterial (a little like illegal downloading, if you want ). This is to say that it shouldn't suprise anyone too much that any crime of passion, such as striking a spouse, would send any Italian politician straight to the top of everyone's most wanted list, while tricking an insurance company into losing millions of Euros doesn't guarantee you lose public consensus straight away. Berlusconi - and by extension anybody else in this country's ruling class - never went and mugged an old lady, or robbed a 7-11 holding hostages at gunpoint. He/they take advantage of a position of power to achieve illicit personal gain, mostly in a way that doesn't directly affect your average Joe.
Another characteristic that helps the ruling class escape a strong stigmatization on the part of the public is the complex hierarchy lying at the basis of any private or public company, which implies that the actual crime is very rarely committed directly by the President (of anything), but more often by a CEO acting on his orders. On his orders? That's what I assume, but you have to prove it in a court of law in order to convict someone other than the CEO him or herself.
This is how it goes down: Mister X, who's both Prime Minister and head of a large media company, gives his henchmen classified information on the value of the company of competitors. The henchmen go and act on this information by buying or selling stocks, one company profits and the other one goes bankrupt. Then somebody finds out, the henchmen are arrested and a long, long, long, long trial begins. They sometimes implicate Mister X, so a long, long, long, long investigation begins. By the time you get to the fire for all this smoke, Mister X (a) is dead; (b) is gone; (c) has gained immunity thanks to the statute of limitation; (d) has changed the law.

One last thing. What I just described above is organized crime, or Mafia. Sure, in the South of Italy people are killed in the streets by hired guns and old men speaking in a funny accent enjoy red wine with their family, but this doesn't happen where I live, so I guess you sometimes have the illusion part of the country is at least marginally better. But I believe the real threat comes from the subtler form of criminal activity I mentioned.

 

[DisplayofCharacter]

@Ravhin: Thanks. I appreciate the thorough explanation - well written by the way. Got any books out?

But back to pertainent conversation - it seems interesting (and a little frightening) to me that laws are so easily changed to protect the lawmakers. White collar crimes commited by prominent people in the USA, as I'm sure you know, usually causes quite a commotion (see ENRON, Martha Stewert, a bunch of others in pop culture). I know there is a lot of pandering to special interest groups in the USA, and a ton of corruption when it comes to a "You-Scratch-My-Back-I'll-Scratch-Yours" situation, but if any of that was ever exposed the person would be removed permanently. So I'm not sure if a situation like that would come to fruition (why is why I asked you to so kindly put it in context. ).

Not too sure about organized crime's influence on politics here. I'm sure the influence is there but I can't quantify or qualify it.

Forgive me if this is wrong, but it just sounds like those in power want to stay in power, so they do anything they can to do so. And the people are largely disoriented within the political landscape, or are frightened, so they basically elect the same crook in a different body?

 

[rahvin]

Got any books out?

I was in my office, abusing time they pay me to do... stuff. No books out, but I AM NOW PART OF ORGANIZED CRIME BECAUSE I ABUSED MY POSITION FOR THE PERSONAL GAIN OF

OF

Uh. Nothing, really.

Forgive me if this is wrong, but it just sounds like those in power want to stay in power, so they do anything they can to do so. And the people are largely disoriented within the political landscape, or are frightened, so they basically elect the same crook in a different body?

Yes. Do you know of any place where people in power graciously bow to turn-taking and people choose the wisest representatives? Because I'd buy a plane ticket tonight.

 

[Siren]

Spring sucks.

 

[La Rocque]

Italian political system is corrupt, its peanuts compared to corruption in the USA government
plus we have a president who has us in a war, for what reason? Who knows? It changes all the time.
over 4000 military killed plus tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been slaughtered.
Our economy is in the shitter. When W came into office the USA had very little debt,
now we are Trillions(not billions or millions) of $'s in the hole.
I live in West Virginia we have had more governors in court and in jail than any other state in the union for corruption.
If you want to know what's most important to anyone in the USA Government its
"All about the Benjamins"

 

[Matse]

Right now, I miss Hyena who would turn this topic in a very heated debate.

I read an article in "Die Zeit" (a good German newspaper) about a former German politician and now manager who actually bought advertising space in several newspapers in order to put in his opinion about several political major problems (Russia, Iraq, US politics, etc.) and what I read sounded positively noteworthy. I have to look him up.

edit: Found him. http://www.whydoyoukillzaid.com/en/home.html about a book by Jürgen Todenhöfer. I advise you, not only to read the 10 theses, but also read a bit into the background since the theses by themselves, I think, sound a little weird. I am sure everyone of you knows how to search the internet for a person and articles about him so I don't need to post hundreds of thousands of millions of links.


7 days until my final exams start (Abitur).

 

[DisplayofCharacter]

Italian political system is corrupt, its peanuts compared to corruption in the USA government
plus we have a president who has us in a war, for what reason? Who knows? It changes all the time.
over 4000 military killed plus tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been slaughtered.
Our economy is in the shitter. When W came into office the USA had very little debt,
now we are Trillions(not billions or millions) of $'s in the hole.
I live in West Virginia we have had more governors in court and in jail than any other state in the union for corruption.
If you want to know what's most important to anyone in the USA Government its
"All about the Benjamins"

I'll have to respectfully disagree. This isn't an affront to a foreign government (foreign to me, I mean) or unabashed pseudo-patriotism, but realistically the two governments are too different to be adequately compared. Dubya isn't a felon, white collar or not. And he isn't solely responsible for sending troops to Iraq either - you can also thank your local congressman/woman for that. I disagree strongly with W's policy on a lot of things, but I get tired of everybody blaming him for every damn thing. The blame also rests on Representatives and Congressmen for voting to approve his policy. Ultimately, we put him into office. We share blame in that as well. He did fuck up the economy, but some of these trends would have occurred (housing market) regardless of who would be in office. The problem is W and Congress haven't effectively handled the situation (i.e. relief packages that some analyists I've read have called to be too little, too late).

On a local scale, as I've advertised, I've lived in NJ for quite some time. We're not without scandles, so I understand the resentment there. Especially with McGreevey, because he was flat-out dishonest. For a while NJ had one of the highest levels of corruption overall; lots of special interest groups pandering. That kind of deceitful nonsense happens all the time.

Back to a comparison for a second - its not as if Congress is constantly passing laws that give it political leeway to do whatever it wants. And it isn't as if the same people represent over and over again - it changes every two years. From what I've been lead to understand, the Italian government is having the same people elected over and over again, or at the very least the same types of people, and they're bending the rules to suit themselves. I'm not saying that never happens, just not with the scale and apparentness in Italy. I'd also like to point out that there is SOME differentiation between candidates for presidential election, both in personality and policy stance. As I recall, I don't think its the same in Italy.

I'm not claiming one government is superior to the other, but they just aren't corrupt in the same ways. At least I don't think so.

However, I do agree with your last sentiment. Money is key in influencing the US government. I don't think there could be any argument in that regard.

 

[plintus]

So yeah, here it is: almost a century worth of scotch on my desk at work (a farewell photo, shipping 2 out today )

But hey, I've got one more to party with!

 

[Wolfman Von Jones]

If one of those bottles got shipped my way for some reason I would cross your palm with silver

 

[Taliesin]

If one of those bottles got shipped my way for some reason I would cross your palm with silver

Second!

Ah man, that photo makes my mouth water.. I'll have to console myself with what my cabinet has to offer
Which isnt bad, either I may add

 

[Nikki]

So yeah, here it is: almost a century worth of scotch on my desk at work (a farewell photo, shipping 2 out today )

But hey, I've got one more to party with!

I'm in trouble

 

[hyena]

Right now, I miss Hyena who would turn this topic in a very heated debate.

Relevant subject thanks you for the evident appreciation of debating skills.

However: hyena didn't vote, of all things.

She's far more interested in stuff along the lines of

cock the hammer
it's time for action

as per a very old Cypress Hill song.

Thanks for your attention, everyone.