The notoriously dysfunctional Italian government has been forced to come to terms with a national debt larger than Italy's entire GDP. Il Duce Berlusconi has proposed more than 30 billion euros in budget cuts over the next two years, including a billion-euro cut to the national health care system, and a crackdown on fraudulent disability payments. Berlusconi also called for a three-year pay freeze for all government workers.
Berlusconi delivered a speech to parliament calling for national unity. He also outlined a five-point plan, which included widespread tax cuts, aimed at drumming up support for his government. Berlusconi asserted that it is absolutely in the interests of Italy not to risk a period of instability in this moment where the crisis is not yet over. In the confidence vote, Berlusconi's center-right government received 342 votes for and 275 against, with three abstentions.
Basil Venitis muses Berlusconi has compared himself to Benito Mussolini, complaining that like the Second World War dictator he does not have enough real power. Berlusconi has often been accused of a dictatorial style of governance by the Opposition and even members of his own Rightist coalition.
Berlusconi won a vote of confidence in Italy's lower house of parliament on Wednesday. His term expires in 2013. Berlusconi has been without a parliamentary majority amid political infighting. But ahead of Wednesday's confidence vote, a group that broke away form Berlusconi's ruling coalition in July said they would support the government. We will not neglect our duty, we want to carry on till the end of the parliamentary term, said Italo Bocchino, parliamentary leader of the breakaway group, which is headed by Burlosconi's former ally Gianfranco Fini.
Venitis points out Il Duce cannot control his penis! Il Duce Berlusconi orders up playmates to his official residence as if they were a plate of oysters, by the dozen and preferably young and fresh. Il Duce is an illusionist. He always seizes upon a valid problem, but he does so purely out of self-interest. His tricks are based on distracting Italians. If he doesn't like something, he immediately tries to amend the constitution. This would be inconceivable in any other country. You can't depend on anything in Italy. Not even the truth and the country's demise. Italy has become increasingly enigmatic, bizarre, incomprehensible, and it continues to be a top vacation destination.
Venitis, twitter.com/Venitis, muses Italy is the global center of dolce vita. Italy has been in a state of political denial for years. Caesars mused that Britons can never be civilized, but now Britons are the most civilized people in the world, calling the Italians guineas! Italians doze in front of the television programs of media czar Il Duce Berlusconi, who himself has made a fulltime job of protecting his guineas in parliament with more and more new laws that will save them from prosecution. Meanwhile, opposition Italokleptocrats are devouring each other over trivialities.
Sicily is a mafia stronghold, but underworld power structures affect people all across the country. Organized crime constitutes 7% of Italy's gross domestic product(GDP). Most Sicilian businesses pay the pizzo, which costs on average 500 to 600 euros per month. It only accounts for around 5% of mafia income, but even so, it is important for mafia to retain it. If shop owners refuse to pay, they may be punished. For example, their buildings may be destroyed or they may receive death threats.
Omerta is a code of silence, common in areas of southern Italy, such as Sicily, Calabria, and Campania, where mafias like Cosa Nostra, Drangheta, and Camorra are strong. Omerta implies the categorical prohibition of cooperation with state authorities or reliance on its services, even when one has been victim of a crime. Even if somebody is convicted for a crime he has not committed, he is supposed to serve the sentence without giving the police any information about the real criminal, even if that criminal has nothing to do with the Mafia himself. Within Mafia culture, breaking omerta is punishable by death.
Secret societies run through the tapestry of Italy's history like a half-hidden thread: from the 19th-century proto-nationalists known as Carbonari to Propaganda Due (P2), a rogue Masonic lodge with a mission to infiltrate the organs of state and a membership that included politicians, soldiers, spooks, and Il Duce Berlusconi.
Prosecutors have cautioned seven people they suspect of belonging to an illegal cabal. Some are close to Berlusconi. Senator Marcello Dell'Utri, who is already fighting a conviction for mafia links, created the party with which Berlusconi entered politics. Denis Verdini is a national organizer of his current political vehicle, the People of Freedom movement (PdL). Nicola Cosentino was a junior economy minister.
Flavio Carboni of P3, is a businessman tried for murder in the still-mysterious death, in 1982, of Roberto Calvi, a prominent banker and P2 initiate. Carboni was jailed in connection with the P3 inquiry. P3 is conspiring to further Berlusconi's interests with a mix of dubious blandishments and dirty tricks. P3 dug into the sex life of an opposition candidate, plotted to influence a politically sensitive corruption inquiry, and tried to get at judges before they ruled on a measure to grant Berlusconi and others immunity from prosecution.
In leaked wiretaps members of P3 cite an authority figure code-named Caesar, Berlusconi himself! By defending the P3 suspects, rather than just letting the prosecutors do their work, Berlusconi leaves himself open to the charge of being mafioso. Il Duce Berlusconi has backed four ministers accused of shady dealings, both of whom subsequently resigned.
The son of a mafia kingpin revealed Berlusconi paid his father many millions of euros. Then at a youth convention of his People of Freedom party, Berlusconi made headlines by suggesting young women should look for wealthy boyfriends. Also his close ally Giorgio Stracquadanio sparked broad criticism for saying it was totally legitimate for women to use their bodies to kick-start their careers.
Berlusconi made headlines in 2008 with his crackdown on Gypsies. Around 20,00 Gypsies live in the capital city of Rome in about 100 camps. Gypsies do not steal, are not particularly bothersome, and do not defraud anyone. They scrounge and sell scrap metal, and in doing so they have, in a sense, found their niche, playing a vital environmental role in recycling. They live on the crumbs that fall from the tables of an affluent society. They spend half their days driving through the suburbs, searching for usable waste, and anyone who observes them as they make their rounds quickly realizes that they work hard to make ends meet. They remove the things that people no longer want, the television sets, ironing boards, stoves, and window frames left on the sidewalks. They dig around in garbage cans for electronic scrap or a few pieces of bread, and they go to the street markets at the end of the day to gather crushed vegetables and leftover fruit, and to take meat that is past its sell-by date off the hands of butchers.
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