Il Berlusconi
by Devilstower
Wed Apr 30, 2008 at 03:20:03 PM PDT
Remember Silvio Berlusconi, Bush's Italian pal?
Bush: We welcome the Prime Minister as a good friend ... He understands the history and the values that our two countries share."
Well, yes, it does appear that Silvio has an interest in history, in particular a fascination with the 1930s. Now that Berlusconi's conservative party has once again taken control of Italy, they've been sharing their history lessons with the country. First, there was the election of one of Berlusconi's lieutenants as the new mayor of Rome.
On Monday night, the area around Rome's city hall rang to chants of "Duce! Duce!", the term adopted by Italy's dictator, Benito Mussolini, equivalent to the German "Führer". Supporters of the new mayor gave the fascist Roman straight-arm salutes.
Does Godwin's Law still apply if people are proudly waving the banner of fascism? While one Berlusconi lieutenant was celebrating his mayoral victory, another was reminding the opposition that not following the new government didn't mean just getting a beating at the ballot box.
The prime minister-elect's closest ally, Umberto Bossi, the Northern League leader, kept up the intimidating rhetoric, arriving for the first session of Italy's parliament warning of violence if the centre-left did not go along with his plans for federalism.
"I don't know what the left wants [but] we are ready," he told reporters. "If they want conflicts, I have 300,000 men always on hand."
And if there was any doubt at all about where this is heading, Berlusconi put his signature on the official fascist embrace.
Silvio Berlusconi, who won a general election earlier this month, welcomed the latest evidence of Italy's leap to the right by declaring: "We are the new Falange." Although he took care to wrap his remark in a classical context, his choice of words appeared to be a nod and a wink to his most extreme supporters. The original Falange - the word means "phalanx" - was the Spanish fascist party, founded in the 1930s, which supplied Francisco Franco's dictatorship with its ideological underpinning.
Once again Bush has demonstrated the kind of keen human insight that he got from peering into Vladimir Putin's baby blues and discovering him to be "straightforward and trustworthy." It's clear that in sitting down with Silvio, Bush partnered with a man who's determined to bring fascism back to Italy, even if it requires violent suppression of opposition. Either Bush was completely taken in by two men who were determined to put in place non-democratic nationalist governments run by threat and cronyism, or he was sympathetic to those positions. Neither choice is particularly comforting.
Earlier, Bush had bragged of his partnership with Berlusconi.
The people of the United States and Italy love freedom. And we know that freedom must be defended.
We also understand that defending freedom requires cost and sacrifice.
Having helped to secure a foothold in Europe for neo-fascism, what future sacrifices might be needed to ensure that Italian freedom is retained?
I hear there's a good beach at Paestum, down in Salerno.
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