Archive for the ‘Roma dixit - News from Italy’ Category
lunedì, novembre 28th, 2011 | 103 views
By Cybergeppetto
Italy is worldwide famous for the slow food, but it should be famous even for the slow governance.
Italians get excited just when they change the government, but all the rest is to be done quietly and smoothly.
It’s more than funny to see that, after months in which Italian people were told that a quick change of government was needed to cope with a terrible crisis, a new slow motion governance has started to go through the usual never-ending story on “who-is-to-be-put-where”.
While the state debt is dramatically rising, the Italian politicians have their priorities:
- choose the “sottosegretari” (deputies of the ministers);
- set up a new Authority to control the public spending and invent new positions to reward political servants;
- give the pension to the workers of Termini Imerese (former FIAT production site);
- give the citizenship to the children of immigrants;
- get more taxes to keep going with the usual spending system
Some years ago Italians voted in a referendum against a constitutional reform that would have been a starting point in speeding up the running rhythm of the republic, now those who voted against are asking to set up a new constitutional reform.
Italian youngsters are hanging around listening music with the last mp3 reader and, while they are isolated by their earplugs, their relatives continue a public spending spree, the real reason of the enormous debt of the peninsula.
Some preliminary measures are foreseen in the coming days, but it is clear that the approval process in the parliament, divided in two houses with same duties, will take at least one month, maybe two: that is the famous “bicameralismo perfetto”, a unique system in the world to waste time and to be ineffective.
The Italian political system is always the same, smart, good looking, full of media communications, overloaded by unnecessary gossip on the competitors, but totally ineffective.
Everything is the hands of a large group of people to be called “cattocomunisti”, people partially communist and partially belonging to the former Democrazia Cristiana.
They started the system of inefficiency and corruption that has led to the current situation, they are everywhere in the public institutions, their music is always the same: get votes in change of unfair welfare and make debt to fund the system, but slowly, year by year with the same music of “diritti acquisiti” we already spoke about, see the link at the bottom.
Cybergeppetto
p.s. Mr.Napolitano approaches Mr.Monti during the Republic Gala Ball. “Please start a new government … pardon, a new dance…”, says the President. “Do we have music, Mr.President?”, replies the Prime Minister. “Sure we do, a new orchestra is coming from Brussel, anyway start with a slow waltz from my mp3 reader”.
Related article:
Italian for foreigners, the political jargon dictionary – By Cybergeppetto (6th November 2011)
Photo credits vip.it
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giovedì, novembre 17th, 2011 | 118 views
By Cybergeppetto
What is the main mission of the Italian government? Resigning. How many kinds of governments Italy can have? Italians have experienced a huge variety of governements, e.g. the “governo di unità nazionale” (national unity cabinet), the “governo del presidente” (president’s cabinet), the “governo balneare” (summer time cabinet) and, again in these days, the “governo tecnico” (non-political cabinet).
The “governo di unità nazionale” was invented in dark times of the fight on terrorism, but it was not intended to defeat the “Brigate rosse”, the left wing armed faction. It was just a way to set up a first experiment of putting all the parties together in the view of the so called “compromesso storico”, the alliance between catholic and communist forces.
Mr. Aldo Moro, former President of the Democrazia Cristiana, was killed by the terrorists because the Government was nor able to reach an agreement with the terrorists, nor prepared to conduct any serious law enforcement.
The “governo del presidente” was an invention of Mr Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, former President of the Italian Republic, to overthrow Mr Berlusconi in 1994, then the trade unions declared a general strike against the proposal to reduce the early retirement. The “governo tecnico” did right after a vague reform of retirement system with a too long time schedule.
The “governo balneare” was a funny way to call the cabinet intended to go over summer time waiting for the elections in autumn, probably the best political gag of all the times.
The “governo tecnico” is just the way to defeat the political competitor avoiding early elections, it is a nonsense the fact that the political life is to be managed by non-political characters just to allow the opposition to overthrow the majority and remain on the scene.
The fact that the Italian political history is full of cabinets is simply explained, the Parliament is permanently ill, it’s got a particular kind of flu and takes the cabinet as a sort of paper napkin to be used to clean the nose and to be thrown away immediately after.
This illness is the “parlamentarismo”, which means that any member of the Parliament is free to move from whatever political party he was elected with to any one else. In the “Camera dei Deputati” and the “Senato”, the two houses of the Parliament, there is a day by day move of members of parliament, some of them are able to change two, three or more parties during the “legislatura”, the political term of the Parliament. These frequent flyers of the politics, funny commuters among the political parties, are able to destroy any hope of continuity of the government action.
The useless complexity of the italian constitutional architecture and the complete disregard of the popular willingness by the politicians are the main reasons of the ineffectiveness of the Italian State as a whole.
Other funny expressions to be commented will follow in the coming moths.
Cybergeppetto
p.s. “Ogni membro del Parlamento rappresenta la Nazione ed esercita le sue funzioni senza vincolo di mandato”. Any member of the Parliament represents the Nation and performs his functions without being limited by any mandate. Italy is a unique Country with a special group of people totally irresponsible of their coups.
Related article:
Italian for foreigners. The Political jargon dictionary - By Cybergeppetto (6th Nov 2011)
Photo: Dizionario Italiano Inglese
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domenica, novembre 6th, 2011 | 137 views
By Cybergeppetto
“The cat is on the table”. All the Italian students learning English language have repeated this apparently senseless sentence so far, the fact is that probably an Italian does not allow his cat to stay on the table in the dining room while an Englishman would.
Learning a language is learning a culture. In this frame I intend to analyze specific areas of the Italian language spoken by political characters to let non-Italian speakers understand.
The way the Italian politicians speak is indeed funny and in any expression there are a lot of hidden meanings as the dirt under the carpet.
The concept of retirement, for example, is quite simple, when you reach a certain age, you have to retire and you can get the pension.
In Italy everything is much more complicated, it depends on the sort of retirement you’re looking for, there are two different sorts, which are called “pensione d’anzianità” and “pensione di vecchiaia”.
“Anzianità” is a generic concept stating that a person has worked for an unspecified time: one day, ten years, thirty years.
“Vecchiaia” means that somebody is too old to work and the remaining capabilities the person has are not enough to continue to work effectively and safely.
The sentence “tu hai una certa anzianità” is to be translated literally “you have worked for a certain period of time”. The real and more appropriate translation woud be “If you do not want to work anymore, please vote for me and you will have the possibility to retire, somebody else will pay your pension”.
In the Eighties a lot of Italians, following to the “baby boom” of the Sixties, were allowed to retire after nineteen years, six months and one day: it is presumed that a lot of them are doing undeclared jobs to have a better standard of living.
No taxes are payed for that.
The concept of early retirement has even a more curious fall out in the political language because the politicians have invented a new expression: “I diritti acquisiti”, something that can be translated as “granted rights” which sounds pretty well but the reality is totally different.
A right is something to be granted to everybody, but it is now clear that is impossibile to grant an early retirement to everybody, so the coming generations will not have these sort of “diritti acquisiti”, this draws us to the conclusion that the right translation of “diritti acquisiti” is “privileges” and has nothing to do with rights.
These considerations are useful to understand the reason why the Italian political system is largely based on the debt, along with other nations having simular situations, but at a lower level. I do hope that this helps to understand the foggy way the Italian politicians talk to the people.
Cybergeppetto
p.s. “Suggest me a cocktail”, asks the bartender the guest of an Italian lounge bar. “Anzianità or vecchiaia?”, replies the bartender. “What’s the difference?”, asks the client. “Well, if you want it to be paid by the State you can either have a drop of “anzianità” right now or “vecchiaia” at the end of the night, but if you get enough money from your job you can buy yourself whichever cocktail you like. Forget State assistance and vote for somebody else”.
L’Immagine è tratta da Dizionario Italiano Inglese
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mercoledì, novembre 2nd, 2011 | 141 views
By Jethro S.
The REPASAN (Reparto di Sanità) battalion hub in the beautiful town of Merano changed hands last 20th October when Ltc Cavalry Ciriaco Volponi relieved Ltc Mountain Troops Giulio Di Marzio as Commanding Officer .
The ceremony took place in the early morning in a fresh snowed scenario of the Cesare Battisti Barracks in front of all 24 Alpine Manoeuvre Regiment personnel and kindly guests, and presided by Col Giuseppe Lucarelli Regiment Commanding Officer.
Outgoing commander served 12 months as Battalion Commander and will command the Infantry Officer Courses at the Scuola di Applicazione in Turin next 1st November.
During his speech he pointed out that “There are no words to adequately express what an honor and privilege it has been to lead and serve in this command,” then in his outgoing remarks he addressed a famous sentence from Gen Douglas Mc Arthur’s speech in West Point, 12th May 1962: “Duty, honor, country, these three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be”.
He continued by saying: “Those words sum up our military essence and stated our military being, more this is my 
believe, this is my endow to you my young alpine troops soldiers”.
Col Lucarelli thanked Ltc Di Marzio for his passion and enthusiasm in conducting, managing training activities and for building up cohesion, esprit-de-corps, values that make the REPASAN one of the top units in his Regiment.
The touching moment was the change of the colour which stated the new REPASAN Commanding Officer Ltc Volponi.
Nemo me impuni lacessit was the motto Ltc Di Marzio left in the area of the ceremony and is the REPASAN Motto.
Viva il 24° reparto di Sanita’ La Fenice, viva il 24° reggimento di Manovra alpino, viva l’Italia.
Jethro S.
Photo credits Jethro S.
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mercoledì, giugno 15th, 2011 | 185 views
By Jethro S.
Italian Army Post Conflict Operation Study Centre led by major general Flaviano Godio is currently holding in Turin the 3rd Post Conflict Rebuilding Management Junior Course which is dedicated to both civilian and military junior executive role belonging to MoDs, International, Multinational and Regional Organisation, Ministries, Universities, IOs, Gos, NGOs, other State Organisations and enterprises dealing with the sensitive Post Conflict Operations management activities.
The first class lectures coming from mainly PHDs professors from Italian and foreign Universities and UNSSC, ICRC, War Correspondent and Italian Minister of Foreign affair key members are particularly aiming to provide attendees with the technical and professional knowledge and skills required in crisis areas for a better understanding of complex multifunctional processes and activities related to such a critical environment.
This yearly course is structured within three modules spread from 6-22 June where close to mainly doctrinal ones as the geo-strategic overview on the main current scenarios as Lebanon, Kosovo, Afghanistan there are lectures on Rule of Law, PI & Media on S&R as well as Cultural Awareness with some practical studies on the Crisis Management, lying mainly on the S&R Ops.
Finally the last half week is dedicated to working groups activities where attendees are split and stimulated to develop role play especially on “negotiation techniques” and on operational planning exercise played within a concrete scenario.
This course will probably enhance attendees comprehensive view of all Agencies involved in Post Conflict Operation (PCO), understand the rationale behind military operations, improve each one knowledge on the importance of the main geo-political and economic factors vitals to develop a successful PCO within strengthening their familiarity on increase an inter-agency cooperation capabilities.
Jethro S.
Related article:
Nrdc-Ita, Scuola di Applicazione e Centro Analisi Conflitti siglano un MoU che farà da volano dell’eccellenza (7 giugno 2011)
Photo credits: Esercito Italiano
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martedì, maggio 17th, 2011 | 142 views
By Cybergeppetto
The recent local elections in Italy are just a minor episode of the long lasting and time consuming story of electoral events just useful to have local assemblies ready for any sort of fight, useful for everything but to take decisions.
All the planets have two poles, but three prominent Italian politicians, Mr Fini, Casini and Rutelli decided last year to provide the Italian democracy planet with the “terzo polo” (third pole), an additional load of confusion.
In a country in which decisions are not taken even after a desperately long and senseless consultation the “terzo polo” has the flavour of the old times coming back, just an additional party with the usual internal fights and capability to block any policy.
Last year the “terzo polo” failed in overthrowing Berlusconi, it is now probable that similar actions will occur at local levels.
Italians are in love with democracy, but they consider that the essence of democracy is the capability to fight among leaders, decisions and results are not considered as a valuable fact of the republic.
Italian political arena should be focused on how to develop the southern part of the peninsula, or could be interested to reduce the huge public debt or, maybe, try to set up more favourable conditions for economic development, but the only thing important to the politicians is whether Mr. Berlusconi has to remain in power or not.
Mr. Napolitano, president of the republic, continues to declare that any reform should be shared and agreed among the political parties when is more than clear that nobody is willing to drop his prejudices to reach an even minimal goal.
As long as this approach remains in the minds of the political characters, nothing will be achieved, in two weeks Italians will vote for the second ballot with no hope about the future, taxpayers will continue to feed useless politicians.
Sooner or later the Italian politics will be fruitful and effective, just few decades are needed.
Cybergeppetto
p.s. Roman senators wasted a lot of time to decide on how fight Chartangenians while the City of Saguntum was lost (Romae discutitur, Saguntum expugnatur), Napolitan leaders continue to fight while the trash tide is rising.
The comic is from http://offthemark.com/search-results/key/politicians/
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martedì, marzo 1st, 2011 | 283 views
By Cybergeppetto
There are two ways of looking at a town, the first one is to go street by street and put the pieces together, the second one is to see the landscape from the bell tower, you may loose some details, but the glance is generally good to make an initial assessment.
Italy is always considered a sort of black hole abroad, it is difficult to understand what is going on in the Belpaese (nice country) and the political arena is crowded of parties generally making just background noise rather than dealing with real issues.
The are a lot of conservative areas in which any attempt of change is seen as a break of the status quo.
In the past all the unions were together to back the left wing political parties keeping a high level of conflicts with the entrepreneurs. Nowadays a part of the Unions, the left-wing oriented CGIL, is loosing ground among the workers due to their ideological approach, the rest of the Unions is trying to fight the crisis by reaching some agreements with their counterparts.
From the times of Mr. Leone’s (former president of the republic) resignation and the “tangentopoli” (City of bribes) scandal the ability of the media and the politically oriented prosecutors to overthrow governments and political parties is slowly decreasing.
Entrepreneurs of the PMI (piccola e media impresa – small and medium firms) seem to be less eager to ask for state help and ask the politicians a fair market economy, the bigger industrial trusts are moving more slowly, but FIAT seems to have a more proactive approach. The economic system is therefore likely to improve.
The political instability is changing, in 1994 an allegation to the Prime Minister caused his resignation, later on he was found not guilty, now the attempt to overthrow him with an impressive number of trials does not seem to obtain any result. Maybe the political leadership and the public opinion are now fully aware of the fact that some judges and prosecutors played a political role ripping an entire political class off the scene.
A recent effort of Mr. Fini to set a new party out of the normal election process is going bad and a trend to avoid the political fragmentation has started.
Italy is surely going along a difficult path to get out of the mist in which has been so far and can start playing a different role on the international arena, despite the prejudices and hidden interests of a lot of western countries, especially in North Africa.
Cybergeppetto
p.s. A telephone rings at the resident’s office in Rome : “How is the situation there?”. “Mister B is still in place, despite the forecasts…”. “Oh shit! If he and Gheddafi succeed in remaining at their place we have no hope to get new oil in North Africa”.
Photo: geology.com
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martedì, gennaio 11th, 2011 | 485 views
By Cybergeppetto
The President of the Italian Republic, Mr Giorgio Napolitano, has commemorated Mr Arrigo Boldrini, considered a hero by the communist partisans but viewed as a criminal by the relatives of the 365 victims of the “eccidio di Codevigo”, the massacre of surrendered soldiers of the Mussolini’s Repubblica Sociale together with innocent civilians in Codevigo.
Mr Napolitano has declared that Italian politics and the Italian culture have failed in explaining to friend States the “anni di piombo” (years of bullets), the decades of terrorist attacks to the democratic institutions.
I share this view, and I think I can offer the reason why this happened: ideological prejudice.
Left wing oriented politicians and historians have denied so far the responsibilities of the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI), the Italian Communist Party, and the related crimes against Italy from the civil war to the Eighties.
(continua…)
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lunedì, dicembre 13th, 2010 | 726 views
By Cybergeppetto
Italian political life is particular, indeed. Any government is subject to a continuous and never-ending process among the political parties to discuss and discuss every moment the coalition’s policy.
The number of votes of confidence, last one was just in October, is the highest of any western democracy and is a perfect evidence of two simple facts related to Italy.
The first one is that the peninsula is ruled by lobbies considering the government and the institutions just as coffee filters to be changed when the cup is full.
The second one is about the members of Parliament, they are every day looking for their future moving continuously from a political tribe to another in the desert of the Italian ideology, the only concept left is allegiance. In the Italian political life is not important to have an ideology, you have just to state every now and then to whom you belong to.
Over the last sixteen years we have had countless announcements of a new era, the so called “seconda repubblica”. Any time terrible fights happen in the parliament to have an Armageddon to bring the old political system to an end.
This should have led to an era of a dual political parties system, an era of regional governors, provincial presidents and mayors elected directly by the people, an era of a new administration.
A lot of left wing speakers, along with Mr Gianfranco Fini and Mr Pier Ferdinando Casini are now saying that this new system has failed.
The fact is that, more simply, that system was not put in place so far; the State’s administration continues to be just the ranch to give a job to cowboys without cows, the confusion is constantly high. The effort made by Mr Silvio Berlusconi to change that were fiercely opposed and a lot of people is trying to put him in the position of Mr Bettino Craxi, the former socialist party leader that died in exile in Tunisia.
Italy does not intend to change, not even its parliament concept, the funniest of the world, the so called “bicameralismo perfetto”, a system in which the houses are perfectly equals so that laws go back and forth between the Senato and the Camera dei Deputati like a tennis ball during a match at the Foro Italico, where the Davis Cup was held long ago.
The problem is not if Mr Berlusconi gets the vote of confidence, another one will follow; the real problem is when Italy will switch to a decent politics to run the republic, maybe starting to pay the enormous public debt got so far.
No changes are at sight, the discussions we have listened to so far are just old stuff like in the Sixties or in the Seventies.
Cybergeppetto
p.s. Saint Francis of Assisi, patron Saint of Italy, pays visit to God. “My dear Francesco! What can I do for you?” Says the Omnipotent. “Merciful God, I need your help to rehabilitate the Italian political system, please, support me!”. God started crying…
Photo: Last Judgment (Giudizio Universale), Michelangelo Buonarroti’s fresco/geometriefluide.com
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domenica, dicembre 5th, 2010 | 146 views
By Cybergeppetto
Whoever in the world intends to understand the Italian political arena game, has to learn the “scopone scientifico”, a card game.
It is a very popular one over the Peninsula and is played by four people. As any couple-played game, the allegiance and the mutual understanding are the most important assets to play, the results are somehow less important than the game itself. At the end of the day, we are just talking about a way to waste time and have fun, no work, no stress, just relax.
According to a legend, a priest in the 16th century wrote a very detailed list of rules called Le regole dello scopone scientifico di Chitarrella (The rules of scopone scientifico by Chitarrella).
There are two main ideas behind the game: the first is that the players have to rotate after a set of matches, and the second is that during the game the players of a couple have to pair (parigliare) the cards of the same seed between them and, vice versa, they have to try to dispair (sparigliare) the cards of the adversaries.
These two ideas are crucial to understand the Italian political system; the first main Chitarrella rule is about the fact that any “legislatura”, the five year term of the Parliament, is a timeframe in which the majority of the political parties are granting themselves the right to play several matches with different actors regardless to the mandate received by the people.
(continua…)
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