Miracle In 100 Days

Barigazzi, if exists, is an Italian columnist and his article seems the English translation of article published usually by Silvio Berlusconi's daily Il GIORNALE, i.e. the voice of the owner. Which value can it have for the Newsweek's readership? Just nil... It's really a pity that Newsweek fell in the trap!
Gianfranco Nitti, Rome

Dear Mr. "Ghost", I suggest your really start looking into Italian affairs a little bit closer. We have enough of press control in Italy and we certainly do not need a self purported Jacopo Barigazzi to serve this kind of propaganda abroad. Why don't we ask the Neapolitans who do not live in the downtown area if the garbage is gone? His "promo domo sua" laws are seriously dangerous to a country that is trying to get up and start again.

again.Too bad the opposition in Italy is worth nothing! Cheers

Is this a piece of journalism? This article does not state a single fact and is full of opinions, allegedly the author???s. This article states that in ???the first 100 days in office Berlusconi may have done the impossible???, and what is it? The Newsweek reporter says that Berlusconi government has an approval rating of 55%. This is the only fact, but without qualifications is senseless. Do you agree? So the author states that that rating is even higher than Zapatero in Spain, Brown in UK and Sarkozy in France. Wow!! The author ingenuously forgot to mention that to compare approval ratings at the beginning of the term (Berlusconi) with those in the middle is not fair. But that can be a debatable issue. But the author has also maliciously forgotten to mention that even Prodi (Berlusconi ???s predecessor) had a stellar rating at the beginning of his term. So what is it then for a prime minister like Mr Berlusconi who owns or controls all private and public television, who owns and controls the majority of the Italian press and who has the pleasure to have an opposition party whose main tactic is to attack those who try to demonize Berlusconi? I would expect a 90% approval rating.

Then the author comes to his senses and highlight that the main act of Berlusconi government was to push a bill that provide immunity from prosecution to the top four national office holders (including him). However, the possible conflict of interest (only possible? Mr Berlusconi and friends have many pending cases) did not go by unnoticed (well it is a sort of word experiment that developing countries??? tyrants already want to follow and is unprecedented in the Western world) but Italians are to poor to pay attention. But what is important for the author and Newsweek is that Berlusconi government ???is delivering with an iron-fist-in-velvet-glove competence???, what is delivering the authors does not say. It is a miracle in 100 days, and for that all you need is faith.

ff

Yes you're right. The 3 TV are not the tool that will help Italy but I think they were the starting point for a right that must exist, together with a left, in a normal Country. Now we are ready to start as a normal country. After Berlusconi and Prodi. After Berlusconi the 3 TV with whom? that is the question that you have to ask yourself?

@evening77

Yes, before the Berlin wall went down, in Italy, because of the communist party smiling to the soviet union, it wan not possible have democratic elections. After the wall fall down east germany riunify with west and become a democratic country. In Italy there were no such a physical wall, but the division was inside the society and went the wall went down Italy was completly messy, italians didn't take the chance history offered them to become a democracy.... and now we are where we are.... But about one thing you can be sure the Berlusconi's TV are not the tool that will help Italy to get rid of this situation, it can only make things worst and worst as did so far..... Bye !

@GiovanniMeacci:
I think that you have to wait forever :-( .
About the 3 TV : without those TV no right parties in Italy, only left and a center (the main Italy problem was, I think, that since 1948 until 1994 same center men were into the government or into the mayority.
Bye!

@ Mr Frank Fato
Dear Fato,
you are professor of political science but apparently you don't know that there is not freedom and there is not democracy in a country where the prime minister is the owner of 3 TV channels. Is not about left or right, is not about order, economy or the others issues people are talking about in the many comments here. It is about the basic principles of democracy. I'm not for the left and neither for the kind of right is now in Italy, I'm liberal and I will never accept Mr Berlusconi as a prime minister of my country. For my country I want freedom, democracy, rules, and legality. I don't want neither Silvio neither Walter, I want people that know what democracy is about, I want a new generation of italians make Italy a real democratic country for the first time in its history and give back Italy to the civilized world.

Dear Barigazzi,
I wont just to remind you that:
1) in the last 10 years of 0 growth Berlusconi and its coalition governened for more than 7 years (2001-2004 and 2006-to present). So may be they are for sure partially responsible of that, may be he (and Tremonti) had changed hes mind and in 100 days they partially "recovered" to they paasate mistake... but I'm not completely sure of that, since it seems to me that he's still more interested in its business.

2) the electoral law the he "cannily exploited a 2005 electoral law that wiped out these small parties" was made in the 2003 and was the same that elected Prodi and its weak majority in 2004, so it has not clearly relevance in the fact that the smalls parties were wiped out of the parliament....

thanks

Who is Jacopo Barigazzi?

@micky74:
but it isn't justice that can block a return to '39 :-) . Politics have to do that. Politics and politicians are not the same things :-). Justice can't block politics. Justice and politics are powers that derived from people's agree(politics in a direkt way, justice, in the sense of the judicial power, by the rules set by Parliament. Yes, the Constitution, but Parliament can reform Constitution. Constitution contains rules about reforming itself. I don't remember that it contains rules about judicial power that can reform politics!). Politics can reform justice, justice can't do the same with politics :-). People can't change rules for judicial power in a direkt way. People votes politicians, that can do it. It's a little bit more complex(very clear rules into Constitution about reforming itself, not an easy way to do it. And it is a good thing)
If people votes, Parliament can do everything that Constitution says that it can do or that Constitution doesn't forbid. Reform of justice is one of that things.
The only thing that can control politics(and all other things) is the Constitution. Yes the laws, but the laws are made by Parliament. But the Parliament can change those rules, and can change the Constitution too.
You can only say that you are not agree with the people that wrote it in 1946-1947. :-)
At the end the only clear thing is that we didn't come back to '39 until now because people didn't want it(they didn't vote for the right until fascist ideas go out of the right political parties) and note that PCI, the communist party, never hadn't the most of seats into Parliament.
People often choose in a right way. You have to have faith :-).

@Evening
Politicians are over justice? Ok then you have the country you deserve. Again the facts are Italy is drowning, so maybe having politicians that steal public money or making law for themselves is not that good, I do not know. And I guess Italy is in this condition maybe because 50% of Italians think that politicians must be left on their own and do what they want to do without any control. Anyway Italian constitution divided the power in 3 so political power can be controlled. If you do not control political power you come back to the 1939. And I guess is what Italy is approaching right now (is not only me looking at that....there are several editorials of important foreign journals pointing out Italy is maybe coming back to fascisms and also the catholic journal Famiglia Cristiana). Anyway until Italians will be divided on left and right, whilst politicians are doing their bussiness I think the situation is not going to improve. I hope the Grillo's Meet-ups are going to change things. These Meet-ups are made by young people that associate independently from right or left, just discussing idea. I hope that can change the status quo in Italy. They claim they will start from the municipalities. People going to the elections are free of court trials, they will maintain a blog where to discuss with the voters. That are good ideas indeed. I do not expecct that much from PDL, PD and so on, but a new way of politics is needed where people start to think with the informations they have and do not vote and forget then only complaining about taxes, salaries and so on.
@Magica. I survived better, I managed to get out of Italy and I learned the salaries are much higher and social life is easier. Still I' m Italian and when people laugh at you still asking how is the mafia with Silvio Berlusconi, trust me, is not that good.

@magica:
I hope he'll change my life :-) . I don't worry if he takes care on changing my life. Berlusconi was premier from 2001 to 2006 and I'm still alive :-)

@micky74:
humans are humans, politics is like the people it represents, justice is made by humans so it could be wrong too, politics is over justice because polls is over everything. I think that.
I think that people knows Berlusconi, but Berlusconi won, people knows that Berlusconi wanted to protect himself from prosecutions, but Berlusconi won. Why? Because people (almost the 50%) chose politics instead of justice. Yes, instead of justice.
They think about our Country, only after that about Berlusconi.
Fini can't unify Right, Maroni doesn't represent the most of "LEGA NORD". Veltroni (leader of PD) and D'Alema(one of the main member of the left of PD) continues in their disagreement about almost everything, in that way, i think, they destroy PD.
Not a great future for Italy!