What the hell is going on?

I tell you it’s never a dull moment in Europe or Italy. We have volcanoes ricking havoc in the skies. We have Greece falling further into an economic ruin and here in Italy we have no elections for 3 years, or do we? The other 2 problems are getting plenty of western press so I’ll dive into the Italy problem for you, the reader. We just had an election where the right leaning party won (the PDL of Silvio Berlusconi). Now of course both sides SAY they won but let’s be blunt. Silvio Berlusconi’s side picked up a couple of regions thanks to the left (Partito Democratico) being a bunch of idiots. Now Silvio’s “Party of Love” (I’m not making that up) is having a big old family feud. The PDL is made up of 3 groups one lead by Fini, one by Berlusconi, and one by Umberto Bossi. The problem is not everyone in party agrees on the direction. Silvio Berlusconi and Gianfranco Fini have been at odds for a while and it’s finally coming to head. Today the real nut-job of the party Umberto Bossi has chimed in and it seems a split is now inevitable. I say Umberto Bossi is a nut job because he honestly believes that Italy should be split in two so the wealthy North can live without being bothered by those dirty southerners (and I can’t write what he thinks of foreigners). Bossi’s son recently went so far as to say he has, and will never, visit Italy south of Rome. If that wasn’t enough he also said he’s not a fan of the Italian National Soccer Team in the upcoming World Cup. Now that’s just crazy talk... you see why I call them nut jobs?...

So the next step is will this rift lead to Italians voting again. You see every time a party loses a majority in the houses of parliament the Italians have to vote again because you HAVE to have a majority to get anything passed. So if Fini is kicked out or leaves the PDL and he takes his support with him then it could mean that Berlusconi no longer has the votes in Parliament needed to pass new laws. I find it hard to believe that all this would not be part of Berli’s plan, so I’m thinking he’s been buying up Fini supporters in the background this whole time so that if Fini leaves he goes by himself. Then again Berli did spend most of his time in power working on laws that would benefit him so maybe he knew this split was coming and he wanted to make sure his ass was covered before getting into new laws that Bossi wants…. Silvio did a good job of covering his ass… So the politics leading up to the election was all left verses right with scandals and controversies. Now it’s plain political infighting among the people that should have it made for the next 3 years. It’s almost as if they are afraid of not being the center of attention.

All this political mess and I now just noticed that two BIG Italian banks had their credit rating downgraded, Intesa San Paolo (my bank!!!) and Mediobanca (the bank run by Berlusconi!!!!!)

Italy in Crisis???

Nah, they’re just changing the whole government, again and at a really bad time for the economy. You see Berlusconi was the first Prime Minister to actually serve the whole entire 5-year term since WWII. And he’s convinced he’s the only one that can do that. To prove this Berlusconi has spent the last 20 months constantly trying every trick to get the Prodi government thrown out of power. It seemed like every time something didn’t go well Berli would be on TV saying the Prodi government needs to “go home.” I really thought it was funny when Berli said, “If Prodi can’t solve the trash crisis in Naples then his government needs to go home.” We should ask Berli what he did to solve the trash crisis in the 5 years he was in power; by the way the trash crisis in Naples has been a crisis for 15 years now. Well yesterday Berli won. Prodi lost his vote of confidence in the Senate and now the government is in a state of limbo until the President decides what to do next. This is the only time the President does anything by the way. The most likely thing is new elections. That’s right, after only 20 months, another election.
In case you didn’t follow how this could happen, good for you. I’ll briefly sum it up. The bottom line is that a member of Udeur party (the Udeur Party holds 3 seats in the over 300 seat Senate) is under investigation for corruption and fraud. The Party is upset that the Prodi government didn’t “support” them against the investigation so they switched sides and are now against Prodi. These 3 little seats in the Senate are enough to stop Prodi from getting any bills through the Senate. They called a vote of confidence to see if it’s even worthwhile to discuss bills if they are going to be voted down. The confidence vote last night basically said that anything Prodi brings to the Senate would be voted down. So we need a new government that has a majority and can get bills completed.
You want to hear the really funny part. Yesterday in the Senate they were about to vote and one of the 3 Udeur Senators decided he was going to vote with Prodi because he wanted the government to stay and continue. The other Udeur Senator went nuts verbally assaulting his fellow party member. Some accounts say he even spit on him before he was escorted out (YouTube should have video proof under “Tommaso Barbato” and “sputo” by now!). The Udeur Senator that changed his mind fainted and had to be carried out under a barrage of insults from other Senators. The 3rd Udeur Senator, oh yeah, he wasn’t even there and he’s the one under investigation too. Hmmm. I like this quote from the spitter “Questo Paese non risorgerà mai se ci sarà gente di merda a rappresentarlo” (In English that's something like: “This country will never rise again if there are people of shit to represent it”). What a nice thing to say about your fellow party member. There are many other subplots and wicked tales that make it almost impossible to find the truth. Did the Prodi government buy the one Senator’s vote? Did Berli buy the Udeur Party’s support? Are they all bunch of overpaid, power-hungry idiots incapable of doing anything for the good of the country?!!!!
On the plus side Beppe Grillo is getting ready for a new election. Will his Civic Lists make an impact? He’s asking that no CONVICTED criminals be allowed in Parliament. I won’t even touch the fact that they were just about to pass a law that changes how Italian elections are done. Stay tuned…