Thursday, 3 July, 2003

BERLUSCONI ALLA BERLINA! Il cretino ha parlato. And he sounded like a bloated actor playing Goebbels in a Nazi-film. This is irony, of course. The whole shebang on video (via Aardvark). Berlusconi is the head of a vast business empire spanning newspapers, TV and radio, film, football, advertising, insurance, food and construction. He was named by Forbes magazine as the third most powerful billionaire in 2002. He owns Italy, that includes the judges. His supporters say he is generous, which only means he bribes people. He was last brought before court on charges of bribing judges. Now he has made a law giving him immunity. His immunity is an impunity. There definitely is a conflict of interests with his ownership of substantial media assets. He came to power by making deals with the mafia, the neo-fascists of Fini and the racist Lega Nord of Bossi. Berlusconi has been convicted of false accounting, bribing the tax police and tax fraud - then let off on appeal on technicalities. The Economist famously declared him "not fit to lead the government of any country". It seems Berlusconi has managed to remove practically all anti-Berlusconi sites from the Italian web (try finding one, then let me know). He does not like criticism, and is a staunch supporter of Bush. 11:13:48 AM

© Copyright 2003 Hetty Litjens.