Silvio Bunga Bunga

[jack_christie]

Bunga bunga city just gets crazier by the day:

Court papers included a claim that the man who provided women for the parties had offered a well-known Italian actor the chance to present the annual San Remo song contest if she agreed to sleep with the 75-year-old prime minister. Manuela Arcuri, the star of a string of TV dramas, said she refused.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/15/silvio-berlusconi-claims-prostitutes-wiretap

More than 30 women recruited to attend Silvio Berlusconi's parties

investigators presented a definitive list, which they said emerged from a staggering 100,000 intercepted telephone calls between the protagonists.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ted-to-attend-Silvio-Berlusconis-parties.html

Women 'dressed as nuns for stripteases' at Silvio Berlusconi's bunga bunga parties

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...t-Silvio-Berlusconis-bunga-bunga-parties.html

It has been suggested that, in a phone call in early July, Mr Berlusconi referred to 57-year-old Mrs Merkel as ?an un****able fat ****?.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...lgar-Angela-Merkel-insult-caught-wiretap.html

http://www.economist.com/node/18805327

 

[avanti]

 

[Cobol74]

Would you lend squilllions of Euros to a man like that? The French banks did - :lol:.

Wheels coming off the EU (Zoot alores Jacques Delores), although I am very much against the whole participation of the UK in this lark - I consider we stabbed our real friends in the back with this nonsense, you know the ones who pitch up and help us when lives (and democracy/freedom etc.) are at stake - unless this is sorted properly (Hello Germany I am looking at you no one else has the money) the shit is really going to hit the fan.

So far we have had a small country Greece go bang just wait until Italy and Spain go Kaboom!

That idiot above, and the idiots that voted for him, have alot to answer for. This is one case where lying (Italian laws or guidelines as they like to call them) will not work for ever.

This was of course inevitable, some governments hid their debts off the balance sheets just so that they could join in - that is really a criminal activity, the EU accounts have not been independently verified in donkeys years. You just can not keep that up. All this Bunga Bunga nonsense is a distraction, Italy are really in the financial S**t.

Not to put too fine a point on it we (Ukania) have been playing the off balance sheet game too but we are, thank God, not in the Euro.

 

[SirEdward]

I'm sad to see how much Italy has gone down in the past years, I'm sad because I live there and I am italian, and I'm getting hit and bashed and laughed about wherever I go outside my dumbass country. And the worst of it is they are right.

Italy can recover from this terrible situation, but not as long as the mindset of its citizen, perfectly incarnated by Berlusconi and his little corrupt-as-hell group of half-mafia friends, won't be kicked out to the sewer they should be in.

Until then, much of what we can do is laugh about that mentally deranged psycopath incapable of admitting any errors whatsoever, but perfectly able to deceive an incredibly vast number of deluded, gullible fools, and sum their votes to that of the short-sighted, brainly-limited corrupt people who think and behave like him.

Our problems, like the Greeks', like everyone elses' in this ultra-individualistic, money-worshipping society, is cultural before being political. Only thing is Italy fell for this shit happily, because we have always been extremely individualistic, extremely beauroctratic, and scarsely law-abiding.

To that: a fresh, light-hearted comment from Michele Serra, journalist:

"The Hammock" - Michele Serra - 16 september 2011 - from "La Repubblica" [translation by SirEdward]

Lavitola's [editor of a minor italian newspaper] peruvian house servant, Rafael Chavez, aka "Giuanin" [little Johnny], stopped regularly at Palazzo Grazioli, private roman abode of Mr. Berlusconi, to collect envelopes full of cash. Our Prime Minister is engaged with a 20yo Montenegrin girl who, when is hit by a jealousy attack, plunges and rolls down flights of stairs. Colombian model Debbie Castaneda, who is part of our PM's entourage, has been nominated consultant for Finmeccanica [Finmeccanica is the second largest industrial group and the largest of the hi-tech industrial groups based in Italy]. Valter Lavitola is a socialist and editor of "L'avanti!". Egyption contortionist Yamila was sent as gift from our PM to the sultan of Oman packed in a damask clothed chest. The Senate of the Republic, confirming a former statement of the Chamber of Deputies, passed a document affirming that our PM, when he called by phone the Questura [Police headquarters] in Milan, was sincerely worried about what happened to the niece of Mubarak [the girl was actually one of his prostitutes, not Mubarak's niece, obviously]. Our PM, Berlusconi, used a phone card registered to Ceron Caceres, peruvian citizen, to make some phone calls [to Lavitola]. Our PM, in a private conversation, called the german Chancellor, Angela Merkel, "an unfuckable fat-ass". Turkish PM, Erdogan, refuses to meet our PM because Erdogan is disturbed by Berlusconi's private conduct. Only one of these news is surely false. Can you tell which one?

 

[MacGuffin]

Well, somebody must have voted for him, despite his obvious criminal activities and iridescent personality.

Personally I have gone from to in the past years, concerning is escapades and blackouts.

But one thing is clear: Either the Europeans get this whole messe sorted out somehow and come out stronger in the end with a big step towards a European federation of sorts, or the idea of a united Europe will die and leave the weak behind.

I'm leaving it to everyone to decide, if they count their country among the weak or the strong. But I can guarantee, that the Germans will neither be willing nor able to pay for all.

National pride will crumble rather quickly, you'll see.

 

[Jay]

But one thing is clear: Either the Europeans get this whole messe sorted out somehow and come out stronger in the end with a big step towards a European federation of sorts, or the idea of a united Europe will die and leave the weak behind.

I predicted this years ago, and everyone dismissed it. I can very much see a United States of Europe, though I can also see a very messy civil war to create it. Face it, Europe: the days of Fiefdoms and city states ended in the 19th century, perhaps the days of individual countries will be erased in the 21st century.

 

[jmsprovan]

from the perspective of a uk'er, i would love to have politicians that are actually a bit animated (the closest we have is BORIS), most of our politicians are boring frigid arseholes.

 

[MacGuffin]

Yes but not THAT animated. Berlusconi is a massive prick. And a criminal one as well.

 

[nomix]

Wasn't Berlusconi on that secret lodge list back in the 80s? The one Andreotti wasn't on, for some reason?

 

[jack_christie]

Wasn't Berlusconi on that secret lodge list back in the 80s? The one Andreotti wasn't on, for some reason?

P2

Propaganda Due (Italian pronunciation: [propa??anda ?du?e]), or P2, was a Masonic lodge operating under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient of Italy from 1945 to 1976 (when its charter was withdrawn), and a pseudo-Masonic or "black" or "covert" lodge operating illegally (in contravention of Italian constitution banning secret lodges, and membership of government officials in secret membership organizations) from 1976 to 1981. During the years that the lodge was headed by Licio Gelli, P2 was implicated in numerous Italian crimes and mysteries, including the collapse of the Vatican-affiliated Banco Ambrosiano, the murders of journalist Mino Pecorelli and banker Roberto Calvi, and corruption cases within the nationwide bribe scandal Tangentopoli. P2 came to light through the investigations into the collapse of Michele Sindona's financial empire.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_Due

 

[nomix]

Right. I just had some recelaction of it. I've read a decent book about Italian politics after the war, with a clear focus on Sicilly. Midnight on Sicilly, by Peter Robb if I remember correctly. Most of the little I know about Italian politics and its connection to the Mafia (in different shapes) are derived from that book.

 

[jack_christie]

Right. I just had some recelaction of it. I've read a decent book about Italian politics after the war, with a clear focus on Sicilly. Midnight on Sicilly, by Peter Robb if I remember correctly. Most of the little I know about Italian politics and its connection to the Mafia (in different shapes) are derived from that book.

Lot about P2 too in David Yallop's book In God's Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I

 

[Cobol74]

The mistake he made was adding the 'I' at the end of his name. ? Wait, what? ...

 

[Cellos88GT]

The gov't of Italy has been an epic facepalm since day one and with its citizens as complacent as they are things will take forever to get sorted. yet somehow the country continues to move forward...

 

[MacGuffin]

As I understand it, the Mafia gained power in the wake of the U.S. invasion of WWII. They filled a power vacuum back then.

 

[Cellos88GT]

The camorra has a bigger effect on Italy's economy than the mafia.

 

[SirEdward]

Well, somebody must have voted for him, despite his obvious criminal activities and iridescent personality.

That is the worst part: yes.

Berlusconi's coalition won the general elections with 17 million votes, 13.6 million of them were for PDL, Berlusconi's party, which is practically him.

So, Berlusconi had the support of 1/4 (25%) of the italian people (60 million total), and the direct vote (there is no way you are going to vote for PDL if you are not supporting Berlusconi) of 1/5 of them (20%). And these are only the people who actually went and voted. By comparison, the other big coalition of parties got 13.5 million votes.

What are them? Who knows. Some of them are for sure part of the same corrupt world he is in, in a way or another, from financial criminals of all nature, to mafia, to small corrupt politicians or attaches, to big or small tax dodgers of all kind.

The others are the now blatantly ridiculous part of Italy, people who got, for some reason or other (lazyness, pride, fanaticism, stupidity, ideology) bewitched by Berlusconi's ways and manners and found in him the admirable figure they were looking for. Time showed that they were all fools; not necessarily hopeless, but fools nonetheless. I know some people who did vote for Berlusconi in the past and some of them are honest, intelligent, good people. What do I have to think about them? It depends, but they surely got fooled harshly. And it's their fault, because what Berlusconi really is was already clear in the 90ies, and I myself was able to judge him correctly in 2001. Still, people like to live in dreams, and waking up destroys dreams.

Is this something everybody could have done. Yes. Is this something everybody did? No, not at all, but everybody is getting to pay for the mistakes of just somebody. Such is democracy. At least I want the right to call things with their real names.

 

[nomix]

As I understand it, the Mafia gained power in the wake of the U.S. invasion of WWII. They filled a power vacuum back then.

Well, yeah, the Mafia were able to give the US forces a lot of logistic help and intelligence on Sicilly. In exchange, the yanks decided to look the other way.

The camorra has a bigger effect on Italy's economy than the mafia.

True, at least today. The reason that the mafia gained the power it did after the war is largely due to the fact that Andreotti was in their pocket (well, it was a bit of both, but it's generally quite accurate). And because he was in their pocket they delivered Sicilly in elections. And that helped him and his party stay in power for donkey years.

We talk about Berlusconi, but he's nothing compared to Andreotti, Andreotti was quite simply one of the biggest crooks in post war European politics.

 

[Cobol74]

The Mafia's help to the US and Ukanian operations in Italy was overrated during WW II - they hated the Fascists (for different reasons) as much as the democracies. They played a good hand though - it is probable that they caused the liner Normandie to burn out so that they could show their power and influence, but that was in New York not Italy.

 

[nomix]

The only force that ever (almost) removed the Mafia as a power factor in Italy was Benito Mussolini and his Fascists. They just arrested anyone who looked like they were Mafia, and beat them untill they grassed on other "Mafia". So a lot of innocent people got fucked, but it destroyed the Mafia in Italy.

As one of the Mafia prosecutors said in the 70s, "it's easy getting rid of the Mafia, Mussolini did it. What's hard is doing it with democratic means". Oh, and yeah, I'm paraphrasing.