Comments on: He made the trains run on time you know

By: Crooked Timber » » International banking conspiracies

Crooked Timber » » International banking conspiracies — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 00:29:54 +0000

[...] I don’t need to stress how disgusting this is. But it’s also a little strange that it hasn’t been picked up in the US press and blogosphere (the Italian media didn’t do a great job either until the last day or two). There’s a minor cottage industry that tries (sometimes on the basis of quite remarkably dubious evidence) to identify instances of West European anti-semitism, usually in order to insinuate that European policies on the Middle East are motivated by anti-Semitism. But as a result, it focuses its attentions either on the European left, or on right-wingers (such as the French government) who opposed the Iraq war. The patently anti-Semitic outbursts of a politician in a party that’s one of the Bush administration’s few allies in Western Europe apparently don’t merit the same level of attention, just as Berlusconi’s own comments about Mussolini’s prison camps and his notorious cracks about concentration camp kapos were greeted with silence from the right. posted on Wednesday, September 14th, 2005 at 7:23 pm Post a comment [...]

By: jw mason

jw mason — Mon, 15 Sep 2003 16:59:33 +0000

My favorite bit on this was the explanation from an Italian government spokesperson that Berlusconi’s comments were “a witticism bordering on the paradoxical.” There’s one for Scott McClellan to keep in mind…

By: Edward Hugh

Edward Hugh — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 16:37:31 +0000

BTW Henry: I also have an old minset sometimes, so I checked the Cambridge Italian Dictionary and they give the alternative reading: Mandare al confine – Send into exile. So congratulations, your intuition was good. Still exile could be internal, external……or something like Dante’s Inferno. We can leave the reader to decide.

By: Edward Hugh

Edward Hugh — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 16:32:15 +0000

“I don’t have my dictionary with me in Toronto” Old mindset Henry. you don’t need to buy the whole transhumanist bit to remember there is the internet………. On the more substantive point, I find it incredible how many people are trying to make up excuses for Mussolini. He was bad, but he wasn’t that bad etc. Incredible. I mean these days it’s a regular insult to call someone a fascist who isn’t. Aznar seems to do this almost every single day. Well I don’t think there’s any doubt Mussolini was, he even said he was. And there is also that other little detail: he was Hitler’s closest ally. “Most of the people I know would not agree with his judgement about Mussolini”. This is a kind of social networks point, they wouldn’t because like you they’d be reasonable. I don’t know anyone in Barcelona who votes PP, but they still form the government. (read Granovetter). However I do feel that criticising Berlusconi is to miss the point, his comments are for home consumption, and then indirectly for us. He’s happy if we take him seriously, that’s good for him back home (Italy we will remember is a rapidly ageing society, and this is going to have its inevitable political dimension). This is pretty similar in Spain, and it shouldn’t be overlooked that after his ‘disappointment’ with Tony, Aznar’s new ‘friend’ is Berlusconi. The Spanish media is full of this. And when Aznar sounds off about how, for example, the UK - with it’s Gibraltar mafia interests – is responsible for the Prestige disaster, a comment which even merited a front page ‘its a lie’ article from the FT, just remember, facts aren’t important here, it’s the domestic market that matters. And all this naustalgia for fascism gets pretty scary when you look at the numbers of people who will be either ‘lame, blind or mute’ or suffering some modern equivalent like Altzheimer or Senile Dementia, and will be ‘non-productive’ from the point of view of a state which may neither be willing nor able to support them. Remember: Hiter’s first victims were not Jewish.

By: nameless

nameless — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 03:14:14 +0000

“But it, in itself, has nothing to do with why he’s a famous “evil dictator.’” He’s a famous evil dictator because he was best pals with the most famous evil dictator in history, Adolph Hitler. I’m not sure what relevance Mussolini’s claim to fame has to Berlusconi’s apology. “I mean, be honest, the fact that Mussolini used poison gas is not why people think he’s awful.” It’s one of the reasons I think he’s awful. He invaded another country without cause and deliberately murdered civilians (which is the reason poison gas is vile: it is mainly a weapon for the mass murder of civilians. It may not be particularly efficient, but is also not particularly discriminant). “If it were, people would also think Churchill is awful. And FDR, for agreeing to the fire bombing of Dresden, which was surely at least as bad as any poison gassing.” Many people do think that Churchill’s use of poison gas and the fire bombing of Dresden were awful. They also balance those atrocities with the good things accomplished by Churchill and Roosevelt (such as defeating Nazi Germany). Mussolini’s only redeeming quality, apparently, was making the trains run on time.

By: John

John — Sat, 13 Sep 2003 00:37:26 +0000

I’m not excusing Mussolini’s use of poison gas. I’m saying that we’re extremely selective about whose use of poison gas horrifies us. I mean, be honest, the fact that Mussolini used poison gas is not why people think he’s awful. If it were, people would also think Churchill is awful. And FDR, for agreeing to the fire bombing of Dresden, which was surely at least as bad as any poison gassing. If all Mussolini had done was gassed some Africans, I don’t think he would have gone down in history as an awful dictator. It’s all the other stuff that makes people dislike Mussolini. And he’s certainly worthy of very strong dislike. And the fact that he gassed a bunch of Ethiopians certainly is another reason to dislike him. But it, in itself, has nothing to do with why he’s a famous “evil dictator”.

By: Dugger

Dugger — Fri, 12 Sep 2003 22:27:07 +0000

A stupid comment from an Italian, BUT how bad was Mussolini? Well, it does depend on who you are comparing him with. If it is against say the Generalisimo or Bela Kun of Hungary, he’s about average, but if it is against totalitarian dictators – he’s not so bad. As a mass murderer he’s not fit to wear ol’ Pol Pot’s jock strap. I’d also say he’s not quite up there with Fidel, who is a mass murderer and been in power much longer. Yet Fidel is loved by Hollywood and a lot of the left wing establishment in this country. Berlusconi must be just a tad smarter than those Bozos , right?

By: ChrisB

ChrisB — Fri, 12 Sep 2003 19:44:36 +0000

Of course it was also Berlusconi who said in the lead up to war in Iraq that we SHOULD fight a war for Western values against Islam. Then again that view sadly seems to be as widely held in some circles as his views on Musollini are not.

By: clew

clew — Fri, 12 Sep 2003 17:13:19 +0000

“If it wasn’t true, it should have been, and more and better besides”!

By: tsquared

tsquared — Fri, 12 Sep 2003 15:35:36 +0000

“This only means that Churchill was not the saint that WWII legends makes him” Churchill once remarked that history would be kind to him; he knew that because he wrote the history books!

By: Harry Tuttle

Harry Tuttle — Fri, 12 Sep 2003 15:35:12 +0000

I’d just like to say that Hitler was, of course, Austrian. Ah, Austria… the country whose primary purpose seems to be attempting to convince the world that Hitler was really German and Beethoven was really Austrian.

By: Henry

Henry — Fri, 12 Sep 2003 14:51:02 +0000

Andrew Thanks for the correction – duly noted. I’d originally translated it as ‘holiday in internal exile,’ and then found that a little wordy, and hadn’t been sure it was 100% accurate – the English speaking press were translating it differently, and I don’t have my dictionary with me in Toronto. Hence the change – but also hence my leaving the original Italian phrase in, precisely in case my translation was still not entirely accurate.

By: Andrew Chen

Andrew Chen — Fri, 12 Sep 2003 13:47:34 +0000

Your translation is still off. “Al confine” means “to the border”, i.e. exile. It has nothing to do with being confined; quite the opposite. Still an outrageous lie, of course.

By: Chris Young

Chris Young — Fri, 12 Sep 2003 12:34:51 +0000

John, I don’t think you’re actually trying to say you approve of using gas in Africa, but will you please stop it! Don’t blame Mussolini because Churchill used gas in Iraq. Don’t blame al Qaeda for the WTC attack because of American backing for the atrocities in Chile. Don’t blame Hitler because Stalin liquidated the Kulaks? Can we all have a five minute moratorium on moral mind games.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 12 Sep 2003 10:38:00 +0000

I’d just like to say that Hitler was, of course, Austrian. Not that it really alters Greg’s point.