Perhaps I’m getting bigheaded, but I want to write to George Bush.

“ Open letter to George Bush.

I’m just a comic and you are a great president at the head of a great and powerful nation. Furthermore, you are also a great friend of our former President of the Council with whom you have many points in common: the Atlantic vision in place of the pacific one, great riches, the exportation of democracy with or without weapons, the personalisation of politics.
Allow me, very humbly, to ask you for an account of your behaviour in relation to Italy and the Italians.
Prodi has won the elections. Heads of State of many nations and the President of the European Community have sent their congratulations to him.
You are almost the only one who hasn’t done this.
And, in this situation, our former President of the Council does not recognise the election result thanks to your support.
You continue to not recognise Prodi as the legitimate winner, elected in free elections.
They were elections managed by the Minister of the Interior as a member of the Government in power.
They were elections in which voting went on according to a liberticida (liberty killing) election law guided through Parliament by your friend and in this case, your voice as a defender of democracy has not been heard.
You are not showing yourself to be a friend of our country and you are probably not even acting in the interests of your country.
If you don’t recognise Prodi, why should Italians recognise you? I believe and hope that your behaviour is simply a temporary institutional distraction. If this is not the case, Italians should ask themselves a few questions.

Why should we allow American Military Bases to be in our country?
Why should we tolerate the presence of American atomic weapons at Ghedi Torre, Brescia and at Aviano, Pordenone?
Why should we allow CIA agents to move around our country as though they were visiting your great ranch in Texas?
Why should we provide finance to a country that at this moment is hostile to us by buying American products, eating in American chains, supporting American companies in Italy?
I’m sure the Italians will know how to find the answers.”

Vik (guerrilla radio)
italian blogger from Milan

Posted by Justin ·

As has been said above, then he’d own those sources, also.

Now, since the obvious move is to remove as many sources from Berlusconi’s control as possible, will you support that?

While I’m generally one to give knee-jerk agreement to Lord Acton’s dictum, I’m not sure that this is really true in this case. The BBC doesn’t seem to me to ever have been a tool for the British government (indeed, I think that Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell and company would be rather surprised to hear the state-owned media described this way).
Now, private media tycoons on the other hand …

yeah, cause then berlusconi would buy them, and all would be well.

But that’s just what it looks like from a distance – no doubt, in traditional Italian style, there are all sorts of arcane twists and turns involved.

The logical thing to do is privatize all media sources. I mean really: do you want the government providing your news? It is bad enough that the government provides our educations.

If only that were true.

Not just an agent—he was a major general in the military intelligence and the head of their operations in Iraq. Clientelism and the rest of it, sure, but it says something positive about the political culture that someone of that rank would put himself at risk that way. Can’t imagine an American doing it.

(The fact that you’re taking the course implies an opinion anyway. It’s like when you call the pizza place to see if they’re open. “Can I help you?” “You already have.”)

All his segments are filmed with him sitting at a (his?) kitchen table talking about the way a Weberian bureaucracy failed to flourish in Italy but was usurped by “clientalism” and looking like he’s about to start crying.

(Or did you want sensible comments?)