>"James Heartfield" <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> said:
>
> > Chris Doss asks about the reputation of despots in their own country,
> > amongst whom 'Mussolini in Italy'?
> >
> > I can't speak for Italy, but on a visit to New York in 1980,
> > I remember
> > going to Little Italy, where pictures of Mussolini still hung in
> > delicattessans (sp.?) and barbers' shops.
>
>I grew up in the immigrant Italian community in New Haven, late 40s -
>mid 50s.
>
>The father of my godmother, an old man then afflicted with palsy, would
>sit for hours on the porch, and every now and then shake his head sadly
>and say "Italia, she's-a no more. Mussolini, he's-a dead." Then he would
>
>tap the porch floor with his cane for emphasis.
>
>John
very different attitude from my in-laws in northern italia who lived through mussolini and WW II. they loath the man and his fascists to this day. they hated his pompous, arrogant posturing; his narcissism. his vain, irrational fantasies about an italia that didn't exist; his betrayal of the italian "democracy;" the way he tortured and killed his enemies. they hated the way he got italia into a pointless war against its WW I allies.
most of all, they loathed his coziness with hitler and the way he brought the nazis into the country; that was the crowning blasphemy. they were not displeased at all when the milanese communists hung him upside down and filled his body with bullet holes.
R
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