re all,
I've subscribed this mailinglist and lurked for a while now, initially hinted by a mail forward of a text I've sent to nettime about the Italian political crisis, then kept hooked for the conscious prose, informative contents and progressive attitude here.
FYI, with apologies would any cross-posting occur, here below an update from Italy that might interest you too, also posted elsewhere: I'm looking forward to any comments and criticism, as it seems there isn't much we can expect from other announcement lists.
thanks for all your mumbling and best wishes for the Gregorian 2010
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I'm spending these days in Italy during holedays and once again I can't resist to write up some reflections and impressions, mostly digging into the large quantity of press, parliamentary inquiries and discussions, media carnage, strange memories and half words whispered on italic streets.
Just some days ago the episode of Massimo Tartaglia, the man who targeted the face of prime minister Berlusconi using a statue of Milano's Cathedral as projectile, had a huge impact on worldwide media.
To understand what is happening, the consequences of this media storm is necessary to keep our considerations simple, our feet on ground, especially considering the large quantity of elements found. Let me first use an anecdote, as recalling it helps a lot in establishing a track for the interpretation of what happened:
Milano, navigli, summer of 2008, 3AM. Hanging at a bar table for a
last drink with a good old friend, congratulating for his recently
started PhD in theology, dressed decently for the occasion, his
British girlfriend looking gorgeous. Last exchanges, pubs closing,
cops on the street controlling no robbery takes place in this
delicate moment of the night. I turn around talking to the last
client besides us, mostly to hide my envy look at my friend and his
girlfriend - let's blame the spirits and the late hour.
The last client doesn't takes any orders, doesn't smells of alcohol,
but speaks southern dialect which makes us closer. My hair are
freshly cut and I must be sympathetic to him, so after a few jokes
on our common southern heritage I invite him for the last round and
he tells me not, since he is an "undercover" agent, also here to
watch over the pubs closing. My comment: "dangerous job!".
He feels important and decides to let loose. To get the best out of
the situation I'm trying to look admired, as I'd like to serve the
police and be such a hero. So the guy tells me he once did something
very dangerous: he was the bodyguard of Mr. Berlusconi. My eyes
wide open. I act surprised. Inside me I wonder if he is phishing
for some compromising comment.
He smiles, I stay silent, He blinks the eye, looking to me like I'd
be the one making him a favour, then whispers "...believe me, if
someone would have thrown him a stone while I was in service, I
would have dodged the blow and let it land on his face".
Back to December 2009, Berlusconi's broken nose has a huge significance on screens and prints worldwide, betraying that well studied brand of a powerful and successful man, like Mussolini with an added media-aware smile, the same premier who was recently smiling at the G20 in pictures with Barack Obama, the 73 years old daddy gossiped to practice fisting with his young escorts, now bleeding from his nose in Mondovision.
Like in a spectacular rite of catharsis - but not just that.
Mr. Tartaglia (his name literally translated in "stutter") appears as a town's fool hanging around the Duomo of Milano: he has no political affiliation, no leaflets were found in his pockets and bag, which besides the statue of the Cathedral contained just some plastic and metal scrap, a crucifix in chalk and a big piece of Quartz crystal.
Regime commentators react to the episode quickly and massively: "Tartaglia is a fool," they say while his father states that he has shown signs of mental insanity since he was 20. In this media picture Tartaglia became a stuttering hero for many facebook netizens who are now massively identified at an unprecedented quantity, while he is finally depicted by the Power as transparent as the crystal he carried: he is absolved by the regime because he is just reflecting the "unacceptable hatred" circulating in the Italian society against Mr. Berlusconi.
The episode reminds us when USA president Ronald Reagan risked to die in 1981, at the beginning of his mandate, shot by the hand of John Hinckley, who was then ruled innocent for reasons of insanity[1]. But while the outcome of Hinckley's trial raised huge criticism, as many claimed it is too easy for juries to return "not guilty" verdicts in insanity cases, the dynamic unfolding from this recent attempt of a spaghetti assassination is well different.
Also in our case, with a huge celebration of Piety, the guns are turned away from Tartaglia; nevertheless they stay armed and ready to fire on a new breed of terrorists: the "moral responsibles" of this aggression, the so called "media terrorists". The blows are redirected against two political targets: state television journalists Santoro and Travaglio; at the same time a larger attack is moved against freedom of speech on the Internet, a political target for a State whose ties with Mafia are documented at astonishing details right in these days[2].
Arguably this is a variation of the well known "strategy of tension[3]" frequently adopted in Italy, signed by ambiguous[4] bomb attacks which immediately preceded and followed this episode.
Even from an orthodox point of view it's reasonable to think that the security apparatus set to defend a high state official cannot be pierced by a town's fool throwing a souvenir statue at him. This ridiculous situation opens the discourse to all kinds of ridiculous considerations, with the result of distorting it.
Discussing esoteric references in the symbolical communication happening between the devices of Power and Glory[5] can be extremely confusing, while a dangerous manipulation of the "common sense" of most citizens is in act - and the target of this manipulation should be the ultimate focus of our analysis.
After all, Berlusconi's bodyguards were employees (or most likely precarious workers...) of a private society: they weren't public agents, a fact that precludes us from having a neutral account of what really happened, as well poses a theoretical dilemma on the nature of the Italian State and the strained relationship between its current Government and its department of defence - a topic far beyond the scope of this text[6].
So, following with our hypothesis, what would be the target for this media manipulation? It seems to be attacking another standing point in libertarian philosophy besides freedom of speech: the right to avoid being diagnosed for medical ailments and to reject treatment.
The institution of a "Therapeutic State", as defined by psychiatrists Franco Basaglia and Thomas Szasz in 1963[7], is something truly convenient for Berlusconi's government in its current stage; but while in the past Bush jr. lead this blow in a top-down fashion[8] and with the alliance of drug companies, the Italian media tycoon now uses his amplified channels of information to affect the public perception on the concept of "mental illness".
Berlusconi's controlled media, with a massive coverage on the Italian territory, depicts Tartaglia's mind as weak and potentially dangerous, since it can be affected by evil thoughts. While the de-subjectivated body that follows evil thoughts is proclaimed innocent (a pious tribute paid to Christianity) an educated exercise of criticism is regarded as a source of degeneration, a seed of evil.
Not only all those that are psychologically weak can be manipulated by the means of "media terrorists" as Marco Travaglio, the judiciary journalist appointed of being moral responsible of what happened, but the open media-sphere in its entirety, with social networks as Facebook on the first line, are sources of "moral corruption" incentivating violence in the minds of fools.
Berlusconi's self declared "freedom's party" political coalition formulated a dangerous interpretation on Tartaglia's case which has seen no opposition in the Italian Parliament - a place where left parties seems to be already drugged since long. It is an interpretation which taints the popular perception of freedom: "mental illness" is an inherently incoherent combination of a medical and a psychological concept, but popular because it legitimises the use of psychiatric force to control and limit deviance from societal norms.
To conclude let us raise a warning about the target of this maneuver: it opens up a new front against an important reform of the Italian mental health system, the law number 180 made in 1978 that established the abolition of the mental health facilities, the so called "Manicomi".
At last, just while writing this mail, something more happened: Susanna Maiolo's aggression to the Pope of the Catholic Church, an event that we believe of different nature if compared to Tartaglia's case, still presents analogies in the way the aggressor is presented and treated on the media; but while it adds urgency to our analysis, ingenuous conspirationists are satisfied by depicting all this as a battle between super-heroes.
ciao
[1] see The Trial of John Hinckley by Douglas Linder, 2002
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/hinckley/hinckleytrial.html
[2] The recently founded daily newspaper "Il Fatto Quotidiano", to
which also Travaglio contributes, published the so called "hidden
interview" made with assassinated magistrate Paolo Borsellino by
Fabrizio Calvi e Jean-Pierre Moscardo in 1992
[3] see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_of_tension
[4] recent fake terrorist letter sent to Berlusconi's newspaper was
written by his newspaper's journalist http://ur1.ca/gjgz
[5] As described by Giorgio Agamben in "Il Regno e la Gloria"
[6] In a dossier titled "To spy and to hit" recently published by
newspaper Il Fatto is told how, between 2001 and 2006, Berlusconi
used Italian secret services to serve his own interests: to
control or corrupt journalists, to spy on judges and all kinds of
activists and political adversaries.
[7] The collaboration between government and psychiatry results in
what Szasz defines as a system in which disapproved thoughts,
emotions, and actions are repressed ("cured") through
pseudo-medical interventions
[8] "Bush’s Brave New World" by Sheldon Richman, 2005
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0411b.asp
- -- jaromil, dyne.org developer, http://jaromil.dyne.org
GPG: B2D9 9376 BFB2 60B7 601F 5B62 F6D3 FBD9 C2B6 8E39
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