Really? It seems a bit of a non-sequitur to me. Granted that Berlusconi's repression was severe, I think that the anti-globalisation movement was not smashed. I would have said that the anti-globalisation movement was somewhat patronised by Europe’s political leaders (and also by Bill Clinton). The movement was rather wrong-footed by the Al Qaida attack on New York, which it found it difficult to relate to. But later many of the same people were active in Europe’s mass anti-war movement that pretty much wrecked the reputations of George Bush and Tony Blair.
Also, it is a bit cute to call Nick Davies the journalist behind wikileaks. Surely Julian Assange and the wikileaks team were behind wikileaks – which Nick Davies and the Guardian simply copied into their newspaper. Nick Davies was behind the press campaign to expose Assange as a rapist. Perhaps that was what you meant to write.
There’s no doubt that Berlusconi is the biggest horse’s ass in Europe. But Europe’s leaders have been dumping on him for years, the better to avoid their own flaws.
European leaders pursued a policy of expanding demand through easy credit and Keynesian pump-priming rather than address their own painfully modest levels of business investment. That policy is now in tatters. But let’s not talk about that when we can all have a laugh at the orange buffoon instead.