Italy Is Buzzing About Berlusconi's Sentence... But That's All, Just Buzzing

Maybe it's because I'm in Italy so often-- or maybe because my all fresh vegetables tomato sauce is so amazing-- but everyone has been asking me what's going on with neo-fascist multi-billionaire Silvio Berlusconi. First the good news: Thursday, the court of last resort for the old crook said his conviction for tax fraud and sentence (four years, already reduced to one) will stand. He can't participate in electoral politics for the next six years. Now the bad news: the 76 year old Berlusconi will never see the inside of a prison. He'll probably be confined to his sumptuous palace in Rome (Palazzo Graziolo) with an ankle bracelet. More people in Italy are talking about whether or not the judges were prejudiced than about the proven corruption Bersulsconi of the specific case-- especially on the right. Many rightists-- especially wealthy ones, who are virtually all tax cheats too-- see him as a martyr.

But in terms of the coalition government, in which his PDL party (Freedom Party), which he owns and funds, is a major participant... there's a good chance nothing changes in the short term. The Democratic Party-- as vapid and cowardly as the American Democratic Party-- isn't even likely to end the coalition they have with Berlusconi's party! The Democrat's Prime Minister, Enrico Letta, wants to hold onto power too much to break the coalition with the fascists.

PDL lawmaker Gabriella Giammanco said: “Berlusconi remains our undisputed leader, despite an unjust sentence that pains us profoundly.”

Berlusconi, in a televised address following the verdict, on Thursday, said he will re-launch his original political movement, Forza Italia, and urged Italians to elect it to parliament, but did not make any direct reference to PDL’s association with Letta’s government.

Nitto Palma, who served as justice minister in Berlusconi’s cabinet, said the ruling would not have much impact on the ruling coalition.

“This sentence will not affect the Letta government, which was created to serve the country and which will continue to serve it as far as we are concerned,” Palma said, after a meeting at Berlusconi’s residence in Rome, according to Reuters.

Some observers say that internal differences in Letta’s own party pose a greater threat to his government’s stability, as many PD lawmakers are displeased with their party’s association with Berlusconi’s party and could now turn against the prime minister.

The other day we talked about the racism on display in Italy through the extreme right, Northern League, basically, a component of the Italian version of the GOP, but the news out of Italy isn't all negative. Sicily elected a gay governor, Rosario Crocetta-- and not just gay, but anti-Mafia as well... which is even more shocking.

Of the last two men to sit in Sicily’s palatial governor’s office, one is up on criminal charges and the other is doing hard time. Enter their successor, Rosario Crocetta — the unlikeliest politician ever to govern Cosa Nostra country.

Back when he was mayor of a coastal town plagued by mob violence, Crocetta took on the dons, combating the ingrained practice of pizzo, or forced protection payments, while helping put hundreds of gangsters behind bars. His anti-mafia revolution led crime boss Daniele Emmanuello to call for his assassination, with police subsequently arresting a series of mobsters for plots against his life.

Since winning the governor’s job nine months ago, Crocetta has taken his crusade island-wide, kicking a hornet’s nest as he strengthens anti-mafia laws and takes aim at the cronyism, waste and corruption that turned Sicily’s treasury into the gift that kept giving. But to get this far, the 62-year-old former Communist with a penchant for sea-blue spectacles first had to tackle another powerful adversary: masculine stereotypes in Italy’s macho south.

“I’m homosexual, which I call a gift from God, and no, I didn’t hide it one bit!” he said, dangling a lit Marlboro and rearing his head back in a raucous laugh. Talking about his successful campaign for governor, he said, “the fact that I’m here is almost inconceivable. Even I’m surprised.”

...[I]n Italy-- the only major nation in Western Europe without any form of legal recognition for same-sex couples-- a gay candidate, Nichi Vendola, won the governorship of Apulia, in the Italian south, seven years ago. Despite still deep resistance in Italy to gay-rights laws, Vendola easily won reelection and is now a national kingmaker on the Italian left.

And yet Crocetta’s win in Sicily — a conservative bastion of the Catholic Church, machismo and the mafia — has left even Italian gay rights advocates flabbergasted, upending conventional perceptions of Italy’s south as less socially progressive than the more prosperous north. In fact, when measured by the number of openly gay regional presidents (the position officially held by Crocetta, which is roughly equivalent to that of a U.S. state governor), the south is ahead of the north by a score of 2 to 0.

“Having Crocetta in Sicily is like having an openly gay man elected governor in Alabama,” said Ivan Scalfarotto, a member of the national parliament and a Milan-based gay rights advocate. “But the most telling point is that his sexuality became a small detail for voters. This was about what he had done” against the mafia.

In Sicily, Crocetta’s sexuality has courted less controversy than other aspects of his political persona. His harshest critics call him a grandstanding populist with a flair for the dramatic who will stop at nothing to score political points. Decorum is also not a quality he seems to highly prize. Last month, he showed up at a World War II commemoration ceremony more than an hour late, then piqued the ire of the visiting U.S. dignitaries by saying Allied forces had destroyed his family home. He was playing to his leftist base, his opponents say, when he temporarily suspended construction of a U.S. military satellite dish citing a possible health risk.

...Armed with a cabinet that is dominated by women and includes ethnic and sexual minorities, Crocetta has canceled tainted state contracts, appointed an anti-mafia judge to head a major public procurement department and pushed a law to aid witnesses to mafia crimes. He has also opened channels of communication with the national prosecutors office in Palermo that officials there say have led to the opening of 20 probes.

He has a 24-hour security detail, and a strategy for protection that involves frequently changing sleeping arrangements. His largest task so far, he said, has been unraveling a maze of millions of euros in misspent funds and bad state deals left by his predecessors.

...Like President Obama on the issue of race, Crocetta is caught in the vortex between those who see him as too gay and those who see him as not gay enough. He authorized the use of public funding for this year’s Gay Pride festival in Palermo, and became the first Sicilian governor ever to attend it. But he has not put gay-rights laws toward the top of his agenda. He said he personally supports gay marriage, but “Sicily is not ready for all this.”

My friend Frank LaLoggia is filming Miro/Mirando in Italy, where he's lived for 8 years. They sure look ready to me!


MIRO MIRANDA 30 sec TRAILER from Plancton Studio on Vimeo.