The proverb says that lies have short legs, but as Giovanni Sartori wrote a few years ago, in Italy they have very long legs because, as Sartori said, the truth is unacceptable here since even the public television service, namely RAI, is gagged, which enables Berlusconi and his henchmen to lie without fear of being caught out. We know that everyone tries to pass off the odd lie, but in a place where the public television is truly independent, lies have very short legs while here in Italy they have very long legs indeed. There is no way to establish the truth of what is broadcast on our television..
Genuine lies
However, it’s enough to simply wait awhile because a few days, months or even years later, the lies are eventually revealed as such. The problem is that even then no one ever really finds out precisely what happened because we are never told how the story ends, so we make some examples, also because lies are no longer just stories about invented facts served up as the truth, or about genuine facts manipulated and used as propaganda, but lies are also where someone uses the wrong word to define something, in other words, when things are no longer called by their rightful name, but rather by another name in order to sidetrack public attention.
Just the other day in Florence, at a conference organised by “Libertà e Giustizia”, Former Constitutional Court President Gustavo Zagrebelsky quoted a few examples of what he called “neo-language”, a language that has taken root in Italy since the boss of the television services also became the boss of the Country’s politics, as well as the economy and everything else. In the end, he even became the boss of words so that, in the end, we all began to speak like him, no longer paying any attention to the meaning and the properties of the words, which naturally became grist for the mill of the regime liars who re-coined the meaning of terms such as taking to the field, love, hate, liberty, the Italians’ party and many others that we could mention. These are terms whose meanings have been re-invented or bent out of shape in recent years to take on different meanings in our vocabulary. It’s sufficient to think about all of the linguistic fraud surrounding the war, which was called a “peace mission” while our soldiers were busy dying. So when we undertake a “peace mission” and our soldiers start dying, then we have to call the soldiers heroes, even thug, in reality, they are not heroes at all because they never did anything heroic, they were simply there, doing their duty and getting killed because of it so, in actual fact, they were victims, not heroes, but victims of what? Victims of peace? No, they were victims of war, and therein lies proof of the fact that once you have lied once, you are then forced to continue lying in order to maintain the illusion.
I would like to begin by looking at what happened last night on Milena Gabanelli’s debut edition of the “Report” programme, and how the whole episode was handled by a number of newspapers. If you want a good laugh, just take a look at today’s edition of “Il Giornale”, whose headline reads “The Public Prosecutors’ investigation that nailed Fini, the Monte Carlo apartment, the Monegasque magistrates and the Roman magistrates: the residence was worth one million, more than three times the actual sale price, which now makes it extremely difficult to archive the matter. A leaked report from the Principality ends up on the Antilles and attempts to pass off Berlusconi as the President of the Chamber, which, if it weren’t for the fact that this appears to be a legitimate newspaper because it looks just like all the others, would be a real hoot. “Report” should have stuck to Monte Carlo and simply repeat the same things that we have already heard a million times before instead of going to the Antilles where, not Berlusconi’s brother-in-law, but Berlusconi himself owns a number of villas, having cemented over an entire promontory and a bay and having spent around twenty million to do so. Twenty million that went through we know not whom, because we don’t know to whom these companies that are busy building this gigantic tourist resort belong and, above all, we don’t know who all is involved in this famous, or rather infamous Arner Bank, whose Milan branch office is currently under investigation by the Milan and Palermo prosecutors due to suspected money laundering activities. This Arner Bank is the one where Berlusconi hold current account No. 1 and where the Italian Central Bank has already reported potential money laundering activities involving certain funds, part of which, according to the prosecutors, belong to none other than our very own Prime Minister himself. Thus “Report” has finally set the record straight and it now turns out that this is not a case of Berlusconi’s brother-in-law being suspected of renting or owning a 55 square metre apartment in Monte Carlo that was sold to an offshore company by Alleanza Nazionale, but Berlusconi himself owning a number of villas registered in the name of certain offshore companies linked to one specific offshore company that no one quite knows to who is behind it and that is, above all, using money moved through a bank suspected by the Milan and Palermo public prosecutors of being involved in money-laundering activities. Obviously one would now expert “Il Giornale” and “Libero” to immediately begin gathering signatures calling for Berlusconi’s resignation and to publish 60/90 front page articles followed by campaigns on Tg1, Tg2, Tg5, Studio Aperto, Rete 4, Panorama, etc. But no, instead we know that nothing will come of all this.
Instead, they continue to dredge up the story of the little apartment in Monaco rather than raise their sights from the brother-in-law and for a change to start taking a look at our Prime Minister, who is fully occupied in the offshore world and in every Caribbean tax haven known to man. What is also interesting is the fact that an “independent” newspaper, namely “La Stampa” of Turin that belongs to the FIAT Group, also carried this news that was reported by “Report” but was preceded by yet another controversial bit of news, namely that Attorney Ghedini was demanding the precautionary censorship of this television programme and threatening legal action without even waiting to see what it contained, so much so that Ms. Gabanelli candidly stated: perhaps you should watch the programme first and then, by all means, take us to court, but how can you take legal action even before we go on air?
(www.beppegrillo.it)
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