Matthew Yglesias (April 21, 2008) - Lega Nord (Politics)

Can anyone translate the poster? I'm too lazy to hit babelfish.

Posted by right | April 21, 2008 5:17 PM

This just in: Europeans are not always more liberal than Americans on issues such as immigration. More on this breaking story as it develops.

Posted by DTM | April 21, 2008 5:21 PM

Looks like Uncle Junior goes to the end of the queue.

Posted by Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey | April 21, 2008 5:33 PM

From my shoddy college italian: "Guess who's last? For your rights: Home, Work, Cleanliness. Regional elections, vote Northern League."

Posted by NSinNY | April 21, 2008 5:34 PM

For such a nice country, Italy's politics seem weirdly screwed up.

Judged by the national politics elsewhere, Italy's not really a country: “We have created Italy; now we have to create Italians" still applies. Tobias Jones and Alexander Stille have written good recent books on the topic.

The Lega Nord is just batshit, though.

[rough translation: 'Guess who's last [in the queue]?' / In rights to home, work and health.']

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | April 21, 2008 5:35 PM

By the way, I am kinda curious who is supposed to be holding the knife.

Posted by DTM | April 21, 2008 5:40 PM

Pseudonymous is right -- I think people tend to overestimate how unified Italy is. Fifty years ago, most Italians didn't even speak Italian that is, a mutually-intelligible language, but instead spoke their regional dialect. A lot of that divided identity is still present, which makes stability difficult.

Posted by Scott de B. | April 21, 2008 5:40 PM

Are they standing in line for the bathroom?

Posted by blah | April 21, 2008 5:45 PM

Are they standing in line for the bathroom?

Posted by blah | April 21, 2008 5:45 PM

Wow, kinda looks like they're almost ready for an Italian northern separatist version of Family Guy.

Posted by El Cid | April 21, 2008 5:45 PM

Perhaps these parties get elected because Italian voters are sick and tired of the leftist-socialist political elite that is ramming a lot of things down their throats. Perhaps the voters are "bitter" and are exercising their rights as citizens to change the direction of the country. I lived in Europe for 11 years and I am here to tell you that the average Joe is fed up with the politically correct, liberal politicians that hand out money and rights to immigrants, illegal or otherwise.

Posted by danceswithgoats | April 21, 2008 5:46 PM

Great ad, though. Really gets across what these guys stand for. I haven't seen anything as honest from our own nativist nutjobs.

Posted by AlanC9 | April 21, 2008 5:48 PM

"Sanita'" means public health, not cleanliness.

Posted by Blorp | April 21, 2008 5:49 PM

Can you imagine anything more horrifying than a sovereign nation enforcing its borders and immigration laws?!!!

If that happened Italians might be able to live under their own culture and traditions rather than converting to Sharia Law as all good westerners should!

Posted by Midwest Yahoo | April 21, 2008 5:55 PM

Matthew Yglesias writes:

There's the famous instability of the governments, of course.

This is a common misconception. The historic problem with Italian politics, at least before the mani pulite scandals in the 1990s destroyed the old order, was that the governments were unstable but the people forming these governments were far too stable.

The 1986 book Italy, A Difficult Democracy by Frederic Spotts and Thomas Weiser describes this:

The Italian political system is like no other Western Democracy. Over seventy parties campaign in national elections and some ten of them sit in parliament, yet one party has dominated the country for the entire period of its republican history. There were forty-five governments in the first forty years after the war, yet no other parliamentary democracy has had greater continuinuty in its leadership and policies. The government changes on average every ten months, yet essentially the same group holds all the important political positions.

...

According to a study by Mauro Calise and Renato Mannheimer, some 152 politicians held two-thirds of the 1,131, ministerial and subcabinet positions distributed between 1946 and 1976. Indeed 31 persons alone occupied 480 such positions during that period. Thus the aphorism that the Christian Democrats are their own alternative government.
(my emphasis)

Posted by ndm | April 21, 2008 6:00 PM

The founder of the Northern League reportedly said: "Garibaldi did not unite Italy; he divided Africa."

Posted by k | April 21, 2008 6:07 PM

Maybe the fact that organized crime represents the largest segment of the economy has something to do with Italy's problems:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/world/europe/23italy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Posted by blah | April 21, 2008 6:07 PM

You nitwits. It's not about "enforcing immigration law" or preventing handouts to undererving stowaways or not submitting to Sharia - its about using crude racial stereotypes and scapegoating in order to gain political power. Which I seem to recall someone else having done in Italy once before. No one objects to immigration policy, for just like every other administrative enterprise a government undertakes it must have defined paramters and restrictions. This poster is not an appeal to the enforcement of immigration laws. Its a base invocation of racism. There is a difference, you know.

Posted by C | April 21, 2008 6:11 PM

You nitwits. It's not about "enforcing immigration law" or preventing handouts to undererving stowaways or not submitting to Sharia - its about using crude racial stereotypes and scapegoating in order to gain political power. Which I seem to recall someone else having done in Italy once before. No one objects to immigration policy, for just like every other administrative enterprise a government undertakes it must have defined paramters and restrictions. This poster is not an appeal to the enforcement of immigration laws. Its a base invocation of racism. There is a difference, you know.

Posted by C | April 21, 2008 6:11 PM

What's the woman supposed to be - Albanian or something like that?

Posted by Al | April 21, 2008 6:17 PM

Al,

Probably a Gypsy

Posted by Eric k | April 21, 2008 6:20 PM

1. The type of grand theorizing inherent in Scott de B and pseudo's comments may or may not be correct, but they're not necessarily very helpful. Plenty of European countries have seperatist movements or confused histories (Belgium? Spain? Scotland? etc). The difficulty is that most current seperatist movements in Europe have leftist tinges - the Scots, Catalans, etc seperatists are mostly left-oriented. It's rare to have a rightwing seperatist movement (Lega Nord) that has completely incoherent, massively muddled yet viciously right politics.

2. One problem is that Italy has a form of politics as a form of entertainment, partially because Berlusconi controls so much of the media. Italian political conversation basically consists of people yelling sort of aesthetic comments about each other (basically, "fucking dirty hippy communist!" on one side versus "fucking capitalist pig!" on the other), rather than any sort of rational policy discussion.

3. The essential problem with Prodi's government comes precisely from the same source why upper-class American liberals love Prodi: he's conventional neoclassical economist with stints at Harvard, Stanford and LSE. What that translates on the ground in Italy to is applying highly theoretical Anglo-American-derived macroeconomics (i.e., vulgarly, neoliberalism) to an Italian economy that bears little or resemblance to that theory. So, predictably, Prodi made no impact upon Italy's generally lackluster economy.

Posted by burritoboy | April 21, 2008 6:20 PM

This just in: Europeans are not always more liberal than Americans on issues such as immigration. More on this breaking story as it develops.

This is both true and false. Most European countries have at least one absolutely vile, race-baiting, immigrant-bashing party. The beauty of it is that they have their own party, and so much of the malign influence of the more simian elements of the national psyche are funneled into the political fringes, rather than into the mainstream political parties (cf. our own beloved GOP). The disadvantage is you get material like the poster pictured above, which is always terribly embarrassing for a modern nation.

Posted by JH | April 21, 2008 6:23 PM

People in Northern Italy have long complained that they worked hard to develop Italy only to see the result of that hard work squandered on Southern Italy. The Northern League politicized that sentiment - the terrone (southern peasants) being its original political target. Its current complaints about foreigners are probably more acceptable politically in Italy as a whole - but I suspect its core political gripe is still with Southern Italy.

Posted by ndm | April 21, 2008 6:23 PM

"Perhaps these parties get elected because Italian voters are sick and tired of the leftist-socialist political elite that is ramming a lot of things down their throats. Perhaps the voters are "bitter" and are exercising their rights as citizens to change the direction of the country. I lived in Europe for 11 years and I am here to tell you that the average Joe is fed up with the politically correct, liberal politicians that hand out money and rights to immigrants, illegal or otherwise."

Whether or not your depiction of the average Joe Europe is correct or not, Average Joe Europe should look more carefully at more serious issues, rather than fake nonsense created by a plutocracy (Berlo isn't an elite? what nonsense!)to distract the populance from the plutocrats' own foolishness and decadence.

Posted by burritoboy | April 21, 2008 6:28 PM

Re: . Fifty years ago, most Italians didn't even speak Italian that is, a mutually-intelligible language, but instead spoke their regional dialect.

This is true in many countries. In fact it's even true in the US, except that our American English dialects tend to be mostly intelligible. However in Germany or France or Great Britain there are major dialectial boundaries such that a person in the south of the country and one in the north cannot understand each other's spoken dialect. What prevents confusion though is the fact that they (and we too) learn a standard form of the language in school, and hear it on TV and radio, and this secondary dialect is understood throughout the nation.

Posted by JonF | April 21, 2008 6:34 PM

Burritoboy,

Yes, of course Berlusconi is a scummy plutocrat, and of course the rich in Italy, as elsewhere, are an exploitative oligarchy. However, that doesn't render the problem of the creeping Islamization of Italy any less urgent.

How would you suggest Italy take steps to preserve its nature as a Christian nation? For my part, I think that disestablishing the church was probably a mistake- Rome is the seat of the papacy for a reason. Encouraging more Italians to return to the Christian faith would do much to ward off the threat of Islamization.

Posted by Hector | April 21, 2008 6:36 PM

It would be strange if Italians were sick of left-wing politicians shoving things down their throat, because right-wing politicians have governed Italy for most of the last 60 years.

Posted by ZD | April 21, 2008 6:36 PM

Plus, the 'average Joe Europe' would probably not think of themselves as a European, instead we'd have Giovanni Italia, or Juan España, etc.

Posted by El Cid | April 21, 2008 6:40 PM

"The legendarily corrupt Silvio Berlusconi"!!!

As opposed to the communists? (excusi - former communists)

didn't the communists control banks and industrial conglomerqates where bribe taking and job buying are the norm?

Didn't the communist's Banco Natzionale de Lavoro (Labor) use their participation in a US Agriculture lending scheme (statism at its best) to provide food purchases to Saddam?

I guess in gliberal land, only someone from the center-right is corrupt, whereas communists and socialists (inherently corrupt) are "free spirits"

Maybe the italians (my people) are a bit more cynical about the left than is young Matt and his readers

Posted by Jozef | April 21, 2008 6:42 PM

How would you suggest Italy take steps to preserve its nature as a Christian nation? For my part, I think that disestablishing the church was probably a mistake- Rome is the seat of the papacy for a reason. Encouraging more Italians to return to the Christian faith would do much to ward off the threat of Islamization.

Posted by Hector

That might work. What might work even more effectively would be for Italy to invent a giant time travel machine and go back in time several hundred years so that it could escape from modernity entirely; of course, it wouldn't be Italy anymore and it's not clear what would be left in its place, but that's at least as intelligent a perspective as your question.

Posted by El Cid | April 21, 2008 6:46 PM

The founder of the Northern League reportedly said: "Garibaldi did not unite Italy; he divided Africa.

I've always thought that was one of the funniest one-liners by a major European politician...

Which is why I've also thought it was pretty funny that America's leading anti-immigrationist politician was Tom Tancredo...

Posted by RKU | April 21, 2008 6:50 PM

Italy is like America - not as much crime, inequality, and corruption, but still much more than in neighbring coutries. Italians rightly have little confidence in their corrupt government, so like American voters, they're easily persuaded by childish arguments for even less government.

Posted by Gary Sugar | April 21, 2008 6:51 PM

You are all missing the point of Italian politics. Italians are quite happy voting for far right/nativist/racist politicians/political parties which reflect their prejudices because they are quite confident that the Italian state and political system aren't efficient enough to put these prejudices into practice.

For example, MY mentions that Lega Nord leaders advocate firing on rafts carrying illegal immigrants. The key point is that the Italian Navy wouldn't be able to hit the rafts from point blank range because they aren't trained properly and their ammunition is defective because of the corrupt manner in which defence procurement works and even if they were trained properly and had working equipment, the conscripted sailors would refuse to carry out the orders because they aren't barbarians.

If Italy were a northern european country, where the state actually functioned effectively, Italian voters would behave in an entirely different manner.....

Posted by Andy | April 21, 2008 6:56 PM

Of course the real reason why Mr. Yglesias doesn't like Sr. Berlusconi is because he is pro-Israel. A pro-Israel politician is automatically a bum in the Yglesias lexicon.

Posted by SLC | April 21, 2008 7:04 PM

El Cid,

I'm not sure that wouldn't be a good idea. Unfortunately time machine's don't exist. If we want to eliminate the worst aspects of modernity we must do so the hard way, through blood, sweat and tears.

You didn't answer my question. How can Italy regain her Christian identity, avoid Islamization, and restore its abysmally low birth rate. I believe that one way to start would be by banning abortion. This is an indispensable first step.

Posted by Hector | April 21, 2008 7:07 PM

It's rare to have a rightwing seperatist movement (Lega Nord) that has completely incoherent, massively muddled yet viciously right politics.

Less rare than before. You mention Belgium, and the Vlaams Bloc / Vlaams Belang's hatred of immigrants is just an extension of its hatred of the Walloons, who they consider grasping and backward. Similarly, the LN thinks that everyone south of a rough line between Genoa and Rimini is a dirty scrounging monkey. That both groups are also generally piss-pants cowards accounts for their choice of substitute targets less likely to beat them in a fair fight.

Italians might be able to live under their own culture and traditions

It is to laugh. There's probably one bit of 'culture and tradition' that you can describe as 'Italian', and that's supporting the Azzuri (or throwing rotten vegetables at them). Two, if you count 'having a fucked-up government' as a national tradition.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | April 21, 2008 7:13 PM

How can Italy regain her Christian identity, avoid Islamization, and restore its abysmally low birth rate.

I believe that it will start the moment you fuck off.

Why not give that a try?

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | April 21, 2008 7:18 PM

How would you suggest Italy take steps to preserve its nature as a Christian nation?

I wouldn't. Italy today is a "Christian nation" only in the very weak sense of having a Christian heritage. A heritage that it has now largely abandoned, and shows no signs of wanting to return to. The threat of "Islamization" is non-existent. The numbers of Muslims and Muslim immigrants are far too small.

Posted by Mixner | April 21, 2008 7:18 PM

Italy's a "nice country"? Italian soldiers devastated Gaul and Iberica, committed genocide against the Carthaginians, massacred Croats, Albanians, Greeks and Ethiopians just 60 or so years ago, gave birth to the Borgias and Napoleon, invented facism, started the mafia, and to top it all Italian soldiers killed Jesus. Just what does Italy have to do to gain America's respect?

Posted by vanya | April 21, 2008 7:18 PM

Yes, Andy's points are pretty funny---but also pretty correct. When one's government is totally and completely corrupt, incompetent, and ineffective, it's easier to vote for "government as entertainment" since it's unlikely to serve any other role. I think there was some Italian study last year that claimed that organized crime had now become the largest sector of the Italian economy.

As for the Islamicization fears of poor frightened "Hector", I just checked, and sure enough, Italy's population is today less than 1.5% Muslim according to Wikipedia. With that sort of starting point, even if all the Muslims had really gigantic families, it would take quite a while for the Vatican to be turned into a Mosque.

Posted by RKU | April 21, 2008 7:20 PM

Basically, 10% to 30% of Europeans, depending on the country, are racists. The thing is that 10% to 30% of the votes makes you a major party in almost every European country, due to proportional representation. This means that a single-issue anti-immigrant party is perfectly viable in Europe, as opposed to the US.

Italy's problem is that left and right are so polarized that Berlusconi needs all right-wing parties to form a government, including Lega Nord. This gives Lega Nord more political influence than its electoral strength warrants, and much more influence than the marginalized anti-immigrant parties in most other countries (France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, etc).

Posted by Laurens | April 21, 2008 7:22 PM

Vanya,

Just to correct some historical errors:

1) The Carthaginians were a demonolatrous culture that practiced human sacrifice of their own children, they deserved to be destroyed as a nation.
2. Napoleon was Italian in a loose sense of the world, and the legacy of Napoleon is very much in debate. His opponents were the Bourbon kings, would you prefer them?
3. There were many French fascists contemporaneous with Mussolini, see Maurras for example.
4. Christ was killed on orders from the Jewish high priesthood, the Romans played a secondary role.

Posted by Hector | April 21, 2008 7:25 PM

I will vote for Obama over McCain. McCain is married to a whore and he wears false dentures. He is not fit to be president.

Posted by Sally | April 21, 2008 7:28 PM

Mixner,

Yes, Italy is not all that religious these days, unfortunately. (Although they do take the teachings of their national church more seriously in some regards than do Americans.) That's why I said Italy needs to _return_ to the Christian faith that she had long ago, that inspired everyone from St. Francis of Assisi to the admirals of Lepanto. Whether or not the Italians _want_ to return to faith is another questions- we want things that are bad for us all the time.

Posted by Hector | April 21, 2008 7:29 PM

In other words, Hector says, screw what the Italians actually want, Hector says they should be Christians. Also, don't forget the Jews killed Jeebus.

Posted by too many steves | April 21, 2008 7:35 PM

I'm not sure that wouldn't be a good idea. Unfortunately time machine's don't exist. If we want to eliminate the worst aspects of modernity we must do so the hard way, through blood, sweat and tears...

Posted by Hector

I cannot believe how blatantly you question the power of Christian capitalist entrepreneurial innovation.

Yours faithfully, Brigadier Sir Charles Arthur Strong (Mrs).
P.S. I have never kissed the editor of the Radio Times.

Posted by El Cid | April 21, 2008 7:36 PM

Hector,

Wasn't the Austrian/Western commander at Lepanto Jewish? As I recall, his mother was one Barbara Blomberg?

Also, the Borgia pope Alexander VI, who for what it's worth was not a believing Christian, was Spanish, not Italian -- although his daughter Lucrezia in fact seems to have been a cultured and decent human being.

Posted by Gene O'Grady | April 21, 2008 7:44 PM

However in Germany or France or Great Britain there are major dialectial boundaries such that a person in the south of the country and one in the north cannot understand each other's spoken dialect. What prevents confusion though is the fact that they (and we too) learn a standard form of the language in school, and hear it on TV and radio, and this secondary dialect is understood throughout the nation.

Quite true, but the process happened much quicker in France and Germany than in Italy. There's a reason campanilismo is an Italian word. A big part of the problem was Italy's poverty and poor educational system. As late as 1951 12.9% of the population was illiterate and a further 17.9% of the population had not completed elementary school and was probably functionally illiterate. In 1940 there were 85,000 university students total out of a population of 44 million.

Posted by Scott de B. | April 21, 2008 7:51 PM

The poster reminds me a bit of Bruce Tinsley, except it's a bit too skillfully drawn.

Posted by jimBOB | April 21, 2008 7:51 PM

Re Hector

"That's why I said Italy needs to _return_ to the Christian faith that she had long ago, that inspired everyone from St. Francis of Assisi to the admirals of Lepanto."

And also inspired the inquisition.

Posted by SLC | April 21, 2008 7:54 PM

OT: Hector is a good example of why the trolls on this blog are a cut above the trolls on other political blogs. He's totally unhinged, true, but in an original and coherent way that's completely different from the standard "loud and repetitive assertion of GOP talking points" approach of your garden-variety internet vitriol-fountain. N.B., Belle Waring.

Posted by James Gary | April 21, 2008 7:57 PM

This is OT, but I wanted everyone to know that Clinton has sealed up SLC's vote:

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Vote2008/story?id=4698059&page=1

Important bit:

Clinton further displayed tough talk in an interview airing on "Good Morning America" Tuesday. ABC News' Chris Cuomo asked Clinton what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons.

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

Posted by Clinton: More Hawkish than Bush | April 21, 2008 8:03 PM

I don't know much about Italy, but my understanding is that the govt is so unstable because there are parties which never belong to a governing coalition, bringing the percentage of the members of other parties needed for a majority well above 51% of the total. Israeli governments likewise collapse often because Arab parties are never included in the coalitions, meaning that Labor or Likud always needed a *lot* of the non Arab parties on board to reach 51%.

Posted by aleks | April 21, 2008 8:06 PM

OT: Hector is a good example of why the trolls on this blog are a cut above the trolls on other political blogs. He's totally unhinged, true, but in an original and coherent way that's completely different from the standard "loud and repetitive assertion of GOP talking points" approach of your garden-variety internet vitriol-fountain. N.B., Belle Waring.

Actually, I don't know that I'd even call "Hector" a troll in any meaningful sense of that word.

Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, he's a South Asian leftist/marxist who greatly admires Fidel Castro but detests "liberalism" to such an extent that he also has great sympathy for General Franco. I'm not sure whether he's actually "Christian", but he's clearly very "pro-Christian" and also fanatically anti-Muslim.

That's really the best part about Matt's blogsite. Poor Matt himself is just a young and not too atypical DC/NYC "progressive", but the commenters he's attracted are a *really* wild and woolly bunch, many of whom conclusively disprove the notion that political ideologies operate along a single degree-of-freedom.

Gene O'Grady: Wasn't the victorious admiral at Lepanto Don John of Austria, who was the son or the nephew or something of the Holy Roman Emperor? Hence, probably not Jewish...

Posted by RKU | April 21, 2008 8:17 PM

As soemone touched on above isn't the fundamantal problem in Italy that the Mafia ha spretty much controlled the majority of the economy forever? The entire economy is basically like the garbage industry in NY/NJ.

RKU, I think Hector is a socialist/catholic who also rejects moderism and is fanatically anti muslim. He seems to basically want a pre-enlightment fuedal society with benevolent Catholic rulers.

I don't think you can call him a troll sicne he actually believes this stuff.

Posted by Eric k | April 21, 2008 8:25 PM

Hector asks:

"How can Italy regain her Christian identity, avoid Islamization, and restore its abysmally low birth rate?"

Well, step one would be Italians actually wanting to do those things. I don't see much evidence of that, especially the low birth rate.

Which is presumably why he wants to jump straight to coercion - banning abortion to force the birth rate higher. I can respect principled opposition to abortion, but not Ceaucescu-ism. Good luck with that political program, Mullah Hector.

Yes, the Christian faith inspired many great Italians through the centuries. You might want to look up "inspiration" in a good dictionary. It seems not to involve force.

Posted by Dave L | April 21, 2008 8:28 PM

Is there some sort of subliminal inferiority complex at work in the cartoons' heights? The (I assume) decent, hardworking Italian barely comes up to the shoulder of Osama. Even Baba Yaga-with-a-baby is taller than he is, and the Romani are not noted for their height.

It's decidedly odd.

Posted by heedless | April 21, 2008 8:34 PM

How can Italy . . . restore its abysmally low birth rate.

Indeed, how can one expect Italians to have sex and procreate with so many funny-looking foreigners running about?

Posted by My Alter Ego | April 21, 2008 8:34 PM

This election was quite sad, I think. I could go on and dispute some points made above, or trying to be wittier, but I am just sad.

The Italian are the libertarian / utilitarian wet dream. In Sicily, everyone knows that the mafia is a cancer holding back the island. But the individual voter hopes to get something from the current order - job, getting at the top of some queue- and wait for the others to take the collective meaningful approach.
This time, two days before the vote, Berlusconi made clear he was the candidate against the anti-mafia, to put it gently, with the intent to signalize where the vote had to go. Just check comments of Berlusconi o Dell'Utri about Mangano before this election.
And the sicilian voters were happy to oblige. 67% for the coalition of Berlusconi.

To despair from the democracy.

Posted by disperato | April 21, 2008 8:43 PM

RKU --

Without looking it up (I'm pretty sure) Don Juan of Austria was the son of the most Catholic emperor Charles I&V and his Jewish mistress Barbara Blomberg. I'm glad no one has commented to defend the piety of Alexander VI!

My point, in case it was not obvious, was that Hector was being a little silly, and, more significantly, that the genius of the Italians, which sadly seems to have fallen on bad times since we were stranieri there many years ago, is to finesse a lot of the stuff that Hector gets dogmatic about.

And if you're looking for a villain, you might try the anti-family antics of Karol Wojtyla rather than dogmatic pro-lifeism.

At any event, it is very sad to me that the kind of stuff I used to watch Giorgio Almirante spewing on TV is now part of the government.

Posted by Gene O'Grady | April 21, 2008 8:44 PM

"Hector is a good example of why the trolls on this blog are a cut above the trolls on other political blogs. He's totally unhinged, true, but in an original and coherent way that's completely different from the standard "loud and repetitive assertion of GOP talking points" approach of your garden-variety internet vitriol-fountain. N.B., Belle Waring."

Seconded. This blog really does have the 'best' trolls. Looking at his other comments, Hector seems to be sort of a Christian Democratic-type, critical of capitalism and secularism, which is sort of interesting compared to the binary positions we usually have in America. Also, as someone pointed out on a different thread, it's funny to note the difference between Matt's measured, detached tone and the foaming-mouth rage-fests you sometimes see in the comments.

Posted by Waingro | April 21, 2008 8:48 PM

Hector, the vast bulk of Europe (including italy) is not in danger of islamization *provided* that leftists and the business elite isn't allowed to ratchet up immigration numbers, as a lot of them sorely want to (periodically some report comes out on how Europe needs 100-150 million more immigrants by 2050). But a limited number of urban areas in northern/northwest europe actually need an immigration moratorium to prevent islamization (even though I don't even know how sub-regional immigration moratoriums would be possible).

I don't consider Hector a lunatic for being concerned about islamization, because leftists and business elites make proposals of drastically ratcheting up immigration that would greatly increase the probability of exactly that happening.

Posted by scottynx | April 21, 2008 8:53 PM

Also, another argument for why the european islamization hypothesis of Hector’s and Mark Steyn’s isn't quite as ludicrous as it seems is that the bigger the immigrant/minority voter population gets, the greater the possibility for leftists/business elites to build a coalition with them for ratcheting up immigration, which could lead to a positive feed-back loop.

For instance, as Matthew Yglesias has mentioned: (http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/02/captain_amnesty.php), growing hispanic voter populations will soon make immigration restriction in the USA an electoral near impossibility. Indeed, many politicians even woo Hispanics with proposed immigration increases, such as the past comprehensive reform bills. This would increase the hispanic voter population further, and would thus increase the constituency for politicians to woo with even more immigration increases. Rinse and repeat. US census bureau projections into coming decades are thus probably way too low. The same dynamic could happen to Europe with muslims as well.

Posted by scottynx | April 21, 2008 9:05 PM

In 1994, this picture began to change. Candidates for Silvio Berlusconi's "good government" coalition campaigned actively in southern Italy denouncing the excessive power of investigative magistrates and the damage done to the regional economy by organized crime investigations. "We will vote for Berlusconi," Giuseppe Piromalli, a boss of the Calabrian criminal organization called the 'Ndrangheta, declared in open court. And after Berlusconi's coalition won virtually all the Sicilian seats in parliament, a Sicilian mafioso was overheard on a police wiretap saying, "Beautiful, all the candidates my friends, all of them elected."

The center-left parties deserve an important share of the blame as well; they cooperated with Berlusconi and his allies in reforming Italy's penal code in ways that have made it much more difficult to attain convictions in Italian courts. The trial of the biggest racketeering case involving the Camorra took more than seven years—and the appeals may last seven more. (Because all Italian prosecutions allow two levels of appeal after the trial, cases drag on.) By contrast, under Italy's old penal code the Palermo trial of four hundred mafiosi that started in 1986 took only a year and a half.

This difficulty in getting convictions did not happen by accident. Many Italian gangsters operate on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Berlusconi has been—and continues to be—under investigation on a variety of criminal charges. It was distinctly in his interest to limit the power of the magistrates. "Berlusconi in order to resolve his problems has to resolve ours," one convicted Sicilian boss lucidly explained in a wiretap.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21261

Posted by blah | April 21, 2008 9:09 PM

Re James Gary

Actually, we have some real characters who comment on this blog and provide comic relief at times.

1. SLC - Apply Hama Rules to the Gaza Strip.
2. Don Williams - Hiam Saban runs the world.
3. Richard Steven Hack - I didn't have a round up the spout when I stuck up the bank.
4. Trevor - Has an orgasm every time Amadinejad threatens to remove the State of Israel from the map.
5. Hector - Mr. Gary et al already characterized this character.
6. Petey - Matt Yglesias is a spoiled brat living on daddys' handouts.
7. Yglesias - Last but not least the man who provides plentiful fodder for everyone to chew on.

Posted by SLC | April 21, 2008 9:11 PM

That's why I said Italy needs to _return_ to the Christian faith that she had long ago

Er, the question of yours I quoted was "How would you suggest Italy take steps to preserve its nature as a Christian nation?"

You can't "preserve" something that's already gone. It's wonderfully ironic that the home of the Catholic Church has one of the lowest birth rates in the world.

Posted by Mixner | April 21, 2008 9:16 PM

Fifty years ago, most Italians didn't even speak Italian that is, a mutually-intelligible language, but instead spoke their regional dialect.

They still don't. The only place I understood people without problems was in northern Tuscany. An Italian priest I from Brescia know commented that, "well there they speak Italian."

I really think it's interesting to compare Spain with Italy. Notwithstanding the nastiness that you find between the PP and PSOE in Spain, the nation has managed to forge a fairly successful nation thirty years after the end of a brutal dictatorship, whereas sixty years after the end of a brutal dictatorship, Italy is still foundering.

Let me second pseudonymous in nc's book recommendations. The Sack of Rome is solid writing and gripping. I read half of it on a long flight. The Dark Heart of Italy is a more personal sort of account, but an excellent book.

Posted by Randy Paul | April 21, 2008 9:29 PM

So, we've got a bona fide Kahanist, Sailer boy and his neo-white supremacist acolytes, and now a gaggle of batshit Gates of Vienna types?

Fuck that shit.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | April 21, 2008 9:29 PM

So, we've got a bona fide Kahanist, Sailer boy and his neo-white supremacist acolytes, and now a gaggle of batshit Gates of Vienna types?

Fuck that shit.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | April 21, 2008 9:31 PM

"Also, another argument for why the european islamization hypothesis of Hector’s and Mark Steyn’s isn't quite as ludicrous as it seems is that the bigger the immigrant/minority voter population gets, the greater the possibility for leftists/business elites to build a coalition with them for ratcheting up immigration, which could lead to a positive feed-back loop."

Or maybe they could stop treating brown people like shit. A lot of immigrants and minorities, both Muslim and non-Muslim, are just fucking pissed off at the racism they get all of the time. The stuff my cousins deal with in Britain is just sick. After 9/11, a dark-skinned person was more likely to be the victim of a hate crime in the UK than in the US (you know, where the attacks actually took place). When you are given no real chance to integrate yourself into the local population, of course you are going to become alienated and look for other forms of community and identity. It does seem rather telling that the historically-Christian countries that treated Jews the best (such as Denmark, where the King wore the Star during the Holocaust carried out by the Nazi occupiers) tend to do a better job integrating immigrants and minorities while countries with really ugly histories of anti-Semitism (Germany, France, etc.) tend to do this poorly.

Posted by Reality Man | April 21, 2008 9:41 PM

Re: And if you're looking for a villain, you might try the anti-family antics of Karol Wojtyla rather than dogmatic pro-lifeism.

???
In what way was the late Pope anti-family? I didn't agree with any number of positions them an held, but I don't see how he was anti-family

Re: [the] growing hispanic voter populations will soon make immigration restriction in the USA an electoral near impossibility.

Why? The Hispanic voters are people who are here legally and have obtained citizenship through legitimate channels. Just like the Italians, Jews, Slavs, Germans etc. 100 years ago. We had no trouble choking off immigration in the 1920s despite the huge immigrant and immigrant-descended population. I don't see why that couldn't happen again. On the other hand it won' happen with politicians like Tancredo etc. preaching an anti-Hispanic message rather than an anti-(illegal) immigrant one. If the restrictionists stuck with an economic/political argument they might make headway. Instead they always devolve into crude racialist cant and that poisons their cause even with many white poeple.

Re: US census bureau projections into coming decades are thus probably way too low.

Hispanic birth rates fall off with succeeding generations. So probably not. The wild card of course is the rate of illegal immigration.

Re: The same dynamic could happen to Europe with muslims as well.

That's a different situation. America and its Hispanics do assimilate, if by that we understand that assimilation is a two way street: the larger culture absorbs Hispanic elements just Hispanics absorb American culture. In Europe Muslims generally remain ghettoized, which by the way is a reason Muslims are political nullities in Europe (and also because it's much harder to gain citizenship in most European countries than here). To the extent that European Muslims do gain any political foothold in Europe it will be through assimilation, and so far that only seems to occur with very wealthy Muslims, like the Fayed clan in Britain. The rest of "Eurabia" seems fated to remain an alienated underclass for the foreseeable future.

Posted by JonF | April 21, 2008 9:46 PM

Alex Massie jumps in with an extended and I believe, correct, assessment of the political situation in Italy. He titles his post: "Italy: Screwed-up but not as screwed as you think."

Posted by ndm | April 21, 2008 10:03 PM

"In what way was the late Pope anti-family? I didn't agree with any number of positions them an held, but I don't see how he was anti-family."

I would consider covering up child molestation to be a bit anti-family.

"We had no trouble choking off immigration in the 1920s despite the huge immigrant and immigrant-descended population."

It's much easier cutting off immigration, legal and illegal, when they get here by boat than when you share a long land-based border. We seem to do a better job turning back boats filled with illegal immigrants from South Asia than we do patrolling a rather long landmass in the desert that has tunnels underneath it. What immigration restrictions we do have just create a black market for people. If the professional immigrant bashers like Tancredo and Dobbs were serious and not just racist wackjobs, they would push hard for ending our agricultural subsidies. Such a plan would get a lot of support from a lot of the cosmopolitan left and right, the very people in support of increased immigration, thus making such a plan politically viable. However, a lot of immigration restrictionist politicians also like farm subsidies, which just underscores their unseriousness.

Posted by Reality Man | April 21, 2008 10:08 PM

Gene O'Grady:

Without looking it up (I'm pretty sure) Don Juan of Austria was the son of the most Catholic emperor Charles I&V and his Jewish mistress Barbara Blomberg.

Taking a quick look at Wikipedia, Don John of Austria was indeed the son of Emperor Charles V and his mistress Barbara Blomberg. But there's no indication that she was Jewish or even from a once-Jewish family. For example, she later entered a convent, and was eventually buried at a monastery.

Anyway, that period was long before the Eastern European Jews adopted Germanic surnames or had their huge population explosion, so I'd guess that most European Jews back then were Sephardic, whose family names were completely different. I'd guess that "Blomberg" would have been as un-Jewish a name back then as "Smith" is today.

Posted by RKU | April 21, 2008 10:24 PM

The easiest way to restore a more powerful Christianity in the hearts of Italians would be to require the Catholic liturgy of ca. 1670.

Posted by simeon | April 21, 2008 10:25 PM

Matt: off topic, but please write about Hillary's dangerous posturing on Iran and even nuclear war. She is literally proposing a new Cold War in the Middle East.

One may surmise that Hillary wants to "preemptively" go to war against Iran like Bush did with Iraq. She is singing the same tune as Bush did, only now bringing nukes into the equation.

Here are some quotes on other blogs:
"Move the doomsday clock forward if this is seriously part of her foreign policy plan."

"THIS is the kind of statement that the media needs to obsess over."

Posted by cm | April 21, 2008 10:25 PM

How can Italy regain her Christian identity, avoid Islamization, and restore its abysmally low birth rate. I believe that one way to start would be by banning abortion. This is an indispensable first step.

Hector, allow me to suggest the next steps:

2. Mandatory hair-shirts;
3. A few million gallons of castor oil;
4. Reinstatement of the rack and public burning of witches.

ndm:

People in Northern Italy have long complained that they worked hard to develop Italy only to see the result of that hard work squandered on Southern Italy. The Northern League politicized that sentiment - the terrone (southern peasants) being its original political target. Its current complaints about foreigners are probably more acceptable politically in Italy as a whole - but I suspect its core political gripe is still with Southern Italy.

Yes, the really odd thing about the Liga Nord from the American perspective is that the nativism and racism that is associated with Red states here is strongest in the equivalent of the "blue" states in Italy -- the industrial North. It would be like folks from NYC and Boston and Chicago building a politics about hating Southerners sponging off their urban productivity, and then winning power by displacing that hatred onto immigrants.

And that woman in line, who is supposed to be a Gypsy, I think, could also be seen as a poor southerner.

Posted by Pesto | April 21, 2008 10:51 PM

Pesto, there's plenty of racism in the South of Italy. It's not visible simply because immigrants tend to go to the North where the opportunities are. I think most Americans are aware that there's plent of nativism and racism in "Blue" states as well - since when has Boston been a symbol of racial tolerance? (or Chicago for that matter.)

The woman in line does look like a gypsy, but maybe she's supposed to be an Albanian/Yugoslav. In my experience during the 90s the Albanians were perhaps the number one most hated immigrant group in Italy.

Posted by vanya | April 21, 2008 11:55 PM

"Christ was killed on orders from the Jewish high priesthood, the Romans played a secondary role."

Only if, by "played a secondary role", you mean "were the ones who actually killed him". But as a Christian (a convert, I'd guess, by your zeal) you ought to be happy that Jesus was killed by the Romans: had he lived to die of old age, your religion wouldn't exist.

Posted by Chaim | April 21, 2008 11:56 PM

fascinating comments thread. Some of the commenters understand quite well Italian politics, others have absolutely no clue.

As a 1/2 italian who spends and has spent a fair amount of time in Italy, I'll just throw out random comments:

1) This is the first time the Lega Nord has achieved real power. It will be fascinating to see how they exercise it. I trust that if they do anything truly wacky, there will be a reaction which could bring down the government. Of course, there is always the potential of minor wackiness which avoids provoking this level of reaction.

2) Italy has a serious, serious problem with immigration. It is much, much worse than in the American west/southwest. For one thing, Italy is a peninsula. You can't even erect a wall. It's the first place the immigrants can land. Some eastern European countries - like Romania - are even actively encouraging their poor and unemployed to leave for Italy.

Secondly, these immigrants get treated quite well, beyond the standards of humane treatment. This poster Matt shows plays on prejudices but underscores a basic truth; many Italians see that these immigrants have more rights than they do. Italy has a quite generous welfare state and these immigrants take advantage of it, enabled by politically-correct bureaucrats who bend WAY over backwards to extend rights and benefits to people who are not only not paying into the system, but often engage in criminal behavior.

Thirdly, many of these immigrants are not even looking to work; they come to Italy to engage in thievery, prostitution (sometimes forced prostitution) and other criminal behavior. This is quite unlike Hispanic immigrants who often come to the US to find work, not simply to steal from the locals. That's not to say all of the immigrants to Italy don't work; I've always seen the Somalians as hard-working street peddlers; the Asian immigrants are very hard-working, in fact Italians dislike them because they work TOO hard... and many Peruvians come to Italy to work as domestics ( my grandmother had one).

Fourthly, there isn't even enough work to go around for the Italians. Imagine how an out-of-work Italian would feel, seeing on TV camps full of these immigrants getting fed and getting health care while he has to wait in a long line at the local health clinic just to get treated for a cold or fever.

Finally, Italians are not reproducing and they are disturbed by the changing face of their country. Italians have not seen their nation as a melting pot, unlike America. In general it bothers them that the face of their country is changing and becoming much more heterogenous. Accustomed to hating those people who live in the village down the road, they are now turning their hatred upon those people who have differently-colored skin...

3) Italy is suffering from a tremendous economic malaise and as far as I am concerned, they largely have only themselves to blame. The unions are TOO strong; just look at the current stories about Alitalia. Nobody wants to buy the national carrier because the union doesn't want to make any meaningful concessions and the airline has far, far too many people on its payroll.

You can hardly fire anybody in Italy; it's fair to say workers have too many rights. So people complain but nobody wants to give up their pretty good deal. Because practically nobody can get fired (particularly if they have a good union standing behind them), the companies are uncompetitive. Customer service sucks in Italy; there's a sense of, 'nobody can touch me so I can do whatever I want'. The grocery store cashiers get to sit all day and they can be surly as hell. More than one Italian friend told me, 'you can't get a job here without kissing some minister's ass'. (minister in the sense of a government official, not a church official)

4) You have no concept of government bureaucracy until you've dealt with Italian bureaucracy. Oh, the stories I could tell. The political system is incredibly corrupt and there doesn't seem to be any way of changing it, short of burning the whole thing down and starting over. It is certainly possible to 'work the system', which is largely predicated on knowing somebody who can help you get things done. Otherwise the bureaucracy is truly an impenetrable maze and if you are an average citizen with no special friends, you are hopelessly fucked.

If they ever translate the book La Casta ("The Caste") into English, I highly recommend that you read it, Matt. The perks which Italian politicians enjoy - from the Parliament right down to the mayor of a local village, which one of my close relatives is - is mind-blowing. It is truly an industry unto itself and it exists only to hand out patronage and contracts to cronies. Any good it does on behalf of the people is purely coincidental, it would seem. I've been told by many Italians - on both sides of the ideological divide - that the government is the enemy of the people and exists to prey upon them more than it does to help them.

5) People bemoan the Mafia in Italy, but if any individual person could benefit from a Mafia connection, they would surely take advantage of it. Two-facedness is not a vice in Italy; it's considered a virtue and to be expected. Saying one thing loudly in public and acting completely contrary in private is so common it's unremarkable.

6) Hector is an idiot. Italians turned away from religion precisely because they endured centuries of the church being closely entwined with the state, corrupting both. There's a lesson or two to be learned here for right-wing fundamentalists, but of course they are all xenophobes and would learn nothing from the experience of Italians because they are decadent Europeans and we are Americans so of course there is nothing to be learned from Italy's experience of demolishing the wall between church and state.

7) Prejudice is nothing new for Italians. When an Italian asks another, 'di dov'è Lei?', it's not an idle question like it tends to be in the US; Italians form instant judgements - some very harsh - depending upon where the other person was born and what his/her last name is. Florentines hate the Sienese and vice versa; people from Lombardy look down their nose at those from Campania, particularly the Neapolitans. Don't even get them started about the Sicilians. It is commonly remarked (as it was upthread) that the only time the residents of the peninsula truly consider themselves Italians is during the World Cup every four years. This snobismo extends even to the local villages around a central city. It's really remarkable. Yeah, Los Angelenos make cutting remarks about people in Riverside but that is really not even close to the way Italians are about these matters. The Volterrans, for instance, have never forgotten the brutal way the Medici crushed them over 600 years ago and that enmity towards Florentines exists to this day.

8) Hating Muslims comes naturally. After all, many centuries ago they faced the threat of invasion from the Moors, back when the Church still held powerful sway. Even though the Italians are largely agnostic or just go through the motions of Catholic observance, they still remember the old hatreds.

Don't get me wrong, I still love Italy and my Italian heritage. It's just that, being this familiar with the way they are and the state of their country, it makes me feel very fortunate to be an American. It's easy to see why they remark upon us as being an optimistic people, and it's easy to see why they are not so.

Phew. That's enough for now.

Posted by r€nato | April 22, 2008 12:13 AM

That woman in a peasant dress in that poster is most certainly a 'gypsy', or zingara. Rom is the PC way of referring to them. They are a tremendous problem; they live exclusively off begging, thievery and prostitution; they are not afraid to commit murder. This is their culture. As I pointed out above WRT certain eastern European immigrants, they are not interested in doing honest work, unlike Mexican migrants in the US.

This is not idle xenophobia; I've seen plenty of examples of this with my own eyes. Back in the 70s and 80s, the major tourist cities like Rome and Florence were rife with them. It's a wonder the tourism survived, when inexperienced tourists had a pretty good chance of being mugged or having their pockets picked by a gypsy, and good luck getting the cops to give a shit about that.

Posted by r€nato | April 22, 2008 12:24 AM

"Hector is an idiot. Italians turned away from religion precisely because they endured centuries of the church being closely entwined with the state, corrupting both. There's a lesson or two to be learned here for right-wing fundamentalists"

Hector may be an idiot, but he's no right-wing fundamentalist -- he's actually a leftist.

Posted by Chaim | April 22, 2008 1:00 AM

It is worth observing that even though Lega Nord did relatively well in the recent elections it failed to match its electoral achievements of the mid 1990s.

In the 2008 election 8.1% of the electorate voted for the Lega Nord in the Chamber of Deputies and 8.3% voted for it in the Senate. The equivalent figures for the 1996 election were 10.1% and 10.4%.

I guess we should be thankful for small mercies.

Posted by ndm | April 22, 2008 1:03 AM

Or maybe they could stop treating brown people like shit. A lot of immigrants and minorities, both Muslim and non-Muslim, are just fucking pissed off at the racism they get all of the time.

Interesting that you equate "brown" with Muslim. The term
caucasian was invented to refer specifically to an entirely muslim
region.

The stuff my cousins deal with in Britain is just sick. After 9/11, a dark-skinned person was more likely to be the victim of a hate crime in the UK than in the US (you know, where the attacks actually took place).

Well, the largest minorty in the UK is Indian Hindus and they face
almost none (comparitively, vanishingly small) discrimination relative to the Pakistani Muslims. But then Muslims are the ones blowing up london subways and buses and trying to invoke sharia law in the UK so I don't think I really blame the UK at all...

Posted by foo | April 22, 2008 2:55 AM

Lega Nord

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