“Once there was the Republic!”
(… for the series: the privileges of the caste, including that of traveling late on a tourist bus… )
Background
Last Thursday Simona Bordonali, the good colleague who carries out the essential role of classroom delegate with scruple and dedication (the person who keeps colleagues updated on the progress of classroom work, so that they can be present in crucial moments), had us warned that at Fiumicino deputies could once again pass through the staff gates. I had happened to do this in the past, but in fact Fiumicino is a rather efficient airport, if compared with other European airports, so unless there are very crowded days I go through the usual gates. I therefore did not realize that the ability to pass through the staff gates had been taken away from us: I noted with interest that it had been returned to us.
Yesterday
The fact is that yesterday I had more luggage than usual, I didn't have priority or other trinkets (then one day I'll understand why), and so I went straight to the staff gate so as not to waste time (let a plane never leave on time! It doesn't happen, but it does happen…).
Of the two staff lines only one was working, I'll tag along and pass.
Once the operations were completed, a police officer asked me: "Excuse me, but why did you pass through here?" Me: "Because I'm a parliamentarian and they told me I can do it, but if it bothers me I'll go the other way!" Him: "It doesn't bother us, but someone needs to tell us, because for a few days many of your colleagues have been passing by here but no one has warned us!" Me: "If I can help, maybe we'll report it. Who should notify it, the ministry?" He: "No, the ministry has nothing to do with it, it must be said to Aeroporti di Roma." Me: "I'm sorry, I can't help there, I will report to the deputy commissioner." Him: "Once upon a time you could pass through here, there was also the symbol of the Republic on the gap."
Me: "Once upon a time there was the Republic!".
He smiles.
Goodbye and onwards to the cattle car, amidst delays and people who don't wash (we have already stigmatized the hegemony of the fiatella in Parliament , but air transport also gives its satisfactions…).
And the moral of the story is…
…that the Republic has been obliterated by the grilling, and that there will be no recovery from this mortal blow, there will be no turning back from this situation, until something happens that induces voters to strongly desire democracy, because, as you know :
Just to clarify, benign uncorrelated myocarditis are evidently not enough, judging by the fact that the reaction of many is to attack those who tried to defend them. As I have never hidden from you, unfortunately the (heavy) breathing of History teaches us that democracy is rediscovered when the Chichijima effect comes into play, described here :
You will understand that today the children of the rich are no longer on board torpedo bombers, but behind the joystick of a drone (actually not even there, but that's another matter), so the possibility that someone, by pulling them down, opens a debate on distribution of income (and impact on the benefits of protecting parliamentary representation of class interests) is much more remote. Short of a nuclear conflict, I confess that I don't see what system disruption could bring us back to the top of the inclined plane.
Yet, what is happening is quite clear. Take the ESM for example. Why isn't it passing? Because here the parliamentary majority is against it. I remember when a good Brussels official told me: "Here they are afraid of only one thing: that in some country a strong and cohesive parliamentary majority will oppose them."
And therefore Parliaments are needed.
And it is here that we understand the role of the orthoptera, or, as Claudio says, of the grillanza. The hatred of representatives for their representatives, anti-parliamentarism, is a constant in Italian politics. Fascism was anti-parliamentary, the Everyman was anti-parliamentary, the Orthopterans are. Capital knows how to recruit legions of useful idiots, and obviously it is no coincidence that when parliamentarians had the distinguished privileges of being in a decent number, of being able to afford a staff, and of being immune from the initiatives of the current illegal holders of the political direction, the workers had the distinguished privilege of increasing remuneration in real terms, despite an out-of-scale inflation, as we have documented several times :
denying the nonsense of information operators and idiot savants of various backgrounds.
I'll put it another way: the race to the bottom is wanted by those who should have less interest in wanting it, because it starts from further down. Do I blame the voter? No: I make him responsible. I have always said these things, or rather: not said (we understand each other). Continuing to (not) tell them now obviously doesn't put me in a conflict of interest.
History finds its balance: only a progressive can imagine that it is enough to say "never again" to prevent the rebalancing from being traumatic. This doesn't make it any less necessary, and with all the good will that each of us invests every day to avoid living in too interesting times I doubt we will be able to avoid it. I give you this quick, and not particularly original, reflection from the cathedral of the new Pharisees:
and I close, because, due to a strange paradox of history, the EU which wants to electrify everything in a world where biology is dominated by water (which does not have a good relationship with electricity) has forgotten to put sockets in benches of parliamentarians, a bit like what is done in any member state.
And this already explains why we must hold on to national states…
This is a machine translation of a post (in Italian) written by Alberto Bagnai and published on Goofynomics at the URL https://goofynomics.blogspot.com/2023/10/una-volta-cera-la-repubblica.html on Wed, 25 Oct 2023 09:05:00 +0000. Some rights reserved under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license.