Stoney

A mortal boredom.

So, to summarize all this nonsense in two lines: the ideological position of Paparazzingher is that there is ONE God, ONE Truth, ONE way to seek it, and ONE way to see reality. And by a fortunate coincidence, these coincide with: the Catholic God, the Truth of the Church, the Catholic religion, the doctrine of the Catholic Church. Very interesting.

"Well... this 'Panzer Division Marduk' (which, by the way, makes me hungry)". GENIUS.

@Geb, if once workers were aware of themselves as a class and had a consciousness of their social weight, it was also thanks to thinkers, intellectuals, and politicians who spread and supported a certain ideology. One does not have a group consciousness without referencing a movement, an idea, an association to identify with, like a party, for example. It seems to me that today the left is washing its hands of representing this for the millions of angry, frustrated precarious workers that exist in Italy: it has other priorities. This is why far-right ideologies and xenophobic political populism are managing to prevail.

@Iside, it's true, but try to view it from the perspective of someone who is truly furious, absolutely livid. Thinking that it's populism is a "step" that comes later, it's a thought process that follows the instinctive anger. You do it, I do it, but many, too many, don't want to do it, and I somewhat understand them. After all, I have a family to support, I'm getting by, I can still afford to browse the internet, read various sources, inform myself, and have the time to think. But what about those who only have time to be angry? Try telling those who come home late at night after 10 hours of work in an office or factory that they need to be reasonable, that immigration shouldn't be fought with xenophobia; go tell them that Berlusconi is facing trials and that it's "immoral" for him to lead our nation, and you'll see how they respond. The victory of populism is just the tip of the iceberg. It's nothing more than the expression of repressed anger that has built up over decades, which the left, in its disgustingly narcissistic self-importance, still hasn't bent down to understand. Of course, it's too little intellectual, this approach... And so it ignored the change that was in the air, continuing to educate its descendants from atop its intellectual respectability, dressed up as "culture" and "civilization" that is 50 years old. These leftist theorists don't know a damn thing about how people live, they don't know a damn thing about how workers live in factories, nor do they care about the middle-aged people who vote for the PD, all nice and cozy tending to their little gardens, oblivious to whatever happens outside their own little plots. If the right's populism is what it is, then it derives from a sentiment that was once "sacred" to leftist ideology: class anger, which has been sold to the opponents, who have turned it into a banner, in exchange for a public image of a "good" and "moderate" left, "open to dialogue" and especially who no longer eats children. Nice move. And so now in the factories there's the Lega Nord stirring up the crowd and promising revolutions, and the younger folks are drawn to the allure of far-right ideologies. I, who am not yet so angry and not extreme, wherever I look, I find no one who speaks my language; at most, I have to settle for people discussing rulings and statutes of limitations, collusions, "escorts" (not even having the courage to call them "whores"), or how Santoro and Travaglio guarantee a pluralism of opinion. That's the best that today's leftist ideology can offer. What a sadness.

@Matacà. I believe that the average Italian doesn't care about the legal past of this or that minister, or the prime minister, because they have much bigger problems to deal with. Personally, I am disgusted by a left that has to reduce itself to hoping for scandals involving "escorts" to discredit its opponents, and I'm disgusted by any journalist who still tries to twist the knife in this wound because they haven't realized that it's not a wound at all. Don't you understand that the only ones who care about these matters are those who are already doing fine on their own, who can afford to pontificate on idealistic things like morality and institutional correctness in front of their TVs at home for amusement? People don't care about who the prime minister is sleeping with, for Christ's sake, they have bigger problems, like work and the future. And as a matter of fact, you and I both have them. To give one example, consider the issue of immigration. Would you let an unskilled immigrant take your job just because they cost less than you? How demeaning would that be? How psychologically frustrating, aside from being a serious economic threat to your wallet? And if we don't want to drag immigrants into this, let me share a personal experience: walk into any public administration office and see how people work in there, who have guaranteed fixed salaries and unassailable positions, those who will retire in ten years: chit-chat, coffee breaks, entering a couple of data into the computer, printing a document, calling technical support because they don’t know how to move an icon on the desktop. And the tech support is provided by a 30-year-old guy who might have a degree and is responsible for the entire IT network, but he's working on a project basis and earning 1200 euros a month, risking not to have his contract renewed for reasons that often have nothing to do with his competence. In the evening, the employees will return home to their wives/husbands, while the 30-year-old guy invites the "young lady" to hook up in his car. Do you understand the anger? Do you get it, or do we still want to talk about misinformation, assuming that people vote for Berlusconi and Lega Nord because they are ignorant? Throughout all this, I still believe in the "left," but not in the one represented by Bersani and Franceschini; I mean an ideal left, which, however, seems further and further away from becoming a reality as time goes by. It will take a lot of water under the bridges before a political formation is born in Italy that can truly understand what it means to be left-wing in this era.

To say that the situation in our country is attributable to misinformation is only half the truth, stemming from a very superficial attitude. Of course, there will always be the easily impressionable voter, or the simpleton who believes the fairy tales of a populist government, but generalizing this to more than 50% of Italians, who, by the way, continue to confirm their political preferences for the past 20 years, seems a bit too much to me. Believing that Italians are a herd of cattle poorly grazed by news programs and TV shows is a misleading and arrogant attitude. The truth, however, is that this famous 50% knows very well everything there is to know, long before people like Travaglio started their work of revealing verdicts, schemes, collusions, and they vote knowing who they are voting for. I believe no Italian can claim to be unaware of the behind-the-scenes of modern politics now, and yet most of them continue to consistently reiterate a precise choice without showing the slightest willingness to change. I think we can no longer find refuge in a corner by explaining the current moral and political drift as a result of collective stupor; it's too simple, too simplistic.

The vote...

When it comes to Star Wars, there's no point in trying to give an objective judgment; otherwise, it wouldn't be Star Wars. I experience the thrill of the Star Wars films with a true nerd's fanaticism, and I’m proud of it, so for me, it will always be a full 5 for all the episodes, regardless of any reasonable argument.

I quote comment number 6.