odradek

@VORTEX: looking at it this way, I'm quite in agreement, on some points absolutely in agreement (tactical tool/lifeboat), it would be worth going into detail but it would open up a vortex, precisely, which I withdraw from due to lack of energy and clarity (I was still working and can’t wait to get home) and then, perhaps, I simply can't manage to handle it... But I need to take back that "it seems to me that you still see them." Your thoughts seem definitely more articulated. - Now I'm off, as it's getting late in the evening. Bye.

@ANFOXX: yeah, I saw. Reading some of your comments, I realized we're roughly the same age. I'm sorry. I don't know why I pictured you as a young sprout. I think one agenda for our meeting could be a "sociality" understood also as an anthropological curiosity about the possibilities and outcomes of being human. And the other is the sad realization that the treble hasn't produced any further results and that we'll have to get used again to the old makeshift Inter put together haphazardly every year through the ages. Amen. @DOSANKOS: "Berlinguer, I will never tire..." I know. Why are you saying this to me?

@ANFOXX: Yes, very far apart, it seems to me. But, despite being old and a bit naïve, I hold such presumption that I believe we wouldn’t be for long. In fact, I think (and this statement is also the result of pure presumption) that you "adhere" to a political view more as a "reaction" to what you find unacceptable (communism, its history, populist rhetoric, etc.) rather than as a result of your own personal worldview from which to derive a political analysis and a consequent practice. It’s a bit like choosing a side in a defined context of alignments, which is where we seem to be. I believe especially those who are young should decide to create that side, to determine a new context. Otherwise, this is fed. And this is deadly.

@ANFOXX: I also believe that the page and the comments, perhaps even mine, contain an excess of rhetoric. Your quote is undoubtedly effective: denying the serious responsibilities of the PCI's attitude towards the USSR is a symptom of a guilty "shame" when it does not reveal a blindness determined by the will not to see, which has produced and continues to produce disasters. However, to assert that, in a situation like that of Italy in those years, the human and political figure of Berlinguer can be compared to that of many others, and among them even to Almirante, seems to me simply unsustainable. This is what I believe the page was concerned with: the funeral of a man, that man, not the justification of a party's strategy and political practice and its entire history. If that were the case, I certainly would not endorse it. I believe, however, that a more in-depth and detailed documentation of the nature of Soviet history would be beneficial, especially for young "communists": not to abandon every ambition, but to fuel it. Because knowing in detail the atrocities of the Soviet regime is essential for a redefinition of the political action of those who do not resign themselves to the idea that this is the best of all possible worlds.

@ Vortex: well, it seems to me that the substantial difference between austerity and sacrifices continues to elude you, judging by your response. I mean that it was an overall indication, as I believe you can glean from the posted text, of an attitude towards the real, the possible, the desirable stemming from an analysis of existing and foreseeable scenarios, in a phase of overall transformations of societies and capitalism in its various forms. That this analysis has not led to adequate strategies, nor has there been a redefinition of the tools and "apparatuses" with which to face these transformations is beyond doubt. That, as Ferretti said (I held him in esteem and still do, just to clarify), it wasn’t possible at the time to "see" that side of the person (of Berlinguer) in the proposal, is equally true. That one continues to refuse to see it now is incomprehensible to me. The reference you make to your own people, declaring that austerity was already imposed on you and your children, leads me to think you are indeed referring to "sacrifices": sacrifices that, without an overall redefinition of thought and political action in terms of "austerity," have not been sufficient for you, nor for your children. So much so that these dishonorable little men, these petty figures that the present offers us, are precisely the ones extolling new sacrifices, against which the figure of Enrico Berlinguer (let’s be clear, Vortex, I was hunted by PCI militants during the "years of lead," and certainly not because I was a fascist...) stands tall like a titan. This is why I posted, on this page, Lindo's letter dedicated to him: because it seems to capture well my own perspective on a world irreparably gone, through which I passed with the impulses of a youth that could not "see" things differently than how, it seems to me, you continue to see them. Today I find it very difficult to discuss what happened between '76 and '82 with those who survived among my comrades from then. Because, apart from those who continue to deny reality in the name of an irreducible and crystallized vision of the world and themselves (which lives only thanks to a dryness that consumes them, disguised as coherence), the others have no more words, truths, or certainties. But I would venture to say they too would long for an austere dimension of political action, as I do. However, I fear, given the trends of history, that it is pure utopia. But I prefer it to others, including those that involved me 30 years ago or so. Bye.

Enrico Berlinguer
Secretary of the party
We could not write to you while you were alive; there wasn't the time to listen to you, and you couldn't be understood. All we have left is to pay you homage now, after your death.
We are human, women and men, flesh, and hardly anything more; as humans, we know the charm of trivialities and can measure greatness only after funerals have taken place. Which death today could evoke the same feeling of unity, of "people," the same tears? What about the question "and now?" What artist, politician, designer, athlete, industrialist, celebrated in life, would be equally revered in death?
Perhaps many, because condolences, like best wishes, are free.
The organ of your party, then, referring to the attendance at your funeral, titled "EVERYONE." And it was true, absolutely true.
I remember you in a photo shaking hands with Fidel Castro. Him: beard-mustache-hat-military uniform-belt-gun-ironic smile. You "restricted" – light blue suit-white shirt, overshadowed by Castro's "expanded" presence. How could you attract me? Yet you did. In passionate, rebellious times, you managed to provide me with the dose for my -unlimited- need for humanity. You, uncomfortable on a stage or in front of cameras, almost crushed by the weight of your grey coat, labeled as sad, serious, measured. I would have made the Revolution (forgive me...) to hand you to yourself and finally see you Smile.
It would have taken much less, but back then, I couldn't know.
If the man's allure was strong, the political idea seemed inadequate; for those of us who needed earthly absolutes, how could "Historic Compromise," "Austerity" resonate?
Used to very different slogans, the idea of alliances could not help but seem hostile. "Austerity? But he has an island in Sardinia!" Indeed, the island... As big as the living room of his detractors, finally a lifeline for those who could no longer find juicy inconsistencies in his character. Austerity? We wanted everything and immediately, and they gave it to us. We wore colors and sounds to exorcise a future of knick-knacks and townhouses, but it wasn't enough.
We had abolished Time, only to find ourselves with two watches on our wrists and always running late. And that’s all that is left to us, Austerity, not to save the world, but our condition of being human, we, Europeans, privileged in the world. And if Austerity as a political indication (of Great Politics: that which deals with the relationships between men, the community, the countries) has been opposed especially by those who should have supported it, as a CONCRETE INDICATION OF LIFE it is the only one feasible here, now.
Here is Europe, wanting to speak of itself, but having lost its words after squandering them, and some of us find ourselves alone in front of the institution that invented Europe, tore it apart, made it unlivable, and then lost it. The sins most practiced at the summit of the church, to which Pope John and Pope Paul had courageously and painfully unaccustomed us, are arrogance towards God and little mercy towards men, not the powerful.
It seems that everything is returning to how it was before, but it cannot be true. There’s no going back."
Text contained, if I'm not misled by a leaky memory, in the LP "Affinità e divergenze" by CCCP.
It surprised and pleased me then, as it does today.
It wasn't "sacrifices," Vortex, it was "austerity." There is a substantial difference. It's a pity it often escapes notice.

still bed

you that I didn't have

to find others

I hope