A video is circulating in Italy showing an armed policeman abruptly interrupting mass celebration in a small northern italian town in the Lombardy region, ordering the priest to stop the celebration immediately and dismiss the attendees. The priest refuses and goes on with mass, telling the Carabiniere that he has only 13 attendees at mass well distanced between each other and each wearing a mask. The priest will be later fined 680 EUR, and each attendee 280 EUR, all for violating current government measures against public gatherings due to Covid-19.
Never mind the policeman was totally ignorant of the Italian Penal Code which states (art.405) that anyone interrupting religious rites within a public area or public edifice (a church in this case) may be facing imprisonment up to 2 years. Never mind art. 19 of the Italian constitution which specifically protects freedom of religion, and religious rites. The current Italian government, arguably the worst in recent and remote Italian history, has dropped any possible mask of decency and respect of at least fundamental laws such as the Italian Constitution which – theoretically – should be above any other law of the land.
This episode is just another Orwellian scene anyone would have dismissed as impossible only a short time ago. Italians are quickly becoming accustomed to nightmarish scenes they could very well be the plot of a trash horror movie, such as an Army convoy carrying away corpses from the worst affected areas to be cremated elsewhere and without a funeral (and especially without autopsy) to drones and helicopters hovering above a lone walker along a beach or a public park, to police threatening and handing out fines to anyone caught outdoor “without reason”.
Reason, logic, decency and common sense have all gone out of the window, and in a span of time no one could have imagined only few months ago. The main moral authority you would have expected at least to question the implementation of insane measures has quickly abdicated to its role. The catholic church has in fact quickly taken measures that in most case even went beyond what public authorities asked, shutting down churches, masses and funerals, no questions asked. And, such as the case of the priest who insisted in celebrating mass, quickly dismissing him as a rebellious and inopportune outcast.
On top of all this, the current Italian government, a.k.a. La Junta, indeed reminding us of a south American military junta that has hijacked power with a coup. Call this coup as you wish, Pandemic, Covid-19, the Virus, whatever. Civil liberties have been suspended even way beyond sheer medical necessities and reasonability, far worse than any other country in Europe. Today’s Italian governments seems a replica of a puppet government set up by foreign powers, just like it was in 1943, after Italy was split in two governments, one in the south in the Allied occupied zone, and one in the north in the German occupied zone. No one has elected this government, its ministers, the PM, the deputy ministers. They belong to a strange coalition of former archenemies that became –overnight – like old time chums for the sake of sharing power.
M5S (Movimento 5 stelle) and the PD (Partito Democratico) were at each other’s throat before this new government was formed in 2019 in what evidently was a typical commedia italiana. Now they get along very well, not only politically, but also, what a coincidence, geographically. Other than a few ministers and deputy ministers, most members of this government are from southern Italy, including PM Conte. The overwhelming majority of them have no prior working experience of any kind other than being a politician since early age.
After an endless array of new measures and restrictions, more often than not contradicting each other, and in open violation of constitutional laws, the government finally imposed a national lockdown as of mid-March, when it was too indeed too late, as thousands of people from all over Italy had the time to return to their towns and villages from the worst affected area of Italy, Lombardy. The fact that the pandemic did not actually spread – other than few isolated cases – to southern Italy was a blessing, as it could have been a disaster of biblical proportions given the fact that the public health care system in the south is notoriously below decent standards, at least below capacity to face such an emergency.
Hapless, better yet hopeless, Italy’s current minister of public health, Roberto Speranza (whose last name means literally hope) is a fitting example of how this government works. With a degree in political science and no experience whatsoever in the medical field, he named a team of (so-called) experts led by another expert who claimed to be a member of WHO, among other medical honors and achievements.
But only few days ago the World Health Organization (WHO) felt compelled to issue an official statement in which formally dismisses Dr. Walter Ricciardi, the ultra-expert wanted by the hopeless minister, not to be a member of WHO, warning that his opinions “should not be associated” with those of WHO. In fact the guy is a former B-series actor in little known Italian movies, but a degree in medical hygiene and the right political connections earned him a high reputation post such as director of ISS (the Italian National Institute of health) until 2018, when he resigned after an enquiry exposed his collaborations (while director of ISS) with pharmaceutical companies, and his efforts to make mandatory a vaccine against meningococcus B which proved to be completely unnecessary.
It doesn’t take a degree in political science to notice that this is a government made up of pathetic Quislings, whose only preoccupations is to keep their (lucrative) posts as long as possible by following the orders imposed to them on a daily basis from Bruxelles, or Berlin. When other countries offered their help such as Russia, despite statements of warm gratitude by most of the local authorities most affected by the virus, updates of the Russian teams operating in northern Italy virtually disappeared from MSM. This happened after La Stampa, notoriously a leading pro EU establishment daily from Turin, expressed open doubts about Russia’s “real motivations” for being so generous with Italy.
Everybody agrees that the restrictions imposed on Italians and their civil liberties are not just draconian: they are senseless even from a basic medical standpoint, officially implemented to curve the spread of the virus, but in reality to destroy the morale and the will of people. Why is that so? Because the worst is yet to come. The will and resolution of Italians must be broken in order to usher in Greece-style cuts and “reforms” that will bring Italy to her knees, therefore forced to accept any measure imposed by the EU.
The ubiquitous acronym these days in Italy is not Covid. It’s MES, which stands for European Stability Mechanism. Skipping all unneeded technicalities, let’s go forward to what it will mean for Italy in simple terms. This Quisling government, having stubbornly refused to adopt economic measures that all other European countries have implemented, is simply exposing the economy at serious risk of default. When that will become inevitable, then the MES will step in, and will force Italy, in order to “be saved” from complete collapse, to accept a gruesome variety of “recovery” measures just as it happened in Greece in previous years.
Deja-vu, all over again. Just like in 2011 the sudden – forced – resignation of Berlusconi as PM of Italy had the then president of Italy Giorgio Napolitano to form a new, non elected executive in charge of “economic reforms” led by euro-technocrat Mario Monti, the ordeal is being repeated in 2020, courtesy this time of the Invisible Enemy (a.k.a. Covid-19), and the inevitable sudden halt of the Italian economy, so a “task force” of experts overseeing the government economic policies was named overnight by Italian president Mattarella.
Enter Vittorio Colao, whose CV is practically cliché hardly worth mentioning. Former Vodafone CEO, MBA at Harvard, experiences in Morgan Stanley, McKinsey, Unilever and the list could go on and on. Not to mention his personal relationship with Bill Gates, George Soros and other such fellows.
Right after being appointed, Colao has asked for himself and his associate “experts” complete civil and penal immunity. Do you think such a – how to say – peculiar request made the news? Hardly. We owe to a few representatives of the opposition parties who blew the whistle on such a unique request the fact that somehow made it to the news. Complete silence on MSM. What should we assume? That this group of experts is evidently planning to break existing laws, to say the least. It will be interesting to see what will happen in the coming weeks. In the meantime, Italians are getting increasingly tired of this brutal and useless lockdown and most likely will not wait to be allowed to go outside after May 4th.