Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, has been ordered to stand trial on charges he paid for sex with a 17-year-old girl and then used his political position to try and cover it up.
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Karima El Mahroug, known as Ruby, has denied having sex with the Italian prime minister
People are actually worked up about this in Italy, showing up in the streets. It’s completely stupid. First of all, I am sure a 17yo exotic dancer is quite capable of deciding whether or not having sex with a billionaire is in her best interest. Secondly, this is obviously just a political smear campaign to get him out of the way for a leftist coupe of the Italian parliament. Third of all there are obviously real crimes Berlusconi could be indicted on, but if they opened that can of worms half of parliament might be taking a trip to the pokey.
How so? Media Mogul Right of Center Berlusconi has helped keep the loony left in Italy in line. I don’t have any love for him, but I hate the people who are going to ride to victory on this contrived ‘scandal’.
I was referring to the aesthetic quality of the image you so kindly posted.
As for Berlusconi, I agree. There is no victim here and it is an event of no consequence. ‘The banality of politics’ is correct - the media focus on the most useless stories, while the actions that are as widespread as they are detrimental (e.g. intervention) are forgotten. The state benefits greatly from that endless line of mostly imaginary hobgoblins.
I was referring to the aesthetic quality of the image you so kindly posted.
Ah. I thought of that but figured you were referring to the report. But yeah. She’s from Morocco. If I’m 73 years old and have got a girl like that I expect a medal, not a jail term.
You know what the funny thing is? The law which Berlusconi broke (600bis of the Penal Code regarding juvenile prostitution) was one of those his own government made much harsher than before.
If he had read what his own ministers (some of whom are his former lovers) shoved under his nose to be signed into act no judge would have wasted his time to persecute him.
You know what the funny thing is? The law which Berlusconi broke (600bis of the Penal Code regarding juvenile prostitution) was one of those his own government made much harsher than before.
If he had read what his own ministers (some of whom are his former lovers) shoved under his nose to be signed into act no judge would have wasted his time to persecute him.
Yes, that is pretty ironic and the danger of being a ‘rightist’: you can’t just be anti-left, you have to push all that law-and-order moralizing crap and look like an idiot when they find out you’ve got twelve wives. What happens when you find out a libertarian has twelve wives? You figure he’s Mormon?
I am sure many Italians, with their generally elevated intellect and pursuit of interests far beyond politics such as building violins or reading works of Latin, are happy enough without caring who bosses over them in their Parliament or otherwise. I mean, hey, that country has had a lot of crazies coming and going in general politics, but that does not explain why the self-stereotyping of Italians has been of easy-come-easy-go.
Clearly, at some point of time, they decided the crazies can do whatever they want with politics, and hence Mussolini, the Italian Communist Party, Radical Italy, Red Brigade, and now Berlusconi can have their free-for-all, while the rest simply bathe under the Mediterranean sun.
More proof, if more was needed, that politics (or the state itself) never was about argument, logic and ideas, no matter how misguided, but harks back to the unconscious liking or disliking of people. Folks in my own country have been polarized by the police hitting some Neanderthal protesters some weeks ago that I really came to the conclusion that the place should be split (at least) in half. Italy, of course, should be split in many, for their own good.
PS: Ruby is not at her best in the pic. She’s a real beauty
Ricky James, while Berlusconi and his party have always played the “anti-Communist” line they are really the linear continuation of the old Socialist Party (PSI) which disintegrated almost overnight in the early '90s. Apart from a few diehards (most of whom penniless idealists) who gathered around Craxi’s sons the ranks and files simply changed uniform overnight. Along the way they managed to gather most of the old Christian Democrats (DC) and various broken groups but the framework is 100% Socialist Party. In all reality Berlusconi’s vices were well known from before he entered in politics: the “nymphs of Arcore” made headlines decades ago and his first wife obtained her divorce on grounds of “continuos marital infidelity”. His second wife is currently divorcing him on the same grounds.
But the problems are other. Berlusconi made a fortune with media and he’s a master manipulator. He’s using this trial as a smokescreen to cover a multitude of problems by distracting people: massive monetary inflation by the ECB (fully backed by his own government), a debt that’s spiralling out of control, raising unemployment (an issue newspapers won’t dare touch with a 10ft pole), declining standards of living… you name it. The “Left” is playing along because they need Berlusconi: they have no program, no charismatic figure, nothing. Like an hardcore Communist told me: “if you take them away their scapegoat they have no ideas, no leaders… they need him to justify their own existence”.
“if you take them away their scapegoat they have no ideas, no leaders… they need him to justify their own existence”.
Correct. This is the function of the pseudo-right (NeoCons) in the American scene, the loony-left need someone slightly less insane to blame for everything.
Third of all there are obviously real crimes Berlusconi could be indicted on, but if they opened that can of worms half of parliament might be taking a trip to the pokey.
Berlusconi introduced a law which made him and 3 other functions immune from prosecution. According
to that law he can postpone a prosecution just because ‘he’s busy’. That law changed last month, now
the judge have to look at each individual lawsuit.
This is much better than American television. I hate you, Puritans.
It implies that Berlusconi put several women up for election just because they were attractive. That sounds like a much better system than the American. I’ll take a model with zero political experience over Mitt Romney any day.
There’s a thing called the Internet. They have thousands of naked pictures there.
Jokes aside the problem is not these women were put into politics because they were attractive (they aren’t, but that’s another matter). They asked for it and he gave them what they wanted. Why? Part is blackmail and part is because, like most men who grew old in positions of power, he wants to be surrounded by people he made and from whom can demand blind obedience. If he falls they fall. That’s as easy as that.
One of main players in this show is a woman who has been elected in my Regional Council. She carelessly chatted on the phone about all her dirty secrets, not knowing (and probably not caring) this world is like V for Vendetta, where various government branches spy on each other for kicks. The eavesdrop transcripts were on all major newspapers in a matter of days. This initiated a scandal inside the scandal as the Regional Governor who approved her candidacy personally just a few years before the elections is a “Puritan Catholic” of the worst sort. Since Berlusconi personally asked him to take her up under his wing he cannot blame ignorance. While the Church has been shamefully silent about the matter, regular Catholics feel betrayed and ashamed by the man they felt was their foremost exponent.
Finally do not believe these women are bumbling amateurs, less harmful than a professional politican. At least a professional politician has to make some face-saving concessions to get re-elected. They don’t. They are more power-hungry, ruthless and pitiless than you can imagine.
