Beppe Grillo: the Man Who Knew Too Much

[don]

By LIZ ALDERMAN and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

ROME — A populist with wild hair, a booming voice and untucked shirts, Beppe Grillo now holds the fate of Italy — and to some extent Europe — in his hands.

After winning a quarter of the votes in last week’s national election, Mr. Grillo, a comedian turned activist, is being courted by Italy’s traditional political players, but having thumbed his nose at them for years, he is having none of it. He has ruled out such alliances, throwing Italian politics into a logjam.

He refers to former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who sought a return to power, as “the psycho dwarf” and has steadfastly rejected appeals by Pier Luigi Bersani, the leader of the center-left Democratic Party, to join forces to govern, dismissing him as “a dead man walking.”

In a rare interview at his seaside home in Marina di Bibbona on Sunday, Mr. Grillo said it would be “inadmissible” for him to ensure the stability of a future Italian government. “It would be like Napoleon making a deal with Wellington.”

Barefoot and wearing faded jeans and a gray T-shirt with an image of Gandhi, he said his goal was to do away with a system that had “disintegrated the country” and build “something new” that would restore Italy to a true participatory democracy. “We can change everything in the hands of respectable people, but the existing political class must be expelled immediately,” he said.

Mr. Grillo typifies a new style of politician rising from the fires of the European Union long-running economic crisis and voter discontent in other countries. Like Alexis Tsipras, the young upstart in Greece who rode an anti-austerity wave to head the second-largest parliamentary party, or Yair Lapid, who tapped into a national frustration with social inequality in Israel, these politicians are not extremists but generally populist reformists.


Over the years, he has gathered huge followings after being barred from Italian television in the 1980s for mocking corrupt politicians. With a background in accounting, he has also taken on scandal-ridden businesses that have cost shareholders and taxpayers spectacular amounts through mismanagement, including the Parmalat dairy empire, Telecom Italia and the bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena.

His biggest edge, however, has been exploiting the power of the Internet and social media to get his message out. When he started a political blog in 2005, people logged in by the millions to engage in debate.

Buoyed by the momentum, he formed his Five Star Movement a little more than three years ago, based on a manifesto of improving public water, transportation, development, Internet connection and availability, and the environment.

Soon, Five Star candidates, known in the press as Grillini, began making a mark in local elections, grabbing seats in the legislatures of the Sicily region and in the city of Parma by addressing issues that embedded politicians rarely took on.

Candidates — mostly eager professionals younger than 45 — post videos and profiles of themselves on Mr. Grillo’s blog and are then chosen through an online vote. Ethics standards are strict: No criminal record or previous political affiliations are permitted.

Doing without official cars and other perks of office is a must. Lawmakers must quit after two terms and may keep only a small percentage of the monthly salary that Italian elected representatives typically earn. The rest will most likely be put into a fund for small and medium businesses planning to expand and create jobs.

Before the national vote, the most striking success had come in Sicily, where the party won 15 of 90 seats in the regional assembly in October. It has since scored some legislative victories on critical issues in the party’s platform, largely by backing proposals sought by the movement’s members, regardless of which party makes them, said Francesco Cappello, the party’s deputy leader there.


In the interview, Mr. Grillo said the movement would try to develop a consensus platform through discussion and set out legislative goals by May. Among the top measures is a so-called citizenship salary, a type of unemployment insurance for hard-hit Italians. Policies would be funded by cutting waste, corruption and rampant political spending. Further savings would come from withdrawing Italian forces from Afghanistan, capping state pensions at 5,000 euros a month and overturning tax amnesties, among other steps.

The big question is still whether Five Star lawmakers will simply be reactive and prone to blocking legislation they deem unfavorable. After Mr. Grillo refused to ally the movement with other parties, his detractors pointed out that most of his talk involves pulling down rather than building up.

1998

[don]

Der Spiegel

Italian Elections

Europe's Lost Generation Finds Its Voice

By Fiona Ehlers, Julia Amalia Heyer, Mathieu von Rohr and Helene Zuber

For years, Europe's young have grown increasingly furious as the euro crisis has robbed them of a future. The emergence of Beppe Grillo's party in Italy is one of the results -- and is just the latest indication that disgust towards European politics is widespread.

Only a few weeks ago, they hardly would have thought it was possible. But now here they are; their first public appearance following their surprise success in the Italian general election. In a hotel in Rome, not far from the Piazza San Giovanni, eight of the 162 newly elected parliamentary representatives of Movimento 5 Stelle (the Five Star Movement, or M5S) are squinting into the spotlights and speaking softly -- and what they are saying actually sounds reasonable.

They are talking about empowering Italians and giving people more of a say in political decisions -- and they want to know how their tax money is being spent. Grassroots politics is the goal. Their efforts remain somewhat clumsy, but they are sincere.

This group includes a male nurse, an IT specialist and a single mother -- all in their 30s or 40s with good educations and no previous political experience. Soon, they will enter the newly constituted parliament, which will be younger, have more women and, on the whole, be best less politically experienced than any other in Italian history. M5S emerged as the strongest single party in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, and the second strongest party in the upper house, the Senate. The party garnered nearly one-third of its votes in Sicily. The "Grillini," as the followers of former comedian Beppe Grillo are called, are the true miracle of this otherwise so chaotic election.

They are not clowns, but rather sincere young people who see themselves as a mouthpiece for everyday Italian citizens. These fledgling politicians do not rant and rave like Grillo, the founder of their movement.

In fact, it was just over a week ago that Grillo gave one of his loud and passionate speeches to half a million fans only a few hundred meters from here. He is their whip, their firebrand, "our megaphone," as his people call him -- and many of them can hardly stand him anymore. Grillo, who looks like he leapt straight out of a Baroque fountain by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and whose voice has grown hoarse from screaming, only offered the usual populist slogans: "Politicians are parasites -- we should send them all home!"

'Let Them Do Their Work!'

Grillo himself did not run for office because it would have violated his own party's rules. He has had a criminal record ever since he was convicted of manslaughter for causing a car crash in 1980 in which three people died. Now, it's up to his candidates to take the lead. "Now that they are in parliament," someone wrote in his blog, which is the most widely read in Italy, "let them do their work, take a backseat!"

Grillo is an Italian phenomenon, but his party's election results are an expression of the mounting rage and anxiety that is spreading throughout crisis-stricken Southern Europe. A new citizens' movement is taking shape, one that shares a mistrust of the established political system and a desire for more grassroots democracy. Only in Italy has it been democratically legitimized thus far.

These irate citizens are also united in anger against their own elite: politicians who have been tainted by party scandals and corruption, yet still remain in power or leaders who are seen as being the mere lackeys of Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Despite its name, Movimento 5 Stelle has long since ceased to be a movement. It has become a political party that is expected to take responsibility and make proposals for the formation of a government. During the campaign, it relied on a thin, 15-page platform.

The Grillini now have to prove that their country is not merely corrupt, indifferent and infiltrated by the Mafia. Ultimately, they could save Italy's image around the globe. They are the latest example of an uprising of the lost generation, that mass of people on Europe's periphery who are under the age of 40, desperate, unemployed and who have very little left to lose. The public outrage in Europe came to a boil in tent camps in Madrid's Puerta del Sol. It inspired the Occupy Wall Street activists. And it continued in Greece, where youth unemployment has reached 59.4 percent, and where there are no jobs and no economic recovery.

In the eyes of many, the power of the politicians only serves their own interests. "We have failed because we have not managed to change this," says Greek documentary filmmaker Aris Chatzistefanou.

A New Political Class

Yet whereas the Greeks have not yet stirred up the old political system, the Grillini have found unexpected success. They were long underestimated in Italy, yet they long ago started having an effect. They have, for example, fundamentally shaken up the old party system, with its irreconcilable right-wing and left-wing factions. A new political class has emerged with them. Since the advent of the Grillini, Italians are debating Europe more than ever before, including their country's possible exit from the euro zone.

What's more, an increasing number of women are rising through the ranks of Italy's political parties. In the recent election, 40 percent of the party-list spots for Italy's center-left Democratic Party were reserved for women candidates, most of them political novices.

The Five Star Movement has only existed as a party for three and a half years. Ignored by the press and, not surprisingly, completely shunned by Silvio Berlusconi's TV stations, the movement has relied on its own efforts to fuel its meteoric growth, primarily based on its savvy use of the Internet, and refused to accept government money available to help finance its campaign.

Silvana de Nicolò is one of the Grillini who is introducing herself at the hotel in Rome. She is in her mid-40s and was elected in the Lazio region, whose governor recently had to resign from Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PdL) party after fellow members allegedly used taxpayers' money to throw a bawdy Roman toga party. Given such examples, it is perhaps astounding that there are still those with enough idealism to pursue politics in today's Italy.

SPIEGEL met de Nicolò in a café near parliament. In the wake of the election, the government district was immediately overwhelmed with a hectic energy as politicians struggled to position themselves for the coming change. De Nicolò sips her espresso while she calmly and rather naively explains her political platform. It calls for reducing the number of parliamentarians from today's roughly 1,000 to half that amount, and slashing their monthly salaries to a maximum of €2,500 ($3,255) in net income. Reimbursement of election campaign costs will simply be abolished, she says, and the money saved by this measure will be used to finance micro-loans for social projects and people who can no longer acquire bank credit.

Nevertheless, she and her fellow party members usually avoid proposing concrete ideas for resolving the crisis. The party is often criticized for its "grilloeconomics," and rightly so. How do they intend to finance their guaranteed minimum monthly income of €1,000? Their proposal is to reduce pensions and public-sector salaries -- an adventurous proposal.

A Mistrust of Politicians

De Nicolò would rather talk about her voters. As a statistician and an opinion pollster, she is familiar with these 8.7 million Italians, most of whom are under the age of 40. When these people started working, the national debt was 102 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). Now, it has climbed to 127 percent. Today, Italians pay nearly 50 percent more taxes than the previous generation, yet their wages are shrinking. And if they ever do get a pension, it will only be roughly half as large as what their parents receive.

Grillo voters, says de Nicolò, are not leftists as Berlusconi likes to claim. They come from both political camps, she argues, and many of them previously voted for Berlusconi's PdL or the right-wing Lega Nord. They include public-sector employees, and one-quarter of them are unemployed. More than two-thirds of Grillo supporters are dissatisfied with the state of Italy's democracy. Less than one-quarter of them trust the European Union, and only 2 percent believe the promises of the government in Rome.

Spain's grassroots young protesters, dubbed Los Indignados (the outraged), have a similar mistrust of politicians -- the main difference being that they have remained an extra-parliamentary movement, at least for the time being. They are up in arms about foreclosures and evictions, the power of the banks, and the country's youth unemployment rate, which is running at 55.5 percent. During the last parliamentary election, the political establishment felt their wrath, in the form of blank election ballots, invalid votes or votes for fringe parties -- plus an increasing number of votes for Basque and Catalonian separatists.

What's more, all of Southern Europe appears haunted by a specter, which played a key role in the Italian election: the austerità. This term is shorthand for the belief that the rigid austerity measures are a diktat from Germany, and that Chancellor Merkel is to blame for the recession in Europe.

Such opinions can also be heard in France: The "German dream" is a "European nightmare" the French newspaper Le Monde wrote in a vehement commentary last week. According to the newspaper, Germany doesn't give a damn about the euro, is selfish, acts as if it has all the answers and has decreed that Italy and Greece shall be ruled by technocratic governments. After the election defeat of Mario Monti, such governments have no future, the commentary concludes.

The True Loser

The Grillini like to point out that they too intend to cut spending. What that means can be seen in the city of Parma, saddled with €800 million in debts. For the past three-quarters of a year, Parma has been governed by Mayor Federico Pizzarotti, 39, a member of the movement who has been busy trimming the fat from the municipal budget. He rides a bicycle to work and has exchanged two official sedans for an Opel natural gas vehicle. He adheres to the rules of the movement and doesn't spend more than what he collects in taxes, but he's still not seen as the Germans' cost-cutting commissioner.

Chancellor Merkel is the "true loser of our election," says Lucia Annunziata, editor in chief of the Italian edition of the Huffington Post, and one of the country's most influential journalists. It is Wednesday, and she's sitting in an editorial meeting and discussing the front-page headline for a piece on the clowns comment made by German Social Democratic Party (SPD) chancellor candidate Peer Steinbrück -- and on Italian President Giorgio Napolitano's response. The headline reads "Napolitano Saves Italy's Honor." Annunziata says that the Italians have "voted against the German crisis policy."

Indeed, what the Germans somewhat euphemistically refer to as "reform policy" translates throughout Southern Europe as cost-cutting, reducing and foregoing, concepts that have an ugly ring to them. While many German policymakers and economists assume that Italy, Greece and Spain will be able to emerge from the current crisis as strong and competitive nations after a few hard years, it is primarily Anglo-Saxon economic experts who are convinced of the opposite: They see the austerity policies as a vicious circle that is dragging these countries deeper and deeper into recession.

For the time being, however, all of Europe is anxiously waiting to see what type of government will be formed in Rome. The politicians who have consistently ignored Beppe Grillo are now wooing him. Yet many of his young parliamentarians still lack a long-term political outlook and strategy. The future member of parliament Silvana de Nicolò says that after only two years she will be a non-politician again, and someone else will take her place. What's more, she insists that she is not interested in governing, but only in waving through individual laws that appeal to her. It sounds as if she were giving up before she even started.

'The Right Approach'

In reality, the Grillini protests are not likely to fade away overnight. But will they actually pursue long-term political goals, instead of merely fleeing abroad for work, like so many of their fellow Southern Europeans who see no future for themselves in the region? Or will they end up throwing stones like many young Greeks?

The experiment that has just begun in Italy already appears to be over in Athens. During last year's two parliamentary elections, many voters supported Alexis Tsipras, head of the Coalition of the Radical Left, Syriza. He was the Greek politician who drew large crowds to campaign rallies with speeches about "ending the financial occupation" and "liberating the country from Merkel's yoke." Syriza has much in common with Grillo's movement, despite being much further left on the political spectrum. Still, it is just as radical in its criticism of the European austerity drive -- and just as popular.

Like Grillo, Tsipras has no effective concepts for combating the crisis. He says he intends to keep the euro, but no longer serve the debts. The EU is the only thing that has prevented Syriza from becoming the strongest political force in Greece. In contrast to the recent election in Italy, the Greeks were literally intimidated. Brussels gave them an ultimatum: Either you elect parties that will continue to pursue the course of austerity, or you will be out of the euro zone. Tsipras narrowly lost to the leader of the conservative New Democracy, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.

For many young Greeks, the election in Italy now provides a model. If the population of the third-largest economy in the euro zone so openly opposes the austerity measures, then the exit of individual countries from the euro zone is no longer taboo. "That then," says Aris Chatzistefanou, the Greek documentary maker, "is perhaps exactly the right approach."

Translated from the German by Paul Cohen

[shiny!]

Re: Der Spiegel

Why don't we ever get mad enough to throw the bums out and challenge TPTB here in the United States? Why is it that people in Europe will strike and protest in a BIG way, while in the USA people sit around, complain, and then keep electing Republocrats? Is it because everybody here is doped up on Zoloft and Prozac? Fluoride in the water? What will it take for us to fire the FIRE politicians and elect a 3rd party over here?

[BadJuju]

Re: Der Spiegel

Italy is a much smaller, much more homogeneous country. The problem with the USA is as much with the people jockeying over things themselves as it is with their representatives. People may dislike Congress, but they usually like the people that represent them in that Congress.

[astonas]

Re: Der Spiegel

Why don't we ever get mad enough to throw the bums out and challenge TPTB here in the United States? Why is it that people in Europe will strike and protest in a BIG way, while in the USA people sit around, complain, and then keep electing Republocrats? Is it because everybody here is doped up on Zoloft and Prozac? Fluoride in the water? What will it take for us to fire the FIRE politicians and elect a 3rd party over here?

A good part of the answer is found in the structure of our governments, not the people themselves.

The European parliamentary system permits minority parties the opportunity to have a real say, and in cases where the largest parties do not have a majority, even act as kingmakers, wielding more influence than their size would indicate.

The U.S.'s "winner-take-all" structure is a significant driver toward two-party, lesser-of-two-evils elections. In practice, a vote for a minority party makes it more likely that the view further from your own will wind up being represented.

Frankly, given the difficulty (again, not accidental, but intentionally structured) of altering the constitution, I don't imagine this will change.

The US is the oldest continuous democracy on the globe. That means that every democracy created since ours was has been able to look at what was done right, and not so well, in our system, when deciding what to implement in their own country. It is interesting to note that nearly none has opted for a three-branch system with an extremely strong executive, the way we have. Almost all have formed parliamentary systems, with a prime minister (legislative) acting as the principle power. There is a reason for this.

As much as one might love to say "we're number one," the reality is that when it comes to democracy, most other implementations of democracy simply use a more evolved structure.

[shiny!]

Re: Der Spiegel

Thank you, astonas.

[cobben]

Re: Der Spiegel

Beppe Grillo - an Italian or European phenomenon?

By Honor Mahony

. . .

Here to stay?

With formal negotiations on forming a government in Italy yet to begin, the jury is still out on whether the 5- Star Movement is more than its leader.
Comparisons are being made with Germany's Pirate Party - also an upstart, Internet-based movement - which, lacking a strong leader, is riven by internecine fighting.

The 5-Star Movment's 163 MPs and senators-elect got together for the first time at the beginning of this week. Most of them had not heard of or met one another before, having been selected in online primaries. They are all considered spokespeople of the party. And Grillo is the grand amplifier of the voice of party members.

Grillo himself has denounced all traditional parties in Italy and has refused to deal with Italian media. His party is the only one that refuses state financing.
But he has also shown an iron streak. Italian media have widely reported on the fact that he expelled two local councillors last year who appeared on talk shows with politicians from other parties.

It remains unclear whether the 5-Star Movement can make the transition from arriviste movement to governing party.
"Is social media just a fancy new way communicating with your followers rather than representing a different way of doing politics?" asks Grabbe.

Meanwhile, another open question is whether Grillo is the type of politician to rest within the confines of Italy. A couple of years down the line, predicts Bartlett, Grillo will aim for a pan-European movement.

He is already telling other similar movements, such as the Spanish protest movement Indignados, where they are going wrong.

"The two [movements] were identical: get rid of the parties, put citizens in, limits of two terms, get the corrupt out of Parliament. But they were just in the piazza. We went into the piazza too, but we gathered 350,000 signatures," he told Time magazine.

[cobben]

Re: Beppe Grillo: the Man Who Knew Too Much

Targeting the banks? How long does he have left?

QE for the People: Grillo's Populist Plan for Italy

Ellen Brown
Author, Web of Debt; President, Public Banking Institute


. . .


Steven Colatrella, who lives in Italy and also has an article in Counterpunch on the Grillo phenomenon, has a different take on the surprise win. He says Grillo does have a platform of positive proposals. Besides rejecting all the existing parties and treaties, Grillo's program includes the following:

• unilateral default on the public debt;
  
• nationalization of the banks; and
  
• a guaranteed "citizenship" income of 1000 euros a month.

It is a platform that could actually work. Austerity has been tested for a decade in the Eurozone and has failed, while the proposals in Grillo's plan have been tested in other countries and have succeeded.

. . .

[don]

Napolitano Considers Options Amid Italy Government Stalemate

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano is considering how to resolve the country’s political crisis after leaders in the deadlocked parliament failed to reach a compromise on the formation of the next goverment.

Napolitano, who met with lawmakers yesterday, may make an announcement today, the president’s spokesman said late yesterday. Napolitano will continue talks with leaders in parliament and may consider resigning, daily La Repubblica reported today, without citing anyone.

The stalemate is the result of the inconclusive Feb. 24-25 election that split the Senate into three blocs. Napolitano, 87, is facing the final challenge of a seven-year term that ends in May. While he lacks a clear path to assembling a parliamentary majority, he received full backing from the biggest political force, the Democratic Party.

“We won’t withhold our support from the decisions that he will make in the coming hours,” Enrico Letta, a top Democratic Party official, said after meeting with Napolitano yesterday.

Napolitano may step down a month early to give his successor a speedier entry into the talks, Repubblica reported. Presidents in the final stages of their mandates aren’t permitted to dissolve parliament and call new elections, an option that would be available to Napolitano’s successor.

To reach a compromise, Napolitano would need help from lawmakers loyal to either former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi or Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement. Berlusconi said yesterday he would back a government in partnership with the Democratic Party, while Grillo reiterated he will shun a deal with other parties.

Common Ground

Napolitano may consider turning to a non-partisan figure outside the political arena to gain consensus.

The Italian president took charge of negotiations March 28 after Pier Luigi Bersani, the Democratic Party leader, spent a week in an unsuccessful attempt at convincing adversaries to back him. Berlusconi and Bersani clashed over policy as they prepare for a showdown over the choice of the next president, which will be chosen by parliament.

“We were and still are open to giving life to a coalition,” Berlusconi, 76, said yesterday after meeting Napolitano. “We think it’s logical that if we form a government together, a coalition government, then together we must discuss about who will be the best president of the republic.”

While Berlusconi finished second to Bersani in the election last month, his standing has improved since then, according to a poll distributed yesterday by SWG Institute. Berlusconi’s coalition led with 32.5 percent support among voters, compared with 29.6 percent for Bersani’s bloc, 24.8 percent for Grillo and 8.7 percent for outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti.

Vito Crimi, Five Star’s head in the Senate, and Roberta Lombardi, the party’s leader in the Chamber of Deputies, repeated their resistance to compromise after meeting Napolitano yesterday. That position was praised by Grillo later in an interview broadcast on his website.

“We’re going to win with our ideas and our strength because we’re a miracle,” Grillo said. “We are the French Revolution without the guillotine.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Frye in New York at afrye@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net

[reggie]

Re: Der Spiegel

Why don't we ever get mad enough to throw the bums out and challenge TPTB here in the United States? Why is it that people in Europe will strike and protest in a BIG way, while in the USA people sit around, complain, and then keep electing Republocrats? Is it because everybody here is doped up on Zoloft and Prozac? Fluoride in the water? What will it take for us to fire the FIRE politicians and elect a 3rd party over here?

What makes one believe that a 3rd party candidate will not be controlled as well? If a bonifide candidate-of-the-people, how would they access media outlets, whether mainstream or alternative?

[don]

Re: Der Spiegel

What makes one believe that a 3rd party candidate will not be controlled as well? If a bonifide candidate-of-the-people, how would they access media outlets, whether mainstream or alternative?

Somebody as mild a third party candidate as Nader - essentially a consumer advocate - was frozen out of the presidential "debates" between Bush and Gore. Anybody more substantial, with significant public support, would find his "lone gunman", methinks . . .

[shiny!]

Re: Der Spiegel

Somebody as mild a third party candidate as Nader - essentially a consumer advocate - was frozen out of the presidential "debates" between Bush and Gore. Anybody more substantial, with significant public support, would find his "lone gunman", methinks . . .

Yep. Ron Paul got nowhere as a Libertarian, and he got shut out of debates after winning the straw poles when he was a Republican.

[astonas]

Re: Der Spiegel

Yep. Ron Paul got nowhere as a Libertarian, and he got shut out of debates after winning the straw poles when he was a Republican.

I sort of thought that Ron Paul is still listed as a republican only because of what happened with Nader.

[Slimprofits]

Re: Der Spiegel

A good part of the answer is found in the structure of our governments, not the people themselves.

I don't have the answer, but I want to point out that you didn't answer the question. Your post is about the structure of government, not about the lack of mass protest, strikes and riots.

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: Der Spiegel

I don't have the answer, but I want to point out that you didn't answer the question. Your post is about the structure of government, not about the lack of mass protest, strikes and riots.

Maybe the answer is that Italians just have more money:
http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/...ice-as-we.html