Imagine....

A Prime Minister or President who, during this crisis period, with millions of citizens who have difficulties ending the month, :

- says that people must be optimistic and that the bad news are spread only by irresponsible journalists and media;

- says that his country will not be affected by the world recession as the other countries;

- recommends during an official speech to buy stocks of his own enterprise;

- whose main interests are to control the justice system and the media, especially television and as such attacks openly TV journalists;

- who makes the Parliament, under his control, to vote laws “ad personam” (for one person’s interests, i.e. his own interests);

- who wants to limit the wiretapping by the judges only to a small number of crimes (for which jail is a minimum at 15 years) so that wiretapping records in the ongoing trials he is under will be wiped outsuppressed;

- who changed corruption from crime to a simple misdemeanor to protect himself and his friends;

- who wants to change the Constitution to give himself more power over and above the Parliament;

- whi is the richest man in his country.

Such a person does exist and you would certainly define such a person as a dictator or one who would like to be so. You might have thought of Ben Ali of Tunisia, Bouteflika of Algeria, Bongo of Gabon, the military leader of Burma, and especially Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

Wrong: all this was done, is being done and is planned by Berlusconi. But he remains popular as all these issues do not concern the large majority of Italians more interested in the soccer team owned by Berlusconi. Two thousand years ago, Romans used to keep the population calm by giving them games and bread (panem and circenses) . Now games (soccer and on his own TV chains) seem to be enough. In any case, as OECD and the IMF predict, there will be less and less bread for Italians over the next two years.


Photo : carfio.splinder.com/.../Berlusconi+Vs+Mussolini