The Cagnara operation.
I haven't posted in a while, also because usually there needs to be something that stimulates me to write. Thanks to a change of project and the desire to focus on something else, the current trend is amplified in the incredibly profound transformation of the Italian national press.
First, one thing needs to be explained. We know what government propaganda is in a dictatorship. But what we don't know is what propaganda is in a democracy, that is, government propaganda.
In dictatorships the work is simple: everything is fine, everything is better, we are right, the big boss is right. Easy and effective. The aim is to make sure that everyone approves of the dictator's actions.
Well.
How does the dictator prevent propaganda from having the opposite effect? I mean, you say "everything is milk and honey", and you have a rebellion because milk and honey disgust people? Well, there are many ways, including some violent ones, but the point is that the dictatorship's propaganda alone cannot provide the certainty that the population will not rebel. Then we need the political police and the whole apparatus.
But a democracy cannot act like this, with the police and the political apparatus. So how do you stop people from taking to the streets?
People in a dictatorship take to the streets against the government, so this happens: “it's all milk and honey” -> “your milk and honey sucks”. We can ignore why they suck, whether it's the fact that not everything is milk and honey, or something else.
To prevent people from taking to the streets, however, clear messages are never given that one might be against. It is said "perhaps everything is milk and honey, but also distributor and anchovy, but in order not to be biased we must also give space to those who say that everything is pipe and temperament".
A message like that is completely confusing. People don't understand what the hell is going on. Ok, I can think that it's not all milk and honey, what the hell does distributor and anchovy mean, or pipe and temper?”.
Propaganda for an immobile democracy must prevent anyone from making decisions. Taking to the streets is a decision. You need strong reasons to do so. If you are just confused DO NOT make decisions. You don't know what to base them on.
There are therefore two schools of propaganda. The first says that if a population is divided in two, and the two sides balance each other, polarization also works. But this has a risk: as happens today between right and left, it could happen that everyone polarizes on one side only. In that case you get an enormously stable democracy with a powerful government.
And the economic power doesn't like this, because it could happen that a super-stable government decides to piss on their heads, and they couldn't do anything about it. If tomorrow Meloni gets pissed off and decides to piss on Confindustria's head, for example, it will become difficult for them.
It is therefore convenient for the mafias, the parishes and the freemasons to have a government that is unable to achieve anything, but does not have much enthusiasm.
So we are based on the second school: everything is fine, no it is not fine, yes it is fine, no it is bad, it is pink, no it is blue, the heat is a problem, no it is a resource, there is It's always been, no it's never been this hot, blablabla.
Under these conditions, the government is in power because the population is too confused to take a stand. There are, of course, polarized minorities, but for many the question is “what the fuck exactly is going on?”.
And this paralyzes any protest. Protest against what?
Take for example the history of the minimum wage. It's practically everywhere in Europe, but what information did you have? You had this:
- It's Soviet
- but also not
- then all salaries adjust to those
- but where they did it it worked
- takes away power from unions
- but then it foments black
- the locusts
How do you decide if it's right or not? You have to ask yourself. If I ask myself, this is the result:
I'm all for the idea of someone else getting paid more.
But how many can describe a political principle (of the many) in which they believe, in a single sentence? You can't, because the entire Italian press is participating (since the newspapers now belong to the very few – very rich) in the Cagnara operation, designed to ensure that by dint of pros and cons, you go and have a beer. But don't go to the streets, even though Italian salaries are the lowest in Europe.
What is YOUR opinion?
Another interesting question is there a crisis?
For me, determining whether there is a crisis is simple: how much money do I have left at the end of the month?
For you, it seems like a mess of things like "yes, it's worse, BUT….". BUT we are among the lucky ones, BUT we are always better than them, BUT at the end of the day we can't do anything about it, BUT the numbers say that we are doing better than so and so….
For two years, the forecasts of organization X have shown Italy growing more than the rest of Europe. Then the predictions don't come true, on time. But bombarded by this thing, instead of looking at your bank account you are looking at the newspapers. What then, I mean, even if other countries are worse off (which they aren't), if you can't eat, what do you have to celebrate?
When a guy searches the funeral ads to find out if he's alive or dead, he's probably alive, but very, very, very confused.
The other trend I see is the proliferation of magic words. Oh, Prodi is even back on TV, to pronounce his magic word: "controls". According to Prodi, prices doubled with the arrival of the Euro, because "the checks" were not carried out, which he certainly would have done.
Aha. But let's go beyond the magic. Let's touch reality. First of all, in Italy it is not possible for a state man to enter a shop and discuss prices. Not only is it not legal, but even if a law were made, it would end up dead in the constitutional court. The "checks" could not be done. Italy was not the right type of regime, where it could happen that a man in uniform enters a bar, points to a donut and says "this costs too much, halve the price!!"
But let's also suppose that Prodi had made an illegal and unconstitutional law, and had done so. How would they work, exactly?
- The panzerotti cost too much, halve the price, villager!!!
- Here they have always cost more, they have remained as before.
Did Prodi intend to record every possible price first, in order to have the minimum legal basis for making an infringement? (which would later result in an appeal).
Furthermore, I was a shopkeeper at that time. And all my suppliers doubled. So, would I have to work at a loss to make Prodi happy? No. On the door of my helpdesk you would have found a nice sign "closed for renovation". And amen, I'll see you again in two months, when "the checks" are finished.
But Prodi created a magic word: "controls". And every idiot on the left, when you challenge Prodi's change, tells you this magic word "the controls". But check what? Since when does a state man have the slightest legal basis to enter a supermarket and decide prices?
It doesn't matter, now "controls" have become a magic word. The name exists, therefore the thing exists. Magic.
In this condition, if I were also talking about Italian or international politics, what exactly would I be talking about?
I would increase the fuss.
That hubbub that is disorienting you, so that you don't make the decision to take sides.
But how are newspapers filling the front pages? Bullshit. Tons of random bullshit, many invented when written with ChatGPT, in ALL Italian newspapers, which keep you busy reading things you don't give a shit about.
The important news has become disconcertingly small, the newspapers have given themselves to a minimalism that makes you laugh. All that's missing is Giovanna's victory in the Palla Poivelenata condominium championship in Cernusco sul Naviglio number 28F.
And especially, accusations against foreigners. Health ministers who write an opinion on how hot it is, as millions of other Italians have written, and poof: THE ENEMYOOOOOOOOHHHH!!! Stupid idiot buys a bottle of water in Spain and says that Europe doesn't believe in water to 2000 other people, and poof: THE ENEMYOOOOOOOHHHHH! Does Bild say something about Lake Garda? THE ENEMYOOOOOOOHHHHH!!!!!
(as if the typical Bild reader had the money to go and be a tourist on Lake Garda).
Why do you need an enemy? Do you think it's to unite the masses? No, the answer comes from Flaiano:
And you can see the reason there: " always ready to point out in others the causes of his impotence or defeat " The others in this period are the evil Germans, the ECB, and in general anyone who does not speak in enthusiastic tones about Italy, and times of Europe, if we talk about tourism.
IN these conditions, reduced to crazy spinning tops in front of a high pressure cannon of shit, what would be the point of writing about it? Increase entropy, i.e. the chaos?
What is the point of trying to write logical reasoning, when Santanche', owner of a 500 euro a day restaurant, calls those on the left "radicalchic", implying that now it is the right that represents the poor and the workers? (what kind of 500 euros do they get in a month today?) . Increase Cagnara?
This is the reason why I am writing a lot in English: there is no point in increasing the fuss in Italy.
I won't contribute to the mess, that's all.