Was it True Glory?
Since now the worst of the worst will unleash the worst of the worst when the "caiman" dies, I would like to say a few words to refresh the memory of those who, apparently, believe that Italy before him was a paradise of democracy and intelligent speeches. Because it wasn't exactly like that.
First things first. Berlusconi for the masses was born as a television entrepreneur. But I shouldn't say "entrepreneur", I should say "liberator". Because before the arrival of the various Telesanterno (then Rete4), Antenna Nord (Then Italia 1), and Telemilano (Then Canale 5), RAI existed.
And the RAI of the period was SHIT.
If you think that today RAI is parceled out by parties and is free, you have not understood what was there before. Because the parties had FIXED options on the various networks. RAI1 went to the DC with an obligatory quota for the church, RAI2 to the PSI, RAI3 was created ad hoc for the PCI, and at the request of the PCI it was divided into regions, so as to be able to inform people in different ways depending on the peasant culture and workers. You had different newscasts in Veneto and Emilia, to be clear.
And if you think it was like today, then I'll give you a couple of examples:
For the entire Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, there were three versions:
- The Russians had invaded Afghanistan to take it. (RAI 1)
- The Russians had occupied Afghanistan to stop the civil war. (RAI2)
- The Russians had intervened at the request of the Afghan government to bring order. (RAI3)
Catholicism loomed over everything. You couldn't say gay, a navel caused a scandal, (this in all networks) and you were fired if you divorced, or almost: Frajese is a news reporter who follows rather famous things, such as the Moro kidnapping live. Divorce, and they send him to the USA. Because he got divorced. Then his wife starts doing porn, he has to sue not to use his name, but he ends up in France making documentaries on the baguette. Order of the Catholic Church/Christian Democracy.
Emilio Fede is fired by Rai, so he will pass to the Fininvest world, because it turns out that he gambles. They don't even wait for the end of the trial, in which he is acquitted. But for DC and leftist bigots, it's too sinful and must go away.
Cartoons are also censored, for example Captain Harlock. The censored parties say things like "the prime minister is inept", "in the future, the population is reduced to apathy by the use of a screen that broadcasts false news and stupid videos", "you have to do what is right and not what the law says”, and since even the communists don't go easy on it, the part in which the Arcadia cannot be chased because the military's office hours are over and the unions oppose it is cut in turn. The workers' statute had just been signed.
In 1984, He-Man and the rulers of the universe came out on Rete4 but not on RAI, which he rejected because he feared that Catholic circles would not like to see Teela's legs and also the story of the rulers of the universe, who are not Jesus and Mary, don't like it so much.
Defining RAI of the period would be “clerical bigotry, more communist bigotry, more socialist intolerance, more boredom, boredom, boredom”. For years the fucking newspapers have been forced to talk about how much scandal Carra's navel caused, which nobody ever gave a shit about in real Italy, where customs had changed. Amanda Lear was practically banned, and remained in the magazines, because having a hoarse voice it was insinuated that she was a man.
The announcers were so institutional that they looked like Soviet television.
At some point private TVs arrive. The government does everything to turn them off, because they are obviously inconvenient (and they don't even broadcast the news). But they convey the actual costumes of the period, i.e. the beginning of the 80's. Clearly Fede is hired even if he had bet on horse racing, they begin to see announcers with modern clothes and haircuts that are not "for families". Because even haircuts and necklines had to be “for families”.
Comedy programs had that comedy that usually precedes death from tuberculosis. It sounded like laughter, but it was a sharp cough. "National-popular" format, entire "comic" broadcasts dedicated to jokes.
Berlusconi arrives, and between closures, seizures and appeals, he manages to convey things that the trinariciuti did not like, neither Christian Democrats nor Communists. Comedians arrive on TV, women arrive who have legs, a navel and look almost like mammals, and the word homosexual can be said. Even Eva Robin's gets a foothold on TV.
How come they can't close it? Because simply the population at that moment loved him too much, and loved too much the breath of fun and novelty they had brought. And the politicians, not just Craxi, were afraid to push their hand.
Like it or not, that was the point. And if you want to see the "before" TV again, all you have to do is go to North Korea . Because this was Rai. Out of pity, I omit people like Fanfani who went around the offices leaving a copy of the Elders of Zion on the journalists' desks.
And let me be clear, I have no doubts: the former RAI, nazionalpopolari, or clericalsovietica, which you may call cattocomunista is exactly what those who spit on Berlusconi would like today. The absolute death of the human mind.
But let's move on to politics.
We could represent the political scene of the period by looking at these two films:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq2SMgWW2iw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD268VcYOWU
This was what remained of the political class after Mani Pulite. Of Occhetto we can say that he had saved his pro-Soviet party after the collapse of communism, but seeing him boasting of having always been a pro-European after having voted against the common market, and of having always sided in favor of the USSR, and having taken money from the CPSU until 1991, it was difficult for Italians to digest.
Anyone who says that Berlusconi was an anomaly, however, should explain to me how ALL Western countries subjected for years to the diarchy between socialists and conservatives ended up having a draft of him in government. Because when we look at Trump, we see a bad copy of Berlusconi. To those who said "this could never happen in our country" I would like to ask about Brexit and Johnson in the UK, I would like to ask about the fact that since then France has been voting for some antidote to Le Pen, and in the end, if we look carefully, in last 35 years the only country that has NOT had its copy of Silvio at the end is China.
You say he invented populism, when the PdS was in fact inciting crowds to go and throw coins at politicians?
Moreover, Berlusconi entered the first elections with a not insignificant magic team. And a word that was the dream of the Italians of the period: liberalism. In a town where the mayor's permission was needed to open a shop, and all the others still had territorial ties (they said "you can't open because we're here"), in a town where licenses were handed down from father to son and the competition was unknown, the leftist proposal "even more rules and even more rules" was at least gray.
Because the problem is simple: Occhetto and his men were unwatchable. They were wrecks of a post-Soviet party, and they still used that language. The ruling class that wanted to beat Berlusconi was this one:
And they wanted to do it with this symbol here:
That is, with the flag of the Soviet Union in the party emblem.
It is said that he was a populist because he then polarized politics, but are the same people speaking who are OBSESSED by politics more than polarized, still in 2023?
Another accusation is that Gianfranco Fini cleared customs, therefore he was guilty of not being an anti-fascist. Interesting.
But the pure and hard anti-fascists should be reminded that for years and years it was possible (and they talked about it) to activate the parliamentary procedure to dissolve the MSI. It was precisely those of the PCI who did not want to participate: they feared that the 5% of MSI votes would flow into the DC, reinforcing the current of Cossiga.
An anti-fascism, that is, which stops in front of the reasons for the electoral calculation. Therefore, the "pure and hard anti-fascists" keep quiet, or at least admit that in the end anti-fascism was like the parka. Good for going to the bar, but you wear a tie at mass.
Who says Silvio made a fool of himself and turned everything into a television theatre, has he ever seen himself when he went to these parties?
Anyone who talks about theater has ever seen himself singing the red flag will triumph at some Unity party? Have you ever seen yourself in the Kollettivi having an assembly even to buy two beers. Did you think you looked like serious people?
Seriously? Were they serious?
The problem was, at the time, that one was addicted to the PCI. Nobody pointed out the Soviet flag in the symbol anymore. Everyone was used to their antics, incomprehensible to foreigners who visited Romagna in the summer and stumbled upon them.
And so if on the one hand there was Berlusconi the worker, no one had the courage to point out that in the ruling class of the PCI or the PdS, no one had ever been a worker: but in the second case one had to pretend to believe it.
I don't want to do a hagiography, but I simply want to say one thing: in one way or another, Berlusconi brings the country to modernity, while the parliament of the period is still discussing banning sandwich shops for young people.
The 90s open with the collapse of communism, and a Communist party that thinks it's like Clark Kent: I put on my glasses and no one notices that I was superman before. Then Occhetto arrives, changes the name of a party with very clear Soviet sympathies, leaving the Soviet flag in the symbol, and poof: standard bearers of freedom forever. And he doesn't even bother looking ridiculous.
If it had been for them, the country was fine like this: today you'd still be dancing the mazurkas at the unity party.
You would still have a shitty television, censored, where if a report on KISS in concert started, immediately after it HAD to follow an article on drug deaths, in order to associate the two things, and if by chance it was Elton John the homosexual, immediately then a service on HIV was needed.
Of course, perhaps someone else would have arrived to bring the country to modernity, starting from an unworthy speck that looked like a Fernandel in Acid film.
BUT there was no one else. The Soviet era was over, and no one in Italy wanted to do away with Marx's bullshit. Rai 3 was still a Berlinguer feud (but we all have to pretend that the daughter ended up there thanks to merit), you are the coop, who can give you more.
I repeat, here it is not a matter of doing hagiographies: the problem is simply that before its arrival Italy lacked the minimum of modernity that commercial TVs have brought.
And that a PoS with the Soviet flag in the symbol could not wear.