Posted on 04/25/2008 8:50:51 PM PDT by blam
Italy must be broken up, says Berlusconi's wife
By Malcolm Moore in Rome
Last Updated: 1:37am BST 26/04/2008
Silvio Berlusconi's wife added her voice yesterday to the growing calls for Italy to be partitioned.
In an interview with La Stampa, Veronica Lario, 51, said: "Italy has never been well-suited to being a single country, and has never matured enough to become one. There is no longer any value in a unified Italy."
Silvio Berlusconi with his wife. Cabinet posts may go to the Northern League, which wants independence from Italy’s South
Ms Lario, a former showgirl, married Italy's prime minister-elect 18 years ago after catching his eye on a television show. Since then, she has rarely courted publicity, but does run Il Foglio, an influential newspaper.
The prospect of a devolved Italy has grown significantly in recent weeks since the Northern League, a secessionist party, won strong support in the general election.
Umberto Bossi, its volcanic leader, has repeatedly threatened to "take up arms" against the "corrupt" politicians in Rome who divert the wealth of Italy's North to the impoverished South.
Ms Lario disclosed that she was a fan of Mr Bossi and added it was time for Italy to stop being "snobbish" about the League, whose politicians are frequently coarse and populist.
advertisement "This is a disillusioned country, even after Berlusconi's victory," she said. "The League expresses concrete demands from the most productive part of Italy, which is tired of dragging the rest of the country and does not find itself represented by the Left-wing."
Mr Berlusconi, who will find it difficult to maintain a majority in parliament without the League's support, is likely to make Mr Bossi a cabinet minister. He could also appoint Roberto Calderoli, Mr Bossi's second-in-command, as deputy prime minister.
In the past, Mr Calderoli has called for immigrants to be shot in their boats and for a national pork-eating day to defy Islam.
"If the people have voted for Mr Calderoli," said Ms Lario, "that gives him credibility".
Connecticut, New Jersey and New York pay far more in taxes to the Federal Government than they receive in federal spending. Residents of Mississippi, Alaska and Kentucky, for example, get far more in Federal Spending than they pay in taxes.
Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York are hoist on their own redistributionist petards.
They have far higher per capita incomes, which, to put it in terms a Democrat would understnad, makes them RICH.
Now, most of us understand that a dollar in NY is worth less than a dollar in Mississippi, but the Federal government does it see it that way.
Partition is the wave of the future.
What has that got to do with Italy?The U.S. has a completely different history that Italy, and it really isn’t a good analogy.
Ooh, let me read your mind. Though there is something relative to what you’re saying; those states in the U.S. and regions in Italy which pay so much in tax revenue are heavily industrialized compared to the states and regions which receive the largesse. The southern region of Italy is known for it’s olive oil and fish; the north is known for fine glass, fine clothing, and fine automobiles. Agricultural states usually don’t produce the abundant wealth that industrialized areas are able to output.
I was just in Bologna participating in the CosmoproBologna
2008 (140,000 plus people, mostly Italians) and I was shocked at by the conditions of the city. Granted it’s a
city controlled by the communists, so that accounts for a good deal of the economic and social stagnation.
That there are few Italians and many foreigners are readily apparent to even the most casual observer. The
city’s substructure, socialist to the core, combined
with the burgoening foreign population is a surefire
prescription for disaster.
If the Lombard League is successful in reversing the
successes of Garabaldi, through a Czechoslovakia type of
divorce, what happens to southern type cities such as
Bologna trapped behind enemy lines?
You're on the money about one thing, though. The incredible, massive wave of illegal foreigners is absolutely ruining Italy's major cities, however, especially since so many of them live on the streets. I wonder what Bossi's plan is for getting rid of them?
It's going to screw up the tourist business eventually, and then they'll be hell to pay.
A “national pork eating day” is a great idea. Sausage biscuits for breakfast, ham sandwich for lunch, pork loin with apple sauce in the evening.
She’s full of spunk that’s fer sure.
The food is Bologna is the best in Italia, as far as I’m concerned. I had a serious problem in the Piazza Maggiore, that earned me a two day stay in a Bologna hospital, and
the pasta there was superb. Can you believe that, even the food served in the hospital was delicious.
I almost lived at a trattoria called Galluzies, a few blocks from San Petronia. They made the pasta right there, and cooked it, aldente, and the sauce was to die for. And you know what, I almost did.....but that’s another story.
My mom and dad are Italian, and growing up, we
ate spaghetti every Sunday. As good as my mother’s cooking
was, the freshly made spaghetti, and the fresh sauce made my mother’s recipe taste like leftover Ragu.
Bologna’s economic vitality is moribund. The people seem
listless, but maybe that’s a result of 60 years of local
communist rule. While most of the northern areas of the Piemonte, Lombardia, the Veneto, Emilia-Romagna and other areas have seen economic growth, Bologna, has not enjoyed the boom experienced by those other Northern Italia cities, and Bologna from what I have read, is experiencing the most anemic fertility rates in all of Western Europe.
The shortfall in the Bolognese Italian population is being
taken up by the addition of northern africans and Albanians, and you’re right, as a tourist there were areas that I walked around that I felt a little uncomfortable being in. And judging by some of the hostile stares, the
feelings seemed to be mutual.
The Bologna experiences (three visits) made me think of
the rot I saw in some parts of Napoli. And interestingly enough, many of the Oespidal workers I met and talked to
were from Sicily, southern Italia, and Eritrea.
There was a demonstration some time ago in southern Italy by people unhappy with the government, who used Confederate flags as a symbol of their dissatisfaction.
Arnold Toynbee wrote a two-volume work called Hannibal's Legacy about the long-term damage caused by the Second Punic War to Italy. I don't remember if he claimed the damage was more severe in the southern part of the peninsula.
According to the Tax Foundation, states that receive the most federal revenue for the federal taxes they pay are NM, AK, WV, MS, ND, AL, VA, HI, MT and SD. The states that get back the least for their taxes are NJ, NH, NY, CT, MN, MA, NV, IL, DE, CO and CA.
Maybe Bush and Nato can get the Saudis to sponsor a new Jihadistan in Southern Italy...just like they’re now doing in Kosovo.
Those sort of figures are fun for South bashers and folks snotty about rural states to begin with.
But that notion of who puts in versus who gets more Fed money is pretty damned complicated.
Industry
Company Headquarters
Population and more importantly population density
Large Black, Indian or Hispanic populations
all these things contribute to this imbalance.
New York based on just the hyper concentrated wealth in Manhattan alone should be lopsided in the Fed’s favor.
A rural state or a state with large military presence simply will never contribute more than they put it.
It’s a nonsensical argument for the most part.
Look at New Mexico.....Indians and poor Mexican Americans.
Mississippi.....40% black
AK.........Indians
West Virginia......unemployed poor whites
North Dakota........Indians
Alabama......30% black
Virginia.......I would guess the FED money which goes to the DC suburbs or they may have counted DC....VA is a fairly wealthy state...and bases and naval yard
Hawaii......disporportionate bases and a sorta less motivates indigenous population
Montana...Indians
South Dakota....Indians
These are the real issues why these states get more welfare and AID to individuals and pay in less.
Are we supposed to deport these folks? Is that what folkjs who always trot out this table are suggesting?
It’s ironic that some here tout this to bash rural and South but lack the stones and honesty to call a spade a spade.
I live in Westchester Cty, NY. I have long wished that my part of the state could dump upstate, which is depressed, losing population and doesn’t benefit the economically productive NYC metropolitan area.
I do think that the Mountain West states and the South generally need the coasts more than the reverse.
Virginia probably makes the list because of the inland Appalachian areas.
Thank God for "üpstate," Buck. Among other things they are preserving the English language for your posterity. English is a language that is already under siege in Westchester on two fronts ...NooYawk and the 12 million illegal aliens clogging the streets of many a formerly fine old town. And if one more of your Westchester neighbors tells me that Maine folks "tawk funny", I may go postal.
Besides, you and your family may have to conduct a fighting retreat "üpstate," someday, when the Third World hordes riot out of NYC toward your home.
There is nothing “wrong” with the Bronx. It is what it is.
Parts of Yonkers and Mt. Vernon are a lot like the Bronx; I wouldn’t say that this is so of the whole county, although it is getting more built up, just like every other place.
I don’t see immigrants as being such a problem in this area. NYC has long been a city of immigrants, not a city of Americans. It is not the same as parts of the country that are suddenly undergoing a change because of the current waves of Mexicans.
I am not too worried about apocalyptic rioting scenarios.
If upstate was ever flooded with refugees from the city, it would be a boon to the area. No one wants to stay there.
On the other hand, I found folks upstate to be more my liking. What state has the most surplus has little to do with much beside geography except for the historical lagging groups. You get saddled with them and there you are.
man if NYC did not have the corporate wealth, you guys would be a the bottom of the list
Politically, I think Rockland is similar to Westchester, except for the Hasidic towns. To me, that is basically Jersey. Geographical boundaries.
Lots of charming people upstate, I’m sure. My taxes support their declining communities as much as my own. Do you suppose that they are grateful for this? Yeah, right.
How much wealth is there that isn’t “corporate”? If NYC had no wealth, it would be poor, just like any other place.
This isn't ALL about the money either. It's a Muslim thingy.
This is more of a Marsic Confederation thingy.
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