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| Beppe Grillo Image: Lucarelli via Wikimedia Commons |
I am, on the whole, a fan of Beppe Grillo though I am beginning to believe that he falls into the category of people whom Lillian Hellman called "good rebels who are bad revolutionaries". [I rather hope I am one myself!] Here is what Miss Hellman has to say about such souls:
"Rebels seldom make good revolutionaries, perhaps because organized action, even union with other people, is not possible for them."
- Lillian Hellman: An Unfinished Woman
Anyway, in April Mr Grillo, whose anti-corruption Movimento 5 Stelle party has been winning important local elections in Italy, offended Sicilians when he said that even the Mafia doesn't strangle its victims but takes 10% protection money instead, the implication being that the government, with its anti-crisis measures, is "strangling" the electorate. Obviously this is a hurtful remark, especially to those who have lost loved ones in anti-Mafia campaigns, and a storm of criticism ensued.
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| Rosy Bindi |
Next Mr Grillo turned his attention to Rosy Bindi, the President of the Pd [Democratic Party]. Ms Bindi has been much maligned in the past, most famously on television in 2009 by Mr Berlusconi, who said she was "more beautiful than intelligent". [The saddest thing about this remark, I've always felt, was that Mr Berlusconi probably genuinely believed it to be a compliment.] In July Mr Grillo, referring to the Democratic Party's stance on gay marriage, said that Ms Bindi had "probably not had cohabitation problems with the love of her life", earning himself the accusation of being "worse than Berlusconi" from Pd Secretary Pierluigi Bersani and winning few women friends in the process.
As if all that were not bad enough, now Mr Grillo has launched an attack on the Olympics with the following statement on his blog:
"I don't know, nor have I ever known in all my life, anyone who practises foil or sabre fencing, yet when the Olympics are on I'm proud if my country wins. Then for another four years, I couldn't care less. It's not the athletes who win, but nations. It's the trimph of nationalism."
You'd better not say that in Modica, Mr Grillo!
Italian Male Fencing Team, including Giorgio Avola from Modica, wins gold in London:
6 comments:
Anticorruption..? Is he anything like that boring middle-aged former news correspondent in the white suit? Martin Bell or whatever his name was. And is he just as much a waste of space? O by the way I don't know if you follow British politics but Louise Mensch has gone and quit politics to live with her husband and kids in New York. She was the Tory Party's brightest star. And she wrote deliciously vulgar novels about rich people who hated each other (only kind of women's writing I can handle: otherwise I read thrillers about a suitcase containing a million dollars and some plot involving the President of the United States...)
Say Bo! to Simi. We used to have a dog who said Bo! And on a good day she sometimes managed "Hello"! The look on people's faces..! ☺☺☺☺☺☺☺
Well done the fencers! What a strange sport it is, I always think it must be so uncomfortable to do anything in that pose.
Hi, Gleds. Oh,I used to quite like Martin Bell. I read about Louise leaving but I didn't know she wrote novels! Thanks for the info. I'd have liked to have seen people's faces when the dog said "Hello"! Simi sends love and wags. xx woof!
Hi, Jenny. Yes, and it must take ages to dress, too!
You'd have thought he'd be sympathetic to fencing amidst years of coalition governments!
He sounds like one of those jerks who gets off on publicity and doesn't care if it's of the bad sort. Basically he sounds like an utter jerk
Haha, WW! Yes, one would have thought so ....
Hi, jams. I wouldn't go that far as he has sparked a protest movement and is pretty fearless in a country where even top journalists are careful about criticising governments. But lately he seems out of sync with a lot of people.
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