Certainly, the decree currently being converted into law in the Chamber, in the text modified and approved by the Senate to avoid its expiration in three days, on Liberation Day, has only the name. Or the title assigned to it by the government and the newspapers. More than a security decree, it has become a mess, of which Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has almost paradoxically claimed credit, and maternity, arguing at a distance with the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella. Who, instead, sharing the criticisms made on the point by the opposition, lawyers, and magistrates, raised objections about the Senate’s amendment by which a sort of reward was practically established in the form of compensation, of six hundred euros and change, to the lawyer who manages to voluntarily repatriate the illegal immigrant entrusted to his defense, which is moreover guaranteed by the State.
To the mess also perceived by the President of the Republic, who behind the scenes raised the issue with the government and the Chambers, the Prime Minister, for institutional quietude, so to speak, agreed to remedy it with another decree law, of immediate application on which government, Quirinal, and parliamentary offices are maneuvering behind the scenes. It remains to be seen in what precise terms.
Despite this sequence of, so to speak, certain facts reported by journalists and insiders, the Prime Minister earned today on the front page of Fatto Quotidiano a cartoon by Riccardo Mannelli that has her say, in strict Romanesco and with a Garbatella-style grimace: “I do whatever the fuck I want…. period.” It’s satire, baby, one might say, mimicking the words in the press by Humphrey Bogart playing a journalist in Casablanca in the famous 1952 film titled “The Last Threat.”
Laws, customs, and everything else about satire oblige Meloni not to say she shares it, because that would be too much, but to endure in strict silence, indeed respect, the insult of that cartoon. In Moscow, however, the Prime Minister suffered other insults, from a television host of Putinist faith and practice, named Vladimir like the despot in charge at the Kremlin, for which she received general solidarity, in Italy and abroad, because they are not covered by satire. Insults like: whore, fascist scoundrel, shame of the human race, traitor.
Traitor, I repeat, to American President Donald Trump by continuing to support the Ukrainians in the defensive war against the Russian invasion, instead abandoned by the White House occupant after the “demented” opposite choices of predecessor Joe Biden, and denying the support demanded by Trump for war against Iran. Which should therefore be considered, in the Russian TV host’s thinking, shared by Putin beyond the condemnations he expresses publicly. And on the ground with military supplies and so on.
Faced with this tangle of messes, one simply feels like not reading newspapers, not watching television, and not listening to the radio. A silent, voluntary return to the Stone Age that both Trump at the White House and Putin at the Kremlin, strong with their nuclear weapons and eager to use them, seem to like so much, one often has the very unpleasant feeling.
