ITALY, THE EUROPEAN VOTE AND MARK TWAIN

Within only few days the Italians, like many other Europeans, will line up before the ballot boxes and choose their representatives to be sent to the EU Parliament. The media machine is blending brains on behalf of the sitting establishment in Brussels and on behalf of the remnants of the Partito Democratico, as if the solution of Italian past 20 miserables years would be "more Europe". That is by the way also the  name ( + Europa ) given to one of the Leftist parties led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Emma Bonino, indeed a good fellow of George Soros. But many Italians lost confidence in social democracy and their story tellers, turning either towards populist Five Stars Movement, or towards sovereign Lega. The last one has been polled topping 35%, doubling its support since the national vote on March 2018. That shocking result unleashed a sneaky war against Lega's Secretary, Minister of Home Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, now under attack from many directions: from main stream media, from judiciary's left wing, from the Italian Episcopal Conference led by a Communist pope, from urban Antifa guerilla, from Progressive political spectrum and even from Luigi Di Maio's Five Stars Movement, partner of Lega inside country's government, who desperately tries to reverse its tumbling consensus.
It is difficult to forecast the impact of this struggle on the 26th of May vote. The aligned press conceals Salvini's successes, and magnifies its shortcomings. It is as Mark Twain once expressed:
"If you don't read the newspapers, you're uninformed. If you read the newspapers, you're misinformed".

Meanwhile the many disguises of the Italian Left are enthusiastically waving EU-flags instead of Italian ones, and would happily dilute Italian identity inside Brussels' hodgepodge project, their support among the voters is increasingly wavering. The establishment's intelligentsia portrays Salvini as an abominable Yeti or as the incarnation of Bluebeard, and his followers as "fascists" and "racists", but the more insults and dead threats he receives, the more squares he fills during electoral rallies. He promises to increase security and jobs, and proclaims defending Italian interests against Brussels' undemocratic bureaucratic moloch. Salvini maintains that only sovereign states will be able to adequately protect their citizens, and that time has come to get rid of the arrogance of persons like Juncker, Timmermans, Macron and Merkel. According Salvini, the European Union is in urgent need of reform: no more technocrats performing policies in favor of banks, multinationals and big business. So must the continent be freed from Brussels' squatting and from its dictates and commissioners, who betrayed the European peoples and destroyed their dreams.

Visiting Italy, Mark Twain wrote:
 "The country is today a vast museum of magnificence and misery... home of art and swindling, home of religion and moral rotteness".
Such trenchant commentary still befits nowadays Italy, one of the founding nations of the European Coal and Steel Community of 1951, forerunner of the European Economic Community enshrined in the Treaty of Rome, 1957. Italy's decay began about 20 years ago, and is macroscopic and verifiable through economic, social, cultural and demographic numbers and diagrams. What has thus been the cause of all this current misery? Some are pointing out corruption, others indicate mafia, or suggest country's absurd regulation system, bureaucracy, tax burden, unwillingness to reform, globalisation. But corruption, bureaucracy and mafia have always been there, even during the fifties and sixties, the years of Italy's economic miracle, and globalisation affects many still good performing countries. Thus there must be some other reason .What kind of watershed event happened about 20 years ago? Have Italians suddenly transformed themselves from resourceful and industrious people into gullible and addict to "bella vita", as some Duch and German politicians suggest?

During the nineties Italy became the 4th economic power in the world, with a very positive balance of trade and with its own currency, the Lira, outside the European Monetary System (EMS). For each Renault sold in Italy, three Fiats were sold in France, and for each Volkswagen sold in Italy, eight Fiats were sold in Germany. Same examples can be made about the manufacturing sector, the textile industry, the agriculture and the livestock farming.

The German and French captains of industry asked the politicians to reverse the tide. Especially Jacques Chirac was determined to lead the European Union towards one single currency, and in 1996 Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi carried out the task the French President and the President of the European Commission asked for: to bring back the Lira inside the EMS. Two years later Prodi, member of the steering committee of the Bilderberg club, found himself nominated President of the European Commission. He also was awarded the highest French order of merit Légion d'Honneur. And in 2002 occurred the watershed event: the introducing of the Euro.

In Italy prominent economists are sceptical about how the European Union is handling the Italian crisis, and more and more Italian citizens are opening their eyes. But the outgoing President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker just published inside the Turin daily "La Stampa" an article in which he warns Italians against the populist drift, and boasts himself about the great achievements of the European Union. But many Italians are wondering how this unelected Brussels' character, often openly so unworthy of a driving licence, has been able to steer during the last years this European Union. The current economical stagnation, the policy of austerity, the crushing of Greece, the Brexit-drama and the immigration turmoil are indeed bitter fruits of his guidance. But what else has to be expected from a man who confessed:
"I am for secret, dark debates...Of course there will be transfers of sovereignty.  But would I be intelligent to draw the attention of pubblic opinion to this fact?"
Nobody but Juncker could have expressed more effectively elites' disdain towards the European citizens, to whom the truth should not be told.
Mark Twain said on this:
"Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it"

The so called opposition between unionists and nationalists appears to be a red herring. There is no union at all inside the European Union. The European dream has become a nightmare, because there is no common project of Europe. Every nation considers "Europe" instrumental to its own interests. The strongest countries, Germany and France, prevail on all the others. They sealed their hegemony on 22 January 2019 by a treaty, significantly choosing Aachen, the ancient capital of the Holy Roman Empire, as setting. Under this economical and financial alliance their reciprocal interests are strengthened, their energetic strategies settled and their military covenant tightened. The other European states are just considered provinces of this central empire. Margaret Thatcher foresaw that the reunification of Germany would lead to a German Europe. Giulio Andreotti, former Italian Prime Minister, once said: "I love Germany to such an extent that I prefer having two of it".

Germany appears to be greatly responsable of the failure of the European ideal. Its agressive mercantilism was made possible by the introduction of the Euro, which is a hidden D Mark. The "spread" is used as weapon of political blackmail, more powerful than an occupation by tanks.
Paolo Savona, an Italian economist, wrote:
"Germany didn't change vision about its role inside Europe after the defeat of Nazism, although it abandoned the idea of military occupation. Three times Italy fell for its charm: first with the Triple Alliance (1882), second with the Pact of Steel (1939) and third with the European Union (1992). Do we never learn from our faults?"

Since the introduction of the single currency each German or Dutch citizen gained about 22.000 €, meanwhile each Italian lost 75.000 €.
We'll see soon what Italians think about Europe. But many will just stay at home. They agree with Mark Twain's adage:
"If voting made any difference, they wouldn't let us do so".