Post 161. Beppe Grillo's Reform For Italy!
Beppe Grillo's Reform For Italy!
At the inauguration of the Five-Star Movement in Milan, I sketched out the Movement’s Programme in broad terms. In the coming months, there will be plenty of time to discuss it online and to improve and amend the programme accordingly.
It includes more than 120 points, all of which are utopian in nature and therefore feasible.
Download the complete programme
It includes more than 120 points, all of which are utopian in nature and therefore feasible.
Download the complete programme
The programme points:
The State and its citizens
Health
Energy
Transport
Economy
Information
Education
The State and its citizens
Health
Energy
Transport
Economy
Information
Education
Beppe Grillo’s address at the “Smeraldo” theatre in Milan on 4 October 2009:
The State and its citizens
"One of the most important things that we must review is the relationship between the State and its citizens: if we don’t resolve this issue, then all of the others become meaningless. Immediate abolition of the Provinces: they are sucking the lifeblood out of the Regions and the Municipalities. Abolition of the Prefectures: the Prefect is the Prefecture and who the hell is the Prefect anyway? What does the Prefect do? Away with the Prefectures, restructure the embassies and restructure the consulates. Abolish the Alfano Bill, because if we don’t get rid of it now, we will never get them out of our hair! And for public representatives, they must learn the Constitution and pass a compulsory test.
- limit parliamentarians in and all public posts to two terms in office and get rid of all parliamentary privileges, including the right to a full pension after only two years of service!!
- prohibit parliamentarians from practicing another profession for the duration of their term! Bloody hell, there are certain people that work as actors , go on tour and then supposedly also work as parliamentarians! One thing at a time is enough!
- prohibit the holding of multiple posts: for example, mayor and deputy. Choose one or the other. Citizens with criminal records must not be eligible for public posts: go away, you can’t work as a school janitor and also be a parliamentarian! Parliament must be obliged to discuss popular law proposals: When a popular law is proposed, Parliament must be forced to discuss it and not simply shove it in some drawer and leave it there for years! Force them to discuss it! Proposed laws must be made public online at least three months before, so that the citizens know about them and have time to intervene, precisely as that miraculous Saint on Earth Obama does dammit! Obama is a product of the Web!
Excuse me folks, but this is the way I feel. I didn’t want to break into a sweat and get all pissed off! The Web, that thing which they know nothing about and that lands up taking them for a ride! Well, in Sweden, a bunch of youngsters just like you set up an association, a movement called “The Pirate movement, the Swedish Pirate Party” and now, two of its representatives have been voted onto the European Parliament! They were just taking them for a ride: well, the Web-based parties in Germany now hold 2% of the power, it all happened very suddenly, but this story of the pirates is truly fantastic because they only tackled one issue, a brainwave, namely the issue of copyright and said “no more copyright”. This is the gentleman that would have liked to be here with us, he sent me a video and he is now online. We will show you the video later, once we’re done with everything else. Copyright is what lies at the base of the kind of knowledge that should be freely available to everyone, free of charge. Our Creative Commons must do a turnaround. The copyright law must be reformed, it is not the Web that needs to be reformed on the basis of copyright. That is precisely what happened to me last week when I posted a video clip of Obama’s appearance on the David Letterman Show: Obama spoke for two minutes and sounded very much like me at age 20, when I still used to say some wonderful things! I don’t want to boast but at age 20 I was black, I swear, I was black! OK? He talks about the environment, about renewable energy sources, and because I am one of his biggest fans, I take that and I show the world what a true leader is telling the world. I post a two-minute clip of his talk on my blog and next minute a letter arrives at YouTube from the American CBS network, claiming that I violated Obama’s copyright, as if there was some or other sponsor or television network that holds the copyright on Obama! Obama is part of our world heritage and not something that belongs to a television network or sponsor, Obama belongs to the world! So what does the Italian branch of YouTube go and do since they all love us very dearly? Instead of simply saying “remove the clip that is subject to copyright”, no, like thieves in the night and thinking that I wouldn’t notice, they remove not just the film clips, but they close the entire account, in other words they removed all of the material that Beppe Grillo has posted over the past five years, simply swept away during the night until there was not a single one of our clips left! What you should know is that our video clips, my 168, Travaglio’s talks, the clips on the deaths in detention, all of the clips that we have ever made, have registered a total of 51 million hits, OK? 51 million hits. We are the second most watched on YouTube after RAI: yet they simply took us off overnight, all gone! So now what could we do? Do we post a link? This is the Web, I’m not the Web, you are: within five hours, 17,000 e-mails were received by the Letterman Show, heaven alone knows what Letterman thought was going on since he doesn’t even know me, “who the hell is this Grillo guy?” Well, YouTube reinstated all of the videos! If we weren’t so strong we would have been dead in the water!
All of the points in this programme are issues that we have discussed previously and that I took to Prodi at the time, remember? He used to fall asleep while I was telling him these things saying “no, no”, but they are all things that are subject to change and we will develop these points with your help. I know that you have thousands of ideas, indeed you have more ideas than I could ever have and what I’m saying is that we have to start somewhere. So let’s start somewhere and let’s discuss things.
"One of the most important things that we must review is the relationship between the State and its citizens: if we don’t resolve this issue, then all of the others become meaningless. Immediate abolition of the Provinces: they are sucking the lifeblood out of the Regions and the Municipalities. Abolition of the Prefectures: the Prefect is the Prefecture and who the hell is the Prefect anyway? What does the Prefect do? Away with the Prefectures, restructure the embassies and restructure the consulates. Abolish the Alfano Bill, because if we don’t get rid of it now, we will never get them out of our hair! And for public representatives, they must learn the Constitution and pass a compulsory test.
- limit parliamentarians in and all public posts to two terms in office and get rid of all parliamentary privileges, including the right to a full pension after only two years of service!!
- prohibit parliamentarians from practicing another profession for the duration of their term! Bloody hell, there are certain people that work as actors , go on tour and then supposedly also work as parliamentarians! One thing at a time is enough!
- prohibit the holding of multiple posts: for example, mayor and deputy. Choose one or the other. Citizens with criminal records must not be eligible for public posts: go away, you can’t work as a school janitor and also be a parliamentarian! Parliament must be obliged to discuss popular law proposals: When a popular law is proposed, Parliament must be forced to discuss it and not simply shove it in some drawer and leave it there for years! Force them to discuss it! Proposed laws must be made public online at least three months before, so that the citizens know about them and have time to intervene, precisely as that miraculous Saint on Earth Obama does dammit! Obama is a product of the Web!
Excuse me folks, but this is the way I feel. I didn’t want to break into a sweat and get all pissed off! The Web, that thing which they know nothing about and that lands up taking them for a ride! Well, in Sweden, a bunch of youngsters just like you set up an association, a movement called “The Pirate movement, the Swedish Pirate Party” and now, two of its representatives have been voted onto the European Parliament! They were just taking them for a ride: well, the Web-based parties in Germany now hold 2% of the power, it all happened very suddenly, but this story of the pirates is truly fantastic because they only tackled one issue, a brainwave, namely the issue of copyright and said “no more copyright”. This is the gentleman that would have liked to be here with us, he sent me a video and he is now online. We will show you the video later, once we’re done with everything else. Copyright is what lies at the base of the kind of knowledge that should be freely available to everyone, free of charge. Our Creative Commons must do a turnaround. The copyright law must be reformed, it is not the Web that needs to be reformed on the basis of copyright. That is precisely what happened to me last week when I posted a video clip of Obama’s appearance on the David Letterman Show: Obama spoke for two minutes and sounded very much like me at age 20, when I still used to say some wonderful things! I don’t want to boast but at age 20 I was black, I swear, I was black! OK? He talks about the environment, about renewable energy sources, and because I am one of his biggest fans, I take that and I show the world what a true leader is telling the world. I post a two-minute clip of his talk on my blog and next minute a letter arrives at YouTube from the American CBS network, claiming that I violated Obama’s copyright, as if there was some or other sponsor or television network that holds the copyright on Obama! Obama is part of our world heritage and not something that belongs to a television network or sponsor, Obama belongs to the world! So what does the Italian branch of YouTube go and do since they all love us very dearly? Instead of simply saying “remove the clip that is subject to copyright”, no, like thieves in the night and thinking that I wouldn’t notice, they remove not just the film clips, but they close the entire account, in other words they removed all of the material that Beppe Grillo has posted over the past five years, simply swept away during the night until there was not a single one of our clips left! What you should know is that our video clips, my 168, Travaglio’s talks, the clips on the deaths in detention, all of the clips that we have ever made, have registered a total of 51 million hits, OK? 51 million hits. We are the second most watched on YouTube after RAI: yet they simply took us off overnight, all gone! So now what could we do? Do we post a link? This is the Web, I’m not the Web, you are: within five hours, 17,000 e-mails were received by the Letterman Show, heaven alone knows what Letterman thought was going on since he doesn’t even know me, “who the hell is this Grillo guy?” Well, YouTube reinstated all of the videos! If we weren’t so strong we would have been dead in the water!
All of the points in this programme are issues that we have discussed previously and that I took to Prodi at the time, remember? He used to fall asleep while I was telling him these things saying “no, no”, but they are all things that are subject to change and we will develop these points with your help. I know that you have thousands of ideas, indeed you have more ideas than I could ever have and what I’m saying is that we have to start somewhere. So let’s start somewhere and let’s discuss things.
Health
Access to essential healthcare via a universal and free National Health Service. Separation of public sector and private sector doctors and don’t allow a doctor who works in a public hospital to also run a private practice. Allocate the 8/thousand voluntary donation to medical scientific research. Fund independent research by using the funding that is currently allocated to military research. Introduce the crime of “massacre” for illnesses and deaths suffered by citizens due to the actions of the public administrators in charge.
Access to essential healthcare via a universal and free National Health Service. Separation of public sector and private sector doctors and don’t allow a doctor who works in a public hospital to also run a private practice. Allocate the 8/thousand voluntary donation to medical scientific research. Fund independent research by using the funding that is currently allocated to military research. Introduce the crime of “massacre” for illnesses and deaths suffered by citizens due to the actions of the public administrators in charge.
Energy
Energy. Provide incentives for decentralised electricity generation and expand the possibility of inputting any excess electricity generated into the national grid and of selling any excess electricity. Eliminate the incentives envisaged by the Cip6 levy for the burning of refuse. No more funding for the petroleum guys from our CIP6 levies on our utility bills, away with them! Instead, provide incentives for decentralised thermal energy generation from renewable sources. Provide incentives for the production of biogas via the anaerobic fermentation of organic waste. Provide incentives for the development of renewable energy sources, from wind power through to solar power and heat pumps. Fucking hell, in Switzerland they have 900,000 heat pumps, it’s not what you’re thinking, because these days we are being poisoned by so many things. These are probes that go down into the earth and draw out natural underground heat, which they then use to heat the people’s homes! 900,000 of them! We want a complete ban on the construction of nuclear power stations in Italy and the funding of power stations abroad, enough is enough!! Now way should Enel, using our money and notwithstanding the referendum that rejected nuclear power, be permitted to go out and purchase two 1970’s technology nuclear power stations in Slovakia with our money!! No longer must a man with a criminal record be permitted to head up a company with a 30% public shareholding. Mr. Scaroni is a convicted offender and we can no longer allow such things to happen. Enough is enough and it is the end of the road for such people! It’s over!!
Energy. Provide incentives for decentralised electricity generation and expand the possibility of inputting any excess electricity generated into the national grid and of selling any excess electricity. Eliminate the incentives envisaged by the Cip6 levy for the burning of refuse. No more funding for the petroleum guys from our CIP6 levies on our utility bills, away with them! Instead, provide incentives for decentralised thermal energy generation from renewable sources. Provide incentives for the production of biogas via the anaerobic fermentation of organic waste. Provide incentives for the development of renewable energy sources, from wind power through to solar power and heat pumps. Fucking hell, in Switzerland they have 900,000 heat pumps, it’s not what you’re thinking, because these days we are being poisoned by so many things. These are probes that go down into the earth and draw out natural underground heat, which they then use to heat the people’s homes! 900,000 of them! We want a complete ban on the construction of nuclear power stations in Italy and the funding of power stations abroad, enough is enough!! Now way should Enel, using our money and notwithstanding the referendum that rejected nuclear power, be permitted to go out and purchase two 1970’s technology nuclear power stations in Slovakia with our money!! No longer must a man with a criminal record be permitted to head up a company with a 30% public shareholding. Mr. Scaroni is a convicted offender and we can no longer allow such things to happen. Enough is enough and it is the end of the road for such people! It’s over!!
Transport
Transport. Discourage the use of private vehicles and when I talk about disincentives and incentives, I’m taking about good and bad: we need to overhaul the entire tax system. We must tax those that deserve to be taxed and take the load off those that don’t deserve to be taxed, in other words we must eliminate the tax on labour and instead tax those that harm the environment.
Develop safe cycling lanes, real cycling lanes and not that shit that you have here in Milan, with bicycles that you can’t even get off the rack, and I tried! Call an immediate halt to the construction of the bridge across the Straits of Messina and the TAV (High Speed Train) in Val di Susa, no questions asked! Prohibit the construction of any new parking garages in urban areas, let’s stop these games, enough is enough! Develop commuter rail links, build new ones and upgrade existing ones. Total broadband coverage. Fucking hell, in Britain they have managed to get broadband coverage throughout the entire Country while we still have 3,000 municipal districts that don’t have ADSL! Then we must have a mobility plan for the disabled and we must encourage work from home.
Transport. Discourage the use of private vehicles and when I talk about disincentives and incentives, I’m taking about good and bad: we need to overhaul the entire tax system. We must tax those that deserve to be taxed and take the load off those that don’t deserve to be taxed, in other words we must eliminate the tax on labour and instead tax those that harm the environment.
Develop safe cycling lanes, real cycling lanes and not that shit that you have here in Milan, with bicycles that you can’t even get off the rack, and I tried! Call an immediate halt to the construction of the bridge across the Straits of Messina and the TAV (High Speed Train) in Val di Susa, no questions asked! Prohibit the construction of any new parking garages in urban areas, let’s stop these games, enough is enough! Develop commuter rail links, build new ones and upgrade existing ones. Total broadband coverage. Fucking hell, in Britain they have managed to get broadband coverage throughout the entire Country while we still have 3,000 municipal districts that don’t have ADSL! Then we must have a mobility plan for the disabled and we must encourage work from home.
Economy
Economy. Make provision for class action suits, and I mean real class action! What I mean by real class action suits is that when the country’s citizens are taken for a ride by a multinational company, they can institute a class action suit and hire attorneys to represent the group as a whole, just like in the United States! Over there they institute legal action involving claims amounting to hundreds of millions of Euro and, believe me, the companies are shit-scared of class action suits, man, are they ever scared of them! Here they have only been playing games in this regard! Abolish the Biagi Law and ensure representation for minority shareholders on the Boards of Directors of companies listed on the stock exchange. The minority shareholder, who is after all the true owner of the company, doesn’t count for bugger all because he/she is not represented on the Boards of Directors, which meet without the minority shareholder being there even though he/she is the true owner! Next to go must be the Managers’ stock options and the introduction of liability for banking institutions for the products they market, making them jointly liable for any potential losses incurred. If you palm a package off on me, some sort of shit, then the contract must clearly stipulate up front that you will reimburse me in the event of any losses! Bring all of our energy, connectivity, telephony, electricity and transport utility charges into line with those in other European Countries. Why is it that our Internet connection costs are double those applied in France and three times higher than those applied in Germany? Posting off a parcel via the Italian Postal Service costs double what it does via the French Postal Service, so if you buy something on the Internet, the postage costs you more that the item did in the first place!
Reduce the level of public debt: f… hell, this issue of the public debt! Do you understand how they run the economy? They print paper and then proceed to get into debt. You want to do something? Just go ahead and do it and never mind if the public debt increases by 18 billion Euro a month! Tremorti says “the banks haven’t taken up my Tremorti bonds”: F… hell, I wanted to let them have them at 8%. But if they are getting money at 0,5%, why the hell should they take up your bonds at 8%? The banks are not fools! They may be dishonest, but they are certainly not fools!
I’ve already mentioned the issue of bringing energy costs into line. Prohibit the appointment of convicted offenders, managers and shareholders and favour local production and support non-profit organisations because the non-profit market in Italy is worth 45 billion Euro, 45 billion Euro I tell you! What this means is that there are many of us, many, many of us! I want to mention an address delivered by someone, a man with an unpronounceable name that I’ve never quite been able to figure out who he is, who delivered a marvellous address and while he was talking about these movements that are being born around the world, and there are millions like us although no one knows precisely how many associations and movements there are that deal with the public economy and that are beginning to understand the economy cannot be isolated from environmental and ecological issues. There are thousands, indeed hundreds of thousands of associations, there are millions of us, we are the largest single group in the history of humanity, which goes ahead without a specific leader, there are no leaders as such. Our movements are extraordinary! Just look how many there are and while he was talking, out pop the names of these associations, and he says “look, I can carry on talking for two days, three days, four days or however long this screening continues", meaning that there are many others like us, people with similar views on the environment, on nature, on transport, on human rights, on civil rights and on politics! There are millions of us! ...(offline comment) I know, I know, you are Pascucci and for four years you fed my obsession with seignorage! At night I would hear a “beep”, I would go and look, only to find Pascucci, who would say “you bastard, you never discuss this”. I even did a show about seignorage. It is true that there is a legal black hole regarding the ownership of money. Money should belong to whoever accepts it and we are the ones that give money its value, but it is all a dream, nothing but a dream. They are right though, there is a legal black hole, however, if you get into that argument, there is no way that you can ever win. All that happens is that you fall into the black hole that is the global system. But we don’t want to start with the global system, we want to start with our current system, start from the bottom up with the Shakers. There are a few thousand shakers, for example those in Naples who exchange discounts between shopkeepers, who use less money starting from the bottom up, these are the kinds of battles that we can afford to fight.
Economy. Make provision for class action suits, and I mean real class action! What I mean by real class action suits is that when the country’s citizens are taken for a ride by a multinational company, they can institute a class action suit and hire attorneys to represent the group as a whole, just like in the United States! Over there they institute legal action involving claims amounting to hundreds of millions of Euro and, believe me, the companies are shit-scared of class action suits, man, are they ever scared of them! Here they have only been playing games in this regard! Abolish the Biagi Law and ensure representation for minority shareholders on the Boards of Directors of companies listed on the stock exchange. The minority shareholder, who is after all the true owner of the company, doesn’t count for bugger all because he/she is not represented on the Boards of Directors, which meet without the minority shareholder being there even though he/she is the true owner! Next to go must be the Managers’ stock options and the introduction of liability for banking institutions for the products they market, making them jointly liable for any potential losses incurred. If you palm a package off on me, some sort of shit, then the contract must clearly stipulate up front that you will reimburse me in the event of any losses! Bring all of our energy, connectivity, telephony, electricity and transport utility charges into line with those in other European Countries. Why is it that our Internet connection costs are double those applied in France and three times higher than those applied in Germany? Posting off a parcel via the Italian Postal Service costs double what it does via the French Postal Service, so if you buy something on the Internet, the postage costs you more that the item did in the first place!
Reduce the level of public debt: f… hell, this issue of the public debt! Do you understand how they run the economy? They print paper and then proceed to get into debt. You want to do something? Just go ahead and do it and never mind if the public debt increases by 18 billion Euro a month! Tremorti says “the banks haven’t taken up my Tremorti bonds”: F… hell, I wanted to let them have them at 8%. But if they are getting money at 0,5%, why the hell should they take up your bonds at 8%? The banks are not fools! They may be dishonest, but they are certainly not fools!
I’ve already mentioned the issue of bringing energy costs into line. Prohibit the appointment of convicted offenders, managers and shareholders and favour local production and support non-profit organisations because the non-profit market in Italy is worth 45 billion Euro, 45 billion Euro I tell you! What this means is that there are many of us, many, many of us! I want to mention an address delivered by someone, a man with an unpronounceable name that I’ve never quite been able to figure out who he is, who delivered a marvellous address and while he was talking about these movements that are being born around the world, and there are millions like us although no one knows precisely how many associations and movements there are that deal with the public economy and that are beginning to understand the economy cannot be isolated from environmental and ecological issues. There are thousands, indeed hundreds of thousands of associations, there are millions of us, we are the largest single group in the history of humanity, which goes ahead without a specific leader, there are no leaders as such. Our movements are extraordinary! Just look how many there are and while he was talking, out pop the names of these associations, and he says “look, I can carry on talking for two days, three days, four days or however long this screening continues", meaning that there are many others like us, people with similar views on the environment, on nature, on transport, on human rights, on civil rights and on politics! There are millions of us! ...(offline comment) I know, I know, you are Pascucci and for four years you fed my obsession with seignorage! At night I would hear a “beep”, I would go and look, only to find Pascucci, who would say “you bastard, you never discuss this”. I even did a show about seignorage. It is true that there is a legal black hole regarding the ownership of money. Money should belong to whoever accepts it and we are the ones that give money its value, but it is all a dream, nothing but a dream. They are right though, there is a legal black hole, however, if you get into that argument, there is no way that you can ever win. All that happens is that you fall into the black hole that is the global system. But we don’t want to start with the global system, we want to start with our current system, start from the bottom up with the Shakers. There are a few thousand shakers, for example those in Naples who exchange discounts between shopkeepers, who use less money starting from the bottom up, these are the kinds of battles that we can afford to fight.
Information
Information. Digital citizenship from birth, free Internet access for every Italian citizen, this is essential! I couldn’t give a damn about an identity card. What I want from birth is free Internet access, access to knowledge must be free and unlimited, otherwise there can be neither liberty nor democracy! Eliminate the subsidies to the newspapers and no private individual should be allowed to have a majority shareholding in any national television channel. The shareholding should be widespread and limited to 10% for any individual. Abolish the law promulgated by the D’Alema government, which levied a 1% fee on the revenues earned by the television frequency concession holders, allowing Berlusconi to pay 1% for the use of something that belongs to us, earning hundreds of billion of Euro and giving us a 1% rental return on the concession that we granted him! Enough is enough! This is a law given to him by the left wing, which has spent 20 pretending to be the opposition while, instead, all they were doing was sharing out the spoils!
RAI. It’s not that I have anything against RAI, however, what I’m talking about is the good RAI that harks back to the days when it was served by people who were proper, gentlemanly and educated, namely the days of black and white television, when people still said “good evening and good day” and showed some respect. In black and white, they were saying “look, we are here in black and white while the world is in colour, we are totally different”. This was an important message and that is the RAI that I hark back to. What we have today is no longer RAI, but rather something that is absolutely squalid, so we have started a campaign to eliminate the annual RAI licence fee, not because I want to destroy RAI, I simply want to get rid of THIS RAI, which is no longer the RAI that I know! RAI must become a public television channel with no advertising, with no political party involvement and, above all, paid for by the viewers, just like the BBC and others. Well we started a campaign to inform people how to avoid paying the RAI licence fee, but since there is a legal system, these buggers will come up with something, they will invent some personal law, as these “mafiosi” always do to further their own interests, whereby this f… licence fee will probably be included in our electrical utility bills or, when you go shopping for apples, you will be told “I’m sorry but, you know, there is this licence fee”, but “bloody hell, on apples?” They will come up with something, but we will always stay one step ahead of them! I haven’t slept for the past four years you know. You reckon that you can see it, eh? The point is that there are already 220,000 of us individuals who will not be handing over our 105 Euro, making a total of around 24 million Euro that won’t be received by a channel that is currently in the hands of the political parties and Confindustria
Abolish the Gasparri Law. Prohibit the banks, public bodies and parastatal bodies from holding shares in publishing companies. We should not allow a situation where RCS Corriere della Sera, one of the country’s biggest groups, is owned by ten banks and fifteen insurance companies! Otherwise, how could a journalist ever be free to write an article on a particular bank for the Corriere della Sera when that very bank is none other than his controlling editor? Then they waffle on about freedom of information!
This next point is one that I included just for myself, “ad personam” you might say. This reminds me of someone else, but I went ahead and included it anyway. Decriminalise the offence of defamation and grant the person accused of defamation a certain sum in compensation should the complaint not be taken any further, with the complainant being obliged to lodge that certain sum with the court prior to lodging the complaint. Why should they be allowed to claim two million from me here in Genova? If they claim two million from me, then they should be obliged to lodge one million in security, to be donated to charity if they decide not to proceed with the case, so as to ensure that complaints are only laid when there is just cause and not simply in an attempt to intimidate someone!
Italians! Abolish the Pisanu Law, which essentially prohibits Wi – Fi. Anywhere else in the world, you simply go somewhere, log onto the Internet and you can work anywhere, even in the public gardens, while here instead, you are obliged to produce your identity card and to guarantee, in writing, that you are not a terrorist! Fuck off, please!
Information. Digital citizenship from birth, free Internet access for every Italian citizen, this is essential! I couldn’t give a damn about an identity card. What I want from birth is free Internet access, access to knowledge must be free and unlimited, otherwise there can be neither liberty nor democracy! Eliminate the subsidies to the newspapers and no private individual should be allowed to have a majority shareholding in any national television channel. The shareholding should be widespread and limited to 10% for any individual. Abolish the law promulgated by the D’Alema government, which levied a 1% fee on the revenues earned by the television frequency concession holders, allowing Berlusconi to pay 1% for the use of something that belongs to us, earning hundreds of billion of Euro and giving us a 1% rental return on the concession that we granted him! Enough is enough! This is a law given to him by the left wing, which has spent 20 pretending to be the opposition while, instead, all they were doing was sharing out the spoils!
RAI. It’s not that I have anything against RAI, however, what I’m talking about is the good RAI that harks back to the days when it was served by people who were proper, gentlemanly and educated, namely the days of black and white television, when people still said “good evening and good day” and showed some respect. In black and white, they were saying “look, we are here in black and white while the world is in colour, we are totally different”. This was an important message and that is the RAI that I hark back to. What we have today is no longer RAI, but rather something that is absolutely squalid, so we have started a campaign to eliminate the annual RAI licence fee, not because I want to destroy RAI, I simply want to get rid of THIS RAI, which is no longer the RAI that I know! RAI must become a public television channel with no advertising, with no political party involvement and, above all, paid for by the viewers, just like the BBC and others. Well we started a campaign to inform people how to avoid paying the RAI licence fee, but since there is a legal system, these buggers will come up with something, they will invent some personal law, as these “mafiosi” always do to further their own interests, whereby this f… licence fee will probably be included in our electrical utility bills or, when you go shopping for apples, you will be told “I’m sorry but, you know, there is this licence fee”, but “bloody hell, on apples?” They will come up with something, but we will always stay one step ahead of them! I haven’t slept for the past four years you know. You reckon that you can see it, eh? The point is that there are already 220,000 of us individuals who will not be handing over our 105 Euro, making a total of around 24 million Euro that won’t be received by a channel that is currently in the hands of the political parties and Confindustria
Abolish the Gasparri Law. Prohibit the banks, public bodies and parastatal bodies from holding shares in publishing companies. We should not allow a situation where RCS Corriere della Sera, one of the country’s biggest groups, is owned by ten banks and fifteen insurance companies! Otherwise, how could a journalist ever be free to write an article on a particular bank for the Corriere della Sera when that very bank is none other than his controlling editor? Then they waffle on about freedom of information!
This next point is one that I included just for myself, “ad personam” you might say. This reminds me of someone else, but I went ahead and included it anyway. Decriminalise the offence of defamation and grant the person accused of defamation a certain sum in compensation should the complaint not be taken any further, with the complainant being obliged to lodge that certain sum with the court prior to lodging the complaint. Why should they be allowed to claim two million from me here in Genova? If they claim two million from me, then they should be obliged to lodge one million in security, to be donated to charity if they decide not to proceed with the case, so as to ensure that complaints are only laid when there is just cause and not simply in an attempt to intimidate someone!
Italians! Abolish the Pisanu Law, which essentially prohibits Wi – Fi. Anywhere else in the world, you simply go somewhere, log onto the Internet and you can work anywhere, even in the public gardens, while here instead, you are obliged to produce your identity card and to guarantee, in writing, that you are not a terrorist! Fuck off, please!
Education
Education. Abolish the Gelmini Law. There are also.. no, it’s not a joke, there are also some things that are right, but before you touch our schools, you need to take a step back... Compulsory provision of Internet access for the students in our schools. This is not just another cliché and, if you don’t agree, then we can take note of the fact, for heavens sake, this is merely a starting point. Gradual abolition of printed school books in favour of free access to these books on the Internet. In my “Delirio” show I showed the viewers Kindle. Today Kindle is a folder, offered year by year, into which you can download 2,000 books, any texts that you desire. It is not a screen and it isn’t backlit, so all you need is a light and you can read it as you would a book. It can hold 2,000 books in a little gadget this size. With two little solar power cells you can load it up and have the knowledge at your fingertips whenever and wherever you like. Holy moly, now that’s what I call true freedom! Meanwhile, I’m forced to watch my nine year old son, Ciro, constantly having to walk around loaded down like a Sherpa, carrying around the same 20 crappy books that he carried around last year and what has changed? Only the titles?!
Compulsory English language education from nursery school level. At 61 years of age I am still trying like crazy to learn English and I just can’t! I just can’t carry on and then they ask me “how do you say “dente” in English? “Tooth”, a “dente” is a tooth, “and if one of your teeth hurts, where do you go?” To the “dentist”! I just can’t carry on like this! Yet I still remember the little rhymes they taught me in French at nursery school, like “ma mére que j’aime beaucoup, ...”. I don’t know what the hell it means, but I still remember it from when I was at nursery school! Abolish the legal value of the educational qualifications. You probably won’t agree with this, but it remains open for discussion. State funding must only be granted to public educational institutions! Students should evaluate the performance of their university lecturers. Italian language education to be provided free of charge to foreigners and must be one of the requirements for obtaining citizenship. Increased funding for research at the universities, Distance learning via the Internet. Integration of universities/companies".
Education. Abolish the Gelmini Law. There are also.. no, it’s not a joke, there are also some things that are right, but before you touch our schools, you need to take a step back... Compulsory provision of Internet access for the students in our schools. This is not just another cliché and, if you don’t agree, then we can take note of the fact, for heavens sake, this is merely a starting point. Gradual abolition of printed school books in favour of free access to these books on the Internet. In my “Delirio” show I showed the viewers Kindle. Today Kindle is a folder, offered year by year, into which you can download 2,000 books, any texts that you desire. It is not a screen and it isn’t backlit, so all you need is a light and you can read it as you would a book. It can hold 2,000 books in a little gadget this size. With two little solar power cells you can load it up and have the knowledge at your fingertips whenever and wherever you like. Holy moly, now that’s what I call true freedom! Meanwhile, I’m forced to watch my nine year old son, Ciro, constantly having to walk around loaded down like a Sherpa, carrying around the same 20 crappy books that he carried around last year and what has changed? Only the titles?!
Compulsory English language education from nursery school level. At 61 years of age I am still trying like crazy to learn English and I just can’t! I just can’t carry on and then they ask me “how do you say “dente” in English? “Tooth”, a “dente” is a tooth, “and if one of your teeth hurts, where do you go?” To the “dentist”! I just can’t carry on like this! Yet I still remember the little rhymes they taught me in French at nursery school, like “ma mére que j’aime beaucoup, ...”. I don’t know what the hell it means, but I still remember it from when I was at nursery school! Abolish the legal value of the educational qualifications. You probably won’t agree with this, but it remains open for discussion. State funding must only be granted to public educational institutions! Students should evaluate the performance of their university lecturers. Italian language education to be provided free of charge to foreigners and must be one of the requirements for obtaining citizenship. Increased funding for research at the universities, Distance learning via the Internet. Integration of universities/companies".
Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:43 AM in Citizen Primaries
posted by Templar @ 10:23 PM
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