Return of the Black Shirts? Berlusconi and his openly fascist friends pushing for "citizen patrols"

[ck4829]

Italy's government has defended plans to allow citizen patrols to beef up security, but said Monday that a right-wing guard that has caused outrage with Fascist and Nazi-like symbols on its uniforms will not be allowed to walk the streets.

The Italian National Guard was launched at a news conference over the weekend, sparking outcry from the center-left opposition, Jewish groups, police unions and others that it evoked Italy's fascist-era paramilitary Black Shirts.

Benito Mussolini's Black Shirts violently attacked communists, socialists and other progressive groups, breaking up strikes and attacking trade union headquarters. Their 1922 march on Rome brought the fascist dictator to power.

The Italian National Guard uniforms feature an imperial eagle, a symbol often associated with Fascism. In addition, on the armband is a black-rayed sun, or Sonnenrad, an image found in a castle used by the Nazi's paramilitary SS.

The guard was introduced by the right-wing fringe Italian Social Movement at a Milan party conference during which at least two speakers gave the straight-armed Fascist salute.

...

However, government officials said they would go ahead with legislation allowing unarmed citizen patrols to help beef up security in Italian cities and towns. The plan is part of a crackdown by the conservative administration on illegal immigration, which Italians increasingly link to crime.

Leaders of the Italian Social Movement said the guard's creation was made possible by the bill, which must still to be approved by the Senate, leading the center-left opposition to say the case highlighted the danger posed by the plan.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government has made the fight against illegal immigration a priority, recently signing a controversial new accord with Libya to send back migrants intercepted at sea in a bid to stem the flow of thousands of would-be migrants who set sail for Italian shores from Libya each year.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iYh_oBOQFKSIJuKSQWwm9JsTd61gD98R6KTO1

Between the Democrats wanting work across the aisle with failed Republicans, Ahm-in-space-no-one-can-hear-you-scream-ijad, and this; wow, just wow.

[anonymous171]

1. Everything old is new again. nt

[marmar]

2. Benito Berlusconi.......

Scary shit.

[valerief]

3. Plus ca change...

[robertpaulsen]

4. Right, it's OK as long as they don't actually wear black shirts. Thanks Propaganda Due!

Can you say "Strategy of Tension"?



Propaganda Due
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Propaganda Due or P2 was a Masonic lodge operating under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient of Italy from 1945 to 1976 (when its charter was withdrawn), and a pseudo-Masonic or "black" or "covert" lodge operating illegally (in contravention of Italian constitutional laws banning secret lodges, and membership of government officials in secret membership organizations) from 1976 to 1981. During the years that the lodge was headed by Licio Gelli, P2 was implicated in numerous Italian crimes and mysteries, including the nationwide bribe scandal Tangentopoli, the collapse of the Vatican-affiliated Banco Ambrosiano, and the murders of journalist Mino Pecorelli and banker Roberto Calvi. P2 came to light through the investigations into the collapse of Michele Sindona's financial empire.<1>

P2 was sometimes referred to as a "state within a state"<2> or a "shadow government".<3> The lodge had among its members prominent journalists, parliamentarians, industrialists, and military leaders -- including the then-future Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi; the Savoy pretender to the Italian throne Victor Emmanuel; and the heads of all three Italian intelligence services.

When searching Licio Gelli's villa, the police found a document called the "Plan for Democratic Rebirth", which called for a consolidation of the media, suppression of trade unions, and the rewriting of the Italian Constitution.

more...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_Due

[Octafish]

5. Ah! The old days...

...Strategy of Tension, si.

http://www.etext.org/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit/Antifa/gladio">Gladio - The 'Stay-Behind' Network

"Staying Behind"
NATO's Terror Network

As the 50th anniversary of the end of the war is celebrated,
some unpleasant truths will become further buried beneath the
myth of the "triumph of freedom and democracy" over fascism. For
if fascism itself was the great evil that had to be stopped at
any cost, how are we to explain the total failure of the British,
French and American governments to do anything about the war in
Spain from 1936 to 1939, when Franco's fascist forces, openly
supported with arms and troops by Hitler and Mussolini, destroyed
the "democratically elected" republican government? The answer is
not hard to find. For Western capitalism the real enemy was not
fascism but the popular revolution inaugurated by the Spanish
working class.

Whilst a great many of those actively engaged in the war
against Hitler genuinely fought under an anti-fascist banner,
whether in the various official armed forces or the guerilla
networks, the war was essentially a diversion from the ongoing
concern of the European and American elites. German expansion had
to be stopped because it challenged the economic and political
interests of those elites. Having been defeated, business as
usual could be resumed, specifically the business of preventing
any internal threat to the ruling classes in the form of popular
revolution.

SNIP...

In effect Gladio had both "official" and "unofficial" wings,
with the latter initiating its own "anti-communist" operations
but receiving both sanction and funding from the "official" wing.
General Pietro Corona head of "Office R" in 1969/70 told a Venice
enquiry into a bombing in Peteano that there was an "alternative
clandestine network, parallel to Gladio, which knew about the
arms and explosives dumps and had access to them". General Nino
Lugarese, head of SIMSI (a branch of the Italian secret service)
from 1981-1984, revealed the existence of a "Super Gladio" of 800
members responsible for internal intervention against domestic
political targets.

Gladio was "officially disbanded" by the Italian government
in December 1990 after the story broke. On January 29th, 1992 it
was officially declared to have been a clandestine and illegal
"armed band" involved in subversion, by an Italian parliamentary
commission on terrorism.

The 1990 revelations in Italy had a wider impact. After all,
Gladio was simply the Italian branch of a European wide network.
The Belgian, French, Dutch, Greek and German governments all
officially acknowledged that they took part in the covert NATO
network, with the Belgian prime minister revealing that a Europe
wide meeting of the network had been held as recently as October
1990. Of course the respective governments were at pains to deny
that the network had been intended for anything other than to
enable post-invasion guerilla warfare. Intervention in domestic
politics could only be the work of "uncontrollables" following
their own agenda.

The British authorities have refused to comment officially
on any similar network in this country. However, General Sir
Anthony Farrar-Hockley revealed in November 1990 that a secret
arms network had in fact been set up. In the same article other
(anonymous) sources also claimed that the organization had a
further aim - "combatting the takeover of civil government by
militant left wing groups". Yet is there any evidence of
destabilisation activities similar to those carried out on the
continent?

During the 70s, the same time as the Italian "strategy of
tension" was escalating, elements of the right wing establishment
in this country perceived a genuine threat to their vested
interests. In the midst of economic collapse trade unions seemed
to be unstoppable, indeed the miners had effectively destroyed
the Tory government, and Labour under Wilson came to power in
1974. Edward Heath was seen as having betrayed the Tory party,
not just by the upper echelons but by the thousands of ordinary
supporters defecting to the far right.

CONTINUED...

http://web.archive.org/web/20040223035037/http://www.etext.org/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit/Antifa/gladio

Please copy and pass around, folks. They aren't coming. The Black Shirts are already here.