Italy

As I watched street interviews in Rome on Al Jazeera English last evening, I reflected on the Murdoch empire in America and U.K.. The jubilation I witnessed was displayed by intelligent young people who clearly described a type of Fascism, headed by the entertainment industry of Berlusconi. "We are free after twenty years." one young man explained tearfully. When asked by the interviewer how he could say that since Italy is a democracy, the young man said that the democracy had been undermined and controlled by Berlusconi's media domination, propaganda and brutal corruption.

Italy is broke. Parts of the nation are ruled by mafia gangs. The public sector was plundered and stripped of much of its regulatory power by the thugs who ruled through Berlusconi's media. Berlusconi became a wealthy international personality, living like Nero or Calligula.

The Murdoch version of this is playing out in the political class of America. A stunning example is Herman Cain, a man who still polls well among Republican voters, despite his affected homey style and arrogant defense of his sexist advances against women under his power. He is a media celebrity, a talk radio huckster. Nothing more. Prior to this, he was a ruthless business executive, not a public servant, not even a lawyer.

Our so-called democracy needs an injection of the spirit of the Arab Spring, a spirit which some Italians last evening cited as partially responsible for Berlusconi's fall. Occupy demonstrators across the U.S. are being faced with the wrath of the media politicians, who have most likely read the recent manipulated polls that the Occupy protesters have the approval of about one third of the population. This seems preposterous to me in a nation plagued by record unemployment, dysfunctional banks and a shameless elite who are living the high life on money stolen from Americans by Wall Street manipulations.

Italy lived under Berlusconi's hypnosis for twenty years. How long will the Murdoch empire pollute the politics in the U.S.? How long will the conservative I.T. and advertising sectors feed the media machine with ways to further inoculate and isolate citizens rather than wake them up? The election in 2012 is an opportunity for Americans to assert their refusal to be dominated by those who wish to strip government of its proper and ethical place in the life of its constituents. The media will probably not lead the way to this assertion of truly democratic action. This lays the responsibility on the people themselves to awaken and take back their government for their own well being.