Lis­ten: One Seg­ment

1. We doc­u­ment the May, 2001 elec­tion of Ital­ian media mogul Sil­vio Berlus­coni, and the extent to which his admin­is­tra­tion con­sti­tutes the return of the Ital­ian fas­cist gov­ern­ment of Il Duce, Ben­ito Mussolini.

2. The broad­cast begins with dis­cus­sion of ide­o­log­i­cal and func­tional con­ti­nu­ity between the milieu of con­victed Nazi war crim­i­nal Erich Priebke and the Ital­ian fas­cist forces grouped around Berlus­coni. (“I Have a Nazi for a Friend” by Gior­gio Fer­rini; L’Espresso; 1/18/2001; pp. 68–69.)

3. Priebke has received finan­cial sup­port from Paolo Gia­chini, who has used his con­sid­er­able wealth to sup­port the efforts of an array of Ital­ian fas­cists con­nected to the Berlus­coni coali­tion. (Idem.)

4. Next, the pro­gram reprises a past arti­cle which high­lights the explic­itly fas­cist nature of orga­ni­za­tions grouped around Berlus­coni, such as the Movi­mento Sociale Fiamma Tri­col­ore. (“Fas­cists Who Read” by Peter Gomez; L’Espresso; 1/11/2001; p. 54.)

2. Much of the rest of the pro­gram con­sists of read­ing and analy­sis of an arti­cle about Berlus­coni from the British anti-fascist pub­li­ca­tion The Search­light. (“Mussolini’s Heirs Return to Power” by Alfio Bern­abei; The Search­light; June/2001; p. 32.)

3. This pro­gram doc­u­ments, among other things, Berlusconi’s mem­ber­ship in the fas­cist P-2 Lodge of Licio Gelli, Berlusconi’s for­mal alliance with Movi­mento Sociale Fiamma Tri­col­ore, con­nec­tions between Berlus­coni and the fas­cist cadre of Roberto Fiore and Fiore’s con­nec­tions to Guido Mus­solini, nephew of the Ital­ian dic­ta­tor. (Idem.)

4. Berlusconi’s coali­tion part­ner is Gian­franco Fini of the Alleanza Nazionale, the direct suc­ces­sor to Mussolini’s fas­cist party. (Fini’s party was also a coali­tion part­ner with Berlus­coni in his 1994 government.)

5. We then high­light con­nec­tions between Fini’s forces and the Forza Nuova of Roberto Fiore. (“Polit­i­cal Posters of Forza Nuova” by Peter Gomez; L’Espresso; 1/11/2001; pp. 54–55.)

10. The pro­gram con­cludes with an exam­i­na­tion of the insti­tu­tional con­ti­nu­ity between Ital­ian fas­cist ter­ror groups and the milieu of Berlus­coni and Fini. (“Black­shirts, Here’s Your Fas­cist ‘Cosa Nos­tra’” by Peter Gomez; L’Espresso; 1/11/2001; pp. 54–56.)