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Now THAT’s Comedy! Beppe Grillo’s Counter-Culture Fascism

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COMMENT: Italy’s recent elec­tions saw the Five Stars Move­ment of come­di­an Beppe Gril­lo win­ning a share of the vote that will enable it to play a key role in form­ing the next coali­tion gov­ern­ment.

Gar­ner­ing increased scruti­ny, that par­ty is look­ing any­thing but fun­ny.

Amid indi­ca­tions of sym­pa­thy for fas­cism and neo-fas­cism, the par­ty is also under fire for Gril­lo’s [not sur­pris­ing] incli­na­tion toward “the social­ism of fools”–anti-Semitism.

Some of Gril­lo’s bud­ding par­lia­men­tar­i­ans have also been influ­enced by a qua­si-fas­cist film called “Zeit­geist.” 

Com­bin­ing a John Birch Soci­ety re-work­ing of the old Jew­ish bank­ing con­spir­a­cy theme with the unten­able “Truther” the­o­ries about the 9/11 attacks, Zeit­geist has achieved con­sid­er­able pop­u­lar­i­ty on the inter­net.

Along with the counter-cul­ture fas­cist tract Thrive, that film may well be groom­ing a new gen­er­a­tion of wan­der­vo­gel, rel­a­tive­ly young, “alternatively”-oriented and large­ly well-inten­tioned  peo­ple who have embraced a fas­cist ide­ol­o­gy with­out ful­ly real­iz­ing it.

The suc­cess of Beppe Gril­lo’s polit­i­cal for­ay should alert peo­ple to the dan­gers inher­ent in counter-cul­ture fas­cism.

 “Beppe Grillo’s M5S, Human Microchips, Fas­cism and Lim­its of ‘Rev­o­lu­tion­ary’ Move­ment” by Umber­to Bac­chi; Inter­na­tion­al Busi­ness Times; 3/6/2013.

EXCERPT: In the last few days, Ital­ians have had a chance to take a clos­er look at the par­lia­men­tary new­com­ers elect­ed from the ranks of for­mer come­di­an Beppe Gril­lo’s Five Stars Move­ment (M5S). . . .

. . . . Fur­ther suprise fol­lowed a rare inter­view with an M5S MP on Rai Tre tele­vi­sion pro­gram Bal­laro. . . .

. . .Pao­lo Berni­ni, 25, said his life changed after watch­ing Peter Joseph’s con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry doc­u­men­tary Zeit­geist.

“I don’t know if you are aware of it but in Amer­i­ca they’ve already start­ed to implant microchips inside human bod­ies. To record, to con­trol the pop­u­la­tion,” he said refer­ring to a claim in the movie that became an inter­net sen­sa­tion in 2007.

“With the inter­net many minds are awak­en­ing and truth is emerg­ing,” he added.

Bernini’s words echoed a video pub­lished by M5S guru Casa­leg­gio which pre­dict­ed the birth — on 14 August, 2054 — of a new world order named Gaia at the end of a 20-year third world war.

Change dri­ven by the inter­net would make all men sub­ject to the same laws and erase all con­flicts, the video claims.

In the short­er term, what has even­tu­al­ly emerged from the inter­net is that the fresh­ly elect­ed M5S spokes­woman Rober­ta Lom­bar­di had praised Ital­ian fas­cism on her blog, claim­ing Ben­i­to Mus­solin­i’s move­ment had a promis­ing start. . . .

“Italy Kingmaker’s Anti-Jew­ish Views under Scruti­ny” by Frances D’Emilio [AP]; Times of Israel; 3/7/2013.

EXCERPT: Com­ic Beppe Grillo’s pop­ulist tirades were seen as a benign out­let for pop­u­lar anger in the days his protest move­ment was a sideshow in Ital­ian pol­i­tics. Now that he’s one of Italy’s most pow­er­ful fig­ures, his views are com­ing under greater scruti­ny — and a his­to­ry of anti-Semit­ic state­ments has start­ed to raise con­cern out­side the coun­try.

Grillo’s 5‑Star Move­ment cap­tured a quar­ter of the bal­lots in last month’s nation­al elec­tions, mak­ing him the king­mak­er after a vote that left none of the main­stream par­ties in con­trol of Par­lia­ment. Giv­en that polit­i­cal clout, for­eign observers have expressed alarm over com­ments Gril­lo has made about a Jew­ish lob­by con­trol­ling infor­ma­tion, Jew­ish Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­ers out to get actor Mel Gib­son and about how he finds Israel “fright­en­ing.”

The state­ments have yet to cre­ate much of a stir in Italy itself, where anti-Jew­ish and oth­er racial slurs can find a sur­pris­ing­ly high lev­el of tol­er­ance. But anti-defama­tion advo­cates say Gril­lo must now be held to account due to his new posi­tion of pow­er. . . .

. . . . Last year, in an inter­view with Israeli dai­ly Yedio­th Ahronoth, Gril­lo claimed that a Jew­ish lob­by con­trols all the infor­ma­tion Euro­peans learn about Israel and the Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ries. The anti-Semit­ic thread winds back years, with an entry Gril­lo made in his much-fol­lowed blog short­ly after Gib­son made deroga­to­ry com­ments about Jews dur­ing his arrest for drunk­en dri­ving in 2006.

“The Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­ers of Jew­ish ori­gin and even the oth­ers if there are any,” Gril­lo railed, were threat­en­ing Gibson’s career. If the actor “had said . . . ‘Israel could cause the out­break of the Third World War’ per­haps they would have reopened Alca­traz just for him and then thrown away the keys,” Gril­lo wrote. . . .

 

 

 

 

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