whitebeard

Thursday, March 30, 2006

The Casentino and its story

CHAPTER II

THE SWORD IN THE VALLEY

“Cities of men with lofty gates and towers,

concourse in arms, fierce faces threatening war,

giants of mighty bone, and bold emprise."

The traces of the rule of the strong arm, under which the Casentino lay far many centuries, are still visible to-day. As you look down the plain from castled hill to castled hill, and along the many folds of the mountain ramparts, where every village, girt with ruined walls, bristles upon a crag of defence, you think that some Cadmus must once have sown the valley with dragons' teeth. No field better fitted far that deadly seed. The barons, lay or ecclesiastic, who in the chaos of the ninth and tenth centuries in Italy bad possessed themselves of practical authority, could satisfy, in the impregnable fastnesses of these mountains, the ideal of individuality inherited from long-bearded or Teutonic ancestors, by warring upon one another, or stooping upon the defenceless peasants in the valleys, or the feeble communities in their neighbourhood. During this period in Italy the Eagle of the Empire, however omnipotent in simulacrum upon the banners of Frankish or German sovereigns, was in effect superseded in the Casentino, and everywhere within range of the Apennines, by the petty screaming lords of the mountain eyries. .

Within the Valley Enclosed the strong places were early united under a single rule. From the latter part of the tenth century, if not earlier, all the upper and most important part of the Casentino was held by the great house of the Guidi. These barons, who owned vast territories in Tuscany and the Romagna on either side of the Apennines and held the grand title of Counts Palatine, were some of the most potent elements in the early history of Florence. In the pages of Dante and of Giovanni Villani and other FIorentine writers of that time they are called i Conti without further distinction.

Their origin, like that of so many great Italian houses of the Middle Ages, is wrapped in obscurity. Nothing seems to be certainly known of them till the latter part of the tenth century, when they were already powerful. And at this periodo they appear still in a borderland of legend and history. Early chroniclers relate a tale of love as the foundation of the fortunes of the family. The young Lord Tegrimo, or Guido, was hunting one day in the forest of Modigliana, and killed a fair white doe. Finding himself beneath the castle of the Countess Engelrada, he sent his page with the. doe to lay it as an offering at her feet. Engdrada was the daughter of the Duke of Ravenna, and was very beautiful and very rich; she ruled Modigliana in the Romagna, notfar from Faenza, with all the country round. Many were the wooers that knelt at her feet, only to be dismissed with scorn. But the offering of the doe, and perhaps some glimpse which she had aiready had of the handsome young huntsman, touched her hard heart and she commanded the presence of Tegrimo in her bower, and before long she yielded him her heart and her hand, together with all her vast possessions in the Romagna and Tuscany.

This couple are mentioned in contemporary documents, and the succession of their posterity may be gathered from ancient deeds, in which grants made by them to religious foundations are recorded. The early chroniclers supplement this dry memorial by more romantic details of the sinful lives for which these pious gifts were usually a tardy death-bed expiation. They tell us that Guido, son of Tegrimo, was very powerful in Ravenna, where he made himself so hateful by violence and lust that the people massacred him and all his house. One baby son alone escaped, being hidden by his foster-mother, and grew up to take terrible revenge upon the slayers of his kindred. So fìerce was his exultation over his slaughtered enemies that he is said to have licked their blood from his sword, whence his name of Tegrimo, or Guido Bevisangue. This bloodthirsty individual founded the once famous Abbey of Strumi, near Poppi, for the white-robed followers of St. Bernard. His son Guido appears as the founder of churches and patron of monasteries, and might have come down to history in an amiable light had it not been for that scourge of sinners, Peter Damian, who in one of his epistles gives a different view of the baron's character. He narrates how a certain priest in a vision was conducted by St. Benedict into Hell, where he saw many who had been great nobles on earth suffering terrible torments because of their sins. And among. other things he saw a number of hideous devils busily making great preparations, running backwards and forwards, hurrying and panting, like servants getting a house ready far the reception of some great and honoured guest, and was told that they expected Count Guido on the fourth day from then; whereupon the priest woke up and related what he had seen, and on the fourth day, as predicted, the Count died.

. And so Guido succeeded Guido, each one adding to the power and influence of the house. The grandson of him whose doom Peter Damian relates is the first of the Counts who joined the warlike name of Guerra to the original Guido. This first Guidoguerra was a man of great authority, and shared the government of Tuscany with those great princesses, the Countess Beatrice and her daughter, the famous Matilda. His sons joined in the Crusades, and were taken captive by the Saracens ; the Count is recorded to have pawned a great silver crucifix for their ransom. Re was succeeded by one of these crusading heroes, Guidoguerra II, known as the Marquis, a title bestowed upon him by the Grancontessa Matilda, who seems to have adopted him as her son, and to have given him equal jurisdiction with herself in Tuscany. Both he and his father were generous in their gifts to churches and convents. The Marquis was followed by his son, Guidoguerra III. In this Count, who was the companion of crusading kings, and foremost in the councils of the young Emperor Barbarossa, the house reached the highest summit of its power and prosperity. A chronicler of the time tells us that at his death, in 1157, every Italian wept; that he was the greatest of the princes of the Empire, and the mirror of nobility for all Italy. During his absence in the Holy Land, and after his early death, while his san was yet a child, the dominions of the Guidi were ruled by his sister Sofia, the Abbess of Pratovecchio. Sofia was a woman of very notable character-a typical nun princess of the twelfth century, the female counterpart of the fighting bishop of the day, who wore a coat of mail and carried a sword far a pastoral staff. When making her profession at the age of fifteen, with great pomp and ceremony, in the presence of bishops and high ecclesiastical dignitaries, she took the veil from the altar and placed it aver her own head, saying, "I will not that you bishops should put it on me; but with my own act I give myself to my Lord Jesus Christ." Her widowed mother, the Countess Imilia, founded for her the Convent of S. Giovanni, which still exists at Pratovecchio. It quickly became a great and powerful community, through the generous endowments bestowed upon it by the Guidi, and the Abbess ruled it, and its dependent religious houses, and vassal castles and territories, with a strong hand. She was seen constantly on horseback, riding from place to place, surrounded by her men-at-arms, to administer justice to her subjects. When she approached one of her convents, the nuns, headed by their abbess, would come forth in procession to a great distance to meet her, and would receive her kneeling humbly upon the ground. The forests and green valleys where the, ruined monasteries of the Apennines once stood are empty of such pictures now. But these veiled votaries of re1igion were not so meek as they appeared, and their conduct often called forth the harsh reproof of their superior. On one occasion she replied to their greetings thus: "I do not salute you, for you are the most wicked of women and of evil report, and bring shame upon my house." The nunneries indeed were full of the party spirit of the time, and were often nests of political intrigue, and there are records of secret murders and evil deeds committed within those subject to the Abbess Sofia at the instigation of the Counts.

The gallant Abbess did not allow the influence of her House to decline. during the minority of her nephew. She was in constant attendance upon Frederick Barbarossa's Empress when that lady accompanied her lord into Italy. The young Count grew up in the sunshine of the Imperial favour, and followed the Emperor in all his wars later; espousing his cause zealously in the great quarrel with the Church. With this Guidoguerra, fourth of the name, the history of the House emerges into clearer light. As the ancestor of the several branches of the Guidi, which played a prominent and conflicting part in the faction warfare of later days, and himself a mighty prince and a man of robust and striking personality, he has obscured the more shadowy memories of his fathers, and stands in history as the most famous of all the Conti. His fame is coupled with that of his wife, the good Gualdrada, daughter of a rich Florentine citizen, Messer Bellincione Berti dei Ravegnani, the "alto Bellincione" named to Dante among the noble Florentines of old by Cacciaguida in the Paradiso (C. xvi., v. 99) . In another passage (C. xv., vv. 112-114) Cacciaguida cites Bellincione and his wife as examples in their attire of the simplicity and modesty used in the good old days.

Giovanni Villani and other fourteenth century writers tell a charming tale about the marriage of Guidoguerra and Gualdrada. The following is Boccaccio's version of it: -" The Emperor Otho IV., chancing to be in Florence, and to make the city more joyous by his presence, having betaken himself to the festival in the Church of St. John, it happened that together with the other gentle women of the city, according to our custom, the wife of Messer Berto carne to the church and brought with her her daughter, named Gualdrada, who was still a maiden; and when they had seated themselves on one side with the other women, all the bystanders, because the damsel was passing beautiful in form and in stature, turned to look at her, and among others the Emperor, who, having greatly praised both her fairness and the modesty of her mien, asked Messer Berto who she was. To which Messer Berto, smiling, answered: “She is the daughter of one who is willing that you should kiss her if it so pleases you.' These words were heard by the damsel, who was close by; and rising to her feet and looking awhile at her father, her countenance changing somewhat with shame, she said: 'My father, do not so courteously promise away my honour, for of a surety none shall ever kiss me, save he whom you give me for husband.' " The story continues, that the Emperor was still more pleased with her because of her words, and calling to him the noble youth Count Guido, who was in his train, urged him to marry her; and Guido being nothing loth, having already fallen in love with the maiden, the marriage was performed, and Otho bestowed upon them the Casentino as Gualdrada's dowry. But, alas for romance, the Guidi, as we know, had possessed the Casentino long before: The chroniclers must have confused Gualdrada with the far – off Engelrada. And, what is worse, it is quite clear from documentary evidence that Gualdrada was a married woman of many years standing in 1208 when Otho first came to Italy, being already in 1180 the wife of Guidoguerra. But that she was as virtuous and beautiful as the story says we need not doubt. It is Dante who speaks of her as “the good Gualdrada."

.The Count, her husband, has left a different impress on history. The Faentine chronicler, who lauds Guidoguerra III in such high terms, bewails the dissimilarity of the son, whom he likens to Rehoboam, in that he little followed in his father's footsteps, but, despising the wise and discreet, was led by the counsel of the young and foolish. There is a letter extant addressed to the Count by Pope Innocent III. in 1213, exhorting him to repent the many crimes of his ear1y life, instead of adding a multitude of fresh ones to them in his old age, and in especial to mend his conduct towards the religious houses. For it seems that he had not only oppressed and afflicted his neighbours the monks of Camaldoli with many wrongs, but by making a road near the Eremo he had intruded into their solitude armed men, and, worse still, play actors and light women, there where from of old no woman was ever allowed to enter. Moreover, he had carried off all the oxen of the monks. But though a reprobate in the eyes of Pope and bishops, the merry baron captured the popular fancy, and many tales became current about him. Magister Boncompagno, a famous grammarian of the thirteenth century, relates the pranks which Guidoguerra played upon the minstrels and buffoons who came to his palace, and at whose expense his whimsical and brutal humour diverted itself in a manner little to their taste. He punned in practical fashion upon their names, compelling one, called Malanotte to spend all night upon the roof in the snow, and another, Maldecorpo, to lie and fizzle between two fires, while a third suffered for his name of Abbas by having his hair pulled out so as to simulate a tonsure. And other like tricks are told of him.
by having his hair pulled out so as to simulate a tonsure. And other like tricks are told of him. Guidoguerra shared in the general depression of the Ghibellines after the great defeat of Barbarossa at Legnano. From this time begins a gradual decline in the power of the Guidi. The day of the independent baron in Italy was passing by. The growing cities opposed a new and mighty force to the feudal system, which had never thoroughly conquered the country. As a city waxed in power and consequence the independent magnates in its neighbourhood grew weaker, and were compelled one by one to seek the alliance and support of the city itself by condescending to share citizenship with the burghers. Faenza and Pistoia, and other communes that had obeyed Guidoguerra's father, now openly defied him, and, when the trial of arms came, showed themselves strong enough to exact terms from him. His vassals revolted against the subjection in which they had hitherto been held, and he was forced to grant them rights in the lands which they tilled. Meanwhile Florence was quietly extending herself outside her walls. During the thirteenth century she destroyed one by one the independent strongholds upon the hills around, compelling their lords to acknowledge her supremacy and receiving them into her own community, to which they brought, together with a strong and rich vitality, the elements of discord. Each day this natural process extended farther, and the great Counts Palatine, the Guidi themselves, began to be affected by it. The Republic succeeded in dealing Guidoguerra many severe blows. By armed attack, and more often by insidiously encouraging discontent among his vassals and serfs, she usurped the sovereignty of many of his castles, abbeys and fiefs in her neighbourhood. United with the other Guelf cities of Tuscany, she fought in him the ally and supporter of the hated Frederick Barbarossa and his son Henry VI. In 1196 the Count, having lost all faith in the Empire, which was now divided by the rival claims of two candidates and had for the time lost its hold upon Italy, began to reconcile himself to the new order of things, and made common cause with the Guelf League of the Tuscan cities. With the other Guelf chiefs he paid homage to Otho IV when that Emperor came to Italy in 1309. Four years later he died, leaving his sons estab1ished as citizens and subjects of Florence, and in possession of the houses of the Ravignani over the gate, which they had inherited through their mother, the Countess Gualdrada. These houses beside the ancient gate of San Pietro were afterwards sold by the Guidi to the Black Cerchi, a branch of the Cerchi which adhered to the party of the in opposition to its kinsmen, the leaders of the Bianchi. These Black Cerchi are the newfelony of such great weight with which Dante declares out of the mouth of Cacciaguida that the gate was laden in his time.

It follows

posted by: Whitebeard at 21:59 | link | comments |
dante, noyes

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Uncle Chutzpah and His Willing Executioners on the Dire Iran Threat: With Twelve Principles of War Propaganda in Ongoing Service
by Edward S. Herman
March 15, 2006
We may recall that the justification for NATO's bombing of the Serb TV broadcasting facilities in 1999 (killing 16 people) was that it was a propaganda arm of the Serb military. On that logic, accepted by respectable opinion and Carla Del Ponte on behalf of the Yugoslavia Tribunal, in a just world, where Bush and company would surely be brought to trial for manifold war crimes in the Iraq aggression-occupation, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, Bill Keller, Thomas Friedman, Donald Graham, Leonard Downie, Jr., Richard Cohen, George Will, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly, and numerous others would be in the dock alongside them.
The further remarkable thing is that, despite their semi-apologies for betraying the public interest and their readers in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq--at least at the New York Times and Washington Post--the media are going through the same routines of propaganda service in the buildup to a possible attack on Iran. They quite generally avoid mentioning the similarity of the arguments made earlier, or that the administration lied egregiously earlier, or their own earlier hyper-gullibility. A tabula rasa is required if the system calls for serial propaganda service that entails the serial conveying of disinformation and suppression of inconvenient evidence. The "Drumbeat sounds familiar" to Simon Tisdall in the London Guardian (March 7, 2006), but not to the servants of power in the U.S. media.
Twelve Principles of Propaganda Used in Setting the Stage for War: the Iran Case...
Following Here

posted by: Whitebeard at 19:30 | link | comments |
us, war, torture

Friday, March 24, 2006

National
Please distribute:

Dear Friends and Supporters:

IS BUSH GUILTY OF WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY?

THE EVIDENCE IS IN... THE FINAL VERDICT WILL BE RELEASED SOON...

The Bush Crimes Commission is launching a nation-wide campus tour this week, starting at UC Berkeley -- Speaking the Unspeakable: Is the Bush Administration Guilty of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity? This is a tour of prominent whistleblowers, eye-witnesses, victims and experts, including excerpts of testimony on video that reveal the stark reality of the Bush Administrations' war crimes and crimes against humanity -- acts that, by their scale or nature, shock the conscience of humankind.

This is a tour of truth tellers. To quote Michael Ratner from this second session: "And so, as [Bertrand] Russell said then, we say today: we are putting the Bush administration on trial. We investigate in order to expose; we document in order to indict; we arouse consciousness in order to create mass resistance. ... Our country and our world are at a tipping point. Tipping toward permanent war, the end of human rights, and the impoverishment and death of millions. We still have a chance, an opportunity to stop this slide into chaos. But it is up to us."

It IS up to us. Your assistance is needed to make this tour possible. This spring we are focusing on the Bay Area, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, DC and possibly the Atlanta area. This is an opportunity to bring this evidence to an audience that urgently needs to be part of this discussion.

* HELP BUILD THIS TOUR. Send in or write to your contacts in colleges and universities.
* Help with publicity for this tour.
* If you can type, contact the National Office (commission@nion.us or 212-941-8086) to help with transcription of the first session of the Commission.
* If you can edit video, please contact us.
* And especially, make your financial contribution on line at www.nion.us/NSOC/sign.htm or send your check payable to Not In Our Name SOC and mail to Not In Our Name SOC, 305 West Broadway #199, NY, NY 10012. We need $2,000 right away to finish producing DVDs of the testimony.

Thank you.

Janet Yip for
The Bush Crimes Commission

**********************

Below is a sample of the powerful testimony presented at the Commission. This is an excerpt from Vanessa Brocato's testimony on Indictment #4 Global HIV/AIDS and Reproductive Rights policies, especially the genocidal effects of imposing abstinence-only in the midst of an AIDS pandemic. Vanessa is an International Policy Associate for SIECUS and author of SIECUS PEPFAR [the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief] Country Profiles: Focusing In on Prevention and Youth:

"Though the abstinence-only until marriage programs have been funded in the U.S. since 1981, and have been the focal point of domestic policy, since Bush entered office in 2000, the Bush Administration has the gall to claim in the media and in policy documents, that the PEPFAR prevention strategy is based on the Uganda model. Uganda saw a significant decline in HIV prevention rates and many people are interested in replicating and scaling up this successful approach to prevention. Unfortunately, whatever that approach may have been has been obscured by ideological and political battling. By claiming the approach is based on the Uganda model, the Administration is attempting, of course, to avoid criticism that this is his western initiative being foisted upon developing nations.

"But interestingly, under this ostensibly indigenous approach, funds to deliver abstinence-only until marriage programs go to mainly U.S. based conservative organizations or local organizations with ties to U.S. groups or ties to the U.S. Government. I don't want to misrepresent, there are some local organizations receiving funds, and some HIV/AIDS organizations that used to do comprehensive prevention work, but are now turning to an abstinence-only approach just to receive really badly needed funds. In other cases, the Bush Administration is able to tap into local Christian fundamentalist movements to both implement and support an abstinence-only policy.

"The few organizations with contracts with USAID that predate PEPFAR, which are trying to maintain their comprehensive programming, are now coming under attack by the most conservative elements of our Congress. Their funding is threatened, even if they follow abstinence guidelines, because they are not considered morally capable, sufficiently ideologically in sync, to provide what proponents call, authentic abstinence education.

"PEPFAR has the ominous potential of making large scale impact. And we already have evidence of the U.S. Government's influence derailing good public programming and policy. In Uganda, the Bush Administration has played a major role in reversing the country's HIV prevention approach. The main program for information on sexuality and HIV prevention in Uganda is the Presidential Initiative on AIDS Strategy for Communication to Youth, also called PIASCY, which was launched in 2002. With the President's leadership, a team of stakeholders created educational materials for youths in elementary schools that promoted concepts, such as basic information about sexual health, information on resisting peer pressure to engage in sexual activity, condom use, and human rights. The materials were the basis for monthly HIV/AIDS related assemblies in Uganda's primary schools. PEPFAR support for PIASCY now includes assistance with the development, revision, and distribution of the PIASCY materials. But U.S. support for abstinence-only until marriage has resulted in the removal of critical HIV information and the addition of misinformation in these very same primary school curricula. This includes perpetuating myths about condoms and promoting marriage as a protective factor, regardless of the documented risks of HIV infection within marriage."

Read Vanessa's full testimony on line at www.bushcommission.org/Text/Brocato.htm.

Please send in your comments to commission@nion.us

Impeachment Movement Ignored by Corporate Media

By Peter Phillips

If a national movement calling for the impeachment of the President is rapidly emerging and the corporate media are not covering it, is there really a national movement for the impeachment of the President?

Impeachment advocates are widely mobilizing in the U.S. Over 1,000 letters to the editors of major newspapers have been printed in the past six months asking for impeachment. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette letter writer George Matus says, "I am still enraged over unasked questions about exit polls, touch-screen voting, Iraq, the cost of the new MedicareŠwho formulated our energy policy, Jack Abramoff, the Downing Street Memos, and impeachment." David Anderson in McMinnville, Oregon pens to the Oregonian, "Where are the members of our congressional delegation now in demanding the current president's actions be investigated to see if impeachment or censure are appropriate actions?" William Dwyer's letter in the Charleston Gazette says, "Congress will never have the courage to start the impeachment process without a groundswell of outrage from the people."

City councils, boards of supervisors, and local and state level Democrat central committees have voted for impeachment. Arcata, California voted for impeachment on January 6. The City and County of San Francisco, voted Yes on February 28. The Sonoma County Democrat Central Committee (CA) voted for Impeachment on March 16. The townships of Newfane, Brookfield, Dummerston, Marlboro and Putney in Vermont all voted for impeachment the first week of March. The New Mexico State Democrat party convention rallied on March 18 for the "impeachment of George Bush and his lawful removal from office." The national Green Party called for impeachment on January 3. Op-ed writers at the St. Petersburg Times, Newsday, Yale Daily News, Barrons, Detroit Free Press, and the Boston Globe have called for impeachment. The Nation (1/30/06) and Harpers (3/06) magazines published cover articles calling for impeachment. Garrison Keillor, and Richard Dreyfuss both have come out for impeachment. As of March 16, thirty-two US House of Representatives have signed on as co-sponsors to House Resolution 635, which would create a Select Committee to look into the grounds for recommending President Bush's impeachment.

Polls show that nearly a majority of Americans favor impeachment. In October of 2005, Public Affairs Research found that 50% of Americans said that President Bush should be impeached if he lied about the war in Iraq. A Zogby International poll from early November 2005 found that 53% of Americans say, "If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment." A March 16, 2006 poll by American Research Group showed that 42% of Americans favored impeaching Bush.

Despite all this advocacy and sentiment for impeachment, corporate media have yet to cover this emerging mass movement. The Bangor Daily News simply reported on March 17 that former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark has set up the website Votetoimpeach.org and that other groups are using the internet to push impeachment. The Wall Street Journal, on March 16, editorialized about how it is just "the loony left" seeking impeachment, but perhaps some Democrats in Congress will join in feeding on the "bile of the censure/impeachment brigades."

The corporate media is ignoring the broadening call for impeachment - wishing perhaps it will just go away. Television news and talk shows have mentioned impeachment over 100 times in the past 30 days, mostly however in the context of Senator Russ Feingold's censure bill and the lack of broad Democrat support for censure or impeachment. Nothing on television news gives the impression that millions of Americans are calling for the impeachment of Bush and his cohorts.

The Bush Administration lied about Iraq, illegally spied on US citizens, and continues war crimes in the Middle East. Despite corporate media's inability to hear the demands for impeachment, the groundswell of outrage continues to expand.

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of Project Censored a media research organization. He is co-editor with Dennis Loo from Cal Poly Pomona of the The Case for Impeachment of Bush and Cheney scheduled for release this summer by Seven Stories Press.
Peter Phillips Ph.D.
Professor Sociology/Director Project Censored
Sonoma State University
1801 East Cotati Ave.
Rohnert Park, CA 94928
Office: 707-664-2588
www.projectcensored.org

posted by: Whitebeard at 09:24 | link | comments |
us, civil rights, censored news

Monday, March 20, 2006

In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball. Their intention was to extract information to help hunt down Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to Defense Department personnel who served with the unit or were briefed on its operations.
The Black Room was part of a temporary detention site at Camp Nama, the secret headquarters of a shadowy military unit known as Task Force 6-26. Located at Baghdad International Airport, the camp was the first stop for many insurgents on their way to the Abu Ghraib prison a few miles away.
Read the entire article

posted by: Whitebeard at 10:32 | link | comments |
us, war, torture, censored news

New Labour must recognise that Berlusconi is the devil
Blair's friend and ally lies in direct line of descent from Mussolini and poses a toxic threat to democracy
Martin Jacques
Thursday March 16, 2006
The Guardian
We should not be surprised that New Labour has become embroiled in a scandal that involves Silvio Berlusconi. There is something entirely predictable about it. Tony Blair was perfectly happy to embrace Berlusconi, together with the former Spanish prime minister José Maria Aznar as an ally at the time of the breach between Europe and the US in the months prior to the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. He has seen Berlusconi as a valuable ally in pursuit of his pro-Bush foreign policy. In fact, he has consistently been closer to Berlusconi than to centre-left leaders such as the former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder. This sense of affinity has even acquired a personal and family dimension, with the Blairs accepting Berlusconi's hospitality and taking their vacations with the Italian leader at his holiday home.
Blair clearly feels a political and personal rapport with Berlusconi. And this has set the tone for New Labour: Berlusconi is regarded as a man to do business with. This is deeply disturbing. How can New Labour regard Berlusconi in such a light? How can it fail to see and reflect upon the malign influence that he has had on Italian democracy? And what does the silence on such matters and warm embrace of the Italian leader tell us about New Labour itself?
Berlusconi is the most dangerous political phenomenon in Europe. He represents the most serious threat to democracy in western Europe since 1945. It might be argued that the far right as represented by such openly racist and xenophobic figures as Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jörg Haider poses a more serious danger, but such figures remain relative outsiders in the European political scene. Berlusconi does not. During his two spells as prime minister there has been a very serious erosion of the quality of Italian democracy and the tone of public life.
Democracy depends upon the separation of political, economic, cultural and judicial power. Berlusconi's ownership of the major television channels - and his control of the state-owned network, Rai, during his premiership - together with his willingness to use this media power for his own naked political ambitions, has undermined democracy. Further, he has changed the laws of the land at will - using his majority in parliament - to protect his personal interests and save himself from the courts.
The connection between Berlusconi and Italian fascism is not difficult to decipher. There has always been a predictable tendency to expect fascism to recur in its old forms; but that has never been the main danger. What we should fear is the reappearance of fascism in a new guise, reflecting the new global, economic and cultural conditions of the time, while at the same time drawing on national traditions. Berlusconi is precisely such a figure. He treats democracy with contempt: at each turn he seeks to undermine, distort and abuse it. He has no respect for the independent pillars of authority - prepared to accuse the judges of being stooges of the opposition and describe them as "communists".

By his indiscriminate assaults on anyone who stands in the way of his personal rule and enrichment, he has poisoned Italian public life. He lies in direct line of descent from Mussolini. The failure of New Labour to recognise this - worse, to befriend him, to regard him as some kind of ally, to accept his largesse and hospitality - cannot be dismissed as an oversight. It calls into question New Labour's - and the prime minister's - world-view and political judgment.
Tessa Jowell is not a political innocent. She is a leading member of the cabinet. She has been assiduously working her way up the New Labour ladder for many years. She has long been a Blairite, enjoying a relationship of trust with the prime minister. She has faithfully reflected his views in regarding Berlusconi as a politically sympathetic figure with whom New Labour, and its leading families, could do business. She may or may not have known the intimate details of her husband's financial affairs but she surely knew that he had acted for Berlusconi, helped him to avoid taxes, and assisted him in his efforts to resist the judiciary. And, no doubt, Jowell saw nothing wrong in this. After all, Berlusconi had the blessing of her prime minister - he was, broadly speaking, "on our side".
But Berlusconi is a dangerous man to become entrapped with. He deals in the dark sides of Italian political life. His party, Forza Italia, worked tirelessly to ensure that it inherited the mafia vote from the corpse of the Christian Democrats. His financial tentacles have abused and disfigured Italian political life. He regards the law to be malleable, negotiable and corruptible. He who sups with the devil should expect to reap the consequences. The problem is that Blair and New Labour have never recognised that Berlusconi is the devil. Instead they have seen him as a friend and ally. They have never recognised, or at least sufficiently cared about, the toxic threat he poses to Italian or European democracy.
There are two main reasons for this. First, he is seen as a global soulmate of Bush and Blair. Second, some of the values he represents - money, celebrity and power - are ones that Blair himself aspires to and admires. New Labour shares certain characteristics with Berlusconi, notably an indiscriminate worship of business and moneymaking, a belief in the power of the media, and a contempt for the left. We are witnessing a slow degradation of European democracy, of which Berlusconi is the most extreme and pernicious expression but of which New Labour, in a much milder form, is part-cause and part-consequence.
As the Italian legal process winds its way slowly through the evidence, no doubt more revelations will come to light. Whatever David Mills has done or not done cannot be regarded as the responsibility of Jowell, Blair or New Labour. But the fact that New Labour has been prepared to embrace such an insidious political influence undoubtedly helped to persuade Mills that Berlusconi was an acceptable client and Jowell that there was nothing untoward in her husband dealing with such a man and playing such an intimate role in his affairs. For that the prime minister must take the main responsibility. Just as with Iraq, Blair stands guilty of a monumental political error. What is at stake is no less than the democratic wellbeing of one of western Europe's largest countries and, as a consequence, the health of the European polity.
· Martin Jacques is a senior visiting research fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
The article

posted by: Whitebeard at 10:02 | link | comments |
italy

Friday, March 17, 2006

The Casentino and Its Story

CHAPTER I

THE VALLEY ENCLOSED

“Beneath him with new wonder now he views,  to all delight of human sense exposed, in narrow room, nature's whole wealth, ea more,    a heaven on earth     …"
ABOUT twenty-five miles north-east of Florence there lies in the heart of the sterile Apennines a green and fertile valley called the Casentino. Here the Arno takes its rise, and flows for many miles of its early course, fed by a thousand rivulets on its way. The Valley is shaped like a great conch, and surrounded on all sides by the high mountains. From the main Apennine chain which walls it on east and north the mountain barrier is continued without a break by the long range of the Pratomagno on the west, and the two lines converge again on the south, leaving there, however, one narrow opening into the outer world. This configuration is very striking, and some think it accounts for the name Casentino, or Clusentinum in the Latin form, which they would derive from claudere Italian chiudere – to shut in. If this theory be as just as it sounds, we may turn the name in English into the Valley Enclosed, a designation appropriate in more than one sense.
Monte Falterona, which rises 6000 feet above the level of the sea, is the loftiest mountain of the Casentino, and out of its side, very high up, springs the Arno . The traveller who would understand the position of the Valley and the course of the historic river should climb on some fresh dear day to the top of Falterona, whence you look upon one of the vastest and most famous prospects in . Standing on the heap of stones which crown the painfully-won summit, your eye ranges over half the length of the peninsula, and over its entire breadth from western to eastern seas. You understand from here how on the one side with the rising sun the wisdom of the ancient East touched this fortunate land, and how on the other the vanishing glory of the evening drew the imagination of the peoples into the mysterious regions of the future and the unknown. Might one figure as a ship ploughing the infinite waters, then here upon the back of Falterona would be seated the mighty oarsman, with an oar dipped in either ocean. Within these vast boundaries many historic cities may be descried in the immense plain of the Emilia and the Romagna to the north and east, stretching to the Adriatic coast; and in the west, over the broken crests of the near hills and the distant woods which embosom Vallombrosa, Florence sits far off within misty hollows, ringed by populous slopes. On the south-west rises the wall of the Pratomagno, shutting out the view beyond, the faint pyramid of Monte Amiata alone rising behind it, and Arezzo lies within the folds of the southern hills, hidden from sight. Y ou stand at the centre of the Apennine system, and the great ramifications of the mountains spread away in all directions, continuing themselves far off in strange shapes against the sky. And right below, rocked in their very midst, lies the Casentino, loveliest and most fruitful spot in all the Appennine region :
". . . dov' è sì pregno
l' alpestro monte, ond' è tronco Peloro,
che in pochi lochi passa oltra quel segno."
But to see everything that it is possible to see from Falterona you must be up there at daybreak in early summer. Then, if ever, provided the morning is dear, you will discover the Slavonian Sea and the Tuscan. The Mediterranean , however, is never actually visible, and it is only on a morning of rare serenity that a glimmer on the eastern horizon makes known to you the tremolar della marina. At the same time everything around is revealed with an almost terrible distinctness.
The mountains close about one, dark and awed, shrinking in the rose of dawn. Cities, villages, farms tell out their buildings in the valleys and plains, as if come to judgment; and one's spirit, all alone, stripped of the veils which protect it from reality, trembles amid this cold and awful purity. Sunrise in the mountains is a moment so sublime that to mortals it is a terror, not a joy. Senses and imagination are numbed by its intolerable perfection and the spectacle of the ever renascent day induces a strange weariness.
But when the Sun has risen at last in flames out of those far-off waves, and ascending draws the mists up out of the earth, throwing over the scene the rainbow robes of illusion, one’s soul begins to move unafraid. The full autumn noon is the hour of deepest enchantment on the Falterona. What pride of the eye then that gorgeous riot of purple peaks and slopes, and the loveliness of green valleys sparkling within them; those limpid forms of the distant ranges swelling and sinking one beyond the other, prolonged in. iterated cadences till they fade in the incandescence of the sky beneath the sun; those golden snows that shape themselves far off above the ethereal rose and violet of the east, and all that infinite expanse of earth's tossed and rolling blue, losing itself in heaven's deep azure! To the north the strange mass of hills which forms the outer barrier of the upper Romagna presents at this hour a wonderful spectacle. A wilderness. of naked volcanic rocks, shooting upwards in close serried ranks of spearlike points and peaks, barren of verdure, unslaked by streams, unrenewed by the snows which cool the loftier heights, it might be the dry anatomy of some burnt-up world. Yet now in this enchanted noonday it appears transfigured, a magic shadowless region, its million facets cut out of palest, finest gold streaked with porphyry, and veiled in a quivering flame of rose. Beyond, in the immense level of the plain, clustered palaces glimmer within the low-lying grey heat vapour, like cities guessed at under the surface of the sea ; and as your eye travels farther and farther you will perceive, infinitely far off, hovering above the brooding mystery of the north, against the green and azure white of the sky, certain golden apparitions, the shapes of the Alpine snows! They might be the ramparts of some kingdom cc that never was on land or sea."
In the still splendour of the noonday the whole scene seems changed into the airy fabric of dreams. Vision and imagination make mock of reality. The mountains lose solidity, and appear ethereal shapes, sculptured in the sky, or vast looming shadows beneath the sun, and the whole world before one seems no more than the substance of a thought-an illusion projected by one's mind upon the void.
And as one looks down into the Casentino, far beneath, the Valley Enclosed itself becomes a thought, a memory. The past grows more vivid than the present, and the course of the river below symbolises itself into an image of the strong currents of life and paSSiOl1 which once coursed through the Valley. In days long gone by, that little space circumscribed by the green hills, and now so peaceful, contained within it some of the most strenuous forces of Italian history. The chain of castled heights along the course of the river, and the rock-built towers that watch from their crags down each lateral valley, recall the feudal system which once dominated Italy, when in the general deluge, in which law and order were submerged after the downfall of the Empire and the successive invasions of the country, authority retreated to the hill-tops and lodged itself in the strong arm of the independent baron. The Casentino, held by the great Counts Palatine, the Guidi, who sword in hand had stretched their dominion over all the upper Apennine valleys on either side of the mountains and far into the Romagna, was in the eleventh and twelfth centuries the seat of a power to which the yet weak and insignificant communes around gave homage and obedience.
This was the period when the Valley was most closely connected with the outer world. The traffic of life had not yet beaten out broad tracks and easy roundabout ways, but men on mule-back went straight over the face of the hills to their destination. Merchants and travellers frequented the mountains, and villages now mean and dwindled and almost inaccessible upon their rocks were then quite in the world's path, and there was many a great abbey, now but a heap of ruins lost in the forest far up the higher slopes, where only the hunter goes by, which was then a centre of human intercourse and political activity. The Valley was probably more populous at that time than now; where princes inhabited, men were sure to gather together.
But the castles, broken and roofless, tell to-day a story of slow decline and final downfall; of barons oppressed and crushed by the growing power of the cities ; of individualism overthrown by the resurrection and triumph of the social principle of community. Proud and isolated, each on its hill-top, they are the desolate relics of a long-vanished order of things. The vineyards that grow over the field of Campaldino down there beside Poppi cover the traces of the dire struggle of Guelf and Ghibelline, which, resulting in the victory of the Florentines over the Aretines, gave the deathblow to the independence of the Guidi and to the principles which they represented.
But in the days of its ascendency in the Valley the Sword did not rule alone. lt was challenged by the Cross. The footsteps of those who preached the gospel of peace may still be seen upon the mountains. Hidden within dark groves of pine trees among the crags and precipices of the gran giogo, yonder, to the south-east, is Camaldoli, with its hermitage, the high habitation of San Romualdo and his followers. Far to the west we have already marked the woods of Vallombrosa, which San Giovanni Gualberto chose for the home of his new brotherhood. South-eastward, again, that dark rock resting upon the hill-top, full in heaven's eye, is La Verna, where San Francesco received the Stigmata-the most holy place in the religious history of the Middle Ages. These fortresses of the spiritual power are set higher upon the hills than the strongholds of the Guidi. The climbing feet that scorned the earth were not content with the lower peaks. Naked and alone they conquered the heights and planted upon them the Cross. From there they sent forth their voices into the Valley below, calling to the people to be at peace and to come up and praise God in unison with the voices of Nature. And to this day, though the castles have fallen to pieces and the Sword is buried at last, the Cross remains the common symbol of the hills. It is set upon the utmost peaks, and at every turn of the paths below. Till recently Camaldoli and Vallombrosa were still great monasteries; and even now the Eremo keeps its contemplative occupants, and La Verna is a thriving centre of the active Franciscans.
Yet the ideal of their founders, the standard-bearers of the Cross, has suffered a change too with time. The numbers who flocked up after them brought the world with its needs and cares into those high places, where the spirit had reigned alone, beneath the open sky. Temples arose, with roofs to shut out the stars, and the Church, ever at work to imprison the idea in a material form, has reared great worldly institutions upon those pure impulses of the individual soul towards God.
Besides the Warrior and the Saint, another power appeared in the Valley-the Poet. This one aimed at uniting the other two, of welding the Sword and the Cross, as represented by the Empire and the Papacy, into twin foundations for the temple of God upon earth. Immediately be1ow us is the fount of the Arno, from under which the exiled Dante indited his burning epistles to Florence and to the Emperor Henry VII., reiterating, in words great with the images of classic and sacred story, his lofty theory of the divine mission of the Emperor, and calling upon the one to submit, and upon the other to come quickly and fulfil his task. But the voice cried in the wilderness. Sooner than that of warrior or saint, the hope of the poet seemed to fail and perish. The temple of his dream was not to be built that way, and the world rolled on unheeding, moved by a purpose which was hidden from him.
Years after, mindful of the expectation of de1iverance for his Italy which had filled his heart beneath the springs of Arno, and of its nonfulfilment by reason of the opposition of Florence and the Tuscan League, he placed himself once again in imagination under the fount on Falterona and launched upon the stream an immortal denunciation of its waters, its valley, and the degenerate dwellers upon its banks. These verses are a piece of "satirical topography" ( Ampère, Voyage Dantesque) which has no parallel in literature. Nowhere can one grasp them in their full significance so well as here upon the top of Falterona, where one may follow the torrent of the poet's words almost with the bodily eyes along the whole length of the "accursed and ill-fated ditch," from its source immediately below to where after its more than hundred miles of course it restores its waters to the ocean.
". . . Per mezza Toscana si spazia
un fiumicel che nasce in Falterona,
e cento miglia di corso nol sazia,
                                . . . . . . . . . . . degno
       ben è che il nome di tal valle pera:
            chè dal principio suo, dov' è sì pregno
       l'alpestro monte, ond' è tronco Peloro,
       che in pochi lochi passa oltra quel segno,
            infin là 've si rende per ristoro
       di quel che il ciel della marina asciuga,
       ond' hanno i fiumi ciò che va con loro,
            virtù così per nimica si fuga
       da tutti, come biscia, o per sventura
       del loco o per mal uso che li fruga:
            ond' hanno sì mutata lor natura
       gli abitator della misera valle,
       che par che Circe gli avesse in pastura.
            Tra brutti porci, più degni di gaIle
       che d'altro cibo fatto in uman uso,
       dirizza prima il suo povero caIle.
            BotoIi trova poi, venendo giuso,
       ringhiosi più che non chiede lor possa,
       ed a lor, disdegnosa, torce il muso.
            Vassi cadendo, e, quanto ella più ingrossa,
       tanto più trova di can farsi lupi
       la maledetta e sventurata fossa.
        Discesa poi per più pelaghi cupi,
trova le volpi, sì piene di froda
che non temono ingegno che le occupi."
"Through the midst of Tuscany there spreads a stream which rises in Falterona, and a course of a hundred miles satiates it noto . . . . . ., but verily 'tis meet that the name of such a vale perish, For from its beginning (where the rugged mountain chain, whence Pelorus is' cut off, is so fruitful that in few places it exceeds that mark), As far as there where it yields itself to restore that which the sky   soaks up from the sea, whence rivers have that which flows with them, Virtue is driven forth as an enemy by all, even as a snake, either because of the ill-favoured place or of evil habit which incites them; Wherefore the dwellers in the wretched vale have so changed their   nature that it seems as if Circe had them in her pasturing. Among filthy hogs, more worthy of acorns than of other food made for the use of man, it first directs its feeble course. Then, coming downward, it finds curs snarling more than their power warrants, and from them scornfu11y turns aside its snout. On it goes in its descent, and, the greater its increase, the more it finds the dogs growing to wolves, this accurst and ill-fated ditch. Having then descended through many deep gorges, it finds the foxes so fu11 of fraud that they fear no wit that may trap them."
-Purgatorio, C. xiv., vv. 16-18 and 29-54, Temple Classics Ed.
The passion for righteousness which fired these words was spent long agp, and with the decline of the Middle Ages the Casentino ceased to have any influence upon the world outside its mountains. Even the message of the Cross was suffocated by worldly ambition, or enfeebled by lack of zeal. The only share which the Valley had later in the historic movements of the great city, whose life it fed with the waters from its hills, was in giving hospitality to the philosophic thought and speculation which' occupied the chosen minds of the Renaissance, when all strenuous struggle for good or evil was over in Italy. For it was in the woods of Camaldoli yonder that the Medicean Platonists carried on, during the summer heats, their famous discussions on the ideal life and the true aim of human existence, while enjoying the hospitality of the learned and genial successor of San Romualdo, the Prior Mariotti.
So in a spiritual dilettantism the last echoes of the great ideas which go to determine the issues of history die out in the Casentino. Since then the Valley has remained remote and forgotten, strewn with the wrecks of its tumultuous days. Its fairness remains to it, touched by the pensiveness which belongs to the scenes of old struggles and passion. And it has its own life, quiet and strong. The forests clothe themselves every spring afresh, the flowers come again, and the Arno is replenished continually at its source. And if one seeks out the villages and farms high up among the woods of the Casentino, one finds them still the abundant source of a strong fresh peasant life, sweet-blooded, pastoral, full of melody, shut in by the hills from contact with the vulgarising influences of modern progresso In these little communities a primitive equality and simplicity reign; the present is not an unchanged version of the conscience-stricken Middle Ages, but of a much more ancient past, carrying one back to the times when flocks and herds were first brought to feed upon the mountain grass and upon the acorns of these many times millennial forests. Capo d'Arno, the source of the historic stream, is in a cleft of the hill immediately beneath the summit of Falterona. The spot is hidden in a wilderness of low beech scrub, and is not easy to find unless the guide be well acquainted with the hills: one is apt to be misled by the lesser rivulets that one comes across on the quest. But having scrambled out at last from the tangled thickets into a pleasant green space beside the famous fount, one feels that it would be impossible to mistake any other for this, the royal stream. For Arno does not steal out almost unseen from the earth like some beginnings that grow to great ends. Its first appearance is worthy of its storied course. A mass of rocks heaped up by earthquakes and storms form a sort of conch within the lap of the mountain, and out of them the springs pour forth from some inexhaustible well in the heart of the earth in a semicircle of seven jets, full and strong, which leap down over the rocks and boulders of the ravine, uniting in a torrent which even in this its babyhood is abundant and loud. You follow its progress with the eye, from the first fall over the rocks between the steep hillsides to that deep gorge below, where the brother streams, Arnino and Arnaccio, bring the earliest tribute, and down to the sharp turn westwards where it flashes silver in the deep shadow of the opposite hills. Then marking the sweep of the gorge southwards again, you are carried in imagination along the track of the Dantesque topography, past Porciano and its porci and away and away down the Casentino, out at the gateway beyond Bibbiena, to that sudden disdainful turn of the " snout " away from the curs of Arezzo. And now, still with your mind's eye, you pursue it on its northward flow along the Val d'Arno, till direct1y opposite its source it emerges into view again in the far-off valleys, bearing upon its full-grown flood Florence, fairest of all cities, but peopled, in the poet's eyes, with wolves. Dim and dreamlike, her Cupolone grows upon the sight. Thus in one moment you may lift your eyes from the beginning to the culmination of the great current which beauty and the kindliness of men and time's proofs clear from the curse of foulness and calamity. which Dante's impatient spirit put upon it.
And in the people that dwell beside the springs of Arno one sees the elements and beginnings, young and ever renewed, of that human life which at its meridian in history made the city there below the wonder of culture and art that she once was, and that in memory she will always remain, when by the vast are of her spirit's flight in the empyrean of beauty and joyousness she proved herself too great to be contained in the cosmos of the medioeval sage. For her the future, not the past. Florence , denounced by Dante and going on her way unmoved, not straight to the goal, but very far round as her river goes, is justified at last, and we recognise her now in the sum of all the deeds of all her sons, nobler than that noblest of them all.
It happens often, in. still fine weather, that the distant view is hid in mist. On mild days in October and November, beyond the multitudinous velvet folds of the near hills the world will appear a wide, tranquil, white sea, out of which the long backs of the mountain ranges rise blue and shadowy, one behind the other, in still and suave lines, till they melt into the sky. On such a day let the past repose beneath its pall. The present is so sweet that it suffices. In truth, for those who sit here at the beginning of things the present seems to be far behind the past, and all that winding course of the river and progress of the centuries is as it were to come. The green lawn upon which you sit beside the murmurous cradle of Arno is as it always has been, and a stray shepherd or hunter of thousands of years back would have warmed himself by just such a crackling flame of beech twigs as your guide has lighted now.
The mountain has returned to a solitude which carries us back beyond the time of the Etruscans, who used to bring their sick to a healing lake not far from Capo d'Arno. This lake is now dried up, but the form of the rocks indicates where it was, and its healing virtue, together with the existence of a temple beside it, is conjectured from the discovery there in 183° of a quantity of votive offerings: bronze objects of Etruscan workmanship, weapons, chains and ornaments, above all, statuettes, some of them be1onging to the best period of_Etruscan art. Many of these may now be seen in the British Museum.
The descent, of the_mountain to the little town of Stia far below is a quick slide, first down the steep green glades between the brushwood, very different to the slow climb up. Then follows a de1ightful progress across wild sweet pastures strewn with boulders, and along paths that c1ing to the hillside above the hanging forest of oak, and deep valleys where clusters of dwellings show the summer haunts of the shepherd folk. You pass beside vast sheep-folds, and for those who go up by night to see the sun rise on the top the way is barred by great sheep-dogs, white growling bears. till the shepherds come to call them back. But about the end of September the flocks abandon the green Alps and move slowly down to their winter pastures in the far-off Maremma, the marshy region between the mountains and the Tyrrhenian Sea , unwholesome in summer for man and beast. After they are gone the slopes are solitary except for a thin flock of sheep here and there, or a few large-horned kine. white and gentle-eyed, which belong to the high farms, and crop between the stones all the winter through in the sunny places where the snow does not lie long. They are herded by sweet-faced children with shy eyes,. creatures innocent of the arts of reading or writing, that couch on the rocks in the mild winter sunshine. chattering together, or singing, each one alone, their interminable chants. It is from up here in the mountains" that the vein of natural song springs for which the Tuscan peasants are noted.
There is another way from the Falterona down to Stia, much longer than the direct path, but leading one through some de1icious places. You descend first a bare precipitous hill. l remember once receiving a strange impression as I came down that way. It was late in October, but the sun burnt with a fervour which its summer rays have not. There had been stormy weather a month earlier, and snow had fallen up here ; large patches still lay high up, filling the open spaces between the thickets. We had ploughed down kneedeep through the drifts, and had come out on the side of the hill, where all was shadeless, stony, dry. Faint with the heat, our throats parched, we looked up behind us to where we had just passed. Over the blinding snow the sky bent down upon us, black in the intensity of its burning blue. Some autumn beech trees made a patch like fire upon the terrible white. l should never have thought that earth could take on so infernal an aspect. We stumbled and slipped down the steep, our feet hurt by the loose stones that rolled from under them, and, following a track over the treeless moor below, we were soon comforted by the sound of water near, and carne suddenly upon a rift in the mountain, out of which water gushed full and abundant, leaping from stone to stone, and welling in little pools. After :Stooping to drink and resting a little while in the shade of the trees that grew in the ravine, we crossed the torrent; and now our way led over lovely pastures and down and down the widening gorge, to the point of the first meeting of the streams.
Close here there is a mountain farm, set in the midst of natural lawns, dose cropped, cool and verdant, where the waters around make a refreshing noise as they rushdown the ravines. Beneath this place we crossed the now swollen Arno , and. entering the chestnut forest on the other side, pursued our way through broad spaces of sunshine and shadow, where beneath the golden leaves women and children were picking up the ruddy fruit out of the litter of thorny yellowed husks and creamy skins upon the ground. The meek kerchiefed heads were lifted as we passed, and mild eyes gazed at us in wonder. One of the women called out after us, “Are you not come from very far off?" To us it seemed that it was she and her companions who were remote, left behind in some golden age in. an eternal afternoon of sunshine and peace.
Presently we passed through a tiny village which dung to the hillside. In the steep paved passage between the stone dwellings one or two sybil-like crones were creeping in the sunshine. Continuing round the hill, we reached at last the other side and found ourselves in view once more of the Arno, which had made a great sweep between the hills, and, now a considerable stream, flowing in a wide stony bed, was 18on its way southwards through the upper part of the main valley. Our road went on along the hillside above it, al ways through chestnut woods, till upon the verge of a steep slope in front rose the dark spire of cypresses which stands beside the mountain. church of Sta. Maria delle Grazie, and in an hour more we were in the steep street of Stia.

posted by: Whitebeard at 11:36 | link | comments |
dante, noyes

Sunday, March 12, 2006

In God we trust

Torture, Empire and the SOA
"The SOA experience is very important in educating people that torture has a long history in the US military and there is nothing particularly new about it. I think the SOA has a very important role to play in a discussion about impunity. The fact is that people, not just in Latin America , but in this country, have gotten away with murder and torture and acts of human rights crimes time and again. And that that is bad enough in itself, but to think about what are the consequences of impunity for the present? How does the past get whitewashed in a context of pervasive impunity and what does that have to say about people´s ability to mobilize against domination in the present? I think that the SOA has a very important role in all of that."

-- Lesley Gill, in an interview about her new book: The School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas

Also check out Naomi Klein's excellent new article 'Never Before!' Our Amnesiac Torture Debate from The Nation Magazine.

News from Colombia

Read a December 14 Urgent Update from the San José Peace Community.

As the weekend’s events were getting started, SOA Watch received sad news from our friends in the Colombian Peace Community of San José de Apartadó. On Thursday, November 17, 2005, troops commanded by General Luis Alfonso Zapata Uribe* attacked and killed Arlen Salas David, a leader of the peace community.

More than 10,000 Colombian soldiers have been trained at the SOA/WHINSEC. continues to send more soldiers to the SOA than any other country--with chilling results. Graduates of the school are consistently cited for human rights abuses. The is an active contributor to the war in , providing billions in military aid and training to the Colombian military. Movements for justice in the need to stand in solidarity with the people of , work to change foreign policy and close the SOA.

Found here

Thanks for
push the photo

posted by: Whitebeard at 09:40 | link | comments |
us, civil rights, torture, censored news

Saturday, March 11, 2006

3 Years of War and Occupation - The World Can’t Wait!
End the War - Drive Out the Bush Regime!

[click here to find protests in your area this spring on the anniversary of the start of the Iraq War and on April 29]

3 years ago, "shock and awe" began: bombs reigned down on the people of Iraq, and an invading army began its brutal occupation. Since then, one war crime after another has been committed - from the systematic torture at Abu Ghraib (and elsewhere), a blitzkrieg attack on Fallujah which included the use of white phosphorous chemicals on civilians, house-to-house raids, continued bombings, round-ups and imprisonments - in short, a brutal imperial occupation. This murderous and illegitimate war was based on blatant lies that the Bush regime still refuses to own up to. Over 100,000 Iraqis and 2,000 American soldiers have been killed on the basis of these lies. The Bush regime arrogantly promises to continue this occupation, and sets its sights on invading more countries.
But in the run-up to the war, something else happened: millions inside the US took to the streets to stop the war, showing that this war and this regime does NOT represent the will of the people. This powerful anti-war movement exposed Bush’s lies and stood with people around the world, including those directly facing the oncoming onslaught.
The World Can’t Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime joins in demanding an immediate end to this war in protests across the country this spring. Truly, the people of Iraq can't wait another day for this brutal occupation to end.
Is there a distinction between the people in the US and the government in this brutal war of occupation? People all over the world are looking to see if the people in this country are just going along or if they are projecting their own voice, in the streets and in a growing multi-faceted resistance.
What Will it Take to Stop the War? [click here for more]

posted by: Whitebeard at 18:52 | link | comments (1) |

Friday, March 10, 2006

Pity the Italians

Pity the Italians.

Their election campaign appears to have lasted since the war ended, there are 48 parties from which to choose this time, and they have a mad system of proportional representation. As we report today, the result is a ballot paper that is the width of an open copy of The Times and almost the same height. The reading material, alas, may not be as interesting.

It follows Here

posted by: Whitebeard at 17:12 | link | comments |
italy

Thursday, March 09, 2006

It's enough?
Real News Reviews Posted 3/06

Halliburton to build domestic detention facilitiesReviewed by Bailey Malone

As the UN demands closure of KBR-built Guantanamo facilities, the Halliburton subsidiary was awarded a $385 million, five-year contract from DHS's US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to build detention facilities within the US. The facilities would house an emergency influx of immigrants, or "support the rapid development of new programs."
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=eed74d9d44c30493706fe03f4c9b3a77

http://www.halliburton.com/default/main/halliburton/eng/news/source_files/news.jsp?newsurl=/default/main/halliburton/eng/news/source_files/press_release/2006/kbrnws_012406.html

Doctrine reveals US plans for nukes in conventional warReviewed by Cole Ryan

The unclassified document "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations," authored by US Joint Chiefs of Staff, reveals that the Department of Defense plans to dramatically lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons. The document outlines US nuclear warfighting plans, including the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons and the use of nukes in conventional war.
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/US-joint-nuclear-operations

New US Military installation in ParaguayReviewed by Nick Ramirez

Five hundred US troops arrived in Paraguay with planes, weapons and ammunition in July, shortly after the Paraguayan Senate granted US troops ICC immunity. Estigarribia airbase, capable of housing 16,000 troops and handling large military planes, is 124 miles from Bolivia's border. While US rhetoric is building about terrorist threats in the tri-border region, this area is more importantly home to Bolivia's significant water and natural gas reserves-which Bolivia's new president has promised to nationalize.
http://www.excal.on.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=903&Itemid=2

Oil industry targets EU climate policyReviewed by Isaac Dolido

US oil industry lobbyists have launched a campaign in Europe aimed at derailing efforts to tackle greenhouse gas pollution and climate change. According to documents obtained by Greenpeace, the plan is to persuade European businesses, politicians, and the media to join the European Sound Climate Policy Coalition. The coalition is a group set up to challenge and avert the adoption of Kyoto protocols by adopting a business-friendly alternative to emission reduction mandates. http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1661741,00.html

Bottled water consumption increasing-but at what cost?Reviewed by: Bailey Malone

Worldwide consumption of bottled water is up 57 percent since 1999, largely spurred by a mistaken belief that it is healthier than tap water. For a fraction of the yearly $100 billion spent on bottled water, the world could have safe water and sanitation, according to the Earth Policy Institute. The US was the largest consumer in 2004. Making bottles to meet Americans' demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 US cars for a year. Worldwide consumption entails exorbitant use of fuel for transportation, while leaving behind 2.7 million tons of plastic waste as well as depleted water sources.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0205-01.htm

Privatization of National ParksReviewed by David Abbott
Private investment is replacing federal funding as the Bush administration hands out private contracts for national park services, allowing investors to develop and sell a wide range of concessions, products, services, and entertainment to millions of paying customers-and retain the fees they collect. Through this commercialization of the park systems, Congress is slashing allocated funds for our National Parks.
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=20276

Protecting torture: Red Cross's deadly silenceReviewed by Lindsay San Martin

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confidentiality policy gives detaining powers legitimacy in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay's Camp X-Ray, and many Israeli detention centers. The policy, in effect, allows ICRC to politely ask torturers to stop torturing, while promising not to tell the rest of the world. While ICRC is maintaining "good working relations with authorities," prisoners continue to be tortured.

http://www.leftturn.org/Articles/Viewer.aspx?id=765&type=M

US takes its OPEC seatReviewed by Isaac Dolido

The neoconservatives at the Pentagon are abandoning their initial plan to privatize Iraq's oil fields and undermine the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) oligopoly. Instead, they have opted to embrace an effective membership in the OPEC cartel-a position granted by US control of Iraq's energy policy.
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=471&row=0

US doctors linked to POW tortureReviewed by Lindsay San Martin

Medical records compiled by doctors caring for prisoners at the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay are being used to modify interrogation techniques. Psychiatrists and psychologists have been part of a strategy that employs extreme stress, combined with behavior-shaping rewards, to extract actionable intelligence. Such tactics are considered torture by many authorities.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0623-06.htm

Bush Administration's erosion of workplace safetyReviewed by Nick Ramirez

A study released by Human Rights Watch documents the Bush Administration's erosion of basic workplace safety. Avoidable tragic injuries are highest in the meat processing industry where workers now face a one in five chance of severe disability or death on the job-at employment that increasingly lacks workers' protections, benefits and decent pay.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2140/

Department of Labor rolls back whistleblower protectionReviewed by David Abbott

The US Department of Labor has moved to dismantle whistleblower protections for federal employees who report environmental problems. Approximately 170,000 federal employees working within environmental agencies would be directly affected by the loss of whistleblower rights. Tens of thousands of workers in non-environmental agencies, such as the Department of Defense, would also lose legal protection.
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0922-04.htm

BYU physicist concludes official 9-11 explanation is falseResearched by Courtney Wilcox

Research on the events of 9-11 by Brigham Young University physics professor, Steven E. Jones, concludes that the official explanation for the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings is implausible according to laws of physics. Jones is calling for an independent, international scientific investigation "guided not by politicized notions and constraints but rather by observations and calculations."
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635160132,00.html
http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html

Peter Phillips Ph.D.
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Wednesday, March 08, 2006

we do not torture

From Dahr Jamil on Truthout.org:

While President Bush has regularly claimed - as with reporters in Panama last November - that "we do not torture," Janis Karpinski, the U.S. Brigadier General whose 800th Military Police Brigade was in charge of 17 prison facilities in Iraq, including Abu Ghraib back in 2003, begs to differ. She knows that we do torture and she believes that the President himself is most likely implicated in the decision to embed torture in basic war-on-terror policy.

While testifying this January 21 in New York City at the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration, Karpinski told us: "General [Ricardo] Sanchez [commander of coalition ground forces in Iraq] himself signed the eight-page memorandum authorizing literally a laundry list of harsher techniques in interrogations to include specific use of dogs and muzzled dogs with his specific permission."

All this, as she reminded us, came after Major General Geoffrey Miller, who had been "specifically selected by the Secretary of Defense to go to Guantanamo Bay and run the interrogations operation," was dispatched to Iraq by the Bush administration to "work with the military intelligence personnel to teach them new and improved interrogation techniques."

Karpinski met Miller on his tour of American prison facilities in Iraq in the fall of 2003. Miller, as she related in her testimony, told her, "It is my opinion that you are treating the prisoners too well. At Guantanamo Bay, the prisoners know that we are in charge and they know that from the very beginning. You have to treat the prisoners like dogs. And if they think or feel any differently you have effectively lost control of the interrogation."

Miller went on to tell Karpinksi in reference to Abu Ghraib, "We're going to Gitmo-ize the operation."

When she later asked for an explanation, Karpinski was told that the military police guarding the prisons were following the orders in a memorandum approving "harsher interrogation techniques," and, according to Karpinski, "signed by the Secretary of Defense, Don Rumsfeld."

For the full article by Dahr Jamail, go to: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030606L.shtml
We are in the midst of making more material from the Bush Crimes Commission widely available through expansion and development of the Commission web site. The whole world needs to read the documentation of these crimes against humanity. We urge you to contribute to make this possible. Checks should be made out to "Not In Our Name" and mailed to Not In Out Name, 305 West Broadway, #199, New York, NY 10013. Contributions can be made on line at www.nion.us/NSOC/sign.htm.

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3 Years of War and Occupation - The World Can’t Wait!
End the War - Drive Out the Bush Regime!

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