The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Italian regional elections: An overview September 28, 2020

A very welcome post from GregTimo

Italian regional elections (held over 20-21st September, 2020)

Democratic party (PD) leader Zingaretti is the masked figure waving in the left- neoliberal/centre-left Repubblica lead article here.

See also for map of regions (leading to specific results) .

There is a messy Wiki in english of results so far this year (leading on to regional Wikis) .

7 regions were up for grabs, the centre-left (now including 5 star in Liguria in the north) held 3 and lost one, while the right solidified control of the remaining 3 (A referendum to drastically cut the number of parliamentarians was simultaneously approved by a large margin). My understanding is limited by having to use translation services .

Prelude; In January the PD led centre left ( centro-sinistra ) coalition held Emilia Romagna (home of the now questionable Emilian (co-operative) Economic model started under the once dominant (Euro)Communist Party (PCI, that title now hijacked by a remnant Stalinist sect afaik) whose continued importance is argued over elsewhere) . After months of street mobilisation by left inclined youth movement Sardines, a Lega threat was repulsed. No one was sure how these elections would go either, with such a mobilisation not possible for one, and polls again predicting close results in 2 of 4 centre left bastions Tuscany and Puglia. Marche in the east was written off due local factors afaik (5 star insisted on their own list for one, there is no transferable vote system, but a complicated mix of 1st past the post and d’Hondt Pr), with only Campania around Naples thought safe.

The populist extreme right consist of 2 parties, Lega descended from the separatist Lega Nord which once included supposed left nationalists like Salvini himself, and Brothers of Italy (FDL) descended from the neo-fascist MSI, strongest in the centre and south.

These 2 now dominate the so called ‘centre-right’ (centro-destra ) coalition, in fact Bersucloni’s Forza Italia and the older centre-right fragments are now just minor players, but a confusing factor is the lists of personalities like that of Lega’s Zaia, President of Veneto.

The centre-left also resorts to these personality lists, the PD’s DeLuca in Campania being the most significant.

On the preliminary exit polls the reporting paper above called it a draw (increased turnout due the extended voting and the close opinion polling may have saved them again?). Despite further increases for the extreme right, the centre left help the 2 most important regions in doubt Tuscany and Puglia (the latter without Renzi’s centrist party or 5star which were nice if small bonuses for them).

However the extreme right solidified their marginal control of the once centre-left Liguria around Genoa in the North and gained the long centre-left Marche (along the East coast) as well as holding Veneto by a landslide due personal popularity of the Lega leader Zaia, seen as a competent Salvini opponent within Lega. Valle D’Aosta a minor region in the north has it’s own localist politics (leaning well right wing afaik) which were strong in addition to the pop ext right Lega.

Again on the bright side, the centre left held Campania around Naples by a competing landslide. However the local PD president (the former communist) DeLuca courted the old centre-right vote big time (judging by his crediting them after the result) .
The overall result should secure Zingaretti’s (compared to Ed Milliband by Jacobin, see below) leadership of the (in part) communist tradition Democratic Party (PD) as the arch-neoliberal Renzi’s party flopped badly in regions where they ran in opposition to the main centre left (Puglia and Liguria) . The far left who ran 3 competing lists in Tuscany lost their last and only regional council seat there afaik. Their incoherence continues (see also the Jacobin Italia complaints below).

Despite their populist referendum gambit of reducing the size of the legislature passing with a large margin, it didn’t help them retain support, and 5 star are reduced to a minor party (as polls predicted). Unfortunately even where they joined with the PD in Liguria, Lega could not be stopped (it can be guessed Lega took a lot of their old support). Where they competed they were mostly reduced so far into single digits % as to not make a difference. Municipal council election were held as well, the analysis of which is beyond me as yet.

Afternotes;

Alternative coverage at the (sort of) old libertarian communist paper ‘Il Manifesto’. It allows 3 free reads every 5 days if you are registered and has a weekly English edition (the latter isn’t good on Italy though) . It seems to agree with the assessment of the centre-left Repubblica in the main.

However the complete lack of excitement on both Jacobin’s main and Italian outlet is striking (compared to their close observing of the US and UK elections), As much coverage was given to the death of an old communist founder of Il Manifesto (also with Il Manifesto), and a not great piece on the coinciding referendum was written by someone in Australia. Paulo Gerbaudo an academic in the UK now, speculates on what the future might bring along with a scattering of other seeming desultory pieces. Some embarrassed bemoaning of the far left’s incoherent strategy while hoping for the emergence of ‘Democratic Socialism’ Corbyn or Sanders style.

This translation of a desultory piece concentrating on Zingaretti last year might be summed up by ‘at least he’s not Renzi, but’. The long depression of much of the Italian left is yet to be lifted. I hope they can find some room for hope in the results.

Somewhat late analysis in Italian which hopefully will be better translated than Google Translate can manage on the English site soon . It talks about the continued disarray of the Left of the left/far left (my understanding is far from complete, but a very muddled situation with 2 stalinistic ‘communist’ parties, a Trotskyist dominated coalition PAP that previously was wider, and a more reformist Sinistra Italia in places which is a remnant of the once sizeable Refondizione Communista which split with the neoliberalised side of the PCI who now exist in the PD. More ‘soft left’ bits appear to be in the centre-left coalition if not in the PD, but some of the harder left may have joined too). The loss of their last regional seat is confirmed (in Tuscany) and explained as a combination of tactical voting for the center-left and pointless sectarian lists/vote splitting. A yearning for better tactics is expressed but there does not seem any solid ideas on that front as they seem caught between working in the center-left and working outside it. On the wider front the extension of the great leader conundrum (personalization of politics exacerbated by the Pandemic) to Italian regional elections is examined.

ILA Podcast, 9: Michael Pidgeon: Green Party, and Irish Election Manifesto Archive September 28, 2020

Direct download:

• Mp3 format (39.86 MB)
• Ogg format (32.65 MB)

In this episode we are joined by Michael Pidgeon. Michael is a long-standing member of the Green Party and was elected to Dublin City Council in the 2019 local elections for the South West Inner City Local Electoral Area. He is chair of the city’s environment and climate policy committee, and leader of the Green Party group on Dublin City Council.

Michael is also the creator of the Irish Election Manifesto Archive site, which hosts manifestos from Irish parties going back to the 1950s.

We’ll be talking first to Michael about his experience as an activist and then councillor with the Green Party, through electoral losses after their first period in government, to the recent resurgence in the 2019 local elections and 2020 general election.

We’ll also discuss the Irish Election Manifesto Archive project, and the role of party manifestos and how they have changed over time.

If you’re enjoying the podcast, please subscribe. If you use a podcast app, it should come up in most of them if you search for “Irish Left Archive Podcast”, or use one of the links below.

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Podcast Feed Link

Independent Left: The Battle of Cable Street and lessons for challenging the far right today September 27, 2020

Independent Left are holding an online public meeting on Sunday 4 October 8-9pm Dublin time to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, 1936 and to discuss the lessons from this event for challenging the far-right today.

Please register in advance at this eventbrite link.

https://www.facebook.com/events/512465170102567/

Sunday and other Media Stupid Statements from this week… September 27, 2020

News to me.

Regardless, we need to stop scaring the nation; be honest with the nation and consider how to better facilitate personal choice.

Stop scaring the nation? A laudable aim. B<a href="http://“>ut perhaps a man arguing for the spread of the virus isn’t best placed to making that case.

In fairness to Roisin Ingle she doesn’t use the term ‘enjoyable’ in a piece on Dublin Lockdown II – but the subhead of the article she writes does say:

‘Lockdown, The Sequel’ is just nowhere near as enjoyable as the original

What she does write is in a way not a whole lot better, ignoring the fact people, y’know, died and continue to do so.

The original Lockdown, while surreal and scary, was full of resolve and solidarity and the notion that we would prevail and flatten the curve or smash the virus. It was a time of Zoom quizzes and online locktail-making classes, which seem quaint and faintly mortifying now.

Then there’s this:

Swedish epidemiologist Dr Johan Giesecke will address the committee and will be asked about Sweden’s policy which had been to allow the virus to spread among the under-60s. This raised the question of should the vulnerable be shielded while the remainder of the population was allowed to move out and about, said [chair of the Oireachtas Covid-19 Committee, Independent TD Michael] Mr McNamara. Many people over the age of 70 would not be prepared to do that, he said, so was it down to a matter of personal choice.

Mr McNamara pointed out that the Aids strategy in the US had been to encourage people to modify their behaviour. The Covid-19 message to young people could be not to congregate, but if they did, not to visit their grandparents afterwards.

For how long? Personal choice? How could any of that go wrong? Because it went wrong that same day when Dr. Giesecke retreated from his argument arguing that:

“I’m not prescribing anything for Ireland,” [Dr Johan Giesecke] told Drivetime on RTÉ Radio One. “You have to make your own decisions. That’s not up to me.

“What you just told me, I’m unaware of this. I’m objecting to you saying I’m telling Ireland what to do. I’m not.

“What you’re telling me is a lot of things I don’t know. I was asked to join this committee. I didn’t volunteer for it. With all this knowledge of the Irish situation, and the way your country works, I can’t tell you that this would be better for Ireland.”

Super duper! September 26, 2020

I quite like Fred Kaplan’s posts on Slate.com. This one on the uselessness of the address to the UN General Assembly during the week is an entertaining deconstruction of a President, who as Kaplan says, can’t even be pushed to pretend he cares (and he didn’t even have to appear in person, it was all pre-recorded).

This though got me searching:

Trump has boosted U.S. defense spending, but his talk of unheard-of advanced weapons—probably the hypersonic glider, which he recently called a “hydrasonic” missile and nicknamed the “superduper”—is exaggeration. The weapon doesn’t exist as yet, its mission is unclear, and existing nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles travel at hypersonic speed.

As Kaplan notes, it’s all pretty nebulous. A long long way from completion.

Ron Cobb: 1937-2020 September 26, 2020

Sorry to hear of the death of Ron Cobb, radical political cartoonist, illustrator and production designer, at 83, this week. He was a remarkable production designer whose work informed much of the aesthetic of the 1980s and after through films such as Dark Star, Star Wars, CE3K, Alien and so on. This piece in the Guardian gives a sense of the finished output.

But to me this piece here sums up just how impressive his work was. And it’s not just in the rollcall of work he did:

Star Wars (he designed the aliens in the famous cantina scene), Alien (he was solely responsible for the design of the entire human environment of the film – losing the spotlight to H.R. Giger’s design of the creature and the alien environment), Conan the Barbarian (he designed all the weapons and armor) his magnum-opus The Last Starfighter (he designed pretty much everything there) and perhaps above all Back to the Future (yes, the De Lorean time machine is his baby). One thing that stands out in both Cobb’s cinematic and non-cinematic body of work (he also did some visualization for NASA projects, designed the flag of the Ecological Movement, among other things) is his ability to infuse his designs with a sense of amused irony – he never takes himself completely seriously, often making a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it visual gag within an otherwise serious project. So unsurprisingly, in addition to his more familiar works, he also had a short but significant career as a cartoonist.

But look at the image that accompanies it,
This was from his work on Alien, and it shows his fluid and expansive approach. As noted previously I remember acquiring the Book of Alien in 1979 or so and being blown away by his, and Giger and Chris Foss’s work on the film.
Perhaps as, if not more, impressive was his work on the symbol of the Ecological movement in the US which he designed in 1969 – that being the elision of the E and O to create a shape like the Greek theta symbol.

The flag is still used today.

Cobb worked a political cartoonist on the radical Los Angeles Free Press during that period.

Now that’s a life…

Management… September 25, 2020

Always entertaining when one is faced by those who appear to believe Donald Trump is a great manager – cast a sceptical eye over his track record with staff and public appointees of one sort or another and contemplate whether in a commercial enterprise the sheer churn would lead to anything other than chaos.

Indeed the idea that Trump is some sort of mastermind disintegrates under little or no scrutiny. In a way he seems to me to epitomise a spirit of the age, that being people who have little or no experience of an area thinking that certain attitudes expressed openly indicate masterful knowledge. In other words he is the person who has no understanding of managements idea of the great manager. And similarly he is the person who has no real understanding of politics idea of the great politician.

And what’s remarkable is how robust this belief in his abilities is even when presented with evidence to the contrary. A President who has gone through Secretaries of State, of Chief of Staffs, at the rate he has should by any rational standard be asked questions of. He – after all – is the person who ultimately is responsible for selecting them. If he is unable to hold on to them then the failing is primarily his, not theirs.

And it’s not as if these are low impact decisions he has made. Institutional and reputational capital are hard won and easily lost. Lose weeks, or months, with no appointees made or constant change in the heads of an organisation and chaos ensues.

Signs of Hope – A continuing series September 25, 2020

Gewerkschaftler suggested this recently:

I suggest this blog should have a regular (weekly) slot where people can post happenings at the personal or political level that gives them hope that we’re perhaps not going to hell in a handbasket as quickly as we thought. Or as the phlegmatic Germans put it “hope dies last”.

Any contributions this week?