| Sixty-eight per cent of Italians, fuelled by often inflammatory attacks by the new rightwing government, want to see all of the country's 150,000 Gypsies, many of them Italian citizens, expelled, according to an opinion poll. [...] Romanians were among the 268 immigrants rounded up in a nationwide police crackdown on prostitution and drug dealing this week, after new prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's likening of foreign criminals to "an army of evil". [...] Young Neapolitans who threw Molotov cocktails into a Naples Gypsy camp this week, after a girl was accused of trying to abduct a baby, bragged that they were undertaking "ethnic cleansing". A UN spokeswoman compared the scenes to the forced migration of Gypsies from the Balkans. "We never thought we'd see such images in Italy," said Laura Boldrini. |
| Berlusconi will lead a Cabinet meeting in Naples on Wednesday. Among measures expected to be decided at the meeting is a crackdown on illegal immigration and on foreigners who commit crimes. [...] Last week, the European Roma Rights center sent a letter to several Italian government officials, including Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, decrying what it called anti-Roma "pogroms" in Naples. The Budapest-based advocacy group asked the Italian government to provide protection to all Roma in Italy and to investigate what happened in Naples. |
| Yesterday Pope Benedict XVI and a small number of left-wingers raised lonely voices in central Naples against the national hardening of hearts towards Europe's perennial outsiders. To little avail: the Pope's appeal for a spirit of welcome and acceptance was met with a hail of angry rejection in blogged comments on news websites. [...] But the first act of ethnic cleansing in the new Italy passed off with little fuss. Flora Martinelli, the woman who reported the alleged kidnap attempt on her baby, said: "I'm very sorry for what's happening, I didn't want it to come to this. But the Gypsies had to go." |
From what i can see the only official activity by the govt has been a crackdown on prostitutin nd drug dealing. And the gypsies were not the only targets.
There is rhetoric and then there is action. From what you posted this big bad fascist machine is a paper tiger.
Isn't it very important to point out that Fascists are people?
Isn't it important to observe that responsibility is individual?
HOw, if you insult all of fascism can you ever encourage moderate fascists?
Fascism isn't monolithic is it? Does it not behoove us to encourage the growth of moderate Fascism|?
Isn't it very important to point out that Fascists are people?
Isn't it important to observe that responsibility is individual?
HOw, if you insult all of fascism can you ever encourage moderate fascists?
Fascism isn't monolithic is it? Does it not behoove us to encourage the growth of moderate Fascism|?
As I resist saying something unkind, I don't recall having blamed fascism. I do believe I blamed people, individuals. Let me look back and see... um... yes, I did. I'll even repeat it, just for you. "In addition, I see in the stories about all this that the call for 'public safety' and immigration crackdowns comes from the people. Or at least the politicians the people elected say so. And then of course, the burning down of the gypsies' camp was done by local citizens. Citizens who wanted the gypsies driven out. Even to the point of accusing (quite possibly falsely) the gypsies of trying to kidnap a local child. The people, the citizens are choosing this course for themselves." Yes, I talked about people choosing their own actions. I did not blame fascism. I blamed people. I observed the responsibility of individuals.
Interesting, though, that you choose to try to equate fascism and Islam. See there? I observed the responsibility of the individual again.
Right. Molotov cocktails are just rhetoric.
QuoteRight. Molotov cocktails are just rhetoric.
I seem to have missed the report where the govt was heaving the cocktails.
Plausible deniability?
QuotePlausible deniability?
Please.
The govt incited the people? The people were already incited.
The Roma have been on the low end of the social stick for centuries.
Is Burlesconi a leader driving his country to a hate filled rage or is he simply a reflection of his people at this point in time.
Why is it when a Chavez is elected the people's will is done but when a Burlesconi is elected the sheeple have been mislead.
So you have no problems with what the Italian Government is doing?
RD, so you have no problems with it because it is time-related? Doesn't that make you the ultimate relativist? Your ethics are completely based on time. You've said that this response is OK because there was enough time for it to be resolved. Since leftists are ostensibly the ones getting hurt (politically I suppose) while Roma are the ones getting hurt in reality then it is perfectly fine.
I seem to have missed the report where the govt was heaving the cocktails.
Why is it when a Chavez is elected the people's will is done but when a Burlesconi is elected the sheeple have been mislead.
Does the government have to when it all it has to do is sit by and let it it happen, as it apparently did?
QuoteDoes the government have to when it all it has to do is sit by and let it it happen, as it apparently did?
Right and the feds just let the Rodney King Riots happen.
According to UP's reports the govt is rousting prostitutes and drug dealers, some of whom are Roma.
Where we disagree is the charge that the govt is inciting violence.
My position is the mob was predisposed to violence.
The Pope would be better served speaking to his flock if he wants to affect change.
They have no such right to expel the Roma.
They have no such right to expel the Roma.
A government does not have the right to secure it's borders?
They have no such right to expel the Roma.
A government does not have the right to secure it's borders?
Italy has to follow European Union regulations as well. The Roma have the right to travel from one EU country into another.
Arn't some of the Roma born in Italy ?
What are the requirements of Italian citizenship?
The Gypsies that are the biggest problem are not the local ones, but those that have come from non-EU countries like Romania, and the parts of the former Yugoslavia that are not part of the EU. I think only Slovenia is a full-fledged EU member at the moment.
Romania is not a full-fledged member and immigrants do not have a free pass yet.
I am not convinced that the govt incited the violence . A child was kidnapped. The Roma were suspected by the same villagers who did the violence. Where is the hand of govt in this.
To imply that people are sheeple and will follow any demagoguery didn't seem to follow suit with Rev. Wrights remarks. Or did i miss the rampages that followed each of his sermons.
And I'm not sure where you get that i am defending anyone.
Did I miss the part where someone implied the people only burned the Gypsy camp because the government said they should?
Well, you do seem to be downplaying all of this as if it really isn't any big deal.
Then why the report of the attack and then the claim that the govt was inciting violence?
Are you now saying they are unrelated?
Downplaying is not an accurate description of my position.
I don't think your post provided enough information to form an opinion. I just don't see where you have made the case for cause and effect.
Quote from: BT on Today at 02:10:32 AM
I don't think your post provided enough information to form an opinion. I just don't see where you have made the case for cause and effect.
Okay. I guess I thought I was making the case that the people are to blame, for their own actions and for their government. Not sure how that gets the government off the hook. I guess it's sort of a "just following orders" only backwards.
RD is clearly racist and that comes right out in his statements.
They are Roma.
If one examines the demographics of Hillary voters one could surmise that she attracts the majority of voters who can not support Obama, especially after the hammering he took for his associations with the "divisive and racist" Rev. Wright.
Does that mean Hillary is a racist because she attracts possible racists to her cause?
Politics makes strange bedfellows.
RD can practice his free speech (though I'm not a huge fan of that), but why should he get shelter for making racist comments? Would you defend him for making the same comments on Jews? African-Americans? Might you have shown more outrage if this attack had taken place on whites in South Africa? One wonders.
RD can practice his free speech (though I'm not a huge fan of that), but why should he get shelter for making racist comments? Would you defend him for making the same comments on Jews? African-Americans? Might you have shown more outrage if this attack had taken place on whites in South Africa? One wonders.
Oh, shove it! The statement was no more racist than pointing out the Hell's Angels are bad news. I don't give a rat's ass what their ethnicity is, they're notorious throughout Europe such that anyone I've ever met that set foot on the continent that encountered them never had a good word to say about it. As someone who came from Europe, you must know that as well as anyone else. I can only believe you're being disingenuous, especially when you singled out my statement as being "racist" when it was one of the milder ones in the thread regarding their behavior. Even the article that started this thread pointed out they were involved in criminal behavior.
Why I even bother dignifying such an ass with a response, I'm sure I don't know....
People hate them because they don't buy a house and have 1.2 children and work from 9-5 every weekday. Most interesting.
In reality, most Roma do buy a house and have children who go to school and work regular hours.
The people may be responsible for the government they elect but i don't see how you have tied the peoples actions to the Govt being on the hook or for the govt following the mob's orders.
|
| The latest trouble began last week after a Roma woman had allegedly attempted to abduct a child near the Roma camp in the rundown district of Ponticelli. A mob attacked the camp, driving away 1,000 Gypsies living in and around railway arches. According to witnesses, members of the local Camorra family encouraged local people to join in the mayhem. Some local commentators have argued that the Camorra was merely implementing a more forceful version of the roundup of petty foreign criminals ordered by the government. [...] The identification of the Roma as the wellspring of crime has proved a useful diversionary tactic for the Camorra in advance of today's cabinet meeting. It has deflected attention from the real source of social chaos in the city: the Camorra itself. [...] The European commission is currently weighing up draconian penalties against Bulgaria for its failure to deal with organised crime and the influence it wields over public life. But when it comes to Italy, Brussels has always applied double standards. Cracking the whip over a weak accession state such as Bulgaria is easy. But the EU appears scared of threatening similar measures against Italy. If Berlusconi's government fails to adopt serious measures against the Camorra in Naples, the time has come for the EU to take as tough an approach to Italy as it does to Bulgaria. It is simply outrageous that Naples is suffocating under a blanket of smoke and xenophobia generated by an organised crime syndicate that Rome refuses to challenge. |
People hate them because they don't buy a house and have 1.2 children and work from 9-5 every weekday. Most interesting.
Actually, this statement is just as racist.
In reality, most Roma do buy a house and have children who go to school and work regular hours.
The leader of the Lega Nord is Umberto Bossi - he served in prison for inciting violence. While he served in cabinet in 2003 he ordered the Navy to fire on boats filled with immigrants. Read here.
As an aside, my parents still have a blanket they bought from a Gypsy back in the mid-70's in Germany. There's no telling how many times that thing has been washed and they still use it. It is at least thirty-three years old. I reckon they've gotten their money's worth.
QuoteThe leader of the Lega Nord is Umberto Bossi - he served in prison for inciting violence. While he served in cabinet in 2003 he ordered the Navy to fire on boats filled with immigrants. Read here.
Before becoming a politician, Bossi was a sympathiser of the Italian Communist Party in his early years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Bossi
Ideology
The party's ideology is a combination of political federalism, fiscal federalism and regionalism. In Veneto it supports Venetism, in Lombardy the defense of Lombard culture and language, in Piedmont the defense of Piedmontese culture and language, and so on. The historical goal of the party is to transform Italy into a federal State and, through Lega Nord, federalism has become an important political issue in the country since the 1990s. This is the main difference between the League and the other European regionalist parties, which demand special rights only for their regions (see the Basque Nationalist Party, the Republican Left of Catalonia, Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National Party, or the Vlaams Belang).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_League_%28Italy%29#Ideology
As an aside, my parents still have a blanket they bought from a Gypsy back in the mid-70's in Germany. There's no telling how many times that thing has been washed and they still use it. It is at least thirty-three years old. I reckon they've gotten their money's worth.
There was a really good Roma restaurant in Vienna to which I've always wanted to go back.
I've never been to a Roma restaurant, what kind of food was it?
'm not even sure this is worth addressing Bt.
Quote'm not even sure this is worth addressing Bt.
You introduced Bossi to the mix. Seems his politics are eclectic. The thrust of his parties ideology seems to be federalism with strong regional autonomy, i'm guessing much like Canada. or possibly the EU.
BTW when he gave the order to fire on immigrant ships it was during a time when 1000's a day were coming on shore. And he did say fire two warning shots first. How does that equate to him being racist?
As for the second question, you really need me to answer how firing upon an unarmed ship of immigrants is racist? Seriously?
Go to Quebec - same issue, race. Go to nearly any separatist movement and you'll see it.
Go to Quebec - same issue, race. Go to nearly any separatist movement and you'll see it.
ROFLMAO!!!
So tell us - what race are the residents of Quebec, and what race is the rest of Canada?
Wasn't aware that speaking a different language was the distinguishing feature between races....
Is celebrating St. Patricks Day racist?
Not if everyone is Irish on St. Patricks day.
Sure it is, they believe they are French and not English.
You're trying to make the irrational rational.
Racism (or bigotry, if you prefer) is not an exact science. It is absolutely irrational and emotional.
I'll still call it racism. Just as you are a racist.