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Underground > Switchboard >

Old Italian Revolutioners are in danger

18:31 / 13.11.02

U know two month ago paolo Persicheti was extrade by the french governement for the italian one. A lot of other revolutionners of the seventies are in the same conditioN, they are some guys who make a new life in france under the protection of the socialist, but now this guys are given to berlusconi by the governement. So if u want to do something ask by mail to ur own national tv to diffuse the movie call"Ciao bella ciao" direct by Jorge Amat They could contact him at pbf@wanadoo.fr.

21:24 / 15.11.02

may be U are not interest by situation of old italian revolutioners but we don't forget the people who made what we talking all the dayz along. because this is us vs them (us mean all the revolutionners of the world and me)

21:45 / 15.11.02

Beak: I know you are frustrated. But The Conversation part of the board is not the place where people look for serious political discussion and direct action. I think this belongs in the Switchboard instead.

Moderators? A quick move, please?

In the meantime, I'm surprised that this case has gotten very little attention in the Anglophone press. I found nothing on CNNEurope, and the vast majority of the sites found by Google were either in Italian or French.

I did manage to hunt down a few sources here:
Toni Negri, co-author of Empire, discusses Persechetti and the context of the Italian revolutionary movements of the 1970s

A petition and call to action

Statewatch weighs in

A brief history of the Italian Red Brigade, and why the US State Department is shitting itself at the prospect of its re-forming.

I can't say I'm a big fan of the Red Brigade's violent tactics, though: and they seem to have fallen into the error of, as Lenny Bruce put it, being "unable to distinguish between the Law and the people enforcing it: they're actually demonstrating against the police, against policemen."

Also, I don't agree with your "Us vs. Them" view of the world... but that's a different argument, for another day.

22:29 / 15.11.02

Umberto Eco made a good point in an essay (can't remember the name) anthologized in "Faith in Fakes: Travels in Hyperreality." The Red Brigades made a lot of noise about "striking at the heart of the state" but, by the 1970s, the state didn't have a single heart to strike. The "state," such as it is, is constituted more like John Carpenter's "The Thing," easily able to survive the loss of a single figure, no matter how prominent. The Red Brigades marooned themselves in the past when they killed Aldo Moro; since then, nobody sane thinks in their terms anymore. Maybe they scare '70s holdouts like the Bush crowd. There's no infrastructure to speak of. The network of sympathizers and radical-chic fans is all gone. But anybody can claim to be the Red Brigades, and that's enough for Berlusconi. He's playing the BR card to round up some of the more rowdy Genoa protesters.

Instead of worrying about the Red Brigades reforming, they should worry about al-Qaeda doing something smart like going after capitalists known to be bastards. Suppose they whacked Rupert Murdoch or some job-destroying CEO. Bush or Blair tries to declare it a national tragedy but can't be heard over the chorus of snickers.

23:46 / 15.11.02

the red brigade are only a little part of the italian movement, u know all this guy was young at this time, and when u was young in seventies u must be comunist or anarchist so a lot of this guy was more some studiant who think they make the revolution and they was arbitrary accused and they must escape from italia after a lot of them been totured by the italian police (and we they are not very sweet)I know conversation is not the place usually but the best place to put a virale information is inside a conversation. and let me finish with one story who tell one of this old guys:

After he was arrested and totured his mother came to see him in the hospital and the doctors say to her he was not pass the night. When the evening came. She must back in the couvent where she lived near the prison. in the couvent she cry so hard a sister came and ask "why are you crying?" and the mother answer : "My son certainly die tonight" nad the sister says "You've got some lucky he could be a terrorist"

The story was better in italian but you haven't got a subtitle fonction.

And if u are interest by the subject u could contact Pbf@wanadoo.fr and command ciao bella ciao they product some very good movies on the spainish resistant to.