Italian Freemasons

"Bersani is an authoritative leader, determined to build a party and a leadership team, after it was thought for too long that it was enough to demolish what was there to build something new."

"“Spezzaferro” seems like a Belle Époque tenente, a late 19th-century coiffeur pour dames straight out of a Maupassant short story or a novel by Guido da Verona. But he has the makings of a leader. He is the best fig in the basket of the former Marxist-Leninist party, cleaned up by the ascetic Berlinguer and renamed, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, by the mustachioed Occhetto."

"It's easy to beat up poor, desperate people. Finding the money to do what they promised is difficult, and they are unable to do so. The government has taken out its frustration on the easy target: the weak."

"(About the passages about the Rotkopf company's planes) As for the flights, it is absurd to say that I could have paid for a scheduled flight. As a member of parliament, I do not pay for scheduled flights. If I took a ride to attend three rallies instead of one, the savings were for the taxpayers, not me. We used these flights for work reasons because one of our colleagues told us that this option was available. If I had known what had come to light, I would certainly have gone on foot."

"[...] Of course, he hasn't read Mao Tse-tung. Mao often used the example of the chopsticks that the Chinese use to eat: one moves to pick up the food, but the other remains still. The same applies to politics. Tactics, propaganda, and initiatives can change, but strategy cannot; it cannot change every week."

"Biondani Paolo, Gerevini Mario e Malagutti Vittorio, Capitalismo di rapina, Chiarelettere, Milano, 2007. ISBN 9788861900233"

"Stiglitz writes clearly [...] inequality is a political choice [...] the growth of inequality is destroying the foundations of democracy. [...] Either politics, force, [...] is capable of undermining these enormous privileges, or these riches will take over politics, because they condition it."

"[On D'Alema's appointment as prime minister] I am pleased and also a little proud. Because D'Alema is a leader, first of the Communist Party and then of the PDS, with great qualities."

"Those who steal should be put in jail. Unfortunately, this cannot be done because the majority generally protects them. This is the real scandal that newspapers should be reporting on, but they don't, because they are complicit."

"There is a desire for normalization, for a return to an old system of power, one on which the mafia has taken root and built its power. This is what alarms us. These are the facts we denounce. (October 5, 1989)"

"(About the Maastricht Treaty) It is clear that the idea of monetary unification and the free movement of capital without integration of development, budgetary, and social policies is deeply questionable, in crisis, and wrong. It is not only a limitation but also a neoliberal distortion of the process of European unity. (October 29, 1992)"

"Ah-ah! It's unthinkable that Dr. Berlusconi would enter politics. He has to take care of his debts. Stay put, he wouldn't get many votes anyway. This isn't Brazil! (1993)"

"This is a despicable invention of Mussolini, Corridoni would never have been a fascist. He was too honest, courageous and loyal to put himself at the service of the landowners!"

"Massimo D'Alema is talented and intelligent. He is not a man who aims for a vague and confused democratic party like Veltroni. He is a left-wing leader who is different from us. Precisely for this reason, we could form an alliance with him because there would be no confusion."

"I don't think that Renzi's media success corresponds to extraordinary wealth and novelty of content. (October 29, 2013)"

"I didn't want a pat on the back from him, but someone as intelligent as him cannot afford to allow his party and the center-left to drift toward disaster."

"Ultimately, what made Fidel Castro hugely popular in Latin America was the fact that he had the courage to do what almost all Latin Americans would like to do but don't have the courage to do: challenge the United States of America. [...] And that made him a star. Then he took advantage of it."

"The center-right did not lose the elections because of its harsh rhetoric. This is a self-consoling argument: Berlusconi has always used harsh rhetoric, being a populist extremist."

"Europe has been absent, silent, and largely ignored. Europe could have been more present if its voice had been entrusted to President D'Alema, whose prestige, knowledge, and experience should not be discarded."

"[To the question: Why do you like D'Alema so much?] Because, like me, he went around at night with a bucket of flour glue to attack election posters. Because he's a national and democratic communist, a staunch supporter of Berlinguer, and therefore almost like me, not like my beautiful niece Bianca Berlinguer, who is beautiful, talented, and a supporter of Veltroni. And he's got balls. He's a true anti-establishment figure, and that's why he's threatened by the judiciary."

"That generation [of 1968] had an extraordinary, formative experience. Political generations are not only marked by the passing of time, which is ultimately a trivial fact. They are marked by events that characterize their formation. I would say that the great political generation before us was that of the Resistance [...] It is no coincidence that it remained in power for so many years, because it had lived through this extraordinary historical experience."

"While political analysts say that Vendola and Casini cannot be mixed, voters are showing that they are happy to mix them together."

"I have nothing personal against D'Alema, Bindi, Veltroni, and the others: but they didn't make it. And so I say it, with the utmost respect and humility, but I say it: enough is enough, it's time for others to take over. Their time is truly over."

"I am in favor of bipolarism; I consider it a value. Despite all its limitations, it has brought about a change in the ruling class, which remains the most significant achievement of the Second Republic. But it has been a crude form of bipolarism, marked by the figure of Berlusconi, and today it needs to be rebuilt on European foundations."

"(About the Italian Roman Catholic Church) [...] instead of asking the Church not to interfere, interfere yourselves! If not now, when?"

"In this changing world, Europe should be the bearer of a new Atlantic vision. [...] But today, traditional Atlantic policy has become weak: it can become strong again if it becomes a policy for the “whole” Atlantic, and not just the North Atlantic. Because a policy for the whole Atlantic includes Latin America and Africa. This would represent a major opening on the part of Europe towards continents that are emerging as new possible protagonists. We must counterbalance the Asian century and the risk that the epicenter of global growth will shift to the Pacific [...]"

"[On the role of secretary of the Democratic Party of the Left] At a time like this, we need a party leader with many skills."

"You know, it's a bit like in ancient Greece, where slaves cultivated the fields while citizens could engage in philosophy. Except that Greece gave us Socrates, Aristotle, and Thales, while these [far-left students] gave us D'Alema."

"The bosses do not consider workers to be human beings; they consider them to be machines, automatons. But workers are not just any old tools; they cannot be hired or sold. Workers are human beings; they have their own personalities, their own self-respect, their own ideas, their own political opinions, their own religious beliefs, and they want these rights to be respected by everyone, and first and foremost by their owners."

"D'Alema is worth ten Cofferati. But he had a great opportunity to change the left and didn't take it. Lack of courage."

"We must bring politics back to Europe. [...] This separation between democratic politics and decision-making is the tragedy of Europe. [...] Grand narratives also need to become decisions. If, on the other hand, real power is entrusted to technocracies and politics becomes an empty exercise, I believe that democracy is at risk. [...] The real problem is this: it is not about getting rid of politics, but about politics reclaiming its function, which is to guide social processes and change people's lives."

"He is a fraud who does not want to give the people a constituent assembly. The left is deceitful: it wants to enjoy the fruits of the majority system while wearing the mask of reform."

"(About the Italian resistance movement) This party is legitimate because it has roots in national history. [...] We are the heirs of that something that united the country's different democratic traditions ."

"Nichi Vendola is the only one capable of reviving a modern version of left-wing politics; the others seem too disoriented to me."

"Berlusconi has an easy game, because we are coming out of a period of political vacuum."

"I am not a pacifist. I am for freedom, democracy, and human rights."

"D'Alema, a great strategist, historical insights always arise from great mistakes, such as when Columbus confused America with the Indies."

"[In 2014] I had to listen to Massimo D'Alema say that Matteo Renzi is not left-wing. Why, is he? It's ridiculous."

"We all agree on moving beyond alliances that are simply everyone ganging up against someone else, which does not mean isolation. Now it is a question of forming alliances based on shared programs."

"It is to be feared that the Church will succumb to the temptation of power and that the political influence of Catholics will be directed toward obtaining legal protection for principles and values such as abortion and fertilization, which will then become laws imposed on everyone, undermining the secular nature of the state."

"The temptation of power is demonic and has always been, throughout the history of the Church, the source of misdeeds for which John Paul II had to ask forgiveness."

"The other day in parliament, we had to fight to defend the rights of severely disabled people to receive assistance worthy of the name. And we were told by that pocket-sized brute, Minister Brunetta, that there are abuses. But if there are abuses, they must be tackled without removing rights. With his virulent campaign against everything public, Brunetta risks attacking essential public services and throwing the baby out with the bathwater."

"One of the reasons why I can come across as difficult even to some left-wing voters is that I always engage in politics, even during election campaigns."

"Italian newspapers are not so much harmful as they are irrelevant. [...] The comparison with foreign newspapers is humiliating. They deal with serious issues, while here we only print nonsense. [...] I find this kind of journalism repugnant."

"Interviewer: “You said in 1995 that the Northern League was an offshoot of the left.” D'Alema: No, of the labor movement, and it was a very accurate analysis. Now that workers are voting for the League, everyone is saying it, but I said it 15 years ago."

"At Piaggio there were real workers, not the kind who called in sick when there was a football match."

"Nichi Vendola can mobilize an electorate that remained on the sidelines in the last elections, but I don't think he can be a viable leader to mobilize a center-left coalition: I wouldn't vote for him."

"We have a democratic form of leadership: leaders can change. Meanwhile, the Italian right wing has been under Berlusconi's imperishable command for sixteen years. However, I would like to point out that this is their anomaly, not ours. Because Berlusconi, who lost the elections twice, in 1996 and 2006, nevertheless remained at the head of the right wing, something that does not happen in any democratic country. And why has Berlusconi, despite losing two elections, remained at the head of the right for almost twenty years? Because he is its 'owner', not its leader. And so this is a completely different concept. Now, if you think that the center-left should also have an owner, you are mistaken. We are a free association."

"Vendola is part of the left wing that has been Prodi's biggest problem since his first government."

"(Commenting on the crisis of the left-wing government in February 2007) It's a disaster, I'm missing Roma in the Champions League..."