Beppe Grillo effect : Actual solution or Populist ?

[Aldric]

Hi there
As several news papers called him a populist, threatening to destabilize Italy situation, i wanted to know more.


Humorist turned movement leader
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beppe_Grillo
His reformative mouvement work nearly only on internet and public speech.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Star_Movement
The MP of the movement are perfect unknown of the political world and are representing "normal people" with everyday jobs.


He won't want to ally with traditional parties  in order to have another vote within 6 months.
http://metro.co.uk/2013/02/27/beppe-grillo-rejects-italian-coalition-deal-i-wont-work-with-dead-bersani-3519339/


Interesting interview about his politics. Especially on cash management.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21613939

Beppe Grillo: It is a change in the way of thinking. You start from the top, not the bottom. Politics. OK? Money and politics. We spend 1bn euros (£863m; $1.3bn)on Afghanistan. Peace. It is not peace. They change the words. They say it is a peace mission. It is war. Then we have fiscal evasion from slot machines of 98 billion euros, let's go get that, they are state concessions.

We spent 240m euros a year on the office of the president of the republic. Let's use a third of that and the rest we will set aside. The money is there. One billion in subsidies for parties? Cut it. The one billion in subsidies for newspapers? Cut it. There will be reforms.

Pensions. We have 100,000 people who have pensions of between 10,000 and 90,000 euros a month. It should be 4,000 maximum, then you take the rest and with that money you create a social security net.

Now our problem is the emergency... emergency! People are dying. People aren't eating. They are getting their food from charities and sleeping in their cars. It is incredible. A thousand businesses are closing every day. Every day. Every day. And our strength, manufacturing, Made in Italy, is dead.

This is why the market "reacted" poorly as his movement became the third in Italy

Should Italy be outside the euro?

Beppe Grillo: This decision to say if we are out or in is not up to me, it is not up to the rating agencies, it is not up to Merkel and it is not up to any political party. It is up to the Italian people. They have the right to be informed, and to have a referendum to say yes or no.

Direct democracy. We hardly had it except in Ancient Greece and Switzerland.

If you are going to destroy something, you have to be pretty sure you know what you are going to replace it with....

Beppe Grillo: No, that is not right. We want to destroy everything. Not rebuild on the same rubble. We have different ideas. It is like any work. You have to have a clean slate. Then, you have a programme, a new way of thinking. It is a way of thinking. Not a restoration. Parties out. Citizens instead of parties. It is turning the pyramid upside down.

The citizens are going to go in - you, you, him, her. Citizens go into parliament and become the state of citizens, and then they change, then they rotate around and around and every two terms they change and it will be a different world, made by citizens, not politicians.

And here we are, we competent citizens, every one of us a professional in our sector, who haven't got criminal convictions, who, after two parliamentary terms will go home, who have passion. We don't take money. In three years, without public monies and with the TV and newspapers against us, we have become the strongest political force in the country.

Question is simple. What do you think ?

 

[Sir Saladin]

That sounds like fun but they should include people with criminal convictions. They should have a raffle or a lottery every couple of years to find out who the new representatives will be. Hilarity will ensue as newly elected members get into screaming matches and fist fights with each other. Some of them will have bad habits too and/or be completely insane or impossibly stupid which will add to the entertainment value.

 

[Mage246]

It would be nice if he could back up any of his proposals with concrete data or (at least) a coherent policy on government. It seems like the only thing that he is saying is "I don't like how things are, so let's get rid of it all". Reminds me of certain forumites.

 

[Aldric]

http://www.beppegrillo.it/iniziative/movimentocinquestelle/Programma-Movimento-5-Stelle.pdf


The manifesto is here, with quite concret proposition.
Concerning the rest, i tend to think that non-criminal lamba citizen would provide a better representation of the people, than professional representative Aka as politics who use the instituation as a way to gain power.
The short mandate idea and the "random normal  people" are looking like a direct democracy style.

 

[Kobrag]

...
The democratic powers in ancient Greece were not that democratic. If I recall correctly, it was very expensive to be allowed to vote, even then only a certain amount of people were let in to vote. =/

 

[Aldric]

Well the voters base was discutable, but i'm more talking of the system to get a lot of people involved as representative

 

[Wellenbrecher]

It was the perfect example for a protest vote. The things he said, the things he'll do or won't do all don't mean ****.
The folks voted for him because he was different. Same with Berlusconi.

Also, I'm with Steinbrück on this:
They're clowns.


And that's what the markets reacted to. Nobody gives a **** about what some third rate hobby politician in Italy said, but the message the vote sent as a whole was the bad signal. Because getting out of the crisis seems to be of no interest to a good part of the voters.
Same with the Greek government, by the way. Who once more are leaning back and are waiting for money, instead of kicking through the stuff they are required to do in order to get said money and what they promised to do in order to get the promise of getting money in the future. Great attitude.

 

[Mad Vader]

Populists. If you fall for that kind of rhetoric, do everyone a favor and don't vote.
These things happen in troubled times when the electorate is disappointed with mainstream politics, and looks for fairy tales elsewhere.

 

[Bromden]

A drunkard clown would be a better president than Berlusconi.

 

[Aldric]

Well if the mainstream politics don't fix stuff why do they expect to be voted back into office ? is there is a supreme legitimacy that traditional party does hold ?
In populist, there is "people", if people want a majority of Beepe Grillo and his mouvement let them choose it, this is how democracy work no ?

 

[DanAngleland]

I would prefer Beppe Grillo (though I think he said he won't actually be in power himself) to Berlusconi; I would repsect the Italian people more for electing Grillo's amateurs than seasoned bunglers and thieves.

 

[RalliX]

It seems like the only thing that he is saying is "I don't like how things are, so let's get rid of it all". Reminds me of certain forumites.

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