Informant38

UNDERNEWS: The daily news service of the Progressive Review, Washington's most unofficial source ||| GEORGE MONBIOT, GUARDIAN, LONDON - State and corporate power are fusing almost everywhere on earth, but in Italy they have condensed into the stocky figure of a single man. Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister, is worth around �10 billion. He has interests in just about every lucrative sector of the Italian economy. His control of most of the private media (through his businesses) and most of the public media (through the government) means that he can exercise a dominion unprecedented in a democratic nation over the thoughts and feelings of his people. He has been convicted in the past for bribery, tax fraud and corruption but by amending the law has had those convictions overturned and his business activities legalized. His government is sustained by parties which describe themselves as "post-fascist;" he himself has spoken of the "superiority" of western civilization.
This is the man who is now Tony Blair's closest political ally in Europe. After their meeting, Sr Berlusconi told the press that "we see eye to eye on all the matters that were raised." Blair added: "Some of these old distinctions - left and right - are no longer in my view as relevant as they were maybe 30, 40 years ago." Blair and Berlusconi are now the only European leaders who seem prepared to support a US attack on Iraq.