The video below is of a fantastic speech that was given by new (incoming) Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni to the World Congress of Families in 2019. In this video, I am providing a voiceover, because (of course) she presents in Italian.
In my opinion, the importance of this speech is that it really puts the lie to the mainstream media storyline that Meloni and her Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d”Italia) are fascists. The words I am speaking in the video are an English translation of her words, and although I endorse many aspects of her platform, the views being presented are not necessarily mine. In particular, I agree with many of the points which she made (particularly about personal responsibility as well as the importance of family and children), but not all.
Once again, as we have seen in so many other situations, the corporate media has pushed a reactive narrative regarding Meloni and Brothers of Italy which is quite twisted, and does not represent the actual reality of their political position. This recent hyperventilation from The Atlantic is typical, titled “The Return of Fascism in Italy”.
In the speech highlighted here, Meloni is demonstrating the oratorial skill of a seasoned Italian politician (which she absolutely is). The backstory to this truth is that she is operating within a very constrained “Overton window” of political speech, in which she is unable to deviate from the established reality of Italy now having become a sort of vassal state (economically speaking) to the EU overlords in Brussels.
In many ways, her positions are very consistent with the many Catholics who are not aligned with the current Pope. As many have noted, her only political freedom to differentiate herself and her party from other Italian political parties involves the cultural positions which she takes. Italy is completely financially dependent on Brussels now, which in large part demonstrates the consequences of a nation state loosing control of its own currency.
A more realistic and nuanced, less stereotyped analysis of the political reality within which Giorgia Meloni and the Brothers of Italy operate can be found in this article by Thomas Fazi, published in the EU-based online journal “UnHerd”, entitled Giorgia Meloni is no radical: Italian voters know she won’t change anything. Bottom line: if there is Fascism going on here, it is based in Brussels with the EU leadership, not in Rome with Meloni and the Brothers of Italy.
Meloni’s pro-establishment approach to economic policy isn’t just due to a lack of imagination on her behalf, though she’s always held rather mainstream views on the matter. It’s first and foremost due to the fact that she’s fully aware that Italy, by virtue of its adherence to the single currency, is no longer a sovereign country, and that therefore she needs the support of the EU establishment to stay in power. She has, in effect, learned the lesson of the 2018 “populist” Five Star-Lega government, when the European authorities resorted to a wide array of tools — including financial and political pressure — to crush any attempts to deviate from the status quo.
During a recent talk at Princeton University, EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, spelt out this concept. When asked if she was concerned about the upcoming election in Italy, she replied: “If things go in ‘a difficult direction’, we have tools [to deal with the situation]”. In doing so, she revealed just how the EU’s ruling elites view member states: not as sovereign countries but as protectorates.
Meloni understands this. A good number of Italians, however, also understand this, and share the financial market’s assessment: Italian democracy has become so constrained it no longer matters who wins the elections. For far away from the screeching headlines, the most striking aspect of the election was, in fact, the poor turnout — 64%, the lowest in Italy’s history. This means a third of Italians sat them out; they have given up on democracy. This number is only bound to grow — a devastating indictment of the manner in which the EU has hollowed out Italian democracy.
There is a strong warning here to all of us embedded within this unfortunate current Italian reality, concerning the consequences of migrating to a centralized bank digital currency (CBDC). Just as Italy has lost its political autonomy and operational flexibility to the EU and Brussels as a consequence of exchanging Lire for Euros, any autonomous nation state which buys into the proposed CBDC system managed by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) will be ceding its sovereignty to the BIS and the individuals, interests, agendas and organizations which the BIS represents. If you care about freedom and sovereignty, just say no to CBDC. Learn from the box which the Italians find themselves within.
If you take the time to listen to Italians and others that are tuned into the ground truth, there are many different perspectives regarding Meloni and the Brothers of Italy, but (unlike the global corporate media) I have not heard any who really understand the situation claiming that this is actually a Fascist organization. I suggest that this moniker represents yet another case of corporate media re-defining the meaning of words to support a political agenda. Once again, I harken back to the definition of Fascism which (correctly or incorrectly) has been attributed to Benito Mussolini: “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism, because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
Steve Bannon has worked with Giorgia Meloni for over five years, and this is his point of view on her:
” a leader of enormous vitality and grit — abandoned by her father she forged through a brutal Italian political jungle to now lead her country as first female PM”
A close friend of mine who lives in Rome (which is Meloni’s base) and is very embedded in current Italian politics has a different, more jaded point of view which is more aligned with Thomas Fazi’s reporting in UnHerd:
“Meloni has been in the political game for so long – she’s voted for all mandates And for green pass and mandates but as elections approached she erased all of her tweets/posts and started promoting “ free choice” – she is not trusted. She was part of the ASPEN INSTITUTE. “
The video and voice over provided above is from a speech which Meloni provided to The 13th World Congress of Families (Congresso Mondiale delle Famiglie), which was held in Verona from the 29-31st March 2019. The congress promotes conservative Christian family values. This event was enormously controversial in Italy, and attracted 20,000 protesters to the city. The protesters said the Congress was homophobic and wanted to restrict women’s freedom, keep them at home doing the ironing, take Italy back to the middle ages. These criticisms were addressed at length by Meloni in the speech.
The translated transcript follows, as provided by CassiusDX:
“Welcome. It’s a pleasure. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I just arrived. I was doing the ironing. Then I found 10 minutes to come and talk about politics with you.”
(A joke- aimed at the corporate press and protest trope that was being deployed to attack her and the conference at that time)
“And really, this great attendance, in spite of all of the controversy, is the best response you could have given to the protesters that are protesting this meeting. Thank you to everyone for their work. Thank you to Brian Brown, Jacopo Coghe, Tony Brandi, and Massimo Gandolfini. Thank you to everyone who has allowed this event to take place. Thank you for not giving in. Thank you for the courage. Thank you for the determination, not just today but for many years.
Your work, along with the work of many other associations, has helped to keep certain issues that were destined to be removed from politics. You have kept these issues alive, active, and present.
They said all sorts of things about this Congress. They said we want to go back to the past. That we’re losers. That we’re embarrassing. That we’re unenlightened.
They said it’s scandalous for people to defend the natural family founded on marriage, to want to increase the birth rate, to want to place the correct value on human life, to support freedom and education, and to say no to gender ideology. I will send right back to the sender each of these accusations.
I think that the ones who want to go back to the past are those trying to bring back censorship by trying to stop an event like this taking place. I think it’s unenlightened when a state (or a nation state), which is usually willing to sponsor any old thing, even exhibitions featuring a crucifix immersed in a beaker of pee, is ashamed to sponsor an event like this.
I say the losers are those with nothing better to do than come here and insult us while we talk about what we can do for the Italian family. But above all I say the embarrassing ones are not us. The embarrassing ones are those who support practices like ‘Womb for rent,’ abortion at nine months, and blocking the development of children with drugs at 11 years of age. That is embarrassing.
They said all sorts of things about this Congress. That we want to limit the freedom of women. That we want them at home doing the ironing. Can you see me at home doing the ironing? Do you think that I, the only female party secretary in Italy, who was a candidate for mayor of Rome while pregnant, for which I was criticized, do you think I want women to be chained to goodness knows where? It’s exactly the opposite.
We want to guarantee rights that today don’t exist. The right of a woman to be a mother and not to have to give up working as a result. The right to be a mother, choose not to work and not starve to death as a result. The right of a woman forced to have an abortion because she has no alternatives to have that alternative. Because it’s not true that a woman’s freedom to choose is guaranteed. If a woman only has the option to abort, that isn’t the freedom to choose. The freedom to choose means having a choice. And that’s what we want to guarantee.
We’re here to defend women, to defend the family, to ask for things that we brought to parliament, like the ‘Infant’s income,’ which we believe in more than the citizen’s income. I say that sincerely. Funding for people who have children, because the whole of society benefits. We have proposed free nursery schools, open until shops close, and on Saturdays to give mothers who work another option. We’ve asked for the full application of Law 194 for the reasons I mentioned, so economic support can be provided to women who commit to and who prefer carrying their pregnancy to term, including in case of adoption.
We have called for a moratorium at the UN to declare ‘Womb for rent’ a universal crime, because that really is degrading and abusive of women. We want to bring this issue to Europe. It’s scandalous that one of the EU’s priorities for funding is not the birth rate. The low birth rate is the biggest problem facing Europe. If we do not address this, everything else we do is pointless. If the EU has an Erasmus program for student mobility, if it has a Horizon program for science, it can’t have a program for families? To increase the birth rate, to invest in resources in the birth rate. But they think everything we propose is crazy. They think it’s unenlightened, that we want to take away rights. They talk of the Middle Ages. You know the Middle Ages was also the time of the cathedrals and the abbeys, the founding of the comuni, the universities, the parliament, the epoch of Dante, Petrach, Boccaccio, Saint Francis, Saint Benedict. People who don’t know where Matera is, let’s not expect them to have read history books.
We have been attacked on a personal level. I’ve also been attacked. “You should be ashamed of yourself. You should talk about family based on marriage and then you had a child out of wedlock”. Yes, I also talk about large families but only have one child. Ironically, when they say these things they actually strengthen your position. It only shows that what I’m calling for will not benefit me personally. I’m calling for what I think will benefit Italian society.
I believe the state should incentivize the natural family based on marriage. And if I’m not married, I do not expect the state to extend to me the same privileges that it does to married couples. That’s the point. Pay attention.
The point is I believe in a society where every choice has consequences and you accept responsibility for them. I reject a society where every desire becomes a right, every whim becomes a right, where I have no responsibilities, I have only rights. I reject it. It’s wrong.
And I think it says a lot because I don’t adopt a religious approach to any of this. I believe in God but I don’t adopt a religious approach. Why should I? I fight these battles because of secular common sense. I am a person who asks myself uncomfortable and profound questions. And I want answers to these questions that are credible. And all too often the high priests of single thinking are incapable of giving answers that make sense. And I have dozens of these questions.
Is it right for a society to spend more energy and resources trying to find quick and easy ways to get rid of human life, rather than trying to encourage it? Is that normal? Is that civilized? Is that right that you, correctly, cannot rip a newborn puppy from the bosom of its mother but you can with a baby, the child of a desperate mother who sold it to two rich men? Why do Italian courts take away legal custody from two married parents? The natural parents of a baby girl, saying they are too old to raise her at 52 and 54, taking away their natural daughter. But if two men over 50 go abroad and buy a child, that’s fine. Why? Why? Why?
Why, if they told us that the father of Eluana Englaro should be free to disconnect the plug that kept her alive, because no one knows better than a parent what is best for their child. Why did the same not apply to the parents of Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans?
Why is the winner always the one who wants to disconnect the plug? Why is the winner always death? If the life of a sick child like Alfie Evans is defined as pointless, how long before they define as pointless the life of a disabled or elderly person, or anyone who doesn’t correspond to the idea of the perfect consumer? How long? Why do we spend our time fighting all types of discrimination but we pretend to not see the greatest ongoing persecution, the genocide of the world’s Christians? Why? Please answer me these questions.
This is about what we’re doing here today. Why is the family an enemy? Why is the family so frightening? There’s a single answer to all these questions. Because it defines us. Because it is our identity. Because everything that defines us is now an enemy for those who would like us to no longer have an identity and to simply be perfect consumer slaves. And so they attack national identity, they attack religious identity, they attack gender identity, they attack family identity.
I can’t define myself as Italian, Christian, woman, mother. No. I must be citizen X, gender X, parent 1, parent 2. I must be a number. Because when I am only a number, when I no longer have an identity or roots, then I will be the perfect slave at the mercy of financial speculators. The perfect consumer. That is the reason why.
That’s why we inspire so much fear. That’s why this event inspires so much fear. Because we do not want to be numbers. We will defend the value of the human being. Every single human being. Because each of us has a unique genetic code that is unrepeatable. And like it or not, that is sacred. We will defend it. We will defend God, country, and family. Those things that disgust people so much. We will do it to defend our freedom because we will never be slaves and simple consumers at the mercy of financial speculators. That is our mission. That is why I came here today. Chesterton wrote, more than a century ago. Let’s see if I can find it. ‘Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.’ The time has arrived. We are ready.
Thank you.
Infinite thanks.”
English Version, World Congress of Families 2019 Speech