Emanuele's Blog

Dear Mr. Baker,

As an employee of an institution of higher education, I have few very basic expectations. Chief among these is that my direct superiors have an intellect that ranges above the common ground squirrel. After your consistent and annoying harassment of my co-workers and me during our commission of duties, I can only surmise that you are one of the few true genetic wastes of our time.

Asking me, a network administrator, to explain every nuance of everything I do each time you happen to stroll into my office is not only a waste of time, but also a waste of precious oxygen. I was hired because I know how to network computer systems, and you were apparently hired to provide amusement to your employees, who watch you vainly attempt to understand the concept of “cut and paste” as it is explained to you for the hundredth time.

You will never understand computers. Something as incredibly simple as binary still gives you too many options. You will also never understand why people hate you, but I am going to try and explain it to you, even though I am sure this will be just as effective as telling you what an IP is. Your shiny new iMac has more personality than you ever will.

You wander around the building all day, shiftlessly seeking fault in others. You have a sharp dressed, useless look about you that may have worked for your interview, but now that you actually have responsibility, you pawn it off on overworked staff, hoping their talent will cover for your glaring ineptitude. In a world of managerial evolution, you are the blue-green algae that everyone else eats and laughs at. Managers like you are a sad proof of the Dilbert principle.

Seeing as this situation is unlikely to change without you getting a full frontal lobotomy reversal, I am forced to tender my resignation; however, I have a few parting thoughts:

1. When someone calls you in reference to employment, it is illegal for you to give me a bad recommendation as I have consisted performed my duties and even more. The most you can say to hurt me is, “I prefer not to comment.” To keep you honest, I will have friends randomly call you over the next couple of years, because I know you would be unable to do it on your own.
2. I have all the passwords to every account on the system and I know every password you have used for the last five years. If you decide to get cute, I will publish your “Favorites,” which I conveniently saved when you made me “back up” your useless files. I do believe that terms like “Lolita” are not viewed favorably by the university administrations.
3. When you borrowed the digital camera to “take pictures of your mother’s b-day,” you neglected to mention that you were going to take nude pictures of yourself in the mirror. Then, like the techno-moron you are, you forgot to erase them. Suffice it to say, I have never seen such odd acts with a ketchup bottle. I assure you that those photos are being kept in safe places pending your authoring of a glowing letter of recommendation. (And, for once, would you please try to use spellcheck? I hate correcting your mistakes.)

I expect the letter of recommendation on my desk by 8:00 am tomorrow. One word of this to anybody and all of your twisted little repugnant obsessions will become public knowledge. Never f*ck with your systems administrator, Mr. Baker! They know what you do with all that free time!

Sincerely

David Blocker

Network Administrator

New Labour must recognise that Berlusconi is the devil

Blair’s friend and ally lies in direct line of descent from Mussolini and poses a toxic threat to democracy

Martin Jacques
Thursday March 16, 2006
The Guardian

We should not be surprised that New Labour has become embroiled in a scandal that involves Silvio Berlusconi. There is something entirely predictable about it. Tony Blair was perfectly happy to embrace Berlusconi, together with the former Spanish prime minister José Maria Aznar as an ally at the time of the breach between Europe and the US in the months prior to the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. He has seen Berlusconi as a valuable ally in pursuit of his pro-Bush foreign policy. In fact, he has consistently been closer to Berlusconi than to centre-left leaders such as the former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder. This sense of affinity has even acquired a personal and family dimension, with the Blairs accepting Berlusconi’s hospitality and taking their vacations with the Italian leader at his holiday home.

Blair clearly feels a political and personal rapport with Berlusconi. And this has set the tone for New Labour: Berlusconi is regarded as a man to do business with. This is deeply disturbing. How can New Labour regard Berlusconi in such a light? How can it fail to see and reflect upon the malign influence that he has had on Italian democracy? And what does the silence on such matters and warm embrace of the Italian leader tell us about New Labour itself?

Berlusconi is the most dangerous political phenomenon in Europe. He represents the most serious threat to democracy in western Europe since 1945. It might be argued that the far right as represented by such openly racist and xenophobic figures as Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jörg Haider poses a more serious danger, but such figures remain relative outsiders in the European political scene. Berlusconi does not. During his two spells as prime minister there has been a very serious erosion of the quality of Italian democracy and the tone of public life.

Democracy depends upon the separation of political, economic, cultural and judicial power. Berlusconi’s ownership of the major television channels – and his control of the state-owned network, Rai, during his premiership – together with his willingness to use this media power for his own naked political ambitions, has undermined democracy. Further, he has changed the laws of the land at will – using his majority in parliament – to protect his personal interests and save himself from the courts.

The connection between Berlusconi and Italian fascism is not difficult to decipher. There has always been a predictable tendency to expect fascism to recur in its old forms; but that has never been the main danger. What we should fear is the reappearance of fascism in a new guise, reflecting the new global, economic and cultural conditions of the time, while at the same time drawing on national traditions. Berlusconi is precisely such a figure. He treats democracy with contempt: at each turn he seeks to undermine, distort and abuse it. He has no respect for the independent pillars of authority – prepared to accuse the judges of being stooges of the opposition and describe them as “communists”.

By his indiscriminate assaults on anyone who stands in the way of his personal rule and enrichment, he has poisoned Italian public life. He lies in direct line of descent from Mussolini. The failure of New Labour to recognise this – worse, to befriend him, to regard him as some kind of ally, to accept his largesse and hospitality – cannot be dismissed as an oversight. It calls into question New Labour’s – and the prime minister’s – world-view and political judgment.

Tessa Jowell is not a political innocent. She is a leading member of the cabinet. She has been assiduously working her way up the New Labour ladder for many years. She has long been a Blairite, enjoying a relationship of trust with the prime minister. She has faithfully reflected his views in regarding Berlusconi as a politically sympathetic figure with whom New Labour, and its leading families, could do business. She may or may not have known the intimate details of her husband’s financial affairs but she surely knew that he had acted for Berlusconi, helped him to avoid taxes, and assisted him in his efforts to resist the judiciary. And, no doubt, Jowell saw nothing wrong in this. After all, Berlusconi had the blessing of her prime minister – he was, broadly speaking, “on our side”.

But Berlusconi is a dangerous man to become entrapped with. He deals in the dark sides of Italian political life. His party, Forza Italia, worked tirelessly to ensure that it inherited the mafia vote from the corpse of the Christian Democrats. His financial tentacles have abused and disfigured Italian political life. He regards the law to be malleable, negotiable and corruptible. He who sups with the devil should expect to reap the consequences. The problem is that Blair and New Labour have never recognised that Berlusconi is the devil. Instead they have seen him as a friend and ally. They have never recognised, or at least sufficiently cared about, the toxic threat he poses to Italian or European democracy.

There are two main reasons for this. First, he is seen as a global soulmate of Bush and Blair. Second, some of the values he represents – money, celebrity and power – are ones that Blair himself aspires to and admires. New Labour shares certain characteristics with Berlusconi, notably an indiscriminate worship of business and moneymaking, a belief in the power of the media, and a contempt for the left. We are witnessing a slow degradation of European democracy, of which Berlusconi is the most extreme and pernicious expression but of which New Labour, in a much milder form, is part-cause and part-consequence.

As the Italian legal process winds its way slowly through the evidence, no doubt more revelations will come to light. Whatever David Mills has done or not done cannot be regarded as the responsibility of Jowell, Blair or New Labour. But the fact that New Labour has been prepared to embrace such an insidious political influence undoubtedly helped to persuade Mills that Berlusconi was an acceptable client and Jowell that there was nothing untoward in her husband dealing with such a man and playing such an intimate role in his affairs. For that the prime minister must take the main responsibility. Just as with Iraq, Blair stands guilty of a monumental political error. What is at stake is no less than the democratic wellbeing of one of western Europe’s largest countries and, as a consequence, the health of the European polity.

· Martin Jacques is a senior visiting research fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore