Italy Unpacked - Turin

Zero Dark Thirty

I recently made one of the biggest mistakes in my life. the first was watching Twilight and the most  recent was watching this propaganda film. It was racists, one sided and was extraordinarily simplistic. I am just so glad that this film didn't get any major awards, if it had it would have been a travesty.
The film starts of with a recording of the 9/11 victim to ingrain it into the mindset of the audience that everything they did was in response to this and they are evil. The world just isn't that simple, you can't just say that a whole race of people deserve to die because of the actions of a minority.

The actors and film makers may think that they were being shocking and controversial by showing scenes of torture and that this is why they got snubbed at the Oscars. That simply isn't true, we're used to seeing torture in film and tv, does anyone remember 24? The controversy was that they were implying that torture is necessary and look, we caught OBL that way, so it works. This will lead to a generation of kids believing it is the right thing to do. The whole issue of getting false information through coercion has been overlooked, but people wont look at that, they will associate torture with the death of the boogeyman.
And the who imagery throughout the film, clearly draws you to make the connection that the Burka is something to be suspicious off and people with beards are the bad guy.

This film glosses over the fact that these people are living with oppression and extreme poverty and are constantly seeing their loved ones killed. Like at the end, when the children are witnessed to killing of their family, how do you think they feel? Will they be grateful for you and the so called liberation you bring?!!

A poor film, nothing different from any other movie that glorifies the military- 0 out of 5!

Serie A Sunday

A lot had happened before theses games, most importantly AC Milan beat Barcelona in the Champions League and Inter beat Cluj in the Europa League while Napoli were dumped out of Europe, but it was mostly good news for Italian teams and should show the rest of Europe that Serie A is still a league that demanads your respect!
The first game was Juventus V Siena, this was a game that would have brought up some emotions for Juve Coach Antonio Conte, because he was the tactician that got Siena promoted to Serie A before taking the Juve job. The Old Lady had to get back to winning ways after their 1-0 loss to Roma last weekend and their lead at the top of the table was cut to 4 points.

Juventus played their A game and made sure they were in control, the stats say that Juve just had 57% of possession, which is good by normal standards but we have all started to expect more from Juventus. Yet they were the team that were able to do something productive with the time they had. Through the entire game they had 19 shot with 6 on goal to Siena's 5 shots and 2 on goal and were good enough to force a save out of Gianluigi Buffon.
It took Juventus 30 minutes to get on the score sheet, Stephen Lichtsteiner got on the end of a Mirko Vucinic cross to put it just beyond the keeper. Juventus went into the half time break with just a 1 goal lead, so that should in itself show you that the Tuscan side were no push-overs! After the interval it was over 25 minutes before the second Juve goal that came thank to some intelligent play by Andrea Pirlo an wonderful execution by Sebastian Giovinco. Three minutes later Giorgio Chiellini made his long awaited return from injury, there were talks that he would make his return for the Napol game, and I got to admit a part of me was a bit nervous with his return. As some report have said that he has sustained an ankle injury, but let's hope it's not serious. To top off a fantastic evening Paul Pogba got his 5 goal of the season- who needs a top class goal scorer when you're a top class team.
Juventus have now extended their lead at the top to 7 points, but that could be reduced to 4 depending on how Napoli fare tonight against Udinese.

Fight the Future

Fascism can be traced back to the 19th century although the Fascism that everyone recognises was shaped and fused by the World Wars and their aftermath. Fascism is a word derived by the Italian word fasces, meaning a bundle of rods with an axe blade protruding that signified the authority of magistrates in Imperial Rome, basically it was describing how a group can be stronger than the individual- one rod could be snapped, but a group of rods all tied up would be more difficult to snap. The defining theme of Fascism is embodied in one belief: Strength through Unity.

Fascism is a political response to the failure of economic development, but having said that, it was always a cultural phenomenon before it was ever a political force. Things like a rise in unemployment, trade union being dissolved, freedom of speech and assembly eroded and the freedom of press being taken away, this can only lead to frustration and anger, that and the fact that the public are less educated due to monumental tuition fees can only result in violence, because we all know that the less educated are the easiest to deceive and more likely to vent their anger at the wrong people.

As a result of all this anger and frustration, people will naturally look to the easiest answers, an as we all know, the easiest route is not always the right one. How do you think a person like Hitler ever gained power?? He got into power with the support of most of the people, people were confused and angry and went for someone who claimed to have the answers to everyone’s woes, it was only later that people realised their mistake, and by then it was too late. People laugh when I say it could happen again, but what they don’t realise that each dictator learns from each other and are more subtle about how they enslave the public, like now they are feeding us all this BS about how austerity is the only way to save the economy, they leave out the part that they defrauded everyone causing this crisis and the small fact that austerity doesn’t work, just look at Spain and Greece!

People are simple creatures and see good or evil, they believe that Hitler just popped out of nowhere not realising that it took years for him to get that power. Maybe people should watch fewer movies and realise that it will come if there is not sufficient resistance. Fascism was never truly extinguished; it was just put on the naughty step while we became victims of another force- UNFETTERED CAPITALISM.



People will feel increasingly angry and alienated and this will inevitably lead to racism and elitism, which are the two components that fascism will need to grow unfettered. The public will deny it’s happening here because they believe this is such a “great” country. But do they forget the whole fuss about John Terry and Anton Ferdinand, and don’t get me started on the fans!! Not only this but in the world of politics they are starting to blame the immigrant and are trying to introduce tighter restrictions, this will ultimately lead to frustrations and tensions running high between different communities. I thought this country was embracing different cultures?? Yeah right!! It will only tolerate you if you go down to the pub with them and get so pissed you can’t remember that the public sidewalk is not a urinal!

People will continue to deny anything is wrong with this society, and it is in no thanks to the type of media we get over here- it’s total trash! Either there will be some gossip about some celebrity or just pictures of half naked women; it dumbs down everything to such a basic level that people are incapable of understanding anything slightly complex. And that’s just the newspapers and magazines, the television news has no quarrels with showing what the people want and not what they need to understand the world around them. I weep for the future especially when I hear this current generation talk!

I want to believe that there is any hope, but it's just so hard!

Torino città d'acque e giardini- why I love Torino! It's soo GREEN!