The 8th of September in Italy is the v-day (aka vaffanculo day, vaffanculo means “fuck you”). It was launched by Beppe Grillo, an Italian comedian and most popular Italian blogger.

The purpose is to tell to our politicians “vaffanculo” and to let them know that they are really exagerating and the patience has a limit. As the “V for Vendetta” movie says “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people”. Which reminds me of Zapatistas and “aqui manda el pueblo y el gobierno obedece”

But in order to canalize the great hate against politicians that is mounting in Italy, the idea is to collect, during the v-day, real signatures in order to promote 3 bottom-up proposals of laws:
1) A citizen that has been judged guilty cannot run for the Parliament.
2) No citizen can be re-elected for more than 2 times. The rules is valid, retroactively.
3) Members of parliament are chosen directly by the citizens and not by the political parties.
We need 50.000 signatures for every proposal. This is largely achievable but I hope we can get at least 6 millions, one tenth of Italians. There will be a national march in Bologna but also local events in all the italian cities in order to collect more signatures. If you are in Trento, a local group is organizing the v-day here.

I’m especially proud and supporting the 2nd proposal. I think it can really change Italy, really. Just for your consideration, try to imagine that in Italy there is a politician that is deciding about Italy at the maximum levels since 1946! His name is Giulio Andreotti. I quote from the Wikipedia page: Andreotti has sat in Parliament without interruption since 1946, this means more than 60 years!!!. And basically all the other politicians are sitting there since many many many years. Nothing in Italy will ever change with those zombie faces. The law No citizen can be re-elected for more than 2 times. The rules is valid, retroactively will change Italy. It is our last hope I think.

This v-day will be also an interesting reality check for the power of alternative media. Television, newspapers and radio (old time, mass media) don’t speak at all about this v-day and the call for citizens. From what I can see this is true for newspapers and radio, I don’t have a TV so I cannot judge but I’ve been told the silence has been violently astounding. So people who will know about the v-day will know from alternative, non-mass media: blogs, word of mouth. I like to believe that blogs are already very influent but I know that this is not the reality. This would be an interesting test.

If you arrive here, something for you. A possible bottom-up video about the V-day: “Povera Patria” of Franco Battiato by www.pensierarte.it (via).