By Peter Koenig

December 09, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - Mr. Matteo Renzi, Italy’s Prime Minister, from the center-left Democratic Party (PD), just resigned after losing his initiated Constitutional Referendum. He knew that the referendum would not pass. He made it look like a ’vote of (non)-confidence’ in himself.

Whether the Referendum is good or bad for Italy is a side issue. It has much larger implications. Although it is not directly visible, the Referendum has to do with preventing an ITALEXIT – exit from the euro, and exit from the European Union and possibly questioning Italy’s role in NATO. 

It has been used to dupe people into believing that they are actually voting democratically for a Constitutional Reform that would take power away from the Senate, reducing it from 315 to 100 seats and transferring much of its power (representing Italy’s Regions), to the National Assembly (representing the people). It is a non-brainer that taking away power ‘democratically’ from the nation’s strongest government body is (almost) impossible.

Then – what was this referendum really all about?

May it have been the staging of another parliamentary coup by the ‘divide to conquer’ rule? Break up the current electoral cycle, possibly the entire Parliament, create confusion and a vacuum – then announce new anticipated ‘snap’ elections, in Spring 2017, instead of a year later, in Spring 2018, as foreseen under the current five-year cycle.

Mr. Renzi and the ruling Italian elite behind him is sensing that the people are genuinely unhappy. Unemployment is rampant, especially by young people (in excess of 20%), salaries are at the lowest level in over 20 years, compared by purchasing power. This is just one of the consequences of the usual and virtually unopposed (by the ruling elite) Brussels imposed austerity which makes Italy’s debt rising, and transfers wealth from the poor to the rich, an archetypical neofascist pattern, nobody seems to notice, until it is too late and all are enslaved to a small banking cum war-industry elite.

The private banking sector is bloated and indebted to the rim, meaning that at any time the stealthily Brussels ruled ‘bail-ins’ may kick in. Under this illegal Brussels regulation, copied from their Masters in Washington, banks could steal the depositors’ money to ‘sanitize’ themselves. Such measure may be just a breath away, if and when interest rates rise within the next few weeks or so. It has all been practiced before. Remember the infamous March 2013 Cyprus ‘haircut’? The derogatory euphemism during which common people’s life savings and pension funds were literally stolen by the insolvent banks at criminal Brussels behest.– Italy’s Banca dei Paschi di Siena is in such dire straits, at the edge of collapse. Will the government save it through tax payers’ money – i.e. ‘bail-ins’ – or rather, will it apply Brussels’ ruthless rules of ‘bail-ins’?

People all over the western world are continuously brainwashed into believing that “the economy happens to be in one of its cyclical crises, this one just a bit longer and a bit stronger – one from which ‘mother economy’ one day will emerge, that we just have to be a patient and cooperate a little”. In clear text, give up our hard-earned social benefits to privatization. What a wonderful concept!

The presstitute MSM does a stellar job – disguising the truth – that the crisis is manufactured by the elusive elite, or by the globalized ‘deep state’ – and that it is made to last forever. The same as the wars. They are a symbiotic tandem. And Washington, its EU vassals and NATO make sure it will stay that way. So that money will keep flowing from the poor to the rich, as it always does – this time just much faster and much stronger. By the time we realize what’s happening, we are strapped, unemployed and converted into economic slaves. Southern European countries are made to be struck most severely. They must not be sovereign nations, but subordinate to the emperor and his minions. They border the strategic and resource-rich Mediterranean Sea – also access to the Black Sea, Sebastopol, Crimea and Russia.

Despite promises of banking reforms and government debt ‘restructuring’ by Renzi at the beginning of his mandate in 2014, nothing of significance has happened that would give people confidence that the ship of hardship may turn into glory. To the contrary, the every-day economy for the every-day citizen has gotten worse. This popular malaise gave rise to the relatively new Five Star Movement (M5S), led by Peppe Grillo, originally a blogger, who realized he hit a nerve with the public at large that had nobody to talk to and nobody who would listen. Hence, Mr. Grillo created the anti-establishment Five Star Movement in 2009, of which he insists, that it is not a party. In Italy’s last general election in 2013, the M5S won the second most popular votes. In June 2016, surprisingly in Rome and Turin two female mayors of the M5S were elected. It’s a fast-ascending movement.

We, the People, have many ideals we stand for, but lack common voice and solidarity to fight for them. Enters M5S. It propagates, ’degrowth’, direct democracy, non-violence, non-interventionism – and it is highly EU and euro skeptical. In other words, it expresses the concerns of the majority of the people, not only in Italy, but throughout Europe.

As such, M5S cannot be categorized within the left-right spectrum. This is annoying for the MSM pundits, who still think in silos and want you to continue thinking in silos. Such categorizations as left and right have long been overtaken by the common denominator of ‘globalization’ – or else, of movements like the M5S, or the Independent Party in the UK. The right and fake (left) intellectuals call it condescendingly a “populist” party, as they denigrate every party, movement, politician or ideal that catches the people’s attention and runs against the establishment’s interests. Denigration is part of the propaganda war against the will and interest of the people.

The M5S stands a good chance to make drastic gains in the next elections in 2018, perhaps even a majority. Therefore, the cycle must be interrupted. The referendum’s defeat may have just done that. After the resignation of Mr. Renzi, the options are wide open. Italy’s President, Mr. Sergio Mattarella, a party fellow of Matteo Renzi’s, is to decide, whether to dissolve Parliament and call early elections, as requested by the M5S. He also might appoint an interim PM, for example Pier Carlo Padoan, the current Minister of Economy and Finance, has been advanced as a possibility.

Although, referring to what Padoan calls the southern European periphery, he recently said, “I am of the view that the very tight fiscal rules which Europe currently has in place could be temporarily relaxed in order to make the necessary resources available to boost employment. This would be self-sustaining…”, Mr. Padoan, a former director of the IMF, regular consultant to the World Bank and with ties to OECD, is close to the banksters – and would assure the establishment that major structures favoring them would remain in place.

With advanced elections in early 2017, Mr. Renzi’s party could again win 40% or more – the votes Renzi received in favor of the referendum – with which he could form a new government and deal a temporary blow to M5S. Everything is but ‘temporary’. The neocons thrive on ‘instant’ everything, but luckily hardly ever have a long-term vision. They are their own demise.

The ‘snap’ elections scenario bears, however, a serious risk for the establishment. The Five Star Movement could emerge as the big winner already now. Perhaps a surprise for the establishment, as was BREXIT for the British reality-remote intellectual class. With M5S, ITALEXIT might be in the wings. It might be a further step towards disintegration of the EU and its abusive currency, the euro. Mr. Renzi and his handlers’ gamble with the Constitutional Referendum may backfire big-time.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Information Clearing House editorial policy.

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