Category Archives: Politics

Who says Umbertide is boring!

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As I mentioned recently, today is May Day all across Europe. Equivalent to our Labor Day. Umbertide has always been reliably Communist since WWII so it’s no surprise that they take the day seriously with parades honoring the unions and workers.

Being in a new part of town we were surprised to hear horns honking, getting louder as they approached. Out on the balcony we watched a cavalcade of tractors and trucks, all with flags waving as their horns blared. Here are some pictures I snapped.

It started out with the smaller tractors and farm vehicles.
Loved this color scheme
Tractor of great antiquity!
Who knows what this does!
Tractor with many lights!

After the Tractors came the trucks. The Molini Popolari Reuniti is our local mill. Seems each area mills all their own wheat. They have fleets of trucks to transport the grain.

This one had EuroSap in the front, no idea what it carries.
This little girl was enthusiastically waving her flag.

We could clearly see into each truck and tractor from the balcony. Almost every one had dads with all their kids who were having a great time. What’s not to like, riding with Dad in a tractor or big truck, honking the horn and waving flags?

There was a short break and then more music. This time it was people marching. Most with Union flags. Unions are strong here. If you’re interested here’s the video.

OK maybe it wasn’t the most exciting thing, our May Day parade, but it was a little out of the ordinary anyway. Happy Labor Day.

Immigrants

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I try to keep my blog totally apolitical. That’s not what I’m trying to communicate in this blog. But Italy and the EU has a situation now. And this post may seem a bit political but I hope everyone will read it with compassion. Or don’t read it. That’s fine too.
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As you may know Italy had a significant election this year and a coalition was formed. The main party called the Lega, is right wing, anti-immigrant. Salvini is the person in charge of the ports and he has blocked the incoming droves of immigrants rescued from flimsy rafts in the Mediterranean. He wants the EU to step up and start taking some of them. To do their part.

Photo courtesy of Sky News.

My friend and I met up for coffee last week and we got on the topic of immigration. In the last few years the EU has generally closed its internal borders and any entry points to the African immigrants coming by the boatload to Europe. Largely they land in Italy and Greece, the two closest places. These two countries are the least able, of the EU countries, to help them, and because the borders are closed elsewhere they get bottled up here. I was saying to my friend that I didn’t like the economic immigrants just looking for a better future. That I was OK with the ones, families, women, children, fleeing war. 95% of the people who arrive are young, single men from sub-Saharan Africa with no skills. My friend mentioned that most of the immigrants to the US were economic immigrants, Irish, Italians, etc. And she was right. And these immigrants to the US took advantages of the opportunities offered there and worked hard and made it. The American Dream. But sadly, Italy cannot even offer it’s own children opportunity, let alone 700,000 immigrants with no skills to offer. Italy has no way to help them succeed. I think other countries in the EU do offer more opportunity. Too bad they are unwilling to share it. 😢

I hope the American Dream can live on in our wonderful, strong country. America has benefited, and will benefit so much from the majority of the immigrants. I hope we will continue (or resume) to welcome them and offer them the opportunities, if they work for them, as their predecessors have. Because we CAN do that.

Italian politics

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So, maybe you’ve heard that Italy had a pretty important election last Sunday. I don’t pretend to understand it all. But I’m going to try to do a little synopsis of it.

Even here in little Umbertide opinions and emotions ran high! Back in the day, Umbria voted reliably Communist. The party is the Democratic Party or the PD now. They had the most power until Sunday when they got less than 19% of the vote prompting Matteo Renzi the PD leader to resign. A real awakening for them.

The main players are the Five Star Movement, the Lega Nord (La Lega) or the League, Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI), and the PD.

The Five Star Movement won the most votes. The other big winner was the right-wing La Lega led by Matteo Salvini. But no one party or group reached the 40% necessary to form a stable parliamentary majority. The group achieving anything near this was the right-wing coalition formed by Forza Italia, La Lega and the Brothers of Italy (Fd’I) with 35%.

It is now up to the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, to decide which party leader to ask to try to form a government.

I am told that this is a huge deal in Italian politics. Sunday’s election marks the end of an era.

Italy now has to make a choice between a right-wing coalition led by Salvini and the Five Star populists. Europe has seen a big rise in the right in the last years. Here in Italy it comes mainly from two issues — austerity and immigration, both of which have hit Italians hard. Both parties that have gained most in this election are anti-immigration and Eurosceptic. 😕

Europe was shaken by this election but it has itself to blame. It has done far too little to help Italy deal with the huge influx of migrants across the Mediterranean, 640,000 in the last four years. They have insisted that arrivals be processed in the EU country where they touch land. This has left frontline countries with an intolerable burden that has fuelled anti-immigrant and anti-EU sentiment. I am not Italian but I really resent the other countries in Europe for shirking their duties to a United Europe and dumping it on some of the poorest and least able to handle the crisis…Italy, Turkey, and Greece.

So to sum up…the two biggest winners have said they will not form an alliance. No one knows what the next Italian government will look like after the election. So, unless someone forms a coalition there will be another election in two months.

Finally, Umbria went hard for the center right. A big change from being reliably red.

I’m not sure this clarifies anything for you all. I got a lot of this info from the Italian papers myself so I could understand better even though I can’t vote.

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Knee update

So, today I had an awakening. I had a lesson with my Italian teacher today. She always asks about how I’m doing with my knee and all. So I vented that it was taking so long and wasn’t like in the US where people are walking in a week..blah, blah. She looked at me and said…sometimes it’s better to go slow like here in Italia rather than go, go, go faster, quicker like in the US. Suddenly it made sense. It’s my effing American mindset ! I need to chill!

Monday I get my final X-ray and consult with a doctor and I hope I get the OK to move forward with walking etc.