Will Silvio Berlusconi 'sex tapes' release effect US-Italy relations?

[Liberty Star]

If so, what impact will released tapes have? Will GOP put pressure on Italy to impeach Berlusconi following Clinton model?

YouTube - Silvio e Patrizia nel 'lettone di Putin' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7TypR13Dw0)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6724839.ece

[erowe1]

If so, what impact will released tapes have? Will GOP put pressure on Italy to impeach Berlusconi following Clinton model?



The Clinton model is to impeach someone for obstructing justice and lying under oath. Did Berloscini do that? Sorry, I'm not up on the story.

[Liberty Star]

Too soon to know. Unless proceedings started, he may not get opportunity to tell his story under oath. But if they have a Ken Starr or a Lindsay Graham there, it could be interesting trial.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Milly D'Abbraccio makes magic mark

* From: The Daily Telegraph
* April 11, 2008 12:00AM


SHE had no desire to be just another smiling face in Italian politics.

So when porn star Milly D'Abbraccio designed her campaign posters, it was obvious she was going to show off her bottom.

Explicit content warning: See Milly's poster and her "manifesto" gallery by clicking here

Targeting her male fan base, the veteran of Italy's adult entertainment industry has plastered images of her derriere all around the Eternal City in a bid to win a seat in Rome's city hall.

If elected, D'Abbraccio wants to create a red light area with strip clubs, erotic discos and sex shops called Love City just kilometres away from the Vatican.

Although fun, her candidacy - and the recent political ambitions of other, colourful characters such as US porn star Mary Carey - raises a serious question: is there any place for vaudeville in politics - or is it already too dumbed-down? Do we want more fun in Aussie politics or are the likes of Morris Iemma and Kevin Rudd just what we need?

"It would be something cute, clean - nothing to do with prostitution," said the actress whose films include The Kiss of the Cobra and Paolina Borghese, Imperial Nymphomaniac.

D'Abbraccio, in her 40s, isn't the first adult entertainer to dip her painted toenails into Italian politics.

Ilona Staller, known as "Cicciolina", sat in parliament in the 1980s and was famous for her impromptu stripteases.

"It was simpler then," D'Abbraccio said. Public nudity isn't the guaranteed attention-grabber it once was, she noted.

D'Abbraccio hopes to capitalise on increasing disenchantment with Italian politics. The recession-prone nation votes on Sunday and Monday in elections to pick a prime minister as well as lawmakers, mayors and city councillors.

"People don't want to see these politicians' faces anymore," she said in an interview from her Rome apartment.

She said she was tapping into her popularity among pornography fans as "an act of generosity" to help Italy's socialists, who are fielding her in the municipal race.

"I am the derriere of the Socialist party," she concluded.

Silvio Berlusconi, who leads in opinion polls to become prime minister for a third time, drew scorn recently for saying his party boasted the prettiest women in politics. Critics called him a chauvinist.

D'Abbraccio also objected, but for another reason.

"I think he is wrong, because he lost the prettiest one (me)," said D'Abbraccio.

If D'Abbraccio wins, she says she will represent Romans from the district that is home to Cinecitta studios, Italy's version of Hollywood where classics like La Dolce Vita were filmed.

"I will reign over Cinecitta, if I get the votes," she said, reclining on a gold-rimmed, chaise lounge in her living room.

As for experience, D'Abbraccio acknowledges she is a political novice but she did play a powerful lawmaker in an adult film called L'Onorevole.

"I played the part of the speaker of the lower house of parliament, who got very hot and then let herself go," she said.


==============

Cicciolina’s Sexual Politics

A Porn Star Uses Sex as Her Claim to Power

Should women use their sexuality for political gain? Or is it better to avoid this route to power?

One woman who famously used her sexuality as a political tool was Hungarian-born Ilona Staller, best known as the Italian adult film star, Cicciolina. In 1987, 20,000 people in the district of Rome hand-wrote her name on their ballots, preferring her over forty-seven other Radical Party nominees. Cicciolina's political campaign included striptease, live snakes as props, and her signature flashing of breasts.
Image
Max Riflessi
Cicciolina was elected to represent the district of Rome. She received 20,000 votes, coming in second only to the founder of the Radical Party, Marco Panella. View Larger >
Image
AP Photo / Marco Ravagli
Blond hair, red lips and emphasized eyebrows were Cicciolina's trademark. Even as Member of Italian Parliament, she refused to trade her signature look for a more conservative mien. View Larger >

Not Your Usual Politics

Many saw Cicciolina's exhibitionism, promiscuous persona and victory at the polls as a national embarrassment. Although she is unofficially credited with establishing one of Europe's first green parties, she had little political experience when she got elected to the Italian parliament. And lest anyone forget that sexuality was her claim to power, she acted in an adult movie while serving her term.

But many others recognized that she was using sexuality not only to get elected, but also to poke fun at the hypocrisy she saw in the Italian government. Italian writer Umberto Eco is reported to have said of Cicciolina's election, "Immorality for immorality; we've seen worse." Eco was alluding to the famously and chronically corrupt Italian government overrun by thieves, convicted criminals and mafia-sympathizers.
As member of parliament, Cicciolina critiqued the oligarchy of Italian patriarchs who lorded over Italian politics. She irreverently called male members of parliament cicciolini, an Italian term of endearment that does not have a single-word English equivalent but can be loosely translated as "cute little tubby boys." The Prime Minister was a cicciolino. The all-powerful head of the Italian Socialist Party was just another cicciolino. By calling them cicciolini instead of prefixing their name with "Your Honor," Cicciolina insisted that they were just "cute little tubby boys," some woman's naughty little children. And indeed, three years into Cicciolina's term, a bribery scandal brought down two major Italian political parties.

Cicciolina's Legacy

Historically, Italian women have held only 10 percent of total parliament seats and were not allowed full political participation until after World War II. As one of the few women in parliament, Cicciolina's victory was significant. Furthermore, she was unafraid to chastise the male parliament members, calling attention to a political system that forbade new faces: "The rules of government change," she said, "but your faces always remain the same ... and the bigger issue is that our problems are always the same, but you just pretend nothing is wrong and continue asking for votes and continue to make your governments fall only to revive them again. The years go by, but your faces remain."

While in office, Cicciolina supported sex education in schools and, not surprisingly, "Love for all!" as she proclaimed. She also stood for protecting the environment, stopping nuclear proliferation and defending animal rights. On two occasions, Cicciolina is reported to have attempted to end the buildup to the Gulf War by offering her own body. "I am available to make love to Saddam Hussein to achieve peace in the Middle East," she said.

For all her attempts at challenging the status quo, Cicciolina was not re-elected after her five-year term. But she did stir things up: she was an outsider and a woman--an over-sexed woman by some standards--who forced her way into the boys' club upsetting their sense of comfort and entitlement over politics. Cicciolina unapologetically used her sexuality: she was both positioned because of it and used it to position herself politically. Perhaps her legacy can best be summed up by her own self-assessment: "I am a combative woman." Her sexuality, along with her outspokenness, was a poweful tool in her political arsenal.

[Lovecraftian4Paul]

I doubt anything will happen. Seems like sex scandals don't really shock in most Europeans countries the way they do here. Heck, there have been French Presidents who openly trotted around with their mistresses and no one cared.

[Imperial]

Berlusconi owns much of the media in Italy. It is kinda scary, Italy under Berlusconi sometimes...