A-Infos (en) Italy, UCADI #199 - Meloni's Italy: A Country Sinking with a Smile and Applauding Those Who Suffocate It (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

After 1,000 days of the Meloni government, something is profoundly wrong 
with a country sinking into poverty. This is confirmed by data from 
Caritas, the Bank of Italy, and ISTAT, an increasingly impoverished 
country. The number of people who turned to Caritas and who are the 
subject of the aforementioned report is as high as 277,000, 
representing, according to the organization itself, about half of those 
who have actually benefited from the support of Caritas organizations. 
This is due to the organization's inability to account for and record 
all its solidarity activities. While Caritas is the largest of the 
solidarity organizations operating in the country, certainly the most 
organized, and the one that can benefit from the eight per thousand 
taxpayer tax, or at least part of it, and thus has the greatest capacity 
for intervention, it is not the only organization involved: its work 
complements that of the entire Italian volunteer community, which is 
particularly active and supportive.
The abolition of the basic income, replaced by unequal, insufficient, 
and inadequate measures to support the poorest segments of the 
population, has certainly not contributed to improving the living 
conditions of the less well-off, which is why there has been an increase 
in Italian citizens turning to charitable organizations for assistance. 
The number of people turning to public soup kitchens for a hot meal has 
increased, as have food shops that distribute goods made available by 
public charity, both food and clothing. Public and charity shelters and 
dormitories are increasingly crowded. The government continues to 
repeat-with the obtuse serenity of someone disconnected from 
reality-that "everything is fine, Madame la Marchioness." Because 
employment is growing, it fails to mention that the growth in jobs, 
touted as a trophy, only serves to mask the other truth: that these are 
poor, precarious, poorly paid jobs, incapable of guaranteeing a 
dignified life. Expired contracts are not renewed, wages remain stagnant 
while inflation soars.
There are those who claim that even if economic results are modest, 
public finances are balanced, but at what a price: taxes are rising, 
retirement is more difficult and later, healthcare is declining, 
benefits are being reduced, housing policy is nonexistent, and 
needlessly repressive security measures are multiplying in order to nip 
any signs of resistance in the bud.

The Meloni Government's Foreign Policy

In the face of this lack of results, it is argued that the government 
has proven itself in foreign policy, while maintaining a deafening 
silence on the ongoing massacre in Gaza, avoiding openly condemning the 
horror and taking refuge in hypocritical diplomacy, rejecting even the 
slightest condemnation of Israel, refusing to sever economic ties with 
the Zionist entity, and refusing to recognize the State of Palestine, as 
other European countries have done.
This lack of political courage weighs heavily and makes us ashamed to be 
Italian. A betrayal of the nation's interests, repeated with 
unconditional support for Ukraine and its war, for which the country 
agrees to shoulder all the economic costs, failing to defend its own 
interests, and willing to bear energy costs incompatible with the needs 
of the country's productive activities.
Yet, despite this slow social collapse, polls tell us that Giorgia 
Meloni's approval ratings remain stable, as if nothing were happening. 
We continue to support the government. Not out of distraction. Not out 
of ignorance. But out of choice. Out of hatred. Out of social 
resentment, because ultimately, a large segment of the Italian 
electorate cares nothing about the quality of life, jobs, healthcare, or 
public schools. Many care only about one thing: knowing that "the 
communists" aren't in government.
This is the real tragedy. Not so much Giorgia Meloni, who is doing what 
she always promised: governing with the most resentful, classist, and 
regressive right-wing ideology. The real disaster is the millions of 
Italians who, despite their rights, their dignity, even their 
healthcare. The country is poorer than ever and will become even poorer 
due to the increase in military spending to 5%, which in 10 years will 
take away EUR100 billion in resources from the welfare state.
They're the ones who talk about politics like they talk about football, 
who cheer more than they think, who vote with their gut and get excited 
when someone shouts "Italians first," even if it's Italians themselves 
who end up being the first to lose out. Those who smile as they close 
down a hospital ward, as they wait six months for a specialist 
appointment, as they realize the only way to get treatment is to pay for 
it in a private clinic. But that's okay, because "at least the left 
isn't in government."
This government has waged a silent but brutal war on public healthcare: 
cuts, defunding, endless waits, exhausted staff, layoffs disguised as 
efficiency. The result: 4 million Italians are forgoing treatment.
But this statistic doesn't shock anyone. Indeed, we continue to vote for 
those who are dismantling the only instrument that should guarantee 
equality in the face of the supreme good of healthcare.
Meanwhile, in the South, a phantom bridge is being built. A pharaonic, 
useless, money-guzzling project that serves only to maintain 
clientelism, contracts, votes, and promises. A project that doesn't 
solve any structural mobility problem, but guarantees consensus and 
profits. Local communities are selling out for a piece of construction 
work, while roads, hospitals, and schools remain in ruins. It's the 
triumph of the wicked pact between power and consensus: I deceive you, 
you support me. A pact of iron in the Gioia Tauro area was signed 
between the mafia and the League.
On migrants, the strategy is equally cynical. They are the perfect 
enemy. The eternal alibi. The fig leaf behind which hides the total 
inability to address the country's real problems. And it works, because 
the average Italian-impoverished, frightened, resentful, 
uninformed-truly believes that the problem of their life is who 
disembarks on a boat, and not who stole their future, cut their wages, 
closed or canceled the local clinic, signed shameful national contracts 
(see CCNL Central Functions) with a final bonus for the former national 
secretary of the CISL.
And above all, this government has no shred of a plan for the future. No 
industrial policy, no vision. No strategy. No structural plan for jobs, 
energy, social justice. Only slogans, repression, invented enemies, 
rally-like rhetoric and attacks on the Constitution, the criminalization 
of all dissent and protest, all boasted of for security. And the most 
disturbing thing is that this is enough to keep the consensus afloat. 
It's enough to make them win. It's enough to make them last.
Melon's Italy isn't just poor. It's resigned. It's complicit. It's 
anesthetized by decades of propaganda, widespread ignorance, and 
cultural neglect. It's a country that prefers to sink as long as it does 
so with those who promise to "punish" someone else. A people who don't 
demand justice, but revenge. Who don't want rights, but spite. Who trust 
those who treat them like subjects, and hate those who propose 
conscience and responsibility.
And those who pay the price aren't just those who voted for them. We are 
all of us. All of us trapped in the decline of an Italy that no longer 
even has the strength to rebel. An Italy where the right governs with 
hatred and the left starves.

Rocco Petrone

https://www.ucadi.org/2025/07/27/litalia-meloniana-un-paese-che-affonda-con-il-sorriso-e-applaude-chi-lo-affoga/
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