Matt Frei

Essential reading either before or after you visit Italy. Particularly acute are the chapters "Poggiolini's Pouffe" on the Italian state versus the Anglo-American state, and "Mafia: Myth and Malice." This latter was a revelation to me, how the US government had tacitly supported the mafia in Sicily in order to keep the Christian Democrats in power as opposed to the various communist and socialist parties. Without the vote from Sicily, the Left would have ruled the post-war, after say 1955. Then, with the fall of the Soviet Union, the two main communist parties were a diminished political threat, and the US withdrew its tacit (and monetary) support. This resulted in the deaths of various prosecutors and judges which were inexplicable in the American press--Mafia insanity. Whereas in fact, they were a logical reaction to the feeling of betrayal of accepted exchange, starting after WWII:
"The American troops liberating Italy in 1944 let thousands of mafiosi who had been imprisoned by Mussolini out of jail, appointed them as mayors and gave them more authority and guns than they could have dreamt of. The aim was to defeat Fascism and close the door on Communism."(119).
But Frei is also wonderful on manners, mafia ethics, so to speak: "A person might get dissolved in a bath of acid by the Mafia, but he wouldn't get mugged" (120).
One would never know, watching this author transformed into that leaden thing, a TV anchor, how rich the mind that reads the approved American mist and fog called TV news.… (altro)