fascism

history

New York City

is was, for the Italians, an imaginary Spartan country which, (with slogans, flags, stirring speeches from balconies, military music, mass meetings, parades, dashing uniforms, medals, hoaxes, and constant distortions of reality), all men had to make believe they were heroic soldiers, all women Roman matrons, all children street urchins.

The [Italian Fascist] regime had created an imaginary Spartancountry, in which all men had to make believe they were heroic soldiers, all women Roman matrons, all children Balilla (the Genoa street urchin who started a revolt against the Austrian garrison in 1746 by throwing one stone). This was done by means of slogans, flags, stirring speeches from balconies, military music, mass meetings, parades, dashing uniforms, medals, hoaxes, and constant distortions of reality. The Italians woke up too late from their artificial dream, those still alive, that is, hungry, desperate, discredited, the object of derision, cornuti e mazziati,or "cuckolded and beaten up," governed as in the past by contemptuous foreigners in a country of smoking ruins and decaying corpses, in which most things detachable had been stolen and women raped.

is the story of minorities who speak in the name of imaginary or real majorities.

is an immense, elusive , multiform metropolis -- every city for everyman -- in which, as in a cloud, a man could always see the shapes that pleased him most.

I came to know New York well after a while .. to know the immense, elusive , multiform metropolis - every city for everyman - in which, as in a cloud, a man could always see the shapes that pleased him most. 0 America

Luigi Barzini

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Luigi Barzini