Criticism
Grillo is often criticized for his lifestyle. In particular, critics blame him for owning a motor yacht and a Ferrari sports car, both being in contradiction with his well known ecologist stance. In his blog he admits that he did, in fact, acquire both but has since sold them.
Grillo is also criticized for taking advantage of the Condono Tombale, a fiscal amnesty granted by the first Berlusconi government in 2001, which Grillo publicly opposed. Grillo commented on this issue during the V‑Day demonstration. He said that he had personally benefitted by only €500.
Grillo has proposed that members of the Italian Parliament who have a criminal record should be barred from public office. As Grillo himself has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter caused by a car accident his critics say he has no right to represent Italians either. Grillo has always stated that he is not interested in becoming a member of the Italian Parliament anyway. Despite this, in July 2009 he publicly expressed his intention to present himself as a candidate for the PD's primary elections which, however, does not imply automatic presence in the Italian parliament.
Another proposal of his is that members of Parliament be limited to two government terms of office after which they might not stand again. Detractors argue that this would shorten the political life of competent and expert politicians, usually drawing Alcide De Gasperi, Aldo Moro and Enrico Berlinguer as examples of brilliant politicians who served more than two terms. Grillo is criticized as being a mere demagogue who attacks politicians on superficial issues and their private lives while unable to provide a valid alternative. For instance, Daniele Luttazzi, a famous Italian stand-up comedian, criticized Grillo in 2007 in an open letter published on the website of the news magazine Micromega. Luttazzi accused Grillo of being a "demagogue" and a "populist", suggesting Grillo to choose between satire and politics, asserting the two are incompatible.
In 2007 Grillo criticized the strumentailization by Giorgio Napolitano of "Memorial Day of Foibe Massacres and Istrian-Dalmatian exodus".
Read more about this topic: Beppe Grillo
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men’s genius. By virtue of style, criticism can itself become literature. But usually this occurs only when the writer is acting as critic of his own work or as outrider to his own poetics, when the criticism of Coleridge is work in progress or that of T.S. Eliot propaganda.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)
“As far as criticism is concerned, we don’t resent that unless it is absolutely biased, as it is in most cases.”
—John Vorster (1915–1983)
“People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher—a Roosevelt, a Tolstoy, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It’s the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)