Italy has turned its back on its political class, and a new language of community, identity, and honesty is filling the gap.
— Beppe Grillo
We've entrusted our lives to people who know nothing about life.
Left and right in Italy, they've always pretended to fight.
The Internet creates transparency, creates a change of mentality, brings people together.
This world - the Western world - has failed. We must have a plan B. We're the plan B.
I want the Eurobond, a 20 per cent devalued euro for southern European countries, protecting our products against those arriving from abroad, and a revision of the 3 per cent deficit budgetary rule.
I started using my blog to get information about cities I was about to visit, asking followers what the main problems there were. Many mentioned misconduct of politicians and other things I wanted to talk about during my shows. Then, before a show in one city, local politicians called saying they would sue if I said something unpleasant.
In 2005, I had a blog, where people discussed topics such as a sustainable economy, renewable energy, and broadband coverage.
I am still a comic, a fantastic one.
It's a very beautiful word, populism. I'm proud to be a populist.
I've always been political.
My dream is universal income, with a completely different fiscal system to finance it.
We've delegated politics to bankers. The European Central Bank is inside Deutsche Bank, and Deutsche Bank is inside the Bundesbank.
We want to destroy everything, not rebuild on the same rubble. We have different ideas. It is like any work. You have to have a clean slate. Then, you have a programme, a new way of thinking. It is a way of thinking. Not a restoration. Parties out. Citizens instead of parties.
It is so obvious that we are constantly monitored and manipulated both in advertising and in politics.
Vaccines have played a fundamental role in eradicating terrible illnesses such as polio, diphtheria, and hepatitis. However, they bring a risk associated with side-effects that are usually temporary and surmountable... but, in very rare cases, can be as severe as getting the same disease you're trying to be immune to.
Israel is frightening. Its behaviour is irresponsible.
We became the first political movement in Italy, and the media didn't even realize it.
The art of the compromise, which was the art of politics, is no longer valid. Compromise needs to be between citizens, not between Republicans and Democrats.
5SM is an ecumenical movement.
We need to stop the vicious cycle of debt that is strangling us.
Europe was born with Jean Monnet but then was progressively transformed.
One of our main objectives is to restore meritocracy within research and academia, where cronyism is also widespread. We also want to give money back to public research that is dying.
When you have a debt that's strangling you, you're not growing.
This is what the establishment is scared of: Of joy, the sense of humour, of irony.
I'm a comedian. You have to understand that my brain doesn't work like a politician's brain.
My comedy routines have always been about the health of the nation.
For the Americans, laws are barriers to profits; it's a different mentality.
When China was only Communist, everyone received the Dalai Lama, but now that China is hyper-capitalist, he gets blacked out.
It is the Internet that changes: the Internet is not just a language; it modifies relationships, the way we look at the world.
Artificial intelligence is destroying the traditional world of work.
I no longer feel the spirit of Europe.
We are moderate, beautiful people, and we are the only thing left standing between Italy and the real extremists.
We're a movement of many people who are uniting from the bottom up. We don't have structures, hierarchies, bosses, secretaries... No one gives us orders.
From the Americans, I took the meet-up platform, from Howard Dean. He used it to gather money. I use it to gather information, to gather forums, not money. This we copied from the United States, the use of the Internet.
My role is that of the watchdog.
The ECB puts out money that is meant to help our banks, but they do not use it to finance our businesses, but they give it to them to buy back their debt, to help French and German banks.
I'm so proud of being a populist!
In Italy, we have some of the best minds in the world, and we have let them all go abroad.
Europe is one thing. The euro is something else.
I am in favour of a different Europe, where each state can adopt its fiscal and monetary system.
I threw my TV out years ago.
The old division of Left versus Right is dead. In the Internet age, it's about citizens versus parliamentary relics.
If everyone in China is a socialist, from whom do they steal?
Italy is a tough country to be a comedian in - I can't invent stuff like this. Nearly eighty crooks in Parliament - that's about one crook in twelve. It's worse than Scampia, the most dangerous Naples slum, which is infested by the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia. There, the criminals are only one in fifteen!
The immigration flows have to be controlled. We have to know who comes into Italy. The problem shouldn't be left to oversized, dysfunctional, nongovernmental groups.
Left, right, populism... all are meaningless concepts.
My anger is constructive.
