“I’m not against democracy. People often take me to be against democracy. …The point is not to criticize democracy in the sense that we need an authoritarian regime.” – The key is to ask questions about the representative democracy we have today: is it still able to capture the social discontent or formulate the relevant public demands? Or is it getting more and more sterile?

Berlusconi…enacts the mythical image of the average Italian. …But [the message of] being “just an ordinary guy like the rest of us” should not deceive us. …This old figure of a masterful leader with dignity is disappearing. Even Putin is very careful about this tendency. At some charity event, Putin played the piano and sang “Blueberry Hill.” I asked my friend, who is close to Putin, and he said that it is all planned, in the same way that he appears to lose his nerve and, from time to time, use dirty words. He knows this makes him popular. SLAVOJ ZIZEK http://ift.tt/1iJhXRf