All your base are belong to US

May 27, 2007 5:08 AM

Italian housewives travelled to Washington DC from their hometown of Vicenza, a UNESCO heritage site for its famed Palladian architecture, to protest the planned expansion of the US military base there. A huge tent has been set up to train local residents in non violent, peaceful non cooperation. They use pots and pans rather than guns and knives. How do you say "the Base" in Italian?
posted by infini (9 comments total)

Il Basso? Not!
posted by The Confessor at 5:13 AM on May 27, 2007

La base.
posted by darkripper at 5:23 AM on May 27, 2007

The American response?
http://allyourbase.planettribes.gamespy.com/video1_view.shtml
posted by Postroad at 6:43 AM on May 27, 2007

Shouldn't this be on Ask Metafilter?
posted by agropyron at 7:47 AM on May 27, 2007

more background including the story of how this was ramrodded through the local city council.

now i want to build a palladian villa in my pasture!
posted by bruce at 9:34 AM on May 27, 2007

Paging Matteo and Romakimmy. Matteo and RomaKimmy to the front, please.

I'd like to have some data from the folks on the ground there. I wouldn't want a military base in my backyard either...and I spent a fair amount of time living on bases AND I'm an American, so from a purely experiential standpoint, I understand why a relatively unspoiled location wouldn't want to be the biggest American military base in Europe, which is what the first link makes the plans seem to be.

Having lived in K-town (Kaiserslautern), which is currently the largest US military community outside of the United States, I cannot imagine trying to put something that big near Vincenza without absolutely destroying the area.
posted by dejah420 at 11:26 AM on May 27, 2007

Thanks for this post, infini - I hadn't heard about this. Thank the deities for the internets because we'd hardly hear any dissent otherwise.
posted by madamjujujive at 11:47 AM on May 27, 2007

Thanks for posting this. I'm surprised the Italian government ok'd a huge new base.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:35 PM on May 27, 2007

The base fired an huge debate some time ago here. Not something just related to a city problem: you must understand that for many reasons (the last ones: Cermis and the Calipari killing) part of our country don't like the idea of having american forces in Italy.
Anyway, is not like anyone (in Italy and in Vicenza) was opposite to it. Personally, I don't have a position on the problem: at the moment I'm more worried about my city becoming a living hell (yesterday someone almost killed another US tourist).

P.S. The actual italian government have ok'd it because there was a previous pact between the Berlusconi's Government and the us forces. Some left-wing parties and their ministers however were very opposite to the project.
posted by darkripper at 1:56 PM on May 27, 2007