Italy: Beppe Grillo is putting fire to the heels of Berlusconi

Giuseppe Piero Grillo, better known as Beppe Grillo (born 21 July 1948), is an Italian activist, blogger, comedian, actor and politician, who also works in theaters and on radio and television.

After receiving his degree as an accountant, Grillo became a comedian by chance, improvising a monologue in an audition. Two weeks later he was discovered and launched by Italian TV presenter Pippo Baudo. He became more and more popular as the years went on and  his performances began to be characterized by an increasing level of political satire, often expressed in such a direct way that he quickly offended a lot of Italian politicians.  In the past he once attacked the then Italian Socialist Party and its leader PM Bettino Craxi, during his visit to the People's Republic of China. Grillo said: "If the Chinese are all socialists, whom do they steal from?"

He maintains a blog (available in Italian, English and Japanese) at beppegrillo.it which is updated daily. Comments to posts regularly top the thousands (in the Italian version). According to Technorati, the blog is ranked among the 10 most visited blogs in the world.

Grillo has proposed that members of the Italian Parliament, who have a criminal record should be barred from public office. During his shows Grillo never hesitates to name firms and personalities he considers corrupt, always supporting his views with data and documents. For this reason he has been sued several times by many people and organizations which he had exposed, such as Telecom Italia and farmalat.

Of all his satire and critique, the one Grillo applies most effectively is that against Berlusconi, which appears tobe without a doubt probably the most effective verbal weapon against a man who appears to be out to destroy freedom of speech in Italy and who runs the country like a Maffia boss.