The blame can be laid squarely at our door
Stephen Fry
Back in 2006, Stephen Fry said this on British television (the show was This Week). He drew a great deal of criticism for his views, but I have to say I agree with him.
The choices are invariably ours. We are to blame. We were to blame, too, for what happened here in Malta in the years 1971 to 1987. BY ‘we’, I mean we as a whole. If there are more of us who make unsound choices, who are bad, who have poor thinking skills, then we will make messes.
It is precisely this reasoning which underpins my lack of time and patience for Labour voters, unless they were friends to start with and I more or less have no choice. I am angry at them. I am really very cross at them. I don’t blame the Labour government, Dom Mintoff, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, Sant, Muscat, No to Europe and all the rest so much as I blame them.
All that happened because of their choices, their preferences, and their decisions.
Yes, I blame them, and that is why I don’t like or trust them. It’s not because I’m a “political racist against my own people” as the cretins over at Forum Zghazagh Laburisti like to say. It’s because I hold them personally responsible for many of the evils that befell this country over the last few decades.
When I meet a Labour voter who is my contemporary or older, all I have to do is remember that he voted to bring back Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici as prime minister in 1992 and he or she is finished in my eyes. How can I take anything about such a person seriously when I remember that?
It’s the same with this lot, the younger ones, and their fierce, impassioned campaign to keep Malta out of the European Union. I will never forgive them for the permanent and catastrophic damage they so nearly inflicted on us. And I will never respect or trust their judgement.
I don’t like them because of what they tried to do and so nearly succeeded. And no, I don’t mean only the Labour oliticians. I mean those who voted for them, and those who voted as they told them to.
Am I prejudiced? No. I think I’ve just got my head screwed on right. I can’t understand how lots of people can depersonalise the issue and say ‘Oh, he votes Labour. It’s a free country.’ Sure it is, no thanks to them. But when a person’s actions direct impinge on my freedoms, then I see it as quite clearly personal, and take it as a direct affront.
Bottom line: anybody who voted to deny me an EU passport performed an act of antagonism against me. I didn’t perform an act of antagonism against them by voting to make sure they have one.
And anybody who votes in these dangerous loons – ditto. I still remember who of my acquaintances boasted about voting for Alfred Sant because of personal animosity and mean ambition (and then quickly retracted), and I keep them safely at arm’s length. You can’t trust anybody so spiteful and selfish; they might apply the same thinking to other areas of their life.
Anyway, here’s Stephen Fry.
Almost the whole of my text at the moment, in my head as I fall asleep, is summed up by the word “contempt”. Contempt, in politics, for the hypocrisy, the double standards, the double dealing, the corruption and the moral suasion.
It’s almost impossible for me to explain just how deeply I feel contempt. I want to go into detail – and I think you’ll be rather shocked, and I hope rather edified, by what I have to say. So who are these terrible hypocrites?
Who are these double dealers?
Who are these liars and fraudulent corrupt people?
Well, you’re listening to one of them: that’s me. And I’m talking to millions of them: that’s you.
It’s not the politicians, God bless them. Sexless, uninteresting, graceless and very often styleless people as they may be, it is we who are the problem in politics.
We expect a very high standard of living. We expect food to be cheap and available. We expect energy to be cheap and available.
we also expect to be able to mouth off at parties about how terrible it is that the ozone layer is being eaten away and the glaciers are melting and how awful it is that people are starving in other countries.
And we pay this group of styleless sexless people whom we call politicians a small amount of money in order to lay off our own guilt. Our own cant and hypocrisy is laid at their door.
And apparently, it’s they who are the hypocrites. It is they who are corrupt. It is they who refuse to solve the problems of the world.
Well, it isn’t. It’s us. It’s me, and it’s you.
Take this week, for example. Suppose you’re prime minister, you’ve got all these illegal immigrants. What are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to hide the true facts?
That’s hardly something the public would accept, so you campaign and you say “we don’t know how many there are – let’s do something about it”, and then you’re accused of incompetence.
Well, of course you don’t know how many there are: they’re illegal immigrants. Do we expect magic from our politicians?
We’re not going to get it. They’re just human beings like you and me.
And what about this “Let’s Talk” business? Yes, it sounds like a very bad BT advert. On the other hand, what would we say if they didn’t say that?
We’d say that they’re arrogant, and that they never listen. They can’t win because they’ve got us to serve, and we are filth.
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Arrogance? Read this:
http://andrewazzopardi.org/2012/05/22/matthew-vella-f-intervista-ma-andrew-azzopardi-fis-serje-time-to-answer/
I think this article deserves to be framed and mounted on the walls of council houses everywhere – you know, instead of pictures of the great salvatur.
“But when a person’s actions direct impinge on my freedoms, then I see it as quite clearly personal, and take it as a direct affront.”
How do you feel about the right for divorce legislation, which the PM voted against in the House of Representatives? How do you feel about the lack of Cohabitaion law?
Don’t you feel that these are all rights which we truly deserve? Don’t you think that the vote of the majority must be respected in the HOR?
[Daphne – Keep up. I wrote about these subjects extensively at the time. Try Googling. I’m not going to repeat everything for the slow ones in class. I was always a great believer in streaming.]
Googling Divorce and DCG = JPO. Not that I missed anything then.
[Daphne – Sorry, I forgot for a minute there that Labour voters tend to be intellectually challenged. Narrow down your search by using a timeframe. Don’t use my initials or Jeffrey’s. Leave Jeffrey out of it. And better still, use the search facility on this website, because most of what I wrote was uploaded here. I don’t wish to be rude, but you must be pretty thick if you believe that I wrote nothing about divorce and the proposed cohabitation law.]
Gino, press the fast-forward button, please.
Actually it was the search button which was initially used but time and time again =JPO.
I mean you write about Divorce and JPO every single day, loads of articles cropped up.
But yes I am thick, however just as a constructive criticism you should (actually must) provide a better search facility.
That’s the kind of search button a simple software could provide.
I mean the real basic. btw never imagine that initials should be used for research, it will simply deliver nonsense, neither mathematical symbols. Tought it was self-explanatory, but yet again I am that thick.
[Daphne – Listen, I’m going to speak to you straight and plain: you either hate me, I’m a witch and I talk bollocks, in which case what are you doing here. Or you want to join in the discussion because you think it’s relevant, in which case, just do so. Either way, bloody grow up and understand that I am a real person, writing real things, in real language, about real situations, and not some cartoon figure as portrayed on Super One.]
Streaming! I miss that, but at the Faculty of Education they think otherwise. They should climb down the pedestal and do a bit of hands-on.
Perhaps not many people realise this, but in effect the parliamentary vote on divorce pretty much reflected the popular referendum result.
A 36 Yes and 33 No reflect a 52.17% and the referendum result was 52.47%, both in favour of divorce.
So the PM’s vote and that of the remaining MPs, all PN, was quite a precise reflection of the popular vote. What exactly is wrong with that?
The problem today is that the goals aren’t as clear cut and definite as in 1987, 1998, 2003 and 2008.
The choice then was cultural, that between being the mainstream or a satellite state orbiting around an object of desire. It may look unlikely but it’s still the same.
Only a week ago it seems, Joseph Muscat told us to get rid of some inferiority complex due Malta’s size.
Well, perhaps he should make sure that his party stops the eternal humbug stifling their spirit. It’s very catching when proposed by politicians and in an island no bigger than Elba it becomes gargantaun in effect. No critical mass you see, becomes hard to regain momentum.
He fails miserably when it comes to conviction to human ingenuity, fails everyone when his answers remain erratic.
We cannot afford approximate thought in the materialistic sense, it’s quality time now. If it means challenging the mindset of those who want to consume space, ideas and distort principles out of indolence, it has to be done.
I see one party working towards hi-tech hi-gain low footprint productivity, whereas the other is still stuck in the mid 90’s looking at development as a quantifiable measure.
The bottom line with the opposition is indeed one; the gains to be made, where concepts and, dare I say dreams, are reduced to an entropic soup of mashed words and their meaning.
If one had to consider that mentality as done for, I don’t see those who seem intent on perpetuating it capable of recognising the excesses let alone willing to rectify them. Everything is game.
According to Joseph, 120 tax evaders are enough to revise a law. Absolutely irresponsible when the plea isn’t followed by a frank proposal. Why does he have to depend on speculation? It’s the opposite of politics, not liberal.
Labour have taken to believe the adage that change is only possible via the top and that we’re fed up of a PN led country.
Oh well, and whose fault would that be? Surely not the elves.
a vote to join the eu means
110 million to greece
( li mahniex se narawhom izjed)
50 million to portugal
( imsieken billi intuhom 50 miljun dawn kienu raw il madonna ta fatima jahasra hux!!!!!)
and 16 million to ireland
( dawn ma kienux marru tajjeb hafna fl eu?)
bis sahha tieghek daphne u ta min ivvota bhalek hadna pakketti ta l ghagin
kupuni tal jogourt
gallettini tal morning coffe
u pakketti tar ross
deal or no deal?
[Daphne – Your ignorance and narrow vision are stratospheric. I hope you don’t have children who can blame you for it, or worse, children who you have made in your own image.]
Are you really that thick?
Unfortunately, yes. Even more unfortunately, he’s not the only one, and they all have a vote.
Ghallinqas ghandek kompjuter u internet biex toqghod tokrob fuq hekk, ghax l-ahhar li ccekkjajt fit-80ijiet, qas telephone ma seta’ jkollok jekk ma tmurx titkarrab go xi kazin.
See what I mean?
The PL is stilted when it keeps pandering to this type of mentality.
Insieh ir-ration ta’ zmien Mintoff dan?
Ara veru ninsabu f’idejn nies li lanqas huma kapaci jahsbu.
Jahsbu biss bil-but u jinsew il-bqija, jinsew il-libertà li gab dan il-Gvern, l-opportunitajiet, l-edukazzjoni. Tassew nispera li m’ghandux tfal jew neputijiet li ‘l quddiem ghad irid jaghtihom rendikont tad-decizjonijiet tieghu.
Daphne, you are forgetting one important detail in your arguments: the PN was in government for the past 25 years.
If the majority are a tabula rasa when it comes to good sense,then we know who should be blamed.
[Daphne – Yes, Randon. Their parents. Children are the product of their parents, almost never of their school, and certainly never of their government. It is the scope for development, through schools, jobs and training, that is provided in part by the state. But the raw material comes from mum and dad. If the parents can’t think, it is 99% likely that their children won’t think either. And believe me when I say that thinking and schooling/university are rarely connected.]
Added to that is the not so inconspicuous dose of arrogance from those in power (ministers and those behind the throne).
A change in government will probably bring a wilderness of monkeys on the throne, but then we are tired of the all devouring pack wolves already sitting there.
[Daphne – I don’t see any devouring wolves, Randon. What I see is people wanting to vote them out because they think they they, personally, are not devouring enough. And you have to be mad to wilfully put a monkey on the throne.]
John Grech’s idols are Alfred Sant and KMB, who are still harping on that it was a big mistake to join the EU.
John Grech must really be very proud to have voted against joining the EU.
Having said that, Joseph Muscat also voted against, so we have to put him in the same league as KMB and Sant.
This is a good piece for those who call themselves “floating voters”.
So, floating voters, “hear, hear”
You should ask your leader if joining the EU was a good choice or not. But a word of warning, John – be very discreet how you put it to him, ghax tispicca bhal Adrian Vassallo.
Personally @ John Grech
Do you know what is truly pathetic?
That you voted to turn the clock back from 2004 to 1984, to the days of the 20 punt, lockouts of teachers and anybody who wanted to have 29 June as a holiday; to budgets on tonn taz-zejt u corned beef, u budgets tal-qawsalla.
Ma nirratifikawx il-Court of Human Rights biex ma naghtux xoghol lil-avukati (KMB).
To strolling through Republic Street and seeing everybody wearing the same shoddy clothes.
Tkarrib biex ikollok linja tat-telephone u television tal-kulur.
Bombs going off in the middle of the night.
Those where the good old days – if you miss them so much why don’t you go to live in some Central African Country – oh I forgot – those countries are not as corrupt as Malta was in 1984.