You need to see Edward’s comment in a wider context. Buying fake likes is only one aspect of what happened.

Muscat had five years and lots of resources to create the manic atmosphere that propelled him to power. One of those resources is the severe lack of critical thinking *outside* the tulip mania atmosphere.

Edgerank, the algorithm that Facebook uses to push posts on the newsfeeds of readers, puts a lot of emphasis on posts which generate interest and engagement as a ratio of the number of users who like a page. People were commenting far more, sharing more and liking more on Gonzi’s page than Joseph Muscat’s, despite the fact that JM had around ten thousand more likes on his page.

Muscat probably had a few thousand fake page Likes on his page, but it didn’t help him get the message through. Then again, he had no message to get through to start with.

Mile End is Elve Central. They go back as far as Alfred Sant.

That ploy was used to successfully put The Beatles on the map. A large number of teenage girls were paid to jam the front rows and scream and swoon at their initial performances, and then to mob them when the performance ended.

The whole charade then received similarly rigged media coverage.

The difference is that The Beatles actually were good. Joseph Muscat and the PL are not, and they have nothing to offer. The cracks in the facade showed from their first panicked day in government and they have been widening since.

A fellow thespian?

I cracked the boards in my youth but I never really had it in my blood, and that’s what’s so essential, isn’t it? The theatrical zeal in the veins. Alas, I have little more than gin and memories.

Throughout recent years the NP was trying to empower fellow citizens to study and find careers under their own steam. This was being done on three fronts:

education (which was a success although criticised);

foreign investment(douze points for that);

and the most important of them all was the accession to the EU where citizens could now move freely throughout Europe with ease and understand how mature democracies (unlike ours) have evolved.

The latter would have been more appropriate if associated with the first.

In the last election campaign the Labour Party made the unprecedented move to approach Nationalist-leaning professionals (sometimes even personally) to help and/or contribute with the so-called road map to hell.

This must have aroused the contributors since the Nationalist Party never attempted such a move and they felt so important at the time that they even convinced their families to switch votes in exchange for an iced bun and a sense of the importance of being ‘in’, only to realise that they were taken for a ride all day long.

I can clearly recall when Alfred Sant pledged that he would eradicate VAT and soon after he won the election, Triq Aldo Moro was littered with cash registers. He introduced CET and poor old Joe had to go back and buy another one.

When Joseph Muscat hinted that the PN was tampering with the oil procurement, insinuating that the high energy bills were due to that fact, he promptly pledged that when he’s in power he will slash a quarter from our energy bills. This is a tell-tale sign that history is repeating itself.

The Labour people always failed to understand that politics is not about being in power. Politics is about those high-end tools which enable a society to move forward and not backwards.

Being able to master such tools doesn’t come only from academic achievements but more importantly from principles which one truly believes in and are definitely not tradable.

No, drama school. :P. The things literature can teach you are mind-blowing.

Agree with Edward. I would also add pyramid schemes to the madness of crowds. I must confess I once took advantage of one. The glazed eyes, filled with greed, were a sight to behold.

What you described is cognitive warfare. It’s been around for ages, but it’s only been studied as a proper discipline since the mid-90s.

You’re not a graduate of the School of Economic Warfare, are you?