Slapdash words for a slapdash attitude
I'm thinking outside the box
I don’t think organisations in Malta understand quite what the use of slapdash English says about them. It says that they are not perfectionist, that they are prepared to settle for low standards, and that getting it right doesn’t matter to them.
People then extrapolate from this to the rest of their business. If this is the organisation’s attitude towards the use of language, they think, then it might well be the organisation’s attitude throughout.
But of course, this presupposes that the person exposed to an organisation’s careless use of grammar, syntax and vocabulary is in any way better at all of that.
Organisations get away with it because lots of people know even less. What counts, though, are the people who do know better; they are put off, and they make a difference.
This is the first thing I think of when I read the Labour Party’s English-language news site, maltastar.com. I can’t get past the abysmal writing, which obscures everything else.
You would have thought that if the Labour Party was going to bother spending all that time and money communicating in English with God-knows-who, it would spend a little more and find people who actually speak and write correct, idiomatic English. I don’t think the Labour Party – or any other organisation in Malta, for that matter – would ever dream of communicating in atrocious Maltese.
Yet it is considered acceptable to communicate in atrocious English. Lower standards are thought to be quite all right because, after all, English is not our language and so abundant errors can be overlooked or forgiven.
This may be the case with the spoken language. When speaking, we don’t have time to think, to check the correct grammar or vocabulary, or to work out how best to say what we want to say. At least, that is the case when we are not perfectly fluent. The written word is another matter altogether.
When you’re writing something, you have time to check it and you should check it. There are dictionaries. There are people who know, people you can call. But best of all, there are people who know how to write the language, and so they should be the ones doing the writing, and not somebody who speaks pidgin or who thinks in Maltese and then translates semi-literally into English.
It is not just offensive when the official communications of a political party are in truly terrible English. It is unwise. It tells us not only that the political party is teeming with people to whom English is really a foreign language, but also that in the view of this political party, mistakes are not important.
Attention to detail is not important. A polished approach is not important. Getting it right is not important. And slapdash amateurism is fine.
The thing about maltastar.com is that it communicates rather more effectively than the Labour Party understands, and it communicates the wrong sort of things – a kind of ongoing ‘my computer malfunctioned’. The revamp of the site was months in coming, yet when it was done it turned out to be antiquated, badly designed and cumbersome.
There is a something seriously amateurish about it, as though it is run by a group of poorly educated people in their 20s who are trying to talk to others like them, using a language that is foreign to both.
But worst of all is the language itself. This is the official news portal of one of Malta’s major political parties, the opposition party, and yet it reads like a third-form essay written by somebody from a Maltese-only household in a state school where English is never spoken.
It is pitiable, and what is more pitiable still is that it just about sums up the Labour Party’s standards and attitude towards politics and governance in general: “U ejja, mhux xorta. L-aqwa li naslu.”
Two nights ago the site ran a story with the headline ‘Malta pays 5% VAT on children vaccines.’ I remarked on my blog that the Labour Party knows something the rest of us don’t: that you can vaccinate yourself against a bad case of the children (a new form of contraception, perhaps?).
So the next morning, they corrected it: to “childrens’ vaccines”. Presumably, the correction was made by somebody who thinks, as many people do, that the plural of child is ‘childrens’.
The interesting thing is that even though the system underscores spelling mistakes in red and grammatical errors in green (at least, mine does – online as well as off), they still don’t bother to check what’s wrong.
They probably think that the green and red lines are just pretty decorations, or that the system is being unnecessarily pedantic and full of what a certain type of person likes to think of as ‘sinifiteti.’
The same story gave us more: “Dr Gonzi continued to deny the existence of this report uptill the moment” and “the Implementation of a patient registration system” – the invention of words and the turning of others into proper nouns.
Then there was the headline “Dutch government against a mandatory burden sharing”. Yes – I wanted to ask – a mandatory burden sharing what? The answer was in the first line of the story: “The Dutch government ‘does not believe in a mandatory burden sharing agreement’ and is not planning to take any immigrants from Malta.”
Nobody has explained to the writer that ‘mandatory burden sharing’ – and the last two should be hyphenated – are adjectives, that the noun is ‘agreement’, and that adjectives cannot be used in isolation but require a noun, especially when there is an ‘a’ hanging about.
So according to Labour’s maltastar.com: “A mandatory burden sharing was passed in the European Parliament” – just like a bowel movement, then – “however, is yet to go through the Council of Europe.”
I find these things painful, and they detract from the credibility of what is being said. If the Labour Party thinks it is a good idea to communicate in English – and it is, so well done on that score – then it should make sure that it’s done properly.
Free health for all
The saddest thing about the partisan bickering over free health care for all is that it means no serious discussion will be possible. Commonsense tells us that the present system is unsustainable. It also tells us that a person who can afford to have a surgical procedure carried out privately should not take the place of somebody who can’t. But then there are ethical quandaries and moral dilemmas.
How do you means-test somebody who doesn’t earn very much on paper but who still somehow manages to take holidays and buy cars? Do you demand that he gets his priorities straight and uses his holiday money to pay for surgery? I can see how well that one will play.
Try as I might, I just can’t get comfortable with the idea that there is a group of people who should be denied access to free health care. They are the ones whose maximum national insurance contributions and taxes fund the state health care system in the first place.
It seems a little too –well, socialist, if you like – to demand that when they use the services they are bankrolling, they should pay to use them while everyone else gets the same service for free.
What’s being suggested in some quarters is that the same group of people be made to pay twice over while another group of people pays nothing at all, or next to nothing.
Those who really can afford to pay do so in any case. Put off by hospital waiting lists and blessed with private medical insurance, they have their problems seen to by private clinics and private hospitals. It is only when they really can’t avoid it that they go to the state hospital, and in that case, I don’t think they should be asked to pay.
It’s a difficult one. But the behaviour of Joseph Muscat and now, Edward Scicluna, really is not helping. Professor Scicluna went on record a year ago as saying that completely free health care for all is unsustainable.
Now that he is a candidate for the Labour Party, and Joseph Muscat is fighting this election as though it is a general election, claiming that the government plans to introduce payment for health care, he has changed his tune.
Completely free health care for absolutely everyone, Edward Scicluna said a few days ago, is unsustainable only because the government doesn’t know how to do it.
The Labour Party, he implied, will be able to wave a magic wand and work it all out. Sadly, his foray into politics has undermined the credibility he had as an economist.
Free health care for all is, like divorce, something that should never be turned into a partisan stick with which to beat the other. Like divorce, it is a bullet that one or other of the parties is going to have to bite sooner or later when in government. A more mature approach by Joseph Muscat will only serve to make his life easier once he is prime minister and having to contend with the vast problems of free health care himself.
But so far, he has only the short term in mind, and in the short term, the objective is to make sure he becomes prime minister. Then he’ll see.
History, unfortunately, repeats itself.
This article is published in The Malta Independent on Sunday today.
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I believe that if Dr George Abela was elected leader of the MLP he would have grabbed the opportunity and stated exactly what you wrote in this article. After all,what you wrote can be easily termed as socialist.
Middle-class taxpayers are sandwiched between the rich and “iz-zghir” as it is well described on today’s The Sunday Times http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090531/opinion/powerful-lobbies-and-laissez-faire-attitudes.
I believe that Minister John Dalli can cut a lot of expenses and increase efficiency in the health sector, and devise schemes to reduce the health bill.It is heartening to know that a report was commissioned regarding the health sector.
Jien qanzha ghal-kelma Maltija. Daphne, int ktibt fuq is-“slapdash words” ghandek wahda bil-Malti maqlub ghal Ingliz hdejn Joseph: “Il-poplu l-ewwel” ma’ tfissirx ezatt “people first”. Nahseb “In-nies l-ewwel” kien tkun iktar tfisser li jridu jghidu s-Socjalisti Ewropej.
Hija ovvja meta taqleb ghal Malti “there are people around”, ma’ nghidux “hawn il-poplu madwarna” nghidu “hawn in-nies hdejna”.
[Daphne – Fl-Ingliz hemm differenza bejn ‘people’ u ‘the people’.]
Ghal giehna dal-kliem inkiteb hdejn Joseph li ghamel dik ix-xenata fil-parlament Ewropew meta ghamilha ta’ bir-ruhu jiddefendi l-ilsien Malti. Il-huta minn rasha tintenn.
[Daphne – Hemm spelling mistake ukoll fuq il-kaxxa f’idejh, u spazju bejn il-‘colon’ u l-kelma ta’ qabel, fejn mhux support. Is-soltu nuqqs ta’ attenzjoni. U r-reklami li kellhom bl-Ingliz fil-gazzetti tal-bierah (il-Hadd) huma miktubin bl-Ingliz ta’ dawk li taghlmu l-lingwa l-iskola. Is-soltu.]
Trieghext kif dhalt fil-websajt tal-Lejber. Flok ‘nizzel’ kitbu ‘iddawnlodja’ , u kemm Inglizati biex nuru li ahna mas-Slimizi. Nistenna rispett lejn l-ilsien Malti minn partit li suppost hu Malti {l-ewwel(,) u qabel kollox}.
Just imagine the following disastrous scenario: http://www.maltastar.com proofreaders at OPM in four years time.
Isn’t JPO making you feel so proud of being a Nationalist?
[Daphne – How does that follow? Oh, by the way – are you comfortable living in England thanks to the work of the Nationalist Party in government, and no thanks to AD which tried to derail it all by telling people to vote for them instead of for the Nationalists?]
He’s obviously not making you feel proud of being a Nationalist! Your memory is a week old – AD asked everyone to give them a number 2 vote – the most noble act a Maltese party ever exercised – you are too small to understand or appreciate the significance of that!
[Daphne – You’re the one who needs a calculator, Edward. Had it not been for a couple of last-minute tactics that saved the day, and I’m glad I thought of the most effective one of all, the general election of 2003 would have ended up – thanks to people like you – like the MEP election of the following year, with thousands of arithmetically-challenged individuals voting AD and hoping that the Nationalists would be elected.]
And we got David Casa. WOW!!!!
[Daphne – You have to hand it to him: at least he knows how to speak. His daily radio talks on 101 before the 2003 referendum were widely followed and very influential. And please don’t tempt me to bring up the subject of Harry Vassallo, or of Arnold ‘today I’m Maltese because opportunities in Italy are limited’ Cassola. His latest billboard shows his face and the words Yes We Can. Who is he, suddenly – Barack Obama?]
Worse than the incorrect use of English on Maltastar is the crappy content – the “gossip” section, the jokes with sexual innuendos, the content of Sander Agius’s blog. The list goes on …
Ha’ nergghu mmorru lura ghaz-zmien ta’ meta kienu juru l-prezz tat-tonn taz-zejt, tal-luncheon meat, tal-kuserva, ecc fuq it-television wara l-ahbarijiet:
http://www.maltastar.com/pages/ms09dart.asp?a=2240
That is what socialism is all about – that is precisely why everyone must vote PN once again. On the other hand, this time round, one cannot vote from one to ten. That would be perfectly illogical.
I cannot blame those who want to abstain from voting. Most of these have asked for help. The ministries’ “customer care” did not even bother to acknowledge the request, let alone a “yes” or a “no” for an answer.
Mandy jekk hemm bzonn juruhom, imma mhux minhabba l-gvern……..minhabba l-agenti li jgibu l- prodotti u dejjem jehel l-gvern.
Ghaliex dejjem jghollu l-prezzijiet bl-addocc.
Not good.
Neither is it good to do your weekly shopping, buy more or less the same stuff and find the bill substantially higher every time. while your salary/wage/pension remains the same.
Surely we can find a happy(ish) medium?
[Daphne – Exactly how much shopping do you do? And why does the Labour Party focus on groceries, rather than on all the rest of life’s necessities, which are so much cheaper now than they were 20 years ago?]
All of it.
What are these necessities which are “so much cheaper now than they were 20 years ago?” Apart from the things which became cheaper through advances in technology, like computers (my first Pentium I cost me Lm1200 – 2795 ewro.)
[Daphne – You reveal that you are one of two things: at least 10 years younger than I am, and/or a man who doesn’t go shopping for much. I’ve been running a household for 24 years, and so I can compare prices and availability then and now. Clothes are unimaginably cheaper. All forms of white goods are a fraction of the price they were. Furniture is incredibly cheaper, as is practically anything else for the home. Food is marginally more expensive, but there is so much more of it, so much choice, that what is happening is that people are actually buying much more than they would dream of buying 20 years ago. Back then, I used to stand in the queue along with a line of other women, all of us with lists which we stuck to religiously: 2 of this, 3 of that, 200g of this….now I go to the supermarket and see people throwing things into their trolleys with abandon. At the check-out queue, the trolleys are piled so high that they have had to introduce ‘fast check-out lanes’. Twenty years ago, we were all ‘fast check out’ because we bought only the barest necessities. And when I say cheaper, I mean the actual price tag, which means that they are not only cheaper in price, but above that, cheaper in terms of what we earn. My first proper washing machine back in 1987 cost a whopping Lm450. It was so expensive that my mother had to pay for it because we just didn’t have the money. In those days, people were taking home Lm130 a month, so that washing-machine was the equivalent of three-and-a-half months’ salary. I bought the same thing, by the same brand, a couple of years ago and paid Lm150. There was whopping import duty on everything that came into the country: on white goods it was around 75%, as I recall. It could go up to 100% and even over that. Clothes – prices were ridiculous. There were such stringent restrictions on importation that anything that was actually made it past the import licence/quota/duty system was subject to the price-making mechanism of demand far outstripping supply. I remember saving up to buy a Lm50 dress which today would sell for Lm15 at most. I could go on, but I won’t. Houses cost less, yes – but why? Demand and supply again. People had no money, and so demand for property was low. Almost the whole of Malta was, in property terms, a depressed area. Prices began rising around 1990 for a very good reason: the economy began to pick up.]
Anqas konna naffordjaw nixtru l-hwejjeg, konna nhituhom.
Illum kulhadd b’tad-ditta. Avolja trid tghid ukoll li hawn hafna dejn.
Daph, I’m butting in on your reply to Ettore Bono:
One important thing you did not mention was computers. He states that his first Pentiium cost Lm1,2000 – That must have been in the early 1990s, and yes, they are cheaper now because of advances in technology.
What he fails to appreciate is that in 1983, computers were virtually inexistent in households, due to ridiculous regulations set by the man in the drainage-inspector outfit ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGJ-rnd6cds ).
The few people who managed to import one would have had to fill in endless rounds of forms (and probably pay a bribe or two) … and this for a basic ZX 81, Sinclair Spectrum or BBC Commodore – Pre-historic computers, when compared to the ones that are around today.
When I sat for my computer studies O-level in 1984 it was by having “practical” experience on a PC at sixth form for a few minutes every couple of weeks (after school hours, and shared with other students).
You also mentioned clothes. Up to the mid/late ’80s, the most popular shop was probably Square Deal – not because it was particularly great, but because they probably had the most affordable choice.
Shoes? We had Sanga, if we were lucky. I clearly remember splashing out on a pair of Lm38 Missoni tennis shoes around 1987, when my monthly salary was not more than Lm128. I wouldn’t dream of doing it today – There’s so much more choice and you can still get good shoes for much less.
From timesofmalta.com
Charles J. Buttigieg (4 days, 2 hours ago)
@ Michael Seychell
Why are you so surprised with Bedingfield’s statement that the PL comes first and foremost? Even for me and thousands of other red-blooded Labour supporters our party comes first and foremost because Malta doesn’t deserve Gonzipn and for us Malta comes first and foremost. Contradicting myself? A pedant would think so.
Il-poplu l-ewwel… rings a bell! Ah yes…Ic-Cittadin l-ewwel…. Oh God here we go again!
“The Labour Party pledged to work both locally and through its MEP candidates in the European Parliament to set up an agency that will ensure that no abuse in prices will keep happening.”
http://www.maltastar.com/pages/ms09dart.asp?a=2240
[Daphne – Same old, same old: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYZ3P3uBh80 ]
Is it me, or what? Today Malta and tomorrow the whole world?
Just tried to find out more about Mr Muscat’s Dutch red buddie Jan Marinus Wiersma (another mystery to me: Muscat’s red European supporting brigade) and found the following links by accident–I’ll post them just in case you didn’t see them before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb0GoYWrvXc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnD6-0KYzMY&feature=related
Another issue no party seems to want to tackle are social services, which most of the time aren’t ‘social `anyway. I’ll never understand why perfectly healthy young women who are able to work are given these allowances.Surely that money can be directed to other causes.
Mariac: There are healthy young men who receive benefits they do not deserve. And women and men who are not so young, too.
True, Corinne, but then again there are businessmen and professionals who do not jot down all their income at the end of the year on their P3. What about them? Do they deserve to do that? They are even not obliged to give you a VAT receipt. Are we always fair and square?
“Mary”: You’re only emphasising my point – single mothers are not the source of all evil.
Who, anyway, are all these businessmen who are not obliged to issue VAT receipts?
[Daphne – Only doctors are not obliged to issue VAT receipts.]
What you don’t mention, Mary, is that when a businessman does not give a receipt it’s because he is in cahoots with the client who gets a discount. If everyone had to demand a receipt there could be no tax evasion.
Most PL supporters still hanker after the good old Mintoffian days. The trouble is that a lot of PN supporters seem to be like-minded with their attitude of ‘I won’t vote to spite the PN.’
We need a decent opposition that would make an acceptable government – one that can carry on with the decent life that the PN managed to bring about and maybe even better it. Dream on.
The anything goes attitude reached its peak in last year’s electoral programme, with its innumerable misprints, computer errors and the half-baked “new” proposals that were already in place. The MLP actually issued different versions as they could not decide which one was the official manifesto.
The PL MEPs have cheerfully continued the tradition with their slapdash voting, apparently pressing buttons at random, later having to correct themselves. No wonder Louis Grech looked so discomfited on Xarabank, every time Simon Busuttil mentioned voting in the EP.
Other examples: Joseph Muscat shot his mouth off about the health services without checking what Edward Scicluna had been saying. Then there was the story about the introduction of VAT on vaccines. Apart from the grammar mistake (corrected with another mistake) on maltastar, it turns out that this tax has been levied since 2004 and is not new.
Check today’s The Timeds about vaccines
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090602/local/vaccines-can-be-vat-free-brussels
Ettore, it’s besides the point whether we need to have VAT on vaccines. The point is that Joseph Muscat mentioned it as a ‘new’ tax and was unaware that it has existed for years. We’re not discussing VAT here, we’re discussing the mediocrity of the PL and the haphazard attitude of its leader who blurts out his criticisms haphazardly, without doing his homework first.
I only collected my vote three days before the last election and voted for the Greens because of Mistragate.
Still unsure about who to vote for this time around – would definitely have voted Labour but for their stance on immigration. I like Joseph but he needs to focus on doing the right thing and distance himself from some of the people around him. With the state of our country, the infrastructure etc, immigration if managed properly is an opportunity. We only have four years left milking the EU cash-cow if I am not mistaken and I thought that we would have achieved much more by now.
I have not spoken to Edward since junior school, no clue what he does in the UK but hundreds of Maltese worked in Europe before we joined the EU. I know I did, it wasn’t that difficult to get a work permit though easier now of course.
I do hope that we will manage to elect one of the females [Daphne – WOMEN, for God’s sake. Do you speak of electing ‘males’?] contesting. We need less talk of erm…..vision, projects and bull and more common sense.
The only country in the EU without a female MEP. I am not suggesting that we should elect a female just for the sake of it but all three parties have really good female candidates. It’s all about networking for us in the EU.
We have very little political leverage, if any. Those politicians who think that being strong and banging your fist in Brussels is going to get us anywhere are mistaken in my humble opinion. The PN must have used the Labour party for leverage (2001 – 2004) but that is not the case now.
I still cannot understand how most people voted for Casa and not for Joanna Drake in 2004…..
Malta Today?
[Daphne – Grisly, especially Matthew Vella who plucks phrases and buzz-words from British newspapers and magazines and uses them without knowing quite how. And then there’s Mr Malapropism Balzan.]
Daphne,
I wonder what you make of the draft energy policy at http://www.mrra.gov.mt/htdocs/docs/Energy%20Policy%20for%20Malta.pdf – it is littered with spelling mistakes, starting with “Foreward” and “This is a document that compliments (sic) a series of other
initiatives presently being undertaken by Government” on page 3.
Doesn’t it make you wonder how seriously this government takes its energy policy, when the MRRA can’t even bother to proofread a document on the subject before starting public consultation?
[Daphne – Yes, isn’t it disgraceful.]
Daphne – go and fuck yourself
[Daphne – Another classy Labour voter.]
ooh and with a double-barrelled name as well. Hey D read into the psychology of it all. A mittelklass wannabe but still a peasant to boot. (And no dis-respect meant to all the decent bdiwa everywhere)
Would have sounded more succinct in the vernacular but trust these people to screw things up.
Hearing that I can’t stop thinking of something I read yesterday about what was recommended for people in Victorian times that literally did fuck themselves.
Thanks to Firefox brilliant address field it took me a second to find the article again:
http://www.collectmedicalantiques.com/quack4.html
Look at the “Spermatorrhea Ring”.
Perhaps my overly childish mind found it too amusing, but couldn’t help myself.
The name Michael Grima De Gabriele is obviously fictitious. It’s not listed in the electoral register.
Hi Daphne, I am afraid this has nothing to do with the above excellent post. I was thinking that those loonies from Imperium Europa deserve a couple of scathing posts from you.
Daphne,
Can you spare some words in time for your favourite EP candidate and his email gaffe….ejja, let’s have some fun.
[Daphne – He was a bloody idiot to do it.]
Yes of course, one can talk about female candidates, just like one talks about black music and not white music.
[Daphne – Of course you can, but you shouldn’t. I’ve noticed that men say ‘female’ but they never say ‘male’; they say men. The problem is so bad that I once saw a notice in a shop announcing the arrival of ‘female belts’ – what, with reproductive apparatus? – rather than women’s belts or belts for women.]
Women are not a minority in Malta but a minority when it comes to politics. Whenever a woman stands out, she is shot down by other Maltese women.
[Daphne – The men are actually a bigger problem.]
Ideally there would not be a difference, but clearly there is.
What about local radio DJs referring to “kantanti femminili”?!
Brings back memories of the good old days, when http://www.maltarightnow.com had an English portal.
Socialism is about unsustainable development. Always thinking of the desires of the present people, for political reasons, while compromising the needs of future generations. After all, for the present, the latter don’t have a vote.
Socialism is about preventing present people from making small sacrifices and making future generations do large ones. Besides, future generations are in the hands of future governments not in the present one.
Socialism is about making people feel 100% secure about their job because that’s what they desire. That’s why it believes in nationalisation not privatisation and liberalisation because by nationalising companies it can fully guarantee the job of the present people. But it doesn’t understand that by fully guaranteeing people’s jobs, no matter what they do, those same people will become lazy, will work less, compromising the future of the company, the country, and eventually future jobs. Look at what happened to the Malta Shipyards, the monument to Maltese Socialism. Humans need to feel that little bit insecure about their jobs so that they are motivated to work more and not loose their job. Only private companies can offer this.
Socialism is about giving what the present people want, for free and at any cost if necessary. It leaves the bill for future generations. After all they’re not here to complain.
Socialism is about being selfish, yes, selfish towards future generations who are not here to defend their rights and their needs. But then you tell me, ‘doesn’t capitalism also lead to selfishness?’ Well, of coarse it does, but a different kind of selfishness. Selfishness towards present people who are here to defend their rights and needs, which makes a whole world of difference. Although not ideal, it’s still much better than being selfish towards future generations. Look what happened to Wall Street bankers. They were selfish towards the present community, they got caught, and now the present community took their job and made sure that they were punished. Future generations can come to the present and punish today’s socialists!
This doesn’t mean that that socialism is completely wrong. A small degree of sustainable socialism can be allowed as long as all economic and financial aspects of a country, are taken into account.
For the reasons I’ve stated, I disagree with the PM when he says that he doesn’t want to put any charges on health care when everyone knows that free health care has become unsustainable. He’s being too socialist or at least appearing to be. I believe, along with many nationalists, that reasonable charges should be introduced so that future generations can continue paying reasonable charges not exaggerated ones.
I suspect that even the PM understands this concept, even though he advocates free health care. As he is the only one I’ve ever heard mentioning sustainable development and future generations. But I think that he also knows that if he introduces charges to health care, opportunistic Joseph Muscat, would take the chance to promise the people, who I think haven’t yet quite grasped the idea of sustainable development, that once elected he would remove the charges again. This would of course make the PM’s work futile and we would end up back to square one.
I also suspect that if George Abela was instead of Muscat, the situation would have been very different from now. Although a socialist, I think Abela understands the idea of sustainable development, and would have accepted some form of charges to health care.
“Socialism is about unsustainable development”
Where on earth did you get such a bizarre notion?
It is capitalism which depends for its very existance on ever increasing growth, ever increasing consumption and ever increasing profit. And it is capitalism which is proving to be unsustainable. No, has been proved to be unsustainable
Somehow, I don’t think your economic theories are going to be very earthshaking.
Increasing growth and increasing consumption goes hand in hand with increased development. I don’t think socialism is unsustainable, but I think it has an enormous capacity to become stagnant. Where do the great socialistic states of the 50s and 60s stand today?
I still think that if we build a welfare state on socialistic values and a market on capitalist methods we will be a good bit on the way. Management by pick-and-choose. Should also throw in a bit of common sense to the mixture.
This is a good example of the so called socialism Joseph embraces: with the public he boasts that he was on the forefront fighting against the high roaming prices of mobile telephony in Europe (including GO). Then we saw him today telling GO workers that he will be doing everything possible to help them even though they are being offered a golden handshake to leave. Doesn’t he realise that for every action there will be an equal and opposite reaction? Could it be that the ‘high’ roaming prices of GO were the result of having far too many people on the payroll?
And isn’t he also the leader of the party which owns Red, which competes with GO? Is he going to employ these GO employees with Red?
Pat, I agree but I doubt there is such a thing as commonsense left, these days. Greed rules. We do have to deal with champagne socialists and people like Herrn Schulz or Mr Wiersma in the EP who officially follow the good old ‘Willy Brandt’ tradition of socialism and screw it up then by juggling around with buffoon Muscat.
Bullshit, the world is getting better and more sensible every day. I’ve had that discussion a billion times now and no one seems to contradict it.
Unless you made a pun when you said there isn’t much commonsense “left”.
The world is getting better every day?
Pat, that’s a completely new aspect to me.
What makes you think that?
-We live longer
-We have a higher standard of living
-Things that only a few decades ago were considered luxuries are now affordable to the masses
-Better healthcare leading to more comfortable lives
-A higher knowledge of the world around us
-Increased charity
-Increased care for the misfortuned
-Better life for disabled, elderly and the impaired
-A global information flow which was considered science fiction when I was born (and I aint exactly an elder person)
-Global travel is now a reality for most contributors in civilised countries
-Less tolerance for intolerance
-Increased awareness against animal cruelty
This just off the top of my head. Now please explain why the contrary would hold true. You tell me that a child born a hundred years ago had a better prospect for the future and a higher chance of a good life, than my daughter born six months ago has. Of course there will be downfalls and temporary setbacks, but I shudder everytime I hear people say that it was better before as that is, as I said before, complete and utter bullshit. The world is great. Could be better, but still great.
Pat, I don’t think the world is better or worse than it ever was.The world is always different and constantly moving by nature. It’s just, that I don’t see so many happy people around. I notice stressed out and frustrated people, people who can’t cope with making a living anymore(in our part of the world) or dealing with the daily push and shove mentality. I notice greed and indifference and an ‘all you can eat’ mentality. Your above mentioned (obviously fantastic and important) modern comforts and achievements are not necessarily a proof or a premise for a better life or at least not for one’s subjective feeling of happiness. Every progress(somwhere on this planet) seems to include or imply a regress(somewhere else on this planet) and all that progress didn’t really change some of our human character defects.
And don’t get me wrong: I consider myself as a quite happy and content person (not rich and not successful in a general grasp at all) but I have my doubts when it comes to human nature, sometimes. Especially when we talk about political flip flopper.
Dawn tiftakruhom?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7vooIY8Yxs
Ahseb u ara kemm se jghidu li ghandhom dritt jiggvernaw f’Malta, jekk itellghu 4 fl-Ewropa.
What a brilliant cartoon this is:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/article6396095.ece
You think so? The message is perfectly true, of course, but isn’t it a bit too obvious?
Brilliant cartoon? While billions in taxpayers’ money is being flushed down the bankers’ drain and while more billions are being created out of thin air through ‘quantative easing’ (debasing the currency and undermining its purchasing power, not to mention the onslaught on currency investment), ‘the people’ are made to fume over the few thousands syphoned off a system long due for reform.
So while the magician’s left hand fiddles with billions, the right hand has the media instigating ‘the people’ against the powerless, but greedy, politicians over a few hundreds of thousands. That’s what this cartoon is about.
Oh, so Kev’s back here as “Kev”! I was beginning to think that he had taken flight with the pink “Sharon Ellul Bonici” balloons, never to be seen again until he landed … splat! …. in the gravy train in Brussels.
totally out of subject but I’ve rarely seen such a comment arising out of an appeal …. hilarious!
“The original court appeared to have been influenced by Mr C.’s appearance and personality during his testimony…”
http://www.di-ve.com/Default.aspx?ID=72&Action=1&NewsID=61241&newscategory=34
[Daphne – They were right to revoke the annulment. “Influenced by his appearance and personality….”. And what was that original ruling suggesting – that marriages are valid only if they are a love-match? Marriage has only very recently begun to have anything to do with love.]
Ettore Bono,
In your reply to Joachim’s post lies your perpetual problem, that is, for yourself and others (most MLP), the practical opposite or alternative to socialism (sugar coated communism) is necessarily capitalism. You live at extremes in your perennial class struggle. Whilst you and the MLP continue charging windmills at La Mancha the PN has long moved to the centre and displaced (I would say irrevocably) the MLP and all it stood for.
By the way both capitalism and socialism are unsustainable, the former in its quest for wealth and the latter in it philosophy of producing for production’s sake .