Men don’t age like wine. The idea is preposterous and only a fantasy. Old men have their allure because they are rich and experienced or have status, and may also have something interesting to say, but the reality is that as we grow older we decompose biologically, we get slower, dumber and emotionally more immature. No man has ever made his masterpiece in his 70s or 80s. We make our masterpieces mostly in our 40s, sometimes in our 50s and rarely in our 60s. By the time we get to 70, we start getting wrecked. If you wanted to read positive stuff please proceed to Lovin Malta.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Evarist Bartolo has been making a fool of himself writing the most infantile and stupid shit he ever wrote. By now it looks like he is completely detached from reality and is losing the plot. Here he is quoting on Facebook from a blog run by Yorgen Fenech’s own propagandist, Simon Mercieca. The blog is quoting a hardline conservative PN member, Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, over hate speech in politics. Simon Mercieca is a propagandist to Yorgen Fenech and Tumas Group and also a supporter of Adrian Delia. Throughout his career as a propagandist for the mafia, Simon Mercieca spread the conspiracy theory that Daphne’s son, Matthew, was involved in her murder. Mercieca constantly does intended and willful damage through misinformation against those who are fighting for rule of law while promoting the narrative of Yorgen Fenech and his family.
The terms “cyberbullying” and “hate speech” are being used in the Orwellian discourse of the government to clamp down on free speech. Naturally, the people who would support such measures, are the worst ilk of the PN such as the idiot Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici – the kind of politicians who have never been useful for anything and have long been out of date. These are also the kind of PN Ministers who have historically been at the forefront in suppressing civil liberties in the country. Nowadays, in his old age, Evarist Bartolo is finding solace in Carmelo’s words because Labour’s rhetoric and thinking have become much in line with past PN authoritarian mentalities. It’s an irony of history to see Varist change so much to this extent – from a time when he was a supporter of the Front Against Censorship to a time where he has become an apologist to wrongdoing and authoritarianism. On the premise of “cyberbullying”, the Government is proposing a law which will send people to two years in jail and fine them up to €30,000 for insulting other people online and “causing them mental harm”.
Remember very well that politicians who consistently pronounce themselves against hatred in politics have nefarious intentions: this is the same tactic that was used against Daphne Caruana Galizia when she exposed Joseph Muscat’s government. Politicians are not in the business of calibrating emotions and those who do try to calibrate your emotions by suppressing your hatred of what is wrong, are villains with nefarious intentions. We are dealing with Orwellian discourse here which needs to be untangled.
The Foreign Minister will not post his Orwellian discourse on hatred in English, he will do so in Maltese because he can’t use that kind of discourse to an international audience. Foreign diplomats would immediately be capable of understanding Orwellian discourse. This is why you don’t get to see the Foreign Minister of France speaking out against “hatred in our local politics”. Evarist Bartolo will tell foreign governments that we are restoring rule of law and we are a functioning democracy. He is lying. The government is introducing one of the most draconian laws against free speech in our history. We are a sham democracy with criminals in our government and a government that is covering up for criminals and now also enacting laws against free speech. We still have impunity and no politician has ever been arraigned for corruption.
Instead of conjuring up Orwellian discourse on Facebook and sharing Yorgen Fenech’s propaganda, Evarist Bartolo would be wiser to see to his industrial dispute with his diplomatic corps. Throughout his time as Foreign Minister, the diplomatic corps have been loaded by even further political appointees and career diplomats have had enough of this nepotism. Bartolo can’t even do the right thing about this, and not only that. He is also considering bringing his pet, Frank Fabri, under his administration, even after Frank Fabri became liable to a criminal investigation according to the Public Standards report.
This is not the Labour Party of the 1990s and the people you knew back then have changed dramatically. Don’t be fooled by past friendships. Vote them out.
Superb article, Mark. Thank you very much. At least some Labour supporters can see what is actually going on. I hope you manage to convince as many PL voters not to vote PL on 26 March. If they can manage to vote PN, even better. But I realise that may be asking too much of some people. Perhaps vote ADPD, or simply spoil the ballot paper.