Agendas of Concern

It’s really not as boringly predicatable as one would have thought it would be. The Malta EP election campaign is what I mean. We do not even have to rely on the usual renegade Mad Hatter style parties to be ever so mildly entertained and distracted from the usual banter of pot, kettle and prefabricated argument. Nope indeed. The good old political establishament have conspired (s0 to speak, but this ain’t no conspiracy theory) to give us the Full Monty and repertoire of entertaining Circus Acts with a splash of new. It’s a bit like watching a remake of an old film… only the new actors manage to spice it up that little bit to make you stick to the screen and thank an unspecified deity (for fear of censorship) that you did go for the large bucket of popcorn and humungous cola.

Thusly J’accuse’s vouchsafeing that the Old Record of MLPN yarn will not return to the turntable becomes a reduntant reality – a statement rendered useless by the circumstances. What we meant of course was not that the yarn is not valid but that we are so utterly bored of repeating the obvious that we would rather beat ourselves senseless with a pala tal-bajtar (leaf from prickly pear plant/cactus) than go through the whole shebang again.

You see, we need not remark that the MLPN (now joined by an AD that still gives the impression of having converted to old style politics) are still engaged in a race to the bottom that will probably  force the WWF to declare the last few free thinking brain cells on the island an endangered species (or part thereof). We don’t need to remark that because the caravans and bandwagons of electoral opportunism have reached bottom-of-the-bucket scraping proportions and the race now seems to have taken the shooting- from-the-hip twist wherein every effort to outdo the opponent involves the spouting of more bovine excrement than is seen in most Corridas in Iberia come the summer months.

Nothing better illustrates the carnivalesque debate we are forced to witness than the  Missy Roberta (RMTT) vs Marlene Mizzi exchange of letters. This cat fight of sorts was overladen with clichés and as Petty as Missy Roberta would like to deny. RMTT is fast becoming the political equivalent of a UFO. Ever so eager to stand out from the rabble of contestants she is increasingly transforming into the summa cum laude personification of the type of product a party gone wr0ng can produce.

Confusing controversy with reason is one of RMTT’s recent gaffes, not to mention a desperate will to stick out of the crowd of co-contestants. Now sticking out of the crowd of a cohort of similar minded candidates would have been difficult enough to handle for the wannabe green-christian-democrat. Imagine the desperation when there is a whole kaleidoscope of candidates vying for the media limelight. Add in a dash of Simon Busuttil, the PN’s last minute superman who has mastered a promise for EP candidates to follow rules on transparency that will have to be implemented anyway  anytime soon and you begin to understand why RMTT threw her (feather)weight behind those 14,000 people wanting their VAT on car registration back – and chimed in with Inhobbkom’s Labour.

Of course we still have to wait for people like Vince Farrugia to give us more of his entertaining sketches while gentlemen who sound as political as OJ Simpson (yes, I am referring to Kirill Micallef Stafrace and his one liner downers on Facebook or Mr Cuschieri and his “il-haddiem fl-Ewropa”) will add to the galaxy of non-entities all wanting a piece of the pie.

We’re only warming up and Joseph Muscat’s plan on immigration or the Nationalist’s meisterplan on one-upping the greens on the green agenda is only beginning to hit the public. Trust me, there’s entertaining days ahead on the island of milk, honey and flashlight politics. Somehow John Zammit’s promise of a nudist colony on Comino does not look so fantastical after all.

I leave you with this gem from Roberta Metsola Tedesco Triccas’ article aptly entitled “Let’s Remain Rational” (or as I would put it … Carry on Being Rational)- my highlights and my comments in brackets:

A case in point is illegal immigration. We, as a country (We, the People tipo), are faced with a situation (erm niffaccjaw sitwazzjoni?): We have a problem! There is at present a state of national worry that is as widespread as it is diverse in nature (sometimes we are forced to admit that TGIL was not alone… here is a beautiful phrase that the Dame of Grammatically Incorrect could only dream of writing) . There is not one single Maltese or Gozitan who does not have immigration high on their agenda of concern (don’t you just love it? What’s your agenda of concern like?) , such concerns being made up of the whole spectrum of possibilities straddling the extreme positions and anything else in between (Warning: She did start the article by mentioning quantum physics so do not be surprised that her phrases defy the rules of time and space). What is particularly worrying is that certain political leaders, has beens or wannabees (That’s just about the whole spectrum of straddling political positions isn’t it Bobby? Can I call you Bobby?) , are going out of their way to ride on this genuine concern of our people, fuelling emotions and offering nothing except a heightened level of hysteria and collective panic. This is beyond irresponsible, beyond pettiness (pettiness – she loves this one – the final frontier!)  but outright dangerous in creating a potential powder keg (Well if the powder keg is potential it’s not quite as dangerous, unless of course you espouse the theory of George Dubya who was quite capable of creating an excuse for war out of potential WMDs), the explosion of which would damage our society beyond repair (Potentially I guess).

This has been J’accuse… setting your agendas of concern, so you don’t have to!