I.M. Jack – The EP Sophisms (6)

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6. The Knaves with Knives

Tribal dualism is what this EP election has reaffirmed in many ways. Never was it more strikingly obvious than when the breeding ground of nationalist gossipry decried “Staunch Nationalists don’t campaign for Labour“. And to think we bothered to even try to argue with these people some time back.

Until a year ago the favourite subject of nationalist mental bashing was the “floater” who dared “waste” his vote. Worse than that. The floater would be told that he, and anyone else backing him was “setting himself up as an object of hate”. The selling point this year switched to “Taste” and while the third parties got a huge drubbing and the electorate reaffirmed the ever so helpful duopoly the 35,000 vote gap between PL and PN set off a Witch Hunt at the online Nationalist pink blog where hardliners aggregate for a dose of Manoel Cuschieri PN style.

Lino Spiteri’s article in the Times about a ‘nationalist’  lawyer who felt at home at a meeting supporting Labour MEP Louis Grech set the tongues wagging and keyboards ticking. Unacceptable isn’t it? A nationalist feeling at home at a labour meeting? What is the world coming to? No. He must be one of two things: ungrateful or an opportunist.

The two are not mutually exclusive and I am still to discover whether there is an ounce of truth in many of the allegations regarding government contracts allocated to a law firm that are being bandied about (you know dirty linen and its bad habit) all over DCG’s site. What is really, really interesting is the logic behind all the mud slinging….

Apparently it is OK (or OK-ish) for a hypothetical law firm to get contracts from government SO LONG AS his vote and support remains firmly entrenched in the PN side. How does J’accuse conclude this?

Well. Easy. Everyone on DCG’s blog seems intent on claiming that Michael Grech, the lawyer in question, enjoyed some nice patronage from government contracts. Now we cannot definitely know if it is true, at least not for now, BUT in their minds it is a fact. Which begs the first question: Did they only just discover this or have they known for ages?

Which leads us to the second point. So Michael Grech ALLEGEDLY supported Louis Grech at a meeting. If he did, and I am not saying he did, he had every right to do so. What irks me is this: Do the angry and sour nationalists led by the Gossip Queen only bring out their knives and accusations of “off with his head” now that the lawyer has (supposedly) switched sides? If they really believed that a law firm was obtaining undue favours from government why speak now? No prizes for guessing the answer to that one.

You reap what you sow.

Boy, are we in for one hell of a harvest (a taste of the very best medicine)

The Haiku

orwell reprised

red vote is bad blue vote good

same but different

sophism

2. any false argument or fallacy. — sophister, n. — sophistic, adj.

AND HERE IS DAPHNE ON TODAY’S  INDY:

As for using your sacred vote to teach somebody else a lesson, what can I say about the sort of person who does that? A real man, a real woman, a person of honour, somebody who is not a coward, expresses himself or herself personally, face to face, or publicly, as I and others do.

That is what real, sophisticated democracy is all about. Using your vote as a threat or a bribe is the democracy of the most backward villages in southern Italy in the 1950s, and if you don’t believe me I have a couple of anthropological studies I can send you.