In the not so long past, parents taught their children their values free of any real competing influence. Most important of all, they told us to watch out for the liars, the confidence tricksters and for the ‘pretty talkers’. We were taught to keep our eyes open and that, in life, not all that shines like gold is actually gold.
Nowadays, fooling people has become much easier. The state broadcaster’s own ‘pretty talk’ is a constant flow of shine and comfort. It’s becoming more and more noticeable how, every day, each PBS news item is carefully managed to offset the bad news coming out from the other media.
The recent internet video of Moviment Graffitti’s weekend surprise action at Blue Lagoon against the abuse by persons related to PL politicians caused panic in Castille.
Sure enough, the very next day, the PBS news office sent a reporter and camerapeople to pretty talk us into believing: (a) that the MTA enforcement team was beaten to it only by a few minutes, (b) that the honest and competent tourist minister cares about public interest because he has now ordered the known abusers to release a small part of their time-honoured illegal occupation, and (c) that the foreign tourists being interviewed are thrilled about the wonderful new state of the deckchairs and kiosks that have invaded Blue Lagoon.
It was the same with the ‘government’s success’ of being released from the FATF ankle bracelet which was put there through the efforts of a corrupt administration aided and abetted by passive members like Evarist Bartolo, George Vella and Edward Scicluna who looked on and supported their corrupt Panama masters for some three years and for their mutual re-election.
From 2016 till today, neither Robert Abela nor PBS made any political statement regarding the reasons why we got greyed out in the first place.
Yes, they stayed silent while Ilham Aliyev and his agents, with the feigned ignorance of cabinet, the police and the political puppetry in the Enemalta boardroom, carried out a €7 million money heist.
They talked about fish while the independent press, foreign and local, exposed the offshore companies of Joseph Muscat’s two closest operatives, Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri, and their direct involvement with corrupt Chinese and Azeri middlemen and how they planned 18 years of siphoning off the back of their people a secret two million each every year.
Pretty talk makes you forget reality. Pretty talk smiles at your stupidity- Eddie Aquilina
We knew that, possibly in exchange for Malta’s unexpected pro-Ukraine fervour and a temporary freeze of Russian applications for passports, the FATF had lifted the listing.
No one was surprised when, two days later, PBS carried the prime minister’s press conference, in suit and patriotic emblem tie, where he talked prettily about the world “wanting to emulate us” as a “serious and reputable financial jurisdiction” and how hard he and his colleagues had worked in the last two years to fix what was… err... was not broken in the first place.
The bare truth is that, in this serious jurisdiction, since 2013, not one person connected directly or indirectly to the PL has been convicted by a court of law. Some have been belatedly charged in cases that will remain pending for years, possibly ending up with being dropped due to the death of the accused or of some material witness.
Even EU criminal arrest warrants are ignored for years by the Gafà police team until, unfortunately, the suspect is finally tracked down and handcuffed by the Italian police while holidaying in a group inclusive of our former prime minister and his dear wife. How does one say ‘birds of a feather’ in Italian?
For years, we woke up every Sunday morning to a former amnestied for tax avoidance politician Michael Falzon and another PL-friendly commentator on a PBS discussion programme about the local newspapers. Falzon often went off script and caused untold harm.
It was clear that the content needed to be better controlled by a PBS journalist who could lead into the subjects which were safe for the government, and negative for others. The near two-hour spot is now a near-perfect monologue of pretty talk from PL apologetics like Robert Musumeci. It’s a sad joke to see such people white painting the failures and scandals.
Pretty talk tells us that we are good-looking while others are not. Pretty talk makes you forget reality. Pretty talk smiles at your stupidity.