The busy little bees churning out the spin over at Stamperija must be working overtime (hope they’re getting paid time and a half at least).

How else are they going to come up with enough justification for the way this administration is running the country?

Actually it’s all becoming rather too predictable. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to guess how each negative onslaught against the current government is going to be handled.

People moaning about the new water and electricity tariffs? Roll out vintage footage of the terrible 1980s.

Are those who voted Nationalist now gnashing their teeth at being lied to? Remind them all that they’ve never had it so good and that they should still be on their knees in gratitude for Being Delivered From Mintoff.

Are the decent tax-paying citizens of this country making noises about taking to the streets in protest because they can’t make ends meet? Oh just shut them up by ridiculing the whole idea.

You see? Easy-peasy. Basically, people, for the next four-and-a-half years, anytime you so much as twitch to complain, you are going to be bludgeoned repeatedly with the mantra, “Be Quiet. Nationalists good. Labour bad. Labour stupid. Labour evil. Labour ignorant. Nationalists holy. Nationalists forever. Remember your place. Do not criticise. Do not speak. Only vote PN. We are the robots.”

There you go.

Breathe.

Feel better?

Now forget all this silly nonsense about not voting PN next time because in the end... you know you will.

We’ll make sure of it.

Kicking us when we’re down

Last year I described the budget as “Christmas came early this year”; well this year it’s more like “How the Grinch stole Christmas”.

On the face of it, the budgetary measures seem mild (prompting people who were bracing themselves for the worse to feel relieved: “Oh that was not too bad”). But when one starts to look more closely at what has actually been proposed, it soon becomes painfully clear that the cash we will be getting back from the minuscule changes in the income tax bands and the four euros per week wage increase, is effectively being nuked by more taxes and rising costs on petrol, car licenses, car registration tax, alcohol and cigarettes. And let’s not even get started on the new water and electricity tariffs – because, uhm... no one seems to know exactly how much they are going to be. I guess only Austin knows for sure.

There are some good measures – the tax on plastic bags, for instance, the rebates to those investing in alternative energy, and forcing the long-term unemployed to do community work (although as someone pointed out in a discussion forum, isn’t that like Mintoff’s Dejma all over again, but just going by another name? But shhh...remember, Mintoff Monster; PN Perfect.)

The incentives for women with children who want to go back to work are good, but as was immediately pointed out by women’s organisations – who is going to take care of the kiddies? Lack of adequate, affordable childcare has always been the brick wall any mother who wants to work outside the home comes up against. And since Maltese women are still averse to leaving their children in anonymous facilities, why not make the hiring of a nanny, for example, a cost that can be deducted from their income tax returns? This would also ensure that home help is declared for income tax purposes, unlike the present situation where it is all done “under the table”.

The measure that penalises owners of older, polluting cars has been marketed as a demonstration that the PN is actually Alternattiva Demokratika in disguise, but in a country where you are virtually stranded if you don’t own a car, this is hitting people where it really hurts. Explain to people on a pension, on a minimum wage or with a young family and a crippling mortgage, just how are they supposed to be able to afford to change their car every five years to avoid paying more to renew the licence? They could use public transport, of course – except oh yes, I forgot, our public transport system sucks.

Even if you take the plunge and buy a new, smaller car on which you will pay less tax, it still means you are signing up for another monthly instalment which will take another bite out of your already stretched pay cheque. That means another financial commitment, less money to spend and more people stressed out because they can’t cope.

And we’re not even talking about low-income earners here. Speak to those in the middle class bracket with dual incomes. Everyone tells you they are working more hours to earn the same money but ending up with less in their wallet because the government keeps asking them to fork out more and more. They are on a treadmill but can’t get off. They work and work, come home, have dinner, collapse on the sofa and get up for work again.

No time to talk, no time for their children, no time to live.

I am not referring to people with a flamboyant lifestyle who have got themselves into debt hell because they live beyond their means, but the average family, which just wants to live a comfortable life and not be too exhausted at the end of the week to enjoy the fruit of their hard work.

Is that too much to ask?

Of course, the worst aspect of this whole budget is that only a few months after we were being promised heaven on earth, we are now hearing a different tune altogether. The deficit is worse than was initially claimed, economists are describing the forecasts on economic growth as unrealistic, and the business community is disappointed that nothing has been done to help them cut down their costs.

Unbelievably, Gonzi spoke about this budget in terms of winning another election – is that all the man ever thinks about? I guess so, seeing that part of the reason there is no money left is because it was spent handing out goodies in order to get re-elected.

I kind of feel sorry for those who swallowed all the marketing hype about just how great we are going to have it under another Nationalist government.

Well, I guess you reap what you sow.

Turn out the lights

When I hear experts like Professor Edward Scicluna, Lino Spiteri and Karm Farrugia explain in simple English and in no uncertain terms that the proposed increases in water and electricity rates are the worst possible move in the present economic scenario, it puts the whole budget exercise into perspective.

Unlike alcohol and cigarettes, water and electricity are not a luxury, and no matter how much you run around after your children yelling at them to turn off the lights, there’s a limit to how long you can bump around in the dark on winter evenings after 6pm. One has to remember that many people have already cut back on their electricity consumption because of the hefty surcharge, but there is only so much you can cut back on without going back to living in the Dark Ages. (What? Doom and Gloom under a PN government? Say it isn’t so!)

The impact on small and large businesses alike is going to have a ripple effect too – if you hit a small café with price hikes as part of its running costs the owner will have to either absorb the cost himself and reduce his profit margin or else pass the cost on to his customers. Either way it’s less money in everyone’s pocket.

But I guess not everyone feels the same way.

After all, its not nasty old Alfred Sant hitting us over the head with new rates this time around is it?

More than words

The term “African-American” started being used around 20 years ago. Before that it was “blacks”, before that it was “coloured”, before that it was “Negroes” and before that it was the n-word, which to this day you cannot use on American TV or radio without being vilified and immediately taken off the air. At the moment, the current phrase (which I think is horrible) is “people of colour”.

During one of my favourite US talk shows The View, they discussed the subject of race, and it was pointed out by Whoopi Goldberg (who, like many comedians, is an extremely astute socio-political observer) that black people are “allowed” to use the n-word to each other because they have “taken it back” from whites, who used to use it in the most pejorative way possible. Now blacks use it among themselves almost affectionately, in private, as well as in rap videos and in films – and no one objects. Unless – a white person says it, then it is the ugly spectre of the Ku Klux Klan and lynch mobs raising its head all over gain.

It’s just a word, some people might say, but that word carries a lot of potency.

When one of the co-hosts Elisabeth Hasselback (the blond, conservative right wing voice on the show) tried to argue that no one should use that word and that there should not be this division between whites and blacks, because “this is one America”, Whoopi firmly but gently stopped her – “no, you’re wrong, there are two Americas and that is just how it is.”

I was thinking about all this as I saw Obama (who is literally an African-American) give his great speech on being declared the winner of the US presidential elections. Not for the first time I was impressed at how well he chooses his words. If anyone can make the “two Americas” come together as one, it is this man.

Words are very powerful: they can be used to uplift, to inspire, to heal, and to give people hope such as Obama does. But as we have seen throughout history, words can also damage and destroy, they can scald and burn, and they can be used to dig the knife in deep into an open wound and twist it with malicious hate.

The right word can brighten your mood when you’re feeling down, or plunge you further into despair when you hit rock bottom.

While it is up to us to decide how and why we use certain words, at the end of the day, and at the end of our lifetime, it is also our own conscience that we will have to reckon with.

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