OPINION
Lindsay Perigo
Paul Brennan Breakfast, Reality Check Radio
The Ministry of Truth has struck again! Jacinda Jackboot’s “single source of truth” goes on telling lies without her.
The Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 rewrites history and makes stuff up. Its job is to keep Big Brother omnipotent and the proles obedient.
Lies, half-truths and hysteria-mongering are among its tools, dutifully propagated by state media. There are no other media.
Orwell’s Ministry of Truth has three slogans: “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” and “Ignorance is Strength.”
One of our Ministry of Truth’s lies is “Pfizer’s Wuhan vaccines are safe and effective.” Another is, “masks work.”
Now, via state media, they’re at it again. A recent Fake News bulletin on a Fake News channel with a name something like Newsdump, breathlessly opened with an apocalyptic proclamation that we are about to be overwhelmed by a fifth wave of the Wuhan Virus and we should all take more “safe and effective” boosters and wear face nappies again.
Naturally, I don’t watch Newsdump. I stumbled upon this on YouTube, where, of course, comments were switched off. I noted the infantile speech patterns and registered that when such squawking and quacking, such aesthetic terrorism, is accepted as the norm in the profession of broadcasting, we’re in a dying culture anyway. What difference will a few more toxic jabs make to anything?
How edifying and gratifying it was, by contrast, to see Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy stick it to the Fake News in the 3rd debate. One of the moderators, Kristen Welker, had spent years propagating the lie that Donald Trump colluded with the Russians, when the only Russian collusion that occurred was with Crooked Hillary. Vivek used the occasion to call the liar out:
Vivek 2′ 31″ “This is actually about you ….” to 3′ 03″ Bedlam
I wish we could conjure up the vision. The lying woman’s lips froze in a terrified, fake smile. The bitch was busted!
Another component of New Zealand’s state media is Stuffed. Again I only see its propaganda when I stumble across it online. It’s very Woke, grim, prim, humourless and sanctimonious. It has a penchant for publishing testimonials from newbie wowsers proclaiming how virtuous they are for having sworn off the booze. Personally, I think that the only person with a drinking problem is the person who doesn’t drink. I agree with Oscar Wilde that work is the curse of the drinking classes. Woke Stuffed would no doubt in a heartbeat cancel Oscar as a far-right, white supremacist, sexist, misogynistic, Islamophobic, homophobic … oh, wait. Well, anyway, imagine my astonishment when a friend sent me a link to an article published by Woke Stuffed entitled My Week of Drinking Like a Boomer and What It Did to My Body, parts of which sound like an ode to what I gather is called perma-drinking, which sounds very promising. Here’s a snippet:
The older generation has perfected the art of perma-drinking. A tot before breakfast, a brightener here, a livener there, and a snifter before supper. Nothing so inelegant as getting drunk, mind, but a steady infusion of sticky drinks, fine wines, and aperitifs. Each tipple complementing the next. Just enough to keep morale topped up.
There’s a proud history of perma-drinkers. Winston Churchill always had a glass of whisky by his side. The Queen Mother would start the day with a Dubonnet and gin. They died aged 90 and 101 respectively.
I intercede here to recount the occasion when, told by Bessie Braddock, MP, “Winston, you are drunk, and what’s more you are disgustingly drunk.” Churchill replied, “Bessie, my dear, you are ugly, and what’s more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly.”
Back to the piece in Stuffed:
But the king of the perma-drinkers was surely Lord Lawson. At his memorial last week, it became clear just how much the larger-than-life former chancellor enjoyed his retirement. Visitors to his house in Gascony recalled his cry “It’s floc o’clock” when their host would offer generous libations of the local fire water just after breakfast, not to mention copious quantities of vin rouge.
As he cheerfully told his doctor, his routine involved “two Pernods before lunch, then at lunch a few glasses of red wine and an Armagnac”. More Pernods in the afternoon, then some more red with supper and an Armagnac before bed”.
Told he was dying last April, Lord Lawson dined on figs with prosciutto and mozzarella with “several glasses of red wine, a final Armagnac before bed… and five minutes later he was gone”.
Bravo, Nigel, and bottoms up! But what is this doing on Stuffed? Woke-fascist, humourless, Pravda, state media, Stuffed?! WTF??!!
Through a haze of vodka, I peered at the screen to check the byline.
Liz Hoggard. The Telegraph.
Oh!
The British far-Right White Supremacist misogynistic Islamophobic homophobic Telegraph???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What were you thinking, Stuffed?!
[Laughing Policeman]
And so, ladies and gentlemen, in the disgustingly ugly faces of this wicked phalanx of woke fascists, let’s drink! Ergo bibamus!
Mario, Ergo Bibamus! 00′ 05″ – to 1′ 03″