With the influx of letters to the editor, texts and Talking Points about amalgamation in HB Today, and with pro-amalgamation billboards everywhere, I can't help feeling I'm in the middle of an unrelenting US Presidential-styled infomercial. A virtual House of Cards.
You know the infomercials I mean. Those long-winded TV
ads pushing robotic vacuum cleaners and knife sets with enough variations on blades to make any ardent serial killer smile, and that always seem programmed to entrap stay-at-home pensioners or mums with tots once Peppa Pig or Paul Henry are done, or at night in the wee wee hours when shift workers want something decent to watch but can only find these incessant late-night infomercials with Donald Trump-pitched voiceovers, or men with Trump's comb-over hair surrounded by enough fruit to feed an army, and with blonde models by their side nodding yes at their claims; or, in the case of the worst of their ilk, literally swallowing whatever green concoction their nutri-product whizzed up, then smiling their fake smile. The Nutri-Bullet. Yes! The infomercial where I howl, "Just eat the fruit!" Well, that's how I view what the pro-amalgamation campaigners are about.
The problem with products like the Nutri-Bullet is that its makers appear so hell-bent spending millions producing their infomercial, they don't ensure the thing they've produced really works.
The way I see it, we're used as guinea pigs; that these people know their infomercial will make them enough money before their product is revealed as a crock - that's it's not as good as they claim. Well, not from what I've heard. And not according to Consumer NZ.
And those of us who've been around a while (quite a few judging by the concerned grey faces on the cover of HB Today after a recent debate), we've been through this before.
