…from the impeachment
We’ve always been told that the US and UK were our exemplars of democracy. It would therefore be remiss of your Eyewitness if he didn’t try to glean some lessons from what went down in Washington DC last week. The first lesson was really old lesson…but, somehow, we’d been persuaded over the years that the US had moved beyond its import.
The lesson was delivered by James Madison, one of the founders of the American Republic, and one of its early presidents. He said, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
The point he was making is that (unfortunately) men are inherently warped – whether in their minds or their morals. And once we hand over power to them, they’ll always be tempted to succumb to their baser inclinations. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles: the fault lies not in our stars, but in our very nature. So, as Madison advises, we must ensure we have mechanisms in place to make sure our elected representatives – from the President to the rat catcher – follow the straight and narrow. The latter, of course, is what the Constitution spells out, and demands there be institutions to enforce them.
Everything we saw up north we’ve seen in spades here in Guyana. We don’t have to regurgitate the sordid history of the PNC’s rape of democracy since 1964, do we? And it gets worse whenever they’re out of office, when they actually went on a full out assault using riots and armed gangsters! When Trump defined us less developed countries as “shithole” countries, he knew of what he spoke because, as we say, “It takes one to know one”!!
But we can turn the tables on such stereotyping only if we now ensure that the reflexive incendiary actions of the PNC against democracy are dealt with firmly and condignly. We again call for Granger and Harmon to be brought to justice for their political incitement of the West Berbice riots that led to hundreds being assaulted, robbed, harassed, molested etc. They stoked the cultural, social and political anxieties of thousands of their constituency by asserting – WITH ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE – that they and their party were the victims of electoral fraud, and the killings were politically motivated.
We have to curb their baser instincts that has done so much damage to our democracy.
Jail them!
…on political crimes
Continuing with the fallout from the insurrection in Washington, it should be instructive to our local law enforcement as to how their counterparts over there are dealing with the matter. First of all, the entire Capitol is now being treated as a crime scene, and the videos of Trump’s address to his supporters has been deconstructed to show exactly how he encouraged the attack. What have the Police done with Granger and Harmon’s address at No 3 Village? Has he been questioned as to why he concluded the murders were politically motivated?
Incitement to violence is a crime.
Secondly, background investigations have revealed that the entire invasion of Capitol Hill was planned. Have our Police investigated the role that Reg 5 PNC activists (and a lawyer) played in provoking the “protests” immediately after the bodies were discovered? All posts, tweets and live streaming of the invasion are being analyzed to identify who did what to whom in the frenzied melee. Folks all across America are being arrested.
And in Guyana?
…on Police work
Lest it be thought your Eyewitness isn’t appreciative of our Police, let him offer a hat tip to them for cracking the case of the millennium – the murders of the Henry cousins.
Now, onto Harish’s murder.
