…about NYT report
That NYT reporter certainly seems to’ve struck a raw nerve in some folks here with his story, “The $20 Billion question for Guyana”. As your Eyewitness commented yesterday, three columnists of the Muckraker got their buktas into such a knot you could just see their eyes bulging!! Today, they were joined by the PRO from the Ministry of Finance, and by a playwright who hadn’t been heard from for years, but suddenly surfaced to argue the Guyana Prize for Literature be kept.
This monument to mediocrity had coughed up US$20,000 to him as of now!!
And this in itself is an instance of “sh*t-hole-ness” that the NYT reporter missed. How do you dole out “National” Literature Prizes to submissions on “Exercise Books”??!! What does it say about your nation, except that it’s in a sh*thole? The irony is, the playwright doesn’t even live here any longer!! He parlayed his prize winnings into a grubstake to live in some basement in NY!! And imagine, he’s all cut up because the NYT fella described Guyana as a “backwater”!!
Trying to make his “point”, the pedantic playwright even defined “backwater: a place that seems stuck in a rut—a place unmoved by current events.” Now, tell me, if this doesn’t describe Guyana to a tee, what does? Yet the “playwright” had the temerity to assert: “The description ‘Backwater’ therefore does NOT fit Guyana”!!! If New Yorkers could call New Jersey a “backwater”, what’s so insulting to accept we’re not exactly at the crossroads of the world – like Times Square!! He also insists Guyana isn’t “isolated”!! We have ONE scheduled (Third World) airline connecting us with the rest of the world, and we’re PLUGGED IN?? Pleease!! And yes, this fella won FOUR Guyana Prizes!!
The other defender of Guyana’s honour was a paid hack…the PRO of the Ministry of Finance…so your Eyewitness understands she has to defend the indefensible. After all, how could her boss puff his chest out at international gatherings if his country’s publicly dubbed as a “sh*thole country”? Problem is, at the said international gatherings, he’s mostly begging for handouts!! Like the $900 million he claims to’ve extracted from the Islamic Development Bank!
She had the grace to not contest the NYT charge that “the Civil Service is corrupt”!! What she did pick a bone with was: “foreign bank developers have told the government that legislation to create a sovereign wealth fund…lacks sufficient regulatory controls to avert corruption” and that “the legislation is in limbo.”
Then guess what? She goes on to describe the advice the Finance Ministry has received from the IFI’s!!
And admits the legislation still hasn’t been tabled. That’s called “in limbo”!!
…on socialism
Ahhh…the times are a changin’!! Imagine, sixty years after its revolution – when it inspired even book revolutionaries like Moses Nagamootoo to adopt the “Che Beret”! – the Cuban Government announced it’s abandoning “communism” for “socialism”. So what does this mean? Your Eyewitness couldn’t find it in himself to plough through “Das Capital”, so he stuck with Marx’s “Reader’s Digest” version of the difference between the two ideologies.
Communism, he said, means “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” Now this is great, isn’t it? You get whatever you need…but you only work according to your “ability”!! The point, of course, is who’s to say what’s your “ability”, if you don’t like to work? “Socialism”, on the other hand, meant “from each according to his ability, to each according to his work”. You had to work, baby!! But could also own private property and vote and enjoy such bourgeoisie “rights”!
But did you realise, dear readers, that according to our Constitution, Guyana, like Cuba, is also “in transition to socialism”?
CIA regime change, anyone?
…from Nagamootoo
In his Chronic Column, Nagamootoo claimed the Opposition Leader unfairly called him a “lightweight,” so as not to negotiate with him. But, he said, “Jagdeo walked away with a Pyrrhic victory”! “Pyrrhic victory”?
Jagdeo suffered such devastating losses he might’ve well have lost. Wanker!!
