We’ll begin this by citing a bit of Hitler’s Mein Kampf – “all propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to”…
What we do here is not propaganda but Opinion which we steep in sourced references.
And though we do not pretend that we reach ALL readers, nor has that ever been our goal since we recognize, like in every other discipline, comprehension has its barriers, we’re always curious about why folk feel it is their right to dictate to us how to use our language…this time in a cocky comment with reference to some profession, as if that puts a stamp of finality on whatever opinion they seek to impose.
Our English teachers, in our tender years, saved us from two unfortunate habits….under writing and succumbing to the scorn of those who demand that we should.
For that we’re grateful.
It has prepared us for this odd moment when someone who claims to have “great love for the language” would fillet a paragraph, fixate on a single word that they assume is unfamiliar to others, then dictate that it should not be used because, from their perch, they discount the capability of others to extract meaning from context …these self-assigned wardens of our official language.
We show our love differently.
We use the vocabulary we have and encourage the curiosity of our readers to explore their meaning.
That, for us, is one way to overcome that lack of understanding of our official language, to which our gratuitous critic refers.
…But moving right along…
It depends on what she means by integrity.
Texiera’s storm in her political teacup, over what she gauges as IRI low integrity polling on voter sentiment for Guyana’s electoral reform, could have been a thing if her own integrity didn’t get in the way.
Since swearing itself into office in 2020, her Party has been spending its integrity on a protracted pouting session to accuse the OPPOSITION of not recognizing its legitimacy– to distract from a deliberate strategy of making unilateral decisions on behalf of the nation’s people, in violation of a constitutional governing construct that requires decision making to include the participation of the Opposition as a true representation of governance.
There’s more evil than evil genius in the PPP using its proportionately overwhelming media to claim that the Opposition is anti- electoral reform.
And because it’s the well doing we are never weary in, we go back to its formation to respond to its tactic of torrential lies…to remind that it was in the ‘iniquity’ of breeding much faster to secure population explosion of East Indians that the PPP was shapen ; that its vision of dominance was in the sin of One Party Rule, conceived, 2nd para below 2162 …
And we highlight that it is the PPP that has the documented history of rigging elections twice in Guyana and that it is their rule that harbored two illegitimate presidencies.
It’s these political beauty marks that made them so attractive to an IRI.
Compliments of US State Department’s recording diligence and Wikileaks’ weaponized version of transparency, we know that the IRI’s essential mission is molding or reshaping a country into America’s preferred version of ‘social democracy’ and that it has no allergy to selecting politicians deft in political malfeasance to help them to do it.
Its mission statement that colors it as some carriage of democracy is discredited by its ongoing wrestling with fascism in its own country and by its own team of malfeasants which have patented the very ills they profess to be able to fix in Guyana
…a key clue that they’re not there for the Democracy.
When Gail’s arm of the government welcomed the IRI and agreed to give it access to Guyana’s voting infrastructure, it knew, like us, that it was merely a conduit to a larger purpose that would benefit America and her Party, more than it would Guyana, as a nation.
This is why we keep calling for a viable PNCR-led Opposition- one that understands that it is the other half of Government, the half that holds it accountable; and not by performative politicking, press releases that are more inflammatory than informative and calls for action by Government that are impractical -like for its resignation that is more symbolic than real.
What would help is the Opposition educating the nation on what the IRI really is and its foot print in nations like Haiti…a people that the leading Party, PPP, treats as lesser beings …CARICOM brotherhood be damned.
Guyanese would be well served to know that the IRI is akin to a terrorist organization, as is detailed in this hearing before the US Congress House Committee on International Relations, on March 10th 2004.
They should know that, in 2002 and 2003 the IRI used money from USAID to arrange training sessions in the Dominican Republic and Miami for dissenting expatriate Haitians to overthrow then President Jean- Bertand Aristide. The financed sessions were run by IRI man on the ground, handpicked Haitian program officer, Stanley Lucas.
So, Sarah Ann Lynch’s showcasing a group of recipients of funding largesse from the IRI should neither overshadow the dark history of the organization nor its propensity to recruit locals to do its bidding…and we say this strictly to highlight its underbelly and not to take away from the innovative skills of the recipients of its award.
This is where the PNCR – led Opposition is expected to excel – in educating the electorate on the politics of the Government, why aligning with the IRI and especially for electoral reform is not a tactical necessity but the work of regress…in the face of our diminishing Independence, increasingly replaced by resident imperialism, reconfiguring the machinery of our government in a Republic, where power belongs to the people.
The think tanks that offer fanfare for the IRI must be pre-butted…to dismount headlines like this one offered by The Center for Strategies and International Studies – a paid mouth piece for America’s soft invasions. Haiti’s cycle of instability, patronizingly referred to here, cannot be discussed without a look at how the nation’s unconquerable poverty and chaotic politics has been shaped by America and for centuries.
We’re offering all this to underscore the scope and breadth of the duties of the Opposition.
They expand well past the truncated description under ‘Party Officers’ in section 14 of one Party’s Constitution and into skill sets that fuel political entities to organizational success.
The single issue rallies that become the Pied Piper of PNCR activities, like the current crusade on the Vice News exposé now suffixed by ‘gate’, affirms the absence of critical methods for productive representation by this other arm of government.
And the comparative silence by the remaining members of the Coalition offers cold comfort to its larger partner.… which is really not trailblazing a path for its smaller members to follow.
Embarrasingly too, that generic word arrangement by Gail’s IRI as to why it is involved in Guyana’s voting process –“dwindling self- confidence in electoral system” – has been allowed to stand without the expected questioning of its diagnosis by the Opposition.
Our electoral system, like the Constitution it serves, was not devised by nor should it be revised by imperialists with a plan to pause Independence or remove the power that is granted to the people, in our political status of Republic.
If it was never made that clear before, there would be no better time than now to do so and by an Opposition with a combination of political ideologies…representative of our national fabric.
One Party’s Constitution lists the titles of its Officers and they appear to have been misinterpreted as job function.
But intuitive politicians know- like its predecessors of earlier decades did- that it is a range of administrative disciplines that is needed to make an organization successful…short of which operational failure is, essentially, assured.
The support of the PPP in its governance by the resident Western community is not diplomacy.
It is a carefully choreographed occupation of Guyana by the IRI, a formidable force that was created for this type of politcal infection of the brain and spine of countries that are of strategic geosocial, geo-economic importance to America…namely their governing methods and electoral process, through ‘grants and loans’ for ‘improvement’ that promote affinity to America’s political stance…as promoted at their Columbia Embassy.
The criminal bulldozing of people’s rights to judicial process and their quiet enjoyment of citizenship is not questioned by these resident ‘bastions of democracy’ because it provides social cover for them to point to our incivility, our racial division and determine that it’s all because there is a lack of confidence in the voting process….which will eventually lead to them reaching past the electoral process to reshaping the Constitution.
And much of this is succeeding because the Opposition is underperforming grotesquely.
Their constant complaints about mal governance MUST be replaced by a campaign of comprehensive plans that must contrast starkly with those failing at government level, with the low rent bigotry and label assignment- specifically to Afro Guyanese- deployed by the PPP because stoking racial violence is a tool for them and the foreign occupiers, who find it expedient for their cause.
The good of the country requires less pretense by those who are whispering about this mal-performance, more open discourse, even intervention, into what is heading in the direction of further disaster.
And if there are prohibitive clauses in the Party’s guidelines that prevent the removal of a leader who refuses advice, we suggest that Elders get very creative and depart from Party orthodoxy to establish its viability and, above all, to cement its role in governance of the country.
Being leader of the Party does not mean you bought it, that you own it and that you answer to no one. We need Elders to say that with tenacity and consequence.
In the absence of any coherent ideology or plans beyond those of goading an easily fazed Leader to create some sort of news cycle, Gail and her Party will pretend to be governing in the best interest of the nation.
It will take an Opposition that is organized to keep a collective eye on the future, as it combats the endemic poverty and endemic violence its resident Western Ambassadors ignore- amidst their ‘democracy promotion’ through election .
The battle for Guyana is between America with the Government it has promoted from thugs to leaders and Guyanese who deserve the democracy that comes with its granted Independence and proclamation of Cooperative Republic.
This is why we have an Opposition…not for personal glory but to hold the government accountable and save the nation from governing failure.
It is failing now.
Guyana’s population, size and race % opens the door to alternative forms of government. There must be constructive opposition but proportional representation should be the foundation for level and fair national development.
The US is no example or beacon of fairness. It did not grow out of those principles. It’s riches achieved and maintained by much victimization. It is Progressive but there is always a price to pay. What price are Guyanese willing to pay for their progress and stability? One man one vote but what is the best strategy? No elders policy. Positions must be earned through an electoral process. Functional assignments are okay. A young and growing Nation. There will be errors. What a grand privilege to have experienced The Birth of a Nation.