Changes…

…in class perspective The PPP was first “abashedly” a Marxist party. But after playing ducks and drakes on the subject with US President John F. Kennedy and getting a quick ouster from office, Jagan came out of the closet in 1969 to declare HIS party was Communist. Among his impressionable protégés were the rustic Moses Nagamootoo from Berbice and the urban (and urbane) Ralph Ramkarran from Bel Air, Georgetown.  Mechanistically following the 19th century European procrustean categories of Marxist sociology, they aped Jagan to insist that race/ethnicity was a mere…

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Waiting to exhale…

…on Local Government Commission The PNC-led APNU/AFC Government scraped the bottom of the barrel to come up with “125 accomplishments” during their first two years in office. Probably the same barrel they scraped for their 69 National Awardees! They should’ve at least gone back to their Manifesto and taken a gander at the 1254 promises that are still waiting to be fulfilled! One of them was the formation of a Local Government Commission (LGC). Ever since the PNC had bludgeoned the PPP in the streets in the aftermath of the…

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Time compression…

…by Government The PNC-led APNU/AFC coalition spent millions of taxpayers’ dollars producing a 16-page insert in the Chronic “celebrating” their two-year stint at the helm of the ship of state, Guyana. It’s like the Captain of the Titanic celebrating the 115th anniversary of hitting that iceberg in the North Atlantic!! But at least the Titanic’s captain had the grace to go down with his ship, didn’t he? But in Guyana, even though the Government deliberately ignored all the warnings by the business community, the Opposition and independent analyst that they’ve…

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What’s missing…

…in the “accomplishments” Sometimes what’s missing is even more important than what’s present. That’s what struck your Eyewitness when he perused the 125 “accomplishments” the PM’s Shill compiled to ward off criticisms about the coalition being a “do-nothing” government. Now when you come down to it… what exactly was it the folks who voted the coalition into office wanted? OK…not to just throw out the PPP because of ethnic sentiments (APNU) or revenge (Nagamootoo and Ramjattan in the AFC). We’re talking about real bread-and-butter issues – like …well…bread and butter,…

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Set up…

…in Parliament It was going to be like that shootout scene in the old Clint Eastwood spaghetti western between “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” There, it was three gunslingers vying for a gold cache, but here in Guyana, it was going to be the AFC (the Ugly) teaming up with the PPP (the Good) versus the PNC/APNU (the Bad) to capture the government in 2020. All three of them were going to shoot their wad in Parliament last Thursday on the hot topic of VAT on private education.…

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A brave new world…

…in France? A lot of folks on the liberal left are breathing a sigh of relief after the votes in France came in with Macron defeating Le Pen by such a huge margin:  66% to her 34%. But your Eyewitness isn’t so sure they have much to celebrate. Forget all the headlines claiming that Le Pen’s “populist” wings were clipped. First of all, the people she and her father represent are nothing more than racists and fascists in the classic European mould. And what Marine Le Pen’s done is practically…

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Chutzpah…

…of Moustache Man? Or a case of “just don’t give a damn” by the entire PNC-led APNU: in this case, of Basil Williams taking his odiferous doo-doo and rubbing it on the behind of the learned judge of the High Court?? Whatever it is, the AG’s drawn the battle lines between the Executive and the Judiciary – lines that were staked out early in this administration, when the Mustachioed Man went after the then Chancellor of the Judiciary. Many in the society – especially supporters of the Government – brushed…

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Hoping it’ll go away…

…discrimination This PNC-led APNU/AFC government reminds your Eyewitness of those little kids who believe that when they close their eyes the world disappears!! Take discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation: no matter how they slice it, dice it, or even puree it, it ain’t gonna disappear. So why’s the Government insisting there are laws on the books forbidding discrimination against ANYONE, and they don’t have to be specific? But even a moment’s thought about this assertion shows how dissembling this Govt can be. Just look at the “Prevention…

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Disappearing…

…children Where have all the children gone?? For years and years, the Common Entrance examination, which morphed into the NGSA, was written by 16,000 or so kids. That number was pretty constant — just like our overall population. As recently as 2013, some 16,800 children between 11 and 12 years old wrote the NGSA. But every year since, the number’s been inexorably dropping: 2014 – 15,400; 2015 – 15,200; 2016 – 14,500 and this year 13,600. What’s going on? Have 3000 kids been abducted by aliens? Has our birth rate…

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SARA…

…and betrayal While your Eyewitness won’t pretend to being a man of the cloth, he was yet taken aback when the Minister of Natural Resources gave, as the reason for shutting down the debate on the SARA Bill, the explanation that it was “Holy Thursday”. No, your Eyewitness wasn’t upset about mixing religion and the state – even in this highest bastion of the state – following the faux pas of the Headmistress of CHS. Your Eyewitness knows from whence the breeze blows in THIS administration!! Wasn’t David chosen to…

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