Mountebanks

Amountebank is a swindler and a charlatan. Originating in the American West, it described those who sold quack medicine from the stage. David Hinds, who has lived for decades in the American west, and would be very familiar with the term, is a mountebank of the first order.

The quack medicine he sells purports to solve the political problems of Guyana. In his latest quack offering he begins portentously: “For any society to advance it has to settle a fundamental question – who governs?” Is this guy for real? So “who governs” is more fundamental than “how they govern”?

How simplistic can you get? His snake oil remedy (analogous to the preferred cure of the “Doctor” Ramaya of the AFC) is to condemn the “majoritarianism” of the present dispensation in favour of the “shared governance’’ model of APNU. The fatuous fake conveniently omits that throughout human history, such utopian fantasies have always degenerated into dystopias? Look at his own recommendations. APNU preached ‘inclusiveness’ but he berates them for going along with the president-initiated “tripartite” talks.

Rather than complimenting the president for furthering ‘inclusiveness’, the mountebank screams that APNU should have followed the ‘youths’ into the streets and forced the PPP to ‘the table to hammer out a political solution’. So like Burnham, Hinds would resort to violence for ‘the good of the people’. This “good” is defined by Hinds and company such as Kissoon, of course. Never mind the opinions of “the people”.

What do they know? This is the mindset of all totalitarians – from Genghis Khan to Hitler – down the ages. One laughable irony is Hinds referring to the rabble screaming for SoPs as ‘youths’! He and others like the top brass of the police and GDF who were in the forefront of the march are all pushing 60!

A parting example of Hinds’ extremism: The opposition secures the Speaker; the deputy and the committees and the PPP gets nothing but this outcome is ‘mixed’! Hinds quotes David Rudder. But Rudder had politicians like Hinds in mind when he sang “Ganges meet the Nile”: “Don’t mind them politcky politicky politicky politicky politicians/ And with their politricky politricky politricky politricky situations… Them boys with the hidden agendas, and the mind-benders/ They will always do their do.”

What is and what ought to be

There is a dangerous trend developing in Guyana today. Everyone who falls on what they consider to be the wrong side of a legal decision – juridical or administrative – starts to ‘behave bad’. Hey! Like the game of cricket someone has to fall on either side of the decision. As the Americans say, “That’s the way the cookie crumbles”. We saw this with the CoP Greene case and now we have Kissoon making the same kinds of noises now that the conciliator determined that his contract was legally terminated by UG. Kissoon in his latest missive, which is given prominence in the Stabber and the Muckraker, talks about his “contract” being arbitrarily terminated without ‘notice’. But Kisoon deliberately omits that he was on a year-to-year contract and in law such contracts are deemed to intrinsically give notice of dismissal – the last day of the contract.

Once the contract was terminated before this date, all that was required from UG was to pay him for his ‘lost’ wages.

Now Kissoon raises the issue of ‘fairness’ as did Benschop did with the CoP case. But they seem not to comprehend that these are separate issues and if they want the law to be changed they have prescribed procedures to follow. Not whinge and gripe and ‘behave bad’.

Montebank Bookkeeper

Chris “Suspenders” Ram, like the proverbial ‘pot salt’, had to get into the budget discussion. But he was at such a loss for anything substantive to criticise, he failed to submit his “Business Page” to the Stabber. In the Muckraker, he muttered that whatever Greenidge says, is his opinion also!