Quaking in their boots

After overplaying their hand in Parliament with their indiscriminate axing of the budget, the opposition APNU/AFC are petrified that President Ramotar will call snap elections. They couldn’t have missed the revulsion of the hinterland communities to the inane chops to the LCDS, which at last would have placed Amerindians in the drivers’ seat on national development.
They’ve seen the anger in youths when the OLPF and fibre-optic cable programmes – designed to bring them into the twentieth century – were slashed into oblivion. We are sure that thinking Guyanese understand the implications of the roadblocks placed in front of the Amaila Falls Hydro Project to secure future cheaper electricity costs. So the opposition wankers are quaking in their boots.
This was made clear in their leaders’ frenetic rush to ‘explain’ their chops and body blows to the budget, to the riled up populace. You can see the panic also in their second tier apologists in the media. The now subdued Kissoon was his usual confused and demented self yesterday. On one hand he swears that the PPP has done nothing to woo back “disaffected” supporters but yet they will call snap elections!
The PPP, – from a man who has never conducted a poll in his life and has called every election wrong from 1992 – is “a prisoner of its own insane imagination”! On the other hand a strengthened opposition that could “most definitively win” – should not contest!! Get it? Well if you do, take a bow! All along poor, deluded us thought that political parties were in the business of winning elections! Not according to the now out-of-work Kissoon.
The opposition, he explains, should not go into an election but should impose “constitutional” changes and ‘rearrange’ GECOM. That it would need a two-thirds majority to change electoral arrangements does not faze this wanker! The truth is that Kissoon knows the opposition has been exposed for the bullying, petty, vindictive politicians they always were and fears a snap election. What a bunch of wankers!

Bloodletting
But as it usually does, ‘mouth open and story jump out’ on the panic in the opposition camp. Kissoon let on that the AFC is considering dumping Ramjattan as the presidential candidate and replacing him with Moses “Shut yuh so-and-so mouth” Nagamootoo. Oooohhh! This is cold! After all the news-carrying, betrayals and sucking up by Ramjattan, he is to be discarded like used toilet paper? But then when you live by the sword, you’ll die by the sword. That’ll be the end of one wanker!
But the bloodletting won’t stop there. Evidently, the AFC has written off Trotman, whom, we had predicted would be gravitating back to the PNC where he thinks the prospects are rosier. Trotman is not prepared to be stuck with a party that by definition is a ‘wedge’ between the PPP and the PNC. Like Burnham, his hero, Trotman has long written in his copybook that he’ll be president of Guyana. Dreamer wanker!
According to Kissoon, his spot on the ticket will go to Nigel “Wannabe SC” Hughes. Dubbed the new “Rodney” by Kissoon, Hughes must have earned that title ‘grounding’ with the ‘brothers’ in the exclusively gated ‘gullies’ of New Providence! But hold on… wasn’t Ramjattan, the Indian, the last presidential candidate of the AFC? And by their racial arithmetic, isn’t it the African-Guyanese turn? Ah well!! There is no logic – and certainly no principles – in the self-narcissism of wankers.

Love’s lost
Poor Harripaul. Seems his heart is broken. After giving his sycophantic best to Granger and APNU, looks like he’s out with them and is gravitating to the AFC. As opposed to the once godlike qualities he attributed to Granger, he now warns if APNU takes power after snap elections without constitutional change, then it’s back to a ‘dictatorship’. Hell hath no fury like an ex-soldier spurned!

Extorters
With the rise of China, we all know of Shanghai. But did you know the word can be used as a verb?? Yep! It’s to kidnap (a man) for compulsory service aboard a ship, especially after drugging him or to induce or compel (someone) to do something, especially by fraud or force. It all came about after the quaint 19th century British custom of kidnapping sailors to man ships going to China. Well it seems that Lincoln Lewis wants to re-introduce the practice to Guyana.
Lewis is demanding that the “closed shop” or “agency shop” be returned to the Guyana Public service. Under this dinosaur rule, when you joined the Public Service, you had to join the Public Service Union (closed shop). And most importantly from Lewis’ standpoint, you had to start paying union dues. Or alternatively, if you didn’t want to join the union, you still had to pay the union dues (Agency Fee)!! Now, that’s the best of all worlds for you.
It didn’t matter to these slackers they were violating workers’ fundamental constitutional right: you couldn’t be forced to join an organisation. Freedom of association and all that! Talk about living high off the hog! You have to see just the offices of these fellas: they should be the last one to complain about ministers’ perks. With all this money pouring into their coffers, it’s not surprising Lewis and his band of wankers become apoplectic when the government stepped in and freed these workers from the band of extorters.
And contrary to the garbage that Lewis has been spouting, this is the state of affairs that exists, for instance, in Britain. Civil Service workers can’t be forced to join the union. And this is what the ‘contract workers’ are all about. These are individuals in Guyana that refuse to follow Lincoln’s line to join the GPSU to just lime on the job. They would rather work according to the terms of their contract and if they don’t perform – be fired. Now that’s the kind of workers Guyana needs!
Agency fees and closed shops are relics of the past, and Lewis had better get with the programme or else he’ll be yesterday’s news. We notice that Granger and APNU have allowed themselves to be browbeaten by Lewis and they are also chanting “Agency Fees! Agency fees!” They’d better be careful they’re not also charged with Shanghaing!

Faker
Lewis also takes great pleasure to say he stood up to the PNC in the day. He’s quite coy, however, not to say exactly how he stood up. Fact of the matter was that in one of the several ploys Burnham used to control the entire society, he created “paper unions” that obviously were loyal to him and had these vote to carry the PNC’s line.
GAWU, with the largest body of members – up to 28,000 at one time, wasn’t given the time of the day, while some like the Association of Masters and Mistress (AMM) took centre stage. Critchlow Labour College was a perk to this set of layabouts. Google AMM and you’ll see their address c/o Critchlow labour College!
Anyhow Lewis, to his credit, protested this state of affairs and helped to found the FITUG with the real Unions – those with live members. Yet today, Lewis claims to be speaking for all workers and refuse to include FITUG on the board of Critchlow! How hypocritical can you get? But we’re still pleased that Lewis has dropped the slimy, unctuous manner he had adopted of late.
A wolf in wolf in wolf’s clothing we can deal with: a wolf in sheep’s clothing, we puke!

Calling their bluff
Now that Gale has walked away from his contract with Somerset and announced his availability to play for the WI, want to bet that the WICB’s wankers will find some objection to still objection? No takers? We thought so!

Mr Hard Head
We are very thankful that Lincoln Lewis decided to drop his hypocritical, smarmy unctuousness when he delivered his harangue to his faction of the May Day rally. There’s only so much a person can vomit. There was no high falutin’ talk about ‘harmony’  etc. Lincoln the Loud reverted to his usual staple of brute force and ignorance. The latter was very much in evidence.
Here is a man heading a trade union umbrella body, and purporting to carry the mantle of Critchlow and listen to the ignorance he spouts: “According to our Constitution, while (the president)  is the head of the executive and head of State, he is not, let me repeat, he is not head of Parliament.” Read this very S-L-O-W-L-Y  Lewis (you can move your lips; we know reading doesn’t come easily to you): THE PRESIDENT AND THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY TOGETHER CONSTITUTE THE PARLIAMENT OF GUYANA.
It was for this reason that when President Ramotar addressed the National Assembly, David Granger asserted: “this Parliament cannot exist without the president”. Speaking directly to President Ramotar, he said “Without you, we are just a National Assembly.”
Granger was sitting right at the head table when Lewis made his ignorant claim. You could see the palpable effort Granger took not to shake his head and roll his eyes! Army discipline took over, we guess. Lewis’ ignorance of what any grade six student learns in social studies is not merely appalling; it is dangerous because of the power he has as head of the TUC. But the ignorance also explains why the labour movement has been steadily dwindling in vibrancy during his incumbency.
The wanker compounded his faux pas when he shouted about the president: (he always shouts: he obviously believes logic is improved with volume!) “His is the responsibility to execute the mandate of Parliament.” What a dope! The executive (at least he knows the president heads that branch of government!) is the one that formulates policies – such as the spending encapsulated by the budget). The legislature merely can modify the amounts sought to be spent – as it just did.
The bottom line, Lewis, is only the executive can lay motions that make a claim on the Consolidated Fund!  That’s the mandate. The opposition can merely harass – as they just proved. Now go have someone pen another letter for you. Wanker!

For brute force
David Hinds is one with Freddy Kissoon on the Hoytean proposition that ‘the only language the PPP understands is the language of force”.  More specifically, the language of ‘mo fyaah; slow fyaah’.  As such, he’s quick to condemn any dialogue between the opposition – especially APNU – and the government. He reiterated his thesis yesterday in the MuckrakerKN.
Hinds operates from an explicit racist standpoint. But what this does is make it very easy to demolish the jejune arguments he puts up. No wonder he is still an adjunct (meaning a part-time teacher) at some community college in Arizona. A true cohort of the wanker Kissoon. Take for instance, his claim: “the PPP is playing to a familiar racial narrative aimed at the Indian Guyanese political reflexes”. Really? The LCDS which APNU/AFC lopped off will totally hurt in the short term the Amerindians peoples; in the long term, the entire country. The GINA workers fired are mostly African Guyanese. How does the PPP protesting these play to “Indian Guyanese political reflexes”??
But in the same letter, Hinds gloats, “I am glad Mr Granger referenced APNU’s constituency… The Linden fiasco should not be repeated.” So this pandering to African Guyanese political reflexes is not “racial”? Racist wanker!

Rum till we die
DDL, regularly lauded as the paradigmatic Guyanese corporate success story, announced that while its overseas sales were down – it still made a healthy profit. Meaning, of course, that local sales tided them over. Ah!! Such patriotism!

Warlords
Last Friday, this newspaper carried an editorial “Herdmanston and Warlords” in which it bluntly warned the nation that the AFC was prepared to deliver to the PNC (disguised as APNU) in 2012 what they did not achieve after the Herdmanston Accord: controlling the executive. Yesterday in the Stabber News, Sase “Thunderbolt” Singh and another AFC apologist Rose Asquith confirmed the GTimes fears.
Accusing the PPP leadership of not following up on ‘agreements’, the AFC’s lackeys shouted, “Remember the Herdmanston Accord?”!!! Well yes, as a matter of fact we do. The aforementioned editorial summarised the background of Herdmanston cogently:
“… following the December 1997 elections… the opposition forces, led by the PNC took to the streets. Using their street elements, they brought Georgetown; the capital and centre of government to a halt with arson, mayhem and brutality against fellow citizens. Eventually, the legally elected PPP government was bludgeoned to the negotiating table of Herdmanston House where it was forced to give up two years of its five-year term; introduce constitutional changes demanded by the opposition and open “dialogue’ with the PNC on a long list of demands for its ‘constituency’.”
And this is the kind of ‘agreement’ that the AFC is pushing for to be imposed on the Donald Ramotar Executive government in this go around by fanning the flames of ethnic resentment and hatred – starting with Linden. Who did more for Linden, over the years than the PPP government? Yet the AFC wankers could accuse the PPP of “spite”!
The editorial warned of the more insidious systemic dangers posed by the AFC’s approach: “What Hoyte had introduced into Guyana then (through Herdmanston) and is being slipped through the back door of Parliament today is political blackmail through ‘warlordism”.
“We have seen this technique operating in the tribal societies especially in the Middle East. The leaders of tribes, only concerned with the well-being of his clan and kin and are prepared to wage war through whatever means necessary to achieve their goals. There is no acknowledgement of a wider nationalism. And what makes the technique especially dangerous in Guyana is we have the two opposition parties (AFC and APNU), controlling Parliament, furiously outbidding each other to represent the Linden community on the electricity subsidy. Linden, we must point out, is only acting as a trope for the wider constituency.” Those who have ears let them hear!!

Hypocrisy and unctuousness
Who, after reading Dickens could fail to be repelled by the unctuous Uriah Heep – the affected, exaggerated, or insincere earnestness just made one feel nauseous. Nowadays the expression ‘smarmy douchebag’ describes such greasy and fawning individuals. If you still don’t get the essence of such characters just read any of the recent letters of Lincoln the Loud.
We don’t know where the old racist hypocrite thinks he’s getting off, but if he keeps this up Guyana will be awash in vomit. His new oleaginous style adopts the high road even as he digs his knife into the PPP and anyone associated with them. In his Labour Day address, he skewers Dr Jagan, who did more than anyone to honour Critchlow back in the day.
In his letter yesterday in the MuckrakerKN, after simpering a now obligatory self serving unctuous phrase – “As we continue the process of building this nation…” Lewis complained “The continuous double-dipping, employment of ex-ministers, political allies and cohorts at salaries and benefits that cannot be justified is very disturbing”.
A quick question to this wanker: “who double dipped and practiced cronyism more than you at (ironically) Critchlow College and elsewhere?” Remember the ‘donated’ car? What about the luxurious office at Critchlow? What about not hiring anyone associated with the PPP there?

Missing it
The partisans of AFC, like Kissoon refuse to get it: no one is complaining that the AFC and APNU can’t cut the budget. But they must show rational reasons beyond spite and ‘payback”. Wankers!

Politricks
Politics in Guyana has rightfully earned a nasty reputation.  The man who did more than most to give it that standing was the founder-leader of the PNC, Forbes Burnham. The man unashamed declared he saw politics as ‘the science of deals’. For him everything had a price; nothing had a value. The word “politricks” entered the Guyanese lexicon during his regime.
There was some hope for a change with Desmond Hoyte, but his downfall was he tried to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds. Robert Corbin, of course, was beyond redemption and he gave even ‘politricks’ a bad name. And it was for this reason David Granger was chosen as the PNC’s presidential candidate: they said he was ‘different’. Well, if we’re to go by what unfolded over the past two weeks, we wonder.
Granger entered into discussions with the president –  who had unilaterally launched the trilateral talks with the opposition leaders so that they could air their concerns. Granger made his concerns known: on Linden; on depressed communities; on pensions etc. The president responded, pointing to constraints but compromises were arrived on several of Granger’s proposals. An agreement was struck.
And then at the first sign of dissent among the rank and file, Granger did a complete somersault and welched on his agreement. Okay. We all know that Ramjattan ran to Linden and spread rumours of ‘deals’,  ‘betrayals’ and ‘spite’. But we all know too that Ramjattan – apart from being a wanker –  is the keeper of the flame of politricks in Guyana. And if Granger didn’t know this, his deputy Roopnaraine certainly did. Lord knows how many times Ramjattan and Trotman shafted him during the days of the “Third Force”!
Granger has to be careful. Just as how none of Ramjattan’s former comrades would give him the time of the day because they know he will never keep his word, he will be relegated to the dustbin of history unless he learns to cultivate some sense of honour. As an ex-army man, one would hope he had learnt this lesson.  It is never too late. Just don’t get cranked up by Ramjattan and the bunch of wankers in the AFC.

Honour
Over the weekend President Ramotar demonstrated to the opposition – well to APNU and Granger since Ramjattan is beyond redemption – that even in politics, you can keep your word. The president was in Berbice and announced that he was honouring the agreement with Granger, because he had been persuaded the recommendations had merit. He was not, as he said, playing cards and trying to buy off Granger.  Pensions would remain at the elevated levels; the incentives offered to Linden would remain in place, etc.
But additionally, Granger should learn from President Ramotar how one deals with tough issues that constituencies might see as not in their interest. Everyone knows that the PPP lost votes in Berbice at the last elections. The reduction of the tolls on the Berbice Bridge had been raised by the devious and shifty Ramjattan as a gimmick to pilfer those votes.
The president could have pandered to politricks and made all sorts of promises: he certainly needs Berbice votes. But as a leader of Guyana, he explained the facts – the tolls have already been contractually set and nobody wants nationalisation in this day and age. And he confirmed re-introducing the ferry to offer relief to students, etc. This is leadership! Not the sly betrayals of the wanker Ramjattan.

Guidance from above
We remind that miscreant of the biblical wisdom: “So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors’ power; but they had no comforter.”  Yes, Ramjattan: there will be no comforter for you.

Confounded nonsense!
With so many of us having relatives in New York, we might have heard the Yiddish expression “Chutzpah”– pronounced “hutz-pah”. It means “insolence”, “utter nerve”; “effrontery” as in:  “During the budget debate, APNU and AFC had the chutzpah to act as if they had a lock on God and morality.” Well, Nigel Hughes, just demonstrated another bit of chutzpah in a letter to the Stabber.
You remember Nigel Hughes, don’t you? SC and top biller on the AFC ticket – much to Ramjattan’s consternation. The poor wanker Ramjattan had just breathed a sigh of relief at having finally gotten Trotman out of the way and here are his buddies Kissoon and Harripaul anointing Hughes as the new messiah! And from within his own party to boot.
Anyhow, Hughes complained that President Ramotar forgot he was president of all the people during his address to the nation on the budget. The man said the president’s speech was “short on hope and long on vitriol”. Imagine that! This is the man Kissoon boasts is “Rodneylike”? So the president is president of all the people – we accept that. And so did the president.
Even though the opposition followed up on all its putrid accusations that the president was condoning corruption on the Amaila Falls project – by completely axing it from the budget, the president still said he was open for dialogue. Aren’t accusations of corruption, vitriol? And the actions of spite and bitterness spoke much louder than any word could.
It was not the president who threw so many young Guyanese onto the streets – it was the opposition. Aren’t these people Guyanese people? So the opposition is not supposed to be concerned about “all the people”? Even if they weren’t in the past – what about the ‘new dispensation’? The president controls the Executive but doesn’t the opposition control the legislature?
Hughes hoped “that anyone privileged to lead this dear country of ours would be blessed with creativity, flexibility, vision and a generous dose of inspiration”. Sounds good – and President Ramotar has certainly fit the bill to open up to the opposition. But why does the opposition get a free pass? Cutting the budget just to gain “leverage” demonstrates “creativity, flexibility, vision and a generous dose of inspiration”? The AFC is just drowning with wankers!

Economic hogwash
APNU is not far behind in the kingdom of wankerdom.  David Granger felt compelled to follow President Ramotar with a “speech to the nation”. And it was not just a lacklustre performance: it was riddled with inaccuracies. A leader should be simple but nor simplistic.
Granger intoned gravely, “A budget is not a mysterious invention which only few are able to understand. It is simply a financial plan.  It must project, as happens in any family or household, what it needs to earn and what it needs to spend.  It must explain its priorities in ways which ordinary people can comprehend.” It is obvious that the budget was certainly too “mysterious” for Granger to understand.
The first fallacy one is disabused of when studying economics is that the ‘government’s budget’ is analogous to a family’s budget! It’s most certainly not – and we can now begin to see Granger’ utter and profound confusion over the budgetary process. Take for instance the tools at a government’s disposal to control its macroeconomic environment such as inflation, etc through its Central Bank operations, for instance. These are not available to a family.  We could go on at length – but what’s the use?
We hope at the next tripartite talks President Ramotar shares some of his economics background with Granger.

Number 1!!!
Our very own Shivnarine Chanderpal who just joined the elite club of cricketers who’ve scored 10,000 runs – just 10 of them in the history of test cricket – also regained the title of “Number 1 test batsman in the world”! All hail!

Wolf pack
From the tone and content of the president’s speech to the nation last night, it’s obvious that he is finally losing patience with APNU and the AFC – especially the latter. It looks like APNU and the AFC might have worked out a ‘good cop-bad cop’ routine when it comes to dealing with the government. APNU plays along as if it is reasonable while the AFC makes threatening noises. But when crunch time comes around, the two wankers act as if they’re joined at the hip.
Now that mouth open and story jump out the perfidy and treachery of the opposition can now be grasped. Take a look at the drumbeats the opposition jokers have been making on demanding a reduction of VAT – all supposedly on behalf of the poor. Turns out that in the end the government actually proposed that one per cent of all VAT collections be directed to a Depressed Area Development Fund.
In the first place the opposition never even mentioned that they had proposed and reached an agreement with the government on this initiative. So here you have an instance of one per cent of the VAT monies to be directed directly into poor communities that the opposition would play a part in identifying – but the opposition wankers balked. The government had also indicated it was willing to extend the list of zero-rated items used primarily by the poor. This also failed to find favour with the opposition wankers!
They are not in the least interested in alleviating the lot of the poor – they’re all a bunch of lawyers and upper-middle class hypocrites who want the VAT reduced so that their pockets would be filled faster. None of the opposition – especially the AFC that loves to shoot from the hip – have presented figures to dispute the government’s position that they would be the ones to benefit.
But take a minute to think things through. Who are the ones that purchase the big ticket items that attract VAT? Yep! The ones that buy the $200,000 TV to sit on their $600,000 entertainment centre. The president blasted, “the undemocratic nature of APNU, a creature of the PNCR, and the AFC which is led by bitter men obsessed with achieving personal power.”But he was being kind. These are wolves in wolves’ clothing. And like all wolves they prey on the weak – holding up false hopes that would lead them to their doom. Call snap elections on the wankers! They eye pass you, Mr President!

Lying in ambush
We now know that like wolves lying in ambush on unsuspecting prey, there were any number of issues that APNU and AFC never brought up in the six days of talks they had with the president and his officers. Take the Amaila Falls Hydro project that the opposition had made a big brouhaha about during the campaign. The president, to show good faith released to them the contracts on that and on other projects. Some opposition spokespersons became very positive but yet at the very end the opposition dropped their bombshell and nixed the money to get the project on stream.
They did the same to the ICT programme that was designed to bring the benefits of the new technologies to both governmental operations – stuck in the 19th century – and to the poor; for whom much crocodile tears have been shed. But it wasn’t the concept of cuts per se – so much as what the cuts imposed imply: a willingness to doom Guyana to remain as primary product, price takers for the rest of this century. What a bunch of wankers.

Twisted men
Another pattern that cannot be missed is the way the opposition wielded their axes to specifically try to go after projects identified with former President Bharrat Jagdeo. When will these bitter old men accept that leadership was never on their cards?

Blackmail
It was Martin Carter who might have given the opposition the theme for their axe-wielding on the budget: the mouth is muzzled by the hand that feeds it.  Carter, after all, was referring to Burnham’s vindictive and belittling control after the latter had appointed him as minister of information. It was the spitefulness and petty mindedness of the insecure tyrant who could not stand the possibility that Carter would outshine him.
And it is so that the wankers in the opposition are insistent that the government of President Ramotar be kept on a string simply, because they control Parliament by a single, solitary seat. And by that statistical aberration, they lucked out to control spending. But in wantonly slashing the budget it matters not a whit to these miscreants that it is the country’s development that is being muzzled and stifled.
They hacked away at programmes simply – as Granger had the temerity to announce publicly – to gain ‘leverage’! The development of the country is to be plunged into reverse gear so that the APNU/AFC gain ‘leverage’ to hold the government to ransom. And these wankers also have no shame to reveal that they are only interested in helping their “supporters”.  As Granger callously put it: “We will continue to work for our supporters, because we will use the leverage we have gained this evening to go back to the government and continue talks until we get what we want.” “Blackmail” would be a better word for what the opposition is demanding.
Their dominant demands leave no doubt as to who are these “supporters”: a 10 per cent increase in the salaries of public servants; reduction of the Berbice River Bridge toll; increase the retirement age of public servants to 65; an increase in the GUY$900 million subvention to the UG; reinstatement of subvention to Critchlow and enforcing public service collective bargaining, etc, etc. This is on top of blocking the billions to subsidise Linden’s electricity.
What the opposition is doing, as this newspaper’s editorial pointed out yesterday, is to entrench ‘warlordism’ to benefit one’s own clan and tribe. And the devil takes the hindmost for those groups whose leaders refuse to go down that road.  With our arms upraised, we warn all right-minded Guyanese who are concerned with the survival of this nation, to denounce these power-hungry wankers in the opposition.

Divisions
Nothing exposes the callousness and cynicism of the opposition’s single-mindedness to usurping power – like ensuring that this nation reverts to the days where each community looks at others with suspicion and enmity – is the eradication of the programmes covered under the LCDS. More than anything else, the LCDS placed the indigenous peoples at the centre of this country’s development for the first time since the Dutch set up their trading post in 1614 or thereabouts.
By slashing the funding for solar panels that would have ensured the interior, remote communities generate electricity, the opposition has doomed the indigenous peoples from sharing in the communications and information revolution. It obviously does not bother these wanker warlords that they are ensuring that slash-and-burn Stone Age agricultural practices are the lot of indigenous peoples for another hundred years.
The LCDS made the Indigenous peoples the ultimate guardians of our national forests – and paid them for it. The entire world had been galvanised by former President Jagdeo’s foresight in placing so much of those forests at the service of mankind to sequester carbon. We had an opportunity to be known by the rest of the world for something other than “Jonestown and Kool Aid”. The opposition would cut our nose to spoil our face. What a bunch of wankers!

Cricket spite
Following the Tiger’s departure after his epic accomplishment, the WI put up a pyrotechnic display that might have delighted the spectators but leaves the question: Why no Gayle or Sarwan to boost the top order for England?

Tiger, Tiger
“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright/In the forests of the night, /What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry.” We break from the political grind to begin this column with a tribute to the indomitable Shivnarine “Tiger” Chanderpaul. He’s just become only the 10th man in the history of the game to score 10,000 runs. As the Australians scratch their heads trying to figure out how to get him out, if they were aware of the William Blake poem, we’re sure they’d be muttering it under their collective breath. Indeed who could have framed that crab-like asymmetry of the open stance that gets the Tiger into line at the last second, to play the ball on its merits? Chanderpaul, in his own way, epitomises what the English used to call “the man on the Clapham Bus”: the ordinary, everyday man. He’s so unassuming that he’s often overlooked – especially when he first came out and played second fiddle to what was considered the emblematic “West Indian” player – Brian Lara. What made Chanderpaul unusual, however, was that he never tried to be Brian Lara: he was satisfied to be himself. With all of that though, we should not forget that he’s made the fourth fastest test century – ever – and against the Australians when they were in their prime. That he made it at his home ground at Bourda in front of his countrymen was special.
We wonder how the present coach of the WI team feels after Chanderpaul turned out to be the higher aggregate scorer as well as having the highest average on this Australian tour. Gibson, like so many before him, underrated Chanderpaul and missed his essential self: a never-say-die attitude that gives meaning to the phrase ‘true grit’. Gibson claims that he doesn’t want ‘show-boats’ yet he derided the tried and true qualities of Chanderpaul. We believe that the Tiger is the true role model for the new West Indian team – and indeed for the West Indian people. We do not have to be playing on a stage to satisfy some tourist conception of the “Bongo Man” West Indian. We can play and work within our own talent and perform with the best of them. “When the stars threw down their spears/And watered heaven with their tears/Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”
Tiger, Tiger…play on.

Chop, Chop, Chop
We continue to discern the rhyme and reason behind the budget axe the opposition is wielding. Is it because the budget is the spending for the present year, they think programmes coming on stream cannot be catered for? Hey wankers, in the absence of five-year plans such as the PNC introduced during their watch (all of which failed miserably, we should note. Remember Feed, House and Clothe the nation?), budgets routinely include items such as the LCDS projects that we promised GRIF to execute before the money would be released. But the opposition are like hyenas feasting on a wounded carcass represented by the budget. Why lop off funds for the OLPF and fibre-optic cable programmes? Is it such a bad thing that the government is giving the poor children of this country the opportunity to become plugged into the ICT revolution? If on one hand, the hyenas criticise investment in sugar as being passé, isn’t training youths for the new technology the way to go?
We’ve really not seen any coherent vision underlying the cuts – unless you want to call ‘pandering’ vision. What a bunch of wankers! And they’re such old fogies to be playing with themselves!

Wanker Culture
APNU is paranoid about appointing an AFC nominee on the GECOM commissioners’ rooster. APNU has good reason to worry about the culture of betrayal of AFC. Remember Linden! If wankers cannot be trusted with their own organs; can you trust them with yours?

Ressentiment
For a while now, we’ve noticed reporters quoting Ramjattan as affecting the Americanism “gonna”. As yesterday, when he promised he’s “gonna get rough” with the government on budget cuts, but he didn’t know “what is gonna play out” with “the things that are gonna make the peoples’ lives better.” Well, either Khemraj thinks he’s a youth man or he’s been looking at too many cheap American movies about Italian gangsters for inspiration. But for sure he sounds like the cheap wanker punk he is.
When Ramjattan rants and raves and foams at the mouth about the ‘super salaries of the fat cats’ (cheap Americanisms again), he wants to lop off the budget – he hones in with particular relish on some employees at the OP. You can tell right off the bat that it is not fiscal prudence operating here! This is naked ressentiment  against his old comrades who he feels should not be making the kind of money he is. That is what this is all about – and its gonna bring him down, not to mention, low.
Because Ramjattan went through law school, he always felt he was above those that had stayed behind to work for the party – such as say, Gail Teixeira. So Teixeira must earn peanuts for offering advice to the president and Ramjattan must draw in his millions of dollars for offering advice to criminals? Why is the first – which helps the president keep the entire nation out of trouble – of less value than the latter – which helps to keep a few individuals out of jail?
Why shouldn’t advisers to the president earn a decent salary? Would Ramjattan want to declare his true salary? Not the one he declares to Khurshid. The real one. Ramjattan represents the politics of ressentiment: where it’s all about salving his own wounded self-esteem. The tragedy is that he can only raise that self-esteem by dragging down others. He gets back at those who he sees as equalling him by fostering hatred and resentment in the ordinary folks. The same folks  when they enter his office to seek help must fork out his retainer – even if they have to pawn their last piece of jewellery.
But time longer than twine: Ramjattan’s gonna get what’s coming to him.

Sauce for the goose…
A great hullaballoo has been made about contract workers in the public service. We’ve referred already to the voluntary nature of this state of affairs. Many workers don’t feel they’re given enough scope for advancement within the hidebound rules of the public service. They take the opportunity to opt out.
These are individuals who are willing to forego – voluntarily, mind you – the safety blanket of a public servant’s pension after retirement. They’ll take their chances of earning enough in the present to see them through. In a word, these are the individuals that are most valued in the modern world: they have a fundamental belief in their abilities – and are willing to put their money where their mouths are. But wankers like Ramjattan would prefer to have automatons to do their bidding without question.
But we have a question for all these Columbuses that have suddenly discovered contract workers. GuySuCo is also owned by the government and for a decade now they’ve been doling out tonnes of their work to contract workers. Tractor operators, transportation, construction, etc, etc. Why haven’t Ramjattan and company not protested this innovation?
So contract workers are OK to replace sugar workers but not public servants? Ah, Ramjattan, you’re such a snivelling wanker.

Not sauce for the gander
And while we’re on the issue of those who think one kind of work is better than another and should earn greater remuneration, what’s this call for increased salaries for public servants? For sugar workers this is always tied to ‘increased productivity’.  Aren’t public servants also expected to be productive?