Ole Abe Lincoln – “Honest Abe” they called him during his lifetime – once described democracy as “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. By now, dear reader, you’d know that, apart from being honest, Abe was also assassinated for doing the right thing!!
HL Menken, however, was an American satirist – the profession of your humble Eyewitness! – who lived after Lincoln, and was much more realistic – and cynical – in his assessment of democracy. One of his more popular definitions that’s come down to us is “democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want – and deserve to get it good and hard”!! He was also a bit more specific: “On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
From what your Eyewitness has been reading, quite a few of our Guyanese chatterati who fill the pages of our newspapers with their musings – and busings!! – seem to’ve concluded, after the American elections, that Menken has been shown to be a prophet with the election of Donald Trump!! It just shows you that these folks actually bought the tripe about “democracy” that was handed down to us by the Brits – who dragged us across oceans as slaves and indentureds by simply defining us as “not people”!! Democracy – like most institutions in life – is all about what those with power decide what it is. And Trump just happens to be a fella who doesn’t go along with the hypocrisy, and is open about letting it all hang out!!
Really, is Trump the first US President to’ve been a womaniser?? How about golden boy JFK, who has been placed on a pedestal on the ‘City on the Hill’ just because he was a Harvard man who could quote the classics!! Yet he’s touted as among the best and the brightest!! And more recently, we’ve had Bill “Slick Willy” Clinton who molested an intern, Monica Lewinsky, in the Oval Office!! And using the Oval Office to make money?? Have we forgotten what happened to all that aid money for Haiti that went into the Clinton Fund?
We could go on and on, but since when is it bad for a supposed “moron” to announce that the US don’t really have any beef with Russia and Putin?? Hasn’t the Cold War been over since the Berlin Wall fell in 1989?? Or to insist that the US super-rich gotta start focusing on rebuilding the US industrial base and get rid of their “Rust Belt” that has destroyed half of their population’s good life??
Your Eyewitness just hopes Trump sees the US’ interests coincident with ours on Mad Maduro!!
…in Guyana
Your Eyewitness returns to the Govt trying to dole out some of that oil money directly to Guyanese. Now, you’d think this was the easiest thing for a govt to do…especially with the Opposition bitching and moaning that the Govt’s only building infrastructure, and people can’t eat infrastructure. Now, it’s part and parcel of democratic governance that you gotta give the people who vote for you something THEY can sink their teeth into. The founders of democracy – the Greeks – gave out “bread and circuses”!!
Menken the cynic had quipped about this, of course. “Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods”!! And with us, the oil money’s seen as folks having an even greater entitlement to getting a share than with stolen goods! Part of the holdup in handing out the money is that the Opposition want to get credit, saying it’s their idea!! Then they’re insisting any payment be approved by the National Assembly through legislation, so they get credit!!
…and control
The Yanks modified democratic rule with “checks and balances”. But with the Republicans en route to a Trifecta on the Presidency (the Executive), the Senate and the House – with the Supreme Ct already controlled – whither checks and balances??
