There’s the old philosophical conundrum that asks, “If a tree falls in the middle of a forest but there’s no one to hear it. Did the tree fall?” The point being that it’s people who give significance and meaning to events. So the question arises: “If the AFC launches its manifesto but no one gives a hoot, does the manifesto mean anything??” Sadly, your Eyewitness thinks it doesn’t!! But since he has to complete a column today, he can riff on the question as grist for his mill!!
So – as a firm believer in this age of soundbites that you CAN judge a book by its cover – he takes a peek at the cover of the AFC manifesto – as displayed by one of the dailies. It announces, “The AFC Plan for a better life: Putting food on the table, a roof over your head and money in your pocket.” Yep…as Ripley said, “Believe it or not”, that’s what the AFC sees as a better life in the 21st century!! Didn’t back in 1972 – fifty-three years ago – the PNC say the same thing but even better and punchier??
Their slogan was “Feed, house and clothe the nation”!!! How could the AFC forget “clothes”?? How the heck can you have “money in your pockets” when you’ve got no pockets?? Last time he looked, the only creatures he knows with pockets but no clothes are kangaroos and possums!! And we don’t have those here, thank you!! In most Guyanese circles, clothes don’t just maketh the man; they ARE the man – and woman. Folks would go hungry and live under trees – but we gotta have our clothes!!
This is Biblical, baby!! When Adam and Eve ran around in the Garden of Eden, they didn’t have no house or food or clothes – but when “the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.” Note they didn’t start off by building no house or planting no garden – they made CLOTHES for themselves!! And we know what happened when they thought of food and ate that apple, don’t we?? And the AFC forgets clothes for OUR good life!! How the heck will “Better come” if we’re running around nekked??
So what’s going on?? Your Eyewitness’ theory is that not seeing head nor hair of them – and no…while THEY weren’t seen, Nagamootoo and Ramjattan ain’t “head and hair”!! – the party had become the prophesied “Dead Meat”. So from whence manifested this “Manifesto”?? Retreating into the (very dim) recesses of his mind, he remembers (dimly) that even dead meat can exhibit a sudden twitch – called a “galvanic reflex”!!
The manifesto’s the AFC’s last twitch!!
…peace or piece??
You gotta HAND it to Pres Trump – even possibly the Nobel Peace Prize!! – The man can multitask!! Negotiating that elusive peace deal with Putin and Zelensky – well, actually the EU who’re bravely willing to fight to the last Ukrainian!! – bitch-slapping India’s Modi and Brazil’s Lula with tariffs, and dispatching a flotilla of warships to take out Mad Maduro, Trump might just wanna borrow that Captain America uniform from Marvel!!
When all is said and done, he’s displaying to the world what it is to act without ideological or historical blinders!! Putin and Europe?? Trump doesn’t have either the German Teutonic scorn for the Russian Slavs – coeval with the word “slave”! – or the Polish historical memory of a conquering Red Army!! The man is totally transactional – you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours – so his question includes asking what Putin and Russia can do for America!! The western Europeans, of course, are totally discomfited by this!!
And Mad Maduro might have just reached a dead (!) end!!
… professionalism
In this age of scrapeheads and skin-teeth, displays of professionalism are sorely needed before our country disappears into a cesspool of depravity!! The GDF Chief of Staff had to bitch-slap Sanction Man by reminding him that a courtesy handshake isn’t a political endorsement!
