…to be manipulated?
The Trump-Putin Summit in Helsinki has made the US establishment apoplectic at what they consider their president’s “treasonous statement” – yes, they actually called it THAT!! And what was the treason? Well, that he, Trump, believes Putin when he says Russia never manipulated the US elections in 2015…and disbelieves what his entire intelligence establishment (the CIA and the FBI, for starters) have asserted!!
The search for what may’ve motivated Trump to throw the defenders of the “American Way” under the bus for the word of the leader of the US’ Public Enemy # 1 for half a century has veered from the plausible (Trump wants to normalise relations with Russia) to the scatological (the New York Times cartoon episode showing Trump and Putin locked in a gay romance!) Yes…the NEW YORK TIMES!!
But your Eyewitness is interested from a much more mundane perspective: that at long last Americans are getting a glimpse of the shame and embarrassment us folks in the Third World (“Shithole countries”!) had to live with when the big powers interfered with OUR elections. And our leaders had to pretend, like Trump, there never was any interference!! Or be branded and derided as “paranoid, conspiracy nuts”!!
What the American Establishment’s saying is they have the smoking gun showing how the Russians gamed the US elections in favour of Trump against Hillary Clinton. The Russians – led by Putin – felt their interests would be better served with Trump rather than Hillary in the White House. Isn’t this what Cheddi Jagan had said back in 1964 about the British and Americans interfering in the elections of that year to put Burnham in office? Why? They were more confident Burnham would look out for their interests in the Cold War then playing out between the US and USSR!
Well, there’s a “God of Little People” after all!! Not to revel in too much schadenfreude, but how sweet it is!! Fact of the matter, we live in a world where the big fish will always eat the little fish…whether the big fish is a “nevah-see come fuh see” person like Simona “I is” Broomes, or a superpower like the US; the USSR or the upcoming Middle Kingdom of China! Back in the 1960s, a very popular book describing the syndrome was named, “The Shark and the Sardines”.
So when we were just a sardine – which we still are!! – the American Shark did what sharks do…and Burnham went around insisting he kept ‘winning” elections fair and square. Jagan, in the meantime, became a ridiculed figure…even when the US’ own declassified records showed their interference.
The question is: Has the US now become a sardine??
…to have babies die
A shocking statistic was released last week: out of 1155 babies born at the GPHC, 119 or 10.3% died before they reached 28 days – neonatal deaths. Now, the Minister of Public Health explained the statistic is misleading, since most of the “troublesome” pregnancies from across the country are transferred to GHPC, our only tertiary hospital.
A better guide on how we’re dealing with this critical aspect of health care – keeping our next generation alive – would be to enquire on the RATE of neonatal deaths for the country on the whole. And the answer is…22/per 1000 births. Now, before we start celebrating, we should also look at how our fellow CariCom members are doing in this area. Jamaica, for instance, is half of ours at 11/1000, while TT is 12/1000. For what it’s worth, since we’ve set the US as our standard for “development,” their rate is 4/1000. The figures show we have a long way to go.
But what happened to that $1.6 BILLION from the IDB, given in 2016 to tackle the problem??
