…in politics
Yesterday, the AFC demonstrated the galvanic principle in a social setting. Galvani – you’d remember, dear reader, if you cast back your minds to your youthful excursions into physics – showed that even a dead frog would twitch – as if it were alive – when a current’s passed through it. His nephew did him one better when he repeated the experiment on an executed criminal in London.
The report said: “On the first application of the process to the face, the jaws of the deceased criminal began to quiver, and the adjoining muscles were horribly contorted, and one eye was actually opened. In the subsequent part of the process the right hand was raised and clenched, and the legs and thighs were set in motion.” But both the frog and the criminal remained DEAD, didn’t they? And this is what happened at the AFC meet at the quaint hamlet of Vreed-en-Hoop, where they’d gathered to elect “office bearers”.
The electricity applied to the members and erstwhile “leaders” was the internally driven lust for power – and not surprisingly, the gathering became quite animated. Maybe they chose the venue for its name, which translates into “Peace and Hope”, but all the leaders demonstrated was that they “hoped for a piece” of the action! Now your Eyewitness is composing this commentary ahead of the conclave, but believe you me, he’s not going out on any limb.
After all he’s seen the AFC emasculated so effectively by the PNC (what APNU??) all of those who haven’t joined the latter behemoth, are squealing… er… SPEAKING in high-pitched falsettos!! Ouch!! The present leaders rolled the dice back in 2015 to join up with the PNC because they were promised 40 per cent of the offices. They swallowed Leader Ramjattan’s openly expressed fears of the AFC becoming “dead meat”- because of their ambition and greed.
This is the secret of all cons – promise the “marks” rewards beyond their wildest dreams and in the frenzy of excitement, they’ll ignore both history (the UF!) and what’s clear in front of them (emaciated, irrelevant portfolios). So, the AFC did in fact get 40 per cent – but for those that weren’t members of side deals such as the Nassau Accord and believed in the Cummingsburg Accord – it was 40 per cent of Larwah!! And that’s worse than 40 per cent of zilch…’cause with Larwah, you get it in the end!!
One insider has revealed how these “leaders” don’t even show up for the AFC’s monthly meetings – they’ve gotten too big to mix with the great unwashed who put them there.
So yes, the electricity of greed and ambition galvanised the AFC yesterday.
But they’re still dead meat!!
…of trade deals
Remember when the US was pushing the “Free Trade Area of the Americas” (FTAA) after they’d locked in NAFTA in 1994? Well we should count our blessings it collapsed because of popular protests in Brazil and elsewhere. Look what the US just did to Mexico. “Shafted” doesn’t even begin to describe what’s gonna happen to Mexico if its trade – amounting to 37 per cent of its GDP now only gets WTO rules on tariffs. And Trump says he’s even going to ignore the WTO because Mexico refused to pay THE WALL!! The lesson, dear reader, is we mustn’t expect any free lunches.
So for those hoping for higher oil prices on our 50 per cent of oil profits our genius Minister Trotman “renegotiated”- rather than demanding royalties – just look at another of Trump’s earliest decision. The Dakota Access Pipeline will carry some 500,000bpd of Bakken Crude (shale oil) to refineries on the Gulf coast – cutting its cost by 10 per cent of the present price of US$50pb!
So 50 per cent of zilch is still zilch!!
…into payback
The US is the biggest supplier of rice to the Mexican market. We should immediately advise Mexico to reciprocate with the same 35 per cent tariff Trump’s threatened.
And we can ship all the rice they need immediately!
