There’s some big drama unfolding over in the US of A – probably exceeding ours with our drama queens in the Opposition jockeying to find some permutation or combination that might give them some relevance after the Sept 1 elections!! Norton’s causing quite a stir after he announced he’s looking for a PM candidate. Fellas like that Mahipal guy are anguishedly asking whether “goat bite me?” After another prospective Indian Guyanese front-runner sashayed over to the PPP, the assumption that an African-Indian slate was the winning combination was thrown overboard!! Norton insisted the PNC lost nothing since she had no support to bring to the polls – so the same could be said for all the other Indos like Mahipal and that Pandit fella. Your Eyewitness has his popcorn ready as that drama unfolds!!
But back to the USA where a lot of eyes are fixed on the spat between Trump and his Trillionaire governmental cost-cutter – richest man in the world! – Elon Musk. But by your Eyewitness’ estimation, that’s really a sideshow brought on by outsized egos and will be sored out without any effect on the big (political) picture. The drama that WILL have a far reaching impact on politics going forward is Trump’s decision to bring out the National Guard to deal with protestors against his (draconian) deportation policies.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement – universally known by the very apt acronym “ICE”– had been conducting raids in the garment district Los Angeles – the City of Angels that has a 48% Latino population. Not surprisingly, protests broke out as many undocumented Latino immigrant workers who provided cheap labour, were rounded up! The ICE agents were overwhelmed by the protestors and even the show of force by some 2000 National Guards who joined them didn’t faze the protestors. Adding a new dimension to the drama, the democratic governor of California threatened to sue Trump!!
To show he was “maan”, Trump upped the ante on Monday and sent in 500 Marines “to protect Federal buildings”. The lines are now sharply drawn between what Trump called “order and chaos” – and with it, the possibility of violence between civilians and US armed forces. The situation is eerily reminiscent of the1970 deployment of the National Guard to crack down on anti-war protests at Kent State University, Ohio, after Nixon escalated the Vietnam War into Cambodia. Guardsmen opened fire and killed four students. Protests broke out in other universities and police shot and killed two students at Jackson State in Mississippi.
For us in Guyana, the Opposition has been encouraging protests on any – or no – excuse and these have degenerated into widespread arson, robberies and violence. Police have stressed arrests.
Lets see how “order vs free speech” play out in the US!!
…sugar going
As the government struggles mightily to keep the state-owned sugar industry going, it’s new CEO has evidently been trying all sorts of innovations to boost the production figures That had never recovered from the body blow of the PNC’s cruel closure of four of the sugar estates and firing some 7000 workers from those estates – as well as from the private cane farmers who’d been playing an increasingly larger role to supply cane to the factories.
This year, he revived the old custom of recognizing and rewarding “champion cane cutters”. Never mind the sugar coated term “harvesters” – just like estates are still plantations!! Anyhow, the fella who won the “Most Productive Harvester” title had delivered an astounding 644.81 tonnes of cane in just 54 days – averaging 11.94 tonnes per day!! The second and third spots – all from Uitvlugt – scored 622.45 tonnes and 435.82 tonnes – earning an average day’s pay of $32,000.
Was it “Cut and load” or “Cut and drop”? If the former it’s unbelievable!!
…to (traitor’s) form
Keeping true to form, St Vincent’s Ralph Gonsalves urged T&T and Venezuela “to resolve their differences peacefully.” How come he didn’t ask the same of Mad Maduro when he sponsored elections for a governor of Essequibo?
