One thing that sticks out like a sore thumb – and you know, how PAINFUL those can be!! – is the Opposition constantly bemoaning the level of poverty in our dear Mudland. In the meantime, he don’t see them wearing no sackcloth and ashes in sympathy for the poverty-stricken folks they moan about!! Now don’t get your Eyewitness wrong. Not because someone’s in politics they gotta dress in sackcloth and ashes!! But still, they should have a sense of proportion not to be decked out in designer finery!! It deguts the premises of their righteousness!! Kinda signals that a whole lotta hypocrisy is in play!! We see the same types in the NGO’s for the poor.
From, the US we learn about the phenomena of “poverty pimps”. In the words of Thomas Sowell, the black Harvard Sociologist, “There are whole classes of people who live off the poor, or rather, off the vast sums of money that are poured out from the public treasury and private philanthropy, in hopes of helping the poor. Those who intercept the money intended for the poor have been aptly called “Poverty Pimps”. The poor are a commodity to these people, who include not only local politicians, community activists and small-time hustlers, but also people with impressive titles and academic credentials, who likewise milk the larger society, in the name of the poor”. They just might’ve been the ones who triggered Trump’s rage against “wokeness”!!
Sowell’s satirical poem, “Poverty Pimps”, describes them well: “Let us celebrate the poor, let us hawk them door to door. There’s a market for their pain, votes and glory and money to gain. Let us celebrate the poor. Their ills, their sins, their faulty diction. Flavour our songs and spice our fiction. Their hopes and struggles and agonies, get us grants and consulting fees. Celebrate thugs and clowns, give their ignorance all renown. Celebrate what holds them down, in our academic gowns. Let us celebrate the poor”!!
One critic of “Poverty Pimps”, offered some clues on “how to know a poverty pimp”, so we can easily recognize the local practitioners: 1) When they start a series of for-profit ventures. They’re “not for-profit” – but the profits remain in their pockets. 2) When getting financial donations has become the vast majority of their effort and time and not actually working WITH the poor. 3) When they’ve become really, really, really good at using race, class and gender discussions to prevent any criticism of what they’re doing. 4) When their offices are furnished much better than anything their clients will ever own in their entire lifetime. 5) When most of the money goes for four-star hotels!!
Or when Opposition MPs take their salaries , duty-free cars and other perks -and just TALK about the “poor”!!
…of vision
Your Eyewitness wonders how some of those who railed against Afro-Guyanese as “slave catchers”, BT-Lickers and other obscenities for switching their political support to the PPP viewed President Ali’s latest foray on the West Side to rally the faithful. Because they would’ve seen one of the brightest young lights that was rising in the PNC – with impeccable PNC geneology! – since she was but a teenager in the YSM just declaring her support for the PPP in general and Pres Ali in particular!! Your Eyewitness is talking about West Coast’s Thandi McAllister .
McAllister can’t be denounced for – as those who would keep African Guyanese leashed in the PNC with a ring in their nose – for “hanging her mouth where the soup is leaking”. She’s a qualified lawyer who’s still holds the same job she always held. What seems to have encouraged her to make the switch was Pres Ali willingness to reward grassroots work for one’s constituents.
More will follow!!
…of vision
At a time when the entire world order is being upended, leaders of small nations such as ours must be pragmatic about big-power politics. There’s Pres Johnson’s advise: “it’s better to be inside pissing out than outside pissing in”!!
