The fools who will keep the ship of fools sailing

AUGUST 20, 2015 | BY KNEWS | FILED UNDER FEATURES / COLUMNISTS, FREDDIE KISSOON

Here is a repeat of two incidents I was involved in during the 2015 election campaign and originally carried in my columns. They hold philosophical lessons for activists of political parties who are poor, uneducated and easily fooled. The first story was in Strathavon in Cane Grove in the Mahaica region. I was on the platform speaking, and directly facing the speaker were four young Indian boys and girls in a bus shed waving large PPP flags. The shed had a big tin drum in the form of a cup, the PPP’s symbol. I spoke directly to the four flag-wavers, asking them if they thought the young people from PPP families who have become billionaires under Jagdeo and Ramotar would be out at night waving flags in the face of opposition speakers. I told them I don’t think someone like Reepu Daman Persaud’s son, who became a billionaire under Jagdeo, ever attended a public meeting much less held a campaign flag in his hand. They couldn’t face the truth and quickly left. The second incident was at “Django Town” in northern Mon Repos. A taxi driver drove up and began to cuss out while I was speaking. I told him it was ironic that a mere taxi driver was sent by the PPP to heckle, but Brian Tiwarie who became a billionaire under Jagdeo won’t dare send his children in that area to attend a campaign meeting in Django Town. The guy was so embarrassed that he drove away. During the election campaign not one, I repeat, not one of the children of PPP leaders was seen at these nightly meetings, much less to be seen heckling APNU-AFC speakers or waving flags. I spoke at 27 campaign meetings and I did not see even one offspring of any PPP big wig in attendance. Many of these children were fattened by the high-paying employment they got. The Guyanese people have not seen even the tip of the iceberg of the pathological incestuousness of fifteen years of Bharrat Jagdeo rule. Put it at fifteen; twelve of which was Jagdeo’s de jure authority and three years of Ramotar’s vicarious service. One of the saddest realities of politics is that those who don’t have, those who are in need, those who come from lower economic strata, are used to do dirty work for political parties, then when those parties get into office they are discarded. When he was president, Bharrat Jagdeo had white VSO volunteers working for three and four million dollars monthly, doing jobs at the Office of the President that young, qualified PPP supporters could have done. The PPP is in opposition now and those poor, uneducated ones will be called upon, as they were during the 2015 election campaign, to do dirty work for the PPP’s operations of mischief. Look at the picket line outside GECOM when the PPP mounted its asinine protest against GECOM over its bogus claim that the 2015 election was rigged, and those who gathered from sunrise outside the Whim Magistrate’s Court to support Jagdeo. Where were the children of the elite? Where were the people who received monthly salaries of millions? They weren’t there. They will not be there. Only the fools were there. Only the fools will be there in the protest lines of the PPP. As night follows day, the nation will see PPP demonstrations outside the Office of the President and Ministries. The ordinary supporters from as far as Port Mourant will be manning the picket line. It is doubtful from the time the PPP was thrown out of office until the next election in 2020, that these ordinary sycophants will ever question Jagdeo on his creation of hundreds of billionaires who amassed massive wealth during his presidency. Like Pavlovian puppies, they will meekly carry out the wishes of their party when called upon. And they will get a free bus ride back to Port Mourant. The Pavlovian creatures are already on the job. GAWU, whose head sits in the National Assembly as a PPP Parliamentarian, has told the media that there were attempts to sabotage operations at the Guysuco Enmore factory last week. Is this the beginning of a conspiracy to undermine the new government? One of the reasons why I could not support the Rodney Commission was because it came into being to prove that the PNC was a violent party. The Commission turned into a caricature when PPP personnel who perpetuated violence against the PNC Government actually testified wearing angel’s clothing. There was no mention at the Commission of who in the PPP killed a toll gate policeman on the Corentyne highway in 1973.