The Manicou Report

Have you ever read a column by a newspaper columnist that is so illogical and so phony that you have to sit back and wonder how is it that this person has a job? Case in point: Wesley George. Even if I tried to ignore the fact that he is a PNM party hack, the boy can’t string an argument together to save his life. But I guess this is what happens when you try to defend the indefensible.

To this day, despite all the talk of Emancipation and freeing ourselves from mental slavery, we still have house negroes running around. These house negroes will defend anything that their party does and say anything their party tells them to say. Whether it’s good or bad, it’s good. If it was done by the People’s National Movement and you’re a PNM supporter, it’s good. If the other guy did it it’s bad. Where in the world is the freedom there?

From Malcolm X:

To understand [the fear of revolution], you have to go back to what [the] young brother here referred to as the house Negro and the field Negro — back during slavery. There was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes - they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good ’cause they ate his food — what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the master; and they loved their master more than the master loved himself. They would give their life to save the master’s house quicker than the master would. The house Negro, if the master said, “We got a good house here,” the house Negro would say, “Yeah, we got a good house here.” Whenever the master said “we,” he said “we.” That’s how you can tell a house Negro.

If the master’s house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, “What’s the matter, boss, we sick?” We sick! He identified himself with his master more than his master identified with himself. And if you came to the house Negro and said, “Let’s run away, let’s escape, let’s separate,” the house Negro would look at you and say, “Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this?” That was that house Negro. In those days he was called a “house nigger.” And that’s what we call him today, because we’ve still got some house niggers running around here.

This modern house Negro loves his master. He wants to live near him. He’ll pay three times as much as the house is worth just to live near his master, and then brag about “I’m the only Negro out here.” “I’m the only one on my job.” “I’m the only one in this school.” You’re nothing but a house Negro. And if someone comes to you right now and says, “Let’s separate,” you say the same thing that the house Negro said on the plantation. “What you mean, separate? From America? This good white man? Where you going to get a better job than you get here?” I mean, this is what you say. “I ain’t left nothing in Africa,” that’s what you say. Why, you left your mind in Africa.

Things are in the toilet right now. Let’s vote for another party and see if things can get better.
Vote for another party? Why would we want to do that? We eatin’ good, we dressin’ good. We got it good here. Where is we going to find another Government like this?

Like Harriet Tubman said, “I would have been able to free a thousand more slaves if I could only have convinced them that they were slaves.”

People like that have minds that are contracted by their parties. They think what they are required to think, no more no less. And don’t believe for a second that this is characteristic only of the PNM, but it’s a staple of the UNC. But getting back to Wesley George. Here’s by boy’s argument.

“You see, policies are what drive a country forward, not slogans and mere nice ideas. Can anyone soberly relate to me the aims and objectives of the COP? I ask this because I’ve heard several. I suppose they change depending on who its officials are addressing.

They however are really turning out to be a real disappointment. After all the talk about new politics and new ideas, all they have come up with is the same old strategy of criticising the Government so that they will look good. I’ve followed the COP from inception and to this day all I can glean from their utterings are slogans, not one innovate idea.”

He’s confused because they have more than one aim? So, (1) A party cannot have more than one aim and/or objective? That’s what he’s saying right? And (2) He says he hasn’t heard “one innovative idea” coming from the Congress of the People only slogans. Why do people lie like this? Obviously he hasn’t been listening anywhere as intently as he professes to or he would have heard about the COP’s crime plan - just to name one long list of innovative ideas. (3) Don’t give us the impression that you are objective by saying that you are disappointed. Disaapointment begins with rationality. Let’s not fool ourselves Wesley, not even in Disneyland - the land of make-believe, is there a scenario imaginable in which you would ever admit to being impressed by something that another party says or does.

He goes on,

” For example, I heard Valini Pundit [a member of the COP] criticising the Government’s industrialisation policy. She said instead of smelters we could invest in agriculture; for example planting paw paw fields and then getting into downstream pharmaceutical industries.

Immediately I said to myself: there it is, two universities filled with potential farmers, as if any UWI grad has any intention of planting anything. In 2007, that is a policy of a party wishing to get into power, talking about catering for the youth?”

Honestly, what is he trying to say here? I can’t make heads or tails of this.

Mr. George, if your Government is doing such a great job and its policies have driven us forward for so many years, why are we in such a shithole? And what a shithole it is.

Crime is rampant and unmanageable with no end in sight. Port of Spain floods every time someone so much as spills a drink. The homeless/vagrants in Port of Spain alone are enough to establish a new constituency. The hospitals - lets not discuss the hospitals. Food prices - let’s not discuss food prices either. The absolute mad construction and overspending that is taking place. What exactly are the policies that are driving these? You know what Mr. George, I think you may be onto something. Maybe it’s not the policies but the past PNM slogans that have us in trouble today. “We Care” - that must be about the homeless on the streets and the hospitals; “Let’s go down the road together…”, this must be the one driving the crime/road carnage situation; “World Class” - this is most likely the slogan addressing the castles on the sand aka the waterfront project. So I guess Wesley George was right. It’s the slogans that get us into trouble.

While Mr. George is liming with the PNM elite, back-slapping with his comrades, thinking that the world just couldn’t be finer, saying yes Mr. Saith, no, Mr. Julien, I wonder if he ever feels like a house negro?

I shouldn’t pound Wesley George too much because he really wasn’t talking to me - I was maccoing a conversation that was not intended for me and could never have been intended for me. He was talking to the thousands of people like him who have no power over their own thought processes i.e. to the yes men and the house negroes. Wesley George wouldn’t dare talk to me or anyone who is honest for that matter.

That’s my view. Who vex loss.