Mar­tin George

Fresh back from his pas­sage to In­dia, Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath has seen it fit to in­sult the col­lec­tive in­tel­li­gence of the pop­u­la­tion in state­ments and ac­tions which are fast be­com­ing symp­to­matic of this Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment, which of it­self is be­com­ing the liv­ing em­bod­i­ment of George Or­well's clas­sic An­i­mal Farm. The ob­ses­sion with flights of fan­cy which Mr Man­ning had with his pri­vate wish­es for pri­vate jets, are mir­rored in he­li­copter flights like a taxi ser­vice, to get you here, there and every­where. It is mir­rored al­so in the out­landish idea of build­ing an air­port in Cen­tral and, of course, from the bag of good­ies on the re­turn from In­dia, we are now look­ing at flights to In­dia for Caribbean Air­lines.

Now re­al­ly, we can­not even get it right for fly­ing be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and our big an­nounce­ment is that we are go­ing to be try­ing to fly from Trinidad to In­dia? Who comes up with this type of clap-trap to try to ped­dle such rub­bish to the pub­lic? Where is the mar­ket for this? Where is the fea­si­bil­i­ty study for this and if it were such a good and prof­itable idea, why aren't air­lines from In­dia pony­ing up to take plane­loads of tourists back and forth across the oceans be­tween the two coun­tries? These ideas are as ill-fat­ed as Snow­ball's wind­mill on An­i­mal farm.

The ex­cess­es and mad­ness of Man­niningism were the Achilles heel and the ul­ti­mate down­fall of the PNM. The present Gov­ern­ment, just like in An­i­mal Farm, is be­gin­ning more and more to re­sem­ble the very ones they dis­posed and got the rid of and their con­stant ex­cuse seems to be-well PNM did it too. Hel­lo...this is why we got rid of them! The An­i­mal Farm anal­o­gy con­tin­ues with the hard-work­ing Jack, who af­ter all his time, mon­ey and ef­fort ex­pend­ed, has been treat­ed just like Box­er and the on­ly thing left is for some­one to sug­gest that they now boil him down to make glue, or send him off to the Knack­er's. In his bust-up with King George, in the cir­cling of his wag­on by the re­li­gious and eth­nic fun­da­men­tal­ists in the par­ty, and now the quest to make him im­pure by au­dit­ing PURE, all serve to re­mind Un­cle Jack that-All an­i­mals are cre­at­ed equal, but some are more equal than oth­ers.

So it should be no sur­prise to see Napoleon and oth­ers walk­ing around on two legs now, be­cause while the sheep were pre­vi­ous­ly bleat­ing, "Four Legs Good/Two Legs bad" af­ter the Rev­o­lu­tion of May 24, 2010, sud­den­ly it is, "Two Legs good/Four legs Bad," and the syco­phants and the "booty smoochers" who make up the ranks of the sheep, have now changed their tune ac­cord­ing­ly-"Two Legs good/Four legs Bad." Why not throw in a lux­u­ry 4x4 in the process as Vas­ant has done, and say to the mass­es, that it is not ex­pen­sive, it is not re­al­ly a lux­u­ry car. "Com­rades!" he cried. "You do not imag­ine, I hope, that we pigs are do­ing this in a spir­it of self­ish­ness and priv­i­lege? Many of us ac­tu­al­ly dis­like milk and ap­ples. I dis­like them my­self. Our sole ob­ject in tak­ing these things is to pre­serve our health. Milk and ap­ples (this has been proved by sci­ence, com­rades) con­tain sub­stances ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary to the well-be­ing of a pig. We pigs are brain­work­ers. The whole man­age­ment and or­gan­i­sa­tion of this farm de­pend on us. Day and night we are watch­ing over your wel­fare. It is for YOUR sake that we drink that milk and eat those ap­ples."

Pri­or to elec­tion day, the pop­u­la­tion bought in big time for old Ma­jor's speech and the dream of a bet­ter world and a bet­ter to­mor­row-We will rise. "Is it not crys­tal clear, then, com­rades, that all the evils of this life of ours spring from the tyran­ny of hu­man be­ings (wear­ing Bal­isi­er ties)? On­ly get rid of man (Man­ning), and the pro­duce of our labour would be our own. Al­most overnight we could be­come rich and free. Not one man, woman or child will be left be­hind. The Beasts of Eng­land and Beasts of Ire­land were be­liev­ers, they yearned for a new day un­der the Ris­ing Sun, but they are get­ting scorched in the heat, burnt in the process. And Squeal­er is frisk­ing around, skip­ping from side to side, telling them they are re­lax­ing in the shade and that what they think is heat is a nice cool tem­per­a­ture and that every­thing's fine in the House of the Ris­ing Sun.

"Com­rades," he said, "I trust that every an­i­mal here ap­pre­ci­ates the sac­ri­fice that Com­rade Napoleon has made in tak­ing this ex­tra labour up­on him­self (All these for­eign trips are re­al­ly hard work). Do not imag­ine, com­rades, that lead­er­ship is a plea­sure! (Nor the he­li­copter flights, nor liv­ing at La Fan­tasie, nor the Bol­ly­wood joyride) On the con­trary, it is a deep and heavy re­spon­si­bil­i­ty (Which must be tak­en with as many trips out of the coun­try as pos­si­ble). No one be­lieves more firm­ly than Com­rade Napoleon that all an­i­mals are equal (And we have Sat, De­vant and Su­ruj here to prove that). He would be on­ly too hap­py to let you make your de­ci­sions for your­selves (As you did when you once be­lieved us). But some­times you might make the wrong de­ci­sions com­rades, (As we fear you may make at the next gen­er­al elec­tion), and then where should we be?