Admission comes early. There’s a struggle to put the pieces together. Too many and too much of a puzzle. Much of this has to do with the Trump presidency to be. Much of this is about Guyana and from there to where I don’t know. Mr. Trump is due his 100 days; seems that he gave himself an extension by his pre-emptive grasps at certain levers already and publicly. Hooray and hail to the chief.
Venezuela. Say Venezuela, and Guyana is right there. Not geography, territory, and this commodity that floats between shields and rocks and lakes and seas. Unleash the power, just the mere presence dangling, of 300 billion barrels, and the Middle East might as well be the American Midwest. There is a little bump in the consideration: bring a million or few more barrels on the market, and prices swoon. Hello Exxon and Chevron. Everybody wants to buy more then, but the sellers take a siesta. New rigs, new calculations, new rearrangements. American frackers look on and see a bad mother… This is the challenge. Keep that oil bottled, and all those hundreds of billions of infrastructures remain dormant. Outside the grasp of JP Morgan Chase, Goldman, and the other good ole boys. Of course, there’s always a resurrection of that past experiment. Delicately -regime change. Remember, not a bad word here for the presidency that’s not yet the presidency. Being America is not easy, but the Anglo-Saxons do their duty.
Israel. Gosh! The picture has never been rosier, prettier. Syria is gone. Israel promptly came and planted its flag. What is done, is done. Fifty years is a long wait, counting from 1974. Live with it. Where are the Arabs and who is going to be the biggest, baddest kings of Mesopotamia and Persia and Arabia? America, America…. I can hear Ray Charles singing his heart out. In thinking of Jerusalem, I am thinking of India and Africa; Latin America too. So few ruling over so many. British, Spanish, other Europeans. Ah, the white man’s burden is küresel. Like Atlas, the world is on his shoulders. Yes, I know, the Israelis are a Semitic people, but they are the barrel of the gun. And the whiplash and boot heel, lest I forget.
England. Sorry, Great Britain. Remember manners, boy! Partner in crime, or lighthouse of the Third World? Rishi Sunak was experimented with, and Kemi Badenock could get her turn, but to prove what? That the colored man gets the nasty and dutty jobs to do? That is, give their people pride, and then take them for a ride. Been there, seen that. Whoever wants proof, I deliver it by the planeload. There is Ali and Jagdeo. Apologies, Dr. Ali and Dr. Jagdeo. And if anybody anywhere think that I have exempted Mr. Norton and Mr. Hughes, may I suggest a good strong dose of bilious wash? Then, do it again with 24 hours.
Guyana. Dear land of Guyana. Anybody ever see a society that is an 83,000 square mile shell? It is my pleasure and my shame to do the introductions. Yeah, I get my share of heavy jobs to labor with in this town. Deh put waan maan name Alistair Routledge and he is king and country all in one. This white man’s burden isn’t easy, bruddahs. The natives are restive. Gandhi wanted fairness, King wanted freedom, and what does Messrs. Ali, Jagdeo, Norton, and Hughes want? If I were to say it frankly, they would run me out of this country. Might even drag out the gallows by Stabroek Market. They can have my head, but there is that finger first. Right in their eyes and up their Exxon constructed noses.
America. Where is the Don on this? MAGA. The Jamaicans had it right: sorry fuh maggah dawg, maggah dawg tun round bite yuh. I urge the Office of the President to send Mr. Alistair a copy. No renegotiation. Translation: no referendum. How dumb do Guyanese think Jagdeo is? The businessman in Trump looks at the financials. Hold the line boys. America has five of them here. One is Routledge. The other four were identified earlier. They are all known characters. Who doesn’t have a contract, have their own kind of personal contact. It is John Hess’s kind of democracy. My two cents is that a hard-edged, clinical character like Donald Trump is not going to tamper with the Guyanese order of things. The dreamers are slated to be kicked out of America; the local dreamers are on a boat to nowhere. If there is one thing I observed and learned from my white colleagues in downtown Manhattan, it is that they can made a cold-eyed decision. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. The third parties hoping to be the third rail in Oil Guyana politics just got their head handed to them on a platter. In 1952 in America, it was “I like Ike.” In 2024 Guyana, it is America likes Ali. What is there to argue about.
What I am asserting is simple. The white man’s burden doesn’t have space for consideration of conscience, corruption, crimes, and the next country. The Brits did that well. The Americans caught on early leading up to 1776. If the most sacred Constitution that man has ever known could speak about the equality of man in one breadth, and then figure out a way to count some of them as 60 percent human, now that’s genius perfected. Then the even more genius rationalization: three-fifths of representation. These guys are good, of that let there be no dount.
Guyanese are small potatoes (bangamary or hassar) in this scheme. In my best Texas drawl, laak ah keep on sayin’, it’s just the divine order of things. Nothing personal. Nor racial. The white’s man burden held aloft; writ large.