When patriotism powers past partisanship

Sep 14, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – The world is coming to an end; the good news is that it is not an apocalyptic one.  Former Republican and Bush Vice President, Dick Cheney will be voting come November for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate.  It has all the seismic force of a political earthquake, one that batters the Richter scale.  It is why I like America: 250 years of trial and error, as well as repeated stumbling and soaring, but a man can still stand and deliver something of this stature.  Guyana has another 200 years to go and maybe (just maybe), it may get men and women who can shake the shackles of blind partisanship and be honest with themselves, just once.  It would be for the good of the country.  Yes, by some miracle, we still have that, with Guyana standing as proof, as flimsy as it is.

Let this word be said: I have little to no use for the likes of Dick Cheney, former US vice President, a politician of hanging chads infamy, thanks to another Harris and her team in Florida during the US presidential election of 2000.If I incensed the US Ambassador, Her Excellency The riot should know that it is part of what makes America great (genuinely great), these rare freedoms that we have, so treasure.  It is to speak and do as Dick Cheney did, to stand up and go against the grain and still matter.  How can I, a colored man, a simple citizen, be endeared by a Vulcan backer, a 21^st century warrior in the mold of Atilla the Hun and Genghis Khan the barbarian?  Yet, it is said that even in the most heinous, the worst of us, there is that spark that could set apart, if allowed the opening to take feeble first steps, then to flourish.  It is why I still hope, as much as it is against hope, that our own esteemed Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo would find that spark and push his way to such a moment of clean reckoning with himself.  All Guyana could be better.  Even though in President Dr. Irfaan Ali, I discern a still worse streak-a very broad one-of Vice President Jagdeo in the making, the identical hope and spark are wished for him. Again, it could be for the Guyana that has always eluded.  Never lose hope is the spirit; never give up is the word.  It is why I never retreat.  There are some developments that are so staggering that they are unfathomable.  Republican hit man Dick Cheney gave us one in the most tumultuous of times.  The Dick Cheney of Iraq and supporter of the Project for the New American Century, a man who treaded close to the demagogic in US political leadership, embodied some of that himself, yet does the unbelievable.  He has crossed the American political Rubicon, and that says it all.  I think that a better America could be the result.  His words tell we the people of Guyana of what is wrong with America, and the leadership that needs to be exercised to make a start in righting the wrongs.  We have our own unending range of leadership wrongs here, compliments of VP Jagdeo and Excellency Ali.  They should listen and learn.  We all should.

“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him.” How many more sober and serious Americans think similarly?  Whether Republican or Democrat or Independent, how many more have quietly resolved internally to do as he did on the first Tuesday in November?  It takes an American Firster to get there, say so, a man as Republican as Rock of Ages.  Politically speaking, of course.  “As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.”

What is left for a non-entity like me to say in the face of such noble patriotic instincts?  Those with honest convictions, those with the stirrings of conscience that troubles, can look at their own cult leaders and be bold: of that I will have no part.  Whatever Kamala Harris is, ever will be, she can never be half as dangerous, or a quarter as destructive as Donald Trump.  Instead of using Mr. Cheney’s remarkable reaction to American circumstances to point to Messrs. Ali and Jagdeo and the demagoguery present in Guyana.  I say, instead, let it be a wakeup call for these two rancorous and ramshackle Guyanese leaders, and urge that an about turn be made.  Guyana is too precariously poised.  It is too young and too seething to be stable enough to manage its affairs with aplomb, with the requisite strength that should have been from the inception.  Make a change, a real one.  Invaluable it would be to Guyana and Guyanese to have a few good men and women to say that we have gone too far in this country.  It is time I take the lead in being different, by breaking ranks.  By standing for country before the cultish.  By being for fellow citizens above cash and corruption.  By being for the Guyana that could be, probably just within the grasp.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• apocalyptic, GHK Lall, Guyana, partisanship, Republican

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