One thing that sticks out like a sore thumb – and as you know, Dear Reader, these are PAINFUL!! – is the Opposition constant bitching and moaning about poverty – even as they’re decked out in finery befitting a fundraising party at the Met!! Did you see Kim Kardashian there a few days ago?? Now plunk that look in Linden or Albouystown and imagine the insensitivity!! Listen, don’t get your Eyewitness wrong. Not because someone’s in politics, they gotta dress in sackcloth and ashes!! But still, they gotta have a sense of proportion – the messenger can’t be so disconnected from the message. It deguts the premises of that message. Kinda signals that a whole lotta hypocrisy is in play!! We see the same types in the NGOs for the poor.
From, the US, we learn about the phenomena of “poverty pimps”. In the words of Thomas Sowell, the black Harvard Sociologist, “There are whole classes of people who live off the poor, or rather, off the vast sums of money that are poured out from the public treasury and private philanthropy, in hopes of helping the poor”. Haven’t our Opposition MPs been collecting their huge salaries – plus duty-free vehicles and other perks? “Those who intercept the money intended for the poor have been aptly called “Poverty Pimps. The poor are a commodity to these people, who include not only local politicians, community activists and small-time hustlers, but also people with impressive titles and academic credentials, who likewise milk the larger society, in the name of the poor”.
Sowell’s satirical poem, “Poverty Pimps”, describes them well – read it like rap: “Let us celebrate the poor, let us hawk them door to door. There’s a market for their pain, votes and glory and money to gain. Let us celebrate the poor. Their ills, their sins, their faulty diction. Flavour our songs and spice our fiction. Their hopes and struggles and agonies, get us grants and consulting fees. Celebrate thugs and clowns, give their ignorance all renown. Celebrate what holds them down, in our academic gowns. Let us celebrate the poor”!!
One critic of “Poverty Pimps”, offered some clues on “how to know a poverty pimp”, so you’ll easily recognise the local practitioners: 1) they start supposedly “not for-profit” ventures but the profits remain in their pockets; 2) they getting funding but spend on themselves and “coaches” rather than on the poor; 3) they’ve become really, really, really good at using race, class and gender discussions to subvert any criticism of what they’re doing; 4) their offices are furnished much better than anything their clients will ever own in their entire lifetime; 5) when travelling money goes for four-star hotels!!
Or when MPs take their salaries and don’t attend sittings!!
…political
Your Eyewitness has a lotta sympathy for teachers – having been one of their ranks when it was the only game in town for a fella with a handful of GCEs – and a collapsed economy under Fat Boy Forbes!! But c’mon now, why they gotta dig their heels in that the Government revisit the raises they got since 2019. Sure that’d be nice, but think about the precedent it’ll set in industrial relations!!
Your Eyewitness believes that the union leadership have become giddy with the Court’s ruling that’s in their favour – and then some. But the Government have already signalled they’ll appeal the outrageous order that they must pay workers – when they’re out on strike and not in front of the kids. They must know this will be overruled – and then what?? The Government has asked for the Chief Labour Officer to conciliate in the impasse – so now what?? They want to be on the wrong side of the law??
Your Eyewitness hopes good sense – and not politics – will prevail.
…low
So, Prezzie decides to share a birthday cake with the soldiers by feeding them a piece – as is customary on birthdays. And is now told he’s disrespecting our boys and girls in olive??
Ow, man!! What next?
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