PULL QUOTE: ‘It’s easy to question why it is that the Democrats now find themselves on the defensive as the midterms, scheduled for next month, approach.  Yet, as we ourselves are entering our national elections campaign period, I can’t help but see some parallel between what’s happening now, and the current local situation’
ABOUT A year or so ago, I wrote an article on the need for more nonpartisan perspectives on local development initiatives, the need to stop tarring every single positive thing with one brush or the other.  The thrust of my article was basically to give credit where credit is due.  This week, I want to look at the same phenomenon, but from a different perspective.

First however, let me lead you to one example, a bit removed from us, to illustrate my point.  Now, ever since they came on the scene, I’ve been trying my best to follow the whole Tea Party furor in America, and at the same time try also to hold on to my sanity.
Out of all the articles I’ve read or scanned on the topic, there is one on the website of a magazine called Rolling Stone – the link sent by an acquaintance – written by Matt Tiabi, which summed up for me what was wrong with the entire thing, and so early on, I still have to read the entire thing.  Tiabi writes:
“Scanning the thousands of hopped-up faces in the crowd, I am immediately struck by two things. One is that there isn’t a single black person here. The other is the truly awesome quantity of medical hardware: Seemingly every third person in the place is sucking oxygen from a tank or propping their giant atrophied glutes on motorized wheelchair-scooters. As [Sarah] Palin launches into her Ronald Reagan impression — ‘Government’s not the solution! Government’s the problem!’ — the person sitting next to me leans over and explains.
“The scooters are because of Medicare,” he whispers helpfully. “They have these commercials down here: ‘You won’t even have to pay for your scooter! Medicare will pay!’ Practically everyone in Kentucky has one.”
A hall full of elderly persons in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can’t imagine it.”
And I cannot imagine a better illustration of the illogical craziness that is currently taking place in America, not only as the voices of the Tea Party proponents continue to grow louder and louder, but even worse, as more and more people begin to listen to them, and to put their candidates into office.  Two years ago, Palin was the laughingstock of the Republican Party, America, and the world – now she’s suddenly a champion of the American people, granted – as Tiabi and others have observe – white, confused, often racist American people.  Christine O’Donnell, whose ‘liberal’ sexual history and dabbling in witchcraft would have been featured in well-funded Moral Majority-type ad campaigns had she been a Democrat, is now the poster-girl for Republican America.
You’d expect that with that quality of opposition, the Democratic Party under Barack Obama would have had a field day tearing apart Republican hypocrisy and pronouncing on the soundness of his own programmes.  Consider the following two quotes from another Rolling Stone article, ‘The Case for Obama’, written by Tim Dickinson
“This president has delivered more sweeping, progressive change in 20 months than the previous two Democratic administrations did in 12 years…,” and
“By any rational measure, Obama is the most accomplished and progressive president in decades, yet the only Americans fired up by the changes he has delivered are Republicans and Tea Partiers hell-bent on reversing them. Heading into the November elections, Obama’s approval ratings are mired in the mid-40s…”
It’s easy to question why it is that the Democrats now find themselves on the defensive as the midterms, scheduled for next month, approach.  Yet, as we ourselves are entering our national elections campaign period, I can’t help but see some parallel between what’s happening now, and the current local situation.
In both cases, true enough, there are probably a dozen things that can be done better, relative to the government’s programmes.  But here, as there, what I’ve found is that the greatest and most strident criticism is usually reserved not for the things that are being done incorrectly, but for those initiatives that are not only innovative, but outright successful.
Obama’s healthcare initiatives, for example, have benefited millions of Americans, including a significant portion of those who find themselves in opposition to him, yet Democrats find themselves dealing with the progress made almost as if they were ashamed of it.   Similarly, the Low-Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) is arguably one of the most concrete initiatives ever developed by a poorer country, and sold successfully to the richer nations.  Yet, a substantial part of the government’s public communication on this issue has been answering opposition claims that the strategy is untenable, even as it is receiving both plaudits and tangible rewards from virtually everyone else.
This reactionary position is something that the government of Guyana seems to be forced into in virtually every sector, perhaps especially the ones that are clearly progressive, health, housing, and public infrastructure for example.
In my earlier article, as referenced above, I spoke about the need for objectivity in criticism of government initiatives, particularly on issues that are unquestionably of benefit to all of us.  Perhaps that was asking too much then, and even more so now considering the looming elections – I would suspect that in the next few months, even the smallest issue is going to be open to attack.
Left up to me, I would take a different tact from that of the Obama administration.  Instead of answering the critics on the premise that they are somehow speaking for a constituency, try speaking directly to the people themselves, educating them properly on exactly how this or that is going to impact upon them for the better.  I understand that this is currently being done to some extent by GINA and the state-owned media, yet I still believe that new approaches must be adapted on the various issues. 
The time, energy and resources spent in responding to what is clearly an organized system of baiting the government on anything from LCDS to the Sexual Offences Legislation could have been better spent on better public education programmes on the need to think environmentally, or the options available for the victims of sexual crimes.  Sometimes, when we refuse to give Jack his jacket, it’s better for him to reach out and take it.