Dear Editor,
I READ GHK Lall’s letter bearing the title, “Jagdeo’s SN’s rants has many eerie parallels” (SN August 9, 2023) and I feel a sense of pity.
Pity for what is passing in the press these days as reasoned analysis and sensible comparatives. Lall’s piece is nothing short of rambling of an “ignar.” The piece sets out to criticise VP Jagdeo’s press conference of August 3, which factually and comprehensively rebutted SN’s biased pseudo-journalistic editorial.”
The editorial itself ignored a mountain of facts already in the public domain, but due to its level of influence in society, the VP rightly described it as a poisoned chalice of “cool aid.”
Interestingly, the Opposition Leader, known for being bereft of any form of original thought, has tasted the cool-aid. The side effect of that witch’s brew, as it will appear, is blowing soap bubbles.
Nothing but hot air caught in a floating transparent bubble that soon dissolves into nothing – admittedly looks good for a moment, but is unable to bear the lightest scrutiny. So, the opposition leader pirated and parroted SN, lock stock, and barrel (pun intended), ostensibly sounding learned.
Lall also drank the cool-aid and blew soap bubbles of his own. In attempting to disprove some specific points underscored by the VP, Lall cast a wide net and wrote a wild piece of conspiracy theory that could be written about any national, state, or city administration on any given day and place in the entire history of the earth.
That piece of scrabbling parley could be applied to the rulership of Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Caeser Agustus, Barack Obama, Angelia Merkel, David Granger – just pick a period, pick a place on earth and Lall’s soap bubbles of conspiracy will dazzle.
In truth and in fact, it is transparent, vacuous, and full of hot air. Lall failed to offer a single counterfactual and failed to disprove a single digit of “splashy numbers”.
The VP spoke of a legal framework to change all future oil PSAs, streamline auctioning of oil blocks in the future, improve local content, make the most out of gas deposits, a carbon tax on the flaring of gas, the gas to energy project that will cut emission from current HFC power generators and reduce electricity costs by as much as 50 per cent along with so many other measures to improve sector transparency and secure better future deals for the people of Guyana.
Despite this, Lall attempted to obscure facts by diverting attention but in the end, there is nothing but dissolving bubbles of a confused imagination.
Yours truly,
Alvin Hamilton