"Arnhim Eustace, Yellow Journalist" (and five other random political thoughts)

Since I haven’t posted a blog entry in six months, I’ve decided to (over)compensate with this interminably verbose entry, which is almost as long as the entire United States constitution. This is officially my longest blog posting in a long history of long blog postings. Medical experts recommend that you read it in 500-word chunks over the next 7 days. Enjoy, if you can:

In the mid-1890s, famed American publishers Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst invented what came to be known as “yellow journalism.” Pulitzer and Hearst, locked in a bitter circulation battle with two rival newspapers, created ever-more scandalous and sensational headlines in an effort to sell more and more copies of their publications, facts be damned. “The practice of yellow journalism involved sensationalism, distorted stories, and misleading images for the sole purpose of boosting newspaper sales and exciting public opinion.” Or, put another way, “the papers themselves trumpeted their concern for the ‘people.’ At the same time, yellow journalists choked up the news channels on which the common people depended with shrieking, gaudy, sensation-loving, devil-may-care kinds of journalism.”

In the ensuing hundred-plus years, the original Yellow Journalists begat the National Enquirer, Rush Limbaugh, and News of the World.

And Arnhim Eustace.

Yes, SVG’s nominal Leader of the Opposition is a yellow journalist of the highest caliber; much more so than his erstwhile comrade-in-harm, EG Lynch, who is more of a garden-variety rabble-rouser (although an undeniably talented rabble-rouser). Eustace secured his undisputed title as the nation’s preeminent yellow journalist with months of breathless, misleading and careless predictions that the IMF was on the verge of forcing SVG into an austerity package that would make Greece’s problems look like a walk in the park.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m kinda fond of yellow journalism. In the right context, it can be light, frothy treat, like a good cappuccino.  Yellow journalism, in the hands of an expert, can be respected just for its inventiveness: Just how exactly, was that massive mountain created from that tiny little molehill?

But, problem is, we didn’t elect Eustace to be the second coming of William Randolph Hearst, nor are we paying him to be. His paycheque says “Leader of the Opposition,” and that’s how we should expect him to act. Not a glorified scandalmonger who runs to the airwaves and newspapers with every half-baked rumour that is whispered to him.

Starting with “IMF TO IMPOSE BITTER ECONOMIC MEDICINE ON SVG ANY DAY NOW,” let’s take a look at some other Eustace “headlines” that spring to mind:

“YES, WE HAVE NO BANANAS: BANANA SHIPMENTS TO BE TERMINATED BY WIBDECO TOMORROW!”

“BANK RECORDS SHOW PRIME MINISTER’S CHILDREN DEPOSIT MONEY IN NCB!”

“SVG TO SWITCH RECOGNITION FROM TAIWAN TO CHINA TO PURSUE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL BID!”

“LIFE SUPPORT: NDP GIVES ULP GOV’T 6 MONTHS TO LIVE!”

“2010 ELECTION DATE REVEALED! LOOK INSIDE!”

“ULP COMMITS MASSIVE ELECTION FRAUD! LEGAL CHALLENGES FORTHCOMING!”

And so on. . .

Look, I’m not so concerned whether Eustace was 100% wrong, 75% wrong or just slightly off in his breathless predictions. I’m concerned with his modus operandi. Why, oh why, must he run to the radio station before he gets all his facts straight?

Let us be clear. It is not the job of the Leader of the Opposition to “scoop” other news organisaions and be the first person on the air with the hottest news. That’s for Kenton Chance and Dougie Nose and Cyp Neehall and Clare Keizer et al. The Leader of the Opposition should then soberly comment on the headlines, analyse their meaning in the Vincentian context, and offer praise/condemnation/context/alternatives to the policies of the elected government.

If Eustace gets a hot tip from an anonymous source, he should either (a) do some checking to make sure the info is solid; or (b) pass the tip on to a Eustace-friendly journalist or publisher for dissemination. All you get from running headlong to NICE Radio with half-baked ideas is egg on your face. Eustace’s premature dissemination only makes it easier for Gonsalves to alter course, correct whatever issue there was, or make Eustace look dumb by highlighting his factual errors.

If Eustace waits, he can look statesmanlike. If he rushes, he can fall on his face. Yet, he ALWAYS rushes in, where angels fear to tread. Why?

The answer is that “real” journalists have refused to hold Eustace to account for his factless foibles. The Vincy news cycle goes like this: Eustace screams some yellow journalism headline, the press reports it as if it were a fact, it turns out not to be a fact. No one says anything. Eustace moves on to some other guestimation of fact, the process repeats itself.

I can’t believe that the Vincentian media has some sort of boundless faith in Eustace’s weekly crying of wolf, so they must just be lazy. Criminally, negligently, lazy. If someone has a 10-year record of getting the facts wrong, at some point a grain of salt must be added to the news coverage. Maybe the journalist could ask the “other side” for a comment, rather than just reporting “Eustace said X, Y, Z.” Or here’s a novel idea: the media could do some research of its own! Ever heard of fact-checking? Independently verifying a source's information before publishing?

Case in point: Eustace has been predicting for at least a month that the latest IMF Article IV consultations with SVG would lead to harsh economic prescriptions from that body. When it started to look like maybe that wasn’t the case, he said he would have to see the specifics of the “agreement” that the Gov’t and the IMF came to.

Sounds reasonable, except for one little problem: Article IV consultations do not lead to austerity measures OR “agreements.” A little Googling would tell even the casual journalist that the IMF prescribes its bitter medicine only when it is lending a country money, not when it is simply stopping by for its annual consultations. (Of course, any gov't wants the final report coming out of those consultations to be positive. A positive report means its easier to borrow money from non-IMF lenders. But the IMF can't impose conditions or structural adjustment programmes or bitter medicine during an Article IV consultation. Eustace knows this. And so should the press).

But our lazy journalists simply say “Eustace is an economist, he knows what he’s talking about.” And they report blindly. Think I’m exaggerating? Go to Google and type in this search term (including the quotation marks):

“Eustace, an economist”

Google tells me that there are about 1,390 results that have precisely that phrase: “Eustace, an economist.” Really? How about “Gonsalves, an economist” (it’s what his bachelor’s degree is in); or “Gonsalves, an expert in government” (it's what his Master’s and PhD are in). Or how about simply “Dr. Gonsalves” in the same way that Linton Lewis is always “Dr. Lewis” (and Leacock is always the “Major”). We’re always complaining that Vincentians don’t read enough. But its not like our journalists are giving us anything compelling to read, either. Just rehashed and reheated rumours from “Eustace, Yellow Journalist.”

Anyway, I digress.

Five Random Political (& Musical) Thoughts:

RANDOM THOUGHT #1. “Whosoever diggeth a pit shall fall in it.”

So let me get this straight: Back in the election campaign, Gonsalves called Vinnie Vee a “tomboy” and made some tasteless joke that her dad sent a daughter off to school and got a son back in return. In another meeting, on another day in another locale, Gonsalves again took up the topic of Vynnette, saying she was too inexperienced to be a good representative (he used typically colourful terms like “force ripe” or “fluxy”). Now, during the “Fluxy” meeting, people in the crowd began chanting that Vynnette was a lesbian (I hear that truth is a defence to that kind of slander, but again, I digress). While the crowd chanted "lesbian" at that meeting, Gonsalves made no comment about her sexuality or made any tomboy innuendo.

But Vynnette, in complaining to the High Court about Gonsalves’ utterances, swore to an affidavit, which incorrectly claimed that the “lesbian” crowd comments were made DURING the TOMBOY meeting and not the FLUXY meeting. Why is this important? Because Vynnette claimed (and the court agreed) that it was the juxtaposition of the call and response of “tomboy” and “lesbian” that led to the unmistakable defamatory meaning of the Comrade’s picong.

Turns out that the Frank DaSilva, the guy who gave VinnieVee the copies of the tapes of both the “Tomboy” and the “Fluxy” meetings went back and listened to the tapes, and realized that ‘ole VinnieVee was pulling a fast one on the court. Which is a problem, because under Vincy law, that kind of oath-rigging is a criminal offense, and can land you in jail for 2-5 years.

Now I don’t think ‘ole Vinnie Vee deserves any jail time. She was just – as usual – a lil bit hysterical and over the top. But, by the same token, she shouldn’t be putting people in court for campaign picong. While Gonsalves was on one platform hinting that Vinnie was one dance step away from Chaz Bono, NDP candidates were calling Ralph a rapist, a money-launderer, and even a child molester (I heard it with my own two ears). Traditionally we suspend the laws of libel and slander in an election season. Vinnie didn’t honour that understanding, and now it might bite her in the ass.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

Here is my real question though: Assuming that Gonsalves had his usual high powered (and high priced) legal team of Anthony Astaphan, Grahame Bollers, Richard Williams and Rochelle Forde on the case, how come NOBODY noticed that Vinnie’s affidavit was bogus before the High Court ruled in the case? When Frank DaSilva is rescuing Ralph Gonsalves from legal drama, something’s wrong with your legal team, Comrade.

RANDOM THOUGHT #2:  “Never mind, I’ll find someone like you, I wish nothing but the best for you.”

The big news out of the 2011 NDP Convention was the rank-and-file’s overwhelming rejection of Senators Anesia Baptiste and Vynnette Fredrick for plum positions within the party hierarchy. VinnieVee got trounced by Ernesto Cooke, a political chameleon who, this time last year, was cavorting with Gonsalves and trying to be selected as a ULP elections candidate. Against this Johnny-come-lately, Vinny (the incumbent Public Relations Officer and loudest voice in the party) could only muster 37% of the vote.

Anesia, typically overzealous and with her typically overinflated sense of self, ran for party Chairman (Chairwoman? Chairperson?), and got the reality check of her life, garnering a mere 7% of the vote in a three-way race, and placing a distant third behind incumbent Linton Lewis (Sorry, DR. Linton Lewis) and (credible) challenger Daniel Cummings, who managed 49% and 44%, respectively.

The less said about VinnieVee on this one, the better. I’ve been calling her an empty vessel for a couple of years now. Jomo Thomas agreed with me in print about a year ago, and the NDP delegates are now simply concurring. She’d already been stripped of her role as caretaker/future candidate in West St. George, so its clear that the party was souring on her. Now that she’s lost the PRO gig, it’ll be interesting to see how long she’s kept around in the Senate before she’s allowed to make a graceful exit. (The irony is that I’ve always thought that she could be effective in a loudmouth/rabble-rouser/event planner type of role, just not a candidate. They should’ve replace Lynch with VinnieVee, not Cookie.)

Even though Anesia must still be waking up with nightmares from the blows she got in the race for Chairperson of the party, she’s not mortally wounded. She’s still got a bit more brains and a bit more work ethic than Vynnette, and she’s curbed her more shrill and theocratic instincts, for the time being. She’s young and will recover. Anesia's (distant) future is still in decent shape. She simply won’t be Prime Minister by 2015, as she’d hoped. We can all live with that, I think.

But the REAL story out of the convention is Arnhim’s weakness in his own party; and the REAL questions surround Anesia’s motivation to enter a race she knew she was gonna lose.

Let’s first deal with the weakness of Eustace, an economist. Here we have an unmistakable rejection of the hand-picked senators of the former Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, three-time winner of East Kingstown, and leader of the NDP. ‘Lest we forget, Eustace, an economist, appointed Anesia and Vynnette himself, and consulted no one in the party on their selection. Now, these two women, manifestations of Arnhim’s political acumen and the face of the Eustace wing of the party, got their hats handed to them by (a) a political nomad (Cooke), and (b) the leading representative of the Son Mitchell faction of the NDP (Dr. Lewis).

Arhnim’s coattails are shorter than the hair on his head. His own party does not trust his political judgment. That’s the real story from the NDP convention.

More interesting to me is the “what was Anesia thinking” question. I know that she thinks that her “dear people” love her, but I refuse to believe that she was so deluded to think that she would have been catapulted to Chairperson of the NDP. Could she be that dense? The possible answers to “what was Anesia thinking?” are:

1. She wasn’t thinking, she’s a crazy member of an anti-Semitic religious cult. Maybe God told her to run;
2. She thought it would be a good way to get her name out there, or to empirically test her support among the party faithful;
3. She really thought that the rank-and-file members of the party love and support her enough to beat two party stalwarts who have garnered thousands of votes in their own General Elections campaigns; or
4. She wanted to play the spoiler.

What, you say? The spoiler? Please explain, Vincy Patriot!

Sure, here goes: There are two factions in the NDP. The Mitchell, old-NDP faction, (they’re older, remember the glory days, are motivated by personal greed, glory, or plain old bad mind); and the Eustace, new-NDP faction, (younger, came of age under ULP government, no memory of the Mitchell era, urban, bourgeois, and focused on identifying problems, but not fixing them). The face of the Mitchell faction of the party is Linton Lewis (DR. Linton Lewis), who has publicly criticised and clashed with Eustace and who Eustace, an economist, refuses to appoint to the Senate, despite Lewis’ decade-long public pleading for the job.

Now the Mitchell and Eustace factions of the party are just about evenly balanced. Want proof of that? Look at Lewis’ vote totals for Chairman. He got 49% of the vote. That’s pretty much right down the middle.

Eustace, an economist, wants to put his stamp on the NDP, a decade after Mitchell’s exit, but he can’t get it done if the Chairman of the party is a Mitchell acolyte. So what does he do? He prompts one of his boys – Daniel Cummings – to challenge Lewis for Chairman. With a 50-50 split between the Mitchell and Eustace factions, the balance of power would be decided by – you guessed it – a third candidate spoiler.

Look at the numbers. Anesia got a paltry 19 votes. But Cummings only lost to Linton by 13 votes! If Anesia was out of the race, where do those votes go? I say they go to Cummings, because the Mitchell faction has been virulently anti-Anesia from the day she was appointed Senator. I don’t think she got any votes from that side of the fence.

What I’m saying is this: if Anesia stays out of the race, Daniel Cummings defeats Linton Lewis 138 to 132, Lewis’ political career is over, and Eustace, an economist, has a stronger hold on power internally. Instead, Arnhim ends the day weaker, since delegates at the convention rejected everyone in the party associated with him (Vynnette, Anesia, Cummings).

So let’s assume Anesia wanted to play the spoiler. Who was she trying to spoil? Linton or Cummings? The questions you must ask yourselves, dear readers, are these:

1. Did Anesia want Cummings to lose, and if so, why? (Because she likes Dr. Linton? Because she sees Cummings as a threat to her future ascendance? Because she didn’t want Arnhim cementing his hold on the NDP party structures?)
2. Did Anesia actually want to ensure that Dr. Linton lost, but misjudged her effect on the race? (Did she think she would siphon votes from the Mitchell faction?)
3. Did Anesia’s Trini mentor, that mighty prophet of Thusia, take a break from molesting little girls in TnT and order her to enter the race?

Things that make you go hmmmmmmm. . .

RANDOM THOUGHT #3. “Come Mr. Tally Man, Tally Mi Bananas.”

The Ministry of Agriculture is a mess. It’s a joke. It’s a messy joke. Every year, we grow less stuff than we grew the year before, and the Ministry of Agriculture is looking more like the ministry of farmer’s welfare, because it seems to be doling out more and more money in emergency assistance to farmers than anything else.

Now, I get that Hurricane Tomas destroyed 99% of all banana cultivation in SVG (who was the lucky farmer with the 1% that survived? Was he growing bananas in a cave?), but the post-Tomas return of bananas could hardly have been less auspicious. Black Sigatoka, Leaf Spot Disease, failing to spray crops, buy spray for crops, etc. Only 66% of our bananas are good enough for export, and the standard is 85%. Things are bad.

You think cocoa cultivation is gonna change things? First off, anybody reading this blog should know that I am no fan of this cocoa initiative, and less so of Amajaro, the shadowy, exploitative conglomerate behind the move. But even if cocoa was a fantastic idea, is this the ministry you want implementing it? The gang that can’t shoot straight messed up the simple replanting of bananas, a crop we’ve grown for about a hundred years. You think they’ll be able to handle a BRAND NEW cash crop?

Now, the face of all this bumbling is the Minister of Agriculture, Montgomery “Carib” Daniel. ‘Gomery is a nice guy, affable, pleasant, and a farmer himself. But under him, the Ministry of Agriculture is sputtering. Its full of technocrats with fancy qualifications from fancy universities, but none of those technocrats have any dirt under their fingernails, let alone experience with SVG’s farming community. ‘Gomery has deferred to them at every turn, while they generate cool PowerPoint presentations and impressive 5-, 10-, and 20-year plans for agriculture. Never mind that none of the farmers in out agricultural belt are buying into these plans.

The inmates are running the asylum. When ‘Gomrey blamed faceless bureaucrats in his Ministry for screwing up the banana pest control, he was probably telling the truth. He’s given up so much of his authority to his underlings, he doesn’t understand why he should be getting blamed for their fuck-ups. But the buck gotta stop somewhere, and that somewhere is either his desk or Ralph’s.

For the sake of agriculture in SVG, ‘Gomrey should be reassigned. But for the sake of politics, he can’t be. First off, Gonsalves’ razor-thin margin of victory means that he doesn’t have many options in the cabinet to replace ‘Gomery. Saboto Caesar would be a solid choice, but Gonsalves likes his tourism ministers to be young, bald and handsome, and with Glen Beache’s retirement from politics, Saboto’s all he’s got (In a pinch, Gonsalves will also hand the Ministry of Tourism to a fat female lawyer with false hair, but Rene retired and Fife couldn’t win an election if she were running unopposed). Plus, moving from Tourism to Agriculture is a demotion in our economic/political context, and you can’t demote Saboto, the party’s heir-apparent.

Girlyn Miguel is from the party’s agricultural belt, and is a steady hand, but I for one can’t imagine ‘Gomery taking over Girlyn’s role as Education Minister. Swapping Girlyn for Gomery would trigger a major cabinet reshuffle that Gonsalves doesn’t seem to have an appetite for this early in his third term (Gonsalves himself would be a great agriculture minister – son of a farmer, constituency in the agricultural belt, likes to eat – but he can’t take on another ministry. And if he did, he’d be so busy that he’d leave the day-to-day matters to the same technocrats who’re screwing it up now).

Plus there’s one more issue. Up there in North Windward, agriculture’s all they’ve got. If Gomery loses the Minister of Agriculture gig, he loses a great deal of power and influence in that constituency, which is crucial to the ULP’s plans for staying in power past 2015.

I don’t see ‘Gomery going anywhere.

RANDOM THOUGHT #4. “Everything Old is New Again”

As I’m writing this, I’m reading that the St. Lucia Labour Party has roared back into power after only one term in opposition. I dunno the first thing about St. Lucian politics, so I won’t express an opinion on the ‘Lucian ramifications. But locally, I know that Ralph must think Christmas has come early, while Eustace, an economist, is probably grinding a few more layers of enamel off his teeth.

Kenny Anthony’s SLP couldn’t be more like Gonsalves’ ULP. They are two peas in the same ideological pod. Meanwhile, Stephenson King’s UWP was basically the St. Lucian branch of the NDP. I mean, the SWP was even founded by Mitchell’s cousin, John Compton! Eustace, an economist, crowed loudly about the SWP’s surprise victory over Kenny Anthony a few years ago, and called it a harbinger of the NDP’s impeding victory in SVG. Funny how things work out.

Meanwhile, Gonsalves must be giddy. A couple years ago, Gonsalves would’ve looked around the region and felt pretty lonely. In addition to Kenny Anthony, his buddy Patrick Manning was gone in TnT. Same for Owen Arthur in BIM. His sister party in Jamaica, the PNP, was out of office, and his friends in Antigua and St. Kitts were looking shaky.

Today, in the OECS, Gonsalves has a solid base of friends and like-minded leaders. To one degree or another, the governments of Dominica, St. Lucia, Antigua and St. Kitts are on the same left-of-center page as SVG (I dunno if Tillman Thomas in Grenada is clever enough to have an ideology – or a thought – of his own). Kamla is in real trouble in TnT, Bruce Golding quit as Prime Minister of Jamaica, and the untimely death of David Thompson has revived Owen Arthur’s moribund political career.

As the regional pendulum once again swings to the left, maybe we can make some progress with regional integration. If Jamaica’s JLP and Trinidad’s COP stay in power, CARICOM aint goin anywhere good. But with the Gonsalves-Skerrit-Anthony corridor now forming the backbone of the OECS, we may make some progress on that front.

RANDOM THOUGHT #5. “Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas”

I’m a Christmas sap. I play the carols all day. I’ve never missed a single morning of Nine Mornings in my life. I buy gifts months in advance and seconds before stores close on Christmas Eve. I love wrapping and unwrapping gifts. I (gasp!) make my annual, non-funeral, non-wedding trip to church. I actually believe in the whole peace on earth, goodwill to all men bit. And Santa. I believe in him too.

If you’re atheist or religious. If you’re apathetic or involved. If you believe in Buddah, Allah, Shiva, Shango, Selassie I, a Catholic God, a Baptist God, an Anglican God, a Methodist God, a 7^th Day God. Whether your God is a he or a she. Whether your God is loving, forgiving, or fire, brimstone and eternal judgement/damnation. Whether your God wants you to be rich or sees virtue in poverty. Whether you worship your God with idols, obeah, voodoo, in a church, in your house, by a river. Whether you pray daily, never, or only when you're in trouble. Whether there is such a thing as "Christmas" in your religion/lifestyle/culture/custom/tradition/history/consciousness.

Whether your God wears red stars or yellow keys.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD MONTH!