We show you all the time, but so demented in rage you are that you don't even see it.

simply not true . . .

e.g., i ask Kari why he predicates a full line of 'reasoning' on a non sequitur . . . he doesn't even acknowledge or try to explain his (2nd attempt) obvious dodge, but proceeds to respond to me by fulminating about why and how he will not respond to me

crazy shit (also check bold, lol)

You are a whiner...glass is half full kind of guy. You will never see the brighter side that this is the most powerful moment to transition our society out of a 70 decades long racial stasis.

Pragmatism is not about whining that  you do not see this or that. It is a balance about the benefits to come given what you know. You know Constitution reforms is on the table, local government elections, procurement commission and a revised AML bill and all promised in the first 100 days. Then there is the forensic audit of NICIL, NBS, and grand pirate schemes like the Marriott, Berbice river bridge and complete overhaul of Amalia not to mention reform in our forestry sector.

These are monumental changes. Selling this is the key and returns on it is pure political gold. It is easy to grasp, it is sell able and it is real. People can get it digest it and react viscerally because it the immediacy of its impact is there.

Add to that the Coalition has an attentive audience. You worry about the minutia not the big picture.  But then again, that is your disposition. If you see caster oil and creme brulee you would take the caster oil  knowing for sure you need a cleansing vs thinking you need a tasty treat. The fact that there is nothing such as a cleansing will not even intervene to mediate your persistent your morose pessimistic disposition

While you are debating philosophy Kari is looking at the reality of Guyana.  He is saying that while many Indians no longer like the PPP, they aren't so uncomfortable that they will risk the return of the PNC.  Every one is aware that Nagamootoo may not keep the support which he won last time, given the reality of Guyana's ethnic paranoia. 

Indeed before Nagamootoo decided to enter into a coalition, he too was anxious about being perceived to being seen as being too close to the PNC.  Indeed the AFC just last year denied that it planned an alliance with the PNC, when the PPP was inciting this as part of its plan to spread racial panic.

Now if you have a different view of this than Kari does then you need to provide your evidence, rather than engaging in some nonsensical argument over definition. 

You have this habit of getting side tracked into nonsense.

Pragmatism is about analyzing reality and then developing strategies of dealing with it.  What you don't understand is that most people on this planet don't have the time or energy to be high minded. 

They do what they perceive to be in their best interests.  If they are reasonably satisfied they don't give two hoots about the larger picture.  So any one who wants their votes will have to come down to their level and display a better ability to deliver to these people that which they want better than the other guy.

And yes most Indians see the APNU AFC coalition as a risk, given their apprehensions of the PNC. 

And if APNU AFC wins, the PNC supporters will want to get their share that they perceive not to gave received.  Tensions can then develop with the AFC supporters, especially those (Indians) who don't trust the PNC to begin with.

So yes there is risk. 

Now does one do like you and scream that to make note of this is "whining"?  Or does some one take note of this and develop strategies to mitigate this risk? 

If you don't understand this, I am afraid that you are an idealistic liberal arts kid, not an adult who has developed some wisdom over the years.

Tell you what if APNU AFC doesn't win then NONE of things will get done.  So the coalition must win, and then it must remain sufficiently coordinated to actually do these things.

This isn't whining.  This is about being REAL!

How terribly interesting. I could have written this myself. One of our Caribj's not so infrequent moments of reason and insight.

This is basically all I've been trying to get across to you and others (albeit quite unsuccessfully it seems).

I understand you're trying to sell this Coalition and are perhaps constrained at the moment to concede that this is the return of one race domination to the Guyanese State system. The fact that the Coalition insists on not addressing Indian ethnic concerns about the distribution of power in the State apparatus tells me all I need to know. Instead of the racial stalemate being solved with a "just settlement" for the major races, it will be ended by a near total victory by one race over another. This is victory not a comprehensive peace with honor. The terms of defeat will be presented to us shortly. In the mean time we must watch this charade play out. Our mudheads vs. the PNC's chess players.

Is Moses outside, walking inside.

Jagadeo running out the back door.

ahhh yesss . . . the appeal to secure Indo-Guyanese "honor" in the face of cunning, ovewhelmingly powerful blackman; the inapposite buzzwords of war and annihilation . . .

and we still have nearly 2 months to go till elections

what is most revealing here is that, without skipping a beat, Shaitaan turns his own 'logic' on its head - describing the current dispensation as a "racial stalemate"

this is what happens to folks when the civilizing aspects of 1st World existence penetrate only skin deep

'make it existential' is the criminal regime's Hail Mary

these ideological racists and desperate PPP tiefman are abee creatures of the night on a rampage for the duration of this pre-election eclipse

Pragmatism is not validating a means to end schema.It is taking what works and using it because it is necessary to address the immediacy of a problem. Pretending you have the time to deliberate on the minutia in a short turn around as the present election is for nitpickers. Losing is not an option.

One takes the best of the message and deliver it for the benefit of winning. The message is the simple, general one. We have is a kleptocracy that survives on and aggravates racial tension. It is not ever going to change. The promised of change is on reforms beginning with general constitutional reforms, local government, procurement etc. Trying to examine the means one create institutional fences against racism, or pretending Indians in general will move on rational deliberations to APNU-AFC is pure nonsense. You address those supporters you know that will come because you have determined a win number and you know where you can cherry pick to achieve it.

This is campaigning not policy development. Indeed one must have the visage of an underlying profound layer but to say that is concretized and sell it as such is nonsense. It is about delivering a clear, understandable, credible and persistent messages to those who will vote and who will serve to get you over the top. The message will all converge on the idea of change and why not the minutia of why. If asked directly one of course must be able to answer in some coherent way because afterall, it is not build on air.

Also, I am a scientist not a liberal arts dilettante.  I also do not do anything half way so petty insults don't get to me. I merely makes me tell you in plainer terms what I think of you and  that you should know that  to this point . You are a whiner...nothing positive comes from you, no directive to solving any problem. What comes from you is what  you think others miss and how good you are at chiding them as if you are god with an omniscient view. When it comes down to any matter, again, you simply a whiner. When you tell me how you think one may achieve positive ends in positive ways I will say otherwise. It has never happened in our dozen or so years arguing over hundreds of issues.

I think the do well in not getting into the mud of race and racial appropriations of power. They must move away from that. Their message is that we picked the right person we have given the constraint. It is not on race but on competence. Race matters but difference to race in decision making suffocate efficacy to practical and reasonable ends. If there are race fears; the message is we will not feed them. Those are social pathologies to be addressed to be addressed but it cannot be addressed with superficial quotas.

A society settles its ethnic problems when the foundation is laid so all feel the presence of fairness in the system.  That will come with constitution reforms, decentralization, redistricting, etc so the government is always composed of people t hat are known for their works and are elected by local people who knows of their work. How that is created is not for the APNU or PPP. This is a contract between a people and entities that administrate their offices and t hey should be involved in the forging of it.

The difference between me and you is that I see our ethnic anxieties in two ways that you don't.

1.  Indians and the PPP are EQUALLY culpable as is the PNC and Africans/mixed.  You scream that only the PNC (and by implication Africans) are to blame.

2.  I try to see how these ethnic anxieties can be resolved.  I see Guyana is ONE nation with many different parts.  You see Guyana as a piece of real estate with 70% of the population (those who self identify as Indians or Africans) battling each other, ignoring the fact that BOTH groups will soon no longer dominate.

Guyana will rise when Guyanese understand that they need to empathize with the anxieties of BOTH major groups.  As you can see I am not deaf to the concerns of Indo Guyanese.  Pity that you completely refuse to acknowledge the concerns of Afro Guyanese, or the role that Indo Guyanese play in creating them.

Shaitaan lets compare the PPP with APNU AFC.

PPP selects a black woman who has no political experience and will bring no votes.  Her role will be like that of the First Lady...engaging in a few female empowerment programs and staying well away from issues of race.  Indeed she is likely to be that bourgeois Negro who Hinds refers to who will aways try to negate the fact of race, merely because she is lucky enough to be one of the few black tokens selected by the PPP, and so she doesn't care about the majority of blacks EXCLUDED.

APNU AFC.  The PM will be given a role is selecting appointees to a variety of committees, commissions, and state corporations, in addition to being responsible for designing the staffing and structure of the ministries.  He will be assigned two ministries which address Indian security concerns Agriculture (sugar and rice) and National Security (the issue of Indian under representation in the armed forces).  In addition the AFC is guaranteed 40% of the ministries, even though it will most likely not bring in more than 20% of the votes received by the coalition, and certainly no where near 40%, unless the PPP implodes.

The PM turns out to be an Indian who is quite popular among the grass roots Indian population, even if they are confused by what he is trying to do.

So we have.

1.  The PPP which remains an Indian party, assigning blacks to token roles, and making not the slightest acknowledgement of African/mixed ethnic anxieties.  The PPP feels that it can win by raising Indian anxieties about Africans, and clearly doesn't care how that impacts how Africans perceive them.

2.  APNU AFC which will represent an African alliance with Indian interests.  While this will be African dominated the Indians (Nagamootoo) will be assigned significant roles, and will also have the power to remove the Africans from power by merely exiting the coalition.  The AFC will have 12 seats. 

Given that the prospects of APNU winning 33 seats on its own are a zero probability (this will suggest that the PPP only wins 20 seats) then an AFC exit will trigger a constitutional crisis.

Now what power do Africans have over the PPP.

Shaitaan, try as you should to be a GUYANESE, in other words attempting to have empathy with BOTH the Indian and African security dilemma.  Because if you do you will see that in PRACTICAL terms the APNU AFC allows more scope for this than does the PPP.

But of course you as an Indo KKK will never see this, because you care only about spreading racial panic.

FACT.  APNU cannot and will NOT have the power that the PNC had, because there will be no tolerance for the blatant rigging which occurred in the Burnham years. 

Any change requires a 2/3 vote and so unless APNU and the PPP cooperate NONE of this will occur.  Has APNU made any mention of this?  I know that the PPP hasn't.

In the mean time Nagamootoo will have to educate his base on the fact that the agreement that the AFC has with APNU has embedded in it certain safeguards to reduce the incentive for APNU to go on a power drunk spree of ethnic revenge.  He can explain this more diplomatically of course, but that is the language which people in his base will have to hear. 

So yes there is risk, but then there are also factors which mitigate this risk, at least in the short term.  As Hinds says pretending as if ethnically based anxieties don't occur in Guyana with the 80% of the population which is  Indian/African and Afro oriented mixed is foolish.

Well maybe that is your problem as you don't know that humans don't work like machines and cannot be reduced to algorithms.

There is a risk which must be identified and acknowledged.  Once this is done there must be strategies to mitigate this risk, and then this must be communicated to people.

Humans act based on emotion, and the most powerful emotion is fear, especially in a society like Guyana where people see themselves as being powerless. And where they feel that they  lack an ability to defend themselves against powerful interests.  But yet feel very vulnerable to these forces. So they cling to the "tribe". 

True in 1992, when most Africans voted PNC and not WPA.  Will be true in 2015 when most Indians will vote PPP and not AFC....The trick is to woo enough to vote AFC and you don't do this by disrespecting them.  Because the PPP didn't need Africans to win. APNU AFC will have to have some Indians to win.

Sorry if you think that is whining.  Now go back to your computer programming but understand that we are dealing with humans.   You cannot program humans to do what you wish them to do.  They act on their own free will, and often quite irrationally when it is based on fear.  Just ask the impoverished souls of Mississippi why they voted for a man who damned most of them as "Takers".

I do not know that the human intellect is not reducible to mathematics. Actually, every thing we have done in science so far has been to take the mechanics of the mind and mirror it mathematically in machines. Who know...we may be on the right path. The eventuality may arise when those concentrations of algorithms  themselves spark a consciousness of its own. I do not know how it comes about but that is not impossible. There is nothing special about the mind except its complexity and mathematics is the thread of all complexities simplified so far.

We do not need lessons in psychology except they aid the messaging. That is to remove the PPP from office because of their entrenched corruption. Any messaging is to highlight that, offer change from it and propose in simple terms alternatives. The PPP has been so prodigious in their work at robbing us there are many areas to mine such messages. That is the aim of the campaign and its ends are to win. The minutia of government and governing will follow. It is the broad sweeping scopes of our problems and who caused them and that the Opposition will address them.

So here is a fact.  Whites in West Virginia are considerably poorer than those in Massachussetts. Yet they voted for Romney, who has no time for people who dependent on social supports provided by the Feds. 

Mass was one of the few states which went all blue in the last election.  Even liberal states like CA and NY were a fierce red once one looked at regions outside of the metro areas.

Now I invite a rational explanation for this behavior.  It is very applicable to Guyana. 

Most models would have predicted the opposite result, given that Mass whites pay high taxes and are relatively well off, while the opposite is true for those living in WV.

Marxists have a nice term for this . . . "False Consciousness"

caveat: as with so many (scientific?) things Marx, this concept falls apart under rigorous scrutiny . . . but let's roll with it here since it explains so much in the low-information context

GNI got sauce......

I man always wondered what kinda beat dem algorhythms have?