22nd September 2012
Beware The Deceitful!

If I were to be asked what quality I thought best describes the greatest leaders, past and present, my most likely answer would be ‘TRUTHFULNESS’. I would choose that of ‘truthfulness’ because I sincerely believe that the greatest leaders, inventors, scientists, explorers, teachers and parents who ever lived shared a distinguishing quality of truthfulness - and their continuous searching after it. It is a quality often lacking in modern man! Indeed, I would venture that a survey of the broad sweep of world history would reveal the dastardly quality at the root of mans’ travails is that of ‘deceit’. Deceit is the act or process of misleading or concealing the truth. Its adjective ‘deceitful’, refers to a person who continually or habitually practises deceit. Such a topic can hardly be properly discussed in isolation. It needs specific references and particular examples if one is to make sense of it. The chain which still shackles and enslaves our entire world is built on deceit – not truth.

A case in point is that of a particular caller to local talk shows who wilfully, (and habitually, one might add), sets himself up to inflict wrong, unscientific and bogus (deceitful) ‘Doxilian’ economics and miss-information upon the listening public. Too often, those armed with correct, proven information are too timid to reply. Or perhaps sensing the negative hostility which abounds choose silence instead. This leaves the blind or one-eye-hack to lead a nation which likes to boast its two Nobel Laureates. So, untutored politics and wilful deceit, trump sensible discussion and correct reasoning.

It is no longer merely courteous to listen to persons who have since November 2012 discovered value, in Value Added Tax (VAT). Suddenly, the deceitful sees VAT in light of job creation and more. It is therefore a credit to those who dare to correct such warped minds. A government which spends scarce tax dollars by frittering it away on persons or organizations that they believe support their politics is committing economic suicide of national proportions. Such recklessness is bound to lead a country ‘down the slippery slope to disaster’, to use a hackneyed phrase. At this time of writing examples abound in the Caribbean and the world.

The question is where would a caller who some recognise as having no acquaintance whatsoever with Economics acquire information. For answer, one would have to dismiss reading, and instead, choose gossip or loose talk or perhaps the deceitful tongue of certain politicians. To add to the confusion, others who express views which may be more properly categorised as ‘voodoo economics’ take centre stage with unbowed enthusiasm. These and their false prophets are to be roundly criticized for wilful deceit. We are therefore to congratulate the few objective and determined talk show hosts who draw the line between genuine miss-information, deceit and truthfulness. Sadly, many journalists do not meet the ‘congratulations’ barometer.

Callers who depend on political platforms for factual, un-polluted information are more miss-lead today than ever before. The effort by former politicians to ‘educate’ and ‘enlighten’ the masses seemed lost in time. Today’s politicians are increasingly interested in the art of manipulating information so that one is at a loss to pick truth from fiction and deceit. Saint Lucia is not unique in this! One only has to turn elsewhere in the Caribbean or to the US presidential election for proof. ‘Educating’ and ‘enlightening’ the masses has apparently been taken off the agenda and thrown into storm drains and lost forever.