Have you noticed St. Kitts' latest political tactic?
It is to encourage people to wear something yellow; whether at work, at functions, or at play, something yellow, please.
The effort includes a newspaper campaign which shows a full page of nothing but yellow, with the message "Show Your Colour".
The objective is to subliminally and otherwise get people to dress and act as if yellow is their natural colour, even like a second skin.
PAM want to institutionalize and popularize the colour yellow. They want to "yellow up" the nation, inside and out.
With this in mind, I can only imagine how happy they were when they saw the Maurice Hillier School Parade in Basseterre last week, although I do not want to presume that the choice of colour was in any way politically predetermined.
Make no mistake, however, this "Show Your Colour" campaign comes straight out of the Communist Play Book, and is, at the same time, vintage PAM.
The late Billy Herbert, PAM's founder, would be proud of it, zealous student of Communist propaganda tactics that he was.
I remember hearing him say many years ago:
"Politics has nothing to do with the truth. In politics, you tell people what you want them to believe. And you must keep telling them, because sooner or later, they will be stupid enough to believe it".
But Billy is not the only person who would be proud of the "Show Your Colour" campaign. PAM's mini-version of Italy's infamous dictator Benito Mussolini is also proud of it.
You can call him PAM Benito.
"PAM Benito" radiated glee when he spoke of it at the Robert L. Bradshaw Airport a couple of weeks ago when he and Billy's relative went there to meet two visitors who have been advising PAM on this and other Communist propaganda tactics.
Would you like to know another little tactic that they are using? They are trying to put The Democrat newspaper in more conspicuous locations than The Labour Spokesman and, indeed, other publications, in the supermarkets and drugstores etc around the island.
Go and see for yourself.
No question about it, the PAM politburo members are working overtime to conquer the minds of the people of this country. Not to open the minds, but to conquer the minds. And by any means whatsoever.
They are desperate to win the next election, feeling that if they don't, PAM as we know it would collapse, and PAM Benito will be exiled to a chicken farm in Western St. Kitts or in Rhode Island, USA.
There is already a lot of pressure on PAM Benito, as is evidenced by the fact that a number of his Party's pundits have been calling for his removal, claiming that he is unfit for leadership.
And he has threatened to resign several times when pressured from within.
So now the pundits are hoping that he will threaten to resign one more time. When he does, their plan is to force him to follow through on his threat.
Let me now tell you a little bit about the real Benito Mussolini. He was Italian. He was almost a dwarf in height. The founder of Fascism, he established in Italy a ruthless totalitarian government and a police state. He was a political opportunist, devoid of any conviction - A dictator and a despot of the worst order, wiping out the media and any political opposition.
He sided with the notorious Adolf Hitler during World War 2, and together they suffered severe military defeats, and caused genocidal loss of life and widespread destruction throughout Europe and elsewhere.
One of Benito Mussolini's worst defeats came in Ethiopia where he had sent troops for purposes of conquest.
And, interestingly, as he got his backside kicked in Ethiopia, so too will PAM Benito learn his hard lesson from the Ethiopians of St. Kitts & Nevis, more and more of who are spotting him for what he is, each and every day.
Indeed, by the look of things he is likely to get his marching papers from PAM Ethiopians before any of the other St. Kitts Ethiopians can do so.
The "Show Your Colour" campaign is, therefore, part and parcel of the effort by PAM to take control of the minds and the behaviour of the people of this nation, particularly the younger ones.
And so keen and cynical are PAM Benito and his gang to carry out their mission that they even tried last week to get a full-page advertisement in, yes you guessed it, The Labour Spokesman!
Imagine this piece of PAM propaganda being published in The Labour Spokesman. Imagine it taking up a full page.
Can't you see the glee on the faces of PAM Benito and his gang?
Now, you ask, how would the PAM advertisement have gotten into The Labour Spokesman?
Truth is, it wouldn't have, but here's how the effort was made.
There is this fat fellow who you can call "Odd Job".
Odd Job wants to be into everything and everybody's business, including basketball, football, Village-O-Rama, the PAM Executive, De Vybes, Rachel Price, etc., etc.
Allegedly he went to Masses House and said that he wanted to place an advertisement in The Labour Spokesman on behalf of a client in Nevis; a client whom he would not name, and for whom he would not give a billing address.
What was the advertisement?
A full-page with a blank space coloured in yellow, with just three words on it: "Show Your Colour".
I think that it is time that somebody had a chat with Odd Job.
Going to the mecca of workers in this country, Masses House, and taking such liberties, with the intention of using, abusing and embarrassing The Labour Spokesman, The Labour Union, The Labour Party and the Labour Government of this nation was quite foolish.
It's not to say that Odd Job is any kind of genius or hero. Nothing of the sort.
It's just that he, like his friend, PAM Benito, believes that he can take liberties and get away with it.
Well, he cannot, and he will have to behave himself.
Of course, in his boyish zeal and hollow bravado, Odd Job also unwittingly revealed helpful information to us. And for that we are happy.
We are also thankful for the fact that while at Masses House, Odd Job didn't have a hunger pang, because if he did, and given his elephantine appetite, he might have eaten up our very cute secretary, Keisha Farrell, and, looking for "seconds", his attention might have then turned to our not-so-cute editor, Dawud Byron.
I hate to sound morbid, Folks, but the thought of Odd Job eating up Dawud is kind of funny.
I know for sure that if Odd Job had tried to eat up our Lucina Byron, she would have kicked his ravenous backside all over the place.
Just imagine Odd Job waddling frantically up Church Street towards his Party's Secretariat, looking for PAM Benito to give him cover, with the raging, rampaging Lucina in hot pursuit.
I can see it now! A Kodak moment for sure!
Imagine a little more. Imagine him, as he hustles into the door of the PAM Secretariat, bumping into his PAM Benito, who, as we know, is not a large person.
Poor PAM Benito would have been scattered all over the place.
It could have been serious enough to warrant an emergency meeting of the PAM Royal Family, and a glorious opportunity for the PAM pundits to make the changes that they really want to make before the next election.
Meanwhile, as a result of the trauma suffered from being chased by Lucina, and the collision with PAM Benito, poor Odd Job could have found himself with a lot more than just the wind knocked out of him.
That could have been awful messy. So the Fire Department might have had to be called in to hose down the PAM Secretariat.
The exertion might have even caused Odd Job, given his gargantuan mass, to suffer a heart attack, God forbid.
I can't help but wonder how PAM's genius propagandist, Selwyn Liburd, might have spun the story for the media.
Would he have said that the whole thing was a heinous attempt by the Labour Government to terrorize Odd Job into soiling himself and getting a heart attack, plus knocking down PAM Benito and killing him, with the murder weapon being Odd Job himself, running for dear life to escape the rampaging and deadly Lucina Byron?
But let's get serious again here.
This "Show Your Colour" thing has grave implications. It is particularly aimed at young people. And we know what's going on with young people and colours.
The deadly Cripps(blue) and Bloods(red) gangs which took root in the USA some thirty years ago seem to have infiltrated our little St. Kitts & Nevis. In addition, there are still other "colours" to deal with such as the black shirts, the white shirts, etc.
And for a society already under siege from polarization and gangsterization, it seems that this "Show Your Colour" campaign by PAM serves only to make things worse.
But it may be that PAM Benito, Odd Job and the rest care too much about that. It seems that they have come to a callous and cynical decision and have decided to exploit the situation.
In other words, what we are seeing from PAM is the gangsterization of politics.
They may well be saying that if anything goes wrong, they will blame Labour anyway.
Now, we politicians are partly responsible for this polarization in our society. We need to mend our ways and to take the lead in healing the nation.
We must be instruments of regeneration, not degeneration.
And those of us, whether PAM or Labour, who want to be part of the problem rather than being part of the solution, who want to be Mussolinis with colleagues, with Party and with our nation, and who want to foment polarization and gangsterism, need to be unceremoniously kicked onto the dump heap of history.
And now is a good time to do that.
In addition, I am hoping that coming up to the next elections, the usual paraphernalia, gimmicks and other potentially divisive and dangerous things and practices would be at last put behind us, so that politicians and parties will be forced to address the people on the issues, without any props, gimmicks or unnecessary theatrics and hysterics.
But from the look of things, PAM Benito, Odd Job and their yellow gang have other intentions.
I call on you, the people of this nation, to ensure that neither PAM Benito nor any other politician or political party is allowed to close and conquer your minds. Don't fall. Stand tall. And reject all those who wish to disrespect, divide and destroy you.
Until Next Time,
Plenty Peace.
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