Poor people and food subsidies

THE EDITOR: It appears that covid19 will be with us for a few more years and all the attendant fallout will continue. The poor in our country will get poorer and poorer and will descend into starvation where life for the impoverished in TT will become nasty, brutish, poorer and short.

This predicament for the impoverished and destitute will lead to massive increases in criminal activities against the “property and well-to-do class” of the country so that the starving poor can eke out their existence in their lives of misery.

Thus I call upon the Government to immediately commence taxing (heavily) the capitalists in our country who are directly and indirectly in control of the escalating prices of the poor people’s foods in order to prevent the poor from turning against them violently in their attempt to survive.

The Government must, by whatever means, subsidise the following:

Poor people’s basic foods

Flour, rice, all legumes (dhal, channa, red beans, black-eyed peas, lentils, pigeon peas) Irish potatoes, all ground provisions, salt fish, smoked herrings, tinned sardines, corned beef, frozen chicken, onions, garlic, salt, cooking oil (more so coconut oil), eggs and cooking gas. The capitalists will still rake in their millions but the Government must “pay up” in order to obtain poor people’s votes.

Another solution to save the poor

Massive revamping of agriculture. However, if the Government is unable to assist the farmers in eradicating the African snails which are destroying their crops, I do not expect agriculture to be revamped. So let’s continue to import all our foods – poor people and rich people foods.

If “things” continue along the present path, we all know that Dr Keith Christopher Rowley will lose the next general election and another pro-capitalist will become prime minister by default. And rest assured that “things” will remain the same for the poor and destitute and the rich.

The poor we will always have with us and I predict that the middle class as a group will just disappear and what will remain will be the poor/impoverished and the rich.

South Africa is a good example and this is despite Desmond Tutu’s and the great Nelson Mandela’s efforts to feed the poor and impoverished of that potentially great country. Why? The capitalists are still in charge of food, shelter, health and education.

You see, people, all animals are equal but some are more equal than others

And incidentally, the poor will not inherit the earth but when they die they will ascend into Heaven. So the sooner covid19 takes them, they will be in a better place. God is telling the poor and the destitute: if you are burdened and weary it is time you come home to Me but in order to live in My mansion you must first die. Thus I have sent you a virus called covid19 which will assist you in your quest to get to Heaven.

Yes, God is a Trini and He would not lie to us. He really loves us. We have thousands of poor and impoverished people in this country and God wants to relieve them of their predicament so they must not allow the “evil ones” to convince them to take the vaccine to ward off covid19 and continue to live in misery and poverty.

My poor people, please die quickly so that you can get into God’s mansion in Heaven or if you believe in reincarnation you can be reborn into a better life – like a hummingbird feeding on nectar every day right here in our loving country because Trinidad is the Land of the Hummingbird.

ISRAEL B RAJAH-KHAN SC

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