9/19/2008 5:08:00 PM PLP is more in tune with the Republicans
Larry Burchall
If Bermuda's politics and parties were compared to the U.S.A.'s Republican and Democratic parties, where would today's PLP be? I'm sure that not even God, with all his wisdom, knows where today's UBP is; so I confess that I cannot deal with the UBP.
From 1963 - 1973, the 'old' UBP and a majority of Bermudians - Bermuda's national voting patterns confirms it - treated the PLP as if it was a party one step away from being Communist; two steps from being an incarnation of a black supremacist group; and three steps away from being 'political crazies'.
Fast forward to 1998. The PLP that wrested control from the UBP was a different entity. It was a party of pragmatists who sought control of the machinery of government, not for any deep philosophical reason as had been the case in that earlier time; but because control of government was the next step in the continuing advancement of the common interests of black Bermudians. So 1998 saw a changed PLP.
The change was from a party made up of a few intellectuals and a mass of working class followers; to a party made up of independent professionals, senior and middle-level civil servants, senior and middle-level private sector managers, and a large number of entrepreneurs and asset-rich property owners.
This 1998 PLP was a party of capitalists who had as much abhorrence for socialism as had that old UBP. By 1998, the PLP had definitely gone upscale, had shot well above its early roots, but was still a 98 per cent black political party.
In 2008, with only a token white presence, this governing PLP remains a 90 per cent black party.
So if the PLP is compared to the party of McCain and his chick, or Obama and his man - where would today's PLP stand? Would our Brown stand with the candidate who is as brown as he is? Or would he stand with the 'old white guy' - who, in today's Bermuda, some might see as a U.S. reincarnation of Bermuda's old oligarchy?
Any outsider observing those thousands of mostly black Bermudians massing and marching on Parliament, might have thought that those thousands of angry union members were marching against a deeply conservative anti-union governing party. But the party now in power is the PLP whose ancient roots are in the soil of Bermuda's labour movement - a movement that was once massively black.
The massing of thousands of civil servants, policemen, and government industrial workers reminded me of the union-busting brawl between the U.S.A.'s Air Traffic Controllers and the U.S.A.'s arch-Republican, President Ronald Reagan.
In U.S. politics, the Republicans are the party for 'big business', the arch proponents of free enterprise, of minimum government involvement, against affirmative action, not pro-union.
Under Bill Clinton - but not under the GOP's triad of Reagan and two Bushes - U.S. Democrats made great strides in spreading government business around all Americans, and especially black Americans. Except for a long-delayed initiative to jumpstart some retail operations 'back-o-town', today's PLP governing party has no record of similarly advancing the interests of black business.
With the two candidates constant tweaking of their campaign promises; given the frequent emphasizing and re-emphasizing of re-worded promises and positions; and after all that I've pointed out - and more besides - I keep coming back to one conclusion.
Barack Obama and Dr. Ewart Brown do share skin colours and primary cultures. However, their political values as expressed through their political actions may be as different as white and black.
Closer to the bone, and much closer to home and to Bermuda's culture, PLP Leader Dr Brown may be closer - in actions and values - to England's Iron Lady, thus McCain, than to Bermuda's Browne Dame.
In all, I reckon that today's governing PLP is more in tune, philosophically and economically, with McCain and McChick than with Obama and Biden.
PS: My head says that McCain and McChick win may be in Bermuda's best interests; but my heart says Obama and his man are best for me and the world.]
