Protesters push back against ‘little prick’; Live Wire alarmed as tension boils over at QPS

On the eve of the Government’s scheduled launch of its Public Sector and Public Service Vaccination programme, protesters, led by Umar Abdullah of the First Wave Movement, took to the Queen’s Park Savannah in Port of Spain to, well, protest.

Mr Live Wire is not sure what is more ironic: that the ones to miss the Government’s vaccination deadline was, in fact, the Government; or that the local ‘anti-vaxx movement’—full of persons who claim to be more knowledgable about virology than the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the chief medical officer of virtually every country on the planet—could have missed the significance of that postponement.

Photo: WHO-approved jab? Hell no!
Jailhouse jab? Who’s asking?
(Copyright Rhianna McKenzie)

So just to be clear, you refuse to have any ‘unnatural ting’ stuck in your body, and to prove it you’re are ready to spend a night in a cell?

Dude, you ever watched Oz? They give mandatory jabs in jail too, you know, and wait till you hear about those side-effects!

Right on cue, by which we mean decidedly off-key, was Tanty Kamla, who issued a media release this evening condemning ‘the PNM’s use of tear gas against peaceful demonstrators’.

Really? You mean that was Lisa Morris-Julian in riot gear dragging a protester into the mobile holding cell?

The actions of the TTPS today, according to the UNC political leader, prove that ‘Keith Rowley has crossed the line into dictatorship territory’. Presumably, if Keithos did intervene and asked the police to stand down, he would then have been criticised for trying to commandeer law enforcement officers like a wanna-be gestapo.

Photo: UNC leader and Siparia MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar (centre, in jacket) appears without a mask during the run-up to the 10 August 2020 elections.
The UNC also believe Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley should be arrested for confessing to a ‘sip’ of alcohol in public recently.
(via UNC)

Mr Live Wire gets the distinct impression that KPB no longer even pretends to speak for people with joined-up handwriting. Her target audience is the people who know that they get all the information needed from the story headline—literally judging the book by its cover.

With a startling vacuum of reasonable voices, no wonder Abdullah could get so many people to brave arrest on a cool Sunday afternoon. Naming his group ‘First Wave Movement’ won’t hurt either. It sounded like the opening act for a rapso jam session at The Yard.

Today, Abdullah said, marked the start of the ‘Push Back’ protest, which sounded titillatingly close to a cooler fete with ladies free before 10.

Mr Live Wire believes ‘No Pricks Posse’ would be more apt for Abdullah’s army. The ‘No’, obviously, is silent.

At this point, it appears inevitable that Trinidad and Tobago will not tackle Covid-19 as a collective unit. The national anthem says ‘we pledge our lives to thee’—one of three times that ‘we’ is referenced—but social media is teeming with ‘I and I’ and ‘who want to vaccinate, dais allyuh’.

Photo: Protester Akeila Bermudez poses for a snap in the VIP section of the ‘Push Back’ protest at the Queen’s Park Savannah on 16 January 2022.

The Government has not helped much. When your communication strategy focuses on answering almost everything but the public’s queries, doubts grow.

And when the Prime Minister says Faris Al-Rawi is the solution, it is reasonable to ask what the hell he thought the question was. Mr Live Wire has reason to suspect Faris would not be among the top two most efficient people in any gathering in the country—even if he was the only man in the room!

Yet, surely the most important bit of information today is that available data from global health experts (certainly the ones entrusted with our health and safety) suggest that the best chance of avoiding hospitalisation and death is by being vaccinated.

And the sooner everyone gets the jab, the better chance we all have of preventing new mutations and relegating the novel coronavirus to the status of the flu.

If that were not true, neither David Abdulah nor Ancel Roget would be vaccinated.

Following on that logic, Abdulah and Roget have a civic responsibility to encourage their members to seek the same protection that they did when they rolled up their sleeves.

Photo: JTUM leader Ancel Roget.

Some 4.7 billion people worldwide have already taken the vaccine. A little prick can keep the world turning for all of us—so don’t play shy.

Covid-19 will not respect your personal space. Nor will ‘no-neck Curtis’ in Cell Block E.

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About Mr. Live Wire

Mr. Live Wire is an avid news reader who translates media reports for persons who can handle the truth. And satire. Unlike Jack Nicholson, he rarely yells.

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4 comments

  1. Stupidity kills, Mr LIve Wire. Clearly, it’s okay for others to die, as long as is not ‘me’, ent?

  2. Same folks who went out there yesterday to protest vaccines will call in sick anytime ah lil drizzle fall.

  3. Indra Ramsingh-Geoffroy

    Excellent commentary

  4. Eh-eh! Jack Warner keep he promise or what? When you make a jail?

    It look like you have plenty info about what does go on behind bars!

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