“I thank God, we have no free schools nor printing; and I hope we shall not have these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world; and printing has divulged them and libels against the government. God keep us from both.” (See Herbert Foerstel – 1999 – Freedom of Information and the Right to Know: The Origins and Applications of the Freedom of Information Act, Greenwood Press, London)
Not only has god not protected, Governor Berkeley, the 17th century ruler of Virginia who wrote these words, from learning and printing, but s/he has now insisted that governments must provide their entire populace with the “libellous” means. But the Governor’s rumination with his lords and commissioners and our own condition in Guyana are indicative both of the distance
