Maragh, Manley An Idiot: Shut Up Already With The Calls For An Apology..

The Political sil­ly sea­son is upon us , not just in the great big USA but in our lit­tle Island Jamaica as well.
Already sharp Political elbows are being thrown, not just in great big neigh­bor in the north but the fledg­ling lit­tle democ­ra­cy to the south many of us call “yaad”.
Donald Trump The American Republican front-run­ner is seem­ing­ly invin­ci­ble, no mat­ter whom he diss­es , and diss he has.
Megan Kelly, Mexicans, Immigrants, Women, Blacks, Muslims, the dis­abled, all his oppo­nents, and any­one who cri­tique him, Never mind those who dare crit­i­cize the Donald.
Trump seem to be coat­ed in Teflon , no mat­ter what he does no one seem to care, his star ris­es all the same. One of the themes com­ing out of the Republican camp this sil­ly sea­son is that peo­ple are tired of polit­i­cal correctness .
The ever sleep deprived look­ing Dr. Ben Carson has gone as far as to sug­gest that polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness will be the death of us all. The good Doctor has­n’t yet got­ten around to explain­ing just how that would come about but I’m sure if he can stay awake long enough he will get around to telling us.

Ironically as the Republicans demand that they be allowed to say what they want America’s tiny neigh­bor to the South seem to be going the oppo­site direction.
Media Houses are intim­i­dat­ed and afraid to crit­i­cize the Portia Simpson Miller Administration which has stum­bled from one cor­rup­tion and graft scan­dal to another .
In fact the Courts from all appear­ances are a rub­ber-stamp to the People’s National Party’s agenda.
The Courts are par­ty to the admin­is­tra­tion’s agen­da which cre­at­ed a chill­ing atmos­phere on the free speech rights of Jamaicans to speak with­out fear of being hauled before the courts and ordered to pay what they don’t have for libel and slander.
Cliff Hughes a Journalist found out the hard way that even as a Journalist you can’t say what you wish in Jamaica, or at least you can’t say any­thing about the PNP or Percival Patterson the Islands sec­ond worst prime Minister.
Hughes was ordered to pay Patterson huge sums of mon­ey for an incon­se­quen­tial sto­ry which would have been laughed at in coun­tries where the law ruled and not men.
Patterson was not able to show how he was hurt by the non-sto­ry , nev­er­the­less the courts award­ed him a huge sum cour­tesy of Hughes.
In Jamaica the Political class is above crit­i­cism. You either pay what you don’t have or you get a bul­let, or both

I’m unsure whether the media hous­es are more ter­ri­fied of the courts or the real­i­ty they may be invad­ed by orange clad thugs , dragged into the streets and killed if they dare crit­i­cize the Administration in Kingston.
Obviously Jamaica Labor Party Councilor Winston Maragh haven’t yet received the memo.
Speaking at a mass JLP Rally in Lionel Town in Clarendon Maragh made the fatal error of crit­i­ciz­ing Michael Manley, a for­mer PNP prime Minister.
Maragh labeled Manley an “idiot” for the harm he did to the econ­o­my dur­ing the 70’s PNP Administration.
Manley who destroyed the Island’s econ­o­my between 1972 and 1980 was thrown out of office in 1980 but was returned to pow­er in 1988. Many believed it was dur­ing Manley’s last time at the helm that he deliv­ered the coup ‑de grace or the death knell to the economy.
Personally I believe the Percival Patterson stew­ard­ship was the most inher­ent­ly cor­rupt in the his­to­ry of Jamaica, but back to the story.
The back­lash was swift ‚the People’s National Party Secretariat, the PNP Women’s Movement and the PNP Youth Organisation (PNPYO) all demand­ed that Maragh apologize .
They also want the polit­i­cal Ombudsman to inves­ti­gate Maragh for call­ing the late Prime Minister an idiot.

I HAD TO LAUGH.

In it’s release the groups said Quote.
Michael Manley is a hero to mil­lions of Jamaicans and it is an insult to us all to hear this degrad­ing and dis­mis­sive ref­er­ence to a man who has put Jamaica on the polit­i­cal world map, who spear­head­ed the fight against Apartheid in South Africa, and who was instru­men­tal in chang­ing how Jamaica, the Caribbean and the rest of the devel­op­ing world was viewed,”.
Okay you peo­ple real­ly need to get over the idol wor­ship . Michael Manley was no hero except to you half-baked cur­ry goat social­ist. By the last cen­sus esti­mates I believe that the Island’s pop­u­la­tion is up to around 2.7 mil­lion so if you are say­ing all Jamaicans believe Michael Manley is a hero, it sim­ply high­light the depth of the stu­por you are in .

I have a feel­ing though that the argu­ment will be that you are speak­ing of Jamaicans at home and abroad .
Well most of the peo­ple who left Jamaica did so because they refused to con­tin­ue to live in pover­ty brought on by a failed ide­ol­o­gy long dis­card­ed by even the most rigid Communist states.
On that basis I hard­ly believe that argu­ment has any weight.
Did Michael Manley have good ideas yes.
Is Manley a hero ?
Hell no .
There is a com­mon strat­e­gy of obfus­ca­tion used by many of the old guard pseu­do social­ist that are left over from the cold war era. They con­vince them­selves and try to con­vince oth­ers that the Manley’s mytho­log­i­cal worth to Jamaica and the Caribbean Region is such that the aver­age Jamaican and the aver­age CARICOM cit­i­zen is unable to grasp it intellectually .
What utter arro­gance and total nonsense’.

Mister Manley had ter­rif­ic ideas, Project Land Lease, Housing Trust, Equal pay for women, Jamal, No bas­tard chil­dren to name a few. One of the things which made me proud to be Jamaican was Manley’s unflinch­ing fight against the apartheid sys­tem in Southern Africa and around the globe.
His lead­er­ship toward that end was exem­plary and unquestionable.
Conversely Mister Manley’s inabil­i­ty to dis­cern when not to fight and who not to fight with wrecked the Jamaican economy .
His reck­less ‚total­i­tar­i­an rhetoric ‘those who do not agree with him should board one of the five flights per day to Miami wrecked the pro­duc­tive sec­tor and cre­at­ed a brain-drain which has­n’t sub­sided since.
He goad­ed the pro­duc­tive sec­tor to leave and they did just that and they left with their money.
His brig­ands entered Police sta­tions and removed pris­on­ers from police cus­tody and the police were pow­er­less to lift a fin­ger to stop it. Under Michael Manley’s régime know cop-killers were shut­tled out of the coun­try to Cuba and even­tu­al­ly to Canada and oth­er countries .
Manley brought the once bea­con of demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples in the Caribbean to a total­i­tar­i­an state dur­ing the 70’s when he locked up a large part of the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion under trumped up charges.
Michael Manley will for­ev­er be remem­bered for bring­ing our coun­try as we knew it to the brink of chaos and collapse.
The free­ness men­tal­i­ty which char­ac­ter­ized Manley’s lega­cy has had dis­as­trous con­se­quences which the Island has nev­er recov­ered from .
The cumu­la­tive destruc­tion the Manley reign had on Jamaica may nev­er be total­ly known in terms of dol­lars and cents .
What we do know is that with­out equiv­o­ca­tion Michael Manley made a mess of Jamaica.
Those who deny it, unwit­ting­ly dis­qual­i­fy them­selves as seri­ous par­tic­i­pants to this debate.
At least Michael Manley apol­o­gized for his antics .
It’s time those who wor­ship at the altar of the Manley name come to terms with reality.