Addressing a large crowd in Junction, South East St Elizabeth Thursday night, JLP shad­ow min­is­ter of finance Audley Shaw said the People’s National Party (PNP) has been get­ting a free pass from the media while pro­pos­als of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) are being sub­ject­ed to rig­or­ous examination.
“I was on an inter­view last night. I said that we can cre­ate 250,000 new jobs in Jamaica. Dem a ques­tion me, how yuh gwine do it. Which sec­tors yuh gwine get it out of,” “When Peter Phillips say him was going to cre­ate 100,000 jobs nobody don’t ask him nut­tin,” . “We are going to trans­form the same Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) … PNP say dem can cre­ate 30,000 … 40,000 jobs, Labour Party say we can cre­ate 75,000 jobs in Business Process Outsourcing,”. “If we can cre­ate near­ly 100,000 jobs in that, we nuh can cre­ate 250,000 in every­thing else? Manufacturing, agri­cul­ture, every­thing else”.

I a am lit­tle dis­s­a­point­ed that Audley Shaw would be talk­ing about Government cre­at­ing jobs. Audley you are try­ing to get back into Gordon House as Minister of Finance. Your argu­ments sounds eeri­ly like a social­ist sell­ing a snake oil mes­sage of Government expansion.
A mar­ket econ­o­my in Jamaica depends on..
(1) Empowering, equip­ping, and pay­ing police.
(2) Crime is reduced.
(3)Eliminate graft, cor­rup­tion and bureaucracy.
(4) Lower taxes.
(5) Investors return with real pri­vate sec­tor jobs.
(6) As investors return keep low­er­ing tax­es but widen­ing the tax net which spur more eco­nom­ic growth.

That is how you cre­ate real jobs in a mar­ket economy.
The method­ol­o­gy Audley Shaw artic­u­lat­ed is exact­ly the way Peter Phillips and the PNP goes about cre­at­ing jobs. That method may pro­duce a few jobs for a while which ulti­mate­ly are not sus­tain­able. You can­not build a sky-scraper with­out a foun­da­tion. With the small­est tremor that build­ing comes crash­ing down.
There is no won­der when a slight wind blows hun­dreds of work­ers are laid off from their jobs in Jamaica because of this kind of thinking.
Unfortunately Shaw seem to have accept­ed that path as a viable path to sus­tain­able job cre­ation which it isn’t.
Neither Government nor the pri­vate sec­tor can cre­ate growth in a chaot­ic soci­ety plagued with bureau­crat­ic incom­pe­tence , high crime, high tax rates, Government cor­rup­tion, and over­all chaos.
I under­stand the ever present lure to appeal to pan­der to the most base desires of vot­ers around elec­tion time. However what the JLP can least afford is to be “PNP-lite”.
Jamaicans know what the PNP is about.
The JLP must be what the JLP always stood for, which is prin­ci­pled eco­nom­ic man­age­ment begin­ning with low crime, which inspires investor confidence.
Eventually Jamaicans will grow tired of the non­sense and show the PNP the door.
When will it happen?
That’s above my pay grade.

The fun­da­men­tal ques­tion which faces the Jamaican elec­torate this time like almost every oth­er elec­tion cycle is whether to go with the Long term mar­ket dri­ven strat­e­gy offered by the Jamaica labor Party .
Or whether to stay with the People’s National Party’s which offers small pork-bar­rel solu­tions which are great at vote get­ting but has dis­as­trous con­se­quences for the econ­o­my in the long run.

Leading up to the elec­tions of 2011 there was no IMF agree­ment in place, the Labor Party refused to accept a deal which would break the back of the aver­age Jamaican. Agreeing to a deal would see mon­ey com­ing into the coun­try but with dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences to work­ing people.
There is no ques­tion as to what might have occurred had the JLP signed a deal the IMF pre­sent­ed to Audley Shaw and company.
We have seen the con­se­quences. ♦ Massive depre­ci­a­tion of the local cur­ren­cy ♦ Massive Price Increases♦ Shortages and cut-backs of goods and ser­vices in the pub­lic sec­tor♦ and Lay-offs♦
Those are just a few of the direct con­se­quences of accept­ing IMF mon­ey. Of course there are the indi­rect con­se­quences as well ♦ Escalating crime ♦ dete­ri­o­rat­ing infra­struc­ture and a gen­er­al sense of malaise, unease and mis­ery among the population.

It’s impor­tant that Andrew Holness and the JLP tell the Jamaican peo­ple whether the par­ty will con­tin­ue with the IMF agree­ment and nego­ti­ate a new agree­ment in the near future if the par­ty is elect­ed to office.
The JLP must also explain where the fund­ing will come from to pro­vide Government ser­vices and main­tain the Island’s oblig­a­tions as it relates to debt ser­vic­ing, if it choos­es not to enter into an agree­ment with the fund.

Speaking to the Nation in a live broad­cast, Opposition Leader Andrew Holness out­lined a 10 point plan which he argues will grow the econ­o­my and pro­vide real jobs.
SEE PLAN HERE: Holness offers 10-point plan for growth and job creation

Here’s the rub however.
The Opposition leader him­self stat­ed that the rea­son the Prime Minister set elec­tions for February 25^th of this year is to off­set the neg­a­tive effects of the upcom­ing bud­get. I believe there is much truth to that but more than that is the lit­tle issue of recent polling data which we are told has the gov­ern­ing par­ty with a 4 per­cent­age point lead over it’s rival JLP.
A poten­tial JLP Administration invari­ably will have to deal with the fall­out which emanate from the next bud­getary dic­tates of the IMF which are sure to have neg­a­tive con­se­quences for the aver­age Jamaican.
Holness and the JLP will poten­tial­ly have to lay off work­ers and cut ser­vices as the PNP will also be forced to do. A new PNP Administration will not have to fear a back­lash from lay­offs, and ser­vice cut-backs. A new man­date insu­lates the par­ty from that . They will also have five years in which to cur­ry favor with the voters.
Not so for an incom­ing JLP Administration which will imme­di­ate­ly be pil­lo­ried and labelled “heart­less” for lay­ing off strug­gling work­ers as soon as it acquires office.
Can’t win for losing.….….….….….…..

As divi­sive and dan­ger­ous as the Republican field of pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates are, the most vir­u­lent­ly divi­sive , dan­ger­ous and dis­re­spect­ful is the Hispanic Marco Rubio(R‑Fla)>
Just recent­ly Former Florida Jed Bush blast­ed Rubio as hav­ing accom­plished noth­ing except for his per­son­al agen­da. It may be argued that those are com­ments from a rival who is strug­gling for trac­tion. That would be a legit­i­mate state­ment to make but it does­n’t make the state­ment any less true.
Former Pennsylvania Senator and peren­ni­al pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Rick Santorum who on Thursday dropped out of the 2016 race and endorsed Rubio could not name any­thing Rubio had accom­plished leg­isla­tive­ly when pressed by Joe Scarborough.
New Jersey Governor and fel­low can­di­date Chis Christie blast­ed Rubio label­ing him “the boy in the bub­ble’ who is script­ed and says what his han­dlers want him to say with­out respond­ing substantively.

Set aside the obvi­ous dis­dain Rubio’s con­tem­po­raries have for him. Rubio has man­aged to be ultra dis­re­spect­ful to President Barack Obama over and above what is expect­ed from dif­fer­ences over pol­i­cy directions.
His com­ments regard­ing the President has been some of the most caus­tic and deroga­to­ry than many who are opposed to the pres­i­dent on racial grounds.
Marco Rubio who arrived on the National stage with T‑Party sup­port, brings the same ran­cid dem­a­goguery Sarah Palin T‑Party dar­ling and oth­er right-wink kooks bring.
Nothing seem to be out of the realm of what Rubio won’t say about the president.
It was how­ev­er a huge sur­prise when Marco Rubio stat­ed that “President Obama has no class”.
President Obama now on the last quar­ter of his sec­ond term has had a scan­dal-free Presidency, some­thing no President in recent his­to­ry except Jimmy Carter can lay claim to.
President Obama and his fam­i­ly have been a mod­el of” class, dig­ni­ty and deco­rum” . No President in American his­to­ry have upheld the dig­ni­ty of the Presidency to a greater extent than Barack Hussein Obama has.
Those are crit­i­cal val­ues the inso­lent lit­tle boy in the bub­ble would be well advised to learn.

Rubio who gen­er­al­ly sport a ridicu­lous grin can eas­i­ly fool a crowd regard­ing his dis­re­spect­ful and arro­gant nature.
In a vis­it to the Islamic Society of Baltimore, his first to a mosque in the United States as pres­i­dent, Mr. Obama recit­ed phras­es from the Quran and praised American Muslims as a cru­cial part of America’s his­to­ry and vital to the nation’s future. The President’s vis­it was viewed as a push-back against recent anti-Muslim rhetoric large­ly com­ing from the polit­i­cal right.
Ever the oppor­tunist Marco Rubio was quick to assail the President while speak­ing to FOX mis­in­for­ma­tion quote”

It’s not about clos­ing down mosques. It’s about clos­ing down any place — whether it’s a café, a din­er, an inter­net site — any place where rad­i­cals are being inspired. The big­ger prob­lem we have is our inabil­i­ty to find out where these places are, because we’ve crip­pled our intel­li­gence pro­grams, both through unau­tho­rized dis­clo­sures by a trai­tor in Edward Snowden, or by some of the things this pres­i­dent has put in place with the sup­port even of some from my own par­ty to dimin­ish our intel­li­gence capa­bil­i­ties;“So what­ev­er facil­i­ty is being used — it’s not just a mosque — any facil­i­ty that’s being used to rad­i­cal­ize and inspire attacks against the United States should be a place that we look at.”

I nev­er had any use for this guy, I always had a dim view of both he and Ted Cruz, two Hispanics who seem to suf­fer from a lack of racial identity.
It is rather strange that Rubio and Cruz the two Hispanics in the Republican race, seem to be vying to see who can be the most anti-immi­grant, par­tic­u­lar­ly when Hispanics make up the largest group of un-doc­u­ment­ed peo­ple liv­ing in the coun­try or try­ing to get into the coun­try for that matter..
What if the peo­ple who gov­erned before took the stance of Rubio and Cruz, where would these two be?
If fact their stat­ed Hero Ronald Reagan who grant­ed Amnesty to many would not be eli­gi­ble for today’s Republican party.
This is what makes Rubio and Cruz too mon­u­men­tal frauds.
Thursday’s Huffington Post called out Rubio for lying that President Obama is divisive.
In a blar­ing head­line titled :” DANGEROUSLY DIVISIVE”, the pub­li­ca­tion peeled back the fake lay­er of fraud dis­guised with a smile and laid bare Rubio’s fraud­u­lent bravado.
“Marco Rubio, who often advo­cates for reli­gious lib­er­ty and speaks of his faith on the cam­paign trail, is the one engag­ing in divi­sive rhetoric”.
Finally some light is being shone on this fraud and a phony.

ELECTIONS IN JAMAICA

Elections in Jamaica Generally seem to reflect the will of the peo­ple, if of course you are will­ing to over­look the val­ue of the Island’s Garrison. To those un-famil­iar with the term, it is the prac­tice of the polit­i­cal par­ty in pow­er to unfair­ly use scare pub­lic funds to ben­e­fit vot­ers loy­al to that par­ty. This usu­al­ly means lump­ing acqui­es­cent vot­ers into con­stituen­cies which gen­er­al­ly vote for that party .
In essence what they end up doing is to cre­ate super con­stituen­cies which the oppo­si­tion par­ty has no chance of win­ning. Free Housing and oth­er largess cre­ates a class of vot­ers who become rub­ber stamps for the par­ty, regard­less of whether it has a dis­mal record of achieve­ment or per­for­mance for the coun­try as a whole.
In the United States this is done under the name “Gerrymandering”. This is done through an act of Congress how­ev­er achiev­ing the same dubi­ous results .
The Party with the major­i­ty in the House is allowed to re-draw Congressional dis­trict lines in a way which defies any log­ic but that par­ty’s rapa­cious desire to lump blocks of vot­ers into a sin­gle dis­trict loy­al to the par­ty doing the re-drawing.

All in all our coun­try remains some­what a vibrant Democracy sup­port­ed by both polit­i­cal par­ties and a peo­ple who are fierce­ly loy­al to demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples and ideals.
Our coun­try is still looked at as a mod­el for bud­ding democracies .
For that our peo­ple can be proud . No, we have not estab­lished the eco­nom­ic frame­work for suc­cess Indonesia or Malaysia has but nei­ther have we sur­ren­dered our rights and free­doms in pur­suit of eco­nom­ic viability.
Clearly a lot more needs to be done in terms of estab­lish­ing and rein­forc­ing an eco­nom­ic frame-work which will wean our coun­try from the dic­tates of par­a­sitic lend­ing agen­cies like the (IMF) which sucks the life-blood from our peo­ple leav­ing us far worse that when we were forced into the unholy alliance in the first place.

That will take time and a decid­ed focus . The ques­tion remains whether the peo­ple have the stom­ach for that change. Someone com­ment­ed to me recent­ly that the deficit is too great for the JLP to make up.
I thought about it long and hard tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion the advan­tage the PNP has because of it’s gar­ri­son constituencies.
However this nev­er stopped Jamaicans before. Jamaicans have a his­to­ry of kick­ing out the bums of both par­ties en-mass when the pinch becomes unbear­able. The ques­tion is “is the pinch unbear­able”?

GETTING OUT MANUVERED

It’s easy to assume that Bruce Golding was forced to step down or that Andrew Holness and the JLP lost the elec­tions of 2011 because Golding refused to sur­ren­der Christopher(Duddus) Coke to the Americans.
It’s easy to assume Portia Simpson Miller made the list of Time Magazine’s list of most influ­en­tial women on merit.
It is easy to mis­un­der­stand the impact of out­side forces in shap­ing events in our country.
However if you are will­ing to look at trends which the Government was inca­pable of under­stand­ing when it decid­ed to hedge oil prices at US$66 per bar­rel, you’ll find out just how events begin.
Bruce Golding’s demise begun when he remarked to a British Journalist that there would be no “Gays in his cab­i­net”.
If you under­stand the pow­er of out­side agen­cies then you begin under­stand­ing what was behind the demand that Coke to be extra­dit­ed to face charges in the United States, and the ensu­ing con­se­quences of that demand.
It was lose, lose for Golding, if he acqui­esced and allowed the process to play out in the Courts as many have said he should, his base of sup­port in Tivoli Gardens evap­o­rate. Golding was a trans­plant into Tivoli, he did not have the con­trol Edward Seaga built for him­self over the decades.
Conversely if Golding fought the Americans, regard­less of the argu­ment he used he would be seen as sup­port­ing a crim­i­nal want­ed by a pow­er­ful ally.
Bruce Golding was done as Prime Minister of Jamaica.

Was it acci­den­tal that the very same ques­tion was posed to Simpson Miller dur­ing the debates between her­self and Holness dur­ing the 2011 elec­tion cycle?
Does any ratio­nal thinker believe Portia Simpson Miller stat­ed she would sup­port revis­it­ing the Bugger Act on her own voli­tion ?
Once you begin to pon­der all this then you begin to see the pieces fall into place. You start under­stand­ing why the tired, out of ideas PNP was returned to pow­er much to their own astonishment.
Then you see why Portia was reward­ed by Time Magazine.
Then you under­stand the Obama visit.

GANJA
HOW QUICKLY SHOULD JAMAICA LEGALIZE GANJA ?

I have sug­gest­ed that the JLP fig­ure out the trends and stake out a pop­ulist posi­tion on emerg­ing trends before the peo­ple them­selves estab­lish a position.
There is hard­ly an issue more impor­tant to Jamaicans than “Marijuana”.
Even with­out the Rastafarian posi­tion on the weed as a reli­gious sacra­ment ‚Jamaicans are heavy users of mar­i­jua­na which we com­mon­ly know as Ganja.
Many Jamaicans smoke the weed , many use it to make a type of tea which they believe havemed­i­c­i­nal val­ue to them.
Not to men­tion the way Ganja is seen as a poten­tial eco­nom­ic sav­ior for many.
On that basis it makes smart polit­i­cal sense to stake out a posi­tion which is in line with the think­ing of the people.
THE TRUTH ABOUT GANGA COMING OUT.

Last Sunday a mul­ti­tude gath­ered in Half-Way-Tree square, the air was filled with the putrid stench of cannabis . Above the sea of heads was a sol­id cloud of gan­ja smoke.
It was a gan­ja smok­ers heaven.
It was in that atmos­phere that the Island’s Prime Minister mount­ed the stage and gloat­ed about less gan­ja arrests to roar­ing ovation.
Long before all this hap­pened how­ev­er, this medi­um and this hum­ble writer begged the JLP to get out in front of this issue.
Set this hum­ble blog­ger and medi­um aside, there were indi­ca­tors aplenty.
It was­n’t too long ago that the min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty sug­gest­ed to the police that they turn a blind eye to peo­ple smok­ing the weed.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​o​n​-​s​m​a​l​l​-​q​u​a​n​t​i​t​i​e​s​-​o​f​-​g​a​n​j​a​-​b​u​n​t​i​n​g​-​t​o​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​t​u​r​n​-​a​-​b​l​i​n​d​-​e​ye/

Under no cir­cum­stances should the JLP have been out­ma­neu­vered on this issue.
Yet it was.
Does the JLP even under­stand­ing the val­ue of this issue to each par­ty going forward?
These are mon­u­men­tal issues which will influ­ence vot­ers going for­ward for decades. The JLP lit­er­al­ly sur­ren­dered to the nar­ra­tive that it is a rich man’s par­ty which is not true.
As I said in a pre­vi­ous arti­cle it was Alexander Bustamante who spent almost two years locked up in prison for cham­pi­oning work­ers right, not Norman Manley.
Bustamante did not get out­ma­neu­vered by his cousin Norman Manley.
Bustamante a found­ing mem­ber of the People’s National Party PNP left and formed the JLP when the rhetoric and pol­i­cy posi­tions of the PNP became too rad­i­cal too unworkable.
The Jamaican peo­ple eschewed West Indies fed­er­a­tion Manley sup­port­ed, to which they were opposed and elect­ed Bustamante to Office.
Under Bustamante Jamaica became an inde­pen­dent nation August 1962. Alexander Bustamante became the first prime min­is­ter of the new­ly inde­pen­dent Jamaica.

Perceptions if left unchal­lenged becomes real­i­ty. To many Jamaicans that per­cep­tion is reality.
The JLP could least afford to have Jamaicans attribute the free­ing up of gan­ja as some­thing the PNP did .
Of course the par­ty was not in pow­er but there is much it could have done as a mat­ter of pol­i­cy-posi­tion which could have head­ed off and negat­ed that crit­i­cal perception.
It didn’t !!!

One of the tragedies of the PNP’s dom­i­nance of the polit­i­cal land­scape over the last four decades as I have point­ed out time and again is the way it’s can­cer­ous ten­ta­cles has cor­rod­ed and cor­rupt­ed every stra­ta of the society.
In one of the most polit­i­cal yet cyn­i­cal­ly-disin­gen­u­ous dis­play of this cor­ro­sive influ­ence is a state­ment put out by the pri­vate sec­tor orga­ni­za­tion on the issue of the Government hedg­ing oil prices at US$66 per barrel.
In it’s state­ment the Private Sector Organization defend­ed the actions of the Government to hedge oil prices at US$66 per barrel.
The sub­se­quent and con­tin­u­ing drop in oil prices have report­ed­ly already cost the Government in excess of US$20 mil­lion or rough­ly Jam $2.4 bil­lion.

The PSOJ in it’s defense of the Government used the most shock­ing­ly asi­nine met­ric imaginable .
The Organization clear­ly showed that it was pre­pared to sac­ri­fice what­ev­er cred­i­bil­i­ty it may have left in a vul­gar and des­per­ate attempt to resus­ci­tate the image and cred­i­bil­i­ty of the Simpson Miller Administration.

“In light of the hedge strat­e­gy, the Government effect­ed last year by pur­chas­ing an option to buy eight mil­lion bar­rels of oil at US$66, it means the coun­try has lost US$20 mil­lion in fees for the con­tract option. Oil will, how­ev­er, be sup­plied at the cur­rent mar­ket price”. “The only way that we can be sure of an event is after it has hap­pened. In oth­er words much of the com­men­tary today is being made from hind­sight (which is 20/​20). Buying a stock after the price has increased will not give you the ben­e­fit of the price rise, or what is the sense of buy­ing insur­ance after a cat­a­stroph­ic event. And, because an event might not hap­pen, would you then not insure against it,” the PSOJ argued.

This state­ment in and of itself shows the con­tempt these well placed oper­a­tives have for the intel­lect of the Jamaican people.
For the Tsunami of unin­formed who trav­eled from across the Country to Half-Way-Tree decked out in orange and red regalia this state­ment is Gospel . For the rest of us how­ev­er, it is a slap in the face and an affront to our senses.

Smart Investors pick stocks based on the fol­low­ing criteria.
(1) Payout Ratio: According to experts In gen­er­al the low­er the pay­out ratio the bet­ter because the more the com­pa­ny is pay­ing out in div­i­dends the less they are using to build up cash, pay off debt and invest in grow­ing the business.
(2) Dividend growth rate:The Dividend Growth Rate mea­sures the per­cent of growth a div­i­dend has expe­ri­enced over a cer­tain peri­od of time. While many reports will use an annu­al­ized fig­ure, it’s safer to use a five-year div­i­dend growth rate. The longer peri­od of time will give a bet­ter indi­ca­tion of over­all per­for­mance and allow minor ups and downs to bal­ance out.
(3) Yield: high yields can be risky and aren’t always the wis­est invest­ment options.
(4) Net Income Growth rate: Net Income Growth is a mea­sure of the rate of growth in prof­its when com­pared to the pre­vi­ous time period.
(5) ROI : Return On Investment, is impor­tant because it shows an investor how long it will take to earn their mon­ey back from their ini­tial invest­ment. It is com­posed of both the div­i­dend pay­ments and the increase in stock price. It is desir­able for both of these to show a sta­ble, upward trend.

The afore­men­tioned are just a few of the indi­ca­tors indus­try experts say sol­id investors need to look at before they invest in a stock.
Based on the fore­gone the metaphor about stock buy­ing is inap­plic­a­ble, there are clear guide­lines to invest­ing in stock options.
The Insurance angle made even less sense.
Purchasing Insurance because the pur­chas­er under­stands poten­tial future risks is the exact oppo­site of what the Administration did.
The Administration Insured when all the indi­ca­tors sug­gest­ed that the coun­try would final­ly get a break from the suf­fo­ca­tion of high oil prices.
Individuals and cor­po­ra­tions insure against even­tu­al­i­ties, it is not the same as hedg­ing oil prices when all the indi­ca­tors showed that there would be con­tin­ued dete­ri­o­ra­tion of oil prices .
The idea of hedg­ing prices is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a bad idea eco­nom­i­cal­ly speaking.
It becomes a bad thing when the peo­ple mak­ing the deci­sions do not under­stand mar­ket indicators.
It appears that the deci­sion mak­ers suf­fered from this malady.

Here are just a few of the indi­ca­tors which does not require much expertise.
(1) Three of the World’s largest economies were using less import­ed Oil. The United States the world’s largest con­sumer of oil was using more nat­ur­al gas and in the process import­ing less oil.
The United States was also diver­si­fy­ing it’s ener­gy portfolio.
China the world’s sec­ond largest econ­o­my was already show­ing signs of a slowdown .
Brazil an emerg­ing econ­o­my was rely­ing less and less on import­ed fos­sil fuel and invest­ing in and con­sum­ing more diver­si­fied energy.
The Iran nuclear deal was in the works as well which when con­sum­mat­ed would mean a lot more oil on the world market .
Overall there were many more indi­ca­tors which any person/​s mak­ing the deci­sion to hedge oil prices at US$66 per bar­rel should not have missed.

This is an inde­fen­si­ble act of incom­pe­tence or poten­tial­ly a lot more than meets the eye. Once upon a time the Jamaican pri­vate sec­tor was a rep­utable orga­ni­za­tion which rep­re­sent­ed the pri­vate sec­tor regard­less of who formed the Government.
Over the years all of that seem to have van­ished leav­ing in it’s stead anoth­er arm of the PNP as is the case in lit­er­al­ly every sec­tor of nation­al life includ­ing the clergy.

During the Presidential Elections of 2008 and 2012 Hawaii born Barack Obama was exco­ri­at­ed by the Tea-Party Patriots and Republicans that he was dis­qual­i­fied from being President of the United States because accord­ing to them he was born in Kenya.
Only it was a lie !!!

Orly Taitz, a California lawyer led the “birther” move­ment against Obama the Nation’s first black President on no evi­dence which indi­cat­ed that Obama was born any­where but Hawaii.
The birther move­ment was a mod­ern day ver­sion of the slav­ery era “show me your papers” to which Obama even­tu­al­ly capitulated.
The Birther move­ment failed to gain enough trac­tion to make a dent in the impres­sion the broad­er American elec­torate had of Obama.
The move­ment sput­tered and petered out after President Obama was re-elect­ed in 2012 ‚which to some degree speaks to the motives behind the movement .

At the helm of the birther move­ment was the for­mer Alaska Governor and one time Republican Vice-Presidential can­di­date Sarah Palin and present Presidential Candidate Donald Trump who rev­eled in the birther con­tro­ver­sy until President Obama made a com­ic spec­ta­cle of him at a White House Correspondence Dinner. Previous to that event the President had labeled the Republican blow-hard a “Carnival-Barker”.

Ironically hard­ly any of the so-called front-line Republican elect­ed offi­cials spoke out about the inap­pro­pri­ate­ness of the Birther movement.
Those who did­n’t remain silent on racial grounds remained silent because in their minds it was good politics.
For Republicans pol­i­tics trumps every­thing, that includes Country, it includes decen­cy as well.

Republicans prob­a­bly nev­er con­tem­plat­ed this game being played on them and not by a Democrat but one of their own.
This cycle under­stand­ably, there is no slith­ery slimy Orly Taitz lead­ing the cav­al­ry into bat­tle to pro­tect the American Presidency from a Manchurian Obama, whom they all knew was a legit­i­mate American cit­i­zen. This time around it’s Trump the Republican front-run­ner lead­ing the Birther move­ment against can­di­date Ted Cruz who was born in Canada to a Welsh-American moth­er and a Cuban father.

Trump may be a Racist turd who want­ed to de-legit­imize Barack Obama using race as a dis-qual­i­fi­er but unfor­tu­nate­ly for Cruz and the Republican estab­lish­ment Trump is also an ego-mani­a­cal self pro­mot­er who is uncon­strained by par­ty labels.

Donald Trump remained Donald Trump noth­ing changed about the Trump Republicans embraced when he made those scur­rilous attacks on the President’s right to his nationality.
So when the very same Donald Trump lashed out at a surg­ing Ted Cruz in Iowa they were shocked. Many Republicans who were silent or cheer­ing Trump when he attacked Obama’s cit­i­zen­ship were up in arms against Trump while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly down­play­ing the ques­tions he raised about Ted Cruz’s Canadian birth and citizenship.

Ted Cruz did not renounce his Canadian cit­i­zen­ship until it was expe­di­ent for him to do so.
Every Republican inter­viewed on the issue hur­ries to brush the issue aside claim­ing there is noth­ing there despite the fact that Ted Cruz was born in Canada.
How is it a non-issue when he was born in a for­eign coun­try but the guy who was born on American soil was ques­tioned until he self verified?

No Republican believes the birther issue has mer­it after Trump stepped up his attacks on Cruz after his Iowa defeat.
What a dif­fer­ence Party and col­or makes in America?
Despite attempts to brush the birther issue under the car­pet it is by no means a set­tled issue because the courts have not ruled on it .

Cruz’s own for­mer Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe calls Cruz a “fair weath­er orig­i­nal­ist” and accused him of “con­sti­tu­tion­al hypocrisy,”.
Speaking of Cruz to CNN Laurence Tribe said “Ironically, the kind of jus­tices he says he wants are the ones that say he’s not eli­gi­ble to run for pres­i­dent,” Tribe argued. “This is impor­tant because the way this guy plays fast and loose with the Constitution, he’s a fair weath­er orig­i­nal­ist.”
Professor Tribe a con­sti­tu­tion­al law pro­fes­sor at Harvard stu­dents include President Barack Obama, Supreme Court Chief Justices John Roberts and Associate Justice Elena Kagan.

The com­ments were so riv­et­ing and illu­mi­nat­ing of Cruz’s hypocrisy that his cam­paign refused to respond, hop­ing it would blow over..
These are seri­ous issues the so-called main-stream media should be address­ing, yet they just left it there in true CNN fash­ion and allowed the issue to go away.

Even though the Supreme Court has­n’t ruled on Cruz’s eli­gi­bil­i­ty to be pres­i­dent of the United States Republicans who nev­er miss an oppor­tu­ni­ty to wrap them­selves in the Flag and pro­claim their love for the con­sti­tu­tion has no prob­lem with Cruz.
Conversely Barack Obama an American born Black man was harangued and exco­ri­at­ed until he had to pro­duce his papers.….
America has a very long way to go despite the rhetoric.….….….

Even as large crowds are not nec­es­sar­i­ly a good indi­ca­tor of elec­tion results in Jamaica, the Jamaica labor par­ty should use the mas­sive PNP crowd in Half-Way-Tree Sunday as a moti­va­tion to get out the Vote.
The Labor Party wins when Jamaicans are fed up with the old­er polit­i­cal par­ty. Unfortunately for the Labor par­ty a trend has emerged in the way it is treated.
When things gets real­ly real­ly bad and the vot­ers can­not bear any more they vote the Labor par­ty in to fix the problems.
Kinda like the Americans flir­ta­tious rela­tion­ship with it’s old­er Republican Party, when they screw up they vote the Democrats in to fix things. Once things are back to nor­mal they resume the unhealthy rela­tion­ship with the Republicans.
As soon as Jamaicans bel­lies are filled and they are com­fort­able they wan­der off once again into the dan­ger­ous dal­liance with the PNP.
Ultimately the PNP has fig­ured out how to keep Jamaican vot­ers com­ing back to the par­ty by feed­ing them sweet cot­ton can­dy of lies promis­es and false promis­es. Just a taste of sweet which nev­er fills them up, they are kept in per­pet­u­al hope each elec­tion cycle, the mir­a­cle is just around the next cor­ner. Like the pied piper of Hamlin they fol­low like Rats and are led off the cliff into an ocean of despair and disappointment.
It’s almost like the Biblical sto­ry of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Despite hav­ing every­thing at their fin­ger­tips, despite the plen­ty, Eve wan­dered off into a illic­it and mon­u­men­tal­ly con­se­quen­tial affair with the Devil

In com­ing to terms with the love affair Jamaicans have with the People’s National Party it’s impor­tant to under­stand that the (PNP) is the old­er of the two major polit­i­cal parties.
It is also impor­tant to rec­og­nize the sig­nif­i­cance Jamaicans place on the con­cept of a sup­posed Independent Jamaica , even though sub­stan­tive­ly Jamaica remain a depen­dent nation teth­ered to Britain and major lender agen­cies in crit­i­cal ways.
Of no less­er sig­nif­i­cance is the mythol­o­gy sur­round­ing Norman Manley’s con­tri­bu­tion to the Island’s Independence as opposed to his Cousin Alexander Bustamante.

It is impor­tant that for his­tor­i­cal con­text, when we con­sid­er the empha­sis which cer­tain seg­ments of the Jamaican pop­u­la­tion places on Manley’s cre­ation of the (PNP) , we also remem­ber that Alexander Bustamante was instru­men­tal in the cre­ation of the PNP and was a found­ing member.
Alexander Bustamante broke away from the PNP in 1939 when he decid­ed that the par­ty’s demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ist rhetoric was too rad­i­cal. He went on to form the Jamaica Labor Party a mod­er­ate cen­trist party.
After Britian decid­ed to drop Jamaica and oth­er for­mer colonies after World War Two, Norman Manley became Premier or Chief Minister in 1955.
However after the elec­tions of 1962 the Jamaica labor Party defeat­ed the People’s National Party. Alexander Bustamante ascend­ed to the Premiership of the Island.
Later that year the British Parliament passed the Jamaica Independence Act of 1962.
Alexander Bustamante became the very first Prime Minister of the new­ly Independent Jamaica.

Jamaicans have a cer­tain loy­al­ty to those they view as cru­cial to their sense of self deter­mi­na­tion . The (PNP) has done a great job of bur­nish­ing the resume’ of it’s past lead­ers and their accom­plish­ments , in some cas­es over-hyp­ing them, the JLP has done a hor­ri­ble job telling it’s story.
It was shock­ing to see the Island’s Prime Minister on a polit­i­cal stage on Sunday January 31^st refer­ring to Norman Manley as the father of the Nation with­out a men­tion of Bustamante.
The Jamaica Labor Party under Edward Seaga , Bruce Golding and Andrew Holness failed dis­mal­ly, despite extend­ed peri­ods in politic obliv­ion to build sup­port for the par­ty based on the tri­umphs and accom­plish­ments of its’ for­mer lead­ers, like Bustamante, Dr, Herbert Eldemire , Hugh Shearer, Robert Lightbourne and others.
It’s intel­lec­tu­al lazi­ness to assume that the ground-swell of sup­port the PNP enjoys is based on the expec­ta­tion of free­bies only.
It’s impor­tant to under­stand the lens through which PNP sup­port­ers see Norman and Michael Manley.
The Jamaica Labor Party failed to edu­cate the Island’s peo­ple about it’s champions.
In fact the JLP has allowed the lie that the par­ty is a rich man’s par­ty to stick and set­tle in.

It was Alexander Bustamante who spent almost two years locked up in prison for stand­ing up for work­ers rights.
It was Bustamante who fought tooth and nail to keep Jamaica out of the West Indies Federation which lumped ten for­mer British Colonies into a sin­gle enti­ty bear­ing the afore­men­tioned name. Norman Manley led the Island into the Federation which was vast­ly unpop­u­lar with most Jamaicans.
Norman Manley was lat­er forced as Premier to hold a ref­er­en­dum on the issue which saw Jamaica opt­ing out of the Federation which lat­er col­lapsed after Trinidad and Tobago also opt­ed out.
So much for father of the Nation !
Where would Jamaica be were it not for the vision­ary ideas of Bustamante?
For the Revisionist Historians who like to talk about what Manley means to Jamaica , let it be known Norman Manley sold Jamaica ‘s sov­er­eign­ty to the West Indies Federation .
Bustamante gave Jamaica Nationhood.

Let s begin the process of mobi­liz­ing Laborites into Teams. Identifying team-lead­ers, moti­vate them , give them areas of responsibility.
Equip each team with appro­pri­ate trans­porta­tion, let them report into a cen­tral hub/​series of hubs with­in each constituency.
Each hub must com­mu­ni­cate on the progress being made in get­ting vot­ers out to the polls and get­ting them back home again.
Whenever prob­lems occur if these team lead­ers can­not han­dle the prob­lem a high­er tiered lead­er­ship group must jump into action.
Failure is not an option.
Jamaica is a small coun­try , each parish , each region must dial into this concept .
Failing this kind of orga­niz­ing the JLP must get com­fort­able for anoth­er long peri­od of polit­i­cal opposition.

WHERE DOES THE JLP GO IN THE EVENT OF A FEBRUARY 25^th LOSS?

I shud­der to think through this ques­tion but it’s a ques­tion that needs ask­ing and even though many of my friends may be mad at me I have decid­ed to ask it anyway.
What hap­pens on February 25^th if the Simpson Miller PNP is returned to power?
How would the JLP present itself going forward?
Would it con­clude that the Jamaican peo­ple are unwill­ing to make the nec­es­sary adjust­ments from a depen­dent elec­torate to one which embraces the excit­ing chal­lenges of a free peo­ple teth­ered to the con­cept of the free market?
Does it low­er it’s col­lec­tive head in defeat , giv­ing in to the nar­ra­tive that Jamaica is PNP Country?
Does a defeat­ed JLP con­clude that the Jamaican elec­torate is too far gone to be re-rout­ed in its’ thinking?
Does the JLP look at itself and try to fig­ure out how come it has failed to com­mu­ni­cate it’s mes­sage of pros­per­i­ty to a Generation weaned on the belief that Government is it’s benefactor?

All of these are crit­i­cal ques­tions to con­sid­er in under­stand­ing why a failed Administration would have been seen as a bet­ter alter­na­tive to the par­ty of pros­per­i­ty and growth?
What would the JLP do in it’s role as Constitutional oppo­si­tion, after all 5 years is a very long time?
Does the Party give up on the people ?
Does the par­ty con­clude that the elec­torate is sim­ply not sophis­ti­cat­ed enough to under­stand what’s best for it ?
Or does it throw out the play-book and dive in as the PNP has done, to hell with a growth agen­da, lets win elections?
It’s impor­tant that these issue are giv­en sound con­sid­er­a­tion by the par­ty after all in a Democracy par­ties may be pow­er­ful but come elec­tion day the peo­ple hold the power.
Let’s chew on these pos­si­bil­i­ties and pon­der the con­se­quences when we talk about the two par­ties are the same or I’m not voting.
If you think Jamaica is trans­formed now allow the PNP to have anoth­er 5 years and you can kiss the coun­try we all know and love goodbye.

WHY DOES IOWA GET TO START ?

Nothing hap­pens in a vac­u­um in American pol­i­tics there is always an under­ly­ing sto­ry , some motive under­neath what meets the eyes.
That cer­tain­ly per­tain to the Political Primaries of both polit­i­cal Parties.
Search as I might I have not found a plau­si­ble rea­son behind Iowa a deep rur­al farm state of 3,107,126 and New Hampshire a New England state with a pop­u­la­tion of 1,326,813 get­ting to go first in select­ing American Presidents.
Additionally it’s then on to Nevada , South Carolina and Alabama ?
I won­dered why large pop­u­lous States like California, New York, Ohio, New Jersey, and even Florida which has large mixed pop­u­la­tions does­n’t get first dibs.
Just won­der­ing whether, even as we cham­pi­on the genius of the American polit­i­cal sys­tem, we real­ize the sys­tem was rigged from the start to ensure that states with large­ly homo­ge­neous white pop­u­la­tions gets to sieve through or weed out whom they don’t want , in many cas­es decid­ing the nom­i­nee through resources or the lack there­of and per­cep­tions before the large pop­u­lous states with “those oth­er peo­ple” get to have a say. ?

Just ask­ing ?

If ever there was a case for a fixed Election date in Jamaica the spec­ta­cle which played out on the world stage in Half-Way-Tree Square Sunday night was it.
This Medium has been call­ing for a fixed elec­tion date for years , so too has the Jamaica Labor Party which forms the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion on the Island.
I have not researched the rea­son that the Opposition Party sup­port a fixed date for National elec­tions but on a per­son­al note I believe a fixed date pre­vents the Prime Minister of whichev­er par­ty from manip­u­lat­ing the process.
It was despi­ca­ble, the lev­el of crass­ness we saw attached to the process last night it should nev­er be repeat­ed ever again.

Well known Columnist and PNP sym­pa­thiz­er Gordon Robinson final­ly got it right. In his Gleaner Column today titled ” Circus Clowns Come To Half-Way Tree”
Robinson said Quote : ”

As I watched the PM announce the elec­tion date to a sea of orange-clad PNP sup­port­ers, I only felt depres­sion. If ever there was an adver­tise­ment for fixed elec­tion dates, it’s the song-and-dance rou­tine that’s char­ac­terised this six-month elec­tion cam­paign. To have a February elec­tion only because the PNP is at last ahead in the polls exposes:

- an infu­ri­at­ing­ly dis­grace­ful, self-serv­ing, unpa­tri­ot­ic, nar­cis­sis­tic con­tempt for Jamaica; AND

- the anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic, total­i­tar­i­an, unjust nature of the laws that allow this to happen.

The Prime Minister could have called Elections 6 months ago . Now grant­ed she had until ear­ly 2017 to call elec­tions, Miller opt­ed not to call nation­al elec­tions because the poll results were not in her favor. As per the grapevine it is under­stood that the Labor par­ty had a lead of up to six (6) per­cent­age points at the time.
Now I must con­fess if I was in her shoes I would not have called elec­tions either. For the die-hard died-in-the wool Kumreds[sic] who will argue that there is no truth to the fact that she did not call it because of the polls, please explain what was her rea­son for push­ing “local gov­ern­ment elec­tions” back over a year.
Many argue now that the ques­tion­able Don Anderson poll which gives the PNP a four per­cent­age points over it’s rival JLP has buoyed the Prime Minister to seek a new man­date at this time. That may be true, but the bit­ter real­i­ties which are sure to emanate from the upcom­ing bud­get was sure to play into the deci­sion mak­ing process of the Prime Minister.

Large scale lay­offs, price increas­es and more tax­a­tion are sure to fol­low the new budget.
Simpson-Miller does not want that kind of anger in the elec­torate going into an election.
No politi­cian of any “P” should have the pow­er to await favor­able poll results or oth­er fac­tors to deter­mine when National elec­tions are called.
No sin­gu­lar per­son should have that pow­er regard­less of Party label, that pow­er should rest with the people.
Politicians should per­form then face the elec­torate at a time of the elec­torate’s choos­ing, not a time politi­cians choose.

Politicians should serve the peo­ple, not their par­ty’s or per­son­al inter­est. When we allow the gar­ish and vul­gar dis­play of our polit­i­cal process which was on dis­play last night we allow politi­cians to cement the belief we serve them rather than the oth­er way around.
Several months ago I spoke to a fam­i­ly friend regard­ing the state of affairs on the Island, he lives there I don’t . I asked him why it was that there is no social upheaval despite the mas­sive ero­sion in the val­ue of the local cur­ren­cy , the astro­nom­i­cal­ly high crime rate, the ever increas­ing impov­er­ish­ment of the work­ing class, the crum­bling infra­struc­ture, and the mas­sive cor­rup­tion with­in the Administration?
He respond­ed “the coun­try is falling apart but the peo­ple are con­tent” !!!

“THE PEOPLE ARE CONTENT”

How could a sane elec­torate be con­tent I asked ? He shrugged his shoul­ders and shook his head in exas­per­a­tion . Are these peo­ple sim­ply to be dis­missed as Circus Clowns ” accord­ing to Kumred [sic] Gordon Robinson? Or is there some­thing deep­er going on accord­ing to the very same Kumred]sic] Robinson?
“Jamaica was put on elec­tion alert by Peter Phillips in July 2015 and has since been fed a steady diet of putrid, pop­ulist pol­i­tics until, over­stuffed with ran­cid rhetoric, they’re just look­ing for a ready recep­ta­cle in which to regurgitate”.
I am more inclined to believe that peo­ple are fed up because of the con­stant rhetoric and the con­stant wait­ing they would have turned out to watch paint dry.

Will Jamaicans go out on February 25^th to return Portia Simpson Miller and com­pa­ny to Gordon House as the major­i­ty par­ty? That is yet to be seen.
It is in-advis­able that any­one pre­tend to know what a large crowd in Half-Way-Tree square means as far as what par­ty will win the elections.
Both Michael Manley and Edward Seaga would attest to that.
Furthermore mass meet­ings like these are gen­er­al­ly pop­u­lat­ed with peo­ple who are bused in from across the country.
Nevertheless it is impor­tant not to dis­count mas­sive crowds as incon­se­quen­tial to the debate.
If peo­ple are sat­is­fied they may not have a rea­son not to go out and sup­port their party.

Which brings us to the ques­tion of what could poten­tial­ly cre­ate that sup­posed con­tent­ment in the electorate?
If the coun­try is in a bad a shape as every­one say it is … and it is.
Maybe the elec­torate have sim­ply giv­en up on what it expects for Jamaica.
Maybe it has re-adjust­ed its expec­ta­tion of what can be achieved.
Maybe it does­n’t care about the mis­ery index any­more. Maybe the present elec­torate sim­ply does­n’t know any bet­ter. Maybe it has got­ten used to beg­ging for the remit­tance monies it receives from abroad. Maybe it likes where it is between the remit­tance and the 7 days per week par­ty­ing whats not to like?
Come to think about it, the Jamaican elec­torate have nev­er been a sophis­ti­cat­ed one . In 1980 despite par­ty loy­al­ties they turned out and vot­ed their bel­lies. In the biggest elec­tion loss ever, the PNP was kicked out of office in a 51 – 9 drub­bing . Many peo­ple believed Michael Manley lost his seat but was allowed to save face by keep­ing it.

Despite the rhetoric of “jamaica a pnp kun­try’ Kumreds[sic] for­got ide­ol­o­gy and vot­ed their bel­lies, they want­ed food on shop and super­mar­ket shelves.
After the eco­nom­ic advance­ments and the rel­a­tive peace and sta­bil­i­ty of the Seaga years Kumreds[sic] went back to ide­ol­o­gy with filled bel­lies and cloud­ed mem­o­ries they re-elect­ed Michael Manley in 88 and Jamaica’s fate was sealed.
The peo­ple who came of age out of the 70’s era of Manley-ism in Jamaica and the younger gen­er­a­tion swal­lowed hook-line-and-sinker the notion that Government is bene­fac­tor . They nev­er lived under a sys­tem of free mar­ket, as such they look to Government to pro­vide jobs. They expect Government to play sig­nif­i­cant roles in their lives. It is a depen­den­cy syn­drome which trumps Nationalism.
Jamaicans are large­ly Nationalistic when it comes to sports. Nationalism be damned when they are required to set aside par­ty polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions and vote in the inter­est of Country.
That may explain the cult-like loy­al­ty with which PNP sup­port­ers fol­low their par­ty. To them par­ty means food on the table, not pay­ing rental for the house in which they live, not pay­ing for water, not pay­ing for electricity.
It means col­lect­ing salaries for jobs they do not go to. It means rid­ing on a bus with­out pay­ing fare because a pnp time and a pnp kuntry”.
As long as they are able to eat today at the expense of the coun­try’s tomor­row , tomor­row be damned.

Manley’s indoc­tri­na­tion of the pop­u­lace into believ­ing that peo­ple who worked and achieved mate­r­i­al suc­cess were evil Capitalists changed the moral com­pass of our country.
When PNP hacks speak about peo­ple green with envy , they are talk­ing about what Manley’s phi­los­o­phy did for our country.
Eight Years of Seaga and four years of Golding-Holness was nev­er going to be enough to reverse that indoctrination.
A dozen years bro­ken by an unprece­dent­ed 14 ¹⁄₂ years was nev­er going to be enough to re-focus a pop­u­la­tion reared on free­bies and the expec­ta­tion of it.
That may bet­ter explain the sup­posed Tsunami of Kumreds[sic] .
To them there is no oth­er way.

At a huge PNP Rally held in Half Way Tree St Andrew Sunday January 31 Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller announced that Nomination day will be on February 9^th and Elections will be held on February 25^th.

For the ben­e­fit of Jamaica vot­ers will now go to the polls and decide what direc­tion they want for their coun­try. The PNP has held pow­er over 28 of the last 40 years , Jamaica has pre­cious lit­tle pos­i­tives to show for it.
The Island’s econ­o­my is in shambles .
The pro­duc­tive sec­tor has been dec­i­mat­ed. Serious crimes are at an all time high. The Infrastructure is crum­bling and there are real­ly no new infra­struc­ture being put in place out­side the high­ways being put in place by the Chinese which Jamaicans can­not afford to dri­ve on. Hotels are all owned by Foreigners. Most of the Island’s assets have been sold by the Administration and the monies siphoned off .
The Island’s cur­ren­cy has lit­er­al­ly no value .
Yes the PNP talks about pass­ing IMF tests , that is the Administration’s high water mark. Unfortunately for the peo­ple when a coun­try is pleas­ing the IMF it is pain­ing the people.
The peo­ple now have a deci­sion to make . On February 25^th Jamaicans will once again go into the vot­ing booths and decide the course of the Island for the next 5 years .
May God help them.……

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.