On assum­ing office as Prime Minister of Jamaica after the ear­ly exit of belea­guered Prime Minister Bruce Golding Andrew Holness said he would ask the Leader of the Opposition Portia Simpson Miller to walk the Garrisons as a sign of peace and togetherness.
Holness felt this was impor­tant giv­en our coun­try’s vio­lent polit­i­cal past.
True to his word on October 27^th Andrew Holness sent a let­ter to Portia Simpson Miller as a sign of good­will and coöperation.
To the best of our knowl­edge Andrew Holness received no for­mal response from the then leader of the polit­i­cal opposition.
HOLNESS’ INVITATION TO WALK THE GARRISONS.

This pub­li­ca­tion was enthused at the change in tone and atti­tude of the new­ly installed prime Minister . As a for­mer cop and a Jamaican who have wit­nessed first­hand the rav­ages of polit­i­cal vio­lence on our peo­ple and cul­ture, I felt though not a panacea Holness’ atti­tude to Governance was an impor­tant first step in the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion process for the Jamaican peo­ple as one peo­ple, despite our dif­fer­ing polit­i­cal affiliations.

I was not sur­prised how­ev­er that Portia Simpson Miller did not for­mal­ly respond to the entreaties of the then Prime Minister to present a unit­ed front in the inter­est of our country.
At the time I said the People’s National Party and Portia Simpson Miller could not take up the Prime Minister’s offer to show togeth­er­ness as Garrisons were Portia and Portia the Garrisons.
I opined then that the woman the mass­es refer to as  Sista P was mere­ly an oppor­tunis­tic vira­go and a polit­i­cal hustler.
I had seen her in action over the years and thus I believe my char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of her was and still remain an exer­cise in charity.
OF GARRISONS CONCESSIONS AND DEBATES.

The People’s National Party con­struct­ed an elab­o­rate scheme to con­trol state pow­er begin­ning in the ear­ly 70’s , the idea was to use pop­u­lar pro­grams and laws which would have mass grass root appeal, sup­pos­ed­ly in the best inter­est of the poor­er class.
This cre­at­ed a cult-like fol­low­ing of the par­ty which remain to this day despite the fact that Jamaica’s depar­ture from the poli­cies of the 60’s cre­at­ed a coun­try and peo­ple who are expo­nen­tial­ly worse off than before the social exper­i­ment of the 70’s and 90’s.
It was the foun­da­tion on which Michael Manley’s Democratic Socialism was built.
♦ Project Land Lease.
♦ No bas­tard children.
♦ Micro Dams.
♦ The Cuban Schools.
♦ Free education.
♦ JAMAL.
Were just a few of the pro­grams which gar­nered mass sup­port for Michael Manley and the People’s National Party.
Though not nec­es­sar­i­ly bad ideas these ideas were poor­ly exe­cut­ed and exploit­ed fur­ther which inevitably cre­at­ed a con­tem­po­rary cul­ture of depen­den­cy on Government as bene­fac­tor and crime as a sub­sti­tut­ing enti­ty to fill the space where pol­i­tics fell short.
Free hous­ing , Free elec­tric­i­ty Free mon­ey, was icing on the cake and out the door went the con­cept of hard work edu­ca­tion and the entre­pre­neur­ial spirit .

On the basis of the afore­men­tioned, had Portia agreed to the dis­man­tling of gar­risons she would be agree­ing to dis­man­tlig her pow­er base.
That was not about to hap­pen and young Andrew Holness would not be allowed to change the entrenched order of eat a food through polit­i­cal patronage
It was not sur­pris­ing then the response she gave to Holness’ invi­ta­tion was infor­mal­ly and col­lo­qui­al­ly yet eas­i­ly predictable.
The “PNP nu have nu gar­ri­son mi nu see no walls inna mi constituency”
GARRISONS DON’T ALL HAVE WALLS
Anyone famil­iar with Miller can­not be sur­prised or even dis­ap­point­ed with the mind­less parochial­ism of her response yet it evoked a cer­tain degree of sad­ness at least to this writer ‚that one so high­ly placed could be so inher­ent­ly stu­pid in not rec­og­niz­ing the impor­tant sym­bol­ism such a ges­ture would have cre­at­ed for the younger genration.
All was not lost how­ev­er, for the most part many Jamaicans of both major polit­i­cal par­ties had decid­ed that killing each oth­er in the name of pol­i­tics was not some­thing they want­ed to con­tin­ue doing.
It was encour­ag­ing to see that Jamaicans of both polit­i­cal stripes had decid­ed that though they still liked killing each oth­er they would not con­tin­ue to do so in the name of politics.

It should come as no sur­prise then that because the leader of the People’s National Party did not demon­strate the matu­ri­ty , intel­li­gence or com­mon sense to eschew vio­lence and it’s nur­tur­ing grounds, that the next Generation of PNP lead­ers would see vio­lence as a viable path toward achiev­ing polit­i­cal ends.
The irony in all of this is that the peo­ple are smarter than their leaders.
The peo­ple have already made the deci­sion to eschew Political violence.
Unfortunately Portia Simpson Miller still have not received that memo, and cer­tain­ly not the idi­ot­ic lit­tle moron Dwayne Vaz the mem­ber of Parliament from Central Westmoreland the seat once occu­pied by the lat­er Roger Clarke,.
At the time Vaz was ele­vat­ed to Clarke’s seat the Jamaica Observer did an elab­o­rate sto­ry on the life of the then 33 year-old from his birth in 1981 to win­ning the by- elec­tion, it Article was a cloy­ing love-fest . As the con­clu­sion to the lengthy trib­ute to Vaz’s life sto­ry the writer Desmond Allen Observer Executive edi­tor crowed .

On December 11, 2014, Dwayne Vaz took his seat in the Jamaican par­lia­ment, proud­ly wear­ing his cre­den­tials as a young, good-look­ing, hard-work­ing, peo­ple-lov­ing per­son — a vir­tu­al tem­plate on how to make a Jamaican politi­cian — and vow­ing to fol­low in the large foot­steps of his late polit­i­cal god­fa­ther, Roger Clarke.
http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​C​e​n​t​r​a​l​-​W​e​s​t​m​o​r​e​l​a​n​d​-​s​-​D​w​a​y​n​e​-​Vaz – A‑politician-s-tem­plate_18631433

Yah about that ?

Speaking on a plat­form at a PNP ral­ly in St James recent­ly in front of a large PNP crowd the sup­posed young, good-look­ing, hard-work­ing, peo­ple-lov­ing per­son — a vir­tu­al tem­plate on how to make a Jamaican politi­cian ‑peeled off the Sheep cos­tume and revealed for all and sundry the Wolf hid­ing inside.
Responding to a fire at the PNP con­stituen­cy office Dwayne Vaz showed the dirty filthy under­bel­ly of PNP pol­i­tics and the fuel which dri­ves it, vio­lence and intimidation.
Quote “a baby strength dem have” He then went on to start singing the con­tro­ver­sial lyrics of the Kartel’s vio­lence song, “Wha’ Dem Feel Like”, as the sound sys­tem played the song writ­ten and per­formed by dance­hall dee­jay, Vybz Kartel, who was con­vict­ed of mur­der in April, 2014 and includes lines like: “Puzzle up mi gun inna jef­fery hype/​Mek we step like a cen­tipede and tek the lead inna war/​A weh dem feel like, dem skin too tough fi bleed”.
Weh Dem Feel Like

Clearly a call to arms , and to return to the dark days of 8oo + dead in the name of pol­i­tics as we have seen in the past.
Communities as impreg­nable balka­nized bas­tions of polit­i­cal exclusivity.
Since then the naïve exu­ber­ant lit­tle pup have walked back the dan­ger­ous state­ments but the dam­age may have already been done .
Not sur­pris­ing­ly, not a sin­gle word from the leader of the par­ty to the lit­tle upstart “no this is not what we are about, this is not where we want to go”.
Of course her per­for­mance as Parish Councillor, Minister and now as Prime Minister can only rea­son­ably be val­i­dat­ed through the gar­ri­son cul­ture and the dumb­ing-down of the already illit­er­ate unin­formed masses.
Is it any won­der then that as always when it real­ly counts the stooge in Jamaica House is duplic­i­tous­ly silent?

Over the years we have seen both polit­i­cal par­ties in Jamaica do things which begs the age old ques­tion “are Jamaican author­i­ties seri­ous about reduc­ing and ulti­mate­ly erad­i­cat­ing crime’?

Lets get some­thing straight here the gov­ern­ing admin­is­tra­tion has been hor­ri­ble stew­ards of the nation’s affairs . This is not just about the econ­o­my and the moral deca­dence which char­ac­ter­izes Jamaican. The Party has active­ly con­tributed to crime direct­ly both by omis­sion and commission.

The Opposition Labor Party has had less time at the tiller but there is ample evi­dence of the con­tri­bu­tion the Labor par­ty has made to the crime cul­ture on the Island as well.
Which brings us to the Police.
The Police depart­ment rel­e­gat­ed itself to lap­dog sta­tus for the polit­i­cal class, Commissioners and rank and file has come and gone but the mind­set remain the same.
The depart­ment has a PhD at the helm but the mind­set through­out the con­stab­u­lary seem to be that of a defeat­ed sec­ond class cit­i­zen­ry, brow­beat­en, and bat­tered into accept­ing it’s lot.
Attrition is high, by some accounts over 600 offi­cers left the depart­ment in a sin­gle year. There has to be a rea­son for this , par­tic­u­lar­ly in a coun­try where jobs are as hard to come by as find­ing a politi­cian with good character.
Which begs the ques­tion, why are offi­cers going through the train­ing only to dump the depart­ment at the slight­est oppor­tu­ni­ty for an out?

Jamaicans have always been a peo­ple high­ly fas­ci­nat­ed by posi­tions and pow­er . The big­ger heads men­tal­i­ty is an inte­gral part of the Island’s pop­u­lar culture.
The Police Commissioner is a PhD and he may be the ben­e­fi­cia­ry of more respect from the self appoint­ed Elites than his pre­de­ces­sors but there is still a nag­ging sense that the police are mere yaad bways , unwor­thy of respect.
Don’t get me wrong, over the years the Police have done more than enough to earn the dis­re­spect of the most for­giv­ing and pious Angels.
The list of charges against the police leaves well think­ing observers includ­ing for­mer offi­cers stunned that offi­cers could be engaged in some of the crimes they are accused of committing.
♦Contract killings ♦ Extra-Judicial killings ♦ Robbery ♦ Rape. ♦ Conspiracy ♦
The list of crim­i­nal engage­ments by offi­cers defies logic.

As a for­mer cop I could argue that the JCF is not the only police agency strug­gling with those issues .
As a Christian I could argue the char­ac­ter of peo­ple every­where are more sus­pect because over­all good val­ues and best prac­tices are sim­ply not been taught and where taught are not been adhered to.
I could make those argu­ments but they would not be fair argu­ments to make, peo­ple deserve bet­ter police services.

However as we look at the crimes and miss-steps of the police we have to look at the pop­u­la­tion and it’s role in all of this .
Have the Jamaican pub­lic been respect­ful and embrac­ing of law enforcement?
Have the peo­ple embraced or shown an under­stand­ing of the role law-enforce­ment plays in a demo­c­ra­t­ic society?
On both counts the answer is no.
The Island built a cul­ture of ani­mos­i­ty , resent­ment and oppo­si­tion to law enforce­ment. From as far back as the cre­ation of the Police ser­vices after the Morant Bay Rebellion Jamaicans arguably decid­ed they would have an acri­mo­nious rela­tion­ship with those who enforce the laws.
The JCF which was born out of the ash­es of the rebel­lion was seen as a tool of the pow­er­ful cre­at­ed to oppress the underclass.
Despite the fact that the British left and the police became the sons and daugh­ters of the work­ing class the per­va­sive cul­ture of oppo­si­tion to police remained.

The para­dox­i­cal jux­ta­po­si­tion of the emer­gent Rastafarian counter cul­ture and the ani­mos­i­ty toward polic­ing did noth­ing to help the young nation with the large illit­er­ate under­class to under­stand the need for sup­port­ing and nur­tur­ing the rule of law.
A cold war devel­oped between the cannabis smok­ing Rastafarians and the police. The result was that the oppor­tunis­tic politi­cians of the day saw an oppor­tu­ni­ty to dri­ve a wedge between police and peo­ple for polit­i­cal gain and they exploit­ed it to the max.

HOUSE COMMITTEE URGES INCREASED POWERS FOR INDECOM BOSS

Fast for­ward to today and the (inde­com) Act, bal­loon­ing mur­der rates , cops leav­ing in droves , Terrence Williams and politi­cians of both polit­i­cal par­ties are either too stu­pid to under­stand the dam­age they are doing or they intend to destroy the Force, grow crime and turn the coun­try over to terrorists.
As it was in the begin­ning, politi­cians of both par­ties are join­ing togeth­er to give even more pow­er to (inde­com) rather than empow­er and out­fit the police to go after crime.

In the end Jamaica is well on it’s way to end up where it sets out to be, a par­adise for crim­i­nals. You sim­ply can­not expect to have good out­comes from bad strate​gies​.Talk to Jamaicans and 9 out of 10 hates police even though they have rel­a­tives who were, or are cops. Many have no idea why they hate cops , they sim­ply do , they were raised that way.
Ironically when they live abroad they are respect­ful of offi­cers and those who aren’t end up on(ice) planes with a one way tick­et back home.
They know in their host coun­tries their dis­re­spect­ful shenani­gans are best left at home.
In the age of ter­ror bomb­ings and behead­ings, pur­vey­ors of anar­chy and may­hem from across the globe are always look­ing for places to plant their flags.
Soon and very soon Jamaicans of all stripes and sta­tions will come to real­ize the fol­ly of their ways , by then it will be too late.
For all intents and pur­pos­es it may already be.

You do not build a nation with­out secur­ing the population.
You do not build a nation with­out estab­lish­ing a foun­da­tion of laws for the pro­tec­tion of the population.
From ear­li­est record­ed his­to­ry this was understood.
Jamaican lead­ers have shit for brain so this eludes them but the peo­ple have been com­plic­it and they deserve every inch of what they get.

In what seem to be unprece­dent­ed killing of peo­ple by American police more and more peo­ple are get­ting a look at what cops actu­al­ly do while they are not look­ing, of course they claim to be doing it in the name and sup­pos­ed­ly for the pub­lic’s protection.
As a for­mer cop myself I know too well the dan­gers inher­ent in the job. At the same time I find it offen­sive that any­one would use the risks asso­ci­at­ed with law enforce­ment as a rea­son to com­mit murder.
I say this despite doing polic­ing in Jamaica one of the most vio­lent and dan­ger­ous places to do polic­ing , and oh by the way being shot in the line of duty.

So I real­ly am not deterred by killer cops wher­ev­er they ply their trade, nei­ther am I mind­ful of their rabid incon­se­quen­tial sup­port­ers who sup­port the mur­der they vis­it on defense­less citizens.
The attack the vic­tim strat­e­gy will nev­er deter me from speak­ing out against police killing inno­cent peo­ple and lying about it . I believe that on every occa­sion a cop kills a mem­ber of the pub­lic and lies to jus­ti­fy that ille­gal killing the vic­tim and his/​her fam­i­ly is slaugh­tered twice.
As I said in a con­ver­sa­tion just this morn­ing the argu­ment that police offi­cers do not leave home and go out to kill peo­ple is utter and total bullshit.
To those mak­ing that argu­ment I say lis­ten to the lan­guage of the white cops who are caught on tape telling unarmed mem­bers of the black com­mu­ni­ty “I will fuck­ing kill you, open your mouth and I put a fuck­ing bul­let in you head” !!!
Does that equate to intent in law ?
Intent can be expressed, inferred or implied , guess what ? Expressed intent is the most cred­i­ble . So when a cop tells some­one I will kill you and does that it exact­ly proves intent. What bet­ter way to know a per­son­’s inten­tion that the words which the per­son utter?
Only that they are not charged with mur­der as they should be , like every oth­er mem­ber of the pub­lic would be.

Murder is the unlaw­ful killing of a human being by anoth­er human being with mal­ice aforethought .
Guess how we prove malice?
Malice is proven by the words or deeds which pre­ced­ed the act.
So when a cops says’I will fuck­ing kill” you and does he com­mits mur­der why he is not pros­e­cut­ed for the crime rests with the peo­ple who chose to remain igno­rant of what is being done in their names.
In America there will nev­er be out­cry about the mass of police mur­der by the broad­er soci­ety as long as the vic­tims are Blacks and Latinos.
It serves their pur­pose well , they defend it because these uni­formed killers car­ry out the sado­masochis­tic slaugh­ter that they them­selves would like to engage in.

Thus far this year cops have killed every (8) hours Let that sink in. Law enforce­ment in the US killed 92 times more peo­ple than a coun­try with near­ly 1.4 bil­lion peo­ple. Cops Have Killed Every 8 Hours in 2015, Sending At Least Three People to Early Graves Per Day Read more at http://​the​freethought​pro​ject​.com/​c​o​p​s​-​k​i​l​l​e​d​-​8​-​h​o​u​r​s​-​2​0​1​5​-​e​a​r​l​y​-​g​r​a​v​e​s​-​d​a​y​/​#​A​P​A​F​i​v​z​6​r​s​r​u​A​u​X​T​.99.
Police have killed rough­ly over a (1000) peo­ple for the year 2015 and it still is not over.
As of March 6^th, just a lit­tle over two months into 2015, there has been at least 191 indi­vid­u­als killed by police in the United States since the year began. That’s 191 peo­ple divid­ed by 65 Days which equals 2.93. This aver­ages out to three peo­ple killed by police each day or 1 life tak­en every eight hours by Law enforcement.
So Far In 2015 Police Have Killed Three People A Day.

One of the great­est bit of hypocrisy sur­round­ing this whole police abuse of cit­i­zens is what Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy did in what is known as the
Leahy Amendment.

In the final days of the first ses­sion of the 105^th Congress, the House and Senate approved H.R. 2159, the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs for Fiscal Year 1998. In a major vic­to­ry for human rights and arms con­trol pub­lic inter­est groups, the Leahy Amendment sur­vived the con­fer­ence com­mit­tee and remained in the final version.
The amend­ment, locat­ed in Section 570 of the bill, states the fol­low­ing: “None of the funds made avail­able by this Act may be pro­vid­ed to any unit of the secu­ri­ty forces of a for­eign coun­try if the Secretary of State has cred­i­ble evi­dence that such unit has com­mit­ted gross vio­la­tions of human rights, unless the Secretary deter­mines and reports to the Committees on Appropriations that the gov­ern­ment of such coun­try is tak­ing effec­tive mea­sures to bring the respon­si­ble mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces unit to jus­tice: Provided, That noth­ing in this sec­tion shall be con­strued to with­hold funds made avail­able by this Act from any unit of the secu­ri­ty forces of a for­eign coun­try not cred­i­bly alleged to be involved in gross vio­la­tions of human rights: Provided fur­ther, That in the event that funds are with­held from any unit pur­suant to this sec­tion, the Secretary of State shall prompt­ly inform the for­eign gov­ern­ment of the basis for such action and shall, to the max­i­mum extent prac­ti­ca­ble, assist the for­eign gov­ern­ment in tak­ing effec­tive mea­sures to bring the respon­si­ble mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces to jus­tice so funds to the unit may be resumed.”

Obviously abuse of human rights and dig­ni­ty only hap­pen in oth­er coun­tries because I have not heard a sin­gle word , nei­ther have I head of any leg­is­la­tion from either Patrick Leahy or any­one else on the mass slaugh­ter of black and brown

peo­ple in America not to men­tion the cumu­la­tive assault on their dig­ni­ty and self respect daily.
How about a bill which bans fund­ing to police depart­ments which abuse the rights of citizens?
How about a bill which goes after killer cops who have lengthy records of abuse and no action is tak­en to rid the depart­ment of them .?
It is not enough for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to say “I own it , it hap­pened on my watch” , it was Emanuel and oth­er offi­cials who sought to keep the vis­cous cold-blood­ed slaugh­ter of Laquan McDonald under wraps.

Laquan McDonald could be alive today if the aggres­sive racist piece of human garbage parad­ing as a police offi­cer was removed from the depart­ment long ago .
Jason Van Dyke report­ed­ly had over (20) com­plaints of abu­sive and harm­ful behav­ior to the pub­lic and in one case a mem­ber of the pub­lic was even award­ed thou­sands of dol­lars yet no action was tak­en against Van Dyke, he was allowed to keep wear­ing the uni­form of a police officer.
Emanuel is not sor­ry for the killing of this trou­bled teen , he is sor­ry the facts were forced out into the open by jour­nal­ists who stayed true to their com­mit­ment and calling.
Can Emanuel, the Prosecutor or police offi­cials say the same ?

In the age of round the clock talk about ter­ror­ism and the demo­niz­ing of Muslims when mis­guid­ed zealots com­mit mass mur­der while hid­ing behind reli­gion, it is easy to dis­re­gard the home grown ter­ror­ism right here by a dif­fer­ent kind of ter­ror­ist oper­at­ing under the ban­ner and with the pro­tec­tion of the law.
Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke fired (16)bullets into the body of 17 year old trou­bled teen Laquan McDonald. He kept fir­ing even as the teen’s body lay on the ground twitch­ing . It was the most egre­gious exam­ple yet of police ter­ror­ism I have ever seen.
Van Dyke fired (16) bul­lets at Laquan McDonald even as McDonald was felled by the very first shot.
The first bul­let was ille­gal because he had no rea­son to fire his weapon.
The (15) bul­lets Van Dyke fired after McDonald was down was reck­less, depraved, indif­fer­ent , vicious­ly mur­der­ous, cal­lous yet they revealed the lev­el of mur­der­ous intent Jason Van Dyke har­bored for the peo­ple he col­lect­ed a salary to pro­tect and serve.

It is the same sick dement­ed yet bla­tant risqué will­ful­ness with which Staten Island cop Daniel Pantaleo mur­dered Eric Garner.
The same casu­al unmind­ful delib­er­a­tion with which Ferguson Missouri cop Darren Wilson vicious­ly fired and fired and fired until Michael Brown was a bul­let rid­dled mass of human remains.
The sick cal­lous dis­re­gard for black and brown lives are well doc­u­ment­ed from the uncon­scionable slaugh­ter of (12)year Tamir Rice to the man who evad­ed police on the Saw Mill River Parkway who had no weapon but end­ed up killed by police anyway.
White shoot­er Dylan Roof slaugh­tered (9) peo­ple who wel­comed the dement­ed sav­age into their prayer meet­ing he was cap­tured alive.
On and on we see white priv­i­lege at work in the most egre­gious and shame­less way , they don’t even try to defend it, cer­tain­ly not since Barack Obama ascend­ed to the presidency>
It is a white-lash[sic] at the temer­i­ty of a black man to attain the high­est fortress of white Supremacy, they can’t get to him but they will get to those they can. Some argue the slaugh­ter has been going on for­ev­er we were just not aware at the breadth, width and depth of it , nei­ther were we aware of the heights to which Racism is still entrenched in the society.
Until you begin to lis­ten to Senior Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia you prob­a­bly thought you could trust the courts to be just. Now you get an idea of what peo­ple of col­or are up against in this land of the free home of the brave.
The advent of social media and cam­era phones have seis­mi­cal­ly changed the par­a­digm, they do not deny it much any­more they sim­ply enforce it.

Alternet​.org said this.
White shoot­ers live and maybe get a Whopper on the way to jail. Black sus­pects don’t get the same roy­al treatment.
A bit of an under­state­ment how­ev­er the web­site said .Privilege con­sists of unearned advan­tages. Privilege is a sys­tem of pow­er rela­tion­ships. And priv­i­lege con­sists of all of the incon­ve­niences, chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties denied that a per­son does not have to ever think or wor­ry about.Warped White Privilege and the Planned Parenthood Killer.
Amid the (24) hour mass hys­te­ria sur­round­ing the issue of Islamist ter­ror­ism , far more whites are killing every­one else in America and far more police killings are occur­ring than peo­ple killed by Muslims.
Those are the irrefutable facts.
They have no shame , they nev­er did. They killed the Indians. They killed mil­lions dur­ing the slave trade .They killed mil­lions more after and they will kill as many more as they are allowed to kill. It’s in their DNA.

In a short yet to the point let­ter to the Editor of the Daily Gleaner promi­nent Lawyer Howard Hamilton QC wrote Wednesday.

No more blood must be shed in the game of pol­i­tics. For every drop of blood spilled, I will per­son­al­ly hold every politi­cian — from the prime min­is­ter and oppo­si­tion leader to all their affil­i­ates and under­lings — respon­si­ble for their action or inac­tion to pre­vent the loss of life. We can­not, as a nation, grow in this back­ward man­ner and hope to achieve any­thing. Is Vision 2030 to be for­got­ten and thrown aside once an elec­tion is to be announced? Will Vision 2030 mis­sion be changed to ‘live, work and die in Jamaica’? To the lead­ers of this coun­try, we need answers and will be hold­ing you all account­able for fur­ther loss of life, whether it be in Newlands or Beverly Hills.

Over the years Howard Hamilton and I have had our dis­agree­ments around some issues large­ly about the way our coun­try should be policed. This is under­stand­able, Hamilton’s voca­tion as a crim­i­nal defense lawyer is dia­met­ri­cal­ly oppo­site to my ear­ly years as a police officer.
THE ROAD TO HELL
Despite our dis­agree­ments on some pol­i­cy I have nev­er heard any­one ques­tion the integri­ty of Howard Hamilton . This is why I’m prompt­ed to respond point­ed­ly to mis­ter Hamilton’s rather impor­tant yet short letter.

When smart peo­ple of good char­ac­ter sits by and refuse to step for­ward in the vac­u­um of lead­er­ship that vac­u­um will be filled by idiots and peo­ple of poor character.
Is there a place on earth where this is more true than Jamaica?
Maybe not!!!
We have the lead­er­ship we have because the best peo­ple grew com­fort­able and dis­in­ter­est­ed . This embold­ened the most cor­rupt least tal­ent­ed to step for­ward and force them­selves on us even­tu­al­ly con­vinc­ing us to place them in posi­tions of trust.
In the process we stood by and watched as our moral com­pass is rede­fined by the worst among us. Our econ­o­my is dec­i­mat­ed. Our Infrastructure aban­doned and crum­bling . Education for our chil­dren unsup­port­ed. Healthcare in sham­bles. Agriculture non-exis­tence. Tourism mis­man­aged and is now lit­er­al­ly all all-inclu­sive which ben­e­fits only a few. Our pro­duc­tive sec­tor gasp­ing for the air of sur­vival and secu­ri­ty ? Well we can only rem­i­nisce about the days when Jamaica was a nice place to live.
To those who say it is nice now,I say unless you know you don’t know.

Despite my fin­ger point­ing I too must also look in the mir­ror and reeval­u­ate the deci­sion I made when I was asked to step for­ward and enter rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al politics.
On that occa­sion I said no.
I have nev­er regret­ted that decision.

It is par for the course now since Obama took office, far right big­ots, xeno­phobes and misog­y­nist creeps crawl out of their holes and launch vile attacks against every­one who isn’t white Anglo-Saxon.
Some peo­ple are now look­ing at the mild­ly lit­er­ate Donald Trump and say­ing this guy is a Misogynistic , Racist, Xenophobe as if trump rep­re­sent some­thing nev­er before seen in America.

I asked in a pre­vi­ous Article , why are every­one act­ing sur­prised about this rhetoric? Why are peo­ple act­ing like they are sur­prised at Trumps’ rise?
Trumps rise was pre­ced­ed by the rise of anoth­er Racist Xenophobe, the idiot from Alaska.
Their modus operan­di is the same, two vile igno­ra­mus­es who should nev­er be giv­en a plat­form and micro­phone but for igno­rant racist who are look­ing for a mouth­piece they were Godsends .
Donald Trump was born with a plat­inum spoon in his mouth the son of a wealthy New York Developer.
Trump lied that he owes his wealth to hard work and a mil­lion dol­lar loan from his father how­ev­er Trump has been the recip­i­ent of his

father’s enor­mous wealth.
The web­site bad​gop​.com point­ed out succinctly ..

Donald Trump Would Be Richer If He Never Touched Inheritance.
Donald Trump is fond of brag­ging about what a great busi­ness­man he is. As such, he claims he would be able to revive the American econ­o­my, nego­ti­ate bet­ter trade deals with our com­peti­tors, and ham­mer out air­tight for­eign pol­i­cy agree­ments that would prove America means business.
“Had the celebri­ty busi­ness­man and Re­pub­lic­an pres­i­den­tial can­di­date in­ves­ted his even­tu­al share of his fath­er’s real-es­­tate com­pany in­to a mu­tu­al fund of S&P 500 stocks in 1974, it would be worth near­ly $3 bil­lion today, thanks to the mar­ket’s per­form­ance over the past four dec­ades. If he’d invest­ed the $200 mil­lion that For­bes mag­a­zine deter­mined he was worth in 1982 into that index fund, it would have grown to more than $8 bil­lion today.”

So much for mak­ing deals and being a pow­er-bro­ker, the loud­mouth baboon nev­er miss­es an oppor­tu­ni­ty to make excus­es that his sev­er­al Bankruptcy fil­ings were busi­ness fil­ings and that he nev­er filed for per­son­al bank­rupt­cy protection.

The fact is that the orange haired baboon is not run­ning for per­son of the year , he is run­ning for the pres­i­den­cy, his three busi­ness bank­rupt­cy fil­ings can­not be the mod­el for America.
Countries do not get to file Bankruptcy time and again .

Lets cut to the chase does any sane per­son believe Sara Palin was qual­i­fied to be next in line for the Presidency?
Does any sane per­son believe Donald Trump is qual­i­fied to be the com­man­der in chief of the most pow­er­ful mil­i­tary in the world?
On both accounts the answer is no , so we must look at the rea­son these cretins surged into the front pages in their respec­tive cycles and have been foist­ed on the con­scious­ness of voters.

Having a wealthy father gets one draft defer­ments, huuuuuge[sic] inher­i­tance and a sense of enti­tle­ment but it cer­tain­ly does not make one smart.
I have heard from some quar­ters that Donald Trump is a smart man . I’ve also heard that Ben Carson is a smart man , I haven’t quite rec­on­ciled in my mind the con­cept of smart­ness being reduced to a sin­gle sub­ject matter.
Neither men have a clue about the way the world works, nei­ther do they know the issues…
So this time its Sarah Palin in drag pos­tur­ing as pres­i­den­tial tim­ber for the xeno­pho­bic right.
It almost seem that one has to be absolute­ly stu­pid to be con­sid­ered as a viable can­di­date on the moron­ic right.

What makes Donald Trump rel­e­vant to the idiot right is what made Palin consequential .
Extreme racist big­otry and mind-numb­ing stupidity.
Right wing can­di­dates must poss­es the gall to say the most despi­ca­ble offen­sive racist things about every­one not a white right wing nut job.
And most of all they must have a will­ing­ness and an eager­ness to dis­par­age, demo­nize and dis­re­spect President Barack Obama.
Palin made it an art-form, Trump has sim­ply picked up the baton and is run­ning with it.
It was liken­ing the afford­able care Act to slav­ery and being dis­parag­ing of the President which made Ben Carson a can­di­date, like oth­er also-ran, like Herman Cain it won’t be long before peo­ple strug­gle to recall Carson’s name or that he actu­al­ly ran.
Of course Carson will go down in his­to­ry as a trai­tor who joined the ene­mies of our race to dem­a­gogue the first black pres­i­dent, instead of being remem­bered for being a bril­liant surgeon.

Lets not pre­tend that we don’t know what this dem­a­goguery is about. It was always about hat­ing and blam­ing oth­er peo­ple for their fail­ures. You know the Blacks the Immigrant Hispanics and now the Muslims …It’s about hate.
Almost every day there is a mass shoot­ing in America and they are large­ly com­mit­ted by white men who claim Christianity as their religion.
When these mis­cre­ants kill no one judges Christianity and shouldn’t.
No one demo­nizes their race and shouldn’t .
They are sim­ply talked about as men­tal­ly ill individuals.
But you can’t use facts to counter the rhetoric of the will­ful ignorant.

Yesterday I wrote about the grow­ing prob­lem of attacks on police offi­cers by lit­er­al­ly every­one they approach in Jamaica. I made it clear that the( inde­com) Act embold­ens crim­i­nals to act with impuni­ty which is evi­dent from the dras­tic rise in seri­ous crimes includ­ing homicides.
As if that’s not bad enough there is grow­ing evi­dence of peo­ple who would oth­er­wise not chal­lenge law enforce­ment offi­cers in the law­ful exe­cu­tion of their duties lit­er­al­ly attack­ing and throw­ing punch­es on cops even when they are stopped for breach­ing the Island’s traf­fic laws..

There are instances where a par­tic­u­lar offi­cer was attempt­ing to con­fis­cate an unli­censed motor­cy­cle as he is oblig­ed to do by law . The dri­ver stead­fast­ly refused to sur­ren­der the motor­cy­cle. He threat­ened the offi­cer, threw punch­es, got back on the motor­cy­cle and rode off leav­ing a jeer­ing crowd to ridicule the officer.
The offi­cer’s female part­ner stood harm­less­ly by and watched.
Window dressing!!!!

It is appalling to watch the lev­el of law­less­ness which is occur­ring in Jamaica while the Administration in Kingston and the half-baked idiot who sits in Jamaica House does noth­ing to take back the streets from the crim­i­nals who have the police on the run.
The aver­age per­son on the streets have zero fear of the laws which are large­ly archa­ic and pos­es zero deter­rent effect to would be criminals.
On the rare occa­sion that crim­i­nals are appre­hend­ed and the evi­dence is over­whelm­ing that it can­not be thrown out the cor­rupt left­ist judges which pop­u­late the bench lit­er­al­ly slaps crim­i­nals on the wrist and sim­ply turn them loose back into society.
This in and of itself is a ter­rif­ic recruit­ment tool for the crim­i­nal underworld.
Jamaica’s young men and in some cas­es young women are drawn inex­orably to a life of crime. A sim­ple cost ben­e­fit analy­sis shows that crime pays in Jamaica.

A young man who walks into a busi­ness place and robs a mil­lion dol­lars has very lit­tle chance of ever get­ting caught in Jamaica anymore.
If how­ev­er he is caught and by some stroke of luck he is con­vict­ed in the social­ist court sys­tem he is like­ly to be slapped with a fine of fifty thou­sand dol­lars at most.
Why would this young man not rel­ish a life of crime?
To the causal observ­er this may seem like a crim­i­nal jus­tice which is fail­ing . To the avid watch­er who pays atten­tion it is far more sinister.
The Governing PNP encour­ages crime and cor­rup­tion. Every aspect of it’s func­tions is a tan­gled web of crim­i­nal­i­ty and corruption .
The award­ing of Government con­tracts is a pigs trough of cor­rup­tion , graft and pay­offs to crim­i­nal thugs who deliv­er large swath of votes to the PNP from par­ty strongholds.

My pre­ten­tious coun­try­men will scoff at the notion that our beloved Island is no dif­fer­ent than a sub-Saharan enclave ruled by crim­i­nal warlords.
There absolute­ly is not much difference,Jamaica sim­ply has a bet­ter lay­er of veneer.
The mass­es of the unin­formed unwit­ting­ly believe that the coun­try is on a path to devel­op­ment. The fact is that from the Prime Minister to the thug in the gar­risons the sys­tem works they are reap­ing the rewards of crime and corruption.
For every­one else they have carte blanch to go out and get theirs by what­ev­er means necessary.
And they do , this allows the com­mon man to make a liv­ing in the crim­i­nal under­world or col­lo­qui­al­ly “eat a food” while the Government starves law enforce­ment of resources, sup­port, and leg­is­la­tion which would seri­ous­ly impact crime in a pos­i­tive way for well mean­ing Jamaicans.

This crude yet effec­tive strat­e­gy gave the People’s National Party con­trol of state pow­er for 31 of the last 43 years.
Today the People’s National Party still con­trol state power.
In what may cer­tain­ly be unprece­dent­ed time in office in a coun­try not con­sid­ered a dic­ta­tor­ship the PNP using those worse prac­tices through the 70’s to present day has dec­i­mat­ed the pro­duc­tive sec­tor, cre­at­ed a riv­er of brain drain, evis­cer­at­ed the nation­al cur­ren­cy , presided over mas­sive moral and infra­struc­tur­al decay and dri­ven the entire mid­dle class into poverty.

In the mean­time Forbes projects the Island’s Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller to have a Net Worth of $20 Million. Portia Simpson Miller Net Worth.

Speaking on the strate­gies being employed in com­bat­ing crime in Saint James, the new mur­der Parish, Senior Superintendent of police Steve McGregor told one of the dai­ly news papers he and his team will be work­ing assid­u­ous­ly to remove pros­ti­tutes from the streets par­tic­u­lar­ly along Harbor street and the area known as the hip-strip.
McGregor high­light­ed the high lev­el of unruly behav­ior, some­thing we spoke about yesterday.
“Right now it is a chal­lenge because it is a very undis­ci­plined town­ship and the town has been allowed to behave this way for some time, so the fact that we are now tight­en­ing the noose on them as it relates to their behav­ioral pat­tern, we are get­ting a chal­lenge from them. But we are up to the task and we are going to police the town­ship the way that we are doing because we are find­ing that this is send­ing a good mes­sage to the gen­er­al parish as it relates to discipline,”.

Of course the police are being challenged .
Of course they have been allowed to behave that way for sometime.
It goes to the Government’s pol­i­cy of allow­ing peo­ple to break the law while cre­at­ing the impres­sion it wants low­er crime.
The fact is that the Governing admin­is­tra­tion in Kingston is inher­ent­ly corrupt .
In a coun­try of laws most of it’s mem­bers would have been doing seri­ous time in prison.
So even though I com­mend the Senior Superintendent for at least rec­og­niz­ing that tack­ling qual­i­ty of life offences is a good way to root out more seri­ous crimes,to the aver­age per­son it seem sil­ly talk­ing about lock­ing up pros­ti­tutes while mass mur­der­ers are walk­ing around untouched.

What the Nation needs to see(not hear) is a ruth­less assault on mass killers many of whom have exe­cut­ed sev­er­al inno­cent peo­ple and have paid no price.
This would require lead­er­ship and there is real­ly no seri­ous lead­er­ship at the top of the Constabulary.
What we see com­ing from the top lead­er­ship is the same old boot-lick­ing bull­shit which has char­ac­ter­ized pre­vi­ous police com­mis­sion­ers tenure.
The first order of busi­ness is that offi­cers must know that when they go out to enforce the laws they have the full back­ing of the law in car­ry­ing out their duties.
That includes sup­port from the Government, the Chief con­sta­ble and the police federation.

The Commissioner of Police acknowl­edges the threat lev­els against offi­cers and offers his full sup­port for offi­cers who take action to pro­tect their lives from vicious crim­i­nal assault.
When has Commissioner Williams or the Officer Corps of the JCF ever stood with offi­cers being per­se­cut­ed by the Government through (inde­com)?
The threat to police though real and ever present is not con­fined to offi­cers being shot down sim­ply because they are offi­cers. It is inher­ent every­day in the sim­plest inter­ac­tions they have each day in the pur­suit of their duties.
In no oth­er coun­try but Jamaica would a motor­cy­clist kill a cop ‚sev­er­ing one of his legs after ram­ming him when sig­naled to stop and seri­ous leg­is­la­tion not be enact­ed to make sure it does not hap­pen again.
In Jamaica it’s noth­ing , just anoth­er dead cop.
Cops are assault­ed and the crowds laugh and the per­pe­tra­tor walks away free as a bird.
Officer takes action he faces crim­i­nal charges.

This is the real Jamaica , not the con­trived Jamaica they show to the world in the tourist board repet­i­tive ads. Our coun­try is not get­ting bet­ter it is slid­ing fur­ther and fur­ther into anarchy.
The first step toward stop­ping the destruc­tion of our coun­try is remov­ing the crim­i­nal­ly cor­rupt admin­is­tra­tion from power .

As crime con­tin­ue to rise in Jamaica because of the INDECOM Act chill­ing effect on offi­cers abil­i­ty to do their job, more and more peo­ple on the streets are being extra aggres­sive and vio­lent against police officers.
Time after time we see sim­ple traf­fic stops esca­late to dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tions, usu­al­ly because some­one wants to show off to bystanders who usu­al­ly play the role of agitators.

Frequently we high­light instances of Police offi­cers unlaw­ful­ly killing cit­i­zens and oth­er­wise abus­ing the rights of cit­i­zens par­tic­u­lar­ly in the United States.
Conversely we see an oppo­site sit­u­a­tion devel­op­ing in Jamaica where the Police are sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly being attacked by peo­ple who have no fear of consequence.

In instance after instance we see videos of police offi­cers on the streets try­ing to do their jobs being seri­ous­ly attacked by men who sim­ply want to show bystanders that they will not sub­mit to arrest.
Officers are fac­ing seri­ous risks to their per­sons and are clear­ly hes­i­tant because they do not want to be accused of using exces­sive force.
This sit­u­a­tion is unten­able, for­get about ris­ing crime, offi­cers have absolute­ly no oblig­a­tion to be assault­ed for doing their jobs.

It is impor­tant that offi­cers under­stand that despite what the vil­lage lawyers say “an assailant does not have to have a weapon to pose seri­ous harm to an officer’.
Let me reit­er­ate, the laws guar­an­tee offi­cers the pow­er to use what­ev­er force is nec­es­sary to pro­tect their lives or that of oth­ers. That force includes but is not con­fined to lethal force.
You may shoot to kill an assailant swing­ing at you with intent to harm you,. If an assailant suc­ceeds in knock­ing an offi­cer to the ground the next step is that he will take the offi­cer’s weapon and use it on him/​her.
You are jus­ti­fied in using dead­ly force on an assailant swing­ing at you.

The Commissioner of Police is a lack­ey whose chief func­tion it appears is to issue state­ments about police offi­cers being under threat, yet he does absolute­ly noth­ing to shore up sup­port for the men and women under his com­mand who are in mor­tal dan­ger every day they go out to pro­tect the lives and prop­er­ty of others.
The Police Federation is a neutered mon­grel which yelps inces­sant­ly but has teeth of rub­ber when it counts.

The first thing the Commissioner of Police should do to pro­tect offi­cers is to ensure that as soon as an offi­cer calls for back­up rein­force­ments are there imme­di­ate­ly or with­in two to three min­utes thereafter.
There is no greater deter­rent than an assailant know­ing more cops are on the way in sec­onds and his ass will be sub­dued one way or the other.
Physical assault is nev­er far away from police offi­cers. In Jamaica it is a blood­sport, peo­ple do it so they can brag about it.
It is time that offi­cers make it clear they will not tol­er­ate attack on their per­sons irre­spec­tive of who want to inves­ti­gate or the impo­tence and incom­pe­tence of the Commissioner of Police.

If the Government does not pro­vide tasers to sub­due poten­tial assailants offi­cers should not bear that bur­den through their shed blood.
Officers should nev­er abuse the rights of cit­i­zens how­ev­er if a sus­pect attacks an offi­cer he/​she must nev­er hes­i­tate to use their weapon. Whether or not the assailant is armed. Use the weapon you are giv­en, shoot to kill, period.
This lev­el of law­less­ness has sim­ply got to stop.

Each Election cycle in the United States Republicans out-right­ly uses Black Americans as a wedge to win white votes.
I am sure it was worse in the ear­ly years before Nixon’s “south­ern strat­e­gy” , Reagan’s launch­ing his cam­paign in the south . Bush’s “Willie Houghton” attack against Michael Dukakis to name a few .
With that in mind I see no rea­son to believe that Republicans will be any dif­fer­ent this cycle.
One would hope that since we are now in 21^st cen­tu­ry that maybe, just maybe com­mon decen­cy would apply and the white men run­ning for the pres­i­den­cy on the right would show some class , decen­cy and intelligence.
Unfortunately despite the fact that Blacks are the most sol­id and loy­al part of the Democratic base Democrats are not shy about throw­ing the black com­mu­ni­ty under the bus to cur­ry favor with white vot­ers either.
Political watch­ers will recall Bill Clinton’s “Sister Soulja” diss,and even the incon­se­quen­tial Martin O’malley’s “all lives mat­ter” in response to the black lives mat­ter movement.

With all of the hate­ful rhetoric com­ing from Republican can­di­dates Donald Trump , Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee Ben Carson and oth­ers I won­dered what was gained from the meet­ing between the Black Ministers who met with Trump on Monday?
One spokesper­son speak­ing on behalf of the black min­is­ters said Trump was not a racist. I have no idea why a group of self serv­ing Negros would line up to say a rabid dis­eased racist is no racist?
But then again I also won­dered why slav­ery last­ed that long in this coun­try until I saw and heard the views of some Black Americans.

It was­n’t the first time that a bunch of black reli­gious char­la­tans had lined up to sup­port the orange-haired buf­foon. At a press con­fer­ence pri­or to a ral­ly in Norcross, Georgia, Donald Trump was sur­round­ed onstage by black pas­tors and min­is­ters sup­port­ing his can­di­da­cy. One pas­tor took the micro­phone and said Trump would make “a hell of a chief executive”:

“I can’t think of a bet­ter per­son, a bet­ter leader to lead this coun­try to where America needs to go.”

“I want to dis­pel this notion that Donald Trump is a racist,” he con­tin­ued. “We’re not here as token blacks. We’re here because we want to sup­port him… We believe him and his leadership.”
Another said Trump could be trust­ed to look after Christians in this coun­try and pro­tect their spir­i­tu­al needs. In response to a ques­tion, Trump said he has not met with the Black Lives Matter group. No one both­ered to men­tion to the Clown that he had recent­ly berat­ed Bernie Sanders for not dis­re­spect­ing black lives mat­ter activists, nei­ther was it impor­tant to the bible thump­ing har­lots who lined up to deceive their own peo­ple in God’s name.
I found out long ago that it was not a good idea to fight for the American black because he has no desire to excel beyond the low­est rung of the ladder.
You dis­agree ? Look at what they have done with the gains secured by Thurgood Marshall, Martin King , Medger Evers Malcolm X and the count­less oth­ers who made the ulti­mate sacrifice.

For those So-called Ministers a meet­ing with “Massa”, I mean Trump, was enough to cause them to for­get all of the dis­parag­ing things Trump said about President Obama and the Black lives mat­ter move­ment , or even that he refers to black peo­ple as “the blacks”.
As long as “Massa“met with them they felt all was right with the world he was no racist screw those Activists in the streets chant­i­ng and march­ing for justice.
If only you were like me “Massa” would accept you too[sic].
The only prob­lem for the black min­is­ters is that they were mere props for the fur­ther­ance of the Trump hate machine.
I mean if Trump can meet and rub shoul­ders with “The Blacks”, the most despised and reviled and they can come out and say Mister Trump is no Racist who cares what the “rapists and mur­der­ers” from Mexico think, right?

It was a bril­liant stroke of genius by the Trump cam­paign, of course those well attired Black Ministers had no prob­lem being the dis­play Mannequins. In fact the whole stroke of genius went com­plete­ly over their heads.
As long as we refus­es to place val­ue on our­selves oth­ers will val­ue us or bet­ter yet deval­ue us. As long as a pho­to-Op with “Massa” makes us feel all is well with the world we are con­demned to con­tin­ue being the man­nequin for all to hang their designs on.