One can­not fix what one does not under­stand to be a prob­lem. Jamaica’s People’s National Party as a par­ty nev­er ful­ly under­stood the con­cept of free mar­ket . They built their par­ty on pop­ulism and the charis­ma of their leaders.

The prob­lem with the People’s National Party is not that they do not mean well, it’s not that they do not care, the prob­lem is the method­olo­gies they employ in their stat­ed quest to improve the lives of Jamaicans actu­al­ly has kept the poor­est peo­ple enslaved in their own pover­ty. I was not around at the time of Norman Manley , but my curios­i­ty about his­to­ry has revealed the true nature of Manley’s con­tri­bu­tion to Jamaica and the pop­ulism he used to deliv­er said ben­e­fits. Norman Manley’s pop­u­lar­i­ty and pop­ulism and that of his son Michael gave birth to an almost cult-like genre of the Jamaican pop­u­la­tion that per­sists to this day despite the PNP’s short-com­ings, and cor­rup­tion over the last three decades. One could rea­son­ably argue that the cult-like loy­al­ty the most­ly poor­er under­class have for the PNP , some­thing the Jamaica Labor Party can only dream of , is anchored large­ly in their inabil­i­ty to under­stand that real change in their lives will come only through hard-work, sac­ri­fice, and nation­al pride. National pride by the way does not mean wear­ing com­mu­nist red, salut­ing with clenched fist, or from those who run around call­ing each oth­er com­rade but has nev­er read a line of Lenin or Marx’s phi­los­o­phy. Today​.Today despite the fall of the Berlin Wall result­ing in the reuni­fi­ca­tion of an impov­er­ished com­mu­nist East Germany with a thriv­ing West Germany over two decades lat­er, the breakup of the for­mer Soviet empire, and the death of com­mu­nism as an organ of empow­er­ment, the PNP is still stuck advo­cat­ing the same regres­sive com­mu­nal poli­cies that caused those occur­rences in these larg­er geo­graph­ic loca­tions in the first place, poli­cies they have since dis­card­ed and are now rac­ing to catch up with the rest of the indus­tri­al­ized world which opt­ed for free mar­ket pol­i­cy, trust­ing in the inge­nu­ity of their peo­ple to dri­ve growth and devel­op­ment through their God-giv­en talents.

Miller

The People’s National Party President Portia Simpson Miller recent­ly chid­ed Prime Minister Andrew Holness for stat­ing that Government real­ly can­not be the prime cre­ator of jobs.This crit­i­cism ought to have been a warn­ing to an informed pop­u­lace that this per­son may mean well but lacks a basic under­stand­ing of what real­ly is required to change the dynam­ics in the coun­try , which will in turn affect their lives in a pos­i­tive way. Alas Jamaica does not have an informed pop­u­la­tion, what we have is a deeply dived peo­ple who bleed red/​orange or green when they are cut. Government’s job is to pro­vide a safe envi­ron­ment, that includes ade­quate infra­struc­ture which in turn gives peo­ple a chance to get the edu­ca­tion they need in the field of their choice to bet­ter their lives. How can gov­ern­ment which does earn rev­enue large­ly through tax­a­tion be the engine that dri­ves sus­tain­able job cre­ation or growth? Unfortunately the PNP is still enshrined in the socialist/​communist dog­ma that is embraced by only North Korea , even Cuba is look­ing to move to a mar­ket econ­o­my. Portia talks about China , brag­ging that the PNP embraced China when it was not pop­u­lar to do so , well the truth of the mat­ter is that the PNP did not embrace China for it’s now diver­si­fied cap­i­tal­ist eco­nom­ic push , they embraced China on ide­o­log­i­cal grounds . Holness missed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to dri­ve this fact home, chalk that up to his youth. In the 21^st cen­tu­ry the PNP is still refer­ring to them­selves as com­rades, that train has long left the sta­tion the only ones who has­n’t real­ized this is them.

As I have allud­ed to in these blogs time and again when asked what her pri­or­i­ty would be if elect­ed Prime Minister Miller stat­ed that she would endeav­or to col­lect man­goes that we can­not eat,process them,eat what we can and share the remain­der with the rest of the world . a sup­port­er of Miller famous­ly stat­ed in a blog that Miller is respect­ed and loved all around the world . I thought about that claim as I remind­ed myself that in the same way coun­tries do not share friend­ships they share com­mon inter­ests, women laud each oth­er com­pli­ment each other,celebrate each oth­er, praise each oth­er, claim to sup­port each oth­er for no oth­er rea­son but that they are women. On the world stage polit­i­cal lead­ers tol­er­ate each oth­er. In an appar­ent open mike foul up recent­ly at a gath­er­ing of world lead­ers, French President Nicholas Sarkozy report­ed­ly told President Obama he could­n’t stand Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because he was a liar, to which Obama retort­ed “You can’t stand him , how do you think I feel hav­ing to deal with him every day”? I am sure both gen­tle­man warm­ly greet­ed and chat­ted with Mister Netanyahu ear­li­er that day.

It’s the sil­ly sea­son in Jamaica. Once again Jamaicans allow them­selves to be whipped into a fren­zy in sup­port of one of the two polit­i­cal gangs that take turns ruin­ing .… I mean run­ning Jamaica. This hap­pens every four or five years despite protes­ta­tions from many that they do not see nei­ther the win­ners or losers in their com­mu­ni­ties after the elec­tions untill the next cycle comes around. So the sto­ries have start­ed com­ing in about the ston­ing of busses filled with peo­ple on their way home from a meet­ing held in Mandeville Manchester called to announce the date of the elec­tions. There are also reports of one man being shot and killed after that same meet­ing, I mean, seri­ous­ly people?

The Jamaican Dollar fluc­tu­ates some­where between 83 – 85 to one US$ this means the dol­lar is real­ly worth­less, even in Jamaica traders and ped­dlers ask for US dol­lar in pay­ment for goods and ser­vices, infla­tion has dri­ven the price of food and oth­er con­sumer goods through the roof, crime cor­rup­tion and ter­ror are rampant.These are just some of the issues plagu­ing our once beau­ti­ful par­adise. Many argue they don’t care what’s going on Jamaica is nice, and I con­cur of course our coun­try the beau­ti­ful land of wood and water is just as beau­ti­ful, if of course one choos­es to ignore the fact that too many of our trees has been cut down so we have small­er rivers and streams as a result of less rain­fall when com­pared to three decades ago , but I digress.

It is not the coun­try it’s always the people.

The Observer Editorial of today Tuesday December 20^th prais­es RJR for not air­ing the JLP’s adver­tise­ment show­ing Portia Simpson Miller rant­i­ng and rav­ing about not being afraid of quote “no bwoy, nu gal, nowhere” .

RJR right to sus­pend Portia trac­ing ad.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com.

In his Editorial the writer went to pains to try to absolve Portia of respon­si­bil­i­ty for the words com­ing from her very lips.

These com­ments were not untrue quotes assigned to her mali­cious­ly, they were not doc­tored and damn sure are not incor­rect , yet this opin­ion shaper went to lengths to con­vince vot­ers that quote ” The peo­ple will judge Mrs Simpson Miller as to her char­ac­ter, as they did in 2007. The JLP needs to have a lit­tle more faith in the good sense of the Jamaican vot­er. What a load of crock the actions of chil­dren from as far back as grade school now forms part of that child’s per­ma­nent record, it deter­mines what high school or col­lege that child is accept­ed into , it deter­mines what that child will be when he/​she grows up , yet some­how the words and actions of Portia Simpson should be ignored and cov­ered up. Portia Simpson Miller has allowed the ghet­to to shape her as much as any­thing else, as a young detec­tive I observed her in front of the Whitehall Avenue school roll and bawl in the mid­dle of the streets because her red ban­dan­na wear­ing thugs were not allowed to steal bal­lot box­es from the school, nev­er mind that her con­stituen­cy is bor­der­ing Spanish Town Road, and White Hall Avenue is in Saint Andrew North. Whatever we do in life fol­lows us for the rest of our lives Simpson Miller is no excep­tion. Gary Allen and oth­ers are noth­ing more than lit­tle Gods in their lit­tle ponds in Jamaica , small fish in their lit­tle holes mak­ing deci­sions of what peo­ple are allowed to hear and what they aren’t allowed to hear , for­tu­nate­ly there are choic­es now , peo­ple do not have to lis­ten to RJR now do they?

Jamaicans will go to the polls on December 29^th 2011.

December 29^th is a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for me as that is the date of my birth. I have a prob­lem with Prime Minister Holness call­ing elec­tions on my birth­day, I’m not hap­py about that kind of mad­ness on my spe­cial day. Ok that was a joke, but seri­ous­ly though over the years I have added my voice in the call for fixed elec­tion dates. It seem juve­nile and almost child­ish for some­thing as seri­ous and Jermain to our coun­try’s sta­bil­i­ty as elec­tions to be left to the whim and fan­cy of one per­son. I am yet to hear a rea­son­able argu­ment that sup­ports the sta­tus quo.Conversely it has been a tool for Prime Ministers to use when it suits them , and at a time when the polls are in their favor.

In the greater scheme of things it real­ly is not as seri­ous as some who argue against it would have you believe, at least in my mind , and I would be open to hear­ing and assim­i­lat­ing more argu­ments in sup­port of our posi­tion. It is impor­tant but for me it does not par­al­lel the need for con­sti­tu­tion­al reform and a com­plete de-annex­a­tion from Britain. I do believe a date cer­tain would be more ben­e­fi­cial to the finan­cial mar­kets and the busi­ness sec­tor, nei­ther of which par­tic­u­lar­ly likes dis­qui­et or uncer­tain­ty. It seem to me it would also cause those han­dling the peo­ple’s busi­ness to bring greater stew­ard­ship and pro­fes­sion­al­ism to their jobs, unless of course they choose to com­mit polit­i­cal suicide.

One thing is cer­tain as a specie we con­tin­ue to give up free­doms that made our lives fun and inter­est­ing, the lat­i­tude a prime Minister has in call­ing elec­tions with­in a cer­tain time but not a spe­cif­ic date will prob­a­bly be tak­en away because of the games­man­ship that has become syn­ony­mous with that lat­i­tude. Simple lux­u­ries like hav­ing a cell phone in one’s car has been abused by those who talk and text while they dri­ve , has attract­ed sig­nif­i­cant penal­ties to those conveniences.

So as we pay a price for talking/​texting while dri­ving, our Prime Ministers may very soon lose the lat­i­tude of being the decider of when elec­tions are called.

I want to bring a cou­ple of thoughts to the atten­tion of Jamaicans and oth­ers who have an inter­est in whats going on in our country.

THE QUESTION OF THE GARRISON MARCH

Gleaner pho­to

The first is the offer Prime Minister Holness has made to the leader of the Opposition Portia Simpson Miller to walk in some com­mu­ni­ties char­ac­ter­ized as gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ties or zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions. There has been many and var­ied opin­ions on whether this pro­posed sym­bol­ic ges­ture will accom­plish any­thing. Some have argued that time has passed and what is need­ed now is con­crete action. Those are legit­i­mate arguments,but are not argu­ments that negates the pos­i­tive out­come for the coun­try that would emanate from peo­ple liv­ing in the inner cities and all over Jamaica to see the top two polit­i­cal lead­ers walk­ing and talk­ing as friends. Some have argued that Bob Marley brought Manley and Seaga togeth­er yet polar­iza­tion per­sists, what they fail to under­stand or acknowl­edge is that events would have poten­tial­ly been vast­ly dif­fer­ent and many more lives lost had that event not occurred. We are not going to try to nuance that to death what we will say is that if it does­n’t hurt whats the prob­lem in doing it for the coun­try? To date Mrs. Simpson Miller has not seen fit to engage this new Prime Minister in the hand of fel­low­ship that he extend­ed to her, choos­ing to attach a bunch of pre­req­ui­sites before her par­tic­i­pa­tion in any march.

PORTIA’S NON CONCESSION TO BRUCE

Bruce Golding

Former Prime Minister Bruce Golding lashed out at Portia Simpson Miller at the JLP con­fer­ence at the National Arena on Sunday November 20^th. In an address Golding lashed Miller for what he char­ac­ter­ized as a breach of pro­to­cols estab­lished by all for­mer Prime Ministers gone before in call­ing the win­ner and con­ced­ing defeat when they lost .Golding went on to say that the media had grown impa­tient with him not arriv­ing at the Belmont Road Head quar­ters of the JLP on the night he won the elec­tion. he stat­ed he held back from going to Belmont Road as the nor­mal con­ces­sion phone call did not come from Mrs. Simpson Miller.

Mrs. Miller for her part shot back that she had always treat­ed Mister Golding with respect through­out his time as Prime Minister , and empha­sized that she even attend­ed his inau­gu­ra­tion. She stat­ed that because of the close­ness of the race and oth­er issues which she intend­ed to address in the courts she decid­ed not to concede.

Portia Simpson Miller

Supporters of Mrs Miller con­tend this is sour grapes on the part of Golding, and that this is in the past. Is it

On the night after she lost the elec­tions Portia Simpson Miller in a rather bel­li­cose and bel­liger­ent speech stat­ed that she would con­cede noth­ing to the labour par­ty and that she would be their worst night­mare. Presumably Mrs Miller was refer­ring to the dual cit­i­zen­ship issue with three of the JLP’ can­di­dates which was an issue as far as the con­sti­tu­tion of the coun­try is con­cerned. Jamaica’s con­sti­tu­tion clear­ly states that any­one hav­ing alle­giance to a for­eign pow­er can­not sit in Parliament. The PNP which Miller heads also had can­di­dates that had dual cit­i­zen­ship. Mrs Millers argu­ments are legit­i­mate but did not pre­clude her from con­ced­ing to the Prime Minister elect whilst let­ting him know that she intend­ed to see the mat­ter through in court.

In fact con­ced­ing vic­to­ry in no way takes away her right to chal­lenge the results of the elec­tion in a court of law,neither does it pre­vent her from receiv­ing her just redress should a court find in her favor. The fact is it was a bad deci­sion ‚one which I am sure Portia regretted.

POLITICAL DEBATES

There is still sub­stan­tial squab­bling going on about the for­mat of debates by the can­di­dates, or even whether there should be any debates at all. The new­ly installed Prime Minister has indi­cat­ed his will­ing­ness to debate the leader of the oppo­si­tion before a nation­al tele­vised audi­ence. Now grant­ed there is no law that dic­tates that can­di­dates seek­ing the high­est elect­ed office in the coun­try should debate. It should not be a prob­lem for any­one want­i­ng to lead the coun­try to let peo­ple know how they will han­dle the job. Detractors of the debate that every­one seek­ing a job has to inter­view for that job , some­times doing two or there inter­views in the process before being seri­ous­ly con­sid­ered for that posi­tion. What makes politi­cians any dif­fer­ent? no won­der when they are elect­ed they believe the laws do not apply to them.

From all indi­ca­tions Mrs Miller would like a debate where she is a part of a team of can­di­dates where she can be shield­ed by her col­leagues, the leader of the coun­try must be smart and assertive he/​she will have no cov­er in seri­ous inter­na­tion­al nego­ti­a­tions, Portia must debate the issues one and one with Andrew Holness and let the chips fall where they may, she does not get to say what she will or will not do.

have your say

Conventional wis­dom amongst Jamaicans is that ever per­son from Jamaica sees pol­i­tics through green or orange lens­es . Even the most casu­al com­ment or obser­va­tion in a pub­lic forum draws the most stark and angry attack.

For decades after our so-called inde­pen­dence our peo­ple have slaugh­tered each oth­er to keep politi­cians in office, this is true of sup­port­ers of both polit­i­cal par­ties, hav­ing spent a decade on the front lines dodg­ing bul­lets from the weapons both sides sup­plied to young une­d­u­cat­ed and vul­ner­a­ble youths, I am not par­tic­u­lar­ly endeared to either polit­i­cal gang. At the same time I am rather intol­er­ant of fly by night vil­lage lawyers who have opin­ions based on noth­ing more than par­ty alle­giance. Having spent so much of my life liv­ing and work­ing in Jamaica I am acute­ly aware of the chal­lenges inher­ent in try­ing to change or alter the opin­ions of many Jamaicans, the truth is too many are lost to igno­rance, arro­gance, or both. As a nation, the next best thing is to try to impact the chil­dren in a pos­i­tive way in an effort to change the mind­set going for­ward if the coun­try is to be com­pet­i­tive, or even main­tain some resm­blance to a demo­c­ra­t­ic nation going for­ward. I read sev­er­al blogs and pub­li­ca­tions dai­ly, some of them includes the Jamaican dai­ly and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions from the United States and oth­er parts of the world, on the occa­sions where Jamaicans are allowed to com­ment, I am always dis­ap­point­ed by their inabil­i­ty to sep­a­rate them­selves from the blink­ered hand­i­cap of the nar­row parochial con­straints of PNP,JLP pol­i­tics. Clearly the Orange and Green has evolved from a fun­gus that was vis­i­ble from the out­side to a dis­ease that is now in their blood stream. Those of us who dare point out the prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with their polit­i­cal idols are attacked as sup­port­er of the oth­er side, even if one has a record of point­ing to the prob­lems of both sides. It is inescapable then to avoid being labeled a par­ti­san, so I am pre­pared when­ev­er I write to be labeled a par­ti­san as long as the argu­ments I put for­ward are sup­port­ed by data and facts.

Miller 

As I have said pre­vi­ous­ly, know­ing this makes me res­olute about not wor­ry­ing about the cyn­ics, and the crit­ics, I remain com­mit­ted to work­ing with and dis­cussing ideas with intel­li­gent open-mind­ed Jamaicans in the dias­po­ra and at home.

Holness

On Sunday October 23^rd 39-year-old Andrew Michael Holness was installed in a cer­e­mo­ny at Kings House as Jamaica’s 9^th and youngest ever Prime Minister. Holness gave a lengthy speech lit­tered with obser­va­tions and vision for the coun­try. One of the things he said he would do is ask the leader of the Opposition to walk with him in a sym­bol­ic show of uni­ty toward dis­man­tling (Garrisons), zones of polit­i­cal exclusions,with a view to end­ing gar­ri­son pol­i­tics once and for all in Jamaica. Garrison Politics has been a shame­ful blight on the country.

WHAT ARE GARRISONS ?

1.

a body of troops sta­tioned in a for­ti­fied place.

2.

the place where such troops are stationed.

3.

any mil­i­tary post, espe­cial­ly a per­ma­nent one.

verb (used with object)

4.

to pro­vide (a fort, town, etc.) with a garrison.

5.

to occu­py (a fort, post, sta­tion, etc.) with troops.

6.

to put (troops) on duty in a fort, post, sta­tion, etc .(source dic​tio​nary​.com)

A gar­ri­son in the Jamaican sense ful­fill all of the char­ac­ter­is­tic com­po­nents stip­u­lat­ed in these definitions,in Kingston and Saint Andrew, as also Saint Catherine, these zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sion lit­ter the land­scape, and as it would for an oppos­ing army breech­ing a gar­ri­son as stip­u­lat­ed above, the con­se­quence of such actions will­ful or unwit­ting will almost result in death. The dif­fer­ence between Jamaican Garrisons and the for­ti­fi­ca­tions men­tioned in the def­i­n­i­tion is that the gar­risons in Jamaica do not need walls, how­ev­er the lines of demarka­tion are fierce­ly guard­ed by well armed punks with high-pow­ered weapons, and a seem­ing­ly unend­ing sup­ply of ammu­ni­tion sup­plied by their bene­fac­tors. The leader of the polit­i­cal Opposition famous­ly said her con­stituen­cy has no walls, in her mind the absence of a wall means it isn’t a gar­ri­son! We’ll get back to that.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A GARRISON IN THE JAMAICAN SENSE?

The year 1980 saw one of the great­est peri­od of polit­i­cal upheaval in Jamaica’s his­to­ry, over 800 peo­ple were report­ed­ly killed as a result of polit­i­cal vio­lence, these num­bers attrib­uted to any oth­er coun­try would be char­ac­ter­ized as civ­il war in pro­por­tion, not so in Jamaica, killing is a way of life, it is accept­ed , pro­mot­ed in music, glo­ri­fied in the media and on polit­i­cal cam­paign stumps. Killing and maim­ing is a cel­e­brat­ed way of show­ing one’s girth and clout in the streets, this vio­lence begets more vio­lence in order to sus­tain itself, the result up to the end of 2009 by police sta­tis­tics is over 1600 mur­dered in a coun­try of under 2.8 mil­lion peo­ple. So what is a Garrison in the Jamaican sense ? Well after Jamaica was uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly cut from the apron strings of England her colo­nial mas­ter, our peo­ple were asked to gov­ern them­selves after hun­dreds of years of colo­nial dom­i­na­tion, the coun­try received no repa­ra­tions for the assault and abuse , Jamaica like oth­er for­mer colonies was sim­ply cast aside to fend for itself. Scarce resources like hous­ing, and jobs became a bar­gain­ing chip for politi­cians to dole out to those who showed alle­giance to their polit­i­cal par­ty depend­ing on which par­ty is in pow­er, in oth­er word a pseu­do colo­nial depen­den­cy , just on a dif­fer­ent scale.

This manip­u­la­tion of scarce resources for polit­i­cal gain cre­at­ed enmi­ty between the fac­tions aligned to the two polit­i­cal par­ties ‚the (PNP)People’s National Party the brain child of National Hero Norman Washington Manley whose son Michael Manley as Prime Minister was to lead Jamaica through its rough­est polit­i­cal peri­od, and the (JLP) the brain child of his cousin Alexander Bustamante, also one of Jamaica’s nation­al heroes.

Norman Manley a Queens Counsel british trained lawyer and Bustamante a street savvy Trade Unionists are seen as the found­ing fathers of the coun­try after Independence, many old­er Jamaicans devel­oped a love and undy­ing alle­giance to both men depend­ing on their beliefs many would die for them, as that gen­er­a­tion passed a more mil­i­tant gen­er­a­tion of politi­cians emerged in the per­sons of Michael Manley and Edward Seaga, the polit­i­cal rhetoric was ramped up and became more bel­li­cose, this hard­ened the posi­tions of both camps, and their fol­low­ers became more vio­lent, the lines of demar­ca­tion became more stark, and as before many would die for them and many has killed for them. It became com­mon­place for pub­lic funds to be used by those in office to take care of those who did the grunge work to put them in pow­er, this cre­at­ed a vicious sys­tem where peo­ple saw their very sur­vival, their very abil­i­ty to be able to afford food as tied to their par­ty get­ting in pow­er and stay­ing there. Needless to say those on the oppos­ing side are quite pre­pared to do what it takes to expel those in pow­er and install their bene­fac­tors. Politicians of both par­ties were more than hap­py to deliv­er the means for the peo­ple to kill oth­ers who were opposed to their brand of pol­i­tics, as a result the streets were flood­ed with guns and entire areas became no go for any­one even sus­pect­ed of being a sup­port­er of the oth­er side. An inno­cent exer­cise as the wear­ing of the wrong col­or can get one rid­dled with bullets.

Criminal thugs who deliv­er votes to the polit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives by means of intim­i­da­tion, arson, rape, and mur­der became a part of the cul­ture ‚they are accept­ed cel­e­brat­ed and revered, ref­ered to as com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, and even Dons, when in truth these men were lit­tle more than mur­der­ing punks who preyed on the inno­cent and the defense­less. they received Government con­tracts even though they knew noth­ing about con­struc­tion or in most cas­es had no train­ing in the dis­ci­pline for which they received the con­tracts, this has become a cesspool of cor­rup­tion and an immense drain on the scarce resources of the coun­try. Jamaica is in debt to the tune of Billions of American dol­lars, yet the aver­age per­son on the streets has no way of mea­sur­ing how those monies they, their chil­dren and their chil­dren’s chil­dren will have to pay back has pos­i­tive­ly impact­ed their lives. As we speak the Contractor General Greg Christie is fight­ing a los­ing bat­tle in get­ting both par­ties to enact leg­is­la­tion giv­ing teeth to the office of Contractors General , which would enable him to effec­tive­ly inves­ti­gate, issue sub­poe­na and arrest trans­gres­sors in the award­ing of pub­lic con­tracts. They stead­fast­ly refuse to give him and future CG’s that pow­er, the fact is they are the ones who are ben­e­fit­ting from these nefar­i­ous and dis­gust­ing acts of thiev­ery that is bank­rupt­ing the coun­try and are not about to grant any­one the pow­er to arrest them or quote“stop dem food”.

As time pro­gressed the thugs who run the com­mu­ni­ties on a day to basis real­ized they real­ly did not need the politi­cians for any­thing more than polit­i­cal cov­er from law enforce­ment, this result­ed in a dan­ger­ous flip in the bal­ance of pow­er between the don and the politi­cian, the tail was effec­tive­ly wag­ging the dog. The Jamaican film Shottas par­o­dies the sit­u­a­tion per­fect­ly, the pro­lif­er­a­tion of ille­gal drugs , mar­i­jua­na and cocaine changed the dynam­ics in the 1980’s and 90’s many com­mu­ni­ty enforcers became rot­ten rich men who need­ed no hand­outs from politi­cians and as such did not have to lis­ten to them. they con­trolled the politi­cians, hand­ed out treats to com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, whilst at the same time exert­ing tight con­trol over the peo­ple liv­ing with­in these communities,the con­trol includ­ed rape of their chil­dren boys and girls, many peo­ple sent their chil­dren from their com­mu­ni­ties and report­ed them miss­ing to the police in order to save them from vicious sex­u­al abuse at the hands of com­mu­ni­ty enforcers. The pow­er cre­at­ed an aura and a mys­tique of invin­ci­bil­i­ty than caused one Don to over-reach, which may have cul­mi­nat­ed in the untime­ly depar­ture of a Prime Minister from Office. He found out too late that his abil­i­ty to pro­tect an enforcer did not extend beyond Jamaica’s shores.

Golding

Being a Garrison mem­ber of Parliament has sev­er­al perks, some of which means nev­er hav­ing to wor­ry about relin­quish­ing pow­er, con­stant­ly feed­ing at the pub­lic trough. receiv­ing un-earned nation­al hon­ors, con­stant­ly being show­ered with adu­la­tion and praise, and all that politi­cian has to do is pre­tend to care and offer plat­i­tudes to mem­bers of the con­stituen­cy. There is no one that this char­ac­ter­i­za­tion fits more than the leader of the oppo­si­tion Portia Simpson Miller, she insists there are no walls in the con­stituen­cy of south-west St Andrew she has rep­re­sent­ed for over 35 years, from majes­tic Gardens to Whitfield Town, to the bot­tom of Maxfield avenue, west along Spanish Town Road the rot and decay is pal­pa­ble, I am told the con­stituen­cy was a pris­tine place pre-Portia, how­ev­er the brand of pol­i­tics she brought to that area has turned the area into a ghost town that remains so to this day, it has how­ev­er kept her in office, notice I omit­ted the word “elect­ed” .She and her hus­band has also been bestowed with the high hon­or of “Most Honorable”. Only in Jamaica.

This brings us to the Prime Minister’s sym­bol­ic ges­ture to Miller, a let­ter ask­ing her to walk the gar­risons with him, a first step that would show that there is no need to kill each oth­er in the name of politics.

Miller hes­i­tat­ed, I pre­sumed untill some­one must have coined a response for her, in response here’s what she told the Prime Minister, Quote“a mere walk through the com­mu­ni­ties would not achieve the desired out­comes ‚while I am not opposed to par­tic­i­pat­ing in the tour with the prime min­is­ter, such an ini­tia­tive should be sup­port­ed by a pro­gramme of social trans­for­ma­tion.”

Hah pre­con­di­tions ! Simpson Miller has been in rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al pol­i­tics from I was a child, she has risen to the top of the food chain to being Prime Minister the high­est elect­ed office in the land. Even though she attained the Office the same way Holness did , by default she was in office for two years. She has been a part of sev­er­al PNP admin­is­tra­tions , the last last­ed for ¹⁸¹⁄₂ years. Throughout all of this she nev­er saw fit even when she had the ulti­mate pow­er as Prime Minister of the coun­try to effect change, Miller was unable to show the nec­es­sary lead­er­ship that would affect social trans­for­ma­tion.

Andrew Holness has been in office for all of 3 weeks, yet Portia Simpson Miller wants him to ensure social trans­for­ma­tion before she can agree to a sim­ple and sym­bol­ic walk of unity.

Portia Simpson Miller has rep­re­sent­ed the south St Andrew con­stituen­cy since Andrew Holness was 4 years old, today the peo­ple in that con­stituen­cy who may have sur­vived the killings and pover­ty that is the norm there are worse off than they were 35 years ago before the arrival of hur­ri­cane Portia. Miller has had the lead­er­ship reins of the coun­try and we have seen noth­ing to point to that would cause us to believe she under­stand the chal­lenges of the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry or has the req­ui­site skills to nav­i­gate the com­pli­cat­ed waters of inter­na­tion­al diplo­ma­cy nec­es­sary to secure fund­ing, and devel­ope­ment for our people.
Social trans­for­ma­tion is impor­tant, it was impor­tant when Miller entered the polit­i­cal game, it is impor­tant today, but it cer­tain­ly will not be achieved overnight, nei­ther will launch­ing a so-called ini­tia­tive change the cir­cum­stance of peo­ple need­ing inter­ven­tion in their com­mu­ni­ties. A leader must be able to attend to sev­er­al things at the same time, a sym­bol­ic walk through the gar­risons and a social inter­ven­tion pro­gramme are not mutu­al­ly exclu­sive, they can be accom­plished simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, (ride and whis­tle). This leads us to the con­clu­sion that Portia Simpson Miller talks the talk but when the time comes for her to walk the talk she is nowhere to be found. It is imper­a­tive that the Jamaican peo­ple and more so those who are encap­su­lat­ed with­in those zones of exclu­sions under­stand that their future is, as it has always been, in their hands and their hands alone. Neither Sister P nor Prince Andrew has the solu­tion to their prob­lems, peo­ple liv­ing there for over 50 years have seen Andrew Holness come into this world and attain the office of Prime Minister at the ten­der age of 39 and their cir­cum­stance remains the same , it is time for them to shrug off the bondage of alle­giance they have to both par­ties and decid­ed­ly carve a path for them­selves and their children.

As I have stat­ed before, Garrisons are the same as slav­ery, those caught with­in the psy­cho­log­i­cal walls of those com­mu­ni­ties are deprived of the every­day ameni­ties oth­ers take for grant­ed. clean drink­ing water, afford­able hous­ing, education,health-care, clean air, prop­er police and fire ser­vices, these are some of the most basic things that most peo­ple take for grant­ed but are absent from most gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ties, in Jamaica gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ties and the police have a need­less acri­mo­nious rela­tion­ship that is built on dis­trust of each oth­er, a dis­trust foment­ed and fed by the very politi­cians who rep­re­sent the garrisons.

Poverty is not hered­i­tary, it is not genet­ic, peo­ple from the rur­al parts of the coun­try has proven that, left alone to be all they can be Jamaicans from all parts of the coun­try have escaped pover­ty , and have risen to the halls of pow­er and the zenith of suc­cess in Education and Business, cows do not feed and wait for the grass to grow under their feet so they can eat again, they keep mov­ing, no one should allow geo­graph­i­cal bound­aries set by oth­ers who do not live with­in those said bound­aries to dic­tate how they live their lives. Untill peo­ple edu­cate them­selves and make politi­cians like Simpson Miller per­sona non gra­ta (not wel­come) in their com­mu­ni­ties they will con­tin­ue to be behold­en to the dic­tates of those invis­i­ble walls. And yes Portia your con­stituen­cy has walls you are just unable to see them.

Andrew Holness if he is seri­ous must under­stand that the change he seek will not come from the likes of Simpson Miller ‚the old guard,they were schooled in the old ways , they are a part of the prob­lem ‚not the solu­tion , if progress is to be made the train must be rolled around them,begin with a mas­sive pro­gram of mobi­liza­tion to a nation­al awak­en­ing, love of God pride in coun­try and duty to our fel­low-man , if you can inspire the nation you will have a chance to make difference,do not wait on Portia, or you wait in vain , Portia is the Garrison, the gar­ri­son is Portia.

have your say.

My com­ments are not sci­en­tif­ic ‚and should be viewed with­in the sim­ple prism of an ordi­nary per­son with a pletho­ra of opin­ions and noth­ing more. My com­ments are sup­port­ed by data where prac­ti­ca­ble , but should not be con­fused with any­thing sci­en­tif­ic or sophis­ti­cat­ed. I am not a trained Journalist and as such my state­ments must be assim­i­lat­ed in the organ­ic con­text in which they were intended.

On October 12^th 2011 I post­ed a blog about black con­ser­vatism in America as I saw it from my lay perspective.

The post was titled Black Republicanism in America, I made the bold state­ment then that Herman Caine Former God father piaz­za CEO would not be the Republican Nominee for pres­i­dent. My state­ments were bold ‚because oth­er than the nar­ra­tive I laid out in that post I had no inside infor­ma­tion that would oth­er­wise cause me to come to that conclusion.

Herman Caine Rick Perry Mitt Romney

For those who are not reg­u­lar read­ers of my blogs this would be a good time to go back to that blog and acquaint your­selves with the com­ments in that post. I was real­ly angry at Caine for run­ning around the coun­try dis­re­spect­ing hard-work­ing Americans who are find­ing it hard to find work or make ends meet. Caine stat­ed with­out equiv­o­ca­tion that it was no one’s fault but their own,referring to out of work Americans. This rep­re­sent­ed ‚at least to me the most arro­gant ‚ego­ma­ni­a­cal dis­re­spect that could be heaped on the mid­dle class in this coun­try. This rep­re­sent­ed what has become com­mon-place behav­ior for those on the extreme right in their rapa­cious dis­dain for the mid­dle class.

Herman Caine strut­ted around mak­ing grand state­ments about things he did not take time to acquaint him­self with. He stout­ly declared he would not be the fla­vor of the month when his poll num­bers start­ed head­ing north,and those of Michelle Bachman were rapid­ly head­ing toward the south pole. It would have served mis­ter Caine well had he availed him­self to the fact that China test­ed their first nuclear device from as far back as the 1960’s . It would have been use­ful if Caine knew that China’s econ­o­my is intrin­si­cal­ly tied to ours and it is in their inter­est to have us as a trad­ing part­ner, rather than an ene­my. Caine would have been well served had he known that the Chinese have made no move despite their humon­gous army and mil­i­tary might ‚to extend their geo­graph­i­cal bor­ders mil­i­tar­i­ly. Mister Caine would have been well served had he under­stood that send­ing war­ships to the Persian gulf to agi­tate a war with Iran is a bad idea for world peace , and serves no use­ful pur­pose but to fur­ther the finan­cial inter­est of the super rich and the mil­i­tary indus­tri­al com­plex. MisterCaine would have been well served had he not demon­strat­ed con­tempt for his race and the tra­vails we have endured, sim­ply because he has accom­plished some finan­cial stability.

It is no sur­prise then that as I pre­dict­ed that Caine was des­tined for fail­ure, that the inevitable implo­sion of Herman Caine has began.I have heard a lot of adjec­tives used to describe Caine usu­al­ly flow­ery ones from the patron­iz­ing whack jobs on the right . They most­ly refer to him as a smart like­able guy,ok ‚I am not about to say whether he is like­able or not, I have nev­er met the guy, I have read that he attend­ed col­lege and did pret­ty well for him­self as a busi­ness man, but smart?

How smart could Caine be if as head of God fathers piaz­za he was accused of sex­u­al­ly harass­ing female sub­or­di­nates ‚the case was settled,he’s run­ning for pres­i­dent of the United States and (1) did not expect the sto­ry to come out , and (2) did not have a pre­pared response? Did some­one say he was a smart guy? I beg to differ!

Newt Gingrich Charles Krauthammer

Come on Herman which is it ?you went from not know­ing about any sex­u­al harass­ment,to hav­ing a vague rec­ol­lec­tion of an incident,to there was one instant where you were stand­ing next to a woman and you said to her “you are about the same height as my wife” to you know of no pay out, to know­ing that a pay­out was made , but you hoped it was­n’t much , to it was just the equiv­a­lent of a few months salary, which is it? Sexual harass­ment claims are a com­mon occur­rence in the work-place some are true , some are fab­ri­cat­ed for mon­e­tary rea​sons​.It is under­stand­able that under all cir­cum­stances if an alle­ga­tion was made that in the inter­est of the com­pa­ny the mat­ter would have been set­tled, whether Caine was guilty or not, there is no win­ning when one gets accused of these kinds of charges. I have no knowl­edge of mis­ter Caine’s guilt or innocence,but I under­stand his desire to keep the inci­dent out of the pub­lic’s domain,in the inter­est of his fam­i­ly and his campaign.

But here is a nov­el idea , how about when asked about the issue, Caine had looked into the cam­era and said to the reporter, “Yes as head of the restau­rant asso­ci­a­tion of America there were alle­ga­tions of sex­u­al harass­ment made against me by low­er lev­el staff mem­bers of the com­pa­ny ‚these kinds of things hap­pen ever day and com­pa­nies have devised ways to deal with them, one such way to deal with them is to offer the accusers some mon­ey to make the mat­ter go away,one may argue it is extor­tion , but when you have a rep­u­ta­tion to uphold you do not want to get bogged down in a messy court case to clear your name, it’s the nature of the beast”.

Mister Caine the smart busi­ness-man/politi­cian did not do this, he pro­ceed­ed to deny and obfus­cate. Charles Krauthhammer not­ed con­ser­v­a­tive icon stat­ed that Caine seemed to be wing­ing it, in ref­er­ence to non­sen­si­cal answers Caine has been giv­ing on the stump to sim­ple ques­tions. And of course faced with the bub­bling caul­dron of a scan­dal that this mat­ter has now inevitably mor­phed into, Krauthammer could not resist ask­ing the bonan­za ques­tion of Caine on (Fox mis­in­for­ma­tion) quote ” Do you believe that race has any­thing to do with this see­ing you are a black con­ser­v­a­tive)? Caine’s response floored me, Quote “Yes I think so but I have no evi­dence to sup­port my belief”. Really ?.…..Ok, so how does race plays into this as far as Caine is con­cerned ? First one would have to assume that the infor­ma­tion was leaked by some­one white, who has an inter­est in see­ing Caine destroyed, sure­ly Democrats would sure­ly like to see Herman Caine matched up against Barack Obama, so that rules out the democrats.This brings us back to the present class of repub­li­can clowns , Caine’s friends. Caine has now blamed a staffer in Rick Perry’s cam­paign who worked on a pre­vi­ous cam­paign of his , Caine stat­ed emphat­i­cal­ly that it had to be that staffer who leaked the infor­ma­tion as he had con­fid­ed that infor­ma­tion to him when he was in his employ. Needless to say that for­mer staffer appeared on nation­al tele­vi­sion and debunked the notion that Caine ever told him any such thing ‚which made it impos­si­ble for him to be the source of the leak, Perry also denied that he had any knowl­edge of the alle­ga­tions of sex­u­al harass­ment in Herman Caine’s past.

These devel­op­ments have revealed Caine to be either pet­ty , a liar or both. If as he claims, Caine told that for­mer staffer of the alle­ga­tions against him when he was in his employ, how could he tell reporters he had no knowl­edge of any alle­ga­tions of sex­u­al har­ras­ment against him? This has led me to say some­thing I take no plea­sure in say­ing, Herman Caine has proven him­self to be a liar. Herman Caine has fall­en on his own sword faster that even I had imag­ined, this is kar­ma per­son­i­fied. I believed he would fiz­zle, and trust me fiz­zle he will, I just nev­er thought it would be as a result of any­thing in his past, I tru­ly believed he would be for­got­ten soon, as a result of the fact that the present ver­sion of what obtains for the repub­li­can par­ty, behold­en hook line and sinker to the ultra right, and mired in a ide­o­log­i­cal puri­ty search, are unhap­py with the stan­dard-bear­er Mitt Romney, and are as a result search­ing for an alter­na­tive. Hence their brief romance with Bachman , Perry and now Caine. I’m not opposed to Herman Caine sole­ly because of his pol­i­tics . I am opposed by his pol­i­tics, but I am more revolt­ed by his crass elit­ist dis­re­gard and dis­re­spect for the mid­dle class. He has demon­strat­ed a brand of craven dis­dain, attrib­ut­able only to the present day repub­li­can par­ty, and their fel­low sup­port­ers on the fringe right, who believe, “I made it, damn every­body else”.

One would have thought some­one like Herman Caine, a prod­uct of mid­dle America of African American Ancestry, who wit­nessed his par­ents toil to send him and his broth­er to good schools so that they can expe­ri­ence the American dream, would have a greater appre­ci­a­tion for the work­ing class . Caine has art­ful­ly removed the lynch­ings , Jim crow, Bull O’Connor dogs and cops, seg­re­gat­ed water foun­tains restau­rants and oth­er ameni­ties, sep­a­rate but equal,and all of the trav­es­ty and shame vis­it­ed on black Americans, effec­tive­ly eras­ing those atroc­i­ties from African-American his­to­ry as if they nev­er hap­pened or con­tin­ue to hap­pen. Yet he has the temer­i­ty and gall to attribute his present trou­bles to racism. This is the same Caine who said he saw no racism at tea par­ty ral­lies, some of which were lit­tle more that glo­ri­fied Klan ral­lies.

Herman Caine can­not be allowed to have it both ways, he has dis­re­spect­ed the black com­mu­ni­ty, but wants to claim racism where none exists. Herman Caine the nov­el­ty, has no more use for the black com­mu­ni­ty than Clarence Thomas does. A pres­i­dent Caine would be a dis­as­ter for the black com­mu­ni­ty, As such our com­mu­ni­ty should not allow him to hide behind us, using us as cov­er to accom­plish the goals of the far right, goals that do not line up with our aspi­ra­tions. As a mat­ter of fact his goals and aspi­ra­tions do not line up with the 99% of work­ing peo­ple in this country.

Contrac­tor General Greg Christie recent­ly lament­ed the lack of will on the part of Jamaican Authorities to once and for all effec­tive­ly clean up the mess of the award­ing of pub­lic contracts.

Christie went on :

“Make no mis­take about it. The prob­lems and the chal­lenges that I have sought to overview with you… which have con­front­ed the OCG and me, will per­sist as long as the OCG’s many reme­di­al rec­om­men­da­tions con­tin­ue to be ignored,” he said.“They will remain with us until and unless the OCG is grant­ed inde­pen­dent crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­to­ry pow­ers, inde­pen­dent pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al pow­ers, police pow­ers of arrest, and the pow­er to halt or to reg­u­larise a gov­ern­ment con­tract­ing process that is exhibit­ing the signs of cor­rup­tion, impro­pri­ety or irregularity.”

Andrew Holness

Andrew Holness Jamaica’s young Prime Minister has a momen­tous but not insur­mount­able task ahead of him, he could start by look­ing at the sug­ges­tions of Contractor General Greg Christie, and imme­di­ate­ly move to enact these sug­ges­tions where prac­ti­ca­ble into law, I mean whats the prob­lem with hon­esty and integri­ty? Holness has begun by ask­ing the leader of the oppo­si­tion to walk with him through gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ties ‚a sym­bol­ic move Holness feels will go a long way in begin­ning the dis­man­tling of zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions. As noble as that call is I would pre­fer to see sub­stan­tive actions enact­ed into law that will strength­en the hand of this and future Contractors General in going after entrenched cor­rup­tion in the han­dling of pub­lic funds. This move will not be easy,there are many peo­ple in high places in Jamaica who ben­e­fits from tax­pay­ers funds through the award­ing of contracts,many are high-pro­file donors to both polit­i­cal par­ties, but many more are crim­i­nals that sup­port the par­ties. Contractor General Christie and his staff has received numer­ous death threats for dar­ing to stand up and fight for our country.
Greg Christie does not ask for pow­ers to stoke his ego,as some in some new Agencies seem to think their posi­tion was cre­at­ed for,this Jamaican has demon­strat­ed the will­ing­ness and char­ac­ter nec­es­sary to turn around the endem­ic cul­ture of graft , nepo­tism and cor­rup­tion that obtains in the country.

Andrew Holness begins serv­ing as Prime Minister, with a year left before Parliamentary Elections are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due. He can make big bold steps , or try to fool the crowd with cheap pos­tur­ing while main­tain­ing the sta­tus quo, in which case he would be fol­low­ing his men­tor Bruce Golding out the door. There is noth­ing hard in push­ing leg­is­la­tion that pro­tects the Jamaican peo­ple, whats hard is my inabil­i­ty to under­stand why this has not been done.