There is surprising news coming out of Jamaica’s industrial front, shockingly, employers and entities have asked the island’s national training agency — HEART Trust/​NTA — for brown or light-skinned trainees to fill vacancies at their companies.

“Wow” this can­not be , how could we have missed this in a coun­try like Jamaica that claimed to have been unshack­led from the chains of colo­nial­ist oppres­sion , seg­re­ga­tion, depri­va­tion and dispossession.

I fail to see how this could hap­pen in Jamaica where peo­ple feel they would be bet­ter off under the colo­nial mas­ters, peo­ple who refuse to demand a new con­sti­tu­tion, one that releas­es them from being sub­jects to a for­eign pow­er that cares noth­ing about them , but still swear alle­giance to said sov­er­eign nonetheless.

It bog­gles the mind that this could come up , when for decades only half white women could even think of enter­ing beau­ty con­tests, or have a chance to win the miss Jamaica crown at home , even though the coun­try is approx­i­mate­ly 96% black. How can this be when most com­pa­nies , Organizations, and lit­er­al­ly every enti­ty is owned , run, and staffed by light-skinned peo­ple, thank God for Government jobs and small hus­tle or dark-skinned peo­ple would lit­er­al­ly starve.

How could this be when the tourism Industry is staffed by peo­ple with alien accents, even though some have nev­er set foot on an air­plane? How could this be hap­pen­ing when they did­n’t want Marley’s stu­dio on Hope Road? Yes Hope road , anyway.….

Of course this vir­gin dis­cov­ery has gen­er­at­ed a cho­rus of out­cry from the usu­al quar­ters, the online fra­ter­ni­ty and the old polit­i­cal hands, of course there are none old­er and have greater sleight of hand that Pearnel Charles of the JLP and the one and only Sister P , Portia Simpson Miller the President of the PNP , leader of the Opposition and for­mer Prime Minister.

If it was up to me I would just give one of those nation­al hon­ors they dole out to cronies and friends, you know the type Carolyn Gomes and oth­ers have got­ten? Yes those , just give one of those to Portia, and hope­ful­ly we wont have to hear her pon­tif­i­cate, cry, and shout in anger, when­ev­er the issue of rights, pover­ty, and dis­crim­i­na­tion comes up.

I am all for any such motion on Portia’s behalf, if it means I won’t hear from her again. Mark you I am always left won­der­ing at what stage does Portia get to do some­thing about pover­ty, abuse ‚and vio­la­tion of rights? You know since she has been in rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al pol­i­tics for ever, includ­ing the high­est exec­u­tive office in the coun­try, the Prime Minister.

This is how the Gleaner char­ac­ter­ized Pearnel Charles’ response.

Charles

At first, the labour min­is­ter was flab­ber­gast­ed at the mere sug­ges­tion that Jamaican employ­ers could be using skin tone as a cri­te­ri­on for employ­ment. “No, sir. I don’t believe it,” said a baf­fled Charles before his bemuse­ment turned to anger. If I meet one of those employ­ers, I would per­son­al­ly see to that per­son being pros­e­cut­ed,” said the labour min­is­ter, him­self a vet­er­an trade union­ist. He not­ed that such dis­crim­i­na­tion had no place in the 21^st cen­tu­ry. “hat can’t hap­pen under this Government … not when I am min­is­ter,” said Charles as the notion sank in. e added: “If you can prove it to me, I’ll throw the whole book at such an employ­er in this coun­try.” Carles, who called the colour prej­u­dice expressed by some employ­ers racist, sought to assure the nation that the Ministry of Labour would move swift­ly and deci­sive­ly if it were to receive com­plaints from per­sons who were denied employ­ment on the basis of their skin tone. “Expect imme­di­ate action from me and the Government using every piece of machin­ery to elim­i­nate it from this soci­ety,” he said.

Now I am no lawyer but I am left won­der­ing exact­ly what would Charles do except to advise any such per­son , so trans­gressed against, to seek legal counsel? 

It seem to me that behind all of the com­mo­tion and howls of feign igno­rance and anger that Jamaica has always been a coun­try deeply steeped in racism and Caste-ism.

Simpson Miller, in her angry reac­tion to the report, warned Sunday night that such prej­u­dice against dark-skinned peo­ple would not be tol­er­at­ed in Jamaica “ever again”. She said the prac­tice, report­ed by offi­cials at the HEART Trust/​NTA, is a “pre­scrip­tion for what we do not want in a coun­try like this” and urged the Government to launch its own inves­ti­ga­tions. “We do not want divi­sions … . We are all one,” she told the pub­lic ses­sion of her South West St Andrew con­stituen­cy con­fer­ence at the Haile Selassie High School. “When you come to tell me that you’re going to bring back in Jamaica the days of the colo­nial mas­ters when only peo­ple with fair skin and a cer­tain type of hair can get jobs, I am call­ing on the Government to inves­ti­gate those com­pa­nies,” she said. Simpson Miller also urged con­sumers to be vig­i­lant, warn­ing that “any com­pa­ny we go to do busi­ness and we see only brown peo­ple, and we don’t see a mix­ture of brown and black, then we are going to move our busi­ness”.tyrone.​reid@​gleanerjm.​com

Well what can any­one say about Portia? Portia is Portia , rhetoric, anger, brava­do, emo­tions, heat no light or any­thing of sub­stance, her state­ment speaks for itself.

The truth is, in their haste to cur­ry favor with vot­ers, now that elec­tion is loom­ing ‚both of these sea­soned hands are falling over them­selves to show they are in sync with the peo­ple, they both know how to play that game, a game Charles can nev­er win against Portia, Portia has a monop­oly on car­ing , shed­ding tears, and express­ing anger.

Both of these politi­cians are well aware that the sys­tem they now feign igno­rance of, has ele­vat­ed and kept them and oth­ers like them, in pow­er . The issue of col­or, is only one of the dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tices that per­se­vere in the coun­try , there are all kinds of exclu­sion­ary castes based on mon­ey, edu­ca­tion, Politics, etc.

Both politi­cians also know that there is lever­age to be gained from this issue, and as usu­al are play­ing to the most base instincts of the mass­es. So once the masks of brava­do and anger are peeled from the faces of these two actors, we real­ize this issue has been with us for ever, expressed, and implied, for as long as we have been around .

Faux igno­rance and con­coct­ed anger does noth­ing to remove this scourge from amongst us. Many ordi­nary Jamaicans have known this for gen­er­a­tions, hence the songs about brown­ing, and the many and var­ied attempts at bleaching.

mike beck­les:

have your say:

We are left shak­ing our heads at this lat­est state­ment by the People’s National Party , a day after it’s affil­i­ate PNP youth arm stout­ly declared that the par­ty is on elec­tion count-down. One won­ders if the mem­bers of the PNP ever won­der, or is as a col­lec­tive enti­ty , capa­ble of think­ing about Jamaica for a change? The world’s economy,and I dare­say the way things gets done around the world is expe­ri­enc­ing a sys­temic shift, a set­tling if you will, adjust­ing to new real­i­ties. This reset­ting of the world’s econ­o­my will rep­re­sent a shift from tra­di­tion­al norms this is the new world order. Countries all over the world to include the United States of America has seen dra­mat­ic down-turns in eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty. The United States has lost mil­lions of jobs that sim­ply will not return. A tra­di­tion­al fac­to­ry work­er in the US could afford a three bed­room house in the sub­urbs, with a white pick­et fence , a wife and two and one half kids. This work­er could afford to send his kids to col­lege, the fam­i­ly was able to take a vaca­tion annu­al­ly, some of whom as a child I saw in Jamaica.This fac­to­ry work­er is no more. All fac­to­ries are now retro­fit­ted with state of the art robots that do pret­ty much all the work that work­er did. That rep­re­sents the work­ers that glob­al­iza­tion had not already sucked away to coun­tries like Indonesia, China, and the Philipines, coun­tries that have an abun­dance of cheap labor,and are unre­strained by the shack­les of west­ern work­ing stan­dards . As coun­tries like the United States Canada,and England adjust to these real­i­ties the con­se­quen­tial rip­ple effect must rever­ber­ate to small­er coun­tries like Jamaica that are inex­tri­ca­ble linked to the larg­er pow­ers and to some degree depend on them for their lit­er­al eco­nom­ic sur­vival. As fam­i­lies lose their jobs in large indus­tri­alised nations they have much less dis­cre­tionary income to vaca­tion, or to send mon­ey home to loved ones. Jamaica has as it’s num­ber one and two for­eign exchange earn­ers Tourism, and Remittance in that order . It is plain to see how Jamaica’s econ­o­my would be seri­ous­ly neg­a­tive­ly impact­ed in light of this tremen­dous glob­al eco­nom­ic down­turn. There is how­ev­er a glim­mer of hope when­ev­er we expe­ri­ence these re-adjust­ments. They do offer us a oppur­tu­ni­ty to re-eval­u­ate our skill-sets and improve wher­ev­er possible.Doing so enables us to be equipped to meet the needs of the emerg­ing future.

After being in office for ¹⁸¹⁄₂ years , and oppo­si­tion for four, the best the PNP’s pres­i­dent could come up with as a pri­or­i­ty for the coun­try, should she be returned to pow­er as Prime Minister was pro­cess­ing man­goes. This sim­ply must be an affront to Jamaicans, who should by now, start to real­ize that the PNP and it’s affil­i­ates are sim­ply inca­pable of under­stand­ing , much less solv­ing the seri­ous prob­lems that faces the Nation going for­ward. How can they find solu­tions if they are inca­pable of under­stand­ing the problems?

Simpson Miller.

I am both ashamed and infu­ri­at­ed every time I hear the PNP, whether through its pres­i­dent, or the oth­er per­pet­u­al cam­paign­ers ‚recy­cle the same reme­di­al clichés, not tak­ing seri­ous­ly the con­cerns of the peo­ple, or not hav­ing the intel­lec­tu­al capac­i­ty to com­pre­hend the seri­ous­ness of crime, ter­ror, hunger, lack of edu­ca­tion, health care, pover­ty, cor­rup­tion and a pletho­ra of oth­er social ills that have stunt­ed Jamaica’s growth, and threat­ens the very exis­tence of the country.

The PNP has always believed they have a right to gov­er­nance, they arro­gant­ly pro­claim Jamaica to be PNP coun­try. This arro­gance has pre­clud­ed them from com­ing up with work­able Solutions to bet­ter the lives of ordi­nary Jamaicans. Choosing instead time after time to resort to the same tired old clichés that appeal to the base instincts of the un-edu­cat­ed masses.

This time my fel­low Jamaicans is no dif­fer­ent than the oth­er times, same tired old lines, look in her con­stituen­cy and ask your­selves “is this what i want for my country”?

She has rep­re­sent­ed that con­tituen­cy for a very long time.

mike beck­les.

have your say:

I am fas­ci­nat­ed by democ­rats, par­tic­u­lar­ly the black ones , I am total­ly blown away by their inabil­i­ty to stand for something.

This runs the gamut from the low­est to the President him­self . Those who stand for noth­ing falls for any­thing. The pres­i­dent and his par­ty has stood for noth­ing , has allowed them­selves to be pushed around and man­han­dled by the racist tea par­ty, so much so that Americans have very lit­tle hope that the man who cam­paigned on the mantra of hope and change can deliv­er either.

Americans like their President to be deci­sive and firm , wrong or right , con­vic­tion is impor­tant. As a for­mer sup­port­er of President Obama I must say I too am dis­ap­point­ed in the President. Not because I expect­ed him to deliv­er some­thing to ben­e­fit me. But because of his lack of back-bone in stand­ing up to Republicans.

The tea par­ty has lam­bast­ed ‚assailed and car­i­ca­tured this President from day one, dim-wit­ted democ­rats were too pissed scared to open their snivel­ing , quiv­er­ing mouths to push back in defence of our President, this includes the black cau­cus . No one dared crit­i­cize Sarah Palin for her repeat­ed racist attacks on the President and his wife Michelle Obama. Mrs Obama by the way, a Princeton edu­cat­ed Lawyer did not need to attend sev­er­al col­leges before she could earn a bach­e­lor’s degree.

No one dared open their mouths at Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Fox organ of mis-infor­ma­tion, or any of the Republican agents or organs that have been unleashed against President Obama. Not even Obama him­self, too scared to call a spade a spade .

What the hell does Obama and the Democrats think the tea par­ty car­toon car­i­ca­tures of the pres­i­dent in loin cloth by the hut sig­ni­fy? what does all of the oth­er despi­ca­ble depic­tions mean ? does it mean we dis­agree with you? No they mean you are beneath us and we do not want you in the White House , that is what they mean. All of the black politi­cians and oth­ers who should sup­port the pres­i­dent are duplic­i­tous­ly silent behind all of the attacks. 

Cornel West and the President in hap­pi­er times

Cornell West and Tavis Smiley have gone as far as to accuse the pres­i­dent of not doing enough for black peo­ple , seri­ous­ly? what have Cornell West and Tavis Smiley done to push back at the racist reac­tionar­ies in the tea par­ty that has been a thorn in the side of President Obama.

Blacks have long sought to put down their own kind, while mak­ing excus­es, and ratio­nal­iz­ing for those who have enslaved and still keep them in bondage. It is the ” we sick mas­sa syn­drome” . The late great Malcolm X had some choice words for them, whom he char­ac­ter­ized as “negroes”.

Finally a Democrat made the mis­take of open­ing his mouth and speak­ing out , call­ing the tea par­ty what it real­ly is , here’s what Indiana con­gress-man Andre Carson had to say . 

‘The Tea Party wants to see blacks Americans hang­ing on a tree” .Some of the folks in Congress would love to see us as sec­ond class cit­i­zens,” Carson said at a Caucus event in Miami. “Some of them in Congress right now of this Tea Party move­ment would love to see you and me, I’m sor­ry chair­man, hang­ing on a tree.

“Tea Party groups are out­raged and are call­ing for the con­gress­man to resign imme­di­ate­ly. Fellow Congressional Black Caucus mem­ber Allen West says he’s recon­sid­er­ing his mem­ber­ship in the group. Carson told CNN he stands by his com­ments.“I stand on the truth of what I spoke,” he said. “My inten­tions weren’t to hurt any­one or any group”

Ok let me see if I under­stand this cor­rect­ly ! the tea par­ty is demand­ing that a con­gress­man elect­ed by his con­stituents resign for speak­ing out against their racist dem­a­goguery, well I nev­er, these tea par­ty lunatics real­ly have some nerve.

What real­ly gets me is Allen West Black Republican con­gress man stat­ing that he is recon­sid­er­ing his mem­ber­ship in the Black cau­cus. Please do every­one a favor Allen West, leave the Caucus​.You serve no pur­pose in that group and as such. should not have been in it to begin with.

Allen West

Definition of CAUCUS. : a closed meet­ing of a group of per­sons belong­ing to the same polit­i­cal par­ty or fac­tion usu­al­ly to select can­di­dates or to decide on pol­i­cy …

Allen West and the oth­er mem­bers of the black cau­cus are from dia­met­ri­cal­ly dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal per­sua­sions, they share noth­ing in com­mon except the col­or of their skin , they dif­fer on every­thing polit­i­cal­ly. Why is Allen West in the black caucus?

Herman Caine

Then there is Herman Caine, Black repub­li­can can­di­date for pres­i­dent. If this was­n’t so insult­ing it would be com­i­cal. Some of you may be ask­ing Herman Caine? who the heck is this guy? Well Caine is a for­mer CEO of a piaz­za fran­chise, he rose from rags to rich­es and nev­er miss­es an oppur­tu­ni­ty to tell that his father was a chauffer.Cain allows tea par­ty big­ots to absolve them­selves of the shame of their racist iden­ti­ty at his expense . 

They trot this guy out with the tra­di­tion­al refrain, see we are not racist, we have black can­di­dates, bull.

The truth is the for­mer repub­li­can par­ty of peo­ple like McCain, and Chuck Hagel could not attract but a few black del­e­gates to its lil­ly white con­ven­tion, does any­one believe this jok­er stand a chance of being elect­ed pres­i­dent on the repub­li­can tick­et? This guy is a nov­el­ty, com­ic relief like Sarah Palin, Donald trump, and Allan Keyes before him.

Caine claims he knows racism when he sees it , as a con­fessed son of the south, (what­ev­er that means) , and he has seen no racism in the tea par­ty .When one con­sid­ers the amount of black blood that has been shed in the American south. I won­der what the plac­ards depict­ing President Barack Obama as every­thing from a witch doc­tor to a mon­key mean? Whatever shred of cred­i­bil­i­ty this Caine may have had, sim­ply vapor­ized and blew away with that damn lie. Herman Caine has become the lat­est black to be an apol­o­gist for white racists, there are oth­ers like FOX news Juan Williams , and Jessie Petersen, and a slew of oth­er self loathing blacks.

They should ask for­mer Republican National com­mit­tee chair­man Michael Steele how that worked out for him. Republicans hid behind Steele, held their noses, and used him to harass Obama, the net gain for repub­li­cans was a land­slide in the house for them. No soon­er they won the House they showed Steele the door with his tail between his legs.

Colin Powell

Blacks and the repub­li­can par­ty are as oil on water they sim­ply do not mix.

As it was in the days of Malcolm X, the ones lead­ing the charge to lynch Congress-man Carson are blcks, These uncle Toms nev­er saw fit to denounce their mas­ters in the tea par­ty when they sought to demean and degrade President Obama, but are now up in arms demo­niz­ing a black man who has the guts and the char­ac­ter to speak out against bla­tant and demon­strat­ed racism.

As they did against Dr. King and Malcolm and oth­er lead­ers of the civ­il rights strug­gle, the white pow­er struc­ture trot­ted out uncle tom negroes to make the case that every­thing was right in America, paint­ing those who sought to have their God-giv­en rights respect­ed, as trou­ble mak­ers , com­mu­nists, anti-American and every­thing includ­ing the kitchen sink.

Does any­one in their right mind believe the vit­ri­olic vapid and ven­omous attacks lev­elled at pres­i­dent Obama is because of pol­i­cy? In fact exam­ine Obama’s poli­cies against for­mer pres­i­dent Bush 43^rd and see if they dif­fer much.

Bush start­ed and main­tained two wars. Obama esca­lat­ed one and scaled back one.

Bush had the patri­ot Act signed into law . Obama extend­ed the patri­ot Act.

Bush main­tained prison in Guantanamo May. Obama keeps it open.

Bush gave tril­lions in tax cuts to the rich . Obama wants to roll them back, no success.

Bush’s poli­cies dev­as­tat­ed the econ­o­my. Obama strug­gles to bring the econ­o­my back.

Bush had no clue how to get Bin Laden. Obama found and exter­mi­nat­ed him.

Bush cre­at­ed ene­mies for America with his brava­do. Obama restores America to a coun­try of peace, that respect others.

Which of these two men is wor­thy of praise, if any? where are the seis­mic pol­i­cy dif­fer­ences that makes Obama so despised as against pres­i­dent Bush? The fact is there is none, the prob­lem tea par­ty activist and their zoot-suit­ed black court jesters have with the pres­i­dent is the col­or of his skin. White tea par­ty mem­bers hate the pres­i­dent because he is half black. Black tea par­ty activists hate the pres­i­dent because they hate themselves.

If democ­rats want to have a chance in the next elec­tion, they must start grow­ing some back­bone, no one wants wimps to rep­re­sent them at a time when racist dem­a­gogues are out in full force against what we have accom­plished , tear­ing at the seams of the gar­ments those whom have gone before have stitched for us . Threatening to rip them from us expos­ing the naked­ness of our dispossession.

Black peo­ple the world over who respect them­selves are tired of being told who our lead­ers should be, what we can and can­not say , and when we may or may not speak. The con­gres­sion­al black cau­cus have been silent through­out all of the assault on Barack Obama, which is an all out assault on all black peo­ple and what we have fought for and accom­plished . Make no mis­take there are those who will argue things are good and we should try to get along, well they aren’t, untill they respect us, and the lead­ers we chose to lead us, as Maxine Walters said “they can go straight to hell’.

This is not for blacks like Allen West, it is not for Clarence Thomas, it is not for the clowns that embar­rass them­selves at tea par­ty events pro­vid­ing com­ic relief. After all you may remove some from the plan­ta­tion, but may not remove the plan­ta­tion from some.

mike beck­les:

have your say:

Since the launch of this site we have been crit­i­cal of Jamaica’s People’s National par­ty on sev­er­al occa­sions , in fact we have writ­ten three spe­cif­ic blogs that specif­i­cal­ly tar­gets that par­ty and its oper­a­tives. These blogs are as follows.

(1) Enough with the sup­port for crim­i­nals .July 27^th.

(2) We are not act­ing irre­spon­si­bly says PNP . August 5^th.

(3) No slo­ga­neer­ing except this new slo­gan .August 8^th.

We have been harsh­ly crit­i­cal of the PNP in these blogs as well as in oth­ers , not because we hate the peo­ple’s National Party as a par­ty com­pet­ing for state pow­er, and one that has been incred­i­bly suc­cess­ful at doing so .

We crit­i­cize the PNP because that par­ty has been giv­en tremen­dous lever­age at state pow­er , yet as very lit­tle to show for all of the time they were allowed con­trol of the state’s resources. In fact they have woe­ful­ly squan­dered the resources of the State , this crit­i­cism has come even from with­in . Dr Blythe a for­mer min­is­ter of Government and a very well-respect­ed Jamaican, him­self point­ed to the par­ty’s failings.

Many peo­ple bare­ly able to write their names, have become filthy rich , at the expense of the Jamaican tax­pay­ers, as a result of the PNP’s largess. They have sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly used every cor­rupt prac­tice to award con­tracts to peo­ple not qual­i­fied to shine shoes. This has cost the Jamaican peo­ple Billions of dol­lars. Nepotism, cur­ry favor, polit­i­cal pay-offs and every vice imaginable,has been employed in swin­dling the scarce resources of the state and divert­ing them into the pock­ets of unscrupu­lous par­ty hacks and enforcers. Yet despite this, Jamaican vot­ers have over­whelm­ing­ly giv­en that par­ty the reins to gov­er­nance sig­nif­i­cant­ly more than the oth­er par­ty , the JLP.

The coun­try has strug­gled and now lags behind the rest of the Caribbean in pret­ty much all sec­tors to include edu­ca­tion , eco­nom­ic growth, and crime man­age­ment to name a few. Jamaica, which up to the begin­ning of the 70′ was the leader in the Caribbean, was looked to for lead­er­ship by its neigh­bors , has now been reduced to a laugh­ing-stock by coun­tries like Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, the Cayman Islands and oth­ers. Our cur­ren­cy is almost worth­less and our peo­ple looked on as pari­ahs wher­ev­er we go.

The PNP has tra­di­tion­al­ly posi­tioned itself as a cham­pi­on of the poor . Articulating a path that at face val­ue seem to advo­cate for the poor illit­er­ate mass­es, cham­pi­oning their cause as the cause of the par­ty, rather than actu­al­ly doing any­thing sub­stan­tive about their plight.

This par­ty has been blessed with great ora­tors at it’s helm, from the Manley’s, father and son to, Portia Simpson Miller , the first female to ascend to that lev­el in either par­ty, they have had tremen­dous crowd pleasers, who could/​can mes­mer­ize a crowd into believ­ing any­thing . However when the façade is peeled back there is, and nev­er real­ly was any­thing to the rhetoric.

Unfortunately for Jamaica ‚a coun­try with a large part of its pop­u­la­tion illit­er­ate, and too many look­ing to politi­cians for a break ‚the future seem bleak.

The hot air the PNP spew is wel­come news and some­thing to hold onto for many, but gen­er­al­ly is a lot of heat and not much light. The present leader of the par­ty Simpson Miller is seen as a kind of local deity , she has clawed her way up from the bot­tom of the pole of rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al pol­i­tics , most peo­ple iden­ti­fy with her, they see her as one of them based on her hum­ble begin­nings, oth­ers are drawn to her because of her gen­der, they see her as a trail-blaz­er . Getting to the top of the heap is com­mend­able and wor­thy of recog­ni­tion. However there are those who could tell tales of some of her shenani­gans that would turn a lot of folks com­plete­ly off.

When viewed in the con­text of the length of time she has rep­re­sent­ed the con­stituen­cy of South west St Andrew, and her sup­posed pas­sion for the poor, the two nar­ra­tives shows a seis­mic dis­con­nect. The peo­ple of that con­stituen­cy are some of Jamaica’s most dis­ad­van­taged , needy, dis­pos­sessed, impov­er­ished, and illit­er­ate. There is no intent here to dis­par­age the good peo­ple of south-west St Andrew.

We bring these facts to the fore to illus­trate that sup­posed car­ing, does not nec­es­sar­i­ly trans­late into pos­i­tive change. Saying I care , , hug­ging and cry­ing, with­out actu­al­ly lay­ing the foun­da­tion that will sus­tain a long-term growth process for gen­er­a­tions to come , real­ly is disin­gen­u­ous, and cre­ates more hurt than help. Teaching some­one to fish, is a much bet­ter strat­e­gy than giv­ing a per­son a fish every day. Unless of course, giv­ing a fish a day is a strat­e­gy designed to keep peo­ple behold­en to the giv­er , mes­mer­ized at the largess, and per­ceived kind­ness , but in a sin­is­ter way traps them into a cul­ture of depen­dence, and illiteracy.

The road to suc­cess was nev­er going to be an easy one ‚those in lead­er­ship , whether in busi­ness, pol­i­tics, war, what­ev­er the field , must edu­cate those they pur­port to lead on the sac­ri­fices and chal­lenges, as well as the set­backs that will lit­ter the road to suc­cess. Some argue suc­cess is not even attain­able. That aside, I liken suc­cess to a high-rise tow­er . Before we get to the exquis­ite panoram­ic view from those air-con­di­tioned offices, some­one had to dig sev­er­al floors down into the dirt and mud to lay the foun­da­tion , get­ting dirty, with hands bruised and cal­loused from the grind of secur­ing the foun­da­tions that makes it nec­es­sary to have that high-rise office tow­er. This anal­o­gy is alien to the strat­e­gy of the PNP , they stead­fast­ly refuse to acknowl­edge the grunge work that must be done to attain the fleet­ing con­cept that is suc­cess. Each and every Generation must do it’s part to add to the suc­cess­es of gen­er­a­tions past as we move to suc­cess, a con­cept that con­stant­ly moves the goal post. Despite this each gen­er­a­tion will see their stan­dard of liv­ing improved if we under­stand and imple­ment the nec­es­sary foun­da­tion work toward that end. In the blog titled No slo­ga­neer­ing except this new slo­gan, I point­ed to the fact that the pres­i­dent of the PNP when asked point­ed­ly what was the pri­or­i­ty for her ‚should she become the Prime Minister again. In the Interview giv­en to TVJ she gave an inco­her­ent tor­tured ram­ble that seemed like a toy train going round and round with no des­ti­na­tion. In that inter­view she failed to iden­ti­fy the sin­gle great­est threat to growth and progress, the crime mon­ster and ener­gy cost. As I com­ment­ed then, if Portia Simpson Miller is unable to under­stand that every­thing is pred­i­cat­ed on a sta­ble soci­ety where entre­pre­neurs can be the best they can be , cre­at­ing jobs . In a soci­ety free from crime and ter­ror , extor­tion, exor­bi­tant ener­gy rates, stu­pid regres­sive Government reg­u­la­tions based on the whims of one per­son, and a work-force that feels some­one owes it something.

This brings us to the lat­est fluff put for­ward by the PNP called the “PROGRESSIVE AGENDA”. For the sake of our coun­try I prayed that this lat­est fish­ing expe­di­tion would be dif­fer­ent from all of the oth­er fluff agen­das we have seen of the PNP in the past. Well true to form they con­tin­ued to offer a Utopian wide-rang­ing dis­or­ga­nized kitchen sink , rather than spe­cif­ic tar­get­ed areas for sus­tained atten­tion and growth.

The Progressive Agenda fea­tures five pil­lars: Human Resource Development; A Safe, Secure and Just Society; a Participatory, Accountable and Responsible Society; Progressive Internationalism; and Economic Growth and Sustainable Development. These pil­lars are cer­tain­ly crit­i­cal to the social and eco­nom­ic pro­gres­sion of Jamaica. Unfortunately, the PNP’s Progressive Agenda fails to lucid­ly demon­strate how the par­ty intends to achieve its in-explic­it dec­la­ra­tions. Under the Human Resources Development pil­lar, the par­ty notes that it will “address the under achieve­ment of young men, and the under-reward­ing of young women”. Under Safety and Security, the PNP express­es its inten­tion to “pro­mote a cul­ture of tol­er­ance, respect, social respon­si­bil­i­ty, respect for oth­er peo­ple, for ani­mals, and for nature”. They declare: “Jamaica will be a busy bee­hive.” They might as well state an inten­tion to sum­mon great God from the sky to “take away every­thing and make every­body feel high.

When pushed by TVJ on what would be her imme­di­ate focus if she was to be returned to pow­er, Miller had this to say.

I have sev­er­al pri­or­i­ties and hence the pro­gres­sive agen­da, that lays down the var­i­ous areas of concentration,certainly the growth and devel­op­ment of the country,economic growth and development,education , jobs. 

But those are kin­da broad, but what would you do to fix what you under­stand is a bro­ken economy.?(interviewer)

There are a num­ber of areas that we … we can look on that will be able to cre­ate jobs , we look at what you men­tioned ear­li­er agri­cul­ture and the val­ue added, you notice every year it’s now man­go time, we eat what we can and the rest just fall on the ground and rot, .veg­eta­bles now when you see the farm­ers loos­ing their crops because they have no market,how is it we can get fac­to­ries into a num­ber of the parish­es, that will process all of these things , and so that we can con­sume what we can and then oth­ers the rest of the world will share with us ‚and I think agri­cul­ture is one in terms of agri­cul­ture and the val­ue added.And I think urban and rur­al devel­op­ment will also be a focus apart from look­ing at the whole ques­tion of ener­gy , because I think that is crit­i­cal in the coun­try at this time, and look­ing at all the oth­er areas cer­tain­ly busi­ness­es, aahm small medi­um size , while not ignor­ing the big busi­ness­es, and con­tin­ue to give them sup­port, well we need to look at all those areas that will allow the econ­o­my to grow. We need to look seri­ous­ly at the devel­op­ment and planned devel­op­ment of Jamaica , both rur­al and urban, we tend to look at the towns and the cities and we ignore the rur­al areas,and the deep rur­al areas , and I think that’s why we have the migra­tion into ….so there are a num­ber of areas that are well doc­u­ment­ed in the pro­gres­sive agen­da , and there are a num­ber of per­sons that are look­ing at it and they are giv­ing us some crit­i­cal feed­back and sug­ges­tions that we are tak­ing on board so we can have the launch, and then to have wider con­sul­ta­tions , broad­er con­sul­ta­tions , and all of that.

Mangoes ! Yes my fel­low Jamaicans mangoes.

The con­gres­sion­al black cau­cus took the ini­tia­tive to do some­thing about the job­less­ness in America , and par­tic­u­lar­ly in the black com­mu­ni­ty. We com­mend senior con­gres­sion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive John Lewis of Georgia for his lead­er­ship and unflinch­ing efforts toward the uplift­ing of all Americans and par­tic­u­lar African-Americans. 

The ini­tia­tive was in the form of a job fair in Atlanta Georgia on Thursday August 18^th which saw thou­sands of job seek­ers turn­ing up hop­ing to get a job.( ABC news saw it this way).Thousands of unem­ployed wait­ed overnight, camp­ing out in their busi­ness suits and office heels and brav­ing the tor­ment­ing heat in Atlanta to stand in line for a job fair Thursday. Authorities treat­ed 20 peo­ple for heat exhaus­tion as they strug­gled to keep the line mov­ing and get peo­ple moved inside.(abc news​.com)

The con­gres­sion­al black cau­cus says it intends to do it again spon­sor­ing one in Los Angeles California and in Miami Florida. The Job fair made the news in oth­er ways, as some mem­bers of the black cau­cus took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to voice their dis­con­tent at the lack of jobs in the econ­o­my. Front and cen­ter was California rep­re­sen­ta­tive Maxine Walters who seemed rather frus­trat­ed with the President , whilst at the same time insist­ing that she sup­ports him.

At the heart of Walter’s dis­con­tent is the fact that the pres­i­dent took a three-day bust trip to ally the fears of rur­al folks in Iowa , Minnesota , and Illinois , but did not vis­it any urban cen­ters that are tra­di­tion­al homes to black Americans.

This leads us to look at the pres­i­den­t’s style of leadership.

From the onset, can­di­date Obama was forced to sep­a­rate him­self from the shack­les of being char­ac­ter­ized as a black can­di­date for the pres­i­den­cy, Obama under­stood that if he was pigeon-holed as a black can­di­date his chances of win­ning the White House was slim­mer than that of a snow-ball in hell.

Whether Obama did this as a shrewd tac­ti­cal polit­i­cal move or because he had to relate to the oth­er half of him, that is his moth­er’s side, is irrel­e­vant. Anyone look­ing at his can­di­da­cy had to see it as the best strat­e­gy if he was to pull off some­thing most peo­ple thought they would nev­er see in their life­time, a black man in the White House.

Bill Clinton for­mer Democratic President char­ac­ter­ized Obama’s can­di­da­cy as a quote “fairy tale’. President Clinton spent a lot of ener­gy try­ing to walk back those com­ments. We in the black com­mu­ni­ty knew exact­ly what he meant, I how­ev­er under­stood why he said it, I would have done the same in his place, if my wife was run­ning, and it would not be racial.

It just was nev­er done before.

In order for Obama to pull off the impos­si­ble, he had to posi­tion him­self as a race neu­tral being, he could ill-afford to be char­ac­ter­ized as anoth­er angry black left-wing rad­i­cal. Labels that were hung around the necks of pre­vi­ous can­di­dates like Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton. In essence Obama had to dis­avow his black side in order to appease white Americans.

A white America that have always been wary and afraid of black men. A fear born out of guilt maybe, but fear nontheless. 

This how­ev­er drew the ire of black stal­warts like Jesse Jackson who had done the grunge work to make it pos­si­ble for a can­di­date Obama .

The good­ly Reverend alleged­ly had some choice exple­tives for Obama, for dar­ing to chas­tise black Americans on tak­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for their own actions, in a black church no less.

Something too many of my African American broth­ers and sis­ters do not nesces­sar­i­ly take kind­ly to. But which is made no less true because of their denial.

Bill Clinton was forced to take on the black com­mu­ni­ty in the face of a scathing attack from right wing repub­li­cans who saw rap music as the poten­tial death of America. 

Clinton went on to diss, rap­per sis­ter Soulja, about the con­tent of her lyrics, Clinton knew how­ev­er that blacks had nowhere else to go but the Democratic par­ty. where were blacks going to go ? To a par­ty that is as lil­ly white as the Colorado Mountains IN win­ter. Blacks have long been per­sona non gra­ta (not wel­come) in the Republican par­ty , so he could afford to take that gam­ble in order to counter bal­ance the vapid assault com­ing from the right , from attack­ers who were up in arms about rap lyrics.

Throughout the elec­tion cam­paign Obama was forced repeat­ed­ly to show his non black­ness, but was even­tu­al­ly cor­nered by a new wave of repub­li­can swift boaters in the Jeremiah Wright débâ­cle. Candidate Obama was forced to deliv­er a major Policy speech on race, the speech of his life, well writ­ten , well deliv­ered , and one that prob­a­bly cement­ed into the minds of white inde­pen­dent vot­ers that Obama was not a wide-eyed lib­er­al in black skin. despite this mon­u­men­tal speech the Jeremiah Wright affair dogged Obama through­out the pri­maries to their con­clu­sions and through­out the General elec­tions cam­paign. Democratic oppo­nent Hillary Clinton was all to hap­py to cap­i­tal­ize on the cir­cus-like mad­ness sur­round­ing this non issue. For the first time a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date was being held respon­si­ble for some­thing some­one else had said.

Obama’s lead­er­ship style and his stat­ed way of doing busi­ness after get­ting elect­ed, was one of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, reach­ing across the aisle to repub­li­cans in order to get things done. He was inspired by Lincoln and his strat­e­gy of putting his for­mer rivals into his cab­i­net. Biden as vice President,Hillary Clinton at the State Department pret­ty much saw Obama’s objec­tives met.

What Obama seem­ing­ly did not bar­gain for , and to this day do not com­pre­hend, at least as far as some folks I have spo­ken to are con­cerned, is the unadul­ter­at­ed ven­emous hatred repub­li­cans have for him. The President we assume is some­how shield­ed from the putrid bile that is spewed from the lips of every lit­tle repub­li­can ‚irre­spec­tive of stature.

The dis­re­spect is pal­pa­ble as it fol­lowed the pres­i­dent into the con­gress, whilst deliv­er­ing the state of the Union address one repub­li­can con­gress­man shout­ed out at the pres­i­dent “you lie”, most repub­li­cans sanc­tioned the infa­mous you lie com­ment, even though it was unprece­dent­ed , dis­grace­ful crass, and boor­ish. No oth­er sit­ting pres­i­dent as far as our research revealed, deliv­er­ing a state of the union address, have ever been treat­ed with such dis­re­spect and utter contempt.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D‑Md., said “I have nev­er in my 29 years heard an out­burst of that nature with ref­er­ence to a pres­i­dent of the United States speak­ing as a guest of the House and Senate.”

The hatred and the utter humil­i­ta­tion at see­ing a black man as President stand­ing there lec­tur­ing a room-full of most­ly old white men was too much for Joe Wilson of South Carolina.

So gut wrench­ing it was for them that Wilson arguably lost con­trol of his entire being, and was unable to stop him­self from shout­ing out at the President, ‘you lie”.

The troll lat­er apol­o­gised to Rham Emanuel, then Chief of staff to the pres­i­dent. To their cred­it some Republicans found his behav­ior dis­re­spect­ful and told him so ‚this includ­ed Senator John Mccain, of Arizona, and rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jerry lewis of California

This was not con­fined to the ill-man­nered con­gres­sion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive , a sit­ting mem­ber of the Supreme Court Samuel Alito , a recent Bush appointee vis­i­bly shook his head in dis­agree­ment whilst mouthing some­thing , as the pres­i­dent spoke to what he dis­agreed with, regard­ing a Supreme Court deci­sion. Political his­to­ri­ans are still hard pressed to find a sin­gle instance where any of the dis­re­spect shown to pres­i­dent Obama was ever shown to any oth­er American pres­i­dent. One can under­stand the intem­per­ate out­burst from an uncul­tured , uncouth Congressman, one would how­ev­er expect a supreme court jus­tice to under­stand protocol.

President Obama’s style of lead­er­ship has drawn howls of con­dem­na­tion from both the right and left. The chal­lenges he faces are unique, and as such hard to gauge, is the grid­lock in Washington just the way things gets done in the Nation’s cap­i­tal, or is it because we have a black president?

There have been a stat­ed desire from the peo­ple on the right to see the pres­i­dent fail ! I am strug­gling to see how the pres­i­dent could fail with no con­se­quence to the coun­try? I try to see the pos­si­bil­i­ty of this, based on the claims the pres­i­den­t’s ene­mies make, that they are patriots.

On his ascen­den­cy to the pres­i­den­cy , Mister Obama had a Democratic House, and a Democratic Senate. Democrats had an almost carte blanche to enact their agen­da, and could legit­i­mate­ly claim a man­date. They could have legit­i­mate­ly argued that elec­tions have con­se­quence. What they did was to quib­ble amongst them­selves, split­ting into dif­fer­ent groups , blue dogs, lib­er­als, and Regan democ­rats, the lat­ter being an oxy­moron if I ever did see one. Whilst democ­rats quib­ble an omi­nous cloud was form­ing on the polit­i­cal hori­zon in the form of the now pow­er­ful tea party.

The tea par­ty, large­ly a group of racist hyp­ocrites, had no trou­ble with the expen­di­tures of Reagan, Bush and Bush , repub­li­can pres­i­dents who ran up the nation­al debt and oper­at­ed with unbal­anced bud­gets . Suddenly saw the destruc­tion of America, and their quote way of life under threat from pres­i­dent Obama. They could not argue that the pres­i­dent was unqual­i­fied to be pres­i­dent because of his age, so they cast asper­sions on the true place of his birth. The United States Constitution requires only that a can­di­date be born in the United States, and be of or above the age of 35 years.

They cre­at­ed what almost amount­ed to a nation­al cri­sis argu­ing (1) Falsely that Obama was not born in the United States. (2) They argued false­ly that the pres­i­dent was a mus­lim, a  false­hood that even if true would not have pre­clud­ed an American from law­ful­ly seek­ing the pres­i­den­cy under the constitution.

Conversely Obama’s oppo­nent , war hero, Senator John McCain of Arizona was not born in the United States, report­ed­ly born some­where in the Panama canal zone. Tea par­ty activists had no prob­lem with sen­a­tor McCain’s lack of main­land birth. Tea par­ty sup­port­ers and their cronies had no com­punc­tion about show­ing their ran­cid hatred for the pres­i­dent , and cer­tain­ly have not been restrained in their use of deroga­to­ry and dis­gust­ing­ly demean­ing car­i­ca­tures in their depic­tion of Mister Obama.

Throughout all of these attacks on the pres­i­dent, the con­gres­sion­al black cau­cus has been mute. Where have the lead­er­ship of that group been ? The tea par­ty has gal­va­nized their sup­port­ers into a unyeild­ing , uncom­pro­mis­ing , group of right-wing zealots. that have pri­maried tra­di­tion­al repub­li­can sen­ate and house can­di­dates , forc­ing some out, and forc­ing oth­ers far to the right of their own con­vic­tions in order to stay alive politically.

The ide­o­log­i­cal right-wing puri­ty test have cre­at­ed what is now hap­pen­ing in Washington. This includes the non­sen­si­cal man­u­fac­tured debate about the debt ceil­ing , which before Obama was a mere for­mal­i­ty. The atten­dant down­grade of America’s AAA rat­ings from Standard and Poors, gave Republicans what they want­ed, the abil­i­ty to tag this pres­i­dent with the infamy of hav­ing been the first American President to see this hap­pen on his watch . Arguing it was a result of his fail­ures, when in fact it was of their doing.

The black cau­cus did not estab­lish them­selves as they most cer­tain­ly could, by strik­ing an alliance with the his­pan­ic cau­cus , giv­ing the his­pan­ic cau­cus their com­mitt­ment that they would sup­port them on immi­gra­tion , and ask­ing them to join them into push­ing back hard against the right-wing reac­tionar­ies in the tea par­ty. Instead they sat on their rear ends expect­ing things to hap­pen, well things hap­pened , the tea par­ty got all they want­ed , they have blocked the pres­i­den­t’s agen­da to the point the coun­try is arguably close to a sec­ond reces­sion, the pres­i­den­t’s approval num­bers on the econ­o­my is under 40% despite his suc­cess in elim­i­nat­ing Osama Bin Laden.

This ought to be a les­son to the black cau­cus , whether there is a black pres­i­dent or not the strug­gle con­tin­ues and despite the pow­er of the pres­i­den­cy, this  pres­i­dent will not be able to do what oth­er pres­i­dents did as a mat­ter of course. It’s not the office, it’s the man. This is still America.

mike beck­les:

have your say:

This blog has no pref­er­ence for either of the two polit­i­cal par­ties in Jamaica, in my esti­ma­tion they are both crim­i­nal gangs , unwor­thy of respect or support.

We how­ev­er seek mere­ly to high­light to the Jamaican pub­lic the facts and let them decide for them­selves unfil­tered.

The People’s National Party launched their new talk­ing points , the “pro­gres­sive agen­da” at the Courtleigh hotel in New Kingston last night. At that event par­ty President Portia Simpson Miller had this to say : The pol­i­cy mix­es con­tained in the doc­u­ment are aimed at ful­fill­ing the mis­sion Norman Manley spoke of in his last address to the par­ty’s con­fer­ence in 1968. “We have realised polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence now for almost 50 years. However, as Norman Manley said, the task ahead is to achieve eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence. The ideas con­tained in this doc­u­ment will take us onward and for­ward to achiev­ing that target.

We have realised polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence now for almost 50 years. However, as Norman Manley said, the task ahead is to achieve eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence. The ideas con­tained in this doc­u­ment will take us onward and for­ward to achiev­ing that tar­get,” Simpson Miller said in the packed audi­to­ri­um, with dozens locked out because there was no space in the room.

Manley, the first pres­i­dent of the PNP, said the mis­sion of his gen­er­a­tion was to win self-gov­ern­ment for Jamaica. He also said the mis­sion of the gen­er­a­tion which suc­ceed­ed him was “recon­struct­ing the social and eco­nom­ic soci­ety and life of Jamaica”.

In the Progressive Agenda, the PNP says it com­mits to “an approach to gov­er­nance that will be data-dri­ven, evi­dence-based with mea­sur­able outcomes”.

The par­ty says gov­er­nance would be con­struct­ed on five pil­lars — human resource devel­op­ment; a safe, secure and just soci­ety; par­tic­i­pa­to­ry, account­able and respon­si­ble soci­ety; pro­gres­sive inter­na­tion­al­ism; and eco­nom­ic growth for sus­tain­able nation­al development.

Commenting on the work of the Anthony Hylton-chaired com­mit­tee which devel­oped the Progressive Agenda, Simpson Miller said it deliv­ered what she asked for.

“Opposition par­ties are always faced with the temp­ta­tion of craft­ing pro­grammes for vote-get­ting. I thank the team for resist­ing the for­mu­la­tion of emp­ty promis­es, quick fix­es and pop­ulist slo­ga­neer­ing,” she said.

“I thank you who craft­ed the Progressive Agenda for not sim­ply rush­ing to sat­is­fy the under­stand­able anx­i­eties of a pop­u­la­tion that is des­per­ate­ly in need of hope,” she added.

Among the promis­es con­tained in the Progressive Agenda is a com­mit­ment to intro­duc­ing greater trans­paren­cy to the man­age­ment of the coun­try’s finance and eco­nom­ic affairs.

“Fiscal imbal­ances, per­sis­tent deficits and low rates of growth in the nation­al econ­o­my have been con­se­quences of this over many years,” the par­ty noted.

“In an effort to secure greater trans­paren­cy, greater fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty and greater lev­els of pub­lic account­abil­i­ty which is at the heart of good gov­er­nance, the PNP will estab­lish an esti­mates com­mit­tee in the Parliament to have con­sid­er­a­tion of expen­di­ture pri­or­i­ties in the con­text of a medi­um-term eco­nom­ic frame­work,” it said.

“We will also ensure the effec­tive func­tion­ing of a com­mit­tee on tax­a­tion in the Parliament able to con­sult with stake­hold­ers in con­sid­er­ing tax­a­tion pol­i­cy and rev­enue-rais­ing mea­sures,” it added.

Simpson Miller’s par­ty has also promised to posi­tion Jamaica’s cul­tur­al and cre­ative indus­tries, includ­ing sports, as pri­or­i­ty indus­tries, giv­en their enor­mous poten­tial for growth, export, employ­ment, gen­er­al eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment, and human-resource development.

“The par­ty, as gov­ern­ment, will seek to devel­op mod­ern cul­tur­al and cre­ative indus­tries poli­cies, informed by research and analy­sis,” the Progressive Agenda says.

Simpson Miller yes­ter­day stressed that the way for­ward for Jamaica’s devel­op­ment must be dri­ven by research. “We must be evi­dence-based. We must engage in fact-find­ing, data col­lec­tion, objec­tive analy­sis and lev­el-head­ed real­ism,” she said.

The Progressive Agenda rep­re­sents the fourth pol­i­cy review of the PNP since Norman Manley pub­lished the Man with the Plan in the 1950s. Michael Manley pub­lished Democratic Socialism in the 1970s and The Compass in the 1980s before P.J. Patterson’s 21^st Century Mission in the 1990s.daraine.​luton@​gleanerjm.​com

I have not seen the doc­u­ment and as such I am in no posi­tion to com­ment beyond what the Party President said in her address. Her state­ments rings haunt­ing­ly fami­lar , as if some­how we have been there before , I can­not quite put my fin­ger on why I have this feel­ing of unease and dis­qui­et. I think I will go over her state­ments again.…just give me a minute please readers.!!!!.….….…..

Got it,here it is, this is the source of my dis­qui­et, how could I have been so blind?

The Progressive Agenda rep­re­sents the fourth pol­i­cy review of the PNP since Norman Manley pub­lished the Man with the Plan in the 1950s. Michael Manley pub­lished Democratic Socialism in the 1970s and The Compass in the 1980s before P.J. Patterson’s 21^st Century Mission in the 1990s.

There you have it for as long as they have been a par­ty the PNP has been issu­ing plans(dogma) catchy elec­tion­eer­ing lit­er­a­ture that gets dis­card­ed once they have seized state pow­er. Make no mis­take the PNP is a mas­ter of win­ning elections.

Two-par­ty pol­i­tics after inde­pen­dence: 1962 – 80
The two lead­ing polit­i­cal fig­ures in the ear­ly days of inde­pen­dence were Alexander Bustamante, leader of the cen­tre-right Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), which he found­ed in 1943, and Norman Manley, leader of the left-of-cen­tre People’s National Party (PNP), which he found­ed in 1938. The JLP held pow­er 1962 – 72, win­ning gen­er­al elec­tions in 1962 and 1967 under the lead­er­ship first of Bustamente, who ruled until 1964 (when he was replaced by Donald Sangster) and then Hugh Shearer, from 1967. It was a time of strong eco­nom­ic growth, of around 6% per annum, with invest­ments in tourism and the alu­mi­na and oth­er indus­tries, but wealth was unequal­ly shared.

In the ear­ly 1970s, the econ­o­my slowed down and there was demand from the urban poor for a greater share of the coun­try’s wealth. This enabled the social­ist PNP, led by Norman Manley’s charis­mat­ic son Michael, to win the 1972 gen­er­al elec­tion, and the PNP dom­i­nat­ed between 1972 and 1980. Michael Manley embarked on a rad­i­cal pro­gramme of social reform, invest­ment in edu­ca­tion and health, and eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence from the indus­tri­al­ized world. Despite high unem­ploy­ment, Manley was returned to pow­er in 1976 with an increased major­i­ty, but by 1980 there was high infla­tion and GDP had fall­en 25% since 1972. Manley reject­ed a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) because of the con­di­tions attached and instead pur­sued a pol­i­cy of eco­nom­ic self-reliance.

Political vio­lence and JLP rule: 1980 – 89
The 1980 gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign was extreme­ly vio­lent, despite calls by Manley and the leader of the JLP, Edward Seaga, for mod­er­a­tion. The out­come was a deci­sive vic­to­ry for the JLP, which won 51 of the 60 low­er-house seats. This gave Seaga a man­date for a return to a renew­al of links with the USA and an empha­sis on free enter­prise. He sev­ered diplo­mat­ic links with Cuba in 1981. In 1983 Seaga called an ear­ly, snap elec­tion. The oppo­si­tion claimed they had been giv­en insuf­fi­cient time to nom­i­nate their can­di­dates and the JLP won all 60 seats. There were vio­lent demon­stra­tions when the new par­lia­ment was inau­gu­rat­ed, and the PNP said it would con­tin­ue its oppo­si­tion out­side the par­lia­men­tary arena.

PNP dom­i­nance: 1989 – 2007
Manley and the PNP returned to pow­er with a land­slide vic­to­ry in the 1989 gen­er­al elec­tion, but Manley pur­sued more mod­er­ate eco­nom­ic poli­cies than in the 1970s, with some suc­cess, and worked for improved rela­tions with the USA. In 1992, with his health dete­ri­o­rat­ing, Manley resigned as pre­mier and was replaced by Percival Patterson, the for­mer finance min­is­ter. In a snap gen­er­al elec­tion, held in 1993, Patterson increased the PNP’s major­i­ty, win­ning 52 of the 60 low­er-house seats. From 1991, the PNP gov­ern­ment fol­lowed a pro­gramme of eco­nom­ic lib­er­al­iza­tion, includ­ing remov­ing exchange con­trols, float­ing the exchange rate, reduc­ing tar­iffs, remov­ing restric­tions on for­eign invest­ment, and pri­va­tiz­ing state enter­pris­es. This helped bring the infla­tion rate down from 80% in 1990 to 7% in 1998 and there was steady eco­nom­ic growth until the mid-1990s.

In 1995, the JLP was weak­ened when its chair­man, Bruce Golding, broke away with col­leagues to form a new cen­trist par­ty, the National Democratic Movement (NDM). This enabled Patterson to secure two fur­ther unprece­dent­ed con­sec­u­tive vic­to­ries, rout­ing the JLP in December 1997 and nar­row­ly win­ning the October 2002 gen­er­al election.

But in 2002 Golding rejoined the JLP, to become its chair again in 2003. Meanwhile, Patterson stepped down as prime min­is­ter in February 2006 and the local gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Portia Simpson-Miller was elect­ed head of the PNP and Jamaica’s first female prime minister.

In September 2007, the JLP, under the lead­er­ship of Bruce Golding, returned to pow­er, nar­row­ly defeat­ing the PNP by 32 seats to 28.(elicon Publishing is divi­sion of RM).

The prob­lem is not in win­ning elec­tions as can be seen from that report pub­lished by Elicon pub­lish­ing, one needs to look at the dis­con­nect between win­ning elec­tions through catchy jin­gles and hooks, and actu­al­ly doing the grunge work of Governing and pro­duc­ing results.

With the excep­tion of the peri­od from 1991 to the mid 1990’s under Percival James Patterson, there is not much to point to . Patterson adopt­ed con­ser­v­a­tive strate­gies of remov­ing exchange con­trols, float­ing the exchange rates, reduc­ing tar­iffs, remov­ing restric­tions on for­eign invest­ments and divest­ing some State hold­ings. this move saw infla­tion plum­met from 80% in 1990 to 7% in 1998 and there was steady eco­nom­ic growth until the mid-1990s.The achilees heel of Patterson how­ev­er is that he had no idea how to con­trol the mon­ster of cor­rup­tion and crime.The PNP even though hav­ing been the belle of the ball as it relates to Jamaican pol­i­tics real­ly has not deliv­ered much in the way of tan­gi­ble accom­plish­ments to the Jamaican peo­ple, who for some strange rea­son seem to favor them to the JLP.

It is inter­est­ing to see Miller unwit­ting­ly acknowl­edg­ing that in the past the par­ty has been all about win­ning elec­tions. quote: “Opposition par­ties are always faced with the temp­ta­tion of craft­ing pro­grammes for vote-get­ting. I thank the team for resist­ing the for­mu­la­tion of emp­ty promis­es, quick fix­es and pop­ulist sloganeering,” .

You don’t say ? Populist slo­ga­neer­ing ? Are these the same things as.

Better must come.

My father born ya.

pow­er com­rades:

lick them wid de rad of carrection:

Jamaica a pnp country.

Time for a change.

Democratic social­ism.

Are we to believe the PNP has gone through a meta­mor­pho­sis , ? Are we to believe that they have repent­ed as Michael Manley did after the débâ­cle of the 70’s ? As we have said in pre­vi­ous blogs, Populism can­not run a coun­try , despite all of the tears and hugs of the Party pres­i­dent her con­stituen­cy remains one of the most depressed in the coun­try despite her many years in rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al politics.

I am not an econ­o­mist, sub­se­quent­ly I will allow the them to cri­tique this newest slo­gan ” PROGRESSIVE AGENDA” .

I would imag­ine that fis­cal pru­dence, dereg­u­la­tion, competence,lack of cor­rup­tion, greater transparency,respect, humility,accountability,and an appre­ci­a­tion for the fact that cam­paign­ing and gov­ern­ing are dif­fer­ent. Most impor­tant­ly the rule of law must take prece­dent over every­thing Moving the coun­try from one of man to a coun­try of laws. That includes the bedrock prin­ci­ple of sup­port for those who toil to make the coun­try safe.

Nothing com­ing from the President of the PNP indi­cates that she even under­stands the need to empow­er the rule of law, which is a nec­es­sary char­ac­ter­is­tic, if crime and ter­ror is to be con­tained, a nec­es­sary com­po­nent if the coun­try is to be com­pet­i­tive in attract­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing and oth­er invest­ment opportunities.

Harvesting man­goes and pro­cess­ing them though admirable, and intu­itive, is not going to be enough if our peo­ple are to com­pete going forward.

mike beck­les:

have your say: