One of the rea­sons that Africans were exploit­ed by Europeans, is that Africans nev­er ful­ly seemed to grasp the con­cept of strength through uni­ty. Instead of orga­niz­ing as nations, they orga­nized as [tribes].
My Nigerian friend tells me that with­in a hun­dred square miles inside his coun­try, you will find as many as sixty(60) dif­fer­ent lan­guages and dialects.
Whether this is an over­state­ment or not I do not know, I have nev­er been to Nigeria, but his point is well taken.
In all fair­ness to the Africans, the Europeans too were splin­tered into vicious tribes who preyed on each oth­er much the same way that African tribes preyed on each other.
The dif­fer­ence with the Europeans, is that they weaponized the Chinese inven­tion of gun-pow­der, and the world has not been the same since.

[Andrew Holness & wife Juilet]

Today, African peo­ple in the Diaspora still are splin­tered and divid­ed as if those traits are still a part of our DNA. We cling to trib­al norms and cus­toms which inex­orably weak­ens us, even when we are greater numerically.
And so, even though we say we have cast off the shack­les of our colo­nial­ist pasts.….… or sor­ta, we cre­ate oth­er monar­chist sys­tems of oppres­sions because of those trib­al­is­tic DNA mark­ers that are still inside us today.
How else would you explain the pass­ing down of con­stituen­cy seats from fathers to sons & daughters?
It start­ed a long time ago, Bustamante and Norman Manley were close cousins. Both were instru­men­tal in the for­ma­tion of the two polit­i­cal par­ties which alter­nate pow­er between them in our coun­try today. Was there no one in the PNP to take over after Norman Manley, why did his son Michael Manley have to be the heir apparent?
Why did Bruce Golding have to become heir-appar­ent to his Speaker of the house dad Tacitus Golding? Surely Jamaica would be a much dif­fer­ent, arguably a bet­ter coun­try with­out the nepo­tism that cre­at­ed Michael Manley & Bruce Golding’s tenure.

[Peter Phillips & his son Mikhael]

Could Daryl Vaz have found anoth­er dis­ci­pline or is the lure and perks of Jamaican pol­i­tics so entic­ing, so much so, that he had to fol­low his father Douglas Vaz and now his wife is eat­ing at the gravy trough?
Oh wait, there is a lot more between the old and new, the Prime min­is­ter and his wife are eat­ing at the same gravy trough, Pernell Charles‘ is try­ing his lev­el best to get his son a seat at the trough, so too was Derrick Smith and so is the old com­mu­nist DK Duncan forc­ing his daugh­ter Imani Duncan, into ever polit­i­cal crack that opens up.
His daugh­ter acts as though there should be a coro­na­tion for her and a seat pre­pared for her. Imani Duncan was not the only child that Duncan tried to force to eat at the trough, he also tried to push his oth­er daugh­ter Patricia to the trough as well.
The idea of polit­i­cal dynas­ties is not con­fined to Jamaica by a long shot, but that does not mean that we should cel­e­brate them.
The more entrenched they become, the more they shut oth­ers out of the process.
There is the Leader of the Opposition PNP Peter Phillips and his son Mikhael Phillips, and a whole series of oth­er entan­gle­ments by virtue of mar­riage, and blood.
For exam­ple, the same DK Duncan is now mar­ried to Beverly Anderson the wid­ow of Michael Manley. Others include Angella Brown-Burke, Burke is mar­ried to PNP fix­ture Paul Burke, who is a first cousin to Saint Thomas JLP mem­ber of parliament
James Robertson.

There are those who believe that these entan­gle­ments are wor­thy of cel­e­bra­tion, it is easy to under­stand why. The same trib­al men­tal­i­ty that cre­ates these polit­i­cal dynas­ties is behind the self-appoint­ed élite class, [you know], those who have a degree or two, who cel­e­brate, rather than repu­di­ate them.
Earning a degree is not some­thing to make their lives bet­ter it is for them a kind of men­tal carve-out that sep­a­rates them from the mass­es, so of course, they have no prob­lem with these dynas­tic developments.
Public ser­vice is an hon­or, it should be avail­able to each and every Jamaican, regard­less of their social,familial, or finan­cial status.
The con­tin­ued pro­lif­er­a­tion of these dynas­ties is not what we should be encour­ag­ing in our country.
Whether the elec­torate is sophis­ti­cat­ed enough to rec­og­nize & repu­di­ate this prac­tice is anoth­er matter?

[ Paul Burke & WIFE Angella-Brown-Burke]

Mike Beckles is a for­mer police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer,
he is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.

“He hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t.”

Never before has it come to this, that a sit­ting President is deemed to be such a threat to the Republic that his pre­de­ces­sor is forced to issue such dire warn­ings, that keep­ing him in pow­er may mean the end of this American project.
Such is the threat posed by Donald Trump. Maybe there are oth­ers who could explain it bet­ter than Barack Obama, but we haven’t seen any­one step for­ward to do so as yet.

Barack Obama’s state­ments have par­tic­u­lar res­o­nance, he is the pres­i­dent Donald Trump suc­ced­ed. If a div­er comes up from the deep and tells you there are sharks below do you dive in with­out a death wish?
That is the lev­el of cred­i­bil­i­ty that Barack Obama’s state­ments have as it relates to the impend­ing doom of a con­tin­ued Trump presidency.

But did it require the past pres­i­dent to warn us, wake us up to the dark and present dan­ger the Trump’s pres­i­den­cy poses?
On Thursday morn­ing, the day after President Obama’s address, and the resul­tant deranged all- caps twit­ter freak­out we all knew was com­ing, we learned that Steven Bannon his for­mer Breitbart senior advi­sor was arrest­ed on fraud charges by the Feds and was cool­ing his heels in a in a New York Jail cell.
Trump him­self may be look­ing at an indict­ment were he to lose this elec­tion, hav­ing been report­ed­ly named as an unin­dict­ed co-con­spir­a­tor in an indict­ment by the Southern District Of New York.
That wait­ing indict­ment may be rea­son enough for Donald Trump to do every­thing in his pow­er to remain in pow­er. Hoping to run out the statute of lim­i­ta­tions clock on the wait­ing indictment.

But this lat­est arrest should come as no sur­prise to any­one, not even to those who haven’t been pay­ing atten­tion to the events that have unfold­ed since he assumed the pres­i­den­cy. I mean the whole damn thing has been a ver­i­ta­ble rogues gallery of criminality.

Forget for a moment the 13 Russian nation­als and 3 enti­ties that Special Counsel Robert Muller charged that the American Justice may not man­age to ever bring to justice.
The litany of crim­i­nal­i­ty has been astound­ing and arguably be unprece­dent­ed in the his­to­ry of the country.

(cour­tesy of Axios)

(1) Michael Cohen, for­mer per­son­al lawyer, and fix­er, found guilty.
(2)Paul Manafort, for­mer Trump cam­paign chair­man, found guilty.
(3)George Papadopoulos, Trump cam­paign advis­er, found guilty.
(4)Richard Pinedo, California asso­ciate, found guilty.
(5Alex van der Zwaan, Manafort Associate Dutch Lawyer, found guilty.
(6)Roger Stone, Trump asso­ciate, found guilty, par­doned by Trump.
(7)Rick Gates, Manafort Associate and busi­ness part­ner, found guilty.
(8)Michael Flynn plead guilty, await­ing sentencing.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, guess what, it is a damn duck. A rogue’s gallery of criminals.
So if you are sit­ting there scratch­ing your head as to why any­one could sup­port this admin­is­tra­tion you may be alone?
Never in record­ed his­to­ry has a pres­i­den­cy pro­duced so many crim­i­nals, much less a pres­i­den­cy that isn’t even four years old.
So yes, the cult that fol­lows behind it ‚they are not all fools or reli­gious nuts, (well except for the black ones),this cult of sup­port is based on a sin­gle principle.
He hates who they hate.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer,
he is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.

Donald Trump does not know what the term [suf­frage] means. He has zero inter­est in, or under­stand­ing of the wom­en’s suf­frage move­ment. He does­n’t like or respect women. To him, they are mere instru­ments of plea­sure, to be exploit­ed for sex.…. and that is if they are white. It is a whole oth­er mat­ter if they are Black or brown, then they are *nasty* it is the best his lim­it­ed vocab­u­lary can manage.

But none of that stopped the con-artist mas­querad­ing as chief exec­u­tive, from pre­tend­ing to care about Universal Women’s Suffrage. So as the Democrats unveiled their vir­tu­al Convention, the mas­ter of decep­tion and deceit, decid­ed to dis­tort, dis­rupt and divert atten­tion away from the cor­nu­copia of col­or and diver­si­ty that has so far char­ac­ter­ized the Democratic convention.
His han­dlers obvi­ous­ly thought, that hav­ing him on tele­vi­sion would be a good thing to do to try and steal some of the shine from the Democrats, so they decid­ed to have him par­don the suf­frag­ist Susan B Anthony.
In 1872, Anthony was arrest­ed for vot­ing in her home­town of Rochester, New York, and con­vict­ed in a wide­ly pub­li­cized tri­al. Although she refused to pay the fine, the author­i­ties declined to take fur­ther action.[w]
Donald Trump knows none of this.

https://​youtu​.be/​e​E​v​C​5​g​h​X​r​M​E​?​t​=15

In response to a reporter’s ques­tion on Tuesday at a White House event, as to his thoughts about for­mer first lady Michelle Obama’s speech, and in par­tic­u­lar, her com­ments that he was over his head, the pre­dictable pet­ti­ness-in ‑chief, respond­ed, “no she was in over her head and frankly she should have made the speech live”. He then went on to say that Michelle got the num­ber of COVID deaths wrong, which is some­thing the goof­ball does­n’t even real­ize is not some­thing he need­ed to be high­light­ing because, in the time that the speech was record­ed until it was aired, over 20’000 more Americans had died from the virus.
He then went on to talk about how the net­works across the board were fawn­ing over Michelle. This from the turd who won­dered out aloud about why no one likes him.
So yah, the Princeton cum laude, Harvard Jurist Doctorate grad­u­ate was way over her head, and the bum­bling car­ni­val-bark­er with the busi­ness degree his dad­dy paid for is not.
We gat that.

See, that’s exact­ly the prob­lem with this guy, he has a per­pet­u­al hard-on for the Obamas, but I do get how he must feel emp­ty, know­ing that the busi­ness degree his dad paid for, avoid­ing the draft on a moun­tain of lies, a litany of bank­rupt­cies after he blew dad­dy’s mon­ey, and bor­rowed buck­et­loads more, scan­dals and crimes to the ceil­ing, and still, he was able to get into the most pow­er­ful office in the world because of white privilege.
What’s more, he had the temer­i­ty to say Barack Obama is the rea­son he is stand­ing where he was based on “Obama’s failed presidency”[sic]
No man.……no, no, no.… you are where you are because there are enough racist whites who respond­ed neg­a­tive­ly to the idea of a black man in a place they had reserved only for them­selves, and a cor­rupt & crap­py sys­tem known as the elec­toral col­lege, which allows for a can­di­date with a three mil­lion vote advan­tage to be deemed the loser.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer,
he is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.

Two very impor­tant things are in the works almost at the same time, there will be nation­al elec­tions in our tiny Jamaica and there will be a far more con­se­quen­tial elec­tion in the United States.
Consequential, not because of America’s size but because of its abil­i­ty to impact the entire globe in more ways than we care to admit.
The sce­nario seems just as sim­i­lar in some respects, in both tiny Jamaica, and it’s mam­moth neigh­bor to the north, only that, in Jamaica’s case, vot­ers need to keep the present Government in place, while in the United States, vot­ers must get rid of the exist­ing admin­is­tra­tion, if the democ­ra­cy as we know it is to survive.

How many times have we heard the say­ing “this is the most con­se­quen­tial elec­tion of our life­time”, come elec­tion time? As far as America is con­cerned, this is the most con­se­quen­tial elec­tion of all our life­times. If the sup­pos­ed­ly (old­est Democracy is to sur­vive), vot­ers who val­ue that imper­fect promise America rep­re­sents, must act to save it.
In Jamaica’s case, it may not be quite as crit­i­cal were the Opposition Peoples National Party to take the reins of Government on September 3^rd, but still, it would be fool­hardy for Jamaican vot­ers to put the coun­try back in the hands of the PNP after the débâ­cle which occurred between 1972 and 1980 and again between 1988 to 2007.
Decades of regres­sive poli­cies, that lead to the cor­rup­tion of both the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors, theft, crime, rust infest­ed zinc-fences, lack of infra­struc­tur­al devel­op­ment, pover­ty, an increase in law­less­ness across the soci­ety, and a total and com­plete den­i­gra­tion of our cul­tur­al norms.

Decent peo­ple in America rose up and made their feel­ings clear after George Floyd was lynched by Minneapolis police in plain view. To this day the cops who mur­dered Breonna Taylor have not been brought to jus­tice. Despite the thou­sands of oth­er cas­es of injus­tices man­i­fest­ed in police abuse, Trump admin­is­tra­tion cor­rup­tion & crim­i­nal­i­ty, a tear­ing down of norms and even bla­tant dis­re­gard for the laws that every­one else are forced to obey, there is a seg­ment of the pop­u­la­tion that blind­ly fol­low the Trump clown-show like the rats behind the pied piper of Hamelin.
Children in cages torn away from their par­ents who were mere­ly seek­ing refuge, the appoint­ment of unqual­i­fied white men to high court judge­ships, the evis­cer­a­tion of the vot­ing rights act by the supreme court, and the sub­se­quent new assault on vot­ing rights across cer­tain south­ern states, all because of the actions of the John Roberts court.

Trump’s incom­pe­tent and poten­tial­ly crim­i­nal­ly-com­plic­it response to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, has result­ed in over five mil­lion Americans cer­ti­fied infect­ed with the Coronavirus & over one hun­dred & sev­en­ty thou­sand dead, (170,000), in only a few months. Let that sink in for a minute.
If that hap­pened under a Democrat pres­i­dent, or God for­bid, had it hap­pened under President Obama, the Racist clown enablers in the Republican cau­cus­es in both the house and sen­ate would have brought the coun­try to a halt with fraud­u­lent hearings.
At the same time, most Government agen­cies are far short of the staff they need to do the job they are sup­posed to do and many do not have the sen­ate approved lead­ers they are required to have by law.
The econ­o­my is tank­ing, and Trump’s trade fights with China and oth­er coun­tries have caused many farm­ers to be on the edge of bankruptcy.
America’s cred­i­bil­i­ty is in the toi­let because of the deficit of lead­er­ship. The peo­ple in the streets tells only a small part of the story.
The cor­rup­tion and destruc­tion being done to the coun­try by this admin­is­tra­tion are all out in the open. The choice for vot­ers this cycle could not be clear­er, vote Democratic all the way down-tick­et, or kiss good­bye to the coun­try as you knew it.

In our lit­tle elec­tion back a [yaad], there are some dis­turb­ing utter­ances com­ing from the PNP’s camp, one can­di­date told his sup­port­ers they are will­ing to take the con­stituen­cy seat by force. Really now?
That gen­er­al­ly means rein­tro­duc­ing polit­i­cal vio­lence as a means of gain­ing pow­er. That kind of strat­e­gy has been in the DNA of the PNP all along, for­tu­nate­ly, Jamaicans on their own, have stepped away from the dark days of that kind of politics.
Unfortunately for the PNP lead­er­ship, in its des­per­ate bid to regain pow­er, sole­ly for being in pow­er, it still has not caught on that the peo­ple do not want what they are sell­ing, and thank­ful­ly so, because the cor­rup­tion, theft, and lack of progress is more than the peo­ple can take.
Sure, the rul­ing JLP is far from per­fect.….… Andrew Holness has not done near­ly enough to dis­man­tle the crim­i­nal gangs oper­at­ing across the Island, not because he does­n’t want a crime-free Jamaica, but because he fails to grasp that erad­i­cat­ing the crim­i­nal gangs and get­ting the guns, means strong sup­port for law enforcement.
Andrew Holness’ has scant respect for the Police offi­cers who work their ass­es off to keep Jamaica and his rear end safe. This elec­tion he will most like­ly lose the police vote in the event micro-polling is done to look at the way the votes turn out in a detailed way.
Were he to lose this elec­tion, he would have no one to blame for his dis­re­spect to the police but himself.

Under nor­mal cir­cum­stances, that would have been enough, more than enough to remove Andrew Holness and the JLP from office, sure he has a done a cred­i­ble job on the econ­o­my and han­dling the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, but on the most impor­tant job he has as prime min­is­ter, he has failed and there is no deny­ing it.
A lead­er’s core func­tion is to pro­tect the citizens.
He has not done so.
More peo­ple con­tin­ue to die because his strat­e­gy of appease­ment of the crim­i­nal rights lob­by has ham­pered police efforts and has empow­ered the crim­i­nal gangs.
But the unpre­pared­ness of the PNP, the par­ty’s total unwill­ing­ness to eschew the pol­i­tics of old, should keep the par­ty out of Jamaica house for anoth­er five years.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer,
he is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.

The Democratic National con­ven­tion com­menced vir­tu­al­ly, on Monday for the very first time in history.
I believe I speak for more than just myself when I say, I had no idea what that would look like.
The vir­tu­al roll­out, how­ev­er, was, to say the least mes­mer­iz­ing, the cor­nu­copia of human faces blend­ed into a human quilt as they sang the nation­al anthem under the theme “we the people”.

The pro­gram which was mod­er­at­ed by the beau­ti­ful and tal­ent­ed Eva Longoria con­tin­ued on with a parade of American busi­ness­peo­ple who talked about their strug­gles under the Trump presidency.
Other Americans talked about the price they are pay­ing as a result of Trump’s incom­pe­tence in han­dling the pandemic.
Biden him­self inter­viewed a small pan­el of ordi­nary Americans includ­ing Chicago’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot about what they would like to see hap­pen in a Biden administration.

https://youtu.be/b‑0BSwQg540?t=7

One Mexican-American young lady told a tear-jerk­ing sto­ry of los­ing her 65-year-old dad to KOVID, he vot­ed for Donald Trump, and believed him when he said COVID-19 would dis­ap­pear. As a result, she told how her dad went to a karaōke event and was infect­ed with the virus. Days lat­er he was on a ven­ti­la­tor, he died alone in a hos­pi­tal with­out his family.
“My father had only one pre­ex­ist­ing con­di­tion and that was trust­ing Donald Trump.”
Quick side­bar, “why would a Mexican-American vote for Donald Trump, you know after the Mexicans are crim­i­nals, they are rapists esca­la­tor thing”?
Oh, nev­er mind.

The Biden camp rolled out an impres­sive list of Republicans who spoke out against Donald Trump and gave rea­sons why they will be vot­ing for Joe Biden.
Former Republican Governor Christine Todd Whitman, bil­lion­aire CEO and Republican mega-donor Margaret Cushing Whitman, (Meg), Former Republican Governor from Ohio John Kasich, and a real sur­prise for me, for­mer Republican Congresswoman Susan Molinaro of Staten Island.

Former pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Vermont’s Independent Bernie Sanders gave a spir­it­ed speech for the removal of Donald Trump from office. Sanders’ speech was the most direct case made by any of the pre­vi­ous speak­ers as to the rea­son that Donald Trump can­not be allowed four more years in the White House, up until Michelle Obama that is.
Additionally, Sanders chal­lenged his sup­port­ers to under­stand that every­thing they fought for would be for naught if Trump is allowed to remain in the white house.

Then Michelle Obama, Michelle, Michelle, with an intel­li­gent ora­to­ry seem­ing­ly as only the Obama’s can, she dis­sect­ed and tore away the very fab­ric of Trump’s legit­i­ma­cy, enshrined in the star­tling real­i­ty that Hillary Clinton won the pop­u­lar vote by almost three mil­lion votes.
Brick by brick, she decon­struct­ed Donald Trump’s rogue’s gallery of cor­rup­tion and evil. Racism, kids in cages, the strong econ­o­my her hus­band left, her hus­band’s response to what could have been an Ebola pan­dem­ic, America lost two souls, Vs Trump’s incom­pe­tence that has result­ed to date in the death of well over 170 thou­sand Americans and climb­ing. The econ­o­my in sham­bles, white suprema­cy, and divi­sive­ness, it was a beau­ty to behold.

Michelle Obama wooed and mes­mer­ized as only she and her hus­band can. The vir­tu­al Convention end­ed with a ren­di­tion from Billy Porter and Crosby Stills.

After much con­sid­er­a­tion and much thought, I have decid­ed to heed the con­cerns that some of you, the faith­ful loy­al­ists to (chatt​-​a​-box​.com) has expressed, that we con­sid­er chang­ing the URL of our site. A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), col­lo­qui­al­ly termed a web address, is a ref­er­ence to a web resource that spec­i­fies its loca­tion on a com­put­er net­work and a mech­a­nism for retriev­ing it. [w]

For over a decade the URL chatt​-​a​-box​.com has served in get­ting our mes­sage out and has been instru­men­tal in get­ting your views heard. Insofar as we have been able to bring aware­ness through our mutu­al inter­ac­tion, whether it be on issues of race, polic­ing, pol­i­tics, or reli­gion we are tru­ly grate­ful. If we have helped to pos­i­tive­ly impact a sin­gle life, then the work and expense are well worth it to me. This has always been work with a vision for me, a labor of love. For a decade we have self-fund­ed this project from our own resources. We are grate­ful that we are able to con­tin­ue to do so.

To the degree that we have over the years been able to bring atten­tion to top­i­cal issues, it may also have impressed upon us the need to be seen as seri­ous as pos­si­ble, not just in tone, but in optics as well. This change will facil­i­tate eas­i­er access to the site and will hope­ful­ly enhance the seri­ous­ness of our mis­sion. To the extent that-that mis­sion is doable, we have decid­ed to make access to our site as easy as pos­si­ble and that our mis­sion remains to be viewed as seri­ous­ly as we intend to be taken.

And so after a decade on the world wide web, the deci­sion to move to (Mikebeckles​.com) seems to make the most sense. Visitors who use the old URL will be seam­less­ly guid­ed to the site’s new URL.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, he is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com.  He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites. You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.

I have asked this ques­tion before, I am ask­ing again after I ran across this in one of the black pub­li­ca­tions that I read each day.
First, where the hell is Joe Biden?
Secondly, what the hell is he wait­ing for to select a black woman as a run­ning mate?
I have heard all kinds of malarky com­ments about the need to vet white women and oth­er women in order to come up with not just a good Vice President but the best female can­di­date.
Wait just a minute, with all due respects to Senators Elizabeth Warren, and Tammy Duckworth, with all of the def­er­ence to Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer, were they in South Carolina to save Joe Biden’s sor­ry weak and inde­ci­sive ass when he was about to be tossed out of pol­i­tics like the pre­vi­ous times he was reject­ed by Democratic vot­ers?
No, it was Black women who reached down and pulled his sor­ry behind up, Potentially mak­ing him some­thing he has nev­er been, that is a nation­al leader.

Some peo­ple are born great, oth­ers have great­ness thrust upon them.
Joe Biden was nev­er great, at best he has been vanil­la ice cream, the kind you revert to with a sigh after dis­cov­er­ing that the choco­late swirl is all gone and the rum & raisin box only has ice par­ti­cles left in it.
In fact, we are talk­ing about Joe Biden today because of a (choco­late swirl) named Barack Obama who ele­vat­ed him from Delaware lev­el obscu­ri­ty to inter­na­tion­al promi­nence.
On that alone, Joe Biden should have already select­ed a black woman as his run­ning mate. (How about you start off by repay­ing the damn favor)?
When you con­sid­er the fact that Joe Biden’s sor­ry ass was done before Black women reached down and plucked his defeat­ed list­less behind out of humil­i­a­tion, some­one please explain to me what is there for Joe Biden to think about. What is tak­ing this dimwit this long to select a black woman as his run­ning mate

In a more just world, Joe Biden would­n’t even qual­i­fy to be on the VP short­list of any of those black women as pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates.
Now Joe Biden is act­ing as if he would be doing the black com­mu­ni­ty a huge favor if he choos­es a black woman. Selecting a black woman, all of whom are emi­nent­ly more qual­i­fied than he is to be pres­i­dent of the United States of America is a must for dimwit old Joe.
When asked why she removed her­self from con­sid­er­a­tion Minnesota’s US Senator, and for­mer pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Amy Klobuchar, stat­ed that she believes that the pick should be a black woman.
What is Joe Biden doing act­ing as if he wants to be begged to pick a black woman? Is it so that when he throws this elec­tion away he will have a scape­goat to blame?
I am way to mad to con­tin­ue, so I’ll defer to the great StephenA. Crockett Jr
»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»



100 Black Entertainers and Celebrities Send Letter to Biden Urging Him to Pick Black Woman as VP. Biden Is Going to Mess This Up

By Stephen A. Crockett.Jr

This wasn’t sup­posed to be remote­ly hard; in fact, the ground­work had already been laid down. It works like this: Black women are the back­bone of the Democratic par­ty and they need­ed to be reward­ed with a vice-pres­i­den­tial pick in this upcom­ing elec­tion.
And the pre­sump­tive Democratic nom­i­nee for pres­i­dent still hasn’t made his pick, which has me think­ing two things: 1) Joe Biden is going to fuck this up and 2) Joe Biden is going to fuck this up. 
I’m not alone in these feel­ings, as some 100 Black celebri­ties and lead­ers have called for Biden to pick a Black woman as his run­ning mate, a deci­sion that was sup­posed to be made a week ago and as of Aug. 10 still hasn’t been made. 

Yahoo news reports:

Entertainment mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, radio per­son­al­i­ty and “The Breakfast Club” co-host Lenard “Charlamagne Tha God” McKelvey, for­mer NFL defen­sive end Michael Bennett, civ­il rights lawyer Benjamin Crump and many oth­ers signed the open let­ter to Biden.

“As some­one who has said through­out the cam­paign that VP Joe Biden needs to choose a Black woman VP, the urgency for that pick has gone from some­thing that SHOULD hap­pen to some­thing that HAS to hap­pen,” the let­ter said.

The let­ter denounced the treat­ment of some of Biden’s poten­tial picks, includ­ing Sen. Kamala Harris over her per­ceived ambi­tion and her debate attacks on Biden’s civ­il rights record when she was a rival can­di­date for the Democratic pres­i­den­tial nomination.

“It dis­gusts us that Black women are not just being vet­ted in this VP process but unfair­ly crit­i­cized and scru­ti­nized,” the let­ter said. “Was Joe Biden ever labeled ‘too ambi­tious’ because he ran for pres­i­dent three times? … Why does Senator Kamala Harris [D‑Calif.] have to show remorse for ques­tion­ing Biden’s pre­vi­ous stance on inte­grat­ed bus­ing dur­ing a Democratic pri­ma­ry debate?”

Wait, look­ing through some of the names of the men that have signed this let­ter is just as prob­lem­at­ic, con­sid­er­ing that “Charlamagne Tha God,” fre­quent doo-doo hat-wear­ing Nick Cannon, and CNN polit­i­cal con­trib­u­tor and pos­si­bly one of Trump’s Blacks Van Jones have all signed.

Managing Editor Genetta Adams: So, I’m con­fused, because just over the week­end, Nick Cannon endorsed Kanye.

Me: You know who else is con­fused? Nick Cannon.

Diddy and Charlamagne Tha God have pushed this whole thing of hold­ing the Black vote for ran­som, basi­cal­ly claim­ing that they’d need an agen­da of how Biden plans to improve the lives of Black and brown peo­ple if he wants the “Black vote,” Black Enterprise report­ed. But, much like politi­cians, we don’t hear much from these nig­gas until elec­tion time. 

Harris is report­ed­ly lead­ing the pack along with for­mer Obama admin­is­tra­tion nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er Susan Rice. Other promi­nent names include Rep. Karen Bass of California, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Rep. Val Demings of Florida, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, USA Today report­ed. Harris, Rice, Bass, and Demings are Black. And Biden is total­ly going to fuck this up. Why is he even enter­tain­ing these oth­er names when he clear­ly knows what he needs to do — and what the fuck is tak­ing so long?
Read more below:

https://​www​.the​root​.com/​1​0​0​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​e​n​t​e​r​t​a​i​n​e​r​s​-​a​n​d​-​c​e​l​e​b​r​i​t​i​e​s​-​s​e​n​d​-​l​e​t​t​e​r​-​t​o​-​b​-​1​8​4​4​6​7​8​623

Another nation­al elec­tion is around the cor­ner in Jamaica and as have been the case over the last decade and a half, polit­i­cal killings have more or less become a thing of the past to the cred­it of the peo­ple.
Was it left up to the lead­ers of the two polit­i­cal par­ties it is safe to say that polit­i­cal killings would be a major wor­ry still? The Jamaican peo­ple should take a bow for matur­ing.
Amidst the impend­ing chal­lenges posed by COVID-19 and the bal­anc­ing act that must be done with tourism and allow­ing return­ing res­i­dents back into the coun­try in order to retain some sem­blance of eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty, the present lead­er­ship has done an admirable job.

With that said, the two most press­ing issues that plagued Jamaica before Andrew Holness took office, remain stub­born­ly omnipresent today, and that both­ers me because he had ample time to change the tra­jec­to­ry on both.
The two issues are vio­lent Crimes & Corruption.
As I write this I am ful­ly con­ver­sant that these opin­ions will be improp­er­ly con­strued as sup­port for one par­ty over the oth­er, or feal­ty for one and hatred for the oth­er.
There is nei­ther feal­ty nor hatred, I strive only to speak the truth. When I write about pol­i­tics, I gen­er­al­ly do so cleansed of the cor­ro­sive tox­i­c­i­ty of affil­i­a­tion because of my present geog­ra­phy.
As such my bird’s eye view allows me the lux­u­ry of objectivity.

CORRUPTION

Andrew Holness has the envi­able dis­tinc­tion to have been sworn in twice as Prime Minister of Jamaica, and still be at the ten­der age of forty-eight (48). But to whom much is giv­en much is expect­ed.
He had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to see from inside what most of us can only glimpse at from the out­side.
After Bruce Golding was forced uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly to step aside, Andrew Holness became Prime Minister.
As a young man, he was unde­ni­ably ful­ly aware of the 18 ¹⁄₂ years of the PNP’s many cor­rup­tion scan­dals.
As some­one who is actu­al­ly old­er than Holness, I am nau­se­at­ed at the prospect that elect­ed offi­cials who are entrust­ed with the peo­ple’s busi­ness would betray that trust and engage in cor­rupt prac­tices.
My hope was that Andrew Holness would have been as nau­se­at­ed as I am about cor­rup­tion. I dared to dream that his nascent admin­is­tra­tion would be one that his­to­ri­ans would point to, the one that decid­ed cor­rup­tion was a thing of the past.
In fact, I had good rea­son to hope because can­di­date Holness promised to end cor­rup­tion.….….… He promised to ensure that Jamaicans could sleep with their win­dows open. ( we will get back to that).
On being sworn in, the new Prime Minister Andrew Holness promised much. 

Second Inaugural address.…..March 3^rd 2016.

(The fol­low­ing is the full text of the inau­gur­al address by Prime Minister Andrew Holness at his swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny on (March 3, 2016).
Your Excellencies, the Governor-General, the Most Honourable Sir Patrick Allen, and Lady Allen
Leader of the Opposition the Most Honorable Portia Simpson Miller
Former Prime Ministers:
The Most Honorable Edward Seaga and Mrs. Seaga
The Most Honorable PJ Patterson
The Honorable Bruce Golding and Mrs. Golding
My fel­low Jamaicans
Good after­noon.
I rec­og­nize that I stand here today only by the Grace of God. It has not been an easy jour­ney to this podi­um, but earnest labor and fer­vent prayers con­quer all. To God be the glo­ry.
It is with a deep sense of grat­i­tude, hon­or, and humil­i­ty that I took the Oath of Office moments ago, ful­ly con­scious of the mag­ni­tude of expec­ta­tions and respon­si­bil­i­ty I have assumed, but equal­ly ener­gized and opti­mistic about a pros­per­ous future for Jamaica. I pledge to serve the peo­ple of Jamaica faith­ful­ly, with all of my ener­gies, all of my heart, mind, and soul.
I stand here today hap­py to be rep­re­sent­ing the voice, vision, vote, and vic­to­ry of Jamaica.
We may have dif­fer­ent voic­es and dif­fer­ent votes on a sim­i­lar vision, regard­less of our dif­fer­ences, Jamaica was vic­to­ri­ous at the General Elections. It is not per­fect, but we can all be proud of the peo­ple, sys­tems, and insti­tu­tions that make up our democ­ra­cy.
Meaning of the Mandate
On the day of Election, I wit­nessed a young man car­ry­ing, cra­dled in his arm, an obvi­ous­ly bed-rid­den elder­ly man from a polling sta­tion. I was touched by the sight. In the bus­tle of the busy school­yard, as they passed, the elder­ly man point­ed his ink-stained fin­ger at me and said, “Andrew, do the right thing!“
I stand here hum­bled by the awe­some pow­er of you, the peo­ple, and I com­mit to doing right by you. The peo­ple are sov­er­eign and their views and votes must nev­er be tak­en for grant­ed.
The peo­ple of Jamaica did not vote in vain. They expect a gov­ern­ment that works for them and by the same expec­ta­tion, an Opposition that is con­struc­tive. This his­toric elec­tion deliv­ered the small­est major­i­ty but also the clear­est man­date: Fix Government!
With this man­date:
There is no major­i­ty for arro­gance.
There is no space for self­ish­ness.
There is no place for pet­ti­ness.
There is no room for com­pla­cen­cy and,
There is no mar­gin for error.
I am under no illu­sion as to the mean­ing of this man­date. We have not won a prize. Instead, peo­ple are giv­ing us a test.
There is no absolute agency of pow­er. This means that the win­ner can­not take all, or believe we can do it alone.
Leading Partnerships for Prosperity
To achieve the vision of shared pros­per­i­ty through inclu­sive eco­nom­ic growth and mean­ing­ful job cre­ation, now more than ever, the Government must lead, acti­vate, empow­er, and build real part­ner­ships. I intend to lead a Government of part­ner­ship. The solu­tions to our prob­lems do not rest with the Government alone.
The sum total of our poten­tial exceeds our prob­lems; our col­lec­tive capa­bil­i­ties are greater than our chal­lenges, but it is only through part­ner­ship that these capa­bil­i­ties and this poten­tial can be seized, har­nessed, and real­ized for the good of Jamaica.
Partnerships require trust, clear assign­ment of respon­si­bil­i­ty, and an ele­vat­ed sense of duty.
There is only so much trust that pledges and state­ments of com­mit­ment can buy. I under­stand that the Jamaican peo­ple now want to see action in build­ing trust. This is part of fix­ing the gov­ern­ment.
Everyone who will form the next gov­ern­ment must be seized of this expec­ta­tion.
From the politi­cian mak­ing pol­i­cy to the civ­il ser­vant pro­cess­ing an appli­ca­tion, we must act duti­ful­ly to ful­fill our respon­si­bil­i­ties.
Trust requires the actu­al­iza­tion of our com­mit­ments. We will ful­fill our com­mit­ments.
Our actions can achieve so much more if they are coör­di­nat­ed. We will bring greater coör­di­na­tion, ratio­nal­i­ty, and focus on the role of gov­ern­ment so that the objec­tives of part­ner­ship can be clear.
There is no doubt that sig­nif­i­cant num­bers of Jamaicans have lost hope in our sys­tem, but I am encour­aged that a far larg­er num­ber main­tains faith, keeps hope and con­tin­ues to pray that Jamaica will grow and pros­per.
I am ener­gized by the expres­sions of will­ing­ness to work with our new Government in the inter­est of Jamaica. The sense of duty is alive and well. There is more hope than despair and this cre­ates a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to form part­ner­ships for pros­per­i­ty.
Partnership with Families
You know, I am now joined in Parliament by my life part­ner Juliet. Family is the ulti­mate part­ner­ship. And that is why my Government will focus resources on sup­port­ing fam­i­lies.
By increas­ing the income tax thresh­old we will restore the eco­nom­ic pow­er of house­holds to par­tic­i­pate in not only grow­ing our GDP but more impor­tant­ly grow­ing the gen­er­al well­be­ing of the soci­ety.
Here’s how the part­ner­ship with fam­i­lies, and the work­ing heads of house­holds will work.
Our gov­ern­ment will ease your tax bur­den, but you must spend and invest wise­ly, use the addi­tion­al mon­ey to acquire a house for your fam­i­ly or improve the house you already have, or buy Jamaican-made goods.
This how we will increase local effec­tive demand in hous­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and agri­cul­ture. This is how you can play a part in cre­at­ing jobs while sat­is­fy­ing your well-being.
We will con­tin­ue our pol­i­cy of tuition-free edu­ca­tion and no user fee access to health care. However, will enable you to save in an edu­ca­tion bond for your chil­dren’s edu­ca­tion and in a nation­al health insur­ance scheme your health­care.
We will enhance our social safe­ty net for vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies, and will pro­vide sup­port for par­ents in cri­sis, but you must be respon­si­ble and send your chil­dren to school. Our men must take care of their chil­dren, and cou­ples must be respon­si­ble for hav­ing the chil­dren they can afford.
Our gov­ern­ment com­mits to cre­at­ing the envi­ron­ment in which fam­i­lies can flour­ish and form com­mu­ni­ties of social mobil­i­ty from which every ghet­to youth can be a star. However, every fam­i­ly mem­ber must do his or her part by being per­son­al­ly, social­ly, and eco­nom­i­cal­ly respon­si­ble.
I am sure Juliet will under­stand if I seek to build anoth­er part­ner­ship in Parliament. Leader of the Opposition, Portia Simpson Miller has giv­en long and ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice to the coun­try and I believe the man­date is say­ing, we may not be on the same side of the road, but as much as pos­si­ble we should hold hands in coöper­a­tion to over­come obsta­cles for the good of the coun­try.
We have evolved with­out for­mal struc­ture a very good part­ner­ship in edu­ca­tion and we intend to con­tin­ue our infor­mal col­lab­o­ra­tions in this area and pur­sue oth­er such areas of coöper­a­tion between Government and Opposition mem­bers.
I still believe it is a use­ful sym­bol of nation­al uni­ty for the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to appear togeth­er in zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions. I again extend the invi­ta­tion.
Partnership for Growth with Private Sector
The pri­or­i­ty of this Government is to grow the econ­o­my and cre­ate mean­ing­ful jobs. In so doing, we will more rapid­ly and sus­tain­ably reduce debt. I am sure we all agree that much of Jamaica’s devel­op­ment has been achieved with­out growth, which has left us with much debt. This is unsus­tain­able.
Going for­ward, Jamaica’s devel­op­ment must rest on its abil­i­ty to cre­ate propo­si­tions of val­ue and attract invest­ments to con­vert the val­ue into wealth. In this mod­el, the Government is not the main investor, it is the Private Sector whether they be large enter­pris­es or small busi­ness­es. In the eco­nom­ic part­ner­ship with the Private Sector, Government’s role, among oth­ers, is:
To ensure the rule of law.
Create a safe, secure, and fair envi­ron­ment for busi­ness
Make mar­kets where none exist
Ensure trans­paren­cy and access to infor­ma­tion ‑and cre­ate an effi­cient and sup­port­ive pub­lic sec­tor bureau­cra­cy
In exchange, we want the Private Sector to unleash invest­ments in the local econ­o­my. We want to see the return of the pio­neer­ing dri­ve to cre­ate new indus­tries, the entre­pre­neur­ial will­ing­ness to take a risk, and the inno­v­a­tive insight to do things bet­ter. I am heart­ened by the sig­nals com­ing from the Private Sector. I believe they have got the mes­sage about the part­ner­ship for growth and job cre­ation. Now is the time for growth.
Partnership with inter­na­tion­al part­ners.
We are not naïve about the chal­lenges we face regard­ing our debt and the need to main­tain fis­cal dis­ci­pline. This is why we will con­tin­ue with the prin­ci­ple of joint over­sight of our Economic Programme and per­for­mance.
We rec­og­nize the impor­tance of, and val­ue our rela­tion­ship with our bilat­er­al and mul­ti­lat­er­al friends. These rela­tion­ships have been crit­i­cal in secur­ing sta­bil­i­ty. We believe in pre­serv­ing sta­bil­i­ty, but we must now build upon this in pro­duc­tive part­ner­ships with them to achieve inclu­sive growth and job cre­ation.
There are many more areas of part­ner­ships that we must for­mal­ly pur­sue nation­al devel­op­ment and as our gov­ern­ment is installed over the com­ing days these will become evi­dent.
The Role of the Prime Minister
In all these part­ner­ships for pros­per­i­ty, there must be coör­di­nat­ed effort. That is my role. I will ensure that:
The gov­ern­ment is coör­di­nat­ed and strate­gi­cal­ly direct­ed.
Decisions are tak­en quick­ly.
Targets are set.
The nation is informed and that.
Everyone under my appoint­ment is held to account for their action or lack there­of.
Institutional Reform
There is a sense of expec­ta­tion of change. It is not lost on me that I am the first of the Post-Independence gen­er­a­tion to lead Jamaica. More than any­thing else we want to see Jamaica take its true place as a devel­oped coun­try in the next 50 years. The strug­gle is not so much polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence as it is eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence. It is through our eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence that we secure real polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence.
However, after 53 years of inde­pen­dence, there is a need for insti­tu­tion­al review of the Jamaican State both in terms of mod­ern­iza­tion of the insti­tu­tions of the State, and the struc­ture of the State. The gov­ern­ment has to improve its busi­ness process­es and become more effi­cient as a reg­u­la­tor and a ser­vice provider.
There is a need for us to have a say in the fun­da­men­tal insti­tu­tions that define Jamaica, the rights we secure for our cit­i­zens, and how we want Jamaica to be. We will give form to that voice in a ref­er­en­dum to decide on con­sti­tu­tion­al mat­ters and social mat­ters.
Independent Jamaica must remove the cul­ture of depen­den­cy from our midst. We must teach our chil­dren that there is no wealth with­out work, and no suc­cess with­out sac­ri­fice. We must remove the belief from the psy­che of our chil­dren that the only way they can step up in life is not by how hard they work, but by who they know.
As Prime Minister, I have a duty to align our incen­tives and reward sys­tems for those who work and fol­low rules. We must cre­ate a Jamaica where the man who plays by the rules is reward­ed!
It is impor­tant that the cit­i­zens of Independent Jamaica have a sense of enti­tle­ment to good ser­vice from their coun­try. However, increas­ing­ly this is not being bal­anced with a duty of ‘giv­ing back’. Jamaica has ben­e­fit­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly from the civic pride and sense of nation­hood that drove so many to give gen­er­ous­ly of their tal­ent and trea­sures to build our great nation.
The spir­it still exists, to a great extent, local­ly and in our Diaspora. However, we have to be more active in pro­mot­ing civic respon­si­bil­i­ty, vol­un­teerism, and ‘giv­ing back’, par­tic­u­lar­ly among our youth. And we have to inte­grate the incred­i­ble tal­ents and assets of the Jamaican Diaspora in local devel­op­ment. Too often I hear com­plaints from the Diaspora that they expe­ri­ence dif­fi­cul­ty in giv­ing to Jamaica. Giving should be easy, as part of our Partnership for Prosperity which includes the Diaspora, we will make it eas­i­er for you to con­tribute to the devel­op­ment of your home­land.
Jamaica is too rich in peo­ple and tal­ent to be a poor coun­try. With good gov­er­nance and a prospec­tive out­look, Jamaica, with­in a decade or less, could emerge as a boom­ing econ­o­my and a pros­per­ous soci­ety.
Jamaica is geo­graph­i­cal­ly cen­tral in the Caribbean. My vision is to turn Jamaica into the cen­ter of the Caribbean. A cen­ter of finance, trade and com­merce, tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion, and the cen­ter of arts, cul­ture, and lifestyle region­al­ly. This is all pos­si­ble with­in our life­time. Despite any neg­a­tives, Jamaica still has a pow­er­ful and allur­ing brand ampli­fy­ing our voice and influ­ence in the world.
We can­not be sat­is­fied with things as they are. My dream is to ful­fill your dream. We must cre­ate a Jamaica where there are hope and oppor­tu­ni­ty. Where we can encour­age our chil­dren to dream big and be opti­mistic about their life chances. We must cre­ate a Jamaica where our young peo­ple can find mean­ing­ful work. Jamaica where you feel safe to live, work, and raise your chil­dren. Jamaica that is boom­ing and investors and entre­pre­neurs can have a con­fi­dent out­look on the econ­o­my. A place where we can retire and tru­ly enjoy as par­adise.
All of this is pos­si­ble. We must start now. Time for a part­ner­ship. Time for action!)

Andrew Holness has done noth­ing to address the acts of cor­rup­tion in his gov­ern­ment. It is not okay to say the PNP did it too.
Public ser­vants are all invest­ed with the peo­ple’s trust. Regardless of what lev­el pub­lic employ­ees oper­ate, he/​she has a duty to be respon­si­ble and hon­est stew­ards of that trust.
Crimes of cor­rup­tion should not be tol­er­at­ed at any lev­el. On this issue, Andrew Holness scores an (F).
[Whataboutism] is not accept­able.
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VIOLENT CRIMES

Despite the myr­i­ad mea­sures employed by the admin­is­tra­tion since tak­ing office, crime has increased each year with no end in sight. Today Jamaica hov­ers some­where around the third and fourth most vio­lent place on plan­et earth.
As a prag­ma­tist, I do not hope and pray to accom­plish tan­gi­ble results, nei­ther do I believe that the only solu­tion to the nation’s crime epi­dem­ic is divine inter­ven­tion.
Sure I pray a lot, I too believe in divine inter­ven­tion, where I part com­pa­ny with the Jamaican crowd, includ­ing the past PNP Minister of National Security Peter Bunting, is that I do not sit around and expect God to come in to fix things.
I am more of a Phillipians 4 – 13 kind of guy. I can do all things through Christ who strength­ens me. I am not the Moses dude who stopped to pray with Pharoh’s army to his back and the red sea, fac­ing him.
Those of us who have been in the trench­es know that crime and vio­lence thrive in envi­ron­ments of acqui­es­cence and tol­er­ance.
There is hard­ly a soci­ety more acqui­es­cent and tol­er­ant of crim­i­nal­i­ty than Jamaica.

Rather than lead on this issue, the People’s National Party and the Jamaica Labor Party have both fol­lowed the crime trends. The media-cheer­leads and the nation con­tin­ues on the slip­pery slope of becom­ing a failed state.
Support of gang­sters and gun­men is now cement­ed and a part of Jamaican cul­ture. It is expo­nen­tial­ly more dif­fi­cult to erad­i­cate the ram­pant crim­i­nal­i­ty that per­vades soci­ety as a con­se­quence.
Pandering for votes and kow­tow­ing to self-styled human rights lob­bies have become far more impor­tant than address­ing the run­away crime epi­dem­ic fac­ing the nation.
Holness has not dis­tin­guished him­self from that cul­tur­al rot. In fact, he made it his duty to be dis­re­spect­ful of the JCF through­out his tenure, first by putting his friend and for­mer head of the JDF Antony Anderson in charge of the JCF.
His words and deeds have been par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­re­spect­ful to the mem­bers of the JCF, and has only begun to be soft­er now that nation­al elec­tions are near. 

Instead of lead­ing on crime the Prime Minister bad­mouthed the JCF, while push­ing the JDF as a sort of qua­si-police depart­ment.
The truth is that the Prime Minister should be suf­fi­cient­ly apprised on the ram­pant crim­i­nal­i­ty in the coun­try and under­stand that, yes, far too many police offi­cers are cor­rupt, but as soon as the peo­ple are suf­fi­cient­ly exposed to the mil­i­tary, so too will the decry the sol­dier’s cor­rup­tion as well.
That did not take long to occur.
In this medi­um this writer implored the Prime Minister to throw his admin­is­tra­tion’s 100% sup­port behind the police, even as efforts are stepped up to ensure that good offi­cer are appro­pri­ate­ly appre­ci­at­ed, ele­vat­ed and bad ones removed and replaced.
I urged him to remove Terrence Williams from INDECOM and replace him with some­one focused on the task at hand. That is the inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion of all reports of abuse by the secu­ri­ty forces, in an objec­tive and pro­fes­sion­al man­ner.
While throw­ing the full sup­port of the Government behind the secu­ri­ty forces, he did nei­ther.
Supporting the efforts of law enforce­ment and hold­ing them account­able (as an arm of gov­ern­ment) are not mutu­al­ly exclu­sive endeavors.

The most fun­da­men­tal mis­take made by Holness has been his inabil­i­ty to ful­ly under­stand the role law enforce­ment plays in ful­ly demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­eties.
The two are inex­tri­ca­bly linked, one does not exist with­out the oth­er. Andrew Holness’ demon­stra­ble dis­dain for the police has bled out into how he leads through­out his term.
Criticizing the work of the police against sea­soned killers, with a broad brush, when you do not have the courage to do a ride-along with them is gross­ly unfair and cow­ard­ly.
Now that elec­tions are around the cor­ner he has soft­ened his tone and mea­sured his demeanor, but the dam­age is already done.
Separate and apart from the polit­i­cal the­ater, there is the lit­tle issue of the mes­sage sent when the nation’s lead­er­ship has a hands-off rela­tion­ship with the police.
In the end, pet­ty feel­ings and grudges can­not be a part of gov­er­nance. SOE’s and ZOSO’s has done noth­ing to stem the blood­shed.
The head of the Police, a for­mer mil­i­tary leader, has not pro­duced any mea­sur­able pos­i­tive result that could not have been achieved by a career police offi­cer.
The jury is still out on what poten­tial harm may have been done to the psy­che of the offi­cers on the ground when their elect­ed lead­ers indi­cate to them that they are not good enough to lead the orga­ni­za­tion to which they have ded­i­cat­ed their entire careers.
You can talk all you want about all of the mate­r­i­al sup­port you give to the depart­ment, if you have not giv­en the moral sup­port that the men and women who risk all to pro­tect oth­ers need, you have failed at the most impor­tant task of governance.

This is the first in a series of arti­cles that I will write lead­ing up to the elec­tions. We will look objec­tive­ly and fac­tu­al­ly at the two polit­i­cal par­ties and their lead­ers, from our research we will out­line the facts and let the Jamaican peo­ple decide for themselves.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer,
he is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites.
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