Never Again Action pro­test­ers said a Wyatt Detention Facility offi­cer drove into their group, injur­ing sev­er­al people.

By Carol Kuruvilla

A cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer at an immi­grant deten­tion cen­ter in Rhode Island drove a pick­up truck into a crowd of pro­test­ers late Wednesday night, injur­ing sev­er­al peo­ple, the pro­test­ers said.
Videos of the con­fronta­tion show the truck turn­ing toward a line of seat­ed pro­test­ers who were block­ing the entrance to a park­ing lot at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls. People imme­di­ate­ly jumped up, shout­ing while the dri­ver honked his horn. 

The truck paused for a moment as the pro­test­ers gath­ered around ― and then the vehi­cle tried to dri­ve straight through the crowd before stop­ping again. Minutes lat­er, addi­tion­al offi­cers arrived and used pep­per spray on the pro­test­ers, clear­ing enough space for the truck to pass through. 

Never Again Action @NeverAgainActn·17hThis is the line of peo­ple that an ICE Detention Center guard tried to dri­ve through with his truck. We are still try­ing to fig­ure out what all the injuries are

And the rest of us are try­ing to get the pep­per spray out of our eyes.406791.4K Never Again Action @NeverAgainActn·17hCORRECTION: It was oth­er Wyatt Detention Center guards who pep­per-sprayed us, not the Rhode Island State Police. The police just stood by and did noth­ing as we were run over and then sprayed by deten­tion cen­ter guards. We are #JewsAgainstICE and we will not let vio­lence stop us.479542.1K Never Again Action @NeverAgainActn·16hBREAKING: Tonight we expe­ri­enced a tiny sam­ple of the vio­lence ICE uses on our immi­grant neigh­bors every day. An ICE guard drove his truck into our peace­ful #JewsAgainstICE protest, then oth­er guards came out and pep­per sprayed the crowd. We’ll be back. http://​NeverAgainAction​.com1:0759.1K views

621.4K2.4K Never Again Action @NeverAgainActnReplying to @NeverAgainActn@amornetworkand 3 oth­ersBREAKING: Here is HD video of an ICE guard dri­ving his truck into us as we sat peace­ful­ly block­ing the Wyatt Detention Center. We’re putting our bod­ies on the line because we see the camps and the roundups. We’ve learned from our ances­tors: NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE. 

Natalie Lerner, a 23-year-old Jewish activist from Providence, Rhode Island, told HuffPost that she was in the line of the vehi­cle when it first approached. “I was kneel­ing down to talk to one of the oth­er peo­ple who was sit­ting to get arrest­ed and he got this look of fear,” Lerner recalled. “I turned around and this car was right behind me, com­ing right toward me.” At least five peo­ple were treat­ed at a hos­pi­tal for minor injuries sus­tained dur­ing the con­fronta­tion and the ensu­ing scram­ble, Lerner said. An old­er woman was pep­per-sprayed at “incred­i­bly close range,” she said.

Protesters said the per­son dri­ving the pick­up truck was a cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer employed by the Wyatt Detention Facility. Lerner said she and oth­er pro­test­ers were fright­ened ― and angered ― by offi­cers’ actions dur­ing the inci­dent. “If this is how you’re treat­ing us, a group of most­ly white, most­ly cit­i­zens who aren’t in prison, who are out in the open, how are you treat­ing peo­ple on the inside?” she asked. HuffPost has reached out to the Wyatt Detention Facility, the Central Falls Police Department and ICE for comment.

Wednesday’s protest was part of Never Again Action, a move­ment by young, pro­gres­sive Jews who believe say­ing “Never again” to the hor­rors of the Holocaust means speak­ing up about the U.S. government’s cur­rent treat­ment of migrants. Since ear­ly July, these activists have been orga­niz­ing protests at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement cen­ters across the coun­try, includ­ing in Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Francisco. 

The activists are call­ing on Congress to shut down ICE, close the deten­tion cen­ters, and offer “free­dom and per­ma­nent pro­tec­tion for all undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants, refugees and asy­lum seek­ers.” The Wyatt Detention Facility is a “pub­licly owned and pri­vate­ly oper­at­ed” cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty, accord­ing to its web­site. It began hous­ing ICE detainees in March, 10 years after a migrant’s death there put a tem­po­rary end to the prac­tice. Eighteen peo­ple were arrest­ed dur­ing an ear­li­er Never Again Action protest at the facil­i­ty on July 2.
Lerner said that hun­dreds of pro­test­ers, some with Never Again Action and oth­ers from local immi­gra­tion advo­ca­cy groups, gath­ered at the deten­tion cen­ter on Wednesday. They tried to deliv­er a let­ter to the war­den demand­ing more trans­paren­cy at the facil­i­ty. When no one came out to meet with them, Lerner said the group decid­ed to “shut down Wyatt,” first by block­ing the entrance to the facil­i­ty and then by block­ing the staff park­ing lot. 
“We were send­ing the mes­sage that if folks in immi­grant deten­tion can’t get home to see their fam­i­lies, peo­ple who are aid­ing and abet­ting that can’t go home to see their fam­i­lies,” she said.

The indi­vid­u­als who sat on the ground at the park­ing lot entrance had will­ing­ly signed up to risk arrest dur­ing an act of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, accord­ing to Lerner, who helped lead train­ing for the demon­stra­tion. She said pro­test­ers were giv­en guid­ance on what to do if police used force dur­ing an arrest and how to deesca­late the sit­u­a­tion if a bystander tried to start a fight. People who weren’t will­ing to risk arrest were told to stay back and not inter­act with police. But Lerner said none of the activists expect­ed they would be fac­ing down a mov­ing vehi­cle. “Having some­thing like a car bar­rel­ing towards you and not stop­ping when you’re peace­ful­ly protest­ing is a total­ly ter­ri­fy­ing expe­ri­ence,” Lerner said. “We were not antic­i­pat­ing real­ly any­body, but espe­cial­ly an employ­ee of the Wyatt, to dri­ve a car through the protest.” Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) expressed “out­rage” about the inci­dent on Thursday. She said Rhode Island’s state police will inves­ti­gate the inci­dent. “President Trump’s immi­gra­tion poli­cies are immoral, and these Rhode Islanders were exer­cis­ing their con­sti­tu­tion­al right to protest,’’ the gov­er­nor said. 

Gina Raimondo@GovRaimondoI share the out­rage Rhode Islanders are feel­ing about the inci­dent depict­ed in the video at the Wyatt Detention Center. Our state and our nation were built on the idea that every­one has a right to express their opin­ion pub­licly and peacefully. 

The Rhode Island attor­ney gen­er­al’s office has also said it is inves­ti­gat­ing the inci­dent. “Peaceful protest is a fun­da­men­tal right of all Americans; it is unfor­tu­nate last night’s sit­u­a­tion unfold­ed as it did. We urge all to exer­cise restraint as our inves­ti­ga­tion pro­ceeds,” the office said in a state­ment on Thursday. The con­fronta­tion has left Never Again Action even more deter­mined to stand up against ICE, Lerner said. “It was total­ly unac­cept­able what hap­pened, and it’s pret­ty clear to me that we will con­tin­ue protest­ing Wyatt and con­tin­ue protest­ing what ICE is doing here in Rhode Island and beyond,” Lerner said. https://​www​.huff​post​.com/​e​n​t​r​y​/​p​i​c​k​u​p​-​t​r​u​c​k​-​n​e​v​e​r​-​a​g​a​i​n​-​i​c​e​-​r​h​o​d​e​-​i​s​l​a​n​d​_​n​_​5​d​5​5​7​4​f​d​e​4​b​0​e​b​8​7​5​f​2​0​4​4f0

Those who cham­pi­on America and the west­ern world’s sup­port for the [Apartheid state of Israel], gen­er­al­ly argues that Israel is the only Democracy in that neighborhood.[sic]

(Democracy)

A gov­ern­ment in which the supreme pow­er is vest­ed in the peo­ple and exer­cised by them direct­ly or indi­rect­ly through a sys­tem of rep­re­sen­ta­tion usu­al­ly involv­ing peri­od­i­cal­ly held free elec­tions.
By that asser­tion, the term [democ­ra­cy] is sub­ject to the inter­pre­ta­tion of the per­son or group claim­ing democ­ra­cy, as the Palestinian peo­ple liv­ing under the bootheels of Israel has no say elec­toral­ly, what Israel does to them.
America’s heavy finan­cial and oth­er sup­port for the apartheid state is seem­ing­ly root­ed in some­thing far more unspo­ken or sin­is­ter than the aver­age per­son under­stands.
Those who speak out at Israel’s geno­cide and crimes against human­i­ty put them­selves at tremen­dous risks.
Speaking out against Israel is like­ly to get one ostra­cized, impris­oned or worse.
For dar­ing to take any protest action against the apartheid state, Americans will risk prison, if Democrats and Republicans alike get their way.
People across the globe who care about human­i­ty must be clear that both Republicans and Democrats have sup­port­ed and draft­ed leg­is­la­tion crim­i­nal­iz­ing Americans who would boy­cott the apartheid state.
A bipar­ti­san Senate bill would make boy­cotting Israel pun­ish­able by up to 20 years in prison. 

Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are two Muslim US Representatives, both are part of the so-called Squad of four first-term US Congresswomen, who have been sin­gled out for the ire of the bul­ly-in-chief for their pro­gres­sive poli­cies and their oppo­si­tion to Israel’s treat­ment of the Palestinian peo­ple.
The oth­er two mem­bers are Massachusetts US Representative Ayanna Presley and New York’s Alexandria Ocasio Cortes round­ing out the quar­tet.
Trump lam­bast­ed the four telling them to go back to where they came from, argu­ing, that they came from bro­ken coun­tries which need­ed their assis­tance.
The igno­ra­mus, while glow­ing in the racist chant (send them back), of his equal­ly moron­ic and racist sup­port­ers, had no idea that all but Ilhan Omar were born in the United States. All are US cit­i­zens, as they have to be, to sit in the con­gress.
Both Tlaib and Omar were slat­ed to vis­it Israel as part of a trip orga­nized by a long­time Palestinian law­mak­er Hanan Ashrawi. 

APARTHEID STATE OF ISRAEL DENIES ENTRY OF AMERICAN CONGRESSWOMEN WHILE LIVING OFF AMERICAN TAX-PAYERS MONEY.

According to the New York Times; Ms. Omar had been sched­uled to arrive on Sunday for a tour of the West Bank, part­ly under the aus­pices of an orga­ni­za­tion head­ed by a long­time Palestinian law­mak­er, Hanan Ashrawi, that was expect­ed to high­light Palestinian griev­ances over the Israeli occu­pa­tion. The women were plan­ning to vis­it the West Bank cities of Hebron, Ramallah and Bethlehem, as well as Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, accord­ing to Ms. Ashrawi, includ­ing a vis­it to the Al Aqsa Mosque, a hot­ly con­test­ed and volatile holy site. Most of the del­e­ga­tion was expect­ed to depart on Aug. 22, but Ms. Tlaib had been plan­ning to stay on to vis­it rel­a­tives in the West Bank.

Israel has denied the two law-mak­ers access to the apartheid state after Donald Trump tweet­ed; It would show great weak­ness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep.Tlaib to vis­it. They hate Israel & all Jewish peo­ple, & there is noth­ing that can be said or done to change their minds. Minnesota and Michigan will have a hard time putting them back in office. They are a dis­grace!
On the ques­tion of dis­grace, this has got to be the great­est act of pro­jec­tion ever, imag­ine the dis­grace that this moron is actu­al­ly in the white house?
Nevertheless, the great­est tragedy is that the apartheid state of Israel which exist with the largess of American tax­pay­ers, has demon­strat­ed that Israel is the actu­al head of the American Government.
The fact that a for­eign Government that lit­er­al­ly lives off the tax dol­lars of Americans, and in par­tic­u­lar African-Americans tax dol­lars, would refuse access to two women of col­or, shows the lev­el of pow­er that American politi­cians have giv­en to this nation they cre­at­ed in 1948.
Republicans brought Netanyahu a [war crim­i­nal] into the coun­try to address a joint sit­ting of the Congress dur­ing President Obama’s tenure.
Democrats who had the option of boy­cotting the sit­ting, sat there and cheered as the dis­gust­ing racist dis­re­spect­ed the sit­ting American President.

The arro­gance of Benjamin Netanyahu is pal­pa­ble. A racist moron like the occu­pant of the white house, Netanyahu has con­sis­tent­ly belit­tled African peo­ple call­ing them [infil­tra­tors] who would effec­tive­ly change the make­up of the apartheid state from its white major­i­ty, a view shared by Donald Trump and his sup­port­ers in the Republican par­ty. (see Trumps’ immi­gra­tion & abor­tion poli­cies)
Unfortunately, the so-called Evangelical move­ment of which the Black church is a part, (though seg­re­gat­ed from each oth­er) share the non­sen­si­cal view that Israel is sup­pos­ed­ly a place ordained by the God of the Bible and that the white peo­ple liv­ing there who ran from Germany’s Adolph Hitler, are some­how God’s cho­sen peo­ple.
Chosen for what I do not know?
However, the appro­pri­a­tion of the Hebrew faith by the Germans who had adopt­ed the faith, has got to be the great­est iden­ti­ty theft ever per­pe­trat­ed in the his­to­ry of mankind.
That a peo­ple who genet­i­cal­ly have no ties to the region can claim that [they] have a right to land stolen and giv­en to them, is one of the trav­es­ties of mod­ern times.
If this is the way the God of the Bible oper­ates, I want no part of that God.
However, we know that like the apartheid state of South Africa, every wrong will be right­ed.
The God of my life guar­an­tees that, of that, they can be assured.

Former mem­ber of the JCF, Clive Peck, who was serv­ing on a United Nation’s mis­sion in Lybia, lost his life over the week­end in an alleged bomb blast.
Mister Peck was work­ing to bring some sem­blance of peace to a coun­try [Lybia], that the United States dis­rupt­ed and laid bare.
This pub­li­ca­tion hon­ors the ser­vice and sac­ri­fice of our dear­ly depart­ed for­mer col­league.
Having said that, I could not help notic­ing that at least one of the two major local news­pa­per (JamaicaGleaner​.com) car­ried the sto­ry of mis­ter Peck’s untime­ly pass­ing.
After all, it is not every day that a Jamaican gives his life in ser­vice to oth­ers in far­away coun­tries, for peo­ple they do not know.
Jamaican police offi­cers toil in obscu­ri­ty at home with­out recog­ni­tion and with­out receiv­ing their just due.
However, when they die in ser­vice over­seas, we expect to see them receive the god­damn respect and recog­ni­tion they deserve from the high­est exec­u­tive office.
And they deserve to be rec­og­nized as mem­bers of the Organization which mold­ed and honed them, the (JCF). And yes Prime Minister Andrew Holness this may come as news to you but the JCF has pro­duced noble men and women of dis­tinc­tion, even if your prej­u­dices and bias­es has cloud­ed your vision.
Of course, the kind of char­ac­ter which moti­vates Jamaicans like Detective Peck is lost on far too many Jamaicans who are inca­pable of grasp­ing the sac­ri­fice which goes into such ser­vice.
Most heroes who do, are moti­vat­ed by much more than finan­cial remu­ner­a­tions.
It was trou­bling to me that nowhere in the Gleaner Article was there a men­tion of the fact that Clive Peck was a for­mer mem­ber of the JCF.
Why was that not men­tioned by any­one? Do they so hate the JCF that they envy the very thought of giv­ing respect to the agency when they lose a mem­ber, present or former?

GLEANER STORY

[The Government and the par­lia­men­tary Opposition yes­ter­day laud­ed the work of Clive Peck, the Jamaican man who was one of two United Nations (UN) peace­keep­ers killed in a bomb blast in Libya on the week­end.
Jamaica Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith said Peck served the UN with dis­tinc­tion and devot­ed his life to a mis­sion of aid­ing the Libyan peo­ple in the midst of one of the most severe con­flicts and human­i­tar­i­an crises in the world.
“It is indeed a sad moment, but we take pride in his courage and ser­vice”, Johnson Smith told The Gleaner.
She revealed, too, that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had attest­ed to “Mr. Peck’s courage, ser­vice, and ded­i­ca­tion to the goals of the United Nations”. “The trag­ic loss of Mr. Peck is acute­ly felt by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade and the Government of Jamaica in its entire­ty,” Johnson Smith said. She dis­closed that she had spo­ken per­son­al­ly to Peck’s wife, Lelieth, and con­veyed sym­pa­thies on behalf of her min­istry and the entire gov­ern­ment. Opposition Leader Dr. Peter Phillips described Peck as a Jamaican who was com­mit­ted to the glob­al mis­sion of peace and ser­vice to human­i­ty. “I pray God’s com­fort for his fam­i­ly, friends, and col­leagues,” Phillips said in a state­ment. Lisa Hanna, the oppo­si­tion spokesper­son on for­eign affairs, sug­gest­ed that Peck and the oth­er UN peace­keep­ers who were killed be always remembered.“They were there seek­ing peace in the world,” Hanna said. “It’s real­ly, real­ly trag­ic that one of our nation­als suf­fered this way, espe­cial­ly in keep­ing with what he was doing at that par­tic­u­lar time –try­ing to keep the peace,” she added. But the Opposition spokesper­son said she was proud that a Jamaican was seek­ing to achieve peace across the world “and I hope that gives the fam­i­ly some com­fort in this dev­as­tat­ing time that we all face”. ]

Last week the Prime Minister was on social media laud­ing mem­bers of the JDF who rushed a young lady hav­ing a pan­ic attack to the hos­pi­tal.
The Prime Minister chimed in, quote ( “I must com­mend the work of the Jamaica Defence Force in pro­duc­ing noble men and women of dis­tinc­tion”).
Ever par­tial to my beloved JCF, and know­ing the sac­ri­fices made over the decades by so many police offi­cers, for an ingrate nation no less, includ­ing pay­ingthe ulti­mate price, I lashed out at the prime Minister for what I thought was a clear case of selec­tive praise for one branch of the secu­ri­ty forces. Respect to the JDF, but as one com­menter opined, “Taxi man do dat ebery day Mike”
Sure, those mem­bers of the JDF deserved a pat on the back, but the police have been doing this and so much more, it is wrong.

So I did not mince words.
Me: This is such bull­shit pan­der­ing to one branch of the secu­ri­ty forces, for doing exact­ly what they are trained to do.
The police force has been doing this for decades, some pay­ing the ulti­mate price in the process, many have been shot and are now wheel­chair bound, oth­ers like myself have been shot defend­ing peo­ple like you hyp­ocrites I don’t even know.
You peo­ple are such a bunch of hyp­ocrites, frauds and fakes..
I can­not believe I ever sup­port­ed this guy who has been work­ing to dri­ve a wedge between the secu­ri­ty forces since he took office, all for polit­i­cal rea­sons.

My response may have been cringe-wor­thy even by social media stan­dards. Even so, I stand by every word of that retort.
This offi­cer and his fam­i­ly deserved recog­ni­tion, not from low­er rungs of the Government.
His pass­ing deserves nation­al recog­ni­tion from the high­est elect­ed office-hold­er. He was in Lybia, not on his own, but as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Jamaican Government.
Holness can­not allow bias­es and per­son­al prej­u­dices to impact how he car­ries out the func­tions of the Prime Minister of Jamaica.

UPDATE

Since we called out the Government on this, both dai­ly news­pa­pers have car­ried sto­ries of the JCF pay­ing homage to the deceased mis­ter Peck and indeed nam­ing him as a dis­tin­guished mem­ber of that agency.
Jamaica house is still silent.
This writer and this medi­um will con­tin­ue to chas­tise mem­bers of the JCF when they err, but we will stand front and cen­ter with mem­bers of that agency in recog­ni­tion of the ser­vice they pro­vide to the peo­ple of Jamaica.
Even when their polit­i­cal boss­es are too low-class to do so.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, a busi­ness own­er, avid researcher, and blog­ger. 
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.

Is it just me or does any­one recall when the aver­age per­son who used patios^ (pat­wa) was looked down upon by the peo­ple who live above Cross Roads?
Remember when that part of Jamaica, the bor­jouise, sneered at the fact that the vast major­i­ty of the Jamaican peo­ple were unable to speak flu­ent English, and were only able to express them­selves in their native pat­wa?
I don’t know about you, but I recall full well how those infi­dels dis­re­spect­ed the aver­age per­son for being what they char­ac­ter­ized as dunce, because they were only able to speak the dialect.
As a young police offi­cer, I recall their dis­dain for the cops who they deemeed beneath them because they spoke Patwa.
In their fake uptown accents, they would ask me some­times “where were you trained”? Because I some­times humored them by speak­ing the so-called queen’s English. Little did they know how repulsed I was by their attempts to pan­der to me.
Now if you remem­ber how they hat­ed pat­wa, then focus now on their utter dis­dain when we cut a few[bombo claat].

The worst trans­gres­sors were the ones who had tread the cor­ri­dors of acad­e­mia, the UWI in par­tic­u­lar. That most left­ist clique which had just emerged from the dor­man­cy of their sta­tus as the Lumpen pro­le­tari­at and was now the new face of the intel­li­gentsia, pro­gres­sive and in charge. Flushed with their new­found pow­er and free­dom from the shack­les of colo­nial dom­i­na­tion, they were the new sher­iff in town, they would decide stan­dards, good and bad.
If you ever won­dered what that face looked like, look no fur­ther than the Jezebel Carolyn Cooper.
But it is far from Cooper the icon­o­clast alone, who have been hell-bent on the destruc­tion of our revered cul­ture.
There is now a whole slew of oth­ers who also have tra­versed those same cor­ri­dors, who were sup­posed to come out edu­cat­ed in the true sense of the word, but for all intents and pur­pos­es seem to have gone in like john­ny cake and came out like dumpling.

So pat­wa was the lan­guage spo­ken by the under­class, une­d­u­cat­ed peas­antry, and for a while, that was the sta­tus quo because the bour­geoise said so.
Until they decid­ed that since the Jamaican cul­ture had become a thing, a thing of inter­est to oth­er peo­ple in oth­er parts of the world all of a sud­den like wild hors­es the UWI crowd is now in a dead race to be seen as a cat­a­lyst for all things patwa.Collouquiolism and coarse­ness is sup­posed to be the new stan­dard, sim­ply because they say so, because they are now com­fort­able for it to be so.
But we know that these frauds were the very ones turn­ing up their noses at this dialect and the peo­ple who speak it, not out of desire, but because it was all they could muster.

Yesterday I wrote about the young upstart Senator Andrea Haughton of the PNP who had his feel­ings hurt because the police had appro­pri­ate­ly pulled the plug on a reg­gae show in which exple­tives were being used. Obviously this lit­tle emper­or in the mak­ing, must have been at the show when it was stopped and felt pow­er­less that his sta­tus as an esteemed sen­a­tor and a Doctor to boot, were not enough to cause the police to cow­er at his very pres­ence.
And, know­ing the Jamaican police they prob­a­bly would have cow­ered had he inter­vened, if past is pro­logue.
He now tells local media that he wants to revis­it the (town and com­mu­ni­ty act), because our sup­posed bad words are not bad words at all.
As if he does­n’t know that the words them­selves are not bad, but the neg­a­tive con­no­ta­tions we attach to them which deter­mines their inap­pro­pri­ate­ness and coarse­ness.
(Or does he)?
True to form, UWI Professor Emerita Carolyn Cooper, has thrown her sup­port behind the Haughton idea, claim­ing (“Jamaican bad words have a quite respectable pedi­gree. They usu­al­ly refer to per­fect­ly good female body parts and func­tions. But the lan­guage of these bad words is often of African ori­gin. So it’s almost impos­si­ble for some of us to ful­ly appre­ci­ate the explo­sive pow­er of a big, fat, bad word. It’s pos­i­tive ener­gy, not just neg­a­tive. But we can’t see that. We’re still trapped in damn­ing stereo­types about our cul­ture.” )

Reverting to my own col­lo­qui­al school­ing, I am tempt­ed to point out just how flies tend to fol­low shit wher­ev­er it is?
This was the same woman who brought now con­vict­ed mur­der­er Vybz Kartel into the sup­posed epic-cen­ter of high­er learn­ing [sic], the UWI to give lec­tures.
These are the very same sup­posed experts and cul­tur­al icons who want to turn over our chil­dren to the teach­ings of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty and oth­er acts of immoral­i­ty under a faux canopy of cul­tur­al pro­gres­siveism .
Instead of being lead­ers of intel­lec­tu­al thought, these char­la­tans have posi­tioned them­selves as infi­dels and instru­ments of degen­er­a­cy. They are dan­ger­ous, and a detri­ment to our soci­ety and its exis­tence as a func­tion­ing place for peo­ple to live and raise their fam­i­lies.
And all for the sake of cheap thrills and a for­ward as the dance-hall would say.
Look for this to gath­er steam as Jamaica has decid­ed­ly embarked on a path toward degen­er­a­cy. Its lead­ers have con­vinced them­selves that cheap pop­u­lar­i­ty is far more valu­able than main­tain­ing cul­tur­al norms which have made us unique­ly Jamaica.
Further advanc­ing the hedo­nis­tic, and las­civ­i­ous shell of our for­mer selves that we have become.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, a busi­ness own­er, avid researcher, and blog­ger. 
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.

People’s National Party Senator,Andre Haughton a young and upcom­ing star of that polit­i­cal par­ty has decid­ed that his con­tri­bu­tion to nation-build­ing will be to fur­ther erode stan­dards of decen­cy and deco­rum.
Haughton believes that penal­iz­ing dance­hall artistes for curs­ing dur­ing their per­for­mances is out­dat­ed and in some way vil­li­fy­ing words which oth­er coun­tries find unique and enter­tain­ing about Jamaica’s cul­ture.
Speaking to local media enteties the up and com­ing nation­al leader who has a [Dr]. beside his name insists, “There are a lot of peo­ple who these words don’t affect in a neg­a­tive or pos­i­tive way. If a man seh ‘b****cl**t eedi­at’ is not the b****cl**t doing the harm is the eedi­at, if a man seh ‘f*****g fool’, is the fool that have the impact. It’s words like cor­rup­tion and eedi­at that are the bad words.”

In mak­ing his argu­ment for the nor­mal­iz­ing of more course­ness in the soci­ety, the sen­a­tor point­ed to the July, Reggae Sumfest’s Dancehall Night which was halt­ed by police due to pro­fan­i­ty dur­ing the per­for­mance of dee­jay Javillani. In the past, hip hop artiste Nicki Minaj was fined at that show for using b**c**t on stage dur­ing her per­for­mance.
The term bad-word has been affixed to cer­tain ter­mi­nolo­gies with­in the Jamaican col­lo­qui­al ver­nac­u­lar for as long as our coun­try has exist­ed as an inde­pen­dent nation or longer.
These words are not part of any dic­tio­nary, but are words put togeth­er to dri­ve home a point when we Jamaicans want to express a range of emo­tions.
Over the years they have been used when we are hap­py, sad, angry, fraus­trat­ed, excit­ed or expe­ri­enc­ing any oth­er feel­ing with­in the range of emo­tions we may be expe­ri­enc­ing at any par­tic­u­lar time.
For exam­ple, the word [blood], is a part of the eng­lish lan­guage. So too is [cloth], pieced togeth­er [blood-cloth], or rather the col­lo­qui­al­ized ver­sion [blood­claat], is a nov­el­ty to for­eign­ers who like every­thing about our cul­ture.
In the United States, there are terms which are deemed not to be prop­er lan­guage, so too is it in Canada, England ‚as well as oth­er nations.
Though these terms are used loose­ly in the streets, as the so-called bad words are uesd unspar­ing­ly in Jamaica, yet stand­ing before a American judge, or deal­ing with the police would not be a good time to be ref­fer­ing to them as a [moth­er­fuck­er].
There is a rea­son cer­tain guard-rails are in place, which this young sen­a­tor would be wise to first be edu­cat­ed on, before he goes charg­ing for­ward like a bull in a chi­na shop.

There are strong points of views on this sub­ject from both sides.
Do these words real­ly harm any­one, I guess there is a strong argu­ment to be made that at face val­ue they don’t?
Nevertheless, there is the ques­tion of whether they do any­thing to advance deco­rum, par­tic­u­lar­ly in pub­lic spaces, the very place this sen­a­tor wants them to be freed up?
What’s more, it seems that these younger politi­cians are more inter­est­ed in [an any­thing-goes strat­e­gy] which would open Jamaica up as a place where one could feel free to go and do what­ev­er they please and once done, go back to their respec­tive coun­tries of law and order.
That Hedonistic approach is seen as a means toward attract­ing more vis­i­tors and inex­orably more for­eign mon­ey regard­less of the harm it does to our coun­try. This sen­a­tor seems a will­ing schill for the dance­hall indus­try, he says he and a team intend to go through the Town and Communities Act to decide the next move to get things in motion. He urges Jamaicans to embrace what is their prof­itable cul­ture.

The police have a duty to enforce the laws. Police offi­cers have to be dis­cre­tionary gauges with their ears primed for [trig­gers]. Those trig­gers, some­times deter­mine whether an event is about to go south pret­ty fast. If not addressed imme­di­ate­ly, those events may dete­ri­o­rate rapid­ly, result­ing in greater prob­lems for them­selves and the wider com­mu­ni­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly, in sit­u­a­tions in which large groups of peo­ple are gath­ered and alco­hol has been con­sumed.
At a time when crime and law­less­ness are at all time highs, it is regret­ful that these upstarts want to cre­ate more lever­age for more crime and law­less­ness rather than arrest­ing those neg­a­tive traits.

The idea that words are not bad is an infan­tile con­cept which this much vaunt­ed Doctor ought to be con­ver­sant of. True to form how­ev­er, he is demon­strat­ing that hav­ing knowl­edge in one area does not mean smart in anoth­er.
Freedom of speech is essen­tial. Nevertheless we must be cog­nizant that our free­dom to say what we feel has con­se­quence.
That is the rea­son we do not shout [bomb] on an air­plane or in a crowd­ed the­ater. That is the rea­son we do not go up to a cop and shout gun, that could get you killed.
In the United States traf­fic stops are used to stem the flow of ille­gal guns and drugs across states lines.
Through the use of traf­fic stops untold amounts of drugs and ille­gal guns are con­fis­cat­ed and sus­pects arrest­ed each year, count­less lives are saved as a result.
All because offi­cers stay vig­i­lant and observe traf­fic vio­la­tions.
The police should be able to use a strength­ened Town and com­mu­ni­ty act to tamp down cer­tain behav­iors, poten­tial­ly sav­ing lives in the process.
What they do not need is for some upstart seek­ing a hype to cre­ate more hav­oc in the society. 

Of all of the dif­fi­cul­ties fac­ing the nation, this is the issue this wun­derkind has come up with toward nation-build­ing.
It is near­ly impos­si­ble to get some of our peo­ple to think crit­i­cal­ly.
Does the use of these terms phys­i­cal­ly hurt any­one? The answer is no!
What are the ben­e­fits of leg­is­lat­ing fur­ther coarse­ness into a coun­try which is already unnec­es­sar­i­ly coarse? This does absolute­ly noth­ing to to enhance Jamaica’s image.
It is one more attempt to turn over the last bas­tions of decen­cy or nor­mal­cy to the ret­ro­grade hedo­nism many crave.
Here is a sit­u­a­tion in which law-enforce­ment cor­rect­ly end­ed a show because the laws were being breached and a moron­ic upstart decides he wants to change the laws to usurp the author­i­ty of the police.
If this is an indi­ca­tor of what the PNP has to offer, the nation will be in for a whole lot of hurt because the gov­ern­ing JLP is doing as much harm to our estab­lished norms as this upstart would.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, a busi­ness own­er, avid researcher, and blog­ger. 
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.

To the many Jamaicans who held out hope that there is the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a return to the san­i­ty, peace, and tran­quil­i­ty of the 60s and ear­ly 70s, it is time to move along.
For oth­ers like myself who came of age in the 80s, who lived through the rel­a­tive peace of that peri­od, it is time for us to move along also.
Sure, I under­stand the trau­ma and the sense of loss we feel at the idea that our beloved Jamaica of yes­ter­year is only now a fig­ment of our imag­i­na­tion.…. blurs of mem­o­ry, of a time when our inno­cence was bliss.

It was a time when every­one par­ent­ed every­one’s kids. Mostly every­one was poor, but it was no big deal, we were all basi­cal­ly the same.
Children played with­out fear of being kid­napped and mur­dered, in fact, they had no idea what that was. Young girls lived with­out fear of being raped. In that Jamaica, friends were actu­al friends, not gang asso­ciates.
There was no inter­net or cable tele­vi­sion to alert us to trap­pings of moder­ni­ty we did not need. There was no inter­net, no cable tele­vi­sion, and no smart­phones.
It was a sim­pler time, a time of less greed, less envy. Most of all, with the excep­tion of parts of Kingston, guns were some­thing we only read about.
And so as I snap­back from my nos­tal­gic stu­por, I remind myself, as I cau­tion you to, do not waste any more of your lives in despair, hop­ing for a time, which shall nev­er return.

We have to face the fact that the peo­ple who made Jamaica what it was then, are with us no more. It was nev­er about how nice the place was, that has nev­er been in ques­tion. Sure the water is blue and the sand is white, the land is fer­tile and the air is cool. Sure we took pride in what we did in school, and we some­times played the fool, now its time to wake up and wipe away the drool.
There is a new men­tal­i­ty, new lead­er­ship, new val­ues, or should I saw a lack there­of? Right is wrong and wrong is right.
It is now a coun­try in which drug lords are revered, cel­e­brat­ed and lion­ized.
Reggae artistes who are gun­run­ners and heads of crim­i­nal gangs are nor­mal­ized with nation­al hon­ors.
Our Jamaica is a coun­try which makes it legal for some­one to sim­ply build a house on any par­cel of land, remain there for a cer­tain peri­od of time and they are auto­mat­i­cal­ly the own­ers of that land.
Some believe that those who make the laws do not under­stand that allow­ing that to hap­pen, cre­ates untold prob­lems. But they miss the obvi­ous that they do under­stand.
They are well-thought-out mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion poli­cies, by the crim­i­nals in the par­lia­ment, to repay their sup­port­ers for their votes.
A look around the Kingston Metropolitan area, as well as the city of Montego Bay, or any oth­er munic­i­pal­i­ty for that mat­ter, and the zinc and ply­board com­mu­ni­ties which have been allowed to devel­op is a tes­ta­ment to those real­i­ties.
The dimin­ished and now non-exis­tent sense of moral­i­ty and val­ues which once char­ac­ter­ized our coun­try, has been replaced with greed, envy, hatred, and las­civ­i­ous indul­gence.
Rather than lift up and cel­e­brate teach­ers, social work­ers, police offi­cers and oth­er pub­lic ser­vants who toil end­less­ly to make our coun­try bet­ter, the nation’s lead­ers con­spire to ele­vate the worst ele­ments from with­in, with the express intent of cap­i­tal­iz­ing from the cheap returns.
National hon­ors are ren­dered worth­less, squan­dered and dimin­ished, not worth the mate­r­i­al they are made from, by the qual­i­ty of the indi­vid­u­als on whom they are bestowed.
It sick­ens me to my stom­ach to see what Jamaica has come to. How the very peo­ple who have been the worst actors, those who should be the very epit­o­me of our scorn and deri­sion are cel­e­brat­ed and ele­vat­ed.
And still, we won­der why our youth see the gun as a means to pow­er, recog­ni­tion, respect, and fame.
From what we have seen in the Jamaica of today, the gun is a means to pow­er, recog­ni­tion, respect, and fame.
Our coun­try has sunken to a new low and for that, we should all hang our heads in shame. Instead, we con­tin­ue to lie to our­selves that Jamaica nice.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, a busi­ness own­er, avid researcher, and blog­ger. 
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.

If you ever took a moment to think about automa­tion, you must have won­dered how are the poor and une­d­u­cat­ed and unskilled going to live going for­ward?
In just a few years, all across America, a whole slew of jobs which pre­vi­ous­ly pro­vid­ed bread, (if no but­ter), to the poor­est, least edu­cat­ed and unskilled Americans have been wiped out by automa­tion.
This is in addi­tion to the fac­to­ry jobs which had ear­li­er dis­ap­peared and min­ing jobs which had also dwin­dled as a con­se­quence of out­sourc­ing and chang­ing envi­ron­men­tal atti­tudes.
Supermarket cashiers, toll col­lec­tors, Fewer bank-tellers, Librarians, sec­re­taries, typ­ists, exec­u­tive assis­tants, and so much more, those jobs have dis­ap­peared, or, are all but gone from the econ­o­my.
As the pop­u­la­tion increas­es and jobs which requires man­u­al labor becomes few­er, the sit­u­a­tion inex­orably becomes direr.

We are once again in an elec­tion cycle, and as can­di­dates jock­ey for posi­tion in front of the cam­eras, not a sin­gle Democrat save one, (Andrew Yang), a vir­tu­al unknown or the right-wing extrem­ist in the white house has broached the sub­ject of what do to about this inevitable train wreck.
This econ­o­my has been on an upward tear after President Barack Obama avert­ed a col­lapse in 2008. Experts of all kinds have pre­dict­ed that a down­turn is immi­nent.
In fact, the job-growth tra­jec­to­ry under the present occu­pant of the white house has been low­er than what obtained under President Obama’s lead­er­ship, despite the lies and pro­pa­gan­da to the con­trary.
This peri­od of job growth will not con­tin­ue for much longer accord­ing to many experts.
In 2018 the New York Post, a pub­li­ca­tion not known to be a bul­wark of left-wing ide­ol­o­gy, pre­dict­ed that the next crash will be worse than the great depres­sion. I hope they are wrong.
In May of 2018, (Mynorthwest) warned the next major reces­sion may be just around the cor­ner. A 2020 reces­sion is emerg­ing as the most like­ly time-frame, the pub­li­ca­tion warned. 

For the seg­ment of the pop­u­la­tion, which has diver­si­fied port­fo­lios or have high pay­ing tech jobs, a poten­tial eco­nom­ic down­turn may not be as fright­en­ing, as it will be for the poor­er less edu­cat­ed in the soci­ety.
What that means in a nut­shell, is that African-Americans, Latinos and poor whites will imme­di­ate­ly be impact­ed.
As the say­ing goes, black peo­ple are always the last hired and the first fired. Make no mis­take about it, the next major eco­nom­ic down­turn will be dev­as­tat­ing to African-Americans, the most vul­ner­a­ble in soci­ety are always the hard­est hit.
As dev­as­tat­ing as the next recession/​depression will be, it will pale in com­par­i­son to what actu­al­ly awaits the African-American, Latino and yes the poor white communities.

MY SHOCKING PREDICTION

Since nei­ther polit­i­cal par­ty has seen fit to address the freight train bar­relling down the track, we are left to con­clude that they already have a strat­e­gy in place which does not require input from the mass­es, the seg­ment of the soci­ety which will inevitably be impact­ed the hard­est and quick­est.
Over the years there have been many con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries about the inten­tion of the Federal Government as it relates to the American mass­es. Some peo­ple deemed (kooks and cra­zies) have already built bunkers and have stock­piled food, water, and oth­er neces­si­ties they believe will allow them to sur­vive what­ev­er they deduce will be forth­com­ing.
Some have argued that FEMA, the Federal agency which is tasked with dis­as­ter relief coör­di­na­tion, has a secret agen­da which will involve hun­dreds of thou­sands all herd­ed into camps on the instruc­tions of the gov­ern­ment.
Some have point­ed to the mil­i­ta­riza­tion of the thou­sands of police depart­ments across the coun­try and the decid­ed­ly more aggres­sive stance the police have tak­en, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the black com­mu­ni­ty.
Many have scoffed at these ideas and labeled those who believe that these things are pos­si­ble, [con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists].
To oth­ers, this is no laugh­ing mat­ter. What if, just what if, this is no laugh­ing mat­ter? What if the strat­e­gy is actu­al­ly to put mass incar­cer­a­tion on steroids?
After the Emancipation of Black peo­ple from the oppres­sion of slav­ery African-Americans were to expe­ri­ence a reign of gov­ern­men­tal ter­ror many argue was worse than slav­ery itself. If one can imag­ine the indig­ni­ty of servi­tude where one can be treat­ed any way or dis­posed of as chat­tel or prop­er­ty, the peri­od of recon­struc­tion was more hor­rif­ic for black peo­ple in America.
In October of 2016 writ­ing for the Huffington Post, Aristotle Jones wrote, Slavery was abol­ished in 1865 with the end of the Civil war and pass­ing of the 13^th amend­ment. The racial caste in the United States should have end­ed as well. However, the idea of race as a mark­er of val­ue con­tin­ued. After recon­struc­tion, the major­i­ty of whites dur­ing this time believed new­ly freed African Americans were too lazy to work, which surged leg­is­la­tors to pass the black codes. This was essen­tial­ly a sys­tem of white con­trol. These codes var­ied from state to state, but were root­ed from slav­ery, and they fore­shad­owed Jim Crow laws to come. For exam­ple, employ­ment was required for all freed­man; vio­la­tors faced vagrancy charges, they were not taught to read or write, and pub­lic facil­i­ties were seg­re­gat­ed. Within Reconstruction and Its Benefits, W.E.B. Du Bois says, “The codes spoke for them­selves… No opened mind­ed stu­dent can read them with­out being con­vinced they meant noth­ing more nor less than slav­ery.” Clearly, the black code’s inten­tions were to treat and see African-Americans as prop­er­ty, not per­sons. Furthermore, the black codes were intend­ed to secure a steady sup­ply of cheap labor, and con­tin­ued to assume the infe­ri­or­i­ty of the freed slaves.

Even with crime going down over­all across America the Government has con­tin­ued to build pris­ons.
According to the lat­est FBI report of Crime in the United States, the nation’s toll of seri­ous vio­lent and prop­er­ty offens­es dipped in 2017 over the pre­vi­ous year. As com­pared with 2016, the vio­lent crime rate per 100,000 pop­u­la­tion declined by .9 per­cent, includ­ing a 1.4 per­cent drop in homi­cide (which would have been a 1.8 per­cent reduc­tion were it not for the act of one indi­vid­ual last October in Las Vegas). Meanwhile, the decline in prop­er­ty crime was even more pro­nounced with a 3.6 per­cent low­er rate per 100,000 pop­u­la­tion. (USA TODAY)
According to the [Sentencing Project], The United States has the world’s largest pri­vate prison pop­u­la­tion. Of the 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple in state and fed­er­al pris­ons in 2016, 8.5 per­cent, or 128,063, were incar­cer­at­ed in pri­vate pris­ons.¹⁾Another 26,249 peo­ple ‑73 per­cent of all peo­ple in immi­gra­tion deten­tion- were con­fined in pri­vate­ly-run facil­i­ties on a dai­ly basis dur­ing the fis­cal year 2017.
And so it’s not like there has not been American prece­dent for lock­ing up black peo­ple as a strat­e­gy. The present sit­u­a­tion at the Southern bor­der of the United States and the gov­ern­men­t’s response to it may only be a test run.
Children and adults seek­ing asy­lum locked in cages and forced to live in their own feces have elicit­ed no out­rage from a huge chunk of the pop­u­la­tion.
For those peo­ple, no life mat­ters unless they are white lives. For the 35 – 40 mil­lion African-Americans liv­ing in America, a reck­on­ing is com­ing and it will not be good.
Unfortunately for poor whites, their sit­u­a­tion will hard­ly be any dif­fer­ent. As jobs become increas­ing­ly more dif­fi­cult to find, those on the low­er end of the eco­nom­ic spec­trum will be forced to resort to sur­vival tac­tics.
Simply put, crime will increase and mass incar­cer­a­tion will explode. That explains the silence on the con­se­quences of automation.

In a 2017 arti­cle for the (Intercept) Journalist, Alice Speri writes, “It is not uncom­mon for res­i­dents of America’s most heav­i­ly policed neigh­bor­hoods to describe their local cops as “an occu­py­ing force.” Judging by where many U.S. police forces get their train­ing, the descrip­tion seems apt. Thousands of American law enforce­ment offi­cers fre­quent­ly trav­el for train­ing to one of the few coun­tries where polic­ing and mil­i­tarism are even more deeply inter­twined than they are here: Israel.“
Read her arti­cle here: https://​thein​ter​cept​.com/​2​0​1​7​/​0​9​/​1​5​/​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​i​s​r​a​e​l​-​c​o​p​s​-​t​r​a​i​n​i​n​g​-​a​d​l​-​h​u​m​a​n​-​r​i​g​h​t​s​-​a​b​u​s​e​s​-​d​c​-​w​a​s​h​i​n​g​t​on/
It is not that both polit­i­cal par­ties are obliv­i­ous to these real­i­ties, they do know. The Republican par­ty which is the white suprema­cist par­ty and the par­ty of the rich and pow­er­ful have been build­ing jails to ware­house poor peo­ple of col­or. For them, it is par for the course. The increas­ing mil­i­ta­riza­tion of the thou­sands of police forces across the coun­try serves that end.
As for the Democrats, they can’t even decide on a strat­e­gy on which to con­test Donald Trump much less agree that their base, the most vul­ner­a­ble Americans are at great risk.
In the same way that Democrats man­aged to lose the so-called blue-col­lar union­ized work­ers to Donald Trump, so too will the par­ty lose its most loy­al base, African-Americans, only this time it will be for keeps.
Yang’s pro­pos­al is to pro­vide $1,000 per month ($12,000 a year) to each adult cit­i­zen. A core fea­ture of the Freedom Dividend is that indi­vid­u­als would need to choose between their cur­rent gov­ern­ment ben­e­fits and the Freedom Dividend. 
This is a con­cept which has start­ed to take root in west­ern Europe in response to the effects automa­tion and out­sourc­ing has had on their pop­u­la­tions.
It is safe to bet that this plan will not fly in America, a nation which did not use its tremen­dous wealth to uplift all its peo­ple.
Not even those to whom it owed a tremen­dous debt for their hun­dreds of years of forced servi­tude, or from those from whom they stole the land.