This pub­li­ca­tion sup­port Rachael Dolezal.
This pub­li­ca­tion wish­es to reg­is­ter it’s sup­port for Rachael Dolezal for­mer head of the Spokane Washington NAACP.
We would like to reg­is­ter our dis­gust with the per­cep­tion that a dried up with­ered man twice mar­ried and divorced can declare he is now a woman and be award­ed the Arthur Ash medal for courage.
Conversely this edu­cat­ed young woman who may have been eth­i­cal­ly mis­guid­ed in declar­ing her­self black but who have done tremen­dous good as head of her NAACP chap­ter and as an edu­ca­tor is being demo­nized and pilloried.
In essence soci­ety is dic­tat­ing one can mar­ry whomev­er and soon whatever.
One may chose his her gen­der, but nev­er ever assume to be black.
Rachael’s sup­posed birth moth­er when asked whether one can be trans-racial remarked “No, ones race is part of ones genet­ic code”.
Wonder at what stage is one’s gen­der decided?
Ironically the per­son who posed the ques­tion to the senior Dolezals was Thomas Roberts a man who is mar­ried to a man.

Parliament con­tends it does not have the req­ui­site resources or the time to ade­quate­ly do the nec­es­sary over­sight of INDECOM the over­sight Agency cre­at­ed sup­pos­ed­ly to Investigate exces­sive actions from police offi­cers and mem­bers of the Jamaica Defense force.
The Agency came into exis­tence under the for­mer JLP Administration of Bruce Golding. The con­tention then, and appro­pri­ate­ly so, was that mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty Forces, (pri­mar­i­ly the JCF) were engaged in con­duct incon­sis­tent with their mandate.

At the time INDECOM came into exis­tence I thought there was suf­fi­cient over­sight of the JCF. The Police Public Complaints Authority and the Bureau of Special Investigations were active inves­tiga­tive arms tasked with bring­ing errant cops to face the courts. Additionally the Office of Director of Public Prosecution, had the pow­er to file charges against police offi­cers if the office believes a crime was committed.
That was not the extent of it, the DPP had the pow­er to file charges against offi­cers sole­ly to calm pub­lic out­cry. Yes that is Jamaican law, even if there is insuf­fi­cient evi­dence of wrong-doing .
Many Police Officers have had their car­rears and finances ruined as a result of this law.
Nevertheless the deci­sion was made to go for­ward with the cre­ation of a new Agency at the expense of mod­ern­iz­ing the JCF.

Fast for­ward and the con­tention today is that INDECOM is in need of over­sight, oth­er than that which the Parliament sup­pos­ed­ly provide.
At the time the dis­cus­sion sur­round­ing the cre­ation of the ACT was ini­ti­at­ed I thought this was exact­ly where we would be, engaged in a nev­er end­ing cycle of dis­cus­sion of oversight.
I said the the solu­tion was to fix the police, and main­tain the over­sight which was in place.
My posi­tion was not based in a belief that the police did not need over­sight. It was anchored in the knowl­edge that cre­at­ing a new Agency like INDECOM would present oppor­tu­ni­ties for Elitism and confrontational-ism .
That is exact­ly what INDECOM rep­re­sents large­ly because of Commissioner Terrence Williams’s appetite and desire for unchecked power.
William’s asso­ci­a­tions were also wor­thy of scruti­ny, he pub­licly shared a press con­fer­ence with Jamaicans for Justice,(JFJ) and it’s then direc­tor Carolyn Gomes who was decid­ed­ly and unnec­es­sar­i­ly unfair and antag­o­nis­tic toward law enforcement.
Members of the JCF made their dis­plea­sure know at the time. Since then Williams has done pre­cious lit­tle to shape INDECOM into an Agency which fair-mind­ed Jamaicans can trust to look objec­tive­ly at alle­ga­tions of abuse by our secu­ri­ty forces and do an unbi­ased objec­tive investigation.

Williams tenure has be char­ac­ter­ized by demand and more demand for pow­er and con­fronta­tion­al pos­tur­ing against the Police and Military.
As the con­ver­sa­tion pro­gress­es politi­cians have lined up on either sides of the issue. Williams as is expect­ed wants no over­sight from any new body, claim­ing “INDECOM is sub­ject to over­sight by the Public Defender”.
Of course the office of pub­lic defend­er is head­ed by Earl Witter and staffed with func­tionar­ies vehe­ment­ly hos­tile to police.
This is a sim­ple case of the ene­my of my ene­my is my friend, The office of pub­lic defend­er does not offer any real over­sight of INDECOM.

The polit­i­cal alliances arrayed on both sides of the issue are under­stand­able, what is of crit­i­cal import are the out­side groups like the the Norman Manley Law School (NMLS), Jamaicans and for Justice (JFJ).
The Norman Manley Law School even more than JFJ.
The Law School trains Lawyers who ulti­mate­ly become Judges.
Jamaica does not need more Judges or Magistrates hos­tile to the rule of law and those who enforce said laws.
There are more than enough of them in the sys­tem, like Termites eat­ing away at it’s credibility.
How iron­ic is it that Williams who crave more and more pow­er of over­sight desires no over­sight of his actions?
As I have said before this is a pow­er trip for Williams and noth­ing more.

Carolyn Cooper, Linguist and teacher at the University of the West Indies (UWI) could not resist the temp­ta­tion to dip her beak into the shal­low pool of murky noth­ing­ness, which was the much to do about noth­ing brouha­ha, on social media which occurred when Reggae singer Sean Paul’s wife Jodi Stewart-Henriques said Jamaican sprint­er Usain Bolt was a hor­ri­ble neighbor.

Henriques who is also know by the moniker (Jinx) made the com­ments on social media, then retract­ed them after a mael­strom of crit­i­cism went fly­ing her way in true Jamaican fashion.
Stewart though Jamaican , clear­ly did not under­stand from her uptown enclave that if some­one is dubbed the big man you crit­i­cize them at your own detri­ment and peril.
Dr. Cooper her­self, a cul­tur­al icon of sorts has man­aged to attach her­self to pop­u­lar cul­ture like a crus­tacean to cor­ral reef. Cooper teach­es a course at the UWI which cen­ters on Reggae poetry.
Among some of the eye­brow rais­ing things she has done was to invite now impris­oned mur­der­er Adidja Palmer o/​c Vybz Kartel, to speak to her class, even though the class focused on the lyrics of Burning Spear, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh, Bob Marley, Steel Pulse, Tanya Stephens and Buju Banton.

Cooper, true to her counter cul­ture per­sona delved head first into the debate adopt­ing a pre­dictable pop­ulist stance.
I found that laugh­able that peo­ple will twist real­i­ty and com­mon sense to suit a par­tic­u­lar nar­ra­tive because they are expect­ed by their fol­low­ers to think and react a cer­tain way.
In the process they end up twist­ing them­selves into con­ver­sa­tions of word vom­it which end up expos­ing their hypocrisy.
The truth is one is oblig­ed to believe what they believe and not what some­one else thinks you should believe, because of past posi­tions you may have taken.
Cooper in sup­posed sup­port of Usain’s rise to the prime and pris­tine com­mu­ni­ty of Norbrook , quot­ed Bob Marley whose mon­ey and Chris Blackwell’s help allowed him to move from Trench Town to Hope Road.
Quote:

I want to dis­turb my neighbour

‘Cause I’m feel­ing so right

I want to turn up my disco

Blow them to full watts tonight

Inna rub-a-dub style.
After going on and on with her pop­ulist rant she did a com­plete one hun­dred eighty degree turn.

I must admit I do have some sym­pa­thy for Jodi Stewart-Henriques. She’s suf­fer­ing from town-house syn­drome. It’s a con­di­tion brought on by liv­ing so close to your neigh­bours that every­day noise grad­u­al­ly gets on your nerves. Eventually, even the flush of a toi­let enrages you, let alone loud music and dirt bikes. And you end up mak­ing unfor­tu­nate state­ments on social media about who should go back to where they came from.

She then went on to talk about her own expe­ri­ences with night nois­es and how it prompt­ed her to speak to the work­men who gave her a prop­er trac­ing. She bab­bled on for awhile more that she was forced to report the nois­es to the Architect.
Right thats exact­ly the per­son to go to about con­struc­tion noises.
When that did not work she went on, she went to the police of course as far as she is con­cerned that did not pro­duce any result either.
In the end Carolyn Cooper expressed more exas­per­a­tion that Jinx ever did about night noise but she still found it pru­dent to side with Bolt because it was the pop­ulist thing to do.
The last line of Cooper’s disin­gen­u­ous pop­ulist kiss-up, exposed her to be a pho­ny and a fraud.
No mat­ter which kind of ten­e­ment yard we live in. We can’t all go back to wher­ev­er we came from”.

If Cooper want­ed to bring intel­lec­tu­al hon­esty to the debate about noth­ing, as a per­son who pre­tends to be a “roots daw­ta” she would have con­ced­ed that in every ghet­to, every gar­ri­son, every com­mu­ni­ty, in Jamaica it is a part of the every­day col­lo­qui­al ver­nac­u­lar for peo­ple to tell peo­ple to go back where they are com­ing from.(“ gu bak weh yu cum fram”.
It is patent­ly false and intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­hon­est to see noth­ing wrong when down town peo­ple uses it but quick­ly jump on Jinx when she uses it.
Sometimes when you are revered by cer­tain class of peo­ple the best thing to do for them is to tell them the truth rather than feed them with a a lie.
The truth is not always pop­u­lar, it’s just the right thing to do.
See Original sto­ry here @ http://​jamaica​glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​c​o​m​m​e​n​t​a​r​y​/​2​0​1​5​0​6​1​4​/​s​o​u​n​d​-​c​l​a​s​h​-​u​p​t​o​w​n​-​g​h​e​tto

Commissioner of INDECOM Terrence Williams always seem to have a grouse. Williams is a per­pet­u­al whin­er who is

nev­er sat­is­fied with the amount of pow­er afford­ed him under the INDECOM Act.
Williams lat­est gripe is that he sent four reports to Parliament for review with­in the past five years and noth­ing has been done about them.

He told a joint select com­mit­tee of Parliament review­ing leg­is­la­tion gov­ern­ing INDECOM that one of the four reports that was sent to Parliament out­lined approach­es to safe­guard the right to life, while oth­er reports looked at issues of demand­ing account­abil­i­ty and con­fronting chal­lenges the JCF faces.
If his protes­ta­tions weren’t so fraud­u­lent I would real­ly burst out laughing.

Williams is so pow­er hun­gry it is real­ly laugh­able that two of his sup­posed reports demand­ed account­abil­i­ty ‚but more incred­u­lous­ly con­fronts chal­lenges the JCF faces.
Who in their right mind believes that Terrence Williams gives a Rat’s ass about chal­lenges fac­ing police officers?
Furthermore , chal­lenges fac­ing the police are none of Terrence William’s busi­ness, and they cer­tain­ly do not fall under the scope of things he need to wor­ry about in his capac­i­ty as Commissioner of INDECOM.
Furthermore it is exact­ly the duty of Parliament to fix what­ev­er ails the police as well as INDECOM.
Sure Terrence Williams can make rec­om­men­da­tions to the Parliament, but where does he get off demand­ing the House Act on his recommendations ?
Meanwhile ‚National Security Minister Peter Bunting said Parliament is chal­lenged by the lack of resources to effec­tive­ly review reports from its com­mis­sions. He also said that mem­bers of par­lia­ment are appoint­ed to a num­ber of com­mit­tees, with some hav­ing min­is­te­r­i­al respon­si­bil­i­ties as well as car­ry­ing out their duties to their con­stituents. They [par­lia­men­tar­i­ans] do not have the sup­port staff,” Bunting said.

It is inter­est­ing that the Minister’s posi­tion is that they sim­ply do not have ade­quate staff. Jamaican Parliamentarians are not the only leg­is­la­tors who have to deal with a mul­ti­plic­i­ty of issues.
With that said Parliament should absolute­ly ensure that the views of Terrence Williams not be allowed to impact law enforce­ment in Jamaica with­out ade­quate counter argu­ments from the Police who actu­al­ly under­stand what actu­al polic­ing is and the par­tic­u­lar exten­u­at­ing cir­cum­stances attached to Jamaican policing.
Williams can claim all he want that his reports are intend­ed to out­line approach­es to safe­guard the right to life, while oth­er reports looked at issues of demand­ing account­abil­i­ty and con­fronting chal­lenges the JCF faces.
He can lay claim to what­ev­er exper­tise he has on the right to life, which is the same claim all oth­er Jamaicans has.
What Williams should not be allowed, is to false­ly claim that his reports con­tain work­able solu­tions to chal­lenges con­fronting the JCF.

Said Williams, “When we make a report, I expect that we are to be called to Parliament, par­tic­u­lar­ly when they are [reports of] dis­put­ed issues,”.

So Williams gripe has pre­cious lit­tle to do with un-exam­ined reports and more to do with his insa­tiable appetite for a stage and lights. Since his appoint­ment Williams has not demon­strat­ed any inten­tion to do his job in an impar­tial and fair way in my estimation.
On that basis his argu­ments ring hol­low as always.
With the mul­ti­plic­i­ty of gripes, com­plaints and demands we have heard from Williams , it seem we would all be bet­ter off see­ing the back of this guy.
Clearly all he cares about is pow­er and atten­tion and he will do any­thing to get both.
For that rea­son he should go.….….…
Terrence Williams is the broth­er of for­mer JLP Senator Arthur Williams.
INDECOM was the brain child of the Bruce Golding Administration, in response to mas­sive pub­lic out­cry to do some­thing about police killings.
Following on two recent Articles involv­ing Kent Gammon and Dennis Meadows, it seem the Labor Party and it’s young Turks are effec­tive­ly becom­ing a par­ty of Anti-police operatives.
We need to make sure police do not abuse their authority.
We also need to under­stand full well how­ev­er that we absolute­ly need our police officers.
We can­not stand idly by and allow ambi­tious me-first oppor­tunists to tear down our officers.

Recently I com­ment­ed on a Letter an aspir­ing Jamaica Labor Party Politician wrote to a media house in Jamaica as an open let­ter to the Commissioner of Police com­plain­ing about what he per­ceived to be police mis­con­duct met­ed out to him at the Half Way Tree Police station.

The aspir­ing politi­cian is Kent Phillip Gammon deputy spokesper­son on Justice and a mem­ber of the Labor Party.
I will allow him to speak for himself.

This is an open letter to the commissioner of police, Dr Carl Williams.

Re: (1) The func­tion­ing of the Half-Way-Tree Police Station on Saturday, May 23, 2015; (2) attor­neys-at-law required to pro­duce iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards from the General Legal Council.

I wish to share my expe­ri­ence with your con­sta­bles on Saturday, May 23 at approx­i­mate­ly 4 p.m. at the Half-Way Tree Police Station.

(A) Facts

(1) That day, I was called ear­ly in the after­noon by a con­cerned cit­i­zen with respect to the tak­ing into cus­tody of Glenroy Ricardo Walker on Friday, May 22, along Anderson Road in Woodford Park in St Andrew by Jamaica Constabulary Force con­sta­bles. I was told he was being held at the Half-Way Tree Police Station.

(2) I was asked to attend upon the Half-Way Tree Police Station to ascer­tain: (i) whether Mr Walker was actu­al­ly in cus­tody there and (ii) what he was being charged for.

(3) On arriv­ing at the Half-Way Tree Police Station, I parked by the hold­ing area to the back of the said sta­tion. I went to the two plain-clothes per­sons seat­ed at the desk and intro­duced myself. No one seat­ed intro­duced them­selves as would be com­mon courtesy.

(4) I was asked by the two seat­ed per­sons to show iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. I told them I didn’t have any iden­ti­fi­ca­tion from the General Legal Council (GLC) to iden­ti­fy myself as an attor­ney-at-law. I was told by the man and the woman that I had to pro­duce an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card.

(5) I stat­ed that lawyers didn’t get IDs from the GLC and repeat­ed that I didn’t have any such ID. I pro­ceed­ed to ask if they had in their cus­tody one Glenroy Ricardo Walker.

(6) The two plain-clothes con­sta­bles told me they didn’t know that name and that I was to go to the front of the Half-Way Tree Police Station for more infor­ma­tion. Another female cor­po­ral then sat on the bench by the female plain-clothes con­sta­ble and in an unpleas­ant tone asked me my name. I gave my name again and she, too, asked me for identification.

(7) I repeat­ed to her that I didn’t have any iden­ti­fi­ca­tion from the General Legal Council to prove I was an attor­ney-at-law. She then told me I was not allowed in that area and I had to leave now.

(8) I then went to the front of the Half-Way Tree Police Station, where­upon I called back the con­cerned cit­i­zen who had called me ear­li­er that after­noon about Mr Walker to ascer­tain if he had his infor­ma­tion in fact cor­rect. The con­cerned cit­i­zen gave me a tele­phone num­ber for one Superintendent Bailey and told me that that was where Mr Walker had been tak­en into custody.

(9) After call­ing but not get­ting through to the num­ber, Supt Bailey called me on my cel­lu­lar with­in a very short peri­od of time. I told him who I was, he had no clue who I was either, and after explain­ing all in para­graphs (1), (2) and (5) above, I asked him if he could help. He was quite unhelpful.

(11) I was then direct­ed to a sergeant seat­ed in a room by the front desk and I again told him who I was and asked if he had Mr Walker in cus­tody. He, too, asked me for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and I had to repeat I didn’t have any iden­ti­fi­ca­tion from the General Legal Council (GLC) to iden­ti­fy myself as an attorney-at-law.

(12) He then told me I had to check with the con­sta­bles at the back of the Half-Way Tree Police Station to ascer­tain if Mr Walker was actu­al­ly in their custody.

(13) Obviously get­ting nowhere with any con­sta­ble at the sta­tion, I left hav­ing wast­ed approx­i­mate­ly 30 min­utes at the said station.

(14) On Tuesday, May 26, I then spoke to the con­cerned cit­i­zen who had called me ear­li­er the after­noon on Saturday, May 23. He told me that Mr Walker had been released from cus­tody that same day.

(B) Issues

(1) Are attor­neys-at-law now required to pro­duce iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards at the Half-Way Tree Police Station, or any oth­er police sta­tion, for that mat­ter, when they attend upon police sta­tions to see clients or poten­tial clients.

(2) How is it that per­sons tak­en into cus­tody at the Half-Way Tree Police Station are not record­ed in your cus­tody book so that attor­neys-at-law can know if their clients and/​or poten­tial clients are in the cus­tody of the State, i.e., a police station?

© Submissions

(1) Attorneys-at-law should not be told they have to leave any area of the police sta­tion unless they pose a threat to the safe­ty of police con­sta­bles and/​or indi­vid­u­als in custody.

(2) Attorneys-at-law should not have to pro­duce any iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards from the General Legal Council to prove they are attor­neys-at-law to any police con­sta­ble when an attor­ney-at-law attends upon a police sta­tion seek­ing infor­ma­tion about cit­i­zens who are in cus­tody of the State/​police sta­tions and who are clients and/​or poten­tial clients of those attorneys-at-law.

(D) Closing Comments

– Kent Gammon is an attor­ney-at-law and deputy oppo­si­tion spokesman on justice.

Clearly this guy is a law onto him­self, he could have pro­duced his driver’s licence he did not think the police should demand one.
Secondly he stat­ed quote: Attorneys-at-law should not be told they have to leave any area of the police sta­tion unless they pose a threat to the safe­ty of police con­sta­bles and/​or indi­vid­u­als in custody.
♦ (1) Does Kent Gammon have his name and title imprint­ed on his stu­pid fore­head? If not why should the police believe he is who he say he is.
Guaranteed, had they allowed him the access he demand­ed with­out ID, his let­ter would have been about sup­posed lax in the sys­tem of security .
♦(2)  Attorneys-at-law should not have to pro­duce any iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards from the General Legal Council to prove they are attor­neys-at-law to any police con­sta­ble when an attor­ney-at-law attends upon a police sta­tion seek­ing infor­ma­tion about cit­i­zens who are in cus­tody of the State/​police sta­tions and who are clients and/​or poten­tial clients of those attorneys-at-law.
What a Jackass , you damn well bet­ter believe you must pro­duce Identification , who the hell do you think you are that every­one should know who you are?
♦ (3) What I find most dis­turb­ing was this state­ment by Kent Phillip Gammon : The con­cerned cit­i­zen gave me a tele­phone num­ber for one Superintendent Bailey and told me that that was where Mr Walker had been tak­en into cus­tody. (9) After call­ing but not get­ting through to the num­ber, Supt Bailey called me on my cel­lu­lar with­in a very short peri­od of time. I told him who I was, he had no clue who I was either, and after explain­ing all in para­graphs (1), (2) and (5) above, I asked him if he could help. He was quite unhelpful.

I had a few choice words for Gammon on see­ing the post, I also had a few words of advice for Andrew Holness the leader of the Labor Party then.
Here are the com­ments I made then.…

Gammon’s petu­lant lit­tle out­burst is not about police being a law onto them­selves, by his very own admis­sion, he threw a hissy-fit because none of the cops knew who he was or want­ed to kiss his ass.
Not the Constable, Not The Commanding Officer Fitz Bailey.
Gammon’s let­ter is cer­tain­ly not about any­thing the police did wrong .
It’s all about try­ing to make sure more peo­ple know who he was.
An epic fail .
This guy, by his atti­tude will be a drag on the par­ty . Elections are com­ing up pret­ty soon, the par­ty does not need to have the likes of Kent Phillip Gammon drag­ging it down.
It cer­tain­ly does not need him mak­ing ene­mies with the Police department.
I sug­gest Gammon hum­ble him­self and get his behind off his high horse, if he doesn’t, Andrew Holness should do it for him by show­ing him the door pronto.

A MERE 10 DAYS LATER ANOTHER JLP POLITICIAN CAME OUT SWINGING AGAINST THE POLICE FOR NO OTHER REASON BUT FOR THE SAKE OF ADVANCING THEIR OWN AGENDA.

Citizens’ Action for Principles and Integrity (CAPI) is warn­ing that a pro­posed over­sight body for the Independent Commission of Investigation (INDECOM) will dimin­ish the intend­ed inde­pen­dence of the inves­tiga­tive body and may ren­der its effec­tive­ness. The joint-select com­mit­tee of Parliament exam­in­ing the INDECOM Act pro­posed an over­sight body for the inves­tiga­tive and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al body as its zeal­ous pros­e­cu­tion of mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty force is hav­ing a demor­al­is­ing effect. In a news release Friday, CAPI’s co-con­venor Dennis Meadows argued that INDECOM as a com­mis­sion of Parliament already has par­lia­men­tary over­sight in addi­tion to judi­cial scruti­ny. He added that, INDECOM’s finances and oper­a­tions are over­seen by the Auditor General and the Office of the Contractor General. “The gen­e­sis of INDECOM was out of an urgent need for an inde­pen­dent body to inves­ti­gate the mis­con­duct of police and oth­er agents of the State”, Meadows insisted.

Jamaica is a vio­lent place, it is dan­ger­ous place to vis­it , it is a dan­ger­ous place to live.…
Yea , yeah , I know there is crime every­where , peo­ple kill peo­ple every­day in oth­er coun­tries. If that’s

your atti­tude , this Article is not for you .
It is for sane peo­ple who do not con­form to the worst com­mon denominator.
It is not for those who ratio­nal­ize away whats wrong with us.

It is the right of peo­ple every­where to live in peace and secu­ri­ty. Free from the prospect of being gunned down uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly for no good reason.
It is not too much to ask that a group of Farmers engag­ing in a friend­ly game of domi­noes at a rur­al shop enjoy the game and a drink with­out being gunned down needlessly.
This sim­ple past-time is an old and sacred pas­time . A good game of domi­noes shared between friends should not end in the death of any mem­ber of our community.
It is not expect­ing too much when peo­ple sit in their back­yards with a cou­ple of friends after a hard day’s work and enjoy a cock­tail with­out their home being invad­ed by armed thugs who then rob, rape, and kill them.

Women should be able to walk with­out being fon­dled , groped and raped by depraved thugs who have no respect for their right to say “no ‚and be secure in their persons’.
Young boys and girls should nev­er be denied their God giv­en right to grow up with­out being exposed to sex­u­al and oth­er forms of abuse.
While we are on the sub­ject of abuse …
Let me be clear with the Administration if office at this time.
There is no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion in low­er­ing the age of con­sent from 16 years of age to 14 years of age.
A 14 year-old-child is inca­pable of ful­ly under­stand­ing adult con­se­quences to the ado­les­cent urges she is

expe­ri­enc­ing. Those urges should not be an invi­ta­tion for sex­u­al exploita­tion but a time for dia­logue with her parents.
This is a time when we should be explor­ing ways to deal appro­pri­ate­ly with sex­u­al offend­ers , not mak­ing it eas­i­er for them to legal­ly exploit children.

If our nation could pull it’s col­lec­tive head from it’s pre­ten­tious ass, we could begin to sort out some of the thorny issues fac­ing our coun­try today.
One of the most seri­ous issue affect­ing the qual­i­ty of life in Jamaica is crime. Yet the vast major­i­ty of Jamaica’s pre­ten­tious wannabe Elites demor­al­ized the Police Department for decades while hyp­o­crit­i­cal­ly ignor­ing the destruc­tion both polit­i­cal par­ties were bring­ing to our coun­try by pit­ting Jamaicans against Jamaicans.
Sometime around the late 60’s to ear­ly 70’s our coun­try start­ed see­ing some crim­i­nal exam­ples, they indi­cat­ed what could become a seri­ous prob­lem if not nipped in the bud.
The Prime Minister at the time Hugh Lawson Shearer (using what today is less that polit­i­cal­ly cor­rect lan­guage) told crim­i­nals in no uncer­tain terms that there would be no sup­port com­ing from his admin­is­tra­tion on their behalf.

The new mil­i­tant crop of black intel­lec­tu­als fresh­ly mint­ed out of the UWI were quick to use their new found edu­ca­tion and sta­tus to cre­ate a counter cul­ture. That counter cul­ture , unfor­tu­nate­ly for our coun­try was one which did not encour­age sup­port for the rule of law.
Many pounced on the PM’s com­ments which said in con­text that police would have free rein to go after criminals.
Before long Shearer was out of the lead­er­ship role of the JLP replaced by Edward Seaga,the Architect of Tivoli Gardens the for­mer Back-o-Wall.
The rise of Michael Manley to pow­er in 1972 was to be the begin­ning of a peri­od of immense unciv­il behav­ior unprece­dent­ed in our Island.
Manley’s rise had a slew of linch­pins chief among which was a new black con­scious­ness which unfor­tu­nate­ly did not believe in hard work for a fair days pay.
Today our coun­try reg­is­ters one of the high­est rate of vio­lent crimes in the world to include mur­der, rapes, shoot­ings, extor­tion and a gen­er­al sense of lawlessness.
This can­not be laid sole­ly at the feet of politi­cians . Much of the respon­si­bil­i­ty should square­ly be placed at the feet of the new­ly edu­cat­ed class, those who expe­ri­enced edu­ca­tion but did not under­stand the dif­fer­ence between polic­ing in Jamaica as a third world nation and polic­ing in the devel­oped world.

Yes offi­cers must do their jobs with the rights of cit­i­zens in mind.
However it can­not be done when peo­ple are fir­ing high pow­ered weapons at them.
The police first must paci­fy and remove the threat then employ com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing. You do not nego­ti­ate with crim­i­nals who play by no rules.
The Faux bour­geoisie which large­ly was safe­ly encap­su­lat­ed from the hor­rors of crime, thanks to the sac­ri­fice of police offi­cers, nev­er quite under­stood that a del­i­cate bal­anced must be struck between hard polic­ing and con­cerns for human rights.
In many instances their protes­ta­tions about human rights had noth­ing to do with actu­al or real con­cerns for the coun­try’s poor and dis­pos­sessed but because they were active­ly engaged in crim­i­nal activ­i­ties themselves.

Just today crim­i­nals shot and injured sev­er­al peo­ple down­town Kingston, this is in addi­tion to the over 3 Jamaicans who are killed each day.
Jamaican crim­i­nals are oper­at­ing on free range.
They have pre­cious lit­tle fear of the police and even less regard for the rule of law.
Oh wait…
Sorry, we do not have a coun­try of laws we have a coun­try where every fly-by-night who know somebody

who know some­body who know some­body is above the law.
Jamaican police offi­cers have cer­tain­ly done more than enough to war­rant seri­ous oversight.
INDECOM is not that over­sight. Creating anoth­er police agency to police the police, which is in com­pe­ti­tion with the police but has no under­stand­ing of polic­ing, is anti­thet­i­cal to solv­ing the prob­lem of improp­er police. behavior.

Our coun­try is a small sliv­er of land 4,411 square miles. We have a pop­u­la­tion of 2.8 mil­lion people.
Some very pow­er­ful peo­ple in and out­side Government are ben­e­fit­ing immense­ly from crime and the wave of Gang activ­i­ty which is fuel­ing the coun­try’s mur­der rate.
If Jamaican Authorities were inter­est­ed in con­trol­ling crime they would have upgrad­ed, equipped, and mod­ern­ized the police department.
The over­sight agency INDECOM was not cre­at­ed by the present admin­is­tra­tion but the Government has had every oppor­tu­ni­ty to bring the police depart­met up to date.
They failed because they do not want to succeed.

Opposition spokesper­son on Tourism Shahine Robinson wor­ries that Jamaica is under-per­form­ing when com­pared to oth­er Caribbean destinations.

Robinson not­ed: “Jamaica’s five per cent growth for the first quar­ter of 2015 falls well below sev­er­al of our region­al com­peti­tors, includ­ing Cuba at 14.1 per cent; Dominican Republic 7.4 per cent; Aruba 19.7 per cent; Curaçao 10.3 per cent; and Barbados at 11.1 per cent.” These des­ti­na­tions, she said, reg­is­tered those growth rates in rough­ly the same peri­od as Jamaica.

This has been a strong con­cern by this medi­um for years, and we have con­sis­tent­ly point­ed to the need to improve the product.
For years Jamaican Authorities has basi­cal­ly rest­ed on their lau­rels, believ­ing that brand Jamaica alone will bring hordes of vis­i­tors flock­ing to our shores.
For decades after Cuba was block­ad­ed by The United States , Jamaica enjoyed tremen­dous fruits from Tourism it real­ly had not earned.
During that time Destinations like the Bahamas , and US Virgin Islands con­tin­ued to see mas­sive returns from their Tourism product.

Neither of the two par­ties Administrations demon­strat­ed the vision to mas­sive­ly trans­form the prod­uct. Like every oth­er sec­tor of the econ­o­my suc­ces­sive Administrations sim­ply sucked resources from the sec­tor with­out under­tak­ing the seri­ous upgrades to keep the prod­uct competitive.
Meanwhile Cuba is back as a des­ti­na­tion , just 90 miles off our coast. Despite mar­gin­al increase in tourists vis­it­ing Jamaica, the finan­cial ben­e­fit to our peo­ple became con­sis­tent­ly less and less.
Not only have they neglect­ed to ade­quate­ly improve Jamaica as a real­is­tic Tourism des­ti­na­tion the

Country has con­sis­tent­ly lost ground due to a seriess of issues.
As such even though there may be more peo­ple com­ing to our shores, the actu­al dol­lar count derived is not what it ought to be.
♦ Crime.
♦ Harassment.
These two issues in par­tic­u­lar has caused tourists to be com­pressed into all inclu­sive resorts which are owned by large cor­po­ra­tions and for­eign interests.
This has lit­er­al­ly shut out small vil­las and guest hous­es, con­cen­trat­ing monies derived from the indus­try into few­er and few­er hands. Small restau­rants , cafes, nov­el­ty stores, and craft shops can no longer depend on tourists to sup­port their businesses.
Most of their pur­chas­es are now done at in-bond stores.

Some of the prime venues in Montego Bay, Ochio Rios and Port Antonio are no longer oper­a­tional. Additionally the Nation’s sec­ond City of Montego Bay, the for­mer epic cen­ter of Caribbean tourism, is now a shell of it’s for­mer glory.
UN-planned , ille­gal set­tle­ments have sprung up all around the city, bring­ing mas­sive crime and oth­er social ills to the once pris­tine yet rus­tic west­ern city.
Despite Jamaica’s inabil­i­ty to devel­op a for­ward-lean­ing tourism prod­uct, tourists con­tin­ue to flock to Jamaica.
The num­bers though noth­ing to scoff at, are not what they could be had author­i­ties cre­at­ed a less myopic approach.
Revenue derived from Tourism could be more equi­tably dis­persed cre­at­ing a bet­ter stan­dard of liv­ing for locals.
Jamaica’s tourism has sur­vived despite neglect from the author­i­ties. Whether this will con­tin­ue remains to be seen.
Though not a bet­ting man , I am will­ing to wager that with Cuba now open for tourism, there will be a mas­sive explo­sion of tourists to that Island.
That will poten­tial­ly pose seri­ous chal­lenges to Jamaica’s abil­i­ty to main­tain it’s cur­rent lev­el of arrivals , much less increase them.
Time will tell.

JAMAICA is run by two polit­i­cal par­ties, The Jamaica Labor Party(JLP) and the People’s National Party (PNP). Between the two Parties, Jamaica has devolved into a series of balka­nized criminal/​political enclaves, in some instances impreg­nable to the rule of law.

At present Jamaican tax-pay­ers are present­ly on the hook to the tune of 350 mil­lion dol­lars. Money being spent on the Tivoli Gardens Inquiry which will tell us what we already know.
That Tivoli Gardens , like Arnett Gardens, Wilton Gardens, Nanny-ville, Dunkirk, Riverton, and the pletho­ra of oth­er zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions were made to ger­mi­nate and grow because both Political par­ties want­ed it so.

At least I hope that is what will come out of the fish­ing expe­di­tion present­ly gob­bling up scarce resources which could be bet­ter spent alle­vi­at­ing the coun­try’s dire pover­ty and crime problem.

The nar­ra­tive Jamaica’s bour­geoisie’ used dur­ing the 80’s to ear­ly 90’s when I served in the police depart­ment, was that the police were mere­ly big igno­rant men capa­ble of wield­ing batons. As we got clos­er to the ear­ly 90’s, the nar­ra­tive shift­ed slight­ly because of the lethal way some cops dealt with the coun­try’s vio­lent criminals.

The new nar­ra­tive was that cops were mere­ly “illit­er­ates” whose only claim to fame was their abil­i­ty to pull a trigger.
The truth of the mat­ter is that the true rea­son behind our nation’s bur­geon­ing crime rate has been the refusal of suc­ces­sive Administrations to deal deci­sive­ly with crime on the one hand, and on the oth­er hand both polit­i­cal par­ties engaged in an arms-race of sorts to see which par­ty could bet­ter arm it’s supporters.
In the mid­dle stood the ill-equipped, poor­ly trained, poor­ly paid, polit­i­cal­ly-neutered police force as the scapegoat.

The rise of the “Don cul­ture” is a direct result of both polit­i­cal par­ties direct involve­ment in plac­ing weapons into the hands of the coun­try’s young impres­sion­able youths.
Of course the Police depart­ment has had more lack­eys than any depart­ment should, but the prob­lem Jamaica faces today were cre­at­ed by both polit­i­cal parties.
The long list of mur­der­ous psy­chot­ic crim­i­nals Jamaicans cel­e­brate as “Dons” ‚receive the adu­la­tion the rule of law deserves, unfor­tu­nate­ly the polit­i­cal elites did not want it that way.

Today after the Tivoli inva­sion, an inva­sion nec­es­sary for annex­a­tion, there are report­ing which indi­cate the Spanish Town PNP affil­i­ate Clans-Man-Criminal Gang extract over 1.5 mil­lion Dollars per day in extor­tion fees from Businesses oper­at­ing in the old capital.
One report­ing indi­cat­ed National Security Minister Peter Bunting encour­aged busi­ness oper­a­tors to install sur­veil­lance cam­eras in their establishments.

Bunting promised that a police post would be re-opened at the bus park in July. It went on to add that it is esti­mat­ed that based on the num­ber of bus­es that use the park dai­ly, all of the monies added up is an esti­mat­ed $1.5 mil. Authorities cur­rent­ly have a num­ber of per­sons on a watch list, includ­ing six (6) wealthy, high-pro­file per­sons who are believed to be pro­vid­ing finan­cial sup­port for the extortionists.

That seem to be the extent of the nation’s secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus abil­i­ty to com­bat what is clear­ly a seri­ous problem.
This prob­lem will only get more dire the more cash-flush this crim­i­nal enter­prise become.
Why is the Police Department not using aggres­sive Intelligence gath­er­ing to elim­i­nate once and for all this can­cer of extortion?
The police depart­ment now has a PhD at it’s helm. The bour­geoisie’ can no longer use “dunce­ness” to dis­par­age the police, at least not the entire high command.
Why then is there no cohe­sive effec­tive intel­li­gence ‑based strat­e­gy in the works, designed to erad­i­cate the Clans-man Gang from our country?

Is there polit­i­cal pres­sure on the police to hands-off that crim­i­nal gang? Or is the police sim­ply too stu­pid and inept to seri­ous­ly tack­le this scourge?
Encouraging busi­ness own­ers to install cam­eras is not a 21^st cen­tu­ry strat­e­gy for this prob­lem , it is an invi­ta­tion for swift and sud­den death.
The Minister by his utter­ances have dis­played a sim­plis­tic, almost child­like lack of under­stand­ing of what needs to be done to arrest this problem.
Either that, or there is no desire to bring the activ­i­ties of the Clans-man Gang to a halt

How about that?
You kill my father then deride me for being fatherless !!!
Such has been the strat­e­gy of Legislatures all across America in their con­tin­ued march to mar­gin­al­ize and side­line African-American people.

African-Americans could have, and can do a bet­ter job of pro­tect­ing them­selves against the sys­tem but that is a dif­fer­ent con­ver­sa­tion than the one I want to have today.
Systematically design­ing laws which tar­gets Black Americans, then Militarizing Police depart­ments and plac­ing them in com­mu­ni­ties of col­or with strict codes of aggres­sive polic­ing is only one way in which large­ly white leg­is­la­tures have designed the sys­tem to solve their Black problem.

Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton is now forced to put dis­tance between her­self and the oner­ous crime bill her hus­band Bill Clinton a Democrat signed on the backs of poor blacks.
The United States Supreme Court recent­ly stripped away part of the vot­ing Rights Act.
The Argument the Court used in jus­ti­fy­ing it’s deci­sion was that the law was no longer nec­es­sary because the South is not as Racist as it once was.
In oth­er words the court’s argu­ment is that it struck down parts of the law because it worked too well.
Of course, based on the rhetoric and leg­isla­tive actions across the coun­try , the new stan­dard of Democracy from the polit­i­cal right is to keep from the polls the peo­ple who are like­ly to vote for the opposition.

The Goal of the white pow­er struc­ture was always to keep Blacks out of posi­tions of power.
This means black men in par­tic­u­lar must be giv­en a record as ear­ly as possible.
The idea is to ensure that the most aggres­sive forms of polic­ing are employed, irre­spec­tive of legal­i­ty or constitutionality.
Making sure young black men get a crim­i­nal record is mar­ried to laws which says if you have a crim­i­nal record you can­not become a Lawyer or a Judge. You can­not get a job in any sen­si­tive area of Government. Oh and you can­not become a cop either.
It is imper­a­tive that Blacks are kept off police depart­ments if the plan is to work effectively.
As if that was not enough, blacks com­ing out of the prison indus­tri­al com­plex have had their vot­ing rights stripped away.

If you ask any Legislator what is the rea­son for strip­ping vot­ing rights away from peo­ple with crim­i­nal records ? They tell you sim­ply , that they don’t deserve the right to vote.
That was the answer Presidential wannabes like Mitt Romney and oth­ers gave when asked.
Paying one’s debt to soci­ety is not enough as far as they are con­cerned. Those the sys­tem choos­es to give a crim­i­nal record must also wear a scar­let let­ter for the remain­der of their lives.
That has always been America’s answer to it’s ongo­ing cru­sade to tram­ple and sup­press it’s black population.

So when William Bratton, New York City’s Police Commissioner stat­ed recent­ly that his depart­ment can­not hire blacks because too many have crim­i­nal records,Bratton was essen­tial­ly laugh­ing at the father­less chil­dren he and oth­ers like him cre­at­ed after killing their fathers.
Bratton claimed his com­ments were tak­en out of con­text in an inter­view he gave to British Publication, the Guardian.
In the Interview Bratton said quote: “That’s well known. It’s an unfor­tu­nate fact that in the male black pop­u­la­tion, a very sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of them, more so than whites or oth­er minor­i­ty can­di­dates, because of con­vic­tions, prison records, are nev­er going to be hired by a police depart­ment. That’s a real­i­ty. That’s not a byprod­uct of stop-and-frisk,”

Bratton has stri­dent­ly made the case for New York City’s stop-and-frisk laws , dubbed bro­ken-win­dows, argu­ing they are nec­es­sary to remove guns from the streets.
As a for­mer police offi­cer I see ben­e­fits to police hav­ing that tool to stop and search some­one whom they believe may have an ille­gal weapon.
I also agree that when crim­i­nals know they will not be stopped and searched for ille­gal weapons, they are more like­ly to car­ry weapons and use them.

The prob­lem is not that the laws are par­tic­u­lar­ly bad. The prob­lem rests with those empow­ered to enforce them.
When cops uses those very laws to harass , intim­i­date, abuse and humil­i­ate, the laws become a problem.
Bratton like so many oth­ers, fail to see that the very med­i­cine he has been giv­ing the patient is killing him because he stub­born­ly fails to heed the side effects warn­ings in the disclaimer.
As always, when­ev­er I talk about police vio­lence, I try to point out that the police are mere­ly mir­ror­ing the intent behind the devi­ous laws craft­ed and passed by big­ots with­in state leg­is­la­tures across the country.
These laws are designed and passed in state and munic­i­pal leg­is­la­tures, the fight to erad­i­cate police aggres­sion should begin there.
Not in front of Police Headquarters.….

The Institution of white Supremacy may be char­ac­ter­ized as ema­nat­ing from intel­lec­tu­al infe­ri­or­i­ty. It per­son­i­fies a psy­cho­log­i­cal weak­ness, intel­lec­tu­al infe­ri­or­i­ty and a mor­bid fear of los­ing if it com­petes on an even play­ing field.
It’s prac­ti­tion­ers though Bullies , demon­strate an infan­tile propen­si­ty to pick up the ball and go home because the oth­ers did not let them win.
Such has been the atti­tude of Europeans who came to the Western World and declared they dis­cov­ered it. Though they came and saw thriv­ing cul­tures where black and Native peo­ple coex­ist­ed peacefully.
They nev­er quite got around to explain­ing how they dis­cov­ered a place where peo­ple exist­ed for hun­dreds of years before they fig­ured out the world was­n’t flat.

Unfortunately for peo­ple of col­or the hoax the crim­i­nal Christopher Columbus and his band of European Dregs per­pet­u­at­ed on Humanity was just the begin­ning of one of the most bru­tal, oppres­sive and mur­der­ous peri­od in doc­u­ment­ed human history.
They pil­laged and raped Africa divid­ing up the con­ti­nent among themselves.
They slaugh­tered hun­dreds of mil­lions of Africans, and took hun­dreds of mil­lions more into slavery.
Native Americans did not fare much bet­ter, entire tribes were slaugh­tered by the set­tlers as they pushed far­ther and far­ther tak­ing all the land from the nether regions of North America to the Pacific Coast.

Killing and enslav­ing oth­ers was not enough, they need­ed to dom­i­nate the world , sep­a­rat­ing peo­ple based on skin col­or, based on the false nar­ra­tive that whites are intel­lec­tu­al­ly supe­ri­or to oth­er races.
The truth, is the guys with gun pow­der decid­ed they would con­trol every­one else.
Ironically the peo­ple who sought to place the rest of the World over a bar­rel at the point of a gun were not smart enough to invent gunpowder.
The Chinese invent­ed Gun-Powder in the 9^th cen­tu­ry, more than four cen­turies before the lying Columbus set sail for India and China and lost his way.
Despite invent­ing Gun-pow­der which in my esti­ma­tion was the key com­po­nent of European aggres­sion, the Chinese did not use it to dom­i­nate the rest of the world as the weak mind­ed, uncul­tured Europeans did.
It was depraved indif­fer­ence and a cal­lous lack of moral­i­ty which caused the cap­ture, trans­porta­tion and enslave­ment of African peo­ple here in the west­ern world.
It is that same sub-human lack of con­sci­en­tious­ness which caused the dev­as­ta­tion Europe wrought on Africa.

Jim crow laws, and the per­pet­u­a­tion of racial stereo­types still alive and well in America Israel, Canada, Britain and all across Europe are stub­born ves­tiges of a peo­ple who decid­ed the way to world dom­i­na­tion is guar­an­teed through phys­i­cal force and phys­i­o­log­i­cal warfare.
The scourge of police aggres­sion we are wit­ness­ing against peo­ple of col­or in America is not new.
The num­ber one issue of the time dur­ing During Dr. King’s life­time was police treat­ment of Blacks.
Over fifty years lat­er the num­ber one issue fac­ing Black peo­ple in America is Police abuse.

Notwithstanding, it is impor­tant to rec­og­nize that police aggres­sion on blacks and poor whites hap­pens because the Monied Oligarchy wants it so.
The so-called white mid­dle-class giv­en time will real­ize they too will be the next vic­tims of the same aggression.
Hopefully by then it will not be too late to do some­thing about it.

White Supremacy as a pol­i­cy is not sus­tain­able for much longer.
The resid­ual embers of white priv­i­lege some cling to even­tu­al­ly will have seri­ous con­se­quences for the holders.
Why does a cop feel it’s accept­able to toss around a 15-year-old girl, scant­i­ly dressed in bathing attire then kneel­ing in her back as if she was an ani­mal to be subdued?
Why did a cop feel com­fort­able enough to fire 8 bul­lets killing, a 50-year-old man run­ning away with no place to go?
What makes a cop use a banned choke-hold on a man killing him for sell­ing un-taxed cigarettes?
The tragedy for the vic­tims of some of these assaults is that they con­tin­ue to buy into the notion of peace with­out justice.

This behav­ior is rem­i­nis­cent of blacks being blud­geoned by police because they dared to sit at lunch coun­ters wait­ing to be served.
It is the same mind­set which caused black stu­dents to be beat­en and spat upon for dar­ing to want an education.
Eric Casebolt obvi­ous­ly arrived on scene intent on show­ing the black kids they were not human , they did not belong there. Never mind that he had no idea who lived where.
This is what Blacks com­plain about daily.
Black and white per­son in con­flict, black per­son call the police, cop arrives auto­mat­i­cal­ly defaults to the white per­son as the complainant.
The Black per­son is auto­mat­i­cal­ly in the wrong in their minds.
Many peo­ple have sug­gest­ed that cops should at least have a bach­e­lors degree going forward.
Nonsense!!
Many of their boss­es who write the laws have PhD’s, yet they are the most ignorant.
Eric Casebolt has since resigned. He most like­ly will nev­er be charged for assault­ing those young people.
This will allow him to lay low for some time and soon anoth­er hick-town will hire him to police the streets, where he will once again con­tin­ue to assault those he wants to bully.

Τhe Editorial Board of the Gleaner com­pa­ny has every right to be crit­i­cal of whomev­er it choos­es to cri­tique and crit­i­cize. In fact Editorials are opin­ions, blogs, of the writer’s views and biases.
Editorials do not take away from the legit­i­ma­cy or the authen­tic­i­ty of the Publication.
For Years now the Editorial board of the Gleaner com­pa­ny has been stri­dent­ly a part of the pro­pa­gan­da arm of the People’s National Party. That too is okay, in fact I recall a time when the board was high­ly sup­port­ive of the Labor Party’s policies.
What I take issue with is the inabil­i­ty of the Gleaner’s Editorial writ­ers to tell the truth. When you dis­tort the truth you give up the right to be tak­en seri­ous­ly. Of course that time may have already passed for the once high­ly respect­ed Gleaner Company.

Monday June 8^th 2015.…
THE JAMAICA Labour Party (JLP), we can con­firm, con­tin­ues to face a cri­sis of lead­er­ship. This is reflect­ed in the par­ty’s inabil­i­ty, or worse, unwill­ing­ness, to artic­u­late clear, coher­ent pol­i­cy options, or sen­si­bly cri­tique and debate those being pur­sued by the Government.
The lat­est man­i­fes­ta­tion of the par­ty’s lazi­ness, if not intel­lec­tu­al malaise, was last week’s state­ment by its gen­er­al sec­re­tary, Horace Chang, on the ongo­ing wage nego­ti­a­tions between pub­lic-sec­tor work­ers and their employ­er, the Government. It was dis­tin­guished by its trite­ness, which, unfor­tu­nate­ly, is too often the case with dec­la­ra­tions by shad­ow ministers.

Crisis of leadership?
What Country is this writer liv­ing in ? Even as I ask the ques­tion I know it is some­what sil­ly , con­sid­er­ing that we are now liv­ing in the Information age. Regardless of where one live, it is com­mon knowl­edge that Jamaica has a cri­sis of lead­er­ship, which has noth­ing to do with the oppo­si­tion party.
The Writer seem to be pro­ject­ing the very Achilles heel of the Governing PNP onto the JLP.
The pro­pa­gan­da piece went on to say .
The admin­is­tra­tion of which Mr Chang was a mem­ber in 2010 entered into an eco­nom­ic-sup­port agree­ment with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that quick­ly ran aground because of the Government’s unwill­ing­ness or inabil­i­ty to make some of the required hard choic­es. The new admin­is­tra­tion has been doing much bet­ter since 2012, includ­ing in meet­ing the IMF’s bench­mark pri­ma­ry bal­ance of 7.5 per cent of GDP, which has placed the debt on a down­ward tra­jec­to­ry. An over­val­ued Jamaican dol­lar has been adjust­ing. The cur­rent account deficit has declined from above 12 per cent to sin­gle dig­it; infla­tion has mod­er­at­ed, com­ing close to that of major trad­ing part­ners; the coun­try’s glob­al com­pet­i­tive­ness indices have improved.

No men­tion of the fact that when the Bruce Golding Administration took office it was left with zero option but to enter into an agree­ment with the IMF.
The nation was broke and in chaos after an unprece­dent­ed 14 ¹⁄₂ years of mis­man­age­ment and fis­cal sui­cide led by Omar Davies.
The writer spoke about the agree­ment quote : that quick­ly ran aground because of the Government’s unwill­ing­ness or inabil­i­ty to make some of the required hard choices.
Those hard choic­es of which the writer speaks is the then Government’s refusal to inflict the inevitable pain which would occur had it con­tin­ued adher­ing to the agreement.
Ironically the Simpson Miller Administration has no such reser­va­tion about the pain the peo­ple feel, as long as the IMF tar­gets are met.
In fact con­form­ing to and reach­ing set dead­lines have been bal­anced on the backs of ordi­nary work­ing peo­ple, who are forced to live with wage freeze, esca­lat­ing food and ser­vice charges and run-away inflation.

As an opin­ion writer I try my very best to state only facts, even as total objec­tiv­i­ty may be miss­ing from some of what I have to say. For that I am guilty , I too have my biases.
It is indeed disin­gen­u­ous for the writer to adopt a blink­ered posi­tion on the true facts by intimating.Quote:  But the Government was, in part, able to keep a lid on the fis­cal accounts by main­tain­ing a wage freeze, when the more sus­tain­able, but polit­i­cal­ly far more dif­fi­cult option would be to elim­i­nate around 15,000 pub­lic-sec­tor jobs. Indeed, Audley Shaw, the shad­ow finance min­is­ter, has now agreed that job cuts, done foren­si­cal­ly, are advisable.

Unleashing the full effects of adher­ence to IMF tar­gets onto ordi­nary Jamaicans was uncon­scionable, even as the Miller Administration kept pub­lic sec­tor work­ers con­fined to a wage freeze.
Of course a pub­lic sec­tor down­size is and must be a part of any seri­ous attempt at fix­ing Jamaica’s debt prob­lem. There are ways to accom­plish­ing that with­out arbi­trar­i­ly tak­ing a scalpel to the pub­lic sec­tor rolls.

This can be achieved if the Administration real­is­ti­cal­ly deci­dide to elim­i­nate the vast amount of polit­i­cal patron­age-hires it has engaged in.
The Administration can also cut employ­ees through attri­tion result­ing from retire­ment. Neither of these two options are par­tic­u­lar­ly painful to any­one except those who weren’t sup­posed to be on the pay­roll in the first place.
The Editorial board is doing a ter­ri­ble dis-ser­vice to the Jamaican peo­ple, many of whom still believe any­thing com­ing from the news­pa­per is Gospel.
This non­sense had noth­ing to do with Andrew Holness the JLP leader and the board knows it, how­ev­er they will not be guid­ed by truth in their quest to defame and slur.
Editorial: JLP’s Leadership Crisis

The Government is being real­ly coy in the way it approach­es these negotiations.
They knew full well that 6% for police would not be well received.
The Government is also aware that what they offered teach­ers would be reject­ed as well .
In essence the govt decid­ed not to nego­ti­ate with itself.
A 7% increase up from 6% makes a mock­ery of the process and the people.
What makes the offers insult­ing is that these work­ers have had their wages frozen in place for years, while infla­tion some months have reached an astound­ing 9.70% >
This means pub­lic sec­tor work­ers are rapid­ly slid­ing below the pover­ty line…

the Government has some seri­ous choic­es to make. In addi­tion to Police who have start­ed sick-out actions, some of the nation’s teach­ers have already start­ed two hour on the job demon­stra­tions. The Nations Doctors on the pub­lic pay­roll have indi­cat­ed that they aren’t feel­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly healthy.
There are over 40.000 pub­lic sec­tor work­ers with whom the Government still needs to meet on salary issues.
The Government has includ­ed some $165 bil­lion in the ²⁰¹⁵⁄₁₆ bud­get for wages and salaries, which is four per cent high­er than last year’s wage bill, accord­ing to the Jamaica Observer report­ing. The prob­lem with that increase is that the last wage bill was not last fis­cal year.
Public sec­tor work­ers who have been on a wage freeze deserve a pay increase, at least to off-set the cost of gal­lop­ing infla­tion. The infla­tion rate fluc­tu­ates from a report­ed 4% on the low end, to a 9.70% depend­ing on the month.

The gov­ern­ment can­not be in the busi­ness of pass­ing IMF tests for the sake of pass­ing tests.
Of course it is impor­tant to meet tar­get­ed goals !
It is dou­bly impor­tant to rec­og­nize that mere­ly meet­ing those goal does not advance the foot-ball down the field , meet­ing them sim­ply keep you on the field.
At some point in time the Government will have to come up with a game-plan that does­n’t just keep the team on the field but one that depicts a path to a poten­tial win.
Meeting IMF tar­gets is good for the Fund, bad for the work­ers and the nation.

Opposition JLP Member of Parliament Darrel Vaz summed up Barbadian David Simmons succinctly.
Vaz stat­ed that David Simmons, a Barbadian, does not under­stand the Jamaican soci­ety, not­ing that once the infor­ma­tion came out there would be some peo­ple who would always hold the unsub­stan­ti­at­ed infor­ma­tion to be true.
David Simmons is a for­mer Chief Justice from the Island of Barbados . He is one of a three mem­ber pan­el assem­bled to hear evi­dence in the actions of the secu­ri­ty forces in May of 2010 as they entered to seize Christopher Coke, who was want­ed by the United States Government.
Coke is present­ly serv­ing a lengthy sen­tence in a Federal facil­i­ty in the US.

Vaz recent­ly demand­ed an apol­o­gy from Simmons for reveal­ing unsub­stan­ti­at­ed alle­ga­tions in open sit­ting of the Tivoli Inquiry that Coke was sight­ed at his house pri­or to being arrest­ed. The infor­ma­tion was alleged­ly gleaned from a police sta­tion diary. Deputy Commissioner of Police Clifford Blake tes­ti­fied that bit of intel­li­gence was nev­er substantiated.
Vaz was Minister with respon­si­bil­i­ty for Information at the time, in the Bruce Golding led Administration.

Despite Vaz’s legit­i­mate demand for a pub­lic apol­o­gy from Simmons, which under the cir­cum­stances are clear­ly war­rant­ed , Simmons main­tained rather arro­gant­ly that there is noth­ing to apol­o­gize for.
“I find it iron­ic, to put it at its low­est, and cer­tain­ly not in con­gru­ence with com­mon sense, that I should be pil­lo­ried by Mr Vaz and asked to apol­o­gize to him for hav­ing his name and rep­u­ta­tion cleared and vin­di­cat­ed,”. Simmons said.

Simmons was not done. “In the cir­cum­stances, of course, I do not apol­o­gise to Mr Vaz; there’s noth­ing to apol­o­gise for. His name and rep­u­ta­tion had been cleared by that evi­dence yes­ter­day. He should be grate­ful it came in,”.

In oth­er words, though he erred egre­gious­ly by impugn­ing Vaz’s char­ac­ter with what must have been clear to him at the time, was pure­ly unsub­stan­ti­at­ed alle­ga­tions or hearsay, he wants Vaz to be grate­ful that infor­ma­tion sur­faced lat­er which cleared his name.

This is pure unmit­i­gat­ed arro­gance and ignorance.
What would it have tak­en for Simmons to say he was sor­ry which was clear­ly appro­pri­ate under the circumstances?
In response Vaz fired back at Simmons.
 “In essence, I want to thank Sir David for hit­ting me in my head with a sledge­ham­mer and putting a Band-Aid on my wound and then claim that he has healed me,” Vaz said.“This is what has hap­pened to me and my fam­i­ly. He’s being disingenuous,”.

Simmons through­out the Inquiry has not done a par­tic­u­lar­ly good job of con­ceal­ing what appears to be dis­dain, not just for the Jamaican peo­ple but for the process­es of our country.
Even as he walks a fine line pre­tend­ing to be emphat­ic with res­i­dents of Tivoli Gardens.
I have pre­vi­ous­ly voiced those con­cerns in this very forum, argu­ing that based on those obser­va­tions I would have no respect for the find­ings of this inquiry.
It is incon­ceiv­able for any­one watch­ing these pro­ceed­ings to come away feel­ing otherwise.
It would not be far-fetched to imply that Simmons is mere­ly mir­ror­ing the sen­ti­ments of many of his coun­try-men, some of whom have con­fessed they were taught to hate Jamaicans in school.

This may be a very good time for Jamaicans to step back and re-eval­u­ate the lure of a Caribbean Court Of Justice and it’s impli­ca­tions for our Nation.
We should now seek to extri­cate our­selves from the British Privy Council, which by the way is not par­tic­u­lar­ly thrilled at hav­ing to deal with our issues. We must first devel­op our own sys­tem of Justice free and unat­tached from the rest of the Caribbean.
That prospect is on the dis­tant Horizon. We are a long way from get­ting to that stage, but we should begin that process now.

It should also be not­ed that at a time when the Administration is cry­ing broke, unable to pay pub­lic sec­tor work­ers a liv­able wage it has so far spent well over $350 mil­lion on the Tivoli Commission.
This is a most reck­less stew­ard­ship of pub­lic resources when Jamaicans of all stripes are ful­ly aware that the PNP mono­lith­ic as a part did not give the secu­ri­ty forces the exten­sion it need­ed to con­sol­i­date gains made after the Tivoli event.
The Party’s state­ments then was, “we did not want the secu­ri­ty forces to abuse citizens”.
With that state­ment the PNP cast its lot with Jamaica’s crim­i­nals against the Jamaican state and the secu­ri­ty forces.
They did so to deny the nation’s secu­ri­ty forces access to it’s net­work of Garrisons .
That was an act of Treason in my estimation.

The People’s National Party should have been dis­band­ed at that time, nev­er­the­less a few months lat­er the peo­ple of Jamaica returned them to power.
This Inquiry like Simmons is a farce , it should be seen for what it is, an attempt to cur­ry favor and hold state pow­er at the expense of the peo­ple’s intelligence.

REALLY ?

How can a Socialist Government take a Scalpel to the bloat­ed pub­lic sec­tor when it’s entire phi­los­o­phy is one of Government doing for peo­ple what they should do for themselves.

The present Administration does not under­stand how a mar­ket econ­o­my works, as such it becomes impos­si­ble for the coun­try to claw it’s way out of the present cri­sis it’ faces.
Anyone who believes the present path dic­tat­ed by the IMF is a path to rebuild­ing the Nation’s econ­o­my is delusional.
The path laid out by the fund is designed to ensure the coun­try is able to pay back to the fund what it owes with interest.
Of course if the peo­ple were wide-eyed they would real­ize this is an unsus­tain­able path to nowhere.
Wherever the IMF is hap­py social dis­or­der becomes the nat­ur­al order.
I wish the Editor would explain how this path will lead to pros­per­i­ty, or even a seri­ous reduc­tion of the nations debt.

HERE ARE SOME SUGGESTIONS TO THE SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT OPERATING IN KINGSTON AND THE ADMINISTRATIONS OPERATIVES AT THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF THE GLEANER COMPANY.

(1) REDUCE CRIME
You accom­plish this by telling your sup­port­ers that there are no safe havens any place, in any Garrison con­trolled by your party.
Then dis­man­tle the Garrisons.
No PM Miller, Garrisons do not have to have walls.
Equip, train, and pay the police.
Cut the bloat­ed pub­lic sec­tor workforce.
Yes that includes polit­i­cal hacks who are a drain on the coun­try’s mea­ger resources, . Yes fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends are included.
Pass laws com­men­su­rate with the rapid­ly chang­ing times . Penalties should put seri­ous offend­ers behind bars for long peri­ods of time . Seek to reha­bil­i­tate non-vio­lent offenders.

(2) ELIMINATE BUREAUCRACY.
Cut unnec­es­sary restric­tions on imports, there­by remov­ing the pro­tec­tion accord­ed cer­tain sec­tors of the pri­vate sector.
A pri­vate sec­tor should be open­ly com­pet­i­tive. Those who can­not com­pete will be weed­ed out.
An open com­pet­i­tive pri­vate sec­tor dri­ves down prices to consumers.
(3) ELIMINATE CORRUPTION.
Remove fam­i­ly friends and loy­al­ists from the pub­lic sec­tor pay­roll. Slash non-essen­tial work­ers , orga­nize to get them loans so they may go to school or do start up businesses.
(4) LOWER TAXES.
Self explanatory.
(5) BROADEN TAX NET.
Bring more small oper­a­tors into com­pli­ance this will relieve the bur­den on PAYE workers.
(6) DIVERSIFY ENERGY SOURCES.
Jamaica has no short­age of sun and wind. Have Industry and Commerce get off their fat rear-ends and go seek investors who are inter­est­ed in help­ing to devel­op our Solar and wind capa­bil­i­ties. There is no rea­son Jamaica should be addict­ed to dirty oil.
(7) MAINTAIN AND BUILD THE NATION’S VITAL INFRASTRUCTURE.
Developing roads , water and elec­tric­i­ty , reduces urban sprawl, encour­ages rur­al devel­op­ment and builds the economy.
Adopt these sim­ple steps and watch Private sec­tor invest­ment flood our coun­try. Do these and guar­an­teed we have to turn some investors away.
There is no rea­son Jamaicans should be liv­ing in a pover­ty-strick­en crime infest­ed hell-hole.
That is how a nation is built , not on pseudo/​socialist give-aways.

The Jamaican Government through it’s Attorney General Patrick Atkinson, has secured an Injunction from the Supreme Court intend­ed to force sick police offi­cers back to work.
The gist of the Injunction is that the police is to cease and desist from it’s indus­tri­al action for a peri­od of 28 days and return to the bar­gain­ing table with the Government.
Sounds like a fair bit of adju­di­ca­tion right?
Not so fast… Atkinson buoyed by what he thought was the final blud­geon­ing tool with which he would crush the low­ly rank-and-file cops, declared that fail­ing to com­ply with the Injunction would be tan­ta­mount to con­tempt of court with penal­ty includ­ing Government con­fis­ca­tion of police offi­cers property.
Clearly this cor­rupt Government of the intel­lec­tu­al­ly chal­lenged Simpson Miller is look­ing to start a civ­il war in the Island nation.

Simpson Miller and her band of incom­pe­tents, must know that despite plac­ing it’s func­tionar­ies in crit­i­cal posi­tions of civ­il soci­ety , includ­ing the courts, that it would be ask­ing for war were they to try to enforce that Injunction.
In fact the Jamaican Newspapers are report­ing that over 1,000 cops had report­ed sick out of a force of 12.000. After the Injunction was issued over 3.000 offi­cers report­ed sick.
News flash to the lack­eys on the Supreme Court, if a Doctor say the cops are sick, guess what ?
They are sick and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.
What cheek?
Confiscation of property?
This Administration, just wel­comed Barack Obama the President of the United States to Jamaica. The Central Intelligence Agency is patent­ly aware that Jamaica is inher­ent­ly cor­rupt. The Agency is also aware that the régime does not sup­port or respect police offi­cers and the rule of law.
Why did Obama legit­imize the Portia Simpson Miller Government by vis­it­ing Jamaica at this time?
There is no oth­er expla­na­tion oth­er than his desire to push the Homosexual Agenda on Jamaica.

The Police Federation, the Union which rep­re­sents Rank and file mem­bers of the depart­ment had already indi­cat­ed it“s will­ing­ness to go back to the bar­gain­ing table to dis­cuss the issue of salaries and ben­e­fits. The Government for it’s part, had all the time in the world to come up with a pack­age for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers that was less insulting.
Using the courts as an intend­ed tool of intim­i­da­tion to pub­lic sec­tor work­ers is dis­grace­ful. It’s also illu­mi­nat­ing to the nation the con­tempt the Kleptomaniac inept admin­is­tra­tion has for ordi­nary work­ing people.

According to a reli­able sources the infla­tion rate in Jamaica was record­ed at 4.40 per­cent in April of 2015.
Over a 12 month peri­od Jamaica’s Inflation rate fluc­tu­ates between a low of 4 and a high of 9.7%.
A pay increase of 3% in the first year does not even cov­er the cost of inflation.
Adopting a pos­ture of a plan­ta­tion own­er to pub­lic sec­tor work­ers is not exact­ly a pre­scrip­tion for social order.
It is impor­tant that these very Police Officers, Nurses, Teachers and oth­er pub­lic sec­tor work­ers, remem­ber the way the Government respond­ed to their legit­i­mate demand for a liv­able wage.
The cops demand is even more just, in light of what they face daily.
They should nev­er for­get nor for­give this out­ra­geous affront.

Opposition Spokesperson on National Security Derrick Smith has unleashed a scathing response to the Government’s Injunction in the Courts designed to force mem­bers of the police depart­ment on sick-out back to work.
I gen­er­al­ly nev­er agree with any­thing Smith had to say. I was­n’t con­vinced that Smith who pre­vi­ous­ly held the National Security Portfolio was suf­fi­cient­ly sup­port­ive of the Police.
Many of my friends dis­agree with me on that but I reserve the right to be wrong.
I must admit how­ev­er that Smith’s com­ments are spot on.

SMITH STATED:
The tem­po­rary injunc­tion the Government has secured from the Supreme Court bar­ring the police from tak­ing indus­tri­al action not only serves to inten­si­fy the esca­lat­ing wage nego­ti­a­tion cri­sis, but brings the “arro­gance and bul­ly­ing tac­tics being employed by the Government into sharp focus”.

“The Government’s move to com­pel the police back to work by way of an injunc­tion will not improve the deep­en­ing indus­tri­al rela­tions row and bring us no clos­er to restor­ing nor­mal­i­ty.” “In fact, the injunc­tion only serves to fur­ther pro­voke the police and inten­si­fy the antag­o­nism that char­ac­ter­izes the rela­tion­ship between the police and the Government at this time. Instead of resort­ing to bul­ly tac­tics and fur­ther oppress­ing the hard-work­ing men and women of the con­stab­u­lary, the Government needs to move quick­ly in mak­ing a bet­ter offer and ulti­mate­ly arriv­ing at a settlement,”.

My sen­ti­ments exact­ly , but what real­ly excit­ed me about Derrick Smith’s com­ments is this.
“What I find most dis­turb­ing is that the Government sat seem­ing­ly unper­turbed and allowed the sit­u­a­tion to esca­late to the point where the Police Federation felt it had no option but to mobi­lize its mem­bers in stag­ing a sick-out. What is even more dis­turb­ing is that the nation­al secu­ri­ty min­is­ter, who, if no one else in the Government does, should have the inter­ests of the police at heart, has expend­ed no dis­cernible effort in advanc­ing their wel­fare, but saw it fit to resort to bul­ly­ing tac­tics on Tuesday by call­ing on them to return to work.”

Not only has Bunting showed he does not care about the plight of the work­ing cops on the beat, some of whom pro­vide 24 hour secu­ri­ty to him at the risk to their own lives, he total­ly mis­quot­ed the per­cent­age Government offered to rank and file cops.
If Minister Bunting had noth­ing pos­i­tive to say all he had to do is sim­ply remain silent.

A great Jamaican proverb taught me by my great aunt is (yu must tek sleep mark death) .
The police depart­ment is a large block of votes. Police offi­cers have incred­i­ble sway and influ­ence on mem­bers of their fam­i­lies, that includes how they vote.
I hope they learn and have mem­o­ries like Elephants.
In some con­stituen­cies the dif­fer­ence between win­ning and los­ing is a few dozen votes. The votes of offi­cers can be the dif­fer­ence in return­ing Jamaica to sanity.
Whether Derrick Smith is gen­uine in his broad­side against the Government, or he is sim­ply pos­tur­ing, his com­ments are nonethe­less correct.

The Police depart­ment has over 12.000 mem­bers . Members of the Gazetted Ranks who are mem­bers of the civ­il ser­vice are not sub­ject to this wage dis­pute. Rank and file mem­bers must extri­cate them­selves from the typ­i­cal “licky-licky “men­tal­i­ty which has char­ac­ter­ized the way they look at the polit­i­cal game and make deci­sions that will ulti­mate­ly ben­e­fit them and their fam­i­lies going forward.
This par­ty has nev­er placed nation­al secu­ri­ty on the front burner.
This wage dis­pute is not the only indi­ca­tor that the admin­is­tra­tion does not care about them.
Members com­plain they do not have uni­forms nor boots , how dis­grace­ful is that?
The Peoples’ National Party has always been a par­ty which want­ed crime to flour­ish as a kind of a “wink-and-a-nod” to it’s sup­port­ers when they are in office.
It’s a kind of pay back to the peo­ple. One of the many unscrupu­lous things they do to win and hold onto state power.
The Police have a choice to make.…