On assum­ing office as Prime Minister of Jamaica after the ear­ly exit of belea­guered Prime Minister Bruce Golding Andrew Holness said he would ask the Leader of the Opposition Portia Simpson Miller to walk the Garrisons as a sign of peace and togetherness.
Holness felt this was impor­tant giv­en our coun­try’s vio­lent polit­i­cal past.
True to his word on October 27^th Andrew Holness sent a let­ter to Portia Simpson Miller as a sign of good­will and coöperation.
To the best of our knowl­edge Andrew Holness received no for­mal response from the then leader of the polit­i­cal opposition.
HOLNESS’ INVITATION TO WALK THE GARRISONS.

This pub­li­ca­tion was enthused at the change in tone and atti­tude of the new­ly installed prime Minister . As a for­mer cop and a Jamaican who have wit­nessed first­hand the rav­ages of polit­i­cal vio­lence on our peo­ple and cul­ture, I felt though not a panacea Holness’ atti­tude to Governance was an impor­tant first step in the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion process for the Jamaican peo­ple as one peo­ple, despite our dif­fer­ing polit­i­cal affiliations.

I was not sur­prised how­ev­er that Portia Simpson Miller did not for­mal­ly respond to the entreaties of the then Prime Minister to present a unit­ed front in the inter­est of our country.
At the time I said the People’s National Party and Portia Simpson Miller could not take up the Prime Minister’s offer to show togeth­er­ness as Garrisons were Portia and Portia the Garrisons.
I opined then that the woman the mass­es refer to as  Sista P was mere­ly an oppor­tunis­tic vira­go and a polit­i­cal hustler.
I had seen her in action over the years and thus I believe my char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of her was and still remain an exer­cise in charity.
OF GARRISONS CONCESSIONS AND DEBATES.

The People’s National Party con­struct­ed an elab­o­rate scheme to con­trol state pow­er begin­ning in the ear­ly 70’s , the idea was to use pop­u­lar pro­grams and laws which would have mass grass root appeal, sup­pos­ed­ly in the best inter­est of the poor­er class.
This cre­at­ed a cult-like fol­low­ing of the par­ty which remain to this day despite the fact that Jamaica’s depar­ture from the poli­cies of the 60’s cre­at­ed a coun­try and peo­ple who are expo­nen­tial­ly worse off than before the social exper­i­ment of the 70’s and 90’s.
It was the foun­da­tion on which Michael Manley’s Democratic Socialism was built.
♦ Project Land Lease.
♦ No bas­tard children.
♦ Micro Dams.
♦ The Cuban Schools.
♦ Free education.
♦ JAMAL.
Were just a few of the pro­grams which gar­nered mass sup­port for Michael Manley and the People’s National Party.
Though not nec­es­sar­i­ly bad ideas these ideas were poor­ly exe­cut­ed and exploit­ed fur­ther which inevitably cre­at­ed a con­tem­po­rary cul­ture of depen­den­cy on Government as bene­fac­tor and crime as a sub­sti­tut­ing enti­ty to fill the space where pol­i­tics fell short.
Free hous­ing , Free elec­tric­i­ty Free mon­ey, was icing on the cake and out the door went the con­cept of hard work edu­ca­tion and the entre­pre­neur­ial spirit .

On the basis of the afore­men­tioned, had Portia agreed to the dis­man­tling of gar­risons she would be agree­ing to dis­man­tlig her pow­er base.
That was not about to hap­pen and young Andrew Holness would not be allowed to change the entrenched order of eat a food through polit­i­cal patronage
It was not sur­pris­ing then the response she gave to Holness’ invi­ta­tion was infor­mal­ly and col­lo­qui­al­ly yet eas­i­ly predictable.
The “PNP nu have nu gar­ri­son mi nu see no walls inna mi constituency”
GARRISONS DON’T ALL HAVE WALLS
Anyone famil­iar with Miller can­not be sur­prised or even dis­ap­point­ed with the mind­less parochial­ism of her response yet it evoked a cer­tain degree of sad­ness at least to this writer ‚that one so high­ly placed could be so inher­ent­ly stu­pid in not rec­og­niz­ing the impor­tant sym­bol­ism such a ges­ture would have cre­at­ed for the younger genration.
All was not lost how­ev­er, for the most part many Jamaicans of both major polit­i­cal par­ties had decid­ed that killing each oth­er in the name of pol­i­tics was not some­thing they want­ed to con­tin­ue doing.
It was encour­ag­ing to see that Jamaicans of both polit­i­cal stripes had decid­ed that though they still liked killing each oth­er they would not con­tin­ue to do so in the name of politics.

It should come as no sur­prise then that because the leader of the People’s National Party did not demon­strate the matu­ri­ty , intel­li­gence or com­mon sense to eschew vio­lence and it’s nur­tur­ing grounds, that the next Generation of PNP lead­ers would see vio­lence as a viable path toward achiev­ing polit­i­cal ends.
The irony in all of this is that the peo­ple are smarter than their leaders.
The peo­ple have already made the deci­sion to eschew Political violence.
Unfortunately Portia Simpson Miller still have not received that memo, and cer­tain­ly not the idi­ot­ic lit­tle moron Dwayne Vaz the mem­ber of Parliament from Central Westmoreland the seat once occu­pied by the lat­er Roger Clarke,.
At the time Vaz was ele­vat­ed to Clarke’s seat the Jamaica Observer did an elab­o­rate sto­ry on the life of the then 33 year-old from his birth in 1981 to win­ning the by- elec­tion, it Article was a cloy­ing love-fest . As the con­clu­sion to the lengthy trib­ute to Vaz’s life sto­ry the writer Desmond Allen Observer Executive edi­tor crowed .

On December 11, 2014, Dwayne Vaz took his seat in the Jamaican par­lia­ment, proud­ly wear­ing his cre­den­tials as a young, good-look­ing, hard-work­ing, peo­ple-lov­ing per­son — a vir­tu­al tem­plate on how to make a Jamaican politi­cian — and vow­ing to fol­low in the large foot­steps of his late polit­i­cal god­fa­ther, Roger Clarke.
http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​C​e​n​t​r​a​l​-​W​e​s​t​m​o​r​e​l​a​n​d​-​s​-​D​w​a​y​n​e​-​Vaz – A‑politician-s-tem­plate_18631433

Yah about that ?

Speaking on a plat­form at a PNP ral­ly in St James recent­ly in front of a large PNP crowd the sup­posed young, good-look­ing, hard-work­ing, peo­ple-lov­ing per­son — a vir­tu­al tem­plate on how to make a Jamaican politi­cian ‑peeled off the Sheep cos­tume and revealed for all and sundry the Wolf hid­ing inside.
Responding to a fire at the PNP con­stituen­cy office Dwayne Vaz showed the dirty filthy under­bel­ly of PNP pol­i­tics and the fuel which dri­ves it, vio­lence and intimidation.
Quote “a baby strength dem have” He then went on to start singing the con­tro­ver­sial lyrics of the Kartel’s vio­lence song, “Wha’ Dem Feel Like”, as the sound sys­tem played the song writ­ten and per­formed by dance­hall dee­jay, Vybz Kartel, who was con­vict­ed of mur­der in April, 2014 and includes lines like: “Puzzle up mi gun inna jef­fery hype/​Mek we step like a cen­tipede and tek the lead inna war/​A weh dem feel like, dem skin too tough fi bleed”.
Weh Dem Feel Like

Clearly a call to arms , and to return to the dark days of 8oo + dead in the name of pol­i­tics as we have seen in the past.
Communities as impreg­nable balka­nized bas­tions of polit­i­cal exclusivity.
Since then the naïve exu­ber­ant lit­tle pup have walked back the dan­ger­ous state­ments but the dam­age may have already been done .
Not sur­pris­ing­ly, not a sin­gle word from the leader of the par­ty to the lit­tle upstart “no this is not what we are about, this is not where we want to go”.
Of course her per­for­mance as Parish Councillor, Minister and now as Prime Minister can only rea­son­ably be val­i­dat­ed through the gar­ri­son cul­ture and the dumb­ing-down of the already illit­er­ate unin­formed masses.
Is it any won­der then that as always when it real­ly counts the stooge in Jamaica House is duplic­i­tous­ly silent?

Each Election cycle in the United States Republicans out-right­ly uses Black Americans as a wedge to win white votes.
I am sure it was worse in the ear­ly years before Nixon’s “south­ern strat­e­gy” , Reagan’s launch­ing his cam­paign in the south . Bush’s “Willie Houghton” attack against Michael Dukakis to name a few .
With that in mind I see no rea­son to believe that Republicans will be any dif­fer­ent this cycle.
One would hope that since we are now in 21^st cen­tu­ry that maybe, just maybe com­mon decen­cy would apply and the white men run­ning for the pres­i­den­cy on the right would show some class , decen­cy and intelligence.
Unfortunately despite the fact that Blacks are the most sol­id and loy­al part of the Democratic base Democrats are not shy about throw­ing the black com­mu­ni­ty under the bus to cur­ry favor with white vot­ers either.
Political watch­ers will recall Bill Clinton’s “Sister Soulja” diss,and even the incon­se­quen­tial Martin O’malley’s “all lives mat­ter” in response to the black lives mat­ter movement.

With all of the hate­ful rhetoric com­ing from Republican can­di­dates Donald Trump , Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee Ben Carson and oth­ers I won­dered what was gained from the meet­ing between the Black Ministers who met with Trump on Monday?
One spokesper­son speak­ing on behalf of the black min­is­ters said Trump was not a racist. I have no idea why a group of self serv­ing Negros would line up to say a rabid dis­eased racist is no racist?
But then again I also won­dered why slav­ery last­ed that long in this coun­try until I saw and heard the views of some Black Americans.

It was­n’t the first time that a bunch of black reli­gious char­la­tans had lined up to sup­port the orange-haired buf­foon. At a press con­fer­ence pri­or to a ral­ly in Norcross, Georgia, Donald Trump was sur­round­ed onstage by black pas­tors and min­is­ters sup­port­ing his can­di­da­cy. One pas­tor took the micro­phone and said Trump would make “a hell of a chief executive”:

“I can’t think of a bet­ter per­son, a bet­ter leader to lead this coun­try to where America needs to go.”

“I want to dis­pel this notion that Donald Trump is a racist,” he con­tin­ued. “We’re not here as token blacks. We’re here because we want to sup­port him… We believe him and his leadership.”
Another said Trump could be trust­ed to look after Christians in this coun­try and pro­tect their spir­i­tu­al needs. In response to a ques­tion, Trump said he has not met with the Black Lives Matter group. No one both­ered to men­tion to the Clown that he had recent­ly berat­ed Bernie Sanders for not dis­re­spect­ing black lives mat­ter activists, nei­ther was it impor­tant to the bible thump­ing har­lots who lined up to deceive their own peo­ple in God’s name.
I found out long ago that it was not a good idea to fight for the American black because he has no desire to excel beyond the low­est rung of the ladder.
You dis­agree ? Look at what they have done with the gains secured by Thurgood Marshall, Martin King , Medger Evers Malcolm X and the count­less oth­ers who made the ulti­mate sacrifice.

For those So-called Ministers a meet­ing with “Massa”, I mean Trump, was enough to cause them to for­get all of the dis­parag­ing things Trump said about President Obama and the Black lives mat­ter move­ment , or even that he refers to black peo­ple as “the blacks”.
As long as “Massa“met with them they felt all was right with the world he was no racist screw those Activists in the streets chant­i­ng and march­ing for justice.
If only you were like me “Massa” would accept you too[sic].
The only prob­lem for the black min­is­ters is that they were mere props for the fur­ther­ance of the Trump hate machine.
I mean if Trump can meet and rub shoul­ders with “The Blacks”, the most despised and reviled and they can come out and say Mister Trump is no Racist who cares what the “rapists and mur­der­ers” from Mexico think, right?

It was a bril­liant stroke of genius by the Trump cam­paign, of course those well attired Black Ministers had no prob­lem being the dis­play Mannequins. In fact the whole stroke of genius went com­plete­ly over their heads.
As long as we refus­es to place val­ue on our­selves oth­ers will val­ue us or bet­ter yet deval­ue us. As long as a pho­to-Op with “Massa” makes us feel all is well with the world we are con­demned to con­tin­ue being the man­nequin for all to hang their designs on.