The nation of Ukraine finds itself in the unen­vi­able posi­tion of hav­ing a pow­er­ful ene­my almost encir­cling a large par­ty of its bor­der and anoth­er more pow­er­ful but friend­ly alliance to its flank of which it is not a member.
One expert argues that if you think of Ukraine as a clock, Russia encir­cles Ukraine from 10 through 7.

This leaves only a small por­tion of Ukraine’s bor­der between 7 & 10 that has friend­ly neigh­bors, tak­ing into account that Belarus is a hos­tile pow­er to Ukraine that has allowed Russia to launch aggres­sion against Ukraine from its borders.

So here is Ukraine in a sort of no-mans-land, not a part of the old sovi­et empire any longer but not a mem­ber of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO).
Many peo­ple have asked, (a) why is America send­ing troops to east­ern Europe? The United States has com­mit­ments as a mem­ber of NATO and to arti­cle five of the NATO char­ter, known as the “com­mit­ment clause.” Within this clause, every mem­ber of NATO agrees that it will con­sid­er an armed attack against any mem­ber state, whether in Europe or North America, as an attack against all 30 mem­bers of the organization.
Additionally, the United States is the most pow­er­ful nation on the plan­et; despite its flaws, America has always stepped up to the plate in defense of weak­er nations in dis­tress and defense of Democracy.

America’s lead­er­ship after world war 11 cre­at­ed the United Nations, NATO, the International Criminal court in the Hague, which has large­ly kept the peace since the end of the last world war in 1945.
(b) Why does­n’t the United States insti­tute a no-fly zone over Ukraine? A no-fly zone requires sig­nif­i­cant resources and man­pow­er; how­ev­er, a no-fly over Ukraine would also mean American pilots fly­ing sor­ties con­tin­u­al­ly over a nation larg­er than Texas.
Where would the Russian air­force be? It would not allow anoth­er nation’s planes to be over its troops on the ground and so what we would have in quick time is a shoot­ing war between American and NATO forces with a pow­er­ful nuclear-armed nation that has a sociopath for its leader.

Vladimir Putin wants a buffer between him­self and NATO forces; there is no deny­ing that. A look at the map above bears out Russia’s inse­cu­ri­ty at the prospect of Ukraine becom­ing a NATO mem­ber. (NATO) mem­ber states in blue would mean NATO on Russias’ bor­der should Ukraine become a mem­ber of the west­ern alliance.
Russia’s annex­a­tion of Crimea and its incur­sion into Georgia, as well as its sup­port for the break­away regions with­in Ukraine, demon­strates (a) Vladimir Putin’s desire to expand Russia’s bor­ders west­ward or to pre­vent NATO from out­flank­ing Russia.
In Fairness, Putin talks about the west­’s annu­al war games on his bor­ders, some­thing the United States would not tol­er­ate if Russia did the same.
It appears, how­ev­er, that Vladimir Putin’s larg­er ambi­tions are larg­er than mere­ly top­pling the elect­ed gov­ern­ment in Kyiv and installing his own pup­pet régime like the one he has in Belarus.
Step by step, Putin wants to redraw the old Soviet-era bor­ders in east­ern Europe. He con­stant­ly laments what he char­ac­ter­ized as the weak­ness that allowed for the fall of the Soviet Union in the 80s.

On March 18^th, 2014, Vladimir Putin annexed the Republic of Crimea and the fed­er­al city of Sevastopol. Following the annex­a­tion, Putin imme­di­ate­ly esca­lat­ed his mil­i­tary pres­ence on the penin­su­la and lever­aged nuclear threats to solid­i­fy the new sta­tus quo on the ground.
Before send­ing his forces into Ukraine, Putin for­mal­ly rec­og­nized the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics and direct­ed the Russian Defense Ministry to deploy troops in those regions to car­ry out “peace­keep­ing functions.”Putin claimed in a ram­bling speech that the Nation of Ukraine was a Russian cre­ation. On February 24^th, Vladimir Putin fol­lowed up by order­ing a bru­tal assault on the demo­c­ra­t­ic nation of Ukraine. He also warned that any­one who tried to stop him would be swift­ly dealt with in ways nev­er before seen in his­to­ry. -(Basically, again lever­ag­ing the use of nuclear weapons).
Notice the hyper­bole in the lat­ter state­ment- where have we heard that ver­nac­u­lar before?

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

Images from Ukraine as the Russian Federation begins an unpro­voked war against its neighbor.

One would have thought that the “Master Race” (sarcasm, don’t bite my head off) would have been appro­pri­ate­ly enlight­ened by now not to invade oth­er coun­tries. I mean, by gol­ly, we are in the year 2022, and anoth­er poten­tial mil­i­tary con­fla­gra­tion is brew­ing in .…..you guessed it, on the con­ti­nent of the ‘Master Race’…
Remember, this is the con­ti­nent of the ‘Master Race” they told us they are the most intel­li­gent, haha­ha, have been the most enlight­ened. However, the Africans may dis­agree since they cre­at­ed gov­ern­ing coun­cils, cre­at­ed Universities, stud­ied Astronomy, Mathematics, Medicine, and had trav­eled around the world. At the same time, Europe thought the world was flat, or before the mas­ter race invad­ed their spaces plun­dered, raped, mur­dered, stole, and dis­tort­ed the truth then claimed, they cre­at­ed those things, and the peo­ple they stole from were the sav­ages. The damn nerve.….
The Chinese may also dis­agree, you know, since they invent­ed gun­pow­der but nev­er used it to harm any­one until the mas­ter race got their hands on it and changed the world for the worst forever.

World War I, also known as the Great War, began in 1914 after the assas­si­na­tion of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. His mur­der result­ed in a war across Europe that last­ed until 1918. During the con­flict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan, and the United States (the Allied Powers). By the time the war was over and the Allied Powers claimed vic­to­ry, more than 16 mil­lion peo­ple — sol­diers and civil­ians alike — died. (source, his​to​ry​.com).
The enlight­ened mas­ter race devour­ing itself and oth­ers with it. But let’s move on.
World War II was the biggest and dead­liest war in his­to­ry, involv­ing more than 30 coun­tries. Sparked by the 1939 Nazi inva­sion of Poland (again the mas­ter race not adher­ing to the rules of moder­ni­ty), the war dragged on for six bloody years until the Allies defeat­ed Nazi Germany and Japan in 1945. (source his​to​ry​.com).
The war began in 1939 and end­ed in 1945. By the time it was over, an esti­mat­ed 45 – 60 mil­lion peo­ple were killed; among them were 6 mil­lion Jews mur­dered in Nazi con­cen­tra­tion camps as part of Hitler’s dia­bol­i­cal “Final Solution,” now known as the Holocaust.

More con­flicts erupt­ed on the mas­ter con­ti­nent after the two great wars, includ­ing but not con­fined to the Kosovo con­flict (1998 – 99) con­flict in which eth­nic Albanians opposed eth­nic Serbs and the gov­ern­ment of Yugoslavia (the rump of the for­mer fed­er­al state, com­pris­ing the republics of Serbia and Montenegro) in Kosovo. The con­flict gained wide­spread inter­na­tion­al atten­tion and was resolved with the inter­ven­tion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
This con­flict result­ed in the death of tens of thou­sands and the dis­place­ment of over 1.5 mil­lion eth­nic Albanians from then Yugoslavia. (source bri​tini​ca​.com)
Among the oth­er trans­gres­sions of the mas­ter race was the British wag­ing war against Argentina for the Falkland Islands, the United States invad­ing Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq. That seems to me to be the mas­ter race export­ing the vio­lence it is so com­fort­able with.
Since then, Russia has annexed Crimea, and here we are again with anoth­er immi­nent attack on a sov­er­eign nation by anoth­er European nation.
This, how­ev­er, is not new; this has always been the modus operan­di of the so-called ‘mas­ter race, or should I say the last race to be civ­i­lized return­ing to its roots. You know the say­ing last hired first fired?
Well, we all know that their lies about being the mas­ter race were root­ed in cow manure, a prod­uct of an infe­ri­or­i­ty com­plex and a desire to project onto the oth­er races the infe­ri­or­i­ty it feels about itself.
Wandering and tak­ing what’s not theirs has been a main­stay ever since they were released from the caves and got up from all fours… See some of that his­to­ry in the link below.
https://​www​.bri​tan​ni​ca​.com/​t​o​p​i​c​/​h​i​s​t​o​r​y​-​o​f​-​E​u​r​o​p​e​/​B​a​r​b​a​r​i​a​n​-​m​i​g​r​a​t​i​o​n​s​-​a​n​d​-​i​n​v​a​s​i​ons

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

Criticisms by Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Finance Minister Nigel Clarke of the deci­sion of Banks to increase charges on the strug­gling Jamaican pub­lic are a day late and a dol­lar short.
In fact, it demon­strates that this gov­ern­ment, like oth­ers before, lacks the true under­stand­ing of what it takes to pro­tect the gen­er­al pub­lic from rapa­cious huck­sters like the banks oper­at­ing in our country.
Local media report­ed that National Commercial Bank (NCB) and Scotiabank Jamaica recent­ly informed the pub­lic of new ser­vice charges, with increased and rein­stat­ed fees that will take effect between January and March this year.

Among the egre­gious abus­es, the banks are charg­ing their cus­tomers to use their own ATMs, even though they grad­u­at­ed cus­tomers to use the ATMs as a way of clear­ing up lob­by traffic.
Graduating cus­tomers to use their auto­mat­ed ser­vices saves them mon­ey as they do not require as many tellers to ser­vice their customers.
NCB charges $30.95 for cus­tomers with­draw­ing from the bank’s pro­pri­etary ATMs. This ser­vice was pre­vi­ous­ly free. NCB cus­tomers using non-NCB ATMs will be charged $60, while it will cost $25 to make a bal­ance inquiry in an ATM and $500 for the use of Visa deb­it cards at inter­na­tion­al ATMs.
On the oth­er hand, Scotiabank will charge its cus­tomers, with effect from February 1^st, $25 to with­draw from its own ATMs and $60 from oth­er banks’ machines, with seniors pay­ing a reduced charge of $31. Scotiabank will also charge cus­tomers $312 to with­draw from an inter­na­tion­al ATM. (The Observer reports).

I have been fol­low­ing this sto­ry with some inter­est for some time. It is fair to rec­og­nize Fitz Jackson, People’s National Party mem­ber of par­lia­ment who has been call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to do some­thing to pro­tect the Jamaican peo­ple from the banks for some time.
The Prime Minister urged finan­cial insti­tu­tions to be cog­nizant of the dif­fi­cul­ties Jamaicans are fac­ing, espe­cial­ly dur­ing the nov­el coro­n­avirus pandemic.
The Finance min­is­ter described the banks as tone-deaf. All well and good, but the peo­ple elect­ed the gov­ern­ment to pro­tect them, not just from the ram­pag­ing gun­men wreak­ing ter­ror on the nation, but from rapa­cious vul­tures like the banks charg­ing fees to use their own ATMs.

As is the case with the vio­lence, the gov­ern­ment lacks the met­tle to deal with the bank­ing industry.
The con­tin­ued incom­pe­tence of this admin­is­tra­tion to [leg­is­late] has left the Jamaican peo­ple open to vio­lent onslaughts from ram­pag­ing mur­der­ers and fleeced of the mea­ger resources by the greedy banks.
The sit­ting gov­ern­ment does­n’t need to beg or beseech the bank­ing sec­tor to do a damn thing. Banks oper­ate in a coun­try sub­servient to that coun­try’s laws. The gov­ern­ment owes the peo­ple strong laws pro­tect­ing them from leech­es and blood­suck­ers like the banks. The gov­ern­ment can­not con­tin­ue to act like it has no tools to address this grave assault on the peo­ple as it sits on its hands while the mur­der­ers ram­page, unafraid of consequences.

The admin­is­tra­tion must imme­di­ate­ly pass laws dic­tat­ing what the banks can and can­not do. If they do not like the laws, they can go else­where to do business.
I con­tin­ue to make the case that we can­not run a coun­ty by beg­ging when we should be leg­is­lat­ing. Begging crim­i­nals to stop com­mit­ting crimes. Begging Banks to stop increas­ing fees is luna­cy. If the admin­is­tra­tion is unable to respond to the needs of the peo­ple, then it is time for it to go.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

By Oma Seddiq.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D‑NY, speaks to the media after Senate Democrats met pri­vate­ly with President Joe Biden, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington AP Photo/​Jose Luis Magana

• Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate will move quick­ly to con­firm a Biden Supreme Court nominee.
• The announce­ment came short­ly after news broke about Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement.
• A new Democratic-appoint­ed jus­tice would not change the court’s 6 – 3 con­ser­v­a­tive major­i­ty, but would keep that bal­ance in place.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday announced that the Senate will move quick­ly to con­firm a Supreme Court nom­i­nee to the bench after news of Justice Stephen Breyer’s forth­com­ing retire­ment broke. “President Biden’s Supreme Court nom­i­nee will receive a prompt hear­ing in the Senate Judiciary Committee and be con­sid­ered and con­firmed by the full United States Senate with all delib­er­ate speed,” Schumer said in a state­ment. Breyer is set to step down from the bench at the end of the court’s term this sum­mer, accord­ing to mul­ti­ple news out­lets. The White House and the lib­er­al jus­tice are expect­ed to for­mal­ly announce his retire­ment as ear­ly as Thursday.

Breyer’s retire­ment clears the way for President Joe Biden to appoint his replace­ment. The news comes after pro­gres­sives launched a months-long pub­lic cam­paign demand­ing that Breyer step down while the Senate is still under Democratic con­trol. On the 2020 cam­paign trail, Biden vowed to put the first Black woman on the nation’s high­est court. A new Democratic-appoint­ed jus­tice would not change the Supreme Court’s 6 – 3 con­ser­v­a­tive major­i­ty, but would keep that bal­ance in place. Biden react­ed to the news on Wednesday, say­ing that “there has been no announce­ment from Justice Breyer” and to “let him make what­ev­er state­ment he’s going to make.” “I’ll be hap­py to talk about it lat­er,” the pres­i­dent added. Breyer, 83, is the old­est mem­ber of the court and most senior mem­ber of the court’s lib­er­al wing. A Bill Clinton appointee, Breyer has served on the bench for near­ly 28 years. Schumer praised Breyer’s decades-long judi­cial expe­ri­ence, say­ing he “embod­ies the best qual­i­ties and high­est ideals of American jus­tice.” “His work and his deci­sions as an Associate Justice on the biggest issues of our time — includ­ing vot­ing rights, the envi­ron­ment, wom­en’s repro­duc­tive free­dom, and most recent­ly, health care and the Affordable Care Act — were huge­ly con­se­quen­tial,” Schumer con­tin­ued. “America owes Justice Breyer an enor­mous debt of gratitude.”

Read the orig­i­nal arti­cle on https://​www​.busi​nessin​sid​er​.com/​c​h​u​c​k​-​s​c​h​u​m​e​r​-​s​c​o​t​u​s​-​n​o​m​i​n​e​e​-​w​i​l​l​-​b​e​-​c​o​n​f​i​r​m​e​d​-​w​i​t​h​-​a​l​l​-​d​e​l​i​b​e​r​a​t​e​-​s​p​e​e​d​-​2​022 – 1

The leader of the People’s National Party Mark Golding’s call for the Commissioner of Police Antony Anderson to demit office with­in six­ty days(60) should be seen for the decep­tive poi­son pill that it is and noth­ing to be tak­en seriously.
Golding’s call for the Commissioner of Police to resign comes against the back­drop of the over a hun­dred mur­ders com­mit­ted on the Island in just the first 23 days of January.
However, Golding gave away the true motive for his poi­son-pill call to resign when he stat­ed that Antony Anderson is the archi­tect of the Government’s States of Emergencies.
Golding incor­rect­ly stat­ed that no oth­er com­mis­sion­er of police has ever used SOEs as a crime-fight­ing tool as Anderson has.

Mark Golding’s argu­ments lack mer­it or truth; how­ev­er, it revealed that he is opposed to police doing their jobs in get­ting into the Garrisons and root­ing out the murderers.
Golding’s argu­ment that SOEs abro­gate the rights of Jamaicans is not based on facts but polit­i­cal hyper­bole. SOEs and ZOSOs may not be effec­tive polic­ing tools but to sug­gest that they abro­gate the rights of cit­i­zens is bla­tant polit­i­cal pos­tur­ing that does not help the situation.
Insisting that Anderson is the only com­mis­sion­er to use SOEs as a main crime-fight­ing tool shows the depth of Mark Golding’s igno­rance on the issue of crime. Golding con­tin­ues to be stuck in the 70s, mak­ing the very same crim­i­nal rights argu­ments in the face of mas­sive blood­let­ting when the focus ought to be on crime victims.
Mark Golding’s igno­rant bel­li­cos­i­ty reminds us why the Jamaican peo­ple sum­mar­i­ly dis­card­ed his par­ty in the last elections.
Without the Garrison com­mu­ni­ties, I doubt whether the PNP would have retained a sin­gle seat in the low­er house today.
Every com­mis­sion­er of police dat­ing back to the 1970s has been forced to use States of Emergencies as part of their crime-fight­ing strategies.
It is fair to say that SOEs and ZOSOs can­not be the only tool; he would have been cor­rect had Golding made that argument.

But the PNP has nev­er cared about crime in Jamaica, so Mark Golding pon­tif­i­cat­ing about the com­mis­sion­er resign­ing is base­less and non­sen­si­cal based on the met­rics he outlined.
The oppo­si­tion leader with a mere 14 seats in the 63 ‑seat leg­is­la­ture would serve the Nation bet­ter by giv­ing the names of the gang­sters oper­at­ing in his Arnett Gardens gar­ri­son con­stituen­cy to the police.
That infor­ma­tion would go a long way in help­ing the police in their fight to save Jamaica and help all Jamaicans with their most impor­tant right; the right to life…
This non­sense argu­ment of talk­ing about rights when­ev­er the ques­tion of Jamaica’s vio­lent crim­i­nals comes up is worn out and tired. No one wants to hear it except Mark Golding and his acolytes in the PNP.
Jamaicans want solu­tions to the killings, not false equivalences.
Going after crim­i­nals using all the tools avail­able to the gov­ern­ment is in no way equal to abro­gat­ing the rights of citizens.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

I have been say­ing for years that the sit­u­a­tion that pro­duces the killings in Jamaica are not ordi­nary crim­i­nal activ­i­ties but rather more sin­is­ter acts that destroy nation-states.
Nigeria is the most pop­u­lous state in Africa, yet Government cor­rup­tion and incom­pe­tence allowed Boka Haram and oth­er crim­i­nal gangs to fes­ter into major threats to nation­al security.
Today Nigeria is a shell of what it could have been because crim­i­nal gangs rule entire swaths of the oil-rich nation.
In July 2010, Boko Haram’s for­mer sec­ond-in-com­mand, Abubakar Shekau, appeared in a video claim­ing the group’s lead­er­ship and threat­en­ing attacks on Western influ­ences in Nigeria.
Later that month, Shekau issued a sec­ond state­ment express­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty with al-Qa‘ida and threat­en­ing the United States. Under Shekau’s lead­er­ship, the group has con­tin­ued to demon­strate grow­ing oper­a­tional capa­bil­i­ties, with increas­ing use of impro­vised explo­sive device (IED), vehi­cle-borne IED (VBIED), and female sui­cide attacks against a wide range of tar­gets. (dni​.gov)
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​g​o​v​t​-​o​p​p​o​s​i​t​i​o​n​-​b​u​l​l​-​s​h​i​t​t​i​n​g​-​t​h​e​-​n​a​t​i​o​n​-​o​n​-​c​r​i​me/

In-coun­try after coun­try, from Venezuala to Nicaragua, from Sudan to Haiti, and from Colombia to Honduras, we have seen the evi­dence of what incom­pe­tent, cor­rupt gov­ern­ments accom­plish, [all leftist].
They breed pover­ty that mor­phe into crim­i­nal­i­ty, end­ing in those nations seg­ment­ed into basi­cal­ly ungovern­able enclaves.
The lead­er­ship of those nations is so inher­ent­ly cor­rupt that they are com­fort­able as weak gov­ern­ments that have pre­cious­ly lit­tle sway out­side their nation’s capitals.
Providing basic ser­vices becomes the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the Gangs, and so the peo­ple’s loy­al­ty is no longer to the gov­ern­ment but to their [don], or Godfather.
Christopher (dud­dus) Coke was by far not the only [don] in Jamaica, but his reach and pow­er over the gov­ern­ment of both polit­i­cal par­ties speak to the depth of cor­rup­tion in Jamaica.
The pow­er he accu­mu­lat­ed and what he got away with is one for the his­to­ry books if the crim­i­nal co-con­spir­a­tors at the University of the West Indies and his syco­phants in the media do not roman­ti­cize the blood­shed and car­nage he brought on the nation.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​i​t​-​i​s​-​a​b​s​o​l​u​t​e​l​y​-​f​a​i​r​-​g​a​m​e​-​t​o​-​h​o​l​d​-​t​h​e​-​g​o​v​e​r​n​m​e​n​t​-​r​e​s​p​o​n​s​i​b​l​e​-​f​o​r​-​f​a​i​l​i​n​g​-​a​t​-​i​t​s​-​m​o​s​t​-​b​a​s​i​c​-​f​u​n​c​t​i​on/

[I] do not believe that the Maroons have a legit­i­mate claim to auton­o­my in Jamaica. We are one Jamaica under God, indi­vis­i­ble, one people.
The Maroons are cit­i­zens of Jamaica and are sub­ject to Jamaican law. However, the incom­pe­tence and inher­ent cor­rup­tion of suc­ces­sive admin­is­tra­tions of both polit­i­cal par­ties have allowed the non­sense of Maroon auton­o­my to fes­ter to the point that we saw the Maroon leader pick up a weapon alleged­ly threat­en­ing law enforce­ment in our country.
After a con­fronta­tion with police in which Richard Currie was seen with a shot­gun slung across his back, Currie bragged that he need­ed no per­mis­sion to defend his peo­ple from the state.
That was a direct threat against the state that should have result­ed in a swift response from the gov­ern­ment that brought all maroon com­mu­ni­ties under the full con­trol of the government.
However, a weak and immoral gov­ern­ment has no author­i­ty to take that kind of action, so Currie and his brig­ands thumbed their noses at the state and are more embold­ened. At the same time, the Firearms Licencing Authority con­ducts a ‘probe’ into how Currie came by the weapon.
It requires a few sec­onds to deter­mine whether or not Richard Currie is a licensed firearms hold­er; that’s it. However, every gov­ern­ment agency is cor­rupt, so the Jamaican peo­ple are led to believe that a probe takes months , years even.
All it takes are a few mouse clicks, but they would be forced to react to their find­ings if they pro­duce a time­ly answer.
So they leave it alone, allow­ing the prob­lem to fes­ter into a sore that will result in some form of amputation.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​h​o​l​n​e​s​s​-​p​a​n​d​e​r​e​d​-​t​o​-​c​r​i​m​i​n​a​l​-​r​i​g​h​t​s​-​l​o​b​b​y​-​r​e​s​u​l​t​i​n​g​-​i​n​-​o​v​e​r​-​1​6​0​0​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​e​d​-​l​a​s​t​-​y​e​ar/

Who can blame Richard Currie However, Currie has seen Duddus reign of ter­ror over 2.7 mil­lion peo­ple, which pro­duced no con­se­quence in Jamaica.
Since he [may] not be involved in that lev­el of crim­i­nal­i­ty, one can see how he would rea­son that he does not have to obey Jamaican laws.
Engaging with, and hin­der­ing the police in the law­ful dis­charge of their duties is a crim­i­nal offense, a sim­ple reminder for those who will argue that I am mak­ing Currie a crim­i­nal.
Whatever the think­ing of the Maroons today, it is easy to under­stand why they would want to secede from Jamaica with its hun­dreds of crim­i­nal gangs com­mit­ting hun­dreds of mur­ders each year on the tiny Island.
Even though I’m afraid I have to dis­agree with Currie on Maroon Sovereignty, I empathize with his peo­ple’s desire to have auton­o­my over their lives, free from the two crim­i­nal gangs that run our country.
The dan­ger is so grave that for­eign jour­nal­ists have done numer­ous doc­u­men­taries on the gangs oper­at­ing in our coun­try. Yet, the Jamaican gov­ern­ment sits on its ass and does absolute­ly noth­ing to exter­mi­nate them.
In those inter­views, Gang lead­ers and mem­bers can clear­ly be iden­ti­fied; they brag about the killings they did, flash their weapons with pride, and brag about the dif­fer­ent crimes they commit.
The Government does nothing!
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​n​o​-​n​o​-​p​r​i​m​e​-​m​i​n​i​s​t​e​r​-​y​o​u​-​g​o​t​-​i​t​-​a​l​l​-​w​r​o​ng/

From Mountain View to Mount Salem, Criminal gangs have carved up Jamaica into turfs. At the same time, the Government points to new Police Stations and young gazetted offi­cers in stu­pid lit­tle cos­tumes with more degrees than a thermometer.
The sad real­i­ty is that many of those senior com­man­ders can­not inves­ti­gate their way out of a brown paper bag and, on the issue of polic­ing, can­not tell the dif­fer­ence between their heads and their asses.
No one is safe any­where; gangs have the man­pow­er and capa­bil­i­ty to strike any­where, any­time, and kill anyone.
We saw how eas­i­ly gangs ter­mi­nat­ed the Haitian president.
More impor­tant­ly, we saw some of the alleged prin­ci­pals decid­ing to flee to Jamaica, the crim­i­nal par­adise where they thought they would escape the con­se­quences of their actions.
Why did they choose Jamaica?
They chose Jamaica because they know there is a weak and inef­fec­tu­al gov­ern­ment in Kingston. They know that Jamaica has all but become the crime cap­i­tal of the entire world. That is the rea­son they threw in their lot with hid­ing out in Jamaica.

Here is how to deal with this threat to National secu­ri­ty, begin­ning with Mountain View.
Marshall assets of the Jamaica Defense Force, have a few pla­toons of the JDF come over the back of the moun­tain and seal off any escape back up the moun­tain. When those assets are in place, rapid­ly seal off the area from moun­tain view avenue to the south, Rockfort to the east, and upper Mountain View Avenue to the west, then slow­ly and delib­er­ate­ly squeeze the cir­cle toward the middle.
Once the area is sealed, police and sol­diers with dogs and bull­doz­ers tear down all unoc­cu­pied build­ings. Remove all zinc feces and find the guns and the shoot­ers, mov­ing inch by inch.
Arrest those who decide to sur­ren­der peace­ably and oth­er­wise glad­ly oblige those who decide to resist.
Once this is done effec­tive­ly, estab­lish a police pres­ence in the area, bring in social work­ers, and estab­lish social programs.
Bring this approach to every nook and cran­ny of the Island where gangs are oper­at­ing and watch Jamaica return to respectability.
There is noth­ing inhu­mane or against human rights in the gov­ern­ment doing what it must to pro­tect the peo­ple. The most impor­tant task the gov­ern­ment has is to pro­tect the population.
The gov­ern­ment can­not con­tin­ue to lis­ten to the mon­grels in Jamaicans For Justice and oth­er crim­i­nal sup­port­ing groups in our coun­try that have noth­ing to say about the inno­cent peo­ple who are being murdered.
We must fix our coun­try; those who stand in the way, the ene­mies of Jamaica one way or anoth­er [must] be moved out of the way, regard­less of what cov­er they use to hide under to sup­port murderers.
The Colombian peo­ple awak­ened and Los Pepes was born; Jamaica may have to con­sid­er a sim­i­lar recourse if the gov­ern­ment refus­es to do what it was elect­ed to do.
https://​www​.face​book​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​/​?​v​=​4​3​8​9​9​4​8​7​7​7​6​8​836

Here is the thing the Government will not act on this advice, and the oppo­si­tion par­ty will scream blue mur­der if this com­mon-sense approach is adopted.
Why?
Neither par­ty wants this prob­lem fixed; much too much is at stake mon­e­tar­i­ly in this dan­ger­ous con­tract killings and extor­tion game.
As long as the so-called dons have respon­si­bil­i­ty for pro­vid­ing for the needs of the poor, atten­tion is divert­ed away from the fail­ings of gov­ern­ment. People are less inclined to pay atten­tion to the real­i­ty that noth­ing is get­ting done.
Roads that were beau­ti­ful­ly asphalt­ed across the coun­try three decades ago are now lit­tle more than dirt tracks; once beau­ti­ful neigh­bor­hoods are now reduced to gang-infest­ed territories.
Administrations of both polit­i­cal par­ties steal from the pub­lic and are not called on to deliv­er for the people.
The [Dons] are the de fac­to rulers of Jamaica.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

Unconfirmed reports sug­gest this weapon is in the hands of the crim­i­nal under­world; we have not inde­pen­dent­ly con­firmed whether this is so or not.

Blatant day­light rob­bers, total­ly uncon­cerned about police or being caught. Back in the days, when we were told the force was a dunce and stu­pid force, this would be a dan­ger­ous excur­sion for these punks.

Unattended child luck­i­ly escapes death on a busy road­way; what are the con­se­quences to these errant parents?

Members of the Counter-Terrorism and Organized Crime (CTOC) Investigations Branch con­duct­ed a raid in the Jarret Lane area of Mountain View Avenue, where the weapons were recovered.
Intelligence-based polic­ing does bear real fruits.

According to local media, the police have list­ed two St James res­i­dents as want­ed in con­nec­tion with sep­a­rate mur­ders com­mit­ted in the parish. They are 24-year-old Nickeelo Lewis, oth­er­wise called ‘Keelo,’ of Lilliput in the parish, and 31-year-old Kenroy Roach, oth­er­wise called ‘Tika,’ of Hampton dis­trict, also in the parish. The police urged both men to turn them­selves in imme­di­ate­ly. Lewis has been impli­cat­ed in the mur­der of Chevaine Stephens, oth­er­wise called ‘Alex,’ who was shot dead in Ocean Heights on Tuesday, January 4, 2022. Meanwhile, Roach has been impli­cat­ed in the mur­der of Jermain Brown, oth­er­wise called ‘Trevor,’ who was killed in Hopeton dis­trict on March 6, 2021. (Observer)
Sadly as soon as the police lock them up, the dirty judges turn them loose to kill again and again.

Well, over a year ago, Horace Chang told the Jamaican peo­ple quote,” you haf­fi give Tony a chance.” The state­ment was made amidst con­tin­u­ing esca­lat­ing homi­cide num­bers and oth­er crimes. Horace Chang is a med­ical doc­tor who is also the nation­al secu­ri­ty minister.
In the same breadth, Chang is a mem­ber of par­lia­ment for one of the most dan­ger­ous crime-rid­den gar­risons in Saint James and the entire country.
Law-abid­ing Jamaicans had no choice in decid­ing whether ‘Tony’ deserved a chance to remain in the cushy job of Police Commissioner. The cabal that makes deci­sions on those mat­ters had already giv­en him a fresh three-year con­tract. He was reaf­firmed to a job he is not qual­i­fied for. He was nev­er a police offi­cer, nor has he any train­ing in law enforce­ment or law.
Antony Anderson was head of the Island’s mil­i­tary, a force of rough­ly 3’000 sol­diers. The Island’s prime min­is­ter ele­vat­ed him to nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er, a post that was a first for Jamaica and cre­at­ed just for him.
Despite Antony Anderson’s lack of polic­ing bona fides, the Services Commission approved an $18 mil­lion annu­al salary pack­age for him, one that exceed­ed the salary of any for­mer police commissioner.
Not only did the Service Commission approve the com­par­a­tive­ly hefty pay pack­age for Anderson, it resist­ed reveal­ing the details of the pack­age, under the guise that there is a need for pri­va­cy, even though the Jamaican peo­ple are foot­ing the bill.

Under pres­sure by media enti­ties using the free­dom of infor­ma­tion act (FOA), the Commission caved and released the details of Anderson’s pay package.
It is impor­tant to remem­ber that Antony Anderson is on his sec­ond con­tract, and his con­tract includes pro­vi­sions for his per­for­mance to be assessed. It reaf­firmed his duties as the oper­a­tional com­man­der of the force. Still, it express­ly not­ed that he was to under­take oth­er jobs stip­u­lat­ed in terms of ref­er­ence and per­for­mance tar­gets nego­ti­at­ed with the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Ministry of National Security. Anderson must also com­ply with any agreed per­for­mance appraisal sys­tem the PSC requires and pro­vide the com­mis­sion, par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tees, or oth­er author­i­ties with reports as directed.
[Performance tar­gets], the only way Anderson can ratio­nal­ly con­tin­ue in his job is if those tar­gets mean he must to per­form poor­ly. Based on whats hap­pen­ing in Jamaica with vio­lent crime.
There is an inex­plic­a­ble well of good­will for Anderson, even among for­mer mem­bers of the force and the wider soci­ety. This good­will nev­er exist­ed for for­mer police com­mis­sion­ers of police, and that has kept Anderson at the head of the Constabulary even as his record of per­for­mance becomes more and more abysmal.
Former mem­bers, too, have con­sumed the prover­bial cool-aid, falling for hype and charis­ma, where data-dri­ven per­for­mance was the require­ment for for­mer com­mis­sion­ers who came up through the ranks.

I have no ani­mus toward Commissioner Anderson; I intend only to lay bare the facts for the Jamaican peo­ple to come to their own con­clu­sion on this exis­ten­tial mat­ter of vio­lent crimes.
I am sure that were I giv­en a job for which fail­ure was not a prob­lem and paid $18 mil­lion annu­al­ly, I would do my darn­d­est to keep that job. It is not Anderson’s fault.
His boss, Horace Chang, who stud­ied med­i­cine and whom a for­mer col­league remind­ed me once referred to the police as glo­ri­fied secu­ri­ty guards, is reap­ing the same rewards of hold­ing a job for which he has zero qualifications.
However, in Jamaica, a degree in one thing qual­i­fies the hold­er for everything!
Speaking at a non­sense con­fer­ence head­lined From Force to Service put on by the Caribbean Policy Research Institute in part­ner­ship with the Institute of Criminal Justice and Security in September of 2018, Horace Chang said the following;
The JCF was large­ly designed to pro­tect the inter­ests of prop­er­ty own­ers, “where we trained them for six months in mil­i­tary drill, gave them some dis­ci­pline, gave them a big pine baton and a Lee Enfield rifle, and then we com­plain that they shoot or beat up somebody.” 
“Now we have to reori­ent that, retrain and restruc­ture the force to accom­mo­date the young pro­fes­sion­als who are inter­est­ed in law enforcement.”
This guy could eas­i­ly be talk­ing about some dogs, but he was talk­ing about the Islands police offi­cers..…..

Horace Chang back­tracked and blamed the media in the ensu­ing brouha­ha from the police and its rank-and-file union.
Chang told the union that the media report­ing made it seem like his com­ments were about the cur­rent mem­bers of the JCF, as opposed to the sys­tem and struc­ture of the force.’
In oth­er words, Chang told them, do not believe your lying ears; believe what I tell you.
And so, we face this exis­ten­tial cri­sis of our coun­try being the most mur­der­ous of all the coun­tries with­in the Caribbean and Latin-American region, which is the most vio­lent region on our plan­et. In the most vio­lent region on Earth, Jamaica is the most violent.
As Jamaicans, we must come togeth­er to save our coun­try in the face of the bla­tant abdi­ca­tion of duty by those elect­ed to lead.
I con­tin­ue to speak to the dam­age that the University of The West Indies con­tin­ues to do, not just to Jamaica but to Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, and all across the Caribbean with its left­ist teach­ings that cod­dle criminals.
Throughout Jamaica and the Caribbean, the same strain of left­ist garbage can be found in the lead­ers that insti­tu­tion turns out to destroy the region with lib­er­al left­ist poli­cies that aid and abets transna­tion­al criminals.
The brain­wash­ing from that sin­gle insti­tu­tion now dom­i­nates all aspects of nation­al life. This includes not just law enforce­ment but the kinds of laws writ­ten and passed and how they are enforced.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

I will be the first to admit I’m no trav­el writer; how­ev­er, it is hard, at least for me, to soak up Jamaica’s nat­ur­al beau­ty with­out shar­ing a few snap­shots with you.
Thanks to the con­ve­nience of the iPhone, walk­ing around with my Canon Easy-share seemed rather odd to every­one I imagined.
So my iPhone it was.

There is so much to enjoy if we stop and under­stand how beau­ti­ful our coun­try is.

Preservation of our coral reefs has allowed our marine life to flourish.

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I mar­vel at the beau­ty and seren­i­ty of the place.

My wife agrees.

A house that is built on a rock.

They say Democracy dies in the dark; I dis­agree; democ­ra­cy dies when we fail to open our eyes to those killing it.
Who can hon­est­ly say they did not see what Donald Trump was doing from as ear­ly as 2015 when he was tout­ing a run for the United States presidency?
You should not lie that in 2015 ‑2016 you did not see reporters repeat­ed­ly ask him if he lost the elec­tions, would he con­cede, and he refused to say he would. You saw it, yet mil­lions of you vot­ed for him.
This was the very first time in any of our lives that we had seen a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date refuse to say he would abide by the norms estab­lished by the found­ing fathers of this great republic.
What did you think he would do if he refused to abide by the most basic estab­lished norms that had guid­ed the actions of pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates for the life of the republic?

When he attacked the foun­da­tion pil­lars of the repub­lic, what did you think was behind that? The Courts, the Media, the Investigative Agencies of Government that we all trust to keep the nation safe from ene­mies from with­in and with­out; did you not see the strat­e­gy as alien to American polit­i­cal culture?
You saw him go on a sys­temic cru­sade against media hous­es that refused to par­rot his pro­pa­gan­da and lies; what did you think that was about? Are you going to pre­tend that you did not know that those char­ac­ter­is­tics were exact­ly indica­tive of the behav­ior of would-be dictators?
Oh, by the way, in addi­tion to tak­ing on the per­sona of strong­men, he open­ly expressed ado­ra­tion for them; Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, North Korea’s Kim Jon- Un, China’s Xi Jinping, Philippines Rodrigo Duterte, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and oth­er despots around the globe.

He also open­ly pre­tend­ed to joke about being pres­i­dent for life if he was elect­ed; after he was elect­ed, he open­ly flout­ed the idea of remain­ing pres­i­dent for sev­er­al terms.
None of this has ever hap­pened before, but Americans pre­tend­ed that this was nor­mal. In 2016, Americans elect­ed the most immoral, rep­re­hen­si­ble, amoral and cor­rupt human being to be their pres­i­dent over an accom­plished woman.
Donald Trump ham­mered away at American Democracy through­out his four-year pres­i­den­cy with help from sur­ro­gates inside and out­side the Republican party.
Trump com­mit­ted every crime a pres­i­dent could com­mit, and he knew he would lose the 2020 elec­tions. Still, he had a plan to stay in pow­er. That plan was to stack the Supreme Court with as many Justices as he could; he added three in his sin­gle term with the help of the Mitch McConnell anti-democ­ra­cy Republican conference.
Trump planned to have some Republican states declare that they could not deter­mine the win­ner of the elec­tions in their state, which would toss the mat­ter to the house of rep­re­sen­ta­tives, where Republicans had a 26 – 24 major­i­ty of state leg­is­la­tures they control.
This would ulti­mate­ly toss the elec­tions to the Supreme Court he had recent­ly remade with his stooges Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amey Coney Barrett, in addi­tion to the three that were there pre­vi­ous­ly, John Roberts, Samuel Alito a hyper-par­ti­san and of course Uncle Clarence Tom-Ass.

Despite every­thing Donald Trump did before and dur­ing the 2016 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, he was elect­ed pres­i­dent, and there­after he began dis­man­tling American Democracy.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Trump’s chief strate­gist Steve Bannon said that Trump’s cab­i­net picks were aimed at the “decon­struc­tion of the admin­is­tra­tive state,” mean­ing weak­en­ing reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies and oth­er bureau­crat­ic entities.
A dunce him­self, Trump chose Betsy DeVos to run the edu­ca­tion depart­ment, Louis Dejoy to head the US postal ser­vice, and a host of oth­er flunkies vehe­ment­ly opposed to how the agen­cies and cab­i­net posi­tions they were head­ing operated.
Steven Mnuchin at Treasury, Jeff Sessions at Justice, Ryan Zinke at Interior, Ben Carson at Housing, Scott Pruit at the E.P.A, con­firmed what Bannon had bragged about to their CPAC Klan rally.

What exact­ly did Donald Trump, a failed busi­ness­man, bring to the table that caused him to be elect­ed pres­i­dent of the United States after he was heard brag­ging on tape just before the elec­tions that he grabbed young women by their genitalia?
I mean, the pop­u­lar Gary Hart was dead in the water for far less, Howard Dean tanked after let­ting off a freak­ish howl. Bush senior lost the elec­tion arguably because he did not know the price of a loaf of bread.
American polit­i­cal his­to­ry is replete with can­di­dates of both polit­i­cal par­ties fail­ing due to the prover­bial October sur­prise. Usually, some issue came up that shocked voters.
Donald Trump’s past and present were not just sor­did; they were dis­gust­ing and com­plete­ly unsuit­able for dog-catch­er, much less the pres­i­den­cy of the United States.
So what was it about Trump that caused Americans to elect him the 45^th United States pres­i­dent? Please do not tell me that he was a busi­ness­man from out­side Washington DC, it is a crock, and you all know it.
It is the same sto­ry that the main­stream media fed the nation for decades about white blue-col­lar work­ers, rather than call­ing them what they tru­ly are, large­ly une­d­u­cat­ed racist white people.

What was it that caused them to turn out to vote for Donald Trump in num­bers nev­er before seen for a Republican pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, 75 mil­lion? What was Donald Trump’s appeal despite all of his crimes and faux pas, racism, and being the first pres­i­dent in his­to­ry to be impeached twice, and in a sin­gle term?
Was any­one sur­prised that despite every­thing Donald Trump was allowed to get away with, he decid­ed to orches­trate a coup d’ e’tat against the American Constitution and gov­ern­ment to make him­self pres­i­dent for life?
Trump’s plan has always been to seize pow­er then pass on lead­er­ship to his under­lings as he sees fit, as is the case in the coun­tries named above run by bru­tal dictators.

Every one of those 75 mil­lion who vot­ed for him knew what he was about. Some were not sophis­ti­cat­ed enough to under­stand that he want­ed to be King, but it would not have mat­tered even if they were that smart.
Retaining an America in which whites are priv­i­leged, and every oth­er race is sub­servient to whites has been far more impor­tant to some than retain­ing the world’s old­est democracy.
That was what inspired them to turn out on January 6^th in their thou­sands to over­throw the American exper­i­ment to install an imbe­cil­ic moron who would do what­ev­er they want­ed to fur­ther white dom­i­na­tion over oth­er races in America.
He is an amoral char­ac­ter who will do any­thing to enrich him­self, includ­ing tear­ing down the coun­try he claims to love but is inca­pable of loving.
President Joe Biden gath­ered over 100 world lead­ers at a sum­mit and made a plea to bol­ster democ­ra­cies, call­ing safe­guard­ing rights and free­doms in the face of ris­ing author­i­tar­i­an­ism the “defin­ing chal­lenge” of the cur­rent era.
Nowhere is Democracy in greater dan­ger than in the world’s old­est democ­ra­cy, right here in America, where the Trump-packed Supreme court and Republican leg­is­la­tures across the coun­try have placed American democ­ra­cy on life support.
For the court, prece­dent in vot­ing and oth­er rights mean noth­ing. At the same time, the leg­is­la­tures use vot­er-sup­pres­sion laws and ger­ry­man­der­ing to select the vot­ers they choose rather than the vot­ers choos­ing them.
If and when American falls, so too will the remain­ing few democ­ra­cies across the globe; some esti­mates say only 20-per­cent of the world’s peo­ple live in a free country.
Only one in five peo­ple live in a soci­ety that can be called free, and it is get­ting worse.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

The tiny Island-nation of Barbados recent­ly became a repub­lic, effec­tive­ly tak­ing charge of its own des­tiny while main­tain­ing a rela­tion­ship with Britain that is based on mutu­al respect.
This was a long time com­ing for the tiny island nation of 287,371 cit­i­zens whom many Jamaicans over the years libeled as hav­ing a colo­nial­ist men­tal­i­ty, one that was still shack­led to the old slaver, England.
Look who is colo­nial­ist now!
Or is it that despite the brava­do and bull­shit attempt at con­vinc­ing our­selves we are so bril­liant, we Jamaicans are just a bunch of weak-mind­ed descen­dants of slaves still suf­fer­ing from Stockholm syn­drome? Too dumb or too full of shit to pull the coun­try’s nose from the rear end of our sov­er­eign lady the queen? (sic).

Early last Tuesday morn­ing, as the coun­try took the reins to full auton­o­my, Prime Minister Mia Mottley said: “We believe that the time has come for us to claim our full des­tiny.
The tiny Island Nation decid­ed on 72-year old Sandra Mason, a for­mer Governor-General, to be its first pres­i­dent as a full free sov­er­eign nation.
“Today, debate and dis­course have become action,” Ms. Mason told the onlook­ers gath­ered in the cap­i­tal, Bridgetown. “Today, we set our com­pass to a new direc­tion.”
Those of you who fol­low this medi­um know that one of the things I have called for over the years is for our coun­try Jamaica to shed Britain and chart our own des­tiny. What, oh, what could Jamaica gain from main­tain­ing sec­ond-class cit­i­zen­ship under its old colo­nial dom­i­na­tor England?
How could a nation that pro­duced Bustamante, Norman Manley, Hugh Shearer, Michael Manley, Marcus Garvey, & Bob Marley con­tin­ue to be a nation of pre­tenders, men­tal­ly strick­en with the malig­nant con­di­tion Stockholm syndrome?

I, too, believed that Barbados appeared clos­est aligned to Britain and what she stands for of all the so-called inde­pen­dent English-speak­ing Caribbean nations. However, I may have missed that on a per capi­ta basis, Barbados has one of the high­est lit­er­a­cy rates in the world,96.6%, accord­ing to world pop­u­la­tion review.
That has to count for some­thing. It has to fac­tor in what new­ly installed pres­i­dent Sandra Mason said, “Today, debate and dis­course have become action’.
Not asi­nine mind-numb­ing igno­rant bang­ing on desks and hurl­ing child­ish insults at each oth­er. Not arro­gance and igno­rance, not brava­do and balder­dash, and damn sure not pre­tense that they are some­thing they are not.
Debate and dis­course becom­ing action.

In the video pre­sen­ta­tion above, I spoke of a time when every­one in the English-speak­ing Caribbean respect­ed us and want­ed to emu­late us. They did­n’t both­er cor­rect­ing out­siders who mis­took their accent for our Jamaica accent. Our coun­try was respect­ed and revered; she was con­sid­ered the cen­ter of the Caribbean; when Hugh Shearer or Michael Manley spoke, they were basi­cal­ly speak­ing for the entire region.
Today our coun­try lost most of our man­u­fac­tur­ing to Trinidad. The arro­gance of our union­ized work­ers who believed that being union­ized was a license to be rude, abra­sive, and lazy effec­tive­ly helped to dri­ve all of our com­pa­nies away to Trinidad & Tobago, anoth­er proud Republic.
Quality con­trol Worker caught sleep­ing on the job got fired, this led to work stop­page and demand that pro­duc­tion stopped until the errant work­er was reinstated.
What com­pa­ny would want to oper­ate in that kind of insane cor­rupt, and law­less environment?
Corrupt politi­cians allowed their gangs to extort the remain­ing com­pa­nies, run away util­i­ty, and oper­at­ing costs drove the final few away.

A coun­try so law­less that feed­er nations tell their nation­als to only stay in all-inclu­sive resorts if they decide to risk vis­it­ing our coun­try. Truth be told, most of our res­i­dents in the dias­po­ra choose the rel­a­tive safe­ty of the all-inclu­sive hotels when they ven­ture home. And who can blame them for tak­ing the nec­es­sary steps to secure them­selves and their families?
The down­side to the fore­gone is that the mon­ey spent in the all-inclu­sive hotels end up in the pock­ets of rich hote­liers over­seas, most of whom are [not] Jamaicans.
If the tourist dol­lar hard­ly gets any fur­ther inland than the major hotels on the shores, it is easy to see how the aver­age Jamaican is get­ting short-changed by not hav­ing access to vis­i­tors who once pur­chased arts and craft, sam­pled restau­rants and bars, and oth­er businesses.
All of this is because of the cri­sis of lead­er­ship that took over our coun­try from the ear­ly ’70s through to the present.
There may be the per­cep­tion of con­tra­dic­tion in my state­ments relat­ed to Michael Manley, whose grave errors may have pre­cip­i­tat­ed the nev­er-end­ing decline we are in as a coun­try. Still, it would be unfair to ignore Michael Manley’s con­tri­bu­tion in awak­en­ing aware­ness in Jamaicans to the need for self-reliance, auton­o­my, and agency.
Michael Manley was a walk­ing con­tra­dic­tion; his pol­i­tics was as alien to me as Mars is to earth. I do believe, how­ev­er, that had Michael Manley lived today, he would be lament­ing that his coun­try is still inex­plic­a­bly teth­ered to the skirt tails of Britain, still choos­ing to smell the foul wind from her racist backside.

Look at what we have become; a nation of pre­tenders, thieves, scam­mers, hus­tlers, mur­der­ers, rapists, and abusers of our chil­dren — a nation with the dubi­ous dis­tinc­tion as one of the most vio­lent places on our planet.
A nation where our lead­ers refuse to course-cor­rect their own mis­takes because they are too arro­gant to say,’ I made a mistake.
A nation in which we plug the port­holes, orga­nize the deck-chairs, and strike up the band on the sink­ing Titanic.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

The pri­ma­ry focus of my crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy has con­sis­tent­ly been that we must throw out the old template.
We must first change our mind­set. Change our laws. Change how we respond to crim­i­nal con­duct. Change how we respond to law enforcement.
I know it is a heavy lift, but out­side of armed insur­rec­tion to course-cor­rect, I believe this may be the last best chance for the coun­try to.….…..well, course-correct.
In writ­ing about this sub­ject over the years, I have laid out strate­gies that will stop the blood­shed if the com­mon-sense approach­es I pro­posed are followed.

AUDIO VERSION OF ARTICLE

(1) Penalties for vio­lent crime that make it clear we will not tol­er­ate vio­lent crimes in our country.
(2) Truth in sen­tenc­ing, mean­ing that the sen­tence stip­u­lat­ed by the law is the sen­tence vio­lent offend­ers serve in prison.
(3) Mandator Minimum sen­tences for vio­lent offend­ers, whether they use firearms or machetes to com­mit vio­lent acts.
(4) Remove from the con­trol of judges the sen­tence vio­lent gang­sters receive.
(5) Make the sen­tence for mur­der a min­i­mum of 25 years in prison and a max­i­mum life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.
(6) No bail for mur­der accused.
(7) Speedy tri­al for mur­der accused.
(8) Change crim­i­nal-focused strat­e­gy to a vic­tim-focused strat­e­gy; wor­ry less about crim­i­nals, focus on crime victims.
(9) Create nation­al secu­ri­ty pol­i­cy based on Jamaica’s unique needs, not what for­eign inter­ests want.
(10) Invest heav­i­ly in crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion techniques.

The ten-point plan I offered up is a sure-proof way to take back our coun­try from vio­lent mur­der­ers. In each bul­let point of the plan are strate­gies to be dis­cussed and worked out.
It is not a plan devised in the halls of acad­e­mia. It is not a plan devised from the back offices of crim­i­nal sup­port­ing cabals.
It is a com­mon-sense approach that comes from a crime fight­er who bled his shoes full of blood defend­ing the peo­ple of my country.
As I was work­ing on this arti­cle, a for­mer col­league texted me the fol­low­ing; “They would rather pay mil­lions to some con­sul­tants for some pie in the sky solu­tion, instead of get­ting it from peo­ple like you.”
“They are using crime as a polit­i­cal foot­ball whilst the coun­try is bleed­ing.”
This esteemed col­league and I entered the Police Academy on the same day in January of 1982. Unfortunately for him, he can­not walk; a gun­man’s bul­let sev­ered his spine in the line of duty years ago. He has no police detail pro­tect­ing him.

The frame­work need­ed to estab­lish Jamaica as a nation of laws is not dif­fi­cult; nei­ther polit­i­cal par­ty wants to adopt mea­sures that will stop the bloodshed.
If this ten-point plan I have been propos­ing for years is adopt­ed, it will begin the slow and tedious reduc­tion in mur­ders and oth­er vio­lent crimes that ZOSO’s and SOE’s indi­vid­u­al­ly or com­bined could nev­er hope to achieve.
So as they refuse to take coun­sel, we must ask whether they are seri­ous about reduc­ing vio­lent crimes, or are they mere­ly blow­ing smoke up the col­lec­tive ass of the people?
In a nation where there are not ade­quate laws, peo­ple do as they are allowed. It was no won­der that the Chief Justice was stunned that tele­com com­pa­nies could stymie and refuse to hand over cell phone data to the police who were legit­i­mate­ly engaged in mur­der investigations.
In the larg­er scheme of things, I would imag­ine those police inves­ti­ga­tors and the pros­e­cut­ing attor­ney could have gone to a judge and obtained a war­rant to secure the evi­dence they need­ed but there is no evi­dence that they both­ered pur­su­ing that route.

Presiding over the Klansman gang tri­al, the senior judge asked whether the pros­e­cu­tion had the call data to match what the senior police inves­ti­ga­tor tes­ti­fied to. The senior jurist was told that the tele­com com­pa­nies placed block­ades in the way of the police. Simply put, the tele­phone com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in Jamaica active­ly hin­dered the inves­ti­ga­tions into a major orga­nized crime syn­di­cate that took numer­ous lives.
How can a coun­try oper­ate this way while the morons in Gordon House bang on the peo­ple’s desks and hurl insults at each oth­er you ask?

The Chief Justice asked prosecutors:
“How can there be a dif­fi­cul­ty in you get­ting infor­ma­tion from a ser­vice provider when the police are inves­ti­gat­ing seri­ous crimes? How is that pos­si­ble? So none of the ser­vice providers pro­vid­ed the call data? I want to know if that is what is being said because some­thing is seri­ous­ly wrong. Does the law per­mit them to with­hold the infor­ma­tion? Because if that is so, the law needs to be changed; some­thing is seri­ous­ly wrong here, no man, that can’t be.”
I.……rest my case…

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

Images of crowds of police offi­cers demon­strat­ing in front of the supreme court build­ing for wages they earned and deserve speaks vol­umes about the impor­tance the admin­is­tra­tion places on the nation’s security.
What jus­ti­fi­ca­tion could there be for an employ­er to refuse to pay wages earned to its employees?
A Government that refus­es to pay for work done is oper­at­ing out­side the law, plain and sim­ple. The Government has no legit­i­ma­cy to gov­ern if it refus­es to pay wages owed to any cat­e­go­ry of its workers.……it is that simple.
This is not a polit­i­cal state­ment; the gov­ern­ing admin­is­tra­tion is tee­ter­ing dan­ger­ous­ly close to becom­ing an ille­gal and dic­ta­to­r­i­al government.

Wanting to have a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the gov­ern­men­t’s intran­si­gence in refus­ing to pay this vital cat­e­go­ry of work­ers, I reached out to sources who advised me that the gov­ern­ment agreed to cer­tain con­di­tion­al­i­ties from as far back as 2008, the source con­firmed that this mat­ter is still being lit­i­gat­ed and that the Government has still not paid what is owed to the officers.
We reached out to the Ministry Of National Security for some clar­i­fi­ca­tion, but no one would speak to us because the mat­ter is before the courts. Below is a sin­gle page of the agree­ment that the gov­ern­ment reached with the rank and file of the JCF that is at the cen­ter of the dispute.

We must first acknowl­edge that the gov­ern­ment has many cat­e­gories of work­ers to deal with on salaries and ben­e­fits. It is also impor­tant to process those facts against the back­drop of a less than infi­nite pool of resources to tack­le these demands.
With that said, the con­tin­u­a­tion of a pol­i­cy by the two polit­i­cal par­ties to diss the police as a strat­e­gy should be lost on no one. It must be eval­u­at­ed as part and par­cel of the esca­lat­ing crime pan­dem­ic fac­ing the nation. It is endan­ger­ing lives, includ­ing that of police officers.
The admin­is­tra­tion has made it abun­dant­ly clear that it has scant regard for the Jamaica Constabulary Force, even as it pays lips ser­vice to the ever-esca­lat­ing vio­lent crime cri­sis threat­en­ing to engulf the nation.
It is death by a thou­sand pricks; this admin­is­tra­tion has embarked on a process of a thou­sand instances of dis­re­spect for the nation’s crime fight­ers; the nation is pay­ing a very cost­ly price for it.

Whose deci­sion is it to hold monies owed to these work­ers? Is it the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the secu­ri­ty Ministry? Is it the deci­sion of the cab­i­net? Or is it the deci­sion of one man.…the prime minister?
I am inclined to believe that this is a deci­sion reached by a sin­gle indi­vid­ual who has demon­strat­ed that he does­n’t care too much about the mem­bers of the Jamaica Constabulary Force out­side of their use­ful­ness to him as pho­to props.
This medi­um urges Prime Minister Andrew Holness to end this dis­grace­ful act and advis­es the Prime Minister to order that the monies owed to the mem­bers of the Constabulary Force be made ful­ly avail­able to them at the ear­li­est pos­si­ble time…
Surely the Prime Minister can­not be so bone-head­ed that he is unaware of the harm he is doing to the coun­try and Bustamante’s par­ty that he inherited.
The last time the peo­ple turned against the JLP, it took ²²¹⁄₂ years for the par­ty to see inside Jamaica House again. If Holness con­tin­ues with these unwar­rant­ed and reck­less actions, it may be a full half a cen­tu­ry before the JLP is returned to office once boot­ed; and it will be all on his head.
The only thing he has going for him now is that the PNP is a frag­ment­ed cor­rupt pro-crime-and-vio­lence par­ty that is bereft of both ideas & leadership.
But that could change soon.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

The num­ber one respon­si­bil­i­ty of the gov­ern­ment is to pro­vide secu­ri­ty for its cit­i­zens. I doubt that any ratio­nal per­son would deny that in our Island home of Jamaica, suc­ces­sive admin­is­tra­tions of both polit­i­cal par­ties have failed dis­mal­ly at that core responsibility.
Frustrated, many of our fel­low cit­i­zens have thrown up their hands because they see no change in the direc­tion of our pol­i­tics and as a con­se­quence, they are con­vinced there will be no change in the down­ward spiral.
Why are Jamaican politi­cians so in love with crim­i­nals is the ques­tion that we must all ask our­selves? The oth­er ques­tion is, if you are aligned to vio­lent mur­der­ers, are you by default a crim­i­nal yourself?
I am still hope­ful that the nation’s lead­ers will change course for the good of all of our peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly the young peo­ple who deserve a future out­side of hope­less­ness, hunger, and despair.
As I point­ed out in the above video, I am still hope­ful that there is still time to change course before it is too far gone.

I under­stand the idea that if suc­ces­sive admin­is­tra­tions have been unable to offer the Jamaican peo­ple the degree of secu­ri­ty they deserve, then expect­ing them to offer oth­er basic infra­struc­tur­al devel­op­ment may be out­side what we can expect of them. I get how that can breed cynicism.
I am also con­ver­sant that oth­er dynam­ics at play impact how the nation’s lead­ers approach the crime fight.……Apathy, igno­rance, incom­pe­tence, com­plic­i­ty, involve­ment, pas­siv­i­ty, to name a few.
And then, I also under­stand that col­lec­tive­ly, the lead­er­ship of both polit­i­cal par­ties have min­i­mal knowl­edge of any­thing out­side the shores of the Island, which in turn lim­its their abil­i­ties in terms of crit­i­cal think­ing, which is cru­cial to governance.

Securing the nation can be accom­plished, but it will require a gov­ern­ment and oppo­si­tion that ful­ly eschew con­nec­tions with and to crim­i­nal net­works. It will require lead­ers who are not only untaint­ed by cor­rup­tion but who are vir­u­lent­ly anti-corruption.
Do I see the fore­gone emerg­ing in my life­time? Sadly, no! The nation needs lead­ers ded­i­cat­ed to sav­ing our coun­try from the crim­i­nal gangs that pre­vi­ous lead­ers encour­aged and nurtured.
So we must make do with the crop of lead­ers we have, cows that give a pail of milk then kicks it over.
In some cas­es, some mean well and want the coun­try to do well but have no idea how to get there.
I believe we are exact­ly mired in that quandary at present in our nation’s development.

In the mean­time, it would be a great idea for the gov­ern­ing admin­is­tra­tion to embark on some oth­er infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment projects since secur­ing the Jamaican peo­ple is out­side the scope of what it can accomplish.
How about build­ing roads and bridges all across the Island? Improving water sup­ply, elec­tric­i­ty and broad­band, will expo­nen­tial­ly reduce urban sprawl and add val­ue to peo­ple’s prop­er­ty across the country.
Investors may be per­suad­ed to invest, and Jamaicans liv­ing abroad may be inclined to con­sid­er return­ing to live with their resources which they may invest in hir­ing more young people.
Maybe, just maybe, if this approach is adopt­ed in the face of the inabil­i­ty to deal with the crim­i­nals, enough, peo­ple may return with the mon­ey and the clout to change the coun­try themselves.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.