Members of the Poughkeepsie Common Council sit and stare, as irate small busi­ness own­ers com­plain about what the new­ly installed Pay sta­tions are doing to their busi­ness­es. From the expres­sions on their faces it would seem they are hear­ing about the loss of busi­ness and the gen­er­al prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with the dis­crim­i­na­to­ry roll-out for the first time. The Mayor is con­ve­nient­ly nev­er in office but the City’s Administrator Milo Bunyi places the blame square­ly at the feet of the Common Council.

Mister Bunyi insists the deci­sion not to place the Pay sta­tions the full length of Main street was the Council’s . Bunyi told me he want­ed the Stations placed in oth­er heav­i­ly used areas, which he claims would enable the City to increase the length of time from $0 .25c for 10 min­utes to $0.25c per 15 minutes.

Presently Pay sta­tions start above the cir­cle at the west­ern end of Main Street by the

Hudson River and ends at the inter­sec­tion of Main and White Streets. There is no ratio­nal expla­na­tion why the sta­tions have been installed in this selec­tive man­ner. I raised that very issue with Mister Bunyi. Bunyi agreed with me that it gave an unfair advan­tage to Businesses from White street ‚east along Main, to the city limits

Out of options, I turned to ShaRon McClinton 6^th Ward Council mem­ber in whose Ward the Stations end. She told me she is unhap­py with the imple­men­ta­tion of the Pay sta­tions. She insists Milo Bunyi is being less than forth­com­ing regard­ing whose deci­sion it was to do the selec­tive imple­men­ta­tion. Council woman McClinton vowed to keep fight­ing, she also promised to get back to me . I am still await­ing her call.

Incidentally too many res­i­dents of Ms, McClinton’s Ward seem not to know the dif­fer­ence between the streets in their com­mu­ni­ty and a garbage recep​ta​cle​.City Hall seem­ing­ly responds to her Ward by the appear­ance of the garage strewn streets.

In the mean­time we have a City with some res­i­dents enjoy­ing an unfair advan­tage over oth­ers, because of the Politics com­ing out of City Hall.

It appears that it will require a Class-Action Law suit to get the City to do the right thing.

It is time for the Mayor to emerge from hid­ing and fix this prob­lem. Our tax dol­lars are just as impor­tant as the peo­ple not hav­ing to con­tend with pay for park.

This morn­ing I con­tin­ued in my attempt to bring atten­tion and par­i­ty to the unfair roll-out of the Pay-sta­tions on Main street in the City of Poughkeepsie.

I called the Mayor’s office, a woman who said she was sit­ting in for the Mayor’s Secretary took my call, she was pleas­ant and help­ful. I gave her the rea­son for my call and she promised she would have the rel­e­vant per­son return my call.

About twen­ty min­utes lat­er I received a call from the City’s Administrator, Milo Bunyi. Mister Bunyi appeared con­cerned and empa­thet­ic with my argu­ments about the way the pay sta­tions have been installed.

Much to my dis­may the Administrator informed me that the deci­sion to stop the instal­la­tion of meters at Main and White was the deci­sion of the Common Council. In fact he indi­cat­ed that the Administration want­ed to install more pay sta­tions in anoth­er heav­i­ly used area, which would allow them to low­er park­ing rates and the Council would have none of it.

It appears that pol­i­tics is at play in mat­ters as sim­ple as where park­ing meters are placed.

The Idea of park­ing meters for rev­enue in Cities and towns is in no way a new or nov­el idea. The pay sta­tions will not be removed by the City, let’s be rea­son­able . My con­tention is this, since the city has decid­ed to imple­ment a pay to park sys­tem, it should be done in a just and equi­table manner.

In this pic­ture we are look­ing East along Main street from the 500 Block, up to the 600 and beyond .One does not need to be a rock­et sci­en­tist to under­stand what area has free park­ing . Clearly in the dis­tance past the lights at Main and White there are vehi­cles parked freely . From the point of where the pho­to­graph was tak­en on the 500 Block there are no parked vehi­cles. The rea­son is that there are park­ing meters there.

The idea of selec­tive place­ment of these pay sta­tions, gives an unfair advan­tage to busi­ness own­ers in areas where there are no meters. I again call on the City to either pur­chase more meters and install them, or roll back the pay for park until this mat­ter can be prop­er­ly hashed out and re-imple­ment­ed in an equi­table and just fashion.

The police com­mis­sion­er of a small New Hampshire town who drew nation­al head­lines and sparked the ire of local res­i­dents for call­ing President Obama the N‑word has resigned.

Wolfeboro Police con­firmed to NBC News Monday after­noon that Commissioner Robert Copeland, who was ini­tial­ly unapolo­getic about his remarks, has resigned in response to the crit­i­cism that began in the local com­mu­ni­ty but quick­ly spread nationwide.

Local res­i­dent Jane O’Toole spear­head­ed the call for Copeland’s res­ig­na­tion short­ly after she heard Copeland loud­ly refer to Obama as “that f****** n*****” while com­plain­ing about hav­ing to see the pres­i­dent often on tele­vi­sion at a restau­rant in March, accord­ing to the Concord Monitor. When she reached out to town lead­er­ship about the remarks, offi­cials addressed Copeland direct­ly about the inci­dent.  

“I believe I did use the ‘N’ word in ref­er­ence to the cur­rent occu­pant of the Whitehouse [sic],” Copeland wrote in a response, accord­ing to the Associated Press. “For this, I do not apol­o­gize — he meets and exceeds my cri­te­ria for such.”

The sto­ry caught fire nation­al­ly after dozens of res­i­dents in the most­ly white town spoke out against the remarks dur­ing a pub­lic meet­ing Thursday evening, with many demand­ing his res­ig­na­tion. http://​www​.msnbc​.com/​p​o​l​i​t​i​c​s​n​a​t​i​o​n​/​o​f​f​i​c​i​a​l​-​r​e​s​i​g​n​s​-​a​f​t​e​r​-​c​a​l​l​i​n​g​-​o​b​a​m​a​-​n​-​w​ord

Jaime Valdéz spent 17 years in Phoenix before he was deport­ed to Mexico in February, in what he says is retal­i­a­tion for protests against

the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. On Tuesday, Valdéz turned him­self in at the port of entry in Nogales, Ariz., to protest what he calls the inhu­mane prac­tice of sep­a­rat­ing fam­i­lies. He hopes U.S. author­i­ties grant him human­i­tar­i­an parole.

“The pres­i­dent says he wants humane treat­ment, which is exact­ly what I was fight­ing for when ICE retal­i­at­ed by deport­ing me,” said Valdéz, 31. “I hope that more humane treat­ment can start with our cas­es today.”

This act of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence by Valdéz is part of a grow­ing cam­paign against President Barack Obama’s pol­i­cy on depor­ta­tions, which are expect­ed to reach the 2 mil­lion mark this month. What start­ed sev­er­al months ago with iso­lat­ed protests at immi­gra­tion deten­tion cen­ters and bor­der cross­ings has expand­ed into a nation­al move­ment that will reach a crescen­do on Saturday, when immi­gra­tion reform advo­cates in more than 40 U.S. cities engage in a nation­al day of action and call on Obama to sus­pend deportations.

The #Not1MoreDeportation cam­paign will include a ral­ly in front of the White House, an attempt to shut down the Broadview Detention Center in Chicago and a march to City Hall in Los Angeles to call on ICE to change its immi­grant deten­tion pol­i­cy. http://​amer​i​ca​.aljazeera​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​2​0​1​4​/​4​/​4​/​i​m​m​i​g​r​a​t​i​o​n​-​a​d​v​o​c​a​t​e​s​p​r​e​s​s​u​r​e​o​b​a​m​a​o​n​d​e​p​o​r​t​a​t​i​o​n​s​.​h​tml

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence vot­ed 11 – 3 Thursday to declas­si­fy parts of a secret report on Bush-era inter­ro­ga­tions of ter­ror­ism sus­pects. “The pur­pose of this review was to uncov­er the facts behind this secret pro­gram, and the results were shock­ing. The report expos­es bru­tal­i­ty that stands in stark con­trast to our val­ues as a nation.activityi;src=4216356;type=pagev382;cat=aljaz682;u1=articles;ord=1278406701284 It chron­i­cles a stain on our his­to­ry that must nev­er again be allowed to hap­pen,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D‑Calif., chair­woman of the com­mit­tee, said in a state­ment. “This is not what Americans do.” Now that the 15-mem­ber pan­el votes has approved the declas­si­fi­ca­tion of a 400-page sum­ma­ry and the key find­ings of its report, the onus is on the Central Intelligence Agency and a reluc­tant White House to speed the release of one of the most defin­i­tive accounts about the gov­ern­men­t’s actions after the ⁹⁄₁₁ attacks. The CIA will now start scan­ning the report’s con­tents for any pas­sages that com­pro­mise nation­al secu­ri­ty. That has led to fears that the CIA, already accused of ille­gal­ly mon­i­tor­ing the Senate’s inves­ti­ga­tion and delet­ing files, could san­i­tize key ele­ments of what Senate inves­ti­ga­tors aim to be the fullest pub­lic reck­on­ing of the “enhanced inter­ro­ga­tion tech­niques” used on Al-Qaeda sus­pects in CIA-run pris­ons abroad. Feinstein has urged the White House to get involved. http://​amer​i​ca​.aljazeera​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​2​0​1​4​/​4​/​3​/​s​e​n​a​t​e​-​t​o​r​t​u​r​e​-​r​e​p​o​r​t​c​i​a​d​e​c​l​a​s​s​i​f​y​.​h​tml

Dismayed cam­paign finance advo­cates say that the Supreme Court’s con­tro­ver­sial McCutcheon vs. FEC deci­sion released Wednesday morn­ing threat­ens to unleash a new avalanche of mon­ey into a polit­i­cal sys­tem already flush with con­tri­bu­tions from mon­eyed inter­ests. But exact­ly who will be empow­ered to write more checks this elec­tion sea­son as a result of the McCutcheon deci­sion? Perhaps to no one’s sur­prise, researchers and advo­cates say the élite class of donors who are most like­ly to exceed the strick­en lim­its tends to skew white, male, affil­i­at­ed with busi­ness inter­ests and, of course, ultra-wealthy. Before the McCutcheon deci­sion, fed­er­al law not only put restric­tions on how much indi­vid­ual donors could con­tribute to any sin­gle can­di­date and par­ty com­mit­tee, but capped their total con­tri­bu­tions to all fed­er­al can­di­dates and all par­ty com­mit­tees in a two-year peri­od. For the 2014 elec­tion cycle, those lim­its were set at a total of $48,600 and $74,600 for can­di­dates and par­ty com­mit­tees, respec­tive­ly. The McCutcheon deci­sion brings an end to those restric­tions. Now an indi­vid­ual donor could con­tribute up to $3.5 mil­lion if they maxed out their con­tri­bu­tions. According to an analy­sis by good gov­er­nance group Public Campaign last October, a small group of 1,219 donors came close to sur­pass­ing the aggre­gate lim­its in place in the 2012 elec­tion cycle, con­tribut­ing at least $105,300 to can­di­dates, par­ty com­mit­tees, and PACs. These super­donors — those who are now freed to open their wal­lets even more to as many can­di­dates, par­ty com­mit­tees and polit­i­cal action com­mit­tees they deem wor­thy — include con­ser­v­a­tive bil­lion­aires David and Charles Koch, direc­tor Steven Spielberg and bank­ing titan Charles Schwab.

Only a quar­ter of these donors were women, accord­ing to the analy­sis. Almost half of them lived in the rich­est 1 per­cent of neigh­bor­hoods, as cal­cu­lat­ed by per capi­ta income. Fewer than 1 in 50 lived in a major­i­ty African-American or Hispanic neigh­bor­hood, as com­pared to 1 in 6 of the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion. And 28 per­cent of them worked for Wall Street or had roots in the finan­cial sec­tor. “These élite donors stand apart from the rest of America; they are over­whelm­ing­ly wealthy, white, and male,” the report read. A sim­i­lar analy­sis by the Sunlight Foundation found the “most like­ly to exceed” mega-donor group — those who ear­ly this year were already at or near the lim­it for the 2014 elec­tion cycle — includ­ed many of those who had vest­ed inter­ests in Washington. They include Stephen Bechtel Jr., whose engi­neer­ing firm Bechtel Corp. has a strong lob­by­ing pres­ence in Capitol Hill on nuclear issues; bil­lion­aire Texas oil mag­nate Paul Foster; for­mer Goldman Sachs man­ag­ing direc­tor Muneer Satter; reg­is­tered tax lob­by­ist Ken Kiers; and sev­er­al hedge fund man­agers. “It skews the entire sys­tem to the top, to those who have mon­ey, and it puts the deci­sion mak­ing fur­ther into the hands of those that are already doing quite well,” said David Donnelly, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Public Campaign Action Fund. “What they’re gen­er­al­ly not inter­est­ed in is the min­i­mum wage or sup­port for peo­ple who have low or lit­tle income.” Analysts pre­dict that after the McCutcheon deci­sion, law­mak­ers are like­ly to spend even more of their time and ener­gy attempt­ing to woo these super­donors. Donnelly said you could expect to see more spec­ta­cles like the pil­grim­ages four poten­tial 2016 GOP pres­i­den­tial con­tenders made to Las Vegas last week to cur­ry favor with bil­lion­aire Sheldon Adelson, who had pub­licly said he was look­ing for a can­di­date to bankroll. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Ohio Gov. John Kaisich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker all made sure to affirm their sup­port for Israel, Adelson’s pri­ma­ry cause. Christie even went as far as to apol­o­gize to Adelson in a pri­vate meet­ing after he called areas where Palestinians live “the occu­pied ter­ri­to­ries” — a descrip­tion that the U.N. uses to describe the West Bank and East Jerusalem but that Israel rejects — in front of a con­ser­v­a­tive Jewish gathering.

Big mon­ey at stake can have that effect on how a law­mak­er posi­tions him­self, the words he choos­es and even the votes he takes, advo­cates argued. “Who is your mem­ber of Congress going to meet with, a con­stituent or donor, someone’s writ­ten a mil­lion-dol­lar-plus check to advance the party’s inter­ests?” said Stephen Spaulding, pol­i­cy coun­sel for the lib­er­al-lean­ing group Common Cause. “That’s human nature — they are going to have a seat at the table that the con­stituent isn’t going to have.” And that dimin­ish­es the voic­es of aver­age Americans and their inter­ests, advo­cates said. “All they need to do is cut a check when a mem­ber of Congress asks them to and they’ll get their phone calls returned,” said Paul Ryan, senior coun­sel for the Campaign Legal Center, an orga­ni­za­tion that works on cam­paign finance issues. Ryan added that he expect­ed to see unprece­dent­ed cor­rup­tion as a result of both the McCutcheon deci­sion and Citizens United, which unlocked the gates to unlim­it­ed spend­ing by cor­po­ra­tions and indi­vid­u­als through super PACs. “The Campaign Legal Center would like to see an American democ­ra­cy that is tru­ly demo­c­ra­t­ic that reflects the vast diver­si­ty of our coun­ty,” Ryan added. “When you look at who’s con­tribut­ing to bankroll the sys­tem, we are see­ing an over­whelm­ing­ly white and male and wealthy donor base that doesn’t look the America I live in.”http://​amer​i​ca​.aljazeera​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​2​0​1​4​/​4​/​2​/​m​c​c​u​t​c​h​e​o​n​-​f​e​c​-​d​o​n​o​r​s​a​g​g​r​e​g​a​t​e​l​i​m​i​t​s​.​h​tml

Anthony Gomes’ Article in Wednesdays Observer Titled “Heads con­tin­ue to roll with impuni­ty in Jamaica” Was par­tic­u­lar­ly potent and instruc­tive. Gomes raised the issue that the Jamaican Government and crim­i­nal sup­port­ers would much rather see left alone. Mister Gomes effec­tive­ly point­ed to the fact that Jamaica is in fact pre­vent­ed from car­ry­ing out the will of the peo­ple in exe­cut­ing vio­lent mur­der­ers by the United Kingdom Privy Council. Even as that body seem to be con­fused about what should con­sti­tute an under­stand­ing of cap­i­tal mur­der. Mister Gomes stat­ed quote: The major­i­ty deci­sion by the Law Lords almost sounds like a play on words, with­out due con­cern for the inno­cent life that has been extin­guished. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​c​o​l​u​m​n​s​/​H​e​a​d​s​-​c​o​n​t​i​n​u​e​-​t​o​-​r​o​l​l​-​w​i​t​h​-​i​m​p​u​n​i​t​y​-​i​n​-​J​a​m​a​i​c​a​_​1​6​3​8​7​320. 

Incidentally that is not just the men­tal­i­ty of the far removed Privy Council, which by the way could­n’t care less about crime in Jamaica. It is also the view of the pre­ten­tious pseu­do bour­geois elites in Jamaica. The (neva si cum si)

Jamaica is spi­ral­ing out of con­trol because the will of the People have been cir­cum­vent­ed for decades. Many Jamaicans have effec­tive­ly refused to take part in the process, this is a mis­take. This enables the idiots to fill the vac­u­um they leave. The result is that Jamaicans are now being led by the stu­pid­est in the soci­ety. Apathy is not a viable solu­tion, yet it is under­stand­able in a coun­try with such a high rate of illit­er­a­cy. Progressive intel­li­gent peo­ple feel over­whelmed by the hoards of illit­er­ates, look­ing for noth­ing more than a bel­ly full. In National Elections held December 29^th 2011 reports from the Electoral Office of Jamaica indi­cates that only just over 50 per cent of the entire vot­ing pop­u­la­tion vot­ed on Election Day 2011. This low vot­er turnout may have thrown off the pre­dic­tion of opin­ion polls to some extent. The win by the PNP shocked even its lead­ers, such as Peter Phillips who said that “the results cer­tain­ly exceed­ed our most opti­mistic sce­nar­ios. http://​en​.wikipedia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​J​a​m​a​i​c​a​n​_​g​e​n​e​r​a​l​_​e​l​e​c​t​i​o​n​,​_​2​011.

You can’t make these facts up. The PNP did not expect to win, they knew they had screwed the Country Royally and did not deserve to be hand­ed the reins of Government again any­time soon. Someone com­ment­ed recent­ly that all the good peo­ple have left Jamaica, that is not true. The major­i­ty of the Jamaican peo­ple are still decent good peo­ple, they have just cho­sen to remain silent in the face of this scourge that was unleashed on their way of life. They feel pow­er­less to do any­thing about it, so they remain silent.

In the process of remain­ing silent they allowed the entire Jamaica to be infect­ed with the men­tal­i­ty of Saint Andrew South Western .

The Country slides deep­er into bank­rupt­cy dai­ly. Jamaica’s debt stood at a stag­ger­ing Jam$1.7 tril­lion in 2012. The Leadership is not only incom­pe­tent it is cor­rupt. They are vir­tu­al­ly untouch­able by law enforce­ment. The Courts which was once seen as a bea­con of hope stand­ing between the two bands of crim­i­nals in both sides of the polit­i­cal divide, is now from all appear­ances wal­low­ing in the mud of cor­rup­tion. It is a vis­cous self-per­pet­u­at­ing cycle which feeds on itself. The top is dirty, the lawyers are hav­ing a field day defend­ing the crim­i­nals brought before the courts. They know if cer­tain mea­sures are adopt­ed crime will dras­ti­cal­ly decrease. It is no won­der that tri­al lawyers in Jamaica are hell-bent against the rule of law.

President Obama “Armageddon has not arrived, mock­ing Republicans scare tac­tics, intend­ed to pre­vent Americans from sign­ing up. ” Speaking from the White House the President Trumpeted 7.1 mil­lion Americans signed up to the Affordable Health Care dubbed dis­parag­ing­ly (Obama care) by Republicans who have tried over 50 times to Repeal this piece of Legislation. The President’s sig­na­ture piece of domes­tic leg­is­la­tion .Obama lament­ed the rea­sons why any­one would not want every­one to be able to afford Health Care,. The President” I don’t get it why would any­one want to deny oth­ers the right to have health insurance”?

Washington has offered threats and sanc­tions to pres­sure Russia, but what kind of com­pro­mise is it push­ing for?http://​amer​i​ca​.aljazeera​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​2​0​1​4​/​3​/​1​1​/​o​b​a​m​a​-​y​a​t​s​e​n​y​u​k​-​m​e​e​t​i​n​g​.​h​tml

Ukraine’s inter­im Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk will fly to Washington to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday to dis­cuss “how to find a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion to Russia’s ongo­ing mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion in Crimea,” the White House announced over the week­end, a sign that the United States intends to advance its patron­age of the new, West-fac­ing gov­ern­ment in Kiev, which Russia has decried as illegitimate.

As is to be expect­ed Obama’s detrac­tors on the right are unhap­py with the fact that he has­n’t moved to start a war of mutu­al assured destruc­tion with the Russian Federation.

For all the threats and sanc­tions from the U.S., wrote Leslie Gelb, a for­mer gov­ern­ment offi­cial and a pres­i­dent emer­i­tus of the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. has failed to con­vince Putin there is any real imper­a­tive for him to back down. “As it stands today, the Russians may feel that they can get away with their pow­er grab,” he wrote in an op-ed for The Daily Beast. “Putin sure­ly remem­bers how lit­tle [George W.] Bush did to pun­ish Moscow for its med­dling in Georgia in 2008 or for its prac­ti­cal annex­a­tion of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Perhaps he now reck­ons that once again there will be no seri­ous con­se­quences for his ter­ri­to­r­i­al lust.”

There have been a cho­rus of crit­i­cism com­ing from the usu­al quar­ters like the Lindsay Graham of this world, yet no one have been able to say what they would actu­al­ly do against Russia, a heav­i­ly armed Nuclear nation. Neocons love to play brinkman­ship with American mil­i­tary might. Over the last two decades plus , America has engaged mil­i­tar­i­ly in three major wars. In nei­ther of these wars have the Russians or any oth­er pow­er inter­vened . Judging from the con­tin­ued saber-rat­tling from the right, it appears noth­ing will please them unless they force a mush­room cloud vapor­iz­ing all of us.

Jamaica’s Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has called on the Obama Administration to start talk­ing about Ganga. This call came after Phillip Paulwell, Miller’s Minister in charge of sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, ener­gy, and min­ing, told the Nation that Ganga would be decrim­i­nal­ized this year. This was a bold state­ment from min­is­ter Paulwell, con­sid­er­a­tion the changes need­ed to undo decades of leg­is­la­tion that attached seri­ous crim­i­nal penal­ties to the weed. We felt it was nec­es­sary to offer our hum­ble opin­ion at the time of the min­is­ter’s announcement.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​6​3​3​6​#​c​o​m​m​e​nts.

Decriminalizing cannabis is dif­fer­ent than actu­al legal­iza­tion. I was mys­ti­fied at what was going on behind the scenes which would have pre­cip­i­tat­ed that bold state­ment from the min­is­ter? It was not clear how Jamaica would nav­i­gate the shark-infest­ed chan­nel of inter­na­tion­al diplo­ma­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly with major pow­er play­ers like the UK, Canada, and the US.
These coun­tries have all shown signs of eas­ing restric­tions some­what, yet none has actu­al­ly gone as far as to promise a def­i­nite time­line for decriminalization.
in the United States, a few states have moved ahead with eas­ing restric­tions, even with those steps Colorado and California are care­ful only to do so for med­i­c­i­nal pur­pos­es. It is impor­tant that even as some states have moved ahead with incre­men­tal decrim­i­nal­iza­tion, any­one caught with the drug by Federal author­i­ties is sub­ject to Federal law’s full force.

The Federal Government has shown no inten­tion of eas­ing Federal restric­tions on Cannabis. Even as the debate rages, the Obama Administration is ful­ly engaged in deport­ing Immigrants caught sell­ing or in pos­ses­sion of the weed. Jamaica is a small coun­try that must obey inter­na­tion­al laws. How exact­ly will this promise of decrim­i­nal­iza­tion work when the major pow­ers are still active­ly engaged in this decades-long war on drugs?

One hun­dred and six­ty-two mil­lion dol­lars ‚J$162M spent on for­eign trips over a two-year peri­od. Twenty five (25 for­eign trips tak­en over a twen­ty-four (24 month peri­od. An aver­age of over one for­eign trip per month. Yet Like I said some time ago, I believe these are not cor­rect num­bers. I imag­ine if the Jamaican peo­ple real­ly know the amount of mon­ey this Administration blows on for­eign trips there would be riot­ing in the streets. The Leader of the Opposition has revealed that the num­bers final­ly tabled in Parliament is not a com­plete nor cor­rect rep­re­sen­ta­tive fig­ure of the real costs of the PM’s trav­els. In fact it seems the amount tabled is a mere drop in the buck­et of the real costs of her and her del­e­ga­tions over­seas trips.,

Andrew Holness

What’s astound­ing in this whole affair was the Administration’s reluc­tance to release the infor­ma­tion sought by the oppo­si­tion on behalf of the Jamaican peo­ple. Even more shock­ing is the dis­dain­ful atti­tude the Prime Minister took in respond­ing to the inquires. But noth­ing com­pares to the gut­ter behav­ior she dis­played and allowed her imma­ture Neanderthal acolytes to engage in ‚in response to the leader of the Opposition. The his­tor­i­cal san­i­tiz­ers in Jamaica have already embarked on a mis­sion to make Portia Simpson Miller’s 40 year jour­ney through Jamaica’s polit­i­cal morass a roman­tic and hero­ic adven­ture wor­thy of nation­al hero sta­tus. To the many who know her and saw the road she took to Jamaica House they are much less inclined to buy that hogwash.

Simpson Miller

“I nev­er asked to be invit­ed, I attend in the inter­est of my coun­try and my peo­ple. I have a respon­si­bil­i­ty as Prime Minister,” she told Parliament, adding that she is proud to have been invit­ed to Africa, the land of her ancestors.

Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has been crit­i­cized over the years for not being .….. well too bright. Personally I have no use for elit­ists, I don’t care whether some­one has one two or no degrees as long as they can do the job they ask for. But state­ments like this real­ly caus­es one to scratch one’s head in won­der­ment at her lack of intel­lect. Every jack one of those mem­bers in that cham­ber has african blood flow­ing through their veins. Portia does not have a monop­oly on African blood or African Ancestry, as such her state­ment was moot. Her response was juve­nile, and une­d­u­cat­ed, yet boor­ish and Spanish-Town-Road-ish. The Prime Minister has a duty and an oblig­a­tion to open­ly, truth­ful­ly and in a time­ly man­ner report how she and her Administration uti­lizes pub­lic funds. Every pen­ny the Royal House-hold spends is account­ed for in Britain, Even Monarchs are answer­able in this day and age.

I am tempt­ed to say the Prime Minister is dis­dain­ful of the process and the peo­ple who are autho­rized to make sure that tax­pay­ers funds are spent judi­cious­ly. On sec­ond though, I am more inclined to set­tle on the notion that her boor­ish unin­tel­li­gent tirade was a by-prod­uct of igno­rance. In essence you may take the girl out of the ghet­to but you can’t take the ghet­to out of the girl. The Prime Minister must trav­el as part of her duties, yet it is uncon­scionable that a leader would take in excess of one over­seas trip per month for the last 24 months. The coun­try sim­ply can­not afford the cost in dol­lars and cents nor her absence. The coun­try is inun­dat­ed with crime, yet the Prime Minister jets out every month.

Simpson Miller high­light­ed that on one offi­cial vis­it to the People’s Republic of China in 2013 the gov­ern­ment spent $7.2 mil­lion but brought back J$1.7 bil­lion. The sheer non­sense of this expla­na­tion from the Prime Minister defies com­mon sense!!! Was this a gift from the Chinese? If it was what do they want in return? The fact is it was a loan.… That mon­ey has to be repaid with inter​est​.How can any­one with an ounce of brain sug­gest that kind of expense is worth the price of mere­ly secur­ing a loan? Our coun­try is in deep trou­ble , one way or anoth­er this Administration has to go.

Jamaica’s crime prob­lem is get­ting more seri­ous by the day, yet it seem the Authorities have no inter­est in solv­ing this press­ing issue.We could dis­cuss Jamaican’s his­tor­i­cal love affair with criminals,we may also dis­cuss that it’s no longer cute or fun­ny any­more. The sta­tis­tics are stun­ning yet it seem that the Government is tone-deaf. The Prime Minister, when she hap­pens to touch down on the Island, refus­es to dis­cuss the spate of killings in the coun­try. She was forced to answer the Opposition’s queries about her exten­sive trav­els in the Parliament today February 11^th. Miller respond­ing to Opposition Leader Andrew Holness argued that no one ques­tioned trips until she was elect­ed Prime Minister. Miller’s trips have been esti­mat­ed to cost a whop­ping J$162 million.

“I nev­er asked to be invit­ed, I attend in the inter­est of my coun­try and my peo­ple. I have a respon­si­bil­i­ty as Prime Minister,” she told Parliament, adding that she is proud to have been invit­ed to Africa, the land of her ancestors. 

All of this pos­tur­ing and Continent hop­ping while Rome burns. No one begrudge the PM her trip to the moth­er-land, but clear­ly this can­not be the best time and the best way to spend the Country’s mea­ger resources. To vis­it the land of her ances­tors is quite fine but she needs to do it on her own dime. The Minister under whose port­fo­lio crime falls, Peter Bunting, is await­ing divine inter­ven­tion. Now let me has­ten to say I pray for divine inter­ven­tion into my life dai­ly. I just don’t sit around wait­ing, I get up and make things hap­pen. God is divine­ly capa­ble of inter­ven­ing , we just have to do some things for our­selves .. he’ ll help then. The coun­try’s Attorney General who pals around with Carolyn Gomes of (JFJ) bad mouths the police is ask­ing the Clergy to help with fix­ing crime .What all of this shows is that the Government is either unwill­ing or unable to stop this bleed­ing. My incli­na­tion is they are unwill­ing. The entire PNP Party in Opposition did not lift a fin­ger to help the JLP Government in 2010. All then Prime Minister Bruce Golding asked was that the already lim­it­ed state of emer­gency be extend­ed. The PNP vot­ed “no”, there were no dis­sen­sion among them . In real terms the People’s National Party was not about to autho­rize the secu­ri­ty forces to root out crim­i­nals who were entrenched in their gar­risons. They weren’t even will­ing to allow them access to remove those who fled the wrath of the state. The PNP said then they were not about to autho­rize an exten­sion to the Limited State of Emergency out of fear the Security Forces would abuse the rights of cit­i­zens. They made those state­ments as spous­es and fam­i­ly mem­bers of dead cops con­tem­plat­ed bury­ing their dead. That was the posi­tion of Portia Simpson Miller and her Party as Police Stations were in flames. Eleven Garrisons to every one for the JLP is sig­nif­i­cant. They were not about to inter­fere with their pow­er-base. This is the recent his­to­ry of the PNP , it is no dif­fer­ent from the ear­li­er his­to­ry of the par­ty. Jamaicans get what they vote for. Ineptitude , Graft, Nepotism, Corruption, Criminality, Poverty. When it becomes unbear­able they blame every­one but them­selves. Wonder if they are going to blame the CIA this time

The Criminal Justice System in Jamaica appears to be trans­lat­ed Justice for crim­i­nals noth­ing for the inno­cent. Let’s take stock of the rea­sons crime and vio­lence are at all time highs on the Island Nation. As we con­tem­plate crime we would be remiss in not try­ing to find the root caus­es, to bet­ter under­stand how to reduce, if not elim­i­nate it. Every Jamaican should have a com­mit­ment to a Jamaica free of or at least, less inun­dat­ed with crime. Unfortunately hav­ing seen views expressed on the sub­ject I am not sure we are all com­mit­ted toward the same goal. It is per­fect­ly okay to dif­fer on strate­gies and pol­i­cy aimed at erad­i­cat­ing the can­cer of crime. When we can­not agree on who to sup­port in the debate, we know the coun­try is in seri­ous trou­ble. Any per­son may con­duct a sim­ple poll on social media, cre­ate your own top­ic eg.( “Man rape and kills 12-year-old child”)You may be sur­prised to find that a siz­able per­cent­age of respon­dents would blame some­one oth­er than the sub­ject in ques­tion. If the con­ver­sa­tion per­sist it would turn to total blame of the Police. How will this coun­try turn around when it is clear that a large, if not over­whelm­ing seg­ment of the 2.6 mil­lion peo­ple sup­port crim­i­nal­i­ty. And those in the dias­po­ra are hard­ly any better.

Poverty. Politics. Corruption. An Ultra-Liberal Judiciary.an immoral pop­u­la­tion are just some of the prob­lems fac­ing our coun­try. How do we begin to turn around a place which seem to want to self-destruct? Politicians inter­fere in law-enforce­ment. Criminals are embold­ened. Police transferred,demoralized.Criminal arrest­ed , Court grants them bail. Criminal return to kill over and over after receiv­ing bail on a mul­ti­plic­i­ty of sep­a­rate mur­der charges. Police los­es inter­est and do their own thing. The cycle con­tin­ues. The biggest accel­er­ant to crime is know­ing one will not get caught or be made to pay for one’s crime.

The peo­ple in pol­i­cy mak­ing are not total idiots, they under­stand what needs to be done. They also know it’s not in their inter­est to do it. A pro­fi­cient and pro­fes­sion­al Police Department is bad for the health of Jamaica’s politi­cians. So they cre­ate a diver­sion. Allow crime to get out of hand . This caus­es the police to look more inept. Empower (inde­com) to go after the police , crime increas­es. As we watch the watch­man the crim­i­nals have a field day. This is a sim­ple yet effec­tive strat­e­gy which has worked par­tic­u­lar­ly for the par­ty which now forms the Administration. The Tragedy is that the bru­tal­i­ty and dehu­man­iz­ing nature of the crimes being com­mit­ted will increase as crim­i­nals push the enve­lope with each crime they commit.

“Man haf­fi eat a food”, not prop­er English , yet every Jamaican under­stand that it means every­one should have a chance to make a liv­ing. There is noth­ing wrong with that con­cept. In fact it is a noble con­cept, only thing is that in Jamaica it takes on a sin­is­ter and omi­nous mean­ing.  Eating a food  means a lot of things in our coun­try ‚beyond the noble notion of com­mu­nal bliss. It means tak­ing what some­one worked hard for at the point of a gun. It means get­ting a pay-check from Government for work not done. Payback for polit­i­cal loy­al­ty and foot sol­der­ing. Shocking yes ? Someone’s deci­sion to eat a food could decide whether you live or die. This start­ed just around 1972 when the think­ing of Jamaicans changed after they vot­ed Michael Manley into office. All of a sud­den the man­sions at the top of Beverly Hills in Saint Andrew were not there as sym­bols of inspi­ra­tion to be achieved through hard work. They became sym­bols of the rich’s greed and exploita­tion. The own­ers of those Mansions were no longer peo­ple to emu­late, but liv­ing exam­ples of cap­i­tal­is­tic exploita­tion, to abhor and hate. Our love affair with crime and crim­i­nals have had a long and sto­ried his­to­ry . We can pull our hair and bemoan the thou­sands of mur­der, each decade. But we lie and decieve our­selves if we deny knowl­edge of its gen­e­sis. We’ve sown the seeds of dis­cord , hatred, and anar­chy. Now we eat the bit­ter fruits of our labor. We can blame every­one for our mis­for­tunes. , the CIA the IMF, the Martians . I rather believe it’s IMF,it’s Manley’s fault.

P J Patterson

When a peo­ple who were used to work­ing hard and aspir­ing to great­ness sud­den­ly begin to envy those who achieved through the sweat of their brow they have a prob­lem. When they bought into the con­cept that those who worked hard , planned and accom­plished mate­r­i­al suc­cess are evil cap­i­tal­ists to be loathed ‚they have a problem.

Portia Simpson Miller

We bought into the con­cept of a social­ist easy way of achiev­ing stuff. No longer inspired by the con­cept of hard-work and edu­ca­tion as vehi­cles of upward mobil­i­ty ‚we are in trou­ble. Now the fruits of our greed, envy, and hatred have ripened, why are we sur­prised about the blood letting?»»

The much hyped debate between the twin Island Nation of Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica con­tin­ue to be a hot top­ic on social media. Jamaicans are alleg­ing foul, they say they are being tar­get­ed and treat­ed as crim­i­nals when they attempt to enter Trinidad and Tobago. Recently a group of Jamaican vis­i­tors were returned home by T&T Immigration offi­cials. That inci­dent sparked howls of con­dem­na­tion from Jamaicans at home and abroad. 

Calls range from a boy­cott of all goods from T&T to out­right war. The prob­lem for Jamaica is that this sup­posed harass­ment of Jamaicans is not con­fined to T&T , but is alleged to be hap­pen­ing to Jamaicans trav­el­ling to oth­er Caribbean Islands. Those who fol­low the news may recall the Shanique Myrie case in Barbados. The alle­ga­tions have been strong enough to prompt T&T’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to send a del­e­ga­tion, head­ed by her for­eign min­is­ter Winston Dookeran, to hold diplo­mat­ic talks with his Jamaican coun­ter­part A J Nicholson.

Dookeran then promised to allow for free trav­el into that coun­try but his fel­low par­lia­men­tar­i­an and Trinidadian secu­ri­ty min­is­ter, Gary Griffith, shot down his promise and vowed to keep out ‘undesirables’.Griffith said immi­gra­tion mat­ters fell under his min­istry and only he could make such pro­nounce­ments. He said Trinidad was not shop­ping mall.  http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​B​r​o​a​d​c​a​s​t​e​r​-​J​o​h​n​n​y​-​D​a​l​e​y​-​h​a​r​r​a​s​s​e​d​-​b​y​-​T​-​T​-​I​m​m​i​g​r​a​t​i​o​n​-​a​n​d​-​C​u​s​t​o​m​s​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​r​s​_​1​5​7​5​3​932.

Clearly that state­ment did noth­ing to smooth ruf­fled feath­ers in Kingston, yet it under­lined what is a much deep­er issue than most Jamaicans will hon­est­ly admit to. Since the start of this year anoth­er Jamaican has com­plained of being harassed by Trinidadian immi­gra­tion offi­cials. Broadcaster and come­di­an Christopher ‘Johnny’ Daley claimed to have been mis­treat­ed by air­port offi­cials. Daley claim he and his wife were sin­gled out for inter­ro­ga­tion and treat­ed as sus­pects the minute offi­cials real­ized they were Jamaicans. Daley post­ed details of his alleged ordeal on his Face/​Book page. In his post the Jamaican had this to say. “She seemed quite dis­ap­point­ed and annoyed that she found noth­ing alarm­ing in our lug­gage and then she did the most ridicu­lous thing I’ve ever expe­ri­enced. She asked if I was wear­ing two trousers (remem­ber I live in the trop­ics ) to which my response was an obvi­ous no. Without hes­i­ta­tion she instruct­ed me to go to a room with the two thug-look­ing men (police).The Trinidad air­port per­son­nel seem to per­son­al­ly enjoy drag­ging us through the mud of their sys­tem. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​B​r​o​a​d​c​a​s​t​e​r​-​J​o​h​n​n​y​-​D​a​l​e​y​-​h​a​r​r​a​s​s​e​d​-​b​y​-​T​-​T​-​I​m​m​i​g​r​a​t​i​o​n​-​a​n​d​-​C​u​s​t​o​m​s​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​r​s​_​1​5​7​5​3​932

Whether every­thing this char­ac­ter Johnny Daley said he and his wife endured is true or not , we see that he has scant regard for law-enforce­ment. That is evi­dent in his choice of words, it’s a Jamaican char­ac­ter­is­tic which is often­times export­ed to oth­er shores to their utter detri­ment. Law enforce­ment does not take kind­ly to be dis­re­spect­ed. The Jamaican went at length detail­ing his ver­sion of what tran­spired. The Article was fol­lowed with a long list of knee-jerk respons­es call­ing again for a ban on Trinidadian products .

Every time there is a flare-up, we hear the same calls. Yet Jamaica’s mar­kets are flood­ed with prod­ucts from the twin Island Republic. If Jamaicans are so gung-ho about boy­cotting Trinidadian goods all they have to do is stop buy­ing them. What’s left on shelves would rot and there would be no more con­tain­ers being off-loaded from Trinidad. 

So it seem these calls are noth­ing more than attempts to blow off steam, while they con­tin­ue to con­sume prod­ucts from T&T. What Jamaicans will not face up to is the depths to which we have sunk, or acknowl­edge it is their behav­ior which pre­cip­i­tates the kind of atti­tudes being direct­ed against our peo­ple in gen­er­al. I am not par­tic­u­lar­ly care­ful about what any­one say about what I write about this issue. I am sure there will be many who have a host of neg­a­tives to say about me and of course Trinidad, oth­er nations and any­one who do not get on the howl­ing train.

In fact they will con­tin­ue to ignore Jamaica’s con­tri­bu­tion to this sense of being sin­gled out for neg­a­tive treat­ment. It is the same way they pre­tend that the mur­der­ing degen­er­ate demons who each have mul­ti­ple mur­ders to their dubi­ous cred­it, are some­how being set upon by the wicked police. Every low life who meets his mak­er was a choir-boy who was on his way to being a Doctor. Never mind that the streets knows him by an alias sig­ni­fy­ing his depraved indif­fer­ence to human life.

At what time will Jamaicans stop blam­ing oth­ers for their own doings. At what stage will they rec­og­nize that peo­ple are turned off by the dis­re­spect­ful, loud,crass,ignorant, arro­gant behav­ior they dis­play , even if they are guilty of the same vices? Trinidad and Tobago is rival­ing Jamaica in homi­cides, whether we believe they are hyp­ocrites, or that they pre­tend they are bet­ter than us is imma­te­r­i­al. They have a right to pre­vent who they don’t want in their coun­try from enter­ing. News to Jamaicans who have their panties in a bunch, “do not trav­el to Trinidad and Tobago”. Yes there are Caricom Regulations which dic­tates how Caricom mem­bers should be treat­ed when they trav­el to mem­ber states. What Jamaicans are not rec­og­niz­ing is that each mem­ber state’s Constitution trumps Caricom treaties. The rhetoric of T&T’s National Security Minister Gary Griffith is a sharp reminder of that fact.

Jamaicans may con­tin­ue to grand­stand and pon­tif­i­cate, arro­gant­ly blovi­at­ing about boy­cotts or we can start to change our atti­tudes. We can address our crime sit­u­a­tion and the way we are seen respond­ing to crim­i­nal­i­ty. We can rec­og­nize that oth­er coun­tries val­ue the rule of law, despite their crime stats. And most of all they sup­port their law-enforce­ment offi­cials. Most Jamaicans believe they are above laws. They go out of their way to be dis­re­spect­ful to law enforce­ment offi­cers at home. If they do not want to be searched and spo­ken to, stay home. Some deserve to be tak­en down a peg or two, if it takes oth­er coun­tries to do it then so be it.

Yesterday I addressed the method the People’s National Party uses to win National elec­tions . The par­ty does so through promis­es and effec­tive­ly using it’s time in office to dole out scarce resources to its sup­port­ers. They stack boards and Government run-busi­ness­es with par­ty faith­ful, and per­haps most crit­i­cal­ly, putting ded­i­cat­ed func­tionar­ies into crit­i­cal areas of civ­il soci­ety where they car­ry out the par­ty’s pro­pa­gan­da campaign.

Andrew Holness

Interestingly though the oppo­si­tion Jamaica Labor Party has spent con­sid­er­able stretch­es of time in obliv­ion, it seem the par­ty still has not grasped the basic rea­son they are get­ting beat time and again. Love them or hate them, the PNP is mas­ter­ful at pro­pa­gan­da. They under­stand the psy­chol­o­gy of the Jamaican elec­torate. Their strat­e­gy, though not one which does much to bring the coun­try to first world sta­tus, is effec­tive in win­ning elec­tions. Tell the peo­ple you love them, keep them poor , then dan­gle some cash in front of them and they will do any­thing for you. Cynical, insult­ing, ret­ro­grade, regres­sive, but effec­tive. The PNP did not get this good at it over one elec­tion cycle. This start­ed the minute the ink was dry on the so-called Independence procla­ma­tion back in 1962. Brick by Brick, Norman Manley, Michael Manley, Percival Patterson and now Simpson Miller, they stuck to the script.

This leads us to the mil­lion dol­lar ques­tion then , “How can the JLP remain so pas­sive in oppo­si­tion, know­ing it can­not match the entrenched infra­struc­ture of the PNP”? Or does it even know? This is the per­fect time for Holness and the Labor Party to start to seri­ous­ly chip away at the chinks in the armor of the PNP. The chink in that armor is not the per­cep­tion that Portia is not the bright­est bulb in the room. She has effec­tive­ly shown that is not a neg­a­tive. In fact, her abil­i­ty to relate to the man on the street on his lev­el, is a tremen­dous asset to her and the rul­ing PNP. As I point­ed out yes­ter­day , Bruce Golding for­mer Prime Minister under­stood how to fight the PNP using the media and the lead­ers own words against her.

You all remem­ber this tirade.“Don’t draw my tongue! And don’t trou­ble this girl! Because I don’t fraid a no man, no gyal, nowhere!”

Head swing­ing from side to side arm flail­ing. Yet Golding’s cam­paign was able to mas­ter­ful­ly har­vest that tirade using it in its own Ad. with a female voice at the end say­ing “But Sista P yu nu ready fi de prime min­is­ter ting”.

Masterful work expos­ing her to the world at her worst and at the same time show­ing the aver­age per­son it was not cool. Nevertheless, well placed polit­i­cal hacks like Carolyn Cooper UWI lec­tur­er valiant­ly attempt­ed to make that crass vira­go out­burst a good thing… It was laugh­able. In her Article titled Drawing sis­ter P’s tongue. http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​1​1​2​2​5​/​c​l​e​i​s​u​r​e​/​c​l​e​i​s​u​r​e​3​.​h​tml

Portia Simpson Miller

The weak­ness lies in her not speak­ing to the media, the gaffes she makes when she does speak, the dete­ri­o­rat­ing eco­nom­ic con­di­tions, the high crime rate cor­rup­tion and the oth­er prob­lems fac­ing the coun­try. The JLP must now embark on a sus­tained media cam­paign which ampli­fies these prob­lems. It must keep ham­mer­ing away at every­thing dai­ly, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly offer­ing palat­able alter­na­tives to the PNP poli­cies. If Holness and the JLP does not adopt an aggres­sive elec­tion­eer­ing strat­e­gy from now, it should resign itself to being in oppo­si­tion again when the next elec­tions are over.

The Jamaica Labor Party has been in polit­i­cal obliv­ion for decades, first under Seaga until he got the mes­sage that hav­ing a cohe­sive eco­nom­ic plan for Jamaica was not going to win him anoth­er go at the Tiller and he gave up. Seaga was no finan­cial wiz­ard, nei­ther was he a Saint by a long shot as it relates to gar­ri­son pol­i­tics. For Jamaicans opposed to the insid­i­ous cor­ro­sive nature of People’s National Party Politics, Seaga was a tol­er­a­ble counter-bal­ance. The gen­er­al elec­tions of 1980 saw Edward Seaga swept to pow­er on a 51 to 9 seat advan­tage over Michael Manley. Many believed Manley actu­al­ly lost his seat but was allowed to keep it by virtue of Seaga’s largess. Whether true or not, Manley was a vocif­er­ous oppo­si­tion leader, agi­tat­ing against every­thing. Seaga called snap elec­tions in 1983 , just 3 years after win­ning the largest man­date ever in Jamaica’s his­to­ry. Manley and the People’s National Party did not con­test the elec­tions. Manley knew the PNP would have lost that elec­tion, he also knew he was out of ideas. Manley chose instead to label the new­ly elect­ed JLP Administration ille­git­i­mate, (Bogus Government) in com­mon Jamaica vernacular.

Michael Manley 

Michael Manley and the PNP was unan­i­mous­ly returned to pow­er in 1989 to con­tin­ue the wreck­ing job it start­ed in 1972 . Today Revisionist his­to­ri­ans are busy san­i­tiz­ing Michael Manley’s record of accom­plish­ment , vir­tu­al­ly can­on­iz­ing and mak­ing him a Saint or the sec­ond com­ing of Jesus Christ for Jamaica’s poor and dis­pos­sessed. Ask the peo­ple who were in the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union about Michael Manley’s gang­ster tac­tics to con­trol bar­gain­ing rights for the National Workers Union a PNP affil­i­ate. Ask People like Pearnel Charles and vir­tu­al­ly all the JLP polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion, which was locked up at the Army Barracks Up Park Camp under trumped-up alle­ga­tions of sedi­tious activ­i­ties by Michael Manley. Look at the ram­pant pro­lif­er­a­tion of zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions (gar­risons) which sprang up under Michael Manley and his side-kick Anthony Spaulding. Of course the pro­lif­er­a­tion of the Garrisons looked great to the casu­al onlook­er, what’s not to like , poor peo­ple are being housed, right? Only prob­lem was that those hous­es which were stacked with par­ty sup­port­ers were being paid for by the coun­try’s mid­dle class. Teachers, doc­tors, firemen,Police offi­cers , nurs­es bore the brunt of the tax­a­tion to pay for those hous­ing units occu­pied by par­ty supporters.

Percival James Patterson

Today Michael Manley is some­thing of a folk-hero, of course the nation’s econ­o­my is in the toi­let because of his Socialist Policies put in place in the 70’s and con­tin­ued by Percival Patterson and Portia Simpson Miller. There are report­ed­ly 11 PNP Garrisons to every 1 JLP gar­ri­son. I am not sure about that fig­ure as the only JLP Garrison of Tivoli Gardens was dis­man­tled in 2010. Somehow the trio of Manley Patterson and Miller nev­er quite under­stood that when Government pro­vides a safe envi­ron­ment free from bureau­crat­ic red-tape, cor­rup­tion, crony­ism, and nepo­tism, and pay-offs the entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it of the peo­ple soars. Instead they reduced our coun­try to a nation of beg­gars. Many of whom believe Government holds the keys to their sal­va­tion. Despite this trag­ic mal­a­dy the Manley name is plas­tered all over Jamaica, streets, build­ings , air­port, muse­ums and yes the cur­ren­cy, bears the not so sub­tle indoc­tri­na­tion cour­tesy of the PNP.

Portia Lucretia Simpson Miller

Neither Michael Manley , Percival Patterson , nor Portia Simpson Miller won elec­tions because they had bet­ter ideas on how to grow Jamaica’s econ­o­my. They did not win because they had a plan to low­er tax­es, improve edu­ca­tion, low­er crime and cor­rup­tion, elim­i­nat­ing gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion and bureau­cra­cy, and embark­ing on mas­sive infra­struc­tur­al devel­op­ment. They read the elec­torate well, they real­ized that toss­ing a few dol­lars at the right time to the right group of peo­ple will have them hold­ing state pow­er. This strat­e­gy has worked per­fect­ly . Over the last 4 decades they have held elect­ed office for 28 years. The vast major­i­ty of the vot­ing pub­lic are quite con­tent to be thrown a cou­ple of crash pro­gram bucks, and be allowed to break the laws to sup­ple­ment those bor­rowed dol­lars. A trag­ic indict­ment on our nation , but one which suits the rul­ing People’s National Party. So don’t ask the Prime Minister about growth poli­cies and her Administration’s plan to reduce pover­ty, much less elim­i­nat­ing the wan­ton killings which are forc­ing peo­ple to flee. They don’t want to be both­ered with Governing, win­ning elec­tions is what they know how to do and they do it well. That is the rea­son Portia feels she don’t have to be both­ered with answer­ing to any­one, least of all the peas­ants who are going to vote for her and her par­ty regardless.

Andrew Holness 

When Andrew Holness was hand­ed the JLP , I offered my unso­licit­ed advice on what he need­ed to do if he was to be suc­cess­ful.https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​2​196. Holness called the elec­tions and hand­ed the reins of Government to Miller and the PNP. Whether it was a good or bad deci­sion to call elec­tions at that time may nev­er be known, but it gave Holness a chance to rebuild and make the Party a focused par­ty. I thought it would have been the right thing to do to solid­i­fy or shore up his sup­port, which would put him in a bet­ter posi­tion to take on the PNP. He did not embark on rebuild­ing or re-brand­ing which forced a chal­lenge from Audley Shaw. Many argued it was bad for Shaw to chal­lenge. I thought it was a good idea, both for the lead­er­ship of Holness and for the par­ty to be seen as demo­c­ra­t­ic going for­ward. I also thought that if Holness solid­i­fied the par­ty around his ideas a chal­lenge would have been avert­ed . https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​5​615.

Holness sur­vived the chal­lenge from Audley Shaw but not get­ting his hands and feet dirty will not return the JLP to Jamaica House. Simply put, the Jamaican vot­ers are not going to elect the JLP to gov­ern­ment sim­ply because the PNP screwed up and con­tin­ue to screw up. It took mas­sive out-maneu­ver­ing for Bruce Golding to eak out a win, despite 18 ¹⁄₂ years of colos­sal foul-ups by the PNP . Andrew Holness and the JLP would be well advised to roll up their sleeves now and seri­ous­ly get to work. The Jamaican elec­torate will not sim­ply hand them the keys to Jamaica House, They will have to take it.

Supreme ven­tures recent­ly announced the clos­ing of their gam­ing facil­i­ty the Acropolis on the Hip-Strip in Montego Bay. According to report­ing in the Jamaican Media, Supreme Ventures said it would reduce its lev­el of spon­sor­ship and dona­tions in 2014.
President and CEO of the Supreme Ventures Group, Brian George, says the cur­rent eco­nom­ic chal­lenges and the sig­nif­i­cant increase in lot­tery-gam­ing tax­es have had an adverse effect on the Company’s profits.

However, before the ink was dry on the sto­ry ‚President of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce Nathan Robb dove head-first into the fray, stat­ing that Supreme Ventures should not blame high­er tax­es on the deci­sion it took to close the facil­i­ty. Robb argues “Supreme Ventures could have been more cre­ative in its mar­ket­ing of the prop­er­ty giv­en its prime loca­tion on Gloucester Avenue oth­er­wise known as the Hip Strip”. 

Nathan Robb

This is the first time that I can recall where a cham­ber of com­merce head or any­one in the pri­vate sec­tor has open­ly gone against one of their own, and with­out any evi­dence sup­port­ing the counter-claim of poor mar­ket­ing cre­ativ­i­ty. In fact Supreme Ventures has marked­ly stat­ed that they made the deci­sion to close the facil­i­ty, as it is the only part of their busi­ness con­glom­er­ate which is los­ing mon­ey. Smart com­pa­nies do that all the time, irre­spec­tive of loca­tion, some­times it is nec­es­sary to shed dead weight. Why would Supreme Ventures con­tin­ue to keep an enti­ty which is a drag on its oper­a­tions? That would be tan­ta­mount to keep­ing a gan­grene-infect­ed limb to the detri­ment of the whole body. What this has shown how­ev­er is how deeply and entrenched the PNP has plant­ed it’s oper­a­tives and func­tionar­ies, into every crevasse and cor­ner of nation­al life and kept them there. So much so that it is almost impos­si­ble to get an objec­tive per­spec­tive from any­one in the pub­lic or pri­vate sec­tor or any oth­er part of nation­al life, includ­ing the Clergy, that is untaint­ed by orange influ­ence. Many com­pa­nies are clos­ing because of exor­bi­tant oper­a­tional costs. These costs includes, but are not con­fined to bur­den­some tax­a­tion. It is incon­ceiv­able that one appoint­ed to look out for the inter­est of busi­ness­es such as Supreme Ventures could be so polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed that he reneged on the pri­ma­cy of that function.

Those look­ing for a turn-around of the Jamaican econ­o­my or a decrease in mur­ders and oth­er crimes may con­tin­ue spit­ting in the wind, just cov­er you faces.