Since the launch of this site we have been crit­i­cal of Jamaica’s People’s National par­ty on sev­er­al occa­sions , in fact we have writ­ten three spe­cif­ic blogs that specif­i­cal­ly tar­gets that par­ty and its oper­a­tives. These blogs are as follows.

(1) Enough with the sup­port for crim­i­nals .July 27^th.

(2) We are not act­ing irre­spon­si­bly says PNP . August 5^th.

(3) No slo­ga­neer­ing except this new slo­gan .August 8^th.

We have been harsh­ly crit­i­cal of the PNP in these blogs as well as in oth­ers , not because we hate the peo­ple’s National Party as a par­ty com­pet­ing for state pow­er, and one that has been incred­i­bly suc­cess­ful at doing so .

We crit­i­cize the PNP because that par­ty has been giv­en tremen­dous lever­age at state pow­er , yet as very lit­tle to show for all of the time they were allowed con­trol of the state’s resources. In fact they have woe­ful­ly squan­dered the resources of the State , this crit­i­cism has come even from with­in . Dr Blythe a for­mer min­is­ter of Government and a very well-respect­ed Jamaican, him­self point­ed to the par­ty’s failings.

Many peo­ple bare­ly able to write their names, have become filthy rich , at the expense of the Jamaican tax­pay­ers, as a result of the PNP’s largess. They have sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly used every cor­rupt prac­tice to award con­tracts to peo­ple not qual­i­fied to shine shoes. This has cost the Jamaican peo­ple Billions of dol­lars. Nepotism, cur­ry favor, polit­i­cal pay-offs and every vice imaginable,has been employed in swin­dling the scarce resources of the state and divert­ing them into the pock­ets of unscrupu­lous par­ty hacks and enforcers. Yet despite this, Jamaican vot­ers have over­whelm­ing­ly giv­en that par­ty the reins to gov­er­nance sig­nif­i­cant­ly more than the oth­er par­ty , the JLP.

The coun­try has strug­gled and now lags behind the rest of the Caribbean in pret­ty much all sec­tors to include edu­ca­tion , eco­nom­ic growth, and crime man­age­ment to name a few. Jamaica, which up to the begin­ning of the 70′ was the leader in the Caribbean, was looked to for lead­er­ship by its neigh­bors , has now been reduced to a laugh­ing-stock by coun­tries like Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, the Cayman Islands and oth­ers. Our cur­ren­cy is almost worth­less and our peo­ple looked on as pari­ahs wher­ev­er we go.

The PNP has tra­di­tion­al­ly posi­tioned itself as a cham­pi­on of the poor . Articulating a path that at face val­ue seem to advo­cate for the poor illit­er­ate mass­es, cham­pi­oning their cause as the cause of the par­ty, rather than actu­al­ly doing any­thing sub­stan­tive about their plight.

This par­ty has been blessed with great ora­tors at it’s helm, from the Manley’s, father and son to, Portia Simpson Miller , the first female to ascend to that lev­el in either par­ty, they have had tremen­dous crowd pleasers, who could/​can mes­mer­ize a crowd into believ­ing any­thing . However when the façade is peeled back there is, and nev­er real­ly was any­thing to the rhetoric.

Unfortunately for Jamaica ‚a coun­try with a large part of its pop­u­la­tion illit­er­ate, and too many look­ing to politi­cians for a break ‚the future seem bleak.

The hot air the PNP spew is wel­come news and some­thing to hold onto for many, but gen­er­al­ly is a lot of heat and not much light. The present leader of the par­ty Simpson Miller is seen as a kind of local deity , she has clawed her way up from the bot­tom of the pole of rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al pol­i­tics , most peo­ple iden­ti­fy with her, they see her as one of them based on her hum­ble begin­nings, oth­ers are drawn to her because of her gen­der, they see her as a trail-blaz­er . Getting to the top of the heap is com­mend­able and wor­thy of recog­ni­tion. However there are those who could tell tales of some of her shenani­gans that would turn a lot of folks com­plete­ly off.

When viewed in the con­text of the length of time she has rep­re­sent­ed the con­stituen­cy of South west St Andrew, and her sup­posed pas­sion for the poor, the two nar­ra­tives shows a seis­mic dis­con­nect. The peo­ple of that con­stituen­cy are some of Jamaica’s most dis­ad­van­taged , needy, dis­pos­sessed, impov­er­ished, and illit­er­ate. There is no intent here to dis­par­age the good peo­ple of south-west St Andrew.

We bring these facts to the fore to illus­trate that sup­posed car­ing, does not nec­es­sar­i­ly trans­late into pos­i­tive change. Saying I care , , hug­ging and cry­ing, with­out actu­al­ly lay­ing the foun­da­tion that will sus­tain a long-term growth process for gen­er­a­tions to come , real­ly is disin­gen­u­ous, and cre­ates more hurt than help. Teaching some­one to fish, is a much bet­ter strat­e­gy than giv­ing a per­son a fish every day. Unless of course, giv­ing a fish a day is a strat­e­gy designed to keep peo­ple behold­en to the giv­er , mes­mer­ized at the largess, and per­ceived kind­ness , but in a sin­is­ter way traps them into a cul­ture of depen­dence, and illiteracy.

The road to suc­cess was nev­er going to be an easy one ‚those in lead­er­ship , whether in busi­ness, pol­i­tics, war, what­ev­er the field , must edu­cate those they pur­port to lead on the sac­ri­fices and chal­lenges, as well as the set­backs that will lit­ter the road to suc­cess. Some argue suc­cess is not even attain­able. That aside, I liken suc­cess to a high-rise tow­er . Before we get to the exquis­ite panoram­ic view from those air-con­di­tioned offices, some­one had to dig sev­er­al floors down into the dirt and mud to lay the foun­da­tion , get­ting dirty, with hands bruised and cal­loused from the grind of secur­ing the foun­da­tions that makes it nec­es­sary to have that high-rise office tow­er. This anal­o­gy is alien to the strat­e­gy of the PNP , they stead­fast­ly refuse to acknowl­edge the grunge work that must be done to attain the fleet­ing con­cept that is suc­cess. Each and every Generation must do it’s part to add to the suc­cess­es of gen­er­a­tions past as we move to suc­cess, a con­cept that con­stant­ly moves the goal post. Despite this each gen­er­a­tion will see their stan­dard of liv­ing improved if we under­stand and imple­ment the nec­es­sary foun­da­tion work toward that end. In the blog titled No slo­ga­neer­ing except this new slo­gan, I point­ed to the fact that the pres­i­dent of the PNP when asked point­ed­ly what was the pri­or­i­ty for her ‚should she become the Prime Minister again. In the Interview giv­en to TVJ she gave an inco­her­ent tor­tured ram­ble that seemed like a toy train going round and round with no des­ti­na­tion. In that inter­view she failed to iden­ti­fy the sin­gle great­est threat to growth and progress, the crime mon­ster and ener­gy cost. As I com­ment­ed then, if Portia Simpson Miller is unable to under­stand that every­thing is pred­i­cat­ed on a sta­ble soci­ety where entre­pre­neurs can be the best they can be , cre­at­ing jobs . In a soci­ety free from crime and ter­ror , extor­tion, exor­bi­tant ener­gy rates, stu­pid regres­sive Government reg­u­la­tions based on the whims of one per­son, and a work-force that feels some­one owes it something.

This brings us to the lat­est fluff put for­ward by the PNP called the “PROGRESSIVE AGENDA”. For the sake of our coun­try I prayed that this lat­est fish­ing expe­di­tion would be dif­fer­ent from all of the oth­er fluff agen­das we have seen of the PNP in the past. Well true to form they con­tin­ued to offer a Utopian wide-rang­ing dis­or­ga­nized kitchen sink , rather than spe­cif­ic tar­get­ed areas for sus­tained atten­tion and growth.

The Progressive Agenda fea­tures five pil­lars: Human Resource Development; A Safe, Secure and Just Society; a Participatory, Accountable and Responsible Society; Progressive Internationalism; and Economic Growth and Sustainable Development. These pil­lars are cer­tain­ly crit­i­cal to the social and eco­nom­ic pro­gres­sion of Jamaica. Unfortunately, the PNP’s Progressive Agenda fails to lucid­ly demon­strate how the par­ty intends to achieve its in-explic­it dec­la­ra­tions. Under the Human Resources Development pil­lar, the par­ty notes that it will “address the under achieve­ment of young men, and the under-reward­ing of young women”. Under Safety and Security, the PNP express­es its inten­tion to “pro­mote a cul­ture of tol­er­ance, respect, social respon­si­bil­i­ty, respect for oth­er peo­ple, for ani­mals, and for nature”. They declare: “Jamaica will be a busy bee­hive.” They might as well state an inten­tion to sum­mon great God from the sky to “take away every­thing and make every­body feel high.

When pushed by TVJ on what would be her imme­di­ate focus if she was to be returned to pow­er, Miller had this to say.

I have sev­er­al pri­or­i­ties and hence the pro­gres­sive agen­da, that lays down the var­i­ous areas of concentration,certainly the growth and devel­op­ment of the country,economic growth and development,education , jobs. 

But those are kin­da broad, but what would you do to fix what you under­stand is a bro­ken economy.?(interviewer)

There are a num­ber of areas that we … we can look on that will be able to cre­ate jobs , we look at what you men­tioned ear­li­er agri­cul­ture and the val­ue added, you notice every year it’s now man­go time, we eat what we can and the rest just fall on the ground and rot, .veg­eta­bles now when you see the farm­ers loos­ing their crops because they have no market,how is it we can get fac­to­ries into a num­ber of the parish­es, that will process all of these things , and so that we can con­sume what we can and then oth­ers the rest of the world will share with us ‚and I think agri­cul­ture is one in terms of agri­cul­ture and the val­ue added.And I think urban and rur­al devel­op­ment will also be a focus apart from look­ing at the whole ques­tion of ener­gy , because I think that is crit­i­cal in the coun­try at this time, and look­ing at all the oth­er areas cer­tain­ly busi­ness­es, aahm small medi­um size , while not ignor­ing the big busi­ness­es, and con­tin­ue to give them sup­port, well we need to look at all those areas that will allow the econ­o­my to grow. We need to look seri­ous­ly at the devel­op­ment and planned devel­op­ment of Jamaica , both rur­al and urban, we tend to look at the towns and the cities and we ignore the rur­al areas,and the deep rur­al areas , and I think that’s why we have the migra­tion into ….so there are a num­ber of areas that are well doc­u­ment­ed in the pro­gres­sive agen­da , and there are a num­ber of per­sons that are look­ing at it and they are giv­ing us some crit­i­cal feed­back and sug­ges­tions that we are tak­ing on board so we can have the launch, and then to have wider con­sul­ta­tions , broad­er con­sul­ta­tions , and all of that.

Mangoes ! Yes my fel­low Jamaicans mangoes.

The con­gres­sion­al black cau­cus took the ini­tia­tive to do some­thing about the job­less­ness in America , and par­tic­u­lar­ly in the black com­mu­ni­ty. We com­mend senior con­gres­sion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive John Lewis of Georgia for his lead­er­ship and unflinch­ing efforts toward the uplift­ing of all Americans and par­tic­u­lar African-Americans. 

The ini­tia­tive was in the form of a job fair in Atlanta Georgia on Thursday August 18^th which saw thou­sands of job seek­ers turn­ing up hop­ing to get a job.( ABC news saw it this way).Thousands of unem­ployed wait­ed overnight, camp­ing out in their busi­ness suits and office heels and brav­ing the tor­ment­ing heat in Atlanta to stand in line for a job fair Thursday. Authorities treat­ed 20 peo­ple for heat exhaus­tion as they strug­gled to keep the line mov­ing and get peo­ple moved inside.(abc news​.com)

The con­gres­sion­al black cau­cus says it intends to do it again spon­sor­ing one in Los Angeles California and in Miami Florida. The Job fair made the news in oth­er ways, as some mem­bers of the black cau­cus took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to voice their dis­con­tent at the lack of jobs in the econ­o­my. Front and cen­ter was California rep­re­sen­ta­tive Maxine Walters who seemed rather frus­trat­ed with the President , whilst at the same time insist­ing that she sup­ports him.

At the heart of Walter’s dis­con­tent is the fact that the pres­i­dent took a three-day bust trip to ally the fears of rur­al folks in Iowa , Minnesota , and Illinois , but did not vis­it any urban cen­ters that are tra­di­tion­al homes to black Americans.

This leads us to look at the pres­i­den­t’s style of leadership.

From the onset, can­di­date Obama was forced to sep­a­rate him­self from the shack­les of being char­ac­ter­ized as a black can­di­date for the pres­i­den­cy, Obama under­stood that if he was pigeon-holed as a black can­di­date his chances of win­ning the White House was slim­mer than that of a snow-ball in hell.

Whether Obama did this as a shrewd tac­ti­cal polit­i­cal move or because he had to relate to the oth­er half of him, that is his moth­er’s side, is irrel­e­vant. Anyone look­ing at his can­di­da­cy had to see it as the best strat­e­gy if he was to pull off some­thing most peo­ple thought they would nev­er see in their life­time, a black man in the White House.

Bill Clinton for­mer Democratic President char­ac­ter­ized Obama’s can­di­da­cy as a quote “fairy tale’. President Clinton spent a lot of ener­gy try­ing to walk back those com­ments. We in the black com­mu­ni­ty knew exact­ly what he meant, I how­ev­er under­stood why he said it, I would have done the same in his place, if my wife was run­ning, and it would not be racial.

It just was nev­er done before.

In order for Obama to pull off the impos­si­ble, he had to posi­tion him­self as a race neu­tral being, he could ill-afford to be char­ac­ter­ized as anoth­er angry black left-wing rad­i­cal. Labels that were hung around the necks of pre­vi­ous can­di­dates like Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton. In essence Obama had to dis­avow his black side in order to appease white Americans.

A white America that have always been wary and afraid of black men. A fear born out of guilt maybe, but fear nontheless. 

This how­ev­er drew the ire of black stal­warts like Jesse Jackson who had done the grunge work to make it pos­si­ble for a can­di­date Obama .

The good­ly Reverend alleged­ly had some choice exple­tives for Obama, for dar­ing to chas­tise black Americans on tak­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for their own actions, in a black church no less.

Something too many of my African American broth­ers and sis­ters do not nesces­sar­i­ly take kind­ly to. But which is made no less true because of their denial.

Bill Clinton was forced to take on the black com­mu­ni­ty in the face of a scathing attack from right wing repub­li­cans who saw rap music as the poten­tial death of America. 

Clinton went on to diss, rap­per sis­ter Soulja, about the con­tent of her lyrics, Clinton knew how­ev­er that blacks had nowhere else to go but the Democratic par­ty. where were blacks going to go ? To a par­ty that is as lil­ly white as the Colorado Mountains IN win­ter. Blacks have long been per­sona non gra­ta (not wel­come) in the Republican par­ty , so he could afford to take that gam­ble in order to counter bal­ance the vapid assault com­ing from the right , from attack­ers who were up in arms about rap lyrics.

Throughout the elec­tion cam­paign Obama was forced repeat­ed­ly to show his non black­ness, but was even­tu­al­ly cor­nered by a new wave of repub­li­can swift boaters in the Jeremiah Wright débâ­cle. Candidate Obama was forced to deliv­er a major Policy speech on race, the speech of his life, well writ­ten , well deliv­ered , and one that prob­a­bly cement­ed into the minds of white inde­pen­dent vot­ers that Obama was not a wide-eyed lib­er­al in black skin. despite this mon­u­men­tal speech the Jeremiah Wright affair dogged Obama through­out the pri­maries to their con­clu­sions and through­out the General elec­tions cam­paign. Democratic oppo­nent Hillary Clinton was all to hap­py to cap­i­tal­ize on the cir­cus-like mad­ness sur­round­ing this non issue. For the first time a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date was being held respon­si­ble for some­thing some­one else had said.

Obama’s lead­er­ship style and his stat­ed way of doing busi­ness after get­ting elect­ed, was one of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, reach­ing across the aisle to repub­li­cans in order to get things done. He was inspired by Lincoln and his strat­e­gy of putting his for­mer rivals into his cab­i­net. Biden as vice President,Hillary Clinton at the State Department pret­ty much saw Obama’s objec­tives met.

What Obama seem­ing­ly did not bar­gain for , and to this day do not com­pre­hend, at least as far as some folks I have spo­ken to are con­cerned, is the unadul­ter­at­ed ven­emous hatred repub­li­cans have for him. The President we assume is some­how shield­ed from the putrid bile that is spewed from the lips of every lit­tle repub­li­can ‚irre­spec­tive of stature.

The dis­re­spect is pal­pa­ble as it fol­lowed the pres­i­dent into the con­gress, whilst deliv­er­ing the state of the Union address one repub­li­can con­gress­man shout­ed out at the pres­i­dent “you lie”, most repub­li­cans sanc­tioned the infa­mous you lie com­ment, even though it was unprece­dent­ed , dis­grace­ful crass, and boor­ish. No oth­er sit­ting pres­i­dent as far as our research revealed, deliv­er­ing a state of the union address, have ever been treat­ed with such dis­re­spect and utter contempt.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D‑Md., said “I have nev­er in my 29 years heard an out­burst of that nature with ref­er­ence to a pres­i­dent of the United States speak­ing as a guest of the House and Senate.”

The hatred and the utter humil­i­ta­tion at see­ing a black man as President stand­ing there lec­tur­ing a room-full of most­ly old white men was too much for Joe Wilson of South Carolina.

So gut wrench­ing it was for them that Wilson arguably lost con­trol of his entire being, and was unable to stop him­self from shout­ing out at the President, ‘you lie”.

The troll lat­er apol­o­gised to Rham Emanuel, then Chief of staff to the pres­i­dent. To their cred­it some Republicans found his behav­ior dis­re­spect­ful and told him so ‚this includ­ed Senator John Mccain, of Arizona, and rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jerry lewis of California

This was not con­fined to the ill-man­nered con­gres­sion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive , a sit­ting mem­ber of the Supreme Court Samuel Alito , a recent Bush appointee vis­i­bly shook his head in dis­agree­ment whilst mouthing some­thing , as the pres­i­dent spoke to what he dis­agreed with, regard­ing a Supreme Court deci­sion. Political his­to­ri­ans are still hard pressed to find a sin­gle instance where any of the dis­re­spect shown to pres­i­dent Obama was ever shown to any oth­er American pres­i­dent. One can under­stand the intem­per­ate out­burst from an uncul­tured , uncouth Congressman, one would how­ev­er expect a supreme court jus­tice to under­stand protocol.

President Obama’s style of lead­er­ship has drawn howls of con­dem­na­tion from both the right and left. The chal­lenges he faces are unique, and as such hard to gauge, is the grid­lock in Washington just the way things gets done in the Nation’s cap­i­tal, or is it because we have a black president?

There have been a stat­ed desire from the peo­ple on the right to see the pres­i­dent fail ! I am strug­gling to see how the pres­i­dent could fail with no con­se­quence to the coun­try? I try to see the pos­si­bil­i­ty of this, based on the claims the pres­i­den­t’s ene­mies make, that they are patriots.

On his ascen­den­cy to the pres­i­den­cy , Mister Obama had a Democratic House, and a Democratic Senate. Democrats had an almost carte blanche to enact their agen­da, and could legit­i­mate­ly claim a man­date. They could have legit­i­mate­ly argued that elec­tions have con­se­quence. What they did was to quib­ble amongst them­selves, split­ting into dif­fer­ent groups , blue dogs, lib­er­als, and Regan democ­rats, the lat­ter being an oxy­moron if I ever did see one. Whilst democ­rats quib­ble an omi­nous cloud was form­ing on the polit­i­cal hori­zon in the form of the now pow­er­ful tea party.

The tea par­ty, large­ly a group of racist hyp­ocrites, had no trou­ble with the expen­di­tures of Reagan, Bush and Bush , repub­li­can pres­i­dents who ran up the nation­al debt and oper­at­ed with unbal­anced bud­gets . Suddenly saw the destruc­tion of America, and their quote way of life under threat from pres­i­dent Obama. They could not argue that the pres­i­dent was unqual­i­fied to be pres­i­dent because of his age, so they cast asper­sions on the true place of his birth. The United States Constitution requires only that a can­di­date be born in the United States, and be of or above the age of 35 years.

They cre­at­ed what almost amount­ed to a nation­al cri­sis argu­ing (1) Falsely that Obama was not born in the United States. (2) They argued false­ly that the pres­i­dent was a mus­lim, a  false­hood that even if true would not have pre­clud­ed an American from law­ful­ly seek­ing the pres­i­den­cy under the constitution.

Conversely Obama’s oppo­nent , war hero, Senator John McCain of Arizona was not born in the United States, report­ed­ly born some­where in the Panama canal zone. Tea par­ty activists had no prob­lem with sen­a­tor McCain’s lack of main­land birth. Tea par­ty sup­port­ers and their cronies had no com­punc­tion about show­ing their ran­cid hatred for the pres­i­dent , and cer­tain­ly have not been restrained in their use of deroga­to­ry and dis­gust­ing­ly demean­ing car­i­ca­tures in their depic­tion of Mister Obama.

Throughout all of these attacks on the pres­i­dent, the con­gres­sion­al black cau­cus has been mute. Where have the lead­er­ship of that group been ? The tea par­ty has gal­va­nized their sup­port­ers into a unyeild­ing , uncom­pro­mis­ing , group of right-wing zealots. that have pri­maried tra­di­tion­al repub­li­can sen­ate and house can­di­dates , forc­ing some out, and forc­ing oth­ers far to the right of their own con­vic­tions in order to stay alive politically.

The ide­o­log­i­cal right-wing puri­ty test have cre­at­ed what is now hap­pen­ing in Washington. This includes the non­sen­si­cal man­u­fac­tured debate about the debt ceil­ing , which before Obama was a mere for­mal­i­ty. The atten­dant down­grade of America’s AAA rat­ings from Standard and Poors, gave Republicans what they want­ed, the abil­i­ty to tag this pres­i­dent with the infamy of hav­ing been the first American President to see this hap­pen on his watch . Arguing it was a result of his fail­ures, when in fact it was of their doing.

The black cau­cus did not estab­lish them­selves as they most cer­tain­ly could, by strik­ing an alliance with the his­pan­ic cau­cus , giv­ing the his­pan­ic cau­cus their com­mitt­ment that they would sup­port them on immi­gra­tion , and ask­ing them to join them into push­ing back hard against the right-wing reac­tionar­ies in the tea par­ty. Instead they sat on their rear ends expect­ing things to hap­pen, well things hap­pened , the tea par­ty got all they want­ed , they have blocked the pres­i­den­t’s agen­da to the point the coun­try is arguably close to a sec­ond reces­sion, the pres­i­den­t’s approval num­bers on the econ­o­my is under 40% despite his suc­cess in elim­i­nat­ing Osama Bin Laden.

This ought to be a les­son to the black cau­cus , whether there is a black pres­i­dent or not the strug­gle con­tin­ues and despite the pow­er of the pres­i­den­cy, this  pres­i­dent will not be able to do what oth­er pres­i­dents did as a mat­ter of course. It’s not the office, it’s the man. This is still America.

mike beck­les:

have your say:

This blog has no pref­er­ence for either of the two polit­i­cal par­ties in Jamaica, in my esti­ma­tion they are both crim­i­nal gangs , unwor­thy of respect or support.

We how­ev­er seek mere­ly to high­light to the Jamaican pub­lic the facts and let them decide for them­selves unfil­tered.

The People’s National Party launched their new talk­ing points , the “pro­gres­sive agen­da” at the Courtleigh hotel in New Kingston last night. At that event par­ty President Portia Simpson Miller had this to say : The pol­i­cy mix­es con­tained in the doc­u­ment are aimed at ful­fill­ing the mis­sion Norman Manley spoke of in his last address to the par­ty’s con­fer­ence in 1968. “We have realised polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence now for almost 50 years. However, as Norman Manley said, the task ahead is to achieve eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence. The ideas con­tained in this doc­u­ment will take us onward and for­ward to achiev­ing that target.

We have realised polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence now for almost 50 years. However, as Norman Manley said, the task ahead is to achieve eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence. The ideas con­tained in this doc­u­ment will take us onward and for­ward to achiev­ing that tar­get,” Simpson Miller said in the packed audi­to­ri­um, with dozens locked out because there was no space in the room.

Manley, the first pres­i­dent of the PNP, said the mis­sion of his gen­er­a­tion was to win self-gov­ern­ment for Jamaica. He also said the mis­sion of the gen­er­a­tion which suc­ceed­ed him was “recon­struct­ing the social and eco­nom­ic soci­ety and life of Jamaica”.

In the Progressive Agenda, the PNP says it com­mits to “an approach to gov­er­nance that will be data-dri­ven, evi­dence-based with mea­sur­able outcomes”.

The par­ty says gov­er­nance would be con­struct­ed on five pil­lars — human resource devel­op­ment; a safe, secure and just soci­ety; par­tic­i­pa­to­ry, account­able and respon­si­ble soci­ety; pro­gres­sive inter­na­tion­al­ism; and eco­nom­ic growth for sus­tain­able nation­al development.

Commenting on the work of the Anthony Hylton-chaired com­mit­tee which devel­oped the Progressive Agenda, Simpson Miller said it deliv­ered what she asked for.

“Opposition par­ties are always faced with the temp­ta­tion of craft­ing pro­grammes for vote-get­ting. I thank the team for resist­ing the for­mu­la­tion of emp­ty promis­es, quick fix­es and pop­ulist slo­ga­neer­ing,” she said.

“I thank you who craft­ed the Progressive Agenda for not sim­ply rush­ing to sat­is­fy the under­stand­able anx­i­eties of a pop­u­la­tion that is des­per­ate­ly in need of hope,” she added.

Among the promis­es con­tained in the Progressive Agenda is a com­mit­ment to intro­duc­ing greater trans­paren­cy to the man­age­ment of the coun­try’s finance and eco­nom­ic affairs.

“Fiscal imbal­ances, per­sis­tent deficits and low rates of growth in the nation­al econ­o­my have been con­se­quences of this over many years,” the par­ty noted.

“In an effort to secure greater trans­paren­cy, greater fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty and greater lev­els of pub­lic account­abil­i­ty which is at the heart of good gov­er­nance, the PNP will estab­lish an esti­mates com­mit­tee in the Parliament to have con­sid­er­a­tion of expen­di­ture pri­or­i­ties in the con­text of a medi­um-term eco­nom­ic frame­work,” it said.

“We will also ensure the effec­tive func­tion­ing of a com­mit­tee on tax­a­tion in the Parliament able to con­sult with stake­hold­ers in con­sid­er­ing tax­a­tion pol­i­cy and rev­enue-rais­ing mea­sures,” it added.

Simpson Miller’s par­ty has also promised to posi­tion Jamaica’s cul­tur­al and cre­ative indus­tries, includ­ing sports, as pri­or­i­ty indus­tries, giv­en their enor­mous poten­tial for growth, export, employ­ment, gen­er­al eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment, and human-resource development.

“The par­ty, as gov­ern­ment, will seek to devel­op mod­ern cul­tur­al and cre­ative indus­tries poli­cies, informed by research and analy­sis,” the Progressive Agenda says.

Simpson Miller yes­ter­day stressed that the way for­ward for Jamaica’s devel­op­ment must be dri­ven by research. “We must be evi­dence-based. We must engage in fact-find­ing, data col­lec­tion, objec­tive analy­sis and lev­el-head­ed real­ism,” she said.

The Progressive Agenda rep­re­sents the fourth pol­i­cy review of the PNP since Norman Manley pub­lished the Man with the Plan in the 1950s. Michael Manley pub­lished Democratic Socialism in the 1970s and The Compass in the 1980s before P.J. Patterson’s 21^st Century Mission in the 1990s.daraine.​luton@​gleanerjm.​com

I have not seen the doc­u­ment and as such I am in no posi­tion to com­ment beyond what the Party President said in her address. Her state­ments rings haunt­ing­ly fami­lar , as if some­how we have been there before , I can­not quite put my fin­ger on why I have this feel­ing of unease and dis­qui­et. I think I will go over her state­ments again.…just give me a minute please readers.!!!!.….….…..

Got it,here it is, this is the source of my dis­qui­et, how could I have been so blind?

The Progressive Agenda rep­re­sents the fourth pol­i­cy review of the PNP since Norman Manley pub­lished the Man with the Plan in the 1950s. Michael Manley pub­lished Democratic Socialism in the 1970s and The Compass in the 1980s before P.J. Patterson’s 21^st Century Mission in the 1990s.

There you have it for as long as they have been a par­ty the PNP has been issu­ing plans(dogma) catchy elec­tion­eer­ing lit­er­a­ture that gets dis­card­ed once they have seized state pow­er. Make no mis­take the PNP is a mas­ter of win­ning elections.

Two-par­ty pol­i­tics after inde­pen­dence: 1962 – 80
The two lead­ing polit­i­cal fig­ures in the ear­ly days of inde­pen­dence were Alexander Bustamante, leader of the cen­tre-right Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), which he found­ed in 1943, and Norman Manley, leader of the left-of-cen­tre People’s National Party (PNP), which he found­ed in 1938. The JLP held pow­er 1962 – 72, win­ning gen­er­al elec­tions in 1962 and 1967 under the lead­er­ship first of Bustamente, who ruled until 1964 (when he was replaced by Donald Sangster) and then Hugh Shearer, from 1967. It was a time of strong eco­nom­ic growth, of around 6% per annum, with invest­ments in tourism and the alu­mi­na and oth­er indus­tries, but wealth was unequal­ly shared.

In the ear­ly 1970s, the econ­o­my slowed down and there was demand from the urban poor for a greater share of the coun­try’s wealth. This enabled the social­ist PNP, led by Norman Manley’s charis­mat­ic son Michael, to win the 1972 gen­er­al elec­tion, and the PNP dom­i­nat­ed between 1972 and 1980. Michael Manley embarked on a rad­i­cal pro­gramme of social reform, invest­ment in edu­ca­tion and health, and eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence from the indus­tri­al­ized world. Despite high unem­ploy­ment, Manley was returned to pow­er in 1976 with an increased major­i­ty, but by 1980 there was high infla­tion and GDP had fall­en 25% since 1972. Manley reject­ed a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) because of the con­di­tions attached and instead pur­sued a pol­i­cy of eco­nom­ic self-reliance.

Political vio­lence and JLP rule: 1980 – 89
The 1980 gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign was extreme­ly vio­lent, despite calls by Manley and the leader of the JLP, Edward Seaga, for mod­er­a­tion. The out­come was a deci­sive vic­to­ry for the JLP, which won 51 of the 60 low­er-house seats. This gave Seaga a man­date for a return to a renew­al of links with the USA and an empha­sis on free enter­prise. He sev­ered diplo­mat­ic links with Cuba in 1981. In 1983 Seaga called an ear­ly, snap elec­tion. The oppo­si­tion claimed they had been giv­en insuf­fi­cient time to nom­i­nate their can­di­dates and the JLP won all 60 seats. There were vio­lent demon­stra­tions when the new par­lia­ment was inau­gu­rat­ed, and the PNP said it would con­tin­ue its oppo­si­tion out­side the par­lia­men­tary arena.

PNP dom­i­nance: 1989 – 2007
Manley and the PNP returned to pow­er with a land­slide vic­to­ry in the 1989 gen­er­al elec­tion, but Manley pur­sued more mod­er­ate eco­nom­ic poli­cies than in the 1970s, with some suc­cess, and worked for improved rela­tions with the USA. In 1992, with his health dete­ri­o­rat­ing, Manley resigned as pre­mier and was replaced by Percival Patterson, the for­mer finance min­is­ter. In a snap gen­er­al elec­tion, held in 1993, Patterson increased the PNP’s major­i­ty, win­ning 52 of the 60 low­er-house seats. From 1991, the PNP gov­ern­ment fol­lowed a pro­gramme of eco­nom­ic lib­er­al­iza­tion, includ­ing remov­ing exchange con­trols, float­ing the exchange rate, reduc­ing tar­iffs, remov­ing restric­tions on for­eign invest­ment, and pri­va­tiz­ing state enter­pris­es. This helped bring the infla­tion rate down from 80% in 1990 to 7% in 1998 and there was steady eco­nom­ic growth until the mid-1990s.

In 1995, the JLP was weak­ened when its chair­man, Bruce Golding, broke away with col­leagues to form a new cen­trist par­ty, the National Democratic Movement (NDM). This enabled Patterson to secure two fur­ther unprece­dent­ed con­sec­u­tive vic­to­ries, rout­ing the JLP in December 1997 and nar­row­ly win­ning the October 2002 gen­er­al election.

But in 2002 Golding rejoined the JLP, to become its chair again in 2003. Meanwhile, Patterson stepped down as prime min­is­ter in February 2006 and the local gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Portia Simpson-Miller was elect­ed head of the PNP and Jamaica’s first female prime minister.

In September 2007, the JLP, under the lead­er­ship of Bruce Golding, returned to pow­er, nar­row­ly defeat­ing the PNP by 32 seats to 28.(elicon Publishing is divi­sion of RM).

The prob­lem is not in win­ning elec­tions as can be seen from that report pub­lished by Elicon pub­lish­ing, one needs to look at the dis­con­nect between win­ning elec­tions through catchy jin­gles and hooks, and actu­al­ly doing the grunge work of Governing and pro­duc­ing results.

With the excep­tion of the peri­od from 1991 to the mid 1990’s under Percival James Patterson, there is not much to point to . Patterson adopt­ed con­ser­v­a­tive strate­gies of remov­ing exchange con­trols, float­ing the exchange rates, reduc­ing tar­iffs, remov­ing restric­tions on for­eign invest­ments and divest­ing some State hold­ings. this move saw infla­tion plum­met from 80% in 1990 to 7% in 1998 and there was steady eco­nom­ic growth until the mid-1990s.The achilees heel of Patterson how­ev­er is that he had no idea how to con­trol the mon­ster of cor­rup­tion and crime.The PNP even though hav­ing been the belle of the ball as it relates to Jamaican pol­i­tics real­ly has not deliv­ered much in the way of tan­gi­ble accom­plish­ments to the Jamaican peo­ple, who for some strange rea­son seem to favor them to the JLP.

It is inter­est­ing to see Miller unwit­ting­ly acknowl­edg­ing that in the past the par­ty has been all about win­ning elec­tions. quote: “Opposition par­ties are always faced with the temp­ta­tion of craft­ing pro­grammes for vote-get­ting. I thank the team for resist­ing the for­mu­la­tion of emp­ty promis­es, quick fix­es and pop­ulist sloganeering,” .

You don’t say ? Populist slo­ga­neer­ing ? Are these the same things as.

Better must come.

My father born ya.

pow­er com­rades:

lick them wid de rad of carrection:

Jamaica a pnp country.

Time for a change.

Democratic social­ism.

Are we to believe the PNP has gone through a meta­mor­pho­sis , ? Are we to believe that they have repent­ed as Michael Manley did after the débâ­cle of the 70’s ? As we have said in pre­vi­ous blogs, Populism can­not run a coun­try , despite all of the tears and hugs of the Party pres­i­dent her con­stituen­cy remains one of the most depressed in the coun­try despite her many years in rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al politics.

I am not an econ­o­mist, sub­se­quent­ly I will allow the them to cri­tique this newest slo­gan ” PROGRESSIVE AGENDA” .

I would imag­ine that fis­cal pru­dence, dereg­u­la­tion, competence,lack of cor­rup­tion, greater transparency,respect, humility,accountability,and an appre­ci­a­tion for the fact that cam­paign­ing and gov­ern­ing are dif­fer­ent. Most impor­tant­ly the rule of law must take prece­dent over every­thing Moving the coun­try from one of man to a coun­try of laws. That includes the bedrock prin­ci­ple of sup­port for those who toil to make the coun­try safe.

Nothing com­ing from the President of the PNP indi­cates that she even under­stands the need to empow­er the rule of law, which is a nec­es­sary char­ac­ter­is­tic, if crime and ter­ror is to be con­tained, a nec­es­sary com­po­nent if the coun­try is to be com­pet­i­tive in attract­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing and oth­er invest­ment opportunities.

Harvesting man­goes and pro­cess­ing them though admirable, and intu­itive, is not going to be enough if our peo­ple are to com­pete going forward.

mike beck­les:

have your say:

One of the three cred­it rat­ings agen­cies Standard and Poor“s has down­grad­ed America’s cred­it rat­ing from the gold stan­dard AAA to a less pres­ti­gious AA+ . What this means is that America which was once seen as a pris­tine risk free place to invest is less so. Standard and Poors had informed the Obama Administration of their inten­tion to down­grade, the Administration dis­agreed with the deci­sion and point­ed to what they said was over two tril­lion dol­lars of dis­par­i­ty in S&P“s Calculations..

Of note is the fact that the oth­er two rat­ings Agencies Fitch and Moodies main­tained America’s AAA ratings.

In a state­ment S&P had this to say:

We have low­ered our long-term sov­er­eign cred­it rat­ing on the United States of America to ‘AA+’ from ‘AAA’ and affirmed the ‘A‑1+’ short-term rat­ing. We have also removed both the short and long-term rat­ings from CreditWatch neg­a­tive. The down­grade reflects our opin­ion that the fis­cal con­sol­i­da­tion plan that Congress and the Administration recent­ly agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be nec­es­sary to sta­bi­lize the gov­ern­men­t’smedi­um-term debt dynam­ics. More broad­ly, the down­grade reflects our view that the effec­tive­ness, sta­bil­i­ty, and pre­dictabil­i­ty of American pol­i­cy­mak­ing and polit­i­cal insti­tu­tions have weak­ened at a time of ongo­ing fis­cal and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges to a degree more than we envi­sioned when we assigned a neg­a­tive out­look to the rat­ing on April 18, 2011.Since then, we have changed our view of the dif­fi­cul­ties in bridg­ing the gulf between the polit­i­cal par­ties over fis­cal pol­i­cy, which makes us pes­simistic about the capac­i­ty of Congress and the Administration to be able to lever­age their agree­ment this week into a broad­er fis­cal con­sol­i­da­tion plan that sta­bi­lizes the gov­ern­men­t’s debt dynam­ics any time soon. The out­look on the long-term rat­ing is neg­a­tive. We could low­er the long-term rat­ing to ‘AA’ with­in the next two years if we see that less reduc­tion in spend­ing than agreed to, high­er inter­est rates, or new fis­cal pres­sures dur­ing the peri­od result in a high­er gen­er­al gov­ern­ment debt tra­jec­to­ry than we cur­rent­ly assume in our base case. www​.stan​dar​d​and​poors​.com/​r​a​t​i​n​g​s​d​i​r​ect.

“WOW”

The debt ceil­ing has been raised as a mat­ter of course under all recent American Presidents, in fact Ronald Reagan the holy grail of Republican con­ser­vatism saw 18 increas­es on his watch​.George Bush the most recent ver­sion of Republican Conservatism, had 7 increas­es on his watch. The debt ceil­ing has been raised three pre­vi­ous times under President Obama before the brouha­ha of the fourth increase, . The dif­fer­ence with the increas­es under Obama is that they were done to stave off a total col­lapse of the American econ­o­my and poten­tial­ly that of the entire world finan­cial system.

The debt ceil­ing was first installed in 1917, at that time the lim­it was 11.5 Billion, the debt ceil­ing cur­rent­ly stands at 14 tril­lion 294 Billion dol­lars. Since this ceil­ing was installed the coun­try has seen 74 increas­es from the ini­tial cap of 11.5 Billion to the present 14 tril­lion 294 Billion, the ceil­ing was insti­tut­ed to con­trol spend­ing , many argue that the debt ceil­ing is real­ly a fal­la­cy and should not even be there.

Whichever side of the debate you fall here is what’s going on.

Republicans man­u­fac­tured this cri­sis, the econ­o­my has been slug­gish but head­ing in the right direc­tion, one does not need a Harvard MBA to see this , as a mat­ter of fact we have seen what the last Harvard MBA in the White House was capa­ble of . The econ­o­my had been halt­ed from the clif­f’s edge, and is actu­al­ly cre­at­ing jobs. Republicans know that if the econ­o­my con­tin­ue to improve they could kiss their chances of unseat­ing Obama goodbye.

Interestingly, the talk­ing heads in the media, and specif­i­cal­ly those on the round the clock cable net­works, fail to point out to the American peo­ple, the dan­ger­ous game of brinks­man­ship Republicans were play­ing, and con­tin­ue to play with their future, and that of their chil­dren. This reck­lessnes sole­ly to advance their rad­i­cal agen­da of demo­niz­ing Obama, and enact­ing the agen­da of the super rich, big banks , and insur­ance companies.

As was antic­i­pat­ed the repub­li­can hate mon­gers were out first thing sat­ur­day morn­ing with their pre­pared talk­ing points .

Here’s what “bring on default”[ nit wit] Michelle Bachman had to say ”

This pres­i­dent has destroyed the cred­it rat­ing of the United States,” “I call on the pres­i­dent to seek the imme­di­ate res­ig­na­tion of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and to sub­mit a plan with a list of cuts to bal­ance the bud­get this year, turn our econ­o­my around and put Americans back to work.”

Missing in action [snake oil sales­man] Mitt Romney:

America’s cred­it­wor­thi­ness just became the lat­est casu­al­ty in President Obama’s failed record of lead­er­ship on the econ­o­my,” Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said in a state­ment. “Standard & Poor’s rat­ing down­grade is a deeply trou­bling indi­ca­tor of our country’s decline under President Obama. His failed poli­cies have led to high unem­ploy­ment, sky­rock­et­ing deficits, and now, the unprece­dent­ed loss of our nation’s prized AAA cred­it rating

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum :

I under­stand the U.S. Treasury is going back to Standard and Poor’s to say that a two tril­lion-dol­lar math­e­mat­i­cal error by S&P con­tributed to the down­grade,” “So, in addi­tion to blam­ing President Bush for all of its prob­lems, now the White House is blam­ing S&P – but this hap­pened on the President’s watch – and he has to deal with it.”

Former Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman :

We need new lead­er­ship in Washington com­mit­ted to fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty, a bal­anced bud­get, and job-friend­ly poli­cies to get America work­ing again,”.

One whack job after anoth­er, they trot­ted out the same refrain it’ s Obama’s fault !

Did John Huntsman think the pres­i­den­t’s poli­cies were fis­cal­ly wrong and hos­tile to job cre­ation ? And if so what does it say about him who opt­ed to work for the pres­i­dent in an Ambassadorial role in chi­na, should­n’t Huntsman have stood on prin­ci­ple and not accept that appointment ?

The real­i­ty is, this prob­lem of a debt ceil­ing was one man­u­fac­tured by the far right with­in the repub­li­can par­ty, the wing nuts that pushed even rea­son­able mem­bers of that par­ty into hid­ing, scared that they may be seen as com­pro­mis­ing with Barack Obama .This band of uncom­pro­mis­ing zealots went to Washington with what they see as a man­date to stop spend­ing, of course the spend­ing of George Bush was not a prob­lem while he was dri­ving the econ­o­my off the brink, it became a prob­lem when Obama need­ed mon­ey to stop the destruction.

Tea par­ty activists in Congress, most of whom have nev­er held elect­ed office, and most­ly who do not have any alle­giance to the repub­li­can estab­lish­ment of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell do not under­stand the mean­ing of Governance. What they under­stand is the vapid fun­da­men­tal­ist dog­ma that is the heart of the Tea Party.

Interestingly ‚despite all of the activ­i­ties and the pre­dictable fall­out of this artif­i­cal cri­sis, there is real­ly no mes­sage com­ing out from Democrats. For most of Barack Obama’s Presidency , even when democ­rats had the Senate , House and , the White House repub­li­cans seemed to get every­thing they want­ed , essen­tial­ly gov­ern­ing from the minor­i­ty. Under Bush there was no short­age of talk­ing heads on Television repeat­ing the same lines and talk­ing points.

Conversely Obama seem unable to get any­one from with­in his own par­ty to speak up on his behalf , with th excep­tion of Debbie Wasserman Shultz the head of the Democratic National com­mit­tee. the silent demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty, to include the black cau­cus are ren­dered impo­tent by the tea par­ty, that has defined them as always , tax and spend democrats.

There is also a bur­geon­ing cadre of black repub­li­cans who seem to all par­rot the same anti-Obama dis­dain , some are in talk radio oth­ers call them­selves repub­li­can strate­gists, of course there is one in the this new repub­li­can con­gress, this brand of self hat­ing[ uncle toms] seem­ing­ly do not under­stand the con­flict inher­ent in, ” black-republican”

Michael Steele found out how much he was worth to them after they took the House of Represantatives , he was gone, kicked to the curb.

Under no oth­er cur­cum­stance would a black man be appoint­ed head of the repub­li­can nation­al com­mitte. This was a obvi­ous and trans­par­ent counter-weight to the President. They want­ed to make sure all of the vit­ri­olic poi­son com­ing from them was con­duit­ed through Steele (a black man) , with Steele they were insu­lat­ed from charges of racism . So they held their col­lec­tive noses, once he achieved their objec­tive he was out of there.

What is clear, is that repub­li­cans fig­ure with a grow­ing econ­o­my, Barack Obama is unbeat­able. They have gam­bled on the high stakes wager they made: dis­rupt the econ­o­my, cre­ate fear , anx­i­ety and trep­i­da­tion- that is their tick­et into the White House. So far they seem to be win­ning that strat­e­gy, hands down.

The President missed a gold­en oppor­tu­ni­ty to tell the American people:

The debt was run up by Congress before his time.

All of his pre­de­ces­sors have had the debt increased on their watch as a mat­ter of course.

The debt ceil­ing was increased on his watch, to stave off finan­cial collapse.

Point out the dan­ger­ous game of brinks­man­ship repub­li­cans are play­ing with the country.

Raising the ceil­ing was nev­er a prob­lem under any of his predecessors.

Ask the peo­ple why they thought it was a prob­lem on his watch.

President Obama con­tin­ues to lead from behind, he con­tin­ues to oper­ate under a false premise of com­pro­mise with repub­li­cans. Unless he wakes up from this three and one half-year eupho­ria from win­ning the pres­i­den­cy, and start to Govern, he will join the ranks of the unem­ployed pret­ty soon.

mike beck­les:

have your say:

How unprece­dent­ed would default be? The United States has nev­er failed to repay a debt in its his­to­ry. But it has twice altered the repay­ment terms, notes a study by Carmen M. Reinhart of the University of Maryland and Kenneth S. Rogoff of Harvard University. In 1790, when the infant repub­lic took over the states’ colo­nial-era debts, it deferred some inter­est for 10 years. A more per­ti­nent case occurred dur­ing the Great Depression. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt deval­ued the dol­lar by 41 per­cent against gold. This helped end the vicious cycle of bank fail­ures, defla­tion and default that had wors­ened the eco­nom­ic down­turn, but it cre­at­ed anoth­er dilem­ma. Since the Civil War, bor­row­ers in the United States, includ­ing the gov­ern­ment, had rou­tine­ly issued bonds that allowed the hold­er to demand repay­ment in gold or its dol­lar equiv­a­lent, based on the price of gold when the bond was issued. Devaluation would have dra­mat­i­cal­ly raised, in dol­lar terms, the bur­den of repay­ment. So in 1933, Congress repealed the gold clause, a deci­sion the Supreme Court upheld in 1935.

at: http://​www​.wash​ing​ton​post​.com/​w​p​-​d​y​n​/​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​2​0​0​9​/​0​1​/​0​9​/​A​R​2​0​0​9​0​1​0​9​0​2​3​2​5​.​h​tml

So as this new dead­line on the debt ceil­ing looms, we are left won­der­ing what will hap­pen ? The President has already com­mit­ted to giv­ing more than most Democrats are com­fort­able with . Democrats are not pleased when they con­sid­er what the details of those con­ces­sions could poten­tial­ly mean to the lives of actu­al peo­ple who ben­e­fit from Medicare,Medicaid and Social Security.Americans whom have worked and con­tributed, with the promise that when they retired those enti­tle­ments would be there.

President Obama is forced into a cor­ner either way. On the Morning after his elec­tion Republican awoke to the real­i­ty that a black man would be occu­py­ing the white house, they decid­ed they would do every­thing in their pow­er to destroy his pres­i­den­cy, even if it includ­ed destroy­ing the coun­try . It is evi­dent the repub­li­cans who wrap them­selves in the American flag, pre­tend­ing to hav­ing a monop­oly on patri­o­tism, did not care of the con­se­quences to the coun­try .What mat­tered was that Barack Obama has to be stopped.

Their High Priest ‚the Ultra right-wing wind bag, Rush Limbaugh artic­u­lat­ed the way for­ward for the repub­li­can minor­i­ty. they want­ed Obama to fail, Senators , Congressmen and women com­menced to par­rot that refrain ‚when some­one dared to point out to them that it would mean the fail­ure of the coun­try, they argue that the President’s agen­da was so lib­er­al , so un-American that it would be a good thing for those poli­cies to fail because if enact­ed it would be tan­ta­mount to the Destruction of America.

Those were the same argu­ments made when FDR was enact­ing his agen­da, the same argu­ments made when Slavery was abolished,On every occur­rence of a pro­gres­sive agen­da that includ­ed the peo­ple , repub­li­cans resort to fear mon­ger­ing and race bait­ing to scare the pop­u­la­tion into dissent.

In Obama’s case they chose a path that was trav­elled before , they sought to make Obama different.

The car­i­ca­ture and the car­toon depic­tions at the tea part ral­lies were rem­i­nis­cent of a time that most intel­li­gent peo­ple thought were behind America. They con­spired to de legit­imize his pres­i­den­cy on the argu­ments he was born out­side of America, any­one under­stand­ing how American Government works , under­stands the tiered sys­tem of clear­ance that obtains, in order to move up the fed­er­al ladder.

At every step seri­ous back­ground checks are done . Does any­one in their right mind believe that under any cir­cum­stance, America would allow an imposter, an ille­git­i­mate Manchurian can­di­date to occu­py the white house ?

The tea par­ty peo­ple embraced this fal­la­cy and to this day they con­tin­ue with their racist igno­rant cam­paign to make the President an outsider.

Unfortunately Barack Obama con­tin­ues to smile with them as if he real­ly believes they want to work or com­pro­mise .Even Republicans with com­mon sense, which is an oxy­moron these days , are afraid to men­tion the word com­pro­mise, when it is men­tioned in the same sen­tence with the name Barack Obama.

I nev­er thought I would see the day when Orrin Hatch of Utah would be viewed as a mod­er­ate. Such is the puri­ty test with­in what used to be the repub­li­can par­ty. That Party is now dom­i­nat­ed by racist ide­o­logues ‚who wrap them­selves in the American flag, pre­tend­ing to care about fis­cial pru­dence, a fis­cal matu­rit­ry that came about as as soon as Obama took office.

The Tea par­ty cared noth­ing about fis­cal proper­i­ty when Bush 43^rd was President. after inher­it­ing a bal­anced bud­get from Clinton it took him two years to squan­der over a tril­lion dol­lars of sur­plus, start­ed two wars and put the American econ­o­my into a near depression.

Obama is still grap­pling with that mess today. The hyp­ocrites who call them­selves tea par­ty patri­ots did not care then.They care because a black man is pres­i­dent and no one wants to call it what it is .I nev­er dreamed I would see the day when Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and Orrin Hatch of Utah would be seen as moderates.Such is the lit­mus test ‚that once mod­er­ates, such as John McCain has been forced to the far right ‚toward the fringe, to ensure their polit­i­cal sur​vival​.One thing is cer­tain we know what repub­li­cans stand for .Democrats could learn a les­son or two about prin­ci­ples from them.

What well think­ing per­sons here, and around the world real­ized, was that the flames of American big­otry and racism were not extin­guished, they were mere­ly reduced to smoul­der­ing embers cam­ou­flaged with ashes.

It seemed that the President was some­how still drunk with the dis­be­lief of his ascen​den​cy​.It appeared he believed Republicans would be pre­pared to work with him , the first African-American President.

It seem the President is delu­sion­al in his belief that the Republican Party would want him a black man ‚to have any notable suc­cess to point to. It was evi­dent to any­one watch­ing ‚repub­li­cans were going to sub­vert every­thing they could , effec­tive­ly run­ning out the clock on his presidency.

President Obama, despite a major­i­ty in the house and senat,was unable to gar­ner any sup­port from repub­li­cans, for his sig­na­ture accom­plish­ment ‚the health care bill dubbed Obama-care, Democrats squab­bled amongst them­selves as they have always done , a move which sucked the good­will Americans had for the new Administration.The result of the dis­af­fec­tion was evi­dent in the midterm elec­tions, a dis­af­fec­tion Obama called a shellacking.

Mark you, the President did not yet artic­u­late a way for­ward , he had just tak­en office when the anti Obama onslaught commenced.But let’s get back to the issue at hand for a sec­ond , President Obama went into the dis­cus­sions mak­ing give­aways, some­thing Former President GW Bush would nev­er do. President Bush famous­ly stat­ed he nev­er nego­ti­at­ed with him­self, this was evi­dent through­out his two terms in office, on every issue he ram­rod Democrats, herd­ing them to sign onto his agen­da, if they resist­ed he would take to the air­waves and label them obstruc­tion­ists, lit­er­al­ly mak­ing them look un-American.

Tom Daschle stood in the way of the rad­i­cal right-wing assault on the Constitution ‚they made sure that all the mon­ey his oppo­nent need­ed was made avail­able to him. They poured untold mil­lions of dol­lars into South Dakota and suc­ceed­ed in unseat­ing Daschle, this was unprece­dent­ed in recent times, there was an un-writ­ten rule that the President would not go to the home state of the Majority leader to cam­paign against him.

Bush did that ‚unashamed and un apolo­getic. Democrats were rail­road­ed into sign­ing onto the Patriot ACT after September 11 at risk of seem­ing to sup­port ter­ror­ists if they dared even ques­tion what was in the ACT. hon­est mem­bers of the Democratic Party have con­fessed they nev­er even both­ered to read the volu­mi­nous Bill the Bush Administration’s Lawyers gave them , they just vot­ed Aye! Rights and Civil Liberties be dammed.

So where does this President find him­self? he made mam­moth offers to the Republicans,they slapped his hand away.They want con­ces­sions that would be so far-reach­ing there would be wide­spread civ­il war in the Democratic Party, a move that would effec­tive­ly seal the pres­i­den­t’s fate.

On the oth­er side of the coin if the coun­try goes into default , it will be a scar­let let­ter on his Presidency, Republicans cal­cu­lates that either way Obama looses.

There are numer­ous argu­ments being made detail­ing the con­se­quences to the econ­o­my in the event the Nation defaults on its debts, new­ly installed IMF chief Christine Lagarde said Sunday, quote ” there would be real nasty con­se­quences to the glob­al econ­o­my if the United States default­ed on its finan­cial oblig­a­tions, end quote.

Despite these pro­jec­tions and all of the assess­ments that have being in the pub­lic domain from qual­i­fied Economists and oth­ers, Republicans in the US Senate and the right-wing nut cas­es in the house, elect­ed under the tea par­ty ban­ner, con­tin­ue to play polit­i­cal brinks­man­ship with the American and glob­al Economy.

They have made a deci­sion that Ideological puri­ty is far more impor­tant to them that leav­ing a liv­able coun­try to their children.

mike beck­les:

have your say;

This is the sec­ond in a series of blogs I will write on the ques­tion of whether it was worth it for Jamaica to have gained its Independence from Britain, its for­mer colo­nial occupier .

The first short blog was mere­ly a ques­tion that dealt briefly with the hunger and hard­ship issue which is so much a part of dai­ly life in Jamaica, I was almost moved to tears on read­ing the com­ments of an elder­ly lady in the Jamaican Gleaner, on the occa­sion of the approach of the last hurricane.She told the on site reporter that she was only able to pur­chase a can­dle and lighter, she was unable to pur­chase a sin­gle item of food , or even a gal­lon of drink­ing water , the most basic of neces­si­ties that are required to sus­tain life dur­ing and after a nat­ur­al disaster.

This par­tic­u­lar lady touched my heart as I remem­bered the after­math of hur­ri­cane Gilbert and the des­per­a­tion that ensued, when drink­ing water was a scarce com­mod­i­ty, most of us end­ed up in Cherry gar­dens , lin­ing up in that com­mu­ni­ty, at a life sav­ing artery of water that seemed to have come out of nowhere​.It is an accept­ed real­i­ty that the very poor will always be here with us , or at least we are resigned to those realities,Jesus is report­ed in the Bible to have accept­ed those real­i­ties when he famous­ly told his dis­ci­ples quote“the poor will always be here with us ‚“end quote,but does it mean that peo­ple should go to bed with­out food, or as is in the case of this lady, fac­ing an impend­ing nat­ur­al dis­as­ter ‚should she face it with­out any sur­vival tools in place?.

You may ask , Mike what the hell does all this have to do with Jamaica’s Independence?, well, I think it is impor­tant for us to talk about these things with­in the con­text of where we were 50 years ago , as against where we are today , almost a half a cen­tu­ry after we were forced to let go of the prover­bial apron strings. I feel it is impor­tant for us to stop for a while and mea­sure the progress we have made, if any , iden­ti­fy what we did right, what we did wrong, and chart a course for­ward com­men­su­rate with the chang­ing real­i­ties of this new century.

The result of a recent study pub­lished in the Jamaica dai­ly Gleaner indi­cat­ed that a major­i­ty of Jamaicans are of the view they were bet­ter off under the Colonial dic­tates of Britain.That posi­tion has to be looked at with­in the con­text of where each indi­vid­ual is in their life ‚and the con­text in which the per­son answered the ques­tion, say for exam­ple on the press­ing issue of crime and vio­lence, it would be pre­ma­ture to jump on any­one who argue they were bet­ter off under colo­nial rule, from that perspective.

In the Old Testament the chil­dren of Israel report­ed­ly rebelled against Moses and his broth­er Aaron ‚in the desert when they had no water, even though they had wit­nessed the mir­a­cles God per­formed in order to release them from the Pharaoh’s clutch­es, they were instead guid­ed by their imme­di­ate needs , which was tan­ta­mount to , yes we saw all of that but we are humans and we have no water,The chil­dren of Israel rebelled over water , food, and every­thing they could com­plain about , and like Jamaicans of today ‚they argued they were bet­ter off under the Pharaoh’s oppres­sive rule, choos­ing to for­get hun­dreds of years of abuse in order to sat­is­fy the urgent needs of now.

Well for those of us who insist the Bible is an out­dat­ed book of fables, I am not a PhD, nei­ther am I an archeologist,not a his­to­ri­an, not even a the­olo­gian so I can present no sci­en­tif­ic data to back up my Biblical quotes, how­ev­er if you are one who scoff at Jesus freaks like me, there may still be a val­ue in the sto­ry of the chil­dren of Israel ‘trek from Egypt, to the land of Palestine , a jour­ney which should have tak­en them 11 days took them 40 year, because they kept their eyes on the past rather than embrace the prospect of the future, they even­tu­al­ly lost their way .Subsequently not one who had set out from Egypt set foot in the land of Palestine.

One does not have to sac­ri­fice his or her intel­lect or sci­en­tif­ic edu­ca­tion, in order to appre­ci­ate the sim­ple par­al­lels that are inher­ent in the two sto­ries . Until next time.

mike beck­les:

have your say: