As the People’s National Party wraps up it’s 77^th annu­al con­fer­ence yes­ter­day there appeared to be no change in the excite­ment and fer­vor in the vot­ers as they glee­ful­ly attend­ed the con­fer­ence decked out in par­ty colors.
I spoke to a pub­lic sec­tor work­er recent­ly who is a sup­port­er of the Opposition Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) he resigned­ly pre­dict­ed that the PNP will be returned to pow­er when­ev­er the Prime Minister decides to call National Elections. Ahast I asked him how he arrived at that opin­ion with the present state of affairs in the country?
He told me with calm detach that despite all the neg­a­tives in the coun­try there is no outrage.

Jamaica has had some tur­bu­lent upheavals dur­ing times of hard­ship and uncer­tain­ty. During the sev­en­ties peo­ple ran in droves from the coun­try tak­ing their wealth , their busi­ness­es and their exper­tise at the urg­ing of left­ist Prime Minister Michael man­ley. Even though it was counter intu­itive many peo­ple to this day still see the lat­er apolo­getic Michael Manley as a great leader of epic pro­por­tions. Never mind that after the colos­sal screwup of the Island’s econ­o­my Manley tak­ing a hia­tus of sorts, then came back and apol­o­gized . Many saw noth­ing wrong with the irrepara­ble harm Manley did to the country.
Additionally, some Caribbean polit­i­cal relics for­mer cahoots of Manley who were more con­cerned with ide­o­log­i­cal social engi­neer­ing than the wel­fare of the peo­ple, still believe he was a great leader.

Which brings us to present day and the fright­en­ing decline in every mea­sur­able met­ric of the stan­dard of liv­ing of Jamaicans. My friend argues that no mat­ter how expen­sive food and oth­er basic neces­si­ties are the peo­ple are con­tent. Which caused me to won­der are the peo­ple con­tent , or are they (1) resigned to their fate, or (2) do not know they deserve better?
If for noth­ing else would­n’t the malaise. cor­rup­tion, crime, deval­u­a­tion, infla­tion and gen­er­al sense of dys­func­tion cause peo­ple to want change?

Between 1972 and 1980 things got bad in Jamaica , real­ly bad. Then

Leader of the Opposition Edward Seaga launched his cam­paign on the theme (DELIVERANCE IS NEAR) to retake the coun­try from the rav­ages of the so called demo­c­ra­t­ic Socialism a social exper­i­ment gone bad.
Today the very same ves­tiges of Democratic Socialism which cre­at­ed the largest brain drain of any small nation are still in place yet the peo­ple like Sheep to the slaugh­ter march duti­ful­ly to the beat of the same drums which destroyed the nation’s econ­o­my between 1972 and 1980.

Left wing Media is up in arms today because an inbred igno­ra­mus asked Donald Trump at an event in new Hampshire.
“We have a prob­lem in this coun­try, it’s called Muslims. We know our cur­rent pres­i­dent is one, “You know he’s not even American, birth cer­tifi­cate man , “But any­way, we have train­ing camps grow­ing where they want to kill us. That’s my ques­tion. When can we get rid of them?”
Despite the inces­sant drum­beat about Trump not fol­low­ing John McCain’s lead in denounc­ing racist igno­rance there is some­thing which is lost in all of the noise.
Of course Trump did not denounce it , he start­ed it but despite the praise for John McCain he missed a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to be a great American himself.
When con­front­ed by a racist igno­rant woman at a Minnesota event who said “I can’t trust Obama. I have read about him and he’s not, he’s not uh — he’s an Arab.
McCain respond­ed “No, ma’am. He’s a decent fam­i­ly man [and] cit­i­zen that I just hap­pen to have dis­agree­ments with on fun­da­men­tal issues and that’s what this cam­paign’s all about. He’s not [an Arab].”
Even though many saw that moment as a mag­nan­i­mous McCain moment, John McCain missed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to be big. If McCain believed as we are told that America was built by peo­ple who fled reli­gious per­se­cu­tion how could he not tell her that there is noth­ing in the American Constitution which pre­cludes Muslims or any oth­er Religious prac­ti­tion­er from run­ning for President.
In fact the only two require­ments is that the can­di­date reach­es the age of 35 years of age and was born in the United States.
Even on born in the United States stip­u­la­tion there are nuances, McCain him­self the son of a Navy Admiral was born in the Panama Canal zone. Ted Cruz anoth­er left wing loon was born in Canada. Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, was actu­al­ly born in Canada. But because his moth­er was a U.S. cit­i­zen, he is con­sid­ered a nat­ur­al-born cit­i­zen as well, and is there­fore eli­gi­ble to run for pres­i­dent. Cruz was born in 1970 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. His fam­i­ly lat­er moved to Texas, when he was 4.
Even if Obama was born out­side the United States which he was­n’t why would his American cit­i­zen moth­er not qual­i­fy for the same rights as a Ted Cruz?
The igno­rant Right nev­er miss­es an oppor­tu­ni­ty to tie itself into knots as they try to add legit­i­ma­cy to the illegitimate.

Ever since Barack Obama took to the nation­al polit­i­cal stage the cel­lar-dwellers of the Republican Right have attacked his Blackness and his very right to com­pete for the Presidency of the United States. Unfortunately even some Democrats har­bor some of the same resent­ments when he seri­ous­ly chal­lenged Hillary Clinton and it appeared she would be beat­en for the demo­c­ra­t­ic Nomination in 2008.
Hillary Clinton is now crit­i­ciz­ing Donald trump for not repu­di­at­ing the cave dweller who asked the ques­tion as John McCain did in 08 ‚iron­i­cal­ly when under pres­sure dur­ing the pri­maries in 08 the very same Hillary said “he is a chris­t­ian,.….….…. as far as I know”!!!
Again in March of 2008 in answer to a 60 min­utes ques­tion­er Steve Kroft, “You don’t believe that Senator Obama’s a Muslim?” Kroft asked.
Clinton answered “Of course not. I mean, that’s, you know, there is no basis for that. You know, I take him on the basis of what he says. And, you know, there isn’t any rea­son to doubt that,” .
Hillary Clinton had a chance there and then to stamp out that hatred direct­ed at anoth­er Democrat she did­n’t, she allowed polit­i­cal expe­di­en­cy to dic­tate her response and as such she has no author­i­ty to denounce Donald Trump.
Donald Trump will nev­er be the President of these United States let’s get that straight. The major­i­ty of Americans are decent evolved peo­ple who have long got­ten over racist ten­den­cies. Of course that major­i­ty is bol­stered by the coali­tion Barack Obama pieced togeth­er in 2008 .
That coali­tion includ­ed African-Americans-Hispanics, young peo­ple, Union work­ers, women. Jews, Asians and others.

Barack Obama is a suc­cess­ful two-term pres­i­dent whether they like it or not. The nasty xeno­pho­bic racism which was unearthed and unleashed on the American elec­toral process was intro­duced By Sarah Palin , Donald trump and oth­ers in the birther move­ment. Let’s thank Senator John McCain for that as well.
Since then President Obama has made pub­lic his long form birth cer­tifi­cate which silenced all of the crit­ics and doubters with the excep­tion of the intel­lec­tu­al turds like Palin Trump and the imbe­cile who posed the ques­tion to Trump.
Barack Obama was forced to show his papers. It was the same as dur­ing slav­ery when free black men were forced to show their free­dom papers to slave-catch­ers who would some­times destroy those papers and vio­lent­ly arrest them and return them to bondage.
Donald trump Sarah Palin and the igno­rant Right are mod­ern day slave catch­ers whose rel­e­vance is tied to pan­der­ing to the moron­ic and un-edu­cat­ed with­out whom they are noth­ing. As it was back in slav­ery , slave catch­ers were unim­por­tant whites with no pow­er their only sense of author­i­ty came from abus­ing blacks.

Of course Trump has a lot of mon­ey but his nar­cis­sis­tic cam­paign of “me” reveals a rather inse­cure shell of a man who needs to be told that he is loved, that he mat­ter. Putting down the achieve­ments of oth­ers, he believes enhances his own statute. His inco­her­ent dis­joint­ed sen­tences usu­al­ly end with the ques­tion “right”? An indi­ca­tion that he con­stant­ly needs to be validated.
As such I believe it is a waste of time to talk about Donald Trump at length. We have seen his kind before just ask pres­i­dent Rudolph Giuliani .……

Leader of the Political oppo­si­tion Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) Andrew Holness spoke at a sparse­ly attend­ed event recent­ly at the Medgar Evers College in new York city.
The Jamaica Gleaner glee­ful­ly pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed that the event was a JLP show which was sparse­ly attend­ed then was forced to retract the lie after the facts of who put on the event emerged.
Notwithstanding, Holness obvi­ous­ly was not amused when he turned up to speak and saw the small audi­ence wait­ing to hear him speak.
Holness report­ed­ly said quote“I’m obvi­ous­ly look­ing to see more people,”.

The event held in part­ner­ship with the Medgar Evers College and the Proud Jamaica Foundation kick-start­ed what , con­fer­ence direc­tor, Marcia Meikle-Naughton said is a lead­er­ship sum­mit series.
A video of the event which sur­faced on social media which this pub­li­ca­tion will not fea­ture because of the poor qual­i­ty did show a sparse­ly pop­u­lat­ed room at the time the video was recorded.

This ought to be a learn­ing expe­ri­ence for Andrew Holness. Comrades would not have allowed Portia Simpson Miller or any of their top offi­cers to walk into a sit­u­a­tion like this which could cast that Official in a less than pos­i­tive light.
The Labor Party still has not learned the val­ue of pop­ulism and inclu­sion of the com­mon man in what they are doing. Clearly they still do not under­stand the impor­tance of perceptions.

Even though the event was booked as a Leadership Summit[sic] (what­ev­er that means), Holness and his advanced peo­ple (assum­ing there are any), ought to have used the oppor­tu­ni­ty to demand that as part of his show­ing to speak, con­fer­ence orga­niz­ers fill the hall with peo­ple friend­ly to the labor par­ty and it’s principles.
In this busi­ness of pol­i­tics optics are crit­i­cal in shap­ing perceptions.
The Grammys, Oscars, Tony’s and oth­er events use seat fillers to ensure that their events send the cor­rect message.
Holness advance peo­ple will have to under­stand that each event he is asked to attend and address is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to show­case his lead­er­ship skills as well as to impress those he address­es that he is a leader wor­thy of their time and attention.

Police Commissioner Dr. Carl Williams issued a state­ment to res­i­dents of West Kingston that crime is under control.
Speaking at a press con­fer­ence at his Old Hope Road offices Commissioner Williams said. “I am ask­ing all law abid­ing cit­i­zens for their patience as we con­tin­ue with the cur­fews and cor­don and search oper­a­tions to get the crim­i­nals from their midst,”.
The top cop point­ed to increased coöper­a­tion between res­i­dents and his offi­cers cit­ing what he char­ac­ter­ized as a non exis­tence of any such coöper­a­tion initially.
The Commissioner encour­aged offi­cers on patrol to inter­act with res­i­dents with­in the com­mu­ni­ties. Pointing to heavy police/​military deploy­ment in the com­mu­ni­ties Williams said this has had a calm­ing effect on the west Kingston communities.

The Commissioner must know how­ev­er that mere­ly flood­ing the streets of these inner cities com­mu­ni­ties with offi­cers is not sus­tain­able for the long run . Residents of these war torn com­mu­ni­ties are no strangers to these heavy deploy­ments which tend to sup­press the blood-let­ting for a few day after which the secu­ri­ty forces leave and it’s back to the sta­tus quo.

This can­not be laid at the feet of Commissioner Williams and his offi­cers alone. As impor­tant as it is to take these com­mu­ni­ties and hold them, it is impor­tant that the Government and NGO’s get involved in these com­mu­ni­ties to offer hope and direc­tion for young peo­ple who can­not find jobs.
Unfortunately the Administration is deaf­en­ing­ly silent as we allud­ed to in anoth­er arti­cle just today despite the rash of killings plagu­ing the country.
Despite the lack of polit­i­cal lead­er­ship on crime it is impor­tant that the police adopt mea­sures on their own to min­i­mize the num­ber of crimes and the trau­ma­tiz­ing effects it is hav­ing on the Island’s residents.

In order to flood a com­mu­ni­ty with cops and mem­bers of the mil­i­tary they have to be pulled from some­where, this means that though the JCF is not ful­ly staffed the addi­tion­al help from the Military in spe­cial sit­u­a­tions great­ly alle­vi­ates the man­pow­er shortage.
So it seem that some of these prob­lems can be solved with more care­ful plan­ning and a lit­tle ingenuity.
Many years ago we were able to keep crime in check in Saint Andrew North using sim­ple yet inge­nious tech­niques . Yes we had a great team of offi­cers at the Constant Spring ‚Maverly, Red Hills, Stony Hill,and Lawrence Tavern police sta­tions . I speak about these offi­cer yet I have nev­er actu­al­ly named them . It is only appro­pri­ate that I try to doc­u­ment some of these offi­cers with whom I was priv­i­leged to serve.
Many of these offi­cers have left the depart­ment as I did , some stayed and are in senior man­age­ment posi­tions , some have retired and trag­i­cal­ly we have lost some of our friends.

That team includ­ed Deputy Superintendent Anthony Hewitt. Detective Inspector Noël Asphall. Detective Sergeant Gerald Wallace. Detective Sergeant Donald Mc’Innis. Detective Sergeant Barrington Campbell. Detective sergeant Harding. Detective Corporal Tracey. Detective cor­po­ral Colin Pinnock. Detective cor­po­ral Morgan. Detective Corporals Leroy Hanson. Brimroy Garwood .Wilford Gayle. Green. Devon Watkis. Dean Taylor. Ellison. Dadrick Henry. Altamoth(Parra) Campbell. George Henry. Lynval Henry . Spy Henry . Élan Powell. Allan Campbell. George Henry. Yasmin Ankle. Michael Beckles. Constables Dathan Henry. Foster. Foster. Allen Gauntlet .Francis. Webber . Skully. Francis. Errol McLeish.

To the offi­cers who served with us whom I omit­ted it does not mean you were any less impor­tant the years have tak­en their toll it has been 24 years since we worked togeth­er. The list of offi­cers named here were scat­tered over the sta­tions named in the St, Andrew north Police Division who worked assid­u­ous­ly and tena­cious­ly to con­tain crime with next to no resources.
One of the chal­lenges for us at the Constant Spring sta­tion was the fact that we we had two extremes in our police respon­si­bil­i­ties. Cassava Piece, Red Hills Road, White Hall avenue, Ackee-Walk , Grants Pen, Grants Pen Gully and Barbican were some of the depressed com­mu­ni­ties which ringed the Constant Spring Station to the south East and west while the upscale com­mu­ni­ties of Barbican Heights, Cherry Gardens, Norbrook, and sim­i­lar neigh­bor­hoods fell with­in our sphere of respon­si­bil­i­ty to the north and north east.

We were tasked with pro­tect­ing the poor­est of the poor as well as the rich­est and most impor­tant peo­ple at the same time, at best we had three cars. We learned to find ways to use sim­ple tech­niques to solve prob­lems. I take cred­it for a sim­ple board with a map of our area of respon­si­bil­i­ty, we used col­ored pins to rep­re­sent dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories of crime . This allowed us to con­cen­trate our resources in the areas where they were need­ed most with resound­ing suc­cess. This of course was done because we had a ter­rif­ic group of ded­i­cat­ed officers

I urge the Commissioner to apply crit­i­cal think­ing to solv­ing some of the prob­lems fac­ing the Jamaican peo­ple. Nothing will endear the police to the Jamaica peo­ple again as solv­ing the crime problem .
The police Commissioner will have to find ways to do so with no help from the Administration in Jamaica House. The present Administration sim­ply does not under­stand the effects of crime on soci­ety or is too heav­i­ly immersed in it . Either way Jamaica los­es . I say it’s the latter.

Amidst spec­u­la­tion and fer­vor sur­round­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of General Elections in Jamaica pos­si­bly by the end of this year is the omi­nous and con­stant stream of dai­ly murders.
The next Jamaican gen­er­al elec­tion is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due between 29 December 2016 (the day of the pre­vi­ous elec­tion in 2011) and 16 April 2017 (with­in three months of the date of the first sit­ting of the new Parliament on 17 January 2012).
Despite the length of time still to go experts and Election watch­ers are excit­ed­ly watch­ing for signs that the next National polls may be clos­er than we think.
One indi­ca­tor of this immi­nence is the sight­ing of Portia Simpson Miller on pub­lic plat­forms . Addressing the annu­al con­fer­ence of her South West St Andrew con­stituen­cy the Jamaican Prime Minister said “I hear them say that I am miss­ing in action, all who say that I am miss­ing in action, why them nev­er say the same thing when the JLP (Jamaica Labour Party) hav­ing their prob­lems? I don’t have any prob­lems in my par­ty, I am the leader and I lead from in front, not behind”.

To the aver­age observ­er this state­ment means lit­tle but to those steeped in Jamaican polit­i­cal tra­di­tions this may mean elec­tions are near or worse case, the sea­son has start­ed and it will be a long campaign.
The Jamaican Prime Minister is a prod­uct of Garrison Politics which has metas­ta­sized and is now an inte­gral part of the Jamaican Political land­scape. Garrison Politics is the prac­tice of the polit­i­cal par­ties to use scarce pub­lic funds to cre­ate zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions . Zones of par­ty loy­al­ists who vote for the par­ty which doles out the free­bies. In many cas­es par­ty loy­al­ists receive free hous­ing in select com­mu­ni­ties, they pay no prop­er­ty tax­es, and are afford­ed pay­checks for work they nev­er do.
This prac­tise has had dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences for the Jamaican econ­o­my it has balka­nized, trib­al­ized and polar­ized the nation’s pol­i­tics over the ensu­ing decades since Independence and cost thou­sands of lives.

The Jamaican Prime Minister’s par­ty is not the only vil­lain, her par­ty has sim­ply been bet­ter at it. However the Prime Minister brings to the stage a sense of parochial­i­ty and crass­ness that many Jamaicans at home and in the dias­po­ra would like to see exit the stage. Many Jamaicans believe the Prime Minister is not only unqual­i­fied but gross­ly unfit to serve as the high­est elect­ed offi­cial based on those char­ac­ter­is­tics. All across the coun­try the rash of mur­ders con­tin­ue unabat­ed. The Police are pow­er­less to do any­thing about it and the Prime Minister now back in the spot­light from hiber­na­tion pre­tends that all is well. Maybe it’s time the Prime Minister remove those ridicu­lous sun­glass­es so she can see what every­one else sees hap­pen­ing to the once proud and thriv­ing Island.

CRIME

The Police report that the major­i­ty of killings and oth­er seri­ous crimes are now being com­mit­ted out­side the Kingston and St. Andrew Metropolitan area and Spanish Town the tra­di­tion­al mur­der hotspots. There are sev­er­al fac­tors at play which makes this pos­si­ble. The cre­ation of Highways link­ing the Kingston Metropolitan Region to the rest of the coun­try makes access and egress to and from the rest of the coun­try a breeze. Many of these crimes are being com­mit­ted by men on high pow­ered motor­cy­cles. The nation’s crim­i­nals are not stu­pid they are aware that the great­est con­cen­tra­tion of law enforce­ment assets are bun­dled in Kingston and Saint Andrew. They also know that soft­er tar­gets exist out­side Kingston and so the chance of them get­ting appre­hend­ed are next to zero. It appears that as far as mur­ders are con­cerned nowa­days the Police sim­ply show up and car­ry out the motion. It does not appear that there is any sig­nif­i­cant head­way being made in Investigating and bring­ing crim­i­nals to jus­tice. It is a fright­en­ing prospect when one con­sid­ers the amount of mur­der­ers walk­ing the streets of Jamaica with absolute­ly no fear they will ever be brought to jus­tice. In instance after instance we see the Police oper­at­ing in the pub­lic and they seem unsure and unpre­pared to deal with the prob­lems they are faced with. This is not lost on the crim­i­nal under­world. For a decade dur­ing the 1990’s, by the (JCF’s) own admis­sion the Percival Patterson Administration did not make a sin­gle dol­lar avail­able to train detec­tives. Many sober watch­ers of the coun­try’s crime sit­u­a­tion will tell you that was the peri­od dur­ing which the Police depart­ment lost con­trol of crime.”

COMMUNITY POLICING

There are no sub­sti­tutes for good com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing and impec­ca­ble detec­tive work these two com­po­nents are key to the suc­cess of any depart­ment. Corruption .Perceived Corruption. Politics. Nepotism. Low com­pen­sa­tion. Lack of Leadership from the high com­mand and the Political direc­torate and incom­pe­tence are only some of the issues plagu­ing and hin­der­ing the JCF’s abil­i­ty to ade­quate­ly arrest the run­away crime rate.
As I have said before It is crit­i­cal that Police Officers use their dis­cre­tion in going about their duties how­ev­er there is a clear line of demar­ca­tion which offi­cers in uni­form should not cross. No Police Department allows it’s offi­cers in uni­form to behave in ways which are anti­thet­i­cal to the depart­men­t’s rules. Police offi­cers sub­se­quent­ly must under­stand that even as they strive for ways to con­nect with the com­mu­ni­ties they serve they must remain vig­i­lant that they do not bring the depart­ment to a place where the very peo­ple they chose to impress have to look down in order to see them . The notion that a police depart­ment in cri­sis will endear itself to a pub­lic which cel­e­brates an over­turned patrol car, by engag­ing in “coon­ery and buf­foon­ery “is symp­to­matic of an intel­lec­tu­al defi­cien­cy and a rot which have per­me­at­ed some seg­ments of the soci­ety includ­ing ex-mem­bers. It is bela­bor­ing the point to say Police depart­ments do well when they embrace com­mu­ni­ty Policing.

As a small busi­ness own­er I was real­ly unhap­py when my city dis­con­tin­ued the prac­tice of hav­ing patrol offi­cers stop in to busi­ness­es and say “hi” to store own­ers. I thought the pre­vi­ous out­reach and cama­raderie we shared with our offi­cers were spe­cial and wor­thy of our depart­ment and the over 30,000 res­i­dents who live in my city.
Not once how­ev­er did I see a sin­gle offi­cer hav­ing to Become a disc jock­ey or a danc­ing gyrat­ing clown to earn our respect.

Ending a dance or event which refus­es to abide by the Town and Community Act should not have to be done because a cop gets on stage and join in the event. If and when we find our­selves at that point it means that the Police depart­ment has lost it’s effectiveness.
Police doing their jobs effec­tive­ly can­not be through clown­ing, it is done with coör­di­nat­ed back­up, offi­cers com­ing to the assis­tance of fel­low offi­cers and com­ing fast . That is the best way to ensure that cit­i­zens obey the laws and the offi­cers tasked with enforc­ing them.
let me be clear there is absolute­ly no mer­it to the argu­ments that no mat­ter what offi­cers do as long as you slap the title police com­mu­ni­ty rela­tions on it it’s okay. That philo­soph­i­cal sin­gle mind­ed­ness is exact­ly why the depart­ment finds itself inef­fec­tive and ineffectual.
The police is under­stand­ably unsure and ten­ta­tive. This places their lives at seri­ous risk. Almost dai­ly there are inci­dents of offi­cers forced to back down from crowds of peo­ple who quick­ly gath­er around and hin­ders the arrest of offend­ers. In some cas­es this involves a female offi­cer who offer lit­tle or no help to her male coun­ter­part. In oth­er cas­es attempts to effect an arrest becomes a night­mare because offi­cers are ten­ta­tive and uncer­tain how to effec­tive­ly arrest an offender.

This again is a cri­sis of lead­er­ship. Criminals and their sup­port­ers are like Predators. Sharks can detect a sin­gle drop of blood in the ocean from long dis­tances away. Criminals can sense fear and uncer­tain­ty in police offi­cers. We need to bring back the deci­sive­ness and assertive­ness in our offi­cers. Jamaican crim­i­nals are not get­ting kinder they are get­ting more cal­lous more bru­tal. The police depart­ment must have offi­cers who are not afraid to enforce the laws deci­sive­ly. That is at the heart of the prob­lem. This whole idea of danc­ing police offi­cers , police offi­cer as disc jock­eys, and police offi­cers dag­ger­ing in uni­form is tes­ta­ment not to the chang­ing times but the idio­cy of pro­po­nents. Of course offi­cers can engage the pub­lic and have loads of fun in uni­form, there is how­ev­er a line which they should not cross. There is a clear line between being pop­u­lar and the class clown.

Lloyd B Smith out in St. James cen­tral, Raymond Pryce out in St Elizabeth, Dr Lynvale Bloomfield in Portland Eastern, Lisa Hanna in per­il up there in St. Ann, and Damion Crawford in St Andrew for the PNP . Gregory Mair out in NE St. Catherine for the JLP. Additionally there are count­less oth­er squab­bles brew­ing in both Political par­ties. In a Democracy this could be con­strued to mean the demo­c­ra­t­ic elec­toral process is at play and the voice of the peo­ple are being heard.
Not so in Jamaica for either Party.

The only con­stant in all of this is that it is rea­son­able to con­strue that nation­al elec­tions are not too far away. Some elec­tion watch­ers have pre­dict­ed the Country may see nation­al elec­tions before the end of this year.
When attempt­ing a seri­ous cri­tique of Jamaica’s polit­i­cal real­i­ty one has to do so from the most base per­spec­tive. This is true because every­thing done polit­i­cal­ly in Jamaica is done for the most base self-serv­ing rea­sons. People are not forced out because the par­ties want to purge non-per­form­ing dead-wood from their ranks. People are purged because oth­er peo­ple in posi­tions of pow­er want them out for their own rea­sons. The ulti­mate sin in Jamaican pol­i­tics is mem­bers with minds of their own. 
Having an inde­pen­dent mind is a no no. You nev­er crit­i­cize the par­ty no mat­ter how wrong it’s poli­cies are. Speaking out is polit­i­cal suicide.

Lloyd B Smith a for­mer JLP mem­ber who went over to the PNP spoke out recent­ly against cor­rup­tion with­in the par­ty. Smith ought to have know that crit­i­ciz­ing the PNP was polit­i­cal sui­cide par­tic­u­lar­ly as a mem­ber who does not have “deep roots” in the par­ty, a kind of nice term die-hards use pejo­ra­tive­ly to style non-orig­i­nal-cult mem­bers of the PNP like Smith.

Patrick Atkinson the Attorney General also tran­si­tioned to the PNP after con­test­ing nation­al elec­tions on the JLP tick­et twice. Atkinson bolt­ed then bolt­ed to the PNP in 2007 where life has been peach since .Politics is all about grasp­ing the moment, seiz­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty and noth­ing to do with ser­vice. Recently Joan Gordon Webley jumped the Labor ship and sought mem­ber­ship in the Governing PNP.
Comrades feel­ing invad­ed by the hordes[sic] of laborites jump­ing ship as Donald Trump feels about Mexicans invad­ing the US south­ern bor­der, howled in con­dem­na­tion at the influx of laborites to their cult. As a result Webley is now in lim­bo her appli­ca­tion to join the par­ty was decid­ed against by the National Executive Council of the PNP which sent her appli­ca­tion back to the exec­u­tive for reconsideration.
Does that migra­tion of laborites mean they have giv­en up on the JLP ever assum­ing office again? Or does it mean they have final­ly sur­ren­dered to the nar­ra­tive that “Jamaica a PNP coun­try”?
Or maybe both ?

People’s National Party del­e­gates have also shown Raymond Pryce the door and the Nation’s first elect­ed Rastafarian Damion Crawford is in per­il up there East Rural St. Andrew.
Crawford may be in dan­ger for doing the unthink­able hav­ing words of sup­port for the Jamaican Police. However his stri­dent cri­tique of (inde­com) may be the rea­son the Party is being nudged to remove him. At least for Crawford this may be big­ger than the parochial­ism of PNP trib­al pol­i­tics , but may even come from more pow­er­ful forces out­side the coun­try who are major sup­port­ers of (inde­com).
One thing is notice­able though were the Labor Party expe­ri­enc­ing this lev­el of dis­uni­ty, there would be major glee that nar­ra­tive being that the Labor par­ty has come apart at the seams. Not so when the PNP goes through it’s pains , it’s just inter­nal business. 
Maybe Jamaica real­ly is “PNP country” !!

Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis returned to work today after spend­ing 5 days in jail. A Federal Judge ruled Davis was in con­tempt of his order to grant mar­riage licens­es to gay and les­bian couples.
Miss Davis a devout Christian refus­es to acqui­esce to the demands, argu­ing doing so would vio­late her con­science. Kim Davis the Rowan County Clerk is opposed to gay and les­bian mar­riage based on her Christian faith. This morn­ing Davis tear­ful­ly stood in front of her offices and issued a state­ment say­ing she would not inter­fere if her deputies issued licens­es to same-sex cou­ples, but she would not autho­rize those licenses.
“To affix my name or author­i­ta­tive title on a cer­tifi­cate that autho­rizes mar­riage that con­flicts with God’s def­i­n­i­tion of mar­riage as a union between one man and one woman vio­lates my deeply held reli­gious con­vic­tions and con­science,” Davis said dur­ing a brief state­ment after arriv­ing at her office. “For me, this would be an act of dis­obe­di­ence to my God.”..
It is impor­tant to note in light of the grow­ing sup­port for homo­sex­u­al lifestyle that at the time Kim Davis ran for pub­lic office the law of the land was that mar­riage was between one man and one woman as it has been ordained by God for thou­sands of years. Of course this was before the Supreme Court took it upon itself to usurp God’s author­i­ty with it’s earth­ly authority..
As we have repeat­ed­ly said in this pub­li­ca­tion, this demon­ic issue was and is nev­er about mar­riage or equal­i­ty. Neither is it about mar­riage equal­i­ty. It is about the per­se­cu­tion of Christians for their belief in God. This is big­ger than a mere con­tem­po­rary issue. It is inher­ent­ly the ful­fil­ment of Scriptures in front our very eyes. Unfortunately many includ­ing those who are sup­posed to be pro­tect­ing the flock are woe­ful­ly unpre­pared , ill-equipped and in some cas­es blind to what’s happening.

For we wres­tle not against flesh and blood, but against prin­ci­pal­i­ties, against pow­ers, against the rulers of the dark­ness of this world, against spir­i­tu­al wicked­ness in high places.
This morn­ing Media hous­es were glee­ful­ly report­ing that a Lesbian cou­ple had announced their inten­tion to show up for a mar­riage licence.
How con­ve­nient ? 
Why on the very day Kim Davis decid­ed to return to work? Why announce their inten­tions? Why not show up and do what oth­er cou­ples do when seek­ing a mar­riage licence? 
Because the idea is to show Kim Davis bro­ken and sub­dued and humil­i­at­ed. They broad­cast their inten­tions to show up because that is exact­ly what the Gay Agenda is about. It is about get­ting Christians and oth­er dis­senters to bow down or be humil­i­at­ed as nean­derthal relics of a less than intel­li­gent time. les­bian cou­ple — Shannon Wampler and Carmen Collins were not there just for the piece of paper which ulti­mate­ly will con­demn them they were there to show Kim Davis and Christians across the Globe where the arrow is trend­ing and County Clerk Brian Mason was more than hap­py to sell his soul for a moment in the spotlight.

Revelation 13:16 – 18 

Also it caus­es all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the fore­head, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the num­ber of its name. This calls for wis­dom: let the one who has under­stand­ing cal­cu­late the num­ber of the beast, for it is the num­ber of a man, and his num­ber is 666.
God says in Revelation 18:4 ‘come out of her My peo­ple.’ (Babylon) . Some Christians believes Babylon in the book of Revelation is a city, and God says in Revelation 18:4 ‘come out of her My peo­ple.’ But these Christians sin­cere though they are,misunderstand what Babylon is in Revelation. Babylon in the book of Revelation is not a city it’s the fall­en church.God warns his peo­ple to come out of this fall­en church, so they don’t share in her sins.
As this Gay agen­da unfolds in front our eyes and is being rammed down our throats the head of the Catholic Church[sic] says “who am I to judge” ? If the Catholic Pontiff both­ered to read the Bible he would under­stand that call­ing sin, sin is not judg­ing. He would know it is exact­ly what Jesus said we should do even as we show love to our fel­low sinners.

If the Pontiff was clear on Biblical teach­ings and not the wor­ship of the Virgin Mary he would know that it is exact­ly the duty of the Church to point to a path of moral clar­i­ty rather than mud­dy the water which leads to life eternal.
It is exact­ly what the Lord God com­man­deth when he tell us to come out of Babylon . This is the Pontiff who tells his Bishops to absolve peo­ple of their sins. Who is the Pope or his Bishops to absolve any­one of sin. God alone has the pow­er to remove sin not some ele­vat­ed tool of Satan.
Pope Benedict silent­ly went into obscu­ri­ty because he did not sup­port the agen­da of Homosexuals. We wrote in this very pub­li­ca­tion that the rea­son he was forced out was exact­ly because he would not allow him­self to be a tool for this satan­ic prac­tice. In 600 years no oth­er Pontiff had resigned until Joseph Ratzinger (Benidict XVI) stepped aside which made way for Francis.

Catholics and non-Catholics alike are glee­ful at the lib­er­al­ism of Francis , whose poli­cies are more in tune with con­tem­po­rary cul­ture. Rather than stand­ing on the prin­ci­ples of chris­t­ian teach­ings Francis has sig­nalled a rev­o­lu­tion­ary path many see as anti­thet­i­cal to the teach­ings of Jesus Christ. As such catholics and non-catholics are sali­vat­ing glee­ful­ly that this indeed is their Pope.

FRANCIS
♦He has con­tra­dict­ed the teach­ings of past popes.
♦ He has praised a chil­dren’s book pro­mot­ing homo­sex­u­al coupling.
♦ He has defend­ed homosexuality.
♦ He has seem­ing­ly advo­cat­ed for cul­tur­al relativism.
♦ He has encour­aged more lib­er­al aca­d­e­m­ic tra­di­tions sup­port­ed by many Jesuits.
♦ He has soft­ened church rules regard­ing divorce and remarriage
Read more here :22 Pope Francis Statements Proving He’s a Leftist. 

The Protestant faith has been duplic­i­tous­ly silent , not want­i­ng to attract atten­tion even as Christians are being per­se­cut­ed for their faith. The church is silent because it does not want to be be irrel­e­vant, out­dat­ed, or to lose it’s tax-exempt status.
I warn the silent Pastors that the next Kim Davis will be you. This is not a move­ment about Homosexuals being togeth­er. Gays have engaged in their homo­sex­u­al lifestyle for thou­sands of years.
This is about your faith. This is about your abil­i­ty to stand up to the pow­ers of Satan (earth­ly gov­ern­ment) and say I will not denounce my faith in order to fit in.
Silence will not change that , Satan will not cease his attacks sim­ply because the Church cow­ers and hide in fear. Satan wants the total destruc­tion of your faith . Hence the word of God (Psa. 119:11). The duty of God’s chil­dren is to hide His Word in their hearts.
The next line of attack will be against the Pastors who shy away from Kim Davis . Some have even argued that because she was mar­ried sev­er­al times she does not fit the bill of a per­fect stan­dard bear­er for this stance.
Says who? Throughout Biblical his­to­ry God used peo­ple oth­ers scoffed at to car­ry out his plan. Who are you to decide that her mar­riages make her unfit to be a stan­dard bear­er. God used tax col­lec­tors, for­mer pros­ti­tutes, and oth­er lay peo­ple to ful­fill his pur­pose , his will be done.

Shannon Wampler and Carmen Collins walked into Kim Davis’ office not just to get a mar­riage license, they walked in to show Kim Davis they have the pow­er of the American Federal Government behind them, they glee­ful­ly chat­ted away with those who share their beliefs while the acquient clerk took care of the Devil’s business.
The next chap­ter in this episode will be that the Churches will be asked to mar­ry Gays. Some of the Pastors will val­i­date the Devil’s work in the house of the Lord. Those of you who remain silent hop­ing that not get­ting involved will save you are in for a rude awak­en­ing. If you refuse you will first lose tax-exempt sta­tus , you will be black­list­ed and even­tu­al­ly forced to either mar­ry them or go to Jail , oh yes it’s the law right?
They will make the very same argu­ments that the Church has no right to dis­crim­i­nate. They will say you Pastors are nean­derthal big­ots who refuse to fol­low the laws. They will say you are stand­ing on anti­quat­ed prin­ci­ples which are stymieing the evo­lu­tion of their Utopian Gay society. 

The Church is so much a part of the world that there is no dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion between the world and the Church . The lord chal­lenges us to come out of Babylon . The Christian Church is no stranger to per­se­cu­tion , hold on there is much more com­ing . This is the begin­ning of the great falling away as fore­told by Scripture. Choose ye this day whom he shall serve.
Daniel 7:25
He will speak against the Most High and oppress his holy peo­ple and try to change the set times and the laws. The holy peo­ple will be deliv­ered into his hands for a time, times and half a time.
Daniel 8:25
He will cause deceit to pros­per, and he will con­sid­er him­self supe­ri­or. When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of princes. Yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power.
Daniel 11:36
“The king will do as he pleas­es. He will exalt and mag­ni­fy him­self above every god and will say unheard-of things against the God of gods. He will be suc­cess­ful until the time of wrath is com­plet­ed, for what has been deter­mined must take place.