by - 3 Comments

Did He Overstep His Authority?

The Editorial page of the Jamaica Gleaner of late seem to have under­gone a transformation. 

It is hard to tell who is the person/​s behind the edi­to­r­i­al , is it male or female? is it one per­son or a group of peo­ple, do they share the same phi­los­o­phy or do they oper­ate as inde­pen­dent indi­vid­u­als opin­ing based on prin­ci­pled gut convictions?

The afore­men­tioned is dif­fi­cult to estab­lish because the writer/​s have the lux­u­ry of anonymi­ty. We would hope that based on that lux­u­ry edi­to­r­i­al page writer/​s would be respon­si­ble , objec­tive, fair, respect­ful, thought­ful, and care­ful. just rec­og­niz­ing that to whom much is giv­en , much is required. 

Such is the pow­er of the pen ‚par­tic­u­lar­ly in a soci­ety like Jamaica where peo­ple put sig­nif­i­cant stock into the views of cer­tain peo­ple over that of others.

It has become notice­able to this blog that of late the Gleaner’s Editorial page has shown a marked change from the more cir­cum­spect rea­soned approach we had grown accus­tomed to for decades, to one that seem to want to push alien views on us that sure­ly have no res­o­nance or hold any sway with the vast major­i­ty of the Jamaican pop­u­lace. As if that was not bad enough, we have also detect­ed a snarl of elit­ist con­den­sion in the spir­it of the afore­men­tioned Pages.

It is the right of the Gleaner to pub­lish what it choos­es on it’s edi­to­r­i­al pages . We would not want to pick a fight with some­one who buys ink in a bar­rel, After all we do speak our minds on these blogs. What the Gleaner must appre­ci­ate though, thanks to the pow­er of tech­nol­o­gy , is that we will push back hard when they choose to be con­de­send­ing and dis­re­spect­ful to peo­ple who sac­ri­fice for our country.

We speak par­tic­u­lar­ly of todays Editorial titled: “The police are not the executive”.

In the edi­to­r­i­al the anony­mous writer blast­ed Senior Superintendent of Police Radcliff Lewis for what it char­ac­ter­izes as Lewis’ attempt at exec­u­tive deci­sion-mak­ing by allow­ing robot taxi oper­a­tors to oper­ate after Licensed taxi oper­a­tors in Spanish Town decid­ed to strike this week over dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the way they have been reg­u­lat­ed and for oth­er per­ceived grievances.

We have no quar­rel with the writer about blast­ing Lewis for his alleged state­ments refer­ring to the scabs as quote “reserve soldiers”. 

Frankly I do not know on whose author­i­ty Lewis was oper­at­ing, there is no prece­dent in law or oth­er­wise where the police may take such steps, we agree that if those mea­sures are to be tak­en those are to be tak­en by exec­u­tive action,.

Lewis a prag­mat­ic cop may have over­stepped his bounds dramatically.

Jamaica requires unusu­al and prag­mat­ic approach­es to get­ting solu­tions, the Police have always sought to use its pow­ers to help the Jamaican peo­ple, unsung. In his effort at prob­lem solv­ing he over­stepped his author­i­ty, a move that was sure to draw the ire of the usu­al crit­ics like our friends at the edi­to­r­i­al board of the Gleaner, who are always going to be unable to see the for­est for the trees.

The ques­tion is, as wrong as Lewis’ actions are, had he kept his mouth shut, would the unli­cenced cab oper­a­tors have stayed home? what impact did Lewis’ actions have in actu­al­ly enhanc­ing that action.

We note the writer was very con­cerned about the safe­ty of rid­ers , whilst at the same time reg­is­ter­ing relief at the fact that no one was injured in this Lewis Executive grab. We do see how the writer could feel total relief that no one was injured , after all this notion of ille­gal taxi oper­a­tion is a total­ly alien phe­nom­e­non in Jamaican cul­ture (sic).

We do not dis­agree with the let­ter of the Article, what we dis­agree with is the spir­it . The writer used terms to describe SSP Lewis that at best are con­de­scend­ing, and at worst bla­tant­ly demean­ing. Colourful, rough cut, Our newest ad hoc and unelect­ed law­mak­er, scan­dalous, uncom­pli­cat­ed ‚rus­tic.

Rustic?

Those char­ac­ter­i­za­tions are elit­ists code words, aimed at bring­ing Lewis, or any oth­er unfor­tu­nate soul they are aimed at into know­ing their place, SSP Lewis made a mis­take in what he is alleged to have done, and for this Ellington must have some seri­ous con­ver­sa­tions with him. His gravest error is that of not under­stand­ing the vicious caste sys­tem that still per­sists in Jamaica to this day.

Good inten­tions on the part of SSP Lewis does not mean actions that are legal. His actions lead us to ask if he may not have been pro­mot­ed above his capabilities.

mike beck­les:
have your say: 

by - 2 Comments

No Sloganeering Except This New Slogan:

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 21st 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 21st 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:



by

Human Rights For Whom?

Today’s Jamaica Observer Cartoon shown to the right 

observ­er cartoon

summed up suc­cinct­ly the modus Operandi of Jamaica’s Human Rights Organizations.

Anyone fol­low­ing my blogs will notice the dif­fer­ence in the way I char­ac­ter­ize them today.Generally I refer to them as crim­i­nal rights Organizations. I guess it required the satire of the car­toon­ist to bring me to actu­al­ly address them seri­ous­ly.The car­toon­ist used satire to show the dys­func­tion­al pri­or­i­ties of those agen­cies . There we see them run­ning to the defence of homo­sex­u­als and mur­der­ers (shat­tas) while the men­tal­ly hand­i­capped are total­ly ignored.Lets begin by look­ing at the role real human rights orga­ni­za­tions play in look­ing out for those who can­not speak for them­selves . One can­not overem­pha­size the need for inde­pen­dent orga­ni­za­tions to be on guard against gov­ern­men­tal oppres­sion of peo­ple the world over, the val­ue of the work they do in secur­ing the rights of dis­pos­sessed , dis­placed, and dis­en­fran­chised is incal­cu­la­ble, and invalu­able.The United Nations com­mis­sion on human rights cov­ers the gamut of human rights abus­es irre­spec­tive of geo­graph­i­cal loca­tion. Other small­er agen­cies also do their share of heavy lift­ing in address­ing the bur­geon­ing array of ways peo­ple are abused . Enough can­not be said about those agen­cies that ded­i­cate their time to look at abuse and high­light them in an effort to make our world a bet­ter place , not just for us but for gen­er­a­tions to come.Jamaica like every­where else , has it’s share of chal­lenges. This blog com­mends any indi­vid­ual , or agency that steps up to the plate to defend the cause of rights and jus­tice for those who have no voice.We must how­ev­er also look at the pri­or­i­ties of those who pur­port to take on those chal­lenges local­ly. We must ask whose inter­est do they serve, if pub­lic sen­ti­ment is any indi­ca­tor we can read­i­ly agree they are an abject fail­ure.Every years Jamaican police report over 1600 homi­cides . This does not take into account the numer­ous cas­es of shoot­ing vic­tims. Rapes, Arson where entire fam­i­lies are dis­placed, car­nal abuse, and a pletho­ra of oth­er seri­ous crimes that affect the lives of Jamaicans dai­ly.When homi­cides are looked at with­in the prism of the con­se­quences they wreck on soci­ety it is mind-bog­gling. The rip­ple effect on soci­ety can­not be denied in terms of trau­ma and down­ward drag on scarce resources of the state and Non gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions.In many cas­es the vic­tim killed is the sole bread-win­ner, in the form of a father ‚who hap­pens to be a cab dri­ver or some­one engaged in work try­ing to take care of their fam­i­lies. This leaves a des­ti­tute fam­i­ly that has no viable means of sup­port, in addi­tion to hav­ing to deal with the trau­ma of loos­ing a loved one vio­lent­ly and need­less­ly.This gives well-inten­tioned indi­vid­u­als and agen­cies a nev­er-end­ing list of indi­vid­u­als and groups to give sup­port to. In addi­tion any such rights groups have the gov­ern­ment of the day to scru­ti­nize, hold­ing their feet to the fire , mak­ing sure no one’s rights are vio­lat­ed. These are mon­u­men­tal tasks that needs the involve­ment of more of us.Those who are vic­tims of crime, deserve to be at the head of the line for help and sup­port. They deserve our sup­port and wher­ev­er pos­si­ble a hand-up in get­ting back on their feet.Conversely, those who choose to destroy the most pre­cious gift we have received from God , the gift of life, must be the last to be rep­re­sent­ed , and looked after. Even then, look­ing out for their rights must walk hand in hand, with a mix of reha­bil­i­ta­tive options , but a heavy dose of puni­tive sanc­tions.Why then does the rights groups in Jamaica choose to rep­re­sent the rights of crim­i­nals?Are we to con­clude there is not enough spot­light to be hogged if we ded­i­cate our efforts and atten­tion to the plight of the poor and dis­pos­sessed? Is it fair to argue there is more noto­ri­ety to be gained by attack­ing agents of the state, some of whom deserve the attack?Is it fair to ask whose inter­est is served by the ener­gies Jamaica’s rights groups expend in their defence of crim­i­nals? I will con­cede not all crimes are equal, not all crimes are pre-med­i­tat­ed, and as such , not all crimes deserve the same sanc­tion. Two guys involved in a fist fight , one punch­es the oth­er, he falls over hits his head on a stone and dies. This is a case of homi­cide, how­ev­er it was not pre-med­i­tat­ed, and as such does not war­rant the penal­ty of cap­i­tal mur­der. It how­ev­er does not pre­clude him from fac­ing the con­se­quences of manslaugh­ter since the act he was involved in (fist fight) was an ille­gal act ‚and could have led to some­thing more seri­ous, as it did . This crime is marked­ly dif­fer­ent from some­one who forms part of a group, or who is indi­vid­u­al­ly involved in pre­med­i­tat­ed crim­i­nal­i­ty. Murdering and com­mit­ing oth­er felonies as a way of life.When the two sce­nar­ios are eval­u­at­ed I could clear­ly see how some­one or an agency would argue on behalf of the guy who finds him­self in trou­ble with the law because he was involved in a fist fight.What I do not under­stand is , what is the ratio­nale for the defence of the mur­der­ing despots that destroy lives, and fam­i­lies?Why do they fudge num­bers , and plain lie, to defend known urban ter­ror­ists, and demo­nize cops?These are the ques­tions Jamaicans must ask them­selves before they jump on band­wag­ons, whose side are you on ?mike beck­les:have your say:

by - 2 Comments

Crisis In Black America:

The wash­ing­ton post is report­ing that blacks have been hit hard­est by the reces​sion​.In an arti­cle writ­ten by Paul Taylor Published :July 28 he had this to say.

The depth and breadth of the finan­cial toll that the Great Recession has tak­en on the nation’s minori­ties is just now com­ing into full focus. On top of expe­ri­enc­ing a well-doc­u­ment­ed spike in unem­ploy­ment and hous­ing fore­clo­sures, the nation’s blacks and Hispanics have suf­fered a mas­sive melt­down in house­hold wealth. Wealth is the sum of assets (house, car, stocks, 401(k) account, etc.) minus debts (mort­gage, car loan, cred­it card debt, etc.).

From 2005 to 2009, infla­tion-adjust­ed medi­an house­hold wealth fell 66 per­cent among Hispanics and 53 per­cent among blacks com­pared with a rel­a­tive­ly mod­est 16 per­cent decline among whites, accord­ing to a Pew Research Center analy­sis of new gov­ern­ment sur­vey data that pro­vides the first direct evi­dence of these trends.

As a result of these dis­pro­por­tion­ate declines, the typ­i­cal white house­hold in 2009 had 20 times more wealth ($113,149) than the typ­i­cal black house­hold ($5,677) and 18 times more than the typ­i­cal Hispanic house­hold ($6,325).

Mister Taylor went on to say .This is a sto­ry, at least in part, of good inten­tions gone awry. Roughly two decades ago, the nation embraced poli­cies to expand home­own­er­ship, believ­ing it would be good for the econ­o­my and the social fab­ric. A dis­pro­por­tion­ate share of the new home­own­ers of the 1990s and 2000s were minori­ties. Many bought hous­es at prices inflat­ed by the res­i­den­tial real estate mar­ket bub­ble of the time. And as we all now know, many were either under­cap­i­tal­ized or vic­tims of preda­to­ry lend­ing prac­tices — or both. When the mar­ket col­lapsed, it fell hard­est on them.

But there is anoth­er aspect to this saga that’s almost as poignant. It’s a vari­a­tion on the Sherlock Holmes sto­ry of the dog that didn’t bark. Even as their wealth has been dec­i­mat­ed, the nation’s minori­ties have remained polit­i­cal­ly qui­es­cent. No street protests. No march­es on Washington. No detectable rise in racial and eth­nic grievances.

Indeed, Pew Research sur­veys show that dur­ing the same peri­od — from 2005 to 2009 — minori­ties moved ahead of whites in their mea­sured lev­els of sat­is­fac­tion with the state of the nation­al economy.

How can that be? Is it that minori­ties are bet­ter for­ti­fied, psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly, to endure hard times? (Certainly they’ve had more expe­ri­ence.) Or could it be that because so much of their loss was of rel­a­tive­ly recent­ly acquired “paper wealth,” it stung less?

Perhaps. But what­ev­er one’s cir­cum­stances, the loss of wealth is a major blow. Unlike income, wealth is a stock of assets, accu­mu­lat­ed over time, that can pro­vide a bul­wark against short-term eco­nom­ic set­backs; sav­ings for a col­lege edu­ca­tion; secu­ri­ty for retire­ment; and a nest egg for one’s chil­dren. It’s the tick­et to the American dream — and it can be passed on from one gen­er­a­tion to the next. Its loss can­not be easy for any­one to swallow.

So why the appar­ent cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance? In the absence of a more plau­si­ble the­o­ry, one could do worse than con­sult the polit­i­cal cal­en­dar. According to Pew Research sur­veys, the peri­od when minori­ties first passed whites in their mea­sured lev­el of sat­is­fac­tion with the nation­al econ­o­my was between 2008 and 2009. That hap­pens to be when the nation elect­ed and inau­gu­rat­ed its first non white president.

Optimism among blacks and Hispanics about the nation’s eco­nom­ic future has fall­en off since those polit­i­cal­ly heady days of 2008-09. But it remains above that of whites: In the lat­est Pew sur­veys, 40 per­cent of blacks say they expect the econ­o­my to improve in the next year, com­pared with 34 per­cent of Hispanics and 29 per­cent of whites. Pretty remark­able, giv­en the dis­parate impact of the reces­sion on these groups.

The moral of the sto­ry? When it comes to the way minori­ties per­ceive the econ­o­my these days, it may not be the econ­o­my, stupid.

Paul Taylor is exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent of the Pew Research Center and co-author of its recent report on the racial wealth gap.

Paul Taylor despite his good inten­tions seem to believe that the near col­lapse of the American Economy and the atten­dant fall­out around the world is Genesised in Blacks receiv­ing loans for homes they could not afford in the first place. Rather than place the blame where it tru­ly lies,at the feet of unscrupu­lous Bankers and oth­er lend­ing agencies .

However he is not the only one per­pet­u­at­ing this myth: 

Here’s what the San José State University Department of Economics had to say: An arti­cle by Steven A. Holmes from the September 30, 1999 edi­tion of the New York Times describes how the process began that cul­mi­nat­ed in the finan­cial cri­sis of September 2008. The arti­cle reveals how much wish­ful think­ing there was on the part of gov­ern­ment offi­cials that finan­cial insti­tu­tions could be run like social wel­fare agen­cies and how they were fore­warned of their fol­ly yet they went ahead and did it. 

In a move that could help increase home own­er­ship rates among minori­ties and low-income con­sumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is eas­ing the cred­it require­ments on loans that it will pur­chase from banks and oth­er lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot pro­gram involv­ing 24 banks in 15 mar­kets — includ­ing the New York met­ro­pol­i­tan region — will encour­age those banks to extend home mort­gages to indi­vid­u­als whose cred­it is gen­er­al­ly not good enough to qual­i­fy for con­ven­tion­al loans. Fannie Mae offi­cials say they hope to make it a nation­wide pro­gram by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest under­writer of home mort­gages, has been under increas­ing pres­sure from the Clinton Administration to expand mort­gage loans among low and mod­er­ate income peo­ple and felt pres­sure from stock hold­ers to main­tain its phe­nom­e­nal growth in profits.

In addi­tion, banks, thrift insti­tu­tions and mort­gage com­pa­nies have been press­ing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called sub­prime bor­row­ers. These bor­row­ers whose incomes, cred­it rat­ings and sav­ings are not good enough to qual­i­fy for con­ven­tion­al loans, can only get loans from finance com­pa­nies that charge much high­er inter­est rates — any­where from three to four per­cent­age points high­er than con­ven­tion­al loans.

There is how­ev­er ‚anoth­er side to this debate. Summed up this way by University of Notre Dame Proffesor of Sociology , Richard Williams .

Today, how­ev­er, there are some who argue that gov­ern­ment efforts to pro­mote minor­i­ty home own­er­ship caused our cur­rent eco­nom­ic cri­sis, forc­ing banks to lend to unqual­i­fied buy­ers and even­tu­al­ly pulling all home­buy­ers down. This is a mis­con­cep­tion that could ham­per future efforts to help fam­i­lies find secure, afford­able housing.

The CRA has nev­er required that lenders make unsound loans. Indeed, stud­ies by the Federal Reserve Board show that the CRA has pro­mot­ed safe and prof­itable lend­ing to low-income mar­kets that were under­served in the past. These stud­ies also show that CRA-relat­ed loans to low-income bor­row­ers have had sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er fore­clo­sure rates than loans made by inde­pen­dent mort­gage com­pa­nies not cov­ered by the act.

It was not gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tion that paved the way for the cur­rent cri­sis in hous­ing but gov­ern­ment dereg­u­la­tion, which increased the range of prod­ucts and ser­vices that banks and oth­er finan­cial insti­tu­tions could offer, elim­i­nat­ed inter­est rate ceil­ings, and great­ly expand­ed the geo­graph­i­cal areas in which indi­vid­ual com­pa­nies could oper­ate. As a result, the bank­ing indus­try became far more com­pet­i­tive, attract­ing new investors, spec­u­la­tors, and finan­cial insti­tu­tions. There were some pos­i­tive results of such com­pe­ti­tion, of course, but there were also some very neg­a­tive ones. The pro­por­tion of loans that were sub­ject to the require­ments of the CRA and oth­er reg­u­la­to­ry safe­guards decreased.

Some in this debate will not let facts get in the way of their nar­ra­tive, in fact when­ev­er there are hic­cups in the American econ­o­my experts say blacks are the first to feel the effects, we have no old wealth beyond what wealth we may have acquired in equi­ty on our homes , to that effect we are at more risk to lose more , and lose it the quickest.

The hous­ing mar­ket has lit­er­al­ly wiped out the gains African-Americans made in the last 20 years. and as Taylor artic­u­lat­ed the typ­i­cal white house­hold in 2009 had 20 times more wealth ($113,149) than the typ­i­cal black house­hold ($5,677) and 18 times more than the typ­i­cal Hispanic house­hold ($6,325.

There are oth­er issues at play in the num­bers here that have noth­ing to do with the hous­ing débâ­cle, for instance we make up 13% of the pop­u­la­tion yet accord­ing to the (sen­tenc­ing project U.S Commission on civ­il Rights) .

In recent years pol­i­cy atten­tion regard­ing the cri­sis of the African-American male has focused ona vari­ety of areas in which African-American males have suf­fered dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly from social ills. These have includ­ed edu­ca­tion, hous­ing, employ­ment, and health care, among oth­ers. Perhaps in no oth­er area, though, have these prob­lems been dis­played as promi­nent­ly as in the realm of crime and the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. African-Americans have been affect­ed in this area in two sig­nif­i­cant regards. First, African-Americans are more like­ly to be vic­tim­ized by crime than are oth­er groups. This cre­ates a set of indi­vid­ual and com­mu­ni­ty prob­lems which impede upon oth­er areas of pro­duc­tive activ­i­ty. Second, the dra­mat­ic rates at which African-American males have come under some form of crim­i­nal jus­tice super­vi­sion has cre­at­ed a com­plex set of con­se­quences which affect not only indi­vid­ual vic­tims and offend­ers, but fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties as well. 49% of prison inmates nation­al­ly are African-American, com­pared to their 13% share of the over­all population.

1 Nearly one in three (32%) black males in the age group 20 – 29 is under some form of criminal 

2 jus­tice super­vi­sion on any giv­en day — either in prison or jail, or on pro­ba­tion or parole.

As of 1995, one in four­teen (7%) adult black males was incar­cer­at­ed in prison or jail on any

giv­en day, rep­re­sent­ing a dou­bling of this rate from 1985. The 1995 fig­ure for white males

was 1%. A black male born in 1991 has a 29% chance of spend­ing time in prison at some point in his

life. The fig­ure for white males is 4%, and for Hispanics, 16%.

While African-American males have been the most severe­ly affect­ed demo­graph­ic group within

the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, oth­er minori­ties have also been dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affected.

Hispanics now con­sti­tute 17% of the prison pop­u­la­tion nation­al­ly, com­pared to their 10% share

of the total pop­u­la­tion. The num­ber of Hispanic inmates increased by more than half in the

peri­od 1990 – 96. Women, and par­tic­u­lar­ly minor­i­ty women, while incar­cer­at­ed in smaller

num­bers than men, have also expe­ri­enced dra­mat­ic growth in recent years. The num­ber of

women in the prison sys­tem increased by 418% from 1980 to 1995, com­pared to a rise of 236%

for men. Black women are now incar­cer­at­ed at a rate sev­en times that of white women.

Toward an Understanding of the Over-rep­re­sen­ta­tion of African-American Males in the

Criminal Justice System

In 1954, at the time of the his­toric .Brown v. Board of Education.

Additionally about 70 % of young African-American kids born today are born out-of-wed­lock, to sin­gle moth­ers , this is a cri­sis of epic pro­por­tions, and is the civ­il rights issue of our lifetime.

Yet there is no Black lead­er­ship on this issue. There are no Dr. King or Malcolm X, there is no Eldridge Cleaver, or Stokely Carmichael , No Marcus Garvey and no Sigourney truth. The fact is we are the ones that have to take up this issue and it begins with each and every black American and Latino home, tech­ni­cal­ly speak­ing Latinos now form a for­mi­da­ble block in this coun­try and will be a force to be reck­oned with going forward.

What are we doing about it? In order to under­stand the impact these sta­tis­tics will have today and in the future, our peo­ple must first know about them, and under­stand the con­se­quences of the course we are on.

There is an adver­tise­ment on tele­vi­sion , its play­ers an african American woman and her two chil­dren (no hus­band) just returned home after the day’s busi­ness, one child ask his mom “what’s for din­ner”? the moth­er replied “I don’t know’ the oth­er child chimed in, let’s have mex­i­can , to this the fam­i­ly erupt­ed in cheer.!

I won­dered to myself which Mexican, or any oth­er eth­nic fam­i­ly would sug­gest hav­ing African-American food. The moral of this lit­tle diver­sion is, we can’t even sup­port our own restau­rants or oth­er busi­ness­es , we do not oper­ate as a com­mu­ni­ty there­fore the approx­i­mate­ly 40 mil­lion of us are sim­ply inde­pen­dent indi­vid­u­als , rather than a for­mi­da­ble eco­nom­ic, and vot­ing block no one dare mess with or ignore. We have to start mak­ing bet­ter deci­sions since we are inclined to act as indi­vid­u­als. Some of the deci­sions we can start with are reduc­ing the amount of chil­dren we bring into this world with­out the ben­e­fit of prop­er fathers in their lives , this is up to our women who must be bet­ter stew­ards of their bod­ies, and not acqui­esc­ing to ever guy that comes along look­ing for a thrill , and not much else .

And to the fathers, we have to start to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the lives we help to cre­ate, the moth­ers are 50%respionsible, we are 50% respon­si­ble, act like it.We must also start sup­port­ing our own busi­ness­es, and start­ing our own, we can­not expect oth­ers to do for us , what we need to do for our­selves, we can­not con­tin­ue to be vic­tims, when oth­ers are find­ing a way for­ward. We have seen that hav­ing a black chief exec­u­tive in the White House does noth­ing for us as a peo­ple , President Obama is hav­ing to spend his pres­i­den­cy fend­ing off attacks and try­ing to keep his job.

mike beck­les:

have your say:

by

Time To Get It Together:

POLICE have col­lared one man whom they believe can aid their inves­ti­ga­tions into yes­ter­day’s triple mur­der in Frankfield, Clarendon.His iden­ti­ty is being with­held pend­ing fur­ther investigations.

Investigators said that the man was held for sev­er­al hours after the body of 35-year-old Rolando Thomas, oth­er­wise called ‘Dadda’; Kenroy Carty, 17, also called ‘Notchy’; and Ricardo Fowler, 22, also called ‘Lance’, were found with mul­ti­ple chop wounds in a house in the quite community.

Investigators remain guard­ed about a pos­si­ble motive.

Residents have said that the killing was an act of reprisal for a recent wound­ing inci­dent in the area.

Police are also appeal­ing to any­one with infor­ma­tion about any oth­er person/​s who may have con­tributed to these mur­ders to con­tact the May Pen Police at 986‑2208, Frankfield Police at 904‑4507, Crime Stop at 311, Kingfish at 811, police 119 emer­gency num­ber or the near­est police stationRead more: http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​l​a​t​e​s​t​n​e​w​s​/​M​a​n​-​h​e​l​d​-​f​o​r​-​g​r​u​e​s​o​m​e​-​t​r​i​p​l​e​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​#​i​x​z​z​1​V​I​j​0​9​dpL

Dathan Henry you have always been a com­pe­tent Police Officer.This was evi­dent when we served togeth­er back in the ear­ly 1990’s . Now Superintendent in charge of the Parish of Clarendon if my mem­o­ry serves me cor­rect­ly .I do not pro­pose to tell you how to do your job my friend , but here’s a quick piece of advice , you real­ly have to move away from ask­ing cit­i­zens to come for­ward , this may not hap­pen , as a result a lot of mul­ti­ple mur­der­ers are walk­ing around in Jamaica with­out ever hav­ing to wor­ry about being held accountable.

I assume the rea­son this per­son was held in the first place was based on infor­ma­tion received, it is now up to you to take the clothes he is wear­ing, get a war­rant to vis­it his home look for clothes and shoes with pos­si­ble blood stains, take his machetes if he has any, tech­nol­o­gy today can detect mere traces of blood , even if an attempt has been made to wash away evidence.

You must use sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence to nail down con­vic­tions, (remem­ber the rules of evi­dence, sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence is that which can­not rea­son­ably be challenged).Any eye­wit­ness evi­dence will then be icing on the cake.

Jamaica’s courts are prob­a­bly amongst /​if not the most lib­er­al in the world, as such you must present con­clu­sive evi­dence to gain a con­vic­tion, or they will be all to hap­py to throw out the evi­dence and set crim­i­nals free.

Don’t wor­ry ‚once you nail one with con­clu­sive proof, he will be all to hap­py to fin­ger the oth­er par­tic­i­pants. Then again even if you gain a con­vic­tion they prob­a­bly will be giv­en probation.

Ps: Note the con­tin­ued trend of mur­der­ers killing their vic­tims by oth­er means oth­er than shoot­ing . I point­ed to this in anoth­er blog, I hope the police is tak­ing a seri­ous look at my obser­va­tions, I the­o­rize that with the top­pling of a cer­tain empire , the flow of ammu­ni­tion have been seri­ous­ly dis­rupt­ed . I sug­gest the police keep plug­ging that dyke so that there will be no widen­ing of that breach, whilst at the same time devel­op­ing ways to deal with this new trend.

by

IT’S SOMETIMES OK TO COPY:

Traffic fines mounting

Motorists fork out $561m, $2b still unpaid​.Read more: http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​a​u​t​o​/​T​r​a​f​f​i​c​-​f​i​n​e​s​-​m​o​u​n​t​i​n​g​#​i​x​z​z​1​V​C​r​t​K​GEa

This sto­ry makes one won­der how stu­pid Authorities in Jamaica real­ly are . I urge sub­scribers to these blogs to read this sto­ry which appeared in the Jamaica Observer , link is sup­plied above.

Errant motorists have paid more than half-bil­lion dol­lars in puni­tive traf­fic fines over the past three years, as author­i­ties fought a seem­ing­ly los­ing bat­tle against indis­ci­pline on Jamaican roads. St James pulled in the lion’s share of traf­fic fines out­side the Corporate Area, with approx­i­mate­ly $22 mil­lion in 2010 alone. Motorists paid approx­i­mate­ly $84 mil­lion in traf­fic fines to the Corporate Area Traffic Court over the same peri­od. But accord­ing to a well-placed Auto source, despite this hefty pay, an even larg­er amount, esti­mat­ed to be $2.2 bil­lion still remain uncol­lect­ed. Data from the Ministry of Justice, released for the first time through the Access to Information Act, show that in 2008, tax col­lec­torates across the island along with the Kingston Traffic Court raked in $156 mil­lion in fines for traf­fic offences. In 2009, col­lec­tions jumped to $181 mil­lion, and last year traf­fic fines con­tributed $224 mil­lion to gov­ern­ment coffers.

Meanwhile, the reluc­tance of way­ward motorists in pay­ing traf­fic fines is one fac­tor to be addressed in the new Road Traffic Act, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the National Road Safety Council Paula Fletcher told Auto this week.

It is hard for police to find peo­ple who did not attend Court, there is too much onus on the state to find peo­ple,” she suggested.

At the same time, Fletcher advo­cat­ed that inter­est be charged on out­stand­ing traf­fic fines as a fur­ther deterrent.

“These are the pro­ce­dures to be worked,” she told Auto, “I would also love to see peo­ple pay an inter­est for out­stand­ing fines,” said the NRSC exec­u­tive director.

One would rea­son­ably con­clude that since Jamaican author­i­ties are inca­pable of com­ing up with work­able solu­tions , they would at least be able to copy.

During my time in Elementary/​Primary school I had class-mates whom were just inca­pable of learn­ing , back then we just assumed they were dunce , plain and sim­ple. No one knew what to do with those stu­dents , so it was accept­ed they would exit school much the same way they entered, and to a large extent most did. Today schools do a lit­tle bet­ter job in iden­ti­fy­ing stu­dents whom are hav­ing prob­lems , and impli­ment strate­gies in an effort to bring those stu­dents up to per­form­ing at their grade lev­el. They are no longer ref­fered to as dunce, they are called learn­ing chal­lenged or learn­ing disabled.

One thing about those learn­ing dis­abled class­mates, they under­stood one con­cept, the abil­i­ty to copy. some­times they pla­garized their clas­mate’s name in the process, but copy they did .

The issue here is this, we know law­mak­ers in Jamaica are dunce, but even dunce stu­dents are able to pla­garize. How dif­fi­cult is it to copy from those who fig­ured it out ? oth­ers have fig­ured out how to prop­er­ly stream­line traf­fic fines, into dri­vers licenc­ing and every oth­er aspects of doing bussi­ness? Jamaica has an approx­i­mate 2.8 mil­lion peo­ple yet law­mak­ers are unable to copy the sys­tem being used in most devel­oped and devel­op­ing coun­tries . How can any­one respect these dopes ? when they are unable to come up with some­thing that is not re-invent­ing the wheel, some­thing that is being used every­where else , how dif­fi­cult is it to plagarize?

The Police are out there doing what they are sup­posed to do in tick­et­ing offend­ers. However as I have said before, the work of the police is being under­mined and sub­vert­ed by dunce politi­cians in Jamaica. The evi­dence is clear , they are able to col­lect only one quar­ter of the fines, in a coun­try small enough to fit into the State of Connecticut , with a total pop­u­la­tion, one quar­ter that of New York City.

This is a seri­ous indict­ment on the abil­i­ties of those tasked with tak­ing care of the peo­ple’s bussi­ness. Every year, hun­dreds of Jamaicans are killed on the roads in fatal crash­es. Crashes that could have been avoid­ed if the rules of the roads were being observed. No one is say­ing that laws will stop offend­ers from speed­ing, dri­ving drunk,or oper­at­ing con­trary to the rules of the road . What we are say­ing is , untill we can find a panacea, we have to copy leg­is­la­tion from oth­er coun­tries,. see­ing that we are too dunce to fig­ure out on our own what works. 

As I have main­tained in pre­vi­ous blog posts, Legislative lead­er­ship must pre­cede Police action. Police can­not enforce laws that do not exist. Police may work over­time to appre­hend crim­i­nals and offend­ers but if the penal­ties are not com­men­su­rate with the crimes, and the fines, and con­se­quen­cies com­men­su­rate with the offences then as is demon­strat­ed in this report 75% of the police’s effort is wasted.

Politicians have long scape-goat­ed our police depart­ment, set­ting them up to fail, pit­ting police against the com­mu­ni­ties they serve. The police depart­ment has been under­staffed , under sup­port­ed, under equipped, under paid, and under trained since it’s incep­tion. The afer­men­tioned set of cir­cum­stances cre­ates a per­fect storm , a potent mix for fail­ure and inabil­i­ty to deliv­er on their man­date. Such is the posi­tion in which the Jamaica Constabulary’ force finds itself . You will nev­er hear this ass­es­ment from the lack­eys at the top of the JCF . Most of whom , for the most part are too heav­i­ly invest­ed in ass kiss­ing and sub­servience , they are inca­pable of mak­ing prin­ci­pled decisions.

I have nev­er met the Federation’s chair­man, it does seem how­ev­er, that he has a grasp of what’s at stake, and says so in no uncer­tain terms.

Those who are pre­dis­posed to dis­agree­ing with this view, need look no fur­ther than the high attri­tion rate in The JCF , par­tic­u­lar­ly at a time when jobs are hard to come by . I would implore that Agency to release the num­ber of offi­cers that have demit­ted that agency with­in the last twen­ty years , that num­ber would shock most.

I seek to high­light the truth to objec­tive observers, facts you will not hear from the police, most of whom are too scared of their unscrupu­lous ego-mani­a­cal civil­lian boss­es in Government/​oppo­si­tion, you won’t hear it from the crim­i­nal lawyers, or those who say they are in the busi­ness of human rights, I seek to show the truth . You decide.

mike beck­les:

have your say:

by - 1 Comment

Jamaica’s Gangs :

This is the sec­ond blog we have post­ed on the sub­ject of Gangs oper­at­ing in Jamaica.

Recently the Jamaica Gleaner wrote a series of Editorials titled (Gangs of Parliament) these Editorials evoked pas­sions on both sides of the issue, some felt the label was too harsh to be assigned to those charged with run­ning the affairs of our coun­try. They argue those char­ac­ter­i­za­tions are dis­re­spect­ful, and does noth­ing to enhance Jamaica’s stand­ing in the world.

Others on the oth­er side of the issue argue the labels are appro­pri­ate , as our politi­cians are less than scrupu­lous, to the point some are active­ly involved in crim­i­nal activ­i­ty. There are oth­ers who feel the Editorials were one-sided, slant­ed against the Governing Jamaica Labor Party of Prime Minister Bruce Golding. The Gleaner argued they were mere­ly report­ing on what was made pub­lic in the wiki leaks cables that were revealed for pub­lic con­sump­tion. I believe the truth lies some­where in the middle.

The cables revealed infor­ma­tion on goings on in both polit­i­cal par­ties. Understandably the JLP is in Government and as such has more to answer to. In the end it seem of lit­tle impor­tance whether the report­ing was fair, as there is more than ample dirt to be unerthed in both of the two polit­i­cal parties.

Jamaica’s polit­i­cal par­ties have been asso­ci­at­ed with crim­i­nal­i­ty since Independence. Scarce resources have been allo­cat­ed to patrons in all of the com­mu­ni­ties we now refer to as gar­risons, Wilton Gardens, Tavares Gardens, Arnett Gardens, Tivoli Gardens, Thawes Pen McIntyre vil­las, and the list goes on. All of those com­mu­ni­ties were cre­at­ed using ger­ry­man­der­ing, cit­i­zens loy­al to one par­ty were amassed into com­mu­ni­ties depend­ing on their polit­i­cal loy­al­ties , those on the fence forced out or killed. The result, exclu­sive zones with clear lines of demar­ca­tion, the breach­ing of which usu­al­ly result in instant death. It is a well know fact Jamaica’s politi­cians of both par­ties have sup­plied guns ammu­ni­tion and mon­ey to enforcers to main­tain con­trol of these zones of exclusion.

Tax pay­ing Jamaicans have long shoul­dered the bur­den of pay­ing back the monies suc­ces­sive Governments of both par­ties have bor­rowed from every source imag­in­able , only to squan­der those resources on pork bar­rel projects run by their crim­i­nal hench­men. Every young boy grow­ing up in Jamaica must be famil­iar with tales of the glo­ri­fied exploits of crim­i­nals like Burry boy, Claudie Massop, Bya Mitchell, Jim Brown, Chubby dread , a string of oth­ers and the lat­est, and prob­a­bly the most influ­en­tial Christopher (dudus) Coke.

These men did not cre­ate them­selves, despite how we feel about them, they were very much vic­tims of the polit­i­cal Serengeti that was cre­at­ed by Norman Manley and Bustamante, broth­ers against broth­ers if they dared to have dif­fer­ing polit­i­cal views. This trend was con­tin­ued and esca­lat­ed into seri­ous blood­bath with the likes of DK Duncan, Anthony Spalding, Edward Seaga,Ferdie Yap Sam, Carl Thompson, Trevor Munroe, Bruce Golding, Roy McGann, Leslie Lloyd and a long line of others.

The peri­od of the sev­en­ties saw one of the dark­est peri­ods of polit­i­cal trib­al­ism in the his­to­ry of Jamaica, under the stew­ard­ship of the late Michael Manley. This cul­mi­nat­ed with the death of a report­ed 800 peo­ple in the elec­tions held that year between the PNP led by Michael Manley, and the JLP’s Edward Seaga. Manley was uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly boot­ed from office tak­ing with him his brand of demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ism, some refer to as a soft form of communism.

The truth is, peo­ple vot­ed for their stom­achs, super­mar­ket shelves had become bare, basic sta­ples were either unavail­able or mar­ried to oth­er goods poor con­sumers did not want and cer­tain­ly could not afford.Richer Jamaicans had long opt­ed for one of the five flights a day Manley ref­ered them to on Air Jamaica. When the final votes were count­ed the PNP were left with 9 seats out of a pos­si­ble 60 in the House of Parliament. Many argue vehe­ment­ly that Seaga and the American cen­tral Intelligence Agency col­lud­ed to desta­bi­lize the Manley régime. True though that may have been, Manley had set a course that was a sure crash and burn for him and the country.

I dust around the edges with a view to giv­ing you a brief syn­op­sis of the rea­son we are where we are. 

When we vis­it the sub­ject of crim­i­nal gangs in Jamaica we see there is hard­ly any dif­fer­ence between those in Parliament and those who run the gar­risons with an iron fist, dis­pens­ing jun­gle jus­tice, han­dling scarce resources, and deliv­er­ing the votes.

That is called main­tain­ing the order.

Events in Tivoli gar­dens last May must have left some peo­ple befud­dled at the behav­ior of the cit­i­zens of that com­mu­ni­ty. After all most of us are law abid­ing peo­ple who call the police when we have a prob­lem, we look to the gov­ern­ment to admin­is­ter to our needs vis a vis deliv­ery of ser­vice, police, edu­ca­tion, health, fire etc these ser­vices we expect because we pay tax­es. We find res­i­dents of Tivoli strange, and even repug­nant, how­ev­er how many of us stop to think that they have nev­er known any oth­er way but the con­densed order under which they live their lives . A coun­try with­in a coun­try. Where every­thing is han­dled with­in a struc­ture , a Governmental struc­ture, one that is bet­ter and more effi­cient than the one we pay tax­es for but nev­er recieves. Is it any won­der that res­i­dents of those com­mu­ni­ty who have nev­er known any oth­er way, fight to main­tain the order they know, and swear on their lives that they would die for the man that main­tained that order?

There are some who are some­how put off when their politi­cians are clas­si­fied as gang­sters. We all know they were the first to intro­duce guns into our polit­i­cal dis­course. We know they are the ones that built, pop­u­lat­ed, and main­tained the zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions known as Garrisons. We are aware they paid young impres­sion­able young men to steal and stuff bal­lot box­es, intim­i­date vot­ers to vote for them and burn the homes and kill those who do not abide by the order.

We see them on polit­i­cal plat­forms with alleged mur­der­ers, we hear them con­fess to hav­ing done things they were not proud of.( Political speak for issu­ing guns and ammu­ni­tion). If we know that they do these things to main­tain con­trol of con­stituen­cies, irre­spec­tive of the wish­es of the elec­tors with­in those con­stituen­cies, how then can we main­tain they are not gangs?

The answer lies in our post colo­nial men­tal­i­ty. As slaves we looked up to the slave mas­ter, even though he rep­re­sent­ed every­thing that was detri­men­tal to our well being. we admired his hair , col­or, clothes, women, we even believed when he told us we are infe­ri­or to him because of the col­or of our skin . Today our peo­ple are still bleach­ing to look like.…. Well who knows what they are try­ing to look like.

I recall the time P J Patterson was up for ascen­den­cy to the Prime Minister’s job, an elder­ly lady said to me “look pan im wan tun prime min­is­ter, an dont even hav likkle col­or”,. That elder­ly lady’s views rep­re­sent­ed what we are still grap­pling with today.

Black guys wear­ing suits, with huge homes in upper St. Andrew and a lit­tle edu­ca­tion has replaced the wealthy whites that owned all the lands and were the great grand sons of slave hold­ers. Education , drugs, and pol­i­tics have made a small group of reg­u­lar blacks very rich and powerful.

With all of the afore­men­tioned said, if the hap­less Police are to elim­i­nate gangs, how do they pro­pose to do so? The police Chief Owen Ellington ear­li­er demand­ed that his com­man­ders present him with plans to elim­i­nate gangs in their sphere of com­mand in a mat­ter of months.

What Ellington in his naiveté’ demand­ed from those men, most of whom for the most part have no clue how to break up a fight, is tan­ta­mount to giv­ing them bas­kets to emp­ty the Rio Cobre.

Great cops, like Cornwall (Bigga) Ford, tough street cops, who know crim­i­nals, where they hide, and how to rout them, still can­not win this fight.

Despite the exper­tise of peo­ple like Ford and a cou­ple oth­ers, most have no clue how to do this. However that is not the rea­son they can­not win. If Gangs like One Order, Clans man and oth­ers are to be effec­tive­ly erad­i­cat­ed police actions must be pre­ced­ed by leg­isla­tive action. How can we expect effec­tive leg­isla­tive action when the Legislators are them­selves part of the gangs, or are influ­enced by anti police forces in the country?

Unless Gangs are pros­e­cut­ed as an enti­ty, and all of the par­tic­i­pants sent away for life as a unit , there can be no real dent in their activities.

Arresting one mem­ber, whether he is the leader or oth­er­wise, does absolute­ly noth­ing to deter , or stop their activ­i­ties. If any­thing what it does is show the gap­ing hole in politi­cians abil­i­ty to do any­thing mean­ing­ful to stop them, as if they want­ed to.

In most cas­es they are able to car­ry out their roles as lead­ers from behind bars with the help of dirty prison officials.

One of the polit­i­cal par­ties has nev­er seen a piece of pro-police leg­is­la­tion the entire par­ty did not oppose. Claiming it abus­es human rights. After all their entire sup­port seem to come from gar­risons and the most depressed com­mu­ni­ties in the coun­try, essen­tial­ly the peo­ple who drink the cool-aid about their right to receive gov­ern­ment hand­outs. People who put their stock in Government giv­ing them hand-outs can­not achieve their true poten­tial. That suits that par­ty just fine.

So as the blood runs, make no mis­take about the true nature of the pol­i­tics . If they want to stop the blood let­ting they can do so over a peri­od of 2 years. That means putting in place mean­ing­ful leg­is­la­tion that will put crim­i­nals where they belong. no one thing is a panacea , this one how­ev­er, is a damn good place to start. Do not give the peo­ple false hopes about quick police fix­es, that has as much of a chance as a snow-ball in hell of succeeding.

mike beck­les:

have your say:

by

Total Nonsence

Jamaica’s Daily Gleaner Editorial page of Sunday August 14 was cap­tioned thus. (What the Jamaican police can learn from the UK riots)

The Editor went to lengths to com­mend the British Police for their restraint in the way they han­dled the riots that in his own words Quote, left six per­sons dead many build­ings destroyed or dam­aged and hun­dreds of mil­lions of pounds of eco­nom­ic loss, end quote. Obviously this tremen­dous loss of life , the destruc­tion of prop­er­ty and the eco­nom­ic fall­out to the coun­try was small pota­toes to the esteemed edi­tor, after all what’s a few lives lost and a cou­ple hun­dred mil­lions pound ster­ling ‚in the greater scheme of things? as long as the police do not put a stop to the anar­chy all is well.

I“ll tell you this I am ashamed for him for hav­ing put this piece of crock out . However it is easy to do this in Jamaica . These peo­ple are looked at as one would look at God Almighty, they put out the putrid garbage and the mass­es of low infor­ma­tion or mar­gin­al­ly intel­li­gent peo­ple buy into the non­sense, can any­one see why Jamaica is a declin­ing soci­ety, these are the opin­ion mak­ers , these are the peo­ple who actu­al­ly shape pop­u­lar per­cep­tions and influ­ences nation­al debate.

He was not fin­ished he went on to point out these statistics.

Quote:Indeed, last year, the Jamaican police shot dead 309 per­sons, com­pared with 263 in 2009, and 224 the year before that ‚end quote. These are exact­ly the talk­ing points of the crim­i­nal rights Amnesty International and Jamaicans for Justice, notion­al hon­oree Charlatan Carolyn Gomes. Policing in Jamaica is dif­fer­ent from any place else in the world, 10 years and a bul­let in the ass lat­er I am express­ly qual­i­fied to shout down this load of garbage. I get par­tic­u­lar­ly pissed when these Elitist morons pre­tend to know what the hell they are talk­ing about from their high perch­es in air con­di­tioned offices at the top of North Street. If you want to draw com­par­isons get out of your office and ride with the hero­ic cops that patrol the Garrisons and by-ways of the city some refer to as (killsome)sic, I guar­an­tee after one expe­ri­ence you will piss your pants.

Do not sit there and act like you know some­thing when you don’t . not one British Cop lost his or her life in all of those riots, not one. Jamaica pos­es a unique chal­lenge to law enforce­ment, its crim­i­nals are blood thirsty , doped up lunatics that have absolute­ly no com­punc­tion about killing cops, you want to draw com­par­isons about polic­ing ? spend some time look­ing at some you tube videos of British cops in oper­a­tion in the Ghettos.

The irony is that this edi­to­r­i­al lauds the British police for restraint when the very match that lit the fuse was the alleged unlaw­ful killing of a black man by British Police. Of course under the cir­cum­stances they must try to put out the fire they them­selves lit . What bet­ter way to defuse the sit­u­a­tion than to lay low, which is exact­ly what they did while the cities burned , which he allud­ed to. Quote Prime Minister David Cameron and the police chiefs in England have sparred over police tac­tics dur­ing last week’s riots across Britain and own­er­ship of the strat­e­gy that caused the unrest to sub­sidee.

What is it that keeps our peo­ple men­tal­ly chained to the slave mas­ters, who beat and raped our women and chil­dren , slaugh­tered our men, and still do it through eco­nom­ic and oth­er means to this day? This Editorial , rather than uplift our Officers who toil day in day out under the most extreme con­di­tions with mar­gin­al com­pen­sa­tion and despi­ca­ble work­ing con­di­tions, fac­ing down heav­i­ly armed urban ter­ror­ists at the per­il of their lives , he finds it fit to com­mend the very cops that are accused of killing black peo­ple in England. The crock goes fur­ther, quote: there is con­sen­sus in Britain that polic­ing is by con­sent, enshrined in an unwrit­ten, but clear­ly under­stood, com­pact between the con­stab­u­lary and the com­mu­ni­ty. Even when that rela­tion­ship is strained, as was the case last week, the con­stab­u­lary remains part of, and not sep­a­rate from, the community.

This is laugh­able, first vis­it the com­mu­ni­ties of Brixton, or any oth­er com­mu­ni­ty of col­or and tell me the police is a part of those com­mu­ni­ties. the con­cept of polic­ing by con­sent is a con­cept sim­i­lar to the con­cept in busi­ness that the cus­tomer is always right, it is a great con­cept from which to oper­ate, much like the sub­ject head­ing in an essay. The British Police you are so in awe of recent­ly saw two of it’s top lead­ers step aside due to cor­rup­tion charges, accu­sa­tions of graft and bribe tak­ing, and oth­er crimes, Their glar­ing incom­pe­tence was on pub­lic dis­play to the world, when Rupert Murdoch and his son were assault­ed in a hear­ing room as they sat being grilled by British Parliamentarians about Murdoch’s news of the world phone hack­ing scan­dal. Grand total amount of peo­ple in the rooms 50. Yet a man was able to saunter in with a bag con­tain­ing what has been described as a plate full of shav­ing cream , which he used to attack Murdoch. Murdoch’s wife showed the nec­es­sary grit need­ed in the defense of her fam­i­ly. Again take a look at the you tube video . The incom­pe­tent British Police were left with egg on their faces as usual.

You big fish in your lit­tle pond, who advo­cat­ed for the British police to come to Jamaica and show how it is done, have still not explained to us, how Mark Shields helped our Police Force after he fin­ished his lucra­tive Expatriate tour. What we do know as fact, is that crime trend­ed north under his watch ‚and con­tin­ued that Way untill the police put their feet down in Tivoli Gardens.

Jamaican police are not per­fect, in far too many instances some of them makes one want to put a foot up their rear ends, how­ev­er they are some of the most ded­i­cat­ed pro­fes­sion­als any­where in the world, they put their lives on the line every day they step out onto the streets, or whether they are in the con­fines of their own homes, such is polic­ing in Jamaica. I don’t need to be told I lived it. What gets my blood boil­ing is garbage like this edi­to­r­i­al that is not worth the paper it’s writ­ten on. Unfortunately even this edi­tor ben­e­fit from the blood sweat and tears of police offi­cer’s sacrifice.

This one real­ly made me mad.

mike beck­les:

have your say:

by

Just When I Thought I Had Heard It All:

Cops told to stop wast­ing light and water:
That is the head­line on a sto­ry in the Jamaica Observer of August 13.2011
That head­line is not news, but became so because Jamaica’s Police Commissioner Owen Ellington wants to be trans­par­ent to the pub­lic. Scrap that , he has no back­bone so he makes the week­ly com­mu­ni­ca­tions doc­u­ment between his Office and the Department pub­lic. I may be wrong, you read­ers can bring me up to date on these assump­tions, but I would ven­ture to say, no agency, par­tic­u­lar­ly one that is in the busi­ness of secu­ri­ty and law enforce­ment , makes their inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions public.
For those who do not know what the Force Orders is , let me explain, the Force Orders is a week­ly doc­u­ment that is issued from the offices of the com­mis­sion­er of Police to the var­i­ous Police Divisions Island-wide. In the force orders Police per­son­nel are made aware of exist­ing strate­gies , and brought up to speed on changes in pol­i­cy. It includes Divisional strength, and informs mem­bers of their trans­fer from one sta­tion divi­sion or parish to anoth­er .It informs them of pro­mo­tions, and con­veys to them all that they need to know from com­mand and control .
This was a sen­si­tive doc­u­ment that the pub­lic has no right to , and should not have access to .
Owen Ellington has made it a pub­lic document.
What this has effec­tive­ly done is give the media a con­stant stream of infor­ma­tion, that ought to have been between com­mand and con­trol and per­son­nel, he has effec­tive­ly turned this sen­si­tive doc­u­ment into a source of news.
This is a shame­ful and cow­ard­ly capit­u­la­tion to Jamaica’s crim­i­nal rights lobby.
Does the new­ly insti­tut­ed colo­nial mas­ters from England make avail­able to the pub­lic their inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions memo?
This poten­tial­ly puts the life of mem­bers of the force and that of their fam­i­lies at risk. Criminals want­i­ng to kill cops can fol­low that cop’s trans­fer know­ing when and where that offi­cer and his fam­i­ly will be.
Anyway back to the topic,Ellington is ask­ing cops to con­serve ener­gy! I am at a loss as to how that is to be done ? are the police to turn off the lights in the sta­tion house? how exact­ly does a police depart­ment save ener­gy? are offi­cers now required to turn out the lights in the sta­tion hous­es at 10 pm ?
Finally, why is the Police depart­ment hav­ing to wor­ry about pay­ing elec­tric­i­ty bills? isn’t that a civil­ian mat­ter for the Mayor’s office? what hap­pens if the police facil­i­ties exceeds their bud­get, does JPS turn off the light ? does the same prin­ci­ple apply to the water? This is the most retard­ed Neanderthal sys­tem I have ever heard of !!!
Police do not make pol­i­cy, they do not deter­mine the price of util­i­ties, those are the func­tions of the pri­vate sec­tor and Government. Why is Ellington ask­ing police to con­serve electricity/
Please Commissioner Ellington tell the Nation exact­ly how you pro­pose to do that? I know you have to sat­is­fy your polit­i­cal han­dlers, but in the mean­time, ask them to loosen the leash a little.
mike beck­les:
have your say:
by - 5 Comments

The Continued Debate About Homosexuality:

The Reverend Devon Dick , Pastor of Boulevard Baptist Church, wrote an arti­cle in Thursday’s Daily Gleaner Titled ‚[Homophobia in

Devon Dick
Devon Dick

reverse]. In the Article the rev­erend re-vis­it­ed the ongo­ing debate sur­round­ing com­ments made by Senior Superintendent Fitz Bailey,regarding what he con­strued to be the dis­pro­por­tion­ate involve­ment of gays in the much vaunt­ed lot­to scam. Bailey a senior police com­man­der in Jamaica, accused gays of being the main per­pe­tra­tors of lot­tery scams, the nation’s top police offi­cer said that was not true.
Commissioner Owen Ellington was not hap­py with Bailey’s state­ment and expressed regret “for any con­cern, anx­i­ety, and any appear­ance of unfair label­ing which may have been con­strued.” Ellington also said the Jamaican Constabulary Force does not sin­gle out indi­vid­ual groups in their polic­ing pro­ce­dures. Of note is the fact that SSP Bailey have made no retrac­tion, and stands by his comments.

In his Article Dick gave a rea­soned , intel­li­gent sum­ma­tion as it relates to the facts,. Of course this con­tin­ue to be a sore top­ic in the world, and prob­a­bly more so in Jamaica ‚a coun­try that is less tol­er­ant of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty(. find link here Jamaica Gleaner​.com).

Homosexuals the world over and those in Jamaica want to have us believe their cru­sade is for acceptance.

Boulevard Baptist Church
Boulevard Baptist Church

The truth is Homosexuals are real­ly not look­ing for accep­tance, most peo­ple real­ly do not care what any­one does in the con­fines, and pri­va­cy of their own homes . What they want to do is to have us dis­avow our way of life. They want to force their lifestyle down our throats, mak­ing the union between a man and woman sud­den­ly old-fash­ioned, out­dat­ed , and plain stu­pid. They dem­a­gogue peo­ple who dis­agree with them , paint­ing them homophobes .

As I have said in pre­vi­ous blogs I do not need any­one to show me data to sup­port homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, I do not need any kind of infor­ma­tion in sup­port of that lifestyle, I know it is wrong. I do not sup­port Homosexuality, nei­ther do I agree with it, I how­ev­er do NOT fear homo­sex­u­als, last time I looked a pho­bia was a fear. Some homo­sex­u­als believe peo­ple should tip-toe around them, now they are telling us when we see them com­mit­ting crimes we should not use their spe­cial char­ac­ter­is­tic to describe them. Jamaica’s police com­mis­sion­er Owen Ellington has shown a lack of back­bone, he has suc­cumbed to pres­sure and polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness, and he ought to be ashamed.

I do not care about what Ellington has done in the past, on this sub­ject he showed absolute cow­ardice. Frankly I do not care about Ellington , what wor­ries me is that he would leave SSP Bailey out to dry when Bailey was absolute­ly cor­rect. It is a sad day for human­i­ty when we sur­ren­der our dig­ni­ty on the altar of finan­cial expe­di­en­cy. Buggery is a crime in Jamaica as it should, Owen Ellington has no legs on which to stand on this issue, save and except for the adu­la­tion of gays and les­bians, the crim­i­nal rights sup­port­ers in Amnesty International, and the oth­er anar­chis­tic groups which run Jamaica. A wise man once said those who stand for noth­ing , falls for any­thing. There seem to be no short­age of sup­port­ers of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty these days in Jamaica. I was lit­er­al­ly stunned to see the lev­els of con­dem­na­tion of SSP Bailey on this mat­ter, And then it hit me. The prob­lem was not with the mes­sage. When one con­sid­ers Jamaica, a soci­ety where most peo­ple con­demn homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, the out­rage against SSP Bailey’s state­ments are par­tic­u­lar­ly stun­ning. It shows an appar­ent dis­con­nect from the seri­ous­ness of the mes­sage ‚and a con­tempt for the messenger.

Jamaica’ Police still suf­fers today from the stig­ma of being cre­at­ed as night watch­men. To this day there are no rich peo­ple’s chil­dren in the police depart­ment. I am appalled that the peo­ple stuck as they are in all things pre-colo­nial Jamaica , still have not fig­ured out who the real ene­my is. As Election sea­son draws clos­er they are get­ting out their Orange and green shirts to cel­e­brate those they ele­vate to the sta­tus of deity, Politicians, oppor­tunis­tic vul­tures that preys on their igno­rance , then suck the blood from them like mod­ern-day vampires.
Even Devon Dick in his sup­posed sup­port of Fitz Bailey unwit­ting­ly falls into the trap of dis­re­spect­ing SSP Bailey.
Quote:
If Bailey came to the con­clu­sion that par­tic­i­pants in a homo­sex­u­al lifestyle are the main per­pe­tra­tors in the ille­gal lot­tery scam based on prej­u­dice or based on deport­ment, then he should be disciplined.
Those com­ments would be bet­ter suit­ed or direct­ed at an errant child.
Not an accom­plished edu­cat­ed professional .
Jamaicans shown their propen­si­ty for the ways of their old colo­nial mas­ters, and to this day their vocab­u­lary reflects it , nowhere is it more evi­dent than in the vocab­u­lary of the snooty uptown social climbers.

They con­tin­ue to talk about dis­ci­plin­ing grown accom­plished peo­ple, how about using the word (sanc­tion). They refer to Police offi­cers as (rude) how about using the word dis­re­spect­ful? They con­tin­ue to refer to police offi­cers as police bway , whilst at the same time demand­ing respect from police offi­cers. Were that infor­ma­tion com­ing from the lib­er­al bedrock called the UWI no one would have a prob­lem with it, facts are facts. Jamaicans are still mired in their lit­tle castes, still reach­ing for their piece of the aristocracy.

Every iden­ti­fy­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic that can be used to iden­ti­fy a perp/​sus­pect is fair game and should be used, with the excep­tion of plac­ing too much empha­sis on clothes and hairs etc, as those can be changed. Even then it would be fool-hardy not to use every dis­tin­guish­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic to ID a pos­si­ble perp/​suspect. This is even more impor­tant when one con­sid­ers that peo­ple can med­ical­ly alter their appearance.
If the sus­pect has, or demon­strates homo­sex­u­al ten­den­cies by his or her actions , where is it writ­ten that law enforce­ment should ignore those iden­ti­fy­ing characteristics?
Homosexuals and their sup­port­ers want to force the rest of us who have to con­form to soci­etal norms, to ignore them as a group when they com­mit crimes , but ele­vate them above, and at the expense of our het­ero­sex­u­al values.
If and when we speak our minds we are some­how labeled as hate­ful and intolerant.Who the hell is intol­er­ant here ? Homosexuals have no tol­er­ance or respect for our bedrock het­ero­sex­u­al prin­ci­ples that val­ues mar­riage between a man and a woman. They paint peo­ple who are not fraud­u­lent social climbers seek­ing to fit in, as une­d­u­cat­ed bum­bling idiots, who are out of touch.
As for me, I will stand with SSP Bailey, who was doing his job . He has noth­ing to apol­o­gize for, and should hold his head high.
Contrarily, Owen Ellington should hang his darn head in shame, for hav­ing sur­ren­dered his principles,(assuming he had any to begin with), on the altar of polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness.….….….….….….…… Shame on you.
The hon­or­able Robert Nesta Marley once famous­ly said quote” Mi glad mi neva edi­cat­ed , ada­wise mi woul­da be a dam fool” .
Some Educated peo­ple are some of the biggest fools.

.

by - 1 Comment

FAKE STANDOFF?

There is now brew­ing ten­sion between the legal team rep­re­sent­ing Shanique Myrie and the Barbados author­i­ties. Reports com­ing out of Barbados are that the Barbados gov­ern­ment is object­ing to what it says is an attempt to block Myrie from being ques­tioned. Meanwhile, attor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Myrie have been com­plain­ing about that coun­try’s delay in allow­ing her to return to iden­ti­fy those whom she accused of vio­lat­ing her privacy.On March 14, Myrie was report­ed­ly sub­ject­ed to being cav­i­ty searched and denied entry to Barbados when she arrived at the Grantley Adams International Airport.It is report­ed that Myrie’s attor­neys have accused the Barbados author­i­ties of try­ing to cov­er up the issue. However, Anthony Hylton, Myrie’s lead attor­ney, is insist­ing that the mat­ter is not a polit­i­cal issue and thus should be treat­ed as a legal mat­ter between Myrie and those she said vio­lat­ed her. Hylton is report­ed­ly still await­ing an offi­cial invite from the Barbados gov­ern­ment about the terms of Myrie appear­ing in that coun­try, to iden­ti­fy the peo­ple she has said cav­i­ty searched her.(Jamaica star.)

We com­ment­ed on this case in a blog titled Jamaica Vs. Barbados post­ed on August 8th 2011.

As we com­ment­ed then, we do not know whether the charges made against Barbadian Authorities by Ms. Myrie are found­ed or not , and as such we will draw no con­clu­sions on the mer­its or demer­its of this par­tic­u­lar case.

What seem to be odd, is that after all of the hoopla sor­round­ing this case, and the atten­dant con­dem­na­tion of the Barbadian author­i­ties by Jamaicans, Miss myrie’s Lawyers still has not arranged for her to get back to Barbados to point out those who she claimed abused her.

If Ms. Myrie is telling the truth about what she claimed hap­pened to her, what is the rea­son for the objec­tion on the part of her lawyers to hav­ing her ques­tioned by Barbadian officials?

She is the accuser, and as such Barbadian author­i­ties have every right to demand that they have a chance to inter­view her . If she is being truth­ful , what is the foun­da­tion for her lawyers block­ing Barbadian offi­cials from try­ing to deter­min­ing the verac­i­ty of her state­ments ? Statements by the way, that can poten­tial­ly destroy law enforce­ment offi­cials lives, by effec­tive­ly putting them in prison.

An accused per­son has no respon­si­bil­i­ty to give a state­ment to clear his or her name, the bur­den of proof is on the accuser. 

Those priv­iledges are not extend­ed to Miss Myrie, and her Attorneys must know that . She is the accuser.

Any attempt at argu­ing that they are await­ing an invite from Barbadian Authorities, seem at best to be a red her­ring, and does noth­ing for the image of their client.

Whatever the real cir­cum­stances of this case, it is evi­dent offi­cials in Barbados will not throw their law enforce­ment offi­cials under the bus.

Jamaican Lawyers now seem a lit­tle tak­en-aback by this and seem to be grop­ing for a way forward.

They are not used to hav­ing to adhere to any pro­to­cols, cops in Jamaica are sum­mar­i­ly offered up as sac­ri­f­i­cal lambs to divert atten­tion from Governmental fail­ures incom­pe­tence, and corruption.

mike beck­les:

how say you:
by - 3 Comments

Jamaica’s Mad Liberal Judges:

We con­tin­ue in the series as titled above here’s a sto­ry from our friends at the Jamaica Observer.

A motorist accused of attempt­ing to kill a police sergeant with his vehi­cle was yes­ter­day remand­ed into cus­tody when he appeared in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court. Accused, Orlando Tucker, a 28-year-old ven­dor of Ambrook Lane in Kingston, was charged with attempt­ed mur­der stem­ming from a traf­fic inci­dent in which the police­man was hos­pi­tal­ized with a frac­ture to his col­lar­bone and mild head injury.

According to police reports, on May 10, about 4:00 pm, Tucker was dri­ving a motor­car along Eastwood Park Road in St Andrew when he was stopped by the police­man for a traf­fic infringement.

But Tucker, while being pros­e­cut­ed, drove off with the com­plainant hang­ing off the side of his vehi­cle. It is fur­ther report­ed that the motorist then drove the car into a light post which result­ed in the com­plainant being flung into the air, before land­ing on the roadway.

The injured man was tak­en to the Kingston Public Hospital where he was admit­ted for sev­er­al days and the accused was arrest­ed and charged.Yesterday, when the mat­ter was raised before Senior Magistrate Judith Pusey, Tucker, who has failed to take up his $200,000 bail, was remand­ed in cus­tody.http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​M​a​n​-​a​c​c​u​s​e​d​-​o​f​-​t​r​y​i​n​g​-​t​o​-​d​r​i​v​e​-​o​v​e​r​-​c​o​p​#​i​x​z​z​1​U​j​g​g​X​Jh0

This less than pre­cise­ly writ­ten sto­ry from our friends at the Jamaica Observer is a lit­tle hard to under­stand but I think we can all see what’s important.

This par­tic­u­lar Magistrate is one of those Jurist oper­at­ing in Jamaica that I talk about dai­ly. Note >this Magistrate has a his­to­ry of bad deci­sions.….….…. if you are not a crim­i­nal. This man attempt­ed to kill a Police Officer in the law­ful exe­cu­tion of his duties. Attempted to escape by run­ning over the cop in his bid to get away from a traf­fic cita­tion. Was offered Bail in the sum of J$200’000.00 The equiv­a­lent of US$2’409 00.

That is what the lives of Police Officers are worth in Jamaica, is it any won­der why offi­cers take the laws into their own hands? this low life is in cus­tody only because he can­not afford to pay the measly bond. If a sus­pect is a flight risk, as is clear­ly demon­strat­ed here, how can a mag­is­trate turn around and grant him bail? Activist mag­is­trate Judith Pusey has been tak­ing a wreck­ing ball unchecked to Jamaica’s jus­tice sys­tem for a long time. 

This is the same mag­is­trate that refused to recuse her­self from the Kern Spencer light bulb tri­al, a move that would have allowed the tri­al to pro­ceed and Justice done. She has set her­self up as the Attorney of Spencer, mak­ing the tri­al a mock­ery, tak­ing over the duties of defense attor­neys for Spencer from the bench. That tri­al is still lan­guish­ing in the sys­tem as Pusey con­tin­ues to fight with the DPP over periph­er­al issues, not allow­ing the case to progress. 

There is a litany of oth­er out­ra­geous cas­es where she has done ter­ri­ble harm to what obtains for jus­tice in Jamaica. Judith Pusey the dar­ling of the tri­al Lawyers has struck again. Notice there is not a peep from the frauds at Jamaicans for Justice,. If Police Officers are killed it’s no big deal, just don’t kill crim­i­nals. What a bunch of frauds.

by

JAMAICA’S MAD LIBERAL JUDGES:

As we con­tin­ue to point out the glar­ing bro­ken sys­tem of Justice in Jamaica ‚we have post­ed a list of names of some of the Jamaicans arrest­ed in the Island nation of Barbados. Some of whom have plead guilty for the drug relat­ed offences with which they were charged, and sen­tenced as indi­cat­ed below.

Jurists in Barbados seem to under­stand what their respon­si­bil­i­ties are. Their actions show that they take those respon­si­bil­i­ties seri­ous­ly. The peo­ple of Barbados have through word and deed demon­strat­ed that they want to have a coun­try that is free from crime and ter­ror . Fortunately Barbados Judges are on board with the dic­tates of the peo­ple who pay them.

Below is the full list of the offenders:

1.Lemard Martin, 21, of Lot 9, Ambrook Lane, Kingston 10, Jamaica. He passed 125 pack­ages, weight 1 ½ lbs.Sentences:
Trafficking- 24 months imprisonment
Importation – 24 “ “
Illegal Possession – 18 months
Possession with intent to dis­trib­ute – 18 months
Sentences will run concurrently.

2.Sheldon G. Christie, 26, of Orange Hill Post Office, Brown’s Town, St Ann, Jamaica. He passed 52 pack­ages, weight 2lbs.Sentences:
Trafficking- 36 months imprisonment
Importation – 36 “ “
Illegal Possession – 24 months
Possession with intent to dis­trib­ute – 24 months
Sentences will run concurrently.

3.Hector Donald White, 46, of #7 Birdsucker Lane, Kingston 8, Jamaica. He passed 52 pack­ages, weight 1 lb.Sentences:
Trafficking- 24 months imprisonment
Importation – 24 “ “
Illegal Possession – 18 months
Possession with intent to dis­trib­ute – 18 months
Sentences will run concurrently.

4.Nicardo Odane Gordon, 22, of Aboukir Fullerton Park. Inverness PO., Jamaica. He passed 82 pack­ages, weight 2 lbs.Sentences:
Trafficking- 36 months imprisonment
Importation – 36 “ “
Illegal Possession – 24 months
Possession with intent to dis­trib­ute – 24 months
Sentences will run concurrently.

5.Romel A Smith, 28, of Grazettes New Road, St. Michael, Barbados. He passed 215 pack­ages, weight 2 lbs.Pleaded not guilty, to return to court on the Oct 31, 2011. Offered bail.

6.Deshawn George Campbell, 25, of #15 Bromley Ave., Kingston 20, Jamaica. He passed 44 pack­ages, weight 2 ½ lbs.

Sentences:
Trafficking- 36 months imprisonment
Importation – 36 “ “
Illegal Possession – 24 months
Possession with intent to dis­trib­ute – 24 months
Sentences will run concurrently.

7.Casavia Walker, 36, Lot 11, August Town Road, Kingston 7, Jamaica. He passed 82 packages.

Sentences:
Trafficking- 24 months imprisonment
Importation – 24 “ “
Illegal Possession – 18 months
Possession with intent to dis­trib­ute – 18 months
Sentences will run concurrently.

8. Christopher Garrett, 33, of Lot 66 Woodlands, Red Hills, St. Andrew, Jamaica. He passed 12 pack­ages, weight 1 lb.;

Sentences:
Trafficking- 24 months imprisonment
Importation – 24 “ “
Illegal Possession – 18 months
Possession with intent to dis­trib­ute – 18 months
Sentences will run concurrently.

9.Gregory Desantos, 20, Fairy Valley, Christ Church, Barbados. He passed 153 pack­ages, weight 1 lb.

Sentences:
Trafficking- 24 months imprisonment
Importation – 24 “ “
Illegal Possession – 18 months
Possession with intent to dis­trib­ute– 18 months
Sentences will run concurrently.

10.Sonia Frasier, 37, of Flankers District, Montego Bay, Jamaica. She had 1 pack­age insert­ed in her body cav­i­ty and anoth­er con­cealed in her body tights. She arrived on Sunday August 7, 2011 by air.

Sentences:
Trafficking- 36 months imprisonment
Importation – 36 “ “
Illegal Possession – 24 months
Possession with intent to dis­trib­ute – 24 months
Sentences will run con­cur­rent­ly.(jamaica​glean​er​.com)

Conversely I will post for you a rul­ing by a Jamaican Judge in a mat­ter where two women were appre­hend­ed bring­ing 2 and 3 pounds of COCAINE respec­tive­ly into the coun­try , both women plead guilty.

Two women caught import­ing cocaine into Jamaica were on Thursday sen­tenced to 18 months in prison and slapped with heavy fines. Those con­vict­ed are 30-year-old Alecia Williams of May Pen, Clarendon; and 25-year-old Babeth Bowland of Alexandria, St Ann. The two plead­ed guilty when they appeared before the Half-Way-Tree Criminal Court. The nar­cotics police had report­ed that on July 27, Bowland was return­ing to the island on a flight from Guyana; at Norman Manley International Airport; when she was stopped and searched.Nearly three pounds of cocaine was found in a pair of sneak­ers in her suitcase.The fol­low­ing day, Williams was return­ing on a flight from Trinidad; when she was also stopped and searched. The cops say she was found to be in pos­ses­sion of near­ly two pounds of cocaine​.In addi­tion to their 18-month sen­tences, the two were each fined 650-thou­sand dol­lars. They will serve an addi­tion­al six months in prison if they fail to pay the fines. Fri. Aug.05,2011 8:00pm(cour­tesy RJR news.

You be the Judge (no pun intended)

We will con­tin­ue to present the facts , you decide ‚whether we are being fair or not.

The ridi­cilous lib­er­al bro­ken sys­tem of jus­tice has wrought untold harm to our coun­try. It is not the only rea­son that our coun­try is in a mess , it is how­ev­er a major con­trib­u­tor to the law­less­ness in the coun­try. In most Jurisdiction sus­pects fac­ing charges of mur­der are not grant­ed bail, not so in Jamaica.

Jamaica is a tri­al lawyer’s par­adise, their lob­by is pow­er­ful and in a small, coun­try where most of the judges are from just around the cor­ner it is not a stretch that their world view would be shaped by their env­iorn­ment, as such we have seen the courts become more and more ridi­cilous­ly liberal.

The University of West Indies which to a large extent edu­cates Jamaica’s Judges has long been a sim­mer­ing coul­dron of far left- wing ide­ol­o­gy, the com­mu­nist work­ers part and oth­er groups have had their birth­place on the mona com­pus of that uni­ver­si­ty. Yours tru­ly was once tarred and feath­ered pre­viewed in the WPJ’s pub­li­ca­tion the (Struggle) as a ter­ror­ist cop. My crimes? Preventing a rag­ing mob of demon­star­tors from ille­gal­ly enter­ing the grounds of Jamaica House .

There is ample evi­dence that mur­der sus­pects locked up by the police are giv­en bail over and over again, . In one case a sus­pect was grant­ed bail 5 times , each time he was bailed he alleged­ly killed the wit­ness­es, abscond­ed ‚was brought back and prompt­ly released to kill again. There are those who argue that bail was not intend­ed to be a punitive.

I argue that the law implic­it­ly states that if the per­son seek­ing bail is a flight risk then he or she should not be giv­en bail. In the case men­tioned above the sus­pect fled the coun­try , and was giv­en bail over and over again.

If the sus­pect seek­ing bail is believed to be a risk to wit­ness­es that sus­pect is not to recieve bail, on numer­ous occa­sions bone- head­ed Jamaican Judges have turned crim­in­las loose , and true to form the wit­ness in the case against them just hap­pen to turn up dead . in some instances killed the night before the case is to be heard.

I do not have a spe­cif­ic num­ber of wit­ness­es and their fam­i­lies that have been slaugh­tered by crim­i­nals that have been giv­en bail , who prompt­ly go out and mur­der wit­ness­es, then turn up for tri­al , upon which they are released for want of pros­e­cu­tion. One such case hap­pened on Hagley Park Road at a bus-stop, morn­ing rush hour, in front of scores of commuters.

Jamaica’s Bar Assoc, is a pow­er­ful voice in the debate of how jus­tice is admin­is­tered. Powerful forces in the so-called human rights fra­ter­ni­ty add to the cho­rus in sup­port of crim­i­nals. When those are looked at in the con­text of the make up of the amount of lawyers in the lead­er­ship of both polit­i­cal par­ties it is not hard to imag­ine why we are in the pick­le we are in.

These forces are privy to the fact that we have a large swath of our pop­u­la­tion that are low infro­ma­tion peo­ple, as such they real­ly do not fear an upris­ing of sort , they con­tin­ue to gam­ble that the major­i­ty of peo­ple who live in the coutry want to live in the cesspool of crime and fear that prevails. 

The big play­ers pret­ty much all have American, Canadian, and British Passports and dual-cit­i­zen­ship. They have no desire to live in the mess they make , they milk all the mon­ey they can from the bro­ken sys­tem, then head for Florida.

mike beck­les:

have your say:

by

Another Expert To Tell Us What We Already Know:

Jamaica’s National Security Minister has just announced that the coun­try has secured the ser­vices of a con­sul­tant to help stem the flow of weapons into the island. The con­sul­tant , a woman, will also be required to devel­op a nation­al pol­i­cy to stem the flow of small arms into the island — the preva­lence of which has been blamed for the coun­try’s year-to-year high mur­der rate. The con­sul­tant, a woman whose iden­ti­ty has not been dis­closed, began her six-month con­tract on June 9 and will also look at leg­is­la­tion on explo­sives and all firearms.

The Security Minister revealed that the indi­vid­ual has worked with a num­ber of inter­na­tion­al bod­ies. She is from an enti­ty, the Small Arms Survey, a grad­u­ate insti­tute based in Geneva, Switzerland… and has also worked with the UN dis­ar­ma­ment unit,” he said. “The objec­tive is to ensure a lev­el of con­trol with­in the soci­ety so that we can elim­i­nate, as far as pos­si­ble, crime and vio­lence relat­ed to gun use; and at the same time, those con­trol mea­sures will also include the ques­tion of [deal­ing with] impor­ta­tion, expor­ta­tion, trans­ship­ment,” he explained. Also list­ed as part of the consultant’s respon­si­bil­i­ties, the assess­ment of secu­ri­ty oper­a­tions at the island’s ports in keep­ing with inter­na­tion­al stan­dards, stock man­age­ment with­in law enforce­ment agen­cies, and a review of the Firearms and Gunpowder Acts​.Read more: http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​G​u​n​-​c​o​n​t​r​o​l​-​I​n​t​l​-​c​o​n​s​u​l​t​a​n​t​-​h​i​r​e​d​-​t​o​-​h​e​l​p​-​s​t​e​m​-​f​l​o​w​-​o​f​-​w​e​a​p​o​n​s​-​t​o​-​J​a​m​a​i​c​a​_​9​4​0​9​9​4​1​#​i​x​z​z​1​U​d​a​F​Y​fpg

I don’t want to be known as a cyn­ic, but I am just a lit­tle miffed at the rea­sons why the con­sul­tan­t’s name , and the amount of monies being paid out to her is a secret. Are the funds being doled out part of a grant , or loan, by a for­eign enti­ty that requires secre­cy ? If so the Jamaican peo­ple still have a right to know , at least that she is being paid by said entity.

Again , let me remind the Administration , in a Democracy you Govern by con­sent, in a Monarchy you gov­ern by decree, if as we claim ‚that we have a democ­ra­cy, then the boss­es of the Government, the peo­ple have a right to know what actions are being tak­en in their name.

If there are cir­cum­stances that makes those rights imprac­ti­cal, then the Government should clas­si­fy that infor­ma­tion . That we undertand.

I wel­come any help that the gov­ern­ment can source that will effec­tive­ly impact the flow of guns into the coun­try, and by exten­sion reduce the lev­el of rabid crim­i­nal­i­ty that is now the norm in Jamaica. 

However at the same time we com­mend this as a step in the right direc­tion , the Jamaican peo­ple must demand account­abil­i­ty for monies spent. Over the last sev­er­al years we have seen a pletho­ra of con­sul­tants and so called experts brought in ‚alleged­ly with a view to reshape and refo­cus our Justice sys­tem and police services.

The jury is still out on the rate of returns, if any,the peo­ple have got­ten on their investment.

Because the Country is awash in ille­gal weapons, it does seem like a good move to have some­thing done about it , what I am not sure about, is whether it required a six year con­tract to come up with a work­able strat­e­gy? What are the terms of her con­tract? what if there are no vis­i­ble improve­ments in the sys­tem after a peri­od of time? Will the Jamaican peo­ple be stuck with a poten­tial­ly high priced import ‚who is deliv­er­ing noth­ing for their scarce tax dol­lars. Will a future Government of the Opposition par­ty be bound by a con­tract they did not award?

This brings us to the com­pe­tence of our own Security proffesionals.Are we to believe that the nation’s mil­i­tary intel­li­gence unit, and the much vaunt­ed more edu­cat­ed cadre of Police Officers, can­not fig­ure out a way to stem the flow of guns com­ing into Jamaica? We are well aware of the jagged nature of Jamaica’s coast­line, we are aware of the lev­el of resources avail­able to the coast guard and marine police , we get all of that. What we do not under­stand is how come those enti­ties can­not inter­cept any of the weapons com­ing in?

To my mind there is no need for any­one to deve­l­ope a pol­i­cy to stem the flow of guns into Jamaica . Minister Nelson allud­ed to the fact that most of the ille­gal guns stream­ing into the Island are com­ing from the United States. They have nailed down the state of Florida and has even fine-tuned this intel­li­gence to three coun­ties in that state.

Save the Jamaican peo­ple their tax dol­lars and lean on the General sit­ting there with you Minister Nelson, get the Americans with their in-finite resources to stop the guns flow­ing into Jamaica , case closed.

Why do you need a high priced , high­ly rec­om­mend­ed so-called expert to tell you what you already know?

Mike beck­les:

have your say:

by

Jamaica’s Joke Of A Justice System:

Two women caught import­ing cocaine into Jamaica were on Thursday sen­tenced to 18 months in prison and slapped with heavy fines. Those con­vict­ed are 30-year-old Alecia Williams of May Pen, Clarendon; and 25-year-old Babeth Bowland of Alexandria, St Ann. The two plead­ed guilty when they appeared before the Half-Way-Tree Criminal Court. The nar­cotics police had report­ed that on July 27, Bowland was return­ing to the island on a flight from Guyana; at Norman Manley International Airport; when she was stopped and searched.Nearly three pounds of cocaine was found in a pair of sneak­ers in her suitcase.The fol­low­ing day, Williams was return­ing on a flight from Trinidad; when she was also stopped and searched. The cops say she was found to be in pos­ses­sion of near­ly two pounds of cocaine​.In addi­tion to their 18-month sen­tences, the two were each fined 650-thou­sand dol­lars. They will serve an addi­tion­al six months in prison if they fail to pay the fines. Fri. Aug.05,2011 8:00pm(cour­tesy RJR news)

Mark Myrie aka (Buju Banton) a pop­u­lar Jamaican Reggae Artist was sen­tenced to 10 years in a Federal Prison on a charge of con­spir­a­cy to traf­fic Narcotics. Two women con­vict­ed in Jamaica of actu­al­ly being caught with pounds of cocaine. Myrie a man who some argue was set up, had no cocaine in his phys­i­cal or con­struc­tive pos­ses­sion. However there is a huge dis­par­i­ty in the sen­tences met­ed out in the two juris­dic­tions. My argu­ments are not whether I agree with the sen­tence giv­en to mis­ter Myrie, but rather the com­par­a­tive­ly light sen­tence hand­ed town to the two Jamaican women, for what I con­sid­er to be more egre­gious crimes. As a for­mer law enforce­ment offi­cer I would some­time catch a weird glance from col­leagues when I insist­ed that some­one stand­ing on a par­tic­u­lar cor­ner sell­ing weed would not be allowed to be seen stand­ing there with­out risk­ing arrest . Some would light­ly ban­ter that” it’s just weed Becks” . I respect­ful­ly dis­agreed that it was­n’t just weed. Even as a young Officer in my ear­ly 20“s I under­stood that if one per­son is allowed to stand on a cor­ner sell­ing weed , pret­ty soon anoth­er will come, it’s just the nature of the game. As soon as there is com­pe­ti­tion there is ani­mos­i­ty, jeal­ousy, and anger,. Then guns come into play . If that is allowed to con­tin­ue the crack deal­ers come, as it is now known as a drug spot , with the intro­duc­tion of cocaine , crack and oth­er nar­cot­ic drugs , comes the addicts, there goes the neigh­bor­hood, . Muggings, rapes, rob­beries, shoot­ings, and pret­ty soon a once decent neigh­bor­hood is reduced to a bloody waste­land. All because one Police Officer did not do his job.Thinking it’s just weed.

The prob­lem is not with the cannabis, or as we like to refer to it “weed’. The prob­lem is with the peo­ple who deal in it. I am not qual­i­fied to argue one way or anoth­er on the mer­its or demer­its of the weed, I have nev­er smoked it , I have had it in the form of a tea , frankly I can­not make an argu­ment for it’s effec­tive­ness in any regard and so I will refrain from com­ment­ing on that aspect of it. What I do know is, if police offi­cers did their jobs and removed weed sell­ers their jobs would be a lot eas­i­er. Jamaica presents a chal­lenge to police, it is moun­tain­ous, with a resul­tant abun­dance of gul­lies, arti­fi­cial and nat­ur­al. There are insuf­fi­cient roads , and even where there are roads there is an absence of plan­ning . A sus­pect run­ning from the police have bet­ter than a 9 – 1 chance of win­ning that bat­tle, because of the con­fig­u­ra­tion of the com­mu­ni­ties , even those that have been con­struct­ed with­in the last 20 years.

The Saint Catherine South Police, with respon­si­bil­i­ty for polic­ing the sprawl­ing unplanned com­mu­ni­ties that make up Portmore, and the more recent Greater Portmore com­mu­ni­ties, have bemoaned this fact. Even as the Police talk about the lack of vision in the design of these com­mu­ni­ties the National Housing trust con­tin­ue to build with the same out­dat­ed design flaws. Residents are forced to park their cars away from their homes and walk down nar­row alley­ways and cor­ri­dors to get to their homes. This puts their lives at tremen­dous risks , in crime infest­ed com­mu­ni­ties of Waterford, Passage fort, and Ensome city, Police are faced with the same chal­lenges polic­ing those com­mu­ni­ties. Communities like Arnett Gardens a peo­ple’s nation­al par­ty gar­ri­son, and Tivoli Gardens the noto­ri­ous Jamaica labor Party strong­hold have posed the same chal­lenges to law enforce­ment since their incep­tion. If police can­not effec­tive­ly tra­verse the maze of alley-ways and foot-paths , cou­pled with the Political pres­sure not to touch res­i­dents with­in those com­mu­ni­ties, it leaves one to won­der if the strat­e­gy behind these con­structs was not a delib­er­ate attempt at cre­at­ing gar­risons across Portmore and oth­er areas. I speak to this issue of not tak­ing the appro­pri­ate actions against per­ceived small stuff. And the con­se­quence that emanate from ignor­ing those small stuff.

Under no con­se­quence is it ever an appro­pri­ate sen­tence, the ones met­ed out to those two Jamaican women. When the poten­tial harm from 2 or 3 pounds of cocaine is cal­cu­lat­ed , how could any just per­son argue that those sen­tences weren’t mere slaps on the wrist. Does any­one won­der why some of our offi­cers choose to accept a bribe and look the oth­er way? Does any­one won­der why peo­ple who traf­fic in nar­cotics con­tin­ue to engage in drug deal­ing? Does any­one won­der why cit­i­zens do not both­er to report crimes ? Does any­one won­der why wit­ness­es do not turn up to tes­ti­fy? Is there any won­der why crim­i­nals are embold­ened to intim­i­date and even kill wit­ness­es? Do we under­stand why our hard work­ing offi­cers are de-moti­vat­ed from car­ry­ing out their man­date in light of these sen­tences? Is there any won­der why more and more Jamaicans find crim­i­nal activ­i­ties a viable means of mak­ing a living?

Jamaica’s crim­i­nal Justice sys­tem is a Criminal and trial-Lawyer’s par­adise, often times the lines between the two are blurred and there are no dis­tinc­tion between the two. Some of the revered and quot­ed Lawyers are actu­al­ly prod­ucts of the closed com­mu­ni­ties called gar­risons. Even as we pay respects to their accom­plish­ments, we must be mind­ful that the com­mu­ni­ties of their ori­gin shaped their world-view. These peo­ple have tremen­dous clout as a lob­by­ing force for their own Interests, but are also the same ones who make up the Judiciary. Judicial activism in Jamaica has lit­er­al­ly sin­gle-hand­ed­ly bro­ken the sys­tem, and pushed Jamaica to the brink of anarchy.

During my days in law enforce­ment Judges would rou­tine­ly admon­ish and dis­charge peo­ple brought to court for fight­ing police offi­cers, rip­ping their uni­forms and actu­al­ly injur­ing offi­cers in the law­ful exe­cu­tion of their duties. Yours tru­ly was not spared from those assaults. Those who talk about extra-judi­cial killings should know when their is no judi­cial rem­e­dy, some offi­cers may find it pru­dent to take the laws into their own hands. No offi­cer should have his life, limb, or that of his fam­i­ly threat­ened because he or she did their job. There are those in the media, urged on by their friends on the bench, who are now shout­ing about lack of pro­tec­tion for Judges, I mean are you kid­ding me? With sen­tences like the ones above. Jamaica’s judges have noth­ing to fear from law breakers.

by

Famine In Somalia

We quib­ble about debt ceil­ings and cred­it rat­ings down-grade , I am drawn to a dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tion in anoth­er part of the world, by peo­ple who would give any­thing to have a frac­tion of what we throw away in the garbage daily.

As we speak thou­sands of peo­ple are on the move in Somalia head­ing for Kenya where they hope to be able to find food and water. Somalia is in the grips of an intense drought and a resul­tant famine. Some reports have 30 000 chil­dren dying in one week. Somalia has been plagued by inter­nal fight­ing, bad Government and trib­al bick­er­ing for as long as can be remembered,

The UN has declared a famine in parts of Somalia. Two years of drought have dis­placed 25% of Somalia’s pop­u­la­tion and UN offi­cials say the drought has killed tens of thou­sands of peo­ple over the past few months.
Childcare world­wide a group that specal­izes in feed­ing chil­dren in devel­op­ing coun­tries , par­tic­u­lar­ly in Africa , had this to say.
The worst drought in 60 years is caus­ing wide­spread hunger and star­va­tion across Somalia and parts of Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Djibouti. 12 mil­lion peo­ple are in dan­ger of star­va­tion. Children are espe­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble. Food and water are des­per­ate­ly need­ed to keep peo­ple alive. 
Somalia a coun­try on the horn of Africa and bor­ders kenya has a weak Government and a strong rebel group the Al- Ahabab Islamist group. Al-Shabab, which is affil­i­at­ed to al-Qaeda, was formed in 2007 to over­throw the weak inter­im gov­ern­ment and estab­lish Islamic rule in Somalia.
Reports are that most of the famine is in the south of the coun­try , areas con­trolled by the rebel group Al Shabab . They have since staged a tac­ti­cal pull­out from the areas under their con­trol . Some argue they did so in order to allow Aid Agencies to deliv­er aid to the area , some­thing they did not allow before.
The atten­tion of the world now needs to be turned to this mon­u­men­tal cri­sis , instead of argu­ing about debt ceil­ings and cred­it downgrades.
Of course these are only black peo­ple dying in Africa. The United States has always been at the fore­front of the charge in deliv­er­ing help when­ev­er it is need­ed to every­one all over the world. It is now time for the rest of the World to stand with America in say­ing to tin pan dic­ta­tors and voilent rebel groups , we will not allow you to take steps that will put the lives of mil­lions of peo­ple at risk.
mike beck­les:
how say you:

by

Happy Birthday Jamaica:

coat of arms

Jamaica turned 49 years old as an inde­pen­dent Nation on August 6th 2011. True to form our peo­ple engaged in a series of activ­i­ties, and sport­ing events to mark the Country’s Independence.

Jamaicans have a euniqe abil­i­ty to make some­thing out of noth­ing , so it was not hard to imag­ine the var­i­ous activ­i­ties all around the coun­try to mark this event. On Sunday a group of church lead­ers , led by the rev­erend Al Miller of (dudus fame) led a march of chris­tians and well wish­ers through the com­mu­ni­ty of Lauriston just out­side the old Capital of Spanish Town. The pur­pose of the march was to give hope to res­i­dents of that com­mu­ni­ty crip­pled by fear, fear of a series of behead­ings that occured over a peri­od of just one week . During which three peo­ple were ruth­less­ly decap­i­tat­ed .The group of marchers , dressed in black report­ed­ly stopped at the gates of res­i­dents to pray and offer com­fort to them.

I com­mend rev­erend Miller as exten­sive­ly as I crit­i­cized him in the Christopher dudus Coke case. Any act of com­mu­ni­ty must be com­mend­ed, I will not begin to sec­ond guess or mon­day morn­ing quar­ter ‑back the actions of any­one who is so involved. As such I salute those res­i­dents who took the ini­ta­ti­ave to march for their com­mu­ni­ties and by exten­sion the country.

I salute the police for arrest­ing and bring­ing 4 sus­pects into cus­tody in rela­tion­ship to the afore­men­tioned killings.

As I have indi­cat­ed in pre­vi­ous blogs this new trend which strikes ter­ror into the hearts of res­i­dents , may have at it’s geni­sis a pos­i­tive devel­ope­ment. I have pre­vi­ous­ly the­riosed that the unend­ing sup­ply of bul­lets may have been dis­rupt­ed. This I the­o­rized is at the heart of this more nean­derthal method of killing , hav­ing spo­ken to sources on the ground ‚this the­o­ry have been some­what confirmed.

Are the Jamaican Police look­ing at this and for­mu­lat­ing a plan for­ward? As I com­mend them for the arrests I must state my absoloute lack of faith that those arrest­ed will even­tu­al­ly be held respon­si­ble for those killings. E ven if they are miracelous­ly found guilty in a Jamaican court, the sen­tence met­ed out to them will be a slap on the wrist and they will be back on the streets in no time.

Lets exam­ine what can be accom­plishe by this and oth­er march­es. They can poten­tial­ly assauge fears , com­fort the bereaved and trau­ma­tized, as well as show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ty. none of these things, though admirable, will pre­vent the next killing, whether by decap­i­ta­tion or otherwise.

The les­son this and all com­mu­ni­ties must learn is that shield­ing crim­i­nals , fail­ing to report crim­i­nal activ­i­ties , and choos­ing the side of evil over that of the rule of law, does have dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences for your health.

There are var­i­ous Organizations oper­at­ing in Jamaica that pur­port to be ded­i­cat­ed to Human Rights. Here are three of them.

Amnesty International: British based with Offices around the world .

Jamaicans for Justice: head­ed by Carolyn Gomes. Given a National honor.

Families against State Terrorism; head­ed by Yvonne Sobers Mcalla: State terrorism?

The most basic and fun­da­men­tal right a per­son has , is the right to life. Neither group was present yes­ter­day , march­ing with those who sup­port the rule of law and those trau­ma­tized by these events. And do you know why they weren’t there?? There is non pub­lic­i­ty to be gained , if the agents of the state are not involved they do not care, what they care about is per­se­cut­ing inno­cent hard work­ing Police Officers and mem­bers of Our Military who risk life and limb to make sure those fraude­lent imposters are safe. As nau­se­at­ed as I am at that con­cept they do have the right to life. And as such we will all have to deal with their hypocrisy and lies.

Jamaicans have a choice to make, the answer does not lie in prayer alone, when we pary we must acti­vate the response by our par­tic­i­pa­tion. God does the big things , we have to do the small things, if women,/mothers wives/​girlfriends /​sisters/​neices/​aunts , con­tin­ue to shield and lie to pro­tect the crim­i­nal men in their fam­i­lies noth­ing will change . As long as a man’s val­ue is deter­mined by how much mon­ey he can give to a girl he likes, then each and every young man will be forced to show his worth and sat­is­fy his lust by rob­bing and mur­der­ing to get those dollars.

As a for­mer Prime Minister infa­mous­ly stat­ed quote “man fi hav nuff gal” it brings into sharp focus the putrid min­d­est that is at the heart of those killigs.

by - 2 Comments

Jamaica Vs. Barbadoes:

Recently a Jamaican woman Shanique Myrie alleged that she was fin­ger raped by Barbadian Customs Officials on March 14 th of this year when she attempt­ed to enter that coun­try. Miss Myrie told the Jamaica Observer that it was her first ever trip out of Jamaica, she stat­ed that she was sub­ject­ed to inva­sive cav­i­ty search by the offi­cials who added insult to injury by hurl­ing insults about Jamaicans at her. However, Barbadian author­i­ties counter-claimed she was lured into the island by a known human trafficker.She has lodged a for­mal com­plaint with the for­eign min­istry, in which she report­ed the inhu­mane treat­ment met­ed out to her at the hands of Border Services Officers at the Grantley Adams International Airport​.Read more: http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​J​a​m​a​i​c​a​n​-​f​i​n​g​e​r​-​r​a​p​e​-​v​i​c​t​i​m​-​v​i​s​i​t​i​n​g​-​B​a​r​b​a​d​o​s​#​i​x​z​z​1​U​O​e​C​z​GtT.

This is not the first alle­ga­tion of sex­u­al abuse lev­eled at law enforce­ment author­i­ties in Barbadoes by Jamaican women.

In anoth­er inci­dent, a Jamaican woman caught attempt­ing to smug­gle gan­ja, accused two Barbadian offi­cers of rap­ing and sex­u­al­ly assault­ing her while she was in cus­tody. Two cops have since been charged with sex­u­al assault and aid­ing and abet­ting but a third cop accused of rape can­not be found and Barbadian police say they believe he may have fled the island. As far as Authorities in Barbadoes are con­cerned there is a bur­geon­ing prob­lem with Jamaicans traf­fick­ing drugs into that coun­try, and enter­ing Barbadoes for the pur­pose of pros­ti­tu­tion. This has caused some fric­tion between the Jamaican Government and Barbadian Authorities. The Jamaican Government of course always quick on the trig­ger with its knee jerk respons­es, and absolute unwill­ing­ness to appro­pri­ate­ly deal with the vex­ing issue of crime in Jamaica. No one knows for sure what is the truth involved in the mat­ter of miss Myrie except her and the offi­cers involved in that inci­dent, we do hope that the truth will come out and if there was wrong doing on the part of the offi­cers , jus­tice will be done. One can only imag­ine how hor­ri­fy­ing that inci­dent must have been for her trav­el­ling out of the Island for the first time, irre­spec­tive of any crimes oth­ers may have com­mit­ted pre­vi­ous­ly, she cer­tain­ly did not deserve to be treat­ed with such indig­ni­ty for the trans­gres­sions of others.

Just last week.

Eight Jamaicans who were among twen­ty peo­ple detained on sus­pi­cion of smug­gling drugs into Barbados remain under police guard, as the process to retrieve the con­tra­band from their stom­ach continues.Two Barbadian nation­als were also held fol­low­ing their arrival, Wednesday, on a Caribbean Airlines flight at Grantley Adams International Airport.Public Relations Officer for the Royal Barbados Police Force, Inspector David Welch who pro­vid­ed an update on the inves­ti­ga­tions revealed that the num­ber of per­sons detained in this week’s drug bust sur­pass­es the num­ber of for­eign­ers arrest­ed at any one time for con­tra­band, on arrival in the island.“We have put mea­sures in place in order to con­tin­ue to keep the sur­veil­lance of air and sea­ports for an activ­i­ties like this” he said.The Barbados police spokesman was unable to pro­vide details on the amount of drugs retrieved from each individual.He says at the end of the process, the Drug Squad will tab­u­late the amount and sep­a­rate charges will be laid. Investigators are yet to deter­mine whether those arrest­ed were trav­el­ling as a group.

Meanwhile, two women caught import­ing cocaine into Jamaica were on Thursday sen­tenced to 18 months in prison and slapped with heavy fines. Those con­vict­ed are 30-year-old Alecia Williams of May Pen, Clarendon; and 25-year-old Babeth Bowland of Alexandria, St Ann.The two plead­ed guilty when they appeared before the Half-Way-Tree Criminal Court. The nar­cotics police had report­ed that on July 27, Bowland was return­ing to the island on a flight from Guyana; at Norman Manley International Airport; when she was stopped and searched.Nearly three pounds of cocaine was found in a pair of sneak­ers in her suitcase.The fol­low­ing day, Williams was return­ing on a flight from Trinidad; when she was also stopped and searched. The cops say she was found to be in pos­ses­sion of near­ly two pounds of cocaine​.In addi­tion to their 18-month sen­tences, the two were each fined 650-thou­sand dol­lars. They will serve an addi­tion­al six months in prison if they fail to pay the fines. Fri. Aug.05,2011 8:00pm(cour­tesy RJR news)

I post­ed these news clips from media hous­es in Jamaica , there were sim­i­lar reports in the Barbadian dailies. What is obvi­ous is that the Barbadian Officials are cor­rect in what they say about Jamaicans bring­ing drugs into their coun­try, as is evi­denced the Royal Barbados Police are more deter­mined to stamp out this scourge. If those Jamaicans still under Police guard were actu­al­ly sus­pect­ed of hav­ing the con­tra­band in Jamaica they cer­tain­ly would not be under Police guard.

There would be howls of protest demand­ing that they be released. And a deaf­en­ing cho­rus from Elitists, argu­ing with increduli­ty, that police time could be spent in such triv­ial ways . It is evi­dent that Authorities in Jamaica still do not under­stand that prob­lems of crime , vio­lence, and ter­ror­ism must be nipped in the bud and erad­i­cat­ed before they have a chance to take root. Just this week a promi­nent Jamaican Journalist Dennie Quill wrote a col­umn berat­ing the Police for doing exact­ly what they were sup­posed to do, uphold the laws.

In his grandios­i­ty this is the rea­sons he has a prob­lems with the police.

‘Quote” Here are exam­ples of what I mean.

(1) In the first case, a motorist leaves home on a lazy Sunday to buy the news­pa­pers a short dis­tance away. He has the exact change for his intend­ed pur­chase but has left behind his wal­let with his iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. He is dri­ving his girl­friend’s car. He is stopped by the police and can­not pro­vide his licences. He is threat­ened with arrest, the car is about to be seized and an ugly scene devel­ops. Eventually, he is accom­pa­nied to his home where his girl­friend is present and assures the police that the car belongs to her and that it had not been stolen and that the man dri­ving it had her per­mis­sion to do so.

(2)Then there is anoth­er case in which a motorist is being dri­ven to the air­port by her son, who is a duly licensed dri­ver. They are stopped by the police and the car papers are not in the vehi­cle. The own­er of the vehi­cle and moth­er of the dri­ver, explains that she changed her hand­bag that morn­ing and had inad­ver­tent­ly left the car papers behind since she would not need them for her trip over­seas. This sounds like a rea­son­able expla­na­tion. However, the police­man is not buy­ing it. He threat­ens to seize the car until proof of own­er­ship can be estab­lished. He accom­pa­nies them to the air­port and then to the near­by police station.

(3)And, final­ly, a moth­er of a five-year-old is tak­ing her daugh­ter to school one morn­ing. It is the end of the month and the police are strate­gi­cal­ly placed all over the city car­ry­ing out their spot checks. She is stopped and her insur­ance has expired. She explained that she had been over­seas and had just returned to the island overnight and would have it rec­ti­fied that day. The police­man was not con­vinced. He was on his phone in a flash and before she could tell her name, the car was seized she was left on the side­walk to explain to her child what had just occurred.(Jamaica Gleaner .com Aug 3: 2011)

In all three instances here the motorists are wrong, broke the law and the actions of the police jus­ti­fied, except fol­low­ing the motorist to their homes to ver­i­fy their sto­ries . The police has absolute­ly no oblig­a­tion to fol­low a motorist home to ver­i­fy a sto­ry , that is a mat­ter for the courts, the offence was com­mit­ted, take the car, arrest the offend­er , tell it to the judge. At least that is what hap­pens in a coun­try of laws and peo­ple who obey laws , not in wild west Jamaica. as if this igno­rance was not enough this jour­nal­ist had more to say .

Quote: In all the above cas­es, I am point­ing to the man­ner in which the law is applied by the police. It is arbi­trary and situational

What I have to say to Dennie quill is this. In all of the above cas­es the police was right , go get a copy of the road traf­fic act read it and don’t open your damn mouth untill you get a clue.

The offi­cers must nev­er accom­pa­ny any­one any­where to ver­i­fy any­thing, this opens them up to all kinds of accu­sa­tions of crim­i­nal­i­ty and cor­rup­tion , if the police are guilty of any­thing , it is doing too much. Arrest the offend­er , take the vehi­cle , let them tell it to the judge. The Irony inher­ent in that Article by Quill was the abil­i­ty of one fool to make many , there was a pletho­ra of ” yes boss yes boss” type respons­es to the non­sense . The usu­al anti police , anti rule of law com­ments we have all come to expect from Jamaicans. I urge the police author­i­ties to con­tin­ue to arrest for minor infrac­tions and do not wait for large crimes, let the vil­lage lawyers like Quill, and all the oth­ers com­plain, as long as they have their papers with them when they dri­ve, they are enti­tled to free­dom of speech.

What I want to point to how­ev­er, is the sen­tence met­ed out to the women by the Jamaican courts Alecia Williams was sen­tenced to 18 months for bring­ing almost 2 pounds of cocaine into the coun­try and fined J$650.000 . Babeth Bowland was sen­tenced to 18 months in prison for bring­ing almost 3 pounds of cocaine into the coun­try and fined J$650;000 , both ordered to serve an addi­tion­al 6 months in jail if they do not pay the fine. Message to all Drug deal­ers ‚Jamaica is open for busi­ness, this is absolute­ly the place for those who wants to deal drugs. I mean are you kid­ding me what kind of luna­cy is this ? Are the brains of these Judges cor­rod­ed with cob­webs? these moron­ic Judges have lit­er­al­ly turned the coun­try into a banana republic.

Mark Myrie (Buju Banton) sen­tenced to 10 years in Federal Prison after being con­vict­ed of con­spir­a­cy to deal in nar­cotics, he did not deal the con­tra­band. 10 years . In Jamaica peo­ple get caught bring­ing pounds of nar­cotics into the coun­try and gets slapped on the wrist with feath­ers. Anyone won­der­ing why Jamaica is one of the mur­der cap­i­tals of the world needs look no further,.

I write on this sit­u­a­tion in these blogs under the title (Jamaica“s mad lib­er­al Judges) about the absolute dis­grace of a jus­tice sys­tem that obtains there. The bro­ken sys­tem cre­ates all kinds of back­lash, police apa­thy, police tak­ing bribes, esca­la­tion in seri­ous crimes, wit­ness killings, wit­ness tam­per­ing, vic­tims not report­ing crimes, dis­re­spect for the rule of law, alleged extra- judi­cial killings, mob killings, no con­fi­dence in the sys­tem to dis­pense jus­tice, and the list goes on and on.

Jamaican author­i­ties have sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly failed to put crim­i­nals in jail where they belong. Jamaica is a tri­al lawyers par­adise, they love the sys­tem­at­ic cor­rup­tion with­in the population,to include their own col­leagues, and gross neglect on the part of activist judges. The pop­u­la­tion is at the mer­cy of doped up mind­less demons who sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly rape, rob, and decap­i­tate their help­less, hap­less vic­tims with un-encum­bered aban­don. The dope that is brought in by those very mules, are the dope that trans­forms the mind­less killers to indulge in their ghoul­ish pas­time. Myopic Jamaican Authorities are clue­less as to how to deal with this scourge, but have the nerve to chal­lenge Barbadian Authorities who wants a crime free coun­try, or at least one that is free of Jamaican drug crazed decap­i­ta­tions, they have that right.

It becomes clear­er by the day that the voic­es of anar­chy are get­ting loud­er and loud­er, my father tells me there is a silent major­i­ty of Jamaicans who real­ly want to see change in the oth­er direc­tion . I am a doubter, where are they? At every lev­el of Jamaican soci­ety there is an incom­pre­hen­si­ble sup­port and encour­age­ment for crim­i­nal­i­ty, those who do not sup­port or encour­age it ‚spend their time ratio­nal­iz­ing it. Speaking out against crime in Jamaica can get you killed.

It has become increas­ing­ly hard for the Jamaican Government to open their mouths to the Barbadian Government in light of recent devel­op­ments. On the same day that group was arrest­ed , two oth­er Jamaicans were each sen­tenced to 3 year terms of impris­on­ment in Barbadoes for smug­gling drugs into that coun­try. Those recent events have dealt Barbadoes a pub­lic rela­tions coup , one that will con­tin­ue to rever­ber­ate around the Caribbean, while our peo­ple con­tin­ue in their mind­less quest of mate­r­i­al wealth at all cost, con­se­quences be dammed.