If Dennis Meadows Is Not Sent Packing It Will Be Another Indication The PNP Cannot Be Trusted With State Power

Both Political Parties have been guilty of enhanc­ing crim­i­nal­i­ty in our coun­try. Outside of the deep divi­sions that emanat­ed dur­ing the late six­ties through the sev­en­ties that result­ed in thou­sands of deaths polit­i­cal­ly, politi­cians at var­i­ous lev­els have them­selves engaged in felo­nious activ­i­ties that would land them in prison for decades in a true nation of laws.
As a for­mer Police offi­cer, I look at both polit­i­cal par­ties with near­ly the same sense of mis­giv­ing. Neither Party has done near­ly enough to ensure that mem­bers at all lev­els of their orga­ni­za­tion oper­ate with hon­esty and dig­ni­ty and as good stew­ards of the pub­lic’s trust.
The refusal of both polit­i­cal par­ties to adopt strin­gent trans­paren­cy laws that hold them­selves account­able to us, the peo­ple, is a clear indi­ca­tion that many on both sides still have a long way to go to earn the pub­lic’s trust and confidence.

Over the years, the Jamaican peo­ple have made it clear that they are no longer will­ing to tol­er­ate politi­cians oper­at­ing unac­count­able to them. Consequently, var­i­ous watch­dog orga­ni­za­tions have emerged to keep an eye on the pub­lic’s purse, with mixed results. Still today, some mem­bers of both polit­i­cal clans refuse to abide by the rules of transparency.
Having said that, there are signs across the polit­i­cal spec­trum that as Jamaica is being trans­formed Infrastructurally, so is the coun­try evolv­ing polit­i­cal­ly. It is refresh­ing to see peo­ple of the two par­ties hav­ing a good time togeth­er while wear­ing their par­ty col­ors. It is a true sign that we are at last emerg­ing from some of the dark­est days of polit­i­cal trib­al­ism that has plagued our young nation as it clawed its way out of Colonial control.
Personally, I would pre­fer to see both polit­i­cal par­ties shed and eschew their par­ty col­ors and allow the Jamaican peo­ple to come togeth­er as one nation.
Symbolically, the col­ors are still a sign of divi­sion, a sign of demar­ca­tion that we need to elim­i­nate. No Jamaican was born PNP or JLP. 

It is impor­tant that as our coun­try evolves, our tone should also evolve, but it seems that some have decid­ed to con­tin­ue the gut­ter pol­i­tics. Because of this, I am par­tic­u­lar­ly opposed to the People’s National Party and its con­tin­ued insis­tence on ele­vat­ing some of the worst actors to posi­tions of pow­er and visibility. 
The coarse­ness is almost across the board: Angella Burke, Damion Crawford, Isat Buchanan, Dennis Meadows, and others.
These indi­vid­u­als want to lead polit­i­cal­ly, peo­ple our young peo­ple would look up to as role mod­els to emulate.
Who would want their child to emu­late these misfits?
Our coun­try is awash in vio­lence, vio­lence that comes from lax laws, too many guns, and guns brought into our coun­try through the pro­ceeds of lot­to scamming. 
Yet the mind­set of some is that this is okay, and it is because we were scammed dur­ing slav­ery. I mean, are you kid­ding me?
While speak­ing on the cam­paign trail recent­ly, the PNP’s Dennis Meadows stat­ed, “I have no prob­lem with a man if he wants to chop because they chop us dur­ing slav­ery.” To chop is to scam peo­ple out of their hard-earned mon­ey. Here is a senior mem­ber of the People’s National Party encour­ag­ing Jamaicans to engage in lot­to scam­ming, which is a seri­ous crime but, beyond that, a prac­tice that is fuelling the esca­lat­ing mur­der sta­tis­tics in our country.

These are the mon­grels that are vying for polit­i­cal pow­er. Who remem­bers ‘run wid it’ and ‘any­thing and any­thing’?
After a vicious back­lash from the pub­lic, Meadows apol­o­gized, and the Party is now engaged in full dam­age con­trol mode. However, this is not an iso­lat­ed inci­dent. It is and has always been the mind­set of the PNP as a polit­i­cal movement.
It is a polit­i­cal par­ty that has con­tin­ued to den­i­grate the police à la Isat Buchanan. The par­ty has opposed all major leg­is­la­tion aimed at curb­ing vio­lent crime on the Island. 
This has always been the modus operan­di of the PNP, and it has secured the votes of large swaths of the elec­torate, par­tic­u­lar­ly in major urban slums.
Imagine the PNP being allowed to regain state con­trol; this is what the nation gets as lead­ers, peo­ple who active­ly encour­age the pop­u­la­tion to go out and engage in felo­nious activity.
No amount of mea cul­pa can right this shit.… this guy needs to go forth­with. If he is not sent pack­ing, it will be anoth­er clear indi­ca­tion that the PNP can­not be entrust­ed with state pow­er.
Every year, well over a thou­sand Jamaicans are sum­mar­i­ly slaugh­tered using illic­it guns pur­chased with mon­ey derived main­ly from the lot­to scam. It is a bridge too far to accept this guy’s I’m sor­ry. Men, women, and inno­cent chil­dren die each year, not to men­tion our police officers. 
That any per­son seek­ing pub­lic office could be so men­tal­ly bank­rupt is astound­ing. He must be let go.

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