We are left shak­ing our heads at this lat­est state­ment by the People’s National Party , a day after it’s affil­i­ate PNP youth arm stout­ly declared that the par­ty is on elec­tion count-down. One won­ders if the mem­bers of the PNP ever won­der, or is as a col­lec­tive enti­ty , capa­ble of think­ing about Jamaica for a change? The world’s economy,and I dare­say the way things gets done around the world is expe­ri­enc­ing a sys­temic shift, a set­tling if you will, adjust­ing to new real­i­ties. This reset­ting of the world’s econ­o­my will rep­re­sent a shift from tra­di­tion­al norms this is the new world order. Countries all over the world to include the United States of America has seen dra­mat­ic down-turns in eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty. The United States has lost mil­lions of jobs that sim­ply will not return. A tra­di­tion­al fac­to­ry work­er in the US could afford a three bed­room house in the sub­urbs, with a white pick­et fence , a wife and two and one half kids. This work­er could afford to send his kids to col­lege, the fam­i­ly was able to take a vaca­tion annu­al­ly, some of whom as a child I saw in Jamaica.This fac­to­ry work­er is no more. All fac­to­ries are now retro­fit­ted with state of the art robots that do pret­ty much all the work that work­er did. That rep­re­sents the work­ers that glob­al­iza­tion had not already sucked away to coun­tries like Indonesia, China, and the Philipines, coun­tries that have an abun­dance of cheap labor,and are unre­strained by the shack­les of west­ern work­ing stan­dards . As coun­tries like the United States Canada,and England adjust to these real­i­ties the con­se­quen­tial rip­ple effect must rever­ber­ate to small­er coun­tries like Jamaica that are inex­tri­ca­ble linked to the larg­er pow­ers and to some degree depend on them for their lit­er­al eco­nom­ic sur­vival. As fam­i­lies lose their jobs in large indus­tri­alised nations they have much less dis­cre­tionary income to vaca­tion, or to send mon­ey home to loved ones. Jamaica has as it’s num­ber one and two for­eign exchange earn­ers Tourism, and Remittance in that order . It is plain to see how Jamaica’s econ­o­my would be seri­ous­ly neg­a­tive­ly impact­ed in light of this tremen­dous glob­al eco­nom­ic down­turn. There is how­ev­er a glim­mer of hope when­ev­er we expe­ri­ence these re-adjust­ments. They do offer us a oppur­tu­ni­ty to re-eval­u­ate our skill-sets and improve wher­ev­er possible.Doing so enables us to be equipped to meet the needs of the emerg­ing future.

After being in office for ¹⁸¹⁄₂ years , and oppo­si­tion for four, the best the PNP’s pres­i­dent could come up with as a pri­or­i­ty for the coun­try, should she be returned to pow­er as Prime Minister was pro­cess­ing man­goes. This sim­ply must be an affront to Jamaicans, who should by now, start to real­ize that the PNP and it’s affil­i­ates are sim­ply inca­pable of under­stand­ing , much less solv­ing the seri­ous prob­lems that faces the Nation going for­ward. How can they find solu­tions if they are inca­pable of under­stand­ing the problems?

Simpson Miller.

I am both ashamed and infu­ri­at­ed every time I hear the PNP, whether through its pres­i­dent, or the oth­er per­pet­u­al cam­paign­ers ‚recy­cle the same reme­di­al clichés, not tak­ing seri­ous­ly the con­cerns of the peo­ple, or not hav­ing the intel­lec­tu­al capac­i­ty to com­pre­hend the seri­ous­ness of crime, ter­ror, hunger, lack of edu­ca­tion, health care, pover­ty, cor­rup­tion and a pletho­ra of oth­er social ills that have stunt­ed Jamaica’s growth, and threat­ens the very exis­tence of the country.

The PNP has always believed they have a right to gov­er­nance, they arro­gant­ly pro­claim Jamaica to be PNP coun­try. This arro­gance has pre­clud­ed them from com­ing up with work­able Solutions to bet­ter the lives of ordi­nary Jamaicans. Choosing instead time after time to resort to the same tired old clichés that appeal to the base instincts of the un-edu­cat­ed masses.

This time my fel­low Jamaicans is no dif­fer­ent than the oth­er times, same tired old lines, look in her con­stituen­cy and ask your­selves “is this what i want for my country”?

She has rep­re­sent­ed that con­tituen­cy for a very long time.

mike beck­les.

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