We’ve Heard Bunting’s Song And Dance Before, Sorry Peter…

Politics is a zero-sum game; we are good, you are bad — end of sto­ry. Nothing can be gained by say­ing that the oth­er side is right on an issue. If they are right, why do you need us? Consequently, Politicians will only say some­thing pos­i­tive about some­one from the oppo­site side after they are out of the game. 
For exam­ple, I heard an audio clip recent­ly of for­mer dis­graced JLP Prime Minister Bruce Golding heap­ing praise upon Michael Manley. Bruce Golding is out of elec­tive pol­i­tics, and Michael Manley is long dead. As a quick side note, I cred­it Golding for prais­ing Michael Manley for the good things he did. Of course, it will be a cold day in Hades before some­one from Manley’s par­ty have a kind syl­la­ble to say about a sin­gle Labor Party great. This has always been the char­ac­ter of that par­ty; how­ev­er, zero-sum in a zero-sum game-scorched earth, dem­a­gogue, deny, den­i­grate, destroy.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​w​h​a​c​k​-​a​-​m​o​l​e​-​c​r​i​m​e​-​s​t​r​a​t​e​gy/

That said, I under­stand the state­ments of Peter Bunting, for­mer Manchester MP and Minister of National Security, when he said that his par­ty is fed up with the myr­i­ad of excus­es the Andrew Holness admin­is­tra­tion has been pro­vid­ing in rela­tion to fight­ing crime.“I am dis­ap­point­ed in the prime min­is­ter. “Whenever an inci­dent like this occurs, he seeks to blame others.”
Bunting is now a Senator in his par­ty after he was boot­ed from his once-safe Central Manchester seat. Senators in the Jamaican Parliamentary sys­tem are [not] elect­ed to that body but appoint­ed by their respec­tive polit­i­cal parties.
Bunting was tour­ing a fire­bombed com­mu­ni­ty in St Catherine with oth­ers, a rit­u­al in Jamaican pol­i­tics where politi­cians seek to derive lever­age by show­ing up to pay faux homage and con­cern for crime vic­tims as a means to cur­ry favor and receive votes.

These vis­its are usu­al­ly suc­ceed­ed by grandiose speech­es designed to show con­cern and care. Both polit­i­cal par­ties have mas­tered this art of decep­tion.https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​a​d​o​p​t​-​m​y​-​a​n​t​i​-​c​r​i​m​e​-​s​t​r​a​t​e​g​y​-​a​n​d​-​w​a​t​c​h​-​t​h​e​-​d​i​f​f​e​r​e​n​c​e​-​b​i​t​s​-​a​n​d​-​p​i​e​c​e​s​-​i​s​-​n​o​t​-​e​n​o​u​gh/
A great deal can be done to reme­di­ate the crime prob­lem Jamaica faces. The Prime Minister said ‘there was an ele­ment in the soci­ety who do not want the Government to empow­er the police force to act pre-emp­tive­ly, as he toured the same site on Monday.
The fact that both sides agree on the seri­ous­ness of the prob­lem but refuse to sit down togeth­er to work out solu­tions shows that nei­ther side wants his issue remediated. 
Crime is a use­ful polit­i­cal foot­ball that both polit­i­cal par­ties are wont to let go of. It is some­thing that affects peo­ple in per­son­al and emo­tion­al ways. It is an issue that politi­cians have used for decades to play on the emo­tion­al chords of the Jamaican peo­ple with dev­as­tat­ing effec­tive­ness. They are not about to solve this issue.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​3​4​9​416 – 2/

“If the courts said that what they were doing is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, then he must accept the rul­ing and find oth­er cre­ative ways to keep the Jamaican peo­ple safe.”Peter Bunting was speak­ing to the use of Zones of Specialized Operations ZOSOs and States of Emergencies SOEs and the whole­sale use of those two strate­gies as a long-term crime erad­i­ca­tion strategy. 
I agree and may have writ­ten a hun­dred arti­cles decry­ing those strate­gies as a crime-bust­ing solu­tion. They sim­ply aren’t. Some are linked in red. 

Nevertheless, I am also curi­ous to see what exact­ly the PNP has as a crime reduc­tion strat­e­gy of its own. You know, out­side of the usu­al tired and word strat­e­gy of plac­ing unqual­i­fied lack­eys and polit­i­cal hacks in posi­tions of pow­er as a reward for their sup­port and patron­age. Granted that both polit­i­cal par­ties play the same sor­ry game, my inter­est is in a dif­fer­ent approach.
If my rec­ol­lec­tion is cor­rect, Peter Bunting, as the Minister of National Security, with his par­ty in pow­er, threw his hands up and declared that only divine inter­ven­tion could save Jamaica from the crim­i­nals. If that state­ment weren’t so dan­ger­ous and asi­nine, it would be wor­thy of the com­e­dy circuit.
Divine inter­ven­tion!!!!
What reck­less incom­pe­tence. Yahweh was the divine. But with every mir­a­cle he worked, the recip­i­ent had to do it themselves.
When he turned water into wine, fill up the jars and close the door.
When he healed the man born with a crooked arm, stretch forth your arm.
When he healed the Leper, go show your­self to the Priest.
When he healed the blind, go wash your eyes in the river.
When he healed the bedrid­den, pick up your bed and walk.
Even to the dead Lazarus, he called out Lazarus, come forth- even the dead Lazarus rose to his voice, yet sup­posed lead­ers in the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry are telling the peo­ple they are sup­posed to pro­tect that they can only be saved by God.
What a gross abdi­ca­tion of duty.
No, Peter, we have heard this lame song and dance before.

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