Too little too late?

[Wardob]

Re: Too little too late?

What,s up with the question if I am a Jamaican?

Okay for your information Yep, I am a born Jamaican live and breath among the people maintains homes there, a farmer and do business in the petrol retail industry, ….. Need I say more? Okay all taxes due the Government of Jamaica, paid in full, am I qualify now?

[Tuff Gong]

Re: Too little too late?

Well I don't agree with all of what Mark Wagnall writes but most of the commentary I have heard on the Drive-by Prada Protest is captured in this article.

The PSOJ and its Wednesday picnic

Mark Wignall
Thursday, May 26, 2005

Years ago when Arnett Gardens' strongman Willie Haggart was shot by gunmen at his Lincoln Road business place, many in the know breathed a sigh of relief. At his funeral, three high-profile PNP Cabinet ministers showed up in their pomp and national "loudness".

Karl Blythe, MD; Omar Davies, PhD; and Peter Phillips, PhD made it known to the nation of Jamaica that strongmen, "area leaders", dons and those riding roughshod over law and order were their friends.

No, I apologise to the Cabinet ministers. They made it known to us that Willie Haggart was their friend. In recent times, these ministers (Blythe is out) have missed some very important funerals.

Little Shaneika Anderson whose small body was brutally raped after which the life was snuffed out of her, and Inspector Walsh, one of the policemen cut down in our recent dalliance with madness were, as we know now, not as important as Willie Haggart.

Haggart was a centre of influence and a director of coercion insofar as guaranteeing the PNP votes and making the South St Andrew constituency "clean" and secure for the party. Little Shaneika and Inspector Walsh could not guarantee a single vote for the party, so at their funerals, the heavyweights (Portia attended Shaneika's) were conveniently missing.

The hypocrisy of the politicians was on display all of this week.
Which reminds me of the other set of hypocrites among us - the PSOJ. To listen to its members is to fall in love with not just vomit but the real stuff, the old, regurgitated one.

At the time of writing this column (Wednesday, 2:00 pm), I have yet to see one headlight on, although two people have told me they have seen some. It appears to me that motorists have caught on to the two-faced nature of the PSOJ and have shunned it, as well they may.

I expect that the PSOJ will dabble again in generalisations, issuing some impressive release condemning crime. All of that will be hogwash. Too much becomes hidden in position papers, and collective action is often corrupted by the inaction of the individual. What we need is individual commitment and declarations.

We need one member of the PSOJ to stand up and declare that I, xxx have been paying to the criminal network $15,000 or $20,000 per week for x years. As of today I will no longer be paying this money and instead will donate 25 per cent of what I used to pay towards improving the upkeep of police stations throughout Jamaica.

I call upon my colleagues to make this declaration, where appropriate. In this way, we will be sending a clear message to the criminals that we will no longer sit with them, lie with them, cavort with them and support criminality.

Of course, I do not expect that the spineless members will do any such thing. Not one will admit to paying extortion, yet the extortion network will give the names and the dollar values coming in per week.

What must also be mentioned is that many business concerns sold their souls to FINSAC in the 1990s and even now cannot afford to "diss" the Finance Minister by coming down too strongly on the PNP.

Many in the Opposition are similarly compromised, so the JLP will be riding this one out silently. Of course, I should mention that key people in the leadership of the PSOJ are PNP to the bone, so they will play the game but only for a one-day picnic.
The security minister is apparently out of the loop on strategies to fight crime.

He has brought Mark Shields here and figures out that that will give him some breathing space. Someone needs to tell him that his breathing is laboured and his skin is sweaty, puffy and trembling. We probably need to bring in a minister of national security from Goat Island to replace Peter Phillips.

The PSOJ needs to put this PNP administration under serious pressure. In the same way that it needs to take strong, decisive and united action against the criminal network, it must attack the government with firm cohesiveness and workable plans in the fight against crime.

To the extent that the government can be as destructive to the PSOJ as the extortionists are to them, the same declaration must be made that the PNP government confronted and forced to take immediate action.

That the protest was only for a half-day when the morning sales are already in means the PSOJ is more concerned with a few dollars more than it is with any serious efforts at protesting against the spiralling rate of violent crime.

Then when we think that downtown closes at midday on a Wednesday anyway, the situation becomes comedy even if the screenplay is poor.

At the top, we have the weakest political leader this country has ever seen in the personage of Prime Minister Patterson. In the Opposition, Bruce Golding has already led me to long for the "good old days" of Eddie Seaga.

The typical Jamaican is still afraid to divulge all to the police, while the policeman and policewoman can barely survive on their take-home pay. The PSOJ is best when it is playing games with the people like the outing, the picnic yesterday.

It is now left up to the press to force the hand of government into decisive action in the fight against violent crime. Some businessmen know who the criminals are and a significant percentage of politicians talk with these dons, these criminals. Senior policemen know the "runnings" but the evidence is long in coming in.

An all-out assault against the criminal network is overdue. PSOJ picnics and love-ins will not solve it.

Two-faced men in three-piece suits are impotent in consummating anything, much less forcing the hand of the government into real, decisive action. The press and the citizens of this country will have to do it.
That is the blueprint which needs working on now.

[email][email protected]

The PSOJ and its Wednesday picnic

[britisha]

Re: Too little too late?

Originally posted by Wardob:
[qb] What,s up with the question if I am a Jamaican?

Okay for your information Yep, I am a born Jamaican live and breath among the people maintains homes there, a farmer and do business in the petrol retail industry, ….. Need I say more? Okay all taxes due the Government of Jamaica, paid in full, am I qualify now? [/qb]

((Warrie))

Thanks TG for your last link..

The typical Jamaican is still afraid to divulge all to the police, while the policeman and policewoman can barely survive on their take-home pay.

Fact...

The PSOJ is best when it is playing games with the people like the outing, the picnic yesterday.

I didn't really know what to call it..they called it a "rally."

It is now left up to the press to force the hand of government into decisive action in the fight against violent crime.

Mi did done seh dat arreddi...not ongle expose the runnings, but post full page ads, decrying crime and criminals..

Some businessmen know who the criminals are and a significant percentage of politicians talk with these dons, these criminals. Senior policemen know the "runnings" but the evidence is long in coming in.

Dere yu goo..

An all-out assault against the criminal network is overdue. PSOJ picnics and love-ins will not solve it.

Two-faced men in three-piece suits are impotent in consummating anything, much less forcing the hand of the government into real, decisive action. The press and the citizens of this country will have to do it.
That is the blueprint which needs working on now.

How will the citizens accomplish this, by nat voting fi dem? I think the press is doing a good job by putting these commentaries on line for the whole wide world to se..but it seems not to be enough..Mi guess some a dem didn't waan fi march innah the "inner city" fearing some a dem cohorts might point dem hout..: :

[Tuff Gong]

Re: Too little too late?

An absence of leadership
published: Sunday | May 29, 2005

I AM A great believer in organised mass demonstrations myself. When a thousand Jamaicans can gather in a common cause, this is a major public achievement.

Jamaicans are not by nature joiners of bodies and groups. We love status and prestige positions, so that small committees that we can chair prominently are more our speed.

Only a few hundred rank-and-file people, it seems, can ever agree on anything at any time. But even these people are somewhat embarrassing to the rest of society, which inevitably thinks they look and sound a bit like a cult, or a secret society.

Even now, amid the daily slaughter of the rich and poor alike, all the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) managed to muster at Emancipation Park was around 3,000 people.

Only 3,000 people managed to 'Stand for Jamaica' in Kingston. In Montego Bay, it was even less, but they went down on their knees in Sam Sharpe Square. They are as amazing to me as a three-legged goat.

SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION

This is out of a population of nearly three million, most of whom across the length and breadth of the island had the afternoon off for the purpose. Even though the PSOJ, therefore, effectively rented a crowd, it did not turn up.

From the looks of the rank and file present, they missed a great afternoon. But the private sector leadership themselves have sown the seeds of their own further destruction.

They have announced the establishment of a fund to buy equipment and repair stations for the police. The first contributor was GraceKennedy's.

It may well be that this new fund will turn out like the one for Hurricane Ivan restoration more promises than cash. Nevertheless, the whole concept is utterly wrong.

In addition to paying extortion money to criminal racketeers, the beleaguered business community is to find yet more money for yet another fund for social intervention. Bear in mind that they already pay taxes in the many billions of dollars to the Government annually.

Yet the police are unable to ensure their safety, and on last Labour Day, the private sector was out along with other community members digging out blocked street drains, and painting schools and hospitals. They are not supposed to do that. That is the role of the Government. Labour Day ought not to exist so that citizens can take a day off to do the basic and elementary work of government agencies which cannot bother.

This is as bad as the private sector designing new tax laws for the Government, so it can cherry-pick them
to impose the maximum pain with the minimum relief. When a government is performing badly, the answer is not to form a surrogate government. That is impossible and illegal without the vote, and only makes a greater nonsense of everything.

If the private sector's strength of cash could float or guarantee good government, Jamaica would have reached the ranks of the First World in the last decade alone. Yet despite steeply growing government revenue, the island slides into the deep.

The cause of this is the Jamaican Government trying to operate like a commercial entity. It enters into large-scale commercial projects like up-scale housing schemes, call centres and tourism resort developments, and loses hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars of taxpayers' money.

The Government imposes billion-dollar cesses annually on some businesses, so it can go off and itself invest the money in related fields of activity. The money is sure to be wasted there, too.

As a result, public markets cannot be cleaned, nor water maintained in the hydrants for the fire engines. The Patterson administration has usurped the role of the private sector, and abandoned its constitutional duty to serve the needs of the majority of the people.

Their failure to do so, makes poor people vexed with rich people. The private sector, therefore, tries to deflect its anger by promising funds to relieve its misery and provide basic services because the Government will not.

UPSTAGING ONE ANOTHER

But these funds are guilt money when the private-sector is supposed to be blameless in the matter. And it plays right into the Prime Minister's hands, who promptly gave their rally a 'thumbs-up'.

Finance Minister, Dr. Omar Davies, a candidate for the presidency of the People's National Party (PNP), sat right behind Doreen Frankson, president of the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association. He was in pole position to do his collections, and get on national television. That ought to have been another sign that something was fundamentally wrong. But nobody knows his place any more, nor pays the slightest attention to his rightful roles.

This was a rally about the appalling level of violent crime, which is the responsibility of Security Minister Dr. Peter Phillips, himself a PNP presidential candidate. One candidate ought not to look to benefit from the discomfiture of another, neither nor ministerially. Some grace and team spirit is expected in an internal party race.

There was none in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), and look what has happened to that party. They have failed to close ranks around their new leader Bruce Golding. Several JLP MPs, their families, friends and funders have lined up to help Portia Simpson Miller become president of the PNP, all discreetly but all active.

This column believes that is a worthy cause, but it should not be their cause. It is even more insidious evidence of people not knowing their place.

I would like to see Mrs. Simpson Miller become Prime Minister, but I'm not a member of the JLP. It's perfectly permissible in my case, but not in theirs. The enthusiasm of JLP MPs for her is, therefore an entirely different matter.

In the past, I've heard many traditional JLP private-sector funders wondering why she had not come to them for campaign funds. Over the past many years, they've tried without success to get her to join the JLP. It is the job of the private sector to fund either or both major political parties, all or one candidate. But it's not cricket for the players on the teams themselves to throw the match.

That again is a waste of the private sector's money, money that is better spent expanding their businesses and generating employment for Jamaicans in Jamaica. What they lack is the political leadership that will let them do it.

An absence of leadership

[britisha]

Re: Too little too late?

Intressting commentary there, will add more comments later..thanks for that TG.

[britisha]

Re: Too little too late?

..and so it seems, too little too late..the outward display of disgust at the barbarism in our nation has made NO dent in the minds of criminals..the recent stats bear testimony to that....apart from the few letters and editorials, all is silent but for the guns of the gunmen..Oh dear!!

[Tuff Gong]

Re: Too little too late?

this one too!