Let's get ready to "RRRRRumble"

[Sir X]

Let's get ready to "RRRRRumble"
JAMES MOSS-SOLOMON

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Once again we are approaching the silly season. Political sparring, supplementary budgets, accusations of impropriety, violent confrontations, threats to attorneys, nurses, and walkouts are all in vogue. All fruits ripe! The only positive sign is that boxing may be the beneficiary, if we can promote and sell the tickets and television rights. As if this was not enough, smoke from ganja rises in the USA.

Round 1: The "rice wars" seem ready to begin, but not in the usual way. The drought throughout the region has impacted agriculture in a negative way, and Guyana is no exception. They have not effectively husbanded one of the items which they have in abundance - water - with three mighty rivers at their disposal. By so doing, they have left themselves opened to the US Rice Producers Association, who will seek every opportunity to undermine them. So begins another round of US versus Guyana. Please place your bets.

Round 2: The Supplementary Budget tabled in Parliament and the Budget for 2010/2011 indicate that the sparring match with the IMF is about to resume, and a date has already been set for a quarterly preview. This is definitely a heavyweight match-up, which pits Audley "Man a Yard" against "Darth Vader and the Evil Empire". Who will take the crown? Can the Government manage the $100-billion cuts in the new financial year in a way that does not ruin what remains of their credibility? It can be done, but this requires change in an open and humane way.

Round 3: The contractor general, "Hot Licks" Christie, has already floored so many adversaries that he is quickly running out of any worthy opponents. "The Jamaica Boxing Journal" is predicting that he will opt to go up in weight class, having outgrown the flyweights. This will spell serious trouble for the "unseen hands" who manipulate without taking responsibility, so fat cats beware!

Round 4: At the weighing-in press conference, "Battling Edith" is crying foul on "Pernicious Pearnel" for associating her with former police champion Reneto DeCordova Valentino "the Enforcer" Adams. Some persons are saying that in his previous avocation as a trade unionist, Pearnel advocated that employers treat workers with respect, and now that the tables have turned he has changed his tune. This bout is sure to become an "autoclaps" of national significance if the vitriolic comments continue.

Round 5: "Bruce on the loose" has told Dorothy "the Darling" that if any attempt is made to step into the ring with him, she had better bring her own stretcher. It is amazing to note the silence of her colleagues, those "legal luminaries" who defend the rights of citizens and the justice system, ad nauseam. Sometimes even an attorney general needs a little protection from veiled and unveiled threats.

Round 6: Back at the Forum, "Sista" the most Honourable P continues to walk around the ring and then leave, taking her entire entourage, including Peter Peter and Omar "the greatest magician". By avoiding the ring, her supporters are left to wonder if the last major encounter for the Championship has left her with cold feet. As the people's champion, she may have to review the "rope a dope" tactics, and allow for some serious punching.

Round 7: "Kicking Karl" has again left boxing and gone to wrestling. There, he and his Tag Team must fight the TCL, Caricom Secretariat, and the CCJ, before any result can be declared. The technical answer required for resolution of this grudge match depends on the results of investigations into the supply sources, and whether this can be handled by a concrete lack or slag analysis. The fight promises to be furious after the singing of the Caricom Anthem, "No man is an island".

Round 7: In the meantime, while waiting for extradition to the USA, the "San Francisco Chronicle" of March 17 reports that the father and son were in possession of 70 plants, two illegal guns, scales, baggies and an illegal power-sapping device. They were acquitted by the jury as they had a doctor's prescription for medicinal ganja. The doctor said the herb smoking would be good for arthritis, nightmares, schizophrenia, neck pain, and many other maladies. What a turn it could take if Dudus produces a prescription and claims a handicapped waiver. There is a reluctance to deal with the reality that ganja is an important crop in the USA. The US is reluctant to prosecute its own citizens effectively, and this does not seem to be much more than a non-tariff barrier. Perhaps this has encouraged us to take them lightly.

Round 8: In the Wignall "the Doc" versus all would-be incumbents and aspirants to the crown, all title contenders of the age of dinosaurs have been declared unfit. Some of the younger ones are suspected of being infected by the political virus. Only a possible three or 10 per cent are noticeable in early-morning workouts. The "Doc" promises further lab results soon, and will deal with all second-tier or "settlers' class" promptly. Perhaps he could extend his tests to the other camp, and better inform the gambling public of his findings.

To leave the boxing ring and use a horse-racing euphemism:
"Horse is horse, class is class, and donkey don't business in a Derby!"

On a serious note, however, the problems facing us are large and require focused attention from our political representatives. Inattention and rude behaviour have no place in the classroom of governance. The people are watching like never before, so be careful, as any further nonsense will force them to send you to the "naughty corner", or to expel you from school.

[Sir X]

LOL........Round 5: "Bruce on the loose" has told Dorothy "the Darling" that if any attempt is made to step into the ring with him, she had better bring her own stretcher. It is amazing to note the silence of her colleagues, those "legal luminaries" who defend the rights of citizens and the justice system, ad nauseam. Sometimes even an attorney general needs a little protection from veiled and unveiled threats.


DRIVAH......BRUCE ON THE LOOSE! soon to be on the noose.

[Baddaz]

LOL........Round 5: It is amazing to note the silence of her colleagues, those "legal luminaries" who defend the rights of citizens and the justice system, ad nauseam. Sometimes even an attorney general needs a little protection from veiled and unveiled threats.


DRIVAH......BRUCE ON THE LOOSE! soon to be on the noose.

imagine john gotti a threaten (veiled and unveiled) to guilanni... what a piece a bangarang drivah affi navigate...

[Don1]

LOL........Round 5: "Bruce on the loose" has told Dorothy "the Darling" that if any attempt is made to step into the ring with him, she had better bring her own stretcher. It is amazing to note the silence of her colleagues, those "legal luminaries" who defend the rights of citizens and the justice system, ad nauseam. Sometimes even an attorney general needs a little protection from veiled and unveiled threats.


DRIVAH......BRUCE ON THE LOOSE! soon to be on the noose.

The extent to which this guy has gone to protect a major criminal is amazing!

Unprecedented.

Question is.....Since Bruce is totally compromised. How long can he last in such a state?

[Sir X]

Something more odious is out and it is the defenders of the constitution , civil liberties and rights of the citizenry , the silence is deafing , I have to ask are they comfortable with our present constitution?

It has a serious conflict of interest in it and further more serious representational issues as in the fact that some MPs live out of thier constituencies.

Forget everything else , if anyone wants to tackle our nepotistic , narco poltical democratic, dictatorship, garrison culture what better way to start without openly declaring war against DONS or MPS in a direct in your face way .

All this talk about social contract , deals with IMF , or contractor general investigation will amount to naught if we dont deal with those constitutional issues that cripple us every day .

Jamaica has reached the status of the Camorra, where life is just a hustle to seperate the legal from the illegal is impossible.



Activities
Compared to the Sicilian Cosa Nostra's pyramidal structure, the Camorra has more of a 'horizontal' than a 'vertical' structure. As a result, individual Camorra clans act independently of each other, and are more prone to feuding among themselves. This however makes the Camorra more resilient when top leaders are arrested or killed, with new clans and organizations germinating out of the stumps of old ones. As the Galasso clan boss Pasquale Galasso once stated in court; "Campania can get worse because you could cut into a Camorra group, but another ten could emerge from it."[7]
In the 1970s and 1980s Raffaele Cutolo made an attempt to unify the Camorra families in the manner of the Sicilian Mafia, by forming the New Organized Camorra (Nuova Camorra Organizzata or NCO), but this proved unsuccessful. Drive-by shootings by camorristi often result in casualties among the local population, but such episodes are often difficult to investigate because of widespread Omertà (code of silence). According to a report from Confesercenti, the second-largest Italian Trade Organization, published on October 22, 2007 in the Corriere della Sera, the Camorra control the milk and fish industries, the coffee trade, and over 2,500 bakeries in the city.[8]
In 1983, Italian law enforcement estimated that there were only about a dozen Camorra clans. By 1987, the number had risen to 26, and in the following year, a report from the Naples flying squad reported their number as 32. Currently it is estimated there are about 111 Camorra clans and over 6,700 members in Naples and the immediate surroundings.[9] Roberto Saviano, an investigative journalist and author of Gomorra, an exposé of the activities of the Camorra, says that this sprawling network of Camorra clans now dwarfs the Sicilian Mafia, the 'Ndrangheta and southern Italy's other organised gangs, in numbers, in economic power and in ruthless violence.[10]
In 2004 and 2005 the Di Lauro clan and the so-called Scissionisti fought a bloody feud which came to be known in the Italian press as the Scampia feud. The result was over 100 street-killings. At the end of October 2006 a new series of murders took place in Naples between 20 competing clans, that cost 12 lives in 10 days. The Interior Minister Giuliano Amato decided to send more than 1,000 extra police and Carabinieri to Naples to fight crime and protect tourists.[11] It didn't help much – in the following year there were over 120 murders.[citation needed]
In recent years, various Camorra clans have been forming alliances with Nigerian drug gangs and the Albanian Mafia, even going so far as to intermarry. For instance, Augusto La Torre, the former La Torre clan boss who became a pentito, is married to an Albanian woman. It should also be noted that the first foreign pentito, a Tunisian, admitted to being involved with the feared Casalesi clan of Casal di Principe. The first town that the Camorra gave over to be completely governed by a foreign clan was Castel Volturno, which was given to the Rapaces, clans from Lagos and Benin City in Nigeria. This allowed them to traffic cocaine and prostitutes before sending them across the whole of Europe.[12]
[edit] Garbage crisis

Since the mid-1990s, the Camorra has taken over the handling of garbage disposal in the region of Campania, with disastrous results for the environment and the health of the general population. Heavy metals, industrial waste, chemicals and household garbage are frequently mixed together, dumped near roads and burnt to avoid detection, leading to severe soil and air pollution.
With the assistance of private businessmen known as "stakeholders", the numerous Camorra clans are able to gain massive profits from under-the-table contracts with local, legitimate businesses. These "stakeholders" are able to offer companies highly lucrative deals to remove their waste at a significantly lower price. With little to no overhead, Camorra clans and their associates see very high profit margins. According to author Roberto Saviano, the Camorra employs children to drive the waste in for a small price, who do not complain about the health risks as the older truckers might.
As of June 2007, the region has no serviceable dumping sites and no alternatives have been found. Together with corrupt local officials and unscrupulous industrialists from all over Italy, the Camorra has created a cartel that has so far proved very difficult for officials to combat.[13]
[edit] Efforts to fight the Camorra

The Camorra has proven to be an extremely difficult organization to fight within Italy. At the first mass trial against the Camorra in 1911-12, Captain Carlo Fabroni of the Carabinieri gave testimony on how complicated it was to successfully prosecute the Camorra: "The Camorrist has no political ideals. He exploits the elections and the elected for gain. The leaders distribute bands throughout the town, and they have recourse to violence to obtain the vote of the electors for the candidates whom they have determined to support. Those who refuse to vote as instructed are beaten, slashed with knives, or kidnapped. All this is done with assurance of impunity, as the Camorrists will have the protection of successful politicians, who realize that they cannot be chosen to office without paying toll to the Camorra."[14]
The trial that investigated the murder of the Camorrista Gennaro Cuocolo was followed with great interest by the newspapers and the general public. It led to the conviction of 27 leading Camorra bosses, who were sentenced to a total of 354 years of imprisonment.[15][16]
Unlike the Mafia, which has a clear hierarchy and a division of interests, the Camorra’s activities are much less centralized. This makes the organization much more difficult to combat through crude repression.[17] In Campania, where unemployment is high and opportunities are limited, the Camorra has become an integral part of the fabric of society. It offers a sense of community and provides the youth with jobs. Members are guided in the pursuit of criminal activities, including cigarette smuggling, drug trafficking, and theft.[18]
The government has made an effort to combat the Camorra's criminal activities in Campania. The solution ultimately lies in Italy’s ability to offer values, education and work opportunities to the next generation. However, the government has been hard pressed to find funds for promoting long term reforms that are needed to improve the local economic outlook and create jobs.[18] Instead, it has had to rely on limited law enforcement activity in an environment which has a long history of criminal tolerance and acceptance, and is governed by a code of silence or omertà that persists to this day.[19]
Despite the overwhelming magnitude of the problem, law enforcement officials continue their pursuit. The Italian police are coordinating their efforts with Europol at the European level as well as Interpol to conduct special operations against the Camorra. The Carabinieri and the Financial Police are also fighting criminal activities related to tax evasion, border controls, and money laundering. Prefect Gennaro Monaco, Deputy Chief of Police and Chief of the Section of Criminal Police cites "impressive results" against the Camorra in recent years, yet the Camorra continues to grow in power.[20]
In 1998, police took a leading Camorra figure into custody. Francesco Schiavone was caught hiding in a secret apartment near Naples behind a sliding wall of granite. The mayor of Naples, Antonio Bassolino, compared the arrest to that of Sicilian Mafia chief Salvatore Riina in 1993.[21] Francesco Schiavone is now serving a life sentence after a criminal career which included arms trafficking, bomb attacks, armed robbery, and murder.
The arrests in the Campania region demonstrate that the police are not allowing the Camorra to operate without intervention. However, progress remains slow, and these minor victories have done little to loosen the Camorra's grip on Naples and the surrounding region.[18]
[edit] Outside Italy

[edit] Camorra in the United States

The Camorra existed in USA between the mid-1800s and early 1900s. They rivaled the Morello crime family for power in New York. Eventually, they melded with the early Italian-American Mafia groups.
Many Camorra members and associates fled the internecine gang warfare and Italian Justice and emigrated to the United States in the 1980s. In 1993, the FBI estimated that there were 200 Camorristi in the United States. Although there appears to be no clan structure in the United States, Camorra members have established a presence in Cleveland, Los Angeles, Albany and Springfield, Massachusetts.[22] The Camorra is the least active of all the organized crime groups in the United States.[23] In spite of this, the US law enforcement considers the Camorra to be a rising criminal enterprise, especially dangerous because of its ability to adapt to new trends and forge new alliances with other criminal organizations.[24]
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation:
"In the 1970s, the Sicilian Mafia convinced the Camorra to convert their cigarette smuggling routes into drug smuggling routes with the Sicilian Mafia's assistance. Not all Camorra leaders agreed, leading to the Camorra Wars that cost 400 lives. Opponents of drug trafficking lost the war. The Camorra made a fortune in reconstruction after an earthquake ravaged the Campania region in 1980. Now it specializes in cigarette smuggling and receives payoffs from other criminal groups for any cigarette traffic through Italy. The Camorra is also involved in money laundering, extortion, alien smuggling, robbery, blackmail, kidnapping, political corruption, and counterfeiting. It is believed that nearly 200 Camorra affiliates reside in this country, many of whom arrived during the Camorra Wars."[25] In 1995, the Camorra cooperated with the Russian Mafia in a scheme in which the Camorra would bleach out US $1.00 dollar bills and reprint them as $100s. These bills would then be transported to the Russian Mafia for distribution in 29 post-Eastern Bloc countries and former Soviet republics.[22] In return, the Russian Mafia paid the Camorra with property (including a Russian bank) and firearms, smuggled into Eastern Europe and Italy.[24]
[edit] Camorra in the United Kingdom

Scotland has had its brush with the Camorra. Antonio La Torre of Aberdeen, Scotland was the local "Don" of the Camorra. He is the brother of Camorra boss Augusto La Torre of the La Torre clan which had its base in Mondragone, Caserta. The La Torre Clan's empire was worth hundreds of millions of euros. Antonio had several legitimate businesses in Aberdeen, whereas his brother Augusto had several illegal businesses there. He was convicted in Scotland and is awaiting extradition to Italy. Augusto would eventually become a pentito in January 2003, confessing to over 40 murders and his example would be followed by many of his men.[26]
Two Aberdeen restaurateurs, Ciro Schiattarella and Michele Siciliano were extradited to Italy for their part in the "Aberdeen Camorra". A fourth Scottish associate named Brandon Queen who made history by becoming the first foreign member of the Camorra is currently serving a jail sentence in the UK.[citation needed] It has been reported that he also receives a monthly salary, legal assistance and protection, something only members of the Clans receive.[citation needed] Neapolitan writer and expert on the Camorra, Roberto Saviano, states that the Camorra has created a branch in Aberdeen and that it is the focus of the La Torre clan's British operations.[27][28]
Saviano alleges that from the 1980s, Italian gangsters ran a network of lucrative businesses in the city as well as many illegal rackets. Saviano said Scotland's third city, with no history of organised crime, was seen as an attractive safe haven away from the violent inter-gang bloodletting that had engulfed their Neapolitan stronghold of Mondragone. Saviano claims that before the Italian clans arrived, Aberdeen didn't know how to exploit its resources for recreation and tourism. He further states that the Italians infused the city with economic energy, revitalised the tourist industry, inspired new import-export activities and injected new vigour in the real-estate sector. It thereby turned Aberdeen into a chic, elegant address for fine dining and important dealings.[28]
The hub of La Torre's UK empire, Pavarotti's restaurant, now under different ownership, was even feted at Italissima, a prestigious gastronomic fair held in Paris. The restaurant was even advertised on the city's local tourist guides. Saviano further claims to have gone to Aberdeen and worked in a restaurant run by Antonio La Torre. The Camorristas operated a system known as "scratch" where they used to step up illegal activities if their legitimate ventures were struggling. If cash was short they had counterfeit notes printed; if capital was needed in a hurry, they sold bogus treasury bonds. They annihilated the competition through extortions and imported merchandise tax-free. The Camorra were able to run all sort of deals because the local police had virtually no experience in dealing with organized crime. Although they broke the law, there were never any guns or serious violence, due to lack of rivals.[28]
However, the suggestion that the city remains in the grip of mobsters has been strongly denied by leaders of the 300 strong Italian community in Aberdeen. Moreover, Giuseppe Baldini, the Italian government's vice-consul in Aberdeen denies that the Camorra still maintains its presence in Aberdeen.[28]

[ReggaeMike]

Something more odious is out and it is the defenders of the constitution , civil liberties and rights of the citizenry , the silence is deafing , I have to ask are they comfortable with our present constitution?

It has a serious conflict of interest in it and further more serious representational issues as in the fact that some MPs live out of thier constituencies.

Forget everything else , if anyone wants to tackle our nepotistic , narco poltical democratic, dictatorship, garrison culture what better way to start without openly declaring war against DONS or MPS in a direct in your face way .

All this talk about social contract , deals with IMF , or contractor general investigation will amount to naught if we dont deal with those constitutional issues that cripple us every day...

I rather think that the constitutional issues miss the heart of the matter (which is the people in the system - vote out the current lot or at least the obviously corrupt ones and then constitutional issues can be more easily dealt with and some may even disappear without need for amendment) and some politicians like to trump up constitutional issues as a sideshow (remember when Bruce was talking about changing the constitution? and the amount of times both sides talk about being a republic? Does anyone think Bruce's proposals or the republic would change anything fundamentally? I don't, it would only be window-dressing).

Believe or not our constitution is has a LOT in common with the constitutions of successful countries like Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK (where it is mostly unwritten). The problem arises from our politicians abusing it by taking the unwritten parts which assume integrity and honesty and turn it on it's head. So just like the constitutions for those other countries, it was never written that a candidate must live in their constituency because it was never envisioned that the majority of candidates would never have lived at any point in their constituencies and would just coast to power that way. Of course, now that they have abused this unwritten aspect, it is probably about time it was written (as you are proposing).

To add to that though, perhaps it is time they changed the concept of constituencies such that every 10 years all the constituencies would be completely redrawn. So no more of this "West Kingston" and "St. Andrew Southeast" foolishness. So today it would be "West Kingston" but 10 years from now it would be "Coastal Kingston" or "Littoral Kingston" (so the southern portions of the current West Kingston along with the coast portions of Central Kingston and East Kingston). That would force politicians to continue reaching out to different people instead of cementing themselves into one geographic area.

[ReggaeMike]

Are you implying a Noriega-type fate for him, Dudus and the rest of the Corrupt Crew Inc.?

[Sir X]

Good points, but your hope is that good people in power would do the right thing.That was what our founding fathers expected , and no voting them out wont solve a thing as the good ones in power are just as vunerable as the old lot.

Its the system , the constitution that allows it ! the people are vassels of the system ( constitution ) if it is written in stone that certain conflicts are not acceptable and punishable by expulsion or jail or death ,would they tread along certain routes ? at what cost ?

Our constitution states clearly you can serve your constituency and be P.M at the same time ?

What happens when your constituents interest clash with your nations ? You and i hope a good man would do the right thing for country 1st ? But thats it hope !

Our constituion doesnt mandate MPs to live in thier constituentcy , so they govern(tax) them without representation.Again you hope they would feel the water shortages, poor heathcare , poor policing , poor everything, because they govern these citizens and hope they do the right thing , but thats it hope.

what if it is mandated they live in these Garrisons and feel the real deal , hear the gunshots , the cry of death , hunger and social ills ?

You think its not the problem(constitution ) and to vote them out would be a solution , you think one day Jamaica will wake up and vote in good people to do the right thing? those days are gone and all the social contracts , IMF deals , and Contractor General , JFJ parades are a band aid on a cancerous constitutional problem.

Need I remind you we have been voting them in for the past 40 years and we havent found the good ones with a fair soul to do the right thing for the nation.

Our hope lies in out side intervention because our leaders and constitutional advocates have not the backbone.

I like the idea of redrawing districts , a great one.

[ReggaeMike]

Good points, but your hope is that good people in power would do the right thing.That was what our founding fathers expected , and no voting them out wont solve a thing as the good ones in power are just as vunerable as the old lot.

The good ones are only as vulnerable as the old lot if the old lot are still around or if the new ones are really the old ones in sheep's clothing.

Remember in the US which uses the almost the same kind of electoral system (first-past-the-post with 2 very dominant parties) the Democratic Party with Barack Obama today (and Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt in the past) was the the Democratic Party which was the bedrock of the slave-holding, racist Confederacy only 5 generations before.

Likewise the Republican Party that "boasts" Richard Nixon and George W. Bush in recent times is the Republican Party which really boasted Lincoln and Eisenhower in the past.

So the new ones are not necessarily as vulnerable as the old ones.

Besides if they were, why would changing the system even work? Why wouldn't the new ones just be as corrupt as the old ones and just ignore the constitution (and any changes you might propose) as it suits them? Notice how they all ignored the plain-as-day clauses preventing foreign citizenship? And only when either figured they could gain from resorting to the actual clause that it was invoked?

Its the system , the constitution that allows it ! the people are vassels of the system ( constitution ) if it is written in stone that certain conflicts are not acceptable and punishable by expulsion or jail or death ,would they tread along certain routes ? at what cost ?

The idea that people are vassel to a system is only true if the people believe so themselves. In that case, no new system imposed on them or given to them will change that as they will still have the vassel mentality. There is no possible way that the majority can truly be vassel to any system if they don't want to be and this has been proven time and time again in places as far away as South Africa and Eastern Europe.

Besides, why is it that the same system and nearly identical constitution doesn't make the people of Barbados or Canada into vassels? It can't be because of colour (Bimsters are black, Canadians are white), climate (snowy Canada, sunny Barbados) or history (Canada a settler colony and Bim a slave colony). It might be because of education (Canada and Bim take education seriously, out here we don't and our parties play around with it as part of election gimmicks).

Ultimately what you are proposing may well follow the route of other legislation out here - good on paper but never enforced. If you have a corrupt bunch of politicians, why on earth would they actually follow the rules that could result in their expulsion, imprisonment or death? It would be like that American phrase of "turkey's not voting for Christmas/Thanksgiving". Ultimately you need a willing bunch of people who will enforce the rules against rule-breakers. No matter how strict the rules, without good people to oversee their enforcement then those rules will be toothless and useless.

Our constitution states clearly you can serve your constituency and be P.M at the same time ?

That's not actually the problem. Many other nations have this same setup. Our problem is that out here the politicians are so corrupt that when their interests clash:

1. they won't recuse themselves

2. they get themselves into clashes of interest that shouldn't happen in the first place. Can you imagine something similar happening in Canada? Not likely because Stephen Harper doesn't in-debt himself to dons.

What happens when your constituents interest clash with your nations ? You and i hope a good man would do the right thing for country 1st ? But thats it hope !

True, but in any event conflicts of interest would never be eliminated. Do you really think that just because a PM doesn't come from a constituency that he wouldn't have a clash of interest? Remember Dudus have house(s) outside of Tivoli (up in some of the hills). He may well actually have a residence close to Golding for all we know.

Now suppose there was a don who lived in say a certain neighbourhood in Mandeville and the PM came from that same neighbourhood and knew the don from childhood. Do you think just because the PM isn't technically an MP from Mandeville that he wouldn't have a conflict of interest if the US wanted said don extradited?

The only way to totally avoid conflict of interest would be to bring in a non-Jamaican. We could start by inviting the Governor of Turks and Caicos to assume the role of PM here.

Otherwise the best way to avoid a conflict of interest like what we are seeing now is to simply not support people like the current politicians. Don't vote for them. If you vote for conflicted people then you will get conflicts of interest. Vote for those who aren't corrupt and it is far more likely that conflicts of interest will be avoided and where they do occur are less likely to be handled in the manner we see today.

Our constituion doesnt mandate MPs to live in thier constituentcy , so they govern them without representation.Again you hope they would feel the water shortages, poor heathcare , poor policing , poor everything, because they govern these citizens and do the right thing , but thats it hope.

what if it is mandated they live in these Garrisons and feel the real deal , hear the gunshots , the cry of death , hunger and social ills ?

Well the constitution shouldn't have to spell out every last detail. Most don't. I don't even think the US constitution mandates that Representatives live in the districts they represent (in fact I'm 99.9% sure there is no such stipulation in the US constitution). It only mandates that they be of a certain age, be citizens and live in their state (but NOT necessarily in their district). That our constitution apparently is in need of spelling out what should be a commonsense approach is indicative of our regression as a nation in terms of political maturity. If ever a case could be made that Jamaica should be taken under UN Trusteeship (probably by Canada and the UK) then this must be it - we can't even do the simple things anymore.

You think its not the problem(constitution ) and to vote them out would be a solution , you think one day Jamaica will wake up and vote in good people to do the right thing? those days are gone and all the social contracts , IMF deals , and Contractor General , JFJ parades are a band aid on a cancerous constitutional problem.

It's not a constitutional problem but a societal one. If they don't vote in good people then no matter what constitutional amendments are made the system will remain the same. It would be like Pakistanis voting in the military all the time and expecting something different from military dictatorship despite wonderful rules.

Need I remind you we have been voting them in for the past 40 years and we havent found the good ones with a fair soul to do the right thing for the nation.

That's because we have only been voting for them. In 1944 there were 60+ independents and 5 won seats (out of 30+ seats). In 2007 there were 5 independents. We have been in a positive-feedback cycle which has driven away the goods ones with the fair soul to do the right thing and it is up to the people themselves to break this because there is surely no way in heaven or hell that the politicians who benefit from this cycle (and from association with dons) are going to break it for them.

Our hope lies in out side intervention because our leaders and constitutional advocates have not the backbone.

Well I agree there. It could also lie in the people waking up and smelling the dung heap but that seems very unlikely (but it has happened elsewhere such as in Germany, Eastern Europe, Russia, Turkey, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Rwanda and South Africa, but then a lot of those places had a lot more emphasis on education than we do).

For outside intervention it would probably have to be on the scale of Panama/Grenada (irony of ironies) or Cambodia or even UN Trusteeship.

I like the idea of redrawing districts , a great one.

Thanks. I figured it would be harder to garrisonize an area that changes shape (and thus voters) every 10 years.

[Willi]

All this talk about "good people". Yuh realize that you have brought the spiritual dimension into play?

And yes, I agree with you that its more likely to have a general spiritual awakening among the voting populace than to have an inspired stateman lead the change. Neither party would give Norman Manley the time of day nowadays! However, nothing is impossible.

I think if independents concentrated on non-garrison rural consituencies, they would find at least 15 vulnarable ones ready for the taking. Traditional swing seats should be the focus. Even in St Andrew you could find one or 2, eg East Rural, Uptown ones, Samuda seat, etc. This is why the PNP is MORE deadly in the endeavour. They have MORE entrenched garrisons, especially in Town. More garrisons = less democracy. In this effort quantity is more insidious than intensity. Tivoli may be the Mother, but it is one outnumbered by at least 4 Portia/Peter/Omar/ Paulwell in the East.

In the final analysis, if we could get even 10 QUALITY independents in, the dollyhouse would explode!

[Willi]

You must live in Canada!!!

LoL

I see you suggesting that we join the Confederation. Why not? Cant be worse and they always wanted a place in the Sun!

LoL

This new expansion of the Confederation would certainly shift the Olympic balance of power. Based on their winter prowess and our Summer Games recent accomplishments...we could cover all bases! LoL

[Willi]

One more.

This reminds me of the Manny Chin story i heard about from Bog Walk. Way back in the day Manny was running as an Independent. He was apparently a good, well intentioned soul, known to the community and all. However, he was Chinese and independent and was ridiculed by the voters.

I heard he got frustrated on the trail one day and told the audience that while they were laughing at him and his "cant win" candidature, he would have the last laugh when the voted in the hacks from the main parties.

Manny still laughing!

[Mosiah]

Define "entrenched".

[Willi]

More as in QUANTITY, not quality.

They are all entrenched. I was not talking about intensity here. Sorry for the lack of clarity.

[Mosiah]

Just wanted to know, because it is important to understand the difference between a garrison and A GARRISON.