Party of the lumpen
Published: Sunday | July 25, 2010
PNP leadership has capitulated to the lumpen. - File
Soldiers stream into Rema on July 18 as the security forces fan out across the Corporate Area to net gangsters and guns. - File
Don Robotham, Contributor
The party of Norman Manley is no more. The People's National Party (PNP) is now officially the party of the lumpen. They did not even have the guts to come out and vote against a state of emergency to which they were clearly opposed. Instead they 'abstained.'
How did the party which imposed the 1976 state of emergency and the Gun Court legislation without the slightest qualms come to experience their human-rights Damascus? The answer is obvious: Tivoli delenda est. Tivoli must be destroyed! The PNP tried with Rema in 1977 and failed.
They tried again in 2001 - and failed again. At last, in 2010, this has been finally achieved, by a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) government, no less. And the PNP garrisons remain gloriously intact, ready to rumble.
The state of emergency has served its purpose. It has outlived its usefulness. God is great! Mission accomplished!
In the dirty gutter politics of Jamaica, the PNP now has the decisive advantage over the JLP where it counts: on the streets where the guns bark. In any coming election, which the PNP thinks it will win, the PNP lumpen are getting ready to teach the JLP a lesson it will never forget.
The JLP command and control centre is in disarray, although not destroyed. Golding is deeply unpopular among the JLP lumpen and among members of the old guard in his own Cabinet. At the same time, persons conducting research among recently incarcerated gunmen report that the word on the street among JLP criminals is the following: "Mi a bawn labourite, but a PNP mi seh."
The strategy of the PNP is an ambitious one: all the lumpen, including the JLP ones, are to be united behind the PNP banner, in much the way that Matthews Lane and other PNP garrisons came to the aid of their Tivoli brethren in 2001 and again in 2010. The JLP are to be driven out of west Kingston, Backbush, Black Ants Lane, Grants Pen, Tawes Pen, May Pen, Montego Bay and on, and on, and on. To accomplish this feat, the PNP has to fly the anti-state of emergency flag to rally the lumpen. The trumpet is sounding! Nothing reveals the lumpen mentality of the PNP more than its proposal that detainees be released on Emancipation Day.
In this warped lumpen mindset, murder and extortion suspects are the new national heroes, to be celebrated
Published: Sunday | July 25, 2010
PNP leadership has capitulated to the lumpen. - File
Soldiers stream into Rema on July 18 as the security forces fan out across the Corporate Area to net gangsters and guns. - File
Don Robotham, Contributor
The party of Norman Manley is no more. The People's National Party (PNP) is now officially the party of the lumpen. They did not even have the guts to come out and vote against a state of emergency to which they were clearly opposed. Instead they 'abstained.'
How did the party which imposed the 1976 state of emergency and the Gun Court legislation without the slightest qualms come to experience their human-rights Damascus? The answer is obvious: Tivoli delenda est. Tivoli must be destroyed! The PNP tried with Rema in 1977 and failed.
They tried again in 2001 - and failed again. At last, in 2010, this has been finally achieved, by a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) government, no less. And the PNP garrisons remain gloriously intact, ready to rumble.
The state of emergency has served its purpose. It has outlived its usefulness. God is great! Mission accomplished!
In the dirty gutter politics of Jamaica, the PNP now has the decisive advantage over the JLP where it counts: on the streets where the guns bark. In any coming election, which the PNP thinks it will win, the PNP lumpen are getting ready to teach the JLP a lesson it will never forget.
The JLP command and control centre is in disarray, although not destroyed. Golding is deeply unpopular among the JLP lumpen and among members of the old guard in his own Cabinet. At the same time, persons conducting research among recently incarcerated gunmen report that the word on the street among JLP criminals is the following: "Mi a bawn labourite, but a PNP mi seh."
The strategy of the PNP is an ambitious one: all the lumpen, including the JLP ones, are to be united behind the PNP banner, in much the way that Matthews Lane and other PNP garrisons came to the aid of their Tivoli brethren in 2001 and again in 2010. The JLP are to be driven out of west Kingston, Backbush, Black Ants Lane, Grants Pen, Tawes Pen, May Pen, Montego Bay and on, and on, and on. To accomplish this feat, the PNP has to fly the anti-state of emergency flag to rally the lumpen. The trumpet is sounding! Nothing reveals the lumpen mentality of the PNP more than its proposal that detainees be released on Emancipation Day.
In this warped lumpen mindset, murder and extortion suspects are the new national heroes, to be celebrated
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