G2K Defended The JLP From Media Bias

[Skeng DX]

It is always a delight to read the editorials from newspapers here and overseas early each and every morning. It comes as no surprise, then, that The Gleaner's editorial of Tuesday, June 12, 2012 sought to land yet another very personal attack on me.

While some of my colleagues would strongly advise that I sit quietly and absorb the hits as par for the course from this somewhat untouchable citadel of Jamaica's Pecksniffian media elite, I frankly refuse to do so.

I make no apologies for defending the previous Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) administration when it came in for the longest and most sustained assault from a few but powerful, conflicted and agenda-driven forces in media.

JLP did well

The JLP made some grave errors in the course of its administration of state affairs, but it performed far better than any other administration in recent history. The torrent of crises, including the food, oil and global economic shocks and the inheritance of a country in bad shape from nearly 19 consecutive years of People's National Party (PNP) rule, did not stop it from gaining substantive achievements in the economic arena.

Nor did the several by-elections, the marginal hold on power in Parliament and the sustained day-and-night propaganda from PNP-aligned forces in some high places diminish the gains made in tourism, education, health and agriculture.

G2K, as a body of young professionals affiliated to the JLP, had no choice but to remind the Jamaican people, amid the propaganda bearers, of the many good and effective policies that were being pursued to bring about much-needed economic and social development over the medium and long term.

The achievements of G2K, year after year, are already known among its now vast and highly qualified membership base here and overseas. Floyd Green will make an excellent president and the organisation will only grow from strength to strength.

DELANO SEIVERIGHT

delanoseiveright@yahoo.com

[Islandman]

G2K under Seiveright was a corrupt and borderline criminal organization that played a significant role in the massive defeat the party suffered in the last elections. Not since the PNPYO of the 70s has an affiliate political group had such a dismal record.

[Willi]

Please expose the corruption specifics (short of libel exposure to yourself). No need to powdah anymore.. JLPNP have been hiding too much.

Someone just gave me some eye-opening revelations on some current and former cabinet ministers... truly insane.

[Karl]

According to this guy the stupid Jamaicans voted out the excellent JLP.

Par for the course from politicians in them reside all good sense and bwoy do we have stupid citizens!

[Islandman]

Me nuh really want to do that in this medium. Suffice to say that in many ways our younger politicians on both sides are not much different from the neanderthals, just more sophisticated in the way they do thier deeds.

[Willi]

Cool

You can link mi offline.

My stories are so depressing...

[Islandman]

This is the editorial to which he refers. it wasn't even about the JLP, it was about his leadership of the G2K.

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EDITORIAL- Rescuing G2K?

Published: Tuesday | June 12, 2012

Floyd Green, the young attorney who last weekend assumed the leadership of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) affiliate, G2K, has, so far, been making encouraging statements.

He has among his priorities, for instance, the establishment of a multi-sectoral committee, not only of persons who support the JLP, but to help the organisation empirically sort through policy issues that, ultimately, are of interest to his party.

The current administration's plan to take Jamaica into the Caribbean Court of Justice and have the island become a republic, with a non-executive president as head of state, are two of the issues that Mr Green, 30, has in mind for such analysis and review.

"We are not just going to say what we feel, we are going to try to see if we can research first," he said.

Just maybe then Mr Green will be able to rescue and revive G2K, once an intellectually promising organisation, before it was brought low by its recently exited and unlamented president, Delano Seiveright.

Born in the ferment of the new millennium, G2K's founders were aspirational, modern, largely post-partisan thinkers concerned with exploring pathways to help Jamaica's entry into, and survival in, the 21st century. They were ideologically and politically aligned to, but not enslaved by, the JLP. Ideas and thought counted.

Then came Mr Seiveright, a man of youth, swaddled in the cloth of an old politics. He was a divisive partisan who led G2K into an evolutionary cul-de-sac, then blamed its intellectual regression and new muscled existence on a need to man the political ramparts in defence of a party and government lurching from crisis to crisis.

Analysts of the People's National Party's return to government in last December's general election would not be unreasonable to count Mr Seiveright and G2K as an unintended asset of the now ruling party.

Mr Green makes clear that G2K supports the broad policies and principles of the JLP. But its status as affiliate, rather than organ of the party, gives it independence to speak publicly on issues, disagree when necessary and suggest directions in which it believes the JLP should go.

That, we hope, will be the result of deep thought and sound analysis.


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