Jack In the Box

I was going to call this "Jack Warner" but that's boring. The Jack's sprung and all those who warned us about the bogey man called "Jack" are "tut-tutting" and saying, "We told you so."

I am speaking about the appointment of Jack over Winston Dookeran as acting PM, by Kamla. "But DeepThought. . ." you say "What's the big deal?" The "big deal" is that the coalition is in the early stages of cracking.

I hate to admit it, but Patos was right. The PNM was right, I predict by the end of the year if maybe later, we will be going back to the polls.

Why would I say this?

Two things. Firstly the Government is 30+ days into its term and 30 days into its much touted on the Platform "120 days of immediate action." I have waited and not said anything up until now, but what is apparent to me, AND to a lot of other people is that the coalition is suffering from a simple disease. "Rudderlessness." Kamla has the people on her side, but that's slowly fading, all the running around beautifying things is to show she "cares" BUT so far things on the policy front seem quite grim. Jack Warner's appointment is only the last straw that has got me writing again. Why in heaven's name would you put the ONE man that has such a cloud of conspiracy and corruption, in charge of the country while you are away? "New Politics" my ass, you just replaced Lenny Saith with Jack Warner. Its a sign of "giving jobs to the boys" You fucked it up Kamla. Jack already is at loggerheads with the Integrity Commission, has a pall around him so think you can't see the nose on his own face, and HE'S LEADING THE COUNTRY!? This is not a fete. This is madness.

Giving Dookeran the acting PM job is a SYMBOL. You remember the symbols of the campaign Kamla? By putting Dooks you signal to the people that you TRUST him and the COP to be EQUAL partners! He is MORE than qualified! If he had turned it down I can understand, but at this point you pull a Patos and didn't consult, you just DID it, or SEEMED to have done it without "consulting." Was this the "deal" you struck during the internal elections and the GE? That once you won Jack will be the right hand man forever?!

Fuck Dooks you say, Jack is more suited.

I say Fuck YOU Kamla. You did shit. MONUMENTAL Shit.

The second thing is leading off from the first. A rudderless gov't is the result of the whole "Job for the boys thing" seen in the appointment of Jack. For example, one such "job for the boys" appointment was Minister of the People, Mr Glen Ramhadarsing. He has not a CLUE what he's doing. That "Ministry of the People" is a PAPPY SHOW. Its only a matter of time before the people start burning tires. . . wait the squatters have done that already haven't they? Wait and see, mark my words, the burning of tires and all that coming RIGHT back to bun Ramhadahr in he ass. The man's on Facebook apparently and "frennen" ONE SETTA gyual (watch all the other UNC MPS eh, they doing it too, ONE setta young girl with "sexy pics") You think we stupid?

Get OFF YOUR ASS and do some work.

The ONLY people doing any stinking work is the COP people. Anil reopen Wallerfield for racing, good move, tour the Tarouba Stadium and basically LAID it out that Fellas, big steups, we broke in this Ministry you hear? Dooks already sound off, Treasury in a mess and we have PLENTY wok to do. All Jack could FUCKING do is open the PBR from 4am to 6am WHEN NOBODY ON THE FUCKING ROAD! This government start bad. I have more ranting to do. But suffice to say, we need to start making noise. I have one more post that will rock your world* related to this. Stay tuned.

a note on the picture. That particular "Jack-in-the-box" is under a recall since 2003. See more here. How appropriate! :)


*or at least make you go hmmmm

THIS. IS. ELECTIONS!

So we have a date. The country took a breath and everyone started running around like headless chickens trying to get registered, and checking lists and so on. DeepThought has been telling you about voting for the last few weeks and should you want to read it you can read about "Why you should Vote," "Why the Numbers Tell you to vote," and "How to get registered." As of today, the EBC is in full registration mode only 5 more days to get on that golden list. So before I start thinking about the events of the last week I just want to say a few key things.

1. That I will try to update this page everyday with thoughts, it will be difficult as the shits going to be flying fast and furious for the next 40 days.
2. I am hoping to start posting the lists of candidates hopefully by the end of next week, as the PNM has already nearly finished it nominations, I'm just waiting on UNCOP/TOP to solidify their agreement and get the candidates out the door.
3. I will try to concentrate on the marginals and see what the feeling is on the ground.
4. No I won't tell you what constituency I am in, DeepThought has to have his own privacy!
5. and No. DeepThought will NOT tell you what he's going to do in the voting booth, BUT I think you already know!

So onto this week in review. Well we'll start with Friday. May 24th is the day of election. No fanfare, no trumpeting from the pulpit by the PM Pastor, he simply called up his partner Max and after all the bullshit talk about free tickets to this fete and who was at the other fete, he conversationally said "May 24th breds" and the notaries rushed to the one fax machine in the new PM's office, and started faxing to everyone. I wouldn't be surprised which radio station got it first, that would be Citadel Radio, run by our very own PNM-ite Louis LeeSing. Good for him, he got a sccop. So now the opposition has a chance to do what they couldn't do in 2007.

Meanwhile the PM continued his screening and Wednesday and Thursday were not free from Bobol. In fact Monday and Tuesday had even MORE bobol. The bobol for the PNM started on the weekend when Penelope Beckles was asked to take a "diplomatic posting" and car named Laurel, oooppss I meant a GIRL (for she is a VERY young girl) CALLED Laurel Lezema-Leesing (see a connection?) was put in Penelope's place. The Arima PNM-ites placarded late into the night shouting "No Penelope, NO VOTE!" Hmmm sounds familiar doesn't it? (excuse the language, I couldn't find the newspaper article) So the PNM-ites love to do the same things over and over. They placarded for Ken but the voted in that idiot Amery Brown, when they "claimed" they would vote for the COP. Hmmm What were the final results in that constiuency I wonder. Here check it yourself Amery Brown 9,301 votes. Not bad for the people who said they'd vote COP. (BTW the Vasant Barath people on the UNC side were saying the same thing. . . Trini's so predictable!)

So that leads us to the biggest bobol yet. Mr Keith "Rotweiler" Rowley. His seat is the ONLY seat I will consider a safe right now. The PNM knows it. The PM, KNOWS that he cannot lose Rowley this time around. See how politics makes strange bedfellows? Keith's nomination was secured and his crowd was just as big as Penelope. So how is this going to work? How is Keith going to go on a platform and extoll the virtues of his party, prepare speeches on PNM policy that has been proven bad for the country AND push the election of his Political Leader back in as PM. My thoughts are that Rowley can say ANYTHING at this point, even say vote for the COP, they can't stop him. So we'll just have to see what tricks he's going to turn on the hustings. We'll have to watch Mr Rowley over the next 40 days.

Now onto the Opposition. They've had the headlines for most of the week. Accommodation this and meeting that and "72 hour deadline" this. In the end what seems to have occurred is that Jack Warner has laid down the law. "Look we have 15 safe seats, you can give us MAYBE 4 more. You have nothing to bargain with. BUT we don't want you running off to your supporters and turning them away OR splitting the vote again. So here wha Dooks, you can run in St Augustine if you want, and other than San Juan/Barataria and our 15 seats and Tobago, you run anywhere you like." That leaves Tunapuna and the rest of the marginals for the COP to fight. Is this a good strategy? I will reserve comment on this until the analysts have sounded off some more as the election starts to get into full swing.

What I do know is that in certain PNM held seats if the voter turn out increases and enough people vote against the PNM, we could have a repeat of 1986. But we shall have to wait and see.

Kamla's speech on Friday night waffled some more and kept imploring people to vote out the PNM, but with no clear idea WHAT they plan to do when in Government, its seems that the only person to save Kamla and the UNC from itself is the logistics and policy making of the COP and THEIR track record hasn't been good at that either. How do you provide an alternative to something so solid as "Vision 2020?" while the "back to Basics" idea sounds nice, it DOES sound like a lot of hard work, and let's face it, Trini's lazy, they would rather someone TELL them that by 2020 they will be developed than someone tell them "You have to WORK to get 2020 status." So we shall see.

I am still formulating my last part to my "Manifesto for We." post on "culture" Stay tuned for that.

A Manifesto for We. Social

See Part 1 "Political" Here
Social

Education

This is the backbone of our society. An informed public, who know the difference between pre-packaged information and the truth is tantamount to make decisions during elections. The system that has been allowed to develop in Trinidad & Tobago is failing us. What we need is less emphasis on simple training of individuals as if their on an assembly line, to taking time to meet each individual's need to see that they can process and interpret information with the ability to analyze and problem solve.

Firstly we need to understand that education isn't a blanket philosophy, from the time of early childhood the child must discover what he or she is good at. To put it another way, shoe horning a curriculum down the throats of our young people is not working. Each child learns differently. Right now there is a serious crisis that has developed in our nations schools, we have students passing final exams without the ability to elocute nor write proper English. This is PARAMOUNT to the success of the nation, because if you cannot be understood, then you cannot teach nor can you learn. Why are children not learning proper English? Because their parents and their teachers don't know what it is.

I have a radical idea, that may not be possible and may be shouted down as unpatriotic, but this is my thought. We hand over ALL primary school education to foreign trained teachers and we need to put teachers back into their own school to re-teach them how to write and speak. This not a joke, this is a serious situation, all you need is the will and the means and by 2020 I'm sure we'd be back on track education wise. I mean if we can bring Chinese labour at the drop of a hat, why not teachers looking for new opportunities abroad? We can even give parents incentives to go back to school themselves to re-learn. We have CEPEP and URP and MUST right? well if their not being used properly, let's START using them properly.

GATE & Scholarships

I think GATE is good thing, but like everything else it needs to be transparent. I think we need to have a third party handling scholarships. The idea of a Government company is a good thing in theory, but every government company needs to act like a public company and provide reports every quarter to its shareholders, WE. So in the case of awarding scholarships, this should be done by a separate entity not beholden to any party or special interest. The laws need to be updated and the people have to come from different walks of life, including the differently abled. That way its free and fair.

Housing

Again all you need is the political will and publicly show who's getting what house where. If we change the voting system, then the voter padding issue becomes non-existant. Housing is a necessary social activity, however its allocation must be transparent. Unfortunately there is no easy answer to the housing shortage, other than to build more. We just have to make sure we build good quality houses.

Heatlh

This one's easy to fix, but lacks political will. I think the COP's solution was and is the best.

A PATIENT-CENTERED HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

The gross neglect and inadequacies of the existing health care system are clear indicators of the extent to which the Manning regime has failed the people of Trinidad and Tobago. The Congress of the People will implement a Patient Bill of Rights entitling accessible, affordable, timely and professional healthcare services to all persons, at all times. This will ensure that patients will be treated with respect and dignity by all health care providers. We will:

• provide a patient driven health care service with reliable, efficient,effective and sustainable delivery systems.
• provide patient oriented professional and administrative support to all who access the health system.
• provide high quality service at all national, regional and community based health facilities.
• guarantee the provision of patient friendly physical facilities and state of-the-art medical equipment.
• address the disparity in service between private and public healthcare systems.
• Consideration will be given to adopting a universal health care system.
• address the gross physical inadequacies in the health sector and the administrative inadequacies in the Ministry of Health and Regional Health Authorities

But one thing they're missing is having to wade through all that red tape and Doctor fraternities that exist in the Health Authorities. We need to revamp whose and maybe fire most of those who are in charge. Who will we put instead? Hard to say, but the corruption in the heath care sector is entrenched. This will not be easy, even the United States is having problems. The foundation is weak, the building cannot stand.

Security

This is even harder. All police officers must go back into training. A new system of checks in the Police Service must be created. I actually would recommend (if its not done so already) to get the Army men to train policemen in discipline and initiate systems where firearm control and responsibility are made priority. The Minster of National Security, who ever he will be, must hold meetings with the Commissioner of Police everyday and this job will be the hardest, but the person in charge needs to have willpower and management skills that border on the superhuman. . . BUT all of this can be solved with one action. We also need a strong Internal Affairs section to police the police. Not some "namsy pandy", Service Commission or whatever, a third party that answers to the Attorney General, or some such top person not affiliated with any political party.

Arrest all the "Community Leaders" Revamp CEPEP and URP and clean it up.

Give the courts more money and LET THEM DO THIER JOB. We need more night courts and Magistrates need to be given more powers. Again the COP had some good ideas.

In summary we have to put back into the people's hands the idea of personal responsibility. If we use our "Advertising budgets" to create a communication making citizens more aware of what THEY can do to make themselves part of the process, we will win half the battle. I think right now, Trini's keep feeling that the government owes them everything. We need to go by the philosophy of JFK:

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

A Manifesto for We.

So if I'm going to complain about the parties having no "manifesto" then I thought, "Why not write my own?" Well not a LONG 28 page document like some Political Parties, but something that tackles the issues. So here we go.

We'll break it up into three sections, because in reality, this new government has a LOT of work to do to fix what the PEOPLE say the problems are. So breaking it up into smaller bites will aid in the digestion, and let's be realistic, if any Political Party promises more than what is written here, I think the people will be disappointed. There is no way anybody can be expected to fix everything in one term.

Political 

Constitutional reforms.

This is not just urgent, this is beyond urgent. The Local Government elections have been postponed way too many times to accommodate some "pie in the sky" bill that has not even been laid before parliament yet. The whole mechanism of the way government does business has to be revamped. This is not easy. This requires a lot of work. The Constitutional reform people like Dennis Pantin have been all over this for years. I am not going to repeat all of what is in the public domain. Here are some useful links to read on your own.

http://www.caribelaw.net/crf/aboutus.html

http://www.caribdaily.com/search?query=constitutional+reform&order=best&country=0

http://www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/selfnews/viewnews.cgi?newsid1255245024,7734,.shtml

However before we can talk constitutional reform, we must talk electoral reform. That is putting laws in place to make party funding public domain and putting caps and controls in place to "level the playing field as it were" when it comes to advertising. This is crucial. No one is saying you can't PROFIT from the elections as media house or supplier (really people gotta eat) but at the same time every Party MUST make its donations public knowledge.

The Anti-Corruption laws need to be revamped and the "Integrity Commission" needs to be studied more and really, is the Integrity Commission DOING anything? Transparency International has many anti-corruption tools to aid governments in fighting corruption and a lot of these tools have been submitted to T&T Gov'ts before. If you want to see what the TTTI is doing to help stem corruption go here and see the tools here

Its all there. all you need is to bring it home, push it through and get it done.

New Politics

The OLD ways of governing are fading away. Social Media is now the becoming the backbone of governance and political movements. Obama proved it and its easy to implement. You think becoming a fan of T&T Government on Facebook might not be cool? But if you do become a fan you become part of the process and providing daily updates on bills that are passing etc puts the power of the decision process into the hands of the people. This is why under Constitutional reform the power of recall and the implementation of referendums is important.

In summary the government needs to get back to the people with a conversation about where THEY see themselves being in the decades to come. Putting a goal for development is not enough. We've missed the deadline for 2020. What we need is more focussed goals for ourselves. For example, put the goal of constitutional reform to be done by 2012. Party reform and funding by 2014. The new election would then start using the new systems. But obviously we're not just concentrating on politics alone. There's still the Social and Economic sides to explore and work on.

See part 2 "Social" Here