Manifestos, Book of Lies and Empty Promises

So now I am going through the new Government’s Manifestos, 63 pages of Empty Promises and Lies, trying to create a spreadsheet of each promise, date promised made and expected delivery by date. To me a due date is a commitment, like a promissory note, “I promise to pay the bearer”, I promise to have this completed by the following date if you vote for me. I realized that the manifestos of Political Parties was never design to be a commitment but a open ended promises, a carrot on a stick to gullible idiots fool enough to believe it, if they make 100 promises then they may deliver about 5 and when an election comes around that is the only thing they talk about, those 5 promises they delivered. We have reached the stage now that a manifesto should be a contract with the people, an appraisal document with expected delivery dates, signed on the day the party takes over the Government of the country. How it stands now this is a worthless piece of document, constructed by speech writers and technocrats with “Over The Top” promises intended to fool the already gullible populous into thinking that the Party does in fact have a plan.

My boss normally have me fill out my appraisal document at the start of the year, I must add a list of items I will accomplish within the year and due date for each item, at the end of the year we go over the document to add actual delivery date and if I did not do what I said I would then a reason must be given, this lack of delivery will negatively affect my bonus, promotion and continued employment. If I must go through this then why not the Political parties, why are they so special, why must I wait 5 years to judge them on performance, why can’t I grade then year by year which would give me enough time to take action, to engage them on their lack of performance and to force them to deliver on their promises. All our Governments are marginal, mediocre performers, scraping out a 1% here or a -2% there, this should directly affect their compensation, their salary increases and allowances should be base on Economic performance of the country.

   

I cannot stress how important the people are to the political process, the entire process was created by the people to serve the needs of the people and yet the people are more than willing to allow the Politicians to have their way with them. The process is now so twisted that it is the people who serve the political class and not the other way around. This I believe is by design, the education process was compromised just enough to create this class of people, keep them ignorant and hungry and you will have them like puppets on a string. Trying to reach out to the educated middle class is like trying to find life in outer space, in the far reaches of the galaxy, this once Nation Building class have allowed their minds to turn to putty, they are like bubble headed dolls with their bodies trapped in Jamaica but their minds now wondering the shopping Malls of Miami, London and Paris, filled with enough greed and selfishness to last a lifetime, they care about nothing and no one but themselves, they are a pretentious lot, with an inflated sense of self importance.  Instead of engaging the Political Class they try only to get in bed with them, walking around boasting about which party or wine tasting they attended and which minister was in attendance, as if proximity increase their own importance, they are totally useless in the nation Building Process.

Our Political class is the new colonial class of the home grown variety, I once saw a Junior Minister and his driver at the Inland Revenue Department, Mr. Driver was running around with briefcase in hand making a fuss over his Minister, opening doors and fetching documents, acting as go-between and Mr. Minister was looking around to make sure everyone had all eyes on him, Mr. Importance himself, look at me, look how big and large I am, before being driven away in his very big Black Range Rover Sport, talking about living large at the expense of the people, I had to laugh because it looked so low class to me.

The fact that 47.4% of the people did not bother to vote shows some sign of promise, could it be that 47.4% of the electorate now see the Parties and the Political class for who they really are and are now ready to take the next step towards the nation building process, creating Independent nonaligned Advocacy Groups design to mobilize the people and fully engage the Political class on behalf of the Nation Building Process. Could it be that we are now ready to take to the streets, to engage the political class to force them to deliver on promises made and to release the people from mental bondage?  Or am I just living in the land of make believe, gullible as the people I curse, actually believing that the Jamaican people care enough to tear themselves away from their toys and continuous merriment to engage the Nation Building Process..  

These Independent nonaligned Advocacy Groups should not be joined by people whose only intention is to disrupt the current Government simply because they want their party to become the next Government, since it is not about which party is in power but about keeping promises and improving the Standard of living, these groups should not be designed to make a Government fail but to help them to succeed purely for the countries benefit, to assist them in reaching their goals, the ones they listed in their manifestos, meet targets, even if we have to shut the country down and bring it to its knees. 

 

Changes to Members of Parliament (playing around with the following idea)

• Let Everyone in a certain Parish vote for a pool of MP’s who represents that Parish, so a MP is not being voted in my a constituency but by a parish. Let’s say you have 12 MPs, 6 JLP and 6 PNP then the entire parish will select from that pool, each person selecting 6 candidates.
• One week before the election dissolve the MP constituency connection and after the election connect an MP to a constituency.
• No MP can serve a constituency across two consecutive terms, Rotate MP’s and constituency.
• MPs should no longer be given money to spend in a constituency, they identify the needs of the constituency and make request to various Ministry, if roads need fixing then make request Ministry that fix roads.  It is the MP’s slush fund that is being used to finance garrison politics, vote buying and Range Rover Sport.
• I am not too sure MP’s should be a Minister of any Ministry, I would like their sole purpose to be taking care of their constituency but I understand the need of the Government to have its members head the various ministries…   But I do not thing they are capable of managing both jobs at the same time.
• If MP’s do not like the above Rules then implement a rule forcing all MP’s to live in their constituency for at least 265 days of the year.