JAL 1 June 2013 Nice Radio’s Callaloo presents, Just Another Look. Just Another Look is an innovative, exciting, albeit decidedly provocative and controversial, socio-political analysis of issues of a local, regional and international nature. Just Another Look is heard only on Nice Radio on Saturdays at 6.00pm, with repeat broadcasts at 9.00pm on Sundays. Remember too that you can also catch us on the worldwide web, niceradio.info. You can check our JAL blog - vincyview I am, of course, Keith Joseph Introduction Today is Saturday 1 June 2013. Welcome, welcome, welcome to another edition of Just Another Look. On page 5 of The News newspaper dated Friday 24 May 2013 there was a story headlined, Lie detector equipment to be upgraded. The story referred to a commitment to improve the polygraph equipment and about the importance of insisting on everyone interested in becoming a police officer undergoing what is often referred to as the lie detector test. Interestingly the story indicated that in the past some people refused to take the lie detector test while some police officers actually failed the test. Since no one has as yet challenged The News newspaper on its story one can only assume that there is truth in the statement about people refusing to take the test while some police officers would have failed the test. If the statement is true then we have reason to feel justified in the oft-claimed loss of confidence in the Police Service in the country. One cannot understand that the matter of national security would be allowed to accept individuals who have refused the lie detector test or police who failed the test. Bothersome as the foregoing may be the issue here in this edition of Just Another Look does not involve the police. Instead, Just Another Look is keen on introducing lie detector tests to Parliamentarians. Indeed, Just Another Look would really like to have the lie detector tests taken into the hallowed halls of Parliament so that from time to time we can actually have the Speaker of the House and Parliamentarians subjected to it. If the lie detector test is as good as the Ministry of National Security here would have us believe then there should be no problem getting government officials to agree this proposal from Just Another Look in respect of having our Speaker of the House and Parliamentarians take the test. It must be remembered that we have heard at least one politician admit …I may lie about certain things. Admittedly, we have not been told what are the certain things about which he lies. That being said, Vincentians are left to arrive at their own judgements regarding those certain things which they believe to be lies. Given the amazing story we received in the Parliament in early 2011 regarding the so-called plot to kill the country’s Prime Minister Just Another Look is convinced of the importance of having the Speaker and the Parliamentarians take the lie detector test. Vincentians know only too well the incredible story told to the Parliament by the Prime Minister about the plot. Someone was arrested but not for the plot or involvement in it in any way. A high-powered rifle was found but another as supposed to be in the country, somehow linked to the plot but was never found. The story of the plot to kill the Prime Minister as told by the man himself was so incredulous that it requires an amazing imagination to appreciate what was actually presented. Additionally, since the story was told in Parliament in the early part of 2011 not a single individual has been arrested and charged for being involved in a plot to kill the Prime Minister. While Just Another Look is not saying that the Prime Minister’s story was a figment of his extremely vivid imagination, there is reason to challenge its veracity. One way of doing this is to have the Prime Minister undergo the lie detector test. In respect of the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance it would appear justified to request a lie detector test in respect of a series of questions regarding the Argyle International Airport. For example, the Prime Minister, attached to the lie detector machine, could be asked the following in respect of the Argyle International airport: • Did you, Mr Prime Minister, ever reject out of hand the suggestion by your own party leadership in the early period of your first term in office as PM., that focus should be placed, as of priority, on the construction of an international airport? • Did you, Mr Prime Minister, legitimately consider the construction of an international airport in this country as anything but a means of enhancing you and your party’s chances of staying in office for a longer period than just the first term? • When you gave the Vincentian public the first estimate of the cost of constructing the Argyle International airport were you being honest? Were the figures guesstimates? • Have you any idea of the actual cost of the construction of the Argyle International airport? • Do you have any idea when the Argyle International airport would be completed? • What is the real reason that Cuban workers were given the opportunity to drive trucks and operate heavy equipment on the construction site at Argyle? Was this part of an agreement between yourself, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro? Clearly there are numerous other questions that we would want the Prime Minister to answer in respect of the Argyle International airport while strapped to the lie detector machine but the aforementioned constitute an important point of departure. Mind you, dear listeners, questions on the Argyle International Airport are but the tip of the iceberg. Similarly, given some of the comments made by the Speaker of the House, it may also be worth the while, from time to time, to have him undergo the lie detector test as well. It has been said that people have been able to beat the lie detector test but we can still use it as an important reference point. Let it be stated here that the intention of having the lie detector test is to facilitate greater confidence in the truthfulness of our Parliamentarians and the Speaker of the House. We are not targeting only the Prime Minister here. We are also targeting the members of the Opposition. The proposal is to give the electorate reason to believe that politics does not have to be the nasty game that we have grown accustomed to. This is by no means suggesting that they all lie but there may well be reason enough for Vincentians to believe that often times they tend to stretch the truth. This is the reason that we have, on occasions, been forced to repeat some of what is said in Parliament and play Lord Nelson’s calypso, King Liar…teacher Percy say that if yuh tell ah lie yuh going to hell as soon as yuh die. Once we get the lie detector machine approved for use in Parliament for the Speaker and the Parliamentarians we can then breathe much easier in respect of the extent to which these people hold fast to the truth and not thrive under Parliamentary privilege. The Prime Minister should therefore take keen interest in ensuring that due consideration is given to introducing the lie detector test for the Speaker of the House and the Parliamentarians. Indeed, given the Prime Minister’s flagging political image, he may do well to subject himself to frequent lie detector tests to ensure that some lustre is returned to it. Burglarising the poor News of burglaries taking place at the Lewis Punnett Home in Glen on two consecutive days recently should come as a shock to no one. Vincentians continue to slip into the abyss of chronic impoverishment under the current ruling ULP regime. For the past two years we have seen a significant increase in the number of burglaries around St Vincent and the Grenadines. If we believe that the numbers of reported cases are high please take note that there is a tendency for many people who have been the object of such burglaries not to report them to the Police and certainly to keep it away from the media. People whose homes have been burglarised tend to be fearful that if the information reaches the Police there is a strong likelihood that they may continue to be targets. It is well known that the poor are almost always the likeliest victims of burglaries. The reason for this is simple. Thieves understand that the wealthy people in the society are most likely to have their homes well protected with walls or fences, burglar alarms, cameras and guards. In stark contrast the poor cannot afford the protective luxuries of the wealthy among us. They can barely afford proper homes let alone find the resources needed to procure security equipment and the services of security personnel. Burglars therefore see the poor as easy prey. They go after them with a very high level of consistency. The sorry state into which the Vincentian economy has sunk in the past several years have wrought havoc on the populace. While the government continues to spout rubbish about a better way of life the electorate experience a different reality. The electorate has been unable to identify the cusp of economic takeoff that the Minister of Finance boasted about some years ago. The average Vincentian is yet to come to experience what Gonsalves referred to as doing wonderfully well, some years ago. Vincentians are hurting and if the middle class is complaining about experiencing the worst economic circumstance in this country since the attainment of Independence, then one must appreciate the impact of these very conditions on the nation’s lower class – the poor among us. If the poor are experiencing particularly harsh economic problems today they are therefore infinitely more vulnerable to the burglars who are themselves finding it extremely difficult to get work. This is the reason that the poor are emerging as the prime targets in these economic times. In a very real sense the poor are being rendered all the more poor by virtue of the double wammie of harsh economic circumstance and the blight of increasing burglaries. Everywhere the poor are targets of burglaries in this country. An increasing number of burglaries take place while people are at work. Teachers’ homes are among the most burglarised in this country today. Not a day goes by and we do not hear of people being burglarised. In the aforementioned context therefore we should not be surprised that burglars have been attracted to the Poor Home – the Lewis Punnet Home. The burglars are not fools. They have an understanding of the plight of the poor and their inability to protect themselves from those who lie in wait, anxious to prey upon them. The society is in a state of social degeneration and no one is exempt, especially the poor. What has happened at the Lewis Punnet Home will be repeated across the country. An increasing number of Vincentians are being driven below the poverty line and will fall victim to burglaries. The government of this country has failed to really address crime. Cummings and the special Chair Two years ago Daniel Cummings was injured when the Opposition took a stand in the Parliament. It is unfortunate that at the time of the incident all too many Vincentians allowed their narrow political affiliations to blind them from engaging in genuinely objective analysis of what transpired in the Parliament that day. Just Another Look does not wish to recount the cause of what emerged as a parliamentary fracas on that fateful day. What we wish to address here, however, is the case of Daniel Cummings. No amount of political diatribe must be allowed to distract us from the fact that on that day Cummings’ foot was jammed by the heavy door of the parliament. It seems difficult to accept that the police officers involved did not deliberately seek to inflict injury on the parliamentarians, in the particular circumstance. It is amazing that Vincentians, men and women alike, could have surrendered their own humanity and social conscience, to look at and enjoy as entertainment, the slamming of Daniel Cummings’ foot with the big heavy door of the parliament. It is even more difficult to stomach the fact that Cummings was lifted bodily and flung down the stairs of the parliament. What was the intention of the perpetrators of this action if not to inflict long-term injury to the parliamentarians. It defies good sense that the government’s members of parliament could have allowed themselves to become so insensitive and callous as to turn a blind eye to what was happening, even though, the actions taking place could easily have led to the long term injury of a duly elected parliamentarian. The claim by government members of parliament of non interference in a situation that could just as easily ended in the death of a parliamentarian, reflects the reality of just how vicious politics can be. In other words, Vincentian parliamentarians could easily have witnessed the death of a parliamentarian yet would have appeased their consciences by claiming non-interference in such a grave situation. This, dear friends, is our Vincentian reality. It gives the lie to any claim that politics is anything but downright filthy. Today, two years later, Daniel Cummings remains injured from the treatment meted out to him in parliament on that fateful day. No one is held responsible. No one is held accountable. Presumably, those who issued the order for the action to be taken and all those who stood, watch and felt entertained, continue to sleep quite comfortably, having muzzled their consciences. The fact that Cummings has made repeated requesst for a special chair for use in parliament as recommended by his physician, is indicative of the long term damage he received from the treatment in parliament two years ago. The fact that Cummings’ request appears to have fallen on deaf ears is an indication of a kind of insensitivity to the human condition and the readiness of some to surrender on the alter of political expediency their social consciences and human dignity. What could possibly allow parliamentarians of any political persuasion to become so hard of heart that the health of a fellow parliamentarian can be so easily disrespected and disregarded. J8 VAX Today the 1st day of June 2013, marks 2,409 days since the disappearance of SVG Air J8 VAX, if we are actually checking the day the plane disappeared on Sunday 19 November 2006 with pilot Dominic Gonsalves and one passenger, Rasheed Ibrahim. J8 SXY Today 1st day of June 2013, marks 1,090 days since the disappearance of another SVG Air aircraft, J8 SXY, a Cessna 402. Just so you would remember, this aircraft left St Vincent in the evening of Thursday 5 August 2010 bound for Canouan. Like J8 VAX, the aircraft never reached its destination. It never completed its mercy mission. The plane disappeared and as yet no word has been received in respect of the lone occupant, the pilot, Suresh Lakram. The sad case of Patricia Bowman Just Another Look wishes to leave our listeners with the sad reminder that on 19 September 2012, the husband of Patricia Bowman, Alban Bowman, will sit in sad, quite reflection on the fourth anniversary of the cruel death of his wife. She died a cruel death on 19 September 2008. Who cares? Where is justice in this matter? Nuff said!!! You have been listening to another edition of Nice Radio’s Callaloo presentation, Just Another Look. Just Another Look is an innovative, exciting, albeit decidedly provocative and controversial, socio-political analysis of issues of a local, regional and international nature. Just Another Look is heard only on Nice Radio on Saturdays at 6.00pm, with repeat broadcasts at 9.00pm on Sundays. Remember too that you can also catch us on the worldwide web, niceradio.info. You can check our JAL blog - vincyview I am, of course, Keith Joseph
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 10:39:29 +0000
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