Letters & Opinion

New Day Dawning

By Peter Josie
By Peter Josie

When George Odlum and I were at the height of our political activities our friends and supporters used to encourage us to take a break at Christmas. ‘The festive season is a time to relax and take life easy, give politics a break,’ they said. We retorted that poverty and want never takes a holiday, that struggle and sacrifice was the centre ethos of the message of Christmas. There are many good people, businesses and organizations that reach out to the poor and indigent at this festive time of year, proving they understand the message. Still the diabolical plotting and deceit of politicians continues unchecked, never taking a holiday. As the people are lulled into careless celebrations, political opportunists plan more mischief aiming to steal elections while they defraud the treasury. But a new day beckons.

The struggle for mass education need not take the form of public political meetings as Messer’s Odlum, Deterville, Josie and others of the St. Lucia Forum did forty plus years ago, even at Christmas. But Saint Lucians must discuss the cost of the newly opened Bois d’ Orange Bridge or the run-away cost of other capital works such as that of ‘low-income’ houses recently built at Monchy, for example. Besides the massive re-endorsement of Allen Chastanet as political leader in early November, the clearest sign of a new dawning in the UWP (and Saint Lucia) is the appointment of Mary Isaac, president of the CSA, as Senator. This will be a talking point this Christmas – more profound and hopefully longer lasting than last Christmas weather incident. Some smart aleck has predicted a shortage of sleeping pills as the news of Mary Isaac’s appointment sinks into the heads of the shady characters on stage.

This Christmas politics cannot afford a holiday. It should however, be conducted with a little more class and civility. The discourse ought to focus on the celebrated birth with its new message of hope and redemption. One ought also to note that politics then had exposed the efforts of the rulers of Israel to hoodwink its publics. In Saint Lucia more desperate lies and deceptions are churned out by paid agents every day. More people are becoming poorer as a result of the misguided policies of the government. The number of young people that are falling through the proverbial cracks in the social network has grown in the recent years. Among that number are those who are no longer prepared to wait for annual gifts from Santa or for the government’s demeaning temporary jobs programme. More young people are less able to afford school books, school uniforms and transportation to and from school.

The decline should surprise no one. It was the SLP with the full support of its leaders and parliamentarians who hastened the destruction of the valuable banana industry. That industry was the largest in the Windward and Leeward Islands for over forty years. The challenges of the World Trade Organization (WTO) opened-up protected markets to global competitive trade. But a way was being negotiated with England that would aid in marketing Saint Lucia (and Windward Islands) bananas. At that time banana farmers in Saint Lucia were being encouraged to take ‘no-cut’ strikes, shooting themselves in the foot. The SLP politicians and their cohorts benefitted from the farmers’ misery.

Negotiations on behalf of banana farmers proceeded nonetheless. New arrangements demanded higher standards of field sanitation and packaging which many Saint Lucia farmers willingly undertook. A new day was dawning. The difficulty for opportunistic politicians and their friends was that the success of the new banana regime meant there would be less disgruntled farmers to exploit. Those who could not meet the new standards of the industry were encouraged to diversify their agriculture. By then however, certain persons had made the word ‘diversification’ a curse word in the lexicon of a local agriculture. How to educate an unschooled rural community to accept change and diversification was the mountain SLP politicians refused to climb. It was easier for the SLP to spread conflict and chaos urging farmers to rise-up against the Vaughan Lewis and John Compton, forgetting WTO open competition ruling.

As a result, the new SLP won power in 1997 and immediately handed the most important banana industry to one of the least qualified and equipped persons on island to handle it. But that was not all! The SLP had by then also created so much distrust against the still tender tourism industry that it was difficult for the new SLP administration to swallow their pride and turn meaningfully towards tourism as the new engine of economic growth. Today, the impression lingers that the SLP government and new Labour only pay only lip service to the tourism industry. ‘It’s a white man’s industry with which the SLP’s slave mentality cannot abide,’ according to some observers.

The conclusion is inescapable that the new SLP politicians have weaved a tangled web of deceit and have no place to turn. Their backs are against the wall and so they have resorted to attacking the very people who facilitated their entry into politics. They vilified Compton and Lewis but bananas survived! Some of the better, more determined farmers are still in production. They have struggled and persevered, often without much help from their associations, or from government or elsewhere.

At its height the banana industry under a UWP government exported around one hundred and thirty thousand tons (130,000.000) of bananas a year. Today, the shameless SLP Government is busy crowing about their miserly export of five thousand tonnes of bananas for 2014. Shame on them! But a new day is dawning! The appointment of Mary Isaac to the Senate marks a turning point in the island’s politics. Others of her calibre are bound to follow in her footsteps and help brighten the prospects for a transformed Saint Lucia under the re-organized UWP. The UWP has finally returned to its roots in the trade union movement. Saint Lucian workers must thank the vision of Allen Chastanet and his new executive committee for such a move. A new day is dawning, there is hope, hallelujah!

12 Comments

  1. Josie:

    Jack and Jill were the center of attraction – “that struggle and sacrifice was the centre ethos of the message of Christmas. ” struggle and sacrifice WERE; not they was.

  2. “Sweet Jesus! hallelujah! thank you little white Jesus for sending Allen Chastanet to make us grow more Bananas” Josie can you hear your ignorant self?? Have you started boozing, in these Rum Shops already? God will be born next Thursday, and the Winter Solstice is tomorrow; go easy on these intoxicants.

  3. If the news told me that Mandela was a terrorist; or that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; or that the CIA was not torturing prisoners; or that phone calls weren’t being monitored when they were, why should I be providing a link to prove White supremacy exists for some Negro who doesn’t want to rock the boat and keep praying to a white man as God?

    And where will that link come from?

  4. Yes, this is the day God who created Man from clay, Created Life and Death to test Man, Created Darkness and Space, made a contract with Satan, that in exchange for becoming a White man and killing himself/pay the ransom with his precious blood, Satan would let God save the Human. After God got Mary pregnant with his only biological/begotten son when Mary was twelve-years old, God grew up and was killed and buried under some big stones. So what do you do to celebrate God incarnate ? You drink Rum, Whiskey, and eat Swine and more Pig.

    1) A pig is a real garbage gut. It will eat anything including urine, excrement, dirt, decaying animal flesh, maggots, or decaying vegetables. They will even eat the cancerous growths off other pigs or animals.

    2) The meat and fat of a pig absorbs toxins like a sponge. Their meat can be 30 times more toxic than beef or venison.

    3) When eating beef or venison, it takes 8 to 9 hours to digest the meat so what little toxins are in the meat are slowly put into our system and can be filtered by the liver. But when pork is eaten, it takes only 4 hours to digest the pork. We get a much higher concentration of toxins within our bodies in a shorter period.

    4) Unlike other mammals, a pig does not sweat or perspire. Perspiration is a means by which toxins are expelled from the body. Since a pig does not sweat, the toxins remain within its body and in the pork.

    5) Pigs and swine are so poisonous that you can hardly kill them with strychnine or other poisons.

    6) Farmers will often pen up pigs within a rattlesnake nest because the pigs will eat the snakes, and if bitten they will not be harmed by the venom.

    7) When a pig is butchered, worms and insects take to its flesh sooner and faster than to other animal’s flesh. In a few days the swine flesh is full of worms.

    Swine and pigs have over a dozen parasites within them, such as tapeworms, flukes, worms, and trichinae. There is no safe temperature at which pork can be cooked to ensure that all these parasites, their cysts, and eggs will be killed.

    9) Pig meat has twice as much fat as beef. A 3 oz T bone steak contains 8.5 grams of fat; a 3 oz pork chop contains 18 grams of fat. A 3 oz beef rib has 11.1 grams of fat; a 3 oz pork spare rib has 23.2 grams of fat.

    10) Cows have a complex digestive system, having four stomachs. It thus takes over 24 hours to digest their vegetarian diet causing its food to be purified of toxins. In contrast, the swine’s one stomach takes only about 4 hours to digest its foul and filthy diet, turning its toxic food into flesh.

    11) The swine carries about 30 diseases which can be easily passed to humans. This is why God commanded that we are not even to touch their carcase (Leviticus 11:8).

    12) The trichinae worm of the swine is microscopically small, and once ingested can lodge itself in our intestines, muscles, spinal cord or the brain. This results in the disease trichinosis. The symptoms are sometimes lacking, but when present they are mistaken for other diseases, such as typhoid, arthritis, rheumatism, gastritis, MS, meningitis, gall bladder trouble, or acute alcoholism.

    13) The pig is so poisonous and filthy, that nature had to prepare him a sewer line or canal running down each leg with an outlet in the bottom of the foot. Out of this hole oozes pus and filth his body cannot pass into its system fast enough. Some of this pus gets into the pork that you will enjoy in your ignorance.

  5. WHY SHOULD YOU BELIEVE THE CHRISTMAS FABLE?? THAT GOD BECAME A WHITE MAN TO KILL HIMSELF ON GOOD FRIDAY ?? HERE’S EVIDENCE OF THE OLDER GOD AND THE DEAD NAKED BABY GOD BEING HELD BY HIS DADDY. ALL BOGUS TALES OF PAGANISM.

    Should you believe in a God? Not according to most academic philosophers. A comprehensive survey revealed that only about 14 percent of English speaking professional philosophers are theists. As for what little religious belief remains among their colleagues, most professional philosophers regard it as a strange aberration among otherwise intelligent people. Among scientists the situation is much the same. Surveys of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, composed of the most prestigious scientists in the world, show that religious belief among them is practically nonexistent, about 7 percent.

    http://www.salon.com/2014/12/21/religions_smart_people_problem_the_shaky_intellectual_foundations_of_absolute_faith/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

    WHO BELIEVES THAT GOD WAS BORN ON THE WINTER SOLSTICE IN THE MIDST OF COW AND PIG EXCREMENT IN A MANGER?? THE SHORTEST DAY IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE ? WHO BELIEVES SUCH SATANIC DOGMA? ONLY SLAVES. TODAY THE SUN HAS REACHED THE FURTHEST POINT IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE; OVER THE TROPIC OF CAPRICORN. THE OLD PAGANS WOULD INVOKE THE SUN GOD TO RETURN BY LIGHTING HUGE FIRES.

    ◄ Jeremiah 10 ►
    KJV + Strong’s

    The Sovereignty of God

    1. Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel:

    2. Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

    3. For the customs of the people [are] vain: for [one] cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.

    4. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

    5. They [are] upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also [is it] in them to do good.

    6. Forasmuch as [there is] none like unto thee, O LORD; thou [art] great, and thy name [is] great in might.

    7. Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise [men] of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, [there is] none like unto thee.

    8. But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock [is] a doctrine of vanities.

    9. Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workman, and of the hands of the founder: blue and purple [is] their clothing: they [are] all the work of cunning [men].

    10. But the LORD [is] the TRUE God, he [is] the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.

    11. Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, [even] they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.

  6. As noted before. There are times when SOM appears lucid. Probably when he has taken the correct dosage or has been off de weed for awhile.
    Unfortunately and most of the time his chronic lapses into madness represented by the excessive quantity and lack of quality of his posts disturbs the equilibrium of this board.
    What can we do but lament. We have made suggestions, have been very blatant in our condemnation yet he keeps dropping these turds all over the board.
    Sigh !

    1. Joe:

      I admit you present yourself as being bipolar and the one in need of medication. Let us throw emotionalism out the window and try to be objective. Why am I being labeled in need of psychiatric medication for rejecting the COW JUMPED OVER MOON nonsense ? You and this mis-educated Roman Josie would like me to accept that some time ago God was in control of our Grand Mother Eve until he was bowled-out by a sweet-man named Lucifer after Eve was snaked in the Garden of Eden.

      Your tale of woe continues with God getting crazy and kicking Adam and Eve to the curb, and beating Eve, leaving her with two black-eyes. But God could not control his anger at being ‘horned’ by Lucifer, so he placed a curse on ALL women by putting a cross on the belly of the female, causing them to suffer in perpetuity during childbirth. God still suffering from the “ta-bank-ca”, developed a strand of misandry not seen in domestic violence ever since. Because of what Satan did to God, he God decided he would kill all of us, this is what he said:

      Ecclesiasticus 25

      19. All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman: let the portion of a sinner fall upon her.

      21. Stumble not at the beauty of a woman, and desire her not for pleasure.

      24. Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die.

      You SEE ? If it were not for Eve allowing Satan to snake her, John Compton and Brother Gorge Odlum would still be alive.

      So comes this Christmas story. God signs a blood contract with Satan to save us from Satan’s snaking humans; little boys, girls, men, women, old and young. The only payment Satan is willing to accept is that God kill himself; commit suicide, to pay the price to get us humans back from Satan. God has to become a white man to save the world, so he gets an eleven year old virgin pregnant with his only biological child by putting his break/sperm into the vagina of Mary. That’s what begotten means.

      God does not want anything to do with women, so he will have an “Only Begotten Son”, doesn’t want a daughter because he told me in Ecclesiasticus 25 :

      15 There is no head above the head of a serpent; and there is no wrath above the wrath of an enemy.

      16 I had rather dwell with a lion and a dragon, than to keep house with a wicked woman.

      See the Tabanka talk about the snake-head ? God, GET OVER IT ! the woman gives birth through the vaginal canal, was the snake’s head bigger than a human head? God you will come to Earth to save us from this snake but every time a child is born he is born with a mark of Satan even you had to be baptized to erase this mark from the snake-head.

      Today I consider people like Joe and the Roman who believe such nonsense as psychiatric patients in need of Prozac medication, but Joe thinks I am the nut case. Is this the case of I am in La Toc and all the crazies are on Micoud Street by the Square getting pregnant immaculately by the snake ? Immaculate Conception ? Now God, let me warn you ! Do NOT come to Earth tomorrow talking all this madman talk to these Romans, they will kill you God; you have been warned.

  7. The SLP have been particularly dishonest over the past 16 years in distorting the truth using the usual liberal tactics to propagandize their message.
    One method is to state one fact quite emphatically while ignoring another which is even more relevant in shedding light. I had noted the rush to trumpet to the public the fact of 5,000 tons of bananas being exported in 2014 while ignoring the destruction of the banana industry due to their political play acting to gain power pay and pensions. As Josie noted: under Sir John banana exports totalled 130,000 in one year at its peak or 2600% more than the SLP’s fabled 2014 figure.

    What they also do not say is that the Agricultural Ministry is now a shadow of its former self and just a conduit to pay civil servants while doing nothing to revitalize a potentially vibrant industry.
    Just like all the other institutions gutted under Labaaar! En Rouge !

    They also fail to noted that after they killed or nursed along the euthanasia of the banana industry they then claimed they were more focused on alternative crops until is was shown that these crops also fell by 19% between 1997 and 2006!

    I remember that ‘square peg in a round hole’ Philip Pierre when Min of Tourism who would be in a room full of white tourism officials and would slink into a corner with his little bag under his arm looking like he was waiting to be attacked with the hors d’oeuvres! And they had the gall to tout tourism when its growth was simply a matter of world forces at work!

    Gutted public institutions, massive public debt, high unemployment, a degraded social environment, a complete loss of Christian values, no discernable blueprint for growth or a return of investment yet their paid social media operatives continue to sprout their propaganda and in particular racist animosity towards Allan Chastanet.
    What is particularly unbelievable to watch is their raping of the Treasury and complete unconcern for transparency or accountability. Every now and then they trot out a footpath or bridge or sidewalk as proof positive of how they spend $1 billion + annually. What a complete farce for governance as their leader claims he now after all these years has the answer for ‘negative growth’! Get the semantics – it is growth but just negative! Deception, deception, deception!

    1. I wish Joe was able square these two points: on one hand he blames the SLP for the state of the Banana Industry in St Lucia while on the other he claims the up turns in fortune of the Tourism Industry has nothing to do with the SLP government but world forces. Well I have always been one who supports the latter view. Tourism has very little to do with the destination and a whole lot more to do with the state of the country where the tourists originates. By this I mean no matter how much and how effective is the promotional efforts, if people have no money they will not travel.

      The difference between two industries and is an advantage of the Banana over the Tourism industry is that, on a matter of scale, the Banana as a product is less a luxury than taking a vacation to some exotic place. But that follows strict economic principles. Gone are the days when friendship, history and allegiance played a significant role in matters of commerce. In these times success favours the one who has the greater economies of scale and those better able to promote their products for example. In the presence of the big league North and Central American Banana planters what chance has St Lucia? The fact that the St Lucian fruit is sweeter etc is of no consequence when Chiquita is able to sell its fruit at lower price. In fact this is one the reasons why they were able to shatter the arrangement the Windward Islands and enjoyed with Britain. Given what was happening on a world level, in globalisation, other influences from organisations like WTO, it could even be argued that the reorganisation of the Global Banana market was inevitable and that smaller producers would suffer.

      In this context there was nothing to stop our Banana Industry from going the way it has gone. Tell me shot our own foot with our strikes then I’ll ask the question, what was it like in the other Windward Islands did they, like St Lucia shot themselves in the foot as well? If your answer is yes then since the striking was not only happening in St Lucia then we have to explore the reasons for the strikes. Now if the answer is no then my question to Joe is why the other Islands did not negotiate a better deal with England and in the process carry St Lucia to greener pastures with them?

      The problem with your piece is that you were too political. Because of that you reduced the question to one of politics within St Lucia without fully appreciating what was going on the global level which was not political as much as it was economics.

  8. Peter Josie:

    Many a time and often I have made attempts to alert you as it pertains to the demonic influence in the Catholic Church. I have found an ally in Pope Francis – die in your rage Linus Clovis!

    ROME — Pope Francis excoriated the Vatican bureaucracy in his traditional Christmas address on Monday, saying that some of the cardinals, bishops and priests who run the Roman Catholic Church suffer from a “spiritual Alzheimer’s.”

    In his annual speech, Francis warned against what he called a lust for power, hypocritical double lives and the lack of spiritual empathy among some men of God. He listed the 15 “ailments and temptations” that weaken their service to the Lord, inviting them to a “true self-examination” ahead of Christmas.

    In strong yet colorful language, Francis criticized the Curia, the administration that runs the Holy See, for a narcissistic “pathology of power” and “existential schizophrenia.”

    He suggested that his prelates pay an “ordinary visit to the cemeteries,” and encouraged them to examine and improve themselves.

    FROM THE QUR-AN

    Surah At-Takathur
    In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

    The mutual rivalry for piling up (the good things of this world) diverts you (from the more serious things), (1)
    Until ye visit the graves. (2)
    But nay, ye soon shall know (the reality). (3)
    Again, ye soon shall know! (4)
    Nay, were ye to know with certainty of mind, (Ye would beware!) (5)
    Ye shall certainly see Hell Fire! (6)
    Again, ye shall see it with certainty of sight! (7)
    Then shall ye be Questioned that Day about the joy (ye indulged in)! (8)

    .
    .

  9. Ahoy there mateys:
    Move over rovers and let Jimi takeover this filibuster.
    Firstly JOE here’s 2 versions of your namesake; One by the master of the Fender and Stratocaster (Hendricks) and the other a tribute by his acolytes Led Zeph
    http://youtu.be/W3JsuWz4xWc

    http://youtu.be/5VGHDA8W-As

    Now lets reserve a special lucky 13 (not the national Day variety) for Senor Pete as in the 13th track from Hendricks’s Voodoo Child (The Wind Cries Mary)
    http://youtu.be/OxiHuIKmWy4
    The inherent conceit of the above article forfeited or is it omitted (when I rock with the St. Mary’s Alumni, I chew my humble pie a bit hastily) some key details. First, a review of the literature often glossed over:
    -Euro Govt creates protective tariffs etc that gave former colonial vestiges market advantages- a mutual symbiosis of sorts.
    -The challenges from Central America forced WTO to exorcise these excise protections.
    Now, here is le piece de resistance that makes this soufflé so delectably omitted from all discussions thus far:
    The StLucia variety of banana is sweeter BUT SMALLER than its central and South American varietals. Moreover, the land acreage of an area of banana cultivation like Cul de sac valley can reach proportions as large as entire islands like Nevis or Anguilla in Latin America.
    Analysis: St Lucia Bananas are like pipsqueak ticklers compared to a robust Mandingo sized Chiquita banana (pun intended to lighten up the feuding over a fait accompli –way out of St.Lucia’s political control).
    Think of the retail sales decision to be reached by a harried commuter. Will it be one a day or 1.5 or 2 per day thus favoring the point of sale for the larger banana.
    Secondly, The grandiosity of Latin American farm production can offer lower unit prices and futures bidding prices that compete with St. Lucia’s lower production volumes- past /present and future.
    Similar scenarios have transpired even without WTO intervention: Brazilian and Cuban sugar production for example. Most recently, Columbian coffee production has suffered from supply side glut. You can get a pint of hot freshly brewed coffee for between 69 Cents and $1 in continental US McDonalds
    The fact: Any GLUT of supply side will hurt smaller scale entities (e.g., St.Lucia) but far less so the larger scale operations like Chiquita or Dole
    Still, this blame game bouillon was too picante. Le chef was very sly and a tad deceptive. This nebulous attempt to elevate the union leader to near heroic stature as in the more authentic Isaac Hayes (self and character portrayals); is more akin to the blacksploitaion genre industry overlords embedded cultural piracy as commercialized in movies like Shaft and Superfly. The union leader in her lady Macbeth cameo role shafted the misery in the fiscal ledgers of the coming budget. Additionally, she was more of a super mega fly (as in bug) in the soup or ointment of potential collaboration to address the economic ails of the nation.
    She chose to take on the intimidating sneer of the playground bully rather than participate in proactive discussions. She chose the immature developmental levels of mostly solitaire or parallel play (Piaget) – as roughshod tactics.
    She blew an opportunity towards heroic authenticity by not engaging in proactive interactive negations with the government- even if the results were a stalemate. The key point here is participating in developmentally higher more mature exchanges. Therefore, she has failed to convince independent thinkers of capabilities to represent the national or international best interests of St. Lucia.
    A small island nation needs simple essential Gestalt principles to guide them forward towards prosperity –as in the choral refrain of the Three Musketeers “ One for All and All for One”
    The longest hour is just before the dawn.

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