Disappointed is the word to describe my state of mind when I heard Mesop area rep, Shyne Barrow, respond to the resolution introduced by Caribbean Shores Kareem Musa that Belize makes it clear to the world that we want Israel to back off from its expansionist agenda and its apartheid.
The leader of the UDP, Faber, and Barrow, and the Albert rep, Panton, spoke about their wish for peace, but it’s like they have never listened to the prophet Peter Tosh, who explained that peace is a product of equal rights and justice. It’s very popular what the UDP did, praise a two-state solution, but they can’t broad-brush away all those points in the resolution with that position. They should have stated specifically what they objected to. You can’t lump Israel’s atrocities with Palestinian resistance. God stopped licensing people to kill other people on December 25, 0000.
I’m no expert on the Middle East, but there are some cold facts that we all know. After WWII the British, who had militarily taken control of much territory in the Middle East, drove the Palestinians out of a part of Palestine and gave the land to the Jews.
The ones whose territory got carved up were, of course, wounded, and they allied with neighbors to oust the Jews, but the mighty powers, especially the US, secured Israel, so well that the Jews gained more territory. Can you see a bad situation getting worse? It doesn’t stop there. The Jews, with the money and military backing of the US, continue to expand their territory.
Many talk about a two-state solution, and while we are waiting for that, the hawks in Israel are trampling the Palestinians. From “Bible days” this area was volatile, and the only way to achieve peace is to do right, and enforce it. For starters, the Jews should give back the lands that they took in and after 1967. For now, they have to be called out for what they’re doing.
There is a story that Shyne converted to Judaism, and if that is true, it might explain his bias, help explain his disappointing views. Shyne said we can’t call out Israel and not call out Cuba and Venezuela too, and that’s a woeful comment coming from a Belizean. If his comment comes from calculation, not ignorance, he might be making a declaration that his father, the former PM, has no influence on his thought processes, and/or he might be shamelessly pandering to the extreme religious right in our country.
The math says that if you will lump Cuba and Venezuela with Israel, thereby condemning your father’s regime’s excellent relationship with those countries, then this is a story of pandering to the extreme religious right which, going to the cold, ugly extreme, would love to see Israel run over all of Palestine, and absorb Jordan and Egypt too.
Is Mr. Shyne, whose claim to fame is rapping suspect lyrics, planning to drop his endorsement of weed and his liberal views on LGBT? Does he understand how very narrow the road of the extreme religious right is? Dis noh done, but I have a couple other fish waiting to fry, so, until then.
Not convicted enough
The story is that the PUP, using wicked sleight of hand, which translates to playing games with the people, bundled some non-controversial bills with a controversial one to force a vote they wanted, and got over.
There have been some negative views about the government’s handling of the sitting Director of Health Services (DHS), Dr. Manzanero, when they took over in November last year. The PUP, for their reason, wanted the doc to vacate his position as DHS, but weren’t immediately successful. At the time, the doc was recovering from a bout with Covid-19, and it did look mean, but in the midst of a devastating pandemic a government can’t worry too much about how things look; they have to get the job done the best way they know how. That is not a plug for the government from me, that’s just stating the bare bones of things.
Ignoring all that part, there is the question: should the new government have had any difficulty removing the DHS? The new government, either to force out Dr. Manza or to improve efficiency, decided to split the duties of the office, a decision which makes the DHS position redundant. The Public Service Union (PSU) hollered foul. But later, the PSU capitulated for a plum.
To effect the change the government had to go to the House, and when the change reached the Senate they bundled it along with some other bills, one of them being the “plum”: union membership on the KHMH Board.
The PUP’s Senator Courtenay came to the Senate with the bundled bills, and the PSU abstained from voting, because they couldn’t refuse the nice plum. The way I see this, the PSU wasn’t completely serious, the organization did not have enough conviction that the government was wrong and personal in its decision to split the health posts.
I will tell you this: If I believe my brother/sister was treated badly by the government, no quantity of plums would have moved me to lose my focus. That Board membership, ih mi wahn haffu wait. I can think of things that will trump principle, I believe that noble is the man who will march into hell for a heavenly cause, but in this instance the wily Mr. Courtenay would have had to wheel and come again.
Mother of all jaunts to celebrate Blue Bonds
A hue and cry is up in Belize after we learned that a contingent of local stars, 30-strong, is making its way across the Atlantic Ocean, by plane, to the land of our other forefathers, the ones in Scotland. The entire PUP Briceño faction is off on the jaunt and, hn, he must really believe his space safe to fly off with all his Ashcroft allies and other friends, essentially leaving home turf for others to play on. Hmm, there isn’t anything uneasy about the head that wears our crown.
If the chasms in the PUP were deep like those in the UDP, like what exists between innocent John and the determined Faber, Johnny and company would find there is no tarmac to land on back home. You have to watch these things, you know.
Shyne, who impertinently grabbed ahold of the UDP crown, must have thought it very lucrative to go hobnobbing with old friends in America, and while he was out, his dad said that the two-headed UDP was feeble, quick machinations took place on the ground, and guess whose shine was as dull as neglected brass, guess who didn’t have the crown when he got over star-hopping and came home?
The unofficial story is that the gang of 30 wants to show Blue Bonds that we are really serious about the environment, and they’ll all be able to do a better job of it with this exposure to new turf. This new turf, I hear it’s all snow over there, the kind of thing you see when you dig at the bottom of a deep freeze. Ouch, if there are any male LGBT among them, someone had best give them the disappointing news that for fear of frostbite there’ll be no men in skirts around.
Taking a benign look, the jaunt is really to celebrate saving the half of the Super Bond that is all waste. Of course, there were sound investments made, about 50%, and then there was the squander, and the secret agreements to cover up sins, and the whopping interest. In bowing out for today, I pray the one who said the Barrow governments paid all of 700 million dollars interest on the Superbond, was stone drunk when he dropped that whopping sum.