If there is one thing corrupt politicians dislike, it is a free media. The most corrupt politician in Belize is a man who is obsessed by the media, seriously disturbed by the media, and he has therefore invested large amounts of money into trying to control newspapers, radio and television stations. There seems something unethical about this, but there is certainly nothing illegal about it. If we are to judge matters on the basis of what we have observed in Belize politics for the last four decades, then mentioning ?politics? and ?ethics? in the same breath here in Belize amounts to juxtaposing intrinsic opposites.

The Belizeans who need to look at themselves in the mirror are those who purport to be in the media, but their most substantial paycheck or voucher comes from the most corrupt politician (MCP, for short) in Belize.

MCP is a man who is always talking about the marketplace, and how important a function the free marketplace performs in the business of business. In the business of the media, however, MCP sends in political dollars to destabilize the marketplace. The people on his payroll who talk in the Belizean media are the most self-righteous and Pharisaical you will find in Belize. Media outlets and media personalities who are financed by MCP, do not really belong in a free media reality.

The media marketplace in Belize is one where the hired media mouthpieces spend a lot of their time criticizing those media houses which have to depend on the marketplace to survive. The media, if they are to survive as media free of political control and oligarchical dominance, have to give the people what they want. This is the way it is in non-monopoly businesses. You have to give the people what they want, or your business will not be able to pay its bills.

So-called ?growth economics? was the much ballyhooed mantra of MCP when he took over the national economy of Belize in 1998. One of the reasons growth economics failed, was because MCP did not really respect the marketplace. He did not believe in competition. MCP wanted to control everything, and he messed up everything. The tragicomedy of the PUP presently is that all their standard bearers still think this is 1998. The MCP is the Pied Piper of Hamlin, and the PUP standard bearers are following like the doomed children.

Because the free media believes the evidence of its five senses, that growth economics left the masses of Belizeans with a succession of magnificent and expensive financial disasters, the media mouthpieces of MCP have launched a campaign trying to discredit the free media. Such a campaign will be another expensive failure, MCP. You can?t buy credibility the way you can buy whores and buffoons. You will learn that in a few months: there is no power like the power of the people. All power to the people.