WE HAVE LOST THE DIVISIVE RACIAL WAR

 It is too painful to admit it, even to yourself if to nobody else, but it's true. We have lost the war against racial politics and the racial divide that plagues this country. Maybe in about a hundred years from now things might - in fact, probably will - change. But for the foreseeable future, and certainly in the lifetime of anyone reading this post right now, the war is effectively over and the right thinking peoples of this country have lost it. 

I put a large part of the blame on BOTH political parties who draw their support from either the African or the Indian side of the divide. If you are Indian you are a traitor to your race if you have the temerity to vote for the PNM and vice versa if you are an African and vote for or support the UNC. It is easier to make the racial appeal than it is to actually make policy proposals, and that is what BOTH sides do with absolutely no shame, even where the racism is blatant and in your face.

For example (as if I needed to prove this point), can anybody tell me clearly and succinctly what are the policy differences between the two major parties? Because basically the UNC seems to be saying (when all the verbiage is stripped away) simply that they can do a better job of running the country than the PNM. And conversely, the PNM seems to be saying that they are not the UNC.  And that's it! There are no arguments (intellectual or otherwise) except for race that differentiate the two parties.

Left by the wayside are the real decisions and arguments about the economy, health care, education and so on. For example, if the PNM (who is in government right now) were to take what many economists believe to be necessary by trimming the workforce in, say, WASA they would probably be voted out of office immediately because most of the overstaffing in the public sector economy comes from or is made up of their supporters. The UNC is acutely aware of this problem of overstaffing in the public sector but is appropriately silent on this issue. In other words, the UNC (probably correctly) assumes that there is no profit in that issue of overstaffing because they allowed it when they were in power and have signally failed to point it out probably reasoning that there is no profit in exposing that particular issue.

So? All politics is (are?) personal. And because those who offer themselves for leadership (on BOTH sides) are singularly devoid of any ideas on how to make things better other than don't vote for "them" because "they" are African/Indian and "our" people will suffer, we are clearly doomed to suffer the terrible consequences of racial divisiveness for a lllooonnnnggg time to come. Maybe we can yet save ourselves by forming  a new political party and calling it the Free Democratic Alliance of Trinidad & Tobago - FDATT for short!