SHOULD WE GIVE MORE POWER TO THE PEOPLE?

 In 1919 a Supreme Court Justice in the United States called Oliver Wendell Holmes coined the well known phrase about shouting  'fire' in a crowded cinema or theatre. He was basically arguing that there has to be a limit to free speech and despite the fact that most democracies (like T&T) have a constitutional provision that guarantees free speech, this provision ought to have (and often does have) limitations. For example the law of defamation ensures that you cannot say something that isn't true (such as 'X killed Y') unless you can prove it even though you might believe it to be true.

But in the American State of Ohio they have a most interesting twist on this. In Ohio any citizen who feels aggrieved  about something (such as the lies that Trump -or Drumpf as his grandfather was called  before he 'Amercanised' his name- and his running mate J.D. Vance, have propagated against the Haitian community) that somebody has said can file a criminal complaint against that person asking a judge to hold them criminally liable. The complaint must show evidence of the untruths.

In case you might have missed it both Drumpf (I refuse to call him 'Trump') and Vance have said that legal Haitian immigrants are stealing people's pets and eating them! As ridiculous as this sounds both of these guys have repeated this outrageous claim. Putting it simply, this rhetoric is racist and ought to be condemned for reasons that (hopefully) are clear and obvious.

So? The question arises: do we have politicians (from both sides of the political divide) who use coded (and sometimes not so coded) rhetoric to fan the flames of racism?  Do we need a law, such as in Ohio, which would allow an aggrieved citizen to bring criminal charges against  a politician when the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions neglects and/or refuses to take action against persons who may be making dangerous comments? There have been quite a few complaints over the years about the DPP letting offensive and racist statements go by the board. Are these complaints with or without foundation?

Maybe it's time that we gave a little more power to the people.  Perhaps we should look at what Ohio has done. A lot of our laws were written by our former colonial masters. That doesn't make them right.

THE GOVERNMENT'S PROPOSALS FOR A CASHLESS SOCIETY

 The TT Government has proposed through its Minister of Finance that the country should go cashless. At first without thinking I thought that this might be a good idea. But then I started thinking, who exactly will benefit from the country going cashless? Answer: the banks. Let me give you an example: let's say that I go now to get my haircut and I pay the barber with a $100 bill. He puts it in his pocket and then uses it to pay, say, his grocery bill. The grocery store owner then uses it to pay a supplier - and so on, My original $1oo bill is used umpteen times.

So? What happens every time my original debt of $100 is paid via, say, Linx? Somebody (usually the payee - the person receiving the money) is charged 1.5% by his/her bank. If you multiply this out you will see that my original $100 has been consumed by the bank (or banks).

So again I ask: who benefits? Probably the question should be: who benefits besides the banks? And yet the very powerful Minister of Finance thinks that going cashless is the way to go! Why?

Makes you think, doesn't it? Why does he think that this is a good idea? Indeed, all sorts of questions and suspicions arise - some of them invite downright defamatory answers and some of the suspicions are (beside being defamatory) downright unreasonable. Yet the basic question "why'" remains unanswered.

If politics and government is about making life better for the people, in one sentence (because if you can't say it in one sentence you can't say it at all) why do you think that you will be better off by the country going cashless?

THAT PARIA "INVESTIGATION" - A QUESTION OF RACE?

 Tucked in a corner on page 15 of the Express of Tuesday 10yh September, 2024 was a story about the 3 divers who had lost their lives some 4 years ago while doing a job for Paria Fuel Trading Co. Ltd. in Pointe-a-Pierre. What struck me about this story is that the so-called "investigation" into the men's deaths is still going on! I mean, how long does it take to do such an investigation? From all the newspaper reports at the time it seemed that the facts were fairly straight forward:

Four men were on a job working for Paria under the sea. 

There war an accident and the men were trapped. One managed to escape.

No rescue mission was mounted or allowed to be mounted. According to newspaper reports authorities actually intervened to prevent a rescue.

The men died when their oxygen ran out some 4 days after the accident.

Now, all of this is from the newspaper reports at the time. So? It seems a fairly simple  matter. And yet, there has been no conclusion to the alleged "investigation" some 4 years after the accident and absolutely no compensation has been paid to the families of the men who died.

By the way, all the men who were killed as well as the one who escaped were of Indian extraction. All of the people who make  or are supposed to make  or authorize the "investigation" are black (or  of African extraction). Is that a coincidence? If it was the other way around would it still be okay that the "investigation" has taken this long and no compensation whatsoever has even been offered to be paid to the families of the victims? Putting it bluntly, is race behind what is clearly an unacceptable situation? If you think that this is a stretch, then can you offer a different and logical explanation? Is anybody responsible for this accident? Is it unreasonable for persons to conclude that race has played a part in the delay? 

Who exactly is responsible for the delay for concluding the "investigation"? Because, at the end of the day, it will be one person. What is his/her race? We are always hesitant as a society to cry "race", but sometimes if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck then its kind of obvious that it is a duck.