By Stephen Kangal
September 24, 2008
Reasonable citizens and commentators are fast coming to the conclusion that PM Manning has pre-empted the yet-to-determined verdict of the people of T&T. He has now taken T&T, at enormous public expense, diplomatic hype and great bravado beyond the political point of no return on his proposed union with at least three other Caricom States. He justifies this cart-before-the -horse modus operandi on the basis that a private club of which he is the jefe, that is to say the PNM, some fifty two years ago invoked political integration as one of its bye-laws.
Continue reading Point of No Return on Political Union
Im sorry to say that I think that John McCain is going to be the next president of the United States. After the long night of Bush horror any Democrat should easily win, but the Dems are screwing it up and McCain has been running more-or-less even with Barack Obama in the polls. The Democrats should run on the slogan “If you liked Bush, you’ll love McCain”, but that would be too outspoken, too direct for the spineless Nancy Pelosi and her spineless party. Or, “If you liked Iraq, you’ll love Iran.” But the Democrat leadership is not on record as categorically opposing either conflict.
In the face of the unforgivable, non-public disclosure of the text of the August 14 MOU as well as the disrespectful-to-the- people silence on the obligation to outline the compelling economic, political and trade considerations that underpin and drive the urgency of PM Manning’s proposed political union with three OECS countries there has arisen, quite understandably a range of informed speculation on what really motivates the mind of Manning. Many believe that personal (hubris) and subjective (legacy) considerations dominate, determine and drive his political union initiative.
EDITOR: I sometimes wonder if my information sources of media, internet etc. are defective. My information suggests that most of the developed economies in the world are in deep crisis, major US corporations e.g. Bears and Sterns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lehman Bros. etc had to be bailed out by the Federal Authorities. (They are baulking at bailing out Lehman Bros.). The housing market is at its lowest point in decades and unemployment is at its highest in many years. The UK and Canada are awaiting statistical confirmation that their economies are in recession but their populations know full well.
President of the Law Association, Senior Counsel Martin Daly, yesterday criticised Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s participation in a ‘march’ last Friday at Woodford Square, Port of Spain.