air jamaica and the jamaican dollar

“…JALPA (Jamaica Airlines Pilots Association) has accepted that there would be no recourse to government financing. The risks to be borne, therefore, would be theirs and any investors, including participating staff, or lenders they are able to secure. However, the government's efforts to divest Air Jamaica are driven by two important considerations:

(1) The necessity to relieve the public purse of the burdensome losses being sustained;

(2) The need to ensure continued operation of the routes that are of strategic value to the economy.

The insistence in retaining the airline in Jamaican ownership, desirable and patriotic though that might be, does not take precedence over these two fundamental considerations and cannot be pursued at any cost or regardless of the risk to the Jamaican economy.”

Prime Minister Bruce Golding of Jamaica

Jamaica’s financial economic infrastructure is just as fragile as the Haitian civil infrastructure was before the great earthquake. Jamaica is under an economic siege, just look at the value of the Jamaican dollar. The eminent sale of Air Jamaica is causing a nationalistic hew and cry as the proposed sale to Trinidad and Tobago may soon “come to bump.” Understandably, many of the Jamaican people are up in arms about the possible sale since so many of the island’s companies have been sold to Trinidad & Tobago, creating an atmosphere of a “Trinidadian invasion” of sorts. Yet, the most telling portion of the above quote by Prime Minister Golding is this simple fact that “… cannot be pursued at any cost or regardless of the risk to the Jamaican economy.”

The Jamaican economy here is the issue. As of today, the Jamaican dollar is J$87.50 to one U.S. dollar, in comparison to Barbados at $1.99 to one U.S. dollar, Trinidad $6.21, the former Jamaican dependency Cayman Islands ahead of the U.S. dollar $0.81, and Bahamas ahead at $0.99 to the U.S. dollar. This in and of itself tells a story of the Jamaican economy. The inflated Jamaican dollar makes it quite profitable for other nations to seek to buy Jamaican businesses, and in turn makes it really profitable for Jamaican businesses to yearn to and sell making a windfall in profit while unloading a liability as the Jamaican dollar hangs in a tailspin of inflation. We have to consider how ridiculous it sounds to pay J$200 for a loaf of bread. The sound alone should signal that something is drastically wrong.

For years the Jamaican dollar has been on a decline in buying power for her denizens. The following is from the Jamaica Gleaner February 21, 2010.

Jamaican dollar values 2000 to 2009

2000 USD $1.00=J$43.08

2001 USD$1.00 = J$46.08

2002 USD$1.00 = J$48.54

2003 USD$1.00 = J$57.93

2004 USD$1.00 = J$61.34

2005 USD$1.00 = J$62.50

2006 USD$1.00 = J$65.88

2007 USD$1.00 = J$69.06

2008 USD$1.00 = J$72.92

2009 USD $1.00 = J$89.00

(2010 USD $1.00= J$87.50)

This alone should be the impetus for the hew and cry of the Jamaican people and not the sale of it’s businesses. Prime Minister Golding is well aware of this failing of the Jamaican dollar thus encouraging the sale of Air Jamaica under the auspices of relieving the people of further financial burdens. However, as with most citizens of any nation, the pangs of losing a symbol of national pride is where the death wailing emmenates. Sadly, the people rarely look behind the scenes to the root causes and only lament the symptoms.

This very same attack on the U.S. dollar is under way as we see prices going up (really the USD is worth-less), and in fact there are fewer products on the shelves in many grocery stores here. The ramifications of the dying U.S. dollar spills over to her island neighbors and entices them to copulate with her in her drunken orgy of financial mismanagement by taking more IMF loans and funding.

“The people pay the price for the government’s stupid mistakes…”

- Sizzla, Chant Dem Down

going forward Black love day is a day I will Celebrate as a balance to the Materialistic Valentines day.

Black Love Day is not Valentines Day with a Brown face on it, but 24 hours of meditation and thoughts toward healing.  Enjoy, live and learn, Peace.

the legacy of Rastaman vibration by Asabagna

I came upon this jewel over at the Afrosper written by my man Asabagna.  He gives an excellent "Third Eye" view of the life of Robert Nesta Marley and the backdrop to the force behind Marley's lyrical imagery. Robert Nesta Marley known to the world as Bob Marley.   Asa is also able to explore and explain the Caste system of the island of Jamaica and I am sure the other Caribbean islands/ This mentality and way of thinking lives in Black America as well pervades the thinking of Black people in general.

 By Asabagna,

I’ve been vibing to Bob Marley all day, as sort of a tribute to the man and an acknowledgment of the influence of his music on my life.

As I listen to song after song, it takes me back… waaay back to my yout’… growing up in Jamaica, coming to Canada, struggling through adolescence and young manhood… into adulthood… until today. Through the various stages, however I want to divide and define them, the music of Bob Marley has been there for me. There was a time when I listened to Bob everyday. He was the musical prophet who soothed my raging soul. Even today, when the daily grind of life seems to be taking it’s toll… a pound of my flesh, as well as a quart of my spirit… I throw on some Bob and I am rejuvenated and empowered once again by “don’t worry, ’bout a ting, ’cause every li’l ting, gonna be awlrite”. 

It’s interesting how life and time changes perceptions. Today, Bob Marley is a revered icon in Jamaica and around the world. As a yout’ in Jamaica, back in the seventies, he was seen as a rebel and his music a bad influence on us young’uns. In fact, Rastafarians in general were looked down upon… their hair (it still somewhat amazes me that dreads are now fashionable), dress, religion, music, the ganja smoking, etc.

As a child, living with my grandparents in rural Jamaica, I remember the only records we listened to were Tennessee Ernie Ford, Jim Reeves and Bing Crosby. There may have been a Mahalia Jackson gospel album too… but there was certainly no RnB, Motown and absolutely no reggae. My grandfather was so conservative that as a teenager, if I returned from the barber and my hair wasn’t cut “down to the wood”, he would escort me back himself and get it cut lower. The first time I heard the word “nigga” used was by him, in reference to poor Jamaicans… those not in the same economic and social class as we were.

Jamaica at that time was a very class conscious society, with a heavy dose of “colourism” that was added to the mix. The lighter you were, the higher social status you had, regardless if you had the economic/financial resources that went along with this social status. Whites, Mixed #1 (White and Black/Chinese/East Indians), Chinese, East Indians, Mixed #2 (Chinese/East Indians and Black) and then Blacks… was the basic colour induced pecking order. My grandfather was a dark Black man, but because he had made a lot of money and was in the upper middle class of Jamaican society, his economic class trumped his colour based social status… to some extent. He considered himself equal to the Mixed, Chinese and East Indians, but showed a subconscious, but obvious deference to Whites, regardless of their economic status.

This is the societal backdrop to Bob Marley’s music when I started listening to it on the radio and at school. “Baldhead” was a term Rastas used to signify those of the “establishment”… i.e. those with short hair… who oppressed, looked down upon and took advantage of the poor… those like my grandfather. It wasn’t based on colour… it was based on economic class, neo-colonialism and imperialism. That is why there is no White vs. Black rhetoric in Bob Marley’s music or reggae music in general. That is why a song like “Get up, Stand up, for your rights“, transcends race or colour and speaks to anyone around the world who find themselves oppressed by a political, economic, religious or social class.

Once I came to Canada in the late 70’s, going into my late teens, to my university years and into my 20’s, Bob’s music sustained me. He was about spiritual revolution and African consciousness. A young Black man of Jamaican heritage growing up in cold, white Canada, developing a revolutionary spirit, his words kept me grounded. Yeah, I was seen as a rebel by my family, especially after I started growing dreads (when it wasn’t acceptable or fashionable to do so among, especially among Black people) and began advocating for the less fortunate… the “niggas” as my grandfather used to call them. In Canada I was now the “nigga”… but called  “nigger”… based solely on the colour of my skin, regardless of the economic class of my family.

But Bob saw me through it all. He brought clarity to my mind and calm to my spirit. Today as I listen and reflect… and go forward… I share him with my 2 year old son. He will certainly have his trials and tribulations as a Black man within this society. Undoubtedly, the legacy of the rastaman vibration will live on.

Haiti: an unwelcome katrina redux...Cynthia McKinney

I found this gem on the Trinidad Express blog, which is a reprent of an article written by our esteemed former Georgia congress woman and former candidate for president in 2008 running on  the Green Party ticket, Cynthia McKinney. This article brings home some thoughts I had on the quick response by President Obama and his deployment of the U.S. military's most leathal combat units, the 82nd Airborne and U.S. Marines, to Haiti.  This article was originally posted on Global Research where you can read the full post.

Haiti: An Unwelcome Katrina Redux

By Cynthia McKinney
January 22, 2010 – globalresearch.ca

President Obama’s response to the tragedy in Haiti has been robust in military deployment and puny in what the Haitians need most: food; first responders and their specialized equipment; doctors and medical facilities and equipment; and engineers, heavy equipment, and heavy movers. Sadly, President Obama is dispatching Presidents Bush and Clinton, and thousands of Marines and U.S. soldiers. By contrast, Cuba has over 400 doctors on the ground and is sending in more; Cubans, Argentinians, Icelanders, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, and many others are already on the ground working – saving lives and treating the injured. Senegal has offered land to Haitians willing to relocate to Africa.
 
The United States, on the day after the tragedy struck, confirmed that an entire Marine Expeditionary Force was being considered “to help restore order,” when the “disorder” had been caused by an earthquake striking Haiti; not since 1751, 1770, 1842, 1860, and 1887 had Haiti experienced an earthquake. But, I remember the bogus reports of chaos and violence that led to the deployment of military assets, including Blackwater, in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. One Katrina survivor noted that the people needed food and shelter and the US government sent men with guns. Much to my disquiet, it seems, here we go again. From the very beginning, US assistance to Haiti has looked to me more like an invasion than a humanitarian relief operation.

On Day Two of the tragedy, a C-130 plane with a military assessment team landed in Haiti, with the rest of the team expected to land soon thereafter. The stated purpose of this team was to determine what military resources were needed.

An Air Force special operations team was also expected to land to provide air traffic control. Now, the reports are that the US is not allowing assistance in; shades of Hurricane Katrina, all over again.

On President Obama’s orders military aircraft “flew over the island, mapping the destruction.” So, the first US contribution to the humanitarian relief needed in Haiti were reconnaissance drones whose staffing are more accustomed to looking for hidden weapon sites and surface-to-air missile batteries than wrecked infrastructure. The scope of the US response soon became clear: aircraft carrier, Marine transport ship, four C-140 airlifts, and evacuations to Guantanamo. By the end of Day Two, according to the Washington Post report, the United States had evacuated to Guantanamo Bay about eight [8] severely injured patients, in addition to US Embassy staffers, who had been “designated as priorities by the US Ambassador and his staff.”

On Day Three we learned that other US ships, including destroyers, were moving toward Haiti.

Interestingly, the Washington Post reported that the standing task force that coordinates the US response to mass migration events from Cuba or Haiti was monitoring events, but had not yet ramped up its operations. That tidbit was interesting in and of itself, that those two countries are attended to by a standing task force, but the treatment of their nationals is vastly different, with Cubans being awarded immediate acceptance from the US government, and by contrast, internment for Haitian nationals.

US Coast Guard Rear Admiral James Watson IV reassured Americans, “Our focus right now is to prevent that, and we are going to work with the Defense Department, the State Department, FEMA and all the agencies of the federal government to minimize the risk of Haitians who want to flee their country,” Watson said. “We want to provide them those relief supplies so they can live in Haiti.”

By the end of Day Four, the US reportedly had evacuated over 800 US nationals.

For those of us who have been following events in Haiti before the tragic earthquake, it is worth noting that several items have caused deep concern:

1. the continued exile of Haiti’s democratically-elected and well-loved, yet twice-removed former priest, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide;

2. the unexplained continued occupation of the country by United Nations troops who have killed innocent Haitians and are hardly there for “security” (I’ve personally seen them on the roads that only lead to Haiti’s sparsely-populated areas teeming with beautiful beaches);

3. US construction of its fifth-largest embassy in the world in Port-au-Prince, Haiti;

4. mining and port licenses and contracts, including the privatization of Haiti’s deep-water ports, because certain offshore oil and transshipment arrangements would not be possible inside the US for environmental and other considerations; and

5. Extensive foreign NGO presence in Haiti that could be rendered unnecessary if, instead, appropriate US and other government policy allowed the Haitian people some modicum of political and economic self-determination.

Therefore, we note here the writings of Ms. Marguerite Laurent, whom I met in her capacity as attorney for ousted President of Haiti Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Ms. Laurent reminds us of Haiti’s offshore oil and other mineral riches and recent revival of an old idea to use Haiti and an oil refinery to be built there as a transshipment terminal for US supertankers. Ms. Laurent, also known as Ezili Danto of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN), writes:

“There is evidence that the United States found oil in Haiti decades ago and due to the geopolitical circumstances and big business interests of that era made the decision to keep Haitian oil in reserve for when Middle Eastern oil had dried up. This is detailed by Dr. Georges Michel in an article dated March 27, 2004 outlining the history of oil explorations and oil reserves in Haiti and in the research of Dr. Ginette and Daniel Mathurin.

“There is also good evidence that these very same big US oil companies and their inter-related monopolies of engineering and defense contractors made plans, decades ago, to use Haiti’s deep water ports either for oil refineries or to develop oil tank farm sites or depots where crude oil could be stored and later transferred to small tankers to serve U.S. and Caribbean ports. This is detailed in a paper about the Dunn Plantation at Fort Liberte in Haiti.

“Ezili’s HLLN underlines these two papers on Haiti’s oil resources and the works of Dr. Ginette and Daniel Mathurin in order to provide a view one will not find in the mainstream media nor anywhere else as to the economic and strategic reasons the US has constructed its fifth largest embassy in the world – fifth only besides the US embassy in China, Iraq, Iran and Germany – in tiny Haiti, post the 2004 Haiti Bush regime change.”

art bell, conspiracy theories, electro magnetic warfare. Real or not?... you decide

 "The devil is a liar" slides from the mouths of so many of my Christian friends and associates, makes a liar seem so simple to detect and eschew.  The devil is a liar.  If it were so simple, it would be a facile task in spotting such.  The devil is worse than a liar.  The devil mixes truth with fantasy and fantasy with reality along a mathematically logical line of thought.  A liar is not so complex.  We have to dig within ourselves, into our intuitive selves to see sometimes what our mateiral eye cannot see.  Fourteen years have past since this radio program. I have to wonder how much more advanced the technology of HAARP has become in 2010