Wasted Opportunities & Broken Hearts...

They say that Rome was not built in a day and I accept that, but at some point along the way it must have been clear to those who were laboring that it was in fact Rome that they were building, not so? Someone must have had a plan, a vision, an idea for ROme to be the end result of that effort, yes? So if not a day, how long? Because we've been doing this, whatever this is for at least fifty years, and since independence to now we are yet to even elect leadership capable of pointing us to our 'Rome.' Yes we have had Office holders and yes they have had agendas, but has anything ever really been done that could be considered purposeful vision truly national in scope?. Have we ever had a true Trinidad & Tobago Party with a Trinidad & Tobago intention? Yes we've had an Afro-Trinidadian developmental agenda, and we've had an Indo-Trinidadian redevelopment agenda, but tell me how can either side's agenda ever get us anywhere as a people while trying to leave half of the country behind? How does that succeed?

In the background noise swirling around the incessant change agent our politics has become, the dissatisfied resonance remains. How do you say 'once again' when the call never stops? Continuously the people are asked to choose between two devils, both of whom they know well and both of whom are appealing to different levels of their lowest minds, encouraging them always, in the absence of real alternatives, to once again take a chance, but where's the 'something' new? Nothing different from the last time around, just 'not them.' Like a pusher in a dark alley they promise to make you feel better even though they know and you know that they know that you know that what they're pushing is a lie. Our politics no longer requires politicians and Parties to find their best selves, they just need to focus on their opponent's worst self. Enter the magical world of exchange.

Every Political Party is made up the same basic stuff - agendas, financiers, investors, members, supporters, hangers on and aspiring politicians.

What's that opportunity you ask? To give the people hope. Right now, at this time, in this curious alignment of magic and mayhem, that is the quality most absent from the political landscape and is what has the voters and the public as jaded as they are. The great disappointment has been that the Congress of the People has not yet risen to the challenge, to their own promises and the longing of the people who are neither enough of whatever it takes to be fully claimed by either of the two tribal Parties. Yet still the people believe on and hope, because at some point you expect that something will rise up and answer the cry, fill the void and bring real change to a nation so blessed with talent and rich with resources, yet morbidly cursed with political obscurantists, opportunists and closet 'raper-men.'

The turn around, if it comes, will be conceived in promise and labored in hope, and delivered in the reality of a national unity that is a reality on the ground but provoked into a lie at the top to further agendas.

If it doesn't come, the people will  become further disenchanted, setting the stage for political opportunists to make hay on the national mood, trusting that a people desperate for change will see anything other than business as usual as change, and while they may not endorse it in the sober light of day, in the heady rush leading up to change all who could hold a rhythm will find partners with which to dance. You doubt that? Ask the people of Cuba; fifty years on they still cannot understand how they got from the iron grip of one abusive and advantageous ideology into the brutal, unforgiving fist of another, pausing briefly only to sing a freedom song, to dance in the glow of the bonfire of a hope that was so easily misplaced and abused.