Perverting Privilege & Other Jack Attacks...

Where certain politicians are concerned one needs to understand that there is a difference between a debate and an argument with a crazy person. Originally this column was entitled - 'Truthful Fiction & National Lies' where I attempted to deal with statements made in another columnist's offering in which he (let's call him Pete), expressed displeasure with certain double standards (in his view) where government and the media are concerned. I believed the positions he was taking to be dangerous to our freedoms in the long run if left unchallenged, and, cutting a long story short and fitting it in here 'en passant' as a certain MP likes to say, I focused on two of the issues he raised in his piece; the notoriety that a certain former state employee now enjoys in private life, as well as the double standard of the push back (Pete's position not mine) against Jack Warner's use of live television to openly attack a journalist he believes hostile to his government.

Dealing with the first issue first, surely he (Pete) knows that due to the still unanswered questions surrounding her sudden and meteoric rise to stardom and all of the innuendo and intrigue surrounding it left in the public domain in lieu of real answers to those very questions, then surely he must know that there would still be interest in her as a character. Photos of her drinking and partying with government ministers did little to help her cause and may have in fact further fueled the public's interest in her as a  central character in what has been dubbed our local version of 'Sex, Lies & Videotape.' The other issue of Jack's attack was wrong on so many fronts it is almost obscene. Forgetting for a minute that the person he attacked is a practising journalist, his use of his position as National Security Minister to openly 'caution' ANY citizen from a political position should  be grounds for his immediate dismissal and why every single practicing journalist and media worker in this country has not yet 'downed tools' in solidarity remains a mystery to me. To indicate that 'he and they' knew certain aspects of this journalist's personal life including where she lived crossed all lines of decency, smacked of either gestapo tactics or gangsterism and both ought to be publicly rejected by all democratic minded citizens.

Settled there that column was set to run when I was informed that the same Jack Warner had attacked me personally in his budget debate contribution in the House for my having the audacity to share that there were rumors abounding that certain gang leaders in certain 'hotspots' were being paid upwards of twenty thousand dollars to keep the peace. Now I am unsure as to the exact source of his outrage, the rumor itself or me having the temerity to share it, but it does nothing to change the fact that different versions of this story keeps surfacing and at some point we will surely know if there is fire to match all this smoke. Further, if this was an attempt to intimidate me then surely Jack is not as smart as he thinks he is. His position that commentators like myself are negatively affecting the international image of this country by exposing wrongdoing for all to see is laughable, especially when one considers that we have an international icon of corruption, bid rigging and bribery as not only a member of our parliament but a cabinet minister, the very same cabinet that recently used the same parliament to write a law to free men of ill repute wanted internationally for crimes committed in other jurisdictions.

Using Parliamentary privilege to attack those who enjoy no such immunity and so are unable to respond in kind is bullying in every sense of the word and this needs to be addressed. Parliament MUST remain the highest institution on our land, but I would like to suggest that Parliamentary privilege needs to be re-examined and  opened to challenge in a court of law where slander is concerned so as to keep the devious and the uncouth from using that privilege to attack others for cheap political points.