I remember when Barack Obama won his first term as US president in 2008. Late that night I heard a massive noise of joyful screams and applause from the neighbourhood, the moment his victory was confirmed. At that point, I knew we were in for a rough ride. In the …
Read More »PNM axes Antoine as D’Abadie/O’Meara candidate; Rowley confirms dismissal over USA insult
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announced today the People’s National Movement (PNM) has ‘withdrawn’ retired Brigadier General Ancil Antoine as its candidate for the D’Abadie/O’Meara constituency, due to ‘insensitive and objectionable statements’ made at his campaign launch. Antoine was the sitting Member of Parliament for the area, after winning the …
Read More »MSJ: Our Caribbean diaspora suffers from racial injustice in USA; let’s make a stand
“[…] The MSJ is compelled to extend our solidarity to the mass movement in the US, not only because solidarity is one of our core principles, but because there are so many hundreds of thousands—indeed there are millions—of Caribbean nationals and their descendants living and working in the US. “They …
Read More »Dear editor: We should focus on bullying US ‘imperialism’—not Young’s ‘half-truths’
“Politicians, especially national security ministers, sometimes have to tell half-truths and lies—in the country’s or their own interest—and then we sit in judgement of them; we the better men. This is why Socrates did not favour democracy, but instead extolled the virtue of the philosopher, giving value to logic and …
Read More »Dear Editor: Venezuela’s ‘narco-terrorist’ state charge is ‘transparent propaganda’
“[…] If we agree with [US president Donald] Trump that the shipment of cocaine to the US is terrorism—as Opposition leaders implicitly do—then why did a transhipment area like Venezuela become a huge target, requiring the deployment of naval, air, and ground forces to nearby seas. “The consensus among scholars …
Read More »MSJ: ‘Backward and opportunistic!’ Kamla’s UNC is acting like T&T’s ‘fifth column’
“[…] It is the view of the MSJ that the UNC’s position makes them unfit for being the government of Trinidad and Tobago since they will turn us into a semi-client state of the US. We need not state the obvious—we pass the stage when we had a governor, long …
Read More »Media musings: I tweet, therefore I am? Facts, truth and reader education
Lloyd Best used to say that Trinidad and Tobago is a country where people walk about with their heads empty. That may explain why, for so many of us Trinis, facts are sacred things. “Facts are facts,” India’s Jawaharlal Nehru once declared, “and they will not disappear on account of …
Read More »Message to the media; musings on premature loss of a Laker as great as great Kobe
Basketball legends never die, a friend joked to me on WhatsApp last Sunday, they just keep hitting fadeaways. And confessing that he had felt physically sick when he first heard the news of Kobe Bryant’s untimely death in a helicopter crash earlier in the day, he explained that, for him, …
Read More »Media Monitor: On T&T English, the US Senate’s brown tongues and crossing Trump
In the Senate impeachment trial of Donald J Trump, Adam Schiff spoke good, very good. (I could have wrote ‘was very good’ but that wouldn’t be American in any way, shape or form.) A classy, clearly highly educated advocate, Schiff doubtless impressed all with his eloquence and general delivery. He …
Read More »Media Monitor: Trump’s Senators tie themselves in impeachment (k)nots
Licks like peas. With a bullpistle. Were I a judge in their case, that is the sentence I would pass on the 50-odd Elsies in the Senate who last week voted against hearing witnesses in the continuing impeachment trial of Donald J Trump. Did Trump ask Ukraine for a quid …
Read More »Cockroaches must stay out fowl business! T&T Shia Muslims condemn Trump but pledge peaceful approach
“Based on our faith and understanding of Islam, we are sworn to the protection of the realm of Trinidad and Tobago and to peaceful coexistence with persons of all faiths… “The AIATT—nor any Shia Muslim organisation or person of Trinidad and Tobago as far as we can tell—[is not] a …
Read More »Gilkes: From Truman to Trump; how religion oppresses the post-colonial world
Shooting wars begin as culture wars and culture wars are initiated by ideas. So let’s for a minute set aside Uncle Sam’s amoral adventures in Venezuela; or not—because this issue is partly about what led to it in the first place. A few years ago Professor Merle Hodge wrote an …
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