Vision blocked by balisier over eye

We see them trying to defend their party’s failures, its abject backwardness, and its stubborn unwillingness to accept well-meaning advice.

That party’s unimaginative policies reflect its 60 years of existence.

Those who defend the PNM never criticise the stubbornness of its leaders. For them, the PNM can do no wrong. One of these defenders of the indefensible (one Lynette Joseph) writes regularly to the media. She recently defended our athletes’ failure to medal at the Rio Olympics in a letter headlined “When are we going to get like Jamaica?” She offers her take on why we have not been as successful in athletics as the Jamaicans at the Olympic level. As is usually the case with her analyses, she never points a finger at the debilitating effect of government policy unless she wants to single out a non-PNM administration.

Joseph starts by attempting to allay our anxiety by asserting that Jamaica has superior athletes because it has three times our population to draw from. As far as I know, Jamaica’s population is 2.9 million compared to our own of 1.4 million — or just about twice ours.

She opines that not as many of our youth are as interested in sport as the young people of Jamaica. The interest in sport by Jamaican youth is not spontaneous.

Jamaica has had a sports policy since 1994. Another green paper was tabled in 2011 and a white paper laid in its Parliament in 2013. The People’s National Party does not shoot down good policy decisions by its political adversaries or vice versa.

Life Sport was created to encourage that interest, but it was shot down and replaced by what Joseph’s party has been doing for the 44 years it has held power — nothing.

Just like others in her party, she had nothing good to say when the previous government tried to kindle interest in basketball by inviting Magic Johnson. The stadiums she spoke of were built by the Basdeo Panday government.

When forward thinking people obtained the services of foreign coaches, these coaches are made to wait for years before they can be paid.

The same no-pay bad mind is going on at present with contractors.

But Joseph is always encouraging patriotism or offering excuses.

Twelve thousand people have lost their jobs, 12,000 food cards have been slashed and the PNM has reverted to Nipdec to import drugs and its dilapidated trucks have to supply all health institutions with the little they have purchased — including Tobago.

Joseph places swimmers among a privileged class and our track and field athletes she portrays as the product of “poor” homes. I wonder what gives her that notion? While she apologetically claims that our Government can only “afford to pay” little, she none the less observes that countries with far less — Grenada and Cuba — have produced “better athletes than us.” I can only suggest that Joseph removes the balisier that continuously blocks vision in one of her eyes.

Steve Smith via emai