Freetown is in the wrong country

I haven't been out to a live show in Trinidad since last Christmas when I went to see my favourite local band - JOINT POP. They're still fighting the good fight. They're the last of only a handful of bands still standing.

Thursday, 5th February was a show at the infamous Mas Camp Pub - the home of calypso, the home of kaiso, where along with a few tents back in early days of the 20th Century, our music began, our heritage. There was a show being put on by the NEW FIRE promotion, led by Gerry Anthony of WIRK (West Indian Rhythm Konnection). There were two acts - Freetown Collective and Mistah Shak.

I unfortunately left after Freetown so I cannot comment of Mistah Shak.

Last time I saw Freetown they were a guitar playing duo, but on Thursday they were a five piece. Still two guitars and lead vocals - Muhammad Muwakil and Lou Lyons, but also three female singers - Shanna Joseph, Tishanna Williams and Malene Joseph.

They were excellent! Lyrically and melodically brilliant, a rare gem in a country that favours noise and smut lyrics, especially at this carnival season. The only thing that was missing for me was some sort of beat - drums or percussion, and perhaps a bassist. But I thought they were amazing. I only heard them once before, but I was totally blown away at Muhammad's voice, and how he flowed his lyrics. A real performer, and Lou is a very interesting and creative guitarist/songwriter. The harmonies were well crafted and interwoven.

This show was meant to showcase talent other than soca artistes. There was a decent turnout, people were attentive to what was going on. It was a great show!

I know this is carnival season, so now is the time of the soca artiste, just like Christmas season in Trinidad is the time of the Parandero and parang.

After carnival used to be the time for all other musicians in Trinidad to do their thing - jazz, rock, folk.

I don't see much of that anymore to be honest.

And what I cannot shake from my head is this - here's another great indie, underground band, very much Trinidadian, very much unique, very fresh and very talented, and where are they going? Where is there room for them in Trinidad? The answer is nowhere.

Trinis just don't have the mental capacity to understand and appreciate live, indie, original music. They only have tolerance for soca.

Soca - by and large is an insult to what kaiso started out as, but that's another blogpost entirely. Back to Freetown.

Like so many bands and solo artists before them, so many over the last two decades that have come and gone, without a trace.  Few remember all these bands. Their music can sometimes be found in a die hard fan's home, on a cassette, a CD or a stolen MP3. But there's not a single band from 1995 (the best era that ever existed for local, underground music in Trinidad), nor 2010 (the next resurgence of great original bands) that exists today.

And I think of Freetown, like so many others before them, and all I can do is mourn for them and for everyone else who used to be in music. Some gave it up. Some migrated. Some disappeared.

Freetown, on behalf of all the other musicians in Trinidad, do yourselves a favour - keep your art form alive, but move to a country that appreciates live, original music.

Trinidadians only know about a fun time, drinks, dancing and prancing.

If you don't believe me, here's a list of some of the original bands that existed but are no more. What killed them? Simple. Trinidad did.

From 1995 onwards - Oddfellows Local, Orange Peel Groove, Babylon Pig, Bleed, Smith Tuttle, Green, Brothers Grimm, Bloodshed, Virus, Setiva, Flying Crapaud, Jaundis - I, Joint Pop, Orange Sky, Big Eyed Grieve, Lanyap, Incert Coin, Tamper Evident, Alexis Machine, 12, Gregory's Dream, Alien L, Atheleny, Gyazette, Skid Nevely, Vox Deus, Tripped and Falling, Heir Perpet, Transylvania Zoo, The Tide, Chaos Room, Checklist.

I'm sure I'm missing many names but there's only three bands left from that list. Where did everyone else go? Did everyone get out of music? If they did, it's because there's no way to support oneself with music in Trinidad, unless you play soca, and there's no originality in that. Only gimmicks and rubbish lyrics, set to win a prize in the carnival season. How myopic can we be?

So please, take my advice.

Trinidad kills original, indie music.

If you want your career to grow, then find a way out of this place.

This post is also for all those great bands that existed, but sadly never really went anywhere.

How I miss 1995 and 2010, such great years.

My fellow Trinis, other than the few hundred of us that followed the underground scene religiously, you'll never know what great music you all missed out on, if you all had just opened your mind.

How I mourn for my country where music is concerned.

Suddenly you were gone

An old school-mate of mine was murdered almost four weeks ago.

Murdered.

He didn't die in a car crash, not by a heart attack, not taken early by disease. He was brutally murdered.

We were good friends for about two years in high-school and then we lost touch after graduation. That's part of life I guess, people drift apart and move on. We all assume rather naively that we'll stay in touch, and that we'll always be involved in each others' lives throughout the years.

He ran his own company - an anti-theft car retrieval service. He wanted to do something positive to fight crime in Trinidad. He was going to be the change that he wanted in his world. His name was Rawle Francis.

Rawle paid for that 'change' with his life.

Crime here is out of control and the most that the authorities can say is 'new initiatives are being worked on the combat crime'. Sounds reassuring doesn't it? Whatever initiatives that are being deployed certainly are not working. As of March 2nd, the murder rate for Trinidad stands at 91 for 2014, in a small country of some 1.2 million people. I'm pretty sure that's higher than the murder rate of all of Canada - a country of 30 million.

Rawle leaves to mourn a wife and three kids. The details of his murder are sketchy. To date no leads have been made in his case.

I wonder if his murderer felt any compassion at all, any remorse after reading the obituary. I wonder how could someone be so cruel, so wicked, so heartless.

At Rawle's funeral, there was a fair number of old Fatima boys - his classmates. His family look devastated. Who wouldn't be?

All the old boys greeted each other and stayed back to talk about what had happened and life in general. Some of us went for a drink in Rawle's honour. Some guys I had not seen since 1990 when I graduated.

I don't know if Rawle's killer will ever be brought to justice because of our terrible excuse for law enforcement and legal system here.

This country needs a lot of prayers and a concrete plan to combat crime on many levels, to deal with the root causes - trouble in the home, the breakdown in family life, unemployment, training and education programs for unskilled youths at risk, and initiatives to help those living below the poverty line find a better means of earning a living. Not just an increase in police vehicles. That's just dealing with the symptom and not the problem.

And yet, no government seems to have the common sense to understand our crime situation. They've all just dealt with the problem when it occurs. Like a reactive, clueless idiot they behave and hope that the country will be happy with their 'solution'

God help us all, because the government doesn't know how to save this country.

Rawle, rest in peace my brother. May your death not be in vain and may your killer be brought to swift justice.

Calypso is all but dead in Trinidad

Sometime ago, I got my hands on this CD - 'Calypso Awakening' from the Emery Cook Collection. I strongly suggest everyone get a copy of this. If you would like to hear real, authentic Calypso, then this is a must have in your CD collection.

Here's a link to the album.

http://www.folkways.si.edu/calypso-awakening-from-the-emory-cook-collection/caribbean/music/album/smithsonian

When you (my fellow Trini), hear the songs on this recording, you will hear for yourself what I am talking about.

The level of skill, wit, talent, banter on each of these songs delivered by The Mighty Sparrow, Lord Melody, Small Island Pride, Commander, Wrangler, King Fighter and the John Buddy Williams Band are beyond contest.

It's absolutely brilliant.

The lyrical content has you thinking, the melody and harmony lines have you singing and the beat will have you chipping and bouncing in your seat. The song arrangements are timeless and precise.

It's a great record.

What's so special about this recording? Well, for one, many of the performances are 'Live'. And the studio-recorded songs have a thick, fat feel to them. They sound alive and true. You can tell that every instrument is really being played. It's not a 'sample'.

Contrast that to now where all songs from Trinidad - the ruling art-form of Soca (son of Calypso) and the dying form of Calypso use an electronic drum pad to make 'a beat'. Where a keyboard plays the 'horn lines' and in some cases the bass lines as well. There's no real instrumentation, cept maybe a thin guitar line or two. No real hornsmen. Nothing. Where ALL 'singers' use the cursed Autotune software to create an effect for their voice, when the truth is that most of these 'Soca singers' cannot hold their keys live. And no matter how much each of these modern recordings are 'mixed and mastered' they still sound flat. They have no depth, no dynamics.

The fact is, modern day music of Trinidad has no soul.

Contrast the raw brilliance of this great period in time (the early 1900's to roughly around the 1970's) for our music, for our 'Kaiso', to what we have now - a time where nobody knows what are the Calypso songs for a Carnival season, only the 'Soca Hits'.

Contrast the healthy, competitive duel that used to go on between Calypsonians to what happens now between 'Soca Artistes'. In some Soca camps it's almost war. There's that much hatred and back-biting going on inside this great 'Soca Fraternity' when really, it's a Soca Mafia.

In the meantime, Calypso lays bleeding to death.

Look at this year's Calypso Monarch (2013) how poorly attended it was as compared to the growing popularity of Soca Monarch competitions - which have everything from fireworks to flying Soca singers to you name it - it's a blasted circus show.

After hearing the winner of this year's Calypso Monarch, I had come to the sad conclusion that Calypso is dead. There is no Calypsonian who can save our music. The older heads are getting older and are dying, and the younger ones cannot sing without the help of Autotune. The younger Calypsonians have no idea of lyrical content nor melody structure. It is terrible song-writing, if that is even a word to call this material - a song.

Well, don't even talk about Soca Artistes, they're not writing songs, they're selling noise-making hits that market this year's gimmick, whatever the hell it is for the year.

If no one has realized the fact that Calypso is dead, then I ask you this?

- When last did you go to a Calypso show? A tent?
- What new Calypsonians you like? Are they able to carry the torch forward to the next generation?
- Is Calypso making it to the world stage? Will it ever?
- What did you think of this year's Calypsos? (Not Soca tunes)
- Are the Calypso songs of this year able to stand up to the all the timeless classics we all love?
- What Calypso albums do you have?

I rest my case.

I mourn for Calypso. But when I turn on my radio, all I hear is a bunch of Autotuned 'Artistes' singing about jumping, waving, and doing some damn gimmick move.

It's like we've all become jackasses and we're so amused and impressed by our own stupidity.

The real funny thing is that Calypso nor Soca are going anywhere on the world stage.

But yet, we continue to fool ourselves in this little bubble of ours.

I hope you will weep for Calypso as I do.

Let's not be too sensitive now

You know, it's kinda sad how touchy people are nowadays. It seems the slightest thing will piss someone off.

A few things to never, ever, ever discuss - religion, politics, abortion, 9/11, world economics, world hunger, the destruction of the Amazon, the raping of Burma, all the various wars around the globe, world poverty, and the list goes on and on. If you try to bring up any of these, you will be met with resistance that this is not a 'nice, warm, fuzzy conversation to have in public'.

In fact, I think the only thing we can talk about is the weather, and that is such a fun, long and engaging conversation.

If you post anything online, heaven forbid you might offend someone with what you post. It's all about being 'Politically Correct'. When did common sense die and get replaced by being politically correct. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying we should all have the license to be an obnoxious as possible, but good common sense will tell anyone what's the right and wrong way to be.

And if you ask me, we spend so much time as a society trying to not offend anyone that we get nothing done in terms of real social progress. Really, what progress have we made in terms of human connections?

Perhaps if we just accepted a simple fact - that we are all different, and are each entitled to an opinion, whether right or wrong. If we accepted this fact, then we would show a lot more tolerance to differences of opinion and may even excuse people that rub us the wrong way. We could just simply brush it off as 'well, we all have free will and that's their choice, not mine and I choose not to react to it'.

Seems simple enough in theory but in reality, who am I trying to fool here?

Maybe we all need to grow a thicker skin and laugh more and grumble less.

As Van Wilder said 'You should never take life so seriously, you'll never make it out alive'

Happy Hopeful 2012

So happy new year everyone!!!! May this year be the year that everyone puts their best foot forward, excel at everything they do, conquer all obstacles, win all battles and be the best they can be - to themselves and to their fellow man and woman.

I don't know why but I have a lot of hope for this year.

I know all the doomsday people say that this is the last year, that the world ends on December 21, 2012, but I don't believe that entirely. There's all sort of reports that state that out modern-day conversion of the Mayan calender is off by nearly 50 - 100 years.

So.....

But, in the event that this year is it, I don't think it's the end of the world, maybe just the dawn of a new era, the dawn of awakening, of human and social justice. And in that sense, 2012 is the end of the age of materialism, and the awakening of mankind to a better day.

Welcome 2012.

Floods in Port of Spain - 19th & 21st November, 2011

About two weeks ago, one Saturday morning, the rains came pouring heavy, rained for over an hour, and next thing we knew, our family's street was a river, and for a moment, the waters were almost at our gate. While we dragged a few heavy bags of sand inside, we saw the waters reside, but in it's wake, there was debris everywhere.

Then we heard the news that Maraval was hit the worst - walls came tumbling down, houses were flooded, some houses even fell apart. That was Saturday.

Monday afternoon, the rains fell again, and parts of Maraval went underwater, there was a mudslide down a mountain, a few cars ended up in the river. It was a disaster that no one had seen in years, if ever at all.

While clean-up began immediately, the story was told last week that two communities in the area have many homeless people now living in two shelters.

Today I met one of them. She's a young mother, who works at one of schools I teach at. Ironically her school was flooded badly on that Monday. And today I asked her 'So, you guys had excitement at the school last week?' She tells me how she lost her home, that it came down with the rain, and she's now living at the shelter.

I told her I hope everything gets resolved asap, which seemed as empty as anything. The truth is, I wish I could help her find a new home, and quick.

I got to put my thinking cap on.

State of Emergency in Trinidad....making most of the time we have

Everything really is relative you know? It's funny how much we value time when we don't have much of it.

For the fifth time in our country's history, we're in a state of emergency with curfews placed on various parts of our twin-isle.

While many people are moaning and groaning about what this will, if anything accomplish; the fact still remains that our lives have changed now because of this recent situation, and we are all affected by this state of emergency.

Personally, I think it's a great move to tackle our country's crime problem.

Of course, the reality is we all have to be indoors by 9PM, and so night life is curtailed for a bit.

In the process, I'm trying to make lemonade out of lemons. I'm catching up on reading, practicing more guitar at night and mixing down a few music tracks of mine that I've been putting off for a few years.

So, in some sort of weird way, I'm actually glad this curfew is happening, because I'm clearing up my backlog of work that I said I was gonna get to now, for a good lil while.

Time is a valuable asset that never comes back.

My cousin used to tell me all the time, 'Three things don't ever come back - The spoken word, the spent arrow and time wasted'

So my advice to everyone during this time lockdown is make the most of all this free time you have now, do some good and clear out your mental closet and attic of work you might've been putting off.

Now, get to work ;>

Help for the Horn of Africa

In this modern day and age, where news travel faster than anything else, I find it hard to believe that people are dying in Africa. I mean, we all know what's happening, and yet we haven't rushed to stop it from getting worst. This drought, this famine.

I find it incomprehensible that people haven't donated to the point where the UN and other agencies tell people to stop sending money! Instead the UN is saying that it's running out of funding! how can this be? How? Don't we care as to what's happening to other people around the world?

If you are looking at the news every night then surely it must break your heart to see all those kids suffering from starvation?

If you haven't noticed or have chosen to ignore what's happening, then I hate to tell you this - trying to forget what's happening won't make it go away.

We have to do something about it.

So here's a list of websites where you can donate. Now you don't have to donate to ALL. Just one would be really, really nice.

Thank you for your kindness towards your fellow human being


http://www.supportunicef.org/site/pp.asp?c=9fLEJSOALpE&b=7542627

https://www.wfp.org/donate/hoa_banners

The USA for UNHCR

http://www.savethechildren.org/site/c.8rKLIXMGIpI4E/b.6146369/k.95B8/Ways_To_Give.htm

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/donate/overview.cfm?ref=main-menu

https://my.care.org/site/Donation2?df_id=9620&9620.donation=form1

https://www.mercycorps.org/donate/fighthunger

http://www.icrc.org/eng/donations/index.jsp

http://donate.worldvision.org/OA_HTML/xxwv2ibeCCtpItmDspRte.jsp?funnel=dn&item=1754360&go=item&section=10366&

A New day in Trinidad

Most of us here in Trinidad watched our TVs last night at first with anxiety,then hope and finally jubilation as we voted a new government in office yesterday. Not only did we vote a new government, but we also voted in, for the first time in our small, twin-island republic's history, a female Prime Minister.

This is a huge step for our country.

It seems as if we all collectively took a responsible step in finally taking care of our land, rather than deciding on tribal politics motivated by race. Rather than letting a government get away with EVERYTHING. And this last regime got away with everything and the kitchen sink. Rather than letting that sort of cowardly nonsense continue, we stood up and changed things.

Now this new regime of the People's Partnership, led by Mrs. Kamla Persad-Bissessar has a tough job ahead of them. Our land is in dire need of healing and transformation, so that ALL citizens can prosper. There's no reason for poverty, sickness and crime on this beautiful twin-isle republic. Absolutely no reason whatsoever.

So we, the citizens have to encourage them to do their best for the country and we have to hold them accountable to us. We voted them in, they are responsible to us. We have to take an active role in our country. This is our land, not the government's. All resources are owned by the people. The government is just a steward, doing what is best for its' citizens.

So now, we begin a new era of hope and prosperity for all in Trinidad & Tobago. And it's up to ALL of us to ensure that we make our country a better place, for all generations to come.

Two things missing here in Trinidad: Common Sense and Efficiency

So I'm gonna use this post to bitch about two things that happened to me recently.

Friday I parked in a car park on Tragarete Road to go play guitar for a yoga class, and there was nails and broken wood all in the car park. I went over some wood, luckily my tires were okay. All of this was left over from a few porter potty stalls that were built so patrons of Carnival could have a bathroom facility. Now, all of that is cool and all, but couldn't the same people who put up the stalls, couldn't they remove all the debris after they demolished the same said stalls? You think? Where's the common sense here? Did they use any at all? Common sense that is.

And now today, I go to Office Express on same Tragarete Road - 12 cents a copy, to make a few copies, probably about 50 pages in all, of four (4) not 40 guitar books, just four books. The level of bad service and attitude I got when I showed the sales clerk the books was uncalled for. I was told to leave it and pass back later, we agreed on 2PM. When I went back at the agreed time, nothing was done, no apology, nothing. When I took my books back and complained how nothing was done, I was told that the sales girl hadn't eaten yet. Now I can empathize with a heavy workload, but even a heart-felt apology would've been okay. I'm still waiting to receive it. So clearly Office Express doesn't know how to spell much less deliver efficiency in their productivity and service to customers. Don't think I'll ever go back there.

I asked someone on friday at Yoga class, 'why can't we trinis be efficient in what we do? why can't we have common sense? His answers to both my questions were 'Yuh forget where yuh living or wha? Is Trinidad!'

Yeah, for sure we heading for first world status, by 2300 probably.

Now if I don't laugh, I will cry. Lord, please help?!

The earth is not dying, she is being murdered

I saw that on a T-shirt in Vancouver, July 2008 while on tour.

It said, the earth is not dying, she is being murdered and those who are doing it have names and addresses. It was powerful, sad and brilliant. It brought home the point.

Corporations through their wild greed are killing the planet, making it their own, taking from her and not giving back. Every natural resource is there to destroy. What are we leaving for the next generation.

Many miles away, Coal River Mountain is being blasted by Massey Energy, for what? for profit? No matter how they spin it, people's lives will change and the environment will suffer in long run.

Here in Trinidad we are fighting against the building of not one, but three aluminium smelters. Sanctioned by our government. This will wreck our country.

Iceland is fighting their own battle over the destruction of their land, again for smelter use.

The list of environmental violations goes on and on. And what really gets me is that these corporate personnel that make decisions with the aid of governments actually feel that the population is stupid enough to believe what they say.

They only win if we give up the fight for truth, justice and a healthy balanced environment.

I hope Coal River Mountain can survive the blasting that is taking place, I hope it stops very soon, I hope the people win the case. I hope our smelters don't get built. And I hope everywhere, ordinary citizens fight for their environmental right to live a clean, healthy life, one not destroyed and created by corporate and government shady dealings behind closed doors.

The earth belongs to us all, not a handful of greedy companies and dishonest government officials.

This earth is OURS!

Can we be truly Independent here in Trinidad & Tobago?

Today is our 47th Anniversary as an independent nation. We're independent on paper, but in reality we are still a plantation economy. We are owned by multinational corporations, by the almighty oil dollar and by the banks. We are a slave to what they want. Our government is a slave, a puppet, a joke.

I'm grateful to live on a supposedly independent island, where I can do relatively within safe reason, what I want. But we are far from independent.

We were bought and sold by the corporate man, who fooled those who wanted to be rich, enslaved others and made the majority bitter that they didn't have what he has. We all want to be rich, now we fight for the useless scraps that are left. But why can't we be independent from the North American philosophy?

Why can't we enrich our people so we become self-sufficient? We have such a great country and we're pissing it away. I blame our government for just kissing the asses of the North and for not teaching and leading us in being really independent and more importantly Inter-dependent on each other here in Trinidad and Tobago.

Happy Independence my country. May we renew our oath to our home and make here a better place.

Three types of trinis

There's three types of Trinidadians:

1)Those who have no problem with the way the country is going, who have a plaster for every sore. Those who have no problem with rising crime, soaring inflation, continued unemployment, corrupt politicians, hooligan drivers. Those who have no problem with the HIV/AIDS problem in TNT. Those who don't see it as a problem that most marriages end with one or both partners being unfaithful. Those who don't have a problem with 3 Smelter plants going up in La Brea. Those who for want of a better word are clueless.

2) Those who used to live here and have moved away, be it North America, Canada, England, Europe or Australia. In some cases only for a few years, in other cases for decades. These trinis return home from time to time and state openly that they could never live here again - 'This place is too backward' they say. Their accent is now a foreign 'fresh water' one. 

If they want to forget their heritage that's fine with me.

My only question to them is 'Wasn't it always this way when you lived here? And if not did your leaving make it so - a backward country?' Didn't you grow up in this land that we all called home. And yes it has changed. But one should never criticise where one comes from, for be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. And no matter how long you live away, you will always be an immigrant to that land.

3) Trini # 3 is accepting the reality of life here, living with it on a daily basis and is trying his/her best to live through it/with it and adapt accordingly while still fighting the good fight of decency and brotherly love. It is not an easy battle. But Trini # 3 is certainly much more aware of things than Trini #1 & 2 ever will be. Trini #3 holds onto the memory of a beautiful Trinidad from years gone and believes that with hard work, an honest heart, faith and love that this land may one day return to being a paradise.

There is still no place like home

The moral of the war in Trinidad

I have returned home to my Trinidad, after being away almost 6 years. I returned home to be with my family, and because North America didn't feel like home, just one big shopping mall with many shiny objects to buy and keep me enslaved to work harder so I could con myself into buying more and more shiny toys.

I visited home annually and sometimes twice in one year; checking up on family and friends, going to the new hot spots and hitting a beach or two. And it always felt as if home was the place to be, that I would one day return home. So I decided to do so in 2008.

I am glad I left the hellish rat race, because as nice and clean and orderly the first world is, outside in their world you're just an immigrant.

But now that I'm back here for good, it's as if I see the place for what it really is – a country in turmoil. We're in utter conflict. Most don't really seem to notice, almost as if they're in a daze or something. 'Yeah prices going up, so what? It going up all over d world', 'yeah crime bad, but other countries have bad crime too, so where really safe?'

And as much as there is some truth to what people are saying, my real beef is - 'Who are we holding accountable here in Trinidad when things do go wrong?' For all this talk from our great visionary Prime Minister and his tout of 'Vision 2020', there's still so many things that are wrong and getting gradually worse here. So if things are decaying right now, right in front of us, how can we build a better Trinidad by 2020? Surely this is a joke.

One need only to step outside their neighbourhood to see dilapidated roads, sinking pavements, poor drainage, terrible waste management, poor handling of garbage disposal, a rising and threatening vagrancy problem, continuing inflation, a terrifyingly escalating crime rate, ongoing road rage that in most cases results in violence daily on our roadways, terminally-linked environmental hazards and the list goes on and on.

Our murder rate is almost double what it was this time last year, we are building 3 smelters which will surely kill our water table and most certainly annihilate the residents of La Brea, not to mention the air pollution that will follow, and the effect it will have on our beaches.

 And if that wasn't crazy enough we are having a construction boom as if the entire Caribbean is moving to Trinidad. We are spinning way out of control.

I've realized that most people have become powerless to these thing and just accept it as given,and fair enough. If the powers that be at the top aren't doing one bloody thing about why should we care?

Because of the fact that we're making the place worse for our kids. And I don't have kids, but I shudder to think what kind of country they'll inherit.

If the government has no regard as to what they tell us, and if they continue to show utter contempt for the law and its citizens by assuming we're all stupid (one just has to look at what nonsense Hon. Karen Nunes did with the CLICO/CIB fiasco to see where government's honour really lies), then my next question is whose example are we to follow if we're rotten from the top down?

It's not about partisan lines or anything like that, but if anyone can tell me one good thing this current administration has done for 'sweet' TNT in the last 8 years, then please tell me because I can't find one thing. I have seen change in this land and it is only for the worst.

I have seen hope, in the hands of a few communities that are changing things in their own way and for the better, and in one activist group called 'Drummit 2 Summit' – a group protesting our staging of the 5^th Summit of the Americas (which we all know was a farce and a waste of our money).

And after only being back 6 months, I'm glad to be back to fight this fight on the home-front, because now is the time when we have to be accountable to ourselves and hold our government officials accountable, because they are doing rubbish.

And by their poor example, we have the by-product of that - hooligans who are running wild doing what they want, driving how they want, saying what they want, stealing, raping, kidnapping and murdering. We can say this is not the government's fault, but if their lead is a poor one, then whom do we follow?

Our actions start off as thought, and thoughts are formed by our environment and personal experiences. And if our environment is corrupt, then we become twisted and perverse. This correlation should be clear to all, as none of us live in a bubble.

I do believe in the decency of human beings, and that most Trinbagonians are decent people, I meet good people everyday, but we cannot feel justice if our entire system is corrupt and those who know how to manipulate it do so very well. And this goes for the big crook as well as the petty criminal. It's all the same to me.

Maybe if we learnt how to take care of our fellow neighbour as we would ourselves and then pass this ideology of brotherhood and honest consideration to others, then maybe we can rebuild this nation, street by street and town by town. All it takes is one group or neighbourhood starting to do something positive and progressive for all concerned and great things will surely happen.

But now is the time for war, and our morality is at stake. And though we may be losing the battle, I do hope we – the decent, law-abiding patriots of Trinidad and Tobago win this war, because it is a noble fight, and we all have to do our part to do what's right.

Do we need governments anymore?

Is this government helping or hurting us? Do they care? I'm convinced they don't. The various public services by extension don't help the citizens of this land.

Maybe it's time we just took care of ourselves and our communities, maybe after we do that on a small level, maybe then we can reach out to other communities and rebuild our land, neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

I am tired of lies by our government. But what scares me more, are those blind supporters who don't smell the bullshit that's being shovelled down their throat. That scares me.

I can take care of myself, better than any government can take care of me. I wish we could do away with this false version of reality they impose on us. It's all a lie. We've been lied to for far too long.

I hope we all wake up before it's too late.