found this to be a very interesting take on the situation we now find ourselves in politically and otherwise
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/commentaries/As_good_as_it_gets-106430578.htmlAs good as it gets
By Michael Harris
Story Created: Nov 1, 2010 at 3:40 AM ECT
Story Updated: Nov 1, 2010 at 3:40 AM ECT
About a month after the People's Partnership came into office I was asked by a radio talk-show host whether I considered that the new government was taking too long to settle down. On that occasion I was emphatic in my response that it was much too early, at that point in time, to make any such judgement.
I argued then that it was not unexpected that the new government would have to take some time to discover and come to terms with the many difficult issues it had inherited from the previous administration and that as the process played itself out they would settle upon a clear "modus operandi''.
Interestingly enough a few days ago I was asked the very same question by a gentleman, a much-respected legal figure in the country. He asked me when I thought the government would finally settle down. My response on this occasion was that what we were seeing may be as good as it gets.
What we are seeing, and have been seeing since the People's Partnership came to office, is a total lack of clear direction, an utter lack of coordination, and, in these latter days, a disturbing degree of internal conflict and confusion. The aggregation of all these things is a clear impression of a government stumbling drunkenly down the road.
The lack of a clear direction is certainly not surprising. The Partnership is, as I have stated many times before, the ultimate pick-up side. It was yoked together a few weeks before the general election in order to present to the population, desperate to get rid of a dangerous administration, a minimally palatable alternative choice.
It was always very clear that in their haste to present a united front the leaders of the Partnership did not have the time to work out any kind of consensus with regard to a philosophy of government. This lack of any clear, core philosophy is directly responsible for the very evident lack of direction in the Government.
What, however, has also become very clear over their period in office, is that the Partnership also failed to put in place any mechanisms of, and guidelines for, on-going discussion, debate and decision-making amongst the constituent elements. It is this failure to put in place such mechanisms and guidelines that is leading to the lack of coordination and the constant eruption of manifestations of conflict and confusion.
Even this problem is not, in itself, decisive in terms of an assessment of the Partnership's ability to "settle down". For, as I have argued recently, it is still possible even now, for the leaders of the Partnership to put in place at least some minimal structures and guidelines for decision-making.
What is decisive, however, is the fact that there seems to be no attempt whatsoever to begin such a task and, more disturbing, any indication that the leaders of the Partnership even recognise that a problem exists. It is this, more than anything else, which constitutes a cause for concern.
If all this "rumbling and tumbling" in the atmosphere (as an activist from one of the constituent parties recently described it), is not seen as a problem big enough and urgent enough to demand corrective measures then those of us who see what is going on, and consider that there is a problem, have no choice but to reassess the pertinence of our assumptions.
We have no choice but to consider the possibility that, in the view of the leaders of the Partnership, the lack of co-ordination, the conflict and the confusion are not deleterious phenomena but are acceptable, expected and indeed positive manifestations in the context of their perspective as to how a government, or at least a government derived from such a construct as the Partnership, should function.
In considering this possibility we would have to acknowledge that what we are seeing in terms of the "modus operandi'' of this Government is indeed a far cry from how the previous PNM administration operated.
We have moved from a government which spoke with one voice to a government in which there is a cacophony of unco-ordinated voices. We have moved from a government in which all the members supported and defended every policy no matter how absurd or dangerous, to a government in which members openly disagree with stated policy. We have moved from a government in which "party discipline'' facilitated a growing dictatorship, to a government in which the lack of inter-party structure facilitates total indiscipline.
Viewed from this perspective the leaders of the Partnership may very well believe that they are giving the people what they voted for. They may well argue that, in the context of the kind of loose operation they are running, there is no possibility of the recurrence of the threat of maximum leadership and creeping dictatorship which the population feared in the last administration and from which they turned in such massive numbers.
If indeed this is the point of view to which all or most of the leaders of the Partnership subscribe then those of us who wait for them to "settle down''may well be waiting in vain. This is indeed as good as it gets and we may as well exhale and enjoy the road show.
Be warned, however, that our enjoyment may be short-lived. For, in the first place, neither the "modus operandi'' of the last administration nor that of this present one is conducive of good government. Also, let us understand, particularly in the context of our Constitution which is so facilitative of executive domination, that the road to dictatorship also passes through the valley of anarchy.
• Mr Harris has been for many years a writer and commentator on politics and society in Trinidad and the wider Caribbean. He is a long-standing member of the Tapia House
Group and works as a human
resource executive
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, anybody know if it have people does fix dese ting and doh charge ah arm and ah leg,........it eh really hard to scrape up d 750- 1000 dollars but if it fixable...... cheapish a goh try dat fuss
was one ah d scary tings I ever see oui, ah pull ah torrent jus to get dis episode, fuuckin ting still damn creepy 
dem is done d only 2 premium movie channels I have, dey sayin dat dat is d directive for all cable providers..........so cinemax an' hbo goin an get d same treatment.........dias real shit..............an I did done lookin forward to Sparticus................I sure is some over sensitive religous nut behind dat shit move 
.............. i,m accustomed to ms office u delete the contents of a cell and move on
, and that kinda scares me, trinis have a tendency to expect magic cures for everything an den "turn ass" when dey doh get it. all I really lookin for is a more stable line up allowing for cohesion in the team, reintroduction of passing game and better organized "attacking" midfield play, whether he is on or off the field. very simple, 
, can benefit from learnin this art because again its practical, u wont find any magical jet Li/kung fu stuff in it. It simply focuses on teaching the user about "potentially" staying alive in many close encounter scinarios.