This entire post is rife with asinine statements. I also find it richly ironic that you are in here playing the victim talking about people denouncing you as drinking PP Kool-Aid when in fact you have been guilty of doing the very thing you complain of. I remember in particular an exchange I had with you about two weeks or so ago when you accused me of being part of a biased PNM clique (wildly paraphrasing). From that point on I wrote off any discourse with you as a waste of time.
Not sure what you're referring to. If I did, then that's unfortunate and not intended. I'll say I've made every effort to be as neutral as possible.
And I'm looking for no sympathy - frankly I just want a space where I can talk about non-partisan T&T politics and issues.
And btw... no, if you go back to 2010 you will not find anything resembling the accusations currently leveled at the PP gov't. There were a number of posters here who were adamantly against Manning (if not the PNM itself) and who voted for the Partnership, many who wanted to give COP specifically a chance, some who wanted to give Kamla a chance, and some who were in the "anybody but PNM" camp.
That's exactly what I'm talking about though. The way Kamla was overwhelmingly voted in, despite signs that history was going to repeat itself (given that the party had many of the same suspects that got voted out when the UNC was in power prior, and that Jack was the big financier).
The most common complaints against the PNM were Manning's dictatorial style (particularly after sidelining Rowley) and the Calder Hart and Spiritual Advisor (the Pena woman) imbroglio.
What I've specifically tried to argue here is that you can draw parallels between this and Kamla's issue today. Manning's dictatorial style has similarities with Kamla's lack of control tendencies. I think they approached it from the opposite ends of the spectrum - that is, Manning exerted too much control and micro-managed his cabinet while Kamla seemed to let her cabinet run amok. The big difference is somehow Kamla maintained her individual favourability (based on favourability numbers compared to how Manning brought his entire party down), but both did it to the detriment of the government/country.
Calder Hart was a major corruption scandal, and Rowley himself did a lot to disclose the billions of dollars in gross mismanagement that happened as part of the variety of UDECOTT projects. Again, comparable perhaps to Lifesport, Highway corruption, and other PP corrupt events but warrants comparing the dollar amounts/something to figure out which was the "worst".
The Manning/Pena issues draw similarities to Kamla's drunk and infidelity accusations.
There was nothing even remotely similar to the complaints about gross mismanagement and outright theft you're hearing these days about the PP.
This is where I'm not sold, because everytime statements like this are made, there aren't attempts to quantify it. I'm not trying to downplay PP corruption, but I think people are understating the mismanagement of prior scandals (including Manning's UDECOTT, the Piarco airport, and others that preceded). It's easy to make an absolute statement that "xyz government is the most corrupt" and then cite specific corruption scandals as anecdotal evidence. But to do so without at least trying to compare them on some kind of comparable metric (like $$ stolen) isn't leaving much room for discussion.
This was true of the political climate in TnT generally, and of this forum specifically. But of course you wouldn't know that, since by your own admission you seldom ventured here. Ignorant of that context, your statement that this is "largely a one-sided board" seems particularly ridiculous, say nothing of being errant.
I was pretty clear that I said it was based on my experience/perceptions in the 2015 election cycle, and my 2010/2007 was pure speculation which I clearly disclaimer-ed.
