US Agrees Corruption In The Bahamas At All Time High!
The Editor
Bahamas Press
6 August 2021
Dear BP.
It has been clear from the start that the FNM intends to engage in personality assassination rather than run on its miserable, appalling and disastrous performance in office. So rather than debate the issues their trolls and sycophants engage in daily scurrilous, slanderous and defamatory attacks on the leader of the opposition, his family and anyone remotely related to him. In their quest to win the next election by any means necessary they have sunk to depths of demonic activity unheard of in Bahamian politics. And, as newspapers have always been a powerful means of influencing thought and opinion, they rely on a discredited, lazy and biased press to amplify these scurrilous attacks on opposition personalities. Whether it is some “ghosted” article by one of the FNM bought and paid for poison pen specialists or a false representation of the facts these workers of evil are fully engaged in their pursuits.
A recent example makes this point. On 28 th July 2021 the Tribune had this banner headline”. Survey: About One in Five Thinks Country Is Going Right Way”. Now, if you were to see this headline and not bother to read the entire article you would think, wrongly, that most Bahamians were pleased with the FNM performance in
government. Clearly that’s not the case but the headline was intended to confuse and misinform the Bahamian public. If one in five thought that then, they make up 20% of the persons surveyed. Left intentionally unanswered is what do the other 80% of those surveyed think. One must infer that they felt that the country was going in the wrong direction. But that is not the message the FNM adherents and apologists want you to discern. This is one of the many ploys that will be engaged to defend an administration which is clearly incompetent and fully responsible for the rising covid infections, deaths and destruction of the Bahamian way of life. Secret contracts to family, friends, lovers and cronies get no coverage in the media.
The media will also not report on continued concerns expressed in US reports on the lack of transparency in awarding of government contracts, the perceived steering of contracts to associates of the government and other seemingly corrupt actions when the government awards contracts and appears to abuse the public procurement process with impunity.
They appear dumb struck by the level of the government’s arrogance, disingenuity and outright falsehoods which they report in its raw form daily. They appear incapable of reporting about the troubling Kanoo scandal which continues to reverberate through the country as more and more of the details and FNM party
affiliations become known. One must wonder what they intend to do when their political benefactors leave office. In a small community like ours, this should weigh in their minds at least occasionally although I have my doubts. Afterall, a biased media has created the atmosphere in which opposition parties accept that their views will never be reported without some editorializing, and gratuitous insertion of a smear or misrepresentation directed at the opposition leader or other opposing voices. An atmosphere in which media accepts the totally undemocratic reality that opposition parties sometime must launch their own newspapers to get a fair hearing.
Indeed, I am convinced that our media is dedicated to amplifying negative messages against the governments perceived opponents because they seek some benefit or reward for their blind obedience.
Then there’s the continued politization of the National Awards system and the questionable appointments in the public all of which has been kept under the radar simply because the print media refuses to investigate them. The FNM strategy of demonizing and scandalizing its political opponents is not only destructive but
divides the Bahamas.
Sadly, the print media which is supposed to act as a brake on the most extreme behaviors of our politicians are complicit in amplifying divisive messages by not questioning the poisonous, false FNM narrative simply because they lack the guts and commitment to do so. The wider our country’s divide grows, the more Bahamian politicians seem to demonize people with opposing viewpoints.
This “demonization mentality” has become common in our politics and is especially present among prominent FNM politicians, political operatives and paid propagandists as a tool of the trade. The government has complained that the opposition has politicized the Covid-19 pandemic while cynically ignoring the many offers of assistance from the opposition’s medical experts. Who can forget the PM’s snide and dismissive retort that “ I don’t listen to Brave”?
Yet, on 6 th October 2020 the opposition leader made these comments “ Today, we submit a series of recommendations for steps the government can take almost immediately. It is not a comprehensive national plan; we lack full access to the national data and information available to the government. However, it is based on scientific developments and a review of best practices in countries that have had far more success than ours”. So, who’s politicising the pandemic.
The reality is that if the opposition wants to have a productive political discussion or offer their assistance, snide, dismissive remarks automatically shut down the conversation, and for good reason. No one wants to converse with someone who seeks to marginalise them, name-calls, and points fingers without being willing to discuss issues in a mature manner.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Brown
