Listening to and reading all the events leading up to the USA’s fiscal cliff and the last minute (and past deadlines) decisions to avert same, do you see a similar pattern here to our own ones in the Cayman Islands?

The US Senate has now a history of leaving everything to the last minute, then introducing a stop gap interim measure to put off a final decision to another day. When that day looms it goes through the same painful and damaging exercise again. …… and again.

So if the Super Power can do it we must follow the same dangerous and winding path that seems to have no ending?

Exactly what has been accomplished over the last twelve months here in the Cayman Islands? What has been accomplished over the whole term of the United Democratic Party (UDP) Government? What has been accomplished over the last twelve months in the USA? What has been accomplished over the whole term of President Obama?

More debt and unemployment is the answer to both the USA and the Cayman Islands economies.

The Democrats blame the Republicans for the mess and vice versa. The downright hatred of Obama by many Republicans means they will not pass anything that comes directly from him and damn to the consequences of their actions. The country and its people take second and third place to their personal vendettas and ambitions.

The UDP government has placed all the blame for the Cayman Islands financial woes on the previous People’s Progressive Movement (PPM) government, even after nearly four years. The UDP government has blamed their inability to start any of their ambitious plans for a new Waste Management facility, a new cruise ship facility and an airport expansion on both the PPM and the United Kingdom who now has oversight (“because of the mismanagement by the previous PPM government”).

The suspicion (bordering on hatred) by some opposition members of the Cayman Legislative Assembly from anything Ken Dart of Camana Bay fame proposes has produced cries of “foul play” and “Cayman is selling itself to foreigners”. No mention is made on the many pluses the Dart initiatives will bring – jobs, people, money, etc. only the minuses. No alternative proposals are given. Zero. The flag of “jobs for Caymanians only” is waved without saying where these jobs are coming from. To replace foreign workers with Caymanians does not make more jobs. That recipe is stagnation. Caymanians need jobs but there must be a creation of new jobs for them to fill.

For the first time since I have lived here in the Cayman Islands I have seen a widening gap between the Caymanian and the expat. Most of the blame comes from the hate filled blogs appearing on the media site that encourages same and comments, letters and viewpoints from ill informed politicians and would be ones who think such expositions will mean votes because the Caymanians really do outnumber the expat population in this department.

Reading some of Dr. Frank McField, ex MLA and government minister’s, recent letters to the press (not to iNews Cayman, though) I wondered if this really was the Dr. Frank I had known for thirty years. Some of his utterings must have come directly out of the head of the mule he once left in our garden many years ago, tied to one of our trees!

The upshot is 2012 has been a pretty non-productive year. If only our political leaders had used a quarter of the hot air of words they have uttered constructively then a lot could have been accomplished. This applies equally to here and the USA.

We even had the miserable spectacle of a tarnished premier trying to cling to power and in so doing bringing shame not only to himself but also to his own party. The party he started and now has torn apart. What took years to build has taken only minutes to bring down.

Not content in this he allows his young and immature party general secretary to verbally attack five of his seven senior ministers who courageously voted with their conscience by putting their country first.

I still cannot understand how one of these other two party members, a former respected government minister, changed his mind and opted to remain by the side of the now disposed premier. He thereby had to sit and listen to a seemingly endless nonsensical and hate filled tirade at the party’s public meeting and by so doing giving it his support. It was also shameful to hear some of the members of the crowd gathered there give cries of approval to the party secretary’s speech and even applaud. It made me feel sick.

Some of the statements screamed out through the sound system likened the now famous five to being Judas’ and had “drunk from the cup of deceit”. I can only liken his attack and the others who gave him support to the same rabble that shouted for Jesus’s crucifixion!!

This is now all in the past. It is time to look forward. It is 2013.

Is this going to be a New Beginning?

Will there be a new party elected to govern our country?

Or will it be a coalition of independents who are already part of a coalition that isn’t in fact a party but has rules and regulations exactly like a party?

Or will it be a gathering of independents that didn’t get the mandate of approval from the independent coalition with the rules and regulations exactly like a party?

Are you confused? The permutations are mind blowing. One could get the deposed government re-elected with independents that didn’t get the mandate of approval from the independent coalition with the rules and regulations exactly like a party.

Or even the other party with independents from … wherever…..?

I expect to hear the battle cry of “Country Must Come First!!” I will heartily endorse that one.

Can we really find candidates that actually are standing in the 2013 election because they love their country FIRST? Secondly they want to make a difference because they have certain gifts and experience that will help them make decisions beneficial to their country? Or is their number one priority in their equation of thinking personal ambition, power and money?

I have often heard people say, well this person “already has money so he must be standing in the election for his country’s sake.” Not so. People with money often want more and with power that makes it all the more easy.

All of us who can vote this year must be very careful whom we choose to be our representative(s). Think twice or thrice. You can only place your cross against someone’s name once. It’s like cutting a piece of wood. Measure twice and cut once. If you haven’t damage is then done. It cannot be corrected.

And to all of these women and gentlemen who get elected. If someone in opposition to you proposes something that you think is good for the country don’t oppose it. In fact anything that is proposed think about it first. Discuss it if you want with people you trust. Country first.

If we practice this we just might have a country that shakes itself and gets rid of all the dirt that has gathered on its coat tails.

We could be an example of how to run a country to even the USA. Although, from what I have seen lately that wouldn’t be a hard task to achieve.