US Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma re­cent­ly said that "noth­ing is wrong with our coun­try but some­thing is wrong with our pol­i­tics."Truth be told, I am ful­ly con­vinced that some­thing sim­i­lar may ap­ply to T&T as the same racial, ide­o­log­i­cal, and po­lit­i­cal di­vide ex­ists in our pol­i­tics.In the US the con­ser­v­a­tive Re­pub­li­cans would not al­low Oba­ma to suc­ceed with job cre­ation and the econ­o­my as that may be to his ben­e­fit and to their detri­ment.In the same way the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) re­fus­es to al­low the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) Gov­ern­ment to suc­ceed as this may lead to the PP hav­ing a sec­ond term in gov­ern­ment.But what the pnm is do­ing to the PP is ex­act­ly what the PP did to the pnm and what ul­ti­mate­ly led to the pnm's de­feat at the polls on May 24, 2010.Bas­deo Pan­day's civ­il dis­obe­di­ence or An­cil Ro­get's na­tion­al shut­down is one and the same in dif­fer­ent cloth­ing, and that's just the way pol­i­tics goes.Ro­get is Pan­day and Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is Patrick Man­ning. There is no dif­fer­ence as they are all one and the same when it comes to achiev­ing their po­lit­i­cal aims, goals, and am­bi­tions. Each one has at the heart of their ar­gu­ments the ad­vance­ment of their own self­ish and solip­sis­tic cause and ide­ol­o­gy.Oba­ma has a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic agen­da that he is com­mit­ted to while pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Mitt Rom­ney has a Re­pub­li­can agen­da to which he is com­mit­ted. Per­sad-Bisses­sar has a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress/PP agen­da to which she is com­mit­ted and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley has a PNM ide­al to which he is com­mit­ted.It there­fore be­hooves the peo­ple to ig­nore and view with sus­pi­cion any­thing and every­thing com­ing from politi­cians un­less it has a dis­tinct ben­e­fit and ad­van­tage to them and their com­mu­ni­ties.

I think the peo­ple of T&T have fi­nal­ly reached a place in their po­lit­i­cal ma­tu­ri­ty where they now know that they have the pow­er to call the shots and they can play politi­cians just as well as they are played by them.This is an in­ter­est­ing de­vel­op­ment be­cause what it means is that no par­ty can com­mand the ab­solute loy­al­ty of any one group. There are now enough peo­ple on both sides of the po­lit­i­cal di­vide who are will­ing at a mo­ment's no­tice to be­tray their own if they be­lieve they are be­ing duped or used. The peo­ple have adopt­ed the self­ish­ness and self-cen­tred­ness that for too long have been the hall­mark of the politi­cians they once gave their ab­solute loy­al­ty.The ex­tent of their loy­al­ty does not now go be­yond what they de­mand of the ones they choose to put in pow­er. Their love, com­mit­ment, and loy­al­ty to any par­ty or politi­cian are now per­fect­ly com­men­su­rate to the ad­van­tages they per­ceive can be gleaned from such loy­al­ty and com­mit­ment.The first girl­friend, once blind­ly loy­al to the phi­lan­der­ing and flirt­ing first boyfriend, has fi­nal­ly seen the light. She has fi­nal­ly got­ten over him and has now found the in­ner strength and for­ti­tude to de­mand what she de­serves, or else.Point Fortin and Tal­paro et al are now ready to turn against the PP they tem­porar­i­ly hand­ed their loy­al­ty. I will arise and go back to my old pnm boyfriend if your promis­es prove to be as shal­low as his for af­ter all he was there be­fore you. This is the word of the peo­ple to the PP.This is what I per­ceive to be the mes­sage be­hind all these protests and road­blocks. The wife has be­come just like her hus­band, who­ev­er he may be, and will sleep with the one who treats her the best.