Mahogany CoConut Blog

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                                                          Respect Our LGBT Community Didi Winston The Mahogany Coconut Group supports the stand taken by Didi Winston against the Price Smart Supermarket employee, who displayed extremely unprofessional behavior while in contact with Ms. Winston, who was a customer on June 10 th 2014. To our understanding, the employee’s attitude toward Ms. Winston was clearly discriminatory because she is a transgender citizen. We therefore welcome the efforts of the top management at Price Smart in meeting with her and treating the issue with the seriousness it deserves. We realize that Barbadians and other Caribbean citizens accepting our LGBT community will be slow in coming. The MCG respects those who oppose the gay lifestyle but we have cautioned that if the heterosexual community expects respect from our LGBT community, they must in turn reciprocate. On the other hand, we urge the LGBT commu

The Caribbean Is One Nation.        Venezuela/Guyana border tango  By Ricky Singh WHILE the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was signalling a warning last week to Trinidad and Tobago on its “vulnerability” to a decline in energy prices, Caribbean Community heads of government were urging Venezuela to move “definitively” for a resolution to its territorial dispute with Guyana. Of immediate interest to Guyana is the urgency for an understanding by Venezuela of Guyana’s unhindered access to its territorial waters for off-shore oil exploration. And the 19th century colonial-inherited territorial problem for  the governments in Caracas and Georgetown is to be addressed during an informal meeting of the presidents of Venezuela (Nicolas Maduro) and Guyana (Donald Ramotar) on the margins of the current three-day summit of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) bloc of states that started yesterday in Brazil. Hosted by Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                              The Imperialism Of The US Dollar And The Global Wars Of The Banking Titans                                   By Pachamama After World War Two virtually all national economies were in ruins, except the United States, of course. These circumstances gave rise to the United States dollar as the medium of exchange between countries. In this process countries were forced to exchanged their national currencies for US dollars to settle amounts owned to foreigners. And foreign countries were forced to do the same to pay for goods and services. In both cases fees were charged, by predominately American banks, making the transactions more expensive than if national currencies or a basket of currencies could have been used.   This structure gave rise to United States banks as the leading financial institutions in the global economy. In addition, the post Bretton Woods architecture made the US dollar the reserve currency of the world

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                                                                Palestine, Oh Palestine! By Pachamama The Zionist regime in Palestine only started to emerge after the 1880's (AD). And despite the lies told by the Christian Bible, there was never a geographical location anywhere on earth called Israel, never! During the 1890's the discourse for a Jewish nation state continued to receive popular support in public narratives. After World War One that discourse, with the help of the allied powers, had reached its ascendancy. We then had the Balfour Declaration (1917), the secret Franco-Anglo-Russo, Sykes-Pico Agreement (1916) as the relative winners of WW1 had displaced the Ottoman Empire and now had designs, largely for the petroleum resources, on Western Asia now known as the Middle East and North Africa regions. So the proposed state of Israel was seen as a beachhead for Western oil and capitalist interests.   So Isra

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                                                  Race Money and Politics In Barbados Barbados National Flag By William Skinner Our erudite Prime Minister, Mr. Freundel Stuart spoke the truth, when he said that there are powerbrokers that want to control black politicians but want no contact with the masses. As the Prime Minister said: “They don’t want to dirty their hands.” In other words, they avoid politics but want to be powerbrokers within the system. He also asserted that he is proud to be of the political class and that this class knows how to bury their differences when it is necessary. Former Prime Minster, Erskine Sandiford, once reminded a group of corporate heavy boys that he was “not elected in a board room”; Dr. don Blackman reminded us that there were white shadows, whose main focus was to influence and control the black political management class and another former Prime Minister, Mr. Owen Arthur, called Mr. Harold

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                                                                Chattel Slavery in 2014 By Pachamama As the newly minted President of Mauritania heads to Washington DC to kiss the ring of the titular head of global arrogance, chattel slavery remains as pernicious and unremitting as ever. Of course, there are several gradations of present day slavery as suborned by capitalism, but chattel slavery represented a deviation from any kind of inhumanity hitherto known to man. Maybe Obama will raise this issue with Abdul Aziz, not that it would make any difference though, for the chattel slaves of Mauritania, Mali and Niger are not known to have any relationships with the powerful 'gay rights lobby' in Obama's America. For their  interests are to misguide us from focusing on historical wrongs and elevate their fetish to a supreme status within a set of 'newly' defined global norms. Those kinds of personal relationships

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                                                     Oh No, Mr. Shaw !       Trinidad and Tobago National Flag   “ It was only a matter of time before soldiers decided to intervene directly to protect their own, to exact justice if not revenge, against two-bit criminals who dare to attack, to murder, their comrades. ” Raffique Shaw, Trinidad Express, 7/5/2014 Today (7/8/14) we carry a very serious article by Raffique Shaw, a columnist of the Trinidad Express. We find it difficult to castigate Mr. Shaw, himself a former soldier and one extremely versed both as a journalist and participant in military affairs and politics in Trinidad and Tobago. He is one of those rare Caribbean citizens, who has had and apparently continues to have a bird’s eye view of the Political/Military complex of Trinidad and Tobago. http://mahoganycoconut.blogspot.com/2014/07/trinidad-army-backlash-was-predictable.html However, we unapologetically part c

The Caribbean Is One Nation. Army backlash was predictable By Raffique Shah   It was only a matter of time before soldiers decided to intervene directly to protect their own, to exact justice if not revenge, against two-bit criminals who dare to attack, to murder, their comrades. Civil society can shout till it is hoarse about the illegality of the troops imposing a measure of martial law in what have become war zones, they cannot stop the backlash. A few weeks ago I warned the populace, especially the bad boys and their family and community support bases, of this happening. When soldiers going about their normal duties or living their normal lives are targeted by criminals who feel they own “turfs” and “territories”, and when the powers that be fail to stop such lawlessness, the army will move in and fill the vacuum.  The madness that has descended on this society, huge swathes of urban communities reduced to fiefdoms ruled by gun-toting gangsters who arrogate unt

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                                                  Dr. Anthony Blasts Regions Leaders Again Dr. Kenny Anthony “I cannot say that this has been the best ever meeting of CARICOM in recent times. I think there was too much recycling. Recycling just not of items, not just of issues but I get the impression that sometimes there is a lack of will to really implement decisions we have made about how we ourselves will organize , the meetings, (and)  manage the meetings of the heads of governments. ” Dr. Kenny Anthony, St. Lucia’s Prime Minister, commenting on the recently concluded CARICOM heads of governments meeting in Antigua. We note that this is the second time in recent months, which Dr. Anthony has been very candid about how he feels in relation to what is presently passing for leadership in CARICOM. On that occasion, we welcomed his comments but unfortunately they did not even cause a whimper in regional circles. We are convinced

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                  Livy Carter – In Memorium The Late Livingstone Carter By Pachamama We are born alone We die alone Only love and friendship Help us believe, we're not alone (Hunter S Thompson (sic))    On Tuesday 17th June 2014 Cleveland Livingstone Carter (Livy) transitioned to another state of being. I would like to think that he is now with our ancestors but he was a Christian man and possessed strong beliefs in those traditional values. So for this moment and for my friend Livy, I hope that he is right and that I am wrong. Livy was a special human being with a deeply rooted sense of right and wrong. In another time and space he would have been a social activist of world renown. In a space unencumbered by a certain kind of history he might have found politics as the best means of service to humanity. In the end it was service to others, from his younger days and for most of his life, that separated Liv

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                                   World Soccer 2014 - It's Anybody's Cup                             By Pachamama   As we leave the round of sixteen (16) and move to the final eight (8) it is fairly clear that the homogenization of soccer culture has left the leading teams nearly equal. There has been few results with margins of more than three (3) goals. Indeed most matches, even in the preliminaries, were closer than was expected by most commentators.  As we enter the final eight, France vs Germany; Brazil vs Colombia; Argentina vs Belgium; Netherlands vs Costa Rica; we may indeed have unexpected semi-finalists and finalists. Certainly, Belgium, Colombia and Costa Rica have not threatened to go all the way in recent years or even before. While the others have more pedigree, if you will. Brazil has only shown fleeting displays of the brilliance expected. Germany has been, as usual, workmanlike and strong in defense, but