New Onion

I’m disappoint with the behavior of almost everyone on the gambling debate with the exception of the UBP and the PLP back bench. On Facebook the BDA likened the harm of gambling to the harm of alcohol and said that:

The truth is however that addiction problems will develop in a small proportion of people….whatever the “substance”. We recognize that alcohol is the most common substance of abuse/dependence, yet there is no debate over making this illegal in Bermuda.

This is true, but nor do we consider legalising and taxing cocaine production for the financial and tourism benefits, despite similar levels of long-term addiction as a percentage of the population who has partaken. Indeed, legalising drug use would do WONDERs for our tourist business.

Anyway, enough hyperbole and back to the reality of gambling:

Based on the government’s own numbers of an average of over $22 million dollars will come out of local pockets and into the pockets of the casino operators.

Depending on the assumptions we make about the number of locals who gamble the per-person annual losses range from $32,745 at 1% of locals gambling to $3,275 per person for 10% of locals gambling

22,266,666/680= 1% – $32,745 per person
10% = -$3,275 per person.

Needless to say, a small fraction of all gamblers are responsible for the majority of the financial losses. In any case, let’s pretend that we’re dealing with average gamblers.

During a 20 year gambling career that’s an average transfer of wealth from each gambling local to the casinos of between $64,901 in our 10% of locals case, and $654,901 in the 1% case.

In addition, gambling problems overwhelmingly affect young men of low income… you know, the same ones who are currently hurting the most and most at risk for drug problems, arrest, jail time, etc. Normal gambling debts incurred by problem gamblers is between $50,000 and $90,000 dollars – to say nothing of the lost income, retail consumption, and family support lost… and one of the big reason that people get beaten or chopped on this island is (you guessed it) – unpaid debts.

I’m curious about Wayne Furbert’s switch to the PLP. Aside from the triumph of identity politics reflected in his speech upon crossing the floor, what has really changed?

What I mean, is that I’d be curious to know what practical changes have come in his standpoints on policy?

Does he now support…
…gambling…
…independence…
…financial mismanagement…
…a liar of a Premier…
…constant rotation of education ministers…
…faith based tourism…
…spin…
…race baiting…
…personal attacks…

Wayne is the guy who has done more to destroy the UBP than anyone else. His tenure as leader was a disaster and his crossing of the floor is just another nail in the coffin.

What really gets me bent out of shape about the PLP is the insistence that members check their conscience at the door and “put their party ahead of themselves”. Privately there are a wide variety of PLP members who will speak vividly and accurately on the failings of the party to serve the people of Bermuda but publicly we only hear the smallest of squeaks from Alex Scott, Randy Horton, and a handful of others.

Personally I don’t think the PLP will be defeated in an election anytime soon, but that shouldn’t stop us from getting together and pushing to create a better way.

One thing about this whole Southlands/Morgan’s Point debacle doesn’t add up. Dr. Ewart Brown’s normal clown show of self-interest, meddling, and hidden motives is by this point being revealed.

What I don’t understand is this:

Why were the owners of Southlands Ltd. so excited when they bought Southlands? At the time of the purchase it was zoned such that it could really only be used as a cottage colony. I wouldn’t make that kind of buy, have architects do a huge amount of work, then bank on an SDO to make construction possible… it would be wildly speculative and hugely risky, especially in a world that was at the time full of far easier and lower-risk development options.

Did they have behind the scenes assurances from the politicians that they’d allow the land to be effectively rezoned?

If so, I have absolutely zero sympathy for them and they deserve to get the Southlands property zoned as it was.

IMHO in order to succeed a political party/action organisation needs the following:

Membership Management
Know who your supporters are. Once you have that information then you can 1) ask them for money, 2) communicate with them directly, 3) Ask for volunteers, 4) Take lobbying action.

Volunteer Management
If your organisation has a worthwhile reason to exist and goal then it’s not difficult to find people who are willing to devote a few hours a week to help a cause they believe in. Then use their unique skills – better yet, produce a database of people, their skills, and their availability and call on them to help you. Suddenly you end up with a staff of several hundred part-time finance professionals, graphic designers, writers, administrators, proofreaders, and coffee makers.

Donation Management
In order to fund your organisation you need to use your volunteers and your membership and contact lists to continually ask for donations, then put them to good use. The value of an $5 donation is not the money, it’s having someone buy into your mission financially and personally. They become invested and they are more likely to join your volunteer army.

Communications
Produce good talking points for the different levels of argumentation, from the very simple headline for the entire organisation to the bullet point breakdowns of specific policy points and spreadsheets for sophisticated readers. Directly mail your supporters and ask them to help you lobby, raise funds, or recruit new supporters.

These are the things that Obama did better than his competitors.

In Bermuda the PLP does the above relatively well while the UBP does them terribly, that’s why they’re winning elections despite a demonstrated inability to govern effectively. The PLP’s results speak to this: winning elections while flagrantly mismanaging housing, education, contracting, the budget, etc. Not to mention the general rampant unethical self-dealing and corruption.

To beat the PLP it’s a matter of:
1. Developing a platform and strong identity.
This same process happens in the US, where the Republicans own the brand of “individual freedoms and fiscal responsibility”. Their performance in these areas is irrelevant, it’s the branding that matters. In Bermuda the PLP has their strongly defined black/labour brand, even if their actual record has overwhelmingly favoured the wealthy/landowners.
2. Communicating effectively.
Use talking points communicating the headlines of the platform. Get everyone involved on board and publicly saying the same things about the same topics. This will both lower the constant infighting has plagued the UBP, and produce an us vs. them where simple truisms of talking points make it very hard to oppose the organisation saying them because people find themselves agreeing with them.
A lie repeated loudly and often enough becomes truth. The PLP knows this, that’s why they repeatedly smeared their opposition using the same language over and over again. No matter how crazy it would seem if said once by Marc Bean, it becomes very effective when the whole team, even Paula Cox, is up on a pulpit spouting the same rhetoric. To combat this, an organisation must shout the truth loudly, stick to places where it can be impeccable with its word, and constantly put the PLP on their back foot by both combating their attempts to spin their record and attacking them for the things they haven’t done – which presumably would be addressed in #1.
3. Using the above two to build an army.
Right now we have the poorly defined “combined opposition” from unaffiliated sensible and educated commentators like Larry Burchall and Stuart Hayward to the haphazard organisation of Shawn Crockwell, and the still sensible if ineffective UBP. When all voices of reason are coming from one defined source and one brand then it becomes powerful. There is more than enough wrong with this country to get everyone on the same page (see #1 and #2). We can ALL agree on education, fiscal management, etc.

You’ll note that these largely are functions of the organisation’s staff and executives, not of the politicians themselves.

I believe there are a number of truisms that will be a part of Bermuda politics.
1. White people will never vote for the PLP in large numbers because the PLP accepts and promotes anti-white rhetoric (Walter Rhoban’s e-mails, “plantation” rhetoric, and “they want to luck us all up.)
2. Any party that challenges the PLP will therefore attract the white vote.

If the new party cannot very quickly attract and retain some very powerful black voices to counter the PLP spin with strong talking points then it too will be branded “white”.

Other bloggers have already sounded off with their thoughts on the Music Festival.

I think the music festival spending is pretty minor in the context of the things to actually complain about, especially if it breaks even. In my view there are a few fundamental issues:

1. How do they not know if it will make a profit or not? They know what revenues will be, and should have a good handle on expenses, so why can they not make a financial projection?

2. The festival is only the latest in a long string of public works whose returns accrue primarily to the party insiders in the form of an image boost and direct payment of taxpayer money, and is borderline vote buying.

3. How many of those “overseas” tickets are actually Bermudians with foreign friends/families fronting for them?

For the record: I have a history of assuming mere poor decision making when the actual issue is abject corruption.

I think the most recent posts on the political parties web sites says a lot about the state of Bermuda’s two main parties.

The closest thing the UBP has to a blog has an opinion piece by Opposition Leader Kim Swan where he expresses the following:

Today, our state of mind is anything but tranquil. Tensions are running high. More and more I see people frustrated, people irritated, people confused. More than a few are getting angry.
As a politician, it is incumbent on me to try to understand why things are happening, to connect the dots and draw conclusions that might help our society work better.

As I see things today, the tensions are growing out of a variety of developments that can be traced to one common source – PLP Government policies and actions.

Let’s look at a list of incidents, decisions and events over the past few months to see if this observation makes sense:

He takes a while to get into the meat – which loses most people because let’s face it, it’s boring. But by the middle he has moved to a wholly factual and specific list of items which I suspect will get a nod from most of us as they focus on the real quality of life issues that are facing our island and our government. Then he closes with:

Each of the items I’ve listed above emanate from the decisions and actions of Government ministers under the direction of the Premier.

People more and more are seeing this government as out of touch and arrogant, and not really interested in their views. That labour unions are feeling the brunt of this callous style of government speaks volumes about the leadership of the Progressive Labour Party Government today.

It is time this government learned how to work with people. It is time this government started treating people with more respect. It is time the government started governing for the people.

…meanwhile over at the PLP Blog there is a post by Premier Dr. Ewart Brown about medical tourism. If you look at the line in italics, you’ll note that he has either written the article on medical tourism or plagiarized from it.

So, you see, I am a busy guy – with a lot of interests in a lot of areas. Today, I want to focus on two of my converged interests – medicine and tourism. I want to spend a few minutes talking about this fairly new term – Medical Tourism.

What is Medical Tourism? It is simply a term initially coined by travel agencies and the mass media to describe the rapidly growing practice of traveling across international borders to obtain health care. So, while it is a new term, it is an old art. All of the pilgrimages we have heard about from biblical times when people traveled hundreds of miles for the lame to be made to walk and the blind to be made to see are grounded on the same premise – people will travel to be healed. Wouldn’t we all?

What strikes me is – who benefits from Dr. Brown’s vision? Not most Bermudians. My life is no better if we become a medical tourism destination, and neither is yours. We don’t have lots of doctors and nurses living in poverty. In fact, to support medical tourism we’ll have to import lots of doctors because we don’t have enough, which squeezes the rest of us out of our limited space. The one person who benefits from medical tourism in Bermuda is Dr. Brown with his clinic. How typical.

I get the impression that people are starting to wake up that they thought they were getting fillet mignon when they voted PLP but are waking up to table scraps.

I don’t agree 100% with all the details, but nonetheless I wish I could write this well.

Link to a comment on the Catch a Fire blog.

The UBP need to grow a pair, take the PLP to task, overcome the big lie that they have allowed the PLP to tell about them for the past few years, and show that they have cleaned house, and are a viable alternative. “Winning the election on the doorstep.” and ignoring race have pretty much failed.

“It is true — the Union has taken a 20 percent stake of Island Cement,” said Mr. Piper. “And that (Island Cement formally submitting a proposal to Government to lease and operate the Dockyard Cement Facility) is true as well.”

Looks to me like the BIU is being bought and paid for under Dr. Brown’s “Friends and Family” program. Funny to see the Union – which judging by the usurious interest rates (article in the RG the other day, which I can’t find) appears to have abdicated any responsibility for the quality of life of its membership – becoming an avowed crony capitalist.

Say it ain’t so.

So it looks like the government is going to start making good on some hastily thought out election promises. I have a sneaking suspicion that we, the Bermudian taxpayers, are about to find out that no matter how poorly managed, any project can be completed if given an unlimited budget. Again.

Not that we’ll be able to tell exactly what they’re spending our money on thanks to the 36 page embarrassment of a government budget… when the budget is shorter than the Auditor General’s Report we have a problem.