Much more can be done to encourage self-sufficiency in this country. Instead of thinking like the kings and ancient leaders who milked and taxed peasants to the point of severe poverty, why doesn't Bruce Golding seek real opportunities to grow the economy and, hence, the livelihood of Jamaicans? These are my questions to him and his administration:

Why are you still skirting around the issue of the major importation of fruits and vegetables while our farmers suffer?

Why don't you see the need to pay our teachers and nurses what they deserve?

Why was the Budget not properly reviewed so that the obvious need for a tax on cigarettes and rum instead of on essential items would have been implemented in the first place?

Where is your stimulus plan to tackle the recession? Surely it cannot be accomplished by lending $20,000 to high-school graduates?!

- Catherine Witter-Collins

cathyw876@yahoo.com

Red Hills

St Andrew

Lessons not learnt

I watched with some trepidation as the leader of the Opposition called for symbolic protests of the just-concluded Budget presentation. I felt fairly sure that this was not going to be effective but wondered if it was a prelude to a stepped-up series of protests. Not long after Damion Crawford, the leader of the youth arm of the PNP, stepped forward and launched his version of anti-government protests, accompanied by a list of demands for the government to consider.

This kind of behaviour is particularly alarming and dangerous, because a decade ago the island bubbled over with violence aimed at the same agenda that Crawford is fighting. Clearly, the country cannot afford another such crisis, and I wonder who is really in charge of the PNP if they allow the youth arm to do their dirty work.

It is way too easy to put a match to the always smoul-dering powder keg that is class relations in Jamaica. Clearly, the lessons are never learned, and the only people who end up suffering are the poor.

- Seymour Taylor.

staylor@sandc.com

Evanston

Illinois