I have often said that if I were a United States (US) citizen, I don't know how I would have voted in the last US presidential election. It's all because of my sensitive conscience: how do I choose between the war-mongering Republicans quite prepared to take the lives of millions of Afghan and Iraqi civilians as "collateral damage" in the name of freedom (but who at the same time are anti-abortion and anti-gay rights); and the morally rubbery (anti-war) Democrats who are quite prepared to take the lives of millions of unborn human beings (abortion on demand) in the name of freedom, and who support the idea of the marriage of two men or two women as being equal to the marriage of a man and a woman. (I know there are many who did not share my anguish: they supported Obama because he was black).

I have long felt in a similar position here at home. How does anyone with a properly formed conscience choose between two political parties who have both created oppressive and self-serving garrison communities, who both possess political thugs and hit men, who both have red Jamaican blood on their hands, and who have taken turns over the last 50 years at dividing up the political spoils among themselves and their closest suppor-ters? It really is quite difficult, isn't it? If you have a properly-formed conscience.

The events of the past week have underscored the point. Showing signs of investigative journalism, The Sunday Gleaner used the Access to Information Act to obtain email correspondence strongly suggesting that the Jamaican government (through the solicitor general) - and not just Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) officials - interacted with a law firm lobbying the US government over the Dudus issue.

In their defence, the JLP argued that it was not illegal to hire a lobbyist, which is true; neither is it illegal to buy a gun. But it is illegal to use the legally-bought gun to murder someone; and surely it is supple moral gymnastics to try to defend hiring a lobbyist to get drug-trafficking and gun-running charges dropped in a case against a JLP activist where evidence of guilt exists. With such high crime rate and murder statistics in Jamaica, it is morally reprehensible to have credible evidence - however obtained - of gun-trafficking into Jamaica (those guns are not being imported to be beaten into ploughshares to plant corn) and to do nothing to stop it and prevent it.

And so, in a week which must have stirred the consciences of the just, the day after The Gleaner's email revelations, the contractor general recommended that criminal charges be laid against a People's National Party (PNP) official for obstructing the OCG in determining whether the previous government's dealings with Trafigura were in breach of procurement guidelines - so they can't take the moral high ground. The PNP pretends that any Trafigura impropriety can be laid at the feet of one man and one man only. No other heads have rolled, and no apologies have been made.

Campaign finance

The previous government made no serious effort at campaign finance reform. Those with strong memories as well as strong consciences have much to remember over the 18 years of the previous government. The PNP's much touted Integrity Commission is yet to find any lack of integrity in that quarter, worth its public pronouncement.

Who with a sensitive conscience - properly formed - could be a card-carrying member of either of the two political parties we have in Jamaica?

The two parties have captured the political process in Jamaica, and have made it difficult for non-corrupt public leadership to emerge. And they have co-opted the private sector into the system. The private sector has not unwillingly wrapped-up, tangled-up and tied-up themselves with the two parties to their mutual advantage.

This is the time for civil society to show our displeasure and lack of support of this evil system. We must demand campaign finance legislation which makes it impossible for the parties to return favours for funds, and we must do what is necessary to reduce corruption in this land. That is if we have sensitive, well-formed consciences.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a Roman Catholic deacon. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.