Calls for Repatriation Strategy

Posted on April 20, 2018 in Economics, Government, Locations, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

“Here I am, send me”!

There are some leaders in Caribbean governance that “see the light”. They know that the member-states in the region have suffered from acute societal abandonment and there is the need to reverse the trend and urge people to return, to repatriate.

This one Caribbean government official – see Appendix – even pleas for “someone” to develop a repatriation strategy.

To this leader, and all others, the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean is standing up, stepping up and speaking up:

“… Here I am, send me” – The Bible; Isaiah 6:8
(New International Version: Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”)

The basic premise of the economic analysis in the Go Lean book is that we need our population to stay, remain and return to the Caribbean; the more people we have in the market the better. Despite all the complexities in the field of Economics, societal growth comes down to this truism, as reported in a prior blog-commentary:

We tend to think economic growth comes from working harder and smarter, but economists attribute up to a third of it [growth] to more people joining the workforce each year than leaving it. The result is more producing, earning and spending.

Yes, the Caribbean needs to retain its people, and recruit its Diaspora to return, but in a previous blog-commentary, it was related that the prospect for return of the younger people – who have left – is not very pragmatic … until their retirement. Maybe though, a strategy can be designed, developed and deployed to recruit Diaspora members in earlier phases of their lives; as the St. Lucian Senator requests in the Appendix news story: “young people, mid-career and senior career” people.

The Go Lean book presented such a strategy …

… along with the tactics, implementations and advocacies to make such a repatriation plan work.

The Go Lean book asserts that the Caribbean region must reform and transform its societal engines, so as to:

  1. Dissuade people from leaving, in the first place.
  2. Invite people who have emigrated to consider a return.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic  Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) so that all 30 regional member-states can work together – in a formal regional integration – to leverage to economies-of-scale to optimize the organizational dynamics in the region. To accomplish this objective, this CU/Go Lean roadmap presents these 3 prime directives:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs. There are limited economic (job creation and entrepreneurial) opportunities today, but a regional reboot can create a new industrial landscape with long-sought opportunities.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines. This includes the proactive and reactive empowerments to better prepare and respond to natural and man-made threats.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines, including regional integration with a separation-of-powers between each state and CU There is also a plan to provide stewardship that will help repatriates fully consume their entitlement benefits from foreign countries.

We – the movement behind the Go Lean book – are hereby presenting ourselves to do the heavy-lifting of preparing our society to better accommodate these repatriates, in all phases of life, young, mature adults and senior citizens. “Here I am, send me”! The book previews the required effort; it provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to reboot the region’s societal engines.

In addition to the book, there have been a number of previous blog-commentaries by the Go Lean promoters that have detailed the prospects and requisites for Caribbean repatriation. See a sample list of such blogs here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13604 Caribbean Communities Want Diaspora to Retire Back at Home
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11314 Forging Change: Home Addiction
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10629 Stay Home! – A Series Depicting the Cons > Pros of Leaving
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10566 Funding the Caribbean Security Pact to Better Protect Repatriates
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9214 Time to Go: A Series Relating Why Caribbean People Should Return
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7151 The Caribbean is Looking for Heroes … ‘to Return’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5695 Repenting, Forgiving and Reconciling the Past
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=665 Real Estate Investment Trusts explained for Repatriates Housing

The St. Lucia Senator – Honorable Dr. Adrian Augier, an Economist – is pushing further and farther than most politicians seeking outreach to the Diaspora. These ones have adopted the lazy approach of just asking for the Diaspora’s money (investments); Dr. Augier on the other hand, is asking for their outright return. This is a big departure from the “lazy approach”, where many Caribbean member-states do not allow their Diaspora to vote in national elections. So in this case, the “lazy” politicians want the money with “no strings attached”; they do not want to be accountable or answerable to these far-flung former residents. See the consistent pattern of these Caribbean member-states advocating for Diaspora investments in these previous blog-commentaries:

When people repatriate, they normally bring their new preferences and standards with them. They will no longer accept a Less Than standard for Social Contract obligations, like public safety and security provisions. For example, imagine hospitals (i.e. Trauma Centers) and first responder (i.e. police) quality levels.

Wanting the Diaspora to return without doing any of the heavy-lifting – to reform and transform – is just plain lazy. The Go Lean planners for a new Caribbean now want the full benefits of a full return. More and more, people are learning that foreign countries are not designed for the Caribbean’s Black and Brown. It is better for the people and the homeland if our citizens can prosper where planted here in the Caribbean.

Rather than being lazy, the Go Lean movement is volunteering – Here I am, Send Me – to do the heavy-lifting to optimize our regional society.  We will do the work necessary to reboot the homelands so that our repatriates-prospects can finally have a opportunity to prosper where planted here in the region.

Yes, this is a regional effort. The Go Lean roadmap asserts this requirement; first calling for an interdependence among the 30 member-states in the region. This was the motivation for the CU/Go Lean roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13) of the book:

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, domestic and foreign. …

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores. This repatriation should be effected with the appropriate guards so as not to imperil the lives and securities of the repatriated citizens or the communities they inhabit. The right of repatriation is to be extended to any natural born citizens despite any previous naturalization to foreign sovereignties.

xxiv.  Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

How is this for a repatriation strategy?!

This delivery should answer the urging of the Caribbean politician- Economist, as he urges more Diaspora members to come back to  the islands. In fact, Going Back to the Islands is a familiar plea in the region; see this song-VIDEO here:

VIDEO – Baha Men – Going Back to the Islands – https://youtu.be/Zs2-p2MAq5k

Khodi Mack

Published on Feb 10, 2012 –

http://bit.ly/bahamentoday

The group was first called High Voltage for a number of years. In 1991, they changed their name to Baha Men and recorded “Back To The Island” which was their first single recorded as a group signed to “Big Beat” an international record label. Several years later, Baha Men recorded “Who Let The Dogs Out”, their biggest hit ever…..and the rest as they say…….is history. Get this song Directly @ http://bit.ly/back-to-the-island

Yes, come back to the islands …

… all you who have fled. We need you here, not remaining in the Diaspora. Any policy that double-downs on the Diaspora is actually doubling-down on failure. We strongly urge Caribbean stakeholders – politicians and citizens alike – to lean-in to this roadmap to invite the Diaspora back home and make our homeland, all 30 member-states, better places to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

————

Appendix – Adrian Augier calls for repatriation strategy

Press Release:-  [St. Lucian] Independent Senator Hon. Dr. Adrian Augier has called on the government to consider an aggressive repatriation strategy, in order to address the country’s brain drain.

Dr. Augier lamented the fact that too many Saint Lucians are finding their future outside their homeland.

In his presentation to the Senate during the debate on the 2018 Appropriations Bill, Dr. Augier called on the government to compile a database of Saint Lucian expertise residing overseas. He said an aggressive repatriation strategy may help to curb Saint Lucia’s constant reliance on borrowing institutions.

“I would like to see the creation of an environment that attracts not only our brightest and best young people back home, but an aggressive program developed by the government which encourages just that. One that seeks to find out where are human resources are located around the world, young people, mid-career and senior career Saint Lucians who are capable of assisting with the development of this country. I think we are losing out very rapidly, and what we are going to have left in this country is going to be less than optimal in terms of our young nation.”

Meantime, the independent senator has suggested that the mandate of the Saint Lucia National Lotteries Authority be expanded to include support not just to sports but to the creative industries.

“There is absolutely no reason why there should be a dearth of direct support to the arts and creative industries sector,” he said. “Right now there is absolutely nowhere to go for the proponents of our creative genius to be able to get support to express themselves and to express the values of their nation and their community in art and creativity. So I am making a specific recommendation to this honourable House. I am considering a private bill, but I am hoping that wouldn’t be necessary, so that we could have the mandate of the NLA expanded to include not just support for sports, but for arts as culture as well.”

Independent Senator Adrian Augier’s contribution to the debate focused primarily on the importance of maintaining balance and sustainability.

Source: Posted April 19, 2018; retrieved April 20, 2010 from: https://stluciatimes.com/2018/04/19/adrian-augier-calls-for-repatriation-strategy/

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‘Red Letter Day’ for Cuba – Raul Castro Retires

Posted on April 19, 2018 in Government, Locations, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

For the first time in decades, Cubans have a president whose last name is not Castro. – News Summary from New York Times article below.

This is a Red Letter Day for Cuba and all of the Caribbean, as Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez is sworn in as President.

We have been observing-and-reporting on the long-awaited re-approachment of Cuba into the brotherhood of Caribbean member-states. In all of our previous commentaries, we cautioned that the full inclusion of Cuba will not manifest until the Castros were gone from the leadership of the country. Today brings us one step closer to that eventuality. But overall this roadmap for Cuba will be a journey, not just a headline. See the news article here:

Title – Fidel Died and Raúl Resigned, but Castros Still Hold Sway in Cuba

By: Frances Robles

MIAMI — For the first time in decades, Cubans have a president whose last name is not Castro.

But as the new president, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, who turns 58 on Friday, takes his first strides to govern an economically distressed country that is perennially in crisis, he will do so with a ring of Castros, and their various spouses and children, around him.

Fidel Castro died in 2016 at 90, and his eldest son, nicknamed Fidelito, killed himself this year. But Raúl Castro, who stepped down on Thursday after two terms as president, remains the leader of the Communist Party and the head of the armed forces. And other Castros run the intelligence services and the vast military conglomerate that manages most state business. One of them is Raúl Castro’s most trusted bodyguard. Another is a lawmaker who supports gay rights.

They are the defenders of a dynasty that is ostensibly there to support Mr. Díaz-Canel — but also to scrutinize him. As an era comes to a close, these stalwarts and heirs of the Cuban revolution will be members of an inner circle that aims to guarantee the succession of a socialist state — all while managing the delicate task of not creating the appearance of a family dynasty reaching into its third reign.

“Don’t anyone get their hopes up,” said María C. Werlau, a Cuba researcher who studies the violent legacy of the Cuban revolution. “Díaz-Canel is purely there for a cosmetic change; he is an offshoot of Raúl and has no power or perceptible source of power. The succession is well underway, and the second generation of Castros is well lined up to take control when Raúl is really out of the picture.”

Here are some prominent members of the clan:

Raúl Castro, 86, stepped down after 12 years as president. He was defense minister for nearly five decades, from 1959 to 2008, and has led the Communist Party since 2006. He retains the title of first party secretary, which he has held since 2011, and which is “where true power resides,” Ms. Werlau said.

But even Mr. Castro, with his revolutionary credentials and fraternal connections, could not pull off all of the changes he had set out to make. Too many old-guard associates put up obstacles when they saw the widening inequalities that accompanied economic reforms. So although Mr. Castro is widely believed to be planning a move from Havana to Santiago de Cuba — on Cuba’s southeastern coast, the other side of the country — he is not expected to leave Mr. Díaz-Canel entirely to his own devices.

Mr. Castro was credited with strengthening institutional control and formalizing the concept of consensus governing. He believes in delegated authority. He has made sure that there are enough internal checks and balances to keep an eye on any successor with big ideas, while still watching this one’s back. Mr. Díaz-Canel was a handpicked successor, and it is not in Raúl Castro’s interest to see him fail.

“Raúl will be watching,” said Andy S. Gómez, a Cuba expert, now retired, who worked at the University of Miami. “Raúl, as first party secretary, will be not only watching him, but, more importantly, being there for him, symbolically, so he can move forward.”

Alcibíades Hidalgo, who was Raúl Castro’s chief of staff for a dozen years, believes that his former boss will hold on to power “until the day he dies.”

Alejandro Castro Espín, 52, is Raúl Castro’s son. Mr. Castro Espín runs the intelligence services for both the armed forces and the Interior Ministry. That is a big task in a country that works hard to stifle dissent and sniff out spies.

Mr. Castro Espín was part of the team that negotiated with President Barack Obama’s administration over restoring diplomatic ties with the United States, a sign that he is part of the most trusted inner circle.

But he also has serious anti-imperialist credentials: The title of a book he wrote in 2009, “Empire of Terror,” offers a not-very-subtle clue of his opinion of Cuba’s big neighbor to the north.

“The most important of the younger generation is Castro Espín,” said Brian Latell, a former C.I.A. analyst who has closely watched the Castro family. “I think he has a lot of influence with his father.”

Juan Juan Almeida, the son of a Cuban revolutionary war hero, grew up with Mr. Castro Espín and lived in his house when they were children. He said he was not convinced that his former best friend had the skills to succeed after his father dies.

“He’s powerful, but his power was given to him by his father,” Mr. Almeida said. “He will last as long as his father’s power lasts.”

Some experts believe that Raúl Castro would have liked to have made his son president, but that it would have looked bad internationally to have another Castro take over.

Gen. Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Callejaswas a Castro by marriage — he used to be married to Raúl Castro’s daughter Débora, and is the father of Mr. Castro’s favorite grandson.

General Rodríguez is president of Gaesa, the holding company that controls the military’s business interests. The military runs all of the hotels and state-run restaurants, convenience stores and gas stations, making General Rodríguez one of the country’s most powerful men.

“He must have 1,200 companies under him,” said Guillermo Fariñas, an outspoken critic of the government who lives in Villa Clara Province. “I think the one who manages the country economically is him.”

Raúl Rodríguez Castro, General Rodríguez’s son, is Raúl Castro’s bodyguard, the kind of position that lends itself to knowing all kinds of secrets, Mr. Fariñas said.

Mariela Castro is Raúl Castro’s daughter. A member of Parliament, she enjoys an international and domestic following, largely because of her support for gay and transgender rights.

“Mariela is part of the scenery,” Mr. Hidalgo said. “She’s a decorative figure with a nice cause. In terms of power, she is far from the role of her brother or her ex-brother-in-law.”

Mr. Almeida said it boiled down to appearances.

“In terms of becoming a vice minister or joining the Council of State, I don’t see her doing that,” Mr. Almeida said. “The idea is to present a democratic face and erase the faces of the past. For the international community, they need to offer a nice friendly face of Cuba, which means not putting forth a Castro.”

Mr. Hidalgo, a former ambassador to the United Nations who later defected and now lives in Miami, does not think it will work.

“They are trying to give an appearance of change to what is fundamentally the same,” he said. “They are trying to continue Castroism without Castros in the near future, which is practically impossible.”

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/world/americas/cuba-castros-communism.html; posted April 19, 2018.

————-

VIDEO – Life After Castro: Who Is Cuba’s Next President? – https://nyti.ms/2vmutkE

Posted April 19, 2018 – As Raúl Castro of Cuba steps down, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez steps up. Here’s a look at Mr. Castro’s handpicked successor and what’s ahead for the communist country. By DEBORAH ACOSTA and NATALIE RENEAU.

In addition, see here, how the journey for a new Cuba has transpired in the last years – in reverse chronological order:

Cuba’s President Raul Castro greets members of Parliament at the opening of the third regular session of the eighth legislature, at the National Assembly in Havana, Cuba, Saturday, July 5, 2014. (AP Photo/Ismael Francisco, Cubadebate)

The book Go Lean…Caribbean was designed with the expectation of an eventual integration of Cuba into a Caribbean Single Market. This would allow for technocratic stewardship and oversight of the region’s economic, security and governing engines for all 30 Caribbean member-states. The book therefore serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The roadmap anticipated the heavy-lifting of the needed reconciliation in the Cuban eco-system. This relevant statement is embedded in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12):

xiii. Whereas the legacy of dissensions in many member-states (for example: Haiti and Cuba) will require a concerted effort to integrate the exile community’s repatriation, the Federation must arrange for Reconciliation Commissions to satiate a demand for justice.

While Cuba is Too Big To Ignore – a quarter of the region’s population and landmass – it is a near Failed-State status today. So the roadmap anticipates a “Marshall Plan”-like effort to reform and transform Cuba. Marshall Plan? As in …

The Bottom Line on the Marshall Plan

By the end of World War II much of Europe was devastated. The Marshall Plan, named after the then Secretary of State and retired general George Marshall, was the American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of the war. During the four years (1948 – 1952) that the plan was operational, US $13 billion in economic and technical assistance was given to help the recovery of the European countries. The plan  looked to the future, and did not focus on the destruction caused by the war. Much more important were efforts to modernize European industrial and business practices using high-efficiency American models, reduce artificial trade barriers, and instill a sense of hope and self-reliance. This worked! By 1952 as the funding ended, the economy of every participant state had surpassed pre-war levels. Generally, economists agree that the Marshall Plan was one of the first elements of European integration, as it erased trade barriers and set up institutions to coordinate the economy on a regional level—today, the European Union, the latest successor of the integration effort, is the world largest integrated economy.

There is the need to re-boot … the entire region, but Cuba is more acute. This re-boot roadmap – Marshall Plan – commences with the recognition that all the Caribbean is in crisis, and in the “same boat” despite the colonial heritage or language. All 30 geographical member-states need to confederate, collaborate, and convene for solutions – we cannot leave any member-states behind. This is the purpose of the Go Lean/CU roadmap, as featured in this declaration of the Go Lean/CU prime directives:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion GDP & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The ill-fated Cuban-Communism Revolution started 1959, during the hey-day of the Cold War – manifested enmity between the United States of America (USA) and allies versus the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and their aligned communist states.  Cuba has not progressed since then.

The Go Lean book therefore features 370 pages of details of the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to facilitate a re-boot for Cuba (and other countries). Describing “how”, the book includes one advocacy particular related to Cuba; consider the specific plans, excerpts and headlines here from Page 236, entitled:

10 Ways to Re-boot Cuba

1 Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market
This regional re-boot will allow for the unification of the region into one market, thereby creating a single economy of 30 member-states, 42 million people and a GDP of over $800 Billion. Following the model of European integration, the CU will be the representative and negotiating body for Cuba and the entire region for all trade and security issues. This helps to assuage the political adversity expected from Anti-Castro groups.
2 Political Neutrality of the Union

Cuba is the only Communist-led state in the CU region. Other states have multiple party systems: left-leaning or right leaning governments; many have more than 2 parties. The CU is officially neutral! The election of the popular leaders of each country is up to that country. The Election functionality of member-states can be outsourced to the CU as the organization structure will provide the systems, processes and personnel to facilitate smooth and fair election.
3 US Trade Embargo By-Pass

The US embargo against Cuba is an economic, and financial embargo imposed in October 1960. It was designed to punish Cuba to dissuade communism and the nationalization of private property during the revolution. To date, there are judgments of up to $6 billion worth of claims against the Cuban government. Despite this US action, the rest of the Caribbean, Canada and Europe do trade with Cuba, with no repercussions in their relationship with the US. It is expected that after Fidel and Raul Castro, there will be greater liberalization of trade and diplomacy with the US.
4 Marshall Plan for Cuba

To reboot Cuba will require a mini-Marshall Plan. The infrastructure, for the most part, is still the same as in 1958. The engines of the CU will enable a rapid upgrade of the infra-structure and some “low hanging fruit” for returns on the investment. The US-based Cuba Policy Foundation estimates that the embargo costs the U.S. economy $3.6 billion per year in economic output. The vision is for the CU to be the benefactor of a re-booted Cuban economy, not the US.
5 Leap Frog Philosophy

There is no need to move Cuba’s 1950’s technology baseline to the 1960’s, then the 1970’s, and so on; rather, the vision is to leap-frog Cuba to where technology is going. This includes advance urban planning concepts like electrified ligh-trail, prefab houses, alternative energies and e-delivery of governmental services and payment systems.
6 Repatriation and Reconciliation of the Cuban Diaspora
7 Access to Capital Markets
8 Optimization of Agricultural Exports
9 National Historic Places

Since Cuba’s infrastructure has not kept pace with the changing standards, it is expected that many of the Cuba’s buildings would qualify for condemnation. The CU will first sponsor the effort to identify and preserve buildings of historical significance. These would have to be restored and preserved.
10 World Heritage Sites

As of 2012, there are 9 World Heritage Sites in Cuba. The CU will promote these sites as tourist attractions for the domestic and foreign markets.

The hope for an open free Cuba – Cuba Sera Libre – is not just shared by Cuban people on the island or in the Diaspora abroad. There is also the welcome of the Caribbean neighbors, tourists, trading-partners, and international stakeholders. The manifestation of this hope must come from the Caribbean itself. A new Cuba should be the manifestation of Caribbean people helping Caribbean people. Thus must be our quest!

The Go Lean roadmap for the CU strives to put the Command-and-Control of Caribbean affairs in the hands of Caribbean people, asserting that the Caribbean can no longer be a parasite of the US, but rather must be a protégé.

Cuba – “in the cold” since 1959! Enough already! Remember the 5-L principle; surely we have looked, listened and learned. Now we need to lend-a-hand.

Applying this 5-L principle, that only leaves the final L, Lead.  But it is our assertion, that it is only Cuba (Cuban people) who gets to pick its leaders. Raul Castro is fading from the scene; so welcome Mr. Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez. Let’s get to work!

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, Cuba included, to lean-in to this regional roadmap. Now is the time to make this region – all 30 member-states – a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

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‘At the Table’ or ‘On the Menu’

Posted on April 16, 2018 in Government, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

There are those that reflect society and those that effect society.

Unfortunately, these may not be the same people.

While we are not impugning any bad motives to these men, we accept that in the United States, the leadership in the Republican Party – the party in power, also called the GOP, with control of the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate – all reflect White Men over the age of 45. Clearly, not a Pluralistic Democracy!

At the same time this real census demographics apply for America today:

Race: 77.1% White; 13.3% Black; 5.6% Asian; 2.6% Other/multiracial; 1.2% Native; 0.2% Pacific Islander
Ethnicity: 17.6% Hispanic or Latino; 82.4% non-Hispanic or Latino
Age & Gender: Under 18 = 24%; 18 to 44 = 36.5%; 45 to 64 = 26.4%; Over 65 = 13%; Median age = 37.8
Female = 50.8; Male = 49.2

Change is hard! Reforming and transforming a community is heavy-lifting. A lot of societal reforms – human and civil rights – only come about as a result of advocates fighting for change … “at the top” or “from the bottom”. Changing “at the top” means conferring, convincing, consulting and cajoling leaders (political and business) to implement changes in policies and procedures; it means being “at the table”. Changing “from the bottom” means “taking to the streets” and rallying the masses to force governments and businesses – the establishment – to hear demands and make changes.

Truthfully, the former – Top-Down approach – is much easier than the latter – Bottoms-Up approach.

But, in order to confer, convince, consult and cajole, Change Advocates must have a seat “at the table”. When some interest group is absent in their representation, the possibility of disregard – and victimization – is highly possible.

“If You’re Not at the Table, You’re on the Menu”
This quote is believed to have originated around [the year] 2000 in Washington, DC, and is of unknown origin. Basically, it means that if you are not represented at the decision-making table, you are in a financially vulnerable position, you get left out, or, worse yet, you are on the menu.

See this fear manifested in the news-article-commentary here … and the Appendix VIDEO below:

Title # 1: Ryan pressed on all-white, all-male GOP leadership

By: Juana Summers, CNN

Washington (CNN) House Speaker Paul Ryan acknowledged Thursday that the Republican Party needs more women and minorities, and pointed to Utah Rep. Mia Love — the only black Republican woman in Congress — as evidence that the party was making progress.

The discussion, with CBS News host Gayle King, was prompted by President Donald Trump’s tweet of a photo from a dinner he hosted at the White House for members of Republican leadership.

In the photo, which was tweeted Wednesday night, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are surrounded by five members of congressional Republican leadership, including Ryan. All of the lawmakers included in that photo are white men.

“When I look at that picture, Mr. Speaker, I have to say, I don’t see anyone that looks like me in terms of color or gender,” CBS News host Gayle King told Ryan. “You were one of the main people who said you want to do more for the Republican Party to expand … Some say this President really doesn’t want to expand the base.”

“I don’t like the fact that you feel that way,” Ryan told King, adding that “we need more minorities, more women in our party and I’ve been focusing on that kind of recruitment.”

Ryan, who announced Wednesday that he would retire in January, then pointed to [Congresswoman Mia] Love, who he has mentored, as an example.

“She’s somebody I recruited in a primary to come to Congress. There are a lot of candidates like Mia that we’re recruiting all around the country,” he added, saying that even though he is retiring from Congress he was going to “keep being involved and focusing on inclusive, aspirational politics.”

While Congress has undoubtedly grown more diverse, the ranks of leadership in the Republican Party have not. Every member of Republican leadership on both sides of the Rotunda is white. There is one woman, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, in House Republican leadership. There are none in Senate Republican leadership.

Source: Posted April 12, 2018; retrieved April 15, 2018 from: https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/12/politics/paul-ryan-republican-diversity-photo/index.html

This American drama is more than just theoretical; there is an actual manifestation associated with it. There are real world consequences and it is all bad! And this is not only an American drama; it is a Caribbean concern as well. There are two American territories in the middle of the Caribbean; and guess what?

This same group of White Men – in the foregoing – effect the populations of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, though they do not reflect their populations.

Things are bad; consider this bad episode:

Title # 2: Here’s how an obscure tax change sank Puerto Rico’s economy

As GOP lawmakers and the White House put the finishing touches on a proposal to overhaul the American tax code, Congress and the Trump administration are also considering multiple options to help storm-ravaged Puerto Rico get back on its feet.
…
Even before the storm brought Puerto Rico to a near standstill, the government there already struggled with an economy in shambles and a default on billions of dollars of public debt.

That fiscal mess, partly the result of a prolonged downturn that lingered long after the rest of the U.S. had recovered from the Great Recession, has its roots in the repeal of a controversial corporate tax break that helped spark an exodus from the island and sent its economy into reverse.

More than half a century ago, U.S. lawmakers sought to help Puerto Rico emerge from a colonial past, transforming its largely agrarian economy into a manufacturing powerhouse. The effort, known as Operation Bootstrap, began with a series of tax breaks designed to attract manufacturers who would provide steady factory jobs.

For a time the plan seemed to work, as standards of living in Puerto Rico rose. Between 1950 and 1980, per capita gross national product grew nearly tenfold in Puerto Rico, and disposable income and educational attainment rose sharply, according to the Center for a New Economy, a think tank based in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

One of those tax breaks, enacted in 1976, allowed U.S. manufacturing companies to avoid corporate income taxes on profits made in U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico. Manufacturers, led by the pharmaceutical industry, flocked to the island.

But by the early 1990s, the provision faced growing opposition from critics who attacked the tax break as a form of corporate welfare. Much like the current debate over corporations parking profits offshore to avoid taxes, tax reformers saw the provision, known as Section 936, as too costly for the Treasury.

The tax break also had some unintended consequences, notably the unfair tax burden that fell to domestic Puerto Rican companies.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the law that would phase out Section 936 over 10 years.

Plant closures and job losses followed. Ten years later, on the eve of the Great Recession, employment in Puerto Rico peaked. Left with a dwindling tax base, the Puerto Rican government borrowed heavily to replace the lost revenue.

Today, the U.S. territory has nearly $70 billion in debt, an unemployment rate 2.5 times the U.S. average, a 45 percent poverty rate, nearly insolvent pension systems and a chronically underfunded Medicaid insurance program for the poor.

Puerto Rico’s job base continues to shrink, taking its economy along with it. Since the recession ended, a lack of job prospects has sent many Puerto Ricans fleeing to the mainland, where the job market is much stronger.
…
The devastation brought by Hurricane Maria has accelerated the exodus, as families who have lost their homes seek shelter with relatives on the U.S. mainland. Many likely see the relocation as temporary. Others may find better opportunities in one of the 50 states, where the average weekly wage is nearly twice that of Puerto Rico.

It remains to be seen how many will return, leaving even fewer workers to rebuild the territory’s battered economy.

Source: Posted Sept 26, 2017; retrieved April 15, 2018 from: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/26/heres-how-an-obscure-tax-change-sank-puerto-ricos-economy.html

That GOP Leadership is very important now for Puerto Rico’s viability – and the USVI – and they have no vote, nor voice in Congress. They do not have a “seat at the table”. Unfortunately, the Washington experience for Puerto Rico has been out-of-sight and out-of-mind.

This commentary has previously asserted that Puerto Rico reflects a Failed-State status; see this direct quotation:

Puerto Rico can do “bad” all by itself; it does not need to be America’s Failed-State!

They do not need the American Hegemony to create an unbearable situation for them. This is NOT an assessment based on the fact that Donald Trump is in the White House now, no rather, this is a summary-analysis based on 120 years of US-PR history. Like many abusive marriages, the US has reserved its most abusive behavior for its own family member, the island territory of PR. This, despite the President or the administration.

No one should be expected to tolerate 2nd Class Citizenship status … for 120 years!

This commentary continues the assertion of the book Go Lean…Caribbean, that Caribbean territories should confederate with their actual Caribbean neighbors and seek their own self-determination. Puerto Rico needs their Caribbean neighbors and the neighbors need Puerto Rico. The effort to reboot the regional economy may be too big for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands alone; they need the leverage of the full Caribbean neighborhood – a Single Market of 42 million people in 30 member-states. The book – available to download for free – presents this roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all 30 member-states, American territories included. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives for regional integration:

For our Caribbean effort to reform and transform our society, we need “all hands on deck”. Not just Old White Men; no, we need Black and White, Male and Female, Young and Old, English speakers and Dutch, French and Spanish speakers. We need the stewards that shepherd our societal engines to reflect and effect all of the Caribbean.

The mandate to forge an optimized regional confederation – with full participation of people that reflect our Caribbean population – was pronounced early in the Go Lean book with this Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14); demonstrated with these opening statements:

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxvi. Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries …

The subject of fostering a Pluralistic Democracy with full gender equity, equal access and equal protections have been directly addressed and further elaborated upon in previous blog/commentaries; consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14633 Nature or Nurture: Women Have Nurtured Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13321 Making a ‘Pluralistic Democracy’ – Multilingual Realities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13063 Gender Equity without a ‘Battle of the Sexes’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12035 Lean-in for ‘Wonder Woman Day’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11812 State of Caribbean Union: Hope and Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9216 ‘Time to Go’ – When there is ‘No Respect’ for our Hair
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8306 Women Get Ready for New Lean-In Campaign
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6937 Women in Politics – Yes, They Can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6836 Role Model – #FatGirlsCan – Empowering Women
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6434 ‘Good Hair’ and the Strong Black Woman
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6422 Getting More Women Interested in Science/Technology Careers

The Go Lean book posits that people of all races, colors and creed have the right to work towards making their communities better places to live, work and play. This should be the default perception of our stewards and shepherds – there is strength in our diversity. Plus, we need all the help we can get. So the book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to transition to a Pluralistic Democracy, one that better reflects and effects the full population of Caribbean people: Black or White, Men or Women.

This quest to elevate our regional society requires heavy-lifting! But this push towards a Pluralistic Democracy is conceivable, believable and achievable. We invite all peoples to devote their time, talent and treasuries to this cause. Yes, we can … succeed in this quest; yes, we can be a better society. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

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Appendix VIDEO – Speaker Ryan Lamenting Lack of Diversity – https://twitter.com/NorahODonnell/status/984411160207388672

@GayleKing: “When I look at the picture, I don’t feel very celebratory. I feel very excluded.” @SpeakerRyan: “I don’t like that you feel that way. We need more minorities, more women in our party.” @CBSThisMorning

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Nature or Nurture: Women Have Nurtured Change

Posted on April 14, 2018 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Here is valuable advice to young people … hoping to partner with a soul-mate:

Take time to know him/her … give it a full cycle of seasons: Summer and Winter.

There is the person’s Nature and also their Nurture-ing that must be taken to account:

Nature – Genetics determine behavior; personality traits and abilities are in “nature”

Nurture – Environment, upbringing and life experiences determine behavior. Humans are “nurtured” to behave in certain ways.

So prospective marriage mates need to ascertain the Nature and Nurture of a potential partner.

If the potential mate does not measure up, my advice: do not bond, take your leave. Just do so BEFORE the wedding rehearsal – i.e. Runaway Brides – do not abandon all the stakeholders high-and-dry (“at the altar”), after they may have invested in catering, banquet halls, clothes, travel, etc.. Such a failure would just be pathetic!

This advice applies to individuals, yes, but not so much for communities, or societies. For the group dynamic, we simply have no choice; we must work to transform the attitudes, traits and practices in a community. The book Go Lean…Caribbean identified this subject as “community ethos”, with this definition:

… the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period. – Page 20

If/When the community ethos is unbecoming for a society, citizens do not bond; they abandon! This is so pathetic, as the community too may have invested hugely in the individuals – think education, scholarships and student loans. The community is “left at the altar“.

But change is possible! Communities have forged change and been transformed .. in the past, in the present and I guarantee future communities will also forge change.

How is this possible? How to Nurture change despite “bad” Nature? Let’s consider a sample-example from the history of the UK; this is actually the history of the Caribbean as well, as it features the Abolition of Slavery in the British Empire in the year 1833 – the date that the measure passed the British Parliament.

There were a lot of advocates and activists that led the fight against … first the Slave Trade and then eventually the institution of Slavery itself; think William Wilberforce and Charles Spurgeon who argued for the abolition of slavery and advocated for women to have rights equal to that of men. Slavery and Women’s Rights became locked-in-step – see Appendix VIDEO. So a lot of the Nurturing for the abolition advocacy came from women of the British Empire. See this portrayed in the article here:

Title: Ending Slavery

For much of the 18th century few European or American people questioned slavery. Gradually on both sides of the Atlantic a few enlightened individuals, some of them Quakers, began to oppose it.

From the 1760s activists in London challenged the morality and legality of the slave trade. They included former slaves, like Olaudah Equiano and the abolitionist campaigners Granville Sharp and William Wilberforce.

Women who opposed slavery took the lead in boycotts of slave-grown produce, particularly sugar. Slavery abolitionists used badges and iconic images to publicise their views, like the sugar bowl above made by Wedgewood. Enormous petitions opposing the slave trade were delivered to the House of Commons.

Women Against Slavery

It is only relatively recently that historians have explored the activities of women abolitionists. When looking at local provincial sources, autobiographies, historical objects and sites it becomes clear that women played a significant and, at times, pivotal role in the campaign to abolish slavery.

These women came from a range of backgrounds. The tactics they used – boycotting slave-produced sugar and other goods, organising mass petitions and addressing public meetings – proved highly effective.

Hannah Moore

Hannah Moore (from 1745 to 1833) was an educator, writer and social reformer. Born in Bristol, she was strongly opposed to slavery throughout her life. She encouraged women to join the anti-slavery movement.

In 1787 she met John Newton and members of the Clapham Sect, including William Wilberforce with whom she formed a strong and lasting friendship. Moore was an active member of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the African Slave Trade. Her writings reflected her opposition to slavery and “Slavery, a Poem” which she published in 1788 is regarded as one of the most important slavery poems of the period.

Ill health prevented Moore from taking an active role in the 1807 campaign to end the slave trade but she continued to write to Wilberforce and other campaigners.

She lived just long enough to see the act abolishing slavery passed. She died in September 1833 and is buried with her sisters in the south-east corner of All Saints’ Churchyard, Station Road, Wrington, Bristol, BS40.

Mary Prince

Mary Prince (from 1788 to around 1833) was the first black woman to publish her account of being an enslaved woman. She was born in Bermuda in 1788 and endured a life of violence and abuse through a succession of slave-owners.

Her owners, the Woods, brought Mary to England. To escape their cruelty she ran away to the Moravian Church in London’s Hatton Gardens. Members of the Anti-Slavery Society took up her case and they encouraged her to write her life story.

Published in 1831 as “The History of Mary Prince”, this extraordinary story describing ill treatment and survival was a rallying cry for emancipation. The book provoked two libel actions and had three editions in its year of publication.

In 2007 Camden Council and the Nubian Jak Community Trust placed a plaque near to the site where she lived at Senate House, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (from 1806 to 1861) is commemorated with two plaques in Marylebone, London. A brown Society of Arts plaque is at the site of her former home at 50 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8SQ. There is a bronze plaque at 99, Gloucester Road, London W1U 6JG.

Barrett Browning’s father, Edward Barrett Moulton Barrett (from 1785 to 1857), inherited 10,000 acres of sugar plantations in Jamaica, with an annual income of £50,000. Her maternal grandfather John Graham-Clarke (from 1736 to 1818) was a Newcastle merchant who owned sugar plantations, trading ships and many more businesses associated with slavery. At his death his assets were equivalent to around £20 million today.

Barrett Browning was aware of the source of her family’s wealth:

  • I belong to a family of West Indian slave-owners and if I believe in curses, I should be afraid. – Letter from Elizabeth Barrett Browning to John Ruskin in 1855.

In 1849 she published an anti-slavery poem “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point”. It portrayed a slave woman cursing her oppressor after she had been whipped, raped and impregnated.

Elizabeth Jesser Reid

A social reformer and philanthropist, Elizabeth Jesser Reid (from 1789 to 1866) is best known for founding Bedford College for Women in London in 1849. The College is now part of Royal Holloway, University of London.

Jesser Reid was also an anti-slavery activist and she attended the Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840 and was a member of the Garrisonian London Emancipation Committee. A green plaque has been placed at her former home, 48 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DR to commemorate Reid and the first site of the college.

While living at 48 Bedford Square, Reid entertained Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1853. She also shared her house with the African American abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond whilst she studied at the College between 1859 and 1861.

Sarah Parker Remond

Born in Salem, Massachusetts, Sarah Parker Remond (from 1826 to 1894) came from a family that was deeply involved in the abolitionist campaign in the United States. Her brother Charles Lenox Remond was the first black lecturer in the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Parker Remond was such an impressive speaker and fund-raiser for the abolitionist movement that she was invited to take the anti-slavery message to Britain. Soon after arriving here in 1859 she embarked upon a nationwide lecture tour. In 1866 she left London to study medicine in Italy. She practised as a doctor in Florence, where she settled.

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Related Posts

Listen to our podcasts about women’s involvement in the abolition movement:

Source: Retrieved April 13, 2018 from: https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/the-slave-trade-and-abolition/sites-of-memory/ending-slavery/

Women applied pressure to all aspects of society – the engines of economics, security and governance – for the end of the Slave Trade; then they continued the pressure for the Abolition of Slavery itself. The Nurturing worked! It was not immediate, but eventual and evolutionary:

  • They impacted the economic cycles – boycotts & embargos. See the notes on the Anti-Saccharrittes in Appendix A.
  • They compelled the Security engines – The Royal Navy was engaged to enforce the ban on the Slave Trade after 1807. (Between 1808 and 1860, the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans.[5]) See Appendix B below.
  • They engaged the related governance by entreating the political supporters, every year, to introduce and re-introduce the Abolition Bill.

Though the abolition of Slavery went against the Nature of the New World, these women and their Nurturing did not stop.  They persisted! This commentary concludes the 4-part series on Nature or Nurture for community ethos. This entry is 4 of 4 in this series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean in consideration of the Nurturing by the mothers (women) of England who finally forge change in the British Empire.. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

  1. Nature or Nurture: Black Marchers see gun violence differently
  2. Nature or Nurture: Cop-on-Black Shootings – Embedded in America’s DNA; Whites Yawn
  3. Nature or Nurture: UK City of Bristol still paying off Slavery Debt
  4. Nature or Nurture: Nurturing came from women to impact Abolition of Slavery

In the first submission to this series, the history of the Psychological battle between Nature and Nurture was introduced, which quoted:

One of the oldest arguments in the history of psychology is the Nature vs Nurture debate. Each of these sides have good points that it’s really hard to decide whether a person’s development is predisposed in his DNA, or a majority of it is influenced by this life experiences and his environment. – https://explorable.com/nature-vs-nurture-debate

All of these commentaries relate to “how” the stewards – including empowered women – for a new Caribbean can assuage societal defects despite the default Nature. Here-in, this example from England is a great role model for the Caribbean region. We too, need our women!

How about the Caribbean today? What bad Nature can women help to Nurture out of Caribbean society?

There are many!

The Lord giveth the word: The women that publish the tidings are a great host. – Psalms 68:11 American Standard Version

Our region is riddled with societal defects. In fact, the subject of societal defects is a familiar theme for this commentary, from the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book asserts that the British colonial masters for the Caribbean – 18 of the 30 member-states share this legacy – did not endow this region with the organizational dynamics (attitudes or structures) that would lead to societal success. The former slave populations became the majority in all these lands; when majority rule was compelled on the New World – post-World War II restructuring – the people were not ready. Looking at the dispositions in the region today, these are nearing Failed-State status – it is that bad!

The theme of Failing States has been detailed in previous blog-commentaries by the movement behind the Go Lean book. Consider this sample previous blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13749 Failure to Launch – Governance: Assembling the Region’s Organizations
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13746 Failure to Launch – Security: Caribbean Basin Security Dreams
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13744 Failure to Launch – Economics: The Quest for a ‘Single Currency’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13391 After Maria, Puerto Rico Failed-State: Destruction and Defection
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12996 After Irma, Many Caribbean Failed-States: Destruction and Defection
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12098 Inaction: A Recipe for ‘Failed-State’ Status
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10657 Outreach to the Diaspora – Doubling-down on Failure
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2547 Miami’s Success versus Caribbean Failure

There is the need for the Caribbean member-states to reform and transform. We have some bad community ethos; we need “all hands on deck” to mitigate and remediate them. The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all 30 member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives for effecting change in our society:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The same as the British Empire needed a “large host” of women to Nurture societal values, priorities, practices and laws to supplant the bad Nature of the British Slave economy, a “large host” of women will be needed to forge change in the British Caribbean and the full Caribbean – American, Dutch, French and Spanish legacies. This subject too, has been a consistent theme from the movement behind the Go Lean book. Consider this sample from these previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14541 One Woman Made a Difference – Role Model: Viola Desmond
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14482 International Women’s Day – Protecting Rural Women
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13063 Getting Gender Equity without a ‘Battle of the Sexes’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12035 Lean-in for ‘Wonder Woman Day’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10124 The ‘Hidden Figures’ of Women Building-up Society – Art Imitating Life
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8306 Women Get Ready for New “Lean-In” Campaign
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6937 Women in Politics – Yes, They Can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6836 Role Model – #FatGirlsCan
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5648 One Woman – Taylor Swift – Changing Streaming Music Industry
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3490 One Woman Entrepreneur Rallied and Change Her Whole Community

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to Nurture a better Caribbean society. It details the new community ethos that needs to be adopted so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society – economics, security and governance. We want the women to help empower Caribbean society and so we want to empower women. In fact, the book (Page 226) details the bad community ethos that permeated the “Imperial” world during the times of Caribbean colonization. The advocacy entitled 10 Ways to Empower Women presented this encyclopedic reference on the Natural Law philosophy as follows:

The Bottom Line on Natural Law and Women’s Rights

17th century natural law philosophers in Britain and America, such as Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke, developed the theory of natural rights in reference to ancient philosophers such as Aristotle and the Christian theologist Aquinas. Like the ancient philosophers, 17th century natural law philosophers defended slavery and an inferior status of women in law.

Relying on ancient Greek philosophers, natural law philosophers argued that natural rights where not derived from god, but were “universal, self-evident, and intuitive”, a law that could be found in nature. They believed that natural rights were self-evident to “civilized man” who lives “in the highest form of society”. Natural rights derived from human nature, a concept first established by the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Citium in Concerning Human Nature.

Zenon argued that each rational and civilized male Greek citizen had a “divine spark” or “soul” within him that existed independent of the body. Zeno founded the Stoic philosophy and the idea of a human nature was adopted by other Greek philosophers, and later natural law philosophers and western humanists. Aristotle developed the widely adopted idea of rationality, arguing that man was a “rational animal” and as such a natural power of reason.

Concepts of human nature in ancient Greece depended on gender, ethnic, and other qualifications and 17th century natural law philosophers came to regard women along with children, slaves and non-whites, as neither “rational” nor “civilized”. Natural law philosophers claimed the inferior status of women was “common sense” and a matter of “nature”. They believed that women could not be treated as equal due to their “inner nature”. The views of 17th century natural law philosophers were opposed in the 18th and 19th century by Evangelical natural theology philosophers such as William Wilberforce and Charles Spurgeon, who argued for the abolition of slavery and advocated for women to have rights equal to that of men. Modern natural law theorists, and advocates of natural rights, claimed that all people have a human nature, regardless of gender, ethnicity or other qualifications; therefore all people have natural rights.

These thoughts on Natural Law and Women’s Rights persist to this day, despite how archaic they may seem.

This flawed Natural Law philosophy accounts for the Nature of the Caribbean – this was inherited from the Imperial Europe (1600’s) – and never fully uprooted. This was the heavy-lifting that the foregoing women helped to Nurture out of Europe, and what we need continued help for today’s women to uproot.

In addition to the ethos discussion, the book presents the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute change in the Caribbean region. This is how to Nurture a bad community (ethos) into a good community (ethos).

Yes, we can elevate our societal engines. We can do more than just study impactful women from the past, we can foster our own brand of impactful women. We need them!

We need all hands on deck to make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

————

Appendix A – Anti-Saccharrittes … in England

…
In 1791, … the abolitionist William Fox published his anti-sugar pamphlet, which called for a boycott of sugar grown by slaves working in inhuman conditions in the British-governed West Indies. “In every pound of sugar used, we may be considered as consuming two ounces of human flesh,” wrote Fox. So powerful was his appeal that close to 400,000 Britons gave up sugar.

The sugar boycott squarely affected that most beloved of English rituals: afternoon tea. As The Salt [Magazine] has reported, sugar was an integral reason why tea became an engrained habit of the British in the 1700s. But with the sugar boycott, offering or not offering sugar with tea became a highly political act.

Soon, grocers stopped selling West Indies sugar and began to sell “East Indies sugar” from India. Those who bought this sugar were careful to broadcast their virtue by serving it in bowls imprinted with the words “not made by slave labor,” in much the same way that coffee today is advertised as fair-trade, or eggs as free-range.

…

Source: Posted August 4, 2015; retrieved April 14, 2018 from: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/08/04/429363868/how-percy-shelley-stirred-his-politics-into-his-tea-cup

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Appendix B – Rare ‘slave freeing’ photos on show

A set of rare photographs showing African slaves being freed by the Royal Navy have gone on show for the first time. They are part of an exhibition marking the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade.

A set of rare photographs showing African slaves being freed by the Royal Navy have gone on show for the first time.
Published April 28, 2007.
The photographs, on display at the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth, Hants, show a sailor removing the manacle from a newly-freed slave as well as the ship’s marines escorting captured slavers.

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East African slaves aboard the HMS Daphne, a British Royal Navy vessel involved in anti-slave trade activities in the Indian Ocean,

Samuel Chidwick, 74, has donated the photographs taken by his father Able Seaman Joseph Chidwick, born in 1881, on board HMS Sphinx off the East African coast in about 1907.

The photographs, on display at the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth, Hants, show a sailor removing the manacle from a newly-freed slave as well as the ship’s marines escorting captured slavers.

Mr Chidwick, of Dover, Kent, said: “The pictures were taken by my father who was serving aboard HMS Sphinx while on armed patrol off the Zanzibar and Mozambique coast.

“They caught quite a few slavers and those particular slaves that are in the pictures happened while he was on watch. “That night a dhow sailed by and the slaves were all chained together. He raised the alarm and they got them on to the ship and got the chains knocked off them.

“They then questioned them and sent a party of marines ashore to try to track the slave traders down.

“They caught two of them and I believe they were of Arabic origin.

“My father thought the slave trade was a despicable thing that was going on, the slaves were treated very badly so when they got the slavers they didn’t give them a very nice time.”

Jacquie Shaw, spokeswoman for the Royal Naval Museum, said: “The museum and the Royal Navy are delighted to announce the donation of a nationally important collection of unique photographs taken by Able Seaman Joseph John Chidwick during his service on the Persian Gulf Station where the crew of HMS Sphinx were engaged in subduing the slave trade.

“The collection comprises a fascinating and important snapshot of life on anti-slavery duties off the coast of Africa.”

The exhibition, ‘Chasing Freedom -The Royal Navy and the suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade’, is being held until January next year to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade.

The House of Commons passed a bill in 1805 making it unlawful for any British subject to capture and transport slaves but the measure was blocked by the House of Lords and did not come into force until March 25, 1807.

Mrs Shaw said that since the exhibition opened, members of the public had brought forward several historically-important items. She said: “As well as these amazing images, members of the public have brought many other unheard stories of the Royal Navy and the trade in enslaved Africans to the museum’s attention including the original ship’s log of the famed HMS Black Joke of the West Coast of Africa Station.”

Source: Posted 29 Apr 2007; retrieved April 14, 2018 from: http://metro.co.uk/2007/04/29/rare-slave-freeing-photos-on-show-331626/

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Appendix C VIDEO – Abolition to Suffrage – https://youtu.be/WbLVp27cqZ8

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Nature or Nurture: UK City Still Paying Slavery Debt

Posted on April 11, 2018 in Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Here’s a deep religious question for you:

Does God punish children for the sins of the Father?

The sense of justice we have – our basis for right and wrong – may dictate to us that we only be punished for our own crimes, not that of our parents. Considering that the laws of the land – throughout the New World – are based on Judeo-Christian principles, what does the Bible say?

“Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.” – The Bible ESV Deuteronomy 24:16

In contrast, the Bible also states – here – that there is a legacy price that children will pay for their forefathers’ actions-misdeeds:

Keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but [God] who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” – Exodus 34:7 ESV or English Standard Version

Despite the opening religious question, this is NOT a religious discussion, but rather presented from a societal reform perspective. In summary, communities may be plagued to suffer punishment for generations due to the misdeeds of their forefathers.

Indeed, this is true of the British city of Bristol, England. Until recently (2015), it was still paying off debts for the city’s prominent role in the African Slave Trade … that ended in 1807; the Abolition bill passed in Parliament in 1833 – requiring the need for a huge capital outlay, £20 million (US$28 million); Slavery ended in the British Empire in 1834. That’s 182 years later and sounds eerily familiar. It sounds like when a person pays only the monthly minimum on a credit card account. See more here:

A $2,000 credit balance with an 18% annual rate, with a minimum payment of 2% of the balance, or $10, whichever is greater, would take 370 months or just over 30 years to pay off . – MarketWatch.com

See the encyclopedic details on the Slave Trade activities by the City of Bristol in the Appendix below.

The Slave Trade did end, as a First Step to abolishing Slavery entirely. This was not easy and not automatic; it took strenuous effort on the part of advocates and activists, like William Wilberforce. See his portrayal in the Appendix VIDEO below.

See the news-commentary relating the continued Slavery Debt here:

Title: Slave owner compensation was still being paid off by British taxpayers in 2015

Bristol taxpayers in 2015 were still paying off debt borrowed by the government to “compensate” slave owners in 1833, the Treasury has revealed.

The revelations show that the £20 million (US$28 million) the government spent to reimburse the owners of slaves – who themselves were some of Britain’s richest businessmen – took the taxpayer 182 years to pay off. The descendants of slaves were never compensated, but it appears some would have been paying to compensation slave owners.

The information was revealed by the Treasury under a Freedom of Information (FoI) request, the Bristol Post reports. The Treasury tweeted: “Here’s today’s surprising #FridayFact. Millions of you helped end slave trade through your taxes.”

It added an infographic which said: “Did you know? In 1833, Britain used £20 million, 40 percent of its national budget, to buy freedom for all slaves in the Empire.

“The amount of money borrowed for the Slavery Abolition Act was so large that it wasn’t paid off until 2015. Which means living British citizens helped pay to end the slave trade.”

The tweet was quickly deleted after it sparked a backlash.

Historian David Olusoga, who has written about Bristol’s role in the slave trade, was one of several experts who questioned the tone of the Treasury’s tweet.

“The real question is why anyone thought this was ok?” he said, according to the newspaper. “I really do think we’re getting better at accepting the UK’s role in slavery and the slave trade, but things like this make me question my optimism.

“Also, just to compound the general level of ignorance, when HM Treasury reduce the complex story of the abolition of slavery to one of their fun ‘Friday Facts’ they use an irrelevant image of the slave trade – which was abolished three decades earlier.”

Bristol City councilor Cleo Lake said she was outraged. “I want my money back,” she tweeted. “I’m outraged. This messaging is so loaded.”

When the UK government abolished slavery and banned people from owning slaves in Britain and on Britain’s colonies anywhere in the world, those slave owners received compensation. Bristol had the highest concentration of people in Britain who owned slaves in 1833 outside of London.

The slaves themselves received nothing, and had to continue working for their masters for a number of years before they could consider being free.

Source: Posted February 15, 2018; retrieved April 10, 2018 from: https://www.rt.com/uk/418814-slave-compensation-bristol-taxpayer/

Imagine the outrage when city finances are strained – economic cycles of recessions and expansions are inevitable – and necessary expenditures – for example, public safety and education – have to be curtailed due to principal-and-interest payments for 200 year old debts. This seems to go against Nature. This commentary continues the 4-part series on Nature or Nurture for community ethos. This entry is 3 of 4 in this series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean in consideration of root causes of some societal defects – specific examples in the US and UK – and how to overcome them. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

  1. Nature or Nurture: Black Marchers see gun violence differently
  2. Nature or Nurture: Cop-on-Black Shootings – Embedded in America’s DNA; Whites Yawn
  3. Nature or Nurture: UK City of Bristol still paying off Slavery Debt
  4. Nature or Nurture: Nurturing comes from women; “they” impacted the Abolition of Slavery

In the first submission to this series, the history of Psychology was introduced, which quoted:

One of the oldest arguments in the history of psychology is the Nature vs Nurture debate. Each of these sides have good points that it’s really hard to decide whether a person’s development is predisposed in his DNA, or a majority of it is influenced by this life experiences and his environment. – https://explorable.com/nature-vs-nurture-debate

All of these commentaries relate to “why” communities – including the Caribbean – may have lingering societal defects and “how” the stewards for a new Caribbean can assuage these defects and the resultant failing dispositions. The term “lingering societal defects” have been addressed in the Go Lean book; there it is deemed “community ethos”; with this definition:

… the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period. – Page 20

The UK County/City of Bristol had a bad community ethos. Obviously, a disregard for human rights was embedded in that community’s DNA. What’s more, the county-city-people had to pay for their forefathers’ bad community ethos … for 182 years. Sad!

How about the Caribbean? Are we paying for the sins of our fathers today?

Indeed, we have defects in our societal DNA, a bad Nature; and then we foster unbecoming traits by Nurturing unbecoming habits and practices.

The subject of societal defects is a familiar theme for this commentary, from the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free. The book asserts that the colonial masters for the Caribbean did not endow this region with the organizational dynamics (attitudes or structures) that would lead to success. This society was built for leisure, pleasure and good times. Traits like industriousness, ingenuity and innovation was never encouraged nor fostered. As a result the vocations for the region always lean towards the illicit and the shadows – think: piracy, tax shelters, offshore banking, etc. –  as opposed to honest work for honest pay.

Regrettably, we are now paying for the sins of our fathers, as we have defects in all societal engines of our community.

We do not have the Nature to compete in the global marketplace! But change can be Nurtured.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all 30 member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives for effecting change in our society:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The Go Lean book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to Nurture a new, better Caribbean society. It details the new community ethos that needs to be adopted, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society – economics, security and governance. In fact, the book (Page 131) provides one specific advocacy entitled 10 Ways to Make the Caribbean Better. This advocacy depicts the specific steps to Nurture the actions to better live, work and play.

Here are some samples, based on some previous blog-commentaries that doubled-down on this assertion that these societal engines – economics, security and governance – need redress:

Economics

The biggest Caribbean deficiency in this area is the lack of jobs, entrepreneurial opportunities and an industrial footprint. This sample of previous blog-commentaries asserted these points:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14242 Leading with Money Matters – Follow the Jobs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14191 The Dynamics of the ‘Gig Economy’ for New Job Options
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13420 A Financing Model for Industrial Endeavors
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13184 A Series on Rebooting the Industrial Landscape
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8602 Big Infrastructure Projects Transforms Economic Engines
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7977 Transformations: Perfecting Our Core Competence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6089 Where the Jobs Are – Greater than Minimum Wage
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4037 Fostering the environment for Direct Foreign Investors
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3152 Making a Great Place to Work®

Security

Security and economics must be inextricably linked to elevate prosperity in the homeland. People must be assured public safety and the economic engines must be protected. This theme was conveyed in this sample of previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14556 Common Sense Policies with Guns
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14211 Providing a safer environment for tourists and event participants
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13746 Manifesting Caribbean Basin Security Dreams
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13476 Policing the Police
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12930 Managing Natural & Man-Made ‘Clear and Present Dangers’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12400 Acceding a Caribbean Regional Arrest Treaty
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9072 Securing the Homeland – A Series
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7896 The Logistics of Disaster Relief
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7327 Preparing for Epidemics …Like Zika.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7119 Role Model for a Caribbean Regional Security Force

Governance

The colonial beginnings of the Caribbean have not been supplanted with more advanced systems of governance. This is the plan within the Go Lean roadmap. This plan was expanded in this sample of previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14001 Transforming Mail Eco-System, Transforms Government & Society
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13997 One Integration Effort – CariCom – Defective One-Man-One-Vote
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13995 American Governing Defects – No Vote; No Voice in Congress
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13993 Lessons Learned from the ‘Dignified and Efficient’ British Model
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13749 Integrating Federal Governance: Assembling Regional Organizations
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13744 The Quest for a ‘Single Currency’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13736 Failure to Launch: Past Failures for Caribbean Integration
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13321 Making a ‘Pluralistic Democracy’ – Multilingual Realities

In summary, the Nature of the Caribbean – inherited from the Europeans – is not defaulted for governing efficiency. But, the regional governing entities can be Nurtured for an optimized delivery.

Yes, we can elevate our societal engines. We do not have to suffer and reap the whirlwind of the sins of our legacy members; we do not have to wait for punishment on the children for the sins of their Father. This quest is conceivable, believable and achievable. We can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

———–

Appendix – Bristol Slave Trade

Bristol is a city in the South West of England, on the River Avon which flows into the Severn Estuary. Because of Bristol’s position on the River Avon, it has been an important location for marine trade for centuries.[1] The city’s involvement with the slave trade peaked between 1730 and 1745, when it became the leading slaving port.[2]

Bristol used its position on the Avon to trade all types of goods. Bristol’s port was the second largest in England after London. Countries that Bristol traded with included France, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and North Africa’s Barbary Coast. Bristol’s main export was woollen cloth. Other exports included coal, lead, and animal hides. Imports into Bristol included wine, grain, slate, timber, and olive oil. Trading with the various colonies in the Caribbean and North America began to flourish during the Interregnum of Oliver Cromwell (1649–1660).

The Royal African Company, a London-based trading company, had control over all trade between countries in Britain and Africa before the year 1698[3] At this time, only ships owned by the Royal African Company could trade for anything, including slaves. Slaves were increasingly an important commodity at the time, since the British colonization in the Caribbean and the Americas in the 17th century. The Society of Merchant Venturers, an organization of elite merchants in Bristol [and synonymous with the government of Bristol], wanted to commence participation in the African slave trade, and after much pressure from them and other interested parties in and around Britain, the Royal African Company’s control over the slave trade was broken in 1698.

As soon as the monopoly was broken, what is thought to have been the first “legitimate” Bristol slave ship, the Beginning, owned by Stephen Barker, purchased a cargo of enslaved Africans and delivered them to the Caribbean. Some average slave prices were £20, £50, or £100. In her will of 1693, Jane Bridges, Widow of Leigh Upon Mendip bequeathes her interest of £130 in this very ship to her grandson Thomas Bridges and indicates that the vessel was owned by the City of Bristol. Business boomed; however, due to the over-crowding and harsh conditions on the ships, it is estimated that approximately half of each cargo of slaves did not survive the trip across the Atlantic.[4]

The triangular trade was a route taken by slave merchants during the years 1697 and 1807. The areas covered by the triangular trade was England, North West Africa and finally The Caribbean. Profits of 50-100% were made during the 18th century. Estimates vary about how many slaves were sold and transported by companies registered in Bristol. Over 3.4 million slaves were brought into slavery by these ships, representing one-fifth of the British slave trade during this time.[5][6] However, estimates of over 500,000 slaves were brought into slavery by these ships.[7][8]

Source: Retrieved April 10, 2018 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_slave_trade

———–

Appendix VIDEO – William Wilberforce & the End of the African Slave Trade – https://youtu.be/eLU182rj0pA


Rose Publishing
Published on Jul 26, 2012 – Learn how a young member of British Parliament followed his conviction to bring about the abolition of the African slave trade.

In this 12 Session DVD-based study, Dr. Timothy Paul Jones takes you through the most important events in Christian history from the time of the apostles to today. Click here to read more about this amazing Christian History Bible study series: https://www.hendricksonrose.com/chris…

To learn more about this DVD study visit www.christianhistorymadeeasy.com

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Nature or Nurture: Cop-on-Black Shootings – Embedded in America’s DNA

Posted on April 9, 2018 in Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

It happens so often, it rarely gets attention anymore; Police-on-Black shootings that is!

It seems to be a constant feature of American life. See the latest high profile one – Stephon Clark – in the Appendix below.

What’s worse, when it happens, the White people in America, just yawns. Sad, but true!

Is this phenomenon the Nature of the United States of America, or is it Nurture?

The answer is complicated; the answer is both!

This commentary continues the 4-part series on Nature or Nurture for community ethos. This entry is 2 of 4 in this series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean in consideration of root causes of some societal defects – specific examples in the US and UK – and how to overcome them. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

  1. Nature or Nurture: Black Marchers see gun violence differently
  2. Nature or Nurture: Cop-on-Black Shootings – Embedded in America’s DNA; Whites Yawn
  3. Nature or Nurture: UK City of Bristol still paying off Slavery Debt
  4. Nature or Nurture: Nurturing comes from women; “they” impacted the Abolition of Slavery

In the first submission to this series, the history of Psychology was introduced, which quoted:

One of the oldest arguments in the history of psychology is the Nature vs Nurture debate. Each of these sides have good points that it’s really hard to decide whether a person’s development is predisposed in his DNA, or a majority of it is influenced by this life experiences and his environment. – https://explorable.com/nature-vs-nurture-debate

All of these commentaries relate to “why” the New World – including the US and the Caribbean – has the societal defects that are so prominent – and so illogical – and  “how” the stewards for a new Caribbean can assuage these defects and the resultant failing dispositions among Caribbean society. Though the traits may be consistent in the hemisphere, our efforts to reform and transform is limited to the Caribbean.

The subject of Police-On-Black shootings is a familiar theme for this commentary, from the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free. The book asserts that there is a consistent lack of respect for those in America fitting a “Poor Black” attribute. In fact these prior blog-commentaries doubled-down on this assertion:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13081 America’s Race Relations – Spot-on for Protest
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8202 Lessons Learned from American Dysfunctional Minority Relations
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8200 Climate of Hate for American Minorities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7221 Street naming for Martin Luther King unveils the real America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5527 American Defects: Racism – Is It Over?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4863 Video of Police Shooting: Worth a Million Words
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=546 Book Review – ‘The Divide’ – Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=341 Hypocritical US slams Caribbean human rights practices

Say it ain’t so … it is a dangerous proposition to be Black in America. In fact one Caribbean member-states – The Bahamas, a majority Black population – had urged their young men traveling to the US to exercise extreme caution when dealing with police authorities. This advice is Spot-on!

The Nature of the US is that Black people – especially men and boys – have always had to contend with an unjust society in terms of justice and the security apparatus. Since the subject of Nature assumes that racism is predisposed in a society’s DNA, despite the fact that formal slavery ended 150 years ago, it is no surprise that Blacks in America have seen a continuous suppression, repression and oppression of any justice requirements.

After all, this is the population that suffered so much of the indignity of lynching.

Yes, we are going there …

Despite the fact that African slaves were taken to all New World territories, the country with this acute practice was only the United States of America. Surely, this had a lingering effect on the culture and society. This effect was not only on the victims, but on society in general, and the law enforcement establishment.

Imagine people gathering in their Sunday Best Clothes to watch the lynching (murder) of a Black man with no trial or due process. Imagine the effect that would instill on that community? Would that forge concern and consideration for the targeted population?

Now imagine that drama repeated again and again … 4733 times.

According to a previous Go Lean commentary, 4,733 people were documented as being lynched. That’s a huge number. To think there would be no impact on the Nature of a society is inconceivable. This theme was also conveyed in the TV news magazine 60 Minutes. See the full story here:

VIDEO – Inside the memorial to victims of lynching – https://www.cbsnews.com/video/inside-the-memorial-to-victims-of-lynching/

Posted April 8, 2018 – Oprah Winfrey reports on the Alabama memorial dedicated to thousands of African-American men, women and children lynched over a 70-year period following the Civil War.

Surely this country – the America of Old – would have been no place for Caribbean people to seek refuge. The Nuturing of American society continued to develop a nonchalance to injustice for the Black people of the US. This is where the Nature has been supplanted by the Nurture. This is why stories like Stephon Clark continue to emerge and why White America “continue to yawn”. Surely this society – modern America – is no place for Black-and-Brown Caribbean people to seek refuge.

Yet, the region – all 30 member-states – continue to suffer from an abominable brain drain rate in which so many Caribbean citizens have emigrated to the US, and other countries. (One reported has rated the brain drain rate of 70 percent).

The book Go Lean…Caribbean asserts that it is easier for the Black-and-Brown populations in the Caribbean to prosper where planted in the Caribbean, rather than emigrating to foreign countries, like the United States. If only we can reform and transform our own society so as to dissuade our people from leaving to seek refuge in the US. This is the quest of the Go Lean book, to serve as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The book presents 370 pages of instructions for how to reform and transform our Caribbean member-states. It stresses the key community ethos that needs to be adopted, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to optimize the societal engines in a community.

The CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives for optimizing our societal engines:

As related in this blog series on Nature or Nurture, the Caribbean has the same Nature as our American counterparts, but not the same Nurture. Our majority Black-and-Brown populations have forged different societies than the baseline US. And we are not wanting to be like America …

… we want to be better.

This is not just a dream; this is a roadmap that is conceivable, believable and achievable. Yes, we can … reform and transform our society. We can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

————

Appendix – Shooting of Stephon Clark

Stephon Clark was shot and killed on the evening of March 18, 2018, by two officers of the Sacramento Police Department in Sacramento, California, United States. The officers were looking for a suspect who was breaking windows in the Meadowview neighborhood, and confronted Clark, an unarmed 22-year-old African-American man whom they found in the yard of his grandmother’s house, where he resided. Clark ran from the police in an encounter that was filmed by police video cameras. The officers stated that they shot Clark, firing 20 rounds, believing that he had pointed a gun at them. After the shooting, police reported that he was carrying only a cell phone. According to an independent autopsy, Clark was shot eight times including six times in the back.

The shooting caused large protests in Sacramento, and Clark’s family members have rejected the initial police description of the events leading to Clark’s death. The Sacramento Police Department placed the officers on paid administrative leave and opened a use of force investigation. Police have stated they are confident that Clark was the person responsible for breaking windows in the area prior to the encounter.

…

Shooting

The Sacramento Police Department stated that on Sunday, March 18 at 9:18 p.m., two officers were responding to a call that someone was breaking car windows.[3] In a media release after the shooting, police stated that they had been looking for a suspect hiding in a backyard. They said the suspect was a thin black man, 6 feet 1 inch (185 cm) in height, wearing darkly colored pants and a black hooded sweatshirt.[3] A sheriff’s helicopter spotted a man at 9:25 p.m. in a nearby backyard and told officers on the ground that he had shattered a window using a tool bar, run to the front of that house, and then looked in an adjacent car.[3]

Officers on the ground entered the front yard of Clark’s grandmother’s home, and saw Clark next to the home.[10][3] Vance Chandler, the Sacramento Police Department spokesman, said that Clark was the same man who had been breaking windows, and was tracked by police in helicopters.[3] Chandler said that when Clark was confronted and ordered to stop and show his hands, Clark fled to the back of the property.[3]

Police body camera footage from both of the officers who shot Clark recorded the incident, though the footage is dark and shaky.[10][11] In the videos, officers spot Clark in his grandmother’s driveway and shout “Hey, show me your hands. Stop. Stop.”[10] The video shows that the officers chased Clark into the backyard and an officer yells, “Show me your hands! Gun!” About three seconds elapse and then the officer yells, “Show me your hands! Gun, gun, gun”, before shooting Clark.[10][11]

According to the police, before being shot Clark turned and held an object that he “extended in front of him” while he moved towards the officers.[3] The officers said they believed that Clark was pointing a gun at them.[6] The police stated that the officers feared for their safety, and at 9:26 p.m., fired 20 rounds, hitting Clark multiple times.[6][3] According to an independent autopsy, Clark was shot eight times, including six times in the back.[1] The report found that one of the bullets to strike Clark from the front was likely fired while he was already on the ground.[1]

Body-cam footage shows that after shooting him, the officers continued to yell at him as one shined a flashlight at him and they kept their guns aimed at him. One officer stated in one of the body-cam videos, “He had something in hands, looked like a gun from our perspective.” Three minutes after the shooting, a female officer called to him and said “We need to know if you’re OK. We need to get you medics, so we can’t go over and get you help until we know you don’t have a weapon.”[12] They waited five minutes after shooting Clark before approaching and then handcuffing him.[13] Clark was found to have a white iPhone, and was unarmed.[6][4] Clark’s girlfriend later said the phone belonged to her.[14]

After more officers arrived, one officer said “Hey, mute”, and audio recording from the body camera was turned off.[10]

The Police Department stated on March 19, one day after the shooting, that Clark had been seen with a “tool bar”. On the evening of that day, police revised their statement to say that Clark was carrying a cell phone, and not a tool bar, when he was shot.[3] Police added that Clark might have used either a concrete block or an aluminum gutter railing to break a sliding glass door at the house next door to where he was shot, and that they believed Clark had broken windows from at least three vehicles in the area.[3]

…

Responses

Elected officials and political activists

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, initially said he would not second-guess decisions made by officers on the ground. After a backlash, he said the videos of Clark’s shooting made him feel “really sick” and that the shooting was “wrong” but declined to comment whether the officers should be charged.[30] House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi stated that Clark “should be alive today”.[31] [Civil Rights Activist] Reverend Al Sharpton stated that he was alarmed by the story, which he said had not received enough media attention.[32]

On March 26, White House spokesman Raj Shah stated that he was unaware of any comments from President Donald Trump regarding the incident.[31] Two days later, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated that Trump is “very supportive of law enforcement” and that the incident was a “local matter” that should be dealt with by the local authorities.[33]

Clark family

Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who represents the Clark family, stated that the autopsy finding was inconsistent with the official narrative that Clark was charging toward the police officers when they fired.[1] Clark’s family expressed skepticism of the police version of events. Clark’s brother, Stevante Clark, said of police statements: “They said he had a gun. Then they said he had a crowbar. Then they said he had a toolbar … If you lie to me once, I know you’ll lie to me again.”[10] Clark’s aunt Saquoia Durham said that police gave Clark no time to respond to their commands before shooting him.[34] According to Crump the officers did not identify themselves as police when they encountered Clark.[22] The police have stated that the officers who confronted Clark were wearing their uniforms at that time.[35]

Policing experts

University of South Carolina criminology professor Geoffrey Alpert stated that it might be hard for officers to justify their conclusion that Clark was armed, since they had been told he was carrying a toolbar.[36] Peter Moskos, assistant professor of Law and Police Science at John Jay College, said that the officers appeared to think they had been fired upon following the shooting.[37] Alpert, Clark’s family, and protesters questioned officers’ decisions to mute their microphones.[10][38] Police Chief Daniel Hahn said he was unable to explain the muting. Cedric Alexander, former police chief in Rochester, New York, and former president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, said that the muting did not appear to violate any policy, but looks bad. He also stated that it is not unusual for police to mute their body cams and that attorneys advise the police to mute conversations to prevent recording any comments that could be used in administrative or criminal proceedings. Many body cams are made with a mute button on them.[38]

Source: Wikipedia; retrieved April 9, 2018 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Stephon_Clark

 

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Nature or Nurture: Change Still Possible

Posted on April 8, 2018 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

What is wrong … with America? Why are they so dysfunctional with … Guns, School Shootings, Police-on-Black shootings?

Question: Is the American problem Nature … or it Nurture?

Answer: It’s American Psychology!

Psychology is not so new a science … it goes way back in history – i.e. Plato, Aristotle,  John Locke (1690), René Descartes (1637), etc..

One of the oldest arguments in the history of psychology is the Nature vs Nurture debate. Each of these sides have good points that it’s really hard to decide whether a person’s development is predisposed in his DNA, or a majority of it is influenced by this life experiences and his environment. – https://explorable.com/nature-vs-nurture-debate

Which factor – Nature or Nurture – attributes to the development of Caribbean society?

VIDEO – Nature vs. Nurture – Psy 101 – https://youtu.be/chzDR3feSHY

PsychU
Published on Jul 10, 2015 – Does our personality and behavior come about from our upbringing and environment or do we have genetic predispositions that influence us to act a certain way? Let’s discuss how psychologists tackle the issue!

The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – asserts that there are standard traits for Caribbean society and people – community ethos – that are so entrenched that they could be considered as embedded in the DNA. The Go Lean book defines community ethos as:

… the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period. – Page 20

But alas, “community ethos” can be changed.

The Go Lean book prescribes how to recognize the ethos and most importantly: how to change ethos.

The Caribbean’s “community ethos” did not start in the Caribbean; alas, they started in Europe. So a study of the European ethos during the time of the discovery of the New World must be considered; we must learn from those lessons – we are directly affected.

In a previous Go Lean commentary, it was developed that the historicity of American and Caribbean society – make  that the whole New World – was premised on the European philosophy of White Supremacy; that it was acceptable for those peoples to exploit the native people of the New World – or the transplanted slaves – as long as they infused Christianity into these conquered people.

Such a fallacy!

So the Nature of the Caribbean refers to the normal assumption – community ethos – that inhabitants are Less Than and not equipped to foster a workable society. Alas, this Nature can be changed!

One way of changing that default Nature, is by Nurturing the needed values that the regional community needs to thrive as functioning societies. This destination is not automatic; it must be forged … with strenuous effort – heavy-lifting. This must be the new societal priority.

Underlying to Caribbean history is the Nature (DNA) of the New World colonizers; they brought Crony-Capitalism and White Supremacy – in this order – to their new lands of influence. This natural assumption that Europeans had the right to rule and exploit the land and dominate native people was an obvious attribute for hundreds of years (half a millennium).

Take for example this evidence in the history of discovery:

  • The New World was discovered in 1492, slavery started in 1600’s. What happened in 1500’s? Search for Gold. This is proof-positive that European Crony-Capitalism superseded all other community values in the New World colonization quest.
  • French Revolution brought equality and egalitarianism to the French world, but shortly thereafter, “they” wanted to re-install slavery in the French Caribbean, even in rebellious Haiti.

Where personal Nature is failing, the recompense must come from the process in Nurturing. (Consider the example of Crony-Capitalism; change can be forged by attacking the pocketbook through boycotts, embargo and blockades).

This commentary commences a 4-part series on Nature or Nurture for “community ethos”. This entry is 1 of 4 in this series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean in consideration of root causes of some societal defects – specific examples in the US and UK – and how to overcome them. There is much that can be learned from history, good, bad and ugly. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

  1. Nature or Nurture: Black Marchers see gun violence differently
  2. Nature or Nurture: Cop-on-Black Shootings – Embedded in America’s DNA; Whites Yawn>
  3. Nature or Nurture: UK City of Bristol still paying off Slavery Debt
  4. Nature or Nurture: Nurturing comes from women; “they” impacted the Abolition of Slavery

All of these commentaries relate to “why” the New World has the societal defects that are so prominent – and so illogical – and  “how” the stewards for a new Caribbean can assuage these defects and the resultant failing dispositions among Caribbean society. Though the traits may be consistent in the hemisphere, our efforts to reform and transform is limited to the Caribbean.

The subject of gun violence in America is truly one of those subjects, where a logical society seems to ignore logic. (America is the richest, most powerful society in the history of civilizations). It is outright stupidity! A previous blog-commentary related that stupidity persists when “someone is profiting”. (In a free society, special interest groups – who often have an economic motive – can conduct promotional campaigns to control public opinion).

So in America, it is a fact that different population groups have different experiences and values for guns. See this reality as portrayed in this news article, about Black protesters seeing gun violence differently than their White counterparts:

Title: Black Marchers See Gun Violence Differently
By: Alexa Spencer

WASHINGTON — Adia Granger knows gun violence intimately.  The 16-year-old lives in Baltimore, the city with the highest murder rate of any major city in America.

Of the 343 people killed in Baltimore last year, 295 died by gunfire, more than New York City or Los Angeles, cities with more than 10 times Baltimore’s population.  Gun-related deaths accounted for 88 percent of the city’s homicides.

Many of the victims were young.  Markel Scott, 19, shot six times. Steven Jackson, 18, shot in the head. Shaquan Raymone Trusty, 16, shot multiple times in the upper body. Tyrese Davis, 15, and  Jeffrey Quick, 15, shot in same neighborhood within blocks of one another.

Adia’s own cousin was shot while walking home from work.  Like her cousin, most all of them victims were black.

Their deaths were the reason she and a group of classmates from Western High School were among the more than 800,000 who rallied in the nation’s capital to demand more action to deal with gun violence.

“I came here to represent Baltimore,” Adia said.

Adia was among several bus loads of students sent to the march by Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh. For them, gun violence is not new. It is a longstanding issue.

Adia, a high school junior, joined the national movement for gun control sparked by the Parkland shooting by marching out of her school in March,   Like many other protestors,  she said she wanted the federal government should do more to address the issue.

“It’s unacceptable what is going on,” Adia said, “and Congress has not done anything about it.,”

Adia was among many black citizens that were present to protest not only against mass shootings, but also police brutality and gun violence that plagues neighborhoods of color.

Frederick Shelton, 43, stood aside the packed streets, holding a sign that read: If the opposite of pro is con…what is the opposite of progress?”

The message of his sign, Shelton said is “We’re not moving forward.”

“It’s just a matter of time before any of us get shot, because our federal government is not doing anything,” he said. “We’re all just sitting around waiting for the next mass shooting. It could be you. It could be me. And that’s a horrible way to live.”

Shelton teaches English as a second language to immigrant students in Washington.   He said his students are uniquely affected by gun laws and said he participated in the march to make their lives better. He suggested the federal government reserve guns for military personnel only.

“I believe that there is no place for guns in our society,” he said. “Guns are for the military.”

Tameka Garner-Barry, 38-year-old mother of three, brought her sons, 2, 5, and 11, to the march to “reclaim” their schools and their community. Her children, though young, have recognized the problem and wanted to be at the march to speak out.

“These are issues and concerns that they’ve had, so it’s only right that they come out and voice their opinions and let their voices be heard,” Garner-Barry said.

Standing at his mother’s hip, 5-year-old Bryson chipped in his feelings.

“I feel like people have to stop the violence,” he said, “because people are getting hurt.”

Garner-Barry said she wanted to see the removal of guns from the streets and heightened security in school.

“I want Congress to know that we do control the vote, and that we take these issues seriously,” she said, “and I want the NRA to be dismissed altogether,”

Nia Smith, 21, a graduating senior film production major at Howard University from Chicago, was also at the march.

Chicago had the highest number of murders two years in a row.    In 2016, 771 were killed.  The number declined to 650 murdered in 2017, still higher than the number of murders in Los Angeles and New York City combined.

“Gun violence has always been a part of my life,” Smith said. “I have had family members that I’ve lost to gun violence.”

Though the march addressed gun violence, including some speakers who tlked abut gun violence against African-American men and women, she said she felt as though certain forms of gun violence, such as police brutality, were overlooked by protesters because of class and race.

“They fail to see that gun violence is gun violence, period…the police and the perpetrators of the classroom shootings,” Smith said.

To fully combat the issue, there must be support across racial lines, she said.

“I don’t think they should be separated,” she said. “I think white people should march the way they marched today for the Black Lives Matter movement. They all died the same way. They all died by a bullet.”

Source: Howard University News Service; posted March 26, 2018; retrieved April 7, 2018 from: http://www.hunewsservice.com/news/view.php/1033085/Black-Marchers-See-Gun-Violence-Differen

A previous blog-commentary related how the 2nd Amendment originated during slavery so as to provide additional rights to the slave-owning populations to regulate (police) their slave majorities on plantations.

Despite the historic developments, the requirements for the Black American population appears to be different than for the White population; (this writer attended one of the “March For Our Lives” events on March 24, 2018). This is the manifestation of the Nature psychology.

While this is an American drama, there is much that the Caribbean can glean, in terms of lessons learned. The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. The book presents 370 pages of instructions for how to reform and transform our Caribbean member-states. It stresses the key community ethos that needs to be adopted, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to shepherd a better society.

The book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

The Go Lean book provides directions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. Considering the failings in the US, the Go Lean roadmap calls for remediation and mitigation for gun control, despite the race issues. We want to elevate our society beyond the initial racial Nature in Caribbean history.

Change can be forged, by Nurturing a better community ethos. We have a long track record of advocates and activists working to change the default orthodoxy. They protest, campaign, speak out for a cause, lobby, cajole, take to the streets and march; they engage the voting process and support – or oppose – candidates in line, or out of line, with their cause. This is referred to as forging change from the Bottom-Up. They may even use Civil Disobedience tactics.

Have you been to jail for justice?

This is an important question and statement for forging change in society. See how this has been portrayed in this song-VIDEO recapping many of the causes during the hey-day of the Counter-Culture: Civil Rights, Women’s rights, Anti-War protests, etc.. The lyrics are included in the Appendix below.

VIDEO – Peter, Paul and Mary – Have You Been To Jail For Justice – https://youtu.be/rCbhOc1VZ6k

Kwan CS
Published on Sep 26, 2016 – Peter, Paul and Mary – Have You Been To Jail For Justice

For many of the Caribbean’s bad Nature, the Go Lean roadmap seeks to Nurture change with good messaging to the heart of the youth; this is one proven method for forging change among the next generation. Beyond that, meeting the needs of the population is important for optimizing the societal engines in a community. This is easier said than done, but this quest is the purpose of the CU/Go Lean roadmap; this roadmap has these 3 prime directives for optimizing our societal engines:

The Caribbean does not have the same population demographic as the neighboring American states. We can more easily distance ourselves from the racial dysfunction in American society. We have majority Black populations among 29 of the 30 member-states.  We only need to deliver best practices going forward; after formal reconciliation from our dysfunctional past.

Despite our differences, the Caribbean does need to reform and transform our society. We have many societal defects of our own. That cited song stressed this ethos:

The more you study history
The less you can deny it
A rotten law stays on the books
’til folks with guts defy it!

Yes, we can … exert the energy, display the guts and internal fortitude to change our society, to reform and transform. This is how we can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

———-

Appendix – Lyrics: Peter, Paul and Mary – Have You Been To Jail For Justice 

(Written by Anne Feeney)

Was it Cesar Chavez or Rosa Parks that day?
Some say Dr. King or Ghandi
Set them on their way
No matter who your mentors are
It’s pretty plain to see
That if you’ve been to jail for justice
You’re in good company

Have you been to jail for justice?
I want to shake your hand
‘Cause sitting in and laying down
Are ways to take a stand
Have you sung a song for freedom
Or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice?
Then you’re a friend of mine

You law abiding citizens
Come listen to this song
Laws are made by people
And people can be wrong
Once unions were against the law
But slavery was fine
Women were denied the vote
While children worked the mine
The more you study history
The less you can deny it
A rotten law stays on the books
’til folks with guts defy it!

Have you been to jail for justice?
I want to shake your hand
‘Cause sitting in and laying down
Are ways to take a stand
Have you sung a song for freedom
Or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice?
Then you’re a friend of mine

Well the law is supposed to serve us
And so are the police
When the system fails
It’s up to us to speak our piece
We must be ever vigilant
For justice to prevail
So get courage from your convictions
Let ’em haul you off to jail!

Have you been to jail for justice?
I want to shake your hand
‘Cause sitting in and laying down
Are ways to take a stand
Have you sung a song for freedom
Or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice?
Then you’re a friend of mine
Have you been to jail for justice
Have you been to jail for justice
Have you been to jail for justice
Then you’re a friend of mine

Source: Retrieved April 8, 2018 from: https://genius.com/Peter-paul-and-mary-have-you-been-to-jail-for-justice-lyrics

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Change! Forging Change – Corporate Vigilantism

Posted on March 29, 2018 in Economics, Ethos, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

It’s the principle, not the money! – Common Expression

Normally the people who can afford to take a stand on principle rather than money are the people who do not need the money.

Who is that in our society?

Rich people, yes!

But try this … Banks!

Yes, one of the America’s biggest banks – Citigroup or Citibank – wants to reform and transform American society in regards to guns. They are putting their money where their mouth is. Or better still, they are “pulling” their money based on causes that their mouth is advocating. See VIDEO summary here:

VIDEO – Citigroup tells business partners to place restrictions on guns – https://youtu.be/JETUE8kZ1ks

Published on Mar 23, 2018 – [Citigroup] plans to prohibit retailers that are customers of the bank from offering bump stocks or selling guns to people who haven’t passed a background check or are younger than 21.

The bank is imposing the restrictions on companies that use it to issue store credit-cards or for lending and other services, according to a memo Thursday. The lender also barred the sale of high-capacity magazines.

“The policy was designed to respect the rights of responsible gun owners while helping to keep firearms out of the wrong hands,” Citigroup Chief Executive Officer Mike Corbat said in the memo to staff. “It is clear to me that most people believe there are areas of agreement and practical changes we can make to find common ground.” ...

Wow, this – corporate vigilantism – can be effective for forging change. Imagine the pressure: no credit line, mortgage, installment loan, credit card processing, nor check-cashing for the business. This can affect a company’s ability to meet payroll or operate as an ongoing concern. This is called controlling the purse strings.

And what is the bank asking for their continuation of business-as-usual?

Common sense gun sale regulations. See these 3 principles here from the Internal Staff Memo in Appendix A below:

(1) they don’t sell firearms to someone who hasn’t passed a background check …

(2) they restrict the sale of firearms for individuals under 21 years of age, and …

(3) they don’t sell bump stocks or high-capacity magazines.

This commentary is written by a Citibank-Staffer, but this information (memo) is not just internal; it is also published in a Press Release. See the New York Times version of the announcement in Appendix B.

The request from Citibank here does not seem like a huge hardship. It seems only reasonable; common sense! Benevolent!

Expect other banks to follow suit, as other companies have deployed new policies and business rules related to guns.

Is this soft power or hard power?

Hard power is the use of military and economic means to influence the behavior or interests of other political bodies. This form of political power is often aggressive (coercion), and is most effective when imposed by one political body upon another of lesser military and/or economic power.[1] Hard power contrasts with soft power, which comes from diplomacy, culture and history.[1] – Source: Wikipedia.

No doubt, this is hard power; this is corporate vigilantism. But this is an effective way to forge change in a society.

This commentary is about forging change, as demonstrated with the Hot Topic of Common Sense Gun Control. This entry also concludes a short 3-part series on “Change” in society. The full catalog of commentaries in this series are as follows:

  1. Change! Observing the Change – Student Marches for Gun Control Reform and Action
  2. Change! Be the Change – RIP Linda Brown; the little girl in “Brown vs Board of Education”
  3. Change! Forging Change – Citibank’s Model of “Corporate Vigilantism”

All of these commentaries give insights on “how” the stewards of a new Caribbean can persuade people, establishments and institutions to forge change in their communities. Of course, this should be for benevolent purposes.

This thought of ‘forging benevolent change’ is a common theme for the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean for nearly 4 years. See the full catalog here of this one, plus the previous 11 blog-commentaries that detailed approaches for forging change (in reverse chronological order):

  1. Forging Change – Corporate Vigilantism (Today: March 28, 2018)
  2. Forging Change – Soft Power (February 21, 2018)
  3. Forging Change – Collective Bargaining (April 27, 2017)
  4. Forging Change – Addicted to Home (April 14, 2017)
  5. Forging Change – Arts & Artists (December 1, 2016)
  6. Forging Change – Panem et Circenses (November 15, 2016)
  7. Forging Change – Herd Mentality (October 11, 2016)
  8. Forging Change – ‘Something To Lose’ (November 18, 2015)
  9. Forging Change – ‘Food’ for Thought (April 29, 2015)
  10. Forging Change – Music Moves People (December 30, 2014)
  11. Forging Change – The Sales Process (December 22, 2014)
  12. Forging Change – The Fun Theory (September 9, 2014)

As related in these commentaries, forging change in the 3 societal engines of a community – economics, security and governance – is how the roadmap described in the Go Lean book will make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play.

The premise of this commentary is that it is easier to lead and get people to voluntarily follow – to lean-in – when there is control of the purse strings; this is economic hard power.

Hard power as expressed by Citibank will also have its critics. Who? Mostly those that do not want to be controlled. But there is a truism in business – and in life – satirically referred to as the Golden Rule. It relates:

He, who has the Gold, makes the rules.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), to better wield economic power for the consolidated Caribbean region. This is accomplished by better leveraging the economic engines for all 30 member-states in the region. Plus, with the introduction and implementation of the accompanying Caribbean Central Bank (CCB), monetary control can also be wielded for the region, further maximizing benevolent hard power influence in communities. This CU/CCB/Go Lean roadmap describes this benevolence with the following 3 prime directives, as follows:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

There are a lot of benefits to the people of the Caribbean with this roadmap. The Go Lean book stresses this point; that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines is easier by leveraging the entire region; imagine 42 million people and a $800 Billion GDP economy; many regional solutions emerge. Consider these pronouncements from early in the book, embedded in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

viii. Whereas the population size is too small to foster good negotiations for products and commodities from international vendors, the Federation must allow the unification of the region as one purchasing agent, thereby garnering better terms and discounts.

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society.

Change will come; but it depends on who controls the purse strings that wields the influence – hard power. We urge everyone that lives in or loves our homeland to lean-in to this roadmap, so as to ensure that Caribbean stakeholders are the ones with the hard power for the Caribbean. This is how we forge change to make our homes better to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

————-

Appendix A – March 22, 2018 Staff Memo – Message From CEO Mike Corbat

Dear Colleagues,

Over the last several weeks, I have had many conversations with clients, colleagues and friends who hold a range of opinions on the regulation of firearms in the U.S. It is clear to me that most people believe there are areas of agreement and practical changes we can make to find common ground.

Citi is ready to do our part to help our country move in that direction. Today, I am proud to announce a new U.S. Commercial Firearms Policy that promotes the adoption of current best practices regarding the sale of firearms. The policy was designed to respect the rights of responsible gun owners while helping to keep firearms out of the wrong hands.

This policy will apply across the firm, including to small business, commercial and institutional clients, as well as credit card partners, whether co-brand or private label. Under the policy, we will require new retail sector clients or partners to adhere to these current best practices: (1) they don’t sell firearms to someone who hasn’t passed a background check, (2) they restrict the sale of firearms for individuals under 21 years of age, and (3) they don’t sell bump stocks or high-capacity magazines.

It is clear our current clients care about these issues as well, and we believe we can make meaningful progress together. We have already begun to engage with them in the hope that they will adopt these best practices over the coming months. If they opt not to, we will respect their decision and work with them to transition their business away from Citi.

We have few relationships with companies that manufacture firearms. For those that do, we will be initiating due diligence conversations to better understand the products they make, what markets and retailers they sell to, and the sales practices of those retailers to ensure adherence with the best practices outlined above. We will apply the same due diligence screening to potential clients going forward.

We know that our efforts cannot lead to real change unless we work with others. To that end, we are initiating a dialogue within the financial services industry and with other stakeholders to understand whether there are additional technology solutions or voluntary standards that can be enacted. We know a solution may not come quickly, but we are committed to the conversation.

As an avid outdoorsman and responsible gun owner, I know that some will find our policy too strict while others will find it too lenient. We don’t have the perfect solution to supporting our Constitution while keeping our children and grandchildren safe. Best practices are going to continue to change, and we understand the limitations of our efforts. But we shouldn’t let that stop us from doing our part.

– Mike

Source: Internal Citi Memo – Authorized for Public Disclosure

————-

Appendix B – Citigroup Sets Restrictions on Gun Sales by Business Partners
By: Tiffany Hsu

Citigroup is setting restrictions on the sale of firearms by its business customers, making it the first Wall Street bank to take a stance in the divisive nationwide gun control debate.

The new policy, announced Thursday, prohibits the sale of firearms to customers who have not passed a background check or who are younger than 21. It also bars the sale of bump stocks and high-capacity magazines. It would apply to clients who offer credit cards backed by Citigroup or borrow money, use banking services or raise capital through the company.

The rules, which the company described as “common-sense measures,” echo similar restrictions established by some major retailers, like Walmart. But they also represent the boldest such move to emerge from the banking sector.

Since the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Fla., last month, renewed calls for remedies to firearms violence have led to sweeping consumer boycotts and unprecedented moves by corporate America to distance itself from the powerful gun lobby.

But federal lawmakers have taken limited action, and President Trump quickly abandoned a promise to pursue gun control measures, instead promoting proposals backed by the National Rifle Association to arm teachers.

The financial services and investment community was even less engaged, staying mostly quiet on suggestions that it wield its considerable influence over gun merchants to encourage firearms-related changes.

Citigroup’s gun policy has “been a while coming,” its chief executive, Michael L. Corbat, told The New York Times Thursday. Mr. Corbat, who called himself “an avid outdoorsman and responsible gun owner,” acknowledged that “some will find our policy too strict while others will find it too lenient.”

“We don’t pretend that these answers are perfect, but as we looked at the things we thought we could influence, we felt that, working with our clients, we could make a difference,” he said. “Banks serve a societal purpose — we believe our investors want us to do this and be responsible corporate citizens.”

Citigroup said it had begun to inform existing small business and credit card clients and commercial and institutional partners of its plan and would screen future partners using the new requirements.

The bank said it has few gun manufacturing companies as clients, but those it does work with will be asked to provide details about their product and distribution networks.

If business customers decline Citigroup’s restrictions, the bank said it would work with them to “transition their business away.” The company declined to name clients or describe the extent of affected partnerships but said that “real revenue is at risk” if relationships fall through and customers protest. Some of Citigroup’s clients, like Walmart, already adhere to the new policies.

Citigroup said it did not have the technology nor the legal ability to monitor gun purchases at the payment-processing level, but said that the industry was discussing the possibility.

Edward Skyler, an executive vice president at Citigroup who helped craft the policy, wrote in a blog post that the company’s announcement “will invite passion on both sides.” But he stressed that the policies were “not centered on an ideological mission to rid the world of firearms.”

Following various mass shootings, “we have waited for our grief to turn into action and see our nation adopt common-sense measures that would help prevent firearms from getting into the wrong hands,” he wrote. “That action has sadly never come and as the weeks pass from the most recent mass shooting, it appears we remain in the same cycle of tragedy and inaction.”

The company said it would not enforce a specific deadline and instead hoped to have all of its clients on board with the gun restrictions within a few months. Members of its corporate citizenship group, which also monitors whether clients engaged in coal mining and oil drilling are adhering to Citigroup’s environmental standards, will check in regularly on partners’ gun-selling procedures, the company said.

The Citigroup board was supportive of the decision. Mr. Corbat said that, in many recent discussions about the new policy, “there hasn’t been a consensus, but we also haven’t come to this decision in a vacuum.”

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, U.S. Bank and Bank of America declined to comment on whether they had similar plans in the works.

Alan Elias, a spokesman for Wells Fargo, said in a statement that “any solutions on how to address this epidemic will be complicated.”

“This is why our company believes the best way to make progress on these issues is through the political and legislative process,” he said. “We are engaging our customers that legally manufacture firearms and other stakeholders on what we can do together to promote better gun safety for our communities.”

Diane Zappas, a spokeswoman for PNC Financial Services Group, said that the company, which is “continuing to consider these issues,” had discouraged new loans to gun manufacturers since 2013 and had “very limited exposure” to clients that manufacture AR-15-style rifles like the kind used in the Parkland shooting.

Wall Street is deeply tied to the sprawling, opaque gun industry through pension funds that buy into public gun companies, private equity firms with firearms holdings and financial institutions that back sizable loans to handgun and rifle manufacturers.

In recent weeks, both Bank of America and the asset manager BlackRock said they had reached out to firearms manufacturers and distributors to ask about their responses to mass shootings, and strategies to stop them.

American Outdoor Brands, the parent company of the Smith & Wesson gun brand, replied to BlackRock in a public letter earlier this month, saying that it respects the national debate about gun safety and shares “the nation’s grief” over the Parkland killings and “the desire to make our communities safer.”

But American Outdoor, whose stock price has been more than halved since the 2016 election, stressed that “the solution is not to take a politically motivated action” that “results in no increase in public safety.”

Last month, the First National Bank of Omaha, which said it would not renew a contract with the National Rifle Association to issue an N.R.A.-branded Visa card, led a quick succession of companies to cut ties with the trade group.

The N.R.A. did not respond to requests for comment.

YouTube said this week that it would start removing videos next month that promote the sale or manufacture of firearms and accessories, especially those that allow simulated automatic firing, like bump stocks.

On March 12, the gun manufacturer Sturm Ruger addressed shareholder concerns in a letter that promised to continue manufacturing and selling semiautomatic firearms, or what the industry refers to as modern sporting rifles.

In the letter, the company said that “succumbing to political pressure to do what is expedient” would fly “in the face of our fiduciary responsibility as stewards of the company for the benefit of shareholders.”

Source: New York Times – Posted March 22, 2018; retrieved March 28, 2018 from: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/business/citigroup-gun-control-policy.html

Related Coverage:

  1. YouTube to Ban Videos Promoting Gun Sales – March 22, 2018
  2. Big Investors Have Clout. They Can Use It With Gun Makers – March 5, 2018
  3. ‘Our Values Are Not for Sale,’ Says Delta C.E.O. as Airline Considers Ending Divisive Discounts – March 2, 2018
  4. Walmart and Dick’s Raise Minimum Age for Gun Buyers to 21 – February 28, 2018
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Change! Be the Change – Linda Brown, RIP

Posted on March 27, 2018 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

This could be just an empty platitude …

Be the Change you want to see in the world. 

… and then there are people who actually did it, not just say it!

Rest in Peace, Linda Brown.

The world is mourning the passing of Linda Brown, who died on Monday (March 26, 2018) at the age of 76. (See link to “Condolences” in Appendix B below). She was the little “Brown” in the landmark American legal case “Brown versus Board of Education”. On her behalf, the country changed! The US Supreme Court overturned the previous rulings maintaining the dignity-defying legacies of “Separate But Equal” and started the journey for full diversity in American society.

Rather that wishing for change, Linda Brown went on to Be The Change, as a Civil Rights icon.

As a little girl, Brown was at the center of the historic Brown vs. Board of Education case, which ultimately ended segregation in U.S. public schools. – Source: Huffington Post 

This actuality has been fittingly highlighted by the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean. In a previous blog-commentary, it was detailed how the Supreme Court case “Brown vs. Board of Education” set a far-reaching precedence whose reverberations shook the whole world, even the Caribbean:

The issues pronounced here in the Go Lean book highlights an important factoid: de jure versus de facto…

  • de jure = according to law
  • de facto = in reality

As a result of the 1954 Supreme Court’s decision, the de jure policy of the US was that of racial equality. But in reality, that decision didn’t manifest on the streets for the everyday man. The facts did not change the fiction, racism continued to dominate the American eco-system, even today. The aft-mentioned 20 million African-Americans in the US were viewed, treated and labeled as “Less Than“.

The case for little Linda Brown started the journey from de jure to de facto; eventually the de facto advanced closer to the de jure. We are here today, in a more racially-equitable America, because of that journey that was started for young Linda Brown. She will always be identified as an icon for constitutional progress – a constant feature of Constitutional History.

Now we say goodbye to Linda; but with a gracious heart full of gratitude for her accomplished life of “shifting the needle” towards a more harmonious society.

What a great role model, even for us in the Caribbean; of the 30 member-states that caucus as the political Caribbean, 29 have a non-White majority. Civil Rights matters here too! “We” all benefited from American progress as the regional hegemony. We all benefited from Linda Brown.

What a model she provided. We too, can Be the Change we want to see in the world.

Yes, this movement has consistently asserted that one man or one woman can make a difference in society. Linda Brown proved it! So too, can you, me or any Caribbean stakeholder. This is what the book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – have pronounced. The book posits that one person – advocating for progress – can make a difference (Page 122). It relates:

An advocacy is an act of pleading for, supporting, or recommending a cause or subject. For this book, it’s a situational analysis, strategy or tactic for dealing with a narrowly defined subject.

Advocacies are not uncommon in modern history. There are many that have defined generations and personalities. Consider these notable examples from the last two centuries in different locales around the world:

  • Frederick Douglas
  • Mohandas Gandhi
  • Martin Luther King
  • Nelson Mandela
  • Cesar Chavez – [American Farm Workers Advocate]
  • Candice Lightner – (Advocate for Mothers Against Drunk Driving]

The Go Lean book seeks to advocate for the Caribbean, not the US, and for the people who love our homeland. Yet still we can learn lessons from American Constitutional History (Page 145) – “separate but equal” was always a fallacy despite one Supreme Court ruling after another. We now hope to direct our regional stakeholders in our own Way Forward based on best-practices gleaned from America’s dysfunctional past. (Also see book’s Epilogue excerpt in the Appendix A below).

The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), to reform and transform our communities, by elevating our societal engines – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The Go Lean book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit – we must become a pluralistic democracy: Black, White, African-descended, European-descended, Asia-descended, Aboriginal, etc.. Our problems are too big for any one Caribbean member-state to contend with alone. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14):

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of communities like East Germany, Detroit, Indian (Native American) Reservations, Egypt and the previous West Indies Federation. On the other hand, the Federation must also implement the good examples learned from developments / communities like New York City, Germany, Japan, Canada, the old American West and tenants of the US Constitution.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. One entry is “10 Lessons from the US Constitution” (Page 145), detailing the adjustments and optimizing of the “living” document over the years:

The Bottom Line on Constitutional Law
The US Constitution was written in the late 18th Century, adopted on September 17, 1787, by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and ratified by conventions in 11 states. It went into effect on March 4, 1789. It was not the start, nor the end of the constitution theory process for the United States. But underlying to the codification on paper was the ideals verbalized in the Declaration of Independence of 1776, which defined that All Men Are Created Equal and Endowed by their Creator with Certain Unalienable Rights for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

A nearly 250-year review of the process shows one consistent pattern, a desire to do better. While not perfect, the United States of America always tried to do better, from one generation to another. Whereas the Colonial/ Revolutionary America featured a country of great privileges for rich (land-owning) white Englishmen, a slow turn in societal evolution saw those privileges extended to the everyday white man, then to new immigrants, then to women, then to minorities, then to the disabled, and now to all, even those with alternative lifestyles.

The Go Lean movement calls on every man, woman and child in the Caribbean to be an advocate and a champion, or at least appreciate the championing efforts of previous advocates. Their examples can truly help us today with our passions and purpose. Consider this sample of prior blog/commentaries where advocates and role models have been elaborated upon:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14541 Viola Desmond – One Woman Made a Difference
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14139 Carter Woodson – One Man Made a Difference … for Black History
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10801 Caribbean Roots: John Carlos – The Man. The Moment. The Movement
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10114 Caribbean Roots: Esther Rolle of ‘Good Times’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9300 Edward Snowden – One Person Making a Difference
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8495 The NBA’s Tim Duncan – Champion On and Off the Court
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8165 Role Model Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7682 Frederick Douglass: Role Model for Single Cause – Death or Diaspora
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=866 Role Model Bob Marley: The legend lives on!

Thank you Linda Brown, for your good role model … and Rest in Peace. See VIDEO below.

The movement behind Go Lean book, the planners of a new Caribbean, stresses that the same as change impacted the delivery of Civil Rights in America – which eventually transformed their society – a ‘change will also come’ to the Caribbean. This commentary continues this short 3-part series on “Change” in society. The full catalog of commentaries in this series are as follows:

  1. Change! Observing the Change – Student Marches for Gun Control Reform and Action
  2. Change! Be the Change – RIP Linda Brown; the little girl in “Brown vs Board of Education”
  3. Change! Forging Change – Citibank’s Model of “Corporate Vigilantism”

All of these commentaries give insights on “how” the planners of the new Caribbean can persuade people, establishments and institutions to forge change in their communities.

Remember the 5 L‘s. We want to learn from the US Constitutional History– the good, bad and ugly lessons. As planners for this new Caribbean, we have looked, listened, learned and lend-a-hand for the American experience; we are now ready to lead our own homeland to be a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

————–

Appendix A – Epilogue – Future Focus – Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

This was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court’s (between 1953 and 1969, when Earl Warren served as Chief Justice) unanimous decision (9–0) stated that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal”. As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution (Fourteenth Amendment). This ruling paved the way for integration and was a major victory of the civil rights movement.

This landmark ruling created chaos for nearly 60 years; the animosity created was real and every aspect of American society was affected. (Most legislative assemblies in the southern states passed resolutions and sanctions condemning the Supreme Court decision, though the federal law superseded all state legislations). Cities and urban areas suffered from white flight, where white Americans fled the cities to move out to the suburbs to avoid the integration of urban schools; with their flight went their capital and tax base. Many American cities have still not recovered, for example Detroit filed for Bankruptcy in July 2013 after suffering the pangs of distress from this white flight for 60 years.

So why would the learned men on the Supreme Court make this unanimous ruling and caused so much havoc on American life. Were they not wise, could they not “read the writing on the wall”? The answer is an emphatic No! They knew the real beneficiary of their judgment would come later. Their wisdom was strewn from the experience of modern society waging two world wars, the last of which was just concluded 9 years earlier. They saw the rampage, saw of devastation of 60 million deaths around the world and appreciated the wisdom that a downtrodden people would not stay down, that they would rise and revolt, that they would risk their lives and that of their children to pursue freedom. The Warren Court knew that the status quo of race inequality could not continue, but in order to effectuate that change would take writing-off an entire generation (or two). That time had come, the generation was now (1954); but the hope was with the next generation, and so the curative measures started with the children of that day, so that inevitably, future generations would inhabit an America that would not judge its people by the color of their skins, but rather the content of their character.

Source: Book Go Lean … Caribbean Page 251

————–

Appendix B – Condolences – Civil Rights Icon Linda Brown Remembered On Twitter: ‘Rest In Power’- https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/linda-brown-death-tributes_us_5ab9f841e4b054d118e65b09

“Generations stand on your shoulders.”

See the condolences, comments and tributes in the link here from many, public servants and private individuals, celebrities and commoners alike.

————–

Appendix C VIDEO – Remembering The Life Of Linda Brown | Morning Joe | MSNBC – https://youtu.be/MGefY55K8LM


MSNBC
Published on Mar 27, 2018 – Linda Brown, the Kansas girl at the center of the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that struck down racial segregation in schools, has died at age 76.
» Subscribe to MSNBC: http://on.msnbc.com/SubscribeTomsnbc

About: MSNBC is the premier destination for in-depth analysis of daily headlines, insightful political commentary and informed perspectives. Reaching more than 95 million households worldwide, MSNBC offers a full schedule of live news coverage, political opinions and award-winning documentary programming — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

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Change! Observing the Change … with Guns

Posted on March 26, 2018 in Ethos, Government, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Here’s is our assignment – the 5 L‘s – for the Caribbean Diaspora in the US hoping for change back in our beloved homeland:

Look, Listen, Learn for the societal defects in the American eco-system.

… and if you can: Lend-a-hand

… then go back home and Lead.

You see, we are not trying to be like America; we are trying to be better.

This is a Big Deal … right now. There was a school shooting in the US again; this time on February 14, 2018 in Parkland, Florida. 17 people were killed, 14 students and 3 staff members. Though the school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, has 3100+ students, the survivors are not going away quietly; they are “mad as hell and not taking it anymore”; they are not satisfied with the status quo for gun control in this country and they are not going to settle for anything other than:

Change.

When asked about the #Enough hashtag – “hactivism” – these young ones responses has been consistent, summarized as:

America should have considered it “Enough” with Columbine (1999), Virginia Tech (2007), Aurora Theater (2008), SandyHook (2012), Pulse Nightclub (2016), Las Vegas Concert (2017), or any of the other 260 shootings since Columbine. The fact that these shootings have proliferated is proof that the adults have failed to protect their children. Now the children will not be satisfied until there is real reform, real change.

——–

VIDEO – Hundreds of thousands stand with March for Our Lives – https://youtu.be/KYxIQ_FHPE4

Posted March 24, 2018 – From Washington D.C. to Paris, young voices resound in protest against gun violence.

The implementation of any reforms will surely be heavy-lifting.

For the Caribbean, let’s pay more than the usual attention for lessons learned for our own Big Deal implementation for change in our region. But let’s lend-a-hand here too. We do have our Caribbean Diaspora here, and students and visitors. These ones amount to millions. Any lack of reform can and do imperil our own loved ones. This is sad, but true – one of the 17 victims in Parkland, Helena Ramsay (Age 17), was of Caribbean (Jamaica/Trinidad) heritage. See story here:

Title: Student of Caribbean-American descent among 17 victims killed at Parkland high school

According to reports obtained by the Jamaican Consulate in Miami, one of the victims of the tragic mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Wednesday, February 14 was the child of Caribbean Americans parents.

Helena Ramsay, 17, a student at the high school was confirmed by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office as one of the 17 killed by a 19-year old gunman who opened fire on students and school staff. Her mother is reported to be Jamaican and her father Trinidadian.
…
Source: Posted February 16, 2018; retrieved March 27, 2018 from: https://www.caribbeannationalweekly.com/caribbean-breaking-news-featured/student-caribbean-american-descent-among-17-victims-killed-parkland-high-school/

Again, the US is being urged to reform and transform its policies on guns and school safety, while the Caribbean needs to implement a roadmap to forge change in the societal engines (economics, security and governance) for the 30 member-states of our region.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

There will be a lot of security and governing dynamics associated with the topic of guns.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to transform the societal engines of Caribbean society, regarding guns and gun control. In fact, there is 1 advocacy entitled “10 Ways to Improve Gun Control” (Page 179), with specific highlights, mitigations and solutions. There is also this encyclopedic reference to the US’s Second Amendment, here:

The Bottom Line on the 2nd Amendment

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects the right to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Supreme Court ruled on several occasions that the amendment did not bar state regulation of firearms, considering the amendment to be “a limitation only upon the power of Congress and the National government and not upon that of the States.” Along with the incorporation of the Second Amendment in the 21st century, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess and carry firearms. In 2008 and 2010, the Court issued these two landmark decisions to officially establish an “individual rights” interpretation of the Second Amendment:

a. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm, unconnected to service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home within many longstanding prohibitions and restrictions on firearms possession listed by the Court as being consistent with the Second Amendment.

b. In McDonald v. Chicago (2010), the Court ruled that the Second Amendment limits state and local governments to the same extent that it limits the federal government.

The US has the most liberal gun ownership laws in the western world, accompanied by highest gun crime and murder rate.

The Go Lean book asserts that every community has bad actors, and coupled with guns, a bad actor can do a lot of damage. The assumption in the Social Contract – where citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights – is for the State or governing entity to regulate weapons to ensure protections for all members of society. There must be “new guards” to assuage any gun risks and threats in Caribbean communities. This point is pronounced early in the book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13) that claims:

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices of criminology and penology to assuage continuous threats against public safety. …

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes, including piracy and other forms of terrorism, can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

Reforming guns in the US is a BIG DEAL considering that many Caribbean people have emigrated to the US from their island homes. It is a frightening prospect that our people may have jumped from the “frying pan” of failing communities, “into the fire” of a gun-crazed society. This point was addressed recently in a previous blog-commentary entitled – ‘Pulled’ – Despite American Guns with this excerpt:

The repeated incidences of mass shootings – with no gun control remediation – makes American life defective …

This commentary aligns with charter of the book Go Lean … Caribbean to make the countries of the Caribbean region better places to live, work and play. The goal is to be Better Than America; to be a protégé without the ignominious Second Amendment; to exercise better governance.

Let’s see how this process goes in the US. Guns are in the DNA of this country; the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791; the US has more gun ownership per capita than any other country in the world; more gun deaths too. Changing this culture will truly be a BIG DEAL!

This writer is doing more than just “look, see or observe”; I will lend-a-hand as well.

I have children and grandchildren in the US States of Florida and Arizona. Though my efforts are only in the scope of reforming and transforming the Caribbean, my heart does want to ensure change in the US regarding guns and school safety.

I would not want to sacrifice my children nor grandchildren to the American twisted perception of gun rights. No, and while I accept the premise that I cannot fix America, I can work to fix the Caribbean homelands to be better places to live, work and play. Hopefully then we can provide a model to the US on how to effect change.

Let’s observe-and-report on this American effort – these Parkland students – let’s observe their successes and their failures, while we hope for change.

Speaking of change, this commentary commences a short 3-part series on “Change” in society. The full catalog of commentaries in this series are as follows:

  1. Change! Observing the Change – Student Marches for Gun Control Reform and Action
  2. Change! Be the Change – RIP Linda Brown; the little girl in “Brown vs Board of Education”
  3. Change! Forging Change – Citibank’s Model of “Corporate Vigilantism”

All of these commentaries give insights on “how” the stewards of a new Caribbean can persuade people, establishments and institutions to forge change in their communities. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

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