… these are undeniable and undisputable classifications of basic needs. (Some societies add energy as an additional basic need). When economies get warped and twisted, the recommendation is always to return focus back to these basics so as to jump-start an economic reboot by optimizing the commerce engines delivering these basics.
So a consideration of housing solutions, that requires local jobs/fabrication and satisfies Elder-Care is a study in economic kinetics. Every community needs housing … for their seniors. This is just a basic fact of life: old age and illness … befall us all.
Just because an abled-bodied person has a house, it does not make it ideal when the circumstances change to “less than able”, or disabled, or differently-abled. Yet, disabilities are a reality … everyday: Just keep living.
This consideration is very appropriate for the Caribbean. We have some societal defects: consider our abandonment rate, especially among the younger generation, due mainly to a lack of economic opportunities, at home. Assuredly, they emigrate for refuge abroad, and then remit funds back to their Caribbean homelands, often to support their aging parents. These ones have the need for Elder-Care; but Elder-Care consists of more than remittances; many times, it includes nursing.
Providing housing, Elder-Care and nursing can be an economic conjunction, an activity at an intersection. The book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts that “luck” is the intersection of preparation and opportunity; that economic growth can be gained simply by positioning at that intersection and exploiting the opportunities.
Exploit … economics …
That sounds like a formula for “greed”. But alas, in this case, greed is good! In this case, greed is motivated by the ethos of the Greater Good, that is a solution that can provide the most good to the most number of people. This solution of facilitating a housing solution specifically designed for Elder-Care would benefit so many: elders, builders, nurse practitioners/clinicians, local family, Diasporic family, public health deliveries and the overall economy.
Win, win …
See a sample of the relevant solution here, in this article and accompanying VIDEOs:
Title:These Backyard “Granny Pods” Could be the Solution to Nursing Homes By: David Wolfe (see profile in Appendix)
Since the age of 20, I had known that I would be the one to take care of my aunt when she got older. I love her dearly, but my family enjoys our space. It has always been a stressful notion of what we are going to do once it is time to take care of her, with both of us being so independent, sharing our home was never an option while a nursing home also does not feel right. I had no idea that a solution was already out there.
These “Granny Pods” are specially built with the safety of a senior in mind. They include a small kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom all designed to house safely a senior. The bathrooms are handicap accessible with railing and safety features built in.
The kitchen includes a microwave, small refrigerator, and a pill dispenser. The microwave could be unplugged and used as an electromagnetically-insulated safe container for supplements. A BerryBreeze refrigerator purifier could be put in the small refrigerator. The pill dispenser could be filled with capsules of supplements, superfoods, and superherbs. Everything is conveniently located and safe to reach.
The safety features for these little homes are fantastic. They include webcams for monitoring by family members and a padded floor! Padded floor is great on joints. Also, they protect older relatives from a fall. One can be comfortable having their family member spending time in these homes.
Talk about high tech! These pods utilize small robotic features that can monitor vital signs. In addition, they can filter the air for contaminants while sending alerts reminding when to take supplements, superfoods, and superherbs. Communication is a breeze with high-tech video and text cell technology incorporated. If anything were to go wrong, these pods have alert systems to notify caregivers as well.
With three models thus far to choose from, you are sure to pick the right one for your loved one. Knowing that your family member will have a safe space that is close by is worth everything.
Uploaded on Jul 18, 2010 – In the future, you may not have to go far to care for aging loved ones. Whit Johnson has a first look at the MedCottage which could be a new option for caring for the elderly in your backyard.
Category: News & Politics
License: Standard YouTube License
Using the foregoing model, the Caribbean can create its own solutions to the impending crisis with Elder-Care housing. This has always been in the plan (roadmap); the book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), with a charter to elevate Caribbean society, using Pre-Fab housing as one of 144 missions. The book highlights the CU’s prime directives, as described by these statements:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines and mitigate challenges/threats to ensure public safety for the region’s stakeholders (residents, visitors, trading partners, Diaspora, etc.).
Improvement of Caribbean governance, including a separation-of-powers with member-states, to support these engines.
The Go Lean roadmap, and the foregoing article, calls for the region to double-down its efforts to ensure a quality delivery for Elder-Care and healthcare. The need for this awareness was identified in early in the Go Lean book, in the opening pronouncement in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11), as follows:
ix. Whereas the realities of healthcare and an aging population cannot be ignored and cannot be afforded without some advanced mitigation, the Federation must arrange for health plans to consolidate premiums of both healthy and sickly people across the wider base of the entire Caribbean population. The mitigation should extend further to disease management, wellness,mental health, obesity … programs.
The Go Lean … Caribbean roadmap constitutes a change for the region, a plan to consolidate 30 member-states into a Trade Federation with the tools/techniques to bring immediate change to the region to benefit one and all member-states. The roadmap calls for coordination of the region’s healthcare needs at a CU federal agency. Though there is a separation-of-powers mandate between the member-states and federal agencies, the CU can still wield influence in this area due to funding accountabilities – strings attached – monitoring and metering responsibility between the CU and the member-states. So there will be some federal compliance and regulatory oversight. This empowerment would also allow for better coordination with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international stakeholders.
The book details the community ethos needed to effect change in this area, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the region’s Elder-Care, Healthcare and Housing solutions:
Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification
Page 21
Community Ethos – Economics Influence Choices
Page 21
Community Ethos – People Choose
Page 21
Community Ethos – All Choices Involve Costs
Page 21
Community Ethos – Lean Operations
Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives
Page 24
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations
Page 25
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate 30 Member-States
Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Reform our Health Care Response
Page 47
Strategy – Agents of Change – Aging Diaspora
Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy
Page 64
Separation of Powers – Department of Health
Page 86
Implementation – Ways to Deliver
Page 109
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better – Improve First Responder Solutions
Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs
Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare
Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract
Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives
Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering & Analysis – First Responders
Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management – First Responders
Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology
Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Develop a Pre-Fab Housing Industry
Page 207
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Elder-Care – Including Oversight of First Responders
Page 225
Appendix – New Jobs: 10,000 Gerontology related jobs
Page 257
Appendix – Sample Pre-fab Homes, with Photos
Page 289
Appendix – Disease Management – Healthways Model
Page 300
This Go Lean book asserts that there is a direct correlation of healthcare (physical, mental, preventative, wellness, pharmaceuticals, etc.) and the economy. This viewpoint has been previously detailed in Go Lean blog/commentaries, as sampled here:
The Go Lean roadmap encourages the inclusion of more senior citizens, not less. In addition to retaining our seniors, we also want to encourage the repatriation of our Diaspora and invite other seniors to enjoy our hospitality. Granted, caring for older people is not easy, but no effort to reform and transform the Caribbean is going to be easy. The Go Lean book, describes it as heavy-lifting. But do it we must! For the love … of our senior citizens, and the accompanying jobs and economic growth.
All of this is for the Greater Good and for our own good. A measurement of a great society is how well we care for our senior citizens. This concept is from the Bible:
The form of worship that is clean and undefiled from the standpoint of our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their tribulation …- James 1:27 – New World Translation
Pre-fab housing solutions are conceivable, believable and achievable. Considering the foregoing article, photos and VIDEO‘s, the Caribbean can and must foster our own solutions. But we have the constant threats of hurricanes, so our pre-fab structures must feature mitigations for storm resistance. The plausible options are depicted in great details in the Go Lean book (Page 207).
Everyone in Caribbean – people, institutions, governments – are hereby urged to lean-in to the Go Lean roadmap for regional, societal empowerment. 🙂
David “Avocado” Wolfe is the rock star and Indiana Jones of the super-foods and longevity universe. The world’s top CEOs, ambassadors, celebrities, athletes, artists, and the real superheroes of this planet—Moms—all look to David for expert advice in health, beauty, herbal-ism, nutrition, and chocolate!
David is the celebrity spokesperson for America’s #1 selling kitchen appliance: the NUTRiBULLET™ and for www.LongevityWarehouse.com. He is the co-founder of TheBestDayEver.com online health magazine and is the visionary founder and president of the non-profit The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation charity (www.ftpf.org) with a mission to plant 18 billion fruit, nut, and medicinal trees on planet Earth.
With over 22 years of dedicated experience and having hosted over 2750 live events, David has led the environmental charge for radiant health via a positive mental attitude, eco-community building, living spring water, and the best-ever quality organic foods and herbs.
David champions the ideals of spending time in nature, growing one’s own food, and making today the best day ever. He teaches that inspiration is found in love, travel, natural beauty, vibrant health, and peak-performance.
The Caribbean is arguably the greatest address on the planet.
So declares the book Go Lean…Caribbean. This not only refers to terrain, but also culture (music, food, festivals, fun, etc.) and hospitality. Despite these arguable facts, the societal engines in the Caribbean (economy, security, and governance) are NOT great; in some cases, they may not even be considered “good”, as we do feature a few Failed-States in the region.
For the sake of this commentary, we give every Caribbean member-state a scholarship and assume they are “good”. Now how do we go from “Good to Great”?
The book Go Lean…Caribbean represents a quest to make the Caribbean a Great place to live, work and play. But there is actually a formula to making a society (or company/organization) great, as opposed to just being good. Below is the book review and accompanying VIDEO of the landmark publication by writer – see Appendix – and management consultant Jim Collins:
Book Title: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t Executive Summary
Jim Collins, already established as one of the most influential management consultants, further established his credibility with the wildly popular Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t, originally published in 2001. The book went on to be one of the bestsellers in the genre, and it is now widely regarded as a modern classic of management theory.
Collins takes up a daunting challenge in the book: identifying and evaluating the factors and variables that allow a small fraction of companies to make the transition from merely good to truly great. ‘Great,’ an admittedly subjective term, is operationally defined according to a number of metrics, including, specifically, financial performance that exceeded the market average by several orders of magnitude over a sustained period of time. Using these criteria, Collins and his research team exhaustively catalogued the business literature, identifying a handful of companies that fulfilled their predetermined criteria for greatness. Then, the defining characteristics that differentiated these ‘great’ firms from their competitors were quantified and analyzed.
The resulting data are presented in Good to Great in compelling detail. Over the course of 9 chapters, Collins addresses a number of management, personnel, and operational practices, behaviors, and attitudes that are both conducive and antithetical to the good-to-great transition. One overarching theme that links together virtually all of Collins’ arguments is the need to define a narrowly focused objective and field of competency and then focus all of the company’s resources toward that area of strength. Repeatedly, Collins warns that straying too far from a company’s established strengths is inimical to the attainment of greatness. Finally, Collins links the findings of Good to Great to the conclusions he reached in his previous book, Built to Last, which focused on the factors that define companies that survive in the long-term, meshing both sets of results into an overarching framework for enduring success.
Chapter Summaries
Chapter 1: Good is the Enemy of Great
The first chapter of the book lays out the criteria that Collins and his research team used in selecting the companies that served as the basis of the meta-analysis that provided the findings set forth in the book. The most important factor in the selection process was a period of growth and sustained success that far outpaced the market or industry average. Based on the stated criteria, the companies that were selected for inclusion were Abbott, Fannie Mae, Circuit City, Gillette, Kimberly-Clark, Kroger, Nucor, Philip Morris, Pitney Bowes, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo.
Collins also offers a few of the most significant findings gleaned from the study. Of particular note are the many indications that factors such as CEO compensation, technology, mergers and acquisitions, and change management initiatives played relatively minor roles in fostering the Good to Great process. Instead, Collins found that successes in three main areas, which he terms disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action, were likely the most significant factors in determining a company’s ability to achieve greatness.
Chapter 2: Level 5 Leadership
In this chapter, Collins begins the process of identifying and further explicating the unique factors and variables that differentiate good and great companies. One of the most significant differences, he asserts, is the quality and nature of leadership in the firm. Collins goes on to identify “Level 5 leadership” as a common characteristic of the great companies assessed in the study. This type of leadership forms the top level of a 5-level hierarchy that ranges from merely competent supervision to strategic executive decision-making.
By further studying the behaviors and attitudes of so-called Level 5 leaders, Collins found that many of those classified in this group displayed an unusual mix of intense determination and profound humility. These leaders often have a long-term personal sense of investment in the company and its success, often cultivated through a career-spanning climb up the company’s ranks. The personal ego and individual financial gain are not as important as the long-term benefit of the team and the company to true Level 5 leaders. As such, Collins asserts that the much-touted trend of bringing in a celebrity CEO to turn around a flailing firm is usually not conducive to fostering the transition from Good to Great.
Chapter 3: First Who, Then What
The next factor that Collins identifies as part of the Good to Great process is the nature of the leadership team. Specifically, Collins advances the concept that the process of securing high-quality, high-talent individuals with Level 5 leadership abilities must be undertaken before an overarching strategy can be developed. With the right people in the right positions, Collins contends that many of the management problems that plague companies and sap valuable resources will automatically dissipate. As such, he argues, firms seeking to make the Good to Great transition may find it worthwhile to expend extra energy and time on personnel searches and decision-making.
Collins also underscores the importance of maintaining rigorousness in all personnel decisions. He recommends moving potentially failing employees and managers to new positions, but not hesitating to remove personnel who are not actively contributing. He also recommends that hiring should be delayed until an absolutely suitable candidate has been identified. Hewing to both of these guidelines, Collins claims, will likely save time, effort, and resources in the long-term.
Chapter 4: Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith)
Another key element of some companies’ unique ability to make the transition from Good to Great is the willingness to identify and assess defining facts in the company and in the larger business environment. In today’s market, trends in consumer preferences are constantly changing, and the inability to keep apace with these changes often results in company failure. Using the example of an extended comparative analysis of Kroger and A & P, Collins observes that Kroger recognized the trend towards modernization in the grocery industry and adjusted its business model accordingly, although doing so required a complete transformation of the company and its stores. A & P, on the other hand, resisted large-scale change, and thus guaranteed its own demise.
Collins outlines a four-step process to promote awareness of emerging trends and potential problems: 1) Lead with questions, not answers; 2) Engage in dialogue and debate, not coercion; 3) Conduct autopsies without blame; and 4) Build red flag mechanisms that turn information into information that cannot be ignored.
Chapter 5: The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity Within the Three Circles)
In this chapter, Collins uses the metaphor of the hedgehog to illustrate the seemingly contradictory principle that simplicity can sometimes lead to greatness. When confronted by predators, the hedgehog’s simple but surprisingly effective response is to roll up into a ball. While other predators, such as the fox, may be impressively clever, few can devise a strategy that is effective enough to overcome the hedgehog’s simple, repetitive response.
Similarly, Collins asserts, the way to make the transformation from Good to Great is often not doing many things well, but instead, doing one thing better than anyone else in the world. It may take time to identify the single function that will be a particular firm’s “hedgehog concept,” but those who do successfully identify it are often rewarded with singular success. In order to help expedite this process, Collins suggests using the following three criteria: 1) Determine what you can be best in the world at and what you cannot be best in the world at; 2) Determine what drives your economic engine; and 3) Determine what you are deeply passionate about.
Chapter 6: A Culture of Discipline
Another defining characteristic of the companies that Collins defined as great in his study was an overarching organizational culture of discipline. He is quick to point out that a culture of discipline is not to be confused with a strict authoritarian environment; instead, Collins is referring to an organization in which each manager and staff member is driven by an unrelenting inner sense of determination. In this type of organization, each individual functions as an entrepreneur, with a deeply rooted personal investment in both their own work and the company’s success.
Although this discipline will manifest itself in a high standard of quality in the work that is produced by managers and employees alike, its most significant outcome will be an almost fanatical devotion to the objectives outlined in the “hedgehog concept” exercises. Disciplined workers will be better equipped to hew to these goals with a single-minded intensity that, according to Collins, will foster the transformation from merely Good to Great. In addition, the author asserts, it is important that within this overarching culture of discipline, every team member is afforded the degree of personal empowerment and latitude that is necessary to ensure that they will be able to go to unheard-of extremes to bring the firm’s envisioned objectives into existence.
Chapter 7: Technology Accelerators
Today, many businesses have come to depend upon technology to increase efficiency, reduce overhead, and maximize competitive advantage. However, Collins cautions that technology should not be regarded as a potential panacea for all that ails a company. The folly of this kind of thinking was revealed in the aftermath of the crash of the tech bubble in the early 2000s. The market correction threw into sharp relief the differences between sustainable uses of the Internet to extend established businesses and ill-planned, unviable online start-ups.
Collins contends that the good-to-great companies approach the prospect of new and emerging technologies with the same prudence and careful deliberation that characterizes all of their other business decisions. Further, these companies tend to apply technology in a manner that is reflective of their “hedgehog concepts” — typically by selecting and focusing solely upon the development of a few technologies that are fundamentally compatible with their established strengths and objectives. Collins characterizes the ideal approach to technology with the following cycle: “Pause — Think — Crawl — Walk — Run.”
Chapter 8: The Flywheel and the Doom Loop
In this chapter, Collins describes two cycles that demonstrate the way that business decisions tend to accumulate incrementally in either an advantageous or a disadvantageous manner. Both, the author emphasizes, accrue over time. Despite the popular misperception that business success or failure often occurs suddenly, Collins asserts that it more typically occurs over the course of years, and that both only transpire after sufficient positive or negative momentum has been accrued.
Collins describes the advantageous business cycle that, in some cases, can foster the transition from Good to Great as “the flywheel effect.” By making decisions and taking actions that reinforce and affirm the company’s “hedgehog” competencies, executives initiate positive momentum. This, in turn, results in the accumulation of tangible positive outcomes, which serve to energize and earn the investment and loyalty of the staff. This revitalization of the team serves to further build momentum. If the cycle continues to repeat in this manner, the transition from Good to Great is likely to transpire. In contrast, the doom loop is characterized by reactive decision-making, an overextension into too many diverse areas of concentration, following short-lived trends, frequent changes in leadership and personnel, loss of morale, and disappointing results.
Chapter 9: From Good to Great to Built to Last
In the concluding chapter of Good to Great, Collins makes a connection between this book and his previous work, Built to Last, which represented the findings of a six-year study into the factors that determined whether a new company would survive in the long-term. First and foremost, Collins contends that companies need a set of core values in order to achieve the kind of long-term, sustainable success that may lead to greatness. Companies need to exist for a higher purpose than mere profit generation in order to transcend the category of merely good. According to Collins, this purpose does not have to be specific — even if the shared values that compel the company toward success are as open-ended as being the best at what they do and achieving excellence consistently, that may be sufficient as long as the team members are equally dedicated to the same set of values.
Although many of the conclusions of both of the books overlap, Collins notes that Good to Great should not be seen as the follow-up to Built to Last, which focuses on sustaining success in the long-term. Instead, Good to Great actually functions as the prequel to Built to Last. First, a company should focus on developing the foundation that is necessary to work toward greatness. Then, they can begin to apply the principles of longevity that are set forth in Built to Last. Source: Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia’s Wiki-Summaries – Retrieved 03/02/2016 – http://www.wikisummaries.org/Good_to_Great:_Why_Some_Companies_Make_the_Leap…_and Others_Don’t
This is video review for the book Good To Great by Jim Collins, produced by Callibrain, employee engagement through social collaboration and execution discipline.
To buy the book click here – http://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Comp…
Category: Education
License: Standard YouTube License
The talk of societal greatness is en vogue right now. This is election season in the United States and one candidate for President, Donald J. Trump, pledges to “Make America Great Again”; see photo here.
Greatness also aligns with other empowerment efforts, like the advocacy championed by the Great Place to Work® Institute.
The book Go Lean … Caribbean stresses the need to create a great society of all of the Caribbean. It serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation for the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). As a federation or federal government, there will be the need to pursue greatness organizationally to benefit all stakeholders (residents, Diaspora, visitors, trading partners, etc.). There is also the need to employ and empower a Civil Service workforce; this labor pool is projected to be only 30,000 people, thusly embracing lean (or agile) delivery methodologies. So all the references in the foregoing regarding organization, enterprise, company and/or firm could apply directly and indirectly to the CU Trade Federation.
Yet, these federal civil servants are not the only focus of the Go Lean/CU roadmap. The prime directives of this roadmapcovers these 3 focus areas:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.
With the success of this roadmap, the Caribbean region will be enabled to go from Good to Great! With confidence now, we can truly declare that “A Change Is Gonna Come“.
But any change must be permanent! The Go Lean book declares that for permanent change to take place, there must first be an adoption of new community ethos, the national spirit that drives the character and identity of its people. The roadmap was constructed with the following community ethos in mind, plus the execution of strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to move from Good to Great. The following is a sample of these specific details from the book:
Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification
Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices
Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future
Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations
Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future
Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius
Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship – Incubators
Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development
Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing
Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness
Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Anecdote – LCD versus an Entrepreneurial Ethos
Page 39
Strategy – Mission – Build and foster local economic engines
Page 45
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union
Page 63
Tactical – Separation of Powers: Federal Administration versus Member-States Governance
Page 71
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change
Page 101
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better – Live, Work and Play Empowerments
Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs
Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance in the Caribbean Region
Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract
Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership
Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Manage Federal Civil Service
Page 173
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications – Improve the Messaging
Page 186
Advocacy – Ways Impact Main Street
Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage
Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights
Page 220
Advocacy – Ways to Help the Middle Class
Page 223
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Urban Living
Page 234
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Rural Living
Page 235
The Go Lean/CU roadmap identifies, qualifies and proposes the establishment of technocratic administration throughout the region to impact all societal engines.
Previously, Go Lean blogs commented on developments – in the public sector and also with industrial and entrepreneurial endeavors – showing the success of aspiring to be better and do better. Consider this sample:
Now is the time for all Caribbean stakeholders, employees in the public and private sectors, to lean-in to this regional solution – the Go Lean roadmap – for the Caribbean to go from Good to Great. While a good homeland may seem satisfactory, we now see that satisfactory is not good enough – we lose too many of our citizens as they flee to foreign shores for refuge.
The desired destination is not “good”, but rather “great”. We want to make the Caribbean a Great place to live, work and play. 🙂
… there is a Chinese proverb: “Make happy those who are near, and those who are far will come”.
This ancient expression is like saying “Love yourself first and others will love you”. Looking at it from a different point of view: “if you treat your friends like crap, you will stand alone without a friend, but if you treat your friends with kindness, you will make more friends”.
The Caribbean needs more friends … and to treat its stakeholders (residents, Diaspora, visitors, trading partners, etc.) better.
Can we get the Caribbean region to effect this change?
One way or another: “A Change Is Gonna Come”!
Either we change proactively, or reactively. The only constant is change itself.
This was the theme of a powerful song by legendary R&B singer Sam Cooke in 1964. See the song-VIDEO here:
Lyrics: I was born by the river in a little tent
Oh, and just like the river I’ve been a-runnin’ ever since.
It’s been a long, a long time comin’,
but I know, oh-oo-oh,
a change gon’ come, oh yes, it will.
It’s been too hard living but I’m afraid to die
‘Cause I don’t know what’s up there beyond the sky
It’s been a long, a long time comin’,
But I know, oh-oo-oh,
A change gonna come, oh yes, it will.
I go to the movie and I go downtown
Somebody keep tellin’ me don’t hang around.
It’s been a long, a long time coming, but I know, oh-oo-oh,
A change gon’ come, oh yes, it will.
Then I go, oh-oo-oh, to my brother and I say, brother, help me please.
But he winds up knocking me back down on my knees, oh.
There’ve been times that I thought I couldn’t last for long
But now I think I’m able to carry on
It’s been a long, a long time comin’,
But I know, oh-oo-oh, a change gonna come, oh yes, it will.
Music video by Sam Cooke performing A Change Is Gonna Come. (C) 2016 ABKCO Music & Records, Inc. http://vevo.ly/nTXKoJ
Category: Music
License: Standard YouTube License
There is a lot more “story” to this story about this song. See here:
Published February 1, 2014 – The story of “A Change Is Gonna Come’ is as amazing, and unsettling, as the song itself.
The foregoing song is gravely serious – no one dances to it – but it does convey the emotion that change is hard sprung, yet necessary. From an American perspective, perhaps that change did come … in 2008 with the “ribbon on the package” of the Civil Rights movement being the election of Barack Obama as the first Black Man as President of the United States. This was a big, shocking and pivotal moment.
The Caribbean needs big, shocking and pivotal moments of its own. We need change and a turn-around; we need to do better in making our people happy so that those far off will come … to us as well. Those far off will include tourists and our Diaspora: reaching more sources of tourist visitors, and facilitating the return of so many Caribbean exiles.
These missions (tourism and repatriation) are familiar themes for the publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean.
The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU); an initiative to bring change and empowerment to the Caribbean region; to make the region a better place to live, work and play. This Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety for all Caribbean stakeholders and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.
Of the 144 different missions presented in the Go Lean book, a number of them are presented specifically to address the issues raised in this commentary. This is part of the technocratic shepherding designed for the CU, to elevate the Caribbean homeland, by this roadmap in these two areas: 1. Tourism and 2. Repatriation.
1. Tourism
The underlying goals for this industrial occupation are stated early in the Go Lean book with these pronouncements in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 & 14):
iii. Whereas the natural formation of the landmass for our society is that of an archipelago of islands, inherent to this nature is the limitation of terrain and the natural resources there in. We must therefore provide “new guards” and protections to ensure the efficient and effective management of these resources.
iv. Whereas the natural formation of the landmass is in a tropical region, the flora and fauna allows for an inherent beauty that is enviable to peoples near and far. The structures must be strenuously guarded to protect and promote sustainable systems of commerce paramount to this reality.
v. Whereas the natural formation of our landmass and coastlines entail a large portion of waterscapes, the reality of management of our interior calls for extended oversight of the waterways between the islands. The internationally accepted 12-mile limits for national borders must be extended by International Tribunals to encompass the areas in between islands. The individual states must maintain their 12-mile borders while the sovereignty of this expanded area, the Exclusive Economic Zone, must be vested in the accedence of this Federation.
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 … invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries like tourism … – impacting the region with more jobs.
That publication stressed creative marketing for better tourism outreach, featuring highlights such the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies:
Strategy – Vision – Integrate Region in a Single Market
Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Build and Foster Local Economic Engines
Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Exploit the Benefits of Globalization in Trade-Tourism
Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy
Page 64
Tactical – Growing the Economy to $800 Billion – Trade and Globalization
Page 70
Tactical – Website www.myCaribbean.gov for Caribbean stakeholders – Tourists
Page 74
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Tourism Promotions and Administration
Page 78
Implementation – Integrate All Caribbean Websites to www.myCaribbean.gov Portal
In addition to tourism, the proverb – “Make happy those who are near, and those who are far will come” – speaks to the goal of repatriating the Caribbean Diaspora that has scattered far and wide. The theme of inviting their return and/or incentivizing their repatriation to the homeland has been prominent for this Go Lean movement. There is the direct reference in the book (Page 118) and many related blog/commentaries (see list below). This underlying goal / mission was stated early in the book with these pronouncements in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12 & 13):
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.
xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragements 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.
xx. Whereas the results of our decades of migration created a vibrant Diaspora in foreign lands, the Federation must organize interactions with this population into structured markets. Thus allowing foreign consumption of domestic products, services and media, which is a positive trade impact. These economic activities must not be exploited by others’ profiteering but rather harnessed by Federation resources for efficient repatriations.
Change must come to the Caribbean; especially to attract and recruit repatriates. There are real obstacles that the region must overcome: the poor performing economy and the threats to public safety. So the prime directives of the Go Lean/CU roadmap is to elevate Caribbean society and all of its societal engines. The success of our movement should be publicized and messaged throughout the world. After all…
… the Caribbean is the greatest address on the planet… arguably. This claim is not just made based on terrain, but also culture (music, food, festivals and fun). If/when we fix the societal defects, the native sons (and daughters) living in the Diaspora should beat a path to come home.
With confidence we can declare: “A Change Is Gonna Come”!
But this time, the change must be permanent! The Go Lean book declares that for permanent change to take place, there must first be an adoption of new community ethos, the national spirit that drives the character and identity of its people. The roadmap was constructed with the following community ethos in mind, plus the execution of strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to invite and incentivize the Diaspora to return. The following is a sample of these specific details from the book:
Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification
Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Choose
Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – All Choices Involve Costs
Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways
Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices
Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future
Page 21
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation
Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Minority Equalization
Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations
Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future
Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius
Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship – Incubators
Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property
Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development
Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations
Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing
Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness
Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Anecdote – LCD versus an Entrepreneurial Ethos
Page 39
Strategy – Mission – Celebrate the Music, Sports, Art, People and Culture of the Caribbean
Page 46
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union
Page 63
Tactical – Separation of Powers: Federal Administration versus Member-States Governance
Page 71
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change
Page 101
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better – Live, Work and Play Empowerments
Page 131
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Image
Page 133
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs
Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance in the Caribbean Region
Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract
Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Remediate and Mitigate Crime
Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications – Improve the Messaging
Page 186
Advocacy – Ways Impact the Diaspora
Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts
Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music
Page 231
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Urban Living
Page 234
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Rural Living
Page 235
There have been many previous blog/commentaries that stressed issues related to repatriation. The following sample applies:
‘Luck of the Irish’ – Lessons from their Past, Present and Future
Truth be told, the Caribbean is in competition with the rest of the world.
Considering the analogy of a race, we are behind, trailing our competitors. There are many empowerments that our Caribbean region needs to implement. While no society is perfect, nor fully optimized, some countries have been better than others. Many countries in North America and Western Europe have been lands of refuge for our Caribbean Diaspora. We must now fix our own broken societal engines, so as to dissuade people from leaving in the first place. Plus, many of these North American and European societies leave a lot to be desired for our Black and Brown immigrants from the Caribbean. There is heavylifting for these ones to thrive in those foreign lands. The logical conclusion: stay home in the Caribbean and work towards improving the homeland.
Based on the foregoing Chinese proverb, we can and must make people happy that are near us. Once we succeed, then others – tourists and repatriates – will come to enjoy our happier homelands.
This is easier said than done, but it is conceivable, believable and achievable!
Many of the resources (people) involved in the Go Lean/CU roadmap have done this before … else where. They know the process is to start small, optimize the engines in their neighborhoods, then widen out to a wider community, optimize the engines there, then widen out further to the whole country; again optimize the national engines and then widen out to the full region For success, we must keep moving forward. 🙂
But last year’s blog was not just a commentary on the Oscars, but also a tribute to movie icon and Caribbean role model, Sidney Poitier. His accomplishments were remembered in contrast to the White-Out at the Oscars last year. His tribute is also appropriate for an ENCORE, especially as it was just announced that Sir Sidney Poitier is now being honored by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Fellowship Award, a sort of a Lifetime Achievement Award. This too is richly deserved.
Here is the announcement:
Title: How Sidney Poitier changed cinema by demanding and deserving a difference
In 1964, Sidney Poitier won an Oscar for his performance in Lillies of the Field. Ann Bancroft, presenting him the award, gave him a peck on the cheek. Racial conservatives were outraged. Interracial marriage was still widely outlawed and civil rights workers were being killed. Poitier’s Oscar was a symbol that things were changing. Even now, a lot remains the same.
Last week, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts granted Sidney Poitier its highest honour, the BAFTA Fellowship. It’s richly deserved — for many years, Poitier was black cinema. Yet his story began a long way from Hollywood. …
Movies are an amazing business model. People give money to spend a couple of hours watching someone else’s creation and then leave the theater with nothing to show for the investment; except perhaps a different perspective. That is all!
But no one wants to live in a world without this art-form, without movies. Those few hours can entertain, engage and transform; sometimes even “break new ground” and change the world. So movies and movie stars can be extremely influential in modern society. This is the power of the arts, and this art-form in particular.
The book Go Lean…Caribbean stresses the arts as equally as it does the sciences, for empowering and transforming Caribbean society. While the Caribbean may not have any Nobel Prize winning scientist, we do have an Academy Award winning artist/actor, Sidney Poitier from the Bahamas. He has been able to capitalize on the influence of this art-form for over 65 years and pursued the Greater Good. So his accomplishments transcend the movie screen and impacts real-life.
For this accomplishment, he has been honored and knighted by British Monarch Queen Elizabeth II as a “Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE)”. We thusly refer to him now as Sir Sidney Poitier.
He has also received a similar accolade from the US President, the highest civilian honor: the Presidential Medal of Freedom*.
He has received many more honors and awards; see Appendix A for a sample list of Top Honors.
In focus for this commentary is his 1964 Oscar win for the 1963 movie Lilies of the Field. This was a big deal for Sir Sidney and the entire African Diaspora – people of color. Or as the BBC reported then: “he broke new ground”.
While there may be some catch-up that this industry must still make, there are times when the movie-business will “boldly go where no one has gone before”. The Sir Sidney 1964 break-through was one such moment.
With a date-of-birth of February 20, 1927 (age 88 on his next birthday), what does this screen legend do on his downtime? In addition to serving as patriarch of his family of 6 daughters and 6 granddaughters, he summons world leaders to him for consultation. (Sir Sidney serves as the Bahamas non-residential Ambassador to Japan). See this VIDEO here of his entertaining the Prime Minister of the Bahamas in a recent visit.
Published on Jan 21, 2015 – In a special interview with ZNS News, legendary actor Sir Sidney Poitier challenged Bahamian political leaders to take the country to the next level.
The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean recognizes the life contributions of Sir Sidney as an role model for excellence in the arts and also as an advocate of civil rights and social justice. He definitely demonstrates a love for his Caribbean (Bahamas) homeland and seeks to impact its development on the world scene. Though not a direct quotation, he has called for the elevation of Caribbean life and culture. This book serves asa roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to help the region become a better place to live, work and play. There is a role for the arts (including film-making) in this empowerment roadmap.
Unlike the current dread of “Black and Brown” among the Oscar nominees, the Go Lean roadmap seeks to put Caribbean people in a place of better command-and-control of their circumstances, to develop the community ethos of assisting each other to advance in our own lives, in our individual communities and in the Caribbean as a whole. The book posits that a unified Caribbean Single Market of 42 million people and a GDP of $800 Billion can foster a “domestic” film industry, much like the formations of Bollywood in India (Page 346) and Nollywood in Nigeria. Deeper exploration of this amazing business model (movies/show-business) can create jobs and garner local returns from the necessary investments.
These previous blog/commentaries drilled deeper on this quest to better foster show-business; below are some examples:
Caribbean Music Man: Bob Marley – The legend lives on!
The quest is to elevate Caribbean society with many industrial developments, including the arts. This was stressed in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13) with this statement:
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.
This impact and overall benefit of this roadmap is pronounced in the CU‘s prime directives, identified with these 3 statements:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.
The roadmap specifically encourages the region, to lean-in and foster the next generation of Sidney Poitier’s with these specific community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies:
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future
Page 24
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization
Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives
Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius
Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property
Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing
Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness
Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Strategy – Celebrate the arts, people and culture of the Caribbean
Page 46
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – Tourism and Film Promotion & Administration
Page 78
Implementation – Integration of Region in Single Market of 42 million people
Page 95
Anatomy of Advocacies – Ability to Change the World
Page 122
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Caribbean Single Market
Page 127
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Image
Page 129
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education – Foster Performing Arts
Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives
Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice
Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood
Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage
Page 222
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth
Page 225
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts
Page 230
Appendix – A Summary of Bollywood Movies
Page 346
The Go Lean posits that the CU should foster the genius potential in Caribbean artists and incubate the related industries of show-business. The roadmap pronounces that with the participation of many advocates on many different paths for progress, the Caribbean can truly become a better place to live, work and play. We, along with the whole world, owe a debt to Sir Sidney for leading us along this path.
Yes, Hollywood must change and acknowledge more diversity; but this is out-of-scope for this roadmap. The Caribbean must change … to adapt to a changing world. This is within our scope. While no Caribbean member-state may be able to compete and excel alone, together and collaboratively, we can stand up proud and present the world the beautiful contributions of Caribbean people and art. 🙂
———
APPENDIX A – Sidney Poitier Honors & Awards
1958 British Academy Film Award for Best Foreign Actor for The Defiant Ones
1958 Silver Bear for Best Actor (8th Berlin Film Festival) for The Defiant Ones[39]
1963 Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Lilies of the Field
1963 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama for Lilies of the Field
1963 Silver Bear for Best Actor (13th Berlin Film Festival) for Lilies of the Field [40]
1974 Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE)
1997 Appointed non-resident Bahamian Ambassador to Japan
1999 SAG Life Achievement Award
2000 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special for The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn
2001 NAACP Image Award – Hall of Fame Award
2001 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album – Rick Harris, John Runnette (producers) and Sidney Poitier for The Measure of a Man
2002 Honorary Oscar – “For his extraordinary performances and unique presence on the screen and for representing the industry with dignity, style and intelligence”
2011 Film Society of Lincoln Center Gala Tribute[43] honoring his life and careers
——–
APPENDIX B – * Presidential Medal of Freedom
Thisaward is bestowed by the President of the United States and is — along with the comparable Congressional Gold Medal, bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award of the United States. It recognizes those individuals who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors”.[3] (Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Medal_of_Freedom)
Many bad things happen when people, institutions and countries depend on debt. A “slippery slope” can emerge … from dependence, to reliance, to requirement, to a “vital” status, to … debt slavery. Emancipation from debt slavery is not so easy, as many times its a voluntary slavery. The ransom to redeem from slavery is all about money, finance and/or economics. This is why the sage advice from a Subject Matter Expert in Economics is: The further one stays away from debt, the better!
It’s a lesson learned, as chronicled in the book Go Lean … Caribbean, from Detroit; not only does debt impact the past, but the future as well. Debt can be so bad that at times the providers … and collectors of debt may be derisively called “vultures”, as follows:
The term “vulture fund” is a metaphor, which can be considered a pejorative term,[9] used to compare hedge funds to the behavior of vulture birds “preying” on debtors in financial distress by purchasing the now-cheap credit on a secondary market to make a large monetary gain, in many cases leaving the debtor in a worse state. The term is often used to criticize the fund for strategically profiting off of debtors that are in financial distress, and thus is frequently considered derogatory.[10][11][12] However financiers dealing with vulture funds argue that “their lawsuits force accountability for national borrowing, without which credit markets would shrivel, and that their pursuit of unpaid commercial debt uncovers public corruption.”[13] A related term is “vulture investing”, where certain stocks in near bankrupt companies are purchased upon anticipation of asset divestiture or successful reorganization.[14]
This dire disposition of debt is not exclusive nor limited to Detroit. This applies to many other communities, in North America, Europe (think Greece), Latin America and even in the Caribbean.
See the news article here – plus the accompany encyclopedic reference and VIDEO regarding Vulture Capitalists – conveying the harsh economic and governing realities in Argentina:
News Article: New Argentine govt resumes talks with ‘vulture’ creditors
By: Mariano Andrade, AFP
New York (AFP) – The new Argentine government reopened talks with bondholders in New York that for years have blocked the struggling country’s access to global capital markets.
Officials said they plan to submit a proposal later this month, which they hope will finally provide a resolution to the long-running financial crisis.
Talks between bondholders and representatives of the new government of President Mauricio Macri, who has pledged to reform and revitalize the Argentine economy, opened in Manhattan under the guidance of the court-appointed mediator Daniel Pollack.
“We’ll be presenting Argentina’s proposal during the week of Monday, January 25 to Pollack and to the holdout firms” Luis Caputo, an official representing Buenos Aires said at the close of five hours of negotiations on the first day of talks.
The previous administration of Cristina Kirchner had refused to compromise with the creditors, mainly hedge funds it branded “vultures,” after a US court ordered the country to pay the full value of bonds that Buenos Aires defaulted on some 15 years ago.
The leaders of the so-called “holdout” group, the hedge funds NML Capital and Aurelius Capital Management, bought up Argentine debt cheaply around the time of the default and over the next decade refused to join 93 percent of bondholders in restructuring the debt.
Speaking in Buenos Aires on Wednesday, Argentine Economy Minister Alfonso Prat-Gay said the South American country would negotiate “with toughness” but was committed to finding an agreement.
On Tuesday, Macri said he hoped for a “reasonable agreement” with the creditors, who have demanded 100 percent payment of their bonds even though most of the creditors in the country’s $100 billion default in 2001 accepted sharp losses in a negotiated debt restructuring.
“We will tell the mediator that there has been a change, another vision for our debts and how to stop being a defaulter and to resolve the pending issues,” Macri said.
To the great dismay of Argentina and its restructured bondholders, NML and Aurelius won a New York court judgment in 2012 that ordered Argentina to repay the full value of their bonds.
The decision roiled the sovereign bond world.
The court said, moreover, that Buenos Aires could not make payments on the restructured bonds without first paying off in full the two hedge funds. And it forbade banks from handling any other bond payments before the hedge funds were paid.
Kirchner’s government refused, and talks on an ostensible compromise went nowhere.
– Heavy price tag – The two hedge funds hold about $1.3 billion worth of bonds, whose accrued value is now about $1.7 billion.
Last October, the New York court further ruled that 49 other holdouts were covered by the 2012 ruling and also had to be paid first, adding another $6.1 billion to the sum Argentina is ordered to pay. Pollack has said the total amount owed to holdouts is around $10 billion.
The Argentine economy minister said the US court ruling gave the creditors lavish interest payments — up to 95 cents out of every dollar Buenos Aires has been ordered to pay, in the case of certain bonds.
“That is what we want to discuss quickly and resolve the problem,” he said.
But he blamed the Kirchner administration for the heavy price tag.
“This is the cost of washing our hands of the problem for more than 10 years,” he said.
With foreign reserves believed to be at less than $30 billion, Kirchner’s government said it could not afford to pay, and Macri’s government will face the same challenge.
The conservative new president has launched into a program of difficult structural reforms for the economy that includes a more than 30 percent devaluation of the peso.
He has indicated he wants to resolve the problem with the bond holdouts quickly, as it impedes the country’s access to global capital markets.
Within days of assuming office on December 10, Macri sent representatives to let Pollack know the country was ready to negotiate in earnest.
(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/argentine-govt-resumes-talks-vulture-creditors-180051669.html posted January 13, 2016; posted February 23, 2016).
Vulture capitalists are investors that acquire distressed firms in the hopes of making them more profitable and selling them for a profit.[1] Due to how vulture capitalist make firms more profitable, and their aggressive investing nature, vulture capitalists are often criticized.[2]
Venture vs. vulture capitalist
A venture capitalist is an investor who provides funding for start-ups, early stage firms and companies with growth potential.[1] These types of firms seek out venture capitalists, as they are too small or too new to have credit profiles, making them ineligible for bank loans and other forms of raising capital.[3]
Although risky, venture capitalists invest in firms as there are very lucrative returns on their investments when the company they are investing in is successful.[1][4] Furthermore, venture capitalists will often invest in a range of firms rather than just one or two, in order to mitigate risks if the investments are unsuccessful.[5]
On the other hand, vulture capitalists are a type of venture capitalist, which provide a final attempt at gaining funding.[4] Whereas venture capitalists seek firms with growth potential,[1] vulture capitalists seek firms where costs can be cut in order to increase profits. Most often, these firms are distressed and on the brink of bankruptcy.[4] Due to this reason, vulture capitalists are able to buy these firms for very low prices.[4]
Once the firm is acquired, vulture capitalists cut-down costs wherever possible, which often means firing workers and cutting benefits. With reduced costs, the firm becomes more profitable, raising share price, giving investorsprofit. Lastly, the vulture capitalists sell any equity they own, allowing for more profit to be made.[6]
Criticism
Vulture capitalists receive a lot of criticism as they often go for firms that are in very poor shape,[4] meaning these firms are unable to secure capital from banks or even venture capitalists as they are too risky of an investment.[3] Due to this, vulture capitalists are able to acquire the firms for prices that are way below the actual market value price.[4]
Once vulture capitalists acquire a firm, they often fire workers to reduce costs,[6] in order to raise profitability for their own gain. Vulture capitalists are criticized for this as the newly unemployed people put pressure on the social system through needing unemployment benefits, which comes from taxpayers’ money.[6] Meanwhile, vulture capitalists pay only 15% tax[6] on their profits. In other words, while vulture capitalists reap in the rewards, they put more pressure on the social system.
Due to these reasons, venture capitalists can be accused of being a vulture capitalist, or vulture for short, depending on how they conduct their business.[7] In this sense, vulture capitalist is used as a derogatory word for venture capitalists, as the vulture capitalists are considered to be preying on firms in distress for their own profit.[2] ———-
Published on Aug 14, 2015 – Greg Palast, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits/Vultures and Vote Rustlers, joins Thom. A dispute between the country of Argentina and a block of New York hedge funds led by Paul Singer’s “Elliot Management” just entered a new chapter.
Argentina, according to the foregoing article, definitely has a crisis. But according to the book Go Lean … Caribbean, “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. Argentina – and all of Latin America and the Caribbean – needs to use crises to re-boot their debt-finance-economic eco-system. Though Argentina and Latin America is out-of-scope for the focus of the Go Lean book.
The focus is strictly on the Caribbean. The Go Lean book – with the simple pretext that only at the precipice do people change – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to provide new oversight for the Caribbean region’s economic, security and governing engines. The book was conceived in the wake the 2008 Global Recession, heightened with the collapse of Investment Bank Lehman Brothers, by stakeholders intimate with the anatomy of that crisis – worked for Lehman – and composed a prescription for a Caribbean turn-around from all crises.
The publishers of the Go Lean book, used the insights and experiences of good, bad and ugly examples of debt servitude in the modern world. The book considered Egypt (1800s), Greece and Detroit to forge the roadmap for effecting change in the Caribbean without “Vulture” debt. The book also stresses the art and science of better Credit Ratings.
The better the Credit Rating – see Jamaica’s example in the Photo here; an Appendix from the Go Lean book (Page 274) – the less of a chance to be limited to Vulture Capitalists. Many lessons on debt (sovereign, municipal and personal), finance and economics have been detailed in previous blogs/commentaries. Consider this sample here:
10 Things We Want from the US – # 3 American Capital
The Go Lean/CU roadmap proposes debt, finance and economic solutions designed to avoid the tragedy of Argentina, Greece, Detroit and other communities that have succumbed to debt slavery. In summary, the strategy is to model the American capital markets, not with the same liquidity (initially on a per capita basis), but with similar accessibility and universal participation. With the success of this roadmap, Caribbean member-states and municipalities will be able to tap regional capital markets for bond financing in Caribbean Dollars (C$). This means repaying in C$, not US Dollars as related in the foregoing news article about Argentina. This means no foreign currency risks for repayment, and no foreign oversight on sovereignty.
The CU is designed to do the heavy-lifting of organizing Caribbean society to benefit from the lessons from sovereign, municipal and personal debt crises from other communities. The Go Lean book details the community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the economic turn-around of Caribbean communities:
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices
Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth
Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future
Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Money Multiplier
Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations
Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Return on Investments
Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future – Count on the Greedy to be Greedy
Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Strategy – Mission – Fortify the Stability of the Securities Markets
Page 45
Strategy – Provide Proper Oversight and Support for the Depository Institutions
Page 46
Tactical – Growing the Economy – Minimizing Bubbles
The Go Lean roadmap posits that change is coming to the Caribbean so that we can divorce ourselves from the dependence of Vulture Capitalists; see sample Vulture Capitalist in this commentary. Many Go Lean blog-commentaries have reported that change is now afoot to reboot public finances. Though Argentina is out-of-scope for the Go Lean roadmap, we can observe-and-report on the progress and regression of that country and other Latin America’s economies.
The Go Lean book declares: “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste” – quoting noted Economist Paul Romer. The opportunity exists now to forge change in the economic, security and governing engines of the Caribbean. The region’s economic engines can be better optimized with the Single Market integration of the 42 million people in the 30 member-states; together we can do much more – and effect more turn-around – than anyone member-state can accomplish alone.
The roadmap calls for a confederation of the 30 Caribbean member-states; thereby creating the larger Single Market that can absorb economic shocks and downward trends. The Go Lean book provides the details of this vision; in fact the following pronouncements are embedded in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 & 14):
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.
xxv. Whereas the legacy of international democracies had been imperiled due to a global financial crisis, the structure of the Federation must allow for financial stability and assurance of the Federation’s institutions. To mandate the economic vibrancy of the region, monetary and fiscal controls and policies must be incorporated as proactive and reactive measures. These measures must address threats against the financial integrity of the Federation and of the member-states.
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, [and] Egypt …
According to the foregoing news article, Argentina is trying to recover from faulty decisions regarding debt repayment. They are attempting to turn the corner and turn-around to a better community ethos: other people’s money is important to them and needs to be repaid. Other communities have successfully applied a turn-around strategy, consider Iceland.
The Caribbean must also reboot and “bounce back”; to “step back from the precipice”. The effort is not easy; the Go Lean book describes it as heavy-lifting. We need to burn-off old debris and build new eco-systems. The returns – new Caribbean structures – will be worth the investment and sacrifice. This is true for Detroit … and the Caribbean.
The quest of the Go Lean roadmap is to elevate Caribbean society and economic engines from the parasite role we currently assume, where we were dependent on Vulture Capitalists (Wall Street Hedge Funds) for funding, to a new world where we garner funding from our own regional sources: the people and institutions of the Caribbean. We want to be a protégé of Wall Street, not a parasite! We want to master the credit rating metrics so that our member-states are considered safe investments, not prone to default. Despite the previous realities of credit unworthiness, the roadmap seeks to optimize the regional economics with advanced empowerments, “Economics 901”. Yes, we can!
All the stakeholders in the Caribbean – people, governments and institutions – are urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap for the CU and the C$. We have so many lessons to learn from this case study from Argentina – past, present and future. We mostly learn that concept of a successful “Turnaround” is conceivable, believable and achievable. 🙂
There are needs and there are wants; medicine and medical services are a hybrid of the two. We all need these services, but we can choose to defer or bypass them; (unless we get sick or injured). The field of medicine and medical services are different than most industries in this regards, it is NOT a basic need (food, clothing or shelter) but it could mean life or death.
This is duplicitous!
This is why different societies have different levels of healthcare deliveries. In some Third World countries, the Public Health mandate of immunization against communicable diseases (Measles, Mumps, Polio, etc.) may be the only standard. While more advanced democracies provide (or require) full medical coverage for basic, specialty and advanced medical care, even up to treatment for chronic conditions (cancer, diabetes, hypertension, etc.). Health care is important; but not a right everywhere; many times, its a privilege.
Consider dental care …
… it is good to get semi-annual teeth cleaning. But many people do not; and yet their health may not be considered deficient. Many people in Third World countries only go to the dentist for tooth extraction.
So the delivery of health care (medical and dental) is not evenly distributed around the world, around the region, around the nation or even around the community. There are uneven supply factors everywhere.
Even prescription medicine prices are unevenly applied in communities. Depending on the State, health insurance carrier, deductible plan or government benefits status, prices can be scattered all over the dollar scale. The one strategy that seems to work more effectively is the single payer scheme for the government health plan for senior citizens (MediCare in the US).
What can we learn from this experience and how can consumers get a benefit for lower prescription prices?
There is now a new option. From the confusions and duplicities of healthcare and prescription pricing in the US, a new company emerged: Blink Health. They unwittingly seem to be following the mandates of noted Economist Paul Romer in his declaration that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. This enterprise serves as a Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) that contracts pricing directly from the pharmaceutical manufacturer, yet still utilizes the distribution supply of local retailers. This model demonstrates the advantages of GPO’s. Consider their business model in this corporate website review here and accompanying VIDEO:
Company Profile: Blink Health
>>> 01 <<<
The Same Low Price, Everywhere
Blink is the first company that allows you to pay for your prescriptions online and pick them up at your pharmacy.
Accepted at over 60,000 pharmacies nationwide
Blink offers the same low price at every major pharmacy and most independent pharmacies including Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, Target and many more.
>>> 02 <<<
How To Use Blink
No membership fees. Purchases are refundable.
Only pay for the medications you pick up. You can cancel your purchases at any time.
>>> 03 <<<
The Blink Difference
Blink offers the lowest prices on over 15,000 medications and is accepted at more than 60,000 pharmacies nationwide.
—————–
>>> Our Mission <<<
Blink is the cure for a disease with immeasurable human cost.
That disease is the high cost of prescription drugs.
A cost that takes its toll on human lives in many ways, not just in money but in health itself.
Our mission is to cure this disease, and to make prescription medications available at lower prices to millions of people across America.
Blink Health is committed to ensuring that no one goes without the drugs they need to live a healthy, happy life.
Whether you have good insurance, bad insurance, or no insurance at all, Blink can save you money at over 60,000 pharmacies nationwide.
We’re the first company to develop a proprietary technology to group millions of patients together, creating the strength to negotiate the lowest drug prices possible.
We’re also the first company to allow patients to purchase their medications online and pick them up at their local pharmacy.
Blink Health believes that lower drug prices are healthier for everyone.
Lower drug prices can put an end to skipping doses or stopping medication altogether.
Lower drug prices put an end to sticker shock at the pharmacy counter.
Lower drug prices mean Americans can take the drugs they’re prescribed without worrying about the cost.
Blink Health believes that no one should have to stress about taking their medications.
Many of the drugs that people need every day have unacceptably high prices. And yet, in spite of the general outrage at the problem, no one seems to know how much a drug actually costs — or how much it should cost.
At Blink Health, we do. And we offer this transparency to everyone. Our product is available to all. With one low price for everyone, everywhere.
The Blink price is the real price. And the only one you’ll ever have to pay.
We’re proud to be able to fill this long-overdue prescription for American health, and to finally give Americans the drug prices they deserve.
Blink Health. The cure for high drug prices.
Source: https://www.blinkhealth.com/
VIDEO: NBC News profiles “Blink Health”: The Cure for High Drug Prices
Published on Feb 17, 2016 – Blink Health is the first company to allow patients to purchase their medications online and pick them up at their local pharmacy. Blink uses technology to get you affordable prices on your prescription medications.
Category: People & Blogs
License: Standard YouTube License
The book Go Lean … Caribbean also quotes that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste” (Page 8); and that there are exigent circumstances throughout the Caribbean region, in so many fields of endeavor, that constitute crises. The book therefore strategizes the use of GPO’s for many regional acquisitions including medical supplies and prescription drugs. This strategy maximizing the dynamics of “supply-and-demand”. At its very heart, Economics is all about supply-and-demand. The more advanced the exercise in Economics, the more complex the dimensions of the supply-side and the demand-side of a commodity; in the case of Blink Health, prescription drugs. There is BIG money in healthcare and assuredly too, BIG complications in the economic formulas. Yet still, there is more that the Caribbean community can do to optimize our demand, supply and price factors.
The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This is a call for confederating, collaborating and convening the 30 member-states of the region into a Single Market; and for one federal governmental entity to optimize the economic, security and governing endeavors. The Go Lean/CU roadmap calls for multiple GPO’s and cooperatives. This is part-and-parcel of the prime directives (3) of the CU/Go Lean roadmap:
Optimization of the economic engines – accepting that energy is as basic a need as food, clothing and shelter – in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus – including public safety and public health concerns – to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.
The CU seeks to facilitate better mastery of the advanced fields of economics by coordinating pricing, supply and delivery options for the region’s pharmaceutical needs. Public Health stewards will be able to enter into commodities contracts to buy their vaccines, prescriptions and over-the-counter medications days, weeks, months and years in advance. This is the power of the “collective”, or purchasing cooperative, and/or Group Purchasing Organizations.
This commentary asserts that healthcare needs are undeniable to promote a better society. Options abound when the total Caribbean market is leveraged. This is the underlying strategy of the Caribbean Single Market. This point was pronounced from the outset of the Go Lean book in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 & 14), with these statements:
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.
ix. Whereas the realities of healthcare and an aging population cannot be ignored and cannot be afforded without some advanced mitigation, the Federation must arrange for health plans to consolidate premiums of both healthy and sickly people across the wider base of the entire Caribbean population. The mitigation should extend further to disease management, wellness, mental health, obesity and smoking cessation programs. …
xxx. Whereas the effects of globalization can be felt in every aspect of Caribbean life, from the acquisition of food and clothing, to the ubiquity of ICT, the region cannot only consume, it is imperative that our lands also produce and add to the international community, even if doing so requires some sacrifice and subsidy.
The Go Lean/CU roadmap describes the execution of this GPO strategy as heavy-lifting, but worth the effort. The empowerments from GPO’s will surely impact the macro economy; and will surely impact the micro-economy: healthcare costs will reduce and more jobs will emerge!
The Go Lean roadmap identifies 4,000 new jobs tied to cooperatives, and at least 2,000 new jobs tied to the GPO practice (as a subset of new Health and Trade jobs). These empowerment will impact every aspect of Caribbean life. The Caribbean homeland will then be better to compete globally and present more favorable options for our youth to stay home in the region. We fail miserably at youth options now!
The Go Lean book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster progress with health and GPO deliveries. The following list applies:
Community Ethos – Lean Operations – Group Purchasing Organizations (GPO)
Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments
Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives
Page 25
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations
Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future
Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Negotiations
Page 32
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 32
Strategy – Vision – Confederate to form a Single Market
Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Reform our Health Care – With Cost-savings GPO Schemes
Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy
Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of Health – MediCare Administration
Page 86
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of Health – Disease Control & Management
Page 86
Anecdote – “Lean” in Government
Page 93
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change – GPO’s
Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid
Page 115
Advocacy – 10 Big Ideas – Single Market Leverage
Page 127
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Interstate Commerce
Page 129
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare
Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Entitlements
Page 158
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract
Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives
Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management
Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street
Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Elder-Care
Page 225
Appendix – Disease Management Model – Healthways
Page 300
Appendix – Trauma Center Definitions
Page 336
This commentary asserts that healthcare needs are undeniable, but options abound when the rise of the total Caribbean market is leveraged. This is the underlying strategy of the Caribbean Single Market. The Go Lean/CU roadmap describes the execution of this roadmap as heavy-lifting, but this “heavy-lifting” is the charter for the lean, agile CU technocracy.
Many of these heavy-lifting issues have been previously identified and addressed in prior Go Lean blog-commentaries. See here, this list, related to direct and peripheral issues of cooperative strategies for healthcare supply-and-demand and for other industries:
The message to the people of the Caribbean region is that there are solutions to these complex solutions like prescription pricing. Whereas the Caribbean may have been a parasite before, now we can function in the role of a protégé. Change is afoot! Plus, as the foregoing Profile and VIDEO reveals, the American eco-system is defective. We must do better!
Now is the time for all Caribbean stakeholders, to lean-in for the optimizations and empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. Yes, we can make the region a better homeland to live, work, play and heal. 🙂
This commentary addresses the needs and vision for just one city in the Caribbean, the Bahamian city of Freeport/Lucaya. But this commentary is also a milestone for the movement associated with the book Go Lean … Caribbean; this is Blog # 400.
400 is a lot of insight, analysis and wisdom. Yet, these all focused on the same goal: to make all of the Caribbean – the 30 member-states consisting of all islands and the coastal countries of Belize, Guyana and Suriname – a better place to live, work and play … by elevating the societal engines of economics, security and governance. This is easier said than done, yet still conceivable, believable and achievable. The following are the totals for these blog categories:
While the previous 399 blog-commentaries are promoting the Go Lean book, this one – # 400 – is different. This commentary is promoting the other blogs!
While the Go Lean book focuses primarily on the member-states, the only actual city with special mention – an actual advocacy; see photo – was Freeport/Lucaya, the 2nd City in the Bahamas.
The complaint there of the everyday man, everyday, is that the oversight of the city’s affairs by the central government in Nassau is deficient, flawed and shortsighted for Freeport. The critics are demanding a referendum to consider different secession options from Nassau. But the options being considered are not “all of nothing from Nassau”, but rather, Freeport is seeking some degree of autonomy and then becoming a Self-Governing Entity (SGE) of the CU.
There is a lot of history associated with the issues of SGE’s and Freeport.
See VIDEO in the Appendix below from a visitor that first came to Freeport in 1971, then again in 2009; though not his intention, he chronicled the “delta”.
There are lessons for Freeport – and the whole Caribbean – to consider in this history and to learn from this SGE experience. Primary lesson: Things that are alive should grow!
Freeport was planned as a Free Trade Zone, under the Hawksbill Creek Agreement – a “Free Port” – in 1955. This is one of the categories described in the Go Lean book as “Self Governing Entities”. (Other forms of SGE’s include: industrial parks, technology labs, medical campuses, industrial sites, research facilities, etc.). Orlando’s Reedy Creek Improvement District emerged 10 years later, it was a matruation of the SGE concept.
This commentary is advocating for Freeport to return to its root design – the city had envisioned a population of 250,000 people, but never exceeded 70,000 at its peak decades ago – and pursue some form of autonomous rule (not necessarily independence) that was always envisioned, and is so badly needed now. This has been a familiar call for decades. The options now are ideal for a public referendum by the people of Freeport/Lucaya, with the following choices:
Special Taxing District
Allow for additional tax revenue, like a surcharge to VAT, for the autonomous administration.
Municipality
Full autonomy as a city with Strong Mayor and/or separate Parliament with Prime Minister.
Semi-Autonomous
Separation-of-Powers between central government and Freeport allowing some limited control.
Autonomous
Expanded Separation-of-Powers between Nassau and Freeport allowing even more control.
Independence
Create a separate country.
Freeport is not the only community contemplating these choices. Consider:
In Catalonia, Spain, there is a separatist movement advocating a similar quest.
There are a lot of lessons – from the worldwide struggle – in this issue for the Caribbean in general and Freeport in particular. Despite Freeport’s demand for autonomous rule, the plan is not to “go at it alone, rather immediately confederate with the CU. This makes any referendum a demand for interdependence with the rest of the Caribbean. The people of Freeport should feel that aligning with the CU and submitting to the technocratic solutions (Security initiatives, Job creations, Caribbean Central Bank) would be preferred to the failed economic and monetary policies from Nassau. The underlying spirit behind this Freeport Re-boot movement would be a quest to learn lessons and “appoint new guards” to make their homeland a better place to live, work and play. This spirit was pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence at the outset of the Go Lean book (Page 12 & 14); consider these 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.
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 …
The Go Lean roadmap posits that the Climate Change crisis (with the accompanying hurricanes) continues, and that the global financial crisis lingers … to this day. But the roadmap trumpets that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. The best hope to reform and transform Freeport in particular – and the Caribbean in general – is to confederate the CU. Then, real solutions can be forged: growing the regional economy to $800 Billion GDP and creating 2.2 million jobs … leveraging the region’s 42 million people.
How would this vision of Freeport, as a more autonomous city, affect the everyday man, everyday?
This transformational change comes with burdens and responsibilities; the people must therefore be cautious and reserved. There must be a comprehensive plan that considers all the advantages and disadvantages of an autonomous move. Some of the reservations would be:
Debt – The City of Freeport would have to assume all outstanding National Government debt that have been incurred specifically for Freeport’s consumption. Think schools, hospitals, public safety facilities. It would curtail negotiations with Nassau if the expectation is for Nassau to pay for Freeport’s debt.
Rent – Any status, short of independence, would require some separation-of-powers with Nassau. Therefore some degree of government revenue – rent – would have to be remitted to Nassau. It could easily be envisioned for Freeport to make “lease” payments to Nassau equal to, or in excess, annual Freeport contributions to the National Treasury, plus inflation.
How would such an autonomous move make Freeport a better place to live, work and play? How would this roadmap elevate the societal engines of economics, security and governance in this city? Consider here:
Live
Open Borders: The city currently have open borders with the rest of the island. This change now would require for people the way bonded vehicles are managed. This operation – with transponder IDs – can be modeled after the NEXUS program between Detroit and Windsor, as demonstrated in this blog.
Empowering Families: Unity of purpose from a handful of families can facilitate this vision for Freeport; these ones do not have to be rich, just united. This was demonstrated in this blog.
Empowering Immigration: The investment in time, talent and treasuries to facilitate Freeport’s future must embrace globalization. This was detailed in this blog. Under any plan, Freeport’s immigration policy would be autonomous.
Uploaded on Sep 12, 2009 – Freeport is a city and free trade zone on the island of Grand Bahama, located approximately 100 mi (160 km) east-northeast of Fort Lauderdale, South Florida and gives its name to a district of the Bahamas. Freeport proper has 26,910 people. The city of Freeport has grown to be the second most populated city in The Bahamas (26,910 in 2000) after the capital, Nassau. The Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) operates the free trade zone, under the Hawksbill Creek Agreement signed in August of 1955 whereby the Bahamian Government agreed that businesses in the Freeport area will pay no taxes before 2054. The area of the land grants has been increased to 138,000 acres (558 km²). Freeport Harbour is accessible by even the largest vessels, and has a cruise terminal, a container port, and both a private yacht and ship maintenance facility. Grand Bahama International Airport (IATA airport code: FPO, ICAO airport code: MYGF) [at one time] handled nearly 50,000 flights each year. Tourism complements trade as a revenue earner in Freeport, [at one time] with over a million visitors each year. Much of the tourist industry is displaced to the seaside suburb of Lucaya, owing its name (but little else) to the pre-Columbian Lucayan inhabitants of the island. The city is often promoted as ‘Freeport / Lucaya’.
Category: Travel & Events
License: Standard YouTube License
Music: “Variations On A Theme From Pachelbel’s Canon In D Major (Live Piano Solo)” by David Lanz
————
Appendix – Book Citations
a. Finnie, Shaun (2006). “Chapter 7 – The Mouse Moves East“; The Disneylands That Never Were. www.Lulu.com Online Publishers. Pages 94 – 96. ISBN 9781847285430
b. Oxford Business Group (2009). “A lot to offer; Grand Bahama Outlook”. The Report: The Bahamas 2009. www.OxfordBusinessGroup.com. Page 77. ISBN 9781902339221.
This is a simple fact: countries are comprised of communities; communities are comprised of families; families are comprised of individuals. So if there are defects in individuals, then there could be consequences to families. In turn, a debilitated state of the family can imperil the state of the community. There’s no doubt, Failed-States are comprised of failing communities.
What defect among individuals and families, therefore, should “we” be alarmed with? Domestic Violence!
There is no way to justify domestic violence. (This is not referring to corporal discipline of children, but rather wife-battering). Believe it or not, people still try to rationalize, excuse and shift the blame relating to domestic violence.
No more!
There are certain ethnic groups where domestic violence is more prominent than others. Sadly, our community – Latin America and the Caribbean – needs to be more “on guard”. Many times, men in our society feel that it is their honor to discipline their wives … as they see fit. This is a continuation of the series on the history of interpersonal violence; this is commentary 3 of 3. It relates to the Caribbean homeland and to the Caribbean Diaspora in the North America today. The historic issues addressed in this series are:
While we all want to live in a society free of crime, we are more concerned about being free of violence; no one’s honor should come at the expense of peace. This is innately assumed in the Social Contract between governments and their citizens. We all consider the curtailing of violence in society as a measurement of good civilization. It is one way in which we may judge societal success: simply, less interpersonal violence = success; more violence = Failed-State.
There is an evolutionary survival instinct: we all want to be physically safe, but many times, we are slow to apply this instinct to women in our lives; many times we feel that they must simply endure. No more! See Appendix VIDEO below.
It has been a long, hard road, overcoming these attitudinal defects. This attitude has been ingrained in many societies for a long time. However, the effort to reform and transform these bad practices have made some traction. The World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna, Austria, in 1993, and the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women in the same year, concluded that civil society and governments must acknowledge that domestic violence is a public health policy and human rights concern. The US responded accordingly…
The Violence Against Women Act – see Appendix Reference below – was developed and passed as a result of extensive grassroots efforts in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with advocates and professionals from the battered women’s movement, sexual assault advocates, victim services field, law enforcement agencies, prosecutors’ offices, the courts, and the private bar urging Congress to adopt significant legislation to address domestic and sexual violence.
It has been a long, hard road, overcoming these domestic violence attitudes in the Caribbean. But overcome, we must! The Caribbean must catch up with the rest of the modern world in this regards; otherwise we lose … all around. We will continue to suffer societal abandonment due to “push and pull” factors. Domestic violence is a “push” factor; messaging of the transforming attitudes towards domestic and gender-based violence in North America is a “pull” factor. Many victims may want to flee their Caribbean homelands for refuge.
This commentary is 3 of 3 in this series considering the subject of interpersonal violence. The previous commentaries addressed issues of importance for mitigating interpersonal violence in our homeland. (This is not a consideration of military or terrorist violence; these are separate and distinct discussions). This commentary is a discussion about assuring public safety, so it must therefore address domestic violence abatement as it considers reducing other criminal activities.
Remediating and mitigating crime is a study in the “Art” and “Science” of violence. This academic study of the subject of interpersonal violence can be very practical. It can help to relieve pain for many of those suffering. It identifies reasons for violence: Need, Greed, Power, Justice and Honor; and how to re-program a community’s attitudes and expectations. The history of changes in community attitudes about domestic violence is well-documented. There are role models and advocates who have worked tirelessly to reform and transform their society. We appreciate their efforts and successes, and seek to emulate them here in the Caribbean. Consider the case of one American organization in the State of Georgia and its founder Julia Perilla:
Organization Profile: Caminar Latino Organization Profile – Mission The mission of Caminar Latino is to create possibilities for Latino families affected by violence to transform their lives and their communities.
Organization Profile – Core Values
1. Safety for Latinas and their families
2. Community-Driven Solutions
3. Individual and Community Transformation
4. Organizational Excellence
Caminar Latino or “Latino Journey” carries out its mission by creating safe spaces for each family member to begin their journey towards non-violence. Caminar Latino is Georgia’s first and only comprehensive domestic-violence intervention program for Latino families.
Organization Profile – Our Founder, Julia Perilla Dr. Julia Perilla, our founder, has received scores of awards and is considered a leader in her field but if you ask her, her life, her work rests on a simple philosophy: listen. In 1990 she listened when a Catholic sister talked to her about the problem of domestic violence in her community. That year she started Caminar Latino. Perilla didn’t have a background in dealing with these issues, a fact that gave her pause but she realized that the women would tell her what she needed to know. That’s why in 1993 Perilla and Caminar Latino started a children’s program. And why in 1995 they began programming for men. ”The women were the ones who told us what was needed.” Perilla says. They asked Perilla for help with their children and they asked Caminar Latino to not neglect the men. Perilla listened when the women said “you have to make sure the men are getting all the information that we are.” In describing her work, Perilla uses words like “collective” and “collaborative.” She’s quick to smile and insists, she’s no expert, she just listens. Her insight and wisdom has led Perilla to help countless of families in turmoil and along with the work, she’s also picked up some impressive accolades.
Perilla has consulted with the Centers for Disease Control, The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. She’s advised Georgia’s Commission on Family Violence and the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, to name just a few. Her work has appeared in dozens of journals and garnered awards from her peers.
In 2005, just ten years after she obtained her doctorate in Psychology, Perilla was honored by the Georgia Psychological Association as their Woman of the Year. More recently, she was invited by Vice President [Joe] Biden to a dinner commemorating the Violence Against Women Act; [see Appendix Reference below].
In addition to writing and conducting research, Perilla also teaches. As faculty member in the Department of Psychology at Georgia State University, Perilla relishes her role teaching classes on the ethics of psychology. She also heads up the National Latino Research Center on Family and Social Change. On campus her door is always open to students and she routinely mentors Goizueta Scholars. In 2011 her work was recognized with the Carl V. Patton President’s Award for Community Service and Social Action Outstanding Faculty Award. In all facets, Perilla manages to work with a smile because as she puts it “I never work alone.” Whether it’s sharing a laugh with her colleagues or accompanying one of Caminar Latino’s young people to speak at a conference, Perilla says she always learns as much as she teaches. Her life, her work, is “a dream come true.” She is now keeping busy mentoring the next generation of Latina/o scholars who can continue to work from a human rights and social justice perspective. Source: Caminar Latino – Organizational Website for Civic Organization – retrieved February 17, 2016 from: http://caminarlatino.org/profile-founder-julia-perilla/
The book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts that to elevate Caribbean society there must be a focus on the region’s economic, security and governing engines. While the book primarily targets economic empowerments (jobs, investments, education, entrepreneurship, etc.), it posits that security concerns – threats to public safety – must also be front-and-center along with these economic efforts. While the subject of domestic violence falls on the member-state side of the separation-of-powers divide, the Go Lean book details a jurisdiction of monitoring and metering (ratings, rankings, service levels, etc.) local governments and their delivery of the Social Contract, (i.e. Best Places in the Caribbean To Live …). This too, is within scope of optimizing the region’s governing engines.
The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate the region’s economic, security and governing engines; these are the 3 prime directives:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to better ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance, with a separation-of-powers between member-state administrations and the CU federal government (Executive facilitations, Legislative oversight and judicial prudence) to support these economic/security engines.
The Go Lean/CU roadmap is specifically designed (Page 23) to address the societal defects that harm and endanger people in Caribbean society with interpersonal violence, using these security mandates:
Adapting the Community Ethos: Public Protection over Privacy
Whistleblower Protection
Witness Security & Protection
Anti-Bullying and Mitigation
Intelligence Gathering – Video Surveillance
Light Up the Dark Places – Eliminate the figurative and literal “shadows”.
The quest of the Go Lean movement is to elevate Caribbean society above our dysfunctional past. Surely, we can message to the community that our wives, daughters and mothers need protection too. So many other communities have done so in the past; we can do it as well in the Caribbean.
Right now, we are failing … miserably!
It is a reality that many from the Caribbean have emigrated to US cities. One particular frontier city that has benefited from Caribbean homeland abandonment is Miami, Florida. But the experiences there is that many of the defective attitudes towards interpersonal and domestic violence have immigrated with the subjects. See a Reference Source here:
Florida’s Domestic Violence Statistics In 2014, 106,882 crimes of domestic violence were reported to Florida law enforcement agencies resulting in 64,460 arrests. During fiscal year 2014-2015, Florida’s certified domestic violence centers provided 546,658 nights of emergency shelter to 15,397 survivors of domestic violence and their children. Advocates created 109,045 tailored safety plans, provided a total of 297,669 hours of advocacy and counseling services, and received 130,776 domestic violence hotline calls from individuals seeking emergency services, information, and safety planning assistance.
Many more survivors of domestic violence are not reporting their abusers to the police or accessing services at domestic violence services due to reasons such as shame, fear, or being prevented from doing so by their abusers. For this reason, we may never know the true extent of abuse in our country and in our state.
See here, the exact number of domestic violence services provided in just Miami-Dade County for the last fiscal year numbers are available for, 2010 – 2011; notice the Black-and-Brown distributions in this community:
This above reference/data brings to mind a familiar (and sad) Caribbean expression:
You can take the man out of the island, but you cannot take the island out of the man.
The goal of this Go Lean/CU roadmap is to confederate all of the Caribbean – all 30 member-states – under a unified entity to provide societal solutions for the local region. We must abate the practice of domestic violence; no “ifs”, “ands” or “buts”. We must help the abused … and the abusers. The CU security goal is for public safety, to optimize the societal engines to ensure peace and security for all regional stakeholders.
The successful execution of this roadmap should result in the creation of millions of jobs and the growth of the regional economy. New funding would allow for grants to the member-states and their local communities to provide more remediation to these abused ones and the cooperative abusers in their neighborhoods. Communities can reform and transform; this is an accepted fact, aligning with the economic principle quoted in the Go Lean book (Page 21), that “Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices and Incentives”.
This roadmap fully envisions the integration of shepherding – leadership – for the Caribbean region’s economic, security and governing initiatives under the same organization: the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. These points are pronounced early in the Go Lean book (Page 12) with these opening Declaration of Interdependence statements:
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.
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 …
xiii. Whereas the legacy of dissensions in many member-states … 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.
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.
The Caribbean appointing “new guards”, or a security pact to ensure justice and public safety will include many new community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies. Consider the sample list here:
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices
Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future
Page 21
Community Ethos – Security Principles
Page 22
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations
Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Tactical – Vision – Forge a Single Market economy
Page 45
Tactical – Confederating a non-sovereign union
Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy
Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Homeland Security
Page 75
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Justice Department
Page 77
Tactical – Separation of Powers – CariPol: Marshals & Investigations
Page 77
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Witness Protection
Page 77
Implementation – Start-up Security Initiatives
Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid – Security Assistance
Page 115
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate – Security Optimization
Page 118
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better
Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – No Unchecked Violence
Page 134
Planning – Lessons from the American West – Law & Order Lessons
Page 142
Planning – Lessons from Egypt – Lackluster Law & Order affects Economy
Page 143
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance
Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract
Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership
Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice
Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Reduce Crime
Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Gun Control – Suspend Rights for Domestic Abusers
Page 179
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security
Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism – Include a focus on bullying
Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering and Analysis
Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Prison Industrial Complex
Page 211
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights
Page 220
The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean have monitored the activities throughout the Caribbean neighborhood, and commented accordingly. Other subjects related to domestic-related crimes and security empowerments for the region have been blogged in other commentaries, as sampled here:
10 Things We Want from the US – #6: Crime Watch Initiatives
The vision of the Go Lean roadmap is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. This means measurable reductions mitigating and remediation) of interpersonal violence in the region. The Go Lean book is presented as a regional solution to remediate and mitigate all crime – White Collar, street and domestic – in the Caribbean.
The book’s premise is that “bad actors” will always emerge, from internal and external origins to exploit the opportunities, with good, bad and evil intent. This is a historical fact, and is bound to repeat. We must therefore be prepared and on-guard to defend our homeland against all threats, foreign and domestic, including crimes of interpersonal and domestic violence.
We must do better. Otherwise, our homeland will continue to be abandoned. These “push” factors will continue to cause our citizens to flee their homeland for foreign (North American and European) shores, just to find refuge from the victimization.
So all stakeholders in the Caribbean – people and institutions – are urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap for the elevation of the Caribbean’s societal engines: economy, security and governance. We can do better; we can better impact the Greater Good for peace & security. 🙂
Appendix Reference – Title: Violence Against Women Act
The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) is a United States federal law (Title IV, sec. 40001-40703 of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994) signed [in to law] by President Bill Clinton on September 13, 1994 … The Act provides $1.6 billion toward investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women, imposes automatic and mandatory restitution on those convicted, and allows civil redress in cases prosecutors chose to leave un-prosecuted. The Act also establishes the Office on Violence Against Women within the Department of Justice.
VAWA was drafted by the office of Senator Joe Biden (D-DE), with support from a broad coalition of advocacy groups.[1] The Act passed through Congress with bipartisan support in 1994, clearing the United States House of Representatives by a vote of 235–195 and the Senate by a vote of 61–38, although the following year House Republicans attempted to cut the Act’s funding.[2] In the 2000 Supreme Court case United States v. Morrison, a sharply divided Court struck down the VAWA provision allowing women the right to sue their attackers in federal court. By a 5–4 majority, the Court’s conservative wing overturned the provision as exceeding the federal government’s powers under the Commerce Clause.[3][4]
VAWA was reauthorized by bipartisan majorities in Congress in 2000, and again in December 2005, and signed by President George W. Bush.[5] The Act’s 2012 renewal was opposed by conservative Republicans, who objected to extending the Act’s protections to same-sex couples and to provisions allowing battered undocumented immigrants to claim temporary visas.[6] Ultimately, VAWA was again reauthorized in 2013, after a long legislative battle throughout 2012–2013.[7]
Published on Feb 1, 2015 – Watch the official Super Bowl NO MORE ad (the first-ever Super Bowl commercial addressing domestic violence and sexual assault) and pledge to say NO MORE at http://nomore.org. The 30 second NO MORE PSA will air live during the first break after second quarter of NFL Super Bowl XLIX on February 1, 2015. Watch & share the NO MORE Public Service Announcement (PSA)!
The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean, and accompanying blogs, has prioritized public safety and remediating/mitigating crime as paramount for the region. Despite the focus on economics, the book asserts that to elevate Caribbean society there must be a focus on the region’s security and governing engines to provide justice assurances. So in addition to economic empowerments (jobs, investments, education, entrepreneurship, etc.), the book posits that security concerns must also be front-and-center in any roadmap along with these economic efforts.
This is easier said than done.
In the previous blog/commentary in this series, the effort to reduce crime and remediate violence was identified as an “Art” and “Science”. This heavy reliance on artists and scientists have provided a lot of history for us to study and glean best-practices in this cause. What can we learn today from a study in the history of interpersonal violence as related to street violence?
This is commentary 2 of 3 considering this subject of interpersonal violence, and how it relates to the Caribbean homeland in 2016. The historic issues addressed are:
Street violence stems from 3 considerations: 1. Need, 2. Greed, and 3. Justice.
The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate the region’s economic, security and governing engines. The roadmap has these 3 prime directives:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to provide public safety and protect the resultant economic engines from economic crimes.
Improve Caribbean governance, with a separation-of-powers between member-state administrations and the CU federal government (Executive facilitations, Legislative oversight and judicial prudence) to support these economic/security engines.
So the CU/Go Lean roadmap addresses the issue of more jobs; this will lower the “need” factor for crime; (there is no expectation that these efforts would fully eliminate violent crime; but this start will mitigate the risks). The book relates that with the emergence of new economic drivers, that “bad actors” will also emerge thereafter to exploit the opportunities, with good, bad and evil intent. The second factor, “greed” is tied to opportunities. The executions of the Go Lean roadmap (Page 23) are specifically designed to minimize opportunities for crime with these security mandates:
Adapt the Ethos: Public Protection over Privacy
Embrace Electronic Payment Systems – Carry less cash
Whistleblower Protection – Consider all allegation, anonymous and overt
Witness Security & Protection – Ensure Justice Process
Youth Crime Awareness & Prevention; Anti-Bullying and Mitigation – “Nip it in the bud”
Intelligence Gathering – Universal Video Surveillance
Light Up the Dark Places – Eliminate the figurative and literal “shadows”
Prison Industrial Complex – Engage to reduce recidivism
The third contributor, justice, is tied to street riots, civil unrest and other outbursts against perceived injustices. The marching call of many of these movements is “No Justice; No Peace”.
Consider here the historicity of street violence (including sexual violence from strangers) in this AUDIO Podcast (48 minutes) here:
Click on Photo here to Play AUDIO Podcast; Click BACK to Return
What’s Behind Trends In U.S. Violent Crime Rates? Guest Host: Indira Lakshmanan; posted February 9, 2016 – For more than 20 years violent crime rates in the U.S. states have been declining, but data from the first six months of 2015 suggest an unwelcome change: The FBI reports that from January and June 2015 overall violent crime was up nearly 2% and homicides jumped more than 6 percent with spikes in both small towns and big cities. The Justice Department cautioned it’s too soon to know whether the latest data signals an upturn in violence in America. Join us to talk about what drove violent crime down so dramatically over the last two decades in the U.S. and what could be ahead.
Guests
Khalil Muhammad director, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture New York Public Library
Paul Butler professor, Georgetown Law School
Barry Latzer emeritus professor of criminal justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY most recent book: “The Rise and Fall of Violent Crime in America”
The foregoing AUDIO Podcast relates the experience of the Black and Brown populations in the American criminal-justice system. There is no doubt, there is a “divide in America’s execution of their justice mandates”. But, the scope of the Go Lean/CU roadmap is to reform and transform the Caribbean, not America. We need to do better here, in our homeland. America’s success and failure does relate to us, as many of our Diaspora lives there, but frankly, the Go Lean book asserts that it is easier to fix the Caribbean, than to fix America. We simply need to keep our people at home. We need to minimize the “push and pull” reasons that drive them away. Curbing crime here – a “push” factor – helps this cause; messaging the real experiences of our Black and Brown Diaspora as they engage the criminal justice system in the US should also help our cause, in lowering the “pull” factors.
So let’s fix the Caribbean!
The quest of the Go Lean movement is to elevate Caribbean society above our dysfunctional past. We can improve upon public safety! The goal of the roadmap is to optimize society through economic empowerment, security & justice optimization, and also governing efficiencies in the region, since these are inextricably linked to this same elevation endeavor.
The cause-and-effect of failing economics leads to increasing criminality, the “need” factor. So the cause-and-effect of improving economics should therefore lead to lesser criminal activities. Improved security facilitation (i.e. intelligence gathering and analysis) should reduce the opportunities for crimes of convenience, thus mitigating the “greed” factor. Funding grants to improve Justice institutions (Police, Courts, Prison Industrial Complex), their transparency and accountability, should lower the outcries for justice. Thus the Go Lean/CU has devised a tactic of publishing rankings-and-ratings (i.e. Best Places in the Caribbean To Live …); this should exacerbate failings and failures more prominently to the monitoring public, at home and abroad.
The motivation of this Go Lean/CU roadmap is the basic principle, described in the book (Page 21), that “Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices and Incentives”.
This roadmap fully envisions the integration of shepherding – leadership – for the Caribbean region’s economic, security and governing initiatives under the same organization: the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. These points are pronounced early in the Go Lean book (Page 12) with these opening Declaration of Interdependence statements:
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 … 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.
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 …
xiii. Whereas the legacy of dissensions in many member-states … 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.
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.
The Caribbean appointing “new guards”, or a security pact to ensure justice and public safety will include many strategies, tactics and implementations deemed “best-practice”, including an advanced Intelligence Gathering and Analysis effort to mitigate and remediate street crime in the region, and also to optimize the “art and science” of crime, including prison reform; (see Page 211 of the Go Lean book for a discussion on criminology and penology). The Go Lean book details the series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize justice institution and provide increased public safety – “top-down” and “bottoms up” – in the Caribbean region:
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices
Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future
Page 21
Community Ethos – Security Principles
Page 22
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations
Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Tactical – Vision – Forge a Single Market economy
Page 45
Tactical – Confederating a non-sovereign union
Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy
Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Homeland Security
Page 75
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Justice Department
Page 77
Tactical – Separation of Powers – CariPol: Marshals & Investigations
Page 77
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Witness Protection
Page 77
Implementation – Start-up Security Initiatives
Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid – Security Assistance
Page 115
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate – Security Optimization
Page 118
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better
Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Mitigate Organized Crime & Gangs
Page 134
Planning – Lessons from the American West – Law & Order Lessons
Page 142
Planning – Lessons from Egypt – Lackluster Law & Order affects Economy
Page 143
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance
Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract
Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice
Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Reduce Crime
Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Gun Control
Page 179
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security
Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism – Mitigate Bullying and Gangs early
Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering and Analysis
Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Prison Industrial Complex
Page 211
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights
Page 220
Other subjects related to crime, justice and security empowerments for the region have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentary, as sampled here:
10 Things We Don’t Want from the US – #4: Gun Rights/2nd Amendment
The vision of the Go Lean roadmap is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. This means measurable reduction (mitigating and remediation) of interpersonal violence in the region. The Go Lean book presents a regional solution – CariPol et al – to remediate and mitigate street crime in the Caribbean, featuring details of strategies, tactics and implementations designed from world class best-practices to reduce street violence in the region.
The premise in the Go Lean book is that “bad actors” will always emerge, from internal and external origins. We must be prepared and on-guard to defend our homeland against all threats, foreign and domestic, including street crime and interpersonal violence. Plus, we must accomplish this goal with maximum transparency, accountability, and commitment to due-process and the rule-of-law. Thusly, there is a place for closed-circuit TV (CCTV), dashboard and body cameras. If there is the community “will”, the CU will ensure the “way”!
An additional mission is to lower the “push” factors (from “push-and-pull” reference) so that our citizens are not led to flee their homeland for foreign (North American and European) shores. Where we have failed in the past, we now want to reform and transform our communities, so that we can re-invite our Diaspora to return; this time, offering security assurances. Among the many reasons people emigrate or refuse to repatriate, is victimization of interpersonal violence or fear of crime.
There is “good, bad and ugly” in every society. We must therefore mitigate the “need, greed and justice” reasons for interpersonal violence in our society.
So all stakeholders in the Caribbean – people and institutions – are urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap for the elevation of the Caribbean’s societal engine: economy, security and governance. The roadmap calls for the CU to do the heavy-lifting, so as to impact the Greater Good for justice, peace and security. This is conceivable, believable and achievable. 🙂
When we think of crime, what concerns us the most? Burglary, Fraud, or Assault?
Most likely, it is the threat to life-and-limb; to the person, and then secondarily, the threat to property.
While we all want to live in a society free of crime, we are more concerned about being free of violence. We all consider the curtailing of violence in society as a measurement of good civilization. It is one way in which we may judge societal success: simply, less interpersonal violence = success; more violence = Failed-State.
Sometimes this measurement is controversial. Many people feel that the misdeeds of corporate crimes (think Wall Street) are more troubling to society than muggings in the streets, and yet, we rarely see these types of White Collar crimes prosecuted, but society “throws the book” at people who commit violent crimes.
Blame it on an evolutionary survival instinct. We all want to be physically safe!
Public safety – remediating and mitigating crime – is therefore a study in the “Art” and “Science” of violence. (This is not a consideration of military or terrorist violence; these are separate and distinct discussions). The subject of interpersonal violence can be very academic; it can also be very practical. We therefore rely more heavily on artists and scientists to help in this cause. What can we learn today from a study in the history of interpersonal violence? Firstly, that there are 3 reasons for violence:
Need,
Greed, and
Honor.
The book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts that to elevate Caribbean society there must be a focus on the region’s economic, security and governing engines. While the book primarily targets economic empowerments (jobs, investments, education, entrepreneurship, etc.), it posits that security concerns – threats to public safety – must also be front-and-center along with these economic efforts. While a more effective execution of economic empowerment would address the availability for more jobs, and thusly lower the “need” factor for crime, this would not fully eliminate the incidences of violent crime; but this start will mitigate the risks.
This is due to the second factor: greed. The incidences of “greed” seems to be more opportunistic, than accidental. The Go Lean book is specifically designed (Page 23) to address these opportunities with the execution of its security mandates:
Privacy versus Public Protection
Whistleblower Protection
Witness Security & Protection
Anti-Bullying and Mitigation
Intelligence Gathering – Video Surveillance
Light Up the Dark Places – Eliminate the figurative and literal “shadows”.
This commentary is therefore focused on the third contributor to interpersonal violence, which surprisingly, is NOT covered in the Go Lean book: Honor or Honour.
This commentary is 1 of 3 considering the above subjects; these lessons are especially apropos for application in the Caribbean homeland of 2016. We have well-documented history of all of these incidences in our community.
The Go Lean book directly relates (Page 23) that with the emergence of new economic drivers that “bad actors” will also emerge thereafter to exploit the opportunities, with good, bad and evil intent. This is a historical fact, and is bound to repeat. There have always been and will always be conflict among individuals and many “bad actors” assuredly resort to violence during conflicts. (Think Cain and Abel).
Consider here the historicity of dueling or the “Duel” in the Appendix Reference below. This is how many addressed disputes or challenges to their “honor code” – today, instead they would sue each other for slander, libel or other offences to reputation – litigation is better than “pistols at dawn”. Consider the experience of Alexander Hamilton in the VIDEO here:
Published on Sep 16, 2013 – Watch a short biography video of Alexander Hamilton, the first United States Secretary of the Treasury who was shot by Aaron Burr during a duel.
The story of Hamilton is all the vogue right now, there is a new Broadway Musical chronicling his life in song-and-dance. This original Caribbean immigrant (Nevis) teaches America … and the whole world so much. See Appendix VIDEO below.
(A consideration of duels is a reflection of “art imitating life”. Consider too, duels involving the fictional Lightsaber weapon are a cornerstone and major showpiece of the Star Wars franchise).
The quest of the Go Lean movement is to elevate Caribbean society above our dysfunctional past. Surely, duels are a fixture of the past; surely there are many civil alternatives in modern society – such as commencing a civil court case. Surely? But a cursory review of the Caribbean eco-system reveals that civil trials are cumbersome and complicated in this region. It may be easier for a Man of Honor to simply settle his differences in a back alley, than to take the matter to court. This is sad! We all know how this story ends:
One person brings his fist, while another comes with a knife; another a gun; another, a bigger gun. The one-upmanship continues.
We must reform and transform Caribbean life. We must remediate the “civil court” systems; we must make it easier to sue and/or have “your day in court”. The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate the region’s economic, security and governing engines. The roadmap has these 3 prime directives:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to provide public safety and protect the resultant economic engines from economic crimes.
Improve Caribbean governance, with a separation-of-powers between member-state administrations and the CU federal government (Executive facilitations, Legislative oversight and judicial prudence) to support these economic/security engines.
The goal of this roadmap is to confederate all of the Caribbean – all 30 member-states – under a unified entity to provide these societal solutions for the local region. The CU security goal is just for public safety, optimizing Caribbean society through economic empowerment, security optimization, and governing efficiencies in the region, since these are all inextricably linked to this same endeavor.
The cause-and-effect of failing economics leads to increasing criminality, the “need” factor. The cause-and-effect of improving economics should therefore lead to lesser criminal activities. Improved security facilitation (i.e. intelligence gathering and analysis) should reduce the opportunities for crimes of convenience, the “greed” factor. Funding grants and heightened rankings-and-ratings (i.e. Best Places in the Caribbean To Live …) should allow for improved small claims and civil courts, the “honor” factor. The motivation of this Go Lean/CU roadmap is the basic principle, described in the book (Page 21), that “Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices and Incentives”.
This roadmap fully envisions the integration of shepherding – leadership – for the Caribbean region’s economic, security and governing initiatives under the same organization: the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. These points are pronounced early in the Go Lean book (Page 12) with these opening Declaration of Interdependence statements:
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 … 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.
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 …
xiii. Whereas the legacy of dissensions in many member-states … 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.
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.
The Caribbean appointing “new guards”, or a security pact to ensure justice and public safety will include many strategies, tactics and implementations deemed “best-practice”, including an advanced Intelligence Gathering and Analysis effort to mitigate and remediate crime in the region, and also to optimize the “art and science” of crime, including prison reform; (see Page 211 of the Go Lean book). This represents “top-down” and “bottoms up” optimization of the justice and security processes to better protect the Caribbean homeland. This comprehensive focusis “Step One/Day One” in the Go Lean roadmap, covering the approach for adequate funding, accountability and control. The Go Lean book details the series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize justice institution and provide increased public safety in the Caribbean region:
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices
Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future
Page 21
Community Ethos – Security Principles
Page 22
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations
Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Tactical – Vision – Forge a Single Market economy
Page 45
Tactical – Confederating a non-sovereign union
Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy
Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Homeland Security
Page 75
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Justice Department
Page 77
Tactical – Separation of Powers – CariPol: Marshals & Investigations
Page 77
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Witness Protection
Page 77
Implementation – Start-up Security Initiatives
Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid – Security Assistance
Page 115
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate – Security Optimization
Page 118
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better
Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Mitigate Organized Crime
Page 134
Planning – Lessons from the American West – Law & Order Lessons
Page 142
Planning – Lessons from Egypt – Lackluster Law & Order affects Economy
Page 143
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance
Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract
Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership
Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice
Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Reduce Crime
Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Gun Control
Page 179
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security
Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism
Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering and Analysis
Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Prison Industrial Complex
Page 211
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights
Page 220
Other subjects related to crime and security empowerments for the region have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentaries, as sampled here:
10 Things We Don’t Want from the US – #4 Gun Rights: The 2nd Amendment
The vision of the Go Lean roadmap is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. This means measurable reductions (remediation and mitigation) of interpersonal violence in the region. The Go Lean book presents a regional solution to remediate and mitigate crime in the Caribbean. There is the need for easier access to courts, mediators and “Justices of the Peace”. This latter is a feature from British Colonial history and is applicable in many Caribbean member-states; (not just the British legacy). Here are the technical details from Jamaica:
A Justice of the Peace (JP), according to the Ministry of Justice, is a person of unquestionable integrity who seeks to promote and protect the rights of the individual and helps to provide justice to persons in a particular community. Additionally, the JP serves as a justice in petty court sessions, attends juvenile court sessions, issues summonses, considers applications for bail, explains and signs legal documents, sits on licensing panels, and gives counsel/advice. Any Jamaican citizen that can speak and write English is eligible to become a JP. Any club/organisation/citizen can recommend someone to become JP for a community. JPs are chosen under the Governor-General‘s discretion.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_of_the_peace#Jamaica retrieved February 17, 2016.
The book features details of strategies, tactics and implementations designed from world class best-practices to reduce violence in the region, including:
Prison Industrial Complex – Messaging against the Honor Code
The premise is that “bad actors” will always emerge, from internal and external origins. We must be prepared and on-guard to defend our homeland against all threats, foreign and domestic, including crime and interpersonal violence. Plus, we must accomplish this goal with maximum transparency, accountability, and commitment to due-process and the rule-of-law.
An additional mission is to lower the “push” factors (from “push-and-pull” reference) so that our citizens are not led to flee their homeland for foreign (North American and European) shores. Among the many reasons people emigrate, is victimization of interpersonal violence or fear of crime. There is “good, bad and ugly” in every society. We must therefore mitigate the “need, greed and honor” reasons for interpersonal violence.
So all stakeholders in the Caribbean – people and institutions – are urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap for the elevation of the Caribbean’s societal engine: economy, security and governance. The roadmap calls for the heavy-lifting so as to impact the Greater Good for justice, peace and security. 🙂
Appendix Reference – Title: Duel (Source: Wikipedia – Online Reference Source; retrieved February 16, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duel)
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules.
Duels in this form were chiefly practiced in early modern Europe, with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period (19th to early 20th centuries) especially among military officers.
During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly fought with swords (the rapier, later the smallsword), but beginning in the late 18th century in England, duels were more commonly fought using pistols; fencing and pistol duels continued to co-exist throughout the 19th century.
The duel was based on a code of honour. Duels were fought not so much to kill the opponent as to gain “satisfaction”, that is, to restore one’s honour by demonstrating a willingness to risk one’s life for it, and as such the tradition of dueling was originally reserved for the male members of nobility; however, in the modern era it extended to those of the upper classes generally. On rare occasions, duels with pistols or swords were fought between women; these were sometimes known as petticoat duels.[1][2]
Legislation against dueling goes back to the medieval period. The Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215) outlawed duels,[3] and civil legislation in the Holy Roman Empire against duelling was passed in the wake of the Thirty Years’ War.[4] From the early 17th century, duels became illegal in the countries where they were practiced. Dueling largely fell out of favor in England by the mid-19th century and in Continental Europe by the turn of the 20th century. Dueling declined in the Eastern United States in the 19th century and by the time the American Civil War broke out, dueling had begun an irreversible decline, even in the South.[5] Public opinion, not legislation, caused the change.[5]
History Early history and Middle Ages In Western society, the formal concept of a duel developed out of the mediaeval judicial duel and older pre-Christian practices such as the Viking Age holmgang. In Medieval society, judicial duels were done by knights and squires to end various disputes.[6][7] Countries like Germany, Britain and Ireland practiced this tradition. Judicial combat were of two forms in medieval society, the feat of arms and chivalric combat.[6] The feat of arms were done to settle hostilities between two large parties and supervised by a judge. The battle was fought when one party’s honor was disrespected or challenged upon in which the conflict cannot be resolved in court. Weapons were standardized and must be of the same caliber. The duel lasted until the other party was too weak to fight back. In early cases, the defeated party are then subsequently executed…
Renaissance early modern period During the early Renaissance, dueling established the status of a respectable gentleman, and was an accepted manner to resolve disputes.
According to [writer] Ariel Roth, during the reign of Henry IV, over 4,000 French aristocrats were killed in duels “in an eighteen-year period” whilst a twenty-year period of Louis XIII’s reign saw some eight thousand pardons for “murders associated with duels”. Roth also notes that thousands of men in the Southern United States “died protecting what they believed to be their honour.”[10]
The first published code duello, or “code of dueling”, appeared in Renaissance Italy. The first formalised national code was France’s, during the Renaissance. In 1777, a code of practice was drawn up for the regulation of duels.… A copy of the code, known as ‘The twenty-six commandments’, was to be kept in a gentleman’s pistol case for reference should a dispute arise regarding procedure.[11] During the Early Modern period, there were also various attempts by secular legislators to curb the practice. Queen Elizabeth I officially condemned and outlawed duelling in 1571, shortly after the practice had been introduced to England.[12]
However, the tradition had become deeply rooted in European culture as a prerogative of the aristocracy, and these attempts largely failed. For example, King Louis XIII of France outlawed dueling in 1626, a law which remained in force for ever afterwards, and his successor Louis XIV intensified efforts to wipe out the duel. Despite these efforts, duelling continued unabated, and it is estimated that between 1685 and 1716, French officers fought 10,000 duels, leading to over 400 deaths.[13]
Enlightenment-era opposition By the late 18th century, Enlightenment era values began to influence society with new self-conscious ideas about politeness, civil behaviour and new attitudes towards violence. The cultivated art of politeness demanded that there should be no outward displays of anger or violence, and the concept of honour became more personalized.
By the 1770s the practice of dueling was increasingly coming under attack from many sections of enlightened society, as a violent relic of Europe’s medieval past unsuited for modern life. As England began to industrialize and benefit from urban planning and more effective police forces, the culture of street violence in general began to slowly wane. The growing middle class maintained their reputation with recourse to either bringing charges of libel, or to the fast-growing print media of the early nineteenth century, where they could defend their honour and resolve conflicts through correspondence in newspapers.[14]
Influential new intellectual trends at the turn of the nineteenth century bolstered the anti-duelling campaign; the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham stressed that praiseworthy actions were exclusively restricted to those that maximize human welfare and happiness, and the Evangelical notion of the “Christian conscience” began to actively promote social activism. Individuals … and similar societies, who had successfully campaigned for the abolition of slavery, condemned dueling as ungodly violence and as an egocentric culture of honour.[15]
Modern history Dueling became popular in the United States – the former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton was killed in a duel against the sitting Vice President Aaron Burr in 1804. Between 1798 and the Civil War, the US Navy lost two-thirds as many officers to dueling as it did in combat at sea, including naval hero Stephen Decatur. Many of those killed or wounded were midshipmen or junior officers. Despite prominent deaths, dueling persisted because of contemporary ideals of chivalry, particularly in the South, and because of the threat of ridicule if a challenge was rejected.[16][17]
By about 1770, the duel underwent a number of important changes in England. Firstly, unlike their counterparts in many continental nations, English duelists enthusiastically adopted the pistol, and sword duels dwindled.[18] Special sets of dueling pistols were crafted for the wealthiest of noblemen for this purpose. Secondly, the office of ‘second’ developed into ‘seconds’ or ‘friends’ being chosen by the aggrieved parties to conduct their honour dispute. These friends would attempt to resolve a dispute upon terms acceptable to both parties and, should this fail, they would arrange and oversee the mechanics of the encounter.[19]
In the United Kingdom, to kill in the course of a duel was formally judged as murder, but generally the courts were very lax in applying the law, as they were sympathetic to the culture of honour.[20] This attitude lingered on – Queen Victoria even expressed a hope that Lord Cardigan, prosecuted for wounding another in a duel, “would get off easily”. The Anglican Church was generally hostile to dueling, but non-conformist sects in particular began to actively campaign against it.
By 1840, dueling had declined dramatically; when the 7th Earl of Cardigan was acquitted on a legal technicality for homicide in connection with a duel with one of his former officers,[21] outrage was expressed in the media, with The Times (British newspaper) alleging that there was deliberate, high level complicity to leave the loop-hole in the prosecution case and reporting the view that “in England there is one law for the rich and another for the poor” and The Examiner [newspaper] describing the verdict as “a defeat of justice”.[22][23]
The last duel between Englishmen in England occurred in 1845, when James Alexander Seton had an altercation with Henry Hawkey over the affections of his wife, leading to a fatal duel at Southsea. However, the last fatal duel to occur in England was between two French political refugees, Frederic Cournet and Emmanuel Barthélemy near Old Windsor in 1852; the former was killed.[19] In both cases, the winners of the duels, Hawkey [24] and Bartholemy,[25] were tried for murder. But Hawkey was acquitted and Barthélemy was convicted only of manslaughter; he served seven months in prison. However, in 1855, Barthélemy was hanged after shooting and killing his employer and another man.[25]
Dueling also began to be criticized in America in the late 18th century; Benjamin Franklin denounced the practice as uselessly violent, and George Washington encouraged his officers to refuse challenges during the American Revolutionary War because he believed that the death by dueling of officers would have threatened the success of the war effort. However, the practice actually gained in popularity in the first half of the nineteenth century especially in the South and on the lawless Western Frontier. Dueling began an irreversible decline in the aftermath of the Civil War. Even in the South, public opinion increasingly came to regard the practice as little more than bloodshed.
Colonial North America and United States European styles of dueling established themselves in the colonies of European states in America. Duels were to challenge someone over a woman or to defend one’s honor. In the US, dueling was used to deal with political differences and disputes, particularly during the Civil War. Dueling in the US was not uncommon, even after 1859, when 18 states outlawed it, but it became a thing of the past in the United States by the start of the 20th century.[73]…
The quick draw duel is a stereotypical aspect of a gunfighter story in the American Western film genre – [mostly fiction and fantasy, rarely factual] – although real life Wild West duels did happen such as the Wild Bill Hickok – Davis Tutt shootout, Doc Holliday and Mike Gordon duel, and Luke Short – Jim Courtright duel (see Real-life Wild West duels). Fatal duels were often fought to uphold personal honor in the rural American frontier, and they were partly influenced by the “code duello” brought by Southern emigrants.[75][76][77] Towns such as Tombstone, Arizona, and Dodge City, Kansas, prevented these duels by prohibiting civilians from carrying firearms, by local ordinance.[78]
To this day, any politician sworn in as Governor of Kentucky must declare under oath that he has not participated in a duel.[79]
Decline in the 20th century Duels had mostly ceased to be fought to the death by the late 19th century.
By the outbreak of World War I, dueling had not only been made illegal almost everywhere in the Western world, but was also widely seen as an anachronism. Military establishments in most countries frowned on dueling because officers were the main contestants. Officers were often trained at military academies at government’s expense; when officers killed one another it imposed an unnecessary financial and leadership strain on a military organization, making dueling unpopular with high-ranking officers.[36]
Charles I outlawed dueling in Austria-Hungary in 1917. Germany (the various states of the Holy Roman Empire) has a history of laws against dueling going back to the late medieval period, with a large amount of legislation dating from the period after the Thirty Years’ War (1618 and 1648). Prussia outlawed dueling in 1851, and the law was inherited by the Reichsstrafgesetzbuch of the German Empire after 1871.[4] Pope Leo XIII in the encyclica Pastoralis officii (1891) asked the bishops of Germany and Austria-Hungary to impose penalties on duelists.[38] In Germany, dueling was again outlawed by Adolph Hitler in 1937.[39] After World War II, German authorities persecuted academic fencing as duels until 1951, when a Göttingen court established the legal distinction between academic fencing and dueling.[40]
———–
Appendix VIDEO – HAMILTON, Starring Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr., Jonathan Groff & More – https://youtu.be/NBkI_9cr1Ws
This is an official video clips of Broadway’s HAMILTON, starring Lin-Manuel Miranda. The production opened August 6, 2015 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.
… these are undeniable and undisputable classifications of basic needs. (Some societies add energy as an additional basic need). When economies get warped and twisted, the recommendation is always to return focus back to these basics so as to jump-start an economic reboot by optimizing the commerce engines delivering these basics.
