Advice: When people tell you who they are, listen to them.
The new American President, Donald Trump, has announced, proclaimed and repeated that he is “for America First”. Yet the rest of the world seems to be surprised when he promotes policies that ignores, disregards and denigrates foreign people and countries; i.e. banning travel from 7 Muslim countries.
Come on people, the man said who he was and what is important to him. Why are we now surprised with stories like this, it is like he “yawns” at previous American empowerments that affected us in the Caribbean and Latin America – see the following article:
Title: Trump’s Big F-U To The Caribbean, Latin American By:NAN Editorial Team
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Mar. 17, 2017: Donald Trump released his first “budget blueprint” Thursday morning, providing the clearest glimpse yet at his administration’s war on the so-called “administrative state.” He once again proved his administration cares nothing about the Americas – Latin America or the Caribbean – or the world for that matter. Here are a few big F-U’s from Trump that will see drastic cuts if this budget ever gets green lighted.
1:Cuts to fighting drug trafficking in Latin America & the Caribbean
The administration’s budget proposal calls for some US $1.3 billion in cuts to the US Coast Guard to eliminate its top counter-terrorism unit, the Maritime Security Response Team, and all of its regional Maritime Safety and Security Teams. This means fewer assets to interdict all suspected smuggling boats and to disrupt drug trafficking at sea in the Caribbean, especially.
2: The Inter-American Foundation
Donald Trump has sliced away US $22 millionfrom The Inter-American Foundation which funds grass-roots groups and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Latin America and the Caribbean.
3: The U.S. Trade and Development Agency
Some $60 million is being cut from the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, which works atpromoting U.S. exports in the Americas and the world and works to do things such as improve transportation infrastructure and otherwise facilitate trade in dozens of countries.
4: The Overseas Private Investment Corporation
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation promotes U.S. economic investment in the Americas and other developing nations by working with private partners but its budget of $83 million has been swiped away.
5: The Global Climate Change Initiative
The Global Climate Change Initiative that was aimed at supporting climate change fight globally per the Paris climate agreement has been wiped away.
6: The Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund
Gone in the wind will be the US $70 million that allows the US President to “provide humanitarian assistance for unexpected and urgent refugee and migration needs worldwide.”
7: Cuts To The State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs
There is a 50 percent cut to the U.S. funding for the State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs, which pays U.S. dues to the United Nations, the OAS and other international and regional groups, according to news reports disclosed by Foreign Policy magazine. The United States currently contributes $50 million a year to the OAS budget which will now mean a drastic cut to that organization’s budget.
News Americas Now is a daily newswire covering the Americas – the Caribbean and Latin America and its Diasporas – whose content is syndicated across 21 plus news sites including on the Caribbean Today in Florida and on Irie Jam radio in New York City – the media company’s headquarters.
It is owned by Hard Beat Communications, a global media company with over a decade of experience on the Caribbean, Caribbean Diaspora and Latin American markets.
News Americas Now and its 20 affiliated sites is the largest dedicated Caribbean news network covering the Caribbean, Caribbean Diaspora and Latin America news, business, travel, politics and executive interviews.
So Donald Trump’s America has it’s own priorities, and its not the Caribbean.
Charity begins at home – Old Adage
The policies of Donald Trump is consistent in being nonchalant towards other causes, not just Caribbean issues. He “yawns” at more than just our priorities. Consider this headline:
The days of a Good Neighbor policy emanating from Washington towards Latin America and the Caribbean appears to be over, at least for this administration.
This foregoing article relates to the ongoing theme from the publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean, that of America’s War on the Caribbean. Our goal and aspiration is for Caribbean people to take the lead ourselves for Caribbean elevation.
America has problems and challenges. It is only understandable that political leaders may be focusing on empowerments to help the American homeland first. This commentary had previously detailed some of the societal threats; see this list that corresponds with Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign platform:
In addition, the Go Lean movement has previously detailed the American societal defects – institutional racism and Crony-Capitalism. Donald Trump, had previously been known to instigate racial hatred and business-wise, to be an abusive capitalist himself.
Therefore his first budget proposal, laying out his priorities, should be no surprise.
Expecting a liberal immigration policy for Caribbean people into the US?
Don’t count on it!
Really don’t! The US should not be the panacea for Caribbean ills. We have our own issues, problems and challenges that we need to deal with. This has been a consistent theme for the Go Lean book, which posits that one of the greatest threats to Caribbean society is the atrocious emigration rates. We have a high abandonment rate of our citizens to countries in North America (US & Canada) and Western Europe – especially among our professional classes.
Unfortunately, the leanings of Caribbean people to emigrate is still acute. The reasons why our people leave are identified as “Push” and “Pull”; they are fleeing from “home” and seeking “refuge” in countries like the US. “Refuge” is a good word; because of the many societal defects – the issues, problems and challenges referred above – many in the Caribbean must leave as refugees – think LGBT, Disability, Domestic-abuse, Medically-challenged – for their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. On the other hand, the lure of a more prosperous life in foreign countries, drive the “pull” side of the equation; these ones “pulled” are to be considered economic refugees.
See the VIDEO in the Appendix below regarding Caribbean expectations for immigration to the American mainland.
What parasites we are in the Caribbean!
The book Go Lean…Caribbean aspires to economic principles that dictate that “consequences of choices lie in the future”. America has to deal with the consequences of its electoral choice; and we in the Caribbean have to deal with ours – we must have our own vision … and values. This book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The goal is to confederate the 30 member-states in the region to form a federal government and effect a turn-around in our region. We should not leave it up to our colonial masters – or the American Super Power – to assuage our problems. We need our own expression of governance, to “formulate efficient and effective systems to steer our own destiny” (Page 10).
The Go Lean roadmap seeks to optimize the Caribbean governance. This vision is defined early in the book (Page 12) in the following pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence:
xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.
xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.
The purpose of the Go Lean roadmap is to turn-around the Caribbean in general; we have our own threats and societal defects. The CU thusly has these 3 prime directives, proclaimed as follows:
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 and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.
Yes, empowerments in the security and governing spheres are equally important as economic ones. This focus is wise in the era of Donald Trump as he has expressed – and so far followed through on – an intent to deport our emigrants more readily that run afoul of “the law”. We now have to be prepared “for some bad hombres” coming back home involuntarily.
We repeat the opening “Advice”: When people tell you who they are, listen to them. Prepare accordingly!
The Go Lean book details the community ethos to adopt, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute to empower all the factions in the Caribbean region. Consider this sample:
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future
Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Integrate region for Economics & Security
The Go Lean/CU goal is to reform and transform our own society, not America. We no longer want to be considered parasites of the American eco-system, we want to be protégés. In fact, we want to be better than America. Yes, we can.
We hereby urge everyone in the Caribbean – people, institutions and governments – to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap. It is time now to reboot our society. We must do the heavy-lifting ourselves, and not leave it up to any American decision-maker. This is what we all want: a new Caribbean that is a better homeland to live, work and play. 🙂
Sign the petition to lean-in for the roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.
——————
Appendix – Climate Schmimate – Trump To Planet: Drop Dead 😀
By: Doktor Zoom – November 10, 2016
Donald Trump has big plans for America. He’s going to make all of us who are already rich even richer and more prosperous, and the only price we have to pay is four to eight more years of delay in doing something about global warming, which isn’t merely a Chinese plot to keep America from competing, but is also a complete hoax perpetrated by scientists for nefarious motives. What, you never heard of evil scientists who want to rule the world? There’s one bit of good news in all this: The rest of the nations who have signed on to the Paris Climate Agreement still plan to go ahead with reducing their carbon outputs, even as the nation that supposedly leads the world in science turns itself over to leadership by a party that doesn’t believe in science anymore — at least, not in science that you can’t drop from fighter jets on some “ay-rabs”. …
Published on Jan 31, 2017 – CEEN Caribbean News discusses with Immigration Attorney, Wayne Golding on US President Donald’s Trumps Policy and its impact on Caribbean Immigration
The title: “The Man. The Moment. The Movement” is more than just a catch-phrase, its a recipe for successfully transforming society.
Do you remember this Sports Moment That Changed the World?
It was at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Despite all the attempts by the organizers to keep the Games apolitical and free-of-conflict, the Moment got political and conflicted … and impactful. This was when the Man, John Carlos, the bronze-medal winner in the 200 meters at the 1968 Summer Olympics gave his Black Power salute on the podium with gold-medalist Tommie Smith; this galvanized the Movement – the Civil Rights Movement in general and the Olympic Project for Human Rights in particular. The Movement caused a lot of controversy.
What is not known about this moment is that this Man, John Carlos, has Caribbean roots.
We are so proud!
Consider his biography reference here:
Title: John Carlos John Wesley Carlos (born June 5, 1945) is an American former track and field athlete and professional football player. He was the bronze-medal winner in the 200 meters at the 1968 Summer Olympics and his Black Power salute on the podium with Tommie Smith caused much political controversy. He went on to tie the world record in the 100 yard dash and beat the 200 meters world record (although the latter achievement was never certified). After his track career, he enjoyed a brief stint in the Canadian Football League but retired due to injury.[1]
He became involved with the United States Olympic Committee and helped to organize the 1984 Summer Olympics. Following this he became a track coach at Palm SpringsHigh School. He was inducted into the USA Track & Field Hall of Fame in 2003.
Early life and education Born in Harlem, New York, to Cuban[2] parents, John Carlos was a gifted high school athlete and outstanding student who went on to study at East Texas State University on a full track-and-field scholarship. His victories in the 100- and 200-meter dash and as a member of the 4×400-meter relay helped lead ETSU to the 1967 Lone Star Conference Championship. After his first year, Carlos enrolled at San Jose State University where he was trained by future National Track & Field Hall of Fame coach, Lloyd (Bud) Winter.
Carlos was awarded an honorary doctorate from CaliforniaStateUniversity in 2008. In 2012, he was awarded honorary doctorates from his alma maters Texas A&M University-Commerce (formerly EastTexasStateUniversity) and San Jose State University.
Career At the 1968 Olympic Trials, Carlos won the 200-meter dash in 19.92 seconds, beating world-record holder Tommie Smith and surpassing his record by 0.3 seconds. Though the record was never ratified because the spike formation on Carlos’ shoes (“brush spikes”) was not accepted at the time, the race reinforced his status as a world-class sprinter.
Carlos became a founding member of the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR), and originally advocated a boycott of the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games unless four conditions were met: withdrawal of South Africa and Rhodesia from the games, restoration of Muhammad Ali’s world heavyweight boxing title, Avery Brundage to step down as president of the IOC, and the hiring of more African-American assistant coaches. As the boycott failed to achieve support after the IOC withdrew invitations for South Africa and Rhodesia, he decided, together with Smith, to participate but to stage a protest in case he received a medal.[3] Following his third-place finish behind fellow American Smith and Australian Peter Norman in the 200 at the Mexico Olympics, Carlos and Smith made headlines around the world by raising their black-gloved fists at the medal award ceremony. Both athletes wore black socks and no shoes on the podium to represent African-Americanpoverty in the United States. In support, Peter Norman, the silver medalist who was a white athlete from Australia, participated in the protest by wearing an OPHR badge.
IOC president Avery Brundage deemed a political statement unfit for the apolitical, international forum the Olympic Games was supposed to be. In an immediate response to their actions, he ordered Smith and Carlos suspended from the U.S. team and banned from the Olympic Village. Many supporters, however, praised the men for their bravery. The men’s gesture had lingering effects for all three athletes, the most serious of which were death threats against Carlos, Smith, and their families. Although it has been reported that Carlos and Smith were stripped of their medals, Carlos has indicated this is not true and his medal is with his mother.[4]
Carlos had his greatest year in track and field in 1969, equaling the world 100-yard record of 9.1, winning the AAU 220-yard run, and leading San JoseState to its first NCAA championship with victories in the 100 and 220 and as a member of the 4×110-yard relay. He was featured on the cover of Track and Field News‘ May 1969 issue.[5] …
This biography should go back further to include John Carlos’s Cuban-Caribbean heritage, that of his father:
John Carlos is of Cuban descent and can understand Spanish. His father, Earl Carlos Sr., was a businessman (a cobbler or shoe repair) and World War I Veteran [fighting for the US]. He was a man proud of his appearance in all circumstances and carried himself in a dignified way. He had to work hard from an early age (like most African-American children of his era, especially in the South of the country) and his parents were born as slaves; [(slavery ended in Cuba in 1886 and he was born in 1895)]. When he participated in World War I, he got wounded and received the Medal of Citation Award for his stoicism on the battlefield. When he returned back home, he had to face racial hatred, economic discrimination, the Roaring Twenties, the Stock Market Crash in 1929, the Dust Bowl in the mid-thirties and World War II. Despite the difficulties, he never became bitter. He met his future wife, Vioris Lawrence (an African-American woman), in 1941, who was later John Carlos’ mother. – MegaDiversities.
This was quite a legacy to absorb. John Carlos had the molding from his proud Cuban father, who left a segregated Cuba and emigrated for a better life in the metropolitan area of New York. Harlem – think Harlem Renaissance – was a better place to be a Black Man than the Jim Crow South or the minority-ruled Cuba. When he stood in defiance in that Moment in 1968, John Carlos was protesting the blatant racism that he experienced and his father before him – Earl Carlos died later, in May 1969. The Movement to uplift oppressed people had began on the global stage, but the Black Power salute was a local action in solidarity with all those oppressed before and after this Moment. He understood that ‘Sport and Politics’ are intrinsically linked, whether right or wrong.
The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean recognizes the significance of that Moment and the stage for its execution, the celebrated Olympic Games. The Go Lean book applauds the struggle for Civil Rights and the dynamics of sports. It posits that sports can foster a great influence – and even wealth – in modern society. See this in Appendix B VIDEO.
The sportsman can “rule in people’s hearts”. People marvel at their athletic prowess – billions may be watching on live or tape-delayed TV broadcasts – the participants can forge a positive image and wield power and influence; think:
We can add John Carlos and Tommie Smith to that list.
This Moment was in 1968; that was a pivotal year, so many things happened, mostly bad; consider this sample:
Martin Luther King was assassinated, April 4
Robert Kennedy was assassinated, June 6
Vietnam War Protests – Summer
Chicano (Hispanic) Movement and Red Power (Native Americans) Movement Summer Protests
Mexico City Olympics – October 12 – 27
James Brown song: Say it loud: “I’m Black and I’m Proud”
According to John Carlos, in a recent interview describing the disposition on the ground there in Mexico City: “it was high tension, drama, a powder keg … prior to the Olympics there was a massacre that killed hundreds of young activists”.
That was 1968 … all around; consider the experience of one Californian “back in that day”:
1968 was an exciting time for me. I think it was when my activism was born. Before that time things were pretty rosy. Even though I knew about the [Black] Panthers and had seen Dr. [Martin Luther] King, living in LA you were kind of removed. I do remember expressing a desire to join the Freedom Rides, but my Pastor said ‘No’.
1968 was [when] my friends were coming home from Vietnam or refusing to go.
I remember loaning my boyfriend $$ to go to Philly to go before the Draft Board to argue as a Conscientious Objector. He won and we were so happy.
I remember the day Dr. King was killed and going that night to a service with friends. I remember being so sad and being glued to the TV.
I remember the horror of Bobby Kennedy being killed. I was at work and heard the news.
I remember being so proud of Tommy Smith and John Carlos at the Olympics.
My living room had two posters. One of them on the stand with the black gloved fists held high and the other was [Black Panther Party co-founder] Huey Newton sitting in that Peacock Chair.
Those were the days when I was very active in the Watts Summer Festival. Tommy Jacquette, the founder, was a friend, and we all gathered together to make the event a success. …
I would say that 1968 was the year that I became the person I am today. – Bunny Withers, Los Angeles.
The reality of human rights abuses in America in 1968 was bad, worse or dire – those were the only options. The Black community was far from being treated as equal citizens in that society. But truth be told, other minority groups in the country also experienced oppression, repression and suppression. America was the greatest country on the planet for those that qualified; those that were:
White, Anglo-Saxon, Rich, Male and Straight
Anyone else – everyone else – needed civil rights empowerments.
Fortunately, this is not the conditions of the America of today. It is now a better place to live, work and play. How did this society go from “there to here”?
It took the strenuous efforts of advocates: individuals – Men and Women – and organizations, exploiting Moments and Movements for maximum exposure. They appealed to the public, appealed to their better nature. John Carlos was one such individual.
The third person on the dais, silver medalist Peter Norman of Australia, can also be classified as an advocate fighting to assuage human rights abuses – he also wore a badge of the Olympic Project for Human Rights – he was in solidarity with Smith and Carlos. See the profile VIDEO on his activities in Appendix A below.
The Caribbean has a problem today that we did not have back in 1968. The majority populations of the Caribbean region is/was Black-and-Brown. America was not inviting to this demographic, so our people rarely immigrated to the US. Now with the above-referenced civil rights empowerments, America is now a more fair society for all people. Our Caribbean people now “beat down their doors” to flee to America, and other places – Go Lean book Page 3.
The US is now a “frienemy” for us! We are trading partners; we are aligned; we are allies; many of our students studied there; many of our Diaspora live there. We now have to compete to dissuade our young people from setting their sights on American shores as a refuge and destination of their hopes and dreams. No society can survive with a high abandonment rate – the book Go Lean … Caribbeanreports that 70% brain drain rate among our professional populations.
We are failing and need advocates of our own.
We need new role models, with the courage of John Carlos, to help us “battle” against the “push-and-pull” factors that draw many Caribbean citizens away from home to the US. We need Men to seize the Moment and advance this Movement.
The Go Lean movement pursues the quest to elevate the Caribbean region through empowerments in economics, security and governance. Since 29 of the 30 Caribbean member-states (“St. Barths” is the only exception) have majority Black populations, the book pushes further on this subject of racism, positing that it is easier for Caribbean citizens to stay home and effect change in their homelands than to go to America and try to remediate that society. The book therefore asserts that the region can turn-around from failing assessments by applying best-practices, and forging new societal institutions to impact the Greater Good for all the Caribbean.
The Go Lean book posits that sports – individual achievements and the business of sports – can greatly impact society; in addition to the entertainment value, there is also national pride, image and impression. People can override many false precepts with sporting excellence by great role models.
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic federal government designed to administer and optimize the economic-security-governing engines of the region’s 30 member-states. This is highlighted by these 3 prime directives:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy; creating 2.2 million new jobs and expanding the regional GDP to $800 Billion.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.
At the outset, the roadmap recognizes our crisis and the value of sports in the roadmap, with these statements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 & 14):
xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores. This repatriation should be effected with the appropriate guards so as not to imperil the lives and securities of the repatriated citizens or the communities they inhabit. The right of repatriation is to be extended to any natural born citizens despite any previous naturalization to foreign sovereignties.
xxvi. 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.
xxxi. Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism – modeling the Olympics.
The Go Lean roadmap calls for the market organizations to better garner the economic benefits of sports. One of the biggest contributions the CU will make is the facilitation of sports venues: arenas and stadia. As described in a previous blog-commentary, sports can be big business! And even when money is not involved, other benefits abound: educational scholarships, fitness/wellness, disciplined activities for the youth, image, and pride. No doubt an intangible yet important benefits is depicted in this Go Lean roadmap, that of less societal abandonment.
The movement behind the Go Lean book salute those ones from our past who left their Caribbean homelands for better opportunities abroad; we salute their legacies (foreign-born children) as well. We know that there are “new” athletes who are just waiting to be discovered and fostered throughout the Caribbean member-states. We salute these ones as our future, and pledge to do better to keep them here at home. The book details the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to allow Caribbean people to prosper where they are planted.
In terms of salute, it is appropriate to salute Vioris Louise Lawrence Carlos – the mother of John Carlos. She just recently passed-away, on December 12, 2016, at age 97. This blessed woman’s contributions and life course help to mold the life and legacy of 5 children – including John Carlos – and a whole community.
Previous Go Lean blog-commentaries that identified other sports role models for our consideration:
The world is a better place, sports-wise and arts-wise, because of Caribbean contributions. Thank you to all past, present and future athletes and contributors.
Not to be overlooked, but the same as the US had a Climate of Hate in 1968, we have our own societal defects in the Caribbean region today. We cannot claim enlightenment to the achievements of advocates like John Carlos and have a blind eye” to our own “ills”. So let’s stand-up as a Proud People and force our own communities to change. Let’s make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂
Published on Oct 31, 2015 – In 1968 there was a powerful moment of protest at the Olympic games when two winners put on black gloves to protest what was happening in the country during the civil rights era. Most people don’t know the story of the silver medalist, Peter Norman. Cenk Uygur, host of the The Young Turks, breaks it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.
“In an act as appropriate as it is overdue, the Australian House of Parliament is issuing an official state apology Monday to the country’s late, great sprinter Peter Norman. Norman won the 200-meter silver medal at the 1968 Olympics, but that’s not why he’s either remembered or owed apologies. After the race, gold and bronze medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos bowed their heads and raised their fists on the medal stand and started an international firestorm. Many see the iconic image and assume Norman was just a bystander to history, or as he would joke, “the white guy.” But he was standing in full solidarity with Smith and Carlos, wearing a patch on his chest that reads, “Olympic Project for Human Rights.”
Disclaimer: The Young Turks is an online video talk show that provides commentary on news and opinion articles. Often times these articles come from sources outside of our organization. Where possible, we do our best to research and verify various sources before reporting. Content created by third parties is the sole responsibility of the third parties and its accuracy and completeness are not endorsed or guaranteed.
APPENDIX B VIDEO – THREE PROUD PEOPLE (Mural project) Tommy Smith, Peter Norman, John Carlos – https://youtu.be/xHcasP4HOo0
Uploaded on May 17, 2009 – This mural was put up about 6 weeks prior to the opening ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic games. It could be viewed from the McDonaldtown train station platform and from trains travelling past. Trains travel from central Sydney to the Homebush Olympic venue past this mural. As of a few years ago, the mural can no longer be seen from the tracks due to a city rail concrete sound barrier that has been installed.
Peter Norman was repremanded for his part in the action. Peter, in solidarity, wore the Olympic project for human rights badge, which defied the code of conduct. He also came up with the idea of Smith and Carlos each wearing one black glove from the same pair. All three of these guys were very couragous.
The Fourth Estate is under attack … by Free Market forces and technology. We should all be alarmed!
The Fourth Estate (or fourth power)… most commonly refers to the news media, especially print journalism or “the press”. The term makes implicit reference to the earlier division of the three Estates of the Realm: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. – Wikipedia.
This title is a reference to a societal-political force or institution whose influence is undeniable though it may not be consistently or officially recognized. In the US and other countries, there is constitutional protections for Freedom of the Press.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers”.
A free press is important for modern societies. Despite all the news and information, it can also be an important sentinel against “bad actors” – yes, “bad actors” will always emerge. But this freedom is a two-edge sword: free to succeed and free to fail. So the entities of the Fourth Estate must adapt, like everyone else, to global changes and competitive shifts, otherwise they die.
“If print is not dead yet, does that mean it is going to put up a fight? Will it make a comback? I say “No”. It is just a matter of time. Print might experience only a slow death, but die … it will.”
Continuing the count, if there is a Fourth Estate, then to no one’s surprise, there is also a Fifth Estate:
The Fifth Estate is a socio-cultural reference to groupings of outlier viewpoints in contemporary society, and is most associated with bloggers, journalists publishing in non-mainstream media outlets, and the social media or “social license” . The “Fifth” Estate extends the sequence of the three classical Estates of the Realm and the preceding Fourth Estate, essentially the mainstream press. The use of “Fifth Estate” dates to the 1960s counterculture, and in particular the influential The Fifth Estate, an underground newspaper first published in Detroit in 1965. Web-based technologies have enhanced the scope and power of the Fifth Estate far beyond the modest and boutique[1] conditions of its beginnings. – Wikipedia
This commentary is a blog, thus representative of the Fifth Estate. This continues a long series on the theme of New Media:
Welcome to the future. Say “Goodbye” to yesterday. Newspapers are representative of that yesterday. The daily newspaper in most communities are getting thinner, smaller in size, distribution and influence. This fact is born out in this news article:
Study: Less Than A Quarter Of Americans Read Newspapers (CBS HOUSTON) — The number of Americans reading print newspapers, magazines and books is in rapid decline.
Only 29 percent of Americans now say they read a newspaper yesterday – with just 23 percent reading a print newspaper. Over the past decade, the percentage reading a print newspaper the previous day has fallen by 18 points (from 41 percent to 23 percent). Somewhat more (38 percent) say they regularly read a daily newspaper, although this percentage also has declined, from 54 percent in 2004.
Also according to the recent Pew Research Center poll, Americans enjoy reading as much as ever – 51 percent say they enjoy reading a lot. This is little changed over the past two decades, but a declining proportion gets news or reads other material on paper on a typical day. Many readers are now shifting to digital platforms to read the papers.
Substantial percentages of the regular readers of leading newspapers now read them digitally. Currently, 55 percent of regular New York Times readers say they read the paper mostly on a computer or mobile device, as do 48 percent of regular USA Today and 44 percent of Wall Street Journal readers.
Over the past decade, there have been smaller declines in the percentages of Americans reading a magazine or book in print (six points and four points, respectively) than for newspapers.
Print magazine reading is down by 7 percent from 2006, and book reading is down by 8 percent since 2006. Also, the percentage of people who wrote or received a personal letter declined 8 percent from 20 to 12 in the last six years.
And television viewership may be on the decline next.
While print sources have suffered readership losses in recent years, television news viewership has remained more stable. Currently, 55 percent say they watched the news or a news program on television yesterday, little changed from recent years. But there are signs this may also change. Only about a third (34 percent) of those younger than 30 say they watched TV news yesterday; in 2006, nearly half of young people (49 percent) said they watched TV news the prior day.
Among older age groups, the percentages saying they watched TV yesterday has not changed significantly over this period.
Many newspapers in major cities are “taking a hit”: circulation is down, advertising is down, the number of pages is down, but retail prices are up. The digital transformation is afoot. Consider the experience of the Miami Herald, in the Appendix below; (regrettably, a very long article).
So instead of newspapers, there is more reliance now on electronic media for news, information, and entertainment. The reference to electronic media does not only mean TV or radio, but rather, it includes the internet. A lot of consumers still read, just not in print, they now use internet websites, social media, e-Readers, blogs and email. This transformation does not only feature computer terminals and monitors, but smaller screens as well, as in mobile telephones or smart phones.
The change from the Fourth to the FifthEstate is also affecting the legacy electronic media: TV and radio. These institutions are finding competition because of the internet.
As reported in that previous blog, “in the TV industry, more people are abandoning cable contracts for subscriptions services like Netflix and Hulu; they are still able to enjoy their favorite programming, just delivered by alternate means. For radio, the audience is shrinking due to the proliferation of mobile music options like Pandora, Rhapsody, Jango, Slacker, Roxio, etc.”
Are these future prospects true for the Caribbean as well?
The book Go Lean…Caribbean asserts that the “world is flat” and that globalization and technology has taken its toll on all aspects of Caribbean life. How are our media outlets doing in the region?
At first glance, the newspapers still thrive:
Circulation remain strong.
There are just as many pages – per section – compared to 10, 20 or 30 years ago.
The pages are still filled with advertising.
Retail prices has increased beyond inflation, close to $1 in equivalent US dollars.
This disposition is simply because there is less electronic delivery in the Caribbean. Alas, the same technology changes affecting the rest of the modern world will surely impact the Caribbean. Mobile-smartphone devices are becoming more ubiquitous, even in the Caribbean region in the countries normally considered Third World. The newspaper industry in the region will be imperiled if there are no mitigations. The Go Lean book presents that mitigation.
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This empowerment effort is designed to move the region forward, to the corner of opportunity and preparation. This roadmap calls for confederating the 30 member-states in the region to provide optimization solutions in the areas of economics, security and governance. The Fourth Estate relates to all three areas. The CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 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 enhance public safety and protect the economic engines against “bad actors”.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.
There is no doubt, the Print-Journalism industry is in decline. In conflict with the medium over elements of truth, the new American President, Donald Trump, pejoratively refers to the New York Times as the failing New York Times.
The Go Lean book purports that the Caribbean must do better. The Go Lean book details the policies and other community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to elevate Caribbean society, and protect the media industry. The book details how to Bridge the Digital Divide (Page 31), deploy a customized Social Media network (Page 111) – branded as www.myCaribbean.gov with tentacles in mobile technologies – and Ways to Foster e-Commerce (Page 198).
All in all, the Go Lean roadmap posits that as a region, we cannot only expect to consume, but that we must create/compose as well. The end result of this roadmap is a complete eco-system to foster a viable electronic media industry.
Sign the petition to lean-in for the roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.
————
Appendix – How The Miami Herald is getting to know its audience again
By: Kristen Hare
MIAMI— On the outside, the headquarters of the Miami Herald looks like any building in any part of town filled with wide warehouses, beige office plazas and chain restaurants. Inside, though, the values of the Herald are written on the walls.
Really.
On one teal green wall in slim white letters:
“Publish! Journalistic cowardliness is as evil as censorship.” — Gene Miller
On another (from the adjacent newsroom of the Spanish daily El Nuevo Herald):
“El periódico es una espada y su empuñadura la razón.” — José Martí
A few months ago, something new appeared on the big screen TVs hanging from cobalt blue walls in the middle of the newsroom: Chartbeat.
Newsrooms and journalists around the country have had access to real-time analytics for years. In March, the Herald joined in and gave everyone access to Chartbeat.
Then, every reporter was asked to raise total traffic to their stories by 7.5 percent. They got training in headline writing and search engine optimization. They started forming teams to function like startups, responsible for covering subjects such as Cuba, local government and food.
Change didn’t hit the newspaper industry in one big wallop. It has come, instead, in relentless small ones. The Herald didn’t just start making changes to adapt to digital, either. But for Aminda Marqués Gonzalez, the Herald’s executive editor and vice president, this year’s about accelerating those changes.
All of the shifts have one thing in common: They require everyone at the Herald to pay attention to its audience.
WELCOME TO MIAMI
In the middle of the newsroom, the big screens with Chartbeat tick along like departure boards at a train station. They serve a similar function, too. This story’s stalling, this one’s taking off, this one needs fuel.
The Herald is one of four legacy newspapers in the Knight-Temple Table Stakes Project, a $1.3 million initiative aimed at pushing regional news organizations toward the digital future. Here, analytics have been integral to that process.
But the Herald (and other McClatchy papers) didn’t wait until Table Stakes came along to get started. The company began working with the American Press Institute almost a year ago to try and get to know its audience better.
The institute’s Metrics for News program helps newsrooms figure out where their journalists are spending time, where their audiences are spending time and how to get the two to align more closely. Contrary to the typical notions of clickbait and virality, API has discovered that readers value actual reporting — enterprise work, local crime reporting and long-form journalism, among other things.
The Herald, for example, has found a strong and engaged audience for its local government coverage. But not every story resonates.
“It’s wonderful to say, we value enterprise, our focus is on enterprise, but if you’re a beat reporter, hey you make sources by going to meetings,” said Rick Hirsch, the Herald’s managing editor. “Part of this work is showing up.”
Add to this that Miami-Dade County has more than 30 municipalities, plus a big county and city government, and the Herald’s five local government reporters can’t possibly cover them all, even with a stable of freelancers. The challenge: How can the Herald structure coverage to build sources, keep track of what’s happening and make sure people find and read it?
In part, it’s about being less city-specific and focusing on topics everyone in the area cares about, Hirsch said. Should one reporter cover six cities, or should that reporter focus on transportation issues across them all? Should another focus on corruption? Another on spending and accountability?
“Are there ways to approach local government coverage that looks across city lines?” Hirsch asked. “I think there are, but it requires a little bit of a change in how we go about doing what we do, and it certainly means more of a team approach than we’ve had before.”
In the last few months, editors at the Herald began to see a way they just might be able make that happen.
MIAMI, INC
The Herald has launched several initiatives as part of the Table Stakes project. But one in particular ties in with all the rest: the formulation of “INCs,” (short for incorporated.) Basically, they’re meant to be self-contained startups within the newsroom.
“It’s a really different way of working,” Hirsch said. “The idea behind it is to develop a team approach with a leader who’s responsible to really focus on audience, to work with a team to develop coverage that responds to areas where we know there’s high engagement and at the same time look at other ways to reach people that aren’t just writing stories.”
The people running INCs aren’t just in charge of coverage, but also getting that coverage to spread on social media. And that means thinking digitally.
So far, INCs include Spanish and English coverage of Cuba and the Herald’s food coverage. Other areas that will become INCs are crime and courts, local government, entertainment and coverage of sports that appeals to the Herald’s local and international readers.
It took awhile for him to realize that it’s all about workflow. Now, he aggregates. He works on getting headlines and social media language right. He spends his time on in-depth features. And when Frías sees a story he can’t get to, he reaches out to other departments. Could a suburban reporter cover it? Someone in sports? He’s curating work from the rest of the Herald that makes sense for his audience.
“Before, I was kind of just shoveling coal, but now I’m at the point that I realize that the beauty of this INC idea is you can leverage the resources that you have at the paper,” he said.
In the past, for instance, a story about National Doughnut Day that wasn’t ready for the print edition wouldn’t have been published at all. But when Frías heard about a new doughnut shop, he contacted a suburban reporter and editor, published the story online that day and promoted it heavily on social media. It ended up running in the newspaper on Sunday. A story that previously had limited reach instead got the star treatment with an audience that loves food.
Not all the INCs are as clear or as straightforward, however. In Cuba Today is one of those. The Herald and El Nuevo Herald’s coverage of Cuba has readership in English and Spanish, and became a standalone site in each language in December, before the INCs debuted.
Now, it’s gone from a vertical to a startup within the newsroom.
The team, led by editor Nancy San Martin, has four staffers devoted to coverage of Cuba. Two are reporters, two are producers and translators. The audience for both sites are heavily bilingual. Original content does best.
The challenge, San Martin said, is maintaining two sites in two different languages as well as providing coverage for the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald in print and for digital. She’s considering combining them into one Spanglish site (using a mix of English and Spanish).
Fundamentally, INCs aren’t meant to be verticals but to harness the Herald’s audience, Marqués said. They start by figuring out who the audience is, how to reach it and how to help it grow. They all include aggregation and a strong focus on social media. They also all ask — what else? Beyond advertising, is there anything to monetize? Events? A custom database? A newsletter?
As with real startups, though, each INC has different needs, different expectations and different possibilities. Just like there’s really not one audience, there’s not one formula for reaching them.
NOT THE HUNGER GAMES
When Nicholas Nehamas started at the Herald two years ago, reporters weren’t paying attention to what people were reading, where they were reading it or for how long.
“Now, two years later, I look up and there’s a big monitor with Chartbeat on it,” said Nehamas, who covers real estate, which will eventually become an INC. “And that makes a big difference in the way we think about our coverage and the stories we write, so that’s been a big impact, I think.”
That’s also resulted in something a lot of newsrooms are already doing — deciding what they’ll stop covering. In the past, the business desk covered quarterly earnings reports from banks. No longer.
“There are things you have to cover, even if not many people read them, but this is not one of them,” he said.
Saying no to those reports means more time for enterprise. For Nehamas, that enterprise included being part of the team that investigated the Panama Papers.
One of his fears, when reporters were asked to figure out how readers were responding, was that their efforts would all boil down to clicks. And sure, if he spent all his time writing about J-Lo’s latest home sale, he could meet his traffic goals. But that’s not what’s happened.
“I think reporters are seeing that it’s not going to be ‘The Hunger Games,'” he said. “We’re not going to be out there finding the grossest stories we can to report. We’re still fulfilling the old mission.”
Marqués agreed.
“Listening to your readers doesn’t mean that you lose your journalism values,” she said.
It does mean making lots of adjustments, however. Here are some other changes happening at the Herald that focus on audience:
—The morning breaking news team started working a digital schedule
“It sounds basic, but you can’t have a morning breaking news effort without moving people to the morning,” said Jeff Kleinman, day news editor.
Now, the team works from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., (and their work includes a daily Facebook Live morning update.) They’re not thinking about print packages or print space, but updating stories as more information comes in. When a reporter recently asked Kleinman how long a story should be, it took him a minute to answer.
“I’m not thinking length first thing in the morning,” he said. “I’m thinking speed and video and how this story can develop.”
They’re trying to detach themselves from the print monster, he added, “and it’s a monster that we all love and that’s baked into our newsroom, but it sometimes can hold you back.”
—They’re experimenting
The Herald’s sports desk is toying with the idea that its vast out-of-market readership will read coverage of sports in Spanglish. Instead of launching it as an INC or starting a new vertical, however, they’re testing to see if there’s an audience for it by using a Facebook group.
—They’re betting all these changes will bring a valuable audience
Marqués started at the Herald as an intern in 1986. In 2002, she left to work as an editor at People Magazine. There, she found an industry very tuned in to its audience. Editors knew what stories readers responded to. They tested covers. It was still a print-centric business, but it was also an audience-centric one.
When she returned to the Herald in 2007, Marqués started asking questions about readers. Now, she has tools to answer those questions and to show how readers are responding.
For instance, in June of last year, the Herald had 5.6 million total unique visitors. This June, they hit 10.8 million.
And as the Herald’s newsroom has transformed during the last year or so, its advertising side has as well, said Orlando Comas, McClatchy’s director of sales.
“It’s really less about ‘we’re just a newspaper company’ and more that we are connecting to our local audiences and our local businesses,” he said.
Higher pageviews translate directly into increased revenue from display ads. Indirectly, he said, higher engagement turns into revenue by creating a local audience that stays around and is more valuable to advertisers.
Print is still a focus, and it still brings in money, Marqués said. But the future is digital, “so that’s where we have to be hyper-focused.”
“We say in shorthand, ‘audience first,'” said Suzanne Levinson, who worked for the Herald for more that 30 years and is now head of digital news at McClatchy. “It’s really about adjusting how we do journalism.”
Marqués agreed.
“It’s a new medium. It’s not just a new platform,” she said. “And for too long we all treated it like just another platform.”
TOWARD THE SUMMIT
At its biggest, the Miami Herald had a newsroom of about 435. Now, it’s about 115. The cuts here, like at other newspapers, have beenasrelentless as the industry changes.
Over the years, the Herald has been sluggish in response to shifts in the news business, said David Neal, a breaking news reporter who has been at the Herald for 27 years.
“I feel like we were like the entire industry,” he said, “we were slow to respond to a lot of changes that you could see coming on the horizon even 20 years ago.”
Chartbeat is great, Neal said. It’s a good tool to see how your work is doing. But, for him, it still comes back to instincts.
“You can still figure out what’s gonna hit: sports, animals, pets of sports stars, a sex cruise.”
Because of all the changes the newsroom has weathered, morale’s not great, Neal said, “but there are still a lot of people here doing good work who are still energized and inspired and doing their best.”
Nehamas, who’s been here for a few years, sees a newsroom more open to change than when he started, and one that’s producing high-quality local journalism.
To him, morale seems very strong right now.
Frías is fairly new to the Herald, so he’s not sure what it was like before Chartbeat and INCs were part of life here. There’s a fear that the newsroom is no longer capable of tackling the kind of journalism the Herald produced 15 or 20 years ago, he said.
“It’s just not true,” Frías said. “It’s just you have to pick and choose your spots.”
San Martin can’t speak for the whole newsroom, but on the Cuba INC, things are working.
“We’ve created a family-style camaraderie and thoroughly enjoy the challenge of going after an increasing and diversified audience,” she said. “There is great satisfaction in knowing that we are attracting national and international visitors to our Cuba sites, including those living on the island.”
They’re seeing more retweets, likes, comments, mentions and aggregations of their work, and that’s satisfying. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, though.
“For us, the future is like climbing a mountain that we know will provide a breathtaking view,” she said. “We just keep working hard to reach the summit.”
FOLLOWING THE SIGNS
The biggest challenges facing the Herald now aren’t really about what’s happening with its audience. Instead, Hirsch said, they’re about time, culture and focus.
“I think this is a hard shift,” he said, “and it is uncomfortable, and so part of the change that people have to make is working differently, and that’s really hard…We’re taking folks who have a lot of muscle memory and working a certain way and saying, let’s do this differently.”
Because of that, all the changes the Herald is pursuing are, for now and probably for good, a work in progress. And that’s tough for people used to waiting to publish, print and share big things until they’re just about perfect.
“I wish it was in our DNA,” Hirsch said, “but it’s going to have to be a learned skill for us.”
When the Herald first relocated to Doral from downtown Miami in 2013, the inside of its new home was one of cold gray walls, countless hallways and turns. Along with the bright colors and fortifying quotes (which, yes, are just paint and words,) the newsroom installed street signs. They hang from many corners.
Palmetto. Miracle Mile. Calle Ocho.
Now, everyone knows their way around. But early on, those signs reminded them of where they’d been and helped them figure out where they were going. It’s not exactly like figuring out a path into a digital future. But it’s not all that different, either.
Published on Sep 17, 2012 – Learn about the Miami Herald Digital Newspaper. The Miami Herald Digital Newspaper is an exact replica of the daily paper, available on PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android and most tablets. You’ll love the convenience, at home or on the go.
Features include:
– Easy to use and navigate
– Available anywhere in the world with data access
– Share via email, Facebook & Twitter
– Searchable 30 day archive
– Quick links to advertiser websites
The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean wants to effect change in the Caribbean region.
We are not the government.
We are not the region’s Big Business apparatus.
We are not representative of the security forces.
Yet, we want to optimize all these societal engines.
How can we lead, despite our lack of status?
We can be a Drum Major.
Sounds familiar?
Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. – Martin Luther King, February 4, 1968
Assuming the stance of a Drum Major, this movement now presents this Change.orgpetition to urge the Caribbean to lean-in to this quest to elevate the societal engines in our communities.
Consider the actual petition here and the Letter to the government leaders in the Appendix below:
There is something wrong in the Caribbean. It is the greatest address on the planet, but instead of the world “beating a path” to our doors, the people of the Caribbean have “beat down their doors” to get out. Our societal abandonment rates have technically been reported as high as 60 – 89 percent of our tertiary-educated populations.
These are desperate times, calling for desperate measures.
We hereby urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to a roadmap to introduce and implement the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) among the 30 member-states of the region. This is presented as a technocratic federal government with powers to optimize the region’s societal engines with these prime directives:
Optimize the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy; there is a potential to create 2.2 million new jobs and to grow the regional GDP to $800 Billion. The deficiency of jobs is one of the reasons that Caribbean people have emigrated.
Establish a security apparatus to protect the economic engines, mitigate threats and ensure public safety.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these above engines, including a separation-of-powers between member-state governments and CU federal agencies.
We must do something and this roadmap for the CU – modeled after the European Union (EU) – has addressed the issues, strategies, tactics and implementations to effect change in our homelands.
Many people love our region – residents, Diaspora and visitors alike – and yet we understand why and how people have left. It is time now to work to elevate our communities. The timing of this effort is urgent, as our youth, the next generation for the Caribbean, may not be inspired to participate in the future workings of our communities. We cannot have a future without our youth.
We must therefore do “this” (lean-in = pursue these goals with gusto) … and do it now.
This petition – along with the below letter – will be delivered to:
Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat CARICOM (15 heads of Caribbean nations and 5 Affiliates)
United Kingdom Minister of State for the Commonwealth and the UN
Republic of Cuba
Dominican Republic
Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
Government of the United States Virgin Islands
Kingdom of the Netherlands – Minister Plenipotentiary of Aruba, Minister Plenipotentiary of Curaçao, Minister Plenipotentiary of Sint Maarten
Republic of France – for the Departments of Guadaloupe and Martinique, the Collectivity of Saint Martin and the Collectivity of Saint-Barthélemy.
The book Go Lean … Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic federal government to optimize the economic-security-governing engines of all 30 member-states. The quest is to streamline the direct stewardship, applying lessons-learned from global best practices.
There is the need for our region to elevate the societal engines of our communities. Fulfilling this need is the underlying theme behind this Go Lean movement, to “appoint new guards” to make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. This Declaration of Interdependence is pronounced at the outset of the Go Lean book (Page 11):
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.
The Go Lean book declares that the Caribbean is in crisis, but posits that a “crisis is a terrible thing to waste” (Page 8). The book asserts that the solution for the Caribbean crisis is within reach:
The Go Lean movement is … a plan to re-boot the Caribbean. This movement was bred from the frustrations of the Diaspora, longing to go home, to lands of opportunities. But this is not a call for a revolt against the governments, agencies or institutions of the Caribbean region, but rather a petition for a peaceful transition and optimization of the economic, security and governing engines in the region.
The Go Lean book details a 5-year roadmap, with turn-by-turn directions, for reforming and transforming our homeland. This 370-page manuscript features the community ethos that the region needs to adopt, plus strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute in order to impact the Caribbean region for the needed turnaround.
This petition is addressed to a number of stakeholders, starting with the CariCom, which includes the English-speaking member-states plus Dutch-speaking Suriname and French/Creole-speaking Haiti. Additional addressees include the governments of the Netherlands and France. There is also the need to integrate the US Territories into the fold; so the Go Lean book details the process of Interstate Compacts under US federal law that allows their participation legally. The Dominican Republic is also requested to lean-in to this collaboration as well as they already cooperate with other Caribbean member-states in the CariFORUM economic dialogue with the European Union.
Lastly, there is Cuba. While this country’s participation may have been unlikely in the recent past, today there is a normalization of relations with the United States, the dominant regional power. This paves the way for a full cooperative among all regional Caribbean neighbors; in effect the roadmap calls for the establishment of a Single Market economy among the member-states – 30 in total with 42 million people. They all share the same dysfunctional disposition; they should share in the fight to assuage the crisis.
The efforts to elevate the Caribbean societal engines have been a frequent theme in messaging from the Go Lean movement. Consider the details from these previous blog-commentaries:
Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of professionals to brain drain
The Caribbean: the greatest address in the world, and yet such an alarming abandonment rate. This must stop … now!
Why do we think that this Go Lean roadmap will be successful? It is modeled on time-tested best-practices. Remember dysfunctional East Germany? Remember how easily they were integrated into West Germany and a bigger, better society emerged – detailed in the Go Lean book on Pages 132 & 139.
Don’t remember?
That’s because it was seamless, technocratic and drama-free … in terms of international vistas; see Appendix VIDEO below. The prime directives of the Go Lean/CU roadmap is similarly modeled, as a technocratic stewardship for our region, identified with these 3 statements:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to a $800 Billion GDP & create 2.2 million new jobs. The deficiency of jobs is one of the reasons Caribbean people have emigrated.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines and mitigate internal and external threats.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these above engines, including a separation-of-powers between member-state governments and CU federal agencies.
Let’s do this!
Our people have a simple request, they only want a better homeland, a better place to live, work and play. 🙂
Published on Nov 5, 2014 – Reunification came with a hefty price tag – about 2 trillion euros. More than half that went into social services and programs. About 300 billion euros went into renewing infrastructure and transportation. The massive transfer of funds from West to East spurred an economic boom in Western Germany as well as in the former East.
More Made in Germany on: http://www.dw.de/program/made-in-germ…
Appendix – Actual Open Letter to Caribbean Governments Decision-Makers:
To the Honourable ___________________________________,
We, the undersigned are representative of the views of persons and organizations with an affinity for the Caribbean; we are residents, expatriates, trading-partners and visitors of these communities in the Caribbean region. We present you this petition, reflecting our love for the people and places there-in. But we recognize this reality:
There is something wrong in the Caribbean. It is the greatest address on the planet, but instead of the world “beating a path” to their doors, the people of the Caribbean have “beat down their doors” to get out. Our societal abandonment rates have technically been reported as high as 60 – 89 percent of our tertiary-educated populations.
These facts manifest that these are desperate times, and therefore call for desperate measures.
We hereby urge you to “lean-in” to this roadmap to introduce and implement the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This is presented as an inter-governmental federation with powers to optimize the region’s societal engines with this prime directives:
Optimize the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy; there is a potential to create 2.2 million new jobs and to grow the regional GDP to $800 Billion. The deficiency of jobs is one of the reasons that Caribbean people have emigrated.
Establish a security apparatus to protect the economic engines, mitigate threats and ensure public safety.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these above engines, including a separation-of-powers between member-state governments and CU federal agencies.
We must do something and this roadmap for the CU addresses the issues, strategies, tactics and implementations to effect change in these Caribbean homelands.
The timing of this petition is urgent. When is the right time to address a crisis? The answer is always NOW. We cannot have a future without the youth, and these young people – the next generation for the Caribbean – are not inspired to engage in the status quo. We must impact change in our region, even if it is only for their benefit.
We urge you to lean-in – pursue these goals with gusto – now!
What not to do? Dose yourself with alcohol. That would be ‘Doubling-down on Failure’.
This latter visual is the Caribbean dependence on their Diaspora.
The Caribbean is in crisis – “on fire”; over 70% of college educated citizens flee the region, looking for better opportunities. This is the harsh reality. This is also an economic fact as many Caribbean states get 4 to 7 percent of their GDP as remittances back to the homeland from the Diaspora living abroad, mostly in North America and Western Europe. But a strategy to stimulate the remittance side of the Diaspora equation is dysfunctional. The community would do better to encourage 100 percent of their citizens economic output rather than just 4 to 7 percent.
This latter scenario is just ‘Doubling-down on Failure’. This is a losing proposition for the Caribbean – the Inter-American Development Bank reported that Caribbean member-states lose about 10 to 11 percent of GDP from emigration and spent cost of education on those expatriates. Focusing on remittance is just a bad strategy for Diaspora dynamics; rather the focus should be on reducing the Diaspora by dissuading future generations from leaving.
This is why the messaging in this VIDEO is so distressing. It is like the subtle message to the Caribbean population is that they need to leave their homeland, go get success and then please remember to invest in us afterwards. This is the jump-off-the-page thought of this address from the Prime Minister of St. Lucia last month. See here:
Published on Feb 4, 2017 – St. Lucia’s Prime Minister, the Honourable Allen M. Chastanet’s formal address to the Diaspora on the occasion of Independence Day 2017.
o Category: News & Politics
o License: Standard YouTube License
Say it ain’t so!
It is so unfortunate that the people in the Caribbean are beating down the doors to get out of their Caribbean homeland, to seek refuge in these places like the US, Canada and Western Europe. And yet it seems like the Chief Executive of this Caribbean country is encouraging more of it – there is a similar sentiment in the rest of the Caribbean member-states. As a result, we have such a sad state of affairs for our Caribbean eco-system as we are suffering from a bad record of societal abandonment. The reasons why people leave have been identified as “push and pull”:
“Push” refers to people who feel compelled to leave, to seek refuge in a foreign land. “Refuge” is an appropriate word; because of societal defects, many from the Caribbean must leave as refugees – think LGBT, Disability, Domestic-abuse, Medically-challenged – for their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. For these people, they are “on fire” and need to stop-drop-and-roll.
“Pull”, on the other hand refers to the lure of a more prosperous life abroad; many times our people are emigrating for economics solely.
If only we can mitigate these “push and pull” factors, then we can dissuade our people from leaving in the first place. If only we can go from ‘good to great‘ here in the Caribbean homeland. This would be the ideal. But this is not our reality. Considering the messaging from the current Prime Minister of St. Lucia, it is obvious that we cannot depend on the right roadmap to come from the region’s governance.
The alternate strategy being proposed here is to prosper where we’re planted in the Caribbean. But this goal requires heavy-lifting. It is easier said than done. This is the focus of the book Go Lean…Caribbean, to elevate the Caribbean economy so that there would be optimal opportunities at home and no need to supplant to another land.
One of the missions of the book Go Lean…Caribbean is to lower the “pull” attraction of life in foreign lands. This is part 3 of 3 in a series on “Why Caribbean people need to Stay Home“, positing that the “grass is not necessarily greener on the other side”; definitely not for the communities they leave behind. The complete series is as follows:
Stay Home! Outreach to the Diaspora – Doubling-down on Failure
From a community perspective, it would be better for Caribbean people to work to remediate the problems in their homeland, rather than flee and send monies back home. But it turns out that this true individual-wise as well. Research shows that it is more advantageous for individuals to invest in their homelands or in themselves (as in advanced education) than to do the heavy-lift of migrating abroad. It turns out this strategy is an Economic Fallacy, that first generation immigrants do not really prosper in their foreign lands – they only survive; it takes their next generation to really thrive. Consider this US example, they usually make less money than legacy Americans:
On average, most Caribbean immigrants obtain lawful permanent residence in the United States (also known as receiving a green card) through three main channels: They qualify as immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, through family-sponsored preferences, or as refugees and asylees. Compared to the total foreign-born population, Caribbean immigrants are less likely to be Limited English Proficient (LEP), but have lower educational attainment, lower median incomes, and higher poverty rates. – Migration Policy Institute, 2016.
Then the problem with next generation success is that at that point in the timeline the stakeholders are not Diaspora anymore, their allegiance has shifted to their new homeland. We have so many immigrant experiences that relate this: Chinese, Italian, Irish, Cuban, etc.. Yes, the reality of Cubans in America is that many of their expatriates fled to exile hoping for a quick return. But now, by the second-and-third generations, their offspring really consider America as their home and Cuba as just their heritage. There will be no prospering back in Cuba.
So how do we in the Caribbean prosper where we are planted in the Caribbean? While this is a simple question (based on the Bible principle of Psalms 1:3), the answer is more complex.
They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do. – New Living Translation
The book Go Lean…Caribbean concurs with this mission, to prosper where planted in the Caribbean. It serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to do the heavy-lifting of optimizing the societal engines in the region. This Go Lean roadmap uses cutting-edge delivery of best practices to employ strategies, tactics and implementations to impact its prime directives; identified with the following 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.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.
The successful execution of these directives will allow Caribbean stakeholders to prosper, while remaining as residents in their homeland. The Go Lean book seeks to optimize the entire Caribbean economic/security/governance eco-system to reach this goal. This vision is defined early in the book (Page 13 & 14) in the following pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence:
xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores. This repatriation should be effected with the appropriate guards so as not to imperil the lives and securities of the repatriated citizens or the communities they inhabit. The right of repatriation is to be extended to any natural born citizens despite any previous naturalization to foreign sovereignties.
xxvi. Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries… In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries … – impacting the region with more jobs.
To be fair to the Prime Minister of St. Lucia, the Honourable Allen Chastanet, there is some concurrence to his contention, this Economic Fallacy; other PM’s in the region have made the same appeal. It is an assumption by many pundits in economic circles, though a minority opinion, that a country’s Diaspora community can be a great source for economic elevation. These pundits posit that the status quo in these developing countries would not lead to the sought-after elevation; it would take “new blood” and the Diaspora are considered candidates for bringing these 3 ingredients:
This opinion is not shared by the movement behind the Go Lean book. The full MPI Report identifies countries where Diaspora outreach has yielded positive results, like Peru, India and Somalia. A prime difference of these countries versus the Caribbean member-states is the National Sacrifice community ethos, it is undoubtedly missing in the Caribbean – member-states do not even have (work-free) holidays to honor the sacrifices of those that fought, bled and/or died for their country. Caribbean people normally do not show the same level of patriotism. Once Caribbean citizens leave their homeland, they rarely invest back in their ancestral homeland. They normally just send money back to their families. As for investment, they have better choices; think Wall Street.
In summary, the Caribbean Diaspora do not invest back in their homelands because they are not ready, willing nor able. This is the honest assessment of the Caribbean status quo. Thusly, an outreach to the Diaspora is doubling-down on failure!
The Go Lean book details features of assessments, community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to plant and exploit local opportunities in the Caribbean region. See this sample here:
Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification
Page 21
Community Ethos – Economics Influence Choices
Page 21
Community Ethos – Privacy versus Public Protection
Page 23
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens
Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations
Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives
Page 24
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations
Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Arounds
Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing
Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness
Page 36
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate 30 Member-States
Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Dissuade Next Generation from Emigrating
Page 47
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization
Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy
Page 64
Separation of Powers – Between Member-states -vs- CU Agencies
Page 71
Implementation – Ways to Deliver
Page 109
Planning – Ways to Model the EU
Page 130
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better
Page 131
Planning – Ways to Measure Progress
Page 148
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs
Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Cancer
Page 157
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract
Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives
Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management – Deal with Disasters!
Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage
Page 218
Appendix – Education and Economic Growth – Each add’l year = 10% more $$$
Page 258
Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments described here in this book Go Lean … Caribbean. It is time for the region to prosper right here where we are planted.
The Caribbean can succeed in this effort to improve the Caribbean as a place to live, work and play. The strategies and tactics of this quest have been detailed in many previous Go Lean blog-commentaries. Consider this sample:
An outreach to successful citizens living in the Diaspora is futile; it says this is what you have to do – leave – to prosper and be successful.
The alternative messaging for elevating the Caribbean should be: “Let’s double-down on … ”
job creation …
incubators for entrepreneurship …
bridging the Digital Divide …
regional collaboration
e-Learning for At-Home education
and so on … (see Go Lean book Page 45 for full list of strategies).
This is what is needed to prosper where planted in the Caribbean. We need a turnaround. It must start in the head (thoughts, visions, etc.), penetrate the heart (feelings, motivations, etc.) and then manifest in speech and actions.
To the Prime Minister of St Lucia and all the other Heads of Government in the Caribbean region: Do better!
We will help. We hereby urge you to lean-in to the Go Lean roadmap.
To the residents on St. Lucia and all the other Caribbean communities, we urge: Stay Home! The grass is not greener on the other side. The effort to impact any change is easier here in the Caribbean than abroad in some foreign country. 🙂
When conditions are dysfunctional at home, people leave … period.
“… we are just making it easy for the clean-up woman” – Classic R&B song by Betty Wright See AppendixVIDEO below.
This is not good for a family nor for a community. The truth of the matter is that communities need their populations to grow, not recede. So any human flight incidences would create havoc on the functionality of societal engines: economics, security and governance.
This is our status in the Caribbean, but it is not just an incident, not a trickle; it is a flood. The people are beating down the doors to get out of their Caribbean homeland, to seek refuge in places like the US, Canada and Western Europe. We have a sad state of affairs for our Caribbean eco-system so we are suffering from a bad record of societal abandonment – averaging a 70 percent brain drain rate. The reasons why people leave have been identified as “push and pull”:
“Push” refers to people who feel compelled to leave, to seek refuge in a foreign land. “Refuge” is an appropriate word; because of societal defects, many from the Caribbean must leave as refugees – think LGBT, Disability, Domestic-abuse, Medically-challenged – for their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. This is making it easy for the “clean-up woman”.
“Pull”, on the other hand refers to the lure of a more prosperous life in the US (and other destinations); many times our people are emigrating for economics solely.
If only we can mitigate these “push and pull” factors, then we can dissuade our people from leaving in the first place. If only we can go from ‘good to great‘ here in the Caribbean homeland. This would be the ideal. But this is not our reality.
What is a point of contention is where our emigrants are going. Let’s consider the realities of one such destination: the United States. While things are bad for our residents in their Caribbean homeland, many minority immigrants in America (Black-and-Brown, Muslim, etc.) have to contend with less than welcoming conditions there.
The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean has consistently related that the United States of America functions as a Great Society but it has two societal defects: Institutional Racism and Crony-Capitalism. These societal defects can easily create a ‘Climate of Hate‘ that causes people to haze and blame-game the immigrant community.
In a previous blog-commentary, it was conveyed that America treats immigrants unappreciatedly – they are inflicted with a “long train of abuses”. The long-term Americans start towards the immigrants with hate and then eventually tolerate. After some decades they may then integrate with the immigrant community. But only after generations do they appreciate and celebrate the minority group. Think of the American experience of the Chinese, Italians, Jewish and Cuban populations.
This is also the reality of the Caribbean Black-and-Brown that has emigrated to the US, while they can more easily survive, the quest to thrive is more perplexing. They have to live in this environment filled with these societal defects. Consider this news article and these aligning VIDEO’s:
News Article Title: GPS device-maker Garmin reeling after workers gunned down
By: Jim Suhr
OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — GPS device-maker Garmin long has revered diversity in its workforce, even when the locale of its ever-sprawling operational headquarters — a largely white Kansas City suburb — didn’t reflect it.
It’s the place 32-year-old Srinivas Kuchibhotla came to work a few years ago. By his wife’s account Friday he willingly spent long hours on an aviation systems engineering team alongside Alok Madasani, a friend and colleague also 32 and from India.
Kuchibhotla’s trek led him to have a kinship with his boss, Lebanese native Didier Popadopoulos, who says he moved to America at Kuchibhotla’s age and once held the same Garmin job.
But Garmin — a billion-dollar tech giant launched in Kansas as a startup by two men nearly three decades ago — now is reeling, trying to digest Kuchibhotla’s shooting death Wednesday at a tavern just a mile down the road from work. Madasani was wounded, along with a stranger who tried to help.
Witnesses say the gunman, Adam Purinton, yelled at the two Indian men to “get out of my country” and opened fire. Purinton, who was arrested hours later at a bar in Missouri, remains jailed on murder and attempted murder charges.
The shooting happened at a time when many have concerns about the treatment of immigrants in the U.S., some of whom feel targeted by the current administration. President Donald Trump has promised to ban certain travelers and been especially vocal about the threat posed by Islamic terrorist groups.
On Friday, Garmin tried to comfort grieving employees at a closed-door vigil inside the auditorium on its campus in Olathe, Kansas. Kuchibhotla’s widow, Sunayana Dumala, addressed the group of about 200 workers that included Madasani, who was released from the hospital Thursday.
Laurie Minard, Garmin’s vice president of human resources, doesn’t believe the shooting will jeopardize its recruitment of workers from overseas.
“We tend to be a family here,” she said at the Garmin campus, which is waging a $200 million expansion, with plans announced last August for a new manufacturing and distribution center. “We want people to feel safe. We embrace it. We encourage it. We support it. It’s extremely important to us about acceptance.”
At any given time, she said, more than 100 Garmin employees are in the H-1B program, which lets American companies bring foreigners with technical skills to the U.S. for three to six years.
In an eight-year period until fiscal year 2016, Garmin on average obtained 49 certifications for foreign labor — a prerequisite for hiring with an H-1B visa — for an average of 70 positions, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. During that time, 81 percent of the certified positions were in Olathe, the Labor Department says.
Olathe, whose name means “beautiful” in the Shawnee language, is a well-to-do Kansas City suburb where the median household income is above $77,000 a year.
Worldwide, Switzerland-based Garmin Ltd. — the Kansas operation’s corporate parent — has more than 11,400 workers in 60 offices and last year logged $3.02 billion in revenue. Roughly 2,800 workers are at the Kansas headquarters, which Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman Pam Whiting cast as regionally “one of our entrepreneurial success stories” and biggest employers.
Recruiting from overseas isn’t at all unusual in the tech industry, which contends there aren’t enough Americans with specialized skills the companies need.
Indian immigrants in the U.S. has spiked from about 200,000 in the 1980s to more than 2 million today, as Indian-born scientists and engineers fueled the American tech boom. India received more H-1B visas in the U.S. for its temporary high-skilled workers, about 70 percent, than any other country in 2014.
Stunned by Kuchibhotla’s death, Popadopoulos, the Lebanese native who was the man’s boss, said he plans to stay the course.
“When this happened, one of the things I started to think about with my wife (was) ‘Is it time to leave?'” he said.
Then he thought: “Leave where? I’m from here. I really think Srinivas would want us to stick together and stand up for what’s right.”
U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran said he left a message with Olathe’s mayor, offering to help assure people from India who live in Kansas that the actions leading to Kuchibhotla’s death are “not the norm.”
“This is not the nature of Kansas, and we welcome people to the United States, particularly a company like Garmin and many others,” the Kansas Republican said.
Published on Feb 3, 2017 – In the recent hate-crime in Olathe, Kansas the gunman exclaimed that he wanted the country back. Consider the words of this deranged killer and ask “What would America’s Tech industry be like without immigrants?”
But maybe, the American people are not so inviting, even though American companies may seek immigrants. http://global-gathering.com
Published on Feb 12, 2017 – The new President, Donald Trump, has expressed that immigration is bad for the American economy and society in general. This is just another example of his “alternate facts”. It is not the truth. But it does project that his American administration is not welcoming to immigrants.
The question to the Caribbean: Do you want to go to a party that you’re not invited to or welcomed? Category:News & Politics License: Standard YouTube License
This foregoing article relates a hate-crime against immigrants (engineers) from India. They were not Muslims; they were not Mexican; they were not affiliated with the Black-and-Brown populations from Latin America or the Caribbean. But they were non-White and spoke with foreign accents; they therefore were subject to standard American hate-speech, bullying and in this case, a random act of violence; one was murdered.
This commentary is one of the missions of the book Go Lean…Caribbean, to lower the “pull” attraction of life in the US. This is not being done with “smoke and mirrors” but rather this is just the truth. This is part 2 of 3 in a series on “Why Caribbean people need to Stay Home“, positing that the “grass is not greener on the other side”. The complete series is as follows:
The truth of the matter is that immigrants are better able to survive in America – there is an abundance of minimum wage jobs – but to thrive is more of a challenge; consider the experiences in the foregoing news article. It would seem better for Caribbean people to work to remediate the problems in their homeland, rather than work to become immigrants in the US. But this is no easy task; and despite being necessary, it is hereby defined as heavy-lifting.
The book Go Lean … Caribbean seeks to optimize the societal engines of Caribbean life; it serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU must employ better strategies, tactics and implementations to impact the regional homelands to reform and transform the societal engines. The prime directives of the Go Lean/CU roadmap for technocratic stewardship is identified with the following 3 statements:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs. The deficiency of jobs is one of the reasons Caribbean people have emigrated.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines and mitigate internal and external threats.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these above engines, including a separation-of-powers between member-state governments and CU federal agencies.
Early in the Go Lean book, this need for careful technocratic stewardship of the region’s societal engines was pronounced (Declaration of Interdependence –Page 12 – 13) with these acknowledgements and 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.
xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.
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.
xxvi. Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries … In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries … impacting the region with more jobs.
Our Caribbean community, no community for that matter, can survive a constant drain against our population and human capital. This is a crisis! This point was crystalized in a previous blog/commentary with this quotation:
We tend to think economic growth comes from working harder and smarter. But economists attribute up to a third of it to more people joining the workforce each year than leaving it. The result is more producing, earning and spending.
This is a consistent theme in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book posits that the most serious threat to Caribbean prosperity is the high abandonment rate among its citizens, especially its highly educated, skilled-labor classes.
“A crisis is a terrible thing to waste” – states the book quoting noted Economist Paul Romer.
The opportunity therefore exists to forge change in the economic, security and governing engines of the Caribbean, in response to this crisis. This is the advocacy of the Go Lean book, to position the region at the corner of preparation and opportunity, so as to better compete on the world stage. Our job creation engines have failed to keep pace with the population, therefore fewer and fewer jobs are at home. Thus this region has had a higher and higher emigration rate as the decades pass. If we want our citizens to “Stay Home” then we must provide job options.
How?
First, the region already has a mature tourism product so we now need jobs in other industries.
The following details from the book Go Lean … Caribbean are the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocates prescribed to create non-tourism jobs and elevate the Caribbean economy:
These previous blogs report that this Go Lean roadmap is a hope for change in the Caribbean region. Its a plan that is conceivable, believable and achievable for making the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. Everyone in the region is hereby urged to lean-in to this roadmap. 🙂
“Clean Up Woman”
A clean up woman is a woman who
Gets all the love we girls leave behind
The reason I know so much about her
Is because she picked up a man of mine
Chumpin’ slick was my ruin
‘Cause, I found out all I was doin’
Was making it easy for the clean up woman
To get my man’s love, oh yeah
Just making it easy for the clean up woman
To get my baby’s love, uh-huh, um-hum
I took this man’s love and put it a shelf
And like a fool I thought I had him all to myself
When you needed love I was out having fun
But I found out that all I had done
Was made it easy for the clean up woman
To get my man’s love, uh-huh
Yeah, that’s what I did, I made it easy for the clean up woman
To steal my baby’s love, oh yeah
The clean up woman will wipe his blues away
She’ll give him plenty lovin’ 24 hours a day
The clean up woman, she’ll sweep him off his feet
She’s the one who’ll take him in when you dump him in the street
So take a tip, you better get hip
To the clean up woman ’cause she’s tough
I mean, she really cleans up
When there is a ‘Climate of Hate’, conditions in society can easily go from bad to worse. We have a lot of lessons from history that supplant this assertion. Consider this lesson from America in the 1950’s.
A revealing new book High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic uncovers the back-story of the classic Western movie ‘High Noon’; it details the grim time in American history, when a bad community ethos permeated, McCarthyism and the resultant blacklist. “These events from the 1950’s have a special resonance today.”
The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean has consistently related that the United States function as a Great Society but it has two societal defects: Institutional Racism and Crony-Capitalism. These societal defects can easily create a ‘Climate of Hate‘ and in the 1950’s, the US had it bad … with their stereotyping and “witch hunts” of McCarthyism.
McCarthyism include the speeches, investigations, and hearings of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy (in office 1947 –1957); the Hollywood blacklist, associated with hearings conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC); and the various anti-communist activities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under Director J. Edgar Hoover. McCarthyism was a widespread social and cultural phenomenon that affected all levels of society and was the source of a great deal of debate and conflict in the United States.
McCarthyism was the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence.[1] It also means “the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism.”[2] The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from 1947 to 1956 and characterized by heightened political repression as well as a campaign spreading fear of influence on American institutions and of espionage by Soviet agents. …
McCarthyism soon took on a broader meaning, describing the excesses of similar efforts. The term is also now used more generally to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries. During the McCarthy era, thousands of Americans were accused of being communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies. The primary targets of such suspicions were government employees, those in the entertainment industry, educators and union activists. Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive or questionable evidence, and the level of threat posed by a person’s real or supposed leftist associations or beliefs was often greatly exaggerated. Many people suffered loss of employment and/or destruction of their careers; some even suffered imprisonment. Most of these punishments came about through trial verdicts later overturned,[4] laws that were later declared unconstitutional,[5] dismissals for reasons later declared illegal[6] or actionable,[7] or extra-legal procedures that would come into general disrepute. Source: Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia; retrieved February 26, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
As related in the foregoing, “many people suffered loss of employment and/or destruction of their careers”; this was definitely the case in Hollywood. Consider the experience of the screenwriter Carl Foreman, best known for the film classic Western ‘High Noon’. See the Book Review and related AUDIO-Podcast here:
Book Title:High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic By: Glenn Frankel From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Searchers, the revelatory story behind the classic movie High Noon and the toxic political climate in which it was created.
It’s one of the most revered movies of Hollywood’s golden era. Starring screen legend Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in her first significant film role, High Noon was shot on a lean budget over just thirty-two days but achieved instant box-office and critical success. It won four Academy Awards in 1953, including a best actor win for Cooper. And it became a cultural touchstone, often cited by politicians as a favorite film, celebrating moral fortitude.
Yet what has been often overlooked is that High Noon was made during the height of the Hollywood blacklist, a time of political inquisition and personal betrayal. In the middle of the film shoot, screenwriter Carl Foreman was forced to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities about his former membership in the Communist Party. Refusing to name names, he was eventually blacklisted and fled the United States. (His co-authored screenplay for another classic, The Bridge on the River Kwai, went uncredited in 1957.) Examined in light of Foreman’s testimony, High Noon‘s emphasis on courage and loyalty takes on deeper meaning and importance.
In this book, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Frankel tells the story of the making of a great American Western, exploring how Carl Foreman’s concept of High Noon evolved from idea to first draft to final script, taking on allegorical weight. Both the classic film and its turbulent political times emerge newly illuminated.
Posted on February 21, 2017 – Author Glenn Frankel tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross that the government was “looking to see or to prove that there had been communist infiltration in Hollywood, that this was part of a mass plot engineered by Moscow to take over our cultural institutions.”
Many who appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee were put on a blacklist that made it impossible for them to work in show business. Among the blacklisted was screenwriter Carl Foreman, whose 1952 classic western High Noon is seen as a parable about the toxic political climate of the time.
This history highlights the bad consequence of societal defects; they can easily be exploited and society further hijacked with blatant malice (bad motives, bad messages and bad actions). This aligns with the Go Lean book’s definition of “community ethos”:
the underlying attitude/spirit/sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society.
The bad ethos of McCarthyism became a “widespread social and cultural phenomenon that affected all levels of America”. The US would not have been a welcoming society for those on the wrong side of this targeting. This truly demonstrates how a ‘Climate of Hate’ exacerbates societal defects, conditions easily go from bad to worse.
America is not much different today … in 2017 compared to the 1950’s. Yes, the laws of the land has been updated, but the attitudes of the people are still intact towards a ‘Climate of Hate’. There is the continuous need for vigilance and truth. The truth of the matter is that America has a lot of work to do to be the Great Society they project to the world. This country should not be the panacea of Caribbean ills. This commentary has consistently asserted that it is easier for the Caribbean member-states to reform and transform its own society than to flee to find refuge in America.
According to the foregoing, the American government turned on some of its most talented and productive citizens during the bad days of McCarthyism. This turned out to be just another extension of the country’s ‘Climate of Hate’. This commentary maintains that hate is in the American DNA.
Too strong?!
Just consider the experience of the nation’s Black-and-Brown populations. This has been duly documented and lamented.
Too old?!
If it is the contention that this is an indictment of the America of old, then consider the fresh experience of Muslim immigrants.
And yet … the people in the Caribbean – mostly Black-and-Brown – are beating down the doors to get out of their Caribbean homeland, to seek refuge in places like the US; (a smaller faction emigrate to Canada and Western Europe). This really conveys the sad state of affairs for the Caribbean eco-system. While things are bad for minorities in America (Black-and-Brown, Muslim, etc.), more Black people want to come in, instead of working to remediate the problems in their own homeland.
This is the reality of the Caribbean disposition: the region suffers from a bad record of societal abandonment. The reasons why people leave have been identified as “push and pull”:
“Push” refers to people who feel compelled to leave, to seek refuge in a foreign land. “Refuge” is an appropriate word; because of societal defects, many from the Caribbean must leave as refugees – think LGBT, Disability, Domestic-abuse, Medically-challenged – for their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
“Pull”, on the other hand refers to the lure of a more prosperous life in the US (and other destinations); many times our people are emigrating for economics solely.
If only we can mitigate these “push and pull” factors, then we can dissuade our people from leaving in the first place. We CAN go from ‘good to great‘ here in the homeland. This is no easy task; and despite being necessary, it is hereby defined as heavy-lifting. This is the purpose of this commentary; this is part 1 of 3 in a series on “Why Caribbean people need to Stay Home“, positing that the “grass is not greener on the other side”. The complete series is as follows:
Stay Home! Remembering ‘High Noon’ and its Back-Story
The book Go Lean … Caribbean seeks to optimize the societal engines of Caribbean life; it serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU must employ better strategies, tactics and implementations to impact its prime directives; identified with the following 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 and mitigate internal and external threats.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these above engines, including a separation-of-powers between member-state governments and CU federal agencies.
Early in the Go Lean book, this need for careful technocratic stewardship of the region’s societal engines was pronounced (Declaration of Interdependence –Page 12 – 13) with these acknowledgements and 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.
xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.
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.
This is movie season … and movies are an art form that imitates life, while life also imitates movies.
… The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, honored the best films of 2016, and took place on February 26, 2017, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, 5:30 p.m. PST. – Wikipedia
The lesson we learn from the back-story of the movie ‘High Noon’ and the foregoing Book Review, is that we have to ‘stand our ground’ to reform and transform our communities in the Caribbean; we have our own ‘Climate of Hate’. So the Go Lean book therefore details this series of community ethos to adopt, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute to forge a permanent transformation in the homeland:
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives
Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future
Page 21
Community Ethos – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation
Page 23
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization
Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future
Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations
Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Integrate region into a Single Market Economy
Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization
Page 57
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of Homeland Security
Page 75
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid
Page 115
Planning – 10 Big Ideas … in the Caribbean Region – Haiti & Cuba
Page 127
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices
Page 134
Planning – Lessons from East Germany – European Post-War Rebuilding – Attitudes
Page 139
Planning – Lessons from the US Constitution – Progressive & Evolutionary
Page 145
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs
Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Empowering Immigration – Case Study of Indian Migrants
Page 174
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice
Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Remediate and Mitigate Crime
Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Gun Control
Page 179
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security
Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism – and Bullying
Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering & Analysis
Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights
Page 220
Advocacy – Ways to Help Women – Mitigate Gender-based Violence
Page 226
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth – Message new Community Ethos – Inclusion
Page 227
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood – Power of Film
Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Dominican Republic – Reconciling Neighboring Hate
Page 237
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Haiti – Regional Climate of Hate against Haiti
Page 238
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Trinidad & Tobago – Indo versus Afro Climate
Page 240
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Guyana – Indo versus Afro Climate
Page 241
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Belize – Cross Border Climate with Guatemala
Page 242
Advocacy – Ways to Impact US Territories – Interracial Climate
Page 244
Underlying the back-story in the foregoing Book Review is the classic Western film: High Noon. See the Appendix VIDEO.
That was a great movie about a man when faced with the choice of ‘fight or flight’, chose to stay and fight rather than fleeing for his own refuge. This film was thought-provoking and impactful … and celebrated. In fact, the film …
… was nominated for seven Academy Awards, and won four (Actor, Editing, Music-Score, and Music-Song)[3] as well as four Golden Globe Awards (Actor, Supporting Actress, Score, and Cinematography-Black and White).[4] In 1989, this movie was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. – Wikipedia.
Movies are important in the roadmap to impact the Caribbean; a previous blog/commentary regarding Caribbean Diaspora member and Hollywood great, Sidney Poitier, declared that …
… “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”.
The contention is that we can do better in the Caribbean. This is based on one premise: it is easier to reform and transform the Caribbean that it is to reform and transform America. Yes, we can …
The points of effective, technocratic stewardship of the Caribbean have been detailed in these previous blog/commentaries:
The issues addressed in this commentary are not related to America alone. We have our own ‘Climate of Hate’ in the Caribbean. While we can learn lessons from the American past and present, we still must do the required heavy-lifting ourselves.
The Go Lean roadmap declares that we must, and can, do better. Truth be told, it is easier for the average person to remediate and mitigate defects in the Caribbean homeland than to prosper in foreign lands like the US. This message , while repeated here, must be loudly proclaimed and echoed throughout our Caribbean region.
Every stakeholder, everyone who live, work and play in the Caribbean are urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap to turn-around the region. The strategies, tactics and implementations proposed in the Go Lean book are conceivable, believable and achievable. 🙂
For the generation born between 1980 and 2000 – Millennials – this TV show is an icon of their generation:
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
It was a situation comedy (sit-com) with laughter, hip-hop music, urban cool lifestyle, family values and thought-provoking drama. This show was formative for all demographics of this generation – White and the Black-and-Brown – but most people do not realize that a large number of the cast members had Caribbean roots.
We are so proud!
The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean recognizes the significance of this art-form: sit-com television. On a consistent basis, audiences tuned into this show for entertainment and walked away with enlightenment as well – average ratings were 13 – 14 million viewers. They were constantly exposed to an affluent African-American household with an intact family structure: father, mother, and compliant children navigating a changing world. That was a different perspective – see Image Awards details in the Appendix below – compared to the realities of Black America and the pervasive media portrayals.
The show was not a docu-drama of “Black versus White America”, though many times, plotlines covered these dynamics. In general the storylines addressed teenage angst, but many plotlines addressed the family’s affluence versus working class families; this exposes a familiar rift in the Black community with passionate advocates for a Talented Tenth versus a ‘Power to the People’ contingent. See these encyclopedic details and VIDEO of the show here:
Title: The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is an American sitcom that originally aired on NBC from September 10, 1990, to May 20, 1996. The show stars Will Smith as a fictionalized version of himself, a street-smart teenager from West Philadelphia who is sent to move in with his wealthy aunt and uncle in their Bel Air mansion after getting into a fight on a local basketball court. In the series, his lifestyle often clashes with the lifestyle of his relatives in Bel Air. The series ran for six seasons and aired 148 episodes.[1][2]
Development In December 1989, NBC approached Will Smith, a popular rapper during the late 1980s.[3] The pilot episode began taping on May 1, 1990.[4] Season 1 aired in July 1990 and ended in March 1991. The series finale was taped on Thursday, March 21, 1996.[5][6]
The theme song was written and performed by Smith under his rap stage name, The Fresh Prince. The music was composed by QDIII (Quincy Jones III), who is credited with Smith at the end of each episode.
The music often used to bridge scenes together during the show is based on a similar chord structure. The full version of the theme song was used unedited in the first three episodes. The full length version, which is 2:52, was included on Will Smith’s Greatest Hits album and attributed to him only, as well as DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince in 1998. A 3:23 version was released in the Netherlands in 1992, reaching #3 on the charts.
In the second season, the kitchen and living room sets were rebuilt much larger with a more contemporary style (as opposed to the much more formal style of the first season), and were connected directly by an archway, allowing scenes to be shot continuously between the sets.
Plot The theme song and opening sequence set the premise of the show. Will Smith is a street-smart teenager, born and raised in West Philadelphia. While playing basketball, Will misses a shot and the ball hits a group of people, causing a confrontation that frightens his mother, who sends him to live with his aunt and uncle in the town of Bel Air, Los Angeles.
He flies from Philadelphia to Los Angeles on a one-way ticket in first class. He then whistles for a taxi that has dice in the reflection screen and the word “FRESH” on its vanity plates. Will’s working class background ends up clashing in various humorous ways with the upper class, “bourgeois” world of the Banks family – Will’s uncle Phil and aunt Vivian and their children, Will’s cousins Hilary, Carlton, and Ashley.
Source: Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia – Retrieved February 24, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fresh_Prince_of_Bel-Air
Published on Feb 3, 2013 – This was obviously the first episode.
The reference to The Fresh Prince refers to the hip-hop rapper Will Smith; the show revolved around him.
The Go Lean book identifies that music – even hip-hop – and the arts can greatly impact society; in addition to the entertainment value, there is also image and impression. People can override many false precepts with excellent deliveries and contributions from great role models.
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This CU strives to advance Caribbean image and culture in the region and throughout the world, with these 3 prime directives:
Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance.
This roadmap recognizes that a prerequisite for advancing society is a change in the Caribbean “community ethos”; (the underlying attitude/spirit/sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices). Early in the book, the contributions that culture (music, television, film, theater and dance) can make is pronounced as an ethos for the entire region to embrace, (opening Declaration of Interdependence – DOI –Pages 15) with this statement:
xxxii. Whereas the cultural arts and music of the region are germane to the quality of Caribbean life, and the international appreciation of Caribbean life, the Federation must implement the support systems to teach, encourage, incentivize, monetize and promote the related industries for arts and music in domestic and foreign markets. These endeavors will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.
The Go Lean/CU asserts that change has now come to the Caribbean, collectively and for each of the 30 member-states. The people, institutions and governance of the region are all urged to “lean-in” to this roadmap for change. We know it is important to highlight the positive contributions of Caribbean people, even their descendants and legacies.
The great role models being considered here are the many cast members of this iconic TV show – The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air – who had Caribbean roots. We learn lessons from these great role models: lessons that are good, bad and ugly.
The cast members for consideration are:
Alfonso Ribeiro as Carlton Banks
This American-born actor has displayed many talents, beginning his career at the age of eight but securing his first TV sit-com on the series Silver Spoons at the age of 13; he is also accomplished as a television director, dancer, and show host. He was born in New York City to Trinidadian parents Michael and Joy Ribeiro (née De Leon) of Portuguese, Spanish and Afro-Trinidadian descent from Trinidad and Tobago. His mother was the daughter of Trinidadian Calypsonian the Roaring Lion, Rafael de Leon.[2][3]
Tatyana M. Ali as Ashley Banks
This artist has excelled in her roles as an actress, model and R&B singer. She was born in New York to a mother of Afro-Panamanian[2][3] heritage and a father who is Indo-Trinidadian.[3] She began her acting career at the young age of six, starting as a regular child performer on Sesame Street starting in 1985. She has not stopped working in the entertainment industry, featuring acting and singing roles right up to the present day.
Joseph Marcell as Geoffrey The Butler This Saint Lucian-born British actor moved to the United Kingdom at the age of nine, grew up in South London, and still lives in that metropolitan area. He studied theatre and science at college, then took courses in speech and dance. As a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he appeared in productions of Othello and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He has also appeared often on British television and in feature films.[2]
These artists have placed their signatures on the entertainment world – The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air show delivered 148 episodes – notwithstanding their Caribbean heritage. This is among the ‘Good‘ lessons.
What is ‘Bad and Ugly‘ is how they have excelled in their crafts in the US and the UK as opposed to their ancestral homelands. Their parents left the islands for greater opportunities 50 – 70 years ago and despite the passage of time we still do not have any manifestations that would have allowed their artistic expressions in the Caribbean region.
What is sad is that most of the Caribbean Diaspora left their beloved homelands with some aspirations of returning some day. This is depicted in the Go Lean book with this quotation (Page 118):
The Bottom Line for the Caribbean Diaspora The Caribbean is the best address in the world. However for over 50 years many Caribbean citizens left their island homes to find greater opportunity in foreign lands: USA, Canada and Europe. Though the “man was taken out of the island, the island was never taken out of the man”, and as such many of the Diaspora live in pockets with other Caribbean expatriates in their foreign homelands (i.e. Flatbush in Brooklyn, New York, USA). What’s more, their children, legacies, are still raised and bred with Caribbean values and culture. Many left initially with the intention of returning someday, but life, loves and livelihoods got in the way of a successful return. Worse, many tried to return and found that they were targets of crime and terrorism, mandating that they abandon all hopes and dreams of a successful repatriation. The CU therefore must allow for the repatriation of peoples of the Diaspora, in all classes of society, “the good, the bad and the ugly”.
We salute these artists from the TV show ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’. Great job; great performances and great portrayals. We accept that these artists are great Americans and Britons; they may never be grouped with Caribbean artists.
This is our loss.
May we do better with our next generation. We can and have done some good in the past; Caribbean people have impacted the art world (music and culture) right from their Caribbean homeland. Consider Caribbean musical icon, Bob Marley; he set a pathway for success for other generations of talented, inspirational and influential artists to follow. More artists of Caribbean heritage are sure to emerge to “impact the world” with their artistry. The planners for a new more opportunistic Caribbean – the Go Lean movement – are preparing for it, as specified in the same DOI –Page 13:
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.
The foregoing three artists should be proud of their executions; we are proud of their heritage and thusly have an affinity for their works. We acknowledge those ones from our past who left their Caribbean homelands for better opportunities in the world of entertainment and we know that there are “new” artists who are just waiting to be fostered throughout the Caribbean member-states. We salute these ones as our future, and pledge to do better. The following list details the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster future entertainment options in the Caribbean:
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius – All Artists
Page 27
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property
Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness
Page 36
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Strategy – Caribbean Vision
Page 45
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Patents & Copyrights
Page 78
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Culture Administration
Page 81
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media
Page 111
Advocacy – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better
Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood
Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora
Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage
Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts
Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music
Page 231
These foregoing artists – all good people in their own rite – have been impactful for their communities:
Alfonso Ribeiro has been front-and-center in charitable endeavors, exerting much time and resources in helping with children’s medical needs through his Shriners Hospital association.
Tatyana Ali has been very active politically, campaigning for “hope and change” with Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008.[10][11] In 2012, she continued showing her support for the re-election campaign and other Democratic Party causes.[12]
These examples continue the theme of the impact of good role models in their community. We need, want and deserve more of this in the Caribbean. This thought has been presented many times in this commentary; consider these previous Go Lean blogs that identified other role models, from many cultures, with these submissions:
Truth be told, the French-speaking Caribbean wants to do more with their tropical neighbors; they want to confederate, collaborate and convene on different issues related to community development and nation-building.
On behalf of planners for a new Caribbean, we welcome them, and their INTERREG efforts.
What is INTERREG?
Literally, Inter–Regional. See the VIDEO in the Appendix below.
This is not so new a commitment. In a previous blog-commentary, the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean heralded the addition of Martinique, Guadeloupe and Saint Martin to the Association of Caribbean States. More so, in the prior year to this effort, the same countries urged more economic integration with their territorial neighbors, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States:
This is the similar siren call from the movement behind the Go Lean … Caribbean book. The book serves as a roadmap to navigate the integration and consolidation of all 30 member-states into a technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). Those 30 member-states include:
Martinique
Guadeloupe
Saint Martin
Saint Barthélemy (Subordinate of St. Martin)
The INTERREG targets European territories, so the Dutch Caribbean can also solicit grants. In addition, French Guiana is included. Yippee! This territory was always on the CU‘s radar screen, but because of it’s lack of autonomous administration, the perception was that French Guiana would have to be confederated in regional governance at a later time.
We will take any integration with French Guiana now, especially with funding attached.
The CU will equally incorporate participation from other Caribbean member-states, including the Dutch, English and Spanish-speaking counterparts. Our quest is simple, as envisioned by the demonstrative expression: to “raise the tide for all boats in the harbor”. The Go Lean roadmap posits that the region is failing, ill-prepared to compete on the world’s stage, but the solution is too big for any one Caribbean member-state alone; we need “all hands on deck”, to engage the full participation of the whole neighborhood. Just look at the map here depicting the neighborhood of islands:
The Go Lean/CU roadmap seeks to integrate the entire region’s economic, security and governing engines; to employ best practices to impact our prime directives; identified with the following 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 Go Lean book always anticipated the French territories INTERREG efforts. Page 96 describes the initial assembling of all the existing regional organizations into the new umbrella, the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). These initial organizations include, among others:
CariCom Secretariat – 22 Agencies
CariCom Office of Trade Negotiations
British Commonwealth / Overseas Territory
French Overseas Territory
US Overseas Territory
Kingdom of the Netherlands – Overseas Territory
Association of Caribbean States (ACS)
Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS)
INTERREG is key for this integration effort of the European-dependent territories (French & Dutch) here in the Caribbean. The actual definition follows:
European Territorial Cooperation (ETC), better known as INTERREG, is one of the two goals of cohesion policy and provides a framework for the implementation of joint actions and policy exchanges between national, regional and local actors from different Member States. The overarching objective of European Territorial Cooperation (ETC) is to promote a harmonious economic, social and territorial development of the Union as a whole. Interreg is built around three strands of cooperation: cross-border (Interreg A), transnational (Interreg B) and interregional (Interreg C).
Five programming periods of INTERREG have succeeded each other:
INTERREG is a series of five programmes to stimulate cooperation between regions in the European Union, funded by the European Regional Development Fund. The first Interreg started in 1989. Interreg IV covered the period 2007–2013. Interreg V (2014-2020) covers all 28 EU Member States, 3 participating EFTA countries (Norway, Switzerland, Lichtenstein), 6 accession countries and 18 neighbouring countries. It has a budget of EUR 10.1 billion, which represents 2.8% of the total of the European Cohesion Policy budget.[1] Since the non EU countries don’t pay EU membership fee, they contribute directly to Interreg, not through ERDF. – Source: Wikipedia.
According to the foregoing “prime directives“, the Go Lean/CU effort leads first with an emphasis on regional economics. Follow the money! This INTERREG V has a budget of of €10.1 billion (Euros); this is money that we cannot afford to ignore in our Caribbean region, especially since the purpose is cross-border development activity of the island-nations. See this portrayed in this article/Press Release:
Title: New INTERREG Caribbean programme launched Press Release: December 22, 2016 – The new INTERREG Caribbean programme was officially launched last Wednesday, 14th December 2016, in St. Lucia by representatives and officials of the French Overseas Departments and Collectivities of Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guyana & Saint Martin, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), and the European Union (EU), with support from the Honourable Mr. Allen Chastanet, Prime Minister of St. Lucia.
By launching the INTERREG V Caribbean programme in St. Lucia, the organizers made a statement of their commitment to consolidate regional partnerships (between the French Caribbean and the English-, Spanish- and Dutch- speaking countries and territories of the region), by strengthening the involvement of regional organisations, and to achieve a better co-ordination and distribution of the European Regional Development Funds to the benefit of the greater Caribbean.
The work carried out in consultation with all partners focused on the evaluation and selection of a large number of projects that have been submitted, which testifies to the growing success of the INTERREG Caribbean programme, opening up real prospects for strengthening Caribbean partnerships, and allowing all regional stakeholders to be a part of the effort to put transnational co-operation at the heart of the sustainable development of the region.
The preparation and realisation of the three-day conference constituted important moments of sharing, exchanging and building a true policy of regional co-operation and on Wednesday, 14th December, the new INTERREG Caribbean program was officially launched in the presence of many regional partners and stakeholders.
At the public meeting, Mrs. Marie-Luce Penchard, 2nd Vice-President of the Guadeloupe Region, in charge of regional co-operation, European affairs & Universities, took the opportunity to urge “project developers, who play a most vital role in the programme development, to get even more involved in order to build together a real partnership for the benefit of our [Caribbean countries and] territories”. She also expressed the strong will of the Region of Guadeloupe to support the development of their activities in the greater Caribbean, in a genuine sustainable and co-operative way.
“While the previous programmes have brought closer together project developers and regional stakeholders [to our territories]”, she continued, “the new INTERREG Caribbean programme intends to go even further by supporting projects in terms of economic competitiveness, natural risks and joint natural and cultural heritage.”
The programme also seeks to provide concrete answers to common issues and challenges shared by Caribbean countries and territories, which pertain to public health, renewable energy development and skills development. Source: St Lucia Times – Daily Newspaper – Retrieved February 20, 2017 from: https://stluciatimes.com/2016/12/22/new-interreg-cbean-programme-launched
There was a previous effort to integrate the region’s economic apparatus, the Caribbean Single Market Economy (CSME). It faltered! It was limited to the CariCom (Caribbean Community) countries – mostly English-speaking Caribbean sovereign territories (15 member-states).
The Go Lean/CU is a second – better – attempt of those same hopes and dreams behind CSME. For starters, this CU effort engages all 30 Caribbean member-states. So we can truly say: “Last time, we knocked on the door; this time we kick it in”.
Why will we succeed this time?
The Go Lean book addresses this exact issue; Page 132 of the book details the following reasons; (notice #7 specifically; this applies to INTERREG):
10 Reason Why the CU Will Succeed
Emergence of a Giant Market
Modeled after the European Union
Declaration of Interdependence
Economic Engine
Alternative to North America, and European Colonial Legacies
More American Support
International Cooperation and Support
Many other economic blocs and some countries (i.e. Canada) will only deal with developing nations in a regionalized effort, rather than individual foreign aid. We are still Third World, and we want/need international grants – free money.
Direct Foreign Investment: Risk and Reward
Diversity – 4 languages; 5 colonial legacies – is the Spice of Life
Reverse Migration / Repatriation
There are so many benefits that stem from a larger “economies of scale”, a Caribbean Single Marketunites 42 million people for the potential of an $800 Billion GDP market. This end-result furnishes an improved environment for commerce, security and governance. This is how the Go Lean book explains that we can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play.
The Go Lean/CU roadmap is also a better plan than the previous CSME because it encompasses more aspects of Caribbean life, not just economics; it includes security mitigations and government empowerments. This total focus allows CU stakeholders to impact the existing societal defects and to incentivize the adoption of new community ethos.
Community ethos refers to the underlying attitude/spirit/sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of society. One ethos recommended in the Go Lean book – Page 35 – for the region to adopt is “Sharing”; see this quotation:
“Sharing is promoted as a community ethos; not in the form of a re-distribution of existing wealth, but rather the sharing of the tools to create new wealth for all to benefit from. The treaty also enables a collective security pact to assuage against systemic threats, including emergency management and responses to natural disasters.”
The Go Lean book details a full series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies designed to facilitate regional integration; see a sample here:
Anecdote – Caribbean Single Market & Economy
Page 15
Anecdote – French Caribbean: Organization & Discord
Page 17
Community Ethos – Money Multiplier
Page 22
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier
Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations
Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives
Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing
Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Strategic – Vision – Integrated Region in a Single Market
Page 45
Strategic – Vision – Agents of Change
Page 57
Tactical – Confederating a Non-sovereign Union
Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy
Page 64
Tactical – Growing to $800 Billion Regional Economy
Page 67
Tactical – Separation of Powers
Page 71
Anecdote – Turning Around CariCom – The Single Market
Page 92
Anecdote – “Lean” in Government
Page 93
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change
Page 101
Implementation – Foreign Policy Initiatives at Start-up
All of the Caribbean, despite the languages, have had societal failures. Large swaths of the population has fled to foreign shores for refuge. In the French (and Dutch) Caribbean, it is not uncommon for high school graduates to leave soon after graduation. No society can thrive with this disposition. Communities need its people, young and old. But the people need opportunities for prosperity.
The Go Lean roadmap stresses the need for a fully integrated Caribbean Single Market with the French, Dutch, English and Spanish territories, all 30 member-states. The foregoing “News Release” urges the Eastern Caribbean states specifically and the whole Caribbean generally to “double-down” on the integration movement. There are benefits galore … and money too.
This is the consistent theme – to dive deeper in the waters of an integrated Single Market – in so many previous Go Lean blog-commentaries; see sample here:
Now is the time for all of the Caribbean – the people and governing institutions – to lean-in for Caribbean integration. We can get it right, this time. This Go Lean roadmap is conceivable, believable and achievable.
So we welcome all stakeholders; we welcome the French.
Published on May 25, 2016 – An introduction to the Interreg funding instrument in the framework of EU cohesion policy – recorded live at the Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE lead applicant training in Zagreb on 10 May 2016. For more information on Interreg, our transnational cooperation programme and the funding we provide, please take a look at www.interreg-central.eu
“Tell them about the dream Martin” – Prompting by Gospel Singer Mahalia Jackson.
“I have a dream that one day … children will be judged by the contents of their character and not the color of their skin.” – Martin Luther King (MLK) @ March on Washington August 28, 1963.
The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean has asserted that the country of the United States had a long way to go to reform their societal defects – racism proliferated every aspect of society. In a previous blog-commentary about lessons learned from 75 years ago with Japanese-American relations (Pearl Harbor) it was explained how America double-downed on their bad community ethos (the underlying attitude/spirit/sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices):
Japan’s aggression was a direct result of their community ethos that honored Samurai warrior and battle culture. Men would walk the streets with their swords, ready for a challenge. On the other hand, the US (and Western Europe) community ethos of racism was so ingrained that the natural response in the US, post-Pearl Harbor, was to intern Japanese Americans in camps.
All of these bad community ethos were weeded out with post-WWII Human Rights reconciliations. – Go Lean book Page 220.
This day – February 19 – is special; this is the Day of Remembrance of the bad episode of American stereotyping their own citizens, Japanese-Americans following the Pearl Harbor attacks. This is the 75th anniversary of then President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s (FDR) executive order that allowed this open discrimination against Japanese-Americans. This was just 2 and a half months after the Pearl Harbor attack and the American response was to stereotype all Japanese. See this portrayal in the historic account here:
The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in camps in the interior of the country of between 110,000 and 120,000[4] people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the Pacific coast. Sixty-two percent of the internees were United States citizens.[5][6] These actions were ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.[7]
Japanese Americans were incarcerated based on local population concentrations and regional politics. More than 110,000 Japanese Americans, who mostly lived on the West Coast, were forced into interior camps, but in Hawaii, where the 150,000-plus Japanese Americans composed over one-third of the population, 1,200 to 1,800 were interned.[8] The internment is considered to have resulted more from racism than from any security risk posed by Japanese Americans,[9][10] as those who were as little as 1/16 Japanese[11] and orphaned infants with “one drop of Japanese blood” could be placed in internment camps.[12] – Source:Wikipedia.
In effect, the America of 1942 was declaring that if one Japanese person could attack America then all Japanese people could attack America. They were judging the Japanese people based on the “color of their skin” (and slant of their eyes) rather than the “content of their character”. This is so obviously wrong.
Did America learn from this 1942 experience?
Unfortunately, the experience continued as “more of the same”. Martin Luther King echoed his dream 21 years later after lamenting the continuous bad experience of blatant racism against Black people. Even today, prominent Japanese-Americans are decrying the “more of the same” parallel that America is demonstrating; see George Takei’s comments here:
Every year, on February 19, we Japanese-Americans honor this day as Remembrance Day, and we renew our pledge to make sure what happened to us never happens again in America. I am always amazed, and saddened, that despite our decades long efforts, so many young people today are not even aware that such a tragedy and miscarriage of justice took place here.
And I grow increasingly concerned that we are careening toward a future where such a thing would again be possible.
A few months into his campaign, Donald Trump refused to outright reject the policies and fears that underlay the internment. Instead, he suggested that it was a tough call, and that he “would have had to be there” in order to know whether it was the wrong one.
I cannot help but hear in these words terrible echoes from the past. The internment happened because of three things: fear, prejudice and a failure of political leadership. When the administration targets groups today, whether for exclusion from travel here on the basis of religion and national origin, or for deportation based on their undocumented status, I know from personal experience that these are not done, as they claim, truly in the name of national security. …
Despite the 75 years since FDR’s racist decree and 54 years since MLK’s lamentation of blatant American racism, we find “more of the same” in this society, though now it is considered politically incorrect to be blatantly racist. Under the tenants of the law, this type of behavior – 1942 internment – is now fully recognized as being unconstitutional. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 officially acknowledged the “fundamental violations of the basic civil liberties and constitutional rights” of the internment.[7] Many Japanese-Americans consider the term internment camp a euphemism and prefer to refer to their forced relocation as imprisonment in concentration camps.[8]
The movement behind the Go Lean book asserts that despite the legalities, the foundations of institutional racism in America have become even more entrenched. This movement campaigns that it is folly for the Black-and-Brown populations to leave the Caribbean for American shores. Racism is in this country’s DNA as the Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted naturalized US citizenship to “free white persons”.
Considering the reality of the Caribbean demographics (Black-and-Brown), it is no wonder that the American world consider Caribbean people and society as “Less Than“.
This is the problem with stereotypes. There is an art-and-science associated with the subject of stereotypes.
Posted February 14, 2017 – Where do stereotypes come from? Why do some perceptions persist, and is there any truth or value to the assumptions we make? In this hour, TED speakers examine the consequences of stereotypes.
The planners of Caribbean empowerment, the Go Lean movement assess that America is a “frienemy” for us! We are trading partners; we are aligned; we are allies; many of our Diaspora live in America; studied in America; but we have to compete to dissuade our young people from setting their sights on American shores as a refuge and destination of their hopes and dreams. So the Go Lean book challenges Caribbean society, positing that “we” cannot prosper with a high abandonment rate – reported at 70% for educated classes. Therefore we must battle” against the “push-and-pull” factors that draw so many Caribbean citizens away from their homeland to places like the US.
This is the quest of Go Lean…Caribbean. The book and accompanying blog/commentaries advocate learning lessons from other societies, from history and the present. Examples are provided from as far back as the patriarchal Bible times, to best-practices today employed by communities around the world that have successfully turned-around their societies, such as post-World War II Germany and Japan; and post-Apartheid South Africa. The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This roadmap seeks to reboot the region’s economic, security and governing engines; to employ best practices to impact our prime directives; identified with the following 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 and mitigate challenges/threats to regional Justice Institutions.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.
The Go Lean book relates that 29 of the 30 Caribbean member-states (“St. Barths” is the only exception) have a majority Black population. So the roadmap pushes further on this subject of racism, positing that it is easier for Caribbean citizens to stay home and effect change in their homelands than to go to America – and other countries – to try to remediate other societies. This consideration is one of technocratic stewardship of the regional Caribbean societal engines, not ignoring the realities and historicities of race relations in the New World. This point was pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 10 – 14) with these acknowledgements and statements:
Preamble: As the history of our region and the oppression, suppression and repression of its indigenous people is duly documented, there is no one alive who can be held accountable for the prior actions, and so we must put aside the shackles of systems of repression to instead formulate efficient and effective systems to steer our own destiny.
xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.
xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.
xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of [other] communities.
The Go Lean book stresses the key community ethos that need to be adopted and the societal defects that need to be “weed out”; plus strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to transform and turn-around the eco-systems of Caribbean society. These points are detailed in the book as follows:
Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification – African American Experience
Page 21
Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices
Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future
Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations
Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations – South Africa’s Model
Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good
Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate all 30 member-states/ 4 languages into a Single Market
Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Build and foster local economic engines
Page 45
Tactical – Ways to Foster a Technocracy
Page 64
Tactical – Growing the Economy – Post WW II European Marshall Plan Model
Page 68
Tactical – Growing the Economy – Post WW II Japan’s Turn-around Model
Page 68
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – CU Federal Government versus Member-State Governance
Page 71
Implementation – Assemble All Regionally-focus Organizations of All Caribbean Communities
Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt
Page 114
Anatomy of Advocacies – One Person can make a difference!
Page 122
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Single Market / Currency Union
Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better
Page 131
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Caribbean Image
Page 133
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Minority and Human Rights
Page 134
Planning – Lessons Learned from the previous West Indies Federation
Page 135
Planning – Lessons Learned New York City – Managing as a “Frienemy”
Page 137
Planning – Lessons Learned from East Germany – Bad Examples for Trade & Security
Page 139
Planning – Lessons Learned from Detroit – Turn-around from Failure
Page 140
Planning – Lessons Learned from Indian Reservations – Pattern of Ethnic Oppression
Page 141
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy
Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs
Page 152
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 Improve Homeland Security
Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage
Page 218
There are other lessons for the Caribbean to learn from considering the history of race/ethnic relations and the effects on stereotypes; see the following sample blog/commentaries:
A Lesson in History: America’s War on the Caribbean
The Go Lean roadmap does not seek to reform or transform America; it is out-of-scope for our efforts; our focus is only here in our Caribbean homeland.
The stereotypes in America are based on a false premise: White Supremacy. The everyday consequence of this bad foundation is White Privilege. This is why it is better for Caribbean people to stay in the Caribbean, to prosper where planted here at home. But we have defects too. However it is easier to reform our defects in the Caribbean than to try and fix the American eco-system.
We urge everyone in the Caribbean to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap. It is the heavy-lifting we need to effect change in our region’s societal engines.
Yes we can … make the Caribbean region a better place to live, work and play. 🙂
The new American President, Donald Trump, has announced, proclaimed and repeated that he is “for America First”. Yet the rest of the world seems to be surprised when he promotes policies that ignores, disregards and denigrates foreign people and countries; i.e. banning travel from 7 Muslim countries.
