Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

This subject of “Respect for Minorities” is dominant in the news right now: there was a terrorism attack in the US city of Orlando, Florida. The assailant targeted a night club (The Pulse) frequented by the LGBT community. On Saturday night/Sunday morning June 11/12, 2016, one man killed 49 patrons and injured another 53 in a hate-filled rampage.

This commentary is 2 of 3 in this series on lamentations for defective social values. This commentary applies to this terrorist attack/hate crime in America and also to other practices of “institutional hate” around the world, like in the Caribbean. The complete series is as follows:

1. Respect for Minorities: ‘All For One’
2. Respect for Minorities: Climate of Hate – ‘It Gets Worse Before It Gets Worse’
3. Respect for Minorities: Reconstruction then Redemption

The actions of this one “bad actor” is a direct consequence of a “climate of hate”. The assailant pledged his allegiance to the fringed fundamentalist Islamic terrorist group ISIS; a group that has expressed their hatred time and again to targets like gays, non-Muslims and symbols of Western civilization. This hatred has manifested in their home territory of Iraq and Syria in the MiddleEast, and “on the road”, in places like Paris-France, Germany, England and San Bernardino-California.

When there is a “climate of hate”, the situation on the ground “gets worse before it gets worse”.

The US has confronted the issue of hate before; they have manifested a laboratory – the Civil War – for a comprehensive lesson to a watching world. The country had such a bad legacy of hate with the issue of racial supremacy and racism. The African American community suffered, along with the rest of the country where over 600,000 deaths –  mostly Whites- were tallied. So first, there was slavery, and the “climate of hate” that propagated it; then there was the Civil War for the abolition of slavery, while still “hot” in a “climate of hate”. Yet, despite these lessons, the “climate of hate” continued for over 100 years with the systematic oppression, suppression and oppression of the African-American/Black population.

In many respect, the climate continues. This incident in Orlando is being hailed as “the worst massacre in US history”, though this is far from the truth. Remember:

Is the nullification of these events, a fault in memory or lack of respect for the affected minority group – Blacks?

Without a doubt, the American experience with a “climate of hate” should be a cautionary tale for the rest of the world.

Planners for a new Caribbean, the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean, see fitting applications from these American events, from this “climate of hate”, for the Caribbean.

Our Caribbean society, far too often, promotes a “climate of hate”. Consider these three examples:

• Haitian Immigrants – Many Caribbean countries express vitriol towards Haitian migrants.
• LGBT – Still clinging to the archaic “Buggery” laws, many countries persecute gays in their society as degenerates.
• Equality-seeking Women – Just last week, a referendum failed in the Bahamas 3 to 1.

The Caribbean member-states, collectively and individually, need to curb its “climate of hate” and to pay more than the usual attention to the lessons from Orlando. See details here:

Title: What do we call the attack in Orlando? ‘Hate crime’ or ‘terrorism?’
Source: (Posted 06/13/2016; retrieved 06/14/2016) retrieved from: http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-06-13/what-do-we-call-attack-orlando-hate-crime-or-terrorism

President Barack Obama has called the attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando both a hate crime and terrorism. But experts can’t agree about whether there’s a connection to Islam.

“I have to say,” says GeorgiaStateUniversity professor Mia Bloom, “I think that the president was very on point as far as saying that it doesn’t have to be one thing at the exclusion of others. It was definitely a hate crime, and it was an act of terrorism.”

Bloom has devoted her 27-year career to the study of terrorism and is the author of several books on the subject.

“The extent to which it might have either been directed or inspired by ISIS remains part of the mystery that is unfolding,” she says.

Forty-nine people died and 53 were wounded by the time police took down the single suspected perpetrator, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, around 5 a.m. on Sunday. The nightmare at the popular gay club began around three hours earlier, just as the bartenders were taking last orders.

Mateen was a US citizen, born in the US to an Afghan family. He attended a mosque, but it’s not clear whether he was especially devout. It wasn’t until he was in the midst of the massacre in Orlando that Mateen dialed 911 and pledged allegiance to ISIS.

ISIS has claimed him as one of their own, although there is no evidence yet of any prior connection. An FBI investigation in 2014 found no substantial link.

What is becoming clear — from his ex-wife, and from past and present co-workers at G4S, the security firm where Mateen worked — is that he had a history of violence, homophobia, anti-Semitism, racism, and he was accused of mental instability.

Citing a report in the Daily Beast that Mateen was friends with at least one drag queen and had been comfortable hanging out with gay people in his teens, Bloom says, “I don’t know if part of the homophobia is an extreme interpretation of his own sexual repressedness. This is not someone who grew in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. This is someone who grew up in the United States, watching TV, being exposed to things like ‘Will and Grace.’ This is not someone who’s never seen two gay people kiss before, especially if he’s hanging out at clubs with people who are cross-dressing.”

Bloom also notes that Mateen started casing gay clubs at least two weeks ago, when he tried to get on the VIP list at another club.

“So he’s basically had two weeks to make his pledge of allegiance [to ISIS] and he didn’t,” she says. “This attack looks to me a lot more like San Bernardino, where you have an individual who has pre-existing issues, and then the veneer of the ISIS affiliation provides either a seriousness or a street-cred, or even — in their perverse way of understanding it — a legitimacy to their actions.”

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has said that President Obama needs to be more blunt in his characterization of the Orlando attack as an act of “radical Islamic terrorism.” But Daveed Gartenstein-Ross says using this phrase is not particularly important.

“I do think it’s important that one not disguise the motivation that the attacker had in this case, or to deny its connections to other strands of theological thought,” Gartenstein-Ross says, adding that Trump has gone too far with this rhetoric.

“The fact is that this is not an attack that represents the American Muslim community,” he says. “The American Muslim community has a right to grieve with all of the rest of us and shouldn’t be singled out as being different.”

At the same time, Gartenstein-Ross says the suspect “may be many other things as well, but he claimed this attack on behalf of ISIS. And he went after a set of victims that groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda have been known to target.”

“Factually, you cannot get around the notion that [Mateen] is a radical Islamist,” he says.

It seems irrelevant, however, for policy makers to be arguing about phrases like “radical Islamic terrorism” so soon after the Orlando massacre, says Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution.

Hamid says Trump’s rhetoric “is actually a stand-in for something darker.”

“This is a way of essentially castigating Muslims without explicitly doing it,” says Hamid, the author of a new book called “Islamic Exceptionalism: How Islam is Shaping the World,” which argues that US policy makers are not very good at talking about religion, especially in the Muslim world.

“Someone like President Obama, [a] self-styled technocrat who doesn’t like to be aroused by the passions of politics, he has, I think, a lot of trouble taking these motivations seriously,” Hamid says. “The way he’s traditionally talked about ISIS … is problematic, where he dismisses them oftentimes as a bunch of thugs and fanatics, as if he can’t even bring himself to take them seriously as a global force.”

For her part, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton appeared to shift her rhetoric on Monday. Clinton said she would not hesitate to describe the attack in Orlando as “radical Islamism,” something she has been reluctant to do in her recent rhetoric.

Clinton went on to say that she will not, “demonize and demagogue,” like Donald Trump, because “it’s plain dangerous.”

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AUDIO – Orlando: ‘Hate crime’ or ‘Terrorism’? – http://www.pri.org/node/89888/popout

Listen to the Story from PRI or Public Radio International, a not-for-profit aggregator and distributor of Public Broadcasting content.

The tragedy in Orlando provides a number of lessons for the Caribbean. This is an issue of economics, security, governance and overall spirit in society. These are all important subjects for the book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book serves as a roadmap for elevating Caribbean society – for its 42 million residents and 80 million visitors, across the 30 member-states – by introducing and implementing the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).

The quest of the Go Lean roadmap, to make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. The CU, applying best-practices for community empowerment 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 protect the resultant economic engines and ensure the respect of human rights and public safety.
• Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

Despite any leanings on the question of homosexuality, a massacre against 100 people in one incident is first and foremost a tragedy. Consider these direct lessons from this tragedy:

• This attack in Orlando will surely affect the city’s tourism through put. In a previous blog-commentary, it was detailed that the Disney World attraction enjoys 53 million visitors, alone.
  
• This is a terrorism case study. The Go Lean roadmap is designed to mitigate the threats of terrorism. Consider too, the issue of gun controls; the need for reform may be too big to resist … this time.
  
• The governing officials – city, county, State of Florida and the US President – see/listen to the AUDIO) – are campaigning against the ‘climate of hate’ that propelled this assailant and others in society that may have refused to tolerate and integrate with their LGBT neighbors. This ‘climate of hate’ is being discouraged towards any minority group.
  

How exactly can the Go Lean/CU roadmap impact the community spirit, so as to dissuade a ‘climate of hate’?

This relates to community ethos. The Go Lean book (Page 20) defines community ethos as the national spirit that drives the character and identity of its people. It is revealed that changing community ethos is hard, heavy-lifting, but there are effective strategies-tactics for accomplishing this.

We have a ‘climate of hate’ in the Caribbean, the Go Lean book therefore details a series of community ethos to adopt, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute to forge permanent change in the homeland:

The related subjects of human rights and civil rights dysfunction in the Caribbean and other communities around the world have been a frequent topic for blogging by the Go Lean promoters, as sampled here:

All of the Caribbean needs to learn from the experiences of our American neighbors, like in Orlando. The Go Lean book asserts that a “crisis is a terrible thing to waste” (Page 8).

Notice how the Orlando community is coming together! This is a crisis! It is not being wasted!

This is not the first time the LGBT community has been targeted for violence; they have frequently been bullied – this is Terrorism 101. Their demographic is a minority group that needs more respect.

When is enough, enough?

Fixing the American eco-system is out-of-scope for the Go Lean roadmap. Our focus is fixing the Caribbean. Considering the acute and pronounced “climate of hate” in our region, we have a lot of work to do to garner more respect for our minorities.

The Go Lean/CU roadmap specifies best practices to effect change in society, the attitudes and actions. Success in these efforts will reform and transform our climate, and assure public safety and justice for all. This quest is worth all our efforts.

When is the right time to start these efforts? Now…

Now … is the time for all of the Caribbean to lean-in to this roadmap and learn the lessons from history or other communities – successful, plus unsuccessful. The Go Lean book posits that the Caribbean is in a serious crisis, but asserts that this crisis would be a terrible thing to waste. The people and governing institutions of the Caribbean region are hereby urged to assimilate this Big Deal for the Caribbean region; this is a real solution to change the climate. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Go Lean Commentary

This subject of “Respect for Minorities” is dominant in the news right now. This commentary is 1 of 3 in this series on lamentations for defective Caribbean social values. The complete series is as follows:

1. Respect for Minorities: ‘All For One’
2. Respect for Minorities: Climate of Hate – ‘It Gets Worse Before It Gets Worse’
3. Respect for Minorities: Reconstruction then Redemption

There is this impactful quotation from the Bible:

“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? – The Bible; Matthew 18:12 – New International Version.

But someone might argue: “the needs of the many out-weight the needs of the few”. This is the principle of the Greater Good. Yes, this is true! This principle is very familiar to the publishers of the book Go Lean … Caribbean; the principle is foremost in the book (Page 37) as a community ethos, the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a society. The region needs to adopt this ethos to forge change in the Caribbean. But it turns out that the Greater Good is not just a priority on the majority, it is very much reflective of minorities.

All For One … and … One For All!

This expression is from literature, the book: The Three Musketeers, by the nineteenth-century French author Alexandre Dumas – it represents “art imitating life” in it’s meaning:

All the members of a group support each of the individual members, and the individual members pledge to support the group. Note: “All for one and one for all” is best known as the motto of the title characters in the book. Source: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/all-for-one-and-one-for-all

Since everyone is unique, we may all be minorities in some respects. Consider (these previous blogs):

• Race
• Language
• National Origin
• Religion
• Sex/Gender
• Sexual Orientation
• Physical Ability
• Obese
• Mentally Ill

There is the need for the majority to protect the basic rights of minority groups; this is in effect protecting the rights for life, liberty and pursuit of happiness … for all.

What’s more, the minorities should not have to beg the majority for these rights; the rights should be an automatic entitlement.

Let’s consider the example here of the “peanut“.

It’s a great little snack; a lot of people enjoy them. But, for some – a small but growing minority in any society; see VIDEO below – the peanut is deadly, due to their allergic reactions. Should a majority of people be inconvenient due to allergies of just a few people, or sometimes, just one. Consider this model here:

Title: Customers with Disabilities – Peanut Dust Allergies
Source: Southwest Airlines Website – Customer Service Policy; retrieved 06/09/2016 from: https://www.southwest.com/html/customer-service/unique-travel-needs/customers-with-disabilities-pol.html

Because it is nearly impossible for persons who have an allergy to peanut dust to avoid triggering a reaction if peanut dust is in the air, Southwest Airlines is unable to guarantee a peanut-free or allergen-free flight. We have procedures in place to assist our Customers with severe allergies to peanut dust and will make every attempt not to serve packaged peanuts on the aircraft when our Customers alert us of their allergy to peanut dust.

We ask Customers with peanut dust allergies making reservations over the phone to advise our Customer Representatives of the allergy at the time the reservation is made. If the reservation is made via a travel agent, the Customer should telephone 1-800-I-FLY-SWA (1-800-435-9792) afterward to speak with a Customer Representative. If the reservation is made via southwest.com, the Customer may advise us of the allergy on the “Southwest Airlines Payment and Passenger Information” screen by clicking on the link to “Add/Edit Disability Assistance Options.”

We suggest that Customers with peanut dust allergies book travel on early morning flights as our aircraft undergo a thorough cleaning only at the end of the day.

We ask the Customer with the allergy (or someone speaking on the Customer’s behalf) to check in at the departure gate one hour prior to departure and speak with the Customer Service Agent (CSA) regarding the Customer’s allergy. Please allow enough time to park, check luggage and/or receive your boarding pass, and to pass through the security checkpoint. Our CSA will provide the Customer with a Peanut Dust Allergy Document and ask him/her to present the document to the Flight Attendant upon boarding. If the Customer has a connection, the CSA will provide the Customer with two documents, one of which should be retained to present to the Flight Attendant on the connecting flight.

Our CSA will advise the Operations (Boarding) Agent so that service of packaged peanuts can be suspended for that flight. Our Operations Agent will notify the Provisioning and/or Ramp Supervisor to stock the aircraft with a sufficient supply of pretzels or alternate snacks. The Operations Agent will also notify the Flight Attendants of the Customer’s final destination and advise them that we cannot serve packaged peanuts until the Customer deplanes.

As some of our other snack items may contain peanut particles, peanut oil, or have been packaged in a peanut facility, Customers who have allergic reactions to eating/ingesting peanuts should read the ingredients on any packaged snack before consumption. Of course, all Customers are welcome to bring their own snacks with them.

Southwest cannot prevent other Customers from bringing peanuts or products containing peanuts onboard our flights. In addition, Southwest cannot give assurances that remnants of peanuts and/or peanut dust/oil will not remain on the aircraft floor, seats, or tray tables from the flights earlier in the aircraft’s routing.

In addition, Southwest Airlines cannot guarantee that a flight will be free of other allergens such as perfumes, lotions, cleaning solutions, etc.

The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean wants to forge change in the Caribbean; we want to change the attitudes for an entire community, country and region. As depicted in the foregoing article, but on a larger scale, we want to ensure that one peanut allergy sufferer can be assured of best efforts to not deprive them of life and health. But this quest is more than just peanuts; it is the attitudes of the people. We need majority populations to sacrifice, however small or large, to allow minority populations every opportunity to participate fully in society.

Besides, how much of a sacrifice is it truly to forego peanuts … for a short period. There are other alternative snacks. This is the full definition of a reasonable accommodation.

The “peanut” is this case is truly a metaphor. The seriousness of the allergy – life-and-death – is representative of the seriousness for the rights of minorities in a community. But at the same time, peanut allergies have increased in western societies. Why? See VIDEO in the Appendix below.  So for peanuts and other aspects of societal life, what may only be an inconvenience for the majority may actually be “life-and-death” for the affected minority. This is why the requirements for someone’s quality of life, should never be subject to a popularity contest. This is the Greater Good.

So the community ethos of the Greater Good must be tempered with the ethos of National Sacrifice. The Go Lean movement (book and blog-commentaries) posits that these new community ethos must be adopted by the Caribbean; they are undoubtedly missing. This is evidenced by the fact that every Caribbean member-state suffers from alarming rates of societal abandonment: on average 70% of college educated ones in the population have fled in a brain drain, while the US territories have lost more than 50% of their general populations). Why do people flee?

“Push and pull” reasons! “Push”, as in people fleeing to find refuge from abuses tied to their minority status, and “pull”, as in the perception (though many times false) that life is better on foreign shores.

The term National Sacrifice is defined here as the willingness to sacrifice for a greater cause; think “patriotism or love of country”. This spirit is currently missing, in that many in the community refuse to extend some reasonable accommodations so that others who may be minorities or differently-abled can participate in the out-workings of their community. As it turns out, “All For One and One For All” is also a recipe for forging successful communities.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU); a confederation of the 30 member-states to bring change, empowerment, to the Caribbean region; to make the region a better place to live, work and play for all stakeholders (residents, tourists, visiting Diaspora and trading partners). This Go Lean roadmap also has initiatives (strategies) to foster solutions for the Caribbean youth. Any attempts to change Caribbean society’s community ethos (Greater Good and National Sacrifice) must start with the youth in order for the changes to be permanent. We are embarking on the effort to fix our Caribbean culture:

What is it that young people want in their society, so as to map a future for themselves at home: opportunity!

More specifically, equal access to opportunities – despite any minority status – to pursue their passions in life; whichever fields of endeavor they might pursue. This includes the strategies of education, jobs, entrepreneurial options, sports, and aspects of culture (art and music). Young people who cry, sweat, and bleed for their communities – embedding a desire to sacrifice for the Greater Good – are less inclined to flee. While these strategies are important, there is something else even more vital: a culture of inclusiveness; as follows:

Our community’s values, how we treat each other, our citizens, and stakeholders, and a healthy inclusive culture are more important than the elevation strategies executed.

Yes, when we make reasonable accommodations to be a more inclusive society, we invite “more people to the party” and elevate our society.

An African proverb brings a lot of solace to this discussion:

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

This also corresponds with the next verse in the above Bible scripture:

“And if he finds it [the one errand sheep], truly I tell you, he rejoices more over that one sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.” – Matthew 18:12 – New International Version.

The purpose of the Go Lean book/roadmap is more than just the embedding of these new community ethos, but rather the elevation of Caribbean society. In total, the Caribbean elevation roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

• Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
• Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure protection to the economic engines, public safety and justice for all.
• Improve Caribbean governance to support these societal engines.

The roadmap details the following community ethos, plus the execution of these strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to expand inclusiveness – to go together – and forge permanent change in Caribbean society:

All in all, there are certain successful traits (community ethos) associated with populations that have endured change, like the Greater Good and National Sacrifice. These are focused more on deferred gratification; on the future more so than immediate impact.

No sacrifice; no victory.

Now is the time for all stakeholders – majority and minority – to lean-in to this roadmap for Caribbean elevation, as depicted in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. “We need all hands on deck” to make our homelands better places to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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Appendix VIDEO – Why Are Peanut Allergies Becoming So Common? – https://youtu.be/Mjr9h_QmdeM

Published on Oct 3, 2014 – Peanut allergies are becoming more and more common, and researchers are trying to find the cause. Trace is here to discuss this unique allergy, and how we might have finally found a cure.