Social – Page 4 – Go Lean…Caribbean

Category: Social

Toxic Environment ==> Toxic Masculinity

Posted on October 2, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Every society, the Caribbean included, have both men and women that play a part in the fabric of society – in good, bad and ugly ways:

Male versus female
His versus Hers
Masculine versus Feminine
Masculinity versus Femininity

There is no problem with femininity, in this context, but “Woe Neely” there are issues with masculinity. The focus of this commentary is Toxic Masculinity.

The movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean just completed – during the month of September 2020 – a 6-part Teaching Series on the actuality of Toxic Environments. We’ve got it bad! See how this was related in the opening entry:

A Toxic Environment in a community is likened to a weak foundation for a house; think a workplace filled with harassment and discrimination or a neighborhood with blatant racism where minorities endure burning crosses … .

Consider here, the full catalog of the September series, plus this supplement:

Toxic Environment: Ready for Football – Washington “Redskins”
Toxic Environment: Homophobia – The problem is the Hate, not the Fear – Encore
Toxic Environment: Opposite of Diversity & Inclusion
Toxic Environment: Lessons from Yugoslavia
Toxic Environment: Ease of Doing Business
Toxic Environment: Make the Caribbean Great (Anew) – Encore
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Toxic Environment ==> Toxic Masculinity

There is another dysfunctional angle of Toxicity that we did not consider last month, that of Toxic Masculinity. It is bad! Such that there are media advice to avoid even dating our Caribbean men – see Appendix B VIDEO below. See the full definition in Appendix A below, plus this summary excerpt here:

Toxic masculine traits are characteristic of the unspoken code of behavior among men in prisons, where they exist in part as a response to the harsh conditions of prison life.

Other traditionally masculine traits such as devotion to work, pride in excelling at sports, and providing for one’s family, are not considered to be “toxic”.

“Men in prison” – if only the toxicity ended there. Rather we find that in certain societies, the “man code” has penetrated all aspects of society, not just prisons; think “locker room talk”, “Blue Codes” for conduct among law enforcement officials or bonding among soldiers in foxholes or trench-warfare ; there is even a “code of silence” among gang members or organized crime figures.

Toxic Masculinity is just one more way that Toxic Environments have affected the “community quest” to live, work and play in the Caribbean. Needless to say, community stewards cannot allow Toxic Masculinity to dominate society; think bullying, domestic violence, sexual harassment in the workplace. It is unfortunate but true, “bad actors” will always seek to exploit any weakness for their own selfish gain. So we must be prepared to curb the toxicity and promote a positive community ethos instead. Community ethos? That is defined in the Go Lean book (Page 20) as:

the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period: In the Greek ethos the individual was highly valued.
the character or disposition of a community, group, person, etc.

This focus, fostering change in the community ethos, has been a mission for this Go Lean movement from the beginning of this movement. This theme has been elaborated in many previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18337	Unequal Justice: Bullying Magnified to Disrupt Commerce
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17652	A Lesson in History – 25 years after the “OJ Murders”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16408	Bad Ethos on Home Violence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14413	Helping Black Caribbean Men & Boys – Hurt People Hurt People
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5238	#ManifestJustice – Lessons from the Prison Eco-System
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2709	Bahamas Study: 58% Of Boys Agree to Female ‘Discipline’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2201	Students developing nail polish to detect date rape drugs

It is simple, if we want to grow our society, we must work hard to make it a better place to live, work and place for everyone, not just some people. We must accept that there are negatives in our society, Toxicity Masculinity is one of the things that we must Be On-guard against.

The seriousness of this subject was related in a previous Go Lean commentary from April 29, 2014 relating the societal defect of Domestic Violence:

Abused wives find help by going to ‘Dona Carmen’
An underlying mission of the CU [the Go Lean roadmap] is to dissuade further human flight and incentivize repatriation of the far-flung Diaspora. Many who had fled previously obtained refugee status due to the abuse and persecution from domestic perpetrators. These issues must be addressed and targeted for solutions and reconciliations.

In fact, the foregoing embedded article refers to the new enforcements introduced in Brazil in a 2006 law. That’s was just 8 years ago. (A similar Domestic Violence law was enacted in the Bahamas in 2008). A survey of other Latin American countries unveils even more new laws recently enacted in the Caribbean, Central and South America. Change has finally come.

Change has come to the Caribbean, but as the roadmap depicts, the problem of domestic violence (a human rights abuse) had persisted long before, and is thusly rooted in a [bad] community ethos. An ethos that must be uprooted and replaced with a new, progressive spirit, even within the public service entities, whose job it is to “serve & protect”. This is the new lean Caribbean!

The Go Lean book, serving as a roadmap for the introduction of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), asserts that Caribbean stakeholders must do the heavy-lifting to mitigate and remediate societal defects. There must be a technocratic security apparatus that works hand-in-hand with any economic optimization efforts and governing empowerments. We must have a good societal foundation; respect and protection of people and their rights for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This was the purpose of last month’s Teaching Series, to focus on that foundation. There is a glaring need for reform, as we have a long track record of bad behavior like hate, bigotry, xenophobia and bullying in our Caribbean communities.

Have you ever notice the habit of men wearing their pants in a sagging manner, where their underwear is openly exposed? This is Toxic Masculinity run amok. This habit originated in prisons – see the relevant VIDEO in Appendix C below – while this has become common in the Black American community, it is not limited there, and it is more than just an American drama now.

Florida Town Drops Ordinance Against Sagging Pants, Saying It Targets Black Men
A controversial 13-year-old ban on sagging pants in a Florida town has been repealed because it disproportionately targeted African American men, city officials say. The Opa-locka, Fla., ordinance, originally passed in 2007, was voted down 4-1 by the City Commission, according to the Miami Herald. The legislation had stated men could not wear pants that exposed their underwear in city parks and buildings, with a citation as punishment for violation. A similar law was passed for women in 2013, but now both are expected to be overturned after a subsequent commission meeting.

The Caribbean is not the first nor the last Toxic Environment; there have been many in the past and even now in the present.

It is Toxic to allow prison culture to dominate our normal society. It is also Toxic to allow the “Strong to Abuse the Weak”; this is classic bullying.

How can we remediate and mitigate Toxic Masculinity? For one thing, we must start early. Then we must not settle for the bad orthodoxy of “boys will be boys”. It has been proven again and again that bad instincts can be corrected and weeded out of society. Yes, the solution is: reform and transform.

We must strive to do better in our homeland, otherwise our people will continue to flee in search of refuge. Toxic Masculinity exist in our society, we must work to dislodge it, message against it, coach it out of our young people and foster positive values and ethos in its place.

So we urge all stakeholders in the Caribbean – citizens and institutions – to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap for the elevation of the Caribbean’s societal engines: economy, security and governance. We can do better and be better. 🙂

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

Optimization of the economic engines 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, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 – 13):

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

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

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

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

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

————-

Appendix A – Reference: Toxic Masculinity

The concept of toxic masculinity is used in academic and media discussions of masculinity to refer to certain cultural norms that are associated with harm to society and to men themselves. Traditional stereotypes of men as socially dominant, along with related traits such as misogyny and homophobia, can be considered “toxic” due in part to their promotion of violence, including sexual assault and domestic violence. The socialization of boys in patriarchal societies often normalizes violence, such as in the saying “boys will be boys” with regard to bullying and aggression.

Self-reliance and emotional repression are correlated with increased psychological problems in men such as depression, increased stress, and substance abuse. Toxic masculine traits are characteristic of the unspoken code of behavior among men in prisons, where they exist in part as a response to the harsh conditions of prison life.

Other traditionally masculine traits such as devotion to work, pride in excelling at sports, and providing for one’s family, are not considered to be “toxic”. The concept was originally used by authors associated with the mythopoetic men’s movement such as Shepherd Bliss to contrast stereotypical notions of masculinity with a “real” or “deep” masculinity that they say men have lost touch with in modern society. Critics of the term argue that its meaning incorrectly implies gender-related issues are caused by inherent male traits.^[1]

Etymology and usage
The term toxic masculinity originated in the mythopoetic men’s movement of the 1980s and 1990s.^[2] It later found wide use in both academic and popular writing.^[3] Popular and media discussions in the 2010s have used the term to refer to traditional and stereotypical norms of masculinity and manhood. According to the sociologist Michael Flood, these include “expectations that boys and men must be active, aggressive, tough, daring, and dominant”.^[4]

Mythopoetic movement
Some authors associated with the mythopoetic men’s movement have referred to the social pressures placed upon men to be violent, competitive, independent, and unfeeling as a “toxic” form of masculinity, in contrast to a “real” or “deep” masculinity that they say men have lost touch with in modern society.^[5][6] The academic Shepherd Bliss proposed a return to agrarianism as an alternative to the “potentially toxic masculinity” of the warrior ethic.^[7] Sociologist Michael Kimmel writes that Bliss’s notion of toxic masculinity can be seen as part of the mythopoetic movement’s response to male feelings of powerlessness at a time when the feminist movement was challenging traditional male authority:

Thus Shepherd Bliss, for example, rails against what he calls ‘toxic masculinity’—which he believes is responsible for most of the evil in the world—and proclaims the unheralded goodness of the men who fight the fires and till the soil and nurture their families.^[8]

Academic usage
In the social sciences, toxic masculinity refers to traditional cultural masculine norms that can be harmful to men, women, and society overall; this concept of toxic masculinity is not intended to demonize men or male attributes, but rather to emphasize the harmful effects of conformity to certain traditional masculine ideal behaviors such as dominance, self-reliance, and competition.^[9][10] Toxic masculinity is thus defined by adherence to traditional male gender roles that consequently stigmatize and limit the emotions boys and men may comfortably express while elevating other emotions such as anger.^[11] It is marked by economic, political, and social expectations that men seek and achieve dominance (the “alpha male“).

In a gender studies context, Raewyn Connell refers to toxic practices that may arise out of what she terms hegemonic masculinity, rather than essential traits.^[3] Connell argues that such practices, such as physical violence, may serve to reinforce men’s dominance over women in Western societies. She stresses that such practices are a salient feature of hegemonic masculinity, although not always the defining features.^[3][12]

Terry Kupers describes toxic masculinity as involving “the need to aggressively compete and dominate others”^[13] and as “the constellation of socially regressive male traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia and wanton violence”.^[14][15] According to Kupers, toxic masculinity includes aspects of “hegemonic masculinity” that are socially destructive, “such as misogyny, homophobia, greed, and violent domination”. He contrasts these traits with more positive traits such as “pride in [one’s] ability to win at sports, to maintain solidarity with a friend, to succeed at work, or to provide for [one’s] family”.^[14] Feminist author John Stoltenberg has argued that all traditional notions of masculinity are toxic and reinforce the oppression of women.^[16][17]

Gender norms
According to social learning theory, teaching boys to suppress vulnerable emotions, as in the saying “big boys don’t cry”, is a significant part of gender socialization in Western society.^[18][19]

According to Kupers, toxic masculine norms are a feature of life for men in American prisons, where they are reflected in the behavior of both staff and inmates. The qualities of extreme self-reliance, domination of other men through violence, and avoiding the appearance of either femininity or weakness, comprise an unspoken code among prisoners.^[20][21] Suppressing vulnerable emotions is often adopted in order to successfully cope with the harsh conditions of prison life, defined by punishment, social isolation, and aggression. These factors likely play a role in suicide among male prisoners.^[20][22]

Toxic masculinity can also take the form of bullying of boys by their peers and domestic violence directed toward boys at home.^[23] The often violent socialization of boys produces psychological trauma through the promotion of aggression and lack of interpersonal connection. Such trauma is often disregarded, such as in the saying “boys will be boys” with regard to bullying.^[24] The promotion of idealized masculine roles emphasizing toughness, dominance, self-reliance, and the restriction of emotion can begin as early as infancy. Such norms are transmitted by parents, other male relatives, and members of the community.^[18][25] Media representations of masculinity on websites such as YouTube often promote similar stereotypical gender roles.^[25]

Some traditionally prescribed masculine behaviors can produce such harmful effects as violence (including sexual assault and domestic violence), promiscuity, risky and/or socially irresponsible behaviors including substance abuse, and dysfunction in relationships.^[18][26]

Health effects
The American Psychological Association has warned that “traditional masculinity ideology” is associated with negative effects on mental and physical health.^[27][28] Men who adhere to traditionally masculine cultural norms, such as risk-taking, violence, dominance, primacy of work, need for emotional control, desire to win, and pursuit of social status, tend to be more likely to experience psychological problems such as depression, stress, body image problems, substance abuse and poor social functioning.^[29] The effect tends to be stronger in men who also emphasize “toxic” masculine norms, such as self-reliance, seeking power over women, and sexual promiscuity or “playboy”^{[clarification needed]} behavior.^[10][30]

The social value of self-reliance has diminished over time as modern American society has moved more toward interdependence.^[25] Both self-reliance and the stifling of emotional expression can work against mental health, as they make it less likely for men to seek psychological help or to possess the ability to deal with difficult emotions.^[25] Preliminary research suggests that cultural pressure for men to be stoic and self-reliant may also shorten men’s lifespans by causing them to be less likely to discuss health problems with their physicians.^[31][32]

Toxic masculinity is also implicated in socially-created public health problems, such as elevated rates of alcoholism and certain types of cancer among men, ^[33] or the role of “trophy-hunting” sexual behavior in rates of transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.^{[34][non-primary source needed]}

Psychiatrist Frank Pittman wrote about the ways in which men are harmed by traditional masculine norms, suggesting this includes shorter lifespans, greater incidence of violent death, and ailments such as lung cancer and cirrhosis of the liver.^[17]

Source: Retrieved October 2, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_masculinity

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Appendix B VIDEO – 5 Reasons Why You shouldn’t Date a Caribbean Man – https://youtu.be/cWrorwRSGh4

OJ Merge
Posted Sep 12, 2020 – Hey guys – hope you are well, we’ve missed you! In this video, we will be talking the common reasons why “not to date a Caribbean” man. Check out this latest upload, and if you like this video make sure you hit that like button. Talk to us in the comments sections and if you’re new hit that SUBSCRIBE button and turn on your notifications to be notified each time we upload new content!

#datingJamaican #jamaicanmen #caribbeanmen

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Appendix C VIDEO – More than 90 percent of sagging pants arrests are African American men – https://youtu.be/oKYkUahHwtI

Posted Jun 3, 2019 – Local newscast from Shreveport, Louisiana about a biased municipal ordinance banning ‘Sagging Pants”.

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Civil Rights, Gender, Jamaica, Power, Transform

Toxic Environment – Lessons from Yugoslavia

Posted on September 26, 2020 in Ethos, Planning, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Welcome to Yugoslavia … one of the most classic Toxic Environments in the history of civilization.

Wait, what?!

That country does not exist anymore. (See the encyclopedic reference in the Appendix A below). The land is still there; the people are still there … mostly, but the culture and national identity is gone.

The only things that remain are lessons … for other communities – like us in the Caribbean – to learn the consequences of an unchecked, un-remediated Toxic Environment. We need to look, listen and learn the lessons. But first consider the historic references in the VIDEO here:

VIDEO – The Breakup of Yugoslavia – https://youtu.be/oiSgAiM0d8A

WonderWhy

Posted April 30, 2016 – Why did Yugoslavia split up? In this video, I attempt to look at the complex situation of the former Yugoslav republics and what led to their breakup.
Free audiobook and a 30-day free trial at: http://www.audible.com/wonderwhy
Thanks to Audible for sponsoring this video!

MUSIC Satiate Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b…

All images/footage used in this video are either public domain, CC or free use.

Fair use as this is a transformative work for educational proposes.

No doubt, the Balkan region was Toxic in the distant past and the recent past. This is the same region that ignited World War I, back in 1914. We had addressed this history before, in a previous Go Lean commentary; see highlights in Appendix B below.

What are the lessons that we glean from this history, then and now?

The one country of Yugoslavia was an integrated and consolidated federation that combined these 6 neighboring member-states in a Single Market:
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia
The 6 member-states were not homogenous; there were many differences in their populations, i.e Official languages: Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian and Slovene.
Religiosity do not contribute to peace; in fact, religious intolerance can lead to Civil War. Yugoslavia featured 3 major faiths: Western Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox and Islam.
Historical disputes and grievances do not just dissipate – they must be reconciled – or future generation will still contest the issue.
Minorities will always be persecuted by majorities in Toxic Environments.

The lessons from World War I cannot be ignored.

The lessons from the recent Yugoslavia conflicts cannot be ignored.

This discussion on Yugoslavia underpins a consideration of the Toxic Environment that we suffer here in the Caribbean. The 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean, serving as a roadmap for the introduction of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), asserts that Caribbean economic, security (Public Safety) and governing stakeholders must all work together to abate our Toxic Environment.

This commentary is a continuation on the Teaching Series related to Toxic Environments where we addressed the pseudo-phobias – irrational fear or hatred – and how these bring on the “fight or flight” psycho-drama in everyone’s response. In Yugoslavia, “fight” was frequently the selected option. Every month, the movement behind the Go Lean book presents a Teaching Series to address issues germane to Caribbean life and culture. For this month of September 2020, this is entry 3-of-6, we are looking at the history of persecuted minorities in this Eastern Europe country-culture – that is now extinct.

Consider here, the full catalog of the series this month:

Toxic Environment: Ready for Football – Washington “Redskins”
Toxic Environment: Homophobia – The problem is the Hate, not the Fear
Toxic Environment: Opposite of Diversity & Inclusion
Toxic Environment: Lessons from Yugoslavia
Toxic Environment: Ease of Doing Business
Toxic Environment: Make the Caribbean Great (Anew)

After 100 years, according to the foregoing VIDEO, the member-states that constituted Yugoslavia have now reconciled their Toxic Environments from the past – they gave up on integration. They gave up on diversity and just decided to continue as independent homogeneous nations – no leverage, no economies-of-scale, no “whole is more than the sum of its parts”. Sad!

The Go Lean roadmap urges the Caribbean region to confederate, asserting that we double-down on Diversity & Inclusion among the 30 different member-states. We need the inherent benefits; we need the leverage; we need the economies-of-scale; we need the “whole to be more than the sum of its parts”. Consider this list of previous blog-commentaries on the subject of confederation, when it worked and when it did not:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20072	Rise from the Ashes – Political Revolutions: Calling ‘Balls & Strikes’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19570	European Role Model: Not when ‘Push’ comes to ‘Shove’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19494	BHAG – One Voice: Foreign Policy and Diplomatic Stance
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19452	BHAG – Regional Currency – ‘In God We Trust’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3090	Introduction to Europe – All Grown Up
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=816	The Future of CariCom – A Technocratic Confederacy

Yugoslavia was a unified country across a large geographic area. They were among the most successful communities; they even hosted the Olympics – Sarajevo 1984. They could have been in the G20 and be one of the “best addresses on the planet”, if only they had learned “how to get along” with each other, despite ethnic differences.

We must do better …

We must consider Yugoslavia as a cautionary tale for us in the Caribbean. We want Diversity & Inclusion; we want every distinct group in our society to have a “seat at the table, with no one being on the menu”.

Different races, no problem.
Different languages, no problem.
Different religions, no problem.
Different colonial heritage, no problem.

Yes, we can …

Let’s work to remediate and mitigate our Toxic Environment. Let’s make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 – 13):

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

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

xiv. 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.

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

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

————–

Appendix A – Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia (literally. ‘South Slavic Land’) was a country in Southeast Europe and Central Europe for most of the 20th century. It came into existence after World War I in 1918^[B] under the name of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by the merger of the provisional State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (it was formed from territories of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire) with the Kingdom of Serbia, and constituted the first union of the South Slavic people as a sovereign state, following centuries in which the region had been part of the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary. Peter I of Serbia was its first sovereign. The kingdom gained international recognition on 13 July 1922 at the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris.^[2] The official name of the state was changed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 3 October 1929.

Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis powers on 6 April 1941. In 1943, a Democratic Federal Yugoslavia was proclaimed by the Partisan resistance. In 1944 King Peter II, then living in exile, recognised it as the legitimate government. The monarchy was subsequently abolished in November 1945. Yugoslavia was renamed the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia in 1946, when a communist government was established. It acquired the territories of Istria, Rijeka, and Zadar from Italy. Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito ruled the country as president until his death in 1980. In 1963, the country was renamed again, as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY).

The six constituent republics that made up the SFRY were the SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SR Croatia, SR Macedonia, SR Montenegro, SR Serbia, and SR Slovenia. Serbia contained two Socialist Autonomous Provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo, which after 1974 were largely equal to the other members of the federation.^[3][4] After an economic and political crisis in the 1980s and the rise of nationalism, Yugoslavia broke up along its republics’ borders, at first into five countries, leading to the Yugoslav Wars. From 1993 to 2017, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia tried political and military leaders from the former Yugoslavia for war crimes, genocide, and other crimes committed during those wars.

After the breakup, the republics of Montenegro and Serbia formed a reduced federative state, Serbia and Montenegro, known officially until 2003 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). This state aspired to the status of sole legal successor to the SFRY, but those claims were opposed by the other former republics. Eventually, it accepted the opinion of the Badinter Arbitration Committee about shared succession^[5] and in 2003 its official name was changed to Serbia and Montenegro. This state dissolved when Montenegro and Serbia each became independent states in 2006, while Kosovo proclaimed its independence from Serbia in 2008.
…

Source: Retrieved September 24, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslavia

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Appendix B – Previous Blog from June 28, 2014

A Lesson in History – 100 Years Ago Today – World War I
On this date 100 years ago, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were shot dead in Sarajevo by Serbian assassins. The political objective of the assassination was to break off Austria-Hungary’s south-Slavic provinces so they could be combined into a Yugoslavia. The assassination led directly to the First World War when Austria-Hungary subsequently issued an ultimatum against Serbia, which was partially rejected. Austria-Hungary then declared war, marking the outbreak of the war.^[a]

Multilateral military alliances abounded in that day among the Great Powers: Austria-Hungary with Germany (Triple Alliance of 1882) and Serbia with Russia and France (Triple Entente of 1907) and Britain. When war ensued later in August 1914, these were the sides. Many other military treaties were triggered thereby engaging empires/countries like Ottoman-Turks, Portugal, Japan and Italy, (The United States joined in 1917 allied with Britain). The resulting conflict was dubbed the Great War until subsequently rebranded World War I.
…
The people of the Caribbean understand societal decline and dysfunction all too well.

What have we learned in the 100 years since the events of June 28, 1914? How will these lessons help us today?

Minority Equalization – Bullying and terrorism must be mitigated at the earliest possible opportunity – the foregoing photo depicts the oppression the minority Balkan communities perceived in the Austria-Hungarian Empire. As a minority group they felt bullied in their own country; their Slavic culture and language set them apart, and their religious adherence led to even more dissension (Austria-Hungary: Catholic/Lutheran; Serbia: Eastern Orthodox and Bosnia- Herzegovina: Muslim) There were terrorist activities for decades before in the quest for independence. In the past 100 years, this same modus operandi has been repeated in countless locales around the world. The CU security pact must defend against regional threats, including domestic terrorism. This includes gangs and their junior counterparts, bullies. The CU plans for community messaging in the campaign to mitigate bullying.

Reconciliation of issues are not optional, more conflict will emerge otherwise – The issues that wedged the people of the Balkans were not resolved in World War I. More dissensions continued leading to World War II, and continued during the Cold War while most of the Balkans were under Soviets control. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, civil war and ethnic cleansings proceeded in the Balkans. Their issues/differences had not been reconciled. A common practice after WW I & WW II was the prosecution of war crimes. But in South Africa an alternative justice approach was adopted, that of Truth & Reconciliation Commissions (TRC). These have become more successful as the emphasis is less on revenge and more on justice normalization. Many other countries have instituted similar TRC models. The CU plans for the TRC model for dealing with a lot of latent issues in the last Caribbean century (i.e. Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, etc).
Self-determination of local currencies – in planning for postwar reconstruction, U.S. representatives with their British counterparts studied what had been lacking between the two world wars: a system of international payments that would allow trade to be conducted without fear of sudden currency depreciation or wild fluctuations in exchange rates—ailments that had nearly paralyzed world capitalism during the Great Depression. There is a multiplier associated with the currency in the money supply. Therefore the communities of the Caribbean must embrace its own currency, the Caribbean Dollar (managed by a technocratic Caribbean Central Bank), thereby bringing local benefits from local multipliers.
Security assurances must be enabled to complement economics objectives – A lot of dissension has resulted when economic engines become imperiled due to security conflicts. The instability then causes more economic dysfunction, which results in even more security threats – a downward spiral. The CU/Go Lean posits that security apparatus must be aligned with all economic empowerments. This is weaved throughout the roadmap.
Negotiate as partners not competitors – The end of World War I immediately set-up ripe conditions for WW II, because of the harsh terms in the Peace Treaties. The CU maintains that, negotiation is an art and a science. More can be accomplished by treating a negotiating counterpart as a partner, rather than not an adversary. (See VIDEO below).
Cooperatives and sharing schemes lighten burdens among neighbors – The Balkan conflict of 1914 resulted in a World War because of cooperative treaties with aligning nations. Despite this bad outcome, the practice of cooperatives and sharing still has more upside than downside. The CU will employ cooperatives and sharing schemes for limited scopes within the prime directives of optimizing the economic, security and governing engines.
Promote opportunities for the Pursuit of Happiness – A lot of terrorist activities are executed by “suicide” agents (i.e. suicide bombers). The Go Lean roadmap posits the when the following three fundamentals are in place, the risks of suicide is minimal: 1. something to do, 2. someone to love, 3. something to hope for. These are the things a man (or woman) needs to be happy.
Consider the Greater Good – Complying with this principle would have prevented a lot of conflict in the past century. The philosophy is directly quoted as: “It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong”. The CU/Go Lean roadmap calls for a number of measures that strike directly at the Greater Good mandate: accountable justice institutions, economic empowerment for rich and poor, strategic education initiatives, proactive health/wellness, etc.institutions, economic empowerment for rich and poor, strategic education initiatives, proactive health/wellness, etc.

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Toxic Environment – Opposite of ‘Diversity & Inclusion’

Posted on September 24, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Picture this:

You spend $2,000 per night for accommodations for your Caribbean vacation.
You go to bed, only to be awaken by a fuzzing noise outside. You pull back the curtains and there it is:

A burning cross erected outside your window!

How long before you want to leave?
Will you ever return?
Will you tell your friends to come visit or stay away?
Why this persecution?

The guest in this scenario is a known Gay Man (LGBT), or …

The guest in this scenario is a foreigner from Wuhan, China, or …

The guest in this scenario is a Muslim from Dubai, in the Middle East.

This describes the Toxic Environment that we suffer here in the Caribbean. The 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean, serving as a roadmap for the introduction of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), asserts that Caribbean economic, security (Public Safety) and governing stakeholders must work to mitigate and remediate our societal defects.

Despite the mono-industrial landscape of tourism, where we need to be inviting and hospitable to all visitors, many times we have chosen the opposite instead, to be: intolerant and judgmental. We give in, on a daily basis to:

Homophobia – Negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT).
Xenophobia – Fear or dislike of strangers or the unknown, sometimes used to describe nationalistic political beliefs and movements.
- Sinophobia or Anti-Chinese sentiment involves sentiments such as hatred or fear against China, its people, its diaspora, or culture.^[5] It often targets Chinese minorities living outside of China and involves immigration, development of national identity in neighbouring countries, disparity of wealth, the past central tributary system, majority-minority relations, discrimination and racism.^[6][7][8] Its opposite is Sinophilia.
- Islamophobia – Fear of anything Islamic

This is not theory or conjecture; these intolerance, condemnations and judgments have happened and are happening … repeatedly.

Opponents of a gay rights bill gather in Guyana in 2003. (AP)

People march during a protest against gay rights in
Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, July 26, 2020.
The group marched demanding that President Jovenel Moise
rescind his most recent decree that rewrites the 185-year-old penal code,
addressing discrimination based on sexual orientation. Dieu Nalio Chery AP

Jamaican Anti-Gay Rally to Oppose Same-Sex Marriage, Even Though No One Has Proposed It

A previous Go Lean commentary from April 8, 2017 identified this example of our severe Caribbean Toxicity. Consider this summary:

‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’ – Leaders Undermine Tourism
… there is no war in the Caribbean, but we do have battles. We have trade wars and economic struggles to try and maintain our way of life and to improve it. For so many of our countries, tourism is the primary economic driver – our regional ship – we have to be on guard and aware of any kind of disparaging talk that can undermine the appeal of our destinations.

The United States is suffering the dire consequence of “loose lips sinking ships” right now. The new President – Donald Trump – has made disparaging remarks about certain foreign groups, and then introduced policies that reinforce his disdain for these foreigners.

As a result, more and more foreigners are refusing to come to the US for leisure travel. …

Nobody wants to spend their money in a place where they are not welcomed.

This lesson must be learned in the Caribbean. We have the same threats afoot. Unlike the US, who has the leverage and surety of “richest Single Market economy in the world” to absorb the fall, the Caribbean member-states are mostly Third World and failing.

… Yet, some leaders – Christian pastors in this case – have proclaimed, in a signed petition to this new American President, a heightened level of disdain for certain American tourists. They are protesting the US Human Rights agenda to seek relief for Caribbean populations with affinity for persons ascribing to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans-Gender (LGBT) lifestyles.

Rather than love and leisure … in the Caribbean, these community leaders are projecting “a climate of hate”.

A Toxic Environment bears bad fruit. It is not just homophobia that we are inflicted with, as we have hate and intolerance embedded within our Community Ethos – this refers to (as defined in the Go Lean book Page 20):

the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period: In the Greek ethos the individual was highly valued.
the character or disposition of a community, group, person, etc.

Look at these additional phobias that have plagued our society, here in the Caribbean. These are the opposite of the pluralistic society that we feature/want. See these examples of anti-Diversity & Inclusion reality:

Sinophobia
The problem with having an intolerant society is that our citizens are less inclined to embrace people that are different, even when you need them. This is the situation with China right now. As there is an exhaustion from North American and European investors in Caribbean communities, China has stepped-up and stepped-in with funds and development support.

We, in the Caribbean, badly need all the help.

Yet, our people are so reticent towards Chinese foreigners, despite that we “hung a Welcome Sign” for visitors from around the world. We must face it, we – a majority Black-and-Brown population in most of 30 member-states – are part of the problem, as it appears that we only want to embrace “White Christian” foreigners.

Fears of new virus trigger anti-China sentiment worldwide – February 2, 2020
As fears of a new coronavirus from China spread around the world, many countries are seeing rising anti-Chinese sentiment, calls for a full travel ban on Chinese and even public aversion to those from the epicenter of the outbreak.

The subject of the Sinophone eco-system – China, Chinese people and culture – has been an important subject for Caribbean considerations. We have published previous commentaries that advocated for a healthy relationship with the Sino World; consider the list of previous blog-commentaries here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18963	Happy Chinese New Year – Embracing the Sinophone World
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18301	After Dorian, Rebuilding Partners: China Versus America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16530	European Reckoning – China seeks to de-Americanize World’s economy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9550	10 Things We Want from China and 10 Things We Do Not Want
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6231	China’s Caribbean Playbook: America’s Script

Islamophobia
The actuality of Intolerance is the opposite of the qualities a pluralistic society like the Caribbean needs to develop. We have a new found economic engine that we can now exploit: Global Tourism. Imagine the profits that can be garnered for just being Better Versions of ourselves, “to just live and let live”. While this is just Common Sense, we find that Common Sense is not so common. In fact, just the opposite have occurred; in some societies Islamophobia has been enshrined in Public Policy. See the example from Australia here:

Islamophobia is practically enshrined as public policy in Australia
… any 28-year-old in Australia has grown up in a period when racism, xenophobia and a hostility to Muslims in particular, were quickly ratcheting up in the country’s public culture.

In the period of the country’s enthusiastic participation in the War on Terror, Islam and Muslims have frequently been treated as public enemies, and hate speech against them has inexorably been normalised.

We must do better in the Caribbean. In fact, Muslims are an integral part of our regional society; they have every right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If we honor that, not only can we have peace, but profit too. Imagine catering to the global Muslim community to enjoy our hospitality. (We had asserted the same about the Hindu community). See the Appendix VIDEO below for a glimpse of a previous celebration.

That requires a welcoming attitude of Diversity & Inclusion. Some communities see the need for this work – see here:

Trinidad – Confronting issues in Islam
… Non-Muslims should always be encouraged to exercise tolerance and understanding. But the standard defence of denying the ‘perpetrators as true Muslims’ or stating that ‘this is not Islam’ is no longer convincing. This may be part of the reason for the absence of worldwide outpouring over the massacres in Istanbul, Baghdad and Saudi Arabia as opposed to the response that Paris, Brussels and Orlando received. The backlash has gone beyond hate crimes and prejudice and is now one of apathy and indifference ie, ‘If they want to kill each other, let them go right ahead, as long as they leave the rest of us alone.’ The unfortunate truth is that Muslims, regardless of how friendly or moderate they may appear, are still looked upon with suspicion.

This is what is meant by “Good Community Ethos”, the positive group qualities, that this Go Lean movement encourages our people to foster.

Diversity & Inclusion is not automatic; in fact, it is the opposite; it takes hard work. But if we do the work, we can have benefits; we can remediate and mitigate a Toxic Environment. Diversity & Inclusion can and do work. Look at this opportunity:

How an ancient Islamic holiday became uniquely Caribbean on Trinidad shores
In Trinidad, the 100,000 Muslims who make up 5 percent of the island’s total population, celebrate the day of Ashura, as Hosay – the name derived from “Hussein.”

The first Hosay festival was held in 1854, just over a decade after the first Indian Muslims began to arrive from India to work on the island’s sugar plantations.

But Trinidad at the time was under British colonial rule and large public gatherings were not permitted. In 1884, the British authorities issued a prohibition against Hosay commemorations. Approximately 30,000 people took to the streets, in Mon Repos, in the south, to protest against the ordinance. Shots fired to disperse the crowd killed 22 and injured over 100. The ordinance was later overturned.

The “Hosay Massacre” or “Muharram Massacre,” however, lives in people’s memories.

As we see, Orthodoxy – from religious and cultural heritage – can hurt community harmony; it can discourage people from the libertarian view to “live and let live”. The Muslim World so often was on the receiving side of religious intolerance. But don’t get it twisted, Islam and the Muslim World is not a model for Diversity & Inclusion themselves; we have lots of examples of their intolerance (i.e. Middle East country of Jordan and their LGBT Intolerance).

This commentary is a continuation on the Teaching Series related to Toxic Environments where we addressed the pseudo-phobias – irrational fear or hatred – that have made life unbearable in the homeland. But now we see how this kind of intolerance imperils the economic engines as well. Yes, we’ve “shot ourselves in the foot” … again!

… we get homophobia, xenophobia and islamophobia; which are not real “phobias” (fear) but instead are representative of dislike, disapproval, prejudice, hatred, discrimination and/or hostility.

This means that we are not exactly the “greatest address on the planet”. Nope, our homelands are among the identified Toxic Environments on the planet. This is entry 3-of-6 in this series; this one presents the thesis that “our toxicity have long reaching consequences on the community quest to “live, work and play” here in the region. Our Toxic Environment makes it hard to retain our guests and tourists with encouragements for future and frequent visits. Instead, our Caribbean (tourism) industrial stakeholders must do the heavier lifting to always attract newer-and-newer visitors, rather than the easier job of repeat customers.

Consider here, the full catalog of the series this month:

Toxic Environment: Ready for Football – Washington “Redskins”
Toxic Environment: Homophobia – The problem is the Hate, not the Fear
Toxic Environment: Opposite of Diversity & Inclusion
Toxic Environment: Lessons from Yugoslavia
Toxic Environment: Ease of Doing Business
Toxic Environment: Make the Caribbean Great (Anew)

How can we abate the Toxic Environment described here-in:

Answer: Promote Diversity and Inclusion.

A previous Go Lean commentary from December 19, 2019 identified the benefits of an inclusive foundation – the opposite of a Toxic Environment – by studying the international conglomerate Mercedes-Benz or DaimlerBenz. Consider this summary:

Learning from Another ‘Great Place to Work’: Mercedes-Benz
A lot of companies formed 133 years ago are no longer around.

Time takes its toll

Business models change

Technology improves

Values are reformed

For the companies that have survived the “Win or Go Home” tournaments, it is important to study them and learn lessons of their successes … and failures. …

This “Old Dog” has learned a lot of “New Tricks”.

They are considered one of the Great Places to Work, by the formal Great Place to Work® Institute; they are in the Top Ten on the 2018 List. …

One such Value Reformation that Mercedes-Benz has completed that other companies, institutions and regions – this mean YOU Caribbean stakeholders – can learn from is the emphasis on Diversity and Inclusion. …

How we shape Diversity & Inclusion
Daimler employs more than 298,000 people from around 160 nations. And that is just one aspect of our company’s diversity. We shape Diversity & Inclusion with appropriate offers and measures for our employees in five dimensions:

We work in international teams.

We bring people from different generations together.

We promote equal opportunity for all genders.

We defend the rights of the LGBTI+ Community.

We include people with disabilities on an equal footing.

Source: Posted December 9, 2019; retrieved December 19, 2019 from https://www.daimler.com/sustainability/basics/employees/how-we-shape-diversity-inclusion.html

The subject of Diversity & Inclusion has been an important subject for Caribbean considerations. We have thusly published a few commentaries that advocated for more Diversity & Inclusion. Consider this list of previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19217	Brain Drain – ‘Live and Let Live’: Introducing Localism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19203	Brain Drain – Brain Gain: Yes we can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17820	Caribbean ‘Pride’ – “Can we all just get along”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16532	European Reckoning – Settlers -vs- Immigrants
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15998	Good Governance: The Kind of Society We Want – Minority Protections
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14316	Soft Power – Clean-up the Toxic Environments for Economic Benefits
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13321	Making a ‘Pluralistic Democracy’ – Multilingual Realities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8186	Respect for Minorities: ‘All For One’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3999	Sir Sidney Poitier – ‘Breaking New Ground’ as a Diversity Role Model

Majority versus minority; strong versus the weak; rich versus poor; Haves versus Have Nots…

… everywhere we turn, there are diverse people that needs to be included in the manifestation of society. This inclusion means a “seat at the table, not just being on the menu”. It is simpler than it sounds; all we have to do is “Live and Let Live”.

This has not always been the case in the past. In fact, we have some Bad Orthodoxy – many times the Caribbean religiosity has hurt rather than helped – that we must distance ourselves from. A lot of our friends, have not always been so friendly; a lot of our enemies have not been so adversarial. We need to reform from the past as we work for the new, brighter, better future.

Yes, we can …

Let’s accept the truth: we have been toxic! Let’s do the work that must be done to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

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

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

xiv. 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.

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

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

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

——————–

Appendix VIDEO – Hosay in Cedros, Trinidad (2007) – https://youtu.be/VtbaGduFVHE

Dion Samsoondar
Posted October 8, 2011 – A look at the final day of Muharram, or “Hosay” , a Shiite muslim ritual as observance in the tiny southern seaside village of Cedros, Trinidad in the Caribbean. Natural sound of tassa drums fill the air as villagers parade the tadjahs on the main street of this fishing community before the mini replica tomb are lead to the ocean for final rites. Video shot in 2007 with JVC GY-HD100U ,and edited in CS3 by Dion Samsoondar (2007).

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Toxic Environment – Homophobia: Hate not Fear – Encore

Posted on September 23, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Social

What is a phobia?

Well, a summary of the definition is a “persistent and excessive fear”. The encyclopedic definition is as follows:

A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder defined by a persistent and excessive fear of an object or situation.^[1] Phobias typically result in a rapid onset of fear and are present for more than six months.^[1] Those affected will go to great lengths to avoid the situation or object, to a degree greater than the actual danger posed.^[1] If the object or situation cannot be avoided, they experience significant distress.^[1] Other symptoms can include fainting, which may occur in blood or injury phobia,^[1] and panic attacks, which are often found in agoraphobia.^[6] Around 75% of those with phobias have multiple phobias.^[1] – Source: Wikipedia

There are other fears that are mistakenly called phobias that are really something else. (This is the focus on this commentary). See the continuation of the above definition:

Several terms with the suffix -phobia are used non-clinically (usually for political or deterrent purpose) to imply irrational fear or hatred. Examples include:

Chemophobia – Negative attitudes and mistrust towards chemistry and synthetic chemicals.

Homophobia – Negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT).

Xenophobia – Fear or dislike of strangers or the unknown, sometimes used to describe nationalistic political beliefs and movements.

Islamophobia – Fear of anything Islamic

Usually these kinds of “phobias” are described as fear, dislike, disapproval, prejudice, hatred, discrimination or hostility towards the object of the “phobia”.^[53]

Don’t get it twisted, these are not fears; these constitute hatred. Prejudice, hatred and discrimination exercised in a persistent and excessive manner is truly toxic. Imagine being on the receiving end of such treatment, such irrational fear or hatred.

How much can you tolerate? How much should you tolerate? This is like having a burning cross on your front lawn. How long before you want to leave?

This is a continuation on the Teaching Series from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean, related to Toxic Environments. The pseudo-phobias – irrational fear or hatred – all contribute to unbearable circumstances at home; thusly they contribute to the Exodus of so many Caribbean people; this exacerbates the Brain Drain and societal abandonment in the region. We’ve got it bad!

Every month, the movement behind the Go Lean book presents a Teaching Series to address issues germane to Caribbean life and culture. For this month of September 2020, we are looking at the actuality of persecuted minorities in this homeland. Unfortunately, Toxic Environments have long reaching consequences on the community quest to live, work and play. This is entry 2-of-6; it presents the thesis that the “strong in society should not be allowed to abuse the weak” just to allay some pseudo-fears. This is an important consideration, as it depicts the heavy-lifting that the Caribbean stakeholders must do.

Consider here, the full catalog of the series this month:

Toxic Environment: Ready for Football – Washington “Redskins”
Toxic Environment: Homophobia – The problem is the Hate, not the Fear
Toxic Environment: Opposite of Diversity & Inclusion
Toxic Environment: Lessons from Yugoslavia
Toxic Environment: Ease of Doing Business
Toxic Environment: Make the Caribbean Great (Anew)

The Go Lean book, serving as a roadmap for the introduction of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), asserts that Caribbean stakeholders must do the heavy-lifting to mitigate and remediate societal defects. While the purpose of the roadmap is to optimize the economic, security and governing engines of society, the roadmap recognizes that we must retain people in the homeland. No people = no society = no culture. Therefore, we must have a good societal foundation; respect and protection of all people and their rights for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The purpose of this month’s Teaching Series is to focus on that foundation. There is a glaring need for reform, as we have a long track record of bad behavior like hate, bigotry, xenophobia and intolerance in our Caribbean communities.

As related in the previous submission in this month’s series, the Caribbean has fostered a Toxic Environment in our culture; it has been so bad that these identified bad behaviors have flourished. This is not good, as a Toxic Environment pits villains against victims and in the long run, the victims – and all those that love them – will seek refuge elsewhere. This is true with all Toxic Environments – think Asylum-seekers. Asylum-seeking is the manifesting of the Push dynamics for Caribbean abandonment:

“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 liberal life abroad; many times our people are emigrating for societies that have better expressions of the rights for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.

The Caribbean is not the first nor the last Toxic Environment; there have been many in the past and even now in the present. Think Nazi Germany, who persecuted (i.e. Concentration Camps) many minority groups (Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, etc.). Today, we have more bad role models of hate, bigotry, xenophobia and intolerance – like in the Muslim Word, (think ISIS), where persecuted minorities are frequently targeted. (There have been instances of public killing of convicted homosexuals).

We must look, listen and learn from these past and present Toxic Environments, then work towards making our society better – more tolerant. We cannot afford to keep losing our people; that will degrade our culture further. Using an analogy from medical trauma, our society is bleeding populations – we must stop the bleeding – otherwise the patient – our unique culture – will die.

How bad is our society? While not ISIS, we are recognized as one of the worst in our attitudes and toleration of homosexual practices.

Say it ain’t so …

This was our initial reaction in researching and writing about the Buggery Laws in the Anglo-Caribbean. Those laws seemed so barbaric for our modern times. And yet, they persists. A previous Go Lean commentary from July 2, 2015 identified this example of our severe Caribbean Toxicity. Consider this summary:

While this commentary directly targets Jamaica, the majority of the countries and overseas territories of the former British Empire, still criminalize sexual acts between consenting adults of the same sex and other forms of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. This has been described as being the result of “the major historical influence” or legacy of the British Empire. In most cases, it was former colonial administrators that established anti-gay legislation or sodomy acts during the 19^th century. … The majority of countries then retained these laws following independence.

Since that 2015 date, we have published a few additional commentaries that advocated for more tolerance for citizens – and visitors – with alternative life styles. Consider this list of previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20292	Conscientizing on VIDEO: Advocating for Empathy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19217	Brain Drain – ‘Live and Let Live’: Introducing Localism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17820	Caribbean ‘Pride’ – “Can we all just get along”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14830	Counter-culture: Embracing the Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11224	‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’ – Leaders Undermine Tourism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10216	Waging a Successful War on Orthodoxy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8200	Respect for Minorities: Climate of Hate
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8186	Respect for Minorities: ‘All For One’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=341	Homosexual Intolerance listed among blatant human rights abuses

It is simple, if we want to grow our society, we must work hard to make it a better place to live, work and place for everyone, not just some people. Remember the old nursery rhyme: “rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief; doctor, lawyer, Indian Chief”.

It is Toxic to allow the “Strong to Abuse the Weak” – including LGBT – in our society.

Now is a good time to address those bad Buggery Laws that still prevail in the Anglo-Caribbean. It is apropos to Encore the full blog-commentary from July 2015; see that here now:

——————-

Go Lean Commentary – Buggery in Jamaica – ‘Say It Ain’t So’!

This commentary has asserted that the Caribbean region can be a better society than the United States of America. Yes, we can!

But to even start the discussion, we must first:

Live and let live!

The topic of intolerance has been acute in the news as of late. We have the extreme example of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) beheading non-Muslims because… well, just because. And the example of the US legalizing Gay Marriage may be considered too tolerant for some people’s good taste.

Where does the Caribbean fit in this discussion?

If ISIS is one end of a scale and Gay Marriage in America is another end, then one Caribbean member-state, Jamaica, would be closer to …

ISIS!

Yes, it is that bad. Say it ain’t so.

See Appendix-VIDEO’s below …

While this commentary directly targets Jamaica, the majority of the countries and overseas territories of the former British Empire, still criminalize sexual acts between consenting adults of the same sex and other forms of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. This has been described as being the result of “the major historical influence” or legacy of the British Empire. In most cases, it was former colonial administrators that established anti-gay legislation or sodomy acts during the 19^th century; see Appendix below. The majority of countries then retained these laws following independence.^[1][2].

There is an effort now to transform society in Jamaica (and other countries) in this regards. There are Gay Pride Activities being planned for this Summer of 2015. See the relevant news article here:

Title: J-FLAG Is Planning Gay Pride Activities, But No Parade For August – Exec
Source: Jamaica Gleaner Daily Newspaper Online Site; posted June 30, 2015; retrieved from: http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20150630/j-flag-planning-gay-pride-activities-no-parade-august-exec

Local gay lobby, J-FLAG, is refuting reports that it will host a road parade in August when the group plans to have a series of gay pride activities.

Social media has been abuzz since yesterday following a report that the group would host a parade, similar to what is done in the United States and other countries.

However, executive director of J-FLAG, Dane Lewis, says the report is wrong, adding that Jamaica is not ready for such an event.

Meanwhile, he says the group is planning a week-long series of activities starting on Emancipation Day, August 1, to mark growing tolerance for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.

Some years ago, an attempt to host a gay parade was thwarted after anti-gay supporters reportedly planned attacks against marchers.

Jamaica is accused of being one of the most homophobic places on earth.

Last week, the US government released a report noting that anti-gay laws and the dancehall culture are responsible for perpetuating homophobia in Jamaica.
Additional reference sources: http://jflag.org/

———–

VIDEO: Executive Director of JFLAG, Dane Lewis: “We Are Jamaicans” – https://youtu.be/sJ-17R5DCoI

Published on Jan 17, 2013 – “We Are Jamaicans” is funded with the kind support of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVC) through its Global Fund Vulnerablised Project.

Building a diverse society is not easy. The book Go Lean … Caribbean describes the challenge as heavy-lifting. Though the US had failed at this challenge, it proudly boasts that it got better with every generation. The Caribbean on the other hand, leaves much to be desired in terms of the willingness to change and keep pace with progressive societies. (Now the US, Canada, Ireland and other countries have legalized Gay Marriage).

In a previous blog-commentaries, this defect – Homosexual Intolerance – was listed among the blatant human rights abuses in the region.

This is an important consideration for the planners of Caribbean empowerment. The Caribbean, a region where unfortunately, we have NOT … tried to be as tolerant as may be required, expected and just plain moral.

We must do better!

The book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts that Caribbean society’s prosperity has been hindered with a high abandonment rate – reported at 70% for educated classes region-wide, but an even higher 85% in Jamaica. The primary mission of the Go Lean book is to “battle” against the “push-and-pull” factors that draw so many of our Caribbean citizens away from their homelands to go to more progressive countries.

The Go Lean book campaigns to lower the “push” factors!

The purpose of the Go Lean book is to fix the Caribbean; to be better. The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to pursue the quest to elevate the Caribbean region through empowerments in economics, security and governance. It is the assertion that Caribbean citizens can stay home and effect change in their homelands more effectively than going to some foreign countries to find opportunities for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 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. This point was pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 10 – 14) 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.

xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of communities like … Egypt. On the other hand, the Federation must also implement the good examples learned from developments/ communities like New York City, … Canada, … and tenants of the US Constitution.

The CU/Go Lean vision to elevate Caribbean society must also consider the issue of image. There is the need for a sentinel role for Caribbean image, as there are a lot of times that Caribbean life and people are denigrated in the media: news, film, TV, books, magazines. It’s unfortunate when we are guilty of scathing allegations. The Go Lean roadmap calls for the CU to assume a role of protecting and projecting positive Caribbean images. The plan is to use cutting edge delivery of best practices; the applicable CU agencies will employ strategies, tactics and implementations to impact the Go Lean 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 public safety for all citizens… LGBT or straight.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

Jamaica has a failing economy.

Jamaica’s primary economic driver is tourism. So …

Is the Caribbean ready for this economic activity? A bridge too far, too soon?

Jamaica has a long way to go; the country has been described by some Human Rights groups as the most homophobic place on Earth because of the high level of violent crime directed at LGBT people; (Padgett, Tim: “The Most Homophobic Place on Earth?”. Time Magazine posted 12 April 2006). The United States Department of State said that in 2012, “homophobia was [unacceptably] widespread in the country” (2012 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Jamaica, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State, pages 20-22). As depicted in the VIDEO below, even President Obama indicted the island on a recent official State Visit.

Why is this country’s homophobia so acute compared to other countries? For one, they have held on emphatically to the British Laws on Buggery – see Appendix below – from their colonial days; even though the host country of England has already abandoned the laws (in 1967).

Jamaica is partying like it’s 1899!

This is therefore a matter of community ethos. The Go Lean book defines community ethos as the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; the dominant assumptions of a people or period. This tropical paradise of Jamaica, as defined in the foregoing news article and VIDEO continues to spur bad attitudes, bad ideas, bad speech and bad actions towards the LGBT community. This is unbecoming of a progressive society in 2015.

Alas, this is a crisis…for victims and their loved ones. The Go Lean book posits that this crisis can be averted, that the crisis is a “terrible thing to waste”. The Go Lean roadmap seeks to optimize the eco-systems for Jamaica and the entire Caribbean. The book stresses new community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to transform and turn-around the eco-systems of the regional society. These points are detailed in the book as follows:

Who We Are – SFE Foundation – Comprised of Caribbean Diaspora	Page 8
Community Ethos – 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 Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate all 30 member-states into a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Build and foster local economic engines	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Repatriate the Diaspora, even Minorities like those of the LGBT community	Page 46
Tactical – Ways to Foster a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Growing the Economy to $800 Billion GDP	Page 68
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – CU Federal Government versus Member-State Governance	Page 71
Anatomy of Advocacies – Examples of Individuals Who Made Impact	Page 122
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Homeland Security Pact	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Minority and Human Rights	Page 134
Planning – Lessons Learned from US Constitution – Equal Protection for all Minorities	Page 145
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance – For All Citizens	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract – Security against “Bad Actors”	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice – Internal Affairs Reporting Line	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Remediate and Mitigate Crime – Hate Crime Qualifiers	Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism – Consider Bullying as Junior Terrorism	Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth – Collaborating with Foundations	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Jamaica	Page 239
Advocacy – Ways to Impact British Territories	Page 245

Looking at the disposition of the island nation of Jamaica’s, we see that its societal engines are failing.

Could the investment in the diversity of its people be at the root of the problem?

The failing indices and metrics of Jamaica have been considered in previous blog/commentaries; see sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4840	Jamaican Poll: ‘Bring back the British!’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3694	Looking for a job in Jamaica, go to Canada
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2830	Jamaica’s Public Pension Under-funded
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=392	Jamaica to receive World Bank funds to help in crime fight
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=313	What’s Holding Back Jamaica’s Reforms

The Go Lean roadmap seeks to empower and elevate Caribbean societal engines to make Jamaica, and the rest of the Caribbean, better places to live, work and play … for all citizens, including the LGBT communities.

Most of the Jamaican Diaspora that has abandoned the island now lives in the US, Canada or the UK. Their new home-communities are more tolerant societies of their LGBT neighbors.

Perhaps, there is some correlation.

This commentary is not urging the abandonment of the Judeo-Christian moral code; Jesus Christ instructed to “let them be” at Luke 22:51 (The Message Translation). Rather this commentary urges tolerance and moderation: Live and let live!

Fight the hate!

Yes, we can … do this. Yes, we must do this. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!
———–

Appendix VIDEO: US President Obama’s LGBT comments at Youth Leaders Town Hall – https://youtu.be/636mgw1THpc?t=5m1s

Published on Apr 9, 2015 – President Obama delivers remarks and answers questions at a town hall with Young Leaders of the Americas at University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. April 9, 2015.
———–

Appendix VIDEO: Gay rights in Jamaica – https://youtu.be/_nSgMGoBAmU

———–

Appendix – Encyclopedic Reference: Buggery in English Common Law

The British English term buggery is very close in meaning to the term sodomy, often used interchangeably in law and popular speech. It may also be a specific common law offenceencompassing both sodomy and bestiality.

In English law “buggery” was first used in the Buggery Act 1533, while Section 61 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, entitled “Sodomy and Bestiality”, defined punishments for “the abominable Crime of Buggery, committed either with Mankind or with any Animal”. The definition of “buggery” was not specified in these or any statute, but rather established by judicial precedent.^[1] Over the years the courts have defined buggery as including either [of these]:

anal intercourse or oral intercourse by a man with a man or woman^[2] or
vaginal intercourse by either a man or a woman with an animal,^[3]

But [no other] form of “unnatural intercourse”^[4] [was defined], the implication being that anal sex with an animal would not constitute buggery. Such a case has not, to date, come before the courts of a common law jurisdiction in any reported decision. However, it seems highly improbable that a person would be exculpated of a crime associated with sex with animals only by reason of the fact that penetration involved the anus rather than the vagina. In the 1817 case of Rex v. Jacobs, the Crown Court ruled that oral intercourse, even with an underage and/or non-consenting person, did not constitute buggery or sodomy.^[4]

At common law consent was not a defence^[5] nor was the fact that the parties were married.^[6] In the UK, the punishment for buggery was reduced from hanging to life imprisonment by the Offences against the Person Act 1861. As with the crime of rape, buggery required that penetration must have occurred, but ejaculation is not necessary.^[7]

Most common law jurisdictions have now modified the law to permit anal sex between consenting adults.^[8] Hong Kong did so retroactively in 1990, barring prosecution for “crimes against nature” committed before the Crimes (Amendment) Ordinance 1990 entered into force except those that would still have constituted a crime if they had been done thereafter. In England and Wales, homosexual buggery was decriminalised in 1967 with an age of consent at 21 years, whereas all heterosexual intercourse had an age of consent at 16 years. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 did not fully remove buggery as a concept in United Kingdom law, as the previous law is retained for complainants (consensual or “pseudo-consensual”) under the age of 16, or 18 with regards to an adult perceived to be in a “position of trust”. As the law stands, buggery is still charged, exclusively regarding “pseudo-consensual” anal intercourse with those under 16/18, because children cannot legally consent to buggery although they may appear to do so. Rape is charged when the penetration is clearly not consensual. Buggery with an animal is still unlawful under Section 69 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

In the Republic of Ireland, the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993 abolished the offence of “buggery between persons”.^[9] For some years prior to 1993, criminal prosecution had not been made for buggery between consenting adults. The 1993 Act created an offence of “buggery with a person under the age of 17 years”,^[10] penalised similar to statutory rape, which also had 17 years as the age of consent. The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2006 replaced this offence with “defilement of a child”, encompassing both “sexual intercourse” and “buggery”.^[11] Buggery with an animal is still unlawful under Section 69 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. In 2012 a man was convicted of this offence for supplying a dog in 2008 to a woman who had intercourse with it and died.^[12]

Etymology – The word bugger and buggery are still commonly used in modern English as a mild exclamation. “Buggery” is also synonymous with anal sex.

The word “bugger” was derived, via the French bougre, from Bulgar, that is, “Bulgarian”, meaning the medieval Bulgarian heretical sect of the Bogomils, which spread into Western Europe and was claimed by the established church to be devoted to the practice of sodomy.^[13] “Buggery” first appears in English in 1330, though “bugger” in a sexual sense is not recorded until 1555.^[14]

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buggery)

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Toxic Environment – It Infects Everything

Posted on September 22, 2020 in Ethos, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

²⁴“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. ²⁵Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. ²⁶But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. ²⁷When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.” – The Bible re: Building on a Solid Foundation – Matthew 7:24-27 – New Living Translation

Having a solid foundation versus a sandy foundation, for a house, may not matter too much during a normal sunny day, but when “push comes to shove” – during a storm – is when the surety of the house becomes important. Will it stand, stabilize and survive?

A weak foundation for a house can be likened to the toxic environment of a community, think a workplace filled with harassment and discrimination or a neighborhood with blatant racism where minorities endure burning crosses on their lawn.

Such communities may have some functionality, but will it stand, stabilize and survive when “push comes to shove”?

Here’s the answer: No!

As Jesus Christ cautioned above: “it will collapse with a mighty crash”.

It is fair to conclude that we all want a “house that does not collapse during a storm”. It is also fair to assume that we all want to live in a community that is NOT a toxic environment. But just as Jesus described the heavy-lifting effort of building a house on a more solid foundation, we must conclude that it is also heavy-lifting to foster a community (workplace or neighborhood) that is not a toxic environment. For the record, we got toxic environments here in the Caribbean; we got it bad. But we must reform …

Ready for the effort?!

The path of least resistance is just to “fall into hate, bigotry, xenophobia and intolerance”. But to weed these defects out of society – or to not allow them to foster – we cannot default to that path of least resistance; we must do the heavy-lifting work; the homework, the shop work and the community work.

This is an acute issue for our Caribbean communities; we have near Failed-States as a result. These blatant societal defects can no longer be tolerated. We have lost good people; many have fled our society in search of refuge; we have Pushed many away, while others have been Pulled by more hopeful invitations – the “grass on the other side has been greener”.

This was the assertion in the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean, where it pronounced this in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12):

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.

Every month, the movement behind the Go Lean book presents a Teaching Series to address issues germane to Caribbean life and culture. For this month of September 2020, we are looking at Toxic Environments. This is entry 1-of-6; the first one; it introduces the thesis that “doing the right thing, while not always easy, always pays off in the long run”. Despite our past, we can always start anew. There have been many bad experiences of hate, bigotry, xenophobia and intolerance in our Caribbean actuality. To cure these societal defects, we must reflect, recognize, repent and reconcile.

Yes, we can …

Let’s start now! Consider here, the full catalog of the series this month:

Toxic Environment: Ready for Football – Washington “Redskins”
Toxic Environment: Homophobia – The problem is the Hate, not the Fear
Toxic Environment: Opposite of Diversity & Inclusion
Toxic Environment: Lessons from Yugoslavia
Toxic Environment: Ease of Doing Business
Toxic Environment: Make the Caribbean Great (Anew)

The Go Lean book, serving as a roadmap for the introduction of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), asserts that Caribbean stakeholders must do the heavy-lifting to mitigate the societal defects. The purpose of the roadmap does include optimizing the economic, security and governing engines for greater opportunities, but we must have a good foundation first. The purpose of this month’s Teaching Series is to focus on that foundation. There is a glaring need for reform, as we have a long track record of bad behavior like hate, bigotry, xenophobia and intolerance in our Caribbean communities.

We have been fostering a toxic environment in our culture in which these bad behaviors have been permitted to flourish. This is not good! A toxic environment pits villains against victims; in the long run, the victims seeks refuge elsewhere. This is true with a toxic workplace and a toxic neighborhood. This is also true for the Push dynamics of Caribbean abandonment:

“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 liberal life abroad; many times our people are emigrating for societies that have better expressions of the rights for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.

The Caribbean is not the first nor the last toxic environment. There are many of them out there. We must look, listen and learn from toxic workplaces and toxic neighborhoods. Just because we are not alone does not mean we can be complacent; we are still bleeding populations – we must stop the bleeding.

Let’s consider one example from the United States …

… that of the team in the National Football League (NFL), the Washington Football Team, formerly known as the Washington Redskins. Just that name “Redskins” – a derogatory reference similar the the N-Word – shows their disregard for the toxic environment they were fostering. See the details in the Appendix below.

What we have learned from the historicity of the Washington “Redskins” over those many years is that they had no regards nor remorse for offending others …

… this normally means that they would have no regards nor remorse for offending their own people. This is exactly what has happened. We learned of other victimizations of this toxic workplace. See these two stories here:

Title 1: Washington Redskins Cheerleaders Describe Topless Photo Shoot and Uneasy Night Out
By: Juliet Macur
When the Washington Redskins took their cheerleading squad to Costa Rica in 2013 for a calendar photo shoot, the first cause for concern among the cheerleaders came when Redskins officials collected their passports upon arrival at the resort, depriving them of their official identification.

For the photo shoot, at the adults-only Occidental Grand Papagayo resort on Culebra Bay, some of the cheerleaders said they were required to be topless, though the photographs used for the calendar would not show nudity. Others wore nothing but body paint. Given the resort’s secluded setting, such revealing poses would not have been a concern for the women — except that the Redskins had invited spectators.

A contingent of sponsors and FedEx Field suite holders — all men — were granted up-close access to the photo shoots.

One evening, at the end of a 14-hour day that included posing and dance practices, the squad’s director told nine of the 36 cheerleaders that their work was not done. They had a special assignment for the night. Some of the male sponsors had picked them to be personal escorts at a nightclub.

“So get back to your room and get ready,” the director told them. Several of them began to cry.

“They weren’t putting a gun to our heads, but it was mandatory for us to go,” one of the cheerleaders said. “We weren’t asked, we were told. Other girls were devastated because we knew exactly what she was doing.”

…

Source: New York Times Investigation – posted May 2, 2018; retrieved September 20, 2020. See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/sports/redskins-cheerleaders-nfl.html

————-

VIDEO 1 – Redskins Cheerleaders Reveal Disturbing Details Of 2013 Costa Rica Trip | NBC Nightly News – https://youtu.be/i7ZCHjYW2NE

NBC News
Posted May 3, 2018 – The cheerleaders tell NBC News that in addition to their passports being taken, they were forced to be topless for a calendar shoot, and later asked to escort team financial backers to a party.

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—————————————————–

Title 2: At least 15 women are accusing Washington Redskins staffers of sexual harassment, report says
By: Ellie Kaufman, Pete Muntean and Laura Robinson, CNN
The Washington Redskins have launched an internal investigation after 15 former female employees and two journalists who covered the team accused team staffers of sexual harassment and verbal abuse, the team told CNN.

The allegations were first reported by The Washington Post on Thursday. The newspaper obtained screenshots of text messages in which Richard Mann II — the team’s assistant director of pro personnel — made inappropriate, sexual comments to a female employee. Mann was fired in the past week.

Former employees also accused Larry Michael, the team’s former senior vice president of content and play-by-play announcer, of talking about the attractiveness of a college intern in 2018 when he was being recorded for a team video, the newspaper reported. Michael retired Wednesday.

CNN was not able to reach Mann and Michael for comment Thursday.

Owner Dan Snyder and former team president Bruce Allen were not directly implicated in the sexual harassment allegations brought by the female employees and reported by the Post. But Snyder was criticized for fostering a culture in which the behavior was permitted.
…

Source: Cable News Network – posted July 18, 2020; retrieved September 20, 2020. See the full story here: https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/us/washington-redskins-sexual-harassment-allegations/index.html

—————-

VIDEO 2 – Washington Redskins accuser says she hopes for new policies – https://youtu.be/YAAX5qGnA0w

KEYT – KCOY – KKFX News
Posted July 23, 2020 – At least 15 women are accusing Washington Redskins staffers of sexual harassment, report says

We must change (reform and transform) the Caribbean to rid ourselves of our own toxic environments. How do we do that?

A previous Go Lean commentary from March 5, 2019 identified the chain of events: thoughts-feeling-speech-action. See an excerpt here:

[Thoughts-feeling-speech-action] is usually the order and process for change. Change doesn’t just start with Action; a lot more goes into it. It can be likened to a factory process; there is input and there is output. While Action is the output, “Thoughts, Feelings and Speech” qualify as input.

Got Change? Want Change?

The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts that we have to be prepared to contribute the appropriate Inputs. In fact we must start changing the current Inputs to better reflect the values we want to see in our society. That means changing our thoughts, feeling and speech.

The Go Lean roadmap has always focused on the actions for changing the Caribbean eco-system. We have always had focus on the thoughts-feeling-speech-action continuum. The target change here is what the Go Lean book refers to as a change in community ethos (Page 20).

the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period: In the Greek ethos the individual was highly valued.
the character or disposition of a community, group, person, etc.

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20281	Cleaning up the Toxic Use of the N-Word to improve Black Image
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20105	When Rising from the Ashes – Watch Out for changes to Bad Ethos
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19833	Stamping Out Hypocrisy from Community Ethos & Leadership
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17464	The need to change Bad Ethos to launch ‘New Commerce’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16408	Mitigating Bad Ethos on Home Violence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2480	Learning a Lesson from History – Changed Community Ethos for WW II
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=214	Changing from Least Common Denominator to an Entrepreneurial Ethos

Cleaning up our toxic environment is conceivable, believable and achievable. We have seen it done many times before.

But, it is not just a matter of changing a brand name – like for the Washington Redskins – we have to change the community attitude. We have to message against:

hate, bigotry, xenophobia and intolerance

The presence of these bad attributes are not in dispute. The strategy for abating them is not in dispute. It starts and ends with messaging. This is 1-of-6 in that messaging. The rest of this Teaching Series portrays the messaging for the above-cited attributes. You are urged to lean-in to every entry of this series to glean the insights, strategies, tactics and implementations.

We cannot change the world, but we can change “us”. It is heavy-lifting to abate bad attributes, to reform and transform our society. But this is what must be done. It is the only way to make our regional homeland a better place to live, work and play.

Yes, we can! 🙂

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, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

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

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

xiv. 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.

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

—————

Appendix – Reference: Washington Redskins

The Washington Football Team are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. Formerly known as the Washington Redskins, the team competes in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the NFC East division. The team plays its home games at FedExField in Landover, Maryland, with its headquarters and training facility located in Ashburn, Virginia. The team has played more than 1,000 games and is one of only five in the NFL to record over 600 total wins. It was the first NFL franchise with an official marching band and a fight song, “Hail to the Redskins“.

The team was founded in 1932 as the Boston Braves before changing its name to the Redskins the following year. The franchise then relocated to Washington, D.C. in 1937, where they have been based since. …

Washington’s former Redskins name and logo drew controversy over its history, with many criticizing it as offensive to Native Americans. Pressure from major sponsors of the league and team eventually led them to retire the branding in 2020 as part of a wave of racial name changes in the wake of the George Floyd protests. The team will play as the Washington Football Team until a permanent replacement is chosen later. The team is valued at approximately US$3.4 billion according to Forbes, making them the seventh-most valuable team in the NFL and the 14th-most valuable sports franchise globally.^[2]
…

Redskins name and logo controversy
The team’s former Redskins branding, used from 1933 until 2020, was one of the leading examples of Native American mascot controversy as the term redskin has been defined as offensive,^[81] disparaging,^[82][83] and taboo.^[84] Various people and groups, such as the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), considered the name a racial slur and attempted to get the team to change it for decades.^[85][86] Supporters of the name countered both the dictionary definition of the term and the testimony of Native Americans by asserting that their use of the name was intended respectfully, and referred only to the football team and its history.

In a 2013 letter “To the Washington Redskins Nation”, team owner Daniel Snyder stated that while respecting those that say they are offended, a poll conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center in 2004 found that 90% of Native Americans were not offended by the name and logo.^[87][88] This poll was essentially replicated in 2016 by The Washington Post with near identical results. However, public opinion polling, which places the question about the Redskins within a longer telephone survey on other topics, was deemed scientifically questionable by academic researchers. As an alternative, social scientists from the University of Michigan and University of California at Berkeley performed a study in 2020 that measured Native American opinion in detail, finding that 49% had responded that the name was offensive, with the level of offense increasing to 67% for those with a stronger involvement in Native American culture.^[89]

Following renewed attention to questions of racial justice in wake of the George Floyd protests in 2020, a letter signed by 87 shareholders and investors was sent to team and league sponsors Nike, FedEx, and Pepsi urging them to cut their ties unless the name was changed.^[90][91][92] Around the same time, several retail companies began removing Redskins merchandise from their stores.^[93][94] In response, the team underwent a review in July 2020 and announced that it would retire its name,^[95][96] with a new name and logo to be chosen at a later date.^[97][98] As a team rebranding process usually takes over a year, the team will be playing as the Washington Football Team until a more permanent name is chosen.^{[99][100][101]}

Source: Retrieved September 20, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Football_Team

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‘Climate Change’ raging Worse for some compared to others

Posted on September 20, 2020 in Ethos, Industries, Planning, Social

Go Lean Commentary

We are all in this together! – popular fallacy for global problems

This is not true for Climate Change. Some communities are on the frontlines; some communities take all the beatings, while some other communities are unscathed.

Inequality rules the day!

This writer recently repatriated back to the Caribbean (Bahamas) in 2019 and have consistently endured power utility bills of US$900 to US$1,100 during the summer months. “Our A/C never goes off”.

Most residents in Caribbean communities cannot afford this actuality. This is not about enjoying; this is about enduring.

This has always been true in society: There are the Haves and the Have-Nots. But what is emerging in the Climate Change eco-system, is not just the individual inequalities, but rather the national inequalities. Some countries have suffered pangs of distress from Climate Change … some countries have-not.

Though we have experienced and expressed these distresses, this is not our thoughts alone …

No, the highly-regarded New York Times has recently published their own formal journalistic depiction of this assertion. See that story highlights here:

Title: A warming world
In the past 60 years, every decade has been hotter than the last, and 2020 is on track to be among the hottest years yet. But the burden of extreme heat is not shared equally — it’s significantly worse for people at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.

Extreme heat can exacerbate poor health, ravage crops and make it dangerous to work outside. And in many parts of the world, simple ways to alleviate those effects — like water, or electricity for fans and air-conditioners — are a luxury.

Somini Sengupta, The Times’s international climate reporter, and a team of photographers have a new story that documents how rising temperatures are affecting people across multiple continents.

Excerpts
The agony of extreme heat, though, is profoundly unequal.
This Is Inequity at the Boiling Point

It was a record 125 degrees Fahrenheit in Baghdad in July, and 100 degrees above the Arctic Circle this June. Australia shattered its summer heat records as wildfires, fueled by prolonged drought, turned the sky fever red.

For 150 years of industrialization, the combustion of coal, oil and gas has steadily released heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, driving up average global temperatures and setting heat records. Nearly everywhere around the world, heat waves are more frequent and longer lastingthan they were 70 years ago.

But a hotter planet does not hurt equally. If you’re poor and marginalized, you’re likely to be much more vulnerable to extreme heat. You might be unable to afford an air-conditioner, and you might not even have electricity when you need it. You may have no choice but to work outdoors under a sun so blistering that first your knees feel weak and then delirium sets in. Or the heat might bring a drought so punishing that, no matter how hard you work under the sun, your corn withers and your children turn to you in hunger.

It’s not like you can just pack up and leave. So you plant your corn higher up the mountain. You bathe several times a day if you can afford the water. You powder your baby to prevent heat rash. You sleep outdoors when the power goes out, slapping mosquitoes. You sit in front of a fan by yourself, cursed by the twin dangers of isolation and heat.

Extreme heat is not a future risk. It’s now. It endangers human health, food production and the fate of entire economies. And it’s worst for those at the bottom of the economic ladder in their societies. See what it’s like to live with one of the most dangerous and stealthiest hazards of the modern era. …

Heat waves are becoming more frequent in Athens. It’s toughest in the city’s treeless, concrete neighborhoods.

… Mr. Hotak was 16 when he left his home in the Sholgara district of Afghanistan, the only one among his 11 brothers and sisters to do so. After one failed attempt to enter Europe and two years in a refugee camp, he was granted asylum in Greece. That’s when he arrived on the rooftop refuge with a friend, in the crowded warrens of Kolonos, a working class Athens neighborhood where many migrants have settled.

The city has grown hotter by the decade. According to temperature records kept by the National Observatory of Athens, there were fewer than 20 hot days (with temperatures over 99 degrees Fahrenheit, or 37 Celsius) from 1897 until 1906. By the mid-1980s, there were still fewer than 50 hot days per decade. From 2007 to 2016, though, the number had risen to 120 hot days. …

In Athens, heat waves have increased fivefold over the last century. Diminished rains and longer dry seasons are destroying Guatemala’s farmlands, where Indigenous farmers could see crop yields fall sharply. In Nigeria, hotter nights make it easier for mosquitoes to breed, increasing the risk of mosquito-borne diseases. And in the United States, heat kills older people more than any other extreme weather event, including hurricanes.

We spoke with Somini about what she described as “one of the most profound inequities of the modern age.”

“I have seen over the last couple of years the impact of what is truly a global problem,” she said. “We know that high heat and humidity is a dangerous combination for health, agriculture and economies of whole regions — nearly everywhere around the world, heat waves are more frequent and longer lasting than they were 70 years ago.”

What do experts recommend to combat rising temperatures?

“Draw down the combustion of fossil fuels,” Somini said. “The world is capable of getting off coal in many instances, capable of vastly reducing the burning of oil and gas.”

But the world also has to adjust to the extreme heat we’re seeing already, she said. That includes making water, air-conditioners and fans more accessible, and planting trees to bring down temperatures in cities.

“It could also mean adjusting things you might not immediately think of, like labor laws so people don’t have to work for hours under the blistering sun, agricultural changes in farming methods or what is grown in what place to adapt to higher temperatures,” she said.

“In short, it requires doing everything pretty differently.”

In other climate news:

Government scientists updated their forecast for the remainder of the Atlantic hurricane season, predicting “one of the most active seasons on record.” Climate change appears to be making hurricanes more intense and destructive.

Source: posted August 6, 2020; retrieved September 14, 2020 from: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/06/climate/climate-change-inequality-heat.html

Go Lean Commentary continues …

What’s next for the Caribbean? While excessive heat and the need for air-conditioning is critical, the pang of distress that impacts us most severely is that of hurricanes. Remember Irma, Maria or Dorian …

Hurricanes are worse; more frequent and more powerful. In fact for 2020, the meteorological officials have ran out of names to assign for this year’s Atlantic Hurricane season. They are now assigning the Greek alphabet as hurricane names; think Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, etc.. Here is the actuality of the Alpha Storm here:

Subtropical Storm Alpha (2020)
… a very unusual subtropical cyclone that made landfall in Portugal, the first ever recorded occurrence for the country. The system was also the easternmost-forming Atlantic tropical cyclone on record in the basin, exceeding the previous record of Tropical Storm Christine in 1973.^[1] The twenty-fourth cyclone and twenty-second named storm of the extremely active and record-breaking 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, Alpha originated from a large non-tropical low that was first monitored by the National Hurricane Center on 15 September. Initially not anticipated to transition into a tropical cyclone, the low gradually tracked south-southeastward for several days with little development. By 18 September, the low began to separate from its frontal features and exhibited sufficient organization to be classified as a subtropical cyclone as it approached the Iberian Peninsula, becoming a subtropical storm later that day. Alpha made landfall just north of Lisbon, Portugal during the evening of 18 September, becoming the first recorded landfalling (sub)tropical cyclone in mainland Portugal.^[2] Alpha was also the third confirmed (sub)tropical cyclone landfall in mainland Europe, following a hurricane in Spain in 1842 and Hurricane Vince (as a tropical depression) in 2005. Alpha rapidly weakened and became a remnant low early on 19 September.

There is no denying, this is all relative! Imagine a necessary ingredient for managing snow removal in society: rock salt. If there was a shortage of rock salt, countries nearer to the Arctic and Antarctic poles would be more directly affected. It does not snow in the tropical regions, near the equator, so these would be disaffected.

Well, the opposite is occurring; there are shortages – like precipitation, cool breezes, shady trees – and dire consequences (drought, forest fires, storms, flooding, rising sea levels, etc.) being endured in the tropical regions and the communities closer to the poles are less affected. (Note: Melting glacial ice does have universal effects with rising sea levels; think Canada).

The dire consequences of Climate Change are not equally shared. This actuality has fostered the threat of Climate Refugees or Migrants – people leaving one part of the planet – think: deserts of the Middle East and North Africa – to seek refuge in lesser affected locales, like Western Europe and North America.

Ready or not, climate migration is now also acute here in the Caribbean. Societal abandonment had previously been identified as the most dire threat to Caribbean society. The 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean opens with this declaration:

There is something wrong in the Caribbean … instead of the world “beating a path” to these doors, the people of the Caribbean have “beat down their doors” to get out.

So first there was the brain drain (college educated population), but now we are noticing the rest of society also taking leave:

Overseas Territories – i.e. Puerto Rico, USVI, Aruba, St. Martin, Martinique, Bermuda, Caymans, etc. – have no hope of retaining young people.
- High School Graduation on Friday; flights to the colonizing Fatherland on Saturday.
Independent countries emigrate through legal (family sponsor-ships) and illegal means (trafficking).

As stated in the opening, we are not all in “this” together! There are the “Haves and the Have-Nots”. This is the new normal; we must adapt to this new reality; see the VIDEO portrayal in the Appendix below. This is a consistent theme in many previous Go Lean commentaries; see a sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19347	Go Green … Caribbean … finally
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18182	Disaster Relief: Helping, Not Hurting
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12949	Grow Up Already! The Caribbean must manage Charities ourselves
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12068	Abating Climate Change – Ready to reboot, reform and transform
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10895	Not expecting the relief and refuge only from others – Readying Ourself
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9455	Fix Climate Change – Yes, We Can
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7103	COP21 – Caribbean lands acknowledges ‘Climate Change’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5462	American Red Cross raised $500 million for Haiti but kept most of it
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3432	OECS diplomat has dire warning for the Caribbean looking for hand-outs

Our choices are that simple: prepare for Climate Change or watch our people migrate away from the homeland to foreign shores where the dire effects are lessened. While all humans are created equal, all people do not get equal treatment from … Mother Nature. Some people get more hot and wet than other people, yet they may not be able to afford the physical relief.

Even air-conditioning may not be equally accessible to everyone – we need cooperative refrigeration.

There are strategies, tactics and implementations to abate Climate Change and relieve the dire consequences for people and property. We can … must endure this new normal. This is how and why we can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

i. Whereas the earth’s climate has undeniably changed resulting in more severe tropical weather storms, it is necessary to prepare to insure the safety and security of life, property and systems of commerce in our geographical region. As nature recognizes no borders in the target of its destruction, we also must set aside border considerations in the preparation and response to these weather challenges.

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

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

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

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

—————–

Appendix VIDEO – Refugees Are Fleeing Climate Change – https://youtu.be/nIlMHFwC1MM

The YEARS Project
Tens of millions of people could be displaced by climate change by the end of this century. Climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer explains why that matters, why he supports the right to migrate, and what governments need to do to prepare.
This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets that aims to strengthen coverage of the climate crisis.

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Naomi Osaka – Shining Bright in the Darkness of 2020 – Encore

Posted on September 13, 2020 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

2020 has been a Bad Year; it has been filled with darkness and death, due to the raging Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic plus the resultant global recession. In addition, in the United States and other countries, there has been reflection and a demand for reconciliation over racial injustice and police brutality.

For the Caribbean, there has been little for us to smile about. Unless, we look at the Wide World of Sports. Here is this example in this summary of a big Sports News story:

Japan’s Naomi Osaka came from a set down to beat Victoria Azarenka of Belarus to win the US Open on Saturday and clinch her third Grand Slam title. Osaka, the fourth seed, overcame her unseeded opponent 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 in 1hr 53min inside a near-empty Arthur Ashe Stadium at Flushing Meadows. It brought 22-year-old Osaka’s haul of tennis major trophies to three after her victories at the 2018 US Open and 2019 Australian Open. – Source.

2020 has been a devastating year due to events “above and beyond” sports. But this is what has been comforting and inspiring about Naomi Osaka; she has been comforting and inspiring above and beyond sports. See the continuation-conclusion of the foregoing news story:

… Osaka had walked onto the court wearing a mask bearing the name of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old African-American boy who was shot dead by a white police officer in Cleveland, Ohio in 2014.

Osaka, of Japanese and Haitian heritage, wore different masks honoring victims of racial injustice and police brutality in each round of the tournament.

The 2019 Australian Open champion also donned face coverings bearing the names of Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd and Philando Castile.

Naomi Osaka is a role model for all of the Caribbean to emulate. She represents the greatness that Caribbean people and culture can produce … and export to the world.

This was the assertion on September 12, 2018 in a previous blog-commentary from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. It is only appropriate to encore that previous submission now. See it here-now:

——————

Go Lean Commentary – Naomi Osaka’s recipe for success: Caribbean Meld

There is actually a recipe for success on the world stage, one that has just been applied by tennis superstar Naomi Osaka in winning the 2018 US Open over fan-favorite Serena Williams. The recipe:

Meld Caribbean distinctiveness with that of other cultures.

Wait what?!

This sounds so familiar, even fictionalized! Those who are fans of the science fiction franchise Star Trek will remember the mantra of the cybernetic life form “The Borg”. Their announcement when attacking potential victims were as follows:

”We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.” – Source

This is “Art imitating Life”! We see this recipe at work with this new sports champion and beneficiary of this international melding: Naomi Osaka.

She is a professional tennis player who represents Japan internationally. She is the first Japanese citizen to win a Grand Slam singles tournament, defeating Serena Williams in the final of the 2018 US Open.^[6] Osaka has reached a career-high world ranking of No. 7.^[4] She was born to a Haitian father, Leonard “San” François, and a Japanese mother, Tamaki Osaka .^[7]

This story, beyond its relevance to sports, has a Caribbean relevance because of Osaka’s parentage. The meld – noun/verb: blend – had produced an end-product that has accomplished more than any one component has accomplished on its own. Osaka is the first Japanese citizen to win a Grand Slam event, and needless-to-say, the first Haitian. It has not been easy:

In racially homogeneous Japan, Osaka is considered hāfu, which is Japanese for biracial.^[10] Her Japanese grandfather was furious when he found out that her mother was romantically involved with a black man. As a result of the interracial relationship, her mother did not have contact with her family for over ten years.^[8] In a 2016 interview, Osaka said: “When I go to Japan, people are confused. From my name, they don’t expect to see a black girl.”^[11] – Wikipedia

This biography provides a lesson-learned for the rest of the Caribbean, and the world for that matter:

To our Caribbean brothers and sisters, we entreat you to embrace pluralism; good things come from the embrace of our differences.
To the rest of world, we declare that the Caribbean identity is not “Less Than”. We bring a strength of character and ethos that adds value and elevates any community where we meld.

If we can successfully meld and conquer a challenge on the world stage, how much more so can we meld our distinctiveness here at home or in our regional neighborhood to accomplish greater feats. This is the message of the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean, which asserts that great Caribbean progress is in store when we meld – integrate, collaborate and confederate. The book – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states.

This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs. There are many industrial expressions that we will have to make in order to reach these goals, including the facilitation of the Art & Science of Sports.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14):

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

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

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

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 …

The story of Naomi Osaka is about more than just her heritage. She is an excellent athlete of her own making. It takes blood, sweat and tears to excel at the highest level of her sport. For Osaka to beat Serena Williams – earning $3.8 million – that was no fluke; that was the full measure of her athletic prowess; that was heavy-lifting. Even now, all the attention is on Serena losing, rather than Osaka winning; see the VIDEO here and the related story in the Appendix below:

VIDEO – US Open Highlights – https://nyp.st/2CM60t5

Published September 8, 2018 – Serena has mother of all meltdowns in US Open final loss.

Heavy-lifting in sports is a familiar theme for this Go Lean movement; we recognize that there could be more economic rewards if the regional stewards do a better job of facilitating a viable sports eco-system – we have few expressions of professional sports and no intercollegiate system in the region. We have previously elaborated on how the Art & Science of sports can be used to help elevate our societal engines. Re-consider these previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11287	Creating a legacy in pro-Surfing
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8495	Basketball Great and Caribbean Role Model: Tim Duncan
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7866	Caribbean Track & Field Athletes monetize their talents “elsewhere”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1446	Caribbean Players in the World Cup
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020	Advocates and Revolutionaries for Caribbean Sports

So how can we foster more people in our Caribbean region to be like Naomi Osaka, people who can help to elevate our society and the global image of Caribbean contributions to the world? The Go Lean book addressed this question; within its 370-pages of instructions for impacting society, in the specific details for fostering more world-class athletes. Consider the summaries, excerpts and headlines from this one advocacy in the book on Page 229 entitled:

10 Ways to Improve Sports

1	Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market This will allow for the unification of the region of 30 member-states into a single market of 42 million people and a GDP exceeding $800 Billion (per 2010). This market size and multi-lingual realities allows for broadcasting rights with SAP-style language options for English, Spanish, French and Dutch. This makes the region attractive for media contracts for broadcast rights, spectrum auctions and sports marketing. The Olympics have demonstrated that sports can be profitable “big business”, and a great source of jobs and economic activity. The CU will copy the Olympic model, and harness the potential in many other sporting endeavors, so as to make the region a better place to live, work and play.
2	CU Games Promote the CU Games, every 2 years, as the ascension of the CARIFTA Games for Amateur and now Professional Athletes. The CU Games Administration will also partner with all National Olympic Committees. This administration applies to feeder games, trials and qualification events. The ultimate goal is to field a world-class competitive Olympic Team representing the entire Caribbean. While the CARIFTA Games are for track-and-field events only, the CU Games will resemble a mini-Olympics with multi-sports (boxing, football/soccer, tennis, volleyball, sailing, baseball/softball, etc.)
3	Fairgrounds as Sport Venues The CU Fairgrounds (managed by the Interior Department) will have the infrastructure to fund, build and maintain sports arenas and “stadiums” (stadia) in local markets. The mantra is “build it and they will come”, so the CU building and managing world-class sport facilities will result in a more organized industry and the emergence of vertical markets.
4	Regulate Amateur, Professional & Academically-Aligned Leagues
5	Establish Sports Academies
6	“Super” Amateur Sport Association
7	Regulator/Registrar of Scholar-Athletes – Assuage Abandonment
8	Sports Tourism
9	Professional Agents and Player Management Oversight (a la Bar/Lawyer Associations).
10	Impanel the CU Anti-Doping Agency

Congratulation Naomi Osaka!

… and thank you … for making it easier for us to impress on the world that Caribbean-anything is not “Less Than”. That argument is now easier to make.

It is now also easier to convey the message that “Yes, we can” forge a “pluralistic” democracy and make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

—————–

Appendix – It’s shameful what US Open did to Naomi Osaka
Opinion by: Maureen Callahan

Naomi Osaka, 20 years old, just became the first player from Japan to win a Grand Slam.

Yet rather than cheer Osaka, the crowd, the commentators and US Open officials all expressed shock and grief that Serena Williams lost.

Osaka spent what should have been her victory lap in tears. It had been her childhood dream to make it to the US Open and possibly play against Williams, her idol, in the final.

It’s hard to recall a more unsportsmanlike event.

Here was a young girl who pulled off one of the greatest upsets ever, who fought for every point she earned, ashamed.

At the awards ceremony, Osaka covered her face with her black visor and cried. The crowd booed her. Katrina Adams, chairman and president of the USTA, opened the awards ceremony by denigrating the winner and lionizing Williams — whose ego, if anything, needs piercing.

“Perhaps it’s not the finish we were looking for today,” Adams said, “but Serena, you are a champion of all champions.” Addressing the crowd, Adams added, “This mama is a role model and respected by all.”

That’s not likely the case now, not after the world watched as Serena Williams had a series of epic meltdowns on the court, all sparked when the umpire warned her: No coaching from the side. Her coach was making visible hand signals.

“I don’t cheat to win,” Williams told him. “I’d rather lose.”

She couldn’t let it go, going back multiple times to berate the umpire. At one point she called him a thief.

“You stole a point from me!” she yelled.

After her loss, Williams’s coach admitted to ESPN that he had, in fact, been coaching from the stands, a code violation. The warning was fair.

Everything that followed is on Williams, who is no stranger to tantrums. Most famously, she was tossed from the US Open in 2009 after telling the line judge, “I swear to God I’ll take the f—king ball and shove it down your f—king throat.” John McEnroe was taken aback. Even Williams’s mother, Oracene Price, couldn’t defend her daughter’s outburst.

“She could have kept her cool,” Price said.

On Saturday, she also could have tried to be gracious in defeat. No matter how her fans try to spin this, Williams was anything but. Upon accepting her finalist award, she gave parsimonious praise to her competitor while telling the crowd she felt their pain.

“Let’s try to make this the best moment we can,” she said in part, “and we’ll get through it . . . let’s not boo anymore. We’re gonna get through this and let’s be positive, so congratulations, Naomi.”

Osaka accepted her trophy while choking back tears. She never smiled. When asked if her childhood dream of playing against Williams matched the reality, she politely sidestepped the question.

“I’m sorry,” Osaka said. “I know that everyone was cheering for her and I’m sorry it had to end like this.”

She turned to Williams. “I’m really grateful I was able to play with you,” Osaka said. “Thank you.” She bowed her head to Williams, and Williams just took it — no reciprocation, no emotion.

Osaka, a young player at the beginning of her career, showed grit, determination and maturity on that court and off.

She earned that trophy. Let’s recall that this wasn’t Osaka’s first victory over Williams — she beat Williams back in March, causing a hiccup in that great comeback narrative.

Osaka earned her moment as victor at the US Open, one that should have been pure joy. If anything was stolen during this match, it was that.

Source: New York Post Newspaper – Posted September 8, 2018; retrieved September 12, 2018 from: https://nypost.com/2018/09/08/its-shameful-what-us-open-did-to-naomi-osaka/

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Coronavirus Deaths: Debunking a Conspiracy Theory

Posted on September 4, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

A Gun Shot Wound (GSW) victim contracts Coronavirus while in the hospital and dies. What is the Cause of Death? The GSW?! Coronavirus?! Both?!

Unfortunately, the management of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic has become politicized … especially in the US. There are two sides on the issue: Liberals vs Conservatives.

Conservatives tend to be less cooperative with Science; (also opposing Climate Change); and prone to support conspiracy theories, i.e. 5G cause for COVID-19.

This is the issue again now. The Conservatives have downplayed the seriousness of the Coronavirus; first labeling it a hoax, then assigning it as “just the common flu”, and now conspiring that less people have actually died compared to the official scientific tally. (The Liberals only want to count the dead).

See this news story here, as it highlights the new conspiracy theory that the Coronavirus deaths are overblown and exaggerated:

Title: The conspiracy theorists are wrong: Doctors are not inflating America’s COVID-19 death toll for cash – VIDEO: https://youtu.be/VpjZoOruTso

———
Earlier this week, Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst became the first member of “the world’s greatest deliberative body” to embrace a false online conspiracy theory that seeks to minimize the danger of COVID-19 by claiming only a few thousand Americans have died from the virus — not the 185,000 reported by state and local health agencies and hospitals.

Ernst, who described herself as “so skeptical” of the official death toll, even went so far as to echo the nonsense argument spread by QAnon and other right-wing conspiracy-mongers that medical providers who have risked their own lives and health to treat COVID-19 patients have been attributing non-COVID deaths to the virus to rake in extra cash from the federal government.

“These health-care providers and others are reimbursed at a higher rate if COVID is tied to it, so what do you think they’re doing?” Ernst, who is facing a tight reelection race, said Monday at a campaign stop near Waterloo, Iowa, according to a report by the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.

“They’re thinking there may be 10,000 or less deaths that were actually singularly COVID-19,” Ernst added in an interview with the paper. “I’m just really curious. It would be interesting to know that.”

Since Ernst is “really curious,” here are the facts.

Yes, Medicare pays hospitals more for treating COVID-19 patients — 20 percent more than its designated rate, to be exact. Incidentally, this additional payment was approved 96-0 in the U.S. Senate — including by Joni Ernst. The reason Ernst (and all of her Senate colleagues) voted for it is simple: It helped keep U.S. hospitals open and operating during a worldwide emergency.

“This is no scandal,” Joseph Antos, a scholar in health care at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, explained in a recent PolitiFact fact-check. “The 20 percent was added by Congress because hospitals have lost revenue from routine care and elective surgeries that they can’t provide during this crisis, and because the cost of providing even routine services to COVID patients has jumped.”

In other words, no one is getting rich by misclassifying COVID-19 deaths.

It’s also fair to say that fewer than 185,000 Americans have died “singularly,” as Ernst put it, from COVID-19. According to a recent update by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 94 percent of patients whose primary cause of death was listed as COVID-19 were also judged to have comorbidities — secondary conditions like diabetes that often exacerbate the virus’s effects. For the remaining 6 percent, COVID-19 was the only cause listed in conjunction with their deaths.

On Sunday, President Trump retweeted a QAnon backer who falsely claimed this meant that only 6 percent of reported COVID-19 deaths — that is, 10,000 or so — were actually caused by the virus. Perhaps this “report” is what Ernst was referring to when she agreed Monday with an audience member who theorized that COVID-19 deaths had been overcounted. “I heard the same thing on the news,” she said.

Yet Twitter quickly removed the tweet for spreading false information, and for good reason.

Despite all the innuendo, there’s nothing unusual about the way the government is counting coronavirus deaths, as we have previously explained. In any crisis — whether it’s a pandemic or a hurricane — people with preexisting conditions will die. The standard for attributing such deaths to the pandemic is to determine whether those people would have died when they did if the current crisis had never happened.

When it comes to the coronavirus, the data is clear: COVID-19 is much more likely to kill you if your system has already been compromised by some other ailment, such as asthma, HIV, diabetes mellitus, chronic lung disease or cardiovascular disease. But that doesn’t mean patients with those health problems would have died this week (or last week, or next month) no matter what. The vast majority of them probably wouldn’t have. COVID-19 was the cause of death — the disease that killed them now, and not later.

A closer look at the CDC data, meanwhile, reveals that many of the comorbidities listed by medical providers are complications caused by COVID-19 rather than chronic conditions that predated infection: heart failure, renal failure, respiratory failure, sepsis and so on.

Feverishly creating a baseless fiction from two threads of unrelated information — the additional Medicare payments and the CDC update about comorbidities — is a classic conspiracy-theorist move. But that doesn’t make it true.

“Let there not be any confusion,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said Tuesday. “It’s not 9,000 deaths from COVID-19. It’s 180,000-plus deaths.”

“The point that the CDC was trying to make was that a certain percentage of [deaths] had nothing else but COVID,” Fauci continued. “That does not mean that someone who has hypertension or diabetes who dies of COVID didn’t die of COVID-19. They did.”

In reality, it’s more likely that the U.S. is undercounting rather than overcounting COVID-19 deaths. According to a recent New York Times analysis of CDC estimates, at least 200,000 more people than usual died in the U.S. between March and early August — meaning that the official COVID-19 death count, which hit 140,000 over the same period, is probably too low.

In the Hawkeye State, COVID-19 had killed at least 1,125 as of Wednesday afternoon. Over the past week, the state has reported an average of 1,177 cases per day, an increase of 124 percent from the average two weeks earlier. Its positive testing rate has risen from 10 percent to 18.5 percent since then.

So while Republican lawmakers such as Ernst seek to downplay the lethality of the virus, Theresa Greenfield, Iowa’s Democratic Senate candidate, seized on her opponent’s baseless claim to underscore the gravity of the situation in one of the only states in America where the pandemic is getting worse.

“It’s appalling for you to say you’re ‘so skeptical’ of the toll this pandemic has on our families and communities across Iowa,” Greenfield tweeted Tuesday, addressing the senator. “We need leaders who will take this seriously.”

Source: Retrieved September 4, 2020 from: https://news.yahoo.com/the-conspiracy-theorists-are-wrong-doctors-are-not-inflating-americas-covid-19-death-toll-for-cash-142709384.html?ncid=facebook_yahoonewsf_akfmevaatca

———

Related: Republican Governor Ron DeSantis sidelined his health department. Florida paid the price.

Let’s recap: Some people have downplayed the COVID-19 deaths and suffering of people to promote a political story-line. Ouch! But, this sounds so familiar. We have been there; done that. Remember Puerto Rico?!

In a previous blog-commentary from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean, it related how Puerto Rico’s death toll from devastating Category 5 Hurricane Maria in 2017 was downplayed (under-counted) to project a fallacy that the response by the Federal Government under the “Conservative” President, Donald Trump, was adequate or benevolent. It was neither! See this except here:

We learn now that even the resultant deaths from Hurricane Maria had been under counted.

What? How? Why?

The act of counting deaths is more straight-forward than the Washington and San Juan officials would have you believe. Simply count the number of mortalities (death certificates issued) for the 4^th Quarter of the last few years. The PR government try to assert that the number of deaths were 64 people; and yet demographers and other social scientists counted the mortality rate for 4^th Quarter 2017 and the 4th Quarters in previous years and the real count is more like:

4600+

Wait, wait … don’t tell me! According to this story here, “researchers concluded the final death count could [actually] be as high as 8,500”.

There is no valid dissent: 185,000 people have died … as of September 3, 2020. Period!

A desire to downplay this actuality is reflective of a malevolent spirit. This is America today – not the ideal “city on the hill” that they want to project. This is the same country – and administration – that undervalued the lost lives in the US Territory of Puerto Rico. This is mindful of the expression:

Never kill yourself for someone who would rather watch you die.

This is not just theoretical!

In an interview, in response to the request for sorrow on the large number of dead, President Trump callously declared:

It is what it is.

VIDEO – Trump: It Is What It Is – https://youtu.be/ldOeB4htKD8

Posted August 4, 2020 – American Bridge 21st Century

The Go Lean book presented a roadmap to introduce and implement the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) as a technocracy to act on behalf of Caribbean member-states so that we will not be parasites of the American hegemony but rather protégés. The vision is for the CU to do its own heavy-lifting for health-wellness and Homeland Security. This would remediate and mitigate all domestic threats, natural or pandemic. So the regional Security Apparatus would include Disease Control and Management. The functionalities of this technocracy are described as follows:

Strategies – Comparing Strategies – Healthcare –vs- Bush Medicine (Page 50)
The CU plans calls for some health care reform, under the guise of homeland and economic security, emergency management and cross border initiatives (disease management and organ transplantation).

Tactical – Separation of Powers – I2: Disease Control & Management (Page 86)
Due to the systemic threat, epidemic response and disease control will be coordinated at the CU level. This agency will manage the detailed inventory needs of pharmaceuticals (vaccinations, etc.) so that the Group Purchasing Organization can negotiate for volume-wholesale pricing/discounts and delivery schedules on the regional level.

The data associated with Flu Shots, Vaccinations, STDs should be mined and published by the CU.

This agency will also sponsor Disease Management schemes to identify, educate, treat patients with chronic diseases like diabetes, asthma, heart, COPD, and other ailments that tend to have no cure, but the affected could prosper with proper management.

Advocacy – 10 Ways to Improve Healthcare – Public Health Extension (Page 156)
Due to the systemic threat, epidemic response and disease control will be coordinated at the federal level. Also, the acquisition of public-bound pharmaceuticals (vaccinations, etc.) can be negotiated at the regional level, using the Group Purchasing Organizations (GPO) envisioned in this roadmap. This will lead to a better supply and pricing dynamics. …

Advocacy – 10 Ways to Impact Cancer – Public Health Administration (Page 157)
Not all [disease] cancer is hereditary or tied to lifestyle (smoking, obesity, diet), sometimes there are environmental agents. The CU treaty grants jurisdiction for systemic threats, epidemic response and/or disease control. Despite the pro-business ethos, the CU will assuage any threat of new/existing industrial endeavors with thorough environmental impact studies.

Since we have been here before – Puerto Rico – we should have learned. This is not the first epidemic and will not be the last! This is why the Go Lean movement urges the Caribbean to have a Pandemic Playbook for regional protection.

The points of effective, technocratic epidemiological stewardship gleaned from facts in history were further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20361	A 7-part series on Pandemic Playbooks for the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19568	BHAG – Need ‘Big Brother’ for Pandemics
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15310	Industrial Reboot – Trauma 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8943	Zika’s Drug Breakthrough
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7327	Zika – A 4-Letter Word
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002	Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2397	Stopping Ebola
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1003	Painful and rapid spread of Chikungunya virus in the Caribbean

The purpose of this commentary was to stress the fact we need to count the dead … accurately. Our Pandemic Playbook must include the act of counting.

The Go Lean movement (book and subsequent blog-commentaries) stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit; no one member-states has the prowess, resources and experience to implement a Pandemic Playbook alone.

Prowess, resources and experience, yes? But genius skills are not necessarily the requirement for just counting the dead. While the Pandemic Playbook must reflect an “Art and a Science”, counting the dead is all about “arithmetic”. “They” say many fields of endeavors require “Art and Science” in order to master. But counting the dead is no “Art”; this is STEM 101 -(Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

Its ironic that the political faction, Conservatives, that opposes most scientific scrutiny – like Climate Change – seems to be the same people that are refusing the proper count. Their “science” comprehension and competence always seem to fall short; yet, they are quick to embrace conspiracy theories … Arrrgggghhh!!!

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders – governments and citizens – to lean-in to the science, not the conspiracies … and lean-in to this roadmap for an effective and efficient Pandemic Playbook for our region; this reflects the Best Practices of medical science.

We need scientific accomplishments to make progress. This is how we make our homeland a better place to live, work, heal and play. 🙂

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, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

ix. Whereas the realities of healthcare and an aging population cannot be ignored and cannot be afforded without some advanced mitigation, the Federation must arrange for health plans to consolidate premiums of both healthy and sickly people across the wider base of the entire Caribbean population. The mitigation should extend further to disease management, wellness, mental health, obesity and smoking cessation programs. …

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

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

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

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

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

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Pandemic Playbook – Freedom vs Safety

Posted on September 1, 2020 in Government, Industries, Locations, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. – lyrics from America’s National Anthem

There is this great Summer Festival in this small town in the US State of South Dakota, the Sturgis Bike Rally. This event is so impressive that the Caribbean has long been urged to look, listen and learn from this event model. In fact, the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean – introducing the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) – dedicates one Appendix (Page 288) to Sturgis.

If only we can plan and execute events that draw 600,000 people to our small towns. (Sturgis only has less than 10,000 residents).

There is another lesson from Sturgis for us to consider, especially this year – 2020 with the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic – that is the need to balance “Freedom versus Public Safety”. This is a delicate issue with strong opinions on both sides of the issue. (Even the US President would tweet “Liberate X-State” when citizens protested strong lockdowns in their States: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc.). The participants-attendees at Sturgis insisted on their freedoms above and beyond all other values. See the Sturgis story here:

VIDEO – Massive Sturgis motorcycle rally taking place amid coronavirus concerns – https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/massive-sturgis-motorcycle-rally-taking-place-amid-coronavirus-concerns-89793093627

Posted August 10, 2020 – Hundreds of thousands of bikers are expected to gather in Sturgis, South Dakota, where masks are encouraged but not required, despite coronavirus concerns. As schools across the country begin to reopen, Georgia’s largest district is dealing with the fallout from an outbreak.

Related:
More than 100 coronavirus cases in 8 states linked to massive Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota
August 26, 2020 – The annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota drew hundreds of thousands of bikers to the small town earlier this month — despite coronavirus concerns. Now, about three weeks after the rally kicked off, the repercussions are starting to become clear. More than 100 cases of COVID-19 connected to the rally have been reported in at least eight states, the Associated Press reports.

The movement behind the 2013 Go Lean book just completed – during August 2020 – a 6-part series on Pandemic Playbooks for the Caribbean region. It presented many Best Practices for managing our society during times of crisis. This is an important consideration right now as many Caribbean communities have had to institute lockdowns, which some considers “trampling on civil liberties”, in order to protect the general public. Is that right, just and honorable or is the suppression of civil-human rights just an expression of Tyranny. This commentary is an important supplement to the 6-part August Teaching Series. The other commentaries in the series were cataloged as follows:

Pandemic Playbook: Worldwide Leadership – Plan ==> Actual
Pandemic Playbook: Caribbean Inadequacies – Missing the Bubble Opportunities
Pandemic Playbook: Bahamas Example – ‘Too Little Too Late’
Pandemic Playbook: Only at the Precipice ENCORE
Pandemic Playbook: To Be or Not To Be – COVID Vaccine
Pandemic Playbook: Success – Looks like New Zealand

Let’s look at the jurisprudence of government lockdowns that imperil private citizens’ ability to live (attends births and weddings), work (provide for families), worship (limits on free assembly and at funerals) and play (travel and recreation impeded). The restriction placed on citizens by local governments call into question whether these homelands are truly free.

Are our freedoms absolute or only allowed when convenient? Is it Tyranny to impede those freedom during emergencies?

These are all good questions. Let’s see this comprehensive legal analysis by a respected lawyer (and law professor) here:

Title: The Peoples’ Constitution: COVID-19 versus Freedom
By: Ben Lenhart
The COVID-19 pandemic is threatening many of our most cherished freedoms. We are told by the government not to travel. We are told we can’t gather for religious services. We are told we must wear masks, but we must not go to restaurants or stores. Our favorite sporting events, school activities and even graduations are cancelled. In some places, we are told we may not gather even for the most important things in life: the birth of a newborn or the passing of a loved one. At rallies protesting the lockdown, participants claim their constitutional rights are being violated and that the “illegal” government orders must be lifted. Who is right: the protestors or the government?Put another way, do the governments’ actions taking away certain rights, even if only temporarily, violate the Constitution? This article seeks to answer that question using a few real-life examples.

COVID-19 Order Blocks Church in Kansas.
As part of a COVID “stay at home” order, Kansas barred more than 10 people from attending religious services. Two churches sued, claiming violation of their religious freedoms. The First Amendment bars the federal government from (A) establishing any official state religion, or (B) restricting Americans from freely exercising their religion of choice. A Kansas trial court realized this was a hard case: yes, the churches’ constitutional rights were being curtailed, but also, yes, the COVID-19 pandemic required urgent measures to protect public health. For guidance, the Kansas court looked to the famous quarantine case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts, where a man refused a mandatory smallpox vaccination during a smallpox epidemic. Recognizing the hard balance, the Supreme Court in Jacobson acknowledged both sides of the issue: First “when faced with a society-threatening epidemic, a state may implement emergency measures that curtail constitutional rights so long as the measureshaveatleastsome“realorsubstantialrelation”tothepublichealthcrisis …” But second, a law purporting to protect public health, may nevertheless be invalid if it “has no real or substantial relation to those objects, or is, beyond all question, a plain, palpable invasion of rights secured by the fundamental law.” In the end, the court upheld the government order requiring the vaccination.

A COVID-19 order taking away our constitutional rights may be valid if (A) that order directly advances a public health goal (such as controlling the spread of COVID-19), and (B) the same goal can’t be achieved in a narrower way that does not curtail our Constitution rights (or curtails them to a lesser degree). If (A) and (B) are not true, the court may decide to strike down the order as unconstitutional.

Applying these rules, the Kansas court sided with the churches and against the government. Noting that Kansas’ stay-at-home-order singled out places of worship for stricter measures, the court found that, while the public health goals were important, they could be achieved while still allowing the churches to hold services in a safe manner with more than 10 people. The case settled on favorable terms for the churches before it could be appealed, and so the churches largely won this fight.

COVID-19 Order Blocks Abortions in Texas.
In order to preserve medical resources during the coronavirus pandemic, a Texas order banned many non-essential medical procedures, including abortions under most circumstances.Roe v. Wadefirst recognized the constitutional right to abortion more than 45 years ago. Abortion providers sued, claiming the order deprived them of their constitutional rights. Much like the Kansas church case, the Texas court recognized the two competing forces: the need to protect public health during the COVID crisis versus the constitutional right to abortion. On the one hand, the court agreed thatindividual rights secured by the Constitution are not lostevenduring a severe public health crisis. There is no “emergency override” of the Constitution. On the other hand, the Texas court, said that “liberty secured by the Constitution … does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint.” Instead, the court fund that “a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members,” even when that means temporarily curtailing certain rights.

In the end, the lower court largely sided with the abortion providers, ordering that they be allowed to continue during the COVID crisis, but an appellate court overruled the lower court, and allowed most of the abortion ban to continue. However, before the courts could come to a final ruling, the case was resolved, and abortions in Texas were largely allowed to continue during the Covid crisis.

COVID-19 Orders Deny the Right To Travel in Many States
To protect public health, many states have ordered that people not travel unless for essential purposes. But the right to travel is one of Americans’ most cherished freedoms. A drive to the mall, or to a friend’s house, or a road trip across America—the freedom to travel “where we want and when we want” helps define America. It is also a core rights long protected by the Constitution (although its precise source is still being debated). COVID travel bans present the same “hard balance” between our safety and constitutional rights. Faced with a severe pandemic where the very movement of people can spread the disease, courts would likely approve a limited travel ban, such as one that lasted a short time and had exceptions for emergencies and essential activities. On the other hand, courts would likely strike down a travel ban that was imposed rigidly for a year or more regardless of changes in the pandemic status, and that failed to allow reasonable exceptions to the ban. Such a ban would be unconstitutional because a more limited travel ban likely could achieve the same goal—protecting public health—without such a severe denial of constitutional liberty.

The Outer Banks Travel Ban
The Outer Banks (OB) is a beloved vacation spot along the North Carolina coast. In March, it banned nonresidents from entering most of the OB but permitted residents to enter. This ban has two potential constitutional problems. First, it denies the right to travel discussed above. Second, by discriminating against non-residents, the ban may violate the so-called Dormant Commerce Clause, which generally prohibits states from favoring their own residents at the expense of out-of-staters. A huge reason why America’s economy has succeeded and grown to the largest in the world is that we have a free market among the 50 states. The constitutional framework allows commerce to flow freely across state lines. By violating this basic rule, the OB may be violating the Constitution unless it can show there is no less restrictive way to protect public health in the OB short of discriminating against non-residents.

Korematsu
The COVID-19 stay-at-home orders impose real hardships, but compare those to the hardships during World War II. After Pearl Harbor, thousands of Japanese American citizens, most of unquestioned loyalty to the United States, were sent to internment camps far from their homes based on fears that a small number would side with Japanese war effort. This was a massive deprivation of the most basic constitutional rights of American citizens. In 1944 a sharply divided court, with stinging dissents, held that the urgent Japanese threat justified this extreme measure. But history was not kind to Korematsu, and it has become one of the Court’s most heavily criticized cases.

Last year, Chief Justice Roberts said this:“The dissent’s reference toKorematsu, however, affords this Court the opportunity to make express what is already obvious:Korematsuwas gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and—to be clear—’has no place in law under the Constitution.’”

Why was Korematsu so wrong? Both because withheld evidence showed less threat from the Japanese Americans, and because there were ways to achieve the government’s goal (such as police investigative work) that did not involve such flagrant denial our Constitution rights, the order at issue in Korematsu was unconstitutional.

Conclusion
The COVID-19 constitutional balance is hard because the things being balanced are both vitally important: stopping the spread of the coronavirus is a matter of life and death; but many lives have also been lost over the past 232 years fighting to protect the rights guaranteed to all Americans in the Constitution. The examples above shed light on whether any particular COVID-19 order is constitutional. If that order takes away constitutional rights—such as the right to travel, the right to assemble, or freedom of religion—then ask if the government can achieve the same COVID-19 health goal in some other way that does not take away those rights or involves materially less interference with those rights. If the answer is no, then the law may well be constitutional, but if the answer is yes, then the balance may tip in favor of protecting our constitutional rights and striking down the order.

—–

Contributor Ben Lenhart is a graduate of Harvard Law School and has taught Constitutional Law at Georgetown Law Center for more than 20 years. He lives with his family and lots of animals on a farm near Hillsboro.

Source: LoudounNow, Loudoun, Virginia Daily Newspaper; retrieved May 7, 2020 from: https://loudounnow.com/2020/05/07/the-peoples-constitution-covid-19-versus-freedom/

Also see the insistence on freedoms portrayed in the Reader’s Commentary Section on this foregoing article:

By David Dickinson – 2020-05-07:
As if we needed any reminders, COVID-19 amply demonstrates that you can’t trust any level of government. It is also a scary demonstration of how out-of-control powerful we have allowed government to become. I don’t want to downplay the seriousness of COVID-19 and its virulence, but 40,000 people a year die in car accidents and we didn’t shut down highways; 80,000 from diabetes and we didn’t outlaw donuts; 50,000 from regular flu and we didn’t lock down anything (except the cold medicine at the pharmacy).

This commentor is passionate; he conveys the thought of Tyranny if he cannot get his way. This commentor could very well have been speaking from Sturgis, about Sturgis and on behalf of Sturgis; (these same passions bubble in the Caribbean).

The references to Sturgis requires more insight of the city/event, its dynamism; see the Go Lean excerpt (Page 191) here:

The Bottom Line on the Sturgis, South Dakota
Sturgis is a city in Meade County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 6,627 as of the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Meade County and is named after General Samuel D. Sturgis. Sturgis is famous for being the location of one of the largest annual motorcycle events in the world, which [started in 1938 and] is held annually on the first full week of August. Motorcycle enthusiasts from around the world flock to this usually sleepy town during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

The focus of a motorcycle rally was originally racing and stunts. Then in 1961, the rally was expanded to include the “Hill Climb” and Motocross races.^[145] The attendance was tallied in excess of 600,000 visitors in the year 2000. The City of Sturgis has calculated that the Rally brings over $800 million to South Dakota annually. (The City of Sturgis earned almost $270,000 in 2011 from just selling event guides and sponsorships). Rally-goers are a mix of white-collar and blue-collar workers and are generally welcomed as an important source of income for Sturgis and surrounding areas. The rally turns local roads into “parking lots”, and draws local law enforcement away from routine patrols. [The City frequently contracts with law enforcement officers from near-and-far for supplemental support-enforcements during the rally]. (See Appendix J [on Page 288] of Sturgis City Rally Department’s Statistics).

[Sturgis generates a lot of media attention]. Annual television coverage of the festival by the [cable TV network] VH1 Classic includes interviews and performances as well as rock music videos. Also, the Travel Channel repeatedly shows two one-hour documentaries about Sturgis.

Don’t get it twisted, these times of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic constitute an emergency and “critical times calls for critical measures”. Tyranny is not a consideration. This is where we are. Everybody simply wants public safety and Good Governance. In a previous blog-commentary, this point was made about governmental deliveries during times of emergency:

Good Governance: Stepping Up in an Emergency
Do you know what SOS stands for?

Of course you know what it infers – “Emergency; Need Help” …

SOS, plus 911 and other emergency outreach numbers, are all calls for help. In modern society, it is expected that someone-somewhere will respond.

That expectation is within the assumption of Good Governance. It is expected that someone-somewhere will step-up in the time of emergencies …

… failing this, we would have a Failed-State, [every man for himself].

…
[This roadmap provides] a glimpse of a new Caribbean that is ready for these New Guards. These are not foreigners. These are fellow Caribbean brothers and sisters, representing the 30 member-states in the region. They have the desire to help; they only need Good Governance …

The CU structure allows for an Emergency Management functionality within the Homeland Security Department. The CU‘s version is modeled after the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the US. That agency’s emergency response is based on small, decentralized teams trained in such areas as the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS), Urban Search and Rescue (USAR), Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT), Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT), and Mobile Emergency Response Support (MERS).

The Go Lean book provides … the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. We need to be better at responding to the SOS [(emergency)] calls in our region.

Good Governance versus Tyranny … “that is the question”.

This discussion on Sturgis 2020 presents that city/event as a good role model for us in the Caribbean, to contemplate both the opportunities and the bounds-limits of a free society. There is a pattern of Good Governance in Sturgis, even amongst all that Freedom – there is never tyranny. We have looked, listened and learned from that city/event before; most importantly, we have looked at Tyranny before. Let’s consider previous discussions (blog-commentaries) on Tyranny:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18648	Better Than ‘Bill of Rights’ – ‘Third & Fourth Amendments’: Justice First When strong individuals abuse weaker ones in society, we call it bullying. When governmental institutions do it, we call it: Tyranny. Planners for a new Caribbean governance must consider constitutional provisions to mitigate the threat of tyranny.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18337	Unequal Justice: Bullying Magnified to Disrupt Commerce Conditions of Unequal Justice can go from “bad to worse” when bullies are not checked. Such “bad actors” can emerge from terrorizing a family, to a neighborhood, to a community, to a nation, to a region, to a hemisphere, to the whole world. Think: Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Soviet Russia, British Empire, Napoleonic France, Spanish Inquisition. Unchecked, bad actors in the community become tyrants – they can even affect the local economic engine.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18321	Unequal Justice: Sheriffs and the need for ‘soft’ Tyrannicide The reality of southern rural life for African Americans was that justice was impeded by one institution, often one character: the County Sheriff. People sought refuge and succeeded in their quest for relief and justice by fleeing the jurisdiction of the Sheriff, that State and the whole oppressive racist region of the American South. The tyrannicide was achieved by removing the racist Sheriffs from office. This was accomplished by defeating them at the ballot box. The people that fled did not defeat the Sheriffs. No, it was only those that stayed; thusly, the reformation took very long.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5506	Role Model: Edward Snowden – One Person Making a Difference This whistleblower exposed the blatant tyranny in the electronic surveillance system.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2809	A Lesson in History – Economics of East Berlin The City of “East” Berlin used tyranny to bully its citizens, even for its economics. They operated the city like a maximum security prison and ransomed the citizens wanting to leave.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2338	Welcoming the Dreaded ‘Plutocracy’ Big companies can bully and terrorize small communities. But the structure of a Self-Governing Entity would mitigate their threat of tyranny.

The Coronavirus COVID-19 virus has caused emergencies through out the Caribbean – freedoms have had to be culled in order to save lives and to preserve our economic engines for future executions. There is the need for better balance between freedoms and public safety. The reality and actuality of an efficient Pandemic Playbook reflects the urgent need for the Caribbean member-states to appoint “new guards”.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders – governments and citizens – to deploy an effective and efficient Pandemic Playbook for our region. Allow the needed emergency powers, but for the shortest times possible. This is the purpose of the Go Lean roadmap; this is how we can make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work, worship and play.

There are good, bad and ugly lessons from Sturgis, South Dakota. There are lessons from other communities as well who have instituted emergencies and managed the careful balance between Freedom and Tyranny. Yes, Good Governance is hard-work; Good Governance in times of emergencies is even more heavy-lifting. So our obligation for an efficient and effective Pandemic Playbook is conceivable, believable and achievable. 🙂

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, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14):

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

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 accidence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of 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.

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

xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of communities like … . On the other hand, the Federation must also implement the good examples learned from developments/communities like … [Sturgis, South Dakota].

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

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Pandemic Playbook – Success Looks like New Zealand

Posted on August 30, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Locations, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Keeping up with the Joneses.

It is so hard to be an island, off the coast of a continent.

Or is it?!

The island-nation of New Zealand seems to have gotten “it” right. What is the “it”? The management of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. They have demonstrated how to do “it” right.

… and in doing so have provided us in the Caribbean a role model for how to do “it”. They are the Joneses we need to keep up with.

See how New Zealand’s success is being described in this globally respected Trade Journal, Contagion^® – a fully integrated news resource covering all areas of infectious disease; (also see the related VIDEO):

Title: How Did New Zealand Control COVID-19?
By: Kevin Kunzmann Contagion Live
New Zealand, a modern small island nation, has become an emblematic champion of proper prevention and response to the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Leading into this weekend, the country of approximately 5 million has just 2 dozen active COVID-19 cases—a full month after having reported absolutely none, on the backbone of strict initial travel policies, science-based government action, and strategies responsive to testing limitations.

What else went into New Zealand’s pandemic response—and what could serve as guidance for other countries?

A new correspondence published in The New England Journal of Medicine from a team of New Zealand-based investigators at the University of Otago highlighted the public health successes of the country—measures which have brought New Zealand to the post-elimination phase of response approximately 100 days after its first case.

The trio of authors—Michael G. Baker, MB, ChB; Nick Wilson, MB, ChB, MPH; Andrew Anglemyer, PhD, MPH—wrote SARS-CoV-2 introduction to New Zealand was known to be imminent early on, due to a great rate of visiting tourists and students from Europe and China annually.

In fact, their disease models showed estimated wide pandemic spread, with capability to “overwhelm” the healthcare system and disproportionately affect Maori and Pacific persons.

“New Zealand began implementing its pandemic influenza plan in earnest in February, which included preparing hospitals for an influx of patients,” they wrote. “We also began instituting border-control policies to delay the pandemic’s arrival.”

The first New Zealand COVID-19 case was diagnosed February 26, around the same time that global agencies began reporting the SARS-CoV-2 infection was behaving more like a severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) than an influenza—giving investigators hope for containment.

Because of lacking testing and contact-tracing capability in mid-March, the country’s leaders made a dramatic and critical switch in strategy: from mitigating the disease, to eliminating it.

A countrywide lockdown—Alert Level 4—was implemented on March 26.

“After 5 weeks, and with the number of new cases declining rapidly, New Zealand moved to Alert Level 3 for an additional 2 weeks, resulting in a total of 7 weeks of what was essentially a national stay-at-home order,” authors wrote.

It was in early May that the last identified COVID-19 case was observed in the community; with the patient placed in isolated, the country had ended its community spread. On June 8, the New Zealand moved to Alert Level 1—in 103 days, they had declared the pandemic over in the country.

At the time of the paper’s publishing, New Zealand had just 1569 cases, 22 deaths, and a coronavirus-related mortality of 4 per 1 million—the lowest reported rate among 37 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
“Many parts of the domestic economy are now operating at pre-COVID levels,” authors wrote. “Planning is under way for cautious relaxing of some border-control policies that may permit quarantine-free travel from jurisdictions that have eliminated COVID-19 or that never had cases.”

However, the post-elimination stage of the pandemic is not certain for safety. The authors noted the only cases identified in the country are via international travelers kept in government-managed quarantine or isolation for 2 weeks post-arrival. Failures of border control or continued quarantine/isolation policies could result in new spread.

“New Zealand needs to plan to respond to resurgences with a range of control measures, including mass masking, which hasn’t been part of our response to date,” authors wrote.

But there are takeaways from the early and immediate successes of the New Zealand response. The authors credited the combination of immediate risk assessment driven by science, with the decisive actions of the government.

Additionally, the country’s border-control strategies, as well as both community-based and individual case-based control measures, were overall effective in eliminating the virus’ presence when mitigation was no longer feasible.
Lastly, the authors praised their leader’s message.

“Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern provided empathic leadership and effectively communicated key messages to the public—framing combating the pandemic as the work of a unified “team of 5 million”—which resulted in high public confidence and adherence to a suite of relatively burdensome pandemic-control measures,” they wrote.

Source: Posted August 9, 2020; retrieved August 30, 2020 from: https://www.contagionlive.com/news/how-did-new-zealand-control-covid19

—————

VIDEO 1 – Sharing COVID-19 experiences: The New Zealand response – https://youtu.be/bLT-XdPRUAA

World Health Organization (WHO)
Posted July 7, 2020 – In response to community transmission of COVID-19, New Zealand implemented a range of measures to contain the virus, including extensive testing, contact tracing and clear and consistent communications to the public. On 8 June 2020, the government reported that there was no more active transmission of the virus in the country but stressed that it needed to remain vigilant. This video tells the story of New Zealand’s response. More information: www.who.int/COVID-19.

The member-states of the Caribbean, individually and collectively, need an efficient and effective Playbook to manage the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. The Playbook must include strategies, tactics and implementations to mitigate and abate the underlying influenza conditions. This is exactly what New Zealand did:

Control the borders, so as eliminate any new flu arrivals.
Test the full population to identify infections
Contact Trace and capture movement data on all possible infected candidates
Lockdown communities as needed, catch and release promptly
Make decisions related to economic engines – cash crops – based on near-term and long-term benefits
Fund subsistence … adequately – 2-week wage subsidy
Embrace e-Learning and work from home
Embrace e-Government
Be an early adopter on scientific solutions
Remain vigilant, even in success.

While this commentary addresses the Pandemic Playbook for the Caribbean region and compares it to New Zealand, we are not trying to compete, we are only trying to learn Best Practices. This commentary concludes the 6-part Teaching Series for the month of August 2020 on the subject of Pandemic Playbooks – the need for them and the deficiency there of in the Caribbean status quo. This is the final entry, 6-of-6, from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

Pandemic Playbook: Worldwide Leadership – Plan ==> Actual
Pandemic Playbook: Caribbean Inadequacies – Missing the Bubble Opportunities
Pandemic Playbook: Bahamas Example – ‘Too Little Too Late’
Pandemic Playbook: Only at the Precipice ENCORE
Pandemic Playbook: To Be or Not To Be – COVID Vaccine
Pandemic Playbook: Success – Looks like New Zealand

The references to New Zealand apply to their government, yes, but compliance is expected on the part of the people and institutions. Like everywhere, there is dissent, opposition and pushback. But look at the result:

Economy resumed.
Lives protected
Kids are in school … now.
Tourism soaring – (visitors must submit to testing).
Global respect heightened.

So success in New Zealand has culled any resistance. See the portrayal in the VIDEO here depicting the PM vs Opposition:

VIDEO 2 – Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins go head to head on wage subsidy and Covid testing | nzherald.co.nz – https://youtu.be/I1RDlvL4VUo

nzherald.co.nz
Posted August 25, 2020 – National leader Judith Collins continues to press the Government in Question Time this afternoon over its decision not to extend the wage subsidy scheme and testing in managed isolation.

Full story: http://nzh.tw/12359734
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Like NZ Herald on Facebook: https://goo.gl/tUC4oq
Follow NZ Herald on Instagram: https://goo.gl/oLicXe
Follow NZ Herald on Twitter: https://goo.gl/Wi6mbv

The Go Lean roadmap calls for the full execution of the strategies, tactics and implementations to plan and respond to disasters – pandemics have always been considered among the threats – the Clear and Present Dangers. These points had been embedded in the 2013 book and further refined by looking, listening and learning from other communities managing their own epidemic and infectious disease episodes. We previously considered these infectious diseases:

New Zealand provides a good role model for us in the Caribbean, Their pattern of Good Governance is consistent. We have looked, listened and learned from New Zealand before; they had provided other examples of Best Practices, beyond Pandemic Playbooks. See this sample of previous blog-commentaries featuring New Zealand:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17267	Way Forward – For Justice: Special Prosecutors – NZ examples abound
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15075	e-Government example in Zealand
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14811	New Zealand’s openness benefiting from International College Students
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13746	New Zealand’s Homeland Security preparedness with ANZUS Alliance
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13579	NZ reconciliation of Past Colonialism with Indigenous People
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13155	NZ use of Underwater Pipelines to connect remote islands to power grid
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12447	NZ’s Westminster but with mixed-member proportional representation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11989	NZ’s Great Model as one of the first countries to allow Diaspora Voting

The Coronavirus COVID-19 virus can be mastered; we see success in New Zealand. They have done it, so can we.

As related in the foregoing, New Zealand provides a great role model for the Caribbean in a number of subject areas; here is an additional one:

Both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition are women, Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins respectively.

Perhaps, one reason for the efficiency and effectiveness of New Zealand’s government is that they draw upon the best people in-country, no matter the person’s gender. This point about Gender Equality aligns with another previous blog-commentary from November 14, 2015:

So how do we seriously consider reforming government in the Caribbean?

Start anew.

Start with politics and policy-makers.

Start with the people who submit for politics, to be policy-makers

Start with people who participate in the process.

Considering the status-quo of the region – in crisis – there is this need to start again. But this time we need more women.

The Caribbean member-states, individually and collectively, need the strategy of a Pandemic Playbook. This is a requirement for Good Governance; it mandates that we submit to Science and then Better Science.

Even our neighbor to the north, United States of America, can benefit from New Zealand’s example. as we related back on May 30, 2020 in this previous Go Lean commentary:

Good Leadership: Example – “Leader of the Free World”?
The current POTUS (President of the United States) – Donald Trump – is not to be credited as the “Leader of the Free World”. He has not provided a good example of Good Leadership. He is not ready, willing nor able. This is not our opinion alone …

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders – governments and citizens – to deploy an effective and efficient Pandemic Playbook for our region. This is the purpose of the Go Lean roadmap; this is how we can make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play.

New Zealand did it; we can too. So our vision, this quest is conceivable, believable and achievable. 🙂

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, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14):

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

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 accidence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of 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.

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

xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of communities like … . On the other hand, the Federation must also implement the good examples learned from developments/communities like … [New Zealand].

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

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