Category: Government

Long Train of Abuses: Puerto Rico – “Take the Heat” or “Get out of the Kitchen” – Encore

Posted on December 14, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Strategy

Face it Puerto Rico, you have not been handling the heat!

The phrase if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen means— if an activity is too difficult or the pressure of a situation is too great for someone to handle, then perhaps it would be best to stop doing it and/or leave. – Source

Perhaps now this Caribbean island will be honest, with itself, and make the necessary adjustments:

Get Out!

The American eco-system is just not working for Puerto Rico (PR). They are enduring a Long Train of Abuses; they are nearly a Failed-State. They have the option to reboot; perhaps consider the actuality of statehood; becoming the 51 State of United States of America.

But PR is reluctant for that heat-pressure also! 🙁

There are so many lessons to learn and apply from other societies faced with the same dilemma. Consider Ireland and the Philippines:

  • Ireland – The Irish had a Long Train of Abuses to endure in their homeland – the United Kingdom with  England, Wales and Scotland – especially during the 19th Century. Then in the 20th Century the abuse was expected to continue. After losing 49,000 citizens in World War I (1914-1918), fighting and sacrificing on behalf of a country that irrefutably did not love them back, the Republic of Ireland was formed and took their leave. During World War II, Ireland remained neutral and alienated from the conflict or loses.
    Source: Retrieved December 14, 2020 from: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
  • Philippines – As a Spanish colony, Universal Suffrage eluded this homeland. Voting Rights were only extended to citizens that spoke Spanish. Then in 1898, the USA defeated Spain and occupied the archipelago. Now Voting Rights were only extended to citizens that spoke English or Spanish. Universal Suffrage only came to this oppressed, repressed and suppressed land when they secured autonomy and independence … from the USA. For the majority Tagalog-speaking people, they were second-class citizens no more.
    Source: Retrieved December 14, 2020 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines#Colonial_rule

What a Long Train of Abuses these communities had to endure.

Remember the bad colonial orthodoxy that was discussed previously; we have to War Against Orthodoxy to make progress as an organized society. When defects are embedded in the law (constitution), the only remedy is to change the law, otherwise the Long Train of Abuses continues. This is the harsh reality with Puerto Rico, with these identified-qualified defects:

When the flaws are built into the foundation, the end result of any defective processing will just be defective output:

Garbage In Garbage Out

This subject of the Long Train of Abuses is the Teaching Series for this month of December 2020. Every month we present issues that are germane to Caribbean life and culture and how to address them. For this month, we are looking at the Long Train of Abuses that the US Territory Puerto Rico have had to endure – failingly, since they experience such an alarming abandonment rate. This is the final entry, 6-of-6. This one asserts that the foundation for Puerto Rico these past 100 years is not designed for success; the only option is failure or more failure. The dysfunction in PR’s societal will not improve under the current structure; they must make a change – they cannot take the heat, they must “get out of the kitchen”. The other entries in the full catalog for this series are as follows:

  1. Long Train of Abuses: Enough Already – Colonialism Be Gone!
  2. Long Train of Abuses: Overseas Masters – Cannot See Overseas
  3. Long Train of Abuses: Religious Leadership in Politics – Reconciling Trump
  4. Long Train of Abuses: Religious Character in Society – Human Rights
  5. Long Train of Abuses: Dutch Hypocrisy – Liberal Amsterdam vs Conservative Antilles
  6. Long Train of Abuses: Puerto Rico – “Take the Heat” or “Get out of the Kitchen”

The status quo for Puerto Rico is unsustainable; they must make a change. But which option should they pursue? Statehood like Alaska and Hawaii did or independence like the Philippines did (from America) or Ireland did from the UK?

We had deliberated these arguments before in a previous blog-commentary from April 3, 2019. it is only apropos to Encore that previous submission. See here/now:

————-

Go Lean Commentary –  Way Forward – Puerto Rico: Learns its status with America

You love America.
But does “she” love you back?

This is the reality of unrequited love. The people of the island of Puerto Rico love America – they give blood, sweat and tears. But America does not always love the island back. This has always been evident and obvious, but now even more so after Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017 and the US Federal Government lackluster response. Puerto Ricans, on the island and in the Diaspora, must accept that they are treated as the “ugly step-child”.

Today, we learn that the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, is now vocalizing that there is a fast approaching limit for gratitude towards Puerto Rico. See that story here:

VIDEO – Puerto Rico’s governor sending warning to Trump – https://news.yahoo.com/puerto-ricos-governor-sending-warning-175145864.html

CNN – Posted March 28, 2019 – “If the bully gets close, I’ll punch the bully in the mouth,” Rosselló said when asked about a tense meeting Wednesday between members of the Trump administration and Puerto Rican officials. “It would be a mistake to confuse courtesy with [lack of] courage.”

———–

Title: Puerto Rico’s governor warns Trump: ‘If the bully gets close, I’ll punch the bully in the mouth’
By: David Knowles
Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló is through playing nice with President Trump.

After months of soft-pedaling his criticism of the president as Puerto Rico struggles to recover from Hurricane Maria in 2017, Rosselló voiced his frustration with the White House in a Thursday interview with CNN.

    “If the bully gets close, I’ll punch the bully in the mouth,” Rosselló said when asked about a tense meeting Wednesday between members of the Trump administration and Puerto Rican officials. “It would be a mistake to confuse courtesy with [lack of] courage.”

The Washington meeting — which was attended by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro and members of Rosselló’s government — was requested after reports that Trump was considering halting further disaster relief to the beleaguered U.S. territory.

In a Wednesday meeting with Senate Republicans, Trump said the amount of aid Puerto Rico had so far received “is way out of proportion to what Texas and Florida and others have gotten,” according to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who attended the meeting.

Though it has already slashed benefits, Puerto Rico faces a $600 million shortfall to administer food stamps. So far the U.S. government has spent more than $6 billion on disaster relief to Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria, which was blamed for killing more than 3,000 people. In June, Texas received $5 billion in federal aid for housing and infrastructure repairs stemming from Hurricane Harvey, which left 103 people dead.

Rosselló, who avoided criticizing Trump in a 2018 interview with Yahoo News, lashed out at the president over his latest reported comments.

“He treats us as second-class citizens, that’s for sure,” Rosselló told CNN. “And my consideration is I just want the opportunity to explain to him why the data and information he’s getting is wrong. I don’t think getting into a kicking and screaming match with the president does any good. I don’t think anyone can beat the president in a kicking and screaming match. What I am aiming to do is make sure reason prevails, that empathy prevails, that equality prevails and that we can have a discussion.”

Trump, whose administration’s response to Maria was criticized as inadequate, has long been seen as reluctant to offer aid to Puerto Rico. In October the president again signaled his disapproval of giving aid that might be used to help alleviate the financial distress the island was experiencing even before Maria hit.

Source: Posted March 28, 2019; retrieved March 29, 2019 from: https://news.yahoo.com/puerto-ricos-governor-warns-trump-if-the-bully-gets-close-ill-punch-the-bully-in-the-mouth-162447705.html?.tsrc=notification-brknews

There is no love for Puerto Rico … within their American eco-system.

This theme aligns with previous commentaries from the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean; see a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15012 In Life or Death: No Love for Puerto Rico
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14101 ‘We Are The World’ Style Campaign to Help Puerto Rico
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13391 After Maria, Failed-State Indicators: Destruction and Defection for PR
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11647 Righting a Wrong: Puerto Rico’s Bankruptcy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7963 ‘Like a Good Neighbor’ – Being there for Puerto Rico
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6260 Puerto Rico Bondholders Coalition Launches Ad Campaign
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=599 Ailing Puerto Rico open to radical economic fixes

As related in this previous blog-commentary, Puerto Rico devotes more human capital – and sacrifice – to US military endeavors than any other state or territories per capita.

Never kill yourself for people who are willing to watch you die.

Way Forward
This consideration brings to mind, an overall discussion of the Way Forward for this country – Puerto Rico – and all Caribbean countries. Our current disposition is dire, a crisis, near-Failed-State status. Yet, the movement behind the Go Lean book posits that a “crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. Here for April 2019, we present a full series of commentaries related to the Way Forward for these 30 Caribbean member-states. The full series is presented as follows:

  1. Way Forward: Puerto Rico learns its “status” with America.
  2. Way Forward: Virgin Islands – America’s youngest colony
  3. Way Forward: ‘Solutions White Paper’ – An Inadequate Plan for the Bahamas

In this series – incomplete as of this date, many other national plans will follow – reference is made to the need for a more comprehensive roadmap for elevating the societal engines of Caribbean communities. Of all the plans out there, this – roadmap presented in Go Lean…Caribbean – is the only one that double-downs on the prospect of regional interdependence.

No man is an island; no island is an island.

Considering entry 1 of 3 of this series for April, what should be the Way Forward for Puerto Rico?

There are 3 options that have been detailed by this Go Lean movement. Here, again, with references to updated information:

Whatever the selection by the people of Puerto Rico – it should be their choice alone – the Go Lean movement still presents the strategies, tactics and implementations to make this island a better homeland to live, work and play. But, it is hardwork …

Actually, it is overdue work. It is the same “Growing Up“, “Managing Your Affairs“, “Taking Care of Business” that was always needed for this island nation.

Others (countries) have done “it” well – we can learn from them; i.e. consider the Iceland experience.

Some have done “it” bad – we must learn from that too; i.e. consider Republic of Venezuela.

With the proper guidance, blood, sweat and tears, it is conceivable, believable and achievable for this island to actualize and be recognized as one of the greatest addresses on the planet – not just some “ugly step-child”.  🙂

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

The Go Lean book 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 12 – 13):

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

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

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

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

————–

Appendix A – Florida lawmaker introduces bill to make Puerto Rico 51st State

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – A Florida congressman and Puerto Rico’s non-voting representative in Congress have introduced a bill that seeks to make the U.S. territory the 51st state.

The Puerto Rico Admission Act of 2019, which is sponsored by Rep. Darren Soto, D-Florida, and Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González-Colón, would give the island statehood within 90 days of passage.

Our historic legislation will finally end over 120 years of colonialism and provide full rights and representation to over 3.2 million Americans.”

The legislation is partly in response to the Trump administration’s handling of Hurricane Maria relief efforts. According to reports, President Trump complained to Senate Republicans about the amount of disaster aid designated for Puerto Rico. He also asked why the island was given more money than some states affected by hurricanes.

“We have seen time and time again that colonial status is simply not working. Look no further than the abysmal Hurricane Maria recovery efforts and the draconian PROMESA law to prove this point all too well,” Soto added. “The Puerto Rican people have spoken. It’s time for Congress to finally make Puerto Rico a state!”

“From the day I was sworn in as Puerto Rico’s sole representative in Congress, and filed the Puerto Rico Admission Act, I stated very clearly that I would work different strategies, across all platforms to achieve the full equality for Puerto Rico, which can only be achieved through statehood, For more than a century the people of Puerto Rico have been U.S. citizens, but has been denied the right to vote for the President and members of Congress, leaving us without representation in the federal government, which enact the laws that rule the land. Democracy and equality for American citizens is an issue of justice and civil rights. Us, as American citizens, want to have the same benefits and duties, as all American citizens have in the states,” she continued.

Governor Ricardo Rossello was also in attendance and called on members of Congress to support the bill and “join in our quest to achieve equal treatment for the over 3 million U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico.”

Source: Posted March 30, 2019; retrieved April 2, 2019 from: https://www.wfla.com/news/florida/florida-lawmaker-introduces-bill-to-make-puerto-rico-51st-state/1888575456

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Long Train of Abuses: Religious Leadership in Government – Reconciling Trump

Posted on December 9, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Show me your friends and I will tell you who your are. – Old Adage

This is a sad imagery if we are talking about bullies and delinquents in the neighborhood; it is sadder still if we are talking about the religious leaders in the community.

Ouch! This is not the form of worship that is to be expected from Christianity. Face it, there is a sharp difference between Christianity and Christendom. The Bible gave the clear standard; consider these scriptures:

22 On the other hand, the fruitage+ of the spirit is love, joy,+ peace,+ patience, kindness, goodness,+ faith, 23 mildness, self-control.+ Against such things there is no law. – Galatians 5:22,23 NWT

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27  The form of worship* that is clean+ and undefiled+ from the standpoint of our God and Father is this: to look after orphans*+ and widows+ in their tribulation,+ and to keep oneself without spot+ from the world.+ – James 1:27 NWT

The actuality of life in the Caribbean is that our Christian-religious leaders do not have this track record. To the contrast, the religious orthodoxy is “sometimes good and acceptable”, then many times bad and unbecoming. Yes, we have to take the “bitter with the sweet”! Is this the way Christianity is supposed to be? Is this right and tolerable for our modern society?

No! Yet, this is not a theoretical discussion; this is observing-and-reporting on the happenstances of our Caribbean society. The actuality reflects the Long Train of Abuses we have had to endure here in the Caribbean, over the centuries, decades and years. Remember the bad religious orthodoxy and how these precepts were embedded in national Law-and-Order edicts:

  • Conquest – The New World was explored and exploited with the expansion of Christianity in mind.
  • Slavery – The initial approval for slavery was granted by the Roman Catholic Pope as an allowance for savages (from Africa) to be exposed to Christianity.
  • Colonialism – Conquest of the New World to allow for the spread of Christianity and forge their flavor of God-fearing societies from the “cradle to the grave”. This was blatant hypocrisy.
  • Patriarchy – Natural Law adherents, backed by twisted scriptural views, preached that only men mattered in society.
  • White Supremacy – False teachings that the Black Race was cursed and that all Bible prophets only look Europeans.
  • Buggery – LGBT Rights were frowned on because of Biblical prohibitions on Sodom & Gomorrah.
  • Childhood Violence – Twisted application of “spare the rod, spoil the child” scriptural mandates.

This is the continuation of the monthly Teaching Series from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book presents issues that are germane to Caribbean life and culture and how to address them: problems and solutions. For this month of December 2020, we are looking at the Long Train of Abuses that could-would-should move our people to change, to reform and transform. This is entry 3-of-6; this one asserts that the embedded religiosity with Caribbean leaders-governance is a source of the toxicity and dysfunction in our society. Yes, their dysfunction is that bad.

The religious leaders are partly responsible for our Long Train of Abuses. This consideration is one of the assertions in this Teaching Series for this month of December 2020. See the full catalog of the series this month:

  1. Long Train of Abuses: Enough Already – Colonialism Be Gone!
  2. Long Train of Abuses: Overseas Masters – Cannot See Overseas
  3. Long Train of Abuses: Religious Leadership in Government – Reconciling Trump
  4. Long Train of Abuses: Religious Character in Society – Human Rights
  5. Long Train of Abuses: Dutch Hypocrisy – Liberal Amsterdam vs Conservative Antilles
  6. Long Train of Abuses: Puerto Rico – “Take the Heat” or “Get out of the Kitchen”

It is irrefutable, that the religiosity in the governance of the Caribbean has contributed to the Long Train of Abuses.

This is not just a Caribbean phenomenon. No, this commentary asserts that the Christian religious leaders in the US gave unconditional support for the 45th US President Donald Trump even though he provided a bad stewardship: for his country (USA), the Caribbean and the rest of the world. See the portrayal in the Appendix VIDEO below.

If Trump was so bad, why is it that the religious leaders continued to support him unconditionally?

Birds of a feather, flock together!  🙁

Now is the time to reconcile this actuality. Consider this excerpt from the news article – published during the build-up for the 2020 General Election of November, 2020 – in the Appendix below. This excerpt is prominent:

“… polls show Trump continues to hold a wide lead over Democrat Joe Biden among religious voters, a bad sign for the president is that some of his support is slipping, including among white evangelicals who, like the faculty at Christian colleges, have a college education.”

So the religious leaders hold sway over under-educated populations. Interesting?! The more education an individual gets, the less prone that individual is to the dark influences of the religious leaders.

What a statement!

This commentary is not a theological review nor is it chartered for spiritual guidance, but “if the shoe fits …”

… we simply must assert the Bible’s condemnation of the influences of false religious leaders in society. See these scriptures:

1 But understand this: In the last days terrible times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without love of good, 4 traitorous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such as these! – 2 Timothy 3: 1-5 Berean Study Bible

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3 For there will be a period of time when they will not put up with the wholesome* teaching,+ but according to their own desires, they will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled.* 4 They will turn away from listening to the truth and give attention to false stories. – 2 Timothy 4: 3-4 NWT

Clearly, there is no refuting the clear difference between Christianity and Christendom.

Through out the Caribbean – except for the American territories – there is the practice of Seconding Government employees to religious organizations. (US Territories, despite a clear separation of Church and State, can provide some non-evangelical community development services-funding via Faith-based organizations). See this definition of seconding and secondment here:

A secondment is the opportunity to work temporarily in a different firm or department to the one you are already working in.

In an internal secondment, the employee moves to a different part of the same organisation.

In an external secondment, the employee temporarily works at a different organisation.

This was/is a frequent strategy in Caribbean administrations. Consider these 2 examples here, from Jamaica & the Bahamas:

Remembering Father Hugh Braham Sherlock OJ, OBE, DD (1905-1998)

Father Hugh Sherlock

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of Boys’ Town. It was in September 1940 that the Government of Jamaica and the YMCA collaborated on the need for a social intervention that would serve the needs of underprivileged youth in West Kingston and Trench Town.

The Methodist Church responded positively to the request for the secondment of 35-year-old minister, Hugh Sherlock, to spearhead this intervention. It was in these circumstances that the Kingston Boys’ Club was started in the hall of the Jones Town Baptist Church, which two years later moved to its own home in Trench Town and changed its name to Boys’ Town.

…

—————

Bahamas Feeding Network thanks Government for Assistance to Households struggling to put food on tables

Philip Smith

For 14 years, Philip Smith has been feeding the hungry, first with loaves of bread he baked in his small apartment. For the last seven years as executive director of Bahamas Feeding Network, he has headed an unprecedented volunteer effort that has provided more than one million hot meals to those who most desperately need help. But never has he seen the extent of hunger explode as it has in the last seven months since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and widespread unemployment.

“Hunger, especially in households with young children and among the elderly, was a major problem before, but in many ways, it was a quiet problem. Now with the coronavirus pandemic, the stark reality of hunger is staring us in the face and we are extremely grateful to the government of The Bahamas for their intervention which has made it possible to feed more than 55,000 households or 220,000 individuals,” he said. “For organizations like the Bahamas Feeding Network and all of us who are currently working within the framework of the National Food Security Task Force, we need to pause, take a deep breath and thank the administration for recognizing the depth and breadth of the extent of hunger, and funding its relief to the best of the government’s ability.”

…

The government is spending about $1 million a week to combat hunger and this week announced it would extend the work of the task force, originally scheduled to end this month, to December 31.

So it is quite common for Caribbean governments to deliver on their Social Contract by means of Faith-based organizations. So many times the roles and responsibilities of governance are delivered by means of religious stakeholders. So just how common is this practice?

    A lot …
    Too much …

Taking the “bitter with the sweet”, means that there will be some toxicity – the bad religious orthodoxy or Long Train of Abuses – embedded with the Faith-based deliveries. This is no longer acceptable. It is time now to end this Long Train of Abuses …

The Go Lean book, serving as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), an apolitical, religiously-neutral, economic-focused technocracy. The CU is not chartered to be a religious organization; there is no theocratic calling, but rather the motivation is solely for the Greater Good of civic society, defined as:

“It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong” – Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

Enough already! It is time to think civic, and not religious. (Plus, there are many different religious faiths in our society).

We have addressed this theme – remediating the damage of the bad religious orthodoxy – in previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20237 Slavery in History: Good Lessons from the Bible
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19217 Brain Drain – ‘Live and Let Live’: Introducing “non-preachy” Localism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16944 Accepting Black Women ‘As Is’ Despite Bad Bible Interpretation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16534 European Reckoning – Christianity’s Indictment for Human Rights Abuse
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16172 Bad Christian History: 918 Deaths in Jonestown, Guyana
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15580 Caribbean Unity? Religion’s Role: False Friend
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10216 Waging a Successful War on Orthodoxy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9766 Rwanda’s Catholic bishops apologize for Christian genocide
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5695 Repenting, Forgiving and Reconciling the Christian Past

Do you remember the expression “the Fourth Estate”, referring to the Press or the different expressions of Journalism?

Who or What is the First, Second and Third Estates?

The Fourth Estate (or fourth power)… most commonly refers to the news media, especially print journalism or “the press”. The term makes implicit reference to the earlier division of the three Estates of the Realm: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. – Wikipedia.

The First Estate is the clergy. (This is the focus of this commentary; the next submission in this blog series will address commoners or lay people).

The regionally accepted standard for leadership has simply been to just take the “bitter with the sweet”.

The religious stakeholders (leaders) have traditionally exerted their influence on society. Now comes the change; taking the “bitter with the sweet” is no longer acceptable. We must do better. We must pursue the Greater Good … always.

Taking the “bitter with the sweet” has led to a continuation of the Long Train of Abuses.

So this is now the urging to our Caribbean member-states:

Stop it … now! No longer accept the “bitter with the sweet”.

We hereby urge all leadership stakeholders – political and civic – to lean-in to this Way Forward – a formal separation of Church and State where religions organization are treated simply as civic NGO’s – for societal progress, this Go Lean roadmap. This is our plan to make our regional homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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 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.

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 12 – 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.

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 – Title: Christian College Faculty Aren’t Lining Up for Trump

Sub-title: Reflecting new polling that indicates college-educated white evangelicals are moving away from supporting Trump, many on Christian campuses are struggling to back him.

By: Kery Murakami

On Sunday evening, President Donald Trump took a break from tweeting to talk to a key segment of his supporters, people of faith, to tell them God will help the nation survive the coronavirus pandemic.

“We know that God hears our prayer,” Trump said in a broadcast on his campaign’s Facebook page. “We have no doubt about it. He’s always with us and he’ll help us overcome this challenge.”

He then switched to his re-election. “This is the most important election of our lives, and whether it’s evangelical, whether it’s Christian evangelical — call it whatever you want — people of religion — this is the most important election of our lives and we have to get out and we have to vote.”

As he spoke, another aspect of his pitch to religious voters, Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, was poised to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Opponents of abortion are excited that she will lead the court toward striking down Roe v. Wade.

And Monday morning, Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, told reporters in a call that Barrett’s confirmation hearings couldn’t be coming at a better time to mobilize religious voters. “This happening is a well-timed grassroots opportunity,” he said.

But while recent polls show Trump continues to hold a wide lead over Democrat Joe Biden among religious voters, a bad sign for the president is that some of his support is slipping, including among white evangelicals who, like the faculty at Christian colleges, have a college education.

At the nation’s Christian colleges, a number of professors described in interviews this week their struggle to reconcile their support for a president moving toward ending abortion with their discomfort, and even spiritual revulsion, over him.

Among those noticing the struggle is Shirley Hoogstra, president of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities.

“President Trump has taken actions on issues like abortion and religious freedom that are important to Christians,” she said in an interview. “But President Trump’s actions distress many who have deeper faith practices. I think the president’s behavior has made it a hard choice.”

At the same time, she said, some religious voters are troubled by actions by the Democratic candidates, including a bill introduced by vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris to weaken a prohibition on laws burdening the exercising of religion.

Wheaton College — a Christian college in Illinois, which is described as sort as the Harvard of evangelical colleges — appears to be a place where Barrett’s nomination should be causing many to embrace Trump.

The university requires students and faculty each year to reaffirm a statement of faith, based on a biblical doctrine consonant with evangelical Christianity. Students and faculty are also expected to affirm that they agree with a community covenant, which, among other things, condemns “the taking of innocent life.”

David Iglesias, an associate professor of politics and law at Wheaton and director of the college’s Center for Faith, Politics and Economics, was clearly struggling whether his faith would allow him to vote for Trump.

“In my faith, everything is subservient to Scripture,” he said and brought up the biblical account of David’s adultery with Queen Bathsheba.

“The prophet did not give him a pass,” he said. “The Scripture is pretty clear that when our leaders do the wrong thing, we shouldn’t excuse them. Character counts. What you do matters.”

And, he said, “we know our Scripture here.”

Just in the past few months, he said, Trump has “failed to criticize the Proud Boys. What did he say? ‘Stand by’?”

“His behavior during the debate — he wouldn’t let Joe Biden speak. I’ve never seen a worse debate. It was pathetic. He’s said disparaging things about Muslim Americans,” Iglesias said.

“And there’s his recent treatment of veterans,” he said referring to a report in The Atlantic in September that Trump privately referred to service members killed in combat as “suckers” and “losers.” (Trump denied insulting veterans.)

Iglesias served in the U.S. Navy for 30 years.

On Christian campuses, “there’s going to be some soul searching in supporting someone you disagree with on 90 percent of the issues,” he said. “But who agrees with you on the one you that you hold dear, and that’s right to life.”

Supporting Trump shouldn’t be in doubt, either, at Union University, a Christian college in Tennessee, a state that Trump is expected to win easily.

“I really don’t know,” said Hunter Baker, the university’s dean of arts and sciences, when asked whom the college’s faculty is supporting. “People are keeping it close to their vest.”

But, he said, Trump will likely get less support on the campus than in the rest of western Tennessee.

He laughed when he was asked about Trump.

“What troubles me about Trump? Oh my gosh, how long do you have?” he said.

“He’s more polarizing than anyone I can remember,” he said. “Ideally we’d have someone who would reduce that polarizing. There’s no question he exacerbates it, and he almost seeks it out.”

Troubling Polling for Trump
In what could be a bad sign for Trump, polls are showing that recent controversies, from his failure to condemn white supremacists, even amid national protests over the killing of George Floyd, to his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, could be turning off key religious voters.

A Pew Research Center poll, released Tuesday, found that support of Trump by white Roman Catholics, white Protestants who are not evangelical and white evangelical Protestants has slipped since Sept. 30.

Just a little more than a month ago, 59 percent of white Protestants backed Trump. But in the latest Pew poll, conducted between Sept. 30 and Oct. 5, only 52 percent backed him. Among white evangelical Protestants, support for Trump dropped during that time from 83 percent to 78 percent.

More telling is data assembled by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute at Inside Higher Ed’s request. Previous national polls have shown a political divide nationally based on education. Those without college degrees have been much more likely than those who graduated from college to support Trump.

Previously, polls had not shown that distinction among white evangelicals. But since this summer, “we do see a significant gap emerge,” said Natalie Jackson, PRRI’s director of research.

A PRRI poll in October 2016, for instance, showed that 61 percent of white evangelicals without a four-year degree had a favorable view of Trump, then a candidate for president — virtually the same as the 62 percent of white evangelicals with a college degree holding a favorable view of Trump.

Polls in 2017, 2018 and 2019 — in which 64 percent of white evangelicals without a college degree and 62 percent of those with a degree viewed Trump favorably — showed no difference.

A poll by the group between July and September, however, found that 65 percent of white evangelicals who hadn’t graduated from college continued to have a favorable view of Trump. But among white evangelicals with a degree, support for the president had dropped precipitously to 52 percent.

In addition, Federal Elections Commission data examined by Inside Higher Ed found 196 people who listed as their employer one of the 140 U.S. colleges that are members of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities. Of those, 81 contributed to Trump and 115 to Biden.

The study was not definitive because of the potential for spelling errors in the FEC database, or contributors or donors not listing their employer. But even including the 14-to-1 advantage Trump holds among employees of conservative Liberty University, which is not part of the Christian colleges group, Trump doesn’t appear to be outraising Biden among the faculty as expected.

“Those trends are catastrophic for Trump,” said Micah Watson, director of the politics, philosophy and economics program at Calvin University, a Christian college in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“If that current data remains constant through Election Day (and people are actually voting now, too), then I don’t see a way he is competitive,” he said.

“It may well be that Trump is in as bad a shape as it appears,” said Baker, of Union University. But Baker, who is supporting Trump, said he is skeptical of polling, given that it was inaccurate in the 2016 elections.

To Dan Caldwell, distinguished professor of political science at Pepperdine University, a Christian college, that college-educated evangelicals might be turning away from Trump is not surprising.

“At long last, they’re opening their eyes to his behavior,” said Caldwell, who is supporting Biden. “I think people have become more skeptical that he believes in racial equality after his support of white nationalists.”

Caldwell, a Navy veteran, was also insulted by Trump’s comments about members of the military.

“I’m doing everything I can to keep him from getting elected,” said Caldwell, who is part of a group of more than 700 retired generals and admirals, former cabinet officials, and foreign policy experts called National Security Leaders for Biden, which has placed op-eds in local newspapers like the Pensacola Times.

That academics even at Christian colleges are troubled by Trump also isn’t surprising to Baker. “The more education you have, the more you value a certain type of discourse. And Trump violates that. He’s rude, and he doesn’t care how anybody feels.

“Christian college professors are still college professors,” he said.

Abortion a Key
But despite the polling, a positive sign for Trump is that even some of those like Baker, who struggle with supporting the president, are ultimately deciding to back him.

Like many faith leaders, Baker was troubled when Trump politicized the National Prayer Breakfast in February, where, according to the Associated Press, he held up two newspaper headlines about his acquittal by the Senate after impeachment then attacked Republican senator Mitt Romney, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic.

“You haven’t experienced a conversion that brings with it a drive toward continuing repentance and personal holiness,” Baker wrote in an open letter to Trump.

Baker continued, “Please don’t shame us by attending events like the National Prayer Breakfast and turning a meeting based on faith into another avenue for political combat and vindication of your grievances.

“Here’s a Bible verse that might appeal to you and help with that. It’s Romans 12:20, which reads, ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Maybe you should try that,” he wrote.

But despite all that, he is supporting Trump, he said, because of the issue of abortion.

“I view that cause as fundamentally about justice. In the way some people view the civil rights movement, I prioritize that more than every other issue,” he said.

A Call to Repent
Another sign of the soul searching among evangelicals came last week, when the National Association of Evangelicals released a statement, which in part calls on evangelicals to repent in ways that seem to run counter to Trump’s positions. The Christian college association endorsed the statement.

“Despite the example of Jesus and the teaching of Scripture, many of us have not adequately opposed the unjust systems that fail people of color, women, children and the unborn. We have not always fulfilled God’s commands to protect the immigrant, refugee and poor. We have not always treated those who hold different opinions — both inside and outside of our faith — with dignity,” the statement said.

Despite the conservative image of Christian colleges, Hoogstra said there are different viewpoints, noting many colleges have student groups focused on climate change and immigration.

In preparation for Hoogstra’s interview with Inside Higher Ed, the Christian college association surveyed the chief student development officers at their member campuses.

Those at the 54 campuses that responded estimated that 54 percent of their students are Republican and 41 percent are Democrats. Forty-one percent of the campuses have a Republican student club, while 32 percent have a Democratic student group. And 81 percent of the campuses said that they invite speakers from both political parties.

Richard Mouw, who served as president of Fuller Seminary before retiring in 2013, also sees a generational change among evangelical students. He recalled Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern being booed by students at the seminary during a speech in 1972.

Two years ago, he said, Wheaton College held a series of sermons against racism, where civil rights activists spoke. “All the students got up and gave them a standing ovation,” he recalled.

As some evangelicals struggle with reconciling their faith with politics, Mouw is helping organize a group called Pro-Life Evangelists for Biden, which is urging opponents of abortion to take a broader view.

Many women get abortions because they do not have enough money to care for another child, he said in an interview. Biden’s policies to raise the minimum wage, provide affordable health care and free childcare work to minimize abortions, he said.

Among those who agree is Daniel Lee, academic dean for the seminary’s Center for Asian American Theology and Ministry. “It’s about life. It’s not just about abortion. A lot of people don’t just think about the one issue, but the broader issue of social justice. About Muslims, refugees and how you treat the marginalized,” he said.

“If you don’t vote against Trump, you’re missing what the Gospel is all about, what our faith is all about,” said Lee, who was among 1,600 faith leaders who endorsed Biden through Vote Common Good, a Christian political group supporting the Democratic candidate.

“Love your neighbor,” he said. “It’s so basic.”

Source: Posted October 16, 2020; Retrieved December 8, 2020 from:  https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/10/16/christian-professors-try-reconcile-abortion-views-disdain-trump

—————–

Appendix B VIDEO – Why Evangelicals Are Still Voting For Donald Trump – https://youtu.be/-YAbuONPfVc

VICE News
Posted Aug 26, 2020 – Not as many Evangelical Christians are turning against Trump as you might think.

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Long Train of Abuses: Overseas Masters – Cannot See Overseas

Posted on December 7, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Locations, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

What is the weather right now in Amsterdam, London, Paris and/or Washington DC?

Do you know? Does it even matter?

Chances are, the people in those cities also do not think of the specificities of our weather in the Caribbean. They might think it is warm in the winter and hot in the summer, but they may not understand the flooding-drought cycles, the humidity or the pervasive threat of tropical cyclones: Hurricanes.

They do not know … and may not care.

This is the alarming dangers of having Overseas Masters; they may not appreciate the need or landscape for local efficiencies in our daily stewardship. They may not care about the details and thusly, may not even allow the audience for us to enunciate the challenges of our problems or the solutions. They may even veto regulations and measures on our end that are best practices because they might violate some political “day-dream” on their end.

The concern may be trivial … or it may be life-or-death. This issue is just another scenario where there is a Long Train of Abuse for colonial pawns … compared to their imperial-host counterparts.

Here is an example of trivial:

Imagine this scenario …

… a Group Purchasing Agreement for Coast Guard boats is vetoed because a different manufacturer offers a better discount on their boats and snow removal equipment all bundled together.

This is our reality in the Caribbean. The need for us to deploy the best local governing strategy, tactic and implementation have never been greater, yet our hands may be tied for our own self-determination.

Now for an example approaching life-or-death. See this story below from Martinique in the French Caribbean. This is the grave matter of environmental poisoning, with a chemical not allowed in Metropolitan France but tolerated in the French Antilles. Grasp the summary from this excerpt:

“… the issue is how overseas territories get treated; there’s contempt, distance, condescension, lack of respect.”

Say it ain’t so!

See the full news article here, as published by the BBC:

Title: The Caribbean islands poisoned by a carcinogenic pesticide
By: Tim Whewell, BBC News, Martinique

“First we were enslaved. Then we were poisoned.” That’s how many on Martinique see the history of their French Caribbean island that, to tourists, means sun, rum, and palm-fringed beaches. Slavery was abolished in 1848. But today the islanders are victims again – of a toxic pesticide called chlordecone that’s poisoned the soil and water and been linked to unusually high rates of prostate cancer.

“They never told us it was dangerous,” Ambroise Bertin says. “So people were working, because they wanted the money. We didn’t have any instructions about what was, and wasn’t, good. That’s why a lot of people are poisoned.” He’s talking about chlordecone, a chemical in the form of a white powder that plantation workers were told to put under banana trees, to protect them from insects.

Ambroise did that job for many years. Later, he got prostate cancer, a disease that is commoner on Martinique and its sister French island of Guadeloupe than anywhere else in the world. And scientists blame chlordecone, a persistent organic pollutant related to DDT. It was authorised for use in the French West Indies long after its harmful effects became widely known.

“They used to tell us: don’t eat or drink anything while you’re putting it down,” Ambroise, now 70, remembers. But that’s the only clue he and other workers in Martinique’s banana plantations in the 1970s, 80s and early 90s had about the possible danger. Few if any were told to wear gloves or masks. Now, many have suffered cancer and other illnesses.

Chlordecone is an endocrine disrupter, meaning it can affect hormonal systems.

One of the world’s leading experts on the chemical, Prof Luc Multigner, of Rennes University in France, says epidemiological studies have shown increased risk of premature births and increased risk of adverse brain development in children at the exposure levels people in Martinique and Guadeloupe face through contaminated food consumption.

He also says: “There is enough toxicological and experimental data to conclude that chlordecone is carcinogenic.”

Following a detailed study Prof Multigner and colleagues conducted on Guadeloupe in 2010, he estimates chlordecone is responsible for about 5-10% of prostate cancer cases in the French West Indies, amounting to between 50 to 100 new cases per year, out of a population of 800,000.

Chlordecone stays in the soil for decades, possibly for centuries. So more than 20 years after the chemical ceased to be used, much of the land on Martinique cannot be used for growing vegetables, even though bananas and other fruit on trees are safe.

Rivers and coastal waters are also contaminated, which means many fishermen cannot work. And 92% of Martinicans have traces of chlordecone in their blood.

“You try to have a healthy kind of life. So maybe you will limit the effects of the poison. But you are not sure,” says historian Valy Edmond-Mariette, aged 31. “My friends and I were asking ourselves: do we really want children? Because if we give them breast milk, maybe they will have chlordecone in their blood. And I think nobody should be asking themselves this kind of question, because it’s awful.”

Production of chlordecone was stopped in the United States – where it was marketed as Kepone – as far back as 1975, after workers at a factory producing it in Virginia complained of uncontrollable shaking, blurred vision and sexual problems. In 1979, the World Health Organization classed the pesticide as potentially carcinogenic.

But in 1981 the French authorities authorised chlordecone for use in banana plantations in the French West Indies – and even though it was finally banned in 1990, growers lobbied for – and got – permission to carry on using stocks until 1993.

That’s why – for many Martinicans – chlordecone stirs up painful historical memories. “A lot of people talk about chlordecone like a new kind of slavery,” says Valy, whose own ancestors were enslaved. For two centuries, until 1848, Martinique was a colony that depended on the production of sugar by enslaved people. And in the late 20th Century, some of the big banana growers who used chlordecone were the direct descendants of those slave-owning sugar exporters, part of a small white minority known as the békés.

“Those are still the same group of people who have uncontested domination of the land,” says Guilaine Sabine, activist in a grassroots organisation called Zero Chlordecone Zero Poison. As well as campaigning for free blood tests for everyone on the island, members of the group have taken part in a new wave of protests over the last year aiming to draw attention to businesses that activists say have profited from the production and use of toxic pesticides. The demonstrations have been small, and some protesters have been convicted of violence against the police. But they reflect wider anger over the slow pace of France’s response to the chlordecone catastrophe.

It was only in 2018 – after more than 10 years of campaigning by French Caribbean politicians – that President Emmanuel Macron accepted the state’s responsibility for what he called “an environmental scandal”. He said France had suffered “collective blindness” over the issue. A law to create a compensation fund for agricultural workers has now been passed. But payouts haven’t started yet.

Martinique is an integral part of France, but one of the island’s MPs, Serge Letchimy, says it would never have taken the state so many years to react if there had been pollution on the same scale in Brittany, for example, or elsewhere in European France. “The issue is how overseas territories get treated. There’s contempt, distance, condescension, lack of respect.”

Prof Multigner says the original documents of the official body that authorised use of the pesticide in 1981 have disappeared for unknown reasons, hampering attempts to investigate how the decision was taken.

But the state’s representative on Martinique, Prefect Stanislas Cazelles, insists there was no discrimination against the islanders.

“The Republic is on the side of the oppressed, of the weakest here, just as in the European part of France,” he says.

The state is working to find ways to decontaminate the land – some scientists think chlordecone can potentially be biodegraded quite quickly – and ensure there is no trace of the pesticide in the food chain. And the prefect hopes the independent commission that will judge compensation claims will generally rule in favour of former farm workers who say they are victims of the pesticide.

Ambroise, who worked with chlordecone for so many years, had an operation to remove his cancer in 2015. But he still suffers from thyroid disease and other problems that may be connected to chlordecone’s known effects on the hormonal system.

Meanwhile the historian, Valy, had blood cancer when she was just 25. Her doctor does not think it was due to chlordecone. But Valy says no-one can be sure.

Worrying about the effects of the pesticide, she says, can be exhausting. “But in the end, you can’t control everything. You have to admit that to some extent, you’re poisoned, so you just deal with it.”  😐

Source: Posted November 20, 2020; Retrieved December 6, 2020 from:  https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-54992051?fbclid=IwAR06kJWJa0snsL2On46rTiCpNKfxOFEhyF_G3uiyXKUk9Lpsp9hVMZjl60Q

This is not theoretical; this is the Long Train of Abuses we have had to endure here in the Caribbean.

This is the continuation of the monthly Teaching Series from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book presents issues that are germane to Caribbean life and culture and how to address them: problems and solutions. For this month of December 2020, we are looking at the Long Train of Abuses that could-would-should move our people to change, to reform and transform. This is entry 2-of-6; this one asserts that a system of Overseas Masters is inherently flawed as a strategy for governance in a local community – “they” cannot see overseas.

  • Too many things can go wrong.
  • Too many things have gone wrong.

These “gone wrong’ considerations are among the lessons for this Teaching Series this month. See the full catalog of the series this month:

  1. Long Train of Abuses: Enough Already – Colonialism Be Gone!
  2. Long Train of Abuses: Overseas Masters – Cannot See Overseas
  3. Long Train of Abuses: Religious Leadership in Government – Reconciling Trump
  4. Long Train of Abuses: Religious Character in Society – Human Rights
  5. Long Train of Abuses: Dutch Hypocrisy – Liberal Amsterdam vs Conservative Antilles
  6. Long Train of Abuses: Puerto Rico – “Take the Heat” or “Get out of the Kitchen”

This submission looks specifically at an example in the French Antilles. But the foregoing example of French mis-management is just another case of “For Export Only”-labeled products. For stakeholders in the host country, their overseas territory is far enough to be considered for “exports”. This is why the Caribbean region must no longer endure these Long Train of Abuses.

The Go Lean book, serving as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), asserts that Caribbean stakeholders must instantiate the technocratic security and governing apparatus to deliver in the Caribbean for the people of the Caribbean; for us by us. Our motivation is economic as well. Imagine our “trade” prospects.

In the foregoing news story, the threat on locally-grown produce was exposed because of the contaminating agents still in the soil in Martinique. Imagine a neighboring Caribbean island – i.e. Dominica – consuming fresh produce from Martinique. This is why any effort for a Caribbean Single Market must be coupled with a Security-Public-Safety apparatus as well.

Enough already! We do not want to be just an Export or Foreign Market. No, we want to be considered neighbors; we must protect each other.

We have addressed this theme before. Consider this sample of previous blog-commentaries that highlighted the roles and responsibilities to foster regional trade and regional harmony:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19570 European Role Model: Not when ‘Push’ comes to ‘Shove’
Under normal conditions, the EU boast Free Movement of people and universal protections of civil rights in every jurisdiction. But, now something has broken that European tranquility, the COVID-19 pandemic.The end-result may be closed borders, banned exports of critical supplies and withholding of humanitarian aid. That is “me first” nationalism, instead of the best-practice of interdependence.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18834 A Lesson in History: Free Trade Agreement of the Americas
Free Trade would allow for all 30 member-states to have a tariff-free trading environment. We need to consider this at least to fulfill our Food Security needs.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17282 Way Forward – For Independence: Territory Realities
A roadmap for a “bigger organization” tied to the geographical neighborhood, as opposed to the colonial legacy with “overseas masters” up to 8,000 miles away.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15567 Caribbean Unity? Need French Antilles
There must be a regional integration that will integrate the entire region. Yes, this effort posits that any integration without the French territories is like building a skyscraper on a shaky foundation. What a skyscraper really needs is: Bedrock, Baby! The Caribbean Union needs all French territories.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10554 Welcoming the French in Formal Integration Efforts
The islands of Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Martin and Saint Barthélemy want to do more with their tropical neighbors; they want to confederate, collaborate and convene on different issues related to community development and nation-building. The rest of the Caribbean should embrace this invitation.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10043 Caribbean Integration Plan for Greater Prosperity
Greater prosperity can be had in the Caribbean only by embracing regional integration. A new model of interdependence and regional integration is far better than the status quo. Like the African proverb says:”If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”.

“For export only” …

… just this label seems to be the catalyst for investigating the possibility of abuse. See this related story in this VIDEO here:

VIDEO – For Export Only – Pesticides (1981) – https://youtu.be/CPFLPGL_Lrg



Concord Media
Posted August 6, 2015 – Available to buy at: http://www.concordmedia.org.uk/produc… or buy or rent and watch now on: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/forexporto…

The export of pesticides banned in the West, to third world countries, and the disastrous effects of this policy.

Made in 1981 this film reflects the cultural attitudes of the country and language of the time it was made. The issues raised are timeless. The film quality may not be to modern standards.

Distributed by Concord Media
Website: http://concordmedia.org.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ConcordMedia
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ConcordMedia59
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/concordmedia/vod_pages

In general, it is no longer acceptable for “imperial countries” to still own colonies – the inherent threats were manifested in World War I and World War II. In the post WWII reconciliations, it was frown upon to perpetuate colonial ecosystems. To navigate around such a Eliminate Colonies mandate, the Republic of France simply declared their Caribbean territories as a member-sub-state of France, an Overseas Department.

These initiatives proved to just be empty gestures …

So now, while “on paper” these 4 Caribbean islands (and French Guiana too) are supposed to be part of First World France, it is irrefutable that France treats them simply as Third World territories. For example, as depicted in the foregoing news story of shipping and tolerating dangerous chemicals that had previously been banned in Metropolitan France.  🙁

This is a continuation of the Long Train of Abuses.

So this is our urging for all Caribbean member-states of French heritage; (plus British, Dutch and American):

Get out … now!

We hereby urge all stakeholders to lean-in to an alternative, a better Way Forward, this Go Lean roadmap. This is our plan to make our regional homeland a better place to live, work and play.

Yes, we can. Yes, we must! 🙂

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 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.

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 12 – 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.

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

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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Long Train of Abuses: Enough Already … from Colonialism

Posted on December 5, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

For anyone in an abusive relationship, here is what your family, friends … and the world expects of you:

Get Out!

It is easier said than done – see the tongue-in-cheek song in the Appendix VIDEO below – but getting out is the quest, the goal and the end destination. This applies to all victims: individuals … and countries.

In fact, this was the actuality of the 1776 Declaration of Independence for the original 13 colonies that became the United States of America. Here is a powerful excerpt from that text, as recorded on Page 10 in the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean:

… Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these [former] colonies [of European imperialism]; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.

This was modus operandi for the Americans to establish New Guards. This was also the assertion of the Go Lean book. The 30 member-states of the Caribbean region has also endured a long train of abuses from its historicity, actuality and colonial heritage.

It’s enough already!

The same as it was the right time for the 13 original American Colonies to usurp their status quo, demand independence and appoint New Guards, it is past time for the Caribbean to take this stand. In 2013, the Go Lean book presented this:

Declaration of Interdependence
We, the people of Caribbean democracies find it necessary to accede and form a confederated Union, the Caribbean Union Trade Federation, with our geographic neighbors of common interest.

In addition, that Declaration “submitted facts”, detailing the shift in governance that must occur in the region. (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 December 2020, we are looking at the Long Train of Abuses that could-would-should move our people to change, to reform and transform. This is entry 1-of-6, the first one; it introduces the thesis that “enough already”; we are past the time when we should have made these changes. Consider here, the full catalog of the series this month:

  1. Long Train of Abuses: Enough Already – Colonialism Be Gone!
  2. Long Train of Abuses: Overseas Masters – Cannot See Overseas
  3. Long Train of Abuses: Religious Leadership in Government – Reconciling Trump
  4. Long Train of Abuses: Religious Character in Society – Human Rights
  5. Long Train of Abuses: Dutch Hypocrisy – Liberal Amsterdam vs Conservative Antilles
  6. Long Train of Abuses: Puerto Rico – “Take the Heat” or “Get out of the Kitchen”

The Go Lean book, serving as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), asserts that Caribbean stakeholders must do the heavy-lifting to mitigate the societal defects, of which there are many. Our focus for Forging Change must consider both Top-Down and Bottoms-Up approaches. The purpose of the Go Lean roadmap is to optimize the economic, security and governing engines of Caribbean society, so there is a lot to consider.

There is not just One Stumbling Block that we must overcome; there are many. The purpose of this month’s Teaching Series is to focus on those Stumbling Blocks that have been aged for centuries here in our region. This is why we say, it is past time to reform and transform.

Enough already …

We must learn, as depicted in the opening of this commentary, that the structures of colonialism were not designed for our best interests, but rather the best interests of our colonizing host empires. So if we still maintain the same colonial structure that was instituted centuries ago, we are already behind in the race for the needed protection and prosperity in modern life.

Yes, we must finally Get Out of the abusive relationships that we have endured for such long times.

To the 18 (of 30) member-states that have a heritage of British colonialism – just 1 of the 5 – we have repeatedly warned to remove all vestiges of the Westminster ecosystem. It does not work! See this theme as it was presented in these previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=21138 Brexit Manifestation: Not So Good for Britain or Colonies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16317 When Queen ‘Elizabeth’ Dies … what’s next?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13993 First Steps – Following the ‘Dignified and Efficient’ British Model
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13579 Colonialism’s Bloody History Revisited – ‘Thor’ Movie
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12447 State of the Union: Deficient ‘Westminster System’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11420 ‘Black British’ and still ‘Less Than’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9485 10 Things We Want from the UK and 10 Things We Do Not Want

Life imitating art …

… the Netflix TV Series “The Crown Season 4” featured the storyline of British Prime Minister (PM) Margaret Thatcher’s rise and fall.

Three episodes from the fourth season — “Favourites,” “Fagan” and “48:1” — strongly imply that [Queen] Elizabeth objected to Thatcher’s harsh government spending cuts and refusal to impose economic sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid regime. The show depicts the queen politely but firmly confronting the prime minister over these matters during private meetings and “audiences” at Buckingham Palace.

The drama from this TV Show dramatizes that PM Thatcher had a clear conflict of interest regarding South Africa, in that “her son was an investor in projects promoted and supported by the Apartheid South African government“. When the UK  government (and many other international governments) were called on to impose economic sanctions against South Africa, the UK PM was the sole hold-out. See the series; consume it at your leisure. The performances are awe-inspiring; see this summary of one key character’s performances in this VIDEO here:

VIDEO – Best of Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher | The Crown – https://youtu.be/gZgqQsFvyMM



Netflix UK & Ireland
Posted Nov 25, 2020 – Best known for her sensational performances in The X Files, The Fall and Sex Education, Gillian Anderson plays Britain’s first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, in The Crown Season 4. Here are her best moments from the series. That voice though…

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Best of Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher | The Crown https://youtube.com/NetflixUK

In the 1980s, Elizabeth clashes with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher while Prince Charles enters a tumultuous marriage with Lady Diana Spencer.

This foregoing show is set in London. This city is the cradle of the British brand of democracy around the world, with the seat of government for Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth II, the Head of State of the UK and the Head of the Commonwealth of Nations. So we in the Caribbean – whose population reflect a majority Black-and-Brown demographic, just like South Africa – need to add this historicity to the “Long Train of Abuses” in our orthodoxy. Thatcher’s refusal to endorse the tougher program of economic sanctions against Apartheid, as originally laid out by other Commonwealth leaders, is a direct “slap in the face” to our race of people.

Colonialism has been the source of many of our toxic environments. Enough already!

We can do bad all by ourselves; we do not need a toxic hegemony to impede our societal progress. We should never “love people that do not love us back”; nor sacrifice for people that will not sacrifice for us.

This is why we say: Enough already!

At one point, South Africa said “Enough Already”, as they shed their colonial shackles; they migrated to a Republic with a more representative constitution.

This is our urging for all Caribbean member-states of British heritage. But don’t get it twisted …

… the same issue is applicable for the other colonial legacies: American, Dutch, French and Spanish. While we cannot change the past, we do not have to be chained to it. This goal, as depicted in the Go Lean book, is to learn from the past, value our culture, but adapt our society for the challenges of the future. See this excerpt from the first page of the book:

Though a lot of the options the CU advocates were available to Caribbean member-states in the past, the reasons and rationales as to why they were not pursued is now of no consequence. We cannot ignore the past, as it defines who we are, but we do not wish to be shackled to the past either, for then, we miss the future. So we must learn from the past, our experiences and that of other states in similar situations, mount our feet solidly to the ground and then lean-in, to reach for new heights; forward, upward and onward.

Lean-in or adapt?  A better way to state the action is to “reform and transform”.

This is how we change our world, after a long train of abuses, by feeling-saying-doing: “No; Stop; and Get Out”.

We hereby urge all stakeholders to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap; this is our plan to make our regional homeland a better place to live, work and play.

Yes, we can … 🙂

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 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.

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 12 – 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.

xxii. Whereas the heritage of our lands share the distinction of cultural tutelage from European and American imperialists that forged their tongues upon our consciousness, it is imperative to form a society that is neutral and tolerant of the mother tongue influences of our people to foster efficient and effective communications among our citizens.

xxiii. Whereas many countries in our region are dependent Overseas Territory of imperial powers, the systems of governance can be instituted on a regional and local basis, rather than requiring oversight or accountability from distant masters far removed from their subjects of administration. The Federation must facilitate success in autonomous rule by sharing tools, systems and teamwork within the geographical region.

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 – 50 Years to Leave Your Lover – https://youtu.be/K4xoHjNjxus

Simon & Garfunkel
Posted August 25, 2015 – “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” by Simon & Garfunkel from The Concert in Central Park

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Lyrics:
“The problem is all inside your head”
She said to me
“The answer is easy if you
Take it logically
I’d like to help you in your struggle
To be free
There must be fifty ways
To leave your lover”

She said, “It’s really not my habit to intrude
Furthermore, I hope my meaning
Won’t be lost or misconstrued
But I’ll repeat myself
At the risk of being crude
There must be fifty ways
To leave your lover
Fifty ways to leave your lover”

You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee

And get yourself free

Ooh, slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just listen to me
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free

She said, “It grieves me so
To see you in such pain
I wish there was something I could do
To make you smile again”
I said, “I appreciate that
And would you please explain
About the fifty ways?”
She said, “Why don’t we both
Just sleep on it tonight
And I believe in the morning
You’ll begin to see the light”
And then she kissed me
And I realized she probably was right
There must be fifty ways
To leave your lover
Fifty ways to leave your lover

You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free
Slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just listen to me
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free

#SimonAndGarfunkel #50WaystoLeaveYourLover #TheConcertInCentralPark

Music in this video

  • Song: 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (Live at Central Park, New York, NY – September 19, 1981)
  • Artist: Simon & Garfunkel
  • Writers: Paul Simon
  • Licensed to YouTube by: SME (on behalf of Columbia); CMRRA, UNIAO BRASILEIRA DE EDITORAS DE MUSICA – UBEM, UMPG Publishing, BMI – Broadcast Music Inc., LatinAutorPerf, UMPI, LatinAutor – UMPG, and 9 Music Rights Societies
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Hello Travel Insurance – No Longer Optional

Posted on November 27, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

The actuality of 2020 has changed the world. Period.

Many of the changes have been bad; but there are some that are shaping up to be good. One such is the emergence of Travel Insurance as a necessary product for visitors to the different Caribbean member-states (islands and coastal countries). Imagine a tourist contracting Coronavirus COVID-19 while vacationing in the Caribbean. How would that complicated situation be managed … and paid for?

The need for Travel Insurance is indisputable.

What exactly is Travel Insurance?

Travel insurance is an insurance product for covering unforeseen losses incurred while travelling, either internationally or domestically. Basic policies generally only cover emergency medical expenses while overseas, while comprehensive policies typically include coverage for trip cancellation, lost luggage, flight delays, public liability, and other expenses.[1]

Cost calculation
Travel insurance, are risk-based, and take into account a range of factors to determine whether a traveller can purchase a policy and what the premium will be. This generally includes destination countries or regions, the duration of the trip, the age of the travellers, and any optional benefits that they require coverage for such as pre-existing medical conditions, adventure sports, rental vehicle excess, cruising, or high-value electronics.[2] Some policies will also take into account the traveller’s estimated value of their trip to determine price. …

Journey departure and return conditions
Most travel insurance policies must be purchased prior to departure from home, or from the first departure point (e.g. an airport), depending on the product….

Complimentary travel insurance
Some credit card issuers offer automatic travel insurance if travel arrangements are paid for using their credit cards, but these policies are generic and do not take into account personal requirements and circumstances.[5]

Common benefits
Medical
In the event of minor injury or illness overseas, medical benefits offer coverage for visits to general practitioners, medicine, ambulance fees, and limited dentistry benefits. In the event of hospitalisation, most travel insurance policies include emergency assistance services, which can offer guarantees of payment to hospitals for treatment, liaise treating doctors, and organise transfers between hospitals or medical evacuations back to the insured person’s country of origin.[6] More comprehensive policies include an emergency companion cover, so that a family member can remain with the insured person while in hospital.

In the event of death overseas, medical benefit sections typically include cover for repatriation of remains to insured person’s the country of origin, or a funeral overseas.
…
Compulsory travel insurance
Certain countries require foreign visitors have proof of sufficient travel insurance as a condition for granting a visa or of approving visa-free entry. This includes travellers applying for a Schengen Area or UAE visa, and all visitors to Cuba, Turkey and Belarus.[21] Thailand[22] and Egypt[23] have announced plans to introduce similar requirements. Tour companies and cruise providers may also require passengers possess a minimum level of travel insurance before the traveller can commence their journey. – Source: Retrieved November 28, 2020 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_insurance.

As related here in the foregoing, some countries have mandated Travel Insurance; we see now that a number of Caribbean member-states have followed suit, as a mitigating strategy to the actualities of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. See here, the details for Jamaica and the Bahamas:

Title 1: “This must become international”: Jamaica launches mandatory protection program
By: Cindy Sosroutomo
KINGSTON, JAMAICA — Jamaica has announced a groundbreaking – and mandatory – new program for all foreign travellers, effective next month [November 2020].

Jamaica Cares, a joint collaboration between the Global Tourism Resilience & Crisis Management Centre (GTRCMC), the Global Travel and Tourism Resilience Council, and Global Rescue, is being hailed as a first-of-its kind traveller protection and emergency services program designed to protect both visitors and the people of Jamaica.

For approximately US$40, the end-to-end program provides all nationalities who are entering Jamaica with non-Jamaica passports with access to compulsory traveller protection and emergency medical services. It is comprised of two major components:

  • All Hazards program: Case management, transport logistics, field rescue, evacuation, and repatriation for medical emergencies, including COVID-19 and other crises up to and including natural disasters
  • COVID-19-specific program: International health coverage up to US$100,000 for visitors traveling to and from Jamaica, and on-island health coverage up to US$50,000

In a virtual press conference earlier this morning, Dan Richards, CEO of Global Rescue, confirmed that the fee will go towards supporting its new Jamaica Operations Centre (JOC) based in Montego Bay, and additional expansion to other locations as necessary.

“The JOC will ensure a rapid boots-on-the-ground response capability for dealing with crises when they occur, including coordinating our COVID-19 response in Jamaica and the region,” said Richards. “We envision head count to grow as we grow out the program to Jamaica and, ultimately, throughout the region and potentially the world.

“We will not rest until we have accomplished our mission, and that is the restoration of Jamaican travel and tourism to pre-COVID-19 levels and ongoing support thereafter.”

Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett, stressed the need for a proactive approach to global tourism recovery, saying that “destination assurance” is becoming a critical pre-condition for travel today.

“Trust has to be earned, we can only do that with action – not just words – through innovation, partnership and empathy,” said Bartlett. “As thought leaders, Jamaica has proactively taken a vital role in recovering and building the spirit of travel by restoring the trust and confidence of travellers in our destination. Jamaica Cares represents another prong in our COVID resilience and has been designed very specifically and deliberately. The program’s protocols will ensure our ability to welcome travellers to Jamaica safely.”

Bartlett expects the program to be implemented by U.S. thanksgiving, and confirms that Jamaica has already begun speaking with other countries that wish to follow suit. More information regarding how travellers can access the program and when payment will be required will come in the next few weeks, though Bartlett said that “the market will be given enough time to be able to respond to whatever the requirements are to comply.”

For travellers who already have travel insurance in place, Richards said that Jamaica Cares is an additive program.

“The extent that the individual already has a mechanism in place, either a service provider or a travel insurance package that they’ve already purchased, our personnel will work with whatever insurance they have to deconflict that program with ours and to make sure the delivery of services is seamless,” said Richards. “At the end of the day, what we are aiming for is that seamless delivery of service with respect to these types of issues.”

Also joining the press conference was Gloria Guevara, president & CEO of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), and Dr. Taleb Rifai, Co-Chair of the GTRCMC and the Global Travel and Tourism Resilience Council, and former Secretary-General of the United Nations’ World Tourism Organization (WTO).

Guevara stressed the need for the global community to eliminate quarantines so that “people can freely move around”, and said that today’s announcement is an important step towards resuming international travel.

“From WTTC, we believe that we have to learn how to co-exist with this virus, and we cannot wait for a vaccine to be ready and be deployed around the world,” she said. “We see Jamaica Cares as a very important initiative that will be a good example around the world and will hopefully be replicated by other countries.”

Rifai also hailed the program, calling it a great initiative between the public and private sectors.

“Now it’s in the hands of governments,” he said. “This concept must become international and we must have most governments adhere to it. It’s the only way we can travel safely and have peace of mind.”

Source: Posted Monday, October 26, 2020; retrieved November 15, 2020 from: https://www.travelweek.ca/news/this-concept-must-become-international-jamaica-launches-mandatory-protection-program/

———-

Title 2: Travel Insurance for the Bahamas
Sub-title: Do I Need Travel Insurance for the Bahamas?

“Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama…” It’s no surprise the 1988 Beach Boys hit “Kokomo” features the Bahamas so prominently. Even today, the island getaway remains one of the most popular vacation destinations among travelers.

In light of recent hurricane activity in the area and COVID-19 pandemic, our customers are increasingly asking if travel insurance is required for trips to the Bahamas. As of November 14, 2020, travel health insurance is required for all incoming visitors. The cost for the mandatory insurance is included in the price of the Travel Health Visa that all tourists are required to apply for before entry. Travelers should keep in mind that this required coverage may be limited, so we recommend purchasing additional coverage to cover non-health-related expenses, like travel delays or baggage loss, for example.

Concerns about illness, injuries, and medical issues have historically been the top reasons those traveling to the Bahamas ask about insurance. However, the destruction caused by Hurricane Dorian has changed the way people are thinking about coverage for the islands. Weather is now the number one concern driving Bahamas trip insurance inquiries. Unforeseen weather events can wreak havoc on travel plans by causing delays, cancellations, and even total destruction of your accommodations in some cases. Choosing an insurance plan that will cover these types of events is your best defense.

As mentioned above, many travelers to the Bahamas buy coverage to supplement or replace their domestic health insurance while they’re away. Most domestic health insurance providers do not provide coverage while you are out of the country. For this reason, those taking a trip to the Bahamas frequently purchase travel medical plans. This way, they can stay protected against hefty out-of-pocket costs as a result of unforeseen illnesses or injuries.

While healthcare and weather concerns are the main reasons travelers purchase trip insurance for the Bahamas, there are additional reasons worth considering. For example, the Bahamas is a popular destination among cruisers, so you might consider choosing a plan that incorporates cruise coverage if you plan to set sail. Other travelers may be flying internationally to reach the islands. In these cases, flight insurance can help travelers with unexpected issues, including delays, interruptions, and missed connections.

Many comprehensive travel insurance plans include specialized coverages, like baggage delay or loss, emergency medical evacuation, or dental care while abroad. It’s important to think about which coverages make sense for your Bahamian vacation or business trip before choosing a plan.

How Much is Travel Insurance for the Bahamas?
One of the most common questions we get from customers planning a visit to the Bahamas is “how much travel insurance will cost?” The cost of the required travel insurance is now included in the Bahamas Travel Health Visa. However, the cost of a plan with additional coverage varies due to several factors. First, the number of travelers in the group may affect the rate. In general, policies that cover more than one traveler have an increased cost. Second, traveler ages can play a role in determining pricing, as older travelers typically carry more risk as a result of medical concerns. This increased risk can translate to a higher cost, especially if one or more travelers in the group have any pre-existing conditions. Another important factor is the duration of your trip. Traveling for a longer period of time usually means there are more opportunities for travel hiccups. So, a plan that covers a week-long trip or vacation will be considerably cheaper than a plan that covers long-term travel. One of the most significant factors for determining the cost of travel insurance is the kind of coverage the plan offers. Typically, the price of a plan will increase for each coverage it includes.

Source: Retrieved November 16, 2020 from: https://www.insuremytrip.com/destinations/bahamas-travel-insurance/

The “pangs of distress” of this pandemic rages on. Leave well enough alone and “things go to hell”: residents and citizens alike end up in the Emergency Room and the ICU. There is the need for therapeutics, oxygen, breathing aids, ventilators and even lung transplants.

Leave well enough alone and things go from worse to worst.

We must act … before, during and after affliction. Travel Insurance is a good Way Forward. See the documented experiences of a Frequent Traveller-Couple in the Appendix VIDEO below.

Change is afoot! There is still the need for touristic hospitality while pragmatically addressing the real risk of this pandemic.

Expect more Caribbean member-states and cruise lines to follow this model, individually. How about collectively? Is there a need for a regional coordination of tourism activities and risk management?

Yes, indeed …

We needed this construct before COVID-19 … and we will need it after COVID-19. We simply need a strong regional foundation for economics, security (Public Safety) and governance, This has been the assertion since the publication of the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. The 30 member-states of the region must collaborate, consolidate and confederate their tourism promotion and protection operations. This collectivity will create leverage across the entire regional base.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for that regional construct: the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) and the Caribbean Central Bank (CCB). So why not also a locally-regionally owned insurance carrier; maybe even a CU/CCB subsidiary. We should be able to keep the profits here at home.

In a previous Go Lean commentary, from June 16, 2018, it was related how …

“the world is telling the Caribbean: Better band together to assuage your challenges. We are united in affliction, we might as well be united in solutions. Yes, it is no longer optional for our region to confederate as a Single Market.”

Confederation is not a bad thing! In a different previous blog-commentary from December 7, 2017, it was asserted that our Caribbean member-states all suffer from the same inadequate infrastructure, and thusly need to benefit from regional empowerments. Yes, the effect of regional integration could even be an Increased Caribbean Tourism Market Share. That commentary quoted:

It’s time to take inventory of Caribbean tourism:

      1. It has been found wanting! …
      It has been weighed in the balance; it has been measured …

Tourism is the current dominant industry; the goal is to “stand on the shoulders” of previous accomplishments, add infrastructure not possible by just one member-state alone and then reap the benefits. Imagine this manifestation in just this one new strategy: inter-island ferries that connect all islands for people, cars and goods.

The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean seeks to reboot the economic engines of the Caribbean member-states. So while tourism is the region’s primary economic driver, it is inadequate for providing the needs of the people in the region, and inadequate for dealing with the crisis of pandemics. We must do better!

The likelihood of more pandemics/epidemics in the Caribbean is great. We have already had to contend with:

The Go Lean book explains further that the Caribbean region must install a security apparatus to prepare the economic engines, with the directive to prepare and respond to pandemic and natural disasters. The efficiency and effectiveness of a Caribbean Emergency Management Agency must be streamlined to ensure the world that there is business continuity of our systems of commerce. This quotation is derived from the Go Lean book at Page 184:

Modeled after FEMA in the US, this agency will be charged with the preparation, response and reconstruction for the regions for the eventual manifestations of hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, flooding and other declared disasters, natural and man-made like medical epidemic, drought, pollution, oil spills, terrorism, etc.

This is what it means to be a technocracy, to promote the arts and sciences of Professional Emergency Management; as explained further at Page 64:

The CU treaty calls for a collective security agreement for the Caribbean member-states to prepare-respond to natural disasters, emergency incidents and assuage against systemic threats against the homeland. The CU employs the professional arts and sciences of Emergency Management to spread the costs and risks across the entire region. Outside of hurricanes or earthquakes, the emergency scope includes medical trauma, pandemic incidents and industrial accidents (i.e. oil or chemical spills) – any scenario that can impact the continuity of the economic engines and/or community.

This commentary describes the dynamics of a regional tourism promotion and protection. Yes, managing regional tourism means optimizing the planning and response for pandemics and natural disasters. As we have asserted time and again, this is no longer optional for this Caribbean region. We must now invest in the earnest effort for integration and collaboration. We must have the leverage to spread the costs, risks and premium base across the entire Caribbean region. Only then will the rest of the world know that a trip to the Caribbean is safe, risk-free and rewarding.

The Go Lean movement has previously detailed many related issues and advocacies for regional tourism management. Consider this sample of previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20561 Toxic Environment – Opposite of ‘Diversity & Inclusion’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19409 Coronavirus: ‘Clear and Present’ Threat to Economic Security
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19217 ‘Live and Let Live’ – Allowing some Localism for Touristic Administrations
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18831 Opportunity: Supply Cruise Line with their Food needs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17919 ‘Be our Guest’ – But the Rules of Hospitality damage Societal Ethics
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17072 Caribbean Cruise Ports can be ‘Held Hostage’ without Collective Bargaining
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15521 Caribbean Unity? What a Joke – Tourism Missteps Again and Again
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15380 Industrial Reboot – Cruise Tourism 2.0 – A Better End-Product for All
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14761 Flying the Caribbean Skies – Optimizing the Regional Air Travel Ecosystem
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12879 Disaster Preparation: ‘Rinse and Repeat’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11544 Forging Change in the Cruise eco-system: Collective Bargaining
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6341 Tourism Stewardship — What’s Next?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5210 Cruise Ship Commerce – Getting Ready for Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=235 Tourism’s changing profile

We have to get along with our neighbors better; we have to “share the load”.

The Go Lean book quotes the Singer-Songwriter Bill Withers in his 1970 Hit Song “Lean On Me”. (Bill Withers died earlier in 2020). Art imitates Life and Life imitates Art as the song lyrics explain, here:

If there is a load you have to bear
That you can’t carry
I’m right up the road
I’ll share your load
If you just call me.

If one or two Caribbean countries adapt a mandatory Travel Insurance scheme, then really, all countries should consider. That universality can create more demand; a greater demand can create greater supply options; greater supply options can create better pricing and quality options.

This is Travel Insurance 101.

This is Economics 101.

People will get sick; people will die. Be prepared!

So we must reform and transform the Caribbean’s societal engines so as to assuage the dangers of global pandemics and natural disasters. This is the quest of the Go Lean roadmap. and this is not just a pipe dream; it is conceivable, believable and achievable for our regional stakeholders to do better and be better with regional tourism promotion and protections.

All Caribbean stakeholders – residents and tourists alike – are urged to lean-in to this roadmap for change … and empowerment. We can make the region a better place to live work and play. 🙂

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

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) and the Caribbean Central Bank (CCB), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

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

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 12 – 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.

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 – Travel insurance 2020 don’t make the mistake traveling without travel insurance – https://youtu.be/nWlWTy3kAEE



Jerry Brown Travels
Published July 12, 2020 – Understanding travel insurance protect yourself by using international travel insurance. COVID-19 has changed our lives and the way we travel.

Why should I consider international travel medical insurance?

Buying a travel medical insurance plan is a smart choice for international travelers. When you’re far from home, this type of plan provides insurance benefits designed for travelers and non-insurance travel assistance services.

Travel with Us on YouTube https://goo.gl/SCHrdw

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Decision 2020 – Diaspora Accepting their New Home

Posted on November 25, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Give double honor to … leaders who handle their duties well. – Bible 1 Timothy 5:17 GOD’S WORD® Translation

The world is mourning the passing of David N. Dinkins, the former Mayor of New York City – the first and only Black Man to hold that position. We can tell a lot about the measure of the man by taking note of the honors given to him at the time of his death. In this case, it is a …

Double Honor

… especially from the point of view of the Caribbean Diaspora living in the decedent’s community.

There is so much to glean from these tributes.

First, review this obituary … of this great man in the Appendix below. The Bible speaks of death, for a Christian, as a rest from his/her labor.

  • ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ – Matthew 25:23 English Standard Version
  • Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!” – Revelation 14:13 English Standard Version

David Dinkins labored. Though he had no direct connection to the Caribbean – not a descendant or a resident, other than his charitable outreach – he is being recognized as a “Hero” to Caribbean-Americans. Why? His primary motive was to improve the lives of Americans in his beloved New York City; for that he labored and toiled all his life. Therefore he is being lauded with this type of reverential language.

Mayor Bill de Blasio participates during the West Indian American Day Parade in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Monday, Sept. 2, 2019. (AP Photo/Jeenah Moon)

We are gathering from the theme of these honors to the dearly departed Mayor that the political leaders of the Caribbean American community are not Exiles. They are NOT sitting in the US, in New York City or wherever, waiting for conditions to improve in their homeland so that they can return, plant themselves there and finally prosper.

Nope! This foreign land here, the United States of America is accepted as their New Home. This is their destination. This is where they want to plant themselves and then prosper where they are planted. Just look at the accolades from the Caribbean-American community to their former Mayor in this article here:

Title: Caribbean American Legislators Pay Tribute to Former New York City Mayor
Caribbean American legislators have paid tribute to New York City’s first and only Black Mayor, David N. Dinkins, who died Monday night at his home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He was 93.

“It’s hard to adequately express the impact of the life and work of New York City’s first Black Mayor, David Dinkins,” said New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, the son of Grenadian immigrants.

“The city benefited from his leadership, and so many Black New Yorkers benefitted from his pioneering example,” he told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).

“For me, a young man when he was elected, he was inspiring. I could not be the fourth citywide Black elected leader, if he were not the first. It was a privilege to have met and spent time with him, and it is an enduring honour to work in the building he did for so long, one that now bears his name.”

The Public Advocate noted that Dinkins assumed his role in City Hall and in history at a time when the city faced compounding crises of economic turbulence, racial injustice, and systemic failings in housing, policing and healthcare, among other things.

“The mayor sought to steer the city through the moment and move it forward. He took up that mission not with bombast or ego, but with deliberative determination to continue down the path of liberty, justice and equity,” Williams said, adding that Dinkins was “a moral center for the city with a clear vision for a better New York.”

In creating the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), in leading the Safe Streets, Safe City initiative, among many other areas, Williams said Dinkins “paved the way for progress we would later see and which others would try to claim credit for.

“He took strong interest in uplifting and supporting young people like myself, and he focused on creating direct and indirect opportunities for growth that I and others now try to build upon,” the Public Advocate said.

“And for his work, he was mercilessly attacked and vilified by those who would rather stoke resentment than solve problems.

“Through all of the criticism, he continued to do the work he knew to be right. After he left office, he continued to be a pillar of leadership, and a role model for people across the borough and the nation.”

Williams said losing Mayor Dinkins, just weeks after his beloved wife, Joyce.

“We owe him not only a debt of gratitude but a commitment to try and realize his vision for what the gorgeous mosaic of New York City can be – uplifting each piece, and recognizing that it is at its strongest and most beautiful when the pieces are brought together, as was Mayor Dinkins’ mission,” Williams said, adding “his passing leaves a gap in that mosaic as New York feels a historic loss.”

Brooklyn Democratic Party chair Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, said Mayor Dinkins, who served a single four-year term during the 1990s, will be remembered as “a pioneer in the history of our city.

“As New York’s first Black mayor, he broke barriers and sought to unify New Yorkers during a tense time in our city’s past,” said Bichotte, who represents the predominantly Caribbean 42nd Assembly District in Brooklyn.

She said Dinkins established the city’s first minority-owned Women Business Enterprise (MWBE) programme, “setting the course for minority and women entrepreneurs to prosper in the empire state.

“I am grateful for Mayor Dinkins’ contribution to our city, which helped pave the way for others, like myself, to serve,” Bichotte told CMC.

Under Dinkins’s term, she said the overall crime rate in the city fell 14 percent, and the homicide rate dropped 12 percent.

“It was the first time in more than a decade that the city became safer,” Bichotte said.

New York City Councilwoman Farah N. Louis, another Haitian American legislator in Brooklyn, said that, from the United States Marine Corps to city and state government, Mayor Dinkins was “a man of humility with a heart for service to others.

“During his mayoralty, he championed issues that disproportionately affected marginalized populations across our city,” said Louis, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, who represents the 45th Council District in Brooklyn.

“Today, we mourn the loss of a man who believed in building communities and preserving our city’s unparalleled cultural diversity,” she added.

Louis’s City Council colleague and compatriot, Dr. Mathieu Eugene, described Dinkins as “a trailblazer and compassionate public servant who made history as New York’s first African-American mayor.

“I want to express my deepest sympathies to his family and friends, and may God continue to bless and comfort them during this very difficult time,” said Councilman Eugene, representative for Brooklyn’s 40th Council District, the first Haitian to be elected to New York City Council.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said New York City has lost “a great champion for people of colour and a historic leader for a more inclusive city.

“Mayor Dinkins was not just the first Black mayor; he was not just a symbol. Through his actions on behalf of lower-income people, he was both our effective advocate and confirmation of a long-held hope that our lives mattered to our government.

“May we all follow in his large footsteps and add our bright stitch to the gorgeous mosaic of New York City that he so loved,” Adams urged.

Source: https://www.caribbeannationalweekly.com/news/national-news/caribbean-american-legislators-pay-tribute-to-former-new-york-city-mayor/ posted and retrieved November 25, 2020.

The insights we have gathered – from these tributes and other facts of the Caribbean American experiences – are that these Caribbean-American leaders are already “home” in America. They have no plans to return or repatriate to the islands. This fight – elevating America – is now their fight; their cause for life-long devotion.

This thesis is supported by the legal facts. When someone becomes an American citizen, they make this oath:

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America. – Source: US Citizenship and Naturalization Service

Imagine this imagery from Social Media, that Caribbean person has to change their relationship status with their former homeland, to “someone you used to know”. See a poignant MUSIC VIDEO on that theme in the Appendix below.

This is actually a BIG ISSUE for Decision 2020. There were a lot of Caribbean Americans on the ballot in a lot of places, at all levels:

Federal The most prominent is the new Vice-President-Elect of the United States, Kamala Harris. She features a Jamaican heritage (Father). Yes, she can become the 47th President of the United States.
State There have been Governors and Lieutenant Governors with Caribbean heritage.
County The current County Mayor in Broward County (Ft Lauderdale), Florida, Dale Holness, is a Jamaican Diaspora and the first cousin of the current Prime Minister of Jamaica, Andrew Holness.
City/Municipal The current mayor of Miramar, Florida, Wayne Messam, proudly boasts his Jamaican heritage. (He was also a candidate for the 2020 Democratic Nomination for President).

This commentary continues the analysis of the impact of the Caribbean on America’s politics … and the impact and lessons of America’s politics on the Caribbean. (Though not in the scope of this commentary, there is impact on Canada as well).

In summary, “we are in a pickle”. Many Caribbean people emigrate to the United States with no intention or interest to return back home … some day or any day. These ones are gifted, talented and have a lot to offer any community. The have “come to America”; they Looked, Listened, Learned, Lend-a-hand and now ready to Lead. But they want to be like David Dinkins – good for them – not conquering heroes returning to their ancestral homelands – bad for us.

This is a continuation of the monthly Teaching Series from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean. This book serves as a roadmap of an advocacy to repatriate Caribbean people back to their homelands. These Teaching Series entries always address issues germane to Caribbean life and culture.  This one is no different. We presented 5 entries in October 2020, plus four subsequent ones in November – this is the fifth. All of these entries are relevant for Decision 2020 as they relate the actuality of the US balloting on the Diaspora.  See the full catalog of this multi-month Decision 2020 series here:

  1. Decision 2020: Puerto Rico claps back at Trump
  2. Decision 2020: Haiti’s Agenda 2016 ==> 2020 – Trump never cared
  3. Decision 2020: Latino Gender Gap – More Toxic Masculinity
  4. Decision 2020: More Immigration or Less
  5. Decision 2020: What’s Next for Cuba & Venezuela
    ——– After the Vote:
  6. Decision 2020: Hasta La Vista Mr. Trump
  7. Decision 2020: Voices From the ‘Peanut Gallery’
  8. Decision 2020: It is what it is; ‘we are who we are’
  9. Decision 2020: The Winner: Cannabis’
  10. Decision 2020: Diaspora accepting their New Home

Decision 2020 will be analyzed ad naseum and remembered ad infinitum.

The take-away from all of these considerations is that American politics have a bearing on our Caribbean eco-system; and that Caribbean people – and causes – have a bearing on American politics.

There is a familiar theme in this commentary – Caribbean Diaspora not inclined to return or repatriate. The purpose of the Go Lean book and movement have always been to introduce the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to do the heavy-lifting for executing strategies, tactics and implementations that would elevate Caribbean society and finally present a inviting call for repatriation. We have repeatedly blogged on this subject; consider this sample of previous submissions:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19203 Brain Drain – Brain Gain: Yes we can! Bring People Back
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19134 Last of a 8-part series on the futility of recruiting the Diaspora to return
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18098 After 400 Years of Slavery – Where is ‘Home’ now?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18065 Miami – Not a “Temporary” Stop for Caribbean people – Permanent Home
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16368 Aging Diaspora: Finding Home … anywhere, everywhere else
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15126 States must have ‘population increases’ – Encourage Repatriation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14954 Overseas Workers – Not the Panacea
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14746 Calls for Repatriation Strategy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13604 Caribbean Communities Want Diaspora to Retire Back at Home
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9214 Time to Go: A Series Relating Why Caribbean People Should Return
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7628 Invite Repatriates to “come from afar”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7151 The Caribbean is Looking for Heroes … ‘to Return’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4222 Message to Caribbean Retirees – “Come in from the cold”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2547 Miami’s Success connected to Caribbean Failures

America “sucks in immigrants” and never lets them go!

It is pragmatic and understandable that people may have to seek refuge … in a foreign land. So the advocacy of a repatriation quest is really “going against the tide”, a strong current.  🙁

We want Caribbean people to return to their Caribbean homelands whenever it is feasible and possible. If this is a dream, then it is a good one. The experiences show that this dream is improbable, if not impossible. This is a Biblical concept. In the Go Lean book, the reference is made to this Biblical precept with this excerpt from Page 144:

10 Lessons from the Bible
#2 – Emigrate for Economic Reasons

The Bible provides great examples of people temporarily relocating/emigrating to foreign lands for economic reasons; the examples of patriarch Abraham, with his wife Sarah, going to Egypt to flee a famine in Canaan (Gen 12:10) and that of Joseph going ahead to Egypt to arrange relief for his family from a great famine prophesied for the land. This distress proved so great that Joseph’s Plan for “7 Fat Years and 7 Skinny Years” was welcomed by the Egyptian nation (Gen 41 – 42). The CU would apply such lessons in planning practical measures for the region’s food/water basic needs; there is the need for water management/reservoirs, storage and food preservation techniques like canning and frozen foods.

#3 – Repatriate When Distress is Relieved
The example of the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt (the Promised Land was now flowing with “milk and honey”), and that of Ruth/Naomi returning to Bethlehem from Moab after a famine recovery gives the important principle that exiles should return home, eventually. (Even Joseph arranged, as a symbolism, for his own bones to return to the homeland when his people finally left Egypt). A CU mission is to facilitate the repatriation of the Caribbean Diaspora – welcome them home.

Is pursuing this quest to counter the reality of One Way Emigration a “bridge too far”? Is it an Impossible Dream?

Ours is not the first to pursue Impossible Dreams. This is the title of a hugely popular song, dating back to 1965 – an alternate title is “The Quest”; remember these lyrics:

The Impossible Dream (The Quest)
To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow,
To run where the brave dare not go.

To right the unrightable wrong,
To love pure and chaste from afar,
To try when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star.

This is my quest,
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless,
No matter how far.

To fight for the right
Without question or pause,
To be willing to march
Into hell for a heavenly cause.

And I know if I’ll only be true, to this glorious quest,
That my heart will lie will lie peaceful and calm,
when I’m laid to my rest …
And the world will be better for this:
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,
To reach … the unreachable star …

See related VIDEO: https://youtu.be/fjCIWpfVdsk

Can these same words be assigned to the life and legacy of Mayor David Dinkins. He reached a pinnacle of success in his election in 1989; he may have considered such a quest, an Impossible Dream – many pundits did. This song does have a long history of inspiring political campaigns:

During Robert F. Kennedy‘s long shot campaign for the presidency in 1968, Senator George McGovern introduced him before a South Dakota stump speech by quoting from “The Impossible Dream”. Afterwards Kennedy questioned McGovern whether he really thought it was impossible. McGovern replied, “No, I don’t think it’s impossible. I just… wanted the audience to understand it’s worth making the effort, whether you win or lose.” Kennedy replied, “Well, that’s what I think.”[7] It was actually Robert Kennedy’s favorite song. One of Kennedy’s close friends, Andy Williams, was one of many vocal artists of the Sixties that recorded the song.[7] The song was also a favorite of younger brother Ted Kennedy and was performed by Brian Stokes Mitchell at his memorial service in 2009.[8]

The song was a favorite of Philippine hero Evelio Javier, the assassinated governor of the province of Antique in the Philippines, and the song has become a symbol of his sacrifice for democracy. Javier was shot and killed in the plaza of San Jose, Antique, during the counting following the 1986 Snap Elections, an act which contributed to the peaceful overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos by Cory Aquino in the People Power Revolution. Every year, Javier is remembered on Evelio Javier Day and the song is featured. The song’s lyrics are written in brass on a monument in the plaza where he was shot. – Source: Wikipedia

19 years later, in 2008, Barack Obama reached a pinnacle of electoral success, the Presidency of the USA. There you had it: Impossible Dream materialized!

Take your rest David Dinkins; you deserve these honors. RIP …

But let’s get busy in the Caribbean, reaching out for our Impossible Dream …

Yes, we can invite and welcome home our far-flung Diaspora to help us make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

The Go Lean book 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 12 – 13):

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

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

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

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

————–

Appendix Reference: David Dinkins

David Norman Dinkins (July 10, 1927 – November 23, 2020) was an American politician, lawyer, and author who served as the 106th Mayor of New York City from 1990 to 1993, becoming the first African American to hold the office.

Before entering politics, Dinkins was among the more than 20,000 Montford Point Marines, serving from 1945 to 1946.[1] He graduated cum laude from Howard University[2] and received his law degree from Brooklyn Law School in 1956. A longtime member of Harlem‘s Carver Democratic Club, Dinkins began his electoral career by serving in the New York State Assembly in 1966, eventually advancing to Manhattan borough president[3] before becoming mayor. After leaving office, Dinkins joined the faculty of Columbia University while remaining active as an éminence grise in municipal politics.

Early life and education 
Dinkins was born in Trenton, New Jersey, the son of Sarah “Sally” Lucy and William Harvey Dinkins Jr.[4] His mother was a domestic worker and his father a barber and real estate agent.[2] He was raised by his father after his parents separated when he was six years old.[5] Dinkins moved to Harlem as a child before returning to Trenton. He attended Trenton Central High School, where he graduated in 1945.[6]

Upon graduating, Dinkins attempted to enlist in the United States Marine Corps but was told that a racial quota had been filled. After traveling the Northeastern United States, he finally found a recruiting station that had not, in his words, “filled their quota for Negro Marines”; however, World War II was over before Dinkins finished boot camp.[7] He served in the Marine Corps from July 1945 through August 1946, attaining the rank of private first class.[8][9][10] Dinkins was among the Montford Point Marines who received the Congressional Gold Medal from the United States Senate and House of Representatives.[7]

Dinkins graduated cum laude from Howard University[2] with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1950. He received his LL.B. from Brooklyn Law School in 1956.[10][11]

POLITICAL CAREER
Early and middle career
While maintaining a private law practice from 1956 to 1975, Dinkins rose through the Democratic Party organization in Harlem, beginning at the Carver Democratic Club under the aegis of J. Raymond Jones.[2][12] He became part of an influential group of African American politicians that included Denny Farrell, Percy Sutton, Basil Paterson, and Charles Rangel; the latter three together with Dinkins were known as the “Gang of Four“.[13] As an investor, Dinkins was one of fifty African American investors who helped Percy Sutton found Inner City Broadcasting Corporation in 1971.[14]

Dinkins briefly represented the 78th District of the New York State Assembly in 1966. From 1972 to 1973, he was president of the New York City Board of Elections. He was nominated as a deputy mayor by Mayor Abraham D. Beame but was ultimately not appointed,[15] instead serving as city clerk (characterized by Robert D. McFadden as a “patronage appointee who kept marriage licenses and municipal records”) from 1975 to 1985.[16][17] He was elected Manhattan borough president in 1985 on his third run for that office. On November 7, 1989, Dinkins was elected mayor of New York City, defeating three-term incumbent mayor Ed Koch and two others in the Democratic primary and Republican nominee Rudy Giuliani in the general election. During his campaign, Dinkins sought the blessing and endorsement of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe.[18]

Dinkins was elected in the wake of a corruption scandal that stemmed from the decline of longtime Brooklyn Democratic Party chairman and preeminent New York City political leader Meade Esposito‘s organized crime-influenced patronage network, ultimately precipitating the suicide of Queens borough president Donald Manes and a series of criminal convictions among the city’s Democratic leadership. In March 1989, the New York City Board of Estimate (which served as the primary governing instrument of various patronage networks for decades, often superseding the mayoralty in influence) also was declared unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment‘s Equal Protection Clause by the Supreme Court of the United States; this prompted the empanelment of the New York City Charter Revision Commission, which abolished the Board of Estimate and assigned most of its responsibilities to an enlarged New York City Council via a successful referendum in November. Koch, the presumptive Democratic nominee, was politically damaged by his administration’s ties to the Esposito network and his handling of racial issues, exemplified by his fealty to affluent interests in predominantly white areas of Manhattan. This enabled Dinkins to attenuate public perceptions of his previous patronage appointments and emerge as a formidable, reform-minded challenger to Koch.[19] Additionally, the fact that Dinkins was African American helped him to avoid criticism that he was ignoring the black vote by campaigning to whites.[20] While a large turnout of African American voters was important to his election, Dinkins campaigned throughout the city.[2] Dinkins’ campaign manager was political consultant William Lynch Jr., who became one of his first deputy mayors.[21]

Mayoralty
Dinkins entered office in January 1990 pledging racial healing, and famously referred to New York City’s demographic diversity as a “gorgeous mosaic”.[22] The crime rate in New York City had risen alarmingly during the 1980s, and the rate of homicide in particular reached an all-time high of 2,245 cases during 1990, the first year of the Dinkins administration. [23] The rates of most crimes, including all categories of violent crime, then declined during the remainder of his four-year term. That ended a 30-year upward spiral and initiated a trend of falling rates that continued and accelerated beyond his term.[24][25] However, the high absolute levels, the peak early in his administration, and the only modest decline subsequently (homicide down 12% from 1990 to 1993)[26] resulted in Dinkins’ suffering politically from the perception that crime remained out of control on his watch.[27][28] Dinkins in fact initiated a hiring program that expanded the police department nearly 25%. The New York Times reported, “He obtained the State Legislature’s permission to dedicate a tax to hire thousands of police officers, and he fought to preserve a portion of that anticrime money to keep schools open into the evening, an award-winning initiative that kept tens of thousands of teenagers off the street.”[28][29]

During his final days in office, Dinkins made last-minute negotiations with the sanitation workers, presumably to preserve the public status of garbage removal. Giuliani, who had defeated Dinkins in the 1993 mayoral race, blamed Dinkins for a “cheap political trick” when Dinkins planned the resignation of Victor Gotbaum, Dinkins’ appointee on the board of education, thus guaranteeing Gotbaum’s replacement six months in office.[30] Dinkins also signed a last-minute 99-year lease with the USTA National Tennis Center. By negotiating a fee for New York City based on the event’s gross income, the Dinkins administration made a deal with the US Open that brings more economic benefit to the City of New York each year than the New York Yankees, New York Mets, New York Knicks, and New York Rangers combined.[2] The city’s revenue-producing events Fashion Week, Restaurant Week, and Broadway on Broadway were all created under Dinkins.[31]

Dinkins’s term was marked by polarizing events such as the Family Red Apple boycott, a boycott of a Korean-owned grocery in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and the 1991 Crown Heights riot. When Lemrick Nelson was acquitted of murdering Yankel Rosenbaum during the Crown Heights riots, Dinkins said, “I have no doubt that in this case the criminal-justice system has operated fairly and openly.”[32] Later he wrote in his memoirs, “I continue to fail to understand that verdict.”[2]

In 1991, when “Iraqi Scud missiles were falling” in Israel[33] and the Mayor’s press secretary said “security would be tight and gas masks would be provided for the contingent”,[34] Mayor Dinkins visited Israel as a sign of support.[35]

The Dinkins administration was adversely affected by a declining economy, which led to lower tax revenue and budget shortfalls.[36] Nevertheless, Dinkins’ mayoralty was marked by a number of significant achievements.[36] New York City’s crime rate, including the murder rate, declined in Dinkins’ final years in office; Dinkins persuaded the state legislature to dedicate certain tax revenue for crime control (including an increase in the size of the New York Police Department along with after-school programs for teenagers), and he hired Raymond W. Kelly as police commissioner.[36] Times Square was cleaned up during Dinkins’ term, and he persuaded The Walt Disney Company to rehabilitate the old New Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street.[36] The city negotiated a 99-year lease of city park space to the United States Tennis Association to create the USTA National Tennis Center (which Mayor Michael Bloomberg later called “the only good athletic sports stadium deal, not just in New York, but in the country”).[36] Dinkins continued an initiative begun by Ed Koch to rehabilitate dilapidated housing in northern Harlem, the South Bronx, and Brooklyn; overall more housing was rehabilitated in Dinkins’ only term than Giuliani’s two terms.[36] With the support of Governor Mario Cuomo, the city invested in supportive housing for mentally ill homeless people and achieved a decrease in the size of the city’s homeless shelter population to its lowest point in two decades.[28]

1993 election
In 1993, Dinkins lost to Republican Rudy Giuliani in a rematch of the 1989 election. Dinkins earned 48.3 percent of the vote, down from 51 percent in 1989.[37] One factor in his loss was his perceived indifference to the plight of the Jewish community during the Crown Heights riot.[38] Another was a strong turnout for Giuliani in Staten Island; a referendum on Staten Island’s secession from New York was placed on the ballot that year by Democrat Governor Mario Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.[2]

LATER CAREER
From 1994 until his death, Dinkins was a professor of professional practice at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.[39]

Dinkins was a member of the board of directors of the United States Tennis Association.[40] He served on the boards of the New York City Global Partners, the Children’s Health Fund, the Association to Benefit Children, and the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. Dinkins was also on the advisory board of Independent News & Media and the Black Leadership Forum, was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and served as chairman emeritus of the board of directors of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS.[41]

Dinkins’ radio program Dialogue with Dinkins aired on WLIB radio in New York City from 1994 to 2014.[42][43] His memoirs, A Mayor’s Life: Governing New York’s Gorgeous Mosaic,[2] written with Peter Knobler, were published in 2013.[44][45]

Although he never attempted a political comeback, Dinkins remained somewhat active in politics after his mayorship, and his endorsements of various candidates, including Mark J. Green in the 2001 mayoral race, were well-publicized. He supported Democrats Fernando Ferrer in the 2005 New York mayoral election, Bill Thompson in 2009, and Bill de Blasio in 2013.[46][47] During the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries, Dinkins endorsed and actively campaigned for Wesley Clark.[48] In the campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, Dinkins served as an elected delegate from New York for Hillary Clinton.[49] During the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Dinkins endorsed former Mayor Michael Bloomberg for president on February 25, 2020, just before a Democratic debate.[50]

Dinkins sat on the board of directors and in 2013 was on the Honorary Founders Board of The Jazz Foundation of America.[51][52] He worked with that organization to save the homes and lives of America’s elderly jazz and blues musicians, including musicians who survived Hurricane Katrina. He served on the boards of the Children’s Health Fund (CHF), the Association to Benefit Children, and the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund (NMCF). Dinkins was also chairman emeritus of the board of directors of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS.[41] He was a champion of college access, serving on the Posse Foundation National Board of Directors until his death in 2020.[53]

PERSONAL LIFE
Dinkins married Joyce Burrows, the daughter of Harlem political eminence Daniel L. Burrows, in August 1953.[54][55] They had two children, David Jr. and Donna.[56] When Dinkins became mayor of New York City, Joyce retired from her position at the State Department of Taxation and Finance. The couple were members of the Church of the Intercession in New York City. Joyce died on October 11, 2020 at the age of 89.[57]

Dinkins was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha and Sigma Pi Phi (“the Boule”), the oldest collegiate and first professional Greek-letter fraternities, respectively, established for African Americans. He was raised as a Master Mason in King David Lodge No. 15, F. & A. M., PHA, located in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1952.[58]

In 1994, Dinkins was part of an Episcopal Church delegation to Haiti.[59]

Dinkins was hospitalized in New York on October 31, 2013, for treatment of pneumonia.[60] He was hospitalized again for pneumonia on February 19, 2016.[61]

Dinkins guest starred as himself on April 13, 2018, in “Risk Management”, the 19th episode of the 8th season of the CBS police procedural drama Blue Bloods.[62]

Death
On November 23, 2020, just over a month after his wife’s death, Dinkins died from unspecified natural causes at his home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, at age 93.[56][63]

Source: Retrieved November 25, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Dinkins

————–

Appendix AUDIO-VIDEO – Someone You Used To Know – https://youtu.be/C5t_LmWYukw

Uploaded December 28, 2014 – “Someone You Used To Know” by Collin Raye.
This is an old song that my father used to play in the house when I was a young child. My father loved to sing romantic country songs to my mother so I grew up with this genre 😀

Music in this video

  • Song: Someone You Used To Know
  • Artist: Collin Raye
  • Licensed to YouTube by: SME (on behalf of Epic/Nashville); LatinAutorPerf, LatinAutor – Warner Chappell, CMRRA, Warner Chappell, UNIAO BRASILEIRA DE EDITORAS DE MUSICA – UBEM, ASCAP, BMI – Broadcast Music Inc., PEDL, and 12 Music Rights Societies
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Decision 2020 – The Winner: Cannabis

Posted on November 17, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Planning, Social

Go Lean Commentary

The 2020 US General Election is over – finally! And the winner is:

Cannabis

Voter approval for Marijuana decriminalization or legalization was on the ballot in a number of states. In almost every case: Cannabis (or Marijuana) won.

Ouch!

While this is not the case in most Caribbean countries, the fact that the giant United States of America has changed their views towards Cannabis – both legally and morally – will most definitely have an effect on us in our region. The American hegemony rules … in both trade and tourism. The enormity of the American impact can be visualized with this puzzle:

Where does an 800 Gorilla sit? Anywhere he wants.

There were a lot of BIG ISSUES in the Decision 2020 campaigns, but this one should not skip our attention, as the legalization of recreational marijuana can have major upheavals on society. In a previous blog-commentary – observing and reporting on the legalization of Cannabis in the US State of Michigan on December 1, 2019 – by the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean, a direct correlation was made to chaos in society; see this excerpt:

Marijuana in Detroit – Chaos on Chaos – December 17, 2019
It turns out that the Marijuana eco-system brings chaos. If the community is already chaotic, then that disposition is heightened, intensified and exacerbated.

This commentary is an analysis of the Decision 2020 issues. It is a continuation of the monthly Teaching Series from the Go Lean movement for November 2020. Every month, a Teaching Series addresses issues germane to Caribbean life and culture.  This one is not about the presidential candidates for Decision 2020, but rather this “Hot Button” issue of Cannabis.

We have previously covered issues about the presidential race in 5 blog-commentaries for October 2020, plus three subsequent ones in November – this is the fourth. All of these entries are relevant for Decision 2020 as they relate to the impact of the Caribbean on America’s politics … and the impact (and lessons) of America’s politics on the Caribbean. See the full catalog of this multi-part, multi-month Decision 2020 Teaching Series here as follows:

  1. Decision 2020: Puerto Rico claps back at Trump
  2. Decision 2020: Haiti’s Agenda 2016 ==> 2020 – Trump never cared
  3. Decision 2020: Latino Gender Gap – More Toxic Masculinity
  4. Decision 2020: More Immigration or Less
  5. Decision 2020: What’s Next for Cuba & Venezuela
    ——– After the Vote:
  6. Decision 2020: Hasta La Vista Mr. Trump
  7. Decision 2020: Voices From the ‘Peanut Gallery’
  8. Decision 2020: It is what it is; ‘we are who we are’
  9. Decision 2020: The Winner: Cannabis

The take-away from all of these considerations is that American politics and social engineering have a bearing on our Caribbean eco-system; their domestic policy affects moral issues like recreational drugs will impact our Foreign Policy, trade practices and touristic hospitality. We wish American Cannabis policy and Decision 2020, was just their business, but “No, we are affected; just like we are down wind from a pot-smoking crowd”; we will be affected. So this is our business too!

Welcome to heavy-lifting…

See how this Cannabis victory was portrayed in the news media production here:

Title: ‘A tipping point’: Psychedelics, Cannabis win big across the country on election night
Sub-title: “People are realizing it’s not just about getting high,” said Avis Bulbulyan, CEO of SIVA Enterprises. “This is a tipping point for drug policy absent any federal reform.”
By: Alicia Victoria Lozano

As the nation awaits a final result from the presidential election, a clear winner emerged Tuesday: drugs.

Measures to legalize cannabis and decriminalize other drugs won major victories this week as five states — Arizona, New Jersey, South Dakota, Montana and Mississippi — legalized some form of marijuana use and Oregon became the first state to make possession of small amounts of harder drugs, including cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine, violations not punishable by jail time.

Voters in Oregon and Washington, D.C., also approved measures to allow for the therapeutic use of psychedelic mushrooms, which are already being prescribed to help some terminally ill patients in Canada cope with pain and end-of-life anxiety.

“People are realizing it’s not just about getting high,” said Avis Bulbulyan, CEO of SIVA Enterprises, a cannabis business development and solutions firm based in Glendale, California, near Los Angeles. “This is a tipping point for drug policy absent any federal reform.”

On Tuesday, South Dakota became the first state whose voters approved both recreational and medical cannabis in the same election. Medicinal marijuana also was made legal in Mississippi. Meanwhile, New Jersey, Montana and Arizona all legalized recreational cannabis.

“Despite this public consensus, elected officials have far too often remained unresponsive to the legalization issue,” Erik Altieri, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, said in a statement.

NORML has lobbied for the end of marijuana prohibitions since it was founded in 1970.

“These results once again illustrate that support for legalization extends across geographic and demographic lines,” Altieri said. “The success of these initiatives proves definitively that marijuana legalization is not exclusively a ‘blue’ state issue, but an issue that is supported by a majority of all Americans — regardless of party politics.”

Just 10 years ago, recreational cannabis was illegal in all 50 states, but that started to change in 2012, when Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize marijuana for recreational use. At the time, California, which has one of the biggest and oldest marijuana markets in the country, allowed only medicinal use of cannabis.

A domino effect followed, with several more states venturing into the medicinal markets, including Pennsylvania in 2016 and New York in 2014. Now, 15 states, two territories and Washington, D.C., have legalized marijuana for recreational use, while 34 states and two territories allow medical marijuana.

“It’s fantastic to see this cannabis sweep,” said Stuart Titus, CEO of Medical Marijuana Inc., a hemp products company based in San Diego. “There is a tremendous momentum building. I think we’re right on the precipice of changing federal policy with so many states coming online.”

Despite the ballot initiatives, marijuana and other drugs remain illegal at the federal level. The Drug Enforcement Administration continues to classify cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug akin to LSD, heroin and ecstasy.

In New Jersey, some advocates for cannabis legalization worry that the state ballot measure remains too murky and would not tackle social justice concerns surrounding the so-called war on drugs.

The question posed to voters appears simple at first glance: “Do you approve amending the Constitution to legalize a controlled form of marijuana called ‘cannabis’?”

While the majority of voters said yes, the language would not necessarily decriminalize all adult-use cannabis. Instead, it would make only “a controlled form” of the plant legal, said Chris Goldstein, a regional organizer for NORML.

“New Jersey voters sent a message to the Legislature — they want prohibition to end,” he said. “They want people to stop getting arrested.”

The Legislature will now have to pass another measure to set up the new cannabis marketplace. Whether that will reduce marijuana arrests and convictions remains to be seen, Goldstein said.

Meanwhile, Arizona’s measure allows people convicted of certain cannabis crimes to seek expungement of their records. Arizona voters narrowly defeated a legal pot proposal in 2016.

Cannabis was not the only drug on the ballot.

In Oregon, voters approved Measure 110 to allow a person found in possession of small amounts of hard drugs to avoid jail time by paying a $100 fine or attending an addiction recovery center. The centers would be funded through tax revenue collected from the state’s legal cannabis program.

Separately, Oregon voters passed measures to decriminalize psychedelic drugs, as did voters in Washington, D.C.

In Washington, D.C., Initiative 81 will lower the enforcement priority for “entheogenic plants and fungi,” or psychedelic mushrooms and mescaline-containing cacti. The ballot measure would not legalize psychedelics in the nation’s capital.

Oregon, however, became the first state to legalize psilocybin, also called magic mushrooms.

Measure 109 calls for the manufacture and therapeutic use of psilocybin to treat patients with mental health disorders. Some research suggests that psilocybin, when ingested in small doses under supervised settings, can ease stress and induce feelings of happiness.

In one recent study, patients who were given a single dose of the psychedelic drug to ease depression and anxiety still felt its positive effects years later. The patients were given small amounts of psilocybin in 2016 to look at whether it could ease cancer-related anxiety and depression. Eighty percent of the patients said their symptoms faded.

“What is permanent is that I don’t have anxiety about cancer. Not only about my cancer returning, but how I viewed my reoccurrence when it did happen,” Dinah Bazer, who was diagnosed in March with a type of rare gastrointestinal cancer, said at the time.

Source: Posted November 4, 2020; retrieved November 20, 2020 from: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/tipping-point-psychedelics-cannabis-win-big-across-country-election-night-n1246469

———-

Title: MAP – See the States where Marijuana is legal
Sub-title: Nationwide, 15 states, two territories and Washington, D.C., have legalized marijuana for recreational use, while 34 states and two territories allow medical marijuana.
By: Jiachuan Wu and Daniella Silva

Voters in New Jersey, Arizona, Montana and South Dakota approved ballot measures Tuesday that would legalize recreational marijuana. Mississippi approved the use of medical marijuana for people with debilitating conditions.

Nationwide, 15 states, two territories and Washington, D.C., have legalized marijuana for recreational use, while 34 states and two more territories allow medical marijuana.

See which states allow marijuana for medical and/or recreational use.

Source: Posted and retrieved November 4, 2020 from: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/map-see-if-marijuana-legal-your-state-n938426?icid=related

Do you see the slippery slope? Not only Cannabis, but other psychedelic drugs as well? See Appendix VIDEO below.

This is a familiar theme – the emergence of medical-then-recreational marijuana in mainstream society – for the Go Lean movement; we have repeatedly blogged on this subject; consider this sample of previous submissions:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18737 Marijuana in Detroit – Chaos on Chaos
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14836 Counter-culture: Pushing for Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14480 Managing Mental Health in the Caribbean – Marijuana Use Intensity
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13882 Managing ‘Change’ in California
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12703 Lessons from Colorado: Legalized Marijuana – Heavy-lifting!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1386 Marijuana in Jamaica – Puff Peace

As related previously, the ecosystem around Marijuana use is not purely an economic equation; it also addresses security concerns and Public Health issues:

There will be Winners and Losers.

Marijuana or Cannabis is a drug! Plain and simple! People will get addicted and society must deal with addiction as a Mental Health reality.

Overall, the position of the Go Lean movement is:

“We are not ready … for the chaos of recreational marijuana. We had better get ready now because this change is coming soon”.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean (Page 36), posits that the Mental Health eco-system in the region must get ready. We must reboot, empower and elevate our Mental Health facilitations. The chore of doing this is too big for any one Caribbean member-state alone. We need help!

The help we need in the Caribbean is not an American consideration. The candidates for Decision 2020 have no positions on the Caribbean Mental Health facilitations; this is on us … alone.

Mental Health affects everyone; everybody is involved. No one is spared from Mental Health challenges; consider these everyday Mental Health realities:

  • Bereavement
  • Post-Partum Depression (for new mothers)
  • Post Trauma Stress Disorder
  • Drug Abuse and Alcohol Counseling
  • Suicide Prevention

The Mental Health ecosystem must be optimized to address the needs of all the people all the time. This is part of the standard offering of local governance. This is the actuality of the Social Contract on the societal engines of economics, security and governance. This Social Contract means …

… where citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights.

Caribbean stewards – government and community leaders alike – have just a little time to get ready for more societal Chaos brought on by recreational marijuana; (and possibly other recreational drugs – see Appendix VIDEO).

If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Of no, wait! that’s not an option either.

Change – good and bad – is coming!

If you can’t stand the heat … get out of the kitchen and allow cooks and kitchen stewards who can stand the heat.

This is the new reality. We must deliver on our societal deliverables.

Change brings Chaos.
Chaos brings change.

7 years ago, the Go Lean book was presented to the Caribbean region as a roadmap to get ready for unavoidable Agents of Change. The roadmap is ready.

We hereby urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this roadmap to reform and transform the regional economic engines, security apparatus (including Public Health facilitations), and our regional governance. This is how we will make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work, heal and play.  🙂

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 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.

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 12 – 13):

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. The Federation must proactively anticipate the demand and supply of organ transplantation as developing countries are often exploited by richer neighbors for illicit organ trade.

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 – California could decriminalize psychedelic drugs – https://youtu.be/cUqVH_IinwQ

 

ABC10
State [Senator] Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said he plans to introduce a bill decriminalizing possession of hallucinogenic mushrooms and other psychedelics.

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Decision 2020 – It is what it is; ‘we are who we are’

Posted on November 14, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

We thought there would be a Great Reckoning!
It didn’t happen…

What happened America? We thought you would “clap back” at Donald Trump. We waited… you didn’t!

The four (4) years of the Trump Administration was a “circus and he proved to be a clown”; there was one infraction after another; consider just this short sample:


Trump’s a Clown, but the GOP’s a Circus

So finally the country got the opportunity to voice their discontent of Trump’s character and policies, with the 2020 General Election; we were waiting … and waiting.

Boink! Splatt!
It didn’t happen.

The election results are in and the headlines on America has emerged:

It is what it is; ‘we are who we are’.

The summary of the election analysis is that Americans didn’t change during the 4 years of Donald Trump:

“They doubled-down!” The Deep Blue states remained Blue; the Deep Red states remained Red.

The challenge of the election was not whether people would change their minds or opinions, but rather “would they show up to vote”. See this theme as presented in this news analysis/article by NBC News:

Title: In battleground states, few counties flipped even when states did
Sub-title: Turnout was up in 99 percent of the counties in battleground states, while 97 percent voted the same way they voted in 2016.
By: Kanwal Syed, Elliott Ramos, Ellie Frymire and Naitian Zhou

Voter turnout rose sharply during last week’s election in battleground states across the country.

Nearly every county in the 13 major battleground states had more voter turnout than in the 2016 election, according to an analysis of NBC News election results. Of those thousand-plus counties, only 12 had lower turnouts than in the last election, as of the latest results.

While Joe Biden was able to flip four of the 13 states from President Donald Trump and win three more states than Hillary Clinton won in 2016, the picture remains largely unchanged within the states themselves.

Out of 1,118 counties in battleground states, only 37 flipped, or 3.3 percent, which meant control of the states rested largely on parties’ turning out votes within counties they had won before.

Michigan
More than 70 percent of Michigan voters turned out, an increase of almost 10 percentage points over 2016. The state, part of the so-called blue wall, went to Biden after having flipped for Trump in 2016.

Jake Berlin, a first-time voter from Oakland County, teetered on the fence about his decision this year all the way up until he reached his polling place.

“I felt I could be tipping the scale one way or another and felt like I had a good amount of power,” Berlin said. “That was exciting.”

Berlin did not vote in 2016. He said he had a change of heart because of Michigan’s role as a swing state.

“You’ve kind of got to make sure your voice is heard, otherwise it’s just going to be everyone else’s voice heard,” he said.

Berlin said he voted for Trump. His county went for Biden.

Florida
Florida, a decisive state in many presidential elections, had a turnout of 64 percent, up from 57 percent in 2016.

A precinct within the University of Central Florida in Orange County even exceeded 100 percent voter turnout, which The New York Times attributed to a few voters who switched their addresses on Election Day and moved into the area.

Danaë Rivera-Marasco, a spokesperson for the Orange County Elections Commission, said the commission worked closely with the UCF student government association to encourage young voters to vote.

“It’s great to see young engagement and that they took responsibility,” Rivera-Marasco said. “We haven’t seen anything like that in past elections.”

Arizona
Arizona was one of the states with the greatest increases in voter turnout, up by 10 percentage points from 2016. Only four counties went to Clinton in 2016, and according to the latest results five have gone to Biden.

This year, 300,000 more Democratic voters turned out in Maricopa County than in 2016, flipping it to Biden, who holds a lead over Trump in the state. The region, which includes Phoenix, is the state’s most populous county.

North Carolina
Turnout in North Carolina, another such swing state, rose by 7 percentage points over 2016. Scotland County is one of three counties in the state to have flipped this year, having voted for Clinton in 2016 and switching to Trump this year.

Dell Parker, elections director of the Scotland County Board of Elections, said that even with the popularity of mail-in and absentee ballots, the board expected a larger outcome on Election Day.

“We had heard a lot of people talking about the election, so we kind of prepared for a big turnout,” Parker said. “We were actually a little disappointed that more people did not come.”

The state’s final vote count is expected Tuesday.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/graphic-battleground-state-turnout-2020-election-n1247337?icid=election_nav posted November 13, 2020; retrieved November 14, 2020.

Did you notice this summary excerpt?

Out of 1,118 counties in battleground states, only 37 flipped, or 3.3 percent, which meant control of the states rested largely on parties’ turning out votes within counties they had won before.

America has not changed! The 2020 Decision for the President of the United States (POTUS) has not led to any reformation or transformation – it is what it was. American has doubled-down on being America.

This is a Cautionary Tale for Caribbean people, in the homeland and in the Diaspora. Many Caribbean people look to the US as a “city on the hill”, a role model for advanced democracies.

Yet the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean has always maintained that America should not be considered as some land of refuge for Caribbean people – the grass is not necessarily greener on the American side. America should not be the destination. Rather than fleeing in search of refuge, we need to do the work to reform and transform our communities:

2017 Review – Mr. Trump shows the ‘Wrong Way’ – December 21, 2017
Surely, fleeing to the US must be likened to “jumping out of the frying pan into the fire”. Remember, this country was not built for the Caribbean’s Black-and-Brown. They continue to experience racial discriminations, despite a recent Black President. …

Surely, it is the conclusion of most people that 2017 has proven that America is not working for Caribbean priorities …

    … they are not even working for their own priorities, as the country under Trump seems more and more divided with the President only supported by 33 percent of the people, the other 67% are outraged … i.e. the majority of the population are middle class, yet yesterday’s passage of the Tax Reform bill only benefits the rich.

Proudly, we say that for our societal elevation efforts, the quest of the Go Lean … Caribbean movement: we do not want to be America, we want to be better.

————

Better than America? Yes, We Can! – June 20, 2015
… building a multi-cultural society is not easy. The book Go Lean … Caribbean describes the challenge as heavy-lifting. America has failed at this challenge, hands-down. In previous blog- commentaries, many defects of American life were detailed, (including the propensity for Crony-Capitalism). See the list of defects here: Housing, education, job hunting, prisons, drug crime prosecutions, and racial profiling.

But despite this list and the reality of this subject, America tries …

This is an important consideration for the planners of Caribbean empowerment. The Caribbean, a region where unfortunately, we have NOT … tried.

The social science of Anthropology teaches that communities have two choices when confronted with endangering crises: fight or flight. The unfortunate reality is that we have chosen the option of flight; (we have no ethos for fighting for our homeland). …

We can apply these models and lessons from these [other] societies to obtain success. This vision is conceivable, believable and achievable!

Yes we can … make the Caribbean region a better place to live, work and play.

The election is over: Joe Biden defeated the incumbent Donald Trump at the November 3rd polling. He won, not by changing the hearts and minds of undecided people, but rather doubling-down on his base to get their electoral support; (Trump did likewise; this time with an even greater turnout than 2016). The people in this country are still entrenched in their ideologies. So now the question becomes: “Can Joe Biden bridge the huge divide between Blue and Red in America?” See this portrayal in this VIDEO here:

VIDEO – US Election 2020: Can Joe Biden heal America’s political divisions? – https://youtu.be/uEGDigc2kU8

Sky News
Posted November 7, 2020 – Joe Biden is set to become US president – but with the country in political gridlock, the Democratic former VP may have a tough task ahead.

SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel for more videos: http://www.youtube.com/skynews
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The election is over but still, the analysis continues.

This commentary is such an analysis; it is a continuation of the monthly Teaching Series from the Go Lean movement on Decision 2020. The Teaching Series always addresses issues germane to Caribbean life and culture.  This one is no different. We presented 5 entries in October 2020, plus two subsequent ones in November – this is the third. All of these entries are relevant for Decision 2020 as they relate to the impact of the Caribbean on America’s politics … and the impact and lessons of America’s politics on the Caribbean. See the full catalog of this multi-part, multi-month Decision 2020 Teaching Series here as follows:

  1. Decision 2020: Puerto Rico claps back at Trump
  2. Decision 2020: Haiti’s Agenda 2016 ==> 2020 – Trump never cared
  3. Decision 2020: Latino Gender Gap – More Toxic Masculinity
  4. Decision 2020: More Immigration or Less
  5. Decision 2020: What’s Next for Cuba & Venezuela
    ——– After the Vote:
  6. Decision 2020: Hasta La Vista Mr. Trump
  7. Decision 2020: Voices From the ‘Peanut Gallery’
  8. Decision 2020: It is what it is; ‘we are who we are’

The take-away from all of these considerations is that American politics have a bearing on our Caribbean ecosystem; their domestic policy affects our Foreign Policy. It would be nice to just mind our own business; but whether we have a vote or not in Decision 2020, we are affected. It is our business too and so, we must use our voices.

This actuality of Foreign Policy have a bearing on our interaction with other countries as well; think French Departments, Netherlands Antilles, British Overseas Territories.

This is a familiar theme – our Foreign Policy and disposition with the rest of the world – for the Go Lean movement; we have repeatedly blogged on this subject; consider this sample of previous submissions:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19570 The EU as a Role Model: Not when ‘Push’ comes to ‘Shove’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19521 BHAG – Outreach to the World: Doing it as a Profit Center – Why Not?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19494 BHAG – One Voice: Foreign Policy and Diplomatic Stance
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19203 Empowering Immigrants for a Brain Gain: Yes we can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17878 Profiting from the Supply-side of the Migration Crisis
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14954 Overseas Workers – Not the Panacea
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13642 Africa: Past, Present and Future of Caribbean Relations
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13233 Caribbean proposes new US-Caribbean trade initiative
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8799 Lessons from China – Too Big To Ignore
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6231 China’s Caribbean Playbook: America’s Script
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4240 Immigration Policy Exacerbates Worker Productivity Crisis
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3662 Migrant flow into US from Caribbean spikes

America is what it is … they may not learn or apply any lessons from the failed Trump experiment. 🙁

From a Caribbean perspective, it is not our homeland, it is their homeland. They are not changing for us; we cannot make them change. We can only change ourselves, individually and collectively. If we were to change (reform and transform) then maybe our people would not need to flee in the first place … as they have done in the past, so many times in the past.

That would be a good change. Donald Trump cannot do it for us; neither can Joe Biden. We must do “it” ourselves.

Let’s get busy with doing the changes, doing the heavy-lifting to reform and transform our society. We can and should work to make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

The Go Lean book 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 12 – 13):

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

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

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

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

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Decision 2020 – Voices From the ‘Peanut Gallery’

Posted on November 13, 2020 in Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Shut Up … all of you in the Peanut Gallery.

This is how this expression is often used, as the Peanut Gallery is a derisive dismissal of people thought to be inconsequential. Yep, in many people’s opinion, this is the disposition of the people and places of the Caribbean region. See more of the definition here:

A peanut gallery was, in the days of Vaudeville, a nickname for the cheapest and ostensibly rowdiest seats in the theater, the occupants of which were often known to heckle the performers. – Source: Wikipedia

Back in the old Vaudeville days, the section of seats way in the back, (aka, the cheap seats), where typically your rowdy, rude, hecklers sat, was known as the Peanut Gallery. Maybe these patrons were annoyed that they couldn’t see the performers or the stage well. Maybe they were envious of those who could afford front row, orchestra seats, or maybe they were just rude, judgy folks whose ignorance allowed them to take pot shots at people trying to do their best. Whatever the reason, the Peanut Gallery patrons had a reputation for being critical and rude. – Source: Retrieved November 13, 2020 from: https://www.awenestyofautism.com/blog/no-comments-from-the-peanut-gallery

The American hegemony is influx, they are undergoing their 2020 General Election and the decisioning for the President of the United States (POTUS). Only American citizens in the homeland – 50 states including Alaska and Hawaii – get to cast votes in this election. But other people have voices and opinions. In fact, residents of the two American territories in the Caribbean – Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands – only get to voice their preferences by voting for party candidates during the primaries. Despite no November 3rd General Election vote, the opinions of people in these US Territories may still have some audience, considering that high emigration rate for citizens of these islands. Their family and friends, who have since fled the islands, may still submit to Caribbean influences in their voting patterns.

This is also true of the non-American territories; these countries also feature a high societal abandonment rate. Many previous citizens now reside in the Diaspora; many in the USA.

This was the assertion in the recent blog series for October 2020, plus a subsequent one in November; that the Caribbean eco-system is affected and relevant for Decision 2020. This was the theme of the traditional Teaching Series for the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. The Teaching Series always addresses issues germane to Caribbean life and culture.

The full catalog of this 5-part Decision 2020 Teaching Series were as follows:

  1. Decision 2020: Puerto Rico claps back at Trump
  2. Decision 2020: Haiti’s Agenda 2016 ==> 2020 – Trump never cared
  3. Decision 2020: Latino Gender Gap – More Toxic Masculinity
  4. Decision 2020: More Immigration or Less
  5. Decision 2020: What’s Next for Cuba & Venezuela
    ——–
  6. Decision 2020: Hasta La Vista Mr. Trump
  7. Decision 2020: Voices From the ‘Peanut Gallery’

The election is over – on November 3rd, Joe Biden defeated the incumbent Donald Trump – but still, the analysis continues.

The 2020 campaign for POTUS generated a lot of attention – and passion – in the full Caribbean region. But Caribbean people may find themselves as nothing more than “voices from the Peanut Gallery”. The same as in the Vaudevillian theaters, the Peanut Gallery in this case have a reputation for being critical and sometimes even rude in their analysis of American politics.

Caribbean people have published opinions as to which candidate they would prefer, or who would be better in the White House from their perspective.

Without a vote, these comments, criticism and support present themselves only as “voices from the Peanut Gallery”; as hecklers only; see the comedy portrayal of Peanut Gallery hecklers “Statler & Waldorf” in the Appendix VIDEO. See an actual opinion article here, that emerged from the Bahamas, by a creditable Economist and former Cabinet Member:

Title: Smith: Outcome of US election has implications on The Bahamas’ survival
Sub-title: Leading economist says Bahamians better served with US administration which approaches COVID “more seriously”

NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Former Minister of State for Finance James Smith indicated yesterday that the US presidential election set for tomorrow has wide-sweeping implications for The Bahamas’ economic survival amid the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the former minister, the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic leaves “much to be desired”.

“Generally speaking, it is in Bahamians’ interest to have an administration that would take this thing more seriously, clear it up for the United States and hence for us,” Smith told Eyewitness News.

He underscored the different approaches to the coronavirus pandemic between US President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, and the proposed plans of former US Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate for US president.

For example, while Trump has been opposed to making mask-wearing mandatory, Biden has called for a national mask mandate.

Health experts, who project a “dark winter” with the virus, have pointed to growing evidence that wearing face masks reduce the risk of transmission of COVID-19.

The candidates have also taken different approaches to the campaign amid the pandemic, with Biden instituting social distancing measures and limiting attendees, while Trump has allowed large crowds to attend rallies.

The virus has killed more than 230,000 people in the US and more than 9 million Americans have contracted the virus.

“This election I think has another dimension to it because our main industry is tourism, which is dependent on the administration’s view of containing the pandemic in a sense that unless the US president can control, [the US] will continue to have a very depressed economy, meaning high unemployment, people not working, and people running down savings,” he said.

“When that happens, they’re unable to travel.”

Smith, a leading economist and former governor of the Central Bank of The Bahamas, continued: “The longer it takes them to get their pandemic under control the longer we have to wait to be able to successfully open our tourism economy, and we obviously depend on them for 80 percent of the tourists.”

Smith said in the past there was a belief that The Bahamas stood a better chance in the past with Republican administrations, which would not lockstep with the OECD’s policies and “tend to be not as hard with our financial services as democrats”.

But Smith said The Bahamas’ once robust financial services sector has contracted in half following a decade-long siege by the OECD.

Reflecting on the Obama administration, the economist said the former president was in lockstep with the international financial services watchdog and its KYC (Know Your Customer) AML/CTF compliance regime.

“Even though Bahamians would tend to generally favor the Democrats because of the multi-diversity of the party and etc. and of course the African Americas generally supportive of the Democrats that would have been our political choice, but we always felt the Republic administration were usually more favorable on the economic impact on The Bahamas,” he said.

“But with the course of this pandemic, I am thinking that the critical consideration for both the US and us is basically controlling or severely mitigating the impact of the pandemic.

“And as you know the current administration is almost pretending that it does not exist.”

He added: “Indeed it could be argued that if they had taken it more seriously, the US and world leaders, who have some of the best scientists in the world — and if they had kept along with the WHO — the entire globe could have been further advanced in dealing with the pandemic, which would have helped us as well because we are always able to get direct assistance from the United States in matters like this.”

In July, Trump announced the US withdrawal from WHO, declaring the organization had failed its mandate and “declined to adopt urgently needed reforms, starting with demonstrating its independence from the Chinese Communist Party”.

The US has continued to cut ties with the organization, which is expected to conclude in July 2021.

The economy has traditionally been a major issue in US presidential elections.

This time around, much of the debate has centered around the pandemic and the government’s handling of the health crisis.

The impact of the pandemic on today’s election, ranging from voter turnout to whether it will be a key point on which voters will base their choice, remains to be seen.

During a Foreign Press Center virtual tour of the US election hosted by the US Department of State, Quinnipiac University Poll Director and Vice President Dr Dough Schwartz noted that despite an impeachment of the president, racial justice protests, the pandemic and a contentious Supreme Court nomination, the US presidential race has remained “very stable”.

“The economy is usually a major issue in U.S. Presidential elections. This time around, I would add the COVID-19 pandemic being a major issue in the election. Simply because it affects people so directly in their daily lives and has had a big impact on the economy. That is something that is affecting the U.S. election.”

In the polls, Biden has led Trump nationally and in numerous key battleground states.

Source: https://ewnews.com/smith-outcome-of-us-election-has-implications-on-the-bahamas-survivability posted November 2, 2020; retrieved November 3, 2020.

So in this editorial-article, the protagonist recommended the POTUS selection of Joe Biden from a pandemic protection perspective, but Donald Trump from a laissez-fare Offshore Banking regulation perspective.

What a pickle to be in?!

This is why the Go Lean roadmap has lamented the “parasite” status of all Caribbean member-states, not just the Bahamas. We are squeezed between “a rock and a hard place“. The threat of the COVID-19 Pandemic is a Clear-and-Present Danger; there must be remediation and mitigation in our communities. On the other hand, the jobs and economic output from the entire Offshore Banking industry should not be sacrificed.

A parasite disposition is a viable threat to our societal well-being. We are just “voices from the Peanut Gallery”. Instead, we need to be protégés of the American hegemony, not parasites. We need self-determination! This is a familiar theme – transforming from parasite to protégé – for the Go Lean movement; we have repeatedly blogged on this subject; consider this sample of previous submissions:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20567 Toxic Environment – Time for the Caribbean to Grow Up and Be Great
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19835 American Leadership: “Leader of the Free World”?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19568 Big Hairy Audacious Goal – Need ‘Big Brother’ for Pandemics
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12949 Parasite Model: Charity Management – Grow Up Already!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7601 Parasite Model: Beware of Debt Slavery and Vulture Capitalists
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5818 Parasite Model: Greece: From Bad to Worse
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4551 Parasite Model: US Territories – Between a ‘rock and a hard place’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4360 Parasite Model: Dreading the ‘Caribbean Basin Security Initiative’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2435 Being a Protégé: Korea – A Dream for Latin America / Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2338 Being a Protégé: How Best to Welcome the Dreaded ‘Plutocracy’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1965 Being a Protégé: America’s Navy – 100 Percent – Model for Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1596 Being a Protégé: How to ‘Prosper Where You Are Planted’

Transforming from parasites to protégés – what a challenge?! But it is conceivable, believable and achievable.

There is an opportunity for us to deploy strategies, tactics and implementations. There have been Best Practices employed by others. Look at China, as depicted in a previous blog-commentary:

‘Free Market’ Versus … China – Two Systems at Play
… This is “two systems at play”. This Hong Kong/Macau reality is the most pointed Lesson from China for a new Caribbean. We can employ the Two Systems-One Country approach so as to introduce Self-Governing Entities with their “own governmental system, legal, economic and financial affairs, including trade relations with foreign countries”.

There is wisdom to this strategy. China elevated itself from poverty to prosperity for 1.3 Billion people in just 40 years. Well done.

China accomplished their transformation with “one hand tied behind their back” due to their embrace of Communism. It should be easier if we lead with Free Market principles. This is what we have learned from the better examples in American history.

The Go Lean movement posits that America will always pursue America’s best interest. So being a parasite of their ecosystem is not beneficial to us. Being a protégé means that we must develop (transform) our own ecosystem, so as to benefit ourselves.

Let’s get busy in doing the heavy-lifting to reform and transform our society … to be protégés and not parasites of the American hegemony. We do not want to only be considered the Peanut Gallery. We want our voice to be heard … and respected.

These cannot just be empty words. We really have to do the work, the heavy-lifting, to make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play.  🙂

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

The Go Lean book 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 12 – 13):

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

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

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

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

——————

VIDEO – Statler & Waldorf Heckle James Corden’s Monologue – https://youtu.be/g6fsATxzh_g

The Late Late Show with James Corden
Published Jun 26, 2020 – James Corden is excited to try new technology that brings a virtual audience into his garage, and unfortunately for him he finds out his first audience is none other than Statler & Waldorf from “The Muppets.” And James learns quickly that you should be careful what you wish for.

More Late Late Show:

Subscribe: http://bit.ly/CordenYouTube
Watch Full Episodes: http://bit.ly/1ENyPw4
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/19PIHLC
Twitter: http://bit.ly/1Iv0q6k
Instagram: http://bit.ly/latelategram

Watch The Late Late Show with James Corden weeknights at 12:35 AM ET/11:35 PM CT. Only on CBS.

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Decision 2020 – ‘Hasta La Vista’ Trump

Posted on November 12, 2020 in Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Live your life in such a way that the entire planet doesn’t dance in the street when you lose your job. 

The General Election for the President of the United States (POTUS) is now over. Yippee!! People, all over the world were dancing in the streets to celebrate … Donald Trump’s defeat, more so than Joe Biden’s victory.

So many people had been anxious that Donald Trump would be re-elected and continue his “reign of terror” for another 4 years. But now that the election results are in; it is official that its “Hasta La Vista Mr. Trump”. See this reported in this excerpt from USA Today the daily newspaper:

Opinion: People are pouring out in the streets, cheering Biden, Harris and democracy
… the last four years have been total chaos, as President Trump and his divisive rhetoric and politics have exposed deep divisions that exist in our country. As the vote counts continue to roll in, several things are becoming clear. First, more people than ever voted in this historical election. Totals continue to rise, but as of now almost 75 million people have cast ballots for Biden, while 70 million people voted for the sitting President. Second, Biden has gotten more votes than any another presidential candidate, including Barack Obama in 2008. While that margin is close, Biden is entering the White House with a clear mandate. Still, as vote totals indicate, we’re a deeply divided country, and that will not go away anytime soon.

Source: https://ftw.usatoday.com/2020/11/biden-harris-democracy-cheering-in-the-streets retrieved November 7, 2020.

This was the plan for the last year. 12 months ago, there were 28 candidates vying for the nomination for POTUS for the Democratic Party. That number whittled down to just a precious few; then the pandemic happened and the Trump dysfunction manifested as being mortally dangerous – see Appendix VIDEO – 230,000 Americans and rising – have since died due to mis-management of the pandemic. The remaining candidates all “stepped aside” to allow a Unity Candidate, Joe Biden, to more easily defeat Trump.

Mission Accomplished:

Hasta La Vista Mr. Trump.

Every month, the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean presents a Teaching Series on issues germane to Caribbean life and culture. For this past month, October 2020, the theme of the Teaching Series was on the influence and input that the Caribbean Diaspora have with their voices and votes in the American General Election.

The full catalog of that 5-part Decision 2020 Teaching Series were as follows:

  1. Decision 2020: Puerto Rico claps back at Trump
  2. Decision 2020: Haiti’s Agenda 2016 ==> 2020 – Trump never cared
  3. Decision 2020: Latino Gender Gap – More Toxic Masculinity
  4. Decision 2020: More Immigration or Less
  5. Decision 2020: What’s Next for Cuba & Venezuela
    ——–
  6. Decision 2020: Hasta La Vista Mr. Trump

This recent election was November 3, 2020; now we are able to analyze and evaluate the results; we are also able to …

Celebrate! 

As related many times previously, Donald Trump was Bad for the Caribbean; see this chronological sample of excerpts from previous commentaries:

Trump’s Vision of the Caribbean: Yawn – March 17, 2017
The new American President, Donald Trump, has announced, proclaimed and repeated that he is “for America First”. Yet the rest of the world seems to be surprised when he promotes policies that ignores, disregards and denigrates foreign people and countries. …

1: Cuts to fighting drug trafficking …
2: [Cuts to] the Inter-American Foundation …
3: [Cuts to] the U.S. Trade and Development Agency …
4: The Overseas Private Investment Corporation … its budget of $83 million has been swiped away.
5: The Global Climate Change Initiative … has been wiped away.
6: [Cuts of US $70 million to] the Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund. …
7: [50 percent] Cuts To The State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs.

——–

2017 Review – Mr. Trump shows the ‘Wrong Way’ – December 21, 2017
While this year 2017 has been a cliffhanger, it has … the new President – Donald Trump – proved the “perfect example of what NOT to do” to elevate society – economics, security and governing engines. Yet, this is the country that so many Caribbean people have fled to. We can learn a lot from America’s accomplishments, and even more from their failures. [See 17 blatant and egregious Trump actions].

——–

The Spoken and Unspoken on Haiti – January 16, 2018
Donald J. Trump – called Haiti a “shit-hole” country while negotiating the details for an immigration reform bill with his political opponents. …
For people to say something like the above about a Caribbean country shows that truly, they have no regard for that country. Take away their words and study their actions (i.e. policies) and we see a consistent trend – spoken or unspoken – that there is really no regard for Haiti – and other Caribbean member-states.

——–

2019: A ‘Year of Living Dangerously’ – December 31, 2019
From a Caribbean perspective, this year was truly eventful, a “year of living dangerously”; remember all of these bad episodes (10 listed from the most recent to the oldest):
#1 Trump Experiment Implodes – Concluded Impeachment impacts Caribbean member-states

——–

Good Leadership: Example – “Leader of the Free World”? – May 30, 2020
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; [but that of the whole world].

It is good to see the sunsetting of this Trump administration, policies and hopefully influence:

Hasta La Vista Mr. Trump. Goodbye. Good Luck. And Good Riddance!

The foregoing USA Today quoted article stated this factoid of America and Americans: “as vote totals indicate, we’re a deeply divided country”. This is a troubling fact! In our opinion, the toxicity, chaos and dysfunctions of Donald Trump and his administration is so egregious that all “Men of Goodwill” should have been anxious to rid themselves of this “circus”, and yet the opposite happened – even more people voted for Trump this time than in 2016:

2016 – For Trump: 63 million. Against Trump: 66 million
2020 – For Trump: 71 million. Against Trump: 75 million .

(In 2016, Trump lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College with a 304 / 227 margin).

America is far from being a perfect society. Even less perfect for Caribbean stakeholders. Societal defects abound …

Despite all the above evidences, many more American still voted for Donald Trump. Even Latinos (Cubans, Nicaraguans, Colombians, Puerto Ricans and Venezuelans); even more so distressing, so many more Caribbean Hispanics doubled down and voted for Trump. See that story here:

Title: Trump saw gains among Florida Puerto Ricans. They say Democrats ‘don’t hear us’
Less than a month before Election Day, Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez stood in front of a mural in Miami commemorating the victims of Hurricane Maria and recalled the pleas of a man he met in the Puerto Rican city of Ponce after the 2017 storm devastated the island of over 3 million.

“Mr. President,” repeated Perez, “Boricuas son Americanos.”

Maria, which struck as a Category 4 monster of a hurricane, led to widely held expectations that it would reshape Florida’s political destiny by fueling a mass exodus, mostly to Central Florida, of hundreds of thousands of left-leaning Puerto Ricans disgusted with President Donald Trump’s response to the storm — an effort symbolized by Trump tossing paper towels to stranded victims of the storm.

Perez’s recollection — a storm victim reminding him that “Puerto Ricans are Americans” — was part of Democrats’ outreach in Wynwood, a part of Miami once considered a Boricua enclave. But the effort proved to be too late for many Puerto Ricans. Instead of gaining support among Puerto Ricans, Democrats lost ground. Four years after winning Florida by 113,000 votes, Trump won it again on Nov. 3 by triple that amount.

Much of the Florida focus in the wake of the election has been on Trump’s stunning improvement with Hispanic voters in Miami-Dade County. But according to a Miami Herald analysis of Hispanic-majority voting precincts in Orange and Osceola counties, two Central Florida counties with the largest Puerto Rican communities in the state, Trump also made unexpected gains in a community where he is broadly disliked.

And in one of the few Hispanic electorates in Florida where messages against socialism are not particularly effective, Trump’s gains raise questions about Democrats’ ability to connect with voters believed crucial to their chances of winning statewide elections in the future.

“The paper towel throwing and the hurricane were not the lens through which Puerto Ricans were looking at the election,” said Latino-focused research firm Equis Research co-founder Carlos Odio, noting the potential consequences for Democrats if they can’t connect with a community expected to help the party compete in the nation’s biggest battleground state. “Going forward, it opens up a lot of questions of what the Democratic coalition is going to look like.”

While President-elect Joe Biden largely won high support among Florida Puerto Ricans, reaching up to an estimated 68%, according to an exit poll by Edison Research, Trump improved his numbers in a community that Democrats have largely seen as crucial to win the state of Florida. Trump received as much as 39% of votes in some heavily Hispanic Orange County precincts, according to the Herald’s analysis. Overall, according to Odio’s own estimates, Trump received about 32% support from Puerto Ricans in Central Florida, about an 11-point gain since 2016.

Trump’s numbers even surpassed the number of Puerto Ricans who in Florida’s 2018 U.S. Senate race supported Republican Rick Scott. Odio said Scott received about 29% of the Puerto Rican vote after visiting the island seven times after Maria, ahead of his election. In that election, those numbers were enough to help Scott edge a win over former U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in a razor-thin election that went to a recount.

The lack of Democratic gains in this growing electorate of independent voters underscored the theory of some Florida Puerto Ricans that Democrats had reached a ceiling with their anti-Trump message and failed to appeal to Puerto Ricans who were more worried about how to pay their bills and losing small businesses as a result of the pandemic.

See the rest of the article here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/article247106087.html retrieved November 12, 2020.

Yes, Donald Trump needed to be repudiated by America, and yet on November 3rd, 5 million more people than in 2016 voted for him. That is not a repudiation, that is a concurrence!

Maybe the problem is not the player; maybe the problem is the game!

The United States of America is not home for Caribbean people; especially evident with the many Black-and-Brown emigrants suffering injustices. Rather than emigrating, what is needed is nation-building. Rather than fixing America, Caribbean people need to reform and transform all of the Caribbean homeland. This has been the theme of our advocacy before Donald Trump, and now will continue after him. See how this theme – fixing home to dissuade emigration and encouraging repatriation – has been detailed in so many previous Go Lean commentaries; consider this sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19203 Brain Drain – Brain Gain: Yes we can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19134 The Truth About the Diaspora – Not the Panacea – Last of 7-part Series
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17667 Is the US a ‘Just’ Society? Hardly!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16864 Cuba’s Progress: New Constitution with some ‘Free Market’ Guarantees
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16532 Reckoning the Truth of Emigration – Settlers -vs- Immigrants
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16395 The Caribbean – A People or A Place?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15126 ‘Time to Go’ – Last of an 11-Part Series of “Why We Should Repatriate”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14746 Calls for Repatriation Strategy to reverse Abandonment
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13213 ‘Pulled’ – Despite American Guns
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10629 Stay Home! – First of a 3-Part Series of “Why Stay in the Homeland”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7412 The Road to Reforming, Transforming and Restoring Cuba

The Go Lean movement posits that America will always pursue the American best interest. This may not always be – and rarely is – the Caribbean’s best interest. So we must do the heavy-lifting ourselves for our own society and not look to the American hegemony to do it for us. Those 4 years of Trump-ism taught us that America is for Americans. We must do our work, for our own interest.

It is what it is, but let’s not get it twisted. America is the only remaining Super Power; they are the “800-pound gorilla” in the Western Hemisphere. So, good, bad or indifferent, their Chief Executive continues to be the “Leader of the Free World”.

This is why people were dancing in the streets with the “firing” of the malevolent Trump.

The take-way from this 5-part October Teaching Series – and now this 6th entry – is that elections have consequences. We need to do more than just wish and pray. We need to advocate and vocalize our agenda in the American mainland and also in the Caribbean homeland. The heavy-lifting to reform and transform our society must be engaged.

Let’s get busy.. this Go Lean roadmap provides turn-by-turn directions on how to reform and transform our society. All stakeholders are urged to lean-in to this viable roadmap. This is the Way Forward. This is how we can make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play.  🙂

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

The Go Lean book 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 12 – 13):

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

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

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

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

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Appendix VIDEO – Trump vs the Mailman | Cartoon Rap Battle – https://youtu.be/vw-1E2vcXBQ


Rhyme Combinator
subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/user/pantless… #stories

LYRICS:
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TRUMP Sorry we’re gonna need that
MAILMAN Wait, our ELECTION’S gonna need these. Up to half of Americans are voting by mail
TRUMP Not my fault.
MAILMAN It kind of is.
TRUMP It was China!!
MAILMAN but look how fast they recuperated Now we need vote by mail to fix a problem you created: this pandemic – and mail in voting is saving lives
TRUMP All the real patriots will wait in line Less boxes, less fraud, that’s why I planned the removals
MAILMAN You’re pushing the envelope Donnie, that doesn’t get my stamp of approval You know you can’t win so you made us your scapegoat
TRUMP No – I hate’ fraud – no fake news, no fake votes
MAILMAN Thru depression and world wars, always deliver was the policy Even in a pandemic we’ll stand committed to democracy
TRUMP But someone could die and vote two times after/
MAILMAN You wanna defund mailmen – I thought blue lives matter?
TRUMP I only want to count the good votes!
MAILMAN we do too! But you don’t get to choose the voters, the voters choose you! you cheated on taxes, your wife, your SAT’s are in question But let’s get this straight – you cant cheat the election For 150 years we’ve been picking up the votes So when you lose, I’ll be there to deliver the results Speaking of…
TRUMP Positive?
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CREDITS
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Created by: Rhyme Combinator, 6 Point Harness, Loogaroo
Executive Producer: Reid Hoffman
Producers: Beau Lewis, Ian Alas
Director: Beau Lewis
Vocal Directors: Illmac, Frak Writers: Illmac, Frak, Pass
Music: Will Randolph V, Chase Moore
Mix/master: Nafets
Animation: 6 Point Harness, Loogaroo
———
CAST
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Donald Trump: Jonathan Kite
Mailman: Pass

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