Month: June 2019

A Lesson in History – 25 years after the “OJ Murders”

Posted on June 11, 2019 in Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Do you remember the O.J. Simpson case; where he was accused of killing 2 people including his ex-wife? Do you realize, that was 25 years ago now?

Yep! The deaths took place on June 12, 1994.

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” – Martin Luther King, quoting Theodore Parker.

There is a lesson in history when we consider the OJ Murders from 1994: things always work itself out towards justice, fairness and freedom … eventually. Sometimes though, the milestones in the journey towards a more just society are reversed or negative; we may make 2 steps forward with 1 step back; or 1 step forward and 2 steps back.

This is just the reality of change in society.

Our lesson in history teaches us that there was a bad orthodoxy in modern society, regarding both race and gender. Many times, minorities – those of the Black-and-Brown races – and women had to endure a lot more abuse than would be any acceptable standard in a just society. Plus when it comes to women, intersectionality (race, age, religion, LGBT, etc.) also applies, so even when one group get more civil rights granted, progress for some other women’s groups  may continue to trail. Yet, still …

… You’ve have come a long way, Baby!

The book Go Lean…Caribbean addresses this history as the actuality of Natural Law. The book states (Page 226):

The Bottom Line on Natural Law and Women’s Rights

17th century natural law philosophers in Britain and America, such as Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke, developed the theory of natural rights in reference to ancient philosophers such as Aristotle and the Christian theologist Aquinas. Like the ancient philosophers, 17th century natural law philosophers defended slavery and an inferior status of women in law.

Relying on ancient Greek philosophers, natural law philosophers argued that natural rights where not derived from god, but were “universal, self-evident, and intuitive”, a law that could be found in nature. They believed that natural rights were self-evident to “civilized man” who lives “in the highest form of society”. Natural rights derived from human nature, a concept first established by the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Citium in Concerning Human Nature. Zenon argued that each rational and civilized male Greek citizen had a “divine spark” or “soul” within him that existed independent of the body. Zeno founded the Stoic philosophy and the idea of a human nature was adopted by other Greek philosophers, and later natural law philosophers and western humanists. Aristotle developed the widely adopted idea of rationality, arguing that man was a “rational animal” and as such a natural power of reason.

Concepts of human nature in ancient Greece depended on gender, ethnic, and other qualifications and 17th century natural law philosophers came to regard women along with children, slaves and non-whites, as neither “rational” nor “civilized”. Natural law philosophers claimed the inferior status of women was “common sense” and a matter of “nature”. They believed that women could not be treated as equal due to their “inner nature”. The views of 17th century natural law philosophers were opposed in the 18th and 19th century by Evangelical natural theology philosophers such as William Wilberforce and Charles Spurgeon, who argued for the abolition of slavery and advocated for women to have rights equal to that of men. Modern natural law theorists, and advocates of natural rights, claimed that all people have a human nature, regardless of gender, ethnicity or other qualifications; therefore all people have natural rights [120].

These thoughts on Natural Law and Women’s Rights persist to this day, despite how archaic they may seem.

Before the OJ Murders, there was an obvious nonchalance about domestic violence in America.

“Mind your own business”

“You’re not in mortal danger”

OJ Simpson was not the first domestic abuser nor was he the last; but now, in the 25 years since, the country has been more forthright and responsive. They have listened to the outcries of victims and the needs of abusers. It is no longer acceptable for the rest of society to just “mind their own business”.

What changed?

Later that same year in 1994, Congress debated and passed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)- see the summarized details in Appendix B below – and many mitigations were put in place as a result.

The actuality of the infamous OJ Simpson case propelled VAWA; and though “he” still walks the street without any murder conviction – see Appendix A – the country can still credit him, for perpetrating a crisis and forcing more sensible jurisprudence over the time, with the “long arc of the moral universe bending toward justice”.

This theme – mitigating domestic violence – aligns with many previous Go Lean commentaries; see a sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16408 Mitigating the Bad Ethos on Home Violence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13664 High Profile Sexual Harassment Accusers – Finally Believed
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7490 A Lesson in the History of Interpersonal Violence – Domestic
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=695 Abused Latina wives find help by going to ‘Dona Carmen’

To this day, 25 years later – the OJ Simpson Murder Prosecution is still considered the “Trial of the Century”.

This OJ Murder drama – arrest, criminal trial acquittal; civil trial culpability – facilitated a lot of dialogue and debate on American Justice. There was always an American penchant to protect “White Women from Black Men”; this was the premise for so many extra-judicial executions (think the 4,733 recognized cases of Lynchings) in the American past. So the 1995 acquittal in the OJ Simpson Criminal case drove a wedge between “Black America versus White America”. For many in the African-American community, they recognized that the double standard of Rich White Justice versus Poor Black Justice may have finally swung favorably for a Black defendant. A previous Go Lean commentary added this observation:

There it is, the United States, where there seems to be a Great Divide in justice, one set of standards for the rich, another set for the poor.

The grass is not greener on that (American) side!

The reasons for emigration are “push-and-pull”. This source book identifies and qualifies a “pull” factor, the issue of justice in America. The book informs the reader that America should not be considered alluring from a justice perspective, especially if the reader/audience is poor and of a minority ethnicity.

This leaves the “push” factors. The Caribbean must address its issues, as to why its population is so inclined to emigrate. This is the purpose of the Go Lean roadmap. It features the assessments, strategies, tactics and implementations to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.

In contrast, back in the 1990’s, White America “dug in their heels” on this OJ Murder Case that despite any reasonable doubt in the court case, this Black Man had murdered the two White victims. They therefore yearned of the “Bad Old Days” of meting out immediate justice on presumed Black offenders. The defective landscape in American justice had left “an open sore to fester“.

This open sore has still not healed; think “Make America Great Again”; see Appendix C VIDEO below.

In many previous Go Lean commentaries, the dimensions of continuous racial inequities in the US mainland had been detailed and debated; see this sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16944 Accepting Black Women ‘As Is’ – A Case for Women Empowerment
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16532 European Reckoning – Settlers -vs- Immigrants
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15123 Blacks get longer prison sentences from ‘Republican’ Judges
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14627 Nature or Nurture: Cop-on-Black Shootings embedded in America’s DNA
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9216 ‘Time to Go’ – No Respect for our Hair
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9214 ‘Time to Go’ – Spot-on for Protest

All in all, it remains the conclusion of this commentary:

“No Justice; No Peace”.

“The long arc of the moral universe bends toward justice”.

The OJ Murder drama demonstrated a lesson for us, that justice is not perfect in the US, and we as Caribbean immigrants cannot effect change there.

But we can effect change here in the Caribbean homeland … (one person can make a difference).

Yes, the heavy-lifting of reforming and transforming Caribbean justice institutions is conceivable, believable and achievable. We must ensure the proper response and protections for domestic violence here in our region. We must  protect the victims and prosecute the abusers. We must ensure that the Strong Never Abuse the Weak with impunity.

This is how … and why we must act now. We must step-in, step-up and step forward to ensure our homeland is a better place to live, work and play for everyone: strong and weak, men and women, rich and poor. 🙂

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):

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

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

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

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

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

————–

Appendix A –  25 years after murders, OJ says ‘Life is fine’

By: Linda Deutsch, Associated Press June 10, 2019

LOS ANGELES (AP) — After 25 years living under the shadow of one of the nation’s most notorious murder cases, O.J. Simpson says his life has entered a phase he calls the “no negative zone.”

In a telephone interview, the 71-year-old Simpson told The Associated Press he is healthy and happy living in Las Vegas. And neither he nor his children want to look back by talking about June 12, 1994 , when his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman were stabbed to death and Simpson was transformed from Hall of Fame football hero to murder suspect.

“We don’t need to go back and relive the worst day of our lives,” he said. “The subject of the moment is the subject I will never revisit again. My family and I have moved on to what we call the ‘no negative zone.’ We focus on the positives.”

But the pain has not faded for Goldman’s family.

“Closure,” said Goldman’s sister Kim, “isn’t a word that resonates with me. I don’t think it’s applicable when it comes to tragedy and trauma and loss of life.”

“I don’t suffocate in my grief,” she said. “But every milestone that my kid hits, every milestone that I hit, you know, those are just reminders of what I’m not able to share with my brother and what he is missing out on.”

Ron Goldman, then 25, was returning a pair of sunglasses that Nicole Brown Simpson’s mother had left at a restaurant where he worked when he and Simpson’s ex-wife were stabbed and slashed dozens of times.

O.J. Simpson’s televised “Trial of the Century” lasted nearly a year and became a national obsession, fraught with issues of racism, police misconduct, celebrity and domestic violence.

Represented by a legal “Dream Team” that included Johnnie Cochran Jr. and F. Lee Bailey, he was acquitted by a jury in 1995 in a verdict that seemed to split the country along racial lines, with many white Americans believing he got away with murder and many black people considering him innocent.

He has continued to declare his innocence. The murder case is officially listed as unsolved.

The victims’ families subsequently filed a civil suit against him, and in 1997 he was ordered to pay $33.5 million for the wrongful deaths of his ex-wife and Goldman. Some of his property was seized and auctioned, but most of the judgment has not been paid.

For a man who once lived for the spotlight , Simpson has generally kept a low profile since his release from prison in October 2017 after serving nine years for a robbery and kidnapping conviction in Las Vegas. He insisted his conviction and sentence for trying to steal back his own memorabilia were unfair but said: “I believe in the legal system and I honored it. I served my time.”

After his release from prison in Nevada, many expected him to return to Florida, where he had lived for several years. But friends in Las Vegas persuaded him to stay there.

“The town has been good to me,” Simpson said. “Everybody I meet seems to be apologizing for what happened to me here.”

His time in the city hasn’t been without controversy. A month after his release, an outing to a steakhouse and lounge off the Las Vegas Strip ended in a dispute. Simpson was ordered off the property and barred from returning.

No such problems have occurred since, and Simpson is among the most sought-after figures in town for selfies with those who encounter him at restaurants or athletic events he attends occasionally.

He plays golf almost every day. The knees that helped him run to football glory at the University of Southern California and with the NFL’s Buffalo Bills have been replaced, and he recently had laser surgery on his eyes.

Simpson said he remains close to his children and other relatives. His parole officer has given him permission to take short trips, including to Florida, where his two younger children, Justin and Sydney, have built careers in real estate.

His older daughter, Arnelle, lives with him much of the time but also commutes to Los Angeles.

“I’ve been to Florida two or three times to see the kids and my old buddies in Miami. I even managed to play a game of golf with them,” he said. “But I live in a town I’ve learned to love. Life is fine.”

He also visited relatives in Louisiana, he said, and spoke to a group of black judges and prosecutors in New Orleans.

The glamor of his early life is just a memory.

After his football career, Simpson became a commercial pitchman, actor and football commentator. Once a multimillionaire, he says most of his fortune was spent defending himself from the murder charges.

Simpson declined to discuss his finances other than to say he lives on pensions.

To coincide with Wednesday’s anniversary, Kim Goldman will launch a 10-week podcast, “Confronting: O.J. Simpson,” in which she will interview her brother’s friends, the detective who investigated the killings, attorneys for the defense and prosecution, and two of the 12 jurors who acquitted Simpson. She will continue to make the case that Simpson was guilty.

___

Linda Deutsch is a retired special correspondent for The Associated Press. She covered all of Simpson’s legal cases during her 48-year career as a Los Angeles-based trial reporter.

Source: Posted and retrieved June 10, 2019 from: https://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-25-years-murders-045033971.html?.tsrc=notification-brknews

————–

Appendix B – Violence Against Women Act

The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) is a United States federal law (Title IV, sec. 40001-40703 of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, H.R. 3355) signed as Pub.L. 103–322 by President Bill Clinton on September 13, 1994 (codified in part at 42 U.S.C. sections 13701 through 14040). The Act provided $1.6 billion toward investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women, imposed automatic and mandatory restitution on those convicted, and allowed civil redress in cases prosecutors chose to leave un-prosecuted. The Act also established the Office on Violence Against Women within the Department of Justice.

VAWA was drafted by the office of Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) and co-written by Democrat Louise Slaughter, the Representative from New York, with support from a broad coalition of advocacy groups.[1] The Act passed through Congress with bipartisan support in 1994, clearing the United States House of Representatives by a vote of 235–195 and the Senate by a vote of 61–38, although the following year House Republicans attempted to cut the Act’s funding.[2] In the 2000 Supreme Court case United States v. Morrison, a sharply divided Court struck down the VAWA provision allowing women the right to sue their attackers in federal court. By a 5–4 majority, the Court overturned the provision as exceeding the federal government’s powers under the Commerce Clause.[3][4]

VAWA was reauthorized by bipartisan majorities in Congress in 2000 and again in December 2005. The Act’s 2012 renewal was opposed by conservative Republicans, who objected to extending the Act’s protections to same-sex couples and to provisions allowing battered undocumented immigrants to claim temporary visas, but it was reauthorized in 2013, after a long legislative battle. As a result of the United States federal government shutdown of 2018–2019, the Violence Against Women Act expired on December 21, 2018. It was temporarily reinstated via a short-term spending bill on January 25, 2019, but expired again on February 15, 2019. The House of Representatives passed a bill reauthorizing VAWA in April 2019; the bill, which includes new provisions protecting transgender victims and banning individuals convicted of domestic abuse from purchasing firearms, has yet to be considered by the Senate as of April 11[, 2019].[5]

…

See the full article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_Against_Women_Act retrieved June 10, 2019.

————–

Appendix C VIDEO – Is ‘make America great again’ racist? – https://youtu.be/kIQdb-1Lxso

Fox News
Published on Sep 9, 2016

‘The O’Reilly Factor’ examines Bill Clinton’s criticism of the slogan.

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Blog # 900 – 2020: Where Vision is Perfected

Posted on June 7, 2019 in Ethos, Planning, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Do “you” have 20/20 vision?

20/20 vision is a term used to express normal visual acuity (the clarity or sharpness of vision) measured at a distance of 20 feet. If you have 20/20 vision, you can see clearly at 20 feet what should normally be seen at that distance. If you have 20/100 vision, it means that you must be as close as 20 feet to see what a person with normal vision can see at 100 feet.

So do “you”?

I am not talking to you the reader, rather “you” the community; (with a focus on the Caribbean). Do we have clarity and sharpness in the execution of our societal deliveries? Unfortunately, for the 30 member-states of the Caribbean, the answer is an undisputed “No”. We have the greatest address on the planet and yet our societal engines (economics, security and governance) are so dysfunctional that our people are “beating down the doors” to get out. In a recent blog-commentary from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean, this historic fact was enunciated:

“The Caribbean region has exported more of its people than any other region of the world since the abolition of slavery in 1834. While the largest Caribbean immigrant sources to the U.S. are Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Haiti, U.S. citizen migrants also come from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.”

The same as vision can be corrected with glasses and lenses, community vision or planning can also be perfected with reboots and turn-around activities. Our current vision is bad, we need correction. We cannot see (nor seem to care about) all of our citizens that are fleeing the homeland and looking for refuge elsewhere. Yes, we need to correct our vision; we need to get back to 20/20 …

… we need to see clearly. See this quest as messaged by a Caribbean musical artist in the VIDEO here:

VIDEO – Jimmy Cliff – I Can See Clearly Now (Video Version) – https://youtu.be/MrHxhQPOO2c

JimmyCliffVEVO
Published on May 3, 2014 – Watch the official music video for “I Can See Clearly Now” performed by Jimmy Cliff Music video by Jimmy Cliff performing I Can See Clearly Now. (C) 1993 Sony BMG Music Entertainment #JimmyCliff#ICanSeeClearlyNow#Vevo#Reggae#OfficialMusicVideo

  • Category: Music
  • Writers: Johnny Nash
  • Licensed to YouTube by: SME; PEDL, LatinAutor, LatinAutor – Warner Chappell, ASCAP, IMPEL, UBEM, Warner Chappell, Wixen Music Publishing, and 11 Music Rights Societies

2020 is not just a reference to vision; it is also the next year on our calendar. This intersection allows us to use the actuality of 2020 to perfect our vision for Caribbean planning. Perfecting our vision to 20/20 would mean executing better on the 3 C’s – conceiving, communicating and compelling – the plans, strategies, tactics and implementations.

We are already pursuing these activities! While we are planning for the new year – 2020 – we have already published this Go Lean book and distributed it widely in the Caribbean region for the quest of forging change-correction in the Caribbean vision. We have also promoted the book aggressively by publishing related blog-commentaries. While the book was published in November 2013, the commentaries started in February 2014. Now we are up to a new milestone:

This submission is blog-commentary # 900.

These prior entries are all categorized and tagged for different subject areas. A “Vision 2020” presentation is all associated with Planning activities. Of these 900 blogs, the number tagged with a Planning category is (as of this publication date): 125

The Go Lean movement, introducing the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), is bent on planning or presenting a new Vision for the year 2020. 2020 is a milestone in a lot of ways: new decade, new generation, even a new census (from an American perspective).

Many others are thinking New Vision for 2020.

Do a quick search for “2020 Vision Plan “on Google, and you will get some amazing results; see this sample here (retrieved June 6, 2019):

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/plans/vision-2020-cwp/vision-2030-cwp.page NYC Comprehensive Waterfront Plan: Vision 2020 – NYC.gov
The NYC Comprehensive Waterfront Plan aims at making New York City’s 520 miles of waterfront accessible, active, and resilient. This plan provides a vision for the city’s waterfront for the next decade and beyond. The plan will be released  by the end of 2020.
https://www.njit.edu/2020vision/plan-success/ 2020 Vision: A Plan for Success
New Jersey Institute of Technology strategic plan studies the college’s potential to achieve important goals for students, learning, & research.
https://www.charlottecentercity.org/center-city-initiatives-2/plans/2020-vision-plan/ Center City 2020 Vision Plan – Charlotte Center City Partners
Center City 2020 Vision Plan Charlotte’s Center City has undergone dramatic growth and change over the past decade. From the development of new cultural ..
http://www.buffalo.edu/ub2020.html UB 2020: University at Buffalo’s strategic plan
UB 2020 is UB’s far-reaching vision for our continued growth as a world-class public research university.
https://www.sandiegounified.org/vision-2020-and-mission-statement Vision 2020 & Mission Statement – San Diego Unified School District
A community-based school reform plan that engages all parents, staff, students and community members. It will result in a high level of confidence in public schools to develop a world-class school system for all of students. It culminates with graduation of the Class of 2020.
https://www.who.int/blindness/partnerships/vision2020/en/ VISION 2020 for World Health Organization
VISION 2020 is a global initiative that aims to eliminate avoidable blindness as a public health issue by the year 2020. VISION 2020 is a partnership that provides guidance, technical and resource support to countries that have formally adopted its agenda.

Reform and transform …

… seems to be a consistent theme among these preceding samples.

For this effort to reform and transform the Caribbean, we are in good company, for the act of planning is a noble pursuit; it is both an art and a science. See how the Go Lean book presented these 21 Advocacies under the category of Planning for a new Caribbean (Page 124):

  1. 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region
  2. 10 Ways to Improve Trade
  3. 10 Ways to Improve Interstate Commerce
  4. 10 Ways to Model the EU
  5. 10 Ways to Make the Caribbean Better
  6. 10 Reasons Why the CU Will Succeed
  7. 10 Ways to Better Manage Image
  8. 10 Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices
  9. 10 Lessons Learned from the W.I. Federation
  10. 10 Lessons Learned from 2008
  11. 10 Lessons from New York City
  12. 10 Lessons from Omaha
  13. 10 Lessons from East Germany
  14. 10 Lessons from Detroit
  15. 10 Lessons from Indian Reservations
  16. 10 Lessons from the American West
  17. 10 Lessons from Egypt
  18. 10 Lessons from the Bible
  19. 10 Lessons from the US Constitution
  20. 10 Lessons from Canada’s History
  21. 10 Ways to Measure Progress

This is what planning is all about: learning from the past and preparing for the future; perfecting the vision. The Go Lean book opens the Planning section with the Biblical quotation from Proverbs 29:18:

“Where there is no vision, the people perish…”.

This theme – perfecting the planning process – aligns with many previous Go Lean commentaries; see a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17358 Marshall Plan 4-Part Series – Ideal for Caribbean Application
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17135 Way Forward 6-Part Series – Hope for Change in the Homeland
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13952 Welcoming a Caribbean Intelligentsia for Planning the Plan
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10043 Integration Plan for Greater Caribbean Prosperity
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1470 COB Master Plan 2025 – Reach for the Lamp-Post

“Reach for the stars” – Old Saying reflecting a grandiose vision-plan.

Surely, planning is something that keeps us striving to be better. We want to do more for 2020.

But we do not have to wait until the Year 2020. We can do more now! We urge everyone to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap … now.

Vision is where it begins. This depicts a journey, which is appropriate for our consideration, because the destination of our roadmap is simple: 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 – 14):

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

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

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

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

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

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Caribbean Regiment – We were ‘there’ in World War II

Posted on June 6, 2019 in Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

75 years ago today – June 6, 1944 – was the Big One …

… the fight to end all fights.

It goes down in history as “D-Day“. See the encyclopedic details in the Appendix below, and this VIDEO here:

VIDEO – WWII veterans and world leaders gather in Normandy for D-Day anniversary – https://youtu.be/DK6-l1w6J_w

CBS This Morning
Published on Jun 5, 2019 – Leaders from around the world are starting two days of observances to remember the 75th anniversary of D-Day. President Trump and Queen Elizabeth are part of this morning’s ceremony in Portsmouth, England, one of the main departure points for the WWII invasion of German-occupied France. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is also there, along with representatives from all 16 allied nations that took part in D-Day. Anthony Mason reports from Normandy.

History shows that this was the beginning of the end of World War II (WWII). The world has been forever changed since this war. This applies 100 percent for us in the Caribbean and we were ‘there’ in-person and “in spirit”. At the time of this war there were only 3 independent Caribbean member-states (Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Now today, in the 75 years since, there are 16 independent states. Those 3 independent nations did NOT participate in World War II. But the other countries – at that time colonies of the European powers at conflict (Britain, France, The Netherlands, USA) – did have to submit personnel to the war effort.

… submit personnel to the war effort – that’s a euphemism for risking their lives for King and Country. As related in a previous commentary, that required ethos – National Sacrifice – had normally been missing in Caribbean life. An excerpt from that commentary continues as follows:

The term National Sacrifice is defined here as the willingness to die for a greater cause; think “King/Queen and Country”. This spirit is currently missing in the recipe for “community” in the Caribbean homeland.

To be willing to die for a cause means that one is willing to live for the cause. Admittedly, “dying” is a bit extreme. The concept of “sacrifice” in general is the focus of this commentary.

The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean wants to forge change in the Caribbean, we want to change the attitudes for an entire community, country and region. We have the track record of this type of commitment being exemplified in other communities. (Think: The US during WWII). Now we want to bring a National Sacrifice attitude to the Caribbean, as it is undoubtedly missing. This is evidenced by the fact the every Caribbean member-state suffers from alarming rates of societal abandonment: 70% of college educated population in the English states have left in a brain drain, while the US [dependent] territories have lost more than 50% of their populations).

So on D-Day, when all the sacrifices were spilled on those beaches in Normandy on the French coastline, Caribbean people were there, but not representing their Caribbean homeland; they represented their colonial masters. As a people, we did not have a “seat at the table”, but verily we were “on the menu”.

We need to further examine that day, D-Day; we need to look at the voluminous sacrifices of that day and take stock of where we are as a people today, still with no “seat at the table” … and still “on the menu”.

Why should we concern ourselves with this 75-year old historic sacrifice?

Because we need change and change only comes about as a result of sacrifice – someone’s sacrifice ensured that we have the changes-progress in society that we enjoy today. For most of the 42 million people in our region, the self-determination – think: majority rule, voters rights and civil rights – that is expected is a harvested by-product of the sacrifices of many people in World War II in general – 55 million people died – and on the French coastal beaches of Normandy on D-Day in particular – 19,000 people that day: 10,000 Allied troops & up to 9,000 Germans.

A previous blog-commentary with the title “‘At the Table’ or ‘On the Menu’” highlights this main point:

Change is hard! Reforming and transforming a community is heavy-lifting. A lot of societal reforms – human and civil rights – only come about as a result of advocates fighting for change … “at the top” or “from the bottom”. Changing “at the top” means conferring, convincing, consulting and cajoling leaders (political and business) to implement changes in policies and procedures; it means being “at the table”. Changing “from the bottom” means “taking to the streets” and rallying the masses to force governments and businesses – the establishment – to hear demands and make changes.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a confederation to bring change and empowerment to the Caribbean member-states; to make the region a better place to live, work and play for all stakeholders (residents, Diaspora, visitors, businesses and institutions). This Go Lean book posits that the permanent change we seek will only take root as a result of adjustments to the community attitudes, the national spirit that drives the character and identity of its people. This is identified in the book as “community ethos” (Page 20); and that one such character, National Sacrifice is sorely missing in this region.

Why missing? Perhaps this is due to the ignorance that Caribbean people actually also gave blood, sweat and tears to the WWII war effort in 1944. The best example of our heroism and sacrifice is the historicity of the All-Volunteer Caribbean Regiment in the British Army. See some details here:

Title: Caribbean Regiment
The Caribbean Regiment (also known as the Carib Regiment) was a unit of the British Army during World War II. The regiment went overseas in July 1944 and saw service in the Middle East and Italy.

There had been resistance from the War Office to form the West Indian regiment but those who made their own way to the UK were able to enlist in the British Army. Nearly 10,000 West Indians travelled and joined the army in Britain.

Following discussion between the Colonial Office and the War Office, the Caribbean Regiment was formed in April 1944 of 1,200 volunteers. The recruits were drawn from all over the British West Indies; most were members of local Volunteer Defence Forces. A few officers and non-commissioned Officers were also drafted in from British Army units.

A detachment of 104 officers and men from the Atlantic island of Bermuda, made up of volunteers (conscription had been introduced to Bermuda shortly after the declaration of war, but those who were drafted to the Caribbean Regiment volunteered to do so) from the Bermuda Militia Artillery and Bermuda Militia Infantry, arrived on two ships, on the 13 and 23 April 1944, to form the training cadre of the new regiment at Fort Eustis, a US Army base near Williamsburg, Virginia. Under the command of Lt. Colonel H. Wilkin, OBE, MC, they prepared for the arrival of detachments from the West Indian islands, each under its own officers. Newly recruited men were tested in Virginia for fitness. With more experience, and a generally higher degree of education, many of the Bermudian men were made non-commissioned officers and distributed around the regiment.

Some of the Caribbean soldiers had already trained for deployment to the Pacific. The Bermudians had previously trained for the war in Europe. The new regiment trained in Virginia, where the regiment was the first to celebrate the King’s birthday in the U.S. since the American Revolution.

The Regiment left the USA for Oran, in North Africa, in June 1944. Oran was handed over to Free French Forces before their arrival, and the Regiment went on to Italy in July 1944, where it was employed in general duties behind the front line. In October it escorted 4000 German prisoners of war from Italy to Egypt, where it was used in mine clearance work around the Suez Canal area.

The regiment never saw front line action. This was due partly to inadequate training (with only a single battalion, it had not trained as part of a larger brigade – the smallest unit the British Army normally fielded on its own) and partly because of the anticipated political impact in the British West Indies if heavy casualties had been incurred.

In 1946 it returned to the West Indies and was disbanded.

Source: Retrieved June 5, 2019 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbean_Regiment

The world is coming together to remember, mourn and celebrate the big sacrifices of D-Day 1944. We, the people of the Caribbean, need to pay more than the usual attention to these activities.

In that previous commentary, it related the community ethos that was associated with peoples who endured the sacrifices of WWII. This was National Sacrifice, a deferred gratification and priority on being future-focused. All the D-Day Fallen Soldiers should be mourned and remembered; their sacrifices must be duly acknowledged, appreciated and honored. This is how to create that proper community spirit and value system for public service and National Sacrifice.

Take note, you Caribbean people.

The former British colonies, though they contributed to the Caribbean Regiment, still have not adopted this National Sacrifice value system. Most of the Caribbean (outside the US Territories) member-states do not even have a (work-free) holiday to honor the sacrifices of those that fought, bled or died for their country’s previous war efforts.

No appreciation, no sacrifice; no sacrifice, no victory.

And we wonder why our people in the homeland are so quick to abandon their communities. We refuse to give honor to those that died for the homeland, and verily, we refuse to live for the homeland.

Time for a change.

The 5 L’s should be considered. We need to Look, Listen, Learn as the world commemorates D-Day. Then we need to Lend-a-hand ourselves to help our community. After which we must Lead, in forging the proper ethos-spirit-attitude in our young people going forward. This is why National Sacrifice matters.

We hereby urge every stakeholders – resident and Diaspora alike – that love the Caribbean to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap to elevate our societal engines. All the mitigations and empowerments in this roadmap require people to be in the homeland, to stay and sacrifice when it would seem so much easier to just leave, rather we need them to prosper where planted. That is courageous. We also urge those that have left to consider repatriation – returning home – that would be heroic.

Too many defects in the homeland?

We hear you; we see you! We are making the sacrifices to make the progress. We hereby pledge to devote the needed “blood, sweat and tears” – but no war – to make our homelands better places 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 – D-Day (Normandy landings)
The Normandy landings were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of German-occupied France (and later western Europe) from Nazi control, and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front.

Planning for the operation began in 1943. In the months leading up to the invasion, the Allies conducted a substantial military deception, codenamed Operation Bodyguard, to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the main Allied landings. The weather on D-Day was far from ideal and the operation had to be delayed 24 hours; a further postponement would have meant a delay of at least two weeks as the invasion planners had requirements for the phase of the moon, the tides, and the time of day that meant only a few days each month were deemed suitable. Adolf Hitler placed German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in command of German forces and of developing fortifications along the Atlantic Wall in anticipation of an Allied invasion.

The amphibious landings were preceded by extensive aerial and naval bombardment and an airborne assault—the landing of 24,000 US, British, and Canadian airborne troops shortly after midnight. Allied infantry and armoured divisions began landing on the coast of France at 06:30. The target 50-mile (80 km) stretch of the Normandy coast was divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. Strong winds blew the landing craft east of their intended positions, particularly at Utah and Omaha. The men landed under heavy fire from gun emplacements overlooking the beaches, and the shore was mined and covered with obstacles such as wooden stakes, metal tripods, and barbed wire, making the work of the beach-clearing teams difficult and dangerous. Casualties were heaviest at Omaha, with its high cliffs. At Gold, Juno, and Sword, several fortified towns were cleared in house-to-house fighting, and two major gun emplacements at Gold were disabled, using specialised tanks.

The Allies failed to achieve any of their goals on the first day. Carentan, St. Lô, and Bayeux remained in German hands, and Caen, a major objective, was not captured until 21 July. Only two of the beaches (Juno and Gold) were linked on the first day, and all five beachheads were not connected until 12 June; however, the operation gained a foothold which the Allies gradually expanded over the coming months. German casualties on D-Day have been estimated at 4,000 to 9,000 men. Allied casualties were at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead.

Museums, memorials, and war cemeteries in the area now host many visitors each year.
…
See the full Wikipedia article (retrieved June 5, 2019) here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings

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Caribbean Roots: Grand Master Flash

Posted on June 4, 2019 in Ethos, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Welcome to June!

It’s Caribbean-American Heritage Month.

… unanimously adopted by the House of Representatives on June 27, 2005 in House Congressional Resolution 71, sponsored by Congresswoman Barbara Lee, recognizing the significance of Caribbean people and their descendants in the history and culture of the United States.[14]

LONDON – 1985: DJ Grandmaster Flash aka Joseph Saddler of the rap group “Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five” performs onstage at Wembley Arena in 1985 in London, England. (Photo by David Corio/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

It is also Black Music Month.

… initiated … by President Jimmy Carter who, on June 7, 1979, decreed that June would be the month of black music.

In 2009, the commemoration was given its current name by President Barack Obama.[1] In his 2016 proclamation, Obama noted that African-American music and musicians have helped the country “to dance, to express our faith through song, to march against injustice, and to defend our country’s enduring promise of freedom and opportunity for all. “[2]

This commentary is a fusion between these 2 observances.

Most emphatically, Caribbean-American Diaspora has contributed greatly to the Great American Songbook, even for Hip-Hop music. We are referring to one of the original heroes of this all-American musical genre: Joseph Saddler aka Grand Master Flash. Yes, he was born and raised in Barbados and emigrated to the New York metropolitan area at a young age.

Original hero? We are not the only one to conclude this; (plus, see the references in the Appendices below):

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, becoming the first hip hop act to be honored.[1]

VIDEO – Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five accept and perform Rock Hall Inductions 2007 – https://youtu.be/7tuPWXPd4nI

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
Published on Sep 23, 2011 – Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five accept and perform Rock Hall Inductions 2007

  • Category: Music

Unfortunately, despite our Caribbean being the greatest address on the planet, a report relates that …

“The [Caribbean] region has exported more of its people than any other region of the world since the abolition of slavery in 1834.[3] While the largest Caribbean immigrant sources to the U.S. are Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Haiti, U.S. citizen migrants also come from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.”

Wow, we got “it” bad, societal abandonment that is!

Imagine if we did a better job of holding on to our citizens. Imagine the world-class contributions and artistic productions. They would have done all that they have done here – maybe even more and better. Talent always finds a way to “break thru”; see photo here:

This theme – the Caribbean heritage of so many movers-and-shakers – aligns with previous commentaries from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean; see a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16938 Caribbean Roots: Presidential Candidate – Kamala Harris
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11787 Caribbean Roots: Bruno Mars … and the Power of Endurance
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11442 Caribbean Roots: Al Roker – ‘Climate Change’ Defender
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10801 Caribbean Roots: John Carlos – The Man. The Moment. The Movement
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10609 Caribbean Roots: Cast of ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10114 Caribbean Roots: Esther Rolle of ‘Good Times’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10015 Caribbean Roots: E. R. Braithwaite, Author of ‘To Sir, With Love’ – RIP
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9948 Caribbean Roots: Sammy Davis, Jr.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8724 Caribbean Roots: Pan-African Leader – Marcus Garvey
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2726 Caribbean Roots: Fashion Great – Oscar De La Renta – RIP

The Go Lean movement recognizes the Caribbean Roots and artistic contributions of artists like Joseph Saddler aka Grand Master Flash, even in non-traditional art forms like Hip-Hop.  (This makes up the sound track of this writer’s life).

Truth be told, Hip-Hop is now the Number One consumed music genre in the US. Caribbean contributions are hereby acknowledged!

CU Blog - Rock-n-Roll Dethroned by Hip-Hop - Photo 1

Yes, there is power to music; it can urge people to act … and feel … and move. Music can even “soothe the savage beast”.

Yes we can … impact our homeland and impact the world. With music, we can both reach people’s hearts and make them dance. This is one more way to forge change in society! This is why the promotion of music is vital in our quest to elevate Caribbean life and culture. This is one way that we can make our 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 – 14):

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

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.

xxxii. Whereas the cultural arts and music of the region are germane to the quality of Caribbean life, and the international appreciation of Caribbean life, the Federation must implement the support systems to teach, encourage, incentivize, monetize and promote the related industries for arts and music in domestic and foreign markets. These endeavors will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.

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

——————

Appendix A – Joseph Saddler aka Grandmaster Flash

Joseph Saddler’s family emigrated to the United States from Barbados, in the Caribbean. He grew up in the Bronx in New York City where he attended Samuel Gompers High School, a public vocational school. There, he learned how to repair electronic equipment.[2] Saddler’s parents played an important role in his interest in music. His parents came from Barbados and his father was a big fan of Caribbean and African American records.[3]

As a child, Saddler was fascinated by his father’s record collection. In an interview, he reflected: “My father was a very heavy record collector. He still thinks that he has the strongest collection. I used to open his closets and just watch all the records he had. I used to get into trouble for touching his records, but I’d go right back and bother them.”[3] Saddler’s early interest in DJing came from this fascination with his father’s record collection as well as his mother’s desire for him to educate himself in electronics.[4] After high school, he became involved in the earliest New York DJ scene, attending parties set up by early luminaries, like DJ Kool Herc.

…

Source: Retrieved June 4, 2019 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmaster_Flash

——————

Appendix B – Induction: Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five  –  2007  |  Category: Performers

Members:

  • Joseph “Grandmaster Flash” Saddler
  • Melvin “Mele Mel” Glover
  • Nathaniel “The Kidd Creole” Glover Jr.
  • Eddie “Scorpio aka Mr. Ness” Morris
  • Keith “Keef Cowboy” Wiggins
  • Guy “Rahiem” Williams

Summary:
Put simply, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were innovators. Sonically, their new techniques and equipment expanded the sound of hip-hop. Lyrically, their masterpiece “The Message” [see Appendix C below] exposed the dirty underside of a landscape known for partying—and no one saw it coming.

Biography
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five fomented the musical revolution known as hip-hop.

Theirs was a pioneering union between one DJ and five rapping MCs. Grandmaster Flash (born Joseph Saddler) not only devised various techniques but also designed turntable and mixing equipment. Formed in the South Bronx, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were one of the first rap posses, responsible for such masterpieces as “The Message,” “Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel” and “White Lines.” The combination of Grandmaster Flash’s turntable mastery and the Furious Five’s raps, which ranged from socially conscious to frivolously fun, made for a series of 12-inch records that forever altered the musical landscape.

Flash, along with DJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa, pioneered the art of break-beat deejaying—the process of remixing and thereby creating a new piece of music by playing vinyl records and turntables as if they were musical instruments. Disco-era deejays like Pete “DJ” Jones, an early influence on Grandmaster Flash, spun records so that people could dance. Turntablists took it a step further by scratching and cutting records, focusing on “breaks”—what Flash described as “the short, climactic parts of the records that really grabbed me”—as a way of heightening musical excitement and creating something new.

Flash’s days as a deejay date back to 1974, when he and other deejays who were too young to get into discos began playing at house parties and block parties in their South Bronx neighborhoods. Flash worked briefly with Kurtis Blow, but Cowboy became the first MC to officially join Grandmaster Flash in what would become the Furious Five. Cowboy’s rousing exhortations, including now-familiar calls to party, like “Throw your hands in the air and wave ‘em like you just don’t care!” became essential ingredients of the hip-hop experience.

Grandmaster’s squadron of MCs expanded to include Kidd Creole, Mele Mel, Mr. Ness (a.k.a. Scorpio) and Rahiem, in that order. Mele Mel, one of the most phonetically and rhythmically precise rappers in the genre—and the authoritatively deep voice who delivered the anti-cocaine rap “White Lines”—recalled the early days of hip-hop: “Disco was for adults, and they wouldn’t let the kids in. That forced us to go out on the streets and make our own entertainment.”

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five issued their first record, “Superrappin’,” on the Enjoy label in 1979. They then signed to Sylvia Robinson’s New Jersey-based Sugarhill label, where they made the R&B charts with a 12-inch single called “Freedom,” which ran for more than eight minutes. Various combinations of Grandmaster Flash, Mele Mel and the Furious Five placed ten records in the charts during a three-year span from 1980 to 1983. These included Grandmaster Flash’s dizzying turntable showcase, “Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel,” and the group’s acknowledged masterpiece, “The Message.” The latter offered a series of unflinchingly honest and discomfiting observations about life in the ghetto, with lead rapper Mele Mel returning to the same weary conclusion: “It’s like a jungle sometime, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under.”

As Rolling Stone observed, “’The Message’ was [the first record] to prove that rap could become the inner city’s voice, as well as its choice.” This slice of unvarnished social realism sold half a million copies in a month, topped numerous critics’ and magazines’ lists of best singles for 1982 and cemented Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s place in hip-hop’s vanguard. “I ask myself to this day, ‘Why do people want to hear this?’” Grandmaster Flash wondered of “The Message” in 1988. “But it’s the only lyric-pictorial record that could be called ‘How Urban America Lived.’”

In 1984, disagreements over business matters, including a lawsuit with Sugarhill, caused the group to split into two factions, and their commercial momentum was lost. However, they reunited in 1987 for a charity concert hosted by Paul Simon at Madison Square Garden in New York. The result was another album, On the Strength, released in 1988. On the Strength contained another example of Grandmaster Flash’s turntable genius (“This Is Where You Got It From”) and a history lesson for those who didn’t understand hip-hop’s roots and longevity (“Back in the Old Days of Hip-Hop”). In the ensuing years, Grandmaster Flash and Mele Mel have made records under their own names, and numerous anthologies have been released, including Grandmaster Flash, Mele Mel and the Furious Five: The Definitive Groove Collection.

Inductees: Melvin Glover a.k.a. Mele Mel (vocals; born May 15, 1961), Nathaniel Glover Jr. a.k.a. Kidd Creole (vocals; born February 19, 1960), Eddie Morris a.k.a. Mr. Ness/Scorpio (vocals; born October 12, 1960), Joseph Saddler a.k.a. Grandmaster Flash (turntables; born January 1, 1958), Keith Wiggins a.k.a. Cowboy (vocals; born September 20, 1960, died September 8, 1989), Guy Williams a.k.a. Rahiem (vocals; born February 13, 1963)

Source: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame; posted September 23, 2011; retrieved June 4, 2019 from: https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/grandmaster-flash-and-furious-five
————–
Appendix C VIDEO – Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five – The Message (Official Video) – https://youtu.be/PobrSpMwKk4


Sugarhill Records

Published on Aug 24, 2015 – 
Download The Message on iTunes – http://hyperurl.co/sgur7n
Stream The Message on Spotify – http://hyperurl.co/92hx5f
Buy The Message on Amazon – http://hyperurl.co/d1jnmy
Follow Grandmaster Flash Website: http://hyperurl.co/8bmdbs
Facebook: http://hyperurl.co/jn3yxq
Twitter: http://hyperurl.co/b31agz
Instagram: http://hyperurl.co/lzisge
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Dealing with Hurricane Season 2019 … and beyond

Posted on June 2, 2019 in Government, Planning, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Welcome to Hurricane Season 2019.

I wish I could say it will be uneventful. I can’t …

Just the opposite, scientists have told us that as the earth’s atmosphere heats more and more, that Climate Change-fueled events will only worsen and worsen. So far, Spring 2019 has been proof positive. We have seen floods, tornadoes, unusual wintry weather, etc. As reported in a previous blog-commentary, the planet must prepare to “rinse and repeat“.

June 1st is the official start of the Atlantic Hurricane Season, so every year at this time we have to start dealing with the realities of hurricanes and Caribbean life. The 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean (Page 10) declares that we need “to provide new guards for our future security”. This is not our first year planning for and dealing with Hurricane Season; nor will it be our last. “This” is our new reality. The book relates on Page 11:

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

This theme – planning for and dealing with Hurricane Season – aligns with many previous Go Lean commentaries; see here, this consideration from recent years:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15012 Hurricane Season 2018 and Puerto Rico continued sufferings
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12068 Hurricane Season 2017 and ‘Climate Change’ Abatement

Dealing with Hurricane Seasons must include more than just naming hurricanes or responding to the storms’ devastation; we must also mitigate the threat of Climate Change and do our share to reduce global warming. Yes, we must!

Why?

Because we are responsible for the causes of Climate Change; so says this recent report; consider the story here:

Title: 99.9999% chance humans are causing global warming, and other science-based facts on Climate Change for Earth Day
By: Doyle Rice and Elizabeth Weise

Climate change is real and increasingly a part of our daily lives. New research and studies out in just the past six months highlight the latest facts about the human-caused shift to our global weather systems and its effects on our planet.

First among them, there’s no longer any question that rising temperatures and increasingly chaotic weather are the work of humanity. There’s a 99.9999% chance that humans are the cause of global warming, a February study reported. That means we’ve reached the “gold standard” for certainty, a statistical measure typically used in particle physics.

The mechanism is well understood and has been for decades. Humans burn fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas, which release carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and other gases into the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. CO2 is the greenhouse gas that’s most responsible for warming.

Study lead author Benjamin Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, told Reuters that “the narrative out there that scientists don’t know the cause of climate change is wrong.”

Hottest on record
The past five years have been the five warmest since record-keeping began in the late 1800s. The Earth has experienced 42 straight years (since 1977) with an above-average global temperature, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Based on five separate data sets that keep track of the Earth’s climate, the global average temperature for the first 10 months of 2018 was about 1.8 degrees above what it was in the late 1800s. That was when industry started to emit large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Australia experienced record summer heat in January of this year. The town of Port Augusta reached the hottest day since record-keeping began in 1962 with a temperature of 121, according to the Guardian.

The heat was so intense it caused bats to fall from trees, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Carbon dioxide up 46%
Increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and other gases being released into the atmosphere by industry, transportation and energy production from burning fossil fuels are enhancing what’s known as the planet’s natural greenhouse effect.

Carbon dioxide is the most prevalent among all greenhouse gases produced by human activities, attributed to the burning of fossil fuels.

The atmospheric carbon dioxide level for March was 411.97 parts per million and continue to rise. It has now reached levels in the atmosphere not seen in 3 million years.

That’s an increase of 46% from just before the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s, when CO2 levels were around 280 parts per million. Levels began to rise when humans began to burn large amounts of fossil fuels to run factories and heat homes, releasing CO2 and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

Scientists say to keep a livable planet, we need to cut the level to 350 parts per million.

Rising seas
A consequence of higher temperatures is the melting of the polar ice caps, which is causing sea levels to rise. The world’s oceans have risen about an inch in the past 50 years due to melting glaciers alone, a study published this month in the journal Nature found.

The Earth’s glaciers are now losing up to 390 billion tons of ice and snow per year, the study suggests.

Global warming has caused over 3 trillion tons of ice to melt from Antarctica in the past quarter-century and tripled ice loss there in the past decade, another study, released in June, said.

More: Life after solving climate change: Not mud huts and gruel but clean air and warm homes

Source: Posted for “Earth Day 2019” on April 22, 2019; retrieved June 1, 2019 from: https://www.yahoo.com/now/earth-day-2019-high-temperatures-131301815.html

99.9999% is a special number! It is near to Six Sigma – process which 99.9999998% of products manufactured are statistically expected to be free of defects (3.4 defects per million). So this near sign of operational perfection means that it is “on us”. If we accept that us humans are the cause of Climate Change, then that means that us humans can stop the bad actions and do good ones. As reported here previously, we only have until 2030 as a fix window to try to effect change; (after that, there is no hope for a turn-around):

[A report from the] UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) … asserts that if there are no mitigations [by 2030], then the catastrophic future that we all dread will be unavoidable. Life may continue on the planet, but the status quo would be no more. …

After [2030], there may not be any turning back from a Greenhouse planet. Once we accept this fact – the eventuality of the Climate Change Catastrophe – only then can we start to make efforts to address the truth: our “house is on fire”. …

Fixing Climate Change in the US or Canada is out-of-scope for this Go Lean movement; but we still need them to act. We also need Europe, China, India – all Big Polluters – and all countries of the world to act. We must stand on soap boxes, podiums and stages and tell the world – everyone must listen; we must make them listen. This is now everyone’s job, everyone’s responsibility. …

There is … a roadmap [for] reforming and transforming the Caribbean’s societal engines to abate Climate Change; [it] is possible; it is conceivable, believable and achievable.

The current US President, Donald Trump, is not a partner in the effort to abate Climate Change. He is a denier! He is also undermining legitimate scientific efforts – see Appendix VIDEO.

The start of Hurricane Season 2019 reminds us to recommit to the urgency to mitigate and remediate Climate Change. While we must Go Green here in the Caribbean, we must do more too. We must urge the rest of the world to Go Green. Otherwise, our small tropical islands will be the first to become extinct. It is that serious!

Let’s lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap to effect change here in the homeland and then lets urge the rest of the world to also do more. Yes, we can make a difference here in the homeland and around the world. 🙂

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):

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 – Climate Change: Why Trump’s panel on climate science is controversial – https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/2019/02/27/climate-change-why-trumps-panel-climate-science-controversial/2998078002/

Posted February 26, 2019 – President Trump’s pick for leading a climate change panel is notorious for denying the science behind human-caused global warming. We dive into the counter-arguments on climate change. USA TODAY.

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