Power – Page 10 – Go Lean…Caribbean

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Forging Change: Soft Power – Clean-up or ‘Adios Amazon’

Posted on February 21, 2018 in Economics, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Speak softly and carry a Big Stick – West African Proverb pronounced by the 26^th US President, Theodore Roosevelt

Speak softly and carry a Big Payroll – Modern New Twist

Welcome to the concept of “soft power” … 2018 style.

There are a number of ways to forge change on a society; military power or hard power is perhaps the most effective. “Leading by the sword” is not in dispute. Anyone willing to protect their life, family and property will comply. But leading by Money Matters is also extremely effective. The prospect of acquiring money or losing money can be a great motivation. This “soft power” is now emerging as the preferred way to forge change on society. We are seeing clear choices presented to different communities:

Clean-up your societal defects or else … face the loss of some economic bonanza.

This is the situation right now in Atlanta, in the US State of Georgia. The issues are so blatant that it is bordering on a “soft power” reality.

Soft power is the ability to attract and co-opt, rather than by coercion (hard power), which is using force or giving money as a means of persuasion. Soft power is the ability to shape the preferences of others through appeal and attraction. A defining feature of soft power is that it is non-coercive; the currency of soft power is culture, political values, and foreign policies. – Source

“Hard power” = involuntary; “soft power” = voluntary.

See the full article here, wherein the Big Tech firm Amazon is weighing Atlanta’s values and community ethos to attract or repel Amazon to consider that location for their Second Headquarters and 50,000 high-paying jobs. See the story here:

Title: ‘Adios Amazon:’ Tech giant sparks Georgia Capitol debate
By: Ben Nadler, Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — With Atlanta among the 20 cities on the short list to become the home of Amazon’s second headquarters, the corporate giant’s name has become a contentious rallying cry inside the conservative Georgia Capitol.

Lawmakers and lobbyists in Georgia are viewing various pieces of legislation through the lens of how they will affect the city’s chances of winning Amazon’s business — and the estimated 50,000 jobs expected to be generated by the new headquarters.

Two flashpoints have been a “religious liberties” bill — viewed by some as anti-LGBT — as well as a trio of bills that opponents have dubbed “adios Amazon” because they’re related to immigration issues.

“It’s putting a target on our back,” Democratic Rep. Bee Nguyen said of the immigration-related bills, which she said would draw unnecessary scrutiny from the Amazon selection committee.

Amazon has yet to publicly release specific criteria it will use to judge the 20 finalist cities, but its initial call for proposals lists “Cultural Community Fit” as a priority, noting it requires a community with a “diverse population.” Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is a big-time donor to pro-LGBT causes and has given large amounts of money to fund scholarships for young immigrants.

The potential cost of legislation perceived to be discriminatory can be huge. North Carolina faced months of scrutiny and criticism after the passage of its “bathroom bill,” which effectively blocked the city of Charlotte from allowing transgender people to use restrooms aligned with their gender identity. An Associated Press analysis revealed backlash to the law would cost the state an estimated $3.76 billion over 12 years in business lost from Paypal, the NBA, Adidas, Deutsche Bank and other companies and organizations scuttling planned projects and events in the state.

But some lawmakers are skeptical that state legislation would have any effect on Amazon’s selection.

“It is a smart tactic to create this boogeyman of, ‘Oh, we are going to lose out on economic development,'” Republican Sen. Josh McKoon said. He said there was “zero evidence” that conservative policies make a state less likely to attract employers like Amazon and that state legislators should not be swayed by out-of-state companies that may not share the same values as the people of Georgia.

“Perhaps we should just have their board of directors come down and sit in our seats in the House and Senate,” McKoon said sarcastically.

McKoon is a sponsor of a resolution that would prevent the state government from issuing written driving tests and other official documents in any language other than English. That is one of three measures that opponents have dubbed “adios Amazon” legislation. The other two measures would require a special driver’s license for non-U.S. citizens and would tax out-of-state wire transfers, which are widely used by immigrants.

McKoon is also a supporter of another piece of controversial legislation that some people worry could derail Atlanta’s bid: a “religious liberties” bill that opponents say would allow individuals to deny services to LGBT people based on their religious convictions.

Republican Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed a similar measure in 2016 after pressure from corporate giants including Coca-Cola, a major employer based in Atlanta. But conservative legislators are pushing the measure forward again this year.

The veto highlights another important aspect of the Amazon debate: It’s not just Republican vs. Democrat.

In the run-up to November’s elections, conservative Republican legislators are pushing hot-button social issues that can win votes in rural parts of the state. But the party’s more centrist, business-friendly arm is worried that could turn off Amazon by seeming to be anti-immigrant or anti-LGBT.

Republican Sen. Michael Williams, who is running for governor, said in a statement to The Associated Press that he supported the “religious liberties” bill because his constituents support the measure. “I’ve made it clear that I’m not beholden to the establishment, Party leadership or big corporate,” Williams said.

But Republican House Speaker David Ralston told WABE Radio that he was interested in “growing economic opportunity for every part of Georgia” and that legislation such as the “religious liberties” bill didn’t fit into that plan.

“To the extent that any debate … creates headwinds for that, then I don’t have any interest in doing that, frankly,” he said.

William Hatcher, associate professor in the Department of Social Sciences at Augusta University, said that many of the bills being introduced will appeal to conservative voters, even if they don’t have much chance of becoming law. “There is a lot of symbolic politics going on,” Hatcher said.

“It really represents the conflict you have in the Republican party nationwide, but especially in a number of Southern states … between more economic conservatives and more social-religious conservatives,” he said.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: US News & World Report – Posted February 13, 2018; Retrieved February 21, 2018 from: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/georgia/articles/2018-02-13/adios-amazon-tech-giant-sparks-georgia-capitol-debate

As related in the foregoing, Amazon HQ2 and the accompanying 50,000 high-paying jobs is the prize. Want it? Well, it will cost you! You have to … be nice.

You have to live … and let live.

This heavy-lifting burden is the price of the ticket … for consideration. Amazon has announced that their Selection Committee will be looking at cities with a “‘Cultural Community Fit’ as a priority, noting it requires a community with a ‘diverse population’.”

Wow, what an expensive price to pay. People in cities like Atlanta actually have to clean-up their societal engines; they have to try and get along or Amazon will not consider them. Plus, Amazon is only considering 1 city, so if a community double-downs on the effort to forge a pluralistic democracy – fair treatment to all despite diverse backgrounds and lifestyles – and they are not selected by Amazon, then they would have loved their neighbors … for nothing.

How sad! This satirical comment is the height of sarcasm, but true!

Companies prefer to inhabit a peaceful, prosperous community and they are willing to “put their money where their mouth is” to forge such communities. The business axiom is fully established: “Happy home life; happy work life”.

So as demonstrated here, the people of Atlanta are being urged to clean-up their society of all past bias, discriminatory practices and abusive behavior – towards minority groups – and there might be a BIG cash pay-out in the end. This is the premise of this recent series of blog-commentaries – from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean – considering the momentum that Money Matters can have on forging change in the 3 societal engines of a community – economics, security and governance. The conclusion was that it is so much easier to lead and get people to voluntarily follow – to lean-in – through economic means rather than by any security and governing directives. Atlanta – a major Southern city with the de jure segregation past and a de facto segregation present – had been under pressure to widen out its inclusion. (See Appendix VIDEO below). Now with the stakes of 50,000, jobs they are now more willing to capitulate.

This commentary follows up from the 5-part series in consideration of these Money Matters. The other commentaries in the series were cataloged as follows:

Leading with Money Matters: Follow the Jobs
Leading with Money Matters: Competing for New Industries
Leading with Money Matters: Almighty Dollar
Leading with Money Matters: As Goes Housing, Goes the Market
Leading with Money Matters: Lottery Hopes and Dream

All of these previous commentaries related “how” to persuade the Caribbean region’s stakeholders to follow an empowerment roadmap. It is logical to conclude that if we “dangle money in front of our subjects”, we will get their attention; they will buy-in and lean-in because Money Matters.

There is no greater motivation than a crying baby – when hunger sets in and there is no economic solution for food, parents are willing to put aside their prejudices; they would do so willingly. Is it the desperation or is it a learning curve? We have seen the desperation, time and again. We have seen people risk their lives, and that of their children, to seek refuge; think Haiti, Cuba, etc..

The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – declares that Caribbean society is in such dire straits, we are flirting with Failed-State status; we are at the precipice.

If people are money motivated – and they are – then economic incentives should work.

The book 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.

Is the situation in Atlanta political or economic? (See Appendix VIDEO below). Politically in Georgia, the state is normally considered a RED state – social-religious conservatives – a Republican stronghold; but Republicans are normally also pro-business. Thusly, this conflict exists … in the Republican party nationwide, but especially in many Southern states … between more economic conservatives and more social-religious conservatives.

“Can’t we all just get along?” – Rodney King 1994

We can all get along … when 50,000 jobs hang in the balance.

The Go Lean book stresses this point; that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines is easier when economic benefits are the result. To be successful in our region, we must leverage our regional economy and collaborate on regional solutions. See this portrayal early in the book, 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.

So religious conservatives are less tolerant of diversity…

The only thing to transcend it – forge change – is The Almighty Dollar …

This thought of ‘forging change’ is a common theme by this Go Lean movement. See the full catalog here of this one, plus the previous 10 blog-commentaries that detailed approaches for forging change, in reverse chronological order:

Forging Change – Soft Power (Today: February 21, 2018)
Forging Change – Collective Bargaining (April 27, 2017)
Forging Change – Addicted to Home (April 14, 2017)
Forging Change – Arts & Artists (December 1, 2016)
Forging Change – Panem et Circenses (November 15, 2016)
Forging Change – Herd Mentality (October 11, 2016)
Forging Change – ‘Something To Lose’ (November 18, 2015)
Forging Change – ‘Food’ for Thought (April 29, 2015)
Forging Change – Music Moves People (December 30, 2014)
Forging Change – The Sales Process (December 22, 2014)
Forging Change – The Fun Theory (September 9, 2014)

As related in these commentaries, forging change is how the Go Lean roadmap will make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. Change will come! One way or another, so we urge every Caribbean stakeholder to lean-in and embrace the change … as envisioned in this roadmap to elevate the societal engines of the region. 🙂

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

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

————

Appendix VIDEO – Atlanta: a segregated city – https://youtu.be/oeIntCp8EgQ

Vivien Morgan
Published on Apr 19, 2017 – The suburbs of Atlanta stretch for miles around the city centre. The affluent black middle classes have chosen residential segregation. It is a strange phenomenon in the city known for its black consciousness roots, birthplace of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement.

Category: People & Blogs
License: Standard YouTube License

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School Shootings ‘R’ Us – 11 in 23 Days

Posted on January 30, 2018 in Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Which is worse: the Frying Pan or the Fire?

This is the decision-making that Caribbean people seem to be doing. Which residential option is worse for them: remain in the Failing–States of their Caribbean homeland or emigrate to the United States of America where societal defects like mass shootings / school shootings persist?

The optics are that bad!

The American gun culture cannot be excused, rationalized or minimized. As of January 23^rd, there were already 11 school shootings in the country.

Just think how our Caribbean people have fled their homelands – “Frying Pan” – to seek refuge in this society – “the Fire”.

See how the actuality of this American “fire” is conveyed in this New York Times news story here:

Title – School Shooting in Kentucky Was Nation’s 11th of Year. It Was Jan. 23

By: Alan Blinder and Daniel Victor

ATLANTA — On Tuesday, it was a high school in small-town Kentucky. On Monday, a school cafeteria outside Dallas and a charter school parking lot in New Orleans. And before that, a school bus in Iowa, a college campus in Southern California, a high school in Seattle.

Gunfire ringing out in American schools used to be rare, and shocking. Now it seems to happen all the time.

The scene in Benton, Ky., on Tuesday was the worst so far in 2018: Two 15-year-old students were killed and 18 more people were injured. But it was one of at least 11 shootings on school property recorded since Jan. 1, and roughly the 50th of the academic year.

Researchers and gun control advocates say that since 2013, they have logged school shootings at a rate of about one a week.

“We have absolutely become numb to these kinds of shootings, and I think that will continue,” said Katherine W. Schweit, a former senior F.B.I. official and the co-author of a study of 160 active shooting incidents in the United States.

Some of the shootings at schools this year were suicides that injured no one else; some did not result in any injuries at all. But in the years since the massacres at Columbine High School in Colorado, Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., gun safety advocates say, all school shootings seem to have lost some of their capacity to shock.

Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, a gun safety group, said that’s because in 2012 in Newtown, “20 first graders and six educators were slaughtered in an elementary school.”

“The news cycles are so short right now in America, and there’s a lot going on,” she said. “But you would think that shootings in American schools would be able to clear away some of that clutter.”

Gov. Matt Bevin of Kentucky said the gunman who opened fire Tuesday morning at Marshall County High School in Benton, near the western tip of the state was a 15-year-old student. The authorities said the student entered the school just before 8 a.m., fired shots that struck 14 people, and set off a panicked flight in which five more were hurt.

One girl who was shot, Bailey Nicole Holt, died at the scene; a boy, Preston Ryan Cope, died of his injuries at a hospital.

Bryson Conkwright, a junior at the school, said he was talking with a friend on Tuesday morning when he spotted the gunman walking up near him. “It took me a second to process it,” Mr. Conkwright, 17, said in an interview. “One of my best friends got shot in the face, and then another one of my best friends was shot in the shoulder.”

He said he was part of a group of students who fled, kicked down a door to get outside and ran.

The suspect, who was not immediately identified, was taken into custody in “a nonviolent apprehension,” Mr. Bevin said, and officials said he would be charged with two counts of murder and several counts of attempted murder. But the authorities had not yet decided whether to charge the suspect, who was armed with a pistol, as a juvenile or as an adult.

Of the 18 people injured, five remained in critical condition, law enforcement officials said on Tuesday night.

“This is something that has struck in the heart of Kentucky,” Lt. Michael B. Webb of Kentucky State Police said at a news conference. “It’s not far away, it’s here.”

Not for the first time. The region was scarred about two decades ago by a deadly school shooting in West Paducah, about a 40-minute drive away. Three people were killed when a student opened fire into a prayer circle, and five more were injured.

Benton is a small town about 200 miles southwest of Louisville, and its high school serves students from all over Marshall County, which has a population of about 31,000.

John Parks, who owns the Fisherman’s Headquarters store about a mile from the school, described the area as a “very close-knit community” where just about everyone would have known a student at the school. “It’s personal when it’s a small town like this,” he said.

About a mile from the high school, a large American flag flew at half-staff over a Ponderosa Steakhouse on Tuesday night. Taylor McCuiston, 21, a manager at the restaurant who graduated from Marshall County High School two years ago, was working when the shooting occurred down the road.

“It was very scary because, like, 90 percent of the staff that works here goes to that school,” she said. “So for the first hour we were just scrambling trying to make sure they were all O.K. and accounted for.”

The town of Italy, Tex., is not any bigger than Benton. On Monday, a 15-year-old girl there was hospitalized after she was shot by a 16-year-old classmate, according to local news reports. That suspect, a boy, was taken into custody by the Ellis County Sheriff’s Department. The authorities said on Tuesday that the victim was recovering.

The F.B.I. study that Ms. Schweit helped write examined active shooter episodes in the United States between 2000 and 2013. It found that nearly one-quarter of them occurred in educational environments, and they were on the rise.

In the first half of the study period, federal officials counted 16 active shooter incidents in educational settings, meaning instances of a person “actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area.” In the second half, the number rose to 23. (Many, but not all, of the school shootings tallied by advocates so far this year meet that definition.)

“Any time there’s a school shooting, it’s more gut-wrenching, and I think we have a tendency to react in a more visceral way,” Ms. Schweit said in an interview on Tuesday. “But I really don’t think as a whole, in society, we’re taking shootings more seriously than we were before — and that’s wrong.”

Even so, jarred and fearful school administrators across the country have been placing greater emphasis on preparing for the possibility of an active shooter. According to a report issued by the Government Accountability Office in March 2016, 19 states were requiring individual schools to have plans for how to deal with an active shooter. Only 12 states required schools to conduct drills, but two-thirds of school districts reported that they had staged active shooter exercises.

School safety experts say steps like the drills are crucial, if imperfect, safeguards.

“I think we’ve become somewhat desensitized to the fact that these things happened, and it takes a thing like Sandy Hook to bring us back to our senses,” said William Modzeleski, a consultant who formerly led the Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools.

“My fear is that if you don’t hear about a school shooting for a while, educators move on to other things,” he said. “Principals are busy. Teachers are busy. Superintendents are busy.”

In Kentucky, lawmakers have grappled with how to address the risk of school shootings. Last year, state legislators considered, but did not pass, a bill that would have allowed people with concealed-carry permits to bring weapons on to public school campuses, where proponents argue they could be used to respond to active shooters. A similar bill, limited to college campuses and certain other government buildings, has been introduced this year. It was not immediately clear how the shooting in Benton might affect the debate in Frankfort, the Kentucky capital.

But in Benton, “this is a wound that is going to take a long time to heal,” said Mr. Bevin, the governor, “ and for some in this community, will never fully heal.”

———-

Alan Blinder reported from Atlanta and Daniel Victor from New York. Steven Hale contributed reporting from Benton, Ky., and Timothy Williams and Matthew Haag from New York.

Source: New York Times – posted January 23, 2017; retrieved January 30, 2017: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/us/kentucky-school-shooting.html

RELATED COVERAGE:

Newtown Is ‘Still So Raw,’ 5 Years After Sandy Hook Shooting DEC. 13, 2017

Columbine Shocked the Nation. Now, Mass Shootings Are Less Surprising. NOV. 10, 2017

‘Tell Your Story to Everyone’: Readers Affected by Mass Killings Offer Advice for Fellow Survivors NOV. 8, 2017

Life in American schools is risky. Life in the US in general, may experience a shorter mortality due to the risky gun culture.

This is not an unfamiliar theme for this movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean; on October 11, 2017 a blog-commentary entitled: “Pulled” – Despite American Guns was published. That entry lamented how the US continues to draw the human capital out of the Caribbean, despite the unconscionable gun-death rate in the country. That commentary related:

… the US has far more gun deaths than most other advanced economy countries.

Reference: Visualizing gun deaths: Comparing the U.S. to rest of the world
Whenever a mass shooting occurs, a debate about gun violence ensues. An often-cited counter to the point about the United States’ high rates of gun homicides is that people in other countries kill one another at the same rate using different types of weapons. It’s not true.

Compared to other countries with similar levels of development or socioeconomic status, the United States has exceptional homicide rates, and it’s driven by gun violence.

Life in the US may be more prosperous, but it is “fast & furious” compared to the Caribbean homeland. If only, we can assuage our societal defects – Frying Pan – and foster more economic opportunities, then our people will be able to prosper where planted in the Caribbean homeland. They would not have to “jump into the Fire” as they do now – one report estimates 70 percent of the professional classes have fled to foreign destinations like the United States. To be clear, there are two reasons why are they leaving:

“Push” refers to people who feel compelled to leave, to seek refuge in a foreign land. “Refuge” is an appropriate word; because of societal defects, many from the Caribbean must leave as refugees – think LGBT, Disability, Domestic-abuse, Medically-challenged– for their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
“Pull”, on the other hand refers to the lure of a more prosperous life abroad; many times our people are emigrating for economics solely.

It is the quest of this Go Lean movement that we reform and transform our societal engines so as to lower the “Push” factors. As for the “Pull” factors, this is all about messaging, knowledge-sharing and declaring the truth. Take a moment and acknowledge this truth:

Before this article, did you really know that there were 11 school-shootings in the US between January 1^st and 23^rd, 2018?

For most, that answer is no!

This is the truism that we must contend with in our region: The “grass is not necessarily greener” on the American side.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate the societal engines – economics, homeland security and governance – for all 30 Caribbean member-states in the region. In fact, the prime directives of the roadmap includes the following 3 statements:

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

The Go Lean quest is to minimize any paradox of future-planning/decision-making for Caribbean citizens. We want to make the Caribbean region better places to live, work and play; this way our citizens would not have to “jump in to the Fire” by relocating to American shores.

How would you live with yourself if your children or grandchildren die in a school shooting in some US location?!

This is not to say that there will never be any violence in the Caribbean. No, the Go Lean book contends that bad actors will always emerge just as a result of economic successes in society. Once the prospects of guns are factored it, the inevitable “bad guy with a gun” can do more damage than ordinary. The Way Forward from the book is real remediation and mitigation for minimizing incidents of gun violence.

Many times in the US, the post mass-shooting platitudes from Pro-Gun Advocacy groups – i.e. the NRA – is that the best way to stop a “bad guy with a gun” is with a “good guy with a gun”.

Platitudes – flat, dull, or trite remark – indeed …

Remember the April 1999 Columbine High massacre – school shooting – in Colorado – Greater Denver Metropolitan area:

In addition to the shootings, the complex and highly planned attack involved a fire bomb to divert firefighters, propane tanks converted to bombs placed in the cafeteria, 99 explosive devices, and car bombs. The perpetrators, senior students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 12 students and one teacher. They injured 21 additional people, and three more were injured while attempting to escape the school. After exchanging fire with responding police officers, the pair subsequently committed suicide.^[5][6] – Wikipedia

See this dramatic portrayal for the documentary-movie Bowling for Columbine here with this Trailer and critical review:

VIDEO – Bowling for Columbine – Official Trailer – Michael Moore Movie (2002) – https://youtu.be/hH0mSAjp_Jw

Movieclips Trailer Vault
Published on Nov 15, 2011 – Bowling for Columbine Trailer – Michael Moore (Michael Moore) takes an inside-look at America’s fascination with firearms. MGM – 2002

Category: Film & Animation

License: Standard YouTube License

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Movie Review: Bowling for Columbine

By: Roger Eber

Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine,” a documentary that is both hilarious and sorrowful, is like a two-hour version of that anecdote. We live in a nation of millions of handguns, but that isn’t really what bothers Moore. What bothers him is that we so frequently shoot them at one another. Canada has a similar ratio of guns to citizens, but a 10th of the shooting deaths. What makes us kill so many times more fellow citizens than is the case in other developed nations? Moore, the jolly populist rabble-rouser, explains that he’s a former sharpshooting instructor and a lifelong member of the National Rifle Association. No doubt this is true, but Moore has moved on from his early fondness for guns. In “Bowling for Columbine,” however, he is not so sure of the answers …
…
Moore’s thoughtfulness doesn’t inhibit the sensational set-pieces he devises to illustrate his concern. He returns several times to Columbine High School, at one point showing horrifying security-camera footage of the massacre. And Columbine inspires one of the great confrontations in a career devoted to radical grandstanding. Moore introduces us to two of the students wounded at Columbine, both still with bullets in their bodies. He explains that all of the Columbine bullets were freely sold to the teenage killers by Kmart, at 17 cents apiece. And then he takes the two victims to Kmart headquarters to return the bullets for a refund.

This is brilliant theater and would seem to be unanswerable for the hapless Kmart public relations spokespeople, who fidget and evade in front of Moore’s merciless camera. But then, on Moore’s third visit to headquarters, he is told that Kmart will agree to completely phase out the sale of ammunition. “We’ve won,” says Moore, not believing it. “This has never happened before.” For once, he’s at a loss for words.

The movie is a mosaic of Moore confrontations and supplementary footage. One moment that cuts to the core is from a standup routine by Chris Rock, who suggests that our problem could be solved by simply increasing the price of bullets–taxing them like cigarettes. Instead of 17 cents apiece, why not $5,000? “At that price,” he speculates, “you’d have a lot fewer innocent bystanders being shot.”
…

Source: RogerEbert.com E-Zine/Website – Posted October 18, 2002; retrieved January 30, 2018 from: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bowling-for-columbine-2002

We can do better in the Caribbean!

We do not have the same gun culture, nor legal entanglements. The 2^nd Amendment – gun rights guaranteed by the US Constitution – does not apply for most of the Caribbean and can even be curtailed more in the US Territories (Puerto Rico & US Virgin Islands) as opposed to the US mainland.

Doing better and being better than the US – a protégé , not a parasite – is a need pronounced early in the Go Lean book with the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13) that claims:

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.

The Go Lean book provides 370 pages of turn-by-turn directions on how to adopt a more productive Public Safety ethos, plus the executions of strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to better secure the Caribbean homeland, school campus protections and gun control. The book details (Page 181) this sample mitigation for school bullying:

Consider Bullying as Junior Terrorism
The CU wants to “leave no child behind”. So bullying will be managed under a domestic terrorism and Juvenile Justice jurisdiction. The CU will conduct media campaigns for anti-bullying, life-coaching, and school-mentoring programs. The problem with teen distress is that violence can ensue from bullying perpetrators or in response to bullying.

In addition, there have been a number of previous blog-commentaries by the Go Lean movement that highlighted the eco-system of crime-domestic terrorism and homeland security initiatives. See this sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14087	Opioids – Another Example of America’s Deadly Culture
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13999	First Steps – Deputize the CU to Monitor-Mitigate-Manage Threats
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13126	“Must Love Dogs” – Providing K9 Solutions for Better Security
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12400	Accede the Caribbean Arrest Treaty
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11332	Boston Bombing Anniversary – Learning Lessons
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11244	Live Fast; Die Young – The Fast & Furious Life in the US
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11048	Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ Series – Mitigating Bullies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9072	Model: Shots-Fired Monitoring – Securing the Homeland on the Ground
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7485	Mitigating Interpersonal Violence Series – Street Crimes

In summary, fleeing to a life of refuge in the US may be likened to “jumping from the Frying Pan to the Fire”. It seems so basic to protect our children so that they can study safely in school, and yet, there had been 11 gun attacks already in the US this month by the 23^rd of the month. The repeated occurrences reflect a failure in American society and American stewardship. This view considers the premise of the implied Social Contract:

Citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights. – Go Lean book Page 170.

Yes, it is only natural, logical, and mature that any stewards of society would remediate any known risks and threats; yet this is not the case for guns in America. (The 2^nd Amendment is a societal defect!)

In that previous blog-commentary, this was the simple conclusion:

… surely we can convince our Caribbean people to Stay Home and not be lured to this [dysfunctional-gun] madness in the first place; and for those of the Diaspora in the US: you are in harm’s way, just living an ordinary life. It is Time to Go … back home!

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean – in and out of schools – to lean-in for the empowerments of the Go Lean roadmap. It is conceivable, believable and achievable to prosper where planted here in the region; to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

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Opioids and the FDA – ‘Fox guarding the Henhouse’

Posted on January 24, 2018 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

“Absolutely criminal…” – US Senator reviewing the FDA handling of America’s Opioid crisis.

Saying “the grass is not greener on the other side” is just too simplistic a criticism of the American eco-system for pharmaceutical use … and abuse. Pain is real and need to be mitigated, but the American experience is one of dysfunction.

Yet, this is to be expected, when one places the ‘fox to guard the henhouse’.

This is not just our opinion alone. This aligns with the criticism of the FDA’s Former Head; they are supposed to be the Watch-Dog. (While the Watch-Dog for them is supposed to be the US Congress, providing checks-and-balances over the Executive Branch, FDA included). See this related story-criticism here:

VIDEO: Former FDA Head weighs in on Opioid epidemic – https://youtu.be/QEzSJRBQ9RU

CBS Evening News
Posted May 9, 2016 – Each day in America, 78 people die from overdosing on painkillers. Doctor David Kessler, former head of the FDA from 1990 to 1997, called the rise of America’s Opioid crisis “one of the great mistakes of modern medicine.” Jim Axelrod has more.

Yet, still we continue to say, despite the simplicity of the criticism: the grass is not greener on the American side. Mature communities address the problems that they face; they monitor, manage and mitigate them. To allow a problem to persist, to take lives and then do nothing or little about it makes stakeholders blood-guilty. This is a direct indictment from the Judeo-Christian moral code, the Bible; see the justice standard here:

²⁹ But if a bull was in the habit of goring and its owner had been warned but he would not keep it under guard and it killed a man or a woman, the bull is to be stoned and its owner is also to be put to death. 30 If a ransom* is imposed on him, he must give as the redemption price for his life* all that may be imposed on him. – Exodus 21: 29, 30

Analysis
[In Bible times], certain deliberate acts that indirectly caused or could have resulted in the death of another person were considered tantamount to deliberate murder. For example, the owner of a goring bull who disregarded previous warnings to keep the animal under guard could be put to death if his bull killed someone. In some cases, however, a ransom could be accepted in place of the life of the owner. Undoubtedly the judges would take circumstances into consideration in such a case. (Ex 21:29, 30) Also, an individual scheming to have another person killed by presenting false testimony was himself to be put to death.—Deuteronomy 19:18-21.

But this standard is not the reality of America, where the original 2 societal defects America was built on still persists:

Shockingly, this indictment of the FDA – who is supposed to protect American people – raises a Caribbean debate:

Is it better to emigrate to America or any other foreign destination for economic success, or prosper where planted in the Caribbean homeland?

The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean campaigns to inform the people of the Caribbean that life is not idyllic in America, that death is more readily because of a greater disregard of life, especially of those of minority (non-white) ethnicities.

Some might argue that “this” charge is not fair, nor accurate!

And yet … as reported in a previous blog-commentary (and highlighted in the foregoing VIDEO), millions suffer from Opioid addictions – 33,000 die every year. This is not new, as the evidence suggest this is decades old, and yet the FDA “slept”; truly, the ‘fox guarding the henhouse’.

🙁

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap to introduce the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate the region’s societal engines – economics, homeland security and governance – of the 30 Caribbean member-states. In fact, the prime directives of the roadmap includes the following 3 statements:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic.
Improve Caribbean governance for all people, even minority groups, to support these engines.

The quest of the Go Lean book and movement is to minimize the lure for America to Caribbean citizens. We need our people to Stay Home, and so we want to make the Caribbean region better places to live, work and play. People only leave because they believe that life abroad will be better. So facts to the contrary should go far in quelling such misconceptions.

In this movement for a new Caribbean, we do not want to be like America, we want to be Better! While this is heavy-lifting, it is not impossible, just start without the two known societal defects: Institutional Racism, and Crony-Capitalism.

No one is being fooled, the Opioid crisis in the US has persisted because Big Pharma is profiting. This is what a previous Go Lean commentary lamented, “stupidity persists in society when ‘someone’ is getting rich and want to preserve their profits, even at the expense of human life. This is so familiar, as in the same playbook of Big Tobacco for the entire 20th Century; see/listen to the Podcast in the Appendix below.

When it comes to chronic pain relief, the CDC is asking doctors and patients to think about alternatives to opioids.

We do not want our people to die ignominiously in America due to some opioid overdose. And so, we do not want our citizens to have to leave … in the first place. But the truth is a two-sided coin…

… on the flipside, life in America is more prosperous than in any Caribbean member-state.

(Recently, the American President Donald J. Trump, even referred to the Caribbean member-state of Haiti as a “shit-hole” country).

As related previously, the Go Lean book, in its 370 pages, introduces the Caribbean Union Trade Federation as an inter-governmental agency for the 30 member-states, to provide a better – technocratic – stewardship for Caribbean life, to make it more prosperous … at home. The book identifies that we have a crisis – our failing societal engines – but asserts that this crisis would be a terrible thing to waste. We can use the urgency – we do not want to be bloodguilty – to introduce and implement effective community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to reboot, reform and transform the economic engines of Caribbean society.

The Go Lean book contends that as a people, we must be prepared for accidents and illnesses – pain is normal. It asserts that bad actors – and bad incidences – will emerge just as a result of economic successes in the region. This point is pronounced early in the book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12) that claims:

xi. 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.

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.

As related above, for us to become a mature society, we must address the risks and problems that we face; we must monitor, manage and mitigate them. The Go Lean book describes the need for the Caribbean to appoint “new guards” to protect the people, not exploit them, this should be a lesson learned from the US. The purpose of the CU security pact will be to ensure public safety as a comprehensive endeavor, encapsulating the needs of all Caribbean stakeholders: residents and visitors alike.

Consider this sample of previous blog-commentaries that have expanded on this theme:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13746	Security Dreams for the Caribbean Basin
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13251	A Better Way to Manage Hurricane Risks
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12949	Being Mature to Handle Charity Management
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12930	Managing Dangers, Disasters and Emergencies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11808	Not Ignoring the Public Health Risks of ‘Concussions’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11654	Righting A Wrong – A Series on Ensuring Public Safety: Air Bags
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10959	See Something; Say Something; Do Something
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10771	Logical Addresses – It Could Mean ‘Life or Death’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2105	Monitoring the Risks of Economics on Public Health

We want to “live long and prosper”. We want to prosper right here in the Caribbean. How sad it would be for a family to move to the US (and other countries) and fall victim to a voluntary opioid addiction … and overdose … and death.

So we urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in for the empowerments of this Go Lean roadmap. It is conceivable, believable and achievable to plant here and prosper here in our Caribbean region.

Yes, we can make our homelands better places to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

———–

Appendix AUDIO – Opioids As The New Big Tobacco – https://www.npr.org/2017/06/30/534969884/opioids-as-the-new-big-tobacco

Posted June 30, 2017 – A wave of litigation by state attorneys general against the biggest opioid manufacturers and distributors feels reminiscent of lawsuits brought by states in the 1990s against the tobacco industry.

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First Steps – Deputize ‘Me’!

Posted on January 22, 2018 in Government, Implementation

Go Lean Commentary

If we want to effect change in the Caribbean region, we could “touch” every Caribbean member-state by going through CariCom, British Overseas Territories, US Territories and the EU. Yes, we would “touch” every country … except Cuba.

Of the 30 member-states that constitute the Caribbean region, Cuba does not align with any of these previously identified structures, but still the book Go Lean … Caribbean declares that they are not alone. There is the offer of collaboration, confederacy and comradery with the rest of the neighborhood in the Caribbean region. The book declares (Page 5) … to Cuba and the rest of the region (based on the 1972 song “Lean On Me” by Bill Withers):

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

The “load” being referred here is what the Go Lean book – and other leadership experts – refers to as the Social Contract, this is the assumption that citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights. One way of sharing the load is to deputize others to execute. So this movement behind the Go Lean book declares: Deputize me!

This commentary about leadership is Part 5 of a 6-part series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean in consideration of the First Steps for instituting a new regime in governance for the Caribbean homeland. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

First Steps: EU: Free European Money – To Start at Top
First Steps: UK: Dignified and Efficient
First Steps: US: Congressional Interstate Compact – No Vote; No Voice
First Steps: CariCom: One Man One Vote Defects
First Steps: Deputize ‘Me’!
First Steps: A Powerful C.P.U.

All of these commentaries relate to “how” the Caribbean can finally get started with adapting the organizational structures to optimize the region’s societal engines. This is the consideration of leading from the Top. This would apply to the all member-states in the geographical area. We do not want to ignore Cuba and do not want the Cubans to ignore us. They are the biggest country in the middle of the region and must be included. Most importantly, the leverage of all 42 million people in the region extends greater benefits to everyone in the region. The quest of the Go Lean movement is to implement an economic Single Market and then let the benefits flow: a better region to live, work and play.

A better economic landscape is what the Caribbean region needs to assuage a lot of its problems. The book opens (Page 3) with this sad assessment:

Many people love their homelands and yet still begrudgingly leave; this is due mainly to the lack of economic opportunities. The Caribbean has tried, strenuously, over the decades, to diversify their economy …. The requisite investment of the resources (time, talent, treasuries) for this goal may be too big for any one Caribbean member-state. Rather, shifting the responsibility to a region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy will result in greater production and greater accountability. This deputized agency is the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), to do the heavy-lifting for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all 30 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 plan is for the CU to be deputized by member-states to execute certain governing functions.

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

“Deputize me!” – these are the words of the CU Trade Federation to the Caribbean member-states governments. Deputizing an external agency is pretty standard in our modern day. In addition, there are many treaties that create an organizational structure to administer the tenants of a multilateral agreement. Let’s consider one example that has a lot of relevance within the Caribbean region, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). While the impression of nuclear-atomic energy may not be Caribbean tropical, there are in fact 4 member-states that have ratified the IAEA treaty (Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic; plus 2 more pending: St Lucia & Grenada).

See IAEA details in the Appendix below. As related there, the United States functions as the depositary government for the IAEA Statute; they are the deputized agent. This is the model for the CU/Go Lean roadmap, as the Caribbean Union is a Treaty, and the Trade Federation is the deputized administrator.

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. One advocacy in the book is entitled “10 Ways to Foster a Technocracy“; this allows for the delivery of best practices in the introduction of the new CU regime. As a deputized administrator, the CU is expected to function with higher accountability compared to traditional governmental agencies. See how this advocacy related this further on Page 64:

# 9 – Service Level Agreements
The CU is a proxy organization, chartered to execute deputized functions on behalf of member-states; this means a task-oriented philosophy with “Service Level Agreements” in place; i.e. 80% of all phone calls answered within 20 seconds.

Another example of the CU/Go Lean deputized functionality is the embrace of the Group Purchasing Organization concept – see VIDEO here. The book explains (Page 24):

d-2. Lean Operations
This roadmap posits that a lean technocratic organization should be felt, more so than seen. The focus should not be on edifices or “fat” bureaucratic structures, but rather the region should feel the presence of their federal government more so than seeing it.

A bureaucratic model requires comprehensive funding formulas to cover the expenses of the bureaucracy. A lean structure, on the other hand, can subsist mostly from the new revenues it creates. The CU must therefore generate its own income sources from new revenue streams, or from costs savings it affords it stakeholders (member-states). For example, as a Group Purchasing Organization (GPO), the CU entity can garner fee-based revenue for facilitating shipping-handling, or as a Performance Rights Organization (PRO), the CU entity can assess an administrative fee for petitioning/managing royalties from content users. A last example of lean operations would be deploying shared computer systems. This extends the operating costs across a wider user base than individual systems alone. This is the experience followed in the US, with 80% of the Fortune 500 firms using payroll processor ADP to perform this necessary back-office function. (A subset of the cost savings are used as CU income in this model).

So “sharing” is the governing principle that will be pursued for this community ethos to minimize the governing overhead burden on the governed. This principle will be felt in the region through the deployment of shared data centers, multi-purpose Post Office buildings, multi-functional libraries, mobile applications and the www.myCaribbean.gov portal.

———-

VIDEO – Everything You Wanted to Know About Group Purchasing but were afraid to ask! – https://youtu.be/WSq8LiscHOg

NatServAll

Published on Jul 17, 2014 – Let the National Service Alliance (NSA) leverage your purchasing power to tackle stiff competition, squeezed margins and rising prices. NSA works for companies at $3mil and over, to do just that. .. and no need to change your current distributor/supplier.

Category: Education

License: Standard YouTube License

Yes, a strategy where member-state governments can deputize a more efficient and effective administrator allows the stewards of the Caribbean (political leaders) to better lead with a lean technocracy. This has been a familiar theme to this Go Lean movement. Consider this sample of previous blog-commentaries that have expanded on this concept:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13749	New Caribbean Regime: Assembling the Region’s Organizations
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13524	e-Government Portals 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13365	A Model for Launching a Single Market Currency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13251	A Better Way to Manage Hurricane Risks
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12949	Being Mature to Handle Charity Management
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12930	Managing Dangers, Disasters and Emergencies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12400	A Better Way to Administer a Caribbean Arrest Treaty

We urge all member-states to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap to deputize the Caribbean Union Trade Federation to better deliver on their Social Contract responsibilities. Despite the fact that the CU creates another layer of government, the roadmap makes delivering stewardship over the societal engines cheaper, faster and smarter. Yes, this is how the Caribbean member-state governments can make our homelands better places to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

———-

Appendix Reference: International Atomic Energy Agency

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. The IAEA was established as an autonomous organisation on 29 July 1957. Though established independently of the United Nations through its own international treaty, the IAEA Statute,^[1] the IAEA reports to both the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council.

The IAEA has its headquarters in Vienna. The IAEA has two “Regional Safeguards Offices” which are located in Toronto, Canada, and in Tokyo, Japan. The IAEA also has two liaison offices which are located in New York City, United States, and in Geneva, Switzerland. In addition, the IAEA has three laboratories located in Vienna and Seibersdorf, Austria, and in Monaco.

The IAEA serves as an intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical co-operation in the peaceful use of nuclear technology and nuclear powerworldwide. The programs of the IAEA encourage the development of the peaceful applications of nuclear energy, science and technology, provide international safeguards against misuse of nuclear technology and nuclear materials, and promote nuclear safety (including radiation protection) and nuclear security standards and their implementation.

The IAEA and its former Director General, Mohamed El Baradei, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on 7 October 2005. The IAEA’s current Director General is Yukiya Amano.

…

Membership

The process of joining the IAEA is fairly simple.^[32] Normally, a State would notify the Director General of its desire to join, and the Director would submit the application to the Board for consideration. If the Board recommends approval, and the General Conference approves the application for membership, the State must then submit its instrument of acceptance of the IAEA Statute to the United States, which functions as the depositary Government for the IAEA Statute. The State is considered a member when its acceptance letter is deposited. The United States then informs the IAEA, which notifies other IAEA Member States. Signature and ratification of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) are not preconditions for membership in the IAEA.

The IAEA has 169 member states.^[33] Most UN members and the Holy See are Member States of the IAEA. Non-member states Cape Verde (2007), Tonga (2011), Comoros (2014), Gambia (2016), Saint Lucia (2016) and Grenada (2017) have been approved for membership and will become a Member State if they deposit the necessary legal instruments.^[33]

…

Regional Cooperative Agreements

There are four regional cooperative areas within IAEA, that share information, and organize conferences within their regions:

AFRA – The African Regional Cooperative Agreement for Research, Development and Training Related to Nuclear Science and Technology
ARASIA – Cooperative Agreement for Arab States in Asia for Research, Development and Training related to Nuclear Science and Technology
RCA – Regional Cooperative Agreement for Research, Development and Training Related to Nuclear Science and Technology for Asia and the Pacific
ARCAL – Cooperation Agreement for the Promotion of Nuclear Science and Technology in Latin America and the Caribbean (ARCAL):^[44]
- Cuba
- Haiti
- Jamaica
- Dominican Republic

…

See the full reference article here, retrieved January 21, 2018:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Atomic_Energy_Agency

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The Spoken and Unspoken on Haiti

Posted on January 16, 2018 in Ethos, Locations, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

The US President said what?!

He – Donald J. Trump – called Haiti a “shit-hole” country while negotiating the details for an immigration reform bill with his political opponents.

This declaration spewed controversy and disgust in the US … and abroad; even here in the Caribbean. See VIDEO’s here:

VIDEO 1 – The U.S.’s complicated relationship with a country Trump called a ‘shithole – http://wapo.st/2ATEOSZ

According to the Washington Post, this is how ignorant you have to be to call Haiti a ‘shithole’.

President Trump’s defenders don’t know anything about Haiti’s history — or the United States’s. See the full article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/01/12/this-is-how-ignorant-you-have-to-be-to-call-haiti-a-shithole/?utm_term=.f82e10bad3d8

———-

VIDEO 2 – CNN and Fox News hosts react to Trump’s ‘shithole’ remark – https://youtu.be/NrynNeqx48I

Published on Jan 12, 2018 – President Trump referred to African nations and Haiti as “shithole” countries on Jan. 11. Here’s how hosts on CNN and Fox News reacted. Subscribe to The Washington Post on YouTube: http://bit.ly/2qiJ4dy

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Category: News & Politics

License: Standard YouTube License

See commentary from the Caribbean Intelligentsia here posted on the regional site Caribbean News Now:

Commentary: President Trump’s ‘shithole’ comments unfortunately deserve follow up

By: Youri A Kemp

In a bi-partisan meeting with Democrat and Republican lawmakers on immigration and particularly on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) portion of the immigration reform package, in an unprecedented show of extreme ignorance and crassness, the president of the USA, Donald Trump, referred to Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as “shitholes”.

No further comment [is] necessary, but I will comment anyway. I will because the overt stupidity of such a statement, particularly a statement made in the presence of Democrat and Republican lawmakers, shows how “off the rails” and “loose with his mouth” President Trump is.

For me personally, I cry foul on such comments. As everyone should. The president, or any world leader, should not be using such language in the open and especially not disparaging other countries, no matter how he or the grouping may feel about the issue.
…

See the full commentary here: http://wp.caribbeannewsnow.com/2018/01/12/commentary-president-trumps-shithole-comments-unfortunately-deserve-follow/#comment-1747

Source: Caribbean New Noe e-Zine; posted January 12, 2018; retrieved January 16, 2018

No wait, it wasn’t “shit-hole” that he said, it was “shit-house”.

No wait, maybe he didn’t say these at all!

Just what is spoken and what is unspoken about the disposition of Haiti in the minds of American leaders?

The Bible says:

“From the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” – Luke 6:45

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.

The movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – have said a lot about Haiti. We have told the truth, and the truth is not pretty.

Haiti is effectively a Failed-State.

Yet, still we make this statements in love – not hate; not bias; not prejudice nor blatant racism. We have also followed-up from “talking this talk” to “walking the walk” and have presented an Action Plan, a Way Forward for reforming and transforming Haiti. We have been doing this all along – since the start of these commentaries. See the previous submissions here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13916	Haiti – Beauty ‘Only a Mother Can Love’ Many women sacrifice to help Haiti create jobs and elevate their society. The Go Lean roadmap presents a model for Self-Governing Entities as a job-creating engine.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13105	Fixing Haiti – Can the Diaspora be the Answer? Any plan that encourages people to leave their homeland and try to remember it later when they find success, double-downs on failure. We need solutions that encourage our people to prosper where planted in the homeland, like Haiti.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10336	A Lesson in History: Haiti’s Reasonable Doubt There is the little-known history of an American occupation in Haiti in 1915. This suppressed, oppressed and repressed this island-nation further. Haiti needs to accept that America is not always its friend.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8767	A Lesson in History: Haiti 1804 Haiti has the proud legacy of being the first successful Slave Rebellion to liberate its people and start the effort of nation-building. Though Haiti became a Republic, they paid a steep price for the brazen acts of 1804.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8508	Support sought for kids left behind by UN troops in Haiti. The UN’s efforts to help Haiti was a good intention, but there were many bad consequences. Rather than the UN, Haiti needs its neighbors to help.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7896	The Logistics of Disaster Relief When Caribbean communities suffer from disasters – earthquakes and hurricanes – we need technocratic efficiency to manage the relief and response. The past track record is truly sad.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5695	Repenting, Forgiving and Reconciling the Past Haiti has been on the “wrong-side” of so many atrocities, there must be a reconciliation focus to have peace with neighbors, going forward.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5462	In Search Of The Red Cross’ $500 Million In Haiti Relief. The 2010 earthquake devastation brought-in a lot of money that somehow never made it to Haiti. This proves that Caribbean people need the maturity to manage charities ourselves.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5333	France – Haiti Legacy: Cause and Effect – Still matters today. As finally the President of France made a proclamation of acknowledgement that the Republic of Haiti has endured a long legacy of paying a debt (in blood and finances) for the natural right of freedom.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3662	Migrant flow into US from Caribbean spikes. Haitians take to the dangerous seas in desperation to flee their homeland.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3473	Haiti to Receive $70 Million Grant to Expand Caracol Industrial Park. This is a model for Self-Governing Entities that the Go Lean roadmap stresses.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2907	Local Miami Haitian leaders protest Bahamian immigration policy. Bad treatment of Haitians is not just limited to Americans; other Caribbean countries (the Bahamas in this case) are guilty of unfair treatment. The Go Lean strategy is to elevate the entire region, not one country over another.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2547	Miami’s Success versus Caribbean Failure Miami is thriving now, mostly due to the contributions of the Caribbean Diaspora.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1773	Miami’s Caribbean Marketplace Re-opens. The City of Miami now celebrates their Haitian community as opposed to the initial ridicule and rejection. This appears to be standard arc – rejection => toleration => acceptance => celebration – for all new immigrants.

All of this messaging comprise the Way Forward as prescribed in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book 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 book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit of Caribbean people doing the work themselves for the Caribbean. This Way Forward 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 [own] public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. …

xii. 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.

We must do this ourselves – as a confederation, a brotherhood – rather than waiting for other people to lead us or love us. Because frankly …

They don’t!

So let’s get busy in the hard-work and heavy-lifting to make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

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Haiti, History, Power

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2017 Review – Mr. Trump shows the ‘Wrong Way’

Posted on December 21, 2017 in Government, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

The year 2017 is coming to a close. This was the first year of the federal administration of the 45th President of the United States, the non-politician, billionaire real estate developer Donald J. Trump. In retrospect, it has been a “year of Biblical proportions”, one to lament. While we thought 2016 was bad, and it was, its “wow oh wow” for 2017 …

… if the summary of 2017 was named after one of the 66 books of the Bible, it would not be Revelations, nor Exodus. No, it would be:

Lamentations
The Bible book of Lamentations reveals how God viewed the ancient City of Jerusalem and the land of Judah after their enemy, the Kingdom of Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar, burned the city and laid the land desolate in the year 607 BC. The expressions of acknowledgment of sin recorded therein make it clear that from God’s standpoint, the reason for the calamity was the error of the people. – Source.

We can now look back and lament the happenings of 2017.

While this year 2017 has been a cliffhanger, it has been perfect for the stewards of a new Caribbean. 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 the satirical recaps in these VIDEO’s, here and the Appendix. 🙂

We can now look back, lament and laugh at the happenings of 2017, see here:

VIDEO – Stephen’s Greetings: 2017 Late Show Year In Review – https://youtu.be/E9VkweYGTwU

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Published on Dec 4, 2017 – 2017 was rough for a lot of people, but here’s proof that it wasn’t a total wash. See some of Stephen Colbert’s best moments from The Late Show this year.

Subscribe To “The Late Show” Channel HERE: http://bit.ly/ColbertYouTube

For more content from “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”, click HERE: http://bit.ly/1AKISnR

Category: Entertainment

License: Standard YouTube License

This commentary is presented by the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean. The movement – book and accompanying blog-commentaries – relates that the United States of America should be lamented and not considered a refuge for the people of the Caribbean – the “grass is not greener on the other side”. The book laments the fact that despite residing in the best address on the planet, many of our people “beat down their doors” to get out (Page 3), and emigrate to the US and other countries.

Why do people leave such an idyllic place? The book identifies a series of reasons, classified as “push and pull” factors:

“Pull”, on the one hand refers to the lure of a more prosperous life abroad; many times our people are emigrating for economics solely.

“Push” refers to people who feel compelled to leave, to seek refuge in a foreign land. “Refuge” is an appropriate word; because of societal defects, many from the Caribbean must leave as refugees – think LGBT, Disability, Domestic-abuse, Medically-challenged – for their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

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.

Here are some snippets from this 2017 Caribbean Yearbook against the backdrop of Trump’s exhortations; (this is just a sample in chronological order – from January 2017 to today):

Religious Intolerance – Trump banned travel from 6 Muslim countries

Fostering Discord – California wants out! They have started a petition to secede from Tump’s America

Collaboration Flaws – Disinterest in Others (Non-Americans) – Trumps yawns at the Caribbean’s priorities

Disparaging Messaging to Tourists/Visitors – Arrivals and Revenues down from some countries

Rejection of Evidence – Climate Change Denial – Paris Accords Withdrawal

Climate of Hate fostered by Trump – White Supremacists / Disdain of Immigrants

America First – Prioritization as World Leader downplayed – Other countries lose respect

Supply-side Economics Failures manifested in Kansas

Selective Law-and-Order Enforcement – Under Trump, Civil Rights cases downplayed

Claim to Ignorance on Natural Disasters – Who Knew?

Disdain of Female Empowerment – Female dissidents “diss-ed” by Trump; think Hillary, Pocahontas, etc.

Hurricane Response and Competence – Puerto Rico versus Texas – Black-and-Brown gets less

Societal Defects of Gun Culture – Trumps calls Black-and-Brown Shooters Terrorist, but silent on Whites

Aversion to Trade Agreements – Trump undermined TPP, NAFTA and others

Trump’s Compassion Exhaustion – Ending ‘Temporary Protection Status’ to Haitian Refugees

Sexual Harassment Complicity – Trump’s accusers re-emerged

Take from the Poor; Give to the Rich – Trump’s Tax Reform law

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 – see VIDEO in the Appendix below – 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.

The Go Lean book – available for free download – does not only complain or lament America, but also prescribes a Way Forward for the Caribbean:

Way Forward – an action, plan etc. that seems a good idea because it is likely to lead to success; i.e.:

A way forward lies in developing more economic links.

This treatment may be the way forward for many inherited disorders.

Source: Retrieved December 22, 2016 from: http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/a-the-way-forward

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

Optimization of 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.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

This Go Lean movement (book and accompanying blogs) does not look to President Donald Trump to lead for the Caribbean; we look to lead ourselves. To our chagrin, so many of our citizens have previously fled the homeland for American shores. But now …

… we want them back!

The Go Lean book does not ignore these “push and pull” factors that cause our Caribbean people to leave in the first place. No, the book stresses (early at Page 13) the need to be on-guard for “push” factors in these Declaration of Interdependence statements:

xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores. This repatriation should be effected with the appropriate guards so as not to imperil the lives and securities of the repatriated citizens or the communities they inhabit. The right of repatriation is to be extended to any natural born citizens despite any previous naturalization to foreign sovereignties.

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxvi. Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries, like that of ship-building, automobile manufacturing, prefabricated housing, frozen foods, pipelines, call centers, and the prison industrial complex. In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries like tourism, fisheries and lotteries – impacting the region with more jobs.

For the Caribbean, we must succeed in our Way Forward / Go Lean roadmap, so as to dissuade our own people from giving up and abandoning their native homelands. While no society is perfect nor fully-optimized, some countries have been better than others; notwithstanding the US under Donald Trump. Many countries in North America and Western Europe have become lands of refuge for our Caribbean Diaspora.

Surely, we can do better in lowering the Push and Pull factors now. We should be able to dissuade Caribbean people from the lamentable decision of going to Trump’s America.

Yes, we can …

… if we do the heavy-lifting to convince all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap, then truly we can make our region better places to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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

—————

Appendix VIDEO – The Politics of Branding, Meeting Obama & Trump’s First Year: The Daily Show – https://youtu.be/bjKr2ltVKII

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

Published on Dec 18, 2017

Trevor Noah explains why Republicans are better than Democrats at political branding, talks about meeting Barack Obama and reflects on the first year of the Trump administration.

Watch full episodes of The Daily Show for free: http://www.cc.com/shows/the-daily-sho…

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah airs weeknights at 11/10c on Comedy Central.

Category: Comedy
License: Standard YouTube License

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Diaspora, History, Model, Power

[Top]

Taking from the Poor to Give to the Rich – ENCORE

Posted on December 20, 2017 in Economics, Government, Social

The US Congress and White House have done it, they have successfully passed their Tax Reform bill that effectively “takes from the poor and gives to the rich”. See full story here:

Washington (CNN) – Republican lawmakers joined President Donald Trump [today] on Wednesday afternoon to celebrate their largest legislative achievement of 2017, in a public ceremony spotlighting the most sweeping overhaul of the US tax system in more than 30 years.

“It’s always a lot of fun when you win,” Trump said at the ceremony on the White House lawn, after thanking congressional leaders including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Hailing passage of the GOP’s tax plan and surrounded by dozens of prominent Republicans in Congress, Trump said the package would fulfill his core campaign promise. …
Source: CNN retrieved December 20, 2017 from: http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/20/politics/house-senate-trump-tax-bill/index.html

This is Payback!

The Tax Reform strategy here double-downs on the concept of Supply-side economics. The hope is that corporate entities and wealthy people will receive tax breaks and then use the “wind fall” to re-invest in the community, thereafter creating jobs and economic growth. The Republicans in Washington (Congress and the White House) are betting on the success of this strategy even though there has been utter failures with this approach; for example just recently in the US State of Kansas.

Whether that re-investment occurs or not is the unknown. What is known is that the Rich will undoubtedly get the tax breaks. The Rich will win, at the expense of the Poor. This is why that foregoing article also relates:

While Republicans [leaders] cheer the bill’s passage, however, 55% of Americans oppose the plan, according to a new CNN poll. Just 33% say they favor the GOP’s proposals to reform the nation’s tax code.

This is a great opportunity to Encore a previous blog-commentary from December 16, 2014 when the same group – Washington Republicans – maneuvered to pass a law to repeal many post-2008 restrictions to guarantee higher profits for the nation’s banks. While this is an American drama, this is an opportunity for the Caribbean to learn lessons on managing governance for the Greater Good; which this foregoing law violates. See that Encore here:

——————–

Go Lean Commentary – A Christmas Present for the Banks from the Omnibus Bill

What do you get for $5.3 Billion? There must be some return on that investment.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts that the US Federal Election-Campaign system is not the model that the Caribbean should want to emulate. This book relates that $5.3 Billion was spent for the 2008 Federal Elections (Page 116), a lot of it contributed by corporations, resulting in a lot of influence peddling. This drama was vividly demonstrated this Saturday evening when the “lame-duck” Congress (the Senate in particular), delayed the required Omnibus Spending Bill – just in time – to extort favorable legislation that would roll back some of the federal regulations enacted after the Great Recession of 2008 to protect against banking systemic risks.

The Shadow Influences spearheading these changes are known to adhere to the principle that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste” – a quotation credited to famed American Economist Paul Romer. While others will think that this drama was just politics as usual, the following article depicts the more strategic nature of the new legislation, to foster the environment and industry for financial derivative trading – this is too specific for any life-long politician (the US Senate) to advocate on the sly. No, this has the fingerprints of Wall Street Shadow Influences all over it. (See Appendix below for encyclopedic references on derivatives and swaps). See the news article here:

Title: A Christmas Present For The Banks From The Omnibus Bill
Forbes Magazine Investing Online Blog (Posted 12/13/2014; retrieved 12/15/2014) –
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2014/12/13/wall-street-reverses-ban-on-trading-derivatives-backed-by-uncle-sam/
By: Robert Lenzner, Contributor

Wall Street banks like Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase have flexed the power of their influence to pressure Congress and the White House into a key change in the law that will allow the trading of risky financial derivatives in bank operations that are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. This means the nation’s largest banks used the deadline for passing the Omnibus spending bill as pressure to reverse a key section of the Dodd-Frank bill of 2010 that was meant to prohibit a federal government bailout of swaps entities.

It was the existence of over $500 billion of Credit Default Swaps on the balance sheet of AIG in 2008 that threatened to bankrupt the largest insurance company in the world. So, in effect, six years later, the same Wall Street banks that were bailed out by federal largesse, are being given a legislative gift that will enable them to freely trade the securities that brought Lehman Bros down in 2008 — and obtain access to the benefit of insurance and loans from the federal government.

Behind the scenes, unbenownst to the media or the public, the nation’s Too Big To Fail banks used the Omnibus spending bill that is necessary to finance federal spending in 2015 to undo this little-known Dodd Frank provision that might have restricted the volume of trading in financial derivatives that have been a major source of profits as well as controversy since the 2008 financial crisis. Most financial derivatives will be able to be traded in entities holding deposits guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and subject to borrowing at the Federal Reserve’s discount window. This is a key advantage for the banks that will enable them to increase their activity in these securities.

Former Rep. Barney Frank, who was a key sponsor of the Wall Street reform legislation, attacked the change in Dodd-Frank as “a road map for further attacks on our protection against financial instability.” Frank was incensed that the last-minute procedure was “inserted with no hearings, no chance for further modification, and no chance for debate into a mammoth bill in the last days of a lame-duck Congress.”

If President Obama signs the Omnibus spending bill, he will have effectively rewarded Wall Street by reversing a provision that prohibits any federal assistance from being provided to “swaps entities,” including registered swaps dealers, security-based swap dealers, major swap participants and major security-based swap participants, according to information obtained by Forbes. This measure required banks to remove their swaps dealing from the bank itself and do its trading in non-bank affiliates not eligible for deposit insurance. Access to the Fed’s discount window would also be denied in case of a financial crisis in the markets.

The net effect of the changes in the Omnibus spending bill would be to expand permissible swaps activities within a bank and to only exclude swaps based on asset-backed securities that are unregulated and not of a credit quality.

All very technical, but the net result is to allow Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and others to use the Fed’s discount window to borrow money in case of a crisis that roiled the derivative market for credit swaps again as took place in September 2008. In effect, it means the major banks need not limit their trading of financial derivatives to non-bank operations that the market will never be fooled into thinking some future risk of danger has just been avoided. It is a complex holiday present for Wall Street. And it is a warning sign that other sections of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform may also be vulnerable to political rollback.

An additionally relevant blog by Robert Lenzer: http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2014/12/08/the-ten-reasons-why-there-will-be-another-systemic-financial-crisis/

The crisis of the 2008 Great Recession was the lynchpin for the Go Lean movement, (book and blogs). This book, serving as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), posits that the effects of the 2008 Great Recession continue to linger in the Caribbean. Therefore the book advocates learning lessons from 2008 and to turn-around, reform, and reboot the region’s economic, security and governing engines to ensure that “never again” will our society be so vulnerable to the financial misgivings of our American neighbors; or the “plutocratic” elements there-in.

The field of economics is not always solutions-oriented; sometimes, they have been responsible for the problem. Consider this VIDEO snippet here:

Documentary Film “Inside Job” – http://youtu.be/CaXNqGgIc-g

Published on Apr 19, 2012 – Since the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999, the total notional value of derivatives has grown by over 700% for holdings companies and 674% for commercial banks. Even more alarming, since the third quarter of 2008 when the cracks in the financial system were clearly evident, derivatives at the commercial banks have grown from $175 TRILLION to $234 TRILLION ” a $59 TRILLION increase. To put this in perspective, the cumulative Gross Domestic Product in the United States over that same time frame (Q3 2008 through Q3 2010) was approximately $32 TRILLION.

Despite our region’s small size (42 million people in 30 member-states), we do have some control over our own destiny. We want to be a protégé, not a parasite.

The CU’s prime directives, elevating the Caribbean’s economic-security-governing engines, recognize that the changes the region needs must start first with the adoption of new community ethos and controls. Early in the book, the need for this shift is pronounced (Declaration of Interdependence – Page 13) with these statements:

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.

xxv. Whereas the legacy of international democracies had been imperiled due to a global financial crisis, the structure of the Federation must allow for financial stability and assurance of the Federation’s institutions. To mandate the economic vibrancy of the region, monetary and fiscal controls and policies must be incorporated as proactive and reactive measures. These measures must address threats against the financial integrity of the Federation and of the member-states.

The Go Lean book, and previous blog/commentaries, stressed the key community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies necessary to effect change in the region ourselves, to improve the stewardship over the economy. They are detailed as follows:

Who We Are – 2008 Internal Experiences	Page 8
Community Ethos – Economic Principles	Page 21
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Private Interest –vs- Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principles – “Light Up Dark Place”	Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Impact Research and Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Negotiations	Page 32
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-around – 2008 Crisis	Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Mission – Fortify the Stability of the Securities Markets	Page 47
Strategy – CU Stakeholders to Protect – Banks & Depositors	Page 47
Tactical – Growing the Economy – Minimizing Bubbles	Page 69
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – Depository Insurance & Regulatory Agency	Page 73
Anecdote – Turning Around CARICOM – Effects of 2008 Financial Crisis	Page 92
Implementation – Assemble Caribbean Central Bank as Cooperative	Page 96
Implementation – Assemble Constitutional Convention	Page 97
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt – Optimizing Wall Street Role	Page 114
Implementation – Ways to Impact Elections	Page 116
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Single Market / Currency Union	Page 127
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008	Page 136
Planning – Ways to Measure Progress	Page 147
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy – Case Study of $5.3 Billion Influence	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Credit Ratings – 2008 Lessons	Page 155
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Housing – 2008 Mortgage Crisis Lessons	Page 161
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Labor Unions – 2008 Effects on Main Street Jobs	Page 164
Anecdote – Caribbean Industrialist – Growing without Shadow Influence	Page 189
Advocacy – Reforms for Banking Regulations	Page 199
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street	Page 200
Appendix – Whitepaper: The 2008 Financial Crisis and Its Aftermath	Page 276
Appendix – Currency Capital Controls	Page 325

The points of effective, technocratic regional stewardship, especially in response to the 2008 Great Recession / Financial Crisis, were further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3311	Detroit to exit historic bankruptcy – Finally recovering from 2008
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3164	Michigan Unemployment – Then (2008/2009) and Now
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3090	Lessons Learned – Europe Sovereign Debt Crisis of 2009
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3028	Why India is doing better than most emerging markets since the crisis
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2930	‘Too Big To Fail’ – Caribbean Version
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2448	‘Consumer Reports’ Survey Finds the American Consumer is Back
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2435	Korea’s Protégé Model – A Dream for Latin America / Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2338	Lesson Learned – How Best to Welcome the Dreaded ‘Plutocracy’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2259	The Criminalization of American Business – Big Banks Let Loose
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2105	Recessions and Public Health – Lessons from the 2008 Crisis
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2090	The Depth & Breadth of Remediating 2008
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1896	The Crisis in Black Homeownership since 2008
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1309	5 Steps of a Bubble
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=841	Post 2008 – Having Less Babies is Bad for the Economy?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=782	Open/Review the Time Capsule: The Great Recession of 2008
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=709	Post 2008 – Student debt holds back home buyers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=522	Financial Crisis Jokes – Reflecting the cultural impact on society
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=518	Post 2008 – What Banks learn about financial risks
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=378	Fed Releases Transcripts from 2008 Meetings
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=242	Post 2008 – The Erosion of the Middle Class

The 2008 Great Recession brought major upheaval to American and Caribbean societies, plus the rest of the world. Much of the world is interconnected; this is even more acute in our region. Our economy is structured as parasites on the US economy. According to the foregoing news article, our parasitic host is not worthy of our devotion. What qualifies the Go Lean promoters to make these assessments? Principals of this publishing foundation were also there in 2008, engaged with major stakeholders of the Global Financial crisis: Lehman Brothers, JPMorganChase, Citigroup, etc. They were on the inside looking out, not the outside looking in. They were equipped to discern the Shadow Influence.

The Go Lean movement advocates the role of protégé, not parasite. We must diversify our economy and additionally cater to other markets, other countries and other industries. This is the purpose of the Go Lean roadmap, to provide a turn-by-turn direction to accomplish this diversification.

If we want to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play then we cannot depend on the stewards of the US economy to shepherd the Caribbean. Look! Despite the cruel and harsh lessons from 2008, it appears – from the foregoing article and the Appendix below – that the Wall Street Shadow Influence wants to repeat the “Bubble” that lead up to 2008. When they succeed, they profit; but when they fail, the “low man” on Main Street – and parasite economies like the Caribbean – has to endure the pain, not Wall Street.

The Go Lean roadmap does not seek to change America, (though we lobby against these arbitrary “Derivative” rule changes in the Omnibus Budget Bill); only teach the lessons to the Caribbean. We can do so much better.

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

——————–

Appendix – Derivatives:
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_(finance) )

In finance, a derivative is a contract that derives its value from the performance of an underlying entity. This underlying entity can be an asset, index, or interest rate, and is often called the “underlying”.^[1][2] Derivatives can be used for a number of purposes – including insuring against price movements (hedging), increasing exposure to price movements for speculation or getting access to otherwise hard to trade assets or markets.^[3]

Some of the more common derivatives include forwards, futures, options, swaps, and variations of these such as collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, and mortgage backed securities. Most derivatives are traded over-the-counter (off-exchange) or on an exchange such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, while most insurance contracts have developed into a separate industry. Derivatives are one of the three main categories of financial instruments, the other two being equities (i.e. stocks or shares) and debt (i.e. bonds and mortgages).

Speculation
Derivatives can be used to acquire risk, rather than to hedge against risk. Thus, some individuals and institutions will enter into a derivative contract to speculate on the value of the underlying asset, betting that the party seeking insurance will be wrong about the future value of the underlying asset. Speculators look to buy an asset in the future at a low price according to a derivative contract when the future market price is high, or to sell an asset in the future at a high price according to a derivative contract when the future market price is less.

Risks
The use of derivatives can result in large losses because of the use of leverage, or borrowing; (see VIDEO below). Derivatives allow investors to earn large returns from small movements in the underlying asset’s price. However, investors could lose large amounts if the price of the underlying moves against them significantly. There have been several instances of massive losses in derivative markets, such as the following:

American International Group (AIG) lost more than US$18 billion through a subsidiary over the preceding three quarters on credit default swaps (CDSs).^[42] The United States Federal Reserve Bank announced the creation of a secured credit facility of up to US$85 billion, to prevent the company’s collapse by enabling AIG to meet its obligations to deliver additional collateral to its credit default swap trading partners.^[43]
The loss of US$7.2 Billion by Société Générale in January 2008 through mis-use of futures contracts.
The loss of US$6.4 billion in the failed fund Amaranth Advisors, which was long natural gas in September 2006 when the price plummeted.
The loss of US$4.6 billion in the failed fund Long-Term Capital Management in 1998.
The loss of US$1.3 billion equivalent in oil derivatives in 1993 and 1994 by Metallgesellschaft AG.^[44]
The loss of US$1.2 billion equivalent in equity derivatives in 1995 by Barings Bank.^[45]
UBS AG, Switzerland’s biggest bank, suffered a $2 billion loss through unauthorized trading discovered in September 2011.^[46]

This comes to a staggering $39.5 billion; the majority in the last decade after the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 was passed.

Financial Reform and Government Regulation
Under US law and the laws of most other developed countries, derivatives have special legal exemptions that make them a particularly attractive legal form to extend credit.^[47] The strong creditor protections afforded to derivatives counterparties, in combination with their complexity and lack of transparency however, can cause capital markets to underprice credit risk. This can contribute to credit booms, and increase systemic risks.^[47] Indeed, the use of derivatives to conceal credit risk from third parties while protecting derivative counterparties contributed to the financial crisis of 2008 in the United States.^[47][48]

In November 2012, the SEC and regulators from Australia, Brazil, the European Union, Hong Kong, Japan, Ontario, Quebec, Singapore, and Switzerland met to discuss reforming the OTC derivatives market, as had been agreed by leaders at the 2009 G-20 Pittsburgh summit (see Photo) in September 2009.^[54] In December 2012, they released a joint statement to the effect that they recognized that the market is a global one and “firmly support the adoption and enforcement of robust and consistent standards in and across jurisdictions”, with the goals of mitigating risk, improving transparency, protecting against market abuse, preventing regulatory gaps, reducing the potential for arbitrage opportunities, and fostering a level playing field for market participants.^[54] They also agreed on the need to reduce regulatory uncertainty and provide market participants with sufficient clarity on laws and regulations by avoiding, to the extent possible, the application of conflicting rules to the same entities and transactions, and minimizing the application of inconsistent and duplicative rules.^[54] At the same time, they noted that “complete harmonization – perfect alignment of rules across jurisdictions” would be difficult, because of jurisdictions’ differences in law, policy, markets, implementation timing, and legislative and regulatory processes.^[54]

VIDEO: Leverage Explained – http://youtu.be/6YEnkkznGTg
When things turn out good, big risk means big return; but if it turns out bad, you lose everything and left with a debt.

Source References:
1.       Derivatives (Report). Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, U.S. Department of Treasury. http://www.occ.gov/topics/capital-markets/financial-markets/trading/derivatives/index-derivatives.html. Retrieved February 2013. “A derivative is a financial contract whose value is derived from the performance of some underlying market factors, such as interest rates, currency exchange rates, and commodity, credit, or equity prices. Derivative transactions include an assortment of financial contracts, including structured debt obligations and deposits, swaps, futures, options, caps, floors, collars, forwards, and various combinations thereof.”
2.       Derivative Definition Investopedia
3.       Koehler, Christian. “The Relationship between the Complexity of Financial Derivatives and Systemic Risk”. Working Paper: 10–11.
——
42.   Kelleher, James B. (September 18, 2008). “”Buffett’s Time Bomb Goes Off on Wall Street” by James B. Kelleher of Reuters”. Reuters.com. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
43.   “Fed’s $85 billion Loan Rescues Insurer”
44.   Edwards, Franklin (1995). “Derivatives Can Be Hazardous To Your Health: The Case of Metallgesellschaft”. Derivatives Quarterly (Spring 1995): 8–17
45.   Whaley, Robert (2006). Derivatives: markets, valuation, and risk management. John Wiley and Sons. p. 506. ISBN 0-471-78632-2.
46.   “UBS Loss Shows Banks Fail to Learn From Kerviel, Leeson”. Businessweek. September 15, 2011. Retrieved March 5, 2013.
47.   “Michael Simkovic, Secret Liens and the Financial Crisis of 2008.”. American Bankruptcy Law Journal, Vol. 83, p. 253. 2009. Retrieved March 5, 2013.
48.   Michael Simkovic (January 11, 2011). “Bankruptcy Immunities, Transparency, and Capital Structure, Presentation at the World Bank”. Ssrn.com. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1738539. Retrieved March 5, 2013.
——
54.   “Joint Press Statement of Leaders on Operating Principles and Areas of Exploration in the Regulation of the Cross-Border OTC Derivatives Market; 2012-251”. Sec.gov. December 4, 2012. Retrieved March 5, 2013.

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High Profile Sexual Harassment Accusers – Finally Believed? – ENCORE

Posted on December 4, 2017 in Ethos, Social

3 years ago, we were commenting on why the dozens of accusers against Bill Cosby were not believed, now we see that there has been a floodgate of women successfully getting their reckoning from powerful men (in media and politics) who had “taken liberties” with them.

Good for the women! (They are being believed … more and more).

Still the same question can be posed about women accusers in general: Why were they not believed?

In summary, “celebrities should not be glorified as all good, all the time” …
… for nation-building, women must be able to seek refuge in the Criminal Justice systems in their communities.

VIDEO – Matt Lauer Fired from TODAY – https://usat.ly/2Bv3zGi

See the ENCORE of this previous blog-commentary below, from November 26, 2014 on Bill Cosby’s Accusers: Why They Weren’t Believed.

Which men are being reckoned with now? See the full alphabetical list from USA Today national newspaper – to date as of December 4, 2017 – here:

Ben Afleck, Actor-Director	Gavin Baker, Hedge Fund Manager	John Besh, Celebrity Chef
David Blaine, Magician	George H.W. Bush, Former President	Louis C.K., Actor-Comedian
Nick Carter, Singer	John Conyers, Congressman	Andy Dick, Actor
Richard Dreyfuss	Hamilton Fish, Magazine Publisher	Al Franken, Ex-Actor-now-Senator
Alex Gilady, Olympics Organizer	Gary Goddard, Writer-Producer	David Guillod, Movie Producer
Mark Halperin, Political Analyst	Dustin Hoffman, Actor	Danny Jordaan, FIFA Organizer
Steve Jurvetson, Hedge Fund Manager	Ethan Kath, Music Producer	Garrison Keillor, Radio Host
Andrew Kreisberg, TV Producer	John Lasseter, Movie Producer	Matt Lauer, TV Host
Benny Medina, Talent Agent	Murray Miller, Screenwriter	Roy Moore, US Senate Candidate
Michael Oreskes, NPR Vice-President	Jeremy Piven, Actor	Roy Price, Movie Studio Executive
Brett Ratner, Producer-Director	Twiggy Ramirez, Musician-Rock Star	Terry Richardson, Photographer
Charlie Rose, TV Host	Gilbert Rozon, Comedy Organizer	Chris Savino, Animator-Writer
Mark Schwahn, Screenwriter	Robert Scoble, Technology Blogger	Steven Seagal, Actor-Producer
Russell Simmons, Music Mogul	Tom Sizemore, Actor	Kevin Spacey, Actor-Producer
Sylvester Stallone, Actor-Producer	George Takei, Actor-Activist	Jeffrey Tambor, Actor
Glenn Thrush, Newspaper Reporter	James Toback, Director-Screenwriter	Bob Weinstein, Movie Producer
Harvey Weinstein, Movie Producer	Matthew Weiner, TV Producer	Ed Westwick, Actor
Leon Wieseltier, Magazine Editor

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/11/22/weinstein-aftermath-all-men-accused-sexual-misconduct/884778001/

————

Go Lean Commentary – Bill Cosby’s Accusers: Why They Weren’t Believed.

It is hard to reconcile the accusations floating against Bill Cosby with his television characters: Dr. Huxtable, Jell-O Pudding Pitch-Man and the voice/persona of the animated do-gooder Fat Albert (and the Cosby Kids ; see Appendix below*). Or is it?

… that it’s easy to categorize personalities as good versus bad. “We don’t think good and evil can co-exist in the same person” – Psychologist David Adams.

The following article posits that those who do horrible things may still be talented in their gifts and notoriously good to people in their lives, like family members. While it maybe difficult to understand the complexities of personalities, it is very much necessary that society be receptive to the possibility of good people doing bad things. The entire article is presented here:

By: NO MORE Staff

America’s Dad is having a very bad week. A few days ago, Barbara Bowman wrote a personal essay in The Washington Post chronicling how Bill Cosby drugged and raped her 30 years ago.

The story went viral and inspired several others to echo her experiences.

Not so when the teenager spoke out soon after the alleged attacks: When she went to a lawyer after the assaults, she was accused of lying. Her agent did nothing, either. Eventually, she moved on. Years later, Andrea Constand accused Cosby of rape and Bowman was asked to speak in court, but the case was quietly settled.

At this writing, a grand total of 15 women have accused Cosby of assault, dating from the late 1960s. (Here’s a timeline of the accusations.) Despite all this, Cosby’s career had coasted along—in fact, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor not long ago and was planning a new TV show.

But things are changing.

Finally, the accusers’ stories are getting traction. Why now? Last month, comedian Hannibal Buress called Cosby a rapist in his stand-up routine, which went viral. The Twitter-verse responded in kind: Last week, Cosby’s tone-deaf invitation to “meme me!” resulted in people superimposing assault accusations over his photo. #Cosbymeme did not go according to plan, and things only got worse: Last weekend, NPR interviewed him about his African American art collection and then asked him to respond to the Post story. He went silent. Eventually, his lawyer issued a statement firmly denying the allegations and refusing to comment further.

But the damage has been done: New stories about Cosby’s behavior continue to surface, Netflix has put his upcoming comedy special on hold, and NBC has abandoned plans to develop a new sitcom with him.

Why Accusations About Celebrities Aren’t Believed

Cosby isn’t the first icon to be accused of sexual assault or domestic violence, and yet the question persists: Why aren’t these accusers heard or given any credence—not just Cosby’s alleged victims, but the countless other people who have dared to challenge a celebrity?

The answer lies in the American conflation of celebrity and security, says Ulester Douglas, executive director of Men Stopping Violence. “We are a celebrity culture. Seeing someone we idolize, revere, and idealize being accused of horrific crimes makes us wonder: Who are we? It makes us realize that our own families could be capable of it, too,” he says. It’s unsettling and even terrifying to associate an idol with evil, particularly because there are so many celebrities who are good people, capable of powerful, positive influence.

Dissonance Perpetuates Silence

David Adams is a psychologist and co-director of Emerge, a Boston-based abusers’ intervention and counseling program. He sees a difference in how we respond to a stereotypical criminal and a celebrity accused of bad behavior due to our preconceptions about abusers. “We tend to think of an abuser as someone who is easily detectable: someone who is crude, sexist, and boorish. A quarter of men who abuse women do fit this stereotype, and since that’s a substantial subgroup, we tend to spot those guys and not the ones who are more likable. If we don’t know what to do with bad information about someone we adore, it creates dissonance, and we sometimes choose to disbelieve or to ignore it,” he says.

“When we see someone likable accused of a crime, we have a choice to believe something bad about them or to discount it because it doesn’t fit our experience. In some ways it’s easier to do that than to think, oh God, the world really is unknowable—I might as well give up on knowing people,” he says. “If we don’t know what to do with information about someone we worship, we put it aside.”

Why Celebrities Feel Immune

Of course, Cosby is hardly the first famous person to be accused of rape or assault. When we think about any celebrity facing serious allegations, though, it’s difficult to believe that an image-conscious idol could be willing to engage in hugely risky behavior, throwing away the very image they need. What’s going through their mind?

“Any consequence is overridden by the high of the conquest,” Douglas says. And, on a purely logistical level, “They do it because they can. They truly think they can get away with it, based on the very fact that they have a certain image. They will be believed; the accusers will be laughed out of the room.”

Absorbing The Narcissism Factor

In many celebrity cases, narcissism also plays a starring role. “A hallmark of narcissism is exceptionality. You literally think you will not get caught. This personality takes chances, acts reckless, and even associates the behavior with success, because they’ve always been rewarded,” Adams says.

“We think narcissists are people nobody would like. But, in fact, they’re quite charismatic, with good social and image-maintenance skills”— which often allow them to get away with bad behavior, even more so when there’s a PR team on call. Narcissists are also skilled at compartmentalization, Adams says, and they choose to focus on the “part of their life that everybody adores. They don’t focus on other parts of their lives, and if they do something wrong, they think, ‘Gee, everybody loves me. What’s the problem?’” he says. “It’s a lack of character development.”

“Narcissists can engage in all sorts of psychological gymnastics not to feel empathy,” says Douglas.

The Changing Tide

Adams says that it’s easy to categorize personalities as good versus bad. “We don’t think good and evil can co-exist in the same person,” he says. “But look at the Mafia—these guys who do horrible things but are notoriously good to their mothers. And along comes a show like The Sopranos to paint them in a more nuanced light. There’s now less focus on ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys,’” he says. Understanding the complexities of personalities—refusing to glorify a celebrity as all good, all the time—could help to close the dissonance gap.

“We can also go a long way toward preventing male sexual and domestic violence against women by stopping the pervasive and pernicious victim-blaming,” Douglas says. “The media, for example, should quit asking the toxic, ‘Why did you go back to your abuser?’ and ‘Why didn’t you leave?’ A reporter could say instead, ‘As you know, there are some who question your credibility because of some of the choices you made. What, if anything, would you want to say to them?’ That is respectful journalism. The [accuser] should never be made to feel like she has to justify the choices she made or makes.”

Finally, in his own work with Men Stopping Violence, Douglas sees firsthand the power of healing through sharing. “I see survivors who are finding peace through coming forward and telling their stories. One of the most powerful things that survivors can do is tell their own stories, on their own terms,” he says.
The NO MORE Project – Posted November 19, 2014; retrieved November 26, 2014–
http://nomore.org/why-cosby-victims-werent-believed/

The subject matter in the foregoing article relates to the attitudes that communities must foster so as to mitigate the toleration of domestic violence, rape and stalking. These points are being brought into focus in a consideration of the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the economic optimization in the region.

The focus of the Go Lean book is Economics, not domestic violence, rape or stalking! And yet this commentary relates that there is an alignment of objectives. The Go Lean roadmap posits that the economy of the Caribbean is inextricably linked to the security (public safety) of the Caribbean.

This CU/Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines and their relevant stakeholders.
Improve Caribbean governance (Executive facilitations, Legislative oversight and Judicial prudence) to support these economic/security engines.

Among the objectives to accomplish the economic elevation is the mission to retain Caribbean citizens in their homelands and repatriate the far-flung Diaspora back to the region. Since many people may have fled the region to mitigate abuse, attitudes of victim-blaming or complacency among public safety authorities must be “weeded out”.

The subject of Celebrity Culture is also germane for the Caribbean empowerment effort (Pages 203 & 224). The Go Lean roadmap consolidates the region’s 30 member-states into a Single Market, media market included – with the caveat of multi-language “simul-casting”. Celebrities will surely emerge. From a governance perspective, the CU will oversee the jurisdiction of monitoring and metering (ratings, rankings, service levels, etc) local public safety institutions to ensure their delivery of the Social Contract. for all regardless of gender or race.

Change has now come to the Caribbean. As the foregoing article depicts, there is a changing tide. It is no longer acceptable to dismiss accusers, even against celebrities. The article relates that “we can go a long way toward preventing male sexual and domestic violence against women by stopping the pervasive and pernicious victim-blaming”. This is part of a new community ethos – the value of women is not undermined! Many related issues/ points were elaborated in previous blogs, sampled here:

Justice Strategy: Special Prosecutors … et al

Caribbean Study: 58% Of Boys Agree to Female ‘Discipline’

Sex Crimes Mitigations – Students developing nail polish to detect date rape drugs

Aereo Founder on the future of TV; Caribbean included

Bob Marley: The legend of a Caribbean Celebrity lives on!

Muslim officials condemn abductions of Nigerian girls

Caribbean/Latin countries still view women as lesser

Book Review: ‘The Divide’ – Differences in US Justice for Rich versus Poor

Jamaica to receive World Bank funds to help in crime fight

The above commentaries examined global developments in crime mitigations and gender based attitudes, then relate their synchronicity with the principles in the Go Lean book. There are a number of touch points that relate to domestic violence, rape and stalking; these blogs also cite the community attitude to dissuade such behavior. Most importantly, the Go Lean book depicts solutions. These are presented as community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocates; detailed as follows:

Community Ethos – Privacy –vs- Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Whistleblower Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Witness Security	Page 23
Community Ethos – Anti Bullying & Mitigations	Page 23
Community Ethos – Light Up the Dark Places	Page 23
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – NGO’s	Page 25
Community Ethos – Reconciliations	Page 34
Strategy – Rule of Law –vs- Vigilantism	Page 49
Tactical – Separation of Powers – CariPol	Page 77
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices	Page 134
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Remediate and Mitigate Crime	Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Gun Control – Restraining Orders Automatic Restrictions	Page 179
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering	Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications – Messaging	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood	Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Prison Industrial Complex – Reduce Recidivism	Page 211
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Foundations	Page 219
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights	Page 220
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the One Percent – Balancing Justice Provisions for Celebrities	Page 224
Advocacy – Ways to Empower Women	Page 226
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Persons with Disabilities – including Mental Challenges	Page 228

The book Go Lean…Caribbean was written by resources from an organized movement, by people (residents and Diaspora) with passion to change/elevate the Caribbean’s economic, security and governing engines. One principal within this Go Lean movement has a direct job function to dissuade crimes against women.

While there is always the need to give the accused the benefit of the doubt, as in the current case against Bill Cosby, we do not want 30 years of inaction on reported sex crimes by celebrities. The CU roadmap’s goal is to optimize “Justice” institutions in the region. Why? All members of society (celebrities and regular citizens alike) need to be protected, and not dismissed or ignored, especially related to serious allegations like sexually inappropriate behavior. Any “misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance” in this regards reflects negatively on the region’s hospitality – think of the unsolved disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba in 2005; (see Page 190).

Though this topic may be a security issue, community wealth is undoubtedly linked, affecting push-and-pull factors for citizens to flee their homelands. This is lose-lose for all concerned. To the contrast, the goal of the Go Lean effort is to make the Caribbean a better place to live work and play; with justice for all. Since the region failed in the past, the new messaging is simple: “No More“!

The foregoing article is sourced by the Not-For-Profit organization, the “No More” Project. Their goal is to neutralize public attitudes that had previously tolerated and thusly promoted domestic violence, rape and stalking. This is a great role model for the Caribbean to emulate, as attitude adjustment is among the heavy-lifting tasks that regional administrators must undertake to bring positive change to the Caribbean.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————

* Appendix – Video – Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids – http://youtu.be/ga7gflAUGCc

It’s Bill Cosby coming at you with music and fun, and if you’re not careful, you might learn something before its done.

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Africa: Past, Present and Future of Caribbean Relations

Posted on November 30, 2017 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

“How good and how pleasant it would be before God and man,
To see the unification of all Africans”
– Bob Marley’s Song Africa Unite; see Appendix VIDEO below.

These rhyming words of this song are shaping up to be more than just platitudes. There is an actual movement to forge an integrated, united Africa … at least economically. This is the movement for a Free Trade area for the whole continent of Africa. (A previous commentary detailed a continental security apparatus for Africa that the Caribbean should model).

Wow! That would be a start to fulfilling the dream of people like Bob Marley … and others (think: Marcus Garvey).

What is amazing is that these two late-great role models where movers-and-shakers for Africa, though they were natives, citizens and residents of the Caribbean.

This is because there is a historic Africa-Caribbean relationship that transcends time; there is a Past, Present and Future to Africa-Caribbean Relations, and it is more than just song-and-dance.

Past
The link between the Caribbean and Africa has always been one of interconnection. Yes, there is the ugly history of the African Slave Trade, but after that East-West human-capital flow ended (1807) the flow had since shifted to West-East between the two regions. (Think: Freetown, Sierra Leone and Liberia).

Following the Slave Trade, there was the legacy of colonialism and White Supremacy (think: South Africa’s Apartheid) until finally the post-colonial period arrived after World War II. This allowed for independence movements and nationalism, but not the integration and unity that Marley sang of.

Caribbean stakeholders where not just the singers and dreamers; no, they were fighters and soldiers as well. There is the one example of the southern Africa country of Angola. During their post-colonial independence drive, there were dissenting movements: one for a minority rule Apartheid-style system and one for majority rule democratic socialism. The Cuban Army helped to defeat the Apartheid-style regime.

This was the Caribbean reaching back and helping Africa.

Present
Today, the southern African region is at peace, liberated and striving for the best way to advance their societies on the world’s stage. Though still trailing, they have made some progress.

Congratulations to Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters of South Africa who was crowned Miss Universe 2018 on November 26, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.^[12] (Miss Jamaica finished 3rd). This is the fourth time a contestant from the African continent has been crowned with this honor; the others include: 2011 Miss Angola, 1999 Miss Botswana and 1978 Miss South Africa (Apartheid-era).

Africa has “come a long way, Baby”.

That “Dark Continent” may be the cradle of mankind and the Motherland for many people in the Caribbean, but “she” is playing catch-up in a lot of areas of modernity. For this reason, all embedded countries are considered “developing”. With 1.2 billion^[1] people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the world’s human population. (The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos). It contains 54 fully recognized sovereign states (countries), nine territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition^[3] (Western Sahara and Somaliland); a potential of 65 member-states.

Future
There is the proposal for all countries on the African continent to convene and confederate and form a Single Market among the member-states. This would be transformative. See the full news article here:

Title: Op-Ed: How Africa can create a Continental Free Trade Area
By: Aboubaker Omar Hadi, Chairman of Djibouti Ports and Free Zone Authority

Ours is a continent rich in resources. From the coffee beans and cotton to mineral ores and oil wells, Africa is world-renowned for its raw materials.

However, exporting raw materials alone will not allow Africa to reach its potential. Indeed, the recent slump in global commodity prices has served as a harsh reminder that our traditional reliance on raw materials needs to evolve. It is only by transforming our commodities into value added goods that Africa will reap the full benefits of our natural strengths. Transforming our resources will create larger profit margins, growth and jobs. This transformation will, however, require a big industrialisation drive across the continent to foster trade and growth.

In the wake of Africa Industrialisation Day, which this year reflected on how to accelerate Africa’s progress towards the creation of a Continental Free Trade Area, we must also consider the supporting infrastructure required to make this pre-eminent objective a reality. All economies – on the global scale, but also on the regional and local level – demand a high level of circulation, which is only possible through the development of the necessary infrastructure.

In Africa, the lack of infrastructure is one of the greatest inhibitions preventing transformative growth. Ours is the only continent in the world without a transcontinental railway; in a continent where 16 out of 54 countries are landlocked, this is a real issue. Our infrastructure development therefore needs to be multimodal, ensuring that our coastlines are connected to our railways, airways and highways so that in-land countries and coastal countries are sharing in each others’ successes.

Beyond our transport links and trade zones, we also need to develop one further key aspect in our infrastructure framework: energy production. Around 600 million Africans still live without power on a daily basis. Not only is this unsustainable for our own populations but it is untenable if we are to attract foreign investors. To truly be players on the global stage, Africa needs to make sure that it has the capacity to support the industrial needs of the best of business from around the world.

As the Chairman of the Djibouti Ports and Free Zone Authority, I’ve made this industrial transformation, of both my country and the surrounding region, a priority. In the last year, we have completed and opened three state-of-the-art port facilities which have the capacity to welcome over 30,000 ships every year. As Djibouti sits on two of the world’s busiest maritime trade routes, our country has a key role to play in regional development, by ensuring our neighbours also benefit from this strategic location. Thus, the recently launched Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway will allow the continent’s fastest growing economy,

Ethiopia, to profit from our maritime façade. Already, over 90% of Ethiopia’s trade passes through Djibouti and infrastructure development is vital in ensuring that these trade routes are as efficient as possible.

In terms of our energy infrastructure, Djibouti has developed strong partnerships to strengthen investment in vital gas projects. Only last week, a memorandum of understanding was signed between Djibouti and the Chinese company Poly CGL. This MoU is the start of an important process which will see investment in a gas pipeline, a liquefaction plant and an export terminal in the south of the country, in Damerjog.

Industrial transformation is a long term effort. We will only achieve it with methodical determination and cooperation, as we enter a turning point for the continent. Africa is the second most populated continent in the world with over 1.2 billion inhabitants. By 2050, it is estimated that around a quarter of the world’s population will be living on the African continent. Several African countries are among the fastest growing in the world in terms of economic growth. Out of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world, 3 of them are located in East Africa: Ethiopia, Djibouti and Tanzania. Now is the moment at which we must work hard to keep pace with the rate at which our continent is transforming.

Source: CNBC Africa; posted November 24, 2017; retrieved November 29, 2017 from: https://www.cnbcafrica.com/insights/2017/11/24/africa-potential/

——–

The Caribbean will “pay more than the usual attention” to these developments of 65 member-states for Africa. We have our own roadmap for integration, convention and confederation here in the Caribbean region. This quest is projected in the book Go Lean … Caribbean as it serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This would be the administrator – a federal government – of a regional Single Market of the Caribbean’s 30 member-states.

With the same goal, the same heavy-lifting is necessary. This is true for Africa and the Caribbean; there would be the need to forge “Pluralistic Democracies” in each region. Imagine the diverse languages, religions, tribes, ethnicities and colonial heritage. This is the epitome of pluralism, the recognition and affirmation of diversity within a political body. Success or failure with the African pluralism efforts can provide a lot of lessons for the Caribbean effort.

This CU/Go Lean roadmap does more than just forge a Single Market; it has a charter to elevate all the societal engines. As there is the need to assuage the societal defects and deficiencies in the region – there are many. The following are the 3 prime directives designed to elevate society and assuage deficiencies:

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.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

Wow, for the BIG ideas of fostering a Single Market … to elevate the economic engines for 1.2 billion people in Africa and 42 million people in the Caribbean.

The Go Lean book has a scope of the Caribbean only. Though we will pay attention to Africa, there is no effort to impact that region with strategies, tactics or implementations. We must sing the song, but have our own twist:

Africa Unite!

‘Cause the children wanna come home.
Not to fight your wars, but to love your shores.

Our limited scope is to “observe and report” on Africa and the rest of the world, while we “serve and protect” the Caribbean. The Go Lean book presented BIG ideas for reforming and transforming the economic-security-governing engines for the 42 million people in our 30 Caribbean member-states. The book stresses that our Caribbean effort 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.

There have been a number of previous blog-commentaries by the Go Lean movement that have highlighted lessons-learned from Africa. Consider this sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13365	West African Case Study: ECOWAS to Launch ‘Single Currency’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8262	UberEverything in Africa
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7119	Role Model: African Standby Force
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5123	A Lesson in History – Royal Charter: Zimbabwe -vs- South Africa
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4971	A Lesson in History – Royal Charters: Truth & Consequence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4145	The African Renaissance Monument

In summary, shepherding the continental region of Africa is no simple task. It requires the best practices of skilled technocrats. Hopefully the African member-states will thrive with this effort.

We will be watching!

Hopefully too, the Single Market efforts in our region – Caribbean Single Market & Economy – will proceed. This subject was detailed in the Go Lean book (Page 15); consider this sample:

What is the CSME? The initials refer to the Caribbean Single Market & Economy, the attempted integrated development strategy envisioned at the 10th Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community which took place in July 1989 in Grand Anse, Grenada. The Grand Anse Declaration had three key features:

1. Deepening economic integration by advancing beyond a common market towards a Single Market and Economy.

2. Widening the membership and thereby expanding the economic mass of the Caribbean Community (e.g. Suriname and Haiti were admitted as full members in 1995 and 2002 respectively).

3. Progressive insertion of the region into the global trading and economic system by strengthening trading links with non-traditional partners.

What was the hope for CSME? Whereas CariCom started as a Common Market and Customs Union, to facilitate more intra-region trade, the CSME was intended to effect more integration of the economies of the member states. But this turned out to be mere talk, fanciful murmurings of politicians during their bi-annual Heads of Government meetings. No deployment plans ever emerged, even though up to 15 member-states signed on to the accord; (and 10 more as “Observers” only).

The benefits of a Single Market are too alluring to ignore: larger market, expanded trade, leveraging economic shocks across a larger base naturally associated with a Free Market economy.

Let’s do this … more earnestly in the Caribbean region.

We need to follow through on the words of Bob Marley – “African Unite” – and apply them here at home:

Caribbean Unite: ‘Cause the children wanna come home.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders – government officials, residents and Diaspora – to lean-in for the empowerments detailed in this Go Lean roadmap. Yes, we can! We can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

How good and how pleasant it would …

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

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

———–

Appendix VIDEO – Africa Unite – https://youtu.be/QMS5vKarzO0

Published on Jun 24, 2009 – Lyrics

Africa, Unite
‘Cause we’re moving right out of Babylon,
And we’re going to our Father’s land, yea-ea.

How good and how pleasant it would be before God and man, yea-eah! –
To see the unification of all Africans, yeah! –
As it’s been said a’ready, let it be done, yeah!
We are the children of the Rastaman;
We are the children of the Iyaman.

So-o, Africa unite:
‘Cause the children (Africa unite) wanna come home.
Africa unite:
‘Cause we’re moving right out of Babylon, yea,
And we’re grooving to our Father’s land, yea-ea.

How good and how pleasant it would be before God and man
To see the unification of all Rastaman, yeah.
As it’s been said a’ready, let it be done!
I tell you who we are under the sun:
We are the children of the Rastaman;
We are the children of the Iyaman.

So-o: Africa unite,
Afri – Africa unite, yeah!
Unite for the benefit (Africa unite) for the benefit of your people!
Unite for it’s later (Africa unite) than you think!
Unite for the benefit (Africa unite) of my children!
Unite for it’s later (Africa uniting) than you think!
Africa awaits (Africa unite) its creators!
Africa awaiting (Africa uniting) its Creator!
Africa, you’re my (Africa unite) forefather cornerstone!
Unite for the Africans (Africa uniting) abroad
Unite for the Africans (Africa unite) a yard! [fadeout]

Category: Music
License: Standard YouTube License

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Colonialism’s Bloody History Revisited – ‘Thor’ Movie

Posted on November 16, 2017 in Ethos, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

How much of our past make up who we are and what we will become?

Are all children of alcoholics condemned to alcoholism themselves?
Children from homes with domestic violence; will they become abusers themselves?

These questions about individuals can also be extended to whole communities:

Will the bloody history of European colonialism be revisited in modern times and the future?

This has to do with societal defects – orthodoxy. There is so much we need to learn, and so many corrections we need to make. This is the quest of the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean, to reform and transform the Caribbean member-states from our dysfunctional past so as to have a prosperous future. There are lots of lessons for us to consider; some from unusual places; consider the art world: comic books, world of film.

The edict of “life imitating art and art imitating life” provides a lot of teaching moments for the world in general and the Caribbean in particular. There is a lot we can learn from the art form of film and this newest blockbuster movie Thor: Ragnarok. (The film has grossed $212.1 million in US box office receipts after the first 2 weekends).

This is a film about comic book hero Thor, the God of Thunder, which is based on Norse mythology; the ancient culture of Nordic Vikings. There are other characters from that mythical homeland of Asgard: Odin, Loki, Hela and Valkyrie. This is all art and fiction, but it does imitate the real life history of colonialism; see here:

The film’s central revelation – that the legend of a benevolent Odin and Asgard ruling realms joined in peace is a lie, and that those realms were conquered by force – reflects British colonialism so perfectly it virtually had to come from a person of colour in the Commonwealth, [New Zealand-born Director Taika Waititi]. Though New Zealand today is markedly fairer in its treatment of its indigenous people than the rest of Britain’s English-speaking colonies, its history is still pockmarked with subjugation, violence, and deception, and it’s hard not to see the difference between the mythical and “true” Asgards as a representation of that.
Source: Retrieved November 15, 2017 from: http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2017/11/05/thor-ragnarok-taika-waititi-very-kiwi-comedy

Shockingly, this is also a Caribbean debate: the historicity of colonialism and British orthodoxy – good or bad?

This debate, considering the foregoing, is bigger than just a consideration of British colonialism; it allows parallels with the Dutch, French, Portuguese and Spanish conquests in the New World; and truthfully, this also applies to the American empire building with the territories of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

See this news article here that presents this hypothesis; and also see the VIDEO in the Appendix below:

Title: Asgard’s bloody history refuses to stay buried in ‘Thor: Ragnarok’
By: Angie Han

Asgard is a realm removed from Midgard (or as we know it, Earth), but make no mistake: Thor: Ragnarok is as much about us as it is about them.

Specifically, it’s about the bloody history of colonialism, and that history’s refusal to stay buried, no matter how eager we are to whitewash our sins.

In Thor: Ragnarok, we learn exactly how Asgard came to be the wealthy and powerful kingdom it is today. The answer isn’t pretty. Before Odin was known as a wise and benevolent ruler, he was known as a bloodthirsty conquerer, tearing through nations with his daughter, Hela, at his side.

But, Hela explains, her appetite for destruction eventually outmatched his. Odin turned on her, locking her away and essentially writing her out of the history books. He has her literally painted over in the palace mural, replaced by prettier pictures of peace and prosperity. As Hela bitterly remarks, Odin is proud of his power and riches, but ashamed of how he got them.

Centuries later, younger Asgardians like Thor seem to have only the faintest idea of their land’s ugly past. Thor is aware that his father was once a fearsome warrior (it’s explicitly mentioned and demonstrated in his earlier movies), but apparently hasn’t spent much time thinking about whom his father was fighting, or why.

As for Hela, he doesn’t even realize that she exists.

Not that it matters. By burying Hela instead of properly reckoning with her, Odin has ensured that she will, someday, be someone else’s problem – and that that someone else will be woefully unprepared to deal with her when that day comes.

Sound familiar? The story of Asgard has echoes all around our own world: the “free world” built on the subjugation and slaughter of others; the sanitization of our past and current misdeeds; the younger generation raised on patriotic half-truths. Hela serves as a terrifying reminder that the past has a way of catching up to the present, no matter how desperately you’d like to erase old sins.

In Thor: Ragnarok, Thor is the one who rises to the occasion of facing down Asgard’s ugly past. He doesn’t have to – Hela’s already thrown him off-planet, and the simplest and safest thing for him to do would be to stay out of her path – but he feels a duty to protect his people from his sister. Emphasis on “his people”: Thor takes to heart that Asgard is a people, not a place or a thing.

His priority throughout the final battle is Asgard’s population, not its land or its gold or its reputation. In other words, he prioritizes people over patriotism.

By the end, Thor has abandoned the physical realm of Asgard entirely, leaving Hela and Surtur to tear it apart. He and the other surviving Asgardians are huddled together on a spaceship, refugees hoping to make a new home on Midgard.

Thor’s not the only one who has some key decisions to make in Ragnarok. Hela’s right-hand man is Skurge, who goes along with her rule not out of some great passion for her cause, but because it just seems like the easy thing to do. When it becomes clear that the tides are turning, he boards the refugee ship with the other Asgardians.

Then, at the last minute, he does something genuinely heroic: He sacrifices himself to ensure that the ship can get to safety, laying waste to Hela’s forces with two machine guns he picked up on a lark in Texas. (They’re named Des and Troy, because when he puts them together, they destroy. Thor: Ragnarok may have weighty thoughts on its mind, but it’s never one to pass up a good joke.)

With Skurge, Ragnarok shows us that great evil can be enabled by ordinary indifference, that “hero” and “villain” are not fixed states, that it’s never too late to do the right thing, and that even nobodies must decide how to wield whatever power they have. He’s the rare Marvel character who isn’t easily categorized as “good” or “bad.” He’s the undecided voter of Asgard, and he finally steps up.

Meanwhile, back on Sakaar, the Grandmaster has his own problems to deal with. Thor and Hulk’s escape has sparked a rebellion led by Korg (with an assist from the Revengers). Whereas Hela is overtly destructive and dominant, the Grandmaster is a more ingratiating figure.

He’s introduced via a video that reassures his contenders they’ve been found by someone who loves them. Never mind that the Grandmaster holding people captive and forcing them to fight to the death – he fancies himself a benevolent caretaker. In a jab at the modern prison system, the Grandmaster shudders at the word “slaves” and prefers the euphemism “prisoners with jobs.” The message is clear: he’s the same old oppressive bullshit, repackaged to look brighter and gentler.

Key to all of Thor: Ragnarok‘s themes are who’s telling this story. Taika Waititi is the franchise’s first non-white director, and one of its few non-American directors. That unusual-for-Marvel perspective may have something to do with his decision to turn this superhero smash-’em-up into a reflection on the horrors of colonialism. Others more qualified than I am to discuss it have taken also note of Ragnarok‘s uniquely Kiwi and uniquely Maori sensibility.

While Thor: Ragnarok still centers around a white guy, it’s got a meatier role than ever before for Heimdall, leader of the Asgardian resistance and protector of its people in Thor’s absence during Hela’s reign. The film introduces Valkyrie as a former hero of Asgard who steps up again in its time of need, hinting at the trauma she endured in between. Plus, of course, there’s Korg, voiced and mo-capped by Waititi himself in a distinct New Zealand accent. This is a story about oppression that actually makes room for non-white people, unlike so many of the others that hit our theaters.

And, yes, Thor: Ragnarok does all this while delivering jokes about Shake Weights and Hulk dick and introducing something called the Devil’s Anus to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s fizzy and funny and fun in a way that Thor’s earlier movies haven’t been. But don’t mistake its silliness for lack of depth.

Just as there’s more to Thor than his Point Break persona, there’s a lot more to Ragnarok than its gags.
Source: Posted November 8, 2017; retrieved November 15, 2017 from: http://mashable.com/2017/11/08/thor-ragnarok-themes-colonialism/#CZO2PDgfMZqP

There are so many points of consideration from this movie. In a previous blog/commentary regarding Caribbean Diaspora member and Hollywood great, Sidney Poitier, it was declared that …

“Movies are an amazing business model. People give money to spend a couple of hours watching someone else’s creation and then leave the theater with nothing to show for the investment; except perhaps a different perspective”.

Wow, this ‘Thor’ movie does present some different perspectives. The “art” of this movie does imitate the real life of the Caribbean colonial history. It was not benevolence that led to the European conquest; it was malevolence! The subjugation of the indigenous people, the introduction of slave economy, and continued mercantilism, until … just recently.

Some other/different perspectives gleaned from this movie are summarized here; (consider the links to previous blog-commentaries):

The Good Old Days weren’t always good.
The European colonizers may assumed a more benevolent stance today but the historicity of their malevolence is still real.
The legacy of past misdeeds – orthodoxy – have a bearing on community ethos – driving character or spirit – today.
To the Victor goes the spoils.
The story of conquests are told by the conquerors.
There is the need to reconcile past deeds with current attitudes.
Priority should be on people, not a cultural place or a thing

It is the commonly accepted history that colonialism was bad – even bloody, and yet so many Caribbean citizens “break down the doors to get out” to go to where the colonizers came from – Brain Drain reported at 70 percent – and then live among these former colonizers.

This atrocious societal abandonment rate is so unbelievable … and unacceptable!

The book Go Lean … Caribbean discusses this history of European colonialism and the legacy left behind. Consider this excerpt from Page 241 regarding the Caribbean mainland states of the Guianas (Guyana and Suriname):

The Bottom Line on European Colonialism
The European colonial period was the era from the 1500s to the mid-1900s when several European powers (Spain, Britain, the Netherlands, France and Portugal) established colonies in the Americas, in a Space Race to dominate the New World. The Northern Coast of South America became a typical New World battleground for conflict and pushing between these powers, and many military campaigns and diplomatic initiatives (treaties) ensued. Through the contact period following the 1498 discovery by Christopher Columbus, the term “Guiana” was used to refer to all this area, between the Orinoco, the Rio Negro, and the Amazon rivers; it was seen as a unified, isolated entity that it was often referred to as the “Island of Guiana”. The real interest in the exploration and colonization of the Guianas did not begin until the end of the sixteenth century when the other European powers developed interest in the Guianas. This is depicted in the Timeline in Appendix TE (Page 307). When did this European Colonial “push-shove-match” end? Not until almost 500 years later, after World War II, after the effects of that war left all these European powers drained – of finances and the will to continue.

In the Thor: Ragnarok movie, the hero completed a journey that led him to finally place a higher priority on the people of his homeland rather than the actual land. This is enlightening, but this relevance is questioned for the Caribbean’s priority. In the movie, there was an all encompassing war – Ragnarok refers to the Norse concept of Armageddon – while the Caribbean is experiencing no war at all – we are deemed the greatest address on the planet. It is reasonable to expect that we can place priority on our people and our homeland.

The quest of the Go Lean roadmap is to elevate the societal engines so that Caribbean people can prosper where planted here in the Caribbean. There should be no priority to relocate Caribbean culture as refugees to a foreign land.

Like in the movie where Thor had an interdependence with other heroes – like Hulk, Valkyrie, and Heimdall, (leader of the Asgardian resistance and protector of its people while Thor was absent) – there is the need for our own heroes to work together to help us accomplish our goals as well. The Go Lean movement seeks to engage Caribbean heroes; the book serves as a roadmap to introduce the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate the region’s societal engines – economics, homeland security and governance – of the 30 Caribbean member-states. In fact, the prime directives of the roadmap includes the following 3 statements:

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

The Go Lean book makes the point of the need for heroic actions early in a Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 & 13) that claims:

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.

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 … of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes, 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.

The Go Lean book describes the need for the Caribbean to appoint “new guards” to effect the necessary empowerments in the Caribbean. Those “old guards” would refer to the tenets of colonialism that the European masters left behind. Those are inadequate and deficient. We need the “new guards” or a regional security pact to engage to better protect our homeland from threats and risks, foreign and domestic. So the published strategies, tactics and implementations of this security pact is to ensure public safety as a comprehensive endeavor, encapsulating the needs of all Caribbean stakeholders: heroes and ordinary citizens alike.

Applying the edict of “life imitating art and art imitating life”, let’s lean-in for our own heroic instincts. Yes, we can … collectively if not individually, be heroes. We can lean-in for the empowerments described here in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. We can make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

Sign the petition to lean-in for the roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.
———–
Appendix VIDEO – Thor: Ragnarok – The Best Reviewed Super Hero Movie – http://mashable.com/2017/11/08/thor-ragnarok-themes-colonialism/#CZO2PDgfMZqP

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