Tag: History

Rise from the Ashes – Learning from the ‘Great Depression’

Posted on July 11, 2020 in Economics, Government, Planning

Go Lean Commentary 

This is Summer 2020, the whole world is reeling from the effects of the Coronavirus COVID-19 crisis. There are health and economic repercussions – systemic threats – as the world has never seen.

Or has it?

Have we been here before, where the economic systems completely imploded and there was the need to reboot, rebuild and re-start the economic engines in the global economy?

Yes, indeed. There was the Great Depression.

How bad was the Great Depression?

The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting from 1929 to 1939. … By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its lowest point, some 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country’s banks had failed. – Source: History.com.

Traders rush, 1929, October in Wall Street as New York Stock Exchange crashed sparking a run on banks that spread accross the country. – October 1929 was the beginning of the 1929 Stock Market Crash. Within the first few hours the stock market was open, prices fell so far as to wipe out all the gains that had been made in the previous year. The Dow Jones Industrial Index closed at 230. Since the stock market was viewed as the chief indicator of the American economy, public confidence was shattered. Between October 29 and November 13 (when stock prices hit their lowest point) over 30 billion USD disappeared from the American economy. It took nearly twenty-five years for many stocks to recover. (Photo by – / AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)

Considering the years 1929 to 1939 means that most of us were not alive to remember this crisis. Fortunately, there are lots of media material to consume, consult and contemplate about that crisis’s origin, duration and resolution. In effect, there are lots of Lessons to learn from the Great Depression.

These desperate times calls for us to open “every cupboard” for knowledge and wisdom to survive this crisis.

There is this urgency for the Caribbean member-states to reform and transform. The 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean had previously asserted that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste” – referring to the 2007 – 2009 Great Recession. This urging is even more acute now, with this Coronavirus COVID-19 crisis. We must forge permanent change on our Caribbean society, if we want to survive in the near future – otherwise, our citizens will abandon us further. Despite how monumental a task this sounds, it is conceivable, believable and achievable. We can Rise from the Ashes of this crisis and build a better society from the ashes.

We just completed a 6-part series in June on Rising from the Ashes where we considered these dimensions:

  1. Rising from the Ashes – The Phoenix rises from the Pandemic
  2. Rising from the Ashes – One person – Dead or Alive – can make a difference
  3. Rising from the Ashes – Natural Disasters – The Price of Paradise
  4. Rising from the Ashes – Political Revolutions – Calling ‘Balls and Strikes’
  5. Rising from the Ashes – War – “What is it good for?”
  6. Rising from the Ashes – Wrong Ethos could also rise – Cautionary tale of patriotic German Jews

Now for this continuation, a 7th edition, we consider the lessons from the Great Depression. Let consider this excellent media production:

Title: Looking Back To The 1930s: Lessons From The Great Depression

Looking back to 1930, the year after the start of the Great Depression. What lessons did we learn about how best to move forward with a suffering economy? We look at our current crisis now through the lens of American history.

Guests [for this show]:

From The Reading List

  • Futurity: “The Great Depression proved we need government in a crisis” — “As the world reckons with an economic crisis that the International Monetary Fund anticipates to be the worst recession since the Great Depression, what can we learn from history? How are these two events similar, and how are they different?”
  • NPR: “‘A Lot To Be Hopeful For’: Crisis Seen As Historic, Not Another Great Depression” — “With the U.S. economy in free-fall, a lot of forecasters have been digging deep into the history books, looking for a guideposts of what to expect. Often, they’ve turned to the chapter on the 1930s.”
  • Bloomberg: “How Bad Might It Get? Think the Great Depression” — “As the economic carnage from the coronavirus pandemic continues, a long-forbidden word is starting to creep onto people’s lips: ‘depression.'”
  • The New York Times: “The New Great Depression Is Coming. Will There Be a New New Deal?” — “Until very recently, Andrew Yang thought that the need for a universal basic income would be a big issue in the 2024 election, as ‘many of the trends that I campaigned on were going to become completely clear to more and more Americans’ over the next four years. He was arguing, for example, that between now and then, ’30 percent of our stores and malls were going to close because of Amazon.’ After more than a month of coronavirus lockdowns, Yang’s prediction looks quaintly optimistic.”
  • Vox: “Will the worst downturn since the Great Depression last as long?” — “Weeks of record job losses have left the United States with an unemployment rate that’s widely estimated to be higher than at any time since the Great Depression. That shocking reality naturally invites analogies and raises what is perhaps the most important economic question of our time: How long will the bad times last?”
  • The Philadelphia Inquirer: “Mounting job losses. Fear of the unknown. We’ve seen this before during the Great Depression. Here are some lessons learned.” — “The blunt headlines that appeared sporadically in The Inquirer throughout 1929 hinted at the dark menace of long-term unemployment, a condition that would worsen as the Great Depression unfurled over the next 12 years. ‘Jobless man ends life.’ ‘Man, ill and jobless, is suicide.’ ‘Jobless Darby man a suicide.'”
  • CNN: “We’ve overcome hard times before: What Americans who beat the Great Depression can teach us today.” — “A sudden crisis turns the world upside down. Millions are thrown out of work. People despair and dread the future. That was the grim scenario many Americans faced almost a century ago after the 1929 stock market crash triggered the Great Depression. And many people are experiencing it today as the coronavirus pandemic ravages the US and the rest of the world.”

Related:

Source: On Point Posted May 18, 2020; retrieved July 11, 2020 from: https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/05/18/great-depression-how-did-we-recover

———-

AUDIO-PODCast – Looking Back To The 1930s: Lessons From The Great Depression – https://dcs.megaphone.fm/BUR6433954311.mp3?key=dae7f9a0936e0993c31cff98fdd7b44e

Looking back to 1930, the year after the start of the Great Depression. What lessons did we learn about how best to move forward with a suffering economy? We look at our current crisis now through the lens of American history. David Kennedy and Jack Beatty join Meghna Chakrabarti.

Alternative PODCast Broadcast on July 3, 2020: https://dcs.megaphone.fm/BUR6433954311.mp3?key=dae7f9a0936e0993c31cff98fdd7b44e

What was the resolution for the United States for the Great Depression?

The New Deal … (Truly, a reboot, “arising from the ashes” of the “Old Deal“).

See full details here …

Lessons from the New Deal. It wasn’t one big package wrapped in political consensus. We look at the real, messy process that pulled the U.S. out of the Great Depression.

What exactly are the lessons for the Caribbean?

  • We need efficient and effective governance.
  • We need economic security provisions – “Safety Nets”.
  • We need to protect the “Weak from being Abused by the Strong”.

Economics, Security and Governance – Yep; these are the 3 societal engines that have been the focus of the movement behind the Go Lean book. As related repeatedly, we must first have a plan …

  • Know where we are
  • Where we want to go
  • How to get there

Rather than a “plan” the Go Lean book call this approach a roadmap; step-by-step directions for taking the whole region – the political Caribbean of 30 member-states – to a destination: a better place to live, work and play.

This theme of organizing the region for a technocratic response – establishing New Guards – has been elaborated upon in a number of previous Go Lean commentaries, before and during this pandemic. Consider this sample list below; but first do realize that this is not just an American retrospective for “Learning from Economic Crises”. No, lessons abound from other countries as well. For example, there are good lessons and bad lessons from a number of European countries in their historicity of managing their recent crises:

——–

Iceland did the heavy-lifting to rebuilding their society and Rising from the Ashes of the Greet Recession. They did not put out the fire; they let it burn:

Lessons from Iceland – Model of Recovery; posted September 23, 2015
During the bad days of the Great Recession – at the precipice of disaster – the country deviated from other troubled regions …

“Iceland let its banks fail in 2008 because they proved too big to save.”

How does it relate to the Caribbean? The Caribbean is at the precipice … now; many of the member-states are near Failed-State status, while others are still hoping to recover from the devastating Great Recession of 2008. Turn-around should not take this long – 7 years. Strategies, tactics and implementations of best-practices to effect a turn-around must be pursued now.

Iceland has now recovered, and complaining about a 2% unemployment rate. What did they do that was so radically different than other locations? For one, they changed course regarding economics, security and governing policies. An ultra-capitalist movement had taken hold of the country and business communities; they pursued an aggressive “boom-or-bust” strategy, that ultimately “busted”, rather than continue on that road, the country – all aspects of society – altered course and returned to a path of sound fundamentals.

——–

Greece, on the other hand, did a poor job of managing their crisis, and suffered as a result:

Pressed by Debt Crisis, Doctors Leave Greece in Droves; posted July 1, 2015
Poor economic conditions are forcing a brain drain among a country’s professionals. Yes, we understand all too well.

This is the crisis for Greece! This is the crisis for the Caribbean, as well!

This is a consistent theme in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book posits that the events in Greece are relevant for the Caribbean, North America and the world economy as a whole. What’s worse is that many Caribbean member-states are in the same situation.

Greece is the weak link in the Eurozone; it is inching closer to defaulting on its debt. The country has been in a long standoff with its European creditors on the terms of a multibillion-dollar bailout. If the country goes bankrupt or decides to leave the 19-nation Eurozone, the Greek debt crisis could create instability in the region and reverberate around the globe.

——–

Other previous blog-commentaries referring to the New Guards for the Caribbean specifically are catalogued here as follows:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19409 Coronavirus: Ready for the ‘Clear & Present’ Economic Threat/Danger
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17358 Marshall Plan – A Lesson in History
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15996 Good Governance: Stepping Up in an Emergency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13999 First Steps for Caribbean Security – Deputize ‘Me’, says the Caribbean Union
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11759 Understand the Market, Plan the … Reboot and Recovery
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10566 Funding the Caribbean Security Pact – Yes, we can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10043 Integration Plan for Greater Caribbean Prosperity
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9038 Caribbean Charity Management: Grow Up Already & Be Responsible
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7896 The Logistics of Disaster Relief
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002 Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’

Yes, a New Guard, for Caribbean economic security is vital for our regional survival – we cannot survive on our beauty alone.

We must do the heavy-lifting to reform and transform. We must let the roof on our broken “House of Cards” burn down and then we must build a new stronger house from the ashes on a firmer foundation. Only then will we be able to promise (and fulfill) a viable future of progress and prosperity to our young people.

Yes, COVID-19 was not the first crisis for our region – we can learn so much from the Great Depression – and may not be the last one. So, we must have the New Guards in place to protect our people against systemic threats.

We urged all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap to elevate our regional society. This is how we will make our homeland a better place to live, work and play.  🙂

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

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

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

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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

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.

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.

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

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Rise from the Ashes – Watch Out for the Wrong Ethos

Posted on June 30, 2020 in Ethos, Social

Go Lean Commentary

There is the need to build/rebuild Caribbean society on good Community Ethos.

Huh?!

This refers to the values and spirit that may permeate a community. In fact, this is the formal definition of Community Ethos … as defined in the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean Page 20:

noun – (www.Dictionary.com)

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

So what Community Ethos does the Caribbean need to address while considering the reboot of the regional society – our rising from the ashes? Let’s look at one:

Love

Everybody loves love; and want to love and be loved in return. Everybody …

In fact, the Greek language helps us to appreciate the different kinds and love, highlighting exactly what we expect to give and get from our loved ones; consider these excerpts:

  • Agápe  [1] means “love: esp. charity; the love of God for man and of man for a good God.”[2] Agape is used in ancient texts to denote feelings for one’s children and the feelings for a spouse, and it was also used to refer to a love feast.[3]
  • Éros means “love, mostly of the sexual passion.”[6] The Modern Greek word “erotas” means “intimate love”. Plato refined his own definition: Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. Plato does not talk of physical attraction as a necessary part of love, hence the use of the word platonic to mean, “without physical attraction”.
  • Philia means “affectionate regard, friendship”, usually “between equals”.[8] It is a dispassionate virtuous love, a concept developed by Aristotle.[9] In his best-known work on ethics, Nicomachean Ethics, philia is expressed variously as loyalty to friends (specifically, “brotherly love”), family, and community, and requires virtue, equality, and familiarity. Furthermore, in the same text philos is also the root of philautia denoting self-love and arising from it, a general type of love, used for love between family, between friends, a desire or enjoyment of an activity, as well as between lovers.
  • Storge means “love, affection” and “especially of parents and children”.[10] It is the common or natural empathy, like that felt by parents for offspring.[11] Rarely used in ancient works, and then almost exclusively as a descriptor of relationships within the family. It is also known to express mere acceptance or putting up with situations, as in “loving” the tyrant. This is also used when referencing the love for one’s country or a favorite sports team.
  • Philautia means “self love” to love yourself or “regard for one’s own happiness or advantage”[12]] has both been conceptualized as a basic human necessity[13] and as a moral flaw, akin to vanity and selfishness,[14] synonymous with amour propre or egotism. The Greeks further divided this love into positive and negative: one the unhealthy version is the self-obsessed love, and the other is the concept of “self-compassion”.
  • Xenia (meaning “guest-friendship”) is the ancient Greek concept of hospitality, the generosity and courtesy shown to those who are far from home and/or associates of the person bestowing guest-friendship.[15] The rituals of hospitality created and expressed a reciprocal relationship between guest and host expressed in both material benefits (such as the giving of gifts to each party) as well as non-material ones (such as protection, shelter, favors, or certain normative rights).
        1. Source: Retrieved June 29, 2020 from:

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

What would be the opposite of Love? Hate …

… and maybe also Death or death-dealing. There is much for us to learn considering this discussion of Community Ethos while rebuilding a society. One extreme example to consider is that of the German scientist: Fritz Haber – see Appendix A below – his brand-reputation was that he was the “Father of Poison Gas Warfare”. What does that tell you of his ethos?

“He made a deal with the devil”!

The same people he aligned with to kill other people, then turned around to kill his people. He was Jewish and the Nazi Party came to power in Germany and slaughtered 6 million Jews, many who were loyal Germans.

The movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean hereby presents that we must learn from such lessons. So now, we seek to explore lessons on the subject of reciprocal love from antiquity, recent history and even from today.

Antiquity
Remember that great 19th Century book by Alexandre Dumas – The Three Musketeers. The catch phrase for the book’s heroes spoke volumes regarding reciprocal love – as related in a prior Go Lean commentary:

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

[This “All For One … and … One For All“ catch phrase] represents “art imitating life” in it’s meaning:

All the members of a group support each of the individual members, and the individual members pledge to support the group. Source: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/all-for-one-and-one-for-all

… Since everyone is unique, we may all be minorities in some respects.
—-
Recent History
There was no greater atrocity – during the 20th century – than what was endured by the Jewish ethnicity in Germany and other European countries during World War II. This is branded The Holocaust and it is not to be rationalized, minimized or excused. Truth be told, the Jewish minority in Germany had always demonstrated their love for the Fatherland, many Jewish soldiers even fought for Germany during the Great War, World War I – (100,000 served; 12,000 killed).

They loved their homeland; but the homeland did not love them back. No reciprocal love!

Imagine the betrayal of those who sacrificed blood, sweat and tears for their homeland, then to be faced with extermination of self and family in the ovens of those Nazi concentration camps.

Consider too, the experience of this one German-Jewish Scientist catalogued in Appendix A below.
—-
Today
The American South still has loyalty and affinity for the Confederate emblems and artifacts from the US Civil War 1861 – 1865.

There is no moral high ground associated with the defense of the Pro-Slavery Confederacy; the motives are tied solely to White Supremacy. So for anyone of Black-and-Brown persuasion, participating in any before-during-after Confederacy would be counterproductive. (America double-downed on their bad community ethos toward minorities during World War II with their mistreatment of Japanese-Americans).

And yet, Caribbean emigrants to the US have often relocated to Southern cities; think:

  • Atlanta
  • Houston
  • Dallas-Fort Worth
  • Miami

Many Southern communities have Confederate statutes-monuments-memorials and wave the Confederate flags – some communities even have this branding as official signage and icons. Alas, these communities have large Caribbean Diaspora populations even now; our people show love to their new homeland, but rarely, if ever, does the community loves them back.

Reciprocal love – Fail!

—-

Still this is a discussion on Love; the proper-best Community Ethos for a rebuilding society and the Wrong Community Ethos to dissuade and avoid – or to Watch Out for any emergence.

This is the completion of the June 2020 Teaching Series from the movement behind the Go Lean book; this is entry 6 of 6. This movement presents a Teaching Series every month on a subject that is germane to Caribbean life. It is accepted that communities also make changes when recovering and rebuilding from a crisis, be it man-made, natural disaster and/or war.

The full catalog for this month’s series is listed as follows:

  1. Rising from the Ashes – The Phoenix rises from the Pandemic
  2. Rising from the Ashes – One person – Dead or Alive – can make a difference
  3. Rising from the Ashes – Natural Disasters – The Price of Paradise
  4. Rising from the Ashes – Political Revolutions – Calling ‘Balls and Strikes’
  5. Rising from the Ashes – War – “What is it good for?”
  6. Rising from the Ashes – Wrong Ethos could also rise – Cautionary tale of patriotic German Jews

There is the urgency to reform and transform. The Go Lean book asserted that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”; it sought to use the outstanding crisis – Coronavirus COVID-19 – to forge permanent change on Caribbean society. But caution is warranted, as many negative Community Ethos can be supplanted. We are looking at how-when to Rise from the Ashes for this and other crises. For this entry, we lament the emergence of many bad attitudes that creep in as a response to our Caribbean communities enduring the consequences of our crises:

  • Climate of Hate
  • Prejudice
  • Xenophobia
  • Blame-Gaming

We have seen this before. In fact, some of the indicators of Failed-State status are evident in situations like this; consider the indicators as reported in the Go Lean book Page 271:

In the Caribbean, we are no different! No better and no worst! When push comes to shove, our people will push and shove. It is therefore of utmost importance that we look, listen and learn from other people in other societies. We must Watch Out for the Wrong Ethos that could easily arise – in an evolutionary manner or suddenly in an revolutionary manner – here as they have arisen in other locales. Our history is littered with incidences of Bad Behavior when “Push came to Shove”.

We have addressed this previously; we have elaborated in full details in many prior Go Lean blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19568 BHAG – Need ‘Big Brother’ to Watch Out for Pandemics
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19409 Coronavirus: ‘Clear and Present’ Threat to Economic Security
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16534 Many suffered from White-Christian-European religious hypocrisy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15935 Learning from the Master: “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14087 Opioids and the FDA – ‘Fox guarding the Henhouse’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11269 Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ – An American Sickness
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11048 Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10532 Learning from Japanese Americans Suffering from Bad Stereotypes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10201 Obama disbanded the Bad Policy of Wet Foot / Dry Foot
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6103 Sum of All Fears – ‘On Guard’ Against Deadly Threats
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002 Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’

Rather than talk of hate or death-dealing, we would rather talk about the positive Community Ethos that we would rather see. We would rather talk about love.

Remember all of these Love Song lyrics:

  1. Learning to love yourself is the Greatest Love of all – https://youtu.be/hRX4ip6PVoo
  2. When I tell my Babe I love her, she said “… I love you back” – See Appendix B below
  3. “The greatest thing You’ll ever learn Is just to love And be loved In return” – See Appendix C below

These songs entertain us and move us. They also remind us how important it is to make sure that we are loved by the people, institutions and homelands that we may love.

This is only common sense, but common sense is not so common.

If you love a community, and they do not love you back, this is the Wrong Ethos.

This commentary and this June 2020 series reminds us of the Cautionary Warning for societies to double-down on good community ethos, not the bad ones. It would be better for us to reform and transform our communities here in the Caribbean homeland than to try and impact a foreign land like the United States. So our urging is simple:

Stay home – But Watch Out for the Wrong Ethos creeping in here.

For those already in the Diaspora, lamenting the sad state of affairs, we urge:

Time to Go! – We can more readily Watch Out for the Wrong Ethos here.

We hereby urge everyone in the Caribbean to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap to reboot and turn-around the Caribbean homeland. Yes, we must “burn down” the old bad ethos and then make permanent changes towards good ethos only, not allowing hate to seep in. This is how we will make the Caribbean a better homeland to live, work and play.  🙂

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

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

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

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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

xii.  Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

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

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

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

————-

Appendix A – Reference Title: Fritz Haber

Fritz Haber (German: [ˈhaːbɐ]; 9 December 1868 – 29 January 1934) was a German[4] chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas. This invention is of importance for the large-scale synthesis of fertilizers and explosives. The food production for half the world’s current population involves this method for producing nitrogen fertilizers.[5] Haber, along with Max Born, proposed the Born–Haber cycle as a method for evaluating the lattice energy of an ionic solid.

Haber is also considered the “father of chemical warfare” for his years of pioneering work developing and weaponizing chlorine and other poisonous gases during World War I, especially his actions during the Second Battle of Ypres. …

World War I
Haber greeted World War I with enthusiasm, joining 92 other German intellectuals in signing the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three in October 1914.[17] Haber played a major role in the development of the non-ballistic use of chemical warfare in World War I, in spite of the proscription of their use in shells by the Hague Convention of 1907 (to which Germany was a signatory). He was promoted to the rank of captain and made head of the Chemistry Section in the Ministry of War soon after the war began.[7]:133 In addition to leading the teams developing chlorine gas and other deadly gases for use in trench warfare,[18] Haber was on hand personally when it was first released by the German military at the Second Battle of Ypres (22 April to 25 May 1915) in Belgium.[7]:138 Haber also helped to develop gas masks with adsorbent filters which could protect against such weapons.

A special troop was formed for gas warfare (Pioneer Regiments 35 and 36) under the command of Otto Peterson, with Haber and Friedrich Kerschbaum as advisors. Haber actively recruited physicists, chemists, and other scientists to be transferred to the unit. Future Nobel laureates James Franck, Gustav Hertz, and Otto Hahn served as gas troops in Haber’s unit.[7]:136–138 In 1914 and 1915, before the Second Battle of Ypres, Haber’s unit investigated reports that the French had deployed Turpenite, a supposed chemical weapon, against German soldiers.[19]

Gas warfare in World War I was, in a sense, the war of the chemists, with Haber pitted against French Nobel laureate chemist Victor Grignard. Regarding war and peace, Haber once said, “during peace time a scientist belongs to the World, but during war time he belongs to his country.” This was an example of the ethical dilemmas facing chemists at that time.[20] …

Between World Wars
… By 1931, Haber was increasingly concerned about the rise of National Socialism in Germany, and the possible safety of his friends, associates, and family. Under the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service of 7 April 1933, Jewish scientists at the Kaiser Wilhelm Society were particularly targeted. …

Haber and his son Hermann also urged that Haber’s children by Charlotte Nathan, at boarding school in Germany, should leave the country.[7]:181 Charlotte and the children moved to the United Kingdom around 1933 or 1934. After the war, Charlotte’s children became British citizens.[7]:188–189

Source: Retrieved June 29, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber

————-

Appendix B VIDEO – Luther Vandross: She Loves Me Back – https://youtu.be/125bcG9vnjs

Luther Vandross
Provided to YouTube by Sony Music Entertainment

She Loves Me Back · Luther Vandross

Album: Forever, For Always, For Love

℗ 1982 Epic Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment

Released on: 1982-09-21

Composer, Lyricist: L. Vandross
Background Vocal, Keyboards: Nat Adderley Jr.
Background Vocal, Bass, Producer: Marcus Miller
Background Vocal: Michelle Cobbs
Background Vocal: Cissy Houston
Background Vocal: Tawatha Agee
Background Vocal: Yvonne Lewis
Background Vocal: Fonzi Thornton
Guitar: Doc Powell
Percussion: Paulinho Da Costa
Drums: Yogi Horton
Auto-generated by YouTube.

————-

Appendix C VIDEO – Nat King Cole – Nature Boy (With Lyrics) – https://youtu.be/HQerH4nRTUA

Lyrics:
There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea
A little shy
And sad of eye
But very wise

Was he
And then one day
A magic day he came my way
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
“The greatest thing
You’ll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return”

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Rise from the Ashes – War: “What is it good for?”

Posted on June 28, 2020 in Ethos, Planning, Social, Tactical

If only you could see what this city looked like before it was bombed in the war; and then compare it to now, the end product of restoring and rebuilding. Which city? It could be:

  • London
  • Berlin
  • Tokyo
  • Hiroshima
  • Saigon ==> Ho Chi Minh City
  • Sarajevo

The list could be extended to include one bombed-out city after another. Fortunately, that list will not include any Caribbean cities. This is fortunate for “no lost of life”, but unfortunate for no post-war restoration-rebuilding. Yes, the imagery of the mythical Phoenix Bird is best applied to a city that was bombed-out and then rebuilt after the war.

Nonetheless, we need that Phoenix Bird here in the Caribbean. We need to restore, rebuild and “rise from the ashes”.

Question: War – what is it good for?

Answer: Rebuilding after the war.

Consider this example of Dresden, Germany.

This is the continuation of the June 2020 Teaching Series from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean; this is entry 5 of 6. This movement presents a Teaching Series every month on a subject that is germane to Caribbean life. There is the accepted fact that it is OK to make changes – reform and transform – in response to any crisis; in fact there is the popular expression “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. Our focus this month is related to the current crisis – think Coronavirus COVID-19. We are looking at how-when to Rise from the Ashes from this and other crises. For this entry, we lament the absence of perhaps one of the greatest motivators for change, War.

The full catalog for this month’s series is listed as follows:

  1. Rising from the Ashes – The Phoenix rises from the Pandemic
  2. Rising from the Ashes – One person – Dead or Alive – can make a difference
  3. Rising from the Ashes – Natural Disasters – The Price of Paradise
  4. Rising from the Ashes – Political Revolutions – Calling ‘Balls and Strikes’
  5. Rising from the Ashes – War – “What is it good for?” – ENCORE
  6. Rising from the Ashes – Wrong Ethos could also rise – Cautionary tale of patriotic German Jews

There are other Agents of Change that we have had to contend with here in the Caribbean. The Go Lean book identified these 4 agents: Technology, Climate Change, Globalization and the Aging Diaspora. These crises – though not as impactful as a war – also allow us to make changes. We have presented this thesis in many other blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19694 Technology Assimilation: E-Learning Eco-system is finally mature
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19669 Technology Assimilation: Work From Home options bring opportunities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19568 BHAG – Need ‘Big Brother’ for Global Pandemics
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19351 Preparing Alternate Energy to abate Climate Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18817 Deficiencies in Food Security have created a Plan for our ‘Bread Basket’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18243 After Hurricane Dorian, Regionalism is no longer optional
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17878 Profiting from the Migration Crisis
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16368 Aging Diaspora – Finding Home … anywhere.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15935 Learning from the Master: “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste”

The crisis of an active war in the region would be earth-shattering here in the Caribbean; there would be good, bad and ugly consequences. The theme of lamenting the absence of war in the Caribbean had been published in a previous Go Lean blog-commentary. It is only apropos to Encore that submission – from July 21, 2019 – here and now:

—————-

Go Lean Commentary – What Went Wrong? ‘We’ never had our war!

War … what is it good for?
Absolutely nothing! – Song: Edwin Starr – Motown 1969; see Appendix below.

Well, not so fast.

This started just as a “catch phrase”, but now it has emerged as a fact in Economic History:

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

So what is war good for? Providing a crisis that can be exploited to reform and transform society.

That’s it; wrap it up; we can now summarize so many changes in world history as they manifested as a result of war. Consider these examples:

War Conflict Take-a-way
Napoleonic Wars | 1803 – 1815
Spanish New World assumed independence from Spain. This was true in North America (Mexico), Central America and South America. But the Caribbean territories did not abdicate from “Mama Espana” at that time.		 Latin America Independence
American Civil War | 1860 – 1865
The New World was premised on Slavery, exploiting the African race as a free labor source in all the Americas. This abhorrent institution would have definitely ended, one way or another. “The arc of history leans towards justice”. After the US Civil War – 625,000 dead White Men – no other wars were necessary in the New World; all Euro-influenced governments whittled slavery into extinction, one way or another.		 Abolition & Emancipation
Great War / World War I 1914 – 1919
This war addressed the boiling point of class-ism in Europe – the Haves versus the Have-Nots – the Nobility System (Dukes, Counts, Bourgeoisie, etc.) did not survive the reconciliation that led to the cessation of conflicts. Communism emerged as a manifestation of the demand for equality.		 Gender Equality; Worker Rights; Egalitarianism
World War II / Cold War | 1939 – 1955
This war was a sequel to WW I; whatever remaining issues that were deferred in the WW I reconciliations were pushed forward for reckoning; think: Colonialism (in Africa, Asia and the Americas), Racial Supremacy, Human Rights assurances.		 Human Rights; Decolonization; Majority Rule / Universal Suffrage
End of Cold War | 1991 – 2016
The return to Nationalism in Europe did not provide governing solutions or the needed multi-racial reconciliations. That bill came due, as demonstrated with the Balkans Conflict (Bosnia, Serbia, etc.). A Migrant Crisis emerged for all States that refused to transform: think Middle East Islamic Fundamentalism, Sovereign Debt Crisis (Greece, etc.), and Brexit.		 Economic Liberalization; Free Trade; Free Movement

In no shape or form are we rationalizing, justifying or excusing war. But, it is what it is!

Where there is conflict – blood on the streets – people tend to finally be motivated to remediate and mitigate the risks and threats for the conflict to ever rekindle. So this premise is true:

It is only at the precipice that people change.

This is why we can declare with such confidence that one of the things that went wrong in the Caribbean, is “we never had our war“. From the foregoing examples, all the reform and transformation that took place from these crises, did NOT benefit the Caribbean as we had “No War” here. (The Cuban Revolution ushered in Communism, but all the stewards of the Cuban people – culture, politics and commerce – simply fled; they left the island to the rebels, so the needed reform on societal values never took place – Cuba is still in “Freeze-Frame” from 1959).

This commentary continues the July series from the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean. This submission, 2-of-6 on the theme “What Went Wrong?” focuses on Caribbean history and why we still have many of the same defects that other societies – think North America and Europe yes, but even India and China – have already remediated. The full catalog:

  1. What Went Wrong? Asking ‘Why’ is Important
  2. What Went Wrong? ‘We’ never had our war!
  3. What Went Wrong? ‘7 to 1’ – Caribbean ‘Less Than’
  4. What Went Wrong? ‘Be our Guest’ – The Rules of Hospitality
  5. What Went Wrong? Failing the Lessons from Infrastructure 101
  6. What Went Wrong? Losing the Best; Nation-building with the Rest

In this series, reference is made to the need for a comprehensive roadmap for elevating the societal engines of the Caribbean member-states. We do not want war! But we want to make the progress that is possible when society reforms and transforms. And we want to do this without a war. The movement behind the Go Lean book asserts that this progress is possible. See how this theme was developed in many previous Go Lean commentaries; see a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16477 Transforming Hindus versus Women – What it means for us?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15580 The Cause of Caribbean Disunity: Religion’s Role – False Friend
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14633 Despite Embedded ‘Bad Nature’, Women Have Nurtured Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14378 Legislating Morality – Yes, We Can
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13063 Gender Equity without a ‘Battle of the Sexes’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13882 Managing ‘Change’ in California – Calm and Smooth Evolutions
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5695 Repenting, Forgiving and Reconciling the Past
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3090 Learning from Modern Europe – Evolution without Revolution

Most of the Caribbean profess the religious affiliation with Christianity. The Founder of the Church, Jesus Christ, taught his followers an important lesson about manifestation versus faith. See here relating the story of Doubting Thomas:

A doubting Thomas is a skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience—a reference to the Apostle Thomas, who refused to believe that the resurrected Jesus had appeared to the ten other apostles, until he could see and feel the wounds received by Jesus on the torture stake.

The Holy Scriptures relates, from the Gospel account of John 20: 24 – 29 NWT:

… 24  But Thomas,+ one of the Twelve, who was called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 25  So the other disciples were telling him: “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them: “Unless I see in his hands the print* of the nails and stick my finger into the print of the nails and stick my hand into his side,+ I will never believe it.”
26  Well, eight days later his disciples were again indoors, and [this time] Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and he stood in their midst and said: “May you have peace.”+ 27  Next he said to Thomas: “Put your finger here, and see my hands, and take your hand and stick it into my side, and stop doubting* but believe.” 28  In answer Thomas said to him: “My Lord and my God!” 29  Jesus said to him: “Because you have seen me, have you believed? Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe. While it is only at the precipice that people change, how much better it would be for Caribbean society to change (reform and transform) without being at the precipice, without enduring the pangs of war. It is the assertion here that despite the heavy-lifting, “we” can succeed in optimizing Caribbean society … without war.

Is this possible? Can we reboot our society? Can we ‘weed out’ the bad ethos – i.e. rent-seeking and domestic violence – in our communities and adopt new more positive ethos? Can we implement the strategies and tactics we need to optimize our society, without first going to the brink of self-destruction?

Yes, we can!

This is the urging of the book Go Lean…Caribbean and the resultant roadmap. We hereby urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this roadmap. Let’s get busy and go to work. This roadmap is conceivable, believe and achievable. We can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

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

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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

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

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

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

————-

Appendix VIDEO – Edwin Starr – War (What is it good for) – https://youtu.be/ztZI2aLQ9Sw

Matze 1987
Published on Aug 4, 2011 – Edwin Star – War

Lyrics:
War…huh…yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Uh ha haa ha
War…huh…yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutley nothing…say it again y’all
War..huh…look out…
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing…listen to me ohhhhh

WAR! I despise, ‘cos it means destruction of innocent lives,
War means tears to thousands of mother’s eyes,
When their sons gone to fight and lose their lives.

I said WAR!…huh…good God y’all,
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing…say it again
War! Huh…What is it good for
Absolutely nothing…listen to me

WAR! It ain’t nothing but a heartbreaker,
War. Friend only to the undertaker. Ohhh!
War is an enemy to all mankind,
The thought of war blows my mind.
War has caused unrest within the younger generation
Induction then destruction…who wants to die? Ohhh

WAR! good God y’all huh
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing…say it say it SAY IT!
WAR!…uh huh yeah huh
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing…listen to me

WAR! It ain’t nothing but a heartbreaker,
War! It’s got one friend that’s the undertaker.
Ohhhh! War has shattered many a young man’s dream,
Made him disabled, bitter and mean,
Life is much too short and precious to spend fighting wars these days.
War can’t give life, it can only take it away!

Ohhh WAR! huh…good God y’all What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing…say it again War!…huh…woh oh oh Lord
What is it good for? Absolutely nothing…listen to me

War! It ain’t nothing but a heartbreaker,
War. Friend only to the undertaker…woo
Peace lovin’ understand then tell me,
Is there no place for them today?
They say we must fight to keep our freedom,
But Lord knows there’s got to be a better way.

Ohhhhhhh WAR! huh…good God y’all…
What is it good for?…you tell me!
Say it say it say it saaaay it!
War! good God now…huh
What is it good for?
Stand up and shout it…NOTHING

Music in this video – Listen ad-free with YouTube Premium

  • Song: War
  • Artist: Edwin Starr
  • Album: Can You Dig It? The 70’s Soul Experience
  • Licensed to YouTube by: UMG (on behalf of Rhino); UMPI, AMRA, CMRRA, Sony ATV Publishing, UNIAO BRASILEIRA DE EDITORAS DE MUSICA – UBEM, SOLAR Music Rights Management, LatinAutor – SonyATV, LatinAutor, EMI Music Publishing, UMPG Publishing, Kobalt Music Publishing, and 13 Music Rights Societies
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Good Leadership: Hypocrisy cancels out Law-and-Order

Posted on May 24, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Implementation, Social

Go Lean Commentary

What is good for the goose is good for the gander. – Ancient Idiom

That is just the standard. Global Standard, that is! It assumes that moral code must be equally applied to all stakeholders. Any violation of this standard is considered hypocrisy, of which the end result is a total disrespect for all standards, rules and/or law-and-order.

For Good Leadership, those at the top must avoid hypocrisy, or hypocritical standards.

This is right, no one should be “above the law”; when there is the manifestation of Bad Actors that operate “above the law” or “without law”, then chaos ensues in society. This is an issue of justice, fairness, mercy and law-and-order. This is the historicity of our regional homeland; remember the Pirates of the Caribbean.

But no one is perfect, right?
Shouldn’t everyone be excused and tolerated even if they commit a misdeed every now and then?

While this is a popular notion – introducing a balance between justice and mercy – this is still a flawed philosophy, as many times the practice of justice and mercy is wielded unevenly. There appears to be a different standard at play: one of pluses and minuses; counting good acts versus evil acts, then taking the average.

This is familiar in the European rationalization. In my school days, there was a system of “Merits and Demerits”:

A point system for benevolent and malevolent behaviors.
Pros and Cons
Advantages and Disadvantages

It’s a flawed concept; it assumes that you will be acceptable, despite your shortcomings, if you only perform some good works … every now and then.

To anyone in leadership and contemplating leadership, I entreat you to flee from this flawed philosophy. This belies the actuality and reality of hypocrisy.

Yes indeed, there are certain demerits that cancels out any meritorious deeds a person may commit. Think murder, rape, child/elder abuse. For the New World, the Slave Trade was more than just a demerit; it was so morally indefensible, that hypocrisy – of the European colonizers – could not be excused, justified, rationalized or minimized.

In fact, go back in ancient history and think of the conduct – atrocities, lawlessness, debauchery, murder, naval hijackings, etc. – of the Pirates of the Caribbean and their actions during the eco-systems during Slave Trade. (Also, consider the very recent examples of the Sheriff eco-system for law-and-order in the United States). There is no doubt as to the historicity of these actors; where there is doubt, it is related to the lessons of the prevailing hypocrisy by the orthodox institutions.

This is the continuation of a Teaching Series on Good Leadership from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean; this is entry 4 of 6, which details the lessons-learned from the hypocrisy of orthodox institutions on the demand of the public to abide by law-and-order; they simply do not! The full catalog for this month’s series is listed as follows:

  1. Good Leadership – Inaction could be deadly
  2. Good Leadership – Caring builds trust; trust builds caring
  3. Good Leadership – Agile: Next Generation of leadership and project delivery
  4. Good Leadership – Hypocrisy cancels out Law-and-Order
  5. Good Leadership – Example – “Leader of the Free World”?
  6. Good Leadership – Example – For mitigating crime

The days of the Pirates of the Caribbean provides a glimpse for today’s pandemic crisis; the blatant hypocrisy of the times made societal progress difficult. There are no Ands, Ifs or Buts; today, we need Good Leadership – among our political, corporate, religious and civic stakeholders – to survive and thrive as a society. We need to heed, adhere and comply with Good Leadership; we do not need blatant examples of hypocrisy cancelling out the Law-and-Order principles. We needed this hypocrisy-free climate before this COVID-19 pandemic; we need it now in the throes of this crisis – think quarantines, stay-at-home orders, wear masks orders, and isolation orders – and we will need it afterwards.

The theme of the atrocities of the Pirates of the Caribbean thriving amongst the hypocrisy of the colonial orthodoxy- the civilized world – has been accurately depicted in the 2014 premium cable television series called Black Sails; (4 seasons of 38 episodes). Though fictional, the characters portrayed in this drama are loosely based on many historical characters; this is Art imitating Life; Life imitating Art. Consider the actuality of historical characters that were serialized:

A new pirate adventure coming to Starz from Michael Bay in 2014 centers on the tales of Captain Flint and his men, and takes place twenty years prior to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic “Treasure Island.”

Characters: Captain Flint, Long John Silver, William “Blackbeard” Teach, Anne Bonny, Governor Woodes Rogers, William “Billy” Bones.

See this First Trailer of: https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2814748185?playlistId=tt2375692

Wikipedia Summary: Set roughly two decades before the events of Treasure Island, the 2014 televised series Black Sails follows the adventures of Captain Flint and his pirate crew. His first name is given as James in the episode “VI.” Episodes “IX” and “XIII” further reveal that he is a disgraced former Royal Navy lieutenant named James McGraw, dismissed from the service for falling in love and having an affair with Lord Thomas Hamilton. He was exiled from England with Thomas’ wife, Miranda Barlow, who has subsequently since hidden herself as a lowly Puritan lady on the trading island of Nassau. Lord Thomas Hamilton was the son of Lord Alfred Hamilton, lord proprietor of the Bahama Islands. McGraw adopted the name “Flint” after a mysterious man who boarded his grandfather’s ship while at anchor and then disappeared. He is portrayed by Toby Stephens.

The historicity of the Pirates of the Caribbean is really stark in considering its impact on Caribbean society’s moral code, even down to this day. In a previous submission from the movement behind the Go Lean book, this summary was presented:

The distinction between a privateer and a pirate has always been vague beyond the licensing Letters of Marque. Without the letters, the parties were considered pirates; of which many frequented the Caribbean region. This industry employed many unemployed seafarers as a way to make ends meet, but became increasingly damaging to the region’s economic and commercial prospects.

Licensed (Privateers) versus unlicensed (Pirates) exhibited the same practices, same conduct, same capital offenses and the same value systems, the only difference: one was considered legitimate while the other was illegitimate. This morality – or lack there of – was based on a piece of paper from the established orthodoxy. This was pure and blatant hypocrisy!

No wonder many privateers and pirates alike abandoned adherence to the orthodox moral code of their day. This is proof that any lack of moral authority – clear standards on right versus wrong – does not bode well for Good Leadership. Unequal Justice emerges and thrives in this climate. The Caribbean was doomed … with this Bad Community Ethos; (Community Ethos = the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period).

Also, consider this sample of other previous commentaries related to the eco-system of piracy, independently and correlated to the dread of hypocrisy. These experiences are noted in regards to Caribbean society and other communities. See the sample list here::

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18337 Title: Unequal Justice: Bullying Magnified to Disrupt Commerce
Analogies abound … as to why it is important to “nip bullying in the bud”. If we do nothing – or not enough – then conditions of Unequal Justice go from “bad to worse”. The bad actor can emerge from terrorizing a family, to a neighborhood, to a community, to a nation, to a region, to a hemisphere, to the whole world. Think: Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Soviet Russia, British Empire, Napoleonic France, Spanish Inquisition, and more …
Unchecked, bad actors in the community become tyrants – they can even affect the local economic engine.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18321 Title: Unequal Justice: Sheriffs and the need for ‘soft’ Tyrannicide
The need for justice can never be undermined, undervalued or questioned.People will abandon everything else – culture, family, home and comforts – in pursuit of justice, for themselves or their children. …
The reality of southern rural life for African Americans was that justice was impeded by one institution, often one character: the County Sheriff.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18100 Title: 400 Years of Slavery – Cop-on-Black Shootings in America’s DNA
Slavery was clearly an oppression, suppression and repression of the African race on American soil. This was true in the Year 1619 … and unfortunately; there is still some truth to this assessment in 2019, 400 years later. …
There is no slavery in America today; yet there is still some racial oppression-suppression-and-repression, especially evident in the dynamic of Cop-on-Black Shootings.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16104 Title: Guy Fawkes – A Lesson in History
Appendix B: Is Guy Fawkes Day relevant to Jamaica?
The Treaty of Madrid obliged Britain to control piracy, and this led to the imprisonment of pirate captain Henry Morgan who was shipped by boat to the Tower of London. But only Morgan could control the pirates, and so King Charles II made him governor of Jamaica to do that. Morgan controlled piracy by selling land cheaply to the pirates and they became the aristocracy. This meant that the ex-pirates became owners of slaves and masters of corruption and criminality that affects many Jamaicans to this day.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13746 Title: Failure to Launch – Security: Caribbean Basin Security Dreams
The Caribbean region has an eclectic history when it comes to security, think the bad actors of the Pirates of the Caribbean. Yet, those Pirates have since all been extinguished, thanks to a multilateral effort among European (and now American) imperial powers. Credit goes to the British, French and the Dutch military/naval powers of the past.
That was a BIG accomplishment in terms of regional security. Can we get that again? Can these championing national powers – and their descendants – come together and provide a modern day shield so as to project Caribbean homeland security anew?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=673 Title: Ghost ships – Autonomous cargo vessels without a crew
In many ways automating a ship should be a lot easier than automating aircraft, Mr. Levander believes. For a start, if something did go wrong, instead of falling out of the sky a drone ship could be set by default to cut its engines and drop anchor without harming anyone. As for piracy, with no crew to be taken hostage it would be much easier for the armed forces to intervene. Of course, more modern pirates might try to hack their way into the controls of an autonomous ship to take command. Which is why encrypted data communication is high on the maritime industry’s list of things to do before ghostly vessels ply the trade routes.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=546 Title: Book Review- ‘The Divide’- Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap

The United States … seems to [have] a Great Divide in justice, one set of standards for the rich, another set for the poor.

The grass is not greener on that (American) side!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=341 Title: Hypocritical US slams Caribbean human rights practices
The United States [is] meddling/voicing opinions about issues in other countries, while they themselves have less than a stellar human rights record on this subject. Consider that the State Department’s report many times cited prison conditions in the Caribbean states. This is classic “pot calling kettle black” – the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world[a]. What’s worse is the fact that 60% of the US prison population is Black or Hispanic; even though non-whites only committed 30.7% of the crimes. Obviously justice in the US is dependent on the access to money. Where is the Human Rights outcries there?!

In a previous entry of this 6-part series for May 2020 – Good Leadership #2: Caring builds trust; trust builds caring – it was stressed how important “Trust” is:

Trust is very important for forging Good Leadership. Subjects must feel that they can trust their leaders, that the leaders care and would only have their best interest at heart. So actions of caring and trust are inter-related.

Trust is definitely the opposite of hypocrisy.

As we measure against this proven formula for Good Leadership we see that many of the flaws in the Caribbean past were due to a hypocritical foundation that only made bad times worse. There was no way to look at the institution of slavery and see any good that could come from it – merits and demerits be damned. Then the situation worsened with the Pirates of the Caribbean attempting to exploit the economic gains for themselves.

The “buck stopped with the colonial leaders”. Who were they?

The English colonial organization structures were based on the system of “Lords Proprietors” – see Appendices below. The flaws and frailties of Nassau, Bahamas were dramatized in the premium TV series Black Sails – see the VIDEO Trailer here:

VIDEO – Black Sails | Official Trailer | STARZ – https://youtu.be/rT2Y5jjBNpQ

STARZ
Posted August 11, 2014 – The Golden Age of Piracy. New Providence is a lawless island, controlled by history’s most notorious pirate captains. The most feared – CAPTAIN FLINT.

Watch Black Sails now on the STARZ app: http://starz.tv/WatchSTARZYT

Subscribe now for more Black Sails clips: http://bit.ly/1kalhP0

Like Black Sails on Facebook: http://bit.ly/BlackSailsFacebookYT

Follow Black Sails on Twitter: http://starz.tv/BlackSailsTwitterYT

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  1. The Golden Age of Piracy. New Providence Island [(Nassau)] is lawless territory, controlled by notorious pirate captains. The most feared—Captain Flint. Driven by ulterior motives, Flint hunts the ultimate prize. But first he must overcome rival captains, the local smuggling kingpin, and a young sailor new to his crew—John Silver.

Like STARZ on Facebook: http://starz.tv/STARZFacebookYT
Follow STARZ on Twitter: http://starz.tv/STARZTwitterYT
Follow STARZ on Instagram: http://starz.tv/STARZInstagramYT 

A lot of this drama was set in Nassau, but Jamaica – think Port Royal – also proliferated with pirates. So there are lessons from this drama for us here in the full Caribbean. These lessons apply right up to this moment in our handling of today’s crises; think Coronavirus-COVID-19. Is there blatant hypocrisies today? Are we mandating one sets of rules for one group of people while ignoring those rules for others – think Black versus White, think rich versus poor, urban versus rural, tourists versus natives, etc..

In summary, the good and bad experiences of Caribbean leadership over the centuries are well documented. We see that the mandate for Good Leadership is uncompromising. We must strive for this at all times, otherwise subjects defy the laws of their leaders. (Many condemned Pirates of the Caribbean were belligerent and cursing the powers-that-be right up to their last words before execution). Bad people feel justified for their bad actions against good people because of the unreconciled hypocrisy. No doubt, we must dissuade organizational hypocrisy, institutional oppression and tolerated discrimination.

Yes, elevating Caribbean society means elevating the Caribbean character; we must start with the man in the mirror.

We hereby urge all Caribbean stakeholders – leaders and followers – to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap. This is how we will make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

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

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

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

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

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

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

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

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

—————–

Appendix A – Lord Proprietor

A lord proprietor is a person granted a royal charter for the establishment and government of an English colony in the 17th century. The plural of the term is “lords proprietors” or “lords proprietary”.

Origin
In the beginning of the European colonial era, trade companies such as the East India Company were the most common method used to settle new land.[1] This changed following Maryland’s Royal Grant in 1632, when King Charles I  granted George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore proprietary rights to an area east of the Potomac River in exchange for a share of the income derived there.[2][3] Going forward, proprietary colonies became the most common way to settle areas with British subjects. The land was licensed or granted to a proprietor who held expanse power. These powers were commonly written into the land charters by using the “Bishop Durham clause” which recreated the powers and responsibilities once given to the County Palatine of Durham in England.[4][2] Through this clause, the lord proprietor was given the power to create courts and laws, establish governing bodies and churches, and appoint all governing officials.[2]

Governance of proprietary colonies
Each proprietary colony had a unique system of governance reflecting the geographic challenges of the area as well as the personality of the lord proprietor. The colonies of Maryland and New York, based on English law and administration practices, were run effectively. However, other colonies such as Carolina were mismanaged.[5] The colonies of West and East Jersey as well as Pennsylvania were distinct in their diversion from the traditional monarchial system that ruled most colonies of the time.[5] This was due to the large number of Quakers in these areas who shared many views with the lords proprietary.[5]

Effective governance of proprietary colonies relied on the appointment of a governor. The lord proprietor made the governor the head of the province’s military, judicial, and administrative functions. This was typically conducted using a commission established by the lord proprietor. The lord proprietor typically instructed the governor what to do.[6] Only through these instructions could legislation be made.[5]

…

Source: Retrieved May 23, 2020 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_proprietor.

—————–

Appendix B – Bahama Islands History; Arrival of the English

…
In 1670, King Charles II granted the islands to the Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas in North America. They rented the islands from the king with rights of trading, tax, appointing governors, and administering the country from their base on New Providence.[22][17] Piracy and attacks from hostile foreign powers were a constant threat. In 1684, Spanish corsair Juan de Alcon raided the capital Charles Town (later renamed Nassau),[23] and in 1703, a joint Franco-Spanish expedition briefly occupied Nassau during the War of the Spanish Succession.[24][25]

Appendix B – Bahama Islands History; Arrival of the English

…
In 1670, King Charles II granted the islands to the Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas in North America. They rented the islands from the king with rights of trading, tax, appointing governors, and administering the country from their base on New Providence.[22][17] Piracy and attacks from hostile foreign powers were a constant threat. In 1684, Spanish corsair Juan de Alcon raided the capital Charles Town (later renamed Nassau),[23] and in 1703, a joint Franco-Spanish expedition briefly occupied Nassau during the War of the Spanish Succession.[24][25]
18th century
During proprietary rule, The Bahamas became a haven for pirates, including Blackbeard (circa 1680–1718).[26] To put an end to the ‘Pirates’ republic‘ and restore orderly government, Great Britain made The Bahamas a crown colony in 1718 under the royal governorship of Woodes Rogers.[17] After a difficult struggle, he succeeded in suppressing piracy.[27]

Source: Retrieved May 23, 2020 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bahamas#Arrival_of_the_English

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BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) Actuality

Posted on March 12, 2020 in Planning, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

There are times when your leaders need to go BIG, projecting hope, assurance and confidence. History is littered with such examples, think of these prominent ones (in chronological order):

  • Abraham Lincoln – Gettysburg Address
    1863: One of the greatest and most influential statements on American national purpose; despite the Civil War, there is “hope that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.
  • Winston Churchill – Identifying the Nazi’s ‘Dark Cloud over the Continent’
    1940: In preparation, Churchill marshalled the nation (United Kingdom) for war: “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour‘”.[422]
  • Franklin D Roosevelt – Pearl Harbor Attack Response
    1941: A positive statement – of ‘A Day that will live in infamy’ – on behalf of the entire American people in the face of a great collective trauma. “In proclaiming the indelibility of the attack, and expressing outrage at its “dastardly” nature, the speech worked to crystallize and channel the response of the nation into a collective response and resolve”.[9]
  • John F Kennedy – Announcing the Moonshot
    1961: President Kennedy announced his support for the American Space program’s “Apollo” missions and redefined the ultimate goal of the Space Race in an address to a special joint session of Congress: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth”. His justification for the Moonshot was both that it was vital to national security and that it would focus the nation’s energies in other scientific and social fields.
  • Ronald Reagan – Soviet’s Evil Empire
    1983: Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” and as “the focus of evil in the modern world”. He explicitly rejected the notion that the United States and the Soviet Union were equally responsible for the ongoing nuclear arms race between the two nations; rather, he asserted that the conflict was a battle between good and evil.
  • George H Bush – Declaring a New World Order
    1990: President Bush’s speech presented the notion of world governance in a sense of new collective efforts to address worldwide problems that go beyond the capacity of individual nation-states to solve. After the end of the Cold War, he assured the nation (and the world) of the new unipolar status of the US; his vision was realistic in saying that “there is no substitute for American leadership”.[1] The Gulf War of 1991 was regarded as the first test of the new world order: “Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order”.[2][3]
  • George W Bush – Post 9-11 Response
    2001: President G.W. Bush prepared the nation for a different kind of war, one with sustained battle against terrorist groups responsible for the 9/11 attacks on America. The President cast the terrorists as “evil” and awakened the country to their danger and the need to defend freedom. “Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.
  • Barack Obama – Election Day Victory Speech – Yes, We Can
    2008: “Because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America. … The road ahead will be long, our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year, or even in one term—but America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.”[1] … “To all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope”.

Yes, the need to project hope is a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG); a leader has to transform despair to promise, darkness to light and pessimism to optimism.

This need is heighten right now today! Last night, the current President of the US (POTUS), Donald J. Trump, gave an Oval Office speech on the catastrophic imminence of the Coronavirus – COVID-I9. The consequence of the speech: “Rather than hope today, the people feel despair”. See this summary, from The Atlantic Magazine here:

There was one something in the speech: a ban on travel from Europe, but not the United Kingdom. It’s a classic Trump formulation. It seeks to protect America by erecting a wall against the world, without thinking very hard how or whether the wall can work. The disease is already here. … The travel ban is an act of panic. Financial futures began crashing even as Trump was talking, perhaps shocked by his lack of an economic plan, perhaps aghast at his latest attack on world trade.

The next day, today (March 12, 2020), the Stock Market or the New York Stock Exchange, had to be halted within minutes after the start of the trading day, a “pressure-release” valve to prevent drastic selling, had been triggered. – Consider this New York Post source:

The S&P 500 plunged 7 percent within minutes of the opening bell, triggering a New York Stock Exchange circuit-breaker that was last tripped on Monday. The drop put the index into bear market territory: It stopped trading at 2,549.05 points, down 24.8 percent from the 52-week high reached last month.

After trading was lifted 15 minutes later, the S&P 500 plunged even further — as much as 8.4 percent to an new intraday low of 2,508.93. … (See this actuality in the Appendix VIDEO).

This transcript on POTUS Donald Trump’s impact is in direct contrast to the transcript of POTUS Barack Obama. Plus, one president presented policies more conducive to the Caribbean compared to the other one. Which one?

Obama.

Why the parallel? Considering that 29 of the 30 Caribbean member-states possess a majority Black population, Obama is a Black Man who won the presidency of the US, despite the deficient racial history and actuality of  that country.

In fact, the historicity of Obama, when he was only a US Senator, was started as a “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” – he published a pre-campaign book, a best-seller, with a similar title; (“audacity” is the noun for the adjective “audacious”):

Title: The Audacity of Hope : Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (2006)

Amazon Review: The Audacity of Hope is Barack Obama’s call for a new kind of politics—a politics that builds upon those shared understandings that pull us together as Americans. Lucid in his vision of America’s place in the world, refreshingly candid about his family life and his time in the Senate, Obama here sets out his political convictions and inspires us to trust in the dogged optimism that has long defined us and that is our best hope going forward. Source: Retrieved March 12, 2020 from: https://www.amazon.com/Audacity-Hope-Thoughts-Reclaiming-American/dp/0307455874

Reader Review By: Thriftbooks.com User:
I read this book out of pure curiosity. It was written in 2006. I am an octogenarian and a registered Independent. What impressed me was that it was written by the author and not a “ghost.” He expresses himself very well. The portions dealing with his background while growing up were fascinating. His grasp of what the general public can do to unite this country is quite provocative. I have listened to many politicians who impressed me negatively with subjects of hate and one liners. It is my concept that this man is a healer and a deep thinker. What’s more he is able to think on his feet. Most of the politicians I have heard all my life were so dependent upon a tele-prompter that I found them, to say the least, boring. This man excites this old man as never before. I applaud his writings. I recommend this book to any thinking person who wants to know this man a little more personally. Source: Posted October 20, 2008; retrieved March 12, 2020 from: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-audacity-of-hope-thoughts-on-reclaiming-the-american-dream_barack-obama/246072/item/545627/#isbn=0307237702&idiq=6376425


The foregoing refer to historic and current characters of the United States and the United Kingdom; though we have a lot of Caribbean Diaspora in those countries, the drama of their BHAG is all their drama. We can look, listen and learn from their experiences but it is not our actuality to embrace.

But can’t we have goals right here – in the Caribbean and for the Caribbean? Do we have our own aspirational goals?

Big Goals?
Big Hairy, Audacious Goals?

Yes, we can. Yes, we do!

Every month, the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean present a Teaching Series on a subject germane to Caribbean life. For this March 2020, our focus is on the Big Hairy Audacious Goals for the Caribbean. This is entry 1-of-6 for this series, which details that there are BHAG’s for the Caribbean, as a whole region, and the individual member-states. The world BHAG was not used in the 2013 book, rather there was a Chapter with a similar theme: “Big Ideas”. There is an actual advocacy for this purpose in the Go Lean book; see here some of the specific plans, excerpts and headlines from Page 127, entitled:

10 Big Ideas … in the Caribbean Region

1 Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market Confederation Treaty: Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU)
The CU is a big idea for the Caribbean, our parallel of the American “moon quest”, allowing for the unification of the region into one market of 42 million people. This creates the world’s 29th largest economy, based on 2010 figures. The pre-ascension GDP figures are actually less than $800 Billion, but the aggregation into a single market will manifest the economic “catch-up” principle [180], in 5 years. Further, after 10 years the CU’s GDP should double and rank among the Top 20 or G20 nations.
2 Currency Union / Single Currency
3 Defense / Homeland Security Pact
The political reality is that the economics of the region is tied to the security of the region, This treaty teams-up to implement anti-crime, anti-terrorism measures, both proactive and reactionary, to insure the economic engines. This will be in supplement with the US Defense initiatives but our role will increase while the US role decreases, we must assume the security needs for our own commerce.
4 Confederation Without Sovereignty
5 Four Languages in Unison
6 Self-Governing Entities (SGE)
7 Virtual “Turnpike” Operations
Ferries, Causeways/Bridges, Pipelines, Tunnels, Railways and limited access highways will function as “blood vessels to connect all the organs” within the region, thus allowing easier transport of goods and people among the islands and the mainland states (Belize, Guyana or Suriname) – See Appendix IC (Page 280) Alaska Marine Highway.
8 Cyber Caribbean
9 e-Learning – Versus – Studying Abroad
The Caribbean has tried the Study Abroad model, the result: a “brain drain” where our best students leave and may never return for residence, employment or investments, (only family visits). The new approach is to keep the talent here in the Caribbean, educate them here and notice the positive efforts on societal institutions.
10 Cuba & Haiti
Cuba has suffered under the US Trade Embargo for 50-plus years. Now the paradigm shift is that the CU will trade with the rest of the world on behalf of Cuba. The CU will be a reboot for Cuba. Haiti is the poorest nation in the hemisphere. But what they have is impassioned human capital as opposed to financial capital or valuable minerals. The CU is an economic reboot for this country, one that involves developing internally and not thru emigration. The economic principle is “every year of education raises a country’s GDP”. Haiti will exploit the opportunities of the rest of the Caribbean by employing “leap-frog” methodologies; there is no need for gradual advances, rather just jump to where technological infrastructure is moving to, not coming from.

These 10 Big Ideas is just the introduction on our discussion on BHAG’s. The other entries in this month’s series are cataloged as follows:

  1. BHAG – The Audacity of Hope – Yes, we can!
  2. BHAG – Regional Currency – In God We Trust
  3. BHAG – Infrastructure Spending … finally funding Toll Roads
  4. BHAG – One Voice – Foreign Policy and Diplomatic Stance
  5. BHAG – Outreach to the World – Why Not a Profit Center
  6. BHAG – Netflix, Hulu, CBS, Peacock ==> Caribbean Media

The points of BIG Hairy Audacious technocratic projects and initiatives have been further elaborated upon in these previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19347 Missing Solar (Panel) Systems – One Caribbean Country Goes Green … finally
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19097 Forging Big Changes – Public-Private Partnerships
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18831 Food Security – Opportunity: Supplies Beef for Cruise Lines
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18301 After Hurricane Dorian, Rebuilding Partners: China Versus America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17358 Marshall Plans: Past and Future Strategy for Big Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17337 Industrial Reboot – Big Amusement Parks
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15346 Industrial Reboot – Shipbuilding … for Big Cruise Ships
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15331 Industrial Reboot – Introducing Auto-making to the Region
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15075 e-Government 3.0 – This is how to do ‘More’ with ‘Less’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8590 Build It and They Will Come – Politics of Infrastructure

This is how change is forged; first it starts as a vision, a goal. We must plan the plan; then work the plan; then … after a lot of heavy-lifting, the vision is materialized. This is how we make our homeland a better place to live, work and play.  🙂

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

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

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

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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

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

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

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

——————-

Appendix VIDEO – Stock trading halted as markets plunge after Trump’s coronavirus travel ban – https://nypost.com/2020/03/12/stock-trading-halted-as-markets-plunge-after-trumps-coronavirus-travel-ban/

Big Think
Posted March 12, 2020 – US stocks fell fast enough Thursday to halt trading for the second time in a week after President Trump’s efforts to address the coronavirus outbreak further panicked global markets instead of relieving them.

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RIP Katherine Johnson – STEM Forerunner & Rocket Scientist – Encore

Posted on February 24, 2020 in Ethos, Social

The world is mourning the passing of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) Forerunner & Rocket Scientist Katherine Johnson (1918 – 2020).

She died today at the ripe old age of 101. See this news headlines and excerpt here:

Title: Katherine Johnson, groundbreaking NASA mathematician depicted in ‘Hidden Figures,’ dies at 101
Katherine Johnson, a NASA mathematician and trailblazer for racial justice who is one of the space agency’s most inspirational leaders, has died. She was 101.

Johnson died Monday of natural causes at a retirement community in Newport News, Va., family attorney Donyale Y. H. Reavis told The Associated Press.
…
See the full article here: https://www.foxnews.com/science/katherine-johnson-nasa-mathematician-hidden-figures-dies

We have detailed her life before, in a previous blog-commentary in planning for her 98th birthday in 2016. There was a movie too! A wonderful feature film starring famed African-American actress Teraji P. Henson. See that previous original blog-commentary that was published on August 16, 2016, here-now:

=================

** August 26, 2016 **

This day is the 98th birthday for “Katherine Johnson”.

CU Blog - 'Hidden Figures' - Art Imitating Life - Photo 2

Who is Katherine Johnson? And why is she important in the discussion of Caribbean empowerment?

Katherine Johnson (1918 – ) was a rocket scientist, physicist, and mathematician before there were rocket scientists. Why is this important? It is as 19th century Essayist Oscar Wilde dubbed it:

“Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”.

The focus here is on the “Art imitating Life”; no, even further than “art” is the “science”. The “art” in this case is the movie “Hidden Figures”. The “science” is the mathematics associated with rockets and trajectory: Rocket Science.

The movie HIDDEN FIGURES is the incredible untold story of Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe)—brilliant African-American women working at NASA, who served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit, a stunning achievement that restored the nation’s confidence, turned around the Space Race, and galvanized the world. The visionary trio crossed all gender and race lines to inspire generations to dream big. – 20 Century Fox Studio

This is the power associated with film. It’s an art that can promote a science. This is in harmony with a previous blog/commentary – by the Go Lean … Caribbean movement – 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”.

The untold story of Katherine Johnson is not so “unfamiliar” to the African-American experience. There has been millions of similar tales, where those with genius-qualifying abilities had to languish in a world where they were considered “less than“. (See the Appendix VIDEO below).

Oh, how wrong that world was!

Today, we tell the tale of Katherine Johnson. We celebrate her for her accomplishments and inspiration she provides to future generations of scientists, mathematicians, African-descendents and women. She is the definition of “Shero”; she is all of that! See how this is portrayed in the new film here, opening in January 2017:

VIDEO: Movie Trailer ‘Hidden Figures’ – https://youtu.be/RK8xHq6dfAo

Published on August 14, 2016 – Watch the new trailer for [the movie] #HiddenFigures, based on the incredible untold true story. Starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer & Janelle Monáe. In theaters this January [2017].

Why is this discussion of Katherine Johnson important in the discussion of Caribbean empowerment?

R_1980-L-00022 001This is a story of one person making a difference! Her accomplishments required a resolve, determination and conviction to not buckle under the acute pressure to maintain the status quo. Her efforts and life’s pursuits helped to forge change in her homeland for her and all others that followed. The book Go Lean … Caribbean identified subjects like this as advocates; relating that their successful completion of their advocacy tend to benefit more than just them but the whole world (Page 122).

The story of Katherine Johnson is now being told as a movie. Movies can be effective for the goal of displaying a better view of people … and the community failings they have had to overcome. Previous Go Lean commentaries presented details of other movies that had the potential of reflecting and effecting change in society. See this sample here:

‘Concussion’ – The Movie; The Cause
Lesson from ‘Star Wars’ – ‘Heroes can return’
The Movie ‘Good Hair’ and the Strong Black Woman
Movie ‘Tomorrowland’ – Feed the Right Wolf
Documentary Movie: ‘Merchants of Doubt’ – Scary Proposition
Movie Lesson: ‘Only at the precipice, do they change’

The heroism of Katherine Johnson is against the backdrop of America’s segregation past. There is no way to justify America’s days of racial separation and oppression. Good riddance!

Surely, today our communities reflect a more inclusive environment. Surely?

Unfortunately, no!

America, still, and the Caribbean more, is plagued with a “climate of hate” in too many places. Far too often, in our own backyards, a class of people is oppressed, repressed and suppressed just because …

… the reasons do not even matter. It is just plain wrong and unwise and unproductive for our mission to retain our local geniuses.

Our community needs all hands on deck, with everybody contributing: all races, all genders, all ages, all classes of people. This point has also been conveyed in previous Go Lean commentaries; consider this sample here:

Respect for Minorities: Climate of Hate
Gender Equality Referendum Outcome: Impact on the ‘Brain Drain’
The Plea for Women in Politics
A Lesson in Civil War History – Compromising Human Rights
Socio-Economic Change: The Demographic Theory of Elderly Suicide
LGBT & Buggery in Jamaica – ‘Say It Ain’t So’!
The ‘Luck of the Irish’ – Past, Present and Future Lessons
10 Things We Don’t Want from the US: #7 Discrimination of Immigrants

The book Go Lean…Caribbean (and subsequent blog/commentaries) relates that we must do better than the American history. We have a problem now with societal abandonment for “push and pull” reasons. In order to encourage people to stay home and impact their homeland, we need to protect and promote those with genius qualifiers. There is a lot at stake.

This Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). Fostering genius is very important to this movement. The book states (Page 27):

The CU assumes a mission of working with educational and youth agencies to identify and foster “genius” in our society, as early as possible. Geniuses are different from everyone else, although they maybe fairly easy to spot, defining exactly what makes one person a genius is a little trickier. Some researchers & theorists argue that the concept of genius is too limiting and doesn’t really give a full view of intelligence; they feel that intelligence is a combination of many factors; thereby concluding that genius can be found in many different  abilities and endeavors. The CU posits that any one person can make a difference and positively impact their society; so the community ethos of investment in this specially identified group, geniuses, would always be a worthwhile endeavor.

Fostering STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers is integral to the Go Lean/CU roadmap. The goal is to identify students early with high aptitude in STEM areas, then develop them through academies and science fairs. The CU will even fund free tuition for these ones at local colleges/universities or forgive-able loans for those wishing to matriculate abroad. This is a matter of community ethos, defined as in the book as the fundamental spirit of a culture that drives the beliefs, customs and practices of a society. The book refers to this spirit motivating our Focus on the Future. This spirit would be embedded in every aspect of the Go Lean/CU roadmap. See here how the prime directives reflects this:

  • Optimization the economic engines of the Caribbean to elevate the regional economy to grow to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new (direct & indirect) jobs, including STEM-related industries with a projection of 40,000 Research & Development direct jobs and 20,000 Technology direct jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the people and economic engines.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these economic and security engines.

The Go Lean roadmap provides turn-by-turn directions on how to reform Caribbean STEM education initiatives – also the economic and governance aspects as a whole. The roadmap opens with a Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing the approach of regional integration (Page 13 & 14) as a viable solution to elevate the region’s educational opportunities:

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 …

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.

xxvii. Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

The Go Lean book envisions the CU – a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean chartered to do the heavy-lifting of empowering and elevating the Caribbean economy. The mission is to mitigate further brain drain of Caribbean citizens with STEM abilities.  The book details the economic principles and community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize STEM initiatives in the Caribbean region:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier – Indirect Jobs from Direct Ones Page 22
Community Ethos – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation Page 23
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future – Foster a Future Focus Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius – For STEM & other fields Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship Page 28
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Close the Digital Divide Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Anecdote – Valedictorian and Caribbean Diaspora Member Page 38
Strategy – Customers – Citizens, Business Community & Diaspora Page 47
Strategy – Meeting Region’s Needs Today, Preparing For Future Page 58
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Patent, Standards, & Copyrights Page 78
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Education Department Page 85
Implementation – Assemble all Super-Regional Governing Entities Page 96
Implementation – Trends in Implementing Data Centers Page 106
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Implementation – Better Manage Debt – Better Student Loans Dynamics Page 114
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade Page 128
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Student Loans – Forgivable Provisions Page 160
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Empowering Immigration – STEM Professionals Page 174
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora Page 217

Katherine Johnson Receives Presidential Medal of FreedomThe Go Lean movement celebrates Katherine Johnson today as a role model in STEM. (Though she is an African-American with no Caribbean connection). She is recognized worldwide – just wait until the movie is released – as a woman of accomplishment – in 2015 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom:

“So if you think your job is pressure-packed, hers meant that forgetting to carry the one might send somebody floating off into the solar system.” – US President Barack Obama said in honoring Katherine Johnson on November 24, 2015.

This day – August 26 – is also Women’s Equality Day – commemorating women being granted the right to vote in the US on August 26, 1920.

So we celebrate all women that strive to achieve; there are those that do a lot; there are also women that choose to do little, or nothing. We celebrate them too. That is their equal right!

Yes, we can all do better than the past experiences from our communities. The Caribbean can be better!

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, women and men, to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This roadmap will result in more positive socio-economic changes throughout the region; it will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

——-

Appendix VIDEO: Celebrating Katherine Johnson’s Great Mind – Human Computer – https://youtu.be/Bdr9QBRcPEk

Published on Sep 1, 2015 – In the early days of spaceflight, if NASA needed to plot a rocket’s path or confirm a computer’s calculations, they knew who to ask: Katherine Johnson.

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Forging Change – Labor’s Cautionary Tale

Posted on January 31, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Forging Change by doubling-down on the Labor Movement – that sounds so 1930’s, 1940’s, 1950’s or maybe even 1960’s. This cannot be how the stewards of the Caribbean plan to Forge Change in 2020’s.

Those times – 50 years ago and beyond – have past; now we must be concerned with Best Practices. The full history of the Labor Movement gives us lessons in the Art and Science of Forging Change … and also the Cautionary Tale of the backlash of Going too Far, Too Fast.

Yet still, there have been many social revolutions that have spurned from Labor Movements, around the world and here in the Caribbean. This has always been a model for Forging Change. In fact, the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean highlighted how the Labor Movement Forged Change in 2009 in the French Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. See the highlights from the book here (Page 17):

In January/February 2009, an umbrella group of approximately fifty labor unions and other associations called for a €200 ($260 USD) monthly pay increase for Guadeloupe and Martinique’s low income workers. The protesters had proposed that authorities “lower business taxes as a top up to company finances” to pay for the €200 pay raises. Employers and business leaders in Guadeloupe had said that they could not afford the salary increase. The strike lasted 44 days, during the high season, and escalated to “the verge of revolt”, finally ending with an accord in March 2009 in which the French government agreed to raise the salaries of the lowest paid by the requested €200 and granted the petitioners top 20 demands. Tourism suffered greatly during this time and affected the 2010 tourist season as well; the islands were believed to have lost millions of dollars in tourism revenues due to cancelled vacations and closed hotels. The strikes exposed deep ethnic, racial, and class tensions and disparities – discord – within the French Caribbean territories.

This was not the only time that the Labor Movement Forged Change in the Caribbean; though not mentioned in the Go Lean book, these incidences are of high notoriety:

  • British West Indian labour unrest of 1934–39 – Various starting points for the cycle of disturbances have been proposed: the February 1934 labour agitation in British Honduras [today’s Belize] (which ended in a riot in September)[1] the May–July 1934 sugar estate disturbance on Trinidad (which broke out on several estates in the central sugar belt, involving over 15,000 Indian estate labourers)[2] and the January 1935 Saint Kitts sugar strike.[3]
    In any event, after St Kitts (which turned into a general strike of agricultural labourers) came a March strike in Trinidad’s oilfields and a hunger march to Port of Spain.
    In Jamaica labour protests broke out in May on the island’s north coast. Rioting among banana workers in the town of Oracabessa was succeeded by a strike of dockworkers in Falmouth which ended in violence.
    In September and October there were riots on various sugar estates in British Guiana [today’s Guyana]; there had been strikes the previous September on five sugar estates on the west coast of Demerara.
    In October rioting also took place on St Vincent in Kingstown and Camden Park. The year ended with a November strike of coal workers in St Lucia.
    After a relatively tranquil year in 1936, there was widespread unrest in Trinidad (extraordinary because blacks and Indians cooperated in working-class activities)[4] and Barbados in June 1937 and in Jamaica in May–June 1938.
    The 1937-38 disturbances were of greater magnitude than the 1934-35 ones, which had been more localized. In Trinidad, for example, the protest began in the oilfields but eventually spread to the sugar belt and the towns. In Barbados the disorders which started in Bridgetown spread to the rural areas. In Jamaica most areas of the island experienced serious strikes and disturbances. At least two ending points have also been suggested: the Jamaican cane-cutters’ strike of 1938[5] or the major February 1939 strike at the Plantation Leonora in British Guiana, which led to further disturbances.[6]
  • Bahamas: Burma Road Labor Riots – June 1st, 1942, the Burma Road Riots was a short-lived impulsive outburst by a group of disgruntled laborers. “In those days it was illegal for workers to ‘combine’ or unionize against their employer”. So this riot was the first sign of a popular movement in the Bahamas that led to long overdue reforms, and eventually, Majority Rule.

Civil Disobedience was effective then and can be effective again … now. The key has always been: Collective Bargaining.

The workers ‘combined’ or unionized and as a result “set-off the dominoes for change”. This aligns to the Art and Science of Forging Change.

This is the conclusion of this series of ‘teaching commentaries’ by the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean. This January 2020 focus is about more than just the Art and Science of Forging Change in society, but also on how to ensure the change is permanent by neutralizing the resultant backlash. This is entry 4 of 4 for this series, which details the Community Ethos that is first needed to ensure that the societal change is palatable. Otherwise there is the pejorative declaration:

Keep the Change!

The first submission in this series stressed that change must Build-up to a Momentum; this allows for evolutionary change and not just revolutionary change. This means affecting the heart … or as the Go Lean book states (Page 20) affecting the Community Ethos:

The fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period.

Other Forging Change considerations are presented in this series; see the full series catalog here:

  1. Forging Change – By Building Momentum
  2. Forging Change – Opposition Research: Special Interest
  3. Forging Change – Public Private Partnerships (PPP)
  4. Forging Change – Labor Movement Cautionary Tale – Backlash: Going too far

Beyond these, we see that the thought of Forging Change had been a common theme for the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean for more than 5 years. See the full catalog here of the previous 13 blog-commentaries – before this series – that detailed approaches for Forging Change (in reverse chronological order):

  1. Forging Change – ‘That’s What Friends Are For’ (July 9, 2019)
  2. Forging Change – Corporate Vigilantism (March 29, 2018)
  3. Forging Change – Soft Power (February 21, 2018)
  4. Forging Change – Collective Bargaining (April 27, 2017)
  5. Forging Change – Addicted to Home (April 14, 2017)
  6. Forging Change – Arts & Artists (December 1, 2016)
  7. Forging Change – Panem et Circenses (November 15, 2016)
  8. Forging Change – Herd Mentality (October 11, 2016)
  9. Forging Change – ‘Something To Lose’ (November 18, 2015)
  10. Forging Change – ‘Food’ for Thought (April 29, 2015)
  11. Forging Change – Music Moves People (December 30, 2014)
  12. Forging Change – The Sales Process (December 22, 2014)
  13. Forging Change – The Fun Theory (September 9, 2014)

As related in the foregoing, what was so powerful for Labor Movements is the strategy of Collective Bargaining…or else! No doubt, there is the need for more Collective Bargaining today and always, as related in a previous blog-commentary from April 28, 2017:

There is the need to Forge Change in the Caribbean; the same as there was the need to Forge Change in 1960’s America. Consuming cruises is just one of the challenges that we have to contend with in our region. This is reflective of the disrespect that exists in our society. We have dysfunctions in our economics, security and governing engines. We are 2nd class citizens on the world stage! We have the greatest address on the planet – demonstrated in that 80 million tourists consume our marketplace every year, 10 million via cruises – and yet our own people have to break down the doors to get out to find the respectful life that they need, want and deserve in foreign countries.

What is the Cautionary Tale that we must all learn from the historicity of Labor Unions? “Going Too Far Too Fast”; this why evolutionary change is preferred. The Cautionary Tale of Unions is depicted here, in this Economics Journal, as the final consequence:

Title: What’s the point of unions [anymore]?

Unions are associations that allow workers to approach their employers not as individuals, but as a more powerful collective. This power makes unions pretty controversial; some people think they’re necessary for keeping employers in check, but others think they’re too powerful and hurt the economy.

While some economists think that wages are mostly determined by how productive a worker will be in a given job, others think it has more to do with the bargaining power of each side. Workers generally want higher wages and better working conditions. Employers on the other hand usually want to keep costs down. Wages, and working conditions in this theory are determined by how much power each side has to make the other give in to their demands.

Employers are in a pretty powerful position because they can hire and fire people. When there are tons of jobs to go around this is less of an advantage, because fired workers can just get jobs somewhere else. But when there’s high unemployment, being fired can be a really serious problem for workers. Unemployment gives employers some leeway in deciding how much to pay workers; if one person won’t accept a lower wage, someone else probably will.

One way workers limit this power is by organizing into unions which allow workers to speak out together and bargain collectively with employers. Within a union workers can vote to stop working in order to put economic pressure on the business (called going on strike). The idea is that it would be very costly for a business to fire or discipline all the workers at the same time, so they’ll hopefully agree to compromise and raise wages instead.

Historically unions have been really important for creating a lot of things we see as basic working rights in rich countries, like safe workplaces, 8 hour workdays, weekends, and the end of child labor. Unions and collective bargaining have played a big role in the creation of middle class jobs in most well-off countries.

But unions also draw a lot of criticism. A lot of people agree with the basic premise of unions, but think in practice that they have gone too far. In many rich countries, the decline of manufacturing has been blamed on unions that wanted to keep wages high, even when competition increased from overseas. Some people say that unions make it harder to fire bad workers, which hurts employers, customers and other employees. Public sector unions create even more debate, as wage increases for government workers can mean higher taxes for everyone else.

Some economists also argue that when unions win wage increases, they actually create bigger problems for unemployed people, who are willing to work for lower wages than the high wages negotiated by the union. That’s called the insider outsider problem, because the insiders (workers with jobs) create a bigger problem for outsiders (people who want jobs). Other economists don’t think this effect is actually that big in practice, and is outweighed by the extra economic activity created by giving workers more money to spend in the local economy.

Source: Economy – Ecnmy.org – Making economics less confusing – retrieved January 31, 2020 from; https://www.ecnmy.org/learn/your-livelihood/wages/whats-point-of-unions/

As related in this foregoing article, when Labor Unions win wage increases, they actually create bigger problems in society, so there is the need to be aware and be On Guard for the negative consequences of “Going Too Far Too Fast”. The employer must never be viewed as the enemy, but rather a partner in the stewardship of the region’s economic engines. However, there are enemies, adversaries and organized opposition – think Globalization, Technology, Crony-Capitalists or Plutocrats – for the progress our Caribbean general society must make. We must all be aware of these pressures.

See a related VIDEO here … from an American perspective, yet still relevant for the Caribbean:

VIDEO – Robert Reich: Why Unions Matter to You – https://youtu.be/402m57yFjTM

Robert Reich
Robert Reich [(former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton)] explains why labor unions impact the middle class and raise wages.

Watch More: Why Right to Work is Wrong ►► https://youtu.be/WqjdsfMPl_A

The Go Lean book addressed this! In fact, within the 370 pages of the Go Lean book, many details are provided on how to reform and transform the economic engines of Caribbean society with the cooperation and partnership of Labor Unions and other stakeholders advocating for workers. The book features the new community ethos (attitudes and values) that must be adopted; plus the executions of new strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to Forge Change among workers (Blue Collar and skilled professionals) to work in harmony with market demands to elevate the Caribbean homeland. In fact, this actual advocacy on Page 164, in the Go Lean book, contains specific plans, excerpts and headlines; it is hereby entitled:

10 Ways to Impact Labor Unions

1 Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market initiative: Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).
This treaty allows for the unification of the region into one market, expanding to an economy of 30 member-states of 42 million people. The CU is a reboot of the economic engines of the region resulting in the creation of 2.2 million new jobs after 5 years of accedence. Jobs mean labor unions must be part of the discussion and part of the equation. The labor unions in the region have the potential of being part of the solution, as the CU advocates a “meritocracy” rather than seniority. For unemployment, the CU envisions the Ghent System with “Union” management powered by CU systems.
2 Labor Unions and e-Government

Under the CU plan, trade/labor unions will have access to e-Government services and functionalities, (same as Foundations). Therefore, the Unions will be able to access online account management and transaction processing systems to review, request CU services on behalf of their members. They will have the tools to service their charters.
3 Expertise Certification
4 Community Ethos – Automation & Partnership

The CU’s mission is to level the playing field for global competition by fostering and deploying technology to the fullest extent possible. Technology and Labor do not also align in objectives (think: The Legend of John Henry). But there are case studies of successful adoption of Internet & Communications Technology (ICT) embedded in the quality processes to maximize the outputs of the labor force. The ethos for Caribbean labor must be partnership with management.
5 QA Adoption
6 Work-At-Home Promotion
7 Federal Civil Service.
8 Self-Governing Entities (SGE)
9 Volunteers / Foundation
10 Emergencies – Martial Law – Union Suspension

This advocacy projects that Labor Union stakeholders can be partners in the stewardship of Caribbean society. They care about the workers; there is external pressure on those workers and the whole economic system; we are “all in this together”; we need “all hands on deck”. This is the attitude and value system that will foster societal progress.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap … to allow us all – workers and employers – to work together as partners. This is one more way to Forge Change and make our Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

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

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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.

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.

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

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

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Cursed in Paradise – ‘Enriquillo’ Fault-line

Posted on January 29, 2020 in Government, Planning, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

The Caribbean is the “greatest address on the planet … “

We have said this repeatedly; the Creator has blessed this region with such beauty.

Yet, we must confess, considering a religious argument: “The Gods must be crazy” … putting such a beautiful place in the middle of a dangerous Earthquake Fault-line. This refers to the Enriquillo Fault-line across the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean archipelago – see Photo here:

This is not just a theory; this is actuality. We have this news headline now: “7.7 Earthquake north of Jamaica”. So, crediting Godly devotion again, maybe the earthquake activity is some kind of Divine Retribution?

Retribution of what?

Well, just like the Curse of Montezuma or Curse of the Bambino, there were some egregious atrocities that maybe had to be prosecuted-reconciled-remediated for justice from some higher authority (God). Therefore, the thesis is that there is a “curse on this landmass for retribution against the ‘powers that be’ for the inflictions against the indigenous people and their leader Enriquillo”. See those details here on the Enriquillo namesake and the encyclopedic reference of the Fault-line in the Appendix below:

Reference: Enriquillo
Good relations between Christopher Columbus and the indigenous Taíno of the large island Columbus called Hispaniola did not last more than a few days. The Taínos were forced into terrible conditions as laborers in gold mining operations, badly housed in the mountains, poorly fed, extremely overworked, and forced to live in close quarters with the Spaniards.[5] Additionally, due to taking men away from the villages, the cycle of food production was disrupted, causing widespread malnutrition.[5] This malnutrition further aided the Taínos’ vulnerability to deadly new types of diseases introduced by the foreigners.[5] After Columbus tortured and killed many in his quest for gold, he turned to slavery and sugar cane plantations as a way to profit from his voyages.

Several revolts followed in the first half of the 16th century, the most famous began in 1519. Enriquillo, one of the few remaining caciques, or indigenous chiefs, started the revolt with a large number of Taínos from the mountain range of Bahoruco. The Tainos were able to continue the rebellion because of their better knowledge of the region.[6] As the Spaniards were not able to control the rebellion, a treaty was signed granting to the Native population among others the right of Freedom and of Possession. It had little consequences, however, as by this time the Native population was rapidly declining due to European diseases.

Enriquillo, also known as “Enrique” by the Spaniards, was a Taíno cacique [(Tribal Chief)] who rebelled against the Spaniards between 1519 and 1533. Enriquillo’s rebellion is the best known rebellion of the early Caribbean period. He is also considered a hero in the modern day Dominican Republic and Haiti for his resistance in favor of the indigenous peoples.[1] Dominican friar Bartolome de Las Casas, who documented and rallied against Spanish abuse of the indigenous, wrote sympathetically of Enriquillo.[2]

His father, his aunt Anacaona, and eighty other regional chieftains were killed by Nicolás de Ovando while attending supposed “peace talks” with the Spanish in Jaragua. During the talks, Spanish soldiers ambushed the chieftains, also known as caciques, set the meeting house on fire, and then proceeded to kill anyone who fled the flames (causing his father’s death). Enriquillo, an orphan, was later raised in a Santo Domingo monastery and given the name of “Enrico” [3]. One of his mentors was Bartolomé de Las Casas. De Las Casas was a Spanish Roman Catholic Priest focused on the rights of Native Americans. [4]

Enriquillo also had a wife, called Mencía, later with the noble title Doña due to Enriquillo’s high standing and relations with the Spaniards. She was raped by a Spaniard named Valenzuela. When Enriquillo tried to take the issue to the Spanish courts, nothing could be done, since it was Doña Mencia’s word against the Spaniard’s word. This, according to some writers, was the tipping point for Enriquillo which led to his revolt in the Bahoruco mountains.
Source: Retrieved January 29, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriquillo

Theory, thesis, religious inference – Yada Yada!

It is what it is – these earthquakes are real! We must simply prepare. This is quest of the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean; the book stated (Page 23):

c-7. “Crap” Happens
Economic security is tied to the community quest to reboot the Caribbean region to ensure a better place to live, work and play. To ensure economic security, the economic engines must be protected to ensure their continuous operations despite natural or man-made deterrents. Bad things do happen to good people, so we cannot be caught unprepared. We must institute the process and provisions to respond, react, restore and recover. Any and everyone may need to dial “911”.

The Caribbean community ethos is to consider the facts and realities:

  1. climate change cannot be dismissed – tropical storms are now more common and more ferocious;
  2. there are two geologic fault-lines that run through the Caribbean region;
  3. there is an active volcano on Montserrat.

It is not a matter of “if” but “when” emergencies will strike. The security principle therefore is to be prepared for all incidents, big and small, that involve all aspects of society: islands, institutions, companies, families and individuals.

As related in the foregoing headline – 7.7 Earthquake north of Jamaica – this is of serious concern. This seismic activity had its epicenter in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, away from land, but spurring the threat of a tsunami in one place after another. Everyone is On Alert. See this actuality depicted in this news story here:

Title: Mag 7.7 quake hits between Cuba and Jamaica, but no injuries
Sub-title: A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake has struck in the Caribbean Sea between Jamaica and eastern Cuba
By: Michael Weissenstein, Associated Press
HAVANA – A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck in the Caribbean Sea between Jamaica and eastern Cuba on Tuesday, shaking a vast area from Mexico to Florida and beyond, but there were no reports of casualties or heavy damage.

The quake was centered 139 kilometers (86 miles) northwest of Montego Bay, Jamaica, and 140 kilometers (87 miles) west-southwest of Niquero, Cuba, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It hit at 2:10 p.m. (1910 GMT) and the epicenter was a relatively shallow 10 kilometers (6 miles) beneath the surface.

Dr. Enrique Arango Arias, head of Cuba’s National Seismological Service, told state media that there had been no serious damage or injuries reported.

Gov. Carlos Joaquín González of Mexico’s Quintana Roo, which is home to Cancun, Tulum and other popular beach resorts, said the earthquake was felt in multiple parts of the low-lying Caribbean state but there were no early reports of damage or injuries.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center initially warned that the quake could generate waves 1 to 3 feet above normal in Cuba, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Honduras, Mexico and Belize, but issued a later message saying the danger had passed.

The initial tremor was followed by a series of strong aftershocks, including one measured at magnitude 6.1.

The quake was felt strongly in Santiago, the largest city in eastern Cuba, said Belkis Guerrero, who works in a Roman Catholic cultural center in the center of Santiago

“We were all sitting and we felt the chairs move,” she said. “We heard the noise of everything moving around.”

She said there was no apparent damage in the heart of the colonial city.

“It felt very strong but it doesn’t look like anything happened,’’ she told The Associated Press.

It was also felt a little farther east at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on the southeastern coast of the island. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damages, said J. Overton, a spokesman for the installation, which has a total population of about 6,000 people.

Several South Florida buildings were evacuated as a precaution, according to city of Miami and Miami-Dade County officials. No injuries or road closures were reported. No shaking was felt at the Hard Rock stadium in Miami Gardens, which will host the Super Bowl on Sunday.

The quake also hit the Cayman Islands, leaving cracked roads and what appeared to be sewage spilling from cracked mains. There were no immediate reports of deaths, injuries or more severe damage, said Kevin Morales, editor-in-chief of the Cayman Compass newspaper.

The islands experience so few earthquakes that newsroom staff were puzzled when it hit, he said.

“It was just like a big dump truck was rolling past,” Morales said. “Then it continued and got more intense.”

Dr. Stenette Davis, a psychiatrist at a Cayman Islands hospital, said she saw manhole covers blown off by the force of the quake, and sewage exploding into the street, but no more serious damage.

Claude Diedrick, 71, who owns a fencing business in Montego Bay, said he was sitting in his vehicle reading when the earth began to sway.

“It felt to me like I was on a bridge and like there were two or three heavy trucks and the bridge was rocking but there were no trucks,” he said.

He said he had seen no damage around his home in northern Jamaica.

Mexico’s National Seismological Service reported that the quake was felt in five states including as far away as Veracruz, on the country’s Gulf Coast.

————— Associated Press writer Kate Chappell in Kingston, Jamaica, contributed to this report.

Source: Posted & Retrieved January 28, 2020 from: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/powerful-earthquake-hits-cuba-jamaica-68592066

Considering the geological science of earthquakes, we know there are main shocks and after-shocks. Some geologists also credit pre-shocks, where minor seismic activities come as a prelude to main shocks. See more on the “Science of Earthquakes” in this VIDEO here:

VIDEO – What is an earthquake? – https://abcn.ws/2M4FtKM

An earthquake is caused when two blocks of earth slip past each other on a fault plane, according to the US Geological Survey.

The Richter Scale is exponential between the numbers 3 and 8, so 7.7 is very strong … and dangerous.

There truly have been pre-shocks leading up to this “7.7 Earthquake north of Jamaica”; consider this related story:

2020 Puerto Rico Earthquakes
At the end of December 2019 and in early January 2020, the southwestern part of the island of Puerto Rico was struck by an earthquake swarm,[1] including six that were of magnitude 5 or greater.[2] The largest and most damaging of this sequence occurred on January 7 at 04:24 AST (08:24 UTC) and had a magnitude of 6.4 Mw and a maximum felt intensity of VII (Very strong) on the Modified Mercalli intensity scale.[3] At least one person was killed and several others were injured.[4][5]

A 5.8 Mw  earthquake the previous day caused the destruction of a natural arch, a tourist attraction at Punta Ventana in Guayanilla.[6] A 5.9 Mw  aftershock on Saturday, January 11, damaged many structures, including several historical buildings as well as modern high-rises in the city of Ponce.[7]

Power was lost Island-wide immediately after the quake, and was increasingly restored over a period of a week. Damage to homes was extensive and, by 14 January, more than 8,000 people were homeless and camping outdoors in various types of shelters, with 40,000 others camping outside their homes, just in the city of Ponce alone.[8]

Needless to say, the Enriquillo Fault-line has been very active in these recent days. To all Caribbean stakeholders, we urge:

Be afraid; be very afraid.

This is the same fault-line that devastated Haiti in January 2010 – almost 10 years exactly – plus many other times in the past. The Go Lean movement and organization originated in response to that unmitigated disaster. See this salient reference to it in the Go Lean book (Page 115):

The Bottom Line on the Haiti’s Earthquakes

As of 2010, the following major earthquakes have been recorded in Haiti, along the Enriquillo or Septentrional-Oriente faults:

  • 1564: Quake destroyed Concepción de la Vega and Santiago de los Caballeros.
  • 1701: On November 9, severe destruction occurred and “part of the area along the north shore of the Tiburon Peninsula from Logane to Petit Goave sank into the sea”.
  • 1751 Port-au-Prince earthquake (18 October): According to French historian Moreau de Saint-Méry, “only one masonry building had not collapsed” in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital city.
  • 1770 Port-au-Prince earthquake (3 June): The city was leveled in this magnitude 7.5 quake, killing over 200 people.
  • 1783: A strong quake partially destroyed the church in Santiago.
  • 1842 Cap-Haitien earthquake (7 May): An earthquake destroyed the city of Cap-Haïtien and other towns in the north of Haiti and the Dominican Republic; this earthquake also destroyed the Sans-Souci Palace. 10,000 people were killed. It has been estimated that its magnitude was 8.1.
  • 1946 Dominican Republic earthquake (4 August): This 8.0-magnitude quake in Samaná also shook Haiti horrifically, producing a tsunami that killed 1,600 people.
  • 2010 Haiti earthquake (12 January):. The epicenter of this magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake was near Léogâne, approximately 16 miles west of Port-au-Prince at a depth of 8.1 miles. The United States Geological Survey recorded a series of at least 33 aftershocks, 14 of which were between magnitudes 5.0 and 5.9. The International Red Cross estimated that about three million people were affected by the quake; the Haitian Government reports that over 316,000 people had been identified as dead, an estimated 300,000 injured, and an estimated 1,000,000 homeless.

Based on this observation, one can hypothesize the theory of: “An accursed land, indeed”!

Yet still, the Go Lean promoters assert – in a previous blog-commentary – that we do not want our people abandoning home, seeking refuge elsewhere. We can reform and transform the homeland to better prepare for the eventualities of Mother Nature. See that message here:

The movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean is standing up, stepping up and speaking up:

  • “… Here I am, send me” – The Bible; Isaiah 6:8 (New International Version: Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”)

The basic premise of the economic analysis in the Go Lean book is that we need our population to stay, remain and return to the Caribbean; the more people we have in the market the better.

What is it that we can do to reform and transform for earthquakes? The Go Lean book relates (Page 76), in introducing the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) as a technocracy to plan and respond to natural disasters. See this excerpt here:

B4 – Emergency Management
This area is perhaps one of the most important functions of the CU. The Emergency Management Department will coordinate the planning, response, rebuilding and recovery before, during and after natural disasters and other emergency events. This is the risk management arm of the CU Trade Federation. As such, the scope of Emergency Management will also include education, mentoring, monitoring, mitigation, licensing and coordination of all volunteer activities.

The scope of this department also includes a number of proactive initiatives: (1). establishing and administering volunteer fire/rescue departments for sparsely populated areas; and (2). installing/maintaining emergency notification systems. In ancient cultures there is the practice of ringing a bell, a church bell or one at the town square, to alert the community of an imminent threat. A lot of western democracies embrace the same tactic with more modern technologies, such as audible alarms/sirens.

The imminent threat includes tornado landfall warning, tsunami, mudslide, volcano eruption, etc. The CU will extend this practice further by installing a standard audible siren system for any/all emergency events. A great lesson learned from the US Midwestern city of Omaha-Nebraska is the schedule for siren testing, the first Wednesday every month at 11:00am.

A best practice for Emergency Management is electronic notification. This includes an Emergency Broadcasting/Alert system for TV and radio. Plus now the latest advance is the use of telephone/internet and contact center technologies, allowing features like Reverse 911 – automated/robo calls to every active phone in a location – and text message blasting to every cell phone. With the embrace of www.myCaribbean.gov, the CU can target an alert message to any & every email address, social media screen names, or provide Pop-up Screens for internet browsing sessions for all IP addresses in the strike area.

As such, the scope of natural emergencies covered by this agency will cover more than hurricanes. As such, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, flooding, forest fires, and droughts will also be monitored, managed and responded to. (These have all been experienced recently in the Caribbean).

Emergencies also include the man-made variety as in industrial (oil spills, factory accidents, chemical spills), explosions, terroristic attacks and prison riots. The purpose of the Trade Federation is to enhance the economic engines of the region. While the #1 economic driver in the region is tourism, any poorly managed episode of “man-made” emergencies will have devastating effects on tourist bookings. Therefore, the CU must respond quickly, forcefully and professionally to contain the physical and image damage that can occur from these incidents.

Though not exclusive, this agency will coordinate its specialized services, skill-sets and occupations like Paramedic, EMT, Search-and-Rescue, Canine (K-9) with other governing (law enforcement) entities. Regional training will therefore be coordinated, licensed, and certified by this CU Emergency Management Department.

This Emergency Management agency will also coordinate the training and management of animal responders, in conjunction with the other federal agencies of Justice, Agriculture, Interior (Parks). The animals will include bomb sniffing dogs, cadaver dogs, drug dogs and mounted police horses.

There is also an economic/financial scope for this department. As the effort for a comprehensive property-casualty fund to cover the entire Caribbean region will also be coordinated by this agency. The classic solution is a large pool of premium payers and claims filed by the affected area. Beyond this model, there are also advanced products like re-issuance side-cars for market assimilation. The public can then invest and profit from the threat/realization of regional risks. This derivative product is a bet, a gamble, but in the end, the result is an insurance fund of last resort, much like the Joint Underwriters Agency (JUA) in Florida.

The Go Lean movement has addressed the subject of Earthquakes and Emergency Management on many occasions. See this sample of the many previous blog-commentaries here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18182 Disaster Relief: Helping, Not Hurting
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17373 A Marshall Plan for Haiti – Finally
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15996 Good Governance: Stepping Up in an Emergency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15267 Industrial Reboot – Prefab (Earthquake Tolerant) Housing 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13974 The Spoken and Unspoken on Haiti
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2614 Modeling the ‘Great ShakeOut’ Earthquake Drill
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=87 6.5M Earthquake Shakes Eastern Caribbean

“Here I am send me”? That sounds similar to the mantra “To Change the World, Start With Me”!

While not subscribing to any religious dogma, “it is what it is”, the End of Days Prophecies in the Bible seem to have validity – Matthew 24: 3, 7:

3 What will be the sign … of the Last Days?
7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

So we must simply be more resilient and responsive to earthquakes – and tsunamis. There is no reason to expect any less activity.

So let’s get busy …  let’s prepare our homes, families, communities, nations and region for the eventuality of this Enriquillo Fault-line (and other geologic weak-points that are undeniable in our homeland).

Most importantly, let’s lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap – this is the Way Forward for Caribbean Disaster Preparation and Response – and finally make our region, each of the 30 Caribbean member-states, a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

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

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

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

ii. Whereas the natural formation of the landmass for our lands constitutes some extreme seismic activity, it is our responsibility and ours alone to provide, protect and promote our society to coexist, prepare and recover from the realities of nature’s occurrences.

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 ccidence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

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. …

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

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

——————

Appendix – Enriquillo–Plantain Garden Fault Zone

The Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault zone (EPGFZ or EPGZ) is a system of active coaxial left lateral-moving strike slip faults which runs along the southern side of the island of Hispaniola, where Haiti and the Dominican Republic are located.[1] The EPGFZ is named for Lake Enriquillo in the Dominican Republic where the fault zone emerges, and extends across the southern portion of Hispaniola through the Caribbean to the region of the Plantain Garden River in Jamaica.

Geology
The EPGFZ shares approximately half of the relative motion between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates with the Septentrional-Oriente fault zone which runs along the northern side of Hispaniola. Both faults merge into the Cayman Trench to the west. The fault accommodates about 20.6±1.66 millimeters of lateral motion per year (mm/yr).[2] Additionally, a component of compression is present as the North American Plate pushes toward the southwest. This results in vertical deformation manifest in the mountainous terrain of Hispaniola. Some researchers believe that the EPGFZ and the Septentrional-Orient fault zone bound a microplate, dubbed the Gonâve Microplate, a 190,000 km2 (73,000 sq mi) area of the northern Caribbean Plate that is in the process of shearing off the Caribbean Plate and accreting to the North America Plate.[3]

[Prominent] Earthquakes

Other historical large earthquakes in 1860, 1761, 1684, 1673, and 1618 are also likely attributed to the EPGFZ, though none of these have been confirmed in the field as associated with this fault.[7]

Source: Retrieved January 29, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriquillo%E2%80%93Plantain_Garden_fault_zone

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Remembering Auschwitz – Still Relevant

Posted on January 27, 2020 in Ethos, Social, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

75 years ago today – January 27, 1945 – was the Big Reveal …

There were rumors, accusations and suspicions of cruel atrocities against victims behind the German lines during World War II. Nevertheless, there was also a degree of doubt as well. Nazi Germany had deniability … until this day 75 years ago. This is when Soviet troops liberated the Concentration Camp in Auschwitz, Poland:

“The cat was out the bag”.

See a summary and highlights of Auschwitz here:

Title: Auschwitz Concentration Camp
The camp was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp (Stammlager) in Oświęcim; Auschwitz II–Birkenau, a concentration and extermination camp built with several gas chambers; Auschwitz III–Monowitz, a labor camp created to staff a factory for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben; and dozens of subcamps.[3] The camps became a major site of the Nazis’ Final Solution to the Jewish Question.

After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, sparking World War II, the Schutzstaffel (SS) converted Auschwitz I, an army barracks, into a prisoner-of-war camp for Polish political prisoners.[4] The first inmates, German criminals brought to the camp in May 1940 as functionaries, established the camp’s reputation for sadism. Prisoners were beaten, tortured, and executed for the most trivial reasons. The first gassings—of Soviet and Polish prisoners—took place in block 11 of Auschwitz I around August 1941. Construction of Auschwitz II began the following month, and from 1942 until late 1944 freight trains delivered Jews from all over German-occupied Europe to its gas chambers. Of the 1.3 million people sent to Auschwitz, 1.1 million died. The death toll includes 960,000 Jews (865,000 of whom were gassed on arrival), 74,000 non-Jewish Poles, 21,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and up to 15,000 other Europeans.[5] Those not gassed died of starvation, exhaustion, disease, individual executions, or beatings. Others were killed during medical experiments.

At least 802 prisoners tried to escape, 144 successfully, and on 7 October 1944 two Sonderkommando units, consisting of prisoners who staffed the gas chambers, launched an unsuccessful uprising. Only 789 staff (no more than 15 percent) ever stood trial;[6] several, including camp commandant Rudolf Höss, were executed. The Allies‘ failure to act on early reports of atrocities in the camp by bombing it or its railways remains controversial.

As the Soviet Red Army approached Auschwitz in January 1945, toward the end of the war, the SS sent most of the camp’s population west on a death march to camps inside Germany and Austria. Soviet troops entered the camp on 27 January 1945, a day commemorated since 2005 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In the decades after the war, survivors such as Primo Levi, Viktor Frankl, and Elie Wiesel wrote memoirs of their experiences in Auschwitz, and the camp became a dominant symbol of the Holocaust. In 1947 Poland founded the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on the site of Auschwitz I and II, and in 1979 it was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Table I – Auschwitz Death Estimates

Nationality/ethnicity
(Source: Franciszek Piper)[2]		 Registered deaths
(Auschwitz)		 Unregistered deaths
(Auschwitz)		 Total
Jews 95,000 865,000 960,000
Ethnic Poles 64,000 10,000 74,000 (70,000–75,000)
Roma and Sinti 19,000 2,000 21,000
Soviet prisoners of war 12,000 3,000 15,000
Other Europeans:
Soviet citizens (Byelorussians, Russians, Ukrainians),
Czechs, Yugoslavs, French, Germans, Austrians		 10,000–15,000 n/a 10,000–15,000
Total deaths in Auschwitz, 1940–1945 200,000–205,000 880,000 1,080,000–1,085,000

Source: Retrieved January 27, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp

    

This was mankind’s lowest point, the “darkest chapter in human history” … or was it?

“Never Again” became the mantra from this point forward for Holocaust victims and other stakeholders. These ones wanted to present Auschwitz as a Cautionary Tale so that “the world” would Never Again tolerate “man mistreating man” so egregiously.

Never Again lasted “for a minute”!

But “Never Again” has only been empty words. Within the days, weeks, months and years of this atrocity, more atrocities emerged. This is not just my assertion; this is the fact … as chronicled by historians, anthropologists, academicians, journalists and newscasters alike; see the highlights of a sample book on the subject here:

The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History’s 100 Worst Atrocities – a popular history book by Matthew White, an independent scholar and self-described atrocitologist. The book provides a ranking of the hundred worst atrocities of mankind based on the number of deaths.

In the pages of his book, the author, Matthew White, details the 100 Worst Atrocities of Mankind from Antiquity to Modernity. Let’s pick up his ranking from World War II and present the detailed list since those atrocious events. See here-now:

Table II – White’s ranking of atrocities

Rank Event Place Start year End year Death toll
1 World War Two Europe, Asia, Africa 1939 1945 66,000,000
36 Expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe Eastern Europe 1945 1947 2,100,000
88 French Indochina War French Indochina 1945 1954 393,000
70 Partition of India India and Pakistan 1947 1947 500,000
2 Mao Zedong‘s rule China 1949 1976 40,000,000
30 Korean War Korea 1950 1953 3,000,000
30 North Korea North Korea 1948 3,000,000
69 Algerian War of Independence Algeria 1954 1962 525,000
35 Sudanese Civil Wars Sudan, South Sudan 1955 2,600,000
24 Vietnam War Southeast Asia 1959 1975 4,200,000
81 Suharto’s purge Indonesia 1965 1966 400,000
46 Biafran War Nigeria 1966 1970 1,000,000
40 Bengali Genocide Bangladesh 1971 1971 1,500,000
96 Idi Amin‘s rule Uganda 1971 1979 300,000
37 Mengistu Haile‘s rule Ethiopia 1974 1991 2,000,000
91 Postwar Vietnam Vietnam 1975 1992 365,000
39 Democratic Kampuchea Cambodia 1975 1979 1,670,000
55 Mozambican Civil War Mozambique 1975 1992 800,000
70 Angolan Civil War Angola 1975 1994 500,000
70 Ugandan Bush War Uganda 1979 1986 500,000
40 Soviet–Afghan War Afghanistan 1979 1992 1,500,000
96 Saddam Hussein‘s peacetime rule Iraq 1979 2003 300,000
61 Iran–Iraq War Persian Gulf 1980 1988 700,000
94 Sanctions against Iraq Iraq 1990 2003 350,000
70 Anarchy in Somalia Somalia 1991 500,000
53 Rwandan genocide Rwanda 1994 1994 937,000
27 Second Congo War Central Africa 1998 2002 3,800,000

Source: Retrieved January 27, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Big_Book_of_Horrible_Things#White’s_ranking_of_atrocities

This is the lesson for us today. This is the relevance of Auschwitz 75 years later. This aligns with the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. It asserts (Page 23) that “history teaches that with the emergence of new economic engines, ‘bad actors’ will also emerge thereafter to exploit the opportunities, with good, bad and evil intent. A Bible verse declares: ‘What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun’” – Ecclesiastes 1:9 New International Version.

This is why we must always be On Guard for slight movements towards societal dysfunctions, tyranny and Failed-State status; this is when atrocities occur. Again, this is the lesson from Auschwitz by the victims of Auschwitz who still survive today; see this depiction in this VIDEO here from CBS News:

VIDEO – Holocaust survivor opens up about Auschwitz – https://www.cbsnews.com/video/holocaust-survivor-visits-auschwitz-for-first-time-since-camps-liberation/

Posted January 27, 2020 – Monday marks 75 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, the largest Nazi death camp. Around 200 Holocaust survivors are expected to be honored guests at a place where they were once sent to die. Mark Phillips spoke with a 91-year-old survivor who hasn’t talked about what happened to him in the camp until now.

The Go Lean book, serving as a roadmap for the introduction of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), asserts that in addition to economic empowerments, the stewards for a new Caribbean must also optimize the security apparatus in the region to ensure public safety and justice standards for all stakeholders: citizens, visitors and trading partners.

How do we go about empowering the economics and security engines? Throughout the 370 pages of the Go Lean book, the details are provided as turn-by-turn directions on how to mitigate against Failed-State encroachment. There is an Index Number that reflect Failed-State eventuality. The book defines this Index and the related eco-system, as follows (Page 134) :

The Bottom Line on the Failed States Index

The Failed States Index (Appendix F on Page 271) is an annual ranking of 177 nations based on their levels of stability and capacity. The Index is compiled by the Fund for Peace Institute, an independent, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) non-profit research and educational organization, based in Washington DC, that works to prevent violent conflict and promote sustainable security.

As a leader in the conflict assessment and early warning field, the Fund for Peace focuses on the problems of weak and failing states. The strength of the Failed States Index is its ability to distill millions of pieces of information into a form that is relevant as well as easily digestible and informative, as an indicator code. Each Indicator is rated on a 1 to 10 scale with 1 (low) being the most stable and 10 (high) being the most at-risk of collapse and violence. Think of it as trying to bring down a fever, with high being dangerous, low being acceptable. An obvious example, consider Somalia, the state’s complete inability to provide public services for its citizens would warrant a score of 10 for the Public Service indicator. Conversely, Sweden’s extensive provision of health, education & other public services would produce a 1 or 2 for that indicator. – Fund For Peace®

This Go Lean roadmap includes the new community ethos (attitudes and values) that must be adopted; plus the executions of new strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to elevate the region’s security and justice institutions. In fact, this actual advocacy in the Go Lean book contains specific plans, excerpts and headlines here from Page 134, entitled:

10 Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices

1 Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market Confederation Treaty
This will allow for the unification of the region into one market of 42 million people across 30 member-states, thereby creating an economic zone to protect the interest of the participant trading partner-member-states. The GDP of the region will amount to $800 Billion (circa 2010). In addition, the treaty calls for a collective security agreement of the member states so as to ensure homeland security and assuage against systemic threats. The CU will ensure that law-and-order persist during times of distress. When a member state declares a State of Emergency, due to natural disaster or civil unrest, this triggers an automatic CU response – this is equivalent to the governmental dialing 911.
2 Image and Defamation

When a country’s primary foreign currency generator is tourism/hospitality, just the perception of a weak or failing state could be devastating. The index is a number that can rise and fall, like a credit score, so any upward movement in the index triggers the negative perception. The pressures are not only internal; there may be external entities that can have a defaming effect: credit rating, country risk, threat assessment, K-n-R (Kidnap and Ransom) insurance rates. The CU will manage the image of the region’s member-states against defamation and work to promote a better image.
3 Local Government and the Social Contract
4 Law Enforcement Oversight
5 Military and Political Monitoring
6 Crime/Homeland Intelligence
7 Minority and Human Rights

The CU will protect the minority and human rights for the region’s population; this includes ethnic mixes of African, European, Amerindian, and Asian heritage; 4 languages, various religions, and 5 colonial legacies. The CU  strategizes this diversity as an asset, rather than a source of contention, to be exploited as cultural exchanges in music, festivals, events, and food services. This will have a positive effect on tourism (foreign & domestic) and media initiatives.
8 Election Outsourcing
9 War Against Poverty
10 Big Data

The CU will embrace an e-Government and e-Delivery model. There will be a lot of data to collect and analyze. In addition, the CU Commerce Department will function as a regional OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development), accumulating and measuring economic metrics and statistical analysis. Any decline in Failed-State indices will be detected, and managed in both a predictive and reactionary manner.

We never want to spiral down to the level of Auschwitz, so we must monitor early and often. The Go Lean movement addressed the subject of monitoring for the encroachment of Failed-State status on many occasions. See this sample of many previous blog-commentaries here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15039 Failed-State “Venezuela” – ‘On the Menu’ in California
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13974 The Spoken and Unspoken on Haiti’s Failed-State
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13391 After Maria, Failed-State Indicators: Destruction & Defection for Puerto Rico
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12996 After Irma, Failed State Indicators: Destruction and Defection
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12274 State of the Union – Spanish Caribbean Failing
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12098 Inaction on Venezuela: A Recipe for Failed-State Status
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5818 Greece: From Bad to Worse

“Never Again” has only been empty words in the modern world; but let’s do better here at home.

In truth, when people are victimized, they want the world to Never Forget; but when people are villainous, they want the world to Not Remember. The former European Jews repatriated to a homeland in Palestine and proceeded to bully, oppress and suppress their neighbors there, the Palestinian people. The drama of Israel and Palestine is complicated and difficult to solve; the solutions are out-of scope for this Caribbean focus. We simply wanted to study history and apply the lessons learned in the effort to reform our society.

Yes, we can … do better in protecting our citizen and ensuring “justice for all”. This is heavy-lifting, yes, but it is conceivable, believable and achievable.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap … to do the heavy-lifting and elevating Caribbean society and making the homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

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

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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

xii.  Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xiii. Whereas the legacy of dissensions in many member-states (for example: Haiti and Cuba) will require a concerted effort to integrate the exile community’s repatriation, the Federation must arrange for Reconciliation Commissions to satiate a demand for justice.

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

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

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

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A Gathering of ‘Old Men’ – 1972 Dolphins ENCORE

Posted on December 23, 2019 in Ethos, Industries, Social

For the first time, this is an ENCORE of a previous ENCORE of a blog-commentary by the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean.

We must have really been moved!
Indeed we were …

The remnant of the 1972 Miami Dolphins was on the field at the local Hardrock Stadium on Sunday December 22, 2019 – this was the home finale of the 2019 Miami Dolphins Football Season. The halftime show was a reunion of that perfect team from 1972.

What a moving feeling for a life-long Miami Dolphins fan (and current season-ticket holder): Me!

Title: Dolphins To Honor 1972 Team As Greatest Team In NFL History Against Bengals
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – The Miami Dolphins will honor their 1972 Perfect Season team as part of ‘NFL 100 Greatest’ in a special halftime ceremony against the Cincinnati Bengals, Sunday, Dec. 22 at Hard Rock Stadium. The team was named the greatest team in the 100-year history of the NFL on Nov. 15.

“It’s always special to be around the guys who came together to accomplish what no other team in the 100-year history of the NFL has ever done – the perfect season,” said Hall of Fame Head Coach Don Shula. “It’s only fitting as the League closes out this milestone season that the 1972 Dolphins are officially recognized with an honor that we always knew was true – that they are the greatest team in NFL history.”
Source: Posted December 19, 2019; retrieved December 23, 2019 from: https://www.miamidolphins.com/news/dolphins-to-honor-1972-team-as-greatest-team-in-nfl-history-against-bengals

This is my photo from the event – this Gathering of ‘Old Men’!

It is only apropos to Encore the previous blog-commentary (May 16, 2017) on this subject; which itself was an Encore of a previous blog-commentary (from August 31, 2015). See here-now:

————-

Miami, Florida – If you’re a fan of American football (NFL or the National Football League) then you know how impactful it is to go undefeated from the beginning to the end of the season, playoffs included. Only one team has done it … ever: the 1972 Miami Dolphins. The 50 players on that team became heroes to every football-loving kid anywhere near the broadcast waves of Miami.

There was a time when these guys were my heroes.

But “time and unforeseen occurrences befall us all” – The Bible (Ecclesiastes 9:11).

There is a connection between Miami and the Caribbean; the city has become much more than a shopping destination; it has redefined itself as the financial, political and sports capital of the Caribbean and Latin America.

So this news is shocking to receive, as the Miami Herald newspaper reports that many of the players on the 1972 Dolphins team now suffer from CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy).

Say it ain’t so …

CU Blog - UPDATE - Concussions Come Home - Photo 1

CU Blog - UPDATE - Concussions Come Home - Photo 1b

CU Blog - UPDATE - Concussions Come Home - Photo 3

It seemed like this CTE disease was so far-off; an affliction on people “over there” … somewhere. But to hit the 1972 Dolphins players means that this disease has come home…to our local heroes.

🙁

See the story here in this recent Miami Herald article:

Title: Football’s toll: At least eight members of 1972 Dolphins affected by cognitive impairment

CU Blog - UPDATE - Concussions Come Home - Photo 2They called him Captain Crunch, and the name was fitting. Mike Kolen packed a punch.

Now, 45 years after the Dolphins’ No-Name Defense ran through the 1972 season undefeated, Kolen and his perfect teammates are tied together again. But instead of celebration, there’s heartache.

South Florida’s most legendary team has become a cautionary tale, a poignant symbol of the concussion saga that threatens the future of America’s favorite sport.

“Within the last month or so, I’ve been diagnosed with the initial stages of Alzheimer’s,” Kolen, a starting linebacker on Miami’s two Super Bowl-winning teams, told the Miami Herald.

And was football the cause?

“I think that’s about the only way I’d have cognitive issues,” replied Kolen, 69, who has no family history of dementia.

Kolen’s story is not unique for Miami’s most historic team.

Earlier this week, Sports Illustrated detailed how Kolen’s better-known 1972 teammates Nick Buoniconti and Jim Kiick have both deteriorated mentally in the past few years.

After quarterback Earl Morrall’s death in 2014, an autopsy revealed he had Stage 4 chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease more commonly known as CTE that researchers have linked to football.

Bill Stanfill, the Dolphins’ first sack king, suffered from dementia and Parkinson’s disease when he died last fall at age 69.

Three others from that famed roster — cornerback Lloyd Mumphord, defensive back Tim Foley and running back Hubert Ginn — have quietly dealt with cognitive impairment in recent years, teammates tell the Herald.

That makes at least eight members of a roster of roughly 50 men who have experienced loss of acuity. And that figure includes only those who keep in regular contact with the organization; several do not.

Roughly a quarter of the ’72 team has passed away, including five from cancer. Manny Fernandez, a defensive lineman who was the star of Super Bowl VII, has had eight surgeries on his back alone. Center Jim Langer, 68, said his “legs are bad and my knees are shot” after six operations.

…

Even the NFL acknowledges – see VIDEO below – that there is a link between football-related head trauma and neurological diseases like CTE after denying any such connection for years. …

Continue reading the full article here; (it is lengthy):

http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/nfl/miami-dolphins/article150311157.html retrieved 05-11-2017.

———

VIDEO – NFL acknowledges link between football and brain disease CTE – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4503362/Seven-members-72-Dolphins-suffered-brain-injuries.html#v-6189767714419658422

Relating Miami to the Caribbean makes this story relatable to the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean. One purpose of this movement is to engage business models so that Caribbean communities can better take advantage of the economic benefits of sports. There are few expressions of professional sports in the Caribbean now – there is no eco-system for collegiate athletics at all. Due to the territorial status and the border proximity, there are 3 member-states with organized American Football league play in the Caribbean: Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands and the Bahamas.

With the advantages of professional sports (money from ticket sales & broadcast rights, pride, athletic fitness, etc.), come disadvantages as well. CTE, as one, is only now begrudgingly been accepted as a direct consequence of the often times brutal game of American Football.

This was the warning from this previous blog-commentary that marked the release of the movie “Concussion”, chronicling the David-versus-Goliath-like advocacy of the Pathology Doctor who “blew the whistle” on the systemic “willful” ignorance and Crony-Capitalistic abuse in the NFL. This excerpt highlights some main points from that blog:

Yes, movies help us to glean a better view of ourselves … and our failings; and many times, show us a way-forward.

These descriptors actually describe the latest production from Hollywood icon Will Smith (the former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). This movie, the film “Concussion”, in the following news article, relates the real life drama of one man, Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian-born medical doctor – a pathologist – who prepared autopsies of former players that suffered from football-related concussions. He did not buckle under the acute pressure to maintain the status quo, and now, he is celebrated for forging change in his adopted homeland. This one man made a difference. (The NFL is now credited for a Concussion awareness and prevention protocol so advanced that other levels of the sport – college, high schools and Youth – are being urged to emulate).

Beyond the excerpt, see the entire blog-commentary from August 31, 2015 on the movie ‘Concussion‘ and the dreaded CTE disease being encored here:

—————-

ENCORE – Go Lean Commentary – ‘Concussions’ – The Movie; The Cause

“Are you ready for some football?” – Promotional song by Hank Williams, Jr. for Monday Night Football on ABC & ESPN networks for 22 years (1989 – 2011). See Appendix Below.

This iconic song (see Appendix) and catch-phrase is reflective of exactly how popular the National Football League (NFL) is in the US:

“They own an entire day of the week”.

- The Movie; The Cause - Photo 2So says the new movie ‘Concussions’, starring Will Smith, referring to the media domination of NFL Football on Sundays during the Autumn season. The movie’s script is along a line that resonates well in Hollywood’s Academy Award balloting: “David versus Goliath”; “a small man speaking truth to power”.

In the case of the NFL, it is not just about power, it is about money, prestige and protecting the status quo; the NFL is responsible for the livelihood of so many people. The book Go Lean … Caribbean recognized the importance of the NFL in the American lexicon of “live, work and play”; it featured a case study (Page 32) of the NFL and it’s collective bargaining successes (and failures) in 2011. An excerpt from the book is quoted as follows:

Football is big business in the US, $9 billion in revenue, and more than a business; emotions – civic pride, rivalries, and fanaticism – run high on both sides.

Previous Go Lean commentaries presents the socio-economic realities of much of the American football eco-system. Consider a sample here:

Socio-Economic Impact Analysis of [Football] Sports Stadiums
Watch the Super Bowl … Commercials
Levi’s® NFL Stadium: A Team Effort
Sports Role Model – College Football – Playing For Pride … And More
Sports Role Model – Turn On the SEC Network
Collegiate Sports in the Caribbean – Model of NCAA
10 Things We Want from the US: #10 – Sports Professionalism
10 Things We Don’t Want from the US: #10 – ‘Win At All Costs’ Ethos

While football plays a big role in American life, so do movies. Their role is more unique; they are able to change society. 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”.

Yes, movies help us to glean a better view of ourselves … and our failings; and many times, show us a way-forward.

These descriptors actually describe the latest production from Hollywood icon Will Smith (the former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). This movie, the film “Concussion”, in the following news article, relates the real life drama of one man, Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian-born medical doctor – a pathologist – who prepared autopsies of former players that suffered from football-related concussions. He did not buckle under the acute pressure to maintain the status quo, and now, he is celebrated for forging change in his adopted homeland. This one man made a difference. (The NFL is now credited for a Concussion awareness and prevention protocol so advanced that other levels of the sport – college, high schools and Youth – are being urged to emulate).

See news article here on the release of the movie:

Title: ‘Concussion’: 5 Take-a-ways From Will Smith’s New Film

Will Smith, 46, is definitely going to get a ton of Oscar buzz portraying Dr. Bennet Omalu in the new film “Concussion.” NFL columnist Peter King of Sports Illustrated got an exclusive first peek at the trailer and it has been widely shared on social media since. And it’s very chilling.

- The Movie; The Cause - Photo 1

Here are five take-aways and background you need to know before checking out the clip:

1 – It’s Based on a True Story

Omalu is the forensic pathologist and neuropathologist who discovered chronic traumatic encephalopathy in football players who got hit in the head over and over again, according to the Washington Post.

In the clip, he says repetitive “head trauma chokes the brain.”

Omalu was one of the founding members of the Brain Injury Research Institute in 2002. He conducted the autopsy of Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, played by David Morse in the film, which led to this discovery.

2 – Smith’s Version of Omalu’s Accent Is Spot On

Omalu is from Nigeria and Smith has been known to transform completely for a role. He was nominated for an Oscar for 2011’s “Ali,” playing the legendary Muhammad Ali.

For comparison, here’s Omalu’s PBS interview from 2013.

3 – Smith Is a Reluctant Hero

“If you don’t speak for them, who will,” Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who plays Prema Mutiso in the film, tells Smith’s character.

He admits he idolized America growing up and “was the wrong person to have discovered this.”

4 – Alec Baldwin and Luke Wilson

“Concussion” brought in some heavyweights for this movie. Baldwin plays Dr. Julian Bailes, who advises Omalu, and Wilson, who will reportedly play NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, according to IMDB. There’s no official word on this. He’s seen at a podium in the trailer, but doesn’t speak.

5 – “Tell the Truth”

Smith captures Omalu’s passion to have the truth told about this injury and disease.

“I was afraid of letting Mike [Webster] down. I was afraid. I don’t know. I was afraid I was going to fail,” Omalu told PBS a couple years back.

———-

VIDEO Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3322364/?ref_=nv_sr_1


Will Smith stars in the incredible true David vs. Goliath story of Dr. Bennet Omalu, the brilliant forensic neuropathologist who made the first discovery of CTE, a football-related brain trauma, in a pro player.

The subject of concussions is serious – life and death. Just a few weeks ago (August 8), an NFL Hall-of-Fame inductee was honored for his play on the field during his 20-year professional career, but his family, his daughter in particular, is the one that made his acceptance / induction speech. He had died, in 2012; he committed suicide after apparently suffering from a brain disorder – chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a type of chronic brain damage that has also been found in other deceased former NFL players[4] – sustained from his years of brutal head contacts in organized football in high school, college and in his NFL career. This player was Junior Seau.

- The Movie; The Cause - Photo 3a

- The Movie; The Cause - Photo 3b

Why would there be a need for “David versus Goliath”; “a small man speaking truth to power”? Is not the actuality of an acclaimed football player committing suicide in this manner – he shot himself in the chest so as to preserve his brain for research – telling enough to drive home the message for reform?

No. Hardly. As previously discussed, there is too much money at stake.

These stakes bring out the Crony-capitalism in American society.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean (and subsequent blog/commentaries) relates many examples of cronyism in the American eco-system. There is a lot of money at stake. Those who want to preserve the status quo or not invest in the required mitigations to remediate concussions will fight back against any Advocate promoting the Greater Good. The profit motive is powerful. There are doubters and those who want to spurn doubt. “Concussions in Football” is not the first issue these “actors” have promoted doubt on. The efforts to downplay concussion alarmists are from a familiar playbook, used previously by Climate Change deniers, Big Tobacco, Toxic Waste, Acid Rain, and other dangerous chemicals.

This Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). Sports are integral to the Go Lean/CU roadmap. While sports can be good and promote positives in society, even economically, the safety issues must be addressed upfront. This is a matter of community security. Thusly, the prime directives of the CU are described as:

  • Optimize the economic engines of the Caribbean to elevate the regional economy to grow to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs, including sports-related industries with a projection of 21,000 direct jobs at Fairgrounds and sports enterprises.
  • Establish a security apparatus to protect the people and economic engines.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these economic and security engines.

The CU/Go Lean sports mission is to harness the individual abilities of athletes to not just elevate their performance, but also to harness the economic impact for their communities. So modern sports endeavors cannot be analyzed without considering the impact on “dollars and cents” for stakeholders. This is a fact and should never be ignored. There is therefore the need to carefully assess and be on guard for crony-capitalistic influences entering the decision-making of sports stakeholders. The Go Lean book posits that with the emergence of new economic engines, “bad actors” will also emerge thereafter to exploit the opportunities, with good, bad and evil intent”. These points were pronounced early in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12 &14):

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

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

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interests 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.

xxxi. Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism …

The Go Lean book envisions the CU – a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean chartered to do the heavy-lifting of empowering and elevating the Caribbean economy – as the landlord of many sports facilities (within the Self-Governing Entities design), and the regulator for inter-state sport federations. The book details the economic principles and community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize sports enterprises in the Caribbean:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways Page 21
Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices / Incentives Page 21
Economic Principles – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future Page 21
Economic Principles – Job Multiplier Page 22
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Whistleblower Protection Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Light-Up the Dark Places Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principles – “Crap” Happens Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness – Mitigate Suicide Threats Page 36
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederating 30 Member-States into a Single Market Page 45
Strategy – Vision – Foster Local Economic Engines for Basic Needs Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Prepare for Natural Disasters Page 45
Strategic – Staffing – Sporting Events at Fairgrounds Page 55
Strategy – Agents of Change – Climate Change Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization Page 57
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Sports & Culture Administration Page 81
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration Page 83
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Health Department – Disease Management Page 86
Implementation – Assemble Regional Organs into a Single Market Economy Page 96
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities – Sports Stadia Page 105
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up – Unified Command & Control Page 103
Implementation – Industrial Policy for CU Self Governing Entities Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Deliver – Project Management/Accountabilities Page 109
Anatomy of Advocacies – Examples of Individuals Who Made Impact Page 122
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management – Trauma Arts & Sciences Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Sports Leagues Page 234

The Go Lean book and accompanying blogs declare that the Caribbean needs to learn lessons from other communities, especially when big money is involved in pursuits like sports. These activities should be beneficial to health, not detrimental. So the admonition is to be “on guard” against the “cronies”; they will always try to sacrifice public policy – the Greater Good – for private gain: profit.

Let’s do better. Yes, the Caribbean can be better than the American experiences.

The design of Self-Governing Entities allow for greater protections from Crony-Capitalistic abuses. While this roadmap is committed to availing the economic opportunities of sports and accompanying infrastructure, as demonstrated in the foregoing movie trailer, sport teams and owners can be plutocratic “animals” in their greed. We must learn to mitigate plutocratic abuses. While an optimized eco-system is good, there is always the need for an Advocate, one person to step up, blow the whistle and transform society. The Go Lean roadmap encourages these role models.

Bravo Dr. Bennet Omalu. Thank you for this example … and for being a role model for all of the Caribbean.

RIP Junior Seau.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This roadmap will result in more positive socio-economic changes throughout the region; it will 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 this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

——-

Appendix VIDEO: Hank Williams Jr. – Are You Ready for Some Football – https://youtu.be/dKPZEMu7Mno

Uploaded on May 28, 2011 – Official Music Video

 

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