Power – Page 21 – Go Lean…Caribbean

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A Lesson in History – Royal Charters: Truth & Consequence

Posted on April 21, 2015 in Ethos, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

“This is my island in the sun, willed to me by my Father’s hand” – Iconic Calypso song: Island in the Sun

No one doubts the historicity of this expression. Even the Bible lays the premise for the granting of an inheritance by the Declaration of a Father; consider this verse: “A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children”. – Proverbs 13:22 – New International Version

So without a doubt a “Last Will & Testament” is a decree/charter that grants property to a beneficiary, just by words; no exchange of capital or valuables. This is perhaps the simplest form of a charter or decree.

They get more complex, like with Papal Bulls, Royal Charters and/or Royal Decrees. See Photo here.

Consider first the Papal Bull – “letters patent” or charter issued by a Pope, the Head of the Roman Catholic Church; see Appendix A below. The most iconic of all the Papal Bulls was the Inter caetera (Latin for “Among other [works]”) a Papal Bull by Pope Alexander VI on 4 May 1493, which set a demarcation between the New Lands to Portugal and Spain; this granted to Spain (the Crowns of Castile and Aragon) all lands to the “west and south” of a pole-to-pole line 100 leagues west and south of any of the islands of the Azores or the Cape Verde islands.^[1] All new lands to the East of this pole remained assigned to Portugal.

Just before this world-changing decree, there was an earlier Papal Bull that sealed the fate and would prejudice the African Diaspora for 500 years. The African Slave Trade and institution of “Slavery” was legally predicated on a Papal Bull from Pope Innocent VIII (Giovanni Battista Cybo) in 1491; just months before Christopher Columbus’s historic first voyage. Consider this encyclopedic reference:

In his book “Black Africans in Renaissance Europe”, principal author N. H Minnich^* described how the position of Renaissance popes towards slavery, a common institution in contemporary cultures, varied. The book states that those who allowed the slave trade did so in the hope of gaining converts to Christianity.^[11] But in the case of Pope Innocent VIII, he permitted trade with Barbary^# merchants, in which foodstuffs would be given in exchange for slaves who could then be converted to Christianity.^[11]

This was the de jure authorization of the Slave Trade.

One early adopter of this new commerce was King Ferdinand of Aragon (co-sponsor along with Castile’s Queen Isabella of the initial voyage of Christopher Columbus); he gave Pope Innocent VIII 100 Moorish slaves who shared them out with favored Cardinals.^[12]

From this origin, the foundation of the New World was established … with the stroke of a pen.

Any monarchy, democracy, aristocracy, stratocracy, timocracy or theocracy that emerged subsequently in the New World stemmed from this genesis of Papal or Royal Charters. All of these forms of rulership are analyzed in the book and accompanying blogs for Go Lean…Caribbean. This book provides an assessment of the Caribbean today, drawing reference to its historic past. From the origins of slavery, the region traversed the historic curves of social revolution and evolution. In the 1500, the Protestant movement took hold. As other European powers deviated from Catholicism, Papal Bulls carried no significance to them and compliance was ignored. England and Holland established their own Protestant Churches with their own monarchs as head of Church and State; Papal decrees were replaced with Royal Decrees and Charters; see Appendix B below. The intent and end-result was still the same: territories and lands awarded (colonized) with the stroke of a pen by one European power after another. The Royal Decrees and Charters were then reinforced with a strong military presence and many battles. This point was detailed in the Go Lean book on Page 241:

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

Early in the Go Lean book, this need for careful review of the history of European domination on the Caribbean was acknowledged and then placed into perspective with this pronouncement (Declaration of Interdependence – Page 10):

As the history of our region and the oppression, suppression and repression of its indigenous people is duly documented, there is no one alive who can be held accountable for the prior actions, and so we must put aside the shackles of systems of repression to instead formulate efficient and effective systems to steer our own destiny.

As the colonial history of our region was initiated to create economic expansion opportunities for our previous imperial masters, the structures of government instituted in their wake have not fostered the best systems for prosperity of the indigenous people.

So the consideration of the Go Lean book, as related to this subject is one of governance, the need for technocratic stewardship of the regional Caribbean society. This point was also pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12) with these acknowledgements and statements:

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

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

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.

Let’s add one more option to the forms of rulership that prevailed in the Caribbean: Oligarchy!

The use of the term oligarchy is a synonym for rule by the rich,^[4] for which another term commonly used today is plutocracy. (This commentary had previously detailed the dynamics of plutocracies in the corporate arena).

The etymology of the word “oligarchy” (from Greek olígos, meaning “few”, and arkho, meaning “to rule or to command”)^[1][2][3] is a form of power structure in a state where power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, religious or military control.

In this discussion of oligarchy, focus is given to powerful families. There are encyclopedic references that relate that oligarchy structures are often controlled by a few prominent families, who typically pass their influence/wealth from one generation to the next, even though inheritance alone is not a necessary condition for oligarchies to prevail.

The islands of the Caribbean fit the story-line in the opening song lyrics: “Islands in the sun; willed to me by my father’s hand”.

This is the challenge that belies Caribbean society. Most of the property and indigenous wealth of the Caribbean region is concentrated amongst the rich, powerful and yet small elite; an oligarchy. Many times these families received their property, corporate rights and/or monopolies by Royal Charter from the European monarchs of ancient times. These charters thus lingered in legacy from one generation to another … until …

World War II.

According to the initial quotation above (Bottom Line on European Colonialism) from the Go Lean book, World War II was the “watershed event” that led to revolutionary change among the European powers. The “Decolonization” movement thusly proceeded to eradicate the “colonialism disease”. Most Caribbean member-states that now feature an independent status obtained this disposition during this time period since WW II; (i.e. Jamaica in 1962, Bahamas in 1973). The European direct rule was gone, but the oligarchs remained; many times negotiated in initial constitutions as a compromise for peace assurances.

The subject of oligarchs is very familiar on the African continent. This has been a real issue there. In many countries after colonialism, like Zimbabwe (1980), the cure for the oligarch disease was nationalization – forfeiting and seizing commercial farms and mines. This turned out disastrously for this country; the cure was worse than the disease. But, next door in South Africa, the strategy, tactics and implementation was different. This country did not ascend to majority rule until 1994; the first President there, Nelson Mandela saw the futility of this nationalization strategy amongst the precedent African nations that sought independence, so he pursued an alternate approach to assuage White Flight and keep the capital and skilled labor in the country. But the continuation of the oligarchs’ ill-gained, and public-perceived-stolen assets forged problems in the reality of economic/wealth inequality. Majority rule therefore brought no revolutionary change for the average man.

Considering these case studies, we see a lesson in this history, an obvious appreciation for best-practices … to apply in the Caribbean. We derive best-practices and prudence by applying these lessons from history, as reflected in the Go Lean book.

This is the quest of the Go Lean…Caribbean book; to serve as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU); to spearhead the elevation of Caribbean society. The book advocates learning lessons from many events and concepts in history, from as far back as the patriarchal Bible times, to as recent as the Great Recession of 2008. The roadmap simply seeks to reboot the region’s economic, security and governing engines, hypothesizing that the European colonial stewards did not have societal efficiency in mind when they structured administrations of the individual countries/island-states in this region; (they didn’t even apply the best practices that they employed in Europe).

In general, the CU will employ better strategies, tactics and implementations to impact its prime directives; identified with the following 3 statements:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines and mitigate internal and external threats.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book stresses key community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to transform and turn-around the eco-systems of Caribbean society. These points are detailed in the book as follows:

Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate all 30 member-states/ 4 languages into a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Build and foster local economic engines	Page 45
Tactical – Ways to Foster a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Growing the Economy – Post WW II European Marshall Plan Model	Page 68
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – CU Federal Government versus Member-State Governance	Page 71
Implementation – Assemble All Regionally-focus Organizations of All Caribbean Communities	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt	Page 114
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Single Market / Currency Union	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Model the new European Union	Page 130
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Minority and Human Rights	Page 134
Planning – Lessons Learned from the previous West Indies Federation	Page 135
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008 – Optimizing Economic-Financial-Monetary Engines	Page 136
Planning – Lessons Learned New York City – Managing as a “Frienemy”	Page 137
Planning – Lessons Learned from Omaha – Human Flight Mitigations	Page 138
Planning – Lessons Learned from East Germany – Bad Examples for Trade & Security	Page 139
Planning – Lessons Learned from Detroit – Turn-around from Failure	Page 140
Planning – Lessons Learned from Indian Reservations – See Photo* here*	Page 141
Planning – Lessons Learned from the American West – How to Win the Peace	Page 142
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 Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Natural Resources	Page 183
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Appendix – Failed-State Index for Uneven Economic Development	Page 272
Appendix – European Shuffling in the Guianas – Historic Timeline	Page 307

There are other lessons for the Caribbean to learn from considering history; the following previous blog/commentaries apply:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4935	A Lesson in History: the ‘Grand Old Party’ of American Politics
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4720	A Lesson in History: SARS in Hong Kong
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4166	A Lesson in History: Panamanian Balboa
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2809	A Lesson in History: Economics of East Berlin
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2670	A Lesson in History: Rockefeller’s Pipeline
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2585	A Lesson in History: Concorde SST
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2480	A Lesson in History: Community Ethos of WW II
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2297	A Lesson in History: Booker T versus Du Bois
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1531	A Lesson in History: 100 Years Ago Today – World War I
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=789	A Lesson in History: America’s War on the Caribbean

The Go Lean roadmap seeks to empower and elevate Caribbean societal engines. It is out-of-scope to impact Europe; our focus is only here at home. Besides, the former European colonial masters all realize the futility of the actions of their ancestors and predecessors. They are now battling to try and weed-out the last vestiges of racism and ethnic supremacy in their society. Though there is a movement to extract reparations from these former colonizers, that effort is not supported by the Go Lean movement.

Our quest is simple, a 21^st century effort to make the Caribbean region a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

———–

Appendix A – Letters Patent

Letters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch or president, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation. They are so named from the Latin verb pateo, to lie open, exposed, accessible.^[1] The originator’s seal was attached pendent from the document, so that it did not have to be broken in order for the document to be read.

They are called “letters” (plural) from their Latin name litterae patentes, used by medieval and later scribes when the documents were written in Latin, in the ancient sense of a collection of letters of the alphabet arranged to be read rather than in the modern sense of an “epistle” or item of correspondence: thus no singular form exists.^[2]

Letters patent can be used for the creation of corporations or government offices, or for the granting of city status or a “coat of arms”. A particular form of letters patent has evolved into the modern patent (referred to as a utility patent or design patent in United States patent law) granting exclusive rights in an invention (or a design in the case of a design patent). Clearly in this case it is essential that the written grant should be in the form of a public document so other inventors can consult it to avoid infringement.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_patent

———–

Appendix B – Royal Charter

A royal charter is a formal document issued by a monarch as letters patent, granting a right or power to an individual or a corporate entity.

The British monarchy has issued over 980 royal charters.^[1] Of these about 750 remain in existence.

The Royal Decree is the equivalent in Belgium of a Royal Charter.

Consider some examples:

The East India Company; granted Royal Charter in 1600 issued by Elizabeth I (tea sales in British North America)^[11]
The Hudson’s Bay Company; founded by a Royal Charter issued in 1670 by King Charles II (administration of parts of Northern Ontario & Judicial connections with Upper Canada) ^[12]
The British South Africa Company; granted Royal Charter in 1889

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_charter

———–

Appendix * – Book Reference: “Black Africans in Renaissance Europe”, N. H Minnich, Thomas Foster Earle, K. J. P. Lowe, Cambridge University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-521-81582-7

———–

Appendix ^{# –}Reference: Barbary Pirates

These are the “pirates” referred to in the Bob Marley’s Redemption Song with these lyrics:

Old pirates, yes, they rob I;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the ‘and of the Almighty.
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly.

VIDEO – Bob Marley – Redemption Song (from the Legend album, with lyrics) – https://youtu.be/QrY9eHkXTa4

No copyright infringement intended; this is a “fan” video that assembled together public-domain photo-stills.

Music: “Redemption Song” by Bob Marley & The Wailers (Google Play • iTunes • AmazonMP3)

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History, Image, Model, Power, Transform

A Lesson in History – the ‘Grand Old Party’

Posted on April 19, 2015 in Government, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

The Caribbean Community (CariCom) in general and Jamaica in particular had the great privilege of hosting the United States President Barack Obama. He is the first Black Man to hold that esteemed office. In his visit, he was hailed as a conquering hero for agreeing to attend a regional meeting on Caribbean soil, thereby facilitating consultation and collaboration on regional issues between Caribbean government officials and the Chief Executive of the American Republic. Though the Caribbean member-states have no vote in the US Capitol of Washington DC, including the US Territories of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Island, we do have a voice. The Jamaica meeting allowed more audiences for those voices.

The US is the world’s largest, and richest, single market economy – an economic and military Super Power – plus the largest trading partner for most Caribbean member-states. We are directly affected by the economic, security and governing policies emanating from the shores of America. This focus aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean which seeks to elevate the Caribbean economic, security and governing engines. Begrudgingly, the book admits that the Caribbean is only a parasite of the American eco-system but presents a roadmap to elevate the region to a better status: protégé instead of parasite.

Due to constitutionally mandated term limits, President Obama only has less than 2 years left in his administration. The focus now moves to his possible successor. The next presidential election in the US is set for November 2016. Despite being 18 months away, the jockeying has begun. Will the next president be a Democrat or a Republican? Will their policies be Pro-Caribbean, Anti-Caribbean or completely agnostic; indifferent to the Caribbean’s needs and issues? Agnosticism is not far-fetch as this is the observation given by President Obama. He concluded that 55 years of indifference towards Cuba was long-enough and he has “set the machinery in motion” to normalize relations with Cuba. Will this initiative continue with the new president? The world will have to wait-and-see.

As of this writing, 4 people have already officially declared and launched their campaigns, 1 Democrat (Hillary Clinton) and 3 Republicans (Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio). Most stakeholders in the Caribbean may think that the Democratic Party may be more conducive to Caribbean elevation. But still, the decision of American leadership is not ours to make nor influence. We must simply convene, consult and collaborate with whomever the elected official is, Democrat or Republican.

This commentary therefore asserts that we need to work to influence both sides of the American political divide; perhaps even more on the Republican side, since as of late, their policies are less empowering for African-American, and less empowering for the Caribbean. Therefore, there is the need for more mitigation and remediation for the Republican party … as of late.

As of late…
… because the Republican Party, commonly referred to as the GOP (abbreviation for Grand Old Party), was founded by anti-slavery activists in 1854. (The Caribbean and the United States share the same historic legacy of slavery and the slow drag throughout history to remediate the experiences and injustices for this Black-and-Brown population). The GOP dominated politics nationally and in most of the northern U.S. for most of the period between 1860 and 1932. There have been 18 Republican U.S. presidents, the first being Abraham Lincoln, who served from 1861 until his assassination in 1865, and the most recent being George W. Bush, who served two full four-year terms 2001 to 2009. The most recent Republican presidential nominee was former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney who lost in 2012 to the incumbent president, Democrat Barack Obama. See the full 19th and 20th Century history of the GOP in the Appendix below.

Today, the party’s platform is generally based on American conservatism,^[8][9][10] in contrast to the contemporary American liberalism of the rival Democratic Party. The Republican Party’s conservatism involves supporting free market capitalism, limited government, strong national defense, opposing regulation and labor unions, and supporting socially conservative policies.^[2] Civil rights, or issues related to empowering minorities, are not identified with the Republican Party. What a change compared to the historic beginnings of this party.

In the current 114th U.S. Congress, the Republicans have their largest majority in the U.S. House of Representatives since the 1928 election; the GOP also holds a majority of seats in the Senate.^[12] The party also holds a majority of governorships and state legislatures.^[13]

It is what it is!

We must seek to engage Republicans. It is only the US Presidency that is missing in their echelon of American power.

There is expected to be a full corps of Republican presidential candidates for 2016. Some of the names that have expressed interest in running include the following, but these ones have not officially launched their federal campaigns … yet:

Jeb Bush – former 2-term Florida Governor
Mike Huckabee – former Arkansas Governor and 2008 presidential candidate
Chris Christie – Current Governor of New Jersey
Donald Trump – Popular Billionaire businessman and media personality
Ben Carson – Retired neurosurgeon and businessman; he happens to be an African-American; see article here:

Title: Will He Run? Ben Carson Set To Address Presidential Plans In May 4 Announcement

He may announce his bid to run for president in 2016. He may not.

But whatever Ben Carson’s political aspirations are, we’ll all know when he makes them public in a May 4 announcement in Detroit, his team tells [news outlet] CNN.

The announcement, set to take place at the Detroit Music Hall Center for Performing Arts, is expected to be the launch for his presidential bid. Details, including ticketing and the subject of the announcement, however, have “yet to be hammered out,” Carson spokeswoman Deana Bass said.

“He will make an announcement. But he’s still very much in the exploratory phase, so he hasn’t made a decision yet,” she said.

From CNN:
The retired neurosurgeon has been traveling the nation over the past six months, giving paid speeches and meeting with supporters to gauge interest in a bid. He recently traveled to Iowa and New Hampshire, and spoke last weekend at the National Rifle Association’s meeting in Tennessee. Carson’s relative political inexperience, however, hasn’t turned him away from the campaign — if he runs, he’ll look to make it an asset, framing himself as a common-sense alternative to the broken policies of Washington politicians.

So far, the presidential race has gained three GOP senators — Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas, and Marco Rubio of Florida — but Carson’s green political experience (and the already full pot of GOP candidates) doesn’t seem to be a deterrent. And according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls, he may have a real shot.

From CNN:
Carson surveys right in the middle of the potential GOP field, ahead of more seasoned or better-known GOP contenders like former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee or Rubio, and he took fifth place with 9% support in the last CNN/ORC survey, conducted in March.

Still, that’s a marked decline from late February, when he was polling in the top three of the pack, indicating he still has some work to do in proving his credibility with voters.

We’ll wait to see if Carson will join the Election 2016 club, but if May 4 turns out to be his bid announcement, will you vote for him?
Source: News One – Media Suite Targeting African-Americans – Posted 04/14/2015 from: http://newsone.com/3107603/ben-carson-set-to-address-presidential-plans-may-4-announcement/

Ben Carson is a retired neurosurgeon from Detroit. The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean has come to this city to observe-and-report on the turn-around of this once great industrial city that is a national icon of urban dysfunction; (Page 140). There have been countless blog/commentaries that have described the Detroit (and surrounding Michigan) dynamics.

Is the United States ready for a second Black Man to assume the highest office in the land? Is Ben Carson ready? Is Black America ready for this Black Republican?

These are all appropriate questions. From the Caribbean perspective, we will observe-and-report on these developments.

The focus of the Go Lean book is not American politics, but rather the economic, security and governing engines of the Caribbean. Yet still, we need to have a productive relationship with the American federal government and whichever administration is in the White House. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU); an initiative to bring “Hope and Change” to the Caribbean region; to make the region a better place to live, work and play. This Go Lean roadmap also 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 protect the resultant economic engines.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The book describes the CU as a technocratic administration with 144 different missions to elevate the Caribbean homeland. The underlying goal is stated early in the book with this pronouncement in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12):

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law…

The Go Lean roadmap represents “Hope and Change” for the Caribbean. In 2008, Barack Obama propelled forward into American conscience with that theme “Hope and Change“, now the effort is to propel an initiative for the Caribbean. We have some serious crises to contend with. We need hope and we need change…now.

This fact was enunciated by Obama in his visit to Jamaica. He explained how we have to better manage our interactions with Super Powers to ensure we are getting the sought-after benefits, and not being exploited for their self-interest. The President prescribed a formula for the Caribbean’s dealing with China … and also America itself.

VIDEO: President Barack Obama’s response on China’s involvement in Jamaica’s Development – https://youtu.be/rRaQjukEPOo

Published on

Apr 22, 2015 — We are a movement of Jamaicans both at Home and Abroad who are willing to fight for real and lasting change. This isn’t for everyone — we’re Changing Jamaica Through Leadership, and we’re proud of it. If you’re someone who’d rather get involved than sit back, if you refuse to be cynical about what we can get done together, then you should be part of this at www.ourjamaicavote.org

The Go Lean roadmap was constructed with the following community ethos in mind, plus the execution of strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to elevate the Caribbean eco-system. The following is a sample of these specific details from the book:

Assessment – Caribbean Community’s stalled Single Market Initiative	Page 15
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Choose	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – All Choices Involve Costs	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Security Principles – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius – Leadership Skills/Development	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederation of the 30 Caribbean Member-States into a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Celebrate the Music, Sports, Art, People and Culture of the Caribbean	Page 46
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers: Federal Administration versus Member-States Governance	Page 71
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade	Page 128
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Image	Page 133
Planning – Lessons Learned from Detroit	Page 140
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance in the Caribbean Region	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership	Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Reboot Cuba	Page 236

There is a consistency with this Go Lean commentary, applying lessons from a consideration of historic events and people. The premise is simple:

Those who refuse to learn from history are forced to repeat it.

The Go Lean book posits that the Caribbean has a dysfunctional history. Despite having the greatest address on the planet, the region suffers from an alarmingly high abandonment rate. We can… and must do better. By applying this lesson from history we should be able to better prosper where we’re planted here in the Caribbean.

There are other lessons for the Caribbean to learn from considering history; the following previous blog/commentaries apply:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4720	A Lesson in History: SARS in Hong Kong
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4166	A Lesson in History: Panamanian Balboa
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2809	A Lesson in History: Economics of East Berlin
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2670	A Lesson in History: Rockefeller’s Pipeline
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2585	A Lesson in History: Concorde SST
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2480	A Lesson in History: Community Ethos of WW II
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2297	A Lesson in History: Booker T versus Du Bois
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1531	A Lesson in History: 100 Years Ago Today – World War I
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=789	A Lesson in History: America’s War on the Caribbean

The Go Lean roadmap seeks to empower and elevate Caribbean engines. It is out-of-scope to impact the US. That will be the campaign of the presidential candidates, perhaps also including Ben Carson. He would not be the first Black Republican presidential candidate; in fact in 2012 Herman Cain ran a substantial campaign for much of that “season” – a one-time front-runner. Further, in 2000, former ambassador Alan Keyes sought the Republican nomination for President.

Will “Ben Carson” campaign change the Republican party, making it more amiable to the Black Community? Did the previous candidates (Herman Cain & Alan Keyes) impact the party? It is only logical to conclude that each attempt by serious Black candidates will “crack the glass ceiling”; then eventually a substantial Black candidate will “break through”.

Will “Ben Carson” be that candidate? Let’s observe-and-report.

🙂

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

———-

APPENDIX – History of the Grand Old Party
(Source: Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia – Retrieved 04/19/2015 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_(United_States) )

Founding and 19th century

Founded in the Northern states in 1854 by anti-slavery activists, modernizers, ex-Whigs, and ex-Free Soilers, the Republican Party quickly became the principal opposition to the dominant Democratic Party and the briefly popular Know Nothing Party. The main cause was opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise by which slavery was kept out of Kansas. The Northern Republicans saw the expansion of slavery as a great evil. The first public meeting where the name “Republican” was suggested for a new anti-slavery party was held on March 20, 1854 in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin.^[14] The name was partly chosen to pay homage to Thomas Jefferson’s Republican Party.

The first official party convention was held on July 6, 1854, in Jackson, Michigan.^[15] By 1858, the Republicans dominated nearly all Northern states. The Republican Party first came to power in 1860 with the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency and Republicans in control of Congress and again, the Northern states. It oversaw the preserving of the union, the end of slavery, and the provision of equal rights to all men in the American Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861–1877.^[16]

The Republicans’ initial base was in the Northeast and the upper Midwest [States].

Early Republican ideology was reflected in the 1856 slogan “free labor, free land, free men”, which had been coined by Salmon P. Chase, a Senator from Ohio (and future Secretary of the Treasury and Chief Justice of the United States).^[17] “Free labor” referred to the Republican opposition to slave labor and belief in independent artisans and businessmen. “Free land” referred to Republican opposition to plantation system whereby slave-owners could buy up all the good farm land, leaving the yeoman independent farmers the leftovers. The Party strived to contain the expansion of slavery, which would cause the collapse of the slave power (“slaveocracy”) and the expansion of freedom.^[18]

Lincoln, representing the fast-growing western states, won the Republican nomination in 1860 and subsequently won the presidency. The party took on the mission of preserving the Union and destroying slavery during the American Civil War and over Reconstruction. In the election of 1864, it united with War Democrats to nominate Lincoln on the National Union Party ticket.

The party’s success created factionalism within the party in the 1870s. Those who felt that Reconstruction had been accomplished and was continued mostly to promote the large-scale corruption tolerated by President Ulysses S. Grant ran Horace Greeley for the presidency. The Stalwarts defended Grant and the spoils system; the Half-Breeds pushed for reform of the civil service.

The GOP supported business generally, hard money (i.e., the gold standard), high tariffs to promote economic growth, high wages and high profits, generous pensions for Union veterans, and (after 1893) the annexation of Hawaii. The Republicans supported the pietistic Protestants who demanded Prohibition. As the northern post-bellum economy boomed with heavy and light industry, railroads, mines, fast-growing cities and prosperous agriculture, the Republicans took credit and promoted policies to sustain the fast growth.

Nevertheless, by 1890 the Republicans had agreed to the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Interstate Commerce Commission in response to complaints from owners of small businesses and farmers. The high McKinley Tariff of 1890 hurt the party and the Democrats swept to a landslide in the off-year elections, even defeating McKinley himself.

After the two terms of Democrat Grover Cleveland, the election of William McKinley in 1896 is widely seen as a resurgence of Republican dominance and is sometimes cited as a realigning election. McKinley promised that high tariffs would end the severe hardship caused by the [Economic] Panic of 1893, and that the GOP would guarantee a sort of pluralism in which all groups would benefit.

20th century

The 1896 realignment cemented the GOP as the party of big business, while Theodore Roosevelt added more small business support by his embrace of trust busting. He handpicked his successor William Howard Taft in 1908, but they became enemies on economic issues. Defeated by Taft for the 1912 nomination, Roosevelt bolted the party and led the third party ticket of the Progressive Party. The party returned to the White House throughout the 1920s, running on platforms of normalcy, business-oriented efficiency, and high tariffs. The national party avoided the prohibition issue after it became law in 1920.

Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover were resoundingly elected in 1920, 1924, and 1928 respectively. The pro-business policies of the decade seemed to produce an unprecedented prosperity until the Wall Street Crash of 1929 heralded the Great Depression.

New Deal Era

The New Deal coalition of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt controlled American politics for most of the next three decades, excepting the two-term presidency of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. Blacks moved into the Democratic Party during the New Deal era; they could vote in the North but not in the South. After Roosevelt took office in 1933, New Deal legislation sailed through Congress and the economy moved sharply upward from the nadir in early 1933. However long-term unemployment remained a drag until 1940. In the 1934 midterm elections, 10 Republican senators went down to defeat, leaving them with only 25 against 71 Democrats. The House of Representatives likewise had overwhelming Democratic majorities.

The GOP split into a majority “Old Right” (based in the Midwest) and a liberal wing based in the Northeast that supported much of the New Deal. The Old Right sharply attacked the “Second New Deal” and said it represented class warfare and socialism. Roosevelt was reelected in a landslide in 1936 but everything went awry in his second term, as the economy plunged, strikes soared, and FDR failed to take control of the Supreme Court or to purge the Southern conservatives in the Democratic party. The GOP made a major comeback in the 1938 elections, and had new rising stars such as Robert A. Taft of Ohio on the right and Thomas E. Dewey of New York on the left.^[19] Southern conservatives joined with most Republicans to form the conservative coalition, which dominated domestic issues in Congress until 1964. Both parties split on foreign policy issues, with the anti-war isolationists dominant in the GOP and the interventionists who wanted to stop Hitler dominant in the Democratic party. Roosevelt won a third and fourth term in 1940 and 1944. Conservatives abolished most of the New Deal during the war, but did not attempt to reverse Social Security or the agencies that regulated business.

Historian George H. Nash argues:

Unlike the “moderate”, internationalist, largely eastern bloc of Republicans who accepted (or at least acquiesced in) some of the “Roosevelt Revolution” and the essential premises of President Truman’s foreign policy, the Republican Right at heart was counter-revolutionary, anti-collectivist, anti-Communist, anti-New Deal, passionately committed to limited government, free market economics, and congressional (as opposed to executive) prerogatives, the G.O.P. conservatives were obliged from the start to wage a constant two-front war: against liberal Democrats from without and “me-too” Republicans from within.^[20]

The Democrats elected majorities to Congress almost continuously after 1932 (the GOP won only in 1946 and 1952), but the Conservative Coalition blocked practically all major liberal proposals in domestic policy. After 1945, the internationalist wing of the GOP cooperated with Harry Truman’s Cold War foreign policy, funded the Marshall Plan, and supported NATO, despite the continued isolationism of the Old Right.

The second half of the 20th century saw election or succession of Republican presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. Eisenhower had defeated conservative leader Senator Robert A. Taft for the 1952 nomination, but conservatives dominated the domestic policies of the Eisenhower Administration. Voters liked Ike much more than they liked the GOP, and he proved unable to shift the party to a more moderate position. After 1970, the liberal wing faded away.^[21]

Ever since he left office in 1989, Reagan has been the iconic Republican; and Republican presidential candidates frequently claim to share his views and aim to establish themselves and their policies as the more appropriate heir to his legacy.^[22] In 1994, the Party, led by House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich campaigning on the Contract with America, was elected to majorities to both houses of Congress in the Republican Revolution. However Gingrich was unable to deliver on most of its promises, and after the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998 and subsequent Republican losses in the House, he resigned. Since Reagan’s day, presidential elections have been close. However, the Republican presidential candidate won a majority of the popular vote only in 2004, while coming in second in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008 and 2012.

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A Picture is worth a thousand words; a video … a million

Posted on April 9, 2015 in Ethos, Government

Go Lean Commentary

The penalty for a broken taillight should not be “Death by Firing Squad”.

Welcome to America!

Though this declaration is not the law-of-the-land, it is the anecdotal experience for the Black-and-Brown populations, far too often.

The subsequent news commentary – by British Expatriate Piers Morgan (former host on American news network CNN) – is ripped from the headlines of “Cop-on-Black” crime in the US. For much of the latter half of 2014, this type of headline was prevalent in places like Ferguson, Missouri, but in truth, it appears that the law enforcement community appears to have “Bulls-eye” targets on African-American males throughout the country, more so than any other ethnic group. This statement would have appeared to be only indicative of “conspiracy theories”, if not for the following pictures and VIDEO.

By: Piers Morgan
Title: After seeing South Carolina police nearly get away with murder, I won’t feel safe until every cop who carries a gun, wears a camera too

This morning, I watched Walter Scott die.

I didn’t think I’d ever see a piece of video footage that made me feel as physically sick and angry as that disgusting ISIS snuff movie of a Jordanian pilot being burned alive.

But the last few seconds of Scott’s life, captured by a passer-by on a camera phone, provoked similar nausea-fuelled emotions of blind rage.

Why? Because they exposed the shocking truth behind a sickening lie.

Scott, a 50-year-old American father-of-four, had been stopped in North Charleston, South Carolina, for having a broken taillight on his Mercedes car.

A vehicular misdemeanor so minor in its importance that it’s usually dealt with by a verbal police warning, no fine and no points on your license.

But Scott, fearful of arrest because he owed child support, ran away.

The police officer who had stopped him, Patrolman Michael Slager, gave chase into a small grassy lot.

Minutes later, unarmed Scott was dead. Needlessly, senselessly, murderously riddled with bullets in the back from trigger-happy Officer Slager’s handgun.

Walter Scott’s death is outrageous enough.

But the disgraceful cover-up that followed makes the stomach churn.

Officer Slager told his bosses that Scott had taken his taser gun in a violent struggle, and he had shot him because he feared for his life.

To support this, the taser had been found next to Scott’s body – suggesting he had run off with it.

His bosses preferred to just take his word for it then properly investigate.

And presumably, the word of a second officer who arrived at the scene shortly afterwards.

So the official statement released to the media backed Officer Slager’s claim that he had acted entirely within his rights after Scott tried to grab his taser.

The Supreme Court ruled that an officer may use deadly force against a fleeing suspect only when there is probable cause that the suspect ‘poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.’

By Officer Slager’s account, that criteria was met.

And there it would have ended.

Walter Scott’s death would be blamed on Walter Scott.

Another reckless violent aggressor who forced a terrified cop to shoot him.

Case closed.

But then came the video.

It turned out that someone walking nearby had secretly filmed the whole thing on his camera phone.

So now we could actually see for ourselves what happened.

Mr. Scott never grabbed Officer Slager’s taser.

In fact, Officer Slager tasers Scott, who then runs off.

Scott is more than 20 feet away and clearly fleeing when Officer Slager stands and fires eight shots at him.

When Scott finally falls, after the last of the eight shots, Officer Slager runs back toward where the initial scuffle occurred and picks something up of the ground. Moments later, he drops it near Scott’s body.

It’s believed to be the taser.

After the video appeared, Officer Slager was promptly charged with murder.

Which is all very well, but if the video hadn’t appeared, he would have GOT AWAY with murder.

Isn’t that just utterly shameful?

The South Carolina police department failed Walter Scott on every single level. Doesn’t the simple fact alone that he was shot five times in the BACK demand a serious analysis of forensics, autopsy and witness statements?

Instead, they chose to do nothing but stand by their lying, cold-blooded executioner.

At this point, I should mention that Walter Scott was black and Officer Slager is white.

I’m wary of casting racial aspersions on Officer Slager’s actions.

There’s nothing to unequivocally suggest it was a racially motivated incident.

And indeed, the Scott family attorney, L. Chris Stewart, offered a different explanation:

‘It’s not about race, it’s about power. The officer thought he could just shoot this man. He thought Mr Scott was expendable. He just casually shot a man in the back many times. That speaks to the value of human life, which is a bigger issue than trying to just make this a small issue of race. When people start respecting that more, it won’t matter what colour you are.’

I think he’s right.

When American cops shoot dead someone who is black, it garners huge headlines because people rush to assume it’s racial.

And sometimes it is. Perhaps Officer Slager racially profiled Walter Scott, we’ll probably never know.

But the truth is that American cops shoot everyone, regardless of colour or creed.

They kill many more whites than blacks, though the percentage of blacks who get killed as part of the U.S. black population is three times higher than the same percentage for whites.

And they do it because they can.

Guns empower some of them to behave like trigger-happy John Waynes and it is, frankly, terrifying.

I received my first ever traffic ticket recently, after performing an illegal U-turn in Beverly Hills – right in front of a policeman on a motorbike.

He signalled for me to pull over, which I did.

But as he walked towards me, loaded gun glistening in his hip holster, I began to slightly panic. Especially as just two days before, a man was shot dead by cops a few blocks away on the famed Rodeo Drive.

What were the rules again?

Do I put my hands on the steering wheel or by my side?

Do I wind down the window, or leave it up?

Do I turn the ignition off or keep it on?

Do I reach for my papers, or wait to be instructed?

Do I call him ‘Officer’, ‘Sir’ or what?

None of these questions would be significant in somewhere like Britain, because nobody fears they might be shot by a policeman.

The vast majority of British cops don’t carry guns, mainly because they know the vast majority of civilians don’t carry them either.

At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, it is worth repeating once more that fewer Brits die a YEAR from guns than get shot dead every single DAY in America.

So there is no expectation, fear or paranoia on either side that a simple traffic violation may suddenly erupt into a deadly shooting match.

In America, everyone now has to assume that everyone else may be armed.

It’s the exact same mentality that existed in the Wild West.

One false move in the wrong place, one dumb comment in a bar, one heated exchange of words with a law enforcement official and BANG!!!!

Someone dies.

The justice system rarely supports those who get shot dead by cops.

We can see from this horrific incident how the police protect themselves.

But there is, as we can also see from this incident – and the death of Eric Garner in New York – one truly effective weapon at our disposal: a video camera.

Which is why I want every single U.S. cop to now be compelled by law to carry them at all times, right next to their guns.

The technology exists for them to do so without any restrictions on their ability to function as normal.

What it would also do is restrict any rogue gun-toting policeman’s ability to lie after he casually, indiscriminately shoots dead an unarmed human being, black or white.
Retrieved from: The Daily Mail – London Daily Newspaper – Posted April 9, 2015 –
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3030442/PIERS-MORGAN-seeing-South-Carolina-police-nearly-away-murder-won-t-feel-safe-cop-carries-gun-wears-camera-too.html?ito=social-facebook

VIDEO: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3030442/PIERS-MORGAN-seeing-South-Carolina-police-nearly-away-murder-won-t-feel-safe-cop-carries-gun-wears-camera-too.html#v-4159293374001

There is no way to defend this Police Officer, Michael Slager. The US Justice System will have to deal with him. Our focus can only be on the mitigation, in this case body cameras; and how to apply the lessons in the re-boot of the Caribbean societal engines: economic, security and governance.

The events of this small suburban town of Charleston, South Carolina now have huge bearing on the acceptable standards for community policing through-out the US and other countries, including the Caribbean. There is a direct impact between the two communities: many in the Caribbean Diaspora living in the US face these same dynamics, because of their Black-and-Brown status. (Even the bystander – Feiden Santana – capturing the VIDEO in this case is of Caribbean – Dominican Republic – heritage).

The book Go Lean…Caribbean seeks to assess (identify and qualify) the issues that drive so many of the Caribbean youth to flee their homelands to take up residence in the US. The book posits that this is not a wise course of action, that it is better to “prosper where planted” in the Caribbean than to risk the interactions of American life. This book portrays that there are “push-and-pull” factors that contribute to so much societal abandonment in these Caribbean member-states. The purpose of the book is to serve as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate the region’s economic engines, and optimize the security (public safety) issues as well. These are among the prime directives for this societal elevation. The declarative statements are as follow:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The assertion of the Go Lean book is that the Caribbean region must prepare a better security apparatus and justice institution than our northern neighbor is able to boast. Based of the dual “scales of justice” in the US, one for Whites and another for Black-and-Brown, this goal should not be so difficult to pursue. For this reason, the Go Lean roadmap spuns American leadership for security and justice, and proposes homegrown solutions. According to the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12), our region is urged to take the lead for our own solutions and appoint our own “guardians” with our self-interest in mind; prioritizing the community ethos for the Greater Good. The actual declaration is pronounced as follows:

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

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

The Caribbean appointing “new guards” or a security pact to ensure public safety calls for permanent justice institutions sanctioned by all 30 CU member-states. The CU Federation or federal justice’s institutions must operate differently than the US versions; we must do so judiciously and with proper regard for human and civil rights. The Go Lean roadmap calls for a separation-of-powers between the CU and the Caribbean member-states. So many of the community policing will not be under federal jurisdiction, but the CU will furnish a lot of funding and outfitting, with a lot of “strings attached”. The book calls for dashboard and body cameras (Page 178); as part of the edict for transparency and accountability.

The US does not currently have this default disposition.

The forgoing news article teaches some powerful lessons for Caribbean consideration.

Before the eye-witness (Feiden Santana) VIDEO came out on Tuesday (April 7), the assumption and benefit-of-doubt in the shooting of Walter Scott would have sided with the Police Officer Michael Slager. But having a photo/picture speaks a thousand words as to what really happened there in North Charleston, South Carolina. Having a VIDEO speaks a millions words. Now all previous allegations of police brutality and evidence planting suddenly have new merit. In addition, the “Blue Line” between Police Officers and the public is blatantly exposed – the VIDEO depicted another officer, an African-American Officer, aiding Michael Slager cover-up. This relates that the loyalty among law enforcement officers trumps any other interrelation in the criminal justice system. It can be concluded that intra-department oversight of their own law enforcement activities may never yield true justice; there must be outside compliance review.

The Go Lean roadmap leads with economic empowerments in the quest to elevate Caribbean society. But security and governance dynamics must be coupled with this effort. As we learn in the foregoing article, “bad actors” can emerge in society, even in the form of law enforcement officers; these individuals can also have sinister intent.

No justice; no peace.

This Go Lean roadmap relates a heightened level of economic-security-government engagement. These prime directives of the CU calls for a Homeland Security focus related to threats that may imperil the region’s economic engines, and crime remediation and mitigation: Public Safety. The CU is an entity to serve as a deputy for law enforcement agencies for each Caribbean member-state, empowered by an international treaty – a Status of Forces Agreement – for all Caribbean member-states to confederate the Homeland Security and Anti-Crime forces to execute a limited scope on the region’s sovereign territories.

To ensure justice – and peace – the Go Lean roadmap calls for a lot of proactive activities to remediate and mitigate crime. Like crime intelligence, surveillance videos and data analysis. The need for transparency and accountability was strongly urged in the same opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12), as follows:

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.

The Go Lean book details the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to provide increased public safety and security in the Caribbean region, and to ensure the right attitudes of law enforcement officers to serve-and-protect their Caribbean communities:

Economic Principle – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Economic Principle – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Privacy –vs- Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Witness Security & Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Intelligence Gathering	Page 23
Community Ethos – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation	Page 23
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Tactical – Confederating a non-sovereign union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Homeland Security	Page 75
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Justice Department – CariPol	Page 77
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Federal Courts – Court of Justice	Page 90
Implementation – Assemble “Organs” into a Security Apparatus	Page 96
Implementation – Start-up Security Initiatives	Page 103
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices	Page 134
Planning – Lessons from the American West	Page 142
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice – Police Internal Affairs Up-line	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Reduce Crime	Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Gun Control	Page 179
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism	Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering/Analysis	Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Prison Industrial Complex	Page 211
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights	Page 220
Appendix – CariCom Organs: IMPACS & Court of Justice	Page 244

Other subjects related to crime remediation and fair human/civil rights protections for the region have been detailed in prior Go Lean…Caribbean commentaries; as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4447	Probe of Ferguson-Missouri finds bias from cops, courts
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4360	Dreading the American ‘Caribbean Basin Security Initiative’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3881	Intelligence Agencies to Up Cyber Security Cooperation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2782	Red Light Traffic Cameras, other CCTV Deployments can Impact Crime
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2684	Role Model for Justice, Anti-Crime & Security: The Pinkertons
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1674	Obama’s $3.7 Billion Immigration Crisis Funds – A Homeland Security Fix
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1554	Status of Forces Agreement = Security Pact
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1487	Here come the Drones … and the Concerns
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=960	NSA records all phone calls in Bahamas, according to Snowden
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=546	Book Review: ‘The Divide: American Injustice In the Age of the Wealth Gap’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=535	Remembering and learning from Boston
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=392	Jamaica to receive World Bank funds to help in crime fight
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=341	American Hypocritical Human Rights Leadership Slams Caribbean

The foregoing article and VIDEO depicts that the community ethos for community policing will change imminently. There is now the need for law enforcement officers, at all levels, to employ dashboard cameras and body cameras; especially when deadly force is used. This is a valid need in the United States of America; in North Charleston – South Carolina, Ferguson – Missouri and every village, town, city, county, state and federal jurisdiction.

There is no longer the benefit of any doubt to police officers who shoot an unarmed Black Man. No more!

The published photos have now spoken thousands of words; the videos now speak millions.

The Caribbean must learn from these American mistakes and do better. We can forge an even better homeland, a better place to live, work and play – even more so than our American counterpart.

America should not be considered the land of destination for the Caribbean people to emigrate to. Income inequality and racial inequality persists in American society. Race still matters in the US; there is different treatments for Black-and-Brown, compared to the rest of the population.

Here at home, we must do better!

We know that “bad actors” will emerge in all situations, and we want to be prepared with the proper mitigations. We also know that police officers can also be “bad actors”, so we must appoint “new guards” to ensure the integrity of the “old guards”. Everyone, the people, institutions and government officials are encouraged to lean-in to this roadmap to ensure transparency, accountability and a commitment to due-process and the rule-of-law. Yes, we can … do better. 🙂

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

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Jamaican Poll: ‘Bring back the British!’

Posted on April 3, 2015 in Government, Locations

Go Lean Commentary

“When a man longs for the town of his boyhood, it is not the town that he longs for, but rather his boyhood” – Old Adage.

There’s something about nostalgia; we always seem to only remember just the good times – the “Good Old Days”.

Grammy-award winning singer-songwriter Billy Joel asserted this truth in his song “Keeping the Faith” with this stanza:

You can get just so much
From a good thing
You can linger too long
In your dreams
Say goodbye to the
Oldies but goodies
Cause the good ole days weren’t
Always good
And tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems

(See VIDEO below in the Appendix)

The island-nation of Jamaica requested and was granted independence from the United Kingdom (UK) in 1962. According to the subsequent news article, the time before 1962, like the 1950’s, seems now to be nostalgic for many older Jamaicans. But this commentary posits that these ones are really just longing for a simpler time: with more economic prosperity, more jobs, more security (less crime), and more governing efficiency.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean aligns with the need for these same nostalgic benefits, to elevate the economic-security-governing engines of the Caribbean region, Jamaica included.

Like Billy Joel sang, the “good old days weren’t always good”. Colonialism was not all positive. The Jamaican masses were suppressed, oppressed and repressed. The majority Black population was marginalized in their own homeland, at the hand of a White minority. History teaches that this type of oppression only has one end-result: revolution. The UK had just participated in the Second World War – within the same generation – they had learned the bitter lessons of imperialism and could not – or would not – submit to the same failed course of action. Colonialism had failed … the planet, as evidenced by the two World Wars.

History is a great teacher; but failure, hunger, crime and despair are better teachers. There was a need for a better delivery of the implied Social Contract between Jamaica’s government and the governed; (where citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights). But as assessed by the polling responders in the following article: the new (50+ years) independent nation has simply failed … to deliver on the Social Contract obligations for their citizens:

Title: Bring back the British! Most Jamaicans say they would be better off ruled from London
By: The Daily Mail – British Daily Newspaper; posted June 29, 2011; retrieved April 2, 2015 from:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2009487/We-stayed-Britain-Shock-poll-reveals-60-Jamaicans-think-theyd-better-colony.html

Kingston – Most Jamaicans believe they would be better off if they were still ruled by Britain, a poll shows.

In a harsh indictment of nearly 50 years of independence, 60 per cent of those surveyed hanker for the days when the country was Britain’s biggest Caribbean colony.

Only 17 per cent said the crime-ridden, poverty-stricken nation would be worse off under British rule.

The depth of feeling is particularly astonishing as generations of Jamaican leaders have portrayed the British as oppressors who subjected the Caribbean to slavery.

The Queen is still Jamaica’s Head of State. Under the headline ‘Give Us The Queen!’, the Gleaner – Jamaica’s biggest newspaper – said its poll showed how much people had become ‘disillusioned’ with the violent and corrupt political gangs running the island

‘As painful, and some will claim insulting, as these statistics may be to Jamaican nationalists, they are quite understandable – and even logical,’ the paper said in an editorial. ‘The attitudes are formed by people’s existing realities and their expectations for the future.’
These realities, it added, include living in a country ‘where, for more than a generation, economic growth has averaged below 2 per cent per annum and its homicide rate is among the highest in the world’.

The newspaper also highlighted Jamaica’s ‘creaky’ justice system, ‘patchy’ law and order, ‘indifferent’ education system and the widespread public perception of ‘overwhelming’ corruption.

The survey of more than 1,000 Jamaicans is embarrassing for Prime Minister Bruce Golding. He wants to mark next year’s 50th anniversary of independence by removing the Queen as Head of State and making the island a Republic.

Among older Jamaicans, nostalgia for what the Gleaner called the ‘good old days’ under Britain may have been sharpened by the island’s disastrous experiment with socialism in the 1970s. Left-wing prime minister Michael Manley introduced economically disastrous policies while publicly courting Cuba and scaring off tourists.

In recent years, violence by drug gangs has made the island one of the most dangerous places in the world.

About 25,000 Britons live in Jamaica, including 23,275 pensioners. An estimated 1.3 million tourists visit the island each year, including about 185,000 Britons.

This foregoing article was composed and posted in 2011. What of the 4 years since?

The Go Lean book – published November 2013 – and subsequent blog-commentaries have concurred most emphatically: “Yes, Jamaica is in crisis; along with the rest of the Caribbean”. The Go Lean book posits that the entire English-speaking Caribbean is in crisis, along with the French and Dutch Caribbean; plus the US Territories of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Island suffer the same fate. But instead of campaigning for the “good old days”, the book (Page 8) asserts that this crisis is a terrible thing to waste”; that now is the time to finally employ best-practices in the structures of colonial society that the British (and other European powers) left behind.

This longing for the “good old days” is similarly being echoed in the Dutch Caribbean. According to the book (Page 16), outcries for change in the Netherland Antilles resulted in the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Holland) polling the general population to choose among four options: independence, closer ties with Amsterdam, autonomous status within the Kingdom of the Netherlands or the Confederation Status Quo among the Dutch Caribbean member-states (6 islands). After a series of Referendums (2000 – 2005), the Status Quo was abandoned for closer-Amsterdam options.

Also in the French Caribbean, the book relates (Page 17) how discord and dissension has resulted in governmental structure changes that led the French territories to demand more direct rule from Paris. The acute need for reform has been openly acknowledged and these islands are even considering more regional solidarity with their wider Caribbean neighbors.

The independent Caribbean member-states (consider Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Suriname) are not spared from these crises as these countries have near-Failed State status and many of their populations have fled their homeland to a “Diasporic” life in some foreign location. Now it can be concluded that when these ones are called on to participate in “local democratic elections”, they are really voting: “None of the Above”.

On the other hand, the objective of the Go Lean movement is to reconcile the flawed economic-security-governing policies of the past and lean-in for the optimizations of the Caribbean future. The book serves as a roadmap for the regional integration of all the 42 million people and confederation of all 30 member-states of the Caribbean with the implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This roadmap advocates the elevation of Caribbean society, with the following prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy from $378 Billion to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines and mitigate internal and external threats.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean roadmap commences with this ideal embedded in the opening Declaration of Interdependence, pronounced as follows; (Page 10):

As the colonial history of our region was initiated to create economic expansion opportunities for our previous imperial masters, the structures of government instituted in their wake have not fostered the best systems for prosperity of the indigenous people. Despite this past, we thrust our energies only to the future, in adapting the best practices and successes of the societies of these previous imperial masters and recognizing the positive spirit of their intent and vow to learn from their past accomplishments and mistakes so as to optimize the opportunities for our own citizenry to create a more perfect bond of union.

The structure of colonialism has always been defective for colonies. As practiced in the past, all natural resources were extracted and sent to the host country as raw materials. Then finished products were returned to the colonies. The added-value and profit margins of such a eco-system were never realized in the colonies; it was always a win-win for the host country. There is no need to go back to that! There is something better here; its time to Go Lean … Caribbean.

Even the European imperial masters have abandoned such a colonial eco-system. Yes, Europe has now grown up to be a more technocratic society. This is the model we – in the Caribbean – must follow. The CU is modeled from the EU – see Page 130 in the Go Lean book – so as to provide good stewardship and shepherding of the Caribbean economic, security and governing engines. This theme has been elaborated on in these previous blog/commentaries:

Introduction to Europe – All Grown Up

A Lesson in European Dysfunctional History: 100 Years Ago – World War I

EU willing to fund study on cost of not having CARICOM

Europe Model: One currency, divergent economies

Book Review: ‘Wrong – Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn…’

The issues involved in this commentary are bigger than just for Jamaica. The CU roadmap drives change among the economic, security and governing engines for all the Caribbean region. One perplexing problem for Jamaica is the management of their previous debt. The Go Lean book therefore provides solutions to assuage this dilemma, but the solutions are tuned to a regional approach. This is a lesson learned from the EU’s model for assuaging the sovereign debt crisis of member-states there, like Greece, Portugal, Italy and Ireland. This roadmap therefore envisions elevating Caribbean society by means of new community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocates; as sampled here in this list:

Community Assessment – English Countries: Failed Integration of CSME	Page 15
Community Assessment – Dutch Caribbean – Integration & Secessions	Page 16
Community Assessment – French Caribbean – Organization & Discord	Page 17
Community Assessment – Puerto Rico – The Greece of the Caribbean	Page 18
Community Ethos – Forging Change	Page 20
Community Ethos – Economic Principles	Page 21
Community Ethos – Security Principles	Page 22
Community Ethos – Governing Principles	Page 24
Community Ethos – Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – CU Vision – Integrate Caribbean member-states modeling the EU	Page 45
Strategy – Facilitate a Currency Union, the Caribbean Dollar (C$)	Page 48
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – $800 Billion Economy – How and When	Page 67
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers	Page 73
Implementation – Assemble Caribbean Central Bank	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt	Page 114
Implementation – Ways to Promote Independence	Page 120
Planning – Ways to Model the EU	Page 119
Anecdote – Caribbean Currencies	Page 149
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Reforms for Banking Regulations	Page 199
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Cuba	Page 236
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Dominican Republic	Page 237
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Haiti	Page 238
Advocacy – Ways to Impact US Territories	Page 244
Advocacy – Ways to Impact British Territories	Page 245
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Dutch Territories	Page 246
Advocacy – Ways to Impact French Territories	Page 247

The Go Lean roadmap posits that modeling European society does not mean subjecting anew to colonial status for them. No, that is a parasite disposition. The roadmap calls for the region to assume the stance of a protégé of our European (and North American) trading partners. Yes, we can prosper where we are planted … in the Caribbean.

The book declares that the Caribbean is the greatest address on the planet. So we have the potential to do more, go further and rise higher than our previous colonial masters. But this requires heavy-lifting!

While this is easy to say (and write), it is harder to do. But there are some best-practices that would optimize our endeavors. For starters, economic empowerment is easy; just show up with investments (money) and jobs and the Caribbean communities will acquiesce – they will form long lines to solicit those jobs. On the other hand, the attempts to introduce empowerments for security and/or governing engines are a lot more complicated, requiring a political process, with a lot of consensus-building, collaboration and compromise.

Who should do this heavy-lifting? London, Amsterdam, Paris, or Washington? No. This effort needs to be done by us, for us. This is what independence is all about, standing up and finding solutions to our own problems, not crying out to “Mama or Papa” as in London, Amsterdam, Paris…

“Cause the good ole days weren’t always good
And tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems”.

Now, we must “step-up our game” all the more so and tackle our problems; we must forge viable solutions. How? When? Why? Who? Good questions. There are no quick answers; there is a roadmap instead. For example, the Go Lean roadmap details that the answer to the dilemma of “defects of independence” is interdependence … with our Caribbean neighbors. This is part-and-parcel of the remediation and mitigations in the 370-page turn-by-turn guide.

Yes, we can … all work together and be successful. “Many hands make a big job small”.

🙂

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

—————

Appendix – VIDEO: Billy Joel’s Keeping the Faith – https://youtu.be/ph7oZnBH05s

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History, Jamaica, Power, Transform

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Americans arrested for aiding ISIS

Posted on April 2, 2015 in Government, Implementation

Go Lean Commentary

It’s only been 14 years, but how easily we can forget: the events of 9/11 – September 11, 2001 – and the economic/security implications on North America … and the rest of the world, the Caribbean included. The economic effects arising from the September 11 attacks were an initial shock causing global recessions and dropping the world’s stock markets sharply; (see photo here).

Unfortunately, the entire Caribbean eco-system functions as a parasite to the American host. In Biology, when the host ails, the parasite “dies”; this poetically describes the Caribbean socio-economic dispositions, post-9/11. All in all, the consequences to the Caribbean were dire!

What have we learned? Can we do better going forward?

There is now a new plan to impact the Caribbean economy, in a positive way! We are now counting on this success. The assertion in the book Go Lean … Caribbean (Page 23) is that with the emergence of new economic engines, “bad actors” will also emerge thereafter to exploit the opportunities, with good, bad and evil intent. The book relates that this is a historical fact, that is bound to be repeated again and again.

When one group prospers, especially if some perceive that there is some exploitation of others in the process, the resultant animosity creates threats to homeland security. This is the reality in the United States and is expected to materialize in the Caribbean, as a direct product of elevation of this region’s societal engines.

This point is pronounced early in the book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12) that claims:

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

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

The US has experienced a long list of terrorist attacks from both foreign and domestic sources. As a result, the country’s homeland security forces have to always be “on guard”, on alert for real or perceived threats.

Being “on guard” to protect the American homeland means proactively seeking out those with bad intent, by “hook or by crook”:

VIDEO: FBI: U.S. National Guard soldier tried to join ISIS – http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/fbi-u-s-national-guard-soldier-tried-to-join-isis/

March 26, 2015 – Hasan Edmonds, a member of the Illinois National Guard, and his cousin, Jonas, are charged with supporting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The two were arrested after their alleged plot for a massacre was uncovered. David Martin reports. (VIDEO plays best in Internet Explorer).

It is important to reflect that the US has been consistently under attack.

We all know of the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, but terrorist attacks are actually more common in the US than one might think, or remember. Consider here, these recorded terrorist attacks in the US for this decade alone, since 2010:

Date	City/State	Enemy Category	Encyclopedic Details
December 4, 2014	Kansas City, Missouri	Anti-Muslim	Killing of Abdisamad Sheikh Hussein
October 30, 2014	Pike County, PA	Anti-government	Pennsylvania’s Eric Frein Attack & Flight
October 23, 2014	Queens, New York	Muslim Extremist	2014 Queens Hatchet Attack
June 8, 2014	Las Vegas, Nevada	Anti-government	2014 Las Vegas Shootings
April 13, 2014	Overland Park, Kansas	Neo-Nazi	Overland Park Jewish Community Center Shooting
December 13, 2013	Wichita, Kansas	Muslim Extremist	2013 Wichita Bomb Plot
November 1, 2013	Los Angeles, CA	Anti-government	2013 Los Angeles International Airport Shooting
April 16, 2013	Washington, DC	Bio-Terrorism	April 2013 Ricin-laced Letters
April 15, 2013	Boston, Massachusetts	Muslim Extremist	Boston Marathon Bombings
November 29, 2012	Casa Grande, Arizona	Muslim Extremist	Casa Grande Bombing
August 5, 2012	Oak Creek, Wisconsin	Neo-Nazi	Wisconsin Sikh Temple Shooting
May 11, 2011	Manhattan, New York, NY	Muslim Extremist	2011 Manhattan Terrorism Plot
January 24, 2011	Dearborn, Michigan	Anti-Muslim	2011 Dearborn Mosque Bombing Plot
November 26, 2010	Portland, Oregon	Muslim Extremist	2010 Portland Car Bomb Plot
October 27, 2010	Washington, DC	Muslim Extremist	Farooque Ahmed Pentagon-Area Plot
May 1, 2010	Manhattan, New York, NY	Muslim Extremist	2010 Times Square Car Bombing Attempt
February 18, 2010	Austin, Texas	Anti-government	2010 Austin Suicide Attack

The United States Homeland Security Forces have their hands full. They obviously have real threats to mitigate and remediate. For most of the Caribbean, we are allied with the US. So their enemies might very well become our enemies. Therefore the book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that the region must prepare its own security apparatus for its own security needs. So the request is that all Caribbean member-states form and empower a security force to execute a limited scope on their sovereign territories.

The Go Lean…Caribbean vision is to confederate under a unified entity made up of the Caribbean to provide homeland security to the Caribbean. But Homeland Security for the Caribbean has a different meaning than for our American counterparts. Yes, we must be on defense against military intrusions like terrorism and piracy, we mostly have to contend with threats that may imperil the region’s economic engines, and crime remediation and mitigation. The CU security goal is for public safety! This goal is detailed in the book as it serves as a roadmap for the introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU is set to optimize Caribbean society through economic empowerment, and also the security dynamics of the region, since these are inextricably linked to this same endeavor. Therefore the Go Lean roadmap has 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 protect the resultant economic engines.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Caribbean appointing “new guards”, or a security pact to ensure public safety includes many of the same strategies, tactics and implementations employed by US forces in the foregoing VIDEO. We too must use “hook and crook”, plus advanced Intelligence Gathering & Analysis, to draw out and interdict “bad actors” that emerge in the Caribbean region. The Go Lean roadmap calls for the designated Intelligence Agency to provide Unified Command and Control for the Caribbean anti-crime and defense efforts. This will include a permanent professional military force with naval and ground (Marine) forces.

This security pact would be sanctioned by all 30 CU member-states as a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). The CU Trade Federation will lead, fund and facilitate the security forces, encapsulating all the existing armed forces (full-time or part-time/reserves) in the region. This CU Homeland Security Force would get its legal authorization from a SOFA embedded at the CU treaty initiation.

This Security Apparatus is “Step One, Day One” in the Go Lean roadmap, covering the approach for adequate funding, accountability and control. The Go Lean book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to provide increased public safety & security in the Caribbean region:

Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Privacy –vs- Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Intelligence Gathering	Page 23
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Tactical – Confederating a non-sovereign union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Homeland Security	Page 75
Tactical – Separation of Powers – CariPol: Marshals & Investigations	Page 75
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Start-up Foreign Policy Initiatives	Page 102
Implementation – Start-up Security Initiatives	Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid	Page 115
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Planning – Ways to Model the EU	Page 130
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices	Page 134
Planning – Lessons Learned from the West Indies Federation	Page 135
Planning – Lessons from East Germany – Border Issues	Page 139
Planning – Lessons from the American West – Law & Order	Page 142
Planning – Lessons from Egypt	Page 143
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership	Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice – Military Police Role	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Reduce Crime	Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Gun Control	Page 179
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism	Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering/Analysis	Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Prison Industrial Complex	Page 211
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights	Page 220
Appendix – Prison Industrial Complex: Nauru Detention Center	Page 290

Other subjects related to security and governing empowerments for the region have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentary, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4360	Dreading the ‘CaribbeanBasin Security Initiative’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3881	Intelligence Agencies to Up Cyber Security Cooperation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2684	Role Model for Justice: The Pinkertons
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1965	America’s Navy – 100 Percent – Model for the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1487	Here come the Drones … and the Concerns
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1143	White Collar crime in America; criminals take $272 billion a year in healthcare fraud
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1076	Trinidad Muslims travel to Venezuela for jihadist training
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=960	NSA records all phone calls in Bahamas, according to Snowden
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=809	Muslim officials condemn abductions of Nigerian girls
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=535	Remembering and learning from Boston
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=392	Jamaica to receive World Bank funds to help in crime fight
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=341	US slams Caribbean human rights practices
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We Want from the US – #4: Pax Americana

The foregoing VIDEO relates to a Military Reservist; this population is especially troublesome for community peace assurances as these ones are trained killers. Plus with disorders like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the afflicted may be dealing with mental and emotional crises.

Underlying to the prime directive of elevating the economic, security and governing engines of the Caribbean, is the desire to make the Caribbean homeland safer, a better place to live, work and play. We must be prepared for the “bad actors”, to dissuade their disrupting the peace of all Caribbean residents (42 million people) or the 80 million tourists that visit the region annually.

All of the Caribbean people and institutions are hereby urged to lean-in to this roadmap. Yes, we can – we must – do better! 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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ICT, Power, Security, Terrorism

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Vanuatu and Tuvalu – Inadequate response to human suffering

Posted on March 25, 2015 in Government, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

“There but for fortune go I” – Sir Roland Sanders.

This commentator and author of the subsequent article, is spot on in this regards. Just last week (March 20) was the Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere; so while hurricane season for the Caribbean is still months away, it is the “thick” of the season for the Southern Hemisphere right now; (equivalent to September for the Caribbean). Last week the Pacific island nations of Vanuatu and Tuvalu – see Appendices A, B & C – were devastated by the Category 5 Cyclone Pam. (Cyclones are the Pacific version of hurricanes).

Category 5!!!

Pacific or Caribbean; we both share this same reality. We have to contend with natural disasters, not of our making. This threat is heightened now with Climate Change. 9 of the 10 hottest years on record have now taken place since 2000.

The only exception to this trend was … 1998.

It is what it is!

Poor Vanuatu and Tuvalu… (see VIDEOs of the devastation in Appendix A below). They are not prepared for this “agent of change”; in fact their peoples are suffering right now; and they will suffer further trying to effectuate a recovery. See the full article here:

Title: Vanuatu and Tuvalu – Inadequate response to human suffering
By: Sir Roland Sanders – Caribbean/Commonwealth Commentator – Posted03-19-2015; retrieved 03-25-2015 from:
http://www.sirronaldsanders.com/viewarticle.aspx?ID=491

People on the East Coast of the United States of America (US) and the Caribbean should consider how best they might lend a helping hand to the people of the islands of Tuvalu and Vanuatu in the Pacific whose lives have been shattered by Cyclone Pam that struck them on the night of March 13.

In the case of the Caribbean islands, it is a matter of “there but for fortune go I”.

Category 5 Pam, ripped through both Vanuatu and Tuvalu – two archipelagic countries consisting of several small islands and atolls – creating widespread destruction.   Damage was so intense that all the inhabitants of one of the Tuvalu islands had to be evacuated. They left behind everything they hold dear, and they now live in uncertainty about when they can return and how to start to reconstruct their lives.

The capacity of these countries to cope with ferocious cyclones, such as Pam, and the resilience to rebuild in the wake of huge damage, simply do not exist.   Both Vanuatu and Tuvalu are confronted with immediate humanitarian needs for food, shelter and fresh water. Reports indicate that residents on some of the distant islands have resorted to drinking salt water.

The level of the immediate suffering can only be imagined by those who have not experienced the cruel conditions in which people are forced to live in the aftermath of natural disasters of this magnitude.

The governments of Australia and New Zealand, which are the two most developed Commonwealth countries in the area, have been quick to help with humanitarian assistance. But, the islands in the two archipelagic countries are so scattered that distribution of supplies is severely constrained, particularly as many have no landing strips. Britain, too, has offered help amounting to £1m. That money will be made immediately available to UN organisations and international aid agencies already working in the region.

But the lack of aid co-ordination has resulted in uneven assistance to the people of the islands, and in some cases to no help at all.   At the time of writing, the government of Vanuatu announced that food will run out on some islands within a week. The deputy chair of the National Disaster Committee, Benjamin Shing, has said that while the country appreciated the aid, the initial response could have been handled better. He claims that the aid agencies are working on their own rather than in co-operation with the government. He added that “in nearly every country in the world where they go in they have their own operational systems, they have their own networks and they refuse to conform to government directives”. In the situation that Shing describes it is the already-suffering people who are hurt more as resources are duplicated or wasted in one area, and little or no help reaches others.

If, apart from Australia and New Zealand particularly, the response to the tragedy in Vanuatu and Tuvalu has not been impressive, the greater and more profound problem will be the rebuilding process. These islands, like many in the Caribbean, do not have the capital formation in their own banking system to finance reconstruction. They will have to turn to international financial institutions for help.   But, if the experience of the Caribbean is a measure of what they can expect, rebuilding will be a long and agonizing process.

Many Caribbean countries, such as Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada and Dominica, lost more than 3 years of gross domestic product (GDP) in 24 hours when hurricanes devastated them. Anxious to rebuild in the wake of such massively destructive hurricanes, the governments of these countries were forced into the commercial market to secure financing to rebuild infrastructure, even while their revenues were declining from decreased production. Hotels closed, agricultural production ceased and manufacturing halted. The result was an increase in the national debt and uncomfortable levels of debt to GDP ratios of more than 100%.

These countries had no option. They either had to borrow to rebuild and re-start their economies or face soaring unemployment, increase in poverty and inadequate investment in health and education services.

Right now, Vanuatu and Tuvalu are rightly focused on alleviating the suffering of their people. But, the bigger and more fundamental problem of rebuilding – and how to pay for it – already looms large.   Australia’s Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, has told the Tuvalu Prime Minister, Enele Sopoaga, that her government would support longer-term recovery and reconstruction efforts.   Vanuatu will also need that help.   Australia alone cannot provide it, nor should it be expected to.

As Richard Bourne of the Ramphal Institute observed recently, “with erratic climate events and sea level rise it is time for the global community to take more seriously the growing risks for island archipelagos, especially low-lying atoll states in the Pacific and Caribbean. In a single year a storm can knock 10 per cent off GDP, and certain communities are already being withdrawn from shorelines where ocean levels have risen. This is a particular challenge for the Commonwealth, where the Ramphal Institute estimates that there are some ten independent and dependent territories which might be under water in 2100”.

In its report to Commonwealth Heads of Government, “A Commonwealth of the People: Time for Urgent Reform”, the Eminent Persons Group of which I was a member had recommended that the 53-nation Commonwealth establish a disaster management capacity. Unfortunately the recommendation was not implemented. The details of the mechanism are laid out in the report. Suffice to say that the proposal sought to establish a rapid Commonwealth response to natural disasters; machinery for disaster preparation and mitigation; and the means to help mobilize concessionary financing for rebuilding.

Both Vanuatu and Tuvalu could have benefited enormously from such a disaster management capacity within the Commonwealth of which they are two of the smallest and most vulnerable of member states. The Commonwealth Secretary-General, Kamalesh Sharma, called for Commonwealth help immediately after the destructive passage of Cyclone Pam, but the Commonwealth should be doing more at times of tragedy if it is to be relevant to the people of its member states.

Let us hope that the tragedy in Vanuatu and Tuvalu is a wake-up call. Hurricanes in the Caribbean and cyclones in the Pacific are not going away. They are clear and present dangers.

The commentator in this case, Sir Roland Sanders, is an honorable man. He has principles and passion for the Caribbean … and Commonwealth alike. But, the Commonwealth appears to be his profession – see Appendix D below – and his panacea. He is advocating for relief for Vanuatu and Tuvalu to come from their fellow member-states in the British Commonwealth. That is a tall order!

The Go Lean book relates that most former British colonies are members of the Commonwealth, a non-political, voluntary association of equal members. This entity has no power or resources. Any help extended to Vanuatu and Tuvalu will be strictly optional and extended from the member-states’ surpluses. The neighboring communities of Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea maybe in better position to assist Vanuatu and Tuvalu; though it is not our place to lay claim to their budgets. It would be difficult, given the recent global financial difficulties to expect aid to come from the Caribbean or any Small Island Development States (SIDS).

On the other hand, the book Go Lean … Caribbean, calls for the region to adopt strategic, tactical and operational mitigations for hurricanes in the region. We cannot and must not be beggars on the international scene. These hurricanes and cyclones are no surprise; we know they are coming. So the book details advocacies to respond, rescue, repair, rebuild and restore the Caribbean eco-systems in the event of the now-heightened hurricane threats. These advocacies are designed to mitigate the challenges of Mother Nature, create jobs, secure the homeland and grow the economy at the same time.

This point is pronounced early in the book with this Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11), with the opening and subsequent statements:

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

vi. Whereas the finite nature of the landmass of our lands limits the populations and markets of commerce, by extending the bonds of brotherhood to our geographic neighbors allows for extended opportunities and better execution of the kinetics of our economies through trade. This regional focus must foster and promote diverse economic stimuli.

viii. Whereas the population size is too small to foster good negotiations for products and commodities from international vendors, the Federation must allow the unification of the region as one purchasing agent, thereby garnering better terms and discounts.

This book, Go Lean… Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of a technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to elevate society of the 30 Caribbean member-states. The 53-member Commonwealth is out of scope for this Go Lean effort; this is territorial and geographic in its focus. The CU effort is a confederation that includes the island-nations of the Caribbean Sea and the coastal states like Guyana, Suriname and Belize. These are all vulnerable to the hurricane threat.

As a Trade Federation, the CU would be able to establish a permanent sentinel to mitigate devastation that stems from storms like Cyclone Pam. We would be able to deploy implementations to aid our recovery, like regional power grid, pipelines, a, regional currency, leveraged casualty insurance plans, and a robust capitals market. In fact the CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines from man-made and natural threats.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book details the economic principles and community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to elevate the Caribbean to better manage the threats of Climate Change and natural disasters like hurricanes. We must forge solutions, in advance and in response. We must do these ourselves, primarily; we cannot be perennial beggars and expecting International Aid every time we have emergencies. We must grow up and grow into a mature role of self-sufficiency. Consider the detail list from the book as follows:

Economic Principles – People Choose because Resources are Limited	Page 21
Economic Principles – All Choices Involve Costs	Page 21
Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI)	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Anecdote – Pipeline Transport – Strategies, Tactics & Implementations	Page 43
Strategy – Vision – Confederating 30 Member-states in a Permanent Union	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Climate Change	Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Growing Economy – Marshall Plan-like campaigns	Page 68
Tactical – Growing Economy – Surviving Bubbles	Page 68
Separation of Powers – Securities Regulator for Reinsurance Products	Page 74
Separation of Powers – Homeland Security – Emergency Management	Page 76
Implementation – Assemble – Pipeline as a Focused Activity	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change – Hurricane Insurance Fund	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Develop a Pipeline Industry	Page 107
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Improve Energy Usage – Regional Grid Storm Resets	Page 113
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid – Natural Disaster Relief	Page 115
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization – Act Locally, Think Globally	Page 119
Implementation – Ways to Promote Independence – Disaster Self-Response	Page 120
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Homeland Security Pact	Page 127
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Housing – Hurricane Risk Reinsurance Fund	Page 161
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Public Works – Rebuild after Disasters	Page 175
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security – Assuage systemic threats	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Natural Resources	Page 183
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Extractions – Pipeline Strategy Alignment	Page 195
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Monopolies – Foster Cooperatives	Page 202
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Transportation – Pipeline Options	Page 205
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Rural Living – Small Island Development	Page 235
Advocacy – Ways to Impact British Territories – Commonwealth Emergence	Page 245
Appendix – Offshore Banking Developments – Financial Action Task Force	Page 321

This commentary previously featured subjects related to preparing and responding to the devastating effects of Climate Change and natural disasters in the region:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4587	Climate Change Defense – First US city to be powered 100% by renewables
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2465	Book Review: ‘This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2119	Cooling Effect – Oceans and the Climate
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1817	Caribbean grapples with intense new cycles of flooding & drought
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1516	Floods in Minnesota, Drought in California – Why Not Share?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=915	Go ‘Green’ … Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=87	Earthquakes & Hurricanes Shake Eastern Caribbean Region

This is a new day for the Caribbean! It’s time now for change in our response to the eventuality of Climate Change. The elevations that are identified, qualified and proposed in the book Go Lean…Caribbean are not just reactive, but also proactive. It’s time for the Caribbean to lean-in for these elevations. Once we demonstrate success, it will be our pleasure to export our methods and systems to other SIDS locales… and Commonwealth states.

They – SIDS locales and Commonwealth states – will be welcomed to consider the entire Go Lean roadmap for their societal elevation.

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

——–

Appendix A – VIDEO 1: Cyclone Pam Brings Massive Destruction to Vanuatu

Appendix A – VIDEO 2: Drone Flies Over Cyclone Pam Damage in Vanuatu

——–

Appendix B: Vanuatu

This archipelago is officially the Republic of Vanuatu; it is an Oceanian island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean, 1,090 miles east of northern Australia. Though the islands were first inhabited by Melanesian people, it moved about European colonial hands of Spain, France and England. In the 1880s, France and the United Kingdom claimed parts of the country, and in 1906 they agreed on a framework for jointly managing the archipelago through a British–French Condominium. An independence movement arose in the 1970s, and the Republic of Vanuatu was founded in 1980.

Today, Vanuatu is a member of both la Francophonie and the Commonwealth of Nations. The island-nation has a population of 267,000 people; GDP of $1.204 Billion and per capita GDP of $4,916^[6].

Appendix C: Tuvalu

This country is formerly known as the Ellice Islands; it is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia. It comprises three reef islands and six true atolls. This is a small country, with a population of 10,837. The total land area of the islands of Tuvalu is 10 square miles.

The first inhabitants of Tuvalu were Polynesians, but the islands came under Britain’s sphere of influence in the late 19th century, when each of the Ellice Islands was declared a British Protectorate in 1892. The islands were administered as as part of the British Western Pacific Territories, and later as part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony from 1916 to 1974. In December 1974 a referendum was held to determine whether the Gilbert Islands and Ellice Islands should each have their own administration. As a consequence of the referendum, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony ceased to exist on 1 January 1976 and the separate British colonies of Kiribati and Tuvalu came into existence. Tuvalu became fully independent and within the British Commonwealth on 1 October 1978.

The island-nation GDP is $36 million with a per capita of $3,400.

——–

Appendix D: Sir Ronald Michael Sanders KCMG

Sir Ronald Sanders is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London in the UK. He is an International Consultant, Writer and former senior Caribbean Ambassador.

In the private sector he has served on the Board of Directors of Financial Institutions, Telecom Companies, Media Companies and a Sustainable Forestry Company in Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Barbados, Guyana, and the US Virgin Islands.

In the public sector he has served as the elected Chairman of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force against drug trafficking and money laundering (2003-2004). He also served on the Board of the International Programme for the Development of Communication at UNESCO (1983-1985) and as an elected member of the Executive Board of UNESCO (1985-1987).

His diplomatic career spanned two periods between 1982 to 1987 and 1996 to 2004. He was twice High Commissioner to the United Kingdom for Antigua and Barbuda and Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation (WTO). He had special responsibilities for negotiations on financial and trade matters in the WTO and with the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). He attended Commonwealth and CARICOM Foreign Ministers and Heads of Governments Conferences throughout his diplomatic career.

He served on numerous committees, task forces and advisory boards to formulate and implement policy for the Caribbean and the Commonwealth. He also has experience of dealing with regulatory bodies such as the FCC in the US, and he has led a successful complaint to an arbitration panel of the World Trade Organisation.

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Review: ‘Merchants of Doubt’ Documentary

Posted on March 20, 2015 in Ethos, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

“You can fool all the people some of the time; some of the people all of the time; but you cannot fool all the people all the time”. – Old Adage

This adage is apropos considering that there are actual professionals who are engaged by vested business interests to provide scientific denials regarding the effects of Climate Change.

How is it possible that anyone would deny this? In a previous blog-commentary it was asserted that many who deny the realities of Climate Change, do so because of self-interest; they are only concerned with the lower levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; only concerned about basic or social needs. But now we highlight the public relations/messaging professionals who craft the message, and support it with scientific testimonies to reinforce the status quo. These ones’ motives are more sinister than just supporting a dissenting opinion; they want to promote “doubt”.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean collects statistical data and anecdotes on the dire effects of Climate Change in the Caribbean. Some communities have been affected by Climate Change-driven hurricanes, and after many years, have still not recovered (Page 112). So, we must now take our own lead for our own solutions. The region cannot fall prey to the shenanigans of the Merchants of Doubt.

This commentary highlights the film, “Merchants of Doubt“, a big hit at the Toronto Film Festival for 2014. The documentary though is based on the 2010 book: Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming; by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. See a clip from the film here:

VIDEO: ” Hard Pill To Swallow” – Merchants of Doubt (2014) Documentary Clip- http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi524725785?ref_=tt_pv_vi_aiv_1

This documentary looks at pundits-for-hire who present themselves as scientific authorities as they speak about topics like toxic chemicals, pharmaceuticals and climate change. (Director: Robert Kenner; Writers: Robert Kenner, Kim Roberts).

What is the motivation of the Merchants of Doubt?

Profit.

There is a lot of money at stake, especially for those who want to preserve the status quo and not invest in the required mitigations to arrest Climate Change. No doubt, this Merchants of Doubt “role play” is just another glimpse of Crony Capitalism.

The profit motive is powerful. Climate Change is not the first issue in which they have manufactured “doubt”. In truth, their efforts are from a familiar playbook, used previously to delay actions by Big Tobacco, Toxic Waste, Acid Rain, and other dangerous chemicals. They have a successful track record.

This was the point a few days ago by the film’s director Robert Kenner in an interview on the show All Things Considered for National Public Radio (NPR). Listen to the podcast here:

Audio: ‘Merchants Of Doubt‘ Explores Work of Climate Change Deniers – http://www.npr.org/2015/03/06/391269315/merchants-of-doubt-explores-work-of-climate-change-deniers

March 06, 2015 – NPR’s Melissa Block speaks to director Robert Kenner about his documentary, “Merchants of Doubt“, which examines the work of climate change skeptics and their campaign to sway public opinion.

The Go Lean book details the impending crisis of Climate Change and then calls for the establishment of a regional administration to monitor, mitigate and manage the threats of Climate Change. We must pursue the Greater Good, for the Caribbean region is at the frontline of the battleground of Climate Change; the region is experiencing devastating hurricanes, flooding, forest fires, droughts, rising sea levels, and alterations in fish stock.

This Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The prime directives of this agency 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.
Establish a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance and industrial policies to support these engines.

The Go Lean roadmap calls for the CU to serve as the regional administration to optimize economy, homeland security and governance engines for the Caribbean, especially in light of Climate Change battleground frontline status. The needs of the economy and Climate Change mitigations do not have to clash; they can co-exist. There is no need for the campaign of doubt.

This is the first pronouncement (Page 11) of the opening Declaration of Interdependence that bears a direct reference to this foregoing article and source book:

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

The Go Lean roadmap is designed to deliver many empowerment activities to elevate Caribbean society. These activities will carefully balance the needs of the Caribbean and the needs of the planet: we need jobs, yes, but we do not need to increase our carbon footprint. This seems logical; who could dispute? Unfortunately, there are many doubters, dissenters and disputers. Many times these motives are strictly capitalistic; strictly for profit. The issues of Climate Change have been repeatedly addressed and further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

First US city to be powered 100% by renewables

Book Review: ‘This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate’

Climate Change May Affect Food Supply Within a Decade

Cooling Effect – Oceans and the Climate

Climate Change May Bring More Kidney Stones

Caribbean grapples with intense new cycles of flooding & drought

Floods in Minnesota, Drought in California – Why Not Share?

Conservative heavyweights have solar industry in their sights

Go ‘Green’ … Caribbean

The subject of Climate Change doubters-dissenters-disputers is just another example of the well-documented bad corporate behavior by Big Business. Many other cases have been considered in this commentary; see the relevant list here:

Big Defense	Many theorists indicate that the “follow the money” approach reveals the Military Industrial Complex work to undermine peace, so as to increase defense spending for military equipment, systems and weapons.
Big Media	Cable companies conspire to keep rates high; kill net neutrality; textbook publishers practice price gouging; Hollywood insists on big tax breaks/ subsidies for on-location shooting.
Big Oil	While lobbying for continuous tax subsidies, the industry have colluded to artificially keep prices high and garner rocket profits ($38+ Billion every quarter).
Big Box	Retail chains impoverish small merchants on Main Street with Antitrust-like tactics, thusly impacting community jobs. e-Commerce, an area of many future prospects, is the best hope of countering these bad business tactics.
Big Pharma	Chemo-therapy cost $20,000+/month; and the War against Cancer is imperiled due to industry profit insistence.
Big Tobacco	Cigarettes are not natural tobacco but rather latent with chemicals to spruce addiction. Caribbean cigars are all natural.
Big Agra	Agribusiness concerns continue to greenhouse gases, bully family farmers and crowd out the market; plus they fight common sense food labeling efforts.
Big Data	Brokers for internet and demographic data clearly have no regards to privacy concerns. They open that doors for hackers and data breaches.
Big Banks	Wall Street’s damage to housing and student loans are incontrovertible. Their only motive: more profits.
Big Weather	Overblown hype of “Weather Forecasts” to dictate commercial transactions.
Big Real Estate	Preserving MLS for Real Estate brokers only, forcing 6% commission rates, when the buyers and sellers can easily meet online without them.
Big Salt	Despite the corrosiveness of salt on roads and the environment, it is the only tactic used to de-ice roads during the winter. Immediately after the weather warms, the roads must be re-constructed, thus ensuring a continuous economic cycle.

The Go Lean book, and accompanying blog commentaries, go even deeper and hypothesize that American economic models are considered dysfunctional when viewed from the Caribbean perspective. While the US generates the largest carbon footprint per-capita on the planet, most of the Climate Change doubters-dissenters-disputers originate there. Yet, we in the Caribbean are on the frontlines, especially considering the devastating realities of modern hurricanes. In general, the American wheels of commerce stage the Caribbean in a “parasite” role. The American policy for the Caribbean is to incentivize consumption of American products, and serve as a playground for their leisure.

There is more to our reality. We also care about the planet, and our children’s future. We want to effect the required changes for our region and encourage the rest of the world to capitulate to good science in aid of the planet.

The Go Lean book declares that we must adopt a community ethos, the appropriate attitude/spirit, to forge change in our region; then details the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to better impact the region’s resources and eco-systems, especially in considering the preparations and consequences of Climate Change:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices / Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 24
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
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
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
Separation of Powers – Emergency Management	Page 76
Separation of Powers – Interstate Commerce Administration	Page 79
Separation of Powers – Meteorological & Geological Service	Page 79
Separation of Powers – Fisheries and Agriculture Department	Page 88
Implementation – Assemble Regional Organs into a Single Market Economy	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
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	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region	Page 127
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 Impact Public Works	Page 175
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street	Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Fisheries	Page 210
Appendix – History of Puerto Rican Migration to US & Effects of Hurricanes	Page 303
Appendix – US Virgin Islands Economic Timeline with Hurricane Impacts	Page 305

The foregoing Audio podcast and VIDEO discuss the effectiveness of Merchants of Doubt in delaying public policy in combating Climate Change. In the Caribbean, we have no option to exit from these debates. We are involved whether we want to be or not – we are on the frontlines of this battle.

This is not our opinion alone. There have been many comments from viewers of the documentary film. The following User Reviews support the thesis from the film:

— Typical of proponents —

User Review 1: The art of deception, applied to scientific consensus
Author: Douglas Allchin from St Paul, MN; 13 March 2015

This is not a film about the science of climate change, second-hand smoke, or risks of flame-retardants. It is about the tactics used (repeatedly) to mislead the public about that science. Most notably, the “Merchants of Doubt” foster unwarranted images of uncertainty and obscure scientific consensus, and even threaten the scientists themselves (and then joke about it). All the while they hide their sources of funding and conflicts of interest that might lead a reasonable person to measure their claims. The documentary evidence and testimony presented is compelling–including, ironically, the voices of the con-artists themselves (Marc Morano, Fred Singer, Tim Phillips). Especially noteworthy is testimony by those who discovered the deceptions despite prior sympathetic beliefs: Matthew Crawford, Michael Shermer, Congr. Bob Inglis.

Striking imagery. Amusing moments. But also chilling when one reflects how these voices obscure harms to our health and environment. Worse, they appeal to the banner of free speech and other “freedoms” (to do harm, in the name of unregulated business, I suppose), and imagine that sheer will or personal belief can trump sound scientific conclusions.

Other naysaying reviews one finds of this film will surely be further evidence of what the film itself exposes so well. Once revealed, never again concealed.

User Review 2: Engaging look at the politics of climate change… from one perspective
Author: rm_777 from United States 10 September 2014

I saw “Merchants of Doubt” recently at the TIFF festival, and would recommend watching it, as it an engaging, well-structured and well-paced look at the politics of climate change… from one perspective.

Robert Kenner, of Food, Inc. fame, focuses “Merchants of Doubt” on the politics of climate change, and the individuals and corporations responsible for helping shape public opinion. The film integrates recent history, similar industries and interviews with a wide-range of members, exceptionally-well. Kenner, I believe, would make an excellent teacher on how to produce documentaries.

The major – and I mean major – downside of this film is that it is incredibly one-sided. One review from We Got This Covered put it exceptionally-well, which is that “As he tries to side his audience against the skeptics, Kenner ends up using the same tactics that they do.” Kenner is “content to regurgitate the same facts again and again, hoping his audience will be convinced enough to not want to hear the other side.”

If you are familiar with how politics works, then much of this is not new. This is why it is surprising that someone of Kenner’s pedigree would not challenge the “tribal” system of climate change, instead, taking a stance.

Likewise, there are doubters-dissenters-disputers even of the film. In the interest of full disclosure, notice here an opposing review of the same film:

— Typical of opponents —

User Review 3: But what about the science and economics of climate?
Author: Viscount Monckton of Brenchley from UK; 5 Feb 2015

Merchants of Doubt is a prejudiced and relentlessly one-sided attempt to divert attention away from the failure of global temperatures to respond as the models had so confidently but so misguidedly predicted.

So far, any honest and independent inquirer would conclude that the unfolding evidence of global warming at half the central rate predicted with “substantial” (but misplaced) “confidence” in IPCC (1990) has cast more than a little legitimate doubt on the “settled” science.

However, this and other inconvenient truths – no global warming at all for up to 18 years 3 months (RSS satellite dataset); no increase in hurricane frequency or strength (Accumulated Cyclone Energy Index), or in flooding (IPCC, 2013), or in droughts (Hao et al., 2014); greening of the Sahara (Nicholson, 1981); global sea-ice extent recently at a satellite-era maximum (University of Illinois Cryosphere Today project, December 2014) – are entirely overlooked in the movie, which also ignores the well-established fact that the sceptical side of the debate receives 1/5000 of the lavish funding poured by governments and “green” profiteers of doom into promoting Thermageddon.

The movie will please climate Communists, but it is a fine illustration of the depths of despair into which the true-believers in the Thermageddon cult have been reduced as the “science” behind the scare visibly collapses before them. The movie is predicated on the assumption that there is a “97% consensus” that recent global warming was mostly man-made. The peer-reviewed result demonstrating that the “consensus” on this issue is actually 0.5% is conveniently ignored, along with all the other facts which – however much the Marxstream media may deny them or decline to report them – will slowly, inexorably consign the climate scare to the rubbish-heap to which all mere superstitions are ultimately, ineluctably consigned.

Don’t bother to watch it.

Change has come to the Caribbean region; more devastating change is imminent. There is the need for a permanent union to provide efficient stewardship for Caribbean economy, security and governing engines. The Go Lean…Caribbean book posits that these problems, these agents of change, are too big for just any one member-state to tackle alone, there must be a regional solution. This multi-state technocratic administration of the CU may be our best option.

The people and institutions of the region are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap, to embrace the mitigations to arrest Climate Change. and respond to the Merchants of Doubt. Despite their objects, we can still make the Caribbean a better homeland to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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US Territories – Between a ‘rock and a hard place’

Posted on March 13, 2015 in Government, Locations, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

The recipe seems so perfect for success. The US is the world’s largest Single Market economy, has the largest military establishment, and you are its sovereign territory. What could go wrong?!

Everything…

Starting first with the foundation. The premise for the acceptance of US Territories is that the people are “alien and inferior”; 98.4% are racial and ethnic minorities. With that defective reasoning how can anything turn out well?!

And thus…the US Territories find themselves between a “rock and a hard place”.

The below VIDEO/TV show is a production by Comedian-Commentator John Oliver for the HBO show Last Week Tonight. He usually comments on a lot of news events in a satirical manner. But in that satire there is a lot of truth.

VIDEO: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO): U.S. Territories – https://youtu.be/CesHr99ezWE

Published on Mar 8, 2015 – A set of Supreme Court decisions made over 100 years ago has left U.S. territories without meaningful representation. That’s weird, right?
Content warning: Some profanity!

This VIDEO relates to the discussions in the book Go Lean…Caribbean and accompanying blog/commentaries primarily because there are 2 US Territories (Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands) in the center of the Caribbean. These cannot be ignored in the movement to unite and elevate the entire Caribbean region.

As depicted in the VIDEO, these territories are in crisis.

This is the purpose of the Go Lean book, as quoted from Economist Paul Romer (Page 8): “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. The truth is that American society stages all of the Caribbean in a “parasite” role; to serve as a playground for their leisure, consumers of their products and staffing for their Armed Forces. There is no advantage to being American, except to leave; and this is what people do, time and again. (Emigration is one of the major causes for the crisis in the Caribbean US Territories).

On the other hand, the goal of the Go Lean book is to serve as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). So the CU would be set to optimize Caribbean society, starting with economic empowerment. In fact, the Go Lean roadmap has 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 protect the resultant economic engines.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean movement asserts that the Caribbean region can do better; we must do better; we must not allow the US to take the lead for our own nation-building, for American self-interest (racism and capitalism) tend to hijack policies intended for the Greater Good. America thought their territories were populated with aliens, who could not be viewed as equals. Despite the 100 year old expiration of these prejudices, the policy remains. The mitigation and remediation to make territorial life successful must therefore come from another source. This is the siren call of the Go Lean movement.

(The scope of the Go Lean roadmap is limited to just the Caribbean territories, not the Pacific ones of Guam, Northern Marianas, and Samoa. Further, this commentary nor the Go Lean book advocates any political change of legal status of the territories to Statehood or Independence; rather this CU confederation alone is being promoted.)

There are more issues in consideration of this book. A compelling mission of the Go Lean book is to lower the “push and pull” factors that lead many to abandon the Caribbean homeland for American shores. The book posits that the region must create jobs so that its citizens do not have to leave to become aliens in a foreign land looking for a better life. The better life can be obtained right at home; Caribbean citizens can prosper where they are planted.

There are many Go Lean blog commentaries that have echoed this point. Here are a sample of related commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4531	Big Defense: Exploiting US Territories to fill the Armed Forces for their profit.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4360	Dreading the ‘Caribbean Basin Security Initiative’ as inadequate for PR/VI
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2887	Caribbean must work together to address rum subsidies and promote this vital industry
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2809	A Lesson in History: Economics of East Berlin; Failed-states can go from bad to worse.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2251	What’s In A Name? Latin & Caribbean people in the US still disenfranchised in American society.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2025	Caribbean Jobs – Attitudes & Images of the Diaspora
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433	Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to brain drain
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1325	Puerto Rico Governor Signs Bill on Small-Medium-Enterprises, attempts to re-boot commerce as 95% of businesses have 50 employees or less.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=841	Having less babies (and people) is bad for the Caribbean economy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=599	Ailing Puerto Rico open to radical economic fixes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=286	Puerto Rico’s Comprehensive Cancer Center project breaks ground; model for future empowerment efforts.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We *Don’t* Want from the US – Discrimination of Immigrations

The foregoing VIDEO conveys that there is little respect in Washington, DC for the needs of the Territories. The islands having a voice, but no vote, really mean no voice at all, as they are inconsequential to all other legislators and power-brokers in Congress. Since the effort to elevate and empower the total Caribbean region cannot be pursued without these US Territories, there must be some engagement there. This effort is Day One/Step One in the Go Lean roadmap (Page 96). This approach is detailed under the American legal concept of an “Interstate Compact”; which allows the US Territories to confederate with their “foreign” Caribbean neighbors in this non-sovereign endeavor; thereby making these two island groups separate member-states of the CU.

Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands would have full benefits and voting privileges in the CU Trade Federation; the same for all British, Dutch and French “Overseas” Caribbean territories.

This vision is vital. The book Go Lean…Caribbean clearly hypothesizes that many problems of the region are too big for any one member-state to solve alone; that there is the need for the technocracy of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. The Go Lean roadmap therefore calls for this strategy of confederation with a tactic of separation-of-powers between CU federal agencies and member-states’ governments. This allows for a lot of autonomy from Washington, DC for Puerto Rico and the USVI.

This change is essential for progress and growth. Despite all the advantages of American affiliation, these US Territories suffer from monumental dysfunction. As a result, these “American citizens” there are on the move, abandoning their homeland and forging near-Failed-States in their wake.

The Go Lean book posits that we need more than jokes and satire to arrest the downward spiral for PR/VI and the rest of the Caribbean; we need action too. We need this roadmap.

We do not want to be the “laughing stock” of the developed world. We want to be recognized as protégés, not parasites! This point is pronounced early in the book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 & 14) with many statements that demonstrate the need to remediate Caribbean communities – including PR & VI – and make the homelands better places to live, work and play:

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

xx.  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.

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

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

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

The Go Lean book also details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the full region, and US Territories. The following samples are excepted from the book: economic prospects:

Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederating a Non-Sovereign Union	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Keep the next generation at home	Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Tactics to Forge an $800 Billion Economy	Page 67
Tactical – Separation of Powers	Page 71
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Trade Mission Office – Washington, DC	Page 117
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate to the Caribbean	Page 118
Implementation – Ways to Promote Independence – Interdependence	Page 120
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – A Single Market in the G-20	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Image – Not Inferior Aliens	Page 133
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 Enhance Tourism – The world should enjoy our hospitality	Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the US Territories	Page 244
Appendix – Interstate Compacts	Page 278
Appendix – Puerto Rican Migration to New York	Page 303
Appendix – Puerto Rican Population in the US – Census 2010	Page 304
Appendix – US Virgin Islands: Economy Past, Present & Future	Page 305
Appendix – Electronic Benefits Transfers – e-Government & e-Payments for PR & VI too	Page 353

The Go Lean book posits (Page 3) that the Caribbean islands, including the American Territories of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, are among the greatest addresses in the world. But instead of the world “beating a path” to these doors, the people of the Caribbean have “beat down their doors” to get out; responding to “push and pull” factors. This abandonment must stop now!

While we want the rest of the world – the people of North America, Europe and beyond – enjoying our hospitality, culture, music, cuisine and produce, we most especially want to enjoy these for ourselves. We do not want to admire them from afar. We instead want to be planted and to prosper here in the Caribbean.

Considering the foregoing VIDEO, our birthright should be a privilege and the envy of the world, not the joke for the rest of the world. We want the world laughing with us, not at us!

A better future. This is our simple quest. This is easy to say, but hard to do. The heavy-lifting tasks must come from us in the Caribbean. This is the charge of the CU. We cannot expect solutions from Washington. They have no respect for any territories.

The people and governing institutions of all the Caribbean are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap for Caribbean empowerment. With the successful execution of this roadmap, we can make all of the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Civil Rights, Diaspora, History, Power, PR, USVI

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Big Defense: Peace is bad for business

Posted on March 12, 2015 in Economics, Ethos, Government

Go Lean Commentary

The US Government is trying to negotiate with the Republic of Iran to dissuade them from developing a nuclear bomb. This is a delicate negotiation, as the US and other world powers do not want any other countries added to the Nuclear Club. The current members are:

United States of America
Russia
Great Britain
China
France
India
Pakistan
Israel (Suspected; not confirmed nor acknowledged)
North Korea

This delicate negotiation is likened to a “bull in a china shop”. At stake is more than just politics; rather this involves the most destructive weapons mankind has ever known; it is life-or-death … for the planet.

No pressure!

The President of the US is spearheading the negotiations…

Alas, his political opposition, the Republicans, have now thrown a “monkey wrench” into the plans. 47 Republican US Senators wrote a letter to “the leaders of Iran”; designed to derail any international agreement governing that country’s nuclear program. The Senators intent is for their advanced concurrence on any treaty negotiations; (the constitution call for Senate ratification of any Treaty, afterwards). Numerous leading Democrats — in Congress and the media — have since condemned this action with language of criminality, sedition and even treason in denouncing that letter.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, (a member of the President’s Party, the Democrats), said:

“Republicans are undermining our Commander-in-Chief while empowering the Ayatollahs.”

The New York Daily News put mugshot-like photos of four of the GOP signatories above the headline “TRAITORS.” The Washington Monthly’s Ed Kilgore called it “sedition in the name of patriotism.” The Washington Post’s Paul Waldman said it is “appalling” because it shows Republicans “can act as though Barack Obama isn’t even the President of the United States.”

This commentary asserts that from the American perspective, there is more involved in this issue than just politics. Rather there is a nefarious Big Business agenda. Because peace is bad for business. The “Military Industrial Complex” – see Appendix below – is lobbying, cheerleading and teasing both sides here for continued hostilities. There is too much money involved, as the US Department of Defense maintains an annual budget of $526.6 billion (2014), with a lot earmarked for supplies, artillery and weapon systems. These amounts are so big that the realities of Crony-Capitalism cannot be ignored. It can be argued that this is actually the primary driver in these Republican-Iran-Nuclear developments.

It is obvious from this review that one consequence of Crony-Capitalism is that it short-changes the future for immediate gains, or profits. This paradox has been a constant concern of the commentary for the promotion of this movement, the book and blogs for Go Lean…Caribbean, the concerted effort to elevate Caribbean society by rebooting the region’s economic, security and governing engines.

There is much for our region to learn in this discussion.

For starters, both sides in the American eco-system practice these same policies; it can be argued that what is “Good for the Goose; is Good for the Gander”. During the last decade when the party in power and party in opposition were reversed, the same strategy was employed; as reported here in the this news article:

1. Title: The Parties’ Role Reversal on ‘Interfering’ with the Commander-in-Chief’s Foreign Policy

Senate Republicans, obsessed as always with carrying out the agenda of the Israeli government and leading the U.S. into more militarism and war, yesterday wrote a letter to “the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran” designed to derail an international agreement governing that country’s nuclear program.
…
To see how thoroughly Democrats have adopted the GOP’s Bush-era authoritarian rhetoric about not “undermining the commander-in-chief,” and to see how craven is GOP behavior now on Iran, just look at what was being said in 2007 when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to Syria and met with President Bashar Assad. The Bush administration was furious about that meeting because its strategy at the time was to isolate Assad as punishment for his alleged aid to Iraqi insurgents fighting against U.S. occupying forces, and the right-wing media and even mainstream media precincts attacked Pelosi in ways quite redolent of today’s attacks on the Senate Republicans over Iran.

In April, 2007, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by right-wing law professor Robert Turner, headlined “Illegal Diplomacy,” declaring that “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may well have committed a felony in traveling to Damascus this week, against the wishes of the president, to communicate on foreign-policy issues with Syrian President Bashar Assad.”

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/10/gop-2007-attacks-pelosi-interfering-bushs-syria-policy-v-todays-similar-dem-attacks-iran/

Despite the high stakes involved in the politics, the Big Business alignments are more shocking, and thus providing a lesson for the Caribbean region, aligning with the book Go Lean…Caribbean. This book asserts that America should not be looked to for leadership in Caribbean affairs. They have their own self-interest in mind, even at the disregard to threats for the whole planet; peace is bad for business.

Crony-Capitalists only focus on short-term benefits … and profits.

Just consider the “post-Letter” activities of one of the champions of the group of 47 Republican Senators, Tom Cotton of Arkansas. See the VIDEO here of his eloquent defense of this action on a daily morning TV news show:

VIDEO – Cotton on MSNBC: GOP Message to Iran About Nuclear Deal – http://youtu.be/RSbE26EPnZs

Published on Mar 10, 2015 – Sen. Tom Cotton joins MSNBC’s Morning Joe to discuss the letter sent to the Iranian leaders.

But within the same 24 hour news cycle, Senator Cotton is an honored speaker at an industry event for the Military Industrial Complex. This article here relates the story:

2. Title: Immediately After Launching Effort to Scuttle Iran Deal, Senator Tom Cotton to Meet with Defense Contractors

(Retrieved 03-11-2015: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/09/upon-launching-effort-scuttle-iran-deal-senator-tom-cotton-meets-defense-contractors/)

In an open letter organized by freshman Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., 47 Senate Republicans today warned the leaders of Iran that any nuclear deal reached with President Barack Obama could expire as soon as he leaves office.

Tomorrow, 24 hours later, Cotton will appear at an “Off the Record and strictly Non-Attribution” event with the National Defense Industrial Association, a lobbying and professional group for defense contractors.

The NDIA is composed of executives from major military businesses such as Northrop Grumman, L-3 Communications, ManTech International, Boeing, Oshkosh Defense and Booz Allen Hamilton, among other firms.

Cotton strongly advocates higher defense spending and a more aggressive foreign policy. As The New Republic’s David Ramsey noted, “Pick a topic — Syria, Iran, Russia, ISIS, drones, NSA snooping — and Cotton can be found at the hawkish outer edge of the debate … During his senate campaign, he told a tele-townhall that ISIS and Mexican drug cartels joining forces to attack Arkansas was an ‘urgent problem.’”

On Iran, Cotton has issued specific calls for military intervention. In December he said Congress should consider supplying Israel with B-52s and so-called “bunker-buster” bombs — both items manufactured by NDIA member Boeing — to be used for a possible strike against Iran.

Asked if Cotton will speak about his Iran letter tomorrow, Jimmy Thomas, NDIA Director of Legislative Policy, said, “[M]ost members … talk about everything from the budget to Iran … so it’s highly likely that he may address that in his remarks.” According to Thomas, the Cotton event was scheduled in January, “but certainly we bring people to the platform that have influence directly on our issues.”

This foregoing article relates that this is more an issue of Crony-Capitalism, than it is about negotiating for peace.

Just “follow the money” is a constant refrain among conspiracy theorists. Many sources, including this Go Lean book and accompanying blogs, have reported on the “bad intent” in the American eco-system, associated with Crony-Capitalism.

This consideration aligns with the Go Lean book, which serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This empowerment effort represents a change for the region, calling on all 30 member-state governments in the region to confederate and provide their own solutions in the areas of economics, security and governance. The book is motivated for the Greater Good, not some adherence to a profit objective; so decisions in this regards should never be based on short-term benefits or lining the pockets of any particular special interest group.

The CU/Go Lean roadmap defines these 3 prime directives as follows:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion GDP and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines against “bad actors”.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The negative community ethos of Crony-Capitalism is an example for the Caribbean to avoid in emulating American society. The book Go Lean…Caribbean asserts that the Caribbean region must do better; we must not allow the US to take the lead for our own nation-building, for American capitalistic interests tend to hijack policies intended for the Greater Good. This assessment is logical considering the realities of so many of these Big Corporate Bullies where public policy is set to benefit private parties. The subject of Big Defense, the Military Industrial Complex, is just another example; peace is bad for their business. Consider this chart of well-documented cases of bad corporate behavior:

Big Media	Cable companies conspire to keep rates high; kill net neutrality; textbook publishers practice price gouging; Hollywood insists on big tax breaks/ subsidies for on-location shooting.
Big Oil	While lobbying for continuous tax subsidies, the industry have colluded to artificially keep prices high and garner sky-high profits ($38+ Billion every quarter).
Big Box	Retail chains impoverish small merchants on Main Street with Antitrust-like tactics, thusly impacting community jobs.
Big Pharma	Chemo-therapy cost $20,000+/month; and the War against Cancer is imperiled due to industry profit insistence.
Big Tobacco	Cigarettes are not natural tobacco but rather latent with chemicals to spruce addiction.
Big Agra	Agribusiness concerns bully family farmers and crowd out the market; plus fight common sense food labeling efforts.
Big Data	Brokers for internet and demographic data clearly have no regards to privacy concerns.
Big Banks	Wall Street’s damage to housing and student loans are incontrovertible.
Big Weather	Overblown hype of “Weather Forecasts” to dictate commercial transactions.
Big Real Estate	Preserving MLS for Real Estate brokers only, forcing 6% commission rates, when the buyers and sellers can meet on the internet without them.
Big Salt	Despite the corrosiveness of salt on roads and the environment, it is the only tactic used to de-ice roads. Immediately after the weather warms, the roads must be re-constructed, thus ensuring a continuous economic cycle.

The Go Lean book, and accompanying blog commentaries, go even deeper and hypothesize that American economic models are dysfunctional from the Caribbean perspective. The American wheels of commerce stages the Caribbean in a “parasite” role; imperiling regional industrialization even further. The foreign policy for the Caribbean is to incentivize consumption of American products, and serve as a playground for their leisure. Considering the military eligibility for citizens of US Territories, the US defense policy is to feed its military with as many territorial young men and woman as possible. Many sources report that on the average 1% of the American population serve in the military. (While some states, like Texas, register 2 – 3% engagement, many records numbers like .50%). On the other hand, the US Territories (PR, VI, Guam, Samoa) engage 10 – 12 percent of its population to the US Armed Forces. One report relates that since 1917, more than 200,000 American citizens from Puerto Rico have served in the Armed Forces, serving in every conflict since World War I.

“We are fodder for the cannons”! – an informal, derogatory term for combatants who are regarded or treated as expendable in the face of enemy fire.

One reason for a high military enrollment is the lack of jobs. While the Go Lean roadmap does not discourage the National Sacrifice ethos required for military enlistments, we do plan to facilitate job creation otherwise. We do not want to just be “fodder”!

The Go Lean roadmap provides turn-by-turn directions on how to forge the elevation of the Caribbean region from a parasite role to the preferred role of protégé. We simply need our own security solutions for our own objectives. This point is made early in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 & 13) with these statements:

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.

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.

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

The Go Lean book purports that the Caribbean can – and must – do better than Crony-Capitalism. The vision of the CU is a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean to do the heavy-lifting of optimizing economic-security-governing engines. While the region must provide “new guards” to ensure our homeland security, there is no agenda to build up a Military Industrial Complex in the Caribbean region. The Go Lean roadmap only calls for the installations of local security forces to remediate and mitigate regional threats and ensure public safety; not create a military-industrial eco-system. The Go Lean book details the community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to elevate Caribbean society, and make our homeland a better place to live, work, play:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Privacy –vs- Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation	Page 23
Community Ethos – Intelligence Gathering	Page 23
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Unified and Integrated Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Protect the Homeland’s Natural Resources	Page 45
Tactical – Confederating a non-sovereign union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Homeland Security	Page 75
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Start-up Foreign Policy Initiatives	Page 102
Implementation – Start-up Security Initiatives	Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Promote Independence – Interdependence	Page 120
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices	Page 134
Planning – Lessons Learned from the West Indies (WI) Federation – WI Regiment	Page 135
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Reduce Crime	Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism	Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering and Analysis	Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights	Page 220

While the US is the world’s largest Single Market economy and has the largest military establishment, we want to only model some of the American example. We would rather foster a business climate and Armed Forces to benefit the Greater Good, not just some special interest group. There are many Go Lean blog commentaries that have echoed this point, addressing the subject of the Caribbean avoiding American consequences of Crony-Capitalism. See sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4476	Big Salt: Short-term Benefit; Long-term Damage
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4381	Net Neutrality: It Matters Here …
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4337	American Study: Homes Marketed via the MLS Sell for More
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4076	American Media Fantasies versus Weather Realities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3397	A Christmas Present for the Banks from the Omnibus Bill
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3326	Detroit’s M-1 Rail – Finally avoiding Plutocratic Auto Industry Solutions
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2522	The Cost of Cancer Drugs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2465	Book Review: ‘This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2259	The Criminalization of American Business
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2183	A Textbook Case of Industry Price-gouging
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1143	Health-care fraud in America; Criminals take $272 billion a year
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=709	Student debt holds back many would-be home buyers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We *Don’t* Want from the US – American Self-Interest Policies

The book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that many problems of the region are too big for any one member-state to solve alone, that there is the need for the technocracy of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. The Go Lean roadmap calls for some integration of the regional member-states, a strategy of confederation with a tactic of separation-of-powers between CU federal agencies and member-states’ governments. This allows for a lot of autonomy … and abuse. We must therefore be on-guard – with transparency and accountability – against conspiracy or some special interest hijacking our Greater Good for private gains.

This concept of conspiracies to force some military action to support/grow the Military Industrial Complex sound more like fiction than fact. But, the details in this commentary are true and real. This is classic “life imitating art”; or is it “art imitating life”. Just consider the movies and TV shows based on the concept of shadowy conspiracy to get the US government (or European governments) to commit to military actions so as to enrich some conniving defense contractors. The following is a sample list:

Film Name	Date	Description
Death of a President	2006	Faux documentary; government officials cover up the truth of President Bush’s assassination to push an anti-terrorism agenda
Defence of the Realm	1985	A reporter investigating an MP’s sex scandal stumbles onto a web of MI5 cover-ups involving murder and nuclear weapons
Murder at 1600	1997	A Washington, D.C. detective investigates the murder of a White House intern inside the West Wing, and begins to suspect that a member of the First Family is the killer
Seven Days in May	1964	An Army colonel discovers that rogue generals are plotting a coup d’état against the President to get their war
Shadow Conspiracy	1997	The White House Chief of Staff conspires to assassinate the President
Snake Eyes	1998	A corrupt Atlantic City police detective investigates when the Secretary of Defense is assassinated ringside at a championship boxing event, so as to ensure the sale of a missile defense system
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country	1991	Science fiction; rogue Federation and Klingon military officials attempt to assassinate the Klingon chancellor and Federation president to prevent the end of their cold war and continued militarization
The Fourth Protocol	1987	A rogue KGB chief bent on prolonging the Cold War sends his top spy to detonate an atomic bomb at an American nuclear airbase in Great Britain
The Man Who Knew Too Little	1997	Comedy; an innocent American tourist in England stumbles on a plot by the heads of MI6 and the KGB to bomb a treaty signing ceremony and reignite the Cold War
The November Man	2014	An ex-CIA operative is brought back in on a very personal mission and finds himself pitted against his former pupil in a deadly game involving high level CIA officials to assassinate Russian president-elect to justify the 2nd Chechen War
The Package	1989	An American soldier stumbles onto an assassination plot by rogue American and Soviet military officials who wish to prevent the signing of a nuclear disarmament treaty
The Tailor of Panama	2001	A rogue MI6 operative fabricates a Panamanian revolutionary group and starts a war to line his own pockets
Wrong Is Right	1982	Black comedy; a journalist is embroiled in plot and counterplot involving the CIA, Islamic fundamentalists, a ruthless arms trafficker, and a tight presidential election
xXx: State of the Union	2005	The Secretary of Defense plots a coup d’état against the president to force a war
TV Show Name	Date	Description
24	2006	In the television series 24, many seasons plot involved a vast conspiracy from the government. For example in season 5, terrorist took Ontario airport terminal passenger in hostage in order to take possession of a deadly gas. CIA had put gas there in order for terrorist to take it and explode it while in transit in Middle-East, providing a reason for United States to send troops in Middle East.
Scandal	2015	The 4th season related a season-long conspiracy by the Vice-President to kidnap the President’s Mistress and show’s star Olivia Pope to force the President to authorize war in fictitious East Angola.

These considerations are especially poignant for citizens of US Territories; though the entire region suffers from dysfunction. These “American citizens” are on the move; their Caribbean homelands is at near-Failed-State status; the abandonment factor is unbelievably high. According to one report, Florida is gaining a net 7,300 Puerto Ricans a year, far more than any other U.S. state. The Go Lean book posits that “if we leave well enough alone, things will not just get better on their own”. Much more is needed to reverse these trends; new remediation and new mitigation must be put in place. A better future must be guided, girded and navigated. This is among the heavy-lifting tasks for the Caribbean; this is the charge of the CU.

The people and governing institutions of all the Caribbean are hereby urged to take heed to the exhortations in this commentary; and also to learn more, and do more, by leaning-in to this Go Lean roadmap for Caribbean empowerment. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

——

Appendix – Referenced Citations:

1. Those who serve: http://www.npr.org/2011/07/03/137536111/by-the-numbers-todays-military

2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/17/AR2007081702175.html

3. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2005/11/who-bears-the-burden-demographic-characteristics-of-us-military-recruits-before-and-after-9-11

4. The military–industrial complex ^[1] comprises the policy and monetary relationships which exist between legislators, national armed forces, and the arms industry that supports them. These relationships include political contributions, political approval for military spending, lobbying to support bureaucracies, and oversight of the industry. It is a type of iron triangle. The term is most often used in reference to the system behind the military of the United States, where it gained popularity after its use in the farewell address of President Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 17, 1961,^[2] though the term is applicable to any country with a similarly developed infrastructure.^[3][4] The term is sometimes used more broadly to include the entire network of contracts and flows of money and resources among individuals as well as corporations and institutions of the defense contractors, The Pentagon, the Congress and executive branch.^[5] A similar thesis was originally expressed by Daniel Guérin, in his 1936 book Fascism and Big Business, about the fascist government support to heavy industry. It can be defined as, “an informal and changing coalition of groups with vested psychological, moral, and material interests in the continuous development and maintenance of high levels of weaponry, in preservation of colonial markets and in military-strategic conceptions of internal affairs.”^[6]

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Crony-Capitalism, Power, Security

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Big Salt: Short-term Benefit; Long-term Damage

Posted on March 5, 2015 in Ethos, Government, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

“What good is a birthright when I’m starving now?” – Bible Drama of Esau and Jacob; Genesis 25: 19 – 34.

A subject like snow removal should have no significance in the tropical climate of the Caribbean. Right?

Yet, this commentary is more attuned to Big Business than it is related to snow removal. The subject of impetuous governance is of extreme importance to the Caribbean. For this reason, the art and science of snow removal teaches a lot of lessons for tropical destinations.

During winter months in northern climates, snow is the reality. The snow (and ice) must be managed and removed. Roads and pavements will ice over, making them slippery and dangerous to drive and walk on. So local authorities will often remove snow/ice from major roads, by plowing and de-icing. The most common de-icer is rock salt.

Halite, the most common form of rock salt, is a brittle, isotropic sediment that can be found in evaporated piles left in lake beds, playas, seas, oceans, and mined from underground. It forms cubic crystals that can be broken up and refined for numerous purposes, though one of the most common is for its use as a de-icing agent. Rock salt is relatively inexpensive, abundant, and mostly for these reasons is used extensively by local authorities to de-ice the roads. In Detroit-USA, locally mined rock salt is Big Business.

When rock salt is placed in snow, or on top of ice, it will naturally form a bond and become brine, a mixture of water and salt. Brine has a lower freezing point than water, meaning the mixture will melt and remain unfrozen, an effect called freezing point depression, unless the temperature drops significantly.

While the freezing point for water is 32 °F (0 °C), the freezing point for salt is −6.02 °F (−21.12 °C).

Another good reason that rock salt is used to clear roads is to improve traction for road vehicles. Rock salt is grainy and therefore allows the tire tread of vehicles to get a better grip on the road surface.

These are all short-term benefits. The list of long-term damage is extensive; see the following blog/article here:

1. Title: Worries on the use of rock salt as a winter de-icer (One Blogger’s Views)
(Retrieved 03-05-2015: http://www.rocksalt-alternative.com/2014/02/my-worries-on-the-use-of-rock-salt-as-a-winter-de-icer/)

The spreading of rock salt as a de-icer for our roads is something that has been undertaken every year in the UK for as long as I can remember. Local authorities up and down the country have a responsibility to keep our roads clear of ice and snow, as much as is practically possible. It was obviously decided some time ago that this was the most cost effective method of doing so.

False economy
As a pure costing method measured solely against the alternatives this probably was the best way to ensure value for money for tax payers but there would seem to have been no account taken of the substantive consequential costs that come with using a toxic and corrosive substance on our roads. Rock salt consists primarily of sodium chloride (salt) and it is the sodium and the chloride that cause the problems.

The real costs
The major problem in my view is the damage salt can cause to our water sources and water based eco systems. When the snow and ice melts the sodium chloride in the rock salt doesn’t just disappear, it contaminates water supplies whether by direct run-off into surface water drains or by moving through the soil and groundwater into streams and other natural water locations. To put the contamination in perspective, just one teaspoonful of rock salt will permanently contaminate five gallons of water and once it is in the water it cannot be removed unless by expensive methods. The rock salt therefore can eventually damage our drinking water and affects aquatic life and other organisms that have not adapted to living in salt water.

A problem that is close to my heart in relation to the use of rock salt is the risk to pets. Rock salt can cause severe irritation and inflammation to pets’ paws and when the natural reaction of your pet is to lick the affected area then this can cause sickness and other related problems. If the rock salt is directly ingested, and this can easily happen from a build-up of residue at the side of roads, then this is highly toxic and can lead to severe reactions and even death.

Another significant problem with rock salt is the corrosive nature of salt and the effects it has on cars and the under carriage components of cars such as brake pipes are well known to motorists. This damage also applies to road structures such concrete and metal structures such as bridges. Rock salt causes ongoing damage in these areas the cost of which can only be substantive.

If you have ever put salt down to kill weeds then you will fully understand the damage it must be doing to plants, vegetation and the soil itself of all areas adjacent to roadways. It is also harmful to insects and small animals that inhabit the roadway eco systems.

Spread the word, not the salt
If the real cost of using rock salt was to be determined I am sure it would cease immediately as the costs would far outweigh the benefits and an alternative would be used. The point is that there are alternatives to rock salt; we just need to make the authorities aware of this. If you want to check out one source for an alternative you can visit www.rocksalt-alternative.com.

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2. Encyclopedia Reference for Snow/Surface Treatment
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_removal)

For snow removal, roads are also treated by spreading various materials on the surface. These materials generally fall into two categories: chemical and inert. Chemical (including salt) distribution induces freezing-point depression, causing ice and snow to melt at a lower temperature. Chemical treatment can be applied as a preventive measure and/or after snowfall. Inert materials (i.e. sand, brash, slag) make the surface irregular to improve traction. Both types can be applied together, but the inert materials tend to lower traction once snow/ice has melted.

Chemical treatment materials include:

Sodium chloride (common table salt, NaCl)

Calcium chloride (CaCl₂)

Potassium chloride (KCl)

Magnesium chloride (MgCl₂)

Ammonium nitrate (NH₄NO₃)

Ammonium sulfate [(NH₄)₂SO₄]

Potassium acetate (CH₃COOK)

Urea [(NH₂)₂CO]

Propylene glycol (C₃H₈O₂)

Calcium magnesium acetate (C₄H₆O₂Ca      and C₄H₆O₂Mg)

Sodium ferrocyanide (hydrous, Na₄Fe(CN)₆•10H₂O)

Methyl alpha-D-glucopyranoside      (C₇H₁₄O₆) ^[21][22]

In the European Union, 98% of chemical treatment materials used in 2000 were sodium chloride in various forms. For colder temperatures, calcium chloride (CaCl₂) is added to NaCl in some countries, but deployment is limited as it costs about 6 times as much as sodium chloride. Other substances were used rarely and experimentally. Alternative substances (urea, alcohols, glycols) are often used at airports.^[23] In recent years, Geomelt, a combination of salt brine and beet juice that is otherwise considered a waste product has been used for pretreatment.^[24]

Inert spreadings can be:

sand

brash, rubble,  crushed slag, etc.

slag

wood ash  (for household use only)

sawdust

The choice of treatment may include consideration of the effect on vegetation, pets and other animals, the local watershed, and effectiveness with regard to speed and temperature. Some chemicals can degrade concrete, metals, and other materials. The resulting meltwater and slush can cause frost heaving if it re-freezes, which can also damage pavement. Inert materials can damage vehicles and create dust.

As an example, in the Czech Republic during the winter season of 2000/2001, net material expenditure for road treatment was: 168,000 tonnes of salt (mostly NaCl), 348 000 tonnes of sand and crushed stone and 91 000 tonnes of other materials like slag. In Ireland, the annual expenditure of salt was 30 000 tonnes. Switzerland reports their annual expenditure as 600 grammes of salt to every square metre of roads on average.^[23]

Side effects
De-icing chemicals and inert materials need to be selected and applied with care.

Chemicals may react with infrastructure, the environment, and vehicles. Chlorides corrode steel and aluminum in reinforced concrete, structures and vehicles. Acetates can cause asphalt stripping, weakening the bond between asphalt binder and aggregate. Sand and grit can clog pavement joints and cracks, preventing pavement from expanding in the summer and increasing stress in the pavement.^[25]

Salts can be toxic to plants and aquatic life. Sand can alter aquatic habitats where roads are near streams and lakes. Acetates can reduce oxygen levels in smaller water bodies, stressing aquatic animal life. Sand can be ground by tires into very fine particulate matter and become airborne, contributing to air pollution.^[26][27]

While this may appear to be an issue of local roads, and subsequent damage – see VIDEO in the Appendix as it relates to damages to cars – it can be argued that actually this is an issue of Crony-Capitalism.

One consequence of Crony-Capitalism is that it short-changes the future for immediate gains, or profits. This paradox has been a constant concern of this commentary. Like Esau in the Bible drama above, many impetuously ignore their birthright – or the birthrights of their children – for immediate benefits.

Sometimes too, the immediate benefits are no benefit at all. Consider again the Detroit scenario. Their roads are in total disarray; (the whole State of Michigan for that matter). Use of rock salt causes direct (and almost immediate) damage to roads. Solutions are being sought to assuage the challenge, but relief must come on the backs of the everyday man: increases to gas taxes and the issuance of new bonds.

(In North Texas, the transportation officials do not use salt to de-ice their roads and highways. They use sand only.)

This consideration aligns with the book Go Lean … Caribbean; this book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This empowerment effort represents a change for the region, calling on all 30 member-state governments in the region to confederate and provide their own solutions in the areas of economics, security and governance. The book directly advocates for lean facilitation of infrastructural needs. The subject for roads and bridges fit under the category of Public Works for the Greater Good; so decisions in this regards should never be based on short-term benefits only or lining someone’s pocket.

The CU/Go Lean roadmap defines these 3 prime directives as follows:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines against “bad actors”.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The purpose of this commentary is to draw reference to the governing principles used in northern communities regarding snow removal and how best-practices are ignored just to placate some immediate need; and immediate profits. Considering the long-term effects on the environment, the next generations’ birthright is being sold for a “bowl of soup”.

This is not an issue of “snow”; this is an issue of ethos.

Just who is the influence behind the “salt” decisions? Big Mining operations and Road Construction companies. This group can collectively be referred to as Big Salt. This is just another example of Crony-Capitalism, where public-long term benefits are shortchanged for private-short-term gains. Is Big Salt a conspiracy or just a coincidental fact of modern life in colder climates? While it is only honorable to give Big Salt the benefit of any doubt, the anecdotal account is consistent in one big American, Canadian and European city after another.

Consider the issues being debated in Michigan at this time. The State (plus counties and cities) must find new monies to pay for the overdue maintenance on the roads, tunnels and bridges. The infrastructure is collapsing.

Just “follow the money” is a constant refrain among conspiracy theorists. Besides, many sources – including this Go Lean book and accompanying blogs – have reported on the “bad intent” in the American eco-system, associated with Crony-Capitalism. (Though the use of rock salt is not just an American issue).

This negative community ethos is an example for the Caribbean to avoid in emulating American society.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean asserts that the Caribbean region must do better; we must not allow the US to take the lead for our own nation-building, that American capitalistic interest tends to hijack policies intended for the Greater Good. This assessment is logical considering the realities of so many of these “Big Corporate Bullies” where public policy is set to benefit private parties. The subject of Big Salt is just another example. Consider this chart of well-documented cases of bad corporate behavior:

Big Media	Cable companies conspire to keep rates high; kill net neutrality; textbook publishers practice price gouging; Hollywood insists on big tax breaks/subsidies for on-location shooting.
Big Oil	While lobbying for continuous tax subsidies, the industry have colluded to artificially keep prices high and garner rocket profits ($38+ Billion every quarter).
Big Box	Retail chains impoverish small merchants on Main Street with Antitrust-like tactics, thusly impacting community jobs.
Big Pharma	Chemo-therapy cost $20,000+/month; and the War against Cancer is imperiled due to industry profit insistence.
Big Tobacco	Cigarettes are not natural tobacco but rather latent with chemicals to spruce addiction.
Big Agra	Agribusiness concerns bully family farmers and crowd out the market; plus fight common sense food labeling efforts.
Big Data	Brokers for internet and demographic data clearly have no regards to privacy concerns.
Big Banks	Wall Street’s damage to housing and student loans are incontrovertible.
Big Weather	Overblown hype of “Weather Forecasts” to dictate commercial transactions.
Big Real Estate	Preserving MLS for Real Estate brokers only, forcing 6% commission rates, when the buyers and sellers can meet without them.

The Go Lean roadmap provides turn-by-turn directions on how to forge the elevation of the Caribbean region from parasite to the preferred role of protégé. This point is made early in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11) with these statements:

iii. Whereas the natural formation of the landmass for our society is that of an archipelago of islands, inherent to this nature is the limitation of terrain and the natural resources there in. We must therefore provide “new guards” and protections to ensure the efficient and effective management of these resources.

vi. Whereas the finite nature of the landmass of our lands limits the populations and markets of commerce, by extending the bonds of brotherhood to our geographic neighbors allows for extended opportunities and better execution of the kinetics of our economies through trade. This regional focus must foster and promote diverse economic stimuli.

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Privacy versus Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Unified and Integrated Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Prepare for the Eventuality of Natural Disasters	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Protect the Homeland’s Natural Resources	Page 45
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Emergency Management	Page 75
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Public Works & Infrastructure Oversight	Page 82
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization – Interdependence	Page 119
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Public Works	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street – Finance Public Works	Page 200
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street	Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living	Page 234
Appendix – Caribbean (Puerto Rico) Diaspora in Northern States	Page 304

The cited news article about Michigan struggles to find money to repair its salt-damaged roads is a topic of serious concern for Caribbean planners. This is another example of the benefit of observing and reporting on the turn-around of the once great City of Detroit.

While the US is the world’s largest Single Market economy, we want to only model some of the American example. We would rather foster a business climate to benefit the Greater Good, not just some special interest group. There are many Go Lean blog commentaries that have echoed this point, addressing the subject of the Caribbean avoiding American consequences. See sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4381	Net Neutrality: It Matters Here …
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4337	American Study: Homes Marketed via the MLS Sell for More
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4076	American Media Fantasies versus Weather Realities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3397	A Christmas Present for the Banks from the Omnibus Bill
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3326	Detroit’s M-1 Rail – Finally avoiding Plutocratic Auto Industry Solutions
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2522	The Cost of Cancer Drugs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2465	Book Review: ‘This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2259	The Criminalization of American Business
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2183	A Textbook Case of Industry Price-gouging
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1143	Health-care fraud in America; Criminals take $272 billion a year
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=798	Lessons Learned from the American Airlines merger
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=709	Student debt holds back many would-be home buyers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We *Don’t* Want from the US – American Self-Interest Policies

While the Caribbean region does not have to contend with snow removal tactics, we do have to manage the edicts associated with infrastructure (road) maintenance, industrial waste and environmental by-products. It’s important that we always consider the long view.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that many problems of the region are too big for any one member-state to solve alone, that there is the need for the technocracy of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. The purpose of this Go Lean/CU roadmap is to conquer the problems/challenges of modern day life and make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work, and play.

Climate change is one such challenge.

We know that the short-term actions we do now, have long-term consequences. So we must act right!

Though we are on the frontline of the onslaughts of climate change weather challenges – think, hurricanes – we must demonstrate best-practices to manage our environment well and send the world the right message of prudence.

The Go Lean roadmap calls for some integration of the regional member-states, a strategy of confederation with a tactic of separation-of-powers between CU federal agencies and member-states’ governments. The roadmap calls for the integrated role for infrastructure planning, financing and maintenance. Surely there will be many maintenance decision where the short-term “pro and con” will have to be weighed against the long-term “pro and con” It is hoped we will always consider the long-term and not “sell out our birthright”.

The people and governing institutions of the Caribbean are hereby urged to take heed the exhortations in this commentary; and also to learn more, and do more, by leaning-in to this Go Lean roadmap for Caribbean empowerment.

🙂

Download the book Go Lean…Caribbean now!

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Appendix – Road salt damages car undercarriage – http://youtu.be/EBw1JhccgCU

Published on Jan 9, 2014 – A simple substance that is supposed to protect you while driving in a winter storm could actually be costing you money. Reported for Omaha’s KETV NewsWatch 7.

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Crony-Capitalism, Detroit, Model, Power

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