Tag: Model

Flying the Caribbean Skies – New Regional Options

Posted on April 24, 2018 in Economics, Government, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

Look back at Economic History and we see a consistent lesson: nations that deploy efficient transportation systems always thrived as world powers. Consider these examples of the interchangeability of transportation and trade:

  • Romans built roads, facilitating trade and military advancement.
  • British, Dutch, French and Spanish empires thrived in trade due to their efficient shipbuilding and navigational artistry.
  • Railroad expansion across North America allowed the manifestation of the greatest industrial might in the history of mankind.
  • Banana boats created foreign markets for a tropical perishable produce, and originated cruise travelling.
  • Highway deployments allowed America to regroup and exceed competitors just as other nations where catching up with rail.
  • The “Jet Age” opened the Caribbean up to be the ideal winter tourism destination; “get there fast and then take it slow”.

This last one, is the focus of this series of commentaries; the economic realities of “flying the Caribbean skies”. This commentary commences a 3-part series on Flying the Caribbean Skies. This entry is 1 of 3 in this series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean in consideration of societal defects in the region’s management of air travel. There is a lot wrong and a lot of remediation that needs to be done. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

  1. Flying the Caribbean Skies: New Regional Options
  2. Flying the Caribbean Skies: ‘Shooting Ourselves in the Foot’ – ENCORE
  3. Flying the Caribbean Skies: The Need to Manage Airspace

All of these commentaries relate to “how” the stewards for a new Caribbean can empower regional commerce by optimizing the air travel eco-system, and the dependent industries. Our efforts to reform and transform the Caribbean economic engines would be incomplete without re-addressing air travel. Problems emerged in the last decade; there was one dominant airline that used to service most of the Caribbean member-states, and then they downsized their Caribbean footprint. That was American Airlines. In a previous Go Lean commentary, this debilitating history was related:

The 2008 financial crisis placed a heavy strain on the US’s largest carrier: American Airlines. On July 2, 2008, American announced furloughs of up to 950 flight attendants, in addition to the furlough of 20 MD-80 aircraft. American’s hub at Luiz Muñoz Marin Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico (PR) was truncated from 38 to 18 daily inbound flights. The holding company, AMR Corporation, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on November 29, 2011, and the airline made cuts in July 2012 due to the grounding of several aircraft associated with its bankruptcy and lack of pilots due to retirements. American Eagle, the regional carrier, (the Caribbean’s largest), was to retire 35 to 40 regional jets as well as its entire Saab turboprop fleet. [b] American Eagle PR ceased operation in March 2013. This status created dysfunction for the entire Eastern Caribbean region.

The stakeholders for American Airlines met and deliberated; then they made a decision and executed a plan that devastated Caribbean commerce. Caribbean stakeholders were “not at the table” but we were “on the menu”.

Now that American Airlines have downsized, the Caribbean has become totally dysfunctional with the air travel eco-system. A few other airlines, stepped into the void, but not at the same level and production; air travel options are now more limited, and expensive. So more and more tourists are travelling to the Caribbean by cruise ships. With less and less air travel fulfillments, that means less stay-overs, so less hotels, restaurants, taxi cabs, etc.. This type of dysfunction affects all “job multipliers” (indirect employment down the line) in the society.

No wonder our Caribbean member-states are nearing Failed-State status.

With cracks in the economic “chain-link”, the whole job creation utility becomes dysfunctional, and the Caribbean landscape for jobs is dire. We have some work to do, to fill the void.

If the one airline, the foreign American Airlines, is a primary culprit for Caribbean Airspace dysfunction, then facilitating a local airline solution would be moving in the right direction. See one news article here, identifying a new regional carrier:

Title #1: Saint Lucia welcomes new regional airline

Press Release: The inaugural flight of InterCaribbean Airways arrived at the George FL Charles Airport, on Thursday, March 22, at 6:55 pm, from the island of Dominica. The flight marks the commencement of a direct service, 3 times a week, between Saint Lucia’s George FL Charles Airport (SLU) and Dominica’s Douglas–Charles Airport (DOM).

Flight JY293 was welcomed by the Minister of Tourism, Information and Broadcasting the Hon. Dominic Fedee, Chairperson of the Saint Lucia Tourism Authority Agnes Francis, Airport Manager for George FL Charles Kirby Toussaint and other tourism officials. The honoured guests included airline Owner and Chairman Lyndon Gardiner along with CEO Trevor Sadler.  Guests were greeted with steel band music and welcome refreshments upon disembarking the aircraft.

The new route will be serviced by an Embraer EMB120, with a seating capacity of 30. The flights will arrive from DOM at 6:55 pm on Sunday, Monday and Thursday and depart from SLU at 9:00 am on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. The service provides onward connections to the northern Caribbean including the BVI reaching as far north as Havana with an additional direct service to Saint Croix commencing on April 12.

Speaking on the airlines role in regional travel Owner/Chairman Lyndon Gardiner stated, “Our dream is connecting the entire Caribbean, we feel that once we have better air connectivity we will be able to have better integration and be able to market the Caribbean as a single destination, offering more multi-destination vacations in our region”

The airport’s proximity to the island’s main business hub and largest cluster of hotels makes it the ideal point of entry for regional travel. In 2017 the Caribbean market overtook the United Kingdom as the second largest producer of stay-over arrivals, generating 76,349 or 19.8% of total stay-over arrivals to the destination.

Minister of Tourism, Information and Broadcasting the Hon. Dominic Fedee commented on the value of the increased airlift saying, “We look forward to the opportunities that this flight allows, which connects us to even more gateways across the Caribbean.”

Source: Retrieved April 21, 2018 from: https://stluciatimes.com/2018/03/30/saint-lucia-welcomes-new-regional-airline/

There is a heightened deficiency in the region today, and now only a small number of airline carriers have answered the call. This dysfunction has created the urgency for permanent change. This is a prime directive of the book Go Lean … Caribbean, to optimize the region’s economic engines, including enhancements for Caribbean tourism, cruise and “long stay” visitors.

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

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

American Airlines is more than just a regional carrier; they are the world’s largest airline; see VIDEO in the Appendix below. In addition to their planes-flights, they also facilitate an alliance with other carriers around the world, to form the OneWorld Alliance. This alliance was detailed in that previous blog-commentary, listing this inventory as of May 2014:

Airline Base Country / Region
Airberlin Germany – Central Europe
American Airlines USA – North America
British Airways United Kingdom, Western Europe
Cathay Pacific Airways Hong Kong (China), Far East Asia
Finnair Finland – North Europe
Iberia Spain / Portugal – Southern Europe
Japan Airlines Japan – Far East Asia
LAN Airlines Chile/Peru – South America
Malaysia Airlines Malaysia – Southeast Asia
Qantas Australia – Austra-Asia
Qatar Airways Middle East
Royal Jordanian Middle East
S7 Airlines Russia – Siberia
TAM Airlines Brazil – South America
US Airways USA – North America

So the Caribbean took a beating, economically, because of the decline and failure of this one private American company.

You see it, right? You see the “too many vulnerable eggs in one basket”; this is called “country risk”:

Country risk also refers to the broader notion of the degree to which political and economic unrest affect the securities of issuers doing business in a particular country. – Source.

Yes, there is vulnerability of placing our own economic fortunes in the hands of just one foreign entity. This is a consistent complaint of the Go Lean movement against the Caribbean member-states:

We have subjected ourselves to be parasites, rather than protégés.

A more appropriate Caribbean solution would be to forge an equivalent multi-airline alliance. In fact, there is such an effort in place now, though limited. See the news article here identifying a new alliance in the Eastern Caribbean:

Title #2: Caribbean airline alliance promises lower fares

Barbados Nation – Three Caribbean airlines have formed an alliance which promises to make it easier and cheaper for travellers to move between 32 countries.

Antigua-based LIAT, Air Antilles of Guadeloupe and St Maarten’s Winair have joined forces under the CaribSKY project which is co-funded by the European Union’s INTERREG Caribbean programme to the tune of 4.7 million euros.

The details of the project were revealed on Tuesday during a media conference at La Creole Beach Hotel and Spa in Guadeloupe.

Air Antilles chief executive officer Serge Tsygalnitzky said CaribSKY would allow passengers to travel on any of the three airlines on one ticket. This will be facilitated through codeshares and interline agreements.

“Sometimes, a customer has to purchase two tickets, three tickets to get to a single place. Now, what we want you to be able to do is travel seamlessly anywhere you want to with a single ticket,” he told regional media.

Tsygalnitzky said passengers would benefit from more direct flights and connections, lower fares, a better airport experience and a loyalty programme.

At the same time, LIAT, Winair and Air Antilles will be able to share know-how, optimise schedules and bring their teams together while maintaining separate identities.

Together, it projected that the three airlines will operate 25 aircraft and transport 1 400 000 passengers annuals on 70 000 flights.

LIAT’s chief executive officer Julie Reifer-Jones said inter-regional travel was declining and it was hoped that CaribSKY will make it easier for passengers to move through the English, French, Spanish and Dutch-speaking territories.

In brief remarks, LIAT chairman Dr Jean Holder pointed out that the Caribbean was the most airline dependent region in the world and social, economic and cultural life depended on the extent to which there is connectivity.

St Maarten’s Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transportation and Telecommunications, Cornelius de Weever also highlighted the importance of CaribSKY.

He pointed out that it is often easier and cheaper to cross the Atlantic than to visit a Caribbean territory.

Source: Retrieved April 23, 2018 from: https://stluciatimes.com/2018/04/19/caribbean-airline-alliance-promises-lower-fares/

This too is a good start, though limited to the small Eastern Caribbean sub-region. The Go Lean movement presents the plan to forge an alliance of multiple parties throughout the whole Caribbean region, all 30 member-states in benefit to the 42 million people. The book stresses that regional alliances are the best ways to reform and transform the Caribbean societal engines. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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 … agent, thereby garnering better terms and discounts.

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

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

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. One advocacy (Page 205) details the CU’s role in promotion activities for air travel, with this quotation:

Aviation plays a key role, and so there is the need for regional coordination and promotion of the region’s domestic and foreign air carriers.

Yes, we can better promote air travel in the Caribbean; we can make our homeland a better place to live, work, fly & play. 🙂

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

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

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Appendix VIDEO – World’s largest airline fleet || American Airlines Current And Future Fleet – https://youtu.be/ULGL_yTORMs

Great Aviation
Published on Jan 23, 2018 – American Airlines current as well as the airplanes it has ordered. All the types as well as their seat configurations.

 

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Nature or Nurture: Women Have Nurtured Change

Posted on April 14, 2018 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Here is valuable advice to young people … hoping to partner with a soul-mate:

Take time to know him/her … give it a full cycle of seasons: Summer and Winter.

There is the person’s Nature and also their Nurture-ing that must be taken to account:

Nature – Genetics determine behavior; personality traits and abilities are in “nature”

Nurture – Environment, upbringing and life experiences determine behavior. Humans are “nurtured” to behave in certain ways.

So prospective marriage mates need to ascertain the Nature and Nurture of a potential partner.

If the potential mate does not measure up, my advice: do not bond, take your leave. Just do so BEFORE the wedding rehearsal – i.e. Runaway Brides – do not abandon all the stakeholders high-and-dry (“at the altar”), after they may have invested in catering, banquet halls, clothes, travel, etc.. Such a failure would just be pathetic!

This advice applies to individuals, yes, but not so much for communities, or societies. For the group dynamic, we simply have no choice; we must work to transform the attitudes, traits and practices in a community. The book Go Lean…Caribbean identified this subject as “community ethos”, with this definition:

… the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period. – Page 20

If/When the community ethos is unbecoming for a society, citizens do not bond; they abandon! This is so pathetic, as the community too may have invested hugely in the individuals – think education, scholarships and student loans. The community is “left at the altar“.

But change is possible! Communities have forged change and been transformed .. in the past, in the present and I guarantee future communities will also forge change.

How is this possible? How to Nurture change despite “bad” Nature? Let’s consider a sample-example from the history of the UK; this is actually the history of the Caribbean as well, as it features the Abolition of Slavery in the British Empire in the year 1833 – the date that the measure passed the British Parliament.

There were a lot of advocates and activists that led the fight against … first the Slave Trade and then eventually the institution of Slavery itself; think William Wilberforce and Charles Spurgeon who argued for the abolition of slavery and advocated for women to have rights equal to that of men. Slavery and Women’s Rights became locked-in-step – see Appendix VIDEO. So a lot of the Nurturing for the abolition advocacy came from women of the British Empire. See this portrayed in the article here:

Title: Ending Slavery

For much of the 18th century few European or American people questioned slavery. Gradually on both sides of the Atlantic a few enlightened individuals, some of them Quakers, began to oppose it.

From the 1760s activists in London challenged the morality and legality of the slave trade. They included former slaves, like Olaudah Equiano and the abolitionist campaigners Granville Sharp and William Wilberforce.

Women who opposed slavery took the lead in boycotts of slave-grown produce, particularly sugar. Slavery abolitionists used badges and iconic images to publicise their views, like the sugar bowl above made by Wedgewood. Enormous petitions opposing the slave trade were delivered to the House of Commons.

Women Against Slavery

It is only relatively recently that historians have explored the activities of women abolitionists. When looking at local provincial sources, autobiographies, historical objects and sites it becomes clear that women played a significant and, at times, pivotal role in the campaign to abolish slavery.

These women came from a range of backgrounds. The tactics they used – boycotting slave-produced sugar and other goods, organising mass petitions and addressing public meetings – proved highly effective.

Hannah Moore

Hannah Moore (from 1745 to 1833) was an educator, writer and social reformer. Born in Bristol, she was strongly opposed to slavery throughout her life. She encouraged women to join the anti-slavery movement.

In 1787 she met John Newton and members of the Clapham Sect, including William Wilberforce with whom she formed a strong and lasting friendship. Moore was an active member of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the African Slave Trade. Her writings reflected her opposition to slavery and “Slavery, a Poem” which she published in 1788 is regarded as one of the most important slavery poems of the period.

Ill health prevented Moore from taking an active role in the 1807 campaign to end the slave trade but she continued to write to Wilberforce and other campaigners.

She lived just long enough to see the act abolishing slavery passed. She died in September 1833 and is buried with her sisters in the south-east corner of All Saints’ Churchyard, Station Road, Wrington, Bristol, BS40.

Mary Prince

Mary Prince (from 1788 to around 1833) was the first black woman to publish her account of being an enslaved woman. She was born in Bermuda in 1788 and endured a life of violence and abuse through a succession of slave-owners.

Her owners, the Woods, brought Mary to England. To escape their cruelty she ran away to the Moravian Church in London’s Hatton Gardens. Members of the Anti-Slavery Society took up her case and they encouraged her to write her life story.

Published in 1831 as “The History of Mary Prince”, this extraordinary story describing ill treatment and survival was a rallying cry for emancipation. The book provoked two libel actions and had three editions in its year of publication.

In 2007 Camden Council and the Nubian Jak Community Trust placed a plaque near to the site where she lived at Senate House, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (from 1806 to 1861) is commemorated with two plaques in Marylebone, London. A brown Society of Arts plaque is at the site of her former home at 50 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8SQ. There is a bronze plaque at 99, Gloucester Road, London W1U 6JG.

Barrett Browning’s father, Edward Barrett Moulton Barrett (from 1785 to 1857), inherited 10,000 acres of sugar plantations in Jamaica, with an annual income of £50,000. Her maternal grandfather John Graham-Clarke (from 1736 to 1818) was a Newcastle merchant who owned sugar plantations, trading ships and many more businesses associated with slavery. At his death his assets were equivalent to around £20 million today.

Barrett Browning was aware of the source of her family’s wealth:

  • I belong to a family of West Indian slave-owners and if I believe in curses, I should be afraid. – Letter from Elizabeth Barrett Browning to John Ruskin in 1855.

In 1849 she published an anti-slavery poem “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point”. It portrayed a slave woman cursing her oppressor after she had been whipped, raped and impregnated.

Elizabeth Jesser Reid

A social reformer and philanthropist, Elizabeth Jesser Reid (from 1789 to 1866) is best known for founding Bedford College for Women in London in 1849. The College is now part of Royal Holloway, University of London.

Jesser Reid was also an anti-slavery activist and she attended the Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840 and was a member of the Garrisonian London Emancipation Committee. A green plaque has been placed at her former home, 48 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DR to commemorate Reid and the first site of the college.

While living at 48 Bedford Square, Reid entertained Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1853. She also shared her house with the African American abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond whilst she studied at the College between 1859 and 1861.

Sarah Parker Remond

Born in Salem, Massachusetts, Sarah Parker Remond (from 1826 to 1894) came from a family that was deeply involved in the abolitionist campaign in the United States. Her brother Charles Lenox Remond was the first black lecturer in the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Parker Remond was such an impressive speaker and fund-raiser for the abolitionist movement that she was invited to take the anti-slavery message to Britain. Soon after arriving here in 1859 she embarked upon a nationwide lecture tour. In 1866 she left London to study medicine in Italy. She practised as a doctor in Florence, where she settled.

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Related Posts

Listen to our podcasts about women’s involvement in the abolition movement:

Source: Retrieved April 13, 2018 from: https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/the-slave-trade-and-abolition/sites-of-memory/ending-slavery/

Women applied pressure to all aspects of society – the engines of economics, security and governance – for the end of the Slave Trade; then they continued the pressure for the Abolition of Slavery itself. The Nurturing worked! It was not immediate, but eventual and evolutionary:

  • They impacted the economic cycles – boycotts & embargos. See the notes on the Anti-Saccharrittes in Appendix A.
  • They compelled the Security engines – The Royal Navy was engaged to enforce the ban on the Slave Trade after 1807. (Between 1808 and 1860, the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans.[5]) See Appendix B below.
  • They engaged the related governance by entreating the political supporters, every year, to introduce and re-introduce the Abolition Bill.

Though the abolition of Slavery went against the Nature of the New World, these women and their Nurturing did not stop.  They persisted! This commentary concludes the 4-part series on Nature or Nurture for community ethos. This entry is 4 of 4 in this series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean in consideration of the Nurturing by the mothers (women) of England who finally forge change in the British Empire.. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

  1. Nature or Nurture: Black Marchers see gun violence differently
  2. Nature or Nurture: Cop-on-Black Shootings – Embedded in America’s DNA; Whites Yawn
  3. Nature or Nurture: UK City of Bristol still paying off Slavery Debt
  4. Nature or Nurture: Nurturing came from women to impact Abolition of Slavery

In the first submission to this series, the history of the Psychological battle between Nature and Nurture was introduced, which quoted:

One of the oldest arguments in the history of psychology is the Nature vs Nurture debate. Each of these sides have good points that it’s really hard to decide whether a person’s development is predisposed in his DNA, or a majority of it is influenced by this life experiences and his environment. – https://explorable.com/nature-vs-nurture-debate

All of these commentaries relate to “how” the stewards – including empowered women – for a new Caribbean can assuage societal defects despite the default Nature. Here-in, this example from England is a great role model for the Caribbean region. We too, need our women!

How about the Caribbean today? What bad Nature can women help to Nurture out of Caribbean society?

There are many!

The Lord giveth the word: The women that publish the tidings are a great host. – Psalms 68:11 American Standard Version

Our region is riddled with societal defects. In fact, the subject of societal defects is a familiar theme for this commentary, from the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book asserts that the British colonial masters for the Caribbean – 18 of the 30 member-states share this legacy – did not endow this region with the organizational dynamics (attitudes or structures) that would lead to societal success. The former slave populations became the majority in all these lands; when majority rule was compelled on the New World – post-World War II restructuring – the people were not ready. Looking at the dispositions in the region today, these are nearing Failed-State status – it is that bad!

The theme of Failing States has been detailed in previous blog-commentaries by the movement behind the Go Lean book. Consider this sample previous blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13749 Failure to Launch – Governance: Assembling the Region’s Organizations
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13746 Failure to Launch – Security: Caribbean Basin Security Dreams
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13744 Failure to Launch – Economics: The Quest for a ‘Single Currency’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13391 After Maria, Puerto Rico Failed-State: Destruction and Defection
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12996 After Irma, Many Caribbean Failed-States: Destruction and Defection
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12098 Inaction: A Recipe for ‘Failed-State’ Status
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10657 Outreach to the Diaspora – Doubling-down on Failure
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2547 Miami’s Success versus Caribbean Failure

There is the need for the Caribbean member-states to reform and transform. We have some bad community ethos; we need “all hands on deck” to mitigate and remediate them. The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all 30 member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives for effecting change in our society:

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

The same as the British Empire needed a “large host” of women to Nurture societal values, priorities, practices and laws to supplant the bad Nature of the British Slave economy, a “large host” of women will be needed to forge change in the British Caribbean and the full Caribbean – American, Dutch, French and Spanish legacies. This subject too, has been a consistent theme from the movement behind the Go Lean book. Consider this sample from these previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14541 One Woman Made a Difference – Role Model: Viola Desmond
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14482 International Women’s Day – Protecting Rural Women
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13063 Getting Gender Equity without a ‘Battle of the Sexes’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12035 Lean-in for ‘Wonder Woman Day’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10124 The ‘Hidden Figures’ of Women Building-up Society – Art Imitating Life
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8306 Women Get Ready for New “Lean-In” Campaign
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6937 Women in Politics – Yes, They Can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6836 Role Model – #FatGirlsCan
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5648 One Woman – Taylor Swift – Changing Streaming Music Industry
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3490 One Woman Entrepreneur Rallied and Change Her Whole Community

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to Nurture a better Caribbean society. It details the new community ethos that needs to be adopted so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society – economics, security and governance. We want the women to help empower Caribbean society and so we want to empower women. In fact, the book (Page 226) details the bad community ethos that permeated the “Imperial” world during the times of Caribbean colonization. The advocacy entitled 10 Ways to Empower Women presented this encyclopedic reference on the Natural Law philosophy as follows:

The Bottom Line on Natural Law and Women’s Rights

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

Relying on ancient Greek philosophers, natural law philosophers argued that natural rights where not derived from god, but were “universal, self-evident, and intuitive”, a law that could be found in nature. They believed that natural rights were self-evident to “civilized man” who lives “in the highest form of society”. Natural rights derived from human nature, a concept first established by the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Citium in Concerning Human Nature.

Zenon argued that each rational and civilized male Greek citizen had a “divine spark” or “soul” within him that existed independent of the body. Zeno founded the Stoic philosophy and the idea of a human nature was adopted by other Greek philosophers, and later natural law philosophers and western humanists. Aristotle developed the widely adopted idea of rationality, arguing that man was a “rational animal” and as such a natural power of reason.

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

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

This flawed Natural Law philosophy accounts for the Nature of the Caribbean – this was inherited from the Imperial Europe (1600’s) – and never fully uprooted. This was the heavy-lifting that the foregoing women helped to Nurture out of Europe, and what we need continued help for today’s women to uproot.

In addition to the ethos discussion, the book presents the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute change in the Caribbean region. This is how to Nurture a bad community (ethos) into a good community (ethos).

Yes, we can elevate our societal engines. We can do more than just study impactful women from the past, we can foster our own brand of impactful women. We need them!

We need all hands on deck to make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

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Appendix A – Anti-Saccharrittes … in England

…
In 1791, … the abolitionist William Fox published his anti-sugar pamphlet, which called for a boycott of sugar grown by slaves working in inhuman conditions in the British-governed West Indies. “In every pound of sugar used, we may be considered as consuming two ounces of human flesh,” wrote Fox. So powerful was his appeal that close to 400,000 Britons gave up sugar.

The sugar boycott squarely affected that most beloved of English rituals: afternoon tea. As The Salt [Magazine] has reported, sugar was an integral reason why tea became an engrained habit of the British in the 1700s. But with the sugar boycott, offering or not offering sugar with tea became a highly political act.

Soon, grocers stopped selling West Indies sugar and began to sell “East Indies sugar” from India. Those who bought this sugar were careful to broadcast their virtue by serving it in bowls imprinted with the words “not made by slave labor,” in much the same way that coffee today is advertised as fair-trade, or eggs as free-range.

…

Source: Posted August 4, 2015; retrieved April 14, 2018 from: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/08/04/429363868/how-percy-shelley-stirred-his-politics-into-his-tea-cup

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Appendix B – Rare ‘slave freeing’ photos on show

A set of rare photographs showing African slaves being freed by the Royal Navy have gone on show for the first time. They are part of an exhibition marking the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade.

A set of rare photographs showing African slaves being freed by the Royal Navy have gone on show for the first time.
Published April 28, 2007.
The photographs, on display at the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth, Hants, show a sailor removing the manacle from a newly-freed slave as well as the ship’s marines escorting captured slavers.

———-

East African slaves aboard the HMS Daphne, a British Royal Navy vessel involved in anti-slave trade activities in the Indian Ocean,

Samuel Chidwick, 74, has donated the photographs taken by his father Able Seaman Joseph Chidwick, born in 1881, on board HMS Sphinx off the East African coast in about 1907.

The photographs, on display at the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth, Hants, show a sailor removing the manacle from a newly-freed slave as well as the ship’s marines escorting captured slavers.

Mr Chidwick, of Dover, Kent, said: “The pictures were taken by my father who was serving aboard HMS Sphinx while on armed patrol off the Zanzibar and Mozambique coast.

“They caught quite a few slavers and those particular slaves that are in the pictures happened while he was on watch. “That night a dhow sailed by and the slaves were all chained together. He raised the alarm and they got them on to the ship and got the chains knocked off them.

“They then questioned them and sent a party of marines ashore to try to track the slave traders down.

“They caught two of them and I believe they were of Arabic origin.

“My father thought the slave trade was a despicable thing that was going on, the slaves were treated very badly so when they got the slavers they didn’t give them a very nice time.”

Jacquie Shaw, spokeswoman for the Royal Naval Museum, said: “The museum and the Royal Navy are delighted to announce the donation of a nationally important collection of unique photographs taken by Able Seaman Joseph John Chidwick during his service on the Persian Gulf Station where the crew of HMS Sphinx were engaged in subduing the slave trade.

“The collection comprises a fascinating and important snapshot of life on anti-slavery duties off the coast of Africa.”

The exhibition, ‘Chasing Freedom -The Royal Navy and the suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade’, is being held until January next year to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade.

The House of Commons passed a bill in 1805 making it unlawful for any British subject to capture and transport slaves but the measure was blocked by the House of Lords and did not come into force until March 25, 1807.

Mrs Shaw said that since the exhibition opened, members of the public had brought forward several historically-important items. She said: “As well as these amazing images, members of the public have brought many other unheard stories of the Royal Navy and the trade in enslaved Africans to the museum’s attention including the original ship’s log of the famed HMS Black Joke of the West Coast of Africa Station.”

Source: Posted 29 Apr 2007; retrieved April 14, 2018 from: http://metro.co.uk/2007/04/29/rare-slave-freeing-photos-on-show-331626/

————

Appendix C VIDEO – Abolition to Suffrage – https://youtu.be/WbLVp27cqZ8

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Nature or Nurture: Cop-on-Black Shootings – Embedded in America’s DNA

Posted on April 9, 2018 in Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

It happens so often, it rarely gets attention anymore; Police-on-Black shootings that is!

It seems to be a constant feature of American life. See the latest high profile one – Stephon Clark – in the Appendix below.

What’s worse, when it happens, the White people in America, just yawns. Sad, but true!

Is this phenomenon the Nature of the United States of America, or is it Nurture?

The answer is complicated; the answer is both!

This commentary continues the 4-part series on Nature or Nurture for community ethos. This entry is 2 of 4 in this series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean in consideration of root causes of some societal defects – specific examples in the US and UK – and how to overcome them. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

  1. Nature or Nurture: Black Marchers see gun violence differently
  2. Nature or Nurture: Cop-on-Black Shootings – Embedded in America’s DNA; Whites Yawn
  3. Nature or Nurture: UK City of Bristol still paying off Slavery Debt
  4. Nature or Nurture: Nurturing comes from women; “they” impacted the Abolition of Slavery

In the first submission to this series, the history of Psychology was introduced, which quoted:

One of the oldest arguments in the history of psychology is the Nature vs Nurture debate. Each of these sides have good points that it’s really hard to decide whether a person’s development is predisposed in his DNA, or a majority of it is influenced by this life experiences and his environment. – https://explorable.com/nature-vs-nurture-debate

All of these commentaries relate to “why” the New World – including the US and the Caribbean – has the societal defects that are so prominent – and so illogical – and  “how” the stewards for a new Caribbean can assuage these defects and the resultant failing dispositions among Caribbean society. Though the traits may be consistent in the hemisphere, our efforts to reform and transform is limited to the Caribbean.

The subject of Police-On-Black shootings is a familiar theme for this commentary, from the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free. The book asserts that there is a consistent lack of respect for those in America fitting a “Poor Black” attribute. In fact these prior blog-commentaries doubled-down on this assertion:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13081 America’s Race Relations – Spot-on for Protest
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8202 Lessons Learned from American Dysfunctional Minority Relations
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8200 Climate of Hate for American Minorities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7221 Street naming for Martin Luther King unveils the real America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5527 American Defects: Racism – Is It Over?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4863 Video of Police Shooting: Worth a Million Words
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=546 Book Review – ‘The Divide’ – Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=341 Hypocritical US slams Caribbean human rights practices

Say it ain’t so … it is a dangerous proposition to be Black in America. In fact one Caribbean member-states – The Bahamas, a majority Black population – had urged their young men traveling to the US to exercise extreme caution when dealing with police authorities. This advice is Spot-on!

The Nature of the US is that Black people – especially men and boys – have always had to contend with an unjust society in terms of justice and the security apparatus. Since the subject of Nature assumes that racism is predisposed in a society’s DNA, despite the fact that formal slavery ended 150 years ago, it is no surprise that Blacks in America have seen a continuous suppression, repression and oppression of any justice requirements.

After all, this is the population that suffered so much of the indignity of lynching.

Yes, we are going there …

Despite the fact that African slaves were taken to all New World territories, the country with this acute practice was only the United States of America. Surely, this had a lingering effect on the culture and society. This effect was not only on the victims, but on society in general, and the law enforcement establishment.

Imagine people gathering in their Sunday Best Clothes to watch the lynching (murder) of a Black man with no trial or due process. Imagine the effect that would instill on that community? Would that forge concern and consideration for the targeted population?

Now imagine that drama repeated again and again … 4733 times.

According to a previous Go Lean commentary, 4,733 people were documented as being lynched. That’s a huge number. To think there would be no impact on the Nature of a society is inconceivable. This theme was also conveyed in the TV news magazine 60 Minutes. See the full story here:

VIDEO – Inside the memorial to victims of lynching – https://www.cbsnews.com/video/inside-the-memorial-to-victims-of-lynching/

Posted April 8, 2018 – Oprah Winfrey reports on the Alabama memorial dedicated to thousands of African-American men, women and children lynched over a 70-year period following the Civil War.

Surely this country – the America of Old – would have been no place for Caribbean people to seek refuge. The Nuturing of American society continued to develop a nonchalance to injustice for the Black people of the US. This is where the Nature has been supplanted by the Nurture. This is why stories like Stephon Clark continue to emerge and why White America “continue to yawn”. Surely this society – modern America – is no place for Black-and-Brown Caribbean people to seek refuge.

Yet, the region – all 30 member-states – continue to suffer from an abominable brain drain rate in which so many Caribbean citizens have emigrated to the US, and other countries. (One reported has rated the brain drain rate of 70 percent).

The book Go Lean…Caribbean asserts that it is easier for the Black-and-Brown populations in the Caribbean to prosper where planted in the Caribbean, rather than emigrating to foreign countries, like the United States. If only we can reform and transform our own society so as to dissuade our people from leaving to seek refuge in the US. This is the quest of the Go Lean book, to serve as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The book presents 370 pages of instructions for how to reform and transform our Caribbean member-states. It stresses the key community ethos that needs to be adopted, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to optimize the societal engines in a community.

The CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives for optimizing our societal engines:

As related in this blog series on Nature or Nurture, the Caribbean has the same Nature as our American counterparts, but not the same Nurture. Our majority Black-and-Brown populations have forged different societies than the baseline US. And we are not wanting to be like America …

… we want to be better.

This is not just a dream; this is a roadmap that is conceivable, believable and achievable. Yes, we can … reform and transform our society. We can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

————

Appendix – Shooting of Stephon Clark

Stephon Clark was shot and killed on the evening of March 18, 2018, by two officers of the Sacramento Police Department in Sacramento, California, United States. The officers were looking for a suspect who was breaking windows in the Meadowview neighborhood, and confronted Clark, an unarmed 22-year-old African-American man whom they found in the yard of his grandmother’s house, where he resided. Clark ran from the police in an encounter that was filmed by police video cameras. The officers stated that they shot Clark, firing 20 rounds, believing that he had pointed a gun at them. After the shooting, police reported that he was carrying only a cell phone. According to an independent autopsy, Clark was shot eight times including six times in the back.

The shooting caused large protests in Sacramento, and Clark’s family members have rejected the initial police description of the events leading to Clark’s death. The Sacramento Police Department placed the officers on paid administrative leave and opened a use of force investigation. Police have stated they are confident that Clark was the person responsible for breaking windows in the area prior to the encounter.

…

Shooting

The Sacramento Police Department stated that on Sunday, March 18 at 9:18 p.m., two officers were responding to a call that someone was breaking car windows.[3] In a media release after the shooting, police stated that they had been looking for a suspect hiding in a backyard. They said the suspect was a thin black man, 6 feet 1 inch (185 cm) in height, wearing darkly colored pants and a black hooded sweatshirt.[3] A sheriff’s helicopter spotted a man at 9:25 p.m. in a nearby backyard and told officers on the ground that he had shattered a window using a tool bar, run to the front of that house, and then looked in an adjacent car.[3]

Officers on the ground entered the front yard of Clark’s grandmother’s home, and saw Clark next to the home.[10][3] Vance Chandler, the Sacramento Police Department spokesman, said that Clark was the same man who had been breaking windows, and was tracked by police in helicopters.[3] Chandler said that when Clark was confronted and ordered to stop and show his hands, Clark fled to the back of the property.[3]

Police body camera footage from both of the officers who shot Clark recorded the incident, though the footage is dark and shaky.[10][11] In the videos, officers spot Clark in his grandmother’s driveway and shout “Hey, show me your hands. Stop. Stop.”[10] The video shows that the officers chased Clark into the backyard and an officer yells, “Show me your hands! Gun!” About three seconds elapse and then the officer yells, “Show me your hands! Gun, gun, gun”, before shooting Clark.[10][11]

According to the police, before being shot Clark turned and held an object that he “extended in front of him” while he moved towards the officers.[3] The officers said they believed that Clark was pointing a gun at them.[6] The police stated that the officers feared for their safety, and at 9:26 p.m., fired 20 rounds, hitting Clark multiple times.[6][3] According to an independent autopsy, Clark was shot eight times, including six times in the back.[1] The report found that one of the bullets to strike Clark from the front was likely fired while he was already on the ground.[1]

Body-cam footage shows that after shooting him, the officers continued to yell at him as one shined a flashlight at him and they kept their guns aimed at him. One officer stated in one of the body-cam videos, “He had something in hands, looked like a gun from our perspective.” Three minutes after the shooting, a female officer called to him and said “We need to know if you’re OK. We need to get you medics, so we can’t go over and get you help until we know you don’t have a weapon.”[12] They waited five minutes after shooting Clark before approaching and then handcuffing him.[13] Clark was found to have a white iPhone, and was unarmed.[6][4] Clark’s girlfriend later said the phone belonged to her.[14]

After more officers arrived, one officer said “Hey, mute”, and audio recording from the body camera was turned off.[10]

The Police Department stated on March 19, one day after the shooting, that Clark had been seen with a “tool bar”. On the evening of that day, police revised their statement to say that Clark was carrying a cell phone, and not a tool bar, when he was shot.[3] Police added that Clark might have used either a concrete block or an aluminum gutter railing to break a sliding glass door at the house next door to where he was shot, and that they believed Clark had broken windows from at least three vehicles in the area.[3]

…

Responses

Elected officials and political activists

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, initially said he would not second-guess decisions made by officers on the ground. After a backlash, he said the videos of Clark’s shooting made him feel “really sick” and that the shooting was “wrong” but declined to comment whether the officers should be charged.[30] House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi stated that Clark “should be alive today”.[31] [Civil Rights Activist] Reverend Al Sharpton stated that he was alarmed by the story, which he said had not received enough media attention.[32]

On March 26, White House spokesman Raj Shah stated that he was unaware of any comments from President Donald Trump regarding the incident.[31] Two days later, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated that Trump is “very supportive of law enforcement” and that the incident was a “local matter” that should be dealt with by the local authorities.[33]

Clark family

Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who represents the Clark family, stated that the autopsy finding was inconsistent with the official narrative that Clark was charging toward the police officers when they fired.[1] Clark’s family expressed skepticism of the police version of events. Clark’s brother, Stevante Clark, said of police statements: “They said he had a gun. Then they said he had a crowbar. Then they said he had a toolbar … If you lie to me once, I know you’ll lie to me again.”[10] Clark’s aunt Saquoia Durham said that police gave Clark no time to respond to their commands before shooting him.[34] According to Crump the officers did not identify themselves as police when they encountered Clark.[22] The police have stated that the officers who confronted Clark were wearing their uniforms at that time.[35]

Policing experts

University of South Carolina criminology professor Geoffrey Alpert stated that it might be hard for officers to justify their conclusion that Clark was armed, since they had been told he was carrying a toolbar.[36] Peter Moskos, assistant professor of Law and Police Science at John Jay College, said that the officers appeared to think they had been fired upon following the shooting.[37] Alpert, Clark’s family, and protesters questioned officers’ decisions to mute their microphones.[10][38] Police Chief Daniel Hahn said he was unable to explain the muting. Cedric Alexander, former police chief in Rochester, New York, and former president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, said that the muting did not appear to violate any policy, but looks bad. He also stated that it is not unusual for police to mute their body cams and that attorneys advise the police to mute conversations to prevent recording any comments that could be used in administrative or criminal proceedings. Many body cams are made with a mute button on them.[38]

Source: Wikipedia; retrieved April 9, 2018 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Stephon_Clark

 

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Nature or Nurture: Change Still Possible

Posted on April 8, 2018 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

What is wrong … with America? Why are they so dysfunctional with … Guns, School Shootings, Police-on-Black shootings?

Question: Is the American problem Nature … or it Nurture?

Answer: It’s American Psychology!

Psychology is not so new a science … it goes way back in history – i.e. Plato, Aristotle,  John Locke (1690), René Descartes (1637), etc..

One of the oldest arguments in the history of psychology is the Nature vs Nurture debate. Each of these sides have good points that it’s really hard to decide whether a person’s development is predisposed in his DNA, or a majority of it is influenced by this life experiences and his environment. – https://explorable.com/nature-vs-nurture-debate

Which factor – Nature or Nurture – attributes to the development of Caribbean society?

VIDEO – Nature vs. Nurture – Psy 101 – https://youtu.be/chzDR3feSHY

PsychU
Published on Jul 10, 2015 – Does our personality and behavior come about from our upbringing and environment or do we have genetic predispositions that influence us to act a certain way? Let’s discuss how psychologists tackle the issue!

The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – asserts that there are standard traits for Caribbean society and people – community ethos – that are so entrenched that they could be considered as embedded in the DNA. The Go Lean book defines community ethos as:

… the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period. – Page 20

But alas, “community ethos” can be changed.

The Go Lean book prescribes how to recognize the ethos and most importantly: how to change ethos.

The Caribbean’s “community ethos” did not start in the Caribbean; alas, they started in Europe. So a study of the European ethos during the time of the discovery of the New World must be considered; we must learn from those lessons – we are directly affected.

In a previous Go Lean commentary, it was developed that the historicity of American and Caribbean society – make  that the whole New World – was premised on the European philosophy of White Supremacy; that it was acceptable for those peoples to exploit the native people of the New World – or the transplanted slaves – as long as they infused Christianity into these conquered people.

Such a fallacy!

So the Nature of the Caribbean refers to the normal assumption – community ethos – that inhabitants are Less Than and not equipped to foster a workable society. Alas, this Nature can be changed!

One way of changing that default Nature, is by Nurturing the needed values that the regional community needs to thrive as functioning societies. This destination is not automatic; it must be forged … with strenuous effort – heavy-lifting. This must be the new societal priority.

Underlying to Caribbean history is the Nature (DNA) of the New World colonizers; they brought Crony-Capitalism and White Supremacy – in this order – to their new lands of influence. This natural assumption that Europeans had the right to rule and exploit the land and dominate native people was an obvious attribute for hundreds of years (half a millennium).

Take for example this evidence in the history of discovery:

  • The New World was discovered in 1492, slavery started in 1600’s. What happened in 1500’s? Search for Gold. This is proof-positive that European Crony-Capitalism superseded all other community values in the New World colonization quest.
  • French Revolution brought equality and egalitarianism to the French world, but shortly thereafter, “they” wanted to re-install slavery in the French Caribbean, even in rebellious Haiti.

Where personal Nature is failing, the recompense must come from the process in Nurturing. (Consider the example of Crony-Capitalism; change can be forged by attacking the pocketbook through boycotts, embargo and blockades).

This commentary commences a 4-part series on Nature or Nurture for “community ethos”. This entry is 1 of 4 in this series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean in consideration of root causes of some societal defects – specific examples in the US and UK – and how to overcome them. There is much that can be learned from history, good, bad and ugly. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

  1. Nature or Nurture: Black Marchers see gun violence differently
  2. Nature or Nurture: Cop-on-Black Shootings – Embedded in America’s DNA; Whites Yawn>
  3. Nature or Nurture: UK City of Bristol still paying off Slavery Debt
  4. Nature or Nurture: Nurturing comes from women; “they” impacted the Abolition of Slavery

All of these commentaries relate to “why” the New World has the societal defects that are so prominent – and so illogical – and  “how” the stewards for a new Caribbean can assuage these defects and the resultant failing dispositions among Caribbean society. Though the traits may be consistent in the hemisphere, our efforts to reform and transform is limited to the Caribbean.

The subject of gun violence in America is truly one of those subjects, where a logical society seems to ignore logic. (America is the richest, most powerful society in the history of civilizations). It is outright stupidity! A previous blog-commentary related that stupidity persists when “someone is profiting”. (In a free society, special interest groups – who often have an economic motive – can conduct promotional campaigns to control public opinion).

So in America, it is a fact that different population groups have different experiences and values for guns. See this reality as portrayed in this news article, about Black protesters seeing gun violence differently than their White counterparts:

Title: Black Marchers See Gun Violence Differently
By: Alexa Spencer

WASHINGTON — Adia Granger knows gun violence intimately.  The 16-year-old lives in Baltimore, the city with the highest murder rate of any major city in America.

Of the 343 people killed in Baltimore last year, 295 died by gunfire, more than New York City or Los Angeles, cities with more than 10 times Baltimore’s population.  Gun-related deaths accounted for 88 percent of the city’s homicides.

Many of the victims were young.  Markel Scott, 19, shot six times. Steven Jackson, 18, shot in the head. Shaquan Raymone Trusty, 16, shot multiple times in the upper body. Tyrese Davis, 15, and  Jeffrey Quick, 15, shot in same neighborhood within blocks of one another.

Adia’s own cousin was shot while walking home from work.  Like her cousin, most all of them victims were black.

Their deaths were the reason she and a group of classmates from Western High School were among the more than 800,000 who rallied in the nation’s capital to demand more action to deal with gun violence.

“I came here to represent Baltimore,” Adia said.

Adia was among several bus loads of students sent to the march by Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh. For them, gun violence is not new. It is a longstanding issue.

Adia, a high school junior, joined the national movement for gun control sparked by the Parkland shooting by marching out of her school in March,   Like many other protestors,  she said she wanted the federal government should do more to address the issue.

“It’s unacceptable what is going on,” Adia said, “and Congress has not done anything about it.,”

Adia was among many black citizens that were present to protest not only against mass shootings, but also police brutality and gun violence that plagues neighborhoods of color.

Frederick Shelton, 43, stood aside the packed streets, holding a sign that read: If the opposite of pro is con…what is the opposite of progress?”

The message of his sign, Shelton said is “We’re not moving forward.”

“It’s just a matter of time before any of us get shot, because our federal government is not doing anything,” he said. “We’re all just sitting around waiting for the next mass shooting. It could be you. It could be me. And that’s a horrible way to live.”

Shelton teaches English as a second language to immigrant students in Washington.   He said his students are uniquely affected by gun laws and said he participated in the march to make their lives better. He suggested the federal government reserve guns for military personnel only.

“I believe that there is no place for guns in our society,” he said. “Guns are for the military.”

Tameka Garner-Barry, 38-year-old mother of three, brought her sons, 2, 5, and 11, to the march to “reclaim” their schools and their community. Her children, though young, have recognized the problem and wanted to be at the march to speak out.

“These are issues and concerns that they’ve had, so it’s only right that they come out and voice their opinions and let their voices be heard,” Garner-Barry said.

Standing at his mother’s hip, 5-year-old Bryson chipped in his feelings.

“I feel like people have to stop the violence,” he said, “because people are getting hurt.”

Garner-Barry said she wanted to see the removal of guns from the streets and heightened security in school.

“I want Congress to know that we do control the vote, and that we take these issues seriously,” she said, “and I want the NRA to be dismissed altogether,”

Nia Smith, 21, a graduating senior film production major at Howard University from Chicago, was also at the march.

Chicago had the highest number of murders two years in a row.    In 2016, 771 were killed.  The number declined to 650 murdered in 2017, still higher than the number of murders in Los Angeles and New York City combined.

“Gun violence has always been a part of my life,” Smith said. “I have had family members that I’ve lost to gun violence.”

Though the march addressed gun violence, including some speakers who tlked abut gun violence against African-American men and women, she said she felt as though certain forms of gun violence, such as police brutality, were overlooked by protesters because of class and race.

“They fail to see that gun violence is gun violence, period…the police and the perpetrators of the classroom shootings,” Smith said.

To fully combat the issue, there must be support across racial lines, she said.

“I don’t think they should be separated,” she said. “I think white people should march the way they marched today for the Black Lives Matter movement. They all died the same way. They all died by a bullet.”

Source: Howard University News Service; posted March 26, 2018; retrieved April 7, 2018 from: http://www.hunewsservice.com/news/view.php/1033085/Black-Marchers-See-Gun-Violence-Differen

A previous blog-commentary related how the 2nd Amendment originated during slavery so as to provide additional rights to the slave-owning populations to regulate (police) their slave majorities on plantations.

Despite the historic developments, the requirements for the Black American population appears to be different than for the White population; (this writer attended one of the “March For Our Lives” events on March 24, 2018). This is the manifestation of the Nature psychology.

While this is an American drama, there is much that the Caribbean can glean, in terms of lessons learned. The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. The book presents 370 pages of instructions for how to reform and transform our Caribbean member-states. It stresses the key community ethos that needs to be adopted, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to shepherd a better society.

The book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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

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

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

The Go Lean book provides directions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. Considering the failings in the US, the Go Lean roadmap calls for remediation and mitigation for gun control, despite the race issues. We want to elevate our society beyond the initial racial Nature in Caribbean history.

Change can be forged, by Nurturing a better community ethos. We have a long track record of advocates and activists working to change the default orthodoxy. They protest, campaign, speak out for a cause, lobby, cajole, take to the streets and march; they engage the voting process and support – or oppose – candidates in line, or out of line, with their cause. This is referred to as forging change from the Bottom-Up. They may even use Civil Disobedience tactics.

Have you been to jail for justice?

This is an important question and statement for forging change in society. See how this has been portrayed in this song-VIDEO recapping many of the causes during the hey-day of the Counter-Culture: Civil Rights, Women’s rights, Anti-War protests, etc.. The lyrics are included in the Appendix below.

VIDEO – Peter, Paul and Mary – Have You Been To Jail For Justice – https://youtu.be/rCbhOc1VZ6k

Kwan CS
Published on Sep 26, 2016 – Peter, Paul and Mary – Have You Been To Jail For Justice

For many of the Caribbean’s bad Nature, the Go Lean roadmap seeks to Nurture change with good messaging to the heart of the youth; this is one proven method for forging change among the next generation. Beyond that, meeting the needs of the population is important for optimizing the societal engines in a community. This is easier said than done, but this quest is the purpose of the CU/Go Lean roadmap; this roadmap has these 3 prime directives for optimizing our societal engines:

The Caribbean does not have the same population demographic as the neighboring American states. We can more easily distance ourselves from the racial dysfunction in American society. We have majority Black populations among 29 of the 30 member-states.  We only need to deliver best practices going forward; after formal reconciliation from our dysfunctional past.

Despite our differences, the Caribbean does need to reform and transform our society. We have many societal defects of our own. That cited song stressed this ethos:

The more you study history
The less you can deny it
A rotten law stays on the books
’til folks with guts defy it!

Yes, we can … exert the energy, display the guts and internal fortitude to change our society, to reform and transform. This is how we can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

———-

Appendix – Lyrics: Peter, Paul and Mary – Have You Been To Jail For Justice 

(Written by Anne Feeney)

Was it Cesar Chavez or Rosa Parks that day?
Some say Dr. King or Ghandi
Set them on their way
No matter who your mentors are
It’s pretty plain to see
That if you’ve been to jail for justice
You’re in good company

Have you been to jail for justice?
I want to shake your hand
‘Cause sitting in and laying down
Are ways to take a stand
Have you sung a song for freedom
Or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice?
Then you’re a friend of mine

You law abiding citizens
Come listen to this song
Laws are made by people
And people can be wrong
Once unions were against the law
But slavery was fine
Women were denied the vote
While children worked the mine
The more you study history
The less you can deny it
A rotten law stays on the books
’til folks with guts defy it!

Have you been to jail for justice?
I want to shake your hand
‘Cause sitting in and laying down
Are ways to take a stand
Have you sung a song for freedom
Or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice?
Then you’re a friend of mine

Well the law is supposed to serve us
And so are the police
When the system fails
It’s up to us to speak our piece
We must be ever vigilant
For justice to prevail
So get courage from your convictions
Let ’em haul you off to jail!

Have you been to jail for justice?
I want to shake your hand
‘Cause sitting in and laying down
Are ways to take a stand
Have you sung a song for freedom
Or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice?
Then you’re a friend of mine
Have you been to jail for justice
Have you been to jail for justice
Have you been to jail for justice
Then you’re a friend of mine

Source: Retrieved April 8, 2018 from: https://genius.com/Peter-paul-and-mary-have-you-been-to-jail-for-justice-lyrics

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Change! Forging Change – Corporate Vigilantism

Posted on March 29, 2018 in Economics, Ethos, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

It’s the principle, not the money! – Common Expression

Normally the people who can afford to take a stand on principle rather than money are the people who do not need the money.

Who is that in our society?

Rich people, yes!

But try this … Banks!

Yes, one of the America’s biggest banks – Citigroup or Citibank – wants to reform and transform American society in regards to guns. They are putting their money where their mouth is. Or better still, they are “pulling” their money based on causes that their mouth is advocating. See VIDEO summary here:

VIDEO – Citigroup tells business partners to place restrictions on guns – https://youtu.be/JETUE8kZ1ks

Published on Mar 23, 2018 – [Citigroup] plans to prohibit retailers that are customers of the bank from offering bump stocks or selling guns to people who haven’t passed a background check or are younger than 21.

The bank is imposing the restrictions on companies that use it to issue store credit-cards or for lending and other services, according to a memo Thursday. The lender also barred the sale of high-capacity magazines.

“The policy was designed to respect the rights of responsible gun owners while helping to keep firearms out of the wrong hands,” Citigroup Chief Executive Officer Mike Corbat said in the memo to staff. “It is clear to me that most people believe there are areas of agreement and practical changes we can make to find common ground.” ...

Wow, this – corporate vigilantism – can be effective for forging change. Imagine the pressure: no credit line, mortgage, installment loan, credit card processing, nor check-cashing for the business. This can affect a company’s ability to meet payroll or operate as an ongoing concern. This is called controlling the purse strings.

And what is the bank asking for their continuation of business-as-usual?

Common sense gun sale regulations. See these 3 principles here from the Internal Staff Memo in Appendix A below:

(1) they don’t sell firearms to someone who hasn’t passed a background check …

(2) they restrict the sale of firearms for individuals under 21 years of age, and …

(3) they don’t sell bump stocks or high-capacity magazines.

This commentary is written by a Citibank-Staffer, but this information (memo) is not just internal; it is also published in a Press Release. See the New York Times version of the announcement in Appendix B.

The request from Citibank here does not seem like a huge hardship. It seems only reasonable; common sense! Benevolent!

Expect other banks to follow suit, as other companies have deployed new policies and business rules related to guns.

Is this soft power or hard power?

Hard power is the use of military and economic means to influence the behavior or interests of other political bodies. This form of political power is often aggressive (coercion), and is most effective when imposed by one political body upon another of lesser military and/or economic power.[1] Hard power contrasts with soft power, which comes from diplomacy, culture and history.[1] – Source: Wikipedia.

No doubt, this is hard power; this is corporate vigilantism. But this is an effective way to forge change in a society.

This commentary is about forging change, as demonstrated with the Hot Topic of Common Sense Gun Control. This entry also concludes a short 3-part series on “Change” in society. The full catalog of commentaries in this series are as follows:

  1. Change! Observing the Change – Student Marches for Gun Control Reform and Action
  2. Change! Be the Change – RIP Linda Brown; the little girl in “Brown vs Board of Education”
  3. Change! Forging Change – Citibank’s Model of “Corporate Vigilantism”

All of these commentaries give insights on “how” the stewards of a new Caribbean can persuade people, establishments and institutions to forge change in their communities. Of course, this should be for benevolent purposes.

This thought of ‘forging benevolent change’ is a common theme for the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean for nearly 4 years. See the full catalog here of this one, plus the previous 11 blog-commentaries that detailed approaches for forging change (in reverse chronological order):

  1. Forging Change – Corporate Vigilantism (Today: March 28, 2018)
  2. Forging Change – Soft Power (February 21, 2018)
  3. Forging Change – Collective Bargaining (April 27, 2017)
  4. Forging Change – Addicted to Home (April 14, 2017)
  5. Forging Change – Arts & Artists (December 1, 2016)
  6. Forging Change – Panem et Circenses (November 15, 2016)
  7. Forging Change – Herd Mentality (October 11, 2016)
  8. Forging Change – ‘Something To Lose’ (November 18, 2015)
  9. Forging Change – ‘Food’ for Thought (April 29, 2015)
  10. Forging Change – Music Moves People (December 30, 2014)
  11. Forging Change – The Sales Process (December 22, 2014)
  12. Forging Change – The Fun Theory (September 9, 2014)

As related in these commentaries, forging change in the 3 societal engines of a community – economics, security and governance – is how the roadmap described in the Go Lean book will make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play.

The premise of this commentary is that it is easier to lead and get people to voluntarily follow – to lean-in – when there is control of the purse strings; this is economic hard power.

Hard power as expressed by Citibank will also have its critics. Who? Mostly those that do not want to be controlled. But there is a truism in business – and in life – satirically referred to as the Golden Rule. It relates:

He, who has the Gold, makes the rules.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), to better wield economic power for the consolidated Caribbean region. This is accomplished by better leveraging the economic engines for all 30 member-states in the region. Plus, with the introduction and implementation of the accompanying Caribbean Central Bank (CCB), monetary control can also be wielded for the region, further maximizing benevolent hard power influence in communities. This CU/CCB/Go Lean roadmap describes this benevolence with the following 3 prime directives, as follows:

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

There are a lot of benefits to the people of the Caribbean with this roadmap. The Go Lean book stresses this point; that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines is easier by leveraging the entire region; imagine 42 million people and a $800 Billion GDP economy; many regional solutions emerge. Consider these pronouncements from early in the book, embedded in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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.

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

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

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

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

Change will come; but it depends on who controls the purse strings that wields the influence – hard power. We urge everyone that lives in or loves our homeland to lean-in to this roadmap, so as to ensure that Caribbean stakeholders are the ones with the hard power for the Caribbean. This is how we forge change to make our homes better to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

————-

Appendix A – March 22, 2018 Staff Memo – Message From CEO Mike Corbat

Dear Colleagues,

Over the last several weeks, I have had many conversations with clients, colleagues and friends who hold a range of opinions on the regulation of firearms in the U.S. It is clear to me that most people believe there are areas of agreement and practical changes we can make to find common ground.

Citi is ready to do our part to help our country move in that direction. Today, I am proud to announce a new U.S. Commercial Firearms Policy that promotes the adoption of current best practices regarding the sale of firearms. The policy was designed to respect the rights of responsible gun owners while helping to keep firearms out of the wrong hands.

This policy will apply across the firm, including to small business, commercial and institutional clients, as well as credit card partners, whether co-brand or private label. Under the policy, we will require new retail sector clients or partners to adhere to these current best practices: (1) they don’t sell firearms to someone who hasn’t passed a background check, (2) they restrict the sale of firearms for individuals under 21 years of age, and (3) they don’t sell bump stocks or high-capacity magazines.

It is clear our current clients care about these issues as well, and we believe we can make meaningful progress together. We have already begun to engage with them in the hope that they will adopt these best practices over the coming months. If they opt not to, we will respect their decision and work with them to transition their business away from Citi.

We have few relationships with companies that manufacture firearms. For those that do, we will be initiating due diligence conversations to better understand the products they make, what markets and retailers they sell to, and the sales practices of those retailers to ensure adherence with the best practices outlined above. We will apply the same due diligence screening to potential clients going forward.

We know that our efforts cannot lead to real change unless we work with others. To that end, we are initiating a dialogue within the financial services industry and with other stakeholders to understand whether there are additional technology solutions or voluntary standards that can be enacted. We know a solution may not come quickly, but we are committed to the conversation.

As an avid outdoorsman and responsible gun owner, I know that some will find our policy too strict while others will find it too lenient. We don’t have the perfect solution to supporting our Constitution while keeping our children and grandchildren safe. Best practices are going to continue to change, and we understand the limitations of our efforts. But we shouldn’t let that stop us from doing our part.

– Mike

Source: Internal Citi Memo – Authorized for Public Disclosure

————-

Appendix B – Citigroup Sets Restrictions on Gun Sales by Business Partners
By: Tiffany Hsu

Citigroup is setting restrictions on the sale of firearms by its business customers, making it the first Wall Street bank to take a stance in the divisive nationwide gun control debate.

The new policy, announced Thursday, prohibits the sale of firearms to customers who have not passed a background check or who are younger than 21. It also bars the sale of bump stocks and high-capacity magazines. It would apply to clients who offer credit cards backed by Citigroup or borrow money, use banking services or raise capital through the company.

The rules, which the company described as “common-sense measures,” echo similar restrictions established by some major retailers, like Walmart. But they also represent the boldest such move to emerge from the banking sector.

Since the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Fla., last month, renewed calls for remedies to firearms violence have led to sweeping consumer boycotts and unprecedented moves by corporate America to distance itself from the powerful gun lobby.

But federal lawmakers have taken limited action, and President Trump quickly abandoned a promise to pursue gun control measures, instead promoting proposals backed by the National Rifle Association to arm teachers.

The financial services and investment community was even less engaged, staying mostly quiet on suggestions that it wield its considerable influence over gun merchants to encourage firearms-related changes.

Citigroup’s gun policy has “been a while coming,” its chief executive, Michael L. Corbat, told The New York Times Thursday. Mr. Corbat, who called himself “an avid outdoorsman and responsible gun owner,” acknowledged that “some will find our policy too strict while others will find it too lenient.”

“We don’t pretend that these answers are perfect, but as we looked at the things we thought we could influence, we felt that, working with our clients, we could make a difference,” he said. “Banks serve a societal purpose — we believe our investors want us to do this and be responsible corporate citizens.”

Citigroup said it had begun to inform existing small business and credit card clients and commercial and institutional partners of its plan and would screen future partners using the new requirements.

The bank said it has few gun manufacturing companies as clients, but those it does work with will be asked to provide details about their product and distribution networks.

If business customers decline Citigroup’s restrictions, the bank said it would work with them to “transition their business away.” The company declined to name clients or describe the extent of affected partnerships but said that “real revenue is at risk” if relationships fall through and customers protest. Some of Citigroup’s clients, like Walmart, already adhere to the new policies.

Citigroup said it did not have the technology nor the legal ability to monitor gun purchases at the payment-processing level, but said that the industry was discussing the possibility.

Edward Skyler, an executive vice president at Citigroup who helped craft the policy, wrote in a blog post that the company’s announcement “will invite passion on both sides.” But he stressed that the policies were “not centered on an ideological mission to rid the world of firearms.”

Following various mass shootings, “we have waited for our grief to turn into action and see our nation adopt common-sense measures that would help prevent firearms from getting into the wrong hands,” he wrote. “That action has sadly never come and as the weeks pass from the most recent mass shooting, it appears we remain in the same cycle of tragedy and inaction.”

The company said it would not enforce a specific deadline and instead hoped to have all of its clients on board with the gun restrictions within a few months. Members of its corporate citizenship group, which also monitors whether clients engaged in coal mining and oil drilling are adhering to Citigroup’s environmental standards, will check in regularly on partners’ gun-selling procedures, the company said.

The Citigroup board was supportive of the decision. Mr. Corbat said that, in many recent discussions about the new policy, “there hasn’t been a consensus, but we also haven’t come to this decision in a vacuum.”

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, U.S. Bank and Bank of America declined to comment on whether they had similar plans in the works.

Alan Elias, a spokesman for Wells Fargo, said in a statement that “any solutions on how to address this epidemic will be complicated.”

“This is why our company believes the best way to make progress on these issues is through the political and legislative process,” he said. “We are engaging our customers that legally manufacture firearms and other stakeholders on what we can do together to promote better gun safety for our communities.”

Diane Zappas, a spokeswoman for PNC Financial Services Group, said that the company, which is “continuing to consider these issues,” had discouraged new loans to gun manufacturers since 2013 and had “very limited exposure” to clients that manufacture AR-15-style rifles like the kind used in the Parkland shooting.

Wall Street is deeply tied to the sprawling, opaque gun industry through pension funds that buy into public gun companies, private equity firms with firearms holdings and financial institutions that back sizable loans to handgun and rifle manufacturers.

In recent weeks, both Bank of America and the asset manager BlackRock said they had reached out to firearms manufacturers and distributors to ask about their responses to mass shootings, and strategies to stop them.

American Outdoor Brands, the parent company of the Smith & Wesson gun brand, replied to BlackRock in a public letter earlier this month, saying that it respects the national debate about gun safety and shares “the nation’s grief” over the Parkland killings and “the desire to make our communities safer.”

But American Outdoor, whose stock price has been more than halved since the 2016 election, stressed that “the solution is not to take a politically motivated action” that “results in no increase in public safety.”

Last month, the First National Bank of Omaha, which said it would not renew a contract with the National Rifle Association to issue an N.R.A.-branded Visa card, led a quick succession of companies to cut ties with the trade group.

The N.R.A. did not respond to requests for comment.

YouTube said this week that it would start removing videos next month that promote the sale or manufacture of firearms and accessories, especially those that allow simulated automatic firing, like bump stocks.

On March 12, the gun manufacturer Sturm Ruger addressed shareholder concerns in a letter that promised to continue manufacturing and selling semiautomatic firearms, or what the industry refers to as modern sporting rifles.

In the letter, the company said that “succumbing to political pressure to do what is expedient” would fly “in the face of our fiduciary responsibility as stewards of the company for the benefit of shareholders.”

Source: New York Times – Posted March 22, 2018; retrieved March 28, 2018 from: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/business/citigroup-gun-control-policy.html

Related Coverage:

  1. YouTube to Ban Videos Promoting Gun Sales – March 22, 2018
  2. Big Investors Have Clout. They Can Use It With Gun Makers – March 5, 2018
  3. ‘Our Values Are Not for Sale,’ Says Delta C.E.O. as Airline Considers Ending Divisive Discounts – March 2, 2018
  4. Walmart and Dick’s Raise Minimum Age for Gun Buyers to 21 – February 28, 2018
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Change! Be the Change – Linda Brown, RIP

Posted on March 27, 2018 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

This could be just an empty platitude …

Be the Change you want to see in the world. 

… and then there are people who actually did it, not just say it!

Rest in Peace, Linda Brown.

The world is mourning the passing of Linda Brown, who died on Monday (March 26, 2018) at the age of 76. (See link to “Condolences” in Appendix B below). She was the little “Brown” in the landmark American legal case “Brown versus Board of Education”. On her behalf, the country changed! The US Supreme Court overturned the previous rulings maintaining the dignity-defying legacies of “Separate But Equal” and started the journey for full diversity in American society.

Rather that wishing for change, Linda Brown went on to Be The Change, as a Civil Rights icon.

As a little girl, Brown was at the center of the historic Brown vs. Board of Education case, which ultimately ended segregation in U.S. public schools. – Source: Huffington Post 

This actuality has been fittingly highlighted by the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean. In a previous blog-commentary, it was detailed how the Supreme Court case “Brown vs. Board of Education” set a far-reaching precedence whose reverberations shook the whole world, even the Caribbean:

The issues pronounced here in the Go Lean book highlights an important factoid: de jure versus de facto…

  • de jure = according to law
  • de facto = in reality

As a result of the 1954 Supreme Court’s decision, the de jure policy of the US was that of racial equality. But in reality, that decision didn’t manifest on the streets for the everyday man. The facts did not change the fiction, racism continued to dominate the American eco-system, even today. The aft-mentioned 20 million African-Americans in the US were viewed, treated and labeled as “Less Than“.

The case for little Linda Brown started the journey from de jure to de facto; eventually the de facto advanced closer to the de jure. We are here today, in a more racially-equitable America, because of that journey that was started for young Linda Brown. She will always be identified as an icon for constitutional progress – a constant feature of Constitutional History.

Now we say goodbye to Linda; but with a gracious heart full of gratitude for her accomplished life of “shifting the needle” towards a more harmonious society.

What a great role model, even for us in the Caribbean; of the 30 member-states that caucus as the political Caribbean, 29 have a non-White majority. Civil Rights matters here too! “We” all benefited from American progress as the regional hegemony. We all benefited from Linda Brown.

What a model she provided. We too, can Be the Change we want to see in the world.

Yes, this movement has consistently asserted that one man or one woman can make a difference in society. Linda Brown proved it! So too, can you, me or any Caribbean stakeholder. This is what the book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – have pronounced. The book posits that one person – advocating for progress – can make a difference (Page 122). It relates:

An advocacy is an act of pleading for, supporting, or recommending a cause or subject. For this book, it’s a situational analysis, strategy or tactic for dealing with a narrowly defined subject.

Advocacies are not uncommon in modern history. There are many that have defined generations and personalities. Consider these notable examples from the last two centuries in different locales around the world:

  • Frederick Douglas
  • Mohandas Gandhi
  • Martin Luther King
  • Nelson Mandela
  • Cesar Chavez – [American Farm Workers Advocate]
  • Candice Lightner – (Advocate for Mothers Against Drunk Driving]

The Go Lean book seeks to advocate for the Caribbean, not the US, and for the people who love our homeland. Yet still we can learn lessons from American Constitutional History (Page 145) – “separate but equal” was always a fallacy despite one Supreme Court ruling after another. We now hope to direct our regional stakeholders in our own Way Forward based on best-practices gleaned from America’s dysfunctional past. (Also see book’s Epilogue excerpt in the Appendix A below).

The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), to reform and transform our communities, by elevating our societal engines – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

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

The Go Lean book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit – we must become a pluralistic democracy: Black, White, African-descended, European-descended, Asia-descended, Aboriginal, etc.. Our problems are too big for any one Caribbean member-state to contend with alone. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14):

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

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.

xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of communities like East Germany, Detroit, Indian (Native American) Reservations, Egypt and the previous West Indies Federation. On the other hand, the Federation must also implement the good examples learned from developments / communities like New York City, Germany, Japan, Canada, the old American West and tenants of the US Constitution.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. One entry is “10 Lessons from the US Constitution” (Page 145), detailing the adjustments and optimizing of the “living” document over the years:

The Bottom Line on Constitutional Law
The US Constitution was written in the late 18th Century, adopted on September 17, 1787, by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and ratified by conventions in 11 states. It went into effect on March 4, 1789. It was not the start, nor the end of the constitution theory process for the United States. But underlying to the codification on paper was the ideals verbalized in the Declaration of Independence of 1776, which defined that All Men Are Created Equal and Endowed by their Creator with Certain Unalienable Rights for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

A nearly 250-year review of the process shows one consistent pattern, a desire to do better. While not perfect, the United States of America always tried to do better, from one generation to another. Whereas the Colonial/ Revolutionary America featured a country of great privileges for rich (land-owning) white Englishmen, a slow turn in societal evolution saw those privileges extended to the everyday white man, then to new immigrants, then to women, then to minorities, then to the disabled, and now to all, even those with alternative lifestyles.

The Go Lean movement calls on every man, woman and child in the Caribbean to be an advocate and a champion, or at least appreciate the championing efforts of previous advocates. Their examples can truly help us today with our passions and purpose. Consider this sample of prior blog/commentaries where advocates and role models have been elaborated upon:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14541 Viola Desmond – One Woman Made a Difference
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14139 Carter Woodson – One Man Made a Difference … for Black History
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10801 Caribbean Roots: John Carlos – The Man. The Moment. The Movement
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10114 Caribbean Roots: Esther Rolle of ‘Good Times’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9300 Edward Snowden – One Person Making a Difference
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8495 The NBA’s Tim Duncan – Champion On and Off the Court
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8165 Role Model Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7682 Frederick Douglass: Role Model for Single Cause – Death or Diaspora
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=866 Role Model Bob Marley: The legend lives on!

Thank you Linda Brown, for your good role model … and Rest in Peace. See VIDEO below.

The movement behind Go Lean book, the planners of a new Caribbean, stresses that the same as change impacted the delivery of Civil Rights in America – which eventually transformed their society – a ‘change will also come’ to the Caribbean. This commentary continues this short 3-part series on “Change” in society. The full catalog of commentaries in this series are as follows:

  1. Change! Observing the Change – Student Marches for Gun Control Reform and Action
  2. Change! Be the Change – RIP Linda Brown; the little girl in “Brown vs Board of Education”
  3. Change! Forging Change – Citibank’s Model of “Corporate Vigilantism”

All of these commentaries give insights on “how” the planners of the new Caribbean can persuade people, establishments and institutions to forge change in their communities.

Remember the 5 L‘s. We want to learn from the US Constitutional History– the good, bad and ugly lessons. As planners for this new Caribbean, we have looked, listened, learned and lend-a-hand for the American experience; we are now ready to lead our own homeland to be a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

————–

Appendix A – Epilogue – Future Focus – Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

This was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court’s (between 1953 and 1969, when Earl Warren served as Chief Justice) unanimous decision (9–0) stated that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal”. As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution (Fourteenth Amendment). This ruling paved the way for integration and was a major victory of the civil rights movement.

This landmark ruling created chaos for nearly 60 years; the animosity created was real and every aspect of American society was affected. (Most legislative assemblies in the southern states passed resolutions and sanctions condemning the Supreme Court decision, though the federal law superseded all state legislations). Cities and urban areas suffered from white flight, where white Americans fled the cities to move out to the suburbs to avoid the integration of urban schools; with their flight went their capital and tax base. Many American cities have still not recovered, for example Detroit filed for Bankruptcy in July 2013 after suffering the pangs of distress from this white flight for 60 years.

So why would the learned men on the Supreme Court make this unanimous ruling and caused so much havoc on American life. Were they not wise, could they not “read the writing on the wall”? The answer is an emphatic No! They knew the real beneficiary of their judgment would come later. Their wisdom was strewn from the experience of modern society waging two world wars, the last of which was just concluded 9 years earlier. They saw the rampage, saw of devastation of 60 million deaths around the world and appreciated the wisdom that a downtrodden people would not stay down, that they would rise and revolt, that they would risk their lives and that of their children to pursue freedom. The Warren Court knew that the status quo of race inequality could not continue, but in order to effectuate that change would take writing-off an entire generation (or two). That time had come, the generation was now (1954); but the hope was with the next generation, and so the curative measures started with the children of that day, so that inevitably, future generations would inhabit an America that would not judge its people by the color of their skins, but rather the content of their character.

Source: Book Go Lean … Caribbean Page 251

————–

Appendix B – Condolences – Civil Rights Icon Linda Brown Remembered On Twitter: ‘Rest In Power’- https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/linda-brown-death-tributes_us_5ab9f841e4b054d118e65b09

“Generations stand on your shoulders.”

See the condolences, comments and tributes in the link here from many, public servants and private individuals, celebrities and commoners alike.

————–

Appendix C VIDEO – Remembering The Life Of Linda Brown | Morning Joe | MSNBC – https://youtu.be/MGefY55K8LM


MSNBC
Published on Mar 27, 2018 – Linda Brown, the Kansas girl at the center of the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that struck down racial segregation in schools, has died at age 76.
» Subscribe to MSNBC: http://on.msnbc.com/SubscribeTomsnbc

About: MSNBC is the premier destination for in-depth analysis of daily headlines, insightful political commentary and informed perspectives. Reaching more than 95 million households worldwide, MSNBC offers a full schedule of live news coverage, political opinions and award-winning documentary programming — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

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Change! Observing the Change … with Guns

Posted on March 26, 2018 in Ethos, Government, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Here’s is our assignment – the 5 L‘s – for the Caribbean Diaspora in the US hoping for change back in our beloved homeland:

Look, Listen, Learn for the societal defects in the American eco-system.

… and if you can: Lend-a-hand

… then go back home and Lead.

You see, we are not trying to be like America; we are trying to be better.

This is a Big Deal … right now. There was a school shooting in the US again; this time on February 14, 2018 in Parkland, Florida. 17 people were killed, 14 students and 3 staff members. Though the school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, has 3100+ students, the survivors are not going away quietly; they are “mad as hell and not taking it anymore”; they are not satisfied with the status quo for gun control in this country and they are not going to settle for anything other than:

Change.

When asked about the #Enough hashtag – “hactivism” – these young ones responses has been consistent, summarized as:

America should have considered it “Enough” with Columbine (1999), Virginia Tech (2007), Aurora Theater (2008), SandyHook (2012), Pulse Nightclub (2016), Las Vegas Concert (2017), or any of the other 260 shootings since Columbine. The fact that these shootings have proliferated is proof that the adults have failed to protect their children. Now the children will not be satisfied until there is real reform, real change.

——–

VIDEO – Hundreds of thousands stand with March for Our Lives – https://youtu.be/KYxIQ_FHPE4

Posted March 24, 2018 – From Washington D.C. to Paris, young voices resound in protest against gun violence.

The implementation of any reforms will surely be heavy-lifting.

For the Caribbean, let’s pay more than the usual attention for lessons learned for our own Big Deal implementation for change in our region. But let’s lend-a-hand here too. We do have our Caribbean Diaspora here, and students and visitors. These ones amount to millions. Any lack of reform can and do imperil our own loved ones. This is sad, but true – one of the 17 victims in Parkland, Helena Ramsay (Age 17), was of Caribbean (Jamaica/Trinidad) heritage. See story here:

Title: Student of Caribbean-American descent among 17 victims killed at Parkland high school

According to reports obtained by the Jamaican Consulate in Miami, one of the victims of the tragic mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Wednesday, February 14 was the child of Caribbean Americans parents.

Helena Ramsay, 17, a student at the high school was confirmed by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office as one of the 17 killed by a 19-year old gunman who opened fire on students and school staff. Her mother is reported to be Jamaican and her father Trinidadian.
…
Source: Posted February 16, 2018; retrieved March 27, 2018 from: https://www.caribbeannationalweekly.com/caribbean-breaking-news-featured/student-caribbean-american-descent-among-17-victims-killed-parkland-high-school/

Again, the US is being urged to reform and transform its policies on guns and school safety, while the Caribbean needs to implement a roadmap to forge change in the societal engines (economics, security and governance) for the 30 member-states of our region.

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

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

There will be a lot of security and governing dynamics associated with the topic of guns.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to transform the societal engines of Caribbean society, regarding guns and gun control. In fact, there is 1 advocacy entitled “10 Ways to Improve Gun Control” (Page 179), with specific highlights, mitigations and solutions. There is also this encyclopedic reference to the US’s Second Amendment, here:

The Bottom Line on the 2nd Amendment

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects the right to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Supreme Court ruled on several occasions that the amendment did not bar state regulation of firearms, considering the amendment to be “a limitation only upon the power of Congress and the National government and not upon that of the States.” Along with the incorporation of the Second Amendment in the 21st century, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess and carry firearms. In 2008 and 2010, the Court issued these two landmark decisions to officially establish an “individual rights” interpretation of the Second Amendment:

a. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm, unconnected to service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home within many longstanding prohibitions and restrictions on firearms possession listed by the Court as being consistent with the Second Amendment.

b. In McDonald v. Chicago (2010), the Court ruled that the Second Amendment limits state and local governments to the same extent that it limits the federal government.

The US has the most liberal gun ownership laws in the western world, accompanied by highest gun crime and murder rate.

The Go Lean book asserts that every community has bad actors, and coupled with guns, a bad actor can do a lot of damage. The assumption in the Social Contract – 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 – is for the State or governing entity to regulate weapons to ensure protections for all members of society. There must be “new guards” to assuage any gun risks and threats in Caribbean communities. This point is pronounced early in the book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13) that claims:

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

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

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

Reforming guns in the US is a BIG DEAL considering that many Caribbean people have emigrated to the US from their island homes. It is a frightening prospect that our people may have jumped from the “frying pan” of failing communities, “into the fire” of a gun-crazed society. This point was addressed recently in a previous blog-commentary entitled – ‘Pulled’ – Despite American Guns with this excerpt:

The repeated incidences of mass shootings – with no gun control remediation – makes American life defective …

This commentary aligns with charter of the book Go Lean … Caribbean to make the countries of the Caribbean region better places to live, work and play. The goal is to be Better Than America; to be a protégé without the ignominious Second Amendment; to exercise better governance.

Let’s see how this process goes in the US. Guns are in the DNA of this country; the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791; the US has more gun ownership per capita than any other country in the world; more gun deaths too. Changing this culture will truly be a BIG DEAL!

This writer is doing more than just “look, see or observe”; I will lend-a-hand as well.

I have children and grandchildren in the US States of Florida and Arizona. Though my efforts are only in the scope of reforming and transforming the Caribbean, my heart does want to ensure change in the US regarding guns and school safety.

I would not want to sacrifice my children nor grandchildren to the American twisted perception of gun rights. No, and while I accept the premise that I cannot fix America, I can work to fix the Caribbean homelands to be better places to live, work and play. Hopefully then we can provide a model to the US on how to effect change.

Let’s observe-and-report on this American effort – these Parkland students – let’s observe their successes and their failures, while we hope for change.

Speaking of change, this commentary commences a short 3-part series on “Change” in society. The full catalog of commentaries in this series are as follows:

  1. Change! Observing the Change – Student Marches for Gun Control Reform and Action
  2. Change! Be the Change – RIP Linda Brown; the little girl in “Brown vs Board of Education”
  3. Change! Forging Change – Citibank’s Model of “Corporate Vigilantism”

All of these commentaries give insights on “how” the stewards of a new Caribbean can persuade people, establishments and institutions to forge change in their communities. 🙂

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

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

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Viola Desmond – One Woman Made a Difference

Posted on March 15, 2018 in Government, Locations, Planning, Social

Go Lean Commentary

In North America, there is Black History Month and there is Women’s History Month …

This story – about Canadian Viola Desmond – is both!

Viola Desmond challenged racial segregation at a cinema in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, in 1946. She refused to leave a whites-only area of the Roseland Theatre and was convicted of a minor tax violation for the one-cent tax difference between the seat she had paid for and the seat she used which was more expensive. Desmond’s case is one of the most publicized incidents of racial discrimination in Canadian history and helped start the modern civil rights movement in Canada.

In 2010, Viola Desmond was granted a posthumous pardon, the first to be granted in Canada.[2][3] The government of Nova Scotia also apologized for prosecuting her for tax evasion and acknowledged she was rightfully resisting racial discrimination.[4] … In late 2018 Desmond will be the first Canadian born woman to appear alone on a $10 bill which was unveiled by Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz during a ceremony at the Halifax Central Library on March 8, 2018.[5][6] Desmond was also named a National Historic Person in 2018.[7]
…

[Reverend] Dr. William Pearly Oliver – [a Social Justice Champion in the vein of Martin Luther King] – reflecting on the case 15 years later[21] stated regarding Desmond’s legacy:

    “… this meant something to our people. Neither before or since has there been such an aggressive effort to obtain rights. The people arose as one and with one voice. This positive stand enhanced the prestige of the Negro community throughout the Province. It is my conviction that much of the positive action that has since taken place stemmed from this …”.

Desmond is often compared to Rosa Parks, given they both challenged racism by taking seats in a Whites only section and contributed to the rise of the Civil Rights Movement.
Source: Retrieved March 14, 2018 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_Desmond

Yes, one woman, or one man, can make a difference in society. Viola Desmond proved it! Her commitment to justice and righteous principles compelled her community to take note and make a change.

“Wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change.” – Michael Jackson’s song: Man in the Mirror (1987).

Canada today is a very progressive society. From the Caribbean perspective, Canada is now a role model for a pluralistic democracy and Climate Change action. As is the experience, positive reform always starts with one person. In a previous blog-commentary, the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean explained how immigrants to a new community (and minorities) normally go through a long train of abuse, then toleration, followed by acceptance and then finally celebration. Today, Canada is celebrating Viola Desmond; see the news article in the Appendix below.

The success of this community – Canada – has been hard fought, but they did the heavy-lifting and now are enjoying the fruitage of their labor. People from all over the world “are beating down the doors to get in”.

Poor Caribbean communities. We have NOT done the heavy-lifting and our people “are beating down the doors to get out”. (Many times, they flee to Canada for refuge).

This is what the book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – warned: “Push and Pull” factors are resulting in an abandonment of Caribbean homelands for foreign shores like Canada; (Page 3). Now to learn and apply this lesson.

The Viola Desmond story resonates with us in the Caribbean. Since she was a Black Woman and the majority population of 28 of the 30 Caribbean member-states is Black, we share the same ancestral heritage – Africa – colonial origins – slave trade – and history of oppression as Canadian Blacks. Plus a large number of our Caribbean Diaspora who fled their homeland lives in Canada – one estimate is near a million.

The Go Lean book posits that one person – an advocate like Desmond – can make a difference (Page 122). It relates:

An advocacy is an act of pleading for, supporting, or recommending a cause or subject. For this book, it’s a situational analysis, strategy or tactic for dealing with a narrowly defined subject.

Advocacies are not uncommon in modern history. There are many that have defined generations and personalities. Consider these notable examples from the last two centuries in different locales around the world:

  • Frederick Douglas
  • Mohandas Gandhi
  • Martin Luther King
  • Nelson Mandela
  • Cesar Chavez
  • Candice Lightner

The Go Lean book seeks to advocate and correct the Caribbean, not Canada, and the people who love our homeland. Yet still we can learn lessons from Canada’s history (Page 146) and direct our regional stakeholders to a Way Forward based on best-practices gleaned from Canada’s dysfunctional past. The book, in its 370 pages, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), to move our society to a brighter future, by elevating our societal engines – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

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

The book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit – we must become a pluralistic democracy: Black, White, Red and Yellow. Our problems are too big for any one Caribbean member-state to contend with alone. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14):

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

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 …

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

xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of communities like East Germany, Detroit, Indian (Native American) Reservations, Egypt and the previous West Indies Federation. On the other hand, the Federation must also implement the good examples learned from developments/ communities …

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

The Go Lean movement calls on every man, woman and child in the Caribbean to be an advocate and a champion, or at least appreciate the championing efforts of previous advocates. Their examples can truly help us today with our passions and purpose. Consider this sample of prior blog/commentaries where advocates and role models have been elaborated upon:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14139 Carter Woodson – One Man Made a Difference … for Black History
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11963 Oscar López Rivera – The ‘Nelson Mandela’ of the Caribbean?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11442 Caribbean Roots: Al Roker – ‘Climate Change’ Defender
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10801 Caribbean Roots: John Carlos – The Man. The Moment. The Movement
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10114 Caribbean Roots: Esther Rolle of ‘Good Times’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9948 Caribbean Roots: Sammy Davis, Jr.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9300 Edward Snowden – One Person Making a Difference
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8724 Remembering Marcus Garvey: Still Relevant Today
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8495 The NBA’s Tim Duncan – Champion On and Off the Court
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8328 YouTube Millionaire: ‘Tipsy Bartender’ Bahamas Origins
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8165 Role Model Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7682 Frederick Douglass: Role Model for Single Cause – Death or Diaspora
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=866 Bob Marley: The Role Model and Legend … lives on!

Thank you Viola Desmond, for being a good role model, and a reminder: Black Girls Rock!

We conclude about Viola Desmond as we do about our own Caribbean champions and advocates; we said (Go Lean book Valedictions on Page 252):

Thank you for your service, love and commitment to all Caribbean people. We will take it from here.

The movement behind Go Lean book, the planners of a new Caribbean stresses that a ‘change is going to come’ our way. We have endured failure for far too long; we have seen what works and what does not. We want to learn from Canada’s History – the good, bad and ugly lessons.

There are the 5 L‘s. We have now Looked, Listened, Learned and Lend-a-hand; we are now ready to Lead our region to a better destination, to being a homeland that is better to live, work and play. Let’s move! 🙂

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

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

————

Appendix – Viola Desmond On New Canadian $10 Bill

March 12, 2018 – Canadian hero Viola Desmond is the face on the new $10 bill in Canada, which goes into circulation at the end of March.

Viola Desmond was thrown in jail in Nova Scotia in 1946 because, in a movie theatre, she wanted to sit downstairs where the white people were allowed to sit. She didn’t want to sit up in the balcony, where the black people had to sit. The police held her in jail overnight. The dignified and brave Desmond paid a fine of $20 the next day, even though she had done nothing wrong. Today, we think of her for being a brave advocate for the rights of African-Canadians and helping to inspire the human rights movement in Canada.

(Learn more about Desmond on Historica Canada’s Viola Desmond page.)

It is a great honour to have your face on a country’s money. This is the first time an African-Canadian woman has been featured on Canadian paper money. (Queen Elizabeth is featured on the $20 bill.)

There’s something else interesting about the new bill. For the first time, it is vertical, meaning it’s meant to be looked at up-and-down rather than horizontally (across).

The new bill also features a number of images that are reminders of human rights. For instance, there is an image of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where Desmond’s story is part of the permanent collection. There is an image of a feather, to recognize rights and freedoms for Canada’s Indigenous Peoples. And it features a paragraph from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (section 15, which says, “Every individual is equal before and under the law.”

Viola Desmond’s sister, Wanda Robson, was one of the first people in Canada to receive a copy of the new $10 bill. In a Bank of Canada video (below), she said her sister’s photo on it is “so life-like. It’s as if she’s in this room!”

Source: Retrieved March 14, 2018 from http://teachingkidsnews.com/2018/03/12/viola-desmond-on-new-canadian-10-bill/

Related Videos
The video below (1:00) is a “Heritage Minute” produced by Historica Canada. It tells the story of Viola Desmond.

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VIDEO – Heritage Minutes: Viola Desmond – https://youtu.be/ie0xWYRSX7Y

Historica Canada
Published on Feb 2, 2016 – The story of Viola Desmond, an entrepreneur who challenged segregation in Nova Scotia in the 1940s. The 82nd Heritage Minute in Historica Canada’s collection. For more information about Viola Desmond, visit: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca…

——–

Additional Video: Wanda Robson sees Canada’s new $10 note featuring her sister (Viola Desmond) for the first time  – https://youtu.be/dfdlPrglcS8

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Repairing the Breach: Image Impacts Economics

Posted on March 6, 2018 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Here is an American experience that the Caribbean region can learn from and take to heart:

  • Martin Luther King was a great man – No Doubt!
  • When a community names a street “Martin Luther King Street/Drive/Boulevard”, the property values … go down!

Wait, What?!

This is a matter of image … impacting economics. This point was highlighted in a previous blog-commentary:

“In many instances (but not all), public opposition has led King’s name to be socially and geographically marginalized within cities, which has worked to stigmatize these streets and create public anxiety about renaming more prominent streets”.

See more in Appendix A below.

This is not about justice; this is about the economic reality.

According to a White Paper by a Caribbean academician, Dr. Donald McCartney of the Bahamas, the Black men and boys of the Caribbean region is a dysfunctional population sub-group. Their outworking on the general society is one of crime, violence and image degradation.  They are victims and villains and have experienced a breach in good citizenship in our society – “hurt people hurt people”. The White Paper addresses the question: “How to repair this breach?”. It also identifies some viable solutions for the region to consider. See that full White Paper here, and an Excerpt as follows:

White Paper Title: Repairing the Breach in the Caribbean – EXCERPT
By: Dr. Donald McCartney

 … Questions, regarding Black men and boys, are being raised … these questions are being revived because many, too many Black men and boys are not a part of the economic structure or the body politic. Upon close examination, it becomes clear that many of them are not in community with their ethnic group.

For the most part, Black men and boys live in isolation, better yet, they are marginalized. They find it difficult to connect with society in general and the significant persons in their lives in particular.

The spiraling  murder rate and other acts of violence (particularly against young men and the elderly), makes it clear, that many Black men and boys in the Caribbean, pose a serious and critical problem of interpersonal violence in every corridor and thoroughfare that Caribbean peoples and residents must cross. Consequently, Black men and boys in the Caribbean are feared, demonized and vilified.
…
Even though [this] question goes far beyond Black men and boys, it is directly related to our young men in particular and their inability to participate and develop within the body politic and the economic structure of the Caribbean:

… How do we expect to engage Black men and boys in constructive dialogue and participation within Caribbean society while, at the same time, refurbishing the image that has now been unfairly placed upon the entire population of Black men and boys?

… In order to accomplish the goal of creating a better society for all stakeholders, there must be an integrated plan of action.

See the full White Paper here: https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14392

This commentary completes the 4-part series on Repairing the Breach; using the foregoing White Paper by Dr. McCartney as the premise. This entry is 4 of 4 in this series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean in consideration of solutions – Way Forward – to assuage the plight of Black men and boys. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

  1. Repairing the Breach: Hurt People Hurt People
  2. Repairing the Breach: Crime – Need, Greed, Justice & Honor
  3. Repairing the Breach: One Option – National Youth Service
  4. Repairing the Breach: Image Impacts Economics; Get on board!

While all of these commentaries relate to “how” the stewards for a new Caribbean can assuage the failing dispositions of the Caribbean among our Black men and boys, this final submission highlights the economic consequence of having a substantial segment of the population in a dysfunctional state: it depresses the economic value on the whole community.

Economics is an important consideration for this discussion. There is an “elastic” relationship – see Appendix B – between community economics and community dysfunction. When there are failures in the economic engines, then the good people in the community leave and abandon the homeland. This causes a spiral to a worse disposition in that the number of dysfunctional men and boys increase compared to the overall population. With a majority Black population in 29 of the 30 Caribbean member-states, the focus of this series of commentary has been on the problematic population of Black men and boys.

The opening role model referred to Rev Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. His Civil Rights advocacy helped elevate the image of the African American population; his life course made a huge impact. Just before his death (assassination) in 1968, he waged another campaign addressing issues of economic justice; one historic report related:

King traveled the country to assemble “a multiracial army of the poor” that would march on Washington to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol until Congress created an “economic bill of rights” for poor Americans.[156][157]

… The campaign culminated in a march on Washington, D.C., demanding economic aid to the poorest communities of the United States.

King and the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Council) called on the government to invest in rebuilding America’s cities. He felt that Congress had shown “hostility to the poor” by spending “military funds with alacrity and generosity.” He contrasted this with the situation faced by poor Americans, claiming that Congress had merely provided “poverty funds with miserliness.”[157] His vision was for change that was more revolutionary than mere reform: he cited systematic flaws of “racism, poverty, militarism and materialism”, and argued that “reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced.”[161]

The Poor People’s Campaign was controversial … [and] its demands were unrealized… .

———

VIDEO – MLK, Poor People’s Campaign, and Economic Justice – https://youtu.be/DNR_28RberA

Published on Jan 20, 2015  

The “baton” for a Poor People’s Campaign has been passed on to a new generation: the Repairers of the Breach, founded in 2015 by the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II. This is a nonpartisan not-for-profit organization that seeks to build a moral agenda rooted in a framework that uplifts the deepest moral and constitutional values to redeem the heart and soul of the country (America). They declare that the moral public concerns of faith traditions should be how society treats the poor, women, LGBTQ people, children, workers, immigrants, communities of color, and the sick. The name of this modern Poor People’s Campaign is derived from the same scriptural premise as the foregoing White Paper by Dr. McCartney: Isaiah 58:9-12, to …

“raise up the foundations of many generations and … be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in”.

See the portrayal here of the new the Poor People’s Campaign/Repairers of the Breach in this VIDEO:

VIDEO – Revival: Time for a Moral Revolution of Values – https://youtu.be/7UYxPoDxPnU

Repairers of the Breach

Published on Aug 30, 2016 – An overview of the powerful 2016 Revival tour being led by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, Rev. Dr. James A Forbes, Jr., Rev. Traci Blackmon and Sister Simone Campbell.

This discussion is relevant for the movement behind the Go Lean book – there is an advocacy to “Battle Against Poverty“ (Page 222). It delves into strategies, tactics and implementations to mitigate economic chaos in the Caribbean region. In fact, the prime directives of the roadmap strewn from the book is described as follows:

These role players – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II – are American role models with a scope of impacting America. There is the need for our own Caribbean effort. This is the quest of the Go Lean book. It serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The goal of the roadmap is to elevate Caribbean societal engines, to Repair the Breach for all the population in the region, but especially too, Black men and boys.

The reality of the Black men and boys in the Caribbean is even worse than the disposition of African-Americans in the US (or other Diasporic countries). We are considered “Less Than“, even among the population of “Less Than” North Americans and Europeans. This has been a consistent subject in previous Go Lean blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11420 ‘Black British’ and ‘Less Than’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8099 Caribbean Image: ‘Less Than’?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5088 Immigrants account for 1 in 11 Blacks in USA
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4613 The Image of Ireland and the Irish – A Diasporic People
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2547 Image of Miami’s Success Due to Caribbean Failure
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2251 The Image and Reality of Ethnic Names
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2025 Image of the Caribbean Diaspora – Butt of the Joke
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=857 Lesser Image of Caribbean “Dreadlock hairstyles”

This is real talk about the Caribbean Black men and boys.

We will not assuage the Caribbean Less Than image until we Repair the Breach. Thank you “Dr. McCartney” for your White Paper, showing us a Way-Forward for effecting change.

This is also the goal of the Go Lean/CU roadmap, to reform and transform our region’s societal engines so that all of our people, including Black men and boys, can prosper where planted here in our Caribbean homeland. We must fix our identified societal defects!

“Fixing our defects” is a point that is pronounced early in the Go Lean book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 & 13) with many statements that demonstrate the need to remediate Caribbean communities and elevate the disposition of our young men and women:

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.

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

xxiv. Whereas 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 American role models of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II does not mean that the US is the desired model for the Caribbean to emulate. While Black men and boys amount to only 6.5 percent of the US population – they are minorities there – but they are the majority population group in their Caribbean homelands – that makes a difference. The majority status allows for race – and other matters outside of an individual’s control – to not be a reason for continuous oppression.  Repairing the Breach is the opposite of oppression.

Repairing the Breach in our societal eco-system for our Caribbean youth would also mean success for our Caribbean image, local and abroad.

The only image we seek is the worldwide recognition as the greatest place on the planet to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

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Appendix A – Additional References on MLK Street Naming Economics

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Appendix B – Economic Elasticity

Elasticity is a measure of a variable’s sensitivity to a change in another variable. In business and economics, elasticity refers the degree to which individuals, consumers or producers change their demand or the amount supplied in response to price or income changes.

Source: Investopedia definition for “Elasticity”; retrieved March 7, 2018 from: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/elasticity.asp

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Repairing the Breach: One Option – National Youth Service – ENCORE

Posted on March 5, 2018 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Blood, sweat and tears …

… that is all we want from the people in our Caribbean communities. If people sacrifice for their community then they tend to be more loyal to it.

There are problems in the Caribbean for managing our young people – they are not loyal to the concept of community – so we need to consider strategies, tactics and implementation for change. Some segments of the population are more troubled than others; in particular the disposition among “Black men and boys” in the Caribbean is of serious concern.

One option to effect change in this target population is a Military-style Draft …

Wait, what?!

We want to change/improve the Caribbean member-states. Any attempt to change Caribbean society’s community ethos must start with the youth. But when we say “blood”, we are not contemplating any sacrifice of our young men on the altar of the God of War. Rather, as related in the previous commentary encored below, our region is missing the ingredient of wholesale commitment of these young men to any national cause. Thusly, the recommendation is for conscription/draft into a National Youth Service (NYS) program but for the entire Caribbean region; see the ENCORE below.

This is a workable plan! When people sacrifice their blood, sweat and tears for a homeland, then they are less willing to disregard or abandon that homeland. We need this ingredient … urgently.

According to a White Paper by an academician, Dr. Donald McCartney of the Bahamas, the Black men and boys of our region need to be productive contributors to our society. He asserted that this population had experienced a breach in good citizenship in our society – “hurt people hurt people” – so he composed a White Paper to address this question of “How to repair this breach?” and identified some viable solutions for the region to consider. See that full White Paper here, and an Excerpt as follows:

White Paper Title: Repairing the Breach in the Caribbean – EXCERPT
By: Dr. Donald McCartney

…
As we approach the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, the same questions, regarding Black men and boys, are being raised again.

These questions are being revived because many, too many Black men and boys are not a part of the economic structure or the body politic. Upon close examination, it becomes clear that many of them are not in community with their ethnic group.

For the most part, Black men and boys live in isolation, better yet, they are marginalized. They find it difficult to connect with society in general and the significant persons in their lives in particular.

The spiraling  murder rate and other acts of violence (particularly against young men and the elderly), makes it clear, that many Black men and boys in the Caribbean, pose a serious and critical problem of interpersonal violence in every corridor and thoroughfare that Caribbean peoples and residents must cross. Consequently, Black men and boys in the Caribbean are feared, demonized and vilified.
…
There is a breach within the fabric of Caribbean society, which has led to a breach in the lives of Black Caribbean males. A serious attempt must be made to repair this breach at all cost.
…
There must be a regional response with respect to the issues confronting Black men and boys in the Caribbean. This is no time for throwing up our hands as a gesture of capitulation, (posing the useless question: “What is wrong with these young men?) and rolling our eyes. It is time for action…serious sustained, positive action!
…
See the full White Paper here: https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14392

This commentary continues the 4-part series on Repairing the Breach; using the foregoing White Paper by Dr. McCartney as the premise. This entry is 3 of 4 in this series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean in consideration of solutions to assuage the plight of Black men and boys. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

  1. Repairing the Breach: Hurt People Hurt People
  2. Repairing the Breach: Crime – Need, Greed, Justice & Honor
  3. Repairing the Breach: One Option – National Youth Service
  4. Repairing the Breach: Image Impacts Economics

While all of these commentaries relate to “how” the stewards for a new Caribbean can assuage the failing dispositions of the Caribbean among our Black men and boys, this one in particular proposes a revolutionary approach on constricting all young people (males only initially) into a National Youth Service or public service in the region in general. The White Paper proposed these 3 questions, that the NYS scheme addresses:

  • First: How do we bring relief and assistance to communities and families that are experiencing the great hurt and harm of violent behaviour?
  • Secondly: How do we find a way to reestablish community and make inroads into violent behaviour, the major social problem of the day? 
  • Thirdly: How do we expect to engage Black men and boys in constructive dialogue and participation within Caribbean society while, at the same time, refurbishing the image that has now been unfairly placed upon the entire population of Black men and boys?

See here as follows, the ENCORE of the original blog-commentary from January 15, 2015 detailing the specificities of the National Youth Service scheme as an expression of the National Sacrifice community ethos:

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Go Lean Commentary – National Sacrifice – The Missing Ingredient

CU Blog - National Sacrifice - The Missing Ingredient - Photo 3The term National Sacrifice is defined here as the willingness to die for a greater cause; think “King/Queen and Country”. This spirit is currently missing in the recipe for “community” in the Caribbean homeland.

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

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

The book Go Lean…Caribbean opens with the acknowledgement that despite having the “greatest address in the world… the people of the Caribbean have beat down their doors to get out”, (Page 5).

CU Blog - National Sacrifice - The Missing Ingredient - Photo 4The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU); a confederation to bring change, empowerment, to the Caribbean region; to make the region a better place to live, work and play for all stakeholders (residents, visitors, businesses, organizations – NGO’s and governments). This Go Lean roadmap also has initiatives to foster solutions for the Caribbean youth. The Go Lean book posits that permanent change for Caribbean society will only take root as a result of adjustments to the community attitudes, the national spirit that drives the character and identity of its people. This is identified in the book as “community ethos”; and that one such character, National Sacrifice is sorely missing in this region.

Any attempts to change Caribbean society’s community ethos must start with the youth.

At no point should it be construed that this commentary is advocating sacrificing young men (and women) on the altar of the God of War. But rather, this commentary laments the missing ingredients of wholesale commitment to any national cause. Thusly, the recommendation is for conscription/draft (Appendix B) into a National Youth Service (NYS) program for the Caribbean. Take it one step further and make the Youth Service program regional in its scope rather than “national”; with applicable exemptions for:

  • military/police enrollments
  • student/research deferments (at regional institutions)
  • religious/missionary assignments
  • medical/disability exceptions

This quest relates a commitment so vital to a community that everyone should be willing to sacrifice and lean-in for the desired outcome. This Caribbean effort is not new to the world; it is currently being championed by a Washington-DC-based global Non-Government Organization (NGO) branded the Innovations in Civic Participation (ICP). Much can be learned from analyzing their successes … and failures. See details here:

Innovations in Civic Participation – NGO – Leaders for Youth Civic Engagement (Retrieved 01/15/2015):

Innovations in Civic Participation (ICP) is a global leader in the field of Youth Civic Engagement. ICP envisions a world where young people in every nation are actively engaged in improving their lives and their communities through civic participation. We believe that well-structured youth service programs can provide innovative solutions to social and environmental issues, while helping young people develop skills for future employment and active citizenship.

ICP carries out its mission through four main activities:

  1. Incubating innovative models for youth service programs;
  2. Creating and expanding global networks;
  3. Conducting research and publicizing information on youth civic engagement, especially national youth service and service-learning; and
  4. Serving as a financial intermediary to support program innovation and policy development.

In addition to these activities, ICP regularly consults with its extensive network of over 2,500 academics, policymakers, program entrepreneurs, and other leaders in the field on program and policy work.

Contact Information:

Innovations in Civic Participation
P.O. Box 39222
Washington, DC 20016
202-775-0290

http://www.icicp.org/about-us/

A quest for a National Youth Service has previously been advocated in Sub-Saharan Africa (see Appendix C). There, the NYS was designed to explore the potential to foster youth employability, entrepreneurship, and sustainable livelihoods. This effort stemmed from an existing tradition of NYS programs in Sub-Saharan Africa, which were originally designed to cultivate a sense of national identity and mobilize skills for development in post-independence nations; (see Appendix A). Today, NYS programs operate in the context of a deepening regional youth unemployment crisis, which averages over 20 percent, according to African Economic Outlook. NYS programs engage hundreds of thousands of young people each year and have the potential to equip them with strong civic skills and prepare them for employment and livelihood opportunities.

Despite its potential as an economic strategy, little is still known about how effective NYS programs are at increasing youth employability in Africa. But there is no doubt for the commitment to community that is forged from these efforts. Young people cry, sweat, and bleed for their community, embedding a desire to sacrifice for the Greater Good.

This corresponds with the Bible precept: “There is more happiness in giving than in receiving” – Acts 20:35

There are NYS programs already deployed or proposed for these Caribbean member-states, (though many have been snagged or stalled):

CU Blog - National Sacrifice - The Missing Ingredient - Photo 1

The purpose of the Go Lean book/roadmap is more than just the embedding of new community ethos, but rather the elevation/empowerment of Caribbean society. In total, the Caribbean empowerment roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

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

The roadmap details the following community ethos, plus the execution of these strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to forge permanent change in the region:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Choose Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact a Turn-Around Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate 30 Member-States Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Enact a Defense Pact to Defend the Homeland Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Keep the next generation at home Page 46
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers Between CU & Member-States Governments Page 71
Implementation – Assemble – Incorporating all the existing regional organizations Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean – Confederation Without Sovereignty Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better Page 131
Planning – Lessons Learned from the West Indies Federation – Military Units Page 135
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 – Ways to Manage Federal Civil Service Page 173
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth Page 227
Appendix – 30,000 Federal Employees Page 299
Appendix – Previous West Indies Integration – Caribbean Regiment Page 301

Previously Go Lean blog/commentaries have considered historic references and have also stressed fostering the proper and appropriate community ethos for the Caribbean to prosper; and reported on the repercussions and consequences of bad ethos. The following sample applies:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2830 Bad Ethos: Jamaica’s Public Pension Under-funded
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2809 A Lesson in Bad Community Ethos : East Berlin/Germany
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 – to Change a Bad Community Ethos
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1531 A Lesson in History: 100 Years Ago – World War I – Cause and Effect in Community Ethos
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=841 Having Less Babies is Bad for the Economy – Need People
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=623 Only at the Precipice, Do Communities Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=353 Book Review: ‘Wrong – Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn…’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=228 Egalitarianism versus Anarchism – Community Ethos Debate

All in all, there is a certain community ethos associated with populations that have endured change. It is a National Sacrifice, a deferred gratification and focus on the future. Any losses of privileges are appreciated by the entire community, not just the affected individual or family member. This is the purpose of the US Memorial Day Holiday on the last Monday in May, honoring the military service of all our men and women in uniform, their families at home, and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in dying for their country. A quest to unite the country in remembrance and appreciation of the fallen and to serve those who are grieving is a good way to forge a community ethos of National Sacrifice.

See VIDEO here of a community’s great honor to a slain soldier:

VIDEO: Sky Mote: Community Honors a Fallen Soldier from El Dorado County with a Hero’s Welcome –   http://youtu.be/MVQORRQvTpU

Published on Aug 17, 2012 – Starting with a Marine Honor Guard carrying the transfer case containing the body of Staff Sgt. Sky R. Mote of El Dorado, CA, upon arrival at Dover Air Force Base, Del. on Sunday Aug. 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana). Then continuing with the great Welcome Home the community gave. His family will never forget!

Though this Fallen Soldier is mourned and missed, his sacrifice is duly acknowledged, appreciated and honored in his hometown. This community spirit creates a value system for public service and National Sacrifice.

The US is not the only country that memorializes their war dead. Those countries that do, experience less societal abandonment. The British Commonwealth of Nations (representative of 18 Caribbean member-states) shows likewise homage to their Fallen Soldiers. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is responsible for maintaining the war graves of 1.7 million service personnel that died in the First and Second World Wars fighting for Commonwealth member states. Founded in 1917 (as the Imperial War Graves Commission), the Commission has constructed 2,500 war cemeteries, and maintains individual graves at another 20,000 sites around the world.[107] The vast majority of the latter [however] are civilian cemeteries in Great Britain. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_War_Graves_Commission).

The former British colonies did not adopt this National Sacrifice value system. As most Caribbean (notwithstanding the US Territories) member-states do not even have a (work-free) holiday to honor the sacrifices of those that fought, bled and/or died for their country.

No appreciation, no sacrifice; no sacrifice, no victory. It is that simple!

It is the recommendation of this blog/commentary that all Caribbean member-states should mandate a civilian conscription service for their citizens (1 year between ages 18 and 25); it is common for a confederation – the CU for the Caribbean – to marshal a multi-state, allied military force. Then the CU should facilitate a complete eco-system of engaging the conscripted NYS participants to serve and protect the people and resources of the Caribbean. After which, the communities should show proper appreciation and honor to those that make these sacrifices for “King/Queen and Country”, from all conscription services: military service, public and civilian.

(Many times school teachers and administrators are lowly paid; their service to their country is a great sacrifice).

Veteran-style benefits should thusly be considered for all these “national” servants. This commitment from the community would go far in forging deep loyalty within the citizenry, thus mitigating quick abandonment of the homeland.

There is a separation-of-powers between the CU federal agencies and Caribbean member-states, so the CU would have no authority on how member-states manage, appreciate or honor their civil servants; unless some CU grants/funding apply. But for CU personnel, the practice will be institutionalized to recognize the service of long-time civil servants (active or retired) and their sacrifices. So for any human resource that die in the line of duty, the funeral processions will be filled with pomp and circumstance, much like the foregoing VIDEO.

“The [servants] who perform well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard …” – Bible 1 Timothy 5:17

Now is the time to lean-in to this roadmap for Caribbean change, as depicted in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. All the mitigations and empowerments in this roadmap require people to remain in the homeland. No people, no hope! A community ethos, a spirit or attitude of sacrifice for the Greater Good is a great start to forge change; no sacrifice, no victory.

🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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

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Appendix A – ICP Studies and Results

Overview of the National Youth Service Landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa

National Youth Service Project on Employability, Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa: Synthesis Report

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Appendix B – Conscription (or Drafting)
This is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of National Service, most often military service.[2] Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names. The modern system of near-universal national conscription for young men dates to the French Revolution in the 1790s, where it became the basis of a very large and powerful military. Most European nations later copied the system in peacetime, so that men at a certain age would serve 1–8 years on active duty and then transfer to the reserve force.

CU Blog - National Sacrifice - The Missing Ingredient - Photo 2Conscription is controversial for a range of reasons, including conscientious objection to military engagements on religious or philosophical grounds; political objection, for example to service for a disliked government or unpopular war; and ideological objection, for example, to a perceived violation of individual rights. Those conscripted may evade service, sometimes by leaving the country.[4] Some selection systems accommodate these attitudes by providing alternative service outside combat-operations roles or even outside the military, such as civil service in Austria and Switzerland.

As of the early 21st century, many states no longer conscript soldiers, relying instead upon professional militaries with volunteers enlisted to meet the demand for troops. The ability to rely on such an arrangement, however, presupposes some degree of predictability with regard to both war-fighting requirements and the scope of hostilities. Many states that have abolished conscription therefore still reserve the power to resume it during wartime or times of crisis.[5] (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription)

National Service is a common name for mandatory or volunteer government service programmes. The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes. Compulsory military service typically requires all citizens, or all male citizens, to participate for a period of a year (or more in some countries) during their youth, usually at some point between the age of 18 and their late twenties. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_service)

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Appendix C  – National Youth Service Corps in Nigeria
The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is an organisation set up by the Nigerian government to involve the country’s graduates in the development of the country. There is no military conscription in Nigeria, but since 1973 graduates of universities and later polytechnics have been required to take part in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) program for one year.[1] This is known as national service year.

“Corp” members are posted to cities far from their city of origin. They are expected to mix with people of other tribes, social and family backgrounds, to learn the culture of the indigenes in the place they are posted to. This action is aimed to bring about unity in the country and to help youths appreciate other ethnic groups.

There is an “orientation” period of approximately three weeks spent in a camp away from family and friends. There is also a “passing out ceremony” at the end of the year and primary assignment followed by one month of vacation.

The program has also helped in creating entry-level jobs for many Nigerian youth. An NYSC forum dedicated to the NYSC members was built to bridge the gap amongst members serving across Nigeria and also an avenue for members to share job information and career resources as well as getting loans from the National Directorate Of Employment.

The program has been met with serious criticism by a large portion of the country. The NYSC members have complained of being underpaid, paid late or not paid at all.[2] Several youths carrying out the NYSC program have been killed in the regions they were sent to due to religious violence, ethnic violence or political violence.[3]

A series of bomb and other violent attacks, especially in the North, rocked the country’s stability in the period preceding the 2011 gubernatorial and presidential elections. Most common of these attacks was perpetuated by the Islamist extremist terrorist group called Boko Haram. “Boko Haram” means “Western education is a sin” in the local hausa dialect in Nigeria. The group “Boko Haram” is against western education and wants to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria’s northern region.

Worst hit were National Youth Service Corps members, some of whom lost their lives.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Youth_Service_Corps)

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