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ENCORE: US Warnings on Low-cost Dominican Surgeries

Posted on April 1, 2017 in Economics, Ethos, Industries, Strategy, Tactical

UPDATE – Go Lean Commentary

The warning was sounded 3 years ago, today. What is the status now? Have the warnings been heeded?

Surely, we have paid attention and we have put in the risk mitigations so as to preserve life-and-limb in the activities of cosmetic surgeries in the Dominican Republic.

Sad to report, but the answer is “No”.

The risks continue; the disfigurements continue; the deaths continue.

Say it ain’t so!

See the news article in the Appendix relating the details of a fresh warning from the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In this previous Go Lean blog-commentary – being ENCORED below – the prospects of Medical Tourism were heralded, with the caution for proper regulatory control. The appeal was made for the new Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to serve as that regulator, under the guise of a Self-Governing Entity. That appeal is echoed again here-now. There is too much …

… money at stake.

… jobs at stake.

… lives at stake.

But while this original blog-commentary below published on April 1, 2014 related the death of Beverly Brignoni (28), there have been other deaths; as with these women:

See the related October 3, 2016 story: Pretty Hurts – Dishing on the dangers of Plastic Surgery

———–

ENCORE Title: Low-cost Dominican surgeries spark warnings by US

To the family of Beverly Brignoni, according to the foregoing news article, the publishers of the book Go Lean … Caribbean, SFE Foundation, extend condolences for the loss of their dearly departed loved one. This article – as follows – shows the down-side of medical tourism, an accidental death from an apparent lax oversight in a cosmetic surgery clinic.

By: Ben Fox and Ezequiel Abiu Lopez
Beverly Brignoni was a young New Yorker seeking a less expensive way to enhance her appearance and she did what many other people are now doing: travel to the Dominican Republic for cosmetic surgery; (see undated “selfie” photo posted to her Instagram account, courtesy of the Brignoni family).

It went horribly wrong. The 28-year-old died Feb. 20 from what the doctor told her family was a massive pulmonary embolism while getting a tummy tuck and liposuction at a clinic in the Dominican capital recommended by friends. Family members want local authorities to investigate.

“We want to know exactly what happened,” said Bernadette Lamboy, Brignoni’s godmother. “We want to know if there was negligence.”

The district attorney’s office for Santo Domingo says it has not yet begun an investigation because it has not received a formal complaint from Brignoni’s relatives. Family members say they plan to make one.

Shortly after Brignoni’s death, the Health Ministry inspected the Vista del Jardin Medical Center where she was treated and ordered the operating room temporarily closed, citing the presence of bacteria and violations of bio-sanitary regulations. The doctor who performed the procedure and the clinic have not responded to requests for comment.

Brignoni’s death is unusual, but it is not isolated. Concerns about the booming cosmetic surgery business in the Dominican Republic are enough of an issue that the State Department has posted a warning on its page for travel to that country, noting that in several cases U.S. citizens have suffered serious complications or died.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued an alert March 7 after health authorities in the United States reported that at least 19 women in five states had developed serious mycobacterial wound infections over the previous 12 months following cosmetic procedures in the Dominican Republic such as liposuction, tummy tucks and breast implants.

There were no reported deaths in those cases, but treatment for these types of infections, which have been caused in the past by contaminated medical equipment, tend to involve long courses of antibiotics and can require new surgery to remove infected tissue and drain fluid, said Dr. Douglas Esposito, a CDC medical officer.

“Some of these patients end up going through one or more surgeries and various travels through the medical system,” Esposito said. “They take a long time typically to get better.”

The Dominican Republic, like countries such as Mexico, Costa Rica and Thailand, has promoted itself as a destination for medical tourism, so-called because people will often tack on a few days at a resort after undergoing surgery. The main allure is much lower costs along with the promise that conditions will be on par with what a patient

would encounter at home.

In 2013, there were more than 1,000 cosmetic procedures performed in the Dominican Republic, 60 percent of them on foreigners, according to the country’s Plastic Surgery Society.

The Internet is flooded with advertisements and testimonials from people who say they have had successful procedures in the Dominican Republic, and an industry of “recovery houses” has sprung up to serve clients, along with promoters who canvass for clients in the United States. The price is often about a third of the cost in the United States.

Dr. Braun Graham, a plastic surgeon in Sarasota, Florida, says he done corrective surgery on people for what he says were inferior procedures abroad. He warns that even if a foreign doctor is talented, nurses and support staff may lack adequate training.

“Clearly, the cost savings is certainly not worth the increased risk of a fatal complication,” said Graham, past president for Florida Society of Plastic Surgeons.

Brignoni was referred to the Vista del Jardin Medical Center by several acquaintances in the New York borough of the Bronx where she lived, said Lamboy and Lenny Ulloa, the father of the 4-year-old daughter she left behind.

“Supposedly, it was a high-end clinic, one of the best in the city,” Ulloa said.

The doctor who performed Brignoni’s procedure, Guillermo Lorenzo, is certified by the Plastic Surgery Society, but there

are at least 300 surgeons performing cosmetic procedures who are not, said Dr. Severo Mercedes, the organization’s director. He said the government knows about the problem but has not taken any action. “We complain but we can’t go after anyone because we’re not law enforcement,” Mercedes said.

The number of people pursuing treatment in the Dominican Republic doesn’t seem to have been affected by negative reports, including a previous CDC warning about a cluster of 12 infections in 2003-04.

In one recent case, the Dominican government in February closed a widely advertised clinic known as “Efecto Brush,” for operating without a license. Prosecutors opened a criminal case after at least six women accused the clinic of fraud and negligence. The director, Franklin Polanco, is free while awaiting trial. He denies wrongdoing.

There was also the case of Dr. Hector Cabral. New York prosecutors accused him of conducting examinations of women in health spas and beauty parlors in that state in 2006-09 without a license, then operating on them in the Dominican Republic, leaving some disfigured. Cabral pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized practice of medicine in October 2011 and returned to the Dominican Republic, where he still practices.

In 2009, Dominican authorities charged Dr. Johan Tapia Bueno with illegally practicing plastic surgery at his apartment after several women, including a local television personality, accused him of malpractice that left them with infections. Awaiting trial, he has pleaded innocent to charges that include fraud.

Juan Linares, a lawyer hired by Brignoni’s boyfriend, said he is still awaiting an autopsy report.

Because she arrived in the country late at night on a delayed flight and was on the operating table early the next morning, a main concern is whether she received an adequate medical evaluation before the procedure. Graham, the Florida surgeon, said sitting on a plane for several hours can cause blood to stagnate in the legs and increase the risk of an embolism.

Brignoni paid the Dominican clinic $6,300 for a combination of liposuction, tummy tuck and breast surgery. Lamboy said she had decided not to have the work done on her breasts and was expecting a partial refund. The woman, who worked as a property manager, had lost about 80 pounds about a year earlier after gastric bypass surgery.

Brignoni was clearly excited about the procedure. Her final post on Facebook was a photo she took of her hands holding her passport and boarding pass for the flight from New York to Santo Domingo.

“She wanted it so bad,” her godmother said. “It felt like she was going to have a better outlook on life, getting this done.”

Associated Press writer Ben Fox reported this story from Miami and Ezequiel Abiu Lopez reported in Santo Domingo.

Source: Associated Press (AP); retrieved 03/31/2014 from: http://news.yahoo.com/low-cost-dominican-surgeries-spark-warnings-us-042418398.html

This is a very important issue for the planning and execution of the new inter-governmental agency: Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). First of all, someone died – life is too precious to skim over this issue with indifference. The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap to introduce and implement the CU, so as to re-boot the region’s economic engines, including avenues of medical tourism.

There are also peripheral issues associated with this news story, many of which are examined, as missions, in great details in the Go Lean book. The issues/missions are:

Image: Confidence in the competence of service providers is sometimes based on reputation and branding. This is para-mount in medical fields. While the Caribbean is home to many excellent medical schools, facilities and practitioners, there is no regional “sentinel” role-player. The CU mandate is to zealously protect and promote the image and branding for industrial developments. So now when the media portrays “negative” depiction of Caribbean life, culture and people, there is no formal response mechanism. But with the CU’s implementation, there will be an entity to effectuate an anti-defamation response and better manage the region’s image.
Health Administration: The Go Lean roadmap recognizes healthcare as a basic need for the people of the Caribbean. As such, there is the acknowledgement that health delivery systems generate excessive costs and risks for a community. As a planning tool, the roadmap commences with a Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing regional integration (Page 11) as the strategy for optimized benefits:

IX. Whereas the realities of healthcare and an aging population cannot be ignored and cannot be afforded without some advanced mitigation, the Federation must arrange for health plans to consolidate premiums of both healthy and sickly people across the wider base of the entire Caribbean population. The mitigation should extend further to disease management, wellness, obesity and smoking cessation programs. The Federation must proactively anticipate the demand and supply of organ transplantation as developing countries are often exploited by richer neighbors for illicit organ trade.

Self-Government Entities: The foregoing news story involves a clinic regulated by a Caribbean member-state, the Dominican Republic. The Go Lean roadmap institutes an arrangement for medical/research campuses as SGE’s (Self-Governing Entities) that are only regulated by the CU federal authorities. Had this tragedy occurred on such a facility, the response would have been immediate and comprehensive, employing best-practices of trauma medicine arts and sciences, thusly requiring a post-mortem lessons-learned process that would be fully transparent and accountable.
Lean Government: The Go Lean roadmap also extends optimizations to the member-states governments, requiring a separation-of-powers dictum to transfer oversight and administration of certain state functions to federal authorities. This includes standards, licensing and administration of healthcare facilities. The application of best-practices would most assuredly minimize the risk of medical negligence.
US Exceptionalism: The Go Lean roadmap maintains that other countries have their own version of the American Dream. The quest for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not exclusively American. Whereas there are millions of negligent deaths in the US hospitals/clinics every year, one American dying in a Caribbean facility does not constitute an exceptional event; bad things do happen to good people … everywhere, in the US, in the Caribbean and in the Dominican Republic. Having a tourism-based regional economy means we always want to extend hospitality to our American guests, but embarking on medical tourism, also means assuming some degree of risks, for the facilities, the doctors and most importantly the patients.

The foregoing article crystalizes the need for the CU Trade Federation, a super-national administration to regulate, protect, promote and foster quality delivery of the most vital public services. The publishers of the Go Lean roadmap will hereby “sit back”, observe-and-report on the manifestations of this case, hoping for the quest for justice and accountability to be fulfilled. And remembering the unconscionable loss of the beautiful 28-year-old woman, Beverly Brignoni; RIP.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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

———–

Appendix – CDC warns of dangers of plastic surgery in Dominican Republic

(HealthDay) — U.S. health officials are warning about the dangers of “medical tourism” after at least 18 women from the East Coast became infected with a disfiguring bacteria following plastic surgery procedures they had in the Dominican Republic.

The infections, caused by a type of germ called mycobacteria, can be difficult to treat. At least several of the women had to be hospitalized, undergo surgery to treat the infection and take antibiotics for months, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

One expert said the effects can be devastating.

“It’s a very mutilating infection. They’re going for cosmetic surgery, and they will be scarred. It’s a terrible scenario for people to go down there, get surgery and come back worse than they imagined they could be,” said Dr. Charles Daley. He is a Denver infectious disease physician whose clinic has seen patients infected after undergoing these kinds of procedures in the Dominican Republic.

According to the CDC, 21 women from six Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states appear to have been affected by mycobacterial infections after visiting five plastic surgery clinics in the Dominican Republic, a nation in the Caribbean. (Eighteen of the cases are confirmed, and three are considered probable.)

Mycobacteria, which are found worldwide in the environment, “usually infect the skin or lungs, and are responsible for chronic and recurrent infections that are notoriously resistant to antibiotics and difficult to treat,” said report co-author Dr. Douglas Esposito. He is a medical officer and epidemiologist with the CDC’s Travelers’ Health Branch.

More than 80 percent of the infected women reported swelling, pain and scarring. Daley, who works at the National Jewish Health respiratory hospital in Denver, said infected people often need to undergo reconstructive surgery.

It’s not clear how the women were infected, although Daley said it’s possible the bacteria entered their plastic surgery wounds through tap water or instruments used in surgery. Most underwent liposuction and at least one other surgery, such as procedures to expand the size of the breasts and buttocks, or breast reduction.

Daley said his clinic has seen two patients infected after plastic surgery and consulted on a third case. It’s not clear how many, if any, are among those in the CDC report.

The risk of this kind of infection is higher in countries like the Dominican Republic and Brazil, he noted, but patients have become infected in the United States, too. “We are definitely seeing more of these postoperative infections, particularly ones that are related to cosmetic surgery,” Daley said.

The CDC report warns about the risks of medical tourism, a term that describes leaving the United States for medical procedures to save money. According to the report, many of the women—most of whom were born in the Dominican Republic—said they went to the country for plastic surgery to save money.

People who have undergone plastic surgery in the Dominican Republic should talk to their doctor about getting tested, Daley suggested. And, people who plan to go there for a procedure should ask the clinic whether they’ve had infections, he added.

“I would never go to one of those places,” he said. “I know too many stories about what’s happened to people. It has ruined people’s lives.”

The study was published online July 13 in Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Reporting by: Randy Dotinga, Healthday Reporter

Source: Posted July 14, 2016; retrieved March 30, 2017 from: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-07-cdc-dangers-plastic-surgery-dominican.html#jCp

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Caribbean Roots: Cast of ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’

Posted on February 25, 2017 in Ethos, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

For the generation born between 1980 and 2000 – Millennials – this TV show is an icon of their generation:

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

It was a situation comedy (sit-com) with laughter, hip-hop music, urban cool lifestyle, family values and thought-provoking drama. This show was formative for all demographics of this generation – White and the Black-and-Brown – but most people do not realize that a large number of the cast members had Caribbean roots.

We are so proud!

The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean recognizes the significance of this art-form: sit-com television. On a consistent basis, audiences tuned into this show for entertainment and walked away with enlightenment as well – average ratings were 13 – 14 million viewers. They were constantly exposed to an affluent African-American household with an intact family structure: father, mother, and compliant children navigating a changing world. That was a different perspective – see Image Awards details in the Appendix below – compared to the realities of Black America and the pervasive media portrayals.

The show was not a docu-drama of “Black versus White America”, though many times, plotlines covered these dynamics. In general the storylines addressed teenage angst, but many plotlines addressed the family’s affluence versus working class families; this exposes a familiar rift in the Black community with passionate advocates for a Talented Tenth versus a ‘Power to the People’ contingent. See these encyclopedic details and VIDEO of the show here:

Title: The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is an American sitcom that originally aired on NBC from September 10, 1990, to May 20, 1996. The show stars Will Smith as a fictionalized version of himself, a street-smart teenager from West Philadelphia who is sent to move in with his wealthy aunt and uncle in their Bel Air mansion after getting into a fight on a local basketball court. In the series, his lifestyle often clashes with the lifestyle of his relatives in Bel Air. The series ran for six seasons and aired 148 episodes.^[1][2]

Starring Cast
Will Smith as Will “The Fresh Prince” Smith
James Avery as Philip Banks
Janet Hubert-Whitten as Vivian Banks (1st)
Alfonso Ribeiro as Carlton Banks
Karyn Parsons as Hilary Banks
Tatyana M. Ali as Ashley Banks
Joseph Marcell as Geoffrey The Butler
Daphne Maxwell Reid as Vivian Banks (2nd)
Ross Bagley as Nicholas “Nicky” Banks (Seasons 5 & 6 only)

Development
In December 1989, NBC approached Will Smith, a popular rapper during the late 1980s.^[3] The pilot episode began taping on May 1, 1990.^[4] Season 1 aired in July 1990 and ended in March 1991. The series finale was taped on Thursday, March 21, 1996.^[5][6]

The theme song was written and performed by Smith under his rap stage name, The Fresh Prince. The music was composed by QDIII (Quincy Jones III), who is credited with Smith at the end of each episode.

The music often used to bridge scenes together during the show is based on a similar chord structure. The full version of the theme song was used unedited in the first three episodes. The full length version, which is 2:52, was included on Will Smith’s Greatest Hits album and attributed to him only, as well as DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince in 1998. A 3:23 version was released in the Netherlands in 1992, reaching #3 on the charts.

In the second season, the kitchen and living room sets were rebuilt much larger with a more contemporary style (as opposed to the much more formal style of the first season), and were connected directly by an archway, allowing scenes to be shot continuously between the sets.

Plot
The theme song and opening sequence set the premise of the show. Will Smith is a street-smart teenager, born and raised in West Philadelphia. While playing basketball, Will misses a shot and the ball hits a group of people, causing a confrontation that frightens his mother, who sends him to live with his aunt and uncle in the town of Bel Air, Los Angeles.

He flies from Philadelphia to Los Angeles on a one-way ticket in first class. He then whistles for a taxi that has dice in the reflection screen and the word “FRESH” on its vanity plates. Will’s working class background ends up clashing in various humorous ways with the upper class, “bourgeois” world of the Banks family – Will’s uncle Phil and aunt Vivian and their children, Will’s cousins Hilary, Carlton, and Ashley.
Source: Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia – Retrieved February 24, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fresh_Prince_of_Bel-Air

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VIDEO – The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air Theme Song – https://youtu.be/1nCqRmx3Dnw

Published on Feb 3, 2013 – This was obviously the first episode.

The reference to The Fresh Prince refers to the hip-hop rapper Will Smith; the show revolved around him.

The Go Lean book identifies that music – even hip-hop – and the arts can greatly impact society; in addition to the entertainment value, there is also image and impression. People can override many false precepts with excellent deliveries and contributions from great role models.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This CU strives to advance Caribbean image and culture in the region and throughout the world, with these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance.

This roadmap recognizes that a prerequisite for advancing society is a change in the Caribbean “community ethos”; (the underlying attitude/spirit/sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices). Early in the book, the contributions that culture (music, television, film, theater and dance) can make is pronounced as an ethos for the entire region to embrace, (opening Declaration of Interdependence – DOI – Pages 15) with this statement:

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

The Go Lean/CU asserts that change has now come to the Caribbean, collectively and for each of the 30 member-states. The people, institutions and governance of the region are all urged to “lean-in” to this roadmap for change. We know it is important to highlight the positive contributions of Caribbean people, even their descendants and legacies.

The great role models being considered here are the many cast members of this iconic TV show – The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air – who had Caribbean roots. We learn lessons from these great role models: lessons that are good, bad and ugly.

The cast members for consideration are:

Alfonso Ribeiro as Carlton Banks
This American-born actor has displayed many talents, beginning his career at the age of eight but securing his first TV sit-com on the series Silver Spoons at the age of 13; he is also accomplished as a television director, dancer, and show host. He was born in New York City to Trinidadian parents Michael and Joy Ribeiro (née De Leon) of Portuguese, Spanish and Afro-Trinidadian descent from Trinidad and Tobago. His mother was the daughter of Trinidadian Calypsonian the Roaring Lion, Rafael de Leon.^[2][3]
Tatyana M. Ali as Ashley Banks
This artist has excelled in her roles as an actress, model and R&B singer. She was born in New York to a mother of Afro-Panamanian^[2][3] heritage and a father who is Indo-Trinidadian.^[3] She began her acting career at the young age of six, starting as a regular child performer on Sesame Street starting in 1985. She has not stopped working in the entertainment industry, featuring acting and singing roles right up to the present day.
Joseph Marcell as Geoffrey The Butler
This Saint Lucian-born British actor moved to the United Kingdom at the age of nine, grew up in South London, and still lives in that metropolitan area. He studied theatre and science at college, then took courses in speech and dance. As a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he appeared in productions of Othello and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He has also appeared often on British television and in feature films.^[2]

These artists have placed their signatures on the entertainment world – The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air show delivered 148 episodes – notwithstanding their Caribbean heritage. This is among the ‘Good‘ lessons.

What is ‘Bad and Ugly‘ is how they have excelled in their crafts in the US and the UK as opposed to their ancestral homelands. Their parents left the islands for greater opportunities 50 – 70 years ago and despite the passage of time we still do not have any manifestations that would have allowed their artistic expressions in the Caribbean region.

What is sad is that most of the Caribbean Diaspora left their beloved homelands with some aspirations of returning some day. This is depicted in the Go Lean book with this quotation (Page 118):

The Bottom Line for the Caribbean Diaspora
The Caribbean is the best address in the world. However for over 50 years many Caribbean citizens left their island homes to find greater opportunity in foreign lands: USA, Canada and Europe. Though the “man was taken out of the island, the island was never taken out of the man”, and as such many of the Diaspora live in pockets with other Caribbean expatriates in their foreign homelands (i.e. Flatbush in Brooklyn, New York, USA). What’s more, their children, legacies, are still raised and bred with Caribbean values and culture. Many left initially with the intention of returning someday, but life, loves and livelihoods got in the way of a successful return. Worse, many tried to return and found that they were targets of crime and terrorism, mandating that they abandon all hopes and dreams of a successful repatriation. The CU therefore must allow for the repatriation of peoples of the Diaspora, in all classes of society, “the good, the bad and the ugly”.

We salute these artists from the TV show ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’. Great job; great performances and great portrayals. We accept that these artists are great Americans and Britons; they may never be grouped with Caribbean artists.

This is our loss.

May we do better with our next generation. We can and have done some good in the past; Caribbean people have impacted the art world (music and culture) right from their Caribbean homeland. Consider Caribbean musical icon, Bob Marley; he set a pathway for success for other generations of talented, inspirational and influential artists to follow. More artists of Caribbean heritage are sure to emerge to “impact the world” with their artistry. The planners for a new more opportunistic Caribbean – the Go Lean movement – are preparing for it, as specified in the same DOI – Page 13:

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

The foregoing three artists should be proud of their executions; we are proud of their heritage and thusly have an affinity for their works. We acknowledge those ones from our past who left their Caribbean homelands for better opportunities in the world of entertainment and we know that there are “new” artists who are just waiting to be fostered throughout the Caribbean member-states. We salute these ones as our future, and pledge to do better. The following list details the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster future entertainment options in the Caribbean:

Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius – All Artists	Page 27
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Caribbean Vision	Page 45
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Patents & Copyrights	Page 78
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Culture Administration	Page 81
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media	Page 111
Advocacy – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood	Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music	Page 231

These foregoing artists – all good people in their own rite – have been impactful for their communities:

Alfonso Ribeiro has been front-and-center in charitable endeavors, exerting much time and resources in helping with children’s medical needs through his Shriners Hospital association.
Tatyana Ali has been very active politically, campaigning for “hope and change” with Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008.^[10][11] In 2012, she continued showing her support for the re-election campaign and other Democratic Party causes.^[12]
Joseph Marcell devotes a lot of time, talent and treasuries to educational causes within the theater community.

These examples continue the theme of the impact of good role models in their community. We need, want and deserve more of this in the Caribbean. This thought has been presented many times in this commentary; consider these previous Go Lean blogs that identified other role models, from many cultures, with these submissions:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10114	Esther Rolle – Caribbean Roots
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9948	Sammy Davis, Jr. – Caribbean Roots
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8724	Remembering Marcus Garvey: A Role Model; Still Relevant Today
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8619	Clive Campbell – Jamaican Innovation for Hip Hop
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8495	NBA Greatness and Caribbean Roots: Tim Duncan Retires
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8328	YouTube Role Model with Caribbean Roots: ‘Tipsy Bartender’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7682	Frederick Douglass: Role Model for a Single Cause
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6593	Dr. Mobley – Role Model as a Business School Dean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2726	Caribbean Role Model – Oscar De La Renta – RIP
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2297	The Black Contrast: Booker T Washington versus W.E.B. Du Bois
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1037	Role Model and Humanities Advocate – Maya Angelou – R.I.P.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=866	Caribbean Musical Icon and Role Model: Bob Marley

The world is a better place, arts-wise, because of Caribbean contributions. Thank you to all past, present and future artists.

Just one more thing: Let’s make these contributions at home, from home; let’s prosper where we are planted.

This helps us to make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————–

Appendix Title: The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air‘s NAACP Image Awards

Outstanding Comedy Series	Nominated		1997
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series	Won	Alfonso Ribeiro	1996
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series	Nominated	Will Smith	1997
Outstanding Youth Actor/Actress	Won	Tatyana M. Ali	1997
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series	Nominated	Janet Hubert-Whitten	1991
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series	Nominated	Nia Long	1996
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series	Nominated	Daphne Maxwell Reid	1996

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Learning from Stereotypes – Good and Bad

Posted on February 19, 2017 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

“Tell them about the dream Martin” – Prompting by Gospel Singer Mahalia Jackson.

“I have a dream that one day … children will be judged by the contents of their character and not the color of their skin.” – Martin Luther King (MLK) @ March on Washington August 28, 1963.

The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean has asserted that the country of the United States had a long way to go to reform their societal defects – racism proliferated every aspect of society. In a previous blog-commentary about lessons learned from 75 years ago with Japanese-American relations (Pearl Harbor) it was explained how America double-downed on their bad community ethos (the underlying attitude/spirit/sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices):

Japan’s aggression was a direct result of their community ethos that honored Samurai warrior and battle culture. Men would walk the streets with their swords, ready for a challenge. On the other hand, the US (and Western Europe) community ethos of racism was so ingrained that the natural response in the US, post-Pearl Harbor, was to intern Japanese Americans in camps.
All of these bad community ethos were weeded out with post-WWII Human Rights reconciliations. – Go Lean book Page 220.

This day – February 19 – is special; this is the Day of Remembrance of the bad episode of American stereotyping their own citizens, Japanese-Americans following the Pearl Harbor attacks. This is the 75th anniversary of then President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s (FDR) executive order that allowed this open discrimination against Japanese-Americans. This was just 2 and a half months after the Pearl Harbor attack and the American response was to stereotype all Japanese. See this portrayal in the historic account here:

The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in camps in the interior of the country of between 110,000 and 120,000^[4] people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the Pacific coast. Sixty-two percent of the internees were United States citizens.^[5][6] These actions were ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.^[7]

Japanese Americans were incarcerated based on local population concentrations and regional politics. More than 110,000 Japanese Americans, who mostly lived on the West Coast, were forced into interior camps, but in Hawaii, where the 150,000-plus Japanese Americans composed over one-third of the population, 1,200 to 1,800 were interned.^[8] The internment is considered to have resulted more from racism than from any security risk posed by Japanese Americans,^[9][10] as those who were as little as 1/16 Japanese^[11] and orphaned infants with “one drop of Japanese blood” could be placed in internment camps.^[12] – Source: Wikipedia.

In effect, the America of 1942 was declaring that if one Japanese person could attack America then all Japanese people could attack America. They were judging the Japanese people based on the “color of their skin” (and slant of their eyes) rather than the “content of their character”. This is so obviously wrong.

Did America learn from this 1942 experience?

Unfortunately, the experience continued as “more of the same”. Martin Luther King echoed his dream 21 years later after lamenting the continuous bad experience of blatant racism against Black people. Even today, prominent Japanese-Americans are decrying the “more of the same” parallel that America is demonstrating; see George Takei’s comments here:

Every year, on February 19, we Japanese-Americans honor this day as Remembrance Day, and we renew our pledge to make sure what happened to us never happens again in America. I am always amazed, and saddened, that despite our decades long efforts, so many young people today are not even aware that such a tragedy and miscarriage of justice took place here.

And I grow increasingly concerned that we are careening toward a future where such a thing would again be possible.

A few months into his campaign, Donald Trump refused to outright reject the policies and fears that underlay the internment. Instead, he suggested that it was a tough call, and that he “would have had to be there” in order to know whether it was the wrong one.

Trump ignored the inconvenient fact that not a single case of espionage or sabotage was ever proven against any internee, and that the military itself admitted that there was never any evidence to support their sweeping policy. A few months later, a top Trump surrogate went on television and suggested that the internment might actually serve as a “precedent” for another Trump policy — the registration of Muslim-Americans in a database.

I cannot help but hear in these words terrible echoes from the past. The internment happened because of three things: fear, prejudice and a failure of political leadership. When the administration targets groups today, whether for exclusion from travel here on the basis of religion and national origin, or for deportation based on their undocumented status, I know from personal experience that these are not done, as they claim, truly in the name of national security.
…

Source: Posted and retrieved February 19, 2017 from: http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/18/opinions/george-takei-japanese-american-internment-day-of-remembrance/index.html

Despite the 75 years since FDR’s racist decree and 54 years since MLK’s lamentation of blatant American racism, we find “more of the same” in this society, though now it is considered politically incorrect to be blatantly racist. Under the tenants of the law, this type of behavior – 1942 internment – is now fully recognized as being unconstitutional. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 officially acknowledged the “fundamental violations of the basic civil liberties and constitutional rights” of the internment.^[7] Many Japanese-Americans consider the term internment camp a euphemism and prefer to refer to their forced relocation as imprisonment in concentration camps.^[8]

The movement behind the Go Lean book asserts that despite the legalities, the foundations of institutional racism in America have become even more entrenched. This movement campaigns that it is folly for the Black-and-Brown populations to leave the Caribbean for American shores. Racism is in this country’s DNA as the Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted naturalized US citizenship to “free white persons”.

Considering the reality of the Caribbean demographics (Black-and-Brown), it is no wonder that the American world consider Caribbean people and society as “Less Than“.

This is the problem with stereotypes. There is an art-and-science associated with the subject of stereotypes.

Consider the photos here and this AUDIO Podcast:

Full Podcast – Playing With Perceptions – http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/358360814/playing-with-perceptions

AUDIO – Why Do We Create Stereotypes?

Posted February 14, 2017 – Where do stereotypes come from? Why do some perceptions persist, and is there any truth or value to the assumptions we make? In this hour, TED speakers examine the consequences of stereotypes.

The planners of Caribbean empowerment, the Go Lean movement assess that America is a “frienemy” for us! We are trading partners; we are aligned; we are allies; many of our Diaspora live in America; studied in America; but we have to compete to dissuade our young people from setting their sights on American shores as a refuge and destination of their hopes and dreams. So the Go Lean book challenges Caribbean society, positing that “we” cannot prosper with a high abandonment rate – reported at 70% for educated classes. Therefore we must battle” against the “push-and-pull” factors that draw so many Caribbean citizens away from their homeland to places like the US.

This is the quest of Go Lean…Caribbean. The book and accompanying blog/commentaries advocate learning lessons from other societies, from history and the present. Examples are provided from as far back as the patriarchal Bible times, to best-practices today employed by communities around the world that have successfully turned-around their societies, such as post-World War II Germany and Japan; and post-Apartheid South Africa. The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This roadmap seeks to reboot the region’s economic, security and governing engines; to employ best practices to impact our prime directives; identified with the following 3 statements:

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

The Go Lean book relates that 29 of the 30 Caribbean member-states (“St. Barths” is the only exception) have a majority Black population. So the roadmap pushes further on this subject of racism, positing that it is easier for Caribbean citizens to stay home and effect change in their homelands than to go to America – and other countries – to try to remediate other societies. This consideration is one of technocratic stewardship of the regional Caribbean societal engines, not ignoring the realities and historicities of race relations in the New World. This point was pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 10 – 14) with these acknowledgements and statements:

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

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 [other] communities.

The Go Lean book stresses the key community ethos that need to be adopted and the societal defects that need to be “weed out”; plus strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to transform and turn-around the eco-systems of Caribbean society. These points are detailed in the book as follows:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification – African American Experience	Page 21
Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations – South Africa’s Model	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate all 30 member-states/ 4 languages into a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Build and foster local economic engines	Page 45
Tactical – Ways to Foster a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Growing the Economy – Post WW II European Marshall Plan Model	Page 68
Tactical – Growing the Economy – Post WW II Japan’s Turn-around Model	Page 68
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – CU Federal Government versus Member-State Governance	Page 71
Implementation – Assemble All Regionally-focus Organizations of All Caribbean Communities	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt	Page 114
Anatomy of Advocacies – One Person can make a difference!	Page 122
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Single Market / Currency Union	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Caribbean Image	Page 133
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Minority and Human Rights	Page 134
Planning – Lessons Learned from the previous West Indies Federation	Page 135
Planning – Lessons Learned New York City – Managing as a “Frienemy”	Page 137
Planning – Lessons Learned from East Germany – Bad Examples for Trade & Security	Page 139
Planning – Lessons Learned from Detroit – Turn-around from Failure	Page 140
Planning – Lessons Learned from Indian Reservations – Pattern of Ethnic Oppression	Page 141
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218

There are other lessons for the Caribbean to learn from considering the history of race/ethnic relations and the effects on stereotypes; see the following sample blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10216	Waging a Successful War on Orthodoxy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10170	Obama was a ‘Reconstruction’; Trump is the resulting ‘Redemption’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9214	US Race Relations: Spot-on for Protest
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8724	US versus Marcus Garvey: A Typical Case of Racism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8200	Respect for Minorities: Climate of Hate
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=2809	A Lesson in History: Economics of East Berlin
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2480	A Lesson in History: Community Ethos of WW II
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2297	A Lesson in History: Booker T versus Du Bois
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020	Europe Desperately Battling to Weed-out Last of Racism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=789	A Lesson in History: America’s War on the Caribbean

The Go Lean roadmap does not seek to reform or transform America; it is out-of-scope for our efforts; our focus is only here in our Caribbean homeland.

The stereotypes in America are based on a false premise: White Supremacy. The everyday consequence of this bad foundation is White Privilege. This is why it is better for Caribbean people to stay in the Caribbean, to prosper where planted here at home. But we have defects too. However it is easier to reform our defects in the Caribbean than to try and fix the American eco-system.

We urge everyone in the Caribbean to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap. It is the heavy-lifting we need to effect change in our region’s societal engines.

Yes we can … make the Caribbean region a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Caribbean Roots: Esther Rolle of ‘Good Times’

Posted on December 30, 2016 in Ethos, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean recognizes the significance of the TV Show “Good Times”, 1974 – 1979.

The show – the first episode titled Too Old Blues aired on February 8, 1974 – was a situation comedy about the African-American Evans Family; led by father James, mother Florida or “Flo”, sons J.J. and Michael and daughter Thelma. There were other supporting characters as well, like Willona Woods and her adopted daughter Penny. (Penny was the first acting role for music superstar Janet Jackson, the youngest sister of Michael Jackson of the Jackson 5 fame).

The show was produced by legendary TV producer Norman Lear and recorded on a “sound stage” in Hollywood, California. (There was no “live studio audience”).

What made “Good Times” notable was the ensemble cast of African American actors. But what kept viewers tuning in was the recognition of themselves in the faces on the screen. During the tough economic struggles of the seventies, many families struggled like the Evans family to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. While the subject matter was often bleak, the family had a way of making viewers forget their own troubles for at least 30 minutes. …

Despite the canned laugh tracks, we fell in love with the characters. More importantly, we fell in love with the actors and actresses who brought the show to life. Forty years after the show ended, we are just as interested in the actors as we were when the show was on the air. Chances are good that another 40 years can pass and the show will still hold interest. The actors who brought the show to life may leave this world but their characters will live in our memories and on our television screens for decades to come. It is rare for a show to last longer than a few seasons; [this show lasted 6 seasons]. It is rarer still for a show to generate new fans decades after it went off the air. For whatever reason, “Good Times” accomplished that rare feat, and the actors who starred in the show will always have us wondering -where are they now? – Depost.com Ad-supported Website

The focus of this show for the Go Lean movement is the composition of its cast, and the Caribbean roots of one of the main characters, Esther Rolle. The full cast is as follows:

BernNadette Stanis	Thelma Evans / … (133 episodes, 1974-1979)
Jimmie Walker	James ‘J.J.’ Evans, Jr. (133 episodes, 1974-1979)
Ralph Carter	Michael Evans (132 episodes, 1974-1979)
Ja’net DuBois	Willona Woods (124 episodes, 1974-1979)
Esther Rolle	Florida Evans (108 episodes, 1974-1979)
John Amos	James Evans, Sr. (59 episodes, 1974-1976)
Johnny Brown	Nathan Bookman (57 episodes, 1975-1979)

The Go Lean book identifies that film, television, theater and the arts can greatly impact society; in addition to the entertainment value, there is also image and impression. People can override many false precepts with excellent deliveries and contributions of great role models. This show, “Good Times”, was frequently recognized for a positive Black image.

So this great American TV show also had a great Caribbean contributor, Bahamas-bred Esther Rolle. Wow!

Esther Rolle became the first woman to receive the NAACP Chairman’s Civil Rights Leadership Award.

See the encyclopedic details here:

Title: Esther Rolle as Florida Evans in “Good Times”

You may remember Esther Rolle for her portrayal as the loving but strict mother of three children in the hit television show “Good Times.” Rolle was born 10th in a family of 18 children whom all dreamed of becoming actors and actresses. She began her career as a dancer and played many of her earliest roles on stage. Fans of the hit television show “Maude” may remember her introduction as Findlay’s housekeeper, which is how the popular spin-off show “Good Times” was introduced.

As the show progressed, Rolle became unhappy with the writer’s creative direction and felt that Jimmie Walker’s character was frivolous. Fans of the show might remember her heartbreaking performance as Florida Evans when she received news that her husband had died in a tragic car accident. The series went on with Rolle as a single mother struggling to make ends meet without his income, insurance, or support.
…
After her contract had ended, Rolle quit the show, and moved on to win an Emmy for her performance as a maid in the 1979 television movie “Summer of My German Soldier.” Her successful return to the stage also included a role in “A Raisin in the Sun,” and “Down in the Delta,” which was directed by Maya Angelou. She gained notoriety once again for another Maya Angelou classic, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”

Esther Rolle’s later works included film work in “Driving Miss Daisy,” in 1990, and “Rosewood” in 1997. She was recognized as the first woman to receive the NAACP Civil Rights Leadership Award for raising the image of African Americans through her work on stage, television, and film. The same year, Rolle fell ill and was placed on kidney dialysis. She passed away, on November 17, 1998, shortly after her 78th birthday, from complications of diabetes. Rolle was married once but had no children.
Source: Retrieved December 30, 2016 from: http://deposts.com/cast-good-times-now/3/

———–

Early Life Biography:
Esther Rolle was born in Pompano Beach, Florida, to Bahamian immigrants Jonathan Rolle (1883–1953),^[2] a farmer, and Elizabeth Iris Rolle (née Dames; 1893–1981).^[3] Her parents were both born and raised in Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas^[4][5][6] and moved to Florida some time after their marriage. She was the tenth of 18 children (children who included siblings and fellow actresses Estelle Evans and Rosanna Carter).^[7] Rolle graduated from Blanche Ely High School in Pompano Beach, Florida.^[8] She initially studied at Spelman College in Atlanta, but she moved to New York City.^[8] While in New York, she attended Hunter College. Rolle transferred to The New School and, finally, Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.”^[9] For many years, Rolle worked in a traditional day job in New York City’s garment district.^[10]Source: Retrieved December 30, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Rolle#Early_life

Though she died over 18 years ago, on November 17, 1998, we still feel her impact. She proved to be an iconic TV character for 20th Century America; she fomented and fostered a great image not just for Americans or Bahamians or Caribbean people, but for the entire African-descended race, for their entertainers. For this reason, she received the first ever NAACP Civil Rights Leadership Award given to a woman.

Caribbean Girls rock!

As specified in a recent blog-commentary and in the Go Lean book, the American Civil Rights agency, the National Association for the Advancement for Colored People (NAACP), was established in 1915 and immediately campaigned to elevate the status and image of Black people in America and beyond. This “image” precept is also an important factor in the roadmap to elevate Caribbean society. So the Go Lean book details a plan to monitor defamations against the Caribbean image; this includes recognition and appreciation for Caribbean achievement as well. As follows, this excerpt (Page 133) from Go Lean book highlights this “Image Quest”:

The majority of the Caribbean population descends from an African ancestry – a legacy of slavery from previous centuries. Despite the differences in nationality, culture and language, the image of the African Diaspora is all linked hand-in-hand. And thus, when Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali and Bob Marley impacted the world with their contributions, the reverberations were felt globally, not just in their homelands. It is hard for one segment of the black world to advance when other segments have a negative global image. This is exemplified with the election of Barack Obama as US President; his election was viewed as an ascent for the entire Black race.

Over 100 years ago, the NAACP came to understand the power and influence of the then new medium of film and added the mandate to their charter to confront the misuse of media to influence negative public attitudes toward race. … Today, the NAACP Hollywood Bureau continues to monitor the industry for offensive and defamatory images in film and television. It also sponsors the Image Awards Show to honor outstanding people of color in film, television, music, and literature, as well as those individuals or groups who promote social justice through their creative endeavors.

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance.

This roadmap recognizes that a prerequisite for advancing society is a change in the Caribbean community ethos. Early in the book, the contributions that culture (music, film, theater, dance and artistic expressions) can make is pronounced as an ethos for the entire region to embrace, (opening Declaration of Interdependence – DOI – Pages 15) with these statements:

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

Esther Rolle – an American of Caribbean descent – was the embodiment of all of these above values. She impacted the image and culture of African Americans in her country, and thusly impacted the Black image to the rest of the world. Like another Caribbean musical icon, Bob Marley, Esther Rolle set a pathway for success for other generations of talented, inspirational and influential artists to follow. Other artists of Caribbean heritage are sure to emerge and “impact the world”. We are preparing for it, as specified in the same DOI – Page 13:

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

The CU represents the change that has come to the Caribbean. The people, institutions and governance of the region are all urged to “lean-in” to this roadmap for change. We know it is important to highlight the positive contributions of Caribbean people, even their descendants and legacies.

We salute those ones from our past, people like Esther Rolle whose parents left their Bahamas home for job opportunities in the agricultural fields of Florida. We know there are “new” Esther Rolle-types throughout Caribbean member-states, waiting to be fostered. We salute them as our future and pledge to create the local-domestic opportunities … without leaving home.

The following list details the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster future entertainers in the Caribbean:

Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Caribbean Vision	Page 45
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Patents & Copyrights	Page 78
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Culture Administration	Page 81
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media	Page 111
Advocacy – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood	Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music	Page 231

Esther Rolle also impacted the world as a role model for Senior Citizens. In her last movie, Down in the Delta, she played the role of an aging wife-mother who suffered from Alzheimer’s Dementia. She played that role with dignity; she showcased to the world the challenge and honor associated with families fulfilling their obligations to their aging parents and spouses. This movie was written and directed by famed African-American poet Maya Angelou; (also a familiar role model for the Caribbean). See the highlights of the movie here:

VIDEO – Down in the Delta TRAILER – https://youtu.be/IOij6VZrBWE

Published on Jul 19, 2013 – Sometimes The Best Place To Be…Is The Place You Least Expected. Down In The Delta brings together an outstanding cast of stars in an uplifting story of family, community and friendship! In a desperate attempt to change her life, Loretta a troubled single mother from a tough Chicago neighborhood – is sent to spend a summer at her family’s ancestral home in rural Mississippi. In The Delta, with the support and wisdom of her hardworking uncle Earl, Loretta finally begins to see a way to provide for her young children and reverse the downward slide of her life!

Esther Rolle also provided a fine example of retirement and estate planning:

When she died in 1998 – at age 78 – she left an estate valued in excess of $1.7 million including $200,000 in cash a $400,000 home, $1,072,000 in treasuries. In addition, she owned 1,000 shares of Bethdames Corporation, several Mutual Funds, and 2% interest in El Toro (Restaurants), Ltd.. – Source: IMDB.com.

Esther Rolle came, saw and conquered! The same was said of Sammy Davis Jr. in the previous blog. See an interview in the Appendix below between Davis and Rolle. They both fit the definition of role models – as defined here by Booker T Washington – where they overcame obstacles and made an impact to benefit more than just themselves.

“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.”^[B].

Previously, this blog-commentary identified other role models in these obituary submissions:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10015	E. R. Braithwaite, Author of ‘To Sir, With Love’ – RIP
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9948	Role Model and Caribbean Roots of Sammy Davis, Jr.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8724	Remembering Marcus Garvey: A Role Model; Still Relevant Today
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7682	Frederick Douglass: Role Model for a Single Cause
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6593	Dr. Mobley – Role Model as a BusinessSchool Dean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2726	Caribbean Role Model – Oscar De La Renta – RIP
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2297	Role Models in Contrast: Booker T Washington -vs- W.E.B. Du Bois
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1037	Role Model and Humanities Advocate – Maya Angelou – R.I.P.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=866	Caribbean Musical Icon and Role Model: Bob Marley

The world is a better place because of Esther Rolle. Her contribution were on the stage and the screen; as an actress she was known for her dramatic roles and stage presence; but she had great “comedic chops” as well. Her days were truly “Good Times”, as her TV show portrayed.

She died 18 years ago; that’s a long time as celebrities die every year – 2016 has been an especially bad year; see list here – and yet we are remembering this one from 1998; this is because of her Caribbean roots. She helped to elevate the Caribbean image; to reinforce the message that we are just as good as anyone else; or maybe even better with our diverse passions. We carry on without her but we are better off for her role model; and forever impacted by her legacy. We urged all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to the Go Lean … Caribbean roadmap and the fine role model-example of Esther Rolle. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———-

Appendix VIDEO – Sammy Davis Jr. Interviews Esther Rolle – https://youtu.be/npHzc6CBGp8

Uploaded November 4, 2010 – Clip from the 1970’s Variety-Talk Show: “Sammy & Company”

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This Day In History: Jamaican Innovation for Hip Hop

Posted on August 11, 2016 in Ethos, Implementation, Social

#GoLeanCommentary

This day – August 11 – in 1973 …

… a member of the Caribbean Diaspora – Jamaica – may have changed the world … for Hip Hop. On this day in 1973, Clive Campbell – better known to history as DJ Kool Herc – helped out his sister by “DJ-ing” her birthday party in a recreation room in The Bronx. History shows that he used his inspiration and influence from his Caribbean musical roots to innovate a music style and performance that would subsequently change the world … for good …

… or bad.

It’s music; you be the judge.

Musical taste is like “beauty” … in the “eye of the beholder”. The main thing is that the music made you listen and maybe learned something about the urban experience of America … and now the world.

See the story of Clive Campbell aka DJ Kool Herc here:

Title: This Day In History: 1973 – Hip Hop is born at a birthday party in the Bronx

Like any style of music, hip hop has roots in other forms, and its evolution was shaped by many different artists, but there’s a case to be made that it came to life precisely on this day in 1973, at a birthday party in the recreation room of an apartment building in the west Bronx, New York City. The location of that birthplace was 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, and the man who presided over that historic party was the birthday girl’s brother, Clive Campbell—better known to history as DJ Kool Herc, founding father of hip hop.

Born and raised to the age of 10 in Kingston, Jamaica, DJ Kool Herc began spinning records at parties and between sets his father’s band played while he was a teenager in the Bronx in the early 1970s. Herc often emulated the style of Jamaican “selectors” (DJs) by “toasting” (i.e., talking) over the records he spun, but his historical significance has nothing to do with rapping. Kool Herc’s contribution to hip hop was even more fundamental.

DJ Kool Herc’s signature innovation came from observing how the crowds would react to different parts of whatever record he happened to be playing: “I was noticing people used to wait for particular parts of the record to dance, maybe [to] do their specialty move.” Those moments tended to occur at the drum breaks—the moments in a record when the vocals and other instruments would drop out completely for a measure or two of pure rhythm. What Kool Herc decided to do was to use the two turntables in a typical DJ setup not as a way to make a smooth transition between two records, but as a way to switch back and forth repeatedly between two copies of the same record, extending the short drum break that the crowd most wanted to hear. He called his trick the Merry Go-Round. Today, it is known as the “break beat.” [(See Appendix VIDEO below).]

By the summer of 1973, DJ Kool Herc had been using and refining his break-beat style for the better part of a year. His sister’s party on August 11, however, put him before his biggest crowd ever and with the most powerful sound system he’d ever worked. It was the success of that party that would begin a grassroots musical revolution, fully six years before the term “hip hop” even entered the popular vocabulary.
Source: History Channel – This Day In History – Posted & Retrieved August 11, 2016 from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hip-hop-is-born-at-a-birthday-party-in-the-bronx

Can we – in the Caribbean and from the Caribbean – change the world again?

Yes, we can!

This consideration is in line with the book Go Lean … Caribbean. It serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This CU strives to advance Caribbean culture with 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 protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance.

This will not be the first time a Caribbean personality has changed the world through music (and hopefully not the last). Previously, this blog-commentary detailed the influence of music icon Bob Marley. Today, his name is synonymous with Reggae and socially-conscious music. RIP Bob Marley (1945 – 1981).

The Go Lean book identifies, in total, 169 different musical/national combinations of genres throughout the Caribbean. From these styles, Hip Hop has had its origins and roots. And then the transformation continued, with more inspiration back to the Caribbean sounds and more social messaging (classic of Reggae) going back to the Hip Hop sound.

Music does not stand still; it evolves. An excellent example of this cross-meshing is the musical genre of Reggaeton:

Reggaetón is a genre of music characterized by its repetitive beat rhythm that originated in Puerto Rico. Its roots can be traced back to the “underground” music of the island during the late 90’s, when music borrowing elements of reggae, rap, and hip-hop was being performed (in Spanish) in small, unofficial venues. Bootleg recordings and word of mouth were the means of distribution for this music until 1997. In 1998 eventually that music coalesced into what today is known as Reggaeton. The music’s popularity skyrocketed in the early 2000s as it spread to North American, European, Asian, and African audiences.^[1] Source: Retrieved 08/11/2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggaeton.

See sample Reggaetón song here: https://youtu.be/uHgnebZ_jYo

The movement behind the Go Lean book asserts that “one person can make a difference”. So just like Bob Marley, Clive Campbell aka DJ Kool Herc, should be recognized for his contributions to music, culture and Caribbean identity. This one Caribbean character has made a difference while residing as an alien in a foreign land. He has forge an example and a sample of how other Caribbean stakeholders can do more in the arts and impact the world – we can build a city on “rock-and-roll”.

Too bad he made this impact after leaving his Caribbean home of Jamaica.

Alas, we now bring the quest for change to Jamaica and all of the rest of the Caribbean. And that quest includes music and the arts. Early in the Go Lean book, the contributions that music can make is pronounced as an community ethos for the entire region to embrace, (Declaration of Interdependence – Page 15) with these statements:

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

This Go Lean/CU roadmap recognizes that a prerequisite for advancing society is a change in the community ethos – the fundamental spirit of a culture that drives the beliefs, customs and practices – in that society. Music should be appreciated for the truth of its power; it “can soothe the savage beast”. It can communicate culture and impact the economics for a people. One person, or a group of people can do this, can make a difference.

The following list from the Go Lean book details the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster the next generation of artist:

Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Unified CaribbeanSingle Market	Page 45
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Patents & Copyrights	Page 78
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Culture Administration	Page 81
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media	Page 111
Advocacy – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood	Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music	Page 231
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Jamaica	Page 239

Thank you Clive Campbell aka DJ Kool Herc; see Appendix VIDEO below.

Thank you for setting the pathway for success for new generations of talented, inspirational and influential artists – musical geniuses of Caribbean heritage – who are sure to follow. These artists, too will “rock the world”.

We are hereby “banking” on it here in the Caribbean, as communicated further in that Declaration of Interdependence – Page 13:

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

The Go Lean book posits “a change is going to come” to the Caribbean. The people, institutions and governance of region are all urged to “lean-in” to this roadmap for change and empowerment. Let’s do this … and make our homeland – all of the Caribbean – a better place to live, work and play.

🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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

————

Appendix VIDEO – Kool DJ Herc, Merry Go Round – https://youtu.be/Hw4H2FZjfpo

Uploaded on Oct 26, 2009 – Kool DJ Herc describing how he invented the idea of playing two breakbeats together.

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Arts, History, Image, Jamaica, Model, Music, Play, Transform

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Caribbean Image: ‘Less Than’?

Posted on May 26, 2016 in Ethos, Planning, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Picture this: The year is 1954, America is faced with a decision:

“Do we tear down the status quo and liberate 20 million African-Americans from a “Less Than” life or do we leave ‘well enough alone’?

If this question was a referendum, how do you think the American people would have voted … in 1954?

No doubt, the decision would have overwhelmingly aligned with words and expressions like “No!”, “Leave us alone”, “It has always been that way“, “this is our country“, “Go home Niggers“, etc.

This is not just a “what if” scenario. This really happened! But not as a proposition to the whole country of the United States to contest; no, only for 9 men to consider – the Justices of the US Supreme Court. The end result: Unanimous … in favor of change.

This commentary is a discussion on image, the facts and fiction of being a minority in a majority world or being an immigrant to a foreign country. This anecdote is related in the book Go Lean…Caribbean, in its Epilogue entitled “The Greater Good”. The book details this experience:

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.

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“.

Don’t agree; think this is all fiction, speculation or propaganda?! Consider this VIDEO:

VIDEO – Would you want to be treated like blacks? – https://youtu.be/RwA_4OamFhI

Published on Jan 19, 2016 – Every white person who wants to be treated how blacks are in this society stand up. [For this white audience, no one did.]

This is a relevant discussion for a Caribbean consideration, as 29 of the 30 member-states have a majority Black population; (St. Barthélemy is the only exception). So the Caribbean Diaspora and their legacies residing in the US – the Migration Policy Institute reported in 2012 that the numbers may be as high as 22 million – fits into the Black-and-Brown demographic. Unfortunately, every year that transpires, more and more Caribbean residents flee to foreign shores, like the US. The same report continues:

… the Caribbean population in the U.S. has surged more than 17-fold over the past half-century. But three-quarters of “Caribbeans” in the country arrived during the last two decades of the 20th century.

Why would they leave their beloved homelands? And what is their experience when they do leave and immigrate to the US?

The Go Lean book delves into the reasons for emigration. It identified them as an equation of “push and pull” factors. These factors highlight reasons that people want to get-away from “home” and seek “refuge” in these foreign countries. “Refuge” is a good word; because of societal defects, many from the Caribbean must leave – think LGBT, Disability, Domestic-abuse, Medically-challenged – for their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. In addition, the lure of a more prosperous life in the US (and other destinations) drive the “pull” side of the equation. This aligns with the facts: there is always some doing better, and always some doing worse.

But what truly is the experience when these ones arrive in America?

Answer: Less Than!

The experience of new Caribbean Diaspora members is that their work ethic is appreciated by employers; they are welcomed for the mass of blue-collar or menial jobs. White-collar ones, not so much. Then there is the language challenges. Many Caribbean islands speak Creole-derivatives of European languages of Spanish (Cuba, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico), French (Haiti and the French Caribbean islands), Dutch (Suriname and 6 islands – ABC and SSSIslands). These ones must come to the US and be classified as “English Speakers of Other Languages” (ESOL) for education and employment purposes. As for the English-speaking Caribbean, the consistent experience is one of a foreign accent; broken English spoken with a Caribbean “sing-song”. All in all, language fluency may be challenging.

This is the reality for the Caribbean Diaspora; they may find themselves invisible in the socio-economic relevance of American life; this is more fact than it is fiction. Is it surprising that this “Less Than” experience is preferred to enduring life at home in the Caribbean? This conveys the extent of the Caribbean defects.

An example of Caribbean “Less Than” is evident in the experience of dreadlock hairstyles. Those sporting this hairstyle are just immediately under-valued; treated as “Less Than“.

This is real talk about “Less Than“. This is not a reference to the de jure of American life, but rather the de facto. (Similar experiences are reported from the Diaspora communities in other countries, like in Toronto, Canada and London, England). The purpose of this commentary is to draw attention to the Go Lean book. It serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). One goal of the roadmap is to lower the “push and pull” factors that lead many residents in the region to abandon their Caribbean homeland for American (or Canadian or European) shores. Another goal is to improve the image of Caribbean people, at home and abroad. We must target the societal defects and fix them. The Go Lean/CU quest is to reform and transform our region so that we may prosper where we are planted in our Caribbean homelands, so that our people do not have to leave to become aliens in a foreign land, to be ridiculed for their skin color, accents, and hairstyles (dreadlocks). This goal is detailed in the Go Lean book, presented as the prime directives, as follows:

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 to support these engines.

The Go Lean roadmap calls for many changes and empowerments. There is so much we learn from the American experience, past and present. One paramount lesson: basic rights should not be subject to a public referendum. One group (minorities) should not have to seek the permission of another group (majority) to be happy. There should be a recognition of fundamental rights, above and beyond any national opinion polls.

Another important lesson we learn from the American experience is that the image associated with a minority group can be reformed and transformed. Look at the African-Americans populations; now it is considered politically incorrect to hold racist views or to engage in racist activities. The President of the US is actually an African-American. Image or brand management works, if there is someone (or something) working “it”.

The CU is not slated to be a national government, but rather a confederation of national governments (and overseas territories); so the CU does not feature sovereignty; it features the functionality of a Trade Union, capable of promotional activities and peer-pressure on domestic and international stakeholders. The CU/Go Lean effort is to cajole, prod and incentivize these individual member-states to embrace the protocols of international human rights mandates. The CU/Go Lean roadmap calls for fundamental human rights to be codified in regional treaties. These mandates would correspond to the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, which declare that:

… civil, economic and social rights should be asserted as part of the “foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”. – Go Lean book Page 220

There would be no place for any sub-group within the Caribbean population to feel as “Less Than” while at home.

The CU/Go Lean roadmap does not seek to reform America (or Canada or Europe); that is out-of-scope for our movement. Our quest is to reform and transform the Caribbean only. But we do try to manage impressions and images that these regions consume of Caribbean people, life and culture; we must accentuate the positive (promotion) and dissuade the negative (anti-defamation).

Domestically, there are many defects of Caribbean life that the Go Lean movement seeks to address. Right now internationally, these more advanced democracies, (US, Canada and Europe) may only consider us as parasites, but we would rather be recognized as protégés. This is a matter of image. This point is pronounced early in the book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 & 13) with many statements that demonstrate the need to remediate Caribbean communities and enhance the Caribbean world-wide image:

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

xx. Whereas the results of our decades of migration created a vibrant Diaspora in foreign lands, the Federation must organize interactions with this population into structured markets. Thus allowing foreign consumption of domestic products, services and media, which is a positive trade impact. These economic activities must not be exploited by others’ profiteering but rather harnessed by Federation resources for efficient repatriations.

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

xxiv. Whereas 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.

It goes without saying that every Caribbean member-state would prefer to keep their people – especially their educated work force – at “home” to prosper in the homeland. But this is not the de facto reality. It is no small task to assuage this crisis. The Go Lean book describes it as heavy-lifting; the book provides real solutions, detailing a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the region, member-states, cities and communities economic prospects. See this sample here:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Mission – Facilitate Job-Creating Industries	Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Tactics to Forge an $800 Billion Economy – High Multiplier Industries	Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Self-Governing Entities	Page 80
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate to the Caribbean	Page 118
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Caribbean Image	Page 133
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood	Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music	Page 231
Advocacy – Ways to Impact US Territories	Page 244
Advocacy – Ways to Impact British Territories	Page 245
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Dutch Territories	Page 246
Advocacy – Ways to Impact French Territories	Page 247

It is the quest of every Caribbean leader to minimize the size of the Diaspora. They wish …

… but wishing alone will not accomplish this goal – there must be real solutions to the “push and pull” realities. One member-state alone may not have the leverage and/or economies-of-scale to effect the needed reform. This is why the regional scale is different … and better. This is the purpose of the Go Lean…Caribbean roadmap: to compose, communicate and compel regional solutions back in the Caribbean homeland to lower the “push and pull” factors.

This subject – “push and pull” – was examined further in other related Go Lean commentaries, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7866	Switching Allegiances: Athletes move on to represent other countries
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7682	Role Model Frederick Douglass: Single Cause – Death or Diaspora
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7151	The Caribbean is Looking for Heroes … ‘to Return’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5759	Bad example of Greece – Crisis leading to abandonment of Doctors
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5733	Better than America? Yes, We Can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5695	Repenting, Forgiving and Reconciling the Past
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5088	Immigrants account for 1 in 11 Blacks in USA
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4613	The ‘Luck of the Irish’ – Past, Present and Future of the Diaspora
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2547	Miami’s Success versus Caribbean Failure
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2251	The Reality of Names of Caribbean people
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2025	Image of the Caribbean Diaspora – Butt of the Joke
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433	Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to brain drain
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We *Don’t* Want from the US – Discrimination of Immigrations

Fact and Fiction

So is an 8-ounce glass with 4-ounces of water half-full or half-empty?

This is the reality of fact and fiction on image.

Mathematically, 4 is half of 8. But the “full” or “empty” label is the perception, impression and image to the beholder; as in:

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

The Caribbean has a lot to work with. But our “glass is not empty”! We have been recognized as “best in the world” in certain circles. We feature the best …

… winter vacations, best cruises, best foods, best music, best festivals, best cigars and best rums. In the dimension of humans as opposed to destinations, we have some of the greatest athletes in the world. In these respects, we are not “Less Than“. We can argue to be the best address on the planet. But we cannot ignore our dire societal defects and deficiencies.

With some measure of success with the solutions at home, and communicating the facts and fictions of Diasporic life, we should be able to reduce the size of our Caribbean Diaspora, repatriating many to return to the homeland. Even more so, we should reduce the “push and pull” factors that lead many to abandon the region in the first place. The Caribbean entertains 80 million visitors every year; we are associated with the image of a great place to ‘play’. We now need to complete that visual: a great place to live, work and play.

Yes, we can!

So are we “Less Than” ?

Not here … at home. Our Caribbean region is actually comprised of a diverse array of cultures, races, religions and languages.

So “say it loud” …

We are Black … and proud.
We are White … and proud.
We are Indo-Caribbean … and proud.
We are Chino-Caribbean … and proud.
We are mixed races … and proud.
We are Caribbean … and proud!

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

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Civil Rights, Diaspora, History, Image

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ENCORE: French Caribbean ready for the Martinique Surf Pro

Posted on April 19, 2016 in Economics, Locations

This Go Lean blog-commentary from April 14, 2015 is re-distributed on this occasion of the Second Annual Martinique Surf Pro. Here is the announcement:

After a successful first edition in 2015, the Martinique Surf Pro, a men’s QS3,000 event, will return this season to the idyllic French West Indies island of Martinique from April 17-24, 2016.

The epic first installment unfolded last year in quality surf and brought surfers from all corners of the world. Ultimately, Hawaiian up-and-comer Joshua Moniz (HAW), 19, won the event.
Source: http://www.worldsurfleague.com/posts/181916/french-caribbean-readies-for-second-martinique-surf-pro

Consider the VIDEO highlights from Day 1 of this year’s event.

————–

Go Lean Commentary
Sports could be big business; culture is big business. Every now-and-then there is the opportunity to merge sports and culture into a single economic activity. One such expression is the sports/culture of surfing. This focus is a priority for the movement to elevate the Caribbean society, stemming from the book Go Lean…Caribbean.

The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). While the CU is not intended as a sports promotion entity, it does promote the important role of sports in the quest to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.

Though surfing activities originated with Polynesian culture (see Appendix below), the sport has assimilated well in other societies – the Caribbean included.

In terms of cultural expressions of surfing in the United States, the most iconic portrayal is the Rock-n-Roll group the Beach Boys; see VIDEO in the Appendix below of a milestone performance in Tokyo, Japan.

Yes surfing is global in it participation and appreciation.

Now a Caribbean community, the French-domain of Martinique is exploring the surfing sub-culture for sport, tourism and sports-tourism.

Cowabonga* Dude!

By: The Caribbean Journal staff

Long an under-the-radar surfing spot, the French Caribbean island will get its place in the spotlight when the surfing world gathers on the island later this month for the first-ever Martinique Surf Pro.

From April 21-26, the Caribbean’s only World Surf League Qualification Series event this year will take place along the shores of Basse-Pointe in Martinique.

The event, which is being organized by Martinique Surfing in partnership with the World Surf League, will bring together 100 world-class surfers from the United States, Japan, Europe, Brazil and the Caribbean.

“Martinique has been among the best-kept secrets in Caribbean surfing for some time now,” said Muriel Wiltord, director of the Americas for the Martinique Promotion Bureau. “Such a high-profile event as this cements the island’s position as a prime surfing destination. As one the top watersports competitions being held in the Caribbean in 2015, Martinique Surf Pro also shines a spotlight on the wide range of additional watersports options that Martinique has to offer.”

Martinique’s surfing season typically lasts between November and May along its northern and northeastern Atlantic coasts.

Source retrieved April 13, 2015: http://www.caribjournal.com/2015/04/13/is-martinique-the-next-caribbean-surfing-capital/

Not every coastline is ideal for surfing; thusly many Caribbean residents do not surf; it is not an indigenous activity to this region. But the past-time – and culture for that matter – is adaptable. Why is this? While the Caribbean has been blessed with many natural gifts, the physical conditions for surfing are not everywhere; (based on factual information retrieved from Wikipedia).

There must be a consistent swell. A swell is generated when wind blows consistently over a large area of open water, called the wind’s fetch. The size of a swell is determined by the strength of the wind and the length of its fetch and duration. Because of this, surf tends to be larger and more prevalent on coastlines exposed to large expanses of ocean traversed by intense low pressure systems.

Local wind conditions affect wave quality, since the surface of a wave can become choppy in blustery conditions. Ideal conditions include a light to moderate “offshore” wind, because it blows into the front of the wave, making it a “barrel” or “tube” wave. Waves are Left handed and Right Handed depending upon the breaking formation of the wave.

Waves are generally recognized by the surfaces over which they break.^[7] For example, there are Beach breaks, Reef breaks and Point breaks.

The most important influence on wave shape is the topography of the seabed directly behind and immediately beneath the breaking wave. The contours of the reef or bar front becomes stretched by diffraction. Each break is different, since each location’s underwater topography is unique. At beach breaks, sandbanks change shape from week to week. Surf forecasting is aided by advances in information technology. Mathematical modeling graphically depicts the size and direction of swells around the globe.

So mastering the sport of surfing is now an art and a science.

Despite the fun and joy of surfing, there are a lot of dangers with this activity:

Drowning
Collisions
Marine life – Sharks mistake surfers for their natural prey
Rip currents
Seabed – Injuries from the reefs, fauna and flora of the seabed

This activity is not for the faint of heart.

Not every market, especially in the Caribbean, can support the demands of surfing as a sport and as a cultural event. As depicted in the foregoing article, Martinique uniquely qualifies. This year’s professional tournament is the inaugural event. This Caribbean island makes a very short-list of all locations where this activity is practical. The following is a sample of the competitive/major surfing locations (Surf Cities) around the globe:

1. In Australia

2. In Asia

2.1 Arugam Bay, Ullae (Pottuvil, Sri Lanka)

3. In the South Pacific

3.1 Teahupoʻo (Tahiti)

4. In South Africa

4.1 Jeffreys Bay (Eastern Cape)

5. In North America

5.1 Zicatela Beach (Mexican Pipeline)

6. In Central America

6.1 La Libertad (El Salvador)

7. In South America

7.1 Chicama (La Libertad-Peru)

8. In the USA

9. In Europe

The Martinique effort and initiative to satiate the thirst … and fascination of surfing aligns with the objects of the CU/Go Lean roadmap; especially the mission “to forge industries and economic drivers around the individual and group activities of sports and culture” (Page 81).

The Go Lean vision is a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean forming the CU as a proxy organization to do the heavy-lighting of building, funding, maintaining and promoting sports venues. The strategy is for the CU to be the landlord, and super-regional regulatory agency, for sports leagues, federations and associations (amateur, collegiate, and professional). The embrace and promotion of the sport and culture of surfing can contribute to the Greater Good for the Caribbean. This aligns with the prime directives of the CU/Go Lean roadmap; summarized in the book with these 3 statements:

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

This roadmap commences with the recognition that genius qualifiers can be found in many fields of endeavor, including sports. The roadmap pronounces the need for the region to confederate in order to invest in elevation of the Caribbean eco-systems in which such athletic geniuses can soar. These pronouncements are made in the opening Declaration of Interdependence, (Pages 13 & 14) as follows:

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

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

The Go Lean book and accompanying blogs declare that the Caribbean needs to learn lessons from Surf City communities and other sporting venues/administrations. So thusly this subject of the “business of sports” is a familiar topic for Go Lean blogs. This cause was detailed in these previous blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6464	NEW: WWE Network – Model for Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4019	Melding of Sports & Technology; the Business of the Super Bowl
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3414	Levi’s® Stadium: A Team Effort
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3244	Sports Role Model – espnW
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2222	Sports Role Model – Playing For Pride … And More
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2171	Sports Role Model – Turn On the SEC Network
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2152	Sports Role Model – US versus the World
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1715	Lebronomy – Economic Impact of the Return of the NBA Great
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1446	Caribbean Players in the 2014 World Cup
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1341	College World Series Time – Lessons from Omaha
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1214	Landlord of Temporary Stadiums
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1148	Sports Bubble – Franchise values in basketball
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020	Sports Revolutionary: Advocate Jeffrey Webb
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=498	Book Review: ‘The Sports Gene’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=318	Collegiate Sports in the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=60	Could the Caribbean Host the Olympic Games?

This Go Lean roadmap is committed to availing the economic opportunities of all the Caribbean sports eco-system to respond to the world’s thirst for surfing. The book details the series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to deliver the regional solutions to better harness economic benefits from sports and sports-tourism activities:

Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategic – Staffing – Sporting Events at Fairgrounds	Page 55
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Sports & Culture Administration	Page 81
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration	Page 83
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Local Government – Parks & Recreation	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Public Works	Page 175
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events	Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds as Sporting Venues	Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports	Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Sports Leagues	Page 234

What could be the end result for the Go Lean roadmap’s venture into the sport of surfing and the business of sports? Economic growth and “jobs”. The Go Lean roadmap anticipates 21,000 direct jobs at sports enterprises throughout the region.

But surfing is also a leisure amenity, a “play” activity within the Go Lean roadmap. Many participate in this activity with no competitive motives. So the promotion of surfing in the Caribbean region can appeal to many enthusiasts far-and-wide to come visit and enjoy our Caribbean hospitality. This subject therefore relates back to the primary regional economic activity of tourism. This fits into the appeal of the Caribbean sun, sand and surf.

Overall, with these executions, the Caribbean region can be a better place to live, work and play. There is a lot of economic activity in the “play” aspects of society. Everyone, surfers, athletes and spectators alike, are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap.

Cowabonga Dudes!

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———-

Appendix – *Cowabunga: (slang) an expression of surprise or amazement, often followed by “dude”. Popular among California surfers.

———-

Appendix – Encyclopedia of Surfing:

For centuries, surfing was a central part of ancient Polynesian culture. This activity was first observed by Europeans at Tahiti in 1767 by Samuel Wallis and the crew members of the Dolphin; they were the first Europeans to visit the island in June of that year.

Surfing is a surface water sport in which the wave rider, referred to as a surfer, rides on the forward or deep face of a moving wave, which is usually carrying the surfer toward the shore. Waves suitable for surfing are primarily found in the ocean, but can also be found in lakes or in rivers in the form of a standing wave or tidal bore. However, surfers can also utilize artificial waves such as those from boat wakes and the waves created in artificial wave pools.

The term surfing refers to the act of riding a wave, regardless of whether the wave is ridden with a board or without a board, and regardless of the stance used. The native peoples of the Pacific, for instance, surfed waves on alaia, paipo, and other such craft, and did so on their belly and knees. The modern-day definition of surfing, however, most often refers to a surfer riding a wave standing up on a surfboard; this is also referred to as stand-up surfing.

George Freeth (8 November 1883 – 7 April 1919) is often credited as being the “Father of Modern Surfing”.

In 1907, the eclectic interests of the land baron Henry Huntington (of whom the City of Huntington Beach is named after) brought the ancient art of surfing to the California coast. While on vacation, Huntington had seen Hawaiian boys surfing the island waves. Looking for a way to entice visitors to the area of Redondo Beach, where he had heavily invested in real estate, he hired the young Hawaiian George Freeth to come to California and ride surfboards to the delight of visitors; Mr. Freeth exhibited his surfing skills twice a day in front of the Hotel Redondo.

In 1975, professional contests started.^[6]

Today, the Surfing Hall of Fame is located in the city of Huntington Beach, California. The city brands itself as Surf City USA.

(Source retrieved April 14 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfing)

———-

Appendix – VIDEO – The Beach Boys: Surfin’ Safari~Surf City~Surfin’ U.S.A – https://youtu.be/qpSwdQMn8xs

Uploaded on Jul 29, 2011 – Live at Budokan in Japan November 2, 1991

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ISIS reaches the Caribbean Region

Posted on January 31, 2016 in Economics, Government, Locations, Strategy

Go Lean Caribbean

See, we told you … repeatedly … that this would happen.

But this is not about being right; this is about being prepared.

The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean – and accompanying blogs – wants to reform and transform the societal engines of the Caribbean. This refers to economics, security and governing aspects in the homeland of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean region: all the Caribbean islands, plus the 2 member-states on the South American mainland (Guyana and Suriname) and 1 member-state on the Central American isthmus (Belize). Despite our difference, the Go Lean book posits that “we are all in the same boat” and need to “have each others’ back”.

The book further relates that once we remediate and mitigate our broken economic engines, we most assuredly will have security challenges to contend with. It turns out, according to the below news article, that we have those security concerns .. anyway; fix or no fix; prosperous or struggling. See the article here:

Title: ISIS reaches the Caribbean Region
Posted by caribemedia on November 11, 2015; retrieved January 31, 2015.

ISTANBUL – Since its emergence in Syria and Iraq, the extremist group of Islamic State (ISIS) has been expanding to reach several countries including Egypt, Libya, Ethiopia, some of the former Soviet republics and recently the Caribbean Islands.

Pro-ISIS activists have recently circulated a video under the banner “Those who Believe and Made the Hijra”, showing a man beside his three children calling on Muslims in the idyllic islands of Trinidad and Tobago to rebel.

“I fled my homeland because Muslims in Trinidad and Tobago were restricted and oppressed,” Abu Zayd al-Muhajir said in the video clip.

“People were free to wear the hijab or other Islamic clothing, but Muslims could only practice what they were told,” he added.

“You cannot practice your true Islamic religion outright,” al-Muhajir said. “I insisted on leaving that land, because my children will grow up without knowing true Islam.”

He said that his three children are now learning English, Math, and Sharia at an ISIS-run school.

Another ISIS militant speaking in the video, identified as Abu Khalid, said he had converted to Islam because “Muslims’ family structure is much stronger”.

“The holy Quran taught me how to be determined to make jihad,” he added.

Abu Mansour al-Muhajir, another ISIS member from the twin island Caribbean country who appeared in the video, said he had travelled to Syria to fight allies of the devil (in reference to Syrian president’s allies, mainly Russia and Iran).

Al-Muhajir pointed out that Islam’s Prophet mentioned that there will come an era when all the nations of the world will gather around to wipe you out; “we the Muslims,” he said.

The man thanked God, saying “we will make jihad for this cause and to gain the reward of Allah.”

Last year, 30 citizens of Trinidad travelled to Syria to fight alongside the terror group, according to the republic’s former national security minister, Gary Griffith.

The United Nations has also warned the country is being a fertile environment for recruiting and training militants to carry out suicide operations.

Earlier this year, an American senior official revealed that dozens of militants have already left Caribbean countries to fight for ISIS in Syria.

“Extremists could potentially get across the U.S. border when they return back home from the war-torn countries,” Marine Gen. John F Kelly, chief of the US Southern Command, has said.

Noteworthy, seventeen EU members including France, Germany, Britain and Belgium inked an international agreement Thursday designed lately to thwart the recruitment of “foreign terrorist fighters” who travel from Europe to conflict zones abroad.

Source: ARA News quoted here: http://www.caribemedianetwork.com/isis-reaches-the-caribbean-region/

This foregoing article speaks of “Jihad”; this has become a scary term in modern society – see Appendices. Since the publishers of this commentary seek a religiously neutral stance, there is not attempt to stereotype all terrorist activities as belonging to Islamic Extremists; (there are White Supremacists and many nationalistic groups that have practiced terrorism). But, the currency of suicide bombers loyal to Muslim groups like ISIS, Boko Haram, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban and al-Qaeda is a real cause for concern around the planet and this reality cannot be ignored.

In a previous blog-commentary, the question was posed as to whether World War III had commenced, with the reality of terrorism campaigns being waged everywhere, around the globe. That assertion was determined to be a bit exaggerated, but still appropriately alarming. These campaigns are being waged in almost every geographical theater except a few. The Caribbean was previously spared.

Now? According to the foregoing article, “not so much”.

Even if this position here is perceived as another exaggeration, it should be easily accepted that we, the Caribbean, have a lot at stake; we do have terrorist risks and threats; we have to be “on guard” for “bad actors” to emerge, maybe even from within our communities. (In addition to Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana has a large Muslim population). It is truly time now for our region to “get real” in our preparation: both overtly and covertly!

Overt! And covert!

The book Go Lean … Caribbean addresses the overt and covert security needs for the region. It describes the security pact – Status of Forces Agreement – that must be instituted with the treaty for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU would be established by the sovereign powers of the 30 Caribbean member-states to empower the region with this Security / Defense Pact (Armed Forces) with a fully-empowered Naval Force and adequately manned Expeditionary Marine Forces to facilitate the region’s security interest. For covert empowerments, the book details the width-and-breadth of an Intelligence Gathering & Analysis Apparatus to fully round-out the security efforts. The Go Lean book therefore serves as a roadmap for full Caribbean integration. This roadmap describes (Page 23) that peace, security and public safety must be tantamount to economic prosperity; that bad things will happen to good people and so the community needs to be prepared to contend with the risks that can imperil the homeland. This mandate is embedded in an advocacy for the Greater Good. In all, the Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy and create new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and to protect the resultant economic engines of the Caribbean homeland.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The priority on homeland security was pronounced early in the Go Lean book with the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12) that claims:

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

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

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

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

The Caribbean appointing these “new guards” will include many strategies, tactics and implementations considered “best-practices” around the world to ward off “bad actors”. This does not only address the military dimensions, but also other exigent circumstances; the roadmap therefore features a Emergency Management functionality with the Unified Command and Control for Disaster Response, Industrial incidences, epidemiological episodes and anti-crime initiatives.

The Go Lean book details the series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to provide the proactive and reactive public safety/security in the Caribbean region:

Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Privacy –vs- Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Intelligence Gathering	Page 23
Community Ethos – Whistleblower Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederating a non-sovereign permanent union	Page 45
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Coast Guard & Naval Authorities	Page 75
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Ground Militia Forces	Page 75
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Emergency Management Agency	Page 76
Tactical – Separation of Powers – CariPol: Marshals & Investigations	Page 75
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Start-up Foreign Policy Initiatives	Page 102
Implementation – Start-up Security Initiatives	Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid	Page 115
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – #3: Consolidated Homeland Security Pact	Page 130
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Escalation Role	Page 134
Planning – Lessons from the American West – Needed Law & Order	Page 142
Planning – Lessons from Egypt – Law & Order for Tourism	Page 143
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy – Quick Disaster Recovery	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice – Policing the Police	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Reduce Crime – Regional Security Intelligence	Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism	Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering & Analysis	Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Emergency Management	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights – Watchful World	Page 220

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

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7119	Security Role Model for the Caribbean: African Standby Force
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6720	A Lesson in History – During the Civil War: Principle over Principal
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6103	Sum of All Fears – ‘On Guard’ Against Deadly Threats
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5183	A Lesson in History – Cinco De Mayo and Mexico’s Security Lapses
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002	Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4809	Americans arrest 2 would-be terrorists – a Clear and Present Danger
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4360	Dreading the ‘Caribbean Basin Security Initiative’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3881	Intelligence Agencies to Up Cyber Security Cooperation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1965	America’s Navy – 100 Percent – Model for Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1554	Status of Forces Agreement = Security Pact
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1531	A Lesson in History: 100 Years Ago – Root Causes of World War I
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1076	Trinidad Muslims travel to Venezuela for Jihadist training
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=809	Muslim officials condemn abductions of Nigerian girls
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=535	Remembering and learning from Boston
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We Want from the US – #4: Pax Americana

An effort to provide a better security solutions in the Caribbean should be welcomed here. But some might argue: “We want to build up for peace not build up for war; the Caribbean should be all about ‘making love not making war'”. This is a valid argument, except that the appearance of peace is very tenuous. Just one incident of a terrorist attack and any pristine peaceful brand would be ruined … for a long time. This has been the case many times over; think Bali in Indonesia after their terrorist bombings in 2002 and again in 2005.

Let those with eyes … see.
Let those with ears … hear.

Our focus is only, to make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. But this quest must not be “empty words alone”, there must be strong actions behind the words.

Everyone in the Caribbean – citizens, institutions and governments – are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap to make the region a better, stronger and safer homeland.

🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———–

Appendix – Jihad

Jihad is an Islamic term referring to the religious duty of Muslims to maintain the religion. In Arabic, the word jihād is a noun meaning the act of “striving, applying oneself, struggling, persevering”.^[1] A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid, the plural of which is mujahideen (مجاهدين). The word jihad appears frequently in the Quran,^[2] often in the idiomatic expression “striving in the way of God (al-jihad fi sabil Allah)“, to refer to the act of striving to serve the purposes of God on this earth.^[1]^[3]^[4]^[5]

Muslims^[6] and scholars do not all agree on its definition. Many observers—both Muslim^[7] and non-Muslim^[8]—as well as the Dictionary of Islam,^[3] talk of jihad having two meanings: an inner spiritual struggle (the “greater jihad”), and an outer physical struggle against the enemies of Islam (the “lesser jihad”)^[3]^[9] which may take a violent or non-violent form.^[1]^[10] Jihad is often translated as “Holy War”,^[11]^[12]^[13] although this term is controversial.^[14]^[15] According to orientalist Bernard Lewis, “the overwhelming majority of classical theologians, jurists”, and specialists in the hadith “understood the obligation of jihad in a military sense.”^[16] Javed Ahmad Ghamidi states that there is consensus among Islamic scholars that the concept of jihad will always include armed struggle against wrong doers.^[17]Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad retrieved January 31, 2016.

———–

Appendix VIDEO – https://youtu.be/cD1HQFcav1M – Bill Maher Vs Brian Levin on “Real Time” – Islamophobia

Published on Apr 21, 2013 – Bill Maher’s Debate with Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University in San Bernardino on “Real Time” Friday night, arguing that in this day and age, Islam is more dangerous than other religions.

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Zika – A 4-Letter Word

Posted on January 28, 2016 in Economics, Government, Social, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

If it isn’t one thing – pandemic wise – it’s another. Since the recent days of promoting the book Go Lean … Caribbean, and the accompanying blog-commentaries, there has been the issue of the Chikungunya virus and the Ebola virus. Now comes the Zika virus.

This virus is proving to be a “4-Letter” word. See VIDEO here:

VIDEO – U.S. doctors prepare as Zika virus spreads – http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/u-s-doctors-prepare-as-zika-virus-spreads/

January 27, 2016, 6:47pm – The Zika virus is continuing to spread and U.S. doctors are bracing for its arrival. Airlines are giving refunds to passengers who booked flights to infected countries where travel warning have now been issued. CBS Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook breaks down the dangers — and precautions that can be taken. (VIDEO plays best in Internet Explorer).

The below article in the New York Times is demonstrating that the Zika virus is becoming a threat for all of the Americas. But some people are in a worst disposition than others:

Welcome to the Caribbean!

The Go Lean movement seeks to reform and transform the Caribbean societal engines:

Economics
Security
Governance

All of these engines come under attack with this virus:

Economics – Visitors who may be pregnant or considering pregnancy are advised to stay away from the affected states: including 11 Caribbean member-states. For tourism, our primary economic driver, expect a “hit”, as honeymooners and newly-weds will be dissuaded to vacation in our region.
Security – Viruses and other epidemiological episodes are among the “bad actors” that can endanger a community. Any proactive or re-active security apparatus is required to be “on guard” against these threats.
Governance – The governance in the affected countries are now urging citizens to delay pregnancies. This disruption in the natural cycle of human procreation is a violation of the assumed Social Contract between governments (the State) and the citizens. The citizens are expecting the State to protect them … and stay out of their bedrooms (family-planning decisions).

This Zika issue is a major issue that has now come under the attention of major “alphabet” stakeholders, like the WHO (World Health Organization) and the CDC (America’s Center for Disease Control). See the heightened threat as conveyed by the New York Times in this news article here and in the Appendix-VIDEO below:

Title: Zika Virus ‘Spreading Explosively’ in Americas, W.H.O. Says
By: Sabrina Tavernise, NY Times

Officials from the World Health Organization said on Thursday that the Zika virus was “spreading explosively” in the Americas and announced that they would convene an emergency meeting on Monday to decide whether to declare a public health emergency.

“The level of alarm is extremely high,” said Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the W.H.O., in a speech in Geneva.

As many as three to four million people in the Americas could be exposed to the virus in the next 12 months, said Dr. Sylvain Aldighieri, a unit chief for the Pan American Health Organization.

“As I told you, we have big gaps in terms of confirmation of the real situation,” he said. “These are estimates. These are mathematical estimations.”

Of particular concern, Dr. Chan said, are the cases of microcephaly, a rare condition in which infants are born with abnormally small heads that has been rising dramatically in Brazil as Zika spreads. Experts say it is too early to tell whether Zika is the cause of the condition, but there are some indications that the two are linked.

The health authorities in Brazil said on Wednesday that reported cases of microcephaly had climbed to 4,180 since October, a 7 percent increase from the previous tally last week. Before the epidemic, Brazil recorded only about 150 cases of microcephaly a year.

That has caused widespread alarm because researchers say the virus arrived in Brazil only recently, with the huge jump in microcephaly cases reported by doctors, hospitals and other medical officials following closely in its wake.

But proving that Zika is the cause has been elusive.

“It’s really important to understand the difference between associations and causations,” said Dr. Bruce Aylward, a W.H.O. assistant director general, noting that there are still many questions about whether the Zika virus and microcephaly are linked.

The Brazilian health ministry said Wednesday that it had examined more than 700 reported cases of microcephaly and found Zika in only six of the infants — though what that means exactly is unclear . Infectious disease specialists caution that Brazil’s testing methods are outdated and may miss many Zika cases. They also say that in some cases, the mother may have had Zika, causing microcephaly in her baby, even if the virus is never detected in the infant.

The virus has spread to more than 20 countries and territories in the region. Dr. Chan said she was “deeply concerned about this rapidly evolving situation.” She also raised an alarm about the potential for further international spread of the virus, given how ubiquitous the mosquitoes that carry it are and how few people have developed immunity to it. The virus, which first surfaced in Uganda in the 1940s, had rarely been seen in the Americas.

“The level of concern is high, as is the level of uncertainty,” she said. “Questions abound. We need to get some answers quickly.”

Dr. Chan struck a tone of deep concern, but Dr. Aylward appeared to play down some of the most dire predictions about the disease.

“‘Concerned’ is certainly the right language to be used,” he said. “ ‘Alarmed’ would definitely not be the right language.”

Asked whether the W.H.O. would advise people not to travel to Brazil for the Olympics, he replied, “I would think that would be very, very unlikely when you look at areas affected and the scope of this.”

Some experts had criticized Dr. Chan for not immediately convening a committee to advise on whether to declare Zika a public health emergency. On Wednesday in the journal JAMA, two experts called for an immediate meeting, saying the hesitation on the part of the W.H.O. echoed the agency’s slow reaction at the outset of the Ebola epidemic in 2014.

“The very process of convening the committee would catalyze international attention, funding and research,” they wrote.

On Thursday morning, one of the authors, Dr. Daniel Lucey, an expert on global viral outbreaks at Georgetown University School of Medicine, said of the announcement, “I’m very, very happy.”

Dr. Chan said she would be asking the committee for advice on the “the appropriate level of international concern” and for what measures the W.H.O. should advise affected countries to take. She said she would also ask the committee to identify research priorities

One worry, Dr. Chan noted, is that there is no vaccine against the virus or a rapid diagnostic test to determine whether someone has been infected. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview this week that scientists at the National Institutes of Health were working on both.

“We are already on our way on the first steps to developing a vaccine,” he said. “And we have started to work on a diagnostic to tell if someone’s been infected.”

Other related articles:

Short Answers to Hard Questions About Zika Virus

Reports of Zika-linked Birth Defect Rise in Brazil

Zika Testing Is Urged for Some Newborns

What countries should pregnant women avoid?

About two dozen destinations mostly in the Caribbean, Central America and South America.

The Pan American Health Organization believes that the virus will spread locally in every country in the Americas except Canada and Chile. Here is the C.D.C.’s current list of countries and territories in which Zika virus is circulating. (Caribbean countries in RED italics)

The Caribbean
United States Virgin Islands
Barbados
Dominican Republic
Guadeloupe
Haiti
Martinique
Saint Martin

South America
Bolivia
Brazil
Colombia
Ecuador
French Guiana
Guyana
Paraguay
Suriname
Venezuela

Find the latest Travel Advisory updates here.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/health/what-is-zika-virus.html

Is there a responsible party who would champion this issue for the Caribbean region?

No.

But there is the need to fill this void in the region; there is the need for Caribbean leadership to address the needs of the whole Caribbean economic, security and governing eco-system. While there is no current solution, other than the WHO’s address and that of individual member-states, there is now a plan – better still, a roadmap to address the deficiencies.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as that roadmap; it posits that the Caribbean region must promote its own interest and protect its own citizens. We should not look to the WHO to micro-manage our day-to-day details; they have no concern for our touristic industry implications. It is not within their charter. Further, we should not count on the US to pursue the Greater Good for our Caribbean local, as their (CDC) travel advisory already endangers our economies, with no consultation with our tourism planners. (This is also not in the CDC’s charter). Assuredly, we must have our own preparation and response vehicle.

This is the charter of the Go Lean…Caribbean book.

The book urges the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), as a regional sentinel in the Caribbean, for the Caribbean. The complete prime directives of the CU is as follows:

Optimize the economic engines of the Caribbean to elevate the regional economy.
Establish a security apparatus for public safety assurances and to protect the economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

With issues like this, ugly elements of society always emerge: nationalistic self-interest, finger-pointing and bad politics. Talking-heads start to talk.

But this is a time for action, not talk. The biggest and best remediation is also a simple one: kill the affected mosquitoes.

This Go Lean/CU roadmap declares that “Crap happens” (Page 23). This immediately calls for the establishment of a Homeland Security Department, with an agency to practice the arts and sciences of Emergency Management. The emergencies include more than natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, flooding, forest fires, and droughts), they include the man-made variety (industrial accidents, oil spills, factory accidents, chemical spills, explosions, terroristic attacks, prison riots) and epidemic threats. Of course, this type of emergency, the Zika virus, described in the foregoing VIDEO/article, requires professional expertise, a medical discipline. Stopping Zika therefore would require a hybrid response of the Emergency Management agency and the CU’s Department of Health Disease Control & Management agency. This agency of Medical experts would help contend with systemic threats of epidemic illness and infectious diseases.

These stakeholders would be expected to kill mosquitoes. (A coordinated Rapid Response Team, seeking out mosquitoes breading grounds – still waters – and deploying appropriate pesticides).

The Go Lean roadmap immediately calls for the coordination of security monitoring and mitigation in the Caribbean; this point is declared early in the Go Lean book with a pronouncement in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12), as follows:

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. …[to ensure] the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

The Go Lean roadmap calls for the integration of the viral sentinel responsibility of the 30 Caribbean member-states, despite the 4 different languages and 5 colonial legacies (American, British, Dutch, French, Spanish) – notice the foregoing list of countries – into the CU Trade Federation with the tools/techniques to bring immediate change to the region to benefit one and all member-states. This includes the monitoring and epidemiology defense of common and emerging viruses. This empowered CU agency will liaison with foreign entities with the same scope, like the WHO, and the CDC.

Most importantly, the CU would coordinate the Caribbean brand and image promotion. The rest of the world need to know that we can kill mosquitoes, and cajoled our communities into action to mitigate all known threats; (i.e there is no travel advisory for Florida).

Since the CU roadmap leads with economic reforms, the primary economic driver of the region (tourism) would be a constant concern. The realization, or even the unsubstantiated rumor, of viral outbreaks can imperil the tourism product. We must therefore take proactive steps to protect our economic engines. So there are heavy responsibilities for the stewardship of the Caribbean economy, security and governing engines. The goal is to impact the Greater Good of the entire Caribbean region. The CU invites this role and promote it as a community ethos.

There should be no need for a travel advisory, or to ban pregnant women, or honeymooners or general vacationers.

We’ve got this!

The Go Lean book details the community ethos, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the region’s public health security in protection of the economy:

Community Ethos – Privacy versus Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 24
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Non-Sovereign “Unified” Proxy Entity	Page 45
Strategy – Customers – Residents & Visitors	Page 47
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Separation of Powers – Emergency Management	Page 76
Separation of Powers – Disease Control & Management	Page 86
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up	Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid	Page 115
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Image	Page 133
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices	Page 134
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare	Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management	Page 196

Previous Go Lean blog-commentaries have detailed the reality of viral management around the world, at different times in different locales. There is much for us to learn in the Caribbean. (As reported in the foregoing VIDEO, there are many similarities of Dengue, Yellow Fever and West Nile to this new Zika virus). See sample list here of previous blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4720	A Lesson in History – SARS in Hong Kong
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4111	Detroit-area Judge to Decide if Kids Need Vaccines
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2397	Stopping Ebola
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1003	Painful and rapid spread of new virus – Chikungunya – in Caribbean

There have also been previous Go Lean blog-commentaries that have addressed the economic and governance deficiencies in the Caribbean region, as related to this Zika issue. See here for a sample list of these types of blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6531	A Lesson in History – Book Review on ‘Exigent Circumstances’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6341	Tourism Stewardship — What’s Next?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5287	Book Review on Vaccines – ‘Thimerosal: Let The Science Speak’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002	Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4360	Dreading the ‘Caribbean Basin Security Initiative’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2105	Recessions and Public Health

An underlying goal of the Go Lean movement is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. While this roadmap includes a heavy focus on economics, the other areas for societal harmony – security and governance – must get due attention. Accepting the premise of “bad actors” inevitability means preparing counter-measures in earnest. We need a technocratic security apparatus for public safety and epidemiological crises. This is necessary to elevate our Caribbean homeland.

The entire region is hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap – the countries included on the above Travel Advisory list and the rest of the Caribbean – to fulfill the vision of securing our homeland. We can, and must do better.

We are bigger than mosquitoes, literally and figuratively. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean Now!

———-

Appendix – What is the Zika virus?

A tropical infection new to the Western Hemisphere.

The Zika virus is a mosquito-transmitted infection related to Dengue, Yellow Fever and West Nile virus. Although it was discovered in the Zika forest in Uganda in 1947 and is common in Africa and Asia, it did not begin spreading widely in the Western Hemisphere until last May, when an outbreak occurred in Brazil.

Until now, almost no one on this side of the world had been infected. Few of us have immune defenses against the virus, so it is spreading rapidly. Millions of people in tropical regions of the Americas may have had it.

———–

Appendix VIDEO – W.H.O. Speaks Out and Calls for A Conference – http://graphics8.nytimes.com/video/players/offsite/index.html?videoId=100000004173752

Published January 28, 2016 – Officials from the World Health Organization warned that the Zika virus was spreading “explosively” and called for an emergency meeting to address it. – REUTERS.

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ENCORE: State of the Caribbean Union

Posted on January 12, 2016 in Government, Planning

Miami, Florida – The below constitutes a re-distribution of the blog-commentary on the US President’s formal address to his Congress, the State of the Union for 2015. The occasion now is the State of the Union address for 2016. This time is monumental in that it is the final address for the current President, Barack Obama; due to term restrictions in the US Constitution, he can no longer serve as President after this year. The election for his successor is slated for November 2016.

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Go Lean Commentary

You are invited to watch the State of the Union address that President Barack Obama delivered to the US Congress on Tuesday night (January 20, 2015). You are urged to listen carefully and count the number of times the Caribbean is referred to. The answer:

Once!

The reference to the restoration of diplomatic relations with Cuba.

That’s it!

(The Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is a perpetual leased US territory; so it will not count as Caribbean-specific).

No reference to the US Territories (Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands); no reference to the Dutch Caribbean; nor to the French Caribbean; and especially not to the English-speaking Caribbean member-states.

The truth of the matter is that the Caribbean is out-of-scope for Obama. It was the State of the Union of the United States of America. Not the State of the Caribbean Union. Even the US territories have to be concerned. They have a voice in the US Congress, but no vote. (A lesson in American Civics teaches that territories have Congressional representation that can vote in committees, but not vote in full Congress).

So all the President’s focus on job creation, energy independence, growing the economy, controlling healthcare costs, securing the homeland, and optimizing government was directed to his American constituency and not to the Caribbean member-states.

VIDEO Title: The State of the Union (SOTU) 2015 – http://youtu.be/cse5cCGuHmE
Watch President Obama’s 1-hour remarks during his 6^th SOTU address and learn more below.

Published on Jan 20, 2015
President Barack Obama delivers his sixth State of the Union address, at the United States Capitol, January 20, 2015.

We, the Caribbean, are required to focus on the State of our own Union.

The people, the 320 million Americans, elect a President to pursue their best interest, not the world’s best interest. Though the US tries to be a Good Neighbor, there may be times when the priorities of the US conflict with the priorities of the Caribbean, or the rest of the world. In those scenarios, the President is under charge to pursue the American best option.

The 42 million people of the Caribbean homeland are not in his scope!

The foregoing VIDEO and this commentary is being brought into focus in a consideration of the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society. 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 protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book (Page 3) makes a simple assertion regarding the State of our Union: the Caribbean is in crisis. The book details that there is something wrong in the homeland, that while it is the greatest address in the world, instead of the world “beating a path” to these doors, the people of the Caribbean have “beat down their doors” to get out.

Why do people leave? The book identifies a numberof reasons, classified as “push-and-pull”. There are economic (jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities), security and governance issues.

One mission of the Go Lean roadmap is to minimize these “push-and-pull” factors that contribute to this alarmingly high abandonment rate of Caribbean citizens – one report reflects a 70% brain drain rate.

Considering “pull” factors, the roadmap posits that the United States of America should not be viewed as the panacea for Caribbean ailments; that when the choice of any challenge is “fight or flight” that Caribbean society must now consider anew, the “fight” options. (No violence is implied, but rather a strenuous effort, heavy-lifting, to compete and win economic battles). One strong reason for cautioning Caribbean emigrants is that America is not so welcoming a society for the “Black and Brown” populations from the Caribbean. This was not addressed by Obama; he has to address the needs of all Americans – not just “Black and Brown” – racial discrimination have not been as high a priority among his initiatives, to the chagrin of many in the African-American communities, including the Caribbean Diaspora.

On the other hand, the Go Lean book does not ignore the “push” factors that cause many Caribbean people to flee. The book stresses (early at Pages 12 – 13) the need to be on-guard for “push” factors in these pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence:

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

xx. Whereas the results of our decades of migration created a vibrant Diaspora in foreign lands, the Federation must organize interactions with this population into structured markets. Thus allowing foreign consumption of domestic products, services and media, which is a positive trade impact. These economic activities must not be exploited by others’ profiteering but rather harnessed by Federation resources for efficient repatriations.

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

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

This commentary previously related details of Caribbean emigration and their experiences (Diaspora), the “push-and-pull” factors in the US, and our region’s own job-creation efforts – State of Our Own Union. Here is a sample of earlier blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3780	National Sacrifice: The Missing Ingredient – Caribbean people not willing to die or live in sacrifice to their homeland
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3694	Jamaica-Canada employment program pumps millions into local economy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3662	Migrant flow into US from Caribbean spikes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3446	Forecast for higher unemployment in Caribbean in 2015
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3050	Obama’s immigration tweaks – Bad for the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2547	Miami’s Success versus Caribbean Failure
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2251	What’s In A Name? Plight of “Black and Brown” in the US
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1896	American “Pull” Factors – Crisis in Black Homeownership
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1698	American “Pull” Factors – STEM Jobs Are Filling Slowly
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1596	Book Review: ‘Prosper Where You Are Planted’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433	Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to Brain-Drain
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1296	Remittances to Caribbean Increased By 3 Percent in 2013
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1256	Traditional 4-year College Degree are Terrible Investments for the Caribbean Region Due to Brain-Drain

The Go Lean book and accompanying blogs posit that for the Caribbean Diaspora, fleeing from their homelands to reside in the US is akin to “jumping from the frying pan into the fire” in terms of effort to succeed and thrive in a community. The message of the Go Lean movement is that it takes less effort to remediate the Caribbean than to fix a new adopted homeland. While the Go Lean planners may not be able to change American society, we can – no, we must – impact our own society. This is the charge of the Go Lean…Caribbean roadmap, to do the heavy-lifting, to implement the organization dynamics to impact Caribbean society here and now. The following are the community ethos, strategies, tactics and operational advocacies to effectuate this goal:

Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influences Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choice Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Negotiations	Page 32
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Make the Caribbean the Best Address on Planet	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Repatriate Diaspora	Page 46
Strategy – Mission – Dissuade Human Flight/“Brain Drain”	Page 46
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Union versus Member-States	Page 71
Implementation – Assemble CariCom, Dutch, French, Cuba and US Territories	Page 95
Implementation – Enact Territorial Compacts for PR & the Virgin Islands	Page 96
Implementation – Foreign Policy Initiatives at Start-up	Page 102
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Implementation – Ways to Promote Independence	Page 120
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean	Page 127
Planning – Lessons from the US Constitution	Page 145
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Cuba	Page 236
Advocacy – Ways to Impact US Territories	Page 244
Appendix – Interstate Compacts	Page 278

This Go Lean book accepts that the current State of Our Own Union is not a permanent disposition. We can do better. This roadmap is a 5-year plan to effect change, to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. From Day One/Step One, positive change emerges. The roadmap therefore serves as turn-by-turn directions for what-how-when-where-why to apply the needed remediation, mitigations and empowerments.

The scope of this roadmap is change for the Caribbean, not change for American society – though there is the need for some lobbying of American authorities for Interstate/Foreign Compacts (Page 278).

That’s lobbying, not begging…

As for the Caribbean US territories – the great American Empire – having a voice, but no vote is disadvantageous. A Congressman from Nebraska would not negotiate with a Congressman from Puerto Rico because there is no vote to offer, compromise or “horse-trade”. American territories are therefore just traditional colonies, parasites and subjective to their imperial masters.

The Caribbean strives to be protégés, no parasites! We can be the world’s best address. How glorious the day when we can declare that as the State of the Caribbean Union!

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in to this Go Lean … Caribbean roadmap. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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