Tag: Transform

Toxic Environment – Make the Caribbean Great (Anew)

Make America Great Again!

When candidate Donald Trump emerged in 2015 with this campaign slogan, one question that so many observers asked was:

When was America Great the first time?

So then, perhaps the Greatness that America had – that Trump reminisced about – was only for a limited scope for people that were:

White, Male, Straight, Rich, Able-bodied

There are lessons from this fallacious historic summary that we can learn in the Caribbean.

Was there ever a time that our 30 member-states (individually or collectively) would have been considered as Great societies?

The consensus answer is No! Just the opposite, we have always suffered from Toxic Environments; from discovery to slavery to colonization to American parasite status.

So a campaign slogan for the Caribbean member-states (individually or collectively) could now be:

Make the Caribbean Great (Anew)

This is the completion of this Teaching Series from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean, related to Toxic Environments. The book asserts that with the adoption of certain community ethos and the execution of certain strategies, tactics and implementation, our communities can reach a destination of Greatness.

Every month, the Go Lean movement presents a Teaching Series to address issues germane to Caribbean life and culture. For this month of September 2020, we were looking at the actuality of persecuted minorities and stagnated economies in the homeland. Our Toxic Environment have curtailed the opportunities for many people to live, work and play at home; so they have been compelled to seek refuge abroad.  This is entry 6-of-6; it presents the thesis that “without attempts towards greatness” our neighborhoods and workplaces just become more-and-more Toxic. There is no standing still in this fast moving world. There is only one choice, do the heavy-lifting to Make the Caribbean Great or watch the eventual abandonment of our society – drip by drip.

Consider here, the full catalog of the series this month:

  1. Toxic Environment: Ready for Football – Washington “Redskins”
  2. Toxic Environment: Homophobia – The problem is the Hate, not the Fear – Encore
  3. Toxic Environment: Opposite of Diversity & Inclusion
  4. Toxic Environment: Lessons from Yugoslavia
  5. Toxic Environment: Ease of Doing Business
  6. Toxic Environment: Make the Caribbean Great (Anew) – Encore

The Go Lean book, serving as a roadmap for the introduction of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), asserts that Caribbean stakeholders must do the heavy-lifting to remediate our Toxic Environments, and them keep pushing forward to foster a Great Society. The purpose of the Go Lean roadmap is to optimize the economic, security and governing engines of society. The end result must be that we retain people in-country and maybe even entice the Diaspora to return. The purpose of these past entries in this month’s Teaching Series was to reinforce the foundation of Caribbean society. We must reform and transform. Yes, we can!

How do we Make the Caribbean Great?

No seriously!

How? Not just talking the talk – the campaign slogan – but walking the walk. Is this destination of Greatness really conceivable, believable and achievable?

We have addressed this question before and answered it accordingly.

There is a formula for moving from “Good to Great”.

This subject was thoroughly addressed in a previous Go Lean commentary from March 2, 2016; it analyzed the book by Jim Collins: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t.

Since that 2016 date, we have published a few additional commentaries that presented strategies, tactics and implementations to pursue greatness, or chronicled goodness. Consider this sample list of previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20551 Naomi Osaka: A Good Sport – On and Off the Court
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20371 Success – and a Great Society – looks like New Zealand
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20363 A Good Pandemic Playbook: Bubble Strategy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20203 Pluralism is the goal for a Great Caribbean Society
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20180 A Good Start for Reforming Black Image: Corporate Reboots
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19835 Good Leadership: Example – “Leader of the Free World”?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19831 Good Leadership: Next Generation of ‘Agile’ Project Delivery
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18749 A Great Place to Work – Global Auto Conglomerate: Mercedes-Benz
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16002 Good Governance: Good Corporate Compliance; JPMChase Model
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15479 ‘Lean Is’ as ‘Lean Does’ – Good Project Management
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11386 Building Better Cities – Reform the cities; then reform the country

It is only apropos to Encore the original blog-commentary from March 2016; see that here now:

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Go Lean Commentary Going from ‘Good to Great’

caribbean_viewThe Caribbean is arguably the greatest address on the planet.

So declares the book Go Lean…Caribbean. This not only refers to terrain, but also culture (music, food, festivals, fun, etc.) and hospitality. Despite these arguable facts, the societal engines in the Caribbean (economy, security, and governance) are NOT great; in some cases, they may not even be considered “good”, as we do feature a few Failed-States in the region.

For the sake of this commentary, we give every Caribbean member-state a scholarship and assume they are “good”. Now how do we go from “Good to Great”?

The book Go Lean…Caribbean represents a quest to make the Caribbean a Great place to live, work and play. But there is actually a formula to making a society (or company/organization) great, as opposed to just being good. Below is the book review and accompanying VIDEO of the landmark publication by writer – see Appendix – and management consultant Jim Collins:

Book Title: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t
Executive Summary

CU Blog - Going from Good to Great - Photo 1Jim Collins, already established as one of the most influential management consultants, further established his credibility with the wildly popular Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t, originally published in 2001. The book went on to be one of the bestsellers in the genre, and it is now widely regarded as a modern classic of management theory.

Collins takes up a daunting challenge in the book: identifying and evaluating the factors and variables that allow a small fraction of companies to make the transition from merely good to truly great. ‘Great,’ an admittedly subjective term, is operationally defined according to a number of metrics, including, specifically, financial performance that exceeded the market average by several orders of magnitude over a sustained period of time. Using these criteria, Collins and his research team exhaustively catalogued the business literature, identifying a handful of companies that fulfilled their predetermined criteria for greatness. Then, the defining characteristics that differentiated these ‘great’ firms from their competitors were quantified and analyzed.

The resulting data are presented in Good to Great in compelling detail. Over the course of 9 chapters, Collins addresses a number of management, personnel, and operational practices, behaviors, and attitudes that are both conducive and antithetical to the good-to-great transition. One overarching theme that links together virtually all of Collins’ arguments is the need to define a narrowly focused objective and field of competency and then focus all of the company’s resources toward that area of strength. Repeatedly, Collins warns that straying too far from a company’s established strengths is inimical to the attainment of greatness. Finally, Collins links the findings of Good to Great to the conclusions he reached in his previous book, Built to Last, which focused on the factors that define companies that survive in the long-term, meshing both sets of results into an overarching framework for enduring success.

Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1: Good is the Enemy of Great

The first chapter of the book lays out the criteria that Collins and his research team used in selecting the companies that served as the basis of the meta-analysis that provided the findings set forth in the book. The most important factor in the selection process was a period of growth and sustained success that far outpaced the market or industry average. Based on the stated criteria, the companies that were selected for inclusion were Abbott, Fannie Mae, Circuit City, Gillette, Kimberly-Clark, Kroger, Nucor, Philip Morris, Pitney Bowes, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo.

Collins also offers a few of the most significant findings gleaned from the study. Of particular note are the many indications that factors such as CEO compensation, technology, mergers and acquisitions, and change management initiatives played relatively minor roles in fostering the Good to Great process. Instead, Collins found that successes in three main areas, which he terms disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action, were likely the most significant factors in determining a company’s ability to achieve greatness.

Chapter 2: Level 5 Leadership

In this chapter, Collins begins the process of identifying and further explicating the unique factors and variables that differentiate good and great companies. One of the most significant differences, he asserts, is the quality and nature of leadership in the firm. Collins goes on to identify “Level 5 leadership” as a common characteristic of the great companies assessed in the study. This type of leadership forms the top level of a 5-level hierarchy that ranges from merely competent supervision to strategic executive decision-making.

By further studying the behaviors and attitudes of so-called Level 5 leaders, Collins found that many of those classified in this group displayed an unusual mix of intense determination and profound humility. These leaders often have a long-term personal sense of investment in the company and its success, often cultivated through a career-spanning climb up the company’s ranks. The personal ego and individual financial gain are not as important as the long-term benefit of the team and the company to true Level 5 leaders. As such, Collins asserts that the much-touted trend of bringing in a celebrity CEO to turn around a flailing firm is usually not conducive to fostering the transition from Good to Great.

Chapter 3: First Who, Then What

The next factor that Collins identifies as part of the Good to Great process is the nature of the leadership team. Specifically, Collins advances the concept that the process of securing high-quality, high-talent individuals with Level 5 leadership abilities must be undertaken before an overarching strategy can be developed. With the right people in the right positions, Collins contends that many of the management problems that plague companies and sap valuable resources will automatically dissipate. As such, he argues, firms seeking to make the Good to Great transition may find it worthwhile to expend extra energy and time on personnel searches and decision-making.

Collins also underscores the importance of maintaining rigorousness in all personnel decisions. He recommends moving potentially failing employees and managers to new positions, but not hesitating to remove personnel who are not actively contributing. He also recommends that hiring should be delayed until an absolutely suitable candidate has been identified. Hewing to both of these guidelines, Collins claims, will likely save time, effort, and resources in the long-term.

Chapter 4: Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith)

Another key element of some companies’ unique ability to make the transition from Good to Great is the willingness to identify and assess defining facts in the company and in the larger business environment. In today’s market, trends in consumer preferences are constantly changing, and the inability to keep apace with these changes often results in company failure. Using the example of an extended comparative analysis of Kroger and A & P, Collins observes that Kroger recognized the trend towards modernization in the grocery industry and adjusted its business model accordingly, although doing so required a complete transformation of the company and its stores. A & P, on the other hand, resisted large-scale change, and thus guaranteed its own demise.

Collins outlines a four-step process to promote awareness of emerging trends and potential problems: 1) Lead with questions, not answers; 2) Engage in dialogue and debate, not coercion; 3) Conduct autopsies without blame; and 4) Build red flag mechanisms that turn information into information that cannot be ignored.

Chapter 5: The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity Within the Three Circles)

In this chapter, Collins uses the metaphor of the hedgehog to illustrate the seemingly contradictory principle that simplicity can sometimes lead to greatness. When confronted by predators, the hedgehog’s simple but surprisingly effective response is to roll up into a ball. While other predators, such as the fox, may be impressively clever, few can devise a strategy that is effective enough to overcome the hedgehog’s simple, repetitive response.

Similarly, Collins asserts, the way to make the transformation from Good to Great is often not doing many things well, but instead, doing one thing better than anyone else in the world. It may take time to identify the single function that will be a particular firm’s “hedgehog concept,” but those who do successfully identify it are often rewarded with singular success. In order to help expedite this process, Collins suggests using the following three criteria: 1) Determine what you can be best in the world at and what you cannot be best in the world at; 2) Determine what drives your economic engine; and 3) Determine what you are deeply passionate about.

Chapter 6: A Culture of Discipline

Another defining characteristic of the companies that Collins defined as great in his study was an overarching organizational culture of discipline. He is quick to point out that a culture of discipline is not to be confused with a strict authoritarian environment; instead, Collins is referring to an organization in which each manager and staff member is driven by an unrelenting inner sense of determination. In this type of organization, each individual functions as an entrepreneur, with a deeply rooted personal investment in both their own work and the company’s success.

Although this discipline will manifest itself in a high standard of quality in the work that is produced by managers and employees alike, its most significant outcome will be an almost fanatical devotion to the objectives outlined in the “hedgehog concept” exercises. Disciplined workers will be better equipped to hew to these goals with a single-minded intensity that, according to Collins, will foster the transformation from merely Good to Great. In addition, the author asserts, it is important that within this overarching culture of discipline, every team member is afforded the degree of personal empowerment and latitude that is necessary to ensure that they will be able to go to unheard-of extremes to bring the firm’s envisioned objectives into existence.

Chapter 7: Technology Accelerators

Today, many businesses have come to depend upon technology to increase efficiency, reduce overhead, and maximize competitive advantage. However, Collins cautions that technology should not be regarded as a potential panacea for all that ails a company. The folly of this kind of thinking was revealed in the aftermath of the crash of the tech bubble in the early 2000s. The market correction threw into sharp relief the differences between sustainable uses of the Internet to extend established businesses and ill-planned, unviable online start-ups.

Collins contends that the good-to-great companies approach the prospect of new and emerging technologies with the same prudence and careful deliberation that characterizes all of their other business decisions. Further, these companies tend to apply technology in a manner that is reflective of their “hedgehog concepts” — typically by selecting and focusing solely upon the development of a few technologies that are fundamentally compatible with their established strengths and objectives. Collins characterizes the ideal approach to technology with the following cycle: “Pause — Think — Crawl — Walk — Run.”

Chapter 8: The Flywheel and the Doom Loop

In this chapter, Collins describes two cycles that demonstrate the way that business decisions tend to accumulate incrementally in either an advantageous or a disadvantageous manner. Both, the author emphasizes, accrue over time. Despite the popular misperception that business success or failure often occurs suddenly, Collins asserts that it more typically occurs over the course of years, and that both only transpire after sufficient positive or negative momentum has been accrued.

Collins describes the advantageous business cycle that, in some cases, can foster the transition from Good to Great as “the flywheel effect.” By making decisions and taking actions that reinforce and affirm the company’s “hedgehog” competencies, executives initiate positive momentum. This, in turn, results in the accumulation of tangible positive outcomes, which serve to energize and earn the investment and loyalty of the staff. This revitalization of the team serves to further build momentum. If the cycle continues to repeat in this manner, the transition from Good to Great is likely to transpire. In contrast, the doom loop is characterized by reactive decision-making, an overextension into too many diverse areas of concentration, following short-lived trends, frequent changes in leadership and personnel, loss of morale, and disappointing results.

Chapter 9: From Good to Great to Built to Last

In the concluding chapter of Good to Great, Collins makes a connection between this book and his previous work, Built to Last, which represented the findings of a six-year study into the factors that determined whether a new company would survive in the long-term. First and foremost, Collins contends that companies need a set of core values in order to achieve the kind of long-term, sustainable success that may lead to greatness. Companies need to exist for a higher purpose than mere profit generation in order to transcend the category of merely good. According to Collins, this purpose does not have to be specific — even if the shared values that compel the company toward success are as open-ended as being the best at what they do and achieving excellence consistently, that may be sufficient as long as the team members are equally dedicated to the same set of values.

Although many of the conclusions of both of the books overlap, Collins notes that Good to Great should not be seen as the follow-up to Built to Last, which focuses on sustaining success in the long-term. Instead, Good to Great actually functions as the prequel to Built to Last. First, a company should focus on developing the foundation that is necessary to work toward greatness. Then, they can begin to apply the principles of longevity that are set forth in Built to Last.
Source: Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia’s Wiki-Summaries – Retrieved 03/02/2016 –
http://www.wikisummaries.org/Good_to_Great:_Why_Some_Companies_Make_the_Leap…_and Others_Don’t

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VIDEO: Video Review for ‘Good To Great by Jim Collins’https://youtu.be/Yk7bzZjOXaM

Published on Aug 16, 2013 – Employee Engagement with http://callibrain.com

This is video review for the book Good To Great by Jim Collins, produced by Callibrain, employee engagement through social collaboration and execution discipline.
To buy the book click here – http://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Comp
Category: Education
License: Standard YouTube License

CU Blog - Going from Good to Great - Photo 2The talk of societal greatness is en vogue right now. This is election season in the United States and one candidate for President, Donald J. Trump, pledges to “Make America Great Again”; see photo here.

Greatness also aligns with other empowerment efforts, like the advocacy championed by the Great Place to Work® Institute.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean stresses the need to create a great society of all of the Caribbean. It serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation for the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). As a federation or federal government, there will be the need to pursue greatness organizationally to benefit all stakeholders (residents, Diaspora, visitors, trading partners, etc.). There is also the need to employ and empower a Civil Service workforce; this labor pool is projected to be only 30,000 people, thusly embracing lean (or agile) delivery methodologies. So all the references in the foregoing regarding organization, enterprise, company and/or firm could apply directly and indirectly to the CU Trade Federation.

Yet, these federal civil servants are not the only focus of the Go Lean/CU roadmap. The prime directives of this roadmap covers these 3 focus areas:

  • 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.

With the success of this roadmap, the Caribbean region will be enabled to go from Good to Great! With confidence now, we can truly declare that “A Change Is Gonna Come“.

But any change must be permanent! The Go Lean book declares that for permanent change to take place, there must first be an adoption of new community ethos, the national spirit that drives the character and identity of its people. The roadmap was constructed with the following community ethos in mind, plus the execution of strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to move from Good to Great. The following is a sample of these specific details from the book:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – 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 – Incubators Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development Page 30
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
Anecdote – LCD versus an Entrepreneurial Ethos Page 39
Strategy – Mission – Build and foster local economic engines Page 45
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union Page 63
Tactical –  Separation of Powers: Federal Administration versus Member-States Governance Page 71
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better – Live, Work and Play Empowerments Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance in the Caribbean Region Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Manage Federal Civil Service Page 173
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications – Improve the Messaging Page 186
Advocacy – Ways Impact Main Street Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights Page 220
Advocacy – Ways to Help the Middle Class Page 223
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Urban Living Page 234
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Rural Living Page 235

The Go Lean/CU roadmap identifies, qualifies and proposes the establishment of technocratic administration throughout the region to impact all societal engines.

Previously, Go Lean blogs commented on developments – in the public sector and also with industrial and entrepreneurial endeavors – showing the success of aspiring to be better and do better. Consider this sample:

Blink Health: The Cure for High Drug Prices
Oil Refineries – Strategy for Advanced Economics
Addressing and Fixing High Consumer Prices
Movie Review: ‘Tomorrowland’ – ‘Feed the right wolf’ in Society
Better than America? Yes, We Can!
‘Change the way you see the world; you change the world you see’
How One Entrepreneur Can Rally a Whole Community
Making a Great Place to Work®
Book Review: ‘Prosper Where You Are Planted’
Book Review: ‘Citizenville – Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government’

Now is the time for all Caribbean stakeholders, employees in the public and private sectors, to lean-in to this regional solution – the Go Lean roadmap – for the Caribbean to go from Good to Great. While a good homeland may seem satisfactory, we now see that satisfactory is not good enough – we lose too many of our citizens as they flee to foreign shores for refuge.

The desired destination is not “good”, but rather “great”. We want to make the Caribbean a Great place to live, work and play.   🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Appendix – Bibliography of Jim Collins

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Toxic Environment – Ease of Doing Business

Go Lean Commentary

Peace and Prosperity

This is what we want – it is just that simple – to live harmoniously with our neighbors while we provide for ourselves and our loved-ones. But this is not so automatic! There must be empowerments and protections in the societal engines to allow citizens to obtain these goals. Failures in the delivery of these empowerments and protections will create chaos, dysfunctions, Toxic Environments and even:

Failed-States

If we do nothing, the end result is a Failed-State.

If we do the wrong things … Failed-State. This has been the focus of this current series on remediating Toxic Environments.

So societal stakeholders must be a part of the solution; they must help … for the sake of Peace and Prosperity.

When there is a lack of Peace and Prosperity, a Toxic Environment can easily emerge. Let’s focus now on Prosperity. That means there must be a solution for jobs (full-time and gigs), entrepreneurial and investment opportunities. This is the focus on this commentary, the means for prosperity. The same effort we put on promoting  Peace must also be put on fostering Prosperity. Without the opportunity for citizens to live prosperously, the environment becomes Toxic.

We do not want Toxic Environments … anymore.

In fact, this has been the focus of this Teaching Series from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean – which serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This roadmap asserts that Caribbean economic, security (Public Safety) and governing stakeholders must all work hand-in-hand to remediate our Toxic Environments. Every month, the movement behind the Go Lean book presents these Teaching Series to address issues germane to Caribbean life and culture. For this month of September 2020, this is entry 5-of-6, we are looking at how to improve the homeland so that our citizens can prosper where they are planted; all citizens, not just some privileged few and definitely be On Guard for any discrimination against a persecuted minority.

As alluded here, a lack of opportunities for the masses, or limitation of opportunities to a privileged few only, or blatant discrimination to persecuted minorities trying to participate in the economic eco-system describe the Toxic Environment that we currently suffer here in the Caribbean. The end result of such Toxic Environment is inexcusable human flight due to these Push and Pull dynamics:

  • “Push” refers to people who feel compelled to leave, to seek refuge in a foreign land. “Refuge” is an appropriate word; because of societal defects, many from the Caribbean must leave as refugees – think LGBTDisabilityDomestic-abuseMedically-challenged – for their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
  • “Pull”, on the other hand refers to the lure of a more prosperous life abroad; many times our people are emigrating for societies that have better expressions of the rights for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.

Toxic Environments have a direct correlation to Push and Pull dynamics. We need to always monitor these factors and societal defects. This is the purpose of this month’s Teaching Series. Consider here, the full catalog of the series this month:

  1. Toxic Environment: Ready for Football – Washington “Redskins”
  2. Toxic Environment: Homophobia – The problem is the Hate, not the Fear
  3. Toxic Environment: Opposite of Diversity & Inclusion
  4. Toxic Environment: Lessons from Yugoslavia
  5. Toxic Environment: Ease of Doing Business
  6. Toxic Environment: Make the Caribbean Great (Anew)

The subject of prosperity versus Toxic Environment is a concern for the stewards of the new Caribbean – promoters of the CU Trade Federation, and also for the United Nations-backed financial institution, the World Bank. In fact, the World Bank produces an Annual Ranking of all participating countries for the assessment of the Ease of Doing Business. This ranking measures the success-failure of National Governments to facilitate the creation of new businesses and expansion by existing businesses.

Yes, it can be measured.

Some reporting Nation-States do it better than others.

The ones that fail, create a Toxic Environment for those trying to improve prosperity in their homeland. These failures and the Toxic Environments push good people to flee and leave for “greener pastures”.

See the summary of the 2020 Ease of Doing Business Report here; (notice, New Zealand is #1):

Title: World Bank – Ease of Doing Business Ranking
Overview
Doing Business 2020, a World Bank Group flagship publication, is the 17th in a series of annual studies measuring the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 190 economies—from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe—and over time.

Doing Business covers 12 areas of business regulation. Ten of these areasstarting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvencyare included in the ease of doing business score and ease of doing business ranking. Doing Business also measures regulation on employing workers and contracting with the government, which are not included in the ease of doing business score and ranking.

By documenting changes in regulation in 12 areas of business activity in 190 economies, Doing Business analyzes regulation that encourages efficiency and supports freedom to do business. The data collected by Doing Business address three questions about government. First, when do governments change regulation with a view to developing their private sector? Second, what are the characteristics of reformist governments? Third, what are the effects of regulatory change on different aspects of economic or investment activity? Answering these questions adds to our knowledge of development.

Data in Doing Business 2020 are current as of May 1, 2019.

Main findings:

  • Doing Business captures 294 regulatory reforms implemented between May 2018 and May 2019. Worldwide, 115 economies made it easier to do business.
  • The economies with the most notable improvement in Doing Business 2020 are Saudi ArabiaJordanTogoBahrainTajikistanPakistanKuwaitChinaIndia and Nigeria. In 2018/19, these countries implemented one-fifth of all the reforms recorded worldwide.
  • Economies in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean continue to lag in terms of reforms. Only two Sub-Saharan African economies rank in the top 50 on the ease of doing business; no Latin American economies rank in this group.
  • Doing Business 2020 continues to show a steady convergence between developing and developed economies, especially in the area of business incorporation. Since 2003/04, 178 economies have implemented 722 reforms captured by the starting a business indicator set, either reducing or eliminating barriers to entry.
  • Those economies that score well on Doing Business tend to benefit from higher levels of entrepreneurial activity and lower levels of corruption.
  • While economic reasons are the main drivers of reform, the advancement of neighboring economies provides an additional impetus for regulatory change.
  • Twenty-six economies became less business-friendly, introducing 31 regulatory changes that stifle efficiency and quality of regulation.

Source: See the Full 149 Page Report retrieved September 26, 2020 from: https://www.doingbusiness.org/en/reports/global-reports/doing-business-2020

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Click on Photo to Enlarge

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VIDEO – Tracking the “Ease of Doing Business” Around the World – https://youtu.be/NvwOzxR2lf0

World Bank
Posted October 31, 2017 – To learn more: http://wrld.bg/29Na30genKg

It takes global entrepreneurs significantly less time to start businesses, obtain construction permits and transfer property, making many developing countries more competitive. The World Bank’s latest Doing Business report says worldwide unemployment could be eased if countries continue to cut red tape and promote business-friendly policies. #DoingBiz

Innovation comes from innovators. Every community have innovative people, but not all communities foster opportunities. Governments can streamline the business creation-expansion process with incubators and optimized regulations. Consider this Case Study of former US President Jimmy Carter’s policies that created the now hot micro-brewery industry in the United States:

In 1920, due to Prohibitionbreweries across the United States were closed down or began making malt for other purposes. The Homebrewing of beer with an alcohol content higher than 0.5% remained illegal until 1978 when Congress passed a bill repealing Federal restrictions and excise taxes,[8] and President Jimmy Carter signed the bill, H.R. 1337, into law.[9] Within months of homebrewing’s full legalization, Charlie Papazian founded the Brewers Association and American Homebrewers Association. – Source: Homebrewing

In 1979, Carter deregulated the American beer industry by making it legal to sell malthops, and yeast to American home brewers for the first time since the effective 1920 beginning of Prohibition in the United States.[156] This Carter deregulation led to an increase in home brewing over the 1980s and 1990s that by the 2000s had developed into a strong craft microbrew culture in the United States, with 6,266 micro breweries, brewpubs, and regional craft breweries in the United States by the end of 2017.[157]Source: Jimmy Carter

“Prosper where planted” – Yes, we can …

This idea and prospect of “prospering where planted” is important to the movement behind the Go Lean book. In fact, this subject was stressed in a previous Go Lean commentary; see this summary:

So how do we prosper where we’re planted? While this is a simple question (based on the Bible principle of Psalms 1:3), the answer is more complex. …

… the Go Lean roadmap uses cutting-edge delivery of best practices to employ strategies, tactics and implementations to impact its prime directives; identified with the following 3 statements:

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

The successful execution of these directives will allow Caribbean stakeholders to prosper, while remaining as residents in their homeland. The Go Lean book seeks to optimize the entire Caribbean economic/security/governance eco-system to reach this goal.

[There needs to be] a “Hustling” Attitude, [which the Go Lean book describes as an] Entrepreneurial Ethos (Page 28).

The Go Lean movement had previously presented more blog-commentaries on the subject of fostering prosperity. See a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20371 Success Looks like New Zealand
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19189 Brains are already here; now to bring in the opportunities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17358 There could be a “Marshall Plan” for Prosperity
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16000 Better Balance of Regulations or Laissez-faire creates Economic Growth
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10043 Integration Plan for Greater Caribbean Prosperity
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5034 Patents and IP Protections: The Guardians of Innovation

We have good ideas … that will create jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities. Imagine the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics/Medical (STEM) fields and all those innovative ideas. Under this Go Lean roadmap, there will now be new stewards in Caribbean society to foster Research & Development. Economic activities will flourish … not just for the STEM participants (High Tech), but many down-line positions as well: Low Tech and No Tech.

The Go Lean roadmap introduces other strategies as well, like Infrastructure projects, Exclusive Economic Zones, Self-Governing Entities and Public-Private Partnerships. These strategies will reboot the industrial landscape in the region.

2.2 million new jobs is conceivable, believable and achievable.

This is what we must do: Mitigate Toxic Environments and foster prosperous homelands.

Let’s do this – let’s make our homelands better places to live, work and play.  🙂

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

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

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14):

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

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

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

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.

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

xxviii. Whereas intellectual property can easily traverse national borders, the rights and privileges of intellectual property must be respected at home and abroad. The Federation must install protections to ensure that no abuse of these rights go with impunity, and to ensure that foreign authorities enforce the rights of the intellectual property registered in our region.

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

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Toxic Environment – Opposite of ‘Diversity & Inclusion’

Go Lean Commentary

Picture this:

You spend $2,000 per night for accommodations for your Caribbean vacation.
You go to bed, only to be awaken by a fuzzing noise outside. You pull back the curtains and there it is:

  • A burning cross erected outside your window!

How long before you want to leave?
Will you ever return?
Will you tell your friends to come visit or stay away?
Why this persecution?

  • The guest in this scenario is a known Gay Man (LGBT), or …
  • The guest in this scenario is a foreigner from Wuhan, China, or …
  • The guest in this scenario is a Muslim from Dubai, in the Middle East.

This describes the Toxic Environment that we suffer here in the Caribbean. The 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean, serving as a roadmap for the introduction of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), asserts that Caribbean economic, security (Public Safety) and governing stakeholders must work to mitigate and remediate our societal defects.

Despite the mono-industrial landscape of tourism, where we need to be inviting and hospitable to all visitors, many times we have chosen the opposite instead, to be: intolerant and judgmental. We give in, on a daily basis to:

This is not theory or conjecture; these intolerance, condemnations and judgments have happened and are happening … repeatedly.

Opponents of a gay rights bill gather in Guyana in 2003. (AP)

People march during a protest against gay rights in
Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, July 26, 2020.
The group marched demanding that President Jovenel Moise
rescind his most recent decree that rewrites the 185-year-old penal code,
addressing discrimination based on sexual orientation. Dieu Nalio Chery AP

 

Jamaican Anti-Gay Rally to Oppose Same-Sex Marriage, Even Though No One Has Proposed It

A previous Go Lean commentary from April 8, 2017 identified this example of our severe Caribbean Toxicity. Consider this summary:

‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’ – Leaders Undermine Tourism
… there is no war in the Caribbean, but we do have battles. We have trade wars and economic struggles to try and maintain our way of life and to improve it. For so many of our countries, tourism is the primary economic driver – our regional ship – we have to be on guard and aware of any kind of disparaging talk that can undermine the appeal of our destinations.

The United States is suffering the dire consequence of “loose lips sinking ships” right now. The new President – Donald Trump – has made disparaging remarks about certain foreign groups, and then introduced policies that reinforce his disdain for these foreigners.

As a result, more and more foreigners are refusing to come to the US for leisure travel. …

Nobody wants to spend their money in a place where they are not welcomed.

This lesson must be learned in the Caribbean. We have the same threats afoot. Unlike the US, who has the leverage and surety of “richest Single Market economy in the world” to absorb the fall, the Caribbean member-states are mostly Third World and failing.

… Yet, some leaders – Christian pastors in this case – have proclaimed, in a signed petition to this new American President, a heightened level of disdain for certain American tourists. They are protesting the US Human Rights agenda to seek relief for Caribbean populations with affinity for persons ascribing to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans-Gender (LGBT) lifestyles.

Rather than love and leisure … in the Caribbean, these community leaders are projecting “a climate of hate”.

A Toxic Environment bears bad fruit. It is not just homophobia that we are inflicted with, as we have hate and intolerance embedded within our Community Ethos – this refers to (as defined in the Go Lean book Page 20):

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

Look at these additional phobias that have plagued our society, here in the Caribbean. These are the opposite of the pluralistic society that we feature/want. See these examples of anti-Diversity & Inclusion reality:

Sinophobia
The problem with having an intolerant society is that our citizens are less inclined to embrace people that are different, even when you need them. This is the situation with China right now. As there is an exhaustion from North American and European investors in Caribbean communities, China has stepped-up and stepped-in with funds and development support.

We, in the Caribbean, badly need all the help.

Yet, our people are so reticent towards Chinese foreigners, despite that we “hung a Welcome Sign” for visitors from around the world. We must face it, we – a majority Black-and-Brown population in most of 30 member-states – are part of the problem, as it appears that we only want to embrace “White Christian” foreigners.

Fears of new virus trigger anti-China sentiment worldwide – February 2, 2020
As fears of a new coronavirus from China spread around the world, many countries are seeing rising anti-Chinese sentiment, calls for a full travel ban on Chinese and even public aversion to those from the epicenter of the outbreak.

The subject of the Sinophone eco-system – China, Chinese people and culture – has been an important subject for Caribbean considerations. We have published previous commentaries that advocated for a healthy relationship with the Sino World; consider the list of previous blog-commentaries here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18963 Happy Chinese New Year – Embracing the Sinophone World
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18301 After Dorian, Rebuilding Partners: China Versus America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16530 European Reckoning – China seeks to de-Americanize World’s economy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9550 10 Things We Want from China and 10 Things We Do Not Want
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6231 China’s Caribbean Playbook: America’s Script

Islamophobia
The actuality of Intolerance is the opposite of the qualities a pluralistic society like the Caribbean needs to develop. We have a new found economic engine that we can now exploit: Global Tourism. Imagine the profits that can be garnered for just being Better Versions of ourselves, “to just live and let live”. While this is just Common Sense, we find that Common Sense is not so common. In fact, just the opposite have occurred; in some societies Islamophobia has been enshrined in Public Policy. See the example from Australia here:

Islamophobia is practically enshrined as public policy in Australia
… any 28-year-old in Australia has grown up in a period when racism, xenophobia and a hostility to Muslims in particular, were quickly ratcheting up in the country’s public culture.

In the period of the country’s enthusiastic participation in the War on Terror, Islam and Muslims have frequently been treated as public enemies, and hate speech against them has inexorably been normalised.

We must do better in the Caribbean. In fact, Muslims are an integral part of our regional society; they have every right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If we honor that, not only can we have peace, but profit too. Imagine catering to the global Muslim community to enjoy our hospitality. (We had asserted the same about the Hindu community). See the Appendix VIDEO below for a glimpse of a previous celebration.

That requires a welcoming attitude of Diversity & Inclusion. Some communities see the need for this work – see here:

Trinidad – Confronting issues in Islam
… Non-Muslims should always be encouraged to exercise tolerance and understanding. But the standard defence of denying the ‘perpetrators as true Muslims’ or stating that ‘this is not Islam’ is no longer convincing. This may be part of the reason for the absence of worldwide outpouring over the massacres in Istanbul, Baghdad and Saudi Arabia as opposed to the response that Paris, Brussels and Orlando received. The backlash has gone beyond hate crimes and prejudice and is now one of apathy and indifference ie, ‘If they want to kill each other, let them go right ahead, as long as they leave the rest of us alone.’ The unfortunate truth is that Muslims, regardless of how friendly or moderate they may appear, are still looked upon with suspicion.

This is what is meant by “Good Community Ethos”, the positive group qualities, that this Go Lean movement encourages our people to foster.

Diversity & Inclusion is not automatic; in fact, it is the opposite; it takes hard work. But if we do the work, we can have benefits; we can remediate and mitigate a Toxic Environment. Diversity & Inclusion can and do work. Look at this opportunity:

How an ancient Islamic holiday became uniquely Caribbean on Trinidad shores
In Trinidad, the 100,000 Muslims who make up 5 percent of the island’s total population, celebrate the day of Ashura, as Hosay – the name derived from “Hussein.”

The first Hosay festival was held in 1854, just over a decade after the first Indian Muslims began to arrive from India to work on the island’s sugar plantations.

But Trinidad at the time was under British colonial rule and large public gatherings were not permitted. In 1884, the British authorities issued a prohibition against Hosay commemorations. Approximately 30,000 people took to the streets, in Mon Repos, in the south, to protest against the ordinance. Shots fired to disperse the crowd killed 22 and injured over 100. The ordinance was later overturned.

The “Hosay Massacre” or “Muharram Massacre,” however, lives in people’s memories.

As we see, Orthodoxy – from religious and cultural heritage – can hurt community harmony; it can discourage people from the libertarian view to “live and let live”. The Muslim World so often was on the receiving side of religious intolerance. But don’t get it twisted, Islam and the Muslim World is not a model for Diversity & Inclusion themselves; we have lots of examples of their intolerance (i.e. Middle East country of Jordan and their LGBT Intolerance).

This commentary is a continuation on the Teaching Series related to Toxic Environments where we addressed the pseudo-phobias – irrational fear or hatred – that have made life unbearable in the homeland. But now we see how this kind of intolerance imperils the economic engines as well. Yes, we’ve “shot ourselves in the foot” … again!

Every month, the movement behind the Go Lean book presents a Teaching Series to address issues germane to Caribbean life and culture. For this month of September 2020, we are looking at the actuality of persecuted minorities in this homeland. The qualities we need in the region is that of Diversity & Inclusion. Instead we get the opposite …

… we get homophobia, xenophobia and islamophobia; which are not real “phobias” (fear) but instead are representative of dislike, disapproval, prejudice, hatred, discrimination and/or hostility.

This means that we are not exactly the “greatest address on the planet”. Nope, our homelands are among the identified Toxic Environments on the planet. This is entry 3-of-6 in this series; this one presents the thesis that “our toxicity have long reaching consequences on the community quest to “live, work and play” here in the region. Our Toxic Environment makes it hard to retain our guests and tourists with encouragements for future and frequent visits. Instead, our Caribbean (tourism) industrial stakeholders must do the heavier lifting to always attract newer-and-newer visitors, rather than the easier job of repeat customers.

Consider here, the full catalog of the series this month:

  1. Toxic Environment: Ready for Football – Washington “Redskins”
  2. Toxic Environment: Homophobia – The problem is the Hate, not the Fear
  3. Toxic Environment: Opposite of Diversity & Inclusion
  4. Toxic Environment: Lessons from Yugoslavia
  5. Toxic Environment: Ease of Doing Business
  6. Toxic Environment: Make the Caribbean Great (Anew)

How can we abate the Toxic Environment described here-in:

Answer: Promote Diversity and Inclusion.

A previous Go Lean commentary from December 19, 2019 identified the benefits of an inclusive foundation – the opposite of a Toxic Environment – by studying the international conglomerate Mercedes-Benz or DaimlerBenz. Consider this summary:

Learning from Another ‘Great Place to Work’: Mercedes-Benz
A lot of companies formed 133 years ago are no longer around.

  • Time takes its toll
  • Business models change
  • Technology improves
  • Values are reformed

For the companies that have survived the “Win or Go Home” tournaments, it is important to study them and learn lessons of their successes … and failures. …

This “Old Dog” has learned a lot of “New Tricks”.

They are considered one of the Great Places to Work, by the formal Great Place to Work® Institute; they are in the Top Ten on the 2018 List. …

One such Value Reformation that Mercedes-Benz has completed that other companies, institutions and regions – this mean YOU Caribbean stakeholders – can learn from is the emphasis on Diversity and Inclusion. …

How we shape Diversity & Inclusion
Daimler employs more than 298,000 people from around 160 nations. And that is just one aspect of our company’s diversity. We shape Diversity & Inclusion with appropriate offers and measures for our employees in five dimensions:

  1. We work in international teams.
  2. We bring people from different generations together.
  3. We promote equal opportunity for all genders.
  4. We defend the rights of the LGBTI+ Community.
  5. We include people with disabilities on an equal footing.

Source: Posted December 9, 2019; retrieved December 19, 2019 from https://www.daimler.com/sustainability/basics/employees/how-we-shape-diversity-inclusion.html

The subject of Diversity & Inclusion has been an important subject for Caribbean considerations. We have thusly published a few commentaries that advocated for more Diversity & Inclusion. Consider this list of previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19217 Brain Drain – ‘Live and Let Live’: Introducing Localism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19203 Brain Drain – Brain Gain: Yes we can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17820 Caribbean ‘Pride’ – “Can we all just get along”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16532 European Reckoning – Settlers -vs- Immigrants
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15998 Good Governance: The Kind of Society We Want – Minority Protections
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14316 Soft Power – Clean-up the Toxic Environments for Economic Benefits
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13321 Making a ‘Pluralistic Democracy’ – Multilingual Realities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8186 Respect for Minorities: ‘All For One’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3999 Sir Sidney Poitier – ‘Breaking New Ground’ as a Diversity Role Model

Majority versus minority; strong versus the weak; rich versus poor; Haves versus Have Nots…

… everywhere we turn, there are diverse people that needs to be included in the manifestation of society. This inclusion means a “seat at the table, not just being on the menu”. It is simpler than it sounds; all we have to do is “Live and Let Live”.

This has not always been the case in the past. In fact, we have some Bad Orthodoxy – many times the Caribbean religiosity has hurt rather than helped – that we must distance ourselves from. A lot of our friends, have not always been so friendly; a lot of our enemies have not been so adversarial. We need to reform from the past as we work for the new, brighter, better future.

Yes, we can …

Let’s accept the truth: we have been toxic! Let’s do the work that must be done to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play.  🙂

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

——————–

Appendix VIDEO – Hosay in Cedros, Trinidad (2007) – https://youtu.be/VtbaGduFVHE

Dion Samsoondar
Posted October 8, 2011
– A look at the final day of Muharram, or “Hosay” , a Shiite muslim ritual as observance in the tiny southern seaside village of Cedros, Trinidad in the Caribbean. Natural sound of tassa drums fill the air as villagers parade the tadjahs on the main street of this fishing community before the mini replica tomb are lead to the ocean for final rites. Video shot in 2007 with JVC GY-HD100U ,and edited in CS3 by Dion Samsoondar (2007).

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Toxic Environment – Homophobia: Hate not Fear – Encore

What is a phobia?

Well, a summary of the definition is a “persistent and excessive fear”. The encyclopedic definition is as follows:

A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder defined by a persistent and excessive fear of an object or situation.[1] Phobias typically result in a rapid onset of fear and are present for more than six months.[1] Those affected will go to great lengths to avoid the situation or object, to a degree greater than the actual danger posed.[1] If the object or situation cannot be avoided, they experience significant distress.[1] Other symptoms can include fainting, which may occur in blood or injury phobia,[1] and panic attacks, which are often found in agoraphobia.[6] Around 75% of those with phobias have multiple phobias.[1] – Source: Wikipedia

There are other fears that are mistakenly called phobias that are really something else. (This is the focus on this commentary). See the continuation of the above definition:

Several terms with the suffix -phobia are used non-clinically (usually for political or deterrent purpose) to imply irrational fear or hatred. Examples include:

  • Chemophobia – Negative attitudes and mistrust towards chemistry and synthetic chemicals.
  • Homophobia – Negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT).
  • Xenophobia – Fear or dislike of strangers or the unknown, sometimes used to describe nationalistic political beliefs and movements.
  • Islamophobia – Fear of anything Islamic

Usually these kinds of “phobias” are described as fear, dislike, disapproval, prejudice, hatred, discrimination or hostility towards the object of the “phobia”.[53]

Don’t get it twisted, these are not fears; these constitute hatred. Prejudice, hatred and discrimination exercised in a persistent and excessive manner is truly toxic. Imagine being on the receiving end of such treatment, such irrational fear or hatred.

How much can you tolerate? How much should you tolerate? This is like having a burning cross on your front lawn. How long before you want to leave?

This is a continuation on the Teaching Series from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean, related to Toxic Environments. The pseudo-phobias – irrational fear or hatred – all contribute to unbearable circumstances at home; thusly they contribute to the Exodus of so many Caribbean people; this exacerbates the Brain Drain and societal abandonment in the region. We’ve got it bad!

Every month, the movement behind the Go Lean book presents a Teaching Series to address issues germane to Caribbean life and culture. For this month of September 2020, we are looking at the actuality of persecuted minorities in this homeland. Unfortunately, Toxic Environments have long reaching consequences on the community quest to live, work and play. This is entry 2-of-6; it presents the thesis that the “strong in society should not be allowed to abuse the weak” just to allay some pseudo-fears. This is an important consideration, as it depicts the heavy-lifting that the Caribbean stakeholders must do.

Consider here, the full catalog of the series this month:

  1. Toxic Environment: Ready for Football – Washington “Redskins”
  2. Toxic Environment: Homophobia – The problem is the Hate, not the Fear
  3. Toxic Environment: Opposite of Diversity & Inclusion
  4. Toxic Environment: Lessons from Yugoslavia
  5. Toxic Environment: Ease of Doing Business
  6. Toxic Environment: Make the Caribbean Great (Anew)

The Go Lean book, serving as a roadmap for the introduction of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), asserts that Caribbean stakeholders must do the heavy-lifting to mitigate and remediate societal defects. While the purpose of the roadmap is to optimize the economic, security and governing engines of society, the roadmap recognizes that we must retain people in the homeland. No people = no society = no culture. Therefore, we must have a good societal foundation; respect and protection of all people and their rights for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The purpose of this month’s Teaching Series is to focus on that foundation. There is a glaring need for reform, as we have a long track record of bad behavior like hate, bigotry, xenophobia and intolerance in our Caribbean communities.

As related in the previous submission in this month’s series, the Caribbean has fostered a Toxic Environment in our culture; it has been so bad that these identified bad behaviors have flourished. This is not good, as a Toxic Environment pits villains against victims and in the long run, the victims – and all those that love them – will seek refuge elsewhere. This is true with all Toxic Environments – think Asylum-seekers. Asylum-seeking is the manifesting of the Push dynamics for Caribbean abandonment:

  • “Push” refers to people who feel compelled to leave, to seek refuge in a foreign land. “Refuge” is an appropriate word; because of societal defects, many from the Caribbean must leave as refugees – think LGBTDisabilityDomestic-abuseMedically-challenged – for their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
  • “Pull”, on the other hand refers to the lure of a more liberal life abroad; many times our people are emigrating for societies that have better expressions of the rights for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.

The Caribbean is not the first nor the last Toxic Environment; there have been many in the past and even now in the present. Think Nazi Germany, who persecuted (i.e. Concentration Camps) many minority groups (Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, etc.). Today, we have more bad role models of hate, bigotry, xenophobia and intolerance – like in the Muslim Word, (think ISIS), where persecuted minorities are frequently targeted. (There have been instances of public killing of convicted homosexuals).

We must look, listen and learn from these past and present Toxic Environments, then work towards making our society better – more tolerant. We cannot afford to keep losing our people; that will degrade our culture further. Using an analogy from medical trauma, our society is bleeding populations – we must stop the bleeding – otherwise the patient – our unique culture – will die.

How bad is our society? While not ISIS, we are recognized as one of the worst in our attitudes and toleration of homosexual practices.

Say it ain’t so …

This was our initial reaction in researching and writing about the Buggery Laws in the Anglo-Caribbean. Those laws seemed so barbaric for our modern times. And yet, they persists. A previous Go Lean commentary from July 2, 2015 identified this example of our severe Caribbean Toxicity. Consider this summary:

While this commentary directly targets Jamaica, the majority of the countries and overseas territories of the former British Empire, still criminalize sexual acts between consenting adults of the same sex and other forms of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. This has been described as being the result of “the major historical influence” or legacy of the British Empire. In most cases, it was former colonial administrators that established anti-gay legislation or sodomy acts during the 19th century. … The majority of countries then retained these laws following independence.

Since that 2015 date, we have published a few additional commentaries that advocated for more tolerance for citizens – and visitors – with alternative life styles. Consider this list of previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20292 Conscientizing on VIDEO: Advocating for Empathy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19217 Brain Drain – ‘Live and Let Live’: Introducing Localism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17820 Caribbean ‘Pride’ – “Can we all just get along”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14830 Counter-culture: Embracing the Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11224 ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’ – Leaders Undermine Tourism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10216 Waging a Successful War on Orthodoxy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8200 Respect for Minorities: Climate of Hate
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8186 Respect for Minorities: ‘All For One’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=341 Homosexual Intolerance listed among blatant human rights abuses

It is simple, if we want to grow our society, we must work hard to make it a better place to live, work and place for everyone, not just some people. Remember the old nursery rhyme: “rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief; doctor, lawyer, Indian Chief”.

It is Toxic to allow the “Strong to Abuse the Weak” – including LGBT – in our society.

Now is a good time to address those bad Buggery Laws that still prevail in the Anglo-Caribbean. It is apropos to Encore the full blog-commentary from July 2015; see that here now:

——————-

Go Lean Commentary Buggery in Jamaica – ‘Say It Ain’t So’!

This commentary has asserted that the Caribbean region can be a better society than the United States of America. Yes, we can!

But to even start the discussion, we must first:

Live and let live!

t So - Photo 3The topic of intolerance has been acute in the news as of late. We have the extreme example of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) beheading non-Muslims because… well, just because. And the example of the US legalizing Gay Marriage may be considered too tolerant for some people’s good taste.

Where does the Caribbean fit in this discussion?

If ISIS is one end of a scale and Gay Marriage in America is another end, then one Caribbean member-state, Jamaica, would be closer to …

ISIS!

Yes, it is that bad. Say it ain’t so.

See Appendix-VIDEO’s below …

While this commentary directly targets Jamaica, the majority of the countries and overseas territories of the former British Empire, still criminalize sexual acts between consenting adults of the same sex and other forms of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. This has been described as being the result of “the major historical influence” or legacy of the British Empire. In most cases, it was former colonial administrators that established anti-gay legislation or sodomy acts during the 19th century; see Appendix below. The majority of countries then retained these laws following independence.[1][2].

There is an effort now to transform society in Jamaica (and other countries) in this regards. There are Gay Pride Activities being planned for this Summer of 2015. See the relevant news article here:

Title: J-FLAG Is Planning Gay Pride Activities, But No Parade For August – Exec
Source: Jamaica Gleaner Daily Newspaper Online Site; posted June 30, 2015; retrieved from: http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20150630/j-flag-planning-gay-pride-activities-no-parade-august-exec  

Local gay lobby, J-FLAG, is refuting reports that it will host a road parade in August when the group plans to have a series of gay pride activities.

Social media has been abuzz since yesterday following a report that the group would host a parade, similar to what is done in the United   States and other countries.

However, executive director of J-FLAG, Dane Lewis, says the report is wrong, adding that Jamaica is not ready for such an event.

Meanwhile, he says the group is planning a week-long series of activities starting on Emancipation Day, August 1, to mark growing tolerance for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.

Some years ago, an attempt to host a gay parade was thwarted after anti-gay supporters reportedly planned attacks against marchers.

Jamaica is accused of being one of the most homophobic places on earth.

Last week, the US government released a report noting that anti-gay laws and the dancehall culture are responsible for perpetuating homophobia in Jamaica.
Additional reference sources: http://jflag.org/

t So - Photo 1
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VIDEO: Executive Director of JFLAG, Dane Lewis: “We Are Jamaicans” – https://youtu.be/sJ-17R5DCoI


Published on Jan 17, 2013 – “We Are Jamaicans” is funded with the kind support of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVC) through its Global Fund Vulnerablised Project.

Building a diverse society is not easy. The book Go Lean … Caribbean describes the challenge as heavy-lifting. Though the US had failed at this challenge, it proudly boasts that it got better with every generation. The Caribbean on the other hand, leaves much to be desired in terms of the willingness to change and keep pace with progressive societies. (Now the US, Canada, Ireland and other countries have legalized Gay Marriage).

In a previous blog-commentaries, this defect – Homosexual Intolerance – was listed among the blatant human rights abuses in the region.

This is an important consideration for the planners of Caribbean empowerment. The Caribbean, a region where unfortunately, we have NOT … tried to be as tolerant as may be required, expected and just plain moral.

We must do better!

The book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts that Caribbean society’s prosperity has been hindered with a high abandonment rate – reported at 70% for educated classes region-wide, but an even higher 85% in Jamaica. The primary mission of the Go Lean book is to “battle” against the “push-and-pull” factors that draw so many of our Caribbean citizens away from their homelands to go to more progressive countries.

The Go Lean book campaigns to lower the “push” factors!

The purpose of the Go Lean book is to fix the Caribbean; to be better. The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to pursue the quest to elevate the Caribbean region through empowerments in economics, security and governance. It is the assertion that Caribbean citizens can stay home and effect change in their homelands more effectively than going to some foreign countries to find opportunities for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The book therefore asserts that the region can turn-around from failing assessments by applying best-practices, and forging new societal institutions to impact the Greater Good for all the Caribbean. This point was pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 10 – 14) with these acknowledgements and statements:

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

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

xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of communities like … Egypt. On the other hand, the Federation must also implement the good examples learned from developments/ communities like New York City, … Canada, … and tenants of the US Constitution.

The CU/Go Lean vision to elevate Caribbean society must also consider the issue of image. There is the need for a sentinel role for Caribbean image, as there are a lot of times that Caribbean life and people are denigrated in the media: news, film, TV, books, magazines. It’s unfortunate when we are guilty of scathing allegations. The Go Lean roadmap calls for the CU to assume a role of protecting and projecting positive Caribbean images. The plan is to use cutting edge delivery of best practices; the applicable CU agencies will employ strategies, tactics and implementations to impact the Go Lean 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 public safety for all citizens… LGBT or straight.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

Jamaica has a failing economy.

Jamaica’s primary economic driver is tourism. So …

t So - Photo 2

Is the Caribbean ready for this economic activity? A bridge too far, too soon?

t So - Photo 4Jamaica has a long way to go; the country has been described by some Human Rights groups as the most homophobic place on Earth because of the high level of violent crime directed at LGBT people; (Padgett, Tim: “The Most Homophobic Place on Earth?”Time Magazine posted 12 April 2006). The United States Department of State said that in 2012, “homophobia was [unacceptably] widespread in the country” (2012 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Jamaica, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State, pages 20-22). As depicted in the VIDEO below, even President Obama indicted the island on a recent official State Visit.

Why is this country’s homophobia so acute compared to other countries? For one, they have held on emphatically to the British Laws on Buggery – see Appendix below – from their colonial days; even though the host country of England has already abandoned the laws (in 1967).

Jamaica is partying like it’s 1899!

This is therefore a matter of community ethos. The Go Lean book defines community ethos as the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; the dominant assumptions of a people or period. This tropical paradise of Jamaica, as defined in the foregoing news article and VIDEO continues to spur bad attitudes, bad ideas, bad speech and bad actions towards the LGBT community. This is unbecoming of a progressive society in 2015.

Alas, this is a crisis…for victims and their loved ones. The Go Lean book posits that this crisis can be averted, that the crisis is a “terrible thing to waste”. The Go Lean roadmap seeks to optimize the eco-systems for Jamaica and the entire Caribbean. The book stresses new community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to transform and turn-around the eco-systems of the regional society. These points are detailed in the book as follows:

Who We Are – SFE Foundation – Comprised of Caribbean Diaspora Page 8
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate all 30 member-states into a Single Market Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Build and foster local economic engines Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Repatriate the Diaspora, even Minorities like those of the LGBT community Page 46
Tactical – Ways to Foster a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Growing the Economy to $800 Billion GDP Page 68
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – CU Federal Government versus Member-State Governance Page 71
Anatomy of Advocacies – Examples of Individuals Who Made Impact Page 122
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Homeland Security Pact Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Minority and Human Rights Page 134
Planning – Lessons Learned from US Constitution – Equal Protection for all Minorities Page 145
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance – For All Citizens Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract – Security against “Bad Actors” Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice – Internal Affairs Reporting Line Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Remediate and Mitigate Crime – Hate Crime Qualifiers Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism – Consider Bullying as Junior Terrorism Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth – Collaborating with Foundations Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Jamaica Page 239
Advocacy – Ways to Impact British Territories Page 245

Looking at the disposition of the island nation of Jamaica’s, we see that its societal engines are failing.

Could the investment in the diversity of its people be at the root of the problem?

The failing indices and metrics of Jamaica have been considered in previous blog/commentaries; see sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4840 Jamaican Poll: ‘Bring back the British!’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3694 Looking for a job in Jamaica, go to Canada
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2830 Jamaica’s Public Pension Under-funded
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=392 Jamaica to receive World Bank funds to help in crime fight
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=313 What’s Holding Back Jamaica’s Reforms

The Go Lean roadmap seeks to empower and elevate Caribbean societal engines to make Jamaica, and the rest of the Caribbean, better places to live, work and play … for all citizens, including the LGBT communities.

Most of the Jamaican Diaspora that has abandoned the island now lives in the US, Canada or the UK. Their new home-communities are more tolerant societies of their LGBT neighbors.

Perhaps, there is some correlation.

This commentary is not urging the abandonment of the Judeo-Christian moral code; Jesus Christ instructed to “let them be” at Luke 22:51 (The Message Translation). Rather this commentary urges tolerance and moderation: Live and let live!

Fight the hate!

Yes, we can … do this. Yes, we must do this. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!
———–

Appendix VIDEO: US President Obama’s LGBT comments at Youth Leaders Town Hall – https://youtu.be/636mgw1THpc?t=5m1s


Published on Apr 9, 2015 – President Obama delivers remarks and answers questions at a town hall with Young Leaders of the Americas at University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. April 9, 2015.
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Appendix VIDEO: Gay rights in Jamaica – https://youtu.be/_nSgMGoBAmU

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Appendix – Encyclopedic Reference: Buggery in English Common Law

The British English term buggery is very close in meaning to the term sodomy, often used interchangeably in law and popular speech. It may also be a specific common law offenceencompassing both sodomy and bestiality.

In English law “buggery” was first used in the Buggery Act 1533, while Section 61 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, entitled “Sodomy and Bestiality”, defined punishments for “the abominable Crime of Buggery, committed either with Mankind or with any Animal”. The definition of “buggery” was not specified in these or any statute, but rather established by judicial precedent.[1] Over the years the courts have defined buggery as including either [of these]:

  1. anal intercourse or oral intercourse by a man with a man or woman[2] or
  2. vaginal intercourse by either a man or a woman with an animal,[3]

But [no other] form of “unnatural intercourse”[4] [was defined], the implication being that anal sex with an animal would not constitute buggery. Such a case has not, to date, come before the courts of a common law jurisdiction in any reported decision. However, it seems highly improbable that a person would be exculpated of a crime associated with sex with animals only by reason of the fact that penetration involved the anus rather than the vagina. In the 1817 case of Rex v. Jacobs, the Crown Court ruled that oral intercourse, even with an underage and/or non-consenting person, did not constitute buggery or sodomy.[4]

At common law consent was not a defence[5] nor was the fact that the parties were married.[6] In the UK, the punishment for buggery was reduced from hanging to life imprisonment by the Offences against the Person Act 1861. As with the crime of rape, buggery required that penetration must have occurred, but ejaculation is not necessary.[7]

Most common law jurisdictions have now modified the law to permit anal sex between consenting adults.[8] Hong Kong did so retroactively in 1990, barring prosecution for “crimes against nature” committed before the Crimes (Amendment) Ordinance 1990 entered into force except those that would still have constituted a crime if they had been done thereafter. In England and Wales, homosexual buggery was decriminalised in 1967 with an age of consent at 21 years, whereas all heterosexual intercourse had an age of consent at 16 years. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 did not fully remove buggery as a concept in United Kingdom law, as the previous law is retained for complainants (consensual or “pseudo-consensual”) under the age of 16, or 18 with regards to an adult perceived to be in a “position of trust”. As the law stands, buggery is still charged, exclusively regarding “pseudo-consensual” anal intercourse with those under 16/18, because children cannot legally consent to buggery although they may appear to do so. Rape is charged when the penetration is clearly not consensual. Buggery with an animal is still unlawful under Section 69 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

In the Republic of Ireland, the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993 abolished the offence of “buggery between persons”.[9] For some years prior to 1993, criminal prosecution had not been made for buggery between consenting adults. The 1993 Act created an offence of “buggery with a person under the age of 17 years”,[10] penalised similar to statutory rape, which also had 17 years as the age of consent. The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2006 replaced this offence with “defilement of a child”, encompassing both “sexual intercourse” and “buggery”.[11] Buggery with an animal is still unlawful under Section 69 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. In 2012 a man was convicted of this offence for supplying a dog in 2008 to a woman who had intercourse with it and died.[12]

Etymology – The word bugger and buggery are still commonly used in modern English as a mild exclamation. “Buggery” is also synonymous with anal sex.

The word “bugger” was derived, via the French bougre, from Bulgar, that is, “Bulgarian”, meaning the medieval Bulgarian heretical sect of the Bogomils, which spread into Western Europe and was claimed by the established church to be devoted to the practice of sodomy.[13] “Buggery” first appears in English in 1330, though “bugger” in a sexual sense is not recorded until 1555.[14]

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buggery)

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Toxic Environment – It Infects Everything

Go Lean Commentary

24 “Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. 25 Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. 26 But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. 27 When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.” – The Bible re: Building on a Solid Foundation – Matthew 7:24-27 – New Living Translation

Having a solid foundation versus a sandy foundation, for a house, may not matter too much during a normal sunny day, but when “push comes to shove” – during a storm – is when the surety of the house becomes important. Will it stand, stabilize and survive?

A weak foundation for a house can be likened to the toxic environment of a community, think a workplace filled with harassment and discrimination or a neighborhood with blatant racism where minorities endure burning crosses on their lawn.

Such communities may have some functionality, but will it stand, stabilize and survive when “push comes to shove”?

Here’s the answer: No!

As Jesus Christ cautioned above: “it will collapse with a mighty crash”.

It is fair to conclude that we all want a “house that does not collapse during a storm”. It is also fair to assume that we all want to live in a community that is NOT a toxic environment. But just as Jesus described the heavy-lifting effort of building a house on a more solid foundation, we must conclude that it is also heavy-lifting to foster a community (workplace or neighborhood) that is not a toxic environment. For the record, we got toxic environments here in the Caribbean; we got it bad. But we must reform …

Ready for the effort?!

The path of least resistance is just to “fall into hate, bigotry, xenophobia and intolerance”. But to weed these defects out of society – or to not allow them to foster – we cannot default to that path of least resistance; we must do the heavy-lifting work; the homework, the shop work and the community work.

This is an acute issue for our Caribbean communities; we have near Failed-States as a result. These blatant societal defects can no longer be tolerated. We have lost good people; many have fled our society in search of refuge; we have Pushed many away, while others have been Pulled by more hopeful invitations – the “grass on the other side has been greener”.

This was the assertion in the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean, where it pronounced this in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12):

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

Every month, the movement behind the Go Lean book presents a Teaching Series to address issues germane to Caribbean life and culture. For this month of September 2020, we are looking at Toxic Environments. This is entry 1-of-6; the first one; it introduces the thesis that “doing the right thing, while not always easy, always pays off in the long run”. Despite our past, we can always start anew. There have been many bad experiences of hate, bigotry, xenophobia and intolerance in our Caribbean actuality. To cure these societal defects, we must reflect, recognize, repent and reconcile.

Yes, we can …

Let’s start now! Consider here, the full catalog of the series this month:

  1. Toxic Environment: Ready for Football – Washington “Redskins”
  2. Toxic Environment: Homophobia – The problem is the Hate, not the Fear
  3. Toxic Environment: Opposite of Diversity & Inclusion
  4. Toxic Environment: Lessons from Yugoslavia
  5. Toxic Environment: Ease of Doing Business
  6. Toxic Environment: Make the Caribbean Great (Anew)

The Go Lean book, serving as a roadmap for the introduction of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), asserts that Caribbean stakeholders must do the heavy-lifting to mitigate the societal defects. The purpose of the roadmap does include optimizing the economic, security and governing engines for greater opportunities, but we must have a good foundation first. The purpose of this month’s Teaching Series is to focus on that foundation. There is a glaring need for reform, as we have a long track record of bad behavior like hate, bigotry, xenophobia and intolerance in our Caribbean communities.

We have been fostering a toxic environment in our culture in which these bad behaviors have been permitted to flourish. This is not good! A toxic environment pits villains against victims; in the long run, the victims seeks refuge elsewhere. This is true with a toxic workplace and a toxic neighborhood. This is also true for the Push dynamics of Caribbean abandonment:

  • “Push” refers to people who feel compelled to leave, to seek refuge in a foreign land. “Refuge” is an appropriate word; because of societal defects, many from the Caribbean must leave as refugees – think LGBTDisabilityDomestic-abuseMedically-challenged – for their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
  • “Pull”, on the other hand refers to the lure of a more liberal life abroad; many times our people are emigrating for societies that have better expressions of the rights for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.

The Caribbean is not the first nor the last toxic environment. There are many of them out there. We must look, listen and learn from toxic workplaces and toxic neighborhoods. Just because we are not alone does not mean we can be complacent; we are still bleeding populations – we must stop the bleeding.

Let’s consider one example from the United States …

… that of the team in the National Football League (NFL), the Washington Football Team, formerly known as the Washington Redskins. Just that name “Redskins” – a derogatory reference similar the the N-Word – shows their disregard for the toxic environment they were fostering. See the details in the Appendix below.

What we have learned from the historicity of the Washington “Redskins” over those many years is that they had no regards nor remorse for offending others

… this normally means that they would have no regards nor remorse for offending their own people. This is exactly what has happened. We learned of other victimizations of this toxic workplace. See these two stories here:

Title 1: Washington Redskins Cheerleaders Describe Topless Photo Shoot and Uneasy Night Out
By: Juliet Macur

When the Washington Redskins took their cheerleading squad to Costa Rica in 2013 for a calendar photo shoot, the first cause for concern among the cheerleaders came when Redskins officials collected their passports upon arrival at the resort, depriving them of their official identification.

For the photo shoot, at the adults-only Occidental Grand Papagayo resort on Culebra Bay, some of the cheerleaders said they were required to be topless, though the photographs used for the calendar would not show nudity. Others wore nothing but body paint. Given the resort’s secluded setting, such revealing poses would not have been a concern for the women — except that the Redskins had invited spectators.

A contingent of sponsors and FedEx Field suite holders — all men — were granted up-close access to the photo shoots.

One evening, at the end of a 14-hour day that included posing and dance practices, the squad’s director told nine of the 36 cheerleaders that their work was not done. They had a special assignment for the night. Some of the male sponsors had picked them to be personal escorts at a nightclub.

“So get back to your room and get ready,” the director told them. Several of them began to cry.

“They weren’t putting a gun to our heads, but it was mandatory for us to go,” one of the cheerleaders said. “We weren’t asked, we were told. Other girls were devastated because we knew exactly what she was doing.”

Source: New York Times Investigation – posted May 2, 2018; retrieved September 20, 2020. See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/sports/redskins-cheerleaders-nfl.html

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VIDEO 1 – Redskins Cheerleaders Reveal Disturbing Details Of 2013 Costa Rica Trip | NBC Nightly News – https://youtu.be/i7ZCHjYW2NE

NBC News
Posted May 3, 2018 – The cheerleaders tell NBC News that in addition to their passports being taken, they were forced to be topless for a calendar shoot, and later asked to escort team financial backers to a party.

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—————————————————–

Title 2: At least 15 women are accusing Washington Redskins staffers of sexual harassment, report says
By: Ellie Kaufman, Pete Muntean and Laura Robinson, CNN
The Washington Redskins have launched an internal investigation after 15 former female employees and two journalists who covered the team accused team staffers of sexual harassment and verbal abuse, the team told CNN.

The allegations were first reported by The Washington Post on Thursday. The newspaper obtained screenshots of text messages in which Richard Mann II — the team’s assistant director of pro personnel — made inappropriate, sexual comments to a female employee. Mann was fired in the past week.

Former employees also accused Larry Michael, the team’s former senior vice president of content and play-by-play announcer, of talking about the attractiveness of a college intern in 2018 when he was being recorded for a team video, the newspaper reported. Michael retired Wednesday.

CNN was not able to reach Mann and Michael for comment Thursday.

Owner Dan Snyder and former team president Bruce Allen were not directly implicated in the sexual harassment allegations brought by the female employees and reported by the Post. But Snyder was criticized for fostering a culture in which the behavior was permitted.

Source: Cable News Network – posted July 18, 2020; retrieved September 20, 2020. See the full story here: https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/us/washington-redskins-sexual-harassment-allegations/index.html

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VIDEO 2 – Washington Redskins accuser says she hopes for new policies – https://youtu.be/YAAX5qGnA0w

KEYT – KCOY – KKFX News
Posted July 23, 2020 – At least 15 women are accusing Washington Redskins staffers of sexual harassment, report says

We must change (reform and transform) the Caribbean to rid ourselves of our own toxic environments. How do we do that?

A previous Go Lean commentary from March 5, 2019 identified the chain of events: thoughts-feeling-speech-action. See an excerpt here:

[Thoughts-feeling-speech-action] is usually the order and process for change. Change doesn’t just start with Action; a lot more goes into it. It can be likened to a factory process; there is input and there is output. While Action is the output, “Thoughts, Feelings and Speech” qualify as input.

Got Change? Want Change?

The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts that we have to be prepared to contribute the appropriate Inputs. In fact we must start changing the current Inputs to better reflect the values we want to see in our society. That means changing our thoughts, feeling and speech.

The Go Lean roadmap has always focused on the actions for changing the Caribbean eco-system. We have always had focus on the thoughts-feeling-speech-action continuum. The target change here is what the Go Lean book refers to as a change in community ethos (Page 20).

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

This focus, fostering change in the community ethos, has been a mission for this Go Lean movement from the beginning of this movement. This theme has been elaborated in many previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20281 Cleaning up the Toxic Use of the N-Word to improve Black Image
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20105 When Rising from the Ashes – Watch Out for changes to Bad Ethos
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19833 Stamping Out Hypocrisy from Community Ethos & Leadership
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17464 The need to change Bad Ethos to launch ‘New Commerce’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16408 Mitigating Bad Ethos on Home Violence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2480 Learning a Lesson from History – Changed Community Ethos for WW II
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=214 Changing from Least Common Denominator to an Entrepreneurial Ethos

Cleaning up our toxic environment is conceivable, believable and achievable. We have seen it done many times before.

But, it is not just a matter of changing a brand name – like for the Washington Redskins – we have to change the community attitude. We have to message against:

hate, bigotry, xenophobia and intolerance

The presence of these bad attributes are not in dispute. The strategy for abating them is not in dispute. It starts and ends with messaging. This is 1-of-6 in that messaging. The rest of this Teaching Series portrays the messaging for the above-cited attributes. You are urged to lean-in to every entry of this series to glean the insights, strategies, tactics and implementations.

We cannot change the world, but we can change “us”. It is heavy-lifting to abate bad attributes, to reform and transform our society. But this is what must be done. It is the only way to make our regional homeland a better place to live, work and play.

Yes, we can!  🙂

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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Appendix – Reference: Washington Redskins

The Washington Football Team are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. Formerly known as the Washington Redskins, the team competes in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the NFC East division. The team plays its home games at FedExField in Landover, Maryland, with its headquarters and training facility located in Ashburn, Virginia. The team has played more than 1,000 games and is one of only five in the NFL to record over 600 total wins. It was the first NFL franchise with an official marching band and a fight song, “Hail to the Redskins“.

The team was founded in 1932 as the Boston Braves before changing its name to the Redskins the following year. The franchise then relocated to Washington, D.C. in 1937, where they have been based since. …

Washington’s former Redskins name and logo drew controversy over its history, with many criticizing it as offensive to Native Americans. Pressure from major sponsors of the league and team eventually led them to retire the branding in 2020 as part of a wave of racial name changes in the wake of the George Floyd protests. The team will play as the Washington Football Team until a permanent replacement is chosen later. The team is valued at approximately US$3.4 billion according to Forbes, making them the seventh-most valuable team in the NFL and the 14th-most valuable sports franchise globally.[2]

Redskins name and logo controversy
The team’s former Redskins branding, used from 1933 until 2020, was one of the leading examples of Native American mascot controversy as the term redskin has been defined as offensive,[81] disparaging,[82][83] and taboo.[84] Various people and groups, such as the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), considered the name a racial slur and attempted to get the team to change it for decades.[85][86] Supporters of the name countered both the dictionary definition of the term and the testimony of Native Americans by asserting that their use of the name was intended respectfully, and referred only to the football team and its history.

In a 2013 letter “To the Washington Redskins Nation”, team owner Daniel Snyder stated that while respecting those that say they are offended, a poll conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center in 2004 found that 90% of Native Americans were not offended by the name and logo.[87][88] This poll was essentially replicated in 2016 by The Washington Post with near identical results. However, public opinion polling, which places the question about the Redskins within a longer telephone survey on other topics, was deemed scientifically questionable by academic researchers. As an alternative, social scientists from the University of Michigan and University of California at Berkeley performed a study in 2020 that measured Native American opinion in detail, finding that 49% had responded that the name was offensive, with the level of offense increasing to 67% for those with a stronger involvement in Native American culture.[89]

Following renewed attention to questions of racial justice in wake of the George Floyd protests in 2020, a letter signed by 87 shareholders and investors was sent to team and league sponsors Nike, FedEx, and Pepsi urging them to cut their ties unless the name was changed.[90][91][92] Around the same time, several retail companies began removing Redskins merchandise from their stores.[93][94] In response, the team underwent a review in July 2020 and announced that it would retire its name,[95][96] with a new name and logo to be chosen at a later date.[97][98] As a team rebranding process usually takes over a year, the team will be playing as the Washington Football Team until a more permanent name is chosen.[99][100][101]

Source: Retrieved September 20, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Football_Team

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Abaco, Bahamas – Losing the Battles on Two Fronts

Go Lean Commentary

At the beginning of World War II, it became obvious, very early, that Germany was going to lose. Why?

Because they had to fight battles … alone … on two fronts:

That was a strategic and tactical disadvantage for Nazi Germany! Time was to catch up with them eventually.

There is a parallel situation today in the Caribbean, in the Northern Bahamas community of Abaco in particular. They have battles on two fronts: A hurricane and a pandemic.

  • Climate Change – infused storms like Hurricane Dorian in September 2019
    At 16:40 UTC on September 1, Dorian made landfall on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, with one-minute sustained winds of 185 mph (298 km/h), wind gusts over 220 mph (355 km/h), and a central barometric pressure of 910 millibars (27 inHg),[26][27] as Dorian reached its peak intensity during landfall.[28] Storm chaser Josh Morgerman observed a pressure of 913.4 mbar (26.97 inHg) in Marsh Harbour.[29] Dorian’s forward speed decreased around this time, slowing to a westward crawl of 5 mph (8.0 km/h).[28] At 02:00 UTC on September 2, Dorian made landfall on Grand Bahama near the same intensity, with the same sustained wind speed.[30] Afterward, Dorian’s forward speed slowed to just 1 knot (1.2 mph; 1.9 km/h), as the Bermuda High that was steering the storm westward weakened. Later that day, the storm began to undergo an eyewall replacement cycle to the north of Grand Bahama; the Bermuda High to the northeast of Dorian also collapsed, causing Dorian to stall just north of Grand Bahama.[31][32] Around the same time, the combination of the eyewall replacement cycle and upwelling of cold water caused Dorian to begin weakening, with Dorian dropping to Category 4 status at 15:00 UTC.[33] Due to the absence of steering currents, Dorian stalled north of Grand Bahama for about a day.[34][35] – Wikipedia

  • Pandemic – Coronavirus COVID-19
    Consider the actuality of life in the Bahamas during this crisis as related in a previous blog-commentary; (this reporting describes the situation on the ground in the Bahamas as miserable):

    • Jobs are affected – most private businesses, including tourist resorts, are closed or curtailed.
    • Retail food prices increase because of higher inventory-carrying costs.
    • Hospitals and public safety institutions are overwhelmed with COVID cases: testing, tracing, therapeutics and terminal patients.
    • Government Shutdown – No administrative processing, at all; no passport processing, no business registrations, etc.

Abaco is failing miserably on both fronts. It is not wise to bet that they will win, overcome, survive or thrive. 🙁

These are not just our thoughts alone; see these 2 articles here depicting the acute crisis on the ground in Abaco:

Title # 1: Everything Is Not Okay in the Bahamas… Not by a Long Shot – Surfline
By: Matt Pruett
For those who don’t regularly deal with natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires or tornadoes, it’s easy to think of these violent events as one-offs, cosmic flukes, and after a year or so passes, old news. When in reality, the devastating effects from these catastrophes can last many, many years after the initial deathblow, and casualties continue to stack.

It’s been a little over a year since the prolonged and record-breaking Category 5 Hurricane Dorian blasted the Bahamas with 185mph maximum sustained winds — effectively become the most intense tropical cyclone to ever strike the islands, the costliest event in Bahamian history with $3.4 billion in damage, and the worst natural disaster in the country’s history — leaving at least 70,000 people homeless and 74 dead (although the exact death toll is unknown, as 245 people were still missing as of April 2020).

But there is compassion, especially from Floridian surfers who’ve been island-hopping this area for generations. And with compassion comes aid, and with aid comes relief, and with relief comes recovery. At least that’s what we hope.

“There are very few moments in life when we as individuals have the opportunity to do something larger than ourselves and help,” explains acclaimed filmmaker Wesley Dunham-Brown, who co-created the surfing documentary films Peel: The Peru Project and Chasing Dora before starting his own production company, Arora Entertainment. “I believe this is what we were ultimately put on this planet to do. When Hurricane Dorian decimated the Bahamas, and more specifically the area of Hope Town, it gave us the opportunity to do just that. Our small group of passionate filmmakers at Arora Entertainment went down to help these people, tell their incredible stories of loss, grief, love and compassion and share their unrelenting faith, will and perseverance to see the Bahamas rebuilt.”

Respected for their storytelling techniques, industry contacts, and ability to spread awareness, Brown and his directorial partner Bobby Pura were hired by Hope Town Rising — a grassroots initiative of the Community Assistance Foundation focused on supporting and rebuilding Elbow Cay — to focus their lenses on this devastated area in the way of a full-length documentary, “This is Hope Town.” The film shadows a close-knit community of Bahamians as they join together to work around-the-clock in terrible conditions to rebuild their lives, while recounting the damage, emotional toll and physical wreckage in heart-wrenching interviews. Brown and Pura immediately tapped longtime Bahamas traveler and professional surfer Cory Lopez to serve as ambassador for the mission.

“I spent a lot of time in the Bahamas over the years,” says Cory. “I started going there when I was a kid, and one year Andy [Irons] and I spent six weeks there. So I have a lot of great memories from the place. Looking at how big that storm was, I expected it to be bad. And of course I heard stories and saw pictures of how bad it ended up being. But once you get down there and actually see the severity of it, a year later… it’s catastrophic, man. It’s been such a slow process of removing debris off the island while getting supplies that are needed — and food — on to the island. And unfortunately with COVID-19, it’s just been a double-whammy for those people. At this rate it’ll take two to three years to rebuild, five years to bring this place back.”

“With disasters like this, it’s like a lot of people will donate right away, but then three months later there’s another disaster somewhere else in the world,” Cory adds. “So hopefully this film will bring another boost of money to the Bahamian people. And they were very grateful that we went down there to give them a voice and bring attention to the problems they’re facing.”

“This is not simply a documentarian journey, it’s a human journey,” Brown continues. “One that demonstrates to the world that we all possess the power to affect change, and a human responsibility to assist those in need wherever they may be. This is our time and opportunity to change things for the people of Hope Town, and to show the world what the people of the Abacos, and those who are doing everything in their power to help them, are truly made of.”

For more information, to watch the movie or to make a donation, visit Hope Town Rising.

Source: Posted September 12, 2020; retrieved September 19, 2020 from: https://www.surfline.com/surf-news/everything-not-okay-bahamas-not-long-shot/95982

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VIDEO – This is Hope Town Trailer – Extended Cut (3:34)https://youtu.be/CfqqaHzFO_A


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Title # 2: Abaco in “precarious situation” with COVID, ongoing reconstruction — says MP
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Central and South Abaco MP James Albury said because the construction industry represents a major hotspot for COVID-19, Abaco is in a “precarious situation” as reconstruction forges on.
Infections on the island continue to rise, albeit more slowly in recent weeks.“It’s something that is on everyone’s mind, including my own,” Albury told Eyewitness News.
“We’re in a very precarious situation and trying to handle that as well as handle reconstruction of course, is a double whammy that is really keeping us on the back foot. We’re pushing forward as much as possible, but there is always a danger there in terms of a resurgence.Abaco has the third-highest number of infections in The Bahamas with 104 infections as of yesterday, trailing Grand Bahama (607) and New Providence (2,186).
The island remains in recovery mode more than a year after deadly Hurricane Dorian decimated many of its once-thriving communities.
Amid the height of lockdown and curfew measures nationwide, exemptions were made for reconstruction of the island, a major undertaking, to continue.
The MP said while it is hoped a rapid increase is avoided, “realistically, if it does happen it will require a lot more effort on behalf of the health team”.
He said an increase in cases and exposures also challenges residents, many of whom remain in alternative housing and tents.
“Even quarantining is difficult for lack of available housing, so it is a big concern and it is certainly nothing to take lightly,” Albury said.
“It is certainly nothing that we can afford to sleep on.” Albury said while new infections per appear to have somewhat slowed “things can change tomorrow”.

“We’re at [over] 100 cases spread out through several areas — Moore’s Island, Sandy Point, and some of the cays as well — so we have a bit of a spread of cases, and we’re dealing with a disaster already within a disaster,” he said.“It’s a very challenging position for the health team on the ground, so I do give them kudos.

“I think they have been working very hard to make sure that testing and monitoring is going on.”

Asked about compliance with emergency protocols on the recovering island, Albury said: “There are always going to be people who try and skirt around the law or skirt around the laid out protocols, but it’s something that Abaconians are taking very seriously.

“…Those members of society who are not really complying of course are going to face the end of the law on that.

Of the total cases on Abaco, 25 were recorded in the last two weeks.

In the two weeks prior, 35 cases were recorded.

This means in the last month, Abaco has more than doubled its cases — from 44 on August 20 to 104 yesterday.

During the first wave, which spanned mid-March through the end of June, Abaco recorded zero cases.

Moore’s Island in the Abacos recorded its first few cases on July 23.

Two days later, a case was recorded on Great Guana Cay in the Abacos.

And on July 28, mainland Abaco recorded its first case.

Source: Posted EyeWitness News – September 18, 2020; retrieved September 19, 2020 from: https://ewnews.com/abaco-in-precarious-situation-with-covid-ongoing-reconstruction-says-mp

The Abaco chain of islands are a beautiful part of the Bahamas archipelago – the natural beauty flourishes. The Bahamas has been rocked by the pandemic but the country was in crisis even before COVID-19; this was due to structural deficiencies that were exacerbated by Agents of Change like Climate Change, globalization, technology and an Aging Diaspora. So the cupboards are now bare; this makes relief and refuge from these recent crises (COVID-19 and Dorian) untenable. Crisis within a crisis; failure on top of failure.

This theme – Bahamian Deficiencies – aligns with many previous commentaries; see a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19327 ‘Missing Solar’ – Inadequacies Exposed to the World
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18266 After Dorian, ‘Fool Me Twice’ on Flooding
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18038 Bahamas 2019 Self-Made Energy Crisis
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18011 Regulating Plastics in the Bahamas – So Little; So Late
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17992 What Went Wrong? Losing the Best; Nation-building with the Rest
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17118 White Paper: A Nation in Chaos
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16645 Economic Dysfunction: Bad Partners – Cruise Lines Interactions
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13856 Economic Dysfunction: Baha Mar – Doubling-down on Failure
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12911 Bahamian Diaspora: Not the ‘Panacea’

But we are here to explain, not just complain.

So the problems in Abaco are bigger than just COVID, bigger than just Dorian. The systematic defects are still present and still impacting the viability of this community for the future. There is the need to reboot the Abaco eco-system.

How?

The 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean identified the root causes of Caribbean communities’ dysfunctions and presented viable solutions: strategies, tactics and implementations. But it cautioned that the remediation work is not easy; it takes heavy-lifting. The book decomposed the societal engines to these sub-categories: economics, security and governance. Then it proposed confederating the 30 member-states of the Caribbean region so as to better leverage the solutions across a wider base – 42 million people – as opposed to just the small populations of many of the Small Island Development States. This is true for sparsely populated Abaco – 10,000-ish population; before Dorian; well before some documented defection-abandonment. Abaco is just a skinny string in the fabric of the regional society.

This is the urging right now; we need more than a string; we need to make the “rope” of our society stronger and better. We must … confederate, collaborate, collude, consolidate and convene:

Many strains of strings in a rope make it stronger. – The Bible Ecclesiastes 4:12

The mono-industrial engine of tourism-alone must be retired. This community – Abaco – must diversify, whatever it takes.

So the certainty of Abaco’s failure, does not have to be so certain; it can be averted. Learning the lessons from ill-fated Nazi Germany, Abaco, the Bahamas and the entire Caribbean need a more structure alliance (allied nations) fighting along-side them for victory.

Yes, we can! Confederation – this is how … we can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play.  🙂

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Pandemic Playbook – Success Looks like New Zealand

Go Lean Commentary

Keeping up with the Joneses.

It is so hard to be an island, off the coast of a continent.

Or is it?!

The island-nation of New Zealand seems to have gotten “it” right. What is the “it”? The management of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. They have demonstrated how to do “it” right.

… and in doing so have provided us in the Caribbean a role model for how to do “it”. They are the Joneses we need to keep up with.

See how New Zealand’s success is being described in this globally respected Trade Journal, Contagion® – a fully integrated news resource covering all areas of infectious disease; (also see the related VIDEO):

Title: How Did New Zealand Control COVID-19?
By:
Kevin Kunzmann Contagion Live
New Zealand, a modern small island nation, has become an emblematic champion of proper prevention and response to the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Leading into this weekend, the country of approximately 5 million has just 2 dozen active COVID-19 cases—a full month after having reported absolutely none, on the backbone of strict initial travel policies, science-based government action, and strategies responsive to testing limitations.

What else went into New Zealand’s pandemic response—and what could serve as guidance for other countries?

A new correspondence published in The New England Journal of Medicine from a team of New Zealand-based investigators at the University of Otago highlighted the public health successes of the country—measures which have brought New Zealand to the post-elimination phase of response approximately 100 days after its first case.

The trio of authors—Michael G. Baker, MB, ChB; Nick Wilson, MB, ChB, MPH; Andrew Anglemyer, PhD, MPH—wrote SARS-CoV-2 introduction to New Zealand was known to be imminent early on, due to a great rate of visiting tourists and students from Europe and China annually.

In fact, their disease models showed estimated wide pandemic spread, with capability to “overwhelm” the healthcare system and disproportionately affect Maori and Pacific persons.

“New Zealand began implementing its pandemic influenza plan in earnest in February, which included preparing hospitals for an influx of patients,” they wrote. “We also began instituting border-control policies to delay the pandemic’s arrival.”

The first New Zealand COVID-19 case was diagnosed February 26, around the same time that global agencies began reporting the SARS-CoV-2 infection was behaving more like a severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) than an influenza—giving investigators hope for containment.

Because of lacking testing and contact-tracing capability in mid-March, the country’s leaders made a dramatic and critical switch in strategy: from mitigating the disease, to eliminating it.

A countrywide lockdown—Alert Level 4—was implemented on March 26.

“After 5 weeks, and with the number of new cases declining rapidly, New Zealand moved to Alert Level 3 for an additional 2 weeks, resulting in a total of 7 weeks of what was essentially a national stay-at-home order,” authors wrote.

It was in early May that the last identified COVID-19 case was observed in the community; with the patient placed in isolated, the country had ended its community spread. On June 8, the New Zealand moved to Alert Level 1—in 103 days, they had declared the pandemic over in the country.

At the time of the paper’s publishing, New Zealand had just 1569 cases, 22 deaths, and a coronavirus-related mortality of 4 per 1 million—the lowest reported rate among 37 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
“Many parts of the domestic economy are now operating at pre-COVID levels,” authors wrote. “Planning is under way for cautious relaxing of some border-control policies that may permit quarantine-free travel from jurisdictions that have eliminated COVID-19 or that never had cases.”

However, the post-elimination stage of the pandemic is not certain for safety. The authors noted the only cases identified in the country are via international travelers kept in government-managed quarantine or isolation for 2 weeks post-arrival. Failures of border control or continued quarantine/isolation policies could result in new spread.

“New Zealand needs to plan to respond to resurgences with a range of control measures, including mass masking, which hasn’t been part of our response to date,” authors wrote.

But there are takeaways from the early and immediate successes of the New Zealand response. The authors credited the combination of immediate risk assessment driven by science, with the decisive actions of the government.

Additionally, the country’s border-control strategies, as well as both community-based and individual case-based control measures, were overall effective in eliminating the virus’ presence when mitigation was no longer feasible.
Lastly, the authors praised their leader’s message.

“Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern provided empathic leadership and effectively communicated key messages to the public—framing combating the pandemic as the work of a unified “team of 5 million”—which resulted in high public confidence and adherence to a suite of relatively burdensome pandemic-control measures,” they wrote.

Source: Posted August 9, 2020; retrieved August 30, 2020 from: https://www.contagionlive.com/news/how-did-new-zealand-control-covid19

—————

VIDEO 1 – Sharing COVID-19 experiences: The New Zealand response – https://youtu.be/bLT-XdPRUAA

World Health Organization (WHO)
Posted July 7, 2020 – In response to community transmission of COVID-19, New Zealand implemented a range of measures to contain the virus, including extensive testing, contact tracing and clear and consistent communications to the public. On 8 June 2020, the government reported that there was no more active transmission of the virus in the country but stressed that it needed to remain vigilant. This video tells the story of New Zealand’s response. More information: www.who.int/COVID-19.

The member-states of the Caribbean, individually and collectively, need an efficient and effective Playbook to manage the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. The Playbook must include strategies, tactics and implementations to mitigate and abate the underlying influenza conditions. This is exactly what New Zealand did:

  • Control the borders, so as eliminate any new flu arrivals.
  • Test the full population to identify infections
  • Contact Trace and capture movement data on all possible infected candidates
  • Lockdown communities as needed, catch and release promptly
  • Make decisions related to economic engines – cash  crops – based on near-term and long-term benefits
  • Fund subsistence … adequately – 2-week wage subsidy
  • Embrace e-Learning and work from home
  • Embrace e-Government
  • Be an early adopter on scientific solutions
  • Remain vigilant, even in success.

While this commentary addresses the Pandemic Playbook for the Caribbean region and compares it to New Zealand, we are not trying to compete, we are only trying to learn Best Practices. This commentary concludes the 6-part Teaching Series for the month of August 2020 on the subject of Pandemic Playbooks – the need for them and the deficiency there of in the Caribbean status quo. This is the final entry, 6-of-6, from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

  1. Pandemic Playbook: Worldwide Leadership – Plan ==> Actual
  2. Pandemic PlaybookCaribbean Inadequacies – Missing the Bubble Opportunities
  3. Pandemic PlaybookBahamas Example – ‘Too Little Too Late’
  4. Pandemic PlaybookOnly at the Precipice ENCORE
  5. Pandemic PlaybookTo Be or Not To Be – COVID Vaccine
  6. Pandemic Playbook: Success – Looks like New Zealand

The references to New Zealand apply to their government, yes, but compliance is expected on the part of the people and institutions. Like everywhere, there is dissent, opposition and pushback. But look at the result:

  • Economy resumed.
  • Lives protected
  • Kids are in school … now.
  • Tourism soaring – (visitors must submit to testing).
  • Global respect heightened.

So success in New Zealand has culled any resistance. See the portrayal in the VIDEO here depicting the PM vs Opposition:

VIDEO 2 – Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins go head to head on wage subsidy and Covid testing | nzherald.co.nz – https://youtu.be/I1RDlvL4VUo

nzherald.co.nz
Posted August 25, 2020 – National leader Judith Collins continues to press the Government in Question Time this afternoon over its decision not to extend the wage subsidy scheme and testing in managed isolation.

Full story: http://nzh.tw/12359734
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Follow NZ Herald on Twitter: https://goo.gl/Wi6mbv

The Go Lean roadmap calls for the full execution of the strategies, tactics and implementations to plan and respond to  disasters – pandemics have always been considered among the threats – the Clear and Present Dangers. These points had been embedded in the 2013 book and further refined by looking, listening and learning from other communities managing their own epidemic and infectious disease episodes. We previously considered these infectious diseases:

New Zealand provides a good role model for us in the Caribbean, Their pattern of Good Governance is consistent. We have looked, listened and learned from New Zealand before; they had provided other examples of Best Practices, beyond Pandemic Playbooks. See this sample of previous blog-commentaries featuring New Zealand:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17267 Way Forward – For Justice: Special Prosecutors – NZ examples abound
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15075 e-Government example in Zealand
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14811 New Zealand’s openness benefiting from International College Students
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13746 New Zealand’s Homeland Security preparedness with ANZUS Alliance
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13579 NZ reconciliation of Past Colonialism with Indigenous People
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13155 NZ use of Underwater Pipelines to connect remote islands to power grid
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12447 NZ’s Westminster but with mixed-member proportional representation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11989 NZ’s Great Model as one of the first countries to allow Diaspora Voting

The Coronavirus COVID-19 virus can be mastered; we see success in New Zealand. They have done it, so can we.

As related in the foregoing, New Zealand provides a great role model for the Caribbean in a number of subject areas; here is an additional one:

Both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition are women, Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins respectively.

Perhaps, one reason for the efficiency and effectiveness of New Zealand’s government is that they draw upon the best people in-country, no matter the person’s gender.  This point about Gender Equality aligns with another previous blog-commentary from November 14, 2015:

So how do we seriously consider reforming government in the Caribbean?

  • Start anew.
  • Start with politics and policy-makers.
  • Start with the people who submit for politics, to be policy-makers
  • Start with people who participate in the process.

Considering the status-quo of the region – in crisis – there is this need to start again. But this time we need more women.

The Caribbean member-states, individually and collectively, need the strategy of a Pandemic Playbook. This is a requirement for Good Governance; it mandates that we submit to Science and then Better Science.

Even our neighbor to the north, United States of America, can benefit from New Zealand’s example. as we related back on May 30, 2020 in this previous Go Lean commentary:

Good Leadership: Example – “Leader of the Free World”?
The current POTUS (President of the United States) – Donald Trump – is not to be credited as the “Leader of the Free World”. He has not provided a good example of Good Leadership. He is not ready, willing nor able. This is not our opinion alone …

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders – governments and citizens – to deploy an effective and efficient Pandemic Playbook for our region. This is the purpose of the Go Lean roadmap; this is how we can make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work  and play.

New Zealand did it; we can too. So our vision, this quest is conceivable, believable and achievable. 🙂

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

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

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

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14):

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

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 accidence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

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

xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of communities like … . On the other hand, the Federation must also implement the good examples learned from developments/communities like … [New Zealand].

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

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Pandemic Playbook – COVID Vaccine: To Be or Not To Be

Go Lean Commentary

To be or not to be; that is the question – Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Is it worth it to “hang in there”? This is a question for us in the Caribbean as well. The world is enduring the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic crisis; it is wreaking havoc on the world’s economic engines – $250 Billion a day in losses – and Public Health deliveries. The only hope is a vaccine, of which there are a number of them in development (Phase I – Test Tubes, Phase II – Lab Mice, Phase III – Human Trials). Around $10bn is being spent on finding a vaccine for this Coronavirus.

Will you consume or ingest the eventual vaccine?

Will you allow your children to ingest? What percentage of people in the community will refuse to ingest?

What if consumption is a prerequisite for work, school, church, travel, etc.?

To be or not to be; that is the question
To be or not to be’ is a soliloquy of Hamlet’s – meaning that although he is speaking aloud to the audience none of the other characters can hear him. Soliloquies were a convention of Elizabethan plays where characters spoke their thoughts to the audience. Hamlet says ‘To be or not to be’ because he is questioning the value of life and asking himself whether it’s worthwhile hanging in there. He is extremely depressed at this point and fed up with everything in the world around him, and he is contemplating putting an end to himself. – Source
——
See Hamlet’s full Soliloquy in the Appendix below.

Do you want cultural suicide or do you want to be a part of the future world?

Please note: You will not be a Guinea Pig; those were the rodent-like creatures that functioned as Lab Mice. Also, you are not a part of the Human Trials. So at the point that the vaccine offer is made to you, many iterations of Quality Assurance would have already been executed.

When exactly will a vaccine be ready?

We are not certain of the Day/Time, but we can say SOON. See this VIDEO as it  addresses this and other related issues:

VIDEO – Covid-19: When will a vaccine be ready? | The Economist – https://youtu.be/FgR6t7vQtn8

The Economist
Posted August 14, 2020 – Around $10bn is being spent on finding a vaccine for coronavirus—it’s not nearly enough. And even when a covid-19 vaccine is found how should it be distributed fairly? Our experts answer your questions.

00:00 Covid-19: When will a vaccine be ready?
00:50 Will there ever be a “silver-bullet” vaccine?
01:41 How long would it take for the whole world to be vaccinated?
02:25 Who benefits financially from the vaccine?
03:54 How much will each vaccine cost?
05:10 What percentage of Americans do you estimate will choose not to get vaccinated & how much of an issue will this be?
06:44 In an ideal world, how should a vaccine be optimally distributed?
07:21 Will new versions of the vaccine be required periodically?
07:54 Will developing countries receive equal access to the vaccine, or will they be left behind?
08:50 Should richer countries pay for vaccines in the developing world?
10:01 How should we respond to crises like this one in the future?

Further reading:
Find The Economist’s most recent coverage of covid-19 here: https://econ.st/3iwmMMH

Sign up to The Economist’s daily newsletter to keep up to date with our latest covid-19 coverage: https://econ.st/2Ckne0X

Listen to “The Intelligence” podcast about the vaccine candidates and equitable distribution: https://econ.st/3aqh4Jl

How the world can think better about catastrophic and existential risks: https://econ.st/2CqYN28

Read our leader on how people must adapt to living in the covid-19 pandemic era: https://econ.st/3gSw0SS

How SARS-CoV-2 causes disease and death in covid-19: https://econ.st/33S1jcU

Covid-19 testing labs are being overwhelmed: https://econ.st/3iDGMx1

How the pandemic has shown the urgency of reforming care for the elderly: https://econ.st/2XUqfgh

Read about the hunt for the origins of covid-19: https://econ.st/3iAoX1L

This commentary addresses the Pandemic Playbook for the Caribbean region – asserting that it should include vaccines. This continues the Teaching Series for the month of August 2020 on the subject of Pandemic Playbooks – the need for them and the deficiency there of in the Caribbean. This is entry 5-of-6 from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

  1. Pandemic Playbook: Worldwide Leadership – Plan ==> Actual
  2. Pandemic PlaybookCaribbean Inadequacies – Missing the Bubble Opportunities
  3. Pandemic PlaybookBahamas Example – ‘Too Little Too Late’
  4. Pandemic PlaybookOnly at the Precipice ENCORE
  5. Pandemic Playbook: To Be or Not To Be – COVID Vaccine
  6. Pandemic Playbook: Success – Looks like New Zealand

A big area of consideration must be past history:

  • COVID-19 is not the first pandemic
  • COVID-19 immunization would not be the first vaccine

What lessons can we learn from past considerations of this “To Be or Not To Be” vaccine drama?

Let’s consider the historicity (good, bad and ugly) of the Polio vaccine and the Lead Researcher Dr. Jonas Salk; see here:

Title 1: Polio Vaccine

During the early 1950s, polio rates in the U.S. were above 25,000 annually; in 1952 and 1953, the U.S. experienced an outbreak of 58,000 and 35,000 polio cases, respectively, up from a typical number of some 20,000 a year, with deaths in those years numbering 3,200 and 1,400.[62] Amid this U.S. polio epidemic, millions of dollars were invested in finding and marketing a polio vaccine by commercial interests, including Lederle Laboratories in New York under the direction of H. R. Cox. Also working at Lederle was Polish-born virologist and immunologist Hilary Koprowski of the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, who tested the first successful polio vaccine, in 1950.[8][41] His vaccine, however, being a live attenuated virus taken orally, was still in the research stage and would not be ready for use until five years after Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine (a dead-virus injectable vaccine) had reached the market. Koprowski’s attenuated vaccine was prepared by successive passages through the brains of Swiss albino mice. By the seventh passage, the vaccine strains could no longer infect nervous tissue or cause paralysis. After one to three further passages on rats, the vaccine was deemed safe for human use.[39][63] On 27 February 1950, Koprowski’s live, attenuated vaccine was tested for the first time on an 8-year-old boy living at Letchworth Village, an institution for the physically and mentally disabled located in New York. After the child suffered no side effects, Koprowski enlarged his experiment to include 19 other children.[39][64]

Jonas Salk
The first effective polio vaccine was developed in 1952 by Jonas Salk and a team at the University of Pittsburgh that included Julius Youngner, Byron Bennett, L. James Lewis, and Lorraine Friedman, which required years of subsequent testing. Salk went on CBS radio to report a successful test on a small group of adults and children on 26 March 1953; two days later, the results were published in JAMA.[57] Leone N. Farrell invented a key laboratory technique that enabled the mass production of the vaccine by a team she led in Toronto.[65][66] Beginning 23 February 1954, the vaccine was tested at Arsenal Elementary School and the Watson Home for Children in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[67]

Salk’s vaccine was then used in a test called the Francis Field Trial, led by Thomas Francis, the largest medical experiment in history at that time. The test began with about 4,000 children at Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Virginia,[68][69] and eventually involved 1.8 million children, in 44 states from Maine to California.[70] By the conclusion of the study, roughly 440,000 received one or more injections of the vaccine, about 210,000 children received a placebo, consisting of harmless culture media, and 1.2 million children received no vaccination and served as a control group, who would then be observed to see if any contracted polio.[39] The results of the field trial were announced 12 April 1955 (the tenth anniversary of the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose paralytic illness was generally believed to have been caused by polio). The Salk vaccine had been 60–70% effective against PV1 (poliovirus type 1), over 90% effective against PV2 and PV3, and 94% effective against the development of bulbar polio.[71] Soon after Salk’s vaccine was licensed in 1955, children’s vaccination campaigns were launched. In the U.S, following a mass immunization campaign promoted by the March of Dimes, the annual number of polio cases fell from 35,000 in 1953 to 5,600 by 1957.[72] By 1961 only 161 cases were recorded in the United States.[73]

Safety incidents

In April 1955, soon after mass polio vaccination began in the US, the Surgeon General began to receive reports of patients who contracted paralytic polio about a week after being vaccinated with Salk polio vaccine from Cutter pharmaceutical company, with the paralysis limited to the limb the vaccine was injected into. In response the Surgeon General pulled all polio vaccine made by Cutter Laboratories from the market, but not before 250 cases of paralytic illness had occurred. Wyeth polio vaccine was also reported to have paralyzed and killed several children. It was soon discovered that some lots of Salk polio vaccine made by Cutter and Wyeth had not been properly inactivated, allowing live poliovirus into more than 100,000 doses of vaccine. In May 1955, the National Institutes of Health and Public Health Services established a Technical Committee on Poliomyelitis Vaccine to test and review all polio vaccine lots and advise the Public Health Service as to which lots should be released for public use. These incidents reduced public confidence in polio vaccine leading to a drop in vaccination rates.[76]

Source: Retrieved August 29, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine#1950%E2%80%931955

Is there an alternative to taking a vaccine?

Yes, there is herd or community immunity – where if enough people are vaccinated, like 70 percent – then the rest will automatically benefit from the protections.

But don’t get it twisted! The Caribbean member-states boast a Service industrial economy – tourism. To participate in this industry space will require compliance. Tourists – by air for resort-based stay-overs or cruise line passengers – will not want to expose themselves to possible infections.

Lastly, individuals can simply chose to exit societal functioning – a self-imposed quarantine; think: Leper Colony. These ones will have to take a seat – with a view – and watch life pass them by.

Is this what you want for yourself, your family and your community? If you chose NO VACCINE, you have that right. But your children may choose differently. Especially those children that you invested so selflessly to get advanced education – college graduates. Already, this population have a higher than normal abandonment rate in the region.

One report estimates 70 percent of college educated Caribbean citizens have fled and live abroad in the Diaspora:

Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to Brain Drain
According to the analysis by the Inter-American Development Bank, the people in the “Caribbean 6” countries, including the Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad & Tobago have wasted money on educating their populations, especially tertiary (college) education. …

The Go Lean book posits that the Caribbean is the greatest address in the world. So why would people want to leave? The book answers by relating “push” and “pull” factors. Push, in that the dire economic conditions in the Caribbean homeland, plus governmental failures in response, caused responsible people to look elsewhere to fulfill their responsibilities and aspirations. On the other hand, pull factors came from the geo-political circumstances in the world. … Many West Indians were attracted by these better prospects in what was often referred to as the mother country. …

The Caribbean region features the world’s best address. The world should be beating down the doors to come to the Caribbean, not the Caribbean people beating down doors to get out.

“To be or not to be? That is the question” …

There must be a Pandemic Playbook for inclusion and participation in the COVID-19 vaccine race.

We must have a seat at the table or we will be “on the menu“.

The Go Lean roadmap promotes, plans and prepares for that inclusion and participation.

We want to start early in the participation cycle; the Go Lean roadmap calls for the full strategies, tactics and implementations for Research & Development. We also want full participation with Disaster (as in pandemic) Preparation & Response. These participations had already been embedded in this roadmap for reforming and transforming the Caribbean. These prime drivers are part of the vision for a Pandemic Playbook. These participations were presented as part of the New Guards for Homeland Security and Public Safety in the Caribbean region.

See the vision for Caribbean Research & Development (R&D) plus Disaster Preparation (and Response) as presented in previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19568 Big Hairy Audacious Goal – Need ‘Big Brother’ for Pandemics
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19189 We have people with genius qualifiers to do Research & Development
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18243 The Need after Disasters? Regionalism – ‘How you like me now?’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16882 Exploring Medical School Opportunities for R&D and Economic Engines
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16817 The Call for Caribbean R&D to Battle Cancer
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15996 Good Governance: Stepping Up in an Emergency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15310 Industrial Reboot – Trauma 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8943 Zika’s Drug Breakthrough – End-Game of an Playbook
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7449 ‘Crap Happens’ – So What Now?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7822 A model for doing more Cancer R&D in the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6580 On Guard for the Good, Bad & Ugly of Capitalism on Drug Patents
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4720 Lesson Learned – Mitigating SARS in Hong  Kong
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2397 Lesson Learned – Monitoring and Mitigating Ebola
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1003 Painful and rapid spread of new virus – Chikungunya – in Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=554 Cuba already had Head-start with Drug R&D – Let’s do more

The Coronavirus COVID-19 virus is the master; we are all just slaves, doing the master’s bidding.

Wanna take back control?
Vaccine or bust!

We have no other choice but to contend with these challenges that come with participating in a vaccine program.

We need this strategy in our Pandemic Playbook. A requirement for Good Governance mandates that we capitulate with one or many of these vaccines that have been researched and developed; lives and livelihoods are stake. Next time – and there will be a next time – we need our own people doing the research & the development.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders – governments, citizens, doctors and patients – to participate in the global quest to eradicate this pandemic. This is the roadmap for making the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work, heal and play. Jonas Salk did it with Polio … eventually; we can too. So our vision, this quest is conceivable, believable and achievable. 🙂

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

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

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

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

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

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 …

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

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

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

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

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

————————

Appendix – Hamlet’s Soliloquy

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

Source: Retrieved Aigust 29, 2020 from: https://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/soliloquies/to-be-or-not-to-be/#:~:text=To%20be%20or%20not%20to%20be’%20is%20a%20soliloquy%20of,other%20characters%20can%20hear%20him.&text=Hamlet%20says%20’To%20be%20or,it’s%20worthwhile%20hanging%20in%20there.

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Pandemic Playbook – Only at the Precipice, Do People Change – ENCORE

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going – Old Adage

We have all heard that expression and knows what it means; but here is a different angle:

When things get critical, we cannot sit still or maintain the status quo.

Things have always been critical in the Caribbean, but right now, conditions are even more acute than our normal critical. The world is enduring the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic – every societal engine is shattered.

  • Our revenues are curtailed because the tourism-only economy is shattered.
  • Economic activities in the private sector are shattered due to the fact that there is no money.
  • Governments cannot function.
  • Public Health deliveries are imperiled … and overwhelmed.

Each Caribbean member-state, one after another, is suffering this disposition:

(Click to Enlarge)

In a research report by the University of the West Indies entitled “COVID-19 containment in the Caribbean: The experience of small island developing states” it related the intersection of Public Health measures and economic motivations. The May 25, 2020 report provides this summary:

Tourism is a dominant revenue stream for many Caribbean SIDS, with their reliance on international arrivals, particularly from Europe and North America. Governments were aware that border controls and closures would have severe economic effects. Weighed against this was the known fragility of regional health systems, and governments were keen to avoid their health systems being overwhelmed by a sharp increase in hospitalisations. Using the date of first confirmed case in each country as our indicator, Caribbean SIDS generally implemented NPIs (Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions) earlier than our chosen comparator countries. For movements into a country, the Caribbean on average implemented controls 23 days before their comparator counterparts. For control of movement within countries, the Caribbean implemented controls 36 days before comparators, and for control of gatherings the Caribbean on average implemented controls 30 days before comparator countries.

This report reveals the critical disposition of the Caribbean region; this is the dreaded precipice that the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean have always been on alert for. This actuality aligns with the observation that it is only at the precipice that people are willing to change.

The COVID-19 pandemic is creating the Perfect Storm to finally forge change in the region. This actuality forces us to compose a Pandemic Playbook. We need that now.

This commentary continues the Teaching Series for the month of August 2020 on the subject of Pandemic Playbooks – the need for them and the deficiency there of in the Caribbean. This is entry 4-of-6 from the movement behind the Go Lean book. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

  1. Pandemic Playbook: Worldwide Leadership – Plan ==> Actual
  2. Pandemic PlaybookCaribbean Inadequacies – Missing the Bubble Opportunities
  3. Pandemic PlaybookBahamas Example – ‘Too Little Too Late’
  4. Pandemic Playbook: Only at the Precipice – ENCORE
  5. Pandemic PlaybookTo Be or Not To Be – COVID Vaccine
  6. Pandemic Playbook: Success – Looks like New Zealand

The theme of Forging Change at the Precipice is very familiar to the Go Lean movement. In fact, there was an April 21, 2014 blog-commentary that featured almost the same title:

‘Only at the precipice, do they change’

Who is the “they”?

The target audience we want to change include the people and institutions (i.e. governments, banks, schools, etc.) of the region. We need both Top-Down and Bottoms-Up change.

See how this urgent-emergent crisis can finally usher in the reforms and transformations that Caribbean society have always needed.  Let’s revisit that previous blog-commentary here-now:

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

Go Lean Commentary – ‘Only at the precipice, do they change’

Keanu Nanu

“Life imitating Art”; “Art imitating life”.

This is more than a cliché; it is also factual for describing how people finally get the will to change.

The movie The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) – demonstrates “Art imitating Life” – is a remake of the classic 1951 sci-fi film of the same name; see Trailer VIDEO in the Appendix below. These films are about an alien visitor and his giant robot counterpart who visit Earth.

The character Professor Jacob Barnhardt, in the 2008 version, was played by John Cleese, the English actor of some repute, known for his start with the Mighty Python players.

The counter character in this dialogue, Klaatu, was played by American mega-star Keanu Reeves.

The storyline proceeds that the character Klaatu is a spokesman that preceded the robot sent to destroy human life on earth. And thus this quotation from the Movie Dialogue:

Professor Barnhardt: There must be alternatives. You must have some technology that could solve our problem.

Klaatu: Your problem is not technology. The problem is you. You lack the will to change.

Professor Barnhardt: Then help us change.

Klaatu: I cannot change your nature. You treat the world as you treat each other.

Professor Barnhardt: But every civilization reaches a crisis point eventually.

Klaatu: Most of them don’t make it.

Professor Barnhardt: Yours did. How?

Klaatu: Our sun was dying. We had to evolve in order to survive.

Professor Barnhardt: So it was only when your world was threatened with destruction that you became what you are now.

Klaatu: Yes.

Professor Barnhardt: Well that’s where we are. You say we’re on the brink of destruction and you’re right. But it’s only on the brink that people find the will to change. Only at the precipice do we evolve. This is our moment. Don’t take it from us. We are close to an answer.

(Source: Internet Movie Database – Movie: The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008). Retrieved 04/21/2014 – http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0012790/quotes)

This foregoing dialogue from the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) is symbolic of the crisis facing the Caribbean. The problem in the Caribbean is not technology, but rather the will to change. This is a consistent theme in the book Go Lean … Caribbean, it asserts that the changes necessary to preserve Caribbean heritage, culture and economies must first be preceded by an evolution in the community ethos. This pronouncement is as follows from Page 20:

The people of the Caribbean must change their feelings about elements of their society – elements that are in place and elements missing. This is referred to as “Community Ethos”, defined as:

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

This book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic agency seen as the Caribbean’s best hope to avert the current path of disaster, human flight and brain drain, and grant the Caribbean a meaningful future for its youth.

This movie dialogue synchronizes with the exact details of the book. On Page 21, Go Lean presents a series of community ethos that must be adapted to forge change in the Caribbean. In addition, there are specific advocacies to:

  • Impact the Future (Page 26)
  • Impact Turn-Around (Page 33)
  • Impact the Greater Good (Page 37)
  • Grow the Economy (Page 151)
  • Preserve Caribbean Heritage (Page 218)

As a roadmap, this book provides the turn-by-turn guidance to optimize the Caribbean economy, security apparatus and governing engines.

With the assessment that many Caribbean states have lost more than 50% of their population to foreign shores (Pages 18 & 303), the region is now at that “precipice”.

“It is only at the precipice, do they change!”

Now is the time to lean-in to this roadmap for change, the book Go Lean … Caribbean, and the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. Our society/civilization is at the crisis point.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————-

Appendix VIDEO – The Day The Earth Stood Still 2008 Official Trailer  – https://youtu.be/rcSJ-6354-A

Published on Aug 5, 2012 – A remake of the 1951 classic sci-fi film about an alien visitor and his giant robot counterpart who visit Earth.
Keanu Reeves & Jennifer Connelly http://www.keanureeves.us/movie/the-d…
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Pandemic Playbook – Caribbean Inadequacies – Bahamas Example: ‘Too Little Too Late’

Go Lean Commentary

My thimble runneth over! – Derisive Pun based on the Biblical expression “My cup runneth over”.

Considering the reality of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic on our economic engines and Public Health deliveries, how do you answer:

Is your cup running over?

My cup runneth over” is a quotation from the Hebrew Bible (Psalm 23:5) and means “I have more than enough for my needs”, though interpretations and usage vary. In desert cultures one is required by laws of hospitality to provide a drink to strangers. – Source: Wikipedia.

For many the answer can only be: My thimble runneth over!

(Check out this blog-site – http://mythimblerunnethover.blogspot.com/ – of a simple woman in Tennessee who feels that she is blessed just to have the simple things in life).

Consider the actuality of life in the Bahamas during this crisis; (this writer is a descendant of Freeport, Bahamas and observed-reported on the pandemic from Nassau):

  • Jobs are affected – most private businesses, including tourist resorts, are closed or curtailed.
  • Retail food prices increase because of higher inventory-carrying costs
  • Hospitals and public safety institutions are overwhelmed with COVID cases: testing, tracing, therapeutics and terminal patients.
  • Government Shutdown – No administrative processing, at all; no passport processing, no business registrations, etc.

This reporting describes the situation on the ground in the Bahamas as miserable. In fact, a Misery Index (inflation, unemployment and crime rate) would not do justice in depicting the despair in-country. Even Food Security is an issue; the government has had to implement a national feeding program. See a related story here, describing this program and the challenges:

Title: PM: Food assistance costs soar to $1 mil., more than 110k in need
By: Ava Turnquest
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis yesterday revealed the government is supporting the National Food Distribution Task Force with $1 million per week to assist more than 110,000 people.

Now entering its 11th week, Minnis advised the task force will move to erestructure aid into three categories: most, moderately and least vulnerable; with assistance to be distributed weekly, bi-weekly, and once a month, respectively.

The prime minister said 27,705 households have registered for assistance, to date.

“Access to food is a basic human right,” Minnis said during his national address on Sunday.

“Around the world, and here at home, people who have been self-sufficient their entire lives are now struggling to feed themselves and their families.

“Ensuring that our people in need are being helped is one of our leading priorities. We are investing heavily in food assistance.”

He continued: “I understand the unique situation so many of you find yourselves in, never imagining that you would ever have to seek assistance to have enough to eat.

“It is important, at this point in the program, to emphasize that first and foremost the Task Force is implementing a needs-based program.

“We have set out to help those in our communities who are the most vulnerable.”

Minnis said he asked the task force to reach out to smaller grocery stores so that arrangements can be made for food vouchers to be purchased from stores throughout the country.

“We would like neighborhood “Mom and Pop Shops” to participate in, and benefit from, this exercise with us,” he said.

During his address, Minnis noted the budget allocation of $16 million dollars for food assistance.

“Your government is delivering on this commitment,” he said.

“We are now providing $1 million dollars per week to the National Food Distribution Task Force for food assistance, to ensure those who are truly in need of food are being helped.

“Our Food Task Force is making every effort to preserve safety and dignity.”

Minnis noted an interaction with an individual who registered for assistance but later advised they were no longer in need.

“We are so grateful to people like Mr. Knowles, who I am told registered for food assistance but recently wrote back to the Task Force saying, “I am well and God has provided me with more than enough, so I don’t need any further assistance. Please provide it to those in need”.”

“Mr. Knowles’ noble action enables the Task Force to stretch the budget and help those who really need it most.”

Minnis added: “We thank Mr. Knowles and others like him, who understand that even in these difficult times, there are those who are in deep, deep need while others are not struggling as much.”

Source: Posted August 20, 2020; retrieved August 27, 2020 from: https://ewnews.com/pm-food-assistance-costs-soar-to-1-mil-more-than-110k-in-need

The Bahamas has a population of 340,000 (circa 2010) and yet 110,000 are being fed by the government.

Sad! $1 million per week for 110,000 people means $10 each … per week. Wow, the thimble runneth over!

One cannot wait until it rains to get an umbrella.

There should have been some disaster planning for this pandemic in advance – this is called a Pandemic Playbook. The Bahamas, and the whole Caribbean region, was alerted 5 years ago to be prepared for such a possibility; see here:

Lesson Learned – Mitigating SARS in Hong  Kong – March 24, 2015
The people, institutions and governance of the Caribbean need to pay more than the usual attention to the lessons of SARS in Hong Kong [(2003], not just from the medical perspective, but also from an economic viewpoint.

During the “heyday” of the SARS crisis, travel and transport to Hong Kong virtually came to a grinding halt! Hong Kong had previously enjoyed up to 14 million visitors annually; they were a gateway to the world. The SARS epidemic became a pandemic because of this status. Within weeks of the outbreak, SARS had spread from Hong Kong to infect individuals in 37 countries in early 2003.[3]

Can we afford this disposition in any Caribbean community?

This commentary continues the Teaching Series for the month of August 2020 on the subject of Pandemic Playbooks – the need for them and the current deficiency there of in the Caribbean. This is entry 3-of-6 from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

  1. Pandemic Playbook: Worldwide Leadership – Plan ==> Actual
  2. Pandemic PlaybookCaribbean Inadequacies – Missing the Bubble Opportunities
  3. Pandemic Playbook: Bahamas Example – ‘Too Little; Too Late’
  4. Pandemic PlaybookOnly at the Precipice – ENCORE
  5. Pandemic PlaybookTo Be or Not To Be – COVID Vaccine
  6. Pandemic Playbook: Success – Looks like New Zealand

Are we assigning blame to the Government of the Bahamas for being ill-prepared for the eventuality of this COVID-19 crisis?

Yes – Too Little; Too Late.

In fact, we assigned the same blame to all the member-states of the entire Caribbean. This is because governments have a certain expectation, responsibility and job description. This is referred in the Go Lean book – and in standard Good Governance – as the implied Social Contract; defined as follows:

“citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights”.

No Food Security on an island or within a chain of islands?

Wait! Why not just Go Fish?

Nope! The government’s playbook forbids standard fishing solutions among the archipelago of island. See this source here:

THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE BAHAMAS
GENERAL PROTOCOLS FOR
BOATS, YACHTS, PRIVATE CRAFT, RECREATIONAL CRAFT, CRUISING IN, PLYING THE WATERS OF, OR SHELTERING IN THE BAHAMAS OR SEEKING TO DO SO
DURING THE COVID-19 SHUT-DOWN
14 April, 2020

  • All foreign boats shall remain in place. There shall be no boating, cruising, fishing, day trips or other movement of any kind.
  • Boats belonging to Bahamians or Bahamian residents whose boats have a regular berth or place in The Bahamas shall comply with the following restrictions:
    • On no account shall Bahamian boats travel from one island of The Bahamas to another …
    • In order to minimize interpersonal contact and to respect the lockdown and curfew requirements, Bahamian boats shall not engage in boating, cruising, day trips or other movement. However, Bahamian boats may engage in subsistence fishing and local fishing for sustenance only (no sports fishing) at allowable times only and with all possible precautions (including Pars. (10) to (13) hereof), and only with the boat departing from and returning to the same location.

So unless you own your own boat – rare in the community  – no subsistence fishing (for personal consumption) is allowed.

How about the land? Can Bahamians feed themselves “of the land”, as in subsistence farming?

Nope! Despite our foregoing assertion that “one cannot wait until it rains to get an umbrella”, the Bahamas Ministry of Agriculture is doubling-down in its desire to encourage Backyard Farming and Community Gardens; only now. See the full story here:

Title: Michael Pintard – Agriculture Minister – Relaunches Backyard Farming Programme
By: DENISE MAYCOCK, Tribune Freeport Reporter
AGRICULTURE and Marine Resources Minister Michael Pintard relaunched the Backyard Farming Programme on Friday, distributing 1,500 backyard kits here on Grand Bahama.

This comes a day after the announcement of an extension of the lockdown for another two weeks to August 19, to control the spread of the coronavirus infections on Grand Bahama.

Additionally, Mr Pintard revealed plans to launch community gardens throughout the island, in partnership with the five GB MPs. Land will be identified and cleared in each of the five constituencies to grow community gardens.

Mr Pintard said these programme initiatives are part of the food security programme, which is important, especially due to the global coronavirus pandemic.

“Again, we are in a difficult period and we believe that the potential for disruption in the food supply is real, given COVID-19,…” he said.

According to Minister Pintard, of the 1,500 kits assembled at the Department of Agriculture in Freeport, 100 will be distributed to each of the five MPs, and the remainder to churches, NGOs, and others.

He believes that “the revitalized” backyard farming programme will not only help the country in terms of its expenditure on food imports, but will also benefit residents.

“We believe it will enhance our ability to save money on our food bill, but also assist a number of persons in growing their farming operation as well. This is going to be accompanied by two other programmes: the distribution of a variety of seeds also on the island as a separate part of our backyard and community farming programmes. We have many more seeds that supply a minimum of 1,000 households,” Mr Pintard said.

The minister was pleased that all five MPs have agreed to support and participate, including Minister of State for Disaster Preparedness Iram Lewis, MP for Central Grand Bahama, Pakesia Parker-Edgecombe of West Grand Bahama and Bimini, Deputy Prime Minister Peter Turnquest of East Grand Bahama, and Frederick McAlpine, MP for Pineridge.

“We don’t believe that MPs are the only conduits by which kits should be distributed, and we want to make sure we have 1,000 kits, plus 1,000 additional seed packages distributed, through partnership with churches, NGOs, and others,” he said.

In terms of the community gardens, Mr Pintard noted that they will be clearing properties for community gardening in every constituency, and will also be partnering with local government on that initiative.

MP Pakesia Parker Edgecombe said she is very appreciative for the kits, which will be distributed in her constituency. “It is important for us to promote food sustainability. I know with the crisis we are going through many are asking about food security. What Mr Pintard and his ministry have been able to do with this initiative and this programme, is to (encourage people) to grow your own food and not spend so much at the supermarket,” she said.

MP Iram Lewis said he has been a strong advocate for backyard farming. “I was happy when the Minister decided to partner with us to take backyard farming to the next level where we form cooperatives in the community by having community gardens. All MPs have identified an area in their constituencies for these community gardens.”

Mr Lewis said a major anchor garden has been identified on South Mall Drive where there will be a seedling nursery and a production area, and weekly Farmers’ Market.

“We really appreciate this gesture,” he said. We are happy it is officially launched and will go a long way, with respect to food security and putting healthy produce that we grow ourselves on our table,” he said.

Tutorial videos and workshop for persons interested in backyard and community gardening is available on the Ministry’s website. Anthony Hutcheson will also provide lectures and tips on how to plant and care for the garden.

Source: Posted Friday August 7, 2020; retrieved August 27, 2020 from: http://www.tribune242.com/news/2020/aug/07/michael-pintard-relaunches-backyard-farming-progra/

Yes, indeed! The assessment is conclusive: Too little; Too late!

In contrast, the full strategies, tactics and implementations for Food Security and Disaster Preparation had already been embedded in a roadmap for reforming and transforming the Caribbean; this is the purpose of the Go Lean book. This is a vision of a Pandemic Playbook. Rather than “waiting for it to rain and then go looking for an umbrella”, the Go Lean roadmap presents a plan for New Guards for Homeland Security and Public Safety on Day One / Step One of the ascension of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

See the vision for Caribbean Food Security plus Disaster Preparation (and Response) as presented in previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

Food Security

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19725 Keep the Change: Being ‘Basic’ about Basic Needs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18836 Food Security – Big Chicken 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18834 Food Security – A Lesson in History: Free Trade Agreements & Food
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18831 Food Security – Planning and Opportunities for the Cruise Line industry
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18828 Food Security – A Plan for Temperate Foods in the Tropics
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18817 Food Security – Bread Basket 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13184 Industrial Reboot – Frozen Foods 101

Disaster Preparation and Response

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20052 Natural Disasters: The Price of Paradise
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19568 Big Hairy Audacious Goal – Need ‘Big Brother’ for Pandemics
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18243 The Need after Disasters? Regionalism – ‘How you like me now?’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18182 Disaster Relief: Helping, Not Hurting
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17500 Continuity of Business: Lessons on Recovery from System Failures
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15996 Good Governance: Stepping Up in an Emergency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15886 Industrial Reboot – Planning for Disasters with Reinsurance
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8943 Zika’s Drug Breakthrough – End-Game of an Playbook
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7449 ‘Crap Happens’ – So What Now?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4720 Lesson Learned – Mitigating SARS in Hong  Kong
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4308 911 – Emergency Response: System in Crisis
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2397 Lesson Learned – Monitoring and Mitigating Ebola
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1003 Painful and rapid spread of new virus – Chikungunya – in Caribbean

Here’s the major problem: the whole Caribbean – not just the Bahamas – is in competition with the rest of the world, whether we want to be or not. In fact, the original motivation of the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean was to execute a Regional Battle Plan to dissuade emigration – to lower the Push-Pull factors that lead to the Brain Drain.

We are losing that Battle.

Some countries – that we compete against – are stepping up and filling the “cups of sustenance” for their citizens and residents, while here in the Caribbean, we are falling short. This is evident in the Bahamas, as related in the foregoing, as they are only able to provide some basic food support for some citizens, as a rate of $10 per person per week. Yes, the competition is doing so much more; see here:

  • Canada is providing families $950 every 2 weeks for the duration of the pandemic, plus freezing rents & mortgages.
    Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/24/fact-check-canadas-pandemic-relief-isnt-broad-claimed/5493166002/
  • The US provided a one-time $1,200 Stimulus Check to all their tax-payers – plus $500 per child.
  • The UK government’s emergency fiscal measures – including paying 80% of the salaries of furloughed workers, higher welfare spending, tax cuts and grants for small companies – will cost around 104 billion pounds. The government has also announced 330 billion pounds in state-guaranteed loans.
  • As of May 2020, the Euro Zone’s (which includes the Caribbean stakeholders of France and The Netherlands) total fiscal response to the epidemic is tallied at 3.2 trillion Euros. Of that total some 2.7 trillion Euros comes from national fiscal stimulus and government guarantees for companies to keep them in business. On top of that, 100 billion Euros of money jointly borrowed by the EU is to go to a scheme to subsidize wages so firms can cut working hours, not jobs.
    Source: https://www.fm-magazine.com/news/2020/may/global-coronavirus-pandemic-relief-efforts-infographic.html

For us in the Caribbean in general, and in the Bahamas in particular, can you see the “Too Little; Too Late” dilemma? Do you see the “Push”? Do you see the “Pull”?

Brain Drain – Where the Brains Are – February 25, 2020
For us in the Caribbean, it is important for us to understand the full width-and-breadth of Brain Drains. Every month, the movement behind the Go Lean book present a Teaching Series on a subject germane to Caribbean life. For this February 2020, our focus is on the machinations that lead to Brain Drain. This is entry 1 of 5 for this series, which details that every community everywhere has people with brains – or those with genius qualifiers – it is just the opportunities that is missing in many communities. So there is the need to analyze the “Push and Pull“ factors that causes our genius-qualified-people to abandon this homeland and then identify the strategies, tactics and implementations that we must consider in order to abate this bad trend.

Firstly, the “Push and Pull” reasons are identified in the Go Lean book as follows:

  • Push” refers to people who feel compelled to leave, to seek refuge in a foreign land. “Refuge” is an appropriate word; because of societal defects, many from the Caribbean must leave as refugees – think LGBTDisabilityDomestic-abuseMedically-challenged– for their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. 
  • Pull”, on the other hand refers to the lure of a more prosperous life abroad; many times our people are emigrating based on a mirage of “greener pastures”; but many times, the “better prospect” is elusive for the first generation.

The Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is a real threat and crisis for our Caribbean region; we have no choice but to contend with it. Our competition, with the rest of the world is also real; we have to contend with that as well.

We need a better Pandemic Playbook; we need Good Governance. We need to do more! Individually, our member-states are crippled – we cannot fill a cup; only drip into a thimble. We must leverage the full region; we need a Single Market for the Caribbean now more than ever. See how the EU Single Market – our role model – is micro-managing the economic-fiscal fall-out in the Appendix VIDEO below.

This crisis would be a terrible thing to waste

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders – governments, citizens, institutions, trading partners and Diaspora – to come together, to convene, collaborate and confederate to forge a better response to this global pandemic crisis.  This is how we can make the homeland a better place to live, work and play. Our people have choices and options; they can, and have abandoned us and fled to more prosperous (resilient) lands abroad. Let’s wake up, fight back and compete for our people.

Despite the challenges, if we unify, we can compete – Yes, we can – it is conceivable, believable and achievable.  🙂

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

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

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

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14):

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

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

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

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

xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of communities like … . On the other hand, the Federation must also implement the good examples learned from developments/communities like … .

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

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APPENDIX VIDEO – COVID-19: EU’s plan to save the economy – https://youtu.be/KyRKU2DePO0



EURACTIV

Posted April 20, 2020 – The European Commission estimates the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak could be greater than the financial crisis in 2008.

In order to keep the economy running, the EU executive introduced flexibility for funds and national expenditure, member states approved a safety net of liquidity for countries, workers and companies involving the ESM, EIB, and Commission SURE, and EU leaders agreed on the need to work out a recovery plan for the block in the coming months.

EURACTIV looked into the details of the EU’s economic response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

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