PR – Go Lean…Caribbean

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Long Train of Abuses: Puerto Rico – “Take the Heat” or “Get out of the Kitchen” – Encore

Posted on December 14, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Strategy

Face it Puerto Rico, you have not been handling the heat!

The phrase if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen means— if an activity is too difficult or the pressure of a situation is too great for someone to handle, then perhaps it would be best to stop doing it and/or leave. – Source

Perhaps now this Caribbean island will be honest, with itself, and make the necessary adjustments:

Get Out!

The American eco-system is just not working for Puerto Rico (PR). They are enduring a Long Train of Abuses; they are nearly a Failed-State. They have the option to reboot; perhaps consider the actuality of statehood; becoming the 51 State of United States of America.

But PR is reluctant for that heat-pressure also! 🙁

There are so many lessons to learn and apply from other societies faced with the same dilemma. Consider Ireland and the Philippines:

Ireland – The Irish had a Long Train of Abuses to endure in their homeland – the United Kingdom with England, Wales and Scotland – especially during the 19th Century. Then in the 20th Century the abuse was expected to continue. After losing 49,000 citizens in World War I (1914-1918), fighting and sacrificing on behalf of a country that irrefutably did not love them back, the Republic of Ireland was formed and took their leave. During World War II, Ireland remained neutral and alienated from the conflict or loses.
Source: Retrieved December 14, 2020 from: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
Philippines – As a Spanish colony, Universal Suffrage eluded this homeland. Voting Rights were only extended to citizens that spoke Spanish. Then in 1898, the USA defeated Spain and occupied the archipelago. Now Voting Rights were only extended to citizens that spoke English or Spanish. Universal Suffrage only came to this oppressed, repressed and suppressed land when they secured autonomy and independence … from the USA. For the majority Tagalog-speaking people, they were second-class citizens no more.
Source: Retrieved December 14, 2020 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines#Colonial_rule

What a Long Train of Abuses these communities had to endure.

Remember the bad colonial orthodoxy that was discussed previously; we have to War Against Orthodoxy to make progress as an organized society. When defects are embedded in the law (constitution), the only remedy is to change the law, otherwise the Long Train of Abuses continues. This is the harsh reality with Puerto Rico, with these identified-qualified defects:

No Vote, No Voice – Peanut Gallery – PR has no vote in the US Congress.
Interstate Compacts – No Seat at the Table – To partner with any State, Congress has to approve, without them.
Jones Act – A mainland protectionist law that limits trade for PR; it adds 15% to costs of goods imported.
Forced to Bankruptcy – Third World countries’ debt forgiveness is common but this is not available for PR.
Ease of Exit – Their US Citizenship means that everyone can-should-do leave.
Bigger Numbers Emigrated than Remained on Island – Good Voting Block in the mainland; Puerto Ricans are more powerful there than at home.

When the flaws are built into the foundation, the end result of any defective processing will just be defective output:

Garbage In Garbage Out

This subject of the Long Train of Abuses is the Teaching Series for this month of December 2020. Every month we present issues that are germane to Caribbean life and culture and how to address them. For this month, we are looking at the Long Train of Abuses that the US Territory Puerto Rico have had to endure – failingly, since they experience such an alarming abandonment rate. This is the final entry, 6-of-6. This one asserts that the foundation for Puerto Rico these past 100 years is not designed for success; the only option is failure or more failure. The dysfunction in PR’s societal will not improve under the current structure; they must make a change – they cannot take the heat, they must “get out of the kitchen”. The other entries in the full catalog for this series are as follows:

Long Train of Abuses: Enough Already – Colonialism Be Gone!
Long Train of Abuses: Overseas Masters – Cannot See Overseas
Long Train of Abuses: Religious Leadership in Politics – Reconciling Trump
Long Train of Abuses: Religious Character in Society – Human Rights
Long Train of Abuses: Dutch Hypocrisy – Liberal Amsterdam vs Conservative Antilles
Long Train of Abuses: Puerto Rico – “Take the Heat” or “Get out of the Kitchen”

The status quo for Puerto Rico is unsustainable; they must make a change. But which option should they pursue? Statehood like Alaska and Hawaii did or independence like the Philippines did (from America) or Ireland did from the UK?

We had deliberated these arguments before in a previous blog-commentary from April 3, 2019. it is only apropos to Encore that previous submission. See here/now:

————-

Go Lean Commentary – Way Forward – Puerto Rico: Learns its status with America

You love America.
But does “she” love you back?

This is the reality of unrequited love. The people of the island of Puerto Rico love America – they give blood, sweat and tears. But America does not always love the island back. This has always been evident and obvious, but now even more so after Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017 and the US Federal Government lackluster response. Puerto Ricans, on the island and in the Diaspora, must accept that they are treated as the “ugly step-child”.

Today, we learn that the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, is now vocalizing that there is a fast approaching limit for gratitude towards Puerto Rico. See that story here:

VIDEO – Puerto Rico’s governor sending warning to Trump – https://news.yahoo.com/puerto-ricos-governor-sending-warning-175145864.html

CNN – Posted March 28, 2019 – “If the bully gets close, I’ll punch the bully in the mouth,” Rosselló said when asked about a tense meeting Wednesday between members of the Trump administration and Puerto Rican officials. “It would be a mistake to confuse courtesy with [lack of] courage.”

———–

Title: Puerto Rico’s governor warns Trump: ‘If the bully gets close, I’ll punch the bully in the mouth’
By: David Knowles
Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló is through playing nice with President Trump.

After months of soft-pedaling his criticism of the president as Puerto Rico struggles to recover from Hurricane Maria in 2017, Rosselló voiced his frustration with the White House in a Thursday interview with CNN.

“If the bully gets close, I’ll punch the bully in the mouth,” Rosselló said when asked about a tense meeting Wednesday between members of the Trump administration and Puerto Rican officials. “It would be a mistake to confuse courtesy with [lack of] courage.”

The Washington meeting — which was attended by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro and members of Rosselló’s government — was requested after reports that Trump was considering halting further disaster relief to the beleaguered U.S. territory.

In a Wednesday meeting with Senate Republicans, Trump said the amount of aid Puerto Rico had so far received “is way out of proportion to what Texas and Florida and others have gotten,” according to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who attended the meeting.

Though it has already slashed benefits, Puerto Rico faces a $600 million shortfall to administer food stamps. So far the U.S. government has spent more than $6 billion on disaster relief to Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria, which was blamed for killing more than 3,000 people. In June, Texas received $5 billion in federal aid for housing and infrastructure repairs stemming from Hurricane Harvey, which left 103 people dead.

Rosselló, who avoided criticizing Trump in a 2018 interview with Yahoo News, lashed out at the president over his latest reported comments.

“He treats us as second-class citizens, that’s for sure,” Rosselló told CNN. “And my consideration is I just want the opportunity to explain to him why the data and information he’s getting is wrong. I don’t think getting into a kicking and screaming match with the president does any good. I don’t think anyone can beat the president in a kicking and screaming match. What I am aiming to do is make sure reason prevails, that empathy prevails, that equality prevails and that we can have a discussion.”

Trump, whose administration’s response to Maria was criticized as inadequate, has long been seen as reluctant to offer aid to Puerto Rico. In October the president again signaled his disapproval of giving aid that might be used to help alleviate the financial distress the island was experiencing even before Maria hit.

Source: Posted March 28, 2019; retrieved March 29, 2019 from: https://news.yahoo.com/puerto-ricos-governor-warns-trump-if-the-bully-gets-close-ill-punch-the-bully-in-the-mouth-162447705.html?.tsrc=notification-brknews

There is no love for Puerto Rico … within their American eco-system.

This theme aligns with previous commentaries from the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean; see a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15012	In Life or Death: No Love for Puerto Rico
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14101	‘We Are The World’ Style Campaign to Help Puerto Rico
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13391	After Maria, Failed-State Indicators: Destruction and Defection for PR
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11647	Righting a Wrong: Puerto Rico’s Bankruptcy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7963	‘Like a Good Neighbor’ – Being there for Puerto Rico
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6260	Puerto Rico Bondholders Coalition Launches Ad Campaign
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=599	Ailing Puerto Rico open to radical economic fixes

As related in this previous blog-commentary, Puerto Rico devotes more human capital – and sacrifice – to US military endeavors than any other state or territories per capita.

Never kill yourself for people who are willing to watch you die.

Way Forward
This consideration brings to mind, an overall discussion of the Way Forward for this country – Puerto Rico – and all Caribbean countries. Our current disposition is dire, a crisis, near-Failed-State status. Yet, the movement behind the Go Lean book posits that a “crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. Here for April 2019, we present a full series of commentaries related to the Way Forward for these 30 Caribbean member-states. The full series is presented as follows:

Way Forward: Puerto Rico learns its “status” with America.
Way Forward: Virgin Islands – America’s youngest colony
Way Forward: ‘Solutions White Paper’ – An Inadequate Plan for the Bahamas

In this series – incomplete as of this date, many other national plans will follow – reference is made to the need for a more comprehensive roadmap for elevating the societal engines of Caribbean communities. Of all the plans out there, this – roadmap presented in Go Lean…Caribbean – is the only one that double-downs on the prospect of regional interdependence.

No man is an island; no island is an island.

Considering entry 1 of 3 of this series for April, what should be the Way Forward for Puerto Rico?

There are 3 options that have been detailed by this Go Lean movement. Here, again, with references to updated information:

Statehood – see Appendix A. If approved, an Interstate Compact allows for regional integration.
Independence – previous advocates for this option have gone militant.
(The Philippines is a former US Territory; they sought their independence from the USA in 1946; they now have full autonomy for self-determination).
Status Quo, but with Interstate Compact for regional integration.

Whatever the selection by the people of Puerto Rico – it should be their choice alone – the Go Lean movement still presents the strategies, tactics and implementations to make this island a better homeland to live, work and play. But, it is hardwork …

Actually, it is overdue work. It is the same “Growing Up“, “Managing Your Affairs“, “Taking Care of Business” that was always needed for this island nation.

Others (countries) have done “it” well – we can learn from them; i.e. consider the Iceland experience.

Some have done “it” bad – we must learn from that too; i.e. consider Republic of Venezuela.

With the proper guidance, blood, sweat and tears, it is conceivable, believable and achievable for this island to actualize and be recognized as one of the greatest addresses on the planet – not just some “ugly step-child”. 🙂

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

————–

Appendix A – Florida lawmaker introduces bill to make Puerto Rico 51st State

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – A Florida congressman and Puerto Rico’s non-voting representative in Congress have introduced a bill that seeks to make the U.S. territory the 51st state.

The Puerto Rico Admission Act of 2019, which is sponsored by Rep. Darren Soto, D-Florida, and Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González-Colón, would give the island statehood within 90 days of passage.

Our historic legislation will finally end over 120 years of colonialism and provide full rights and representation to over 3.2 million Americans.”

The legislation is partly in response to the Trump administration’s handling of Hurricane Maria relief efforts. According to reports, President Trump complained to Senate Republicans about the amount of disaster aid designated for Puerto Rico. He also asked why the island was given more money than some states affected by hurricanes.

“We have seen time and time again that colonial status is simply not working. Look no further than the abysmal Hurricane Maria recovery efforts and the draconian PROMESA law to prove this point all too well,” Soto added. “The Puerto Rican people have spoken. It’s time for Congress to finally make Puerto Rico a state!”

“From the day I was sworn in as Puerto Rico’s sole representative in Congress, and filed the Puerto Rico Admission Act, I stated very clearly that I would work different strategies, across all platforms to achieve the full equality for Puerto Rico, which can only be achieved through statehood, For more than a century the people of Puerto Rico have been U.S. citizens, but has been denied the right to vote for the President and members of Congress, leaving us without representation in the federal government, which enact the laws that rule the land. Democracy and equality for American citizens is an issue of justice and civil rights. Us, as American citizens, want to have the same benefits and duties, as all American citizens have in the states,” she continued.

Governor Ricardo Rossello was also in attendance and called on members of Congress to support the bill and “join in our quest to achieve equal treatment for the over 3 million U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico.”

Source: Posted March 30, 2019; retrieved April 2, 2019 from: https://www.wfla.com/news/florida/florida-lawmaker-introduces-bill-to-make-puerto-rico-51st-state/1888575456

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Disaster, Model, PR, Transform

Decision 2020 – Puerto Rico claps back at Trump

Posted on October 20, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico have no vote nor voice in the American capital city of Washington, DC. But let them leave and relocate to the US mainland, as is their right as American citizens, and then they can participate fully in the balloting for federal and state elections.

Then, they have a voice …

… they are anxious to make noise with their voice and vote this year, as many Puerto Ricans want to clap back at President Donald Trump … for his long train of abuses towards their homeland. The actuality of this abusive relationship had been detailed in a previous commentary; see this excerpt:

Way Forward – Puerto Rico: Learns its status with America – April 3, 2019

“You love America. But does “she” love you back?”

This is the reality of unrequited love. The people of the island of Puerto Rico love America – they give blood, sweat and tears. But America does not always love the island back. This has always been evident and obvious, but now even more so after Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017 and the US Federal Government lackluster response. Puerto Ricans, on the island and in the Diaspora, must accept that they are treated as the “ugly step-child”.

Today, we learn that the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, is now vocalizing that there is a fast approaching limit for gratitude towards Puerto Rico.
…
There is no love for Puerto Rico … within their American eco-system.
…
As related in this previous blog-commentary, Puerto Rico devotes more human capital – and sacrifice – to US military endeavors than any other state or territories per capita.

“Never kill yourself for people who are willing to watch you die.”

This is the analysis by the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. This book has consistently asserted that Puerto Rico, and the rest of the Caribbean, are parasites and need to “Grow Up“, “Manage our own Affairs“, “Take Care of Our Business”. We need to reform and transform … so we need partners in Washington to help us reach these goals.

Who, which candidates for federal offices, are beneficial to this Caribbean Quest?

The choice may be somewhat straight-forward, as Donald Trump had expressed a desire to sell Puerto Rico; see the Appendix VIDEO below.

But Which Candidate Decision is the question for the 2020 General Election, as it was for the 2016 General election; (then it was Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton). In a 2016 blog-commentary leading up to that General Election, the voting trends of Puerto Ricans were identified and analyzed with this excerpt:

Courting Caribbean Votes – Puerto Ricans – October 8, 2016

… it is election season in the United States. There are many members of the Caribbean Diaspora living in the US – some figures project up to 22 million; many of them are eligible to vote on November 8, 2016.

Who will they vote for? Who should they vote for?

What if the criterion for the vote is benevolence to Caribbean causes?

… The Go Lean movement (book and blog-commentaries) asserts that Caribbean stakeholders need to take their own lead for their Caribbean destiny, but it does acknowledge that we have a dependency to the economic, security and governing eco-systems of the American SuperPower. This dependency is derisively called a parasite status, with the US as the host.

This accurately describes Puerto Rico.

Not only is the island of Puerto Rico a parasite of the US, but a near-Failed-State as well. While this has been a consistent theme of the Go Lean movement, it is no secret. Washington and Puerto Rico readily admit to this disposition. In fact this failing condition has driven many Puerto Ricans out of Puerto Rico. This has been within that consistent Go Lean theme, that “push-and-pull” factors drive Caribbean citizens away from their beloved homeland. Greater Orlando has become a new destination.

They are gone from Puerto Rico, but have not forgotten home. This year they are looking to impact their homeland with their vote. They seek to support candidates for federal offices that can help to reform and transform the island.
…
We must do better than our past. We must be an American protégé, rather than just an American parasite.
…
We want to make Puerto Rico and other places in our Caribbean homeland, better places to live, work and play. So we must engage the political process in Washington, DC as they are a major stakeholder for Puerto Rico. The island is bankrupt, it depends on federal bailouts just to execute even the basic functions in the Social Contract. Personally, many residents on the island depend on federal subsidies to survive: benefits like veterans, social security (disability & pension) and welfare. Many Puerto Ricans have understandably abandoned the island – this is both “push” and “pull”.
…
The choice for president should consider these needs.

We need Washington’s help. But the only way to impact Washington is through voting. This is why the Puerto Rican vote – for those in the Diaspora – is being courted. Which presidential candidate best extols the vision and values for a new Caribbean?

Trump won in 2016.

Trump proved toxic for Caribbean eco-systems, including Puerto Rico, during the 4 years of his administration.

Trump disrespected Puerto Rico … repeatedly.

Only now will Puerto Rico get a chance to clap back at Mr. Trump.

This is the main thrust of this news article here:

Title: Puerto Rico, unable to vote, becomes crucial to US election
By: Danica Coto and Adriana Gomez Licon
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The campaigns of President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are rallying people in a place where U.S. citizens cannot cast ballots but have the ear of hundreds of thousands of potential voters in the battleground state of Florida.

The candidates are targeting Puerto Rico in a way never before seen, with the U.S. territory suddenly finding itself in the crosshairs of a high-stakes race even though Puerto Ricans on the island cannot vote in presidential elections despite being U.S. citizens since 1917.

Campaigners know this, but they hope those on the island will push relatives and friends on the U.S. mainland to vote for them in a strategy that capitalizes on the close ties they share.

It’s a novel role that plays off the sentiment that Puerto Ricans in Florida feel they are voting by proxy for those back home left out of U.S. democracy. And a growing number find this role appealing, especially since many on the island are struggling to recover from hurricanes Irma and Maria, a string of strong earthquakes, a deep economic crisis and the pandemic.

“I’m voting for 3 million Puerto Ricans on the island, including my entire family,” said Jerick Mediavilla, who is from the mountain town of Corozal and is voting in a U.S. presidential election for the first time after moving to Orlando four years ago. “Puerto Rico doesn’t have a voice. Our voice is via the United States.”

It’s people like Mediavilla that Democrats and Republicans are trying to target as they court Latinos in Florida, which has the largest population of Puerto Ricans in the U.S., with nearly 1.2 million. Trump won Florida in 2016 and has virtually no path to the White House if he doesn’t do so again. Polls are tight, and as the Trump campaign worries of support slipping among suburban and older voters, Latinos in Florida have become crucial.

Puerto Ricans represent 27% of Hispanics of voting age in Florida, trailing only Cuban-Americans. While it’s unclear how many are Democrats or Republicans, Democrats have widened the gap of Hispanic voters registered for this election over the GOP compared with 2016. The gains were in counties with a high number of Puerto Ricans including Orange County, home to Orlando, and Hillsborough, home to Tampa. Polk County, where the Puerto Rican population has more than doubled since 2013, saw the fastest growth of Latino registered voters, with Democrats registering 21,000 more voters than Republicans. The gap in 2016 was 15,000. But those same counties also have a very high number of voters registered without party affiliation.

“Puerto Ricans will play a very crucial role in this election,” said Yadira Sánchez, co-executive director of Poder Latinx, a U.S.-based non-profit group that aims to mobilize Latino voters.

Election observers, however, note Puerto Ricans have weaker voter turnout rates than other Hispanic groups that favor Republican candidates.

Trump recently secured an endorsement from Puerto Rico’s governor and promised nearly $13 billion in additional aid last month to help the island rebuild from Hurricane Maria. During a recent rally in Florida, Trump declared: “I’m not gonna say the best, but I’m just about the best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico. You better vote for me, Puerto Rico.” Many were quick to note that those living on the island don’t have that right.

Meanwhile, Biden granted an exclusive interview to Puerto Rico’s main newspaper that for the first time in its 50 years endorsed a U.S. presidential candidate and asked those in the U.S. mainland to support Biden: “We ask that you, with the great power of your vote, especially in key electoral states, help open the way to the transformation effort that will honor the dignity and promote the progress of every person.”

Biden recently launched digital and print ads on the island with the hashtag “HazloXMi,” or DoItForMe, urging Puerto Ricans to tell their friends and family on the U.S. mainland to participate: “With your vote over there, you help us here.”

“Both campaigns are doing it thinking this will bounce back to Florida,” said Carlos Suárez, a political science professor at the University of Florida.

It’s unclear whether the indirect campaign strategy will work, but Luis Gutiérrez, a former U.S. representative who served 26 years in Congress and now lives in Puerto Rico, called it a smart move.

Puerto Ricans “are always in contact. Why? Because whether you’re one of 3 million on the island or 5 million somewhere else, you’re part of one community,” the Democrat said. “If you are born in Puerto Rico, it will be part of your life until the last day.”

As the election draws near, pressure keeps growing on Puerto Ricans on the island and on the mainland.

A Florida political group recently created a song set to the tune of “Rakatá” by Wisin y Yandel, a renowned Puerto Rican reggaeton duo who first became popular in the early 2000s. The song encourages Puerto Ricans who moved to Florida to use their new voting power and hurl a “chancleta” or flip-flop at Trump to help those living on the island: “He doesn’t care one bit for Boricuas.”

Trump’s campaign has countered with ads highlighting the billions of dollars his administration has pledged to help Puerto Rico recover from Maria, a Category 4 storm that caused an estimated $100 billion in damage and killed an estimated 2,975 people in its aftermath. However, the administration withheld billions of dollars in emergency aid for months, saying it worried about mismanagement and corruption on the island.

Wyneska Méndez, who moved to Miami from Puerto Rico eight years ago, said she would not let fellow Puerto Ricans influence her decision, adding that Trump is the only choice to protect the economy. She especially likes that Trump feels strongly against abortion because of her Christian faith, and she believes Puerto Rico needed to get its affairs in order to receive the same kind of relief offered to U.S. states.

“I don’t let others get in my head,” Méndez said as she waited for a speech by Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday in Miami.

Dozens of Trump supporters who gathered Sunday in Puerto Rico for a rally shared her sentiment, saying the president has sent billions of dollars to help with hurricane reconstruction as they praised his pro-life stance.

Dr. Miriam Ramírez de Ferrer, a former senator and member of Puerto Rico’s pro-statehood party, said that Trump’s personality can be misinterpreted and that she believes he was joking when making comments about the island that critics have found offensive.

“There have been many erroneous messages from certain Puerto Ricans toward Trump, and we don’t want people to think that all Puerto Ricans are the same,” Ramírez said as she pulled down the face mask of a fellow Trump supporter decorated with bald eagles and U.S. flags.

Despite the aid Puerto Rico has received under the Trump administration, Mediavilla and his brother, Omar, who lives in Puerto Rico, remain unswayed.

“It’s a great help, but really, in the end, I see it as a political strategy,” said Omar Mediavilla, adding that he is grateful his brother was motivated by the aftermath of Maria to support Biden. “They’re our voice carrying our complaints … It’s important that Puerto Ricans over there give us this opportunity.”

Some who live on the island remain wary of the campaigning to influence Puerto Ricans on the mainland.

Omar Soto, a production supervisor whose brother lives in Lakeland, Florida, said the strategies are pointless.

“It seems like there’s a tone of despair,” he said, adding that he believes it could backfire. “I think it’s disrespectful. We should have the option to vote for president.” ___

Associated Press writer Danica Coto reported this story in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and AP writer Adriana Gomez Licon reported from Miami.
Source: https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-race-and-ethnicity-joe-biden-donald-trump-puerto-rico-3018eade64921c72b0ebb1df3f22061e posted October 18, 2020; retrieved October 20, 2020.

Now is the time for Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans to tell Mr. Trump how they really feel about him and his policies toward their island homeland.

Listen to Puerto Rico’s message.

Listen to their messengers. (But, don’t get it twisted; Puerto Rico still has societal defects of its own making to remediate).

Yet still, the Go Lean movement is engaged in this territorial remediation as well, in that, we continue to present the vision that all people who love Puerto Rico should be pursuing:

A better homeland to live, work and play. 🙂

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 October 2020, we are looking at the US General Election for November 3. It is amazing that we in the Caribbean are relevant in Decision 2020. Previously, it was discussed that the Caribbean Diaspora in the US may amount to as much as 22 million people. This would constitute 7 percent of the US population; this is enough to sway a political race, left or right.

We do indeed have relevance.

This is entry 1-of-5; the first one; it introduces the thesis that the Caribbean member-states finally get to voice their disgust for actions (or inactions) of the last 4 years. Caribbean people have a lot to say; people are listening now. Consider here, the full catalog of the series this month:

Decision 2020: Puerto Rico claps back at Trump
Decision 2020: Haiti’s Agenda 2016 ==> 2020 – Trump never cared
Decision 2020: Latino Gender Gap – More ‘Toxic Masculinity’
Decision 2020: More Immigration or Less
Decision 2020: What’s Next for Cuba & Venezuela

A Caribbean voice is important. The Bible reveals that “from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). Decision 2020 allows us to learn what is truly in the heart of Caribbean people.

Brace yourself!

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

—————–

APPENDIX VIDEO – Trump Reportedly Looked To Sell Puerto Rico – https://youtu.be/2AmSovkTic4

HuffPost
Posted July 13, 2020 – Elaine Duke, the former acting head of homeland security, claimed to the New York Times that President Donald Trump looked to “divest” Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria struck the island.

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Coronavirus Deaths: Debunking a Conspiracy Theory

Posted on September 4, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

A Gun Shot Wound (GSW) victim contracts Coronavirus while in the hospital and dies. What is the Cause of Death? The GSW?! Coronavirus?! Both?!

Unfortunately, the management of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic has become politicized … especially in the US. There are two sides on the issue: Liberals vs Conservatives.

Conservatives tend to be less cooperative with Science; (also opposing Climate Change); and prone to support conspiracy theories, i.e. 5G cause for COVID-19.

This is the issue again now. The Conservatives have downplayed the seriousness of the Coronavirus; first labeling it a hoax, then assigning it as “just the common flu”, and now conspiring that less people have actually died compared to the official scientific tally. (The Liberals only want to count the dead).

See this news story here, as it highlights the new conspiracy theory that the Coronavirus deaths are overblown and exaggerated:

Title: The conspiracy theorists are wrong: Doctors are not inflating America’s COVID-19 death toll for cash – VIDEO: https://youtu.be/VpjZoOruTso

———
Earlier this week, Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst became the first member of “the world’s greatest deliberative body” to embrace a false online conspiracy theory that seeks to minimize the danger of COVID-19 by claiming only a few thousand Americans have died from the virus — not the 185,000 reported by state and local health agencies and hospitals.

Ernst, who described herself as “so skeptical” of the official death toll, even went so far as to echo the nonsense argument spread by QAnon and other right-wing conspiracy-mongers that medical providers who have risked their own lives and health to treat COVID-19 patients have been attributing non-COVID deaths to the virus to rake in extra cash from the federal government.

“These health-care providers and others are reimbursed at a higher rate if COVID is tied to it, so what do you think they’re doing?” Ernst, who is facing a tight reelection race, said Monday at a campaign stop near Waterloo, Iowa, according to a report by the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.

“They’re thinking there may be 10,000 or less deaths that were actually singularly COVID-19,” Ernst added in an interview with the paper. “I’m just really curious. It would be interesting to know that.”

Since Ernst is “really curious,” here are the facts.

Yes, Medicare pays hospitals more for treating COVID-19 patients — 20 percent more than its designated rate, to be exact. Incidentally, this additional payment was approved 96-0 in the U.S. Senate — including by Joni Ernst. The reason Ernst (and all of her Senate colleagues) voted for it is simple: It helped keep U.S. hospitals open and operating during a worldwide emergency.

“This is no scandal,” Joseph Antos, a scholar in health care at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, explained in a recent PolitiFact fact-check. “The 20 percent was added by Congress because hospitals have lost revenue from routine care and elective surgeries that they can’t provide during this crisis, and because the cost of providing even routine services to COVID patients has jumped.”

In other words, no one is getting rich by misclassifying COVID-19 deaths.

It’s also fair to say that fewer than 185,000 Americans have died “singularly,” as Ernst put it, from COVID-19. According to a recent update by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 94 percent of patients whose primary cause of death was listed as COVID-19 were also judged to have comorbidities — secondary conditions like diabetes that often exacerbate the virus’s effects. For the remaining 6 percent, COVID-19 was the only cause listed in conjunction with their deaths.

On Sunday, President Trump retweeted a QAnon backer who falsely claimed this meant that only 6 percent of reported COVID-19 deaths — that is, 10,000 or so — were actually caused by the virus. Perhaps this “report” is what Ernst was referring to when she agreed Monday with an audience member who theorized that COVID-19 deaths had been overcounted. “I heard the same thing on the news,” she said.

Yet Twitter quickly removed the tweet for spreading false information, and for good reason.

Despite all the innuendo, there’s nothing unusual about the way the government is counting coronavirus deaths, as we have previously explained. In any crisis — whether it’s a pandemic or a hurricane — people with preexisting conditions will die. The standard for attributing such deaths to the pandemic is to determine whether those people would have died when they did if the current crisis had never happened.

When it comes to the coronavirus, the data is clear: COVID-19 is much more likely to kill you if your system has already been compromised by some other ailment, such as asthma, HIV, diabetes mellitus, chronic lung disease or cardiovascular disease. But that doesn’t mean patients with those health problems would have died this week (or last week, or next month) no matter what. The vast majority of them probably wouldn’t have. COVID-19 was the cause of death — the disease that killed them now, and not later.

A closer look at the CDC data, meanwhile, reveals that many of the comorbidities listed by medical providers are complications caused by COVID-19 rather than chronic conditions that predated infection: heart failure, renal failure, respiratory failure, sepsis and so on.

Feverishly creating a baseless fiction from two threads of unrelated information — the additional Medicare payments and the CDC update about comorbidities — is a classic conspiracy-theorist move. But that doesn’t make it true.

“Let there not be any confusion,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said Tuesday. “It’s not 9,000 deaths from COVID-19. It’s 180,000-plus deaths.”

“The point that the CDC was trying to make was that a certain percentage of [deaths] had nothing else but COVID,” Fauci continued. “That does not mean that someone who has hypertension or diabetes who dies of COVID didn’t die of COVID-19. They did.”

In reality, it’s more likely that the U.S. is undercounting rather than overcounting COVID-19 deaths. According to a recent New York Times analysis of CDC estimates, at least 200,000 more people than usual died in the U.S. between March and early August — meaning that the official COVID-19 death count, which hit 140,000 over the same period, is probably too low.

In the Hawkeye State, COVID-19 had killed at least 1,125 as of Wednesday afternoon. Over the past week, the state has reported an average of 1,177 cases per day, an increase of 124 percent from the average two weeks earlier. Its positive testing rate has risen from 10 percent to 18.5 percent since then.

So while Republican lawmakers such as Ernst seek to downplay the lethality of the virus, Theresa Greenfield, Iowa’s Democratic Senate candidate, seized on her opponent’s baseless claim to underscore the gravity of the situation in one of the only states in America where the pandemic is getting worse.

“It’s appalling for you to say you’re ‘so skeptical’ of the toll this pandemic has on our families and communities across Iowa,” Greenfield tweeted Tuesday, addressing the senator. “We need leaders who will take this seriously.”

Source: Retrieved September 4, 2020 from: https://news.yahoo.com/the-conspiracy-theorists-are-wrong-doctors-are-not-inflating-americas-covid-19-death-toll-for-cash-142709384.html?ncid=facebook_yahoonewsf_akfmevaatca

———

Related: Republican Governor Ron DeSantis sidelined his health department. Florida paid the price.

Let’s recap: Some people have downplayed the COVID-19 deaths and suffering of people to promote a political story-line. Ouch! But, this sounds so familiar. We have been there; done that. Remember Puerto Rico?!

In a previous blog-commentary from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean, it related how Puerto Rico’s death toll from devastating Category 5 Hurricane Maria in 2017 was downplayed (under-counted) to project a fallacy that the response by the Federal Government under the “Conservative” President, Donald Trump, was adequate or benevolent. It was neither! See this except here:

We learn now that even the resultant deaths from Hurricane Maria had been under counted.

What? How? Why?

The act of counting deaths is more straight-forward than the Washington and San Juan officials would have you believe. Simply count the number of mortalities (death certificates issued) for the 4^th Quarter of the last few years. The PR government try to assert that the number of deaths were 64 people; and yet demographers and other social scientists counted the mortality rate for 4^th Quarter 2017 and the 4th Quarters in previous years and the real count is more like:

4600+

Wait, wait … don’t tell me! According to this story here, “researchers concluded the final death count could [actually] be as high as 8,500”.

There is no valid dissent: 185,000 people have died … as of September 3, 2020. Period!

A desire to downplay this actuality is reflective of a malevolent spirit. This is America today – not the ideal “city on the hill” that they want to project. This is the same country – and administration – that undervalued the lost lives in the US Territory of Puerto Rico. This is mindful of the expression:

Never kill yourself for someone who would rather watch you die.

This is not just theoretical!

In an interview, in response to the request for sorrow on the large number of dead, President Trump callously declared:

It is what it is.

VIDEO – Trump: It Is What It Is – https://youtu.be/ldOeB4htKD8

Posted August 4, 2020 – American Bridge 21st Century

The Go Lean book presented a roadmap to introduce and implement the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) as a technocracy to act on behalf of Caribbean member-states so that we will not be parasites of the American hegemony but rather protégés. The vision is for the CU to do its own heavy-lifting for health-wellness and Homeland Security. This would remediate and mitigate all domestic threats, natural or pandemic. So the regional Security Apparatus would include Disease Control and Management. The functionalities of this technocracy are described as follows:

Strategies – Comparing Strategies – Healthcare –vs- Bush Medicine (Page 50)
The CU plans calls for some health care reform, under the guise of homeland and economic security, emergency management and cross border initiatives (disease management and organ transplantation).

Tactical – Separation of Powers – I2: Disease Control & Management (Page 86)
Due to the systemic threat, epidemic response and disease control will be coordinated at the CU level. This agency will manage the detailed inventory needs of pharmaceuticals (vaccinations, etc.) so that the Group Purchasing Organization can negotiate for volume-wholesale pricing/discounts and delivery schedules on the regional level.

The data associated with Flu Shots, Vaccinations, STDs should be mined and published by the CU.

This agency will also sponsor Disease Management schemes to identify, educate, treat patients with chronic diseases like diabetes, asthma, heart, COPD, and other ailments that tend to have no cure, but the affected could prosper with proper management.

Advocacy – 10 Ways to Improve Healthcare – Public Health Extension (Page 156)
Due to the systemic threat, epidemic response and disease control will be coordinated at the federal level. Also, the acquisition of public-bound pharmaceuticals (vaccinations, etc.) can be negotiated at the regional level, using the Group Purchasing Organizations (GPO) envisioned in this roadmap. This will lead to a better supply and pricing dynamics. …

Advocacy – 10 Ways to Impact Cancer – Public Health Administration (Page 157)
Not all [disease] cancer is hereditary or tied to lifestyle (smoking, obesity, diet), sometimes there are environmental agents. The CU treaty grants jurisdiction for systemic threats, epidemic response and/or disease control. Despite the pro-business ethos, the CU will assuage any threat of new/existing industrial endeavors with thorough environmental impact studies.

Since we have been here before – Puerto Rico – we should have learned. This is not the first epidemic and will not be the last! This is why the Go Lean movement urges the Caribbean to have a Pandemic Playbook for regional protection.

The points of effective, technocratic epidemiological stewardship gleaned from facts in history were further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20361	A 7-part series on Pandemic Playbooks for the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19568	BHAG – Need ‘Big Brother’ for Pandemics
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15310	Industrial Reboot – Trauma 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8943	Zika’s Drug Breakthrough
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7327	Zika – A 4-Letter Word
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002	Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2397	Stopping Ebola
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1003	Painful and rapid spread of Chikungunya virus in the Caribbean

The purpose of this commentary was to stress the fact we need to count the dead … accurately. Our Pandemic Playbook must include the act of counting.

The Go Lean movement (book and subsequent blog-commentaries) stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit; no one member-states has the prowess, resources and experience to implement a Pandemic Playbook alone.

Prowess, resources and experience, yes? But genius skills are not necessarily the requirement for just counting the dead. While the Pandemic Playbook must reflect an “Art and a Science”, counting the dead is all about “arithmetic”. “They” say many fields of endeavors require “Art and Science” in order to master. But counting the dead is no “Art”; this is STEM 101 -(Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

Its ironic that the political faction, Conservatives, that opposes most scientific scrutiny – like Climate Change – seems to be the same people that are refusing the proper count. Their “science” comprehension and competence always seem to fall short; yet, they are quick to embrace conspiracy theories … Arrrgggghhh!!!

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders – governments and citizens – to lean-in to the science, not the conspiracies … and lean-in to this roadmap for an effective and efficient Pandemic Playbook for our region; this reflects the Best Practices of medical science.

We need scientific accomplishments to make progress. This is how we make our homeland a better place to live, work, heal and play. 🙂

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.

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

ix. Whereas the realities of healthcare and an aging population cannot be ignored and cannot be afforded without some advanced mitigation, the Federation must arrange for health plans to consolidate premiums of both healthy and sickly people across the wider base of the entire Caribbean population. The mitigation should extend further to disease management, wellness, mental health, obesity and smoking cessation programs. …

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

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

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … 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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Good Leadership: Example – “Leader of the Free World”?

Posted on May 30, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Is this standard still valid (as reported in a previous commentary)?

The United States of America presents itself as the “City on the Hill“, the richest, most powerful model democracy in the history of the world. But this country has some societal defects – i.e. Institutional Racism & Crony-Capitalism – that are so acute that they distort the American reality as a Great Society. …

In addition to the country presenting itself as a model democracy, the Chief Government official in the US, the President of the United States (POTUS) is considered the “Leader of the Free World” – this has been the association ever since the start of the Cold War (early 1950’s)..

This is a commentary about Leadership; and the urgent need for it during this Coronavirus-COVID-19 crisis. So can we look to American entities as good examples of Good Leadership?

Yes and No … and Yes.

Yes

The good example of America is its “kinetics in evolution”, not the snapshot it presents to the world. The country is always trying to get better, always evolving. This used to be the defined characteristic of America:

White
Rich
Straight and able-bodied.

… but now today, so many other definitions of Americans have emerged and have been empowered. Think: minorities, women, LGBT, disability-challenged, etc..

No

The current POTUS – 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; see this portrayal here:

Title: COVID-19 further confirms: The position of ‘Leader of the Free World’ is vacant

On Aug. 8, 1990, President George H.W. Bush gave a rare Oval Office address announcing America’s response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait just days earlier. In the days leading up to the speech, Bush had worked tirelessly with his national security team to build a coalition of nearly 40 leading nations to condemn Iraq’s illegal invasion and to build support behind the critical UN Security Council Resolutions that fall.

In the speech, President Bush made special mention of his administration’s work to rally the world, “We are working around the clock to deter Iraqi aggression and to enforce U.N. sanctions. I’m continuing my conversations with world leaders. Secretary of Defense Cheney has just returned from valuable consultations with President Mubarak of Egypt and King Hassan of Morocco. Secretary of State Baker has consulted with his counterparts in many nations, including the Soviet Union, and today he heads for Europe to consult with President Ozal of Turkey, a staunch friend of the United States.”

Nearly 40 countries would contribute troops, weapons, and resources to the effort that would become Operation Desert Storm. In one of the shortest wars of the 20^th Century, coalition forces overwhelmed Iraq’s military, and — just one hundred hours after the ground campaign started — President Bush declared a ceasefire to active hostilities.

That was 30 years ago. Today the world is facing an even more dangerous foe than Saddam Hussein and his Republican Guard. COVID-19 is a global pandemic that has wreaked havoc on both the health infrastructures and economies of every leading nation.

This is a global crisis that will have generational ramifications.

Unlike his predecessors, who united the countries of the world against a common enemy, President Donald Trump has taken an inward, nativist approach in his speeches and actions. Writing in Foreign Affairs, former Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns noted Trump’s lack of international outreach. “Beyond individual phone calls with world leaders, he has made just one attempt to organize countries to band together — a single conference call with European, Canadian, and Japanese leaders in the G-7 forum he currently chairs.”

Whether President Trump likes it — or even comprehends our role in the world — the United States is the last and only indispensable nation when it comes to a global response to a global problem.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, China was on a course for rising economic parity with the United States on the world stage, but not now — at least in the short term. We have no idea how this pandemic will reshape the international economic order in the coming months and years, but China’s rise will likely continue. Right now, however, the United States enjoys a singular, unique and leading role in international affairs, and Trump is actively redefining and expanding the notion of “leading from behind.”

More than 39,000 people have died from the COVID-19 virus worldwide, and nearly one million have contracted the disease around the globe. This is a human tragedy, and we cannot understate the profound sadness at the loss of life as a result of this deadly pandemic. The economic ramifications are devastating as well. This past week, a record 3.3 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits according to the Labor Department, making it the largest surge in benefit applications in American history. According to the Washington Post, “many economists say this is the beginning of a massive spike in unemployment that could result in over 40 million Americans losing their jobs by April.”

Perhaps the clearest recent example of a similar global economic calamity occurred during the 2008/2009 financial crisis, bridging both the end of the Bush Presidency and the start of the Obama Presidency. Both leaders and administrations recognized the need for American leadership on the world’s stage to reassure international markets and stem financial loses. As former Under Secretary Burns noted, “Both Bush and Obama understood that the United States, with all its power and immense credibility, had to lead if the world was going to prevent the Great Recession from becoming a Great Depression.”

During this COVID-19 pandemic, America’s credibility is being tested as never before. In direct contradiction to the very tone and message of President Bush’s speech 30 years ago addressing the invasion of Kuwait, President Trump spoke from the same Oval Office on March 11. Rather than speaking as the leader of the world’s only indispensable nation, Trump’s nativist tone called the European Union’s response to the pandemic a “failure” and sought to boast about America having “the greatest economy anywhere in the world by far.”

Historians differ on the origins of the phrase “Leader of the Free World,” but it is widely accepted that its use as a colloquialism for the president first started during the early years of the Cold War. Since the end of the Second World War, presidents of both parties have assumed the tremendous domestic and international mantle of leadership, with varying degrees of success, but always united in the primacy of the United States on the world’s stage.

The “free world” is desperate for American leadership during this global pandemic, but unfortunately for them — and us — that position is vacant.

Kevin Walling (@kevinpwalling) is a Democratic strategist, Vice President at HGCreative, co-founder of Celtic Strategies, and a regular guest on Fox News and Fox Business and Bloomberg TV and Radio.

Source: The Hill; posted March 30, 2020; retrieved May 30, 2020 from: https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/490313-covid-19-has-further-confirmed-the-position-of-leader-of-the-free-world

Yes

A previous POTUS – Jimmie Carter – was/is a great example for “Leader of the Free World”. Consider this portrayal here:

Title: Former President Jimmy Carter Just Made a Solar Farm to Power Half His City
Sub-title: This is one action taken by one man…and it’s powering half a town.
By: Christianna Reedy

Steady Solar Supporter
In 1979, in the throes of the U.S. energy crisis, then President Jimmy Carter addressed the nation as he installed 32 solar panels designed to use the Sun’s energy to heat water. He told the country, “A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”

Former President Carter’s vision for clean, renewable energy proved to be far ahead of his time.

While his successor, former President Ronald Reagan, had the panels removed, Carter and his family have continued their work toward ensuring that those 32 panels became a part of a much bigger story.

Carter leased 10 acres of land in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, to be used as a solar farm. This February, the solar development firm SolAmerica finally completed the project, which will have the capacity to meet more than half of the town’s energy needs.

This is, in essence, one action taken by one man…and it is powering half a town.

Then, in June of this year, the Carter family had 324 solar panels installed on the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, which will provide about seven percent of the library’s power.

The Power Of People
“Distributed, clean energy generation is critical to meeting growing energy needs around the world while fighting the effects of climate change,” Carter said in a SolAmerica press release. “I am encouraged by the tremendous progress that solar and other clean energy solutions have made in recent years and expect those trends to continue.”

Carter’s continued activism in support of renewables showcases the importance of local and individual efforts to reduce humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels, even in the absence of strong national initiatives.

We, the people, have power.

The solar farm in Plains is expected to generate 1.3 MW of power per year, which is equal to burning about 3,600 tons of coal. Over time, that will prevent a sizable amount of greenhouse gases from being emitted into our atmosphere.

Many individuals, communities, and even states are joining with Carter in working toward shifting to clean energy sources. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has invested in developing technology and products that are making solar energy cheaper than ever before. The U.S. states of New York, California, and Washington have banded together to form the “United States Climate Alliance” after President Donald Trump announced the country would pull out of the Paris Climate Accord.

These are just a few examples of people and communities who are working towards a sustainable future. And their work is bearing fruit — the construction of coal power plants is declining worldwide, and a new report projects that the U.S. will exceed its Paris Accord goals despite the recent withdraw. Regardless of the opposition, people around the world are choosing to embark on exciting adventure to a bright, renewable (and clean) tomorrow.

The future is looking bright.

Source: Posted July 11, 2017; retrieved May 26, 2020 from https://futurism.com/former-president-jimmy-carter-just-made-a-solar-farm-to-power-half-his-city

VIDEO – Jimmy Carter’s Hometown Turns to Sun for Power – https://youtu.be/5-7SJ7Uz6xs

Associated Press
Posted February 9, 2017 – Plains, Georgia, the hometown of President Jimmy Carter, is turning to the sun for power. Solar panels installed on Carter’s farmland are generating enough power to supply half of energy used in Plains. (Feb. 9)

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Category: News & Politics

This is the continuation of a Teaching Series on Good Leadership from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean; this is entry 5 of 6, which portrays samples and examples of Good Leadership. This entry specifically considers the President of the United States. The full catalog for this month’s series is listed as follows:

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

For the 30 member-states of the Caribbean, we have no voice nor vote for the Office of the American Presidency; this disposition is even true for Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Too bad, as we really need a selection of Good Leadership to emanate from that Office. There are no Ands, Ifs or Buts, with the current Coronavirus-COVID-19 crisis, Good Leadership would do a better job of managing such a crisis. We saw it before – GW Bush with SARS in 2003, GW Bush & Barack Obama with H1N1 in 2008/2009 and Obama with Ebola in 2014.

The historicity of this crisis is that Donald Trump came along, threw out the Pandemic Playbook (that was developed by Bush & Obama) and then didn’t have a plan at all. As related in the first entry in this 6-part series, his inaction caused thousands of deaths.

Sad!

Also, consider this sample of previous commentaries relating the inadequacies of the American hegemony on the Caribbean actuality. These show that we are both powerless and parasitic – poor us! See the sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18770	Christian Journal Urges: ‘Remove Trump; he is not a Good Leader’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18438	Refuse to Lose – Despite American Expansionism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13746	American Mirage for a Caribbean Basin Security
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17135	Way Forward – Puerto Rico: Learns its true status with America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12468	State of the Union: Self-Interest of ‘Americana’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12380	A Lesson in History – ‘4th of July’ and Slavery
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10895	Trump’s Vision of the Caribbean: Yawn – He doesn’t care
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8099	Caribbean Image to America: ‘Less Than’?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5353	POTUS and the Internet and the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4551	US Territories – Between a ‘rock and a hard place’

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

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

So the actual subjects and citizens of American leadership feel dismay emanating from the Office of the POTUS; they cannot Trust the current occupant – how much more for us in the Caribbean. Surely, you accept that “blood is thicker than water”.

This sad reality was actualized in April 2020 when this POTUS blocked the shipment of necessary PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) to Caribbean nations that had been bought and paid for them, to ensure all domestic needs were fulfilled before accommodating foreign requests – as a candidate in 2015/2016, Donald Trump did advocate for “America First”.

A previous POTUS – Harry Truman (1945 to 1957) – lived by the rule that the “buck stops here”.

Buck passing, or passing the buck, or sometimes the blame game, is the act of attributing to another person or group one’s own responsibility. It is often used to refer to a strategy in power politics whereby a state tries to get another state to deter or fight an aggressor state while it remains on the sidelines. Wikipedia

The Antipathy of Trump.

Truman recognized, acknowledged and accepted that the responsibility to protect the American people – and other allied nations – rests with him. How we miss that kind of Good Leadership!

No doubt, our Caribbean region needs our own Good Leadership. We cannot trust any POTUS, benevolent or malevolent, to look after us – we must Grow-up already!

In summary, Good Leadership is an Art and a Science. At a bare minimum, we must pursue the associated best practices ourselves rather than looking for someone else to pursue our best interest for us. Freedom is not free! We must pay the price ourselves to live, work and play in this “Free World”.

We want to be a protégé, not a parasite of the United States of America. The “buck stops here” – Grow Up Already!

We hereby urge all Caribbean stakeholders – even the ones in the Caribbean American territories – to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap. We must make the efforts ourselves to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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.

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

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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Refuse to Lose – Remediating ‘Columbus Day’

Posted on October 14, 2019 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Today is the Monday closest to October 12 – Day of Discovery by Christopher Columbus – so it is a day set aside as a Holiday in many places. But alas, there have been many communities that have remediated their historical appreciation for Christopher Columbus.

His impact was not all good!

This is part of the new attitude – community ethos – about losing. The actuality of Columbus is that while some people won – European Imperialists – many others lost. Those that lost, are stakeholders too in today’s Caribbean. The new attitude about winning-losing is actually a …

Refusal to lose

This community ethos is defined as a commitment by a group or society to the values of quality, success and winning. This corresponds to this formal definition of “community ethos” in the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean (Page 20):

… 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.

Celebrating Columbus Day is choosing the victories of some people over the losses of others. This is not winning; not win-win. Adapting the ethos to Refuse to Lose is supposed to be different, better; we want the Greater Good to win, not just a fraction of the population.

See, here, the encyclopedic reference on Columbus Day and the efforts to remediate its celebrations:

Reference: Columbus Day
Columbus Day is a national holiday in many countries of the Americas and elsewhere which officially celebrates the anniversary of Christopher Columbus‘s arrival in the Americas on October 12, 1492. Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer who set sail across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a faster route to the Far East only to land at the New World. His first voyage to the New World on the Spanish ships Santa María, Niña, and La Pinta took approximately three months. Columbus and his crew’s arrival to the New World initiated the Columbian Exchange which introduced the transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, and technology (but also invasive species, including communicable diseases) between the new world and the old.

The landing is celebrated as “Columbus Day” in the United States but the name varies on the international spectrum. In some Latin American countries, October 12 is known as “Día de la Raza” or (Day of the Race). This is the case for Mexico, which inspired Jose Vasconcelos’s book celebrating the Day of the Iberoamerican Race. Some countries such as Spain refer the holiday as “Día de la Hispanidad” and “Fiesta Nacional de España” where it is also the religious festivity of la Virgen del Pilar. Peru celebrates since 2009 the “Day of the original peoples and intercultural dialogue”. Belize and Uruguay celebrate it as Día de las Américas (Day of the Americas). Since Argentina’s former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner officially adopted “Día del Respeto a la Diversidad Cultural” (Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity) November 3, 2010. “Giornata Nazionale di Cristoforo Colombo or Festa Nazionale di Cristoforo Colombo” is the formal name of Italy‘s celebration as well as in Little Italys around the world.^[1][2]
…

Non-observance
The celebration of Columbus Day in the United States began to decline at the end of the 20th century, although many Italian-Americans, and others, continue to champion it.^[31][32] The states of Florida,^[33] Hawaii,^[34][35] Alaska,^[36][37] Vermont,^[38] South Dakota,^[39] New Mexico,^[40] Maine,^[41], Wisconsin, ^[42] and parts of California including, for example, Los Angeles County^[43] do not recognize it and have each replaced it with celebrations of Indigenous People’s Day (in Hawaii, “Discoverers’ Day”, in South Dakota, “Native American Day”^[32]). A lack of recognition or a reduced level of observance for Columbus Day is not always due to concerns about honoring Native Americans. For example, a community of predominantly Scandinavian descent may observe Leif Erikson Day instead.^[44] In the state of Oregon, Columbus Day is not an official holiday.^[45] Columbus Day is not an official holiday in the state of Washington ^[46]

Iowa and Nevada do not celebrate Columbus Day as an official holiday, but the states’ respective governors are “authorized and requested” by statute to proclaim the day each year.^[47] Several states have removed the day as a paid holiday for state government workers, while still maintaining it—either as a day of recognition, or as a legal holiday for other purposes, including California and Texas.^{[48][49][50][51][52]}

The practice of U.S. cities eschewing Columbus Day to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day began in 1992 with Berkeley, California. The list of cities which have followed suit as of 2018 includes Austin, Boise, Cincinnati, Denver, Los Angeles, Mankato, Minnesota, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Seattle, St. Paul, Minnesota, Phoenix, Tacoma, and “dozens of others.”^{[31][53][54][55][49][56][57][58][59][60][61]} Columbus, Ohio has chosen to honor veterans instead of Christopher Columbus, and removed Columbus Day as a city holiday. Various tribal governments in Oklahoma designate the day as Native American Day, or name it after their own tribe.^[62]
…
Source: Retrieved October 12, 2019 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day

This commentary is a continuation of this series on the Refuse to Lose ethos; this is Part 2-of-6. The full series is cataloged as follows:

Refuse to Lose: Lesson from Sports
Refuse to Lose: Remediating ‘Columbus Day’
Refuse to Lose: Introducing Formal Reconciliations
Refuse to Lose: Despite American Expansionism
Refuse to Lose: Canada’s Model of Ascent
Refuse to Lose: Direct Foreign Investors Wind-Downs

This is not the first time this commentary have addressed ‘Columbus Day’. As related in a previous Go Lean commentary, the orthodoxy of the ‘Columbus Day’ celebration is now frown on in many communities. See this quotation:

The human psyche is consistent; when we have been victimized, we want everyone to remember. But, when we have been the perpetrator – the bully – then we want everyone to forget. This applies to individuals and nations alike.

This experience relates to the history of the New World. Upon the discovery of the Americas by the European powers – Christopher Columbus et al – the focus had always been on pursuing economic interests, many times at the expense of innocent victims. (This is why the celebration of Columbus Day is now out of favor). First, there was the pursuit of gold, other precious metals (silver, copper, etc.) and precious stones (emeralds, turquoise, etc.). Later came the exploitation of profitable agricultural opportunities (cotton, tobacco, sugar cane, etc.), though these business models required extensive labor. So the experience in the New World (the Caribbean and North, South & Central America) saw the exploitation of the native indigenous people, and then as many of them died off, their replacements came from the African Slave Trade.

See this comedic VIDEO here that portrays this history and the trending to remediate the holiday – “How is it still a thing?”:

VIDEO – Columbus Day – How Is This Still A Thing: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) – https://youtu.be/eKEwL-10s7E

LastWeekTonight
Posted October 13, 2014 – Christopher Columbus did a lot of stuff that was way more terrible than “sailing the ocean blue,” but we don’t learn about that.

Columbus Day: How is it still a thing?

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Category: Entertainment

This foregoing VIDEO uses humor and punditry to convey a valid point:

Christopher Columbus should not be viewed as a hero of all the people. His legacy has blood stains on the annals of history.

The United States of America had been a majority White (European) country for its entire history. The minority populations finally won its battle for Civil Rights and equal treatment, appealing to the “Better Nature” of its founding principle:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – Declaration of Independence for the United States of America, July 4, 1776.

The end product of the Civil Rights movement is the equal protection under the law for all ethnic groups – majority or minority. After nearly 400 years of European-dominated power-brokers in the US, finally in 2008, the first person of minority heritage was elected to the American presidency – Barack Obama.

Remediating ‘Columbus Day’ is an accomplishment and achievement for the Civil Rights struggle of minority ethnic groups in America. Now the Refuse to Lose mantra must include everyone and not exclude anyone.

The subject of the American Civil Rights movement and momentum – leveling out the inequities – over the history of the New World have been addressed in many previous commentaries; consider this sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18321	Unequal Justice of American Sheriffs and How to Remediate
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18100	Nature or Nurture – Cop-on-Black Shootings in America’s DNA
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17820	‘Pride’ Movement – “Can we all just get along”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16944	Women Empowerment – Accepting Black Women ‘As Is’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16534	European Reckoning – Leveling Christianity’s Bad Influence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15123	Blacks get longer sentences from ‘Republican’ Judges
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14633	Nature or Nurture: Women Have Nurtured Change to Level Society
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14541	One Woman – Viola Desmond – Making a Difference for Canada
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13063	Achieving Gender & Other Equity without the ‘Battle’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12722	How the West Was Won? Thru Pluralism and Ethnic Normalization
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11870	The Journey From ‘Indian Termination Policy’ to Modern Pluralism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9974	Lessons Learned from Pearl Harbor and Civil Rights Remediated
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8038	Transformations: Civil Disobedience … Very Effective
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020	The Advocacy to Rid Sports of Blatant Racism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=546	‘The Divide’ Book Review describing the unequal justice practice
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=209	The Case of Muhammad Ali – Equal Protection Under the Law

The Refuse to Lose mantra now includes everyone in America and should not exclude anyone. This is why ‘Columbus Day’ is “no longer a thing”.

(Most communities do not want to lose the paid-holiday on the books, so they have substituted ‘Columbus Day’ for some other worthy cause).

This is a good model …

May we apply this lesson throughout the Caribbean – this means you Puerto Rico; (they have 2 holidays: October 12 & November 19).

Using Puerto Rico as a microcosm of the rest of the New World, the demographic on that island is a vast majority of Black-and-Brown people. The Taino people and culture that Columbus discovered and encountered on the island is now gone and extinct. Columbus should not be viewed as a hero due to the course of events he set in motion.

The European people – remnant on the island – would elevate Columbus as a winner, while the indigenous people would have to be deemed the losers. This is not Win-Win!

We now need to Refuse to Lose – for every demographic in our society – not just one group at the expense of another.

This is the lesson learned from ‘Columbus Day’.

Let’s all lean-in and foster this Refuse to Lose attitude; this is the right community ethos to elevate our society to be a better homeland to live, work and play. 🙂

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.

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

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.

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 [negative] communities … . On the other hand, the Federation must also implement the good examples learned from [positive] developments/communities… .

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

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Marshall Plan – Is $91 Billion a Redux for Puerto Rico?

Posted on May 14, 2019 in Economics, Government, Locations

Go Lean Commentary

The US gave $13 Billion to Western Europe to recover, reboot and turn-around the deficient societal engines of that region, post World War II. It made a huge difference and restored the national production (think GDP) to levels exceeding the years before the war.

This was the Marshall Plan; it worked for Europe. There are even lessons for us to learn and apply in our Caribbean region.

In September 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated the island of Puerto Rico (PR), “bombing” its infrastructure. The island needed (actually still needs) all the help it could get. PR must reboot! Help came from the US Federal government … eventually. The US President now claims that his administration has given $91 Billion.

If so, wouldn’t this constitute a turn-around for Puerto Rico; perhaps another round – a redux – of the Marshall Plan, the original European Recovery Plan of 1948 – 1952?

The answer is: No!

Despite the need for a Marshall Plan for PR, they have not gotten one. They also did not get $91 Billion!

Wait, what?! See the news story-VIDEO here:

VIDEO – CNN reporter responds to Trump: That’s not true – https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/05/09/trump-puerto-rico-storm-relief-false-claim-crn-vpx.cnn

CNN Right Now
Posted May 9, 2019 – President Trump falsely claimed that Puerto Rico has been given $91 billion in disaster aid following Hurricane Maria that devastated the island.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean asserts that the Caribbean must first look to the Caribbean to effect the needed change in the region. The idea of someone “swooping in” and bringing the relief that the Caribbean needs – a panacea – is simply a fantasy. This has not happened, is not happening and will not happen.

“We” must be the change our homeland needs.

The 2013 Go Lean book anticipated the repercussions and consequences of natural disasters in the Caribbean. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This is the solution that we need, a regional regime to shepherd the economic, security (including Emergency Management), and governing engines of the 30 member-states, as one integrated unit.

This could be fact, not fantasy!

The Go Lean/CU roadmap does include a Marshall Plan for some member-states (Cuba & Haiti), that need to simply catch-up. Puerto Rico, while needing a Way Forward to reboot, recover and turn-around, is not envisioned for such a Marshall Plan. This is entry 5-of-5 in this series of commentaries – the final one – on the Marshall Plan, the historic European one and Caribbean versions. Here, as follows, is the full series being presented this month of May (2019):

Marshall Plan: A Lesson in History
Marshall Plan: Cuba – An imminent need for ‘Free Market’ Emergence
Marshall Plan: Haiti – Past time for Mitigation
Marshall Plan: Funding – What Purse to Fund Our Plans?
Marshall Plan: Is $91 Billion a Redux for Puerto Rico?

So if no Marshall Plan for PR, what solutions do we propose for this island. The theme of rebooting PR has been detailed in many previous Go Lean commentaries; consider this sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17135	Way Forward – Puerto Rico: Learns its status with America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15012	In Life or Death: No Love for Puerto Rico
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14101	‘We Are The World’ Style Campaign to Help Puerto Rico
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13995	First Steps – Congressional Interstate Compacts – No Vote; No Voice
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13391	After Maria, Failed-State Indicators: Destruction and Defection for PR
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11647	Righting a Wrong: Puerto Rico’s Bankruptcy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7963	‘Like a Good Neighbor’ – Being there for Puerto Rico
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6260	Puerto Rico Bondholders Coalition Launches Ad Campaign
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1325	Puerto Rico Attempts to Reboot the Landscape for Entrepreneurs (SME)
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=599	Ailing Puerto Rico open to radical economic fixes

The status quo for the Caribbean is deficient and defective. The status quo for Puerto Rico is deficient and defective. This same assessment requires some of the same solutions. The Go Lean/CU roadmap presents the solutions to fix the entire region.

This is the Way Forward.

Is the Way Forward part-and-parcel of their American experience?

How was the $91 Billion?

Oh wait! It’s a mirage. It is past time for PR to realize that its panacea is not the American eco-system. It is time to Grow Up, Already! The heavy-lifting that is needed for Puerto Rico must be exerted by Puerto Rico.

You are acting like a colony … towards your imperial masters, Washington D.C..

Instead, we propose that you act like a Good Neighbor, willing to partner with others “in the same boat” with common problems to find common solutions.

Puerto Rico should be fully inclusive in the political, social, economic, security, musical and athletic fabric of the regional society. This is the Caribbean’s future … and Puerto Rico’s future. This is how we can make our regional homeland, PR included, a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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.

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

——-

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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Way Forward – For Independence: Territory Realities

Posted on April 23, 2019 in Government, Locations, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Notwithstanding indigenous Amerindian cultures, the Caribbean represents the oldest civilizations in the New World. Columbus made his New World discovery here in the Caribbean:

The island of San Salvador in the Bahamas in 1492 …

… and established the first European settlement here:

Santo Domingo, in today’s Dominican Republic in 1496.

So, being the oldest civilization, the expectation should be that we would be the most matured in the hemisphere.

We would be Grown Up … by now?!

Far from it! For many of our Caribbean territories, “grown-up maturity” is far from the truth; they are still dependent colonies. In fact, there are 30 member-states – grouping the Netherland Antilles (N.A.) as 1 member-state – that identify as the political Caribbean. Of that number, 18 of them are considered Dependent Territories without full autonomy to determine their economic, security and governing deliveries for their communities; (this 18 counts each N.A. island).

See this list of “Dependent” territories in the Caribbean:

Member-State Legal Status

Anguilla British Overseas Territory = BOT

Bermuda BOT

British Virgin Islands BOT

Cayman Islands BOT

Guadeloupe French Department

Martinique French Department

Montserrat BOT

Netherlands Antilles

Aruba Netherlands Constituent

Bonaire Netherlands Constituent

Curaçao Netherlands Constituent

Saba Netherlands Constituent

Sint Eustatius Netherlands Constituent

Sint Maarten Netherlands Constituent

Puerto Rico US Territory

Saint Barthélemy French Department

Saint Martin French Department

Turks and Caicos Islands BOT

US Virgin Islands US Territory

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Caribbean#Independence

It is because of this legal status for almost half of the member-states that there is definitely the need for this region to finally grow up and be mature!

The 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean asserted that the needed maturity can still manifest without changing the legal status from Dependent to Independent territories!

For a long time, right after World War II – 1948 and later, independence was all the rage. People in many communities actually thought that independence was the panacea for their ills in Caribbean communities; (there are even some who want independence for Puerto Rico). But after 70 years and 16 individual independence movements, it is a fallacy to think the independence is the solution. No, it is our conclusion that the best practice for Caribbean prosperity, the Way Forward, is Interdependence … not Independence.

Yes, there is the need for these dependent territories to align with a “bigger organization” structure for better deliveries of the Social Contract – where citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights. But the Go Lean book presents the roadmap that this “bigger organization” should be tied to the geographical neighborhood, as opposed to some colonial legacy with an “overseas master” up to 8,000 miles away. The book details this (Page 96) as the Step One (Year 1) of a 5-Year Plan:

Assemble
… this roadmap pursues an assembly of these different institutions and then to supplement them with the creation of new super-national organizations. This approach allows the CU to “stand on the shoulders” of previous efforts and then reach greater heights.

This initial phase entails incorporating all the existing regional organizations – like the ACS and Caribbean Community (CariCom) into the umbrella organizations of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). These organizations include, (but are not limited to):

CariCom Secretariat – 22 Agencies – Appendix BA (Page 256)

French Overseas Territory

CariCom Office of Trade Negotiations

US Overseas Territory (Puerto Rico & US Virgin Islands) – See Appendix IA (Page 278)

British Commonwealth / Overseas Territory

Netherlands Overseas Territory

Association of Caribbean States (ACS)

Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS)

As related in a previous blog-commentary …

… it is the assessment of this commentary that Independence is so overrated; rather than the independence, the call is for interdependence. A model of this desired interdependence is the inter-state cooperation in the European Union (EU).

Yes, the Europeans did it; they appointed “new guards“. The EU does not possess any sovereignty; that remains with the member-states. The EU is simply a confederacy; a deputized technocracy chartered for the purpose of delivering many of the Social Contract obligations better … than what used to be the norm of the individual states.

The Committee for the Nobel Prize for Peace agreed with this assessment in 2012 … and awarded the Nobel Prize to the EU for that year.

“They” did it; we can too!

For all the Overseas Territories in the Caribbean to embark on a course of action in emulation of the EU, we would be declaring that we too need to “appoint new guards” to make our homelands better places to live, work and play. The Go Lean book opens with the call for all of these 30 Caribbean member-states to make that declaration … for interdependence. This is pronounced early in the book, in the Declaration of Interdependence on Pages 10 thru 12:

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

… we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends … it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. …
…
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.

This need for “new guards” have been detailed in many previous Go Lean blog-commentaries. Consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16668	New Guards for Justice and Economics
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16364	New Guards for Technology Deployments
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16210	New Guards for Currency Management
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16002	New Guards for Corporate Governance
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15996	New Guards for Emergencies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15075	New Guards for e-Government
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14825	New Guards for Jobs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14480	New Guards for Mental Health
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13472	New Guards for Tertiary Education
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13321	New Guards for a “Pluralistic Democracy”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13063	New Guards for Civil and Gender Rights
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7789	New Guards for Global Trade
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7601	New Guards for Caribbean Sovereign Debt
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6341	New Guards for Tourism Stewardship
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6103	New Guards Against Deadly Threats

In summary, despite all these many words, the Way Forward for stewardship for the many European-and-American Overseas Territories in the Caribbean is simple: Interdependence among the regional neighbors, despite any language or colonial legacies. (This is the same that they did in Europe … and America; we must now do “it” here).

This is easier said than done. This is why there is the need for a detailed roadmap to provide the guidance – turn-by-turn directions – for this Way Forward. The 370 pages of the book Go Lean … Caribbean present the community ethos that must first be adopted to be successful in this endeavor; plus the many strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies that must be executed to forge collaboration and interdependence in this region. See the specific details from the book in these pages:

Implementation – Ways to Promote Independence	Page 120
Planning – Ways to Model the EU	Page 130
Planning – Lessons Learned from the West Indies Federation – Previous Interdependence Effort	Page 135
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact US Territories	Page 244
Advocacy – Ways to Impact British Territories	Page 245
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Dutch Territories	Page 246
Advocacy – Ways to Impact French Territories	Page 247

This commentary continues the consideration on the Way Forward for the full Caribbean and the individual member-states. This submission here focuses on the 18 member-states that are considered overseas territories. While their needs are the same as everyone, their organizational and governmental structures are different – they have only limited autonomy. Yet, there is a Way Forward. This is entry 8-of-9 for this April 2019 compilation of commentaries; (the list started as 3, grew dynamically to 6 and will finalized with 9). The full series of commentaries related to the Way Forward is presented as follows:

Way Forward: Puerto Rico learns its “status” with America
Way Forward: Virgin Islands – America’s youngest colony
Way Forward: Bahamas – “Solutions White Paper” – An Inadequate Plan
Way Forward: Jamaica: The need to reconcile the Past
Way Forward: Caribbean Media Strategy & Deliveries
Way Forward: Strategy for Justice: Special Prosecutors et al
Way Forward: Strategy for Energy – ‘Trade’ Winds
———
Way Forward: Strategy for Independence – Territory Realities
Way Forward: “Whatever it takes” – Life Imitating Art

This series posits that “no man is an island” and further that “no island is an island”; this is the epitome of interdependence. The benefits of a leveraged confederacy in the Caribbean region is a win-win for the people of the Caribbean and their overseas masters burdened with their care.

The Caribbean now wants to grow up and take care of our own affairs. Besides, we can do it better with local oversight to local problems. The label of Overseas Territory is still just a different name for the old practice of:

colonialism.

That is still a flawed concept – assuming White racial supremacy – with flawed prospects for future success; this is true if its colonialism in the Caribbean, Asia and/or Africa. We reap what we sow; we cannot expect to plant weeds and harvest wheat. See this analysis addresses in this VIDEO here:

VIDEO – Colonialism’s Impact on Africa – https://youtu.be/xhnG8JbBegA

Big Think
Published on Apr 23, 2012 – The journalist says colonialism was “short enough to destroy leadership in Africa but not long enough to replace it with anything else.”

Notice his hint as to how Internet & Communications Technologies bring New Hope…

Notice his hint on how a repatriated Diaspora brings New Hope …

Category: People & Blogs

Everyone in the Caribbean – citizens, institutions and dependent member-states and independent member-states – are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap. The end-result is conceivable, believable and achievable: a better homeland to live, work and play. 🙂

About the Book

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

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion 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.

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 – economics, security and governance – must be a regional pursuit. This quest was also an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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.

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

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

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

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Way Forward – Puerto Rico: Learns its status with America

Posted on April 3, 2019 in Ethos, Locations, Planning, Social

Go Lean Commentary

You love America.
But does “she” love you back?

Today, we learn that the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, is now vocalizing that there is a fast approaching limit for gratitude towards Puerto Rico. See that story here:

VIDEO – Puerto Rico’s governor sending warning to Trump – https://news.yahoo.com/puerto-ricos-governor-sending-warning-175145864.html

CNN – Posted March 28, 2019 – “If the bully gets close, I’ll punch the bully in the mouth,” Rosselló said when asked about a tense meeting Wednesday between members of the Trump administration and Puerto Rican officials. “It would be a mistake to confuse courtesy with [lack of] courage.”

———–

Title: Puerto Rico’s governor warns Trump: ‘If the bully gets close, I’ll punch the bully in the mouth’
By: David Knowles
Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló is through playing nice with President Trump.

After months of soft-pedaling his criticism of the president as Puerto Rico struggles to recover from Hurricane Maria in 2017, Rosselló voiced his frustration with the White House in a Thursday interview with CNN.

“If the bully gets close, I’ll punch the bully in the mouth,” Rosselló said when asked about a tense meeting Wednesday between members of the Trump administration and Puerto Rican officials. “It would be a mistake to confuse courtesy with [lack of] courage.”

The Washington meeting — which was attended by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro and members of Rosselló’s government — was requested after reports that Trump was considering halting further disaster relief to the beleaguered U.S. territory.

In a Wednesday meeting with Senate Republicans, Trump said the amount of aid Puerto Rico had so far received “is way out of proportion to what Texas and Florida and others have gotten,” according to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who attended the meeting.

Though it has already slashed benefits, Puerto Rico faces a $600 million shortfall to administer food stamps. So far the U.S. government has spent more than $6 billion on disaster relief to Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria, which was blamed for killing more than 3,000 people. In June, Texas received $5 billion in federal aid for housing and infrastructure repairs stemming from Hurricane Harvey, which left 103 people dead.

Rosselló, who avoided criticizing Trump in a 2018 interview with Yahoo News, lashed out at the president over his latest reported comments.

“He treats us as second-class citizens, that’s for sure,” Rosselló told CNN. “And my consideration is I just want the opportunity to explain to him why the data and information he’s getting is wrong. I don’t think getting into a kicking and screaming match with the president does any good. I don’t think anyone can beat the president in a kicking and screaming match. What I am aiming to do is make sure reason prevails, that empathy prevails, that equality prevails and that we can have a discussion.”

Trump, whose administration’s response to Maria was criticized as inadequate, has long been seen as reluctant to offer aid to Puerto Rico. In October the president again signaled his disapproval of giving aid that might be used to help alleviate the financial distress the island was experiencing even before Maria hit.

Source: Posted March 28, 2019; retrieved March 29, 2019 from: https://news.yahoo.com/puerto-ricos-governor-warns-trump-if-the-bully-gets-close-ill-punch-the-bully-in-the-mouth-162447705.html?.tsrc=notification-brknews

There is no love for Puerto Rico … within their American eco-system.

This theme aligns with previous commentaries from the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean; see a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15012	In Life or Death: No Love for Puerto Rico
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14101	‘We Are The World’ Style Campaign to Help Puerto Rico
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13391	After Maria, Failed-State Indicators: Destruction and Defection for PR
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11647	Righting a Wrong: Puerto Rico’s Bankruptcy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7963	‘Like a Good Neighbor’ – Being there for Puerto Rico
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6260	Puerto Rico Bondholders Coalition Launches Ad Campaign
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=599	Ailing Puerto Rico open to radical economic fixes

As related in this previous blog-commentary, Puerto Rico devotes more human capital – and sacrifice – to US military endeavors than any other state or territories per capita.

Never kill yourself for people who are willing to watch you die.

Way Forward: Puerto Rico learns its “status” with America.
Way Forward: Virgin Islands – America’s youngest colony
Way Forward: ‘Solutions White Paper’ – An Inadequate Plan for the Bahamas

No man is an island; no island is an island.

Considering entry 1 of 3 of this series for April, what should be the Way Forward for Puerto Rico?

There are 3 options that have been detailed by this Go Lean movement. Here, again, with references to updated information:

Statehood – see Appendix A. If approved, an Interstate Compact allows for regional integration.
Independence – previous advocates for this option have gone militant.
(The Philippines is a former US Territory; they sought their independence from the USA in 1946; they now have full autonomy for self-determination).
Status Quo, but with Interstate Compact for regional integration.

Actually, it is overdue work. It is the same “Growing Up“, “Managing Your Affairs“, “Taking Care of Business” that was always needed for this island nation.

Others (countries) have done “it” well – we can learn from them; i.e. consider the Iceland experience.

Some have done “it” bad – we must learn from that too; i.e. consider Republic of Venezuela.

With the proper guidance, blood, sweat and tears, it is conceivable, believable and achievable for this island to actualize and be recognized as one of the greatest address on the planet – not just some “ugly step-child”. 🙂

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.

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

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

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

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

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

————–

Appendix A – Florida lawmaker introduces bill to make Puerto Rico 51st State

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – A Florida congressman and Puerto Rico’s non-voting representative in Congress have introduced a bill that seeks to make the U.S. territory the 51st state.

Our historic legislation will finally end over 120 years of colonialism and provide full rights and representation to over 3.2 million Americans.”

Source: Posted March 30, 2019; retrieved April 2, 2019 from: https://www.wfla.com/news/florida/florida-lawmaker-introduces-bill-to-make-puerto-rico-51st-state/1888575456

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In Life or Death: No Love for Puerto Rico

Posted on May 30, 2018 in Government, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

The American association is just not working for failing Puerto Rico (PR). This is no longer a theory; this is now a fact!

The devastating Category 5 Hurricane Maria came by and desolated the island, 9 months ago (September 18, 2017). The restoration and recovery is finally complete …

Wait, no!

The restoration and recovery is still not complete, even though it’s the eve of a new Hurricane Season (June 1).

In life, Puerto Rico just gets no love.

Unfortunately, this is true in death too – we learn now that even the resultant deaths from Hurricane Maria had been under counted.

What? How? Why?

The act of counting deaths is more straight-forward than the Washington and San Juan officials would have you believe. Simply count the number of mortalities (death certificates issued) for the 4^th Quarter of the last few years. The PR government try to assert that the number of deaths were 64 people; and yet demographers and other social scientists counted the mortality rate for 4^th Quarter 2017 and the 4th Quarters in previous years and the real count is more like:

4600+

Wait, wait … don’t tell me! According to this story here, “researchers concluded the final death count could [actually] be as high as 8,500”:

Title: Puerto Rico governor welcomes “real number” of Hurricane Maria deaths after shocking report

A new Harvard University study says the death toll from Hurricane Maria last year is dramatically larger than reported. The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, estimates more than 4,600 people died on the island. The official government death toll is just 64.

Researchers randomly knocked on doors and asked if anyone died there. There were more questions — but that’s how it started. It took six weeks and $50,000 from Harvard to come up with a number that is stunning, reports CBS News’ David Begnaud.

Puerto Rico’s Governor Ricardo Rosselló, who himself is a scientist, seemed blindsided by the Harvard study. His government wasn’t involved and he didn’t know it was being released.

“We welcome all studies,” Rosselló said at a press conference Tuesday. “We want the real number to come out. We had a protocol that really was subpar and we recognize it.”

The government protocol is for doctors to tell the government if a death was caused by Hurricane Maria. Families have to petition the government to investigate if they disagree with a doctor’s opinion.

The Harvard study surveyed more than 3,000 homes across the island and found the mortality rate rose 62 percent in the three months after Hurricane Maria compared to that period the year before. Researchers concluded the final death count could be as high as 8,500.

“One third of our deaths were reported because lack of medical treatment,” said Domingo Marques, who was a lead author of the study.

During his visit to Puerto Rico last October, President Trump hailed the low death toll, which at the time was 16. He compared it to Hurricane Katrina. In light of the Harvard report, a White House spokesperson said the people of Puerto Rico deserve nothing less than transparency and accountability.

“The negligence that allowed those lives to be lost, needs to be accounted for,” San Juan mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz said.

Cruz has blasted Mr. Trump for being tone deaf and slow to respond. When asked to evaluate her own response she said, “I know I didn’t get to everyone… We did the best we could, but that wasn’t’ good enough. That wasn’t good enough.”

Why this story is more than just a shocking number? For every death that is certified by a government official to be related to Hurricane Maria, family members are eligible to have the federal government help pay for funeral expenses. The numbers matter.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Source: CBS News; retrieved May 30, 2018 from: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-maria-death-toll-puerto-rico-harvard-university-study/

Related stories:

6 months after Hurricane Maria, CBS News returns to Puerto Rico

————-

VIDEO – Puerto Rico’s Tragic Toll – https://www.cbsnews.com/video/puerto-rico-hurricane-death-toll-in-the-thousands-researchers-say/

Posted May 30, 2018 – CBS This Morning: Harvard Researchers estimate 4,600+ people killed in Hurricane Maria.

Wow; these people, this island – Puerto Rico – don’t even get respect in death.

Call a spade a spade!

There is no love for Puerto Rico. (This is not “our” assessment alone; see the Mayor of San Juan in the Appendix VIDEO).

Time to make a move! It is past time now for Puerto Rico to change from its parasite status as an American Protectorate and graduate to being a US State. Or maybe, it’s time for Puerto Rico to divorce the American relationship entirely and become an independent nation – as was done in the Philippines. In a previous commentary by the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean, the assertion was that the American association maybe the problem for Puerto Rico. That blog-commentary stated:

Where is your pride Puerto Rico? “Have you no sense of decency?” You are not being loved; you are being pitied.

No wait, even the pity is gone – compassion exhaustion after the prior hurricanes Harvey and Irma; plus forest fires in California.

Puerto Rico: You “cannot win; cannot break-even and cannot get out of the game”.

… Puerto Rico is now at the cross roads; things will get worse before it gets worse! … The outcome for Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean islands, would be defection – “forced uprooting-displacement of large communities”. Truly, this is what has happened.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states, including the American Territories of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. This roadmap asserts that regional integration is the key for future Caribbean success; it thus presents 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. Puerto Ricans have been defecting for decade looking for jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines. This security pact encompasses an emergency planning/response apparatus to deal with the reality of natural disasters. The CU mandate is to protect against any Failed-State
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

To Puerto Rico, we entreat you: there are successful countries that are separate and detached of America. Your status quo is not the only destiny.

The Go Lean book stresses reform for Caribbean society. It reminds the readers of the American Revolutionary experience: the original 13 colonies were failing under the weight of their British baggage. So to reach success, they had to “break of the shackles“ of British colonialism.

This is Puerto Rico today! They need to “break of the shackles of American colonialism”. This island needs to echo the revolutionary sentiments of “Founding Father” Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in the Declaration of Independence:

… That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these [former] colonies …- book Go Lean…Caribbean (Page 10).

These words, this break from a failing status quo was an early motivation for the CU/Go Lean roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13) of the book:

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.

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 effect a reboot and turn-around. In fact, the book (Page 33) provides one advocacy specifically dedicated to the subject of Turn-arounds. See the headlines, excerpts and quotations here:

10 Ways to Impact Turn-Arounds

1	Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market and Economy The CU treaty facilitates a reboot of the region’s economic engines, security apparatus and emergency management(preparation/response for the 30 member-states, 42 million people and $800 Billion GDP. The treaty allows for theestablishment of Self Governing Entities where the CU will be the municipal administrator – this allows for civic planning, zoning, demolitions and imminent domain decision-making separate from the member-states. While too, dispositions of abandoned buildings in the member-states still relate to CU missions, as in the protection of image (“psychological trauma” is inflicted daily on neighbors of abandoned structures) and the quest for beauty. While beauty, aesthetics and preservation may be paramount for communities, these should only be a concern after basic needs are satisfied – housing is a basic need. The economics of housing can be impacted with the over-supply ofabandoned buildings, as it brings the value down for other properties, and sends out the false vision, like Detroit’sabandoned structures, that just a “little rehab” and their new manifestations will be readily available. Learning from Detroit, it is more beneficial to raze abandoned buildings and build anew – turn-around, rather than considering restoration or preservation.
2	Bankruptcy Processing
3	Homeland Security Concerns Abandoned buildings are a security concern for the community as these buildings are often used as drug “dens” or to house other illegal/criminal activities. Playing children can also be ensnared by dilapidated structures and thus consume emergency medical services. Therefore, impacting turn-arounds of abandoned properties is proactive for CU security.
4	Property Tax Revenue and Services
5	Clean Slate / Blank Canvas By razing abandoned buildings, the community can truly engage a turn-around strategy. The property now becomes a clean slate / blank canvas, ready for any new development or a return to a natural disposition of Caribbean flora/fauna.
6	Explosives Use – Art & Science
7	Demolition Jobs
8	Recycling Materials
9	Community Gardens and Fruit Trees – by Non-Government Organizations (NGO)
10	Common Grazing Rights

To Washington, these Caribbean islands are far-off territories – out of sight, out of mind. But these Caribbean islands are our home:

Oh, island in the sun. Willed to me by my father’s hand.

So the Caribbean stakeholders in the region must be the ones to foster the workable solutions for the region: a better disaster preparation and response apparatus. We must not count on the “kindness of strangers”!

Duh!!! – The jury is in! They do not even count our dead!

The Way Forward for Puerto Rico must be the Way Forward for the rest of the Caribbean region – we are “all in the same boat”.

Hurricane Season 2018 starts tomorrow – June 1. (The American president, Donald Trump, even denies Climate Change as a fact or a science. By denying our reality; he is denying “us”).

This assertion – Puerto Rico needing to rely more on their geographical neighbors rather than the American hegemony – is not new. This has been the consistent pleading from this Go Lean movement. Consider these previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14718	‘At the Table’ or ‘On the Menu’ – PR’s No Vote; No Voice in D.C.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14101	Wait, ‘We Are The World’ – Raising money for PR Relief
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13995	First Steps for PR & USVI – Congressional Interstate Compacts
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13391	After Maria, Failed-State Indicators: Destruction and Defection
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12959	After Irma, America Should Scrap the ‘Jones Act’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12126	Commerce of the Seas – Stupidity of the Jones Act
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11963	Oscar López Rivera: The ‘Nelson Mandela’ of Puerto Rico?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11647	Righting a Wrong: Puerto Rico’s Bankruptcy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7963	‘Like a Good Neighbor’ – Being there for Puerto Rico
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4551	US Territories – Between a ‘rock and a hard place’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1325	Puerto Rico Governor Signs Bill on Small Businesses
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=599	Ailing Puerto Rico open to radical economic fixes

The PR should not stand for this. Time to move … away from this inconsequential, parasitic status quo. It is past time for debate:

“A little less conversation; a little more action” – Song: Elvis Presley.

The responsibility to improve our homeland is ours alone. The quest to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play must be engaged by Caribbean people. The rest of the world have no love for us. We must love ourselves, first and foremost! Puerto Rico, you do not have to do this heavy-lifting task alone; we need to lift the same heavy load. Let’s do it together! 🙂

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

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

—————

Appendix VIDEO – San Juan mayor on hurricane death toll study – https://www.cbsnews.com/video/san-juan-mayor-criticizes-local-leaders-trump-after-hurricane-death-toll-study/

Posted May 30, 2018 – CBS This Morning: San Juan mayor criticizes local leaders, Trump after hurricane death toll study

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‘At the Table’ or ‘On the Menu’

Posted on April 16, 2018 in Government, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

There are those that reflect society and those that effect society.

Unfortunately, these may not be the same people.

While we are not impugning any bad motives to these men, we accept that in the United States, the leadership in the Republican Party – the party in power, also called the GOP, with control of the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate – all reflect White Men over the age of 45. Clearly, not a Pluralistic Democracy!

At the same time this real census demographics apply for America today:

Race: 77.1% White; 13.3% Black; 5.6% Asian; 2.6% Other/multiracial; 1.2% Native; 0.2% Pacific Islander
Ethnicity: 17.6% Hispanic or Latino; 82.4% non-Hispanic or Latino
Age & Gender: Under 18 = 24%; 18 to 44 = 36.5%; 45 to 64 = 26.4%; Over 65 = 13%; Median age = 37.8
Female = 50.8; Male = 49.2

Change is hard! Reforming and transforming a community is heavy-lifting. A lot of societal reforms – human and civil rights – only come about as a result of advocates fighting for change … “at the top” or “from the bottom”. Changing “at the top” means conferring, convincing, consulting and cajoling leaders (political and business) to implement changes in policies and procedures; it means being “at the table”. Changing “from the bottom” means “taking to the streets” and rallying the masses to force governments and businesses – the establishment – to hear demands and make changes.

Truthfully, the former – Top-Down approach – is much easier than the latter – Bottoms-Up approach.

But, in order to confer, convince, consult and cajole, Change Advocates must have a seat “at the table”. When some interest group is absent in their representation, the possibility of disregard – and victimization – is highly possible.

“If You’re Not at the Table, You’re on the Menu”
This quote is believed to have originated around [the year] 2000 in Washington, DC, and is of unknown origin. Basically, it means that if you are not represented at the decision-making table, you are in a financially vulnerable position, you get left out, or, worse yet, you are on the menu.

See this fear manifested in the news-article-commentary here … and the Appendix VIDEO below:

Title # 1: Ryan pressed on all-white, all-male GOP leadership

By: Juana Summers, CNN

Washington (CNN) House Speaker Paul Ryan acknowledged Thursday that the Republican Party needs more women and minorities, and pointed to Utah Rep. Mia Love — the only black Republican woman in Congress — as evidence that the party was making progress.

The discussion, with CBS News host Gayle King, was prompted by President Donald Trump’s tweet of a photo from a dinner he hosted at the White House for members of Republican leadership.

In the photo, which was tweeted Wednesday night, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are surrounded by five members of congressional Republican leadership, including Ryan. All of the lawmakers included in that photo are white men.

“When I look at that picture, Mr. Speaker, I have to say, I don’t see anyone that looks like me in terms of color or gender,” CBS News host Gayle King told Ryan. “You were one of the main people who said you want to do more for the Republican Party to expand … Some say this President really doesn’t want to expand the base.”

“I don’t like the fact that you feel that way,” Ryan told King, adding that “we need more minorities, more women in our party and I’ve been focusing on that kind of recruitment.”

Ryan, who announced Wednesday that he would retire in January, then pointed to [Congresswoman Mia] Love, who he has mentored, as an example.

“She’s somebody I recruited in a primary to come to Congress. There are a lot of candidates like Mia that we’re recruiting all around the country,” he added, saying that even though he is retiring from Congress he was going to “keep being involved and focusing on inclusive, aspirational politics.”

While Congress has undoubtedly grown more diverse, the ranks of leadership in the Republican Party have not. Every member of Republican leadership on both sides of the Rotunda is white. There is one woman, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, in House Republican leadership. There are none in Senate Republican leadership.

Source: Posted April 12, 2018; retrieved April 15, 2018 from: https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/12/politics/paul-ryan-republican-diversity-photo/index.html

This American drama is more than just theoretical; there is an actual manifestation associated with it. There are real world consequences and it is all bad! And this is not only an American drama; it is a Caribbean concern as well. There are two American territories in the middle of the Caribbean; and guess what?

This same group of White Men – in the foregoing – effect the populations of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, though they do not reflect their populations.

Things are bad; consider this bad episode:

Title # 2: Here’s how an obscure tax change sank Puerto Rico’s economy

As GOP lawmakers and the White House put the finishing touches on a proposal to overhaul the American tax code, Congress and the Trump administration are also considering multiple options to help storm-ravaged Puerto Rico get back on its feet.
…
Even before the storm brought Puerto Rico to a near standstill, the government there already struggled with an economy in shambles and a default on billions of dollars of public debt.

That fiscal mess, partly the result of a prolonged downturn that lingered long after the rest of the U.S. had recovered from the Great Recession, has its roots in the repeal of a controversial corporate tax break that helped spark an exodus from the island and sent its economy into reverse.

More than half a century ago, U.S. lawmakers sought to help Puerto Rico emerge from a colonial past, transforming its largely agrarian economy into a manufacturing powerhouse. The effort, known as Operation Bootstrap, began with a series of tax breaks designed to attract manufacturers who would provide steady factory jobs.

For a time the plan seemed to work, as standards of living in Puerto Rico rose. Between 1950 and 1980, per capita gross national product grew nearly tenfold in Puerto Rico, and disposable income and educational attainment rose sharply, according to the Center for a New Economy, a think tank based in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

One of those tax breaks, enacted in 1976, allowed U.S. manufacturing companies to avoid corporate income taxes on profits made in U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico. Manufacturers, led by the pharmaceutical industry, flocked to the island.

But by the early 1990s, the provision faced growing opposition from critics who attacked the tax break as a form of corporate welfare. Much like the current debate over corporations parking profits offshore to avoid taxes, tax reformers saw the provision, known as Section 936, as too costly for the Treasury.

The tax break also had some unintended consequences, notably the unfair tax burden that fell to domestic Puerto Rican companies.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the law that would phase out Section 936 over 10 years.

Plant closures and job losses followed. Ten years later, on the eve of the Great Recession, employment in Puerto Rico peaked. Left with a dwindling tax base, the Puerto Rican government borrowed heavily to replace the lost revenue.

Today, the U.S. territory has nearly $70 billion in debt, an unemployment rate 2.5 times the U.S. average, a 45 percent poverty rate, nearly insolvent pension systems and a chronically underfunded Medicaid insurance program for the poor.

Puerto Rico’s job base continues to shrink, taking its economy along with it. Since the recession ended, a lack of job prospects has sent many Puerto Ricans fleeing to the mainland, where the job market is much stronger.
…
The devastation brought by Hurricane Maria has accelerated the exodus, as families who have lost their homes seek shelter with relatives on the U.S. mainland. Many likely see the relocation as temporary. Others may find better opportunities in one of the 50 states, where the average weekly wage is nearly twice that of Puerto Rico.

It remains to be seen how many will return, leaving even fewer workers to rebuild the territory’s battered economy.

Source: Posted Sept 26, 2017; retrieved April 15, 2018 from: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/26/heres-how-an-obscure-tax-change-sank-puerto-ricos-economy.html

That GOP Leadership is very important now for Puerto Rico’s viability – and the USVI – and they have no vote, nor voice in Congress. They do not have a “seat at the table”. Unfortunately, the Washington experience for Puerto Rico has been out-of-sight and out-of-mind.

This commentary has previously asserted that Puerto Rico reflects a Failed-State status; see this direct quotation:

Puerto Rico can do “bad” all by itself; it does not need to be America’s Failed-State!

They do not need the American Hegemony to create an unbearable situation for them. This is NOT an assessment based on the fact that Donald Trump is in the White House now, no rather, this is a summary-analysis based on 120 years of US-PR history. Like many abusive marriages, the US has reserved its most abusive behavior for its own family member, the island territory of PR. This, despite the President or the administration.

No one should be expected to tolerate 2^nd Class Citizenship status … for 120 years!

This commentary continues the assertion of the book Go Lean…Caribbean, that Caribbean territories should confederate with their actual Caribbean neighbors and seek their own self-determination. Puerto Rico needs their Caribbean neighbors and the neighbors need Puerto Rico. The effort to reboot the regional economy may be too big for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands alone; they need the leverage of the full Caribbean neighborhood – a Single Market of 42 million people in 30 member-states. The book – available to download for free – presents this roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all 30 member-states, American territories included. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives for regional integration:

Optimization of 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.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

For our Caribbean effort to reform and transform our society, we need “all hands on deck”. Not just Old White Men; no, we need Black and White, Male and Female, Young and Old, English speakers and Dutch, French and Spanish speakers. We need the stewards that shepherd our societal engines to reflect and effect all of the Caribbean.

The mandate to forge an optimized regional confederation – with full participation of people that reflect our Caribbean population – was pronounced early in the Go Lean book with this Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14); demonstrated with these opening 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.

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

xxvi. Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries …

The subject of fostering a Pluralistic Democracy with full gender equity, equal access and equal protections have been directly addressed and further elaborated upon in previous blog/commentaries; consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14633	Nature or Nurture: Women Have Nurtured Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13321	Making a ‘Pluralistic Democracy’ – Multilingual Realities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13063	Gender Equity without a ‘Battle of the Sexes’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12035	Lean-in for ‘Wonder Woman Day’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11812	State of Caribbean Union: Hope and Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9216	‘Time to Go’ – When there is ‘No Respect’ for our Hair
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8306	Women Get Ready for New Lean-In Campaign
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6937	Women in Politics – Yes, They Can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6836	Role Model – #FatGirlsCan – Empowering Women
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6434	‘Good Hair’ and the Strong Black Woman
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6422	Getting More Women Interested in Science/Technology Careers

The Go Lean book posits that people of all races, colors and creed have the right to work towards making their communities better places to live, work and play. This should be the default perception of our stewards and shepherds – there is strength in our diversity. Plus, we need all the help we can get. So the 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 transition to a Pluralistic Democracy, one that better reflects and effects the full population of Caribbean people: Black or White, Men or Women.

This quest to elevate our regional society requires heavy-lifting! But this push towards a Pluralistic Democracy is conceivable, believable and achievable. We invite all peoples to devote their time, talent and treasuries to this cause. Yes, we can … succeed in this quest; yes, we can be a better society. 🙂

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

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

———-

Appendix VIDEO – Speaker Ryan Lamenting Lack of Diversity – https://twitter.com/NorahODonnell/status/984411160207388672

.@GayleKing: “When I look at the picture, I don’t feel very celebratory. I feel very excluded.” @SpeakerRyan: “I don’t like that you feel that way. We need more minorities, more women in our party.” @CBSThisMorning pic.twitter.com/ts9jvUHrfz

— Norah O’Donnell🇺🇸 (@NorahODonnell) April 12, 2018

@GayleKing: “When I look at the picture, I don’t feel very celebratory. I feel very excluded.” @SpeakerRyan: “I don’t like that you feel that way. We need more minorities, more women in our party.” @CBSThisMorning

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Civil Rights, Gender, Power, PR

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Member-State	Legal Status
Anguilla	British Overseas Territory = BOT
Bermuda	BOT
British Virgin Islands	BOT
Cayman Islands	BOT
Guadeloupe	French Department
Martinique	French Department
Montserrat	BOT
Netherlands Antilles
Aruba	Netherlands Constituent
Bonaire	Netherlands Constituent
Curaçao	Netherlands Constituent
Saba	Netherlands Constituent
Sint Eustatius	Netherlands Constituent
Sint Maarten	Netherlands Constituent
Puerto Rico	US Territory
Saint Barthélemy	French Department
Saint Martin	French Department
Turks and Caicos Islands	BOT
US Virgin Islands	US Territory