Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary 

There was a time when all of the Spanish Caribbean – Cuba, Dominican Republic (DR), and Puerto Rico – was ruled under the same flag; that goes way back to the year 1865. There has been no Spanish Caribbean territorial unity ever since.

Too sad! They badly need to confederate, collaborate and convene to tackle so many societal challenges: economics, security and governance.

These 3 member-states constitute 59 percent of the Caribbean’s total population of 42+ million people, according to 2010 census numbers (Cuba – 11.24 million, DR – 9.52 million, PR – 3.99 million). They share the same Spanish language, the same colonial heritage, the same legacy of African Slavery, the same color flags (Red, White and Blue) and the same American tutelage; (some say tutelage while some say abandonment) see here:

• Cuba – This country was ceded from the Spanish Empire in the 1898 Spanish-American War and allowed to pursue their Independence dreams. Their autonomous rule history was dysfunctional; punctuated with a Communist Revolution in 1959 led by Fidel Castro. See more here: America’s War on the Caribbean. After 55 years of economic and political alienation from the US, the Barack Obama administration worked to normalize relations with Cuba. But there is a new American federal governmental administration; they claim to adhere to a different foreign policy than Obama; but so far, the policies that have been introduced or modified have only tweaked trade rules a little – see Appendix A.
  
  
• DR – This country benefited from the same movement that granted independence to Haiti; the Haitian Revolutionary forces overran the entire island of Hispaniola and self-extracted from the European powers of France and Spain. Later (1844) the DR sought independence from Haiti and had to contend with many other threats from foreign aggressors. A treaty was drafted and presented to the US Senate to annex the DR as a US Territory with the prospect and pathway to eventually become a US State; it was defeated in 1870 and never ratified. See more here: American Annexation of Santo Domingo. The country has had one troublesome political history since – 3 Presidential assassinations.
  
• Puerto Rico – This island territory was ceded from the Spanish Empire to the US as a result of the same 1898 Spanish-American War. It never obtained independence, but instead experienced one dependent status after another until today. There have been many attempts to assuage the colonial status, in fact a fifth referendum was held just recently on June 11, 2017. 97% percent of those participating voted for statehood, though there was only 23% voter turnout^[10]. See more here: Statehood movement in Puerto Rico.
  

The US is the richest and most powerful Single Market country that has ever reigned in earth’s history, but this fact has not borne fruit for these Spanish Caribbean neighbors.  They have never shared this disposition.

One thing more these former Spanish territories have shared: Failed-State status.

This has been a familiar theme for the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean. We have consistently conveyed how the economic, security and governing eco-systems of these 3 countries are dysfunctional and defective – along with the other 27 Caribbean member-states. The solution for these countries is not a closer annexation with the United States – America is not the panacea of Caribbean ills – but rather the solutions lie in the adoption of a regional brotherhood among these geographic neighbors – the 3 Spanish Caribbean member-states integrated with the other 27 in the region.

This is the quest of the Go Lean movement!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This commentary is 2 of 5 in a non-sequential series on the State of the Caribbean Union. This series depicts the dysfunctional and defective state of affairs (economics, security and governance) throughout the entire region; there are some common traits. These have been assessed by the Go Lean movement. The full entries of all the blog-commentaries in this series are as follows:

1. State of the Caribbean Union – Lacking Hope and Change
2. State of the Caribbean Union – Dysfunctional Spanish Caribbean
3. State of the Caribbean Union – Deficient  Westminster System
4. State of the Caribbean Union – Unstable Volcano States
5. State of the Caribbean Union – Self-Interest of Americana

The State of the Caribbean Union prominently includes these Spanish-speaking islands. These islands need all the remediation and mitigation they can get. Notice the dire state of affairs as portrayed in the Appendices below.

These references align with previous Go Lean commentaries related to …

Cuba – (see Appendix A):

Dominican Republic – (see Appendix B):

Puerto Rico – (see Appendix C):

The Caribbean Union needs the Spanish Caribbean; the Spanish Caribbean needs the Caribbean Union.

We can reboot the Spanish Caribbean; we can reboot the economic, security and governing engines. The end results:

1.   Spanish Caribbean unity;

2.   Total Caribbean unity;

3.   A better homeland to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

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Appendix A – News Article: In Miami, Trump toughens Obama’s Cuba policy ‘like I promised’

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Trump, spurring a standing ovation, billed his appearance as a campaign promise kept to Cuban-Americans to take a harder stance on Cuba. He told the crowd he was canceling Obama’s Cuba policies, though in actuality he’s not. Rather, he’s taking a different approach to pressure Cuba to open its economy and eventually its political system.

…

Trump signed a national security presidential memo — not a presidential policy directive, as originally envisioned by the White House — ordering federal agencies to start writing regulations within 30 days to promulgate his new policy. The State Department will have to compile a list of entities tied to Cuba’s sprawling military conglomerate, Grupo de Administración Empresarial, S.A., or GAESA. Americans will be prohibited from transacting with those corporations, except for enumerated exemptions to, among other things, allow for commercial air and cruise travel and payments to private businesses, such as Airbnb rentals.

Travel to Cuba will also become more difficult. Cubans will still be able to visit family and send money. But Americans will have to travel as part of formal groups with set itineraries if they want to qualify under categories that allow educational and people-to-people cultural exchange trips. Another category, for support for the Cuban people, is more stringent but will still allow for individual travel. U.S. travelers will be prohibited from spending money at hotels and restaurants tied to the Cuban military. That includes many brand-name hotel chains. <<< Insert Photo 4 >>>

…

See the full article from the Miami Herald; posted June 16, 2017; retrieved June 20, 2017 from: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article156586134.html

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VIDEO – US Senator Marco Rubio: Cuba will be free ‘in 6 months or 6 years’  – http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article156571009.html

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Appendix B – “Dominican Watchdog” – Relating the DR’s Dire Status

• June 12 – MonkeyBiz.dr, Audit Detects Corruption in 68 Dominican City Halls – MONKEY BUSINESS AS USUAL IN THE DOM REP – CORRUPTION AND FRAUD FROM A-Z. Forty percent of the monetary resources that should have been destined to infrastructure works, were NOT. Years of real estate fraud prompts purge of officials, foreign investors and buyers of holiday homes have lost hundreds of millions of dollars…….
• June 12 – STAY HOME, Dominican Republic Chikungunya Cases Skyrocket to 53000 – TRAVEL WARNING – Taiwan recently raised its ALERT about Dom Rep to YELLOW !! Doctors in the DR is fighting 24/7, but he number of chikungunya cases in the Dominican Republic continues to rise at an alarming rate as the Ministry of Health’s Department of Epidemiology reports 52,976 cases, time to stay home, there is NO PROVEN CURE against this virus…..
• June 12 – Another Agent Killed as Chilling Attacks Grip Dominican Republic – Dominican Republic Becoming Most Dangerous Country in the Caribbean – Metropolitan Transit Authority (AMET) agent Carmen Torres Báez, 41, on Monday became the latest victim in a chilling wave of attacks on law enforcement officers gripping the entire Dominican Republic. Torres, mother of four, was gunned down on the Maximo Gomez bridge to Villa Mella around 7:15am as she was walking to work…..

Source: Retrieved June 20, 2017 from: http://www.dominicanwatchdog.org/dominican_news/p-1

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Appendix C AUDIO-PODCAST – INTERSECTION: STATEHOOD FOR PUERTO RICO? – https://www.wmfe.org/intersection-statehood-for-puerto-rico/74667

Published June 16, 2017 – Puerto Rico voted for statehood in a referendum last Sunday. At first glance the results seem pretty clear:  97% of voters said yes to statehood. But less than 25% of Puerto Ricans actually cast a vote in the referendum.

Meanwhile, there’s support from lawmakers here in Central Florida for statehood, where there’s a growing Puerto Rican population, but what kind of impetus is there in Washington to add another star to the US flag?

Florida International University’s Cuban Research Institute director Jorge Duany joins the program, along with orlandolatino.org founder Maria Padilla, tecnetico.com founder Wilton Vargas & Ronald Morales who moved to Florida from Puerto Rico in 2015.

Source: Posted June 12, 2017; retrieved June 20, 2017 from Central Florida’s WMFE Public Radio: https://www.wmfe.org/intersection-statehood-for-puerto-rico/74667