Go Lean Commentary
Independence, Statehood or the Status Quo?
These are the choices for Puerto Rico today. There is no doubt that the Status Quo is unbecoming! It is time for a change! But change to what?
Statehood; becoming the 51st American State is an option. But, this commentary asserts that maybe the problem is the American affiliation in the first place; it may be more of the same.
Remember this advice from a loving parent:
Never beg someone to love you!
If you’re successful, it is not love that you will get; its pity.
Where is your pride Puerto Rico? “Have you no sense of decency?” You are not being loved right now; you are being pitied. No wait, even the pity is gone – compassion exhaustion after the prior hurricanes of Harvey and Irma; plus forest fires in California. This is what the American affinity has gotten you:
You “cannot win; cannot break-even and cannot get out of the game”.
See Photos here of destruction from Hurricane Maria:
This is a familiar cry from the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean. Just last month (September) we published a series of blog-commentaries assailing the inadequate response to Hurricane Irma. Those submissions were entitled:
After Irma, Failed-State Indicators: Destruction and Defection
After Irma, the Science of ‘Power Restoration’
It would be so easy to just publish Encore‘s at this time and change the name from Irma to Maria. But no, as so much more has transpired in these past weeks. Puerto Rico is now at the cross roads; things will get worse before it gets worse! That previous blogs warned that the outcome for Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean islands, would be defection – “forced uprooting-displacement of large communities”. Truly, this is what has happened.
See this sad manifestation here, reported by a local news broadcast in Tampa, Florida from Tuesday October 24:
VIDEO 1 – Nearly 70,000 Puerto Ricans relocated to Florida after Hurricane Maria – http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/almost-70-thousand-have-arrived-in-fl-from-puerto-rico-after-mara/485479136
Posted October 24, 2017 – WTSP TV, Tampa, Fla. – Anxious relatives stand around switching between staring at their phones and the shuttle drop off at Tampa International Airport.
Some have watery eyes out of nervousness and anticipation.
The tears streamed once they embraced their loved ones arriving from Puerto Rico.
This scene plays out at least once a day after a flight from San Juan lands in Tampa. …
ALERT! We estimate now that Puerto Rico (PR) will lose over 500,000 people directly and indirectly because of Hurricane Maria. So it is time now for a reboot! It is time for PR to change its status, away from US Territory; perhaps to consider an American Divorce, or Independence, yet stilled aligned as an American Protectorate.
In a previous Go Lean blog-commentary, we warned that there is no guarantee that Caribbean communities – like PR – will survive their current crises, that Failed-State status is imminent. See this excerpt here:
What happens after a community is devastated by a catastrophic hurricane? Many things; mostly all bad:
This is not just theoretical; this is the current disposition in the Caribbean after the recent Category 5 Hurricane Irma; [make that Hurricane Maria]. These descriptors are all indicative of a Failed State status. This is a familiar theme for this movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean (and the subsequent blog-commentaries). The book opens (Page 3) with this introduction to the subject of failure in the Caribbean:
Failure is just too familiar. Already we have member-states … on the verge of a ‘Failed-State’ status… . These states are not contending with the challenges of modern life: changing weather patterns, ever-pervasive technology, and the “flat world” of globalization. To reverse the fortunes of these failing states, and guide others in the opposite direction to a destination of prosperity, the Caribbean must re-boot the regional economy and systems of commerce.
Hurricanes are tied to failure and Failed-State Indicators. The consequences of hurricanes are more than just natural, there is also the preponderance for people to leave their homelands afterwards – to defect. …
In Failed-State formal-speak, the Go Lean book (Page 271) details 2 indicators or indices: Mounting Demographic Pressures (DP) and Massive Movement of Refugees (REF). These downward movements are indicators of Failed-State status – a bad report on the Fail-State index is simply a reflection of a miserable existence in society:
- Mounting Demographic Pressures
Pressures on the population such as disease and natural disasters make it difficult for the government to protect its citizens or demonstrate a lack of capacity or will. This indicator include pressures and measures related to: Natural Disaster, Disease, Environment, Pollution, Food Scarcity, Malnutrition, Water Scarcity, Population Growth, Youth or Age Bulge, and Mortality- Massive Movement of Refugees or IDPs
Forced uprooting of large communities as a result of random or targeted violence and/or repression, causing food shortages, disease, lack of clean water, land competition, and turmoil that can spiral into larger humanitarian and security problems, both within and between countries. This indicator refers to refugees leaving or entering a country. This indicator include pressures and measures related to: Displacement, Refugee Camps, IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) Camps, Disease Related to Displacement, Refugees per capita, and IDPs per capita.
So rather than an American affinity, this commentary asserts that maybe the subject of “Puerto Rico Independence” should be re-visited. How about this twist: an independent Puerto Rico with a Caribbean interdependence.
The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all 30 member-states, Puerto Rico included. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives for regional integration:
- 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 decades 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 encroachments.
- Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.
The Go Lean book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. 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.
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 assuage the miserable existence; to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society, to reverse the trending towards Failed-State status (Page 134).
The Caribbean must foster a better disaster preparation and response apparatus than the Puerto Rico Status Quo. That island seems to be counting on the kindness of strangers – the American Super Power. They are looking to Washington as the cure.
The Way Forward for Puerto Rico must be more and better than their previous stance. Perhaps, the American colonial status is the problem … and not the cure.
This is not our opinion alone!
Many others – including the United Nations, who have declared PR technically “a colony” – feel that the Puerto Rico-Washington relationship is dysfunctional, that there should be a friendly divorce.
See this VIDEO here, showcasing the blatant Crony-Capitalism of this storm recovery:
VIDEO 2 – Tiny Trump-Linked Company Gets $300 Million Puerto Rico Contract – https://youtu.be/kUbyWrfg22g
Published on Oct 25, 2017 – The Trump administration awards a $300 million contract intended to get power back on in Puerto Rico to Whitefish Energy, a small Montana company located in Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s hometown that had only two full-time employees the day Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico.
Subscribe to The David Pakman Show for more: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_c… Timely news is important! We upload new clips every day, 6-8 stories! Make sure to subscribe! Broadcast on October 25, 2017.
- Category: News & Politics
- License; Standard YouTube License
Here are some related facts about US-PR dysfunctions, that have been detailed in previous blog-commentaries:
- Biggest Threat – Climate Change: Yet, Washington yawns – http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12068
- No Vote – No Voice: Territories have nothing to offer Congress – http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4551
- Jones Act – Only dispelled with Independence – http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12959
- 2nd Amendment – Independence allows for Gun Control – http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13213
- Vulture Capitalism – Need wise Debt Management – http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6260
- Corruption – Need Optimized Security and Governance – http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6693
- Geography – PR in the middle, cannot ignore the neighborhood – http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7963
- “Cannon Fodder?” – USA have always sacrificed PR/Caribbean lives – http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10494
- Puerto Rico Nationalism – Quest for Independence is familiar – http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11963
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 an 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. (See “American Colony” VIDEO in the Appendix below).
No one should be expected to tolerate 2nd Class Citizenship status … for 120 years!
So what’s next? This recommendation:
PR should wipe-out the previous debt and start anew as an independent country / American Protectorate. The island should apply this strategy … based on lessons learned from Detroit. They should expect the defection of 500,000 people and downsize accordingly. Who ever wants to leave, let them leave; build a new society with the remainders.
PR should do this, in order to be better, here in the Caribbean, to make this homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂
Download the free e-book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!
Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.
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Appendix – WTSP-TV Transcript Excerpt … and Beyond
Sub-title: Influx of evacuees
Nearly 70,000 people have arrived in Florida from Puerto Rico since Hurricane Maria, according to state officials.
Hillsborough county schools have enrolled at least 50 students from Puerto Rico. And local agencies are getting calls every day with questions about affordable housing and jobs.
“I’m hoping I will find a job quickly,” García said with a sigh.
Her husband will also need a job when he arrives, but they don’t know when he will reunite with them.
“We’re a team and after this we’re more united than before so it’s going to be hard,” she said. “It’s going to be really hard but we’re going to make it. After everything we still feel blessed.”
Those seeking information on assistance for Puerto Ricans following Hurricane María can call the State of Florida information line at 1-800-342-3557 or visit the Disaster Recovery Center at The Regent, 6437 Watson Rd., Riverview. The center is open daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Appointments are not necessary.
More than a dozen agencies are providing resources at the center, including:
- Federal Emergency Management Administration
- U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)
- Florida Department of Children and Families
- Florida Department of Health
- Hillsborough County Aging Services
- Hillsborough County Affordable Housing Services
- Hillsborough County Health Care Services
- Hillsborough County Homeless Services
- Hillsborough County Social Services
- American Red Cross
- Career Source Tampa Bay
- Central Florida Behavioral Health Network
- Senior Connection from Area Agency on Aging
© 2017 WTSP-TV
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Appendix VIDEO – Satirical Government Ad: “PR – An American Colony” – https://youtu.be/g-GYqakwHdg
Published on Jul 3, 2017 – thejuicemedia