Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

Do you know what SOS stands for?

Of course you know what it infers – “Emergency; Need Help” – but what does the letters stand for? There are a lot of lessons for us to learn with this encyclopedic consideration, here:

SOS
noun: SOS; plural noun: SOSs

1. an international code signal of extreme distress, used especially by ships at sea.
   • an urgent appeal for help.
   • BRITISH: a message broadcast to an untraceable person in an emergency.
     i.e.: “here is an SOS message for Mr. Arthur Brown about his brother, who is dangerously ill”

Origin
Early 20th century (1905): letters chosen as being easily transmitted and recognized in Morse code; by folk etymology an abbreviation of “Save Our Souls“.
Translated to Morse code, SOS looks like this:

“. . . – – – . . .”

Source: Retrieved October 25, 2018 from: 1. https://www.google.com/search?q=Dictionary#dobs=SOS 2. https://www.rd.com/culture/sos-meaning/

SOS, plus 911 and other emergency outreach numbers, are all calls for help. In modern society, it is expected that someone-somewhere will respond.

That expectation is within the assumption of Good Governance. It is expected that someone-somewhere will step-up in the time of emergencies …

… failing this, we would have a Failed-State.

Unfortunately, this is the reality and actuality in the Caribbean. Consider these recent examples:

• In January 2010, a 7.0 Magnitude Earthquake flattened large swaths of urban communities in Haiti. After 8 years, the people are still calling out for help. Some relief organizations – i.e. American Red Cross – that responded, fleeced the people more so than helped them.
  
• In September 2017, Hurricane Irma devastated the twin island nation of Antigua & Barbuda. Rather than recovery and rebuilding on Barbuda, the government has just removed the people and made it a Ghost Town.
  
• Later in September 2017, there was Hurricane Maria that devastated some Caribbean islands, Puerto Rico included. Power was out for parts of the island for 9 months; 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 [death] count is more like: 4600+.
  
  
• In October 2018, there were heavy rains – not associated with a hurricane – over Trinidad & Tobago. The islands experienced severe flooding, at record levels. As days went by, conditions on the ground got worse and worse.
  
  See the VIDEO presentation of this news story in the Appendix below.

What is common about these true scenarios in recent history, is that the people sent out an SOS and it appears that no one responded – or too little response too late. Or worse still, only “pirates” responded and further exploited the victims.

Where is the expectation that someone-somewhere would step-up in these times of emergency? Someone honest, responsible, integral and accountable …

The Caribbean member-states are failing in their delivery of the implied Social Contract; defined in a previous blog-commentary, as follows:

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

Failures in the delivery of the Social Contract is part-and-parcel of the crises afflicting the Caribbean. We suffer from an alarming societal abandonment rate because of the following 2 reasons:

• Push – Deficient response, recovery and rebuilding after natural disasters have caused Caribbean people to seek refuge abroad; i.e. Puerto Rico may have lost 14% of their population after Hurricane Maria in 2017.
• Pull – The perception is that other lands (North America and Europe) do better at delivering the basic needs – economics, security and governance – for their people.

All in all, other people do better in delivering on the Social Contract and responding to pleas of SOS. Assuaging this deficiency is the quest of the book Go Lean…Caribbean, to introduce and implement the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), to do better at addressing our Homeland Security needs. It is past time for someone to step-up in response to emergencies. The book asserts this on its opening page (Page 3):

The economy of the Caribbean is inextricably linked to the security of the region. Therefore the CU treaty includes a security pact to implement the mechanisms to ensure greater homeland security. These efforts will monitor and mitigate against economic crimes, systemic threats and also facilitate natural disaster planning and response agencies.

So when a Caribbean community puts out an SOS – on land, at sea or in the air – there will be someone there to respond.

When 911 calls 911, the CU responds … through its aligning agencies and institutions.

This is Good Governance. As reported in the previous submission in this series, Puerto Rico may have lost 470,000 people – 14% of the population – since Hurricanes Maria and Irma in September 2017 – Source posted February 20, 2018. We need to do better with our regional stewardship in the future.

This commentary is the second of a 5-part series (2 of 5) from the movement behind the Go Lean book in consideration of the Good Governance needs for a new Caribbean regime. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

1. Good Governance: … Versus Partisan Politics
2. Good Governance: Stepping Up in an Emergency
3. Good Governance: The Kind of Society We Want
4. Good Governance: Getting ‘Out of the Way’ of Local Economic Empowerment
5. Good Governance: Good Corporate Compliance

This need for Good Governance is embedded in this plan to elevate Caribbean life. There is the need to reboot, reform and transform all societal engines including: economics, security and governance. The member-state governments is the only security offering in this region, notwithstanding Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s). We need to do better at coordinating all of these facets of Caribbean life. This is the prime directive of this CU/Go Lean roadmap, as declared in these statements:

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

Good Governance … Emergency Operations … Homeland Security …

These are all part of the Go Lean book’s emphasis on New Guards. Notice these references in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 – 12):

iii. Whereas the natural formation of the landmass for our society is that of an archipelago of islands, inherent to this nature is the limitation of terrain and the natural resources there in. We must therefore provide “new guards” and protections to ensure the efficient and effective management of these resources.

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

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

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

These statements provide a glimpse of a new Caribbean that is ready for these New Guards. These are not foreigners. These are fellow Caribbean brothers and sisters, representing the 30 member-states in the region. They have the desire to help; they only need Good Governance … (Good Governance fulfillment will allow for more funding).

The CU structure allows for an Emergency Management functionality within the Homeland Security Department. The CU‘s version is modeled after the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the US. That agency’s emergency response is based on small, decentralized teams trained in such areas as the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS), Urban Search and Rescue (USAR), Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT), Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT), and Mobile Emergency Response Support (MERS).

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. We need to be better at responding to the SOS calls in our region. In fact, the Go Lean roadmap proposes (Page 76) “the best practice of electronic notification for Emergency Management. This includes an Emergency Broadcasting-Alert system for TV & radio, plus advances in contact center technologies like Reverse 911, Automated-Robo calls to every active phone in a location – and text message blasting to every cell phone”.

In addition, there is one advocacy in the book for fostering a better Emergency Management eco-system. This includes Disaster Planning, Response & Recovery. Consider the specific plans, excerpts and headlines from the book on Page 196 entitled:

10 Ways to Improve Emergency Management

This Go Lean book presents that the roll-out of the Emergency Management apparatus will be Day One / Step One of the Go Lean/CU roadmap. Many more highlights have been detailed in previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

We want Good Governance. So we must reform and transform our Caribbean governing engines and Homeland Security apparatus. We must be able to better respond-rebuild-recover from emergencies.

This commitment should be in our delivery of the Social Contract. This is how we can make the Caribbean a better homeland to live, work and play.

The people and institutions of the region are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap; this plan is conceivable, believable and achievable. 🙂

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 VIDEO – Kelly Village and Trinidad and Tobago witness the biggest floods in their history – https://youtu.be/ywQaCK4vu04

KellyVillageTV
Published on Oct 20, 2018 – It was a depressing scene walking amongst the villagers today. The camera truly couldn’t capture the devastation and shock in the area. The one emergency center is full and the people are begging for assistance tonight. #KVTV #Trinidad #Flood

• Category: Entertainment