Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

Even a broken clock is right “twice a day”.

We have frequently criticized Christian religious leaders for failing to live up to their claim, namesake or any moral high-ground; see samples here:

• European Reckoning – Christianity’s Indictment
• Caribbean Unity? Religion’s Role: False Friend
• Vatican Need for Reform – Finally Manifested
• Repenting, Forgiving and Reconciling the Past
• Truth & Reconciliation: The Pope Sanctioned the Slave Trade in 1491
  .
  … and we hereby re-affirm that we have been correct in these assessments.

But this time, “they” – Christian religious leaders – seem to have gotten it right, in their judgement that the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, should be removed from office. See this excerpt statement here and the full story in the Appendix below:

… a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.

So we applaud this religious journal, Christianity Today, for getting it right, and showing the courage to say it!

Truth be told, they will get “a lot of flak for this” – they are getting it now – see this News VIDEO here:

VIDEO – Christianity Today editor responds to Trump’s attack – https://youtu.be/ioCDIiaaifE

CNN
A leading Christian magazine founded by late evangelist Billy Graham published an op-ed calling for President Donald Trump to be removed from office and urging evangelicals not to support him. The magazine’s editor-in-chief Mark Galli joins CNN. #CNN #News

• Category: News & Politics

Welcome Mr. Galli, to the assessment that we provided on Donald Trump’s presidency from the first year of his administration (2017). We identified and qualified the lack of any Christian moral high-ground then. Look again, at this list of moral failings and leadership mis-steps from that year – as reported in this previous blog-commentary summarizing 2017 (in chronological order – from January to December, 2017):

Religious Intolerance – Ban on 6 Muslim countries

Fostering Discord – California wants out!

Collaboration Flaws – Disinterest in Others (Non-Americans)

Disparaging Messaging to Tourists/Visitors

Rejection of Evidence – Climate Change Denial – Paris Accords Withdrawal

Climate of Hate – White Supremacists / Disdain of Immigrants

America First – Prioritization as World Leader downplayed.

Selective Law-and-Order Enforcement

Claim to Ignorance on Natural Disasters – Who Knew?

Disdain of Female Empowerment

Hurricane Response and Competence – Puerto Rico versus Texas

Societal Defects of Gun Culture

Aversion to Trade Agreements

Compassion Exhaustion – Ending ‘Temporary Protection Status’ to Haitian Refugees

Sexual Harassment Complicity

Take from the Poor; Give to the Rich – Trump’s Tax Reform law

Obviously, this is an American drama, and we – the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean – represent a Caribbean perspective. But this is still relevant to us, as we observe-and-report on the American eco-system due to:

• The large number of Diaspora living there
• Number 1 destination for our students matriculating abroad
• Number 1 Trading Partner
• American Hegemony in terms of economic, military and media dominance
• Many Caribbean people long for the opportunity to migrate to the US. These are the “Push and Pull” factors that we must contend. Hopefully now, the truth of American Defects at the top of their leadership will lower the “Pull” factors a little.

We can do better here in our Caribbean home. We do not want to be like America, we want to be better.

The Go Lean book does not just complain about American Defects, but also prescribes a Way Forward for us in the Caribbean:

Way Forward – an action, plan etc. that seems a good idea because it is likely to lead to success;
Source: Retrieved December 22, 2016 from: http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/a-the-way-forward

The Go Lean movement (book and accompanying blogs) does not look to President Donald Trump to lead for the Caribbean; we look to lead ourselves.

For the Caribbean, we must succeed in our Way Forward – so as to dissuade our own people from abandoning their Caribbean homelands and fleeing to places like the United States. No society is perfect; but we can do better than having a leader that is …

… a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.

Yes, we can …

We have submitted details on the Caribbean Way Forward in many previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

Yes, we can succeed in being Better Than America; but it is not easy; it involves some heavy-lifting. We are ready for that work.

Let’s get busy…

Let’s lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap, our Way Forward, then truly we can make our region better places to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

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

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 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 ccidence 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 – Title: Trump Should Be Removed from Office
Sub-title: It’s time to say what we said 20 years ago when a president’s character was revealed for what it was.
By: Mark Galli
In our founding documents, Billy Graham explains that Christianity Today will help evangelical Christians interpret the news in a manner that reflects their faith. The impeachment of Donald Trump is a significant event in the story of our republic. It requires comment.

The typical CT approach is to stay above the fray and allow Christians with different political convictions to make their arguments in the public square, to encourage all to pursue justice according to their convictions and treat their political opposition as charitably as possible. We want CT to be a place that welcomes Christians from across the political spectrum, and reminds everyone that politics is not the end and purpose of our being. We take pride in the fact, for instance, that politics does not dominate our homepage.

That said, we do feel it necessary from time to time to make our own opinions on political matters clear—always, as Graham encouraged us, doing so with both conviction and love. We love and pray for our president, as we love and pray for leaders (as well as ordinary citizens) on both sides of the political aisle.

Let’s grant this to the president: The Democrats have had it out for him from day one, and therefore nearly everything they do is under a cloud of partisan suspicion. This has led many to suspect not only motives but facts in these recent impeachment hearings. And, no, Mr. Trump did not have a serious opportunity to offer his side of the story in the House hearings on impeachment.

But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.

The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone—with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders—is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.

Trump’s evangelical supporters have pointed to his Supreme Court nominees, his defense of religious liberty, and his stewardship of the economy, among other things, as achievements that justify their support of the president. We believe the impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear, in a way the Mueller investigation did not, that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath. The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see. This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people. None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character.

This concern for the character of our national leader is not new in CT. In 1998, we wrote this:

The President’s failure to tell the truth—even when cornered—rips at the fabric of the nation. This is not a private affair. For above all, social intercourse is built on a presumption of trust: trust that the milk your grocer sells you is wholesome and pure; trust that the money you put in your bank can be taken out of the bank; trust that your babysitter, firefighters, clergy, and ambulance drivers will all do their best. And while politicians are notorious for breaking campaign promises, while in office they have a fundamental obligation to uphold our trust in them and to live by the law.

And this:

Unsavory dealings and immoral acts by the President and those close to him have rendered this administration morally unable to lead.

Unfortunately, the words that we applied to Mr. Clinton 20 years ago apply almost perfectly to our current president. Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election—that is a matter of prudential judgment. That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.

To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come? Can we say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?

We have reserved judgment on Mr. Trump for years now. Some have criticized us for our reserve. But when it comes to condemning the behavior of another, patient charity must come first. So we have done our best to give evangelical Trump supporters their due, to try to understand their point of view, to see the prudential nature of so many political decisions they have made regarding Mr. Trump. To use an old cliché, it’s time to call a spade a spade, to say that no matter how many hands we win in this political poker game, we are playing with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence. And just when we think it’s time to push all our chips to the center of the table, that’s when the whole game will come crashing down. It will crash down on the reputation of evangelical religion and on the world’s understanding of the gospel. And it will come crashing down on a nation of men and women whose welfare is also our concern.

Mark Galli is editor in chief of Christianity Today.

Source: Posted December 19, 2019; retrieved December 20, 2019 from: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/december-web-only/trump-should-be-removed-from-office.html