Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

What is legacy and why is it important?

The actual definition is: 1. anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor; 2. a gift of property, especially personal property, as money, by will; a bequest.

Legacies refer to good and bad. This is the pointed reference of this commentary, the legacies of American and Caribbean empowerments and disestablishments. Two examples are presented here as teaching points for our communities because frankly, these legacies are current and pervasive in the news and daily lives of so many people today.

This is a milestone – Number 300 – for this effort, these commentaries to draw attention to news, models and applications of the book Go Lean…Caribbean. These 300 blogs/commentaries all highlight subjects, issues and advocacies to promote best practices to elevate the Caribbean economic, security and governing eco-system. All previous blogs were grouped into these 10 categories:

• Economics
• Ethos
• Government
• Implementation
• Industries
• Locations
• Planning
• Social
• Strategy
• Tactical

The basis for the teaching point of this American legacy is the institutional segregation practiced in American cities that limited non-Whites to ghettos and slums. This was not just an issue in the South, as this AUDIO Podcast reveals:

AUDIO Podcast: Historian Says Don’t ‘Sanitize’ How Our Government Created Ghettos –  http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=406699264&m=406749329

Fifty years after the repeal of Jim Crow, many African-Americans still live in segregated ghettos in the country’s metropolitan areas. Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, has spent years studying the history of residential segregation in America. “We have a myth today that the ghettos in metropolitan areas around the country are what the Supreme Court calls ‘de-facto’ — just the accident of the fact that people have not enough income to move into middle class neighborhoods or because real estate agents steered black and white families to different neighborhoods or because there was white flight,” Rothstein tells NPR Fresh Air’s Terry Gross.

“It was not the unintended effect of benign policies,” he says. “It was an explicit, racially purposeful policy that was pursued at all levels of government, and that’s the reason we have these ghettos today and we are reaping the fruits of those policies.”

The application of this history does not require an external geographic address to glean. Rather many people within the US, clearly recognize and lament this poor legacy. Notice here the following posted guestbook comments on the Podcast’s website:

“It doesn’t take rocket science or a degree in economics to see how white families would have become wealthier and African Americans would have missed out … by the time equal protection laws were enacted [in the 1960’s]. – Public Comment by “Cat Jones” on May 14, 2015.

“I remember in Lubbock, TX; which is a dry county [(no alcohol sold)]; they attempted to allow liquor stores [only] in the black neighborhoods, stating that it would be an influx of dollars into these neighborhoods. The black Churches came together to vote this down. The whites fought very hard for this to happen. Blacks said ok but why not allow them to be in the entire city. That question was never answered. It was simple we will provide your communities with the industries we have no desire for in our own communities but industries that improve the communities were reserved for white communities. Racism is far from running around shouting racist names. IT is stuff like this. – Public Comment by “bleemorrison” on May 14, 2015.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean pursues the quest to elevate the Caribbean region through economic, security and governance empowerments. This means looking, listening and learning from the lessons in history … old and new. This is especially true when our communities may still be impacted by that history. (The Podcast commences with the acknowledgement that Baltimore’s ghettos were just recently in flames due to the culmination of frustration of urban dysfunction there, ignited by the police killing of a Black Man in custody; this was just the “tip of the iceberg”). The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to provide better stewardship for the Caribbean homeland.

This book and subsequent 300 blogs posit that the Caribbean can do better than our American counterparts, that rather than being parasites, we can be protégés and maybe even provide American communities our model on how to build a progressive society to live, work and play. In a recent blog/commentary, the issue of legacies – from Royal Charters and the resultant effects on powerful families – was detailed. The full appreciation was explored on how good and bad circumstances in life can be extended from generation to generation.

That’s the American example…

The Caribbean example involves the member-state of Haiti. This week the President of France made a proclamation of acknowledgement that the Republic of Haiti has endured a long legacy of paying a debt (in blood and finances) for the natural right of freedom.

http://www.france24.com/en/20150512-hollande-vow-haiti-debt-france-settle-slavery-confusion

VIDEO: France’s Hollande to Pay ‘Moral Debt’ to Haiti – https://youtu.be/5R-hA2KqWs4

Published on May 12, 2015 – French President Francois Hollande pledged to pay back a “moral debt” to Haiti during a visit on Tuesday to the impoverished Caribbean nation founded by former French slaves who declared independence in 1804. His visit marked the first official visit by a French president to the hemisphere’s poorest country, a former colonial jewel still bitter over a debt France forced Haiti to pay in 1825 for property lost in the slave rebellion. Hollande said, “We cannot change the past, but we can change the future.” He spoke at an event with Haitian president Michel Martelly on Port au Prince’s Champ de Mars, in the city center near the presidential palace that was destroyed by a 2010 earthquake.

Haiti revolted its slave colony status in 1791 and fought for its independence in 1804. To finally be recognized, France required the new country of Haiti to offset the income that would be lost by French settlers and slave owners; they demanded compensation amounting to 150 million gold francs. After a new deal was struck in 1838, Haiti agreed to pay France 90 million gold francs (the equivalent of €17 billion today). It was not until 1952 that Haiti made the final payment on what became known as its “independence debt”. Many analysts posit that the compensation Haiti paid to France throughout the 19th century “strangled development” and hindered the “evolution of the country”.

Though many had hoped the French’s President’s cancelation of the moral debt would translate to monetary damages – reparations – it is asserted here that just the acknowledgement of the legacy is profound. The same as the Baltimore legacy restricted a community, the French-Haiti legacy restricted this Caribbean country and a race of people – Haiti continues to be dysfunctional – a failed-state – the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

We see the causes and effects of legacies.

The Go Lean book and accompanying blogs push further and deeper on this subject of legacies, stressing that success can still be derived in the Caribbean, despite any lack of legacies, as some parties in the Americas have enjoyed 500, 200 or 75 years of entitlement. The book therefore stresses that the region can turn-around from “ground zero”, by applying best-practices, and forge new societal institutions to empower the region.

The consideration of the Go Lean book, as related to this subject is one of governance, the need for technocratic stewardship of the regional Caribbean society. This point of governance against the backdrop of societal legacies was pronounced early in the book, in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 10 – 14) with these declarations:

Preamble:  As the history of our region and the oppression, suppression and repression of its indigenous people is duly documented, there is no one alive who can be held accountable for the prior actions, and so we must put aside the shackles of systems of repression to instead formulate efficient and effective systems to steer our own destiny.

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.

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 [other] communities.

According to the timeline established in the foregoing AUDIO Podcast, the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s was a turn-around; it corrected a lot of the blatant defects in the American racial eco-systems. Haiti still awaits its turn-around.

This is the quest of Go Lean…Caribbean, to impact the Caribbean, not the United States. Haiti is in scope for this roadmap; Baltimore is not. The immediate goal is to analyze case studies, to learn lessons from the past (ancient and recent) of communities; then to assess how the best-practices … will drive success in the Caribbean. The roadmap simply seeks to reboot the region’s economic, security and governing engines, hypothesizing that the American and European colonial stewards did not have societal efficiency in mind when they structure administrations of the individual member-states in this region.

In general, the CU will employ better strategies, tactics and implementations to impact 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 protect the resultant economic engines and mitigate internal and external threats.
• Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book stresses key community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to transform and turn-around the eco-systems of Caribbean society. These points – relevant to the foregoing AUDIO and VIDEO features – are detailed in the book as follows:

There are other lessons for the Caribbean to learn from considering history; the following previous blog/commentaries apply:

There is the effort to remediate American and European societies now. They recognize the futility of the actions of their ancestors and predecessors. They are now battling to try and weed-out the last vestiges of racism and housing discrimination. This is good! Housing investment is the best way to get rich slowly, to create generational wealth. This has been demonstrated time and again in the US, even though “black & brown” populations may have been excluded from participation.

The Go Lean roadmap focuses on the homeland only. It is out-of-scope to impact American cities like Baltimore; our scope is for the Caribbean only; for communities like Haiti.

Our quest is simple, the future, a 21^st century effort to make the Caribbean region a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!