Go Lean Commentary
In November 2008, a Black Man – Barack Obama – was elected to the Presidency of the United States of America.
Yes, we can! – Campaign slogan for Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign.
Surely that is an indication that “racism is over” in America?
Far from it!
While the blatant racist attitudes and actions may now be considered politically incorrect, the foundations of institutional racism have become even more entrenched. Welcome to America 2015! This commentary today is one of two considerations on the folly of local citizens – the Black and Brown populations – leaving the Caribbean for American shores.
Consider this VIDEO here of a frank and earnest confession of a White American acknowledging the racial divide:
Appendix VIDEO: Is Racism Over Yet – https://youtu.be/h_hx30zOi9I
These issues: housing, education, job hunting, prisons, drug crime prosecutions, racial profiling and others are addressed here in this foregoing VIDEO. They are also important considerations for the planners of Caribbean empowerment. America is a “frienemy” for us! We are trading partners; we are aligned; we are allies; many of us live in America; studied in America; but we have to compete to dissuade our young people from setting their sights on American shores as a refuge and destination of their hopes and dreams. Yet the book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts that no society can prosper with a high abandonment rate – reported at 70% for educated classes. Therefore we must “battle” against the “push-and-pull” factors that draw many Caribbean citizens away to the US.
The Go Lean book pursues the quest to elevate the Caribbean region through empowerments in economics, security and governance. Since 29 of the 30 Caribbean member-states (“St. Barths” is the only exception) have majority Black population, the book pushes further on this subject of racism, positing that it is easier for Caribbean citizens to stay home and effect change in their homelands than to go to America and try to remediate that society. The book therefore asserts that the region can turn-around from failing assessments by applying best-practices, and forging new societal institutions to impact the Greater Good for all the Caribbean.
This consideration of the Go Lean book is one of technocratic stewardship of the regional Caribbean societal engines: economy, security and governance. This point of the current disposition of racism and this quest to improve was pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 10 – 14) with these acknowledgements and statements:
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.
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.
This is the quest of Go Lean…Caribbean. The book and accompanying blog/commentaries advocate learning lessons from many events and concepts from history and the present; from as far back as the patriarchal Bible times, to best-practices today employed by communities around the world that have successfully turned-around their societies. (Think: post-World War II in Germany and Japan; plus post-Apartheid in South Africa). The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This roadmap seeks to reboot the region’s economic, security and governing engines; employing better strategies, tactics and implementations to impact its prime directives; identified with the following 3 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 protect the resultant economic engines and mitigate challenges/threats to regional Justice Institutions.
- 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 are detailed in the book as follows:
| Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices | Page 21 |
| Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future | Page 21 |
| Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations | Page 24 |
| Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future | Page 26 |
| Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations – South Africa’s Model | Page 34 |
| Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good | Page 37 |
| Strategy – Vision – Confederate all 30 member-states/ 4 languages into a Single Market | Page 45 |
| Strategy – Mission – Build and foster local economic engines | Page 45 |
| Tactical – Ways to Foster a Technocracy | Page 64 |
| Tactical – Growing the Economy – Post WW II European Marshall Plan Model | Page 68 |
| Tactical – Growing the Economy – Post WW II Japan’s Turn-around Model | Page 68 |
| Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – CU Federal Government versus Member-State Governance | Page 71 |
| Implementation – Assemble All Regionally-focus Organizations of All Caribbean Communities | Page 96 |
| Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt | Page 114 |
| Anatomy of Advocacies – One Person can make a difference! | Page 122 |
| Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Single Market / Currency Union | Page 127 |
| Planning – Ways to Model the new European Union | Page 130 |
| Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better | Page 131 |
| Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Minority and Human Rights | Page 134 |
| Planning – Lessons Learned from the previous West Indies Federation | Page 135 |
| Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008 – Optimizing Economic-Financial-Monetary Engines | Page 136 |
| Planning – Lessons Learned New York City – Managing as a “Frienemy” | Page 137 |
| Planning – Lessons Learned from Omaha – Human Flight Mitigations | Page 138 |
| Planning – Lessons Learned from East Germany – Bad Examples for Trade & Security | Page 139 |
| Planning – Lessons Learned from Detroit – Turn-around from Failure | Page 140 |
| Planning – Lessons Learned from Indian Reservations – Pattern of Ethnic Oppression | Page 141 |
| Planning – Lessons Learned from the American West – How to Win the Peace | Page 142 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy | Page 151 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs | Page 152 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance | Page 168 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract | Page 170 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice | Page 177 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security | Page 180 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage | Page 218 |
| Appendix – Failed-State Index for Uneven Economic Development | Page 272 |
There are other lessons for the Caribbean to learn from considering the history of race/ethnic relations; the following previous blog/commentaries apply:
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5333 | A Lesson in History: Legacies – Cause and Effect |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4935 | A Lesson in History: the ‘Grand Old Party’ of American Politics |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4166 | A Lesson in History: Panamanian Balboa |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2809 | A Lesson in History: Economics of East Berlin |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2480 | A Lesson in History: Community Ethos of WW II |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2297 | A Lesson in History: Booker T versus Du Bois |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1531 | A Lesson in History: 100 Years Ago Today – World War I |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=789 | A Lesson in History: America’s War on the Caribbean |
The Go Lean roadmap seeks to empower and elevate Caribbean societal engines. It is out-of-scope to impact America; our focus is only here in our homeland.
Other communities have done this … to success. Consider Europe; they have come a long way with race/ethnic relations. Even now they are desperately battling to weed-out the last vestiges of racism and ethnic supremacy in their society.
We can apply these lessons … from history and from the present day, for great impact in our Caribbean homelands.
Yes we can … make the Caribbean region a better place to live, work and play. 🙂