• Democracy & Good Governance

     

     

    Ask Your MP For Their Thoughts

    On The Ideas Below

     

    The Measure all projects must be

    “How Does It Benefit Cayman?”

     

    Fair Share for all

     

     

  • The Daily Word

    The Yardstick against which all policy, legislation and development MUST be measured “How Does It Benefit Caymanians”

     

     

     

     

     

  • The Daily Word

    Political Manifesto’s for Political Candidates

     

    It is necessary to develop political maturity

     

    It may be wise these islands to strive for political maturity, and realize that elections come with obligations to the electorate, and are not a popularity contest.

     

    Let us therefore take heed of what is put forth in other democracies to allow the voting public to judge the aims and objectives of the candidates.

     

    It is necessary to put brain in gear and take pencil in hand and analyse the needs of the Cayman Electorate and make a list of the most important changes needed.

     

    A great begining for your Manifesto’s list would be political accountability.

     

    Capitalism and Cruelty

     

    This is an article about the cruelty of the United States, but a lot of the points are relevant or becoming relevant, to the Cayman Islands.

     

    Is this they type of society we want?


    And it is all driven by capitalism, by greed, and by lack of compassion for our fellow creatures. https://bit.ly/31nzQ0c

     

  • Citizen’s Basic Income or Dividend

    Fair Share For All

    $1000 a month should be yours

    Basic income, also called universal basic income (UBI), citizen's income, citizen's basic income, basic income dividend, basic living stipend, guaranteed annual income, or universal demogrant, is a governmental public program for a periodic payment delivered to all adult citizens of a given population without a means test or work requirement.

    Basic income can be implemented nationally, regionally, or locally. An unconditional income that is sufficient to meet a person's basic needs (i.e., at or above the poverty line ) is called a full basic income.

    A number of countries have implemented a citizens basic income, with the most recent being Spain, and Germany (by way of a high court ruling). Citizens are shareholders in the government, as they would be in a corporation and as such are entitled to a dividend paid in monthly installments.

     

    Universal Basic Dividend is a brilliant idea', here's why.

    Yanis Varoufakis

      https://youtu.be/O8B4U7o9kvg

     

    Yanis Varoufakis is the former finance minister of Greece and the cofounder of an international grassroots movement, DIEM25, that is campaigning for the revival of democracy in Europe. He is the author of And the Weak Suffer What They Must? and The Global Minotaur. After teaching for many years in the United States, Britain, and Australia, he is currently a professor of economics at the University of Athens.

     

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    Why we should give everyone a basic income

    Rutger Bregman / TEDxMaastricht

    https://youtu.be/aIL_Y9g7Tg0

     

    This talk was given at a local TEDx event, by Rutger Bregman who studied at Utrecht University and the University of California m Los Ange/es, majoring in History. In September 2013 Bregman joined the online journalism platform De Correspondent. His article on basic income was nominated for the European Press Prize and was published by The Washington Post.

     

    Sir Richard Branson feels that UBI is inevitable

    https://youtu.be/Fj72cWJTZIY"

    Sir Richard Branson states that Universal Basic Income will come because AI will make many jobs redundant.

     

     

    The Commons - An Explanation

     

    When William (The Norman (French) Conqueror) <https://bit.ly/33VtpTL> first set foot on English sand in the Eleventh century, he proclaimed to his men: (I have seized England with both my hands) From that moment on, a new logic bound England, the logic that saw the vast majority of its inhabitants barred from its lands, the logic that fenced fields, walled parkland and removed the rights of citizens to all that was necessary for their survival.

     

    But under Anglo-Saxon rule, all tracts of land had been recognised as the vital source of subsistence for all peasants or commoners of the country and were governed by strict localised customs. Commoners, the people who used these commons, had long-established rights not just to graze their cattle and pigs, but to take wood (estovers), dig peat and gravel (mrbary) and fish the ponds (piscary). The commons provided everything needed for survival.

     

    Hugo Grotius was a Dutch statesman and jurist writing in the early seventeenth century. He worked from the principle of Eden — that all land was given to all people.

     

    The land had provided subsistence and the so called Royals and the Elite’s removed this right.

    This is the basis for demanding a Minimum Basic Income, the right of all humans.

     

     

     

    Cardinal Avenue 1966

    This is where we have come from. This is what I remember when I stepped off the Kirk Trader in January 1966.

    This is when many Caymanian seamen shipped out with shipping lines like Ludwig’s National Bulk Carriers.

    If you look closely along Cardinal Avenue you can almost see Miss Gwen’s office on the right at the end of the block.

     

    My question is “Where are we going from here?”

     

    We desperately need new and sustainable sectors of our economy. Here are a few suggestions;

    • Enhance Medical Tourism by legalizing cannabis growing and production for local medical  use,  as well as export.
    • Encourage organic agriculture by offering training in Agro-Ecology / Permaculture to enhance food security.
    • Initiate a training exercise to send suitable civil servant candidates abroad for post-graduate (MA) degrees, utilizing Harvard Kennedy School of Governance https://bit.ly/30YHCyj and the Lee Quan Yew School of Public Policy  at the National University of Singapore https://nus.edu/3h4JR8N  
    • Negotiate trade agreements with our island neighbors  to purchase healthy, non-GMO  crops  and other agricultural products at lower costs to reduce the cost of living.
    • Start a proficient, professionally managed initiative to construct low cost housing. An organization similar to Singapore’s Housing Development Board. https://www.hdb.gov.sg/cs/infoweb/homepage
  •  

    A New Industry

    Fair Share For All

    We are a Maritime Nation therefore let us become shipwrighrs - again, and start building modern yachts.

    Wooden Ships And Iron Men

    Caymanian men were known around the world as good seamen, and they servied in the Merchant Marine fleets of many nations.

     

    We must remember thiat we are a maritime nation and need to monitor and protect our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) which extends 200 miles from our borders (except where shared with our neighbours Cuba, Honduras and Jamaica.

    We must be on the lookout for illegal fishing, dumping of garbage, petroleum products and any banned substances.

    Shipbuilding

    The islands were also known for the wonderful schooners built here, such as the Fairweather and the Western Union, a cable laying schooner.

     

    Unfortunately, many of our shipbuilders have passed on, however, I envision however, a new initiative being started here in the Cayman Islands to train a new generation of shipwrights, which could lead to an old industry being restarted.

     

    Imagine the Cayman Islands again building schooners, not for turtling but as yachts.

    Schooner Western Union

    Here we have the S.S. Western Union, a cable laying schooner now based in Key West, Florida,

    Schooner Fairweather

    One of the wonderful schooners built in Kingston by Caymanian shipwrights, the Schooner Fairweather was a private yacht commissioned by Les Hemmingway (Ernest’s Brother).

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    Exclusive Economic zone

    The Cayman Islands should be negotiating to ensure the boundaries of our EEZ between Cuba, Honduras and Jamaica

    The Goldfield

    The Cayman Islands are a maritime nation In the centre of the Western Caribbean

    We need to monitor and protect our Exclusive Economic Zone against illegal fishing and and environmental pollution.

    Our portion of the Caribbean Sea is our only resource, it provides food security and can be a source of wealth for Caymanians in years ahead.

    Cayman Islands Exclusive Economic Zone

    Boundaries established in treaties

    Honduras (Show line) (Download coordinates as GML)

    Digital Documents:

    Treaty between the Government of the Republic of Honduras and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning the delimitation of the maritime areas between the Cayman Islands and the Republic of Honduras 4 Decem... (Download) (Download)

    Joint regime boundaries

     

    Honduras :Digital Documents:

    Treaty between the Government of the Republic of Honduras and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning the delimitation of the maritime areas between the Cayman Islands and the Republic of Honduras 4 December (Download) (Download)

  • Governance

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    We badly overestimate the strength of our democracy. We would rank as a “flawed democracy,” if we were listed in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index.

     

    That means that democracy still functions, but in a kind of stumbling, faltering, haphazard manner — because institutions are broken, civil liberties are regularly infringed, the opposition is feeble, norms are weak, and, crucially, levels of political participation are low. All those are eminently true here in the Cayman Islands.

     

     

     

  • America's Becoming unliveable.

    Lets ensure this does not happen to our Cayman

     

    When education, healthcare, media, transport are freely, universally provided to all, that, in turn, makes having a family, home, kids, something that the average European doesn’t think very hard about affording. The average European thinks it’s very strange — and very sad — that Americans cannot even afford to have a family, because they can barely imagine such a life. And that is because they enjoy a working social contract, that makes the very same basics that Americans can barely now afford at all not just cheap, or “accessible”, but free. Do you see how stark the difference is?

     

    Why, then, did America never develop a working social contract?

    After all, it has never had basics provided for everyone at any point in its history. Here the answers are as sad as they are numerous. Slavery made it impossible for every person to have anything. An ideological devotion to capitalism made it impossible for society to invest in itself. And a society founded upon a strict hierarchy — whites, browns, blacks, each punching down the last — developed no norms or values to push it in the direction of basics of life that were affordable for everyone.


    And so here Americans are.

    The most basic of life’s basics have become luxuries for the average American, while in the rest of the rich world, more and more advanced basics of life go on getting cheaper and cheaper ever year. That is what a failing social contract means. And because it never developed a working social contract, America had no real choice but to collapse. A society without a social contract is an empty shell, waiting to crack. Its democracy, economy, and polity fail, as people give up on all three, doing whatever they must to afford life’s unaffordable basics somehow, whether it is turning to strongmen a la fascism and authoritarianism, guns, or religion. https://bit.ly/3fLWeXy

  • Mangrove Reforestation

    Protect, Preserve and Earn Carbon Credits

    Mangrove Planting

    Mangrove forests are vital for the health of the planet, but they're rapidly disappearing. Meet the the pioneering scientists who are harnessing the hidden power of mangroves to help tackle climate change.

    Mangroves

    Mangroves provide vital ecosystem services to coastal fishing communities

     

    The ongoing loss of mangroves is of huge concern for communities that rely on mangrove-fishing for income and subsistence https://bit.ly/3ou4PRG

  • Renewable Energy

    Green Alternative Energy From Solar Is The Answer

    The Cayman Islands now has its own National Energy Policy.

     

    The national Energy Policy was passed unanimously by the Legislative Assembly (now Parliament) in 2017 after many years of work by many organizations.

    Cayman Energy Policy https://bit.ly/37LruUc

    Scotland now produces enough renewables to meet 90% their electricity demand


    Ask yourselves why countries are pushing to generate renewable energy? Might it be to their benefit?

     

    Why is the Cayman islands struggling to follow this course? Does our leadership realize the the benefits of so doing? Ask your political representative...
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    The Scottish government data for 2019 showed an increase of 13.4% on 2018 - meaning the country generated 30.5 TWh of electricity from renewable sources.
    That's enough to charge almost 6.7bn mobile phones for a year, or boil about 700bn kettles.

    The target is for 100% of the country's electricity to be generated from renewable sources by the end of 2020.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-51088089