When trolls run for President
Donald Trump [Photo credit: The Business Insider]
We are witness this year to two elections, one in the United States, and one in the Philippines. The leading candidates are all trolls. That is, they know how to play the emotional hot buttons, the simple one-liners that zing into the emotions of the audience and create passions . . . anger and the release of that anger.
Accordingly, I’ve developed a very sophisticated Trollometer . . . with trade mark and patents pending . . . that can be used to determine . . . not the character of an individual, for that is irrelevant . . . not the intelligence or knowledge or skill of a candidate, for those characteristics are irrelevant. But ability to key message to popular emotion to generate anger and the release of that anger. The release is expressed as a “like” for the trolling candidate. It is found in the reaction that, “yes, finally, someone is speaking the truth, the way I FEEL!“
Never mind that what the candidate troll claims or threatens is generally a lie or dangerous. Facts are irrelevant to a troll. Principle is irrelevant. Platform is not needed. Truth. uplift of the Philippines or America, recognition of good works done . . . irrelevant. The only thing that matters is making the emotional connection the troll makes with voters. Anger. And its release: a “like”.
I’ve applied the Trollometer to American and Philippine candidates, all mixed together, because the comparison is instructive.
The Trollometer ranks candidates on a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 being world class. Impeccable. Wild and crazy people spouting their emotional claptrap without regard for the destructive influence on civility and well-being of the nation.
I’ve also included the Philippine Vice Presidential candidates in the list because, as I reported earlier, all but one are actually running for President (“Who among the VP candidates are actually running for president and who is running for VP?”). They are betting heavily that Poe will be disqualified, Binay will be jailed, Duterte will have an aneurysm, Santiago will die . . . and Roxas will not get elected. Yes, the VP candidates are a rather opportunistic, ghoulish bunch, except for Robredo, who is actually running to serve the nation.
_____________________________________________________________________________
The Society of Honor’s official Trollometer Rankings for the 2016 Elections
- Trump 98
- Duterte 96
- Poe 88
- Escudero 88
- Republican right wing extremists (take your pick) 88
- Marcos 88
- Binay 85
- Santiago 82
- Republican whackos (take your pick) 79
- Cayetano 78
- Carson 77
- Sanders 67
- Clinton 65
- Trillanes 50
- Honasan 48
- Roxas 12
- Robredo 7
_____________________________________________________________________________
I weep for thee, my dear Filipinos, my dear Americans.
If there is goodness within you, it yields to ignorance and decisions more closely assigned to an emotionally troubled teen than a thinking adult.
Truly, I weep.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
… but even Trump can make mistakes, he is lifting the wrong finger in this picture and that is why I agree that you give him only a 98 and not a 100.
Exactly.
His hair gives him away as a troll. It should push him to 100. 🙂
SUPER LIKE!
ha ha ha !
JP, reminds me of your post about something about Mary.
This is why
🙂 🙂 🙂
We shall overcomb!
This is what Binay deserves to be told…
What a pity that Leni does not Dubsmash… but she can in her own way without singing, dancing and making grimaces.. and she is beautiful too like Maine Mendoza…
posted the wrong attachment
overcombed guys remind me of American 80’s pornstars.
Mitt Romney
who was the one who ran against Obama in 2012? He also overcombed…
Here is my rhetorical answer: Mitt Romney.
He raised the wrong finger, so someone else did it in his name.
http://m.memegenerator.net/instance/64396002#
Trump Shrugs
PH is home to “click farms” for Facebook (FB) and fake Twitter and other social media accounts. Here is an interesting story about the operation of a fake FB farm in PH:
http://theweek.com/articles/560046/inside-counterfeit-facebook-farm
The article below is about the suspicious number of Trump followers on FB from “hubs for FB fraud.” PH is one of them and there is a theory that Trump is doing business with social media zombie accounts farms:
http://www.vocativ.com/usa/us-politics/donald-trump-facebook-likes/
Conclusion: Trollish presidential candidates MAY be buying troll minions to give the impression that they are popular so the gullible and suggestible voters will jump on the “winning” bandwagon.
Yes indeed. I think both Poe and Marcos have staff dedicated to internet trolling, some of it positive. For example, if the Inquirer does a story on Poe, the paid minions descend to plunk in inane praise. Other voices are pushed out or diminished. They visited here once, about 8 different screen names.
Posted this on my FB wall:
While I sympathize with Poe and other foundlings, there is a need to follow the fundamental law of the land. Any law enacted, and any act by an executive, any international law must conform with that fundamental law which is supreme – the Constitution. SC Senior Associate Justice Carpio said it best, paraphrased more or less but his drift as far as I could understand is this: what if at around the time Poe was found, 3 other foundlings are found in Metro Manila, one a black baby obviously of African descent, another a Caucasian with blue eyes, blond hair and fair skin who could be a Russian child, and the other a chinita. fair skinned infant who could be the child of a Mainland Chinese couple…do we allow any of them to be a presidential, or senatorial, or congressional or local official candidate just like what the SET decided? Such decisions will give rise to a JUDICIAL PRECEDENT, for they acted as JUDGES in the SET – a very DANGEROUS PRECEDENT- in effect, throwing aside the constitutional rule – the JUS SANGUINIS rule…. that is my main concern as an ordinary citizen of this country. Do we want a Russian President? or a President planted here by Russia or Mainland China?
It is not just about Poe, It is about JUDICIAL PRECEDENT which would apply to all other foundlings in the Philippines. They have to be given a nationality / citizenship and be able to enjoy all the civil rights of other citizens here in the country EXCEPT being elected in government positions.
You don’t think Duterte can be a good leader?
He so far has shown nothing but a penchant to play games, saying one thing and then another, with the occasional “kill” thrown in. He says he will abolish Congress. Can we believe him? He is for federalism, but yesterday backed off from that, saying it would require “consensus”. I mean, what is he for, really? What is he going to DO? To me he is the classic troll, gaming people with outlandish statements and saying nothing serious that we can rely on. No, he is a loose cannon, it seems to me, and the nation desperately needs about 15 years of stability to cure poverty.
I think he has secessionist tendencies, being a regional strongman. And his China backing could further that impulse.
Always be wary of strongmen who feel they are above the law.
Oliver Cromwell of England had people killed and dissolved Parliament, saw himself as a self-appointed Puritan Moses… it took John Locke to enlighten crude Puritanism and inspire great men like Thomas Jefferson who brought the Mayflower folks their freedom.
Professor Tony La Viña who is now also a FB friend of Joe America could be a John Locke of Mindanao… even if his family and the Piñols are close to Duterte he is critical of him too.
Good advice.
Deja vu all over again, viz King John, the Barons, the Magna Carta. Is it simply accidental that the UK is an archipelago similar to the PH? Where is the Robin Hood of the CDE population?
First part of John Locke’s stuff I just translated into Filipino here: http://filipinogerman.blogsport.eu/john-locke-part-1-chapter-1/
Unang-una: Napakasama at kasuklam-suklam ng pagka-alipin para sa tao, at salungat talaga sa kabaitan at lakas-loob ng bayan natin, na napakahirap isipin na para dito ang isang Ingles, mas lalo pa isang maginoo.
Sir Robert Filmer, whose patriarchal (maka-apo) writings Locke was answering, was an equivalent to Marcos loyalists, while Locke was a supporter of William and Mary. Probably no coincidence that Jefferson studied at the William and Mary college, found Locke there…
The new generation of absolutists Locke writes abound sounds like Marcos trolloyalists:
Pangatlo: sa mga nakaraang taon, may henerasyong sumibol na nais sumipsip sa mga matataas, at sinasabi nila sa kanila na may banal na karapatan sila sa kapangyarihang lubos, kahit ano ang mga batas na pundasyon nilang mamuno, at kahit papaano sila mapunta sa puwesto;
If you think Slobodan Milosevic was a “good leader” then Duterte is for you. Just my opinion, don’t kill me.
And also, if you believe that Libya’s former dictator Muammar Gaddafi was a “good leader” then Duterte is also for you.
http://www.tribune.net.ph/headlines/duterte-likens-running-gov-t-to-managing-3-women
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2474533/The-terrible-truth-Gaddafis-harem.html
http://www.rappler.com/nation/politics/elections/2016/114416-rodrigo-duterte-womanizer
http://www.clarionproject.org/news/gaddafis-rape-chambers-revealed-bbc-documentary#
Three links puts you into moderation. The requested convention is that those who submit links explain what they are about so that they know whether or not to click over. The reason is that this is a discussion thread and just doing links is too easy. Your links are understandable from the names, but I mention it here for your and other reader’s understanding.
Noted 🙂 Thanks Mr. J. Laziness got the best of me. I will expound later. In the meanwhile, my opinion is that a non-apologetic womanizer is a misogynist unless proven otherwise.
Oh, if it were me, I’d say “Mr. J, I was just trying to be efficient.” 🙂 But laziness is good, it’s something I subscribe to quite regularly. Indolent, even, on some days. 🙂 🙂
Like I wrote in my recent article, Lakas-Loob Pilipinas (Be Confident, Philippines), the “puti” or Europeans went through three stages to reach modernity: Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment. Filipino Pride and stuff are Renaissance, Reformation are straight talkers like Dick Gordon and Duterte, while Enlightenment is still ongoing. Martin Luther and Oliver Cromwell of England ended up in the trap of dictatorship after going for necessary and valid changes.
A later Puritan, John Locke whose main work that inspired Thomas Jefferson I am now translating into Tagalog, first installment is there, went against a troll of his times, Sir Robert, who advocated the divine right of kings as in James II, versus people’s choices like King William and Mary who John Locke liked. I wrote in my blog that these guys were like bloggers, answering one another. Print media of those days made the process of Enlightenment slower. John Locke was one main proponent of the English Enlightenment, and his ideas helped form the United States of America.
Now ideas have their originators (Prophets or Jesus in Islam or Christianity, or Locke for democracy), their multipliers and interpreters (Imams or St. Paul in Islam or Christianity, Jefferson for democracy) and their implementers (Caliphs or Popes in Islam or Christianity, Jefferson for democracy as the Third US President). Half-baked ideas become fanaticism/trolling. Now Duterte is in danger of become an Oliver Cromwell, who was a revolutionary in England but became a dictator everybody wanted out after several decades of dancing and fun prohibited – radical Puritanism. Locke was also a Puritan like the Mayflower crowd, disciplined, but not dictatorial..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 – 3 September 1658)[a] was an English military and political leader and later Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.
Born into the middle gentry, albeit to a family descended from the sister of King Henry VIII’s minister Thomas Cromwell, Cromwell was relatively obscure for the first 40 years of his life. After undergoing a religious conversion in the 1630s, he became an independent puritan, taking a generally tolerant view towards the many Protestant sects of his period.[1] An intensely religious man—a self-styled Puritan Moses—he fervently believed that God was guiding his victories. He was elected Member of Parliament for Huntingdon in 1628 and for Cambridge in the Short (1640) and Long (1640–49) Parliaments. He entered the English Civil War on the side of the “Roundheads” or Parliamentarians. Nicknamed “Old Ironsides”, he was quickly promoted from leading a single cavalry troop to become one of the principal commanders of the New Model Army, playing an important role in the defeat of the royalist forces.
Cromwell was one of the signatories of King Charles I’s death warrant in 1649, and, as a member of the Rump Parliament (1649–53), he dominated the short-lived Commonwealth of England. He was selected to take command of the English campaign in Ireland in 1649–50. Cromwell’s forces defeated the Confederate and Royalist coalition in Ireland and occupied the country – bringing to an end the Irish Confederate Wars. During this period a series of Penal Laws were passed against Roman Catholics (a significant minority in England and Scotland but the vast majority in Ireland), and a substantial amount of their land was confiscated. Cromwell also led a campaign against the Scottish army between 1650 and 1651.
On 20 April 1653, he dismissed the Rump Parliament by force, setting up a short-lived nominated assembly known as Barebone’s Parliament, before being invited by his fellow leaders to rule as Lord Protector of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland from 16 December 1653.[2] As a ruler he executed an aggressive and effective foreign policy. After his death from natural causes in 1658 he was buried in Westminster Abbey, but after the Royalists returned to power in 1660 they had his corpse dug up, hung in chains, and beheaded.
Cromwell is one of the most controversial figures in the history of the British Isles, considered a regicidal dictator by historians such as David Sharp,[3] a military dictator by Winston Churchill,[4] but a hero of liberty by John Milton, Thomas Carlyle and Samuel Rawson Gardiner, and a class revolutionary by Leon Trotsky.[5] In a 2002 BBC poll in Britain, Cromwell was selected as one of the ten greatest Britons of all time.[6] However, his measures against Catholics in Scotland and Ireland have been characterised as genocidal or near-genocidal,[7] and in Ireland his record is harshly criticised.[8]
Now Duterte wants to abolish Congress… understandable in a way because of Pork Barrel and many other things even FOI (which Leni recently admitted) being blocked by Congress… and Duterte wants to kill those who oppose like Cromwell killed King Charles… who was an asshole, even British history hardly pities that Scottish Catholic who tried to turn back the Reformation in England… but Cromwell is also cited by anti-American British historians as one good reason to send the Puritans packing on the Mayflower… but John Locke was a generation that understood what mistakes had been made… and Jefferson went on to implement it – Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke – And now for John Locke…
John Locke FRS (/ˈlɒk/; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and known as the “Father of Classical Liberalism”.[1][2][3] Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence.[4]
Locke’s theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self, figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers such as Hume, Rousseau, and Kant. Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. He postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Contrary to Cartesian philosophy based on pre-existing concepts, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception.[5]
(Thanks to Edgar Lores, I know what epistemology means now…)
In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Locke’s Two Treatises were not frequently cited. The historian Julian Hoppit said of the book, “except among some Whigs, even as a contribution to the intense debate of the 1690s it made little impression and was generally ignored until 1703 (though in Oxford in 1695 it was reported to have made ‘a great noise’)”.[11] John Kenyon in his study of British political debate from 1689 to 1720, has remarked that Locke’s theories were “mentioned so rarely in the early stages of the [Glorious] Revolution, up to 1692, and even less thereafter, unless it was to heap abuse on them” and that “no one, including most Whigs, [were] ready for the idea of a notional or abstract contract of the kind adumbrated by Locke”.[12] In contrast, Kenyon adds that Algernon Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government were “certainly much more influential than Locke’s Two Treatises”.[13]
In the fifty years after Queen Anne’s death in 1714, the Two Treatises were reprinted only once (apart from in the collected works of Locke). However, with the rise of American resistance to British taxation, the Second Treatise gained a new readership; it was frequently cited in the debates in both America and Britain. The first American printing occurred in 1773 in Boston.[14]
Locke exercised a profound influence on political philosophy, in particular on modern liberalism. Michael Zuckert has argued that Locke launched liberalism by tempering Hobbesian absolutism and clearly separating the realms of Church and State. He had a strong influence on Voltaire who called him “le sage Locke”. His arguments concerning liberty and the social contract later influenced the written works of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and other Founding Fathers of the United States. In fact, one passage from the Second Treatise is reproduced verbatim in the Declaration of Independence, the reference to a “long train of abuses.” Such was Locke’s influence that Thomas Jefferson wrote: “Bacon, Locke and Newton… I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception, and as having laid the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical and Moral sciences”.[15][16][17]
The Two Treatises are what I am translating into Tagalog as of now… first installment done.
Only right thinking, enlightened thinking, can prevent trolls… sometimes even great nations can make steps backward, like parts of the USA are doing at the moment… and entire great civilizations like Islam used to be one in the times of El-Andalus, Avicenna and Al-Khwarismi, the great poet and lover of women and drink, Omar Khayyam, can turn into what is producing ISIS now… so the battle for enlightenment vs. ignorance is never-ending.
Trump Shrugs
Where is the material difference between Trump and Islamic hate preacher?
“Freedom is the prerogative of the mature and responsible”… Jefferson might say to Donald Trump.
Jefferson said something similar to his half-black son by his slave mistress, Dusky Sally, whom he freed in Paris – after his boy spent all the money his Daddy Tom gave him on chicks and gambling in the City of Diversions that Paris always has been… 🙂
“Freedom is the prerogative of the mature and responsible”
I think I love Thomas Jefferson (even if he owned slaves).
But then it can be easier to regard those who are lying-in-peace and six-feet-under than those who are still breathing with us. (Take Cory Aquino or Jesse Robredo, we are kinder to them in death than when they were alive.)
In any case, the reason why I am uncomfortable with the prospect of a Duterte presidency is because supporting him would be like admitting that “I” am immature and irresponsible and that “I” would need an iron hand to rein me in.
It is hypocritical (or unrealistic) for me to perceive that only “other people” (those scalawags, criminals, drug pushers etc) would be meted out with that iron hand in a Duterte presidency. In the end, I or someone I know would experience a Duterte-kind-of-justice if he wins.
The concept of “human rights” can be annoying and frustrating in the way it can hamper our sense of justice. We complain “mabagal’, “walang political will” and “hindi action man” about the non-Duterte alternatives. Well, we will also complain about our lack of freedom if (when?) we no longer have it.
https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/04/06/you-can-die-any-time/death-squad-killings-mindanao
That indeed is his secret. He dishes back what America receives so much of, and Americans are finally glad to have that kind of release. Never mind that it is a direct path to Hell.
Same method employed by Duterte and the top trolls in the Philippine campaign. Preying on people’s frustrations. Direct path to Hell.
Duterte very nearly had me, and he still has the sympathy of otherwise topnotch people among my Pisay batchmates, people I saw as candidates for bringing the Tipping Point.
If this means going through an Oliver Cromwell like England did, bad for the Philippines.
My PNOY-hater cousins love Duterte so much that they were wringing their hands and crying their hearts out when Duterte once said, ” I will not run, that is my final decision”. They are avid readers and probably commentators of GRP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson – was greatly inspired by Johne Locke…
Thomas Jefferson (April 13 [O.S. April 2] 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American lawyer, a Founding Father and principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776). He was elected the second Vice President of the United States (1797–1801) and the third President of the United States (1801–1809). Jefferson, primarily of English ancestry, was born and educated in Virginia, where he graduated from the College of William & Mary, practiced law and married Martha Wayles Skelton; they had six children, two of whom survived to adulthood.
Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism and the individual rights theory, which motivated American colonists to break from Great Britain and form a new nation. He advanced his convictions by assuming influential political positions, producing formative documents and decisions governing the United States, at both the state and national level. During the American Revolution, he represented Virginia in the Continental Congress that adopted the Declaration, drafted legislation on religious freedom for the Virginia legislature, and served as a wartime governor (1779–1781). He became the United States Minister to France in May 1785, and subsequently the first United States Secretary of State in 1790–1793, serving under President George Washington. Jefferson and James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party led by Alexander Hamilton in the formation of the First Party System. He was elected Vice President of the United States in the election of 1796, serving in the administration of President John Adams. Jefferson and Madison in 1798–1799 anonymously wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which sought to embolden the rights of the states as opposed to the national government; the enactments aimed to nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Jefferson entered the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, at age 16, and studied mathematics, metaphysics and philosophy under Professor William Small. Small introduced him to the British Empiricists including John Locke, Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton. He also improved his French, Greek and his skill at the violin. Jefferson graduated in 1762, completing his studies in two years. He read the law under the tutelage of professor George Wythe to obtain his law license, while working as a law clerk in Wythe’s office.[9] He also read a wide variety of English classics and political works.[10]
Jefferson treasured his books, and in 1770 his Shadwell home, including a library of 200 volumes inherited from his father, was destroyed by fire.[11] Nevertheless, by 1773 he replenished his library with 1,250 titles, and in 1814, his collection had grown to almost 6,500 volumes.[12] After the British burned the Library of Congress that year, he sold more than 6,000 books to the Library for $23,950. Though he had intended to pay off some of his large debt, he resumed collecting for his personal library, writing to John Adams, “I cannot live without books”.[13]
an AMERICAN saying that… I haven’t seen an elephant fly… sorry Joe I know you read.. 🙂
Now John Locke is the father of Classical Liberalism – I wonder who has read him in LP… Ninoy certainly, Noynoy maybe, Mar Roxas I think also he does read Dostoevsky so…
When I look at Jefferson, I get the same vibe as when I look at Magsaysay…
both HE-MEN, but not Duterte-style – based on firmness and true principles instead.
Where have all the good men gone
and where are all the gods?
Where’s the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds?
Where have all the Magsaysays and Jeffersons gone?
Why do we have Dutertes and Trumps instead?
They answered to this song
http://xiaochua.net/2012/08/29/186/ – from history Prof. Michael Chua’s blog page:
What can a late president give to the young people of today? What does Ramon Magsaysay mean to the youth?
Ramon Magsaysay, the man who said “Those who have less in life should have more in law” was born on August 31, 1907 in Iba, Zambales: the first president to be born in the 20th century. Because of poverty, he worked as a jeepney driver and finished his studies of commerce by his hardwork. But his real love is engineering so he became a mechanic. His triumph in politics came from his records of being a guerilla fighter in World War II. He was elected Congressman and was appointed Secretary of National Defense. He succeeded in tho surrender of the rebel group “Huk” or “Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan” (People’s Liberation Army). In 1953, he was elected as the Third President of the Third Republic of thePhilippines.
It is said that what is called the Spirit of an Age is something to which one cannot return. That this spirit gradually dissipates is due to the world’s coming to an end. In the same way, a single year does not have just spring or summer. A single day, too, is the same. For this reason, although one would like to change today’s world back to the spirit of one hundred years or more ago, it cannot be done. Thus it is important to make the best out of every generation. – from the Hagekure, book of the Samurai…
Globally, among top trolls you have China (regular pests here at Joe Am’s) and Russia under Putin, who is skillful in a Duterte-like way at playing the Enforcer: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin-kremlin-inside-russian-troll-house
That’s an excellent article, putting the truth to what we see in social media today, for candidates Poe and Marcos. “Salutin’ Putin”, indeed.
Putin managed to buy out Russia’s Zuckerberg, Pavel Durov, and make VKontakte into a Kremlin propaganda machine… who knows Marcos and China might make a PangitBook?
And here’s an interview with a China troll: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2012/10/china%E2%80%99s-paid-trolls-meet-50-cent-party
Bingo. I may use that in an article I’m writing now about the Chinese invasion of the Philippines. Thank you for the interview. I think that hired hand has visited here.
Influence is a two-way game, I’m wondering now how many of these young Chinese commentators end up either understanding, becoming sympathetic or all out converting to the ideas they were paid to subvert?
Though their m.o. is to hit and run, I’ve noticed the ones who’ve posted here, actually participated in pseudo-dialogue, though they still had to earn their salary— I’d like to think that their bouts with Ireneo, especially, have led them towards the path of enlightenment.
So maybe, with this in mind, we can sic Ireneo on them, they’ll see the light, at the same time we’ll understand that they gotta earn living. Educate each paid troll/commentator in China.
I nominate Ireneo as blog’s Troll Re-educator, and when re-training doesn’t work, the tandem role as Executioner, (click to read)
Excellent suggestions. “Approved!”
Irineo is herein designated The Society of Honor’s “Troll Re-educator” and, at his discretion, “Executioner”. But he better get to them fast because I don’t have much patience for their sneaky material and ways.
Excellent!
Long live Ireneo the “Executioner”—-
“I deal with my family with kindness and love. They aren’t afraid when I come back from an execution. Sometimes they help me clean my sword.” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jun/06/saudiarabia.features11
But an executioner’s work is not all killing; sometimes it can simply be an amputation. “I use a special sharp knife instead of a sword,” he explains. “When I cut off a hand, I cut it from the joint. If it is a leg, the authorities specify where it is to be taken off, so I follow that.”
The methods of these trolls, there way of arguing, is familiar to me from youthful leftist days…
We also had our indoctrination and assignments, now that stuff is modernized using call center methods. One sure sign that China has abandoned Philippine leftists – all these NDF types meaning KMU, NPA, KM, Gabriela, FLAG etc. – is that they are using 70s methods and have not upgraded, and in the typical Filipino way the play the old stuff like a broken record whose words they don’t even understand. Probably the new allies of China are the Marcoses, who are showing similar modern media savvy. The legend being circulated that the USA helped topple Marcos in 1986 because he was about to go his own way is another indication of this feeling…
Now I am quite happy that many here now know how to deal with the trolls by themselves – they tried to use lack of knowledge to confuse. Same pricinciple the Maoists like I was one before used to fool people during Marcos days were ignorance had spread. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Now a lot of Society members have upgraded their knowledge and will not really need an occassional enforcer like me anymore. My idols are much more the cowboy types who help deal with the bad guys, and then ride into the sunset, not even wanting the sheriff’s star that the townfolk offer them. But that’s not what I am going to do… I will stay, thanks but no thanks for the sheriff’s star. I prefer to open a saloon, and play piano at times. But if bandits do come, there are more here who can shoot now, and I will join when needed.
The story of the God Father of Daesh… How the U.S. made a Psychopath a legend…
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/07/the-short-violent-life-of-abu-musab-al-zarqawi/304983/
Thanks for saying you will stay, even via internet. We need all the help we can get for the country.
And so it shall be. . . the Society’s official “Saloon Piano Player”.
the Society’s official “Saloon Piano Player”.
——With a very sharp blade close at hand.
Only people who have limited imaginations think the world is so simple that no one who dissents from the “right” way of looking at things is not a paid poster of the CCP. Very comic book view of the world at large. A sheltered upbringing in a box perhaps.
Cheers
I wonder if the Marcos family has a dedicated building like that with paid trolls posting in various social media and as the article described, with full assistance like YouTube, short films and videos, prepared texts ready for posting and of course, and unlike in Russia, provided with financial benefits like food, gadgets, comfort and all thing money can buy which the youth crave. Their trolls are everywhere and since other FB groups for RORO are screened and moderated strictly, they concentrate on Freedom Walls. They somehow managed to have access with Alan Robles’ site but he has developed a way to respond to them.
The Marcos, Binay, Duterte and Poe trolls are aptly described by Sir NHerrera as the “Ah, Basta” crowd because of their permanent “non-listening mode”.
I wonder, too about the Chinese trolls, did the Chinese adopted the Putin government sponsored trolling housed in a dedicated building (a condo unit perhaps with servers and technological wares for multiple IP addresses)? Are they aiding Marcos and Binay?
Creepy.
LCPL_X mentioned cybersecurity as a top Philippine priority and he is right. Chinese agents have hacked into German ministries – after that Germany set up its own cybersecurity agency. Recent laws require all in charge of critical infrastructures – power plants especially nuclear, dams, traffic networks (traffic light control, subways and MRTs which depend a lot on IT etc.) and more to have persons-in-charge to implement security measures and to report any kind of attempt or suspicion of hacking to cybersecurity authorities. This stuff is getting really serious.
The Russians are mainly using old-school tactics, the Chinese too, but the Chinese I think are preparing for the most modern type of warfare which is cyber-warfare. With hacking you can cause blackouts, you can cause dams to release water and flood entire areas, you can make phone and Internet networks go down. Germany has dedicated networks for disaster relief and emergencies and I am sure they are doubly secured, but if the Chinese even hacked ministries you can imagine how much the Philippines is a sitting duck if the Chinese decide to hack stuff.
Make the dam above Marikina open its gates so it is Ondoy II without any rain, shut down the Internet by attacking key exchanges and routers, cause blackouts, kill cellphone connections. Add some locally organized troublemakers, prepared and organized, and you have a takeover.
“you can make phone and Internet networks go down.”
This made me think of Tom Clancy’s “Net Force” series
goodreads says “In the year 2010, computers are the new superpowers. Those who control them, control the world.”
Let me add: computers and internet networks, with a country’s own satellite servers.
In wonder which is better, undersea cables or satellite…
Cables, overland or undersea, are always preferable to expensive satellites… the Chinese don’t have the capability to destroy satellites yet, something the Russians definitely have… space warfare is a taboo similar to using atomic weapons so it has not happened yet.
Microwave technology is often used in military settings, because as long as you have line of sight you don’t have cables that can be cut.. Germany uses microwave a lot what you need is mountains and/or towers and/or tall buildings like the Berlin radio tower which is a Communist building that looks exactly like the radio tower in Moscow… but is now retrofitted with mobile phone antennas and microwave dishes to augment cable capacity by signal transmission…
“the Chinese don’t have the capability to destroy satellites yet, “
http://breakingdefense.com/2015/04/chinese-asat-test-was-successful-lt-gen-raymond/
COLORADO SPRINGS: We’ve known for some time that China conducted an anti-satellite test July 23, 2014, last year, but we learned today that that test was “successful” even if it didn’t destroy anything.
China has successfully placed low earth orbit satellites at risk, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jay Raymond told an overflow audience at the annual Warfighters Lunch at the Space Symposium here. “Soon every satellite in every orbit will be able to be held at risk,” the head of the 14th Air Force said.
Those above LEO satellites,
“Yes, finally, someone is speaking the truth, the way I FEEL!“ There are many I’s, so the troll content depend on the observer or the other way around, the best trolls can adjust for their audience. Most are lazy and talk to their “equals”, journalists, local politicians, the vocal part of the middle class. Binay is more clever, he adjust to his target audience much better. “I’m an underdog like you, I’m willing to share magic income as I did in Makati, the elite neglect the poor”… I think is a better liar and should be at the top.
….I think he is a better….
So noted. He is a chameleon, for sure, a shape-shifter. I don’t find him as outrageous as Duterte, but he does have skills.
*******
1. It all depends on the definition, doesn’t it?
1.1. JoeAm has defined it as the “ability to key message to popular emotion to generate anger and the release of that anger. The release is expressed as a ‘like’ for the trolling candidate.”
1.2. Josephivo’s definition would be the “ability to stay ‘on message’ that resonates with the people.” This would also invoke a “like”.
1.3. A third definition would be the “ability to sow headlines that provoke an emotional response.” The emotions invoked might be a “like” or “dislike.”
2. My assessment of the presidential candidates would be:
2.1. Grace generates anger — with her magtiis ads, for example, and her foundling pa-awa — and invokes “likes”… which is why she leads.
2.2. Binay stays on message – which is why he maintains his momentum.
2.3. Roxas belongs to none of the three definitions – which is why his advance is slow and incremental. (Sometimes he suffers from foot-in-mouth disease and sometimes he is free of the condition; to that extent, he would fall under the third definition.)
2.4. Duterte sows headlines to a high degree – we don’t know where he is positioned right now but he could eventually fall between Binay and Roxas… that is, below Binay and above Roxas.
2.5. Santiago sows headlines to a low degree – which is why she trails.
*****
Roxas needs to unleash his inner Magsaysay, be more of an alpha male… a smart and hot woman like Korina would’nt have gone for him if he didn’t have SOME of it in him.
So Korina, give Mar really good sex, make him feel HE DA MAN and he’ll BE DA MAN!
And sex will get even better if it ain’t good already, Korina – it is proven that a woman can make a man strong or undo him, so prove to the nation that you BE his front-seat BITCH, always there for your nigger, RIDE OR DIE… but your latest statements to Trudeau show it.
We better .
Tell me what you’re gonna do
If we ride or die?
(repeats)
. take one step out of time
. we’re gonna party all night
. by my side
I love you how you’re loving me
We’re gonna make steps one two three four
You will be on my mind all the time
Ride or die
Is what I adore
If I got you
And you got me
I promise we’re gonna be the ones
The ones
no fun
We’re gonna run
Run run run
We’re gonna run
Run run run
2pac died a violent death
But Jay-Z and Kayne West LIVE!
http://www.myvideo.de/musik/jay-z/watch-the-throne-dj-derezon-mix-video-m-8247288
Can someone pls give Mar testosterone shot? He needs some punch in his ads
Nag-aral si Mar sa Wharton am sure he acquired love of American football, so he needs to play good offense, eat and throw some dirt’ Mar.
Possibly we’d have to assign an “energy” factor to the rating. Duterte, and Poe/Escudero are able to claim headlines at will, Duterte because he has ramped up a huge titillation factor by being outspoken and coy to the 26th power, Poe/Escudero because they represent a double-barreled attack on the problems faced by the Philippines, attributing them to poor governance. A big batch of propaganda, but, hey, who’s looking? Binay has gone a lot quieter. Maybe he has lost some headline attractiveness or is getting tired of the relentless attacks on him. Santiago just doesn’t have the energy to get out and mix it up. But she has never proposed anything like a platform, just offered up the cryptic or over-the-top criticisms, along with a few jokes.
Korina gotta give Mar the feelilng there “Ain’t No Nigga” like him – ENERGY!
good women can give men enormous energy – bad ones drain it…
Suntukan na lang daw
http://kickerdaily.com/jerks-in-the-govt-are-the-reason-why-god-created-the-middle-finger-sen-miriam/gma-network/
This was the pic of mds
This time it will work
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CLuxFgXUcAAfJ9p.jpg:large
Suntukan na lang daw
http://kickerdaily.com/jerks-in-the-govt-are-the-reason-why-god-created-the-middle-finger-sen-miriam/gma-network/
na master mo na ang pag post ng pics, karl..how’d you do it?
palso nga ang pic ko sa taas dalawa yan on top is mds bottom du30 yung ke du30 lang ang success.
pag link jpg madali…ikaw pano mo na post galing memegenerator, me isa ako sa taas na pumalpak.
I’d have to confess, hit and miss..hehe…when I tried it again, palpak..
And you’re right about Duterte, I could weep hearing him say that he will finally run. My goodness gracious, Filipinos are not playthings that he could manipulate anytime he wants.
I don’t know why it is so hard to be forthright, to say things and mean them, to be decisive and not yank people around. To say this is where the Philippines is today, this is where we need to go, and this is why I’m the best person to get us there. To make sense, rather than view voters as tools, as playthings, as people not to take seriously. Yeah, I agree with you, arlene. What a troll.
It’s sad, so really sad, that it why I am praying for all voters that they would use their heads and not be influenced by social media or popularity of a candidate.
use your coconut, our UP Elementary school teachers used to tell us… but unfortunately many Filipino coconuts are simply just “gahi ulo” – hardheaded, NHerrera’s Basta factor.
Haha…totoo naman eh.
“this is why I’m the best person to get us there.” Joe, I’m even better.. so let’s run for President and VP respectively. I am natural-born Filipino, you have the ten-year residency requirement, not quite Constitutional but we will find ways to circumvent that…
find a crazy Filipino sophist lawyer to get it past the Supreme Court, file now I am sure we can find some nuisance candidates who will back down and let us substitute for us… 🙂
🙂
My read on Duterte’s entry into the race is that he does support Mar Roxas’ campaign but could not see Roxas winning against Grace Poe. Duterte was hoping the Senate Election Tribunal would come to its senses and unseat Poe on the basis of her lack of citizenship and/or residency but this did not come to fruition. I think Duterte’s goal in running is to sway enough votes away from Poe, not necessarily for him to win, but for Poe to lose, hopefully benefitting Roxas. It might actually be a brilliant move.
Interesting assessment, and it seems to fit given Duterte’s swing at Poe as something other than a “real Filipino”. What is interesting is that President Aquino said that the people should decide, a statement viewed by many as favoring Poe and dumping on Roxas. But an attorney at Raissa Robles’ blog speculated that this, too, is speculation that Poe will be disqualified, and President Aquino is essentially warming up to her supporters so they go to Roxas when Poe is barred from running by the SC.
Pass the popcorn please. Heavy on the butter, light on the salt.
May I have some of that popcorn please; no butter and light salt for me.
ADDITIONAL COMMENT. I was about to write that raising the educational and the economic level of the Philippines would have reduced this troll-like mindset of the Presidential Candidates, but stopped myself. For then how does it explain a similar mind-set in the case of Trump (relative to the American voters)? We do not have that mind-set on such a high level in the UK do we? Does historical and cultural thing explain it? Does the internet and social media to which the Filipinos have been attracted like ants to sugar partly explain it? Or is it simply the realpolitik of it — I will do this thing to get the Presidency but when I win I will do what is right; I am really a good boy (or girl) as my close friends know.
Americans have become more ignorant since the 1980s, when Reaganomics damaged the middle class… the America of the 1950s is no more, it is now the USA of Eminem…
http://www.clipfish.de/musikvideos/video/2961785/eminem-the-real-slim-shady/
I have to disagree.
Ignorance in America is a choice. Those who had chosen it are willful. Their self
destruction is deliberate. They are but a small segment of the American society. Most Americans have internalized good values and they are made of stuff that will keep America smart, strong and resilient for years to come.
Most Americans vote along 3 designated lines: Democratic (Left), Republican (Right) and Independent (Moderate left/right). Trump is only popular with the extreme Right groups. He grabs headlines for now because of his outrageousness and entertainment value. I predict that:
a. His popularity even among severe Republicans will peter out before the GOP primaries, or
b. He will be primaried, or
c. Go the Palin way.
What’s the temperature there? Is the racial tension a media invention or are LA Riots a possibility?
I would surmise that you are talking about political temperature. It varies from day to day and from person to person. The bottom line is mindset. No need to reprise the optimistic/pessimistic spectrum.
The racial/regional tension had been a part of American history from its inception to the present. They are part of America’s democratic evolution. Likewise, the LA riots could be likened to the PH Muslim predicament or the EDSA demonstrations. They are expression of democratic values. They happen because there is something that needs to be brought to the attention of those who have the power to affect change.
This referenced article in Esquire suggests that tensions are running high, and whites are the object of “racial rage”. Just published: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a39987/america-race-powderkeg/
gian,
Here’s what I told jameboy about riots in America: https://joeam.com/2015/04/27/open-discussion-our-philippines/#comment-120492
“are LA Riots a possibility?” The next one won’t be white/black, it’ll be Hispanic/black. Though there’s another force in play that’s help ameliorate this and that’s the hipster, DIY, urban-homesteading, gay, yuppie, tech, etc. movement— transplanting Hispanic and black troublemakers either to the desert or out of state (IMHO, this is the police/black issue that’s surfacing in the media, ie. urban/street mentality vs. rural sentiments, because of urban gentrification)
Thanks
Good to hear that firsthand… the Dubya period (an irresponsible Western European media, the quality has declined here as well) created a negative picture of the USA which Obama has been correcting very well… even if many people on the street over here seriously believed Obama would be assassinated in no time by redneck Republicans in the CIA and stuff like that.. Michael Moore and Eminem were popular here, but the fact that Pink also brought out her song “Dear Mr. President” was widely ignored, unfortunately.
The problem now is that many misled people over here are listening to Putin’s siren song – the Eurasian Union. Especially Russian-Germans who listen to media from back home… 😦
So their old conditioning against Америка gets reactivated by mother Россия’s media.
” even if many people on the street over here seriously believed Obama would be assassinated in no time by redneck Republicans in the CIA and stuff like that.. “
Ireneo,
That’s the wrong reading of who are in gov’t service over here, rednecks and hillbillies get as far as the military, then local gov’t. Republicans or Democrats in federal service won’t be rednecks or hillbillies, they’ll be
Make no mistake, Obama is one of them, Ivy League educated, part of the system that Gen. Smedley Butler exposed in the 1930s, now running the country.
As for W. blame this guy (I voted for him, so I guess blame me too… 😦
I know I’m always raggin’ on FOXtards,
but FOX news is a reaction to years of liberal bias and political correctness. I think most of the talking heads there are retards, but when Bill O’reilly and Dana Perino are on, I listen.
Last week, I went to the Nixon Presidential Library, they were doing a renovation so I just hung-out in their snack room and gift shop. The books they featured were ones by Coulter, Beck, Limbaugh, Ingraham, and Michell Malkin, a Filipina,
So it looked like a FOX bookstore, the Reagan Presidential Library, had more respectable books, ones promoting conservative and nationhood, ie. history books, instead of books busy with burning bridges.
Although the FOX reaction to liberal hegemony is IMHO a needed counter, the fact that the Republicans have no new ideas will be their downfall.
Rubio looks like he’ll get the tap, but this hard look in the mirror is necessary for Republicans, and that mirror is Trump— so the longer they look into this mirror, the better for everyone.
But normally, the popular pushback against Sara Palin kinds of statements is extreme, but that is not happening. Well, it is, but it is having no effect. I think the partisan poison has left people open to all kinds of wild-eyed statements. I hope you are right, that it will self-correct, but I think there is a change in mood among Americans that makes them more . . . um . . . extremist.
Education would help, like so that voters understand a bad choice comes back to bite them. But this is a trend of our times, I think. Consuming, shallow lifestyles. I’d bet that reading in America is also on the decline.
Interesting, Joe. I will personally campaign for Mar/Leni hoping they win.
I happen to catch his interview on ANC’s Headstart 5 years ago when he was campaigning for the VP post. He was very confident, inspiring, engaging, his answers were succinct.
I hope Mar Roxas regains his mojo back.
This is the ‘winnable’ Mar I’m talking about.
Straight forward and dynamic.
Joey supporting Mar is something that video is talking about…
I hope so, too. The amount of negative noise he has to cut through is intense.
The Philippines with its mixed up systems, out of ignorance or to play is safe? Inches and meters, 220 Volt with 60 Hz, common law mixed with civil law and now adding some Muslim law… Multi party and one election round, 5 candidates and 21% of the electorate might suffice. Or more realistic now with 4 more or less equal candidates and some additional noise candidates 25% of the voters supporting a new administration and 75% being against it! It becomes a realistic scenario.
Pnoy’s position might be the one of an advances chess player. GPL eating away Binay votes and Duterte eating away GPL votes, this may make it easier for Mar to reach the 25% level with dedicated administration supporters.
I find that hard to believe. For the same goal all he to do is declare his backing of roxas.
Maybe he’s throwing bones to the pro-Poe Samar faction of LP.
2.2. Binay stays on message – which is why he maintains his momentum.
looking at his 2010 youtube video,I think Edgar is right.
Roxas family is originally Capiz, not the same as Waray, but still he must have the Visayan fighting spirit in him that he must find back to… the same spirit that caused his grandfather to kick a hand grenade someone threw at him at a campaign rally straight into the air…
With he I mean Mar, and his grandfather is President Manuel Roxas of course… partly maligned but also with fighting spirit… and Senator Gerry Roxas his father was truly great. There is a reason why Austronesians worship the anito, the ancestral spirits.. to benefit form their wisdom and strength…
https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2378/2031975645_cf923037db_z.jpg?zz=1
Hi Joe…Can we ask somebody to make a write-up profiling supporters of each presidential/vice-pres candidates based on social media? Examples are those supporting Duterte and Marcos who are giving comments which are out of this world, garbage from their mouth.
Those who are so very negative should be shown this meme… Captain Jack Sparrow
Thanks for the suggestion. That would be an interesting topic. Let me reflect on how to go about it. It means I’d have to wade into the cess pit I normally avoid.
I dove in, boots and all, so to speak, in that cess pit, the war freak that I am…joke. I engaged them sweetly at first, lost it, recovered and tried again. Am now into posting to as many FB groups (with thousands of members) so I can reach as many as I can. If most of them will share to thousands more for the enlightenment of the poor electorates, I can say I have done my part.
Looking at the reactions to the news I post on my FB Learning Center page, I have a mix of Roxas, Poe and Duterte supporters as visitors and even regulars. Posting stuff that proves the achievements of the present administration together with reports on the criticisms of others allows people to form their own opinion. What I don’t post is really trollish stuff of any kind or outright campaigning for any side, and except for my own articles I rarely comment on posts. What is interesting is that many Poe and Duterte supporters tend to listen to reason once you have allowed them to let off some steam, i.e. frustrations. Binay and Marcos supporters tend to be lower IQ for the most part so they are elsewhere and probably not reachable that easily.
To Poe supporters – show them the government is doing its job and Poe loses much traction. Duterte supporters when they see how effective PNP has now become are often calmed down. The clippings I show people hopefully also give many a sense of the complex reality of today.
“Duterte supporters when they see how effective PNP has now become are often calmed down. “
But how does this mitigate that enthno-linguistic group (Visayan) and Mindanao legitimacy, you spoke of in the past, is that still in play? ie, how many Visayans make up the Philippine population and how many Mindanaoans? Won’t they over look policy type issues just to get a “strong” fellow Visayan and fellow Mindanaoan in office?
Do you think that it will be a Batman vs. Superman election?
you’re right, I was primarily looking at the Manila-based pro-Duterte crowd.
The major weak point of all Manila candidates is the perceived neglect for the provinces.
Now I know Roxas has done a lot to improve LGUs, but there is little news that makes it visible.
A good read about the Russian Duterte : http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war
Luckily, many Estonian Russians are doing well in the EU and will NOT go for poor Russia.
One of my sources is firsthand, an Estonian Russian lady studying in Berlin.
somewhat same question: How is the temperature in Germany? Is Turkey considered an ally worth going to war against Russia for?
The Turkish-German community is very large over here, especially in Berlin, and has MPs in all political parties except the extreme left and right… so I think the pressure is there.
Parts of the ex-Communist left and the extreme right may say no.. the rest we shall see.
I don’t think this figher getting shot down will lead to war… Turkey has invoked Article 4, but NATO in Brussels may decide to go for the diplomatic channel they have with Russia.
The Turks are spoiling for a fight, everybody knows that, they are Orientals after all.
As long as there is no shooting war between Russia and Turkey, Article 4 is not relevant… like your source mentions, border provocations are common nowadays, nearly twice a week is my impression… and happened from time to time during Cold War as well, even with shoot-outs between East and West German border patrols I have heard, but in that time, these things did not appear in the press and were handled quietly. No heating up.
Latvian Russians are the more critical group… the Latvians often discriminate them, and many are poor migrants to Western Europe so they are a target for Russian agitation.
Wish me luck I may be sending an article tomorrow.
GO FOR IT ♣
thanks
Congrats, gian!
Go for it with gusto. I am cheering for you.
Luck is not involved. It is a most interesting article and it will publish next week, if that is okay with you. See e-mail.
Gian, you don’t need luck. kumbaga sa basketball walang chamba chamba.
Will look forward to reading it, Gian. Congrats!
Go Gian! GianCarlo Three points!!!!!!
Congrats, Gian, for a brand new bundle of joy named Felicity..God bless you and your whole family!
Thanks
Off Topic
AQUINO MAKING UP FOR LOST TIME IN ASEAN MEET.
Inquirerdotnet — Editorial: Language of criticism
http://opinion.inquirer.net/90625/language-of-criticism
Excerpts
——————————————————
Like a good Filipino host, President Aquino avoided mentioning any topic that might upset his guests, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Meeting last week. The promise of a no-mention policy was part of the intricate diplomatic dance that allowed Xi, the most powerful Chinese leader in decades, to visit the Philippines despite the continuing contentiousness over rival maritime claims.
Mr. Aquino made up for lost time, however, when he took part in a series of summits in Kuala Lumpur the following weekend. Xi wasn’t in attendance, but Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was, and he got an earful.
…
In high-level diplomacy, it seems, the Ecclesiastes principle also holds: There is a time for everything. In Mr. Aquino’s view, the time was ripe for the Philippines to use the language of unmistakable criticism. Hence, he no longer merely “expressed serious concerns,” but criticized China in forthright terms, and seized every opportunity throughout the weekend to do so.
——————————————————
The last hurrah of an outgoing president. I hope it bears good fruit. We need to have that coalition with our ASEAN neighbors. I hear they have sent their nations’ representatives as observers in the Hague hearing. With them on our side plus the US and Japan, with a neutral or sympathetic Russia in the periphery. What I hope for is for China to be declared a rogue nation initially, so our our high moral ground stand will gain worldwide sympathy, acceptance and cooperation so the world can tame the bully that is China. A generational fight, I know, but then at least the future generation can’t say we traitorously sold our soul and sovereignty and future economic development for a few pieces of silver err money that can readily evaporate within the present generation. We need to look far beyond this period, 100 or more years beyond, in fact.
“Sinclair Lewis, the American novelist, is supposed to have said: “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross”. Edward Luce FT
Yes, when there is a “Christian test”, we know that Lewis knew what he was talking about. Senator Ted Cruz, candidate for President, wants one. So does Jeb Bush.
There will probably be a handgun or an assault rifle wrapped into the flag as well, courtesy of the NRA.
IMHO Binay is simply a wolf. Poe is still an embryo. Mar Roxas is a wolf in grandmothers clothing.
Duterte is simply a killer wolf.
Roxas and Aquino and the others before them are simply toeing the line of the Washington Consensus. Their religion: neo-liberal economic Wahhabism…
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/inclusive-growth-reduce-inequality-by-zia-qureshi-2015-09
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/pro-growth-is-not-pro-poor-by-steven-j–klees-2015-10
And you are going by the typical Attac/No Logo/Occupy kind of thinking IMHO… Walden Bello and Richard Javad Heydarian at least add original thought to it.
Why are most Filipinos of all colors simply parrots and copycats? Might as well do Dubsmash, Yaya Dub at least makes fun of that, thereby deconstructing it.
Should the Philippines follow Roxas and Aquino’s prescription for opening all sectors of our economy to the global value chain as espoused by the recently held APEC and the rush for the Philippines to enter TPP?
I am sorry as I do not speak and understand German…
Kindly read the debate about the prescriptions espoused by those who are anti-economic and
pro-economic Wahhabism…
So far the PRC has shown the way for an impressive example of State Led Capitalism that has changed the planet in just forty years…
China is a land power and is situated in the largest land mass in the world…Eurasia.
They are using their surplus production and finance to build ports, railroads, and superhighways all over Eurasia…
The U.S. is desperately trying to contain their rising power…Japan is a spent economic force…It may serve us well simply to merge with Japan…
Even the former head of the Fed Bernanke has pointed to their rise and the recent technological advances as responsible for the glut of savings and wage deflation in the world…
Today the world will pivot on what happens in Iran and Turkey not so much the South China Sea/West Phil. Sea.
The future is in Eurasia…
If you don’t speak German, read the stuff about Singapore… they have a model that is similar to the European one both politically and economically.
Japan is spent, but things people are saying about China now are similar to what was said about Japan 30 years ago… I think China is a short-lived thing, 20 years maximum.
If Southeast Asia does its thing right, the future will be there… inventiveness and ingenuity instead of brute-force Neostalinist industrialization which is a sprint in a marathon race.
I do remember how you mentioned Weberian bureacracies… you don’t read German but I am sure then you know who Max Weber was… and that he was certainly not an American?
OK, I remember Filipinos who seriously thought Lea Salonga’s career as Miss Saigon started on Broadway… when the reality is that it started in London. And Miss Saigon was written by French people, not by Americans or even English… guys get rid of your colonial mentality.
Facists of the world unite!!!!! Daesh is on the road to Des Moines Iowa…
http://www.salon.com/2015/09 26/we_are_at_war_with_an_imaginary_islam_lies_propaganda_and_the_real_story_of_america_and_the_muslim_world/
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176071/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_the_national_security_state's_incestuous_relationship_with_the_islamic_state/#more
The story of the God Father of Daesh… How the U.S. made a Psychopath a legend…
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/07/the-short-violent-life-of-abu-musab-al-zarqawi/304983/
One typical troll tactic is to find examples and make them into a general trend…
On certain German TV stations in the early 90s, there were some editors who had connections to Marcos loyalists, and many Philippine migrants then thought Imelda was close to winning in 1992…
Russian propagandists like to take the ideas of Zbigniew Brzezinski, influential American analyst and Polish-born (Poles hate Russians, this I know from personal contact, it also has historical and religious reasons including Catholic vs. Orthodox) as proof that Americans want to destroy Russia. Some of Brzezinskis ideas indeed sound like Senator Cato with his Delenda Carthago, but taking certain positions in a pluralistic democracy as representative of the the whole is a mistake that many in less open societies makes, seeing different opinions as proof of hypocrisy.
Another troll tactic is to paint things black and white… Dubya Bush said all who are not with us are against us, tried to isolate France and Germany for not joining his anti-WMD coalition…
Neonazis and Salafists escalate against one another in Germany, even with street fights that are similar to the Nazi-Communist street fights of the 1920s. Trump uses Salafists to further his ends – Hollande at least does something about it without escalating into repression mode.
And social media are not the first to be used to troll… after Gutenberg invented the modern printing press in Mainz, Germany, a lot of stuff was printed. Some of it good but a lot of it was downright nasty and wrong… until now there is a phrase in German: “Du lügst wie gedruckt” – you lie like something printed. This phrase comes from those days, when trolling was done with printed leaflets and the like… media can spread truth and lies, it is people who must discern.
*******
REFLECTIONS ON TROLLING
1. There is no truth anymore.
2. There is only the peddling of partial-truths, half-truths, non-truths and spin.
3. The trolling is not just in the political candidates. There are trolls in all the branches of government… and in religion. Not just here but everywhere.
4. I wonder what effect this has on us.
5. When astronauts see the earth from the distance of orbital space, they experience the epiphany of the Overview Effect whereby national boundaries vanish. They undergo a cognitive shift, and come to understand that there is no true division among men. They forever carry the intimation of the fragility and beauty of the blue-green ball that hangs in space.
6. With all this endless barrage and constant exposure to the manipulation of trolls, there must be a counter effect that we suffer from. Call it the Underview Effect. We only see division, and participate in division.
6.1. Life becomes a walk in a carnival hall of mirrors. Certainly, we are entertained but at the same time we lose clarity. We point, giggle, and guffaw, but we no longer see the true contours of our body and face. The many reflections dissipate the core center, that from which we radiate and are able to discern and say “This is true” and “That is false.”
6.2. Parenthetically, Google reveals that there is an “Underview” website, created in 1996, that celebrates the promise of the future sparked by the vision in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” A section of the website, “About the Underview”, laments:
”…But instead, the future has seen evolution plumbing new depths, with a mass of humanettes wired to the control word ‘me’.
“Way back in 1968, there was still an outside chance that the world could have been made a better place.
“Instead, all that turned up for anyone capable of thinking beyond ‘me’ was a sense of disenchantment, and a yearning for a place long gone that may have never existed, save in the imagination, where morals still count and people still care.
“Today? The darkness creeps on.
“Tomorrow? Who knows?”
7. As in war, the first casualty in trolling is truth. But there are other casualties as well.
7.1. The lessons of history are subject to revisionism.
7.2. We may no longer detect true sincerity of purpose.
7.3. We sacrifice integrity for expediency.
7.4. We may not be able to separate the chaff from the grain.
7.5. We can no longer be forthright lest we be taken for innocents.
7.6. We can no longer trust lest we be taken advantage of.
7.7. And, because we are just distorted reflections and no longer our true selves… and because we are implicitly taught there is truly nothing sacred and, therefore, taught not to care… we may no longer be able to walk together and join hands for common purposes.
*****
1. I wonder if the Roman Catholic clergy felt the same when Martin Luther challenged them.
But it was not only Martin Luther… the advent of printing brought out a lot of really wacko stuff.
5. It is easier for me to have an overview effect about the Philippines – with years of distance, and being so far away, but still knowing the mentality well enough to understand to some extent.
6. Instead of a view of the progress over the years, people see this in their fragmented reality… “ay Mamasapano!”, “ay tanim-bala”, “ay Grace Poe!”, “ay Duterte!”, “ay ang pogi ni Trudeau!”.. papers report that way, there are no articles that give an overview to understand things better.
7. The place you are describing is the dark place many of us Marcos babies have been through.
The truth was the first casualty of dictatorship, then morals, then quality, trust and solidarity….
Footnote: the Reformation challenged the outdated mindset of its time, and exploration forced people to review it anyway, science even more… but it took the Enlightenment to create a new mindset or way of interpreting reality. I think the present days are a similar reinterpretation crisis.
Truth has many levels… there is the reality we see, then the interpretations of it, and finally the mental model that we hold to be true. The world used to be flat, then it became spherical… now we have conflicting mental models especially about how society should be run, the balance of power between the individual and society… American, European, Russian, Chinese, Islamic… the younger models at the start the oldest ones at the end… how do we find a language to describe the assumptions, the axioms of the models in order to find a new future mental model?
Islamic… a mindset coming from the place where the first civilizations got started and with many holdovers from then… no true difference between religion and state like in Egypt of old, the Caliph was not a God-King anymore like the Egyptian Pharaoh, but a Pope-King… created order out of the chaos caused by the Roman Empire falling apart in that area, the known world of then was the intended scope of Islam, this goal has been implicitly extended worldwide.
China – a mindset coming from the second-oldest civilization in the world… the Empire united “All Under Heaven”, i.e. the known world for the Chinese… it also was the only safe form of order known over the centuries… changes of dynastys or periods like the Warring States were always extremely bloody… very advanced compared to everyone else around them for long… so they could afford to see others as barbarians… others came and this was a rude surprise which they have not truly gotten over until now… and want to now REALLY run the whole world.
Russia – Christianity started in the Greek part of the Roman empire… most of St. Pauls’s letters are to Greek places… due to Alexander and others, the Eastern part of the Empire was Greek in language and culture for a long time… Orthodoxy just an expression of this… the mindset of Greek Orthodoxy and the modified alphabet makes Russia a child of this old culture… their is already a love of knowledge, but also of hierarchy (“holy order” in Greek) and obedience…
Europe – the cultural descendants of the Western Roman Empire… Dark Ages then Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment… at its core French inspite of all variants.
America – a child of Reformation and Enlightenment – Puritanism plus Liberalism. More Germanic in its laws than Germany. Very Germanic in its sense of being right. Unfettered by the ballast of history, but often underestimating how strong conditioning is in other cultures…
—————————————————————————————————————–
where are the rest? They are there but not the main mindsets:
Latin America… they do have a mindset but it does not determine anything worldwide yet.
Southeast Asia… have very much in common but they are finding it out only recently.
India is India… Africa is still quite irrelevant… Korea/Japan are themselves…
The Philippines is at the fault line between American, Chinese and Islamic worlds.
Major mindsets matter because for each group, what they think it true IS true for them.
Excellent characterization of the main forces in global politics and economics. Seems to fit very well. Latin Americans seem to not like one another all that well, even though their Iberian roots run deep. On one hand, you have Venezuela, on the other Chile, and the rest is a hodge podge of little distinction. Their animals are cute, though. Fuzzy little camels.
Latin America is reconsolidating now… the best among them are following the adage of my deceased Bavarian friend and mentor who once told me… unlike the other Bavarians of my generation who hated the Prussians, I watched these Northern Protestants to see what they were doing better than us Southern Catholics… the best Latin Americans are adapting the best of “Gringo” methods while staying themselves… and differentiating themselves from Iberians…
Southeast Asia was influenced by India, China, Islam, Europe and America and is confused… the threat of China has forced them to cooperate… Southeast Asia may be the source of a new global view of things having known nearly all major civilizations and the Philippines its leader.
Edgar Lores has been looking for a global view of things… LCPL_X for a redefined Islam…
The best of American intellectuals are analyzing the world as a whole, less fettered by the blinders older cultures have – anthropologist Jared Diamond has great books on that stuff, Charles Mann on the first globalization (1493), Malcolm Gladwell adds an Afro-white view…
The world is getting too small for the regional views many still have including Donald Trump, but also Xi Jinping, the ISIS, Vladimir Putin, the Hungarian radicals. Regional cooperation like EU, ASEAN and even Latin America is one step. Stronger global views will have to follow suit. The oldest forces (China, Islam) will have to adjust to modern times in their views, more than Russia or Europe, while USA will have to continue to learn that not everybody is on the same page as they are – and some are regressing like The Donald… if not things may go down..
It is a rather disturbing picture you draw. I have been wrestling with the sense that each of us treads a very different reality, our own island of knowledge in a vast sea of personal ignorance (that we are largely unaware of), and are fed an unending stream of manipulated truths. Where is the tether we hang to, the anchor we can drill into the ground to hold onto rationality amidst a gross concoction of untruths that gets wilder every time Trump, Duterte or Poe open their manipulative mouths. I tend to turn inward, the rock that Simon and Garfunkel sing about, and let all things slide off, irrelevant. Instead, I shoot baskets with my son, or watch the giant bamboo grow, and it seems somehow healthier. Austerity of emotions, to prevent lunacy.
I mean, gadzooks, look at the Presidential candidates. Binay, Poe, Duterte, Santiago and Roxas. Four of them are whipping up emotions on a pack of criticisms, slogans and empty promises and one is talking sense about what needs to be done. Clearly, a lot of Filipinos are circulating in pools where thinking is absolutely detached from that which is rational. The world you describe is the one they live in.
Neither the educational system, nor the media truly help people in seeing the big picture. And the lack of “big picture” thinking in the Philippines IMHO has three aspects:
1) time: people who live only in the now plus and minus a few hours, days, weeks do not see the progress, they only live for the kilig and get mad at things that annoy them today.
2) space: people only see the drug dealers near their corner, the broken lamppost, the traffic in Metro Manila, the NPAs if they are in the province. What I don’t see doesn’t really exist.
3) persons: people know what “their people” tell them, what they care for, the interests of their own group and not of the country. What comes from outside is discounted and rarely believed.
Some see a slightly bigger picture than others and seem like geniuses to everybody else… Poe with her smart-sounding criticisms, Duterte with his apparently quick solutions.. while those who have a too big picture seem like “liars” trying to tell everybody the world is round not flat.
El Condor Pasa . . . It’s a Simon and Garfunkel kind of day, reflections on the impossibility of getting it right when good sense has gone amissin’.
Only people who have limited imaginations think the world is so simple that no one who dissents from the “right” way of looking at things is not a paid poster of the CCP. Very comic book view of the world at large. A sheltered upbringing in a box perhaps.
Cheers
Seems Thailand is seeing the long term picture and is pivoting toward China instead of the short term interest of the U.S
Any thoughts ?
Southeast Asia as a whole will have to find its own definition and not just be the pawn of others.
Historically it was always the zone between Indian and Chinese civilizations, then Europeans and Americans came. These influences shaped what Southeast Asia has become today.
China only thinks of its own predominance and superiority. The USA is more universalist in its ideals, not always in practice for sure. And the USA is overextended, needs Southeast Asia more than China does, so from the point of view of Realpolitik it is a better, safer ally. Just like the USA has been and is the better ally for Europe, which avoided becoming a vassal zone of Russia (the Western part) and managed to free the Eastern part from Russia, the USA is a guarantor that China will not make Southeast Asia a vassal zone – interests that converge.
China has NO idea of “brotherhood of man” at all. Even Islam has an idea of universal brotherhood… under their religion of course. Even Russia has an idea of universality, an ex-Huk from Pampanga once told me the Soviet Constitution was a Constitution made for the whole world… ideas descended from Greek Orthodoxy. Europe today is a reincarnation of the Holy Roman Empire, while the USA is based on ideas of universal democracy and free trade, but sometimes has holdovers of the Germanic expansion that destroyed the Roman empire…
India brought forth a lot of spiritual ideas but is mainly regional in influence for now… OK China also contributed Confucianism and Taoism but has regressed into Imperial thinking. Some dose of Confucianism plus universalism a la Singapore is good for the world I think, but not China…
Some dose of European (Iberian) and American influence with a Hindu substrate, assimilating Islamic influences is the Philippines. Malaysia and Indonesia are Hindu+Islam+Europe. Vietnam and Thailand are India+China+Europe… the new global culture may be Southeast Asian…
Irineo,
predominance = the state of being more powerful or important than other people or things
could we say the US is also this ?
superiority = the quality or state of being larger, stronger, etc., than others
could we say the US is also this ?
if both are the same (China and US) i would have to conclude that China is following US pad
“Southeast Asia as a whole will have to find its own definition and not just be the pawn of others.”, so you are saying it would be better that the US would get out of Asia and let them solve the problems between them. After all they are Asians, valid point.
Cheers
China wants to define what Asia is by itself, alone, from a very limited own perspective.
Like the Japanese tried to do “for Asia” during World War 2 – and Southeast Asia suffered.
The USA is the best ally to keep China from dominating Asia, like against Japan during WW2.
France tried to define Europe alone under Napoleon and were stopped… so were the Germans much later with American help…
Russians also tried to define Europe by themselves, were kept out and pushed back with US help, allowing Europe to define its own identity and still fragile regional unity.
The goal for Southeast Asia should be the same as what has been achieved in Europe – the USA never was as dominating as Russia, Islam or China have been.
Irineo, I am confident you could deal with Marc, but I don’t want another set of propaganda posts dumped here, so I’m putting him into moderation. If he says anything constructive, I’ll publish it. Right now he is playing games.
Well, finally he – or THEY did help me formulate a more precise view of things… the world is in the process of finding its universal values… China is the furthest from any universal values.
Europe was helped by the USA, but also helped and is helping the USA in ENGAGING Russia and Islam, helping get them into the fold of the global civilization that may hopefully form…
Southeast Asia may have the same role towards China and Islam, helped by the USA – and also being helped by the EU. EU-ASEAN cooperation has been there for quite a while too.
The two most advanced of the five forces in today’s world can help integrate the less advanced, while Southeast Asia has the chance to become a sixth force if it does it right.
In fact Southeast Asia may grow to be even more advanced than Europe, since it has aspects of so many influences. Europe and South East Asia could raise both ends of the carpet Islam and help the USA tame Russia and China while helping keep US hawks from going too far.
Irineo,
Sorry i have some problems with your thoughts as previous you said:
“Southeast Asia as a whole will have to find its own definition and not just be the pawn of others.”
How could non Asians be more rational then Asians ?
Or it seems that you expect the worse, China invading some countries (like your reference Japan).
By the way, greetings from Sydney
Cheers
“. . .so you are saying it would be better that the US would get out of Asia and let them solve the problems between them. After all they are Asians, valid point.”
He didn’t say that, and you know it. Kindly tell us your nationality, where you are located, and what your interest is in the Philippines.
I’m curious what you mean by “short term interest of the U.S.”
As a matter of understanding where you are coming from with your brief remarks, would you be kind enough to let readers know your nationality, location and interest in the Philippines?
Best analysis of the China situation I have seen so far…
An interesting read. Unsettling — “waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
It is, and it’s a bit unnerving. I’ll use it as reference in a blog I am now writing about China. Thanks for bringing it in.
Off topic
Inquirer.net — Duterte leads in Metro poll (November 26th, 2015 12:31 AM)
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/742540/duterte-leads-in-metro-poll
Excerpts
—————————————————————————-
Metro Manila, the country’s economic and political center, prefers Davao City Mayor Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte —who is known for his tough stance on crime—as the next President.
…
Pulse Asia conducted face-to-face interviews with 300 respondents from Nov. 11 to 12, or less than two weeks before Duterte declared that he would seek the presidency in the May 2016 general elections.
…
The privately commissioned survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
…
It was only on Nov. 21 when Duterte declared his bid for the presidency at a private party in Dasmariñas, Cavite
Summary (Metro Manila only)
———– Nov 11-12– September
Duterte– 34————27
Poe——- 26————31
Binay—– 22————26
Roxas—- 11————13
Santiago- 7
Total—– 100———–97
—————————————————————————–
BREAKTIME
UN: 2015 set to be hottest year on record (10:11 PM, November 25, 2015)
http://www.rappler.com/science-nature/environment/114031-2015-hottest-year-united-nations
“GENEVA, Switzerland – The year 2015 is shaping up to be the hottest on record, the United Nation’s (UN) weather agency said Wednesday, November 25, days before a UN summit opens in Paris to craft a climate rescue pact.”
No wonder we have trolls galore — in the social media and in the candidates for the top national office in 2016.
It’s a month before Christmas and its hot like summertime! Campaign heat is also simmering!
Can’t believe you have 4 Republicans on your list Manong Joe. Maybe you forgot Gov. Christie? They need to get their act together.
Hi, Doc. He’s in the group of “whackos”, although he is moderate and that may be unfair. That’s where Bush is, too. They say outrageous things because they have to, lest they appear as not bold enough. That pressure is what has caught up to Bush in debates. Besides, the point really is the Philippine candidates.
Yup! Binay called Gerry Limlingan a very good friend. But when asked his whereabouts, Binay said he does not know. When asked if he is not worried about the safety of his friend. He replied that he does not know.
Binay is truly a work of art that is best seen in the places where you move your bowels.
what i can remember of the presidents.
cory….edsa, peping and joker run the show.
ramos…tabako and clark airbase arko, mag exercise tayo tuwing umaga
sr bush…read my lips no new taxes, kuwait liberator
erap…war with milf, nagbabakasyon from the presidency because of bad weather, mayor president
gma…i am sorry, hello garci 1M ba sigurado, kurakot proliferation, representative president
clinton…monica my dear, economic boom, budget surplus,
jr bush…on his watch 9/11, two wars (iraq and agfa), economic deboom, kept america safe per jeb
barak…obamacre, death of binladin and kadafi, birth of isis,
pnoy…cj ouster, hi profile politicos go to jail, kkk free passes, still single and looking
presidentiables:
trump… no monkey business, 3x a bunkrupt is no hairy feat and still a success, you’re fired
jejomar… overpriced, mercado my dear fren makati is my dynasty
duterte…mamatay kayo pag kayo ay loko loko
grace…ex american but with american dependents
hliary…i stand by my man, grandma
roxas…bpo, korinayolanda ang batang palengke
meriam…naniwala kayo eh, di naman talaga ako tatalon
cruz and rubio…hablo espanol amigos y amigas
carson…it takes a doctor to heal government, brain operator
jeb bush…i’ll fix it or i will hide in the bush
others***just asterisks
Ahahaha, I think, wangad, that you have just replicated the candidate selection process used by all voters except the whackos who write blogs or comment on them.
Like!!!
Reminds me of ” We did’nt start the Fire” by Billy Joel😝
Joe,
A trivial matter. But it shows how your troll-o-meter for Duterte, Poe, Binay, Santiago correlated rather well with the latest Pulse Asia survey (November 11-12) for METRO MANILA.
————PA—-JOE—–NH
Duterte—34—-96—–96.01
Poe——- 26—-88—–87.89
Binay—– 22—-85—–85.08
Santiago—7—-82—–81.99
Roxas—–11—-12—–81.67
The correlation equation:
NH = 0.0261(PA)^2 – 0.5510(PA) + 84.5691
CONCLUSION
1. My magician friend congratulates you and your broker Sal for a great job of getting those numbers which correlates well with the Pulse Asia latest survey which came AFTER your posting the blog.
2. Roxas according to my Magician friend is not a certified troll — NH number for him does not at all correlate with his troll number.
3. For the others, you are spot on — the greater the troll-ish behavior, the greater the PA numbers for Metro Manila which, among other areas, are most affected by the troll-ish behavior of the Candidates.
Isn’t that something, Joe? Doesn’t My Magician deserve some popcorn — he says he prefers it light on salt, but with a little pepper. (Crazy fellow; he also puts pepper in his milk.)
Astounding what great mathematical minds can concoct if given a little time to think. Kudos to your magician friend, and yourself for inspiring him to be all that he can be. Popcorn, light on salt with a little pepper. Well-earned.
Grace Poe does not appear to be a very forthright person. She claimed to be a Filipino citizen according to two real estate documents executed before she renounced her American citizenship. This should raise her trapo and troll factor a few notches.
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/545779/news/nation/polsci-prof-poe-may-have-pattern-to-misrepresent-factual-things
I think the lady is about two dozen candles short of a 25 candle chandelier, myself. Consider this character: vindictive (Purisima), not truthful (applications), unknowledgeable about the job for which she aspires (not understanding the commander in chief’s role, badgering of generals in public, revealing of state secrets; mamasapano), ignorant about what is being done (repeated promises that she will do what is being done already), manipulative (her twisting of facts and wild accusations, plus sob story, to get popular), poor judge of character in her associates, ambitious, opportunistic, lacking patriotic fervor (if she had it, she would not be ripping on government, but praising it and promising to build on it). Some credentials. But that’s just my take on it. Some still absolutely swoon over her.
Like the chandelier, analogy ? metaphor ?? . . .Sorry, I am just an English/Spanish lit. postgrad
dropout. Am a keen follower though. Happy turkey to your Sir ☺
Happy turkey too to Juana ☺☺
Thank you, mercedes. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, requiring only family togetherness and thanks. And food. 🙂
Happy fiesta to you, whenever is the proper time for that.
“Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we begin by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].” Abraham Lincoln
The Politics of Hate in America continues…
http://prospect.org/article/donald-trump-evidence-our-degeneracy
Even Jefferson believed that slaves would be better off returning to Africa..
He foresaw the problems of racism..
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b59d0c0a-25f9-11e4-8bb5-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3saMIPK86
The GOP candidates for President are glaringly doing the work of the Daesh Communication Strategy…The GOP candidates are the best recruiting agency for Daesh…
Duterte should be very careful.. repression can lead to more rebellion…
Marcos’s dictatorship caused many to become rebels who might not have been.
It also made me “Hoist the Colors”, like in this song from Pirates of the Carribean.
The flag of the Kabataang Makabayan… which I have rescinded because they used us.
But Parekoy has promised to go where his Bikol folks have been, in case Duterte does win.
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DlNRjt4rCymM&h=cAQGn0_mc
he may or may not do it, but injustice may lead to anger and more chaos is the lesson.
We are witness this year to two elections, one in the United States, and one in the Philippines. The leading candidates are all trolls. That is, they know how to play the emotional hot buttons, the simple one-liners that zing into the emotions of the audience and create passions . . . anger and the release of that anger.
========
I say, the ongoing US GOP primary election is the most outrageous one I’ve seen in recent years. And that’s because trolls (Trump and Carson) not only dominate the race but could also win it.
Fresh in mind was how the ‘Donald’ said that Sen. John McCain was not a hero or he’s a hero just because he was captured. Trump, who infamously questioned Obama’s birth origin recently said that Moslems in New Jersey City celebrated and rejoiced as they watched the Twin Towers came crushing down during the 9/11 attack. The Donald who has trolled a lot proves that it pays to be a troll. Not to be outdone is the famous surgeon Dr. Ben Carson. Well, I’m sure most of us here are already aware of the (outrageous) things Dr. Carson have said then up to now, the latest of which is how he compared the Syrian refugees to ‘rabid dogs’. I’m sure there is more to come from the two top trolls in US politics as they wind up the race. However, if the ongoing style of politics the two promotes continue to prevail I’ll not be surprise to see another democrat in the White House next year.
It is a sad spectacle to see how US politicians outdo each other by trolling and in the process make themselves look stupid and dumb. On the other hand, it could be the true reflection of what America is today. I never thought I’d see the land of the free and the beacon light of democracy reduced to having a freak show in a carnival-like atmosphere in selecting their future leaders. The whole exercise has become the modern version of a human zoo.
Shifting back home, to be honest, I don’t see trolls in the mold of Trump or Carson. Not yet, so far. What I’m seeing is the usual opportunists, the trapos who still clings to their worn out and old style of politics and newbies who really has nothing to offer but their poor selves. While US politics deteriorated, ours remained constant: dinghy, scrawny and dirty.
While the usual carnival atmosphere is slowly creeping in the freak show side like the US is having right now has yet to show its ugly face. So far, nothing that I’ve seen has astounded me. No trolls yet but a lot of pretenders and delusional characters in Philippine politics. 😶
So when Duterte says he will abolish Congress or have weekly executions, that is different from Trump exactly how? I agree that Poe and even Binay are trapos and playing the opportunistic game to the hilt . . . to the detriment of the nation . . . but are not trollish like Duterte. But their mistruths and manipulations are just as dangerous and just as potentially successful at putting bad leaders into power.
Duterte is not a troll. Duterte is a criminal, a human rights violator. Trump is an angel compared to him. The mayor of Davao is currently the worse candidate for the presidency because he has the mentality of a criminal.
Talk of abolishing Congress and having executions is an indication of someone who is a danger to the Republic. Definitely he’s not a troll. I wish he could have been just that. Duterte do not make controversial statements or insulting remarks or attack people for political points. He makes decision and act on it with the intent to injure or destroy or kill as the central idea in addressing problems.
I like Sen. Cayetano very much. I’ve followed his exploits in Senate committee hearings and admire his eloquence, knowledge of the law and his natural and simple demeanor that ordinary people relate to easily. I want him to be president in the future.
But I VEHEMENTLY disagree with him on Duterte. His decision to run with him as VP is the biggest mistake he has ever made. How can Cayetano do such a stupid decision? Was it out of desperation or was he trying to sabotage the election? How can Cayetano not see the danger that Duterte represents not only to the country but also to himself personally? 😧
Got it. Can’t argue at all. I was disappointed with Senator Cayetano. His ambition overruled his judgment. Same with Senator Santiago aligning with Senator Marcos, a decision that shredded any legacy of moral superiority that she might have had going.
I was disappointed with Senator Cayetano. – Joe
========
I’m devastated, lost and confuse as to Sen. Cayetano’s decision. Actually, I was piqued and felt a little anger inside of me on why a legislator I admire would want to partner with one who is known to be a gross violator of the law. 🙀
Why Trump may well win the Presidency…
Posted this in various FB groups:
Charlie A Agatep
15 mins · Mandaluyong ·
THE MRT PROBLEM, ACCORDING TO GRACE POE
Let’s agree with Senator Grace Poe when she said that “vision, planning, execution and leadership could have prevented the frequent breakdowns of the rickety MRT trains”. Fine.
But it was the build-lease-transfer contract between the Fidel Ramos administration and the private consortium of Robert Sobrepeña’s that is the root cause of the problem.
The anomalous contract guaranteed a 15 percent dollar-denominated annual return for 25 years, and had a provision which stipulated “only the private builder and not the government could buy the trains”.
That’s what Pnoy and Mar Roxas tried to get out of during Mar’s 15 months stint as DOTC chief from June 2011 to September 2012. As Mar said, he will need to abrogate the MRT contract, if he wins as president”.
My friend Mackoy Villaroman said it eloquently: “Akala kasi ng marami, pag naging presidente ka may bibigay sa iyong magic wand… Too bad that many people think this way… Marami sa problema natin ay legislation ang solusyon…”
It is not easy to get out of a legal contract like this one, especially with Sobrepeña. Look at the BCDA / Sobrepeña squabble at John Hay. With all their huge resources, the BCDA is in a bind up to now…. more than 5 years since the legal skirmish began.
Can Duterte, Binay or Miriam Santiago offer a quick solution?
Was Mar Roxas incompetent when he was DOTC chief?
Come on, man, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.
Sanders and Clinton side by side? I know the ranking is more art than science.
I’m a bit surprised. I like Joe’s thinking … So what is it to give those two such close rankings?
Congratulations, boatmik, I wondered if I was going to get caught on that. I put them both in the category of “playing politics” with simple and profound . . . maybe exaggerated . . . statements. It is not really trolling, but it is playing mind games. I get very little of that from Roxas and Robredo, who talk issues even when I think they would be better served ripping on people like Trump does or pounding out slogans. Maybe they are restrained prior to the official campaign season, and will get a higher “rating” later. You are right, it is art, not science, and I would probably accept your rating on Sanders and Clinton.
Trump maybe a troll but but sometimes you need a troll to counter a bigger troll. President Obama and his Democratic Party are dividing America along race lines by practicing anti-white hate and race baiting. Many honestly believe in their heart that he is anti American hate monger. He deserves to be hated and harassed by trolls like Trump. What comes around goes around.