Yellow “elitism” is a myth created by trolls
By JoeAm
Former President Aquino, and Yellows in general . . . who today include any critic of the Duterte Administration, most of them being advocates of the Constitution, democracy, human rights, and civility . . . are often labeled as “elitist”. This is meant to suggest that they are arrogant and out of touch with the common Filipino citizen.
I offer as evidence to the contrary this impassioned statement of US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez yesterday. You can easily insert the drug war slaughter and the tens of thousands of new Filipino fatherless kids into the speech in place of climate change and its damages. And you can easily substitute Filipinos for Americans, for the argument fits like a perfectly sized glove.
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The issue is not elitism.
The issue is about the rule of law, compassion, and what what science says about drugs and drug treatment.
Those calling others names are the real elitists, for they pretend to be on a moral high pedestal when they are not. They are merely tossing out slanders to win an argument, an approach that does nothing to solve the problem. They are trolls. Destructionists. Not builders.
The challenge is to put the politics and self-promotion down and get to work. Like the esteemed Ocasio-Cortez demands.
The challenge is to get smart. And get to work taking care of one another.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
True!
Spot on, Joe! The Dark Forces have demonized the color yellow to create an insidious FALSE DICHOTOMY, which they have been foisting on the Filipino people ever since the vile dictator was booted out.
Yes, and the difficulty remains, okay, how do yellows overcome the label. I suppose a fiery legislator like Ocasio-Cortez would do it, but none is in sight. I don’t see enough outrage, frankly. The press loves a good explosion, but the yellows are so polite.
There should be no dichotomy, both sides have their elite (who maybe elitist or not) and their poor.
Both sides have their mistakes, but one side is not owning to those mistakes and that is the current administration. In problem resolutions what is done after the fact is all that matters, here we just blame each other till kingdom come with no action at all.
Sure analysts say only Mar will make it to the magic 12, what are we gonna do about it?
If supporters of the Otso Diretso would refrain from voting any of the PDP-Laban Candidates, and the Hugpong Candidates, and instead just write in all the Otso Diretso candidates names, and leave 4 spots blank, it would have the effect of not adding to the totals of PDP-Laban’s and Hugpong candidates.
That is what I will do. Thanks.
Come on joe you are being unfair. Being elitist is a bigger sin than killing more than 20000.
Supporting the killer president is more important than the rule of law.
Giving the bird to european and american elites is more important than human rights.
Get your head right joe. You are being an elitist gordon again.
Hi, giancarlo. You could make good money if you could set your conscience aside. Glad you can’t and are a quality yellow. 🙂
*****
1. Every now and then, I find I have to refer to the dictionary to get the exact meaning of a word.
2. Take the word “elitist.”
adjective: elitist
1. relating to or supporting the view that a society or system should be led by an elite.
3. That’s a great help. What does “elite” mean?
noun: elite
1. a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society.
4. Great. It’s not much of a help, is it? What exactly are those “ability or qualities?”
5. If I look around, it seems to me that the elite who think they are superior to the rest of society could be:
5.1. The president, his cabinet, and his spokesman
5.2. The senators and reps
5.3. The justices of the Supreme Court
5.4. The economic and social aristocracy
5.5. The DDS
5.6. And, yes, the Yellows
6. If we go back to the definition in item 2 and determine who is leading society, we could conclude that the real elite is an aggregate composed of the groups in 5.1 down to 5.3. This aggregate is the political elite. No ifs or buts, the real elite is the Duterte administration.
7. And what is the ability or qualities of this elite?
7.1. I would say their ability is the ability to exercise power and their qualities are to wreak havoc. Precisely because they do not adhere to the Constitution.
8. The issue is not elitism. The issue is how the current elite exercises power. Rather than being superior, they are inferior to the norms established in the Constitution.
8.1. Read the Preamble and see how far the Duterte administration has twisted our dreams and how far we have strayed:
” We, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Almighty God, in order to build a just and humane society, and establish a Government that shall embody our ideals and aspirations, promote the common good, conserve and develop our patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our posterity, the blessings of independence and democracy under the rule of law and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace, do ordain and promulgate this Constitution.” [Bolding mine.]
8.2. Read it… and weep.
*****
Weeping is a stage before accepting or fighting, I think. Excellent clarification on what elitism means. In your context, even if Yellows are smarter and kinder than the rest, it is a brand of elitism that is good because they can (hypothetically) represent the nation’s Constitutional conscience and better strive for solutions to the problems than the brutal, thuggish, denial of rights way of an authoritarian elitist state.
Still, we’d do better to set the condemnations aside and work on building something.
Hmm. My favorite word, love, is in the Preamble. Good to be reminded.
THE ADVOCACY AND THE PASSION
Rather than spout sleep-inducing statistics that I may be prone to do, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made that impassioned plea on Climate Change, supporting her speech with down-to-earth facts coming from actual climate related events in some states of the US. Not that she does not have those statistics — I am sure her staff have prepared them for her reading since making it her advocacy.
Go go go AOC!
[She reminds me of Sen De Lima and the less impassioned Sen Trillanes.]
She reminds me of what I imagine a young Miriam Santiago could have been, under the right circumstances. Fire, brains, values.
I’d put her up with President Obama in oratory skills. I’ve not seen that kind of verbal firepower in the Philippines.
*****
The closest I’ve seen is ex-CJ Sereno.
*****
Yes, but I’m not sure she is an organizer like AOC whose staff are aggressive and capable and keep her informed and sounding intelligent. That organization seems missing with all the pro-democracy advocates. They work alone, in the main, and trust in God, in the main. Of course, AOC has a budget and it appears the yellows have none, which is really quite a statement of where the oligarchs and money families are. In hiding.
AOCs speed and alertness are typical of people in the restaurant business, especially in fast cities like New York where you can’t afford to sleep, but have to be ready and react.
Of course having a staff in the background makes a huge difference. I wonder how many staff US Congresspeople get paid as opposed to FIlipino Congresspeople like Alejano – Germany I think pays one full-time staffer and one secretary per MP, which is good backup.
This is BTW the library building of the German Parliament, yes expensive, but I doubt the new Philippine Senate will have one. While the US does have its famous, and huge, Library of Congress. Knowledge is indeed power, so what is a people that votes Pacqiuao?
They’ll probably have display cases for boxing trophies and acting awards.
Interesting point, yes, Manhattan is a high pressure, high power place to work. Senators here have sizable staff, I think. I don’t know about reps. Where is Andrew Lim when you need him? Or Karl might know.
I still think AOC is good because her staff are good. Her inquisition of Cohen was brilliantly organized. Clearly legalistic. The Republicans try to say she is nothing because her staff do all the work, and she responded by saying her staff were indeed great. She kicks her critics in the nuts every time they try to pick on her. It is wonderful to watch.
“I still think AOC is good because her staff are good.”
It still takes a certain form of leadership to get the right stuff out of good staff. She has it.
Yep.
Edgar,
I am disappointed you do not see the oratory genius of the president’s 2 hours plus ramblings.
🙂
I guess you are very satisfied with Panelo. 😉
You wil be very disappointed with this article.
https://amp.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/3003379/philippines-support-mounts-south-china-sea-crimes-against
*****
🙂
*****
Every piece I read in the Society of Honor makes me feel my mind is still growing, 50-60 years of memories being fertilized and enriched with new vision, new philosophy and new science. I tend to believe that OLD MEMORIES—not the new and recent ones—is the fountain of wisdom with only the speech of US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez being a rare exception.
So, okay what do old memories tell me in relation to the blog at bar about elitism? The Guidon of my ROTC Coy in Los Banos (yabang na naman) was emblazoned with the capital word: ELITE COMPANY, so unlike those Guidons (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, etc.) of the other six Coys of two regiments. The cadets wear modest grey berets and that was long before UP ROTC Model Companies cadets were dressed with the KKK rayadillos.
I did not think much of the word elite then than now. I thought we were different from all the other companies; we were the honor guard of visiting foreign and local dignitaries. We escort them from the College gate to the parade ground to render the honors. I thought then that the model company should be different, in marching precision, in the handling of weapons, in military appearance and behaviour.
Every Wednesday drill day, they should come with a new white sidewall haircut and should attempt to outshine my shoes and metal parts. They are not given demerits, just sent home. The cadets did not even wonder about the word elite and just accepted being the EXAMPLE for the cadet corps. To confirm or confute this eche bucheche, ask our Corps Commander Dr. Rey Lantin, former Dean of UPLB College of Agric Eng. Or ask my company sergeant, Johnny Singson, the kuya of former DPWH Sec Roger Singson.
For the words they use and murder, meanings are in the kinds of people. In a healthy and intelligent society, the word elite could be a badge of honor.
All is fair in love and war and in politics. It is understandable, any one can be crazy and madly in love, rational or suicidal in war and be wise or moron in politics. All is fair in all the three, period. I was, and still is naïve in my understanding of political ideologies. I tend to believe similarities of being liberal and democrat on the left side of the continuum; of being republican and conservative and the right side. Corrupt or authoritarian practices are not and cannot be considered as ideology.
These bifurcated ideologies become the distinguishing clear-cut philosophy, principles and guide to action of political aggrupation or political parties. To be in between smacks of opportunism or political infantilism. Old and younger thriving democratic societies like the UK, France, USA, Canada, Australia adhere to the contrasting tenets of governance with choice and consent of the people.
In these countries I have observed that the conservative or republicans are LIKELY the have-more in all aspects of life while the liberals or democrats are pre-occupied in helping the have-nots or have-less in life. Liberals and Democrats always try to champion the common people. The ideology demarcates between pro human poor and pro-progress regardless. By their way of life and economic status, theoretically republicans and conservatives are more elitist and examples of decent living while the liberals and democrats remain pro-poor in need of government assistance and are hardly elitists. Leaders in both left and right ideology are most often better of than their followers and can be considered elites.
How come then that in the Philippines the Liberals (ideologically pro-poor) and their Dilawan followers are accused of elitism because of a few rich leaders while and when those throwing accusations do not even have a political ideology as a political party. Is it because there is no clear-cut Conservative or Republican party? The proliferation of pseudo political parties could be the mutant offspring of pseudo ideology like Martial Law? Is Martial Law a crime against society. Can any government legally, morally justify wholesale displacement of residents and the massive physical destruction of a city because of localized rebellion.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a Democrat advocating the tenets and platform of a Liberal. Is she a Dilawan Elitist then?
I might need to search for my lectures on the Elite Theory (Model) of Public Policy.
In developed countries, these two main directions are pushed by real political parties, which like trade unions are associations with card-carrying, voting, dues-paying member that can at least put pressure on the established professionals in the national organizations.
German Christian Democrats will be the more traditional, often churchgoing people, often more from the small towns or the better parts of town, German Social Democrats will often be working-class or their children, often from the big towns and city centers.
There is some start of a real political party among the supporters of Otso Diretso, but mainly political parties in the Philippines were platforms for political families and those not part of the rich families were mere supporters, not true participants in the political process.
PLUS: you have liberalism with it’s two aspects: economic and political.
1) economic liberalism is the belief in as little state control of business as possible – the extreme being neoliberalism. Both major parties in Germany are not that liberal:
1a) Christian Democrats especially the small-town ones are in favor of limiting big business in favor of small business. For example zoning laws to prevent large malls from destroying family businesses. Taxi regulation to keep Uber out of most taxi business.
1b) Social Democrats will be in favor of limiting flexibility of employment to securing fixed jobs for employees, making it harder to remove long-time employed people. Also they were the ones to institute minimum wage in Germany recently.
1c) Christian and Social Democrats are both for shop-closing laws which make it less necessary for retail to have part-time employees to fill off-hours, and easier for them to keep full-time employees. Most shops in Bavaria close at 8 p.m. and are fully closed Sundays.
2) political liberalism is the belief that in as little control by the state as possible.
2a) all Continental Europe (as opposed to UK, US and I think other Anglo-Saxon countries) have municipal registries of who lives in a place, and national IDs. Some freedom is sacrificed for efficiency, including a clear source of voter lists, no registration needed.
2b) Unlike the US with its 1st Amendment, Germany has accurate but strict libel laws. Defensive democracy is democracy that has learned the lessons of it’s self-destruction.
3) There are German liberals, called Free Democrats. Their color is yellow, they were the ones who invited VP Leni to South Africa and Berlin – and they rarely have above 10%. They are a mix of economic liberals (rich people and startup owners, I know one of the latter) and a few political liberals who have done a good job of preventing the two major parties from going too far on the control freak level. Often they are in coalition with the winning party, if that party does not have enough seats for a majority, so they are seen as turncoat/trapos.
Who cares who wrote this article, NH also noticed that China does not have heavy investments in Latin America (and Afrca?) yet many are in a debt trap.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/120408/duterte-and-china-its-worse-than-debt-trap/amp
I think inflating the page views of someone silently assisting normalizing/legitimizing trolls and trollish behavior is not the right thing to do.
No new insight or original view in his book and the article karl. See the book China’s Silent Army.
Understood.
Sorry if it came out strong. We are a free country we can read what we want.
Ok lang Gian , I understand.
From this review:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/11/chinas-silent-army-review-powerful-investigative-journalism
Originally published in Spain in 2011, this powerful piece of investigative journalism, translated by Catherine Mansfield, reveals the extent of “China’s conquest of the planet”. From Africa to Latin America, China’s sphere of economic influence is expanding rapidly. Faced with a wall of silence from the Chinese authorities, journalists Cardenal and Araújo embarked on a two-year “fabulous and dangerous adventure” to explore this topic, travelling to 25 countries, from the copper mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the iron mines of Peru to the gas-rich deserts of Turkmenistan. Between 2005 and 2012, Chinese companies invested a staggering $460bn around the world, mostly in developing nations. Driven by the need to maintain growth rates above 8% in order to maintain social stability, China is buying up natural resources and investing massively in foreign firms. The authors reveal that this investment often comes at a terrible cost for the exploited local labour and environment. Chillingly, they argue that China’s growing dominance is “destined to change the lives of every one of us”.
Good. RH writes a nuanced or balanced article about China’s investment and geopolitical aim on the Philippines, throwing in the wisdoms of Malaysia’s PM Mahathir and our Senior Assoc Justice Carpio. RH rightly titles his Inquirer article, Duterte and China: It’s worse than ‘debt trap’
Thanks, NH!
Except one thing. For someone who has such a beard worthy of a diabolical strategist, RH is missing the geostrategic aspect of why China wants to have the Philippines in its color.
One is to restrict US access to the South China Sea. Second is to have a place from which it can badger Taiwan from the South. Third: in go, “two eyes live”.
Is Locsin right when he said Mutual Defense is we defend Americans and they defend us.
Something like that.
Many are joining the band wagon that the US was too slow to act, even RH.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2184390/how-washingtons-ambiguity-south-china-sea-puts-philippine-us
He is right. There are actually two treaties, one for each nation, each obligated to defend the other. I remember researching that several years ago. I think that is what Lorenzana may want to get out of so that the Philippines does not have to fight if the US and China get into fisticuffs. Not that Duterte would follow the treaty anyway.
Thank you again, Joe.
Karl, why do you think the Chinese will NOT attack the Flying Dutchman, I mean the BRP Sierra Madre? Not because it’s crew is undead, or mostly unshaven. It is because a direct attack as opposed to the usual pushouts could invoke the MDT.
Yup, thanks.
The article I will cut paste is at first I thought was nonsense, but as I read further, it made sense.
https://business.inquirer.net/267313/how-to-give-china-pause
Elitism is multi-layered..
1) it can be based on merit/performance.
2) it can be based on a sense of moral superiority, of being the one true belief. Some hardcore Protestants say “Catholics lie”..
3) it can be based on a sense of social superiority, meaning snootiness.
An old school American elitist (East Coast) could snidely mention AOCs Brooklyn accent.
Part 1 of 3..
Correction: snootiness.
Filipino anti-elitism is as old as Spanish times, it is in principle rebelling against the idea that some should have more rights than others..
..but it often also is anti-excellence/smartness, anti-morals and anti-manners – seeing all as representing 1-3.
PART 2 of 3
While elitism in the Philippines may have components like these:
a) “the masses are too stupid and don’t need that much education anyway”
b) “the masses have no morality anyway and are beyond salvation”
c) “the masses do not understand respect or good manners at all”.
Now while there may still be some yellow elitists (I think there are few left) there are I think more elitist DDS. Even Duterte speaking to the masses like they are animals is c).
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While I disagree with MRP, some of the anti-elitist sentiment in the Philippines is from UP.
This has to do with the times when scholars from poor families went there – while the “blue-bloods” went to Ateneo, while Chinese mestizos went to La Salle.
UP anti-elitism never was truly anti-elitist, it was I think just the birth of a new elite faction that deemed itself more legitimate, being meritocratic to some extent.
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The old US elite was the East Coast, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Not even Jewish people were accepted in the old school American banks, and thus were to be found more in riskier investment banking in the 1990s.
Nearly all US Presidents were “WASPs”. Lincoln was not, being born poor. Kennedy was the first Catholic US President but was shaped by Boston, a snooty place par excellence. Jimmy Carter the first Southerner, Clinton originally poor, then Obama of course.
There are of course those who say the liberal meritocracy in the US is just as snooty as the old WASP elite, and will not give a workingman the time of day with their Ivy League degrees, nor care for their needs. But AOC knows what work is. So much for that.
PART 3 of 3.
“Now while there may still be some yellow elitists (I think there are few left) there are I think more elitist DDS. Even Duterte speaking to the masses like they are animals is c).”
Yes, agree totally.
Hooray! The country will have a population of 109 million by the end of 2019. The better to have more dollar-earning OFWs; and the better to serve the needs of the country’s elites and leaders — including the country and citizens of the PH Master from across the seas.
More, more, more!
More single parents, more sibling/parents. Woohoo!
With the fertlity rates down meaning many are siring a dozen children but othrt couples hoping to adopt from the couples with many children.
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-huawei&ei=JnidXP_OKf3UmAWmhqjwBg&q=philippines+fertility+rates&oq=philippines+fertility+rates&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.3..0i71l5.0.0..5032…0.0..0.0.0…….0.F7QxPAQo5K0
karl, I am providing this chart from the link you posted.
They whine about the so-called “LP elite” when current news reports say otherwise, what with the political elite of this regime exercising their vulgar display of power, dismantling checks and balances, creating fiefdoms, calling in favors, ab damnatio to dissidents, and anything else Byzantine.