IF YOU INSIST ON IDEOLOGICAL PURITY YOU WILL LOSE EVERY BATTLE
by Andrew Lim
We start with a politically incorrect joke:
Gays for Gaza: Yipee, we’re so happy all the tall buildings in Gaza are gone.
Hamas: Why?
Gays for Gaza: Because you can’t throw us off them anymore.
First time I heard it, I doubled in laughter. And relieved, too I wasn’t a public figure nor still fighting in the trenches of activism. Because I would have been rebuked and cancelled. Which brings us to the central point of this essay: If the progressives/left persist in ideological/personal purity they will lose every battle. Full stop.
Former US President Obama said it so well in 2019: “This idea of purity, and you’re never compromised, and you’re always politically woke, and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly,” Obama said. “The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws.”
“Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb … then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself. Because man, you see how woke I was,” Obama said. “You know, that’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change.”
Personally, I pride myself in having stood on the right side of history with regards to Bongbong’s father. I also take pride in standing with Joe in the various issues raised here, specially during Pnoy’s time. We can take small credit for that. But to be honest with everyone, I have had so many flaws, from misogynous statements to making fun of LGBTQ+. If there were social media back then, I would have been outed and blacklisted.
Let’s take a look at the US political landscape for the 2024 presidential election. I’m betting Trump would win, and it won’t be close. Not because he’s a good person, or who has good plans, but because the Democrats, the left, the progressives disintegrated, paving an easy path for Trump.
Biden’s handling of Israel? A huge segment of his 2020 supporters insists on ideological purity – the youth, Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ+ are mad and willing to drop him and to hell with a Trump return as long as they “stood under the right flag no matter the consequences”. Fools, if you ask me.
Those Ivy League university presidents who made a mess of themselves trying to explain their lack of response to antisemitism? That’s your woke turning into choke. While intellectuals will have the bandwidth to understand their “calling for genocide is context dependent” it simply doesn’t fly with the general population. For me, it was the first time I saw being woke for these people meant being so out of touch. Outrage for civilian suffering in Gaza? Where’s the outrage for the Oct 7 attack? Where’s the outrage for building tunnels and positioning war materiel in schools, hospitals and mosques? How blinkered can one get?
Make a list of all the allies who have been cancelled thus far: from Al Franken to David Chappelle to Kevin Hart to the Cuomo brothers. You think pruning down the bench will strengthen the left? Who’s left with the Left? Ocasio Cortez? That lady is feisty and admirable but her style will lead nowhere and decimate the ranks – Alexandria is the Karen of the Democrats.
Place yourselves in the shoes of Israel. You think they would still exist if they had chosen a 100% purer than Ivory soap strategy in dealing with their enemies? When the other side has declared that their goal is to eliminate all Jews and has rejected all peace talks and compromise, then it is justified to take them out first – the threat has become existential.
Let’s go to our local scene. This may rankle some of us, particularly our kuya Wil. When I joined the Leni campaign, it gradually dawned on me: this group is incredibly naïve and some were so ignorant on how to navigate political battles. They were waging a war based on one’s morality and classified people into politically correct or incorrect. It was an unwinnable strategy based on a feel-good purity of one’s self but ignored how the masses -poor, ignorant, terrible memories and poor learners would vote based on fear, ignorance, gullibility and a hope no matter how remote that things can change for the better. The last-minute house to house and street performances were admirable but was not designed to win.
Personal anecdote: after attending the Leni rally in Macapagal and while crossing Roxas back to the hotel, I heard one vendor shout: “Dumadaan na mga mayayaman (the rich are passing through) …” He was terribly wrong of course, but that’s not what matters.
What mattered was how to deal with that in order to win the election, not being pure or correct. Using the Israel example, this means dealing with Hamas no matter how harsh the side effects will be.
Globally, progressives are in retreat. Not because people stopped caring about what is right, but because the “woke” insist on ideological/personal purity at the expense of ignoring real problems that people face.
Image generated by having the article summarized and asking Dall-E to generate an image from the summary.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
Satire par excellence…
hahahaha, that was funny! and thank the lord, the nurse was not pinay. though lots of donated money stayed in gaza. to fund hamas’ underground extracurricular activities like those kilometers of concrete tunnels reinforced with heavy duty steel, wide enough for armored vehicles to go through; plus above ground, all those high powered guns and pistols, and rounds of ammunition hidden behind X-rays machines in hospitals there, no wonder hospitals were militarized, duly lost their protected status, and bombed. some hospitals were found to have underground tunnels too.
anyhow, the vid did not say that the trio of hamas bosses may have allegedly owned al jazeera news albeit in circuitous way. apparently, no news platform is more passionate than al jazeera as regards the war started by hamas against israel.
I had followed al jazeera on Twitter as a good counter point to western news, but they went banshee after the Hamas attack and I dropped them. So much hostility.
one of hamas bosses based in dohah, qatar, ismael haniyeh, has overseen 5 arab and israeli wars, and israel has won all 5 wars.
and now, haniyeh is into his 6th arab and israeli war. it was said haniyeh is most brutal that even mamoud abbas, the current president of palestine, hated him. though they have to be civil to each other as both are muslim.
incidentally, after hamas incursion into israel in 7th october, poll survey found 76 per cent of palestinians seemingly support hamas. it was alleged hamas paid off palestinian terrorists languishing in israeli jail. so much so that when polled, young palestinians readily said they would kill jews too (and avail of the payments?).
Evilest of the evils, for sure.
in case readers are unaware, the Mia Khalifa referred to is an adult video star, whose pro-Palestine social media posts are hysterically funny and dumb like the Gays for Gaza, because they’re the ones who won’t survive Hamas intolerance. Ironically, the only country in the Arab region who’s tolerant of their kind or profession is Israel!
Greta Thunberg is almost in the same category (dumb and funny) because she has put the environmentalist cause in question due to her pro-Palestince stance.
gotta love greta, she must find those underground subterranean environment, the concrete tunnel 500kms long in gaza to be awesome. had greta urged hamas to surrender, the hamas/israeli war would have stopped and her beloved palestinians saved. 2months on, probly too late for surrender now, the war will see its bitter end.
If you look at the “related” tab below, there is a link to a previous blog dated Nov 24 2012 ” When Lies become Facts”. Eleven years ago, this was written by today’s moderator, giancarloangulo. I’ve completely forgotten about it, and it turns out I was even the first commenter. His comments are still spot-on. This blog is really a wonderful resource.
Terrific article, Andrew. Humans have lost their humanity, preferring to fight the 100% battle than welcome the “impure”. So much anger in social media. Media survival requires, not objectivity or a moral platform, but emotions. Horrible undermining of decency. The ugly American has returned, much more hideous than ever before.
this was written by someone else. problem with migrating administrator/blog owner.
90 to 100 percent written by Joe himself.
The small percentage are for the guest contributors.
distantobserver perhaps
Many thanks, Andrew. I am a bit too mentally exhausted to comment on USA or Israel, or even Ukraine for that matter.
As for Germany, the ideologically pure shutdown of all nuclear power – including the extremely modern Isar 2 plant north of Munich – may yet destroy the industrial base. Well, Bavaria can buy nuclear power from the Czech Republic while Baden-Wurttemberg where Mercedes is can but nuclear power from neighboring France. Ideological purity is magnificent, so maybe the Philippines can find a few retired German nuke operators, give them housing in Cebu. 😉
As for Will, he has done a lot in terms of standing up against injustices like Leila de Lima in jail, the attempted jailing of Sonny Trillanes etc etc. – still it did strike me that believing Pink was cheated but having just indications not proof doesn’t help, nor that Amb. Cusia is good. What you observed about the sidewalk vendor after the Leni rally is a most important indicator for what actually happened on May 9, 2022 – and for WHY it happened.
That Pink still HAS the support of a very popular figure like Regine Velasquez – Liwanag sa Dilim was the encore of a recent concert she held – shows that there is more behind the loss. No fan of Ben and Ben dislikes that super popular band for being Pink either, so what gives?
Notwithstanding all this, I wish all of us Happy Holidays and a better 2024. Or hopefully a not too terrible 2024, given the difficult times we are in nowadays.
In regards to the US, I think, and I hope and pray that you are incorrect! Against Trump, I think Biden will win, although by A small margin! As for here in Pinas, you are 100% correct, IMHO!
if biden is granted a 2nd term, he had better a very good vice president in case he conked out halfway through, just kidding!
but as my friends say, USA can weather all. as for phillippines, I believe filipinos can self correct, compensate in some way and adapt.
as for dabaw mafia’s mantra of walang laglagan, they have seemingly laglag the philippines and will in turn, be laglag. here’s hoping.
Superb article.
Being dogmatic should not be automatic.
Ideologues should not be en vogue.
The party of the left is the party of the working class. That is its ideological base. The issue of identity politics (women’s rights, gays, blacks, Latinos, immigrants, etc.) is a distraction from the bread and butter issues of wages, income inequality, homelessness, labor organizing, and capitalist exploitation.
So it’s not so much that the left gets a beating at the polls lately because of insistence to ideological purity. It gets trumped precisely because it sold out on its ideological raison d’etre.
And there’s no one better exemplifying this great betrayal than Barrack Obama himself when he sold his soul to the mammon gods of Wall Street. Although. of course, to be fair the great capitulation and dancing with the devil was largely initiated during Bubba’s reign.
That’s the reason why the Donald managed to eke out a win in 2016 and it’s still the same reason why he’s poised to capture the seat once more next year because genocidal Joe has no qualms pouring billions into Ukraine and Israel while the working and middle class Americans continue being tethered to precarity.
I’ve been told there was so much foreign interference last american election won by trump. the coming american election is probly much of the same with foreign interference again to the fore. though old joe will probly win by a narrow margin. despite all that is said and done, methink USA has enough reserve to see itself through.
Foreign interference charge is largely unsubstantiated and is more like blame shifting on the part of Democrats who were too shocked that Madam Hillary lost by a whisker to an uncouth snake oil peddler.
The hand wringing over Dems’ failure to gauge voter sentiment in the swing states resulted in infantile reaction to look for something (or somebody) to blame instead of going into self reflection to determine the real cause of defeat.
But, not to worry, Colorado already started the ball rolling for Trump’s disqualification in the next year’s ballot. Everything needs to be done to prevent the stupid animal from taking the White House again.
. . . and the land of the brave!
yay, christmas comes early for dearest trump. I’ve heard the supreme court of colorado has officially cast the 1st stone: trump is not fit and proper person to be in the state’s ballot.
merry christmas to you po, micha.
Before I keep on asking you what makes neoliberalism the jiggers and baddest wolf their is but you did answered me numerous times and of course I was enlightened.
I just think if there is governance my moderation and tempered all ideals then go for that.No use dismissing or include the baby with the bath water.
I’ve copied below from google:
How does neoliberalism affect the poor?
Globally, the rolling out of neoliberal policies has led to a additional of harmful socioeconomic consequences, including increased poverty, unemployment, unproductive labour force, and deterioration of income distribution (Rotarou and Sakellariou 2017; Collins et al
Neo-liberalism is a term that means absolutely nothing to 99.9% of the population, and means different things to the rest, depending on how they want to spin it. It’s a word to avoid. Better to just swear. 99.9% understand that.
They don’t understand the concept and term but they’re swimming in it. Soaked and marinated.
It’s like you don’t really understand EDSA traffic while your vehicle is stuck in Timog crossing.
Ah, yes, that’s true. We don’t know what we don’t know, but are confident that we know it. Strange bit of reasoning, that. My own view is that life in the US is really good for a whole lot of people. That can get a bit distorted if we start to hunt out all the torn threads in the holiday sweater, and think that they are the whole of the sweater. Neo-liberalism exists as an output to flawed people doing their best, and us having our good lives tarnished by some of the outputs. Torn threads. Good sweater nonetheless.
I don’t think the sweater simile or metaphor is accurate.
Neoliberalism is not just an aberration (torn) in the system. IT IS THE SYSTEM ITSELF.
Not knowing or understanding it is like living in USSR from 1924 to 1953 and not understanding what Stalinism is.
Ah, so it is the sweater itself. Hmmm. Capitalism, a business system. Democracy, a way to select leaders and govern to the Peoples’ demands. And neo-liberal ideas that are the netting that links them, advocating free markets, globalization, and individual accountability/competitive drive. It has fostered income inequality, abuse of the environment, and social unrest. Its application may be positive in some states or circumstances, and negative in others. That’s my synopsis of Bard’s explanation of the term
I suppose socialism is the antidote, or LCX’s concept of minimizing use of things, going for simplicity. Then we have another netting, the internet, dirty information, and new tech like AI imposing new pressure points.
I guess I think enlightened neo-liberalism might be the best way forward, but there are no such enlightened leaders anywhere.
We’re screwed.
ay, kaming mga pulubi have inkling of the existence of the monster, we just dont know its proper name but most of us know who its practitioners are. coz some of us work for them and their families: clean their toilets, do their laundry, mind their kids, cook them dinner, etc.
kung tutuusin at may mga umpong kami and go on strike, the nation will be brought on its knees! the country will stink to the high heavens! garbage on the streets left uncollected and attracting vermins and rodents and spreading diseasaes and making people sick, barado at overflowing ang kubeta much to the annoyance of everybody, no one to mind their kids and the poor tykes are panicking. where’s my yaya! where’s my school uniform! how am I to go to school!
in short, we know our place and our importance and we are valued. money is not everything.
maligayang pasko! at masagang bagong taon!
and if I were to give a gift to pbbm, I will give him the book, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, coz he is always traveling.
I wonder if he reads. I think possibly not. I’d give him Kafka’s “The Castle” for outlining the stark absurdities his agencies impose on citizens. Customs, Immigration, LTO, Education, LGUs, a rats nest of nonsense and waste.
well you tend to use words without measurable meaning. What is neoliberal? seems it is anything we dont like.
What is the solution. Anything I like although I can never say anything to pin it down? hmm inflation is nothing said by your heroes hello inflation. but but government money printing is not important.
index to reality. index to something that can be tested. Measure then adjust. complaining is not a solution.
Inflation was tamed by Biden. If anything the reason he is losing is because people don’t think he has the mental chops at his advanced age. I can totally see Biden winning if he just appears vigorous during the campaign periods.
Let us make this productive.
What are the neoliberal policies you are against.
I’ll start. Forcibly opening up economies not ready for i
@giancarlo
That is why it’s called political economy. You just cannot tie down an economic discipline by itself without marrying it to a political movement. The neoliberal rampage took decades in the making, brought into the fore by Reagan and Thatcher which was germinated by Austrian (Hayek) and Chicago (Friedman) schools where the boys took it to Chile and, with the help of CIA, ousted Allende in a coup to install the right wing dictator Pinochet ushering in the political component of privatization, austerity, and deregulation. That whole movement then spreads its tentacles everywhere cemented by globalization (Clinton initiatives) not even sparing the still in the crib EDSA republic of the early 90s where El Tabako gave the GATT and IMF dictated policies a cherry top decoration on the neoliberal pudding.
To reverse that malevolent storm also requires a movement in the political economy through progressivism and revival of Rooseveltian economics. It is never a one person affair. Progressive leaning groups need to also sync into the goal and to mobilize and expose rampant destruction of govt led programs, institutions, and initiatives resulting in, among others, mass poverty, perversion of politics, and ecological wreckage.
@Joe
And many still can’t seem to connect the broad implication of neoliberal framework to the coming into power of rogue autocrats like Duterte as well as, now, the dictator’s son.
That it was the environment of mass poverty and government ineptitude created by neoliberal regime all through 30 years after EDSA uprising which drove desperate voters to try anything remotely different from the established and, in their perception at least, rigged and rotten status quo.
The solution is not some rebranding of enlightened neoliberalism because its very nature wrecks social cohesion, highly divisive, and fosters capitalist greed to the detriment of country and ecological health.
What is the solution?
I prefer an activist role for the gov’t – a Rooseveltian response to a crisis because, make no mistake, with two wars raging and a possible conflagration elsewhere (like, I don’t know, maybe in WPS?) as well as the very real and consequential threat of climate change, governments cannot afford to be passive and just leave everything to free market orthodoxy. In times of crisis, free market slithers – crumbles – reduced to helpless wreck begging for a bailout.
Half a dictator. I think it would be best, and probably the only alternative to a Trump reign of terror, if Democrats were to take control of the presidency and both legislative houses to begin a new era of social progressiveness. I am tired of the wobbles and noise of democracy, and agree that a firm, enlightened hand would be better. Trump is not it.
this is not accurate. in a crisis the free market goes into overdrive taking profits, making money that is why the government should be strong enough to regulate. when the government is too strong like one party cities like San Francisco you get the cesspool that San Francisco is. The key is always balance and in our world balance cannot be found right now
Very interesting observation. A dictator indeed emerges out of the extreme ranges of the normal curve and fails because he can’t satisfy the normal curve so institutions break down. Micha likely wants a socialist/progressive President or semi-dictator, but that would fail, too, for being ‘out of balance’ as you so brilliantly put it.
Best antidote to Trump madness is to go full on progressive. And yet Pres. Biden hesitates, so here we are, Donny’s the frontrunner.
this is wishful thinking
going full progressive would mean he loses. Biden won because he was not Trump.
@giancarlo
I don’t know what crisis you had in mind but I should have specified in reference to Roosevelt the Great Depression and, in recent times, the 2008 subprime mortgage bleeding. In both instances, your free marketing bankers got whacked after taking in too much and has to be resuscitated (bailed out) by public money of Uncle Sam.
well you tend to use words without measurable meaning. What is neoliberal? seems it is anything we dont like.
What is the solution. Anything I like although I can never say anything to pin it down? hmm inflation is nothing said by your heroes hello inflation. but but government money printing is not important.
index to reality. index to something that can be tested. Measure then adjust. complaining is not a solution.
Inflation was tamed by Biden. If anything the reason he is losing is because people don’t think he has the mental chops at his advanced age. I can totally see Biden winning if he just appears vigorous during the campaign periods.
Let us make this productive.
What are the neoliberal policies you are against.
I’ll start. Forcibly opening up economies not ready for it.
“going full progressive would mean he loses. Biden won because he was not Trump.”
LOL, four years later he’s damaged goods worst than Trump, scorned by both the democratic base and the right republican nuts.
That’s what you get by staying centrist, too afraid to confront the political enemy of his party’s ideological homebase. In most polls he’s trailing in a head to head match with Donny baby.
@Joe
You think Roosevelt was a semi-dictator? Did he failed on his progressive agenda and didn’t quite managed to bring the country back from Great Depression while mobilizing for war?
Reposting this reply to giancarlo which was posted in a different thread above :
That is why it’s called political economy. You just cannot tie down an economic discipline by itself without marrying it to a political movement. The neoliberal rampage took decades in the making, brought into the fore by Reagan and Thatcher which was germinated by Austrian (Hayek) and Chicago (Friedman) schools where the boys took it to Chile and, with the help of CIA, ousted Allende in a coup to install the right wing dictator Pinochet ushering in the political component of privatization, austerity, and deregulation. That whole movement then spreads its tentacles everywhere cemented by globalization (Clinton initiatives) not even sparing the still in the crib EDSA republic of the early 90s where El Tabako gave the GATT and IMF dictated policies a cherry top decoration on the neoliberal pudding.
To reverse that malevolent storm also requires a movement in the political economy through progressivism and revival of Rooseveltian economics. It is never a one person affair. Progressive leaning groups need to also sync into the goal and to mobilize and expose rampant destruction of govt led programs, institutions, and initiatives resulting in, among others, mass poverty, perversion of politics, and ecological wreckage.
(This thread’s getting longer some responses get inadvertently misplaced)
as someone on the ground. hard to lead 81.64 people. probably would be like a stupider version of the french revolution. you are more optimistic than me. I have a more straussian view of things. So someone has to win then dismantle the system. but winning is the first big step. if you don’t win then you will just be like a voice in the wilderness. because a people composed of 81.64 do not know any better
They don’t even have to be low IQ is my experience. It is enough for them to be either lacking a broader perspective due to lack of education or time to reflect, or lacking empathy for those in dire straits as they have enough own issues. Finally, people and societies are creatures of habit. Russia for instance has fully returned to a form of Czarism inspite of decades of Communism. North Korea is just a feudal in practice as the Joseon Kingdom. In any case, the degree of conservatism I have by today is because I have acquired a csrtain healthy skepticism about human nature – as josephivo once wrote, we are advanced apes..
Or it’s like saying you don’t really understand the physiological workings of your own body; how the digestive, immune, and nervous systems work. But you know how it’s like having nauseating diarrhea after eating leftover (and probably already rotten) food from your noche buena.
gian,
I have no idea what Micha’s definition of neoliberalism is, but I’m thinking its akin to neoconservativism which we saw first hand after 9/11. which is this notion that Americanism can be exported thus the world made in America’s image,
which is really retarded. Afghanistan is probably worst off but primed for China, but I guess Iraq is kinda better off but again more primed for Iran than the US. so post-9/11 everything backfired. lost so much in blood and tax payer money for nothing.
so neoliberalism is something Clinton started or became apparent under Clinton in the late 1990s with the Soviet Union down, but China rising. NAFTA etc. and instead of democracy as the export under neocon thought, it was capitalism (fiat for money) the main export.
both neoliberalism and neoconservatives are globalists. “democracy” but with corporations really calling the shots eg. lobbying and controlling how fiat money controls international & domestic affairs. thus what’s going on with shipping in the Red Sea right now is what this all boils down to.
namely, all those exports of ideas is backed by the US military (not by gold but military might might makes right). that is the fiat currency, Micha’s beloved central bank system, putting Micha squarely in the middle of that which Micha despises so much.
fiat system whose mechanism is essentially debts and weapons.
in essence, Micha is a hypocrite. and why I’m confused Micha doesn’t back Bitcoin and CBDC. you wanna supplant the system you hate so much, you go for the jugular. then remake it using ecological economics with MMT and CBDC you can do more with less. these days they’re talking about mining
lithium in the Salton Sea near Palm Springs and in northern Nevada. at the same time people are buying iPhones every year. every year, gian!!! I still have my flip phone from 2003. Stop consuming so much is the solution. but I agree with Micha here, Biden needs to bow out of this race asap and tap Gavin Newsom already. and Gavin Newsom needs to tap AOC.
these two I think will be more open to MMT and CBDC, they are both salesmen and can make a better case for MMT and CBDC and ecological economics. and more importantly, will take a hands off policy with Bitcoin, the tech not the speculation, all the speculation should be regulated. study and improve the tech.
Fry more Bankman-Frieds.
here’s two videos I recently saw which i think is relevant here, gian:
thanks will watch later
NH will love the last one.
ps.
My thinking here , gian, is that Bitcoin is like the 2nd amendment its a hedge for CBDC.
No corporal, neolib is not akin to neocon. And if only you bothered to look up with all the available online resources at a click of a mouse you wouldn’t be making this flawed ridiculous connection.
Let me make it simpler, Micha.
here,
I take it to mean you don’t care to know basic literature on the subject freely available online.
here.
I’ll make it even simpler, Micha:
Neoliberalism seeks to reduce the state small enough so it can be drowned in a bathtub. It’s frequent refrain is how to trim big bad government. In Reaganese terms, government is not part of the solution, government is the problem. Neoliberalism does not try to fuse corporate and state power in contradiction to what your quora source asserts.
It appears you’re just trying hard to manufacture a similarity between two entirely distinct movement because you’ve already committed the initial bobo of saying they are.
I take it to mean you still don’t know what you’re talking about so try again.
it’s the same, Micha, different routes maybe, but same outcome.
Whatever.
here’s two related stories, one a viral video from a few years back and the other a POV of all this crap (its the same crap related to LGBTQplus and Gaza):
https://compactmag.com/article/a-black-professor-trapped-in-anti-racist-hell
“In the 2022 anti-racism workshops, the non-black students learned that they needed to center black voices—and to shut up. Keisha reported that this was particularly difficult for the Asian-American students, but they were working on it. (Eventually, two of the Asian-American students would be expelled from the program for reasons that, Keisha said, couldn’t be shared with me.) The effects on the seminar were quick and dramatic. During the first week, participation was as you would expect: There were two or three shy students who only spoke in partner or small-group work, two or three outspoken students, and the rest in the middle.
One of the black students was outspoken, one was in the middle, and one was shy. By the second week of the seminar, the two white students were effectively silent. Two of the Asian-American students remained active (the ones who would soon be expelled), but the vast majority of interventions were from the three black students. The two queer students, one Asian and one white, were entirely silent. The black students certainly had interesting things to say and important connections to make with their experiences and those of their family members, but a seminar succeeds when multiple perspectives clash into each other, grapple with each other, and develop—and that became impossible.
In their “transformative-justice” workshop, my students learned to name “harms.” This language, and the framework it expresses, come out of the prison-abolition movement. Instead of matching crimes with punishments, abolitionists encourage us to think about harms and how they can be made right, often through inviting a broader community to discern the impact of harms, the reasons they came about, and paths forward. In the language of the anti-racism workshop, a harm becomes anything that makes you feel not quite right. For a 17-year-old at a highly selective, all-expenses-paid summer program, newly empowered with the language of harm, there are relatively few sites at which to use this framework. My seminar became the site at which to try out—and weaponize—this language.
During our discussion of incarceration, an Asian-American student cited federal inmate demographics: About 60 percent of those incarcerated are white. The black students said they were harmed. They had learned, in one of their workshops, that objective facts are a tool of white supremacy.”
Slightly OT: With this song, I wish all a Merry Christmas.
Not OT is the songs hopes of peace, naive as they may seem. And as for ideological impurity, some might not like Daryl Ong, brillant as he is musically, for his having been involved somehow in the soundtrack of Maid in Malacañang.
There you go. I have mentioned a movie whose name is Anathema among Pinks and Yellows, and thereby am among the impure as well, possibly. But still, I wish all pure, impure, Puregold and Purefoods a merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas, Irineo. Good to receive your gift of music. 🙂 Best wishes as well to the members of our honorable society, near and far.
ahem, now it’s pretty obvious to brilliant daryl ong where his musicality can brilliantly take him, and merry christmas to him and to his et al as well. I hope he chokes on his purefoods! consoled by the equally brilliant sound track of his maid in malacanyang. oh, did I say something I ought to?
of course darryl baby is not one to cry over disgusting spilled carabaw’s milk, coz he probly has the most fantastic christmas package to surpass all others christmas packages of all times, courtesy from that maid in malacanyang. oh, did I really just say something I really ought to?
Well, as some unknown Hollywood producer once said, it takes a lot of sh.. to produce an orchid.. and if he uses that money from MoM to also improve his home studio and keep producing good stuff like this that promotes Filipino music globally, it has some good in it..
Contrast his 2020 production with Budakhel and Katrina with recent productions like the one with Gigi below which have much higher quality – BTW if one thinks of Bugoy Drilon who sang to his carabao in his Visayas childhood and was a janitor in Manila, or Kat who is from Tondo and sold flowers to tourists as a kid, music is aside from politics one way to rise in the Philippines.. being an OFW isn’t really reliable as many have experienced.
Actually I have little idea on how a possible personal issue with ABS-CBN influenced his being on the “other side” as I do know a lot again by now, but my name is not Marites and neither am I Boy Abunda or Vice Ganda. So Merry Christmas to you as well.
merry christmas!
Thanks for sharing this video. Amazing singers.
Gigi de Lana’s natural beauty when she joined Tawag ng Tanghalan is perfect for a MOD magazine cover girl. Nakatulog siguro sa pansitan ang mga photographers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgBLFtz0z24
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!
Merry Christmas, NH. You snowed in? Trudge about in ear muffs and boots, scarf about your neck, cheeks biting in the wind? Haha! Not us! 😁 Happy New Year!
Exactly — walking about when necessary in full gear: ear muffs, boots, scarf and layers of clothing (need to, in Ontario). Best wishes and Happy New Year to you and family!
Ha! I did that for 22 years in Colorado. I loved sitting in front of the fire. 🙂
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Merry Christmas to All.
Merry Christmas, Karl. Hope 2024 is terrific. Joe Jr. sends his regards. He remembers everyone around the table that day. I think he was most intrigued by “the general”. Fellow warrior I suppose, if shooting games count.
Merry Christmas Joe. Send my regards to Joe Jr. And Mrs Joe.
Merry Christmas to everyone.
Since Gian now prefers to use AI to generate photos for our blog, I am intrigued with what is known as “hallucinations” in AI, which refers to erroneous, fictional or unrelated outputs with regard to prompts and queries using AI tech. This arises from biased data sets, erroneous sources at the start (GIGO or garbage in, out) etc.
I couldn’t figure if the photo above has any relation to the essay or is it a hallucination? ha ha ha
I think I started the ai pics. Or was it Irineo, I dunno. I like them because I don’t have to borrow someone’s and worry about credit. Plus they are amusing in a variety of ways. The writer can submit photos if he has preferences, but must notate credits.
I prompted Microsoft AI Image Creator with
Paint me a Philippine nipa hut with Christmas trimmings a la Van Gogh
and here is what I got:
My Comment — the sky is the usual Van Gogh style but the other parts of the painting is not Van-Gogh-like. Nice try, Image Creator.
I like the creation nevertheless!
maligayang pasko, merry christmas to AI, hope the coming year will not be so hard on AI now that laws are being passed limiting AI’s capability. hiyah! AI soon to be having borders, its workers allegedly still borderless, operating in 3rd world slums and paid pittance.
telcos ought to engage AI to root out scammers and hackers, vigilantly monitoring cyberspace and immediately reporting breaches and anomalies before damage can be done.
unfortunately scammers are more adept and generally earlier with these technologies
sad, but true. thanks, gian.
I have yet to confirm that Jesus is Palestinian but the carnage and slaughter in Gaza continue at the hands of (supposedly) God’s chosen people.
This Christmas day, remember also those who are unjustly persecuted.
When I was in my late 20s, my wife had friends taking courses with her for her doctorate. The husband was Syrian, the wife Lebanese. Two delightful, intelligent, wholesome people. That’s the potential of the Middle East. But that whole region is a mess now, mostly Arabs slaughtering Arabs by the hundreds of thousands, a meddling pot where other nations inject arms and anger into unknowing pawns who rise up to shoot, bombard, and gas one another. In the history books of the future, Gaza will be just one more human tragedy in a region full of them. Don’t neglect Hamas’ part in the tragedy.
It does appear that it’s mostly Netanyahweh calling the shots for this disproportional violence against Palestinians. There are members of the Israeli Knesset strongly advocating to stop the occupation and the bombing but extreme right wing apartheid enabler genocidal Zionist Netanyahweh will have none of it.
Jesus for sure would be part of Satmar.
as for college educated Palestinians: https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2021/08/26/higher-ed-west-bank-and-gaza-more-vibrant-might-be-assumed-opinion
post – 9/11 DoS pushed for a bunch of Saudis to get educated over here next to Chinese in the 2000s there were a bunch of Saudis in colleges across America. MBS’s mega city projects I’m sure will benefit from this program and the fact that many Palestinians are college educated.
the soft power of universities…
Everyone should be talking Neom now. start populating Neom.
That’s my Christmas wish at least. Merry Christmas , everyone!!!
just learn from this mistake i guess. also about populating planned mega cities with refugees:
Satmar:
yup Jesus would definitely be Satmar.
two wiki articles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siget_(Hasidic_dynasty)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satmar
Merry Christmas
hamas met its match in netanyahu.
I asked Bard about the differences and similarities between neolib and neocon:
“Neoliberalism and neoconservatism are both political philosophies that emerged in the 20th century. They share some similarities, but also have some key differences.
Similarities:
– Both neoliberalism and neoconservatism are skeptical of government intervention in the economy. They believe that the free market is the most efficient way to allocate resources and promote economic growth.
– Both philosophies are supportive of free trade. They believe that open markets lead to increased competition, lower prices, and innovation.
– Both neoliberalism and neoconservatism are committed to individual liberty. They believe that individuals should be free to pursue their own goals without undue interference from the government.
Differences:
– Neoliberalism is generally more focused on economic issues, while neoconservatism is more concerned with foreign policy. Neoliberals believe that free markets and free trade are the best way to promote peace and prosperity around the world. Neoconservatives, on the other hand, believe that the United States has a responsibility to intervene in other countries to promote democracy and human rights.
– Neoliberals are generally more skeptical of the use of military force, while neoconservatives are more willing to use military power to achieve their goals. Neoconservatives believe that the United States should use its military strength to promote its interests abroad. Neoliberals, on the other hand, believe that military intervention should be used only as a last resort.
In addition to these main differences, there are also some other important distinctions between neoliberalism and neoconservatism. For example, neoliberals tend to be more supportive of globalization, while neoconservatives are more skeptical of it. Neoliberals also tend to be more supportive of social welfare programs, while neoconservatives are more skeptical of them.
Overall, neoliberalism and neoconservatism are both complex and nuanced philosophies. There is no single definition that captures all of their key tenets. However, the similarities and differences outlined above provide a basic understanding of these two important political movements.”
(Bard did mix up the neolib and neocon attitude to welfare)
I also asked Bard what the difference between Roosevelt style economic policy and neoliberalism is..
“Neoliberalism is a political and economic philosophy that advocates for free markets, deregulation, privatization, and globalization.
Roosevelt style economic policies, also known as the New Deal, were a set of programs and reforms enacted in the United States during the 1930s in response to the Great Depression.
The main difference between neoliberalism and Roosevelt style economic policies is their attitude towards government intervention in the economy.
Neoliberals believe that the free market is the best way to allocate resources and promote economic growth, and that government intervention should be kept to a minimum.
Roosevelt, on the other hand, believed that the government had a responsibility to intervene in the economy to help those who were struggling and to prevent the economy from collapsing.
As a result of this difference in philosophy, there are a number of key differences between neoliberal and Roosevelt style economic policies.
Neoliberals typically support deregulation of the economy, while Roosevelt supported regulation of the economy to protect consumers and workers.
Neoliberals tend to favor privatization of government-owned assets, while Roosevelt supported the expansion of government programs and services.
Neoliberals generally believe that globalization is beneficial, while Roosevelt was more cautious about globalization and its impact on American workers.
These differences in philosophy and policy have had a significant impact on the economic and social development of the United States and other countries.
Neoliberal economic policies have been associated with increased economic growth and globalization, but they have also led to increased inequality and economic instability.
Roosevelt style economic policies have been associated with reduced poverty and economic hardship, but they have also been criticized for their impact on economic growth.
The debate between neoliberalism and Roosevelt style economic policies is likely to continue for many years to come.”
Roosevelts CCC and public art was a great idea. more public art please!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_post_office_murals
thanks, Ireneo (and Bard). that’s pretty much what I said above.
but I’m surprised Bard didn’t get into how everything connects to US fiat system. the neolib and neocon connection cannot be more apparent in whats happening than at the Red sea and shipping right now.
neocon policies brought Iran there (via the Houthis) and neolib policies brought China there (via Djibouti their base). China shipping is unaffected, whilst the West has to take a long detour around Africa. thank you SCO!
i wrote about it titled “PBBM, join the SCO already!”. has its perks.
Liz Cheney and Rachel Maddow are besties right now, talking smack about Trump. mainly cuz the neolibs and neocons don’t know what Trumps gonna do. but in the end the fiat system needs to be protected, and in time
Yemen will have to pay for all this drama. you just don’t fuck with the fiat system’s debt and dependencies. and why neocons and neolibs are besties right now.
and why Micha is so against Bitcoin. Bard do your stuff. IF you really hate neolib and neocon, go for the jugular. CBDC then protect Bitcoin as a hedge. ergo…
Micha is really pro- neoliberalism.
A link for you.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2023/05/03/crypto-and-de-dollarization-how-global-currencies-are-reducing-us-influence-abroad/?sh=56c61152518b
There is a but other than the one on behind.
https://watcher.guru/news/us-dollar-cbdc-brics-de-dollarization-efforts
I want to discuss this concept of “proportionality”. It’s incomprehensible, ludicrous and nonsensical, in the context of armed conflict and global affairs.
What is “proportional” when applied to the Oct 7 attacks? Should Israel target and kill/mutilate/rape 1200+ Palestinians with a sprinkling of elderly, children and women and kidnap 200+ hostages? Is that proportional enough to satisfy the woke?
With Bin Laden, would it have been proportional if the US just sent one commando and finished him mano a mano just like in Hollywood movies?
In setting military objectives, the use of overwhelming force is often taken to ensure success and finish the job at the soonest.
And if pro-Palestinians raise 1948 and the loss of land, I then ask: should modern day Filipinos rise up against Spanish/Filipino families who benefited from the encomienda system? Or should today’s Israelis rise up against Egypt because they all descended from the pharaohs who made life miserable for Jews?
apparently middle east has a fugue, is seemingly cursed with senseless acts of bloodshed incited by the utter bigotry and inherent lies of hate preachers.
yep
Andrew, gian, et al.
I think that’s why its important to entertain the Satmar perspective in all this. essentially, that Israel as a state post-WWII is all wrong. incidentally, the Philippines along with Haiti and Liberia were the 3 countries that Israel softened up and sidled up to for the much needed votes in the UN.
So in a way Satmar and the Philippines are relevant similarly. Satmar said no, Philippines said yes.
As for “proportional” The Jericho Wall leak registered the Oct 7 attack on Israel’s intelligence radar one year out. it would’ve been “proportional” to nip everything in the bud then. but it was allowed to proceed. so IMHO , all this is in cahoots with the SCO since everyone who stands to benefit
is part of, or as observer status for, of the SCO.
Israel gets Gaza back (on its off shore oil field).
Saudi Arabia gets to populate with mega city projects.
Iran, China and Russia gets to see more US military reaction.
Hizbullah and Houthis get to flex which invites the carrot or the stick response by the US. they of course can opt for the carrot, get paid.
The only real losers are the Palestinians, and as the Abraham accords have shown the rest of the Arab world particularly the gulf states have moved on. turned their back on them.
Basically, like the Ukrainians the Palestinians are seen as people who have squandered their support. so the US (and the West) have chosen to move on much like the Gulf states with Palestinians.
with the SCO stronger. once that organization masters CBDC, they will supplant American fiat. only weakness to the SCO is trust, not alot of trust among them, but with blockchain CBDC maybe it can be done.
and yes Filipinos should annihilate all the hacienderos and start a fresh. like Jubilee in the Bible. only fair. but no not proportional. but needed for the Philippines to progress.
ps. there are no more Pharoahs in Egypt. and Satmar’s view on Egypt and Moses would be that the Jews were getting punished by God so not really the Egyptians fault they were just the instrument of God. but without a burning bush and or 10 commandments/ ark of the covenant and Moses parting the sea, 1948 Israel is blashphemy.
not God sanctioned as the Passover was.
here,
bye bye, US fiat. hello, SCO CBDC:
OT musical intermission.. Ken of SB19, Felip when he performs solo, has released a single in Visayan.. Kanako.
Happy New Year to all of you.
they are expanding the musical universe of the Philippines by mainstreaming and even making it international
thanks, Ireneo. this is such a big step from:
Welcome.. huge step. Meanwhile don’t forget Gigi coming to LA on April 27.. 😉
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/iwwY352u4coWu9jb/
Hawaii and the US West Coast in April. Canada in May. Her 2022 Domination tour including the US was obviously a success and she toured the entire Philippines this year.
Of course, she is one of those who have perfected the Filipino capacity to imitate and add own flavor to it, successfully addressing an international market while the likes of Felip go a step further and innovate..
OT: 5 stories to watch out for in 2024 according to The Economist..
Dropping two links.
https://www.rappler.com/voices/thought-leaders/opinion-philippines-semi-feudal-backward-capitalist-neither/
I think, we need more adventurous entrepreneurs not a plethora of dumb and dumber politicians whose utmost concern is their survival and poll ratings. walang laglagan and they stick to their own mob, fed the country with their never their ending lies and rhetoric. allegedly cheaters at election and allege big time cheaters of our country and economy.
The new agriculture sec is not a bureaucrat yet some sectors want him out. You can never please everyone.
the new agri sec is not a performing monkey and does not have to please anyone, he just have to do his job and his mandate. foremost among his job is to keep the prices of food within reach of taumbayan, ensure there is food security, develop poverty alleviating policy and help farmers with their daily grind.
Nailed it.
Link to an article by Heneral Lunacy, with interesting backgrounds given:
nice post
Happy New Year TSOH!
Irineo asked where is the second link.
One is rappler the other is NYT.
The second link appeared as a screen cap.
If Covid and the Ukraine war caused supply chain disruptions.
The effect of the Houthis blocking the red sea will be worse.
The ships during covid stayed put because of no economic activity.
But this time the cargo charges will exponential and so does the prices.
One could say that if everyone built everything at home this would not happen.
egypt will be affected, it will have less revenue coming if ships stop using suez canal. even india who is friendly to iran has its ships hit by iranian backed houthis. and now, india has allegedly joined the west in patrolling the red sea.
The Saudis which fought the Houthis for a decades us conspiciously silent
Maynilad and Manila Water are still the poster boys on why privatization suck.
But public service also sucks so nationalization of everything should also be rationalized.
We have all the ideas, laws, rules and regulations, but it is the attitude not the ideology, not the culture, system that makes or breaks us.
attitude plus aptitude equals altitude.
Not the urban dictionary meaning of attitude btw.
I thought you mean lassitude as in indifference. methink, both maynilad and manila water have poor vision, barely did upgrade our national water infrastructure, but plenty mission as in them joining international consortium and investing big in other countries such as indonesia’s palm oil industry. para sa kanila ang bayan natin ay isa yatang bakang ginagatasan.
and our govt of the day is not making it any better. may mga pagkukulang ang maynilad and manila water and our govt did nothing! except solicit for funds pang-election.
Korek
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1880294/what-to-do-with-government-housing-units-still-empty
They say build it and they will come kung walang kabuhayan walang kuryente, tubig, pagkain, school hospital transpo at walang benta ng boto…walang titira dyan.
Attitude plus aptitude….if mass promotions persist to include illiterates and idiots then the streets would be filled with non deserving drivers for one.
Kind of asked Bard about the topic of both articles Karl posted:
Question: “Please tell us about the colonial roots of Philippine poverty and whether the economy there is semi-feudal or backward capitalist with more detail and statistics on agriculture and manufacturing”
Answer:
“Colonial Roots of Philippine Poverty
The Philippines’ entrenched poverty is deeply rooted in its colonial history. Over 300 years of Spanish colonial rule, followed by almost 50 years of American colonial rule, established a system of land ownership, labor, and economic structure that has perpetuated inequality and hindered the country’s economic development.
Spanish Colonial Legacy
The Spanish colonial administration introduced a feudal land tenure system, known as the hacienda system, which concentrated land ownership in the hands of a small elite. This system ensnared the majority of Filipinos in a cycle of poverty, as they were forced to work as tenant farmers on the haciendas, often under exploitative conditions.
American Colonial Influence
The American colonial period (1898-1946) reinforced the hacienda system and further entrenched the country’s agricultural dependence. While introducing infrastructure and education, the American administration prioritized the production of cash crops, such as sugar and coconuts, for export to the United States, rather than developing a diversified economy with a focus on manufacturing.
Semi-Feudal or Backward Capitalist Economy?
The debate over whether the Philippines’ economy is semi-feudal or backward capitalist is complex and nuanced. Some argue that the country’s agrarian structure, characterized by large landholdings and dependent peasantry, resembles a feudal system. Others maintain that the existence of a capitalist class and a market economy, albeit one dominated by foreign interests, classifies the economy as backward capitalist.
Agriculture and Manufacturing
Despite efforts to diversify its economy, the Philippines remains heavily reliant on agriculture. Agriculture accounts for about 13% of the country’s GDP and employs over 30% of the workforce. However, agricultural productivity remains low, and the sector is vulnerable to external shocks, such as fluctuating global commodity prices.
Manufacturing, while growing, plays a smaller role in the Philippine economy, contributing about 25% of GDP and employing about 12% of the workforce. The manufacturing sector is dominated by labor-intensive industries, such as textiles and garments, and is largely dependent on foreign direct investment (FDI).
Statistics
According to the World Bank, in 2022, the Philippines’ poverty rate was 16.6%, down from 25.2% in 2012. However, this still leaves millions of Filipinos struggling to meet their basic needs.
The agricultural sector’s productivity remains low, with the Philippines ranking 109th out of 111 countries in the 2023 Global Food Security Index.
The manufacturing sector’s growth has been uneven, with some subsectors, such as electronics, showing strong growth, while others, such as textiles, have struggled.
Conclusion
The Philippines’ colonial history has left a profound impact on its economy, perpetuating poverty and hindering development. While recent economic growth has improved the lives of some Filipinos, widespread poverty and inequality persist. Addressing these issues requires comprehensive reforms to land tenure, labor practices, and economic policies, as well as investments in education, infrastructure, and social welfare programs.”
Asked more: “Please tell us about the colonial roots of Philippine poverty and whether the economy there is semi-feudal or backward capitalist with more detail and statistics on agriculture and manufacturing”
Answer:
“Sure, here is a more detailed explanation of the effects of the fixed dollar peso rate post WW2 and the neoliberal reforms of President Ramos on Philippine industrialization:
**Post-World War II Fixed Dollar Peso Rate**
After World War II, the Philippines adopted a fixed exchange rate regime, pegging the peso to the US dollar at a rate of P2:US$1. This fixed exchange rate regime had several implications for Philippine industrialization.
* **It encouraged exports:** By making Philippine exports cheaper for foreign buyers, the fixed exchange rate regime made it more profitable for businesses to export goods. This led to a surge in manufacturing exports in the 1950s and 1960s.
* **It protected domestic industries:** By making it more expensive for foreign goods to enter the Philippine market, the fixed exchange rate regime protected domestic industries from foreign competition. This allowed some domestic industries to develop and grow.
However, the fixed exchange rate regime also had some negative consequences for Philippine industrialization.
* **It made the economy vulnerable to external shocks:** When the US dollar appreciated against other currencies, the value of the peso also appreciated. This made Philippine exports less competitive and made it more difficult for businesses to import raw materials and capital goods.
* **It discouraged innovation:** The lack of competition from foreign firms made it less necessary for domestic firms to innovate and improve their efficiency. This led to stagnation in some industries.
**Neoliberal Reforms of President Ramos**
In the early 1990s, President Fidel V. Ramos implemented a series of neoliberal reforms that aimed to liberalize the Philippine economy. These reforms included:
* **Deregulation:** The Ramos administration reduced government regulation of businesses, making it easier for businesses to start and operate.
* **Privatization:** The Ramos administration privatized many state-owned enterprises, such as telecommunications and energy companies.
* **Trade liberalization:** The Ramos administration reduced tariffs and other trade barriers, making it easier for foreign goods to enter the Philippine market.
These neoliberal reforms had a mixed impact on Philippine industrialization.
* **They encouraged foreign investment:** The reforms made the Philippines more attractive to foreign investors, which led to a surge in foreign direct investment (FDI) in the manufacturing sector. This FDI helped to modernize and expand the manufacturing sector.
* **They created a more competitive economy:** The reforms increased competition in the Philippine economy, which forced domestic firms to become more efficient and innovative. This led to productivity gains in some industries.
However, the reforms also had some negative consequences for Philippine industrialization.
* **They exposed domestic industries to more competition:** The reduction of trade barriers made it more difficult for domestic industries to compete with foreign firms. This led to job losses in some industries.
* **They eroded the government’s role in supporting industrialization:** The privatization of state-owned enterprises and the reduction of government regulation weakened the government’s ability to support domestic industries.
**Overall, the fixed dollar peso rate and the neoliberal reforms of President Ramos had a significant impact on Philippine industrialization. The fixed exchange rate regime encouraged exports and protected domestic industries, but it also made the economy vulnerable to external shocks and discouraged innovation. The neoliberal reforms encouraged foreign investment and increased competition, but they also exposed domestic industries to more competition and eroded the government’s role in supporting industrialization.**
[Image of Philippines peso]
[Image of United States dollar]
[Image of Fidel V. Ramos]
**Conclusion**
The Philippines’ economic development has been shaped by both colonial and post-colonial factors. The country’s colonial past has left a legacy of poverty and inequality, which has persisted despite recent economic growth. Addressing these issues requires comprehensive reforms to land tenure, labor practices, and economic policies, as well as investments in education, infrastructure, and social welfare programs.”
Finally, I asked Bard to give a big picture as to why the Philippines mostly failed to industrialize since 1946 and got..
“The Philippines’ Slow Industrialization Since Independence
The Philippines, despite gaining independence from the United States in 1946, has experienced a slower pace of industrialization compared to its Southeast Asian neighbors. Several factors have contributed to this difference, including:
1. Colonial Legacy and Land Tenure System:
The Philippines’ colonial history, particularly under Spanish and American rule, left a profound impact on its economic structure. The Spanish colonial system established a feudal land tenure system, known as the hacienda system, which concentrated land ownership in the hands of a wealthy elite. This system hindered agricultural productivity and perpetuated rural poverty, providing limited opportunities for the majority of Filipinos.
2. Emphasis on Export-Oriented Agriculture:
During the post-war period and the Cold War era, the Philippines adopted an export-oriented agricultural policy, focusing on producing cash crops like sugar and coconuts for export to the United States. This approach prioritized foreign markets over domestic industrialization, limiting the development of a diversified industrial base.
3. Reliance on Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI):
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Philippines implemented ISI policies to protect domestic industries from foreign competition. While ISI initially led to some growth in manufacturing, it also resulted in inefficiencies, as domestic firms lacked the incentive to innovate and improve productivity.
4. Lack of Public Investment in Infrastructure and Education:
Insufficient investment in infrastructure, such as roads, ports, and telecommunications, hindered the movement of goods and services, making it difficult for businesses to operate efficiently. Moreover, inadequate investment in education limited the availability of skilled labor, which is crucial for a thriving industrial sector.
5. Political Instability and Corruption:
Political instability, coupled with rampant corruption, discouraged foreign investment and hindered long-term economic planning. Frequent changes in government policies and a lack of transparency in economic decision-making created an environment that was not conducive to sustained industrialization.
6. Neoliberal Reforms and Eroding Government Role:
In the 1990s and beyond, the Philippines embraced neoliberal economic policies, including trade liberalization and privatization. While these reforms aimed to attract foreign investment and promote market competition, they also weakened the government’s ability to support domestic industries and address structural issues like land reform.
7. Continued Reliance on Labor-Intensive Industries:
Despite some diversification in recent years, the Philippine manufacturing sector remains heavily reliant on labor-intensive industries, such as textiles and garments. This reliance limits the country’s ability to compete with more technologically advanced economies in the region.
8. Global Economic Challenges:
The Philippines’ economic trajectory has also been affected by global economic trends, including the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2008 global economic recession. These events disrupted export markets and investment flows, slowing down economic growth and industrialization efforts.
Conclusion
The Philippines’ slower pace of industrialization compared to its neighbors is a complex and multifaceted issue. While the country has made some progress in recent years, structural challenges, political instability, and global economic fluctuations continue to hinder its ability to fully industrialize and achieve sustainable economic growth. Addressing these issues requires comprehensive reforms, including land reform, infrastructure investment, education improvement, and a more proactive industrial policy.”
Thanks Irineo and Bard.
i totally agree with Bard’s number 1.
aside from a Pol Pot approach, maybe convincing haciendero families to part with their lands and give it to schools is the most optimum approach, eg. give them offers they can’t refuse.
usually giving them names after buildings and campuses will do, Lucinda was the matriarch for example and Bai Matabay as well.
I know of Tarlac state university and university of Southern Mindanao in which colleges were gifted parcels of land by haciendero (and datu in the case of Kabacan) families.
from there, just partner with EU, East Asia, and Anglosphere universities to increase training and skills acquisition. ensure its not exclusive like la Salle Ateneo etc. make universities be accountable to the community they are in.
aside from degree programs, certification for skills more trade focused programs.
University of California system used to have an education abroad program with UP Diliman and Ateneo. bring that back. expand exchanges of students and professors to other colleges there.
haciendero families are gatekeepers of innovation and entrepreneurship there, so you open up to universities and by pass haciendero families.
1. follow the Tarlac and Kabacan (i’m others have done similar) process of giving land back.
2. then follow that up with more powerful productive universities connected to the 1st world.
let’s do this in 2024, a Philippine new years resolution to destroy the haciendero system.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Most taipan and tycoons here have school buildings,halls named after them. Good idea. The approach here was to distribute to farmers which they only sell.
I know in Cebu, this woman is actually making good, karl. if only most rich Filipinos can do what she’s done. absent of that state schools have to take this on IMHO. but learn from folks like her. great manager she is.
https://www.esquiremag.ph/the-good-life/what-she-wants/not-just-an-heiress-t-c-cover-girl-candice-gotianuy-proves-her-worth-a1578-20180305-lfrm2
https://news.abs-cbn.com/ancx/culture/spotlight/12/25/18/cebuana-santa
Thanks for the links
now that’s what I call a woman of substance. and she still has her father’s nose; inherited, and not cosmetically enhanced. she has very nice smile as well, seemed sure of herself and spreading goodwill. such fine example. instead of being overseas at this time of the year and buying up big in paris and rome and being influencer in socmed, showing off and posting all she has bought and amassed, she is giving gifts to her fellow beings closer to home.
her parents must be proud, they have brought up a wonderful and exemplary human being, kudos.
I have a crush on her, kb.
karl,
here’s another good idea.
I have it on good authority that Inday Sara’s staff scours TSOH for good ideas. if not Inday Sara herself.
So how bout as New Year resolution…
resolve to have all Filipino children and teenagers have them read this book as part of DepED executive order,
1st in third grade as they learn to read, cuz it is easy reading.
then again for ninth grade.
and last in twelfth grade.
interspersed would be his other books, teachers or schools’ choice.
But IMHO if you inject this man’s body of work in to Filipino consciousness, which I think is itself very Filipino (but also American) then you’ll destroy the hacienda system both physically and in the mind.
you’ll come out with more empathy through satire.
and more importantly think more deeply about things which will lead to a lot of good things, i think. i’m sure.
within 6 years, ideally, you’ll be able to measure the progress, then another 6 years actually see the whole country progress. like Mexico, Guyana and Argentina are forecast to for 2024.
but what the US media will fail to tell you is so will El Salvador.
Mexico cuz no more made in China.
Guyana cuz Chevron oil (will repel anything invasion).
Argentina cuz of US dollar.
but the biggest BUT here is
El Salvador cuz of Bitcoin. (sorry, Micha)
So these books– especially that one above– is like a cheap Bitcoin for the Philippines. just start with that one book, read it in 3rd, 9th and 12th grades. study it learn it by heart. Hacienda system gone, karl. just 6 years.
Where’d you plucked your good authority? Whose bright TSOH idea was it that Inday Fiona pirated to use confidential funds for a tree planting project?
Not mine, that was chempo’s.
Chempo brilliantly suggested to use confidential fund for tree planting?
I know nothing about cooking the books, so that would have to have been his, Micha. most of my ideas are cultural and mental expansion by nature.
But you find nothing wrong with using confidential funds for tree planting?
modern accounting came from the Medicis, Micha. I can’t say anything about the process. I’m just saying more than likely it would’ve been chempo’s cuz that’s his expertise.
No need to splurge on modern accounting gobbledygook, just your own personal opinion on whether it is okay or not okay to use non-auditable confidential funds supposedly reserved for military intelligence operations on a civic project like tree planting.
your question was:
“Whose bright TSOH idea was it that Inday Fiona pirated to use confidential funds for a tree planting project?”
my answer:
It was more than likely chempo’s, cuz that’s his field.
…
now if you’re asking me if cooking the books is good or bad, that’s a question of ethics. it happens all the time, and some times it benefits many other times few.
so if you can expand on the question of the many or few, then maybe I can elaborate. but books are cooked on the daily is the point both here and over there, Micha.
such is the magic of modern accounting methods.
But you can at least tell that civic tree planting project is not a military intelligence operation, yes?
Micha,
that’s the whole point of cooking the books. one thing is pretending to be another.
And cooking the books is perfectly alright in your books?
Got it.
Now we know your values.
No. I’m saying cooking the books is a feature of modern accounting. some accountants have this creativity some don’t.
in and of itself cooking the books is neither good nor bad, its just what many firms and accountants do.
you’ll have to provide details into what’s being cooked to effectively say if its good or bad, say for instance Inday Sara placed it in military intelligence, then diverted it to some project for the masa, lets call it Micha’s Masa funds,
then we’d both say good, no? details have to be filled in , Micha. i don’t know the details, do you?
yep
No, stupid prick, it’s plain and simple corruption of a public official. You don’t need confidential funds for tree planting project. Normal transparent budgeting process will do. And congress, for once, did the right thing to strip Inday Fiona of those funds.
Micha I have 15 years of government experience asa consultant. the default of most government agencies is inaction. people with no patience go for the shortcut that is why these people love confidential funds. not because they are unaudited. it is because they don’t have to go through the cumbersome process. the auditing is actually secondary
the reason for this is it is easier to comply with an audit if you have the funds than going to a cumbersome process in your own dime.
but Congress are also made up of a bunch of crooks, Micha.
Not all. And, in that one instance, as a constitutional body, they did the right thing.
let’s say 96%.
And they are all allies of either Marcos or Duterte camp. It was only through the outstanding job of progressive Makabayan bloc scrutinizing Inday Fiona’s budget allocation that exposed the anomaly to the public. Quite a feat considering there’s only 3 of them.
See, we can influence public policy if we raise public consciousness loud enough of their shenanigans.
That’s advocacy. And that’s specific.
Many masa just see the direct dole-outs and epal posters.
Forget systemic thinking even within most of the middle class.
“Tinanggalan ng mga komonesta at trapo ng pondo si Inday Sara na may puso para sa mahihirap tulad natin” might be what maybe 75% (before Pharmally maybe 90%) of the poor and their relatives abroad talk among themselves..
this isn’t accurate. the makabayan block was just playing to the Marcos blocks machinations. that it resulted in something that the Marcos block and a lot of progressives prefer does not make it anything than politicians being politicians
yan ang habla ng dabaw masa; lucky for me, I am not part of her masa, forever and ever, amen.
That’s the point why we need to create a more equitable and progressive society Irineo. When you subject a huge chunk of your population to such grueling dehumanizing poverty, you do not expect them to be the emblem of uprightness and critical thinking, do you? The conditions and environment they operate disposes them instinctively to behave on primal existential level – ignorant, needy, vulnerable to maneuverings of political patronage.
It’s not good that they behave that way and it’s not good for our society in general because then they have the numbers to elect wily (but for the most part, corrupt) politicians who are, on election season at least, responsive to their primal subsistence immediate needs.
my response would depend on my mood. right now I have little faith in people and the dog eat dog world of neoliberalism just makes more sense. get your if you can’t then you don’t deserve it
Classic conundrum, starting with the Tragedy of the Commons and the failure of Communism in Eastern Europe. Human nature can be parasitic at times. Between Calvin and Hobbes, Hobbes and Rousseau, who is closer to reality?
You do believe in enhancing libraries, I guess that is because kids aren’t at fault that their parents are poor. Though a Romanian saying springs to my mind: “you are at fault if you have a poor father-in-law.” 😉 Also a people with a harsh history.
I think the main take away here, is that they’ll just hide it better next time.
again, thank the Medicis. Makabayan didn’t really accomplish much. i don’t think.
01. Teach Business Basics in school. This is to teach how most investment scams operate and also how a normal business is run.
02. Have a formal subject for decision making and planning. I’ve seen people who are mid to high level executives who seem to have only learned about planning in their MBAs. You get this because a lot of family run conglomerates have a top down approach where strategy and planning has a tendency to atrophy.
03. encourage useful stem. TESDA ->
1-3, completely agree, gian.
What’s the update these days of Bam’s Negosyo centers? i hope Inday Sara works with Bam Aquino on this.
re balikbayan boxes below, and Ireneo/Micha’s point that well to do Filipinos have no need to send them , I would also
point to just simply Googling orphanages or rural schools in the Philippines and sending them balikbayan boxes. chocolate and candy sure, but pencils/pens and paper and notebooks, just paper to doodle on would open up imagination for many.
pick a school from Google map, start sending balikbayan boxes. of school supplies books mangas etc. rural schools and orphanages a plenty there.
since it became law the DTI is actually implementing this.
also props to secretary joey concepcion his go negosyo program is bringing mentorship to the mainstream of the Philippines. have seen multiple events in malls where budding entrepreneurs can ask advice . mentorship is not accessible to lower class while it is the default of the upper class.
I think I’ll start doing this, this year
I’ll see how we can make libraries the community centers it could be and it is for lots of US towns
For 1 and 2, simulation games might be useful for people to get an idea and practice. Give them a chance to learn with less real costs, much like flight simulators or boat simulators train real pilots or navigators. I sucked at a SAR simulator some years ago in Munich, BTW, SAR meaning search and rescue, found out how hard it is to properly run a boat in coastal waters.
I did pretty well at the textile and design business simulator at the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Morris_Gallery in London last year.
It was about choosing, like design pioneer William Morris in the 19th century, whether to buy hand-crafted or manufactured, what materials to import or source locally, whether to sell to masses, middle class or elites, how to reach the market via catalog, storefront or trade shows, and all of it with costs and earnings. In the end, I could compare my strategy with that of the real William Morris in building his business back in the days. I risked some stuff he didn’t and was too cautious at other stuff is what I recall, and was not a big player like him in the end.
for lots of the awesome brainy table top games Europe produces more than it’s fair share
True, even as the simulation game at the William Morris gallery was computer-based.
My brother liked to play a football league game on our C64 back in the 1980s. That was also quite strategic in terms of when do you buy new players
And sell players etc etc.
BTW Monopoly was banned in East Germany and one could get in trouble bringing it in, much like bringing a Bible into Saudi Arabia I think even today.
Though Monopoly is what the oligarchs already play, Filipinos need Startup board and computer games, kung neolib na rin lang learn to be madiskarte within it like Josh and Ken of SB19 (or Gigi) with their numerous businesses.
there’s tons of games now that’s better than Monopoly,
if you send a balikbayan box with games don’t send Monopoly, send these two instead,
but as Ireneo said “madiskarte within it”, I think this is the best game to play. honesty is the best policy and if you can abandon an ally gently and with his understanding intact the better, your diskarte game goes thru the roof.
this game will inoculate Filipinos soft skin easy to offend nature.
https://www.backstabbr.com
The neoliberal assault in the 90’s ensured that we will not have inclusive development ever and that only the cronies, rent-seeking monopolists, and landlords (the Philippines’ 1%) along with their enablers could trumpet its gains.
Meanwhile, we have since then doubled our population and we now have a citizenry that are mostly ignorant, needful, and easily swayed by politicians and demagogues like Duterte promising deliverance from the oppressive status quo. He is the outsider from Davao who will bring change. But, with his designated successor now at the helm, the more things change the more they apparently stay the same. Back to square one with Marcos, scheming, plundering, and ego tripping.
So yes, we can thank neoliberalism for all that.
sus maria, all our politicians can think of is charter change to solve all problems, economic and others, themselves not sure it will work, but hoping the populace get it right and will support renewed chacha call come hell and high water.
para sa akin, if pbbm has got balls, can easily by pass chacha with his own executive order, cost less and faster to implement than chacha. but the president is procrastinating, will study chacha and with no timeline in sight, he may well be studying until his term ends. plus he is still studying whether to commit our country to ICC investigation probe of ex president duterte’s ejks, and still studying pa rin siya whether to accept biden’s request to house vetted afghan refugees here in our country while their entry papers to estados unidos is being worked out, all expenses paid by estados unidos.
in the meantime, pbbm travels a lot overseas . . .
cha cha is like the Russian Winter. I think BBMs approach makes sense for him
This Edsa pwera is a turn off for me. BBM and fam are still very bitter and his PR team confirmed it
So no to cha cha.
edsapwera is allegedly a product of consulting conglomerates, people’s initiative too, their onslaught is fast gathering momentum. the constitution is going to be changed and there will be insertions. those behind all this are likely to benefit the most.
who are really behind the people’s initiative? mailap sila and afraid to show their faces, at kung mga intsik man sila or russian oligarchs, houthis, hezbollah, hamas, etc, we dont know. but they are allowed to mangle and shred our constitution with the comelec’s blessing.
Nice power broking lineup.
Happy New Year, and even the Metro Manila New Year’s celebrations showed how private and privatized trumps everything public in the Philippines.
Sydney had its harbor bridge lighting up, Taipei had its highest building just like Dubai, Athens, and Berlin had their major fireworks lighting up the Acropolis and the Brandenburg gate.. Bangkok and Rio had the Chao Phraya river and the Copacabana light up.. while Metro Manila’s Luneta fireworks were pitiful compared to what went on at places like Ayala, Eastwood City, Mall of Asia, SM Marikina, and BGC – and guess where the major stars had their shows?
That is what neoliberalism in a semi-feudal – and at times tribal – society looks like.
the Philippines can follow El Salvador or Argentina , or both.
gian,
here’s two games that’s really beginner friendly, a perfect mix of skill and luck. i’ve changed my mind about chess and go. element of luck is important if you want people to get into games. these two i like. simple. quick.
but can you say more about this library idea?
i can tell you that barnes and noble here like 1/3 of their store now covers table top games, and libraries here are now getting into games holding game nights and lending games out. so yeah, table top games seem the way to go here re your 1-3.
I would go further and say Filipinos should get into game design. not just play these games. theres a bunch of designer notes and how to’s on youtube. but yeah, these two games is a good start already.
have a PowerPoint
View at Medium.com
I’ve made the presentation before 2 things. Being a consultant for an LGU for 2 years. I should really update that
nice.
What i know from reading game designers talk about games on twitter is play testing is very important so if you can get people other game designers to really pick apart game mechanics you’ll be better off than just letting family and friends game test stuff.
you think you can blog this and we ‘ll input and or critique looks really intriguing. I’d love to see this actually pan out there, gian. Cebu would probably be the best place to roll it out. its more of an art and design place. just untapped IMH0.
of course, cebu is truly the best palce to roll anything out, now that cristina frasco, the governor’s daughter, is tourism sec. the 1st tourism ad released to the world, love the phillippines! a number of ad segments were proven to be copied from stock footages found in the internet, the ad mocked severely by netizens. mayhap assisted by AI, the ad should have cost a lot less than the 50millions price tag it was rumored, stock footages should not cost that much.
compounding the issue, frasco’s husband is highly esteemed IT specialist and if he didnt see then the woeful shortcoming of the ad, its first viewing allegedly matinee-ed and seen by who’s who in cebu . . . I started to wonder what’s going on in cebu. but the frasco family did release a brand of supposedly nutritious sardines called ‘frasco’ weeks after the ad was aired.
they outsourced it to Manila instead of going local Cebu talent, kb. like i said it’s untapped. people still think Cebu is province. well the work force there especially arts & design have Singapore or UAE experience. and they are teaching it their expertise experience to local talents. its really export quality.
there is a chain of trust in stuff like these. What this proves is that the Secretary is not a micromanager and she trusted people she should have.
this guy always rolls out carts and carts of good games.
happy new year! nice to meet you again, hello old problem from years gone by, education left hanging and hanging pa more.
https://mb.com.ph/2023/12/31/dep-ed-shouldn-t-brag-about-2-201-new-classrooms-backlog-is-165-k-castro
no wonder president bong marcos recently signed law creating five new medical schools in the country, one specifically designed for veterinarians.
we need more cosmetic surgeons, if young people not yet 20 years old are opting early on for medical procedures to enhance their looks.
https://politiko.com.ph/2023/12/31/retokada-na-kitty-duterte-proud-of-getting-nose-job-lip-fillers-jawtox/politiko-lokal/
dyos ko, medyo matakot ako sa rf procedure taken by young kitty. radio frequency is mainly for sagging facial skin, firming it. but if that makes her happy, I wont say anything. she’ll see the consequences years later.
one of our best loved celebs is tadtad with autoimmune disease, and currently recuperating overseas. she had many cosmetic procedures done in her younger days, and now reaping the accumulated ‘rewards’, some unwanted. okay, okay, I’ll say nothing more.
happy new year! happy new look! be happy!
Happy New Year!
Reflections on the new year (sort of)
Most of the folks here are, I would assume, middle class. Stable income. Enough savings for comfortable retirement. Could maybe afford occasional visit to Phuket or Caribbean. Frolic when bored at the amenities of BGC or a rural resort getaway. Sanitized and insulated in other words from the daily grind of those living in the periphery – the drama, the struggle, the precarious condition of the masa.
Instinctively then, we tend to really not care what economic movement dominates the landscape. Life is, for the most part, good and comfortable. I’m doing fine. Who cares to understand what neoliberalism is or what effect it does to society in general?
And that is the thematic view, hereby humbly submit, that we should try to avoid because the polarizing effect of neoliberalism tending towards wealth accumulation at the top (the very few) and wealth dilution at the bottom (the many) makes those disadvantaged masa vulnerable to the guiles of snake oil peddlers like Duterte who, not surprisingly enough, went on to destroy norms and values we thought were sacrosanct in a stable and decent society (no one here will most likely deny that Mang Kanor normalized lying, corruption, stealing, and murder, not to mention prostituting the country for a few loose change to China).
Bottom line, by giving neoliberalism a free pass for its broad societal negative effect, we, the assumed middle class stewards who care not a little for the country’s wellbeing, are unwittingly feeding the country to bastards like Duterte and the latter day resurrection of the criminogenic Marcos family.
Corollary to the bottom line, we should, at minimum, give a damn what economic menu our overlords and masters are foisting upon us because even if it might appear to be beneficial some of the time, the main course could very well be larded up with toxins.
how often do you send balikbayan boxes home, Micha? and how often do the folks you send them to complain why you didn’t send newer or more expensive items? the problem with your world view is you don’t understand the masa you’re purportedly trying to protect.
ergo, PBBM should follow both Argentina and El Salvador. US dollars and Bitcoin. diversify. then you won’t have to send balikbayan boxes and families don’t have to stop talking to each other cuz you’re sending them cheap stuff which they take personally. easy to offend even with boxes of cardboard from afar.
ps. post Halloween candies bought in dollar stores tend to be cheap. but Filipinos love chocolate so you get really appreciative thank yous. cheap chocolates is the exception. focus your efforts there. see i talk to the masa, Micha. I don’t place them on a pedestal.
Non-sequitur. Fact: I don’t send balikbayan boxes. Erroneous assumption. Ergo, you’re spitting bullshit on the new year again.
no balikbayan boxes actually means you’re anti-masa, Micha. unless youre doing bank to bank transfer with US dollars. tell me you at least do that.
Don’t be a fucking prick, your balikbayan gauge is hilarious. You have no business to interrogate what I do with my earned money.
its just you’re always talking about the masa and stuff, and whenever you’re asked what is your actually connection to the masa, you always get defensive, Micha.
I pry where I can.
It’s the humanity in us all, you stupid prick. You and I see the masa everywhere, we see their condition, their plight, their struggles, humans all, like you and me. I empathize. I sympathize. And in our random musings, we try to seek answer, to understand why it has to be that way. Or whether we can do better than that as a country, as a decent society.
Because we are all connected. Made of the same universal stuff. Brothers and sisters of an immanent universe.
If you are incapable of having that experience of connection then it says more about yourself than it is about me, you stupid prick.
I have feelings too, Micha.
for example, this is the music I have in the background as we speak:
But again you are dodging my question. are u running like a mission or something for the masa? planning on opening a school in the Philippines post retirement? or just yapping this abstract idea of the masa.
don’t steal my nose job and stage 4 cancer clinic idea, that’s mine and NH’s. *wink*
Yes, stupid prick, we all have advocacies, personal values. If you don’t agree advocating better conditions for the alienated masa which, in turn, will also uplift general condition or metrics of livability for the country, it’s not for you to question others for doing so.
That’s the political economy part. Gets?
I guess I’m just asking specifics. you’re always talking general, Micha. but i guess abstract is good too. I just don’t like abstract. too lofty.
doesn’t bother to understand what’s going on on the ground. which is a flaw in and of itself. which is my point here.
Well then I guess it’s really true that you’re a stupid prick. Not that difficult to understand advocating better treatment for the alienated class. Can’t be more specific than that.
That’s not specific. that’s general, Micha.
And by specific, you mean sending balikbayan boxes to relatives. LOL. What a dickhead!
Enough of this shit.
that’s the least you can do.
of course, you can do more.
His relatives probably don’t need balikbayan boxes. Neither do mine, by the way.
I wonder who of us at TSOH live the life that masa or OFWs live. KB, possibly.
My experience with them is that many distrust the educated more than the corrupt.
Meanwhile, I empathize with NHerrera, who probably looks like a snowman by now.
But it is part of the sacrifices one makes to be with one’s grandchildren in Canada.
yep TSOH are relatively privileged compared to the masa
I have cut back on sending balikbayan boxes, pinagbibili lang pala niya ang mga iyon. tapos hingi sila ng hingi and then make side business with it. they can never have enough. worse, my close kin who I helped fund his studies, the moment he graduated, tinangka akong nakanawan and tried to hack into my bank account. I saw it coming though and for his effort, he got only the karampot I left.
hurts me a lot. I can confront anyone, not my kin though. too emotionally involved ako and dont trust myself. I still send balikbayan boxes only less now.
sometimes, when I’m the probinsya, I stay at pension houses and no longer lodges with my relatives. though I still visit them now and then, reluctantly giving pasalobong and then hating myself for doing it. one day, I’m going to cut the umbilical cord that bind me to them.
dollar stores buy up these unsold Halloween chocolates (and candy) and sell it dirt cheap, kb.
I notice masa Filipinos complain a lot, but when it comes to chocolate they’ll love you and think you’re a saint. Mango ave girls love to complain about their relatives in Canada or EU sending them stuff,
but when it comes to chocolate. especially Twix they go crazy. so my advice for balikbayan senders, just fill it with chocolate and candy.
thanks for the advice. sometimes you’re a saint.
oh, and as far as embezzlement and actual theft from family members there, kb.
loans or business partnerships are the best way to go. hand me downs free stuff give aways are generally not appreciated.
and real estate drama of family members just squatting or actually stealing titles thats another nightmare i could go on and on about.
met a Filipino lawyer there who said probate type law i know lawyers there are generalists don’t usually specialize like here, but if you stick yourself between
two warring family members in real estate, you usually get a lot of that real estate for your self as a lawyer and if you coordinate with the other party’s lawyer even
more lucrative. if you have real estate donate it to a nunnery already before it blows up that’s my other advice.
They should have a statue of me in front of the INC on Mango Ave, kb. the saint of Mango Ave.
you have to personally be here for a lot of this, kb. if you give money from afar, they’ll take advantage of you. that’s the masa for you. you gotta squeeze ’em. govern them.
hell if you’re anti church donate it to gian, he seems like he has a grand plan for the Philippines. but yeah, don’t give your family a free pass, make ’em work for it.
all your hard earn money will just go to shabu or mahjong , lol.
saint lance corporal, be nice to the girls in mango avenue and dont antagonise them. and if you do have a statue,
tell the girls to clean your statue now and then. you know what people do to statues? they come at night and poo, if not piss, on the foot of the statue like what was done to bonifacio’s statue in bonifacio circle in quezon city. bomberos sometimes have to hose off the poo both birds and human from poor bonifacio, washing off the pool of piss as well.
I was thinking more like my statue would be housed ala Magellan’s cross, wherein Mango Ave girls would light a candle before and after they clock in clock out.
The patron saint of Good Times and Short Times. lol.
@giancarlo
“the makabayan block was just playing to the Marcos blocks machinations. that it resulted in something that the Marcos block and a lot of progressives prefer does not make it anything than politicians being politicians”.
That’s called strategic legislative pragmatism. When you’re in the minority you’ll try to make common cause or alliance on a particular issue with whomever you can. See the title of this article. That’s exactly what Andrew Lim is trying to say.
“When I joined the Leni campaign, it gradually dawned on me: this group is incredibly naïve and some were so ignorant on how to navigate political battles. They were waging a war based on one’s morality and classified people into politically correct or incorrect. It was an unwinnable strategy based on a feel-good purity of one’s self but ignored how the masses -poor, ignorant, terrible memories and poor learners would vote based on fear, ignorance, gullibility and a hope no matter how remote that things can change for the better.”
So yes, in the battle over confidential fund, it was a strategic victory for the Makabayan bloc no matter how you slice it.
same strategic victory that gave us Duterte
Kudos to the Makabayan bloc for their bravery for taking on a known criminal family like the Dutertes.
Their previous alliance with the equally criminal family from the north might be offensive for the pure of heart but it worked. So take that.
its a very specific kinda victory. 😉
What is pyrrhic about stripping Inday Fiona of the billions in unnecessary and unaccountable confidential funds? You’re just tying phrases here that doesn’t mean anything in the context of what’s being discussed.
Incorrigible troll
that’s Chief Troll to you, ma’am.
But again, they’ll just repackage all this money. they’ll get it one way or the other. thus a pyrrhic victory.
its no victory is my point. you calling it victory doesn’t make it so.
And you calling it not a victory doesn’t make it not a victory.
Moron.
editors note. as Lance and Micha are long time people of the TSOH exchanges like that above is not encourage but also not banned. For other people wouldn’t be as permissive.
I’ve explained why it’s no victory , Micha. namely because legislative manueverings make the masa yawn, precisely because everyone in Congress are dirrrty.
Masa are not imbeciles.
And you try to bamboozle them by saying this is a victory. They know better. people know better over there, Micha. stop with your bs. please.
here’s your explanation.
“That’s called strategic legislative pragmatism.” (hell, I fell asleep just merely copy pasting that sentence, Micha!!! )
LOL, gian.
Re: Editor’s note:
Copy chief, the tanod will stand down. wink wink.
I’ll put this separate cuz this is such an embarassingly bad understanding of the masa, Micha.
Simply put they don’t give a fuck about any of this legislative maneuverings.
If anything every time you put Inday Sara ‘s face in the news, whether negative or positive, you’re giving her free advertising. thus…
Guaranteeing her victory in 2028.
That’s the victory you should be worried about. not this crap!!!!!!!!!! this is just bs
!!!!
Again know the masa. not your idealized version of what you think they’ll care about.
this is how the masa see her: https://joeam.com/2021/05/13/viewpoints-inday-sara-for-president/ so work with it not against it. you wanna find dirt on her. that’s your mission between now and 2028.
the masa understand practical. its even part of their lexicon, “praktikal yan, pare!” So this is exactly how they’ll see your “victory”. like i said its a victory for Inday Sara. she gets to play the victim here. as in witch hunt. listen to gian.
Makabayan will have confidential funds. pot kettle everyones black is my point. its Congress.
Not taking any advice from a stupid troll like you. The Makabayan bloc are representing the working/lower/peasant class. They’re been red-tagged a million times for their effort by the livid equally moronic Duterte brigade.
Our representative bicameral form of gov’t gives space and platform for that segment of our polity. Your inability to grasp that puts you on the side of imbeciles.
Makabayan can keep keeping watch, Micha. but unless they are actually in power they’ll not really accomplish much aside from Pyrrhic victories like this, again as gian said stunts like this usually result in unintended consequences opposite of what they were trying to accomplish.
if you’re a fan of that pattern, then have at it. Again, this Pyrrhic victory only served to put Inday Sara in the limelight. more of this will guarantee her presidency in 2028. Makabayan needs to catch Inday Sara and Bong Go doing the dirty or something more dramatic. masa likes drama like D5 vs. driver stuff.
Legislative manueverings make the masa yawn. that’s all you’ve accomplished really.
You keep on stringing the word pyrrhic and it’s doubtful if you even understand it. Tell us again, moron, what’s the great cost of stripping Sara Lustay of her unnecessary CIF?
Billions of state and people’s money have been spared from Fiona’s corruption. Looks more like a benefit than a cost.
check the unprogrammed funds she got 5B if I remember correctly to buy land for the OVP.
If you mean the sattelite offices (read: campaign headquarters for 2028) she plan to erect in every region, that’s clearly ostentatious and redundant. The VP is a spare tire as you’ve said, no need for those. More reason that stripping her of CIF was highly justified. A benefit for the country, not a cost.
her power is that she’ll be president in 2028. why she didn’t just opt for now and wait instead, I still don’t really understand. but yes, she is setting something up.
but again as gian said and also me, she’ll get this money either way. I’m now thinking reading gian’s commentary on this that Makabayan are in fact
playing along with PBBM et al. maybe they are trying to prevent the likelihood of an Inday Sara presidency, which means who are they gonna run against her?
PBBM’s son? or maybe PBBM has no part in this at all.
in the end, this has only propelled Inday Sara not diminished.
Not interested in political triangulation right now. I’ve just been looking for a clear answer from you on what’s the great cost for stripping Inday Fiona of her CIF?
some people respond with bullets. have to look and see where the mid terms point to.
like Trump and all the lawsuits filed on him. the cost is the unintended consequence of free advertising. essentially making him a martyr.
Inday Sara as VP, woulda been easy to forget. like Trump they coulda chose to shut her out of the limelight, instead since 2020 all we heard was Trump 24/7.
so 2024, Trump will win. that’s unless Newsom is tapped. that’s the parallel here.
A national survey was released covering the period at the height of CIF fiasco and your Inday Sara’s approval rating plunged by several points. Doesn’t look to me like a great cost, much less pyrrhic. Try again
depends on how you view things. there was a concerted effort over a month or two and the effect still has her at 70 percent satisfaction rating. that is scary.
same with Trump starting with the Jan 6. bs to all the lawsuits. but look where Trump is now? ahead of every poll.
the nature of a Pyrrhic victory is that its short sighted, Micha.
Also, the Trump phenomenon has less to do with the media’s coverage of his egregious conduct and more to do with both class and racial tension or stratification that’s become even more pronounced and grotesque. People are hurting, in economic pain and Trump provides transient if not altogether false sense of deliverance.
The phenomenon can only be viewed with sense from a class analysis perspective.
As it was then, so it is now.
2021 people moved on and away from Trump. he even created his own Twitter and FOX News stopped covering him.
but for some reason, there were these hearings then lawsuits, which gave Trump the limelight again. he was fine where he was early 2021, largely forgotten.
hearings and lawsuits compelled the media gaze, and fast forward to now people are wondering why Trump is ahead in every poll.
lesson here is its easy to forget people. VP Sara could easily get the VP Leni treatment. but instead she’s getting free advertising.
Let me ask you this : if the middle and working class Americans are doing better than they are now economically, do you think Trump will still get the political oxygen for his campaign notwithstanding those several lawsuits?
Biden’s actually kicking ass, Micha.
I don’t agree with his reversing of Trump’s Mexico as our southern border policy which left all the asylum seekers back in Mexico’s southern border.
but everything else he’s done domestically has been balance positive not negative.
So Trump’s popular only for 1 reason, Micha. namely all these lawsuits and media coverage.
You’re still not answering the question, moron. You just go disingenuous every time your incoherence gets exposed.
Your premise is
that Biden is screwing up.
Hence Trump is ascendant. no?
And the American masa as somehow too stupid to think for themselves cuz we’re poor too, which is really not the case.
so the question is how much do poor Americans (which can’t think for themselves according to your world view) really make up the voting population.
not much.
No ones going hungry here , Micha.
the ones that are which are the homeless or no work types don’t bother to vote. hell last go round only 60% of those that can vote actually did vote.
I think it was like 80-90% for the Philippines, so the masa is a real threat. but not here.
that’s the difference.
So separate your thinking from votes equals hungry mouths first and you’ll understand why Trump is ascendant and Biden is not.
It all boils down to media coverage, namely because of these kangaroo proceedings. now whose idea that is I don’t know but someone screwed up, Micha.
I don’t think Biden’s incapable but he is looking older and older by the month, but much of peoples displeasure it seems is that he might croak and we’ll end up with Kamala.
and in fairness to Trump, Biden is good precisely because he kept most of Trump’s policies intact (except for the Mexican border stuff that he didn’t).
but its Kamala Harris that’s Biden’s weakness and the fact he can croak any time. Mean while Trump looks vigorous again thanks to the media coverage. that’s where we’re at, Micha.
forget about the poor Americans they don’t really vote. its the Americans that fly and go on road trips see Trump rallies and the like that you gotta worry about, cuz they’re hopped up on visuals. and no they are not hungry. or poor.
so you need to rethink your premise here.
That’s what you get when you’re not paying attention to what’s happening in your own country and instead spend much time ogling the girls in the red light district of Cebu.
Two major demographic categories of Trump supporters are white and older Americans – those who’ve known the good old days of the ’50s and the ’60s typified by an adage suggesting general welfare or prosperity of “a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage”.
All that general prosperity began to dwindle in the ’80s as de-industrialization went apace. Factories were moved to China and the labor sector got squeezed. Wages stagnated. Communities in the rust belt states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan were hallowed out. American dream became a nightmare. Mass shootings. Suicide. Drug and alcohol abuse. Families were torn apart. The middle class struggled sliding down into the poor neighborhood.
Clinton completed the sellout with NAFTA and the globalization bandwagon. White folks felt getting marginalized as immigrants flood the border even as Asians also seems to be everywhere.
Homelessness became the norm in almost every major city when Obama chose to side with the criminals of Wall Street and threw homebuyers under the bus.
In 2016, America was ripe for Trump’s picking. Uncle Joe didn’t get any lesson from all that and is now poised to get kicked in the ass this November.
And no, it’s not about hunger. The word you should learn to define is precarity.
as for the homeless, Micha, Google baby Yayra Rutherford and LAX bus stop.
sure i’ll agree that homelessness is a big problem, but again I’ll say again and again the homeless don’t vote. but more importantly look at where they are in the map and consider the places you’ve mentioned vis a vis the prosperity chart above.
I’ll cover baby Yayra more in detail on Monday.
Precarity schmecarity, Micha.
Your undestanding of all this is similar to your understanding of the situation in the Philippines. very shallow!
Like I said no one’s hungry, and those who are, are not gonna vote.
Trump won in 2016, because Democrats opted out and chose to stay home.
in 2020, Biden and Trump increased their base both. look at the popular vote numbers below.
2024 , is looking more and more like 2016. the same way non-stop media coverage of Trump got him elected in 2016, will get him elected in 2024. (thats unless Newsom takes over for Biden).
again that above is just 60% or so of registered voters who chose to vote in 2020, Micha.
there are more blacks Hispanics Asians as you can see voting Republican these days. and its not because they’re hungry.
those Filipino-Americans are not hungry nor precarious. many are well off.
so you have Dems opting not to vote, whilst more non-Whites opting for GOP. then non-stop coverage of Trump.
sonny I think would have more insight into this, I think much of it has to do with Catholic conservatism. but that increase in non-White destroys your precarious world view, Micha.
Most Whites are actually pro Haley or de Santis these days, especially white Women GOP, Micha. but again look at the popular vote (and that’s just the 60% who voted). then Google the racial demographics overall of the US.
In conclusion, you are so wrong its not even funny. But I suggest you test out what I’m saying by talking to more Fil-Ams of all generation. and ask why they’ll be voting for Trump. and more importantly, if they’re hungry or precarity.
ps. gian, am I correct in assuming here that INC in the USA would be more prone towards Trump now and were they also in 2016 and 2020? i’m thinking their views would be in line with Catholic Filipinos here as well. and both INC Filipinos and Catholic Filipinos would also be happy with Trumps SCOTUS now and their decisions thus far, really paying off.
have no idea.
also there is a new procurement law nearly passed. that would mean a lot of the headaches with the current procurement law would be somewhat resolved. this means the funds will flow.
Useful idiots these people are. By going against Sara D they saved the current legislative leadership from being more prominent in the attack. Marcos and Romualdez thanks the Makabayan block because they seem to live playing ball. Why focus on the VP? The VP is a spare tire with almost no power really.
good point, gian.
I would also add this thought…
If the new procurement law will inject efficiency in the disbursement of funds, what’s the beef?
nothing wish them the best. The CIF of Sara D was spent on stuff that really doesn’t qualify for tagging as intelligence funds. also if statements from congress are to be believed all the projects are well documented. So this points to how inefficient government procurement is that people who have enough power try to short circuit it. hopefully the new procurement law can supercharge government spending
I’m with you on the efficiency part, but not on the efficiency of stealing or malversation of public money.
I dont know about efficiency, how fast, how soon things can be procured. though the new procurement law does not really say what is procured is use efficiently, and indeed fit for purpose. if what is procured is found to be not fit for purpose, what then! magtuturan na manan sila?
a while back, deped spent big buying laptops only to have the laptops unused and gathering dust, and some ended up in ukay ukay stores. the laptops had problem with interfacing and connectivity. and no one seemed to know what to do with them.
as well, one time health secretary dr garin once said a hospital in iloilo bought mri scan machines but the machines are still boxes, unused. the machines were incompatible with the current hospital system. and for the machines to be operational, the hospital system have to be upgraded, and would need another injection of fund! and that was it. back to square one.
hard to function with 81.64
govt agencies need to minimize procuring duds and useless gizmos, even if they dont feel a thing dahil hindi galing a bulsa nila ang perang ginasto. and not to spend big on a whim, else they’ll miss out on discounts, flybuys, and what nots. public servants have to be thoughtful and accountable for what they procure, and not to relay on luck that things will sort themselves out, and no one would notice discrepancies.
tama din sabi ni PBBM when you slowdown projects you deny people the option to enjoys these things from the government. currently pag walang nagyari swe sweldo pa din sila.
May asymmetry.
Procure and have risk of cases etc versus doing nothing and sweldo ka.
So the people who don’t want hassle are super anal na lang on everything. or just fail the bid para walang risk
who is afraid of the spare tire? for a spare, she already has amassed 10 satellite offices, and has 403 security guards to secure the offices, incurring more expenses for staff and security, their bonuses and paid leave, plus rent, maintenance, and upkeep of the offices, etc.
the spare is also co vice of ntf elcac which may contradict her deped chairmanship. dahil some student may be red tagged and may well be ‘dukot’ while at school on her say so, and maybe allegedly made to disappear also on her say so.
may conflict of interest yata siya, and ought to give up co vice-ing ntf elcac.
may tit for tat yata, while pbbm spends big on overseas travels, the spare spends big on satellite offices. palakihan ng expenses ang uniteam.
it is on us to fiscalize by electing people who would. Palakihin ang parties na makabayan if you think they are doing the right thing.
the trick is public servants usually hire consultants to do the procurement and do the heavy lifting for them and then buying up big. and if things go wrong, public servants gladly point the finger at consultants. chicken or the egg ang labas.
public servants do love outsourcing, that way they can wash their hands of consequences.
tama si pbbm, if you slowdown projects you deny people the option to . . . kaya I’m full of wonder why western visayas has massive power outage with millions in revenue lost and so many people inconvenient.
the question pbbm ought to be asking is why the national grid is naghihingalo! and why the national grid system upgrade project is shower than a three legged turtle!
current corporate entities suck at planning. now when you have something as tightly integrated but as loosely regulated as the energy sector you get the issues we have.
The NGC needs to anticipate demand because building capacity takes time. When they get to the Senate hearing we shall know how far ahead they project and how accurate their projections are.
ahem, kung ako lang, those officials once elected should step up and do their mandate despite being undesirables and problematic prior. they were given 2nd chance to do better and people showed good faith in them. and what did they do in return? squander the trust people give them.
for failing to do their mandate, these officials ought to be fired, resign or get impeached. already two agri undersecretaries resigned probly bec of personality clash with agri sec.
again, kung ako lang, sisihan should not be left to voters.
Ireneo,
there’s a San Miguel beer in Spain?!!!
Yes, in fact Philippines San Miguel first established Spanish San Miguel in 1946, except that mestizo owner Soriano sold it to Mahout in 1953.
Similar logo, tastes a bit different and is a favorite of vacationers.
I knew San Miguel first came from Spain in the 1800s, but didn’t know it returned. interesting. thanks.
oh, another question, I found another Salazar (well mother side i guess) in academia here, is she like cousin of yours or something?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celine_Parreñas_Shimizu
From wiki. Expounding what Irineo said.
As part of its overseas expansion, San Miguel Brewery moved into the Spanish market in 1953, setting up the company which would later become San Miguel Spain. Since 1946, there has been a company engaged in the production of malt for medicinal purposes known as La Segarra. In the early 1950s, its key shareholders Enrique Suárez Rezona, Ramón Vidal and Jaime Muñiz made contact with Andrés Soriano, then president of San Miguel Brewery, to allow their group to produce beer under the San Miguel name in Spain. In 1953, San Miguel Brewery, Inc. signed the “Manila Agreement” to establish a new brewery, La Segarra, S.A., in Spain. The company would later be renamed San Miguel Fabricas de Cerveza y Malta, S.A. in 1957, as an affiliate of San Miguel Brewery, Inc. which initially held 20% equity share via its Hong Kong subsidiary.[2] In February 2014, San Miguel Corporation and Mahou-San Miguel signed a co-operation agreement to promote jointly San Miguel Beer and expand its global footprint.[3]
I remember once in a HK hotel, circa 1988, San Miguel had the HK flag and I silently protested.
With friends like this, who needs enemies.
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202310220074
China Leaves Iran Out Of Major Investment Projects
We think Panay is a SNAFU in resource management?
https://www.powersystems.technology/news/us-news/nerc-report-warns-of-impending-electricity-shortages-in-north-america-by-2024.html#:~:text=The%20report%20indicates%20that%20over,electrification%20of%20buildings%20and%20vehicles.
at the moment nagtuturuan sila, ngcp say there are not to blame, there are other too. no one seems to be taking responsibility, and pbbm is breathing down their collective necks! panay was without power for four days, galit yata ang china sa joint military drill ng phillippines at estados unidos at pinagdilim ang western visayas.
anyhow, the north americans are lucky, they were warned of impending power shortages yet to come. habang dito sa akin, nangyari na and will continue on tuwing may alitan ang china vs philippines.
china owns 40 per cent of ngcp kaso, it is alleged china has the remote and can control the grid. the supposedly 60 per cent filipino co owners of the grid are seemingly pushovers and mayhap, compromised na.
Very plausible kahit parang conspiracy theory. I would think the same way.
erase the conspiratory part. I remember Chempo taking offense.
the supply is always thin. the incentives make it so. You can only delay maintenance so much before you get in controlled shutdown due to breakdown of mechanical stuff.
The foever war continues.
https://www.eurasiantimes.com/houthi-rebels-declare-war-on-the-west-iran-playing-with-fire/amp/
closer to home, we have a forever destab plot vs govt of the day. each president from years gone by meron destab plot. at kung wala, miracle yan.
sa ngayon, pnp retired generals kuno in socmed were asking pbbm to step down. like the old cudgers have forgotten that pbbm is elected president and can be made to vacate his mandate via impeachment.
sara is most likely the beneficiary, pbbm steeping down? in their dreams!
at sobrang pakikisama naman nitong si pbbm, will grant special favor yata to maybe maybe not running for senator ex president rodrigo duterte as regards closure of quiboloy’s fave media network. old man duterte is bypassing the usual tamang proceso and going straight to the top to hain his complaint. napaka-privelege naman ang mamang mula sa dabaw! he has got the president’s immediate ear, and allowed the backdoor entry.
I hope pbbm has got his legal advisers in attendance, else tuluyan siyang ma-destab coz duterte may well be accompanied by his senate lackeys and own lawyer!
at pls naman po, for the interest of the public and for transparency’s sake, record the meeting and post it in the internet. it is only proper na wala silang tinatago, walang tinatakpan. after all, the current destab plot was posted in the internet, it is only proper that result of the meeting be also posted in the internet. patas.
I remember the times that I got offended by Lance calling us third world. I was too sensitive. Totoo naman eh.
Moving on, the author lists three ways we can rise from third world.
https://www.philstar.com/search/Can%20we%20still%20become%20a%20rich%20nation
sorry, karl.
I just like the 3rd world, 2nd world, and 1st world depictions i know its an old Cold War thing. but I find that its simpler and still relevant compared to the new terms like developing world, etc.
the same reason I don’t use CE and BCE, its either AD or Before Christ. it was Catholics specifically Jesuits that came up with the calendar after all.
My simple threshold for 3rd world status is if theres kids begging for money and or food in the streets. last Christmas is had to rethinking 1st world status when we had baby Yayra die in the streets near LAX.
I wrote a long winded along the same line as my post below but with more detail about how having a baby die in the streets cuz its cold is a pretty damning thing to happen on her watch, karl.
I’ve just not been able to get this off the chest since the holidays, cuz also most offices are unofficially closed. so I’m not a letter writing campaign specifically about this baby Yayra incident, kar.
so 1st world 2nd world, we’re not so far away really. only difference here is and this is my assumption and why I’m writing plenty today is that people really take offense at having a baby die on the streets. in the cold.
I know babies die all the time. but this was wholly preventable. as explained below. I know Mayor Bass is similarly offended she’s been in the news, but i hope i can delineate at the granular level how it was preventable.
Understood and noted with thanks
a baby dying in the streets means neglect from the whole of society.
countries are allowed to self declare and china evidently declared itself 3rd world country, a still developing country, same with india yata. they can still put their hands up and receive world donations, poverty alleviating measures and other aids intended for 3rd world countries. it is apparent no one has the guts to stand up and challenge china’s status.
they are still just developing like India. The per Capita of India and China is below middle middle class economy
india is already oozing with money and sending its own rockets into the space and beyond, siding with russia in badmouthing the dollar, paying for russian oil with rupees. kaso, india has liquidity problem and is now back to using the dollar again.
china is arming itself and fast becoming a super superpower, the world’s 2nd greatest economy is threat to peace in the pacific.
it is getting apparent both china and india are continuing to use their poor as ‘lucky charm’, gotta keep their poor on tight lease else they become 1st world country and oblige to give and donate annually to the world’s coffer for the poor and the destitute the world over.
reality is they know what is important -> progress. when you are poor the environment and the likes should be less of a concern. The analogue of this is caring about retirement when you are always hungry. fix hunger first before even thinking of retirement or passing something to the next generation. Progress always trumps all the virtue signaling
Sana magdilang anghel ang may akda.
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2024/01/02/2322832/2024-outlook
I think money man diokno ought to receive a medal made of kahoy for his better outlook for 2024. perhaps he did not see how the havenots live, our jeepney drivers are struggling to meet the cost of jeepney modernisation.
it is apparent china is going to be bigger winner, alleged to have been exclusively contracted to manufacture the modern jeepneys, cost is higher than locally made jeepneys. and wait until we see the eye gouging cost of spare parts made in china. the devil is indeed in the detail, there is connivance big time.
those poor jeepney drives elking out a living, they are consigned to being poor forever. baon sa utang with interest rising higher year in and year out.
These are the times I hate neoliberalism because we can produce the jeeps here and all we need to do is support Francisco Motors wish for an export processing zone, etc.
francisco motors mayhap ay walang malaking pang-kickback para sa mga politikos at interested parties. usually, the commission for agents is around 5-10 per cent, now it can be as high as 40 per cent or even higher, the sky is not limit with china’s lackeys.
Mayhap
diokno is being replaced by ate vi’s husband, ralph recto.
ate vi just won an acting award, likewise, her husband also got an award as new finance chief.
He once prophesized the MUP pension conundrum and had a press conference that go him fired from NEDA. Let us see
this is a thankless position to be honest. That he accepted this makes me feel he is feeling that he is being called to service again.
have a rule of thumb it is called Hanlon’s Razor states: never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect, ignorance or incompetence.
Remember how early March 2020 we were faced with the funny/sad situation wherein the mask manufacturer from Bataan cannot sell more than 20 percent of the masks locally. If they do they lose their PEZA tax perks.
This is similar to that.
https://bandera.inquirer.net/244389/milyong-face-masks-sa-bataan-hindi-maibenta-sa-mga-pinoy
TY for that rule of thumb
kung ako lang, the president should have been quick to step in and recalibrate with a new unprecedented executive order, suspending peza tax perks for the time being because of pandemic. pandemic was as good excuse as any. we lose our rights to free association then, masking and distancing; and as such, the president should have acted and make changes where necessary.
I agree but it is what it is. Di Siya nagging priority. imagine a world where we doubled down with PEZAs. Built dorms and pushed foreign suppliers here while everyone else was locked down or practicing zero COVID
another case where the government preferring outside money going in fails people/companies inside.
Yep
I see this as another drawdown of our society from the commons of competence and or interdependence of systems. We have really an unbalanced pattern of spending that burdens our society. Our car centric approach screams choosing things without really doing the computations on simple stuff like, can we even fucking afford this. Sending lots of our intellectuals to the US where even up to the 2000s the country had so much surplus and learning from them was really fucked up.
We have a rights based approach when we cannot afford it. thus we have a failing public education system, a failing public works system, a failing public health system. We start with what can we afford grow then grow the “benefits”. a rights based approach fails
Excellent points
The author believes that Tiktok is responsible for the sudden interest in Gaza.
Depending on where you stand that maybe a good thing or a bad thing.
https://www.pressreader.com/philippines/the-philippine-star/20240102/281625310127037
tik tok is usually the domain of younger people, some with apparent poor knowledge of history. jesus is palestinian as portrayed by a dutch movie in 1999, a comedy. and many now believe that jesus is indeed palestinian.
the real jesus was jew and born in the time of king herod, thousands of years before palestine existed. palestine was created in 1948.
Before that Palestine was a mere prophesy.
https://www.alhakam.org/what-does-the-quran-say-about-israel-and-palestine/
We already know that a former Defense chief during Martial law and a former Senator was allegedly an illegal logger and a Congressman has quarrying operations. But DENR and LGUs make it worse.
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2024/01/05/2323478/denr-crooks-local-executives-leave-watersheds-unprotected
I am glad that the DA is encouraging local production in agri fisheries.
They must stop smuggling and illegal fishing first to really encourage them.
https://www.philstar.com/business/2024/01/07/2323942/da-unveil-agriculture-modernization-strategy
One of the richest in terns of voting population has now the poorest of the poor among them.
They must have kept on voting the wrong candidate.
Gone are the days when Samar or ARMM were the poorest.
https://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/psa-cebu-has-most-poor-people-in-ph#:~:text=AMONG%20the%2017%20regions%20in,with%201.72%20million%20poor%20people.
the governor of my beloved cebu is quite proud of cebu’s voting power, she was much courted last 2022 election with politicians from all over the divide seeking her out and needing her approval and support, casting her lot and winning lucrative post for her kin, is what I think.
there are lot of poor people in cebu, me one of them. faces may change but the gradient is constant, the poor have learned to live with less early on. and expect less. during election, all bets are off. give us more, give us livelihood, give us jobs, give us houses, oh yes. their wants are plenty and got next to nothing after election. the question is not really the voters, they’re just one of the equation, the question ought to be addressed to politicians why they could not fulfill their promises, lest half of it.
the poor voted in good faith and may take politicians at face value, selling votes is like wait staff soliciting tips for services rendered, real estate agents receiving commission, etc. those under performing politicians should be addressed at their own level, but if senate president is more than collegial and would rather be friendly ninong than a stout standard bearer of moral compass, ah, there goes the blame game again, back to square one, back to voters.
voters are always put to higher standard and blamed for poor voting choices, not so politicians: they’re rarely blamed for fooling their electorate, for the con artists that they are and for scamming the goodwill of their electorate.
talks of paradigm shift should include politicians, make them accountable to their electorate, their scorecard not highly dependent on paid polls and surveys, their paid trolls swamping socmed with misinformation.
ahem, the new paradigm shift, the latest kid on the block: the act of regional vote buying of signatures to push for charter change bypassing both senate and congressional approval, charter change is now for sale.
and since many politicians will greatly benefit from charter change for longer period of time, voters should demand prices be higher than mere 100 pesos per vote offered, and ask for 500 pesos per vote instead.
and if in the future, the remedial charter change prove to be useless white elephant, another charter change maybe in the offing, with renewed higher prices, hahaha.
https://www.cnnphilippines.com/news/2024/1/9/criminal-raps-cha-cha-vote-buying.html
Thanks for advocating again for the poor, but I still can not imagine YOU being literally poor. Pardon me for that.
i met this guy in Egypt doing consultancy work under the UN working with Egyptians to grow certain crops , one of them mango actually (my favourite tree and fruit so we got to talking a lot). He grew up poor from San Carlos Negros area to northern Mindanao where he would eventually get into college there and then finish a degree then was fortunate enough to get a position within said college he was a hard worker then was sent to American and English colleges and programs where he eventually got his PhD i believe in Kansas or Oklahoma and from there tenured at UH Hilo in the big island.
He use to chew a mouth ful of dirt in his mouth and determine the chemical make up said soil sample.
so like the OFW route, the higher education route is also a means to get out of poverty.
now i still think kb is MRP but whether OFW or PHD route I do believe kb is of poverty, karl.
(ps. is it just me or are comments just not getting posted, I’m trying to comment eg. Ireneo’s etc. but it just keeps on giving me the duplicate comment message but no comments posted. I’ll keep trying here to see if eventually takes.)
Hehe just cut down on the bad words.. relax! 😅
..I didn’t mean to say anything bad about Taylor Swift 😉
(okay let me try it here. gian, can you check on this. or maybe its an apple vs. WP compatibility issue i dunno. anyone else experiencing this)
so the thing with Jokoy is he’s an ethnic comedian, like George Lopez is. they are not on the same boat as generalist type comedians who are global like Jeff Dunham or Fluffy, they are generalists. ethnic comedians that can do both ethnic and generalist would be Chapelle or Kevin Hart.
but yeah, Jokoy is a niche comedian. you have to know Filipinos to understand and appreciate his jokes. so already he’s out of his element not his audience. if the Golden Globes was a Filipino awards show then he and his jokes would be a perfect fit.
The trick to what he was trying to do (and i’m no comedian just an observer here) at the Golden Globes was already done by Ricky Gervais and the trick to it is you have to commit all the way. Jokoy was pulling his punches, maybe it was the Filipino insecurity i dunno, or
maybe Howard Stern is correct 10 days isn’t enough preparation time.
But his jokes, especially the one concerning Taylor Swift wasn’t even a joke theres no punch line he just said theres more camera angles of Taylor Swift in the NFL, he shoulda took it further no pulling punches and said something like and she’s probably already on her next album and Travis Kelce will probably move on to Madonna next.
i dunno i’m no comedian, but my poinst is take it all the way. shit you’re gonna get cancelled either way, take it all the way.
But I do suspect he’ll be back. cuz like Howard Stern said they’ll need a host next year noone wants the gig, plus the Golden Globes actually got high ratings for that airing, which I suspect is all the Filipinos watching, much like the Jasmine Trias in American idol wherein Filipinos just kept on calling for her to stay. pissing off Simon.
so for that reason it was a success. IMHO.
wow high ratings. he is going to be back with a vengeance with a year to prepare
I am more curious actually about the trend to criticize Woke Hollywood nowadays and how it relates to the American anti-woke backlash.
The Scotsman critical drinker for instance is in line with many American critics.
OK, i take the Critical Drinker with some skepticism but Metatron I do take seriously as a history vlogger. He does cite instances where ideology makes people bend the truth, something I am allergic to. One can imagine a better world, but the past is what is was..
Your take makes sense. About comments I think it’s the device’s fault for having sensitive touch screens. Or sometimes when Internet is slow we press submit more than once
Micha, et al. as promised here’s my response re Trump, pricarity and homelessness in particular.
And its relevant to the current blog … ‘Not because people stopped caring about what is right, but because the “woke” insist on ideological/personal purity at the expense of ignoring real problems that people face.’
I would go one step further and say its nationalism vs. globalism.
When the first Clinton was president in the 90s he enjoyed surplus. he outsourced manufacturing to China etc. but that surplus he slapped on other stuff to balance out that outsourcing like in the late 90s and early 2000s pre 9/11 that all resulted in more money for college, with grants etc. FREE money.
Then 9/11 happened and it was GWOT time first under W. then Obama, outsourcing but without the policies to attempt to balance out. people who could move moved to greener pastures, people who couldn’t eventually did regardless they were given bus tickets out to go west.
And this is where Rust belt homelessness comes into the picture.
If you look at that homeless map above, much of the homelessness is documented in the West coast with some in the East namely NY. this is so because at the granular level local govts and counties have policies to push their homeless Westward convincing them of better quality of life and yes due to the Left Coast’s progressive policies theres more funding for homeless.
Which brings us to the mid-2000s. When Bratton was Chief of LAPD the city of LA attempted to develop downtown LA only problem was Skid Row which is prime real estate. So along with the city and big money developer they had this big idea to harass the homeless into leaving, to where no one knows. it was an ill thought out policy.
When criminilization of homelessness ramped up the ACLU stepped in.
lawsuits were lobbed and eventually case law too precendent that homelessness wasn’t a crime thus no entities of the gov’t can displace them.
Now before that, and i would wager since the Great Depression. police and homeless had an understanding. if they were in public space and or bothered the public in any way, the police would arrest or physical move them somewheres else. after the ACLU lawsuits all that unwrittern rule ended.
so from mid 2000s on, homelessness became untouchable. gov’ts local, county and state, just turned a blind a eye. around late-2010s people started to complain.
Weirdly and somewhat related BLM happened in 2015 (again in 2020. first Michael Brown then George Floyd). but BLM was originally an LA phenomenon, Cal State LA to be exact. and they cut their teeth on 2 police involved shootings that involved black cops and black homeless men. separate incidents, LAPD firing both for out of policy but were protected under qualified immunity cuz they were doing their jobs.
The DA at that time Lacey was a black woman, and instead of criminally charging the two black cops (remember 2 separate incidents one in Skid Row and other in Venice). she in her great wisdom decided not to. even at the recommendation of LAPD they were saying criminal negligence. but no national attention even though there were videos though not so clear.
Then Michael Brown happened. then George Floyd.
Which brings us to baby Yayra Rutherford ‘s tragic death right before Christmas outside at a bus stop in LAX. I personally think the mom and close relatives are legally liable. becuz although the bureaucracy that denied them housing was wrong (theres a lawsuit now), survival is a very personal thing. some would say instinct.
just a block away are hotels and the airport terminals which already unofficially house homeless people (they camouflage themselves by pretending to be travelers). and although LAX police which is another police dept within the city of LA do keep them moving along, they tend to be lenient during incliment weather and emergencies.
but the baby’s death is a result of these policies from Chief Bratton to BLM, in which eventually cops do the best they can not to make contact with the homeless. before especially when cops see kids they contact child services and off the streets they go.
So now pricarity and Trump, my point in all that long dissertation is that all that pricarity that resulted from NAFTA and China supply chain outsourcing, doesn’t really stay in the Rust belt all that pricarity gets pushed to the Dem states, in the west mostly but also the east, very much the same way Gov. Abbott of TX buses the illegal migrants.
Ergo the people that are left are folks that saw their 401K and gas prices go drastically down during Trump. that is what they are voting for. simple little things but not really about survival or even pricarity. they are also voting for stuff like abortion and woke colleges spewing their woke stuff into elementary schools.
so the politics of pronouns and Latinx and Filipinx are all related in all this. culture wars really.
in Conclusion, much of the reason for voting these days isn’t economic, again Biden is kicking ass. under Obama as well economically it was steady. his policies bego Trump’s quiet presidency. but Trumps presidency also begot the more important decoupling with China. which Biden is gladly continuing which I agree with.
so again economics isn’t the main issue here, but as andrew has written about ideologies that chose to make unimportant things more important.
the bright side here, is that Sean Hannity seems to love Gov. Gavin Newsom, and after those interviews Newsom slam dunked on FOX News more and more GOP’ers seem on board with this. subtract Biden, make it a Newsom vs. Trump 2024 cycle. and Newsom will win. hands down. he’ll take all that media attention from Trump just with his good looks alone, Micha.
TL;DR
Its not the economy. Its the media. purity not precarity. don’t overthink this.
Suck out all Trump’s media attention with Gavin Newsom. and bye bye Trump.
gian, the INC in California not sure about the rest of the US are very business oriented like they own a bunch of old people care facilities or housing wards of the state eg. retarded mentally ill folks the state pays that one. lots of them in the medical field too. that’s why i’m thinking they lean more GOP than Dem.
p.s. — re homelessness if you notice in the Bay Area and even Seattle, now with Mayor Bass in LA, the policies of the mid-2000s from ACLU are now being overturned. homelessness again is a crime requiring police intervention but unlike before now theres social services efforts right after arrest or detention by cops. remember when Xi visited San Fran its very easy to clean up the homeless just take care of them when you move them. which i think is now happening.
this seems plausible to me as they align with my observations. the road to hell was paved with hassle avoidance
Slightly OT, there is a controversy about Jo Koy and how he hosted the Golden Globe awards.. the above video is Whoopi Goldberg defending him. The one below is Howard Stern. Lots to unpack, especially about a society that easily takes offense, not just because of PC. For example, let’s ask why everyone finds it funny when Jo Koy jokes about Filipina women of a certain generation, but not about Barbie or Taylor Swift. Robert De Niro kept cool, BTW. The Oppenheimer director was not amused when Jo Koy said he could have added an hour etc.
gee, even if given a year to prepare, there is no guarantee jokoy will not offend. he probly has a long way to go to become a master comedian, eat tons of humble rice, but if he is quick study and can read his audience, he can certainly adlib and not stick to the script. once he is up there, he owns the stage! strut for godssake, he does not have to joke about people.
Been lurking in reddit.com/r/philippines for years. Noticed significant amounts of class conflict in there where what I call “anti-anti-intellectualism”, or strong prejudice against the perceived lack of education among the lower classes, is blatant in that many mistakenly think education is a guarantee, a panacea against committing immorality in the form of keeping politicians in power and romanticizing poverty. That also many of them are so insistent on virtue, they overlook the very reasons why the supposed masses they despise continually choose to vote for crooked politicians.
I agree. Just look at Harvard’s former president.
so true, when people ask me what I do for a living, I told them I’m kasambahay and that’s it! end of convo, they dont talk to me anymore, which is just fine by me. only those with no class distinction are brave enough to talk with me, or maybe they want my kidney, haha. same in the airplane, no one wants to be katabi with to kasambahay and I got ignored, though I got a shock when I got bumped from economy seat to business class. apparently someone noticed me and upgrade my seat, sabi stop playing tricks on people!
I love the handle ‘kasambahay’, she has been kind to me.
I imagine my self saying he or she is business class because he/ she has expensive taste look he/she drinks suntory.
Peace kb
Ps
When I am asked what do I do, sometimes
I answer tambay (isk is already taken here in TSOH btw) so the interlocutor shifts to another topic.
hmm suntory yum yum
Somewhat OT: Twin vloggers from the Dominican Republic show that it is more fun at IKEA Philippines in Mall of Asia.
So Diokno is being recycled to BSP, a post he covets all this time with grander perks and immense power. The guy excels at self promotion but is in actuality an underperformer.
Won’t be surprised if he picked Recto as replacement at DOF – a rigodon of neoliberal motherfuckers making sure we preserve the status quo ante of rent seekers and monopolists.
But fret not, we have fiestas and festivals and religious devotions galore to distract you from noticing the robbers are making out with your daughters too.
It’s more fun in the Philippines!
Micha,
Who would be your top 3 Filipinos be to run the Central Bank and or DOF of the Philippines? and Why? And How will they turn things around, eg. policy-wise, step by step?
Irineo and Karl know this. I will bat for Sen Recto.
I was already following politics while these events were happening. I was already jaded and didn’t know why the hell would a nationally elected candidate sponsor EVAT.
If Recto’s intention is to turbocharge e-vat, he’ll be looking on top of political backlash a negative recessionary effect on the economy.
If he would propose to copy the fair tax bills of the US which until now has only a few takers will that give him the benefit of the doubt?
eliminate the rest of salary deductions esp income tax.
or if he pushes for a wealth tax on too if eliminating all salary deductions
Remains to be seen. But he was pushed in there because the neoclassicals are alarmed by the growing numbers on debt and deficits, all oblivious to the fact that on matters of debt, only those we borrow from outside will have the potential to harm the credit standing of the national gov’t or it being dragged into the possibility of default.
Presumably then, Recto’s job is to collect as many tax revenue as he can even if that will mostly be burdening the middle and working class segment. Pointless of course because it will really not increase our dollar reserves to service those foreign denominated loans.
Thanks for that
speaking of Recto and taxes.
Right you are on this, Micha on Recto’s priorities.
https://www.philstar.com/business/2024/01/14/2325588/recto-prioritize-pending-tax-reforms
but IBON’s Sonny Africa opines that we have progressive taxes.
https://www.philstar.com/business/2024/01/15/2325814/recto-urged-pursue-progressive-taxes
there is an inherent issue with progressive income taxation as it is an inherently leaky, complicated, area for corruption form of tax.
have to view how hard it is to tax people and start from there.
Thanks for that Gian. Abangan natin ang mga kaganapan.
apparently, recto did not finish the two masters degree pinagmalaki sa bio niya. attended only but did not finish. does not matter really, uso ngayon ng mga public servants to hire consultants (advisers) to do the heavy lifting for them; make them punch above their weight. be relevant.
Having observed first hand the consulting world and the advising world, another plausible take, kb.
Vague answers if people have no one in mind.
1. Anyone but him
2. Everyone can do better
3. Not my problem.
considering that ate vi is film buff, I noted that ralph recto may have made the ‘klingon sign’ on panumpa before pbbm.
if recto is going to tame inflation it will probly be in line with his previous stand in 2005 sa panahon yata ni arroyo. recto had proposed then that vat tax be increased from 10% to 12%.
as new dof sec, recto’s promise of raising tax revenue to 4.3trillion the financial year ending 2024, plus philhealth already hiking contribution to around 5%, I’ll have to wait and see, despite recto’s fellow mambabatas, fans and well wishers, already in high praises of him.
I hope klingon sign is agile and listening to pbbm saying, dof sec is going to be at the forefront of govt anti smuggling campaign, and pursue those that had made tax evasion into fine arts. if not, it may well be that pbbm and recto are not singing the same song.
I was watching pbbm’s body language, and the way he ‘closed off’ he knew and felt there was gaffe. recto may well be put on probation for not reiterating quickly the key issues the president wants addressed.
(its not posting, let me try down here)
Ireneo,
I’m pro Woke Hollywood, I think Hollywood has been too white dealing with just the dominant culture (with predominantly Jews as executives, thus too many Holocaust movies).
But I’m also anti-Woke in general, like Filipinx (Latinx) or the politics of pronouns. I identify as this or that crap. all nonsense. Which stems from too many college students majoring in ethnic and gender studies instead of actual fields of studies.
It all boils down to language games with them. not interesting at all. boring.
So when Woke crap personally affects me like when a family member enforces their own pronoun preference , and I get to say I’m not playing your language games. and point out instead of using pronouns, I can simply use your first name.
mind blown.
the part of me that loves to argue (I’m loving this Metatron guy by the way… ) automatically gets activated, but the more practical part of me is telling me this is such a waste of time like arguing with a Flatearther.
language games are boring.
So that’s that. I ‘m not a fan of Woke in real life. But I don’t really mind Woke Hollywood, because I get to watch shows like Reservation Dogs and now Echo on Disney plus. I’m kinda thinking American Indians have very 3rd world aesthetics and story mechanics, or maybe they just need the practice.
which thanks to Woke Hollywood , now they get to practice making shows. for themselves. and more varieties of stories for me, which is agood thing in the end.
I like to see other stories featured in TV shows and movies.
As for Cleopatra and Hannibal (Denzel Washington) i don’t mind so much, but black productions have to be better. Historical retconning should not be where they spend their energy. its a waste of everyones time.
take Atlanta on FX for example that is some really good black produced and acted TV series, its smart and artistic.
so do more historical movies like this instead:
in conclusion Woke Hollywood is fine. that just equals more stories for us.
Thanks. As the showbiz writer that I am now or aspire to be, I am intrigued by what the big hullabaloo about the coming Star Wars movie is.
Seems a lot of people don’t like Kathleen Kennedy. Is this controversy that big at all?
Seems to me a bit like something people are exaggerating to gain attention on both sides. Sometimes, a story is simply over, and endless sequels are just boring as hell, that’s all. Meanwhile, I am stoked for Dune Part 2.
Kathleen Kennedy is more activist than producer . she has destroyed the star wars universe TBH
I became quite indifferent to Star Wars after 7 (Ok), 8 (what?), and 9 (WTF?) even as I gave Andor a chance and it was good, probably because it was considered too minor to meddle with. Won’t watch Andor 2 as I don’t want to see another cool character deconstructed. What they did to Han Solo and Luke Skywalker was bad enough, even if I never was a fan of the too clean heroes, always more on Batman than Superman, more on Heneral Luna than Rizal. My father already found that the 1970s had no more true heroes in movies. Possibly, the Critical Drinker is right that by now, there are no more heroes at all in modern movies, not even antiheroes or flawed heroes like Han Solo or Indiana Jones. Exceptions like Andor or Bourne prove the rule?
Something about the woke activists of today’s America make me agree just a bit with Nicholas Taleb, who says many are the kind of academics who never faced real-life challenges, like having “driven a taxi to fund their studies or having gotten drunk with Russians”.
The scene above from The Wire shows such an intellectual get a reality check. Denying that the world has its bad sides won’t make it good. In fact, as MLQ3 wrote, they may end up like the Pharisees who say the lamb can lie down with the lion and not get eaten – in finally getting eaten by a bored lion. Of course, I am going straight into what Germans call Kulturkritik now and extrapolating general stuff from specific, but could the anti-woke backlash in present-day America be somewhat of a reaction to those kinds of people? Just thinking aloud very loud.
Han Solo and Indiana Jones = Harrison Ford
Role= flawed hero
Mat Damon should replace him so he would be the one to be rescued.
https://fandomwire.com/900-billion-in-8-movies-absurd-amount-of-money-matt-damon-rescue-missions-have-cost-to-hollywood/
When you talk about woke Hiollywood one example of my anti wokeness is the Latina Snow White. I don’t know why, in other instances I love watching Latinas in telenovelas but in Snow white maybe because they did not choose white Venezuelans or Mexicans ala Thalia.
I would rather have Gigi de Lana as Snow White as she is maputi, and even if her band Gigi Vibes are not duwende or even pandak, they love her as much as the dwarves loved Snow White and work for her. I leave the storyline to some of the crazier teleserye scriptwriters.
She can do a musical
Interesting. I’ve viewed “woke” as knowledgeable, and therefore good. It is offensive to power brokers because facts are their chief impediment. But there is a contrived use of knowledge that is irritating, I agree, and it is in fact wokeness used for the sake of power rather than more knowledge. Also interesting, I had not noticed before that you like to argue for the sake of arguing.🤣😂🤣😂🤣
Hahaha. I will make a full stop on ” woke”.
It’s one of those wishy washy words that means different things to different people in different circumstances. Rather like “neoliberalism”. 🤣😂🤣 Avoid them like the plague.
Hahaha.
In this thread I said it two or three times, but I should have listened the first time you said avoid it like the plague earlier.
The Israeli army, known as the Israel Defense Forces or IDF, is integral to understanding Israeli society. Nearly all Israelis do three years of military service. Most men continue to serve in the reserves until middle age. Its generals often retire to occupy senior positions in government an industry. The dominance of the military in Israeli society helps explains why war, militaristic nationalism and violence are so deeply embedded in Zionist ideology.
Israel is the outgrowth of a militarized settler colonial movement that seeks its legitimacy in Biblical myth. It has always sought to solve nearly every conflict — the ethnic cleansing and massacres against Palestinians known as Nakba, or catastrophe, of 1947-49, the Suez War of 1956, the 1967 and 1973 wars with Arab neighbors, the two invasions of Lebanon, the Palestinian intifadas and the series of military strikes on Gaza, including the most recent. The long campaign to occupy Palestinian land and ethnically cleanse Palestinians was rooted in the Zionist paramilitaries that formed the Israeli state and continues within the IDF. The overriding goal of settler-colonialism is the total conquest of Palestinian land. The few Israeli leaders who have sought to reign in the military, such as Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, have been pushed aside by the generals.
The military setbacks suffered by Israel in the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria and during Israel’s invasions of Lebanon, only fueled the extreme nationalists who abandoned all pretense of a liberal democracy. They began to speak in the open language of apartheid and genocide. These extremists were behind the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israel’s failure to live up to the Oslo accords. This extremism has now been exacerbated by the attack of Oct. 7, which killed 1,200 Israelis. The few Israelis who oppose this militaristic nationalism, especially after Oct. 7, have been silenced and persecuted in Israel. Genocidal violence is almost exclusively the language Israeli leaders and Israeli citizens use to speak to the Palestinians and the Arab world.
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-chris-hedges-report-with-miko?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=778851&post_id=140608860&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=fqvc3&utm_medium=email
Co-leader of fastest growing political party in Germany, Alice Weidel, confirms that an AfD gov’t would exit from the euro, end mass immigration, investigate the Nordstream bombing & Covid criminality, obtain sovereignty for Germany & introduce referenda.
Maybe China thinks that with their new EV brands they do not need VWs.
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2024/01/14/2325652/china-slams-germany-meddling-south-china-sea-row
Congratulations Andrew, pretty good article.
You seem to suggest wokism as an attribute or ideology of the Progressive Left. Wokism is simply identity politics that the Liberals usurp. To that extent they have actually accepted ideological impurity, or as you mentioned, Obama’s “imperfections”. The Liberals are now the globalists, in bed with Big Tech, Big Pharma, Military Industrial Complex, Billionaires. Manifestations of ideological impurities.
The progressive left prospered in the last 5 – 10 years with Big Tech, Media, Hollywood out normalising wokism and silencing alternative voices.
“US political landscape for the 2024 presidential election. I’m betting Trump would win, and it won’t be close. Not because he’s a good person, or who has good plans, but because the Democrats, the left, the progressives disintegrated, paving an easy path for Trump.”
The flags of wokism were all on the Marble Arch, until conservative voices which had been retreating found their beachhead in Elon Musk’s Twitter, Truth Social, and many independent podcasters that managed to broadcast to a general viewership not beholden to mainstream media.
It is not because the Left disintegrated, but the voices of the Right has regained their bullhorns. To counter the news coming out of the Right, mainstream media falls into the trap of giving Trump the stage again.
There has been no “easy path for Trump”. The polls are making the Left shit in their pants. But I think a lot has to do with information which are now accessible, thanks to FOIA, discovery arising from several proceedings in the courts, some whistleblowers, weaponization of FBI, DOJ, and other agencies, and dual judicial system (eg, no jail time for Ray Es). According to polls, perceptions of J6 and 2020 votes are changing. Hell, does anybody still believe in the plot to kidnap Whitmar?
As to the Leni campaigns, I agree with you their puritanical approach is a strategy that is doomed to fail.
Thanks for this. RE the Leni campaign let me add three possible lessons:
1) many volunteers didn’t get what Atty Leni really is about, meaning really getting an understanding of what concerns the people on the laylayan (fringes)
2) Atty Leni herself understood the laylayan best in the countryside but barely understood the cities – IF she had found common ground with Isko Moreno things might have been very different I guess, but that didn’t happen.
3) the concerns of a growing new middle class also matter. This is the clientele of the Dutertes until someone else manages to get what they are about. These are people who watch teleseryes and listen to a lot of the music I often feature.
Some American intellectuals and especially creatives have understood what has changed in the USA in the last decades at ground level – I believe The Wire and Breaking Bad series show aspects of this.
Philippine thought leaders, by contrast, are still caught in an outdated picture of Philippine society and MLQ3 understands but is too far from the ground just as I am, clearly. They leave stuff to Eric Matti and masterpieces like On The Job.
why leni robredo failed? below is probly a seminal and lengthy read and for those who have the patience, an enlightenment.
file:///C:/Users/Mum/Downloads/J1793284XV44N03C01%20%E2%80%93%201.%20Roundtable%20Philippine%20Elections%202022-2.pdf
You have to upload it somewhere as I have no access to your C-drive or the subdir of your mother (are you actually Jokoy?) so no chance..
ay naku, I got blocked, such seminal studies is apparently beyond the mental prowess and puny understanding of kasambahay.
the article is for your eyes only and can be access in the internet, still under current copyright laws, the journal article published in december 2022 and consider still hot off the press! nasunog ako.
I have no subscription to the journal and cannot copy and paste it and pass it around yet, but if you’re interested heto address po:
Contemporary Southeast Asia, vol 44, no.3, pp 357 -420 (December 2022) ISEAS – Yosuf Institute (Singapore)
title: Philippines Elections 2022: Why Leni’s Fifteen Millions Votes Were Not enough
by chance I’ve type the title and search engine brought me to the site, the article there for me to read, easy peasy. but understanding it was not easy peasy. too seminal. lengthy. I would need to be rocket scientist, haha!