Cults, gangs, LGUs, dynasties, political parties, tribes, echo chambers, nations, and faiths
Analysis and Opinion
By JoeAm
Humans form collectives around common passions, common dedications. Cults, gangs, LGUs, dynasties, political parties, tribes, echo chambers, nations, faiths. These are examples. Wolves form packs, whales pods, and buffalo herds.
We humans have more diversity than animals in how we gang together because we are able to develop concepts that unite us. Like the idea of governments that write laws. Or LGUs that confiscate the nation’s wealth to pad the coffers of the entitled. Or God in various iterations.
If we go through the list of collectives, we might discover some interesting emotional responses. Cults are groups of unthinking people obedient to weird ideas. Gangs are thugs who break laws and use drugs. Stay away from their territories. LGUs are local governmental gangs. Dynasties are the families that run the governmental gangs. Political parties are unions of dynasties that seek to run the nation, which is a very large gang, or cult, or faith. Tribes are ancient gangs of warriors that did not have nukes. Echo chambers are internet gangs. Nations are collectives trapped by the land they occupy, and so organize to keep that land and all its wealth. Faiths are collectives that are good if they are mine but not if they aren’t.
The collectives all have leaders called preachers, bosses, mayors, godfathers, candidates, chiefs, influencers, presidents, or priests, imams, rabbis, and a lot of other terms. Of course, that’s just English. Foreigners are huge gangs of people we don’t trust because they look or speak differently than we do.
Most of the friction on planet earth is caused by collectives trying to impose their will on those outside the collective.
We are great at coming up with concepts that section us off and terrible at figuring out how to get along together, peacefully.
Think of the cultlike behavior of Duterte followers, or US MAGA Republicans worshipping Trump, or China marauding to expand their gangland territory. Or Crips and Bloods, Taliban, pirates, IDF, or other bands of humans that wall off any prospect of getting along by using violence and hate. Cops and protesters are modern examples. The intellectual differences go emotional and then people must get hurt to cause others to shout “Wait a minute, wait a goddamned minute you idiots!”
I toned down the language in case kids are reading.
It seems to me we have to think a lot better and harder to bring the gangs together, not wall them off with emotions gone berserk. Schools should do exercises to expand the human capacity to understand where others are coming from, peacefully. And to intellectually map out a set of values that can bring people together. For example . . .
- All humans are equal in their uniqueness.
- Laws allow us to live harmoniously.
- Privacy is a right.
- Freedom is loaded with responsibilities.
- Learning is a lifelong passion.
- Humanity is compassion and intelligence together.
- Wars are bad and so is global warming.
Well, it’s a start. Respect the differences. Enjoy the differences. Talk frankly about them. Strive to put emotions away. They are corrosive, like acid.
We are all gangsters, in a way. Some gangs nurture us and protect us. Family, faith, nation. Echo chambers, I suppose. Politics has become a way to hate, not protect. We should change that. Faith is a freedom that should have a huge element of private to it, with preachers as teachers not warlords. Cults should dissolve under the weight of intelligence. Dynasties are families trying to leverage power and wealth to keep it for the entitled. They are too often destructive and should be outlawed.
We can be smarter, for sure.
____________________
Cover Photo: Created by Bing with the prompt “Representation of wolves fighting bears, in oils.”
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
“Most of the friction on planet earth is caused by collectives trying to impose their will on those outside the collective.”
Joe, did you mean “planet Earth”?
By golly, that’s exactly what I meant, but the planet made of dirt and water also works.
In the King James Bible,
“EARTH”
Revelation 17:5
And upon her forehead was a name written,
MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT,
THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
“Earth”
Genesis 1:10
And God called the dry land Earth;
and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas:
and God saw that it was good.
“earth”
985 Occurrences in
904 Verses in
450 Chapters in
52 Books.
The 7 instances where
“earth” and “fulness”
appear in the same verse:
And for the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof, and for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush: let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren.
The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine:
as for the world and the fulness thereof,
thou hast founded them.
Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof.
For the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.
But if any man say unto you,
This is offered in sacrifice unto idols,
eat not for his sake that shewed it,
and for conscience sake:
for the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof:
That in the dispensation of the fulness of times
he might gather together in one all things in Christ,
both which are in heaven, and which are on earth;
even in him:
As I understand the meaning of fulness, or fullness, it is that fulness is the completeness of all things within God, and so Earth or earth are a part of God. The entire universe, as discovered by man well after the Bible was written, is also a part of His being, and the mysteries are, too. And the contradictions, like who fed the animals and shoveled the dung on the Ark. Anyway, fulness is central to my own faith, not attached to any gang, cult, or church.
ano ba yan? dog eats dog, parang sa senate e, lol! all those fangs, clash of dynasties and we are witnessing it massively. the more the merrier except when lives are lost, its never the more the merrier, I think, we’ve been through that road a number of times and reliving every minute of it. I really admire those that can take a step back and can see clarity amidst the chaos. we are not meant to fight everybody’s battle, climb all their mountains, mourn all their sorrows, and die a thousand deaths with them? and end up nervous wrecks. maybe much to the amusement of the psychos that lead us along that path.
my kainuman says we have to preserve ourselves and claim for ourselves our very own personal space, where no one is allowed to enter without our say so. and those that forces their way in will likely get their foot chop off! hear that, china!
p.s. divorce is getting to be minefield in the senate. all that snarky bruhaha and counter bruhaha, maybe our muslim brothers got it right. divorce is much easier for them, all they have to do is tell their spouses, I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you, and that’s it! end of marriage. end of commitment. end of partnership. else they take up polygamy and have another spouse. and have another family living under one roof albeit an extended one.
as for christians, many live together without marrying, and wont be shacked with divorce. for those that married and found out too late they have married an abusive monster, they should be granted divorce. it’s better than having to kill a spouse, or poisoned, or thrown over the cliff, or abandoned. better do it harap-harapan, divorce to give closure to a luckless marriage.
marriage counseling dont always work and counselors fee can be outrageous.
https://aleteia.org/2020/02/22/7-saints-who-went-through-divorce/
whadda you know! there are saints who were once married and then divorced. catholic church should be more understanding about human failures, we all strive for perfection but.
https://www.simplycatholic.com/st-helen-a-saint-for-those-who-are-divorced-or-divorcing/
in case the catholic church has forgotten.
Pope Francis is a humanist Pope, and has moved the Catholic Church into a more compassionate realm. Tho some areas are still a stretch too far.
love, love, love the pope, pity about the catholic synod in our country so divorced from reality that it seemingly failed to see what’s goes on in front of them. every year we have santacruzan procession commemorating the history of our christian beginning. the highlight of the procession is reyna elena, later canonized as st helena. apparently the mother of emperor constantine was a divorcee, her faithless husband left her for a younger woman. if the cardinals realised what reyna elena truly represent, they’d probly put sackcloth over her head and drag her out of the procession, lol!
thank the lord though, the cardinals are not lawmakers else they’d veto divorce bill and deny 2nd chances to many. broken homes can be rebuilt, broken lives can be made whole and productive and people can go on with their lives.
divorcees can become saints, god willing, because allegedly the catholic church is not.
The divorce debate is a test of sorts. Who are logical and who are loyal to their gang? Holding people in bondage is humanistically despicable yet churches, those great humanist organizations, are leading the charge to keep people in chains.
Hmmm. I’m gonna pop that one into the twitter gangstream.
Our Will Villanueva is, of course, against divorce, his argument being who hasn’t had frustrating moments in a marriage. Now, in Germany, there is the obligatory one year separation period before a divorce is possible. That might even be one of the classic calibrated compromises between conservatives and progressives in German law.
Another FB friend brings the equally valid argument that people should be able to leave abusive relationships.
MLQ3 has mentioned that inheritance and alimony might be hopelessly hard to regulate properly in an already poorly administered Republic. Imagine the land disputes that would get worse than they already are. Lots to fix in a messed-up state, even birth certificate matters.
The Catholic argument that families would be destroyed is valid, but then again, in Philippine slums men leave their wives to father kids with younger women without needing divorce. The Catholic argument is so blindly Filipino middle class, also as the rich can get annulment.
Every Catholic country now has divorce, BTW, except the Philippines and Vatican City. Poland and Ireland are the Catholic EU countries still very strict regarding abortion, incidentally..
no point preserving toxic families where family members are serially harmed time and time again both physically and mentally that they end up catatonic and less able to function. if such families want to divorce, let them.
and dont worry too much about inheritance and property disputes. in a legally binding marriage, the family law court will decide who gets what. apparently, church weddings are not as binding as those at city hall done before a judge or justice of the peace and signed in the registry.
for the poor, property dispute might be about kalderos and kalan and few meager possession, insignificant to others, but. the dispute can be settle via mediation outside courts of law. cost less too.
It is a middle class case, isn’t it? The rich buy annulments, the poor just live. Well, we are either adults or children, and locking people who don’t get along in the same house seems both cruel and impractical to me. All it does is generate more sinners.
unhappy, broken and dysfunctional families not only generate sinners but possibly killers as well. unwanted spouses are killed, put in the barrel and dump somewhere. like what happened to one rubirosa. few years back, her body was reportedly found in a barrel floating at sea. the kids apparently sided with their father who can give them all material things they wanted. not so rubirosa, she might have been mistisahin and very pretty, but dirt poor. marriage was probly her best chance at riches but her in- laws apparently did not like her.
I do not understand why the york of abortion must be placed on the Catholic Church. She had the heavy burden of administrating a big organization based on established doctrines. Divorce is a key doctrine. If a Catholic has an unreconcilable marriage and wishes to part, by all means do so. Just take a bow and leave. This is not Islam. Apostasy is allowed.
Human bondage is horrific in all its varied iterations. That said, rules are important, and if they are not working to the benefit of people, they should be changed.
rules aint rules and president marcos aint fighting fire with fire. he is apparently picking his battle and will hit where china is most weakest, in international law courts. seemingly marcos is going to fight china’s apparent military aggression with equally aggressive diplomacy! and bullish about it too. each time he goes overseas, marcos rarely miss chance to shout at the devil! pointing the finger at china, china, china!
china’s rule of detaining trespassers in west phil sea is alleged to escalate maritime showdown; not to be outdone, marcos is calling off china’s bluff. thank you, but no thanks. filipinos are not trespassers in their own territory, china is and the chinese might as well detain themselves.
I wonder if that China policy is one salami slice too far. The one that gets other nations to go from whining to howling. Or sinking ships.
I’m keeping me fingers crossed . . .
Wonderful perspective. As an introvert, I am nourished by separation, not joining, and get very frustrated when certain collectives, like government agencies, take control of my life.
We can be smarter, for sure. But, we are not. As long as our leaders crave only money and power we will always be in the quagmire wallowing in poverty and injustice.
That for sure is true. Our education system could also do a better job of awakening people to group dynamics. I posed a question yesterday for my teen-age son to work on. List the characteristics of humankind that promote war. List the characteristics of humankind that promote peace. Identify what characteristics you can develop to improve your ability to wage war and peace. We can figure this out.
this blog reminded me of this music video, Joe.
i follow PhD twitter and one thing they’re all crying about is how white dudes in academia cannot get jobs anymore cuz of wokizm and colored phds are chiming in saying Hey even we can’t get jobs too and they throw graphs and statistics at each other cuz they’re PhDs and i guess thats how they communicate. essentially universities are turning off the faucet for humanities, arts & social sciences and things are drying up so all these PhDs are crying and infighting ensues. when the crux of the problem is there’s waaaaay too many PhDs. so as a PhD in Google i chime in telling them only Native Americans with bachelor’s degree should be able to land a job in academia right now, and because i’m not really a PhD they just ignore me. so the lesson is don’t just jump in a gang fight because if you’re not in either side you’ll just get ignored. which reminded me of Ireneo’s lesson to Micha awhile ago, namely you gotta have skin in the game. otherwise you’re just calling for Native Americans to be in academia without really knowing how many Native Americans actually have bachelors degree or if they even wanna teach in academia.
like Easy-E says , You’re nothing but a short story from the past.
You are becoming downright poetic. I’m reminded of Louis Jenkin’s “Walking Through Walls”. Being outside two groups arguing is where most of us are, which means we have the advantage of having no context at all and are free to opine with all the correct answers. Your doctorate at Google is indeed more valued today than, say, literary criticism because it is a living PhD rather than a dead one. My son is starting to scout colleges and I often find myself wondering why. Our social frameworks are like sugar being poured into hot coffee.
… or why not go to Barcelona to go to school get that Spanish citizenship then once secured after a couple of years in Spain just travel around Europe figure things out. like check out all those Portuguese and Spanish islands in the Atlantic. then Faroe islands and Iceland. those islands off Scotland look insteresting too. education as means to citizenship is perfect excuse , Joe.
tell jr. to go to Cebu learn eskrima from schools (eg. Nick Elizar of Balintawak) that have connections to European cities so that way he can travel as an instructor of eskrima. study fencing in Spain. theres a market for Filipino eskrima. have him read Cryptonomicon best Filipino novel.
Ahhh, I’ll give him the idea. Thanks.
https://londonbalintawak.com/cebu/
Jr. can be like Caine from Kung -fu, Joe. lol. Bruce Lee’s idea by the way stolen from him oh well, but recently cinemax HBO compiled it into Warrior. out in Netflix.
He actually knew about Balintawak. Has watched videos. Said it is named for the street on which it was made into a legitimate martial art. He likes your idea and did further research. The most noted facility in Cebu is small but the top expert tutors there. He looked at his arms, imagining the bruises he will endure if he takes it up. In any event, you rang his enthusiasm bell.
I’m glad , Joe. in keeping with the blog subject. i think Balintawak is the most secular of all Filipino martial arts groups today. theres another line of Balintawak that’s a lot more secretive but i think they’ve largely died off now (not the Villasin/Velez branch). for example the Filipino Marines are part of Pekiti Tirsia which i think is very cult like with magic and stuff. i’ve been telling US Marines of this to be wary of this group lest they find themselves with magical handkerchiefs or anting-antings inserted into their nuts. the Villabrille-Largusa group is also a bit nuts that style hails closer to where you are , Samar but was transferred to the Bay Area. Modern Arnis which is what schools and college programs are based off of there had Quiboloy-like issues over here when it was exported in the late 70s and 80s. so my advice to Jr. is stay secular if you get a whiff of hero worship or worst cult like behavior look for the exit right away. its kinda like religion sometimes.
Juan LaCoste and his style is worth a study (he’s one of the guys that taught Dan Inosanto in Stockton).
Pekiti tirsia is based off of Bacolod, Joe. i think they do have the best footwork, due to fetishization of the blade.
what’s weird is theres really no organized martial arts among the Moros. whats even weirder also none among the Tagalogs or NCR but you see it in Tarlac area (not. for the most part this stuff seems to just be concentrated in the Visayas. you kinda can tell which came from the Spaniards. the Villabrille school credits a blind princess of the Pulahanes tribe which we know was not a tribe but more millenarian stuff. but they move like Sikh Gatka lots of circular movements. so you can tell which stuff pre-date Spaniards. all really interesting and i hope Jr. dives into this rabbit hole that is Filipino martial arts. not sure if its found in Ireneo’s southern Luzon area, but i’ve not heard of it. but for sure FMA is big in Germany.
That’s his plan at the moment, I believe. It’s definitely a good one.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/wealth/homeless-student-has-incredibly-rich-family/news-story/67b95d2b34bbf1a4798cb8e1061482b4
pitfall of filipino students overseas, getting into strife with school admin and being deported back home to philippines.
joeam, you certainly love your son and if he is not yet street smart, pls tell him to be wary of scammers offering internship and scholarships abroad. unsuspecting students may end up trafficked and forced to work in hellholes, some are sold and resold and become property of international scammers and end up shackled in debts they can barely afford to pay. or they collaborate with scammers and become recruiters.
I apologise if I’m being tasteless and offensive.
I’m sure Joe Jr. is already dual citizenship USA-Philippines, kb. over here, its Mid-western states their small towns recruiting med-techs and hs teachers from the Philippines. theres actual demand from here due to meth and or brain drain kids just leaving their small towns to move to cities, eg. small town hospitals and schools, but recruitment based in the Philippines is dubious. US embassy in Manila tries to regulate but theres too many fly by nights and too many desperate souls. weirdly not too many nurses, i think nurses and doctors they’re recruiting from Nigeria these days.
in england, NHS health workers are predominantly from india, nigeria and philippines. migration of skilled workers are encouraged, though USA is besieged by millions of unskilled migrants looking for better lives.
Good point. I’ll discuss it with him.
the poor in our country should be allowed to divorce in city hall, where there is a quickie divorce sans the accompanying emotions where parties involved dont have to attend the hearing, represented instead by a trustee.
it’s not just infidelity, but often domestic violence is the beginning of death of marriage. pilita corales is example. she sang on stage despite having a burst eardrum, her ear was bleeding, sinuntuk ng asawa. but she got out of that bad marriage and survived.
in hospitals, women who are victims of domestic violence came in with injuries like broken ribs and ruptured kidney. puno ng pasa, bruises on their bodies. split lips and black eyes are least of their worries. it’s those internal injuries no one can see that make medical staff fuming mad. broken ribs have sharp tips that sometimes pierced the lung and the victim ended up with collapsed lung and long road to recovery.
some women made a mistake to putting their arms up to shield their faces from assault and left their vital organs like the kidney unprotected. so when the husband punched her on the side, she not only flew and hit the wall, but she also ended up with ruptured kidney. medical staff are quite willing to testify in violent domestic cases, but some stupid women keeps on going back to abusive husband, who appears very remorseful until the next bout of violence.
funeral directors sometimes alert police kasi, the dead woman to be cleaned, washed and embalmed comes with extraordinary amount of bruises. those on the face can be covered with makeup, but those on the body are hard to ignored and foul play is suspected. though some funeral directors took bribe and look the other way. and perpetrators got away with crime.
there are husbands who habitually take out their frustration on their wives and children and being violent to them, and there are fathers that commit incest on their daughters.
no, divorce does not destroy families, coz families are already long destroyed before then. divorce offers exit though, blessed exit.
Micha constantly poking a stick in my face on the German situation, though, did remind me to be more mindful of quickly judging stuff from far away.
There is a lot of context and important detail lost when one is elsewhere.
Voltaire’s idea that everyone should take care of his own garden makes sense, even as one can occasionally discuss other places, humility is very important.
Another adage, which is also true, is that fences make good neighbors.
Well, it is easier to build fences on land than in the sea, and even along the Cold War border, there were occasional incidents, stand-offs and some big standoffs.
In the sea there is no line, like a dog’s territory, so standoffs become near skirmishes.
ahem, I hear things called latitude and longitude, degrees and nautical sea miles. apparently, there are agreed imaginary lines in both air and sea. nato countries kept complaining russia violating their airspace and sent out fighter planes to intercept. we may not see those lines but they are there, visible on instrument, their distance measurable. and because there is war, borders are being challenged and rogue countries are being opportunistic.
as well, our eez is measured in nautical miles. north and south, east and west, and we got chased out of panatag shoal for apparently trespassing on none existing chinese territory.
god bless america! where people can reinvent themselves: whites pretending to be colored and gain relevance, prestige and power. a man guilty on 34 counts still running to be president! america is indeed and brazenly still, land of opportunities.
Land of Stupids
i’m not religious but i do agree with this sentiment. i gotta feeling the black vote will move towards Trump.
The American justice system, until Trump, was law based and ethical. Now Republicans are turning it into politics. A tragic end to a once admirable human institution. The hush money trial was just ordinary justice at work. But it was truth against power, and the power is highly competent because powerful liars who threaten people do have sway. And the under-educated love ’em. I’m well on the way to not caring much about America. No need to waste energy on the lost and raving.
until Trump? i’m pretty sure the American justice system has favored the rich & powerful for quite a while now. sure every now and then Enron type cases are thrown in so people say no ones above the law, but just like health care system the justice system favors rich & powerful, Joe. its who the system decides to target thats arbitrary. Letitia James’ case and Alvin Bragg’s case are similar in that theres no real victim/s. thats a big clue as to the sham, people are just not convinced. the case in Georgia with Fani Willis’ at least theres actual victims involved namely the pollsters (even though they are not the direct victims in the case). Jack Smith’s case, i guess its the congress members and capitol police (though insurrection has to be bigger by definition), but that case doesn’t seem will see the light of day. They’ll have to imprison Trump come July in NYC but his team has already promised that he’ll keep on campaigning even in prison. will the GOP back down and pick Nikki instead, who knows. but Biden’s kinda stuck in the mud with this Gaza stuff and his only go to is abortion which is getting old. Trump’s still ascendant here, Joe. they have to run Newsom.
Trump is ascendant because of the masterful knitting of a huge fabric of lies that starts with the premise that bad things dominate our lives and Biden causes them. The Georgia case certainly has victims, the voters whose earnest votes would have been discarded in favor of a couple thousand “found” Trump votes. I suspect that you don’t realize that, like Chempo, you are trapped in the huge morass of malicious dirty data that characterizes America today. The US justice system has been non political and focused on laws. It shades this way or that depending on the conceptual foundations of the Court, conservative or liberal, but it has not been downright unethical until Trump’s picks showed up.
T’was a political hit job in my opinion. If true about the alleged bookkeeping fraud to commit electioneering crime, prosecutors may have opted to a kind of penalty just what happened to Hilary Clinton and the DNC campaign when they tried to hide the Steel Dossier expenses.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/30/politics/clinton-dnc-steele-dossier-fusion-gps/index.html
The special counsel did not indict Joe Biden for classified records for use in a $ 8 million book deal. Amazing !
“The Georgia case certainly has victims, the voters whose earnest votes would have been discarded in favor of a couple thousand “found” Trump votes.” In a criminal case like this you just can’t have a counter factual as victims, Joe. sure attempted rape, or attempted robbery, or attempted anything is a crime in and of itself, but in the case of Georgia’s ‘find 11,780 votes’ its the folks that actually descended to Georgia thus the victims are the county pollsters.
there’s no case for the order to “find” and i’m sure thats the goal here. certainly racketeering can go up to Trump’s level, but the intimidation portion does not. and why the victims of that case has to be the county pollsters, but again they are not the direct explicit victims only as flavoring. and you are wrong , Joe, the justice system has always been political just not national level maybe or involving the executive branch, but it has always been political with Davids & Goliaths this is the reason Erin Brockovich movies abound.
it just got national attention now is all, and i’d argue that’s good. for example that Ashli Babbitt shooting as a bad shoot, precisely because you cannot use deadly force for a counter factual as your justification, the threat has to be imminent meaning it’ll happen not it might happen. and why the Roger Fortson also a bad shoot in Florida is a good comparison, in which the cop who shoot him was recently fired. there has to be imminent threat, not this they “would have” been victims counter factual justification.
isk, is correct with said parallel. but Jack Smith’s other case aside from insurrection is the classified documents case and with the same stuff found from Biden, especially UPenn papers in center funded by Chinese interests. again it goes back to the whole notion of who gets to define the crime, and who gets to choose whether it gets prosecuted or not. that is the reality of the justice system, theres a lot of wheeling and dealing in the background.
the officer who shot Ashli Babbitt becomes a primetime TV interviewed hero, while the cop who shot Roger Fortson gets fired (DA will soon prosecute i’m sure, firing is usually the first step the department steps aside). same bad shooting for both. no imminent threat. yet gets treated differently. its all political.
https://i.imgur.com/ECGXAiA.png
p.s.– why the two cops (capitol police & okaloosa sheriff deputy in Florida) were in the wrong is because they failed to exercise restraint.
https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/sunday-strip-the-winning-hand?r=r9qrk&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Robert Malone isn’t the type to be in a cult, methinks.
Joe, many thanks. I think my first lessons in gangsterism were NOT in UP Balara as one would expect. Those were lessons in humanity. It was from the dogs of Area 1 UP Campus, who all were fiercely territorial and both house and street dogs. Not the tame dogs of rich folk.
‐—–
1. Territoriality is something essential to the survival of individuals and groups, as it is about sources of food. The most aggressive dogs were basically streetcorner dogs whose territory was easily crossed by mistake. The worst were in a very tight corner of UP Mabini Street.
I would somehow find out and toe the line where dogs would bark but not cross and stick to it. My father taught me how to deal with dogs more proactively, a stone to the legs if they came too close. He was bitten by a rabid stray as a teen, never forgot the spinal anti-rabies shots.
2. Dogs don’t know about treaties, so one can’t negotiate anything with them like the accord that allows ships to pass the Bosporus, for instance. Them Mabini Street Dawgs be bad dogs.
People and groups will often interpret treaties their own way and even disrespect court orders unless their is a state to enforce them (a higher “gang”) or a group of allies (other “gangs”).
In Sicily, after Spanish rule, which lasted 600 years, including Aragonese lords, peasants had the Mafia protect their land for a fee – there was a form of higher order in that impunity.
3. Whew, beliefs. Duval Noah Harari said that beliefs drive all human endeavors. He also said recently that the soul of his country – Israel – is at risk. Lots of beliefs at play there, whew.
I tried variants of the little Irineo and my father’s belief-based strategies with stray dogs in Bucharest, Romania. Until some gypsies on a square told me why the hell are you so scared?
One of my first FB posts has me telling my brother that the dogs in Bucharest are less fierce than UP dogs. He jokingly answered yes the Mabini Street dogs are the baddest of all.
Beliefs can drive strategies of aggression or fear. In fact a populist Mayor of Bucharest made killing stray dogs a program as they were indeed dangerous for kids.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traian_B%C4%83sescu eventually became Romanian President when the country was at the verge of EU membership.
The documentation below shows how the strays in Bucharest are. I guess harsher even than Philippine strays as they have cold to endure. My brother and me weren’t right, I guess.
——
What can we learn from all this and the gang stuff? A lot, especially that the causes of things are often simple, but the solutions are complicated as hell. Dog hell, and human hell.
Lessons within societies. Or between nations. Should I write a book “Of Dogs and Men”?
I agree we can learn a lot. Like how not to be dogs and widen our beliefs so that we understand everyone has reasons for what they believe. If we lay out some principles that two competing gangs believe in, then there is a foundation, and we can then take the outlier issues from easiest to toughest. Basically that’s the way corporate contracts are hammered out around a table with business and legal decision makers having a chair.
Gangs and nations often have (gang) wars and after that sit-downs to draw up new territories.
The sit-down just after Napoleon created nearly a century without a major war in Europe BTW, something the Yalta conference didn’t manage to achieve.
But I agree, the idea of a modern rules-based international order is a major advancement, and given the scary nature of modern warfare, especially with drones and missiles of all sorts (Russia-Ukraine, Iran-Israel, Houthis etc.) it could become a matter of global survival.
theres gonna be some good parallels when Jr. gets into Balintawak. or just martial arts in general, Joe. you’ll get a feel of the type of group you’ll be involved with. but when it comes to individuals pairing, there s usually 3 types.
recognize who you’re dealing with. number 2 is your problem nip that in the bud early, 1 and 3 can be easily pre-empted negotiated with and they’ll be cool people outside of training.
here’s another guy he’ll want to research on Sonny Umpad:
as for bruises on the arm, you won’t get injured from the stick weapon per se. it’ll be from the joint locks. that’s why those 3 types you’ll need to recognize them quick. but if Jr. ingratiates himself, eg. mention you wanna bring Balintawak to Spain and say he has a timeline a departure date set then depending on Jr.’s athleticism theres a good chance he’ll be taught only by instructors mano y mano and won’t have to suffer fools, he’ll be fast tracked poured Balintawak ready for Spain. ps. i can guarantee all the videos are half assed, power is generated from the hip so look for that snappy hip torque when delivering a 1 or 2 blow.
have him do this, its all about hand eye coordination reaction.
Sure, all these matters can be handled, even as custody and child support – and support for the former spouse if she doesn’t remarry and is unable to find a job as she hasn’t worked for years for instance – can be VERY complex matters.
Divorce should be allowed, no question, but the issues that the conservatives raise are valid. And what if a rich man divorces his first wife for an employee he got pregnant? What can happen is that children who grew up rich suddenly are poor, and the children of the second wife look down upon their half-siblings. Patchwork families where both partners have kids from previous marriages are common here in Germany, and damn they can be complex.
Good conservatives always consider if their society is ready for the consequences.
To penalize the core of innocents because of anecdotal troublesome incidents is bad thinking. So those conservatives need to get logical.
Conservatives tend to worry more about society unraveling. That taken to the extreme is reactionary.
I tend to take a risk management approach based on effect and likelihood when weighing the negative possibilities of major decisions. I wonder if Philippine society is capable of doing the math for that. Discussions are usually yes or no with little nuance.
The evidence is not encouraging.
i don’t think Filipinos are ready for a high divorce rate society, precisely as Ireneo states you’ll need to go blended family for it to work. which requires a lot professionalism and objectivity. i think the current status quo of married women just turning a blind eye to their husbands extra curriculars even their extra children from outside marriage is the best route forward. i’ve met many women there whose husbands are seamen or OFWs with wives spending their money getting their own boy toys while their children are at school & husbands abroad. just turn a blind eye. be like Jesus turn the other cheek, because loneliness should be understood. and lots of trisikad/pedicab operators are just too available. lol. my point, theres just too many lustful distractions in the Philippines due to economic disparities and people with a lot of time on their hands. on the other hand maybe an influx of divorce attorneys will propel the country’s judicial system forward, because like how they were able to figure out bin Laden’s actual worth thru the LA county divorce court system cuz his older brother got divorced there, transparency will be the bi-product of all this.
I have quite a lengthy reply but the damn thing jump a few entries up. I trust your eagle eyes can find it. happy hunting.
i agree theres the criminal aspect even human trafficking to this as well. but i think the bulk of this divorce stuff is just spousal extra currilars and women being lonely thus needing something between their legs, eg. why men working abroad should be buying their wives quality dildos made from the USA and facetime more. even steven, if men cheat women cheat as well but stay married. leverage those short time motels in the Philippines. the nitty gritty of spousal visitation or the other woman/man taking care of your kids, you’ll end up with a lot more extraneous crimes stemming from co-parenting arrangements. with Filipinos propensity for jeolousy and such.
jealousy and such, well as responsible adults, people must know how to control their emotion, know when to stop, and call it quits.
The country can be renamed East Gomorrah.
totally. i’d like to see statistics on the prevalence of cervical cancer there. and whether HPV vaccines are popular. the incestuous adulterous nature of the Philippines needs to be better studied vis a vis divorce laws. really study it.
the stats you asked might be misleading. kasi not all those with cervical cancer are divorced. many are singles, not married or monogamous, but may have live in partner/s. HPV vaccines such as gardasil are given to teenagers from 12yrs upward in school and colleges via vaccination program, not as prophylaxis to incest, but as prevention against cervical cancer. if people can get cold sore lesion in the mucosa in the mouth and lips, it’s possible they can also get cervical cancer, both apparently caused by the same hpv virus.
people with lesions in the mouth or lips are encouraged not to kiss their babies, kasi they could be transferring hpv virus to the poor tikes whose immune system are not yet fully developed. such babies may get terribly sick and hospitalised.
This whole Filipinos sideing with Israel is just so weird. like AtiAtihan festival that celebrates when austronesians displaced the more Denisovan related original inhabitants of the Philippines, negritos.
https://x.com/itslaylas/status/1797027980478156965
i feel like this is the original sin what we humans did to Neanderthals and Denisovans which pre-dates colonialism thus woke-ism. and the question of whether or not God truly loves both prey & predator. any policy in the Philippines legislators should be asking how does this benefit negritos nationally, if the answer is it doesn’t then move on to other policies that’ll benefit them. prioritize according to this. can’t go wrong. similar to the idea of just hiring Native Americans in academia. focus on the original sin then expand from there.
oh heres the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms5689
“We humans have more diversity than animals in how we gang together because we are able to develop concepts that unite us.” Joe, I would venture that humans spread the coconut which is very easy to do since the coconut is highly portable, but negritos (or the more Denisovan genetically cousins of ours) tamed the banana which is a much more difficult feat of cultivation getting rid of the bananas with seeds in them then only transporting suckers which you gotta care for like a baby. metaphor for concepts, like memes. coconuts easy, bananas hard, but when consuming we think its the opposite.
in this modern times, no country or people need to go without. both coconuts and bananas can be exported and imported and we now grow not only diamonds and livestock in laboratories but human zygots as well. we clone plants in laboratories too, as well as body parts. we not only have the concepts but the lingo as well, lingo (medium) to get us through and across the whole divide of the spectrum. humans have made life so complicated that their offspring spend most of their lives at schools and being schooled just to understand and unravel the complication and yet more still complication in the offing.
Bananas grow like weeds here. I had to chop them out of my nature preserve that I owned in Mindanao years ago. Papayas also pop up everywhere. And calamansis, which I use to border my home’s property because the thorns are murderous and the fruits are quite delightful if you like to pucker. Also, chestnut munias make nests in them. They are beautiful little birds.
don’t mean to be argumentative here, Joe. and yes those birds i do remember just not by name. they are beautiful. and yes I can see papayas and calamansi growing like weeds cuz their seeds are plentiful. i loved the unripe green papaya dish i forget what its called as well as calamansi juice. but weed is not an adjective i’d use for bananas. sure like bamboo I can see them sprout continuously. but they need humans to move around. unlike papaya or calamansi seeds (also bamboo seeds they’re grass after all but they also reproduce via suckers like bananas) these seeds can be transported by bird droppings or other animals. or by storms in the case of coconuts. the bananas we eat have no seeds , Joe. thus bananas to spread geographically need humans. but which humans started spreading them around is interesting. studies still fuzzy but it looks like negritos. they’ve pin pointed 2 spots either Thailand or Papua New Guinea as first cultivation of bananas (wild bananas had seeds in them). makes more sense it started in Thailand area which negrito type peoples then moved around by carrying banana suckers like little babies ending up further south. my point, negritos rock.
A rose plant in a rice field is a weed. A banana plant in a natural fish hatchery pond is a weed. Negritos rock because bananas are not like snakehead fish, invasive creatures destroying local ecosystems.
I get what you’re saying, Joe. that the concept of weed is just a human construct and that deep down we’d all really be weeds invasive species. i’m just saying weed by definition is hardy and persistent. for example, how do roses propagate? thus a rose in a rice field won’t last, ergo not really a weed. banana plant in a fish pond might be a weed but once you dig out the main part no more banana. not very hardy nor persistent . tumble weed, dandelion, all grass depending on conditions would be weed they all spread. humanity not necessary for its propagation. lastly, the negritos part in banana cultivation isn’t definite but based on studies banana cultivation sure seems pre-austronesian. whether or not it predates homesapiens is the interesting thing about this banana stuff. again bananas require people. thus not weed.
Well, as for banana plants in a nature preserve, if one is not a weed, but hundreds are, I’m still chopping that fucker down.
that’s interesting. but, if said nature preserve is old growth then there should be no bananas there, unless transported then planted by individuals illegally. if said nature preserve was say an old hacienda turned public land then those bananas would be part parcel of said land prior to it becoming public land. thus bananas should be protected having been there originally. like the eucalyptus grove at montana de oro state park near morro bay or the cypress tree tunnel at point reyes national park north of san fran. the point still remains any banana anywhere had to be planted by humans and not have gotten there on its own either thru other animals or by storms. only humans. it could very well be the oldest cultivated plant, Joe. other cultivated crops like figs chick peas etc. look very similar to its wild source whereas bananas do not meaning theres actual science trial and error involved in cultivating the banana. its not a weed, Joe. the banana is very special.
bananas are perennial plant and dies after bearing fruit but another plant takes its place. banana suckers shoot out from the rhizomes, the roots under the ground.
if you want to kill banana plants, dont just chop them down, but dig out the roots and get rid of the rhizomes.
in our province, we only let the healthiest looking sucker mature, and cull others. that way, the plant can concentrate its energy into bearing quality fruits good for the market.
The property is private so the owner gets to define the weeds. I love bananas myself. Eat one daily when available. God’s best packaging of nutrition ever, right up there with oranges and kiwi. History has no bearing on my efforts to give fish a wonderful place to hatch. Nor does the beauty of butterflies or crystal blue skies. Inhabiting my place were giant lizards and the nastiest bees I’ve ever met, along with a variety of snakes and scads of mud crabs that I’d slaughter with a pellet gun. Animal weeds, to me, food to kids who’d stick their hands down the holes to grab them. Bravest kids I’ve ever met. Refer back to snakes.
lol. totally agree, Joe. if its your property, make concrete the whole thing. you dictate terms. fuck those bananas! but i did hear those banana buds is where you collect anting-antings, so check before you burn it all. there might me a lottery winning anting-anting in there.
There is a lot of pro-Palestine outrage in the Philippines. Government quietly treads both sides and stays out of it. Which is correct. It is amazingly democratic here. The “whole” adjective is incorrect in your narrative.
sorry , Joe, didn’t mean for the word “whole” as statistical. but an idiom, eg. this whole thing is weird. the link was of an Irish Tudtud (which I know is a Filipino last name) of Columbia University talking crap to Palestinian students which I thought was weird at first but thought about negritos and I kinda understand where she’s coming from now. thus ironic.
One individual. Every act is irony if you frame it right.
Its not one individual, Joe. cuz if you take a poll i bet you this person would fit a very Filipino archetype in todays polical sphere. that of a conservative Catholic, supporting Trump, due to a more conservative SCOTUS and anti-abortion. Filipino Catholics seem to now mirror American evangelicals in their support for Israel. thus this interaction. its not in a vacuum , Joe. Now if Filipinos over there are more pro-Gaza that would be an interesting study. maybe its generational, though this Irish Tudtud doesn’t seem that old. i dunno. but here atleast the church going filipinos, they are pro-Israel.
Guesses are not facts and drawing conclusions from anecdotes is poor logic. So declarative statements on Filipinos are simply nonsense, outside the research you recognize as important. My observation is that Filipinos have no overwhelming sentiment on Israel one way or another, but there are pockets of intense hate for the Israel that kills babies, detached from any historical basis for being so ruthless.
so Catholics here, and SCOTUS is largely composed of Catholics and Jews by the way but no atheists but there have been no preferences or agnostics. Catholicism here is very tied at the hip with the abortion issue which theyre in agreement with Evangelicals. since theres no abortion in the Philippines makes sense it wouldn’t have to be political. though Mango Ave. girls tend to get rid of babies their own way on the down low. the Israeli support is more an evangelical issue Armageddon and stuff, but since they agree on the abortion issue, i guess the Israeli stuff just rubs off. i dunno. but for sure Filipinos here tend to be pro-Israel and anti-abortion.
https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/old-syria-photograph-used-alongside-real-claims-palestinian-child-deaths-2023-10-17/
this is probly unrelated but I just want to say that not all pictures published about israeli atrocities are genuine. some are fake.
My guess is the truth is somewhere between pristine war and outright slaughter of innocents. Israel previously took great care to avoid civilian deaths, but would accept them if the target was important. In this case, the target was widespread, Hamas evildoers, so acceptance of civilian losses was liberalized. Well, the US bombed cities with A-bombs because the goal of stopping the killings of American troops was deemed important. Netanyahu is ruthless so moderation apparently is not in his calculations. Lots of tragedy there, and hypocrisy.
its a David and Goliath situation in which Israel is now Goliath as such has to practice restraint. same with Fortson and Babbitt shootings. the stronger force has to practice restraint. when restraint is done away with, then no support on our part is the answer. fight Goliath. its a weird balancing act cuz we the USA is also Goliath much of the time. but at least we’re always checking ourselves. Israel seems all in as Goliath. and that’s dangerous.
it has been said the war in gaza will stop the moment hamas gives up the jewish hostages either dead or alive, that is the condition netanyahu is asking. very tall order, hamas is certainly not giving up the hostages specially now that hamas is winning the propaganda. and so the war goes on.
netanyahu reportedly said even if israel has no arms and ammunition left, they will fight with their fingernails. but they far from that. very.
I am with you in all the points except “US MAGA Republicans worshipping Trump”.
If those on one side of the aisle with certain views on border security, law and order, wokeism, Bidenomics, pro-life, belief in God, binary nature of humanity, peace are Trump worshippers, who do the those on the other side of he aisle worship?
Democracy.
Also a belief system, with the Constitution as its “Bible”..
Even as the UK somehow manages without an explicit Constitution..
I agree all this friction is democracy. and it is good. but when asked what the other side worships, i don’t think its democracy. it would be censorship. which finally met its match when Gaza fell, because at the heart of liberalism today is wokeism or critical theory which all stems from Marxism. I bet you guys have never heard of Sr. Airman Roger Fortson (that’s a corporal by the way). yet his death should have surpassed George Floyd et al in popularity but crickets from BLM, why because BLM is critical theory based Marxist as such sees police & military as all enemies just protectors of capitalism. ironically, NRA should also go to bat for Fortson cuz 2nd amendment but they’re not because he’s black have assumed his folks will be BLM thus juice not really worth the squeeze. without democracy these two sides specifically represented by NRA & BLM will cherry pick their issues. just so happens Fortson lands right smack in the middle of things. i would say both sides love censorship, but the ones that actually do censorship are the left liberal progressives, not the conservatives they wanna push their views unabated. whereas liberal wanna stifle debate, conservatives love it. so censorship is what they worship, chemp.
“….at the heart of liberalism today is wokeism or critical theory which all stems from Marxism.”
You are right in this observation and it is what the general public on the other Right thinks. But IMHO this is not the essence of the upheaval in Western countries.
The philosophical view is Cultural Marxism has engulfed the West. You mention censorship as the base of the left. It is not. Censorship is only an instrument. Marxism is about total control. The basic principle of mass control is division. Divide the masses and take one side. You immediately have 50% on your side. Of the other 50%, some are fence sitters, some couldn’t care less (the NIMBYs), some can be easily persuaded by social handouts (the black community has been living under Democrat planation for decades despite knowing Democrat is the party of KKK), and some can be intimidated. Marxism ver1.0 was simple. Divide the people into classes — Proletariat and bourgeois. They got the control, but the system failed because their underlying economics of central planning collapsed.
Enter Marxism ver 2.0, same class division ideology as the pathway to Total Control. This time they use Identity politics. Let a hundred classes bloom across the social and cultural divide — BLM, gay rights, abortion, gun control, climate change, race, white supremacy, transgenderism, etc. That is why ver 2.0 is called Cultural Marxism. The move towards Cultural Marxism started after WWII, the philosophy germinated from German academia. In US, it started taking off under Obama. It took off the ‘J’ curve under Biden.
Seen in this light, the various Biden policies make sense. To rebuild, you first have to destroy. The destructive Biden policies are all too obvious. The control initiatives and policies are discernable – lawfare against opposition politicians and supporters, censorship, public surveillance, coming CBDC, coerced vaccination, etc.
Marxists understand the failure of central planning. So if they cannot beat the capitalists, get them aboard. Welcome, elite globalists.
Today the Democrat Party has taken off their masks. They are full bloom communists. Centrist Liberals have left the party – JFK jr, Tulsi Gabbard, Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema. More Dem lawmakers switch parties at state level. The only good old fashioned Liberal I can see is Bill Maher. Even the Libertarian Party has turned bonkers in endorsing ultra lefist Chase Oliver.
Lance, there is a big difference between you and Joe. You are practical, speak from the ground, and willing to accept a well-argued contrarian view. You can even be persuaded. Joe is more academic. He waves in dismissal often. He sees the current chaos as a good system working its way to a beautiful end of building people and empowering them rather than oppressing them. I am sure he believes no man is above the law and that the US justice sets a very high bar for convicting a felon, which amongst many bells and whistles, requires a unanimous jury decision. That Judge Merchan advised the jury there is no need for a unanimous jury decision probably means nothing in this new Utopia.
May I suggest you guys follow the Congressional Inquiry. Many stuff I bandied about and censored as conspiracy theories are now seen with more clarity. When dam bursts, rats come streaming out. NYT and UK Telegraph now say it looks like Covid19 came off the lab, screaming 4 years behind the curve. Fauci lied on many occasions. Fauci’s NIAID received $690m from big pharma, CDC and FDA concealed a lot of damning truth on vaccine efficacy and risks, and negative event reports as well as deaths. Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectine are now allowed to be used. And much more.
People trapped in their cult, gang, or faith see what they want to see, building intellectual constructs than bend or completely ignore facts and truth, and a constructive way forward. The people to listen to is the witnesses. All of them, in good faith, censoring none and nothing out.
I don’t see the current chaos as good. Please don’t lie. It is tragic. Destructive. It is leading good people to horrible ideas and acts. It is ruining America. Which of course is what advocates such as yourself are here for.
“A master belief system, experimental, and oh so elegant in design, but chaotic in its execution. It isn’t founded on a god, but on confidence that humans can build their community in a way that empowers people, rather than oppresses them. Belief in an idea, I suppose.”
Current chaos from an elegant system.
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Well, the chaos is from people who don’t want democracy because it’s liberal.
Doesn’t struck you as a self-criticism.
That’s the lie, isn’t it?
i said censorship cuz conservatives get kicked out of liberal schools for just speaking; but liberals (if they do go) go to conservative schools or venues they are welcomed— though largely cuz conservatives get happy when liberals entertain them (eg. intellegent design , etc.). but that s why i said censorship. re divide and conquer i totally agree, Soros is doing this in California seems like he just wants to affect exodus from California so more rich come here, though what they’ll do to the homeless and indigent i don’t know but that seems to be the play book here. my only problem with that is its too complicated a process why not just buy people off there are simpler means to get to the goal. too many pieces moving. i can see censorship happening, i’ve seen it. but i have to connect a lot of dots to get to divide and conquer, chemp. but i do see it with californias real estate and prison reform. but too elaborate for me to conclude thats really Soros and Bidens goal. what do they get out of it.
i usually operate from this first …
If I am not mistaken, the last word in Halon’s Razor is ‘stupidity’, not ‘neglect’.
To which a retort is “never attribute to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by malice”.
We assess all things before us. In a cursory manner if it’s some mundane matter, if a serious matter, we do a more serious assessment. In this we look for motives and consequences generally.
For example, if I leave for work in the morning and I see dog poop outside my gate I would think what a stupid owner with no consideration for others, or maybe he didn’t realise his dog pooped, or maybe it was a stray dog. But if I see the poop everyday, surely there must be malice.
its usually a stray dog is my point, chemp. thats why you either camp out or set up cameras to get evidence. cuz stray animals also develope habits of their own. so to wipe out the middle class as your answer needs proof. evidence. what do they get if they wipe out the middle class, why would they choose destabilization over order. seems counter productive. your scenario just doesn’t make sense, chemp, requires me to think the Devil’s hand is in all this. which i am not prepared to do. mainly cuz i don’t believe in the Devil but also because i believe more in stupidity. eg. most people leaving California for say Texas are doing so because they see their taxes go up while seeing homelessness also go up and crime go up, so most are like fuck this we out, plus most of those Taiwanese companies are setting up in TX and Oklahoma now too so greener pastures. agree with Joe here, chemp, theres push and pull all around. but no Devil i see. you have to provide evidence.
You have a point in asking where is the evidence when one says the agenda is to wipe out the middle class. But I think that is not learning from history. Those that lived under communism knew what happened. Their middle class was wiped out.
“…why would they choose destabilization over order.”
There are many reasons why sometimes leaders resort to desabilisation for short term gains and take the risk of long term negative consequences.
In the case of US and western countries, as I mentioned earlier, it is a strategy to establish a new socialism under a political and globalist elitist leadership, the new bolsheviks. It is no coincidence US, EU, Canada, Australia and NZ are all pursuing similar policies.
Destablisation in US serves to, and increasingly evident, increase political gain by undermining the competition. Those in power is in a better to maneuver to increase control. Eg lockdowns and mail-in ballots.
To achieve ideological goals, first destroy then a new system can be rebuilt. The church and its conservative values is the very first target.
Best way to destabilise, create fear. That’s the phychological warfare. It is very obvious this is taking place in western countries.
“Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence”
A high standard of evidence prevents the acceptance of false or misleading information. Downside is killing skepticism stifles genuine innovation, exploration of new ideas.
The pandemic demonstrates how stifling (by the cancel culture, and actual government action) killed all discussions on the efficacy of vaccines and the nature and origin of the virus.
In scientific context, Sagan’s quote is appropriate as scientific rigour is essential. Eg the claim that SAR-Cov2 is zoonotic came out of the long nose of Fauci.
In legal context, it is certainly essential in the burden of proof required of the proponent.
When looking at paradigm shifts in social and cultural realms, we look a historical precedents. As I have done. The extraordinary evidence comes when it’s game over.
“The extraordinary evidence comes when it’s game over.” sounds a lot like Intelligent Design, chemp. trust me theres evidence there type of sales talk. yet California which MAGA beat as the proof of all this is still the strongest economy vis a vis other states. so how do you explain that. people are coming in, Californians are staying. lesser qualified folks and folks leaving the job market sure they’re leaving California, but as a capitalist engine things are working here. if anything California is the most capitalist, chemp. and thats with homelessness and crime. so you at least have to show that California is slipping to show the trajectory of your “design” here. you’re a figures guy, chemp. show me figures.
Good question indeed. What do they get out of it.
With American exceptionalism and economic prowess built on Judeo-Christian values, petrol dollar, and military prowess, Socialism can never take over. American way of life needs to be destroyed first. Surely any sane mind can see the harm of of defund the police and open border policies. So why do it at all if not to impoverise and wipe out the middle class, to create a climate of fear for control. Poverty and fear, best tool kits for marxian control. Here comes the birdflu. Time for lock downs, new vaccines, and mail-in ballots, the best voting cheating scheme (Not my words, Biden’s).
Nonsense. Projecting Republican irresponsibility onto democrats is fascist propaganda. Just reverse your ideas and you get accurate fast.
There is no open border policy. Cultish lies. There is a controlled border policy.
Nonsense. California is growing. There is no exodus. There are now more fortune 500 companies in California than any other state. It is a healthy, vibrant, state. Feeds schoolkids lunches. Allows abortions. Is multi-racial. Welcomes immigrants. but you don’t have to live there if you prefer something less.
You are a cultish rubbish vendor. (Oh, my bad. I thought chempnut wrote that.)
You just won’t accept facts when it’s not in sync with your views. This chart is from California state agency.
The data is from a private non-profit, not a California agency. Here’s what a California agency says.
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/04/30/californias-population-is-increasing/
The point is, there is no liberal “cause” for people to leave California to seek a better life elsewhere. No flood exodus. The reasons for exodus are economic. High housing costs in the main. California is a hugely diverse and powerful economic masterpiece. MAGAs like to state otherwise, but they are liars and despicable humans like Trump, your cult leader.
did you watch those Newsom and De Santis debates on FOX, Joe. Newsom spanked De Santis on these figures so much that he dimished from the GOP, he and Nikki were suppose to upend Trump. and Newsom gained a fan in Hannity (he’s in love with Newsom) i still don’t know why he agreed to debating Newsom. but yeah, i don’t think chemp understands the power of California. from military contract industry to Hollywood to higher learning (hard sciences especially). with all those folks leaving for Texas et al there so much more folks taking their place. the people leaving cant never come back cuz they get priced out of California. so makes sense if you’re a retiree or middle class unable to compete in this market. go. but more people are coming in here precisely to compete and make money. i personally would move to Seattle if i were the moving type not Texas. but yeah California all the way, sure theres homelessness and crime but all in all i’d rather be in California than Texas. keep an eye on Anduril.
@LCX, California is an amazing state, I agree. And you are right, the complexities are layered. Simple statements can’t depict what is going on there. Newsom will be a presidential prospect in 2028 if Trump doesn’t jail him.
I have a high belief deficit for certain official data. But I shall accept your data for now.
If California is still so gung ho, why it cannot resettle the homeless. Why has tax collection fallen.
The state debt is $1.6T, Budget deficit 24-25 is $28b, and about yearly negative $30b next three years. It has $15b reserves.
Hardly a rosy picture, but what do I know.
On one hand, you say the current establishment, like communism, has a plan to eliminate the middle class, which is pure hogwash, then you cry big crocodile tears because the liberal state is not socializing care for the homeless. It’s all a big crock. The homeless are the tragic fallout of capitalism that thrives on people competing to create value. The homeless lost their homes by not having the education, sound mind, or luck needed to have a job. Yes, the State or local governments should try to solve the problem, The first step should be to take those originally from Florida and Texas and ship them back. The rest, they should house, and I believe they are working on it. As for taxes, I dunno. But there is an income base there, so it will be fine. A little bit of debt for the fifth largest economy in the world is not a weeping horror story like you make it out to be. You are so full of bullshit that it must have risen to your eyeballs, because you no longer see straight and are hallucinating. Do go see a professional to get help.
As an amusement, I checked Singapore’s debt to GDP ratio, which is 140%. California’s debt to GDP is 17%.
Also, per Fitch, “The state of California’s ‘AA’ Issuer Default Rating (IDR) incorporates its large and diverse economy, which supports strong, albeit cyclical, revenue growth prospects, a solid ability to manage expenses through the economic cycle and a moderately low level of long-term liabilities”
Get a life, really.
It never occurs to you other folks may have some some good questions and some facts correct and you are no infallible.
You lack understanding of Singapore’s debt and use blast out like Kamala Harris. Singapore practices balanced budget. It does not borrow to spend. All those high debts arise from 2 areas. (A) Management of monetary policies. These are securities issued (a) to transfer foreign reserves from central bank to sovereign wealth funds for better investment, (b) for pricing discovery for S$ yield curve; (B) for retail investors to have opportunity to park their money in longer term deposits; (C) for the pension fund to invest in a safe instrument with guaranteed returns. It’s basically a mechanism to transfer pension funds to sovereign wealth fund for better investment.
The proceeds raised cannot be spent by law. All the funds are invested.
To take advantage of cheap money, there was a new legislation to borrow for infrastructure projects. It’s a small amount of some S$80m. This has stopped as the era of near zero interest rates is over.
Sure, US1.6T debt is no big problem for the 6th largest economy in the world. But California has only a small reserve which will be wiped out by current year’s budget deficit. California is a state, not a country. It has no monetary sovereignty. Means it has very little room to wriggle.
You and Lance said only the poor Californians move out. Which part of the air did you pluck the figure from. It’s interesting because it’s first time I hear the poor is more mobile than the rich.
I have no idea what you are babbling about. California is economically sound, socially advanced, and resource rich. Sorry you can’t see straight.
chemp, the poor end up becoming homeless. but getting out of California if you really want out is like $100 by bus and free if you hop on a freight train. i said, those who can’t compete leave. also those retiring, who by definition cannot compete or just want a quiet life. most homeless end up in California regardless, from Texas, Florida, etc. everytime theres a tornado or hurricane they usually end up here cuz of resources.
The statistics of homelessness are pretty well developed. California leads the nation with 4.4 homeless per 10,000 residents. Vermont is second at 4.3. Most states are half that because ice is a disincentive. Homelessness is highest among Blacks, then Latinos. So California has them. Me, I for sure would make my way to Venice. Alternate between begging from the skaters, enjoying the street entertainers, and ogling the babes. Or get a hat and sing opera on the pier. Or learn to mock the way people walk.
Here are the details on interstate mobility. Simple conclusions are really stupid and blaming Biden is stupider than stupid.
https://www.thepolicycircle.org/minibrief/migration-between-states/#:~:text=Interstate%20movement%20stood%20at%205,and%20drive%20overall%20migration%20trends.
I’ve been trying to understand what would lead allegedly normal people to fall in line behind an insurrectionist con-man rapist for President. I think there are five classes of people.
1. The ignorant who can’t read, or who can, but their information channels are dirrrrty, or their cultish allegiance so intense that they self-censor incoming data. That’s maybe 85% of Trump voters.
2. The people who would gain personally from Trump’s policies. Like politicians who suck his appendage, oil men, racists, and the like. Maybe 10%.
3. People who conceptually dislike democracy and truely believe the US would be “better”, more efficient and productive, and more globally dominant under Trump. Maybe 2.5%.
4. Crazy needy people who get their rocks off by dominating others because they are losers in their own minds, and seek revenge. 2.0%.
5. Paid agents of foreign governments. 0.5%.
Chempo is in there somewhere. Only he would know, unless he is 4, emotionally and mentally incapacitated.
so far for me he’s at insight, Joe. your 1-5 for me is inconsequential, that’s his business. that’s why I’m asking only for how he’ll connect the dots. whether it’ll be wisdom or unicorns. this deficit and debt stuff he’s hinting at is the stuff of chempo vs. Micha debates , i just want him to connect his purported narrative to the data. and just focus on California. de Santis was showing off (in his debate with Newsom) too how Florida and Texas was beating California blaming the covid lock downs. well its 2024 and i don’t see Florida and Texas besting California. so chemps narrative has to fit the data, and not draw unicorns. though he’s hinting at unicorns. nothing wrong with that either, i like unicorns. but since i’m in California on the ground am just curious how he’ll defend his narrative. otherwise its bunk. he’s been more wrong than not when it comes to this stuff, remember the phoenix helicopters over the vote count. so his track record for me is already suspect. the singapore and banking stuff is still chempo gold but his MAGA stuff has been crap.
85 % of Mr. Trump supporters falls under the category of “stupids”. It seems RFK will be the other choice to those who don’t like the policies of the Biden Administration.
Kennedy is both stupid and a lunatic, in my estimation. Really, listen to these people. Think about their content and what America is supposed to stand for. Science, honesty, compassion, fairness. Not anti-science, lies, idiocy, conspiracies, cruelty, and discrimination. Just LISTEN. It is so simple to grasp that, of the three, only one is for age-old American values. Only one is for justice, and for ALL Americans. It is so so simple.
isk, it seems like 2016 all over again with wall to wall coverage of Trump for 4 damn years this time. Trump’s base is strong. but he seems to be gaining from blacks and Hispanics too. blacks cuz BLM Defund the Police came home to roost. and Hispanics cuz it turns out most of them are pro-border. Biden shoulda kept Trump’s stay in Central America policy oh well. Kennedy i don’t think will take much from Biden though. Dems not happy with Biden especially the kids will just sit it out like the Bernie folks in 2016 thats why Hillary didn’t win, they just refused to vote for her.
there doesn’t seem to be a spike in crime specific to illegals here in California but the migrants they in-taked from Texas seem to be rampaging NYC these days so theres been Dem mayors lambasting Biden of late, isk.
Even if Biden did a crappy job on immigration, it would be crazy to vote for Trump who did a crappy job on everything, especially covid and international relations, tried to overthrow an election, scammed on taxes, is an adulterous rapist, etc etc. But in fact, Biden hammered out a strong bipartisan immigration bill in the Senate but the House won’t vote on it because Trump wants to run on the matter, and mindless mavens who read the propaganda keep laying it at Biden’s feet. Really, America is a nutcase nation. It’s media has been purchased by self-dealers and even you spout ridiculous info that helps Trump. Incredible.
I like this drawing.
Except I think it has the sequence wrong. The last rectangle should be placed first. We have actually ran out of conspiracy theories as many turned out to be true.
Name three.
Yes, a belief that tries to welcome and give voice to all other belief systems as long as they don’t hurt others. A master belief system, experimental, and oh so elegant in design, but chaotic in its execution. It isn’t founded on a god, but on confidence that humans can build their community in a way that empowers people, rather than oppresses them. Belief in an idea, I suppose.
Joe, this is the reality here now. i’m not sugar coating it. it is what it is. like I said had they just left out Trump post 2020, we won’t be in this predicament but they decided to put Trump on the news with these court cases. so thats that.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/us/politics/biden-trump-battleground-poll.html
Thank you for documenting the fact that America is a crazy place suffering from cancer of the morals and brain.
well who ever came up with the idea to send bus loads of illegal immigrants to NYC, Chicago, DC, etc. that idea paid off big time. got those mayors to lambast Biden but Biden recently responded with border mayors praising him. so i guess it s all about spin, Joe. but those crimes in NYC have already proliferated. can’t really put that one back in the bag.
It’s irrelevant to the big issue. It’s a gnat on an elephant’s tush. America is drunk on misinformation and illogic, taking gnats and making them elephants, and it seems you are in on it and completely oblivious to the situation. America is crashing. The glory is gone. All that is left is green turds floating in a giant cess pit.
its like the butterfly effect , Joe. Biden inherited a pretty quiet border precisely cuz Trump got Mexico to keep everyone at bay. the moment Biden invited everyone to the southern border and this is documented thru speeches. that got the butterfly wings flapping which led to Dem mayors lambasting Biden. which led to everyone questioning the wisdom of Biden reopening the southern border after Trump. now i think Biden did right by following Trump’s anti-China policies and Trump’s leaving Afghanistan policy. which begs the question why didn’t Biden just leave the southern border be and work on top of Trump’s success there. this is more a Hispanic issue , they’re both pro-border and anti-abortion. which was a miscalculation. but i think what’s gonna bite Biden in the behind is this Gaza stuff. so i agree with you that stuff is irrelevant big picture wise. Gaza is where its at. and the pro-Gaza folks are gaining traction with black and Hispanics also siding with them. Gaza’s like the perfect storm here, Joe. this whole policy to keep arming Israel whilst attempting to make a stupid pier to help Gaza its the icing on the turd cake. a green turd cake.
And I thought the Southern border is not open.
Well, the problem is that everyone ignores the context of a presidency and goes immediately to simplistic conclusions that an incident is the man. Really bad logic. Totally fed by mainstream tabloids and really lousy man-on-the-street analysis. Gaza is not Biden. It’s a tough place between campus riots, global condemnation, MAGAs intent to get Biden, Netanyahu’s intransigence, and America’s historical bond with Israel. So you are just one more turd-maker doing nothing to build solutions.
Border crossers is not the only issue, there’s some more as per David Sacks
https://x.com/DavidSacks/status/1798883245670707465
Its not my job to build solutions, Joe. i can have opinions though. but for sure Biden can lambast Netanyahu at least, he has the power of words. as for Ukraine, he shoulda opened up Russia for US weapons instead of keeping Ukraine constrained within its borders (now its green lit). but Ukraine’s inability to push last summer has nothing to do with that fact though, they just didn’t push. so i’m more forgiving to Biden when it comes to Ukraine. but Israel, the US has more power over Israel. so I’m with the campus protestors, so long as they don’t start closing down streets like with BLM. its indecisiveness is the problem, Joe. so isk is right its not just the border. its this whole not knowing what to do. which connects to what chempo’s talking about. is it Biden making these decisions himself, or others are making it for him hence the committee-like nature of his foreign policy. Newsom has to run , Joe. that’s the ONLY solution I’m offering.
Okay. I’ll continue ignoring most of what you say because your core person has no desire to correct the mess America is in. Opinionate away.
Biden is losing , Joe. Unless you want Trump to win, Newsom is the only play here. by insisting on Biden, you have no desire to correct the mess. see how that works? youre essentially pro-Trump.
I don’t insist on Biden. The political process gives us the choices on the ballot. I’d prefer Newsom but understand the advantage an incumbent has, especially one who got us out of Afghanistan, corrected Trump’s incompetence on covid, brought inflation down, created so many jobs that economists are worried, brought manufacturing back to the US, got a bipartisan immigration bill through the Senate but pinhead Johnson went with Trump and tabled it for use as campaign fodder for you and Chempo, and is capably doing the delicate dance with Israel.
you and chempo are on the same side, Joe.
That is a ridiculous lie. He is a foreigner trying to overthrow the US government and I am a citizen defending the US Constitution as I swore to do when I joined the army. You are a man without moral anchor playing games. So from your position you see opposites as identical.
If you really cared, Joe. assuming here you still vote. then you’d push for Newsom. before the convention takes place. all Dems who care should be pushing for Newsom. theres no time to lose. Trump must not be president. Move aside Biden! put Newsom in already.
Opinion.
Trump’s in California now and i’ve never seen so much support, not in 2016 not in 2020. its different in 2024 he’s got everyone fired up, Joe. this shouldn’t have happened. but its happening. post conviction and Trump’s surging even more.
That’s the disgrace you won’t fight. You want me to fight for Newsom while you bash Biden and pass around dirt that supports Trump. My gang is Democrats, not your gang, which seems to be confused old men who have no moral standards because they’ve argued them all away and now stand for exactly nothing.
So you’re prepared to go down with Biden. thus letting Trump win?
I’ll go with whomever Democrats select. If Americans think Trump is better, I’ve done my best. I won’t undermine Biden to boost a non-candidate, to Trump’s benefit. So don’t dump your guilt on me. You are the guy actively helping the man who genuinely thinks you are a fool, and if you got killed, a sucker, and if you got captured, not someone he will stand beside. Like he won’t stand by crippled soldiers. Takes the shine off him.
Joe, you are a Democrat you get a say in this. you can demand Newsom. thats how democracy works. with more Democrats demanding Newsom , Biden will have to step down. that’s how it works. the writings on the wall. you’re not yet at the point of no return, Joe.
You don’t listen very well, I have determined.
more of this please. so long as they stay off the freeways, i’m good.
https://x.com/rawsalerts/status/1799503228276469765
Re the US-China conflict a brilliant interview with an Indonesian professor:
This was during the Shangri-la dialog BTW where this also happened:
Marcos Jr. did react like a statesman to a very provocative Chinese general.
PBBM is pretty smart why’d everyone make fun of him? that was a good answer but to piss off the general he shoulda just said, the Philippines are the stepping stone to China. every ASEAN leader should say this all are stepping stones to China. really fuck with their head.
Probably many still see the spoiled princeling of before. Seems exile and return, plus his lawyer wife drove purpose he didn’t have in youth.
And Filipino political groups often have similarities to Filipino fandoms. How they make fun of the other side is often downright childish up to totally malicious. Though former VP Leni and Trillanes acknowledge that PBBM is doing a good job with regards to China.
it’s mostly the dutertes who made fun of pbbm, called him bangag much to sara’s amusement, tumawa e. natuwa yata. much to the first lady’a annoyance.
one of duterte’s minions alvarez, ex speaker of the house ousted by arroyo, called for pbbm’s resignation, a sentiment echoed by younger dutertes. there was motion for mindanaw to leave the republic. ang bwelta yata ni pbbm is to sack 35 kapolisan from dabaw, done swiftly, maybe cutting off duterte’s elite force. they’d be less able to launch a coup, is what think.
is there precedence of police launching coups, kb? seems due to the way police is deployed albeit national in precincts instead of bases its very hard to get a bunch of cops together to launch a coup logistically & organizationally speaking. from davao much less. even ousting of military from davao would be impossible since i believe much of the military there is still very much ilocano.
ireneo, yup pbbm’s success as a stateman will for sure diminish my inday sara’s chance in 2028. unless pbbm pushes for the icc against dutertes in which case vp Sara might have the same resurgence as Trump here due to witchhunt nature of the whole endeavor thus more support for vp sara but without icc just pbbm’s handling of china filipinos will clamor for more marcos in the form of his progenies.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3264323/philippines-marcos-jnr-removes-pro-duterte-police-officers-pre-empt-coup-attempt
here is the raissa’s article explaining.
Lovely article. Perfectly lovely.
btw, instead of stepping stones which I think philippines will surely object, the word oft use is ‘strategic’. we are in strategic position . . .
pls bear in mind philippines is sovereign nation and certainly not anyone’s stepping stones.
I actually like the stepping stone characterization as it applies to other nations. “If you want to be positioned in Asia in a strategic way, consider the Philippines to be your stepping stone into the whole of Asia.”
It is a very action-oriented statement that the President can use to get investments here.
stepping stone is inconsequential. i agree. its that the next step will be in China is what will really get their panties in a bunch.
joeam, stepping stones are to me, inanimate objects, to be stepped on, passive, patient, and uncomplaining. in these days and age, I can hardly say the same to fellow filipinos. we are hardy bunch, and not to be stepped on, coz we bite! and we can be utterly rabid.
but, I like our country to be stopover hub for all of asia. for tourists to go island hopping, country hopping, etc. exciting and inviting is our country, colorful, lively and vivid. never a dull moment.
Simple to solve. Do a 2) definition that sees them as ways to have footing whilst building a bridge. Microsoft is putting $2 billion into Malaysia. Man, that would have looked good in the Philippines.
our turn will come. after malaysia, indonesia is next in line with 1.7billion to be invested in cloud and AI infras.
incidentally, when singapore airlines advertise for cabin crew, they recruited in thailand, malaysia, indonesia, etc. not philippines though, we got bypassed!
great article, kb. thanks and karl’s point about PMA i forget that AFP and PNP are mostly from PMA.
investigative journalist raissa robles must be proud of herself, she wrote noteworthy articles.
the only weakness i see in the article is that it assumes VP Sara and DU30 are in cahoots. for said coup to occur VP Sara has to be on board. again there has to be PMA level conspiracy like Trillanes. she basically just has Davao policemen. lets do a counter factual analysis here, 35 Davao policemen go to Makati hold up a building make demands i dunno like no to ICC and demand PBBM steps down. will that really compel PBBM to step down? seems PBBM is ascendant with full US backing and will VP Sara risk it all, like she coulda had the presidency but instead settled for VP position so I don’t see VP Sara as a coup de tat type. her Duterte vs. Marcos family fight scenario needs more evidence.
@ K, She is hit and miss with me. Her anti-Marcos venom got so intense, I stopped following her. But that was a good article, for sure.
The Philippine Militaey Academy can be like a frat.
They displayed Omerta tendencies in more ways than one.
closer than brothers may not be a hyperbole.
speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil, heto 49 kapolisan from bamban tarlac were relieved from duties apparently as fall out of pogo hub operating right under their noses! the fortyniners reportedly said pogo, what pogo? the big building that housed pogo is really hard to miss. aside from illegal activities, pogo hub’s electricity and water consumption must also be astronomical, maybe siphoning off supplies from nearby cities and towns.
https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/908947/pnp-49-bamban-cops-relieved-from-posts-amid-pogo-probe/story/
Wyoming, haha, and Texas. Well, Texans are proud and stubborn. Wyoming winds blow most of their people out. If I’da been smarter, I would have married the absolutely gorgeous wheat farmer’s daughter from Wyoming, in college days. I’d own a gazillion acres with nothing on it but wheat, wind, antelope, gophers, and missile silos. No fuckin’ politicians anywhere.
most Californians i know who are white leaving CA are going to states like Wyoming, Montana & Idaho, Joe. most Hispanics etc. are going to Texas so i think has more to do with already having relatives in Texas. a bunch of Koreans leaving California for Texas too. again cuz they already have people set up in Texas. i remember in the 1990s most whites use to move to Washington and Oregon, i think real estate went up is why they stopped going. but yeah, California’s not going any where any time soon. don’t believe the anti-CA hype.
Joe, speaking of tribes. i really like PhD interactions on twitter. like this one. but why was PBBM cc’ed here. is there some fibre optics remodelling going on in Philippines?
I have no idea.
Joe: “I’ve been trying to understand what would lead allegedly normal people to fall in line behind an insurrectionist con-man rapist for President. I think there are five classes of people.”
The 5 classes are interesting which I may address later as it refers to me. These are ‘mirror’ statements.
For the moment I just want to address the topic of lies, something that has been slashed on me. So let’s look a some lies that I am not lying about:
………………………………………………
On 2nd Amendment:
Biden: “I used to teach the Second Amendment in law school … From the very beginning, there were limitations. You couldn’t own a cannon!”
(a) He never taught at law school. He was paid $775,000 by UPenn but he never taught a single class.
(b) At the time of the nation’s founding, there were NO restrictions on the 2nd Amendment.
………………………………………………
Why Biden entered politics:
For years Biden has been telling the story why he entered politics. Fresh from law school he joined Wilmington, Delaware. The law firm had a client, a construction company. There was a work site accident. A welder “lost part of his penis and one of his testicles” to a fire that broke out. Welder sued company. Biden said the senior partner asked him, a law clerk, to write motion to dismiss the case.
Biden: “I wrote this memo. And son of a b—, it prevailed. And I looked over at that kid…and I thought, ‘son of a b—, I’m in the wrong business, I’m not made for this.’”
Filled with remorse for the poor kid, he resigned and dedicated his life to help others by joining politics.
The facts are: That case happened in 1968 when he was still in law school. And actually the welder won and was rewarded $315,000.
Washington Free Beacon reported 28 Mar 2024 “He repeated the tale, at the risk of facing criminal charges for lying to a federal agent, while speaking to Special Counsel Robert Hur in October 2023”
………………………………………….
East Palestine toxic chemical explosion:
Biden: “My Administration Was on The Ground Within Hours”
He visited one year later. Buttigieg visited three weeks after incident. Trump visited within days.
………………………………………..
Pandering to blacks:
Biden: “I’ve spent more time in the Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Delaware, than most people I know, black or white, have spent in that church because that’s where I started a civil rights movement,”
Now where the heck was Martin Luther King?
…………………………………………..
Police who died on Jan 6:
Biden: “Over 140 police officers were injured. Jill and I attended the funerals of police officers who died as a result of the events of that day. Because of Donald Trump’s lies.”
No police officers died that day. Officer Brian Sicknick died the next day from a stroke.
…………………………………………..
Teaching at Upenn:
Biden: “I taught at the University of Pennsylvania for four years and I used to teach political theory…”
His favourite line, or lie. He never taught anything there.
…………………………………………..
Sympathy for survivors of Maui fire:
Biden: “Lightning stuck my house … half the house almost collapsed!”
No such thing happened. Oh yeas, there was a small kitchen fire once, as Jill recalls.
………………………………………….
His credentials
Biden: “I was in law school on a full scholarship, the only one in my class to have a full academic scholarship. Went back to law school and in fact ended up in the top half of my class. I was the outstanding student in political science in my dep. In fact I graduated with three degrees….”
Actually he went to college on a half-scholarship, ended up at the bottom of his class (76 out of 85) and has only one degree.
He had to withdraw from the senatorial race when this lies were outed.
Boy, he does have the knack for lying, squeezing three lies into one statement.
…………………………………………..
I could go on and write a book on the Liar in Chief. A serial liar that makes Michael Cohen seem like a choir boy.
That is a deep dredge for dirt, something I have no time to fact check. It would be easy for you to cite your sources. My guess is they are from the MAGA garbage stream. You have zero credibility with me.
But just the headline on this report rings loud with clarity.
https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/how-joe-biden-broke-opec-and-rewrote-the-rules-for-oil-trading-212500037935
The other cited headlines are also amusing, a counterpoint to your cultish nonsense.
If you think that lying is not imtportant to you, don’t. Just believe the messenger lied. What is the point of showing to a closed mind. Suffice to show just one video from the horse’s mouth. Maybe you want to check how often he used the N word in congress, and his voting record for the times he supported segregationist legislation.
Regarding OPEC:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2021/11/09/opec-says-to-biden-if-you-want-more-oil-pump-it-yourself/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-04/opec-s-surprise-output-boost-offers-biden-a-break-on-pump-prices
My Forbes 2021 link tells in no uncertain terms what OPEC thinks of Biden.
My Bloomberg 2024 report says “surprise”.
Your MSNBC gives an entirely fawning caption. We all know MSNBC CNN ABC NYT sing according to the pipe piper. This is an example.
This is an illustration you should be careful with leftist media. MSNBC is attributing to Biden that which is not there.
OPEC+ had been on previously agree output cut for two years running. That agreed production cut was due to end on June. Whether OPEC will continue to hold back production increase depends on their outlook for demand. Long term global demand is not rosy. The market knows because oil futures are much lower than spot prices. Going into this June meeting OPEC had already given some hint when they project an increase in demand for the summer months due to increased travels. In the last 2 years, while OPEC+ members’ compliance of output was good, non-OPEC countries had increased output. OPEC members had sacrificed to support prices. There is pressure to increase now.
It is not a surprise, neither does it have anything to do wish a bumbling octogenarian. It is simply OPEC responding to market supply and demand.
And before you say hallelujah for Biden votes, the production increase takes place in October. It will take maybe 2 or 3 months before a drop in crude oil spot prices translate to lower pump prices. Sorry, won’t help Biden win votes.
And whilst MSNBC propaganda piece sings praise of Biden as the greatest oil trader in history, you might want to check Biden raided strategic reserves to release oil in American market to help pump prices down (which by the way, pump prices went up because he killed the Keystone pipeline project and fracking industry) but somehow in releasing the oil reserves, 950,000 barrels were sold to a Chinese oil trading company Unipec. This company is a subsidiary of Sinopec, a CCP wholly-owned company. BHR Partners, a private equity firm Hunter Biden cofounded in 2013, bought a $1.7 billion stake in Sinopec Marketing in 2015. Biden at one point owned a 10 percent stake in BHR Partners through his wholly owned firm, Skaneateles, LLC. According to Washington Examiner’s 9 Mar 2022 report Hunter claimed has has since divested his shares and DCRA shows Skaneatles has been ‘revoked’ however China’s National Credit Information Publicity System still shows Sinopec is 10% owned by BHR. Whatever the status of Hunter’s ownership is, the sales of strategic to a CCT owned company which had dealings with the president’s son is fishy.
Three links puts you in moderation.
Addressing your paragraphs in order.
1. Lying is what MAGA does. It is ugly. The N word has nothing to do with OPEC and you are just trolling. President Obama awarded VP Biden the Medal of Freedom for his service to the country.
2. So you are compassionate to OPEC and higher gas prices? Of course they hate that Biden broke their inflation game. It is not “my” MSNBC. I don’t follow any US news because they are all sick. I said it was a counterpoint to your MAGA garbage, which it is.
3. See 2.
4. You are pro-inflation then, siding with OPEC. I’m sure you never dissed Biden for inflation. Two-faced hypocrite.
5. Many of the commenters here are old. They do better than you. Biden does, too. His State of the Union was superb. His cabinet find him sharp and demanding. What a trollish comment.
6. Bias. Trolling. Prices are already down.
7. Nonsense trolling. Gas prices are down. Hunter Biden has nothing to do with anything important. Republicans have dug for months and come up empty. This paragraph is mainstream MAGA. Absolute garbage.
I have high respect for your thoughts in most of your articles, including this one, particularly for originality in the angle you approach a subject matter.
But I’m truly disappointed with this response which I see as hopelessly juvenile. I see no point in further engagement.
Hope you try to analyse why commenters are fleeing from a once popular site. I say this with sadness, not anger.
1) Younger people prefer short form like tick tock, and you tube; few read for depth, 2) People tire of things, and die, 3) people gave up on the Philippines when Duterte was elected and moved to Canada; others when Robredo lost, 4) I stopped marketing the blog when I got tired of interfacing with idiots, 5) the blog became a dirtstream with you, Micha, LCX, and me getting way off the path of intellectual work that benefits Filipinos.
The slide began when Edgar Lores died. There are four people left who grasp what the blog ought to be. They can’t generate a big audience in the face of way too much nonsense.
Don’t be sad. We genuinely helped the Philippines. It was material.
Adios.
ps, the blog is only up because Giancarlo wanted to archive the content. It will eventually go off the air, so if you wish to copy or save your articles, I’d advise that you do it this year.
Re 3) The watershed was 2019 when the midterms were catastrophic. Soon after, caliphman wrote, “What can we do if they want to be carabaos?” and went into lurk mode. Will stopped writing and focused on demonstrating which is a highly respectable path. Edgar Lores, who managed to balance out a lot of discussions here, died soon after.
Some kindling of hope with the time of the VP Leni campaign, but now our pink friends are mostly still in the stages of grief. I, out of curiosity for the pulse of the people, tried to feel it by deep diving into the world of Filipino popular culture, which I haven’t been in for decades. But what I now find is a country vastly different from the one I once knew, I guess you Joe feel the same about the USA by now, and I must admit I am at a loss and have no answers.
Yes, I think the US is lost, frankly, because even intelligent people are caught up in the mantra that the good must be perfect or it’s an outrage, but the bad are bad, so no need to worry about them. So Biden gets what Aquino got, but multiplied by Russian trolls, tabloid media, and the outrageous consistent and highly effective lying and sloganeering by Trump (Crooked Joe Biden). Even alleged deep thinkers join that cult. In fact, they seem to enjoy being in destroy mode, I suppose exorcising the fact that they are nothing, in their minds eye.
The Philippines is 3/4 earnest and 1/4 corrupt with Marcos seemingly trying to emulate his father rather than right his wrongs. When pogos are gone, we’ll know he’s serious about ending crime and corruption. But it’s not as crazy here as it is in the US. My son is likely to go to Europe for his college. The US is off the radar.
This paper examines why so many military men participated in the Jan 6 attack. It was a confluence of circumstances, an enemy (liberals), a cause (stealing the election), possibly groupthink (cattle stampede), and a charismatic leader who rallied them (behind the big lie). Similar things are going on across the nation, and ignorance is the driver. And personal need to rant. There is not much rationality, as you can witness in this blog discussion. The leap from negative incident to negative character is made over and over again. Whilst ignoring the outright lies and undermining of civility and justice being done by Trump.
It is futile to try to speak with the outraged who are intent upon justifying their position, no matter the facts or the damage.
https://journal-veterans-studies.org/articles/10.21061/jvs.v7i3.274
It’s pretty common for veterans to descend on DC actually. Google Bonus Army and then all those veteran led protests during Vietnam. if anything the very few veterans that partook in the Jan. 6 riots is a testament to the 20 years of GWOT that many veterans were indeed reabsorbed into society. thus were probably busy working that day. every time a huge group of veterans organize to do so theres usually a equally huge group of police/military to quell the crowd. which wasn’t the case in Jan. 6. and the Jan. 6 wasn’t a veteran led, but it s understandable if you pan out historically eg. Bonus Army 1930s and Vietnam vet protests 1970s that veterans would be passionate about the state of the country vis a vis 20 years of GWOT– but not many went. what should be alarming though isn’t really the militia type organizations many veterans find themselves in, at least militias are organized. what should be news is veterans joining motorcycle gangs and the resurgence of them all together. if you’ve ever been on recent road trips around the western US it s feeling a bit like Mad Max out there, Joe.
the gas prices in CA can go up to $8 bucks a galloon and people will still buy it, chemp. so I don’t think at least here in CA people truly care about gas prices. they might complain a lot but they’re still gonna buy no matter the price. so no bearing in election imho. but I am seeing more Teslas and lately a lot more Rivians. so i think people are just pivoting skirting away from gas pumps as their solution. which works out perfect for Newsom and Biden cuz they are pro EV. looks like this is Biden’s ace in the sleeve:
as for all that he said/she said stuff, unless theres video its just he said/ she said like all this stuff about what Trump once said about D-Day and why he didn’t wanna attend D-Day commemorations. so it cuts both ways, show me video. thats my stance at least. but i already think most of these dudes that seek power are dirrrty, so my worldview won’t really shatter unlike probably Joe’s who tend to hold these guys in high regard. my point, they’re all liars.
Yes, you see, you can’t distinguish between the malicious insurrectionist dirt that MAGA is dumping and the political craft of running for office. No moral foundation. Trump’s former chief of staff confirmed that Trump called you a sucker for serving and said about John McCain that he preferred servicemen who weren’t captured. What an asshole. I’m sure you can find a video of that proves Trump is an asshole. You won’t find it of Biden. They are not the same. Truly they are not.
Here. I’ll save you the time.
And here’s the other guy.
oh, I like this game, Joe.
It’s not a game and I don’t read propaganda or view videos. All I did was respond to your insistence on videos. Now you are dredging up green turds and saying dispensing the stuff is a game.
Also, those are not videos of Biden, like you requested. They are propaganda videos preying on people to make a titillating tabloid slur against a good man whilst sweeping the obnoxious behavior of an asshole under the rug. You merely show you are one of the mental and logical midgets who is not interested in honor or knowledge.
The trap you fall for is that the good must be perfect and it is an outrage when they are not while the bad can be bad but that’s okay because, well, you they are bad. About 51% of all Americans fall into that class or cult or gang, and the evidence suggests you don’t have the capacity to get out.
Those are videos of blacks responding to things Joe Biden said. without knowing they were said by Joe Biden. so they’re saying its racist, then told it was Joe Biden who said them. I’m not black so my nuanced understanding of what is racist will not be the same as their reaction. so the fact that these are words uttered by Biden isn’t the issue, it’s whether or not they are in fact racist. so its their reactions.
No, you wanted to see direct videos of Trump saying bad things about servicemen. You were not interested in what his Chief of Staff or anyone else said. Then you disseminate propaganda videos as evidence against Biden. Double standard. To paraphrase you. “. . . so the fact that these words were issued by Trump isn’t the issue, it’s whether or not they are an offense against servicemen.” But you reject that idea when it comes to issues you can’t face. Trump thinks you are a fool, a sucker. Deal with it.
Joe, that video you shared Trump was talking about McCain. just McCain. here: “He’s not a war hero, he’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured, okay?” he’s not talking about servicemen. Biden however is making generalizations in those quotes. like real generalizations, which blacks are construeing as racist. theres a difference. show me videos or quotes like real quotes not 2nd 3rd 4th hand quotes of Trump disparaging servicemen.
You are in denial.
ps. i’m just now youtubeing these myself. thanks to your prompting. I’ll list chemp’s list if you like, turns out theres more quotes like these from Biden. and i’ll form an opinion on these quotes all taken together holistically. cuz i’m starting to get a feel of what chempo’s suggesting here now. all just opinion of course. though when it comes to culture especially white i do have a good read on people’s motivations. i’ll share that once i’m done compiling these.
Doesn’t matter to me. Chempo’s opinions are dogshit and it doesn’t bother me if you go there, too. It fits your lack of moral framework.
Thanks , Joe. so I’m thinking now that he is racist. but probably he himself doesn’t know it. Trump on the other hand is just an asshole and not racist, based on his close employees since the 70s that are Hispanics and blacks, a couple of those were former NYPD who were laid off i guess there was a mass lay off in the 70s and he hired a bunch of cops and they’ve been working for him ever since. whereas Joe Biden doesn’t seem to have close friends or employees who are non-Whites, he has a bunch of colleagues though but nothing in the sphere similar to Trump that can vouche for him directly. the first video is Daily Show in which Trevor Noah covers Biden’s reminiscing of his segregationist colleagues; while the Young Turks video covers Biden’s stance on school bussing of black and White kids. and he says something very telling giving away his world view. i ‘ll explained in context below. since school busing i’m very familiar with.
I remember this school bussing stuff during the debate with Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. in which Harris was being a drama queen about not being able to be bussed in north Berkeley she lived in south Berkeley the UC campus being the de facto border of north and south. when i heard that live I was like what a load of crap knowing full well theres only one high school at Berkeley, so its all moot cuz you end up at the same high school. didn’t really think nothing of it til now. googling and youtubeing if Biden is in fact racist from yours and chemp’s prompting. and i came upon that Young Turks video which i’ve not seen before. but that Trevor Noah video since i watch the Daily Show daily i’ve seen before. again didn’t think nothing by it then as well. Joe’s just reminiscing the good old days. for context i’ll also go over Clarence Thomas and Ice Cube. and their views of school bussing below.
I watched a documentary about Clarence thomas once and in it he outlines how he shifted from liberal to conservatives. and it was due to school bussing when he was still living in Boston. essentially his kids were forcefully bussed to white schools thus being unnecessarily exposed to racism early on. his take was why not just keep his black kids in a predominantly black school until they can find something better. cuz sending them to a poor white school in Boston was infinitely worst for his kids. and that was it the defining moment of Clarence Thomas vis a vis GOP vs. Dems. so he too was against forced bussing like Joe Biden similar reasons, whereas Thomas was against gov’t playing social experiments. Joe Biden’s view was more visceral he doesn’t want black kids with his white kids, not really against policy but against his kids being with blacks.
Ice Cube was bussed from Compton to Woodland Hills in the valley Taft High school but unlike Thomas’ kids he wasn’t forced to go. cuz LAUSD has a magnet program enticing kids from inner cities to go, like with specialized programs, etc. instead of just forcing them on buses. there ICE CUBE made friends with jews, Whites etc. and says every time he went home he was pissed off at how he was living back in Compton thus the lyrics and his drive to get out of there. so policy-wise school bussing ‘s intent was the success story of Ice Cube. Kamala Harris wasn’t able to avail she blamed Biden, Thomas ‘s kids were bussed and that made him leave the Dems. so Biden’s stance is important, that is the context, but its the way he said it that belies his world view and again based on the Young Turks video, i conclude Biden is the worst kinda racist,
the type Spike Lee tried to expose in his movie the Inside Man. you have to take it all holistically.
ps. chempo would not have been able to get here cuz i don’t think he’d be able to connect Clarence Thomas and Ice Cube. as well as Spike Lee. his N-word in the senate was a dead end cuz Biden was simply reading a quote. and school bussing per se isn’t really about segregation. it was Biden’s utterance on it that was racist.
You are a nutcase, lacking any moral foundation. Reduced to digging for dirt and slurring decent people to get your jollies.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-we-can-learn-from-the-effort-to-implement-bidens-executive-orders-on-advancing-equity/
Joe , regarding black kids getting bussed into white kids’ schools Biden said no; regarding white kids getting bussed into black kids schools he said hell no! revisiting the Kamala Harris vs. Biden exchange with this in mind, Harris had a really good point. ps. i remembered it wrong sorry Harris did get bussed to north Berkeley, her argument was a counter factual, saying what if i wasn’t bussed because of people like you Biden. that was her argument. and in the end it goes back to Trump’s sec. of education, its about keeping funds from black schools. that part i don’t really care about, that’s politics, i just care about how he expressed himself, Joe. i googled where magnet schools were in LAUSD and guess what no one gets bused to South central, it goes the opposite way. though since then they’ve devised of charter schools. but thats beside the point. its what Biden said regarding his kids that informed all his “gaffes” that persists today about race more recent are his Morehouse college speech. so chemp was on to something after all.
Dogshit opinion.
This government now trying to bring back nationalist reinforcement ala Bagong Lipunan, with an anthem and a pledge. And I’m sure the cynical youth will just roll their eyes at such attempts at imposing authority over them.
https://x.com/pia_gutierrez/status/1799670951392739774
Yes, a huge mistake, I’d guess. He can only get redemption by running a decent government, not repeating the errors of his father. It’s offensive to express loyalty to any person, over the Philippines.
is that why he travels a lot! a new song and a new pledge maybe to keep him afloat, highly influenced by what he sees in other countries, and covetous of them all lol! I cannot help being sarcastic, suntory is making me do it!
coz anywhere I look in our country, it’s same old, same old. same buildings, same old complaints, same people with the same old problems, though the temperature is getting hotter, floods are forever menace, potable water is getting scant as well as electricity supply. the peso is getting weaker, the scammers are getting bolder and operating in plain sight right under the noses of our law enforcers.
new song, new pledge, fanciful words are plenty, but I feel the spirit is missing and the heart is not there; pure facade this imposition of one man is. emperor nero sings while rome burns.
I like the comforts and predictability of the old national anthem, and warmth of the old panata, the character of our old heritage shines through, much treasured and much loved.
Yes, that’s it. In the US there is no flag ceremony, I suspect because of weather. The janitor puts the flag up. The pledge of allegiance is recited in the classroom, but just for small kids as I recollect. The national anthem is played at sporting events. There is no religious content in public schools. Which religion would they choose? Private religious schools do their thing.
Thanks to LCX for making this summary on Twitter.
http://www.philippinecentral.com/anthem.html
Lupang Hinirang(The Philippine National Anthem)Bayang magiliwPerlas ng Silanganan,Alab ng puso,Sa dibdib mo’y buhay.
Lupang Hinirang,Duyan ka ng magiting,Sa manlulupig,Di ka pasisiil.
Sa dagat at bundok,Sa simoy at sa langit mong bughaw,May dilag ang tulaAt awit sa paglayang minamahal.
Ang kislap ng watawat mo’yTagumpay na nagniningning,Ang bituin at araw niyaKailan pa ma’y di magdidilim.
Lupa ng araw, ng luwalhati’t pagsinta,Buhay ay langit sa piling mo.Aming ligaya, na pag may mang-aapiAng mamatay nang dahil sa iyo.
http://www.philippinecentral.com/phil-hymn.html
Land of the morning,
Child of the sun returning,
With fervor burning,
Thee do our souls adore.
Land dear and holy,
Cradle of noble heroes,
Ne’er shall invaders
Trample thy sacred shore.
Ever within thy skies and through thy clouds
And o’er thy hills and sea,
Do we behold the radiance, feel and throb,
Of glorious liberty.
Thy banner, dear to all our hearts,
Its sun and stars alight,
O never shall its shining field
Be dimmed by tyrant’s might!
Beautiful land of love, o land of light,
In thine embrace ’tis rapture to lie,
But it is glory ever, when thou art wronged,
For us, thy sons to suffer and die.
thanks, every stanza of masterful. such delight.
Well, they weren’t foolish enough to bring back Bagong Lipunan, which indeed was cynically turned into Gagong Lipunan back in the days, even if one risked jail time for doing that.
The song Panahon Na Ng Pagbabago is at first hearing modern and patriotic. Easy to succumb to wishful thinking that most Filipinos might not like what we don’t – realism is essential for the opposition to win even ONE Senate seat in 2025, Hontiveros’ term luckily being until 2028.
you can’t go wrong with Journey.
I am very sorry to hear that TSOH will be no more after this year. My time spent here was a blast.
I just hope the stuff archived I’m tge payback machine will stay there for as long as possible.
https://web.archive.org/web/20240514005448/https://joeam.com/
It might last longer, Karl. It runs on yearly contracts to retain the web site. I might get inspired and start writing again after I kick LCX and Chempo out and refocus on Filipino well-being. My frame of mind is improving.
kick chempo out, Joe. not me. I’m just responding to challenge. and down the rabbit hole i go searching for answers.
Made my day.
Oh my goodness! What’s wrong with Sec. Kim ? I mean Mr. Joe ? Diversity of opinion is good . Allowing different viewpoints without reservation I think will make this forum the best in the blogosphere .
The blog has always been moderated to exclude trolls, irrelevant content, abuse, and nonsense. That’s what made it a great blog. Open commentary cannot attract an audience that wants intelligent, honorable discussion. I certainly will not allow Chemrock’s or LCX’s trolling. Dirtstreams are rampant in the US allowing lies and abuse to overwhelm truth and decency, destroying democracy there. If this blog is to be great, it cannot go down that path.
Joe, but chempo has no title. whereas I am the Chief Troll here duly appointed. I even tried to surrender it to i7sharp and you said no that it was a life time office. in essence chempo has no get out of jail free card, where i do. since i was just carrying out the function of the office and title upon prompting. ps. chempo is Jack Ryan in this scenario.
You are still here. I’ve not yet decided if I’ll try to re-invigorate the blog.
I hope you will decide to re-invigorate it, Joe.
Joe, that twitter exchange of a teacher complaining of the myriad of hymns, patriotic mumbo jumbo she has to undergo was really insightful. so maybe a more Visayan/Mindanao focus and DepEd focused blog, ready for 2028. theres patriotism which shouldn’t have to be expressed thru imposed group think ceremonies and theres getting kids motivated and inspired. and leveraging strengths. that should be the point and not drone ceremonies meant for zombies.
kb, was talking about how they cut the rest of their banana suckers in the province focusing on only the best suckers to produce the best bananas. i feel like that’s what Philippine Dep Ed has always been doing. and that schools and teachers should not be cutting suckers at will but letting all suckers grow. favoritism like bikini contests at fiestas, schools always have these ribbon ceremonies, like kb’s suckers some chosen others cut down. similar to how bees create their queen bee by chosing bees to be queen and giving them royal jelly which is basically extra rations with more nutrients.
that’s the secret recipe here that asian countries have not replicated, and i dunno what it is exactly but thats the reason China sends lots of teachers and students here to search for it and decode it. and if Dep Ed there can get this and use it over there then great. its not about top notchers, but the culture that everyone can be great. and just doing away with extraneous shit is a start and playing songs that kids like to get their days started.
For example, no one sings the star spangled banner at schools at all. i remember only doing the pledge of alligiance in elementary maybe at jr. high in home room but tha was it don’t remember doing it in high school. theres no flag ceremony cuz its the custodians that raise and lower the flag. so zero patriotic indoctrination at all at schools. weirdly its kids sports done separate from schools usually that instill patriotism these are the only venues i know star spangled banner is sung. so i’m thinking the stuff that Philippine schools does is from the Thomasite just like we sent American-indians to schools to be indoctrinated, that’s probably what the Thomasites did there. but we’ve moved on from all that. which i think is the reason theres more innovation here. granted its not at all perfect, but pound for pound doing away of patriotic and religious mumbo jumbo works. i just read that more kids are now opting for trade schools instead of college over here. but with standing up their own businesses in mind, not necessarily to be employees.
I did notice that in the USA, the flag can even be inside churches, which kinda makes it clear that whatever you believe you are still in the USA.
As for the Philippine flag, it was forbidden to show the flag of Aguinaldo’s Republic for at least the first decade of American rule.
The national anthem originally had Spanish lyrics – it’s cadence betrays that – and then during US rule the English translation was created.
Don’t know when the Tagalog/Filipino version became the standard.
The story that the US imposed and American Navy Blue on the Philippine flag when it was permitted again turns out to be a legend, even as Marcos Sr. shortly made the blue more Cuban in 1985, Cory turned that back and today’s shade was finalized for the 1998 Centennial.
The strict rules that DON’T allow Marvin Gaye or Whitney Houston style interpretations of the national anthem might have their origins in Marcos Sr. having it played insanely fast and bombastic, at least based on MLQ3 postings that I saw.
Panatang Makabayan, the national oath, has changed it seems so often that every generation knows a different version from school days. Too lazy to Google right now, I just recall.
I now recall also a novel of the revolution, written in the 1970s by a novelist based on the memories of her grandmother who had experienced it firsthand. One of the last sentences goes something like this: “the Revolution would no longer die, just like Rizal became many when they shot him” in a scene where two Filipino soldiers bite the dust. Now the question is, has the living spirit of what the flag, the national anthem etc stand for already died over the years, the rituals of nationalism reduced to perfunctory stuff? If yes, why and who let that happen?
so much for idealism. most suckers knew their own limit. at school, they dropped out, academic life is not for them having failed many subjects, not good fit. to continue would be waste of time, money and effort. but there are options like trade and they find their calling. as you said, anyone can be great.
though there are school admin and cohorts rumored to have kept quite a number of ghost students in order for them to continue receiving the maximum allocation of education budget year in and out. and they’ve gotten so well connected, their extracurricular activities are rarely checked. where the extra money goes is anyone’s guess.
ireneo, yeah thats accurate i’d add patriotism also is instilled at churches here, not during mass or anything but during functions like bingo and events eg. most Boy Scout troop functions are held at church basements or halls. whereas in the Philippines boy/Girl Scouts are directly at schools over there.
kb, this is the first i’m hearing of ghost students, can you go more into this? kinda like province churches and their priests siring kids from the best looking of province girls. thus their progenies get free schooling via catholic schools. like scholars ng bayan program but catholic church.
here’s the link, corporal, regarding ghost students.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1921174/on-alleged-ghost-students-benefiting-from-the-shs-voucher-program
ghosts are also found in the most prestigious bank in the philippines, apparently still on salary whilst no longer employed.
https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/2024/5/28/bsp-says-5-of-6-staffers-in-ghost-employees-scandal-resigned-but-cases-proceed-1500
thanks, kb! sounds very much like what DeVos tried to do here,
Got it , “The Society of Honor” it is.
Based on the discussions that have transpired at the blog site, http://joeam.com, what can re-invigorate discussions there?
ChatGPT replied:
To re-invigorate discussions on JoeAm’s blog, consider the following strategies:
Diverse Content: Introduce a broader range of topics including current events, technology, and lifestyle to attract different audiences.Interactive Features: Implement polls, Q&A sessions, or live discussions to increase engagement.Guest Contributors: Invite experts and influencers to write guest posts or participate in discussions.Promotions and Challenges: Run thematic challenges or contests to encourage participation.Regular Updates: Maintain a consistent posting schedule to keep readers returning.These strategies can help create a dynamic and engaging environment for readers and contributors.
That last one makes a lot of sense. that’s why i suggested awhile back using ChatGPT to churn out an article just to restart discussions regularly cuz articles and commentary threads get stale, too long to keep up too. like every monday. on the dot.
How about bits ‘n’ pieces … easy to digest.
Say, … “‘Tis of thee.”
Or, “Of thee I sing.”
That’s a great point, i7sharp!
Thank you, Lance.
The Philippine Hymn
by José Palma y Velásquez,
translated by Camilo Osias and Mary A. Lane
Land of the morning,
Child of the sun returning,
With fervor burning,
Thee do our souls adore.
Land dear and holy,
Cradle of noble heroes,
Ne’er shall invaders
Trample thy sacred shore.
Ever within thy skies and through thy clouds
And o’er thy hills and sea,
Do we behold the radiance, feel and throb,
Of glorious liberty.
Thy banner, dear to all our hearts,
Its sun and stars alight,
O never shall its shining field
Be dimmed by tyrant’s might!
Beautiful land of love,
O land of light,
In thine embrace ’tis rapture to lie,
But it is glory ever, when thou art wronged,
For us, thy sons to suffer and die.
Thanks, i7sharp. Some of those would work, others not. For example, I would not want to broaden the subject matter, just keep it on the Philippines. The challenge, though, is not the methods but the effort required to write and moderate. So I have to calculate if I have the energy left. Also, I’m skeptical about the audience, how to get younger. I don’t think it’s there.
We don’t have any contributors under 40. Giancarlo is just over 40, and he is de facto the bunso (youngest) of this blog.
Half of the Philippine population is under 30. Most of them are a linguistic paradox based on my observations: they are highly proficient in English due to social media, but they de facto converse in Taglish even in media interviews. That was different in the times the oldtimers of this blog like the late Edgar Lores and sonny were young when a deep if often heavily accented English was normal, or even in the youth of my generation in the 1970s to maximum 1990s.
The youth also seems mostly apolitical in a strange way: most know the Philippines is a mess but steer clear of politics. Their daily struggle seems more relevant.
Conversed with someone on SB19 Pablo’s latest hit EDSA and got the response what a pity there is no reference to what happened there. I answered the present struggles on that highway count more for most than history, I guess, and got a thumbs up in the chat.
I can feel how different things are thanks to my deep dive into music and showbiz, but I can’t get a clear grip of it and much less find a way to reach Gen Zs. Been away far too long.
i wonder if Gorillaz was ever big in the Philippines, ireneo. cuz part of the appeal of that music was the lore behind it. Have you seen Searching for Sugarman? i feel like that’s what you’re doing, only theres no sugarman in your search. but seems like a worthy search nonetheless.
Yeah, thing is, I am not searching in the past (anymore) but in the present. MAYBE this OST of a new ABS-CBN series, sung by two more powerful vocalists of the girl group BINI and the rock musician Juan Karlos, says a bit about the spirit of the times of the Philippines today:
Too lazy to fix the messed up translation I found on the Internet but maybe that is the survivor spirit of today, not idealistic like Sonny’s and Edgar’s generation, not activistic but later often cynical like mine, not a mix of activism and idealism like Will who is between those gens..
Verse 1: juan karlos
Many things can happen
Excited every night, restless (Woah-oh-oh-oh)
The world is scary (Scary, scary, scary)
There are so many things you can’t control
Chorus: Colet, Jhoanna
Let it mess up
You can’t change the world (‘Can’t be changed, ‘can’t be changed, oh, oh )
I don’t know if is this correct?
Just follow in my heart is calm even if it is chaotic
Verse 2: juan karlos, with Jhoanna , Colet , juan karlos & Colet
We are not running or avoiding obstacles and trouble
And even if it’s difficult in this world, no one will give up
‘You don’t know what I’ve experienced
I don’t know about you either
And don’t even know the destination even if it’s not sure
Just jump
Chorus: juan karlos
Let it get messy (Make mess)
You can’t change the world (‘It can’t be changed, can’t be changed, oh, oh)
I don’t know if this is right? (If this is right)
Just follow my heart calm even if it’s chaotic
Bridge
Vices, start and you’ll find
Look for a job to earn
Thousands of fraudsters will just take it from you
You worked hard (Oh-oh-oh-oh)
Sometimes you don’t know who’s on your side
I’m fighting alone in this world
But you’re not alone, everything is brought along
Trouble is thrown away
Together with the jump
Chorus
Let it get messy (Make a mess)
You don’t the world will be changed (No, no, cannot be changed)
I don’t know if this is right? (Is this right)
Just follow my heart calm even if it’s chaotic
Right. I often chuckle that we’re a cigar club, old guys sitting in comfy armchairs in the library tipping a glass, gumming a stogie, and arguing through the haze. The youngsters are out playing computer war games.
That said, I think a blog that provides genuine insights will be read by influential people, as in the past. So the size of the audience is not as relevant as the quality of the content. That quality audience is not interested in the folderol of MAGA, conspiracies, and nonsense.
Well, what I am trying to tell the mover and shaker audience is to try to feel the pulse of the people more. I had the feeling that Presidential Candidate Leni reached a broad crowd, but even that crowd was so diverse that the BGC kids probably barely “got” the provincial and even tribal people Leni helped. Of course, the Left doesn’t get them either, and probably only Isko Moreno and other trapos get the urban poor – and the New Middle Class (c) MLQ3 is a moving target.
Some might have already made the transition the majority of Germans made around 1949, shifting from support for a real dictator to a democratic but paternalistic leader, and from crazy ideas of power to more realistic but definitely selfish ideas of building up their own wealth.
The part of the old middle class that Will belongs to flocked into Manila after the war and at first supported Marcos Sr., shifting only when the party was over for them as well around 1982 when the peso went rock bottom etc AND with Aquino murdered as a further trigger in 1983.
“THEY” haven’t realized that their 1986 dreams are seen as failed by many Gen X and younger.
I have seen intellectuals of that gen like Vicente Rafael and writers like Ninotchka Rosca go home recently and try to figure out where the Philippines is at now – and IMO failing. I don’t say I have any answers either. But I do know it is still a “puzzlement”, to quote King Mongkut..
Who am I though to tell the folks back home to wake up and get over what I see at their stages of grief, and focus more on 2025? Denial (we were cheated), bargaining (we were “better”) and all that..
At least Andrew Lim realized that ideological purity doesn’t win politically, at least seldom. But who wants to hear that harsh reality? Easier to accuse Joeam of shifting to Marcos Jr. for evaluating him objectively..
The Great Realist MLQ3 and to some extent Mr. Strategy Heydarian are exceptions that prove the rule that I see:
https://www.facebook.com/share/oj1rPLMbeDWRXZWy/
Who though is gonna translate their insights into actionable steps?
https://opinion.inquirer.net/174339/indias-elections-lessons-for-ph-opposition
One doesn’t have to take everything they say (or what anyone including ME says for that matter) as KJV, but just take it as food for thought even if they are hungry again by the time they have crossed EDSA.
i’m sensing and just solely from twitter and reddit that the current US military and PH military love fest will translate to something dirrrty since filipino police and military have always been dirrrty there. so if Napoles got away with a lot of money with her daughter buying condos in LA and LV, then that whole scene might just be a very small drop when the US starts throwing money in the Philippines. it’ll usher an Edo like era there with police/military in the higher caste. indeed if you look at Mindanao big lots of land were largely bought up by former police and military stationed there. and of course more prostitution, it’ll be like blade runner over there. demand that the US military behave themselves like in Muslim countries. and ensure them not to treat AFP/PNP too equally as they’re more source of tyranny than good in the Philippines. very similar to Vietnam. https://www.usu.edu/today/story/book-describes-how-modern-marines-have-returned-to-lessons-of-vietnam-war
“Johnson’s long-time research has focused on the importance of American intelligence agencies’ intimate understanding of the target population’s culture. In particular, how such intimate understanding can better predict future nuclear risks.
But in the 1960s the idea of embedding Marines in poor villages was seen as far out. The CAP Marines, said Johnson, were trained to “patrol and guard the villages from the Viet Cong. They learned local customs, ate on the local economy, and knew every tree and twig and water buffalo in the entire village.”
The result was they “developed a sixth sense,” she said. “They could tell when the VC had been through without any villager having to utter a word because things in their village had shifted.”
And, in what Johnson describes as “the height of irony,” CAP Marines sometimes protected villagers from their fellow fighters. “These Marines would often stand bodily in front of U.S. Army trucks and say, ‘You don’t come in here and mess with my villagers’,” she said.
The CAP Marines made up just a sliver of the Marine presence in Vietnam, Johnson said. Of the 80,000 Marines in Vietnam at any given time, only 3 percent, some 2,000 men, were in the Combined Action Platoons.
Vietnam presented CAP Marines with a very personal enemy: U.S. Army Gen. William Westmoreland, commander of all joint-service military troops in Vietnam from 1964-1968 and later the U.S. Army chief of staff.
Westmoreland “thought it was exactly the wrong way to go about fighting this war,” says Johnson. “He publicly derided Marines in the CAP program, saying they weren’t real men fighting in the real way.”
The program and its ideology languished in the years following the Vietnam War. This was largely, Johnson believes, because of the America’s own cowboy creed. “
not really Vietnam, but more about when the military was wholesome, then Vietnam happened and conscription , then GWOT happened US military became “wholesome” again but more because IEDs if they had Olongapo or Angeles in the Middle East. but SGT Reckless represents this desired era.
Fascinating parallel, the US with Vietnamese troops and the US with Philippine troops. I think the Philippine AFP is more steeped in patriotic commitment while the PNP is runamuck loyal to bosses. EDCA working with AFP might actually be building something. Hard to say. AFP is so weak due to neglect and fighting the wrong war. But the cynicism you project may also have merit. We’ll see.
I’m thinking an exchange program where in Philippine military officers serve in US units would be most beneficial, Joe. English speaking militaries cycle thru US units all the time, Australians, Canadian, UK, i think NZ too. to actually lead a platoon or equivalent sized unit; or as XO in a command. and then something equivalent for enlisteds too. they can focus on engineering units like seabees, et al and logistics. that’ll transfer to natural disaster emergency response scenarios. which it self will translate to readiness and collaborative efforts. there should be more AFP (and PNP) going to schools in the US. they already do this like PNP officials go to FBI Fed schools and AFPs go to DOD schools but these are more like trinkets for higher ups. maybe expand to junior officers. get ’em young. open it up to more.
Good idea.
Ah, nicely described, Irineo. Thanks for the perspective. Most people seem to belong to a gang with them as leader, and you can be in it as long as you agree with them. An objective person, or person who asks a lot of questions, is likely to fall out of favor eventually.
Cabinet memorized the Bagong Pilipinas hymn and pledge?
On Independence Day, President Marcos and his Cabinet officials’ knowledge of the pledge and hymn that Malacañang required agencies and schools to recite was put to the test. Camera feeds show many of them have yet to know the words. 1 hour ago
bagong pilipinas hymn (not an anthem?) sounds more like a frat song to me, lol!
if pbbm wants everyone to sing, he should give copies of the sheet music to all attendees so we can all see the composition in its entirety. the time signature, how many beats per bar, the notes and notations, etc. else we rap it, or sing it like a ballad. or not open our mouths at all, unsure where the next note falls and where one starts.
like in the church, when we sing hymns, there is copy and we sing to the beat and finish on time.
Funny that.
regarding schooling and school hymns, this was a good thread on ADHD and being in the military that’s totally applicable in Philippines not necessarily in the military but just in general how to deal with it. related to kb’s ghost students and students in general just dropping out quitting school all together. something similar too for autism, etc.
related here to Joe’s : “Well, it’s a start. Respect the differences. Enjoy the differences. Talk frankly about them. Strive to put emotions away. They are corrosive, like acid.”
ahem, I heard there was plan by the military to use savants (highly functional autistic) to be recruited and trained in cyber security. apparently, it was found that savants worked better on their own, and once they got whiff of their quarry, they can become so single minded, never give up and continues to hunt the quarry until quarry is identified and put out of action.
generally, normal person would call halt when the going gets tougher; the odds are insurmountable and abort the operation; not savants though, they only stop when goal is achieved, time is inconsequential to them.
yeah i read that too, kb. they’ve always had direct commissionings but now their doing it specifically to fill needed roles (like cyber). and the hackers that don’t have college backgrounds, instead of direct commissioning (for officers) they get to be enlisteds which is similar to Presidents Own band members, but instead of SSGT rank they automatically get GUNNY.
Here’s the article:
“The program is looking to find 10 qualified applicants across both specialties, Manpower and Reserve Affairs spokeswoman Maj. Danielle Phillips said. The command hasn’t yet decided if this recruitment effort may later include other high-demand job specialties.
Manpower and Reserve Affairs will oversee the pilot with members from Marine Corps Recruiting Command, Training and Education Command, and the two job fields serving on the acquisition panel, Phillips said.
“The pilot is currently focused on these two occupational specialties and serves as a proof of concept on where we may go next,” Phillips said. “While we are not currently considering additional MOSs, we will assess the feasibility of expanding over the course of this pilot.”
The message requires performance feedback on the Marines and the pilot program’s process at the six month and one year mark from when the applicants begin serving in their billet.
If accepted, the applicant would begin receiving pay up to the rank of gunnery sergeant, or the E-7 pay grade, once they begin recruit training.
Current pay for an E-7 with less than two years’ service is $3,625 a month or $43,500 annually.”
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2024/06/04/marines-fast-track-qualified-cyber-signals-recruits-to-rank-of-gunny/
“The two-year Marine Talent Acquisition Pilot Program, announced Friday in a Marine Corps administrative message, is targeting Marine veterans, qualified prior service members from other branches and civilians with specific qualifications.
The pilot program will focus on military occupational specialty shortfalls, specifically in cyber and signals intelligence, for this first effort. Those jobs are 1721 cyberspace warfare operator and 2629 signals intelligence collection manager.”
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-banishment-of-beauty-from-everyday?publication_id=296132&post_id=145473022&isFreemail=false&r=r9qrk&triedRedirect=true
I can certainly appreciate more beauty in life, i7. like all this US vs. China stuff. it seems like we’ve all been here before, and repeating same mistakes like with Gen. MacArthur and Chairman Mao. just all togehter destructive people who don’t seem to make anything beautiful. maybe in politics thats what we need to do focus on who makes beautiful things. and judge base on that first. been deep diving Korean War of late looking for parallels with Taiwan and Philippines. watching videos reading posts and commentaries checking out books at the library. i posted to kb that militaries are all ga-ga for signals and cyber now (read the book Cryptonomicon) when they should be hiring more historians instead.
Lance,
So much to read, so little time …on structuples, mRNA, 1984, UFOs, Anakims, 33.6 billion light-years, …
And I am still continually puzzled, surprised
by the contents of my pocket KJB
that mentions, for example, “word” and “for ever”
in seven (7) verses:
2 Samuel 7:25
Psalms 105:8
Psalms 119:89
Psalms 119:160
Isaiah 40:8
1 Peter 1:23
1 Peter 1:25
For instance:
1 Peter 1:25
“But the word of the Lord endureth for ever.
And this is the word which by the gospel
is preached unto you.”
By the way,
related to the above, do you know there is a name in English not (yet) found in Filipino?
Time for a sea change for a better Philippines,
methinks, mesays. 🙂
it’s gotta be gimmick, i7.