Recent surveys again showed that the most transparent developed economies in the world are Hongkong & Singapore. They are also among the wealthiest per capita in the world (the world's richest is Qatar at almost $100,000 GNP per capita). A country should be democratic in the Western mold to really excel, so goes Western propaganda, right? Alas, just like Qatar, both cities are labeled as not quite democratic: Singapore for being allegedly a "managed" democracy, Hongkong for allegedly being under the thumb of China. China is supposed to be undemocratic but it is now the banker of the supposed bastion of democracy, the supposed to be wealthiest but actually terminally highly-indebted US. So, how come these "undemocratic " countries are excelling while the "democratic" ones are declining?
The Philippines is supposed to be a bastion of democracy in Asia but despite its democratic pretensions, it has been left behind by most of its neighbors. I still have to read any account from any of our neighbors where they look up at us, extolling our adherence to Western ,democracy. More likely they look down on us because they've left us behind. The proof of the pudding is how poor you are after all the years of "Western-style democratic" daydreaming.
30 years after the ousting of supposed dictator Marcos, have the Filipinos really felt a big difference in the freedom that they enjoy in their personal lives? Is there freedom in widespread poverty? Freedom of the press? How could there be freedom of the press when you just transferred control from one puppetmaster to another? The most ridiculous of all, the same faces and gimmicks in politics remained. So was the same poverty and low respect to Filipinos as the word "Filipina" came to mean "maid" in Europe. 30 years after Marcos, it is still is, but no longer just in Europe but nearly throughout the world.
And the Filipino, still poor and not respected, should be happy just because it fought for "Western-style" democracy?
Actually, most Filipinos would have preferred a Lee Kuan Yu than any of our democratically elected Presidents. More than gloating about Western democracy, we want to keep in step with the progress of our neighbors. One by one, they zoomed in front of us, and they did not have to fool themselves that they needed Western democracy to achieve success. It came to the point that the wealthiest country on earth is now a neighbor. And wonder of wonders, it is not an adherent of Western democracy either..
Our neighbors also had corruption but still they zoomed ahead. Could it be we played so much the game of disrupting our national systems whenever the bogey of political manipulations was stirred by rabble-rousers who seemed to materialize out of nowhere, curiously screaming democracy every time as if most common Filipinos even care ( Corruption is the favorite "rallying cry" though corruption is still with us up no now. )? Above are the seeds of the now famous "People Power" covert operations which have lately came to mean "regime change" in a sovereign country, subverting democratically elected governments, most commonly implemented by the very same countries which are now unmasked as hypocritical icons of democracy. Are they actually espousing their type of democracy so they can easily manipulate other countries and inflict them their extortionist rackets? In Ukraine, Western leaders were shamelessly intervening in Kiev itself, and considering that these countries are up to their necks with debts, where did they even find the gall to stir an almost bankrupt country which they won't be able to help adequately anyway unless they imposed their usual "loan sharking" rackets which have victimized so many countries in the past including the Philippines? Isn't it curious that "corruption" was also the main theme of the script of the recent Ukraine "regime change", same as that of EDSA and in the other phony "People Power" revolutions -it had the same climax, the public opening of the Presidential palace in Kiev a la Malacanang & voila, the hidden wealth was for all to see (what, no Imelda's thousand shoes?) Did they check the gold reserves in Kiev, Marcos was reported to have lost 63,000 metric tons of Gold from the "extortions" of the CIA during the EDSA Revolution, as narrated in a book by David Guyatt, "Secret Gold Treaty".
Is democracy just one kind- the Western one which didn't prevent the Western nations to now decline?
The start of the Asian Century means we should find our bearings in our region, now the engine of the world. Time to write a better Asian plot and leave behind the baggage and delusions left us by previous Western occupations. We'll remain patronized suckers there. It doesn't have to be the Western type of pretension still. Curious, we developed many of the supposed rights without the political mantras which have poisoned the social atmosphere of the socially and economically regressing Western countries (we rate one of the highest in the women & sexual minorities development indexes in the world though we don't have disruptive feminist or sexual minority movements). The outdated Western political spectrum from Left to Right has exhausted its possibilities as it's been obvious that politics under that setup were easily captured by cold private capitalist interests, manipulated at both ends,both funded to produce the intended result, paying lip service to the people as their main business at hand. Ask the dissipating middle classes of America.
Lee Kuan Yew's style was similar to the present Confucian evolution of originally Western socialistic theories in China. That type of Socialism was for the consumption of innocent Asians at that particular moment in time, it's just right that the Chinese are now calling their evolution as Confucianist and regain their real selves in the process . The Asian Century doesn't require that the previous outdated Western concepts are still relevant. As China consolidates its wealth and power, we see there the justification for its own principles. Most importantly, they worked. How can we forget what Japanese Prime Minister said about "obligation"? Is it any wonder that though Japan is highly leveraged, it is in a much better shape than the US because, like China, it has surplus money and if ever it has big debts, 80% is to its own people, a people known for their deep sense of obligation so they will "stick" come what may. Money is created from nothing as long as you can sucker anybody to believe it is money. That has been the gist of the Mafia gimmicks of the gangsters who took over the free people of America (they were not above using terrorism like "People Power" covert operations, the hypocritical variant, to intimidate other nations to accept that their nothing was money). The creation of money out of nothing must rely less on Mafia extortionary tricks for the gentler people of Asia.
No need to be distracted by current intramurals like the territorial disputes. A $30 trillion economy in 20 years just across the China Sea is a bigger market than anywhere else. The realization that real wealth is already produced here will erase all the persistent political dynamics left behind by the fading system, even the so-called Filipino "colonial" mentality. We tend to automatically readjust to the new richest neighbor in our neighborhoods. It's obvious one doesn't need Western-style democracy to get rich. Most of the wealth for investments already come from within the region anyway, it will ultimately be demented to rely on the usual poseurs and their terrorism and racketeering schemes. The Philippines needs to find new models, time to think out of the box and ditch the old useless tactics.
We'll flesh out our vision of Asian-type Democracy in future posts.
NOTE: This isn't even about Nationalism, it's simply practical economics and politics.
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Sunday, February 23, 2014
Black Humor: Terminal Desperation In The Early Days of the Asian Century
In the dawning of a new era in Asia, & the world, it would be foolish not to expect a caveat: we're seeing it now. In Ukraine (where the Foreign Ministers of EU countries themselves were part of an attempted coup d'etat, so it was both sides of the Atlantic working), Venezuela (after failing with Hugo Chavez, they are still trying it with the new President, same tactics), Turkey (Erdogan wisely crushed the mercenary demonstrators immediately unlike the smart-aleck Yanukovitch, but also "agreed" to buy $3.5 billion Sikorsky helicopters, playing on the "weakness' of the gangsters), etc. Don't be fooled by the gore: the trick with contrived revolutions is don't blink (Yanukovitch enjoyed so much his game of playing the EU vs. Russia that he now doesn't have any recourse but to run to the Russians). These rear guard maneuvers are just that: doomed attempts to forestall the inevitable.
There's only one point why it is over: the fact that big financial institutions supporting the present world capitalist system have been found to be manipulating the very basis of financial transactions all over the world but were only tapped on the wrist with fines & not incarcerated as they should have been. The very basis of the system is crime. It only ensured that the fading system was run by virtual criminals. Where then would their pretensions to democracy & justice, the justification for a holier-than-thou posturing in ruling the world, come from if the system was kept alive by criminals? The crime was endemic actually: the subversion of sovereignity of nations as the current rear guard maneuvers have shown, were part of the crime narrative that was underpinning the previous dominant system.
The old system is only expected to plod by the perpetuation of more crimes. Having lost the moral pretensions altogether, it's only expected the world will get tired laughing at the mischievous antics of a naughty child. Because the aggravation has started to affect everybody: the US Fed is already the biggest debt holder of the $17 trillion US government debt because nobody wants to buy it anymore. And while its propaganda machine is all awash with reports that the US taper has affected badly the emerging economies (hilariously, even including China), the fact is that that won't save the moribund US economy either: it is highly indebted and merely subsisting on money-printing, losing control in the process of a wide swath of the world economy to the newcomers. Moreover, the China-Russia partnership ensured the creation of a worthy counterweight: the money & market of China combined with the natural-resources/military of Russia just will help ensure the security of a nascent world.
The contrived appearance of the Dalai Lama in the White House was part of the script to include China in the current rear guard maneuvers. Cute, no?
This is how they are doing the deception in Venezuela.From Globalresearch.ca, taken from Dawgs blog, link below.
Constructing the Deception of the Anti-Government “Protests” in Venezuela: A Photo Gallery
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Minor Comedy in the Early Days of the Asian Century
All over but the shouting? Somehow, you know a leaf has turned. Asian Century it already is. Like in the old system of smokes and mirrors, the usual can still scream and pretend as if still old days (the prestitute media that we now know nobody reads are still in life support, somehow), but sooner or later, one will wake up in a dawn of exhausted screams fast fading in an indifferent echoing chamber. The credibility gap finally caught up. The last echo was the last-ditch attempt to crow about the "effects" of the contrived narrative of alleged emerging countries-dominoes which were supposed to "fall" as the US Fed untapered the "hot money" (which were already discounted beforehand by the more discerning ones). This is seen by credible quarters as the last card of the highly-indebted to still brandish its supposed "clout", but its obvious, it has not wrought the desired effects ('lessons" they were called in the old times). There were a few minor devaluations (part of a general ruse to sidestep a dying fiat currency), but despite the usual destabilization from the usual NGO's, the now hackneyed script finally broke down and, almost hilariously, nobody found themselves really "falling". None was ready to offer their ass again this time. The fact is, everybody already had their own plans to unload the worthless fiat all along & defending themselves with the usual prescription will only deepen themselves mired in outdated discredited claws. Fortunately, taking the light punches for now (perhaps for the last time) will mean liberation in the end.
Amusing that at the end stage, some of the so-called "alternative" American press sold out. They were still free with their criticisms of what's wrong with the US economy, but (too apparent now as "trade-off" for something), they also became stringent in singing the prepared operetta of the "failing" emerging economies refrain. Lately, even after a series of laughable duds, they became strident in including China with stories that were even rehashed everyday as if they were so anxious that their "paymaster" would find their knack for propaganda lacking. There you go, the loss of credibility became total. It only opened eyes to the desperation.
I actually think, America will be better off without the so-called gangsters running its empire, especially the financial section (the current "drama" of actually attempting, no matter if it turned out ineffective, to create emerging-market dominoes is proof of the malignancy of this one), and the political operators. The latter are just as malignant. But at least, they know how to entertain. Recently, there was a rash of Keystone cops operations, and the most hilarious came out of Ukraine. The latest bumbling just gave the world a peep on how to go about planning a regime change. Fuck you, Eu!
If ever you're curious what goes on behind a "People Power" covert operation, watch this.
In flagrante
Anyway, better days are ahead in America, finally. It will be a real Land of the Free again just like in the early days of the union. Thanks to the Asian Century.
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