WIKILEAKS ERODES REMAINING U.S. CREDIBILITY, WORLD POWER BULLYING IS OVER!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Dusk has begun to envelop my space as I write this piece. The WikiLeaks has been receiving a crescendo of publicities recently, as the leaked secrecies of the US diplomatic community has reached the big media players, eg. The Guardian. The devastating impact of the WikiLeaks on US credibility is now gnawing at the morsel of US governance itself, further exacerbating the already fragmentary situation of US governance institutions.

As I’ve been elucidating in articles of mine, the new millennium opened up with a context of multipolar world order, an emerging context that demanded re-carving of foreign policy architectures and the actual diplomatic dealings of world and regional powers with other nations. Sadly, the United States faired very badly in adjusting to the emerging context, as it chose the hawkish path of brinkmanship, unabashedly exhibited superpower arrogance, and bullied other nations into submitting to its diktats.

Take the case of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Rather than use the United Nations as the platform to contemplate and decide on the fates of the so-called “rogue” states, the US bamboozled its allies into submitting to its hawkish diktats, compelled them to join the “coalition of the willing,” or be identified with those who are “against us.” The hubris and arrogance of America’s leaders was captured emphatically in the finger-pointing George W. Bush whose madness exudes a demonically behaving sociopath.

The WikiLeaks disclosures have revealed to the world the true and honest perceptions of Americans towards the leaders and peoples of other nations. America’s diplomacy is but putting superficially sweet-looking mascara on top of the real thing: Saxon condescension on all peoples and nations of the planet. For Americans are truly of Anglo-Saxon psyche: the same marauding, pillaging, plundering, and destructive Saxons of antiquity whose very culture and psyche the Americans have inherited en toto.

Over a hundred years ago, upon America’s invasion and occupation of the Philippines, its leaders and negotiators already manifested the sordid duplicity that is markedly demonic. Presenting themselves before then president Aguinaldo as allies who’d help the Filipinos flash out Spain’s imperial forces, the Americans eventually ended up showing their true intentions by invading the country, an invasion that led to the deaths of almost a million Filipinos nationwide.

Having planted themselves well on Philippine soil deep up through the hinterlands, the conquering Americans than sang with gusto “Brown Monkeys with No Tails in Zamboanga” everywhere they went. So demonically condescending, you’d wonder whether the Anglo-Saxon Americans have ever truly modified their behavior across time.

It now seems, as the WikiLeaks aptly reveal, that America’s leaders and probably seconded by most of its people regard all other leaders and peoples as ‘monkeys with no tails’. For even those White leaders of the West do not escape the derision and philistine condescension of the Americans, coming at a time when the USA’s own western allies need them badly to help salve their ailing economies and stave off the possibility of a continent-wide protest movement that could lead to a new round of Spartacist anti-oligarchic revolution.

The likes of WikiLeaks do speak of new innovative ways of tech-oriented non-conventional means to battle the global oligarchy, beginning with the Anglo-American oligarchs and their political, technocratic, and military subalterns. Not only the USA but other world powers as well will not be spared from the scrutinizing vigilant eyes of concerned citizens who will disclose internal defense, diplomatic, big business, and related classified information, the effects of which will deal devastating blows on the images, credibility, and institutional strengths of entities and powers concerned.

Not just world powers but, again, the financier oligarchy will be de-fanged by the non-conventional attacks that will be waged against them via unveiling WikiLeak-type information. For world powers are mere footstools of the oligarchs. How I wish that the same modalities of disclosures will reveal the evils of the global elites, led by the Houses of Rothschilds and Rockefellers. Sooner or later, the world’s peoples must be made aware of the real nature of the elites and the world/regional powers as their puppet footstools.  

The time for world power bullying has finally come to be reversed, with the advent of info-tech platforms for guerilla-type attacks versus the rich and powerful. America’s last bits of credibility are now being pulverized by the WikiLeaks disclosures, and it will just be a matter of time before those of other demonic world powers’ will follow.

[Philippines, 02 December 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

U.S. GOVERNANCE FRAGMENTS, OBAMA’S RATIONALITY DWINDLES

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good day to all ye global citizens! Magandang araw sa mga kapamilyang global!

The Republicans have recently slam dunked the Democrats in the House electoral contest. This update event has put a closure to Democrat dominance in US governance, an event that will highlight brinkmanship of a dangerously destructive path.

News have been disseminated worldwide that Obama fired his highly trusted economic aides. With no team to recline on in the White House, Obama is compelled by the situation to rely more and more on the likes of Gates of the defense community, Clinton for foreign policy, and other powerful figures inside the cabinet and senate other than the economic aides.

The people whom he relies upon at this time represent distinct voices of diverse ideological persuasions. The defense Establishment is very strongly neo-conservative (read: fascist), the diplomatic community is Wilsonian liberal (center to Left), and the Senate Democrats are liberal obscurantists.

The nationalists, or those articulators of regulation and protection of American economic interests in domestic and foreign policies, have been marginalized all of a sudden. Perhaps their advocacies will be taken over by the more Rightwing Republicans in congress and the bureaucracy, Republicans whose protectionist mindsets translate to protectionism for Big Business and the oligarchy.

Obama’s feat has been to curb the ceaseless economic downspin via the stimulus program. However, unemployment and poverty incidence continue to rise, indicating the flaws in social policies. Health care and war commitments continue to generate rabid detraction.

The question we’re raising this time is: how far governable is the government of the United States? The potency of governance institutions is being weakened by the year, and the direction of that weakening is towards a fragmentation of governance altogether.

I do recall having endorsed Obama’s candidacy to Filipino-Americans and their compatriots there. The reason was that being unencumbered to oligarchic interests, Obama can make a change in policy directions both domestically and internationally. A re-institution of New Deal policies, hopefully, can be effected by his regime, an audacious act that can be emulated by the other countries.

I expected that the Obama regime will re-carve U.S. policy environment towards re-structuring the economy, reviving the physical economy, and quashing predatory finance. Alas! Signs are aplenty that the feats didn’t go that far as expected!

Now the Republicans are back in the legislature and local governments, and so observers better anticipate brinkmanship jettisoning to higher altitudes. The result would prove catastrophic to America altogether, as the exacerbation of lowly governable state surfaces.

A similar fragmentation is now happening among European states and Japan, a development that could prove to be frightening. The situation will also be enormously puzzling to political scientists and sociologists who are deeply mired in ‘re-inventing governance’ paradigm line, a paradigm that is replete with flaws and imprudent peddler of the illusion of ‘end of ideology’.  

Political scientists and sociologists hold a similar contention that America’s civil society had badly fragmented. Such a lamentable situation has eroded the ‘social capital’ of citizens and folks, thus disabling their capacity for leveraging the state and market for greater social goods and services.

With state institutions and governance further weakened and an economy that has deteriorated across the decades, a weak civic life for Americans means they have to anticipate the worst yet to come in their access to social, economic, and public goods.

Obama’s very own sanity or psychological health could be deteriorating now, a fact that will undermine his own capacity to grasp grassroots reality and facts-of-life. Such a deterioration of psychic ‘wealth’ is the least that Americans expect nor dream of, and bodes a dark age for the Saxon power up north.

[Philippines, 29 November 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

U.S. GOVERNANCE FRAGMENTS, OBAMA’S RATIONALITY DWINDLES

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good day to all ye global citizens! Magandang araw sa mga kapamilyang global!

The Republicans have recently slam dunked the Democrats in the House electoral contest. This update event has put a closure to Democrat dominance in US governance, an event that will highlight brinkmanship of a dangerously destructive path.

News have been disseminated worldwide that Obama fired his highly trusted economic aides. With no team to recline on in the White House, Obama is compelled by the situation to rely more and more on the likes of Gates of the defense community, Clinton for foreign policy, and other powerful figures inside the cabinet and senate other than the economic aides.

The people whom he relies upon at this time represent distinct voices of diverse ideological persuasions. The defense Establishment is very strongly neo-conservative (read: fascist), the diplomatic community is Wilsonian liberal (center to Left), and the Senate Democrats are liberal obscurantists.

The nationalists, or those articulators of regulation and protection of American economic interests in domestic and foreign policies, have been marginalized all of a sudden. Perhaps their advocacies will be taken over by the more Rightwing Republicans in congress and the bureaucracy, Republicans whose protectionist mindsets translate to protectionism for Big Business and the oligarchy.

Obama’s feat has been to curb the ceaseless economic downspin via the stimulus program. However, unemployment and poverty incidence continue to rise, indicating the flaws in social policies. Health care and war commitments continue to generate rabid detraction.

The question we’re raising this time is: how far governable is the government of the United States? The potency of governance institutions is being weakened by the year, and the direction of that weakening is towards a fragmentation of governance altogether.

I do recall having endorsed Obama’s candidacy to Filipino-Americans and their compatriots there. The reason was that being unencumbered to oligarchic interests, Obama can make a change in policy directions both domestically and internationally. A re-institution of New Deal policies, hopefully, can be effected by his regime, an audacious act that can be emulated by the other countries.

I expected that the Obama regime will re-carve U.S. policy environment towards re-structuring the economy, reviving the physical economy, and quashing predatory finance. Alas! Signs are aplenty that the feats didn’t go that far as expected!

Now the Republicans are back in the legislature and local governments, and so observers better anticipate brinkmanship jettisoning to higher altitudes. The result would prove catastrophic to America altogether, as the exacerbation of lowly governable state surfaces.

A similar fragmentation is now happening among European states and Japan, a development that could prove to be frightening. The situation will also be enormously puzzling to political scientists and sociologists who are deeply mired in ‘re-inventing governance’ paradigm line, a paradigm that is replete with flaws and imprudent peddler of the illusion of ‘end of ideology’.  

Political scientists and sociologists hold a similar contention that America’s civil society had badly fragmented. Such a lamentable situation has eroded the ‘social capital’ of citizens and folks, thus disabling their capacity for leveraging the state and market for greater social goods and services.

With state institutions and governance further weakened and an economy that has deteriorated across the decades, a weak civic life for Americans means they have to anticipate the worst yet to come in their access to social, economic, and public goods.

Obama’s very own sanity or psychological health could be deteriorating now, a fact that will undermine his own capacity to grasp grassroots reality and facts-of-life. Such a deterioration of psychic ‘wealth’ is the least that Americans expect nor dream of, and bodes a dark age for the Saxon power up north.

[Philippines, 29 November 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

AMERICA’S JURASSIC HEGEMONISM: WILL IT DECLINE SOON?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Magandang araw! Good day!

The current century had opened up the landscapes to emerging realities worldwide, realities that include the multi-polar power structure. Superpower politics has become anathema to the emerging world order, and so let’s do some additional reflections on how the Jurassic policy architectures in America (re-asserting global police role as the only superpower) will continue to be re-defined till it blends with the new context altogether.

The paradox that we experienced at the turn of the century was that, as the new multi-polar power structure was already taking shape, the fascistic neo-conservatives took to the fore in America, calcified a hawkish policy of pre-emptive strike doctrine, and unilaterally declared America as the global police force charged to engage nations that have served as base for Islamic jihadist movements.

A ‘coalition of the willing’ was super-imposed on the global politico-military terrain, practically undercutting the powers of the United Nations to role-play a global police force. The hubris and arrogance that went with neo-cons militarism eventually saw the rapid isolation of the USA from the world community, an isolation that was reversed only with the advent of Obama and the return of Wilsonian foreign policy doctrine there.

The reinforcing question that crops up now is: to what extent can the diverse doctrinal groups in the USA ever come to terms with the emerging world context if ever? With the neo-cons now on the retreat, will there be a full return of the Brevzinski-Kissinger faction that has a more sinister future agenda for the USA to engage world powers notably Russia and China?

The millennium ushered a new reality in Latin America, as a shift towards Pink politics happened. Thereto, anti-US rhetoric scaled up to crescendo levels over the last two (2) decades, a phenomenon that practically saw the demise of the Monroe Doctrine.

Given such a situation, America must engage Latin America anew with a more cooperative stance than ever, renew ties with Cuba, and pay up for its old debts to the Latins incurred during America’s support of authoritarian regimes there. Failure to do so, the USA will be threatened with more drug intrusions and mafia operations south of its border, even as its intellectual-cultural hegemony of Latinos will drastically be ended by the latter (e.g. Latin dependence on the USA for development & peace consultants will be totally undercut).

With the new twist of events in Latin America, the USA is getting more focused in getting back the Brevzinski-Kissinger initiatives into place, revised to fit into the emerging reality of a China growing in power with a navy that has graduated to a ‘blue water’ navy altogether. That means China will be moving out its naval assets beyond the China Sea in the short-run, with top priority being the Indian Ocean that contains routes to very large trade traffics with East Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Jurassic forces are surely in command within the USA, same forces that have negotiated bilateral military treaties/agreements with countries all over. Some of those signatories are in the ASEAN region which the USA wants to affirm a subordinated role in its contesting for hegemony of the China Sea.

Let it be clarified that America’s economy is stagnating, and will most likely decline in the foreseeable future. Just exactly how it will sustain a militaristic hegemonism—in the absence of logistical base for such an undertaking—over the next decades remains a huge question mark.

The hawks of America are now a dying breed, yet the flawed and dangerous doctrines they cultivated in the foreign policy circles are still holding water. Hegemonism is in fact declining as a whole, as the necessity for economic, cultural, and political cooperation struts the global facade, thus altering foreign policy doctrines altogether.

A persistence of the antiquated doctrines would most likely transform the USA into a ‘praetorian state’, whose most definitive role is to initiate wars across diverse frontiers. The war efforts will be largely financed by the wealthiest oligarchic-financier interests who are well entrenched in the most powerful cities and regions of the planet, as America itself doesn’t possess the logistical resources to engage in combat operations.

The decline of Jurassic hegemonism in America just may not happen very soon. And for as long as such a hegemonism is present and wanting to foment conflicts the world over, America will be the subject of distrust and instantaneous isolations should it periodically resort to unilateralism to advance its war efforts.

[Philippines, 07 October 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

 

 

 

OBAMA’S AIDES DEPART, WHERE BLOWS PUBLIC POLICY?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Magandang gabi! Good evening!

Obama’s aides—who have been with him all the way since electoral campaign days—are departing. We do hope to get to the bottom of the real reason behind the departures, such as those of his ideologue chief-of-staff, but it seems the answer will be confined to the White House as classified information.

What we ought to reflect on is, after the departures, where does the wind of public policy—domestic and international—blow for Obama’s government? Will the oversight/regulatory powers be reinforced somehow, to checkmate the intrusive manipulations of financiers in America’s economy? Will the Wilsonian inclination for democracy cum civil rights be sustained in foreign policy?

The North’s economists have already pronounced their evaluation of America’s and Europe’s economies, with pessimistic-to-gloomy forecasts of both continental economies over the next two (2) years. The stimulus package has clearly backfired, unemployment has ballooned to past 9% (may hit 10% by 2011), and poverty incidence has gone up to 15% (from the pre-crisis 12% level).

Meantime, Clinton is entrenched as foreign policy executor, and her presence bodes well for the Wilsonians who have always held sway in the state department. How much can Wilsonian clout remain till the rest of Obama’s term will be up for observation, more so that the midterm election is bound to erode the Democrats’ congressional seats.

To get straight to the point, with Republicans forecast to re-dominate both houses of legislature, both domestic and foreign policy directions are bound to alter. On the foreign policy front, the isolationism of traditional Republicans may come back, thus undermining the ‘engagement policy’ of the Obama regime in the short run.

How many Obama aides are bound to depart soon we can only surmise for now. But it seems that as a forecast fallout of Democrats increases by the day, so shall the Obama aides get to have some quantitative reductions too.

The quantitative reductions in aides could tip the balance inside the White House in favor of a certain policy initiative. So we observers have no choice but to stay glued to the changes right within Obama’s headquarters. We can only hope that a resurgence of the neo-conservatives, who hold sway in Pentagon & Defense, won’t be in the offing.

With the USA’s possible spiral down a 2^nd recessionary dip, a return of the hawkish neo-cons to power (they’d be dictating terms for Obama behind closed doors) would spell the doom to America’s prestige worldwide. A neo-cons return would coincide with Israel’s unilateral plan to strike down Iran in hot warfare, an act that could take Obama down the global esteem ratings if he will resonate with the hawks.

The electoral campaigns are now heating up as the polls near, so let us monitor the events very closely in the USA. Just exactly who those Republican additions are in both houses will galvanize very soon, bringing along with them the Jurassic solutions of Reaganomics cum Bush tax cuts, along with Federal Reserve antique tool of interest rate intervention.

[Philippines, 06 October 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONFEDERATE POWER & NEO-CONSERVATISM: HATCHERY OF TERROR

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good day to all ye fellow global citizens!

The Philippines just held a commemorated reflection on the powerful Ondoy typhoon that struck on the 26^th of September of 2009, resulting to hundreds of deaths and billions worth of damages. It seems that, one year after, we are basking in a situation that Robert Dahl hypothesized as “after the storm, society in a better authority.”

Well, let us hope that authority (governance) will be better here in the Pearl of the Orient after so many political turmoils. I wish too that America will indeed be under a better authority after the economic and political-military turmoils of the giant Saxon nation.

Terror-builders are well embedded in America’s Establishment, and for as long as such rouge forces are allowed to go unchecked in their heinous crimes, terror cells will continue to rise in America (and its sibling Europe) and wreak havoc there, thus breeding new turmoil. Such terror-builders trace their roots to the Confederate ideologues of civil war ignominy, and they have morphed well across the decades so as to encroach and ensconce in the key institutions of American life.

The Confederate forces may have lost that continental war in the 1800s, but the lost was only temporary. Via underworld vehicles notably the Ku Klux Klan, the Confederates have morphed anew, remade their images so as to hide in thick masks of subterfuges, and have made significant inroads into the core power institutions.

There is no mistake that the neo-conservatives, a hawkish force within the Establishment, is among the new morphs of the Confederates. They are, however, among the front morphs, even as more clandestine groups are operating autonomously of the neo-cons. Ideological and financier operators are the ones consolidating the diverse morphs, ensuring that at any given time special events can be hatched, leaving the Confederate abominations untouched.

The resort to Islamic or jihadist cells is a recent tactic of the Confederates. Islam has been a replacement for communism as a core decoy force that can be used to wage terror events, with the plotters ending up as exquisitely sealed in their true identities. Communism, to recall, was badly decimated in the USA after the Cold War witch-hunting (with Sen. McCarthy serving as front man inquisitor for the fascist-Confederate spinners).

Those cross-burning Klansmen belong to the days of antiquity, even as they’d now look ridiculous in a new social landscape. A repetition of those rituals are only for theatrics, for psychological warfare purposes, and should not be regarded as the real core of the Confederates. The neo-Confederates are far more sophisticated than the small-town goons and should never be under-estimated.

Remember, the neo-Confederates were able to install the neo-cons into power, and with the neo-cons at the nadir the possibility of the Bush father and son on the presidency were made possible. Though the Bush dynasty is already out of power, a government without Bush doesn’t mean the neo-cons have withdrawn in the background, but have consolidated in fact within the Defense establishment.

But since the neo-cons were burnt out by the negative backlash of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which led to the installation of an alternative leader in the person of Obama, the neo-cons are on the defense. The core committees of the Confederates have other operators in mind to mobilize for sure, operators who can display the technocratic savvy and sophistication of the neo-cons.

Whatever will replace the neo-cons as tour de force, the new core operator group is just biding its time as Obama is still in the White House. They can at the minimum work to co-opt Obama more so as White House technocrats are bound to leave their sponsor after the perceived bungling of the economic recovery agenda (read: stimulus package failed). With fewer men to trust, Obama may indeed be cajoled to install more dangerously sociopathic personages in the White House, who will be the new operators of the Confederates.

From the top, they’d be monitoring the terror events taking down more lives, burning buildings, and fulfilling the impact expectations of the echelon abominations. At the maximum, they can assassinate Obama, the success of which will give greater space for the sociopaths-in-power to scale up the terror events.

[Philippines, 04 October 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

McVEIGH, DAVIDIAN CULT: U.S. ESTABLISHMENT’S TERROR CREATIONS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Magandang gabi sa inyo! Good evening to you all!

In a previous article, I echoed the contention that the dreaded terrorists of the United States and Europe are inside their respective Establishment. Let me resume this theme, with a highlight on recent historical events in America.

The featured events are (a) the McVeigh bombing of a federal office in Oklahoma, and (b) the Davidian cult in Waco, Texas that was practically annihilated by federal forces. Both events may seem distantly related to the uncritical minds, but to the keen observers of global events they are so closely linked in terms of their command structures.

To go directly to the point, the McVeigh mission team and the Davidian cult were creations of rouge elements inside the US establishment. The latter, to my mind, are the real terrorists who should be closely monitored and exposed by the patriotic forces in the USA. Those rouge elements are out to destroy the fabric of American life altogether, as they are rooted in the causes of the rebel Confederates of civil war era yet whose loyalties seem to lie elsewhere than the Union.

To recall, in the aftermath of the Oklahoma bombing, McVeigh was apprehended and the investigation on the command structure of the bombing mission was relentlessly pursued for a short while. To the shock of the federal investigators, the directors of the bombing pointed to very powerful people on the echelon of the elites of the Union.

The rest was history of course. And by history we mean that the investigation stopped dead in woods. We can only surmise that the investigating teams realized how untouchable the rouge elements are, that a continuation of the exposures thereof could have compromised the very lives of the investigators and their loved ones.

Meanwhile, in another context, a supposed cult in Waco was declared to be a threat to the public order as it was found to have amassed a cache of arms or sort of. Just as the cult’s own dynamics were so wrapped up in mystery, so was the overkill assault of the cult by federal forces wrapped in seemingly unfathomed mystery.

Such an overkill, with the goal of annihilating the cult altogether, meant only one thing: the cultists were living witnesses to the line of command thereof, a line that points upwards to rouge elements in the Establishment. Talkative cultists are a risk to the plotters of the cult’s adventurism, and so they were totally annihilated.

McVeigh, who as per media information was trained in Fort Bragg, was much luckier than the Waco cultists. Luckier in that he was permitted to live physically. Cornered by the arresting team, McVeigh could have thought of getting himself secured by the police forces, for he knew all the while the grave threat to his own life of being apprehended.

But the investigation stopped dead in the woods, as if the federal team involved suddenly fell into a cul de sac. Had they proceeded further with investigations and criminal litigations of the true spinners of McVeigh, they could have opened up a can of worms that could have led to a major crisis in America at a time of relative politico-economic stability.

And so the big challenge to the investigators was how to execute the exit strategy. That is, how to pull out of the task and leave the crime with McVeigh as the main culprit. In the end, the team can rest a bit before their next task, they thus left unscathed by the discovery of the true monsters behind the bombing event.

Those very same terror forces within the Establishment are the very same players who pulled off the 9/11 event. And, shall we hasten to add, every other mysterious cult and terror engagements inside the USA.

What has empowered the terror players immeasurably is the availability of (a) hypnosis and (b) microchip that they can both use in mind control over the terror cells and cult groups. The key leaders of the ground level cells and cults are Manchurian Candidates or MCs who are out on errands for the elite monsters hiding in the shadows of America’s political, legal, business, and media institutions.

It is the supreme duty of the true patriots of America to unveil and expose the true terrorists who are inside the Establishment. Time is of the essence for the patriots of the Union, for failing to act soon enough, they might all see America unravel in the short-run as the Union is confronting another potential recession that can lead to a schism of the social and political forces in their country.

[Philippines, 03 October 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

ANOTHER STIMULUS PACKAGE BY OBAMA?

ANOTHER STIMULUS PACKAGE BY OBAMA?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good evening from the paradise boondocks south of Manila!

The weather in this tropical area where I reside right today has been so fine for almost two (2) weeks now, and this is unusual for the month of September when four (4) storms pass over the country on the average. At any rate, this makes me a bit happy, enough to ruminate again about the global economy specifically the White House policy pronouncements.

I was among those analysts and development experts in my country who made a go for stimulus packages as core ‘pump priming’ strategy for staving off the ill effects of the global recession. To recall, I even went to the extent of saying my kudos for America’s own stimulus package that was pronounced late by then president Bush and then extended by the new president Obama.

Being all to familiar with pump priming, as I had been witness to how this tool was wielded every time we experienced the pains of spiraling crash right in my own country, I have been all too eager to see the tool be employed judiciously in the Northern countries (EU, USA-Canada, Japan) that have either remained flat growth-wise for successive years or crashed calamitously such as what the USA went through in 2002 and 2007.

The Obama administration had its chance of employing this tool, with no less than $800 Billion as war chest for its execution, and somehow the pump priming proved to have stopped the catastrophic collapse that went on after the implosion of the realty bubble in ‘07. As per my own textbook orientation in macro-economics, it takes two (2) years for a stimulus program to optimize the economy back from appalling sub-optimal performance accountable to a recessionary crash.

The two (2) years since the package was begun by Bush yet will end this month, as far as I can recall the beginnings of it. After the two (2) year gestation period is over, it is standard task for policy-makers and stakeholders to evaluate the overall performance of the measure. The evaluation will unveil what kinks remain that were largely un-addressed by the measure.

It is surprising on my part to learn of the latest pronouncements from the White House that the US president is again ready to launch a new stimulus package on top of the existing one, coming at a time when the first package has never been evaluated to the fullest. The next package includes tax cuts that are but a rehash of the Bush-era stimulus for big business.

I just hope that the pump priming won’t be misconstrued as rendering the stimulus tool into a permanent policy tool. Just by pronouncing that a new stimulus package is on the drawing board can already send jitters to business stakeholders as the pronouncement is a tacit acceptance of the failure to revive the economy as a whole, and that a new round of recession could be in the offing.

Maybe the White House has in mind not only the US economy but also that of its Atlantic partner Europe. Hasn’t the USA been handling fresh cash to Europe to mitigate the bursting of bubbles and gnawing crisis there? Did the White House or Federal Reserve even bother to submit a report to the US Congress about the subsidies to Europe, subsidies that should be hands-me-down to America’s laborers who continue to suffer from the ballooning unemployment in the homeland?

The White House pronouncement is also sending bad signals to Asia’s emerging markets that have already been growing appreciably over the past eight (8) months of the year. Asia’s own stock markets, financial and money markets are trembling over the Obama stimulus news, and there are now silent moves inside board rooms to map out contingency measures in case that the USA will go thru another round of recession in the aftermath of the failure of the first stimulus package to induce totally recovery.

If there is anything I can advise to the White House and Federal Reserve technocrats at this point, it is to desist from making such an untimely measure. Ensure that the most optimal results from the first stimulus package were achieved first of all, report the results to the US congress and the world community, and show clear patterns of transparency in the dealings regarding the pump priming.

If a stimulus package is utilized largely to fatten the purses of corporate executives and owners, who will then use the same to buy new yatch and spend most luxuriously for their board meetings, then the clear message is this: forget about stimulus package!!!

[Philippines, 14 September 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

WELCOME 2009!

Erle Frayne Argonza

Hello Fellow Earthans! Hello world! Welcome 2009, the Year of the Ox!

This economist, sociologist and self-development guru has been hibernating for awhile as part of a year-starter contemplation period. I’m now formally ending this hibernation, and will resume sharing my thoughts about world events and wisdom.

The holiday season is surely a period of excitement and fast-moving events comprising of parties, reunions, and chows. Like everyone else, I was swept away by the enchantment of this unique period, and ended the year with over 10 pounds of extra weight.

In January 1-4 I took some time out to visit the Sabang Beach of Puerto Galera, Mindoro. An excellent place for scuba diving, this spot is just contiguous to two (2) other wonderful sites, the La Laguna Beach and Coco Beach. I spent the tour with my cousin Evadne Argonza-Bautista and her other half, Rudy Bautista, chief engineer and overseas seafarer, who brought along their two starseed kids Raissa and Randoll. I also had a reunion in the beach with my cousin Ricky Argonza, a master scuba diver, who manages the Garden of Edens resort (German-owned).

I was just about to begin orienting myself to the new year, by detailing my annual battle plan (goals) and burning the excess fats gained from the holidays, when my Dad’s 2nd wife (Lorna Argonza) suddenly died last January 15 while travelling back by bus Manila. Being the only son of Dad (Steve Argonza) who’s here in Manila (all of my sibs are in the USA), I had to conduct my filial duties and be the burial event organizer-operator for my old man. The lady, Tita Lorna, was finally buried last 20th of the month. The day after, the 21st, saw me hit by allergic rhinitis, a recurring ailment, after all the stressful though preparations for the burial.

Still nursing my rhinitis, I finally am finding the time to catch up on my goal-refinements, fat burning gym sessions, and reflections about global events. The year opened up with Gaza (a spill over from late 2008), the pessimistic facet, and the installation of Barack Obama as US president, the optimistic facet. We will all be watching the aftermath of these two events for sure, as they contribute to the shape of 2009 as a whole.

We’re also preparing for the celebration of the start of the Year of the Ox, which is a legacy of the Chinese culture. I’ve already bought new crystal materials for balancing my home, and an ox figurine for my work room & study. A positive year this will be in terms of bountiness, as the underlying Tao philosophy of the celebrations so explain.

Well, Fellows, let’s hope for the better for 2009 in terms of moving out of the economic and politico-economy cul de sacs that our planet has been seemingly entrapped into. Welcome the Ox Year with a Big Bang!

[24 January 2009, Quezon City, MetroManila]

PEACE & HEALING IN THE FORTHCOMING USA ELECTIONS

Bro. Erle Argonza / Guru Ra

[Healing Meditations 08-01. Writ 02 November 2008, Manila, Philippines.]

 

Citizens of Terra, Peace & Love!

Within a few days from now, on November the 6^th, the USA electorate will choose  a new set of federal leaders. As observed in all quarters, this giant pillar of the global economy is currently on a downspin in both the domestic and international fronts. Being Fellows of this planet, we cannot just stand by and show indifference to the eventualities forthcoming, but should, I think, exude one of concern and love for the people of America.

Never mind if for past decades this hegemonic power from up North had manifested excessive force in dealing with other nations of the planet, for both political and economic purposes. Never mind if multitudes of our own compatriots who were caught up in the military and trade offensives were sacrificed in the process: their lives snuffed, bodies injured, and livelihoods irreparably wrecked. Never mind the 36 Millions of peoples who died due to the military adventurisms of America since after World War II. Mind only that we all move forward ahead, that we continue to forge a new world of peace and prosperity in a global regime of ‘dialogue of civilizations’.  

American society is now very sick. There is no way that we would ever desire to see this country fall, or fragment into the abyss of chaos, as partisan groups would seize the opportunity offered before them, go the way of violent adventurisms and slug each other out in the terrain of Old Wild West of blazing guns. Just witnessing this federal titan beset with political and economic instabilities over the next ten (10) years, would already spell trouble for the entire global community that will experience the catastrophic impact of the uncertainties caused by the consequent anarchies thereafter.

America is very sick, and if there is anything that we Peace Advocates must demonstrate now, it is the collective might of forgiveness, understanding, compassion, and brotherhood/sisterhood. Let us show the power of Oneness, precisely by commiserating with our brothers and sisters in America who are equally beset with enormous pains from the miserable descent of their beloved country to the hovels of the Damned and the Fallen Ones. Look Fellows, the Americans are leveling down mountains of evils by the normative pathways of accepted institutions, inspired as they are by their founding patriots and guided by the Constitution of the Union, and not by excessive violence and force that befit only those agents of the Dark Path. Let us all attune ourselves to their hearts in their herculean but sublime efforts, be with them in their painful sojourn.

The forthcoming election is therefore an occasion both for national healing in the domestic front of America, and for global healing as well. Recognizing this sublime import of the forthcoming popular feat, let me state succinctly the petitions:

I call upon our Fellows across the globe, to show our fellowship with the simple folks and mainstream middle class urbanites of the USA, by praying and meditating for peace and progress in the electoral contest. Furthermore, let us all pray and meditate that finally the road back to the Light will begin as a new set of leaders will commence with their noble mandates in a few weeks’ time.

On the day of the polls itself, please sit down even just for a few minutes, burn a White candle for purity of purpose, combine it with Pink candle for love and healing, and pray & meditate for the petition so stipulated above.  

Let there be healing and peace on the forthcoming USA electoral exercise, followed by consequent stability and prosperity. So be it.

[Prof. Erle Frayne Argonza, economist, sociologist, and development consultant from Manila, is also a yogi-Mystic. He is an initiated Fellow of the spiritual Brotherhood and is a Guru of self-realization. He is currently in touch with the souls of Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi, both of whom are Evolved souls, who urged him to do some focused peace concerns for America and encourage a reversal of disastrous economic policies of Reaganomics.]

LOIN EMPOWERMENT: CHURCH CRANKY POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Religious fundamentalism is among the mega-waves of the moment. Secularism, which was a 19^th century wave yet, had reached its full circle around the 3^rd quarter of the 20^th century. From 1980 onwards, with the advent of Islam Fundamentalism and Religious Right (Christian Right, Hindu Right), secularism has been taking the backseat as fundamentalism’s seductive new dogma delivered their devastating blows on erstwhile ‘enemies of God’.

Catholic fundamentalism has been riding along this mighty wave since then, and had already dealt its own devastating blows on perceived God’s enemies: (a) Irish Republic Army partisans killing thousands of children-women-aged ‘collateral damage’ folks; (b) Croatian Army, armed by the Opus Dei, storming the Serbian bastion, killing thousands of ‘collateral damage’ folks, and declaring a separate republic, along a largely contorted notion of ‘nation’ (ethno-nation); and (c) Christian militias armed to the teeth in many parts of the globe, causing enormous damages and misery on the affected folks.  

More such violent genocidal campaigns will be fomented by Catholic crypto-fascists in the months and years to come yet. This is not to count those hundreds of millions of deaths caused by the Crusades, Inquisition, imperial conquests of Catholic powers (Spain, Portugal, Bavaria, Hapsburg, etc). During the Philippine Revolutionary War against Catholic Imperial Spain, no less than half a million Filipinos died, while millions died more due to the forced labor, population resettlements, and abominable cruelties by the Catholic Spaniards.

If we reflect on all of those past genocidal campaigns done by the Catholics, and add the death tolls inflicted by contemporary terroristic adventurisms of Church partisans, we may wonder what ‘pre-emptive right’ do Catholic cryto-fascists possess that render them as indubitably clean, spotless, pure souls who cry wolf whenever issues concerning population control and/or reproductive health are raised, in the name of a new distorted moron one-liner ‘pro-life’.

The same puritanical quacks, none of whom lives a life that is unblemished and sagely worth our emulation, are again in the heat of raising the same fear-based ‘pro-life’ in the electoral campaign in America. Here in Manila, the same puritanical  quacks have been on the rampage over the legislative victory of the long-awaited Reproductive Health Bill, using the same pathetically bankrupt one-liner ‘pro-life’ spiced with highly nauseating lies about “the destruction of Philippine way of life” by the noblesse legislators. Nay, the same quackery has been raised by the fear-mongers to convince Filipino-Americans not to vote for Obama next week, for Christ’s sake!  

Come to think of it, if we examine the underlying logic of the puritanical quackery, we can see the fear of Church Hierarchs & lay leaders in a rapid diminution of church devotees across the coming decades. The political economy of church operations clearly reveals thus: the more people participating in church life, the greater the power of the purse of the Bishops, priests, religious orders, and lay organizations. This reality of political economy explains why the Church today remains very powerful, because it is the world’s wealthiest corporate entity taken in the aggregates, whose wealth no nation or corporate group can ever surpass.

To restate the thesis in another manner: loin power means purse power. Following from that logic, purse power means greater prestige and political power by the Church. A diminished loin power, due to the meteoric ascent of ‘reproductive health’ and/or ‘pro-choice’ discourse in the realms of legislation and administration also means the consequent decline of the purses of the Church operators.

As the issues and defenses are raised across partisan lines, Islamic partisans are mobilizing their forces of engagement, ready to start a World War III in their region, a war that could embroil the entire planet in another 30 Years War and see the eventual erasure of nations in a Post-Westphalia regime. Catholic militias and terrorists are increasing by the numbers across the globe, evidenced in my own country by the return of the infamous Tadtad and Ilaga groups that have regrouped and mobilized to engaged marauding Jihadist terrorists in their Mindanao backyards.

Since the Church is awash with cash, gold bullions, estates, and hedge funds anyway, every Catholic diocese may as well begin arming militias and related partisans who would be tasked to run after Catholic infidels or those who do not follow the faith in the manner so dictated by Paleolithic fogey dogma. In order to defend the ‘pro-life’ line, kill more, bomb more, cause miseries on more people, in the name of God! Praise be to God!

Urbanization is another mega-wave in our planet today, a wave that brings with it the ever-widening individuation of the human psyche. Herd discourse such as those peddled by the Pied Piper puritanical quacks, which induces a retreat to the folk spirit or folkgeist and is tantamount to retrogression of the species, has no place in an increasingly individuating psyche. Spirituality may also increase with time, but this spirituality will be of the ‘seeker’ or ‘freethinker’ type, a spirituality that is not susceptible to mind-bending manipulation by the folk spirit Pied Pipers. 

This could be the reason why, in the Philippines, amid the much ballyhooed 86% membership of Filipinos in the Vatican church or corporation, the devotees have voiced a predominantly pro-reproductive health inclination according to official nationwide surveys. Obama has got nothing to do with this inclination, the legislators’ pro-active measure on population & development has been in Congress for nigh two (2) decades now, but we do see the increasing individuation among an increasingly sophisticated urban habitué led by the urban boheme & intelligentsia.

The same Catholic puritanical quacks are joined by Christian Right groups in the USA in waging a last-ditch attempt to derail the popular gains of Obama versus his contender McCain as per latest survey. The same sickening discourse, characteristic of mental bankruptcy and mediocre “understanding” (sic!) of the human condition, is being mass-disseminated by a loose alliance of cryto-fascists, all working to subtly use loin power to keep their groups in hegemonic positions in the private sphere.

What nauseating, pathetic buffoons these folkgeist progenitors are! If they have nothing worth talking about, nothing worth their ilk, they better wrap up and mobilize for armed partisans and face their infidels in the Middle East. While the same puritanical quacks, both Islam and Christian, would be busy slaughtering each other, as they did hundreds of years back, the true peace-loving, life-loving,  dialogue-wielding, universal love-driven citizens of Earth would be collaborating in their efforts for lasting peace and development worldwide.

[Writ 27 October 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila.]

OBAMA IS AMERICA’S MAN OF THE HOUR

Erle Frayne Argonza

Good morning from Manila!

The candidacy of Barak Obama had generated a lot of surprises and raised hopes about reversing the trends of economic decay and neo-conservative (fascist) aggression by the USA, henceforth catapulting the USA back to its role as a world leader and friend of the world’s nations. Not only in the USA but also overseas, did Obama capture wide audiences and sympathies, and his image is still moving up the ladder of meteoric ascent as of the moment.

Indubitably, the standard banner candidate of the Democrat Party for the 2008 Presidential Election, Barak Obama, is the Man of the Hour. Intelligent, charismatic, competent, and young, he exudes the aura of a Man of Destiny, and is the man to watch across the globe this decade till next.

Already, a personality cult has been spontaneously rising and interwoven with his personal character, all over the world. Putting this cult aside, I am declaring my sympathy for this candidate, and honestly say that he is an ally to many causes that I advocate. To repeat: Obama is an ally, and a leading ally, not an object of my cult worship. Let those superstitious cult worshippers hold Obama in the highest esteem as their messiah, I have no qualms about their superstition provided that they do not hurt other people whose reverence for Obama isn’t identical to theirs’.

I shall no more dwell on the means for catapulting him to meteoric ascent, as this is better done in some mass communications and political science classes or opinion pages. I would prefer to dwell on Obama’s savvy for public policy, he being a legislator for some considerable numbers of terms now. This to me is the most important feature of his competencies, as public policy will be the cutting edge of his presidency if ever. That includes both domestic policies (economics, welfare & social sectors, growth for the states) and foreign policy.

To sum up my preliminary observations about the man, Obama has what it takes to re-chart the USA towards a new life, as far as public policy is concerned. He knows what policies destroyed America’s economic base, what policy architectures and politico-military actions destroyed America overseas, and he knows what policy options to install in order to reverse the trends. And he has the constituencies to embark on bold policy initiatives, rest assured, even if those policies are unpopular to the elites of his country.

Based on his grasp of public policy, Obama can in fact boldly undertake a revolution in America and across the globe. Obamanomics can be crafted to replace the Reaganomics of the last quarter of a century that resulted to catastrophes in both the USA and across the continents. The thematic directions could very well integrate the state interventionist frames crafted by George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, Friedrich von List, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, all aimed at promoting the general welfare, effecting prosperity and equity, and galvanizing national unity under the aegis of the US Constitution.  

‘Obama Doctrine’ can be introduced in foreign policy, that can reverse the equally catastrophic neo-conservative (fascistic) unilateralism, global police aggressor deodorant, and anti-terror campaigns that destroyed nations and yet paradoxically led to the broadening and strengthening of terrorist forces worldwide. ‘Obama Doctrine’ may need to recast both the (a) Wilsonian civil rights advocacy and (b) Roosevelt’s New Deal advocacy of engaging America in the development of backward nations, (c) integrate both doctrines, and then use the new doctrine to foster lasting peace, international cooperation and prosperity in the entire planet.

The man has the sophistication to craft the core principles and concepts of his Revolution, I have no doubt about this. No matter how brilliant his core staff may be, he’s got the competence that enables him to exercise ‘relative autonomy’ from his technical team who can, in the end, add the flesh and tissues into the Obama core concepts. At the same time, Obama has the savvy to listen to his brilliant team people and the mass leaders that supported his candidacy, as listening is among his strengths that must have been tempered by his youth upbringing and grassroots work early in his life.

The last ingredient to his success, which should never be underestimated, is his coffers tactics. His candidacy having been funded largely by people’s donations rather than the elite’s purses, Obama is enabled to exercise a ‘relative autonomy’ from the patrimonial interests of America. This fact allows for a ‘14^th Brumaire’ of American leadership, a direly needed element to strengthen the institution of both the presidency and the US Constitution. The ‘relative autonomy’, reinforced by a massive constituency, enables the presidency to use sticks against erring elites and emancipate state institutions from the enslaving claws of the Military Industrial Elites.  

Obama brings hope not only to his fellow Americans but also to peoples across the globe who are so sick and tired of imperialistic wars, deaths, and the catastrophic effects of Reaganomics liberalization-privatization-deregulation oligarchic policies. Being an Asian observer, I’d urge my fellow Asians to give the trust to this great leader in the making, give him at least four (4) years to exhibit his performance level, and pray that peace and prosperity can be had globally under Obama’s reign over his federation.

Let’s give peace and prosperity a chance, and here is a man who can demonstrate that building our cherished dreams of peace and end to poverty are viable ones.

[Writ 22 October 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

36 MILLION DEAD BY AMERICA’S AGGRESSIONS, WHAT SAYETH OBAMA?

Erle Frayne Argonza

Magandang hapon! Good afternoon!

In just a couple of weeks’ time, the US voters and electorate will make their decisions about who should be the next American chief exec and vice-president. As a US observer (from Manila), I can now advance my own forecast, based on survey polls and the emerging ethos in the USA, that Barak Obama is the man of the hour, the next president of the USA.

I would now wish to bring the matter of US aggression and its toll to the American voters and the Obama camp, this being a most urgent agenda for international peace and cooperation. As per latest count, since after World War II, when the USA was transformed into a World Power status politico-militarily, over 36 Millions of peoples worldwide already died as aggregate casualties of all the US offensives and related military initiatives. What sayeth Obama and his team about the matter?

For an outside observer, it hardly matters what foreign policy architecture were periodically installed by the US administration to justify aggression of every type. The much hyped ‘global cop’ cliché no longer bites the dust, nobody believes today in the rationale for any further US aggression across the oceans save for fascistic elements that profess sympathies for US imperialistic violence and conflicts. What matters is that (a) the aggressions were committed by (b) an imperialistic power, (c) under the guise of performing a global police role, (d) resulting to a staggering 36+ Million deaths!

Will the Obama leadership finally put a reversal to the policies of global carnage and infernal destruction of nation-states by the US military juggernaut machine? Will the new presidency at least put a break to the pedals of the unstoppable destructive deus ex machina within the next four (4) years?

Will there be no more US aggressions of whatever type beginning in January 2009, when the new president takes his oath of office? Will the unilateralism that was shamelessly and arrogantly exhibited—that alienated the USA from the entire world community for the past eight (8) years—be finally put to rest, and that the USA thereafter go back to multilateralism whereby all military initiatives will be concurred within the framework of the United Nations at least?

How about those victims of all the US aggressions, those men, children, women, disabled, blind, deaf, and humble folks-–will they be indemnified by the United State if ever? Isn’t it time that those demonic aggressors within the US Establishment, who were responsible for those carnages, be brought to international justice to answer for their war crimes?

 

How about those 1,000,000+ Filipinos who died during America’s invasion of my beloved Philippines in the years 1898-1900, during that war of US imperialistic expansionism in East Asia, will their families and descendants ever get to be indemnified if ever? Or maybe it hardly pays to consider those Filipinos as humans, because anyway they aren’t homo sapiens but were rather “brown monkeys with no tails”?

While the Philippine-American War was going on, American soldiers were quick to compose and popularize songs that condescendingly denigrated the islanders to the level of animals. One particular song says “monkeys have no tail in Zamboanga” which captures the American campaign in the Mindanao island that was then predominantly Muslim. The genocidal campaign there was among the most horrific of destructive events, surpassed only by the Batangas and Samar campaigns where entire towns were leveled and razed down the ground, bringing their populations down to zero.

The song summarizes the intent and content of US aggression a full century ago. Invaded populations were no human populations anyway, so it hardly matters to observe civility or protocols of war on the subjected peoples. The explicit order is: do anything necessary to neutralize and destroy them, including razing entire towns and cities to the ground, and do the tasks without compunction. For those warm bodies are not of humans’ but of “monkeys with no tails.”

Did US aggression (in the generic sense) ever change its underlying theme and tone from a century ago to the present? That all those conquered lands outside the US borders, whatever names and cultures they represent, are not of humans’ but of Things other than human? “Take them at all cost pronto!”

Does the more human face exuded by American troops today suffice to conceal what could be an insidious, evil, demonic theme behind every imperialistic-fascistic aggression? When will true civility and ‘rule of reason’ ever govern the use of instruments of aggression by the US military juggernaut, now that such a juggernaut had grown to a complexity unparalleled anywhere in human history?

Like many members of the world community, I am sympathetic to the Man of the Hour, Barak Obama. Like everybody else, my expectations are very high that his regime would deliver the goods and reverse the trends of imperialistic aggressions and carnages. I hope this regime won’t let me down, as my exasperation over American doublespeak had already reached its limits.

I’ve raised my questions, and I’ll assign myself four (4) years to watch. What sayeth you, Fellows out there?

[Writ 21 October 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila] 

AMERICAS’ DEVELOPMENT UPDATES

Erle Frayne Argonza

Let’s continue our news sharing about development-related matters. Across the Americas comes news bits, from penguin populations in Argentina to environmental news in Brazil, up through governance news in Venezuela.  

[01 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to DevEx database news.]

Argentina

Penguin populations have plummeted at a key breeding colony in Argentina, mirroring declines in many species of the marine flightless birds due to climate change, pollution and other factors, a study shows. Dee Boersma, a University of Washington professor who led the research, said the plight of the penguins is an indicator of big changes in the world’s oceans due to human activities. For the past 25 years, Boersma has tracked the world’s largest breeding colony of Magellanic penguins on Argentina’s Atlantic coast. Since 1987 she has observed a 22 percent decrease in the population of these penguins at the site. (Reuters)

Brazil

Brazil’s new environment minister, Carlos Minc, called all sugar cane mills in the northeastern state of Pernambuco an environmental “disaster of disasters” and fined them USD 75 million. In a crackdown called Old Green Mill conducted jointly with the environmental protection agency Ibama, Minc said that all 24 mills in the state had committed a series of crimes. Since he took over as minister after conservationist icon Marina Silva stepped down several weeks ago, Minc has targeted Brazil’s powerful farmers, ranchers and miners, who are riding a global commodity boom, and blamed them for fueling deforestation. (Reuters)

Colombia

Republican John McCain, in an unusual trip to Colombia as a US presidential candidate, called on President Alvaro Uribe on July 1 to make further progress on human rights while pushing the US Congress to vote on a trade pact between the two countries. McCain kicked off a three-day trip to South America and Mexico by meeting Uribe in an effort to tout his positions on trade and showcase his foreign policy experience over that of Democratic rival Barack Obama. McCain pressed the Colombian president to make further progress on human rights issues while highlighting the success of efforts under his administration in fighting the FARC. (Reuters)

Haiti

Aid for Haiti is falling short as the Caribbean country is buffeted by urgent needs to help feed its poor while developing domestic food production and jobs, a UN official said on June 1. The UN System is an umbrella group that represents all of the international organizations and conventions that have been created by the world body. Permanent coordinator of the UN System in Haiti Joel Boutroue said the UN System plans to collect USD 131 million in funding for near- and mid-term programs to support local food production and the creation of new jobs in the poorest country in the Americas. (Reuters)

United States

US President George W Bush has signed a bill removing Nelson Mandela and South African leaders from the US terror watch list, officials say. Mandela and ANC party members will now be able to visit the US without a waiver from the secretary of state. The African National Congress (ANC) was designated as a terrorist organization by South Africa’s old apartheid regime. A US senator said the new legislation was a step towards removing the “shame of dishonoring this great leader.” (BBC)

Venezuela

President Hugo Chavez was personally involved in covering up his nation’s role in an Argentine election scandal, according to a court statement by a witness who might testify at a criminal trial in Miami. The claim was made by Franklin Duran, who faces trial on charges of acting in the US as an unregistered agent of Chavez’s government. Prosecutors say Duran conspired to silence a Florida businessman who toted USD 800,000 in a suitcase from Caracas to Buenos Aires, where the valise was seized Aug. 4. Prosecutors say the cash was intended for the campaign of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who was elected president of Argentina on Oct. 28. (Bloomberg)

US WATCH: TRANSPORT U.S. BACK TO PROSPERITY

Erle Frayne  Argonza y Delago

The final feature of the US ‘real economy’ worth featuring is transportation & communications. This is among the most productive sectors that produce real wealth, contrasted to the ‘casino economy’ of predatory finance that produces wealth from out of wealth itself, producing really nothing worth our value. Broad as it is, let me focus on the transport sector.

 

Time was when the railway industry took off, inducing growth as soon as the railways hit the West. The continental divide among the US states was bridged quickly, intra-trade exponentially increased. Soon enough, foreign trade also increased in leaps and bounds as maritime shipping grew and matured quickly, making US articles of trade be exported to all corners of the planet.

 

Trains, ships, airplanes, automotives, trucks, heavy equipment, tractors, and other state-of-the art prototypes came out of America’s workshops to propel growth not only in the US but in other countries as well. “Made in the USA” products became household words everywhere, including my Wild Wild West province of Cagayan in Northern Philippines, precisely due to the miracle of the transport sector that was broadly a facet of the ‘real economy’ of America. I was a child in the 1960s and early 70s when the “Made in the USA” was chic and almost a cult-level cliché.

 

That era now is now consigned to the dustbins of a remote past. Sure, America still produces state-of-the art transport prototypes. But look, railways have stagnated (is there a mag-lev there now?), automotives are shrinking by the day (laying off and displacing thousands of top quality industrial technicians), while the cutting edge technology for almost all prototypes, save for military transport, have already been surpassed by Asia.

 

McCain and Obama should better do their homework and understand the catastrophic future that awaits America if the transport sector remains neglected and ceaselessly ravaged inch-by-inch by the infernal fires of predatory finance. The policy makers there better salve the ailing sector quickly, and get back those laid-off topnotch industrial technicians to work before they lose every iota of motivation to even get involved in the sector they grew up with but which rejected them (how traumatic!).

 

If there’s any sector to begin with, it’s railways. Better renovate the railways, and establish maglevs in all the major continental routes of the US. And quickly take the initiative to establish cross-border maglevs with Canada and Mexico. Later, establish maglevs connecting Alaska with Russia via Siberia, thus connecting US to the Asian land mass.

 

Sorry for sounding ‘interventionist’, fellows in America. We Asians are as concerned with your economy as you are, and we would want your economic leadership to again rise to the fore. If America does that, other nations will then move on, propelled by growth in the ‘real economy’ because America is doing so. Failing to do that, the economic baton will transfer to Asia, and it will crash our hearts to see our fellow Earthans of America sinking in esteem by the day, because of their collapsing prosperity.

 

We are all siblings on Earth, this is certain, that’s why we share words of wisdom about your economic conditions. May you finally have a reform-oriented President comes this coming electoral contest.

 

[Writ 07 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]