Posted tagged ‘politics’

LAISSEZ FAIRE VERSUS DIRIGISM: PARADIGMS AND FAIRY TALES

December 18, 2014

LAISSEZ FAIRE VERSUS DIRIGISM: PARADIGMS AND FAIRY TALES

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Across the continents, where markets have predominance in the economic sphere, there has always been the antipodal tendentialities of laissez faire and dirigisme. The bone of contention has been the state’s role in the economy. These tendentialities have surely represented two (2) hard-line oppositional streams.

Mercantilism, the progenitor of dirigism, contended that regulation should govern production, distribution, consumption and exchange. The (interventionist) state should be at the center of regulation, with the central goal of all economic pursuits being the accumulation of the wealth for King. Old Nationalism had held on to this contention, with the revision that wealth should be accumulated for the nation as a whole and no longer merely for the King, wealth that is correspondingly allocated to the folks in the form of wages and welfare (this ‘wealth for nation’ line is admittedly a concession to the Smithian physiocracy, a competitor discourse). Only the state, not the market, can best perform redistributive responsibilities for welfare, jobs and wages. Necessarily, development should be undertaken with strong state regulations in the four intervention areas mentioned. The Keynesian revolution revived the dirigist contention, using a demand-side premise, and held sway across the globe for around half a century since its inception.

Laissez faire, whose earliest articulators were the physiocrats, opposed dirigist doctrines with extreme zeal. Accordingly, the state should only intervene in matters of defense, justice and public works, and should keep its hands off the market. Accumulating wealth is a matter of private sector concern (industrialists and landlords), while free trade must be the condition of international exchange and distribution. Even matters of welfare must be left to market mechanisms to provide. Development efforts, i.e. the ones undertaken by ‘3rd world’ economies, must follow the laissez faire path. The logic behind the contention is that the market will produce the entrepreneurs who will be enticed to embark on bold ventures should they be left on their own to take off ‘infantile enterprises’.

The problem arises when, due to the predominance of non-market mechanisms, such as clientelist relations and redistribution-based exchange systems (haciendas, latifundia), development could hardly take off at all. In cases where entrepreneurs are of residual numbers, such as the one demonstrated by Philippine experience, laissez faire strategies would prove pathetic in results. This entrepreneurial scarcity had justified the adoption of dirigist policy frameworks, the principle ones being those that guided the ‘import substitution industrialization’ of 1947-1968. Various 3rd world states have sponsored the dirigist path, employing diverse models (socialist, mixed market-socialist), with fairly good results for many of them. The articulators of such states have argued that no country had ever prospered thru the laissez faire route, and that laissez faire can only work out when development had reached a highly mature level when consumerism propels growth, and where economic fundamentals are very strong and stable.

Many developing economies actually encountered tremendous snags as their states chiefly sponsored development efforts. Rent-seekers of every kind appeared on the scene, serving as barriers to the effective entry of possible investors from among potential competitors. In the Philippine case, asset reform in the agrarian sector had been a perennial failure, thus further complicating the already complex maize of structural problems. What happened, according to the defenders of laissez faire doctrines, was that dirigisme made the ensconced patrimonial groups become further entrenched, thus leading to a vicious cycle of slow growth, high poverty, high unemployment, and relative stagnation.

Such a situation served as the impetus for embracing neo-liberal reforms over the last twenty-five (25) years by the developing economies, the Philippines included. Laissez faire returned with a vengeance, popularizing free trade in the international sphere, and structural adjustments in the domestic sphere and public sector, to note: liberalization, deregulation, privatization, liberalized currency markets/devaluation, down-sizing, minimal/residual fiscal stimulus & budgets for social services, tax reforms and decentralization. Such a policy regime of ‘structural adjustments’ were instrumental in integrating national markets into a globalized one where there is freer flow of tradable goods, investments, information and labor. Not only that, the antipathy of foundational physiocracy towards manufacturing (biased for agriculture) returned, as cheap imports (owing to liberalized trade) destroyed established industries leading to ‘de-industrialization’.

Where are we twenty-five (25) years after instituting market reforms under the aegis of ‘structural adjustments’ (note: we began through the ‘structural adjustment loans’ of the World Bank, c. 1979)? National income continues to grow at dismally low rates, poverty had increased during the latter phase of the reforms (decreased only recently), unemployment remains high amid positive growth, and our developmental stage continues to be stuck up in the ‘growth stage’ (failed to reach ‘maturity’). Globalization, with its attendant ‘structural adjustment’ policies, has weakened nations, even caused fragmentation in others, a fact that had likewise been replicated in the Philippines with its separatist movements. Free trade had destroyed domestic industries (the USA case was hit so hard by this one), as some had to fold up (Marikina shoes exemplifies the Philippine case) and transfer elsewhere (Procter & Gamble-Philippine is an example). With weak or nil ‘safety nets’, chances are that many producers (e.g. fruits, vegetables) will lose against cheaply-priced imports. One thing is clear for the case of many developing economies, including the Philippines: market reforms failed miserably to get them to development maturity, even as it set back the development path of others.

So if both dirigisme and laissez faire have been failing in making life better for the nation and the majority of the people, what discourse than can work out to salve the ailments of most developing states? Expectedly, a ‘renaissance of nation-states’ has become the wave of the present, with many of its articulators defending a return to dirigisme in its old form—in its highly protectionist form. I used to be among such articulators, even as I now argue that Old Nationalism can have deleterious results when pushed to the extremes. We can’t wish globalization away, it is here to stay and galvanize some more, even as it challenges us all to path-find the opportunities that it can offer while neutralizing the threats that could result from it. In other words, re-echoing Herr Reich’s and Mdm Arroyo’s elucidations on the subject, I am now wont to advocate for a New Nationalism or neo-nationalism, a discourse that advances beyond the narrow confines of extremist dirigisme and laissez faire.

Let me move next to the key premises and contentions of ‘new nationalism’-Philippine style.

[From: Erle Frayne D. Argonza, “New Nationalism: Grandeur and Glory at Work!”. August 2004. For the Office of External Affairs – Political Cabinet Cluster, Office of the President, Malacaňan Palace.]

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR): CORPORATE DEODORANT OF ‘LATE’ CAPITALISM

October 20, 2014

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR): CORPORATE DEODORANT OF ‘LATE’ CAPITALISM
Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good afternoon from Manila!

The late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, the Philippines’ most brilliant and deviously cunning chief executive, was so elated one day during his tyrannical incumbency. The reason for the unusual elation was this: his soldiers captured Bernabe Buscayno, the first national head of the Maoist insurgent group New People’s Army or NPA, who was a prized catch for the strong man. After some military interrogation, Buscayno was directed to be brought to the presidential palace to face Marcos, who at one point in the encounter, asked Buscayno for a remark. Obliging like a school boy, Buscayno replied that “no matter how evil a person can be, s/he can still be transformed into a good person.”

The enormously witty man Marcos was dumbfounded by the witty remark from the Maoist rebel, for that comment made its mark so clear: Marcos is evil, yet he can still be reformed. Probably pissed off by the stubborn rebel, who never the least conceded to defeat so as to bow in obeisance in recognition of the chief executive, Marcos made sure that Buscayno will suffer miserably inside the prison cell.

You see, I cited that story of Buscayno, as a matter of reflecting on the rationale behind Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR. Buscayno, who has been active in the cooperative movement in the Philippines after his release from prison in 1986 (the year Marcos was overthrown), could very well repeat his witty line when asked about CSR, with a curt reply that “CSR, no matter what evil may be behind it, can be reformed.”

Asians put greater stress on ‘becoming’ as a category more than ‘being’ (Westerner’s granite category), that is why we Asians are inclined to see positive reformations of things or beings whose evils may be irredeemable. And this I can say of CSR: it is an ideological deodorant for Big Business greed, but somehow it can be reformed. To use Organization Development language, it can be ‘re-engineered’.

CSR is already a re-engineering of philanthropy in fact, and belongs squarely to ‘late’ capitalism. Old fogey philanthropy operated with a Victorian underpinning: I possess the money, and you recipient are a Beggar who came to me. You are lucky enough because I am giving you part of my purse, for I have none reserved for you folks save for the theatres, performers and socialite circles thay may the better be served by my extra monies for posterity’s sake. …

Well, Big Business was able to re-engineer its image precisely by reformatting old-fogey philanthropy (which was a reformatted version of medieval charity of the pretentious church Orders or ‘corporations’). CSR appropriated the ‘social development’ practices (social technologies) of NGOs and peoples’ organizations or POs, stressed the supposedly core element of ‘compassion’, and voila! CSR was born! How effable, how sweet, how infinitely Angelic and Godly is this ‘new way’ of helping people by the Gods of Corporate World! Hail capitalism! Hail beneficent Gods!

Deodorant, pure deodorant! Take a look at Lucio Tan, who at one time was the top landlord-capitalist oligarch in the Philippines. A one-time Marcos crony, Tan made enormous fortunes from Marcos’ time to the present, probably with start-up capital coming from the dictator’s purse (but which Tan refuses to admit in public). Tan’s fortunes made him land in the Fortune 500 (world’s richest), yet he was also found wanting in the manner of paying taxes. His unpaid taxes may be worth P80 Billion (almost $2 Billion) today, and is still growing, yet not a single cent was paid to the state by this notorious oligarch for those ‘tax evasion’ cases…Yet Tan has captured the eyes of fund recipients from his CSR give-away items, even as he is fondly regarded as an angelic patron by the same armies of beggar recipients. (Beggar here means not the literal beggar, but the condescending image of oligarchs on recipients: filthy Eaters, ‘useless eaters’).

Capitalism is a system that is founded on greed and hoarding, and no sagely or wise personage, or the most evolved beings could ever rationalize capitalism as a system that will sustain the drive towards Nirvana or represents the final liberation of humans from their subhumanizing hovels of dense life. Besides, this current phase of capitalism—‘late’ capitalism—is now DEAD, and the dead system is rapidly crashing down. Only those materialistic ‘eaters’ whose perceptions are as delimited as their own astigmatic perceptions of reality principles can ever justify that capitalism is still working, for the reality we have today is that of ‘virtual economy’ of the most perverted, evil greed of all.

If CSR would have to survive the times, as ‘late’ capitalism is now DEAD, then now is the time to refurbish its image. Because its life is deeply embedded in the corporate purses, this image-change is hard to imagine at all. But being of the Asian-yogic way of life, being a mystic and development expert at the same time (though now in the twilight of social development engagements), I wish to give CSR a chance and see it grow along the trajectory of the hereafter that was declared by Buscayno: transformed from ‘evil’ to ‘good’.

I’d end this piece by clarifying to you a reality we know among mystics: demons can also return to the Path of Light. Yes, Fellows, those Belzeebub abominations, those Asuras or Demonyos, those Diaboli, or whatever term you may use for the same species of evil demented beings, many of those abominations have already returned to the state-of-balance and are now taking the Path of Light back to the Almighty I Am Presence (God)! Yes! CSR can!

[Philippines, 28 August 2008]

CAPITALISM’S FUTURE CYBORG PEOPLE/WE ARE THE LAST HUMANS

October 13, 2014

CAPITALISM’S FUTURE CYBORG PEOPLE/WE ARE THE LAST HUMANS
Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Magandang hapon! Good afternoon from Manila!

As you read this piece, please take a cursory glance at yourself. For you are among the last humans of the non-chipped prototype. We non-chipped humans’ lifeline will soon end, as we are only co-terminus with ‘late’ capitalism.

‘Late’ capitalism will crash down into total destruction. As already advanced in some previous articles, ‘late’ capitalism or ‘the system’ is now DEAD. No more can this system be revived, it is beyond repair. What you see, feel, smell, sense right now as ‘the system’ is merely a semblance of a once thriving and growing system of post-war interventionist capitalism, whose international trade conduct was partly regulated by fixed exchange rate and a gold standard. The reality you see today is only illusory, ‘virtual reality’ of a once mighty and envious system. To repeat, IT IS DEAD!

This terminal phase of capitalism will be marked by aggressive attempts to revive it. During these aggressive attempts (aggressive = World War III, synarchy, destruction of nations) the prototype of the future human is being experimented on in laboratories of the North. That prototype will be constructed, based on the principles of Phase 3 Cybernetics. To familiarize yourself with cybernetic’s phases, note this briefer:

Phase I: Perfecting and packaging systems theory in simplified form, made the computer possible.

Phase II: Integration theory made possible the integration of the computer to the machine, producing (a) automation and (b) artificial intelligence or AI. Simultaneous with nano-technology.

Phase III: The machine-human organism divide will be broken, thus enabling the creation of the ‘cyborg’ or cybernetic organism. This is integration of mathematics, systems theory, bioinformatics, biotechnology, infotech, sociobiomedicine, psychology, and bio-physics.

Phase IV: Further advancements in cybernetic principles will enable the infusion of intelligence into machines. Cyber-sentinels (machine cops, armies) for Earth and space mission purposes will arise. These prototypes can fly space ships across vast spaces, and conduct R&D in heavenly bodies of choice destination.

Let me stop at that point. Cybernetics can still go a long way, up to that point where computers as huge as a 3-million square mile country can be created. That’s as big as Canada, or China, or the USA of today. Bigger and bigger machines (robots) will be created which, incidentally, will be more unstable…But let me stop here.

In its future revived form, capitalism will take off as the new-generation ‘technotronic’ capitalism. Prior to the full galvanization of the new system, a transition period will be experienced. During that period, which could last for a quarter of a century, the micro-chipping of humans will have been perfected. That microchipping or simply chipping of humans will enable the production of the hybrid human variety.

That hybrid variety is in fact being experimented today. The Verizon Corp, a gigantic company based in the USA, has been given the franchise to research, develop, and install (using known biomedical operations, whether surgery or mere intravenous means) prototypes called the VeriChip. Couples of rationalizations were advanced in order to justify the VeriChip mandate. Among the supposed advantages are that of (a) getting easily tracked so that cuts down the possibility of retrieval if one gets lost along the way home or travel to work, and (b) tracking or monitoring one’s health and wellness condition.

As early as the last quarter of the 20th century, the divide between sanity and madness, between ‘good’ reasons and demonic reasons, were already shattered. Rational economics gave way to mad economics, and so on.
Likewise was shattered the divide between the visible benefits of chipping humans and the invisible benefits to the ‘new world order’ of controlling humans. Do take note of these developments, as we’re moving in future contexts where rationality and madness’ synthesis will be perfected even more. Integration theory works wondrously for the oligarchic system, remember.

Those chips that will be implanted in you, in case you are among those who volunteered, can indeed be for your personal benefits. But never make the presumption that the chips won’t be used to at least build an intelligence dossier on you. The information mega-databases are already existing today in the USA and EU, so right at this juncture it is facile to keep track of people at least. How those chips will be convertible for purposes of mutating you into a Manchurian Candidate or MC is the current R&D problem of the scientists involved in them.

In a post-War (World War III) scenario, when nations will have been abolished save for some few exceptions, more ‘final solution’ to the demographic dilemma (of ‘overpopulation’) will be executed, thus bringing down population to probably as low as 2 Billion people by 2050. Remember that World War III will take as long as 30 years, it could be a new 30 Years War, so if this coming war will begin in 2009, then expect it to end around 2039.

Now, what is important for that figure of 2 Billion world population, which the global oligarchy has already projected, is that it is a more manageable, controllable population. Chipping all 2 billion people remnants of the old population will be very easy by then. Part of the conditions for reconstruction, reparations, and succeeding prosperous life for the individual would be to chip him/her.

Thus shall be born the population of MCs, who will be quasi-autonomous individuals. The MC can still think for himself/herself, though many facets of the MC’s behavior will be modified. And, behavior modification will be enabled chiefly precisely because of the chips inside one’s body, thus making trainings and/or capacity building less costly. Life span will also increase, as the chips will have the effect of monitoring ailments quickly, and intervention will be easier than today. Primary health care will be done right on the computer and will be quick, instead of the tedious and protracted processes that we clinically undergo today.

However that hybrid prototype, which we will label HYBRID for simplification, will only be the transitory prototype as the ‘final prototype’ will be perfected in the labs. That final prototype, the CYBORG (1st generation), will be a radically different variety altogether from the hybrids whom they will replace. Being one whose personality, chromosomal structure, and capability grids will be fully programmed via advanced computer prototypes and advanced biomedical-sociobehavioral expertise and intervention methods, the CYBORG will be one of longer life span (past 100 years), longer productivity (at least 75 years of productive utility), higher intelligence (mental, emotional, related intelligences all programmed), higher knowledge-absorptive capacity (mental files will be erasable, new knowledge can be uploaded to the brain via computers), and better health (lessening or eliminating health care costs) than the HYBRID.

So, fellows on Earth, let’s better face it, WE ARE ALL PHASE-OUT PROTOTYPES. Let’s better accept that now. Yes, capitalism can survive as already explained before, but look at where capitalism is going. In the era of full ‘technotronic’ capitalism, you will be a total chattel of the system. I don’t mean YOU today who will die in some decades ahead without the chip, I mean the YOU as the people after the war reconstruction.

For those pro-capitalist folks of the world, please don’t grieve for the death of ‘late’ capitalism. Yes, capitalism in its present form is now DEAD, but a new form will rise and replace it, thus rendering capitalism like unto a phoenix. As an ending, are you ready to be chipped today? VeriChip is waiting for thee.

[Philippines, 23 August 2008]

BONAPARTISM: ‘TECHNOTRONIC’ CAPITALIST STATE IDEOLOGY

October 2, 2014

BONAPARTISM: ‘TECHNOTRONIC’ CAPITALIST STATE IDEOLOGY
Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Hail Bonaparte! Hail Empire! Hail new capitalism! Hail oligarchic Gods of Olympus! – Tomorrow’s slogans

Bonaparte is back today, I see him alive again. I don’t mean the personal Napoleon Bonaparte of yesteryears, I mean the state system built by Him the Emperor par excellence. Bonapartism is the hyper-convergence of all totalitarian systems of the past to the present. Old state ideologies are dying, some are already dead in fact (Old Bonapartism, Bolshevism), but a hyper-convergence of the totalitarianisms is happening….That convergence will congeal in New Bonapartism, the state ideology of the era lasting from World War III through those centuries of ‘technotronic’ capitalism of the morrows.

Let me clarify that ‘state ideology’, or the doctrine of state that will justify its essential governance, structures & rules, nay its philosophy, is distinct from mass ideology. The mass ideologies forthcoming may vary from one country to another, such as China’s seeming Marxist-welfare statist fusion, and the rising environmentalism that could be tomorrow’s most popular.

Mass ideologies can be allowed to germinate and take hold among the masses, provided that they support the state formation in a ‘social contract’ of corporatism. In the future population of cyborg Manchurian Candidates, mass ideology will be irrelevant and unnecessary, as behavior will be pre-planned and/or pre-programmed, and re-programmable.

What I am referring to at this juncture is STATE IDEOLOGY or philosophy. As you can see above, this New Bonapartist ideology may not have a foreign policy facet in it, since ‘foreign’ and ‘domestic/national’ has already been broken by globalization. The future state will be a GLOBAL STATE, remember, so the term ‘foreign’ is of noxious impertinence for a globalized or borderless state.

‘Foreign’ could mean, later, those states of intelligences from planets across the Milky Way and elsewhere, but let me not touch on that. I’d focus on the continental and global states, such as the EU, forthcoming North American Union, perhaps an Asia-Pacific Union too, and the Planetary Union or whatever.

Let me go through the essentials of Bonapartism, culling the premises from the pass but re-constructing it for the emerging context. Take note of the following briefer:

• Centralized, Authoritarian Governance: The former Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Phallangist Spain, and today’s China provided the models for this one. Napoleon Bonaparte only partly succeeded in experimenting on this one, and then he was overthrown. The New Bonapartist state will be sustained, like China’s, and will last for nigh 200-300 years perhaps as far as visible future is concerned. State Terror will be official ‘stick’ mechanism.

• Strong Central Institutions: Centralized authority doesn’t mean strong institutions. This is where China is weak. The Emperor Bonaparte of tomorrow will ensure that institutions will be (a) centralized and (b) strong. The link between the Continental and Platenary states will be a continuous one. Likewise will the thread of governance between the Planetary state and the local region- and city-states, the building blocks of ‘technotronic’ capitalist society.

• Strong Central Financial Institutions: How could one maintain an Empire without strong global bank, strong global currency, strong securitization system (gold standard will return)? Bonaparte knew well the importance of strong national banking for sustaining his Empire and wars. The Emperor Bonaparte of tomorrow will just need to replace ‘national’ with ‘global’ and the formula is complete. Yes, the gold standard is forecast to return, and is bound to back up the financial-monetary operations of the global state. Yes too, a global currency will be instituted, and will be strong as it is backed up by ‘global gold’ or precious metals/crystals and global reserves instruments.

• Strong Global Army/Police: As instruments of state terror, a (a) global army and (b) global police will be instituted. No such army nor police exists today, and necessity dictates that they will arise tomorrow. The individuals and units of these ‘stick’ institutions will be loyal only to the global state. Beyond the 2050s, cyborgs and robots will constitute the main forces of these enforcement ‘sticks’.

• ‘Bombard the Old World’ of Nations: Bonaparte’s favorite cliché is coming back. Napoleon’s old world was the kingdom, the nascent world was the nation. Today’s ‘old world’ is the nation-state, and the nations will be literally bombarded. In a sweeping World War III scenario, as much as 90% of the nations of today (of which there are 200+) will be dismantled. Those that will resist will face the wrath of the global state before 2050. Most likely, no more nation will exist beyond 2050. The new world of region-states and city-states will be in place. This new world will be the New Feudalism, as discussed earlier.

I guess I need to end there. Just five (5) features, remember. It is so easy to note them. They were Bonaparte’s formula for governance in the past, and they will be the standard formulas for the future ‘technotronic’ capitalist state. In previous articles, I already discoursed that capitalism cannot be revived without totalitarian tyranny, so I didn’t expound on that facet here. Let me now close the article at thus juncture.

Hail Bonaparte! Hail Empire! – tomorrow’s slogans

[Philippines, 23 August 2008]

GLOBAL TOTALITARIAN POLICE-STATE & TECHNOTRONIC SOCIETY: EXTENDING CAPITALIST LIFE

September 19, 2014

GLOBAL TOTALITARIAN POLICE-STATE & TECHNOTRONIC SOCIETY: EXTENDING CAPITALIST LIFE
Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Let me go back to the question of what lies ahead of us—when ‘late’ capitalism dies and yet capitalism will be extended. I am not discounting the possibility that capitalism’s life span will be extended, but this will no longer be ‘late’ capital, just to remind everyone.

You better fasten your seat belts, as the stormy days ahead will come for sure, and as this heraldry from me will sound as stormy already as those times ahead. Stormy heraldry, because (a) you will not come to like it and that (b) its impact will be so nauseating and revolting that you’d rather sedate yourself most quickly with wine, liquor, pot or anything that can reduce that revulsion. I forgot, for the fundamentalists, you’d pray for hours to allay your fears.

By the time ‘late’ capital arrived up to the current juncture, or roughly the whole of the post-Great Depression era, the following developments have come about:

• State intervention/planning was infused into the system. Post-war former colonies proceeded on their industrial development tracks along this dirigist market model. The USA and Europe were saved from collapsing, emerging markets appeared.

• Market reforms were later introduced, bringing back free market and free trade principles. Centrally planned economies China and Vietnam infused market reforms to construct a ‘social market’ model, while former socialist states folded up in Eastern Europe and 3rd world states.

• The era of ‘mad economics’ resulted from the system integration efforts of ‘instrumental reason’. The dividing line between the rational and the mad in decision-making and system maintenance was effectively deconstructed and erased. In esoteric-mystical argot, this era is the period of the Demonic Mind, the era of Anti-Christ.

• ‘Virtual economy’ based on predatory financial practices of creating values from out of money flows (rather than from concrete production) was exemplified by ‘bubble economies’. Bubble bursts were followed by destructive, catastrophic crises and shrinkages of affected economies.

• Nation-states’ economies came to be integrated into a single economy, via globalization. A planetary economy was already institutionalized, yet no planetary state exists to regulate conduct of commerce and business at a global level. The contradiction between the norms of the planetary economy and the interests of the nation-state has led in no small measure to the fragmentation of nation-states and emergence of mini-states. Globalization has been undermining the nation-state in general.

• All of such developments will hyper-converge in the months ahead in a general system crisis characterized by hyper-inflation, great depression, and total system collapse. As the economist Lyndon LaRouche correctly perceived, that collapse phase is now taking place at a rapid rate.

• Wars and hostilities are intensifying across the globe. Surrogate wars of world powers have also been rehearsed, such as the Georgia-Russia conflict. All of these conflicts will hyper-converge in a World War III or intercontinental war, the duration of which no one can forecast so easily.

So, going back to the issue, if the ‘virtual economy’ cannot be sustained and its collapse will bring the final death blow on ‘late’ capital, is it possible to extend capitalism’s life span? Yes, the possibility is very likely. But the context emerging from the resolution of the general global crisis will hardly resemble what you’ve ever seen before nor imagine.

First of all, the consolidation of the system and attempts to prolong it can never take place without draconian police state tactics. As Lenin correctly emphasized, the dividing line between liberalism and fascism is a superficial one. Neo-fascism will become the political modality in order to save capitalism and bring it to its next phase. State terror heretofore untold will unravel the old order of things and bring the ‘new world order’ into place, resulting to pogroms that will dwarf both Hitler’s ‘final solution’ and Stalin’s ‘purges’ combined.

The possibility of a global state will finally become granite rock, with the United Nations most likely the base for creating that global regulatory mechanism governed by a demonic ‘world rule of law’. This global state will have its own military and police forces, and will have no qualms in quelling dissent and enforcing global fiats in order to bring forth the ‘new world order’.

The global corporations of the moment, whose assets and revenues are already so huge that they dwarf those of nation-states’, will all the more become gigantic. The same corporations will then declare their respective turfs among region-states and city-states that will be created from the dismantled nations. Each mega-corporation will be endowed with its own private army, akin to the British East India Company or BEIC of old, of professional mercenaries beholden to no state but to the corporation, but which can be mandated by the global state to engage hostile forces in other regions and cities.

The era of New Feudalism will then ensue from the social and urban-ecological arrangements emerging. The era of ancient Florence, Venice, or city-states with their own respective armies and ruled by powerful commercial families, will come back though in more sophisticated vogue.
The competing powerful & wealthy city-states will then give rise to new conflicts in the form of ‘wars of the cities’, much akin to the ancient Greek city-states’ conflicts. Before this century’s end, no more nations shall exist, but rather a world of cities and regions integrated largely through the mediative and regulative planetary state. Weaker cities and regions will become the vassals of powerful cities and corporate groups, at a time when technology will even be more revolutionary. The New Feudalism will be based on an integration of capital and information, contrasted to the Old Feudalism that was based on land.

As soon as 3rd phase cybernetics will conclude, and probably a 4th phase will begin, which will all the more erase the barrier between human and machine, the envisioned Technotronic Society will become the manifest order. Cyborgs and machines will then become perfected and endowed with quasi-human intelligence, while those humans with weak minds will be totally controlled via perfected chips, mega-computers, and new cybernetic systems. Large numbers of subhuman ‘Manchurian candidates’ or MCs will become the docile slave labor of the day, well fed and provided for, but whose behavior will be totally programmed and re-programmable.
That technoronic society of the neo-feudal capitalist ‘new world order’, or simply Technotronic capitalism, was fitfully described and forecast in the film series Matrix and Terminator. As 3rd phase cybernetics is advancing today in laboratory incubators of the North, cybernetics that will dismantle the barrier between human and machine, the possibility of an early arrival of that dreaded machine-controlled ‘new world order’ has become concrete. The question is no longer ‘will technotronics come’, but rather ‘when will it come’? Matrix and Terminator are no film fantasies but are rather scientific extrapolations based on existing and developing cybernetic principles.

So, fellows out there, would you count yourself among the fanatical supporters of ‘capitalist life-span extension’, or would you rather opt for a new economy & society other than the ‘new world order’ that has been engineered by the global oligarchy? Or, would you rather be silent about the matter, as the ‘silence of the lambs’ means the Keynesian “In the long run, all of us will be dead!” Caput!

Let me now end here. Suffice that I shared my notes about the possible extension of the favorite economy of the pro-capitalists or the most abhorred society by capitalism’s detractors. At least I didn’t fail to show you the possibilities, I being a sociologist and economist who learned from my thinker mentors the craft of social forecasting or ‘futurology’.

Till next writing! Adios! Adieu! Paalam! Farewell!

[Philippines, 23 August 2008]

PAKISTAN’S CREATION, AFGHAN OPIUM: BRITISH TRADE LINKS

March 11, 2014

PAKISTAN’S CREATION, AFGHAN OPIUM: BRITISH TRADE LINKS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

In the name of the Father (British oligarchy), the Son (Pakistan) and of the Holy Spirit (Afghan opium). So mote it be.

Pakistan and India are now on the verge of another war, one that will extend the frontiers of a brewing World War III to the South Asian corridor. Many are befuddled by the events in the region, the continuing animosities among the erstwhile ‘sibling’ neighbors, the latest terror attack on Mumbai, and more to come. Many in India and Pakistan still think that the hostilities are rooted in the Hindu-Islam competition, and/or in the lack of foresight of Nehru for approving the partition plan. Never do they bother at all to reflect about external forces, notably British financier oligarchs, that were responsible for that very faulty partition.

The creation of Pakistan is directly a result of the old British East India Company’s or BEAC’s search for safe opium trade route, in case that Indian independence would galvanize. BEAC enterprises are mired in every kind of underworld financial sources, to say the least, the revenues of which are then used to finance businesses in the aboveground. Among such covert sources were (a) slave trade (Adam Smith was BEAC-hired to design a doctrine that will justify free trade of slaves by the British) and (b) opium trade.

Afghanistan and Burma were then in British hands, and were already prospering on the ground as producers of dope. The main market, to recall, was China, whose drug users were enticed to do so by British agents disguised as Christian missions that introduced the dope deep into Chinese society. When the Indian independence movement was up, the BEAC hierarchy knew that it was only a matter of time before the rest of Western territories in Asia would follow the same route. That was precisely what happened, which proved to be tough in terms of ensuring sustained drug production and the safety of the trade routes toward external markets.

When India was almost a-born, it wasn’t a coincidental event that Moslems within the rising star party (Congress), or those associated with Gandhi and Nehru, would demand for a partition. Behind the scenes, British agents moved quickly to do their appointed tasks of creating divisions within the Indian independence movement, by manipulating Moslem Indians of established esteem who could be their lackeys in a new state whose very purpose is to secure the drug trade route. That new state, supposedly “Moslem”, was to be named as PAKISTAN.

Few people across the globe are aware about why there is so much dope being peddled. Maybe if these folks would just look at themselves, reminisce those moments when one had quaffed about five (5) jiggers of brandy or two (2) glasses of red wine, one gets into a euphoria of sorts and feels like exploding in love for his/her fellows at some instance. Then one would understand why there is so much dope moving around: people simply like it! Or, there is a growing section of the population that loves dope, no matter how dangerous it is to be hooked up into the habit. For as long as people take dope, drug trade will flourish.

And the goal of the drug traders is no less than the legalization of dope across the world. When you have certain states such as the Netherlands that legalized marijuana, then you see the ‘signs of the times’. As anxiety and anomie will rise within an anarchic global context across the coming decades, the possibility of legalizing dope isn’t a far-fetched reality. This is, again, the ultimate goal.
In the meantime, observers have to content themselves with the thought that the drug trade flourishes because it is Big Money. Take the case of my country, the Philippines. Dope here is now the biggest source of underground money, and estimated annual revenues by the manufacturers-traders is as high as P600 Billion. That’s roughly U.S. $14 Billions in nominal value. In Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) value, that amounts to US. $56 Billion.

That is just the Philippines and not Afghanistan, USA, Colombia, Mexico, and China (with Triad groups operating) where dope revenues are higher. The aggregate sums of incomes from all the drug trade in the world would easily reach the Trillions of US Dollars or Euros, a whopping lot! The same monies have easily funded many legitimate businesses, name them: manufacturing, construction, hedge funds, banking, housing, agriculture, shipping, and more. They were even used to fund charities of churches! I need not remind the readers that they are used to fund electoral campaigns by politicians all over the globe, even kindergartens know this.

Now, let’s go back to Pakistan and Afghanistan, these two being interlinked by the British dope trade. The expectation of the traders is that these two should be safe havens, (a) Afghanistan for the production, and (b) Pakistan for the transit/trade. There is also some consumption in both countries, but the main markets are the USA and EU. Both countries should therefore always be in the hands of ‘friendly forces’, to ensure undisrupted operations. I need not remind the reader that so much of bribery went into developing new oligarchs and politicians in both countries, in order to ensure ‘friendly forces’ ensconced in all quarters.

When the Soviets and Talibans took over Afghanistan, production was disrupted. Both regimes were unfriendly to dope, and had no second thoughts in razing down ground production. Hundreds of billions of dollars are lost in just three (3) years of ‘enemy forces’ occupation of the ground, which pains the pockets. That served Pakistan good, which, being a ‘friendly force’, was always there to kowtow to the whims of the British and their allies (Americans) who also benefited immensely from the dope trade.

So, to conclude my piece, the Islam-Hindu conflict has nothing to do with the India-Pakistan partition. Such a conflict was contrived, there was religious tolerance in India since the days yet of the Moguls (who re-instituted tolerance policy), and fundamentalism was never a phenomenon at all. Having reviewed tons of materials on comparative religions, being both sociologist and yogi-mystic, I am very sure about the latter, a phenomenon that was in fact created by the financier oligarchs themselves as smokescreen for their rather noxious trade operations.

As to what forecasts to make, I would leave that to the readers. I’d move on to some other related topics later.

[Philippines, December 2008]

LOIN EMPOWERMENT: CHURCH CRANKY POLITICAL DISCOURSE

February 17, 2014

LOIN EMPOWERMENT: CHURCH CRANKY POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

Religious fundamentalism is among the mega-waves of the moment. Secularism, which was a 19th century wave yet, had reached its full circle around the 3rd quarter of the 20th 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.

[27 October 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila.]

 

VATICAN OKEYED ALIENS’ EXISTENCE, WILL WORLD POWERS FOLLOW SUIT?

February 11, 2014

VATICAN OKEYED ALIENS’ EXISTENCE, WILL WORLD POWERS FOLLOW SUIT?

Erle Frayne  Argonza

 

The BRA (Britain-America-Russia) ‘triumvirate of alien researchers’ holds something so special in their respective vaults of knowledge that each power held as top secret for many decades now. It has a great deal to do with the Extra-Terrestrial Intelligences or ETIs, the results of which were actually inferred through systematic research and interaction with ETIs. 

The question that the rest of us Earth humans or Earthans are asking now is, why has there been so much secrecy regarding the ETI phenomenon? Does it suffice to claim that humanity is not prepared yet for the knowledge about the ETIs, and so the policy of the BRA Establishment is to keep mum about the matter? Or is it because the knowledge derived from the research is of military significance, and anything militarily-oriented is classified information?

We could say that all of the above reasons held true last century, more so in the decades after World War I. Humanity was still mired in superstition and Victorian mindsets than, the level of knowledge was still in the level of the Enlightenment Era and was pathetically narrow to comprehend ETIs, and the military information given by the ETIs whom the BRA interacted with were pure and plain classified.

But that was true for the 20th century though. Mankind had moved on since those early exploratory decades. It may be time to make public pronouncements about the ETIs.

Fact is, the Nazi Germans were the first to study the ETIs intensively and may have received knowledge from some ETI groups. The same knowledge may have been used to design the nuclear bomb, and were it not that Allied onslaught wiped out German military production altogether, the same Bomb could have been dropped on Germany’s enemies, permitting Germany to establish its 1000-year Reich. Japan and Italy could have benefitted enormously from the 1000-year tyranny, thanks to ETI technology.

It did not happen that way though. The BRA countries, which were the core leaders of the Allied Forces, also had their own intensive R&D done on the subject, at the same time when relativity theory and quantum mechanics were revolutionizing the sciences. They later got hold of Nazi scientists who were ETI researchers, and secretly employed the same in their own research pursuits.

But another world power, the Vatican, silently observed those occurrences during the past decades. Little did the world outside know that after Vatican II, the church installed its own ETI research bureau, headed by a cardinal and staffed with scientist priests and lay. The bureau was instrumental in collating previous data and evidences, the most baffling being some skulls of unusual shape—deposited in Vatican relics—that do not at all cohere with any of the hominoid and hominid skulls known to man. These were alien skulls right inside the Vatican!

As the Vatican ETI bureau did its work silently, only occasionally coming out with seemingly independent views by church members, it also secured its own information about what the BRA ‘triumvirate’ was doing about ETI and their state-of-the-art technological applications.

Now that the planet had entered the starting phase of its post-industrial, Information Age phase, humans are simply ready to accept knowledge about their own brethren beyond our star systems. The Vatican was expecting that the secular BRA triumvirate, reinforced by UN and international scientific circles, should make the pronouncement now, at this very moment, when people are looking for some hope to be able to get out of the growing global chaos.

But the BRA officialdom failed to do its part, for one reason or another. And this could have prompted the Vatican hierarchy to do the first salvo of revelation, by utilizing an astronomer priest to pronounce the official policy about ETIs. Accordingly, God created many life forms and life streams, including human-related beings, and so ETIs are well within the ambit of the integrity of Creation. 

What a bombshell this revelation is! A true bombshell! Now the Vatican is examining the public feedback from the pronouncement to see if there are hostile or antipathetic thoughts whatsoever. And there are none! Which now empowers the Church all the more, mandating it to make the official heraldry about ETIs in the next couple of years.  

There’s no way that the BRA countries would counter this move with PR slanders against the Church for the latter to keep its mouth shut. No force on Earth can do that on the Vatican, remember. Or else the Church will mastermind the economic collapse and fragmentation of the world power involved, this being its sanguine leverage against any arrogantly abusive power.

[28 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

ILLUMINATI: FRATERNITY OF MALEVOLENT OLIGARCHS

December 3, 2013

ILLUMINATI: FRATERNITY OF MALEVOLENT OLIGARCHS

Erle Frayne Argonza

[Excerpts. Originally titled “The Fraternity of Malevolent Oligarchs & the Iraq War.” Delivered as a speech at the Earthlite, Quezon City, Metro Manila, on Oct. 2003.]

One of the most shocking knowledge that had reached me, through 25 years of inquiry, is the existence of a malevolent secret society whose Initiates have been conspiring for world domination ever since its founding in 1776. I am referring particularly to the Illuminati, established by the Bavarian Joseph Weishaupf, a Jesuit and Freemason, which supposedly uses rituals of the fire element for its initiation rites. Due to its dubious objectives and suspicious activities, the fraternity was ordered abolished by the German princes around 1786. It was forced to go underground, with the promise that one day it shall control the world’s governments, oligarchs, wealth and natural resources, through a tightly hierarchical, totalitarian power arrangement.

It had since recruited fellows from among the nobles, aristocrats, and financial-commercial oligarchs. Likewise did the society recruit scientists, philosophers, artists and professors, who have served as its articulators in the open sphere. With the great amounts of wealth at their possession, the Illuminate oligarchs were able to extend their tentacles gradually through the past centuries. Today they are able to control governments and international institutions by installing directly their fellows, called Illuminates, or by designating people from their organizational vehicles, such as the Council on Foreign Relations, Tri-Lateral Commission, and Freemasonry. They control minds through various doctrines, and by controlling the main media corporations of the North. They control business through the same means, and by a new vehicle, the Bilderberger group. They won’t stop thinking of nasty means just to ensure their steady and stable positioning over the globe.

To note, while it is true that the Illuminates represent the capitalist `Who is Who’ in the northern oligarchy (Europe, North America, Japan), it is likewise true that they supported anti-capitalist revolutions to be able to (a) install totalitarian regimes under their favor, (b) who can in due time permit entry of the grand capitalists’ business interests in their backyards, and whose totalitarian regimes can serve as rationale for sending an invasion force from outside under the guise of advancing the interests of the free world. The intervention of the Illuminates, together with another secret fraternity the Priory of Sion, in the Soviet revolution, through the summoning of Vladimir Lenin with monetary support of $20 million, is classic. The American Illluminates likewise did their job, by donating millions of money to the purse of Leon Trotsky and subordinate cadres, with the order of a rendezvous with Lenin. The specific task was to exterminate the Russian Czar and family members, as a matter of revenge against a past Russian monarch’s refusal to join in a conspiracy to declare the Hapsburg as the ruling house of a United Europe, with Austria as capital (the plan failed to materialize due to the Czar’s non-committal inaction). Note that Lenin himself had exposure to the Ordo Templi Orientii, another secret society, and was personally initiated by the most dreaded black magician of the 20th century, Alesteir Crowley.

Saddam Hussein by the way is a high degree freemason. Likewise all the presidents of the U.S.A. are high-degree freemasons, plus the current president of the Palestinian Authority, Y. Arafat, and past Premiers of Israel such as Rabin. It was the British and Americans who actually installed Hitler, an initiate of a satanical fraternity called the Germanenorden, to power. By the same token they installed Hussein to power, with the object of putting a counter-check on the possible excesses of Islamic Iran. Note that the European Illuminates likewise assisted the Ayatollah Khomeini in the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, which eventually saw the rise of a militant version of Islam.

 

Freemasonry, which used to be a vehicle of the “Goodly Company”–the Great White Brotherhood, the cosmic fraternity of all spiritual masters and their under-study assistants–was captured by the Illuminati through the penetration of the fraternity by American Illuminate Albert Pike and his brethrens in the mid-19th century. The said American Illuminates, so bigoted and racist as they were, were the ones behind the cabal that desired for a separate Confederate States of America, which when materialized will actually be subordinated to the British empire. Failing in their avowed goal, they managed to constitute the Ku Klux Klan to continue to harass the blacks and the true libertarians of America….So now, back to Saddam, it seems that his time is up–as it appears to us–as he has already done his assignment well, with no further purpose for the global oligarchy.

Prior to this decade, to recall, the secret government (Illuminati) was able to reverse public policies all over the world from dirigiste to free market ones. They began by first hatching the neo-liberal ideology, through the University of Chicago economists Friedman and Hayek, which later was popularized by professors of the same institute. The same doctrine became the basis for an experiment conducted through the IMF’s top guinea pig, the Philippines, of a free floating exchange rate beginning in 1969, aimed eventually at terminating the gold standard and the institutionalization of free markets of currencies all over the world. The gold standard was eventually killed by 1971, after the successful Philippine experiment, and by then the hyper-conservatives in the North began hatching the idea of expanding the doctrine to all areas of economic life. By 1979, privatization became sacrosanct through Britain’s Thatcher. By 1980, Reagan of America extended the doctrine to deregulation, trade liberalization, and decentralization. In the 3rd world the policies came to be called `structural adjustments,’ which included tax reforms, devaluation of currencies, government downsizing, and decreased budgets for social & economic services (“no to fiscal stimulation”). The national economies then became integrated into a globalized order, as the term globalization was to be popularized by the Japanese subalterns of the oligarchs such as Ohmae and Fukuyama.

The objective is of course to empower Big Business all the more, so that the entire planet will be a maneuverable backyard for heightened operations. Eventually, the secret government wants national borders erased, as this is now happening, and a world government installed–under their auspices, of course. The events leading to the rise of the world order will see, among other things, the rise of fascistic movements and regimes, inclusive of ones that go under new names such as Islamic fundamentalism, Christian fundamentalism, neo-realism and new utopianism. Likewise the rise of new academic doctrines such as the `clash of civilization’ and the `strong state’ theory. Through series of violent events world-wide, which will lead to increased panic and terror, the doctrines will increasingly rationalize the need to recede the rule of law, rule of restraint, rule of dialogue, and civil liberties, and, consequently, the legitimation of fascist totalitarian regimes.

 

Let us take a cursory glance at some of the sordid operations of this cabal of sinister plotters. Through a liberalized currency market throughout the world, the financier Illuminates, through the front man George Soros, are able to effectively attack the currencies of various nations. George Soros’ financial assets alone can affect transactions worth $100 billion per day. Compare this to the dollar reserves of the Philippines of $15 billion. Combining their assets, the financial oligarchs can actually whack combinations of nations including the U.S.A. through financial meltdowns alone. This they first experimented on Britain in the early 1990s. Why Britain? one may ask. Note that Britain, or England, had long lost its sovereignty, over 200 years back yet, so that the devastation of the British economy will not hurt cold-blooded evil conspirers among the British oligarchs. As mentioned earlier, the Illuminates don’t know national loyalties, and will take no second thought to destroy the economies of their own countries of origin.

Through Bin Laden and his contemporaries, the Illuminates, via the British and American intelligence agents serving as couriers, can pass on money. The money can then be forwarded to various terrorist groups in the planet, who naively believe that Bin Laden, paymaster of the oligarchical cabal, is amessiah. Note that the Bin Laden family has investments in the Bush oil companies in America. On June of 2001, according to counter-intelligence reports, Bin Laden was actually cited with CIA agents somewhere in the Middle East, a clear 3 months prior to the Sept. 11 terror attack in the USA. The role of terrorist groups is to create maximum organized chaos, as they actually receive instructions from British & American espionage handlers. Every time terrorist trouble occurs in one hot spot in the planet, massive funds transfers occur in that area due to financial panic. The British oligarchs control 36%of the world’s financial flows, and the Americans 15%, or a total 51% controlled by just two groups of oligarchs who will benefit the most from such funds transfers. Thus, the terrorists supplement the worksof aboveground speculators and fund managers represented by George Soros. Aside from this, the terrorist champions also serve as assassins for the oligarchs and intelligence agencies, as this task was already perfected in the 1960s yet, to recall the likes of Italy’s Red Army and Carlos “The Jackal.” Through the espionage rings, the Illuminates are able to penetrate and control mafia rings all over the world. It is through these rings that drugs and armaments transactions can be done, to be able to salt foreign currencies, earn and spend money beyond the oversight functions of accounting government agencies. Should a criminal lord know too much information, given that organized crime circles are not the best people to be trusted with information, then he can be easily terminated with dispatch. This was what befell the drug lord Escobar of Colombia, a country that only has a paper government today, where actual power resides in the hands of drug lords. In Colombia, whenever big bankers and investors from the North seek permission to establish or diversify business, they would report directly to the drug lords rather then the official government.

In the case of the control for the Presidency of the U.S.A., the classic case of Illuminati intervention was the attempted coup d’etat on President Clinton Bill Clinton, who refused to further allow speculators to raid the pension and health funds, and whose wife Hilary was a militant advocate of health and pension welfare, was greatly weakened through the sexual offender case filed against him, a case that was clearly masterminded by Rightwing elements and the Illuminati. The American presidency, already weakened by past machinations of American Illuminates whom the late Pres. Eisenhower refers to as the “Military-Industrial Complex” and which he fought tooth and nail behind the scenes, was weakened all the more, and remains to be a lame duck institution till this day.

 

Going back to the 2nd World War, a British Illuminate, Bertrand Russell, a white supremacist who masqueraded as a peace and human rights advocate, was among those who pressed the American authorities to drop The Bomb on Japan. As Gen. McArthur correctly assessed then, Japan was already so weak as to surrender officially, and that, per report from an American spy deployed in Italy, the Japanese Emperor was in fact already negotiating for the surrender. No less than the Pope enthusiastically volunteered to intercede for the Allies, and was willing to transact with the Japanese Emperor. But behind the scene, Russell and his ilk worked ignominiously, by summoning their creations Szilard and Oppenheimer to finalize the prototype of The Bomb and convince cold-blooded hawks in the Establishment to drop Bombs on Japan. To the shock and consternation of both McArthur and Eisenhower, two Bombs were dropped on Japan, which burned innocent women, old folks and children to death.

Back to the 90s, to recall, the then Princess of the U.K., Dianne, married to Windsor, was sincerely campaigning for the prohibition of mines, land mines or whatever, as instruments of warfare. She badly hurt the Illuminates who had billions of dollars staked in the mine business, and was embarrassing the Queen of England, a mega-investor in Illuminati network corporations added to the scandalous insult Dianne’s extra-marital affairs were causing on Windsor. At the peak of her campaign, which won her international accolades, she was ordered for termination by the Illuminati, with the possible collusion of the Queen of England herself, the world’s richest woman. Of course, it was made to appear that the assassination was an accident.

Here at home, we are witness to the flourishing of NGOs, which appear to be so valiantly audacious in clashing with Establishment, and sincerely philanthropic by their nature. But behind some NGOs, more so those coming from abroad to establish branches here, are British and American spies, gathering information about the grassroots. Those environmental NGOs, such as the Greenpeace, by propagandizing against manufactures in the 3rd world through toxic labels as `smoke stack’ industry, are actually working for the interests of financial and commercial oligarchs who want to kill 3rd world industrialization and further subordinate them through debt burdens and IMF prescriptions. These same NGOs, through works among Indigenous Peoples, have been gathering information about natural resource endowments in various ecosystems, as well as keeping stock of militants among the host populations. Human rights groups are not spared, such as the Amnesty International, that actually work for the British intelligence SAS that reports directly to the Prince of England. Some other NGOs, inclusive of inconspicuous yoga groups originating from India, are used as transit clubs for drug deals, illegal merchandise, hot money, and information by British spies.

 

The Illuminates surely have working committees in Asia, comprising of notable politicians and local intelligence assets, who, while not necessarily Illuminates, are willing tools for the grip effect aim of the Illuminati in our backyard. I am sure that Fidel Ramos, Lee Kuan Yew and Anwar Ibrahim are among the chief articulators of Illuminati-sponsored laissez faire public policies. The monarchy of Brunei works directly for the British and American intelligence community, ensuring an observation post in the region. When the Philippines 2000 (Medium Term Philippine Development Plan 1992-98) was drafted and disseminated, I received information from the local guru F.F., an advertising man whose firm was among those contracted by government for a public relations blitz, that globalist diabolical fraternities are happy over the pursuit of their policy initiatives in this country… With possibly hundreds of CIA agents planted in government hierarcy (both Congress & Executive), military & police, business sector, NGOs, church, media, and rebel organizations, added to the assets of the British Intelligence, the colonizing, balkanizing, and terrorizing schemes of the evil cabal will proceed to ensure control over the islands and its vast reserves of untapped energy and mineral resources, as well as to divisively control the ASEAN region. Today, they wish to destroy the autonomous ASEAN and build a military union under their control, while continuing to balkanize Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Burma, and every other country that must tow their line.

The latest scheme of the Illuminates concerning Southeast Asia is to encourage the growth of nationalist movements under their tight grip, or which they will initiate and lead. The objective is to isolate China, which is too late for the British and Americans to destroy whether economically or militarily. Witness the rise of new nationalist movements in the Philippines that have begun to make ripples in the media. New movements are now being hatched in Burma, Thailand, Indonesia. The use of these forces differ from the Islamic terrorists, whose role is chiefly to distract and show semblance of invincibility through coordinated bombing runs across wide territories. The nationalist movements are legal, with counterparts being organized in the officers’ corps of the national armies, and are coherent a collective force as to possibly lead national governments by the years 2004 through 2010. These preparations are being done with haste today, as hardline nationalists are rising to power inside the Chinese Communist Party. So, preparations are under way, as former anti-nationalist & anti-communist local spies are planted everywhere to begin `patriotic organizing.’

 

Let’s now go back to Saddam. As one can read in the media, the plan is to fragment Iraq, with the main Sunni portion to be integrated into Jordan whose king reports to the Illuminati through the CIA and the British MI groups. It is too bad for Saddam’s Ba’ath party, for failing to accelerate the production of nerve gas at the minimum. The said weapons, possessed by such countries as Iran and North Korea, could have been used as a leverage, now that the northern sponsors have appeared bellicose towards Iraq. That is, with nerve gas at least, Saddam could say “let us get down and talk or else I’ll bomb a million people in Israel and another 2 million in Saudi Arabia,” a line that can zipper the mouths of Bush and Blair. Such is the situation for North Korea, which the Bush-Blair clowns cannot just touch due to its developed weaponry, or else a million people in South Korea and another 2-3 million in Japan can be marched to the cemeteries soon. Irony of all ironies, the U.S.A. is even building nuclear reactor breeders in North Korea worth $4 billion plus! Saddam just doesn’t have his luck enough, and so he is as expendable as others before him such as the Shah of Iran. As one can see, pan-Arab nationalism–advocated by Saddam and the Ba’ath Party–used to be an effective ally of the northern oligarchs in checking the southern advance of the Soviet Union and the possible disloyalties of conservative Arab states. The era of Arab nationalism had already receded, and with its gradual withdrawal came the rise of Islam. It seems that in the new arrangement, the oligarchy is prepared to drop militant Arab nationalism in favor of militant Islam, though in appearance it seems to display some modicum of sympathy for the Palestinian state. Having lost control over Illuminati assets such as Saddam and Arafat, the global oligarchs would want the British and Americans to exercise direct control of the area itself through military presence, as they have successfully done in Afghanistan. The plan is to eventually destroy the Arab states, with the collusion of the Opus Dei forces who have been salivating for a re-conduct of the ancient Crusades to once and for all exact revenge on all Moslems. A later phase of the plan would be to destroy Iran and its client states in Central Asia, possibly with the use of satellite-guided Neutron Bombs that have been installed up in space since the Reagan era yet. Meanwhile, as the Iraq warfare scheme is being finalized in the work desks, the populations of Africa are massively decimated by famines, wars, and biological warfare experiments hatched by the evil…

NAZI HEALTHCARE AGENDA RISING IN AMERICA

November 27, 2013

NAZI HEALTHCARE AGENDA RISING IN AMERICA

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

It is night time as I write this note. The easterly winds have been blowing, seemingly reminding us here of the coming hot days. While this happens, winter has been bringing storms in America, storms that accompanied the torpedoing of the new health bill, the torpedo ‘storm troopers’ being the neo-fascistic ‘Tea Party’ of the Republican Party.

 

The world is watching the unfolding events in America concerning health care. This analyst is among those keenly interested, as the matter of making health care accessible to everyone in my own country has been a mind-boggling challenge for the development experts. We have been scouting around for models of health care accessibility, and the concept of ‘universal healthcare’ that some experts are espousing in the USA is worth examining.

 

A question that arises from the unfolding events is this: is health care headed for a new summer in America, or is it moving towards a long winter? The enthused readers can go ahead and choose to discuss the matter, and generate their own opinions about it.

 

My own reflection about the matter makes me conclude preliminarily that America’s health care is heading towards a parallelism with the Nazi health care of the Hitler’s heydays in Germany. Nazi policy in health means a dichotomous delivery of access to health: make those strongest physically and mentally have access to state-sponsored health care, while close the access to those who are the weakest.

 

To reduce the cost of sustaining a state-sponsored health care program, eliminate those who are the weakest. Round up those with lingering ailments, the lame and blind, the ‘subhuman’ or below-normal intelligence, and so on, line them up on the wall and machine gun them to death.  

 

My own reading of the events in America makes me see, among other things, the increasing closure of health care to the impoverished families and individuals there. Poverty now exceeds 40 Millions of Americans, with the Blacks and Latinos comprising the greatest percentage of ethnicities below poverty line.

 

It seems, as of now, that no one single political force has a monopoly of Nazi-type health policies there. True, the fascist wing of the Republicans, coming under the names of ‘Tea Party’ and ‘neo-conservatives’, have deep, elitist, condescending scorn for poor folks and colored peoples who are receiving too much state attention via welfare subsidies for health. But that is belaboring the obvious.

 

There are forces within the Democrat Party—masquerading in the mantle of liberalism—who would have none of the drift of America towards a Welfare State akin to what befell Europe. They know that America’s coffers don’t cough up enough funds for subsidies, so what they do is pretend to be pro-people by voting for bills that allocate greater state subsidies for health care.

 

Such forces are making use of political parties as Trojan Horses to wage a sadistic attack against the poor people of America. They will brook no quarters in excluding the poorer folks, including immigrants, from mainstream health care, and they commit the heinous act through rigmaroles of legislative fiats.

 

While such new Nazis, and real Nazis to stress the point, fiddle their superficial policy agenda and do backroom maneuvers that concern health care, hundreds of thousands of poor folks die yearly of every kind of ailment there. By dilly-dallying on the galvanization of the ‘universal health care’ idea alone, numerous dying folks are already being sacrificed in the altar of Evil there.  

 

Let us all watch closely the events concerning health care, and see what happens after another year will elapse. If it will be so easy to forecast that more Americans are being kept out of the health care circuits, then rest assured a Nazi killer agenda is in place to satisfy the sadistic lust for blood by demoniacs in the Establishment.

 

That being so, the rest of the world, more so the emerging markets, will add another reason to their rising list of rationales for ignoring America as a recognized leading state by showing leadership through example. The year 2012 will be a clear turning point, when nations will decide whether there is still an iota of leadership that America can demonstrate.

 

Health is wealth, and a nation that closes health care access to its people is a nation without soul and conscience. Other nations should move on in life without that soul-less state to reckon with.

 

[Philippines, 17 February 2011]

 

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PORK BARREL SCAMS’ ADDRESSING IS POSITIVE SIGN FOR GOVERNANCE

November 20, 2013

PORK BARREL SCAMS’ ADDRESSING IS POSITIVE SIGN FOR GOVERNANCE

 

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

Pork Barrel talk has become outlandishly stylish a gibberish of sorts for all stakeholders in the Philippines. Public outrage has been relentless since the scam involving a certain Janet Napoles’ and her politician beneficiaries’ plunders via the pork barrel were exposed to the light of day.

 

I may have been silent about the matter in my own blogs, as I preferred to write more positive developments about the sciences and technologies over the last two (2) years. My acquiescence however shouldn’t be equated to being apathetic about public issues concerning good governance. On the contrary, I was ever a social activist since my youth days, and I do silently support the tax payers’ crusade to ax those found criminally liable for diverting tax monies to their own pockets.

 

First of all, the Philippines is blessed with a Strong Civil Society. Social activism and dynamism for nigh three decades past already have been coming forth from civil society. The constant, sustained engagement of civil society with the Philippine state has in fact been a hallmark of good governance measures. Many economic and social reforms of a national character did spring off from civil society formations, and those reforming tasks continue till these days in order to solve problems of marginalization and mass poverty.

 

Contrasted to the Strong Civil Society, which renders it among the exemplars for studies internationally in political science and sociology, is a Weak State. Patrimonial interests of diverse natures continue to wield power and influence over the Philippine state and its purses which continues the history of ‘bureaucrat capitalism’ or ‘crony capitalism’ in the Philippine context.   

 

Albeit, in fairness to state players, reforms of governance institutions have been ongoing for over a decade already. For instance, the tax bureau, audit commission, justice system, and public works department have undergone reforms. The results of such reforms paid off as the Philippines’ credit standing, global competitiveness, and related indicators zoomed up very significantly as of late.

 

Now here comes the pork barrel scam centering on this obnoxious evil figure Napoles, even as another brewing scam investigation involves a shadowy ‘Madam Arlene’. Napoles engaged legislators and local government officials, while Ma’am Arlene engaged the Supreme Court and justice system. The Napoles-centered scam is now being addressed, while state bureaucrats search the Earth for the shadowy Arlene.

 

As of this writing, the Supreme Court already decided 14-0, declaring henceforth that the Philippine Development Assistance Fund or PDAF, pork barrel in layman’s term, is unconstitutional. This is truly a landmark decision, thanks to the civil society groups that lobbied the Supreme Court to rethink its earlier decision on the matter. So even the judicial branch of state is addressing the pork barrel issue, brooking no quarters with its added declaration that those state officials who personally benefited from pork barrel over the last 20 years are liable for criminal offense and should be penalized thereof.

 

Which brings us to the conclusion: the Pork Barrel Scam is a positive thing for good governance. The scams are being properly addressed, and it doesn’t need a sophistical mind to see that any social problem that is appropriately addressed is a positive thing. A social problem that remains un-addressed is a negative thing, such as many crime cases that remain unreported or unresolved.

 

Being a positive thing, the moment that the criminal cases will begin to show progress, as one by one the involved politicians will be incarcerated for their indubitable evil, the rating of the Philippines in the global competitiveness indicators will move up again. I have no doubt about this development. Napoles is in jail, and before her there was the corrupt former president Erap Estrada who spent 7 years in jail, so it should be clear to intelligent observers that it is a different time in the Philippines today as big fishes are getting criminalized and jailed for their heinous or sordid crimes, therefore the competitiveness of PH will go up along the way.

 

Eradicating graft in itself takes a long time to execute, and nothing can eradicate graft completely. The sociologist Emile Durkheim said in his classic books over a century ago that there shall always be criminals, as there shall always be deviants in society, for we are not a people who are complete saints but rather ones who have to deal with our own ‘insatiable desires’ that propel us to commit deviations (‘sins’ in church language) such as crimes.

 

Society and its institutions can only progress step by step towards desired ends. So will it be for instituting reforms towards good governance that will hopefully lead to a Strong State in the future. Civil Society is really strong in the Philippines, while the business community is nearly a Strong Market as corporate governance reforms were instituted over the last 2 decades. Witnessing the transformation of the Philippine state into a strong one isn’t far-fetched, but this will proceed on parri passu basis and not as an overnight phenomenon.

 

[Manila, 20 October 2013]

IS DEGLOBALIZATION POSSIBLE?

October 21, 2013

IS DEGLOBALIZATION POSSIBLE?

 

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

Globalization has traversed a historic track that is considerably long and expansive in impact at this juncture. Curiously, certain forces are working hard to de-globalize the world, so let me raise the question: is deglobalization possible?

 

Before anything else, a reflection on the meaning of the ‘globalization’ term. Globalization is delimited to the integration of national economies into a seamless planet-wide borderless economy, as this was the original meaning of the term.

 

There are so many insurgent voices around the globe today that are agitated by their own painful experiences in the aftermath of the official effectuation of the 1994-signed treaty called the GATT-UR. That fiat was largely binding on the states that forged and signed it, binding thereof on the economic life of member nations of the World Trade Organization that the treaty created.

 

The core principle behind globalization is free trade which in turn is based on laissez faire doctrine. Already rotting in the dustbins of archives for some time, as an obsolete stinking doctrine, laissez faire was suddenly revived and revved up globally to forge free trade. Largely British in origin (recall the Scottish physiocrats), free trade soon caught the obsessive attention of predatory financiers and technocratic subalterns who then transformed it into a global phenomenon.

 

Japanese technocrats then picked up the free trade resonance and concocted the term globalization. Kenichi Ohmae is the topgun Japanese thinker of globalization, which was then copycat by other Japanese thinkers. By the 1980s, the Japanese economic diplomacy corps then convinced their Americans and Western counterparts to accept the term and build up on the core principles of global free trade in order to forge a seamless, borderless planetary economy.

 

I’ve writ too many articles already about the subject, and spoke in many occasions about globalization and free trade from the 1990s to the past decade. I was among the insurgent voices then, being among nationalist ideological blocs in Manila that opposed the PH Senate’s signing of the GATT-Uruguay Rounds. I kept on drumming up the threat side of globalization till last decade.

 

Beginning this decade though, I shifted mode to a silent observer. I witnessed the win/win impact of globalization on developing economies. Fact is, the very world powers that arm-twisted small countries to sign open up their economic borders to free trade, and later to arm-twist small nations to sign the globalization treaty, were hit so badly by depression (i.e. Great Recession), which I did forecast to happen using a long-wave Kondratieff model.

 

Now my very own country, the “sick man of Asia” in the years ’83 through ’86, is the ‘economic wellness’ model of Asia today. Should I still care to yield to the herd trend of insurgent voices and declare “down with globalization?”… Philippine economy had developed a ‘firewall’ against globalization’s harsh effects, and so had our neighbors in Asia, amazing grace! See how we in Ph swim along the globalization ocean?

 

Not only that, my very own country’s domestic economy had forged a ‘firewall’ against the damaging effects of political crises and fall-outs. I remember well, in my studies on international political economy, that Italy was among the first to build such a firewall, if my analysis serves me right, whereby its economy kept on running amidst the perpetual political squabbles in the legislature and constant changes of prime minister and cabinet composition. So the Philippines has become the “Italy of Asia” (smile!).

 

Well, folks out there, I am not going to advance my own answers to the ‘deglobalization thesis’ or challenge. What I can say is this: I am getting more at home with globalization today. It had even spread to other areas of life: culture, society, civil society, and so on, such as the ‘globalization of Christmas’ which I find as a very positive event.

 

[Manila, 14 October 2013]   

CRITICAL STATE OF PLANET

May 12, 2012

CRITICAL STATE OF PLANET

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Social scientists over the last decade came up with researches that show an alarming increase of patters pointing to a critical state of the planet. Man’s intrusive intervention in many spheres of life has scaled up, sufficient to cause a tipping point towards even greater uncertainties.

The interconnectedness of politics, economics, culture, and institutions of private sphere has entered a seemingly new phase of even greater couplings. Thus, the very wellbeing of human civilization is at risk of catastrophic results of interventions that tip off to the uncontrollable.

Today, there has been a greater need for scientists across disciplines to come together and look at the problems in multi-faceted ways, added to anticipating models of emerging realities that project the different dimensions concerned.

Below is a very interesting sum up of the views of scientists on the state of the planet.

[Philippines, 19 April 2012]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/planet-under-pressure-2012-2/news/planet-is-in-critical-state-warns-science-declaration.html
Planet is in critical state, warns science declaration
Aisling Irwin
30 March 2012 | EN | ES
[LONDON] Earth has only one decade to pull itself back from various environmental ‘tipping points’ — points at which the damage becomes irreversible, scientists have said.
If it fails to do so, it is likely to witness a series of breakdowns in the systems that sustain people, such as oceans and soil, according to a major meeting on safeguarding the planet’s future, the Planet Under Pressure conference (26–29 March).
“Research now demonstrates that the continued functioning of the Earth system as it has supported the wellbeing of human civilization in recent centuries is at risk,” said some of the world’s leading documenters of global environmental change in the first ‘State of the Planet’ declaration.
They also admitted that scientists could no longer continue with ‘business as usual’.
This article is part of our Planet Under Pressure 2012 coverage — which takes place 26–29 March 2012. To read insights from our conference team please visit our blog.
“We have been far better at documenting the problem and understanding the processes than engaging with solutions,” said Mark Stafford Smith, science director of the Climate Adaptation Flagship at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia’s national science agency.
Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Environment Institute, in Sweden, said it was “absolutely shocking” that scientists had not answered questions such as “how much biodiversity [do] we need in order to sustain landscapes for our economy?”.
He told a press conference: “I and many scientists are still profoundly frustrated that we don’t know whether we are heading for a two degree or six degree temperature rise — that’s not satisfactory for any decision makers”.
The declaration says that three changes over the last decade make scientists’ warnings qualitatively different from before.
First, a decade of research is leading to the consensus that we inhabit a new epoch, the Anthropocene, in which humans are dominating planetary-scale processes.
Second, science has revealed that many planetary processes are interconnected, as are, increasingly, society and the economy. This interconnectedness can confer stability and accelerate innovation, says the declaration, but it also leaves us vulnerable to abrupt and rapid crises.
Third, social research has demonstrated that our current ways of governing global environmental change are not dealing effectively with problems such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Many researchers conclude that local, national and regional partnerships are also needed as an insurance policy against failures of governance at a global level.
The declaration supports some of the ideas that are being promoted for inclusion in the Rio+20 agreement, to be finalised at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (20–22 June) in Brazil.
These include: the need to go beyond GDP (gross domestic product) by taking into account the value of natural capital when measuring progress; a framework for developing global sustainability goals; the creation of a UN Sustainable Development Council to integrate social, economic and environmental policy at the global level; and the production of regular global sustainability analyses.
One key outcome of the meeting was agreement on the need to push forward a scheme to redirect global change science, so-called ‘Future Earth’, which will pull together an wide variety of disciplines to answer questions that societies need to tackle.
Irina Bokova, director-general of UNESCO, who attended the final day, praised the Future Earth initiative for being “unprecedented in its creativity”.
Liz Thomson, executive coordinator of the Rio+20 summit, told the meeting that many of the messages from the scientific community, which has been lobbying for some time over the Rio+20 agreement, had already made it into the ‘zero draft’ of Rio+20’s outcome document, and that the declaration would “increase the pressure on policymakers to get the message and act on it”.
The UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon said in a recorded address that he was “taking forward” a recommendation from his high-level science panel that he appoint a science advisor.
Co-chair of the meeting, Lidia Brito, director of science policy and capacity building in natural sciences at UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), said: “We have a positive message: strong leadership from all sectors, and harnessing [our] increased connectivity, offer hope that the risk of long-term environmental crises can be minimised”.
But some delegates said that while the conference linked natural and social scientists, it was less successful in luring policymakers and business representatives.
Nigel Cameron, president of the US-based Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies, told the meeting that he did not see venture capitalists or heads of research and development from industry “around the table … and the reason for that is that the people around the table don’t want them [there]”.
And others said that scientists might be overestimating the influence they could have. Carlos Nobre, of Brazil’s ministry of science, technology and innovation, talked of “the stark reality of anti-science political power … no matter how good we become as communicators we have to recognize it is very effective at blocking action”.
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VISIONING AFRICAN FUTURE FARMS

May 12, 2012

VISIONING AFRICAN FUTURE FARMS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Africa’s agriculture research & development has come a long way since the ‘take-off’ decades of the post-colonial era. Slow and slowed further by internecine conflicts as well (political-military), conflicts that were bred by the polarity games of the Western oligarchy aimed at controlling Africans in the long term, science R&D as a whole sputtered across the decades.

The landscape has since changed, as political stability in the fractious countries have quite cemented. Funding for research from the emerging markets has salved the funds lack of enthused researchers. End-users have increased from local to global.

Just exactly what innovative ways can be launched across the decades for the whole continent that would, in the main, reverse the food production problems of Africans and ensure food security in the very long run?

An interesting interview of the African food security expert Denis Kyetere is shown below.

[Philippines, 18 April 2012]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/features/q-a-denis-kyetere-on-innovative-technologies-for-africa-s-farmers–1.html
Q&A: Denis Kyetere on innovative technologies for Africa’s farmers
Busani Bafana
5 April 2012 | EN
Kyetere: ‘We must understand the specific challenges our farmers face, prioritize them, and apply science to seeking a solution’
Denis Kyetere, executive director of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation, outlines his vision for the continent’s farmers.
At the start of this year, Denis Kyetere, a prominent Ugandan geneticist and plant breeder, assumed his new post as executive director of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), a non-profit organisation that promotes partnerships to deliver appropriate agricultural technologies to smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Kyetere studied in Uganda, the United Kingdom and the United States. His previous roles include director of research at the Coffee Research Institute, and board chair of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa. Prior to his arrival at the AATF, he had served for five years as director-general of Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organisation.
As a scientist, his achievements include being a member of the research team that identified and mapped the maize streak virus gene 1, and the subsequent development of the virus-resistant maize variety Longe 1, which is now grown widely in Uganda.
SciDev.Net spoke to Kyetere about his vision for the AAFT and the foundation’s efforts in research and technology development for African farmers.
What are your priorities in taking the helm of the AATF?
My key priority will be supporting AATF’s mission — to ensure smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa have access to the same affordable and productive agriculture technologies available to farmers in most parts of the world.
To do this I will focus on innovative partnerships and effective product stewardship. In addition, I want to expand our resource and technology base.
Would you say that current investment by governments and private sector in technology use in agriculture is adequate?
In Africa, it is generally not adequate, especially when one notes that most of the continent is still battling age-old problems of pests and diseases and facing new challenges such as the changing growing conditions caused by climate change.
However, it is important to note that African governments are aware of the need to increase investments in agriculture, as evidenced in the Maputo Declaration in 2003, where governments committed to allocating at least ten per cent of national budgetary resources to agriculture and rural development.
We have also seen encouraging efforts by some countries such as Ghana and Malawi, which have made enormous progress by investing more in agriculture. As a continent, we have still not reached the desired investment levels — levels that will see Africa attain meaningful growth. As historical evidence from places like the United States and Asia shows, investing in agriculture leads to improvements in the broader economy.
Recently Malawi showed that, even with the few challenges that cropped up, indeed, increasing investments in our farmers pays dividends. We need to continue urging our governments to invest more since there is enormous evidence showing that it makes a difference in terms of boosting agricultural productivity and overall economic growth.
Are African farmers taking advantage of the available agricultural technologies to boost food productivity?
In Africa, there are different types of farmers and farming systems that influence technology use.
Large commercial farmers in countries such as South Africa have different needs to smallholders in a country such as Uganda, which makes it difficult to generalise. However, I believe I would not be off the mark to say that technology use is generally low, especially among smallholder, resource-challenged farmers. There are many factors that contribute to this, such as financial constraints, lack of credit, and lack of awareness of available technologies. But perhaps the most crippling aspect is related to market access.
Farmers are entrepreneurs and where opportunities and markets exist, I believe that farmers are entrepreneurs and where opportunities are available and markets exist, they will do what they can to benefit. Where markets are not readily accessible, farmers will see technology investments as a risk. But we also need to expand our extension services so that farmers are at least more aware and able to take advantage of valuable technologies that are appropriate for their farming systems.
The case of maize hybrid seeds is a good example of a beneficial technology that is making a difference in increasing yields but has yet to be widely used by farmers in Africa. Zimbabwe, for instance, was an early beneficiary of hybrid maize [developed through the Zimbabwe national maize breeding programme]. It contributed to doubling maize production between 1980 and 1986.
Which technologies have worked, and which have not, for smallholder farmers in Africa?
I would say technologies that have worked are those that have made a difference to the particular issue that farmers had to address in the first place. Technologies come in different forms, aiming at addressing different constraints and farmers’ selection will be based on their need at the time. A few examples come to mind.
In Kenya, maize yields started to increase following the adoption of hybrid maize varieties and the accompanying high fertilizer use in the 1980s such that by 1986, average national yields were over two tonnes per hectare. To date about 80 per cent of farmers have adopted hybrid maize in the country.
The New Rice for Africa (NERICA) rice varieties developed by the Africa Rice Center have gained popularity among rice farmers in a relatively short period of time. The NERICA varieties have good agronomic performance and are resistant to harsh growing conditions, and have short growth duration. These are traits that are very attractive to farmers. NERICA varieties have shown great potential and are already disseminated on an estimated more than 300,000 hectares.
The other technology that has worked is the fertilizer micro-dosing technique which has reintroduced fertilizer use in countries such as Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa. In West Africa, some 25,000 smallholder farmers in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have learned the technique and experienced increases in sorghum and millet yields of 44 to 120 per cent, along with an increase in their family incomes of 50 to 130 per cent.
How can we best put scientific research on agricultural technologies to practical use in Africa?
First, we must understand the specific challenges our farmers face, prioritise them, and apply science to seeking a solution. Second, we need to ensure policymakers are our partners [and] can consider how certain policies and strategic investments in scientific research can lead to meaningful progress for our farmers and our countries.
Do you think Africa has prioritised the role of research and technology in developing its agriculture?
Yes, I believe it has as different countries recognise that scientific research has a role to play in contributing to overall development and have stated this in their planning documents and even at the continental level. What we may still need to see are more instances in which this stated commitment is put into action, so that research can benefit from country budgets and policy discussions.
Where do you see AATF in five years?
AATF is already making inroads in facilitating the development and delivery of innovative technologies that will make a difference to the livelihood of smallholder farmers in Africa. In five years time some of the projects that AATF is participating in such as striga control in maize will have been widely adopted by farmers and made a difference to their lives.
The Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project, which is developing drought-tolerant maize varieties, and the cowpea improvement project that is working on insect-resistant varieties of the legume, will be at the deployment stage, with some initial varieties already in the hands of local seed companies and farmers. This will be a major milestone for the Foundation.
I also see AATF able to establish new partnerships that will enable it access and add more innovative technologies to its portfolio that will address already identified constraints facing smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In addition, we may also see AATF able to partner with more countries to increase access to appropriate technologies for resource-poor farmers.
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PROF. ERLE FRAYNE ARGONZA WEBSITE: http://erleargonza.com

ARGONZA SOCIAL BLOGS & LINKS:
http://erleargonza.blogspot.com, https://unladtau.wordpress.com, http://www.facebook.com, http://www.newciv.org, http://sta.rtup.biz, http://magicalsecretgarden.socialparadox.com, http://en.netlog.com/erlefrayne, http://talangguro.blogfree.net, http://www.blogster.com/erleargonza, http://efdargon.multiply.com,
http://internationalpeaceandconflict.org, http://erleargonza.seekopia.com, http://lovingenergies.spruz.com, http://www.articlesforfree.net, http://www.facebook.com

DEVELOPMENT SITES:
http://www.adb.org, http://www.asean.org, http://www.bis.org, http://www.devex.com, http://www.eldis.org, http://www.fao.org, http://www.icc-cpi.int, http://www.imf.org, http://www.iom.int, http://www.scidev.net, http://www.un.org, http://www.undp.org, http://www.unescap.org, http://www.unesco.org, http://www.unhabitat.org, http://www.unhcr.org, http://www.unido.org, http://www.unis.unvienna.org, http://www.who.int, http://www.worldbank.org, http://www.wto.org

“GO GREEN NOT NUKES” FOLLOW PH MODEL!

April 24, 2012

“GO GREEN NOT NUKES” FOLLOW PH MODEL!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

That line comes from a retired PH journalist, Crispin Maslog, who urged Asian countries to go green rather than to force nuke energy for power generation. From the very own words of the noblesse environmentalist, Asian countries—the top models of emerging markets—should follow the ‘Philippine way’ of power generation via the RE or renewable energy sources plus minimal fossil fuel but without the nuke option.

I couldn’t find reason to disagree with Herr Environmentalist, even as renewable energy sources in PH, which include hydro power and geothermal, dominate the power generation sector. Fossil fuels such as diesel and coal are down to a manageable level of less than 30% of total sources, though it is possible that coal-fired plants could still go up a bit.

What is clear is that RE has a clear dominance as it eats up over nearly 70% of power generation, and it is still moving up the scale as it replaces those occupied by diesel production plants that are getting mothballed by the year. To back this up, the policy environment for RE has been clearly built up in granite fashion across two (2) decades of backbreaking debates and legislation, thus rendering PH a global model for RE policy.

However, I would want to make exception to nuclear power fusion technology which belongs squarely to RE. China is now perfecting a fusion plant which will be out in commercial quantities by 2016 at the earliest, and I’m all for this energy source. This can be combined with the other RE sources in PH for instance, thus assuring energy needs all the year round for many decades straight.

[Philippines, 16 April 2012]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/climate-change-and-energy/energy-policy/opinions/asia-pacific-analysis-go-green-not-nuclear-1.html
Asia-Pacific Analysis: Go green not nuclear
Crispin Maslog
29 March 2012 | EN
Crispin Maslog says the region should follow the Philippines’ lead and focus on renewable, not nuclear power.
A year after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, questions remain over the role of nuclear power in the developing world, including South-East Asia and the Pacific.
Nuclear power had a renaissance, driven by rapidly growing energy demands, and fading memories of high-profile disasters at Three Mile Island in the United States and Chernobyl, Ukraine.
But Fukushima triggered a re-think about the safety of nuclear power plants. South-East Asian countries, earlier inclined towards nuclear power (especially Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand), are now at the crossroads, quietly revisiting the arguments for and against nuclear plants.
Planning for power
The Philippines was the first country to build a nuclear reactor in South-East Asia — the Bataan Nuclear Plant, completed in 1985. But the US$2.3-billion Westinghouse light water reactor, which has the potential to generate 621 megawatts of power, was never used. Work on the facility stopped after a change of administration because of corruption and safety issues.
Before Fukushima, bills were introduced in the Philippine congress seeking either to restart the reactor, or to close the issue by allowing either conversion or permanent closure. These are now in limbo.
Vietnam seems sure, and has decided to push ahead with its plan for 14 nuclear plants by 2030. Vietnam has an ambitious nuclear energy plan to power 10 per cent of its electricity grid with nuclear energy within 20 years. Its first nuclear plant, Ninh Thuan, is to be built with support from a state-owned Russian energy company and completed by 2020.
But whether nuclear is the solution still needs answering for the rest of the region. Singapore is going ahead with a pre-feasibility study and Indonesia is discreetly proceeding with feasibility studies. Thailand and Malaysia have abandoned their nuclear plans.
Nuclear drawbacks
Economic growth, industrialisation, the escalating price of oil, safer reactor design, and global warming are compelling countries to seek alternatives to fossil fuels.
Opponents of nuclear technology underscore the disadvantages: the high cost of building, running and maintaining nuclear power plants; problems with disposing of radioactive wastes; and difficulties with ensuring environmental and human safety. And although the fuel costs of nuclear plants have been lower than fossil-fuel plants, the construction cost is three times higher.
The risk of accidents is a big concern — their social and economic costs can be huge and long-lasting. For example, Belarus has estimated its economic losses over 30 years due to the Chernobyl disaster at US$235 billion. And 5–7 per cent of government spending in Ukraine still goes to Chernobyl-related benefit programmes.
More recently, Japan has estimated that the Fukushima nuclear accident could cost US$250 billion, including compensation for the 180,000 people moved from the area.
Disposing of radioactive waste remains dangerous and decommissioning the plant when it has reached the end of its useful life is also costly. Plans for storing the very long-lived radioactive wastes in deep geological repositories remain just that — plans. So far no such repositories have been constructed in the region.
And most developing South-East Asian countries still do not have enough expertise to deal with nuclear power safely.
Go for green energy
Until nuclear power plants become cheaper and safer, South-East Asia and the Pacific should choose to support renewable sources of energy.
Renewable sources including water, wind, tidal and solar already provide 20 per cent of global electricity (if hydropower is included), and could supply 77 per cent by 2050.
At the 6th Asia Clean Energy Forum (ACEF) held in Manila in June 2011, Greenpeace suggested that renewable energy plants, particularly wind and solar power, grew in capacity faster than any other power plant technology since the 1990s. [1]
It cited the Philippines as an example for the region. The country aims to make itself the leading geothermal energy producer in the world, to double hydropower capacity and expand the contributions of biomass, solar, and ocean energy.
It is already a leader in the region in harnessing geothermal and hydroelectric energy. In February 2010,The Philippine Department of Energy signed 68 mini-hydroelectric, 5 geothermal, and 17 wind energy contracts amounting to US$1 billion. These projects will generate an estimated capacity of 2,007.5 megawatts.
And one of the largest business conglomerates in the Philippines, Ayala Corp., has a long-standing interest in the renewable energy sector.
How did The Philippines get here? The government got the ball rolling with its Renewable Energy Act in 2008. Funding agencies — like the World Bank and Asian Development Bank — followed with huge energy loans. And private business then started coming in. This may well be a model for other South-East Asian countries to follow.
Crispin Maslog is a Manila-based consultant for the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication. A former journalist, professor and environmental activist, he worked for the Press Foundation of Asia and the International Rice Research Institute.
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PROF. ERLE FRAYNE ARGONZA WEBSITE: http://erleargonza.com

ARGONZA SOCIAL BLOGS & LINKS:
http://erleargonza.blogspot.com, https://unladtau.wordpress.com, http://www.facebook.com, http://www.newciv.org, http://sta.rtup.biz, http://magicalsecretgarden.socialparadox.com, http://en.netlog.com/erlefrayne, http://talangguro.blogfree.net, http://www.blogster.com/erleargonza, http://efdargon.multiply.com,
http://internationalpeaceandconflict.org, http://erleargonza.seekopia.com, http://lovingenergies.spruz.com, http://www.articlesforfree.net, http://www.facebook.com

DEVELOPMENT SITES:
http://www.adb.org, http://www.asean.org, http://www.bis.org, http://www.devex.com, http://www.eldis.org, http://www.fao.org, http://www.icc-cpi.int, http://www.imf.org, http://www.iom.int, http://www.scidev.net, http://www.un.org, http://www.undp.org, http://www.unescap.org, http://www.unesco.org, http://www.unhabitat.org, http://www.unhcr.org, http://www.unido.org, http://www.unis.unvienna.org, http://www.who.int, http://www.worldbank.org, http://www.wto.org