It’s time for a shift to direct democracy, Part 2

(read Part 1)

But it’s not going to be easy

BEFORE I BEGIN, let me announce that I created a Facebook group called Forum for Direct Democracy Philippines, inspired by other direct-democracy campaigning groups like Direct Democracy; Direct democracy, let’s talk about it!; Direct Democracy (Australia); and many more such Facebook gatherings, apart from the direct democracy movements and parties that have sprouted all over the globe, the latest being Direct Democracy Ireland.

Ben Gilroy talks about Direct Democracy Ireland

NOW, MY new Facebook friend and fellow direct democracy campaigner, Occupier Michael Hudson, recently referred us, members of the Forum for Direct Democracy Philippines Facebook group, to a Noam Chomsky piece titled “The Most Powerful Country in History Is Destroying the Earth and Human Rights as We Know Them,” quoting:
     "The process of shaping opinion, attitudes, and perceptions was termed the 'engineering of consent' by one of the founders of the modern public relations industry, Edward Bernays. He was a respected Wilson-Roosevelt-Kennedy progressive, much like his contemporary, journalist Walter Lippmann, the most prominent public intellectual of twentieth-century America, who praised 'the manufacture of consent' as a 'new art' in the practice of democracy.
     "Both recognized that the public must be 'put in its place', marginalized and controlled -- for their own interests of course. They were too 'stupid and ignorant' to be allowed to run their own affairs. That task was to be left to the 'intelligent minority', who must be protected from 'the trampling and the roar of [the] bewildered herd', the 'ignorant and meddlesome outsiders' -- the 'rascal multitude' as they were termed by their seventeenth-century predecessors. The role of the general population was to be 'spectators', not 'participants in action', in a properly functioning democratic society."
     When I re-posted this at the Forum for Direct Democracy Philippines’ wall, my painter friend Marcel Antonio hailed the Chomsky pronouncements and pointed me therewith to another Chomsky oeuvre, this one titled “10 Strategies of Manipulation,” which mentions -- among others -- such techniques as “the strategy of distraction,” “creating problems and offering the solutions,” and “the gradual application of neoliberal conditions at acceptable rates.”
     Then, on the same day, my new Facebook friend Raúl Ibáñez (not the American baseball player) was half-mocking a hype on celebrity senator-elect Grace Poe, and I am referring here to a/n (inadvertent) hype that I think could be part of -- or could be used in -- a possible 2016 queening-of-a-former-pawn venture (called 'promotion' in chess) via a political party’s sponsorship of Ms. Poe as a new Moses. Sure, the senator-elect could prove to be an excellent senator, but when everywhere becomes a showbiz zone managed by showbiz spinners, watched on by us, showbiz suckers, the perpetuation of our ignorance of the issues results, becoming oil to the elite’s engineering of consent.
     Raúl wrote: “There are those who persist to rumor that Ferdinand Marcos fathered a child with Rosemarie Sonora (Susan Roces’ younger sister), and that the rumored child was Grace Poe, now Senator Grace Poe-Llamanzares, the top vote-getter in this year's senatorial election.”

Photo of Rosemarie Sonora from https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=447153745372541&set=a.182637061824212.47943.108377235916862

     Ironically, Raúl would quote his showbiz journalist friend Ricky Lo as having the more journalistic, as against a showbiz- or entertainment-journalistic, account of the senator-elect’s story: “Naturally, Inquiring Minds [which is what Raúl sometimes calls himself] want to know if that urban legend is true, or is Ricky Lo’s wonderful confabulation the actual fact: that the child was discovered by a certain Sayong in a holy water basin at the entrance to the town church in Jaro, Iloilo, and that the child was subsequently adopted by the film-star couple Fernando Poe, Jr. and his wife Susan Roces?” Raúl is referring to what Lo wrote: “The phenomenal rise of Grace Poe in the senatorial race is as amazing as her life story that is stranger than fiction.” ~ Ricky Lo, PhilStar.com.
     Still, Raúl seemed to also half-mock and half thumb-up Sayong’s story when he wrote: “Personally, Yours Truli Ruli prefers the pharaohnic version of the child Moses (adopted as a foundling by the Egyptian royal family) afloat in a river stream swaddled in a flotation device made of bark and twigs.” Fortunately, Lo’s article ends with Poe’s promise to bring back Imelda Marcos’ nutribun program, freeing us momentarily from the significance of her story to the problems of the land (and I say that without meaning to demean the significance of her childhood story in itself).
     Now, again, bearing Chomsky’s above assertions in mind as well as my assertion concerning the potential of the Poe story to a future Poe presidential campaign, which latter assertion would also include other lovely stories (true and/or false) that political career managers can choose to hype up for their various politician clients to an issues-ignorant masses, allow me now to point you to this recent report-cum-claim by Direct Democracy Ireland relating to what has lately transpired since the party’s launch six months ago, which clearly illustrates the steep climb current clamors for direct democracy would have to take to enter the zone of governance long monopolized by society’s dumb-everything-down engineers. A May 22 posting at the party’s website titled “Establishment Fear of DDI Principles Spawns Raft of Attacks” read:
     “Since Direct Democracy Ireland entered the political arena just 6 months ago there has been a marked increase in awareness of the need to change politics to a new, more accountable system. It is becoming obvious that, for all the other options touted by the establishment as ones that would return power to people, the only system that really does the job is a system of direct democracy. . . .
     “The message seems to be gaining traction and it has even reached the Constitutional Convention over the weekend in the debate on electoral reform. Raised from the floor by a man known only as Kieth in the Q&A session on Saturday, direct democracy entered the discussion, and by Sunday was one of the 4 topics voted to be brought forward for further discussion over the next 3 weeks.
     “The pre-ballot discussion only mentioned direct democracy for less than a minute, highlighting only the option to call referendums.
     “So, from the briefest mention direct democracy has attracted enough interest with the people in the room to be the third most popular issue to discuss in terms of improving the electoral system. How far this issue goes depends on how it is discussed in the conference and whether they invite any speakers at the conference with good knowledge of direct democracy that will convey its positive aspects well to the room.
     “In reality, though, this body is only an advisory group and all recommendations are simply that, advisory, and it is at the liberty of the sitting government to decide whether they adopt any of the proposals from the convention. The likelihood of direct democracy being adopted by the establishment is highly unlikely by the way they have responded to the idea so far. . . .
     “It has been a very strange experience bringing this idea forward for us in DDI because although it has created quite a stir among the people, and when the people hear about it they love the idea, the reaction of political parties and media is by contrast confusing if not predictable. It seems to have made a lot of politicians and media outlets very nervous and reactionary, and behave in seemingly irrational ways. . . .”


TO REPEAT what the website posting asserts, the contrast between the Irish people’s reaction to direct democracy’s articulated proposals (articulated to them, the people) and major political parties’ as well as the oft-conscripted media’s reaction to the same is to be expected.
     However, there is an element in the major parties’ rhetoric all over the world that should not be dismissed. And that is the rhetoric that solicits the public’s support, in turn promising public empowerment. Conservatives and neoliberals hype up half-truths about their programs’ being the pro-people ones. And social liberal parties, aware of the masses’ often cynical approach to political taglines, have recently sought alliances with smaller, more grassroots-deriving parties or movements who could help carry the bigger party’s espoused pro-people stance with the strength of authenticity.
     But in the Philippines, it has become a post-Marcos era tradition to include masses-deriving left or left-of-center elements for the major parties’ respective media image. It’s not shocking to see business mogul leaders of perceived-as-conservative parties raising the hands of progressivists during elections, even maintaining the relationship beyond, in one form or another. In the post-Corazon Aquino and post-Fidel Ramos era, Joseph Estrada’s party backed by Chinese-Filipino big business interests called itself the Force of the Filipino Masses (Puwersa ng Masang Pilipino), with Estrada himself and his lumpenproletariat movie roles’ image driving the force while hiding a China-trading lumpenbourgeoisie direction. (Estrada’s first executive order as president “of the masses” was to withdraw government claim [on behalf of coconut farmers] on the coco-levy fund-bought shares at San Miguel Corporation in favor of Chinese-Filipino mogul Danding Cojuangco, former [Marcos-era] guardian of the fund; Estrada’s gesture was promptly checked by the media, notably the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a paper that would catch Estrada’s long-standing ire.) The controversial presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, meanwhile, also intermittently prided itself as a populist regime while flaunting a royalist indifference towards national welfare and corruption.
     The Benigno Aquino III presidency, widely perceived as genuinely social liberal and reformist, has had its share of politically pragmatic alliances, ranging from those with sons and daughters of the plutocracy to those with left-of-center party-list representative groups like Akbayan. And we cannot deny that Akbayan has indeed served the people’s voice well, even sometimes outwardly persevering within the Aquino coalition that has been slow in prioritizing the party’s pet bills, including the Reproductive Health Bill (now law, albeit still Supreme Court-injuncted as of this writing) and the more delayed Freedom of Information Bill. Still, some in the left of center (and especially the Left) have been averse to Akbayan’s perseverance, some going as far as to call the group a sellout (figuratively and literally).
     Akbayan’s candidate for senator Risa Hontiveros was included in the President’s coalition roster of candidates for the 2013 general election. And although she failed to win, there is still no denying the fact that her presence in the president’s team of candidates helped define the complete image Aquino’s government wanted to paint itself with. And despite the accusations of having sold out, Hontiveros and her party (which latter is looking to win in the still-being-counted-as-of-this-writing party-list representation contest) were quite consistent in focusing on the issues the party and Hontiveros deemed as the only rationale for their candidacies, concerns these were that sounded sincere, authentic, and carried nary a tinge of having sold out, at least ideologically. The below is one of the Facebook posters of Hontiveros that reiterated her solid philosophy to adorn her concession; it made the rounds of her support sites as well as Facebook in general:

Facebook poster borrowed from https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=602933896386311&set=o.146929282116656&type=1&theater

     Sounds like a thumb-up for direct democracy, doesn't it? But, assuming this derives from a position still unaware of the reemergence of direct democracy as an alternative system (a reemergence likely driven to the fore by the recent global Occupy Movement, if not simultaneous to it), then this virtual speech would sound like nothing more than lip service from what may be a still pro-representative democracy party-list culture. I say this not to talk down to anyone but to appeal from a certain direction’s position, a position hopeful of being joined by the more genuine party-list parties (if Akbayan is still one of them). But we, direct democracy advocates, can really only begin to judge any small party once we start to hear its disavowals of direct democracy majoritarianism in favor of the minoritarianism of the status quo.
     My question is this: The philosophy behind party-list proportional representation is only one step away from elite representative democracy and a step closer to direct democracy. Therefore, it would be logical for party-list groups (the real ones as against the fake ones) to seek further empowerment by joining a movement for direct democracy, right? Would choosing not to join such a movement contradict a party-list group’s own clamor for proportional representation? Well, not really. But it would reveal a desire to merely own a piece of the pie of the current elitism.
     Here’s what my other Facebook friend, the Pentecostal pastor Mac McCarty, has to say about the party-list parties:
     “If the legislature had been serious about party-lists, they would have simply used the 14 basic sectors … each sector electing its own reps. By mandating party-list 'parties' instead, they have ensured they will never have to face anything other than a weak reflection of the same classic patron/client setup the major parties use.
     “Any party-list party (Akbayan is a prime example) inevitably becomes ensnared in efforts to achieve 'coalition partner' status … preferably w/ the in-power party or the major opposition … thereby competing, one party-list against the other, for 'little brown brother' status, usually w/ an eye toward some windfall government patronage money to increase the party-list’s numbers and status.”
     Still, Mac, I’m always ready for surprises (as I always am for disappointments).


BUT HOW could parties claiming to bring to Congress the voice of the people, i.e. the clamors of the people, be against direct democracy, assuming they are to become its opponents? This early in the post-election season, the Congress-covering media is already abuzz with charter-change rumors. And, with voices like Akbayan’s, is there any chance of getting those voices and other new-Congress small folks to support our rallying cry for stronger direct democracy features in any new Constitution? That is, would a small party like Akbayan join the movement to comprehensively empower the people or will it prove itself to be just another pretender to our elitist culture of legislation? It remains to be seen.
     And what about those small parties who would understandably (because already obviously fake-small) defend elite-exclusive representative democracy? What would they say? Oh, according to Chomsky they would continue to say that the people are “too 'stupid and ignorant' to be allowed to run their own affairs. That task was to be left to the 'intelligent minority', who must be protected from 'the trampling and the roar of [the] bewildered herd', the 'ignorant and meddlesome outsiders' -- the 'rascal multitude' as they were termed by their seventeenth-century predecessors. The role of the general population was to be 'spectators', not 'participants in action'.”
     The poet Bertolt Brecht’s sardonic humor in “The Solution” (1953) put it this way: “Some party hack decreed that the people / had lost the government’s confidence / and could only regain it with redoubled effort. / If that is the case, would it not be simpler / if the government simply dissolved the people / and elected another?”
     And what kind of people are these that need to be dissolved?
     Well, Brecht -- despite his satire -- doesn’t deny that they exist. He even describes them perfectly, thus: “The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”
     And because many agree that the majority of the people are like this, political illiterates, we have had parties that exploit them as well as parties that sincerely seek to represent them. Akbayan claims to be the latter type of party. As does the People’s Political Party of Ontario (click here):
     “The party that serves the needs of all! / BUILDING A POVERTY-FREE ENVIRONMENT. / ‘The PEOPLE’ / The People’s Political Party ... / The party that gives all voters a reason to vote; we inspire non-voters to believe that government can serve all people again!!! / What do we believe, we believe that Building a poverty-free society takes focusing on the issues and pursuing solutions to those issues, ending hunger for all the people takes food, not money. We must inspire more food programs that focus on day to day hunger so as not to create long-term hunger; we must focus on creating affordable housing out of government-owned housing and resources to fit our human need for shelter; we must stand up to abuse of authority by creating public awareness towards those who perform or take part in said abuse … we need to restore reliable services to the people, ending the fear of the public for usage of our health care facilities; we must create a people-focused environment; we must create income for those on social services, geared to cost of living; we must defend the rights of all to provide their needs and others’ needs in their time of need … we must and will create jobs by giving more employment-support opportunities to small businesses and self-employed individuals; our primary goal is advocacy for children’s rights to a better future and the restoration and improvement of our environment; we focus on the issues and solutions to those issues. . . .”
     But hopefully they shall not stop at merely representing the 'stupid' but help empower them too. For if, indeed, Akbayan and other party-list parties, along with other independent candidates, have been wont to refer to poll surveys to highlight the popularity of their causes, then they have nothing to fear about direct democracy’s real and comprehensive people-empowerment. Only those who are averse to society’s dynamic intelligence and desires would be afraid of direct democracy.
     But can these frightened parties reverse the global trend of direct democracy’s reemergence as the alternative system of the new oncoming era? A Facebook forum for direct democracy in the Philippines may close, but there’s no saying that another similar movement won’t crop up somewhere else, perhaps in a stronger light.
     Direct democracy is not going to erase the major parties and their little brown brothers, nor will it guarantee an absence of majorial stupidities. But one thing for sure, under a system with direct democracy the people will stop complaining about things they now have the responsibility to know more about if only because they now have the power to talk about them and do something about them on their own. They will also stop complaining about things they voted for in the first place (and also have the power to recall, amend, or repeal). And the things they could only talk about in coffeeshops and birthday and baptismal parties, these they can now resolve by themselves instead of waiting for years for caring representatives to resolve on their behalf, as anyway those caring representatives often end up not representing.
     As for the argument that dreaming of direct democracy in the Philippines is like waiting for crows to grow white feathers, well, that’s what people used to say about getting rid of Marcos or about passing a reproductive health law in Catholic Philippines. I can’t say for now, but while I would agree with Karl Marx that the elite will not easily hand over its exclusive or privileged power to decide on things, which point of view advertently or inadvertently prescribes civil disobedience or even armed revolt as the only available routes for clamors for change, I also am aware that our representative democracy was able to open up once and came up with Republic Act 6735 (The Initiative and Referendum Act). We could actually start with that; ask Congress to make that usable instead of being a mere bric-à-brac on our law-book shelves due to its near-uselessness on the national level.
     As a concession, direct democracy may develop as a gradual reform, which other proponents may see as selling out. But gradual reforms happen firstly because there are people who choose to clamor for them. Secondly, they’re often gradual because there are those who choose to just wait for reform advocates to succeed and would not join the latter in the creation of a reformist wave.
     Every day, Facebook continues to churn out complaining visuals and text about the sorry state of Philippine politics. I can only hope some of these postings can share with me any better solution they might have in mind. So far, I see none. [END OF PART 2]

(read Part 3)

It's time for a shift to direct democracy

IN LESS than a month, Filipinos will flock to the booths to elect their new senators of the state, their provincial district representatives in Congress, their provincial officials, and city or municipality officials. Facebook is filled with an exchange of virtual posters and banners and videos and essays promoting or mocking candidates. But there is no guarantee that the senators or congressmen or officials we'll elect will fulfill promises through legislation or implementation, and we'd have to wait till the end of their term to avenge broken promises with our own promise to ourselves not to reelect them.
     But this morning, my friend the poet Marne Kilates re-posted a video essay, titled "The United States of Inequality," by the American left-liberal journalist and commentator and former press secretary of the Lyndon Johnson administration, Bill Moyers. Among my Facebook friends, I believe it was first posted by the journalist Sylvia Mayuga. Marne tagged me, along with six others, to his video posting, which showed Moyers presenting anecdotal as well as documentary evidence of a broadening gap between a pampered (by government) wealthy class and the burgeoning neglected (by government) poor in his country. Here is that video:

(from http://billmoyers.com/segment/bill-moyers-essay-the-united-states-of-inequality/)

     Marne offered this caption to both describe the video's topic and sentiment as well as pose a challenging question to all those tagged and others: "The bitter truth that no one is talking about in the United States of Silicon Valley (or Texas Instruments): That capitalism is failing or has failed. The inventors of modern democracy have bought and sold FDR's Bill of Rights to corporate lobbyists. Warren Buffet: 'If there was a class war, we have won.' The 1% has won because the system that should protect the 99% has failed."
     This instigated the quick regrouping of my long-silent thoughts on this problematic---of democracy's and capitalism's having failed as the prevalent political and economic systems of much of the world---so to finally make themselves be heard. Time and Newsweek magazines have time and again posed these very same taunting and attractive questions, which perhaps woke many a student (or the students in people) to grab a pen and write their assignment. I grabbed the opportunity.


I SAID, there are democracies and there are democracies. And a representative democracy that cradles an oligarchy is a betrayal of the tenets of democracy.
     But it's quite understandable to me why the US Constitution framers avoided the temptations of direct democracy at the federal level (as against Switzerland, for instance, which embraced it); and that understanding may come from my being an Americanized Filipino, quite familiar with the American experience with oppressive majorities lording it over minorities. But representative democracy, in the US as well as in the Philippines, has also exposed the contradictions within the mother system of democracy, and these contradictions are precisely due to representative democracy's incompatibility with a demos that is largely uneducated, gullible, and manipulable by the magic of public relations, press relations, advertising, and a corruptible privatized media. In essence, such a representative democracy has become a democratic lie, where campaign lies are heeded by duped, ignorant masses who are participants in a vicious cycle of victimization and exploitation. Given this fact, I would argue with America's declarers of independence and say that I'd much rather struggle as a minority within the direct democracy lorded by a majority that may nonetheless be persuadable than struggle within the elite-handled machinery of representative democracy where the entrenched elite always wins.
     Then there are capitalisms and capitalisms. A capitalist system operating through a neoliberal or ultra-free market or right libertarian attitude of governance necessarily begets a society of oligarchies. A capitalist system, meanwhile, allowed to operate by a government of regulations and transparency (allowing freedom of information over corporate books, for instance) begets a society of equal opportunity. The American Dream is founded on the latter. Sadly, the American Dream concept may have been bastardized by a Texan oilman's definition of the phrase, where winners take all and losers go to hell.
     Now, the Moyers video above has a socialist voice to it that seems to want to call out to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal. But there is no poverty of FDRs in American politics. The trap that is hindering progress is representative democracy that has been conscripted by exploiters from the American industrial Right, aided by strong machineries like the Tea Party and Fox News. When such a contaminated representative democracy is applied upon a largely ignorant or poorly informed manipulable demos, whose ignorance is enhanced by a just-as-manipulable media, then there is the logical likelihood of this demos' ignorance manifesting itself in how it votes. For instance, let us assume that you have an FDR in Barack Obama. While you, the ignorant demos, elect a social liberal to the White House because you were persuaded by his speeches of promising to create socialized programs for the impoverished people such as those around wealthy Silicon Valley that Moyers mentions, you also elect people of the Right to Congress because you were persuaded by their speeches promising to create alternative ways of delivering socialized programs that would complement as well as check the President's. Unbeknownst to you, these elements of the Right are sure to stifle or handicap the efforts of the liberal you elected to the White House to deliver all those socialized programs he promised you and you agreed to accept. But you cannot blame yourselves, being ignorant of the stupidity in your act, so you blame the liberal president you elected who has been forced to make concessions here and there just so he can deliver some of the programs he promised stupid you. It is this ignorance in the voter that creates the contradiction in representative democracy that recreates its own perennial failure.
     Now, Philippine politics has the same dilemma. The virtuous idea of check and balance is also constantly hijacked, nay hostaged, by people in Congress who would not stop at merely achieving a lame duck social liberal or progressivist leadership. The ransom is a free and dirty market economy run by elite corporations both legal and not, unhindered, unregulated, untaxed.
     It's neither democracy nor capitalism that has failed, it's the form of democracy we've chosen that has.


MARNE, ONE of the Filipino poets whose politics I admire, said, "there has to be some other way of handling power for the benefit of the majority of the people who are poor. In America or elsewhere, you will immediately be branded socialist or communist or dictatorial. The point is to create an opposite action to the forces of absolute economic power, entitlement, and impunity." Which kind of taunted me to present a Marxist axiom.
     Instead I wrote: The US is not wanting of people in politics who have those very objectives. But the opposition is strong and the masses are easily duped into thinking these other guys are their heroes. In the Philippines, meanwhile, which has the same problem, it's about time we took a second look at Switzerland's direct democracy model (along with the proportionate representation in that country's National Council). That could be the one solution to the problem of oligarchies and "political dynasties" that continue to proliferate in our government and influence daily governance.
     Then, here, a friend of Marne's (Dave B-) offered a quote from Noam Chomsky's book The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many which, he said, "seems relevant as it supposes that the current structure has morphed into something new and different: An executive board-of-sorts corporate structure . . . of the world." And the Chomsky quote goes:

"Throughout history, the structures of government have tended to coalesce around other forms of power — in modern times, primarily around economic power. So, when you have national economies, you get national states. We now have an international economy and we’re moving towards an international state — which means, finally, an international executive.

"To quote the business press, we’re creating 'a new imperial age' with a 'de facto world government'. It has its own institutions — like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, trading structures like NAFTA and GATT [the North American Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, both discussed in the next section of this book], executive meetings like the G-7 [the seven richest industrial countries — the US, Canada, Japan, Germany, Britain, France and Italy — who meet regularly to discuss economic policy] and the European Community bureaucracy.

"As you’d expect, this whole structure of decision-making answers basically to the transnational corporations, international banks, etc. It’s also an effective blow against democracy. All these structures raise decision making to the executive level, leaving what’s called a 'democratic deficit' — parliaments and populations with less influence."

     "There is, however, a glimmer of hope," said Dave, "in that we are at least cognizant of capitalism's unfulfilled promises."
     "The glimmer of hope, maybe, is that we will not just be cognizant of unfulfilled promises but will act on changing the system itself. We have no choice. Rescue the planet from the voracious blind and the power-mad, or perish," Marne seemed to taunt me again with this.
     But here, our Wall Street-based business analyst Peter Casimiro (who fortunately happens to be in a firm he's not embarrassed to belong to) chimed in, saying, "Thanks for the tag, Marne. . . . While I agree that there are inherent problems with both democracy and capitalism, and further argue some of the points you and Jojo [that's me] in particular raise, one thing that's curiously missing is the fundamental understanding that both democracy and capitalism, whether functioning models or dysfunctional models, are indeed determined and controlled by none other than the very same people who suffer or flourish from it. Neither democracy nor capitalism can be corrupted if the masses are not silent victims, or more often the case, abettors to the usurpation of power by its all too familiar hijackers (the political class empowered by law and their evil cohort-cum-boss the economic-elite-cum-slave-owners). Now, what mechanisms would effectively police our insatiable desire to one-up each other? Again, unfortunately, much as the problem lays (or lies . . . take your pick, both are useful descriptions in this case) within, so does the answer---we are after all, like it or not, our brothers' keepers. As for a model to mimic, hmm, perhaps Sweden (still, though not nearly as much as a decade ago, a decent egalitarian one) might be the only one left. But if you're really willing to venture out to no-man's-land (think political economy and capital markets fundamentals), perhaps Bhutan and its GNH index is the most ambitious. In the end, Marx can not be faulted for his famous quip that 'capitalism can not abide by a limit' because he knows all too well that the only reason that is true is because capitalism's formula relies on something inherently flawed---humans."
     Then, here, Peter recommended Thomas Ferguson's book Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Politics.


YES, THE greed of humans.
     But that is precisely why government regulation was invented. That is the reason why the rules of even the WTO improves an inch towards fairness almost every year. That's thanks to other humans policing free enterprise and the intermittent abuses of the greedy humans. Thanks, likewise, to democracy that provides these other humans space wherein to challenge the power of the greedy.
     As for Chomsky's reality bite of a picture, yes. The solution for which problematique has been a globalized counter-force of organizations who have chosen to speak against governments (domestic or regional or global) that have ceased to service Everyman. Greenpeace, Amnesty International, etc. are examples. The activism of the global left-of-center is an example of something that has been playing an important part in the checks and exposés. It's a question of numbers, really. When only 2,000 people show up to present placard protestations at a gathering of global bankers, that will still be nothing compared to the 3,000 policemen put in place at the summit area to fire teargas at any group of protesters. When the time arrives, however, that a whole city has been informed, which city might then decide to in turn act, then all abuses by any global entity will be forced to think twice. If Karl Marx has taught us anything, and this is what I am taunting myself to say now, it is that no one X who is benefiting from a rotten system will want to let go of that system. Some alternative force (aided by the left, the reformist military "right" or the "occupying" center) would have to decide whether it will content itself with pleading or henceforth plan to wrest that system away from X.
     So, will government (the executive branch as well as Congress and the Supreme Court) of the present or the oncoming years be positive towards a change from a representative democracy to a direct democracy? Will it resist such a change because it doesn't want to give up benefits it can milk precisely from the failure of the status quo? Will we then have to plan a way by which to wrest that system away from an existing government's hold?
     I don't know how popular or unpopular this idea is among our academics and party-list parties. So far, I have found a positive note regarding this from the political analyst and writer Mon Casiple. I have yet to look for more proponents. Here's the Casiple piece: click here.


THE ALTERNATIVE to a free-for-all economics of the elite that has failed the majority is not the impossible economics of early-20th-century trendy communism but corrected economics (regulation!), development economics, welfare economics, New Keynesianism, post-Keynesianism, etc. The alternative to a failing representative democracy is direct democracy.
     How do we get there? The ultimate ideal for any of the forms of democracy is a well-educated masa. But only the socialization of education and awareness (through the schools, yes, but primarily through a freer media and social media) will make that possible, which won't be attained unless the neoliberal philosophers are at least half-removed from the system where governance votes. In the meantime, the vicious cycle maintained by those who enjoy seeing a stupid majority continues. And this is the situation that inspires coups and intelligentsia-driven armed revolts, the end result of which still marginalizes the 99%. [END OF PART ONE]

(read Part 2)

WHY MY TWO CANDIDATES NEED TO BE JERKS IN ORDER TO WIN IN THIS ELECTION

 

photos from http://www.liberalparty.org.ph/ and http://soksay.blogspot.com/2013_05_01_archive.html

YOU know what they say in fiction, where there’s no conflict there’s no story. And you know what they say in public relations, negative publicity is better than no publicity at all.
     These two axioms seem to escape the campaign of two of my candidates. I have been campaigning on my Facebook wall for the senatorial candidacy of Ramon Magsaysay Jr. and Risa Hontiveros, if only because they are two of my chosen candidates that need the boost, being not yet in the top 12 of the most recent surveys. I do this, aware though I am that their image seem too clean, and therefore not that relatable to people. It’s possible they’d lose.
     Empathizing with the people, it’s easy to relate to Loren Legarda—the mataray face that rarely sports a smile. There is ready conflict in that face alone, seeming to say by itself, “I am a fighter.” There’s that other fighter on the Senate floor easy to relate to, Alan Peter Cayetano—fierce, sublimely sardonic, who can mix feigned respect into his arguments. It’s also easy for the masses to relate to Chiz Escudero—talks with nary a comic flair, robotic in his legalese, but all in relatable Tagalog, never mind if much of that legalese is beyond the average voter-fisherman; there’s all the flavor of conflict in his stance alone, defensive and offensive at the same time; the triangle rift with Heart Evangelista’s parents could help him further his bid if managed well. It’s easy to relate to Nancy Binay, even. Daughter of a father constantly chided by a colonial mentality for wearing that dark skin, survivor of many an allegation of corruption, consistent organizer of rallies on Erap’s behalf. It doesn’t matter if it’s true the daughter is running on and in the father’s behalf, it’s still him, and there’s ready conflict in that position alone, whether you like it or not. There’s also a ready conflict in JV Ejercito’s name, son of a man beloved by the masses for his defiance of all protocol imposed by a worldly world, a man deposed by a "more corrupt" Gloria Arroyo.
     My candidate Risa Hontiveros, on the other hand, is being wrongly sold, merely as maganda, which doesn’t count for much even to Miss Universe juries. Jun Magsaysay’s story, meanwhile, is a seemingly forgotten story. There is no conflict behind the face anymore. For my two candidates to win, they have to be jerks. That’s why it would serve Hontiveros’ campaign abundantly if the Church starts hitting her personally. It would serve Jun Magsaysay’s campaign abundantly if defenders of the Fertilizer Fund Scam starts maligning his name now.

photo from http://www.ivoteph.com/senator-2/candidate-for-senator-2013-risa-hontiveros-and-his-profile/

TO be called nothing is to be insignificant. To be called an asshole or a jerk presupposes haters. And where there are haters there are defenders. An asshole or jerk tag, therefore, signals conflict, and conflict reboots people’s attention to issues of evil and good, right and wrong, heroism and villainy. The “asshole” or “jerk” comes out to the majority as either a champion or an enemy. To come out as an enemy is to lose in a campaign; but at least one lost in a fight, not in a non-fight.
     In short, like Loren Legarda, it’s not important to enumerate the wars one will fight for, though that would be a bonus or necessary for a springboard, but it’s important to project the aura that you are fighting, or defending, or offending. Not simply smiling.
     The art of politics is the art of projecting a story of conflict. The art of being a politician is the art of projecting the face of a fighter, the face of a jerk. It is no wonder that even in art, the greatest of artworks are often politically incorrect. Because art is primarily concerned with itself, its own art. The cause of the art often overpowers the cause of a thematic cause. But the correct thematic cause within an artistic cause is always a bonus, especially after a win.

BUT there are two kinds of jerk-ness.
     As a social liberal, I’ve often come across the complaint that within social liberalism’s campaign of virtue and empathy and sympathy, some social liberal celebrities turn out to be unworldly assholes. Impressions like this come, of course, after one such social liberal celebrity’s stumbling into a large mistake (whether true or not) that starts to show tragic flaws in his person on mainstream media, certain disappointing flaws that qualify his asshole-ness to conventional wisdom, flaws which mainstream media could in turn embed into an encyclopedic definition of this “asshole”’s sensational image, perhaps permanently waylaying too his boring heroic social liberal achievements into the dustbins of memory.
     One example of this victimization by achievement-dustbinning is that one done on the person of John Edwards, a US senator who fought long and hard for the popularization of the concept of universal healthcare (along with housing vouchers and universal college education) as an agenda for US legislation even before Barack Obama became a US senator. We know of course what happened to his media-managed story, and what he has come to be known as now. An ass. The problem media had with his jerk-ness was the disconnect they read into his espoused causes and what he later “did to his wife.”
     Some leftists would also include the true compassion for the poor in Che Guevara as belonging to this roster of victims of Western media pigeonholing, he whose image has been handled by American rightist media—or so those leftists would aver—to revolve around certain Cuban executions alone. The problem media had with his jerk-ness was the biased disconnect they read into his espoused objective and what he had to do to the enemies of the state, never mind if the West itself did the same to its outcasts, mostly blacks.
     The problem with social liberal jerk-ness is it’s passive and tagged, requiring lots of explanation. There is the other kind of jerk-ness, the managed jerk-ness, often associated with false progressives, although any political bent can appropriate this approach.
     Unlike the social liberals whose flaws are observed and hyped by the enemy, false progressives traditionally flaunt their character flaws as hallmarks of ordinariness to which the masses must (and often do) relate. In short, they manage these flaws in the media to gain the applause of the masses’ own, as if their flaws are proud reflections of the masses’. One could say that their argument is full of bread and circus, an ongoing argumentum ad captandum aimed at duping the object of their treachery by pretending to be on their side in a pre-defined conflict with a pre-defined elite.

photo by Associated Press, linked from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/16/anthony-bourdain-paula-deen_n_1522031.html

NOW, I’m not going to illustrate my characterization of the asshole and jerk (social liberal or otherwise) further with names from the political arena, these names often being with a following cloaked in the diaper of confirmation bias, talk about whom—therefore—would lead us nowhere rational.
     Let me talk instead about two chefs, embroiled in a seemingly similar contrast of positions in 2011, as a metaphor for what I mean by jerk-ness that presupposes conflict, which consequently raises the bar of any contest.
     In mid-2011, famous chef Anthony Bourdain, still streetwise but well-loved enfant terrible of food television, added another name to his roster of named “worst chefs,” this time the equally famous and well-loved Paula Deen. Bourdain called Deen “most dangerous to America” for her “unholy connections with evil corporations,” all the worse because “she’s proud of the fact that her food is f---ing bad for you.” His reaction’s main gist was contained in this clause: “I would think twice before telling an already obese nation that it is OK to eat food that is killing us.” He finished up with a painful punch: “Plus, her food sucks.” One would have thought that that last sentence was all he really wanted to say.
     This time, however, he got a target who fought back. Said Deen: “Anthony Bourdain needs to get a life. You don’t have to like my [and those others’] food . . . but it’s another thing to attack our character. I wake up every morning happy for where I am in life. It's not all about the cooking, but the fact that I can contribute using my influence to help people all over the country. In the last two years, my partners and I have fed more than 10 million hungry people by bringing meat to food banks.” She added, “I have no idea what Anthony has done to contribute besides being irritable.”
     Many food writers, while conveying their admiration for Bourdain’s TV show and personality, sided with Deen on this latest exchange—after Bourdain’s last word on a tweet that went: “Resolved: Next time I’m asked (for the millionth time) who the worst cooks on Food Network are, I’ll just shut up. Who cares?”
     The food nation was divided.
     At the outset, Bourdain did come off as an “asshole,” as some comments put it, sounding quite unfair in implying Deen has been a major contributor to Americans’ obesity problem, though that statement could have been positively taken as simply in cognizance of Deen’s broad fandom, a fandom who seems to be worshipful of her fatty, fried foods dipped afterwards in mayonnaise heaven. Was Bourdain being envious?
     On closer examination, however, since we might find it hard to connect Bourdain’s rant with Michelle Obama’s campaign to reverse childhood obesity, we may glean a simple elliptical point in this latest Bourdain sardonic grunt.
     You see, many food writers missed Bourdain’s point when they failed to review his own record with beurre blanc dips and fatty foie gras. And they seemed to have been taken in by Deen’s argumentum ad captandum, wherein she dangled her connection to food banks as her bread and circuses recipe for applause against Bourdain’s merely chain-smoking, punk rock-loving enfant terrible image that seems to constantly hate the majority’s good taste even while celebratory of their street taste. Understandable, yes, considering food writers are not trained like political scientists to accept the fact that champions of mass behavior are themselves posited in a sort of rebel’s ivory tower stance (in defense or in offense).
     That was sad, because—for one—every time Bourdain says something philosophical on his show or in his books, it’s always with a tongue in cheek, albeit substantive with allusions. Sad, likewise, because media might have noticed those times when he’s totally serious, as when in the throes of a (to him) rarity, sentimentally enjoying fatty chicharrones with pan de pais in a Puerto Rico small-town plaza. If media had taken the time to review his record, though of course I am speaking from a position of perfect hindsight, they would have seen the reason why he has earned the love of many—he has been one Ramones-loving “jerk” of a champion passionate about empowering “peasant food” in their purity, beyond the apostasy and sacrilege of fusion. He praises local food because of their local-ness, not their bastardized here-from-there-ness. Taking note of that significance, they might have been able to conclude that it’s possible it wasn’t really those other chefs (that he named worst) that he hated, he’d easily be Emeril Lagasse’s friend tonight after being the enemy yesterday, but the “corporatizations” of food around them, including those food idealizations espoused by Food Network.
     So, that said, we can’t and mustn’t take Bourdain seriously and literally on any sudden Jamie Oliverian concern about fat’s popularity, or any sudden un-Bourdainly rally for healthy haute-ness for that matter, knowing him to be that ongoing champion of much unhealthy stuff that he now seemed to be rallying against. Those unhealthy stuff he’d raised like flags before include the ever-No Reservations-popular foie gras, accompanied by such delights as, say, Quebec’s cheese-heavy poutine, that pop up every now and then in his shows. As for his supposed hatred for “corporatization,” it must be clarified likewise that he has been a staunch defender of Ferran Adria’s recipes using such corporation-churned products as Smint.
     So, let’s keep it all in context from now on. The Bourdainene thesis is: pure people’s food versus culinary bastardizations and simplistic fusions by importation. When he imports, he makes sure he doesn’t bastardize, even when he attempts variations. Therefore, when he says “I don’t like your piña colada, it’s so unhealthy and bad,” he really means that this corporate invention is no better than crappy corporate cheese by Kraft that needs a Ferran Adrian artistic doing-over to be acceptable to an un-duped people who’ll be paying for it. He’d preach against “promoters of obesity” like Deen while praising a coconut-water flavored roasted pig in Bali, its lard dripping, for the same reason. Food integrity.
     It’s not what the kid says, it’s what he means, then. He’s that kind of a jerk, that sort of “peasant food”-championing asshole that the food media couldn’t, at least for a couple of weeks, connect to a food thesis.
     Now, having said that, clarifying things on Bourdain’s behalf which seemed to require a lot of explanation, let me say now that I doubt that Bourdain’s rant would have discouraged many a Bourdain fan from his shows. It might even be safe to say that his fans will remain his fans whatever the hell he says to offend others. In fact, I think the only moral one could derive from this brouhaha is with the fact that non-fans of the man got interested in what he was talking about, some getting interested in what he really meant to say, if only to see whose side they could side with. One would have thought, were he running for political office, that this jerk-ness was all managed.

PARENTS teach their kids not to be jerks.
     A friend of mine once ranted over a just-transpired experience with an (to her) asshole, “Why did God create assholes? I know they’re where shit come from.”
     But, then, of course, there are assholes and there are assholes. And the good thing about them, all sorts of them, is they actually liberate us from our own stupid shit. They’re something to be thankful to God for, since it is, after all, by their mere existence that we are able to churn out revolutions from our guts. We begin to discuss right and wrong, good and bad, left and right. A conflict of views ensues, and a real contest is instigated.
     But sadly, presently, if the poll surveys are to be our mark, it seems that Jun Magsaysay’s having been an asshole to the Fertilizer Fund Scam’s backers and defenders and Risa Hontiveros’ being a female jerk to the RH Bill-hating male-managed Catholic Church (“they must respect the separation between Church and State”) have already been so quickly pigeonholed as ‘soft’ by media, thus into the dustbins of short-term memory. The resultant on their media image has been different from John Edwards’ (realigned) or Che Guevara’s (biased). In contrast to, say, presidential sister Kris Aquino’s image after her public dramatizations of her husband’s purported evil manners that have instigated a debate on many a Facebook thread, they (Jun Magsaysay and Risa Hontiveros) are coming out too clean, seemingly perceived as devoid of enemies and therefore boring.
     Someone must hype up their having, like Anthony Bourdain, been jerks once. [END]