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Showing posts with label tyranny. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tyranny. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 06, 2011

CHINA’S YOUTH CAN CAUSE ULTRANATIONALIST MELTDOWN

CHINA’S YOUTH CAN CAUSE ULTRANATIONALIST MELTDOWN

Erle Frayne D. Argonza


Magandang araw! Good day!

I have just discoursed on ultranationalist hegemony in domestic China and the repercussions of this extremism on foreign policy. China’s neighbors are now ‘crying wolf’ over Chinese military intrusions into their claimed island territories, which could be just but test-casing the extent and limits of the military option in China’s counter-claims over those islets.

China doesn’t possess the necessary ‘blue water’ navy yet that can aid in sustaining its military campaigns in case of long-drawn conflicts with potential adversaries. So its neighboring countries are unduly rendering China into a global threat of sorts, by over-estimating its strengths and by ‘cry wolf’ agitations.

Ultranationalism, an extremist form of nationalism that is in kinship with Japanese militarism, nazism, and fascism, is an anachronism in the emerging global context of increasing synergy among economies, cultures, and peoples. It is a scourge of any nation and isn’t easy to take down or diminish unless that other internal political developments will make them obsolete and powerless.

If there is any political force today that can effectively diminish ultranationalism in China, it is the youth of the Chinese nation itself. The globe is experiencing today a clash of generations, as the young generation just couldn’t resonate with the antiquated world views and ideologies of their elder generations.

The youth of China are very well in touch with the peoples of the outside world, and do not in any way share the fervor and enthusiasm for hegemonism by their ultranationalist elders. It will just take one cataclysmic event to rouse the youth, and before long the young ones will be shaking down the foundations of old ideologies and powers.

The same phenomenon is responsible today for the overthrow of old nationalists in Eqypt and Tunisia. It is also shaking down many other Arab states towards an overthrow of established order and replacement by a more pluralist, democratic governance and cultural ferment.

The same youth force strives to reach out in friendship, cooperation, and mutual respect with other youths and peoples of the world, contrasted to the ultranationalists who are intoxicated with dreams of expanding territories beyond established orders through military might and destruction.

I am very positive that the youth can be relied upon to further avert a breakdown of Chinese society into a new totalitarianism of ultranationalist mold. Fact is, if the Chinese youth will just speak out more strongly today about foreign policy, I guess the more moderate leaders of China may listen.

[Philippines, 17 June 2011]

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Come Visit E. Argonza’s blogs & website anytime!

Social Blogs:

IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com

UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com

Wisdom/Spiritual Blogs:

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com

Poetry & Art Blogs:

ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com

Mixed Blends Blogs:

@MULTIPLY: http://efdargon.multiply.com

@FRIENDSTER: http://erleargonza.blog.friendster.com

@SOULCAST: http://www.soulcast.com/efdargon

Website:

PROF. ERLE FRAYNE ARGONZA: http://erleargonza.com

Friday, September 26, 2008

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

Bro. Erle Frayne 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.

[23 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Monday, September 22, 2008

BONAPARTISM: ‘TECHNOTRONIC’ CAPITALIST STATE IDEOLOGY

Bro. Erle Frayne 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 () 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

[23 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila.]

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

ASIAN RENAISSANCE: ANTIDOTE TO NEW DARK AGE

Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

Maganding umaga! Good morning!

A gladdening news for me is the fact that many people in the West (or North) highly appreciate Asian growth and its role as today’s life-breather of the global economy. Without Asia, given the recurrent recession of Western/Northern economies, the global economy would be in a collapsed state today.

The added news that certainly warms the heart is that many Northerners/Westerners look up highly to Asia as the hope of the world, that hope coming precisely from the Asian Renaissance. We seem to be in a rehash of that situation of the medieval age, when the ‘world system’ collapsed due to incessant wars organized and financed by the Venetian mercantile oligarchs, leading eventually to a Dark Age. The (Western) Renaissance became the light of the Dark Age and teleported mankind out of that catastrophe.

In the current circumstance, a Dark Age looms as the Anglo-Dutch oligarchs organize and finance conflicts of every kind across the globe, which will expectedly lead to a larger conflagration that will be sparked off by the Sunni-Shi’ite conflict and then move on to ignite other conflicts in all regions and continents. The conflagration will be a near repeat of the Peloponnesian Wars (Athenian oligarchs’ wars), the Crusades (Venetian oligarchs’ and Norman warriors’), and 30 Years’ War (Church wars, Dutch-Teutonic oligarchs). After each conflagration, mankind fell into a Dark Age.

Only a Renaissance, led by Asians, will be the hope for the coming decades or couple of centuries. When the North-South dialogue will collapse and give way to the next Dark Age, induced by the incessant wars of the Anglo-Dutch-Teutonic-Zaibatsu oligarchy (to identify a longer list) up North, then peoples will by instinct look to the south for the sparks of hope, of dialogue and civility. Then the planet shall be jettisoned out of the holocaust, back to the ‘Light Age’ (light is opposite of dark).

Incidentally, many peoples across the globe have already immersed themselves in Asiatic thought streams and their practical applications, such as yoga meditation. So, the Asian Renaissance will not just be a monopoly of people of Asian genetic origin, but will be multi-player from the very inception. Many Asian spiritual masters, gurus and intellectuals transplanted themselves in the West during the past decades, so this explains the permeation in Western cultures of Asiatic thought streams. On the other hand, many peoples of the West/North took up studies in the Eastern institutions and ashrams (retreat centers of spiritual masters and gurus), thus ensuring a more expanded diffusion of Asiatic thought streams in the process. So, as one can see, it has been a two-way process of diffusion and enculturation to Asiatic thought streams.

Any Renaissance takes a long time to percolate, brew and galvanize, so it will not be prudent to demonstrate the exact contours of a gigantic movement—with so diverse players—that is continuously evolving. It affects all human endeavors: philosophy, arts, sciences, technology (biotech, physical tech, social tech). I would confess my own limitation and be honestly humble when asked about the exact contours of this movement. I make no pretensions for being God Almighty who knows best about the matter in its expansiveness and universality.

The following short list of items are what I can share about the matter:

· Oneness & Becoming: Asiatic thought and practices are products of this single most important cosmic Law of One. Western modality is dualistic and/or binary, resulting to polarity principles and practices that have eroded the very condition of humanity and endangers the species itself. The added premise concerns the process of ‘becoming’ contrasted to Western stress on ‘being’.


· Pure Thought - without prejudgemental Qualities, premises, biases: Sri Krishna taught us well about the matter. Go back to Srimad Bhagavad-Gita, in the sermon of Govinda to the warrior-saint Arjuna. The essence of Asiatic metaphysics, epistemology, ethics. Jesus and many masters followed through on the ‘pure thought’ modality, on what benefits can be derived from them, what truths derived too. See the New Testament, Dhammapada, Mahabharata, and onwards to the teachings of Baha’ullah, Vivekananda, PR Sarkar (neo-humanism, tantra), Sri Aurubindo, Mahatma Gandhi (Ahimsa).


· Dialogue & Consensus: In this domain, Asians regard that theory is fact, such as in Western physics where “a theory is also a fact.” Nobody even thinks anymore why dialogue should be ensued as a matter of exercising consensus. It is theory, it is fact, period. But do go back to Lao Tsu, Confucius, Mencius, Buddha. Unfortunately, the Western powers destroyed the teachings of Malayan gurus upon occupying the Southeast, while Khmer and ancient Javanese teachings of the same were simply lost in time as the same civilizations eroded and died. Incidentally, Filipino indigenous teachings, derived from folk lore (of which there are now encyclopedic volumes of scholarly translations) are available, which I myself will have to review (budget constraints delimiting buys).

· Physics and Multi-Dimensions: The true elements of matter, the different ontological dimensions, and the properties of matter congruent with each dimension. Steven Hawkin’s ‘hyperspace’, ‘lower space’, and ‘higher space’ concepts are nearer the truth than ever. The Book of Dzan, theosophical writings (e.g. Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine), and synthetic writings such as Fritjof Capra’s Tao of Physics would be good reads. Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi also contains details of masters’ teachings about the same subjects. On the practical side, how to conduct dematerialization and bilocation are explained and demonstrated by the masters. Didn’t mahayogi Jesus Christ (master Issa in India) demonstrate how to walk above the water and materialize fish for a huge crowd of devotees?

· Yoga and Meditation: Yoga is the science, meditation the practice. Too many traditions to choose from, study and investigate, and practice. Choose that which is in accord with your psyche. In my case, I chose Agni yoga, which synthesizes rajah yoga (focus on crown chakra, will-development), Kriya or Christ yoga (pineal/higher faculties), karma yoga (service/solar plexus chakra), and bhakti (opening up heart chakra). If you wish to use yoga to reinforce healing, Kundalini yoga would be perfect. Bhakti and practices that develop the solar plexus chakra would be excellent for peace keepers and conciliators. Zen would be perfect for highly contemplative, introspective types. Sure, you can combine them, such as what I do.

· Natural Healing Paradigms & Therapies: Too many to behold, and too popular nowadays. In Manila, with the signing of the ‘traditional and alternative law’ in the late 90s and the creation of a state institution for this, natural healing has become an institution in itself. In my case, I was trained in Pranic healing, and I practice it (pro bono) for psychosocial counseling. Deepak Chopra’s ‘mind-body-soul’ writings (e.g. The Way of the Wizard) would be a good entry point.

Well, Partners, Fellows on Earth, those items would suffice. Before I be accused of causing you indigestion, I would stop right there. There are more, so please go ahead and draw the compass of your journey into the ‘Eastern way’. But just to remind you, the great statesman Mao Tsetung once cautioned us: “no investigaton, no right to speak” (see: Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tsetung, 5 volumes). Nobody should pretend to know Asiatic thought streams without first fully immersing in them, for at least two (2) decades.

Let me now end by encouraging everyone to learn the ‘Asiatic way’, integrate these into their largely Western psyche, and help in any way to bring us to the ‘dawning of a new age of Light’.

[Writ 26 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Friday, December 07, 2007

LOVE THY FREEDOM

Bro. Erle Frayne D. Argonza

[Writ. 21 September 2007, Manila]

Good day to you all seekers, freethinkers, freedom fighters!

Today is the 21st of September, a day of infamy that many adults in my homeland (Philippines) and overseas vividly recall. On this day in 1972, then President Ferdinand Marcos y Edralin declared Martial Law. Fourteen (14) years of darkness then ensued, amid the erstwhile developmental pursuits toward industrialization by this fledgling nation-state.

Marcos’ tyrannical fiats declared the closure of congress, banned all political parties and mass movements, confiscated the assets of detractor oligarchs, and sweepingly incarcerated around 30,000 perceived enemies of the state. When the dictatorship was overthrown in February 25 of 1986, over 120,000 were totally imprisoned without due process of law for the entire duration of the regime.

The bloody capstone of terror was the torture and execution of over 10,000 detractors of the regime. Add to these the tens of thousands who perished in the dictatorship’s brutal war against the Bangsamoro people and the dirty war against the Left, and you’d have a picture of a Dark Era in Philippine history that approximates the previous Dark Era of Japanese occupation of the country (1941-‘45).

This mystic was an adolescent during the early years of Martial Law, and was among the youth radicals of his restive heydays. I was then a 3rd year engineering student at the University of the Philippines when I witnessed several of my own buddies and club-mates arrested and imprisoned incommunicado for 1-3 months. Sensing that military agents were after me one time, I fled into hiding for almost two (2) months, forcing me to take leave from school for that affected semester.

One after the other some friends of mine, including a guitar jamming pal Bong M., were murdered by state agents. Bong’s body was found floating among the water lilies of the highly polluted Pasig River. A former freshman dorm-mate, Ting, also an activist, was shot by the son of an army general and the case remained unsolved. Fraternity brods of mine in the Collegium Liberum were locked up, while others who chose underground life as their primary vocation were gunned down by pursuing military commandoes.

For many years a Bogey Man dressed in military fatigue kept on appearing in my nightmares, relentlessly chasing me and gunning me down without compunction. In some occasions I chased back this Bogey Man and killed it. But he kept on coming back in my next nightmares. Even when I was already a young state official, and later a professor at the University of the Philippines, the same Bogey Man kept coming back deviously.

Martial Law surely had a way of building up my paranoia. It was a challenge for me to detoxify myself of the dense energies from the experience of facing the mighty dragon of Martial Law machinery. But it was possible, and I succeeded. By the year 1990, when I was already a practicing yogi, my paranoid fears have effaced, and gone was the militaristic Bogey Man for good. My nightmares likewise dwindled to almost nil.

It is nauseatingly erroneous to say that Martial Law was an entirely ‘negative experience’. It was an experience, to say the least. It induced anxiety and paranoia, true. But it also presented a window of opportunity for the libertarian flame to awaken from its nocturnal sleep. And this is the sublime lesson of those dark moments: people learned to love their freedoms more and fought for their liberty in blood when exigencies so demanded.

Furthermore, Martial Law also accelerated the renascence of Philippine nationalism that, like the libertarian flame, slept undisturbed in the catacombs of the damned. Nationalism is a progressive force in the Philippines that comprises of over 100 ethno-linguistic groups. In the absence of nationalism, each ethno-linguistic community is like a nation unto itself, promoting its parochial interests and fomenting separatist wars of independence.

And the crowning glory of the Filipinos, for all the sacrifices they exhibited during those dark years, sacrifices writ in blood notwithstanding, finally arrived, when upon gathering their strengths collectively, they overthrew Tyranny via ‘people power’ in 1986. Such a sublime feat won accolades from fellow peoples of Earth everywhere. So the patriots who laid their lives to restore democracy and an ‘open society’ didn’t die in vain after all, but died with full honors as heroes of the nation and the human race.

Personally, Martial Law forged in me the warrior traits of Iron Will and audacity in action. In 1975, as a naïve freshman, I was a thin, fragile, wimpy nerd who just entered the august halls of the University of the Philippines. The sight of rambles and fistfights were enough to unnerve me and made me pee on my pants due to fright… By 1980, after over three (3) years of activism, I was a determined warrior-type soul, ready to face not only grimly-faced enemies in the battlefield but also demonic types in the astral domains (I was already a seeker and yoga student by then). I have mutated, thanks to Martial Law!

Not only the forging of 1st Ray (warriorship) traits, but also the countless capabilities I’ve learned from radical civil society were equally manna from heaven. Name them: social marketing, advocacy, policy analysis, campaign strategies & tactics, mass campaign planning, development communication, and more. All spin offs from my youthful experiences of facing the Mighty Dragon of tyranny.

Finally, two decades after becoming a youth activist (I joined the underground Kabataang Makabayan or Patriotic Youth in August 1977), I was, as a mystic of the GWB, able to articulate libertarian experience into a coherent wisdom tradition: libertosophy. As I argued in my book Libertosophy & Freethought (2000), the libertarian as a social type can climb the transcendent height via the libertarian Path, provided that s/he will complete the lessons in life with the other ingredients of a yoga package.

Very revealingly, I also realized, along my spiritual journey, that a Divine Being, Liberty, exists as the inspirational Light of all libertarians or social emancipators. To my delight, I discovered that the Lady Liberty constructed for the New York harbor is a wonderful archetype of this Being of Light. Formless in shis natural form, Liberty inspires and guides libertarians, provided that the libertarians sojourn the Path of Light.

So, Fellows in the Path, let it be summed up: Tyranny, in whatever form, is an experience that presents both positive and negative aspects. It is a tapestry of tragic incidents of every kind, but it likewise presents opportunities for learning, capability-building and innovative actions. This thesis is a ‘take it or leave it’ one: either you see only the negative aspect of the experience, or you see both aspects dynamically relating to each other like yin-yang forces.

Liberum Semper!

(Freedom always!)