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Wednesday, December 10, 2008

ECONOMY THAT HEALS: CHALLENGE OF THE NEW EPOCH

Erle Frayne Argonza / Guru Ra

Magandang Hapon! Good afternoon!

Please know first that this writer/analyst is both (b) economist and (b) mystic-healer. For some time now, the challenge of contributing to the construction of an ‘economy that heals’ has been knocking at my ‘mental coconut’, a task that explains this article and many yet that will succeed this one.

As an economist, my lines of subspecializations are: (a) development economics, (b) political economy & public policy, (c) international political economy, (d) economic sociology, and (e) enterprise economics (or biz economics). As a healer, my subspecializations are: (a) psychosocial counseling, (b) pranic healing, (c) distance healing (w/ angelic reinforcement); and, (d) soul healing (includes chakra alignment & cleansing, past life issues resolution).

Having laid out my brief economic & healing credentials, let me now proceed to my thesis. First of all, as a developmentalist (practical economist) and healer of long standing, let me declare my categorical observation that the ‘world system’ economy of today, which is an admixture of capitalist-dirigist-fascist-clerical economic systems, is characteristically: (a) non-healing, or pathological, (b) is hoarding-based rather than sharing-inspired, and (c) is already on its terminal phase, needing replacement rather than its recycling.

To simplify my terms, the present system, which is principally organized around capitalism (economy for profits, based on money system), is:

· SICK: A ‘sick economy’ is one based on flawed, sick principles that no longer work. Necessarily, a ‘sick economy’ (borrowing from Erich Fromm’s and Erik Erikson’s ‘sick society’) is a parametric condition that induces anxiety, anomie, alienation, and related pathologies that can lead to neuroses, sociopathy, psychoses, and total self-fragmentation.

· GREED-BASED: The ‘hoarding orientation’ (see Erich Fromm’s works) of the ‘world system’ (see Immanuel Wallerstein’s works) had propelled greed to the level of madness, thus reinforcing ‘system sickness’. Greed multiplies greed, more greed creates more greed, and so on, ad aeternum, thus leading to more ‘economic sickness’, to more madness and system collapse and societal catastrophe.

· SCARCITY PREMISE: Western economics had postulated (declared as a self-evident given) that scarcity is the fact of life. This postulate had since underpinned ‘hoarding’ economics, and had remained unchallenged in the West and mainstream circles. This is flawed from the very inception. Scarcity is not given, not a universal law either, but is a product of enslaving, hoarding power relations. It is an ideological rampart in support of the more real exploitative relations between the ‘hoarding classes’ and the producer underclasses that they bound and gagged in property relations.

· DYING & DEATH-INDUCING: The system is now dying, it is now on its death throes, yet many refuse to see it die. Bank bailouts and interest rate interventions are among those examples of tools that no longer work, yet they continue to be employed. Furthermore, the ‘sick economy’ also induces so many deaths due to poverty, anxiety, starvation, consumerist pathologies (obesity, cardiovasculars), genocides, etc. What is needed is to bury the system and build a new one rather than to perpetuate it.

Let me then declare the next thesis: that a new economic ‘world system’, which is in the nature of a ‘healing economy’, is a viable one. We may perhaps use different terms to refer to the same ‘world system’—sharing economy, cooperative economy, non-hoarding economy, consensus economy—but let us better recognize where we all converge: the ‘healing economy’.

Following from the foregoing statements, the contours of the new ‘healing economy’ or world system would be the obverse of the previous observations. They are:

· WELLNESS ECONOMY. A vibrant, wellness-oriented world system is one that will also see that everybody will have enterprises, jobs, and related pursuits that will see their talents grow and utilized to the utmost. It is an economy that also promotes the wellness paradigm, welcomes the advent of the alternative healers as ‘new kids on the block’ rather than to denigrate them as ‘quack doctors’, promotes equity and the highest values of the general welfare in their true sense, and is generally conducive to healthy relationships, institutions, communities, and healthy world.

· SHARING &/OR NON-HOARDING. ‘Hoarding orientation’ had degraded us humans to the most putrid hovels of the non-human or anti-human for many eons now. It is time to reverse such demonic conditionality and state. In the economic sphere, the highest principles of the ‘rule of Divine Love’ (compassion as core value) and ‘principle of giving’ (golden rule) must become dominant and sacrosanct. To talk of ‘compassionate capitalism’ is an oxymoron and subtly demonic. We have no more need for capitalism and the other isms, what we need is a non-ideological sharing economy and enough of those isms that have only exacerbated our ‘sick economy’ and ‘sick society’. Ditto for competition principle, the core of capitalism, which has no place in the emerging context. Cooperation-loving-sharing is the value trilogy of the emerging context, not competition-hatred-hoarding of the capitalist world system.

· ABUNDANCE. The true state of the universe is one of abundance, not scarcity. “From above, so below,” declares the Teaching. From the abundance of the cosmos, to the abundance of the Earth & Solar system, this is the sacrosanct law and not that peddled lie about scarcity. Healing economy is one that is attuned to the very dynamics of the cosmos and not divorced from it. An operative healing economy will ensure that all members of society, all citizens of Earth or Terra, will be attuned to this sacrosanct law, and will experience abundance in everyday life. “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed,” declared the late Mahatma Gandhi in his swadeshi writings. Gandhi referred to the same law, and stated it in axiomatic manner.

· DYNAMIC & LIFE-INDUCING. The healing economy will prove itself to be dynamic and life-inducing as well. It does not follow from absurd ‘creative destruction’ demonology worship of capitalism, but from ‘creative constructivism’ of a Godly society. In the present system, just by destroying the currency of one nation (e.g. currency attack versus ASEAN/East Asia, 1997), many workers will lose their jobs and many small enterprises forcibly close shop, leading to anxieties and deaths. Is that what you call Godly and ‘creative destruction’? Very boldly I’d say, echoing spiritual masters who said the same, that a wellness-sharing-loving-giving economy will be truly life-inducing, as it will not need wars and destruction of nations to sustain it.

Having shared to you in brief the contours of the new economic world system, let me now close with the reiteration of the challenge: building the healing economy is the greatest economic task of the moment and the eon now unfolding before us. We can no longer be clinging to dinosaur world systems that bred so much maladies in the past, we should move on and build a new one that will be the economic foundation of a new society of loving, giving, sharing, Oneness, and authentic human liberation.

Enough with those bailouts, IMF-World Bank mergers, bank mergers, interest rate manipulations, stock markets, speculations, government take-overs, hedge funds,...Enough with greed, hoarding, hatred, competition, bloody vampire economics of the Old World!

Peace & Love Advocates of the world, let us build the New Economy of Healing without reserve. Let’s not be cowed by the intimidations of the demonic Pied Pipers and fascistic war machines of the Old World elites. We shall overcome! Carpe diem!

[Writ 08 December 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Thursday, December 04, 2008

PAKISTAN’S CREATION, AFGHAN OPIUM: BRITISH TRADE LINKS

Bro. Erle Frayne 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 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 benefitted 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.

[Writ 04 December 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Saturday, November 29, 2008

HEALING GLOBAL ECONOMY VIA NEW FINANCIAL ARCHITECTURE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Magandang hapon! Good afternoon! Buenos tardes!

At this juncture, this economist, who is also a healer (pranic healer, soul healer, psychosocial counselor), will begin to articulate economic problems from a wellness vantage point. I will be calling the paradigm ‘healing economics’ as a fusion of wellness principles and economic analysis.

If we observe the ‘treatment’ applied by public policy experts on national economies today, we would see that the solutions to the problems are largely short-term ones that only mitigate economic collapse for a while. We can call them ‘band aid’ solutions to problems that are more of ‘cancerous’ in nature, and by common sense we know that band aid cannot cure cancer.

The economies of our nations have already been integrated over the last three (3) decades or so. This integration constituted the ‘global economy’ which is distinct from national economies and which manifest its own laws. National economies have become interstices or tissues of the global economy, and trying to cure ailing national economies without taking into consideration the wellness of the whole global economy will fail.

What is now urgently most needed, as a formula for enabling healthy national economies, is to put into place a new global ‘financial architecture’ as a beginning treatment. There is no way that economies can heal without the proper macro-policies and institutional frames that support them, and those policies cum institutions must be constructed at the global level.
Just by using that ‘global’ category as a yardstick, we can see that the solution of bank bailouts being rushed in the USA and echoed in Europe are not the long-term salvation to the ailment.

That bailout route was already tried in Japan in the 1990s, it was then called ‘crisis management’, and it resulted to a 12-year recession-to-low growth catastrophe. Japan became the “sick man of Asia” for a decade, which was unbelievable for observers who knew this country’s economic might all along.

If there are certain realities that we must admit as having already turned into dead carcasses, they are:

· Virtual or Bubble Economy: Economy that is founded on speculation, with values derived from out of financial values themselves and divorced from production, cannot be sustained for long. It is finally DEAD. Only fools would still think that reviving it, without regulating and/or criminalizing the economic predators that thrived on it, is the soundest healing work preferred. Nobody needs to heal a dead thing, just bury it deep below the ground, lest you create a zombie or vampire out of it.

· Free Market of Currencies. Treating currencies like commodities that are tradable without sufficient regulation, is voodoo paradigm of ‘monetarism’. This is now DEAD. It can never work, it doesn’t, and will never work under any given context. Free market doctrine (laissez faire)), in the first place, was long dead. It was a doctrine that was enforced by the British Empire, through the “power of the gun,” and supported the slave trade business. To revive such a doctrine in the current context—guiding trade and exchanges in the monetary-currency markets—is plain voodoo practice, as it fattens the purses of economic predators at the expense of national economies and marginal social sectors.

The route to strategic healing, which combines ‘preventive’ with ‘curative’ treatments, is through a new ‘global financial architecture’. This can be and should be done most urgently, as the carcasses are now spreading havoc of ailments across the planet, through a global conference of all the nation-states. Through this conference, proper diagnostics can be done, with the help of top experts, including those representing marginal sectors, and proper treatment can also be conjured.

An outline of agenda items for deep reflections in such a treaty-making conference would be as follows:

· Shift Back to Regulated Trading of Currencies/Monies. Money is the lifeblood of the economy. As such, no private group or whatsoever should be allowed to play it like gambling toys just to fatten their already fat pockets. Private stakeholders that gamble in the currency markets are like cancerous corpuscles in the blood vessel, their operations must be well regulated and certain trading activities declared as banned.

· Securitize Currencies with Precious Metals. A reconstruction of the gold standard should be done most quickly. This system was junked in 1971 yet, and look at the catastrophic result of its folding up. Not only gold, but certain other precious metals and crystals, such as diamonds, can be declared as securitization measures to guide money production within any country at any given time.

· Fixed Exchange Rates. National currencies are still around. In no way should they be forcibly junked in favor of a global currency, which is too premature a measure. Within a period of transition, of say 25 years, national currencies should be the chief legal tender, exchangeable based on fixed exchange rate policy.

· Tobin Tax on Cross-border Financial Transactions. All cross-border financial-monetary transactions, done as matter of business engagement, should be imposed a Tobin Tax, the amount of which will be defined in the conference. The revenues generated from such tax will then be used to fund the United Nations and its attached institutions (UNESCO, WHO, ILO, etc). Through this measure, all cross-border transactions can also be monitored, making it easier for international enforcers (e.g. Interpol) to counter-check sabotage and related criminal operations by predators.

· Ban or Criminalize Excessive Speculation. Excessive speculation of currency markets and related financial transactions must be banned and declared as crime. Those engagements of ‘currency attacks’ that have wrecked many economies are on top of the agenda for criminalization. Till these days, they remain unchecked, due to free trade principles in currency and financial trading.

· Ban Banks from Derivatives Operations. Banks should operate largely in support of developmental and re-development pursuits. In no case should any country be allowed unrestrained speculative and/or derivatives operations that leave the banks vulnerable to collapse.

· End Usury One and For All. For as long as usury remains, poverty and underdevelopment will never end, while once wealthy economies can crash back into 3rd world status. Usury must be criminalized as an evil act, thus ending once and for all a long history of predatory hoarding.

· Create New Global Financial Institution. To enforce and monitor the new financial architecture put into place, a new global financial architecture or GFI should be installed as well. The international Monetary Fund is a total failure, even as it was used as a mere tool by predatory financiers to extract usurious rents and disable national economies through immoral austerity measures. In the long run, this GFI can be considered as the infrastructure for a global central bank, should cooperating states approve it in principle.

Incidentally, the clamor for installing a new financial architecture is now getting stronger by the day. I am very optimistic that this will be concurred in due time, for failure to do so would prolong the agony of global economic collapse and decline. Let us cross our fingers that it will be called for very soon.

[Writ 28 November 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

PHILIPPINE PATRIOTISM: RUMBLINGS OF LEMURIAN AWAKENING

Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza

On the 30th of November, this republic will again celebrate National Heroes’ Day, to commemorate the patriotic heroism of the late Andres Bonifacio, leader of the Philippine Revolution (1896). Like his fellow patriots Dr. Jose Rizal and Apolinario Mabini, Bonifacio became the Bearer of the Torch of Liberty, a sublime energizing ‘torch’ from the 7th Dimension (Plane) inspired by a Deity of that namesake, Liberty.

The significance of this sublime Torch (to shorten it) is unknown to the hordes of somnambulists that now populate the islands and the entire Terra, a fact known only to very few wakened souls on the planet, both on the Light and Dark sides of the ‘Force’ (spiritual force). And even among the wakened ones, few know the significance of the Torch’s descent on the erstwhile “small-time” archipelago, for such a descent—and its consequent incineration of the dark veils of the Collective Unconscious—is of epochal import to humanity and the Spiritual Hierarchy.

The Philippines was carved out of the fragmenting Empire of Majapahit by a maritime power of Iberia, the Kingdom of Spain. No such unified entity as Philippines existed before, save that the totality of principalities governing the area were subdued one by one, and then declared as one single colony for efficient governance. Had the Spaniards just done their deeper research, an enterprise that they didn’t possess than, they could have discovered that the islands were in fact a part of a larger entity—the Empire of the Malays—that was then the wealthiest ever known by the world till these days.

The Empire, which covered a territory that was more or less as large as today’s ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nation), was peopled by a seafaring race, of diverse ethnicities but united by the Emperor and his Princely scions who governed the various potentates. The Malay peoples were genetically bred thousands of years back, simultaneously with the appearance of the Aryans, from among a group of dark-skinned Lemurians, the result of which was a pedigree of lighter bronze-brown hue that looked like golden bronze in magnificent beauty when lit by the daylight of the Sun. As to ‘who’ bred the Malays, few surely know even among the wakened ones, but this much I can say: they were the same ‘off-planet’ force that bred the Aryans (Keltics being the first result) from out of their own gene pool mixed with existing races then (Aryans bred from Red-skinned Atlanteans).

As sturdy and smart as their Aryan counterparts, the Malays survived the catastrophic phenomena that followed the end of the last glacial period, catastrophes that submerged the original subcontinental island of Maharloka (‘great land’) that they originally inhabited, a vast land over four (4) times larger than today’s island southeast Asia. Maharloka was the center of a world empire or civilization of Mu, the greatest and wealthiest civilization ever on Earth, exceeded by the other entity Atlantis only in technological prowess and sordid evil. Upon Maharloka’s sinking, so did that Flame of Civility of the entire Earth sink with it, bringing down likewise the vast treasures of precious minerals (gold most specially) accumulated by the Great Empire.

It was Maharloka, whose very center of governance, commerce and spirituality was the area we now call Philippines, that bore the Torch all along, and this fact enabled a Great Balance in the Planet against the Dark Lords of Atlantis. Maharloka’s people were largely a Warrior race, assigned by the Spiritual Hierarchy of Terra that sublime role, for two (2) reasons: (a) it had to guard the spiritual treasures (‘jewels’ of ‘ancient wisdom’) that guided all human philosophic, scientific, and esthetic precepts, and (b) it is the site, till these days, of the hyper-space gateway Portal to the galaxies and constellations beyond our Solar system. And so from this Great Land also came the Kingly Class that was to govern large parts of Terra.

When the Majapahit Emperor and scions arrived on the historic canvass, it was hopefully the first attempt at wakening the mighty, gigantic ‘spiritual force’ of the entire planet. Centered first in today’s Indonesia, the principalities in no time at all experienced awakenings in maritime technology, metallurgy, and alchemy, or those enterprises long dormant in the collective mind but which has always been present among humans. Enlightened souls then embodied among the princes and their families, new institutions began to flourish, High Culture of the Malays galvanized in no time at all, and then wealth multiplied in such paces unequalled today even by such much ballyhooed economic miracles as China’s.

The Evolved Souls in the Empire knew what their objective was: (a) to unite the entire Malays and friendly races under the aegis of one Great Civilization, and (b) to secure the Philippines which they knew was the bearer of the Torch not only for new Maharloka but for the entire humanity. If the 2nd goal can be well executed, humanity’s march to the New Age of Light (satya yuga) can be done more smoothly, even as the entire Southeast Asia’s might and spiritual power will be secured for many ages to come. But such a vision wasn’t to be fulfilled.

Among the prinzeps of the Emperor’s very own home embodied those same troublesome souls that were responsible for internecine wars in the planet and evil experiments that accelerated the rise of sea waters and ended the Ice Age.
Conflicts among the princes emerged for many decades that fragmented the Empire, till the Western powers arrived in the area to carve out their own respective jurisdictional boundaries in a vast region. The noble mission of an early awakening of the dormant ‘spiritual force’, through a noble descent of the Torch, thus ended in mighty ‘fire and brimstone’ of Europeans’ canons.

When all the principalities have gone a-sleeping, when all hope seemed to have faded, outbursts of rebellions echoed across the Spanish crown’s colony. No, the Indios (Hispanic pejorative term for the islanders) never fully surrendered, natural warriorship embedded in the genes was always there to ignite the fires of rebellions, till eventually crescendos of rebellions were heard like loud classical marches all over the islands c. 19th century. Then arrived those Evolved souls—Rizal, Mabini, Bonifacio and those they led as a huge Team of heroes—designated by Hierarchy to lay the grounds for a future, kingly nation. Such a nation, which bears the name of an Emperor, Philip II of Spain, would be the inheritor of the Majapahit Empire, and will lead the way for others to ignite each of their flames of Liberty.

The making of the Philippines hasn’t been completed yet, for being the inheritor of the Majapahit, and likewise the center of Maharloka, it must emerge to wield the ‘sticks’ and ‘treasures’ of Hierarchy (wisdom) and the Elements (gold, wealth). But the patriots’ carrying of the Torch continues till these days, thanks to the most ennobled virtues of the Triad of the Torch—Bonifacio, Mabini, Rizal. For as long as the patriots will bear the sacrifices and burdens of the Torch, a burden so huge as it is intended for the entire humanity as a whole, ‘cosmic magic’ they shall wield, until the Great Land will arise again in the future.

Already, unseen hands have been moving from Above to ensure that sons and daughters of the late Majapahit Emperor will become presidents of the Philippines. From the House of Marikudo came the scion Manuel Roxas; from the House of Soliman—Emilio Aguinaldo, Manuel Quezon, Jose Laurel and Joseph Estrada; from the House of Lacandola–Diosdado Macapagal and his daughter Gloria Arroyo; from the Prince of Moluccas, Fidel Valdes Ramos; and, from the Ilocandia principality, Ferdinand Marcos. I have no doubt that the next president-elect will be another one of Majapahit descent, to fulfill His task in preparing the islands for its future role no matter if He is as sleep-walking as the great hordes of islanders.

Finally, today, great events have happened that ensures the readiness of the Philippines to be once again the nexus of global prosperity and spiritual governance in the epoch now unfolding: (a) the recent transfer of the Planetary Chi from Glastonbury in England to Mt Banahaw in Southern Luzon (Phils), and (b) the opening of the hyperspace stargate portal above the Sunda template of Palawan (I witnessed the opening of the portal during two separate meditation visions early this year, 2008).

Let there be no mistake: no one force can ever stamp out Philippine patriotism, no matter how rambunctious and chaotic this could be during certain junctures. For this patriotism is an energy-downloader of the Torch, and performs its role for the greater cause of igniting the ‘spiritual force’ of the entire Planet Terra. The time for the full awakening of such planetary force is near, and key to its awakening is the awakening of the Philippines’ subsidiary ‘spiritual force’ (signified by a friendly Dragon).

Hail Philippine patriotism! Hail Gat Andres Bonifacio and our beloved libertarian patriots! Hail the Majapahit Emperor and His Enlightened Scions! Glory be to the rising Maharloka, Lemuria finally cometh!

[25 November, 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Thursday, November 20, 2008

PHILIPPINES AS FRIENDSTER CAPITAL: SOCIAL & SPIRITUAL FACETS

Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza

Magandang hapon! Good afternoon!

A gladdening news just filtered out recently about the Philippines having now capped the Top Friendster end-user notch. Accordingly, there are today 30 Million end-users in the Philippines of the top social networking platform, the Friendster, out of a total of 85 Million users worldwide. Just couples of months back, it was at 24 Million Filipino ‘ka-Friendsters’ that represented 1/3 of the world total.

This development reveals couples of very significant insights about my beloved compatriots, the Filipinos, as well as that of the host network, the Friendster Inc. In Max Weber’s language, there is ‘elective affinity’ between the economic structure’s templates (Friendster as economic service provider) and the Filipino’s ‘superstructural templates’ (values, value-relevance). In Jung’s language, the demands of the world structures have manifested synchronicities with the ‘symbolic structures’ of the Filipinos.

Let me then share some notes to you about what this topnotch end-user behavior of Filipinos exhibit in regard to the world’s top web-based social networking. I will sum up the revealed insights in two (2) categories, namely: (a) social, which refers to the economic and behavioral facts involved; and, (b) spiritual, which refers to those core elements of the human psyche & soul revealed by the behavior.

SOCIAL FACET

· 30 Million is 30 Million, it is awesome and potent a social force to reckon with.
· Internet Users Up: 30 Million ‘ka-Friendsters’ means that millions of Filipinos now have access to the internet, the minimum of which is 30 M. My estimate is that the figure goes up to 40 Million, which is double the badly underestimated statistics from marketing and state agencies (18-20 Million).
· Warm, friendly, hospitable traits of Filipinos. These are among the value assets of the Pinoys. They can never be underestimated. They invite as many contacts on the Friendster as possible, regardless of whether they know that contact personally.
· Internet Facilities: Telecom infrastructures have now made web accessibility higher among Pinoys. Combined facilities are: (a) New Generation for DSL & related services, in all cities and town centers nationwide; (b) Wireless Broadband, present in commercial hubs; (c) Rural Interconnectivity, platform for countryside, innovation by engineers from the University of the Philippines.
· Graphics & Writing/Reading Up: Pinoy’s mind is largely attuned to graphical-intuitive, that is why they’d love to view pictures and graphic creatives. However, Pinoys are also developing writing & reading habits, which the content blog spaces offer.
· Urban Filipinos, which represents 60% of domestic population, lead the locals in propelling the islanders to ‘global citizen’ status, thru web-based platforms. My estimate is that 85% of Pinoys on Friendster are urbanites.

SPIRITUAL FACET

· ‘Friend’ dominates the word ‘Friendster’, which jibes with the Filipinos deep devotional attitude. Devotion is the cementing force of society, and the first impulse to reach out to the Almighty Providence and Divine Beings.
· ‘Friend’ in Friendster jibes with the Water element among Pinoys. This element is manifested as love for building social networks, artistic-graphical creatives of Pinoys (Pinoys are Asia’s top musicians), and the healing prowess of the islanders (note our top healers, top nurses/doctors overseas).
· The letters F-I-R-E (Fire) and F-R-I-E-D (Fried), which signify the Fire element, another powerful element of Pinoys, is also found in Friendster, though is subdued. It is indicative of Pinoy’s conscious efforts today to do everything to tame their Fire element, use this for more beneficial purposes, and permit the Water element’s positive aspects blend with Fire.
· Public life in the Philippines is mired in Negative Fire: Insurgent groups, politicians, civil society all wanting to overthrow established authority. Pinoys, via platforms such as Friendster, would want to somehow balance this Fiery disposition with the more constructive, creative disposition presented by Water, though they also ride and direct the Fiery caldrons of public life.
· Interestingly, the Water element is also shown in the Philippines’ maritime prowess. 28% of international seafarers are Pinoys, while the country is beginning to manufacture ships as huge as 10,000 Tonners, and it won’t be a surprise if in 15 years’ time the Philippines will be a global ship-building power. Almost all Pinoy seafarers surf the web while aboard their ships, and many use patronize Friendster (including my cousin-in-law, a maritime engineer).
To the endeared readers, choose your wilds: social facet, or spiritual facet. I chose both, as I’m both (a) a social scientist and (b) a mystic-healer-Guru of the Teaching.

For the Friendster Inc, it has no other choice than to root itself more in Philippine life. The corporate honchos cannot afford to offend the Filipino end-users, no Sirs, for that would flip the Water side of Pinoys to the Fire side. Fire is the ‘overthrow syndrome’ of my kabayans (compatriots), they’re so good at it, insurgencies here can last as long as nine (9) decades such as Tamblot Revolt.

And, to the Friendster corporate people, please don’t ever offend Filipino women. Let you be reminded that we are the ‘6th Top Gender Empowerment’ country worldwide as of today. We’re known for Filipina warriorship prowess, and that warriorship is seen in our feminist leaders and advocates reforming policies with Firepower, and overthrowing corrupt regimes with blazing thunder. Inside Filipino homes, the Mother is the Boss, this is a fact of life. No Sirs, I implore you never ever to offend the women of this country.

Let me congratulate both the Filipino ‘ka-Friendsters’ and the Friendster Inc. for the stunning success of the Friendster platform. Mabuhay!

[21 November 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

WILL ZAIBATSU OFFENSIVE BE ACCOMPANIED BY NEW JAPANESE MILITARISM?

Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza

In a previous article, this writer articulated the success of the Japanese Zaibatsu offensive. As one ought to realize, the success of the Zaibatsu offensive came at the expense of other markets, notably the North’s. Intellectually bankrupt as they are, the policy makers and technocrats of the North never foresaw the catastrophic consequences of predatory policies more so those concerning finance that came from their Japanese partners.

Today, Zaibatsus are well prepositioned across the globe, and it doesn’t matter anymore whether their headquarters will still be based in Japan. They have already fanned out beyond their boundaries, thanks to gullible states and market players in host countries that aren’t equipped to read the psyche of their Japanese partners. Japanese market presenters carry the mien of humble partners who bow in deep respect before you during business meetings, so who could ever suspect the rather cold-blooded nature of such gestures.

What the world must observe with greater focus these days, when global fascism is rising, is the resurgence of Japanese militarism. It may come in the form of ultra-nationalism, or ultra-conservatism, and may have nothing of the ‘Hail Emperor’ mantra of the previous Empire. But seeing the rise of predatory Zaibatsus, focused observers can never miss out on the possibility that the economic offensive may be accompanied, at some juncture of global economic crisis, by a very resurgent militarism.

Japan was very badly isolated during and after the 2nd World War, and till the early 1970s its moves at extending cooperation came with enormous suspicion, more so from the Asians whose countries were “burned down to the ground” by invading Japanese military forces. There surely was a colossal repackaging of Japan’s image, from wartime arrogance to new era peace-loving and humble advocate. To prove their sincerity, they even crafted their new constitution such that offensive forces were banned and only defensive military forces allowed.

No one ever heard of Japan getting involved in the arms race for many decades, and till these days the mindsets of somnambulistic folks tend to regard the Japan of the present as the peacenik country of post-war yesteryears. Even my old folks, who suffered miserably from the cruelties of Japanese forces during the war, have come to forgive Japan, though they still harbor the pains during moments of reminiscing.

The peacenik image is a product of its own context, this one must be reminded about. Japan was in high growth for many decades, than it matured onwards till it reached consumer society proportions around the 1980s. Then came the ‘globalization’ voodoo economics, and the rest was history.

That was then. The situation now is different. The global economy is crashing down, the plunge still hasn’t ceased, and the EU-USA experts just couldn’t learn from Japan’s ‘bailout’ mistakes. As the economy falters, anxieties arise within a country, and tensions across borders will increase. Superstition and groupthought (fascism) are rising, and before long we will see the fireworks of another world war ensued in the hottest spots of the globe.

EU-USA (West) and Japan (East), which comprise the pillars of the global economy, are now on the decline. If we study the behavior of their peoples well, whenever they experience severe crises, they undertake wars as strategy to release or canalize collective anxieties. They identify a Bogey Man (e.g. Nazi’s identified the Jews, North Americans identified the Southern slave owners during the US civil war,…), and then transfer their internal anxieties and defects on the Bogey Man, and war ensues.

Such economic pillars just seem unable to manage their decline without taking down others. This is classic binary mindset, destructive and demonic. Such mindset is responsible for using nuclear arms, regarding the casualties on their perceived enemies thereafter as mere statistics. And East Asia better prepare for the eventuality that this mindset will become dominant again in Japan in the short run.

Demented minds in Japan have two (2) bogey men today: (a) North Koreans and (b) Chinese. As this is happening, events have already shown the preparedness of Japan to mobilize its troops for missions outside the borders (e.g. Iraq war). Japan also possesses the technical capabilities to produce weapons of mass destruction such as nukes and probably the Tesla Earthquake Machine or TEM.

Intelligence reports have it that Japan is capable of constructing WMDs and manufacturing new series military vehicles (e.g. aircraft carriers) in just less than a year upon call to action. We wouldn’t be surprised if we receive further intelligence information that such WMDs and vehicles are in fact already in place, needing supplementation in quantities and troop mobilizations.

It need not be overstressed that Zaibatsus are awash with money to fund militaristic or Banzai offensives for sustained periods. They already demonstrated this, during the Gulf War and Iraq War, when their coffers coughed up large sums by the tens of billions of dollars to pay the bills for the offensives while the USA provided the main attack hardware and human ‘warm bodies’ (like they were the Hessian Troops of the global
oligarchs).

If ever that the USA-EU would fall into a state of totalitarian governance (police state, fascism), and Japan would follow along that direction, then chances are high that the North Atlantic Alliance (USA-EU) and Japan would form a new Axis Powers alliance. The North Atlantic powers would constitute the Western flank, while Japan would comprise the Eastern flank of the alliance.

It will be déjà vu for sure. If indeed such is the direction. Peace advocates still have time to scuttle new treaties up north that could redound to concentrating enormous powers in central governments that are undisguised fascist police states. There is still time, but time is now short.

Before long, Japanese slogans of Banzai! will be heard again across the Pacific. Just by hearing it, or reading it on the papers and TV, many middle class Asians will die of heart attacks. Let us just hope that it will only be a slogan of marginalized mad people in Japan and nothing more.

[Writ 15 November 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila.]

Friday, November 14, 2008

ZAIBATSU GLOBALIZATION ‘VOODOO ECONOMICS’ BOWING OUT

Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza

Magandang hapon! Good afternoon!

Let me share to you at this moment some notes regarding the ‘globalization’ experiment and the flawed policies that sustained it. There has been much ballyhoo about the global economy’s integration, over the last three (3) decades, as having been carved out supposedly by the Anglo-Saxon policy architects, using Thatcher & Reagan as the face for the ‘neo-liberal’ policy regime they installed.

Little do peoples across the globe, including experts who are so mired in their own parochial perspectives, know that the liberalization of country economies has a great deal to do with the Zaibatsu offensive. The West should better accept the facts: that their technocrats and policy shapers have run out of fresh ideas since the 1970s onwards (i.e. mentally bankrupt), a gap that they filled up by looking up to Japan and the NICs (newly industrializing countries) for copycat purposes.

Reaganomics, as neo-liberal policies of ‘privatization’ was dubbed (Thatcher of the UK preceded Reagan by a year), is as voodoo as one can get, seductive as any enchanting mantra-resonating principle can be, and was indeed potent in erasing the vestiges of the Regulated Economics doctrines that preceded the era. In the emerging markets, they were dubbed as ‘structural adjustment policies’ or SAPs, were imposed by the IMF-World Bank Group on debtor nations, and can be summed up as follows:

· Core principles: Privatization, Liberalization, Deregulation
· Subsidiary Principles: Tax reforms, trade liberalization, free floating exchange rates, diminished state subsidies for welfare, increased utility prices (revenue generation)
· Governance Principle: Decentralization (local government autonomy)

Such policy reform measures, as far as developing countries or DCs were concerned, came in as very harsh, cruel ‘austerity measures’ imposed by the IMF. We citizens from the ‘margins’ can never forget these measures, the pauperization that they effected, the dislocation of marginal producers, the decline of health services and rise of morbidity rates, and so on. In the Philippines, our very own capital goods industries were either delayed or un-implementable (such as integrated steel), as the money allocated for their purposes simply dried as dictated by the World Bank.

But there’s another set of policy architecture that wasn’t Anglo-Saxon, and didn’t receive their inspiration from the classicists (Smith, Ricardo) and the monetarists (Friedman, Hayek). This set of liberalization policies came from Zaibatsu country, and were crafted by Japanese technocrats. Not only policies, but also institutions were addressed by them, giving rise to the globalized economy that we have today.

Chief among those technocrats was Kenichi Ohmae, who in the 1980s was a think-tank executive. Further down the line were many other technocrats, who were organically linked to the Zaibatsus (landlord-industrialist-financier oligarchs), taking up cudgels for Ohmae.

Globalization, as one better realize, was never meant as any ‘win/win’ formula for nation-states in the arena of international trade as the liberal thinkers came to defend it later. It was outright a strategy to pre-position Zaibatsu corporate interests outside of Japan, notably the U.S. and European markets.

At that time of conceptualization, Zaibatsus have already efficaciously penetrated the Asian markets, and had leveraged their investments’ entry via aid and technical knowledge diffusion (including sponsoring Developing Country scholars in Japanese universities & special institutes). The old doctrine of ‘Asia Co-prosperity sphere’ was finally won, without firing a shot this time (unlike Imperial Japan era expansionism).

In the 1980s, the clamor for mooring investments and trade in the Western markets became ever stronger. The offensive tactic adapted was rather two-pronged, which made the new voodoo mantra even more potent:

· On the micro-level, permeate other markets with new concepts such as ‘Theory Z’ (decentralized authority, see W. Ouichi), total quality management or TQM, new tools for strategic planning, mergers and de-mergers. Till these days, the tools are considered sacrosanct in all sectors of society, including the Catholic Church that now uses ‘bottom-up’ planning added to strategic planning (my observations done in 2001-02 in a California diocese).

· On the macro-level, blend the Reagan-Thatcher ‘structural adjustments’ with the ‘globalization’ doctrine. The Zaibatsu technocrats fanned out across the globe, some of whom were positioned inside international bodies, and sweetened liberalization via a supposedly ‘win/win’ growth strategy for participating countries. This brilliant blending, which Western thinkers didn’t perceive at all as any subtle tactic by a predatory class (Zaibatsu), soon caught up fire and became buzz word for nigh three decades.

Before long, the Japan Inc. was being bandied across the globe as worth any country’s emulation. Southeast Asia and Korea went for it. Even the former presidents of the USA admired the Japanese Inc. doctrine of renewed private initiatives and shift from macro- to micro-economics as stabilization and growth measure. Bill Clinton of the USA spoke so fondly of ‘globalization’ like some captive fan of an economic icon, and moved to negotiate the NAFTA.

Little do unsuspecting, gullible peoples across the planet, more so the policy experts of the West, realize that the Japanese voodoo economics was largely intended to permit Zaibatsu investments to breed and morph inside their economies. Using merger and buy-in tactics, the Zaibatsu agents made it appear that their sponsors came in for benign purposes or so. If there is any group in the world today that is enjoying its last laugh, it is the Japanese militarists of the past, who finally saw the success of their nation’s offensives and the decline of the West via ‘organized chaos’.

Around 1994, the magic of the Japan Inc. began to cramble. Recession came, and before long many banks and investment houses were catching fire. That was the origin of the bankrupt and immoral Bush-Paulson ‘bailout’, which began with the ‘crisis management’ tactic in Japan to save ailing banks and financial institutions. Eventually, Zaibatsu technocrats were forced to revive the Western tool of ‘interest rates’ intervention, to the extent of bringing down interest rates to zero percent and sustaining it there for many years.

There also came that moment, in the late 1990s through 2006, when Zaibatsu financiers suddenly were so awash with funds (liquidities), at a time when Western economies reached low growths. The ‘yen initiative’ package was therefore conceptualized as another last-ditch voodoo tactic, which was implemented by loaning out large funds at zero or low interest, which Western financiers than re-loaned at profitable interest rates. Many such funds reached the USA& EU realty subprime mortgage markets, to recall. Again, note the seemingly benign nature of the financial gesture.

Just as when the realty markets were beginning to sneeze in America, the last voodoo measure was pulled out. The ‘crisis management’ was already folded up earlier, as Japan’s economic growth was propelled up anew by the Asian markets notably China’s. Just as when USA & EU needed the Zaibatsu loans very badly, and ditto for portfolio investments, they were pulled out, thus ensuring the crash of both economies.

Japananese voodoo economics is now bowing out, as the compass of policy initiatives at present is pointing to the reconstruction of macro-economic, New Deal type measures intended to attack problems both on short-term (bail out on productive sectors) and long-term basis (induce physical economy rather than predatory finance). But the withdrawal of the voodoo regime is not being done without witnessing its catastrophic results.

That’s surely tragic for the West or North. I wonder how Zaibatsus & technocrats perceive peoples outside their borders: whether they regard the latter as human beings worth co-partnering with, or as hungry lizards that must subsist on crumbs of investments & finance from Japan that have been buttressed by enormous tons of gold acquired through production and plunder of occupied lands, across the 2,000 years of Japan’s existence from kingdom to nation.

Honestly, I don’t know the answer. But if the Zaibatsus are receiving flaks from outside their borders, it wouldn’t be a surprise. There are no more borders for Zaibatsus by the way, just an entire planet with seamless web, cocooned in all corners by their corporate money.

[Writ 14 November 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

SZWARZENEGGER’S GAY PERSECUTION: NAZI-ERA GENOCIDE COPYCAT!

Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza

Cryptic night to everyone! Cryptic indeed, as we all received this cryto-fascist measure led by the Aryan Master Race prototype, Arnold the Terminator, that reverses the state law concerning gay marriage in his wealthy state of California.

Arnold the Terminator is getting to resemble closer now the same dreaded morbidity machine of the movie series that featured him as the old prototype Terminator. Not satisfied with the narratives of bloodletting by the Nazi Aryans of his beloved Austria home, narratives that penetrated deep into his bone marrows (his source of intelligence), he has now devised an agenda to persecute the gays of California.

The Terminator’s agenda had already spread to other states, which is sending signals that his country’s folks might just get happier by passing on to gays their collective Bogey Person which they would all desire to destroy via mass hysteria cum plebiscite legitimation tactics. With the USA & Europe now on the way to rapid economic downspin, a phenomenon that had induced higher anxieties and anomie, the collective outlet might be this Bogey ‘Man’: gay & lesbian.

I was surely shocked at this development, more so that the rationalization is based on distorted biblical interpretation. The likes of Arnold and his hoi polloi ‘Aryan Guards’ are the least competent regarding scriptural exegesis, their competence perhaps registering a level of wood tick at the highest. Alarming!

The fundamental concerns that arise regarding this ‘loin power’ bullying of gays by the biblical pretenders are as follows:

· USE HOLY BIBLE LARGELY FOR HOLY ISSUES/HOW HOLY IS GAY MARRIAGE? The issue pertaining to gay marriage is not a question of divinity, but one of social or public policy. Why then resort to biblical justification of banning gay marriage? Marriage is a social institution, a human invention, and as Guru of the Teaching there is nothing in scriptural books nor teachings from the Ascended Beings that reveal the God or Divine source of marriage. Social institutions change with time, depending on emerging needs. Banning gay marriage does not make the ‘loin power’ bullies who support the measure more holy, it only makes them feel more powerful and ready to bash other sectors that they feel must be collectively ‘terminated’ or persecute, nothing more.

· ONLY THE HOLY PEOPLE HAVE THE PRE-EMPTIVE RIGHT TO USE HOLY BIBLE FOR SOCIAL ISSUES. Let me ask you, how many among those ‘loin power’ bullies can ever show clear credentials of their ‘spiritual career’ that merit their recognition as HOLY? Is Arnold the Terminator the holiest of men in California or the USA, that he can afford to appear as self-righteous and justified in bashing gays & lesbians?

What is revealed by this development is the rapid onrush of a fascistic mindset among the folks of the states that reversed gay marriages. This is not a matter of siding or not with gays. Rather, on a larger perspective, the bashing of gays as a thuggish assertion of macho ‘loin power’ is symptomatic of the degeneration of the populace into Nazi-herd mindset, synchronous with economic chaos and depression.

During the advent of Nazi power, it became the addiction of the Nazis to perpetuate the persecution of diverse sectors as a step-by-step sashimi tactic of genocide. First they came for the Jews. When no more Jews could be gruesomely terminated, they came for the Communists and Social Democrats. After the Left’s demise, they came for the Liberals and freethinkers. That done, they then came for the gays, the sick and senior citizens (this latter meant no more welfare subsidies be allotted to the weakling ‘rats’).

Fellow Earthans, prepare for the worse. Watch your own backyards, as those Terminator madfolks’ pathology might spread as contagion to your countries and cities. The spirit of Anti-Man, or Demonic zeitgeist, is here with us, and we will have to live with it for some time.

If Arnold Terminator is really man enough, I challenge him to a fight with the Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao. Possessing none of the exegetic sophistication nor ethical foundation for holiness, he better demonstrate that he is man enough by facing Pacman. So mote it be.

[Writ 11 November 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. This writer is a yogi-mystic and Guru of the Teaching. He is also a social scientist and development consultant.]

Thursday, November 06, 2008

OBAMA VICTORY: ‘14th BRUMAIRE ‘ OF US TECHNOCRACY, HEALING BEGINS

Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza

From my highland nest in Manila goes Big Kudos to Barack Obama & US Democrats!

My first elation has to do with the fact that Obama represents my generation of ‘post-industrial babies’, comprising of those aged 55 and younger. Obama represents a broader worldwide trend of leaders who are veering away from intolerant/polarized values towards one of ‘tolerance for difference’. My generation is the first among the emerging ‘global citizens’, and I could hardly wait to see various sectors worldwide taken over by the most competent and enlightened ones among us, as exemplified by Obama’s take of the US presidency.

Another source of elation is the fact that Obama is a Black man, the first one ever elected as president in America. His victory sends a clear signal to many countries across the globe—dominated by Whites as majority populace—that the time for change has come. Just across the border, in Mexico, the citizens are still accustomed to choosing a White Man as president: White, and Male. Quite a bit further, down south in Argentina, it’s still White country there, and I wish the minority Colored people or Colorados will get to be Chief Executive, whether they are male or female.

Finally, a source of euphoria over Obama’s victory is his being funded largely by the people’s purses. True, there were fund donations from the wealthy families, but to say that their pockets constituted the cutting edge funding would be to disregard those aggregates of monies that in-flowed to Obama’s campaign coffers from out of ‘couples of dollar bills’ donations from the workers & middle classes. I would dare say that the people’s purses comprised the cutting edge in funding, for the 1st TIME, which has many governance implications for Obama’s Team.

There are certain sociopathic elements in America, represented by the perennial Democrat candidate Lyndon LaRouche, who have been peddling the allegation that George Soros, through his subaltern Felix Rohatyn, were behind the bulk of funds for Obama. In some other articles published early this year, LaRouche kept on peddling the noxious allegation that Mafia groups were behind Obama’s making as a politician, and that, ipso facto, his funding would come largely from the same criminal rings.

Were it not for LaRouche’s sociopathic and fascistic tendencies, I should really find many of the facts and thoughts that he generated as worth our reflections. Let us challenge the likes of LaRouche to come out with evidences, and file criminal charges in proper channels such as the US Senate, and they better desist from further slanderous and libelous accusations against a political team that is outside of their poll choices.

The people’s purse option, let me repeat, has deep governance implications. It is indicative, first of all, of the immense constituency participation during the polls, which clearly created for them (people) a status as co-partner of the Obama Team. Second, the people’s purse option gave the clear mandate to the Obama Team, comprising largely of noblesse technocrats, that it can exercise a ‘relative autonomy’ from diverse interest groups particularly the financier-technocratic-military elites.

I would prefer to see the Obama victory as a ‘14th Brumaire of the US Technocracy’, which is a very laudable feat, precisely as a result of that people purse option. 14th Brumaire refers to that moment in history when Louis Bonaparte declared a coup d’etat in France, a grand act of defiance against the oligarchy that enabled him to exercise ‘relative autonomy’ from the latter. The governance implication of such an act is that the Strong Man was able craft and enforced policy initiatives, unhampered by the pestering demands of ensconced elites.

Obama won his coup equivalent by way of the electoral path, with aid from a vibrant electoral constituency and allied politicians who also buttressed his victory with additional seats in both houses of the US Congress. With solid grounds of support from both the people and the legislative allies, Obama has been practically offered the policy initiative on a golden platter by the electoral heaven of social contract. And the good image exuded by this Team was that of a change-directing Technocracy rather than that of a rambunctious Pedagogue of dangerously perverse hoi polloi.

With such a grand opportunity of mandate, the Obama Team is enabled to re-engineer the policy environment of America on its initiatives. Lobby groups and ‘whispering mafias’ representing the elites do not have a business making demands on this Team, and must be kept at bay, in practice more than in words as promised by Obama.

The Obama Team should also use this ‘14th Brumaire’ mandate to begin a long process of healing. The healing work is quite complex, as it entails tasks both on the domestic and international fronts. This healing can begin by the shift in tact from that of the previous hawkishness of the neo-conservatives to the dovish aura of Wilson-Roosevelt-Kennedy greats.

For my own country, Obama should not forget the 1 Million+ Filipinos who died during America’s invasion of the nascent republic, many of whom died as ‘collateral damage’ of a genocidal campaign. White House and Congress should better release their respective statements of apology to my nation, dubbed as populated by “brown monkeys with no tails” by the White combatants (T. Agoncillo, History of the Filipino People). Coupled with this is the return of the Balangiga Bells that were looted by the US Army after leveling the town of Balangiga in Samar province, with all town folks butchered and all visible structures burned to the ground (ibid).

Obama must also remember the 1 Million+ Filipinos who died during World War II, or who died defending the interest of America in the Far East. Many of the living veterans of that war are waiting for their additional just subsidies, their bones now almost disabled from mobility. World War II was never our war, but was one among the world powers’, and look at what the cruelties and genocidal butchers our people got from defending America here.

Authentic healing will take several decades to undertake. But there is no harm involved by beginning the process now. The Native Americans and Colorados of the USA are expectant, and so are those peoples who suffered from America’s imperialistic adventurisms overseas. Begin the healing now, and put a final end to the USA as Empire.

The Obama electoral coup is total, his technocratic Team’s autonomy ensured. He cannot fail to deliver results as expected, and he must translate that ‘relative autonomy’ into more solid healing and prosperity feats. His massive constituencies must help the Team in this colossal task, to ensure galvanization par excellence, rather than just wait passively for results.
Cheers! Kudos to the Obama Team! Mabuhay!

[Writ 06 November 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Sunday, November 02, 2008

PEACE & HEALING IN THE FORTHCOMING USA ELECTIONS

PEACE & HEALING IN THE FORTHCOMING USA ELECTIONS

Bro. Erle Argonza / Guru Ra


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

Citizens of Terra, Peace & Love!

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the day of the polls itself, please sit down even just for a few minutes, burn a White candle for purity of purpose, combine it with Pink candle for love and healing, and pray & meditate for the petition so stipulated above.
Let there be healing and peace on the forthcoming USA electoral exercise, followed by consequent stability and prosperity. So be it.

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

Sunday, October 26, 2008

OBAMA IS AMERICA’S MAN OF THE HOUR

Erle Frayne Argonza

Good morning from Manila!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Writ 22 October 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

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

Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza

Magandang hapon! Good afternoon!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Writ 21 October 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Saturday, October 18, 2008

FORESTRY SECTOR & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: GHANA CASE

Erle Frayne Argonza

Magandang umaga! Good morning!

It is interesting to examine how state players can somehow enable the social responsibility field by enforcing rules on certain market players to recognize the social responsibility criterion in their areas of operations. One such appropriate case is the country of Ghana, where logging firms must follow the same criterion through an instrument called ‘Social Responsibility Agreement.’

A summary of the report about the country case is shown below.

[07 October 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to Eldis database reports.]

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Social responsibility agreements in Ghana's forestry sector
Authors: Ayine,D.M.Produced by: International Institute for Environment and Development (2008)

In Ghana, legislation requires logging firms to commit a portion of their financial resources towards the provision of social amenities to local forest communities. Logging firms must perform this legal obligation by signing and implementing "Social Responsibility Agreements" (SRAs) with forest communities. This report is about legal arrangements for enabling forest communities in Ghana to participate better in the benefits generated by timber activities.

The document considers whether SRAs serve as effective vehicles for the sharing of benefits between local forest communities and investors. It reviews experience with Social Responsibility Agreements, and looks at what difference they have made to forest communities. In addition the author assesses the design, implementation and outcomes of Social Responsibility Agreements in the forestry industry in Ghana, drawing on a number of SRAs concluded between timber firms and local communities. Conclusions include:

Ghana's experience may provide interesting lessons for other countries that are looking into developing arrangements to promote benefit sharing in forestry or in other sectors

  • the positive features of SRAs include clearly laid out minimum standards, explicit legal backing, and consideration for the conditions laid out in SRAs in the selection process for competitive TUC bids
  • w/ the legal framework provides an enabling environment for the negotiation of SRAs, the actual practice of negotiating and implementing these agreements leaves much to be desired
    Social Responsibility Agreements may become a more effective tool if local groups are better equipped to negotiate them. This requires establishing mechanisms to broaden community representation, so as to minimise local elite capture of SRA benefits.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

REFLECTING COMMUNITY WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT

Erle Frayne Argonza

Gracious morning to you!

A country such as Tanzania that is known for possessing large swaths of wildlife can provide to us a wonderful database regarding the impact of political and economic changes on community wildlife management.

Such is precisely the purpose of a report prepared by the Drylands Programme, as summarized below.

[05 October 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to Eldis database reports.]
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Emergent or illusory? community wildlife management in Tanzania

Authors: Nelson,F.Produced by: Drylands Programme, IIED (2007)

As the country known around the world as the home of the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater, few natural resources are more closely associated with Tanzania than its wildlife populations.

By the 1980s, Tanzania's wildlife management practices were under increasing pressure from a set of internal and external forces largely linked with the broad economic and political changes occurring in the country at that time. This led to support for greater local community involvement in wildlife management as a means of pursuing both conservation and rural development goals.

This paper considers the outcomes and impacts of wildlife areas in Tanzania, and considers the emergence of community wildlife management (CWM) strategies. The author highlights that the outcomes of over a decade of CWM in Tanzania reflect broader internal political struggles over land rights, resource governance, and participation in policy formulation, as well as challenges facing efforts to devolve natural resource management to local communities throughout the tropics. The paper concludes with some suggestions for how practitioners in Tanzania and elsewhere might foster more effective and adaptive CWM approaches in light of these outcomes and experiences:

  • new institutional models are needed if CWM is to emerge in Tanzania in a more effective and robust manner
  • efforts to support CWM need to take greater account of the institutional incentives that influence reform outcomes, and recognise that in most instances enabling CWM will require long-term negotiations between local and central interests over resource rights and uses
  • long-term and adaptive strategies for moving the institutional balance of power towards the local level are fundamental to CWM
  • development aid agencies and international conservation organisations need to find innovative ways of supporting institutional processes if they are to make more productive investments in CWM.

Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=39350&em=240908&sub=enviro

Saturday, October 11, 2008

CONTINUING BOURSE PLUNGE DOWN NEAR DEPRESSION LEVEL

Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza
Good afternoon, Fellows of Planet Earth!
The planet’s bourses are still plunging as of yesterday (Friday), a day that was dabbed as ‘black Friday’ in Japan which saw the Nikkei plunge by 10%. ‘Bloody Friday’ may be a better term, as the word ‘black’ in ‘black Friday’ could be construed as a racial slur.
This gentleman is among the economists/social scientists in Manila who forecast, way back in the late 1980s yet, that the Western economies led by the USA will experience another horrific depression this decade. We were then following the trends of a yawning gap between the ‘financial economy’ or ‘virtual economy’ and the ‘real economy’ based on the GDP statistics. The American economist Lyndon LaRouche devised a very potent graph of the event which he termed as ‘collapse function’.
As of late 2007, debts in the USA already exceeded the GDP by four (4) times. That means that, in the event of a bubble burst (which came from the realty markets), the economy will come crashing down. It is simply impossible for a $13 Trillion GDP to pay up for debts approximating $50 Trillion last year. In the secondary debt markets, financial derivatives exposures breached the $120 Billion mark in the USA last year, and that all the more exacerbates the weakness and fragility of a $13Trillion economy that simply doesn’t have the money to pay up for ballooning private and public debts.
My own forecast is that the stock market plunge across the globe, which is now in the vogue of a ‘freefall’, will continue till next year yet. At its best, the Dow Jones index reached past 13,000 points about less than a couple of years ago. The same index had already shrunk below 10,000 points at its worst. By next year, the Dow will further shrink by as low as 8,000-8,500 points, the range that actually represents the real value of the entire US economy.
1 Point in the US bourse is equivalent to $1.5 Billion more or less, at its best. A shrunken size would deflate the value to around $1 Billion. At 13,300 points, the Dow index represents a value worth $20 Trillion, which seemingly exceeds the GDP of the entire federation. But that amount is largely speculation, the speculative value exceeding beyond 50% of the real value of the commodity lines traded.
8,500 points in the Dow index would yield, at deflated value, around $8.5 Trilion dollars. That same estimate is the real value of the US economy in GDP terms, per year, as of today. The value of $13 Trillion includes the value of speculation and fiction, on account of the predominance of the ‘virtual economy’.
As I’ve already explained in a previous article, the Bush-Paulson bailout, allocated an amount of $700 Trillion, is a faulty measure to salve the financial ailments of the USA. It follows from the flawed Japanese ‘crisis management’ bailout of huge banks that went in the red last decade, a tragic measure that flattened Japan’s growth to almost zero for around ten years at least. It is a band aid solution to a gargantuan problem that is equivalent to cancer, and everybody knows that band aid doesn’t cure cancer.
That explains the jittery situation of the post-bailout law scenario. Financial traders and investors who still recall well the Japanese fiasco just couldn’t be appeased by a repeat of the same band aid solution, this time to an economy almost three times bigger than Japan’s (in real value). For as long as no strategic solution to the global financial crash is in site, the stock markets will be jittery till next year, and before long we would see both the USA and Europe plunge back to the depression years of the mid-1920s to early 1930s.
Let’s see what will happen to the election fever in the USA. Some liquidity will be produced by the election spending there, and the optimistic pitch created by the electoral situation may somehow drive back the bourses up a bit. That is just a temporary respite from the blazing flames of the crash, rest assured.
[Writ 11 October, 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

Monday, October 06, 2008

FORESTRY EDUCATION & TRAINING UPDATE

Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza

Forestry education is among those human development engagements that are urgently being delivered today.

A study done in Kenya, by Temu A & Kiwia A, examined how future forestry education can respond to expanding societal needs. The study is summarized below.

[04 October 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to Eldis database reports.]

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Future forestry education. Responding to expanding societal needs
Authors: Temu,A.; Kiwia,A.Produced by: World Agroforestry Centre (2008)

Forestry education in recent years has largely failed to adequately respond to the dynamics in forestry practice, the demands of the job market and the challenges of new global forestry paradigms.

This policy brief consolidates recommendations of the first global workshop on forestry education held in September 2007, at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in Nairobi, Kenya. Attended by 85 participants from 29 countries representing Africa, Asia, North and South America and Europe, the workshop deliberated on vital issues for guiding, coordinating and linking relevant institutions and stakeholders in the process of transforming forestry education.

They agreed that:

  • increased investment in forestry capacity is imperative
    improved coordination mechanisms are key at national, regional and global scales to reinforce the quality and content of forestry education and training
  • enhanced harmonisation of forestry with other related sectors is needed in order to achieve synergy of strategies and actions
    regional and global mechanisms for collaboration in forestry education be established and sustained

The brief asserts that major changes in forestry education, research and practice are urgently needed to improve relevance and popularise forest science, technologies and practices. Obvious implications for neglecting forestry education are noted as:

  • schools of forestry will continue to produce inadequate graduates, lacking the required expertise to handle the emerging complex societal and environmental challenges
  • forestry professional ethics could deteriorate further, leading to indiscriminate destruction of natural resources - the backbone of human livelihood
  • due to the link between agriculture and forestry, the destruction of forests may lead to water flow challenges impacting on food security
    our knowledge and capacity to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change will remain weak, further accelerating global warming, flash floods and droughts
  • further losses of biodiversity will deny the world of important plants and animals with the potential to solve health and other problems

Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=39445&em=240908&sub=enviro

Sunday, October 05, 2008

‘RULE OF TRANSCENDENT LOVE’, NOT ‘RULE OF LAW’!

Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza

In a preceding article, I articulated about the pervasiveness of the Demonic Mind, which had given rise to the spirit of the Anti-Man. I also echoed the revelation in certain articles that the Anti-Christ had embodied in the physical plane, its direct presence here thus reinforcing the growth of the Anti-Man and/or Demonic Mind.

Following from the contentions raised in those articles, this social scientist-development consultant-yogic mystic advances the cogitation that in the current context, to be able to ‘bring back the balance’ and pave the way for high-level constructive engagements, the playing field must be leveled to allow for the ascendancy of the ‘rule of Transcendent Love’ or Divine Love that is reinforced by the Christ Consciousness or ‘cosmic consciousness’ in each one of us.

The limits of the ‘rule of law’ had already been breached today. The Enlightenment, which is actually largely a Western experience, had already done what it can to contribute to that balance. The Enlightenment’s contributions to humanity are well accepted, and nothing else can erase those contributions to make civility possible. But time has come to fold up the Enlightenment, and replace its ‘rule of law’ moorings in the public sphere with the ‘law of Transcendent love’.

There are those in the social responsibility circles, both from the academe and the practitioners, who are of the opinion that the ‘rule of compassion’ must now supercede that of the ‘rule of law’. They have practically declared the same thesis that I am raising now, except that their contentions were delivered from the narrow confines of the lifeworld of lebenswelt. I have drawn my conclusions from reflections on both the planetary and cosmic contexts. But I am happy that the convergence is clear: that cosmic or divine Love must pervade life.

To move my thesis further, let it be declared:

· The ‘rule of law’ serves the purpose of an ascendant Demonic Mind, and is bound to enforce total control over human behavior.

· The ‘rule of law’ can re-ascend only to the extent that it will serve the narrow interests of the global oligarchy or elites. Such interests desire no less than the total control of humans.

· A ‘world rule of law’ follows from the said cogitations, which will be enforceable in a context of global governance, with a planetary state in place as regulatory mechanism of the minority ‘power elites’ or oligarchic subalterns.

· The ‘world rule of law’ is the rational-legal base of a global totalitarian police state, which will be employed to justify more aggressive pursuits and war deaths, all done to preserve Order of the highest degree.

· The ‘rule of law’ is also the justification to control populations. Population control’s aim is the reduction of world populations by as much as 80% from present levels, through Malthusian means of expediency, wars, diseases, death camps, eugenics, chemicals, thermonuclear blasts, and induced earthquakes and meteorological catastrophes.

The reversal of such events can be traversed precisely by an effective replacement of the ‘rule of law’ with the ‘rule of Transcendent Love’. Transcendent love generates the highest values, enables the conscience of each individual to recognize the need for Order, and empowers both institutions and individuals. When pervasive in the public sphere, the ‘rule of Transcendent Love’ will pave the way not only for stronger institutions of governance but also for the rise of the new economy—the Giving Economy that will replace the Hoarding Economy (capitalism, state socialism) of evil greed.

The ‘rule of law’ serves the narrow interests of global elites and their mercenary professionals, whereas the ‘rule of Transcendent Love’ serves the broad interests of all humanity. The ‘rule of law’ justifies the Mad and the Berserk, serves the highest ends of the Fasci or group-thought, whereas the ‘rule of the Transcendent Love’ justifies civilization and harmony, and serves the interest of enlightened individuals and love-giving communities.

Enough with the Rule of Law! To all Light Helpers of the world, advance the Rule of Transcendent Love in all spheres. Do not be cowed by the Demonic minds and fascistic beings’ intimidations and harassments. Do not take sides in their hate campaigns, wars, and pursuits of destruction of madness and barbarism.

You shall overcome! Carpe diem!

[Writ 20 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila.]