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]

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]

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.]

=============================================
Social responsibility agreements in Ghana's forestry sectorAuthors: 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.

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.]
==========================================
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

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]

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.]

==========================================
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

‘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.]

IMMORAL U.S. BAILOUT ECHOES JAPAN’S 1990s ‘CRISIS MANAGEMENT’ FLAWS

Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza

Magandang hapon! Good afternoon!

It’s been some couples of weeks now since the financial downspin in the USA took a further plunge as mega-banks sought help from federal government for rescue. The closure of the Lehman Brothers and the S.O.S. by other big banks that are now in the red rocked the global stock markets to a new round of instabilities and volatilities, even as the US economy is in danger of another Great Depression.

As I’ve already expressed in many articles of mine, the US financial collapse, an event that economists in many parts of the world forecast as early as the 1990s yet, is bound to happen, on account of many factors. The key factor, as this analyst and fellow ‘nationalist economists’ have been saying since 1998 yet (when I was actively involved with a group of economists in Manila called the Independent Review circle), is the widening gap between the (a) ‘virtual economy’ based on predatory finance that produces mere fictitious values and the (b) ‘real economy’ or ‘physical economy’ that produces real values.

The serial liberal economic reforms that began in 1971 yet, which saw the collapse of the gold standard and the dropping of fixed exchange rate (FER) in favor of ‘floating rate’, and onwards through the liberalization-privatization-deregulation-decentralization (structural adjustment policies or SAPs) of the 1980s, and onwards to the GATT-Uruguay Rounds that created the WTO in 1994, took its catastrophic toll on the economies of the planet, but most specially the USA’s.

The Nixon-era financial-monetary reforms and the Reaganomics (SAPs) were the policy culprits of America. They dealt the final death blows on the dirigist policies of New Deal, initiated by Franklin Roosevelt but which was inspired by dirigist policies of earlier luminaries (i.e. Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, Friedrich von List), provided the impetus that created the strong, gigantic ‘physical economy’ of the country, and transformed it into a world power economically, politically and culturally. Without dirigist economics (interventionist) and the New Deal, Middle Class America wouldn’t have been possible. The neo-liberal reforms simply wiped out whatever was left of the New Deal by the 1980s, and with the liberalization of the financial –capital-monetary markets, the predatory financiers had their field day of looting the middle class purses under the rubric of portfolio capital and derivatives operations.

Had the US policy makers just labored a bit and assigned their staff to scour the world for some related experience of bank-financial collapse, their researchers could have easily ‘discovered’ the experiences of Japan in the 1990s. By the early 1980s, when Japan clearly demonstrated its sterling industrial and technological capabilities as the base for its wealth production, the Zaibatsus and the policy makers decided to go the liberalization way, confident as they were that the fruits of decades-old ‘physical economy’ build up can’t just be easily wiped out by predatory financier operators.

Japanese technocrats (both in Japan and overseas) also theorized that the key to producing a sound, healthy, mighty Japanese economy was in the realm of micro-economics more than public policy. Never mind if the policy environment will shift from the protectionist-dirigist policies of the post-war decades to liberal policies, provided that at the level of production and organization, capacity and internal potency can be demonstrated. The likes of William Ouichi’s ‘theory z’ comes to mind, or ideas that spawned strategies and tools dovetailing on quality control, team building, and decentralized operations. The world was so awe-inspired by the ‘Japan Incorporated’ model that was based precisely on the micro-economic route, and was extolling the Japanese corporate firm to the hilt as the new champion of the globalizing economy.

The USA that had demonstrated its strength on macro-economics—In the terrain of public policy—as the route to economic might, must have been seduced by the Japanese ideological onslaught at one point, that it so sonorously echoed the Japanese technocratic jargon of ‘globalization’. But when Japan’s financial system began to buckle down in 1994, which then impacted on the rest of the economic sectors, the US politicians and technocrats simply didn’t pay attention, fixated as they were to the seductive results of the ‘virtual economy’ (bubble operations) on the GDP of America.

To recall, Japan suffered miserably for the bailout mistake it pursued. Dabbed as ‘crisis management’, the state went on a binge of saving ailing banks and financial houses, the very same measures that the Bush-Paulson team is now embarking on. Alarmed at those events than in Japan, which led to a 10-year recession & almost zero growth, I began to raise howl about the ballooning portfolio investments in the Philippines by 94-95, and was among those experts who forewarned the state officials that Japan’s ‘crisis management’ was seriously flawed, was tantamount to giving incentives to looters instead of criminalizing, them, and should never be enforced in the Philippines or ASEAN in case that the portfolio bubble will burst in Manila and the region (the bubble burst in 1997).

To repeat: Japan suffered miserably from that fiasco. Recession howled like unstoppable forest fires for ten (10) years, and were it not for the high growth of East Asian markets, Japan couldn’t have risen back to appreciable growth by 2005. Interest rate was compelled to be brought down to zero percent, a precedent that many countries affected by financial meltdowns were aloof to emulating. Bankruptcies, corporate closures and downsizing led to dislocations and unemployment. For the first time in many decades, former decent Japanese executives and employees who lose their jobs and had their remaining mortgaged properties confiscated, were rendered homeless and starving, and forced to reside in the streets as paupers and vagabonds.

Sitting with my fellows in the Independent Review circle from 1997-onwards, we took turns in exposing the maladies of the neo-liberal reforms, spoke in diverse media (TV, radio) to forewarn the public of the imminent financial collapse in East Asia (the meltdown took place beginning in June of ’97), and by 98 were of the consensus that the USA was next in line for a meltdown of even catastrophic proportions than either Japan’s or South East Asia’s (97 meltdown). The very destructive effects of predatory finance saw the decline of industry (de-industrialization), agriculture (land use conversions, decay), infrastructures (some huge infra were even privatized), S & T (low priority in budgets & education), and transport & communications in the USA. If the neglect of the ‘physical economy’ will continue for another ten (10) years, it will be too late for salving the US economy as a whole. Any catastrophic bubble burst and financial-monetary meltdown could bring the economic house down, collapse consumption, and render the US economy much like unto a Latin American economy past 2010.

As I recall then, we experts from the Independent Review circle strongly opined that the ‘crisis management’ tactic was immoral and extremely perverted. How in the world could the state ever reward criminals at all? The bankers and financiers looted the Japanese purse by probably worth trillions of dollars, they should have been criminalized for their sordid crimes, and yet they were even rewarded! Unbelievable! This is one excellent narrative for the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!

Fortunately for the Philippines, there was no large-scale bailout of any bank as a result of the 1997 Asian meltdown. Those realty and construction companies affected by the crisis, affected precisely because they over-exposed themselves to ‘hot money’ foreign portfolios that simply dried up as the same portfolios were pulled during the first month of the meltdown, were immediately able to cope up by retooling and re-engineering their strategies and tools. Interest rates were lowered, excess liquidities were flashed out in well managed manner that deserve our central bank accolades from the Bank of International Settlements. In less than a year after the meltdown began, we were back to consumption patterns like there was no recession at all. We didn’t take the Japan route, luckily. By 2001 and onwards our growth patterns were back to appreciable growth, and the local bourse moved up as well.

Today, all over the ASEAN + China-India-Korea (minus Japan), the Asian meltdown seems like an ancient event down memory lane as things have been moving fast. We just can’t believe that our mighty economic partner, the USA, didn’t learn its lessons from the 2001 recession there and from the flaws of the Japanese bailout. ‘Bailing out the rich’ isn’t the issue here, but rather ‘bailing out the criminals’ which is a gross disincentive for the legitimate SMEs and other market players that didn’t receive the same favor.

If we were to seriously search for appropriate short-term tactic for salving ailing financial institutions, the answer lies in a proven approach to corporate ailments: bankruptcy reorganization. The economists Robert Reich (former US secretary of Labor) and Lyndon LaRouche (Executive Intelligence Review) have been airing this solution very strongly, and I am myself bent on accepting this micro-economic short-term solution as an exemplar for the rest of the world. I would not be surprised if the eminent economists Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman would air a similar advisory, and they should better air their counsel strongly.

The entire planet today is watching the horrific bailout in the USA, almost forgetting that this copycat bailout already flattened Japan for a decade at least before. Each one of us should look at our own backyards and make sure that our respective states won’t emulate the rather devious and insane bailout of Japan Incorporated and the Bush-Paulson team.

[Writ 04 October 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila.]

ADVOCACY & DEVELOPMENT RESOURCES UPDATE

ADVOCACY & DEVELOPMENT RESOURCES UPDATE

Erle Frayne Argonza

Good morning from Manila!

An advocacy source book was recently released, produced by Wateraid. The book serves as guideline for advocacy action planning and related matters.

See this interesting piece below.

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

==================================================================

The Advocacy SourcebookProduced by: Wateraid (2007)Over 1.1 billion people around the world do not have access to safe water and over 2.6 billion do not have access to safe sanitation. This sourcebook provides guidance for users in drawing up advocacy action plans that aim to improve the water supply and sanitation situation of the poorest people in the countries where they work. It is aimed at Wateraid staff and partner organisations but can be used by anyone interested in advocacy. An introduction is given to advocacy followed by step by step guidance on how to produce a water and sanitation advocacy project.

Sections include:
Water Aid and advocacy

• Rooted advocacy
• Planning for advocacy
• Making advocacy happen
• Advocacy actions
• Monitoring and evaluation.
  

Examples of WaterAid and its partners' advocacy work in practice are provided throughout the sourcebook to inform and demonstrate what effective advocacy looks like. An advocacy toolkit is provided including tools, pro-formas, tables and diagramsAvailable online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=39565&em=240908&sub=enviroBack to list