The Framed 1’s Life

“I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?”
- Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of Great Britain, 19th Century

“Perhaps no form of government needs great leaders so much as democracy.”
- Lord Bryce (British historian)

2006, The Philippines: A poverty-stricken country with 40% of its population below the poverty line and using about 77.4% of its GDP just to service her debts1. If there’s anything the country needs, it’s a strong leader that will have to shove the bitterest of remedies down the throat of the people.

But therein lie the problems — politics isn’t simply a static game of domino that a push on a piece causes the entire set to tumble. I believe that’s a ludicrous perspective on such a dynamic, interwoven and very complicated system made up of different interests protecting their turf. It’s a business enterprise that has proven itself to be as old as human consciousness itself.

To advance in such a world entails that along the way, someone will get crushed; and history is rife with lessons that blood has flowed when that happens. Out of a myriad of possibilities, there is only one outcome in reality; most especially when limited resources are taken into account.

What the Philippines need right now isn’t politicking, but its stability so as to be able to progress after years of neglect by all offices. After more than half a century with the democratic experiment, don’t we think its high time that we sacrifice it, as well as liberties, to finally be able our duty to the motherland?

Apparently, the notion of “enlightened” part of “enlightened self interest” as propagated by Adam Smith’s heirs haven’t done much to the country. It is completely elementary to believe everything is as flat as theories being implemented; but no, there are interests out there that we’d have to battle out with. It’s either us or them.

The saddest part of all these is that we have a choice. As Victor Hugo said it so wonderfully: “No army is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” It is our choice to fight for our right or continue to get exploited. It’s our 100 tonne choice.

1 https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/rp.html

…so, when you hear another Free Trade Agreement (FTA) shit hovering around the news, please do have the initiative to ask:
1. Who shall benefit from it?
2. Who the fuck are the political dogs working for?

The world isn’t as static as the news portrays it to be; there’s a lot more movements underneath. Heard of conspiracy theories? Think they’re far out? Think of Operation Northwoods, an operational plan that was recently declassified about America staging a fake terrorist attack to justify a war on Cuba. It didn’t push through; but just think of the others that did.

Think the Philippines was the first one to have “People Power?” Research Kermit Roosevelt 1951 and Operation Ajax. Something to wake up from from the political propaganda propagated by the Victors of War. ^_^

Here’s some interesting read. A quick snapshot, really:

Britain’s technological lead, which enabled this shift to a free trade regime, had been achieved “behind high and long-lasting tariff barriers”, as the economic historian Paul Bairoch put it. For this reason Friedrich List, the 19th-century German economist who is (mistakenly) known as the father of the modern “infant industry” argument - the view that underdeveloped countries cannot develop new industries without state intervention, especially tariff protection - argued that the British appeal for free trade was selfish. He wrote:

“It is a very common clever device that when anyone has attained the summit of greatness, he kicks away the ladder by which he has climbed up, to deprive others of the means of climbing up after him . . . Any nation which by protective duties and restrictions on navigation has raised her manufacturing power and her navigation to such a degree of development that no other nation can sustain free competition with her, can do nothing wiser than to throw away these ladders of her greatness, to preach to other nations the benefits of free trade, and to declare in penitent tones that she has hitherto wandered in the paths of error, and has now for the first time succeeded in discovering the truth”.

**

Ulysses S Grant, the war hero who was president of the US from 1869 to 1877, said: “For centuries England has relied on protection, has carried it to extremes and has obtained satisfactory results from it. There is no doubt that it is to this system that it owes its present strength. After two centuries, England has found it convenient to adopt free trade because it thinks that protection can no longer offer it anything. Very well then, gentlemen, my knowledge of our country leads me to believe that within 200 years, when America has gotten out of protection all that it can offer, it too will adopt free trade”

**
…but if free trade is so good, we would expect economic growth to have accelerated over the past two decades, given that there has been so much liberalisation. Yet during the bad old days of the 1960s and 1970s, when there was more protection, the world economy was in fact growing much faster than now - world per capita income was growing at about 3% a year, while during the past 20 years it has grown at only about 2%. Per capita income growth in the developed countries slowed from 3.2% to 2.2% between 1960 and 1980 and 1980 and 1999, while in the developing countries it went from 3% to 1.5%. Without the strong growth during the past two decades in China and India, neither of which has followed the neoliberal recipe, the rate would have been even lower.

This average growth rate does not fully convey the magnitude of crisis that many developing countries have experienced since 1982. Economic growth evaporated in Latin America, with the annual growth rate of per capita income crashing from 3.1% during 1960-80 to 0.6% during 1980-99. The crisis has been even deeper in other regions. Per capita income has shrunk in the Middle East and North Africa (at an annual rate of -0.2%) and in sub-Saharan Africa (-0.7%) during the past 20 years, whereas it grew at 2.5% and 2% during 1960-80. Since the start of their transition to capitalism, most former communist countries have experienced the fastest falls in living standards in modern history, and many have not yet recovered even half the per capita income level under communism.

**
Want more? Visit: http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/econ/2003/08freetradehistory.htm

When studying in America, I was repeatedly exposed to this unreferenced statistic by my speech-class teacher:
“On average, Americans change careers at least three times before they reach the age of 30. Some more, some less. That’s an average.”

However you’d want to look at it, it’s a testament to just how fickle-minded humans are. The quest to find The Self is an arduous process of reality-bitchslap-fest and grandeur delusions. Frankly, some DIE without having the darndiest clues about who and what they are. That’s just sad.

After much deliberation on my arse’s part (and literally sleepless nights) just to decide which career path to take, I noticed the rather strong gravitational attraction towards an old passion. Perhaps it may not be right — I’ve already invested 2 years of my life in the area of logistics–making it a disastrous choice that’ll fish time away from my nascent career path.

It’s no small choice. It’s not an easy choice.

In Eastern Philosophy, they speak of Fate, Destiny and your Duty. In the West, the thought of Existentialism pervades, giving way for Freedom (but not many understand the counter-balance to it — Responsibility). Either way you’d want to look at it, both seem like their pointing to the same path — that your individualistic tendencies has been written in the stars after all — but it could point out otherwise — that your destiny lies in your current duty whilst you turn from it; a rather dangerous gamble in the game of Fatalistic Dice.

When your just torn between two choices, your torn like hell. It’s like two paths converging out all the time, and you’ve got to make the toughest choices. And a tonne of sacrifices. So, is it a time to shift and expose my arse to another set of reality? Or should I simply stick to something I’m already familiar with? My passion on literature and the arts are haunting me like there’s no tomorrow. It’s like an old dead relative visiting you, reminding you of times gone; of a life that was your own.

Yup, its going to be a long unproductive, unemployed time for my ass. Worst, the perennial question still remains: “Who am I?”

Evolution is now naturally selecting people at an ever accelerated pace. The best ones are as creative as artists; as athletically enabled as the best stars on TV; as mathematically enhanced as engineers; and are as amiable as your everyday socialite. For instance, the best workers in the international markets spend 100 hours a WEEK of work.

But what will happen to those that failed to reach those ideal results? Those that failed short of perfection but still is a human being? In our still-savage new world, they are now exploited and used; milked of all their worth.

Capitalism is a higher level Darwinism, a natural phenomenon born from the recesses of mankind’s instinctive but creative enterprise to sate his demands. On the one hand, it’s great: it stimulates technology where it is most demanded and it allows social mobilization unprecedented in history.

On the other hand, this same mobility has caused millions who couldn’t adapt to find themselves unwanted, unneeded. It has created a different world where social customs has evolved into what you have and what you don’t. It’s harsh and cruel, beautiful and terribly visceral; an awesomely endowing but devastating system.

So what will happen to us all? Will we, too, become obsolete only to be thrown away as a failed attempt at adaptation? Will we revolt like the Latin Americans and seize what the collective societies believe is theirs? I fear this system only puts pressure on the cycle of blood already spilling to continue so as harmony is jeopardized.

Everyone’s after their survival. Everyone’s after their profit. Everyone’s after their interest. So if it’s your blood spilled, don’t be surprised.

Everyday, I drown in a sea
In the waters made by you;
It’s not my world;
In it I’m but a data
Ready to be mined:

Born : December 26, 1981
Name : Kristian Gollon
Sex : Male
Residence : Mabolo, Cebu city
Profession : Business Development Manager
Education : College graduate, IT and Bus. Admin.

A consumer ready
To be brainwashed
And be told that something
Oh, something
Will make my life more
More efficient
Successful
Respectable.

Somewhere, someone
Will be AIDA-ing me.
(Attention
Interest
Desire/Conviction
Action)
To get a sale from my
Hard-earned money
I earned doing the same.

In this sea
I am neither fish
Just a drop
And the Sun out there
Still doesn’t care
Even when I evaporate.