The substate dream

The substate dream

By: Fr. Joaquin G. Bernas. SJ

Philippine Daily Inquirer

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The Economics of Brinkmanship, The Mindanao bench

By: Aminullah Alonto Lucman

There now appears a trend for world class leaders show mettle, brinkmanship to be the statesman not the onlooker, the hands-on individual ready and willing face up to the hard core challenge. US President Obama is one such, having brokered the impossible keep tab of the Republican majority in the lower house of the US congress finally make them agree to what he feels is an acceptable compromise avoid a shutdown of the US economy because of the debt ceiling he seeks, and now the downgrades.

S&P declares the US no longer a triple A economy perhaps to suggest rough days ahead to selling American free market leadership, in other words, one simply can’t win them all but President Obama for all intent need to win another term as US president, so guys brace yourselves.

Brinkmanship for politicians is the goal to ultimately advance, at least from how it appears. And I see no downgrade in any agenda that is yet up their sleeves, their likes just stays on and on. So they make the gamble; in the case of America they’re always out there scouting for lambs to sacrifice keep their standing as rock-solid and as reliable as the rock of Gibraltar, pray to the gods of gold and silver, for the ultimate invincibility. But like Achilles, there is this one faulty vulnerability that now we have come to know, bad economics.

Big business is the American forte, but the one that excites me is what could have been the dirge from those known to jump with glee see America teeter in failure, superpowers themselves former cold war enemies, America’s nemesis now to have wagered their wealth too on the American dream in huge trillions. Just as we now know of it, they cannot afford to see America fail; they of course have their money gambled on the American invincibility, really big money for they too believe America is good business.

So why would somebody from Mindanao, like myself be embroiled in any of such highly intricate dichotomy of the economic divide, and the kind of leadership-quality they possess that once upon a time almost devastated earth. This I mean the divide between colors of red and the multitude of hues on the side to subvert them, bloodletting for decades of the cold war era claiming millions of lives in inert military measures and countermeasures, blood bathing that it was, all wars and no reprieve.

Stagnated unmoving lives, clustered wars in stasis, static growth for the third struggling world nowhere to go but down under, so the cold war did some very serious damage, made lives of people really miserable.

In Mindanao, war from whilst it hath brewed was never probed up till now, and in the land of the rising sun the light has shown its mantle, peace may be at hand darker alleys illuminated, pathfinders to just gainfully achieve tranquility from amongst petrified people, now to count as human beings wanting tranquil coexistence, and in earnest it has just begun. So far, so good, now we have the leadership quality emerging to be eager to join in, be part of the quality, world-class leadership.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the first attempts at sociological analysis were prompted by the need to explain two great waves of change that were sweeping across Europe: namely, industrialization and the expansion of democracy and human rights in the wake of the American and French revolutions.

The leadership, squashed extracts from this phenomenal social evolution in these era, produced cunning, cold blooded leaders, took human frailty as tools and resources, the primeval alibi for more conquests, more territories. Industrial superiority is matched with equally devastating military power, tools of death that as we know took millions upon millions of unsuspecting people in two world wars.

Auguste Comte, in his theory of social dynamics, proposed that societies progressed through a series of predictable stages based on the development of human knowledge. Herbert Spencer offered a theory of change that was evolutionary, based on population growth and structural differentiation.

Karl Marx contended that the most significant social changes were revolutionary in nature, and were brought about by the struggle for supremacy between economic classes. The general tendency of nineteenth-century theories of social change was towards historicism and utopianism.

The 21st century in abrupt social changes, the dichotomy, the derisive contradictions, Karl Marx theory of the classless society to achieve economic and military stability and power no longer find relevance. State control has become the essence of societal development, the new Marxist platform as the Maoist dogma, as platforms emerging to be measures for economic predictability and supremacy, no longer the exportation of the static ideology and military prowess but goods to vend and money to be had.

In the NEW China, it is more visibly a pragmatic influence over vast free market economies hence stakes her claim more in essence as majority stock holder than the bully that she was; the contradictions also may have become the paradigm shift to have altered Russia following the breakup of what was USSR. Russia, as a free voting Marxist orientated democracy, a free market economy to compete with the industrialized world, has now to have predictably geared towards more to job creation rather than control over vast territories; this is micro management where predictability is best managed and given propriety, so that now Russia has more billionaires than ever imagined.

Recent statements from the Russian president chiding long-time ally Syria over the suppression of legitimate dissent may perhaps be glaringly Russia’s micro managing foreign policy; this would have been unthinkable during the USSR days. And unlike the old USSR, today’s nuclear arsenals belonging to Russia would rather be utilized to bargain rather than regain stature as a military power, and these are for purely economic reasons micro-manage Russia on way to clinching economic power of scale just like the New China.

To propose that societies progressed through series of predictable stages based on the development of human knowledge in Comte’s theory of social dynamics negates predominating environs pervading in much of today’s social evolution.

19th century social sciences to have carved much of civilization’s predictability to creating macro management skills determine how conflicts are ventured in and into bigger world wars to be able to accurately control and create economy of absolute scale have now to have dissipated into a singular societal entity, the global cyber society.

This is the 21st century invariables spreading the variability of real time communication and connectivity, Twitterology and Facebookism, the emerging isms of now’s contemporary 21st century human evolution.

Predictability, in much of today’s dichotomy in the present-day manic debauchery yet persistent from amongst mostly third world leaders, is a divide between two contradictions, lies and truth. But awakening from amongst people sought the veritable, very puritan struggle; it is People Power in the spirit of true worship, the 21st century matrix.

Awakening in the minds of plenty, the present-day 21st century people power dawned on them the need to be human, not tools of gangsterism in the evolutionary progression of society and the ensuing dirt-bound politicians sans trespasses.

Dirt-bound politicians with the long-winded greed regressed to have become the monopolist tool, laundered, siphoned-off resources stolen from government, obfuscation, that sought to harness, bequeath of them the advancement of despotism and big business control, tools of the very few. These are what's left of the long gone cold war era, bloody and tormenting era, the antidote, antecedent contrived to be the formulae ward off Marxist influence in Indochina, much of Southeast Asia and the Americas. This is the other side of the 21st century divide, the contrasts of lies.

Vestiges of the cold war era now to transform into near humanist, rights-orientated platforms cater to demands for more visible freedom and human rights for purely the advancement of the human race. This phenomenon has now tractably to have been the 21st century totemic transformation to hanker on just the truth, nothing short of truth.

Despotism began to grimace through in February of 1986 in the Philippines. Finding power in truth, people en mass peacefully converged in that February month, 1986, in celebration of finding just the truth, now the explicitly, overtly all encompassing People Power movements all over the world; it breached the Berlin wall, decimated the USSR and now in finality, the Arab awakening, but are we knowing where will this end to?

Herbert Spencer, a social scientist, offered a theory of change that was evolutionary, based on population growth and structural differentiation.

The embodiment the Herbert Spencer theory proposes is for government to be tractable, it need to undergo reorientation in distributing resources, locate or relocate population densities in conjunction with growth, dispose or replace, abbreviate or altogether discard existing infrastructure or that provide one if there is none, to be able to enable with maintaining a system or involve in systemic changes tidy up population growth in conjunction with the economic realm.

It is economic fundamentals that permeate to be the logical factor whether we emerge as a nation or down the abyss as a divided people in unending tumult. Maybe Mindanao & Sulu to even come out entirely separate, an independent nation. The social science of giving the right provision, the right solution, and the right measure of truth is I think what Herbert Spencer is meaning to say. That one simply makes the changes to be able to measure up to the challenge, this is dauntingly the ordinary folk’s 21st century abode, and you guys better believe it.