If I were a US citizen, I'd vote for a third-party candidate: Jill Stein (Green Party) or Rocky Anderson (Justice Party)

Tired of Republican (Romney-Ryan) and Democrat (Obama-Biden) doublespeak, lies, and rhetoric??? How about third-party candidates?!?! 

Truth be told: the dominant parties in the US — the Republican Party and the Democratic Party — are creations of, and will protect at all costs, the vested interests of the US Military-Industrial-Wall Street Complex! Thus, breaking the Republican/Democrat duopoly in this best-ever-democracy-money-can-buy has been long overdue.  

Here's Democracy Now's Expanding the Debate Series. Watch. Listen. Read. Learn. Dare.

Jill Stein of the Green Party and Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party are the most relevant, the most sensible, and the most important candidates in and for the upcoming US elections, for the world's present conditions, and for humanity's future.

***

Update, 30 October 2012 (HT: JH)

I let Chris Hedges expound on my opinion: 

The November election is not a battle between Republicans and Democrats. It is not a battle between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. It is a battle between the corporate state and us. And if we do not immediately engage in this battle we are finished, as climate scientists have made clear. I will defy corporate power in small and large ways. I will invest my energy now solely in acts of resistance, in civil disobedience and in defiance. Those who rebel are our only hope. And for this reason I will vote next month for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, although I could as easily vote for Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party. I will step outside the system. Voting for the “lesser evil”—or failing to vote at all—is part of the corporate agenda to crush what is left of our anemic democracy. And those who continue to participate in the vaudeville of a two-party process, who refuse to confront in every way possible the structures of corporate power, assure our mutual destruction.

All the major correctives to American democracy have come through movements and third parties that have operated outside the mainstream. Few achieved formal positions of power. These movements built enough momentum and popular support, always in the face of fierce opposition, to force the power elite to respond to their concerns. Such developments, along with the courage to defy the political charade in the voting booth, offer the only hope of saving us from Wall Street predators, the assault on the ecosystem by the fossil fuel industry, the rise of the security and surveillance state and the dramatic erosion of our civil liberties.

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any,” Alice Walker writes.

It was the Liberty Party that first fought slavery. It was the Prohibition and Socialist parties, along with the Suffragists, that began the fight for the vote for women and made possible the 19th Amendment. It was the Socialist Party, along with radical labor unions, that first battled against child labor and made possible the 40-hour workweek. It was the organizing of the Populist Party that gave us the Immigration Act of 1924 along with a “progressive” tax system. And it was the Socialists who battled for unemployment benefits, leading the way to the Social Security Act of 1935. No one in the ruling elite, including Franklin Roosevelt, would have passed this legislation without pressure from the outside.

It's a Class Question: The Party-List System on Being 'Marginalized' and 'Underrepresented'

There are two very good articles about the controversial Party-List System of the Philippines written by Professor Randy David yesterday and by Atty Oscar Franklin Tan today. I would like to sketch out here my personal take on the issue with the aim of developing a more solid thesis later on — thus, substantially contributing to the political debate and policy-making. My starting point is that the highly contentious concepts “marginalization” and “underrepresentation” is to be and must be understood in class terms or in class ways.

First:

Professor Randy David is raising in his column — ‘Crumbs from the master’s table’ — some very important and fundamental point for deep reflection regarding the "party-list system". Back to basics, what do the concepts "marginalized" and "underrepresented" mean? I believe this is where the original signification of the concept of "class" comes in, particularly class as a "relationship" and a "process".

The party-list law, like many of our laws and institutions, should be constantly re-examined if it still serves its purpose. All laws have their 'telos' (i.e., ultimate goal). Apparently, we have many laws that have been alienated from their own 'telos'. The task of constant re-examination is essential simply because societies evolve and class relations are conflictual — hence, the process of social change.

Warning: What follows is an academic exercise whose text/ideas are derived from my thesis, inspired by the works of E.P Thompson and Ellen Meiksins Wood.

How do we understand class in relational and processual terms, and not merely a location in stratification theories? That is, in the general movement of history, "the marginalized" or "the underrepresented" as a particular class signifies not simply a specifically fixed structural "location" at the bottom of a stratified society, but it is essentially suggestive of its position of weakness in the "relationship" between classes within the process of political-economic accumulation of power and wealth.

In theories of social change, the relationships of exploitation, conflict and struggle provide the impulse to processes of class formation. Class relation — including elite dominance or marginalization of the masses at some juncture — is therefore not preordained or predestined, but constantly engaged in the historical movement of social change. In essence, the elites have the interest in maintaining the status quo, while the marginalized groups have the interest in mainstreaming their legitimate aspirations and causes.

Class formation — be it the elite class or the marginalized class — is a historical process. Class formation is therefore not only determined by ‘relations to the means of production’ (i.e., ownership) or by simple existence of a shared ‘class consciousness’ (i.e., active awareness of their common interests), but importantly as a ‘class in the process of becoming, or making itself’ a social and historical force.

In other words, my practical message here is that the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) has to make a very intelligent decision regarding its current actions toward the party-list system — decision that must not only be legalese but informed by history, philosophy, sociology, and the social sciences. The COMELEC has to invite several amicus curiae (friends of the court) to advise them impartially and provide a more grounded decision on a delicate political issue such as the party-list system that has significant implications for our democracy and the life of our society.

Second:

Atty Oscar Franklin Tan’s commentary — ‘Party-list system’s dirty secret’ — offers an insightful "legal" analysis of the party-list law in particular and the party-list system in general.... But the last paragraph of Atty Tan’s commentary shows the limitation of this kind of legal analysis. As indicated, I argue that the issue of "marginalization" or "underrepresentation" is profoundly a class question that necessitates class analysis. The denial of the class question allows Atty Tan to legally justify the likes of Bam Aquino and Jaime Zobel de Ayala, who both belong to the political-economic elite class, to participate in the party-list elections (see the last paragraph of his commentary).

As suggested, class is to be viewed as a "relationship": (1) between classes, and (2) among the same class.

(1) Relationship between classes is self-evident and has to do with the relationship of inequalities, hierarchy, and differences. Marginalization exists because of the process and relations of domination or exploitation. Thus, it is essential to understand the concept of marginalization in 'class ways'.

(2) Internal relationship is the relationship among members of the same class. This refers to "common experience" or "lived experience" or "shared experience" which shapes the social consciousness of a particular class formation. For this reason, members of the marginalized class have shared experience of being marginalized. Representatives of marginalized sectors should therefore have lived experience with their fellow members of the same class or sector. But note that lived experience is not necessarily defined by class origin or by the relationship to the means of production (as an owner or a labourer). In this sense, lived experience is an essential ingredient in the formation of class consciousness in particular and of class itself in general.

Therefore, in the concrete case of the party-list system: (1) the marginalized groups have inherently unequal — or even antagonistic — relationship with the ruling political-economic class; while (2) members and representatives of these marginalized groups have lived or common experience as a marginalized class.

I guess this summarizes my sociological take — in addition to the legal analysis — with regard to the party-list system.

On Education: "First Red and then Expert"

Barry Gutierrez of Akbayan has shown here that he's indeed a UP educator. I feel so sad that "Maoist" kids (such as Anakbayan's Vencer Crisostomo) are letting long-standing hatred of the old and pure ideology get the best of their innate intelligence and promising bright future. Atty Barry Gutierrez, who is also a law teacher in UP, is basically reminding these "Maoist" kids of one of Mao's important dictums on education: "First Red and then expert."

It is essential that the importance of social and political consciousness should trump pure expertise or pure ideology! Again, recall Mao: "First Red and then expert"; or, the UP's motto "honor and excellence". This ought to be the first concern of educators. The consequences of not doing so are vividly portrayed in the current news and (under)developments. It is high time for academics and scientists and students and civil society and all Filipinos to become aware of what is at stake and what is threatening our democracy and our human survival: the drift to barbarism, mediocrity, violence, injustice, and extinction.

***

Meanwhile, I read this commentary just now from one of my mentors — Jacques Hersh, a Monthly Review author — though written in a different context it essentially applies to the current political tragedy in the Philippines: 

"... prepare for the worst as it is yet to come! In the meantime kabuki political theater is being played on the stage of politics by both the crypto Right or the incoherent Left so that the differences between them are diluted and the desperation-level of the victims increases."

A Reflection on the State of the Philippine Progressive Movement and Our Future

I wrote the comment below on a facebook post of a friend, James, a young activist, who opined about the ongoing tussle between Akbayan and Anakbayan and who shouted out a challenge for 'alternative' left forces in the Philippine progressive movement:

I agree, James, with most of your points. This statement though needs to have some rethinking: "This is a challenge to all of us in the progressive movement: If we perceive Anakbayan, and its affiliates in the BAYAN bloc, as a threat to our model of change, then there is no other way but to out-organize them - to match and surpass the commitment, creativity, and dynamism of their organizers." 

Perceiving Anakbayan "as a threat to our model of change"??? Matching and surpassing "the commitment, creativity, and dynamism of their organizers"??? And that "there is no other way but to out-organize them"??? 

If this is our punto de vista, we let them define not only our movement, but our very own sense of purpose and meaning, our very own lives. In effect, we are letting them having a control over our psyche, values, worldview, and indeed our own lives! 

I believe that we — as forces of resistance and change — can only be strengthened with a new awareness (i.e., an active awareness that we have to construct, not being captive by the left's ugly past nor by whims of the media, but informed by historical lessons, present circumstances, and future goals). This is something that needs to be honed by/among us, lest we lead to barbarism. Remember Tita Rosa's choice "socialism or barbarism"! 

Nurturing the understanding of the past, our present conditions, and the future prospects is an imperative for us that brooks all other considerations.

Here's the original post by James:

There is a reason why Anakbayan thinks they can pull this stunt vs. Akbayan and still survive the consequent backlash: they have numerous committed organizers on the ground, in the youth and student sector. Regardless of its perceived unpopularity, Anakbayan will still be able to attract a substantial number of young followers from universities and communities because they have cadres on the ground continuously talking to people in the sector. What is one black eye seen on TV compared to day-to-day conversations and painstaking political education?

This is a challenge to all of us in the progressive movement: If we perceive Anakbayan, and its affiliates in the BAYAN bloc, as a threat to our model of change, then there is no other way but to out-organize them - to match and surpass the commitment, creativity, and dynamism of their organizers. It cannot be done through facebook or media airwar, or even with a correct ideological line. 

Sad day for the Philippine Left, but tomorrow is another day and the future open-ended

A sad, sad day for the Philippine left! Waking up on a gloomy autumn day in this part of the world, then watching and reading news and comments about a scuffle of two progressive groups who could've been allies....

I condemn in the strongest possible terms the attempt to physically harm my teacher, AKBAYAN Representative Walden Bello, by protesting youth/students of Anakbayan. The incident conjures up the horrible images of the Communist Party-led left's past, and I'm afraid to say, its present and future. Arguing verbally and in writing, yes! But physical harm is morally intolerable in a civilized society. Those students, especially the adult who attempted to slap Professor Bello, should be subjected to disciplinary action in their/his school(s) and should spend some time in jail. Knowing the sympathetic Professor Bello, however, those youth/students are most likely forgiven.

And this reminds me of an old essay I wrote in 2004 — "The Nightmare of the Philippine Left: The History of All Dead Generations — uploaded in several sites then in the Philippines and abroad, a nightmare that I would've wanted to forget. I believe that the Philippine left has to realize that at this crisis moment — of both the ruling class/system and the revolutionary movement — the choice is, as the great Rosa Luxemburg has put it: "socialism or barbarism"! 

It is heartbreaking to agree with Marx's analysis on the historical process and more painful to come to a realization that the same applies to the position of the Philippine left movement at this point in time in the ongoing struggle for social change: 

The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. 

Tomorrow is another day, indeed. Nevertheless, the future is open-ended.

On Malaysian PM's Visit and the GPH-MILF Framework Agreement

Reference to Rappler news report: "Why Malaysian PM's visit matters" 

"Why Malaysian PM's visit matters".... I think that Najib's visit in the Philippines matters more for his and UMNO's political survival in the upcoming general elections in Malaysia than for the prospects for success of the GPH-MILF Framework Agreement. 

There's really the need to shatter the dominant myth among Muslim Filipinos and many other Filipinos, including the media and analysts, about Malaysia's purported success story as a predominantly Muslim, developmental, and harmonious multicultural society. With due respect to the esteemed peace advocate and scholar Atty Sol Santos, with whom I'm in touch in 2003-2004 when I was working for peace and development concerns in Muslim Mindanao, I would like to put his statement in a proper context: 

“There are lessons from the Malaysian experience relevant to a solution of the Bangsamoro problem: federalism, Islamic institutions, multiculturalism, the bumiputra (indigenous Malays) policy of affirmative action, and the sultanate as an institution,” he said.

We must realize that these so-called "Malaysian-style solutions" — federalism, Islamic institutions, multiculturalism, New Economic Policy (NEP) or the affirmative action of bumiputeraism, and the sultanate system —  have been pursued for more than half a century now in Malaysia through conflict-ridden, socially unjust, repressive, and hierarchical ways and means within the system, norms, institutions, and practices of heavy-handed authoritarianism, scandalous elitism, excessive crony capitalism, gross racism, and hypocritical religionism. So what can the Philippine government and the Bangsamoro learn from the Malaysian experience? Well, nothing substantive on what-to-dos, but much more on what-not-to-dos! 

Some of my modest reflections on "what not to do" so as to contribute to the success of the GPH-MILF Framework Agreement are:

• not to regard Malaysia under the UMNO regime as an exemplar of peace and development with modern Islamic ethos and institutions for the planned Bangsamoro region;
• not to imperiously deny the cultural capacity of our very own Muslim Filipino brethren and the peoples of Mindanao, including the lumads, to create humane, just, and sustainable (alternative) communities and economies toward what they perceive to be as a good life;
• not to come up with policies or actions that are devoid of context, history, culture, and integrity; and
• not to forget the lessons of the earlier Final Peace Agreement of the Philippine Government with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), in which many salient provisions have not been met by the government and in which many of the former rebels have become elites themselves in the mainstream society and unfortunately abandoned their old yet legitimate 'revolutionary' or 'reform' causes and ideals for the peoples of Muslim Mindanao and the entire Philippine archipelago.

Peace and hope!

Postscripts:

(1) See Sol Santos' "Dynamics and Directions of the Peace Negotiations Between the Philippine Government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front" (24 September 2004) where he acknowledged some documents I provided for his research (footnote 111). 

(2) Here are excerpts from a sub-section of my thesis on "Najib's 1Malaysia: Political Doublespeak and the Economic Strategy for Global Competitiveness": 

Najib took over the premiership from Abdullah with, notably, [a] the party mandate to regain UMNO’s dominance; [b] the ethnic Islam and Malay agenda for continued political and socio-economic privileges; [c] the capitalist development objective to immediately overcome the challenges of the global economic crisis and to realize the long-term Vision 2020; and [d] a personal interest in crafting his own legacy in Malaysia’s history. As a strategic step towards addressing these demands and objectives, especially the attainment of the latter, Najib (2009b) launched the concept 1Malaysia or ‘1Malaysia: People First, Performance Now’ as a key pillar to his government’s agenda for ‘national transformation’. The methods by which the 1Malaysia concept is being articulated and executed as a socio-political, economic, and electoral project evoke of the usual modus operandi of authoritarian liberalism attuned to the regime’s interests in maintaining the status quo vis-à-vis the current circumstances of the amplified social conflicts and the exigencies of the global and domestic economy. 

What is happening in the present conjuncture in the post-Mahathir and post-Abdullah Malaysian political economy under Najib is complex and can be epoch-making whether at: the level of electoral politics; the attempts to revise or perhaps end the NEP; the further entrenchment of reactionary, racist forces in UMNO; the increasing irrelevance (except at an instrumental level) of the ‘Chinese’ and ‘Indian’ parties in the BN coalition; an opposition with the huge advantage of the public’s perception of the government’s hopelessness and yet fraught with its own internal problems, and the impact of the global crisis for domestic restructuring. Nevertheless, 1Malaysia is intended and being presented as a continuation of UMNO-BN hegemony since independence—which includes the past development agendas of Najib’s father Abdul Razak, his benefactor Mahathir, and his predecessor Abdullah. As Najib (2009c) has asserted: ‘1Malaysia does not reject our past in order to secure our future. Rather it is a clear reaffirmation of the “documents of destiny” that have shaped this great nation and bound it together since our Independence – the Federal Constitution, the Rukun Negara, the guiding principles of the NEP, Wawasan 2020 and the National Mission’ (cf. Chapter II). During the launching of 1Malaysia’s Government Transformation Program (GTP) where both Mahathir and Abdullah were present, Najib (2010b) proclaimed ‘that [his] government is not a new government, but a continuity … because the ultimate objective is … to achieve Vision 2020’.... 

.... A close examination of Najib’s ‘Special Malaysia Day Message’ where he announced the repeal of the ISA, the lifting of emergency proclamations, and the amendment of other undemocratic measures would reveal his political doublespeak as regards democratization whereby he attempted to make a differentiation between the aspirations of the people for democracy and the imperative of the state for social order. Speaking with a Lincolnian rhetoric, Najib (2011) claimed: [a] to have realized ‘that the reality in Malaysia has changed’, [b] to have been ‘feeling the pulse, agitation and aspiration of the rakyat [people] who clamour for a more open and dynamic democracy, where the opinions, ideas and concerns of the masses are given due attention’; and [c] to have the aim ‘to be at par with other democratic systems in the world which are underscored by the universal principle from the people, by the people and for the people’. However, to Najib’s mind and from the perspective of the state he governs, the peoples’ aspiration for democracy has to be sidelined by post-9/11 security concerns and subsumed under the doctrine of the protection of authority as the raison d’état. Najib (2011) justifies the legitimacy of this authoritarian disposition by: 

[a] arguing it as a ‘global truth’ (i.e., the objective of national security ‘unavoidably … demands special measures which sometimes are outside the democratic norms’ such as ‘preventive detention’); 

 [b] basing it on ‘Islamic law’ (i.e., the principle of Usul Fiqah on ‘the need to prevent a wrongdoing from occurring’ and the principle ‘that the decision of the ruler is a trust which must be implemented for the people being governed for their general benefit’); and 

 [c] presenting it as a normally empirical reality (i.e., ‘not something strange, unusual or alien’ because in the 9/11 aftermath ‘[i]t has been proven that developed democratic countries such as the United States of America and the United Kingdom had also enacted special legislative framework to deal with terrorist threats’).... 

.... The outcomes of the unfolding domestic political contestations against UMNO-BN hegemony and the ramifications of the global economic crisis for the domestic economy can be regarded as crucial determinants as to whether or not Najib’s 1Malaysia will succeed as an electoral-political, socio-economic, and crisis management project. What is clear at this moment based on the policies, actions, and pronouncements of the government of Najib for the period 2009-2011 within the 1Malaysia framework is that the regime of authoritarian liberalism is being maintained, managed, and deepened through state’s coercive politics to protect UMNO’s political dominance amid the strengthening of opposition forces and through the state’s commitment to a peculiar neoliberal economics for the perpetuation of capitalist accumulation strategies in the context of contemporary globalization’s crisis.

Love-Hate Relationship with America

It's election time again in the US. By now, I have already watched and read a lot of news, debates, analyses, and documentaries about this hotly contested election between the incumbent President Barack Obama (Democrat) and the challenger Mitt Romney (Republican). So what do I think and feel about this 2012 election in particular and the US in general as a student of political history and based on the adage "the personal is political" (that my personal experience shapes my understanding of politics)? I can say that I have a personal love-hate relationship with America. 

I love the US primarily because it is home to many of my family who have been American citizens for a generation or two now. The salaries they have earned through hard work have been translated into a kind of welfare for me and my families in the Philippines. In many developing countries like the Philippines, the most responsible for welfare provision is the family (especially, those families who have kins working abroad)—not the state/government like in Nordic and Western Europe, nor private insurance companies as in the US. Instead of the government or a private insurance company, my American citizen-worker family members look after our welfare in the Philippines, inter alia, to send us to schools/universities (education), to help us when a family member is sick (health care), and to give us additional financial support especially for our elderly and needy relatives (pensions and social security).

But I hate the US for its elitist politics and imperialist history of greed for wealth and power of the country's vested interests. I hate it also for the social system it promotes which does not observe the natural balance between life and work, which commodifies nature and human life itself, and which reduces human relations into mere money relations. 

  

 

Given current realities, I can only make a wish: Good luck, US! Good luck, world! The choice is limited to Romney-Ryan (Republicans) frank in their money, corporate, and military interests and Obama-Biden (Democrats) involved in a rather smooth doublespeak. Two parties under one system. Both candidates are created and supported by particular factions of the power elite. Both are servants of the establishment. Both have to be representatives of the dangerous system which the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower has already warned us of on the very same day of my birth, January 17, in 1961: the military-industrial complex!

While I'd be curious to hear what Obama and Romney have to say about the military-industrial complex (i.e., the entrenched network of vested interests in business, military, and politics, and I'd like to add, religion) if asked about it in a televised debate, I'm also mindfully aware that these two men are eloquent politicians who are very good public speakers. So what for? The Democrats and Republicans may sound to be somewhat different, but they are fundamentally the same in the common objective of preserving, domestically and globally, what they perceive to as "America's national interest"—the material and ideological interests of the capitalist system and the US military-industrial complex. 

Perhaps I can only sing with Norah Jones to express my sentiments toward the US and its recent elections: "I love the things that you've given me; I cherish you my dear country; But sometimes I don't understand; The way we play....". 

"My Dear Country" 

'Twas Halloween, and the ghosts were out
And everywhere they'd go, they shout
And though I covered my eyes, I knew
They'd go away

But fear's the only thing I saw
And three days later 'twas clear to all
That nothing is as scary as election day

But the day after is darker
And darker and darker it goes
Who knows, maybe the plans will change
Who knows, maybe he's not deranged

The news men know what they know, but they
Know even less than what they say
And I don't know who I can trust
For they come what may

'Cause we believed in our candidate
But even more it's the one we hate
I needed someone I could shake
On election day

But the day after is darker
And deeper and deeper we go
Who knows, maybe it's all a dream
Who knows if I'll wake up and scream

I love the things that you've given me
I cherish you, my dear country
But sometimes I don't understand
The way we play

I love the things that you've given me
And most of all that I am free
To have a song that I can sing
On election day

Videos on the Military-Industrial Complex and Obama-Romney Debate: