Forget about those "who follow a different drummer". This is the era of absolute conformity, and I never imagined absolute conformity could be this fun. Asians have much to say share to the west regarding unity of command, be it done in a capitalist, communist, or hooligan-ist way.
As a starter (and this is the most boring), see a Chinese Military Parade.
If the so-called highly-developed "democracy" in the Philippines is already "tolerant" of our relatively peaceful labor protest actions (which was already condemned as violent by our more conservative friends from the government), just wait till they see the protest actions in our East Asian neighbor South Korea.
The largest and most politically and organizationally advanced labor union federation in South Korea (and perhaps, in the whole Asia), the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, had conducted mass actions that will surely dwarf our meager direct actions here. Forget the "shock and awe" tactics of the anarchists - look at the campaigns of KCTU, planned and organized with almost militaristic precision.
"The continuous emergence, destruction, and re-emergence of millenarian movements since the age of imperialism have long baffled social scientists, anthropologists and laypeople alike. Looking at such movements often entails getting a glimpse of the dark recesses of the human mind – particularly its subconscious desire for a new world order."
This letter appeared on Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) issue last March 22, 2007 (Thursday), page A14. It is a reaction to the unnecessary delay to the budget signing. The same day it was published, Arroyo quickly signed the budget to prevent collateral damage and snowballing of the issue. They got quite good tacticians, I say.
The article is also available at this link.
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From Inquirer
Last updated 03:48am (Mla time) 03/22/2007
Team Unity seems to have assumed that the public is already used to administration candidates always having the advantage of machinery and funding during elections. However, this begs the question: Where does Team Unity source its campaign funds? To answer this, we need only to look at the government’s primary source of funds: the national budget.
Known also as the “Bazaar” paradigm of software development, the FLOSS operates under the economics of increased competition and participative development, in contrast with the “Cathedral” paradigm employed by most software development companies in the market which seeks to monopolize software production and maintenance through consolidated capital. Instead of concentrating resources in order to improve its product, FLOSS flattens the hierarchy and allows a greater number of channels by which the product can be improved.
This paradigm is actually based on a new model of economic production – the commons-based peer production. Coined by Professor Yochai Benkler in his seminal paper Coase’s Penguin, the model is different from the conventional industrial production model since the creative potential of large number of people is coordinated into large and meaningful projects without traditional hierarchical organization or financial compensation."
All the fuss about Arroyo establishing a Marcos-style Martial Law is nothing but white noise, I realized recently. After all, that was what Arroyo construed the purpose of her recent antidemocratic measures to begin with – to be a weapon of distraction against her opponents, or maybe another bargaining chip against the opposition (which she can use to buy time by “waiving” in “good faith”). That is not really particularly interesting. What is interesting, however, is how her style of governance (or more aptly, tyranny) imposes a change to the very nature of our democracy – a change which may very well be irreversible if unmitigated.
Forget about those "who follow a different drummer". This is the era of absolute conformity, and I never imagined absolute conformity could be this fun. Asians have much to say share to the west regarding unity of command, be it done in a capitalist, communist, or hooligan-ist way.
