And as Goebbels recommended, often for the same thing. It is just defending their client if guilty and attacking their opponent even if innocent. Why do we have our Manchurian electorate? Not just because of the candidates and the electorate but due to their enablers and "influencers" with their often faint intellectual rigor and consistency. "Après moi, le déluge." As King Louis 15th of France reputedly said on his deathbed and this great line has since been used to explain varied situations by authors as unrelated as Karl Marx, Dostoevsky and D.H. Ironically, I think we don't have a Manchurian candidate here, instead we have a Manchurian electorate that is manipulated and conditioned into blindly and devotedly following their preferred cult or camp or group regardless of merit, position, or candidate. Tell me one successful post-EDSA presidential candidate that did not do one of these three? It is equivalent to American politics still being divided into the Kennedy or Nixon camps after 60 years. What does one do to become president with a few noble but usually in vain exceptions? Try to be the leader of one of the two big multi-generation camps - Aquino or Marcos or make one's own but usually collaborating with one of the two. Let's count how many politicians and would-be politicians we can name would be nothing if you changed their family name? I admire and respect qualified second- and later-generation politicians but how many do you think have grown into their job or were qualified to begin with vs well it is our business being politicians and office holders? Worse are those who are qualified but turned out to be hacks? For the latter, quite a few sadly come to mind as well. You would think they were trying to be a living Madame Tussaud mannequin. Think I am wrong about the last part? Then tell me why we are such suckers for necro-politics and why some in the next generation of politicians even try to ape the appearance of their parents or relatives if possible. Even better if you can build a multi-generational camp and machine. More than anything it is about who can have the biggest mass group or cult, with the most devoted and blind and unquestioning followers. Why familiar? It is what I often see in national politics in the Philippines. Same with their non-agenda except for a few litmus test issues cynically used as all that is sought is power and putting down the other side. When I think about the demonization by Trump and his rabid followers of those who are not with them, I keep thinking about how the enmity and inability to ascribe decent motives among those they disagree with is so prevalent on their side is so frankly familiar to me. The closest equivalent in Asia I suppose would be Mao's "Great Leap Forward" and the harm the "re-education" and related chaos and pogroms resulted in. The same was done to Japanese-Americans in WW2. Which was very sad and tragic for the targeted. There was some of that, post 9/11, but the invective was limited towards a group who were being blamed by reason of race and religion. Before Trump and his cultish and unthinking followers unleashed their nihilistic havoc, McCarthyism was the biggest mass hysteria in modern America. There are two main themes in the novel and film adaptation - the mendacity and hysteria of McCarthyism and unthinking anti-communism, and more important (at least for me) is how anti-communism and the tactics and conformism demanded from it can be as harmful to democracy and to a civil and functioning society as communism itself was. It is about an anti-communist politician who was brainwashed and under the control of the enemy. This political thriller was written just as the US was getting over the anti-communist hysteria and red baiting of Sen. While I have not seen the remake, the original film "The Manchurian Candidate" made in 1962 was based on the 1959 novel by Richard Condon. Articles on stocks in major markets disclose the position, if any, of the author, firm and publication. Rules elsewhere do not allow that and with good reason. Is it appropriate for them to remain anonymous? Shouldn't their readers and that of the Philippine Star know of their qualifications and at the very least any conflict of interest and whether they have a position in the stocks they are discussing? There is no disclaimer on that. Even though they have the standard disclaimer to not make investment decisions based on what they write it still drives interest in the stocks they write about. I have no issue with what they have written but why are they so secretive about who they are? If I missed the disclosure, happy to be enlightened. I looked up their website and Facebook, but I see no disclosure on who they are and who writes the newsletter. I have been seeing a lot of stories by Merkado Barkada on the digital Philippine Star.
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4/22/2024 03:32:23 am
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