How much does it cost to kill a man?

AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR
By William M. Esposo

How much does it cost to kill a man? The late Bishop Fulton Sheen posed this question during a replayed 1968 episode of his internationally followed television series.

In the 1960s, Catholic schools used to assign pupils to watch Bishop Sheen’s TV show as homework. As a kid, I would have protested such homework which interferes with viewing my favorite programs.

Ironically, I find myself viewing Bishop Sheen replays these days on the two Catholic Cable TV Networks, EWTN and Familyland Network. It is not for the preaching of Catholic dogma that glues me to Bishop Sheen replays whenever I happen to chance upon it. It is for the timeless values he talked about in his show.

I was never keen on dogma, rituals and ceremonies that we see too much in the Catholic Church. Many times, I have called the Church hierarchy to task for being too “ceremonious” like the Pharisees Jesus Christ used to denounce and I’ve suggested to them to be more involved with the communities, especially the poorest of the poor.

I have always espoused that Filipinos need to overhaul their values if they are to move forward. This should be one of the top priorities of the Catholic Church — to help reform the values of the poor that conspire to keep them trapped in their station in life.

“How much does it cost to kill a man?” Bishop Sheen asked in that 1968 telecast. He proceeded to list the facts and figures that painted a grim picture of the destructive tendencies of man which, from Cain and Abel and up to this day and age, continue to be the darkest side of mankind.

Bishop Sheen explained that it needed Cain a mere branch of a tree to kill Abel. From this first murder (according to Christian faith), the concept of weaponry evolved — the sword, the arrow and the spear. Bishop Sheen presented what it cost warriors (based on 1968 value of money) through the centuries to kill their fellow man.

For Julius Caesar, it cost an estimated 75 cents. For Napoleon, to kill a man cost him US$700. In World War I, despite the existence of the capacity for wholesale killing, Bishop Sheen said it averaged to $21,000. In World War II, where more nations were involved and where even more deaths occurred, the cost to kill a man averaged $200,000. As of 1968 when the telecast was done, the US spent $1 million an hour in the Vietnam War, according to Bishop Sheen.
Of course, the cost in money terms is one aspect — the least mankind should be concerned with. Money can be recovered but not human lives. The toll in human lives and human misery must never be accepted as collateral for war.

But what mankind should worry about is the tracked tendency to engage in war even when times have improved in terms of economic standard of living, health and education. In many cases, of course, the more developed country adopts an imperial inclination and decides to make vassal States of the weak ones.

Bishop Sheen cited several periods of peace between wars that became shorter and shorter. Between the Napoleonic Wars and the Franco-Prussian War, Bishop Sheen said that there was an interval of 55 years. Between the Franco-Prussian War and World War I, there was a shorter interval of 43 years. Between World War I and World War II, the interval was only 21 years. Progress, it appears, increases instead of decreases the likelihood and incidence of war.
In the case of two European powers, Great Britain went to war 76 times during the last 100 years (note that reference point here is 1968). France went to war during the last 100 years — 16 times. Of course, after Napoleon, France became less imperial.

In 2007, US President George W. Bush asked for a Defense Appropriation of $493 billion, a 7% increase from that of 2006. At its height, the US spent an average of $40 billion a month in the Iraq invasion. These are monies that could easily go to health care, a thorny issue during the recently concluded US presidential election.

Let’s not go far from home. Over here, Dictator Ferdinand Marcos sent his First Lady, Imelda Marcos, to charm Muammar Khaddafi in Libya in order to seek a resolution to the Mindanao War. Marcos realized that the cost of the war could destabilize his martial law regime. The Tripoli Agreement resulted in that trip of Imelda Marcos and we had peace, albeit temporary.
If wide scale hostilities erupt anew in Mindanao, the Madame Gloria Macapagal Arroyo regime will find it extremely difficult to cope with the cost of a full scale war in addition to the economic crisis we are already encountering. A full scale Mindanao War could undo her just as World War I brought the end of the Romanov Tsars in Russia.

The sum of Bishop Sheen’s presentation is the dark side of man that is focused on using technology for things that can kill better and faster instead of using technology and resources to foster peace, harmony and development. After all, prosperity and development is the best insurance that a nation will not go to war.

Normally, a nation that is enjoying prosperity and peace will not willingly want to go to war. Japan today, an aggressor in World War II, is the best proof of that. The only reason why Japan is now rearming is because of signs of the US weakening and the looming threat of North Korea and China — both being Japan’s enemies in the past.

War as an instrument of foreign policy is too unpredictable. Who would imagine that a superpower like the US will run away from Vietnam with its tail between its legs? On the other hand, look at what the Great Depression created — the dawn of Fascist regimes in Spain, Italy and Germany under Franco, Mussolini and Hitler, respectively. Look at the casualties and devastated cities of Hitler’s World War II.

Invariably, the extreme income disparity in a society where many are miserably poor and too few are filthy rich proves to be the best promoter of conflict. A strong man emerges when there is a down trodden class in society, a big brother who promises to spread the wealth.

This is the reason why up to now we have not resolved our issues with our Communist rebels. Nothing promotes the ideas of Karl Marx better than a Wealth Gap such as the one that festers in our society.
* * *
Chair Wrecker e-mail and website: macesposo@yahoo.com and www.chairwrecker.com

The Lost Shepherds

GLIMPSES
Jose Ma. Montelibano

Being the most corrupt in the Southeast Asia region is not enough for our societal leaders. Most understand that corruption is an issue of governance, and they are right. Corruption is also an issue of morality, and nobody denies this. Shepherds, too, are not only of the Church and religion; they are also all other leaders - our parents, school administrations and faculties, civic and business leaders. When corruption rises to a level where our shame cannot be kept hidden anymore from a global audience, all shepherds have stumbled and fallen, with their flock after them, of course.

There are those who say that the world is very materialistic and hedonistic. Money and pleasure have outpaced virtue in the lives of people, until such time when aging bodies and the fear of death bring back some sense to our value system. More than ten years ago, I wrote about God the Money whom I called the Fourth Person and who was greater than the first three. I was not being funny, I was very serious. I just used a little humor to remind everyone of an embarrassing truth. After all, two thousand years ago, someone already said that money was the root of all evil, and that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

The corruption of a country and its governance is but the tip of an iceberg. There simply cannot be corruption at a massive scale unless societal shepherds had surrendered to wrongdoing as a force greater than themselves, or themselves have become perpetrators of wrongdoing. Filipinos have a four hundred year history of subservience to authority imposed and foreign. Prior to that, a datu system which rewarded obedience and loyalty was in place. Subservience, or obedience, has been a behavioral and collective trait. If societal shepherds had not recapitulated to immorality, corruption beyond random, individual cases would not be possible.

Reviewing our history in the last several years, it seems understandable that societal leaders did, indeed, surrender or play footsies with wrongdoing. Under the ambit of colonialism and conversion, State and Church ventured to institutionalized exploitation and the use of intimidation and force. For centuries, societal leaders were the State and the Church, and together, they conspired to take away a people’s freedom and resources. Consequently, they took away human dignity even as they claimed to introduce a higher form of civilization and the one true faith.

If leadership in the last four hundred years meant exploitation of the many and the native in order to promote the well-being of the few and the foreign, then a perverse leadership lifestyle was established. Sincerity, honesty and loyalty could have been practiced by those in power, but they operated in a two-tiered value system. Individual virtues could be exercised but in a greater context of wrong, virtues towards conquerors but injustice towards the conquered. It is a pattern that has survived beyond colonial times to dominate the Philippine social and political environment where the few remain to be more equal than others.

The failure of State and Church does not end with them. Being the superpowers of Philippine society, the examples that the hierarchies of State and Church give trickle down to the lowest levels of governance. These examples are followed them rather than the written law. In proportion to the gravity of corruption in the Philippines where the horrible cultural impact is worse than its financial losses, our shepherds are strangely quiet. Perhaps, it is their helplessness. Perhaps, too, it is their guilt.

Shepherds herd the sheep, lead them to pasture, protect them from wolves. In the Philippines, shepherds are often what are known in the vernacular as “bantay salakay,” who lead the sheep to poverty, not pasture, and who turn wolves themselves, preying on sheep they are sworn to protect.

An abused constituency has become so weak that many now go hungry. The latest figures quickly raised the Philippines to be measured as the fifth hungriest among nations. The country that hosts one of the richest, if not the richest, in bio-diversity has also become the fifth most hungry. Can anyone imagine how a rich nation can be hungry? Simple, look to its shepherds.
Hunger is a dark cloud which brings tragedy in its womb. It is not as though there are no political problems that provide tension, and hunger will intensify it. Mindanao is at edge, the NPA has become more active, and scandals rock the administration. Inside the military, there appears to be a steady shepherd in Gen. Alexander Yano and no serious murmurs destabilize the organization. But the steady shepherd is not the type who will bend to deliberate wrongdoing. If confronted by conflict of interest, sheer integrity and professionalism might be the trigger to an honorable revolution akin to 1986.

Poverty aggravated by hunger will cause crime, including the reckless and careless ones. Today, we read of more daring, or desperate robberies. We hear from the grapevine of victim families about unreported kidnappings and ransom payments. Silence by shepherds as streets become unsafe does not lead to apathy, it leads to tragedy.

Corruption and poverty are cancers that grow more aggressively in the face of paralysis from shepherds. Hunger and violence are consequences that create even more horrible end results. The sheep have to lose their innocence, their quiet obedience, move into flight or fight mode while their shepherds lose their courage, lose their voice.

Peace cannot be mistaken for cowardice. The first exudes equanimity, the other fear and confusion. The silence of peace is the quality of serenity while the silence of cowardice agitates the soul. High positions give great responsibility but demand great courage as well. When shepherds are silent while their flock is in grave danger, when leaders take the path of tentativeness in a crisis, the threatened will then witness Davids rise from the ground to battle the enemy.

It is the flock now looking for their shepherds. It is the shepherds who now are lost.
–
“In bayanihan, we will be our brother’s keeper and forever shut the door to hunger among ourselves.”

Why Obama will likely support Filipinos in removing evil despots

AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR
By William M. Esposo
Thursday, November 13, 2008

Avoiding meeting Madame Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) last July and not accepting and returning her recent telephone calls do not indicate that President-elect Barack Obama isn’t a friend of the Philippines.

Far from it, it would indicate that Obama is true to his word when he said (during his acceptance speech in Grant Field, Chicago last November 4) “tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.”

President-elect Obama is wise to avoid contact and association with someone like GMA whose regime has been characterized in the world press for repression, suppression of freedom of speech and the murder of unarmed political activists — not to mention election fraud.

A greater insight can be obtained from Barack Obama’s own article which was featured in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs. Headlined RENEWING AMERICAN LEADERSHIP, Obama outlined his foreign policy views which are consistent with his acceptance speech pronouncements.

In summarizing his world view and preferred approaches to present problems, Obama wrote: “Today, we are again called to provide visionary leadership. This century’s threats are at least as dangerous as and in some ways more complex than those we have confronted in the past. They come from weapons that can kill on a mass scale and from global terrorists who respond to alienation or perceived injustice with murderous nihilism. They come from rogue states allied to terrorists and from rising powers that could challenge both America and the international foundation of liberal democracy. They come from weak states that cannot control their territory or provide for their people. And they come from a warming planet that will spur new diseases, spawn more devastating natural disasters, and catalyze deadly conflicts.”

He added: “The Bush administration responded to the unconventional attacks of 9/11 with conventional thinking of the past, largely viewing problems as state-based and principally amenable to military solutions. It was this tragically misguided view that led us into a war in Iraq that never should have been authorized and never should have been waged. In the wake of Iraq and Abu Ghraib, the world has lost trust in our purposes and our principles.”

“After thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars spent, many Americans may be tempted to turn inward and cede our leadership in world affairs. But this is a mistake we must not make. America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, and the world cannot meet them without America. We can neither retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission. We must lead the world, by deed and by example.”
“Such leadership demands that we retrieve a fundamental insight of Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy — one that is truer now than ever before: the security and well-being of each and every American depend on the security and well-being of those who live beyond our borders. The mission of the United States is to provide global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity.”

“The American moment is not over, but it must be seized anew. To see American power in terminal decline is to ignore America’s great promise and historic purpose in the world. If elected president, I will start renewing that promise and purpose the day I take office.”

He provided an insight on how he will handle the Iraq quagmire. He wrote: “This redeployment could be temporarily suspended if the Iraqi government meets the security, political, and economic benchmarks to which it has committed. But we must recognize that, in the end, only Iraqi leaders can bring real peace and stability to their country.”

“At the same time, we must launch a comprehensive regional and international diplomatic initiative to help broker an end to the civil war in Iraq, prevent its spread, and limit the suffering of the Iraqi people. To gain credibility in this effort, we must make clear that we seek no permanent bases in Iraq. We should leave behind only a minimal over-the-horizon military force in the region to protect American personnel and facilities, continue training Iraqi security forces, and root out al Qaeda.”

Again Obama reinforces his commitment to democratic ideals when he wrote: “There are compelling moral reasons and compelling security reasons for renewed American leadership that recognizes the inherent equality and worth of all people. As President Kennedy said in his 1961 inaugural address, “To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required — not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” I will show the world that America remains true to its founding values. We lead not only for ourselves but also for the common good.”

There is every reason for us to hope that President-elect Barack Obama will be a true friend of the democracy-loving Filipino people and may even be inclined to help us remove the evil despots in our land.
* * *
Chair Wrecker e-mail and website: macesposo@yahoo.com and www.chairwrecker.com

Obama Snubbed Arroyo

Snubbed
FRONTLINE
Ninez Cacho-Olivares
11/07/2008

Barack Obama isn’t Dubya, Gloria Arroyo’s political soulmate, but that early, shortly after Obama won the American presidency, there went Gloria, placing a congratulatory call to the first black American president, no doubt trying to establish — propaganda-wise — that no matter who sits in the White House, she would still be regarded as an Asian leader who counts in the geopolitical sphere.
Oops. Her call was ignored and she does the next propaganda thing, which was to claim that as she goes off to New York, she will be contacting Obama and seek a meeting with him.

Now the US envoy to the Philippines has already stated that Obama will not be entertaining visits from foreign leaders, as he has to work, not only on the transition process, which means putting up his Cabinet, along with planning his inaugural.

Why she has again scheduled a trip to the USA at this time, when there really is hardly a necessity for it for the Philippine side, can be accurately guessed at.
This trip was planned to ensure that she would have that opportunity to meet with whoever won the US presidency, just as she did the last time she was on a trip to the United Nations.

In that trip, she flew backwards and forwards, across the US of A, just for that chance meeting with both Obama and Republican John McCain.

In the end, she could only meet with McCain, but she had to fly somewhere else just to have that brief photo-op meeting while she cooled her heels in another state, waiting for that chance to meet with Obama and have yet another photo-op, for her and her aides to be able to claim that she is on first name basis with both Republican and Democrat presidential candidates.

She ended up with a phone-call with Obama, and the Malacañang propaganda machine churned out the hogwash of the call having taken long, and that they talked about many important issues linking the US and the Philippines, and the assurance that the US and the Philippines would remain strong allies.

That phone call with Obama and the meeting with McCain cost the Filipinos a lot of money as she was traipsing all over the US for these.

But trust her to pressure whoever in the Philippine Embassy in Washington to get her a meeting with Obama, and perhaps even squeeze out of Obama, or anyone in his camp, an invitation for his inaugural, for her to again come up with the usual propaganda play.

And guess what? She tried calling Obama again and again, her call was ignored. Oops.
Not having succeeded in personally giving Obama her congratulations, Malacañang went into high gear, saying that with a Democrat in the White House, one can already be certain of a positive response to the veterans bill which she says is for the neglected Filipino veterans, for whom she has been fighting.

But hello. The Democrats in both the House and the Senate have been in power for the last two years, and while the US Senate did come up with the measure, the US House of Representatives, dominated by the Democrats under Speaker Nancy Pelosi, didn’t give it its imprimatur. It isn’t likely to fly now, even with Obama — who is being portrayed as understanding Asians, having spent time in Indonesia as a young boy — in the White House and with the Democrats in full control of the legislature.
The reason is simple. The US government, even if headed by a president who is regarded as one who inspires and gives Americans hope in the future under his leadership, he faces gargantuan problems which, even he admits, cannot be resolved in one year or even in one term.

He faces the problem of America having two wars — Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention serious irritants and tension between Pakistan and the US, along with the Russia-Georgia-Nato conflict plus the problem of the instability in the Middle East.
And there is the serious economic and financial crisis America faces and jobs to be
generated and homes being lost, along with the Americans’ falling 401K, not to mention the huge $10 trillion US debt, plus a $1 trillion budget deficit.
And Gloria thinks Obama will have time for her at this time?

Still, if Obama is as smart and as politically savvy as his supporters claim he is, then he should know that even the Republicans, in the time of George W. Bush in the White House, had already advised him years ago not to be identified with Gloria or entertain her for a visit.

She is poison to the Filipinos. And she can be poison to Obama.

The Color-blind Generation

PerryScope
Perry Diaz

On August 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. evoked the name of Lincoln in his “I Have a Dream” speech. “I have a dream,” he said, “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Almost half a century later on November 3, 2008, his dream came true with the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America.

Obama was catapulted to the presidency with the vote of a new generation of Americans: idealistic, young people of diverse colors — white, black, brown, yellow, red — who judged Obama not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character. This is the color-blind generation that Dr. King dreamed about and they’re the vanguard of a movement that changed politics in America.

The road America took towards a color-blind society — we’re not there yet but getting closer to it — was pock-marked with violence and hatred. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln led his Republican Party to stop the expansion of slavery beyond the borders of the 11 pro-slavery southern states. Lincoln’s ascension to the presidency sparked the American Civil War in 1861 that took 620,000 lives — the bloodiest in the nation’s history. In 1862, in the midst of the civil war, Lincoln made a bold step and issued his Emancipation Proclamation with the goal of ending slavery. The victory of Lincoln’s Union Army in 1865 ended the civil war.

Although freed from slavery, the African-Americans had to fight for equality for the next 100 years. Racial segregation was the rule rather than the exception. African-Americans were systematically disenfranchised particularly in the Deep South where Jim Crow laws relegated African-Americans to second class citizens.

With the landmark legislation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which ended segregation and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which outlawed discriminatory voting practices against African-Americans, African-Americans and other minorities made inroads in politics. However, gerrymandering still lived — electoral districts were arbitrarily redistributed to the advantage of the majority whites.

Forty-three years after the Voting Rights Act was enacted, a black man finally shattered the racial barriers in politics. The key to Obama’s success was his ability to register and mobilize millions of young voters… and get them out to vote on election day.

Polls showed that Obama got at least two-thirds of the young — and first-time — voters. But what became apparent during the campaign was that these young voters were ethnically diverse. They looked upon Obama as a leader whose blackness was irrelevant to their cause. To them he is the visionary that they believe would lead America in a new direction and change the way the government works.

Obama saw the strength of the Internet-savvy youths. He used state-of-the-art technology to gather and compile the email addresses of 70 million Americans that he could reach at the click of a laptop keyboard. Aaron Smith of the Pew Internet and American Life Project said, “They have millions of e-mail addresses, phone numbers and whole communities of supporters – both geographic and online – and it will be very interesting to see how they use them in government.”

Obama’s Internet-based networking website www.my.barackobama.com attracted millions of young voters. He used “viral networking” to spread his message by email and text messaging. And he raised a record-setting $158 million in September alone, 75% of which came online.

Obama has changed the way of reaching out to voters. Indeed, it was his consistent message of “Change” that attracted this color-blind generation of young idealistic Americans who are restless for change. Finally, America is beginning to outgrow its race-conscious ways of doing business.

A year ago, many people were saying that America was not ready to elect an African-American President. Even African-Americans were cynical of Obama’s quixotic quest for the presidency. Before the Iowa caucuses, many African-Americans opted to support Hillary Clinton whom many believed was in a better position to clinch the Democratic nomination. Many believed that Obama did not have a chance to win the Iowa Democratic caucuses. The conventional wisdom at that time was that Iowa was too lily white — and very Republican — for Obama to snatch. But snatch he did… with the support of young white voters who flocked to the caucuses that gave Obama his first primary victory. By the time South Carolina held its primary, the African-Americans had detoured from the Clinton trail and gave Obama his first southern state victory.

With his African-American base and the newly empowered color-blind generation of young voters, Obama clinched the presidency on November 4th. Now, the question is: will the color-blind generation continue to expand and flex its political muscle in electing our national leaders without regard to race? And finally, would other people of color be able to follow Obama’s footsteps to the White House?

(PerryDiaz@gmail.com)

Footnote to history

Theres The Rub
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines - I saw one of the best movies of all time last week. Except that it wasn’t a movie, it was real life.

You can forgive Oprah Winfrey her larger-than-life enthusiasms as she groped for words to capture the momentousness of the moment. As well indeed as the countless other Americans, black and white, who gathered at Chicago’s Grant Park and erupted into cheers and applause as Obama was declared the 44th president of the United States of America. Tears flowed copiously down the faces of the more elderly among them, like the Rev. Jesse Jackson who grimaced as he held back his emotion, that image alone speaking volumes about the length of the journey and the depth of the victory that had been won that day.

I myself roared my approval last Wednesday in the quiet of my neighborhood when CNN projected Obama the winner. When I saw that image of Jackson, I felt the hair on my body stand on end. Few images have moved me to the depths of my soul. That one did.
As dramatic goes, Obama’s victory ranks up there among my list of the five most dramatic events of the last 50 years. It is certainly the most dramatic event of the 21st century. Not even 9/11 comes close to it. The only other events I can think of that seem equally awe-inspiring are the landing on the moon, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of apartheid and our very own People Power in 1986.

Except for the landing of the moon, all these events were the culmination of struggles against tyranny, the bursting of light at the end of the deepest darkness. The Berlin Wall was dramatic because it carried a very graphic image, a physical barrier that became the symbol of everything that was absurdly tyrannical or tyrannically absurd, a literal wall that divided a city, a country, a people. The end of apartheid was equally dramatic because of Nelson Mandela, one of the truly great individuals of our time, who endured the severest persecution and punishment before going on to rid the world of one of its greatest plagues. Moses could not have done better.

And Edsa, ah, but that too qualifies as a modern-day miracle and has earned its place in the annals of epochal events, notwithstanding that Mahatma Gandhi preached the virtues of a bloodless revolution long before it. But I’ll plead guilty to my inclusion of it being motivated more by sentiment than by utter reason.

Just a year ago, the idea that America would have a black president was unthinkable. That he would be a first-time senator, that he would have an exotic background, with a Kenyan for a father, Hawaii as his roots, and some years in Indonesia behind him, and that he would carry the improbable name “Barack Obama,” was even more unthinkable. The tyranny that Obama ended wasn’t just the reign of George W. Bush, however tyrannical that was and would go down the anus of history. It went further, much further. It went back to the beginning of the life of Ann Nixon Cooper, the 106-year-old woman who bestirred herself to go to the polls last week to vote.

“She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons—because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.”

One of those reasons at least Obama pushed back, if not dispelled once and for all, with his victory. He would say in his acceptance speech that that moment was not the change they were seeking but merely the chance to secure the change they were seeking. But as many spectators, or witnesses, would say later on, that wasn’t entirely true. As Obama strode down the stage, a tall, gaunt and confident figure, not unlike another politician from Illinois who went on to sign a declaration that abolished slavery, he was the embodiment of the change countless people had sought and thought they would not see in their lifetime. His voice was the clanging of chains being thrown away.

“Change has come to America,” he said. What simple words to describe the massive shifting of the tectonic plates of history! No wonder the Rev. Jesse Jackson was in the state he was. Some of my friends texted me to say tears ran down their faces when they heard those words. I texted back: “Mine too.”

It was no ordinary election that took place in the mightiest nation on earth last week. It wasn’t just whether a Republican or Democrat would reside in the White House or whether the Republicans or Democrats would rule both houses of Congress. It wasn’t even just about jobs and the economy, or whether a country had had enough of eight years of misrule or would have more of it. It went deeper, it went farther.
It went beyond John McCain’s conciliatory words about his understanding the special pride African-Americans must feel that day, something he and his running mate in any case meant to thwart with a campaign that at a desperate hour tried to resurrect a “real America”—a bigoted America, a paranoid America, an America that brooked no change from what God, a bearded white man, decreed to be so.

In fact, it wasn’t just an election that took place last week in the land of the free and brave, where only last decade cops were free to beat up a black man for over-speeding, and where only recently Republican campaign ralliers could be brave enough to shout, “Kill him! Kill him!”

It wasn’t just an election, it was a revolution.
The road Ann Nixon Cooper has taken has been long, and it remains long. Obama has miles to go before he sleeps, picking up the journey from her. But last week, he took a long stride, not unlike the gravity-defying kind Neil Armstrong took on the moon.

I saw one of the best movies of all time last Wednesday. Except that it wasn’t a movie, it was real life.

What will President Obama do about the big issues of Filipino-American relationship?

AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR
By William M. Esposo
Sunday, November 9, 2008

Momentous ascendancies to power like the rise of Barack Obama in the US and Cory Aquino in the Philippines in 1986 are created by the monumental failures of the regimes they succeeded.
The failures and excesses of the Marcos dictatorship created the conditions that promoted the rise of Cory Aquino. The arrogance, failures and unilateralism of the George W. Bush administration in the US pushed the American voters to vote for Barack Obama, the first African-American US President.

Without Ferdinand Marcos and George W. Bush, it would have been imponderable to even imagine the ascendancies of Cory Aquino and Barack Obama.

No woman, especially one without any government and political experience like Cory Aquino, was hitherto ever elected president in the Philippines. However, Marcos created extraordinary conditions that made Filipinos consider extraordinary solutions.

Two years ago, if you are a betting man, you would see better odds in Ateneo Blue Eagle Chris Tiu making it to the first five of the Boston Celtics than in Barack Obama being elected US president. However, George W. Bush also created extraordinary conditions that made Americans consider an extraordinary solution — an African-American president.

In February 3, 2003, The Philippine STAR published an article I wrote where I shared my intuition that the crash of the Space Shuttle Columbia could be an omen of the fall of the American Empire. My article (“Maybe Bush will listen to the omen”) enumerated the many uncanny coincidences that seemed like a bad omen for the US.

Columbia was the original name of America and the visible trail of the Space Shuttle crashing from the sky depicted the ominous comet that is known to presage tragic major world events like a world war.

Also rather ominous is that the bulk of the Columbia debris fell in Texas (which is the home State of the US president) in a town named Palestine (which is the name of a potential Middle East flashpoint). It is not inconceivable that a world war, which could even be a nuclear war, could be triggered by events in the Middle East.

“The American president will not heed the counsel of allies. The appeal of the Pope (the late Pope John Paul II) meant nothing to him. He ignores the lessons of history. Maybe, now he will heed the warnings of what appears to be the omen.” I said in that article regarding the US invasion of Iraq.

Five years after the Iraq invasion, who will now argue that indeed the crash of the Space Shuttle Columbia was a dire omen? More than anything else, the Iraq invasion destroyed American goodwill in the world. US inability to successfully conclude their Iraq engagement reinforced US weaknesses and limitations that the US defeat in Vietnam exposed.

At its height, the US spent an average of $40 billion a month in maintaining their armed force in Iraq. The Iraq War is easily the single biggest cause of the US budget deficit that grew beyond tolerable proportions from the Clinton era to the present Bush regime.

By repeating Hitler’s mistake of fighting two fronts, the US got stuck in two wars — one in Iraq and another in Afghanistan — which created the single biggest stimulus for the clamor for change that culminated in the election of Barack Obama. Obama wisely rejected the Iraq misadventure even when other Democrats approved the Iraq invasion.

Barack Obama enters the White House with the overwhelming support and well-wishes of Americans as well as other nationals who are hoping that he will rectify the mistakes of George W. Bush and restore American standing and goodwill in the world.

The arrogant George W. Bush will leave the White House with most of his people and other peoples of the world wishing that he never took residence there at all. Nothing could be more devastating for an outgoing US President than the thought that many of your own people are wishing that you never became president at all.

For us Filipinos, we should wish that President-elect Barack Obama will take stock of the abuses against democracy that are happening in our country and that he will use US influence to help us correct these abuses. Another US President from the Democratic Party — Jimmy Carter — was just about the only US president who took action against the Marcos dictatorship.

In his acceptance speech, President-elect Barack Obama said: “And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world — our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down — we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security — we support you. And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright — tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.”??
It is on those American ideals that President-elect Obama mentioned that we Filipinos should pin our hopes that the US that promoted the Marcos dictatorship will revert back to the US that is a champion of freedom and democracy.

Past US administrations have adopted the detested ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ character of US foreign policy that is willing to support a son-of-a-bitch if he happens to be their son-of-a-bitch. That is the Mr. Hyde character of US foreign policy that supported many dictatorships and tyrants so long as they serve US geopolitical interests.

If he will be true to his ideals, Barack Obama will be betraying his defined mission if he will be indifferent to the virtual dictatorship governing this country.

Americans like to think that they taught Filipinos democracy. Well, democracy is being raped in this country. Unarmed Filipino activists are being murdered. Freedom of the press is under constant assault. A new Constitution is being proposed in order to perpetuate the virtual dictatorship. What will President Barack Obama do about these?

The US is seen as the promoter of a Moro State in Mindanao which will result in the dismemberment of the Republic. What will President Barack Obama do about this?

The Filipino-American relationship has been largely one-sided and the US has been less than fair and honest. Will President Barack Obama correct the historical mistakes and deal with the Philippines as befits a loyal ally?
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Chair Wrecker e-mail and web-site: macesposo@yahoo.com and www. chairwrecker.com