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Saturday, April 07, 2007

Filipino Revolutionary Drops Us a Line.

A couple of days ago I recieved a comment on this thread from Filipino, Ivan Phell Enrile.

The post dealt with increased activity by the the Communist Party of the Philippines and its military wing the New Peoples Army.

stupids! filipino communists get their weapons from ambushes, surprise raids versus the Armed forces of the Philippines-the military wing of the government of the republic of the philippines, the police and other para-military institutions and groupings of the state! these reactionary state's military actors in turn receive generous fundings, weapons and war equipments from the government of the US of A.

Let me also interject that it is the armed forces of the Philippines and their fascist-terroristic hooligans that commit human rights violations against innocent civilians, children, families, members of the open, legal democratic left, civil libertarians and human rights workers.

Because it is impossible for the US-backed Macapagal-Arroyo regime to curtail the ever-growing strenght of the CPP-NPA-NDF, they resort to coward acts of terrorism and fascism against the struggling filipino masses. extra-judicial killings in the philippines now number at 840+. a feat courtesy of the us-arroyo regime in its mere 6 years in power, surpassing even the criminal records of the 20+ year old marcos dictatorship which puts the whole Philippine nation to shame in the international community (again!)

Please check your informations first before making any comments. those who do not have any material facts to back-up their pronouncements do not have any right to speak.

Than you.
Ivan Phell Enrile from the Philippines


A quick Google search reveals that Ivan is involved in ANAKBAYAN, at University of the Philippines, Quezon City.


What is ANAKBAYAN?

The organisation describes itself as a;

a progressive national sectoral youth party aiming to represent the youth sector in Congress. We intend to advance our youth’s interest and welfare by introducing laws critical to our development and advancement as future leaders and citizens of this country.

ANAKBAYAN is the youth wing of the electoral coalition, BAYAN which is made up many of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines myriad "legal" front organisations" including;

labor groups like the Kilusang Mayo Uno, peasant organizations such as Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, youth organizations such as the League of Filipino Students, religious organizations such as the Student Christian Movement - Philippines, the Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace and Promotion of Church People's Response (PCPR), feminist organizations such as GABRIELA, Kilusan ng Manggawang Kababaihan (Women Workers' Movement), SAMAKANA (Association of United and Free Women) and AMIHAN (National Federation of Peasant Women), Health Workers' organizations such as the Health Alliance for Democracy (HEAD), educational/scientific organizations such as the Alliance of Concerned Teachers and Scientists, Technologists, Engineers for the People (STEP), fisherfolk such as Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (PAMALAKAYA - National Federation of Fisherfolk Organizations), cultural organizations such as BUGKOS, and indigenous people's organizations such as Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (KAMP - National Federation Of Indigenous Peoples' Organizations).

ANAKBAYAN itself has been accused by the Armed Forces Philippines of being targeted for infiltration by the Communist Party of the Philippines.

This is a diplomatic understatement. ANAKBAYAN has been a CPP front since its founding in 1990.

Proof of ANAKBAYAN's communist leanings is its affiliation to the World Federation of Democratic Youth, an international grouping of Marxist-Leninist youth organisations.

27 Comments:

Blogger mah29001 said...

In my personal view, Communist terrorists in the Phillipines can't JUST get their weapons via ambushes. They have to have outside help such as the Russian Mafia as an example as they have been exposed for aiding the Tamil Tigers and other terror movements.

3:49 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

good day!
i've just read your comment.
let me just clarify that anakbayan, a LEGAL, OPEN MASS ORGANIZATION, was founded on November 30, 1998 not 1990. ANAKBAYAN advocates the politics of national democracy: a politics which can be described in three adjectives: anti-imperialist, anti-feudal, and anti-fascist (given the fact thatthe existing Philippine social formation is semi-feudal(native feudalism now linked to the needs and imperatives of foreign monopoly-capital) and semi-colonial (under the indirect control and domination of US imperialism.
Our organization seeks to unite all Filipino youth, whatever their political tendencies and ideological leanings may be, if they do recognize that the Philippines and its people, in order to attain genuine democracy, progress and peace, should take up the task of emancipating itself from the fetters of neo-colonial rule, feudal exploitation and fascist repression guising under the mask of formal "bourgeois-liberal" institutions and processes. ANAKBAYAN operates within the bounds of legal forms of struggle and political contestations, dispersing its forces among the Filipino youth wherever they can be found: factories, urban poor communities, schools, rural areas, etc. In short wherever there exist exploitation and oppression among Filipino youth, there is ANAKBAYAN. Our affiliation with WFDY (I still need to verify that information) even if it may be true, does not immediately implicate us as communists. Again, we unite with individuals, organizations and leaders on the basis of the above-stated principles.
Unfortunately, the Manila government in Malacanang is very much insecure that any signs and quivers of protest and organizing it readily brands as "communist". The meaning of "communism" in the Philippines and I think even abroad has become pejorative already that even national democracy which is supposed to be a politics that reaches out to the most variegated and popular groupings, sectors and classes is being branded as "communist" (whatever their definition of the term may be). Our government labels our organization as communist because it would like to restrict any acts of activity that will cast doubt upon its validity and its claim of being authentically representative to the democratic will of the people (the bourgeois-humanist illusion of the state being transcendent of classes, identities and interests).
There is no doubt that part of the reactionary Macapagal-Arroyo regimes grand effort to curtail the civil and democratic rights of the people to freely organize and dissent is to ostracize and label progressive, legal, and let me delineate, UNARMED organizations like ANAKBAYAN as communist to justify the ongoing series of extra-judicial killings of our members and leaders.
It is very much unfortunate and disappointing that you Mr. Loudon would buy this stale cold-war propaganda of the government who happens to have no respect for the universal and absolute right of every human person to freely express their own opinions and espouse systems of thought and beliefs without any repression. I can not believe that you even have to go to the extent of searching my name in google to obtaibn information about me, my affiliations, the school where I study and then publish it on the net after making the pronouncement that the organization of which I am a member of is a "communist Front" You could have just argued against the merits and demerits of my blog post. Now I fear for my life. Who knows, the military may just be around the corner, waiting for my appearance. Who knows, I may be the next victim of GMA's vigilante death squads.
I hope we could just debate on the truth value and points of our arguments and line rather than resort to ad hominems, brandings, and regurgitated black propagandas.
Thank you very much.
I. P. Enrile

5:39 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is just raving drivel. Do you communists/progressives/revolutionary types know how BORING you are?

9:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Trev Mr I P Enrile has a good point. Some of your blog posts could seriously put some people's lives at risk (such as this one and the one where you accussed a refugee of being Shining Path). As you can appreciate the Arroyo government and the military in the Philippines aren't particularly fond of human rights. Over the last few years many unionists and dissidents have been shot.

It seems the threat of the NPA is just used to crack down on legitimate dissent. Don't let your hatred of communism lead you to support repression of innocent people.

1:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"National Federation of Fisherfolk Organizations"

Gotta get me a ticket to their annual ball.

1:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

to mah29001 and other like-minded people,

first of all, you don’t start lashing people or groups with stupid statements like "in my personal view." If its really personal, then you might as well keep it to yourself bimbo! But alas, I’m reacting now to your "personal opinion" just because it could bear grave consequences to innocent individuals like Mr. Enrile. How dare you endanger the lives of innocent people! If you are so well informed by the organizational moves made by the Russian Mafia then perhaps you belong to that group yourself! Aha, now it is clear who the real terrorist is, you who mask yourself as some self-righteous defender of world peace. YOU ARE THE REAL TERRORIST HERE! Why? Because terrorists wreak havoc just for the heck of it. Terrorists like you post baseless/idiotic claims that imperil the lives of other people. If ever you are a lawyer, I’m sure you have lost every single case you’ve handled by the way you concoct your assertions. Even Donald Trump, a well-known tycoon and showman of capitalism, will not put up with your imbecility. And now, even supposedly socialist nations like Cuba will immediately kick you to the curb . You are the embodiment of the filthy individual George Bush Jr. should annihilate NOW. It seems that the only place you could go to now is hell. President Bush and President Gloria Macapagacal-Arroyo, please save us from Mah29001! Not only is he stupid, he has become a threat to our global security!


-from a concerned American citizen who fears for her life now that mah29001 is on the loose.

9:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

On the source of CPP-NPA’s funds and the unconscious orientalism in the speculations of westerners about the Filipino revolutionary movement

During its initial years, the re-established Communist Party of the Philippines received considerable support, not only in terms of the material aids, but also political and ideological assistances which are equally vital to its existence and operations, from the International Communist Movement. Most notable parties were the Communist Party of China (then under the leadership of Chairman Mao Tsetung) and the Partai Komunist Indonesia (PKI – Communist Party of Indonesia) outside the socialist bloc. The former provided the much needed weapons like rifles and guns while Indonesian comrades during the 1950s and 1960s, before the bloody ouster of Sukarno in 1965, furnished important documents and books by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao for party studies and theoretical discussions. This was the spirit of proletarian internationalism translated into concrete action through ideological, political, and organizational fraternity and cooperation for the purpose of combating a common historical enemy.
However, series of crises and upheavals during the late 70’s erupted within the International Communist Movement which effected major implications on the local communist party. Mao Zedong passed away and the opportunist and revisionist clique headed by Teng Hsiao-ping within the Chinese communist party conducted a series of bloody purges and installed itself to power through a coup d’etat in 1976, signaling the detrimental end of the working class power there. Suddenly Chinese comrades avoided references to proletarian revolutionary internationalism. The ruling revisionist parties did approached some key leaders of the movement, offering forms of support but they also floated suggestions that the re-established party merge with the old Soviet-aligned revisionist organizations, to be exact, with the old Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas. This was an impossibility since there exist fundamental ideological differences between the CPP and this Browderite revisionists and that this group has long been discredited from the public eyes by collaborating itself with the Marcos fascist regime from 1972 to 1986. By 1998, articles flagrantly denigrating the revolutionary movement and its causes appeared in various journals of Soviet academy of social sciences and official Soviet press like The World Marxist Review.
This reality made the movement learn and realize the virtue of self-sufficiency and independence. It repudiated the line of relying on material support from foreign organizations and parties. If it is to win revolution, it has to delve down to the mass of workers and peasants, organize them and rely upon their strength and popular support. This is a clear application of the Marxist truism that it is the internal that is most decisive in the quantitative and qualitative development of a contradiction. External factors indeed play a part in the revolutionary process, but it assumes only a secondary importance. Finally Marxists do not treat weapons as a metaphysical thing that will clinch the victory or defeat of the movement as the revolution is certainly not a revolution of weapons and arms; revolution is a movement of a people who realized that the present is a product of history, is itself history and therefore, can actually be changed.
Filipino revolutionaries certainly celebrate the victories and successes of fellow revolutionary comrades abroad and are more than happy to assist them in their respective struggles. Their victories constitute a crucial role in the over-all weakening and disintegration of the hegemony of monopoly capital all over the world. Conversely, they welcome the acts of solidarity shown by fraternal parties and organizations abroad for the Filipino people’s struggle for national liberation, democracy, and socialism. But the Communist Party of the Philippines primarily relies upon the support of the exploited and oppressed masses and would never exchange this principle for a handful piece of guns and rifles.
This can explains why up to now, in the midst of a lull in the international communist movement, when the triumphalist notion of the so-called “end of history” seems to dominate world opinion, the Communist Party of the Philippines remains vital, stronger than ever and attracts a wide range of audience, supporters and members.
Unfortunately, outsiders can not fully comprehend this peculiar character of Philippine reality. They ignorantly speculate and babble about where the CPP-NPA can possibly acquire its funds and weapons. And they have the arrogance to imagine themselves as “knowers”, as possible articulators/interpreters of the truth about Philippine insurgency. Hidden behind this arrogance (“arrogance of imaginary power” as my professor in Comparative Literature puts it) is a version of what post-colonial critic Edward Said terms as Orientalism: representations of the Western power about its non-western “other” which it produces as “the truth” about that community. On a close scrutiny this Orientalist ideology is intimately connected with the disparity of power relations between the West and its constructed “other”: the Western Man as a “knowing Subject” and the non-west as its “object of knowledge and discourse”. Philippine realities come through the field of consciousness of the West not as an empirical reality or truth but as an ideological construct, reinforced and reiterated through time until it becomes the Absolute Truth circulated in the media, literary practices, and in the annales of history.
As a student of Philippine society, history, and revolution I believe that it is essential for us to challenge imperialism in its various mutations and forms. Every statement must be subjected to scrupulous analyses, tracing its complicity with the existing social formation’s technologies of power: how is an individual able to say a certain pronouncement; why does she/he say it; what are its implications or “political effects”; questions which would locate the speaking subject’s position within the intricate web of social relations which make the act of speaking possible in the first place.

Posted by someone who does not want to suffer the same fate of Mr Ivan Phell Enrile who was arbitrarily accused by Mr. Loudon as a member of a communist front

3:33 AM  
Blogger mah29001 said...

"from a concerned American citizen who fears for her life now that mah29001 is on the loose."

First off, I am not a "her" anonymous and secondly, I do not show fear in my life. So please shut up with this nonsense.

4:38 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

haha!! Gosh, I just got home from shopping and boy you reply fast. thank you mah29001, I completely understand now where you are coming from. I just realized from your second to the last comment that your assertions in life will be forever skewed for the precise reason that you can't COMPREHEND! Haha, you stupid TERRORIST FOOL! I wasn't referring to you at all when I said “from a concerned American citizen who fears for her life now that mah29001 is on the loose." Is your brain so runty that you think everything refers to you? I was referring to MYSELF when I said those words. R-E-A-D again. Since obviously you can’t understand English, would you rather that I speak in your own language? ok ill try my best, here it goes: al;ery 918431 ioqq irtqpet afkjpaut[qo8 1-834 ;aitpq qy ] ;alur lakjdfwe. That’s nonsense for most people, but let’s be understanding of mah29001 who evidently speaks and writes that way. hahaha, and it is amusing that you accuse people who go against your stupidity as Communist. Haha, can you even spell the word? hahaha. Now seriously mah29001 (but then again, should someone like you be taken seriously? NOT! hahaha), you should seek some help. No no, don’t shoot yourself just yet. Let the anti-terrorist pongos do that for you. Gosh, now I can’t wait for my reward for busting you! hahaha

-from a concerned American citizen who fears for her life now that mah29001 is on the loose (again mah29001, this is not you. hahaha)

7:53 AM  
Blogger mah29001 said...

" Now seriously mah29001 (but then again, should someone like you be taken seriously? NOT! hahaha), you should seek some help. No no, don’t shoot yourself just yet. Let the anti-terrorist pongos do that for you. Gosh, now I can’t wait for my reward for busting you! hahaha"

G-d, I can't believe how stupid you really are. You people are so brainwashed, that you don't know how backward you people really are. Why do you people love to lecture how "tolerant" people like you are, but resort to this form of bullying?

8:38 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

by the way, another thing (now again mah29001, this is not so much about you, go do something else, scrub your ass or shoot yourself, I realize I don’t need the reward after all), it is very comforting to know that there are still individuals like the one who posted a comment on historicizing, among others. They continuously inspire the likes of me who sometimes get fixated on laughing at a brainsick such as mah29001 to really engage with so much love and passion. Instead of immediately saying that mah29001 and Trevour Loudon are wrong and stupid, s/he began by showing HOW and WHY they are so without actually calling them wrong and stupid. That is true elegance. Wherever you are now dear stranger, let me tell you that people like you and Mr. Enrile make life more beautiful. “Après vous il y a l'espoir” (after you, there is hope)

9:12 AM  
Blogger mah29001 said...

"They continuously inspire the likes of me who sometimes get fixated on laughing at a brainsick such as mah29001 to really engage with so much love and passion. Instead of immediately saying that mah29001 and Trevour Loudon are wrong and stupid, s/he began by showing HOW and WHY they are so without actually calling them wrong and stupid."

So your "response" is to resort to this sort of bullying? The only people who are going to be laughed at, are people like you. You embrace genocidal terror campaigns being waged throughout the world. You claim to be for "freedom of speech" and "democracy", but resort to this sort of ridiculing and bullying of those whose views you do not like.

You are not for freedom of speech or for democracy. You are for the establishment of a one global totalitarian government and people have the right to expose it or go about their daily lives. In the case with me and Trev, we are certainly exposing your terror network and in a free society such as New Zealand or in the United States, we have such a right.

Strange people like you support some of the most oppressive regimes on the planet, then go about and suggest what "freedom fighters" you are, and go into these sort of bullying tactics against those who you do not agree with.

9:18 AM  
Blogger mah29001 said...

"Wherever you are now dear stranger, let me tell you that people like you and Mr. Enrile make life more beautiful."

Like supporting terrorism against your own country or against other countries? That's making life beautiful? Frankly people who believe this should have the threat of being executed by firing squad, and I do not care if it's someone in a Communist front group, and it would be even worse if it's within a government policy making circle.

9:21 AM  
Blogger mah29001 said...

"YOU ARE THE REAL INTOLERANT. Truth hurts, you are stupid, that’s probably why you attack by dropping whatever is left in your scant vocabulary. And me a bully? Come on, that’s the sissiest thing a big boy like you could say to someone like me. grow up"

Wow, you sure certainly "showed" me who is "mature". Not! I do not think praising people who embrace terrorism should and calling them "freedom fighters" and "rebels" is grown up. It's simply being a coward as what you are.

9:42 AM  
Blogger mah29001 said...

"you are actually referring to yourself here. you are implying that I am intolerant? whose mouth is fizzing as he accuses me of being a "typical Communist scum"? If you are really "tolerant" as you try to paint yourself to be, then you would not display so much hatred towards those people who signalize your intellectual and moral limitations."

Let's see where to start...calling those who expose your embracement of terror campaigns throughout the region of Southeast Asia, Phillippines included should be a start of exposing your "tolerance" toward others. Trying to be "intellectually superior" at the same time you resort to bullying tactics like you are doing right now, another strke. I do not see why people should complain when a shape whines about being called a shape in the case with the ANAKBAYAN group actually being Communist front.

9:45 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"you continue to resort to your bullying tactics"

I resort to "bullying tactics"? HAHAHA, you scared sissy boy? Now you know that feeling of being swaggered. haha, i just love that look on your face now. However, just got the impression that all along, I have been talking to someone who is brain dead. Come on, you can do better than that! This is getting boring.

10:16 AM  
Blogger mah29001 said...

"I resort to "bullying tactics"? HAHAHA, you scared sissy boy? Now you know that feeling of being swaggered. haha, i just love that look on your face now. However, just got the impression that all along, I have been talking to someone who is brain dead. Come on, you can do better than that! This is getting boring."

So I guess calling me "stupid" or a "wimp" isn't bullying? Or attacking Trev, the owner of this blogsphere isn't? Calling someone like me "brain dead" isn't bullying?

10:18 AM  
Blogger mah29001 said...

"first of all, you don’t start lashing people or groups with stupid statements like "in my personal view." If its really personal, then you might as well keep it to yourself bimbo! But alas, I’m reacting now to your "personal opinion" just because it could bear grave consequences to innocent individuals like Mr. Enrile. How dare you endanger the lives of innocent people! If you are so well informed by the organizational moves made by the Russian Mafia then perhaps you belong to that group yourself! Aha, now it is clear who the real terrorist is, you who mask yourself as some self-righteous defender of world peace. YOU ARE THE REAL TERRORIST HERE! Why? Because terrorists wreak havoc just for the heck of it. Terrorists like you post baseless/idiotic claims that imperil the lives of other people. If ever you are a lawyer, I’m sure you have lost every single case you’ve handled by the way you concoct your assertions. Even Donald Trump, a well-known tycoon and showman of capitalism, will not put up with your imbecility. And now, even supposedly socialist nations like Cuba will immediately kick you to the curb . You are the embodiment of the filthy individual George Bush Jr. should annihilate NOW. It seems that the only place you could go to now is hell. President Bush and President Gloria Macapagacal-Arroyo, please save us from Mah29001! Not only is he stupid, he has become a threat to our global security!"

Funny you anonymous love to lecture those on who are "superior" but you were the one who posted this first and go into baseless arguments that go nowhere. You can't face the fact that you are promoting a terrorist campaign in the Phillippines and elsewhere around the world. But when people like Trev or even people like me go about and expose it on a blogsphere, you go crazy into stating how "superior" and "mature" people like you are. Well, when it comes to "debating" about how "grand" those terror campaigns you are an apologist for, you are no such thing.

10:21 AM  
Blogger Trevor Loudon said...

Thanks for your contributions everybody.

The anonymous contribution on the history of the Philippines communist movement, was very interesting, though believe the Soviet contribution to the CPP was far deeper and longer than is usually acknowledged.

I also appreciated the philosophical parts re the different outlooks of East and West.

The other contributions are degenerating a bit. Too much personal attack and denigration from both sides.

While nmy anti-communism is intense, I believe that we are all human beings who are generally trying to do the right thing.

I think it is fine the criticise communism and communists, for their communism, but even the most deluded of us are still worthy of human respect.

The sad thing about communism is that it takes idealistic and brave young people and turns them into liars and killers.

It is a huge waste of human potential.

Having said thathowever, none of us are beyond change and all of us are still human.

Thanks to the leftists who have tried to explain their thinking. Thanks to MAH for being so passionate about what he believes in.

10:22 AM  
Blogger mah29001 said...

"The sad thing about communism is that it takes idealistic and brave young people and turns them into liars and killers."

True among all totalitarian movements in modern history. I am in no mood for these people to rule the world is what they desire. They are just simply birds of a feather to put it inot that analogy.

10:26 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

After reading that load of crap, I wonder who the real enemy are.
Like watching a couple of spoilt kids fighting over a toy.

Dirk

10:29 AM  
Blogger mah29001 said...

"After reading that load of crap, I wonder who the real enemy are.
Like watching a couple of spoilt kids fighting over a toy."

Sorry Dirk, I just can't stand apologists of any terror campaigns, especially the likes of those who embrace and idealize the monster Mao.

10:31 AM  
Blogger mah29001 said...

"Miss Babyboy"

Sorry, but I will no longer debate you anonymous when you use these sort of childish terms. I can certainly see why Germany fell to Nazism, Italy with Fascism, Russia with Communism and Japan with its own brand of totalitarian nutjobs. It is because they shouted down their opponents during various rallies or took control of the rallies of their opponents.

This is certainly what is going on right here with you anonymous on why you have resorted to childish name calling, but then state how "mature" you are when you are certainly not. I can certainly see who is the totalitarian right here.

10:42 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"the most deluded of us are still worthy of human respect"

Last thing before I go, I respect you mah29001 and Trevor. Have a super nice day! :)

10:42 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"I can certainly see who is the totalitarian right here"

"Sorry, but I will no longer debate you"


Last last thing, WOW, now you have finally recognized yourself, mah29001! Drinks for everyone! also, you did not debate from the very start, you were just too scared. Write to my column in NY times. I'm sure you'll recognize me there for I might write about you and this encounter. Good day again!

10:48 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

First things first.
Mr. Trevor Loudon states that terms like “semi-feudalism”, “semi-colonialism”, “imperialism”, “fascism”, “bourgeoisie” and sorts (basically, terms which I employed in my reaction to his previous blog post) are Marxist jargons, and by using Marxist jargons in my statement he concludes, my credibility is therefore destroyed.
For your information Mr. Loudon, the above-mentioned terms are terms not exclusively used within the Marxian parlance: they are no novelty made by Marx! Those terms have been used, also, by ACADEMICIANS, INTELLECTUALS, historians, political economists, literati, to refer and accurately describe phenomena, realities, historical forces and events; thinkers and practitioners who are not necessarily operating within the Marxist problematique. Post-structuralist/post-colonial critics like Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Julia Kristeva, Roland Barthes, Homi K. Bhabha and other renowned and celebrated philosophers made use of the term (some of them even critical, if not hostile, to Marxism). What this fact tells us about your Mr. Loudon, is your IGNORANCE regarding the meanings and uses of those terms; your intellectual depravity. Your statement is practically a cold-war knee-jerk reaction which sees RED whenever such terms come across their field of (myopic) vision. I bet you don’t even know the definition of those terms, nor are you acquainted with the philosophers that I have mentioned. But if you feel like laundering your imbecility to the reading public, go ahead, after all this is your blog site.
Mr. Loudon states: “Your affiliation to WFDY does imply the communist nature of your organisation as virtually every other WFDY affiliate is OPENLY communist”. Unfortunately Mr. Loudon failed to deconstruct my previous statement that ANAKBAYAN is an organization that has its own founding principles (which are in fact not “communist” by strict Marxist-Leninist standards, but are caricatured as such by those arrogant people who happen to be incredibly ignorant at the same time) and we unite with other organizations on the basis of those principles. Our strategy of forging alliances does not entail our absolute adoption of the ideologies and perspectives of those organizations and groups we are making alliance with.
Mr. Loudon merely repeats what he previously said. Unfortunately, mere insistence does not make a lie true. Nevertheless Mr. Loudon is adamant: “There could be another reason why your government names your organisation as "communist"-because it is communist. ANAKBAYAN is also close to the League of Filipino Students, The KMU, KMP, NDF and several other Communist Party of the Philippines fronts”. And then he says: “This is not debatable, but well documented fact, easily confirmed with a little research”. That is if resource for the research is acquired in the archives of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (which, for the benefit of the reading public, has failed to produce even an iota of credible evidence which can be brought up to the court that will establish legal organizations so-called links to the underground movement) As for the AFP and Mr. Loudon, they can only forever make hilarious connections-concoctions which may temporarily function as a source of entertainment for us Filipino leftists. I suggest that Mr. Loudon, now start to make his own “research”, contact and make the necessary arrangements with the publisher of “Harry Potter”. It will certainly sell in the “fantasy sections” of bookshops.
Mr. Loudon inquires me: “…why would you sign an internet petition, announcing your affiliation to ANAKBAYAN if that would put your life in danger?” The above mentioned internet petition, in fact, was for the post-structuralist philosopher Jacques Derrida who recently passed away (do you know Mr. Loudon who Jacques Derrida is, have you read some of his works? can your brain actually process his ideas?). My affiliation with ANAKBAYAN in itself does not put my life and security in danger. And it shouldn’t be. My classmates, professors and friends are very well aware that I am a member of the said organization. We intelligently discuss and argue with each on the basis of the validity and soundness of our analyses regarding issues we present to them. But you Mr. Loudon, in a deductive (il)logical fashion, first categorically imputed my organization as being a communist front and then proceeded to abstract from therein that I, sine qua non, is a supporter of the communist movement (which amounts to the same thing, that I am a communist).
Mr. Loudon would like to establish connections out of what in reality, disparate events and spaces (my signing of a petition in the internet wherein I indicated my affiliation with ANAKBAYAN (a legal, UNARMED, youth organization) and his “revelation” to the public through this blogsite regarding my affiliation with ANAKBAYAN (which now (dis)figures in his site and in his imagination as a “communist front”) He is making comparisons and basing observations out of two very much distinct – to borrow Michel Foucault’s term – discursive contexts/environment (I suggest he study the linguist Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the dialogic character of utterances as not absolute in themselves, not enacted in a void or in isolation but rather executed and addressed for and within a specific, concrete sign-system with its own internal epistemological and semiotic processes). This answers Mr. Loudon’s stupid question for me: “Your government has already labelled ANAKBAYAN a "communist front", a fact you have confirmed above. Why then would you openly affiliate to the organisation in a forum as public as the internet?”
What I am vehemently protesting is Mr. Loudon’s distasteful act of maligning/slandering of legal, UNARMED, progressive organizations like ANAKBAYAN as communist fronts. By doing so, Mr. Loudon becomes no different from the terrorist/fascist henchmen of Mrs. Arroyo in the AFP.
We in Anakbayan firmly assert our right to legal recognition and operation as we are not violating the law nor have we inflicted any harm against any fellow. We are just claiming our right to freely organize and express our own opinions and views; rights that are enshrined, and guaranteed to us in the Bill of Rights of the 1986 Philippine Constitution.
The first comment that I had posted onto his blog site was intended to encourage debates, stimulate honest-to-goodness intellectual discussions and exchange. Unfortunately, Mr. Loudon has a different agenda in mind. I went to the wrong web page.
Mr. Loudon demagogically proclaims his continued adherence to “free speech”. Mr. Loudon has to qualify his use of the word “free” here for it is already a well established truth that this phrase can also be used to suppress and silence voices which threaten the harmony and stability of the Symbolic Order. What Mr. Loudon probably means is that I am free to rant and rave versus the state as long as I do not infect others to do the same, and of course as long as I do not challenge the hegemony of Capital. In short, I am free to obey the normative rules of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her toy soldiers in the AFP.
Let us further peruse Mr. Loudon’s blog post: “If you wish to align yourself to such criminals, by all means do so, but don't deny me my right to point out the facts”. Mr. Loudon still needs to provide ample proof that I am indeed aligned with what he calls as “criminal” (the CPP-NPA, he means) before this statement could hold ground (his accusations against the CPP-NPA as a mere band of “criminals” requires another forum, he can not just simply say that the CPP-NPA is “criminal” without further elaboration). Mr. Loudon claims that I am depriving him of his right to point out the “facts”. As I have said previously the “facts” he is referring to are no facts: they are “regurgitated, stale, cold-war rhetoric” we Filipino activists already heard from the black-propaganda machines and outfits of the military.
And may I also dare say that Mr. Loudon is not simply pointing out “facts” (in his subjective interpretation of the term). He is rather giving it a certain narrative structure and form to fit his pre-determined premises (or ideological biases). Mr. Loudon himself is not free (nor will he ever be) from the structuring and structural operations of ideology (for ideology –or as the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu calls it, symbolic power – is that invisible power, like the Freudian unconscious, which can be exercised only with complicity of those who do not want to know that they are subject to it or even that they themselves exercise it.).
(In some instances, Mr. Loudon couldn’t even get some of his so-called “facts” straight. Anakbayan is not an electoral wing of BAYAN (New Patriotic Alliance). Anakbayan is a mass-organization of Filipino youths and is a member-organization of BAYAN. We have our own partylist running for the upcoming national elections – Kabataan Party (Youth Party) – of which Anakbayan is one of the charter members. Would you readers let yourself be deluded by someone who supposedly points us the way to truth, when even minor details such as this Mr. Loudon can’t get right?)
Further into the fray.
Listen again to Mr. Loudon’s violent fulminations: “I don't doubt that Ivan's life might one day be at risk, if he maintains his current affiliations. The choice is in his hands. He doesn't have to support communists.” He says the choice is in my hands. But let me ask you Mr. Loudon, who determined and selected the “choices” laid out for me? The choice you said is whether I should or not support the “communists” – or to put it in a more correct manner – whether I should continue my membership with Anakbayan or not. As you see, the State (and Mr. Loudon) pre-selected the “choices” for me. This creates the illusion that I am, in fact, free to determine my security, future and life. What goes unquestioned is the power relations that exist between those who pre-selected my options and the subject who is (imagined to be) free to do the picking. The choosing subject is actually free to move (or pick) within the parameters of the existing social order constructed by those who are in power (or Mr. Loudon’s imaginary of pre-determined set of choices).
“In many ways (sic!) admire people like Ivan Phell Enrile and Edgardo Alarcon Leon. They take big risks for what they believe in. Unfortunately, what they believe in is evil and results in much death and destruction”. Indeed, flattery is also a form of rebuke especially if it emanates from the dirty mouths of those who practically knew none. Normative and ethico-religious assertions and judgments, alas, can never be admitted as a form of intelligent debate.
If there is anything fruitful that has resulted from this “interesting” encounter, I think it will be the fact that the public has finally seen the true political and ideological color of Mr. Loudon. Marxists (here I am openly acknowledging the term’s ideational/paradigmatic roots to Marxist discourse) have a term for the likes of Mr. Loudon: clerico-fascists. A clerico-fascist is someone who preaches social justice but are in fact ideological allies of the reactionary state. They endlessly babble about “freedom”, “potentials”, “working in the same direction” “responsibility” etc., concepts that will only hold true if they are used within the confines of the existing social relations. They are the real terrorists, Hitlers of the new world order from which humanity and civilization should be rescued.
“I suggest if either objects to being named, they should change their allegiances to something more positive and try to make amends for the damage they have done.”
With this, I am left with an expression that any intellectual could possibly reply: “huh?!”

I. P. Enrile

8:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

First things first.
Mr. Trevor Loudon states that terms like “semi-feudalism”, “semi-colonialism”, “imperialism”, “fascism”, “bourgeoisie” and sorts (basically, terms which I employed in my reaction to his previous blog post) are Marxist jargons, and by using Marxist jargons in my statement he concludes, my credibility is therefore destroyed.
For your information Mr. Loudon, the above-mentioned terms are terms not exclusively used within the Marxian parlance: they are no novelty made by Marx! Those terms have been used, also, by ACADEMICIANS, INTELLECTUALS, historians, political economists, literati, to refer and accurately describe phenomena, realities, historical forces and events; thinkers and practitioners who are not necessarily operating within the Marxist problematique. Post-structuralist/post-colonial critics like Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Julia Kristeva, Roland Barthes, Homi K. Bhabha and other renowned and celebrated philosophers made use of the term (some of them even critical, if not hostile, to Marxism). What this fact tells us about your Mr. Loudon, is your IGNORANCE regarding the meanings and uses of those terms; your intellectual depravity. Your statement is practically a cold-war knee-jerk reaction which sees RED whenever such terms come across their field of (myopic) vision. I bet you don’t even know the definition of those terms, nor are you acquainted with the philosophers that I have mentioned. But if you feel like laundering your imbecility to the reading public, go ahead, after all this is your blog site.
Mr. Loudon states: “Your affiliation to WFDY does imply the communist nature of your organisation as virtually every other WFDY affiliate is OPENLY communist”. Unfortunately Mr. Loudon failed to deconstruct my previous statement that ANAKBAYAN is an organization that has its own founding principles (which are in fact not “communist” by strict Marxist-Leninist standards, but are caricatured as such by those arrogant people who happen to be incredibly ignorant at the same time) and we unite with other organizations on the basis of those principles. Our strategy of forging alliances does not entail our absolute adoption of the ideologies and perspectives of those organizations and groups we are making alliance with.
Mr. Loudon merely repeats what he previously said. Unfortunately, mere insistence does not make a lie true. Nevertheless Mr. Loudon is adamant: “There could be another reason why your government names your organisation as "communist"-because it is communist. ANAKBAYAN is also close to the League of Filipino Students, The KMU, KMP, NDF and several other Communist Party of the Philippines fronts”. And then he says: “This is not debatable, but well documented fact, easily confirmed with a little research”. That is if resource for the research is acquired in the archives of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (which, for the benefit of the reading public, has failed to produce even an iota of credible evidence which can be brought up to the court that will establish legal organizations so-called links to the underground movement) As for the AFP and Mr. Loudon, they can only forever make hilarious connections-concoctions which may temporarily function as a source of entertainment for us Filipino leftists. I suggest that Mr. Loudon, now start to make his own “research”, contact and make the necessary arrangements with the publisher of “Harry Potter”. It will certainly sell in the “fantasy sections” of bookshops.
Mr. Loudon inquires me: “…why would you sign an internet petition, announcing your affiliation to ANAKBAYAN if that would put your life in danger?” The above mentioned internet petition, in fact, was for the post-structuralist philosopher Jacques Derrida who recently passed away (do you know Mr. Loudon who Jacques Derrida is, have you read some of his works? can your brain actually process his ideas?). My affiliation with ANAKBAYAN in itself does not put my life and security in danger. And it shouldn’t be. My classmates, professors and friends are very well aware that I am a member of the said organization. We intelligently discuss and argue with each on the basis of the validity and soundness of our analyses regarding issues we present to them. But you Mr. Loudon, in a deductive (il)logical fashion, first categorically imputed my organization as being a communist front and then proceeded to abstract from therein that I, sine qua non, is a supporter of the communist movement (which amounts to the same thing, that I am a communist).
Mr. Loudon would like to establish connections out of what in reality, disparate events and spaces (my signing of a petition in the internet wherein I indicated my affiliation with ANAKBAYAN (a legal, UNARMED, youth organization) and his “revelation” to the public through this blogsite regarding my affiliation with ANAKBAYAN (which now (dis)figures in his site and in his imagination as a “communist front”) He is making comparisons and basing observations out of two very much distinct – to borrow Michel Foucault’s term – discursive contexts/environment (I suggest he study the linguist Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the dialogic character of utterances as not absolute in themselves, not enacted in a void or in isolation but rather executed and addressed for and within a specific, concrete sign-system with its own internal epistemological and semiotic processes). This answers Mr. Loudon’s stupid question for me: “Your government has already labelled ANAKBAYAN a "communist front", a fact you have confirmed above. Why then would you openly affiliate to the organisation in a forum as public as the internet?”
What I am vehemently protesting is Mr. Loudon’s distasteful act of maligning/slandering of legal, UNARMED, progressive organizations like ANAKBAYAN as communist fronts. By doing so, Mr. Loudon becomes no different from the terrorist/fascist henchmen of Mrs. Arroyo in the AFP.
We in Anakbayan firmly assert our right to legal recognition and operation as we are not violating the law nor have we inflicted any harm against any fellow. We are just claiming our right to freely organize and express our own opinions and views; rights that are enshrined, and guaranteed to us in the Bill of Rights of the 1986 Philippine Constitution.
The first comment that I had posted onto his blog site was intended to encourage debates, stimulate honest-to-goodness intellectual discussions and exchange. Unfortunately, Mr. Loudon has a different agenda in mind. I went to the wrong web page.
Mr. Loudon demagogically proclaims his continued adherence to “free speech”. Mr. Loudon has to qualify his use of the word “free” here for it is already a well established truth that this phrase can also be used to suppress and silence voices which threaten the harmony and stability of the Symbolic Order. What Mr. Loudon probably means is that I am free to rant and rave versus the state as long as I do not infect others to do the same, and of course as long as I do not challenge the hegemony of Capital. In short, I am free to obey the normative rules of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her toy soldiers in the AFP.
Let us further peruse Mr. Loudon’s blog post: “If you wish to align yourself to such criminals, by all means do so, but don't deny me my right to point out the facts”. Mr. Loudon still needs to provide ample proof that I am indeed aligned with what he calls as “criminal” (the CPP-NPA, he means) before this statement could hold ground (his accusations against the CPP-NPA as a mere band of “criminals” requires another forum, he can not just simply say that the CPP-NPA is “criminal” without further elaboration). Mr. Loudon claims that I am depriving him of his right to point out the “facts”. As I have said previously the “facts” he is referring to are no facts: they are “regurgitated, stale, cold-war rhetoric” we Filipino activists already heard from the black-propaganda machines and outfits of the military.
And may I also dare say that Mr. Loudon is not simply pointing out “facts” (in his subjective interpretation of the term). He is rather giving it a certain narrative structure and form to fit his pre-determined premises (or ideological biases). Mr. Loudon himself is not free (nor will he ever be) from the structuring and structural operations of ideology (for ideology –or as the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu calls it, symbolic power – is that invisible power, like the Freudian unconscious, which can be exercised only with complicity of those who do not want to know that they are subject to it or even that they themselves exercise it.).
(In some instances, Mr. Loudon couldn’t even get some of his so-called “facts” straight. Anakbayan is not an electoral wing of BAYAN (New Patriotic Alliance). Anakbayan is a mass-organization of Filipino youths and is a member-organization of BAYAN. We have our own partylist running for the upcoming national elections – Kabataan Party (Youth Party) – of which Anakbayan is one of the charter members. Would you readers let yourself be deluded by someone who supposedly points us the way to truth, when even minor details such as this Mr. Loudon can’t get right?)
Further into the fray.
Listen again to Mr. Loudon’s violent fulminations: “I don't doubt that Ivan's life might one day be at risk, if he maintains his current affiliations. The choice is in his hands. He doesn't have to support communists.” He says the choice is in my hands. But let me ask you Mr. Loudon, who determined and selected the “choices” laid out for me? The choice you said is whether I should or not support the “communists” – or to put it in a more correct manner – whether I should continue my membership with Anakbayan or not. As you see, the State (and Mr. Loudon) pre-selected the “choices” for me. This creates the illusion that I am, in fact, free to determine my security, future and life. What goes unquestioned is the power relations that exist between those who pre-selected my options and the subject who is (imagined to be) free to do the picking. The choosing subject is actually free to move (or pick) within the parameters of the existing social order constructed by those who are in power (or Mr. Loudon’s imaginary of pre-determined set of choices).
“In many ways (sic!) admire people like Ivan Phell Enrile and Edgardo Alarcon Leon. They take big risks for what they believe in. Unfortunately, what they believe in is evil and results in much death and destruction”. Indeed, flattery is also a form of rebuke especially if it emanates from the dirty mouths of those who practically knew none. Normative and ethico-religious assertions and judgments, alas, can never be admitted as a form of intelligent debate.
If there is anything fruitful that has resulted from this “interesting” encounter, I think it will be the fact that the public has finally seen the true political and ideological color of Mr. Loudon. Marxists (here I am openly acknowledging the term’s ideational/paradigmatic roots to Marxist discourse) have a term for the likes of Mr. Loudon: clerico-fascists. A clerico-fascist is someone who preaches social justice but are in fact ideological allies of the reactionary state. They endlessly babble about “freedom”, “potentials”, “working in the same direction” “responsibility” etc., concepts that will only hold true if they are used within the confines of the existing social relations. They are the real terrorists, Hitlers of the new world order from which humanity and civilization should be rescued.
“I suggest if either objects to being named, they should change their allegiances to something more positive and try to make amends for the damage they have done.”
With this, I am left with an expression that any intellectual could possibly reply: “huh?!”

I. P. Enrile

8:24 PM  

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