I’m a Marxist-Leninist born and grew up in the US-occupied Republic of the Philippines who firmly believes in AES, and a staunch Duterte supporter. And no, I do not support the CPP-NPA, they are Trotskyite pieces of s**t larping as Maoist revolutionaries.
Everyday I have to deal with lib bullshit from from my mother, she keeps asking me why I keep barking negative about the United States. Especially when talking about the elections. She supports Leni Robredo, our own Manchurian Candidate being rigged by US influence to win, so they can dethrone Duterte and enslave us again to Raytheon’s whims for their sweet arms profits at our expense.
I don’t know what correct words to say, it always felt like a trap question everytime she asks why I stan China. I know what to say, I am convinced of my beliefs, its just, I dont know how to explain them without damning myself into their trap.
I kept talking about how chaotic the USA is with all the civil disobedience from both MAGAts and California libs, especially the BLM protests, Freedom Convoy, J6, anti-vaxxer protests, and the riots and shit. All they just said to me? “Its part of the process of healthy democracy.” Riots? Healthy Democracy? Are they fucking kidding me? They think being a dumpster fire for having a clown and later a sleepy old man for presidents is a healthy democracy?
I’m losing brain cells.
Not to mention, everytime I tried explaining about China to them, Cold War propaganda sets in. They believe China is this cartoonishly oppressive hellhole they shpuld avoid like the plague.
They say there is no freedom of expression and assembly, and you cannot protest in China, but why the fuck a crowd of people angry at Evergrande swindling their hard-earned money took up to the streets, and Beijing didnt send the tanks unlike the fascist brats in Hong Kong throwing tantrums?
If the same situation happened in the US, like, say, J. P. Morgan swindling American workers of their hard-earned money they invested, the feds would send in the tanks.
Using history as a weapon is a good move. Just the cognitive dissonance is too strong for a lot of people.
People from the US will readily tell you that voting is a farce, it’s why they only have a 50% voting rate. If you are a minority they find ways to take you off voter rolls. And even if your candidate gets into office, it’s some bougie fucker with no concept of how their constituents live, even down to the corrupt local and city people who float upward on deals with local businesses. The average worker has zero voice in what’s going on, but the media constantly reassures people to just ‘trust the process’. Like the War in Afghanistan was extremely unpopular 10 years in, let alone the 10 it dragged on afterward.
Have you tried discussing the history of US foreign policy? Like the Spanish American war and Filipino American war, the genocide in Indonesia, Latin American coups? I guess that’s still “talking negative” about the US, but it’s hard to deny how bloody US foreign policy has been.
No kidding. The “pacification” campaigns of the US on the Philippines are utterly monstrous.
You can also look into the newspaper media around that time to see how they drummed up support for war so that they could sell more newspapers. I was reading a foreword by Phillip Foner and it talked about how Hearst created atrocity propaganda about Spain’s presence in Cuba, then there is the sinking of a US ship that was used as a casus belli despite it having nothing to do with Spain. This has pretty clear parallels today. He also mentioned that there was a debate in the legislature about whether the US should be an emperial power sparked by the US Filipino war (iirc), and if you look more into the historical record of that you should find pretty damning stuff.
Its slow as fuck and inefficient as fuck, yet its “part of the process”
Fucking liberalism
Not to mention literal fascists like Nick Fuentes, Alex Jones, et al preaching fascism and actively destroying democracy under the guise of populism is “part of the process”?
You think instituting fascism is healthy democracy?
It’s no use, their beliefs are usually set in stone
Wait, is Duterte decent? I thought he was a fascist? I know very little about the Phillipines so if this is just propaganda I heard excuse my ignorance.
Also, just a minor nitpick: the BLM protests were very peaceful, they weren’t the riots they were made out to be by the media. They even did a breakdown and found that 93% were 100% peaceful. Of the 7% that weren’t, the waters are very murky; many times the violence was purposefully provoked by militarized police and fascist groups, the latter of which often traveling from hundreds of miles away just to stir shit up and get a chance to get away with murder. There’s also a matter of opportunists–you would have a scenario where a protest would be happening, and while the whole city was pre-occupied some unaffiliated apolitical criminal would rob a gas station, or some unaffiliated kids would vandalize a wall, things like that…only then such acts would be pinned on the BLM protesters, regardless if the perpetrators were protesters or even if such crimes took place near the protests or not.
That being said, BLM was, of course, quickly co-opted by the neoliberal order, and, of course, we don’t even have an “unhealthy democracy” we don’t have a democracy whatsoever, we have an oligarchy with a facade of democracy to fool people.
Wait, is Duterte decent? I thought he was a fascist?
Please tell me how passing universal healthcare is fascist
What kind of reactionary government passes free college education?
Fascists do not grant autonomous regions to indigenous people.
it’s mind boggling how easy people swallow imperalist propaganda.
It’s probably because he’s really reactionary in some ways like his really brutal anti-drug laws and punishments
But everybody understands how economically exploited countries like Iran, Syria, or Iraq (who never get shit on) can’t be expected to be more socially progressive than developed countries
Weird how some people will single out Russia and Duterte for some reason
me:
it’s mind boggling how easy people swallow imperalist propaganda.
you
like his really brutal anti-drug laws and punishments
stop reading the nytimes.
The drug war is an overwhelmingly popular policy in the Philippines. There is a dishonest attempt by western media to portray the drug war in the Philippines as situation similar to the US’s drug war, where poor segments of the population are singled out and targeted for possession of drugs like marijuana or crack and simply killed. This is not what’s happening, and this attempt is being spearheaded at the interests of Pharmaceutical capital, who rightfully see Duterte as a threat to their control over the Philippine market and in particular, their system of profit-by-opium-addiction.
First, it’s important to remember the drugs we’re talking about are not “soft” drugs like marijuana that are plaguing Philippine society, but specifically opiates and methamphetamines. In the course of the drug war, nearly ₱60 billion of drugs have been seized, of which almost ₱50 billion is Shabu (meth). The criticism of the Philippine Police’s lack of drug classifications and therefor treatment of marijuana as being equal to meth or heroin is one which has not only been levelled by many Filipinos, but by Duterte himself – however, he retracted his bid for the legalization of marijuana for reasons I feel aren’t important enough to go into detail here.
So, that being said, when the question “Why is Duterte’s war on drugs so bloody?” comes up, it must be understood that the addicts being dealt with – who are often armed – are not marijuana users, but users of harmful narcotics like meth. If you have ever encountered someone on meth or heroin in real life, you will immediately understand why this would pose a massive problem to society should addiction begin to take hold in large quantities. Whereas yes, 3,050 people have died in the course of the anti-drug operations, this must be juxtaposed with a resounding 1.2 million drug users admitted to rehabilitation facilities.
Most of the brutality of the drug war here are from asshole cops on the ground, not orders from the top. Why do you think Duterte is doing purges on the police force against the so-called "scalawag’ cops?
This context also makes things much more clearer. Thank you for the additional nuance
I mean I never said there weren’t any positives to it? There are lots of reactionary things that have a net positive effect on society, like jailing violent criminals for life in a shitty prison or even executing them instead of trying to rehabilitate them
3k people dying in drug ops is a lot lol
And being imprisoned for possession is reactionary
I know the anti-drug policies has done a lot to quell the flow
And my comment implied that I think positively of Duterte overall come on :(
I understand it’s unfair to negatively judge developing countries to not be as socially progressive but I don’t think it’s wrong to acknowledge their shortcomings which is all I did
I think Comrade Deku’s addition above also helped paint a better picture
I do agree with your overall sentiment btw that we can’t just socially reactionary policies in extremely exploited and misfortunate countries. I definitely know very little about the Philippines though as evidence in this thread
Wait they have rehab facilities? I remember doing a project for school like 2 years ago I think and I couldn’t find any mention of rehab facilities. I could only find reports and articles(all western btw I was still a lib back then) talking about the “extra-judicial police murders”. Western propaganda is a removed.
Wait, is Duterte decent? I thought he was a fascist?
I feel what you said. Everyone thought Duterte is a fascist because far-right populists like groyper scum praised him as their dream strongman elected by the people. Duterte is what they wanted Trump to be. They fantasize a Duterte-like figure to dab on “Da Joo elitez” in AmeriKKKa.
When in reality, he’s more of a Stalin than Hitler. He’s more of a Maduro without the ruinous economic incompetence than Pinochet.
When in reality, he’s more of a Stalin than Hitler.
always remember . and it doesnt mean these leaders aren’t without flaws either. understand history, cultural contexts and then form an educated opinion on matters.
Given OPs main concern of Duterte being overthrown is being colonized again I’d bet they’re just happy he’s not selling out Philippines to the West and trying to preserve sovereignty
Let’s not forgot you guys support Russia, Iran, Syria, Iraq, etc etc
Weird to be calling out Duterte like this
Well, my main concern is securing Duterte’s legacy. We dont have a clear cut candidate who would be basically his successor. Marcos Jr. is a beast of his own, being the son of the former dictator. Isko Moreno looks like he can keep Duterte’s line at first, turns out he’s a neoliberal parody. Leody de Guzman is basically an unmasked socialist, doubt he can be as tough as Duterte and has no realistic chance of winning. Though I must admit if Leody wins, pressure by the CIA and Western powers bullying him for being a socialist president of a US satellite might force him to be as tough as Duterte.
Yeah no when I did my research into him for a school project all I could find was him using police to murder drug users in the streets and fashy shit like that. Take it this was back in my lib days but it seemed pretty credible. I would also like to know if these are false and if Duterte is good.
The drug war stuff is 100% legit and believe it or not it’s pretty popular there. There was semi recent polling I saw with over 50% approval and it was a key part of his ticket.
I want to know who will be Duterte‘s successor? He said he won’t run again.
This is why the left-wing Duterte supporters camp are torn between openly socialist candidate Leody de Guzman and PDP-LABAN appartichik and former dictator’s son Bongbong Marcos.
Most of the more authsoc Duterte supporters went with Marcos as the pragmatic path, being able to continue the friendship with Beijing Duterte started.
For what it’s worth, I can’t trust Marcos. I’ve heard stories about his family, and they’re disgusting. He may maintain ties with Beijing for profit, but he is still America’s running dog.My home is almost close to the Philippines(southern china) and I hope there won’t be another South China Sea crisis.
Guzman
😰 an unfortunate name for a marxist candidate.
This is how fucked up our roster of presidential candidates are. We have to choose between Woke Pinochet aka Raytheon’s useful idiot, a neoliberal parody of Duterte who wants to keep the status quo and forcing Americanization instead of Filipino solutioms for Filipino problems, the son of a literal dictator groomed by the PDP-LABAN crown princess, and a more based version of Bernie Sanders minus the lib capitalism, but with almost zero chances of victory.
That’s kinda similar to other liberal democracies, tbh. We’ve got Mr. PoliceState McNoWomen’sRights, Dr. NothingWillFundamentallyChange Failson, and the unknown ‘unelectable’ third party candidate WhatIfSociety ImprovedALittle. Every. Dang. Election.
Woke Pinochet sounds scary though.
