A Response to Recent Criticism

It is not profitable to give a rebuttal to every bit of criticism that comes your way but sometimes a rebuttal must be made in the interest of truth and so it is in this case that I offer a rebuttal to an article posted at Joeam.com which concerns comments I made on Twitter. 

JoeAm's avatar

A reader sent me a link to a JoeAm article about the conflict in the WPS. I thought it was a good article. Full of facts and information. I posted it on my Facbook page and then I followed JoeAm on Twitter. The next day I saw this tweet from JoeAm:

https://twitter.com/societyofhonor/status/1012119137395486721

There is something fundamentally wrong with this thought which is that the Philippines has been an obscene , morally corrupt, ratty police state (corrupt PNP anyway) long before Duterte. The first anti-corruption laws were written in the 50's and the Sandiganbayan is the first court in the world dedicated to government corruption cases and was so for nearly 30 years! That is how corrupt this nation is. 

Later on in the day GMA posted a story about corrupt PNP officers so I posted a comment with a link to my article on PNP corruption and I tagged JoeAm. That resulted in a back and forth where I was called a racist Chinese troll.  You can read that whole conversation here:

https://twitter.com/gmanews/status/1012153863087026177

This person blocked me and I took offence at that because I had done nothing worthy of being blocked except to give her facts about how the culture shapes the nation. Not a single thing I wrote was racist in nature or in tone. I logged into my second Twitter account and sent JoeAm a few messages indicating that she was being immature and childish for blocking me because she did not wish to deal with facts.

https://twitter.com/Philippinesfail/status/1012212303784075264

You can click on the links for all of these Twitter feeds and read them for yourselves and see what exactly transpired. This person was more interested in my name, Philippinefails, than in any of the facts I had to offer.

That is all the background to an article recently posted by JoeAm which is directed towards myself.

https://joeam.com/2018/07/02/beware-anti-filipino-racism-is-rising/

Here is the pertinent quote from this article:

I’ve taken to insisting that people drop the culturally insulting line or leave my discussion threads. I blocked one person who responded to my request with yet another denigrating line. He returned immediately, overriding the block somehow, to call me immature for blocking him. Clearly, this is a malicious effort and it is being conducted by people with technical means.

What a joke! 

This person does not know how Twitter works and that anyone can have more than one account and simply use that to "override the block." But instead of thinking clearly JoeAm has declared I am part a malicious effort which is "being conducted by people with technical means." Well ok.  She got me.  Here is a picture of me and my Chinese troll hacker gang:

I want to take a moment to pore over this article and show you just how intellectually and factually bankrupt it is. 

JoeAm starts with this:

I’ve recently noticed a peculiar consistency of some commentary in my social media discussion threads that I find troubling.

But she offers no examples of this commentary. The reader is supposed to take her word for it.

Old racial quotes from Americans describing Filipinos as lazy and unable to govern themselves are among the materials being circulated.

Which quotes? Who said them? And in what context? Here is a link to a letter written in 1720 by a Spanish Jesuit which details Filipino character:

http://www.philippinehistory.net/views/1720sanagustin.htm

Are the quotes referred to of the same nature as this 300 year old letter? Are they saying the same things this Jesuit did in 1720?  She does not tell us what these quotes are so the reader is left guessing. How is anyone able to intelligently comment if they do not know exactly what is being discussed? 

I was so struck by three separate “racist” commentaries arriving in my discussions on the same day that I began to wonder if this is the latest Chinese-inspired trolling line. Denigrate Filipinos in racial terms, with the end point being “they are not worth saving”.

If this person is so struck by these comments you would think she would offer up a few examples but she does not. Why? How does China come in to the picture? Why does she think that whatever she has encountered is Chinese inspired trolling? She offers no explanation and the reader is left in the dark.

I suspect Filipinos of rich or recent Chinese heritage are put in an awkward place by such matters, as I am when old racist American quotes are hauled out and used as if nothing has changed since 1900.

Again what are these quotes? She does not say. But I refer to the 300 year old letter written by a Jesuit and you tell me if Filipino character and culture are not the same as ever. And if that does not suffice I refer you to this 30 year old Atlantic article about Filipino culture and you tell me anything has changed in 30 years!

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1987/11/a-damaged-culture/505178/

Is this essay from The Atlantic racist? Basically all my talking points come from this article. A lot of them anyway. This article is pinned at the top of my Twitter feed.

I’ve taken to insisting that people drop the culturally insulting line or leave my discussion threads. I blocked one person who responded to my request with yet another denigrating line. He returned immediately, overriding the block somehow, to call me immature for blocking him. Clearly, this is a malicious effort and it is being conducted by people with technical means. 

It is a nasty world out there. We ought not be naive about it.

Here is where my part in the article comes in. What denigrating and insulting thing did I say? JoeAm declines to say. The reader is just supposed to take her words at face value. Go and read those Twitter feeds I linked above and tell me exactly what I wrote that is denigrating to Filipinos. If you read those feeds you will see that we were actually in the GMA discussion thread and not on the JoeAm discussion thread. No

Just because I know how to work my way around the internet does not mean I am part of a malicious effort. Such a charge is lazy. It indicates that this person does not want to interact with facts and is naïve.

How can we distinguish a manipulative racial argument from a sincere, pro-Philippines argument? 

• I think one difference is hope. The manipulative arguments will say there is no hope for making anything out of Filipinos. The earnest arguments will seek to BUILD hope . . . and opportunities . . . for Filipinos, rather than make them carry the burdens of history as a racial stigma.

• Another difference is facts. Earnest discussions will not be about adjectives but about nouns and verbs.

• And a third difference is a clear willingness to listen. Genuine discussions have it. Trolls do not.

Pretty ironic list here. What are some examples of these manipulative arguments she mentions? I find it confounding that not one single example of a racist argument is given in this article which ask she question, "Is anti-Filipino racism rising?" If I was writing about the supposed rise of racism I would give some specific  instances of this racism to support my thesis.

You can't tell people they have to listen if you are not also willing to listen to them. Genuine discussion does not always happen on the internet but I have never blocked anyone on social media because I listen to and tolerate everyone. It appears JoeAm is the troll and not me.

"People on the internet are saying mean things about Filipinos and it's all Chinese inspired trolling." That is her article distilled to its essence. This whole article is one big fuzzy-wuzzy generality. There are no specifics. There is nothing to deal with. It's just assertions and feelies with no facts. The question: "Is anti-Filipino racism rising" is not even answered but the answer is assumed to be yes despite a complete lack of proof.

I think what JoeAm took the most offence at from me was the following tweet:

It was this tweet that caused her to respond:

The point I was getting at is that Duterte did not arise out of a vacuum. He is a product of the culture. Anyone who will take his place will be a product of the same culture. It's not to say Filipinos are stupid and dumb or to beat up on them or denigrate them. It's to say Filipinos are Filipinos. Like all people they are products of their culture. It's right in the tweet, "The problem is the character of the people." That character is shaped by the culture. 

JoeAm did write a very nice and factual article about the dispute in the WPS and I'm sure there are adhere great articles on her website. President Aquino even quote her in his last speech before he left Malacañang. But when it comes to culture and race and how both shape a nation she does not get it. It's kind of funny that her very first blog post is about these issues of race and nationalism.

If you want to know why any people group nation is the way it is you must look at the culture. That is rather obvious but according to JoeAm that is racist. According to JoeAm nationalism has nothing to do with skin colour or place of birth, which are the qualities to which she reduces race, and there really is no such thing as race but it would be better if all races mixed because then we can live in peace and harmony since everyone will be a mongrel. What a contradiction.

It seems to me nationalism is important to: (1) live harmoniously according to commonly accepted rules, (2) gather enough resources to better oppose aggressor states, (3) huddle together for warmth and comfort, or (4) organize an economy that can compete fairly for prosperity. These are moral, military, security and economic needs and have nothing to do with the color of one’s skin or where one was born.

I’m not really sure why so many Filipinos believe it is somehow important to stay fundamentally Filipino. The morality is screwed up by widespread law-bending and corruption, the country can barely feed the ever-birthing hordes, the place is pretty warm already, and the economy can’t spit into the wind for distance. What are they trying to preserve? The hills have been cleared and are washing into the seas, the reefs have been dynamited to gravel, and the fish have been stripped so all that is left are those spiked little creatures that you should avoid stepping on lest you have to hop quickly to get a friend to pee on your foot.

Racial stereotypes are born of fear and misunderstanding and invariably lead to unfairness and punitive behavior. The sooner the whole world cross-breeds itself into a fine yellowish brown tone, the better off we will be. 

http://thesocietyofhonor.blogspot.com/2010/04/the-race-card.html

Notice how JoeAm questions why Filipinos want to remain Filipino and then equates certain behaviours with being Filipino! How racist of her. Then she says racial stereotypes are born of fear! Racial stereotypes are born of observation not fear as she has just demonstrated!

JoeAm does not understand that race is much more than skin deep. It goes right to the DNA and is an essential part of any person and nation. A casual glance at the various people groups and societies around the world should be convincing enough. Racial unity, not diversity, is the strength of a people. Theories to the contrary are completely modern and we see what kind of societies those theories have formed in Europe and the USA where people now have virtually no history or identity except with the products they consume. This is not the place to get into theories of race or ethnos and nationalism and the connection between the two. You can find many useful studies online and in the library. Read Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee for starters.

Next JoeAm outs herself as an old hippie who has drunk the Kool-Aid and thinks everyone is absolutely equal and ethnic nationalism is economically dangerous and culturally boring.

Now, on the other side of the big pond, the US, after its internally hard fought epiphany of the 1960’s, leads the world in setting race aside in favor of competency. The smarter you prove to be in an applied way, where smarts has value to the government or businesses, no matter where you are from or what you look like, or even how many legs you have, you have a shot at becoming a citizen.  

It seems to me that countries that consign themselves to a closet of culturally closed nationalistic prerogatives relegate themselves to: (1) energy wasted defending against imagined foreign ghosts, rather like Chicken Little’s friends running about shouting “the sky is falling”, and (2) non-competitive economic development, as high-skill competition requires getting the best available brains, wealth, technology and productive moxie, no matter where they are from. Not to mention, (3) culturally closed societies risk being really boring, and (4) stand as remnants of outdated thinking of man as a small animal.

Joe has obviously never heard of affirmative action which sets aside competency in favour of race and gender. In America to be qualified you have to be marginalised! There is really too much to comment on here. JoeAm is dead wrong. This kind of thinking is what has lead to the illegal immigration and refugee crises and the subsequent rise in crime in Europe and the USA. With all the rape going on in Sweden that country is no longer a boring place that's for sure. I wonder if JoeAm thinks any of the racially homogenous tribes in northern Luzon are boring.

And this is all in her first blog post ever!

I will end this article with a definition of nation as found on Wikipedia.

A nation is a stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, ethnicity or psychological make-up manifested in a common culture. A nation is distinct from a people, and is more abstract, and more overtly political than an ethnic group. It is a cultural-political community that has become conscious of its autonomy, unity, and particular interests.

Black's Law Dictionary defines a nation as: 

A people, or aggregation of men, existing in the form of an organized jural society, usually inhabiting a distinct portion of the earth, speaking the same language, using the same customs, possessing historic continuity, and distinguished from other like groups by their racial origin and characteristics, and generally, but not necessarily, living under the same government and sovereignty.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation

See how race, ethnicity, culture, and nationhood all tie together?