Wow, that’s crazy.
I always thought you were an AI.
So duterte is in China now signing a whole load of deals.
Given his authoritarian tendencies this is hardly surprising.
Also there is a tidal wave of money available for people who deal with China in a certain way.
You mean a tidal wave of money for Duterte and his cronies
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Correct.
It’s life under a kleptocracy. While there is a certain amount of (mostly laughable) dictatoring going on, violence in general is simply a means to an end, the end being stealing stuff. In the absence of any functioning economy (because the gubmint shuts down anything that looks like legitimate economic activity) the populace naturally indulge in illegitimate economic activity. The taxes are a lot lower, for one thing, and you don’t have to fill in a 6-inch stack of forms for every peso you earn.
I get the impression stealing isn’t even considered morally wrong. It’s hard to tell if this is an inherent feature of the culture, or if it’s a case of “well, the mayors, the police, and the administrators are all stealing everything, I might as well take my slice too”.
The positives: the sky is high and the emperor is far away. Governance doesn’t extend much further than the limits of Manila. I can potter about on my farm growing things and as long as I don’t try to sell anything (in which case the whiff of pesos would bring a swarm of inspectors and form-mongers down upon my head) nobody cares. This is in contrast to, say, Europe, where the swarm of inspectors have a different raison d’etre, viz., to make life as miserable and inefficient as possible for the farmer.
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Eight years of smart diplomacy culminates in:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/duterte-meets-xi-philippines-cozies-beijing-044808788.html
[quote]“America does not control our lives. Enough bullshit,” he added in a rambling speech that flipped between languages.
“How can you be the most powerful industrial country when you owe China and you are not paying it?”[/quote]
There was another ‘I don’t know how functioning economies work but I’m going to pretend I do’ moment a couple of weeks ago:
Which is a wonderful sentence, because it contains its own disproof.
Also, last time I checked, 100 million mouths to feed and 300,000 square kilometers doesn’t count as ‘small’. Belgium is ‘small’, and grey-suited Belgians rule half the free world, possibly because everyone is in awe of their amazing beer.
Incidentally, I notice that every reporter prefixes the word ‘speech’ with ‘rambling’ when referring to Duterte. Reminds me of Chavez, who loved the sound of his own voice. The Chinese must be looking at him like a sheep standing on the podium at a wolf convention.
which is a good reminder to not vote for Trump, the Duterte of America. Or is Duterte the Trump of the Philippines? Either way, democracy won’t function too well when the education system is failing and only working for the privileged.
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I feel like the way he is going about it and navigating the political theater is just not presidential.
Perhaps he saw that the US is very fickle in diplomacy with giving money to Iran and abandoning Saudi Arabia as an ally. Perhaps he also had enough with Obama telling him how to get rid of drugs in the Philippines. . Another Obama foreign policy success.
It’s interesting how these types are meeting with political success these days, while supposedly more intelligent statesmen are fighting for survival.
If the globalists and thug huggers hadn’t screwed things up so badly, these demagogues wouldn’t get the time of day from voters.
[quote=“hansioux, post:68, topic:89625, full:true”]… is Duterte the Trump of the Philippines?
[/quote]
The comparison is only on their crude manner. In this recent interview, President Duterte explains that he spoke this way at the ASEAN meeting because he realized it was the only way to get the attention of the press/the world
“I tried to explain that I have four million addicts to take care and that I need help but nobody was listening. I was talking in a very decent language but they just went ahead to pound on me. So I was forced to expressed my anger in expletives, in curses, epithets and all. Ang sinabi ko p****** ina ka Obama, g*** ka pala eh. And then I said, you, you stupid Human Rights. Sabi ko, you EU. You are all pea-brained.” (Trans: “I said, Obama, you are a son-of-a-bitch, so you are fool after all. And then I said, you, you stupid Human Rights. I said, you EU. You are all pea-brained.”)
Both are described as populists because their supporters are not the elite. Duterte is a creature of the Left, while Trump is one of the radical Right (or whatever you want to call Putin ;)) So, the comparison doesn’t really carry beyond their use of crude language to get attention.
It’s a case of people wanting things to change, but regular political process isn’t getting necessary changes fast enough to the people, so the people figure we will just election someone who has no regard for the political process, and sure enough the people get changes, not the kind they want though, just horrific, oppressive changes.
Just a couple more videos from this week’s visit to China
This is some pretty scary stuff. A deal with the devil? A deal between devils? A match made in heaven? Only time will tell.
“China, Russia, and the Philippines - against the world!”
What the heck does that mean??!!?
Not surprised he didn’t even communicate his intentions within his own government before going to China. He seems like a fly by the seat of his pants kind of ruler.
This Duterte guy is feeling very Latin American, a la Revolucion Chavista. First, they align themselves with the so called “Communists” - 
- since they subscribe to a populist ideology -thought he had it made with the shoot all bad people- … then they hang on to power -in order to gather even more power and riches. Bye bye democracy -even if it was just for show, thumb democracy.
No one can question his “altruist” motives because he is thinking about the Greater Good -of his family and friends- plus he has all these bad guys to blame: the US, the drug dealers, etc. Heck, he is even offerig The Great Solution: selling to the big China market, bringing a lotta Chinese money with Chinese investors…etc. ad nauseum.
Everything has been seen before, wash rinse repeat.
No Trump here. Nothing new or clever. Directly from the script.
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China has a big money pot available…that’s what this is all about. Not much strings attached except let china do what they want in South China Sea and move away from US.
US news reporting that he wants to sever US military ties (except so far the defense treaty) . Wants to join the Axis of China and Russia and move away from the US theatre of influence.
The State Dept has said that nothing has been presented to it so far.
The guy wants to make the Phillippines into the next Cuba.
Should be interesting for Taiwan’s navy facing Soviet equipped Phil Navy then?
We live in interesting times.