Message 34 of 52 in the Usenet group SOC.CULTURE.FILIPINO        Subject thread: Great plan to help Philippines

From: [email protected] (CLEARAND10)

>The reason the US priority was on Europe and Japan, was that they would have a say in how it was reconstructed. If left to wallow in ruins, Germany or Japan would have had even more bitter attitudes and most likely the war would have started all over again on some later date. Plus, it kept the Soviet Union out of the countries to a large extent. Russia was at Japans door and you already know how fast they gobbled up Germany.

>Also, a lot of the allies chose to go it alone. They accepted US dollars, but did not want US, or anyone else, rebuilding their country's infrastructure or businesses. They chose to decide what their priorities were.

You are right about this. Additionally, the US had the advantage of going into Japan and Germany and hanging all the scum that was fit to hang. In one swoop the aristocracy and traditional power brokers were decapitated and removed from power. As the vanquishing conquerors we set the rules by which these countries were going to be rebuilt.

In Japan the first thing we did was a abolish a 1,000 year old feudal system and institute a parliamentary democracy. We prohibited them from ever building a large military. Japan was under American military occupation for a decade. In Okinawa the military occupation lasted until 1967. Some say Okinawa is still occupied to this day.

With our "allies" we had no such control. In the Philippines a landed gentry, that had been in control since Spain's days of glory, was left to run the place the way they saw fit. To nobody's surpirse they ran it to benefit themselves to the maximum extent possible.

Today these families control vast plantations, of the best land, where peasants toil for a dollar or two per day. They own and control the manufacturing process from raw materials right through production and marketing. They own and control the legal system. They own and control the legislative branch of government. They've become fat, dumb and happy since 1946 and are not about to change the system that got them to the point where they are today.

This is were America dreadfully failed the Filipinos. There is nothing wrong with the Philippines that a good mutiny couldn't fix.

Of course the power brokers know this. That's why it's necessary to invent a straw man on which to pin their problems. The poor must be kept in a constant state of alarm with the spotlight focused on imaginary enemies. (Did you ever read George Orwell's "1984?")

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us. -Justice William Douglas