DO FILIPINO NATIONALISTS USE "THE BLAME GAME"?

"What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler

It is easy for us contented Filipinos, here and abroad, to simplify or imply that the arguments and
presentations of our homeland’s history and current events by our nationalists as a blame game,
i.e. use of “argument by victimhood” against America, the supporter (of our forefathers’ revolt
against Spain) turned interventionist, new occupier and colonial master for 50 years.

To the thinking Filipino, he knows that among equals, to use the “argument of victimhood” is
disgustingly moronic, irresponsible or immature.

But between the strong and the weak, the intelligent and the ignorant, victimhood is
reality. It is as real as the Jewish Holocaust, or the forced displacement of Palestinians from
Palestine (now mainly Israel) or the genocide of Armenians by Turks or the more recent ethnic
cleansing in former Yugoslavia, etc. All their decades-old, if not centuries-old, ongoing conflicts
borne out of real victimization. As I wrote in a previous posting:
http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/08/finishing-unfinished-revolution-in.html,

“Suffice it to say that the failure to solve our people's poverty is not strictly the fault of America or
of foreign institutions (America has the strongest control and influence in them), and it is also not
completely the fault of the so-called leaders of our homeland. It takes two to tango, to screw for
so long and continually the country and our fellow countrymen.”

It urgently behooves the Filipino nationalists to educate the weak and the ignorant among us, that
is, the impoverished majority and the miseducated in the homeland(many of us so-called
educated), about the unknown hidden truths and the known untruths in our history; and to
appreciate and see these recorded past as guides to internal and external factors which heavily
and continually contribute and lead to our present, ever-worsening, national socio-economic and
political predicament.

Only by educating and thus raising the national consciousness of the majority can a united,
nationalistic citizenry be attained; who then will decisively work for the radical transformation of
our homeland for the common good.

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NOTE: To those who wonder "why dig the past": We engage in revisiting and revising our past,
i.e. historical "revisionism", to develop new emphases and raise new questions on assumptions
and explanations for key historical issues and policies --given by our former colonial master
America, government officials and authors of history books, then and now.

In our homeland's case, we can not afford a "balanced" approach to history since in the past and
present years, our homeland's history, as it refers to Philippine-US relationships, has been
imbalanced in favor of the Americans, who as far as we baby boomers can remember, are only
"the good guys" and "do-gooders" in history.

It is time for us, especially for Filipinos-in-the-Philippines to recover our history, a nationalist
history, which necessitates uncovering the lies and myths about America; since the American
arrival into and 50-year occupation of our homeland, the sweet nothings about "Philippine-
American Special Relations", etc. perpetuated through our school textbooks, mass media,
government pronouncements, Filipinos with Americanized minds, etc.

We Filipinos, here and abroad, past and present, relied and continue to use these official
explanations that lead only to our ignorance of hidden truths and knowledge of untruths, thus
perpetuating the post-WW2 neocolonial conditions that brought only ever-worsening
impoverishment to the masses; foreign control of the national economy and the dwindling of our
national patrimony.

“The HISTORY of an oppressed people is hidden in the lies and the agreed myth of its conquerors.” -
Meridel Le Sueur, American writer, 1900-1996

"In all institutions from which the cold wind of open criticism is excluded, an innocent corruption begins
to grow like a mushroom - for example, in senates and learned societies." - Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-
1900

"To oppose the policies of a government does not mean you are against the country or the people that
the government supposedly represents. Such opposition should be called what it really is: democracy,
or democratic dissent, or having a critical perspective about what your leaders are doing. Either we
have the right to democratic dissent and criticism of these policies or we all lie down and let the leader,
the Fuhrer, do what is best, while we follow uncritically, and obey whatever he commands. That's just
what the Germans did with Hitler, and look where it got them." - Michael Parenti

Source: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/search?q=blame