The Idiocy of Typing Anti-FDI Rants Using IMPORTED Devices, IMPORTED Platforms, and IMPORTED Social Media

Bulatlat

It's very easy to open Facebook (or any related platform) and find lots of stupidity, right? There have been idiotic comments I find on Facebook such as FDI is this and that. We can find "thought leader groups" such as Alliance of Concerned Teachers, Anakpawis, Anakbayan, Bayan Muna, IBON Foundation, Kabataan Partylist, League of Filipino Students, and Philippine Anti-Fascist League (PH Antifa) who keep ranting about FDI as this and that. I even remember somebody dared to say that FDI caused Egypt to dry up. Ironically, North Korea and Venezuela, two protectionist countries, have very bad pollution problems. I'd blame it that they don't have the money to do a clean-up drive. How can you clean up a polluted river without the right equipment? How can you expect better power efficiency with outdated equipment that keep coughing up, cough, cough, lots of black smoke?

All the talks on social media can be very funny. The big irony is that all calls for "Filipino First" by the late Carlos P. Garcia are done on imported devices, imported platforms (such as Blogger and WordPress), and need I say imported social media such as Facebook and Twitter for a start? The comments such as "China is taking over!", "No to American imperialism!", or any such nonsense statements are written using imported devices, imported platforms, and imported social media. Blogger (by Google) and WordPress are American-made. Facebook and Twitter are American made. The chances are these idiots are using American-made iPhones to rant their nonsense.

The big excuse is that "they're simply forced into it". That's what I wrote about some time ago regarding anti-capitalists having "no choice". They use the example of people in communist countries having no choice but to accept government-supplied needs. What's what the administrator/s of PH Antifa (who I believe are a group of teenage brats) try to say is that they have no choice but to use "evil" capitalist devices. Meanwhile, we have socialist states like China and Vietnam where they've got Starbucks and an Apple factory. Yes, talk about iPhones manufactured in Vietnam without the nonsense 60-40 policy! The only restriction is land ownership! Vietnam has been accepting FDIs even if they're basically a Communist country. The late Nguyen Duy Cong aka Do Muoi learned from the late Lee Kuan Yew. Take a look at Vietnam now even if it's a Communist state!

Some of these fools may say that they're just using the tools against the American imperialists. I remembered the statement PH Antifa said, "The last capitalist who we hung is the one who sold the rope." I'm laughing thinking this over. How can these fools expect to beat the enemy by feeding the enemy? Buying iPhones and MacPROs would mean sales for Apple Inc. Vietnamese communists buying iPhones and MacPROs kept Apple Vietnam in Vietnam for so long. Vietnamese communists buying Starbucks and Jollibee allowed the two investors to expand in their Communist state! Vietnam would have little or no problem with this "inconsistency" for a reason. It's because the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) is very friendly to FDIs.

The irony is also anti-FDI rants come from people benefiting from its fruits. It's not like how CPV has been using MacPRos and iPhones to spread their propaganda. It's because the CPV has been supporting free markets while maintaining some form of communism. Meanwhile, the anti-FDI idiots of the Philippines go against FDI while using imported products. Most likely, they were using MacPROs and iPhones. Did they even have locally-made gadgets, locally-made platforms, and locally-made social media? If not, these guys are just contradicting themselves.

As Lee said, this is what the Philippines can also learn from as well:

“You got on the one hand, the Open Free Market System in America, you have on the other hand, the exact opposite, the closed, controlled, command economy of the Soviet Union, Communist Russia…
The Chinese tried the Communist model, with their own modifications, and it failed! And they have admitted that it failed, and they’re trying to pick up the same competitive spirit between workers, between different enterprises, which they noticed in Hong Kong, so they have opened a new town on the border with Hong Kong called “Shamchun” (Shenzhen in Cantonese) and they’re inducing Hong Kong entrepreneurs to go… and create employment!
Dr. Lee Siew-Choh and Mr. Jeyaratnam talk as if these things have never happened. They haven’t learned!
Deng Xiaoping is a great man… He fought a great revolution. He saw the product of that revolution turn sour. He was fortunate to live long enough and he had the courage to say “NO! WE CHANGE COURSE! LET’S LEARN! Let’s stop trying to do everything by ourselves.”
So they started importing and buying Boeing 707’s. So they bought Tridents instead of trying to manufacture their own aircraft. Eventually they will but it would take 2, maybe 3 generations.
That’s how we succeeded because we have open minds, common sense. A lot of analysis, careful weighing of the odds, make a firm decision, monitor it, implement it, modify as it goes wrong. ABANDON IF IT IS NO GOOD!
But often… And I say this more out of relief than out of pride… Often, 8 times out of 10 we have been right… We’ve made mistakes… We put money in New Port in Jurong… Second hand machinery… We were young then… We were new in the game…
They sold us second hand machinery, we didn’t know… We lost money… We wrote it off. But we learned…
Mr. Jeyaratnam says we are obsessed with profits. I said YES! That’s how Singapore survives!
We have no profit, who pays for all this?
You make profit into a dirty word, and Singapore dies.”

Until these anti-FDI idiots can finally make their own electronic devices, until they can make their own Internet platforms, and until they can make their social media, it's really that self-contradictory. Meanwhile, commies in Vietnam can enjoy their Starbucks, using their iPhones, and celebrate free markets even if it feels rather contradictory.

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