Marcos' Huey Long Moment

(Above: the original populist, Huey Long, channeling emotions familiar to us today)

My columns over the past couple of months have tracked three stories:

1. First, the epidemic of online gambling, mostly legal, which sucked out so much money from other enterprises it accounted for . The scandalous face of this was the story of abducted, then murdered, sabungeros and the ongoing showdown between bigshots in the legal (and illegal) gambling world. I wrote about this, and how corporatizing, so to speak, gambling, was probably better, on July 9 in Do racketeers fear corporations?; while I wrote about something else on July 2 in Crimes beyond comprehension: an increase in other rackets and other crimes too sophisticated, it seems, for our authorities to properly get their heads around the scale and scope of it all.

2. Second, the continuing collapse of the foundations of our present, moribund, Fifth Republic: most recently, with the Supreme Court acting as undertaker. After the House labored, it gave birth to a mouse of an impeachment, put out of its squeaking misery by a Senate craftily obstructing the obvious in pursuit of the politically less risky. Taken to to the Supreme Court, the impeachment was declared invalid by means of a decision written by a Justice who can be said to be suffering from impeachment PTSD. I wrote about this on August 6 in Discarded experiments and again on August 13 in Martial law babies.

3. Third, the President’s taking a cue from the Louisiana Kingfish, and 1930s Godfather of Ole Time Populism, Huey Long: At a rally, he bragged about how he punished a parish (Louisiana’s name for districts) where he’d lost. Then he looked at his audience long and hard, until they fell silent with fear. He shook his fist at them and thundered, “Vote for me, or by God, you’ll get good government!” I wrote about this on August 20, in A good dose of democracy.

All three, in turn, have laid the foundations for the country’s ongoing Bonfire of the Vanities Moment, which can be said to have been prefigured by an unexpected dismissal —of the national police chief. I wrote about this on August 27 in Crossing the line. The main point wasn’t that there were vested interests out a popular police chief , but rather, the vulnerability of those who enjoy public support when it comes to those who know the ins and outs of regulations. In a similarly challenging place are reformist candidates elected in the midterms who decided to trade being outsiders, for being insiders on the pretext of “getting things done”: I wrote about this on July 16 in Alone again?.

Today’s column is Jakarta calling in which I look at the goings-on in Indonesia (and, tangentially, recently in Thailand) in the context of the current Savaranola (the fiery preacher who ignited the Bonfire of the Vanities in Renaissance Florence) Era in online outrage. Scions of the New Plutocracy and Latter-Day Influencers are feeling the heat because of the fallout from the President’s heaping a big dose of “good government” on the House of Representatives, which has been well-larding itself but with precious little to show for it. As substandard and non-existent flood projects proved during the never-ending inundations afflicting the country in recent months, the public can put two and two together and misery has led to a massive online backlash. It has suddenly made the declassé conspicious consumers who formerly had large followings, odious to their formerly adoring public.

Everyone is running for cover, from journalists to politicians of all stripes, followed by thunderous denunciations from the pulpit and, of course, thick-faced grandstanding by members of both chambers of Congress suddenly shocked, shocked, to find out what the public already knows.

The risk is that it will be another case of Digital Maoism: there will be collateral damage. I found this article very interesting

Going back to my Jakarta article, two things getting in the way of a Jakarta Moment would be, to my mind, the Gospel of Prosperity (as an editorial quoted, the disgraced Discayas cooed to the cameras that they felt they’d “been made instruments of the Lord”) and the inevitable Circling of the Wagons of the Middle: for a nation that produces very little that is tangible, where goods and services are the foundations of the economy, consumption is a matter of necessity —and this means consumption, in the end, must be protected. Put another way, where merit is little rewarded, where notions of civic responsibility are considered offensive, the only signifier of any difference is material; but if there can be mistaken identity online, imagine this. For every person gleefully sharing a video of a car fleeing angry mobs in Jakarta, there is at least one if not a dozen others seeing this, fearful of their car being attacked one day.

So long as there is a targeted list of spoiled, tasteless, ostentatious children of lawmakers and businesspeople caught with their hands in the cookie jar, there will be explosive online activity aplenty; but if it starts inching towards gated communities (and not only plutocrats live in these), there will be a creeping demand for… order. At all costs.

Always fun to watch: Steve CuUnjieng: