What is life like living in a third world country?

In this country, in the past 6 months, two different elections have been held, the first to elect a new president and government for the country. The most recent election was for a new local government. The local elections are very important as councilors are elected and these are the people that make the real decisions on what is happening in their Barangay (council area). Although voting is not mandatory, almost everyone turns up at the polls so they can have their say. The only problem with this is, if the person you are standing next to doesn't like what you have to say, they may just pull out a gun and shoot you dead for having a opinion they don't share. Every election there are many people gunned down, along with their supporters.

Pollution is terrible, not only from transport vehicles, but from wood fires and garbage fires. Let me explain garbage fires. The Lapu Lapu council does not have regular waste removal. So the trash builds up on the side of the roads. These people do not care about aesthetics, they litter everywhere. But some do care and decide to burn all their refuse, diapers, plastic bottles and everything else that contains deadly chemical mixes which are released when fired. The waterways are choked with plastic bags and litter, so much so that when it rains the backup causes floods across main roads and other low lying areas.

The electricity is interrupted for a couple of hours each day as supply from the main power plants in Manila runs short. The average citizen does not have air conditioning or refrigeration, so it matters little to them. Traffic enforcers control the flow of traffic, whether there are traffic lights or not, and the majority of them are not very good at their jobs. In any case, traffic lights are not regulated, you may get a 30 second green light followed by a 7 minute red light. There is certainly no sense to traffic flow in this country and drivers are really reckless. I had the experience of a minor mishap a couple of weeks ago, where a taxi swerved into the land my taxi was speeding down. They collided, but no names or other information was exchanged, both drivers cursed the other, then drove off to continue their business. When I tried to explain to my driver the accident would not have happened if he had not been speeding, he immediately went quiet and upon reaching my destination wanted to charge me extra for the entertainment.

Small children dodge traffic to beg for small coins so they can buy rice. I tried to help one organisation, telling them I would contribute a 50 kg bag of rice every month to help feed these orphans, but they never got back to me. I have friends in America that wanted to help by sending donations to help these kids, but the Christian Charity never got back to me. After 3 attempts to help, I finally gave up. You can only chase a snowball so long before it melts.

I recently had two cameras stolen, a Canon EOS 50D and a Canon SX20IS, worth about $US2000. I reported it to the police who really did not give a hoot in hell about my loss. Crime is at an all time high and has been for quite some time. Graft and corruption run rampant through all government offices, except for maybe the new president, who is vowing to address the problem. Let's just hope somebody doesn't buy him out in the meantime.

With all the crap we put up with it is still worth living here, in this nation of 7000 islands.

I want to publish this article that was in the New York Times on the 26th of September. I believe it epitomizes exactly what I think about the political situation between the United States and China. More cooperation between these two super powers is definitely needed, here is the article (as published):

"WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, facing a vexed relationship with China on exchange rates, trade and security issues, is stiffening its approach toward Beijing, seeking allies to confront a newly assertive power that officials now say has little intention of working with the United States.

In a shift from its assiduous one-on-one courtship of Beijing, the administration is trying to line up coalitions — among China’s next-door neighbors and far-flung trading partners — to present Chinese leaders with a unified front on thorny issues like the currency and their country’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.

The advantages and limitations of this new approach were on display over the weekend at a meeting of the world’s largest economies in South Korea. The United States won support for a concrete pledge to reduce trade imbalances, which will put more pressure on China to allow its currency to rise in value.

But Germany, Italy and Russia balked at an American proposal to place numerical limits on these imbalances, a step that would have further isolated Beijing. That left the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, to make an unscheduled stop in China on his way home from South Korea to discuss the deepening tensions over exchange rates with a top Chinese finance official.

Administration officials speak of an alarming loss of trust and confidence between China and the United States over the past two years, forcing them to scale back hopes of working with the Chinese on major challenges like climate change, nuclear nonproliferation and a new global economic order.

The latest source of tension is over reports that China is withholding shipments of rare-earth minerals, which the United States uses to make advanced equipment like guided missiles. Administration officials, clearly worried, said they did not know whether Beijing’s motivation was strategic or economic.

“This administration came in with one dominant idea: make China a global partner in facing global challenges,” said David Shambaugh, director of the China policy program at George Washington University. “China failed to step up and play that role. Now, they realize they’re dealing with an increasingly narrow-minded, self-interested, truculent, hyper-nationalist and powerful country.”

To counter what some officials view as a surge of Chinese triumphalism, the United States is reinvigorating cold-war alliances with Japan and South Korea, and shoring up its presence elsewhere in Asia. This week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will visit Vietnam for the second time in four months, to attend an East Asian summit meeting likely to be dominated by the China questions.

Next month, President Obama plans to tour four major Asian democracies — Japan, Indonesia, India and South Korea — while bypassing China. The itinerary is not meant as a snub: Mr. Obama has already been to Beijing once, and his visit to Indonesia has long been delayed. But the symbolism is not lost on administration officials.

Jeffrey A. Bader, a major China policy adviser in the White House, said China’s muscle-flexing became especially noticeable after the 2008 economic crisis, in part because Beijing’s faster rebound led to a “widespread judgment that the U.S. was a declining power and that China was a rising power.”

But the administration, he said, is determined “to effectively counteract that impression by renewing American leadership.”

Political factors at home have contributed to the administration’s tougher posture. With the economy sputtering and unemployment high, Beijing has become an all-purpose target. In this Congressional election season, candidates in at least 30 races are demonizing China as a threat to American jobs.

At a time of partisan paralysis in Congress, anger over China’s currency has been one of the few areas of bipartisan agreement, culminating in the House’s overwhelming vote in September to threaten China with tariffs on its exports if Beijing did not let its currency, the renminbi, appreciate.

The trouble is that China’s own domestic forces may cause it to dig in its heels. With the Communist Party embarking on a transfer of leadership from President Hu Jintao to his anointed successor, Xi Jinping, the leadership is wary of changes that could hobble China’s growth.

There are also increasingly sharp divisions between China’s civilian leaders and elements of the People’s Liberation Army. Many Chinese military officers are openly hostile toward the United States, convinced that its recent naval exercises in the Yellow Sea amount to a policy of encircling China.

Even the administration’s efforts to collaborate with China on climate change and nonproliferation are viewed with suspicion by some in Beijing.

Mr. Obama’s aides, many of them veterans of the Clinton years, understand that especially on economic issues, there are elements of brinkmanship in the relationship, which can imply more acrimony than actually exists.

But the White House was concerned enough that last month it sent a high-level delegation to Beijing that included Mr. Bader; Lawrence H. Summers, the departing director of the National Economic Council; and Thomas E. Donilon, who has since been named national security adviser.
“We were struck by the seriousness with which they shared our commitment to managing differences and recognizing that our two countries were going to have a very large effect on the global economy,” Mr. Summers said.

Just before the meeting, China began allowing the renminbi to rise at a somewhat faster rate, though its total appreciation, since Beijing announced in June that it would loosen exchange-rate controls, still amounts to less than 3 percent. Economists estimate that the currency is undervalued by at least 20 percent.

Meanwhile, trade tensions between the two sides are flaring anew. The administration recently agreed to investigate charges by the United Steelworkers that China is violating trade laws with its state support of clean-energy technologies. That prompted China’s top energy official, Zhang Guobao, to accuse the administration of trying to win votes — a barb that angered White House officials.

Of the halt in shipments of rare-earth minerals, Mr. Summers said, “There are serious questions, both in the economic and in the strategy realm, that are going to require close study within our government.”

Beijing had earlier withheld these shipments to Japan, after a spat over a Chinese fishing vessel that collided with Japanese patrol boats near disputed islands. It was one of several recent provocative moves by Beijing toward its neighbors — including one that prompted the administration to enter the fray.

In Hanoi in July, Mrs. Clinton said the United States would help facilitate talks between Beijing and its neighbors over disputed islands in the South China Sea. Chinese officials were livid when it became clear that the United States had lined up 12 countries behind the American position.

With President Hu set to visit Washington early next year, administration officials said Mrs. Clinton would strike a more harmonious note in Asia this week. For now, they said, the United States feels it has made its point.

“The signal to Beijing ought to be clear,” Mr. Shambaugh said. “The U.S. has other closer, deeper friends in the region.”

China’s main Communist Party newspaper bluntly rejected calls for speedier political reform on Wednesday, publishing a front-page commentary that said any changes in China’s political system should not emulate Western democracies, but “consolidate the party’s leadership so that the party commands the overall situation.”
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The opinion article in People’s Daily, signed with what appeared to be a pseudonym, appeared at least obliquely aimed at Prime MinisterWen Jiabao. He has argued in speeches and media interviews that China’s economic progress threatens to stall without systemic reforms, including an independent judiciary, greater oversight of government by the press and improvements in China’s sharply limited form of elections.

One has to remember that the United States of America does not rule the world, although they give it a damn good try. America must remember that democracy is not wanted by every country on this planet.

Many years ago, when I was growing up, our parents used the term, ‘Reds under the bed”, a fear instilling remark that made us glad we were born and raised in America instead of Russia or China. The word communism was bantered about to keep us aware the United States was the best country in the world. We shivered at the thought of communism. But it seems things have gone full circle. Now, democracy is bantered around the world, with children quaking with fear. Democracy is the only thing currently to be feared, especially if you live in a third world country, but I will tell you, democracy does not work in all countries. Although India has elections, they by no means are a democracy, same with Pakistan. Burma, Thailand, Nepal, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam would certainly not welcome democratic reform.

One thing that always irritated me is the phrase Americans use for their president, “Leader of the Free World”. That is a phrase that is totally hated by foreigners of the United States. I personally really despise that saying. I am Australian as well as American, a duel national, and I choose to live in Australia. We are a free country with a very strong economy and our own leader. I have lived in the Philippines; they are a democracy and a member of the free world and have their own leader. The British, I am sure, would not like to think of the American president as their leader.

Many years ago, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia tried Capitalism. They wanted to emulate the west, namely America. It failed miserably. Now it looks as though democracy is even failing in the United States. The financial system is in ruins, promises that cannot possibly be kept, are being made to the population, money is being printed at the quickest rate in America’s history, housing foreclosures are at a record high and unemployment is very high .

The US Dollar is in crisis, the deficit is the largest in America’s history and the US is trying to dictate to China and other countries what they should do with their currency and how to run their country. At this time in history, America must run their own country to its fullest capacity and not worry about other countries. Right or wrong, these other countries will run themselves, good or bad, right or wrong, with or without corruption, with or without human rights. Yes, human rights would be a God send if leaders of other countries believed in them, but not everyone does. That is very much a reality.

Other countries do not want America interfering with their domestic politics. Not at all! America would be better off correcting their own domestic problems before attacking other countries practices. Yes, human rights would be a God send if leaders of other countries believed in them, but not everyone does. And why is the United States fighting on two fronts? Wouldn’t the money being spent on wars far from the shores of America be better off spent on education reforms, social security and health care (just to name a few).

An article in the Chinese newspaper People’s Daily suggests China’s main Communist Party bluntly reject calls for speedier political reform. A front-page commentary that said any changes in China’s political system should not emulate Western democracies, but “consolidate the party’s leadership so that the party commands the overall situation.”

The opinion article was aimed at Prime Minister Wen Jiabo. Wen Jiabo has argued in speeches and media interviews that China’s economic progress threatens to stall without systemic reforms, including an independent judiciary, greater oversight of government by the press and improvements in China’s sharply limited form of elections. But in no means does this mean democracy has a place in any reform. Democracy simply would not work in China.

Sad but true, America is in big, big trouble! But empires come and go, i.e., the Roman Empire, Assyrian, Babylonian, Cho son, Egyptian, Greek, Hittite, Minoan, Persian, Phoenician, Shang, Sumerian and Yamato, the British Empire, etc, etc, etc. The real problem is, the people of America do not think it can happen to them. How ignorant can a nation of people be! I feel sorry for the average American, because when it all comes tumbling down around their ears, they will wonder why they were kept in the dark.