The Offensive of Small Men

The Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu says that the Tao is the beginning wherefrom all things issue. And all things must return to the Tao.

52

In the beginning was the Tao.
All things issue from it;
all things return to it.

To find the origin,
trace back the manifestations.
When you recognize the children
and find the mother,
you will be free of sorrow.

If you close your mind in judgements
and traffic with desires,
your heart will be troubled.
If you keep your mind from judging
and aren't led by the senses,
your heart will find peace.

Seeing into darkness is clarity.
Knowing how to yield is strength.
Use your own light
and return to the source of light.
This is called practicing eternity.

53

The great Way is easy,
yet people prefer the side paths.
Be aware when things are out of balance.
Stay centered within the Tao.

When rich speculators prosper
While farmers lose their land;
when government officials spend money
on weapons instead of cures;
when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible
while the poor have nowhere to turn-
all this is robbery and chaos.
It is not in keeping with the Tao.

54

Whoever is planted in the Tao
will not be rooted up.
Whoever embraces the Tao
will not slip away.
Her name will be held in honor
from generation to generation.

Let the Tao be present in your life
and you will become genuine.
Let it be present in your family
and your family will flourish.
Let it be present in your country
and your country will be an example
to all countries in the world.
Let it be present in the universe
and the universe will sing.

How do I know this is true?
By looking inside myself.

55

He who is in harmony with the Tao
is like a newborn child.
Its bones are soft, its muscles are weak,
but its grip is powerful.
It doesn't know about the union
of male and female,
yet its penis can stand erect,
so intense is its vital power.
It can scream its head off all day,
yet it never becomes hoarse,
so complete is its harmony.

The Master's power is like this.
He lets all things come and go
effortlessly, without desire.
He never expects results;
thus he is never disappointed.
He is never disappointed;
thus his spirit never grows old.

56

Those who know don't talk.
Those who talk don't know.

Close your mouth,
block off your senses,
blunt your sharpness,
untie your knots,
soften your glare,
settle your dust.
This is the primal identity.

Be like the Tao.
It can't be approached or withdrawn from,
benefited or harmed,
honored or brought into disgrace.
It gives itself up continually.
That is why it endures.

Small Men, or the Corrupt Men, the Mediocre Men, defend their actions by saying that they are loved, anointed by the great masses of people. When in reality they cheated their way to power.

Small Men defend their grissly acts by saying that they have conviction. When in fact, they merely have desire. Small Men say they must fight against the Great Men. But naturally, they always do! Because the interest of Small Men, will never coincide with the Virtue of Great Men.

Small Men are wont to outburts. They credit this to sensitivity. They hide under the vestige of the pulse of the people, that in actual conditions does not exist. It is merely the false - not the pulse - reading of the Small Men. Done for their own convenience.

Small Men make promises, but are never wont to fulfill them. Because they are heartless, soulless and have no compunction to hurt others.

Small Men are Vultures and Parasites of the first order. They thrive on the life energy of others and enrich themselves at the expense of their fellow humans with no guilt, remorse nor conscience.

Small Men blame others for being dubious, but the dubiousness in others is a mirror of the Small Men's criminal intents.

Small Men also keep to their oaths to their bedmates that are as corrupt, vile and filthy as them. Because they always need allies by their side by the dangers created of their own doing and undoing.

Many Small Men thinking in their small ways, with their small brains, believe that if they consolidate their power, they will be immune to the turning of the cycles full circle. That even with immense power, the end must come, and things shall come to pass.

That is the way of the Tao: Everything must come to Pass.

That, the Great Men always know, so they let things pass and are silent and peaceful in the face of the onslaught of Small Men at their very doorsteps.

Even under severe criticism, Great Men do not talk, for it is a sign that one is a Small Man and doesn't know.

And so it will come to pass, that the Corruption in Government will end at one point and selected persons will be declared as the real embarrassment to the country. An abomination in the eyes of the world. That is the Way of Things. That is the Way of the Tao.

A Time For Small Men

Reprinted from Asian Forum Journal    August 11, 2010 04:32 am

The time of the I Ching’s Small Men has arrived. The Great Men are in retreat and the Small Men have advanced and taken the Kingdom. They wield the power and placed the Great Men and their following on their knees. I have written about the Great Men and Small Men in the past.

Like vultures and parasites, the Small Men will feed upon the body politic, bleed the Kingdom (government) dry.

This is the time for Scavengers, Foragers, Thieves, Looters and Humiliators, Castigators, Vengadores, Executioners, Murderers, Throne Grabbers. It is the time of the Mad and ill-intentioned people working for the Nobles and Lords will turn against their Masters.

Take the case of the Philippine Air Lines, just last month, 25 pilots of the airline resigned! The pilots left nary a clue as to what they were about to do. The mass exodus of the most important manpower segment of an airline caused serious flight cancellations and passenger backlogs.

This was nothing to their employees' union that even rejoiced over the hardships their employer, the Philippine Air Lines had to go through. The tremendous amount of money spent by precision companies like airlines, have been thrown down the drain by the pilots. PAL spends millions of pesos for the training and mastery of just one single pilot.

Surely, the airlines will post heavy losses over this action of its own people. But that is a bitter pill that the airline has to swallow on its own. Something as painful as that cannot be borne by devious Small Men.

True to form, the reign of the Small Men will wreak havoc in the Kingdom. With them traipsing around the Realm, everything will go haywire. When there are Troubles, expect the governance of the Small Men to become doubly strong, albeit unwieldy but forceful and strong!

We can expect more Troubles for companies already having disputes with Small Men under their payroll. Certainly, PAL will get more blows, backstabbing, batting and suffer embarrassment from the Small Men.

What it can do is to prepare for the worst, because the Small Men have their backing in the highest places. Whether PAL likes it or not, the Season of the Small Men now overshadows the Great Man and his Loyal Nobles and subjects.

This will ultimately mean, that if PAL is not braced to accept the hits and double whammies it will be getting from the Small Men, it will surely be shocked by what is about to happen.

Right now the entire country is in a state of shock and stupefaction. When this will wear off, will be the Time that the Small Men are prepared to make their get-away, bringing to their secret hideouts all the Loot and Valuables their Thievery and Criminal acts have produced.

Then the world turns full circle and the Great Men will reign again for their appointed tenure in the great Scheme of Things.

Malacañang vs. Corruption

Malacañang should not take too much offense on the statement of Manny Pacquiao’s trainor, American national Freddie Roach who said over television that his ward The Pacman is essentially more popular than President Pnoy. That quote was invariably just both hype and existential.

Instead, the Palace can focus its attention upon the people on the ground. Take the Mindanao observer interviewed almost a fortnight ago over ABC News Australia. The observer’s comments are instructive. On the question about how he sizes up the renewed hostilities in Mindanao today, the observer’s curt reply was: “President Aquino cannot solve the conflict”.

Just like the past presidents of the Republic before him he is inadequate. He said, that Aquino’s own mother, the late Pres. Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, who was much, more more popular and powerful as Head of State – coming just after a Revolution that toppled an autocrat, thought that she could bind the nation together by holding out open arms to Nur Misuari and Jose Maria Sison, making friends with rebels left and right and forgetting about and neglecting the armed forces, the members of the entire gamut of the security apparatus, who were fighting for the country with blood, sweat and tears.

Her national security adviser was asked to draft written orders to slash and burn about seventy percent of the budget for all military and security, intelligence forces. The act of cutting the fund to our armed services was actually done, when it was finally legal for the late lady president to sign the draft orders.

Subsequently, the late Mrs. Aquino failed in the quest to consolidate her hold on the country. She could not unify the nation neither heal the wounds that kept opening up one after the other, making it ripe on the part of the uniformed services for armed adventurism to smolder.

Now listen to what follows in the observer’s statement:  The true power in Mindanao is wielded by the agglomeration of fiefdoms – economic, political and those who flaunt power through the barrel of the gun.

These are the power vortices, he said that prevent the resolution of the conflict because for as long as the turmoil exists, these power centers exercise control over the resources of the island. These are much, much more powerful than the elected head of state and of course, the government of this Republic.

This revelation is not new. Douglas McArthur’s father (Arthur), a brigadier general assigned to Mindanao in the early 20th century, may have realized the nascent rise of the phenomenon called guerilla warfare. The .45-caliber Colt pistol was invented to stop suicidal amucks dead on their tracks. But guerilla warfare morphed into the fourth generation warfare, terrorism, now a global problem.

Going back to Pres. Pnoy’s dilemma, the Philippine Chief Executive should perhaps be more serious and down-to-earth in his pursuit of peace.

On the other hand, his idealism and the brave advocacy of good governance, that is taking much of the government’s time, talent and resources is slowly evaporating in the midst of the corrosive effects of corruption surrounding his government.

Go to any national agency and you will not find a worker who will tell you that his bosses are spanking pure and clean. Every single one of them are out to make big bucks while in office and sometimes, their actions cannot be fully kept from public knowledge. So the smaller ones down the line will follow the same dynamics guiding his own superiors.

The franchise to illegally make money using one’s position in government ttrickles down to the grassroots. Try doing business in any municipality and you will see what I mean – you will have to go through the gauntlet of corrupt schemes and mechanics it is like passing through the eye of a needle.

If you are lucky enough to pass muster the various local government units, you will end up several tens of thousands or even many millions poorer. That is why foreigners literally abandoned the Philippines as their investment haven because of WHOLESALE corruption. Unbridled, unstoppable, coming from the top down to the bottom.

Have you been to the premier district in the country lately?  In Ermita, Manila? The police precinct just in front of the United States Embassy Chancery is manned by policemen wearing sando and beach sandals. Visit their precinct quarters and you will see fifty fighting cocks kept in a gallinera. And listen to their talk about the latest events that brought in dirty money. To think that, “What the Manila Police District does, the entire Philippine National Police follows.” It is such as shame.

Even in the country’s court of last resort, the Supreme Court, the cases are not argued in chambers but discussed in private places in five star hotels or wherever the talks could be kept the least harried and tense. If you try to follow up very keenly on a case with the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court, they will refer you to an official who is traditionally authorized to take the reasons for the court to favor your case. Guess who that official is?

These are challenges facing our beloved President. The question hangs above our heads, will the guy not really be up to it or can he still be able to hack it? We hope and pray for the latter.