Signature Words II
“Whoever would love life and see good days must keep their lips
from deceitful speech. They must turn from evil and do good;
they must seek peace and pursue it.” -- 1 Peter 3:9
‘SIGNATURE WORDS’ Sweet Surrender, on the first day of 2021 essayed the curious way that words become Signatures, revealing the character of persons, organizations, philosophies, or movements that use them, or the brand that defines their value proposition like Levi’s signature denim, or the narrative that declares their mission like SpaceX colonizing Mars. ‘Signature Words II’ now brings more Sig Words, Sig Names, Sig Titles; more twists and slants; curiouser and curiouser, for the discerning and the adventurous…
Dear trad-politicians and pseudo-activists,
‘Red-tagging’. Curious how the signature is used to underline a curious pack of overused, pretentious protests such as ‘Human Rights Advocacy’, ‘EJK’, ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, ‘revolutionary tax’; curious who use these Signatures behind political face masks, ideological face shields, sophisticated sleight of hand; curious why they hide behind the ambiguity of lofty advocacies to camouflage true intent and advance their obsolete agenda; curiouser when their comrades explode land mines while ascribing EJK to others but themselves; curiouser how they raise clenched fists clamoring for ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ while practicing their own brand of ‘dictatorship by the self-exiled (fugitive?) and his puppets’; curiouser how they recruit young students, brainwash and bring them to the mountains to carry arms as child warriors, in blatant disregard of the rights and responsibilities of parents over their children, as declared in Article 26 Section (3) of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights; curiouser how they extort funds mislabeled ‘revolutionary taxes’, or ‘donations’ for cloaked beneficiaries -- themselves disguised as ‘NGOs’ -- in a form of pernicious taxation without representation, in violation of fundamentals of good government that they say they fight for. We, the people, will speak our minds about the simple clarity of these Signature Words, muddled and complicated by sophistries of selfish interests.
Dear Elon,
‘Colonize Mars’ – is becoming a Signature of SpaceX, Elon Musk, and nouveau billionaires who can indulge in adventures, start-ups, and galactic safaris of a lifetime; many adventurers catch the vision of 21st-century Magellans and Capt. Blighs in the declared mission to “colonize Mars”. I am inclined to work for a seat in the maiden trip if some basic questions are answered and resolved:
Who owns Mars? Who will own it, or portions of it, when humans get there? How? Can Earth unite before going there and plant one Terran flag rather than a collage of American, Russian, Chinese, Filipino, and others? Can humans resolve conflicts at home -- in the West Philippine Sea-South China Sea, Palestine, Afghanistan, Hong Kong, Ukraine -- and be sure not to bring internecine tendencies to an outer space neighbor that is still unspoiled and unmarked with borderlines?
Is “colonize” the right word to call the effort to buy Elon’s so-called “insurance policy” against dire contingencies in Planet Earth that will require evacuation? What if Martians say “I’d rather colonize you first”? What if Martians were intelligent underground microbes that can create ‘pre-emptive colonies’ in tissues of Elon and company when they arrive? I nominate “Human Settlement” as the “Mars Trip Signature”, and the “Prime Directive” as the Mars Trip “Social Template” (referring to the predominant policy adhered to by the ‘Federation of Planets’ and ‘USS Enterprise’ when exploring the Galaxies, as Star Trekkies know by heart).
If Technology can find efficient ways to get there, find water and resources to terraform and sustain life, how difficult would it be for Technology to invent a ‘Unification Algorithm’ and transplant Social Sciences needed to make life in a new home planet viable and sustainable? Can’t ‘settlers’ expunge old martial instincts in the same way that their rockets attain escape velocity? Can’t human technology discover social equilibrium in settlements as it could discover warp velocity in rockets? If the genius of Elon Musk can do it, surely, he can patent it, and we can buy it, like we buy Tesla EVs.
‘Colony or Secret Garden’? Can we unlearn the words colony and colonize? Can we remember how nations that discovered the technology of building ocean-going ships circumnavigated the Earth searching for spices, silk, gold, and supplies from the ‘New World’, how they used the theory of “materials balance” as a lame excuse to create colonies, invent slavery, and imported slaves? Can we remember how nations with sea-faring technology “colonized” the Americas, Bahamas, Africa, Mexico, the Philippine Islands, the Indonesian Archipelago, and other rich habitats, and impoverished the natives there with the process of sustained colonization? If you’re thinking of using robots in lieu of slaves, what if the robots revolt? America is the exception because it learned the technology of revolution soon enough and won independence from the British Empire, and then the technically-advanced industrial North won the Civil War and abolished slavery.
The point? If we can remember the footprints of earthly colonization – slavery, poverty, backwardness, corruption, social disequilibrium, and finally chronic insurgency – the point is to forget what we remember before leaving for Mars. Forget “colony, colonize, colonization” as Signature, Label, and Business Model; forget, unlearn and leave them behind; “colonization” is not endemic to the whole of Earth, it was invented by European Royalty seeking loot of empires, to be candid about the narrative “Commonwealth and Colonies”; do not risk seeding the galaxy with the epidemic of “colonization” when the success of the first ‘Mars Mission’ becomes a model. Ask people from former colonies like the Philippines (that’s us!) and get much-needed insights for the first manned Mars expedition.
Immigration, not colonization; terraform, not colonize. Picture Annie Moore, the first immigrant to the US to pass through Ellis Island in 1892; “she must have felt incredible excitement at the thought of a new home and a fresh start, leaving a difficult life in Ireland to start a new one in America”; then picture the first African slave as he disembarks from a slave ship and steps for the first time on the shores of America, feet, and hands in chains; imagine his bewilderment, confusion, imagine the bruises, the pain, the shame, losing his dignity, and spirit in a strange land; little did he know he would spend a lifetime of hardship and shame working the rich fields of Virginia; imagine and thank God it was not you or Bezos or Branson. Many will join the 21st century Great Immigration to Mars, just for the thrill of it, or escape the possible collision with the giant asteroid Apophis predicted in 2029; but not another colonization, terrestrial or extra, God forbid.
SIGNATURE NAMES
On further thought, let me tell the narrative of more Signature Names, like “Ka Eric”, “Ka”’ as in “Comrade” or “Kasama” in the next sequel -- SIG III; like a political group still calling itself “patriot”, while its alliance with insurgents was exposed by a former comrade; like Trump saying “we must have American dominance in space when he created Space Force”; like Zuckerberg’s “metaverse”; like so-called, self-proclaimed “human rights defenders”. Till then.
Bob Calida Aug.18, 2021