We Blog cuz we CARE

Once a few weeks ago i got into a "debate" with a fella. The Fella was full of praise for PAP, citing the fact that they had managed to accumulate large reserves and maintain a healthy budget. He even defended the control of Media and all, saying that if there was no control then we would have people on the streets....of course i was also labelled as a person who wanted more excitement and action and a person who just made noise for the heck of it (this is a very recurring theme). In fact he ended off by telling me that I would probably do the same thing and that PAP is doing what they have to do.

Being a noob, i was, in DOTA speak...OWNED. In fact because of this i began to qn whether i was right in commenting on issues... but i have since recollected my senses and am still commenting on issues as best as i am able too...

But the above story begets the qn, why do we even bother to highlight all the perceived short comings in policies and in society? Are we being arrogant or presumptous to think we can do a better job then those in power? Are we from the low income that we must make noise?

To be honest i do not fall into the low income category and i believe many bloggers also do not fall into that category. however, Mr Wang (www.mrwangsaysso.blogspot.com) sums it nicely with his latest post..."I am concerned about broader issues for Singaporeans. That's what this blog is about, anyway. It's not so much about me."

I am not a blogger in the mould of Mr wang, aaron and the rest...in fact i tend to end up rambling and going off tangent such that my posts become a boring read..and my early posts were more about me myself and fiaking I...i doubt that i get much readership...however i do this because i believe that as a citizen in the Republic of Singapore i owe it to society to give my 7 percent worth on issues...i may be wrong and of course i stand corrected but if i can get even one person to start thinking critically about issues and hopefully start to be concerned about what goes on in society, then i have contributed to helping rid the apathy of singaporeans.

and even if no one reads...at least this gives me an avenue to express my thoughts...

and honestly i dun buy the argument that i must migrate just cuz i am unhappy... since i am not happy isnt it better that i find a way to deal with the thing causing the unhappiness?

Logic of the Lightning Bolt

Just a few days ago, a ST online letter by some fella claimed that Mr Chiam should fulfil his promise to upgrade the lifts in potong pasir. I believe before that the straits times ran a rather long article on Mr Chiam, whereby Mr Chiam was reported to have said it would be difficult to upgrade all the lifts. It is reassuring to know that there are some heroes who dared to speak up for the people of PP and their embattled leader Chiam in today's forum.

Mr LKY and Mr Mah Bow Tan plus a whole horde of PAP fellas have said time and again that upgrading is for those who voted PAP and the funds naturally go to those who have voted for the lightning bolt. Heh...so much for moving ahead and staying together and leave no one behind...seems that besides the poor fellas at the mrt track and those overassuming underachieving leeches the people of hougang and potong pasir (or those areas under the SMC...since i have folks in hougang ave 3 who belong to aljunied or pasir ris depending on the elcetion year) are coming under the definition of "nobody".

Of course, if they want to justify the withholding of upgrading programs sure by all means. IF the funds for upgrading come from thin air, and not from GST, paid by people regardless of consiteuncy, then go ahead. If the sons and daughters of PP and Hougang pay taxes to Chiam and Low respectively, and not to the relevant authorities, then by all means dun give them their money. If the sons of PP and hougang do not waste 2/2.5 of their most exciting years doing shit just so some bored warrant ossifer or ossifer or SSG can get promoted or feel impt and get a pat on the head..sure...go ahead and withhold upgrading. Better yet, might as well cut of their water supply and electricity. If upgrading is in charge of the Ministry of National Development, and MND doesnt want to upgrade Hougang and PP, does it not follow that Hougang and PP are not part of the Nation of Singapore? Res Ipsa Loquitor.

So much for the words of the pledge going, Build a Democratic Society, Based on Justice and EQUALITY. But maybe this non elite doesnt understand ENGRISH enough...as they said in animal farm...all constiteuncies are equal, just that most are more equal than 2. But hey our pledge mentions nothing about constiteuncies...heh...

Much Ado about Taxing

As expected, the GST will be raised to 7 percent on the 1st of July. That was never in doubt ever since Mr Lee Hsien Loong made the announcement during one of the parliamentary sessions. The interesting thing is the premise that this increase in GST is to help the poor, something which defies logic by virtue of common economic theory.

After the announcement, i must commend the Mainstream Media for a job well done, namely beginning a massive counter insurgency campaign to portray the Budget 2007 as mana sent for heaven. In fact the amount of positivity that is coming out of the straits times and today is enough to induce feelings of nausea in my self, being the self confessed cynic that i am. It appears that the Budget 2007 is the antidote or...medicine as someone calls it...to all the problems faced by us...heh, what a load of bullocks.

To be fair, its too early to see the effect of this GST increase as of yet and harder still to predict since most economic theories are predicated on the fact that all other stuff remain constants, or ceteris paribus. However there are several things which i feel deserve consideration, namely;

1) Even if this increase is offset by the goodies from the budget, are the poor necessarily better of than before? we must remember that they have been paying GST since it was implemented. Molly meek www.mollymeek.livejournal.com gives a good account of it...

2) IF the GST causes the cost of living to rise, wont this in effect nullify the effect of giving more help to the poor as the value of cash decreases?

3) With regards to workfare, its a scheme predicated on the fact that the person can find a job...what if he cant find a job and is forced to collect cardboard boxes? he obviously wont be eligible..

4) Increase in employer's CPF contribution seems good...but...wont that make a singaporean worker even MORE expensive to hire with respect to a FOREIGN TALENT? Ok...there is a levy on foreign talent i supposed, but if without the old CPF rate employers are still choosing foreign over local then this could exacerbate the situation instead...

Thus whatever the media says, we cannot take it at face value and must instead probe deeper. The consequences of not doing so could result in more heartaches in the future...

Status is Everything

"A Clash of Titans" says Aaron http://aaron-ng.info/blog/a-clash-of-titans.html and on sunday a reporter talks about it using a similar title and even quoting Aaron, just that aaron is conveniently forgotten and appears as a "blogger". However and even more interesting article is this which was taken from today's Today.


http://www.todayonline.com/articles/171478.asp

Entitled Citizen Lee launches a debate and a waiting game. One thing interesting about the article is the way it is written. It portrays A Star as part of the government and Dr Lee as Citizen Lee, a member of the commons. In one move, we are shown by the MSM that Dr Lee, far from being one of the members of the Lee Family, is now to become a Citizen, albeit a very concerned citizen as that. Words like " I will not let this mistake continue" and the dropping of phrases like "private citizen" seem to be a method by which the press is telling the public that "Hey Singapore is open! Here we have a PRIVATE CITIZEN airing her views on a government policy and nothing has happened yet!" Perhaps this could be an implicit hint to others out there to give their views freely.

Now lets look at it this way. First and foremost no doubt that, given her background, she isnt just talking cock. Her views deserve consideration. And yet, if one remembers there are many other professionals in Singapore Society who have at one time or another given their views on several issues. At times their views have even been counter to the stand taken by the government. However, observe the consequences. Most of the others have been ignored. Aaron was also given short shrift when that fella did not quote his name. Some were even told that their data was faulty. Catherine Lim was whacked verbally. Yet observe the results of Dr Lee's actions. If i remember correctly even Mr Goh Chok Tong said it was a good debate. Philip Yeo did not tell her to resign. In fact there seems to be considerable media coverage of the issue.

Therefore, the moral of the story, if one is in singapore one must have qualifications to be heard. However, nothing can beat having a shadow of a p0werful person looming over. Thus i feel that, as long as Singapore society remains the way it is, we should exercise caution. Only people like Dr Lee and a select few, by virtue of status, can safely air the views with only token reprisal against them.

The Messenger and the Message

Ian (http://onthereddot.com/ian/2007/02/05/odysseus-had-the-ear-of-achilles-not-agamemnon/) and Aaron (http://aaron-ng.info/blog/the-medium-is-the-message.html) have
said their piece on this issue. Even Baey Yam Keng had something to say about it in the article which possibly constituted a declaration of war on the blogosphere. I believed he said that "'The identity is not important. It is the message that is important"

Messenger vs Message...so which is greater?.

If one observes how society works, one would realise that the Messenger who is successful in convincing people of the merits of the message often does so because people respect the fella and thus give more weight to his argument. Where does that respect come from? It could have been earned thru the messengers' hard work or through other factors (eg the messenger has powerful backing or so on so forth, not referring to anyone in particular). As much as a person tries to be objective to look only at the message, it remains difficult to separate the message from the messenger. As Ian pointed out, if a person like Lee Kuan Yew says something, you would think twice before disagreeing with him. Whether the message is accepted or even given due consideration has a lot to do with his/her personality and how his/her audience perceive him.

However, the essence of the message is also important. If the message is deemed by a reasonable average sane person to be crap, then no matter how great the person is, the message is crap. For example, Mr LKY's take on the issue of encouraging more graduate mothers to give birth in the belief that such children will be more "intelligent". Reasonable sane people will naturally see this as biased and elitist, and as such would object to such a view even if they are strong supporters of LKY. Yet, this is predicated on the presumption that human beings are generally rational beings. But as we all know, people are rarely rational. (For eg, i know of fellow countrymen who would rather spend money going on holidays and be miserly when it comes to healthcare)

The distinction is not very clear cut. This is because when dealing with human behaviour, we have essentially moved from the realm of the positive to the normative. However precedent has shown that generally, the messenger determines the effect of the message.

Refer back to the earlier example of Mr Lee and his graduate mother theory. Yes there were those who were against it at that time, never mind that it was an idea of one of the Founding fathers of Singapore. Yet there were also those who no doubt supported it precisely because Mr Lee said it. In the latter instance, either they were...to put it blunty, boot lickers Or they put great store by what Mr Lee said and were convinced by his argument because of the fact that Mr Lee, having played a role in the development of modern singapore, was deemed to have the experience. Furthermore, observing Mr Lee gives me the feeling that this is one fella who knows what he is talking about and though he has certain ideas which i do not agree with, one cannot deny that this man is intelligent and hardworking, thus his views no matter how great an affront to a person still deserve consideration. As Ian puts it, if some of the noobs come up and starts espousing LKY's ideals as the biblical truth, i would probably dismiss it as play acting as a mini lee.
Likewise, consider this scenario. If a person who is younger than u comes to u and starts talking about the Theory of Life and what have u, u would tend to ignore it or see it as mindless ranting. If however someone older than u tells u the same thing, u would see it as words of wisdom (he should be in the same age range...there is something called a generation gap after all).

Now lets look at the side of the opposition. Mr Chiam See Tong and Low Thia Kiang, despite facing the fierce lightning in the recent GE came out the stronger. Why so? Because as messengers they were deemed by the people who supported them to be credible fellas who knew what they were talking about. Other factors also help increase the messengers standing; for example, Low Thia Kiang is a charismatic person while Chiam showed himself to be able to withstand the snipes about his age. The fact that they are seen as being close to their constiteunts helps them reach out to the people, thus while Chiam may talk about having an economic union with msia, people will still consider it.

On the other hand we have Mr Chee Soon Juan and Mr JBJ. Though i respect them for their courage, i must say that they do not make very good messengers. This could be attributed to the MSM bashing them and portraying them to be troublemakers and their methods which do not resonate well with the general public. Thus while i believe that their message, regarding the democratisation of singapore is a valid one, because the messengers are seen as lacking credibility, they have few supporters.

There are many more examples, but due to time constraints i believe this will do. Thus Mr Baey is mistaken to think that the message is more important, if that was even his actual thought in the first place. Perhaps he said that to be inline with the new "counter insurgency effort". However i believe as rational beings we must always try to separate the message from the messenger rather than judge the book by the cover...that however is for another time...

The Probe Before the Storm

Just recently, an article was published in the mainstream media

ST Feb 3, 2007
PAP moves to counter criticism of party, Govt in cyberspace
By Li Xueying
THE People's Action Party (PAP) is mounting a quiet counter-insurgency against its online critics.It has members going into Internet forums and blogs to rebut anti-establishment views and putting up postings anonymously.Sources told The Straits Times the initiative is driven by two sub-committees of the PAP's 'new media' committee chaired by Manpower Minister Ng Eng Hen.


For the full article and a good analysis to it, go to

http://mrwangsaysso.blogspot.com/2007/02/boxing-with-shadows.html

Regardless of whether you think this is a good move or a bad one (i personally tend to think its the latter), this move should start to ring alarm bells in the minds of Singaporean bloggers in cyberspace. This is similiar to the conduct of military operations throughout history. First they will send the scouts, then the vanguard and the main force will arrive.

In this instance, the anonymous posters are, in my honest opinion, not there to "counter" the views in light of the fact that the mainstream media has constantly shown its disdain for "anonymous" bloggers and so on so forth. Futhermore, the article seems to suggest that it was a leak from someone associated with this intiative. This is inferred from the line Sources told The Straits Times. However i find it rather unlikely that the PAP, being a party which always tries to cover its bases before embarking on a course of action. This "leak" could be intentional and a sign of more to come. Its like a warning to those bloggers that "Hey, we are on to you, we know what you are doing". This could deter the faint hearted from blogging or posting comments which are not supportive of the PAP. I see this move as a precursor to the next move, which may be related to the amendments in the Penal Code that could be used to move against bloggers; not all bloggers, but some unlucky enough to be the ones who are held as an example to cow the rest. In effect, these is merely the reconaissance before the hammer arrives. Through my observations regarding the PAP, their remaking has been purely cosmetic and underneath the skin nothing has changed; thus it would be wise to be cautious.

Such revelations in the media have always been a precursor to more things to come. One case in point is the issue about GST and the Income Gap. After Mr Lee Kuan Yew talked about how globalisation would result in the income gap becoming smaller due to those at the higher end getting their income slashed, the minister for health Mr khaw boon wan then announces their ministy's latest move to increase the number of doctors in singapore. I believe that such a move would entail more foreign doctors coming to our shores since there is no way for us to produce the number of doctors ready for the workforce. After the probe (LKY's comments on the income of the professionals being reduced) came the hammer (Khaw Boon Wan's announcement). Coincidence? Its up to us to decide.