Ian On The Red Dot

The government is slowing trying to move the chess pieces to ensure a flawless checkmate once we move into the next elections proper.

So, what are we the citizens who are concerned about the next elections and a fair playing field doing about it?

More specifically, what are we doing about it online?

We have SingaporeDaily.net that aggregates posts from blogs. We have blogs offering an alternative voice.

It doesn’t seem enough. It doesn’t seem like we are preparing enough.

What sort of preparations might be needed?

Sidetrack.

It seems to me that the pro-PAP/pro-government people who try to do things online are clueless at best and indifferent at worse. It is like they feel they have nothing to worry about the online space. Could it be that they think that they have the mainstream media all sewn up?

On the flip-side, the general Singaporean online is too lenient towards the alternative voices on the web. Being an alternative voice to the mainstream media does not mean being a constant dissenting voice against the government.

I feel that the online space, with regards to political matters, is moving towards the direction of just being solely dissenting.

Where are the non-partisans online?
Back to the question. What sort of preparations might be needed?

Above question isn’t rhetorical. Do any of you have any ideas what preparations might be needed? Preparations done in a non-partisan way.

How is that possible you ask?

One of my favorite television shows, and ironically enough a credible source of news, is Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. One thing that amazes me is how quickly they can write jokes that parodies or satirizes the day’s event. More importantly, the thing that really impresses is how they are about to spot topics, events and issues that will really resonate with the audience.

I don’ think it is just a bunch of cool dudes and babes sitting around a table deciding what funny shit to say on television.

I actually think they have a dedicated team collecting data from the newspapers and television news shows. Some, probably obsessively compulsive, intern is scanning and taping. Cataloging. Note Taking.

I think we need that for Singapore.

We need a, cue the buzzword, crowd-source way of pulling in every single coverage of our MPs and potential candidates leading up to and during the next elections. Scans from the ST. Screenshots of the online papers. Scans from New Paper. Everything that is available. Recording of Channel News Asia. Recording of the evening news. In English and in Mandarin. And in Bahasa and in Tamil. With subs for the non-English recordings.

Why?

Not for us online folks to have more source material to rant or write funny posts.

For possibly something greater.

Any thoughts on how such a base of information that is cataloged properly (admittedly, properly is such a vague way of describing the organization of the information) can help?

Now, some people may read this post and think, IanTimothy doesn’t like the government, so he must obviously like the opposition.

To that I answer, why can’t I dislike both?

Here is the problem as I see it with the opposition,

The government is like the kid with rich parents who can afford to buy him a football. Since he is the only one with a ball, when he goes to the basketball court, which in Singapore is obviously meant to be for playing football, every kid wants to play with him. And if no kid wants to play his game, well, he can afford to pay them to play with him. The opposition is like the kid who occasionally gets bullied by the rich kid. The kid who instead of training up and learning how to fight properly so he can defend himself, runs to the parents and other kids to cry and complain. Life is so unfair this weak little kid likes to say.

The truth is, for the next elections, I’m really sitting on the fence. And it is really true what the wise Chinese man says,

He who sits on fence hurts his balls.

Back to something greater.

Intuitively, I have a feeling I know what the PAP candidates always talk about. But won’t it be better if we can have proof?

Something along the lines of, based on the information we have, PAP candidates spend 50% of their time telling us how screwed the opposition is and 70% of the time, the opposition whines about how PAP screws them.

And then, maybe we have something like, based on the information, we know that PAP Awesome Hand Picked Candidate Number 1 spends 10% of the time talking about Foreign Talent and 90% of the time talking about how PAP has helped the poor in Singapore (without actually talking about how they have helped). And Opposition Super Underdog Candidate 1 spends 90% of the time talking about how PAP doesn’t give him the right to freedom of speech and only 10% of the time addressing the impact in the reduction of Foreign Labour in Singapore.

Something like that.

I have very strong opinions about issues. Especially issues about Singapore.

There is never a class gathering where our conversation doesn’t swerve, crash and burn into the topic of governance in Singapore. Sometimes it is because my friend drove the car into the wall, sometimes I supplied the alcohol to the driver, sometimes someone else threw a banana peel.

However it happens, it happens.

And at the end of every discussion, someone would say,

“You should be a politician.”

It is the ultimate indication that my friend(s), my classmate(s) disagree with me – usually not because they have an informed opinion but because well, that’s how things have always been, and they don’t see why things need to ever be different – and if I feel so strongly about change, I should be a politician to convince others (not them) that change should happen. I’m being shooed away because they don’t want to think about such matters.

Why?

Governance, my country, the way our lives are controlled, influenced and manipulated by the state are just too important things to be left to politicians.

These matters should be a cause of concern for every citizen.

Every citizen should have informed opinions based on analysis and understanding about these matters and not depend on opinions formed because some demagogue swayed their hearts or some thug beat their bodies into submission.

Convince me your path is right as I try to convince you to take this walk with me. Let’s not abdicate the carrying of the torch for this dark journey ahead.

How we want our country to be, how we want our lives to be lead, the legacy we want to bequeath our children should not (only?) be decided or led by politicians stuck in ivory towers.

It should be decided by citizens. Daily.

Because these are our lives, this is our country and they are our children.

I hope, for the day, when these discussions end with someone turning to me and saying,

“We should all be citizens.”

The problem with democracy is that the average human has no desire to learn, no capacity to understand and no stomach to pursue truth.

All humans are pathetic self-interested creatures with a tendency to grab short-term gratification as opposed to work for long-term satisfaction.

Yet, we want to convince ourselves we can trust these people to make an informed decision in choosing the best among those who ostensibly want to serve our best interests as a people.

If the individual human is self-interested, how can the aggregate be any better?

Everyone thinks the alternative to a democracy is communism.

No.

The alternative to no democracy could be no government.

But, yes, the tragedy of the commons and what not.

Difficult questions without a doubt.

Democracy isn’t the only choice and neither is communism the only other choice.

A former scholar shares:

Amidst the annual scholarship fever and the flurry of applications, what the newspaper ads don’t mention, and what people don’t talk about enough in a meaningful way, is that the three or four years spent in university can change a person quite profoundly, all the more so if that university education is conducted abroad. I don’t mean having a British- or American-sounding accent, or having visited half of Europe in one summer backpacking jaunt, or learning how to cook the food you get homesick for. I’m talking about the kind of deep-seated change that can leave a person wondering how to reconcile what her old self agreed to do, with what her new self now believes.

In my case, I got bored with English literature – once the love of my life – and picked up a second major in history. I found extra-curricular activities more interesting than my classes. I discovered that, more than anything, I wanted to work in book publishing in New York. And politically, philosophically, I found myself inhabiting a very different position, one that made it hard to stomach certain principles on which our government operates.

The sweet irony …

Reminds me of the movie ‘Annie Hall‘. Alvy Singer is the catalyst for Annie’s growth. It is this growth that eventually leads to the end of their relationship.

The recent hatred against Thio Li-Ann which surfaced online after news broke about the invitation extended to her to be visiting human rights professor at New York University School of Law is ridiculous.

One accusation that has been levied her way is that she is responsible for repressing the homosexuals in Singapore. That is a presporterous notion. She has not done any repressing of any sort. Lest anyone forgets, the little piece of law Section 377A has been around for quite some time and although she made a vile contemptible speech in Parliament when arguing for the retention of Section 377A, she did not advocate the active enforcement of that law.

Some might argue that the mere advocacy for retention is tantamount to oppression. That would only be seeing half of the picture. It was Parliament as a body that decided not to repeal Section 377A.

Any discontent that needs to be shown, should be expressed at the elected members of Parliament. Compared to Thio Li-Ann, they are having it too easy from the same community that would demonize Thio Li-Ann. It would be naive to think that none of them share similar views as Thio Li-Ann.

And if they don’t then, discontentment at them is even more justified, because what sort of leaders do we have if they are the sort who do not stand by their own personal convictions.

Ah …yes, the sort who listen to the majority and represent those views.

It sickens me when our leaders use the majority as an expedient wall to hide behind when it suits their political agenda. It sickens me that during the debate we had members of Parliament who sat on the fence by saying that the law was only retained because of the existence of a conservative majority.

Yes, the members of Parliament are our elected representatives, but there are times when they have shown the capacity to lead by their convictions, to make the tough decisions and then convince the public they are right (strangely, recently, this usually happens when they are trying to burden us more financially or trying to be coy about the nation’s finances).

The debate for the repealing of Section 377A was one such time where they should have led by personal convictions. The law stood. And this begs the question, are they individuals who are incapable of making a stand or do their convictions lie in a different direction from which they profess. These are the individuals we should be giving a tougher time.

Hounding Thio Li-Ann serves no purpose. It is merely vindicative. Childish and useless.

I had an interesting conversation with an American friend of my colleague some time ago. We were discussing the Singapore government and I mentioned that there is some feeling among certain sections of the populace, contrary to what our government professes, that the government is corrupt as evidenced by the insane wages they have.

The American friend made the argument that the Singapore government could not possibly be corrupt insofar as corrupt is being defined as “the exchange of favors and influence for illegal payments” and high wages while distasteful are not illegal.

While one cannot underestimate the power of an avaricious nature in pursuing personal aggrandizement, his argument was anchored on the premise that since the government was already ridiculously rich from their wages, when they are in office, there was no need for them to indulge in (?illegal) actions to accumulate personal wealth. In the long run, Singapore actually might save money because the government officials are then in a position to choose the best projects at the best prices and not those which provide kickbacks in any form (of course, this assumes that government officials understand the market and are smart enough to assess then choose the best tenders).

He continued that ultimately the Singapore government’s actions can be reduced to this – to continually maintain power by appealing to the people (and whatever other possibly unfair political and legal means) with the ultimate aim to be the ONE to serve the population of Singapore.

What would be the flip-side?

The Singapore government does whatever it can to gain money and influence to maintain power and while in power only serves the interest of those supporters that had lend their influence and contributed to the personal coffers.

The conceit of this argument is the faith in the nobility of the ruling class and that the worst thirsts and hungers of human nature can be quenched and satisfied.

Basically, like my NS friend might say, the government ‘can fuck us twice’. Get high wages and still be corrupt.