Monday, October 21, 2013

Going After James

Acting Minister Tan Chuan-Jin was talking about the ire stirred up by discriminatory job advertisements, in blatant breach of the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices, when he counselled, "It is important to not stoke up hate and ill-will as some are doing.” One can understand that the PRCs, India Indians, Bangla and Pinoys, flown in to take away jobs and swamp the limited spaces of housing and transportation, will bear the blunt of the negative sentiments, but the real targets are shirking the blame.

That is about the only way to comprehend the raw hatred expressed by the Sunday Times feature writer.

Dinki di Aussies are nice people, especially the country folk at places like the wheat bins of Ejanding, Minnivale, Western Australia. Not only do they throw an extra shrimp and chook on the barbie for the guest, they even let you try their mean version of a home brew.

James is not able to defend himself, but it was unlikely he blew his gaskets if he was enlightened nicely about the Singaporeans only party. The one organised in a public garden by the Overseas Singapore Unit (OSU) of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). Their apologists are even attempting to lay blame on the park management for allowing external organisations to book a public space for exclusive events. Ergo, the OSU, proxy of the PMO, can do no wrong.

One could speculate that the author ("Guard against the tyranny of the minority") did not have a pleasant experience during her last visit Down Under. Maybe they mistook her for a bloke, instead of a sheila, But the picture used for her byline is not exactly the mugshot of a face only a mother could love, the hate can't originate from her personal self.

The big picture has to do with identifying the real culprits. The guys who make the mistakes but refuse to concede their failures of falling on the job. Sigmund Freud believed that sublimation was a sign of maturity, allowing people to function normally in culturally acceptable ways. In a sense, the true negative thoughts have been merely sublimated into angry voices. It is unlikely the wimps in white can handle the uglier alternative of being physically tarred and feathered.

4 comments:

  1. Why do they refuse to admit their mistakes? When you have a highly paid mandarinate with their post "retirement" well taken care of if you behave, who will admit their mistakes? Especially when your bosses boast that their track record is beyond reproof. Any admission will destroy that boast. As Ngiam Tong Dow put it (logically and not illogically, as he later recanted in circumstances yet to be fully explained) even his wife would be against the mandarin making such admisssions. The whole system of governance needs to be overhauled.

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  2. Looks like the mini-bond type saga is still not yet over for JP Morgan.
    Unlike Singapore, it seems American government don't know how to "move on".

    SOURCE:
    ---------------
    The criminal probe relates to whether JPMorgan misrepresented the quality of the mortgages it was packaging into bonds and selling to investors.

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/jpmorgan-ending-criminal-probe-proves-020113963.html

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  3. Haha........

    Minister Tan Chuan Jin seems to be very popular with bloggers.
    Some even have much faith in him than Minister Chan Chun Sing, the Blue eye boy in PAP.
    Is Chuan Jin an effective minister or like Minister Lim Sweet Say, is only good at lip services? Cant say he had really solved anything regarding employment matters. Foreign talents and workers are still flooding the workplaces.

    As a digression; it is quite saddening and disgusting to know that a popular blogger(gintai) was terminated after 18 years of dedicated services with SMRT, a giant State-owned transport operator, he was very loyal to.
    Yes, Gintai did disclose that he had made an operational mistake. Who does not with 18 years of services?

    patriot

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  4. The key assumption when paying million dollar salaries to civil servants and pap government ministers is that they are "top talent". So they behave just like top talent lor! eg they see that Wall Street bosses never lose their jobs despite scandals after scandals. Did Morgan's boss "sublime" even after beating his mentor Sandy Weil's record of fines? That is the true standard against which the civil servants of today measure themselves. So sorry Mr Ngiam, yours are nice stories but you never went to Riviera for cooking holidays and never lived in GCB nor had the bank account to invest in $10m condos, not fit to criticize them la!

    For politicians, they get to face the voters and be held accountable once every few years during election, even if rigged. But for incompetent and self-serving civil servants totally conflicted with the interests of much of the general public (with their 3rd or 4th condo investment and insider info on the land development plans for 2020 and the PWP), when do they ever have to face the music?

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