A Choice Of Colours

The video clip posted by Lee Hsien Loong on his Facebook page of the Indranee Rajah response comes on right after Low Thia Khiang's speech. For a guy whose delivery in dialect is more powerful than in Queen's English, this is one command performance that resonates. The keystone of his message, and probably why it was clipped, is this reminder:
"If the people continue to support a government party that uses high-handed tactics against its political opponents, we are endorsing a bullying political culture. If the people support a governing party that uses governmental resources, including civil servants, to serve its partisan goals, we are condoning the abuse of political power as an acceptable culture."

The mainstream media refers to it as a "heated debate", but if you watch the lacklustre retort of Rajah, it comes across as a tired response, with the speaker looking, and articulating, a decade older than her actual years. You would be tired too, repeating the unchanging rote of a programmed automaton. If her demeanour spells her party's enthusiasm for "putting Singapore at the heart of what we do", it explains the lethargic efforts at addressing the housing, transport and foreign invasion issues.

Anyone playing the devil's advocate could easily twist Low's words, and shame him for blaming the electorate for the current state of affairs. Not unlike blaming the people of Germany for the undulating support of a little corporal from Bavaria during WWII. Maybe not that easy, since criticism is now seeping in from unlikely circles.

Inderjit Singh (Ang Mo Kio GRC) is best remembered for taking a leak in the little boys' room to avoid voting for the Population White Paper. This time round he decided to be conveniently overseas, when he posted "hard-hitting" comments on the President's Address:
"I encounter a fair number of residents who question the rationale of government policies. They feel the Government does not understand their needs and concerns but instead craft policy while seated in, what effectively seems like a different world, an ideal clean and sterile policy lab or ivory tower perched high up."

We wish he would give us more leaks, the types provided by a Edward Snowden or Julian Assange. That's the only way for folks to stop swallowing the blue pill, and start opting for the red one.