Stupid As Stupid Gets

The segment you may have missed out on national tv

Mr Seah Yin Hwa, NUS engineering student, prepared his ambush well. He started off by restating the injustice we all know too well: opposition-held wards are denied upgrading funds sourced from a common pool of taxpayers' contributions. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, graduated with First Class Honours form Cambridge University etc, etc, bit the bait: "Your question is, why is the opposition ward not treated at least as good, or maybe better than the PAP ward? And the answer is that there has to be a distinction. Because the PAP wards supported the Government and the policies which delivered these good things."

Then Seah delivered the T.K.O.: "So, having said that, can I pay less tax, and maybe take one or two years off my NS?"

Stumped for a couple of seconds, Lee tried to wipe the pie off his face with canned laughter. Words need not be wasted on his ridiculous riposte about prioritised defence - coming from a brigadier general at that. Rescue had to come from the non-combatant moderator, "Okay... Can we have the next question?"

In one significant moment, the duplicity of his line of politics was laid bare. No amount of lipstick on a pig will whiten the party's uniform again. As Lady Macbeth would lament, "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand."

One is reminded of how Goh Chok Tong was also rendered speechless by student Mr Lim Zi Rui's utterance at the NTU Ministerial Forum on night of 29 October 2010, "I feel that there is a dilution of the Singapore spirit in youth... We don't really feel comfortable in our country anymore." Even Goh had to admit, "If this is happening, it is very serious." The message affected him sufficiently to add, "If the majority feel they don't belong here, then we have a fundamental problem. Then I would ask myself: What am I doing here? Why should I be working for people who don't feel they belong over here?"

The $64 question is whether Lee has half the EQ of Goh to appreciate what transpired at the NUS Forum.

Lie-To-The-People Sessions

Victim of budget constraint?

A member of parliament earns his keep by attending the meet-the-people-sessions (MPS) , and showing up for televised parliamentary debates. The television cameras should be aimed at the MPS instead, where the true character of the elected representative is often unmasked.

Riverdale Drive resident reported the problem to the Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council one year ago, about water dripping on residents collecting mail from letterboxes. The HDB representative had inspected the premises and told them it was toilet water from a second floor. Asked why it still rains shit water, MP Michael Palmer outright lied,"sometimes, due to budget constraints, projects take time to implement".

The 16 town councils manage more than $1 billion in sinking funds. Prior to the financial meltdown of 2008, Aljunied Town Council alone had $84 million in its sinking fund. It stashed away so much cash, they parked $44 million with investment bankers, an increase of about 33 per cent over the $30 million in 2005/2006. Rather than meet mundane contractors to fix leaking ceilings, they preferred to convene with (and be feted by) fund managers about esoteric derivatives and Collateralized Debt Obligations. Holland-Bukit Panjang and Pasir Ris-Punggol parted with about $12 million and were taken to the cleaners with troubled structured products like Lehman Minibonds and Merrill Lynch Jubilee Series 3.

But oh, were they were prompt to take a man to court for S&C Arrears of $432! In 2009 Mr Lim Beo Thiam, a 52 year old out of job for 18 months and missing part of a leg through diabetes, wrote to ST Forum (30 September) about how Jalan Besar Town Council piled on court penalties and late payment charges that ballooned to excess of $3,000.

The Marina Bay Sands gambling joint was completed months ahead of time, Vivian Balakrishnan spared no expense to ram through his pet YOG project, and town councils have a "budget constraint"? Surely Palmer has to be stretching the limits of his party's credibility. Next, Transport Minister Raymond Lim will be saying budget constraints delayed the installation of screen doors at the Ang Mo Kio MRT station. Tell that to the parents of the 14-year-old Thai national who fell onto the tracks. To date, only 15 out of 36 above-ground stations are installed with half-height platform screen doors, because SMRT claims "installation work is limited to just 2 to 3 hours each night".

Pot Calling Kettle Black

Mainstream media Lianhe Zaobao (联合早报) obviously wrote its editorial ”Say no to smear politics” (向抹黑政治说不) to join in the Government’s chorus of slamming netizens’ critique of their  nubile poster child. There's a narrative in Francis Seow's "To Catch A Tartar: A Dissident In Lee Kuan Yew's Prison" that gives you a perspective of what's game in their brand of politics.

The Law Society was attacked in 1986 by the government for acting as a political pressure group. During televised Select Committee hearings on the Legal Professions  (Amendment) bill, Lee Kuan Yew tried to browbeat two petite, bright eyed and idealistic members of the Special Assignments (Civil Legislation) Subcommittee. But Misses Teo Soh Lung and Tang Fong Har stood their ground. They bested him. Lee would not forget this perceived lèse majesté, for which both ladies were to be arrested 8 months later, falsely labelled as Marxists, subjected to physical indignities in the notorious Whitley Detention Centre and dragged in front of prime time TV cameras for a forced "confession and contrition".

Even after the hearings were abruptly ended, Lee twisted the dagger with relish in a Parliament speech  that was redolent of conspiracies and enemies of his paranoiac psyche,

"When I met the young lady, Miss Teo Soh Lung, and the other young lady, Tang Fong Har, all they needed were two pig-tails, and we go back to the 1950s, 1960s, because they've got determination, they want to change the world."  (Francis Seow, "To Catch A Tartar", page 66)

The allusion to the hairstyle of the radical Chinese educated school girls of Singapore's tempestuous years was downright dastardly, a wicked slur. It was so typical of him to underscore his methods with his favorite Chinese adage, shā jī xià hóu (杀鸡吓猴) - slaughter the chicken to frighten the monkey.

Now what exactly was it that traumatised the 27 year old darling of the PAP?

Social Media Smucks

You must have read this:

Was Goh trying to play the sympathy card? Was he standing at a respectable distance to observe the mental health of this nymphet protege who has a thing for older men? (Lui Tuck Yew has already gone poetic, waxing lyrical about her as "a rare flower that will bloom in the winter of adversity") Don't go there, Mr Goh, Clinton has Hillary, you don't.

Meanwhile internet vigilantes have reported that Goh is deleting Facebook postings like @tinrina did. Will he also lock and protect his account? So is the master mentoring the disciple or vice versa? Did we miss more “tongue-in-cheek” posts like:

Apparently Dr Fatimah Lateef, an MP at Marine Parade GRC and current consultant with the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Singapore General Hospital, was asked to attend a lunch which Goh fantasized into a clinical session. Her "patient" seems to be none the worse. "I'm physically fine. I'm OK," said the subject of the pseudo-trauma examination, sounding slightly more crinkly like tin-foil than steel cladding. But even if the Institute of Mental Health were to certify her bonkers, this December child will still get to celebrate her 28th birthday in parliament. That's the beauty of the GRC system.

Made Of Sterner Stuff

The expletive primed YPAP chairman of Toa Payoh East may disagree, but these men and women are of the Mandela calibre. They fought for their political convictions, not for the pot of gold (there was none then -  Lee Kuan Yew's pay was $3,500 in 1970). Their prize in history - human dignity and pride of service.

Many, like Mandela, lost youthful years in jail cells, at the evil whim of one man. Men like Lee Tee Tong (17 years) and Chye Thye Poh (26 years - 32 if you count the 6 years under "restrictive control"). Two who eluded the treachery of Operation Cold Store took up arms and became guerillas in the jungle. They were not the pen-pushers and paper-shufflers biding their time for an invite to a tea party. Some retired when the fight against merger ended with Singapore's independence. Till then they were true to their causes. Indomitable in spirit, all are inspirations in steadfastness.

Their dedication to duty puts to shame the recent lot who simply dropped their responsibilities of high office and left in a lurch. This includes a Chief of Army, a Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and Chief Executive of the Energy Market Authority. The message given out is that defence of the nation, maintaining the stability of the Singapore dollar, and securing a more sustainable energy future are expendable job functions - anyone can do it, even a Ken or Barbie doll. Or maybe they just happen to be like Tan Yong Soon, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, who maintains that "if you are a good leader, it is possible to go away for five weeks or even longer". As in a cooking holiday, not overseas assignment.

When DPM Wong Kan Seng said that people prefer evolution to revolution, he's inferring that they have the whole country sewed up, and everyone effectively neutered. Lee Kuan Yew alludes to same when he told Charlie Rose that Arab Spring won't come to China (or Singapore), "Public security is so comprehensive and tight". Nobody else is crazy like the Libyans.

"I think Singaporeans, too, will not welcome a revolution that will shake up everything and get them completely disrupted," said Wong. It would be nice to see him eat his words. Lee also told Charlie Rose, "Well, there are enormous economic problems—a disparity in income between the rich coastal cities and the inland provinces, and in income within the coastal cities. They've got to watch that carefully or they might get severe discontent and civil disorder."