Are singaporean politically apathy?
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I wanted to ignore everything and be like the ostrich that stuck its head in the ground. Problem is, some pesky flies keep buzzing around my butt. My brain can't stop thinking, and my heart can't stop feeling.
So now what do you see me doing? I can ignore a lot of things, but I can't ignore my conscience. I have an elderly mother and I hope to see her retire happily and pass time playing mahjong with her friends. I have CPF which I hope I can see in my lifetime.
I have a problem with 1st world cost of living coupled with 3rd world salary scale. Luckily I don't have children to worry about their future education and careers. I might not care about a lot of other people, but I do have to be accountable to myself and my loved ones.
I have a friend who's in a senior position in the civil service. Even he is confiding in me that he's giving this a lot of thought, and for the first time, he's going to do what's right for his conscience.
Are you? It may be the last time that Hougang or Potong P or any other single ward remain single ward for the next election. -
singaporeans are generally shibuguanji, jibulaoxing.
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like some posters here in this forum.
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Yaya.. I am.. I am politically apathetic..
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"Repression, Sir is a habit that grows. I am told it is like making love-it is always easier the second time! The first time there may be pangs of conscience, a sense of guilt. But once embarked on this course with constant repetition you get more and more brazen in the attack.
All you have to do is to dissolve organizations and societies and banish and detain the key political workers in these societies. Then miraculously everything is tranquil on the surface.
Then an intimidated press and the government-controlled radio together can regularly sing your praises, and slowly and steadily the people are made to forget the evil things that have already been done, or if these things are referred to again they're conveniently distorted and distorted with impunity, because there will be no opposition to contradict."
- Lee Kuan Yew as an opposition PAP member speaking to David Marshall, Singapore Legislative Assembly, Debates, 4 October, 1956
Need I Say More? -
i cannot vote but i still read newsPAPer to find out about election.
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To anyone who actually believes that James Gomez is dishonest and a liar etc.. I suggest that you attend the WP rallies and listen to what they have to say, instead of relying on the media for information. Please do remember that this is the media ranked 140th out of 167 in the world.
I have followed every election keely since 1997 and I have also read extensively about the incidents in 1988 with regards to Francis Seow. While I am not so foolish as to take what the opposition says at face value, I urge everyone here not to do the same for the PAP. Read factual accounts, based on past trends and make your own judgement.
The Defamation Suit Trap
To me, it is clear what the PAP is trying to do. They are trying to round on Gomez and assassinate his character. He is in a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation. Watch what happens. It is perfectly conceivable now that he says "I am not the liar, Wong Kan Seng in the liar" and I assure you that defamation suits galore will immediately start pouring in. This is based on the "doctrine of innuendo" that the Singapore courts have evolved, to which there is completely no objective test. I have provided 3 examples of precedents for this:
1. Tang Liang Hong
In 1997, they labelled Tang Liang Hong "a dangerous man", a "racist", "Chinese chauvinist" etc, allegations which were all untrue. The fact is that Teo Chee Hean had heard Tang speak at a dinner function in 1994, where the latter urged more members from the Chinese community to step forward, as the number of English educated in the Cabinet was disproportionate to their actual number in society.
Strange then that they waited 3 years to bring this up. Just like Inderjit Singh in this case, Teo was the 'whistle blower' whose intention was to warn Singaporeans of this so-called dangerous man.
Tang refuted their claims by calling them 'lies', and this invited 13 defamation suits, with damages totalling some $6+ million, because this implied 'by innuendo' that the Ministers were morally bereft, dishonest and therefore unfit for office. Tang's assets were frozen BEFORE the court had reached a verdict, and his wife (who had nothing to do with it at all) was made a co-defendant in the case.
2. J.B. Jeyaretnam
At a rally during the same election, J.B. Jeyaretnam held up a police report which Tang had made against the PAP leaders for slandering him and tarnishing his reputation. Police reports are supposed to be confidential.
However, Wong Kan Seng retrieved the police report (so much for the separation of powers) and passed it on to Lee Kuan Yew, who released it to the press. Then 13 PAP leaders sued both Tang and Jeyaretnam for defaming them, by insinuating that the leaders were guilty of a criminal offence and therefore unfit for office.
Jeyaretnam was also sued for saying "I have a police report which Mr Tang has made against Mr Goh Chok Tong.." because this was implying that Goh was a criminal and therefore unfit for office. In the first instance, the court awarded "derisory damages" to Goh because it held that the lawsuit had been brought frivolously. "Derisory damages" amounted to $20,000 - hardly "derisory".
This was largely due to Goh admitting, under cross examination from Charles Gray QC (now Mr Justice Gray) that he had had "an excellent year", in contrast to his claims in his affidavit that his reputation, both locally and internationally, had been severely impugned by Jeyaretnam's words. Interesting then that the trial judge, Rajendran J, was subsequently removed, and Mr Justice Gray is now barred from appearing as counsel in Singapore courts because he is a person of 'questionable moral character'.
Goh appealed against the judgement of Rajendran J on the basis that the damages awarded were "manifestly inadequate", and the Court of Appeal duly increased the sum ten-fold, to $200,000. Jeyaretnam, who had already paid off millions in damages, still remains an undischarged bankrupt to this day.
3. Chee Soon Juan
During the 2001 elections, Chee Soon Juan asked Goh Chok Tong during a community walkabout, using a loudhailer, "Prime Minister, where is the money?" This was held to be an insinuation that Goh was corrupt, dishonest and unfit for office. Duly, Chee was made to pay $500,000 in damages, and, as the court held in a 'summary judgement' earlier this year, was subsequently made a bankrupt. How convenient that the elections were to be held this year, eh?
Note, I am by NO MEANS a supporter of Chee Soon Juan, I think he is a completely inept politician and woe betide his foolish constituents if ever he is elected into Parliament. But from a strictly legal point of view, this absurd doctrine that the Singapore courts have evolved, is certainly a 'world first' - is this what they mean when they say 'Uniquely Singapore? -
Hmm, i wonder what the title has got to do with the thread.
I think for Chee, he is trying to hard to emulate US style of politics, but unfortunate, this is Singapore...
For the thread title, a classmate of mine came to ask me "I heard of SDP, SDA, WP, but what is SMC?" He thought CCK was inside Hong kah GRC, i almost fainted ... -
I will not say how good or what great things the opposition will do for us, but here I am going to say what you will get when you vote the PXP into power again...
Vote for PXP means:
1) You accept their system of government, a system of trampling on the basic civil rights of the citizens. You have no right to free speech, and that means criticisms will be censored, or worse, interpreted as defamatory and be charged. Even when you criticize court cases or its sentencing, you will be treated as contmpt of court, and be fined or jailed. In other countries, when their govt deliver poor performance or overtax their citizens, they are allowed to demonstrate and protest. Not in this system we have - you talk and you will be in trouble.
2) You accept a system of stiff fiscal penalties, from paying ERP and COE, to buying and maintaining a public flat - either for reasons of "limited resource" to "market pricing" excuses. You will be so broke and in debt that in later life, retirement is something no longer availble to you. You will work until you drop dead.
3) You accept a system of totalitarian rule, with laws to tell you how many children you should have based on your academic attainment, to freezing your CPF money based on your inability to manage your own retirement.
4) You accept a system of state controlled media propaganda where only one side of the story is promoted, and television that shows monologues between the leaders and their citizens. Anything else will be censored.
5) You accept a system of non-functioning parliament - Members of Parliament, which you are going to elect as your voice in government, are not allowed to speak nor vote on your interest or welfare. No matter what the their party candidates promises you of "adding value in parliament" or to "help the poor and sick", they are prevented from doing so in parliament, for if they try to speak and vote on the peoples' behalf (that's their job, really) they will face party disciplinary action for not supporting all policy or law put forward by their party leader. What is the big deal, you ask. Well, it means in plain language, your voices are gagged in parliament, the nation's highest decision making assembly. It means you had been silenced by the government.
6) You accept a system of non accountability to the people - from absense of tansparency of the country's reserve, to details of how many citizens lost their jobs or were downgraded in salary or rank. Nor is there independent audited figures to tell us how many foreigners we let in took away mid- to senior positions from citizen workers. You may sacrifice your years doing National Service, but this govt system do not protect your jobs, do not really subsidize your healthcare or govt built homes, and leave you out in the cold with media silence and parliamentary gag. They can grab numbers from thin air and publish them for public consumption, and with transparency lacking, you never know if the govt took you for a ride.
7) You accept a system of unmoderated and excessive elitism in this govt system, where you get top posts from paper certificates and no measurement of their proficiency nor performance. In fact, these "elites" (some called them scholars) can get into parilament without a contest, get top public office positions without any relevant background, and continue to hold their posts without delivering any improvement to the public. Not only uou will be burdened with their generous financial rewards, you will also have to put up with their frequent cost increases that you, the public has to pay for.
You elect a govt who when it comes to writing laws, or finalizing policies, do not have the obligation to ask the people, even if such laws and policies affect every citizens' lives. You elect a big-brother-knows-all govt who speaks of public feedbacks but never take them into consideration nor acted on them. Faulty policies and unfair laws were passed and who will suffer? It's YOU. Not the govt, not the elites who makes the decisions. Did they listen to you? Acted for your interest? Or did they put you in debt by squeezing your hard earned money by way of taxes, levies, penalties, HDB flats, CPF distortions, and fines?
9) You accept a Party lacking in integrity - when the leader push his son into office, put his relative to manage our national reserves, put his buddies to administer the laws, use public money for their party interests, punish and prevent free speech and criticisms, disallow their MPs to speak and act for the citizens, maintains an army of mercenaries, allows citizen to be incarcerated into a mental institution at the president's pleasure, sue opposition leaders into bankruptcies, character assassinate political opponents, pretending to be whiter-than-white rascals, and remove any contest to the presidency election.
This is all I can compile impromptu in just under 30 minutes - more if you care to think. The best part is that we have saw, in real life, of a govt who remove their peoples' right to free speech, free press, and free and peaceful assembly, and reduced to colonial subjects AND SLAVES, yet they will vote theIR oppressors into govt. How media propaganda repeated ad nauseum can confuse the average mind, making them into fools, is really amazing!
Get rid of the dictatorship. -
Of course we're mostly apathetic. That's what the dictatorship wants us to be, and made us to be.
And of course, when you have perfect bungling idiots running town councils and stat boards and give textbook answers to citizens' queries, you only exhaust the latter's patience.
They feel you're imbeciles running the show who can't address problems properly, and they give up questioning.
Which results in apathy.
Now remember this:
No one asks to be born in the country where they are now. The future is yours to decide. Choose the life you want to live. It's not about sacrificing your life for your country. It's not about working till 62 so the country maintains that annual 8% GDP. It's about making inroads to the personal, perfect life you've always wanted. -
1. Singapore Prime Minister's Basic Salary US$1,100,000 (SGD1,958,000) a year
SG Minister's Basic: US$655,530 to US$819,124 (SGD1,166,844 to SGD1,458,040) a year
2. United States of America President: US$200,000 Vice President: US$181,400
Cabinet Secretaries: US$157,000
3. United Kingdom Prime Minister: US$170,556 Ministers: US$146,299 Senior Civil Servants: US$262,438
4. Australia Prime Minister: US$137,060 Deputy Prime Minister: US$111,439 Treasurer: US$102,682
5. Hong Kong Chief Executive : US$416,615 Top Civil Servant: US$278,538 Financial Sec: US$315,077
Source: Asian Wall Street Journal July 10 2000