4/24/2011

The election fault lines

There are several major issues that will be tested in the GE. Among them will be the cost of living, the cost of housing, foreign talents, casinos, high ministerial salary, public transportation, medical fees, the political system, cronyism, corruption etc etc. All these issues will generate a lot of heat during the campaigning. Some of them will develop into fault lines that will divide the people into taking sides. One of the hottest fault lines must be housing, the owners and the young people waiting to buy their first homes. The owners will be more comfortable with a policy that will keep the price of their properties intact or growing. The non owners will be rooting for a party that could hold down the runaway prices to make their first purchase more affordable. In the ring will be the 80% HDB owners against all the young people that are queuing up or are waiting to grow up. Technically, it is a forgone conclusion that the home owners will have an upper hand. But going deeper into the issue, it may not be that straight forward. The other fault line is the divide between foreigners and locals. The govt is still taking a stand that they are all for more foreigners here and are heaping praises on the importance of foreigners to the well being of the locals. This will definitely piss off the locals who have one way or another affected adversely by the presence of too many foreigners, competition for jobs, housing and space. In this divide it is clear that it will be the govt and the foreigners versus the opposition parties and the locals. The govt will still have an upper hand with their die hard loyal local supporters and the new citizens behind them. The devil hiding in the shadow is when the foreign talent issue is linked to new citizens and old citizens in politics. We can see the anger brewing and the divide gaining momentum. The third major fault line is likely to be the pro PAP versus the anti PAP groups. There will be many who will stay on to support the PAP as the govt because of its track record. There will be a new emerging force that sees the track record, especially those of recent years, as being less than satisfactory. The old records will be played over and over again. But the new records with its new funky beat and off beat may not be acceptable to some voters. The old records were good, the new records bad. So going down the road it could be more of bad new records than more of good old records. There could be a shift in the followers, especially when the opposition are presenting the voters with a new wave of new talents. And the new idols are looking quite attractive. The alternative is at least seen to be better than the new records which are being rejected for all its flaws. The danger here is that the ruling party is lumping the old record and new record together and the people could be confused and think that they are the same, or they could only look at the new record and reject it completely. The fourth fault line which is seething in the under current and not fully exploited is the casinos. This is not only an emotional issue, an issue of values, a social ills, it could be tainted with religion and morality. This could become a full blown issue to divide the electorate during the campaigning. For the moralists, it is a clear cut right or wrong issue and can be very uncompromising. The election battle line could be drawn along these fault lines which will make voters taking sides much simpler.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks like Temasek Review is really cooked. It is behaving more erratically, with more funny messages each time I tried to access.

Sorry, Redbean. It is up to you and others to provide the information when the campaigning starts, especially the rallies.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

Elections eventually devolve into mass gang warfare amongst opposing large groups of collective stupidity. The true masters of real politik know how to exploit this dynamic – to keep the people focused on divisive issues which have progressed way beyond reason into the realm of emotion. The most primordial of all emotions is FEAR.

The best type of emotion to countervail the devastating emotion of fear and dread is HOPE. Basically to work this marvellous con-game, a political player has to pick an issue which is divisive, instil fear, then ramp up the fear to become a dominant emotion. That puts the mark into a state where he is unable to think rationally. You allow the fear to do its work – it becomes bigger and bigger as every mark's brain is a sort of 'crucible' which adds to the fear and re-transmits it to other marks, who do the same type of 'processing' in their brain. This back and forth communication loop soon makes the issues founded on emotion – namely fear – a sort of 'truth' which keeps growing and growing.

When emotional states are highly aroused – by positive or negative emotions, it really doesn't matter – people become suggestible. Every marketer, advertiser and sales person knows this – you have to 'up the temperature' i.e. put the prospect into a heightened emotional state before you 'close the deal'.

The next step is to offer HOPE and positive POSSIBILITY. ”By buying our such-and-such you will solve your whatever-problem”, then back it up with testimonials: ”I bought the such-and-such and my whatever-problem is gone. Thank you such-and-such!”. Other methods might included demolishing the reputation of the market's competing products, throwing in 'free gifts' etc.

Everyone who has a political opinion based on choosing between one party and another is inflicted with this 'virus'. They are already deep into the con-game. They are being gamed so well that they'll go nuts if you try to wake them up from their mass hysteria-plus-hope dynamic.

The political lie is widespread, the con game is on. And the suckers are engaged in gang-warfare – each side fully convinced they have 'The Answer'.

Boy, am I ever happy that I don't vote, and can see past all this nonsense.

For the rest of you supid masses, I know you'll get the government you deserve -- as you always have :-))

Anonymous said...

For those who have problem accessing TR, you can read their articles via:

http://turbohide.com/
http://www.vtunnel.com/

Or you may read them on Facebook.

Long live real democracy and the opposition team!

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

I read somewhere that TR is experiencing high traffic. This can be good or real bad. The bad part is that it is victim to spamming to flood the site till it cannot cope.

Adding another server is useless. Trace the culprit and bring the law on him. If not possible, at least expose them so that everyone knows who they are.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

So far it hasn't been established that there is a spam attack on the TR. I can access it fine from where I am.

You're jumping at shadows by suggesting that there is something nefarious going on. The TR -- which epitomises the theory of the collective stupidity of large groups -- is a high traffic site under 'normal' circumstances.

Now with the election fever virus infecting most of the stupid masses, it is very probable that their servers cannot cope with the load.

Could there be some 'funny business' -- i.e. political dirty tricks going on? Sure. But just like when you cannot find your keys and wallet at home, the thought that you have been robbed is plausible, but not until you've exhausted your other theories -- the most obvious: forgetfulness.

Anonymous said...

We are now in the age of MP3. Time for a reboot and throw out all the old records - old LPs, old CDs....

Anonymous said...

I'm considered an "owner" but I'm voting oppo because of my children.

@Looks like Temasek Review is really cooked

I gave up surfing there many days ago. Today and TOC also can comment.
Also got Redbean's interesting blog here.