The dying days of a dynasty

History students will be familiar with the events leading to the eclipse of an empire or dynasty. Everything seemed so right but so wrong, badly wrong, starkly wrong. But no one would be there to say things were wrong and to put them right. Many would stand up to speak and defend the wrongs and insisted that wrongs were right, nothing is wrong. Either they could not see or would not see or so used to wrongs as being rights as long as they said so.

In recent years, many flawed policies were thrashed out in the open leading to the PM apologising for them. That was about as far as it could get. The flawed immigrantion policy, congestion, high inflation, high cost of living, high property prices, high medical cost, high salary to pay for corruption, widening income gap, rewarding foreign thrash and demeaning the people that are the owners of this land, policies that favoured foreigners and against Sinkies.  And there are many others that were so obviously wrong but pronounced as so right and so good, or as something unavoidable, nothing can be done to change them.

The echoes of HDB prices are affordable, income gap is ok, high property prices are caused by market forces, nothing can be done, more foreigners are good for growth, immigrants are here to help the daft Sinkies,…..can go on and on, are still ringing in many people’s ears.

The charade of charity shows and big fund raisings were fun and a fad for the organisers until the funds were used by some individuals to have more private funs. The running down of the public transport system was never seen and everyone was happily rewarding themselves with more bonuses until it took a simple accident that ended up life threatening to shake everybody up.

The shameless exploitations for profits in the medical profession that led to many patients ended as victims of big scams and paying dearly to the noble profession of life saving until it exploded into a big ugly incident. No, nothing wrong about how much professionals or hospitals billed their patients. Caveat emptor, willing buyer willing selling. You want quality, you pay for quality. Moneyism has replaced ethics as the new social more. The banking and finance industry has been turned into a den of crooks and no one can see anything wrong with it except pointing fingers at the low down front line snake oil peddlers who failed to explain how poisonous the snake oil is. It is their fault. Snake oils were permitted to be peddled to innocent customers as sophisticated products and advanced computerised games.

What else is new? Money is not an issue when there are plenty to go around. The squandering of millions by people and splashed across the front pages of the media were dismissed as nonsense. Many cannot see anything wrong with them but wrong for accusing the squanderers wrongfully. And the good name of God was paraded to defend the squanderers. Some have ended behind bars but the loyal supporters would not see the human failings. What is a few millions?

Was there anything wrong with the purchase of $2,200 high end branded bicycles for public servants? No, definitely no. Minister had spoken out to defend the decision. Academics too sang in support. Nothing wrong. The whole process was done properly, lowest bid, cheapest available, right procedures. The only hint of some wrongdoings was the admission that it could be done better and the system could be improved. My God, our civil service procedures were found wanting in the 21^st century for such a simple straight forward process. I think tendering is such a new thing in the civil service and they are still testing out the processes. I can only think of Ah Beng and his seventh month bidding which is more effective, efficient as a transparent tender system.

Just ask anyone involved in purchasing, any CEOs or dept heads, or any working adults and they will all shake their heads. Was there an elephant in the room? No, swear, no elephant! When a pile of shit stood right in front of everyone and in broad daylight, and respected people are defending it as no shit, you can expect how decadent things have become.

So far, the only person that is brave enough to stand up and call a spade a spade is Lui Tuck Yew. Not for fun like some pretenders claiming to do the same. And he is probably the only minister that is really working 25 hours to get the MRT running smoothly again. But he fell short of saying that heads must roll. Has anyone seen any heads rolling in the last decade or so? There is a phrase in the US called ‘too big to fail’. We may have our equivalent of ‘too talented to fail’. Anyway, this is only a side issue.

The main issue is that Nothing Is Wrong. No one can see anything wrong. And any wrong must be defended by all till it is accepted as right. Used the media to broadcast that it is right daily, get some known personalities to support the wrong as right. The daft Sinkies will believe it after a while.

Events in the dying days of a dynasty often manifest themselves in similar light, similar treatment and attention. Anyone dares claim that things are going wrong?

Look at the American Empire. Anyone dares say they are the problem of the world? Anyone dares say they are the one that is causing tension and wars around the world? Anyone dares say America is free from corruption? Everyone says, America is good, freedom, no corruption, America is saving the world, a benevolent and peace loving nation. And the best part, the Americans and their leaders, the scheming, conniving gangsters and murderers, believe it too. They too cannot see anything wrong with themselves and what they are doing. Did they ever admit that they enslaved 20 million Africans for 200 years! And murdered 10 million Red Indians and seized their lands?  Hitler was a novice compared to the Americans.

Oops, I digress.