White Man’s Conscience behind bars

I was watching the documentary on Wikileaks in CNA last week, ‘War, Lies and Videotapes’. The star player in the whole episode was Private Bradley Manning, the American soldier who was pricked by his conscience for knowing the evil things and crimes against humanity conducted by the American leaders and soldiers in Iraq. He did the dreadful thing by passing 95,000 military messages to his FBI friends who too, pricked by his conscience, passed the whole lot of information to Julian Assange of Wikileaks and the rest was history.

For this crime of conscience, Pte Manning is now serving 52 years of imprisonment in American jail. He was also accused of being a traitor to his great country, the USA. His fellow man wanted to lynch him. He is the White Man’s Conscience of modern day. There were a few in the past when Red Indians were slaughtered daily, when African negroes were treated like animals, beasts of burden.

Pte Manning is the living White Man’s Conscience, sentenced to imprisonment for telling the painful and feared truths, the lies the Americans fabricated and told the world. The rest of the Americans did not weep. They wanted this conscience to be put away. They did not see anything wrong in the lies they spreaded and the killings of Arabs and Afghans because of their own lies.

And they are going to do more in Korea and now the South China Seas. They are going to agitate the pesky nations to start more wars, through provocations in the name of military exercises for peace. China and Russia should start to hold joint exercises near Alaska, Cuba and the Caribbeans, and Latin America. Then the world will see how the rouges in the evil Empire react to these friendly military exercises.

The silly South Koreans no longer dare to a word on who sank the Choenan. The Philippines is having a LSD high after receiving an antique ship and thinking it is now a naval world power, strong enough to start a war with China. In the meantime the real culprit to start another conflict is hiding behind quietly, with a halo on his head while pushing the South Koreans and the Philippines to go ahead.

Two different perspectives to raise pay

Reasons to justify pay hike for workers

1. Increase in productivity
2. If recommended by the NWC
3. Better employee performance
4. Increase in company profit
5. Cost of living adjustment
6. Difficulties in recruitment
7. Need to pay for talent

Reasons to justify pay hike for ministers

1. Difficulties in recruitment
2. To prevent corruption
3. To pay for the bestest talent
4. To keep up with the private sector
5. To maintain a comfortable life style
6. To compensate for the great sacrifice
7. To maintain dignity
8. To retain talent or they will quit
9. Increase in GDP
10. Individual performance
11. More appointment or wearing more hats

From the above, it is obvious that there are more reasons to give pay rise to ministers. There are 11 reasons compare to 7 reasons for the workers.

My observations are limited and I am sure there are more reasons to justify for a pay rise for workers and ministers. Equally there are many reasons not to prevent pay rise for workers and ministers.

In the case of workers, they need to be competitive, to be cheap, better and faster. And they is a huge supply of workers from poorer countries who are willing to work for less. And workers have lesser hats to wear, lesser appointments to be blessed on them. The only reasons to prevent minister pay hike is when the people are angry just like the Citigroup AGM when they minority shareholders voted against the obscene pay of their top management. Other than this, pay hike for top management is a cake walk.

The Master Race

They ruled the world for more than half a millennium. Practically every country and people became the subjects of their empires.  As early as the 13^th Century, they started to move out across the surface of the earth, to conquer, to rape and kill, to plunder and to rule. The Italians owned the Northern part of Africa, the French owned many parts of Africa as well, and so were the Germans and the smaller European states.  They divided Africa among themselves. The French also claimed IndoChina as theirs.

The Spanish went across to America and conquered that continent, and continued across the Pacific Ocean to take the Philippines. The Portugese skirted Africa to India and Southeast Asia. They were followed by the mightier Dutch who carved out Indonesia as their possession.

The mightiest of all were the British who founded a continent to call their own, North America. They also owned the major parts of Africa, the whole of India and many Southeast Asian countries, and further to New Zealand and Australia.

And together, they ventured into China and shared the spoils in dividing China among themselves. From the little extention of the Asia continent called Europe emerged a Master Race, superior than all the others, and when united, they were supreme in many ways. They built great cities, civilisations, great inventions, arts, culture, and modelled the world to their likings. They lived a life of plenty as rulers of the world, owning countries, people and all their resources and wealth.

The same great European grouping today is near the brink of bankruptcy, a beggar of the world, begging every where, demanding donations and charity from their conquered people, from the countries they had plundered to live in luxury, from the colonies they once owned and ruled, the people they once oppressed and killed

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Saying that they were begging is a misnomer. They don’t beg. Empire builders, the Master Race, don’t beg from the lesser people. They are demanding to be fed, they are demanding trillions of cash to continue their lifestyle of plenty, of being civilised and cultured and being elegant.  Hundreds of billions or trillions have been spent to help them to live a better life while the rest of whole live in near poverty or a much Spartan way of life.  And they are not anywhere near to solving their voracious appetite for the good life without having to work so hard for it. They used to take from the rest of the world. And they want to take again.

The Americans, an abnormal outgrowth of the Master Race, refused to budge or give a penny. They couldn’t as they too are near to bankruptcy. China, a rich nation and empire of its own, plundered and subdued to bankruptcy, all its wealth and dignity stripped, has acquired new wealth and is also unwilling to support the lifestyle of the Master Race that is living beyond its means, and thinking that they still owned the world.

But some former colonies were generous. Some were kind, like little Singapore, offering to help with a $5b loan while it could not afford charity for its own people. Should the world, the conquered people, extend their helping hands to their former oppressor with more money to live a life of aplenty?

Or would this Master Race reassert itself, rearmed and go out to conquer the rest of the world once again, so that they can live on the labour and wealth of other people and nations? Till today, they are still asking for money without wanting to solve their own difficulties. What they are asking today can only last a couple of years and they will be asking for more. There is no end to their problems and there is no end to their asking.

What will the Master Race do next and how would the lesser people of the world respond to their needs? For now they are threatening the world that if they to down, they will bring the whole world with them. That is the strength and reasoning power of the Master Race, the new beggar of the world.

The most brilliant strategy becomes the worst liability

 

This is like the best policy becoming the worst baggage or weakness. When the GRC was first conceived, it was the most brilliant strategy of the PAP to ensure their continued dominance in the Singapore political game of control. The opposition was weak financially, and weak in their ability to attract and put up a number of good candidates. The PAP has all the financial power, even with the raising of election deposits, the more expensive the more favourable to the PAP. And also with its ability to attract the talents who were stay away from the opposition, the GRC is more like a sure win package.

The twist and turn of events have turned a cleverly formulated strategy into a nightmare, and fielding every GRC is now a grave concern to the PAP. The financial power is there, but the slate of good candidates is not. The domineering presence of a strong minister whose name would have carried a GRC is turning the other way, of a guaranteed loss of the GRC.

Unbelieveable but it is what is happening. The PAP may be wise to disband the GRC system and return to the single MP constituency of the past. At least they don’t have to lose a team and losing good ministers because of poor candidates. Yea, it once was having good ministers to carry weak candidates. Now a weak candidate in a GRC team can spell doom to a good minister.

In the context of today’s electorate awareness and voting pattern, I doubt there are more than a handful of ministers with the confidence that they could carry a GRC. Many will sink the GRC or with the GRC. 

It is time to scrap this outdated strategy and void heavy losses in the next GE.

A bad hangover

The ongoing saga of the underage prostitute and the 80+ high flyers of our society is top news for the day. Every evening the chase was reported in prime time news with those charged being hounded down by camera crews in their pathetic pursuits. It looked like great fun, great event, better than playing computer games. Who decides that this is great news to be fully covered in all details, with photographs splashing everywhere? Are they the witches or wizards of modern times, fit for the burning stakes?

After a few days, this thing has become bad taste. Yes, it is not a good thing for everyone. The customers of the prostitute are to be blamed for their plight and indiscretion, and infidelity. Have they not paid enough a price for their wrongdoings? Their lives have been ruined for a statutory crime that is an unacceptable social norm. Many innocents have been hurt just as bad, their families and friends and their institutions. They will carry this stigma for the rest of their lives and will be adversely affected in many ways.

We will need to find more talents to replace them as they will be temporarily indisposed except for those who are their own bosses. Those who need employment will find the embarrassment following everywhere they go. And if we cannot find replacements for their vacant positions, we may need to import more foreign talents to do the jobs.

How much more do these men need to be punished for a controversial crime, or sin? Should we leave them to the courts and not to brutally stab them while they are down? Where is the Yellow Ribbon? Or is it too early to think of that? Or shall we hang their photos everywhere for all to see and get the thrill out of them? Who is more mean and sinister?