A dirty house

When the house is dirty, the cockroaches, ants and flies will make it their homes. They will infest a dirty house to run riots in every nick and corner. They will become irritants to the owners. The owners can start spraying them and see their dead carcasses littering everywhere. But they will not go away. More will return to occupy the dirty house.

A more effective way is to clean the house, put it in order. Get rid of bad habits, dirty habits, disorders, and impose strict discipline and good behavior. When a house is in order, when a house is clean and not shitty, the roaches, rats, flies and ants will find it unsuitable or inhospitable to stay. They will go away naturally and will not reappear.

Buying insecticide spray, swaps, rat poison, roach traps, is only a temporary solution. The real and long lasting solution is to keep the house clean. And gluttony, eating too much and dropping crumbs everywhere, too much unfinished and unable to consume food, too will cause a house to become unhealthy and smelly. That’s when the irritating pests will return to haunt the owner.

Keep the house clean and in good order. And don’t anyhow bring in fair weather friends who are only interested in sponging and feasting in the house and with one foot outside, ready to scoot when the buffet is gone.

After Hougang

With Png Eng Huat secured as the newly elected MP, the WP has started to do what they need to do to serve the Hougang residents and win more hearts for the next GE in 2016. Desmond Choo too would be busy mapping out his strategies to win the Hougang residents to his side, which, given the current development and sentiment, is likely to be a daunting task.

Winning back Hougang is a much smaller issue to the ruling party than the bigger picture of winning the rest of the Sinkies and to remain relevant in 2016. What is the party’s position in the aftermath of the Hougang? What would it be thinking and doing to win back the support it has lost, not only in Hougang but across the island? I think they must know that the ground has shifted. What would the master strategists be plotting after the Hougang fiasco?

The easiest task of all would be to relook at the policies and how they can be tweaked or fine tuned to benefit the original citizens more than new citizens or PRs. The people’s aspirations and expectations are not difficult to match. The people are not asking for the sky. They do not expect money to be thrown at them for their votes. The Hougangkia have made sure that this point was not missed during the by election. The electorate is sensible and is just looking for more favourable and people centric policies. Any attempt to sugar coat or to smooth talk unfavourable policies as favourable policies, like affordability when it is not, would be taking the electorate for granted and would only backfire as in the by election.

Positive actions for concrete positive results would easily win back the fence sitters or those that have switched camps. Many still would not want too big a change. What could be unfortunate would be negative thoughts and negative actions that would only generate more anger and distaste. It is very easy for some to think of how to deal with those that were opposing the party or spoke ills of the party. It is very easy to bring out the hatchet and go hacking away. An ‘inquisition’ will go down very badly and will not work in an increasingly transparent environment.

Like they say, winning a battle only to lose a war, any mis-steps and miscalculations along such line will only lead to more desertion from the ranks and an abandonment of the party. The party cannot afford to create more distrust and bad publicity. The brash tactics of the past belonged to the past and a new strategy of winning the electorate would have to be formulated on the basis of mutual trust, respect and fair play. Are there still elements that think it is still acceptable and doable to return to the old ways?

There are many critical voices in the social media that meant well. Would they be embraced and won over by genuine and good policies with good intentions, or would there be a witch hunt? Witch hunting is as easy as doing the right thing with right policies to better the lives of the people. It is just the other extremity and will have extreme results.

Ironically, the party should thank the critical voices that want the party to do well, to look after the people well. Ironically too, the enemies of the party are the hatchet men that could only think of wielding the choppers to go around slashing indiscriminately. Such negativity will never go unnoticed and will only bring more adverse reactions to the party. The internet can be very unforgiving and transparent, and go viral.

Win the critics and the sceptics by genuine good works and policies, and everything will fall back in place. Dismissing the critics/sceptics and not doing the rightful, and to take on a combative style to deal with everyone as enemies will lead to a sure gone conclusion. The people are not your enemies.

Could we see a renewed party with a conviction and on a constructive path to redeem itself, or a vindictive party on a rampage? Would the party embrace the change, the new normal and take on the new challenge in its stride? The third path is to do nothing and continue with business as usual, as if everything is ok.

What is the intention of the USA?

The Americans and the western powers have been repeatedly asking about the intention of the Chinese growing military power. Does anyone want to ask or want to know the intention of the American’s overpowering military power? Does anyone want to know why are the Americans putting more than 50% of its military forces in the Pacific Ocean region? Does anyone want to know why are American bases scattered all over the eastern Pacific Oceans?

The answer is clear and transparent. America is the Empire and it will rule the countries in the region. And China, being an emerging power, will not be allowed to threaten the American position as the number One power, the Empire. In the recent Shangri La Dialogue, the Americans made it very clear, with no apologies to the Southeast and East Asian countries that they are the boss and no one can do anything about it. The Americans will dictate the terms of engagement and move its military forces into the region and no one can say no.

During the dialogue the Americans revealed their latest warship, a stealth destroyer that can penetrate the Chinese defense system and move into coastal waters to attack China mainland. The American strategy is all about offence, about attacking other countries to show who is the Empire and who rules the earth.

How did the Chinese respond to this new aggressive threat and intent of the American? They will continue to defend their coastal waters, by using fishing boats to block the path of this stealth destroyer. The Chinese strategy and equipment are defensive in nature, against a hostile and aggressive American military that is threatening war and the threats of war to oppress any emerging power that may pose a challenge to its dominance. Chinese fishing boats against the most advance stealth destroyer that will be invisible to radar but not to the naked eyes of fishermen.

In the Asia Security Summit, the host, Asean, was rudely told that the Americans will be here to stay, like it or not. And it will bring its military prowess to support its Empire status in the region. And for all intent and purposes, the Asean countries would want to minimize big power rivalry and tension in the region, and keep all at a distance. The Asean countries also plead that emerging powers big and small shall have room to grow and their interests be recognized. The Americans say, ‘Don’t bet on that, our strategic interest is supreme.’ The French and Canada are also claiming strategic interests in the region. The former even called itself a power of the Indian and Pacific Ocean. India now got another contender as the Indian Ocean’s only regional power.

The moral of the story is, never to invite the wolf for dinner. It would not go away. Is Southeast Asia seeing a resurgent of colonial powers returning to stake a claim in the region, to carve out their sphere of influence? They all claimed to have strategic interests in the region. Do the countries in the region have any strategic interests as well and will these interests be respected?

The best fund manager’s job

The best fund manager is one that can take all his clients’ money to gamble and pay himself crazily when the bet wins, and then can brag to the clients how clever he is. And if loses, never mind, twists the arms of the clients to put in more money and the clients cannot say no.

And better still, no need to show the clients how the fund is performing, just write whatever he wants to tell the clients. Just tell the clients to trust him.

And even better still, no need to refund the clients any money if there is no money in the kitty to refund the clients.

What a wonderful job. No accountability, no transparency, no responsibility and nobody’s money. The money is as good as his to do as he pleases. My dream job.

Deaf frog will not listen

Sing a song of good foreigners. This has been the theme song in the main stream media for the past months and all kinds of logical and illogical scenarios and craps were published to establish just one point, foreigners are good and we need more foreigners. It is in the blood of the deaf frogs not to listen to the people. Surveys were also conducted with flattering conclusions how Sinkies love foreigners with only a little misgivings which are understandable.

These things are happening despite the tension, cries and cursing everywhere of the problems foreigners are causing to the citizens in practically every aspect of our lives. In small numbers they were most welcomed. In bigger numbers, they were still welcomed but with a little pain. When the increasing numbers is going to make Sinkies a minority in their own country, this is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. A breaking point is not too far off.

But the deaf frogs continued with their beautiful song, foreigners are good, foreigners are welcomed. There is an interesting rebut by John Kwok Jung Yun in the Today paper in response to a Vincent Gabriel’s article, ‘Not citizens, but they sacrificed.’ Gabriel was referring to the heroism of the Malay Regiment during colonial rule when citizenship was irrelevant. The Malay Regiment fought bravely, for the British Empire, who robbed them of their country and made Malaya a British colony. I wonder if that was something to be proud of without belittling the bravery of the soldiers.

Gabriel’s point was that even they were not citizens, they were willing to defend the country. What he did not touch on was the mentality of the people then. All the subjects of colonialism stretching from Africa, India to Southeast Asia, were conscripted to fight for the Empire with little thought of Nationalism. The awakening came only after the Second World War when all these colonized state and its people rose to reclaim their countries. Before that, they served the Empire blindly and out of a need to survive, to put food on the table. There were no will, no leaders to tell them that they were colonized people and the colonial masters were their enemies who robbed and raped their countries.

Would the non citizen conscripts of today fight for a country they don’t believe in? Fighting and dying for a country, a motherland, comes from the heart. No amount of money and rubbish campaigns or words can win the hearts of soldiers who have no heart to serve and die for a country. In peace time, they would reluctantly serve as they could see some economic returns after NS. In crisis, would they scoot? I bet, scoot they will.

Some jokers even called for a mercenary force. This is the most foolish idea to ever be suggested. The mercenaries could turn around and take over the country.

The gist of the importance of a national army is best defined in the words of Dr Goh Keng Swee in 1968, ‘conscripts and regulars of other countries did no put up a distinguished performance (at the Battle of Singapore) but it could have been different if “we had 40 battalions or our own men.”’ I took this quote from John Kwok’s article in his reply to Gabriel.

The defense of a country must be the responsibility of its citizens and not any foreigners. No one will fight and die for a country when the heart is not in the right place. We could continue to draft the children of PRs into our armed forces. We will constantly be in a tricky position wondering what would they do when they are called upon to fight and die for the country. Are the words of Dr Goh just hogwash and to be forgotten because the new expediency is that we need the foreigners? To take one step further, farm out the jobs of defending the country to mercenaries, out source them.

Foreigners will always be foreigners. Fair weather foreigners don’t make good choice as defenders of the nation. Sing a song of good foreigners could be singing a song of our own demise.