The people did not understand Natcon

This is about what Grace Foo was saying. The Natcon is to talk about the future, about how Sinkies want this paradise to be, with millionaires and a great cosmopolitan city with gracious living for all. Instead, the people have totally misunderstood the conversation and went complaining about bread and butter issues, about big population, about foreign talents, about job losses, high cost of living etc etc. These things are non issues and are not about the future we want.

Let’s talk about our dreams, about beautiful dreams we can built for our children in 20 years time. The problems of today, put them aside. These are unpleasant things and would only make everyone work up and feeling angry. No wonder the ministers are not listening to what the people were talking about and neither the people understood what the ministers were talking about.

Can we restart by redefining the agenda so that our aunties and uncles in the markets and hawker centres know what to say and to express their dreams of the kind of Singapore they want in 20 years time? I am very sure if this is explained to them they will come up with a decent blue print of the future Singapore, Made by Uncles and Aunties from the Hawker Centres and Void Decks. And Parliament can then debate over it and put it into action like the new Punggol Town of the future.

In the meantime please be patient as the uncles and aunties are not super talents and it may take them a little longer to gaze at their crystal balls on how to plan for a futuristic city. Many may not even have gone pass O level. So the task must be pretty daunting on them.

Natcon fizzling out or taken a new life

I was thinking of revisiting the issue of reinstating estate duty as it is now a major cause of high property prices with the rich, both local and foreign, finding this as a way of tax evasion. And with the rich amassing more and more properties, knowing that it is very safe, it will only add to the mounting pressure on sky high property prices. But it is also a sad reality that the rich would have vested interest not to change this situation at all. I thought one or two properties of unlimited value would be very generous to the dead.

So far this subject has not been brooded anywhere, and not in the Natcon. But where is the Natcon heading? Things are getting clearer now, that the Natcon is just a conversation. It is a dialogue of sort. You talk I talk. The people talk, the govt talks.

When grave issues of immigration and population were raised by the angry citizens, when high property prices elicited serious concerns by the average sinkies, they were just that. Just raised and nothing seems to be done to ameliorate the Sinkies’ worries.

The govt will continue to sing its song of praises for high population, more immigrants and high property prices. Things will just be the same. The people will talk, the govt will talk, but both not listening. Both talk and talk. This is about sums up what Natcon is all about. Happy Natconning, or happy talking.

The Children of Agent Orange

These pictures are not too pleasant and could be difficult to some viewers. They are the gifts from the Americans to Vietnam. 40 years after Agent Orange is a programme screened recently on CNA. It is a very painful story of what the Americans did to Vietnam during the Vietnam War. 1/5 of South Vietnam was sprayed with Dioxin or Agent Orange which it was harmlessly called. It was pushed around as a pesticide, to deforest the jungles of Vietnam, to destroy the natural shelters protecting the Vietcongs in their struggle against an occupying foreign military force. There was no concern about the long term effects of Dioxin on the flora and fauna of the country, to the people who are living there.

By the time the war was over, over 300,000 American soldiers and dependents were struck by Agent Orange, living in America. In Vietnam, over 500,000 births with defects were reported. Many more went unreported, either dead at birth, or went underground as the family will suffer a social stigma for having a member inflicted by the sickness. It means that the whole family is condemned as the Dioxin will stay in the genes, maybe mutated, and could appear in any of the offsprings for generations to come.

There were hardly any compensations for the Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange. The audacity of the US Supreme Court ruled that the pesticide was meant to destroy foliage, not humans, and humans so affected were not intended. They had not invented the words collateral damages yet. Monsanto, the company that produced the Agent Orange only paid compensations to the American victims. The Americans too suffered many birth defects from the Dioxin, by soldiers who served in the war, who either sprayed the Dioxin across the countryside, or friendly soldiers on the ground being sprayed.

The children of Agent Orange are still alive, kicking, and many will continue to be born that way, looking like anything except normal human beans.

Thank you America. You are so kind, so humane, so generous.

US meddling is causing surge in extremism

Updated: 2012-10-09 16:55

By Han Dongping ( chinadaily.com.cn)

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President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking at the United Nations General Assembly, recently condemned the recent demonstrations and protests against the US in the Middle East and elsewhere. It seems that both President Obama and Secretary

US meddling is causing surge in extremism

Clinton still don’t get it.
Yes, there are extremists in this world. But it takes more than extremists to hold such large scale demonstrations and protests against the US presence in the Middle East. US leaders are blinded by their own arrogance. And as result, they can’t see the connections between these demonstrations and its foreign policies toward third world countries and their involvement in other countries’ internal affairs.

During his speech at the UN General Assembly, Obama also defended freedom of speech to justify his government’s refusal to ban the internet movie The Innocence of the Muslim. Yes, freedom of speech is a fundamental right that the American Constitution endows in its citizens. But freedom of speech is not limitless. One needs to exercise one’s freedom of speech wisely and prudently.
To defend the American freedom of speech amid wide spread demonstrations and protests by the Muslim population in the world is sheer American arrogance.
President Obama, in his speech to the UN, also vowed to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
This is yet another example of American arrogance. The US was the first to develop nuclear weapons, and was the only country to use nuclear weapons against another country.
The US developed ten plans to attack the former Soviet Union between 1945 and 1949.
The US only gave up its plans after the USSR acquired its own nuclear bombs in 1949.
Before China developed its nuclear bombs in 1964, the US threatened to use nuclear weapons against China eight times. Many countries have found it necessary to develop nuclear weapons solely because if they do not have them, they would forever have to face threats by those countries that do have them. Today, there are close to twenty countries that officially and unofficially have nuclear weapons.
The US needs to explain to the world why some countries can have nuclear weapons, and why other countries cannot have them.
Why it is reasonable for the US and its allies to have them, while at the same time, it is unacceptable for other countries to have them? How can the US and the UN preach the ideals of fairness for all countries, while still advocating this exclusionary measure? Does the moral principle of fairness to all mean anything in the UN General Assembly?
The devastating destruction caused by the US Invasion of Iraq, by its fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, by the American involvement in Libya and Syria is the real reason behind the mass protests that are occurring around the world, and not the existence of extremists.
The people in the Muslim world have felt and seen the impact of US foreign policy and military action.
It can be argued that it is exactly US foreign policy and military action in the Muslim world that has generated the phenomenon of so called extremists. It is time for US leaders to pause and reflect.
Why do Muslims hold such strong anti-US sentiments? Who are these extremists?
And why do they feel so strongly about this issue that many are willing to sacrifice their lives for its cause? The US has military bases in more than 120 countries, and stations over four hundred thousand troops on foreign soil.
The US does this in the name of national security. Apparently, these military bases and large scale military spending have not made Americans any more secure. Since Sept 11, 2001, Americans have constantly been under the threat of terrorist attacks overseas and at home.
Libya’s Deputy Prime Minister was quoted as saying that he was surprised to see the scale of CIA operations in Libya when he saw the large number of Americans that had to be evacuated at the airport when Ambassador Stevens and his bodyguards were killed.
The huge amounts of money that the US has spent on its military in the past 60 years has not necessarily equated to a level of security you might otherwise expect from such a large military budget. On the contrary the biggest effect of such a large military budget has been its negative effects on the US domestic infrastructure and the well-being of its own people.
One former Chinese leader said before that every time the American government builds an overseas military base, it ties a knot around its own neck, and in the end, it would strangle itself.
It is really tragic that the US government cannot see this for themselves, and continue to involve itself with other countries’ internal affairs, and continues to build more military bases overseas.
These overseas military bases and CIA operations messing with other countries’ internal affairs are not only a big burden for the US government and the American people, but it also generates anti-American sentiment around the world as demonstrated by the recent demonstrations and protests.
The US should not forget that Iran has become one of the deadly enemies of the US exactly because of the CIA’s involvement in Iran’s internal affairs and its support for the Shah of Iran at the expense of its people.
It is time for the US to have a general discussion about why there has been such anti-US sentiment around the world. It is time for the American people to see that military muscle does not necessarily generate security for the US. But goodwill toward other people can.
The author is a Professor of Warren Wilson College in the US.

As if our children did not have enough pressure

Sinkie parents have gone through so many rounds of pressure cooking to ensure that their wards are as equally good as their neighbours. They are so distraught when their children could not get into good schools, cannot get into gifted programmes, did not get straight As, did not get A stars, did not qualify for IP programmes…etc etc. Life is really traumatic to Sinkie parents and their children.

In order to please all the parents and release some pressure they put on their children, it would be good if MOE could design a system where every student gets straight As. If not, the alternative is for every student to get straight Bs. Then there will be no more comparison on who is smarter or better.

Now why should people be disturbed by which kid is smarter than which kid? Aren’t kids all be gifted differently and are blessed differently? Now what is this Scroolball or Skoolbo, some organization coming here to test and find the smartest kid in Sinkieland. They are organizing an event called, ‘Smartest S’pore 2012 – The Search for S’pore’s Cleverest Children’.

My God, all the poor parents will be up on their toes to prepare their children for this event, to be the smartest kids in the island. They have no choice. And if their children are not, it is going to be hell for both parents and children once again. How can their children not be the cleverest? Why are other people’s children so smart?

To prevent the parents and children from another round of agony, I hope they will cancel this event. It is just so stressful!

Shane Hill, Skoolbo CEO has this to say,  “Singapore possesses some of the world’s brightest children and we are looking forward to seeing them show their skills. I think this is bad as the bright ones will put pressure on the not so bright ones, especially the parents.