How to unscrew a bad image?

The PAP’s image has taken a big hit with its handling of the CPF money. Netizens are making all kinds of suspicious and derogatory remarks of the PAP and forming a very negative impression of what it is doing with their money. Yes, it is a perception, but it is a very bad perception that the PAP has to live with. Can it ignore such a perception and think that everything will be fine and the next GE will just be fine without doing anything to clear the damaging image, without correcting the impression?
 
Here is an example posted by a blogger in TRE,
 
• pioneer_generation:
July 11, 2014 at 8:21 am (Quote)
 
The PAP just cannot keep their grubby hands off any money belonging to the citizens. The excess premiums are desperately needed to make up for all their poor investments and losses after being cheated and easily swindled by the banks, crooks and sweet talkers. They are like little spoilt children in a toy store. I want, I want,I want…… without ever to have to pay for it. Now they find the cupboard bare, so they have to retain the citizen’s CPF, rob their medisave funds and sell them grossly inflated HDB flats to make up the shortfalls. We are really in a fix! Fixed by the PAP! We have to unfix ourselves by kicking them out so that later generations can have a fresh start. Never again should we give any political party unlimited and uncontrolled power. After all they are only humans. They cheat, lie, screw around like anybody else.
 
The strong words used and the thinking behind the words speak a lot about what the blogger thinks. And if more and more people are thinking this way, PAP will have a tough time living it up and living up to this image.
 
How would the PAP’s PR team tackle this adverse publicity and a perception that will be costly if not explained away? It would take a very stubborn or confident PAP to think that they can live with it and continue to do as they think right, be like deaf frogs and keep on climbing up the mountain, ignoring all the noises from the lunatic fringe. It will take a very brave man, or a very stupid one, to think all is fine. Just keep delaying the return of the CPF money under all the good and caring excuses. Just keep loading up on the premiums for the Medishield Life for all contingencies and for the rainy days of tomorrow. The people will understand and accept them quietly like in the past and will keep on voting for the party and all its good policies.

Kopi Level - Green

Lawlessness in Singapore

An angry driver cut into the path of a public bus in the middle of the road to block the bus. The driver came out to challenge the bus driver but in vain as the latter remained in the bus. Oops, he was trying to sweet talk the bus driver to come down to have a friendly chat in the middle of the road. He must be influenced by the kindness movement. Failing in his attempt to woo the bus driver, the angry driver then stood there, made a phone call, left the car stranded, and waiting for the sun to set.
 
Later the police came and told both parties ‘not to breach the peace’. It was reported that ‘No further police action was required’. So, what did that mean? The angry driver was told to move off and all back to normal? Our police officers are so civil and polite, another sign that the kindness movement is getting its message to the people, including the police. This is the new way of handling angry people in a first world country when kindness is the order of the day. Be very nice. Little India? Nice rioters? Police cars burnt, kenna bokok bokok nevermind.
 
Can a driver simply park his car in the middle of the road? Can a driver block the path of a public bus at his own fancy? No offence? The police that came did not see anything wrong? They did not bother to inform the traffic police of any offence, or they did? If anyone thinks there is an offence they should take the initiative to report to the traffic police. It is not the duty of the normal police officers to deal with a traffic offence or violation or disrupting traffic, only if threatening peace? I stand corrected as the police officer present could have taken down the particulars of the angry driver and passed it to the traffic police to follow up.
 
Maybe the police is right. There is nothing to it. Just like the angmoh cyclist stopping in the middle of the road to threaten a woman driver. This is the new kindness movement. There are all trying to communicate to one another in a better way. No offence, no one is hurt. No traffic offence also. This is the new normal. Everything is fine. Everything is so nice, everyone is so nice.
 
This is the new paradise. Who is complaining about lawlessness?

Kopi Level - Green

The chances of Singapore repeating what it achieved in the last 50 years are zero.

This was what Kishore said in his article last Saturday, and a forumer by the name of Yeoh refuted this in the ST yesterday. In Yeoh’s view, Singapore is just beginning and there are many more good years to come, and Singapore will only get better.
 
I must disappoint Kishore and agree with Yeoh on this. Singapore can only get better with the Gov’t’s policy of meritocracy and bringing all the best talents in the world to be here. In the last 50 years we achieved with no talent or daft Sinkies to become a first world country. Now, with the Govt opening the door to all the talents, how can we do worse than before?
 
Is Kishore saying that this open door prostitution is bad and a wrong policy? Is he saying that all the foreign talents we brought in will only make Singapore worse than before? Cannot be, right? With so many talents here, especially the best from the 3rd World, hungry and willing to work harder, and are bragging how good they are and how they sacrificed for coming here to help us and not their motherland, Singapore can only prosper and get better, in leaps and bounds. Even if we don’t have faith in these fake or funny talents, surely we must have 100% faith in our super talents paid in millions to bring us up another level right?
 
Unless Kishore knows something, that these talents are fake talents, useless bums that would only bring us down, then I can agree with him. There is really no future with so many fakes here, or is there?
Who is right? What do you think?

Kopi Level - Green

China bashing and US arse kissing

A Pew survey takes the honour of Today’s front page to accentuate the fear of China by Asian countries. China is branded as the most feared country to start a war in the South China Sea, a war that may not happen for the next one hundred years if the US does not provoke, support and incite other puny countries to have a go at China, attempting to claim China’s islets. And no one bothers about all the wars that the US had started and fought in Asia and the Middle East. And no one bothers about the bombing by the Israelis against the Palestinians but about a prefabricated nightmare the West cooked up to frighten the Asian countries about China. Had China started a war and fought a war of invasion against any country since 1949 or since Genghis Khan ruled China?
 
And while China is painted by the West as the demon to be and the threat to peace, what is the perception of the US by the Asians? Our top thinker, Asia’s foremost and recognized thinker, Mahbubani, wrote an article in the ST in praise of the wholesome goodness of the Americans. I quote,
 
‘The first lesson is the folly of good intentions. Let’s be clear about one thing: Americans are not evil people. They do not conquer countries to rape, pillage and loot. Instead, they conquer countries to help the people.’ I am sure Mahbubani really, sincerely, believes in what he said about the good Americans’ good intention. He did not know that the Americans and the British fabricated the story of WMD, a total myth to be used as an excuse to invade Iraq, to kill Saddam Hussein with good intention. I must forgive him for not reading the newspapers. But he knew something about the war, and I quote again,
 
‘The US spent US$4 trillion, lost thousands of American lives and millions of Iraqi lives …. .‘ So much for American goodness and good intentions. Killing millions of Iraqis on a lie is good. I hope they don’t teach our children about such goodness and good intention. NLB must check and remove books that agree with this kind of goodness.
 
And in the concluding paragraph of his article he said this, ‘America should get out of the business of invasion and occupation. Four decades of failure have provided enough evidence to prove that the American people are far too good to do this job.’
 
My goodness, if the top thinker in Asia thinks like that, and he wrote a book, I think, questioning whether Asians can think, what about the rest of unthinking Asians? I think they must be praying to have wet dreams sleeping with the Americans and enjoying every moment of it in the warm caress of the Americans, in bed.
 
How could a country that treated everyone else as a nail and keep hammering everyone with a hammer, for four decades, be a country of good people with good intentions? Is there a word ‘bad or evil’ in Mahbubani’s or the Asian’s vocabulary for the Americans? Everything about the Americans is about wholesome goodness and good intentions even when they incited wars, provoked wars, engaged in wars and in the killing of millions of Asians. Good intention!
 
And China is the bad guy, the monster waiting to start a war that may not even happen! The American arse must smell damn good, all wholesome goodness.

When evil is goodness!

Kopi Level - Green

CPF – Monthly protest rally at Hong Lim

Han Hui Hui and Roy Ngerng will be holding monthly protest rally at the Hong Lim Park on the CPF issues. One immediate problem that comes to mind is their ability to continue to attract the number of people to Hong Lim on a sustained basis. Last Saturday’s rally was a test case for the people’s willingness to keep going to Hong Lim to show their support for Hui Hui and Roy and the return of their CPF money. It was tentative and could have been a big disappointment if only 200 people turned up. The possibility was there given the fact that it came so close to the last protest and with so little publicity on the event. It turned out that the crowd was there to keep the fire burning.
 
From past experience, it has been proven that Sinkies would kpkb for a while and would soon lose interests in whatever they were unhappy about and the whole thing was forgotten with time. There was no follow up and all issues died a natural death. Would this CPF issue die a natural death like everything else? Would the people persist with greater tenacity to keep the issue and pressure on the govt to make changes to the scheme? If the support for the protest rally dies off, then all things will return to normal. And the govt will know that Hong Lim Speakers Corner had served its wonderful role, to let the people let out steam and the temperature will cool down as expected.
 
23 Aug for the next protest rally is just a short while away. Hui Hui and Roy are following the practice of biting and not letting go, like a rotweiller. It is like taking a bite and sinking the teeth in. Saying sorry is not enough, must also explain. Keeping rubbing in, keep repeating to put the victim under pressure. This is how to keep an issue alive. Not following through, a couple of kpkb sessions, will not achieve any results.
 
So, would Hui Hui and Roy’s new approach, to keep pounding the road, keep hammering on the issue, to keep it alive, work? It may if they can gather enough crowd to be at Hong Lim. It may if the people do not get tired and start to give Hong Lim a miss when the protest rally is on. How long would Hui Hui and Roy be able to keep the flame burning? It is not easy even if an issue like CPF touches everyone’s pocket where it hurts.
 
Would the daft Sinkies behave differently this time and would also bite in and refuse to let go, and keep coming back to Hong Lim to kpkb every month?

Kopi Level - Green