Another Little Brown Brother got insulted

It has to take a Duterte to wake up the Pinoys that no matter what, they are just Little Brown Brothers to the Americans, to be used to serve the Empire’s business, to fight proxy wars, to challenge the enemies of the Empire with the masters shouting from behind, providing arms and vocal support.

Indonesia just found out, my goodness, they haven’t woken up yet, that the literature and military doctrines of the Australians used them as enemies and were insulting their Pancasila, including their belief in God and inciting Indonesian Papua to be independent from Indonesia. Quoting an Agencies’ report ‘Indonesian military spokesman Major General Wuryanto said, “all forms of cooperation”, including military exercises and education and exchange programmes, have been suspended indefinitely.’

Who do the Indonesians believe were the ‘enemies’ in the Australian military exercise materials? China? The Australians rehearsing all their military exercises in anticipation of a Chinese attack on their territories? But it is not all in vain. Indonesia has started to question the increasing presence of American forces stationed in Australia, for what purposes, to prepare for an invasion of China?

Little Brown Brothers must always remember that they cannot morph into anything else, not into white brothers. The historical experience of the Australians meddling in Indonesian affairs, particularly in Timor, in Papua New Guinea, would not go away and would be repeated at the opportune moment.

This little deputy white sheriff is meddling too much in a region that it should not and is not behaving like a little sheriff, thinking that it is a big regional power. One day it would be overrun by Indonesia to put it in its rightful place.

Behind the headlines, looking inside the skulls

How  would Trump deal with a trigger happy North Korea? Jeremy Koh

To tackle social and political issues, return to 'honest politics': DPM Tharman

Above are two headlines in Channel News Asia on 8 Jan 17. In the first headline, the mindset of the author, Jeremy Koh, is that Kim Jong Un is a trigger happy man, or the North Koreans are. How did he come to this conclusion? What did the North Koreans did to be branded as trigger happy? Did they go to war, commit terrrorist acts? Or they were testing their missiles and nuclear weapons? If testing missiles and nuclear weapons are considered trigger happy, would the USA be branded as trigger happy, the most trigger happy as they have tested the most missiles and nuclear weapons and possessed the most and threatened to use them in the most occasions? Or is conducting military exercises considered trigger happy? Which country is conducting war games all over the world? North Korea?

What about countries engaged in wars under the slightest provocations or fabricating false information like WMD, would they be considered trigger happy? Which country has been conducting wars all over the world? Not trigger happy?

Or North Korea is trigger happy because the Americans said so? A little critical thinking and common sense would easily identify who is the real trigger happy country. No prize for the correct answer.

Singaporeans are not called daft for no reasons. Their daftness is legendary.

 

The second question is an eye opener. Returning to honest politics. Who have been indulging in dishonest politics and who needs to return to honest politics?  See the halo over my head?

Ok, let’s not engage in speculations, allegations or name calling. Let those honest people engaging in dishonest politics to start to change to honest politics. No need to ask them to own up and confess that they have been engaging in dishonest politics. That would be asking too much.

All those engaging in dishonest politics please kee chiu.

Thank you Tharman for saying the darnest thing. I know that you are referring to the international players and this is not meant for domestic consumption.

PS. Any cat wants to declare it does not eat fish and wants to turn vegetarian?

From Terrex to Terex

Virgo sent me this. Is this the result of our Terrex? Melted down and morphed into this?

There are merits in the American political system

The pro independence kids in Hong Kong have a serious contention about their lack of independence to elect their Chief Executive of preference. The Chief Exedcutive was shortlisted by China and they felt offended, short changed, as if the election of the Chief Executive of a country b the people is a universal democratic formula. Did they know that Singapore also inherited the same British democratic system and the Prime Minister was elected by the political leaders among themselves, not by the people? Singapore or Britain did not elect a politician to be the Prime Minister. The politicians elect among themselves.

The American system is different in that they more or less elected their President directly. There is a presidential election though it still has to go through a second election by an Electoral College of Electors or people’s representative to confirm the election by the American public. This is not what makes the American system particularly more democratic than the British system.

What is distinctive in the American system is that the elected President has a free hand to handpick the best men and women as his ministers to assist and support him in the running of the country. These men and women are the Secretaries or equivalent of Ministers, but not elected by the people, not necessary politicians. It goes for several other top appointments of the govt as well, including the judiciary and finance.

The key difference here is that these men and women are not elected by the people but experts in their own fields or at least are known to be experts in their professions related to the appointments. Notice the glaring difference between these Secretaries and the Ministers in the British system? The latter are politicians and not necessary experts in their ministries. The stark inadequacy of the British system is best seen at home when you have eye surgeon helming the foreign ministry, cancer surgeon helming the defence ministry, generals helming education, transport, internal affairs, etc etc.

The obvious Achille’s heel in the British system is that the politicians are politicians and not necessary experts or professionals and are put into ministries that they have no clue about, not train in, no expertise in but are expected to perform like they know everything. Some may perform, some perform hopelessly.

In reality, not many people are so talented to be experts in things they are not trained in or even in things they are trained in. Some may be good in passing examinations but unable to apply what they learned in schools. Politicians are politicians. Are politicians experts in managing ministries like defence, foreign affairs, health, education etc etc. In many instances politicians are like salespersons, good at presentation or presenting what they want to sell, or like actors/actresses but without the ability to do the professional stuff. They are not knows all.

There is a caveat here of course. Despite the obvious flaws in the British system when non practitioners or non experts are put to helm important ministries, Singapore is Unique. Our talents are super talents, at least by the measures of their multi million dollar salaries. And they really become experts overnight in the ministries they are put in charge.  Even at the lower level they could become experts and advisers in all fields ranging from sports, arts, cultural, clans or trade associations.

This is the great difference in Singapore.  Though everyone can see the weaknesses in the British political system, when put into practice in Singapore, it still works, or at least it works in the past and the momentum seems to prove that it is still working, for how long we don’t know.

Conceptually, the American system is more realistic and practical. The President picks the best experts of the respective fields to do the demanding jobs of the respective office. A general to head defence ministry, a finance experts to head finance, health expert to head health ministry etc etc. Logical isn’t it? Of course there are counter arguments that a soldier is bad to head the defence ministry and likewise a doctor to head health….

What do you think? Is there a need to modify our system to allow experts to head ministries that need and demand people with the professional or relevant training and experience to helm them? The American system has no mismatch problem.  Ours definitely have, but saved by the abundance of super talents born to be knows all, to become expert in anything overnight. That is why we did not hear of mismatch in our political system, at least we never hear of any minister or politician being a mismatch in his job.

The British system is flawed and its derivative systems, if copied profusely, would be equally flawed. You not only did not elect the PM/Chief Executive, you have politicians of all colours trying to make the best of their appointments in ministries they have no expertise in.

Nasty accident at Choa Chu Kang Crescent

At about 2.10pm I heard a series of crashing and banging sound. It was so loud that I thought a train had fallen off its track. It turned out to be a SMRT extra long bus crashing into the corner of a HDB flat just outside a 711 store. From the crashing noise I expected many injuries as a result. Fortunately only a young boy was slightly hurt, more likely shocked.

The path leading to the 711 store used to have a lot of pedestrians. It was so damn lucky no one was there to be crushed by the bus. The pics told what could actually happen, with a Mercedes stuck to the back of the bus just off a traffic junction. Was the bus crossing the junction and had to avoid another vehicle making a right turn?