American strategy for world hegemony

Trump is no difference from other US Presidents. He has been sold the same idea that the war industry is the most profitable American industry of all industries. All the Americans need to do is to create troubles around the world, raise tensions, provoke wars, and all the silly nations would come crawling to buy more weapons to kill each other in the name of defence. The American war machine is the biggest in the world, its nuclear arsenal could wipe out all life forms with many to spare. But the Americans are not contented. Trump is going to increase the budget for the American military, to build more advance weapons, for PEACE.  From US$600b to US$650b. You believe that?

After one month in office, Trump has been convinced by the war merchants that the only industry that is keeping America going and paying enough taxes for the good life is the war industry. And Trump is sold. All the ministries’ budget would be cut to give more money for the military to spend.  This is not just about hegemony but also about making money. It serves a dual purpose, keeping the world busy quarrelling and fighting among themselves and making the Americans not only rich but in control, in charge, as the self appointed policeman of the world, creating troubles so that it has a job to police the world.

But there is a cheaper strategy to dominate the world, to keep the American Empire as the only hegemon. This is simply done by pointing fingers. Yes, the Americans has used this strategy all the time and very successful. All the Americans need to do is to brand someone or country as evil, accuse them of all kinds of crimes, war crimes, currency manipulation, dumping, freedom of navigation, human rights violation, a threat no matter how ridiculous it is, and the silly unthinking people of the world would believe so and start to echo what the Americans and the western media are saying, without wasting a moment to ask if it is true. This is especially true among the bananas in Asia, particularly in Sin City.

By branding and attacking other people or country, and with all the unthinking and silly people believing in it, the victims or countries would be kept busy trying to defend themselves and explain that they are not what the Americans claimed they are. And they would have no time to accuse the Americans of their evil deeds. Every silly bugger would forget to look at the real devil in the Americans for creating wars everywhere, violating international laws, committing genocide of the innocents and calling them war collaterals. Many heads of state were murdered, their countries invaded and ran to the ground by the Americans, but no one is asking or accusing the Americans of these war crimes and crimes against humanity.  

The strategy is so simple and so effective, accuse, brand, shout, scream, use the western media, point the finger and the result is the same. Every silly asshole would just listen and behave accordingly as the Americans want them to be. And the evil hegemon would just rule them like their angel, like their God, so magnanimous, so kind, so generous, so peace loving. The evil hegemon just simply said this country is bad, is the enemy, is a threat, and the sillies would go crazy saying aye, aye sir. Please come and protect us.

Syonan Gallery achieved more than it set out to do

According to Hsien Loong, the Syonan Gallery was to ‘evoke that dark and traumatic period in Singapore’s history’. In my view this episode evoked more than that. Within a matter of two days, Singaporeans were given a history lesson that they would not forget. I don’t think the school text books and lessons could be told in such personal and dramatic way to touch the raw nerves of the people, young and old. Many old wounds were opened, many old and painful memories were invoked for those who suffered, their children and closed ones to feel the pain once more. It was hurting to many of the victims.
 
How’s that for achieving the task of evoking the horrific and traumatic period of a forgotten chapter of our history? But more, many old stories of betrayals were retold and some crying out for blood. Many of the younger generations would not have known of the hideous past, of hooded men acting as informers to betray the victims that were eventually led to their death in the hands of the butchers, the Kempeitai and the Japanese Imperial Army. Many would now get to refresh their memories of how heinous were the crimes of the barbaric Japanese invaders.
 
A big thank you for this timely reminder to arouse the anger and hate for the Japanese invaders of our country. Many would have forgotten and would love everything Japanese. Many stories are being retold in the social media. Now anything Japanese would come with a distaste. Some may want to ‘pui’ and would look at the Japanese more closely to see the evil lurking behind that disarming smile and that polite bow.
 
This is a good way to learn history and to relive history, to remind the millennial not to take things at face value. Know your past, know your history and be wiser for your own good. The past cannot be forgotten. This unintended result is the only good thing coming out from this dreadful episode. Now the name Syonan can be dumped into history and good riddance.

What India done right

What India done right and Singapore failed miserably is the emphasis on IT. Singapore seems to have lost a generation of IT programmers/analysts/software specialists through its neglect in teaching these subjects in schools, polytechnics and the universities. Everyday I am reminded of the army of IT professionals in MBFC. My whole floor is flooded with these IT people from India, a testament that India has done right in foreseeing the future, planning and educating a whole generation of such specialists for the industry worldwide. How could we have missed this boat?

The dearth of IT specialists is seriously felt in the banking and finance industry and they have no choice but to go to India where they are armies of them waiting eagerly to be hired. If only Singapore's education has done it right, today all the IT specialists being hired to work in the banks would have been Singaporeans and not foreigners. Our university graduates would be gainfully employed and not be dumped into taking up part time jobs or unrelated contract jobs earning a pathetic pay not enough to live on.

This is what careful planning and doing the right thing is all about at govt level. They called it foresight, the ability to look into the future like the CFE is doing. This is also proof that the govt's proactive and crystal ball gazing ability is greatly lacking.

How I wish the number of IT specialists employed in MBFC are Singaporeans and not foreigners and our graduates need not waste their time and money to study irrelevant courses and ended with degrees that cannot be eaten.

Please learn from India and start to educate our graduates in useful and relevant courses and not courses that no employer wants. I feel so sorry for our graduates and their parents that foot the bills for their education whenever I see the happy faces of the foreigners here. These faces could be the happy faces of our young graduates.

Where is the clever thinking and planning for the future? Would the recent CPE end up 10 or 20 years in the future with more pathetic problems like what we are seeing today when a whole industry needing an army of IT specialists and has to import them, unable to find any local to fill the vacancies?

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Redbean

Govt policies must be sensible, reasonable, focused and responsible

Many people have heard the reasoning for the big water fee hike and the logic being aired in Parliament and many are shaking their heads in disbelief. Do the ministers really believe they are convincing in their arguments and the people are really so daft to accept the reasoning. We have a highly educated population, more than 50% have received tertiary education and any farcical, flimsy or flawed arguments would stand up like a sore thumb. Ministers must be careful and not stand out looking like fools with foolish arguments and thinking they could get away with them.

Just read this piece of statement saying that ‘Water prices were increased substantially to reflect its true scarcity value’ by Masagos. Using the same logic, should not the govt raise the salaries of ministers substantially to reflect its true scarcity value? The scarcity of good political leaders is frightening and a strategic issue, a national security issue too. I just borrow some of the phrases used in Parliament to depict how serious the matter is.

Yes pay the really good minister $10m or more, but this must be done discriminately not like the carpet bombing price of water fee that hit everyone so hard. Some ministers deserved $10m, some not even $100k.  In the case of water, the pricing must be carefully calibrated to be reasonable and sensible and responsible.

Water is a basic necessity and is a must use item by everyone, from the richest to the poorest. And in some cases the poorest need to use more water than the richest. A manual worker would need to bath more and wash more given the nature of his work. A multi millionaire could bathe in perfume or Evian water or no need to bath as he rarely need to sweat under the hot sun. The bedridden would need to be clean. Everyone needs to take their bath in this hold tropical city. Everyone, rich or poor, needs to shit and flush the toilet. How can such acts be punished by high water fees? Don’t bathe, don’t shit, don’t wash and don’t flush?

What is reasonable and sensible is to allocate a fix quantity of water to every individual/household, regardless of wealth, maybe a bit more to the workers, to clean themselves, for personal hygiene. Water is a basic necessity and should be priced as such. Then the axe can come down to bear on those that over used, misused and abused, those that could not appreciate this precious item. Using water reasonably for basic needs must not and cannot be punished with an across the board price hike. Levy progressive and punitive taxes on over usage of water. And I quote Masagos again, ‘Consumers must feel the full price of water’. The difference is that the axe must not be used indiscriminately against everyone.  Not all consumers waste water irresponsibly. Many are actively and responsibly cutting down on their water usage. Why should they also be punished?  If an axe is swung wildly like a mad man, it discredits the person wielding the axe as a mad man, thoughtless and unreasonable.

I do not want to belabour this point. It is common sense. Please be reasonable, be sensible, be focused and be responsible and raise water fees in a calibrated and thoughtful way.  Think a little more. Anyone behaving like a bull in a crystal shop will look like a stubborn and mindless raging bull. No one would respect a mad bull ramming and knocking down everything in its way.

No need to use phrases like scarce resources, strategic issues, national security issue to pull a veil over a flawed pricing policy. It defeats everything being said.