Singapore idol takes a beating

Barely two years after his departure from the face of Singapore and

Singapore’s political scene, this issue suddenly surfaced overnight. No one

would expect anyone to be attacking or deriding this famous founding father

of Singapore, to be brazenly attacking him personally as a person so soon

after his death, and so soon even when his party is still in absolute power

and his son is the unchallenged PM of the island. This is surprising to

everyone, even to his own party members and to the cabinet and the MPs. Who

in his right mind would dare to attack or throw negative comments at LKY

when his son is still the PM of the island?

Unfortunately this unpleasant truth is now out in the open, in the main

media and in social media. People on both sides of the political divide are

not holding their punches and are embolden by the fact that PAP ministers

are also in the game, attacking or ridiculing LKY as a man with many flaws,

unthinking or unclear in his thinking or maybe senile if not wishy washy.

What is more unexpected is that despite of all the things thrown at LKY,

only Hsien Yang and Wei Ling have stood up to defend their father and

hitting out at those saying bad things about their father. What is more

surprising is that no one on the PAP side thinks it a responsibility to

stand up to stop the barbs hurled at LKY. No minister has done so, no MP

has done so, no old or senior PAP stalwart has done so. It is like anyone

is free to do so, at your own time, your own target, fire.

So many are taking pot shots at LKY and it is not funny anymore. Poor

thing.

Are there anyone out there, within the PAP or in the public, in the civil

service, people who were beneficiaries of LKY’s policies and decisions, be

willing to stand up to defend this man they once revered and cried for?

No, no?

Anyone wants to defend kong kong? Defending kong kong is an honourable

thing to do. Never mind if the politicians are keeping mum. He is not their

kong kong after all.

3rd of July - A day of infamy...or honour?

4th of July is the American Independence Day, a day for celebration. 3rd of July would become a very important day for Singapore and Singaporeans. On this day, Hsien Loong would be defending his integrity in Parliament, defending his position on his father's last wish, and defending the allegations by his brother and sister on the abuse of power or corruption of power. And all the MPs would be there to defend him or challenge him. No, they are there not to simply ask question. At the end of the session there is likely to be a vote of confidence on Hsien Loong's integrity and leadership as the Prime Minister.

All 81 PAP MPs are expected to vote for Hsien Loong and all 6 WP's MPs would vote against him should a vote of confidence is called no matter if the whip is lifted. No need to guess further. There could be a few votes less for Hsien Loong should a few think it wise to go to the toilet or to be on urgent leave on that day.

What would these PAP MPs be voting for? No need to ask the this question on the WP MPs. Would they be voting for honour, honesty, integrity, moral righteousness or loyalty to Hsien Loong and the PAP? Or would they be voting for the good of Singapore, Singapore's reputation as an honest and rule of law country, a country free from corruption of power and money?

On 3rd of July, all the PAP MPs must cast their vote and it will reveal what they are really made of, what they stood for, what is important to them and what is not. Not only that Hsien Loong's integrity would be called to question, every PAP MP's integrity and honour would be called to question. And they would be making a point in Parliament when they vote, of who and what they are.

On 3rd of July, the people will be watching very carefully on what the MPs said and do, on whether they deserve the respect and continue support of the people, their voters and the people of Singapore. 3rd of July would be the day to test the mettle of the PAP MPs. Abstain from voting is not an option, you are in or out.

I remember the day when at the peak of his career, Mahathir thought he was indispensable, told his ministers and MPs in Parliament that he would step down thinking that they would go down on their knees to beg him to stay on. Never would he expect that they were waiting just for that day and for him to say he would want to step down. Without missing a beat, his ministers quickly cut in to thank him for his good deeds and regretted that he was stepping down but reluctantly accepted his stepping down. They gave Mahathir no chance to retract from what he said. It was over. This must have caught Mahathir with his pants down. He could not turn around to say he was joking or did not mean what he said, and wanted to stay on as the PM. He sealed his own fate himself.

Would there be a similar moment on 3 Jul when Hsien Loong called for a vote of confidence believing that he would get 100% support from the PAP camp but to his horror, 70% voted no confidence in him as the PM? This of course is like the sun rising from the West, not in Singapore. But should such an event happen on 3 Jul, Hsien Loong could end up like Mahathir, unable to stay on as the PM. It would be a self designed bloodless coup and Singapore would have a new PM. OK, OK, don't bet on it that such a thing would ever happen in Singapore. In Singapore everything is carefully planned and under control. Oops, don’t remind me of the MRT. This is just a wild, wild thought, too much hallucination perhaps… TGIF.

Uncle Sam crying wolf again

The North Korean’s infant nuclear problem is a threat to the USA! Assad is planning to use chemical weapons against his people! What else is new? Has anyone complained that the Americans are the biggest nuclear to every country in the world and a threat to the extinction of the human race?
 
I was watching some American news reporting and the little American girls reporting these news as threats to the mighty USA were so serious as if they were real. They totally and sincerely believed them. It appeared that it has not crossed their little minds to question if the North Koreans are really a threat to the USA or is Assad that stupid to use chemical weapons against his people to give the Americans a reason to blast him off his office. With the American proclamation, some chemical weapons would surely be used against his people but you can bet your last dollar it would not be from Assad but from you know who. Assad can be any thing but not stupid. But he would still fall victim to false flag incident planned by the Americans.
 
Assad would not be as stupid as the unquestioning American girls reporting the news that North Korea is threatening the USA when China or Russia would not dare to be a threat to the Americans. Did they know that it is the Americans that are threatening North Korea and every country in the world and have taken the position that the USA reserves the right to use nuclear weapons on any country first while demanding that others cannot use nuclear weapons first? And knowing American’s black ops against the ME countries and North Korea and all the countries that the Americans called enemies, by making a warning that Assad is going to use chemical weapons, you can bet your last dollar that chemical weapons would be used, not by Assad, but Assad would be blamed for it.
 
Below is part of an article in counterpunch on the lies the Americans are spreading about the North Korean threats. How many silly people around the world are believing in this lie? The American little girls reporting this news surely would believe it with no question asked. So would many of the lawmakers in Washington who chose to want to believe in this American lie. Here is the article…
June 16, 2017

Nuclear Weapons Ban? What Needs to be Banned Is US Arrogance
By Diana Johnstone

In a context of almost total indifference, marked by outright hostility, representatives of over a hundred of the world’s least powerful countries are currently opening another three-week session of United Nations talks aimed at achieving a legally binding ban on nuclear weapons. Very few people even know this is happening.

Ban nuclear weapons? Ho hum… Let’s change the subject.

Let’s talk about Russian hacking instead, or the rights of trans-sexuals to use the toilet of their choice, or even about something really important: climate change.
But wait a minute. The damage to human society, and to “the planet”, from the projected rise of a few degrees of global temperature, while commonly described as apocalyptic, would be minor compared to the results of all-out nuclear war. More to the point, the degree of human responsibility in climate change is more disputed among serious scientists than the public is aware, due to the role of such contributing factors as solar variations. But the degree of human responsibility for nuclear weapons is unquestionably total. The nuclear war peril is manmade, and some of the men who made it can even be named, such as James Byrnes, Harry Truman and General Leslie Groves. The United States government consciously and deliberately created this danger to human life on earth. Faced with the United States’ demonstrated capacity and moral readiness to wipe out whole cities with their devices, other countries built their own deadly devices as deterrents. Those deterrents have never been used, which lulls the public into believing the danger is past.

But the United States, the only power already guilty of nuclear manslaughter, continues to perfect its nuclear arsenal and to proclaim its “right” to launch a “first strike” whenever it chooses.

The United States naturally calls for boycotting the nuclear arms ban conference.
On the occasion of an earlier such conference last March, President Trump’s gormless U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, wrapped her lame excuse in womanliness: “As a mom and a daughter there is nothing I want more for my family than a world with no nuclear weapons,” she shamelessly uttered. “But we have to be realistic. Is there anyone that believes that North Korea would agree to a ban on nuclear weapons?”

Well, yes. There are many people who have obviously thought more about this than Nikki Haley and who are well aware that North Korea, surrounded by aggressive U.S. forces for seven decades, considers its little nuclear arsenal to be a deterrent, and would certainly give it up in exchange for a convincing end to the U.S. threat.
North Korea is a very odd country, an heir to the medieval “Hermit Kingdom” with an ideology forged in communist resistance to Japanese imperialism of the previous century. Its highly eccentric leadership is using advanced technology as an imitation Great Wall. An all-Korean peace settlement would solve the issue.

It is absurd to claim that the threat of nuclear war comes from Pyongyang rather than from the Pentagon. Hyping up Pyongyang’s “threat” is a way to pretend that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is “defensive”, when the reality is the other way around....
From counterpunch https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/16/nuclear-weapons-ban-what-needs-to-be-banned-is-u-s-arrogance/

Lee Kuan Yew’s will – When white can be black

The will of Lee Kuan Yew is now the hot topic of dispute between his two children and his party, the PAP, and between the eldest son and his younger children. What is so puzzling and disputable about the will of this top legal trained politician? Here is the part that is in contention.
 
‘I further declare that it is my wish and the wish of my late Wife, KWA GEOK CHOO, that our house at 38 Oxley Road, Singapore 238629 (“the House”) be demolished immediately after my death, or if my daughter Wei Ling, would prefer to continue living in the original house, immediately after she moves out of the House. I would ask each of my children to ensure our wishes with respect to the demolition of the House be carried out.’
 
To me or any layperson, the will is so simple and clear. But we are just laypersons and cannot see anything wrong with the will. Only the legally trained experts, called lawyers or legal counsels, could tell you it is not so simple, and the whole will can be torn apart for so many grey or contentious areas. To these legal experts, the simple will is full of holes.
 
The Singapore public and the whole world have been given a lesson in how the legal experts and politicians are able to cast doubts and spin stories on a simple will by one the greatest lawyers Singapore has produced, and an eminent politician known not for shoddy and wishy washy unclear stuff. This was a man that was precise to a comma or a full stop in their proper place. In this case the legal experts and politicians are having a field day displaying their prowess, applying all their strategies, tricks and tools of the trade to prove that this will is not what it was or meant to be.
 
The first thing is to cast doubts on the authenticity of the will. If this does not work, cast doubts on the people that were involved in writing the will. If this does not work, question the intent of the beneficiaries, or the intent of the drafters of the will, or even the intent of the owner of the will.
 
Some have called these types of questions or doubt casting as clever, professionally expected, and legal ways to win a case or an argument. Some have called these brutal, devious, cunning, sly and whatever negative expressions you can find in the dictionary.
The will of Lee Kuan Yew to those that want to question his will is not only suspect for many reasons. In their attempt to cast doubt, the man himself has been dragged out into the open as an old fool, careless, unthinking and with a ‘tiada apa’ attitude when he signed the will. He did not known nor understood what he was signing, or he was conned, deceived or wrongly advised or tricked into signing a will against his wish or intent. He needed legal assistance and advice! And he did not know about it even after he is dead and buried. And now his will is becoming a joke, and he is also becoming a joke. Where is the respect for this man?
 
Is this how Singaporeans want to remember this man they cried for during his funeral and lined the streets under pouring rain to send him off in his last journey? While the politicians and lawyers are attacking his will directly or indirectly, while targeting his children, it is sad that this man, once revered by many and with many that pledged loyalty to him and even publicly expressed respect to him like a father or a demi god, becomes the victim of the dispute.
 
Lee Kuan Yew, his name and reputation are now dragged through the mud for all to see. Lee Kuan Yew and his Singapore have become an international joke by the people trying to prove their cleverness on his will.
 
Is this the kind of ending Singaporeans want for their renowned founding father? Before more damage is done to this man, let’s have some discretion and stop doing more harm to Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore by showing a little respect to the man for what he was. I am starting to feel sorry for this man for the way people turned against him, betrayed him, shown disrespect to him. Did he deserve this treatment?
 
I rest my case. Please do not throw this man into the toilet bowl in whatever you are doing. If the govt chooses to gazette his house into a national monument, just do it and spare the disgraceful gripes. Why is Lee Kuan Yew’s will an issue when the govt has all the power to gazette it?

The Lee Family Feud – Objectively speaking

There are basically two parts to this family feud. One is about the fate of the family house in Oxley Road. The second part is about allegations about Hsien Loong’s integrity. The first part is easy to deal with, legallee, oops, sorry should be spelt legally.

LKY being a lawyer by training and knowing what his rights were as a citizen, knew very well that his will is but the will of a private citizen. He could write his will but ultimately it is the govt that would make the decision on what it wants to do with the house. And the govt has all the right and reasons to gazette it as a national monument under the National Heritage Board. LKY had conceded this point if you read his will carefully. He is not above the law and the law or the state has the final say in this matter.

What is this thing called the Ministerial Committee and why was it delving into the intricacies of the will? The Ministerial Committee should do all its due diligence on what is the best thing to do with the house and make a recommendation to the govt on what should be good for country, taking note of LKY’s last wish. And if it so chooses to gazette the house as a national monument, it would be nice and polite to explain to the family of its decision and make the appropriate compensation for acquiring the property.

The tricky part is how to say it to the family especially when it was LKY’s last wish and many people would like to grant him that for what he had done and would hope that the govt could agree, not that the govt must obey LKY’s last wish. Period.

What is disgusting and patronising is for people to cast aspersion about the intellect and soundness of mind of Lee Kuan Yew when he signed the will. LKY, should these people forget, had a double first in law from Cambridge, a rare honour given to the brightest law student from this great university. Many of those that are making silly remarks about LKY not knowing what he signed in his will, that he carelessly signed without reading, without knowing, is uncalled for. Some even suggested that he needed legal advice from those that would best got a second class upper law degree or the very few first class from NUS.

How many of these people could advise LKY when they could not even hold a candle to him in matters of law and when writing a will is not rocket science?

The less these people try to discredit LKY when he is already not around to use his knuckle duster on them the better it is for their own credibility. No one is really good enough to tell LKY what he should write in his will. This is a no nonsense and very meticulous man. This is a no brainer. He is not senile or mad when he signed his will. And he is no fool. No one could trick him into doing things that he did not want. Want to question his intent?

The second part of this feud is the troublesome one. Hsien Yang and Wei Ling had said many things that questioned Hsien Loong’s character and suitability to be the PM. At the moment these are just allegations and they have to prove what they said with concrete evidence to make it stick. Hsien Loong on his part would have to defend these allegations, to clear his name, that he is an honourable man and a man of unquestionable integrity.

How are these allegations and Hsien Loong’s defence to be settled? Is a PM statement in Parliament satisfactory to prove that Hsien Loong is what he said he is and Hsien Yang/Wei Ling’s allegations were baseless? In Parliament it is a one sided affair with Hsien Loong saying his peace in the absence of the accusers, Hsien Yang and Wei Ling. When there are two conflicting versions to the matters at hand, it is only right and proper to settle it in a court of law where there is a neutral arbitrator to allow both sides to say their peace supported by evidence and then make a judgement on the allegations. How else can such a matter be resolved if the two parties did not meet on a level playing field? If Hsien Yang and Wei Ling could not prove their case, then it is defamation, defaming of the Prime Minister, a very serious thing.

The allegations are serious and would affect Hsien Loong’s credibility as a PM and he has no choice but to defend himself vigorously, not in a Parliament when one side with an absolute majority could just shout down the other side giving the impression that more or the majority means right or the truth.

What do you think? Can this matter rest without a judgement, without an answer? Can these allegations be left floating in the air and the people left scratching their heads or gossiping behind Hsien Loong’s back?