The media - Truth is stranger than fiction

Below are a few paragraphs from the statestimesreview ridiculing the top officials of The Straits Times for lying in an open hearing. I as usual disagree with thestatestimes for their criticisms of the most respectable and serious and always reporting the truth newspaper in Singapore. I also disagree with their low ranking for credibility at 151st in the world. Of course you are free to disagree with me and my biased opinion. I would not be offended as I also have very thick skin. I would not demand an apology, I swear.

'Openly lying at the Select Committee’s hearing, Singapore’s state media claimed that they are “serious journalism” and independent from the ruling party’s influence.

Singapore’s state media, comprising of Mediacorp and Singapore’s Press Holdings, are collectively ranked 151st in the world for credibility. The shameful ranking puts Singapore media among the third world nations like Iraq and North Korea, but the editors representing the two propaganda state media, senior editors of Mediacorp and editor of Straits Times, protested insisting they are not biased:

“Over the last five, 10 years we’ve tried extremely hard to be fair, balanced and objective because we see our role as not trying to play up one party or the other, but to give our readers as much information as they can to make decisions for themselves. If we were biased, we would be clearly called out on social media. It would backfire and affect our credibility, so we wouldn’t be inclined to do that. I don’t think it does anybody any service if we tried to … it would be a disservice to our readers, a disservice to our journalists, and ultimately I think a disservice to Singapore.”
The propagandists also said that the internet is the reason why trust in the mainstream media has fallen, and called for the government to impose more censorship on the internet “to level the playing field with the mainstream media”:'

I know that it is very difficult to dispute the poor rankings of international bodies on anything but only to agree with them when the rankings are good. It is only human to hear the good stuff, read the good stuff. I just dunno how an international body could give The Straits Times such a low ranking when it is as reputable as the New York Times, the Washington Post etc as it always carried their unbiased, objective and well researched political western propaganda to attack, ridicule and rubbish any country that is being demonished by the American Empire. See how many pages were given to western journalists to write and condemn Asian countries from the western perspectives. Somehoe Singapore could not produce any good journalist to write news from our own perspective and interest of Asians. But these are foreign news and not the fault of the paper. They never write them, maybe even have to pay to have the right to publish these western fake news.  Oops, they are alternative news from the West, not fake.

A good point to note is that for the last 5 or 10 years The Straits Times have been trying extremely hard to be fair, balanced and objective in reporting local news. Never mind what they were doing before the last 5 or 10 years. Maybe then it was easier to report fair, balanced and objective news or they were reporting something else. They could not be reporting unfair, unbalanced and unobjective news right? Come to think of it, should it not be a natural thing, a moral thing, a thing of honour, to be reporting fair, balanced and objective news? Is this not the responsibility and purpose of a news media?

Anyway, if they have to try extremely hard, they must have good reasons to work extremely hard just to be fair, balanced and objective. Not sure what or who is making them working so hard when it should be second nature, the right thing to do.  Telling the truth is so easy. Every child can do that without any effort. On this ground I think we should be very appreciative of them for telling us their problem without having to say it. This is the best honourable journalists could say or do under the circumstances.

Let's believe in the honour and fairness of our journalists for giving us so respectable unbiased news, not fake news, all these 5 or 10 years under extremely difficult conditions. Let's not believe in their lowly 151st world ranking. And thestatestimesreview should not criticise them so unfairly.

As they said, wait till you are wearing the shoes or be in their position, only then would you understand their hardship and difficulties. Whatever they are saying or not saying, and confessing or not confessing, I like.

Cynical Investor – Meng Seng doesn’t know his Chinese history

‘Our very own Wu Sangui (Silence of Goh Meng Seng) who wants us to kowtow to Xi because China’s a peaceful nation doesn’t know his Chinese history because he doesn’t know how China was created: by emperors who waged war. And he was from a Chinese-language school?’
 
The above was written by Cynical Investor rubbishing Goh Meng Seng for not knowing Chinese history, implying that China was not a peaceful nation and also implying that the American and European Empires were peaceful countries. OK he did not write this last part but from where he is coming, China is or was a belligerent state compares to the USA and other European countries. He ended by asking this,
 
‘Or he is a lackey of Xi?’
 
Shall I ask Cynical Investor is he an American or western lackey? Did he know the history of the USA and the western colonialists? Did he know how the Europeans massacred the native Americans by the tens of millions to take over their land? Did he know that the then Europeans continued to conquer and took over the land belonging to the Mexicans and other natives to make what the USA is today? Did he know that the Americans have been on a war path since the end of WW2, fighting wars everyday, Korean War, Vietnam War, wars in Middle East, in Eastern Europe, in Latin America, in Africa, in Central Asia? Did he know anything about the British Empire, the Dutch Empire, the Spaniards, Portugese, the French and the Germans and the Japanese Empires?
 
As for China, after the defeat by the British in the Opium War in 1840s, China was a disintegrated country until 1949, a victim of Western colonialism and Japanese Imperialism? And until today, modern China had only engaged in three defensive wars, in the Korean War to drive the Americans from the Yalu River to the 38th parallel, the 1962 Sino Indian Border War after the Indians attacked Chinese border positions to seize Chinese territories, and the border war with Vietnam to force the Vietnamese to withdraw from Laos and Cambodia at the request of Asean countries, especially Thailand.  

Some idiots are digging out the thousand years of Chinese history to condemn China as a warring state. How relevant was this ancient history of China to modern China against the warmongering Americans and Europeans today? 

Shall I call Cynical Investors our very own modern day Japanese traitor stirring hatred against modern day Chinese and China. Did he want the Chinese to kowtow to the Americans and the Westerners? Agree? Did he know Chinese history?
 
From the Yuan Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, China was actually invaded and conquered by the Mongols and the Manchus, ruled by these foreigners. The fact that these foreigners eventually were assimilated by the Chinese Civilisation did not make their aggression and invasion of other states an act of Chinese aggression and expansionism.
 
China was a victim of invasion and occupation by hostile foreign forces, not the aggressor that these ignoramus made China to be. From 1271, the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, the Chinese as a civilisation was never an expansionist people, conquering and invading other countries. This is about 800 years of Chinese history, and longer if the Song Dynasty was included, that China and the Chinese Civilisation was not the belligerent state that the stupid want to make it to be.
 
Many parts of Chinese territories and islands are still occupied by the invading foreigners till today.

PS.
 
'Shashi Tharoor is author of “Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India.” He chairs the Indian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. Below are some of this comments in the book.
 
“History,” Winston Churchill said, “will be kind to me, for I intend to write it myself.” He needn’t have bothered. He was one of the great mass murderers of the 20th century, yet is the only one, unlike Hitler and Stalin, to have escaped historical odium in the West. He has been crowned with a Nobel Prize (for literature, no less), and now, an actor portraying him (Gary Oldman) has been awarded an Oscar....
 
Dealing with unrest in Mesopotamia in 1921, as secretary of state for the colonies, Churchill acted as a war criminal: “I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against the uncivilised tribes; it would spread a lively terror.” He ordered large-scale bombing of Mesopotamia, with an entire village wiped out in 45 minutes.
 
In Afghanistan, Churchill declared that the Pashtuns “needed to recognise the superiority of [the British] race” and that “all who resist will be killed without quarter.” He wrote: “We proceeded systematically, village by village, and we destroyed the houses, filled up the wells, blew down the towers, cut down the great shady trees, burned the crops and broke the reservoirs in punitive devastation. … Every tribesman caught was speared or cut down at once.”....
 
Churchill’s beatification as an apostle of freedom seems all the more preposterous given his 1941 declaration that the Atlantic Charter’s principles would not apply to India and the colored colonies. He refused to see people of color as entitled to the same rights as himself. ''

Churchill must be one of the greatest western heroes of Cynical Investor. I only hope Cynical Investor is not Indian, but I am sure he is a coloured person.

American Arrogance, Aggression and Imperialism. Part 3

US president Trump is a devil incarnate. He has now surrounded himself with a hundred percent war hawks in his cabinet whose hawkish views on foreign policies are in sync with his. His latest addition, John Bolton is a racist and white supremacist who has no qualms showing his extreme views and has always been a devil's advocate on attacking China, North Korea and Iran. Trump may be setting the background for war with Russia, Iran, China and DPRK. The world is in a critical stage and may end up in thermonuclear war and armageddon for mankind.

The problem is too many ex-colonnial countries especially those in South East Asia or to be more explicit ASEAN countries like to sleep with the devil, the Evil Empire. Well, US has might, military might and to them they may equate might is right and so they think US has the right to do all the evil deeds against others and there shall be no question asked. Many of these ASEAN leaders have their own personal self interest and agenda and cannot think in terms of wider benefits for ASEAN and their countries.Their warped minds have been captured and enslaved by US subtle propaganda to think and follow  the ways and decisions of Washington. By now they should have realised that US is and has been an evil aggressive and expansionist country that has been on a wild rampage for the last two hundred and forty years attacking, killing. conquering and taking over and annexing other people's lands practically with impunity. They should be more pro-active in their thinking to pre-empt US from turning South East Asia and the South China Sea region into a hot bed of strive and warfare concocted by US as it has done to the Arabs in the Middle East.

ASEAN politicians especially the leaders appear to be daft and ignorant of world history and politics. It is incumbent that they should ground themselves in world history and politics to get a better and true perspectives of the world.s present situation so that they can make a better judgement themselves and not be dictated by the likes and dislikes of US and Western imperialists.

There will never be peace in this world so long as the Evil Empire arrogates to itself the right and the power to control every country and to hold every country in servile obedience to American dictates and hegemony as what its predecessor and forbears imperial Britain had done. Let the ASEAN leaders and politicians listen and learn from the native American Indians, " Never trust whitemen, for they speak with fork tongues. "

Well, trust whitemen at your own peril. In the Middle East US plays on the narrow interest and mistrust among the Arabs religious bigotry of the Sunnis and the Shites and sow further dissension and deeper mistrust among them that they are easily manipulated by Imperial US to strive and fight among themselves not knowing that destabilisation , choas and wars ultimately suit the American agenda of taking full control of the Middle East and there together with the oil and other rich mineral resources beneath the Arab soil and seas. ASEAN countries must be wary of evil and insidious American manipulation in the South China Sea and not fall into the same fatal trap that the Arabs in the Middle East had fallen. ASEAN leaders and politicians must be more sanguine about the truth and history of Asia especially the South China Sea region and not rely on the Evil Empire's toxic propaganda whose aim is to plunge the region in permanent wars and turmoil among some ASEAN countries and China just as what is happening in the Middle East because of evil American plots and scheming.

China is not aggressive and expansionist which is the hallmark of imperialist US, Japan and the West.  Just like all the ASEAN countries, China, India and all African and South American countries had been held in bondage for decades or hundreds of years. China has no soldiers or military bases outside China unlike US which has over one thousand military bases all over the globe. These American military bases will ensure all countries listen and obey American dictates or otherwise face destruction and regime change. America has fought more than two hundred and thirty wars of aggression and expansion since 1775 to pursue its aim and ambition of eventually conquering the whole world under US total dictates and hegemony. Since the end of Second World War in 1945 America has continually attacked, dismembered countless countries, killing millions of people , carried out assassinations of national leaders who did not listen and follow American dictates and  brutally carried out regime change as seen in Iraq, Libya, Korsovo, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. The Evil Empire intends to carry out regime change in Syria and North Korea or DPRK but has been stopped by Russia's intervention. The Evil Empire's next targets for regime change  are some South American countries like Venezuela, Brazil, Ecaudor, Bolivia and Peru and some other African countries like Sudan,Somailia, Nigeria and Angola and also may be Cambolia, Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand in South East Asia.

It is timely to warn ASEAN countries not to be taken in by American toxic propaganda and go into unnecessary permanent strive and wars among themselves or with China. The Evil Empires's aim is to pick up the pieces after the war torn countries have sapped their energy and strength and rule over everybody as an overlord and thus enrich the Evil Empire with all the wealth and resources under its total control and hegemony.

Southernglory1

Friday, 23rd March,2018

More power to the police to stop people anyhow take pictures

A new law is being tabled in Parliament to forbid the public from taking images, video or still, of serious incidents aka like terrorist attacks. Under this new Communication Stop Order law, it says as reported in thenewpaper, ‘the commissioner of police when authorized by the home affairs minister’ can invoke this law.
 
I hope I am reading this correctly, ie, the home affairs minister must authorize first, then the commissioner of police can give the order. If not, any police officer on the spot can suka suka stop anyone from taking video/pictures using their mobile phones or anything in hand. Is this correct? I can still remember a police officer arresting a photographer, I think a reporter, from taking pictures of a flood, or was it something else, ponding?
 
And some MPs were raising the issue of abuse of power in Parliament. I think this would not be the case. Singaporeans are born with a special DNA and abuse of power would never happen to them. You can never find a single case of abuse of power in the history of Singapore. Everything is done legally. How can there be abuse of power when things are done legally, eg ministerial salary, compulsory CPF insurance schemes? Please don’t accuse the govt of abuse of power to do anything. It is just not in their DNA. They are also Singaporeans and have this exceptional DNA in them.
 
The CSO is to prevent ‘irresponsible communication’. Actually if this is the case, taking pictures and videos should be alright as the intent is to prevent people from communicating irresponsibly like fake news. Tiok boh? Let people take lah, just make sure they do not anyhow post it to shame anyone for irresponsible behavior like anyhow park or anyhow shit or shit anywhere should be good enough. Tiok boh?
 
Ok, get the intent and purpose of this CSO right from the start. What is it supposed to prevent? Irresponsible communication? I read this in thenewpaper. ‘Mrs Teo said this is not its intention as it is meant to stop “irresponsible communication” when asked about forbidding people from taking pictures. So if people take pictures and videos but did not communicate or communicate responsibly, like passing them to help the police to work on the case must be ok right? And if passing to the police is ok, then they must be allowed to take right. If cannot take how to pass to police to help the police? You tell me lah.
 
So what is the real intention, to prevent people from taking images or to prevent people from communicating irresponsibly?
 
PS. I was thinking of including incorruptibility as part of Singaporean’s exceptional DNA. But on second thought, this one is conditional, that they be paid out of this world’s salary or else. So this Singaporean exceptionalism no count.

All that glitters is not gold

By now, most Singaporeans would have read how the maverick artist in our midst had been thwarted yet again in her bid at self-expression. I am talking about Miss Priyageetha Dia of the golden staircase fame of course. A year ago, Priya, then a final-year Lasalle fine arts student, covered the staircase on the 20^th floor of her HDB block with gold foil and sparked a debate on whether it was art or vandalism. Whatever it was, she had to remove it after the town council deemed it “unauthorised” and “not permissible”.

Last Sunday, she was back at it again. This time, she hung gold coloured sheets on the outer walls of her block using flag hooks on the corridor ledge --

and met with a similar fate for a similar reason. She had to remove the sheets after the town council said she did not seek their permission prior to hanging them up. To be fair, they were acting on residents’ complaints but one wonders if they would have said yes even if she had asked for permission and there were no complaints.

Obviously not everything she touches turns into gold but you can’t fault the girl for not trying. Asked why she did not first seek permission, Priya said: “I wanted to execute the project without modifying it to the town council’s guidelines. I wanted it to be raw and original.”  Spoken like a true artist. And  for some out-of-the-box thinking that the Government so craves, let’s hear it from her again: “I want to create an intervention with the HDB space.  The hooks along the corridor are only for the national flag, I want to provoke its functionality by hanging another material.”

Compare this with some of the residents’ complaints - “The sheets look like incense paper” & “they are very noisy when blown by the wind” - and you have a fair idea of the ocean of conformity and groupthink that poor Priya is marooned in. The problem is not only confined to the citizenry. It extends to the political leadership as well. At a forum on political succession on Tuesday (20 Mar), ex-NMP Eugene Tan said there are no standout candidates because none has left a deep impression. More ominously, the panel felt that regardless of who the next prime minister is, “it will be more of the same, with the new leader unlikely to veer from the tried and tested ways”. Rubbing salt into wound, another ex-NMP Zulkifli Baharudin opined: “While people want a leader who is daring and transformative, we have inputted our own conservative attitudes in choosing the next generation leader. So we are not going to get it.”

I am hoping against hope that he is wrong. Singapore needs nimble, innovative and out-of-the-box people. We need more - not less - people who dare to question conventions. People who dare to ask “why not?” Most of all, we need a PM who dares to take on this eternal conundrum of Singapore society - how to maintain a highly ordered and disciplined society without imposing rigid conformity or frightening every potential Van Gogh, Steve Jobs and Priya back into their mother’s womb. Will we have such a PM?