Re: NCMP Lina Chiam hands out free masks to Potong Pasir residents. What about Sitoh?
Yes, but I'm hopeful that part of the 60.1% has come around. No one can be that daft forever.
I don't think they are really daft. It is how the PAP (and the media) frames the issues. The PAP is good at controlling the narrative and setting the agenda. The WP is a price-taker on this one, it plays according to the PAP's rules and opposes within the framework which the PAP has set. Unlike say the SDP which actually tries to actively frame the narrative its own way -- but falls short due to its lack of grassroots support.
If you watch the Talking Point episode with Tan Chuan Jin, you will see what I mean -- just listen to some of the shit that the callers actually say. Or look at the ministers' FB profiles and look at some of the comments there. It will take a lot of work before they can be "won over". This cannot be done gradually -- they need to undergo a dramatic paradigm shift and come to the realisation that the issues are sometimes more complex and abstract than what the PAP makes them out to be.
For instance, you take this haze crisis -- the PAP tries to position it as being caused by the Indonesians, focusing on the irresponsibility, the lack of good neighbourliness, even playing up the remarks from the Indonesian ministers and calibrating their replies to make them appear to be more magnanimous. They try and focus the public consciousness on the cause of the haze, and then they try to position themselves as fellow victims along with the people. Then they play the hero card -- they are fighting for our well-being even though there is nothing they can do.
What they did not focus on was the poor response to the haze domestically -- the failure to ensure sufficient supplies of N95 masks, the failure to plan ahead, the failure to organise a systematic relief program for sufferers. If you look at situations such as earthquakes in Japan or Taiwan etc, the authorities are usually able to respond within hours, setting up a presence in almost every single locality (including rural areas) to offer food rations, masks, first aid kits, and other essential supplies. The fact that Singapore did not have such contingency plans alludes to the PAP's negligence. The haze occurs annually but never has the PSI hit 300, much less 400, so they took it for granted and underestimated the scale of the problem.
However this is NOT what people are focusing on. The majority of people (if you look at the ministers' FB pages, and read the MSM) are instead focusing on the cause of the haze -- which is favourable for the PAP since most know that the PAP can't do anything about a problem that takes place within Indonesia's jurisdiction.
