PAP's New Strategy - will it work?

[zhihau]

hence if u work for the government as civil servant, u have to support the operations of the government.......but that doesn't in any way prevent from u voting the opps at the polls.

kudos to you! me had been reminding folks about this for some years now :p:p:p

 

[chilakak]

The civil servants will become more neutral as more seats are lost by dominant party. It has happened in many countries, including Malaysia, Taiwan and Japan. Things will fall into place as the opposition becomes stronger.

EXACTLY!! The trouble with people like that Metalmonkey chap is that they are the perfect example of the kind of Singaporeans that the ruling party has very successfully engineered in the more than 4 decades that it has been in power. The kind that swallows hook, line and sinker the myth that Singapore will collapse unless the PAP is in power. One key reason why many Singaporeans believe that is due to the way the ruling party has engineered the civil service during its long years in power. It has very successfully molded a huge number of civil servants who think, feel and act as if they are PAP servants and not civil servants. This is one of the saddest things about the Singapore Civil Service. In that sense, it is indeed unique amongst the civil services of democratic nations.

 

[metalmickey]

I used to be in the civil service (MOE), 2006 to 2010. It's not neutral at many levels.

One problem is that civil service leaders don't make recommendations they think are good for society. They make recommendations their bosses want to hear, which is ultimately what the minister wants to hear. I think we've got the roles of top civil servants and ministers mixed up. Ministers should define the end goals, but the civil service should produce the technical answer for it.

Civil service is also not neutral when we have a revolving door between civil service and political office or GLC jobs. Civil servants have incentives to cooperate with the dominant political party - because the dominant party controls and gives out political office and GLC jobs. This is usually not a problem - but it is when one party is so firmly entrenched they control such resources.

Finally, at the lower echelons of the civil service, bosses can be blatant in calling for support for PAP. My friends in teaching told me about this over GE2011 and PE and BE. Another friend in Singapore Poly told me a student forum on new media in politics was blasted by top admin for inviting only Nicole Seah and Sadasivan (ex-NMP) without inviting any PAP person to provide "balanced" views.

Well, so to sum up, normal civil servants are people like us - they're not generally biased, but they do receive some pressure to support PAP from on top. Top people recommend/challenge too little, and obey too much from the party (the civil service should be independent enough to speak up for what policies it thinks is best for solving problems in society, even if politicians don't want that solution). And they challenge too little, partly because of incentives to cooperate, but also because of friendship and working relationships built over decades of PAP rule, and also because this is our culture - of a technocratic elite who "know better" governing the rest of us.

(Well, some ex-civil servants have started speaking up, e.g. Ngiam Tong Dow, Yeoh Lam Keong, Donald Low, etc but by-and-large we have a strong culture of current civil servants not commenting in their personal capacities on society problems. Witness how Nat Con was accompanied by letting civil servants comment on areas they're not currently working on? Which is bizarre - does the civil service serve the public, or the elected representatives? Usually these coincide - but what if they perceive a conflict of interest - shouldn't they be able to speak up in that case?)

That's another issue that we have to worry about. If there is a transition of power then by right the MPs are the political masters of the civil service. But will the civil service rebel against an opposition party govt? It's not going to make things easier if that happens? We just have to hope that by the time something like that happens, the civil service would be a very different place.

I was working for a GLC and I was surprised that there was a lot of anti-PAP sentiment in there. Of course a few of the bosses were solidly PAP, especially the ones who were parachuted in from civil service. It will be interesting to know about the political affiliations of the civil servants as time goes by.

I'm beginning to believe that true democracy is impossible because people will always be sheep. But people will participate in the democratic process in larger or smaller extent and you just have to hope that in the next few years we will see more political participation from the people. It's not going to work if people keep saying, "opposition parties don't have a lot of resources to do this or that" and at the same time you just sit back and wait for them to figure out for you what are the solutions to the nation's problems.

I hear people saying that all you have to do is vote opposition in and things will get better by magic. I don't agree. It's an uphill climb and we are not even at the most difficult part yet. I say this not because it's a scare tactic but people who want to get involved should understand what they're in for and not just run away at the first sign of trouble.

 

[metalmickey]

EXACTLY!! The trouble with people like that Metalmonkey chap is that they are the perfect example of the kind of Singaporeans that the ruling party has very successfully engineered in the more than 4 decades that it has been in power. The kind that swallows hook, line and sinker the myth that Singapore will collapse unless the PAP is in power. One key reason why many Singaporeans believe that is due to the way the ruling party has engineered the civil service during its long years in power. It has very successfully molded a huge number of civil servants who think, feel and act as if they are PAP servants and not civil servants. This is one of the saddest things about the Singapore Civil Service. In that sense, it is indeed unique amongst the civil services of democratic nations.

I see, so on one hand you believe that things will keep on running smoothly when the opposition takes power, and on the other hand you also believe that the civil service will not co-operate with the opposition when that happens. Very good.

 

[SgParent]

My position is different from yours, but when you say that you don't bother to read what I wrote, I'm surprised that you bother to reply.

My position is that plan B is maybe better than plan A. When you vote in opposition, you either believe that it will make the PAP behave better, or that the opposition is superior. For me the answer to these two questions is "maybe". And contrary to what you said, I am not afraid of plan B. I will vote on it based solely on a "maybe". But I don't like this "maybe".

Competition is not always always better, does not always always benefit the consumers. For me it is only a "maybe". And what I have been going on about is, I want to see this "maybe" upgraded to a "probably".

Let's do this.

Show me one example where real competition does not benefit the consumers and I will show you tens, hundreds, thousands that do.

And when we are through with this, can you go edit/remove all your post about your doubt on going with plan B?

Well now you know what I meant when I said "master". If you don't like a few things I said, there are always ways and means to talk balls, raise questions about other peoples' characters and motives. Everybody who doesn't agree with you on everything is a PAP IB, isn't he? This is Sammy Boy, we normally expect people to be sarcastic, rude, condescending, not constructive.

You said master, not "master".

But maybe we could stick to relevant topics?

Sure. Let's get back to the point where you want to show me a real competition that does not benefit the consumers.

 

[SgParent]

I'd prefer they lost a Mah Bow Tan, or a Vivian, or a Lim Swee Say or a Lim Hng Kiang or a Wong Kan Seng. A GRC had to fall and a minister had to go but it was unfortunate it had to be him.

What is so unfortunate?

You expecting to have 2, 3 or more Casinos? You want to know more about your place in society? Or you want to learn how to go with the flow?

 

[SgParent]

The kind that swallows hook, line and sinker the myth that Singapore will collapse unless the PAP is in power.

Yah. I see a lot of them in kopitiam as well. They have been soaked in the White Scum propaganda for many decades so to them they'd rather stick with the same familiar screwing than voting for competition.

Reminds me of that guy in the Matrix movie who said something like, he knows the beef is fake but it still taste good.

One key reason why many Singaporeans believe that is due to the way the ruling party has engineered the civil service during its long years in power. It has very successfully molded a huge number of civil servants who think, feel and act as if they are PAP servants and not civil servants. This is one of the saddest things about the Singapore Civil Service. In that sense, it is indeed unique amongst the civil services of democratic nations.

Dun worry. Once we have real competition, the civil servants and even the White Scums themselves will come begging for mercy, because then they will know who is the real Master.

 

[SgParent]

I hear people saying that all you have to do is vote opposition in and things will get better by magic.

It is not magic. It is the law of nature.

 

[chilakak]

I see, so on one hand you believe that things will keep on running smoothly when the opposition takes power, and on the other hand you also believe that the civil service will not co-operate with the opposition when that happens. Very good.

No, you obviously don't see and sarcasm is obviously not within the limits of your mental capacity. I am not going to bother debating with you word for word on what I had posted for you have obviously chosen the tactic of putting words in others' mouth to suit your own interpretations. Has anyone said the opposition will take power within the next one or two elections? What practically all the sensible posters in this thread have been trying to point out to you is that we need to first start whittling down the essentially total dominance of the PAP in parliament. And given their entrenched position, this will obviously take several elections at a minimum. In the current state of government as is, the existing civil service will continue to be the one it has been engineered to be. One key starting point for reforming it is to start by reducing the dominance of the current ruling party. Even my nephew who is only in primary five can understand this logic.

From all your posts and replies in this thread, it appears that you have been arguing in circles and arguing just for the sake of arguing with the very obvious intention of muddying the waters. You claim to have voted opposition but who knows? Such claims on the Net are just empty words. Trying to debate logically with you is just a bloody waste of time and I will not bother to reply to any more of your posts. In fact, I was not even replying to you in my earlier post, which was actually me speaking to another poster. Enjoy your life in America if that is where you really are.

 

[metalmickey]

Let's do this.

Show me one example where real competition does not benefit the consumers and I will show you tens, hundreds, thousands that do.

And when we are through with this, can you go edit/remove all your post about your doubt on going with plan B?

I'm sorry, but I had to read this twice because I didn't believe it. Do you have a shaky grasp of English or logic? Do you realise that all I have to do is to give you one counter-example, and that would refute your "always always" reading of the situation and turn it into my "maybe"? Or do you think that "always always" doesn't "always always" mean "always always"?

Let's leave aside the same cranky bullshit where "master" is not the same as master. Maybe you meant "always always" as opposed to always always, which is a distinction too fine for my poor brain to understand?

And no I am not going to edit or remove what I said. First, why the fuck should I go and remove stuff that you don't even bother to read? And secondly whoever tells other people to censor their own stuff, who do you think you are, the PAP?

Dun worry. Once we have real competition, the civil servants and even the White Scums themselves will come begging for mercy, because then they will know who is the real Master.

I haven't really mentioned this, but I'm also pretty concerned that once the opposition gets into power, we're going to have a regime that still keeps the old power structures, restrictions on freedom of speech in place. And this fellar over here is not really convincing me otherwise. LMAO begging for mercy.

 

[metalmickey]

No, you obviously don't see and sarcasm is obviously not within the limits of your mental capacity. I am not going to bother debating with you word for word on what I had posted for you have obviously chosen the tactic of putting words in others' mouth to suit your own interpretations. Has anyone said the opposition will take power within the next one or two elections?

First, I come here. I'm an opposition supporter but as you can all see, not a hardcore one. I know what it's like, all you fundamentalists are pretty outraged when somebody outs himself as a moderate but that's life. I say that I am taking a gamble on the opposition. I say that I know that it is a gamble. And then I have people left right and centre twisting my words around - only to be expected. What's surprising is that now they accuse me of twisting their words. This is beyond the pale.

Simply put, the lack of co-operation between the opposition and the civil service will be an issue a long long time before the opposition takes power. It starts right now. Parliamentary questions will not be answered properly. Queries will be unanswered. That's life. I know, it's not the opposition's fault, but it's not going to help the system either.

It's going to be a messy process. And since it's going to be a messy process, it had better be worth it. And when I'm in my grave (I think it will take that long) I don't want to see the first WP or SDP or whatever prime minister of Singapore turn out to be the same kind of idiot that PM Lee is. I think I will die laughing!

We human beings are curious people. When we vote party X, we are supposed to be scrutinising party X even more closely. Instead we end up scrutinising the opponents of party X more closely. That is very strange, but people are crazy like that. I suppose that's how democracy works - you get a lot of crazy and stupid people together, and you hope that statistically the craziness and stupidity cancels each other out.

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

First, I come here. I'm an opposition supporter but as you can all see, not a hardcore one. I know what it's like, all you fundamentalists are pretty outraged when somebody outs himself as a moderate but that's life. I say that I am taking a gamble on the opposition. I say that I know that it is a gamble. And then I have people left right and centre twisting my words around - only to be expected. What's surprising is that now they accuse me of twisting their words. This is beyond the pale.

No that's not called being moderate. Moderate is when you are not heavily persuaded to either side and allow additional factors or events to alter your judgement to a significant extent. What you're doing here is drowning the thread in issues that you feel relevant but others don't.

You're also framing the issues in a way that anyone who wants to engage you will have to be moderate. If I was very strict with you, i'd have to call you a propaganda artiste. But I choose to give you leeway, since you say you have indeed experienced overseas work/life in a first world country like the USA.

That in a nutshell is why others are responding to you in this manner. Realizing this, you may want to alter your approach. Notice I have never asked you what your agenda is, even though many here are wondering the same.

 

[SgParent]

I'm sorry, but I had to read this twice because I didn't believe it. ...First, why the fuck should I go and remove stuff that you don't even bother to read? And secondly whoever tells other people to censor their own stuff, who do you think you are, the PAP?

Talk so much. Where is your killer blow of a counter-example? I'm waiting.

I haven't really mentioned this, but I'm also pretty concerned that once the opposition gets into power, we're going to have a regime that still keeps the old power structures, restrictions on freedom of speech in place. And this fellar over here is not really convincing me otherwise. LMAO begging for mercy.

Pinky did not say sorry because he really felt that way. It's the fear of losing his rice bowl. And that was an example of "begging for mercy".

If you iron-teeth refuse to acknowledge that then so be it.

 

[metalmickey]

No that's not called being moderate. Moderate is when you are not heavily persuaded to either side and allow additional factors or events to alter your judgement to a significant extent. What you're doing here is drowning the thread in issues that you feel relevant but others don't.

You're also framing the issues in a way that anyone who wants to engage you will have to be moderate. If I was very strict with you, i'd have to call you a propaganda artiste. But I choose to give you leeway, since you say you have indeed experienced overseas work/life in a first world country like the USA.

That in a nutshell is why others are responding to you in this manner. Realizing this, you may want to alter your approach. Notice I have never asked you what your agenda is, even though many here are wondering the same.

There are 2 ways of looking at this. One of them is that I can and will alter my vote depending on the circumstances. And if I go through my checklist, the one on post #70, and I don't find a good reason to vote against the PAP, I will alter it. That will make me a moderate.

The other way is that I'm not going to change this approach no matter what. So you can call me a fundamentalist.

So whether I am fundamentalist about being a moderate, or moderate about being a fundamentalist, is up to you, however you want to spin it.

And I will say what I think. You can disagree, no problem. This is not the PAP and there is no need for "consensus over conflict". There are stupid reasons for you to tell me to shut up, like I'm bringing up stuff that people don't think are important. Well that's not even true. Everybody wants to know what my opinion and so I give it to them because they ask for it. You don't want to know what I think, then don't be a dummy, STOP ASKING ME WHAT I THINK!!!

If I want to frame the issues my way, that is my prerogative. 90% of making an argument is deciding how you want to frame the issue. You frame it another way, you will reach another conclusion based on that alternate framing. If you want to control the discourse, just go ahead and control the framing. Standard ways of controlling the discourse. This is thought control, PAP style. Anybody and everybody does it.

There are however valid reasons for me to stop this line of argument. One is - you know it's the festive mood. In spite of what other people think about me, I do think that this is an excellent chance for WP to pick up one more seat. Just a coincidence that this Michael Palmer fiasco took place in the middle of this discussion. (Or maybe it's not a coincidence since I'm a member of PAP IB and I have a lot of inside information, yah?) So I do think that it's a little more appropriate that I take my private doubts about the opposition and make sure that they're private for the time being, yah?

Worker's party! Worker's party! Worker's party!!!

 

[metalmickey]

Talk so much. Where is your killer blow of a counter-example? I'm waiting.

Limpeh said what limpeh said in post 110. No need for me to repeat what I said. There is a by-election coming up and I'm not going to spoil party by giving you my angst about the political situation in Singapore. There is a time to unite and go back into Fuck PAP mode and the time is now. You want to bump up this thread and let everybody read my bullshit, go ahead.

The other reason, of course is that limpeh has another principle which is not to argue with people with unsound grasp of logic and English. Your challenge is not accepted.

 

[SgParent]

Limpeh said what limpeh said in post 110. No need for me to repeat what I said. .

Let's be clear. You have not offer anything to even suggest competition does not always, always benefits the consumers. Period

... There is a by-election coming up and I'm not going to spoil party by giving you my angst about the political situation in Singapore. There is a time to unite and go back into Fuck PAP mode and the time is now. You want to bump up this thread and let everybody read my bullshit, go ahead.

The other reason, of course is that limpeh has another principle which is not to argue with people with unsound grasp of logic and English. Your challenge is not accepted.

Okay. So until the BE is over and until you have offer your killer blow of a counter-example, can I have your word that you will not bring out your lame theory of competition does not benefit the consumers?

 

[metalmickey]

Let's be clear. You have not offer anything to even suggest competition does not always, always benefits the consumers. Period

Okay. So until the BE is over and until you have offer your killer blow of a counter-example, can I have your word that you will not bring out your lame theory of competition does not benefit the consumers?

Which part of what limpeh said do you not understand?

1. Limpeh is sick and tired of playing your fucking stupid game.
2. Limpeh is sick and tired of having to repeat himself to illiterate fools like you.
3. Limpeh recognise that while it is important to carefully scrutinise the WP, the by-election season is not the right time to do it. Limpeh have more common sense than you and can see things more clearly than you.

So for now until the by election, not only is it true that competition always always benefits the consumers, in addition competition always always ALWAYS benefits the consumers. HUAT AH! FUCK PAP!!!

 

[metalmickey]

Okay. So until the BE is over and until you have offer your killer blow of a counter-example, can I have your word that you will not bring out your lame theory of competition does not benefit the consumers?

Limpeh got no killer blow for you.

So fuck off asshole and spend your time and energy more wisely like trying to help WP win a seat or raising your child to be a good citizen.

You want to play childish games go and play with your kids.

 

[eremarf]

That's another issue that we have to worry about. If there is a transition of power then by right the MPs are the political masters of the civil service. But will the civil service rebel against an opposition party govt? It's not going to make things easier if that happens? We just have to hope that by the time something like that happens, the civil service would be a very different place.

I was working for a GLC and I was surprised that there was a lot of anti-PAP sentiment in there. Of course a few of the bosses were solidly PAP, especially the ones who were parachuted in from civil service. It will be interesting to know about the political affiliations of the civil servants as time goes by.

I'm beginning to believe that true democracy is impossible because people will always be sheep. But people will participate in the democratic process in larger or smaller extent and you just have to hope that in the next few years we will see more political participation from the people. It's not going to work if people keep saying, "opposition parties don't have a lot of resources to do this or that" and at the same time you just sit back and wait for them to figure out for you what are the solutions to the nation's problems.

I hear people saying that all you have to do is vote opposition in and things will get better by magic. I don't agree. It's an uphill climb and we are not even at the most difficult part yet. I say this not because it's a scare tactic but people who want to get involved should understand what they're in for and not just run away at the first sign of trouble.

Dude, the political masters of the civil service are the PEOPLE. The actual process is that the elected representatives i.e. MPs form Parliament and form a Cabinet, which represents the people in telling the civil service what goals to aim for (but the civil service should still provide the how-to, the technocratic knowledge - they're the technical experts, and MPs are experts at representing people, not crafting policy).

But like I was saying - if there is a conflict of interest between MPs/Ministers and the people, the civil servant's duty should be to the people. This is not likely to occur - but think about cases such as Yeltsin ordering the army to storm Russia's parliament house in 1993. In that case - the civil service, i.e. the army - should have acted for the Russian people, instead of serving Yeltsin (the political figure). When they didn't, Russia got looted by Yeltsin and oligarch friends, against the will of the people. Makes you think about old man's threats, doesn't it?

And re: your concern about the civil service being unwilling to work with a legitimately elected non-PAP cabinet - it seems rather unfounded. I cannot imagine why that would be the case. If they're yes-men and power-savvy, they might like George Yeo, "go with the flow". If they're strong ideological believers in the PAP's way (which is being forced to change rapidly - and PAP's ideology today isn't the same as it was in 1960s to '80s), they might resign in protest. Or subvert the civil service from within (rebel) - but what's in it for them? And if they're just people with public service in mind - they will want to work with the new cabinet to serve the public.

Re: it's not enough just to comment and then sit back - bro you got me there. I'm just an armchair critic and I don't contribute much to politics in Singapore. I praise grassroots and civil activism like the Occupy movement (or in Singapore, Function 8, TWC2, HOME, etc), but I don't back it up with actions. I don't know why there's a lot of inertia. It feels too public. Maybe I don't feel "safe" (in terms of how friends, employers, future employers, etc) will view me. Maybe I'm just lazy. But I do have the greatest respect for all the effort lots of people have been putting into politics! The least I can do is to vote, and persuade others to vote. (BTW re: sheep - I wasn't thinking of sheep as people who don't act, but rather are deceived - maybe people who are not deceived but still don't act are more like Benjamin the donkey in Animal Farm)

I haven't really mentioned this, but I'm also pretty concerned that once the opposition gets into power, we're going to have a regime that still keeps the old power structures, restrictions on freedom of speech in place. And this fellar over here is not really convincing me otherwise. LMAO begging for mercy.

But then, if the previous party can be replaced, it should send a signal to the replacing party that they too can be replaced as well. Anyway, I strongly doubt Singaporeans will replace the PAP in 2016. And we don't know how things will change by say 2020, or 2030. It's too far away to be predicting and worrying about?

But I agree with you about one thing - it's not just ONLY about elections and parliamentary representation. What we need are strong democratic institutions and so-called cultural technologies (freedom of speech, expression, press; human including workers/women's/minority's rights; independent civil service and judiciary; strong civil and grassroots activism, etc) (and the US is losing their democracy! so don't point to them as exemplars! who's really democratic? look to democracy indexes) to avoid concentrations and abuses of power (e.g. of a potential new government).

The key thing seems really to be power (in all its forms hard and soft - sometimes from personal charisma, sometimes from institutions, sometimes from the barrel of a gun). I've been reading Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine recently and it's revealing to see how power wielded against democracy is used to benefit elites (who by definition are the powerful) at the cost of people.

BTW, some shining lights of democracy are ironically emerging from (democratic) "socialist" regimes, e.g. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Rafael Correa in Ecuador (which weathered the 2008 financial crisis very well). Both also managed to survive military coups probably supported in various ways by the USA. They might be bad for business (hard to prove), but they're improving their people's lives (also hard to prove, but poor people are getting better housing, healthcare, education, etc). In fact, they're doing things very similar to what early PAP did for Singapore, actually - nationalise key industries, invest the profits on people, who can then become more productive in the long run.

 

[eremarf]

Let's do this.

Show me one example where real competition does not benefit the consumers and I will show you tens, hundreds, thousands that do.

And when we are through with this, can you go edit/remove all your post about your doubt on going with plan B?.

Hmmm... I think metalmickey might be referring to the fact that political parties as consumption items might not be very clear to the electorate. He's afraid that the consumers might end up being irrational.

Some cases I can think of where competition doesn't help consumers get a better product:

1. When there is advertising - consumers might get a better advertised rather than a better-quality product.
2. When products and their substitutes are complex or difficult to assess - think of things you only buy with expert advice, e.g. medicine, medical treatment, legal advice, etc. arguably, political parties might fall in this category.

But precisely because politics is difficult to "consume" - we talk about it on the internet and look for other people's analyses. And I think a lot of us here think that giving oppo parties the first 1/3 of seats is very safe and can only make things better. Some of us also think that bringing the proportion of oppo seats near to 50% or even more than that will also make things better (better being subjective, of course). Metalmickey is just thinking that it might not make things better.

Don't get me wrong though - in the current situation - any reduction in PAP's power is definitely a good thing, IMHO.