Pro-PAP mothership.sg thinks S’poreans are stupid

[makapaaa]

[h=2]Pro-PAP mothership.sg thinks S’poreans are stupid[/h]

December 9th, 2014 |

Author: Contributions


Dr Chee Soon Juan wrote a co-op piece in The Wall Street Journal on 27 November 2014 titled ‘A New Vision for Singapore‘. He repeated his call for PAP to conduct free & fair elections and release the press from government control to allow true debates by Singaporeans at this crucial juncture in Singapore’s history.

Dr Chee with Aung San Suu Kyi in 1998


Dr Chee is the secretary-general of Singapore Democratic Party which espouses liberalism principles and he has not deviated from those principles – he did a hunger strike in 1993 to protest his unfair dismissal from NUS; in 2002, he spoke up openly in Speakers’ Corner on behalf of Muslim parents who wanted their daughters to wear religious head wear to school; the same year, he staged a rally near the Istana to raise awareness of the plight of workers; in 2006, he organised a march at Speakers corner to protest the rising income gap of Singaporeans.

He got into trouble with the law each time for his act of civil disobedience. He was bankrupted in 2006 when he was unable to pay damages after he lost a defamation suit to former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong.

Despite many setbacks, Dr Chee has displayed his political will to see Singapore transform into a true democratic society. Before the internet & social-media age, most Singaporeans were unable to understand the philosophy, motivations and principles behind Dr Chee’s actions because he was vilified by the mainstream media as someone who is a disruptive pariah to society.

The widespread use of the internet has given Singaporeans opportunities to understand the philosophy of opposition political parties and comprehend the actions of Dr Chee: Civil disobedience is a norm in other first world democracies.

I do not agree with the actions of other SDP members but Dr Chee’s commitment has not wavered for the past 20 years unlike others who joined SDP for selfish reasons and left for various reasons or disappeared for unknown reasons.

Dr Chee’s co-op piece has triggered a response from Consul-General to Hong Kong Jacky Foo who refuted Dr Chee point by point.

However, it is the editorial slant mothership.sg in response to this Chee-Foo spat that annoys me. These are the 3 latest articles written by Martino Tan who tried to poke fun and discredit Dr Chee:

(1) SDP’s Chee Soon Juan uses the Wall Street Journal to poke the government
(2) Grandfather of protests Chee Soon Juan asked Roy Ngerng and Han Hui Hui to apologise
(3) CPF blogger raised $36,600 within two days. That’s $6,600 more than what Chee Soon Juan paid ex-PMs LKY & GCT in settlement.

From my understanding, Martino Tan is a former civil servant with Prime Ministers Office who was credited with the setup of Lee Hsien Loong’s Facebook page. Mothership.sg is backed by a social enterprise Project Fisher-Men, which is chaired by civil service veteran Philip Yeo . Former foreign minister George Yeo contributes to the site. The other members includes Jonathan Lim, a former MICA personnel and Lien We King, who is in the core group of George Yeo’s support base.

The Mothership.sg crew are (from left) executive director Lien We King, director Edwin Ramesh, editor Belmont Lay, administrative staff Tan Wei Fen, editors Martino Tan and Jonathan Lim, and intern Sally Ong. Photo: Zaobao.

Impressively, for the past 20 years, Dr Chee has stayed committed to his political philosophy and he has led by example hoping to inspire a breakthrough in our political process.
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I doubt Dr Chee’s fighting spirit will be over-shadowed by PAP’s cheap shots on the internet that make Martino Tan’s slime look like child’s play – Tan’s track record of setting up Lee Hsien Loong’s Facebook page is nothing spectacular by itself because Lee already has the support base to grow his Page and the mainstream media editors have to promote Lee’s Page because he is the number 1 man in this country.

Mothership.sg has to thank their powerful PAP backers for the financial resources to jump-start its popularity but they should not get carried away and continue tarnishing Dr Chee like what the mainstream media have been doing, unless that is the purpose of their existence.

 

[tonychat]

Singapore has made great economic strides over the 50 years since independence. With a GDP per capita of $55,000, the island state is, by this measure at least, the most prosperous country in the world. Yet rather than being proud of their country’s achievement, measures of social harmony and happiness indicate that Singaporeans are far from pleased with the status quo.

Looking behind the numbers, it seems that Singapore’s economic success has wrought havoc on less measurable, but no less important, aspects of life: Freedom, compassion and equality. It is the degradation of these values that has contributed significantly to Singaporeans’ disenchantment with the current system.

Even before the Reagan-Thatcher era of neoliberal economics, Singapore adopted a market-driven approach in which even value systems and social life were commodified. When the government wanted fewer births in the 1970s, it paid women to undergo tubal ligation. When it changed its mind and wanted more births, it gave tax incentives to couples to have more babies. When it wanted the children to demonstrate strong character, it rewarded their desirable traits with cash.

Monetizing things that we shouldn’t—especially under circumstances where societal values are involved—leads to harmful outcomes. It causes citizens to abrogate moral responsibility and devolve decision-making to market norms set by the elite few.

We need to fundamentally rethink how we pursue wealth and, more importantly, to what end. We need to ask that all-important question that Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel so trenchantly posed: What price do we pay when we cede our values to market mechanisms?

Unfortunately, without democracy Singaporeans cannot have a national debate on the future direction of our country. Talk about political freedom and the rights of the people is eclipsed by government threats that democracy undermines GDP growth.

And yet Singapore is in danger of being left behind. A survey of countries around the world reveals a distinct shift towards more democratic forms of governance. Many such political transitions have yielded greater, not less, prosperity. Adaptation to change is necessary for societies to keep themselves relevant in the global community. Singapore is no exception.

The island republic needs an alternative vision, one that will confidently usher Singapore into the next phase of development: Privately owned small and medium-sized enterprises, instead of state-owned conglomerates, need to be the prime drivers of growth; the wage structure should ensure that the working poor don’t see their real incomes shrink even as the number of billionaires rise; the elderly should not have to work menial jobs just to feed themselves; the media must be free from state control; and, most importantly, the political system needs to change to allow truly free and fair elections, where the political freedoms of Singaporeans are respected.

Singapore is at a crossroads. How the country moves forward will depend on the choices that the people and their leaders make today. The incentives that those in power build into the system will determine whether the country progresses or stagnates. To that end, the ability of Singaporeans to question authority and to build a capacity for collective reasoning and debate is essential.

It is shameful that we live in a state where market values guided by an authoritarian system trump moral ones guided by a democratic process. The danger is that we become blinded by the things we want and ignore the things we really need. Ultimately a nation’s success is not measured by the size of its GDP but by the number of minds it unfetters, the number of young lives it gives hope to and the number of poor it empowers. It is this kind of wealth, the kind that really matters, that Singapore must accumulate.

Now more than ever, we need a genuine conversation about Singapore’s future. Indeed, we need a bold new vision for the country.

Mr. Chee is secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Party.