Denial is not just a river in Egypt... riots and the NDP rally speech
It is interesting to read Thomas L Friedman's commentary in the my Paper section of the ST today. The article entitled "Why the world is rioting" spectacularly missed the point. It concluded that the reason why people were so pissed off was because they had access to the internet and that they were dissatisfied middle classes who had to now work harder to get jobs. So it is the middle classes who are pissed off. Because of the internet and because they can't join the club. Dear Tom, it is not the middle classes who are the problem. It is the top 1 per cent of society, or possibly the top 5 per cent, the super duper rich who are squeezing everyone and everything dry. Because there is less to go around and they want more, they are screwing people over in a more unaccounted for and inethical manner. As the earth's resources disappear, they are getting more and more blase about the devastation they wreck in order to deliver the profits they believe they are entitled to.
The middle classes are not getting as much because there isn't as much to go around. And they are not your greatest problem. They are the easiest bits of society to pacify. It's the irate impoverished, like the refugees who now form the frontline of the suicide bombers, the people who truly have nothing left to lose. And everything to gain, most of all their dignity.
I have never been in a Palestinian refugee camp, but i have read enough about it. It is a difficult and awful place to be in. Filled with people just waiting. Waiting and waiting. Forgotten and betrayed by a world who doesn't care and who never did. Imagine growing up in a place like that. If you are of a certain temperament and if you have a certain history, i can perfectly understand why the only way out would be to do what you seems to come naturally, rather than languish in desperation and despair. What is the difference between them and the young people, often from sink estates, with no prospects, who tend to join the army? The Osama bin Ladens and sons of lawyers who become army officers are far and few in between. That is why so many soldiers and paramilitaries in Ireland and Northern Ireland came and come from poor working class families. The conflict is not ideological, it is economic. Of course there is ideology involved somewhere, to give some sort of window dressing to the action, but this was stripped bare when drug dealing and gun running still goes on in places like Ballymena and Ballymun and Tullycarnet... and the war ended more than 10 years ago.
And then there is the Singapore National Day Rally Speech. I really do not understand the PAP. Is it not clear why Singaporeans are pissed off with them? Singaporeans have been asked to give up a lot. They have been constantly asked to sacrifice to the economic Mamon. Unions which have been broken, lives lived with little or no freedom, and educational system with is toxic and psychotic, housing and private car ownership which is astronomical. The housing and car thing i don't really care much about, but the other sacrifices have been so painful for me, personally. But Singaporeans do, because they have been made to care about houses and cars.
So, what is the reason they have been asked to give up the privelege of being human? To have a country that is economically successful - which, it is assumed they can all share in that wealth. And what happens? They do not share in that wealth at all. Instead a few divide the spoils - probably not as much as 10 per cent - the rest live in decent but cramped and overcrowded estates which not unlike indentured labour of the past, are encouraged to spend their hard in earned money in shopping malls like trained addicts, and probably never have the prospect of them or their children advancing to the next stage of economic prosperity.
That dream sort of died in my parents's generation. There simply isn't enough to go round. Fact.
Singaporeans are asked to sacrifice for Singapore - and what they discover is that they have sacrificed for the PAP. The PAP which cleans up time and time again at each general election, which now assumes they are Singapore. The PAP who makes the policies and then rams it down people's throats. The PAP who assumes that it is born to rule. Who keep Singaporeans in the dark, who feed them nonsense, who assums that they are stupid and do not know better.
But the PAP are NOT Singapore - and the sooner they learn this the better. Singaporeans are Singapore and it is through a combination and threat, seduction, berating and superficial praise that that PAP have managed to get the results they have. Well Singapore is not six years old, or ten years old anymore. It is 46. And it is time that the PAP realise that it has grown up.
The middle classes are not getting as much because there isn't as much to go around. And they are not your greatest problem. They are the easiest bits of society to pacify. It's the irate impoverished, like the refugees who now form the frontline of the suicide bombers, the people who truly have nothing left to lose. And everything to gain, most of all their dignity.
I have never been in a Palestinian refugee camp, but i have read enough about it. It is a difficult and awful place to be in. Filled with people just waiting. Waiting and waiting. Forgotten and betrayed by a world who doesn't care and who never did. Imagine growing up in a place like that. If you are of a certain temperament and if you have a certain history, i can perfectly understand why the only way out would be to do what you seems to come naturally, rather than languish in desperation and despair. What is the difference between them and the young people, often from sink estates, with no prospects, who tend to join the army? The Osama bin Ladens and sons of lawyers who become army officers are far and few in between. That is why so many soldiers and paramilitaries in Ireland and Northern Ireland came and come from poor working class families. The conflict is not ideological, it is economic. Of course there is ideology involved somewhere, to give some sort of window dressing to the action, but this was stripped bare when drug dealing and gun running still goes on in places like Ballymena and Ballymun and Tullycarnet... and the war ended more than 10 years ago.
And then there is the Singapore National Day Rally Speech. I really do not understand the PAP. Is it not clear why Singaporeans are pissed off with them? Singaporeans have been asked to give up a lot. They have been constantly asked to sacrifice to the economic Mamon. Unions which have been broken, lives lived with little or no freedom, and educational system with is toxic and psychotic, housing and private car ownership which is astronomical. The housing and car thing i don't really care much about, but the other sacrifices have been so painful for me, personally. But Singaporeans do, because they have been made to care about houses and cars.
So, what is the reason they have been asked to give up the privelege of being human? To have a country that is economically successful - which, it is assumed they can all share in that wealth. And what happens? They do not share in that wealth at all. Instead a few divide the spoils - probably not as much as 10 per cent - the rest live in decent but cramped and overcrowded estates which not unlike indentured labour of the past, are encouraged to spend their hard in earned money in shopping malls like trained addicts, and probably never have the prospect of them or their children advancing to the next stage of economic prosperity.
That dream sort of died in my parents's generation. There simply isn't enough to go round. Fact.
Singaporeans are asked to sacrifice for Singapore - and what they discover is that they have sacrificed for the PAP. The PAP which cleans up time and time again at each general election, which now assumes they are Singapore. The PAP who makes the policies and then rams it down people's throats. The PAP who assumes that it is born to rule. Who keep Singaporeans in the dark, who feed them nonsense, who assums that they are stupid and do not know better.
But the PAP are NOT Singapore - and the sooner they learn this the better. Singaporeans are Singapore and it is through a combination and threat, seduction, berating and superficial praise that that PAP have managed to get the results they have. Well Singapore is not six years old, or ten years old anymore. It is 46. And it is time that the PAP realise that it has grown up.
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