SG Complains

MM: A lie against Govt will be pursued – even in cyberspace

Asiaone.com:

ANY lie that questioned the Government’s integrity must be fought, said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew yesterday. He would pursue even those who perpetrated such lies in cyberspace, if the authorities could pinpoint the culprit.

MM Lee launched into the subject from the witness stand in response to a quote cited by the Singapore Democratic Party’s (SDP) lawyer M. Ravi during cross-examination.

”Never chase a lie. Let it alone and it will run itself to death.’ Do you agree with that?’ asked Mr Ravi.

MM Lee replied that he did not, even though Western journalists had been urging such a view on him for years.

‘I take a contrary view, because I know the mentality and the attitudes of the people in Singapore – and they know me by now, that if anybody impugns the integrity of the Government, of which I was the prime minister, I must sue,’ he said.

- I will never dare write anything against the almighty government of Singapore, I bet the foreign news agency also does not want to risk reporting any “lies” against Singapore.

Let’s talk about truth, the truth and only truth about my feelings after reading this. The real truth is I felt disappointed, discouraged, infuriated, discontented, exasperated, resentful, embittered, irked, disheartened, let down, upset, distressed, depressed, choked, disillusioned, discontented, dejected, disgruntled, dissatisfied, downcast, saddened, disenchanted, despondent, downhearted about reading all these political news.

I think many Singaporeans felt one way or another the same as I am after reading this news article but I cannot 100% be sure as if I write anything not confirmed…it’s a lie and I might get sued to bankruptcy.

Being bankruptcy may not mean much to some but to majority of us may get depressed and became suicidal. Being bankrupt severely after being sued by the Government may means harder to secure a job in the future especially in the government linked companies.

I feel that without a job means that there are no future and no hope hence “many may” feel that dying seems to be the only way to solve the problem. (MRT suicides etc.)

Well, in other countries…they have many ways to stage a non-violence protest to let these frustration out and get back to their life hoping for change by the ruling party.

In the past, the fear of going against the ruling party had stopped many potential & excellent candidates from contesting in the election causing the “walk-over” effect.

FEAR is what I think the people are feeling… dread, horror, panic, terror, dismay, awe, fright, tremors, qualms, consternation, alarm, trepidation, timidity, fearfulness, blue funk (informal) apprehensiveness, cravenness under the current ruling party.

Is that what you want the people to feel? I guess not..but I am not sure. Maybe you want to connect with me and the rest of the people of Singapore but not sure how to. Hopefully one day you can learn to understand the people better.

Obviously the ministers cannot always spoon feed everyone and become a welfare state but using fear tactics against online chatters are simply going overboard.

I am not so sure of the future of Singapore anymore using capitalism model and without so much of a proper sustainability measure against high cost of food, energy and increasing inflation.

The truth is, if I am a minister…I will take in the feedbacks and complains alike truth or untruth and tackle it honorably and quickly. Welcome more feedbacks and resolve them as much as possible without taking legal actions and clamping down on dissidents.

This way you can get more honest feedbacks to actually solve all the problems instead of “lies” that defame your “integrity”.

If everyone are FEARFUL to complain about the problems that they face daily (e.g. high cost of living, inflation, wide spread depression, transportation, energy hike, food cost, child upbringing in broken family, stress and competition of jobs with FT) then the ministers may not get feedback on possible SOLUTIONS from the public feedback as well!

Fear is the problem and how do we eliminate fear is to allow the people to organize controlled & non-violent rally on weekends without requirement of licensing. Do send guards to PROTECT the people from any rowdy people.

The ministers can then send representative to note down all the problems that the people (yes the people) are facing and also ask for possible (SOLUTIONS) from them.

This will eliminate fear and frustration against the government and able to prove to the people that the ministers are truly worthy of the million dollar wage that they are paid to do the job of running the country.

The country is already running well with majority of the people are employed or able to sustain their living but there is a time bomb waiting to happen when the going get tougher…

The crude oil prices continue to skyrocket to the current U.S. $135 per barrel, with many predicting it to go up even further due to global declining matured oil fields and ever increasing demand.

Oil cost had an effects on literary every thing that we touch and the ripple effects are devastating. The final outcome of this crisis is global hyper-inflation of cost of living and sudden deflation of asset value causing the coming great depression.

This will have serious consequences if we continue this direction by blindly following the west capitalist model as we do not have enough resources that they have such as large fertile land, geothermal energy, nuclear energy and fossil fuels.

In Cuba, when the U.S. enforced a oil trade sanction against them after the Cuban Missile crisis…they managed to survive with little or no oil imports by using whatever land they have and distributed to the “PEOPLE” and use it to grow food for sustainability. This give back the people a means of subsistence and livelihood.

Instead of wasting time to police the internet against anyone who may have lie against the Singapore Government, the precious time can be better use for solving some of the unsustainable status quo that threaten the future of Singapore.

Without cheap oil & gas may means higher electricity cost and imports, that means there will be plenty of problems for businesses operating in Singapore.

Possible solutions:

1. Invest heavily on multi-story indoor green house plantation building for food supply.
2. Subsidize individuals to use solar panels outside their HDB windows and give proper license to professional installer to ensure safety. (The electricity is for the usage of the individual an not for public lighting)
3. Cut taxes for people using “green” vehicles that uses less oil and powered by electricity.
4. Increase more licenses for public transport companies to service more competitively.
5. Open up more land for cheap rental stalls to sell assorted goods that resembles the “flea-market”.
6. Give subsidize course in all languages on how to operate a profitable business at community centres.
7. Make more inter-connected bicycle lanes throughout Singapore to make it possible to reach their work place on bicycle. (With proper signs and zebra crossing that intersect pedestrian)
8. Allow modification of vehicles to use renewable energies that is does not endanger the safety of the passenger & public. (Solar, wind, CNG)
9. Give out free goodies bag in national day that includes a good hand held non-electric fan, a press-crank torch that use no battery, a hand crank portable FM radio and a re-usable grocery bag to save plastic.

I believe that there are plenty of ideas floating in the internet including mine however not all are absolutely 100% practical or cost effective but I do believe in long term investment for the people of Singapore and earn the respect by the People living in Singapore regardless of race, language, religion or nationality.

Hopefully one day we can fully understand that the minister are just like human too and will also make mistakes. We should not vent our anger in the world wide web but give possible ideas and solutions for them to implement and to achieve possible win-win scenario for the people and the Government.