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Thursday, April 7, 2011

Tin Pei Ling II

I am horrified that people are asking for Tin Pei Ling to stand in a single seat ward. And for sure, if the People's Action Party (PAP) does that, it will never have my vote again.

The netizens bay for a sacrifice. Putting Tin into a single seat ward is to do so knowing that Tin will lose. It would reflect poorly upon the PAP indeed if it allowed the masses of unthinking and undiscerning people to taste blood. Undiscerning people who have rushed to make a snap judgment based on decontextualized videos and pictures. Better to withdraw her from the slate than knowingly place her on the sacrificial altar of a single seat ward.

In a single seat ward, Tin will lose because she is too clean, too good, too innocent and too well-meaning for the type of dirty politics it takes to get into power. LKY can do the dirty politics with knuckledusters and all, but Tin only wants to help, and I think she can. Why would the PAP choose to baptise Tin with dirt? What would that say of the Men in White?

Herein lies the irony. It takes dirty politics to get into power. Yet, can a dirty person be trusted with power? The thing is, politics in Singapore has been relatively clean. LKY dirtied his own hands, but he picked people who were clean and put them into positions of power. Generally, PAP Members of Parliament are ill-equipped to be dirty, simply because those who are apt to play dirty, wouldn't have made it through the PAP screening.

Tin doesn't know how to play dirty, and to force her into the mud pool would destroy the very qualities she possesses that can contribute to Singapore. What is odd about the whole thing is that PAP has had its pick of the PhDs and the Masters in GREAT jobs, earning FABULOUS pay. I personally know 3 who were tea-sessioned so to speak. These, from the intelligentsia, used to be the kind of political candidates the PAP ALWAYS picked. And the PAP has drawn flak for that. People go on and on about how far removed these intelligentsia are from the commonfolk. And so PAP picked Tin - your typical girl next door. Not slow but not extremely academic either, and not yet professionally successful. And of a sudden, people now laud the opposition parties for fielding candidates from the intelligentsia.

Huh?

Far better a Tin than a Jack Neo, who until he got his penis in the wrong places, was widely tipped to be a PAP Member of Parliament (to garner the vote of the Chinese speaking masses). **Short digression: May Jack Neo's penis rot and drop right off... and his balls follow after in excruciatingly slow succession.** Jack Neo implicated a Minister George Yeo who, in true PAP fashion, couldn't see/stay-away-from/deal with dirty either. For more on Jack Neo, click here. Now, I do believe that Ministers, before they become Ministers, should know how to do a Lee Kuan Yew (i.e., SEE dirt, TOUCH dirt, GET dirty if necessary, clean up and go home clean), else they are too naive to be effective.

This applies to Vivian Balakrishnan too, who didn't see the dirt of poverty. He could have done so much to clean up the lives of the elderly poor and the disadvantaged children (and thus preempted crime) but he saw no need here and instead, blew more than his budget on the Youth Olympic Games. The guy didn't see the dirt under his nose.

But I daresay that the PAP Ministers under Lee Hsien Loong will stay away from dirty politics. Firstly, because when dirt gains a foothold, it's hard to stay clean. Secondly, Lee Hsien Loong was brought up to stay clean too. Not many people are like LKY you know, able to get dirty and still stay clean. Every machine needs a filter. LKY was that filter for dirt. He took dirt upon himself and he got rid of it. The machine stays clean, the filter got dirty.

Who will be the PAP filter when LKY goes away? Can LKY be replaced with filter mechanisms? For sure, I would like to see the PAP stay clean, and not engage in mudpool politics.

The PAP tends to be oblivious to dirt... doesn't know how to deal with dirt and won't get dirty. But clean is better than dirty any day, I say.

9 comments:

Blur Ting said...

You're really good at dissecting info and making it clear for the layman like me. :-)

Petunia Lee said...

Ting - Hah... really ah? Thanks for the kind compliment!!

Fresh Fry aka 福星 said...

i think it's good to get in touch with abit of dirt sometimes, so we know how the bad do the dirty and we can preempt in time. instead of sitting for it unknowingly.....

Petunia Lee said...

Fry - Yes... I do agree with you. That's why I find the PAP MPs somewhat naive at times. But if I had to choose, I would choose clean and naive than dirty and streetwise. How to ensure that someone who plays dirty and hard to get into power, won't play dirty and hard when IN power.

Fresh Fry aka 福星 said...

tis would lie in the judgement of the current leaders to choose carefully.

i've seen a few naive ones who screw up badly, and i was one of them last time too, so i feel alot for the unforeseen dangers and unchartered waters.

clean or dirty are both dangerous extremes. i want abit of dirt in one.

p/s: my word verification is "bless", wat uncanny cosmic intervention in our talking point! LOL

My Sinfonia said...

Petunia, I so enjoyed reading this post. How to stay incorruptible in mud? That is why the PAP machine had been so successful. Pick them when they are young. Mould and guide them with wisdom so they may gain wisdom.

Petunia Lee said...

Fry - That is such a cute coincidence!!

Petunia Lee said...

Sinfonia - The funny thing is that people want politics the USA way. The poor and disadvantaged in US and France are even worse off. When I was in France, their illegal immigrants were fighting for the rights to housing and jobs. Duh? And there was a homeless man who scrounged off our half-eaten chocolatines and croissants at a cafe in the train station.

Anonymous said...

Oh PetuniaLee...you are a treasure. I live in the USA and don't want politics the USA way! We're bogged down in our own verbosity, in our own hype, in our own sound bites! The numbers are growing that don't like the status quo, who want change, we want/need a STRONG leader to show us the way!