im now fully convinced that they are nothing more than dangerous populists who would say/do anything to win the votes of the common people, without giving a hoot about the crippling consequences.
there are plenty of jobs available, its up to you to take it. heck, even collecting rubbish is a decent gig. i dont ever want us to stoop to becoming a state that takes care of the unemployed! it encourages complacency. cuz i mean, why bother to find work when you can collect benefits? and then what will happen to singapore if more people adopt that loser mindset? wahlaueh. pls lah!
My side of the story … Back home from campaigning in East Coast to prepare for party political broadcast, and my dad comes back from NTUC and goes, “eh your Workers’ Party people at the other block, they ask me to vote for them, I say sure one, my son East Coast one, Daniel Goh, and they very happy, say will come up.”
“Orh okay, the botak is it?”
“Yah, and a girl called Her something and a man called D something.”
I carry on working on my com next to the door, then all of a sudden, Ru appears at the door with her geeky smile, “HELLO!” and a troop of blue soldiers appear behind her. I quickly go put on my party polo tee as I was wearing an unclely singlet and sports shorts.
We took a group photo in the corridor garden (thanks Steven for blocking my shorts and legs in the photo), with my true blue supporter neighbour shouting “Workers’ Party!” from his flat to make us smile. My son was bemused and stuck the Marine Parade calling card on our door.
I come back from the rally and wife tells me the story. They were watching the rally on the com, just when I was speaking, when the PAP fellas came house visiting, “hello sir, please vote for us.” “Sure sure,” says my dad to the shock of my wife and sniggers of my mum, while my son hisses at them. The whites go, “but you have the Workers’ Party card stuck on your door.” My dad points to his grandson, “he stick one!” And I spoke on kiasi, kiasu and kiagui …
The first Workers’ Party (WP) at Hougang just ended and from the looks of the many photos on social media, it looked like the gig of the year.
What…
The…
Heck…
According to the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee, there are 24,064 residents in Hougang.
The crowd certainly looks like its “Hougang core” has just faced a severe immigration problem.
Anyway, here are some quotable quotes that stood out at the rally tonight.
Yee Jenn Jong – WP candidate for Marine Parade GRC.
1. “Because Marine should be blue. Not white!”
2. “Actually they (Goh Chok Tong and Tan Chuan-Jin) are all mistaken. The rooster does not crow to make the sun rise. It crows every morning because it’s morning and it’s time to wake up.”
3. “Four and a half years later, by the grand wisdom of a small committee of people, Joo Chiat SMC is now no more.”
Daniel Goh – WP candidate for East Coast GRC.
4.” They (Goh’s family and friends) told me: ‘They will throw the kitchen sink at you – that one is American expression. The local equivalent is: ‘They will even throw the toilet bowl at you. Everything inside.’”
5. “Life is too short and special to be kiasu, kiasi and kiakwai (afraid of ghosts).”
Png Eng Huat – WP candidate for Hougang SMC
6. “The Workers’ Party has never set up a $2 private limited company.”
7. “The PAP would rather fix the opposition, than the transportation system”
8. “The PAP government is not a government of the future, but a ghost of the past.”
Pritam Singh – WP candidate for Aljunied GRC
9. “The PAP has worked overtime to ensure that a Singapore of checks and balances does not occur or make progress.”
10. “Is this the future we want for Singapore or our children in the next 50 years? Ownself check ownself?
11. “AIM is a beautiful metaphor for the politics that takes place in Singapore in our town council. Residents first pay for a computer system which is then sold to a PAP-owned company”
Sylvia Lim – Chairperson of WP and candidate for Aljunied GRC
12. “I thought the civil service only work five day week? But I received letters from Saturday and Sunday as well. They are probably listening to our speeches now. They are as good as a 24/7 EMSU unit.”
13. “Many Town Councils also overpaid, including Nee Soon Town Council.”
14. “Without Hougang, the Workers’ Party would not have Aljunied or Punggol East.”
Low Thia Khiang – Secretary-General of WP and candidate for Aljunied GRC
15. (in Teochew) “PAP looks for a small hole and keeps digging like its life depends on it.”
I remember lots of folks cheering for the spread of democracy in the Middle East, fueled by social media and a surge of emotion for change.
“This is it! This will make history!”
It happened, Egypt had her revolution and soon after the heroes became villains and the excited bystanders in the media and ordinary people like you and me looked away.
But old habits die hard. It doesn’t matter that we see America’s export of democratic experiments failing time and again. We can’t let go of the movies of “one man against the world” or “giving it to the man”.
But many of those upheavals were in countries that were having problems.
Not First World Problems.
Not “I can’t buy a car” problems.
Or “you don’t make me feel like I am complete” problems.
No, people in those countries were staring down a barrel of a gun.
They were being trafficked and raped and beaten.
So that they reached for some desperate promise of freedom is almost understandable.
But here in Singapore?
What are we wanting in our version of democracy?
It seems many of the opposition parties
are posturing for our Arab Spring.
“Vote for us and you will truly democratic! You know, like the West!”
“Cos more dissenting voices in parliament is always better, right?”
And more of the same old boring ideas:
Minimum wage as the cure all.
Extravagant government spending with no talk of higher taxation to pay for it.
Look, we just need to fire up a browser and look at how countries around the world are doing.
Just look.
What Singapore has doesn’t look like the “norm” because some folks have been innovating this little red dot out of those knots for years now.
Do you think water independence could have been had in an American context?
Look at the hoops Obama had to jump through for Obamacare. Singapore pretty much turned on a dime there.
What we have is very different.
We need to think whether drinking the koolaid of being more like the democratic world will work when the world doesn’t stick around when things falls apart.
