Govt should b like a parent? Speak for yourself and enjoy your spanking, but you must think you’re intelligent enough for them to want to treat you differently.

Well Jo, ST is in my backyard, not the Vatican, and even so, at least you can choose to go down the Protestant Road…i.e. you have a choice. With ST, you get a booklickers paradise.

I would have no problem with ST “subtle editorializing” if there was another newspaper publisher that was not majority government owned. Because ST would be out of business in no time.

This administration that took a geographical fart has put a limit on our development. There are greater heights to pursue, greater justice and greater equality for ALL. You and me. We are accepting a mediocre pilot in a stealth fighter – thats how much respect I have for the people of Singapore, the majority of whom you have referred to as not being very “smart”.

Most people are not very “smart”. They are driven by emotion. Hell, even I do stupid things like buying overpriced ice cream or clothes because of advertising.

The government should indeed be a like a parent. If your kid wants to eat sand – yeah, perfectly OK to resort to propaganda and psy ops to prevent the stupid tot from doing something stupid. It’s not like the ST is brainwashing you to kill puppies.

If one rants against ST’s subtle editorializing, why not rant against religions that teach you to discriminate, to donate not to help others but to inflate the coffers of the religion to build grand places of worship when the only place you need to worship is in your heart. Why the hell is there a Vatican with billions of dollars in cash and real estate when there are so many poor, hungry and diseased children in the world? Now THAT doesn’t fucking make sense to me and makes me angry. Those are the fuckers that need to be taken down, not an administration that has taken a small little geographical fart to the heights of development.

I wish I could give you a lesson on locutional intent or quite simply, “to read between the lines”. Note the explicit/implicit distinction in my earlier post. What are the PAP’s attitude to protests? Please educate yourself here yoursdp.org. If you think this is a political comparison and irrelevant, educate yourself further by pondering over the double standards when CASE conducted a protest and when the TBT18 did. And if you are still unsure, I cant help you, you just have a different value system and I dont have a problem with that. Some recognition that Singapore is bigger than the PAP would be good enough for me.

And for your information, I do not think protests are bad for “the” (are you referring to Thailand or Singapore? I am assuming Singapore) economy. In the case of Singapore (by your reference to the PAP), I think protests can be managed like they are in London and many other places in the world where protestors and police work together to determine the nature of the protests, where/when they wld be held. This is totally do-able. The boundaries of your words suggests a black and white complex. Protests = Bad, No Protests = Good. You may want to clarify this.

That is what the post and the title of the ST is driving at. Its a deliberate strategy of sensitisation. You seem to be proof of it and you can sit on a ivory tower and claim neutrality. And thats why I dont really bother whether you agree or disagree but what any level-headed person would want is an appreciation of nuance. I found this missing in your comment.

You dont need to agree or disagree with the writer. YouR tone (read between the lines) is enough for me to draw the same conclusions you make of the writer’s “amorphous analogical style” which invites many to superimpose their own prejudices and affirmation in YOUR comments. I’ll let the writer speak for himself/herself, but I would be curious to what you make of the Straits Times’ agenda in pursuance of a national agenda it defines within rather narrow perimeters. For thats what the piece is about not some amorphous analogical style, its about substance. But for the record, I do find affirmation the writer’s comment because it makes sense. Analogies are extremely helpful.

You may notice I have neither agreed nor disagreed with the writer, I merely requested that his argument be made more explicit, instead of the interesting but amorphous analogical style which invites many, including yourself, to superimpose their own prejudices and find affirmation in his words.

The writer was talking about ST’s doublespeak which explicitly (implicitly I hope for your sakes, at the very least) defends the PAP’s attitude to protests etc. You need to see this in spite of the fluent prose (dont get drunk on it). The central argument is not about false dilemmas. The false dilemma is a means to an end. Its about media manipulation and spin to defend a state-generated ideology. The writer made no connection between democracy and stability beyond his central thesis.

I understand you have your own queries, maybe you should start your own anon blog and leave the hyperlink here, or you could put aside your blinkers and open your mind a little more (sarcasm unintended).

Wormie,

The idea that people who disagree with one political system are “idealists” is an unfounded fiction you need to get past. Nobody is expecting paradise on earth. But each generation should work to make it better than that which was left behind by the last generation. The perception in Singapore is that a Fukuyama styled “end of history” moment has arrived with the PAP. You seem satisfied with it. Glory be to you. But others feel that more can be done given the resources we have. Then your wet blanket shows up and envelopes us all, “oh, you idealists”! Get a grip, life is worth more than a pre-election cheque.

You start by explaining what a false dilemma is using the analogy of your parents. But is that really a false dilemma, or really just an incentive system they used in an obviously failed attempt to guide you behaviour?

So what exactly is a false dilemma, and how does the Bangkok headline pose a false dilemma?

You have a lot of interesting stories and supporting evidence, but what are you really trying to say? Is this about democracy vs stability you keep alluding to? What has the PAP done and what choice would you make?

“the PAD is leaving a big mess, there’s no two ways about it. its like a thug who cannot get its way through the proper channels and has resorted to gangsterism.”

Thaksin is no saint either. Sure, his agenda may be democratic, but giving lolipops to the poor and “winning” their vote do not make him a messiah next to the PAD. Of course there is going to be a big mess.

Its big business vs. the national interest. Businessmen dont support the national interest as a matter of course, intellectuals do. The roots of this disaster we see unfolding in Bangkok took root when Thaksin’s introduced a new brand of politics in Thailand, strong central leadership/authority, hijacked through democracy.

When you dont have democratic institutions that can expose politicians and the histories, you get a case of choosing between devils and the deep blue sea. The suggestion that the PAD has resorted to gangsterism is precisely what groundnotes is talking about in regard to the ST headline.

Your argument is exposed when you say “and so what if LKY said the military will step in if the opposition takes over govt in a freak election?”

So much for your talk about thugs who cannot get their way through “proper channels”.