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Abstracts of essays; news; announcements; short takes.
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- Yawning Bread Sampler
- This blog carries summary abstracts of Yawning Bread essays, with space for comments.
Here too are other tidbits that are too short for the main Yawning Bread site.
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2008
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June
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- Orchard Road: boom, bust, stuck and shut
- Key concerns about internet deregulation emerge at...
- In the heartlands
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- Norway legalises gay marriage
- Rainbow rising in the Western sky
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- The Singapore Democratic Party: method or madness?
- We duds at the pinnacle of evolution
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- Whose misbehaviour diminishes us all?
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June
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Posts
7 comments:
>AIMS seemed to be going out of its way to find justifications for retaining the present law banning political films
I believe the ban has 2 main motivations:
1. the "cnfucian" view of showing deferrence to leaders, whereas films can be easily used to ridicule; remember the sensation over the Mr Brown video on pork noodles? in itself it was an innocuous little piece of satire, and some ministers even found it amusing, but not long after, Today withdrew his column
2. films can also be easily used by opposition as propaganda tools
in the west it might be believed that elected officials are servants of the people, who are entitled to ridicule them if the poeple so choose, as americans do many times every day to George Bush, and that alternatives to the official view are entitled to equal dissemination; this is asia
No surprises from Cheong really. Is he a card carrying PAP member? I thought it might be more transparent for all the participants to divulge their political affiliations or memberships, if any.
>transparent for all the participants to divulge their political affiliations or memberships
actually, PAP, considering its power and wide control, has a relatively small membership size, especially if you only count the more substantial cadre members who can vote for the central executive
but even people who are not PAP members would instinctly align with the views of the top leadership: the economic power of the "establishment" is just too great; the "system" provides jobs through various ministries, statutory organizations, GLCs, etc, scholarships, financial schemes, investment opportunities, research funding...; in fact, even in private companies and multinationals there are many who align their interests with the "system"
Yuen: in the west it might be believed that elected officials are servants of the people, who are entitled to ridicule them if the poeple so choose, as americans do many times every day to George Bush, and that alternatives to the official view are entitled to equal dissemination; this is asia
Are you suggesting elected officials in Asia do not need to earn the respect of the public? That incompetent officials in Asia are exempted from ridicule and criticism? Respect is not an entitlement. People do not ridicule and criticise without reasons.
Instead the dichotomy that pits so-called Asian values against Western ones is often invoked as a poor excuse to shield officials from accountability and criticism.
>Yuen: ... Are you suggesting
I am stating it IS so
if you read my second comment, you will find it explains how things operate in many other asian countries: through formal and informal mechanisms, wide control over economic resources is also used to control other resources
"We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert."
- J. Robert Oppenheimer
o my; I am not sure how many people here know nuclear history, but all those presidential scholars around would know the ideas you discussed; they know, for example, that businesses need competition to remain efficient, so they foster sibling rivalries among GLCs (like allowing Mediacorp to publish newspapers and SPH to own TV stations); in terms of maintaining strict control yet make money, the "system" has been very innovative; they also say they never claimed to hold a monopoly over ideas; if you quote Oppenheimer to them, that would be their answer
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