Elfred: About Good Leaders And Entering Politics.

Our PM’s response to calls for two parties system or for change was this: If there must be change, let it be within the party. And within the party, these are the ideal changes from offline and online inclinations:
1. Sack MM Lee, sack Minister Wong Kan Seng… and sack Elfred alongside with them…
2. Get a PM who is not Chinese…
3. Get people the likes of Goh Meng Seng and such who are passionate to serve, got guts and lah lah lah…
4. Get rid of the scholars…

Before we proceed on, let us just face this… Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said if we don’t have good leaders Singapore will sink deeply and if PM cannot govern he’d be kicked out by the people. And pardon my bemusement that, isn’t it he who didn’t see cultural development that important? Isn’t his batch who had made Singapore undergone social engineering whereby a politically apathetic and rugged society be created on a booming cultural desert? Isn’t this environment of meritocracy based on ABCDs and built upon a politically apathetic and rugged and booming cultural desert be his credits?

My next question comes pretty naturally: Where hence can you find good leaders from a population of politically apathetic and rugged society on moral high grounds depriving them of cultural development for decades for the sake of pushing economic development to the extreme that would score an A in all political ten years series?

Is there a ten years series in the first place?

On what hence will good leaders for the political field be defined even in conceptual terms? How can we fight corruption by giving merits to successful business leaders who maximise profits in an everlasting pursue after greed for wealth and lust after power? How can this be a better world where good souls shall be expected to accept the leadership of blind greed and snobbery in the society? Business world is a world infamous for snobbish pursue of brands, labels and… credentials.

I do not disagree PM Lee’s idea that change must be made within PAP. But the puzzle is without sowing the right seeds, without creating the right environment for the right political elements to be groomed, where will the PM find the fruits of good changes within the party? Is he asking for a miracle whereby credentials never promise the unexpected.

You can imagine a curious Elfred staring at the party leader in the land of opportunities and possibilities for what intended changes he might have in mind. And here kicks the topic starting into the milky way.

Many Tongues One Language: My Language.

In 1971, about 5 years before heaven blessed this sinister world with a baby codenamed Elfred,  a man with political conviction talked about the elements of success for a tiny state with no hinterland to fall back on. And the priority was politics, and an efficient and effective government, of which the economy could fall back on, which was an idea which is coincidentally shared by this baby.

Where politics is concern, Human Resource is the key since politics is about humans. Without humans to lead and be led, there is no politics to start with.

I have always argued on the basis of the importance of the right political wisdom in human resource management instead of relying on the right political system in human resource management. The social impact of any system is first diversifications, then a weakening in national strength due to diversified social classes would in turn mean the rise of scoundrels, and a system to be easily circumvented to be exploited by demons in all sorts of office political stunts and tricks, and to be used against the better elements in the society. It is very easy to gain merits from naive and ignorant authorities to start shutting paladins up so that some indian chiefs can go on their havoc in the society, hence regime.

This is why I have never advocated a reliance on systems the extent Mr Lee would religiously having faith in all those decades. It is not that I am purposely rebellious, and it is not that I don’t understand or am not seeing the system functioning all these years… but on the basis of common sense and profound learning, the most basic issue about leadership renewal and such is simply summed up in an old chinese saying: Know means know, no know means no know. If you try to rely on a system to cheat an answer to the unknown, you are only cheating yourself in the end.

So political leaders either know or no know.

One of the issues in PAP that gets my attention is the election of grassroots and PAP executives, and now in the YPAP. The issue about having GRC system is broadly known to the public that if we go by normal elections, aliens needed by the government will find themselves disfavored by the electorate. If this is true, then having elections within the PAP signals three things in the public: 1. Factions are a main concern; 2. Aliens are not a concern altogther; 3. Actually, it’s a process for the sake of being a process.

Maybe we should have mini-GRC in internal elections…?

Which means if MM Lee himself were to be born and be joining a party in this scenario when the Tunku and the lots supporting Tan Siew Sin were in control of the party, our MM would have to be very lucky. Which means that in this system, MM’s ability of governing is not the issue but luck is. Which also means that Mr Lee Kuan Yew is not really of ministerial calibre as compared to Mr Tan Tock Seng who ran a huge company with a lot more income, hence bigger contributions to the society, and Mr Tan led more employers than a lawyer MM Lee were to be. Which also means that the fight for a parliament seating would be between Mr Tan Tock Seng and Mr TT Durai of old NKF before NKF scandal shook the world.

And of course, you cannot expect Mr Durai who favored simpletons to favor Lee Kuan Yew which SPH would eventually crush Durai. And you cannot expect Tan Tock Seng to favor Lee Kuan Yew as well because all you need to do to know why is to read your history on Mr Tan. So poor Lee Kuan Yew will have to depend on the luck of Singapore to become the PM, isn’t it? Because by meritocracy, Lee Kuan Yew’s idea of a hinterland failed while many other business people have more creative plans resulting in having a lot more reserves and bigger networks.

From  MM’s memoirs, he did certain things including hiring the Gurkhas whom he secretly cheered for where as a result the government has employed a Gurkha company for its anti-riot police squad from the 1960s to this day. (Vol 1. Pg 55) What would have happened as a result if Mr Lee were to be a reborn into the above scenario and he could go back time before PAP has such belief on system? And how would that have affected PM’s thinking now about changes from within?

Let Elfred speaks the blunt truth… System is blind, you need alot of luck instead of talents to make it.  Without wisdom in human resource and many other things, if we are going to talk about having changes and that finding political talents for eventual changes, ain’t we just are talking about gambling? And we have two casinos coming which we can have a wager on this.

As with any system in this known world… critters lurk within the fabrics designed for the blind. Even computer systems have issues from vira and trojans, there is simply no total security without holes. Who would have thought that a machine would have ‘virus’ back then? If we trust the dead cool silicons, we’d be dead.

Yes. Politics is the priority. But let us face it, who really have bothered about this priority over so many years? You still think you can find a living healthy man with a healthy mind who wandered in a cold hard desert for many years in God’s will flooding with deadly snakes and critters to make a better world? Or are you looking for an animal?

Be pragmatic. You are looking for a miracle.

A New Political Era: Entering Politics 101.

Some people suggested, why don’t Elfred start a new party and help this ailing world? Why don’t you support Tan Kin Lian? Why don’t you do something about anything? Why don’t you go back to MPS? Are you rebelling by going indpendent? Are you after power and such? And all sorts of suggestions and accusations and speculations and so on.

I sometimes flirt with the idea that this tiny island is like one sick little desert where creatures move around with feelers and not brains. They care about the way forward as far as their pathetically short feelers can reach, and of a way that they care so much without the care to evolve properly for it nor to even seriously look into it. I almost forget… many are blind. They need a system to guide them and social norms which they don’t and care not to understand for them to work and as such, they expected MM Lee to quit politics by right when he was stepping down as PM, by right after he was SM, and by right again when he becomes MM…

And they refuse to acknowledge that in real they are the ones who should by right get their brains checked. And this by right society has not been giving Elfred a better time on by-rights as well. Look at that shameless joker Beggarchief in YPAP forum, and historians would have known. It’s the same as the underlying issue of looking for a man for leadership renewal in a prolonged desert with plenty of critters hunting for fresh… Singapore has this totally whacky ideology: I want big returns, I no want risks… you need to show me credentials.

Fuck lah~

You want a tree, you don’t want to sow the seed, and you love to gamble what kind of returns you’d got from this… You must be crazy to expect something wonderfully huge bearing fruits instead of a long long weed called money-plant.

How do you expect Elfred to debate if he doesn’t fill some juice into his emtpy vessel in the first place?

The problem about Singapore is its laughable inclination towards volume instead of mass, whereby (eg) you read all those big talks about morals when in fact, nobody really knows what the fuck are morals. An epitome was my little exchanges with that empty vessel Goh Meng Seng back in the YPAP forum. He even tried resorting to chinese when… Didn’t he have a brain to have wanted to challenge Elfred in his forte?

But this ridiculous rugged society is just so funny.

We have known exactly what the fuck element it is for entering politics by the usual route which is luck lah~

But it is far-fetched if entering politics is all about luck because even the state can be very unlucky that implies if it is all just about luck, why do people need to be so geared up in order to govern a state properly? Why would great thinkers be so sought after and valued by wise emperors? There must be a reason why certain states are less luckier than Singapore being plagued with ridiculously high doses of corruptions and miseries, and why thinkers can ‘predict’ fortunes with great accuracies. If luck is an issue, then luck in politics is obviously a scientific concern because some people usually make the right political decisions and some people usually crush the regime, and I don’t think those thinkers who became lucky often struck lotteries or brought along their lucky coins to toss for making decisions.

Politics is about grey areas. And politics is not just about domestic issues whereby many Singaporeans even in civil sectors seem to assume so.

So now we jump to the questions about entering politics. This becomes a hottie when Tan Kin Lian recently made news about possible entry into politics… or more correctly put: It’s an entry into an election for parliament seating. This is because Mr Tan was a PAP member for many years. Perhaps many Singaporeans ain’t aware, once you have joined a political party, taken the membership… when you are registered under a political party, under a political leader or a branch, you are in politics somehow. Just that the role may not be that prominent, and of course, the nature would be different.

For instance: If you hold the PAP card, and you register for election without the party’s knowledge, and if you got elected in view of the system at then, you are still probably a PAP Member of Parliament. In ordinary elections, when you are participating, you are a PAP activist. And you are talking about national issues, your good concerns are to the credit of a concerned PAP member. And that also means, if you play gods in forums, and you go to Geylang fuck girls, and you play office politics and you exercise what PAP-styled bombardment… they all go to the credits of PAP.

However in this blog, it’s just about Elfred.

In short, when Mr Tan retired from PAP formal membership, he becomes a senior in a way… Just say if MM Lee were to suggest to himself, “I am so bored, nobody listens to me in PAP anymore; I don’t care what the fuck party runs Singapore, I’m getting myself out of this party…” MM might have retired from PAP, but he’d be still known as a party retiree with his political influence intact.

So correctly put, Mr Tan Kin Lian is making news for intending to enter election, not entering politics. Obviously, if NTUC is a union, it’s a political office of some sorts, Mr Tan would have been considered to be in politics for years. Who in the right mind would suggest that the CEO of NTUC would be of someone from (eg) SDP?

So basically, do we need to answer the questions laid out in the start of this session? Think about it. Why do you think there would even be a need to start a new party? Or join Tan Kin Lian? Or whatever? No one in the right mind enters political contests anyohow, and based merely on self-beliefs. It doesn’t matter how I or Tan Kin Lian or Ti Lik or whoever sees PAP, but as I have explained to Gleechoo… real talented people for this industry focus on the right things. Just as if God gives you a choice in the face of history… to enter politics fighting to rule as a Chinese before Japanese occupation or after, which will you choose?

Without God, talents use their brains…

‘There was no question of any resentment. The superior status of the British in government and society was simply a fact of life…’ (Vol 1, pg 51.)

As the MM has covered in his first memoir, no one questioned the superiority of the British colonial master; those elites had the best of times until the Japanese brought in the crisis, starting from the Northern tip of Malaya… The people saw the British’s reality as the crisis burnt nearer and nearer to their lives in phases… And until the Japanese crisis was about right at the doorstep, the population was still having some hope for the colonial master to perform in… this super fortress (I called that Super Ivory Tower). In MM’s memoir, he clearly described the people’s awakening to the reality of their colonial master: Weak, incompetent, irresponsible, corrupted, arrogant, full of lies, and snobbish. The people of Temesek paid a high price as they enjoyed the final phase of this crisis… to realise that they needed to get rid of those elites after the world defeated the Japanese, and a new struggle began after the crisis was over.

What was MM Lee accordingly to his memoir? He was a jobless, his family was rendered poor, the elites who were then the Japanese robbed their stuffs, and he ended up without schooling and then he had to go underground bartering in the black market, and eventually he also joined the service of the invaders. He had his experiences under the two classes of elites: The British and the Japanese.

Now, which part in his memoirs has he going into a fight against the colonial master before the war, and which part has he going into a fight against the Japanese during the occupation?  In Vol 1, pg 56, he had his narrow escape instead of doing a Dr Chee style confrontation or organising 1000 people to fight the Japanese… When had MM Lee taught anyone to fight like that?

As I told Gleechoo… History loves ironies, and loves to repeat itself.

This is how a man survived to be in his fight for power, which eventually made him the Prime Minister of Singapore.

Many people online said Elfred is a coward, said I have no guts as compared to Goh Meng Seng, and much less as compared to Dr Chee and the bunch of clowns. How can Elfred be a coward? How can I be a lackey? Beggercrap even throws nosense saying I am shameless and such… But how does anyone think MM Lee survived back then? He made a mistake in serving the Japanese and resigned, and was horrified that he was subsequently marked by the murderous invaders…

I have seen all sorts of nosense in online and offline talks about politics… about creative ways and great perceptions on politics and political participants. Naturally, to people like myself… they are just nosense. And if you expect me to join Tan Kin Lian at Hong Lim especially when Mr Lee Kuan Yew is still around, you must wash your brain. Not that Elfred has not his fair share of sufferings and issues, say, with the sectors under the regime.

‘I was unlikely to get results by simply pushing against the government, so I decided…‘ (Vol 1, pg 157)

Remember MM Lee is still around, and he was this guy who ‘…all the hopeless and near-hopeless cases against the government had been coming to me as a counsel of last resort. I had prosecuted on quite a number of fiats, getting convictions against minor officials for bullying underdogs …’. (Vol 1, pg 156) And he is the same guy, albeit aging now, in the government when this Hong Lim show is on.

I just want to let people understand what are happening in our time similarly happened in his time.  And why is Elfred doing what he is doing is nothing of any surprise. The only surprise is these memoirs are published, and probably read by many in this field, and yet… nobody seems to care.

As MM Lee is recovering from his recent surgery, a new political era is actually just round the corner. Among the population may be another Lee Kuan Yew, and where there was a Lee Kuan Yew, they were Tan Siew Sin and Lim Chin Siong… and so on.

Politics is not so easy. It’s not just “Hey! America has a Barrack Obama! We can also have!”, since in the 60s, where was this: “Hey! Singapore has a PAP! We can also have one in USA!”

I am laughing as I was keying in this part. Entering politics or even governing in itself would hence not be taken for granted. Hopefully those who are reading this are laughing with me, including those who were laughing at me. A new political era is indeed coming, hence a new world… The PM did make his response to the world that if there is to be change, it has to be within PAP. If people don’t believe him, just believe that history won’t lie.

Before Mr Lee Kuan Yew addressed his audience… he was a jobless without schooling running for his life as he helplessly watched fellow Singaporeans died and suffered when the Japanese hit Singapore. Do you think he would stand a chance against the Japanese elites if he learnt from Dr Chee, if he learnt from all those oppositions such as that asshole Goh Meng Seng buzzing online…? Think again.

Elfred will not stop anybody taking any baptism of fire or leading 20,000 people against the government… And all the more I shan’t stop anyone from PAP or oppositions going to compete for a parliament seating.

But if people really want real change… people themselves would have to be prepared to change first. Internet is not really the issue. Governance is.