Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Killing

A man shot dead the Russian Ambassador to Turkey today in Ankara.

There have been many killings around the world everyday, in big cities and small towns, among friends and among families, between people who do not see eye to eye with each other and do not want to, between people who have a misunderstanding because they have different upbringing and experiences.

But this particular killing is the result of anger over political actions in Syria by local and foreign forces which has resulted in the ruins of towns and homes, and the death of many people with those alive fleeing for their lives.

Will this one killing of an official avenge for all those killings of many ordinary people, and the matter ends? Will it stop further killings? Or will a proud nation demonstrate to the world its superiority and take matters to a level that prompts other equally proud nations to a show of force?

We can only tremble at the prospects.

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Lying

Is lying the result of dishonesty or incompetence?

Most of us assume that someone told lies because they are saying something that is different from the truth.

But what is truth?

Surely when we know what has transpired, we know what the truth is. "I stole the money and I try to hide the tracks to the money I have stolen."

But things can get a bit more complex. "I want the money but I do not want to know how that money comes about and how does it come to my access. All I want to know is how much is that money and how can I have access to it." One can pretend not to know the whole process. One can pretend to be stupid. One can pretend that one prayed and the money appeared.

Of course, all this pretending and not wanting to know exactly how the whole thing is done has been captured in that image of the ostrich sticking its head in the sand. But then someone has to tell the ostrich that its arse is sticking out.

One has to be really clever to be dishonest, as we also have an excellent example in our midst. That cleverness stems from playing the legal game. "Well, where is the evidence?" The trick in hiding evidence is to lay the whole theft in very public display, such as in the form of a public policy. "My purpose in this policy is to take money away from the rich and give it to my friends who are looking after me." This can be couched in very general terms. There is nothing to give the stolen wealth to friends because they are not given to the thief directly and the friends fall within the categories as defined by policy. Very clever.

The only person who can blunder in lying as in stealing is to be less than vigilant, by being incompetent. It is tough enough to cover all the tracks and pretend not to know; worse, is not wanting to know completely and then doesn't know anything at all. You have not way to control the whole situation. Your backside is wide open.

***

It is foolhardy to expect politicians to be honest.Politicians lie from the moment they decided to be politicians.

They tell themselves and their supporters: I want to be a politician to help the people.

There is nothing wrong with that as an intention. But what is very wrong with it as a statement of truth is that they do not have a clue as to how to help the people. They may know how to help themselves and how to help their friends, but they do not know how to help all the people in society.

They may know how to argue, how to disagree, how to protest, how to create a challenge. But can do many things that are negative. But they do not know how to do anything positive, by building on what is already good and creating a greater society.

That's why never, never, never ever believe in any one politician. Politics is never about the politicians. Politics is a process and it is always about the political process.

In democracy, the political process is always about changing the politicians and the democracy is in the choice by vote of the politicians. Democracy is not about one political master choosing the next political leader for us; that's political dynasty.

***

So now we have each group championing one cause and then appearing all over the place.

We have one championing "clean election" which becomes embroiled in calling for the resignation of the prime minister. I thought they are fighting for clean elections which are a very specific and very difficult thing to do. Do we clean up elections through crowding out in the streets, no matter how peacefully? Isn't there a "cleaner" way of doing the job more effectively?

***

I am wary of people playing with emotions through social media. Things can end really end up very messy.

***

I am calling for competence.

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Hypocrisy

Alas, we cannot ignore the rampant spread of hypocrisy in our society where there are double and triple standards and everybody is lying through their teeth just so that they can outshout each other and shutting everybody up; they having the final say and the monopoly of the public voice.

The corruption of the nation starts with the corruption of the integrity of our national institutions by the elimination of their independent powers and condensing all powers of the nation in the hands of one man, both political and economic. This was done long ago but in our lifetime. What we see now is the secondary effects of that degeneration, where corruption is taken to be normal and only something much worse than corruption may be abhorred, maybe the loss of life?

Our nation has turned into a circus where everything is played for the media to display. There are no more men and women who are satisfied in speaking quietly ready to compromise. There is one-upmanship everywhere. The s--t has risen to the top and they all seem to be very proud of themselves.

What is now there for the nation?

Are we going to spend our time glued to the media for the information and no truth? Or do we turn inward to ourselves, contemplate and ignore reality?

It is clear that there is a political battle going on on a full scale in clear sight of everyone. The one who is very old feels that he has one last bit to do before he dies, so that he can have the last say and leave us with his s--t. There is one who is embattled by a series of bad judgements and bad advisers and who have really made a very bad situation much worse. We have olf soldiers of the last regime who feel that they must defend their old legacy and pile all the blames on the current one. There are the old opponents (not enemies) who have been play the devil's advocate for so long as the counter-party to the old regime and one should really not be surprised when the two sides synthesies to make the old as one (they are the same). There are the minorities who have been so marginalised from the mainstream that they have an existence of their own, and the use of the GST to weed them out is the last straw for the economy which will now see the bottom falling off. The new monopolies that have been created to become the pillars for the new economic policies have become so inefficient that they only way for them to pay divendends to the government is to raise the fees the general public must pay for the services they have monopolised. And these fat GLCs think they are clever.

Money corruption, although not honourable, is a product of an inefficient and cumbersome government machinery. But money corruption on a grand scale across the board is bad in many ways, first, in ruining hard work and productivity gains, and second, in ruining the currency as these corrupt money must somehow be stashed away overseas to avoid being caught and to protect themselves against a currency which by their very act have helped to weaken so systemically.

I do not admire the old guard who came out to warn about the weakness of the ringgit. Well, he should know what he was talking about because he had done it before. And the central bank is still dishing out the same old intervention measures. What's new?!