In any case, it is not just the lower-income Singaporeans who are suffering at the hands of PAP. I mean, unless your family has got properties or a great business on the side, the get-a-degree-work-hard class of citizens are just as squeezed by the inflation. No doubt they, including yours truly, can downgrade their lifestyle – they can go from car to bus, from condo-aspirations to 3 room flats..but where does this stop? When does this endless downgrade in aspirations stop?

The majority of the citizens no longer benefit from the extra GDP dollars generated by our govt’s economic policies. For every extra dollar I get, I pay $2 more as a result. I much rather I earned $1k less and have $100,000 more in purchasing power or retirement money.

My parents were primary school educated, but as blue collar workers 20+ yrs ago, they had higher real (inflation adjusted) income than my wife and I.

In any case, if I didn’t know better, I might have listened to some old man’s recent nonsense on some farce-of-a-forum, saying this is an inevitable global phenomenon. I know cos I have Singaporean friends living outside of this little island nation, doing exactly what many of us would have wanted for a simple life – to be able to afford a home we are satisfied with, and not merely making do with a lousier smaller place that cost more than their original dream home – and be saving enough to look forward to a normal retirement at age 50+.

Again the old man said people shouldnt retire so young cos they will most probably “die” once they stop being active..heck…the ability to retire and the actual retiring are two separate issues. He knows cos he has the ability to.

Talk about putting yourselves in others’ shoes. Honorable leader? Yes, maybe 15yrs ago. Not anymore.

JM was the part of the SDP’s team contesting Jalan Besar GRC. The others in the team were Low Yong Nguan, Gandhi Ambalavan and David Chew. If you have been following opposition politics and their politicians, you will understand that this is a group of people with fiercely superb oratory skills that could work up any crowd any where. Herein lies the danger.

In the opposing camp were the incumbents, headed by Lee Boon Yang and his team of relatively new and unheard of politicians.

Do you now get the picture why LKY and his whole machinery had to step in to lend LBY his hands?

If left alone, LBY would have been crushed and PAP’s GRC program would have collapsed and backfired. Oh, it must not happen – at ALL cost!

JM was later sued for defamation. His team-mates were not let off either – just for being there that night.

briefly; it was the 1997 ge and SDP was then at the fore-front of opposition representation in parliament, having won 3 seats at the last ge.

1997 ge was then termed, the watershed ge where expectations were high and Singaporeans were gearing up to see a good fight.

The PAP, in order to place itself in an advantageous position, increased some of the GRC teams from 4 to 6 candidates in each team. The press and media were all geared up to entrap the opposition upon the instructions of the mighty rulers.

The ge got off to a slow start and feeling bored, LKY then created the first stir.
Fearing the fiery oratory delivery skills of Jufrie Mahmood at the previous night’s rally, he resorted to comment that he looked more like a gangster with his unkempt goatee.

Next morning, photos of JM was pasted all across the news mediums. That night, JM, at his rally, talked about the lack of issues from the PAP and because they had nothing better to do, they resorted to name-calling and making remarks that attacks the person. Somehow, JM made some reference to himself being a malay and that was IT . . . . ! ! !

It was the ’slip’ the pap was looking for – - – “blasphemy!” they shouted!
The press followed the wind and its full machinery went into overdrive.

LKY then coined and branded JM a communalist!

Together with the press it became the election issue – nothing else mattered.

This is how it has been eversince . . . . .

lost lost lost…
we singaporeans always have a great lost…

but NOT..ALL WILL CHANGE..
CHANGE…
HEHEHEHE…

totally sad about LKY le…
not effort made by him le…all the good ha made,has gone,,…
hai.

wake up./….
wake wake up up./..

i wasn’t active in current affairs, not to say politics, so i’m ashamed not to understand the full length of your post, especially on Mohd Jufrie, the issue on msm. i’ll check them up some other times, or maybe you can give brief explanations…

Remember Mohd Jufrie? even his goatee was a problem.

The opposition must do likewise, or at least channel some resources into doing the same. I am sure the PAP big guns would sit down after every rally to study, scrutinise and pick up any small details that can be used against the opposition and even to use them to direct the flow of traffic with intention to entrap them.

Likewise, the opposition must collaborate to unite their resources to do the same.

I am sure ministers like LSS could be cornered easily. See the other article where he describes LKY along the same line as Deng Xiao Ping. He is insinuating that LKY is communist. He even went into details on their similarities.

Another point i missed out earlier, the opposition must work around the msm. This is one of the biggest hurdle if not THE hurdle. It is here that the PAP speakers would correct the mistakes they make or slips of the tongues etc. during the heated campaign trail.

It’s a long road but the opposition must start to stategize otherwise it would be another futile attempt to win anything.

And the big losers will be – again – you and me.

very good point on collaboration.
i also believe in politician who are willing to serve its people, to take care of its people, each and every one of us, to listen to us, to understand us.

i dun quite agree on the point on ignoring accusations during campaign. currently, most of our oppositions are hot-headed. how can we expect them to represent us in the parliament when they get into lawsuit even before walking into the parliament?

if you look at the the pap politicians, i would say not many are good public speakers. but they are calm in interview and during campaign, choosing to answer questions that are in their favor and avoiding questions that may be detrimental to their policies. that’s politics, you must know when to say what’s right.

the point i’m trying to put across is, we need oppositions who are cool-headed, who can think carefully before they act. it’s not just about fighting their opponents just for the sake of fighting.

if you are only reading the article as a story or like you would a novel and being unfeeling to the characters therein – then, yes; what you say might just be true – that it is not enough to fight the case.

however, we are talking about real people with real lives to live through each day no matter what. every ONE suffering person in this world today is one too many. what more if it is a country with a 1st world economy.

Do you know how many of these people who work as administrative assistants, taxi-drivers, laboratory technicians, hawkers and teaching assistants, etc owns HDB flats and are OK? You don’t. So your just two sad stories is not enough to hold water lah…even less to term it as the elusive Singapore Dream.

the collaboration must be such that each oposition party specifically tackles one or two issues only.

do your homework, hold discussions with pro-pap supporters to get their opinions and use these information to prepare your counter approach.

each opposition to harp on the same topic they have undertaken throughout the duration of the rally period – best is to plan for complete coverage within 9 days – you’ll get no more than this for sure.

during the hustle and bustle of campaigning, ignore all accusations and threats of law suits – focus just on your attacks. if you are threatened with law suits, you’ll definitely get it no matter what! countering them will only add flame to the fire.

in every past ge, the pap was able to defend its position because the issues tackled by the opposition were too similar. This made it so easy for the pap to counter with its whole machinery and the opposition would then be cornered in no time.

this time the opposition must work to stretch the pap from all directions so that its machinery has to turn to all the directions the opposition is attacking from. When we are able to get all the ministers and their kachang putehs talking, then we might just be able to catch on some slips here and there.

private individuals supporting the opposition’s cause would do well to remember to book the speakers corner as soon as the ge is called. we can then chip in with our 5cents worth of opinions.

There are only two recouse for pissed off singaporeans … civil disobedience or migration.

Those who can afford will choose to migrate. Like me.

Those left behind will one day, out of no choice, choose civil disobedience to end it all.

Singaporeans keep saying the opposition is not up to mark. Ask yourself, what has the PAP done these two years that is “up to mark”?

I think that is only an excuse for the inertia. Singaporeans need to be fried up their assholes to really want to do something.

I predict it will probably take another 5-10 years to reach that level of misery to see something happening in Singapore.

It is also the time when most likely LKY will not be around. A headless bunch of PAPees with an unhapppy lot of peasants is a very potent mixture for chaos.

It is also why there are more singaporeans leaving … we don’t want to wait for that day to come.

A loud voice is useless if say ur watching TV and there’s a mute button.