We have a choice in our destiny of life. Having work and travel overseas opened her perspective wider. Many of us, due to our very attitude of life, will stay dormant even though we know that we new a new change of life and direction. Zachel is one lady who has the courage to do so and voice her concern.

Our very survival in Singapore need more people like Zachel. Spore’s political climate has gone to the dogs. Many citizens are marginalised into third world living, boasting as first. Yes! first world to the million paid Ministers and their cronies and people benefitted by PAP mainly inter-related to them by one way or the other.

Governments around the world, with absolute powers, always degenerate into
self-abused of the very system they built. S’pore is no different.

Personally, I was with the CC for 7 years. willing to serve the community through
the organisation deemed PAP- inclined and beholden. As I moved along, my judgement and perspective changed. The ugly side of human nature showed its true colours. Many serve the CC and RC for self motive and agenda. The mean side of human character surfaced and you really felt sick. I left the CC circle in 2006 but am happy serving the community as a volunteer for the poor and destitute. A sense of better belonging.

Have seen the world through the years. Developed world and not so developed world. Worked in Jakarta for 3 years and did business in Myanmar for 2 years before I retired graciously when I reached 60 .

S’pore need more people like Zachel, with strong ideology and dare to change.
Being poor is not a crime. What is our perceived yardstick of poverty. As long as we are not in want and work hard for our family and face the realities of life without envious comparison, we will feel happy and contented with what comfort zone we are in. We cannot compare with the legalised corrupted Ministers’ paycheck, which they robbed from many average citizens.

We need to change the political suppression we are facing for so many years.
The power is in all of us, the true blue citizens of S’pore. We cannot do justice to our children and their children if we do not act now.

We vote the PAP out for good.

At least she is doing things upfront instead of just sitting behind her computer and typing away all sorts of criticisms. I think you should appreciate her for engaging you in a discussion for so long.

Mr. TCC, I think you are being quite on the self righteous path out to convince her and us that pragmatism is the way.

So what if your way have been ‘proven’ as you mentioned. It does not mean that it will work again for everyone or forever. The world doesn’t stop at one thing. Rather, it progresses and so should we.

Sorry sir but I am another one who disagrees with you. Rachel may be young but she does not seem to lack experience from what I have been reading.

Go ahead and encourage others to be quitters of this country and let the PRCs come in to be Singaporeans. Then we can all be China’s little colony.

Take care of your basic needs. Focus on your work and the backyard before all else. Before blaming others, look into yourself and ask…’have I done enough ?”…have I worked harder than most’…have I added value today’. Some people answer “yes” all their lives, yet achieve nothing. So they blame every external factors they could find. Others keep answering “No” and find themselves lacking confidence in moving forward. I would say, be honest with yourself but know yourself really really well before putting the finger outwards. It works you know as it has been proven before.

I am only here to answer some of your questions:

1. The reason why I came back now is because I HAVE TO take care of my family. I am 26. Given another choice, I won’t be back. I will be fufilling my dream of living in a caravan, globetrotting all over the world.

2. I was a volunteer with several organisations since I was in secondary school. Now, I am mostly a teacher, a daughter and a socio-political activist helping to campaign on certain issues that few people even want to speak about. I am against the government in words and actions.

3. My family was shit poor, I grew up poor and am still poor.

Ok now, time doesn’t permit me to spend more time here. Gotta go back to rush some year end work. Tata! If this conversation happened in March, I would actually love to go on and on but it is the end of the year. So yea. :)

You know I discovered our disagreement stems from the fact that you are focusing on things that doesn’t affect our basic bread and butter needs. See you still have a job and a home to go back right ? We are not in chaos and there is no war here, at least for now. Unless where I used to lived in this country, having to jump from one train to another because of bomb threat and not being able to go out in the night to get a pack of cigarrette.

The problem is we are not thinking apple for apple. This could be due to different background and experience. I try not to be judgemental but based on what you have written you are just not convincing enough that you know what it takes. Short of me asking how old you are, I would just leave it as that. If you are a young person, I am concerned you would be facing lots of obstacles(or perceived) and not able to overcome them yourself. If you are of a older age, then nothing much to add.

Just in case you think i live in comfort and not do anything, well, I help those in need everyday. No i am not a grassroots leader. I am not too old but I made enough through sheer hardwork and being pragmatic(sorry, I have to insist). Coming from a poor family, i want to give back and put in the action and not talk. There are many ways to do it. If you want to understand what are the programmes are out there and how these programmes got the funding from the government, let me know. Rather than crying out loud here, try to do something if you haven’t. Volunteers are in demand !

Anyway you do sound like propaganda.

What makes you think that democracy or change will not help you bring food to the table? Right now because the PAP is the ruling government, because of their greed (our ministers are one of the HIGHEST PAID in the world), we are being taxed here and there, fined here and there, pay this and pay that. In Canada, the high taxes one pays goes to the health care but over here whatever taxes we pay goes to the pockets of the ministers, goes to funds to ‘help foreigners and new citizens fit in’… it goes into the hands of Temasek Holdings and GIC and where else it goes, I don’t know because it has never been transparent. Who has been fighting for the transparency of all of these? Well go google it yourself.

In a democracy, transparency will transpire. People can get to voice out and the government will be one that represents the people, the one that works for the people, not the other way round like an authoritarian government that we have now. I believe that the party I am supporting cares for the people, and that is why I am supporting them. The party unfortunately, is not PAP because PAP proves to be the contrary. I think most of the other opposition politicians do care about making life better for Singaporeans too, but they have all been brushed aside just because they are not the men in white. Pretty sad.

My apologies but I think you are not being pragmatic. Rather, you seem selfish to me because you only care about the comfort of you and your family, which led you to think that PAP has built everything. You care not about the truth behind all the lies and whitewashing not even when someone has been hinting and leaving names, hoping that you will be able search for the documents, the archives, blogs and books online and in libraries but you seem uninterested. No worries, it is never an obligation of course and you have the right to find truth in the lies and propaganda you highly believe in. You think all Singaporeans are living in comfort? Look again and it is with hope that you may see something beyond what you see nowadays.

Guess I shouldn’t waste any more time here with you any further, not that I am impatient and not that you are a bad person but there are other things to do than to keep on repeating myself to someone who is not that interested. I have said my piece(s), so I shall leave it up to you. It is always your choice to think of the larger population or just simply a small number of people. This is what I think but don’t worry, I have no intention of judging you further.

Best regards to you and may you continue to live in comfort and not fall to become one of the victims of their policies someday.

To me, he is a power hungry man who won’t blink an eye or shed a tear when betraying anyone he had worked with to ‘climb’ into power. Polyclinics and party kindergartens were ideas adopted from Barisan Socialist, did he give them any bit of credit? So many people still revered him, but I won’t respect a man who slander his ‘opponents’, make those who oppose him bankrupts and who believe in eugenics and apply it to create racial quotas for this and that. How come he got away with being such a racist? Is such a person to be credited for stepping on anyone’ shoulders to climb to power? Maybe you think so but so sorry, I don’t.

I respect childcare teachers and would credit them for building such a good foundation in my children that they are doing well in school. Rumblings are ok and no problem even if it is out of point. But you can’t just rumble without understanding history, reading wide, experiencing and giving time to think as a background. If not the rumble would just become noise(hope you like this, I am a culprit of it as well)

There are many more successful systems other than capitalism where everyone benefits. I don’t see capitalism as the perfect system because the capitalism that we see nowadays are solely profit and power driven, and not practiced for the sake of making everyone’s lives better as a community, as a nation. In fact, the capitalism we now see, especially in this country is one that has been executed with a ‘top down’ approach, meaning that the government and those who have the power and capital enforces their way of making profits upon us. The government by way of taxes, high legal fines and such; the business elites by the way of cheap labour and threatening to replace locals with cheap foreign labour who they do not even seek to treat like a fellow human being once employed (appalling housing conditions, medical benefits, long working hours and low pay). The ethics in capitalism is in non existence but people are hooked onto it just because it brings profits. Money means status and power nowadays to many, but I have to disagree with that by way of living example.

I am a child care teacher and not many have any respect for my profession. Child care teachers are mostly lowly paid for the hours they work and the responsibilities they carry, and parents do not see us as real educators when in fact early childhood education is one of the most important stage in a human being’s life. Many left the profession after a few years, some going into the service industry because even a handbag promoter can earn a higher salary than some of us, with lesser effort. We all want to make a quick buck nowadays because alot of us have the ideas of capitalism so ingrained in our conscious and subconscious minds that we make decisions based on profit making rather than purpose and benefit for all (or most).

Sure, nothing wrong with wanting to seek a better life for oneself, however when we do so, we think nothing of people we do not know about. We do not see the plight of the homeless, but the fact that they are dirty and they stink. Sometimes while we go about being contented about our own lives and success, we forget about racial quota in the university and civil service, as well as the discrimination in many job industries faced by the minorities. I say that we forget because we keep voting for the political party that had caused all of these with their ruling and policies as well as the lack of transparency and an alternative printed media.

Solutions I can suggest but it won’t be accepted by a moderate crowd. The most important thing that we can all do is to identify problems, flaws and the causes, look actively for the alternatives and solutions and eliminate the problems by eliminating the cause and source. We have to be willing to push for change and suffer awhile of teething problems, before the results come bouncing at us. The most peaceful way is by way of election although there is nothing democratic about the electoral system here. Go look for the alternative that best suits your believes and ethics. We have a variety here and now there is RP. If you believe in any of their manifesto, criticisms and solutions, support them and help them with your actions and your vote.

Nothing comes without hard work, unless you are LKY.

(Ahh busy morning, I may have rambled on out of point here and there but honestly, these are some of my opinions nevertheless)

My life experience has taught me to be pragmatic. Survival means going through the hardknocks and make a success out of it. Glad I had my fair share in the early years when I was turned down nth time struggling to get a job overseas.

I like to build upon my success to benefit those who are in need and around me. This is my little contribution. You can disagree about capitalism with me but I think we can’t live on sunshine and air. The needy need food on the table and a job to keep the family intact. When my little contribution of providing some jobs to them make them smile, and the government is not there to stop me from doing my deeds, I am satisfied. I do it with action. i hope you too

You have a definite judgement of people, situations and opinions that I feel are inflexible and very egocentrically only to your perspectives. I was in China as a teacher but not a highly paid one. I’ve also lived on scraps in Belfast for a few months. My opinions and world views were the result of experiences I have had my whole life. I said all of that again to reinforce that your assumptions of me are wrong, in my personal opinion.

You said that I think too simply of the world, I don’t think so. By being happy because there is a roof over your head and a job to provide for your family (for now) and not caring about who is the government, is simple thinking to me.

Like I said before, I have no personal interest in fame and power so I have no plans to go into the political arena. All I am interested in is the pressing issues that exists in our society that have been caused by the ruling party. You talk about personal success in a very capitalistic sense and I have to say that I disagree with you. Success is defined differently by each and every one of us and your concept of success to me, is empty success (if I apply that in my life that is). The poorest of the poor who manage to find happiness and warmth in their lives are more successful than the executive secretary of a MNC who have no time to even see her children during their waking hours.

Anyway yes, you have your right to opinions, I have to recognise that.

Agent008,

I am heartened by your words but I think that compared to some other defamed politicians who are still working hard and genuinely to reach out to the masses and to push the boundaries for them, I’ve still got a long log way to go. Don’t admire me, come join me! ;)

Don’t worry, I won’t be disheartened by the words of those who criticise. By the way, I think this applies to them too. Just change the word ‘coax’ to ‘criticise’, it works the same.

“Those who coax you but hide behind a nick name are just making noise.” – tcc

Brilliant line from tcc, I genuinely love that! :)

Hmmm… Citizen slavery, Selling the motherland, redistributing 95% of revenue to the top 5% of the population? really? I never knew that!

Must be the Shitty Times corrupting my mind with false information! We should be telling others about the truth!

Indeed, well said! Cut & paste from post above:

“Rachael, i encouraged you to run for election if you are keen. But you know what, if you do not have the success in your own career or life, I am not sure what success you could make out in politics and I certainly would not entrust my livelihood with you as my leader. If your selling point is in criticising but no solution such as how and where you could generate revenue and how you allocate budget to serve, then I say, do your homework now. You have to make your own decision.” – tcc

The pre-requisite of Commonwealth member countries is to have the common stand of upholding democracy, good governance and to eradicate poverty. As we know Commonwealth countries get to enjoy previleges (eg no need for VISA in Western countries) that countries like China does not. If our Govt continues to focus only on generating revenues (from whatever means including citizen slavery and selling away the mother land), ‘distributing’ 95% of the revenue to the top 5% of the population and 5% to the rest of 95% respectively, it will get thrown out of CW membership.

So Rachel, a good govt does need to have a sense of community and social mindedness to lead the people. I totally understand and share the sentiments of your post above. There is no justice in this land, thus perpetuating oppression even of the weak (referring to disabled, elderly & poor) to accept and be grateful for whatever crumbs they throw at them (5% revenue) to keep them alive. Some here have rightly called it dictatorship and I would like to add, dressed up in COMMERCIAL ranking reports (including economy, best city to live in for expats, best system, best education etc).

BTW Rachel, tcc thinks you are naive (think too simply of the world). I think you, as well as all those who have been bruised, are to be admired and respected for standing by what you believe for a better world. I live in a part of the world where things are always improving because of people like yourselves and because there is no oppression by rulers. Lucky me but I wish the same can be had for my fellow Singaporeans.

A candidate with a track record and experience would win my vote. Just having compassion and emotions are not going to give me the assurance that the place would be effectively run. It is the same when you employ someone, you have to look at the resume.

Rachael, i encouraged you to run for election if you are keen. But you know what, if you do not have the success in your own career or life, I am not sure what success you could make out in politics and I certainly would not entrust my livelihood with you as my leader. If your selling point is in criticising but no solution such as how and where you could generate revenue and how you allocate budget to serve, then I say, do your homework now. You have to make your own decision. Those who coax you but hide behind a nick name are just making noise.

Thank you so much! I feel very honored by your suggestion, however there is much to learn and as an activist campaigning for socio-political issues, it is better for me not to be a member of any political parties.

Our society is not matured enough yet to accept the fact that opposition politicians are also genuinely concerned in human rights issues here in Singapore as well as the rest of the world. When prominent opposition leaders from the SDP take up campaigns or petitions, they have been seen to be capitalising on such issues to gain points with the public. The thought is so immature but yet this is how it is now. To engage in advocacy work and activism is all on the agenda for now and there are no future plans to venture into the political arena. I prefer to help out the political party I truly support in the background while on the foreground along with other activists with mutual ideologies and interests, campaign on issues both local and global. Fame and power is not all I care for but social justice is.

I am just an ikan bili, there are many more out there who genuinely cares about Singaporeans but have been slapped with the label of ‘mad dogs’ and ‘psychopath’ by the real psychopaths themselves. They have also been made bankrupts, have their whole images tarnished by the state owned media. These people deserve to be recognised, more so than myself or any of the other watchdogs. I see them working hard every single day, I see them walking about talking to people on the streets and it makes my heart weep to think that they are still doing what they do despite all the defamation and obstacles.

To make things worse, some local citizens are just contented when those from the Ivory Towers throw alms at us just before the elections and end up voting for them without thinking twice and realising that the money belong to us in the first place.

___________________________________

Oh well, the opposition camp needs to work harder indeed but Singaporeans need to start realising that they cannot rely on the alms of those ‘high elves’ who are in fact one of the highest paid in the world, thanks to our willingness to pay taxes dutifully without thinking twice or utter even a sound of protest but complain when among friends and relatives.

Yes some of us lead contented lives for now but who knows, the next victim of those highly rigid flawed policies might be us, the ‘contented ones’. Then you will wonder why you vote for the same party election after election. And then you vote them in yet again when you receive $800 in your bank account as a form of gratitude. :)

(Sorry for the rant hehe…)

tcc: “It doesnt matter which party but as long as i have a job and a house for my family, i would vote the party that can provide me this.”

- A 12 hour job to pay a 30-yr mortgage for a 99-yr leasehold flat, to lead a simple SINGLE life, is also having a job and a house. After 50 yrs and acheiving top ranking in this and that, should we remain this?

tcc: “I may not like their stunts but i do not want to be poor and insecure.”

- How do you feel secure when there is not even subsidy for transport if you are disabled? Remember anyone can be stricken with illness or become disabled at any time. Anyone can become poor when the world economy tumbles. Even big banks are wiped out. No need to mention the rest of what if’s.

tcc: “My opinion ? Opposition can’t do it. None has the track record of running even a large size company. Forget it.”

- So your opinion of an MP or Minister is someone who can make profit. Running a company is solely for ONE objective and ONE alone – to make profit. Is this really what you think a Minister should be?

- When the opposition is in Govt, they can appoint scholars (proper ones) just like the PAPa, to steer the economy. I believe there are geniuses in our midst who’s talent are missed because they belong to the wrong camp or who don’t speak good English!

tcc: “Rachel, like many here, you have not lived overseas in developing countries. ”

- At least you make sense by mentioning developing countries, not developed first world countries. Rachel has clarified her position nicely. It would be good if you can name some developing countries you are thinking of.

tcc: “You are just emotional for what I do not know. But you have not experienced hardship. Think first.”

- Rachel is ‘just emotional’? She has given all the valid reasons and as far as I can see, she is a thinking person. She may or may not have experienced hardship but at least she is probably not born with a silver spoon like… (better not name those Ministers). Have those ruling us experienced hardship?

tcc,
if you are asking Rachel to think first, I wonder what is thinking to you.

Rachel,
You should stand for election. We need anyone with a sense of community to stand in now. Like I said, when in power, you will get all the intellectual help you can get by appointments just like what PAP is doing.