Rant 072 / Since Food Is Life ( In More Ways Than One), When Food Is Cheap, Life Is Cheap

This is madness!

Freud knows everything about your desires!

Suddenly, I wonder whether what we are hearing on our various media are the real propaganda, and what the media in rogue regimes are telling their people is true.

I must admit, I have no idea what they tell their people over in those countries. But then, we were never taught in school many examples of what "propaganda" really is! And by the way, the "propaganda" I'm using here means:

prop·a·gan·da [prop-uh-gan-duh]
–noun

1.	information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.

2.	the deliberate spreading of such information, rumors, etc.

3.	the particular doctrines or principles propagated by an organization or movement.

All I have ever seen so far to illustrate propaganda is a poster or two of Hitler and Mao Zedong. I still do not know what these "propaganda" they used in those days were like, and how to differentiate between this negative information and the good stuff.

Why?

Are we not supposed to be able to do so? Is it assumed that we can do it naturally? The latter must be false, else why did the media in Nazi Germany and the old Communist China succeed? They had to have succeed, or Hitler and Mao would never have been able to do what they did!

Therefore, the former is true. All my life, my education was rather biased against various types of government and power control, like Communists. Does this not fall under the FIRST definition of "propaganda"?

Aren't we, then, under the sway of such unfair information?

Right now, I still see Communism as a form of government too idealistic for the real world. But this is based on what I have seen and know so far. I have never been to Cuba or most of China. I have not truly seen Communism at work with my own two eyes. How can I assume that I know enough of Communism to judge it foolish?

But this is only an example. There are many other things I can talk about that also falls under the category of "propaganda", like the Taliban, or the situations in several parts of Africa.

The thing is, WE DON'T KNOW! We don't know much about the Taliban. We don't know much about why, exactly, the Muslim radicals do what they do. We don't know why people in China love their country so. We don't know why some Singapore transport companies want to raise their fares why they are already among the most PROFITABLE companies in Singapore.

Are such companies, which are among the basic necessities of a developed nation, need to be so wealthy? Are their objectives supposed to include HUGE PROFITS?

Therefore, all these support for raising the fares in our local media, are they propaganda under its first definition? Why is it there are so few letters of protest printed in the Straits Times? Why is it that for the past 10 years, we have never been informed of any instances when our government stopped any of our transport companies from raising fares?

And the fact that our country has been ruled by one single party since its independence says something about our democracy. Is it still called "democracy" when we have never needed to vote for our Presidents?

Or is it better defined with the word "totalitarian"?

to·tal·i·tar·i·an [toh-tal-i-tair-ee-uhn]
–adjective

1.	of or pertaining to a centralized government that does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and that exercises dictatorial control over many aspects of life.

2.	exercising control over the freedom, will, or thought of others; authoritarian; autocratic.

–noun

3.	an adherent of totalitarianism.

The part about "dictatorial control" may be debatable. But then, when LKY told Singaporeans to have more babies, everyone started having more unprotected sex. When our ministers have salaries that are more than twice as much as their counterparts in various countries, notably the U.S., no one seriously called for a change.

If no one challenges the government even over such an absurd fact has been announced, is this not because of the second definition? Because our government explains this obscene amount of money entering the accounts of our ministers with the reason that they are so good that they're worth their pay, no one in our country rises up in protest.

To believe that this explanation is totally logical is idiocy. The U.S. counterparts of our amazing ministers have duties that include hundreds of times more things than what our Singaporean ministers are in charge of. Take, for example, our Minister of Transport, and compare with his counterpart in the U.S. government. Are the inherent differences not obvious?

Given that the first definition of the word "totalitarian" is not technically true, the second definition still stands, making this word true. When an unreasonable explanation is accepted by the general masses, isn't it obvious something else must be affecting their mindset to make them accept it?

2.	exercising control over the freedom, will, or thought of others; authoritarian; autocratic.

No?


There is another implication in the announcement of the high salaries. We all know that when the government wants something to be out of our mind, like the imprisonment of an important opposition leader like CSJ (not that I like him anyway), whatever it is will never appear on the local media.

So why this?

Because our government wants us to know they're getting their freakishly high salaries? Right from us taxpayers' pockets? For performing duties that is only a fraction that of their U.S. counterparts?

Is this not similar to the infamous "IN YOUR FACE!!!" attitude?

Does this imply a complete lack of respect for the general masses of Singapore in our government?

Has it come to this, only after a mere 50 years?

Does the PAP realize that the longer they stay in power while calling our government a"democracy", the harder they will fall when the times of change finally arrive? It will be difficult in the extreme for them to return to their present status, because everyone will be reminding themselves of their absolute dominance in the local politics for the past decades.

This is definitely not a threat or whatever negative stuff you wish to call it. This is a logical conclusion that anyone can come to, assuming they do not give up their power willingly to any opposition parties in the future.

As anyone knows, PAP is losing support slowly, but surely as time goes by. By simple extrapolation, we all know that they will lose their power in the near future unless something dramatic is done; something so powerful that it overshadows the fact that they have been in power for 50 years.

Do we want the political chaos we see in Taiwan, in our lovely and peaceful country?

Why do we always compare a future without PAP in power with the present political scene in Taiwan? Taiwan is an extreme case, but not the only case!

Why not compare ourselves with European countries? Like Germany, with their female Chancellor. Or Finland, and maybe, someday, we can have a FEMALE president like they do over there.

Heck, it'd sure make our school halls' walls look better. No offense, but it gets kind of boring staring at a guy's face all the time while in the school hall during my primary and secondary and JC days.

Most politicians are not ugly. They are usually decent looking in photos. So our President's face isn't ruining the walls, which may be implied from my words above. What I really mean is exactly what I said in this line,"No offense, but it gets kind of boring staring at a guy's face all the time while in the school hall during my primary and secondary and JC days."

And don't we want the younger generation to be interested in politics? So shouldn't we learn from European countries, which are generally wealthier and cooler than Taiwan? I want to see a Singapore President's picture hanging beside the picture of her First Gentleman( 'cos there's the First Lady). Or maybe not: Singapore doesn't have a First family.




So now back to the first topic. How can I be so sure that what we see today in our local media, or even in the overseas media like CNN, isn't biased?

I can only tell, if I can see what this horrible sounding "propaganda" is telling the people in Communist countries, and compare them with our media.

Why are there so few available media from the "rogue regimes"? If what they say are very biased or false, we'd just read them and have a good laugh, dismissing them as stupidity or crap.

Why aren't we allowed to see examples of modern propaganda from North Korea, other than a few excerpts quoted from North Korean media? We all know that reading only a line or two, or even just a summary, may not give the exact same information or idea as reading the actual articles.

We don't know enough, yet we judge everything. Half-truths and mass idiocy can push our mindsets according to the direction of everyone else.

Once you start asking questions about everything like a kid, things start to appear darker than they once were.