Mathew Lim: hey, king mole James Teo Kian Chye now high ranking in NSP not mentioned. Was with us in WP. He joined in early 80s ...young graduate but not a single time as candidate in GEs til now. Held lots of high posts in opposition in various parties. No interest in politics. But strange that oppo leaders like JB can also be conned by him. Olivia Khaw well done Andrew. Role of Janadas Devan and Ken Jeyas RP secret police youngsters not mentioned. Andrew Chuah-Choong Majority half baked and in late 20s and early 30s,opportunists,want get notice,selected and stand as MPs for the PAPPIES,and unable think out of the box unlike overseas graduates,merely parrots 5 minutes ago · Like Andrew Chuah-Choong Yesterday,I engaged with a few of them on Fabrication about PAP 4 minutes ago · Like Who are the PAP IBs? 1) A group of Young PAP members have been put under the ‘intelligence’ service 2) They operate in shifts starting from 6am each day monitoring the chats on discussion forums and facebook etc. 3) They have created fake IDs to counter opposite views. If they can’t rebut, they will seek to disrupt discussion or to confuse by posting wrong information. 4) Some have started, but most will be stepping up on their activities. Why should the average citizen be concerned about PAP Internet Brigade? The PAP Internet Brigades work undercover to give an artificial impression that PAP members (especially MPs) are well-liked, and that PAP policies are well-loved by its citizens. More importantly, their actions are counter-productive to efforts by netizens to critically engage policy makers, and present an inaccurate picture of policy reception. How was PAP Internet Brigade incepted? In 2007, the State media reported that the PAP Government had mounted a “quiet counter-insurgency” against its online critics. This counter-insurgency was led by the PAP’s new media committee chaired by Ng Eng Hen. Other key members include: Baey Yam Keng, Josephine Teo, Lui Tuck Yew and Zaqy Mohamad. One half of this group is engaged in strategizing and the other, executing the strategy. Over 20 other IT-savvy party activists were also involved and were told to go in to forums and blogs to rebut “anti-establishment” views and put up postings anonymously. Metamorphosis Since then, this group has morphed into what many has labelled as the PAP Internet Brigade, comprising a mixbag of Internet bloggers, bullies and trolls. The tactics and intellectual depth of many in the Brigade leaves much to be desired. Some engage in idol-worship for the Party’s supreme leader LKY. See for instance the blogger Petunia Lee’s post on how she missed LKY and cried buckets over the death of the latter’s wife: petunialee.blogspot.sg/…/03/i-miss-lee-kuan-yew.html… Others troll forums and sites to intimidate PAP critics (eg Tan Tiong Hock) and cause them to have their accounts disabled. This post details the underhanded methods of these PAP trolls: singaporenewsalternative.blogspot.sg/…/opinion-insid… Occupy Singapore has also been the victim of such unscrupulous tactics: facebook/photo.php?fbid=286084491497007 Then there are those who try to use whatever morsel of intelligence they have to counter criticisms, such as the site Fabrications About the PAP. If there is a PAP joke, FPAP is it. Starting out with the objective of correcting “misconceptions” or “misinformation” about the PAP and its policies, this site has veered away to spreading misinformation about the Opposition especially the Workers Party. Gone, Ethics, Gone The quality of pro-PAP views aside, one must ask an even more fundamental question: is the PAP’s internet strategy ethical? Snuffing Out Democracy As highlighted above, the views expressed by the PAP IB have been anything but insightful. There has been no substantive and well-informed critique of the programmes of various Opposition Parties, other than cynical caterwauling and ad hominem attacks. Most pathetically, they do not even defend their own Party’s many controversial policies. For instance, the group behind the FB page called Enigma routinely uses vulgarity to lampoon opposition politicians like Dr Chee Soon Juan while ignoring the policy papers put out by the SDP. Different identities notwithstanding, the PAP IB members share the same beliefs: Blind allegiance to the PAP; Belief in the PAP’s hegemony; and Desire to see opposition and democratic politics snuffed out. For its lack of intelligence and inability to argue on the more substantive level involving policies and politics and its preoccupation with ridiculing and destroying the opposition and PAP’s critics, the PAP IB is more a bane than boon to Singapore’s democratic iwell-being and growth. Who’s Paying? The PAP IB project also throws up the question of political ethics. Given the involvement of many ministers, the Brigade is operating under official sanctions. The question hence arises if the PAP or the Government is financing it. It is one thing for a political party to use its party funds to set up and run a web site to propagate its policy platform but quite another for it to draw on public resources to enhance its standing with a view to winning elections. With the amount of money they are paid, the Ministers’ time should be spent on listening to Singaporeans and devising and implementing solutions to national problems, rather than sniffing and snuffing out criticisms online. LKY once famously said: “The PAP is the Government and the Government is the PAP.” If we are a true democracy built upon equality and justice, we will reject this deliberate obfuscation of the Government and Party. The Government’s role is to manage the country to the best of its ability and dispense public goods in the best optimal way, within the confines of the political constitution, which in the case of Singapore is democratic. When the boundaries between Party and Government are blurred, the art of governance risks becoming a partisan exercise with the aim of securing electoral victory. There will then be an ever-present temptation to trade neutral policy imperatives for narrower and esoteric partisan interests. When this happens, the dispensation of public goods will then be done on basis of who voted or may vote for the ruling Party. This is patently unfair to all citizens who pay the same tax and make the same contributions such as performing national service. It also creates strife and breeds resentment, not a healthy sign of democracy. The practice of pork barrel politics is one such manifestation. In the same vein therefore, the PAP Internet Brigade is a travesty of democratic rules insofar as it uses public resources to further the goals of a Party. There is nothing wrong with engaging in debates but this should be done solely at the expense of the Party, not using the country’s resources. As public servants, ministers are ultimately accountable to the Singaporean taxpayers and electorate. Lee Hsien Loong should revisit his speech during the GE2011 campaign in which he reminded PAP politicians that they are servants to the people. As the Government of the day, the right platform for the PAP cabinet to receive feedback and “sell” their policies should be official feedback channels, not via a secretive and unaccountable band of internet rovers and bullies. Raucous debates of diverse depths and quality are part and parcel of the democratic politics. Attempts by the PAP to coopt or control such alternate viewpoints are but a sign of a lack of the Party’s confidence in its own policy platform. Most of all, it exhibits the trademark unwillingness of the PAP to listen to the ground, in the mistaken belief of its own superiority that would surely and hopefully soon prove fatal to its own long-term survival.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 05:50:21 +0000
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