Why Yacoob should put his PAP house in order before dabbling with a code of conduct for the internet?

A wise man never ever screws the wrong hole. As experience informs him screwing the wrong hole can often be a sad, expensive and embarrassing enterprise where he will either end up visiting the police shop or the skin doctor very often. This is the reason why if you tell a wise man that his roof his leaking. You will rarely find him diffusing his energy by doing stupid things like hiring witch doctors to shoo away the rain or worst still building another roof over the defective roof. The solution is usually very simple and effective – the wayward hole in the roof is plugged. No more leaks. Life is bliss. The end.

This is what the wise do: they approach a problem by nipping it at the bud.

In the same way, if our government finds it so difficult to be loved and respected in the internet. Then what should they do? Should they take the cue from the foolish man by trying to build another roof over the defective roof by rolling out an internet code of conduct? What would this really accomplish? When the root cause of the dissatisfaction continues to fester and remain unresolved?

Perhaps the men who make up the government should all go to one dark cave and bring along a big box full of ABC stout and brain storm why is it they are so unlovable and encounter so many difficulties in commanding the respect of others in the internet these days? Could it be as Sitting Bull once said, “Those who speak with forked tongue will put fire into the hearts of those hear their words.” Or maybe the government itself is so confused that it cannot even account coherently for why it continues to do the things they do? Maybe that is why no one in blogoland seems to be very supportive of the government these days. If that is really the case then how the hell would rolling out an internet code of conduct make things right? It cannot. The sooner the PAP wake up from their slumber that all is not well in Singapore, the better it will be for them and everyone else. Rather than chasing pipe in the sky initiatives that really do fuck all in adding any real value to bringing people and government closer together – as it is, I have no illusions, with or without this internet code of conduct, the gulf that separates citizens from state is likely to widen further. As for the disatisfaction in the internet, it is likely to continue to fester and even get from bad to worse.

What did you really expect? A happy ending? No way, that’s only possible if they know the art of screwing the right hole!

Darkness 2012

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“Anyone who has lived, worked and played in Africa will testify that tribal medicine is very effective. If you have a toothache. The witch doctor will take a big mallet and whack your toe. The tooth ache will disappear in a flash and the pain in your big toe will now preoccupy the rest of your days. But this prescription can NEVER have a lasting effect. As it is not a cure as much as a very clever way to distract the mind from pain. In the same way, this code of conduct will absolutely solve nothing. It is at best a mumbo jumbo amulet like rabbit’s foot. As it does not cure the root cause of why no one these days seems to hold the government in very high regard or esteem.  That is why if you have a toothache, go and see a dentist – this is what it means to screw the right hole. Two components are required here. Firstly scaling the nature of the problem accurately. And secondly administering the prescriptive cure that has a proven record to kill the problem in the way you would pull out weeds by the roots. This would seem to be common sense to most people. But it seems to be lost to the Singaporean government, who seem for some inexplicable reason to be fixated with the idea of rolling out a code of conduct for the internet. This I can understand. As they see the internet as a feral domain where all sorts of malevolent forces hide out. They (the government) probably believe this is why the internet seems to have an anti establishment bent and regularly writes the things they write. Some of them probably believe that most bloggers are delusional people who are so frustrated with life, that they have to go online to live out their fantasies. But let us go through the problem logically – WHY do so many people write the things they do in the internet? Why have the voices grown louder and fiercer? Can they ALL be delusional? Or could it be many of these people have simply lost faith in the idea of government as a reliable purveyor of the good life along with its sidekick our beloved daily rag, the 140th something that’s just holding its place after the Timbuktu Daily Post – since it can do nothing except parrot the government like an obedient lap dog, who the hell in their right frame of mind is going to consider it as a reliable purveyor of the truth? In fact judging from the way our daily rag has been hounding many of those 44 guys who screwed the wrong hole – they are the ones who seem to need a code of conduct more than netizens. You will not find a single blog who is not sympathetic to the plight of these 44 men who many have considered to be a travesty of justice – so why is the MSM hounding these men and trying their best to name and shame them as if we don’t even have a legal system to take care of such infractions? As for the government, they must also bear half the blame for their shitty image in the virtual – after all, they opened the flood gates to cheap and nasty foreign labor. This they must have realized is bound to have a chelating effect on wages gradually hollowing them out, as Gintai has highlighted so well – again who is to blame? To exacerbate matters they tell us time and again privatization is the next best thing since battery operated toys that brings untold joys to lonely spinsters – they say since it can recruit the profit motive, end users will be the beneficiaries of this new arrangement. But look what happens, now we all know the trains are suffering from some kind of chronic degenerative disease like arthritis. So in what way has privatization brought about any discernable advantage to the tax payer? Again you have to all ask yourself whether these are problems that people don’t have a right to voice in the internet – and it is this question that we have to put beside the larger issue of whether it is even wise to role out an internet code of conduct. As the real problem is not going to be solved by people talking to each other in a congenial manner as if they are in some country club sipping ice tea. But a big chunk of the problem lies with government – they have really been complacent about the whole idea of engaging netizens meaningfully – and till today, they haven’t really got their act together. As they have been broadcasting so many conflicting messages through the years about the internet, that even I am thoroughly confused – and while all this is happening, the cost of living continues to go up day by day, where homes, cars and the little pleasures that makes an unbearable life bearable keep going up and up, till most people are so far away from the Singaporean dream – all they can really wonder is what the fuck is happening here! So tell me, if the government is really sincere about the whole business of soliciting love and affection from citizens and residents – why aren’t they addressing themselves to so many of these problems in their own backyard? Which they themselves have created? Why even try to fashion the internet as a scape goat for many of the governments problems in this digital age?

Does it make any sense? I give you the facts, you decide for yourself.”

This popular series – The Way of the Farmer has been proudly brought to you by the Brotherhood Press 2012