Glad that there are people out there who are’nt bought over so easily.Have seen to many opportunists in the PAP camp.My friends who are in the CIvil Service and volunteer at the PA say that these people are the biggest Wayangs ever.

They truth will be set free.To Freedom,Justice and Liberty.To a more transparent and accountable Singapore.Which is genuine and practices meritocracy and not nepotism.

remove pension for MP. unfair to let sleeping MP to have secure retirement when so many peasants have unsure future.

And may I humbly suggest that we throw in a lesson or two about morals and ethics for the bankers.

Some advice from ST FORUM:

Akino007
Today, 10:00 AM
No need to be on the facebook and all that latest trends lah… pls just walk around the coffee shop and mingle among your resident unnoticed you will hear and see a lot which might shock you…

kokoobird
Today, 10:04 AM

Agree…Instead of sitting at home in your armchair like a armchair general..Please go drink kopi with the citizens without all the grass roots leaders..you are isolating yourself using technology from the common folks…You can then here the uncensored rumblings from the ground..

LeakyLee
Today, 10:31 AM

Akino007 / kokoobird

Couldn’t agree more with you guys.The PAP snobs should get down from their Ivory Towers and into the real world if they want real ground-level feedback and to know what most people think of them today.They have been taking voters support for granted.. for far too long.Time for them to get a reality check.

urbankni9t
Today, 12:36 PM
Relying on facebook to forge closer connections with the general public is in my opinion quite a callous move, as these social networking websites are way too informal for serious politicians to mark their presence. As it is, majority of the facebook users are teens/early twenties who are generally apathetic towards politics/general affairs and well insulated from the recession, while their parents toiled with whatever jobs the can cling unto and simultaneously facing mounting threat from the increasing pool of foreigners.

Also, with internet anonymity, no body is going to take comments from facebook seriously. Rather than typing and posting pictures on facebook and trying to blend with the tendy teens, I would suggest that the MPs spend more relevant and useful time talking to the public face to face, to garner first hand feedback from the ground, esp from the working population who are gradually beginning to feel like a neglected group of proleteriats. I mean, how often have I seen my MP walked around my estate ? Maybe once in 4 yrs during GE at most. I think I have seen the rare presence of monkeys roaming around the park near my house more often than him.

And please, Straits Times, rather than splurging 2 full pages of your costly prints to sensationalise such news, I would appreciate if you can dedicate more space to feature citizens struggling to make ends meet, or MPs who rolled up their sleeves to get their dirty job done and do not have to resort to superficial means to connect to the people, even if such MPs do exist, I wonder.

betweenus777
Today, 01:15 PM
asusual – believe impending election this year as these few days the mouthpiece of the govt ie ST n all s’pore media been reporting all the good news and figures – even 2 days ago that HDB’s finding survey that 90% of the dwellers are happy etc when the ground is so discontented with HDB’s policies of rising flat costs and not enough flats to cater for demand.

Are Sporeans better off now with foreigners forming the backbone of our economy as our only option?

Are ‘Stop at 2′ & Bilingualism’ due to good foresight?

How is one to be considered to have good foresight and doing all things for the betterment of Sporeans? How can we tell?

“Let us get down to fundamentals. Is this an open, or is this a closed society? Is it a society where men can preach ideas – novel, unorthodox, heresies, to established churches and established governments – where there is a constant contest for men’s hearts and minds on the basis of what is right, of what is just, of what is in the national interests, or is it a closed society where the mass media – the newspapers, the journals, publications, TV, radio – either bound by sound or by sight, or both sound and sight, men’s minds are fed with a constant drone of sycophantic support for a particular orthodox political philosophy? I am talking of the principle of the open society, the open debate, ideas, not intimidation, persuasion not coercion…”
- Lee Kuan Yew

It’s about MPs who ride at the back of the successes of the PAP of the past, claim it to be their own, and use it to get away with faulty policies and escape accountability.

Needles to say, it’s about the MPs who tarnish the PAP.

But first and foremost, let us revisit history. A pro-PAP such as yourself should be the first not to be fooled by the suggestion that the PAP65 do not reflect the will of the people…..It was a landslide.

So here is a secret – many of today’s MPs have no accomplishments to begin with but they think that having a PAP badge entitles them to a claim in history. They have for the past decade abused that privelege.

As constituents, we didn’t mind that 80% of them were self-appointed because they continue to reflect our will. At least most of it. But that was the past.

This leads me to my point.

Recently, there are those who today believe that the PAP is a mere tool, and when it is covenient, almost always use past PAP success stories, oftentimes too outdated, to justify blunt agendas.

The PAP today is so different from the past you might as well call it a different party.

For our children’s sake, this coming election, let us remind them of who they used to be.

Stop living in the past. Let’s forged on to the future.

This shenanigans about “compassion”…these take us nowhere.

If the opposition has a secret weapon this coming election, I’m telling it to you now – it’s all about policies.

But if you think Singaporeans are hollow, so be it….hong bao, elevators, libel suits, race riots, Richard Gomez….then wrap it around “compassion”, let’s all see where it takes them.

In the meantime, I will do my part as a Singaporean citizen. As a constituent, I will wisely exercise my right to vote to weed out the pretenders and help, in my own little democratic way, revive the PAP that I used to love.

Julian’s reply: Hello, i like the last line you mentioned PAP has been good, but now clearly, it has to be better. Much better.

this is such a touchy issue; i dare not even speak on behalf of our MPs. who could say with 100% certainty that many aren’t sincere? could u really account for what u say – that they no longer care?

*sigh* the trouble with Singapore is that it is inherently a pseudo-democracy. the govt would have to reflect the will of the people, but one of the pre-requisites to being a Singapore Leader is to have foresight. Many of our government’s decisions (i.e. PAP’s) go against the will of the people, but they were done for the betterment of Singaporeans.

How many of us really want democracy and how many of us wish for status quo? We have to decide, and the coming elections will show that decision.

Julian wrote from his heart about compassion, and his encounter with his MP left him a personal mark. You don’t have to agree with him regarding MPs and compassion, but I don’t think you have the right to deem him wrong either.
(but then again, in a democracy, you would have that right, won’t you?)

Just a clarification I think: MPs don’t see work in constituencies as compassion; they see it as their duty because they are servants of the people. Julian, as an outsider, saw it as compassion. Others, like you, don’t. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?