Praba Ganesan is a Hulu Langat boy with a penchant for durians and debate. He is part of balairakyat, an NGO promoting ideas exchange.
Today is the 18-month anniversary of March 8, 2008 and political pundits are inclined to analyses, prognoses and jokes. My question — as a point of examination — is it tenable for Pakatan Rakyat political operatives to be full-time in the various posts and initiatives within the present political construct as determined by Barisan Nasional?
For although average voters in this country are fixated with the personality battles, the outcome of the real war will rely on the foot soldiers — the hundreds who provide the brains and organisation to their leaders. Right now in this battle of attrition, Pakatan is bleeding silly.
Last week, one key PR organiser was seeking applicants in a “writers’ mailing list” for assistants, political secretaries and more — to man the party’s responsibilities.
PR has four states to run, 84 MPs and hundreds of assemblymen requiring drivers and party offices which require organisation all year round.
Which is unprecedented. Former political secretaries and assistants are now office bearers, themselves needing help. The resources of the three parties are stretched to their practical limits.
And they have to keep running while being dogged by the triumvirate — BN’s grip of resources thanks to 40 years of centralisation to Putrajaya, the application of federal arms to bog down PR efforts (courts, MACC, police, etc) and Malaysia’s expanding educated class, ever willing to deride all and sundry but loathe to participate.
It takes people, and without them you will end up arguing principles not policies.
The long years under Umno were about “alternative” opportunities to aggrandise oneself when in power. The pay of any political assistant under the Public Services Commission scales may be low, but when you look at them, they don’t look wanting, do they?
The political leaders themselves assume leadership of GLCs, boards and corporations, giving “legal” income to the offices of those in office.
The system is set to make all opposition leaders suffer even if they get some power bases, until they take over federal leadership.
A complete winner-take-all system.
The cynic’s riposte would be, “You chose to take on BN. We gave votes, so go and fight. Don’t make excuses.”
But mate, asking the willing with less experience to fight with fly swatters against tanks is just whack. It is akin to saying those who perished in the Warsaw uprising had only themselves to blame for not having the munitions of the German army.
A 50-year-old incumbency is even mightier than the German’s Blitzkrieg.
What is at stake is not the future of Pakatan Rakyat, but the plausibility of us being stuck in the rut of single-party rule.
And a future of a continued single-party rule is ominous. Many of the “limited freedoms” will dissipate in direct proportion to the loss of political strength to oppose the single-party system.
The man on the street — who may care jack-all about government — is in the line of fire. His ignorance does not protect him.
Do we want to the next generation to live under a system like that?
The era of plain ideologies is over. The left, right, regionalists, religionists and minimalists have all tempered their positions to political practicalities.
The apparent death of ideology only underlines the drawing together of universal good (Tories indulging in benefits for the weak, Lefties accepting the need for big business to spur private initiative to maximise general resource, clerics seeing the benefits of investments), and the eradication of absolutes.
Politics is the appeasing of individual needs, then personal preferences in the national spectrum. The state has to be minimalist in harm, and constantly seek to maximise benefits, through the management of resources and the employment of policy.
Active ideas make it possible.
Which leads to the paramount need for competing sides. Without them, ideas will become the privy of the few, and the need to convince the many unnecessary.
Competing sides give us options to choose from. A, B or more.
Not the zero-opposition nightmare Datuk Khir Toyo envisioned for Selangor.
Our democracy is at stake here. And it will drown with the collapse of the opposition to single-party rule.
China reinvested in democratic principles after the terror of the Cultural Revolution and the death of Mao. It is still a single-party nation, but in our lifetime we will see multiple parties in China. They see the need for stability, but they understand the presence of progressive ideas will only be assured through the contributions of competing sides.
BN is adamant that the single-party system is the way forward even if all evidence internationally is the contrary. There is no convincing BN; they are unwilling to give any more than they absolutely have to, and if that causes paralysis to our long-term fates, it seemingly does not bother them.
They don’t just want to rule, they want to rule with no potential threat to their rule.
My former councillor colleague in Dengkil owns a mechanic shed. Let me rephrase that. He is a mechanic with a shed. His intentions are noble, but what incentive is there for a fresh law graduate to work in his service centre for RM1,200 a month?
More so, why is his civic drive beyond those who have sat through Kantian lectures in foreign universities?
It seems everyone with some level of education, and not directly benefiting from the near authoritarian rule of the country, has many issues with the way things are run in the country. They are equally scathing of players who want to alter the status quo.
However, these “loud voices” don’t want to participate, they just want to watch. Well, grab a good seat, a nice comfy seat. A good drowning is occurring in a body of water near you.
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MICHELLE Obama gave her husband the silent treatment at one point in his campaign for president because so many women “pushed their bodies up against his, slipped phone numbers into his pockets” and whispered lewd suggestions in his ear, a new book out today claims.
July 24, 2009
In bed with Berlusconi: Graphic new tape emerges of Italian leader’s conversations with escort girl
Secret recordings: The call girl pictured in a calendar shoot, has claimed she slept with Mr Berlusconi
Read more:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1201719/Call-girl-praises-Berlusconis-prowess-sensational-new-sex-tapes.html#ixzz0MCmtaZRE
Silvio Berlusconi faces further questions about his private life after a third, more explicit, recording of him emerged.
High-class prostitute Patrizia D’Addario, 42, claims to have secretly taped her conversations with the Italian prime minister after spending the night at his official residence following a party.
In the latest clip she is heard apparently praising the 72-year-old for his prowess in the bedroom, while he in turn gives her advice on her sex life.
‘I’m no saint’: Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, centre, is seen at a construction opening near Brescia, Italy yesterday
‘I’m no saint’: Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, centre, is seen at a construction opening near Brescia,Italy yesterday
It is the latest revelation in a scandal that since April has seen Berlusconi accused of having affairs and wild parties with young women and escorts.related article
In bed with Berlusconi: Graphic new tape emerges of Italian leader’s conversations with escort girl
So far he has managed to escape significant condemnation from the Italian public, but political sources said the graphic nature of the audio tapes could destroy the politician’s close relationship with the Vatican.
The latest extract has almost certainly ruled out a hoped-for papal audience before the Italian parliament resumes in October.
It was published, once again, on the website of left-leaning Italian news magazine L’Espresso – just a day after the media billionaire spoke for the first time about the scandal, saying: ‘I am no saint.’
In “Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage” (William Morrow), Christopher Andersen reports, “On more than one occasion, Barack tried not to look startled when some random woman in the crowd would grasp him firmly by the derriere — and sometimes try to hold on.”
After an appearance in Peoria, Ill., the future president slid into the back of his SUV, and allegedly said, “Jesus, I wish they’d stop grabbing my ass.”
“Michelle, understandably was not amused,” Andersen writes. He quotes her as saying, “. . . I want to tell these women, ‘Back off. Get a life.’ It’s just embarrassing, that’s all.”
The book relates, “Michelle knew that all the unseemly fawning nourished Barack’s admittedly already oversize ego. ‘He’s loving it,’ she muttered at one point. ‘He’s a man, isn’t he?’ Once again, she resorted to giving him the silent treatment.”
Andersen cites rumors “that it was more than just the random flirting from strangers that was getting to Michelle. Her husband, it would later be reported, had grown close to an attractive young African-American woman [working for the Obama campaign] named Vera Baker.
“When Baker suddenly and inexplicably vanished from the campaign and resurfaced on the Caribbean island of Martinique, tongues reportedly began wagging. A jealous Michelle, it was suggested, had engineered Baker’s departure.”
Andersen writes that Baker later told a reporter, “Nothing happened . . . I don’t have anything to say.”
Presidential candidates are great at making running for president look terrible. They have to shake all those dirty hands, kiss all those dirty babies and wake up way too damn early. But now we find out that maybe it’s not so bad running for president, what with all the ass-grabbing groupies eager to get a piece of your possibly presidential package.
That’s what life on the trail was like for Barack Obama, according to the new book “Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage.”
“On more than one occasion, Barack tried not to look startled when some random woman in the crowd would grasp him firmly by the derriere — and sometimes try to hold on,” writes author Christopher Andersen.
Sure, any young, dumb girl can wait for some lackey to pull them aside and bring them backstage. But it takes a special kind of woman to go to a candidate’s rally and decides to latch on to his butt cheek. Are presidential groupies the most shameless (and therefore best)
UPDATE: Obama ogles another woman’s butt…
Flashback: Bill Clinton pats Fran Drescher’s butt…
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