Twitter is a platform open to anything and everything (for now). You can be funny, angry, hateful, loving, polite, vicious, malicious, preachy, prolific in terms of your own business, lie-spreading, personal-thought sharing, political sparring, disrupting or getting disrupted by cyber troopers – all that summarizes the good, the bad and the ugly of tweeting.
The 140-character limit has caused many tweets to be misinterpreted as many try to argue their points within that limit. This often happens to people with poor English like me who aren’t able to make short sentences easily understandable.
A question (most likely from an MCA supporter) was posed to me on Twitter: “Why ‘Anything But Umno/BN’ (ABU)?” I certainly couldn’t answer this in 140 characters and promised the person that I would answer the question in my blog.
We cannot blame the young generation or first-time voters for not understanding ABU. They have yet to experience the systematic erosion of almost everything under the rule of Umno/BN for over fifty years.
I will provide five issues of my stance for ‘Anything but Umno/BN”. Its not political, but factual, that Umno/BN have failed the rakyat in its fifty years of ruling:
1) Umno is BN, BN is Umno
Anything the Umno supreme council agrees upon has to be accepted by all. Even though BN comprises a coalition of fourteen political parties, none have the power to speak out against or disagree with the council’s decisions. In effect, the BN parties are rather powerless as they usually retract their statements in fear of Umno’s retaliation. Hence, the latter practically holds sole ruling power of the country.
2) Education
For any government, education should be placed as a top priority that not a single citizen should be deprived of. Education is the life and blood to an energetic, progressive and matured nation. To put it bluntly, our education system is in a total mess. I can vouch, however, that in the 60’s it was among the best in Asia (I was educated in the 60’s) and where are we now?
It is in a mess mainly due to the political interference that restricts and controls the syllabus which allows students to only learn the bare minimum.
To begin with, our Education Minister is appointed not on the basis of his knowledge of running the education system, but as a platform to give him a level-up in his political career. Umno-led government is using education as a tool to control students’ minds to present them with an illusion of a ‘good’ government, blinding them to the malpractices behind closed doors.
Don’t you think it’s time to replace the education minister’s post with a pool of professional individuals to chart out a coherent education system? BM will remain a prerequisite for passing all examinations while the Educators will work out other subject syllabuses and what languages are to be taught – all on a worldwide standard of quality.
3) Corruption
I really do not know how to write on this. There are many blinded by their support of Umno/BN that they feel corruption not to be an issue, that it won’t hurt the nation, or that it occurs only at a minimal level affecting only commoners and civil servants.
There are calls for government and party members to stop giving handouts, and for people to stop taking them. A prime minister can give and ask the rakyat to receive as it is a form of “you help me, I help you” before and during elections. Now, in yet another episode of sugar-coating, they speak of introducing integrity pledges in apparent hope that corruption would be wiped out.
Those entrusted to fight corruption – MACC & Pemandu – must first realize that it is so entrenched in the governing system that sugar-coating or simple, short-term solutions will not cure this “sickness”.
It becomes worse when blind supporters of Umno/BN voice out their call to fight corruption, but are silent or defensive when the integrity of their leaders is questioned.
MACC fares no better, being unable to perform their duty “without fear or favor”: chasing after “ikan bilis” (especially those from the opposition) and taking on vigorous interrogations on Teoh Beng Hock’s death costing up to RM2.5k, but showing inaction and sluggishness when the real culprits are free and out there.
Billions upon billions of ringgit belonging to the rakyat are lost through corruption and leakages from the top level, while “experts” in their apparent fight against corruption act happy with their performance in catching and solving hundreds of mini corruption cases.
4) Government Institutions
Almost all the institutions, in one way or another, are Umno-inclined. They can scream and shout that they are not but the rakyat can see otherwise.
a) MACC
MACC is so unresolved towards the “big sharks” and instead waste their resources going after the “ikan bilis” and the opposition. How many cases have they solved with the AG reports coming out year after year? Should we claim there to be major corruption at the top level – well, of course we can’t be fully certain – they would want proof but yet cannot explain where our billions of ringgit have gone to.
b) PDRM
PDRM is to serve and protect the rakyat, but are we seeing that? They are instead protecting Umno more than it should, following procedure at anti-Umno protests and candlelight vigils, but dismissing the law in situations like allowing the cow head protest to proceed (even the home minister welcomed the protesters into his office). PDRM and the special branch are wasting a lot of resources and energy to stifle public dissent against Umno government.
c) Judiciary
Just one question and you can judge for yourself how our judiciary performs, or whether they are protecting anyone. Why did the court not ask PDRM to pursue the motive and perpetrator of Altantuya’s killing?
5) Governance
Can a nation survive on pure political governance? From the four issues above, we see a government which is more concerned with its party survival than working towards a better nation to serve all Malaysians. I can imagine readers now shooting at me, stating that our great PM has started his 1Malaysia, People First Performance Now, transformation plans, GTP, ETP, NKEA, NKRA, EPP, blah blah blah.
It appears that, in such a short time, the PM thinks he can magically revamp the system without really looking to resolve or remove the cancer-stricken modes of the current government.
It really boggles (or not) the whole nation when Najib talks about his 1Malaysia, GTP, ETP etc., but turns racist when facing the Malay community during the Umno assembly and talking to Pekida. The most dangerous game they are playing with – religion – is outsourced to Perkasa, Utusan and BN component parties. Very shocking indeed. How not to debunk PM Najib’s 1Malaysia?
I do not have to stress further on the goodies being given to the rakyat; its reason and timing should clearly be seen. Take a look at the BR1M RM500. When the nation was still rich, I did not receive a single cent; nothing was contributed to scholarships, building new schools or fighting poverty, but how is it that when we are almost at the brink of bankruptcy, the Umno government can cough out all these cash prizes? Should we appreciate and thank the racist Umno president for the RM500 when it doesn’t come from Umno’s coffers, but from taxes charged to the rakyat?
The Umno leaders have failed in striving to be the best among the worst. Why can’t they strive to be the best among the best?
With the above shortcomings of our government’s performance, do you think that we should continue to allow Umno to ruin run this nation?
The call now is very loud and clear – “Anything but Umno/BN” (ABU) for the coming 13th GE.
You Chinese people worked so very hard, laboured day and night, toiled like kuli, (with blood, sweat and tears) just to pay taxes, cukai pintu, cukai tanah and renew licences, to the Ruling Elite Evil UMNO-BN Regime for the past 50 odd oppressive, dictatorial & tyrannical years! (Especially 22 years under Dictator Maha-Zalim Dr.M!)
Now what did the UMNO-BN Govt rewarded you Chinese people? The ever increasing influx of Pendatang Haram's! These Pendatang Haram's are awarded Blue IC MyKad with the criteria that they enroll as UMNO members and MUST be converted to Islam!
On Polling Day GE-13 , these Pendatang Haram's (Indians, Indonesians, Bangaladeshis, Myanmese, Africans, etc) will be queing-up standing next in-line beside you 2nd-Class citizens, with the same rights to vote the Govt that have granted them illegally the licence (MyKad) to be a citizen of Malaysial!
Ultimately the day will come when these Pendatang Haram's will be appointed as MP's in Parliament, and the Bangla's and Indons will be the NEW Raja-Raja/Sultans & of coarse the NEW King/Agung will be an African!
Nice!
Soros on Taib: “Look at the Sarawak Chief Minister selling billions worth of timber concessions under the table; selling every piece of state land to businessmen without tender; using his own companies to obtain lucrative government contracts; … 'you pay I approve'. He has 8 billion US stashed overseas.” “while thousands of poor people still live in cardboard makeshift homes; have no water and shit into the river.” “In China people have been shot for embezzling one thousand dollars. With 8 billion you have stolen, therefore you would be shot 80 thousand times.”
RM400 million a day of black money disappeared from M’sia! Based on the reported RM150 billion of black money a year that disappeared from Malaysia. Reports: According to the Washington-based financial watchdog Global Financial Integrity (GFI), in 2009 alone RM 150 billion (US$47 billion) in illicit money was illegally siphoned out of Malaysia.
The latest GFI report, ‘Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries Over the Decade Ending 2009', is penned by economists Sarah Freitas and Dev Kar, who is a former senior economist at the International Monetary Fund. They stressed that these illicit outflows are basically "unrecorded capital leakages through… illicit transfers of the proceeds of bribery, theft, kickbacks and tax evasion." In other words, it refers to corruption money or black money that is obtained illegally and worse, not even re-circulated into our economy. ENOUGH OF TAIB, ENOUGH OF UMNO, NOT ANOTHER DAY!
In Sarawak alone, with Taib’s 31 yrs of abuse of power, mutli-billion $ plunder and over 10 years of the same by his Uncle before him, the Sarawak CM must be arrested now. His morality, integrity; legitimacy & right to lead are ZERO.
UMNO is equally corrupt. Nothing will be done, unless Arab Spring type pressures are mounted beginning with:
Blockade of all logging & oil palm accesses.
Blockade of all CMS & related’s access & movements.
Work stoppage. Sit-ins in offices, transport hubs & airports.
If the police intimidates…..Good! That’s the beginning of the end of Sarawak’s great tragedy & BN’s stranglehold in Malaysia.
In certain countries Najib would be arrested & impeached…Malaysian PM Najib’s shelter of wildly & uncontrollably corrupt Taib Mahmud of Sarawak, is collusion, duplicity & deception of his people. Defence kickbacks, submarines & Mongolian's death… Condoning all the corrupt practices in UMNO. A betrayal of trust placed in a PM. This is tantamount to Treason – violating one's allegiance to one’s country.
UMNO is rotten to the core. Najib:“I would like to stress here that I have never interfered in MACC’s operations. They are independent and free to carry out their investigations on anyone.” When I read this I fell off my chair and went rolling on the floor laughing.
Your MACC was grilling & murdering Teoh Beng Hock till early morning hours, over some trivial things, when there were and still are crooked ministers whose atrocities are a million times bigger. The whole world is calling for Sarawak Taib's arrest! Involving multi-billions. With letters addressed to Najib & MACC. Mr PM, where is you integrity, morality and credibility now? ZERO. So is Mahathir's. Alan Newman, NZ
Kasutraya…..we oso can't be 100% sure la, but one thing we do know for sure is that the opposition can't do any worse than what BN is doing right now, no? Com'n, even the supposedly BN-friendly civil service Auditor-General Dept has come out in its report to say that those states governed by the opposition right now are doing well, much better than any of the states still being run by BN! That says a lot, don't you agree?
And surely you are not blind, or in which case, you must be prejudiced, to see the corruptions and scandalous affairs committed by BN being exposed almost on a daily basis. Of course, if some people chose to close their eyes and clapped their ears to all these adversities, then who else but God could help you.
But you have your right to disagree so you can believe what you want.
Like the opposition is any better la..
**The 13th General Elections**
http://harismibrahim.wordpress.com/category/13th-… ,
http://www.mysinchew.com/taxonomy/term/171 ,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Malaysian_gener… ,
http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2011/04/28/pakatan%E2… ,
http://www.malaysia-today.net/mtcolumns/newscomme… ,
**The 13th General Elections**
If now until the elections (GE-13/PRU-13) , all the victimised, racially-polarised, disparaged and marginalised Rakyat would just rise to protest not to pay cukai pintu , cukai tanah, any other sort of taxes, refuse to renew their licences etc, until Pakatan Rakyat takes over the helm of governmentship in Putrajaya, then only will we start to pay!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginalization ,
http://ameno-bn.blogspot.com/ ,
In the Chinese villages and rural Chinese kampungs, FRU trucks and Army vehicles manned with heavily-armed personnels, will be deployed all around the polling stations. Who could ever blame the poor rural Chinese kampung folks for not coming out to vote?
With the time frame running out verses the Europe debt crisis and the US meltdown contagion drawing closer by the day, Najib has by most only 3 months to call for a snap polls! (By March 2012 latest!)
http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_… ,
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/breakingviews/… ,
http://linkenlim.blogspot.com/2006/07/race-riots-… ,
**General Elections – 13**
Each and everytime the General Elections come around the corner, Mahathir, the former PM for the past 22 years of oppressive, dictatorial, tyrannical reign/regime of evil oppression,
will threaten the Rakyat, that if they do not vote for UMNO/BN, another May 13 – Racial Riots would erupt!
It's obvious that Najib, the current PM is running out of ideas and is desperately fighting for his own political survival, during the recent UMNO AGM, where numerous seditious, religious provocative and racially sensitive attacks were made against the opposition parties in particularly DAP was singled out. The May 13 bogeyman has reared it's ugly head again!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13_May_incident ,
http://mlmkingdanieloonsweelee.blogspot.com/2011/… ,
Very good, sensible and meaningful arguments. Well-articulated, coherent and to-the-point. You should post this on Mr Najib's Facebook wall.
To complicate matters and permeate the problem more complicitly, is the involvement of the royalty and monarchs and sultans in businesses in the corporate world.
The evil business of largesse and patronage unforgivably breeds nothing but contempt and disgust from the Rakyat.
So the logical and rational thing to do when Pakatan Rakyat takes over the helm of governing the country, the first priority is to nationalize all the criminal acts and illegal wrong-doings by the UMNO-BN elites.
http://mybaru1.blogspot.com/
**Father of Corruption, Cronyism, Nepotism, & Decadence**…….. …………
Mahathir’s UMNO-BN 22 years of dictatorial, tyrannical & oppressive reign of evil regime was widely known and well-documented as the era of excessive opulence and extravagant decadence.
This era of rampant and endemic corruption resulted in the pervasive-evil system whereby government servants comprising of ministers in the cabinet, top and high-ranking Govt. officials and the evasive UMNO warlords and cronies, in the 2mil. civil service Govt. employees, are simultaneously and covertly holding outright positions in the corporate world as directors, in public-listed companies and other related businesses, when they have NO BLOODY business to be involved in, as per their contract in the government service.
The shocking revelation is that all their family members and relatives are appointed as nominees and directors in the aforementioned businesses.
So the logical and rational thing to do when Pakatan Rakyat takes over the helm of governing the country, the first priority is to nationalize all the criminal acts and illegal wrong-doings by the UMNO-BN elites.
http://mybaru1.blogspot.com/