CSJ and KJ at Yale

[billisnotathome]

Apologies if this has been posted before. Worth a watch in the evening over a few drinks. Interestingly KJ seems much more at ease in an 'academic' type arena and even manages to be somewhat humorous. The Q&A is particularly eye-opening as neither seem to be able to quite hold up to aggressive questioning from one or two Yale faculty members. KJ reverts to type whilst surprisingly, CSJ for all his earlier bluster appears somewhat flustered when he is the one being attacked rather than doing the attacking. Apparently, no-one from WP was invited.

[video=youtube;PsWQKD4tPKk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsWQKD4tPKk[/video]

 

[metalmickey]

Apologies if this has been posted before. Worth a watch in the evening over a few drinks. Interestingly KJ seems much more at ease in an 'academic' type arena and even manages to be somewhat humorous. The Q&A is particularly eye-opening as neither seem to be able to quite hold up to aggressive questioning from one or two Yale faculty members. KJ reverts to type whilst surprisingly, CSJ for all his earlier bluster appears somewhat flustered when he is the one being attacked rather than doing the attacking. Apparently, no-one from WP was invited.

[video=youtube;PsWQKD4tPKk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsWQKD4tPKk[/video]

I was going to bring this up.

The political value of this meeting is pretty dubious to me. This goes beyond whacking the regime.

Yale wanting to set up a school in Singapore should be a good thing for Singapore as a whole. Not only for the PAP, but for everyone.

Yes, there will not be a lot of academic freedom compared to Yale, but it is a chance to evolve to a state where people can speak more freely and is generally good for democracy in Singapore.

What are those two clowns doing there? What's their standpoint? "hooray, let's whack the regime", or "Yale should pull the plug on the project" or "boo hoo hoo look at me I'm a victim of the government"? What the fuck.

Anyway, in a real democracy, you're going to have to be as good as those Yale professors when you're speaking in public. That's what real democracy means.

 

[billisnotathome]

My guess is CSJ sees himself as an Aung San Suu Kyi sort of figure whom the West will eventually rally around and force the PAP, via political and economic pressure, to level the playing field in his favour. I don't know what KJ was doing there. His performance during the Q&A was frankly fucking embarrassing, at one point he even had to refer to the American lady's notes to remember the questions. Can you imagine anyone in political office doing that in a public debate?

The sad conclusion is, well-intentioned or otherwise, neither has the slightest clue what it actually takes to win a seat in Parliament at the moment. And if they don't get their fucking act together and start doing some actual grassroots work to win over daft fucking Sinkies, they probably never will...

 

[metalmickey]

My guess is CSJ sees himself as an Aung San Suu Kyi sort of figure whom the West will eventually rally around and force the PAP, via political and economic pressure, to level the playing field in his favour. I don't know what KJ was doing there. His performance during the Q&A was frankly fucking embarrassing, at one point he even had to refer to the American lady's notes to remember the questions. Can you imagine anyone in political office doing that in a public debate?

The sad conclusion is, well-intentioned or otherwise, neither has the slightest clue what it actually takes to win a seat in Parliament at the moment. And if they don't get their fucking act together and start doing some actual grassroots work to win over daft fucking Sinkies, they probably never will...

I will watch the video in due course.

I don't think they have good intentions at all. This both smacks of political opportunism to me.

People criticise CSJ for appealing to the foreigners instead of the locals. But they forget that the government has to listen to both its own people and the foreigners. Like it or not, what foreigners think about Singapore has a big big effect on the government's thinking. I do not discount what CSJ did for Singapore for this reason.

However, going to Yale like this is not really the right way to do things. Those Yale professors do not have Singapore's welfare at heart and CSJ and KJ should not be seen in their company.