Concerning George W. Bush's State of the Union

NEWater SG

Well... I'm sure that many of you have heard of George Bush's speech on late morning Wednesday (Singapore time). His speech touched on economics, the War in Iraq, and security issues.

I won't need to repeat what the Straits Times have mentioned (I'm assuming that most of you respect ST enough to read it. I hardly do.) like the economics and the War in Iraq... but I have noticed that ST missed out a particular and very important point in Bush's speech.

I actually taped down the speech (yes, I'm a very bored person) from 10.30am onwards while I was in school in the meantime and I remember very clearly that Bush was at one point trying to promote his Patriot Act.

What is the Patriot Act? It is just a bill filled heavily with legal language that just says that in times of great need, terrorist suspects will have all of their rights revoked immediately (nudge nudge, wink wink) except for their right to own firearms (which is very VERY strange indeed).

What I want to say is that by ommiting the Patriot Act, ST is actually trying to hide the fact that we have such a law and to avoid any sort of uproar from the locals who think that the Patriot Act is wrong, think about our ISA and start to protest (which is actually quite unrealistic because the bulk of our population have absolutely no guts at all).

Is this the sort of media that we want to live with? It is common knowledge that our newspapers are all state-run "running dogs" of the authorities and there's virtually nothing we can do about it.

Some people will have the *OUT OF POINT* sign popping in your head when you read this threat, and perhaps even more will ask "What's your point?" before clicking on the 'Back' button on their browsers. But, I guess what I'm trying to do is to leave a thought in your mind.

Just a thought.

NathanG5 SG

oh yea..its not out of point..
just tat we have this so call act for so long..nobody really bothers much about it..
u can say that the majority of the local have no balls...what about u?
are u willing to form your own party or terrorists group to fight against this bill?
do you have the balls?
well..i have to admit..i dun have any balls..im living good now..no bombing near my house..no ethnic clash..no chaotic scenerio..
its just what i like..
so ST just a propaganda tools..so watcha gona do about it?
what just post? Laughing

Farmer Brown SG

erm can someone elaborate on this bill that singapore has?

Hocklez SG

not on newater topic? Shocked

SingaporeTyrannosaur SG

ST (and assorted SPH media) has been well known for being well in control by the gar'men.

Note the democracy confrence held by CSJ, while many who attended spoke up with very valid and interesting views on Singaporean politics (some which PAP would find distasteful), ST, The New Paper, and the ilk chose instead to focus their story not on covering the confrence, but instead on a single lady who blasted CSJ. In fact, the entire confrence was barely covered and the whole report turned out to be on this lady (even ran a front page pic of her).

All this while, the confrence, and many of the interesting points, were virtually ignored. If this is the case, then journalism in Singapore must be in a very sorry state to resort to such measures just to further discredit CSJ as a raving maniac that everybody should take a potshot at. Which while is not entirely untrue, has apparently been well utilized by the gar'men spin machine.

Of course, look at all the "positive" letters they posted in their forum to justify their price hike as well. Along with this truly amazing line in their offical notice of the price hike: "I'm sure you'll agree it's good value for money".

Agree? Value for money? Given their brand of self-censoring and
unbiased" journalism, along with a price hike of up to 33 percent in some cases, one wonders how in touch with reality the SPH truly is.