Pulling wool over the nation's Dumb Eye

Technorati tags: Damai Malaysia, Politics, Propaganda, GPMS, UMNO, BN

Walki's pre-post note of thanks: First off, a big thank you to Marina, Jeff, Rocky, and everyone else who's linked to myAsylum to participate in the poll - of which, the interim results you'll find later in the post. The results, so far, are not at all surprising, at least not to Walski. This post should have been out yesterday, but because Walski's Streamyx was so incredibly crap the whole of yesterday, it had to wait till today. Walski's apologies for the delayed posting.

Update @ December 23, 2007 1959 hrs: Results and analysis of the poll can be found here.

You can fool some of the people some of the time. Or even some of the people all of the time. But when you try to fool all of the people all of the time, the stench of the resulting bullshit simply can't be suppressed for very long - the acridity of the odor even surpasses the sting of teargas on a Sunday morning.

How many Dumb Eyes do you see?
Image taken from GPMS news page (click image to read)

Of late, the amount of bullshit has far exceeded the levels of tolerance that most Malaysians have, Walski dares say. Like stating "the people want ISA". Like how most people long for a broken limb? What a load of crap. Walski won't bother linking to the sources - there's a specific standard of hygiene that myAsylum observes.

But the strategy leading up to this claim has been planned. Not well-planned, or even intelligently planned, but at least thought out. First, ensure that the police reject any application for peaceful rallies, and strike out at the protesters during any street rally unfriendly to the Government, so that they appear to become violent. Then equate any peaceful protest with violent riots, and demonize the organizations involved.

Then, summon all the NGOs you can think of that are either linked to BN, or at least friendly to the political body and have the form a bogus alliance, which is where Damai Malaysia comes in. Or Dumb Eye, as Walski calls it. Then, this bogus coalition, supposedly representing the voice of the people, or the "silent majority", calls for an end to street demonstrations - or else endorse the Governement to use whatever means necessary, including the ISA. Then, the Government, acting all pleasantly surprised, follows "what the people want".

As for the effect on businesses in KL, anyone living in the Klang Valley knows that the main reason for the traffic snarls were the police roadblocks, not the protests in themselves. Lies, upon lies, compounded with obfuscation... then sprinkle a tad bit more lies for good measure.

Sneaky, but quite obvious.
(straw poll results thus far, and more, in the full post)

Walski had already mentioned, in an earlier post, that heavily involved with Dumb Eye is GPMS (Gabungan Pelajar Melayu Semenanjung, or the Peninsular Malays Students' Coalition), and that the president of GPMS is also the political secretary to the PM. TranungKite has some details about the GPMS involvement (in Bahasa Malaysia). Delving a little deeper, Malaysians Unplugged looks at this from a slightly different angle - a reality check, if you would - and as with everything else political, it has to do with power and influence. Again, Walski takes all these opinions with large pinches of salt, but if true, then he is not one bit surprised.

Marina has posted the contents of the Damai Dumb Eye Malaysia memo (in Bahasa Malaysia). Walski will translate it into English later this evening and then post it here on myAsylum. Or, if anyone else has already translated it, do send Walski a copy.

Again, we the people are seen as being so ignorant as to not be able to spot bullshit when we smell it. What the Government, BN and their supporters refuse to see is that in today's hyper-communications era, it's not so easy to hide behind their tried and true spin and obfuscation.

Well, here's what Walski has to say to Dumb Eye: disclose all the NGOs you represent, and stop claiming that you speak for the "silent majority", because that is misleading. Most people didn't even know of the existence of this "coalition of the non-existent" until about a week ago.

While Walski concedes that doing the poll won't amount to a lot, the real purpose is to seek some empirical clarity, whether or not what Dumb Eye claims is true, and that they speak on behalf of all Malaysians, silent or not. Many of you have voiced the wise-ass opinion that if the majority were silent, they couldn't have conveyed their feelings to the coalition, unless the coalition can read minds. Yeah, technically true.

So, thus far, the online Malaysians at home and abroad have voted - survey says...

So far, Damai Malaysia's claims seem a little off...

You can do the math yourself, but it's becoming pretty obvious that most Malaysians, silent or not, do not agree that Dumb Eye speaks on their behalf. And not just from this humble survey, but from the opinions that Walski has seen throughout the bloggerhood.

The there's these next few loads of crap: equating the arrest of 5 Hindraf leaders under the ISA to the incarceration at Guantanamo Bay. Another genius idea. And the latest - substituting the IPCMC with a really watered down, and frankly toothless, commission that's more friendly to the Police and the Government. But these, sahib, are subjects for near-future posts, so stay tuned.

What the people want? The Government may know, or they may not. The fact remains that regardless of whether it does or not, the priority is on what the Government is willing to do, and more importantly have to do to stay incumbent. If possible, forever.

As to what the real people really want... for the Government to take care of ALL Malaysians, and not favor some over the others, and to address real issues, and not pooh-pooh them away, or resort to draconian actions to suppress dissent - it seems that all the Government cares to do is to turn a Dumb Eye...

Oh, and by the way, have YOU registered to vote?