Joceline Tan’s column today in The Star will surely consign her to the fate of R.I.P (Rust In Peace) in Scissorsland.
She wrote:
“Reporters have had the impression since 2008 that many local NGOs and particularly the Penang Forum had thrown their support behind Pakatan Rakyat and Guan Eng. […]
“Some said it was because they were part of the wave that swept Pakatan into power in Penang.
“Besides, a number of the Penang Forum figures have been co-opted into state working committees and made councillors in the local government. One of them has even been appointed a director on the Penang Water Authority while Dr Arrifin Omar, a leading figure in the Aliran NGO, is now a DAP-nominated Senator.
“They have become EMBEDDED in the Pakatan administration and that has compromised their role as an independent voice in Penang.”
[Emphasis – underline and bold red – added by this blogger.]
Joceline further wrote:
“Others claimed that like many people, the NGOs were afraid of getting on the wrong side of Guan Eng. If he does not like something, he can come down on you like a tonne of bricks and the DAP cybertroopers will then TEAR YOU TO SHREDS.
“For the longest time, it was tough to get reactions from them [Penang Forum members], especially on issues not favourable to the state government.”
*** *** ***
[Helen’s comment: Some people when they criticize Kim, they have to constantly reassure Guan Eng that if they were to say something even the slightest bit negative, it’s not because they’re in any way at all his critics.
This reassurance has to be given often to Guan Eng so that he does not come down like a tonne of bricks on the puny individual who dares voice any criticism – even the mildest dissent conveyed in the friendliest of tones. This reassurance has to be made to avert cybertroopers tearing the hapless guy to shreds.
Others, should they feel compelled to voice anything the slightest bit unfavourable regarding Pakatan, will make it a fine point to reassure the listener (or reader) repetitively that he (the speaker/writer) is really and “on scout’s honour” a true blue opposition supporter and that his criticism is made not because he is in any way remotely pro-BN.
This reassurance has to be conveyed often to listeners/readers so that the speaker/writer does not suffer the tonne of bricks coming down his head and to avoid being torn to shreds by the DAP cybertroopers and the rest of the perpetual hysterics (definition of ‘hysteric’ — a person affected with hysteria).
And this, ladies and gentlemen, describes the climate of the Brave New World, the Better Firster Middle Malaysia that is promised us by the Jerusubang preachers.]
*** *** ***
Joceline continues in her column, writing:
“Make no mistake, these NGOs are still solidly for Pakatan even though they are opposed to Guan Eng’s mega project. One of them told him during the meeting, the state government should not equate their opposition to Barisan to blanket support for every single state policy dished out.”
“Actually, the Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) was the first NGO to speak up when news about the undersea tunnel broke last year. But CAP president S.M. Mohd Idris was a lone voice then and the DAP cybertroopers went for him, calling him all kinds of names and telling him, “mamak, shut up.”
“None of the NGOs in the Penang Forum came to Idris’ defence or backed up his stand and that was when CAP decided to have nothing more to do with the group.” […]
“It has been like one long Valentine’s Day between the Penang Forum and Guan Eng since 2008 …”
*** *** ***
It has also been one long Valentine’s Day between The Star and the evangelistas since 2008.
Below is a screenshot of two DAP politicians picking on Joceline Tan in their Twitter. These two DAP evengelist politicians also happen to be The Star‘s most favourite people.
Valentine between Star and evangelistas
The Star reporter Regina Lee – mentioned in my immediate previous posting for her coverage of the Ngeh-Kula rivalry – wrote about Ong Kian Ming:
“Ong in particular is famed for his political analysis published in Malaysiakini“
see ‘DAP recruits new members‘ (The Star, Published: Monday August 27, 2012 MYT 1:21:00 PM Updated: Tuesday October 30, 2012 MYT 2:18:53 PM).
Don’t you think it’s fishy for The Star to have updated (read: amended) its report after an interim of two months? What high praises did Regina initially sing about Ong Kian Ming on Aug 27 that the paper might have possibly erased when it updated Regina’s online copy more than two months later on Oct 30?
We can still remember the several instances of Hannah Yeoh deleting her controversial tweets when she was caught out, recorded by blogger Dhanyaraam with screenshots here and by me, here.
The Star never ever defended its staff who are critical of DAP 2.0
The point of the matter is this. DAP politicians such as Hannah Yeoh and Ong Kian Ming are the biggest tormenters of the MCA politicians as well as of the 10 percent of Star writers such as Joceline and Sira Habibu who are not pro-DAP.
The point of the matter is also that as early as 12 Dec 2010 (see screenshot below) – and this is a good half year before I even started blogging – the MCA’s own people had already complained that Hannah Yeoh and Ong Kian Ming are “DAP SuperCyber Bully”.
The tweet below was by the Beliawanis treasurer saying “@ imokman @hannahyeoh = DAP SuperCyber Bully”.
Whose side is The Star on?
The “pathetic journalism” jibe above was directed by Hannah at Sira Habibu, a rare Star journalist who has been critical of the DAP.
Joceline wrote:
“CAP president S.M. Mohd Idris was a lone voice then and the DAP cybertroopers went for him, calling him all kinds of names and telling him “mamak, shut up. None of the NGOs in the Penang Forum came to Idris’ defence or backed up his stand…”
You can say the same about Joceline Tan’s personal predicament:
“a lone voice then and the DAP cybertroopers went for her, calling her all kinds of names and telling her “*********, shut up”. None of the reporters in The Star came to Joceline’s defence or backed up her writings …”
I’ve created a blog – with a small readership of a few thousand – to fight back the DAP SuperCyber Bullies.
The Star, on the other hand, has deployed its 5.63 million audience reach to diligently promote the very same individuals who are clearly the very ones at the forefront of the attacks on Joceline Tan.
There is obviously something very wrong with The Star. BN must be wondering why the MCA has allowed its paper to behave like this. Therefore BN must be wondering is there anything up with the MCA?
Helen Ang 
Reblogged this on alatiffh's Blog and commented:
The Stars people and the Cristian in DAP and Cristian pendakwah have decided to chose this world and not this and hereafter, thus their behaviour.
Feel sorry to Helen and Jocelene for their hopeless game of preaching to commited group. Should realise that they have made pack with the d…l.
We have to look at the post-GE scenario.
MCA by choice has allowed The Star to backstab it.
I forecast that MCA – which as been hemorrhaging from the wounds in its back sustained over the last 5 years – will die from the blood loss.
So after this happens, what direction will The Star take?
regina lee ,as usual. As a thing about writing negative views on indians. remember the hindraf article and kampung buah pala when she was working for malaysiakini and free malaysia today.
Don’t recall that RL was ever with FMT tho’.
But now don’t play-play lah. The MCA patron (party vice president who is also head of the MCA Political Education bureau) is “wow, terribly impressed” with her wor.
Can’t help it mah… She quite pretty leh… She’s an FB friend & some of her pics are “terribly impressive” wor.
I’m confident that the MCA ministers (yeah that one especially I’m quite sure) will be benched after GE13.
The Star will be a different ballgame in the post-Dino Jurassic Park.
Can’t help it lah. They’re so stuck in the past, they can’t even take one step forward without taking several steps back at the same time.
Since them MCA dinos do peek at this blog from time to time, here’s a song dedicated to them;
YouTube: Boyz II Men – It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday
Btw, check out the blur shirt, tie, white shirts & shoes. Maybe MCA can adopt that as their new uniform.
The pix of the lil’ ol’ ladies in their blue BN vests are rather sad and bitter-sweet.
The facts may be the same but our perspectives and interpretation of them may change. I have a kinder view of MCA today than I had of them 5 years ago. But this tempering of views is too late as the DAP mob has already signed the MCA’s death warrant.
I hope the MCA in its last throes will realise how The Star scissored them in the back.
Some of them not very lil’ lah. Some in fact are quite, shall we say wide horizontally. Don’t know can depend on these kind to last a hectic campaign or not?
Would you know of any website with casual pix of Wanita MCA? The ones I featured were taken by Minaq Jinggo (to whom every sopo blogger is indebted) during the Gelombang launch.
Nope. Not really. But lemme trawl my bro’s & big boss’ FB. For some reason, they’re MCA members since the tsunami.
Very curious. Since the tsunami? Sympathy for the underdog?
I feel sorry for MCA too, actually. They’ve really been at sea.
However, it may be better for such sheer stupidity in a species to be bred to extinction. My gut feeling is that the MCA women are smarter and tougher than their men.
But like I’ve been repeating, The Star not only simply refuses to give Wanita & Beliawanis a platform but the paper’s reporters been doing to the MCA what Regina Lee did to Kula in the Ngeh face-off.
e.g. Wanita MCA lembu punya susu
e.g. http://www.mca.org.my/en/wanita-mca%E2%80%99s-efforts-bear-fruit-%E2%80%93-amendment-to-parliament-standing-order-to-bar-sexist-slurs-welcomed/
tapi The Star bagi sapi itu punya nama
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/11/27/nation/20121127203225&sec=nation
other examples, The Star stuck its scissors into “Ms Tow Truck” Jessie Ooi and sided with Gan Pei Nei in her tiff with Beliawanis over the F1 Umbrella Girls episode.
I dunno if it is sympathy. Now that you’ve prompted me to consider their motivations, I suppose perhaps they were hoping to play a substantial part in politics in the near future. Both are professionals, intelligent, street smart & impeccable orators.
Let’s be honest. How many MCA leaders are good orators? With the exception of their sexy president, I suppose Wee KS, Liow TL, Chua Jr are adequate orators who will not set anybody’s pulse running ‘cept perhaps the lil’ sweet ol’ things.
Therein lies an inherent flaw for MCA. Politics to an extent is like showbiz. Put up a showstopper or two & you’re on good stead. Instead we see listless & mundane leaders like Chor CH, Donald Lim, Kong CH etc whose speeches would do wonders to cure insomnia.
They need to get rid of these tired leaders & work on renewal through youths. Let MCA hit rock bottom with a new lineup since they’re expected to anyway. Give them a taste of things & hopefully that will fuel them for the graft towards GE14.
But the hardest is the first step. Are the dinos willing to vacate their thrones?
re: “hoping to play a substantial part in politics in the near future”
Not if the party keels over before they get there.
re: “Let MCA hit rock bottom”
Rest assured they will. And very few will care when that happens.
Perhaps the future lies in the Ong Tee Keat-Pandan route, i.e. participation in BN outside the MCA ambit.
Did you watch Les Misérables? When you mentioned “keels over” I can’t help but to think about the opening sequence.
“I’ve done no wrong!
Sweet Jesus, hear my prayer!
Look down look down,
Sweet Jesus doesn’t care..”
The convicts were forced to do hard labour by trying to salvage a sinking ship to the docks for repairs.
Desperados trying hard to save a sinking ship but knowing they’re condemned to a prison by their own actions. Familiar much?
MCA is the Ship of Fools. Suckered by the Star. Let ’em sink.
I predict that the coming GE, MCA will be wiped out thru its own doing. When they purposely allow their own newspaper to bash BN, They are digging their own graves. This is a premeditated moves by them actually, because MCA has said that if they fail in the coming GE they would not want any posts in government. I hope they live up to their words.
We must demand that MCA keep to its pledge to stay out of govt if they cannot perform better than their 2008 results of 15 seats.
There’s no way that MCA can anywhere close to retaining 15 seats much less improve.
I think they’d be happy if they can win 7-8 seats. Best not to expend too much resources to campaign in black areas.
The MCA general assembly had previously passed a resolution that it they fail to better their 2008 performance, they would pull out from the Cabinet.
Lembu dipegang pada talinya, manusia dipegang pada janjinya. Kata mesti dikota.
MCA must stay out of the govt if they flop in GE13.
Yeah, I’m aware of that resolution. I believe Mr Sexayyyy will keep his promise. Will his konco koncos do the same is doubtful though consider the dog eat dog culture in politics
Precisely. They might just cop-out by having CSL honorably resign (to take responsibility, like OKT did for 2008) and then overturn the resolution by trotting the excuse that the promise was one made by the old management.
6 weeks to go before election. Let’s get over it!
Even after polling day and the results are known, the ground will be far from settled.
When BN wins, Pakatan will allege that the polls were dirty. They’ve been laying the ground for making the charge of fraud. They will agitate unrest.
Perak was chaotic after the BN hostile takeover, and the anger is still simmering to this day. The Chinese voters are only waiting to payback in GE13. DAP will not lose a single seat it contests in Perak.
And what happens if BN loses?
BN will not lose. The weightage favours rural constituencies disproportionately. Also gerrymandering.
Am not discounting that it’s possible Pakatan may win the popular vote by a wafer thin margin but it will still not gain the majority of seats. Remember the G.W. Bush vs Al Gore presidential election? Gore collected more votes but Bush won the electoral college.
As to “And what happens if BN loses?”, wink. Am not gonna say, lah.
BN will only lose if there’s a perfect storm (i.e. serious economic downturn that wipe out the wealth of most people; something similar or greater than the scale of the 97/98 Asian financial crisis). Bill Clinton’s 1992 political campaign has said it before, “It’s the economy, stupid!”
Got 3 million new voters wor, and mostly young people like the Lowyat type, shudder, shudder.
If they’re registered in the saturated urban areas, BN is safe. If they’re registered at their grandparents’ address, they may balik kampung to vote where every vote counts, ha-ha again.
DAP will not lose a single seat it contests in Perak.
I hope to see the cousins lose but that’s a fat hope.
Possible if the Kula faction sabo. Taiping has 13.9% and Beruas 14.4% Indian voters heh-heh.
I stop buying the Star paper years ago, except Joceline columns which I read it over the internet for free. :)
I don’t know why ppl still reading the paper though. The Star only an ads worthy of garbage, not much news. Not worth paying the money…if they gave it for free I’ll take it so that I can resell it back as “old newspapers”,
I’m glad that someone like you stand up to them! Bravo! And, just ignore those fanatics PR cyberbullies with their clueless and emotional comments.
p.s Now your blog on my list of favs.
Thanks.
Btw I think Susan Loone is going to need executive protection nearing to polling day. I always considered her partisan but obviously not enough for the cretins who inhabit Malaysiakini.
Oh. The occupational hazard of being based in Penang and hence having to cover the Tokong.
But I can assure you that the Jerusubangites are almost as bad.
The only things keeping the pestilence away from swarming my blog in pandemic proportions is the language barrier and the fact that the crowd here is majority Malay & pro-establishment, so that they haven’t got thuggery in numbers.
Blimey, I reckon’ that I am the lone anti-establishment fellow who follows your blog because he does not believe in indulging confirmation bias.
No lah. Norman Fernandez who is the Johor DAP deputy chairman puts in a comment here once in a blue moon.
Then there is Sshsn, my resident troll. Jonnymalaya and Ravin have been missing of late but the regulars would know them. Then there are some other dormant fellas who, when they deign to comment makes me wonder, eh, you’re still following, ah?
I pelik laa…why MCA let The Star ‘stab’ it all these years? Heard from the grapevine that UMNO had alerted MCA about the Star antics for sometime, but MCA mcm buat donno jer.
Kalau MCA masih bertekad lagi untuk buat dunno, saya rasa parti itu harus dipertanggungjawabkan atas perilaku perkakas miliknya.
Those demented writers at the Star should be lynched for behaving as they do. As for the DAPsters, they have so many similirities with the Nazis, kowtowing to their Fuehrer, the Tokong.
You know talking about Penang politics, some things have changed here since 2008 which have gone unnoticed with all the cyber thuggery of the Dapters and Tokong’s total control of the media in the state.
One thing that stuck me is the little known but financially powerful and influential Indian Muslims. In the eyes of Dapsters, Indian Muslims (mamaks) occupy a social standing a even lower than the pond scum. Almost everyone who criticizes the Tokong is accused of being a mamak and shouted down. Whenever there is a demo, Dapsters call for a boycott of Indian Muslim restaurants and shops.
In fact post 2008, according to some of my Indian Muslim friends, the business in the Nasi Kandar shops have fallen significantly (up to 30% in some areas). In certain times it has actually fell even lower up to 50%.
Having seen this disturbing trend, the Indian Muslim community has become closer and they have formed associations to pool their resources and defend their interests. They have been low profile and quiet so not to provoke the Pakatoons. They have been politically neutral and passive but the post 2008 events have shown their vulnerabilities especially in Chinese majority areas. I bet that almost all will vote BN and provide financial support this time around.
I also start to notice the changing trends among the Indians in the island. Those in the mainland tend to vote for BN while the richer ones in the island supported DAP in 2008. I have known many businessmen openly supported DAP and provided financial for them. If you had visited the Market Street (Little India of Georgetown), you will see many shops having DAP flags and even pictures of their leaders.
Of course they had expected DAP to reciprocate their support by introducing business friendly policies and being more supporting. They had various grievances against MPPP before and hoped all these will go away. Over the weekend, I happened to meet up some of these folks in a social function and for reasons unknown I was seated with the same table as some of more important businessmen. Inevitably the topic switched to politics and GE. I was surprised to discover the strong words these businessmen had for the DAP leaders and govt.
I can’t name the names for obvious reasons but what these folks were saying that some of the DAP leaders and exco were dirty. It seems like the businessmen are being asked to contribute financially for routine permits and approvals. It seems almost impossible for them to bid for projects as the contracts are all but reserved for those who are willing to contribute for the DAP leaders. When I queried about the open tender, they burst out laughing saying it is all a sham that nobody takes seriously.
They also say that it is getting harder to do business without contributing to DAP and certain individuals otherwise MPPP will come down hard and slap compounds for the slightest offence. There were 2 restaurants closed by MPPP for openly supporting MIC and not “contributing”.
When asked to compare KSK’s and LGE’s admin, they think for all KSK’s faults he was a humble and good CM but let down by local UMNO’s excesses. But according to them, in contrast, LGE has turned the whole state into a Big Business and selling the state to rich and politically connected businessmen. Many of them worry that if given another term, Indians business will be badly hit and forced to relocate to the mainland.
I am not sure about the Chinese but there is an increasing talk about voting for DAP at the state level and BN for the Federal. I still think that DAP will retain Penang but the developments in the last few months really made even the Chinese to reconsider. The last straw is the multi billion tunnel project.
BTW Helen, have you noticed the counter campaign to ABU? It is called ABCD – Asalkan Bukan Cina Dap!
The inclusion of KIMMA as non-voting members of UMNO ended the Malay /Mamak dialectic going on in UMNO. The reality is that this community by their own accord has been willing participants in the greater culture war within UMNO and the Malay polity.
The fact that the tensions are centered in Penang where their political influence is being threatened by Chinese interlopers and their rather bizarre response to it is indicative of just how damaging bull headed racial polemics are.
They do not get any sympathy from me. In fact, if it is true that their businesses are taking a hit because of the perceived antics of “their” political players, then I say, ( not only considering historical footnotes) payback is a bitch.