Oh “Look what Tokong said not too long ago”

By Calvin Sankaran

Look what Tokong said not too long ago:

[In The Malaysian Insider, 8 Sept 2012]

“Lim Guan Eng told voters today that the only way to boot Lynas Corporation back to Australia and shut down its controversial rare earth refinery in Kuantan is by voting out Barisan Nasional (BN) in the coming polls.

The DAP secretary-general warned anti-Lynas lobbyists that the recent granting of a two-year temporary occupational licence (TOL) to the Australian miner was a clear sign that should BN win again in the next general election, the firm would be allowed to operate fully without any restrictions.

“That the BN government has no hesitation to issue the TOL to Lynas even before the general election showed its commitment towards Lynas and profits over the people’s health.

“The two-year TOL leaves Malaysians no choice but to choose health and public safety over profits and two nuclear reactors by replacing the BN with a PR (Pakatan Rakyat) government,” Lim said in a statement”. — http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/guan-eng-vote-out-bn-to-shut-lynas-plant

Note that he mentioned 2 nuclear reactors, clearly an attempt to whip up mass hysteria.

By their statements, LGE and WT [Wong Tack] clearly proven Lynas and its supporters’ accusation that they are merely using Lynas as a platform to undermine BN and whip up mass hysteria among the Chinese.

What surprises me is the almost casual coverage of LGE’s and WT’s complete reversal of position. One of the favourite tactics of MI, MK and other Pakatan’s alternative media is in the clever but cunning use of the headings. What they do is print wild accusations and out-of-context excerpts as headlines and buries the details and truth somewhere within the text. They know that most people won’t read the news at all and just merely scan the headlines. As such many people take wild accusations as facts.

In LGE and WT’s case, the headlines were so mild and misleading. Had the same thing happened to BN leaders, MK would have screamed “Massive U-Turn” or “Flip Flop”.

As I had stated yesterday, when a low level BN leader makes a negative statement, it is given wide publicity and goes on for months or even years. But when PR leaders make such statements, either these don’t get publicized or quickly buried and forgotten. That’s why Dapsters are quick to forget Namawee, Patrick Teoh, Ngeh, etc but quote Johari ad nauseam.

Comment originally @ 2013/03/13 at 9:40 am

Low level BN leader will get wide publicity from alternative media for a negative statement

I would say that over the years the alternative media and DAP (and their Cyber Red Guards) have done a massive job in painting Umno as racist extremists.

Their tactics are simple: One, as in the case of Johari [Abdul Ghani] here, misrepresent what was said and spin as racist statement.

Second, pick up the statements of some low level leaders and present as the view of Umno as whole. I don’t think there is a need to refuse that there are among Umno members who have poor view of other races. But this is not the Umno leadership’s view or the party’s policy.

The thing is when Ngeh accuses Indian votes can be garnered via mutton, it gets little traction. But if let’s say an Umno state leader says the same thing, it would generate a firestorm stoked by Pakatan cyber thugs that he’ll be forced to resign.

When Ngeh calls Zamry Nga calls Zambry “hitam metallic”, the media (including the MCA’s scissor – the Star) conveniently buries in inside pages. But had it been an Umno leader, we will have weeks and months of controversy.

We know that PAS leaders are known to utter racist and chauvinist statements frequently but these are often dismissed by the Chinese.

So the thing is every party indulges in racial / religious politics but Umno gets tarnished by racism accusations the most due to the cleaver and relentless propaganda by PR.

I think Umno has not been effective in countering them. In fact one of the key election strategies of PR/DAP is in accusing and painting Umno as racist. This was apparently suggested by PR’s electoral strategists hired from the US during the 2008 GE.

Comment by Calvin Sankaran originally @ 2013/03/12 at 11:13 am

Screenshots added by Helen Ang