history repeats, 1st time as tragedy, 2nd time as farce - Marx
u who forget history are condemned to repeat it - Santayana

I shall start by referring to an old article about Goh Chok Tong https://www.theonlinecitizen.com /2013/09/16/from-lky-to-lhl- succession-management-and-baton- passing/ Politics involves 4 Ms: Machinery, Money, Muscle, Mystique - PAP has branches, campaign organizations, central executive ... with cadre members selected by the executive, which is elected by the cadres - the Pope/Cardinals analogy made long ago by Goh Keng Swee it receives membership fees and donations it has ways to reward and punish these are visible mystique is the invisible part, the factor that causes people to "know" what to do LKY did not order his ministers to choose GCT, nor ask GCT to select Lee Hsien Loong as successor people just know After Heng Swee Kiat, described by LKY as best among all his private secretaries, a good civil servant, decided he is not the best politician to succeed LHL, a cabinet reshuffle took place, to prepare the party for the new process to identify the next leader. It is understood that the minister receiving the biggest promotion is PM's own preferred successor. In due course, the idea will filter through to everyone involved the process, cumulating in a meeting, probably over dinner at the home of the minister asked to handle the matter, during which everyone agrees person X is the right choice The mystique will fulfill its role as usual..

Another old article to start things off https://www.theonlinecitizen.com /2012/08/28/singapore-press-holdings/ SPH has a publishing monopoly, funded mainly by advertising once upon time it has an ad monopoly, but with widespread web advertisement and online shopping, the second monopoly no longer holds. SPH management, which has to report to shareholders, decided one monopoly without the other is commercially unviable, and wants to hive off publishing to a non-profit organization. Many comments say: 1. SPH doing badly due to low press freedom so content unpopular 2. it is a monopoly so should automatically make money, so not doing well means bad management curiously, few worry about government ownership via non profit unit means even more control nobody suggested selling to jack ma like SCMP or jeff bezos like washington post, so presumably people do see that as far as sugar daddies go, Singapore Inc is no worse than internet tycoons. For the liberals of singapore, SPH is the monopoly they love to hate yet, even they know singapore needs a national news utility just as it needs electricity, telephone and transport companies. But now, Singapore Inc admits that news is no longer a money making activity, and should be a publicly supported utility. Once that is done SPH will be left as a property holding company, a relatively small one with a couple of well located shopping malls, but without the national role it once had. So liberals and establishment alike have quickly come to terms with the new reality other than a few snide digs at straw figures, peace reigns

When Donald Trump ran for president in 2015, he promised to build wall, drain swamp, bring back factories from China etc he achieved none of these what he did do was not in his campaign promise: a large tax cut, with the deficit induced liquidity expansion fueling a stock market boom, which benefited mostly the large asset owners, not men in street or farms. Yet, his followers believe he was the great fulfiller. They also believe he is a great democrat (he fought election fraud), a devout christian (sent by God to save america), a believer in morality (he nominated anti abortion judges), and so on. These are not based on facts or reasons, but on feelings - trump fans feel that way about him, find ways to justify these feelings, and have no problem coping with inconsistencies and flip flops - reasoning have trouble with these, but feelings over ride them easily. We could say that the current times have reversed the age of enlightenment, when reasoning based on scientific knowledge moved people away from superstition and heuristics based on childhood role learning. Scientists, experts, academics ... have for some years been losing ground. How much is bitcoin worth? It is a matter of feeling among investors, which is why dogecoin, originally started as a joke and even now without a full set of trading and payment capabilities to function as medium of exchange, rose 50 times in value after Elon Musk talked well of it - he chanced people's feelings. In fact the trend started at least 50 years ago, when John Lennon, asked about world peace by reporters, declared that he would promote world peace by staying in bed all day - obviously, people lying down cannot be engaged in war. Lennon expressed certain feelings: desire for peace and distaste for war, need for simple solutions, wanting to listen to nice sounding words they are not based on reasoning. Modern education places much on feeling, e.g., grammar gives kids bad feelings, if they can express their meaning, grammatical mistakes should be ignored. This attitude being prevalent, students learn many subjects in which you do not know that you dont know. People dont know science and technology? just import some indian workers, or export factories to china and let them handle engineering. When EU wanted to expand NATO to Ukraine, did they not worry how Russia would react? Over there as in America, feeling won over reasoning, and will continue to play havoc. Biden era has come, but it remains a trumpian world.

In March 1917 British troops entered Baghdad, making T E Lawrence the war hero known around the world, but not long after he returned to England to live in obscurity, at one point working as a mechanic. I guess he felt ashamed of his failure to fulfill the vision he presented to his arab allies, that they will all be free from colonialism. France and Britain curved Arabia into various parts, with little regard to ethnic groupings: the Kurds, for example, were separated into Turkey, Iraq and Syria, and more than 100 years later they still struggle to achieve unity The French created a Christian enclave called Lebanon, Britain a Jewish enclave in Palestine When the nominal leader of the Arab revolt, the Hashemites, refused to accept the situation, UK induced the Saudi tribe to displace Hashemites from guardianship of Mecca Each of these decisions turned out to have disastrous consequences. Adding to these the issues of Kashmir, Rohingya, Bosnia ... it is natural that worldwide muslims feel victimized. T E Lawrence knew the middle east Lloyd George/Arthur Balfour did not, but thought nevertheless they could remake the world according to their tenets, a mistake that continues to be made today.