Friday, October 02, 2015

Too much propaganda


When an answer to an enquiry is not accepted or disputed, the onus is on the enquirer to open his or her hand and divulge the proofs.

For seven months and approaching eight, Tun Dr Mahathir has been making his allegations in the form of answer-seeking questions. His response to the answers is to doubt it, and change goalposts with new enquiries arising from the answers.

By right, he is supposed to divulge his proofs. When that failed, then one resigned to God's judgement as RPK wrote here to correct Ummi Hafilda,

If Tun M has all the proofs as one officer bearer of Perkasa and a pentaksub claimed, why is he not divulging his proofs with the next Parliament seating around the corner?

The pentaksub claimed some 8 government and intelligent-related agencies cc-ed a report on 1MDB to Tun M.

The same question was posed to a former officer to a recently removed Minister.

Why not reveal it and get it over with? If the proofs is convincing and not just the simplistic conclusions from common man's logic, no red demonstration can save Najib. Why waste time?

His reply was Tun M does not have it. If so, it is just propaganda or psychological warfare meant to bring Dato Najib down?

Goebbel's propaganda is to tell a lie big enough that public will end up believing. The public focus has diverted from the real problems of 1MDB to unproven allegations.

The public seemed to conclude that money was channeled into Najib's personal account though there are doubts on the documents revealed by WSJ. All because Najib's statement had indirectly admitted by claiming not benefiting personally.

However, in a court of law, he can still get away and not taken as admitting.

Agenda setting

Tun M had repeatedly commented the money is from 1MDB and not from an Arab donor. That is another Goebbel's technique to repeat till it sink in the public psyche. But it is no proof.

Propaganda is a technique in communication to influence the attitude of a segment of people. It gives out one sided information to appeal to the emotion and not so much a rational response to the information to achieve a set agenda.

Till today, Tun M's agenda is unclear.

In the session with bloggers, he was concerned with Sirul's death sentence, BR1M, GST and 1MDB. When posed with a question, only did he raised concern on Malay issues. His latest posting here did not raised it. So it is not so much about the usual alif ba ta.

The issue of BR1M is not raised again. It indicate he will not touch unpopular issues. It does not serve the agenda set to bring Najib down. Still the question why?

Tun M did say that the Chinese will return to vote should Najib stop his policies. He was upset of being told by Tan Sri Lim Kok Wing that Najib is ending his "legacies".

Since the Sirul death sentence issue is just a shock and awe propaganda technique which is legally non-sensical, Tun M's concerned legacy is IPP. It means his main grouse is GST and 1MDB.

GST is not a bad tax policy. It is good, fair tax system and widely practise around the world. Tun M studied it, Pak Lah explored and Najib brave enough to implement.

It is believed the Chinese person against it and have been lobbying Najib to not proceed was Tan Sri Vincent Tan. Someone with link to the unsavory side and loves retailing and franchising business would hate GST for one and only reason. Laundered money get GST-ed!

Thus the raison d'etre is left to be only 1MDB. So 1MDB and legacy only points to Tan Sri Francis Yeoh and YTL.

When asked for an offer for his IPP, Francis Yeoh offered a ridiculous no-can-do price. It was believed he said he would rather burn down his IPP than sell it to government.

Francis Yeoh may not be associated with Tun M since he is opposition friendly with Tony Pua as his defender. A source in a law enforcement outfit claimed he paid Rafizi millions into a foreign account to raise issue on 1MDB.

Propaganda

If the agenda to remove Najib is unclear, the propaganda technique is clear. Goebbel wrote, "Propaganda has nothing to do with the truth."

1MDB issue could not gain any transaction with the public till Tun M picked it up. That is exploiting the power distance culture prevailing in Malaysia.

A study shows Malaysia has the highest power distance [read The Star here]. The very reason Datoship is much sought after.

The cultural psychological phenomenon of Dunning-Kruger effect and false dichotomy is prevalent in Malaysia to enable the exploitation of public's factual deficiency and ignorance.  

Tun M's latest posting was filled with propaganda. Tun keeps his story simple but is filled with cherry picking of simplified and incomplete information without the desired evidences. 

People say Tun M is a good communicator because he can relate to the common people. That is a propaganda technique called plain folks or common man approach to appear like a common man and win their trust.

It sounded odd to associate Najib's hiring of foreign advisers and consultants with "development of Malaysia has slowed down and the races are at each others throats." It's half truth and exaggeration to issues of wastage, excessive payment and no confidence with local.

The allegations on 1MDB is exyensively applied lies and deceptions techniques. Tun M repeated accusations of money dissappearing under audited accounts, Petrosaudi investment rechannelled, and Goldman Sachs. All was corrected by Arul Kanda.    

He applied demonising the enemy approach to label Najib as colonised, unpopular, wasteful, etc.

There was low blow personal attack to do character assassination of family member. The same manner used on the late Tunku Abdul Rahman to call him as having Siamese blood.

Fear, uncertainty and doubt was widely applied too.

Big lie

In the posting, the big lie was applied to simplify the USD1.7 billion investment with Petrosaudi as disappeared. It is similar to the Iraq's WMD lie by President George W Bush to justify a war against Iraq.

The posting on Al Jazeera and repeated again in the posting was another application of the big lie.

Tun M insisted on repeating the big lie on the RM42 billion that turned many off. The number changed many times with the latest being more than RM20 billion. It's as though accounts are not audited.

He stopped saying land price in KL is RM7,000 psf but RM3,000 psf.


Will he not make issue and hurl accusation to 1MDB's extenstion on it's audited dateline for March 30th account? He will ignore the dificulty of doing an audit with documents seized by various investigators?

There is the suspicion that Tun M was behind the various big lie done by Rupert Murdoch's WSJ and NYT and other foreign media on so-called foreign account freeze and investigation [read Arul Kanda here], including Al-Jazeera's spin on Altantunya murder [read Tun M here].

His allegations are in-sync with Sarawak Report, The Edge, Clare Rewcastle, Tony Pua, Rafizi, pro-opposition and foreign media, and off course, Matthias Chang's blog postings.

Thus, the suspicion there is a collaboration involving all these parties.

There is proof thus Tony Pua and The Edge are feeling the heat, claimed RPK. Tun M too is pre-empting of SOSMA on himself and claiming it is worse than ISA.

Najib's weakness

On the other hand, Najib is not talking enough. Conspiracy is Najib's only rebutting story.

Najib side failed to give an effective reply to Tun M's powerful story. The truth is difficult to tell. It is the story that is important.

It is made difficult by Najib's public statements seemed to be doing obfuscation or intentional vagueness.

And, his problem of trust deficit arise because he is seen as halting investigation. Thus losing the moral ground. MACC's latest statement here will not be helpful to Najib's perception.

Remark like the one yesterday by Ramesh Rao to claim Tun M needs mental treatment does not help Najib's cause but that of Tun M's. 

Many may not agree that Tun M is not telling the truth but hopefully they begin to realise that the man is merely doing political propaganda.

If that is the case, he is not serious in revealing the proofs. More so, it is an outright lie to claim he has no more outlet than to attend Bersih 4.0.

Public must demand on Tun M to come out with his evidences. Najib too has to come out with it and come clean.

The country cannot be held back by the political power game of a leader and a past leader again and again. 

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Public demand Tun is only in your dream. Public supposed to demand najib to resign.

Anonymous said...

Malaysian politics is still third world politics. Not based on issues or the subject of governance and nation building but emotion.

Tun M cried on UMNO podium and admitted he failed to change the Malay mindset.

By him still employing emotional propaganda technique over sensible and rational arguments, it proves he was never interested to change the public mindset.

He only want to exploit them for his personal purposes. Najib has a crisis of confidence but Tun's hypocrasy made me lost confidence in him.

Anonymous said...

You say;

"Why not reveal it and get it over with? If the proofs is convincing and not just the simplistic conclusions from common man's logic, no red demonstration can save Najib. Why waste time?"

This is another version or truth from you?

"A source in a law enforcement outfit claimed he paid Rafizi millions into a foreign account to raise issue on 1MDB."

Cherry picking did you say?

Anonymous said...

Malaysians too gullible to political deception by politicians. Too emotional to be rational. Not mature enough to be given political freedom.

Najjb failed to urban and western to realise this. It is the cause for the anarchic state of the nation. Only now wielding the stick.

He does not read very well the happenings on the ground. Problem of leadership from the aristocratic class.

Lined up are still aristos like Hishamuddin, Mukhriz and Khairy.

Anonymous said...

Bro there isnt too many propagandas. Im sorry, but i disagree, how can there be too many propagandas when najib and his cohorts have failed to answer anything? Latest is he says to forget about the donation as to focus on giving to the rakyat? What is this guy smoking? There is no conspiracy. No propagandas. What there is, is a really dumb guy being pm. It seems like he is a narcissist. There is no war on perception. What you fail to consider is that those who are sick of najib, are the ones who had rejoiced when he took office. Lets not bullshit ok bro as many of us who rejoiced, had nothing to gain financially. We were all just happy that pak lah was going out and najib was as they say a beacon. Now, we all hate him. 6 years and jack shit to show for it. Economy is in a rut. Things are expensive. Houses are not regulated. Need i say more? You can try to push the can zeti's way but at the end of the day, her boss is najib. He and he alone should shoulder the responsibilities of inaction.

A Voice said...

Will no comment on differences of opinion. Cherish it.

8:53 PM

There is a longer list of propaganda techniques applied by Tun M. Just too long to list them all. Maybe you are not familiar with propaganda techniques because it is unthinkable to say only Najib side used propaganda. Be honest to admit Tun used too much ....!!!

You seemed emotional on Najib and would not blame you. We too are critical with some of his policies. It's just the accusation of stealing applies too much propaganda technique by Tun and his remaining loyalist to be believeable.

Give the public the proofs. Halting and delaying investigations is suspicious and is a different offense but it proves nothing.

Please be fair. We did say Najib side applied propaganda too. Do read till the end of posting.

Have to answer 9:52 AM on cherry picking propaganda.

Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position. It is a kind of fallacy of selective attention, the most common example of which is the confirmation bias.[1][2] Cherry picking may be committed intentionally or unintentionally. This fallacy is a major problem in public debate.[3]

Picking the definition from Wikipedia.

What does sharing an info on Rafizi's pay off got to do with cherry picking in the propaganda methodology sense?

It was a lead that built up suspicion but it no confirmation. Anyway the subject is about propaganda used and not so much whose right and whose wrong. Many other posting for that.

Anonymous said...

I didnt mention on anything about najib or tun using propaganda. I said i believed that there arent any propagandas being thrown najib's way. Are questions that could have been answered easily considered propagandas? Or it becomes propaganda when one fails to provide answer?

You said it yourself it is suspicious the act of halting and delaying investigations. You yourself seem to admit that there is an intentional delay in the investigations. Am i correct? Even though that is in your book a different "crime" and proves nothing, why on earth would a delay be in place by the power that be?

I read your entire post. And by your reply to my feedback, im thinking that you want clear cut proof of najib's offence(s). But bro, how can we ever get them when delaying and haltings are commonplace? When will his name ever be cleared?

I respect your stance on wanting clear cut proofs. On a personal stance, najib is fighting medusa. He can chop on snake off, but another will pop up. Lets see if he can chop em all off.

Anonymous said...

Najib's propaganda strategy is a diversion but its not working

His spin master fail to offer a more convincing story to sway away from the imbedded belief he abuse power to delay investigation.

He has to come clean on the 2.6.bil

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
A Voice said...

11:20 AM

Good comment. Very much appreciated.

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