The gathering of the farcical storm . Contrarian essays no 24

1. A favorite question often asked by Anwar is, when you were in power, what did you do?

2. This is the test of anyone in power. Is the power used for the common good?

3. Very often, when the question is asked, what we get are excuses why xyz cannot be done. Change, it is said needed time. Yes, I've got to answer the call of natural dulu.

4. You don't start, it won't be done. There's always the whisper of the devil- retain the status quo, enjoy power, taste the spoils of war.

5. In the end, you end up with the opposite of what you promised to do.

6. It will exactly be as the great economist Milton Friedman said. You end up with the exact opposite results than the good intentions the sponsors started with.

7. Yes, we are all promised that ' a change is gonna come. But as the other part of the slogan that James carville says, it's more of the same.

8. I would have liked that the question of whether bro Anwar is the change agent that he sets out to do?

9. Not doing so, or giving excuses that reformasi ought to be slow and temperate is a load of crap .

10. Not doing so betrays the faith of people have in you. And as lee kuan yew said in an interview with Charlie Rose, that affects your political longevity.

11. If Anwar is complacent about it or suffers from the edifying effects of being in power, the next GE is for him to lose. He will be a one trick pony . That is something I want to avoid.

12. Unfortunately the PKR people are living in their own Dreamworld, perhaps because of taking in too much ketum.

13. In general, all of them poohed poohed the threats against Anwar. They will rue the day they did so .

14. I have a problem here. The supreme leader is surrounded by bloody fools and yes men .

15. Not only do they shy away from reminding Kim IL Anwar that he has strayed from the reformasi agenda, they infact exacerbate anwars illusion of invincibility by saying he can do no wrong.

16. I see some of these apple polishers putting up picture posters of the great leader everywhere. On these picture posters, Anwar looked uncannily like Lenin. Others say all the threats to Anwar including the gathering on 26th July, do not pose any dangers to Anwar.

17. Sure,carry on believing your own hype fellers. You'll be the first to bite the dust.

18. It's wishful thinking at its best. These people think just thinking of the desired ending, it will be so. Hoi dumbasses, the desired end requires skunk work la.

19. There is such thing as free lunch.

20. The presence of the apple-polishers, bootlickers and sycophants is damaging Anwar. They prevent him from seeing the truth. The are not reality checkers but dream builders.

21. Such as building false narratives about the 26 July gathering.

21(b). Like downplaying and loudly disputing the size of the gathering.

22. Everyone knows that in matters like these, the official government apparatchiks suddenly don't know how to count. The opposition in these matters, exaggerate a lot.

23. Everyone can see it's a fake 18k people. The number is more likely, 150k.

24. Don't lose sleep over it. It's natural for the government to underestimate while the opposition overestimates. Biasa lah .

25. We must see the gathering for what it represents. It's a midterm recall of the support for the mad-dani government. The danger is, the recall may be infectious.

26. Many of us felt nauseous when the PM tried a reverse psychology crap.

26(b). Thanking the gatherers for a peaceful demo and be safe going back. Loya nya .

27. The government and the PM in particular must take heed at the anger and dissatisfaction the gathering represents. Whether explicitly articulated by Hamzah et al or scantily said (like the girls in Brazilian bikini) who the ecclesiastical warlords are secretly salivating at.

28. Now, let me say what's wrong with this gathering. It's just a Woodstock concert laced mostly with screams of turun Anwar, interspaced with selected zikir and shouts of Allahuakbar

29. Have you noticed the fact the gathering was predominantly made of 1 race - malays. It was inescapable the the interests that dominated the gathering would be Malay centric.

30. By necessity the talk at the gathering would be dominated by 2 issues, Uber nationalism and Uber religious. Both issues being crowd pleasing. Indeed these issues actually dominated the gathering.

31. Some of us, mostly idealistic armchair critics, imagined that such a gathering will talk about reforms, abuse of power, the rise of the rentier, rent seekers,the profiteers , crony capitalism, corruption and so on. Unfortunately no! Some everyday matters like inflation , cost of living were lightly touched. That's about all. It must have been a huge disappointment.

32. But it should not surprised many of us too. This was a gathering organized by politicians and the crowd attending were mostly gullible fools ready to go ballistic.

33. We have to face the facts that politicians just want to score political points. They will play the gallery and talk of things that amplify and inflate the shouts of turun Anwar turun.

34. They will never talked about wide ranging reforms that we would like to have been talked about.

35. We must remember that the majority who attended the gathering are reactionaries who are interested to retain and maintain the status quo instead of overthrowing them.

36. I for one,won't expect any earth shattering revelations from the reactionaries. They are just Gucci communists pretending they are looking out for the interest of basically Malays. Their stories were just rhetorics.

37. Would Mahathir, mahiuddin, Hamzah et al speak about reforms to dismantle the economic structures they helped create and perpetuate?

38. The monopolistic businesses, the license - wallahs, the luxury of choosing who gets ahead and who is left behind and the elephant in the room, the NEP in it's new form? No lah!

39. Not until hell freezes over, pigs can fly or water can be squeezed from stone.

40. They won't speak about reforms extensively, fearing doing so will invite more diligent scrutiny which will expose their hypocrisy.

41. In fact,they liked it when Anwar procrastinates and stalls. They believe Anwar is the axe that comes into the forest .

42. I have many more to say about the gathering but will not write about them. That and other articles will not be posted in my blog. 76 other articles will appear in a book hopefully that will be published soon.