Battlestar Rhetoric-tica...

And so everyone's talking about yesterday's debate between Anwar and Sabree Cik. People arguing on who was more effective and more convincing. If only the debate is not amongst politicians, then probably it will carry some meaning. After all the word rhetorics probably originated immediately after the birth of politics. It is nice though, that each attack made against each other is a plus point for the rakyat because it then incidentally confirms the "khabar khabar angin", convincing us that almost all politicians are the same. It's merely a case of "the pot calling the kettle black". Forgive me for being cynical, but I have got my reasons to be.

Sabree reiterated that the government was nice enough to allow such debates to materialize, as compared to the time during when Anwar was in power when such a thing was not even in anyone's imagination, not even in Anwar's, whilst he was in the ruling party. I'm not sure what point Sabree was trying to make because, to me, the government do not have any choice but to grant such debates, otherwise the rakyat will fall back to the alternative media, which had cost the government their 2/3 seat in Parliment,recently.

It would be great to hear Karpal Singh and Lim Kit Siang debate against the Barisan Nationals though, albeit that needs to be in English because we would like to comprehend the content of the debate and having both of them speak in Bahasa Malaysia would be frustrating, knowing that they would be making their points more effectively in English, which is fine by me.

Frankly, I am not interested in what politicians have to say. Anyone can merely say just about anything, but how many say what they mean and mean what they say? My interest in whatever that comes out of their mouth, does not vary much in intensity with whatever that comes out from their asshole, or whatever that goes in(same channel, different impact). I am interested in what they do, or what they don't do, for everyone knows, actions speaks louder than words.

Anwar made his point when he said we could take the profit from IPP that is drained from Petronas and T&B, and channel it back to the rakyat.(I almost drop off my chair laughing when I heard him use the term "rakyat" in a manner to convince that he actually care,as I dare say through my personal experience with him, err, in a non harlot sense of it, when he was the Education Minister,his conduct had convinced me that the last thing he is interested in is to defend the oppressed, but hey, it sounded great in speeches so why not). Sabree claimed the government cannot subsidize further in view of preventing Malaysia into higher inflation and retarding economy growth in the long run. He too has a point as any economist tend to agree with that. But what is between the line would probably be somewhere between getting profit, plunging it into IPP and the method of execution of that money into the country's development. There's a big loop hole, if not a black hole there.

Last time I checked, people still look like sardine pack in glass bottle when they travel via the LRT. The Komuter system still have the same before Independence mentality, where time is not respected and the train can choose to stop like that Shakira song, "whenever, wherever"...And both system drop you off into twilight zone. What awaits you at the point of drop off are the pirannha taxis. We still keep getting cases of poverty revealed in TV show such as "Bersama mu", whilst there are politicians who have mansions within the country and overseas. Plunge the money into rakyats' interest you say?

Okay, let's just say the longest journey begins with the first step. Fine. We had that debate. Here's some constructive ideas (probably destructive to some but hey, it's an idea). Why not open the debate to more participants like an Economist, a Scientist. An economist may reveal the actual facts and figures, not merely rhetorics to us in how to strike a balance between taking some portion from the IPP to channel it back to the rakyat, without jeopardizing the long term economy growth and impair development infrastructure etc.

A scientist for example, if present at the debate, would have told Anwar not to pooh pooh the notion that Malaysia could in the near future be drained out of Petroleum. The world is talking about "Peak Oil" and I was surprised he did not acknowledge it. It's fine to talk about decreasing oil price as a relief to the people.

But why stop at short term benefits? Why not talk about money going into R&D to find alternatives to petrol..(There goes Petronas) We should be talking about how to take less and give more to the environment.(there goes half the parliment). We should be talking on how we could cut back the unnecessary lavish lifestyle that is detrimental to the environment (there goes F1). We should be talking about making the public transportation more efficient so that less car usage means less petrol/diesel consumption (there goes Proton). We should then not just talk but put the money where the mouth is. No point talking if no action is taken. That is what we should be concern about, not who won the debate last night.

I noticed that they did not take any question from the audience. Perhaps in the future, any debates should include experts in various fields to see the matter at hand from all angles. But like I've mentioned earlier,no point talking if it is just to score votes. May as well turn it into a mini series and call it "Battlestar Rhetoric-tica"