According to Marina M, her latest article supposedly to be published in her column was not published because of self censorship of the Star.
Imagine, even a person of Marina’s standing gets this type of treatment.
She blames it on the Printing Presses Publications Act, and I agree totally.
I have on umpteen times written that a free press is like the 4th pillar of democracy, without which there will never be a proper check and balance. If the powers that be have nothing to be scared off, why should they not allow press freedom?
Granted that even if there is press freedom, there will never be absolute freedom since each paper will still have to answer to the whims and fancy of its bosses. BUt with an environment of free press, anyone can start a paper and thus there will be competitions and competitions will bring out excellence. And with competitions come choice for the people, and people will be the masters to chosen whichever paper they think is good, fair in its reportings.
When people exert this choice , even the bosses controlling the newspapers wold have to heed the wishes pf the people to report fairly and justly, otherwise their papers may just not sell.
When even the writings of such powerful person like MM is being censored, what can ordinary folks can hope for? Maybe it is not a bad idea to chuck aside the main stream and read online media.
2 years after the 308 quake, we have not really seen any changes . Almost a year after the present Head took over, rhetoric has remained rhetoric, and nothing really has changed.
NOw, even fishermen are being squeezed by asking them to transport their fish in containers produced by only a certain company. And when there is monopoly, cost will go up and thus the new container will be much more expensive than the usual ones. Only after the strike of some fish importers, and fish prices soared in the market, the authority now agrees to let the fishermen to buy from other sources, thus ending the monopoly.
There are just too many of these. At the rate this type of abuses is going on, the opposition has only themselves to blame if they cannot win the next GE.
Dr. Hsu's forum 
Mar 04, 2010 @ 14:04:12
Why should we regard Marina as a VIP? Because she is TDM’s daughter? What a typical bolehland mentality! a person’s social standing is determined by his contribution to society and not by heritage of family name please. some of those descendants of great statesman are just parasites leaning on rent seeking ventures and rightfully should be punished and jailed.
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Mar 04, 2010 @ 14:38:03
It shows that najib is too weak to control the warlords or he is the man behind all these, playing and acting to different audiences.
From what I see, they thought that by playing the religious and racial issues will be their keys to remain in power.
My hope is that mca, gerakan, mic can stand up and face umno point blank, either you stop all these false religious and racial inciting or we will leave bn, but as much as we like them to have the guts, we can only hope.
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Mar 04, 2010 @ 15:10:43
Batu parliamentary seat, previously Gerakan’s, now hi-jacked by UMNO.
So, really BN is no longer the middle ground, as UMNO is taking on the role that once was fulfilled by PAS.
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Mar 04, 2010 @ 15:44:32
The Star may self censure but the Utusan does not.
Also, it is amazing how the Suara Perkasa is able to obtain a printing licence so quickly when others have been trying for years.
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Mar 04, 2010 @ 16:07:19
petestop
In october 2009, I wrote an article “will there be a realignemnt of forces ” which was picked up by MI breaking news, about the possibilities of component parties being side lined.
You can view in this blog since MI does not keep the breaking news in their archive.
I sent this out to Gerakan members via emails too.
And during that month’s party top meeting, I brought up this point and urged the party to leave, met with silence from the top leaders.
Today, even Si Pin was quoted in SIn Chew to say that this is the time for Gerakan to move out of BN.
Why the top leaders still do not see the points which I have repeatedly warn them, I do not know.
ANd if BN changes their constitution, Gerakan will be even more marginalised, and the fate of PPP stares right at KTK now…
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Mar 04, 2010 @ 16:17:23
Did you realise that MM got her views out even if the cowardly and chicken Star censored her. In the age of the Internet, there can be no blockage of people’s views. This is the difference in the 21st century. Even the ancient dinosaur Rais Yatim has to come to his sense. Technology has make censorship unworkable. It is only in the mind of such fools in the Star can this censorship work.
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Mar 04, 2010 @ 17:40:41
To be fair MM has contributed much to the AIDS Council and I am sure too, moderate influence on the Islamic Sisters-In-Islam.
She is a completely independent thinking from the Old Horse and all you need to know is to read her own blog.
She may not be viewed as VIP but her contributions to NGOs has earned much respect from the public. I think.
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Mar 04, 2010 @ 18:00:53
Doc Hsu,
I think you feel the “pulse” (pun unintended ;-)) of the party and the politic scene better than anybody, having predicted this ahead.
Only thing is OTK renegaded on his promise to resign if EGM voted against him.
Still today things are moving fast at MCA…
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Mar 04, 2010 @ 18:05:32
Dr, I just want to comment briefly on the marginalisation issue.
U-Must-Not-Object has no choice when both the Chinese-based parties failed to deliver.
As far as I know, AMMO did not or rather find it not important to have direct contacts with influential Chinese-based associations like Hua Tuan or the ACCCIM or even the Zong Jiao Zhong.
You know why? By previous MCA leaderships, certain powerful MCA leaders (close to former PMs) tried their best to “block” direct contacts between AMMO and the C-based bodies. In particular, DJZ.
I won’t name that MCA leader always poisoning AMMO even to the extend that if DJZ wants to carry message to AMMO, must go through him or the party leadership.
And when that leader finally became president, the situation got worse. He must be the mediator or middleman.
But karma is just and fair. That person punished himself by his own failings and cunningness.
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Mar 05, 2010 @ 05:49:26
Don’t blame UMNO. It is our votes / inactions that bring the country to the current state.
Care about others, think critically, learn from mistake.
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Mar 05, 2010 @ 11:54:24
Time is really tough, even for professional. What about labourers and hard core poor then?
Since time is tough for everybody, extra source of income will be good but it is not easy. I have one idea of designing a card game, copy righted or patented it and earn some income out from there. The card game will be named MM game.
As to the details of how to go about this MM game, of course is a trade secret, but just to give you some hints here.
MM is a common acronym to many things, concepts and VIPs names. MM in fact is the initials of the very famous (or infamous?) family in Malaysia. Of course as per story her, Marina Mahathir.
Somehow MM cannot run away, or disassociated from the other MM. Like it or not, MM is still MM, however different is their thinking. Now that this MM complaining about The Star, who to be blamed? Another MM?
Bear in mind, MM can also be Malaysian Malaysia in my card game design. It can be even MM, Minister Mentor of Singapore, can be Money Matter and so on.
Just in case anyone of you want to steal my ‘intellectual property’, I put in record here in this world famous blog of Dr. Hsu. No joke, this is my intellectual property.
Let’s play MM game.
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