The govt seems to be putting the blame on bad communications as the source of unhappiness in the people. Is that so? The MSM also have been regurgitating that it was bad communications that have resulted in angry voices heard. The assumption is that policies are good and it was all because they were not well articulated to the people that is causing all the problems. It sounds more like the craftsman blaming his tools.
When policies are bad, they are bad. No amount of good communications can make bad policies become good. They could talk it away for a moment but once the people got a few moments to think about them, or when the policies start to hit them adversely, the anger will return.
Many salespersons would talk honey coated words to the clients to close a deal. But that is the beginning of the problem if the service or product is not up to specs. How many good or bad policies is there that can be better communicated. There are good policies that can do with better communications. There are many bad policies that no amount of communications can help.
Think CPF policies are good and can be explained away? Think the lost of jobs to foreigners are due to good policies? Think the policies on foreigners having a field day in property speculations here are good and only a little communications will make the people happy? Think the money spent on scholarships to foreigner students are good? Think filling up the academia with foreign faculty members are good, the unrestrained employment of foreigners in top jobs, the emptying of our talents in the IT and banking industries are good? The list can be pretty long on bad policies that cannot be explained away.
If bad policies can be explained away, it will be like you can bluff people some of the time, some people all the time, but not all the people all the time. That is the art of good communications to sugar coat bad policies at best. Using good communications to deceive the people when policies are really bad is a con job.
Chua Chin Leng AKA RedBean
*The writer blogs at http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com/