The Torturing of Billionaires

I am not going to linger on this subject because it is very distasteful to me, and in particular because of the sheer weight of public spin-doctoring of history that results in a kind of 'wastefulness' in raising these issues to a new and modern generation in any terms other than as a lesson to learn about what some humans are capable of doing and to what lengths they will go to put up a facade of respectability.

But, as in Plato's account of the fall of Atlantis, sometimes clues - albeit that they are very small ones - are to be seen in names and simple words and signs that survive the otherwise all-consuming flood.

Take a look at the name of the original founding political party of the Nation of Malaysia following its independence from the British Empire: 'The United Malaysian National Organisation.'

Take particular note of the word 'United.' 

This is different from the ideas that today's common and popular press and media is using to proliferate what are essentially deliberate lies used to aggrandize the memory of Lee Kuan Yew. The BBC has even shown an old film clip of Lee crying crocodile tears when he says that the Malaysian Prime Minister had told him to take Singapore with him and 'get thee out.'

If you go by what you see on the usual news, apparently, Singapore was an undeveloped swamp, and the Malaysian Prime Minister - in Lee's own deprecating words 'a backward-looking, non-modern, parochial person who had an opinion of himself as some kind of aristocrat.'

The BBC does not have the guts to explain to you, that in World War Two, methods of torture, were a little different than the tame bullshit that Dick Cheney sneeringly espouses can be used on other ignorant village idiots suspected of something vaguely anti-Coke or Pepsi.

But I will tell you one time, and one time only, what torture meant then.

Lee Kuan Yew, even during his lifetime, had the hide and audacity to say that he had indeed been an interpreter for Japanese wartime interrogators - of ethnic Chinese, of course; Lee was certainly no Malay.

Nevertheless, beforehand, there are things you need to know about the times of which I speak.

Here is a photograph of a car very similar to the one owned by then leader of the United Malaysian National Organisation, Tunku Abdul Rahman:

An Aston Martin of 1958

I know it is like it, because my uncle kept the car in his townhouse in a hidden garage at the back, since a lot of the locals thought at the time of the Prince as something of a playboy. My uncle was head of Shell Oil Far East.

Anyway, perhaps I'm wrong and it was only a sampan that was paddled after all through these famous 'swamps...'

Much much later on, a very wealthy property owner in Singapore called Tang Liang Hong, was sued by Lee and his government with the result of Tang leaving Singapore forever to live permanently in Australia.

Lee ended up taking all of the Tang families properties including the world famous Tang Department Store, even though this was partly owned by the rest of the Tang family in Shanghai.

Now, by 'Tang' we really mean 'Deng' as in Deng Xiao Peng. Or Deng like the Beijing way of saying the 'Tang Dynasty.'

And so, when I tell you that a certain Chinese Doctor by surname of Deng or Tang and his family were interrogated under torture by the Kempetai during WWII, we are talking about a HUGELY WEALTHY and aristocratic Chinese person.

The remnant of that particular family also went to live in Sydney, Australia shortly after WWII, and because the son (who was a very successful dental surgeon) married a blonde Swedish woman, the children actually have blonde hair and unusually not-very-Swedish eyes. And they today speak with extremely strong Australian accents too.

Now Lee says that the Tunku kicked him out of Federation. The reality is he was using a vast amount of money from some mysterious source to foment, behind the scenes, acts of race violence and he, and not anyone else, created this idea of ethnic and racial divisions in Singapore and Malaysia - and that is why, in the first place Rahman called his party 'United,' and it gained over 80% of the popular vote, whereas Lee, created the Chinese People's Action Party, demanding a special voting right for ethnic Chinese, although ONLY those of his party (because he said those NOT in his party MUST have been Communists).

This is the guy who in recent times, sucked up to the new Beijing, somehow changing the way he looked upon their 'spots.'

Malaya - is not an Arabic, nor a muslim or islamic word; it is Tamilian Indian. China and India had colonized various parts of the isthmus and islands since 100 AD. All of the Tunkus, are from Rama Rajah kingdoms and empires - and Tunku Abdul Rahman's Chief Minister was a Circassion.

If there was one single person responsible for the ethnic divides in this part of the world, above anyone else it was Lee Kuan Yew, and he did it, riding on top of other Chinese that he envied, despised, or was extremely callous towards.

Tunku Abdul Rahman, an
aristocrat, a Cambridge scholar,
and a gentleman.

Lee called Tunku Abdul Rahman an aristocrat, and that he was. And he was a Cambridge University graduate, and, yes, another one of these colonial era sultanic playboys. He spoke impeccable English. Unlike the clipped lingo of the street thug Lee, which Lee bequeathed his slave population.

And yes, the Tunku was a muslim, and he did have several wives, and children. But you will never, ever find anyone say anything against him, EXCEPT FOR LEE, who unwisely spoke his mind openly about the ways he thought about Rahman.

Rahman, says Lee, with tears rolling down his eyes, 'in his aristocratic manner, told me, get thee out.'

Now this is how the Japanese Secret Intelligence Division tortured people: they found some thickets of bamboo near the famous swamps that Lee tells us about, and they cut slivers of bamboo and inserted them under the fingernails of young girls. And then, they pulled out the fingernails altogether. And then, with the young girls watching, they inserted chopsticks into the ears of their fathers, and clapped their hands together, killing the men gruesomely. And there are other things too.

And that, is what Lee interpreted for. As he says, himself.

And that is what I wish you to know.

And do not tell me that any critic of what I say, or any modern government, or any press or media, or anyone either has the guts, or the brains, or the integrity to deal in any way honestly, openly, truthfully, or justly with anyone short of having some kind of heavenly finger pointed at their heads from some divine hand. And on this line, you may adduce more about today's ideas of academic science, financial regulation, legal justice, and social behaviour, following from the conclusion that with money, whether stolen from someone under extremes of torture, you can get away with absolute blue murder, and hang the odium of it onto 'political correctness.'

Rahman never sought an islamic nationstate in Malaysia and Singapore.

He never Arabicized the Malay language, or the Malay people - who are of many different ethnic sources. And as a well-read, aristocrat, he knew every well what he meant when he used the phrase: 'get thee out!'

And as a king, his words have indeed been prophetic as king's words are, since Lee is now in that very place for which he had been consigned by Rahman, after, Rahman, in Lee's own words again, 'had considered everything from A to Z and from Z back to A,' and finally come to his conclusion about where Lee should go.

Honest, Upright, and Truthful.

Even the BBC finally couldn't get away with it any longer - at last, in today's Obit. column for Lee Kuan Yew, the BBC says that he 'worked for the Japanese Propaganda Department during the War and was involved in the black market...'

The reality is, he was interpreting, actually physically present, during Japanese torture of wealthy Chinese professionals and businesspeople, including of their very young children, and he suddenly and mysteriously became extremely wealthy himself after the war, whilst being despised and ostracized by the general Chinese community not from his own extended family itself, and including the Hakka tribe of which he made been a 'black sheep.'

Socony building with
the Chrysler Building behind it

And as for the island of Singapore being a lowly and isolated and backward place before his 'reign,' here is a photo of the Standard Oil Company of New York's head office building in New York, built on the wealth of its major refinery in Singapore before and after the War. Not to mention that Singapore held the prime Asian and Southern-to-Northern hemisphere's shipping routes preferred port location due to its strategic position.

The world's first refrigerated air-conditioned department store was in Singapore BEFORE the War and dozens of major global corporations were located there: Unliver, Fraser and Neave, Palmolive, Dunlop's Tyre Company,  Shell and Socony, Castrol, Wrigley's, Union Carbide, Vestey's Shipping and Refrigeration, and many many more.

Singapore was hardly the Third World swamp that Lee and his cronies like to make out, and never the backward joint that the BBC stupidly has recently also claimed on behalf of the money that is doing its talking - especially since Churchill had the audacity to want to defend it from the Japanese and even worse, the foolishness to regularly go stay at the suites named after him later in Raffles Hotel, and that Somerset Maugham and even that drunken sot Anthony Burgess also stayed in to write their books and short stories. 

Every time you see some big-headed, self-opinionated, and obstinate political leader using heavy-handed tactics, it is always to cover over something wicked they themselves have done, and to intimidate others into shutting up. Always. And remember that, as you watch today's political leaders too - they are no different and they will never be any different and it is useless to bet that they are, due to 'new and different circumstances' or any other 'new' thing. It's always the same. Thieves, get into their positions, by thieving, and then creating drama to obfuscate on the truth of it.

"I GUARANTEE you, the Congress of the United States, that if you get rid of Saddam now, ALL of the problems of the surrounding Middle Eastern countries will be resolved!"

Who said that, and had the audacity to go back and do it again just the other day? Diebold machines. Diebold machines...

And Duly Won

The colt Vancouver did indeed win the Golden Slipper today, giving Gai Waterhouse her sixth Golden Slipper victory, equaling the record of her father Tommy Smith, who is regarded as Australia's greatest ever race horse trainer. One has to bear in mind the lamp-lighting role that trainers from earlier eras had, and so it is difficult to compare with mathematical certainty today's trainers to those of the past - but in my own view, the daughter has surpassed her illustrious father already, and history will place her on as high a pedestal.

Gai Watyerhouse,
Australia's greatest race horse trainer

Vancouver not only won but paid a fairly decent price for such a good thing - 2/1 in many books. Basically you got double your money for the win plus your own stake back.

The Rosehill (Sydney) Golden Slipper is the richest two-year old 1200 meter race in the world, being a 3.5 million dollar race.

These things are nerve-wracking affairs because of the value to the owners and breeders of the win, and it certainly sounded from the immediate after-race interview of the jockey Tommy Berry, that it was a very emotional victory for him for multiple reasons.

For a dyed-in-the-wool gambler like myself, post-race activities are just as much part of the whole deal as the race itself and all of its nail-biting angst. 

At Sydney's 'Prime' Restaurant

The sun goes down, the crowd goes home, the gambler sizes up the day, finds the best place to eat and drink - and to think about life - and waits for the river of time to slowly wend its way back around to the same starting place all over again...

The problem that the entire world of investing makes all of the time, is that winning is a lonely profession... Not only does the shoe not fit everyone, there is no university course that guarantees you will be a millionaire in thirty minutes just by drinking coffees. And there is a massive difference between those who are in the papers today as 'billionaires' and you never hear of them again when times change. The Riverboat Gambler is always stalking the wooden boards at twilight. What does he know, that the others don't?

Golden Slippers!

I've been thinking of inviting a few people I know to emerge from out of the shadows and post a few things here - I'm not sure they will be prepared to, however. We shall see.

Meanwhile, I am having to resort to 'food porn' or 'doomer porn' - I shall have to attribute that to whomever on the Bear Chat Forum used that phrase as soon as I go back and check... (It was 'SpongeRob').

Yellen's Fed has continued what the idiot Bernanke started, and the Euro-Zone gangsters are clinging onto, and this has none too subtly destroyed the meaning of money and risk. On the one hand we are meant to believe interest rates have never been lower, on the other, billionaire Australian mining magnate Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest couldn't get his corporate bond issue set at anything like decent odds in the market last week and has called the whole thing off - which simply tells me what I already know, 'benchmark' and 'risk free' rates are fictional right now.

And so, here I am, in the position of considering tomorrow's Golden Slipper horse race as the nearest thing to a real money market that I can see anywhere right now. 

Seldom will I 'declare' a particular horse 'the winner' before a race, but on this occasion I find it is possible for me to seriously consider putting my own money on this:

'Vancouver'

If you look closely, you will see that these kinds of Australasian thoroughbreds run with a straighter at the knee action than their counterparts in England and the rest of Europe for the most part. And this is because the grass is flatter here, better cut, and tends not to have the thick, muddy under-surface which characterizes so much of European flat courses. the consequence being that European horses are (possibly) given medications to ease knee problems they get by lifting and banging their legs down on the track surface after trying to extricate their hoofs from the mud.

With the possible exception of the best Japanese stables, Australasian and New Zealand horses are the best shorter distance to derby distance racers in the world, and they are a remarkably good investment from the breeding perspective given the comparative genetic talent available in this location. They almost always 'translate' to other regions, whereas the foreign horses do not always by any means.

I know that either before, or even during, but most certainly after, this year's Golden Slipper, I shall be indulging in food and/or drink porn so here is a suggestion along those lines:

A Golden Slipper from the Purple Bar,
at Sanderson's Hotel in London.

Hope For The World

Were they thinking about Howard Hughes when the creators of largely Sixties mass cultural diversions like Bond and Flint or even The Thunderbirds, for that matter, set 'home base' on some secluded and distant island?

There is a staggering lack of invention and fizz in the lifestyles of the 'said-to-be' stonkingly wealthy contemporary identities of the known world. Hughes was notoriously eccentric, and like Putin, disappeared although for longer than just eleven days at a time...

For the nostalgic - like myself - we may be able to find solace in re-imaginings, as they call them:

And, in the rare instance, recent creations drawn from the legacy of human envisioning: