Since this thread has drifted off into a discussion about I don’t know what, how about a new post-election thread?
What should the beloved, imperiled home team, the Formosa Greens do now?
How about Chen Shui-bian resigns? Leave the country in the hands of Annette. That oughta teach the persnickety masses a lesson in teaching the ruling party a lesson. He could give a pretty good farewell speech: “Although I have never been proven dishonest in any matter (?), I am beseiged on all sides by acusations and insinuations against my integrity and character and I just can’t take it anymore, so there.”
Maybe then, if there were no specific rules covering such a development, he could engineer things so that a president who steps down in the middle of his second term can run for a third term (second, second term).
How about if he fulfills some of his election platform ideas on changing the constitution and official name of Taiwan (after a brief cooling off period), now that he has a majority in the Legislature (-5 KMT). I’m not sure if Taiwan has by-elections, though – and how soon they would be.
Oh, and here’s my advice for CSB and the “Formosa Greens”: figure out who you work for.
Do the greatest good for the greatest number. Get rid of the messianic complex, discard the activist role. Do your job by representing (all) of your constituents, rather than continuing a campaign of social and cultural revolution intended to eliminate them. Do what the constituents want, rather than telling them what they should want (like, for example, claiming what Taiwan needs more than anything else is a new “national identity”).
PLEASE… stay on topic. In reply to those posters who stayed on topic:
I think the DPP should take this chance to get their arms-procurement deal passed. After all, they spent like ten times that amount of money supporting these small African countries, that just as soon turn their back on Taipei recognition!
I suggest they try to gain support of the moderates on Taiwan. Jettison any support for the TSU and LTH as quickly as possible. Then they should start aligning themselves with Mayor Ma and the KMT, to try to steal some votes in 2008, if possible.
I’m not sure I’d send out the search dogs yet… but where the heck is CSB!?
It’s now been almost three full days since the election results have been done. Has CSB been in the public eye since? There are plenty of DPP folks forced to face the press, but no news about what CSB is up to.
I think I read a reference that he was in self-imposed isolation for a few days to “reflect” on this loss… when’s he going to come out, and what’s he going to come out with?
I notice the Kaohsiung MRT fell in yesterday. The DPP needs to deal with the unglamourous stuff like education, transport, the police, health, sewage, building standards and zoning, zzzzzzzz…
Not as exciting as ranting and frothing about imminent destruction by China, but clearly appealing to the voters.
An ICAC, a la Hong Kong, would be a good start. (Idependent Commission Against Corruption)
Honestly, all they have to do is stop going “China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China!” and start looking like competent administrators and the swing voters will return. Maybe.
Rumor on China Times: CSB will be going after Wang Jingping (王金平) to act as premier and form the next cabinet. Interesting little political move.
It’s success all depends on how left-out Wang feels about the whole thing. CSB already tried with Soong last year, and that didn’t come through. Considering Wang and Lien Chan’s close relationship though, I can’t imagine Wang would do this unless CSB agrees to give in on cross-strait issues.
But that might be a viable scenario:
CSB shelves any future activity even hinting at independence for the rest of his tenure, and opens up 3-tong;
Wang forms the cabinet and enables some actual bipartisan law-making, some variant of the defense + reform bills pass…
LOL alot of these sound like bad bad plans. Most of the aforementioned 4 are essentially “Kiss KMT butt and the DPP will do great!”. You never see the American Democrats pandering to the Republicans in such ways, you dissolve your stance and identity.
No, just concentrate on reform and infrastructure will do fine.
However I’ve also been told that its sort of difficult with the oppositionist mentality where people oppose for the sake of opposing.
I’d like to see the DPP put forth a bill that would prevent convicted criminals from running for office. Then, when all the pan-blues vote against it (if they do), they would be giving themselves away.
Other ideas:
The DPP should start doing things that really matter, such as:
[ul]Start a national safety campaign urging people to drive better and put helmets on minors that ride motorbikes. This could be combined with ‘orders from the top’ for the police to crack down on bad driving and such things.
Get rid of Tongyong Pinyin since few Taiwanese can read any form of Pinyin anyway.
Pass laws equivalent to Kyoto and other worthy international agreements to protect our common resources.
Make two-stroke engines absolutely illegal.
Pass laws to better regulate binlang farming to protect water resources.
Make sure high school students learn key geographic and scientific terminology in English.
Run public service ads to convince the public that too much study is a bad thing and that unstructured play-time is actually “social education” for children.
[/ul]
And finally… how about building a display somewhere in Taipei to demonstrate visually how many missiles China has pointing at Taiwan? I can see a large hillside in Yangmingshan covered in 0.5 scale models of PRC missiles.
(*) Thanks for the Asahi link. I enjoyed reading that. It’s good to know how the rest of the world sees things.
[quote=“dearpeter”]I’d like to see the DPP put forth a bill that would prevent convicted criminals from running for office. Then, when all the pan-blues vote against it (if they do), they would be giving themselves away.
Other ideas:
The DPP should start doing things that really matter, such as:
[list]Start a national safety campaign urging people to drive better and put helmets on minors that ride motorbikes. This could be combined with ‘orders from the top’ for the police to crack down on bad driving and such things.
Get rid of Tongyong Pinyin since few Taiwanese can read any form of Pinyin anyway.
Pass laws to better regulate binlang farming to protect water resources.
Make sure high school students learn key geographic and scientific terminology in English.
And finally… how about building a display somewhere in Taipei to demonstrate visually how many missiles China has pointing at Taiwan? I can see a large hillside in Yangmingshan covered in 0.5 scale models of PRC missiles.
(*) Thanks for the Asahi link. I enjoyed reading that. It’s good to know how the rest of the world sees things.[/quote]
Wow, maybe you should run for politics.
In America if you’re a felon, you’re probably not running for office. You can’t even vote! It always amazes me how Soong can still run after stealing so much money. He should be in jail. All he got was a pat on the back.
I thought people were legally supposed to wear helmets, it just isn’t really enforced as much as it should…thats a problem none the less.
And we need to stop deporting fine English teachers. Sure they get away with taxes and what not, but think of the kids, THE KIDS!!!
Nice idea, but given that the current president and vice-president have both done time (along with several other senior DPP members) it might not go down too well with them …
They’ll have to put in a clause in that law – excluding people who have been wrongly jailed for their political beliefs.[/quote]
Well its simply routed by saying jailed for what?
I mean President Chen did not go to jail for anything other than being the lawyer for a bunch of people who were outraged about their government. He too felt the same and they got him for libel. Plus isn’t libel lighter than felonies? (I could be wrong). So its a light crime. I’m not going to stop a candidate who stole a candybar from running for office. It depends on the degree of the crime.
Also, back then anyone who criticized the government when the KMT was in full power either dissapeared, were jailed, or murdered outright in public view. The “bad luck streak” would follow those with an outset of outspokeness.
Things have been different since the Martial Law was lifted and the coming of democracy.
At the very least all those with crimes above felonies since Democracy first came to Taiwan should not be able to run for office. After all a felony removes your right to vote in the USA correct? (I may be wrong, my lawyer is in Taipei right now). In addition those being accused must go to court and cannot just wave it off just because they are running for Presidency. Gosh I could imagine the day when anyone accused of money laundering will simply announce that they are running for office, and then suddenly be off without a hitch.
Soong has enough evidence against him that he’d be proven guilty. Plus he also made like a dozen excuses on why he brought homes for himself with tax payer dollars. I remember the one time when he said that everyone did it, just that everyone else wasn’t caught yet. Thats like OJ saying that he was searching for the REAL KILLERS at his local golf resort.
However, when your country’s survivial is dependent solely on political relationships. Don’t you want someone who wasn’t convicted on libel or slander charges.
