The one where Fabrications about the PAP continues to mislead Singaporeans.

I finally Googled the word "half-truth". Until the PAP started using it, I never knew that this is a real word. Well, it seems that it means conveying only part of the truth with the intention of misleading the audience. This word encapsulates the unwritten mission statement of "Fabrications about the PAP" to a T.

Among the pro-PAP Facebook pages, FAP is the most adversarial and least principled. They hate on opposition parties, their supporters, and just about anyone who voices out alternative views that disagree with the PAP line. They were the first ones to publish the home address, complete with a photo, of the elderly retired civil servant who spoke up during Hri Kumar's CPF forum. While claiming to be fighting against the perpetuation of half-truths, they don't see a problem with sending out half-truths of their own to mislead their readers.

The latest half-truth being told by FAP has the intention of justifying MOS Desmond Lee's viewpoint that there's a concerted "online campaign" being carried out by people associated with the Workers' Party. Of course, they had to find a way to justify it, because what he said was so ridiculous that it couldn't immediately be understood without some additional clarifications.

So, the latest revelation is that The Online Citizen, which published criticisms of Desmond Lee's criticisms of WP, does have links with the WP. That's a revelation indeed.

It's all coming together - TOC must be a proxy of the WP because of its WP links!

Unconvinced, I decided to use Google. It is true that current WP member and NCMP Gerald Giam was one of the co-founders of TOC . It is also true that Andrew Loh used to be a member of the WP. But wait a minute.... what's this?

Credit: SDP.

The half-truth is self-explanatory. While publishing TOC's WP links, FAP has conveniently left out the fact that at least half of the founding members of the socio-political website The Online Citizen had links with the PAP. The PA grassroots is the bridge between the PAP and the ground. And what can be more PAP than being a member of the Young PAP?

Here's another link to a post espousing the PAP links at TOC.

Finally, this is awkward, but when I searched "Andrew Loh PAP supporter", I got this. 

Oh dear.

But it's no wonder they called him that, because in 2012, Straits Times blog Singapolitics reported a heated online exchange between Andrew Loh and Workers' Party MP Pritam Singh. Andrew Loh had criticised the WP, causing Pritam Singh to make a pointed reference to Loh's past association with the Young PAP. Andrew Loh then joined WP but left after only two years, after which he set up another website with a suspicious funding source.

It doesn't look like Andrew Loh is a loyal supporter of any party. It is also interesting that the grassroots and Young PAP members who are reading FAP never bothered to clarify that, in fact, some co-founders of TOC were their fellow grassroots and Young PAP members. I guess revealing that truthful factoid would be "helping TOC", and why tell the truth about TOC when hiding the truth can discredit the government's critics? 

By choosing to associate its online critics with opposition parties via fictitious conspiracy theories, the PAP is taking the easy way out. It's easier to discredit its online critics and ignore them than to reflect on the elements of truth in their criticisms. Will the party similarly take the easy way out when dealing with other problems in the country?