COMMENT | The emergency is a circuit breaker for toxic politics

"It's painful to believe that the would-be 'public servants' you're forced to choose between are all phonies whose only real concern is their own care and feeding and who will lie so outrageously and with such a straight face that you know they've just got to believe you're an idiot."

- David Foster Wallace

COMMENT | I have no idea why some political operatives were taken by surprise by this emergency declaration. My sources had told me that an emergency was in the works, and it really did not bother me at all.

No doubt, Defense Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob will make some sort of statement about standard operating procedures (SOPs) or whatever else this incompetent regime can think of to make this "emergency" seem like a serious endeavour by the government and to impress upon the rakyat how grave the Covid situation in this country is.

I have no doubt that the pandemic situation is bad, very bad, which was exacerbated by this kakistocracy but the rakyat has to share the blame too. The rakyat, especially those privileged with a little bit more income than the rest of their brethren and who constantly fret about the pandemic on social media, have not taken the individual responsibility to ensure that SOPs are followed or curtailed their lifestyle so as to curb the spread of the virus. Malaysians generally went about their business as if the pandemic was just a figment of Trumpian imagination.

It is so much easier to continue to blame the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government and rabble rouse than to question ourselves as to the role we played in this third wave.

This is not the kind of emergency that older Malaysian will remember. This is a kind of "emergency lite" that is just a political stunt to buy time. The very fact that life still goes on as normal, even more normal than...