Learning from a line of letdowns
The only way for Manny Pacquiao to defeat Floyd Mayweather Jr, who has a reach 10 centimeters longer than his own, was to penetrate further even if he would get counterblows.
But the adrenaline only came in the fourth round of the match. Pacquiao did not seem to have the passion for victory. After the match, he admitted that he had a shoulder injury during training.
The “Fight of the Century” did not live up to expectations.
Another letdown was the U.K. general election on May 9. The Conservative Party and Prime Minister David Cameron defeated Ed Miliband’s Labour Party. The Conservatives won 331 seats while Labour won 232. For the first time in 23 years, the Conservatives have a majority in the House of Commons, the lower house of Parliament.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote in a contribution to a weekly magazine, “Labour has to be for ambition and aspiration as well as compassion and care.”
While the Labour Party advocates protect the working class, they fail to see what those who are trying to leave the working class, as well as those have accomplished certain success, are looking for.
As the only Labour Prime Minister to win a general election in the last 36 years, Blair wrote about a similar point in his 2010 memoir “A Journey.” He wrote that fellow Labour politicians did not “get” aspiration.
He said they were almost too altruistic for their own political good and they failed to see what would happen. A person who is poor first needs to care and then act. But when they are no longer poor, being well off may then become their objective. In other words, for such a person it is about aspiration, ambition, getting on and going up, making some money, keeping their family in good style and having their children do better than them.
He warned that the working class citizens aspiring to enter the middle class would shun the Labour Party if they were buried in protecting the unions and social security.
On Feb. 8, the New Politics Alliance for Democracy leader Moon Jae-in said, “We will bring together the scattered 48 percent. We will move a step further. We won’t shed tears for coming one or two percent behind.”
In the last presidential election, he was defeated by Park Geun-hye by 3.6 percent. He would have won if he had received the 1.9 percent of the votes that went to Park. The result would have been different if it were not for the overwhelming favor of Park in the demographic of voters in their 50s, of which 63 percent voted for Park, while Moon earned 27 percent.
It is understandable why Moon adheres to the reduction of public servants’ pension reform and increasing the income replacement rate to 50 percent. It seems to be a tactic to appeal to voters in their 50s who are more sensitive about the pension plan as their retirement age is nearing. However, it would be hard to keep the 48 percent, much less win 2 percent more. He needs to wage a bigger fight for the aspirations and ambitions of the people.
The author is a deputy national news editor of the JoongAng Ilbo.
JoongAng Ilbo, May 14, Page 35
by LEE SANG-EON
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.
Standards Board Policy (0/250자)