Between Bloomberg, Muhyiddin and Putin, which nanny knows best?

THE world’s politicians are ranged from the rabid capitalists in the blue corner against the Trotskyite leftists in the red corner – those who embrace the power of Adam Smith’s invisible hand up against the meddlesome attention of big brother.

Over in New York molar matters have earned Mayoral attention. Mayor Michael Bloomberg is taking on the New York State Supreme Court which had ruled in favour of a group of eatery owners who sought to prevent him from banning the sale of fizzy drinks in plus-sized cups. Bloomberg, wearing his social conscience stripes high up his sleeves wanted to regulate the size of cups in which such sugared water was served to be confined to cups no bigger than 16 ounces. To get a feel of what a 16 ounce cup looks like, go to the nearest 7-11 or KFC and ask for a medium-sized drink – that’s a 16 ounce cup.

Why would Bloomberg, firmly ensconced as one of the world’s band of billionaires want to travel the path of Marx (Karl, not Groucho) and eschew Friedmanite freedom of thought, deeds and actions?

He is so worried by the morbidity rate that afflicts New Yorkers.

Why did he go down that road? The answer lies in the size of the American waistline. It appears that 58% of Americans are obese and that many thousands of Americans die of obesity a year. Flabby decadence extracts a price as it were and here’s Bloomberg to do battle.

His beef (or sugar as this case is) with the food and beverage industry is the amount of calories being injudiciously doled out rather too generously to big-mouthed Americans. Worryingly for him, some that so many Americans die from what is a modern-day disease of affluence yearly could easily be curtailed at source.

Bloomberg want New Yorkers to battle the bulge by preventing them being served sugary drinks across the counter at the various eateries the city is famous for. In attempting to force this down their throats, Bloomberg deemed the size of the cups matter.

Over a continent away in Russia, Vladimir Putin, the model of clean-living, hard driving communist ascetic wants his fellow citizens to lead a similarly austere lifestyle – he wants to ban vodka swigging and cigarette puffing in the streets of Volgograd so that none of his countrymen will fall down the pavements of Leningrad.

Putin is facing an equally entrenched populace where babies are born to be quickly baptized by the bottle. Yes, so ubiquitous is this as a national sustenance that Smirnoff and Absolut appears as natural DNA for young Borises left in the care of doting babushkas. That’s what you get when an average person tanks up to 18 liters of vodka in any boozy binge.

Putin leads from the front. He puts many good religious Chechens to shame by not touching even a drop of alcohol, does not smoke and Lordy Lordy - maybe does not even swear! He yearns for a return to the good old days of socialist sporting ideals where every factory worker starts the work day with group calisthenics. Each citizen also has to endure a fitness regime – much like sports programmes in most schools where the physical attainments of every student is tested and recorded.

Here? Our didactic Deputy Prime Minister believes Tanda Putera – the movie, not someone’s private birth mark – is fit for viewing only among right thinking, clear minded Malaysians.

In the streets of Kuala Lumpur, there’s an altogether different form of thought control appears to be exercised. It appears only a select type of people are considered as having a fertile (or is it febrile) enough mind (We don’t need no thought control brick in the wall video) to be considered ready to watch Tanda Putera the movie.

Quite in keeping with stirring wartime propaganda churned out by Pathe News, this is a movie that looks at the era of Malaysian history when Tun Hussein Onn was Prime Minister. Apparently (yes, I must have not been considered mature enough to have been invited to a private screening, so I can only comment based on rumours, innuendo and conjecture) there are scenes showing inter-racial troubles considered too sensitive that might sow discord and disunity among viewers.

This reminds me of Pink Floyd’s “We Don’t Need No Education” But since the elections is but mere weeks away, his concern must be palpable. All kinds of political dots are being connected with some conveniently-placed politician becoming pulpy punching bag. They are quite easily being blamed for anything and everything, including for promising the Filipino Suluks many concessions if the right people were returned to power. Not only that, they have been accused of being the ones supposedly bankrolling the insurrection.

Muhyiddin has also gone so far as to say that the scenes depicted in the movie could be used by unscrupulous parties to stir trouble during the run up to the general election.

The British have this institution called the nanny. The precious offspring of upper crust families are looked after by matronly types, sometimes smotheringly tightly that they turn out to be dysfunctional individuals when they become adults.

Britain too became the epitome of the welfare state when the Labour government held sway. Not until the advent of True Blue Toryism under Margaret Thatcher did Keynesian cure make way for Friedmanite monetarism as she famously told Britons to, “Get On Your Bikes”.

Once the apron strings that strangled and suffocated British innovation and industry was let loose, Britain thrived. Why, she even fought a war which some men in her cabinet opposed and in the process, humbled – nay humiliated; a star-studded General called Galtieri along the way.

How the once flabby nation whose omnipresent unions held the key to the controls from haulage of coal to the ticking of train timetables turned around to become a nation of doers rather than ne’er do wells is the stuff of right wing history. There must therefore be something to this left-right divide.