A Quote by Tan Cheng Bock

When I was asked to manage some issues in Europe for the government, I didn't go to Parliament and just make a great speech and impress them. Instead, I will go down and discuss with those people about certain issues that we don't agree, and over a glass of wine we talk about it and they say 'okay, let's forget it.'
Instead of going on a beach vacation to Hawaii, you could go to a Democratic convention, a state convention, a conference being held to discuss issues you care about, or even go hear a politician speak. Soon your life is all about government and politics and you delve into issues and public policy. When you do that, not only do you learn to be a good candidate for office, but you also learn to be a good elected official.
As a nation, there are many issues we don`t talk about, we just don`t talk about, push them under the rug. Poverty is one of those issues.
I think, at some level, we see young people all over the country mobilizing around different issues, in which they're doing something that I haven't seen for a long time. And that is, they're linking issues together. You can't talk about police violence without talking about the militarization of society in general. You can't talk about the assault on public education unless you talk about the way in which capitalism defunds all public goods. You can't talk about the prison system without talking about widespread racism. You can't do that. They're making those connections.
We need to address issues our people think about and talk about. Because there is a feeling that Europe elites are addressing different issues. Not the ones that people care about.
I come from a documentary background and my natural tendency, as a filmmaker, is to make a movie, if I have something to talk about. If it's not about anything that matters, I don't feel like doing it. I'm not against people who make movies just for fun, but I'm not one of those guys. I just want to provoke thinking and debating about certain issues.
Team Hillary [Clinton] after everything came out the other night, they said, she just wants to talk about the issues. She wants to have a debate about the issues. Really, is that what their ads are about? Is that what the filth they peddle every day my candidate Donald Trump is about - they want to talk about the issues - lets talk about Obamacare its a disaster?
The goal is to keep the dialogue open. There are issues in the USA that a lot of people feel strongly about. The goal is just to fix those issues. To make progress on those issues.
I think a lot of people do have questions about life, 'What's the purpose of my life?', 'What's the meaning of my life?', 'Why am I here?' ... It's hard to find a place where you can discuss those issues. You can't go down to the pub and say, 'What do you think the meaning of life is?' But actually, most people have those questions, somewhere in the back of their minds. And if you can find a place where you can discuss it with a group of people who, like you, are outside of the Church, and it's a non-threatening, relaxed environment, quite a lot of people want to do that.
I care about people's human rights and, as a country, we have a very proud record indeed. But I'm also realistic about what we can do... we can raise those issues with leaders and we can talk about those issues, and we do that.
Transgender issues, and LGBT issues generally, have entered the public conversation on a national level, so there's more need to find people to talk about them. Which I think is great! I like to do that, and I think it's important and necessary, but hopefully there will be a day where I don't have to keep talking about it.
Nowadays it's a big issue in Europe because you are forced to describe yourself by your culture, and you begin to forget about yourself, your identity. You're supposed to act in certain ways. You're limited. When you try to go outside the lines to go into some other garden, then you're blamed and stoned because it's like blasphemy. When we talk about culture, we have to see those two sides to it. When we ignore it, it's dangerous. When we talk about it too much, it's also dangerous. We have to have a moderate balance.
A lot of those old ideas are dying with the people who created them, and there's this new generation of filmmaker that's saying, "We're in this together, these are issues that we all deal with, let's just present issues to screen without bias and figure out what the audience has to say about them."
To suggest that the president should be censured because you don't agree with the legal advice he got seems to me to just -- to be out of the ballpark in terms of the way we can sensibly discuss and talk about issues like this.
I don't like to claim that I am an expert on anything, but I have enough knowledge about climate science and climate system to be able to write scientific papers and go to meetings and talk about monsoon systems and talk about any other things that you want to discuss about climate science issues. I'm as qualified as anybody that you know on this planet on this topic.
What's going to be important is having the opportunity to actually sit down with President [Donald] Trump and talk to him face to face, about the interests we share, about the special relationship, about the joint challenges we both face. Talking about the future of NATO is one of the issues we will discuss.
All the things I talk about are true, but some of them I may tweak a little bit. A lot of it is the way I feel about wrestling. When you have a character like mine, you can push the envelope and go far with some of the issues.
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