An invitation to educate me!

An invitation to educate

Strangely enough, most people (all 8 of them) who read my last post agreed with what I had to say. Shot for taking the time. On the other hand, there was one person who thought I was an absolute idiot for my view. Bear in mind that this is not his stated view but my perception of his view so I could be wrong again in my thinking. But i digress. I am not a political student, have no political affiliations or any kind of ties to anything or anyone political although i do have an aunt and uncle who went into exile at some point. That being said I have no real knowledge of what the government is thinking when they implement their strategies, and maybe my view is skewered because I read newspapers, which I guess are written by people who also have their own opinions so maybe I take on the slant that I perceive in the papers. I am a human being after all, and don’t see that as a problem, but I have to admit that I might be missing some other perspectives which are not written about. So....

I hereby invite you to educate me. I am not being facetious, I have no intention of rebuttal, although I might want to debate with you at some point. The anger or annoyance which I stirred in the other guy really got me thinking. I always put my own ideas out there but never really ask about other peoples’. And often, when people disagree with me I go into fight mode. Those of you who know me would know this about me. It’s not always the prettiest characteristic to have but there you have it. So, in context, the last post was about how some guy wrote that black people choose to vote for black people because they feel that they need to learn for themselves and not from white people and that it is not a race thing at all. OK, I will take that as a given and we can move on from the race issue. But here are a couple of questions I have and it would be cool if it could be answered within that context, that black people need to learn for themselves.

1)What is going to happen to our constitution when the government (notice how I didn’t say ANC) votes the secrecy bill into power? Don’t answer with semantics, please, like the real name of the bill is....Also, if anyone knows, how does this benefit anyone other than people who have something to hide? By my take, the gov would be able to classify information and the call it a national security issue when someone asks them why it is classified. So not only is the information classified but they also won’t tell us why it is classified. What would learn from this?

2)The media tribunal? How can giving the gov the power over media lead to a more fair media? Is that the right question to ask? I am not sure. While I acknowledge that the media does paint the gov in a really kak light most of the time, they did start their own paper, and I am still not sure how this will lead to a better SA for all. What are they learning from this?

3)Moving ministers and the like from one position to another when they created a huge mess in their first position? Can’t remember a particular person, right now. How is this good for the people who they are responsible for? What would they learn from this?

4)Paying people while they are on special leave while being investigated for crimes? The norm is to suspend someone from their position and pay them while they are on this special leave, right? If they are found guilty, they lose their jobs but not the money they were paid while on said leave, right? Or am I wrong? Shouldn’t it be more like you get suspended without pay and if you are proven innocent, then you get back pay and your job back? Or if you are found guilty, you should have to pay the money back because let’s face it, you weren’t working? What are they learning by doing this?

It would be awesome to get some real insight into these issues. If you have any thoughts, I would love to hear them. But, can we at least try not to talk about how apartheid and history have anything to do with this. I am more interested in how this affects the future and not why it is justified by the past. I mean, if you have a past reference then sure but let’s not make it a history lesson ok, please!? I look forward to being educated!

What is he talking about?

Why black folk don’t vote DA

OK, sorry, I know a link to a link is not a kwaai thing but....! Check this guy's take on why idiots vote for more idiots. I copied this from a friend of mine's FB page and one comment was "17 years and they haven't gotten over their inferiority complex"! It was only a small part of the comment but a good one anyway. If you don't want to read the article (you lazy asses) it basically says that blacks feel like they need to learn to do things for themselves and that they will never learn to do this if they vote for white people. Now, a large part of this article is about how it's not about racism, and I may have been inclined to believe the guy if it wasn't about blacks and whites. The ANC is always on about democracy and how they are for all the people but they have the biggest racists running their mouths at every opportunity(Jimmy, Julius). They would rather give the same people who are running the country into the ground another couple years, because they are not going to learn how to do it for themselves, than let people who have a good chance of changing things for good, actually do some good.

One guy I know said "Other than service delivery, give me one good reason why I should vote for anyone other than the ANC". I am a coloured from the Cape and I voted for the ANC once because I thought  it was time that they had a chance, but all this time later and I can't figure out how many more chances they should have. In answer to the question above:

1) corruption
2) nepotism
3) cronyism
4) racism (and don't say there isn't any, please)

There are 4 reasons for voting them out. OK, you still don't want to vote for the DA, then vote for some other black party. But how many more mines must Mandela's ( I love Nelson, just not his asshole nephew) and Zuma's offspring swindle from the poor communities before you stop voting for the ANC? How many more parastatals need to fail before we hand it to people who are capable of turning them around? How many more questions need to hang over the president's head before you realise that where there is smoke, there is usually dagga being smoked? How many more ministers need to be moved to other positions of power after they were fired from the original positions of power?

I know what you are thinking...it's only been 17years. No-one can do that much in 17 years! Really, Helen seems to be doing a pretty good job, and it didn't take her 17 years to do it. maybe I am missing something, but if you want your company to be profitable, you hire people who are the best at what they do. But, maybe it's just me who thinks that way. Maybe you prefer to hire your friends, and when they fuck up the one department, you can just send them to fuck up another. If your friends are highly skilled individuals then I apologise but if they are not.... And let's not even get started on the media being the biggest foe of democracy, it must be hard being up against something that focuses all it's energy on your fuckups. But should you be allowed to hide the problems, because if you hide it once, what's to stop you from doing it again and again?

Then some people say they are not going to vote, I say to that, maybe you shouldn't be allowed to vote then. Voting shouldn't be treated as a right, it should be a fucking obligation. You should get up off your ass and do something that could affect more than your small corner of the world because when the shit hits the proverbial fan, what makes you think that you will be left in your corner? They will take your corner and if you are not black, you will be considered a criminal and they will take it without compensation. Well, according to Julius anyway. And let's face it, he is going somewhere, and the alternative is not so great either. If he is not going anywhere, he is being used to distract you from what Zuma and his friends are doing.

Really, it's time to stop thinking like a colour.

a tad confused!

So, just like everyone else, I am watching all the reactions about the killing of OBL. I  have read most of the news surrounding this issue from the SA newspapers (if you can call them that) to the NY Times and the LA Times, even, CNN and the BBC websites! I, for one, am quite pleased that he is gone, although I am under no illusion that there was always someone waiting in the wings to take his place. I wonder if there was a succession debate like in the ANC or if the candidate list is under dispute. But I digress.

One thing that does startle me is the reactions I am seeing on facebook about his death. Like I said, I am glad he is gone but I am not about to go dancing in the streets to show it, but there are the few who seem to think that it's appropriate to do so. So be it. Then there is the weirder side of the coin. Those who live in a western society but are angry that he is dead. The ones who condemned his actions from their sofas and safe western havens but now are suddenly decrying the way the whole situation was handled. Someone said that they cannot condone murder even if he is a murderer, but you can't call it murder when it is, in fact, a war. Yes, yes, I hear you! Bloody Americans started all the kak with WMD in Iraq and the CIA bull in Afghanistan, but let's face it, if you shoot at the police, do they not shoot back? There is nothing unclear about western policy regarding this kind of issue. Basically it says, "if you fark with us, we will fark with you!" And he did fark with them. Big time!

Now, onto the more sensitive side of the equation. You are free to choose your religious affiliation but I don't think it's fair to live in a western society and then moan about it when they blow someone up who is of your religious persuasion, sorry I meant shoot! The didn't just shoot him for fun, right? And I am pretty sure they didn't kill him simply because he was Muslim. I think that you first have to think in terms of people. He blew people up, he should die, or at least be brought to justice for it. Don't you agree? Then you have to consider that there was just no way this dude was going to surrender. Who thinks he was going to see the error of his ways and then surrender? I mean c'mon, if you had to choose between 72 virgins and martyrdom or, let's say, Guantanamo Bay, which direction do you think you would lean in? And believe me, I am not taking this lightly but perhaps a lighter look is what is needed in this instance. I agree with most of what you have to say about the Americans, and something should be done about the way they prance around the world causing all kinds of popo, but let's not lose sight of the fact that the man, OBL, was a master manipulator, a brilliant strategist,  and one of the hugest assholes in the world. He blew people up and used others to do it for him. And that is about as much as you can say about him.

I don't agree that it was murder, murder was what he did to the people in the towers. I don't think there was going to be a peaceful resolution like there might be in the ANC, although even that is looking like it might be asking a bit much. Jacob Z and Thabo M would not have been able to have diplomatic talks with OBL's Al-Queda to come to some kind of power-sharing deal. And to top it all off, we all know very well that the Americans are gung-ho for this kinda thing. After all, God was on their side and he finally proved it 10 years later. No, I don't think that there was any other way to handle the situation and indignation about how, when, why, or by who(m?) he was killed is misplaced. If you care about people, then something had to done, and finally, it has. Now, the only other thing left to do, is figure out who is going to take his place and where they will strike next. I am pretty glad at this point that I am South African and not American.

Now, can we talk about Zwelimblabla Vavi and that popo about apartheid turning black people into murderers and rapists? Eish!