Monday 22 September 2008

A moment of despair...

Without wishing to alienate and disappoint my dedicated readership who more often than not come here to get their daily dose of fury , today I’m going to drop the “sass” and talk about something I consider to be a potential problem for our country.

If you will grant me a brief few paragraphs of self centered babble, I’ll come to my point.

When I think of the mesh of forces that make up the South African socio-political environment, I’m often torn between my ideals and the pragmatic realities that haunt them. My world view could easily be mistaken for liberal or even socialistic at times , because I appreciate and campaign for principles inherent to socialism. I want everyone to have a roof over their head , food , water , electricity, education and health care and I want the rich to pay for it. But that’s just the humanist or more accurately the psychologist in me. The problem is deep down I’m actually a stern Libertarian.

What is libertarian then ? A libertarian is kind of a hermit on steroids. I believe in the principle that all human beings have the capacity and inherent nature to govern themselves and should strive to do so. I believe that putting the power to govern in the hands of others not only hinders but clashes with our freedoms. Simply put , I want to right to be left the f#ck alone so long as I’m not bugging anyone. I want the right to be free to trade and interact with other human beings seeking only consent from the parties involved. I want the right to decide what to do with my money without having to entrust a third of it to get lost in a pool of beaurocratics and be exposed to the inevitable corruption inherent in human nature. I realize the need for a mediating party resembling a government/police force , but would rather have them community run affairs. So how then can I possibly promote the ideals of socialism/big government ?

A very smart man named Maslow once mapped out a basic pyramid of human needs. Towards the lower end of the pyramid are the basic human needs a person must fulfill before it becomes possible for them to engage in the types of behavior we associate with civilized society and personal responsibility. One doesn’t need a skinner box to know that hostile environments breed hostile behavior. I have supported the A.N.C because they have basically been nothing more than a populist filtering machine. They pander to voters by taking from the rich and giving to the poor. So that’s a nice little Robin Hood story and a warm and fluffy idea, and it has a pacifying effect on society. People who have something have something to lose and don’t engage in unnecessary violent behavior. Hence we’ve seen a steady decline in the murder rate correlating exactly as I always predict to the increase in wealth. I don’t for a second believe it’s fully motivated by altruism as much as pandering for votes, so I’ll withhold praise to the A.N.C for this.

However , where I’ll be quick to praise them is their economic policies. Under the leadership of Mbeki there lay an active understanding that the best way to bring about socio-economic change is through the free market system. While we saw some of the pandering for votes as I previously mentioned , untimately what we got from Mbeki was a thwarting of that trend. We saw privatization, growth and sound fiscal policy often at the expense of popularity. An intellectual understanding that the key to pulling the country out of poverty was not a quick fix aggressive wealth dispersal the people were demanding. Some of you will remember the promises of a suburban home and BMW were the “economic policy” of the A.N.C pre 1994. And Mbeki/Manuel were of course right and anyone with half a brain was thrilled about it. The very fact that we as an African country had leaders brave enough to stand up to what would have been the easy and popular option in the short term , but disastrous in the long term, has been something I’ve stood back in awe of. Enough so that I’ve been willing to ignore all the corruption scandals and witch hunts in the media.

The A.N.C , a party voted in on the premise that it was based in socialism/communism was allowing me to keep my property , trade freely etc was to me like winning the jackpot. Yet all around me I heard nothing but White people moaning. Moaning ?????? Think about it for a moment.

Did you not know what you were asking for when you called for Mbeki’s head ? You truly did not know how lucky you were to have Mbeki and the intellectuals he associates himself with. But I have the idea we’re just about to find out.

I guarantee you that the faction of people that wanted to see Mbeki go , chiefly did so because they do not adhere to his capitalistic policies. They maneuvered into power on the premise that they would bring faster change. We’re back to “BMW economic policies” my friend. The politics of populism : give the majority of people what they want even if means tearing down everything around you . It’s the politics that has brought down the foundations of every other African country around us and it’s here.

And here’s the really scary part. The more the government fails to deliver on promises , the more people will start to show allegiance to other parties. And the cycle begins, the deeper the government digs into our pockets to buy their voters with increasingly untenable policies. The more promises the government makes. The more we have of a government that’s going to stick it’s grubby hands into our homes and grow fat consuming our freedoms while the masses brey for the scraps.

And a government big enough to give you everything you want my friends……is a government big enough to take it all away.

And it’s with an uncharacteristic sense of despair that I offer the above warning.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I’m often torn between my ideals and the pragmatic realities that haunt them"

Wow, that is so deep
Did you swallow a book of poems?

"And it’s with an uncharacteristic sense of despair that I offer the above warning."

ehhhhhhhk! wrong! It is us that have warned you.

Care to swallow your words/blog? Time to eat your hat? Try some mayonaise to make it go down easier. The crystal ball says "soon"

The Rooster said...

Oh what bollocks. Pretending South Africa has no problems or potential problems is just as stupid and the S.A.S version. It's not the worst country in the world , but it's far from the best. It's not all rainbows and fluffy bunnies , but it's certainly not all hijacks and child rape either.

I thought you lot would enjoy my little venture away from winding you up .....oh well....lucky I didn't care.

Anonymous said...

Rooster stop whining with your sop stories. MYour precious beki is gone.

Deal with it.

Anonymous said...

Now you sound just like the whining white man that you are. Hahaha!

Mbeki was useless. And whatever you say is rubbish.

For real policies, go to www.friendsofjz.co.za

The Rooster said...

Oh well I don't care who is in power , so long as they don't mess with the countries economic direction or raise taxes to even more insane levels. The political upheavel is good for the country in some ways in that it will divide sentiment and encourage debate. Great time for a second party to make the right noises.

The Rooster said...

Notice I'm still not responding to allegations as to my race , gender , location etc . Take the hint.

Anonymous said...

Rooster old cock... for once I am in agreement.. (OK... you can get off the floor now...)
Problem as I see it is that JZ is a popularist and inherently populaists need to, and will, change policies to remain popular. I have also seen the "rumblings" that led up to the JZ trial and there are many extremists wings aligning themselves with JZ (worryingly Cosatu who hold the entire country to ransom with their "mass action") Where TM did not pander to this pressure it remains to be seen if JZ will.
The expectations of the masses are also worrying insofar what "JZ is going to do for them"
Always the pessimist, I think it may be time to "pay the piper"

Hope I'm wrong tho....

The Rooster said...

Yeah , certainly things are on a knifes edge right now. Let's see how they pan out. Power struggles are a good way of beating out the dead weight. I don't think anyone is going to change the economic policies over night. We might just seen a few boost to social benefit and the likes , which is fine to me...money filtering into the system bottom up is very good for social conditions and stimulating small business.

Anonymous said...

Knife's edge? Rubbish. That's a bit sensational.

It's all just political gaming.

Nothing more.

This isn't anything new to global politics. Life goes on.

Anonymous said...

London - British newspapers branded South Africa's outgoing President Thabo Mbeki a failure Monday for disastrous policies on Aids and Zimbabwe, while voicing caution over his possible successor.

Mbeki, who announced his departure on Sunday under pressure from his ruling ANC party, won some plaudits for the manner of his exit, though newspapers were concerned about how South Africa would fare under a Jacob Zuma presidency.

Mbeki, 66, succeeded Nelson Mandela as president in June 1999. His term was due to expire in mid-2009, and he has been largely seen as a lame duck president since losing the ANC leadership to Zuma in December.

"What Mr Mandela fashioned... Mr Mbeki has at least preserved," The Times said in its editorial.

"Any leader would have been overshadowed by the mantle of Mr Mandela. Mr Mbeki, however, has tarnished his political inheritance and weakened South Africa's moral authority."

Mbeki had "failed" South Africa's blacks and "the greatest domestic indictments are mass unemployment and poverty," said the daily.

He had also failed South Africa, the paper continued.

Isolated, friendless figure

Mbeki had "outraged international opinion" with his seeming "collusion with the tyranny" of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, and his "preposterous pseudo-scientific denial that HIV causes AIDS", which has wreaked "terrible consequences" on the public, The Times said.

The Guardian branded Mbeki a "failed hero" whose downfall was "of his own making".

"It is an astonishing and not altogether explicable fact that a man who entered office so highly regarded on the national and international stage leaves it such an isolated and friendless figure," the daily said.

He came to be regarded as "intolerant" and even if history took a benign view of his Aids policy as "an aberration", it was nonetheless "closely bound to his obsession with race".

"Aids and his policy of propping up the dying Mugabe regime will go down as the two great stains on his period of office.

Mbeki had "run out of road, and thankfully acknowledged that fact" by resigning.

The ANC named its deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe as head of state on Monday.

But should ANC president Zuma take over as president next year, "it is not clear what sort of leader he will be. There are real reasons to worry," the Guardian said.

"If one autocrat replaces another, South Africans will be the losers from a power struggle in which they have not been consulted."

The Financial Times said it was "a measure of how far and how fast Mbeki's star has fallen that few in South Africa will mourn his departure from office".

The business daily gave him credit for presiding over the country's longest uninterrupted period of growth since World War II and nurturing the growth of a black middle class.

But the paper blasted ANC corruption scandals and Mbeki's "disastrous policies" on Aids and Zimbabwe.

"His legacy is a country that is more prosperous but arguably more racially and economically polarised than when he took over," the FT said.

The ANC "should be commended for showing signs of democratic health - a rare sentiment in a former African liberation movement", the paper added. But there were "many reasons for misgivings about what comes next," it said.

Anonymous said...

"The communists and unionists are in power.Now it is time for the second phase of revolution as laid out in the SACP strategy of taking over the country.No one saw a thing.Next step:Repossession of farms.Scream all the way you like,it will happen.Soon the white man will be landless."

- http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=848577


-----------------
That is a view shared by multitudes of South Africans. It's in line with the title of your blog.

The Rooster said...

I'm reading mbeki and posse might break off and form a new party. Be that the case this could be the bets thing to happen in South Africa for a long time.

Anonymous said...

The World Health Organisation on Monday warned customers not to buy drugs made by Swiss pharma giant Novartis's Sandoz generics unit in South Africa after an inspection revealed more than 40 faults.

The WHO said it had sent an official "Notice of Concern" letter to Sandoz on September 12 after an inspection of the unit's Kempton Park factory in South Africa.

That had revealed 41 separate cases classified as "non-compliances and deviations from the WHO Good Manufacturing Practices."

For example, "the company failed to ensure that where starting and primary packaging materials and intermediate or bulk products were exposed to the environment, interior surfaces were not smooth and free from cracks and open joints, and did not permit easy and effective cleaning and, if necessary, disinfection," the WHO said in its letter.

The inspection was carried out in May, said the WHO.

Since then however, Sandoz had failed to take sufficient steps to remedy the situation and thus the WHO has deemed the Kempton Park site to be "operating not in compliance with WHO GMP".

As such, the WHO would "recommend suspension of procurement of all prequalified products manufactured at this site, (and) withhold prequalification of all new products," the letter said.

These recommendations would remain in force "until satisfactory corrective actions have been implemented by the manufacturer and verified by WHO," it added.

Anonymous said...

I have not commented in a long time because I've been extremely busy, but I need to weight in here. I think the government does need to step in and help alleviate poverty. Although the demagogues at SAS, iluvsa blog and elsewhere think there has been too much transformation, my own opinion is that the transformation in SA has not gone nearly far enough. I do not favor Soviet-style socialism and I hope that is not what Zuma has in mind. I do favor more regulation though, look at how lack of regulation in my own country - U.S. has caused a financial crisis here. In SA, the problem as I see it is that some blacks have benefited from BEE, but this has been a relatively small percent. The black middle class is larger than it was during apartheid, but there are still way too many people in poverty. Moreover, the land distribution still reflects the skewed distribution that white settlers achieved through Natives Land Act.

Anonymous said...

our next president

He only attended school up to standard 3 (now called grade 5).

He moved to the ANC Head Office in Lusaka, Zambia, where he was appointed Head of Underground Structures and shortly thereafter Chief of the Intelligence Department. ( ha!ha!)

[He] admitted that he had not used a condom when having sex with the woman who now accuses him of rape, despite knowing that she was HIV-positive. He stated in court that he took a shower to try to reduce his risk of infection.

Anonymous said...

Cape Town - Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang on Monday expressed concern about the poor safety standards in some of the country's public hospitals.

"We get terribly worried... when we find in some instances that health care delivery takes place in an environment that is less clean and poses other health risks to the users and the providers," she said while tabling the department of health's interim evaluation report on the state of the country's health care facilities in Cape Town.

Twenty-seven hospitals had been evaluated thus far.

Clinical care, governance and access to care were some of the criteria used to evaluate the hospitals. The facilities, that included 27 hospitals and four clinics, were randomly visited by department officials.

"For us, this is really just the beginning of the process and as it brings new things to our attention, we will certainly act on those," she said.

THE BEGINNING WHAT THE FUCK HAS SHE BEEN DOING ALL THESE YEARS

Anonymous said...

President Thabo Mbeki filed papers in the Constitutional Court on Monday to join an application for leave to appeal against a Pietermaritzburg High Court judgement on Jacob Zuma.

He said Mbeki had filed in both his personal capacity and as head of the executive.

whoohoo divided anc here we come zuma goes to jail, mbeki gone and molema for prez

fuck this is going to screw up the markets

Anonymous said...

Comrade Greg you are right, now go back and finish all the corrections on your thesis.

Fullview said...

President Thabo Mbeki has, to date, received letters of resignation from the following members of Cabinet which, regretfully, he has had to accept:

1. Deputy President
2. Minister of Defence
3. Minister of Finance
4. Minister in the Presidency, Dr. Essop Pahad
5. Minister of Intelligence
6. Minister of Correctional Services
7. Minister of Public Enterprises
8. Minister of Science and Technology
9. Minister of Public Works
10. Minister of Provincial and Local Government
11. Minister of Public Service and Administration

The following Deputy Ministers have also tendered their resignations:
1. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Aziz Pahad
2. Deputy Minister of Finance and
3. Deputy Minister of Correctional Services

The resignations will be effective from the day that the President''s resignation takes effect. All the Ministers have expressed their availability to assist the incoming administration in the hand-over process and any other assistance that might be sought from them. President Mbeki thanked the Deputy President, the Ministers and the Deputy Ministers for their dedicated service to the nation and wished them well in their future endeavours.

fuck with trevor leaving the markets are going to collapse, rooster hier kom kak