From http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/
Listening to TAU’s Advocate Roelof du Plessis as he cross-examines Mr Julius Malema in his hate speech case is a bit like sitting on a stage in front of a crowd of people and having one’s tooth extracted without any anaesthetic while having to listen to Steve Hofmeyer songs being played backward. It is painful. It is embarrassing. It is dehumanising. It is stupid.
Du Plessis sounds like Adriaan Vlok or PW Botha giving a speech in 1986 about the dangers of communism and the evils of ANC “terrorism” and the swartgevaar. It is like the baas telling the bloody k*@ffirs how lazy, stupid and evil they are. Talking about Lenin, Marx, communism and the evils of land distribution, is really not the way to win the argument — either inside court or outside court. The fact that adv. Du Plessis thinks this is all relevant, suggests that he does not get out enough and that he has no idea that he lives in a South Africa that is now a constitutional democracy.
Du Plessis’s approach is so tone-deaf and so obnoxious that it manages to do exactly the opposite of what it is intended to do: it creates sympathy for Julius Malema and for the singing of the Kill the Boer song. Instead of dealing with the legal issue — whether the singing of the Kill the Boer song by Julius Malema at a politically charged event constituted hate speech – Du Plessis is seemingly trying to put Julius Malema’s political views on trial, caricaturing these views in the process. But because his own views are so extreme, it is adv Du PLessis’ views that one ends up judging as being unreasonable, paranoid and bordering on racist.
In any case, the court is not the place to deal with such issues. These are political disagreements that run deep. This once again reminds me that it is inappropriate to deal with the singing of the song in a court of law. What is needed is to engage the ANC leadership on this issue so that it could return to its former position that the singing of this song in certain contexts is not helpful and that it should be avoided.
But Du Plessis, alas, is so clueless that he natters on in defence of the old South African flag and other obsessions of AWB types. He seems to suggest that Afrikaners are in danger of becoming victims of genocide. This kind of view is so ignorant of our history and the nature of the democratic transition, that it cannot but alienate any right-thinking or reasonable South African. By performing in the manner that he has, adv. Du Plessis has managed something of a miracle — he has managed to make Mr Malema sound reasonable, level-headed and dignified.
The cross-examination serves as a timely reminder (if any reminder is needed) that some South Africans still do not see the ANC as the legitimate government of South Africa. Seething with anger and suffering from a historic amnesia, he seems unaware that South Africa has emerged from a deeply evil system and that we now live in a democracy in which a legitimately elected government is implementing the policies of the ruling party.
In a constitutional democracy one has a right and a duty to argue about whether the policies of the governing party are wise or not and whether it is good for all of us (by which I do not mean only white South Africans) or bad for all of us. But even if one does not agree with the ANC government’s policies or even if one is critical of the corruption and arrogance of some ANC leaders, this does not make the ANC government illegitimate.
I must say, watching adv. Du Plessis’s performance today is almost enough to make me want to burst out singing: “dubul’ibhunu / dubula dubula”.
Rooster adds : Great fucking own goal Afri-forum muppets !
30 comments:
Rooster
you are the real muppet! Wake up and smell the coffee.
wake up, wake up, wake up!
That's not to say the "dubula ibhunu" song isn't objectionable, but what a doos Du Plessis is. I've had it with all this racism and reverse racism. It is now 17 years since apartheid ended. Can we move on now?
Black cop shoots white woman.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Cop-in-court-for-killing-Gauteng-woman-20110429
If Beeld believes she wanted to lay a charge of disturbing the peace, she must have done it BEFORE she went to the police station and started a ruckus in the parking lot, i.e. she phoned in, and then went there.
Why is it ALWAYS an Afrikaner getting into a ruckus with the police?
Hey Roostie
check this out
Gang drags farmer's body
this time we did it in style even if it is another of those isolated robberies, your know; we stole a whole lot of cattle so those muppets at Afriforum can't say these murders are racially motivated, you know, that genocide bullshit these boers carry on about. We also had a bit of fun with the fu©ker, you know, a bit of retribution for ill-treating us black farm workers.
And finally we had a few sorghums and all sang happily our struggle songs, you know, especially the one the crackers get all worked up about...
peace, sorghum and putu pap, boet!
Ha ha ha. If I was black I would be singing these songs for now other reason that it goy whities pissed off soo effectively. You made your bed boys, lie in it.
Fancy that! You not a gollywog? oh my!
so what songs do you sing?
It is now 17 years since apartheid ended. Can we move on now?
tell that to your ANC buddies...
Black cop shoots white woman
DOES IT BOTHER YOU? SHE WAS GAY, ANYWAY...
Just another statistic. Do you think anybody cares? If she was BLACK and the cop was WHITE I can assure you it would have made more news than the killing of Osama...
Can we move on now?
I sing the songs that make the good girls cry !
"I sing the songs that make the good girls cry !"
On the subject of being tone deaf... cough cough.
I sing the songs that make the good girls cry !
ja, cry with laughter!
STUPIDITY PERSONIFIED. What is this woman thinking, that she has taken over from Gaddafi as leader of the AU? Transport costs and logistics are alien concepts to the ANC, as is any other form of common sense.
Leaving farmers 'no threat'
Wed, 04 May 2011 10:23
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The departure of South African commercial farmers to other African countries is not a threat to local food security, Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson said on Tuesday.
"This will not be a threat to food security in South Africa; instead, this will enhance food security in the continent," she told journalists in Cape Town, at the end of a one-day International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) conference.
Asked whether she thought land reform posed a threat to food security, given reports that commercial farmers were leaving the country in large numbers, Joemat-Pettersson said such farmers should use South Africa as a base.
"We are not advocating the movement of farmers lock stock and barrel from South Africa... We want to encourage our farmers to maintain their base in South Africa... and then expand their business from here.
"In one aspect, we're encouraging them to set up... in other countries as a means of expanding their businesses.
"South Africa has skills it can share with other South Africans and with the rest of the continent," she said.
Last month, AgriSA reported that of the 120 000 commercial farmers in South Africa in 1994, only 37 000 remained.
AgriSA vice president Theo de Jager said at the time that South Africa was now starting to import grains such as wheat. It was also on the brink of importing meat and poultry, which was being produced less and less in the country.
Reasons for farmers leaving — to neighbouring states such as Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among others — included new laws, unionisation and the threat of land reform.
Speaking at the start of the IFAD conference, Joemat-Pettersson said Sub-Saharan Africa had the highest incidence of rural poverty in the world, but there was a growing belief it could produce enough food to not only feed its citizens, but also export a surplus.
IFAD is a specialised agency of the UN. It was established as an international financial institution in 1977, with the aim of eradicating rural poverty in developing countries.
Among those who attended the one day conference — which looked at agriculture as a means of advancing economic growth on the continent, as well increasing world food security — are agricultural ministers from several African countries.
Joemat-Pettersson said African countries had been channelling more resources into agriculture, looking to increase such investments to ten percent of their national budget.
"There is growing belief that Africa could produce enough to not only feed its own citizens, but to export a growing surplus.
"Africa can make a real contribution to ensuring food security to the world while also growing its own economy and pulling its citizens out of poverty."
Earlier she highlighted what she called "bleak" regional statistics.
These included that in sub Saharan Africa more than three quarters of the poor — those living on less that US1.25 a day — lived in rural areas.
"Sub Saharan Africa, with the highest incidences of rural poverty, is the region worst affected by poverty and hunger," she said.
www.southafricaexpats.com/forums
AgriSA vice president Theo de Jager said at the time that South Africa was now starting to import grains such as wheat. It was also on the brink of importing meat and poultry, which was being produced less and less in the country.
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This is a total myth. As Stephan Shakur exposed on hardtalk about 2 weeks ago. South African farming output has never been better. Our maize and wheat crops reach record levels in the past few years.
Why do you believe everything that Stephen Sackur says? Financial analysts and market commentators Bloomberg said much the same as AgriSA recently. Do you disbelieve Boikanyo Mokgatle, head of the National Chamber of Milling?
http://www.agbiz.co.za/Portals/0/Infrastructure%20workshop%20080506/Boikanyo%20GTT.pdf
Why is the Department of Agriculture being headed by an ex school teacher in English and history instead of by a properly qualified economist? If we did so well on average on wheat production over the last three years, then why don't we have any reserves in the silos? I suppose one way of getting rid of the poverty problem in the rural areas is to starve the poor out completely.
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South African Wheat Imports May Climb to Highest in 3 Years, Millers Say
By Mkhululi Mancotywa - Aug 13, 2010 4:14 PM GMT+0200
South Africa will probably import 1.3 million metric tons of wheat in its next marketing year, the largest amount in three years, after local farmers planted less of the grain, the South African Chamber of Milling said.
On July 22 the government’s Crop Estimates Committee forecast that South African farmers will slash planting this season by 11 percent to 570,000 hectares (1.41 million acres) because they were discouraged by low prices and high production costs.
“We will have to import from Germany and Argentina,” Jannie De Villiers, executive director of the South African Chamber of Milling, said in an interview from Pretoria yesterday. “They are our biggest suppliers.”
Wheat prices on the South African Futures Exchange in Johannesburg fell 31 percent in the two years ended July 22, making farming for some growers in the country unprofitable. Prices have since risen 8.7 percent after Russia banned exports because of a drought that slashed its own harvest.
South Africa’s wheat marketing year runs until the end of September and the country has so far this marketing season imported 1.14 million tons of wheat, according to the South African Grain Information Service. While Germany has accounted for two-thirds of the imports, the rest has come from Ukraine, the U.S., Australia, Canada, Brazil and Lithuania.
Wheat for December delivery jumped 28 rand, or 1.1 percent, to close trade at 2,700 rand ($370) a ton in Johannesburg today.
To contact the reporter on this story: Mkhululi Mancotywa in Johannesburg at mmancotywa1@bloomberg.net.
And here they go again...
Vladimir and Estragon, Cow and Chicken...
...Dachshund and Rooster waiting endlessly and in vain for their new South Africa to materialize so they can wave their little South African flags (like at the Royal Wedding) when Jakob Zuma marries his umpteenth wife to produce another millionth pikanins that must be fed by the ever shrinking farmer comunity...
but there you have it: the dog spoon feeds the chicken the adverse prediction "Leaving farmers 'no threat'", and the chicken promptly disproves it as a myth and bolsters Our maize and wheat crops reach record levels in the past few years giving doggy her emotional candy; doggy wags her tail and chicken basks in his selfdeceptive persuasion that South Africa is the lost paradise... and they both live happily ever after
it's ok.. shit happens
Let's get this straight. Crops fluctuate. We had record maize yields this year for example and next year the farmers are talking about not planting maize due to it not being profitable due to the low prices. So next year maize levels might plummet because they're planting something else. The point is that overall South African food exports have never been healthier. Something the head of the T.A.U conceded.
People claim we're now a net food importer. This is pure rubbish. If we import anything it's to sell back to sub saharan Africa as processed food at huge profits. This we are doing en masse and making a killing from doing it. Tiger brands and co fills the shelves of our neighbours supermarkets. you find all the S.a brands on the shelves of Namibia, zambia, angola, mozambique, DRc, Zimbabwe and almost no local brands.
If there is one area we are doing well in this country its manufacturing, growing, processing and exporting food at massively successful levels. That's the real story.
Rooster: can you show me the data and links to that so I can read up on this? One thing is for sure, the guys at the Chamber of Milling are not exactly thrilled at what Maria Ramos did to Transnet.
Can we let these bitter expats do their endless flaming and racism at Mike Smith's blog and I Luv SA? Perhaps this blog can attract more relevant commentary that way.
Can we let these bitter expats do their endless flaming and racism at Mike Smith's blog and I Luv SA? Perhaps this blog can attract more relevant commentary that way.
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I'm an old fashioned guy who believes in letting everyone get their hear. Besides 99% of what they say just reinforces everything that I say. Those who talk all this rubbish about south africa are emotionally comprimised and brainwashed into having a confirmation bias.
Rooster: can you show me the data and links to that so I can read up on this? One thing is for sure, the guys at the Chamber of Milling are not exactly thrilled at what Maria Ramos did to Transnet.
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What specifically would you like a link to ?
The source info of overall South African food exports never having been healthier and that the TAU admitted to this. Ta.
Can we let these bitter expats do their endless flaming and racism at Mike Smith's blog and I Luv SA? Perhaps this blog can attract more relevant commentary that way.
What's relevant about this blog? Boer-bashing? Ridiculing and discrediting whites especially Afrikaners? Inciting hatred against conservatives?
Is this what you call an unprejudiced blog?
And then you act as if you are the victims of flaming and racism?
What a bunch of self righteous hypocrites, liars and propagandists!
Besides 99% of what they say just reinforces everything that I say...
And what is that you say? A whole load of bullshit that you can never, ever substantiate with reliable sources?
Lara and Sarah have exposed you for the charlatan that you are and sent you squealing with the tail between your legs.
I'm an old fashioned guy who believes in letting everyone get their hear...
Sure like you trolling a myriad of blogs with your anti-white anti-Boer psychopathic jihad as a self-appointed gendarme of the "New South Africa".
you are a great guy Rooster but you and your canine friend are not even fit to shine Mr. Smith's boots...
We've caved into extremism
Malema and Afriforum represent us at our most crass
Justice Malala: The people massed outside the Johannesburg High Court for the Julius Malema versus Afriforum race-hate trial three weeks ago might have felt that they were supporting something great, something higher and worthier than themselves.
Afriforum's supporters, watching the spectacle on television from their homes, might have felt that they finally had a champion.
They were wrong. What we had in Johannesburg is an example of the crassness, futility and dangers of extremism. Afriforum's application was nothing but a cheap publicity stunt, an attempt to cheapen the struggle for freedom in South Africa. Playing on the basest and most unfounded of fears, Afriforum will soil struggle songs, cheapen memories and do its best to score Pyrrhic political points.
Malema is no different. With his cheap bodyguards in their boastful suits and phallic machine guns, his arrival at court represented nothing but buffoonery of the order of Idi Amin.
Malema and Afriforum are two sides of the same cheap coin: crass, unintellectual, ahistorical and incapable of thought before they take action. What happened at the high court was our politics at its worst. The presence of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, with her promises that Malema will be our president, completed the confederacy of dunces.
So what now?
Our country faces tough and intractable problems. Some of them are easy to exploit. It is easy for Malema to say, for example, that economic power remains in the hands of whites 17 years after 1994. It is easy for Afriforum to say that white kids will not have jobs in this new South Africa, or that their grandparents will be murdered in their sleep by bloodthirsty blacks.
Both sides of this sewer are exploiting societal problems for their own ends.
Neither can offer a cogent solution to these problems.
Nationalisation of mines has failed so signally everywhere it has been attempted that it is an insult to all South Africans' intelligence that the ANC now puts it on its agenda.
The move is not only ahistorical, it is anti-intellectual. It shows that the ANC is running out of ideas.
As for Afriforum's half-baked Afrikaner activism, a lot of noise signifying nothing but residual racist psychology: the less said the better.
When Jacob Zuma brought charges against Malema a year ago he was outmanoeuvred by the likes of Mathews Phosa, who defended Malema against a position he himself had been part of drawing up. It is the Phosas of this world who have given Malema the sword that will slay the ANC.
The most urgent question posed by the spectacle outside the high court is this: Where are the good men and women of this country? Why is it that Afrikaner concerns (if there are any) are now being articulated by an outfit like Afriforum? Why is it that legitimate black aspirations are now Malema's to articulate?
Malema and Afriforum have become our voices because good men and women have handed over the public space to the extremists of the right and left. They have chosen to say nothing while Afriforum says it represents white fears and Malema says he represents black aspirations.
Given the silence of the centre, Malema and Afriforum represent us now.
James Myburgh raises the question of whether the ANC would take the Mugabe route if the DA were to gain significant support.
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The ANC and the Mugabe option
James Myburgh
Over the past week Helen Zille has made the claim that the Democratic Alliance is within striking distance of the African National Congress in three metros: Tshwane, Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth (with Cape Town pretty much in the bag).
This claim is partly tactical, an effort to enthuse DA supporters and get them to the polls. What lends it weight is the chatter, from within both the DA and ANC, that internal party polling has detected a surge of support for the DA among black voters.
A breakthrough by the DA into the black electorate would be a game changer for South Africa's democracy. It would challenge many of the working assumptions of the ANC and many opinion formers. And would, potentially, represent an important stage in the transition of our political system away from single party dominance towards a more pluralistic and responsive form of democracy.
As Nic Borain has noted, "The most positive outcome of any such swing is one in which ANC party reformers use it to attack the drift towards cronyism, corruption and incompetence in their party and government. And, of course, any such increased representivity of the DA will continue to act, in word and deed, as a check and balance on the African National Congress."
The big question is how the ANC will react to any such challenge to its power, particular from a party which draws considerable support, and much of its strength, from the white minority. In Beeld Tim du Plessis has questioned whether it is in the nature of this ANC to gracefully concede defeat at the ballot box.
"Then there are the deployed ANC cadres in key posts," Du Plessis notes, "particularly in the army, the police and the intelligence services, people with their hands literally on the levers of power. Are they going to peacefully sit and watch while power slips away knowing that it will also be the end of their world? Somehow I doubt it."
In the past the ANC has tended to tended to tolerate, rather than accept, the unapologetic assertion by white South Africans of their democratic rights. This has deep roots in the ideology of the national liberation movement, which defines the arrival of whites in South Africa as the source of all the misfortunes of the black majority.
From the early 1960s to the late 1980s the ANC/SACP in exile had intended, after effecting a violent seizure of power, to impose "a vigorous and vigilant dictatorship" against "the former dominating and exploiting classes." As Thabo Mbeki later observed the ANC took a conscious decision, in the early 1990s, not to go for this "Jacobin option" of oppressing and disintegrating "the classes and strata that constituted the white population, including depriving them of their democratic rights and property, and destroying the organisations they had created."
The ANC of Mbeki nonetheless did, from 2000 onwards, support Zanu-PF through a series of stolen elections in Zimbabwe, partly to give it time to effect to its historic mission of dismantling the "legacy of colonialism" by forcing white farmers off their land.
The ANC of Zuma could choose to take a different path. However, early indications are not promising. The ruling Tripartite Alliance has responded to the unexpected challenge of the DA with some pretty vile racial propaganda.
And now ANC Youth League President Julius Malema has put the Mugabe option firmly on the table. He told supporters in Kimberley on Sunday: "We must take the land without paying. They [the whites] took our land without paying. Once we agree they stole our land, we can agree they are criminals and must be treated as such."
Dr Fraud/Piet: If, as you say, Piet Skiet - sorry, Mike Smith - has a better blog, then why don't you go and read that instead? Why make yourself miserable trolling this blog?
Rooster, you reminds of one of the bullies on the playground ... always the biggest mouths, the most bravado ... yet when you look closely, you see there is zero substance.
Lara Johnstone, the compost farmer who was married to a black convict, makes a point of mentioning her intra uterine device as preferred method of contraception. Sarah, Maid of Albion, off to talk to a guy in the woods in her long peach satin gown. I would never hire a spaced out maid like that. How does she operate a vacuum cleaner in all that mediaeval clobber?
I found this article by Greta Steyn from late last year on the maize surplus. I agree with Steyn that the surplus should be stockpiled.
Navigating the maize
Nov 23 2010 19:33
Greta Steyn
SA FARMERS are sitting on a maize surplus of 4 million tonnes, which they are desperate to export. But the answer doesn’t lie in finding markets outside of SA.
Government should step in and buy the maize at international prices and keep it for when there’s next a shortage. Of course, government stabilising the maize price hasn’t been policy for some years now, as government believes in a “free market” in agriculture. But SA must be almost the only country in the world to support a free market in agriculture. In the world’s richest countries, agriculture is heavily subsidised, making it difficult for SA to compete.
The SA grain industry has applied to the Competition Commission for an exemption that will enable it to set up a pool to export the maize, worth a little more than R6bn. Grain SA, the body representing most of SA’s maize, wheat and soya producers, has asked the commission for an opinion on co-operating on exports, but was informed that setting up a pool would be anti-competitive.
In its original justification, Grain SA said “normal free market export activities, conducted under the free market regime whereby producers operate as individuals and are responsible for the marketing and trading of their own produce, cannot remove the surplus sufficiently to allow producers a large enough scope for production in order to operate profitably in the coming seasons.
“The current competition laws prohibit class action which disadvantages producers and agribusiness from coming together to achieve scale and drive down costs in order to compete in the global maize market environment.”
So far, the Competition Commission has dragged its heels in coming back to the farmers. Grain SA chairperson Neels Ferreira says farmers won’t plant maize in the coming season, and this will have ripple effects in the economy as farmers turn to different crops or land lies fallow. Ferreira said government needed to reopen the debate on the ban on using maize for biofuel, imposed in 2008 when world maize stocks were dwindling and there was fear of compromising food security.
I think using maize for biofuel would be very foolish indeed. What seems to have got lost in this issue is that you can’t count on surpluses. That’s why, when they happen on the scale they did this year, government should buy the maize for food security reasons.
SA may have a maize surplus now, but who’s to say what the situation will be down the line? If government bought the maize for food security purposes now, it would be able to exert downward pressure on food prices and inflation if a shortage should ensue in future.
Recently, a delegation headed by Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson went to China to try to hawk the surplus there. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, the Chinese turned down the SA offer.
Apparently the Chinese don’t want the maize in its primary form. Another outlet – SA’s neighbouring countries – seems closed because of regional worries about genetically modified crops.
Countries like Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi, which suffer chronic food shortages, refuse to accept SA maize because of worries about importing genetically modified organisms.
Already, there are international reports of a new food price crisis brewing. A Bloomberg report said world food imports would exceed $1 trillion this year, close to the record reached in the 2008 food crisis, as commodity prices surge.
If the Competition Commission gave its permission, no doubt the maize surplus will be snapped up at some point. But then government will have missed a golden opportunity to return to a policy it should never have ditched.
Food price volatility hits all South Africans, and more stable food prices brought about by an activist government is a highly desirable situation for farmers and consumers alike.
Soooooo...Rooster, when is your turn coming mmmm?
Author Max du Preez has offered R7000 to the thieves who stole his laptop, The Times newspaper reported on Thursday.
"It's pretty devastating. Everything I do is on my computer. People are saying, 'You are a fool for not backing up'," Du Preez said.
The laptop had the text of a book he was writing about former president Nelson Mandela. (LOLOLOL)
"I lost two chapters that had all my research for the rest of the book."
It was stolen from his office in Long Street, Cape Town last Thursday.
A man had knocked on his office door and asked for directions.
"I had an impression they were from some rural area so I was very sympathetic...
"I suddenly got suspicious. As I turned around, his companions stepped into my office and grabbed my cellphone and laptop."
He chased them for two kilometres before giving up.
I'm amazed that Max du Preez didn't back his work up. But why write yet another tome about Nelson Mandela? I suppose du Preez also needs to make money. A book on Mandela published around about the time of his demise would be bound to sell. How long can Mandela still last? I see that Tretchikoff is no longer Kitschikoff now that he has snuffed it. There's money and forgiveness to be circulated when Nobel prize winners and celebs kick the bucket, but nobody is writing a book about FW de Klerk. I wonder why, hey?
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