Shame, you voted like an ass and now you’re pissed…

There’s been a lot of crap going down politically in South Africa the last couple of weeks, but I’ve restrained myself from venting because I may just be partly responsible.

You see, I did not vote in the last general elections through sheer disgust for the politicians. I now know what an ass I’d been and I’m not making that mistake again when the polling stations opens for the general elections early next year.

The kleptocracy in charge have been taking the public for granted the last four years, as they did the previous five years, and the five years before that. Their total and utter disdain for the citizens of this country has reached alarming proportions, but the real shocker is the terrifying reality that we appear for all intents and purposes, to be embarrassingly impotent to do anything about it.

Oh sure, we’ve ranted online on social media, participated in a few protest marches, added our names to those useless petitions and polls. But what’s the point if the only people really listening are those most affected, not the perps. Preaching to the choir, what?

The awful truth is that the politicians in charge don’t give a shit. If anyone has not realised this by now, they’re immensely dense.

We only have a fleeting hold on power – on election day and then we relinquish it when the winners are comfortably settled into office. Power to the people then simply evaporates and becomes power to the politicians.

We are given this once chance to dump the bastards in office, but do we use it wisely? The last two election results reveal that we’re quite happy to be ruled by thieves, immoral, incompetent,  sycophantic, self-serving, pompous assholes, and yes, psycho’s too. And the crazy thing is that the very people who are short-changed the most, are the most likely to vote for the most undeserving of politicians.

So, you have a chance once again to change things; grasp it and choose wisely. That’s the only chance you’ll get for another five years as you grin and bear it.

Photo credit: Thompson Rivers

Thatcher on Socialism

A few weeks ago while on my mid-year break, I engaged in debate with a cousin on Socialism. And again this weekend, while with a group of lady friends, the topic came up again, although I can’t quite remember why.

The purpose of this post is not to discuss the merits, virtues or otherwise of Socialism, but let it be known that I’m no great admirer of this economic system/ideology/philosophy. The reason I bring it up is because I’ve come across this quotation on several occasions, attributed to Margaret Thatcher, the late British Prime Minister, and wondered if she really did say that:

The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.

This witty quote appears to be very apt when applied to the travesty that masquerades as the current government in South Africa, namely the ANC. The majority of these politicians in power, who are indistinguishable from common thugs, are on a mission to spend our taxes with outrageous extravagance on the most absurd of “needs,” not to mention siphoning off a significant amount into their own back pockets.

But all of this, I’ve written about before. Back to Thatcher…

Margaret Thatcher

Today I did a wee bit of research on the quote above, and discovered that it has been simplified somewhat, but it does encapsulate what she did actually say. Apparently while responding to questions in 1976 by Llew Gardner, a television journalist, about the Conservative Party’s plans to bring down the Labour Party who were the majority party at the time, Thatcher responded:

I would much prefer to bring them down as soon as possible. I think they’ve made the biggest financial mess that any government’s ever made in this country for a very long time, and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation, and they’re now trying to control everything by other means. They’re progressively reducing the choice available to ordinary people.

So there you have it, the short history of a misquote with a little venting of my own thrown in.

Government School For Cronies

The ANC’s ability to stumble to new lows of depravity never ceases to amaze me. We watch and listen helplessly as on a daily basis they either blatantly deny their acts of corruption, nepotism and gross incompetence, excuse them by drawing out the race card or blaming their failings on apartheid.

This week Public Service and Administration Minister Lindiwe Sisulu announced that they will be establishing their “own government school in order to improve skills, ethics and professionalism in the public sector.” As reported in this online website:

This school will educate, train, professionalise and develop a highly capable, skilled, socially and committed public service cadreship with a sense of national duty and a common culture and ethos.

Note her own use of the term “cadreship.” If this is not an open admission that the ruling government deploys their own ANC cronies to cram public service positions, I don’t know what is. It is also a further admission that the cadres they have already deployed into key public administrative posts, have failed and require the skills which they have identified, and which they have previously denied not having.

While we have established and reputable institutes that produce trained (theoretically at least) people of all race groups, not to mention already skilled and experienced people from the business sector, the ANC will not recruit them, simply because they are intent on acquiring “yes men” who will toe the Party line first. To the ANC, service delivery has always been of secondary importance. The Party comes first.

And so now the taxpayer will have to foot the bill for this unnecessary extravagance in support of ongoing cronyism.

One can only hope that the pass mark for these cadres will not be 30%, as is the current norm in our ANC designed education system.

Show him the finger!

An enterprising individual or group of individuals, exhausted of being shown the finger by our horrid incumbent President, has come up with a novel approach to the upcoming general elections in 2014.

It’s a long shot… a near impossible hope really, that he’s likely to be toppled given the predilection of the  South African electorate to being duped into voting for very shifty politicians. But if anything, it’s worth it just for the laughs it raises in these troubled times when there is so little to enthuse over our politics.

The Un-Vote

Corruption Wars xxx – Return Of The Phantom Handbook

Over the years the Presidential Handbook which allegedly contains the rules for expenditure on perks such as cars, housing and travel for the top-ranking government officials, has come under fire from various quarters, especially when used by ANC members to justify some of their more gratuitous and ostentatious spending.

Strangely, from what I could gather, no one apart from the ruling members of government have laid eyes on this elusive, yet much referenced Handbook. And presumably this is a different Handbook from that which governs Ministerial perks, which also begs the question of why there are two different Handbooks.

Following demands from the opposition Democratic Alliance to make the Presidential Handbook public, it has been revealed that it is still in draft form – since being compiled in 2007. So it would appear that public officials have been using a draft document which is not yet official policy, to spend lavishly, and defy accountability for at least five years. And this in a state in which the ANC touts as one of the most advanced constitutional democracies in the world.

The voters have been repeatedly duped and have been somewhat passively accepting it much longer than five years; in fact since corruption on a massive scale by government officials suddenly started being unearthed following the Arms Deal Scandal of 1999.

But voters are notoriously stupid gullible. Take this cretin for example, commenting on the latest iteration of the Handbook saga:

He claims to know the facts – that governments pull money out of the air to fight wars, and that attacks on the ANC is a Corporate agenda. With voters like these, is it any wonder that the ANC is enjoying a corrupt hegemony that threatens the future of beautiful South Africa.

Aluta continua!

To err is human, but to obfuscate is divine…

I readily admit that I rant a lot about the wrongdoings of government and politicians, but lately I’ve been wondering if it is actually achieving anything. I’ve come to realise that the more you denigrate these people, the more it tends to make them retreat into that comfortable shell of denial and obfuscation.

Let’s face it, politicians are generally slimy scumbags. There are probably a few honest politicians somewhere… like on another galaxy maybe.

The way I see it, the problem we have is that when we criticize these slime balls, we tend to speak on behalf of the many who are wronged by their actions, but either don’t have the cojones to speak out, or do anything about it, or can’t be bothered. And let’s not forget that there are always a few who are advantaged (at the expense of the many, off course) by their nefarious activities, because where there are politicians, there’s always cronies. Shit always attracts flies…

I often come across critics who ask this question of government (the politicians): “Do they honestly believe that we are that gullible or stupid?” The simple answer is “Yes, they do.” Because the numbers that continue to return them to power at the voting polls speaks volumes about our apathy, ignorance, fears, and yes, gullibility and stupidity.

Mocking and incensed dissonance is well and good. It’s nice to blow off some steam. But we need to understand that it is ineffectual in the end. Our real (and probably only law-abiding) power lies in tossing these bastards out at elections.

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. – Edward R Murrow

© 2012 Zapiro (All rights reserved)
 Printed with permission from www.zapiro.com
 For more Zapiro cartoons visit www.zapiro.com

Heatmaps to give a f@@k about

Fuck you!

A common enough phrase. But would you care how often it was being said? Would you actually keep count?

Seems a company called Vertaline did just that. They tracked tweets from 100’s of locations across the USA containing the phrase “fuck you,” over a 10-day period in July this year, and created a heatmap that recorded its distribution.

And the results?

New York City and Los Angeles take a bow. It seems you do indeed give a fuck about the usage of flowery language.

However this doesn’t mean shit according to the article from where I got this crap, because the heat signatures correlate with high population densities in those areas, and hence does not make for a very scientific evaluation.

Now after reading this, I wondered how this use of heatmaps could be put to use right here in South Africa. Since we’re all pretty much fucked under the current government, I wondered if Vertaline could find another way to use heatmaps that would amuse us, and keep us busy until our turn comes to bend over.

What if they could creat heatmaps that measured levels of bigotry and sophistry. We could then have hours of fun as we uncover the gatherings off our politicians, and posh meeting venues they favour. No points for figuring out which political party is raising the most “heat” – we all know don’t we; we’re just curious about how much more than the others. Naturally, Parliament would have to be excluded; we all know what a hothouse of “fuck the people,”  that place is.

Would you be interested in my fairly brilliant idea? Do you actually give a fuck?

He’s White and he’s right

Wikipedia

This is South Africa, post-apartheid… 18 years to be precise. It’s come to this. No, no, no. Actually it’s been like this for 18 years.

Whenever a White person speaks out against the Black government, about the sad state of the nation, the sad state of democracy, they’re labelled whiners, or worse, apartheid denialists and racists. Sometimes you’d hear the popular refrain “White is not right.” When a Black person does the same thing, they’re labelled coconuts, traitors and worse things besides.

I speak out as often as I can; not always expressing myself with the same finesse as newspaper columnist William Saunderson-Meyer. But he’s one of those who are White and right. Truth has no colour…

No skaam. The dire state of an increasingly brazen SA

South Africa is in a dire state. Incompetence and irresponsibility are rife. Bad behaviour is the norm and few dare challenge it, which contributes to the undermining of democracy.

No, that’s not opposition Democratic Alliance leader, Helen Zille, on song. Boiled down, that’s the view of Auditor-General Terence Nombombe. He was this week lamenting the collapse of the public service at every level, from municipal to national, saying that the government’s lack of support for his office was making it irrelevant.

His concerns echo those of the Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela. She speaks of how the ‘silent thief’ of corruption has stolen the constitutional dream and how the secrecy Bill would derail her constitutionally mandated role.

As a nation, we should blush at the hash we are making of freedom. Unfortunately, South Africans are not big on embarrassment. Our instinct is to brazen it out.

The popular phrase, ‘S/he has no skaam‘ — one of those subtle Afrikaans words that encompasses being abashed, humbled and ashamed, even humiliated, but also penitent — should be emblazoned on the country’s coat-of-arms. In Khoisan, of course, so that not too many understand it. No one wants their nose rubbed in the national affliction.

Read the rest of this brilliant article here. It’s the right thing to do.

Imbeciles abound in e-tolling lobby

taxes (Photo credit: 401K)

The plot to defraud the South African public by way of sustained taxation continues…

Because it’s getting more difficult to dip bling-hungry fingers into the cooky jar without being caught, the latest attempt to filch legally by the South African government comes in the guise of e-tolling. This repugnant scheme involves coercing the already over-taxed public into paying criminally exorbitant tolls, to use South Africa’s national roads that have already been built and paid for with the public’s taxes.

When the scheme became public knowledge, the resultant outcry forced the SA government to put it on hold. However the lure of easy money could not be resisted, and they persisted in proceeding with this ruse of self-enrichment, arrogantly buoyed by the knowledge that the ignorant people who had kept them in power for nearly 20 years, would let it slide, like they did with so many other indiscretions by government.

Not this time however. Even the perpetually ignorant could not be forced to buy into this outrageous scheme to part them from their hard-earned money.

So the SA government tried the incentivizing approach by offering discounts to those who registered to hand over their cash willingly. When that did not work, they resorted to blackmail, threatening the public with surcharges for non-registration and punitive costs for late and non-payment, including threats of arrest and incarceration.

In between these extreme measures, government spin doctors such as Jimmy Manyi incredibly tried to convince the unwashed masses that paying the e-tolls was a method of “rolling out democracy.”

Not to be outdone, Nazir Alli of Sanral, the roads agency charged by government to administer this fraud scheme, pleaded with the public:

We appeal to all to obey the laws of our country . I encourage you to register so that you can enjoy these discounts.

This is how, we the public interpret this statement: Please don’t fuck with the laws we created to screw you. If you register, we’ll give you dumb fucks a discount for being such ignorant shits.

Nazir is on par with Manyi for being the biggest morons in South Africa at the moment – only Julius Malema tops that honour.

I have only one thing to say to Nazir and Manyi: Fuck you, your democracy, your toll roads and your government. I ain’t paying one red cent.