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.

Animal Farm by George Orwell

My second reading of Animal Farm after a great many years was prompted by a critic of the South African government who like many people living here now, have eventually become disgusted with their [SA government’s] behaviour. The parallels between the book’s plot and characters and the political dispensation and rulers of present-day South Africa are quite remarkable.

An advocate of Socialism, Orwell was prompted to write Animal Farm to expose the false notion that the 1917 Russian Revolution was a progressive development for the millions of poor and oppressed Russians. However, the book eventually came to symbolise any form of political, social or economic oppression of ordinary people in the real world. To that effect, I’ll make some comparisons with South Africa after I’ve dealt with the plot.

The Plot

Inspired by Major, an ageing boar, a group of barn animals on Manor Farm, rebel against the oppressive and neglectful owner, Mr. Jones. After ejecting him and the other humans from the farm, the animals rename it Animal Farm, formulate an ideology called Animalism based on the philosophy proposed by Major, and draw up a charter called the Seven Commandments of Animalism which is painted on the barn wall.

The pigs gravitate into leadership positions, with Napoleon and Snowball being the early candidates. Napoleon however display his hunger for power quite early in the plot, and enlists the help of Squealer [can you think of a better name for a pig?], a pig with natural persuasive qualities, who develops into a propagandist of note. After the owner unsuccessfully tries to take back the farm, in which Snowball demonstrates both bravery and a skill for battle, he has a falling out with Napoleon over the building of a windmill. Napoleon with the help of some vicious dogs whose training he personally supervised, manage to chase Snowball off the farm, and appropriates the main leadership role.

Snowball becomes a convenient scapegoat through the rest of the novel for Napoleon who through Squealer find it quite easy to convince the other animals that he [Snowball] was to be blamed for all the mishaps and setbacks that occurred on the farm.

Napoleon organises and supervises various work details on the farm. Boxer, a horse proves to be a very willing worker, while the sheep [no surprises there] display a remarkable talent for gullibility.

Over the course of the years, Napoleon degenerates into a true despot, who hungers for material possessions as well. He moves into the main farmhouse and uses possessions of the human owners for his own comfort, while these remain forbidden to the other animals. We also notice how the Seven Commandments of Animalism slowly change into something else suiting the dictatorial style of Napoleon, or disappear altogether, amazingly with the approval and agreement of the other animals. Such is the depravity of Napoleon, that he forces false confessions out of some of the animals for imaginary misdeeds, and has them murdered by the dogs in the presence of the other animals.

As time passes, Napoleon collaborates with neighbouring farmers like Pilkington, in violation of the original Seven Commandments, to build a successful farming empire, and eventually the pigs begin to walk upright on their hind legs to mimic their former human oppressors. All this while as the pigs grew fatter, the other animals led a very stark and oppressed existence. The Seven Commandments are reduced to a single one: “All Animals Are Equal / But Some Are More Equal Than Others.”

The book closes on a scene with the animals looking in through the window of the farmhouse where a party is in progress, with the pigs as hosts and human guests drinking and arguing over a card game. We are told that the pigs had become indistinguishable from the humans.

Parallels in the South African Political Dispensation to Animal Farm

Mr. Jones	Apartheid or former political dispensation
Manor Farm/Animal Farm	South Africa
Major	Old [respected] ANC leaders
Napoleon	ANC [current leadership]
Snowball	White folk, White business, capitalism
Squealer	Mac Maharaj, any other ANC spin-doctor
Animalism	Freedom Charter, Social Democracy
Seven Commandments	New SA Constitution
Boxer	Willing, skilled workforce
Sheep	Gullible South Africans who continue to vote ANC
Vicious dogs	Blue light convoys and personal protection of the ANC leaders
Napoleon’s materialism	ANC’s penchant for self-enrichment and bling
Pilkington	China as a trading partner
Pigs	SA Government

Right 2 Know

The campaign to prevent the South African government from trampling on our basic freedoms through the imposition of odious legislation, is gaining momentum.

Make your opposition to the Protection of Information Bill and the Media Appeals Tribunal, known. Join the Right 2 Know campaign here.

These are just some of the individual signatories:

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nadine Gordimer, Prof Kader Asmal, Zakes Mda, Prof. Max Price, Prof. Jonathan Jansen, Zackie Achmat, Pieter-Dirk Uys, Mary Burton, Mazibuko K Jara, Prof Hoosen Coovadia, Max Du Preez, Andre Brink, Pippa Green, Breyten Breytenbach, Cathi Albertyn, Rhoda Khadalie and Andrew Feinstein

For more international and local Organizations who have added their voice to Right 2 Know, click here. Add your signature not because they have; add it because it’s the right thing to do.

The swindlers get bolder

While I’ve been away on my road trip, a monumental struggle has commenced to retain free speech in South Africa, as the ANC-led government seeks to muzzle the press from reporting on, and exposing the self-serving culture of the members of this organization who still have the temerity to call themselves liberators and revolutionaries.

This, our liberators intend to achieve through the introduction of draconian laws which would have made our former tormentors in the apartheid regime, proud. The ANC-proposed Protection of Information Bill, and the call for the setting up of a Media Tribunal is nothing short of a gross violation of, and an insult to the aims of our much vaunted constitution. It is quite evident to all (except government cronies) that these proposals are merely intended to allow our thieving politicians to raid the treasury without having to look over their shoulders.

Off course, all of this has already been revealed over the last few weeks while I was away, but the morons in government are still preaching to all who would bother to listen, that we have it all wrong. It seems these people get bolder with each new immoral act they somehow get away with, while their contempt for the ordinary citizen grows in unison. And so they press on…

But once again, the cartoonist Zapiro has it spot on:

And just in case I’m not able to express myself in this manner again, I say fuck you to all the lying, thieving scumbags who make up our government; to hell with you and your apartheid laws.

Revolting Cocks…and marvelous quotes

There’s this industrial rock band known as the Revolting Cocks. I quite like their music; they’re really good.

There’s this bunch of politicians in South Africa known as the Repulsive Dicks [Ok, they’re not really known as the Repulsive Dicks as yet, but time will rectify that]. I really detest their dishonesty; they’re quite bad.

In fact their repulsiveness was predicted by some very famous people such as:

H L Mencken

[I]f experience teaches us anything at all it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. His very existence, indeed, is a standing subversion of the public good in every rational sense. He is not one who serves the common weal; he is simply one who preys upon the commonwealth.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed – and thus clamorous to be led to safety – by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.

Government, in its very essence, is opposed to all increase in knowledge. Its tendency is always towards permanence and against change … [T]he progress of humanity, far from being the result of government, has been made entirely without its aid and in the face if its constant and bitter opposition.

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right.

Ludwig von Mises

The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.

Liberty is meaningless if it is only the liberty to agree with those in power.

Barry Goldwater

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.

And my personal favorites:

George Will

The reign of Virtue shall begin when the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. Or so ’twas said many reigns of Virtue ago.

Anonymous

Politicians, like diapers, have to be changed frequently – and for the very same reason.