US UNIVERSITY ENDS MAN’S ‘LIVING HELL’

GREG ARDE

A correspondence university based in Salt Lake City, i the American state of Utah, has reinstated the doctoral degree of a Durban accounting lecturer three years after it withdrew the qualification.

Former Technikon Natal lecturer Ian Dey van Heerden recently received a letter from Kraig Munzert, the President of Hawthorn University, apologising for the fact that his degree had been revoked in the first place.

Said Munzert’s letter, “Please accept this formal apology and official notification of the reinstatement of the Doctor of Business Administrtion degree conferred on you in March 2000.

“It has come to light that both you and Hawthorne University have fallen prey to an elaborate web of fraud and deception. We truly regret any role this institute may have unwittingly played in what we now see as a malicious and atricious scheme to defame and discredit you.”

For 48-year old Van Heerden the letter from Munzert was a godsend and brought to a close a chapter in his life that he describes as a “living hell” andone that saw him imprisoned and tied up in costly lawsuits.

The drama began in  2000 when the lecturer fell out with his one-time friend, Jeannette Melrose Wicks an adult literacy teacher from Morningside Durban.

Wicks contacted Hawthorne University and alleged hat Van Heerden’s thesis had been plagiarised.

Hawthorn withdrew the doctorate and Van Heerden’s employer Natal Technikon, proised to investigate.

Part of the animosity that existed between Wicks and Van Heerden centred on a property in Morningside that Van Heerden had bought.

Wicks alleged that Van Heerden had used her money to buy the property and took him to the High Court in October last year. But Justice Choudree dismissed Wicks’s case with costs and ordered that she be ejected from the house in Morningside.

Then, in March this year, Van Heerden took Wicks to Court on charges of vexatious litigation because he had been arrested on different occasions for assault, housebreaking, fraud, theft and theft by false pretences. He spent four days in custody as a result of these arrests. These charges were instigated by Wick and were all finally droped owing to lack of evidence.

However, Van Heerden lost the vexatious litigation suit.

In her papers before the court in that case, Wicks admitted to blackmailing Van Heerden in a letter written just after Hawthorn withdrew his degree.

It read: “Dear Ian, Your doctorate has been rescinded due to plagiarism. This is a very serious thing, At the moment, the only people who know about this are me, Bertie (Wicks’s husband), Hawthorne University and you. It can stay this way, if you meed the following conditions,”

Wicks wanted Van Heerden to giver her R169 000, settle her legal fees and cancel a peace order that he had secured against her. However, she denied blackmailing Van Heerden when she was contacted by the Mercury.

“It wasn’t meant as a blackmail letter. I was emotional,” she said.

Later, she said through her lawyer, “I have never blackmailed Van Heerden, so how can I admit to this?”

“I have never asked Van Heerden for R169 000. All I wanted from him was that he return my assets….”

Van Heerden never paid Wicks. Instead, he instructed his attorneys to contest the charges of plagiarism. Eventually, this result in local advocate J P Vanderveen flying to Utah, where he proved in argument to Hawthorne’s lawyers in Salt Lake City that the degree thesis had never been plagiarised.

The university apologised andpaid Van Heerden an undisclosed settlement to cover the suffering he endured as a result of the drama.

This week, Van Heerden now working as a private financial consultant siad: “I am vindicated at last.”

Vanderveen said further legal battles were pending, with Van Heerden suiting Wicks for damages (related to the illegal occupation of his house) and the minister of policy for the criminal charges that Van Heerden had been acquitted of “as soon as he walked into  court”.

The news tonight is full of shock, horror, and gasp at the fact that the Dalai Lama has been refused entry into South Africa. Oh yes, dear reader, people are in a flat spin that a man like the Dalai Lama, whose tireless crusade for a free Tibet, has captured the hearts of Hollywood and its voyeurs, has been denied entry to democratic SA, and it has caused an outrage.

Even our Bishop Tutu, has been dragged into the fray. The implication is that this is a deeply undemocratic act, one that our country has stooped too, on the back of pressure from the evil warlords of China, who seek to suppress freedom in Tibet.

Rubbish I say.

What this little episode in our political lives does illustrate however, is the deeply ignorant way both people and the media respond to public relations.

The Dalai Lama PR machine is good; it must be, for the world media refers to him always, as the “exiled spiritual leader of Tibet.” Oh yes from the New York Times to the Durban Daily News, he is the spurned, humble man, who struggles against the vast and still deeply evil Deus ex machinae of China. He who travels the world like a modern day Siddhartha, preaching peace, tolerance and democracy. Now that poor soul, dedicated as he is to opposing the evil regime in china, as well as the spiritual health of not just his nation, but the world, has suffered a snub, from South Africa.

How very dare we ?

Please!!!!

The Dalai Lama, dear reader, is not just the spiritual leader of Tibet, with book deals and appearances on Oprah, no, he is the absolute ruler of Tibet, in Exile.

Yes, a theocrat, whose beliefs include not only the usual Buddhist stuff, but the absolute right to rule Tibet. He represents one of the greatest historical evils that you can find: Religious Rule.

Oh yes, on a fundamental level, his claim to fame is no more valid than your average jihading Ayatollah.

And the history of Lamas is scarcely better than that, to boot.

Ahh yes, under Dalai Lamas, Tibetans don’t get to vote, no, they get to accept a reincarnated leader, to whom they are absolute serfs. Not just serfs, mind you, but serfs who have, under all so called incarnations of Dalai, lived lives of abject poverty, and supplication to his Holiness, their boss, who occasionally ruled them as a child.

That such rubbish should masquerade in our 21st century under the guise of political right is an indictment upon us all. That it should do so without question from our media is beyond belief.

The First Dalai Lama

What is extraordinary, is that this totalitarian, autocratic, theocracy continued from 1391 -  1959. The current globetrotting, talk show guest, and best selling author is the 14^th in a long line of absolute monarchs who ruled a poor country with iron fists, depriving their slaves of freedom, votes, and general rights, with impunity.

Nothing of course like the impunity of the current version, who jets around the world asking democracies to give him back his slaves, in between media appearances, because he is the reincarnated ruler and slave driver of Tibet, under the guise of spiritual leader.

What beggars belief here is that he gets away with this, and has a long line of brainless Hollywood sycophants like Richard Gere, as well as a self help, new age book line.

Of course, the debate is always obscured by the claims against China. And let me say, I am in no way in favour of any undemocratic rule. The simple problem here is that when people campaign for change, people who listen often never ask the simple question, “ What kind of change?”

The people who continually fete his Holiness, never seem to appreciate the simple fact that they play right into the hands of the very thing they hope to avoid.

I am left speechless.

In fact these very same newspapers are running articles about Jacob Zuma speaking at churches. There are side articles about politics and religion, and yet at the mention of a man with a history that makes Iran look like a picnic, with the kind of democratic insights reserved for Robert Mugabe, they all run to supplicate before this twit.

How can people, who speak about democracy, and campaign for human rights, back a man with such a history and philosophy? Can these people who demand that Tibet be restored to an Aristocratic Theocracy of absolute rule be serious. How can they possibly say this with a straight face?

Do they really believe that hundreds of years of dictatorship were implemented without violence and force?

Surely not?

Perhaps they believe the Hollywood idea of poor, selfless Buddhist monks ruling fairly and justly?

Benevolent dictatorship at best?

Perhaps they have never seen the Dalai Lama’s palace?

The House that the Dalai Lama wants back

I suspect they just don’t know their history, and that they believe the outrageous lie that he is the spiritual leader of Tibet.

Surely not?

 It would be even more lonely if your view of a balanced and sustainable recovery excluded bailing out the rich. Very, very lonely.

It would probably be a bit of a desert if you suggested that “without jobs, without adequate income security for the citizen, there will be no rebound in domestic demand and ultimately not sustainable recovery.”

Especially dear reader, if you really were at the top.

But I bet you my parrot and the 100 dollars in my pocket that nothing is as lonely as a cell on Rykers Island.

Except realising that regardless of anything, when the deus ex machinae of the ugly state comes to call, and you realise your cause is lost, and that ultimately the world will accuse you, of things you never did, and those who believe you will be ridiculed as idiots and conspiracy theorists. When the cold hard reality of those you oppose comes knocking at your cell door, and you realise that the evidence will come thick and fast, well timed and elegant, financed and scripted to perfection, that your accusers will increase in credibility and power.

When, regardless of what you stand for, and what you have accomplished, you see, the might of your enemy.

Truth be damned, they will bay for your blood.

That is the loneliest moment.

Ask Dominique Strauss Kahn.

He knows.

The only real question, is why don’t you know this ?

What are you doing wrong?

Unless you are happy with this, in which case, what the fuck is wrong with you ?

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this particular commentator, who revels in her education in the “university of life and travel”, armed with a backpack and kitchen grammar feels that she has found a way around the slur of racist. Indeed, she, like her mentor, a shady and dubious wannabe intellectual called Dr Braun, have come up with an ingenious solution for all racist, white supremacists.

When called a racist, just redefine the term.

Finding blacks inferior, she says is not racism. No, not even a bit. You see, according to her, blacks know this. Its not racism, its a fact.

Promoting eugenics, and apartheid, thats not racism, its a matter of semantics, you see. Blacks know that whites are what they need.

The mind boggles.

I leave you with a quote from her doyen of  semantic idiocy:

“(1) Blacks cannot manage a modern industrial democratic society; (2)
blacks know this and would never think of denying it were it not for
white liberals insisting otherwise; (3) except for those black elites
who hope to take power, black rule is in no one’s interest, especially
not blacks; (4) blacks know this better than anyone and are terrified
of black rule.”

And this little gem from Ms Lara Jonstone:

In my honourable opinion; Dr. Gedaliah Braun has far more credibility than you can even dream of exists. He is a scientific scholar in the true sense of the word; as Donald Rumsfeld would say, he knows that there are many unknown unknowns, and on issues of race and psychological differences of races; he is searching for those truths. From me, he gets a salute!

But she insists she is not a racist.

Who dear, me dear ? Racist dear ? No dear ?

How very dare you ?

Bwhaaa!

You see, it’s not racism, its, um, ethnic realism.

I called her a dumb fuck.

That was kind, I know.

Go figure !

Check it out now, the White Refugee site that is not racist. Its a new ideology of idiocy :http://why-we-are-white-refugees.blogspot.com/2011/03/iv-you-dumb-fuck-stupid-uneducated.html

Don’t forget, it’s not racism.

Ha!

Ps. This one is my favorite “I don’t hate Nazis…what would be the point ?” – Lara Johnstone

Shock,horror,gasp.

Sorry, silly me, thats not anti semitism, thats just semantics….

Utterly brilliant!

Of course, we have seen this sort of unbridled insanity before. It’s not new, and it sticks it’s ever self indulgent, and idiocy addled head up ever now and then. It’s the same as all of those revisionist idiots who insist that the holocaust never happened. And, if it were not so ugly, it would be amusing. Revisionism is not new.Whether it’s historical or grammatical, it’s the same revisionist crap. It’s not possible. It’s just Ms Johnston who moos about it, as if it was.

Stupid Cow !

The author sincerely apologises to all bovine.

Furthermore this article is subject to interpretation, it may be that you feel it is somewhat derogatory, but then your definition of derogatory as well as most words I use, are your own definitions, I choose to define my own words in terms of Dr Braun, who is a scientist and a respected source of something or nutting! So, no, but yeah, but no.

Am I bovvered ?

I think not.

I think not, a lot !!

Nevertheless, I think that there is a much more important question, one that is being asked, but not examined enough.

What is Julian Assange trying to do ?

What indeed ?

He, and his friends, like Mr Pilger, who are, and always have been, haters of the USA, say its about freedom of speech. And if  you glance at the comments section of any report on this matter you will hear the almost clichéd call that freedom of speech does not exist in the USA, and that the Wikileaks saga is proof thereof.

What rubbish.

This has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Wikileaks is not speaking it’s mind, no dear reader, what it is doing is publishing other peoples speech, and doing so outside of the very important contextual situation under which those comments were made..

By this, dear reader, I mean simply that what you are reading in your morning paper are words spoken with a certain expectation. The expectation of privacy. I’ll go a little bit further and say, the legitimate expectation of privacy.

What’s that, you ask?

Hell that’s like you and your doctor, or you and your shrink, or you and your wife, or you and your mates after a football match, over a beer.

Privacy.

Put another way, a communication between a selected group of people, for their benefit only.

It’s vital to freedom as the right to say what you think. It’s the right to believe that you have a right to be shielded from external view in your private moments. And too, dear reader, it is recognized as vital for many professions, like law, or medicine, or psychology, or medicine ad infinitum.

What Julian Assange is telling you is that its not ok in diplomacy.

He is suggesting that in a global environment such as ours, governments may not  have private communications.

And whom does attack first, Iran ? Korea ?

No, America.

Thats a clue dear reader.

Hell, its a big pink goddam elephant.

What does Julian want ?

He wants their privacy.

He begins with the USA, and its diplomats. (funny that)

Next up lawyers.

Then doctors.

Then you.

It’s absurd, and it’s dangerous.

Say no more.

I wrote this some time ago, and it has become slowly popular. I had become deeply irritated by the scorn heaped on our American friends for their American Dream by the European press:

TheTroublemakertimes is undergoing an ideological shift, and the above lyrics are from a song, by a white man, like me. In a few days I shall publish a piece with the above title.

Suffice to say, that we languish here in the aftermath of the miracle of 1994, and the fear and the fire and the guns remain.

I shall endevour to provide you with a reason why.

We are weeping.

Now more than ever.

The above was a comment made on a local comedy show I watch just last week here in the Rainbow Nation, and on the surface it is somewhat amusing.

Its not a new idea, you’ve heard it  before, in any one of its multiple regurgitated forms.

From dinner parties, and Johnnie Walker wisdom moments and after peace talk banter to South African comedy skits, with a few universities in between.

Its so obvious, isn’t it. So obvious. So funny and so obviously funny.

Obviously.

That’s why it’s part of a comedy show on Saturday  night, even though it’s more worn out than Steven Seagal.

A real Lamborghini tractor.

And it has resonance, and , yes, meaning too, just like Steven.

And as obvious as a pig farm in Jerusalem.

If only those Jews and Arab Muslims could get it, everything would be ok in the Middle East

“Familiarity breeds contempt.”

Just like Jews and Muslims, tractors and a supercars can be the  same. They both run on petrol , they both have 4 wheels, and they both need someone to drive them, and they share the same historical heritage, nationality, designers and engines and to add insult to injury they are both Lamborghinis.

For those of you who don’t know, Lambo make tractors too.

Ergo, they are the same, and tractor drivers ploughing it up in Idaho are equivalent to billionaire playboys eating up tarmac just outside Monaco, with the top down and a supermodel in the passenger seat at sunset.

They are both driving Lamborghinis.

You could say this anywhere  without fear, because dear reader, it is the truth.

Except for one small point.

Jeremy Clarkson would point out in one second  that you were an idiot.

It’s just not your Lambo, is it ?

No.

Not at all, dear.

Not even a bit, dear.

What, dear ?

That, dear?

No, dear!

Never, dear!

That’s  a tractor, dear!

One is a work of art, the other is, well, a tool.

One is the epitome of desire, the other is, well…

Just a tractor?

And why, dear reader, why?

Well because truth is relative to the details.

The devil is always in the pesky details!

Like in the following photographs, one is a work of art , and the other is,well, you guessed it,  a tool!

Truth=Facts x Details²

What we were expecting.

Cleopatra Mountain Farmhouse has developed an entire mythology of it’s own when it comes to destinations for food in the Natal Midlands. Its often spoken about in glowing terms and time and time again it has been recommended to me by various people, not least of which my friend, a well heeled sophisticate who has eaten in some of the best places in the country, if not all of them. His parents, even better heeled are accustomed to traveling around the world and staying at the best venues along with sampling the best fare from London to Bombay, would be our hosts.

So you can imagine that when they invited me to dinner, and a night at their “farm”, a small luxury fiefdom the size of a small country in the midlands, along with dinner at Cleopatra’s, I jumped at the invitation. My friend had eaten there on three other occasions and he enthused about the event all the way up there. He stopped me from eating biltong from a farm store, denied me the fabulous cheeses in the fridge and held me back at lunch. Hell he even stopped me from eating the bread rolls they placed on the table before our meal. “Don’t eat “, he insisted, “save yourself.”

So, fair to say that my expectations were high, very high. So high that even a dreadful and slightly historically incorrect self-indulgent babble from a hotel manager presented as a lecture before dinner could not dampen my high spirits. My heart first began to sink when the chef addressed us on her menu for the night. She gushed over her food like a lovesick sycophant on crack. Everything was “fresh”, and “delightful” all her flavours were “intense” and she insisted, after describing each dish to us like we were teenagers, t hat it was “a lovely dish with wonderful fresh flavours, and you are very lucky to be having it, and I hope you enjoy it.”

Each time the little girl repeated the mantra, six times in all, my expectations lowered. I was amazed that a girl so young could call herself a chef, let alone have such an inflated opinion of her culinary expertise. I realized there and then that this was no chef-patron venue, and that all I had heard about Richard Poynton, the chef at Cleopatra, was in vain, for he had deserted us for a recent graduate of Matric, he wasn’t even in the Hotel that night.

His pubescent sidekick continued to speak to us as if we had just began eating food. She explained that the main course would be a confit of duck. “Confit is a way of cooking duck in its own fat, so its very tender and it’s a lovely dish with wonderful fresh flavours, and you are very lucky to be having it, and I hope you enjoy it.”

Of course she was wrong. Confit is about storing duck,  and preserving it in it’s fat, a step they leave out at Cleopatra, and a vital step too, because its while the duck cools in the fat that the flavours are reabsorbed… but I’m splitting hairs, that’s for 5 star dining establishments.

After the school lesson, a la student teacher, we were ushered into the dining room.

As we waited for one of two waiters to pour our wine, that they had recommended, a dreadfully sour pinot noir, we plotted to choose our own wine for the next bottle. I held back on the bread, and waited, and waited, and waited and then dashed down to the cellar to pick a better bottle (they have no wine list – you see), bored with waiting my friend and his father joined me a little later and we decided on a bottle of Rubicon, defeated by the  lack of good choice. A waiter came and found us, our first bit was up, we rushed back.

There it sat, on a plate, no bigger than a Kruger rand and not much thicker. The girl-chef had called it a tower of apple and Brie, topped with sultanas and almonds. It was at best a tablespoon of apple squeezed around a slither of under ripe Brie with a smattering of almonds and raisins. If the presentation was a let down, the flavour was, well a towering flop. In fact the almond and sultana garnish were the best part.

I hit the bread.

Richard was nowhere to be seen.

I eyed my friend across the table, he blushed, and said “so they missed it, its not bad though, trust me, it will get better.”

His mother smiled a wry smile and said, “ I certainly hope so.”

We chatted over our empty plates for 20 minutes, and the bread disappeared.

We left the pinot in our glasses and opened the Rubicon. It was so much better.

Then the soup arrived. Three tablespoons of it, in a strange white bowl that looked like an ashtray. I demolished mine. Sweet corn soup, nicely made, but already luke warm. I thought to myself, so much bowl for so little soup. We all decided that we liked the soup, and my friend muttered something about the tomato soup he had last time.

20 minutes more, we stared at our empty plates.

The next course was a sort of corse potato and salmon fish cake. It had been billed as a Mediterranean dish, topped with a tiger prawn and nestling on a courgette pasta, with a balsamic reduction, the cakes were supposed to be lightly coated and fried until crisp, it would be we were promised , ““a lovely dish with wonderful fresh flavours, and you are very lucky to be having it, and I hope you enjoy it.”

What it was, was a bland conglomeration of potato and fish, pressed together and fried, it almost fell apart as it arrived, on top of a julienne of courgette. When I wondered did julienne veg become pasta? The tiger prawn was more of a tabby cat prawn and the balsamic reduction was so strong and acidic it obliterated what little flavour there was in the dry little fish koek.

In a word… dreadful

The obligatory twenty minutes of empty plates happened.

Then, the main.

The tablespoon theme continued as a theme, with one tablespoon of shredded duck in an over sweet sauce placed on top of massive potato gunge masquerading as, I think, a potato fondant ( who knows), floating in a puddle of creamed spinach and decorated  with 6 equidistant cubes of butternut, interrupted by 6 tiny dice of feta. The duck was topped with a piece of puff pastry, the same white colour as the potato, duck burger on a puddle of yuck.

I’m not even going to tell you how the spinach feta and butternut and confit duck clashed, the dish was worse conceived that executed .

A disaster.

We were about to get the bill and go when the pudding arrived.

It reminded me of those terrible mousses they serve in champagne glasses on cruise ships for geriatrics, you know the ones that double as display and food. The dessert was a gelatinous chocolate “soufflé”…  It was a lot of things, it was certainly no soufflé, and I dare say barely chocolate.

Thank God it was small, even so I was unable to finish it.

But, dear reader, the best was to come last as our chef bounded out the kitchen to ask  how we enjoyed our meal.

“Mediocre,”, I said.

“Perhaps you would prefer a toasted cheese and tomato!” she shot back.

Touché!

(Our  meal cost R2250-00 for four )

RATING:

Anne Steven’s loves this place by the way, you can read what I think of her reviews here:

anne stevens and the hunt for intergalactic “veges” or the culinary faux pas of durban’s own jabba the hut

The week began with fire works, and you may, dear reader, have thought that the events unfolding from the Mail and Guardian publication of the prophet of Islam were a real example of freedom of speech, here on the shores of the rainbow nation. There were last minute attempts to use the legal system to gag the right to freedom of speech, which failed, then there were death threats and there were rumblings of the press in South Africa finally making a stand for freedom of speech.

With the High Court of South Africa backing the free speech rights of the South African citizen and Zapiro standing firm against threats and intimidation from vocal muslims and loony bloggers across the dark empire of Islam, perhaps this would be a defining moment -it was heady stuff.

And then in a moment free speech lost, or rather sold out.

After meeting with the United Muslim Front the Mail and Guardian capitulated. According to todays Daily News it was an “Amicable” solution, reached at the end of a “robust” meeting.

And what was this solution ?

Ha ! An unequivocal apology and the newspaper calling its exercising of its free speech rights , “regrettable” and a promise not to do it again !

The UMF was delighted (no doubt) saying,” common sense had prevailed.”

Just what common sense prevailed is anyone’s guess, perhaps the Mail and Guardian did not want to have a 747 flown into its head office. Who knows ?

The gentle folk from the UMF also wanted to assure South Africans that they “…did not want to curtail or censor the media, but rather draw a line on religious sensitivities.”

Dear God man, if the M&G were going to give up this easily why did they bother trying at all ?

So dear reader, the courts be damned, the constitution be rubbished and be afraid, be very afraid, your rights got trashed today by a bunch of jihading lunatics in frocks, and our free press said “Sorry!”

Eish!

Oh yes, and before you could say “homosexuals are dogs who deserve death”, they were up in arms about being insulted, and moderate muslims (excuse the oxymoron) were screeching about their rights.

One of them put it this way:

“A cartoonist makes fun of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be on him) and a court rules in his favor citing ‘freedom of expression’. Welcome to our insane world and the new definition of the word ‘freedom’ which seeks to absolve the one who exercises that freedom from the consequences of his actions. Effectively what this means is that when we exercise our freedoms, the rest of the world can go to hell. How many of you want to live in such a world? If you don’t then you’d better consider doing something about those who seek to change your world for you. At the very least raise your voice and speak out against unbridled freedom without responsibility – which until now used to be called anarchy.”  - http://letterdash.com/yawarbaig/freedom-of-expression-or-freedom-without-responsibility

But you don’t have to look far to see all of the apologists for moderate Islam jumping through hoops to rely on their so called rights. Homosexuals you see have no rights and can be killed. Muslims however have even more rights than anyone else, and how very dare we challenge them.

Islam exercising its rights.

The only question I have, is “Could they really be this stupid or do they just think we are ?”

Eish!

This is not the USA, ladies and gents. This is not an invading country. No siree, we don’t occupy anywhere, other than Lesotho. In fact my town is home to the biggest mosque in the Southern Hemisphere. On top of all this, to add insult to injury, our government regularly supports Muslim and Arab issues. They too are sycophantic about Palestine and deeply anti-semitic, oops sorry, opposing Israel in favour of  Islam is not anti-semetic, its anti Zionist … silly me. Zionists are Jews who want a country, and thats well, just wrong. How very dare they.

This is not Mohammed, that would be illegal, this is his cousin Mohammed's son Mohammed Izaak.

Our constitution protects their religion, right down to letting them regularly print their religious tracts, demanding sharia law, dustbin bag fashion for women and the death of homos, and cartoonists and of course George Bush, from down town Durban no less. And let me tell you, our hate speech laws prevent us from making fun of Mohammed… blessed be his name ( i have to say that so that I don’t end up in the equality court.)

This matters nada !!

Downtown Durban South Africa

And who can blame them ? I mean what an opportunity for global terror.

Let me explain, before my public stoning:

The latest threat to South Africa has been uncovered by, guess who… the Americans. According to the Daily News here in Durban tonight the plot was to get back at Dutch people who might be at the world cup. Their crime? Drawing his holiness (blessed be his name) Mo!

Thats right, forget New York, its now Johannesburg. Our crime ? Letting the Dutch watch football.

Silly us !

What should alarm you is the response from the monkeys who run our security, and I quote :

“He (Vish Nadoo – police spokesman) said the only information South African officials had was from media reports.” – Daily News 19 May 2010

Despite this all tonight E News channel led with 6 other stories. The pink elephant was hardly mentioned.

Welcome to the baboon show.

For Frank.

Cape Town is not just a city in Africa, dear reader; it is so very much more. The fairest Cape in all the world is now one of the biggest theme park attractions in the galaxy. A giant, global ethnic theme park, perched on the southern tip of Africa, under the shade of a famous mountain, Cape Town is to Africa, what Disney World is to America, complete with imaginary rides of all kinds, it is a fantasy of faux to tickle you tastes and tantalize your mind with spectacular delusion after delusion.

At the top of the list of attractions, and currently advertised on rags around the globe, is Cape Town’s premier fun fair ride, and what a ride it is, now dressed up as 350 years of fine wine making.

That’s correct, 350 years, no less.

The Cape would have you believe that its been making wines of great international acclaim since January 1650, and for a small sum you can wind your way along the rollercoaster known as the Cape Wine route, and celebrate this magnificent achievement in true European style.

Now, those of you who paid attention at school may remember that wine was brought to Cape Town, by a certain Dutchman who landed here, no doubt with casks of the stuff exactly 350 years ago. Presumably this band of entrepreneurs managed to plant vineyards, mature wine, bottle it and start the wine industry in a couple months, a feat well worth celebrating.

But why split hairs?

This is how, you see, a pig, farm founded in the sixteen hundreds, gets to market its bottles with the byline, since 1678, despite the fact that grapes only began to grow there in the early 1970’s.The great inheritance of years of viticulture, stolen by public relations fraud, and regurgitated with darn right bloody cheek by the Cape wine industry.

Consequently, a pig farm vintage from Paarl, can sell for just a shade more than a burgundy, and a short stroll down the wine isle at Sainsbury’s, will reveal bottle after bottle of Cape Chateau de Doos, boxing in the same price brackets as real wines from both the old and the new world, and why, a bottle of Moet, costs less than Hamilton Russell’s Pinot Noir at my local Spar.

True to form, the history of winemaking in the Cape is shrouded in mystery, with wine farms being the sole custodians of the information, which they manipulate with the skill of David Copperfield.

According to their website, the oldest wine farm is, Groot Constantia, whose claim to fame is over 320 years of history, which applies also to the location of the Quick spar in Gardens.

The actual wine industry is harder to pin point, but it certainly was not before the late 1700’s that they even sold grape juice to the locals. As for a fine wine industry of international repute, it was only in 1885 that, in the words of the official mouthpiece of the farm, that “. . theproject was expected to become commercially viable….{with the appointment of } …Baron Carl von Babo.”

By this time, what passed for Cape Vintage was nothing more than gape juice with added brandy. Fortified wine, like Cinzano Bianco, or Port but not quite as subtle and certainly not on the tables of the various royal households of Europe, as the Cape bullshit machine would have you believe.

According to the Groot Constantia website, it was a man calle Baron Carl von Babo, from the then famous viticultural school at Klosterneuberg in Austria, who started the wine industry, not Jan van Riebeek, and at their very farm. (www.grootconstantia.co.za)

By all accounts Baron Babo, despite his luminary credentials, was a mediocre wine maker, no doubt he blamed the soil and the climate though. Even the savvy viticulturists from Constantia admit that , “…the quality of wines produced at Groot Constantia during the years of Van Babo and Mayer left much to be desired.”

Curiously enough though, the famous Klosterneuberg was only founded in 1860, and its director from that time on was one Baron August William von Babo. Not Carl.

Just who Carl Babo is , is unclear. There is no reference to this man from Klosterneuberg. Did they invent him at Constantia ? Perhaps August was his daddy. If in fact he was August, then it’s curious that no mention is made of a trip to SA to start the wine industry.

Could he have been the first viticultural con man at the Cape?

Now, to be fair, these sorts of oversights do happen, but what is most curious is that the only biography I can find of any Baron von Babo from Klosterneuberg at www.economy-point.org/a/august-william-of-babo.html , has him running Klosterneuberg until 1893, and not a mention, outside of the Cape of what Constania’s spin doctors credit him with, “…propagating the first natural table wine in the Cape.”

Wow!

Let me cut and paste the passage:

“Groot Constantia, the mother of wine estates in South Africa, was sold to the Cape Government for £5 275 at a public auction in 1885. The purpose was that the estate should become a model for viticulture purposes, and the project was expected to become commercially viable.

The first person appointed to manage this task was Baron Carl von Babo, who came from the famous viticultural school at Klosterneuberg in Austria. Although Von Babo was only marginally successful, he must be honored for producing and propagating the first natural table wine in the Cape at Groot Constantia (until now fortified wines had mostly been produced). Von Babo was succeeded in 1889 by Herr C Mayer from the German viticultural school at Geisenheim. “

Shock, Horror, Gasp !?!

So by their own pen, fine wine dates only to 1885, and produced by a man unrecorded in history, but for the books of Groot Constantia.

The long and short of Constantia’s history by their own pen, is that real wine, never mind fine, was not being produced until well into the 1880’s…. a far cry from the 320 years of prestige they claim from their website atwww.grootconstantia.co.za/11/overview.

So even if the elusive Baron Carl was real, the wine industry is at very best having its 125th birthday this year, a desperate far cry from the 350 years of fine winemaking tradition that they would have us believe.

Sies man !

No matter to the Cape, for you see, there in that new French Riviera, the elite who fled from the New (very black) South Africa never notice such details dhal-ing, much like their feted mayor, our Tin Pot Lady of Shame, Mrs. Zille, delusion is on every menu, with not the slightest hint of shame.

Other fantastic rides the shameless charlatans of epicure in the Cape have for you include, Fine olive oil from farms that have been growing olives for less time than the average pregnancy, at three times the price of real Italian and Spanish brands, with real heritage.

Gourmet shops with shelves of local copycat cheeses masquerading under cutesy names like cape-o-zola, Parmigianino tablemountaino, raclete du fanchoek, and wildebeest mozzarella.

Yes, there is no end to euro imitating in the cape, Durbanville Foi Gras, Paarl Parma Ham, Paddafontein Caviar, and my personal favorite The Kalahari Truffle. Each and every one passed off, passed on, reviewed and celebrated in this our Gourmet Kingdom of the counterfeit.

No wonder the French stopped them from calling bubbly Cape wine, Champagne.

The Cape accepted that one, I suppose you can’t win them all.

So, no more Methode Champanoise!

Yes, it’s now Methode Cap Classique!

Which is French for: Classic Bullshit, Cape Style.

Postscript

www.grootconstantia.co.za/11/overview.

“I, like tens of thousands of young people, worked hard to get the Conservatives out of the 1997 election.” -Jon Cayzer

Curiously enough, but in true “liberal” colours the DA has taken a swipe at,of all people,the British electorate. Some DA hack who now runs transport in Cape Town, and is about to go to Harvard to study, no doubt handing over his brand, spanking new job to someone else, has produced an article praising Helen Zille (surprise) and granting the DA, the mantle of success that he is convinced Nick Clegg was after.

He’s been betrayed, you see. By people in the UK who don’t share his values.

Damn them!!

This little piece of self congratulatory rubbish languishes on the pages of my Natal Mercury this morning, and lords the “huge” success of the DA as an example to the obviously less sophisticated Clegg by offering pithy advice from the hallowed halls of DA power, and comparing Clegg to the IFP.

Now before you fall off your chair laughing, it gets worse. Mr Cayzer suggests that the Conservatives have marginalized “liberal values’ by co-opting the Liberal Democrats through trickery under the guise of compromise and cheated the British out of a real option for them to have a real party like the DA in South Africa, a la Zille.

Its curious, but the intellectual capital behind Mr Cayzer’s piece  revealed in this quote

“…the coalition is a betrayal of the NOBEL battle to ENTRENCH liberal values in British society.”

Shock, horror and gasp.

Yes, once again its obvious, liberals are right, their values are correct and they should be entrenched, by battle if necessary. Nothing about the will of the electorate. Its simple you see, people must be told what they want by liberals, who hold the moral high ground, and that battle is NOBEL.

What rubbish. Mr Cayzer ignores the most fundamental of his so called values. The one incidentally that is also a right, a fundamental right. The right to vote. Now that the vote has swung, and the outcome is not to Mr Cayzer and his ilk, its a betrayal.

Mr Cayzer fears that the Conservative party will “revert to type.”

I certainly hope so.

“In the universe I’m positing, the following scenario is conceivable:

A Pakistani guy moves to America, goes to college, gets a job, starts a family. He grows unhappy. Maybe he’s having financial problems (though I’m skeptical, for reasons outlined by Charles Lane here, that Shahzad’s home foreclosure actually signifies as much); or maybe the problem is just that he doesn’t find his social niche. And maybe he was a bit unstable to begin with — which would make it harder to find his niche and might intensify his reaction to not finding it.

Anyway, for whatever reason, he feels alienated in America. He stays in touch with people and events back home in Pakistan, and this gives him another reason to dislike America: American drones are firing missiles into Pakistan, sometimes killing women and children.”

From there its a jump, skip and a hop to the conclusion …. complexity of reasons, a myriad of issues, difficult circumstances are what makes a terrorist, not Islam !!!!

No, never Islam.

I’m afraid he misses the point, and badly too, because, its not about what led the disgruntled nut job to the feet of Allah and his Jihad answer, but the fact that Islam provides a moral framework for the terrorist act.

Why all this obfuscation of the issue ?

The conservative press and its commentators in the United States have been up in arms since the day Obama was made president. Well, the truth is they had been up in arms long before that, but for our purposes, they were pretty much frothing at the mouth, by the time he took office.

The European and world media, were, however almost sycophantic in the praise they lauded upon the United States. After two terms of the hugely unpopular Bush administration, Obama was hailed as a new chance, a change for the better. IT was all but a new dawn for humanity.

You, may, dear reader, have thought that the European press had abandoned its highbrow attitude to all things American, and eased its anti American sentiment. You would too, be very wrong. What the European’s like about Obama, is his universality, in a sense he is more palatable to European sentiment than McCain, or many preceding American presidents.

It is my humble opinion that, this is an incorrect perspective, however widely held. I think Obama is starting to look as American as apple pie, and the truth is that the racial component, and the ivy leagueness, with its resultant euro centricity is waning.

Regardless of style or race, Mr. Obama is shaping up to be a man of ideals and ideas. The simple truth here, dear reader, is, whether or not you agree with him, you have to admit, the man is an extraordinary intellect, a formidable opponent, a clearly defined human being and a consummate politician.

It’s great stuff all round.

While Americans, still guilty, and reeling from the sort of isolation that was imposed, unconsciously on the red white and blue, by the world media and the European mouthpieces thereof, are feeling that the tide has turned and America is back in the good books of the world, I still fear that it is honeymoon stuff.

Already the rumblings of discontent are being heard at the G20 regarding Obama and his policies for the reconstruction of the Global economy. The olive branch is as it were, still in the hand of the US president. The deeply held dislike of the European press for America, may well be in recession, but I predict that it will show its ugly head, steeped as it is in historical and unjustifiable contempt for the American Dream.

Oh, yes, I think Obama is all about the American Dream. I can hear my European readers switching off their modems as I write this. I have previously considered this pinnacle point in anti-American sentiment before. I still hold that the European press looks upon anyone who trades in the currency of hope, with contempt.

Obama is full of hope. He speaks of hope, he speaks of the shortcomings of the system and he almost always does so in relation to his plan to turn that back around and forge the American Dream.

The American Dream, scourge of euro intellectuals and barmaids in down town Warsaw. The American Dream, not yet accomplished, much maligned and scoffed. The American Dream, now revitalized, and with a new face, and a new voice, in new circumstances, about to yet again, echo as a clarion call across the oceans.

Of course, the Europeans simply scorn the dream, the real haters of it wear dustbin bags and dishcloths, and emigrate there with the sole purpose of blowing it all to hell and gone.

This simple threat has motivated some in the conservative camp to claim that Obama is some kind of reincarnated Chamberlain waving his olive branch at the Nazi war machine.

Its easy to see how they might think that, but it is the premise of this piece that such a response ignores who the man really is, and further underestimates him intellectually and as an American, to the point of insult.

An insult with impunity. Deeply undeserved, and dare I say it, dripping with spite and ignorance and quite frankly, sour grapes.

I read with interest the responses that Obama made to those who criticized his “Olive Branch” and called it appeasement.

“Senator Barack Obama responded sharply on Friday to attacks on his foreign policy, linking President Bush and Senator John McCain as partners in “the failed policies” of the past seven years and criticizing them for “hypocrisy, fear peddling, fear mongering.”

Confronting a major challenge to his world view, Mr. Obama tried to turn the tables on his critics, saying they were guilty of “bluster” and “dishonest, divisive” tactics. He cited a litany of what he called foreign policy blunders by the Bush administration and accused Mr. McCain, the presumed Republican nominee, of “doubling down” on them.” – New York Times

Of course here, he was responding to the extraordinary attack from McCain;

“And the belief that somehow communications and positions and willingness to sit down and have serious negotiations need to be done in a face to face fashion as Senator Obama wants to do, which then enhances the prestige of a nation that’s a sponsor of terrorists and is directly responsible for the deaths of brave young Americans, I think is an unacceptable position, and shows that Senator Obama does not have the knowledge, the experience, the background to make the kind of judgments that are necessary to preserve this nation’s security.”

But all this is, I think beside the point. I don’t think Obama is about appeasement. I don’t think either that there is any evidence that he is “soft” on terrorism. I don’t think that you can listen to the man, and walk out and say, “He doesn’t get it.”

It’s not really possible.

I find Mr. Obama, deeply American and more  deeply committed to American ideals than previous Presidents. I don’t think that this “olive branch” is anything more than that, a gesture of peace.

Just because Mr. Obama starts off by being magnanimous, rather than  confrontational, does not make him “Soft on Terror.”

I think, that, in line with his approach to torture, this is about gaining the moral high ground.  Read between the lines, the most powerful man in the world is offering an olive branch, he knows and appreciates the risks, and he probably knows too, that in many cases it will be rejected.

And when it is, he will hold all the moral currency he needs. He wants to build the American dream. He has the support, the means and the will.

He extends the hand of friendship.

Those who refuse it will learn, it is one thing to fight an aggressor, it is another thing entirely when you have spat in the face of friendship.

“It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 6Oth anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel.”


”Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power — including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy — to pressure countries like Iran and Syria. George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the President’s extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people” – President Obama

Can you read between the lines?

I certainly can.

Lets hope Osama can too.

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S speech to the Islamic world was a groundbreaking event. Never before has a young, dynamic American president, beloved both by his countrymen and the nations of the world, extended so timely and eager a hand to a part of the globe that, recently, had seen fewer and fewer reasons to trust us or to wish us well.

As important, Mr. Obama did not mince words. Never before has a president gone over to the Arab world and broadcast its flaws so loudly and clearly: extremism, nuclear weapons programs and a faltering record in human rights, education and economic development — the Arab world gets no passing grades in any of these domains. Mr. Obama even found a moment to mention the plight of Egypt’s harassed Coptic community and to criticize the new wave of Holocaust deniers. And to show he was not playing favorites, he put the Israelis on notice: no more settlements in the occupied territories. He spoke about the suffering of Palestinians. This was no wilting olive branch.

And yet, for all the president’s talk of “a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world” and shared “principles of justice and progress,” neither he nor anyone around him, and certainly no one in the audience, bothered to notice one small detail missing from the speech: he forgot me.

The president never said a word about me. Or, for that matter, about any of the other 800,000 or so Jews born in the Middle East who fled the Arab and Muslim world or who were summarily expelled for being Jewish in the 20th century. With all his references to the history of Islam and to its (questionable) “proud tradition of tolerance” of other faiths, Mr. Obama never said anything about those Jews whose ancestors had been living in Arab lands long before the advent of Islam but were its first victims once rampant nationalism swept over the Arab world.

Nor did he bother to mention that with this flight and expulsion, Jewish assets were — let’s call it by its proper name — looted. Mr. Obama never mentioned the belongings I still own in Egypt and will never recover. My mother’s house, my father’s factory, our life in Egypt, our friends, our books, our cars, my bicycle. We are, each one of us, not just defined by the arrangement of protein molecules in our cells, but also by the things we call our own. Take away our things and something in us dies. Losing his wealth, his home, the life he had built, killed my father. He didn’t die right away; it took four decades of exile to finish him off.

Mr. Obama had harsh things to say to the Arab world about its treatment of women. And he said much about America’s debt to Islam. But he failed to remind the Egyptians in his audience that until 50 years ago a strong and vibrant Jewish community thrived in their midst. Or that many of Egypt’s finest hospitals and other institutions were founded and financed by Jews. It is a shame that he did not remind the Egyptians in the audience of this, because, in most cases — and especially among those younger than 50 — their memory banks have been conveniently expunged of deadweight and guilt. They have no recollections of Jews.

In Alexandria, my birthplace and my home, all streets bearing Jewish names have been renamed. A few years ago, the Library of Alexandria put on display an Arabic translation of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” perhaps the most anti-Semitic piece of prose ever written. Today, for the record, there are perhaps four Jews left in Alexandria.

When the last Jew dies, the temples and religious artifacts and books that were the property of what was once probably the wealthiest Jewish community on the Mediterranean will go to the Egyptian government — not to me, or to my children, or to any of the numberless descendants of Egyptian Jews.

It is strange that our president, a man so versed in history and so committed to the truth, should have omitted mentioning the Jews of Egypt. He either forgot, or just didn’t know, or just thought it wasn’t expedient or appropriate for this venue. But for him to speak in Cairo of a shared effort “to find common ground … and to respect the dignity of all human beings” without mentioning people in my position would be like his speaking to the residents of Berlin about the future of Germany and forgetting to mention a small detail called World War II

I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings – President Obama.

These were the words that Obama delivered at Cairo, words which on the surface seem reasonable and fair. Words that present succinctly and directly, just what Obama wanted to say to something he called “the Muslim world.”  Words that, for lack of better words, symbolize the Obama attempt to get the USA, a nation, to engage with an idea.

For, dear reader, Islam is just that, nothing more and nothing less, an idea. Just like existentialism, individuality, freedom and fascism, ideas all. Now whilst the USA represents an Idea, and in broad strokes you could say that the USA is an idea, Obama went not as a philosopher, but as a President. As President of a nation, to a far away country, to talk to people who have an idea, to suggest that the USA was ready to engage with that idea.

It’s a first for any real leader, this notion of engaging ideas, and it’s certainly a first for global politics. The very notion is so far reaching and deeply flawed that it almost beggars belief. The question that needs to be asked, is since when did Nations engage with ideologies on an individual basis ?

Twice, actually !

With two ideas, namely Communism and National Socialism (The German variety).

However, there is a distinct difference between Obama seeking dialogue with the Mullah and Ayatollahs and Nixon making nice with the Chinese and too, with Chamberlain appeasing the goose stepping lunatics of Nazi Germany and their Italian collaborators.

Our previous engagement with opposing ideology on world stage politics was between nations who held different ideology for the sake of peace. Obama has gone to engage with the idea itself.

Breathtaking actually. Reagan never spoke of common values with communism, and Chamberlain never suggested that democracy and fascism overlapped. Unlike Obama who suggests that Secular states share values with Fascist Theocracies, and even worse that in fact the ideologies overlap.

To suggest that secular democracy shares values with Islam because they both espouse progress is like saying that Pedophiles and Buddhists share values because they both like to eat three meals a day. It might be true, but it’s irrelevant. What Mr. Obama ignores is that  all ideologies share some values, its where they differ that matters, and when it comes to Islam and Secular States on substantive ideas and values, there is no common ground, where it counts.

Never mind the blatant dishonesty of claiming that Islam believes in the dignity of Human beings in the same way as the US constitution. This to an ideology that dresses its women in dustbin bags and thrives on stoning adulteresses and dismembering thieves and so on and so forth.

Mr. Obama’s justification for this embracing nonsense is interesting, as far as he is concerned, the vast majority of Islam have been held hostage by what he calls “Violent extremists” who he suggests “have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims.”

He goes further to say that as a result of this tiny band of Muslim extremists and the twin effects of what he calls “the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization”
 many Muslims have been misled into believing that the West is hostile to Islamic traditions.

Funny that.

The truth is that the ideology of the west, flies in the face of many ideologies that exist within its borders. The foundations of science fly in the face of the very Christian fundamentalists who populate large parts of the United States. The values of a society that allow abortion which is in direct conflict of the Roman Catholic Church, and yet no speeches in Rome to pacify the Vatican.

Perhaps that’s because the Vatican has not sent any priests into coffee shops wearing payloads of explosives ?

What Mr. Obama is skirting here is the very big elephant in the room. Every time the envoys of Islam blow something to hell in the name of anything from Palestine to Pornography, we get told, it’s just a small band of extremists.

Rubbish.

Where do extremists with camels in caves of desert nations get satellite phones, bombs, arms and most importantly money ? The simple convenience of throwing your hands up in the air and condemning these actions, all the while financially supporting and hiding and enabling global terror, justified by religious rights is ridiculous.

In any event, if it’s truly just a small band of people giving Islam a bad name, why then does the Muslim world not crack down on it .

Even worse, why fly to Cairo to explain to Muslims what they already know ?

And too, why talk to the Muslim world about peace and co-operation if they are already peaceful and co-operating ?

Lets get Obama to run through the streets of Tehran or Dubai in his underwear to gauge this so called tolerance. Hell, never mind Obama, lets get Britney Spears to perform in downtown anywhere in the world of Islamofascism.

Ladies and gentleman, I don’t want to flog a dead horse, but when Islam starts letting its populations watch Will and Grace, then I’ll consider the idea that it’s just a small band of extremists we face.

The simple truth is that  Secular democracy cannot engage with religious ideology, it allows them to exist, they in turn must do the same, even if fundamentally they have opposing values.

What makes this Cairo speech so pathetic is that it was delivered with a semantic twist of titanic proportions, the “Muslim World” is not in the Middle East. Obama was not talking to Muslims, he was talking to Islamofacists, or if you like, plain old fascists.

If he had wanted to talk to Muslims, he should have gone to the Pacific Rim, but then again, the Islamofascists are blowing them up too.

Not too many bomb threats from Bali.

Perhaps then there is some truth in the distinction between Muslims and “Extreme Muslims”, perhaps it should be better phrased, for lets face it, there is no Jihad from Indonesia, and perhaps we should call a spade a spade?

The long relationship between Islam and Nazis is illustrated by this image of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem inspecting Nazi Troops

Arab national fascism or Islamofascim.

That’s whom Obama was talking to.

So why was he behaving like Chamberlain?

Preface:

It’s always hard to criticize those who frame their ideas in popular terms like peace and change, but the reality is that when people evoke these emotional issues, it is necessary to look beyond the surface and ask the questions that nobody wants to ask, Obama’s promises appeal to the so called Muslim world, this series asks “What price this peace, and can we afford it ?”

There are two things in politics that everybody loves. Two things as well, that defy criticism and jaded cynicism. Two things that that stand above the general skirmish of ideas that slither around the very murky puddles of international political ideology. Two things that Obama has hitched his wagon to. Two things that now preoccupy the media and the circus of ideas that we call international opinion. Two simple ideas, easily promised and more elusive than the Holy Grail.

Neither concept is new. In fact, these two ideas have been tossed around the ring of our circus of political thought by ringmasters from Marx to  Nixon, and then some in between. IN fact, it’s not being melodramatic to suggest that they are two things that have dominated the political intent of everyone from social reconstructionists to fascist with communists in between.

Peace and Change.

Now whilst neither is new, what should catch your attention here, is that while we have been hearing about these two things for millennia, we seldom hear them together. We  never see them in the same sentence. And it’s probably a good thing, for peace and change are rarely bedfellows, especially not in international politics.

Until now.

Most people who want peace, settle for no change, and as well, most who seek change, are always ready to sacrifice peace.. For peaceniks, change is less important than human life, and for changelings, well life is less important than change. In fact a cursory reading of history will reveal to you that peace and change are  mostly ideological enemies. From French Revolution to Chamberlains Appeasement, the two ideas appear to be mutually exclusive.

Which is what makes Obama’s speech in Cairo so very, very interesting.

Mr. Obama wants both.

Indeed he promises both, not just to his electorate, but also to the world.

Now if you had the opportunity to live in Africa, like myself, you too would have stumbled upon the power inherent in the utterance of either of these two words. In fact, without the slightest bit of cynicism, you could conclude that  a campaign on either of these two ideas would be very successful. God  knows, every failed regime in Africa came to power with the promise of either peace or change. From Idi Amin to Robert Mugabe, from Mabuto Sese Seko to Charles Taylor, its always either peace or change than have justified the blood that colours African soil so red.

As a politician the very beauty of evoking these emotive ideas lies in the general response thereto. In our world, where violence and war are common place, and to where the more things change, the more they stay the same, these two points have massive appeal. They do so because they can be presented as absolutes. They can too, stand in the ring of political criticism alone and proud, for who would dare to oppose them, peace and change, they are the staple of what we need. They are too the staple of fascism, communism, anarchy, liberalism, conservatism and any other ism you might like to add. They work for Nazi’s, Popes, Scientologists, and Humanists. Everyone knows we need peace. Everyone is desperate for change.

Peace and Change.

The simple problem here, dear reader, is that the world so aches, for whatever reason for these two things, that when they are offered to us, everyone, in their delirious desire for these two things, always forgets to ask the crucial questions.

What kind of change ?

And

What price this peace ?

Which brings us to Obama in Egypt, with his olive branch and his promises of a new world order.

All of a sudden, Mr. Obama is promising both. It’s unprecedented. Even Gandhi was not so presumptuous .  Change, in our western societies from Martin Luther King to Nelson Mandela, has been linked to violence, defiance and revolution. Mr. King lies dead, and Mr. Mandela languished under the violence of incarceration and armed struggle. Change has been fed by blood.

When you view it in context, its understandable. Hell, we make an issue of it. Here in South Africa we remember the slain in Soweto, in the US they remember the death of Mr. King. IN country after country, we honour those who gave lives for change. When the poppies stick their head above the soil we remember the blood shed for change from Madrid to Tajikistan.

Even the founding fathers of the mantle Mr. Obama wears remember bloodshed.

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

The first problem with this newly found, hugging, loving and self-deprecating American attempt at peace and change was evident from the starting block. Mr. Obama, still intoxicated by his own personal shoulder rubbing with Islam, after setting himself up as “better” equipped to deal with them than “anyone else” made the astonishing and mind-blowing conclusion that it was time for America the Nation, to engage with Islam, the Idea.

This is where the world should have paused for thought. What was Mr. Obama suggesting here? Must Nations engage with ideology ? Now, nations are required not just to engage with other nations, they must find common ground with ideology.

Why?

America, founded on principles of individuality, freedom and independence, must now find common ground with an ideology?

Before you rush to answer the question, consider for a moment the following, Mr. Obama was not suggesting that America should find common ground with Christian Scientists, nor Scientologists, nor Communists, nor Fascists, nor Spiritualists, not even with Marxists, nor Anarchists. No requirement for common ground with egoists, or Narcissists, nor Plaeoconservatives nor Atheists ad infinitum. But, and it’s a very big but, he wants common ground with Islamists.

You may notice that all the above can be found in America, but the president does not fly top their strongholds to emphasise common ground. That’s because there is no common ground. Countries are not ideologies. They allow ideologies  to exist within them, but they are not in the same business.

Surely ?

Nevertheless, Mr. Obama waxed lyrical, betwixt quotes of Quran, about common ground.

Please man, if you try hard enough you can find common ground between Mass murderers and Mother Theresa.

Common ground is irrelevant… what matters is uncommon ground !

What does Mr. Obama call common ground ?

“…principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

Really now ? Exactly who are we trying to kid?

America believes in fair trials, the presumption of innocence, freedom of speech etc.

This week Dubai officials arrested a woman for being in the same house as a married man. They stone adulterers. They incarcerate people who kiss in public. They mutilate thieves for public entertainment. They force their women to walk around in dustbin bags and they issue death threats to writers and thinkers who dare to question them.

But Obama finds common ground ?

Justice, progress and dignity ?

That would give common ground between Nazis, Stalinists, and Vegetarians. Never mind anarchists and pedophiles.

Please man.

When it comes to common ground let Obama draw a cartoon of Mohammed and post it on u tube.

No?

Funny that.

Mr. Obama caged his kowtow appeasement offer in the terms of us and Islam. He went to Cairo to address the “Muslim World.”

Which beggars belief, for if you wanted to talk to the Chinese, you would go to China. Similarly if you wanted to talk to Russians you would go to Russia. It’s a simple point, but you go to where  the people you want to talk to are.

While most Arabs are Muslim, most Muslims are not Arabs. It’s a terrible indictment on our Globetrotting, Muslim Hugging leader of the free world. If he had wanted to address the Muslims, he should have gone to the place where most of them could be found, surely ?

Mr. Obama wants you to believe he was talking to the Muslim “world”, but he chose to go to the Arab world. He chose to talk to them as if they were representative of Islam. It’s like going to India to talk to Mormons.

There are 570 Million Muslims living outside the Middle East, and some 200 Million living in the Middle East.

So why go to Egypt ?

Well the answer is simple.

This has nothing to do with Islam.

It’s about Arab fascism.

So why is Obama pretending that its about common ground with Islam ?

Its so obviously not.

“Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world,” Baitullah Mehsud -  Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP)

These were the words that were spoken over the phone to the Associated Press, by Mr. Mehsud. Terrifying and direct, words that should send a chill down your spine. Yet, despite this, the response from FBI spokesperson Richard Kolko, who said that they were not aware of any threat. He added, “He has made similar threats in the past.”

Gosh.

It’s a mantra now, “we are not aware of any specific threat”, and too, I suspect that it is made with the intention of calming people and not causing them any alarm.  However, it is a statement that warrants a closer look. Much closer. For in fact, rather than quell fears, I think, it should seriously alarm people.

Consider for a moment the simple fact that in the above scenario, there is a threat. A very real threat, communicated to the US, and the response is “we have no SPECIFIC threat” Then ask the question, when will they get a specific threat?

The answer will be of course, “after the event.”

It’s a conundrum that played itself out in the media after the 9/11 attacks, the allegation that the security forces were aware of a pending attack, but did nothing. This posited against the response that, while they were aware generally, it was impossible to foil all attacks. And here it is, dear reader, parading its ugly self past us on an almost daily basis.

If you read the reports, and you read the analysis from CIA to Academia, you will see one salient point emerging that is that there will be another attack, on American soil.  Let me go even further and suggest that you need only watch the news and the various “Jihad” and “Islamist” protests, and you too, will have no choice but to conclude that, there will be another attack, at least that’s what they want.

Why, they even phone up the press to let them know.

What do the American institutions, set up to protect the land say in response, “ We have no SPECIFIC threat.”

Perhaps all this fussing about specifics is pointless ?

“Faced with the possibility of an American Hiroshima, many Americans are paralyzed by a combination of denial and fatalism. Either it hasn’t happened so maybe it’s not going to happen or, if it is going to happen, there’s nothing we can do to stop it. Both propositions are wrong. Citizens must press their elected officials to adopt a clear agenda for action and then hold them accountable for following through.
” – Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and former U.S. assistant secretary of defense.

The problem faced by the American Institutions is that, in order to defend the USA internally they need specifics, they need details and they need to act on those in order to foil an attack, they cannot act without such, which functionally means that it becomes a numbers game.

By numbers game, here, I mean simply an issue delineated only by odds, in that there is a general threat against the US every day, of an attack, that in many ways may be calculated to have even greater impact than that of 9/11, however it follows that one can only prevent an attack that one is specifically aware of. When the infrastructure and institutions dedicated thereto respond, they must do so on clear intelligence, and thereby stop the attack, the better equipped and sophisticated such organs are, the better the chances that an attack will be foiled. However, in an environment where attacks continue over a long period of time, the odds dictate, that sooner or later, one will get through any defense.

The crisp issue that emerges here, and it’s a terrifying one, is that sooner or later, the US will fail to prevent, and the attack will happen.

If we accept that there will be another attack, and too, we accept that at some point we will be unable to stop it by conventional means, does that not then simply mean that we must find an alternative method of prevention?

I think it does.

I think Obama does too. And I think that that is what is behind the current approach, that has been so evident after Mr Obama’s speech in Cairo, this week.

The only real question, is will it work ?

There are now only two simple options, Either the “Muslim” world accepts the Obama offer of partnership and “shared” values, or there is another attack.

Which one will it be?

Now, obviously there were going to be those who saw absolutely nothing wrong with Mrs. Zille’s outbursts, but what is curious is the amount of commentators who don’t see the simple fact than in politics, especially the delicate art of opposition politics in South Africa, that perception is 90 percent of the game.

And the perception of the statement by the vast majority of this country is that it was rude, unnecessary, and insulting. It was, from a person tasked with nation building, damn stupid.

I say that with respect to an article  posted today on PoliticsWeb, entitled 

“Jacob Zuma and the Anti- Zille frenzy”  http://www.fxi.org.za/content/view/102/51/

Here James Myburgh attempts a grand feat of spin in this so-called war of words, in an attempt to  portray Helen Zille as the victim of an attack from Zuma. Now aside from being just simply untrue, for the attack came from Mrs. Zille, and of course Zuma has said, well, nothing, the idea that Mrs. Zille is innocent in any respect is simply rubbish.

Under the guise of comparative analysis, Mr. Myburgh attempts to portray, what he calls the opposition of dissent of the Mbeki regime as a deeply held ANC doctrine of sorts, which he concludes is now amplified in Zuma. To do this he hops, skips and jumps around the ANCYL and Malema and cuts and pastes the responsibility of this fracas squarely at the feet of Zuma in some sort of guilt by association.

Then in an astonishing display of magical thinking and simple cheek, he concludes that the attacks on Mrs. Zille are about,

“…whether it (THE DA)  (and anyone else) had the right to criticise and oppose the ANC…”

For Mr. Myburgh Helen Zille was well within her rights to say what she did, because it was actually “true.”

In these simple circumstances MR Myburgh wants you to think the remarks are perfectly legitimate, and nothing more than a smokescreen to allow Zuma’s “attack dogs” to savage Zille.

Mr. Zuma’s presidential silence is portrayed as Mbeki style “behind the scenes” manipulation to promote his inarticulate discourse of racism and misogyny;

“There is an underlying theme in much of the anti-Zille rhetoric – dripping as it is in gross misogyny and racialism. This is that no-one, especially no woman, and more especially no white woman, should think themselves entitled to criticise the president’s personal conduct. The ANC alliance appears to be trying to dish out a lesson to her, and South Africa more generally.  ”

Calling the ANC racist and misogynistic in defence of Helen Zille boggles the mind. Actions they say speak louder than words.  It’s curious that Myburgh speaks of underlying discourse, because in truth this is really what the whole thing is about. It has nothing to do with dissent.

There is a deeply held perception in this country (correct or not) that Helen Zille’s DA is a white cabal. It was further strengthened by her cabinet choice. Then it was even more underscored by her flippant responses about window dressing. Finally it was all but cast in stone when she took a swipe, out of context at Zuma.

Helen Zille has long been intolerant of dissent. In her stint as Mayor she was routinely taken to task by organisations like the Freedom of Expression institute, for her heavy-handed clampdown on free expression:

“The Freedom of Expression Institute is extremely concerned that, in the recent past, the City of Cape Town has acted in a manner that has flagrantly denied the rights of people to gather and protest, essentially preventing them from exercising their right to free expression as enshrined in Section 16 of the South African Constitution.   and    it is necessary to add, Mayor Zille, that the City of Cape Town does not have the best reputation in the country in terms of its respect for the above sections of the constitution and the RGA. Indeed, in an ironic twist, a march on Human Rights Day – to call for the full implementation of all human rights contained in our constitution – was illegally proscribed by the South African Police Services in Cape Town, with the support of the Cape Town Metro Police.”

http://www.fxi.org.za/content/view/102/51/

When it comes to dissent Mrs. Zille has an abysmal record.

The issue that has the ANC supporters, (65% of the electorate) up in arms is simple respect.

Now that’s a big thing in politics everywhere, not just here in South Africa. Her outburst was nothing short of deeply disrespectful to Zuma, and to the institution he holds. And in any event it was contextually vacuous.

She should just apologise.

Consider, in the light of the above, and the accusations about intolerance of dissent, Mrs. Zille’s response to the Veteran march about this issue.

In true South African tradition, a peaceful march to her headquarters to ask for an apology, expressing massive dissent with regard to her behaviour was met with the same, deeply disrespectful insult.

“Well, I think that the ANC leaders should call those hotheads and loudmouths to account. I ignore them – I’m not making an issue with them. Quite frankly I am getting on with my work and they must dance on the sidelines.”

Vintage Zille !

So now, the ANC must dictate to people not to approach her with their grievances, she is busy. They are hot heads and loudmouths.

This reflects too one of the major problems with Mrs. Zille having a real political position. She is not the CEO of a private company. She is responsible to all the people.

What would be wrong with just going downstairs and accepting the petition ?

Why get rude, again ?

Mrs. Zille has made it clear that she is on the attack. She spoke of using her position in the Cape to “attack” the ANC almost moments after her election.

Here is the rub, her statement about Zuma could only have incited anger.  It was bound to escalate. Now it has.

What beggars belief, is that she continues to up the Ante, instead of just showing some small respect, she spits yet more insult and abuse.

For God’s sake man, surely she can see this will only go away if she just says she meant no offence, that she is sorry for upsetting people, and give them a bit of respect instead.

Her position mandates that she understands the delicate art of opposition politics.

Can you imagine if Zille was negotiating at Codesa ?

More important is that the words from Zille were badly calculated, and reflect a deep lack of understanding the way the majority of voters in this country feel.

Simply put, Helen Zille is an elected leader in this country. She too, is the head and spokesperson for a liberal party. Unlike Malema, she is responsible to the people of this country. There rests upon her shoulders the very real responsibility of opposition politics in a fledgling democracy. The goal here is nation building, and reconciliation. Mostly, she has to preserve the fragile,  and delicate art of liberal opposition politics, and stop behaving like a bull in a china shop.

The consequences are already gathering.

“I believe his (Zuma) position warrants respect. I come to this parliament with no baggage, and I’m going to give Mr. Zuma the same privilege.”

Just why this should make headlines here in the rainbow is a very interesting discourse on the lows to which the deeply divisive and idiotic Zille has dragged liberal politics to.

Lets face it; it’s a simple, respectful and quite common or garden attitude for any political opposition leader to have. Hell, its what you might expect.

Of course, here in SA where opposition politics is about Zille Cult and brutish stupidity, this caused a stir, simply because as Helen Zille plays politics, good manners are unforgivable, especially manners that show up her badly bred, foul mouthed, and petty self for what she is.

Perhaps Mr. Trollip, in his attempt to exercise some small professional independence from das fuehrer might have succeeded in his attempt, but he went even further by saying,

“I’m sure she will respect my position, but I’m not having the situation where the leader of the party has the chief whip of the National Assembly reporting to her and not to me…”

That’s when Helen’s magic mirror cracked.

However, before we go to the West to consider the tantrum of her royal highness, let us consider the context of the above, and answer the question that begs to be asked.

Namely, how did this huge crack in the façade of  Zille’s fairyland happen?

The answer, dear reader, lies in Helen’s multitasking, megalomaniac, tin pot rule of the once democratic DA, now a shredded regurgitation of the old National Party.

Helen is Mayor, Premier, Queen Bee and Leader of the opposition, (soon to be general of the empire of the Cape ) even if she is not in parliament. In Helen’s DA she rules, and her dwarfs, well they work for her, period.

Silly Billy Mr. Trollip, he thought he was leader of the opposition in Parliament, just because he was elected there and stuff…

Boy was he wrong.

After being asked for comment, her highness feigned shock, horror and gasping gasp. She replied to the Times, “ He would never have done THAT.”

Never, never, no not even in never land.

Who knows what happened thereafter, but no doubt Mr. Trollip was hauled over the coals, and after Zille threatened to turn him into a frog, he relented.

This morning the story from fairyland headquarters was that Ray Hartley and his staff at the Times had imagined the whole thing.

Ray Hartley, the Editor of the Times, now relegated to tabloid status by Zille and her Dwarfs had the following to say;

“Yesterday morning Trollip clearly had regrets, although he said in phone calls to two staffers at The Times that the story was spot on, it was the headline which took it too far.
By yesterday afternoon, Trollip’s regrets had gelled into outright denial and, with a straight if somewhat reddened face, he issued a statement under the grossly misleading headline: “Times report is grossly misleading”.Said he: “There has never been, nor will there ever be any difference of opinion on the meaning and substance of the DA’s opposition project. Both Helen Zille and I are fully committed to fulfilling our constitutional obligation of holding the government to account and offering the people of South Africa an essential political alternative.”

Trollip under-estimates the intelligence of his supporters if he thinks they cannot see through this sudden about turn.”

 And Ms Zille’s internet posse of minions was quick to paste her responses  for her on Mr Hartley’s well written and clever blog:

“Ray and his team has much to learn about journalism! They dont even know how to tell lies properly – let alone reporting on the truth! Haahaahaa”

and

“I warned that you and the Times were busy licking ANC arse since the election. This story with Trollip was another way of creating more bad news for the DA and giving the rabid ANC apologists more ammunition. Good grief, man, they are pretty good at inventing things without your adding to the fire.”

and

“I agree with the other people who have commented that this is a really unwarranted attack on the DA. If anything it shows that Helen Zille was right to blame last week’s mess on the press, because it is clear they are out to get the DA. Heaven knows why because as other people are mentioning they prevented the ANC from winning two thirds, which means that the DA has done more to protect freedom of the press in this country than anyone else”

So now, the Times has fabricated a story, just to get at Silly Zilly and boost the ANC. Veteran journalists and their highly respected editor got together and plotted this, to defame and crack up the DA, because they are all closet ANC supporters or because they were bored ?

This ladies and gentleman, this is what I have been talking about for so long, this is the politics of idiocy!

Please man !

 Veteran commentator and intellectual Camille Paglia recently wrote the following with regard to the current split between conservatives and liberals in post Obama USA;

“There is something dangerous afoot — an alienation that can easily morph into extremism. With the national Republican Party in disarray, an argument is solidifying among grass-roots conservatives:

Liberals, who are now in power in Washington, hate America and want to dismantle its foundational institutions and liberties, including capitalism and private property. Liberals are rootless internationalists who cravenly appease those who want to kill us. The primary principle of conservatives, on the other hand, is love of country, for which they are willing to sacrifice and die. America’s identity was forged by Christian faith and our Founding Fathers, to whose prudent and unerring 18th-century worldview we must return.”

It is precisely because I think that Ms Paglia’s observations here are in many ways correct, and I say that with respect to the perception, among conservatives that liberals are “soft” on terror.  Where I think Ms Paglia is even more acutely correct, is on her slant hereto, which she portrays as something dangerous afoot. For it is the premise of this piece that divide and conquer is the greatest threat America and the world face in this war against savage, political Islam.

I am not going to consider the allegations that liberals want to dismantle “foundational institutions and liberties” here, but rather the fear that liberals, with an overzealous focus on shared humanity as a basis for their ideology represent a dangerous shift in thinking, which shift, in turn makes them “soft” when it comes to defending the US and the world from the very real threat that is currently rearing its terrible head, in particular from the monstrosities of state in the Middle East.It’s a simple and ever present dialogue in American politics, and I will argue, a very important point when it comes to American response in this, their so far, reactionary war against terror. It is also, I will argue a very attractive and possibly effective political platform for Obama, which if used correctly could fundamentally increase his perceived ability to protect the world with a large segment of American society, and too the world, who currently fear, correctly or incorrectly about his ability to wage a successful war.

The liberal response here is tired, and I think somewhat off point. If one raises this issue, the immediate, knee jerk response is always a pointing out of how Bush “failed” in the war on terror, by invading Iraq. Also, if you hang around long enough, this argument usually ends up questioning exactly how much risk there is from the Middle East. Sometimes it degenerates into the kind of rubbish that suggests that in fact, it is conservative, strong and aggressive foreign policy that results in terrorism to begin with.

If Bush did in deed fail in the war on terror, then what is the standard? If his goal was to protect the US from yet another devastating attack like 911, then surely the absence of such is in fact testimony to success. Of course, the counter argument, steeped as it is in circular reasoning, is always the fact that there has been no such further attack is proof that the threat has been hyped up by the neo-conservatives.

Now, I am not suggesting that the entire approach was correct, and the erosion of civil rights with the advent of Patriot legislation in various acts, with all the ugly accoutrement are deeply troubling, as would the erosion of any civil rights in a war situation. But it is I suggest precisely here where Obama has a massive opportunity to turn this tired and polarized debate into something extraordinarily effective.

Consider if you will, the simple argument that an invasion of Iraq, right or wrong aside, nevertheless sends a very strong message to would be terrorists. Unfortunately so does the elimination of civil liberties. The problem is that they are conflicting messages, are they not?

On the one hand you tell terrorists that you will not tolerate this and any further grand schemer of terror must be fully aware that any attempt will attract the almighty wrath of a superpower, food for thought indeed to any uber-jihadist.

On the other, of course, you tell the gangs of camel riding, endlessly jihading, Stone Age nut jobs that on some level they have won, considering that the loss of liberty stateside, regardless of intention is a long bumpy road into hell.

This is the great failure of the conservative approach, but lets not forget, despite this, there is always the threat that those same conservatives are ready to shed your suicidal, bombing blood with not a moment’s hesitation.

Detente?

Obama has unequivocally done the right thing by focusing on civil rights in the US. His approach to torture would be admirable if it were not so basic. It’s the deeply appalling hysterical approach of conservatives within the US regarding civil liberties, the unabashed defense of torture and the two-step macabre dance of loopholes that resulted in the Guantanamo Bay fiascos that lost the moral high ground so early on in this battle.

However, the Liberal tendency to diplomacy and appeasement is deeply troubling, and this is where the conservatives have a strong case. In a real fight, the simple truth is you probably want Nixon over Carter on your side.

What is extraordinary is that this debate has been cast in “Liberal” and “Conservative” terms, for in truth, it should really not be. This is of course the great opportunity at Obama’s feet right now.

What Obama has to do here is simple; he needs to show the American people that you can fight a war, without losing civil liberties at home. And they are at war, regardless of what some commentators might suggest. Not just any war, mind you, but a full scale ideological fight to the death.

What is needed here is simply an amalgamation of two approaches, civil liberties and justice at home, respect for the conventions of war, a great dose of moral high ground and a blisteringly aggressive, massive show of strength in the Middle East.

Now on first glance that may seem somewhat simplistic, but consider that the biggest problem that hamstrings any administration at war is credibility. Bush blew that; Obama has it internationally, but not yet locally. If Obama really wants a new dispensation then he is going to have to show the Americans that when it comes to a fight, he is a prizefighter.

He hasn’t done that yet.

If you, like me, keep abreast of the regular commentators in South Africa, then you too would have come across one Max Du Preez. And if you know anything, then you know that Mr. du Preez, whether you like him or not, has a large readership, and too, you will find him on the internet and newspapers published nationally. In fact I dare say that, if you read in South Africa, sooner or later, you will read him.

Which, in and of itself, says very little, other than, as commentators go, Mr. du Preez is well accomplished. He is too, incisive and well written; it is obvious from even a cursory reading that the man, is educated, well considered and eloquent. He is too, hardly controversial. In fact, you may consider him, pretty mainstream, and well regarded in media circles.

Occasionally I agree with him, and sometimes, not. I too, make a point of reading him, never does he inspire me with rage or delight, this is not his platform. The proliferation of ideas that may or may not be outrageous and extreme, along with inflammatory penmanship, are not the style of Mr. du Preez..

So it is understandable, when you read his latest piece on News24, as well as a piece he wrote in some newspaper I read a few weeks ago, in some plane over our beloved country, that he expressed shock at the extreme responses he found himself getting on the Internet.

Twice now, I have felt his pain, as I read with amusement, and some delight, his experiences with the lunatic fringe of keyboard defamers who prowl the internet at night looking for someone, God, please anyone,  to spit their ignorant vitriol at, and if they can’t they will settle their moronic, ultra idiocy-addled, ignorant, self indulgent and unbelievably stupid, twisted and delusional selves on your comment box. For if the mountain won’t go to them, they will damn well go and piss on its borders.

I too, have to deal with this band of morons who feel that because they can write (badly) and have access, they have something they call “their right to their opinion.” Which they bash and batter each and every commentator with from behind Avatars and pseudonyms.

Oh yes, I too, have had to sit back in complete incredulity after reading what can only be described as the ranting of a 7 year old who has overdosed on Ritalin, or the psychotic babble of some lunatic who has been given internet access at his asylum as part of therapy.

I have been called so many names, by bitter and terribly stupid idiots, who stumble between bad grammar and idiotic opinion, and insist that I am an idiot who simply cannot see the facts.

I too have even attempted the impossible, to engage these anonymous but for their internet ego, philosophical truck drivers and garbage collectors who shed their ignorance at night and cruise the anonymous information highway looking for anyone to batter to death with their insane combination of half facts, stupidity and right-induced moronity.

Occasionally our gang of cyber crawling intellect free idea bashers are represented by intellectual cyber terrorists, who, due to the makeup of the world have retreated to the dark anonymity of cyberspace to promote their ideas, long since debunked by public intellectuals.

I speak here of the organized and deeply troubled white supremacists  of sites like Kill Whitey, ZASUCKS, and I luv SA  but I hate my Government. Ever vigilant , these cross-burning, JavaScript warriors of white supremacy take the entire game to a new level. With giggly delight, safely tucked away in cyberspace, behind the complex web of jurisdictional avoidance by international ISP loopholes, they ply their trade.

Their trade of course is the organisiation of their lonely, stay at home, jobless, or recently employed janitorial mates with dreams of intellectual capacity into a united front of stupidity and cyber mugging.

These social rejects canvass and cow tow to the lunatics on the web, drawing them together in their campaign to unite stupidity and hatred into organized gangs of revisionist twits with revolutionary ideals and nazi-esque opinions, dressed as politics..

So it is with little surprise that the skirmish of pearl trampling swine at Mr. du Preez’s feet has now been elevated into a full scale cyber jihad  attack from the pathetic and ever growling libidinal forces of the hidden hatred of the posturing devotees of 19^th  century social Darwinism, now armed with 21^st Century anonymity and internet access.

It began with innocuous comments like :

Hi Max

06/05/2009 12:47

I’ve never been a fan of yours because I could never understand that you can’t see the light. Today , I see the light she’s coming. Good luck through this journey.

And before long, it was just a hop skip and a jump to the land of Mr. Doberman and his dreadful posse at ZA Sucks and I luv SA. Delighted by their desperately stupid (again) misinterpretation of Mr. du Preez, they launched the salvo.

Now, safely behind computer screen and Avatar, the deeply ugly and psychotic Bertie called Mr. du Preez a;

“gormless plastic blow-up & disposable fuckslut of bulging black dicks.”

And then, from his socially consigned gutter, he  suggested, after using his tired thesaurus, that Max was,

“An unprincipled bottom-feeding piece of self-hating excrement who made name for himself as a vociferous pro-Communist buffoon, Du Preez’s undisguised slanderous anti-White hate speech is regularly trotted out by third rate fish wrap papers such as The Star, Sowetan etc. Whenever the Marxist-infested simian regime needs to viciously lash out at the Whites they so envy, but fear being called “racist” lest the stock markets shed more points, Max is the hatchet man who will eagerly do their dirty work, as if anything penned by this mendacious scumbag is taken seriously by thinking Whites.”

And finally called for him to kill himself,

“..go park your car somewhere out of sight, shove a hosepipe into the exhaust & the other end into the slightly opened back window and step on the gas boet. Admittedly not a graceful, elegant end but in your case quite fitting- how else can a double-crossing apostate with a disgraceful, perfidious and dishonorable career be terminated other than in obscure, shameful ignominy?”

What inspires these idiots and their newly organized internet guerilla leaders is the simple fact that they have some form of anonymity. You will not hear this stuff anywhere else, it is the terrible result of the dubious right of internet anonymity.

And, Max, just in case you feel the pinch, let me point you to when a piece by Camille Paglia, Emeritus Proffessor of English at Pennsylvania University, the celebrated author of Sexual Personae,pictured to your left, whose contribution to literature, political analysis and 20th Century critique is nothing short of tremendous, and incomparable in scope, design and insight, was thrown in pearly style before the internet swine.

Words from a woman and an intellect  who has been lauded by intellectuals around the world as something of a genius, whom the Washington Post Book Review called “…remarkable, courageous, fanatical and brilliant.”

Despite the fact that Ms Paglia’s magnum opus is well out of their intellectual reach and surely absent from their pulp fiction stocked bookshelves, in less than an hour, hundreds of  people, clad in internet anonymity, called her an ignoramus, an idiot and a fool.

Breathtaking.

The thing, you see, is that because of the anonymity of the internet in the 21^st Century, when you cast your peals before swine, the pigs talk back.

I have had my own dealings with our dunce clad, endlessly fulminating, anonymous, internet KKK, wannabe idiots , you can read my response on that occasion here:

klu klux klanning around – the south african franchise or have you met the idiots at i luv sa, but i hate my government?

This is an old piece, it was my most popular in April, and due to current circumstances, I republish it under a different title, for as you know, our Mamma Afrika is back. And what a comeback!!

Our Democracy needs to recognise the people who made it possible, the people whose blood, sweat and tears were the fuel of our freedom.

People like Winnie Mandela.

For you, Mamma Afrika:

Why I don’t Believe the Manufactured Consensus on Winnie Mandela or Part of my Soul goes with you Madikizela.

The elections are over. Jacob Zuma is talking peace and reconciliation. The hand of friendship is extended, South Africa has shown itself to be a maturing democracy and then, well then there is Helen Zille…

Mrs. Zille, now premier of the Western Cape, had scarcely finished her cocktail and finger dinner celebration of so called victory when in an astonishing and deeply revolting moment, she pumped  up the volume in her constant campaign against Zuma and launched a verbal attack on our new president that quite frankly, beggars belief, yet again.

In what can only be described as a jaw dropping moment of inappropriateness, Mrs. Zille spat the following out over our national media, for all to see.

“Zuma is a self-confessed womaniser with deeply sexist views, who put all his wives at risk by having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman.”

Now while it is painfully obvious that Mrs. Zille is slightly more frigid and icy than Margret Thatcher, and on some deep level must be envious of people who actually have sex lives, this went more than a few steps to far.

The question that begs to be asked here is of course, what does she hope to achieve by this?

The elections are over this round, anyhow, must we conclude that Zille’s quest for power is so consuming that she has begun her campaign for emperor, already ?

Perhaps.

Could this just be sour grapes ?

Indeed, it certainly looks that way.

Does she not realize that she has just offended almost an entire country?

Perhaps she plans to secede.

The answer, dear reader, is I fear far worse than any of the above, and it lies not in this particular moment, but in the selection of her cabinet, in her new province.

You will remember, how Mrs. Zille campaigned on three tickets, mayor, president and premier. You too will recall, she did this under more than one name, which reminds me, is she not required to use the name on the list, which was, if you recall not Helen ZIlle?

Curious stuff, sublime actually if you consider that after losing the national ticket, she took a premiership.

Can you imagine the outcry if Jacob Zuma had lost the elections and taken Kwa Zulu Natal as a consolation prize?

It gets worse, because Mrs. Zille, obviously suffering from some botox side effects, announced that she would be using the Western Cape to launch attacks on the government.

This is Twilight zone stuff.

Never mind the contingencies of the new job, as far as Silly Zilly is concerned its just another platform to perform. Premiers aren’t supposed to destabilize the government. For God’s sake man, they are on the payroll.

This extraordinary performance, riddled as it is with ethical problems and sheer cheek seems to have gone largely unnoticed and uncommented on by our country’s media.

Mrs. Zille’s contempt for human rights is well documented, as well as her penchant for outrageous comments and vainglorious behaviour. Remember when she thought she could call in the Army to kill the Taxi drivers ? Do you recall her talking about Julius Malema’s penis? And of course who could forget her own struggle song “Dis Zille wat die wind laat waai”?

Sheesh.

And now, dear reader, the very beginning of the consequences are here for all to see.

The selection of an all male cabinet, with only one token black is so deeply offensive that words fail me. A white majority, no women other than herself and one sole little black man in the wings. We have seen this before from Helen, when she nominated Seremane for president, and then relegated him to the shadows of her bombastic and stupid election campaign that treated us all to her botoxed visage, well airbrushed and tarted on every lamppost in town.

Over 50 percent of her electorate are women. Yet not a one gets representation, unless you include her.

Her response to the gender lobby and the general outcry was

“But in terms of my analysis, for what is needed I’ve got the best fit with the jobs and the people that I could.”

For that you should read,” out of a majority of blacks and women, all I could find was one black man who was competent.”

Please man.

Seriously though, this is the consequence of what I for a while now have been calling the politics of idiocy. The DA did not campaign on issues or promises, just hate, spite and karaoke. Now the voters of the Western Cape are finally introduced to the truth.

They voted DA, but they got something else indeed. From where I stand, it looks like the National Party is back ladies and gentleman, the only real difference is that their new leader is not as nice as PW Botha.

There will be more to come, of that you can be sure.

I hate to say it, but I told you so.

Prologue: I am always amazed that people are surprised at our crime rate, I often ask, how could we not, when such conspicuous and vulgar consumption is so unashamedly paraded in the face of abject poverty, with impunity? This piece  is not about wealth, its about the lack of respect and the deep insensitivity of certain sectors of our population. What is so deeply sad, is that this is reflected now by the very people who are supposed to be the vanguard of our humanity, our musicians. On top of it, it is then sponsored by a community television station and beamed into the shacks of millions.

Today dear reader, two things caught my attention, the first on a plane, when I read that South Africa’s unemployment rate was just better than Gaza, a war torn sort of country under occupation, regularly bombed and cut off from the world by walls of concrete and ideology. It left me somewhat breathless.

Not quite as breathless as the South African Music Awards, which greeted me on a tabloid twat program appropriately called  “Flash”, almost as soon as I got home. The South African Music Awards, or SAMA, is about honouring our musicians. You know, those very important people in society who talk to us through the artistic medium of music.

Part Academy Awards and part Disney World, with a dose of Donald Trump and a huge heap of bling-bling and conspicuous consumption gone psycho crazy, the SAMA event blazed across our screens in an unabashed and self indulgent display of wealth and ignorance that has to be seen to believed.

Our deeply committed artists and their heavily botoxed and uber coked up guests fell from their limousines onto the red or was it yellow, carpet in an orgy of self involved Romanesque inappropriateness of Caligulan proportions.

 No comment on society, no art as a medium for dissent. Hell not even a glimmer of intellect or integrity. Just bling, labels, stupidity and then again more bling.

Even Karl Lagerfeld would have blushed.

Live from Sun City, a simple stones throw away from the kind of abject poverty and the terrible circumstances of our country that made the headlines only moments before, these trusted visionaries and so called artists gushed and oohed and ahhed over each other with the whole world watching.

Oh yes, our little trash tabloid magazine programme was on site, to ask these our esteemed musicians, the cream of our talent the question on everybody’s minds.

They too gushed over the winners and their guests, the glitterati, the A list.

What, dear reader, I ask you with tears in my eyes, did they want to know from the newly fortunate with the mantle of artiste?

What are you wearing?

 And was it expensive ? (Rhetorical)

And they gushed and giggled in response, “Armani”, “Jimmy Choo”, “Dolce darling”, “Kurt Gieger”, “Gucci” .

One particularly hideous example of plastic surgery, consumption, vanity and stupidity spat from her red lips and diamond encrusted monument to excess “Its on loan, they flew it in just for me, its going back to Paree for Vogue…so I’m so proud.”

No doubt.

Gospel singers in diamante, gushed about their success. Black Africans dressed like US ghetto gangsters along with white boys who could only say “Awesome dude”, all paraded along  in a tribute to excess that was as painful to watch as it must have been to wear.

They spoke in glowing terms about each other, about their “struggles” (no doubt with booze and benzodiazepines) and their artistic integrity.  They threw awards at each other, they compared shoes, and rings and ties and suits and statistics.

Oblivious to their inappropriate behaviour, the context of their wealth, or the money that poor people had spent to make them rich, they lauded their ghastly fashion, and brand consciousness over the viewing public. They toffed it up and swished it around with scant regard for anything, but the after party list.

In a single 30 minutes of gargantuan vanity and disgusting vulgarity they delivered the most terrible message I have yet seen on our shores. Their message was simple, blunt and unmistakable.

I’m OK, so f%*k you too.

Mr Hitchens if you are looking for savages, they were at Sun City this week.

Proudly South African.

 Once elections are over, and the rhetoric of vote collecting subsides, the next step is to, of course, get on with the business of governing, or opposing, whichever particular stick your party has drawn.

It’s also, in the very real world of realpolitik, time for payback. Payback to those allies who helped you secure that vote that you so desperately wanted. This is simply the stuff of which modern politics is made of, or perhaps what all politics has always been made of since Machiavelli put pen to paper.

Nevertheless, my barometer of white South African, middle class opinion, the dinner party, has been full of discussion about the role to be played by the tripartite alliance, now that it is so much more firmly “part” of government in this country. I refer here of course to the other two parts, the SACP and COSATU. Or though, I suppose, most people would feel well within their rights to point out that they couldn’t see the difference between the two.

Fair enough.

The regular appearance of Blade Nzimande, Gwede Mantashe and Zwelinzima Vavi, with obligatory communist flags and accoutrement,alongside Jacob Zuma, from rally to rally, and no doubt, right up there at the soon to come inauguration of our new president, is for some, cause for concern.

The argument, oft presented is that having used the SACP and COSATU, to great effect in his struggle for elections, and the previous struggle to gain nomination, Jacob Zuma has now got to play second fiddle to these, essentially unelected powerbrokers, whose outdated, centralist and soviet style opinions, threaten our new democracy, as payback for their unwavering support. The proponents of this argument point out, that in real terms this means not just a swing to the left within the ANC, but more of an intellectual coup of sorts, with more moderate voices either hushed up or pushed to the fringe of ex Mbeki supporters.

Curiously, when I hear this, I get a sense of Déjà vu. Have I not heard this before ?

Have you not ?

Of course, this was the argument when Mbeki came to power. If memory serves me the relationship between Mbeki and these other two entities was rather strong. In fact this alliance is as old as our democracy. No ANC leader has ever ignored it, and too, none come to power without it.

Mbeki spurned this alliance, if not openly, then  certainly tacitly, and it cost him, very dearly at Polekwane this time round. Which dear reader brings us to a point, why, considering the substantial power on the ground that COSATU wields by all accounts, was the Mbeki government and its economic policy not brought to the ground by stay aways, and mass action ?

In short, why, did our Marxist based labour union, and its ally, one of the few remaining communist parties in the world, not lash out at the economy ? After all, in their eyes, they had been betrayed in economic policy 

Deeply so.

BEE had become an enriching mechanism for the very few and elite, and too the Mbeki government could well be credited with the creation of a strong and rapidly growing black middle class . All this is clear opposition to the views and basics of our so-called communist alliance.

The answer here, is a very clever lesson in realpolitik.

Without mentioning the names of the men who were responsible, and who now too, are wealthy beyond compare, let us consider the massive shift that our fellow alliance partners underwent. The early nineties saw the drawing of COSATU into the net of real capitalism, with the creation of so called secondary sources of income for COSATU, as well as the investment of pensions on that scourge of communists from Stalin to Castro, what they call a “casino” and we refer to as the Stock Market.

Knowing full well that the threat of a communist revolution was real in any new African democracy, instead of spurning the leaders of that ilk, they drew them into the one thing that they knew would keep them docile, the Market.

Smart move for our Machiavellian power brokers.  Smart, savvy and deeply Machiavellian.

In realpolitik terms, you use popular support to come to power, and then you dilute that power, by integrating it into the pie.

The new strategy, following on the back of wealth promised to its leaders meant that COSATU abandoned its previous Marxist approach in favour of what is referred to as Strategic Unionism or Democratic Corporatism.

What our men then called The Trade Union Investment Strategy.

Of course, you cannot in politics, keep your electorate if you give up the rhetoric, and the ideals that brought them in, so retain it and you forge ahead as a communist organization when in fact you are nothing of the sort, and you don’t point out to your voters and members that  you are no longer Soviet Styled, beyond the logos and t shirts.

Of course.

What of course you trade here, in this little bargain, is your power. Yes ,you get income, and yes, you improve the value of your pension fund and too the lives of your workers, but, and it’s an important but, your weapon against the Capitalists becomes a weapon against yourself.

You become a closet capitalist.

“Despite its insistence on a ‘socialist South Africa’, organised labour has also embarked on wealth creation or ‘labour capitalism’ as COSATU and its affiliates, especially, have established about 20 union investment companies and over 60 other large-scale for- profit businesses. These businesses were established to provide independent sources of revenue for the unions and, allegedly, to enable workers to share in the economic opportunities that have opened up for previously disadvantaged individuals in the country. Labour capitalism as a response to global economic reform has created an interesting paradox for South Africa’s labour unions: they are now both labour and capital, workers and owners of large companies, employees and employers.”

- Okechukwu C Iheduru -Associate professor of International Relations & African Politics at the James Madison College, Michigan State University.

The point here is simple, in real terms the interests of COSATU and the SACP, despite their appearance, and election rhetoric, are just the same as my dinner party guests.

I will not here, discuss the morality of the issue, I will simply say, this, dear reader, this is realpolitik.

Its also why, all this crying about an imminent  communist revolution in South Africa,by dinner party’s all over the land tonight twixt foie gras and beef shitake, is simply put, more nonsense than their global ethic mouthfuls. The SACP and COSATU are Marxist only in election rhetoric. In reality, they too, are part and parcel of Globalisation. And just like that unhappy consomme garnished with coriander and asparagus, it is neither right nor wrong, it simply is. It is also why Jacob Zuma and his government will continue to keep the home fires of market economics alive, and our home grown commies will do nothing about it.

Because it is in their interests.

Elementary my dear Watson.

“The ANC’s ruthless implementation of a free market agenda has created difficulties for the COSATU leadership in justifying its support for such anti-working-class policies. But withdrawal from the alliance would mean the withdrawal of COSATU loyalists from the ANC’s electoral lists, and, as Tutu pointed out, “It is lucrative to be on a party list. The rewards are substantial and if calling in question party positions jeopardises one’s chances to get on the list then not too many are foolhardy and opt for silence to become voting cattle for the party.” ” – The World Socialist Website