We posted about the launch of the movie Material some time back, and are excited to say that today is launch day. If you weren’t lucky enough to have a caught a preview, do yourself a favour and get to a cinema this weekend to watch a truly world class South African film.

Later this month, a local movie that we hear is brilliant hits the cinema (we’re yet to see it but as soon as we do we’ll update this post). It’s called Material and will be out on the 17th of February. Riaad Moosa plays the lead in the film, and is accompanied by Vincent Ebrahim from The Kumars at No. 42, who came from London, to play Riaad’s father. It celebrates the goodness of South Africa’s spirit and of the legacy of a unique and historical part of this land, Fordsburg. Personally I can’t wait to see it – check out the trailer for more.

Cassim Kaif (Moosa), a young Muslim man who works in his father’s fabric shop in Fordsburg, Johannesburg. In the family tradition Cassim, as the only son, is expected to take over the family business from his father. Cassim is a respectful son and has certainly not considered any alternatives; this is his life and his destiny. Until one night, through a series of coincidences, he lands up doing an open mike session at a local comedy club. He discovers a hidden talent for comedy; a passion is sparked within him like nothing previously in his life. He is encouraged to carry on with the comedy, a path that brings him into conflict, not only with his father but other family members and some elements of his community. This is essentially the story of a family grappling with universal issues like, identity, responsibility and duty.

The cast features an exciting line up talent, including Riaad Moosa, Vincent Ebrahim (Kumars at No.42), Denise Newman, Joey Rasdien, Krijay Govender, Zakeeya Patel, Carishma Basday, Roysten Stoffels, Nik Rabinowitz, Osmond Ali, Afzal Khan, Rabin Harduth and Quanita Adams.

I brought up Barack Obama’s bailout briefly the other day to try and illustrate how powerful transparency of expenditure can be for a government.

With a simple website and something long forgotten in politician school, honesty, the President went from being the most untrustworthy first citizen to someone the masses could get on board with. He essentially managed to convince a nation that had recently lost everything to, not only give him more money from their tax coffers than ever before, BUT ALSO without the widespread chaos that I expected. Fast forward to today and for the first time since the bankers destroyed the world in 08 the employment numbers are up, those bailed out are now making more money than before and it seems for now that part of the Presidents problem seems to be solving itself.

So what’s my point here? Do I think our government should be handing out money to try fix the massive social and economic decay facing this nation?

Plainly, F*@K NO I wouldn’t let them hand out food stamps – you saw what happened when they tried to hand out condoms at the ANC centenary (in other news get ready for an influx of baby JUJU’s)!

However, imagine for a moment a country that prided itself on truth, honesty and integrity.  A nation not scarred by previous regimes, a country with leaders not out to spend their time in office filling their pockets, but a democratically elected leadership who told its citizens where exactly its tax money was going.

A small smile creeps up my face as I can feel your skepticism – don’t worry we, like an abused single mother, have been hurt too many times in the past to trust again that easily.

Most people don’t really understand budgets (the country’s credit card debt numbers are evident of that) but here’s a ‘budgets for dummies’ for you.

No matter if the budget is R1000 or R100 billion – the principal is the same. At the start of the fiscal year you start out with a number and you divide it up based on the expenses, you use the previous year as a guide and the coming year as an influence and you make the best decisions you can to split the money in such a way that you will cover all bases. You then hope that your projected income is delivered and then the sums should make sense and you make some money. The theory is really rather simple – the practice however is slightly harder but you get the basic understanding.

Now imagine you as a citizen of a country could log onto the governments website and see exactly how this money was split. What healthcare was allocated VS education VS safety and security VS (most importantly government housing allowances).  I’m not talking about an auditor general’s report that comes out and has so much grey area that it may as well be London in autumn, I mean an easy to use easy to understand website. A place where ALL expenses must be channeled through and explained. Surely if there is an expense it requires some kind of explanation, and surely that explanation is not illegal or unethical then there is no harm in sharing it with the public.

You see under the cloak of governmental darkness, things can be hidden, that’s where people take chances and thats where corruption starts it cancerous life and is fed until it becomes the deadly stage 4 and a country is on life support.

As citizens who are united only by our distrust of this and every other government we need to start asking MORE or our elected officials! We have forgotten who the customer in this relationship is quite simply. You may not realize it but we pay for services that we expect to be done and when they are not, and when our money is being stolen so blatantly surely we have to be stricter on our service providers and in this case it’s the government.

At the end of the day the public, the paying public has the power. You see WE are the ones depositing billions into government funds every month to use ‘to run the country’ and if we don’t, well, at first there will be a standoff (and all the chaos that comes with that) but at some point one party will have to cave. I truly believe with the correct public leader and the right process we can change democracy in a way that will affect future governments around the world.

Imagine that, South Africa leading the fight to a transparent democracy, one where the citizens have the right to see where their money is going. Seems so simple doesn’t it!

Last week the auditor general brought out a report on the last financial year and the way our government managed the funds.

Now as taxpayers, if you didn’t know, we have a vested interest in this report. You see you give a portion of your salary (well maybe you don’t you tax evading bitch!) to the government every month and other than knowing they use it to give to their tenderpreneur (yes it has a Wiki page!) mates for their Breitling collections, surely you want to know what the hell they do with it?

Well it turns out they fuck around with it (yes I hear you all saying ‘surprise surprise’) but, I consider myself fairly cynical when it comes to our joyful leaders in parliament, and not even I could have imagined to what degree we were being screwed.

Let me give you the number R20 BILLION!

Yes, R20 BILLION of our hard earned and paid money has been wasted. I suppose you want to know what the hell they spent it on. The list is sadly a long disgusting trail starting from just bad management of fund to fraud to tenders paid for but services never delivered!

What I find most incredible is we go on living our lives, paying our tax and not making a noise about any of it until we are drunk at a braai and we start to whine about how this country is getting raped – WELL START TO MAKE SOME FUCKING NOISE ABOUT IT THEN!

If I wasn’t moving half way across the world in the coming weeks I think I would start to create a movement, not one to over throw or fight but one that wants transparency. A movement that tries to get like-minded people to forcefully ask for honesty, openness and most of all a government that at least tells us when and how they are going to rape us. To have a system that allows citizens to see what is happening with their money similarly to that of Barack Obama’s bailout policy – probably the most successful expense of any government in recent history!

I want and I demand as a citizen to know that my tax money is being spent on things that are helping change this country for the better, not being used to fund 100^th anniversary parties, not private jets where they’re not needed and certainly not to pay tenders on jobs that are never done and the fact that South Africans don’t seem to care makes me insanely angry!

Once again I turn to the, perhaps clairvoyant, Zapiro who years ago showed our fearless leader JZ like this – who could’ve expected anything less of the government he installed than to rape the rest of its citizens !

Let us forget for a moment the world class slime fest that is Shabir Shaik shall we, because it seems that South Africans have just accepted that this cheating bastard should not be in jail because he is on the verge of death!

Please see the pic below for proof of his illness (sounds like the defense’s argument for his release on Medical Parole)

Let’s rather look at the next one who is playing ‘the hospital card’!

Thanks must go as always to Zaprio for his magical command of the political scene with merely a few sketches!

Now after I saw Jackie was headed straight to the emergency room, I decided to take to twitter and try rally some support, the response I got was a little more naïve than I expected from our normally beautifully cynical Mandy Weiner!

You see maybe I’m just of the mind frame of ‘Once bitten, twice shy’ but I cannot believe that dear Jackie Selebi has managed to get terminally ill in the five minutes that his appeal was rejected. Yes, yes I know those of you who are corruption fans will be shouting that he has been sick for a while. I don’t deny this BUT can you idiots please understand that I’m sure he had a backup plan since day one. It’s not like he was going to be healthy all the way through then keel over as the appeal ended – he’s been playing you all for months people!

I guess overall I’m just tired of getting screwed as a citizen, I mean we pay high taxes, our money generally gets stolen one way or another by our government and their friends and to be fair I’m happy to pay that toll to live the lifestyle in the country I do. BUT, when a man gets freed from jail because (again let me emphasize) HE WAS GOING TO DIE, and then we find him getting in a mosque-brawl (yeah my first time too) and still this doesn’t seem to violate his parole enough to stick that sneaky bitch back in jail – something is wrong people!

Time will tell whether or not Jackie playing the same game here but the difference between Shabby and Jackie is that Shabby is on the Zuma team, I mean he was the one who gave the Prez the corruption cash so you can only expect he can call in a few favors when he needs them – Jackie sadly can’t (well he can but Glenn Aglitotti has been in enough shit himself) so they are not likely to make any difference!

I have said I will reserve judgment on Jackie but let’s be honest, the innocent until proven guilty scenario really is tinged with irony right now. The fact of the matter is that another convicted fraudster sits in a hospital bed working out just which way is the best to bypass the legal system and cheat every single honest South African. If that doesn’t make you a little angry then get out your golf bag and book a tee off time with Shabby because you are clearly in on it as well!

After having dinner with a couple of very intelligent people at the base of the Stellenbosch Mountains, the inevitable happened after a few bottles of wine, a philosophical discussion was sparked. The subject of which was why certain countries succeed and some don’t?

First it was decided that we’re probably all destined to fail because with the rate at which populations are and will grow we will suck up every natural resource the earth has and probably in our lifetimes civilization may very well collapse. So we turned our attention to the current successes and failures.

There are an obvious reason of resources, infrastructure, perhaps good governance and the fact that they were left alone and never colonized (which is actually the politically correct word for RAPING a country). Most of these reasons were used in the defense of why African nations tend to implode!

The truth is there is little defense for the behavior that has gone on in Africa post colonization. There are basically no examples on the African continent of a country that has left the shackles of colonization and bettered itself through hard work, positive focus and a lack of corruption. In fact it’s like an African template.

People revolt against colonialism (rightly so by the way), new leader takes over, new leader likes money, new leader gets greedy, new leader refused to leave, new leader becomes a dictator and proceeds to fuck up every positive thing the country had going for them (maybe a slightly generalized view but please tell me I’m wrong) and finally turns to killing, raping and torturing any opposition in their way. Its become so ridiculous that we’ve seen ad campaigns based on it (and they’ve gone viral globally)

The only difference in South Africa is two things, one is the leadership, courage and selflessness of one Nelson Mandela who basically stopped civil war by himself (if I was him I would have come out of those prison cells with two shots guns and pretended I was in a scene from zombieland!) and the other is that our young democracy hasn’t been given enough time to be tested – as we speak it is faltering not even twenty years on!

The question is, why is this an AFRICAN PROBLEM? Countries like India have had the colonization problem and now they are emerging as one of the globes superpowers along with China.

After much discussion there was no clear answer. Is it that the culture in Africa is different, one of greed and power mongering? I don’t think so, I think that’s a global problem not just ours. Is it because our leaders are just more prone to dictatorship? Not really, dictators have ruled countries all over the world throughout history.

I guess the only rational thing I can think is that our countries are, relatively, too young. We haven’t made the mistakes yet that other first world countries have made. Germany learnt their dictator lesson in WWI & II for example and they had almost 70 years to rebuild to where they are today. But then you think of places like Sweden, Finland and Switzerland that just sort of worked from the word ‘go’.

The only thing I’m scared of is that we as Africans are not as fast learners, I’m afraid we have an animal farm mentality and we may continue to make the same mistakes for a while. The mistakes of corruption and greed creating too much poverty and too much resentment between classes that it can’t ever be fixed!

In the meantime though we are wasting what is, without question, potentially the richest continent on this planet. We have natural resource gushing out of the earth and yet we still manage to screw it up. Before long we will have raped the resources dry and then where will the narcissistic nouveau –riche dictators of Africa be? Sadly on a private yacht in the Bahamas I guess (our legal systems are probably the only thing worse than our dictators)

I sat on 22 November “Black Tuesday”  in a pension fund board meeting that looks after roughly 40 000 lower LSM South Africans and much to the irritation and dismay of my board members I was glued to my twitter feed from @EWNreporter and other reputable journo’s present at the passing of the Secrecy bill.

I could not help but think of the fact that the people we were spending the day ensuring their futures are safe financially (who feed roughly 5 people for each person employed so more than 200 000 people) had voted in a party that was in the process of taking away one of the most important rights I have as a free citizen.

Suddenly my entire body filled with anger!

About two months ago I wrote an article about this bill and the danger it poses, needless to say as a rather unknown blogger I didn’t have much impact on parliament. Despite my pre-warning, yesterday the bill was passed in a house that looked and sounded like a cross between a zoo and a kindergarten playground based on the behavior of most ‘elected officials’

Yesterday as I burnt with anger, my soul filled with sorrow, because as hard as the founders of the ANC fought for freedom (in every sense of the word), crowned in a way  by Nelson Mandela’s famous words in 1997 “Press freedom would never be under threat in South Africa for as long as the ANC is the majority party” I realized that the dream they had realized was being pissed on by the new ANC, the ones who want the money, the ones who want ultimate power, the ones who behave like ANIMAL FARM!

We have worked so fucking hard in this country for a bunch of corrupt cowards to erode away at it and we have so many devastatingly serious problems without our government being able to hide their disgusting abuse of power behind the shadows in the name of national security. National security, HA! What fucking national security do we have and what national security do we really need that is so important to be able to black out any transgression the government choose.

I hear the hopefuls saying this isn’t the end of the fight, and when I re-watched Lindiwe Mazibuko speak on behalf of the DA I began to cry. She managed to stay so calm and so poised when all others were ready to take to the streets. She spoke with such still power and harrowing words that the reality of what had just happened sunk in. In that moment as I sat fearing the worst, I listened to minister after minister (of all races and colours and genders) speak from the heart and then get booed and hissed at by an ANC that would have disgraced its forefathers.

To echo Lindiwe “let the message ring out from this house across South Africa: the ANC has abandoned the values of its foundations exactly 100 years after it was founded”

The sad thing is, I think most of parliament doesn’t care really, they’re like spoiled brats in a sweet store. They want to stuff their fat faces full of as much chocolate as they can while they can and everyone else can clean up the mess they leave behind.

While I don’t share the panic quite to the extent of some of my facebook friends suggesting tickets to Oz are the only answer, I do share the deep sorrow every journalist around this country must feel today and I hope that this is not the end of this fight.

I hope someone, someone other than a rather unknown blogger, has the strength to push this fight as far as it needs to go because if we don’t, if we allow a wave of darkness to cover what ever wrongdoings it sees fit, then my fellow South Africans we may never see the light again. The nagging concern in the back of my mind is, sadly our only recourse is the constitutional court . . .

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others” – Nelson Mandela

Yesterday was a defining day in the future of South African politics, not because JuJu was beaten like the insolent child he is (I think the Hawks were and still are going to F#@K him anyway) but because of the way the ANC have handled themselves over the past few weeks.

This has no doubt been a difficult few months for the ruling party!

The first hint of disciplinary action set off a call to arms for JuJu’s supporters which led to the uptick in support through the marches for economic ‘just give me money for free’ freedom. I’m pretty sure JuJu felt relatively safe that he had enough support to scare the ANC into letting him go, and why not? He was gaining followers, he was making front page news and he was obviously confident enough to threaten the leadership of the most powerful party in the country!

The questions that I’m sure the disciplinary committee asked itself and its leaders were, do we draw a line in the sand now and face whatever consequences it may bring or do we bury our heads in the sand because it’s the easier option – I’m very proud to say they chose the former!

Similarly to the Dalai Lama decision (although right and wrong are a little more clear cut in this example) this was a very tough call to make and when Derek Hanekom stood to read his 136 page verdict, pride began to swell inside me like never before. Again I must re-iterate not because of the subject matter (ok a little – it was glorious to see that brat get a beating even though he wasn’t there to take it himself) but for the way the ANC conducted itself.

The ANC made a point to go back to its roots of a proud, disciplined organization run with truth and integrity at its heart. They made a point to say somewhere along the line we have let this trouble maker and his band of merry degenerates get out of hand and portray this organization as something very far from what its founding fathers had in mind and finally, and most importantly, they made a point to say enough is enough!

The level of detail with which the hearings and the verdicts conducted were nothing short of impeccable and the outcomes were fair and just for all parties (this of course as our JuJu supporting readers keep telling – is my opinion!) The deliberations were done with calm heads and the answers at the press conference were clear and confident. Although I am not an ANC supporter or voter (I have been in the past) I must say that if this party starts to rule like this I may become one of their strongest followers (we have light years to go before they have cleaned up their act enough though)

All in all I must commend the ruling party and its leaders for an exemplary job on the whole and I just hope that those selected for appeals board don’t allow this great line that has been drawn in the sand to be rubbed out or moved! You comrades have been proud and stood up to the task – best you do the same now!

South Africa is a tough place to live, if you are honest.

Don’t get me wrong, we love it and the lifestyles great but the truth is there are so many problems in this place that unless you try and block it out you tend to want to slash your wrists most of the time. I mean as I type this there are 10 000 unemployed youths following a dictator in training, down the streets of Joburg for a cause most of them can’t even spell (it’s for ‘economic freedom’) let alone try implement.

Now, if there are that many problems in that ONE sentence imagine the rest of it all.

I’m not writing this to make you cry in the fetal position in the shower but I find as a South African you need to cling to small victories because they give us hope, they make us feel happy even if just for a fleeting moment. Most of all they turn us into, a word that’s seldom used in this part of the world, PATRIOTS!

That’s why we smile when they mention our country in a random TV series, or the fact that the bad guy in the movie is from Joburg. That’s why we need Charlize to take over Hollywood . . .

. . . and when we see moments like this our hearts jump and our eyes fill with tears!

That’s why we hold onto victories for generations . . .

. . . because sadly we don’t get to be proud of our nation as often as we want!

Last night I had one of these small victories.

In the finale of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE, two of the finalist got, what we affectionately refer to, as a gumboot dance (they seem to think it’s called STEPPIN – damn yanks!)

I thought for a moment we would get screwed as we normally do (cue Bryce Lawrence / Alan Donald run-out / Stephen Larkam drop goal etc) but the intro from the choreographer was absolutely spot on crediting the South African gold miners for inventing this style of dance!

You may think it’s silly or small minded but for the two minutes that these guys danced on a stage watched by millions of people, all over the world, it made me remember that feeling of pride, that feeling of the world’s eyes on us as their mouths start to crinkle up in a smile. It’s one of the greatest feelings you can have, so hold onto small victories South Africa, enjoy the moments of pride when we get them because sadly they come far more seldom than we would wish!

Here you go

I don’t often defend the South African government, in fact I think this is the first time I can remember (I did a search on the blog and found THESE – none of them positive) and so now I find myself in unfamiliar territory (and I’m pretty sure I’m going to seriously anger a few people) so here goes!

When I was young my dad gave me a book called “Defining Moments: When managers must choose between right and right”, although at the time I didn’t quite understand the concept but over the next 10 years I have made many painful decisions where both choices would have been the correct one, therefor they fall into this category.

South Africa’s decision regarding the Dalai Lamas visit was no different!

This was a defining moment and without doubt a choice between letting one of the greatest spiritual leaders of our time come for another’s birthday, and to appease a global giant for our own economic salvation.

If you are confused here’s a quick summary. This is the Dalai Lama, he is essentially the spiritual leader of Tibet and the political leader in exile, if you will, with massive influence – he is HATED by the People’s Republic of China’s government. Overall he is an amazingly wise spiritual man who does nothing worse than promote peace, humanity and equality (although he is opposed to oral or anal sex – minus one point for that!) and his name is Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso

He was invited by The Arch Desmond Tutu to speak at a number of university’s and attend the Arch’s 80^th birthday. A simple enough request although travelling to SA the DL needed a VISA – eish, problem!

The SA’n government basically delayed this request indefinitely until yesterday when the DL decided to cancel his trip as it was clear he was not welcome! He posted this statement on his website.

Why you ask, was the government so hell bent on keeping him out? Quite simply the Chinese Government told us to. Jacob Zuma said he wasnt sure why there was a problem, Kgalema Motlanthe said he would have gotten his VISA eventually (he said this after the trip had already been cancelled). That was a little like saying we would have won the cricket world cup if Allan Donald hadn’t f#@ked up that last run (the saying ‘no comments on the scoreboard’ comes to mind!).

The truth is the South African government had to make a call. Do we allow someone into the country who, if we are completely honest, can do nothing TANGIBLE for us as a nation at the risk of severely pissing off our biggest global customer, China? The answer ladies and gentlemen is simply NO. We cannot afford to lose ANY business let alone the world’s most dominant economic superpower (well they will be shortly) especially when they can buy what we are selling somewhere else.

If China were to turn its back on South Africa the economic ramifications would be catastrophic for an emerging nation with the problems we have, in fact it may be crippling. The answer here was as simple as inviting a street child to sleep in your local Woolworths at the risk of chasing off the rest of your customers (I’m not saying the DL is a street child before any of you get pissy!) but in that instance anyone of you would side with the retailer without a moment’s hesitation – so why when YOUR economic destiny falls in the balance do you all of a sudden climb onto your high horse?

I’m proud that, for once, our government made a tough, public decision for the benefit of us as a nation and if you think that this wasn’t the case – GROW UP! Sometimes in life we have to make tough calls, we can’t make everyone happy and we certainly can’t just make decisions that have massive consequences just because The Arch and the DL are nice people. A government is elected to make the best decisions of behalf of the people and this is, WITHOUT DOUBT, what they did!

I have profound respect for the Dalai Lama and I mean no disrespect to him in any way but unfortunately we as a country sometimes need to play the political game not for gain but sometimes just to survive. Was it handled wrong, absolutely! All the silence and bungling of government officials for months was pathetic and for that I am ashamed. Do I think it’s right to try criticize the DL like the article by Simon Allison in the Daily Maverick, absolutely not – the man is practically the Tibetan Nelson Mandela, but at the end of the day I’ll stand behind their decision in this defining moment, because it was the RIGHT RIGHT!

So firstly let’s get this out of the way. If you are going to make a statement on radio can you try being a little original? I mean don’t go copying an iconic movie and then fall short of the mark. If you are not sure what I’m talking about listen to this . . .

Now listen to Mark ‘f#@king’ Esterhuysen . . .

So now that we know that Mark isn’t very original and nor can he quite nail it like Ewan McGregor I think it’s important to deconstruct this individual.

As I understand it dear Mark has only been in his job for a little over four months and the cause of this rant is a combination of him wanting to earn more money and the fact that he has watched Fight Club one too many times.

Now Mark, let me explain something about the big wide world you have recently entered into. You have to work hard! Unless you fluke a social network or a an app where you can shoot birds at pigs you need to build a career, you need to play politics and kiss ass until you have built a platform where you can start commanding some respect – after four months you haven’t done that! In fact I’d be loath to say you have done more than lick stamps and fetch coffee.

So on behalf of the working world SHUT THE F#@K UP!

Work is tough and we all work for the man, either get used to it and play the game or get out and go take your incoherent ranting to the Unabomber cabin! Get used to the fact that EVERYTHING around you is a system and unless you decide to go rogue (and from what I can tell you have the off the grid look about you already) you will not get anything done, especially in the industry you are in.

So in summary, had your motives been along better lines (more important lines / more interesting lines) I may have gotten behind you because your gesture was a grand one and you have to appreciate that but for now you just sound like Eric Cartman saying “Screw you guys, I’m going home” after you’ve gotten pissed off for getting your ass kicked at dodge ball.

If you believe what you say and I’m sure you do (unless you are a paranoid schizo which hasn’t entirely been ruled out) then stop playing in this little world where you think you can throw a tantrum on air and get what you are after. Go make it happen and stop behaving like a child! To get meaningful shit done in this world is hard, it takes time, brains and strategy and you have to play the game for a while before you can get to a point where you can change the rules!

Yours Sincerely,

So you know North Korea right? Venezuela yes? Zim huh?

Well now that I’ve hopefully scared you somewhat let’s get going – oh wait one more, Nazi Germany!

Everyone with me?

So in short the new info bill says the following . . . the government in order to protect, national security (what f*#king national security??) can render any document, publication or any kind of media classified, because lets be fair Wikileaks biggest goldmine of data that the world wants to get its hand on is South African secrets (that was sarcasm if you are a sociopath and didn’t get it!)

What does this mean exactly? It means that anything anyone writes can without any reason or any particular decision except for that decided by the fat guys who chill in parliament doing f*#k all but ban Marijuana and Alcohol advertising (that was shameless marketing for two other posts yes!)

On a more serious note take me as a blogger for example. I like to, well, air the most idiotic parts of our ruling party occasionally (only when they deserve it of course). This would more than likely be made confidential because it’s construed as negative and if I were to publish it I’d end up in Gitmo faster than you could tweet about it . . .

So you are all pretty smart I’m guessing (you read STM so you must be at least 10 IQ points higher than the average government official) so what does this bill essentially destroy?

Yes its called FREEDOM OF SPEECH!

This bill quite simply states any expression in any media that is for whatever reason deemed wrong, by someone which will more than likely be JUJU MALEMA in future, you will be put in jail. Now do me a favour and go read the first line of this post again – sound familiar?

But don’t worry, we are not quite there just yet. The bill has been taken away for some ‘tinkering’ (code for what can we change so the public forget we are trying to push through communist crap?)  But don’t lose faith, when this bill resurfaces and DOES GET PASSED by parliament there is STILL another barrier we can all rely on . . . THE SUPREME COURT, the heart of honesty, integrity and justice . . . oh wait!

I wrote a piece about my concern that JuJu wouldn’t go quietly into the night. Now the last thing I want is for this man-child to do anything other than fades into political obscurity and to be honest I don’t think anything will come of him. People like him seldom become what we truly fear, or maybe I just watched too many superhero cartoons as a kid and for some reason I believe the good guy will show up at the last minute and save us all.

Either way I have this nagging feeling that there is something evil brewing and when I hear words like ‘white criminals’ and ‘war against the imperialists’ I start to think or rather should I say fear things like Nazi Germany. This is a place I have never been (not at the time we are talking about that is) but as a Jew my childhood was littered with stories of dictatorship and how fast and easily it can happen. I heard stories of survivors who were in camps still singing the song ‘it’ll never happen here & the world will stop it’ and before they knew it their brothers, sister and children were being murdered around them.

The truth is the world has its own shit to deal with. The Euro is being dragged down like a ton of bricks, the USA, which is generally our beacon of hope, is going through its worst period of unemployment and recession in its history and the current powerhouses Japan and China have been so successful because they don’t get involved in everyone else’s mess unless it benefits them economically.

So we turn to the next strongest power we know, local power. The local businessmen have too much to lose, they’ll never let it happen. We think this until we realize that most of the people who would suffer the most have enough money stashed in offshore accounts (especially with the relaxation of exchange control and the amnesties granted) let alone overseas properties and houses. Not because they saw something like this coming but because they knew Africa was a gamble from day one and any good gambler knows to hedge their bets.

JuJu has a disillusioned and depressed youth at his back just as Hitler had a nation unfairly pinned back by world war one and, just like Hitler’s crowds, the unemployed South African youth have nothing to lose. All it takes is one charismatic leader whose need for power is deeply rooted in his narcissism and what we believed would never or rather could never happen in a place like this becomes reality.

In case you missed it our neighbors to the north have been suffering the same fate for almost a decade.

Now before you start with the hate mail and the patriotic nation crap let me tell you I will be the last to leave. As my boss says ill switch off the lights when you’re all gone, but there is a difference between being optimistic and cautiously so. All I’m asking of this nation (or at least the sane ones left here) is not to be so naïve and blinded by hope that we don’t see this coming. The world is poisoned all over with dictators and you probably couldn’t name half of them, so open your eyes to the possibility that evil is lurking around the corner and best we prepare for it!

Nkosi Sikeleli Afrika – God bless Africa (not that I’m really a believer but that’s a whole other post that requires its own set of hate mail )

Once again the South African government has astounded me with how it chooses to spend its time (I mean other than misappropriating tax payers funds). First it was the time spent deciding to ban cigarette advertising. Now this was a quickie, cause pretty much the rest of the world had done it, but then they had to take it that critical amount further They skipped the time which should have been spent fixing things like crime, HIV, poverty, education and on and on (by now I’ve recited this list so many times you should know it by heart!). No these things are far less important than spending months passing a smoking bill that makes sure it’s virtually IMPOSSIBLE to smoke anywhere other than in your toilet with a can of deo that you need to spray every ten seconds so the Hawks don’t bash down your door and shoot you!

So now they are at it again. They have chosen once more to pretend the above list of ‘country destroying problems’ doesn’t exist and they have moved on to alcohol (because of course JZ is massively against it – I mean he had a man arrested for spilling his drink near our dear Pres!)

Let us for a moment forget the alcohol ban and the time it’s taken our proactive government to push this one through. Let us go back a little first . . .

About ten years ago the first countries started banning the marketing and advertising of cigarettes (there went those magnificent Styvie ads I used to drool over at the cinema). Cigarette companies, of course, panicked at first until they realized they now had billions of spare marketing dollars lying around. This led to underground parties, concerts, subliminal advertising and any other kind of marketing that wasn’t considered overt. This went on until the cigarette empires realized something amazing . . . NO ONE STOPPED SMOKING!!!

They now had billions of extra profit every to spend on R&D and packaging because global governments had virtually forced them into it and the best news at all, sales kept growing! In fact virtually no where around the world has smoking declined because of the ban on advertising.

Perfect example of advertising Dollar going into new product development!

So instead of trying to stop the abuse of alcohol by perhaps EDUCATION (apparently we are against that in any form – just check the 100s of kids bussed in for Julius Malema’s trial instead of being in class). No we decide to spend more time pushing a bill through parliament that outlaws the advertising of alcohol.

Everyone say it with me now, WTF??

Good idea that girl in the uniform and all her friends should rather be here than LEARNING!

Now I’m no Nostradamus but I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to predict this one – PEOPLE WILL STILL DRINK!

They will drink as much if not more than before. Why? Very simply cause drinking and smoking are fun, they’re ‘cool’ and every single kid in the world tries it at one point or another. So until you find a solution for that people, you can ban whatever the hell you like and it’s not going to stop anyone!

As for the South African government pissing away time and money with this idiotic shit, I have a message for you.

FOCUS ON THE IMPORTANT STUFF AND STOP WASTING EVERYONES TIME AND MONEY!

Faithfully

I’m sure you’ve heard the recent Darren Scott saga. If not, the short of it goes like this – some colleague owed him money, hadn’t paid him back in years, they went on a team building trip to the bush, got hammered and Mr. Scott, when provoked, called the guy a k@ffir (excuse me for saying it, but the use of the “K word” really annoys me, as do others like “Vijayjay”, but I digress – everyone immediately thinks of the actual word anyway). No matter how angry you get, that’s not on.

I can’t really give a good reason why but I’ve never really liked the man. Perhaps it’s a little unfair as I’ve never met him and don’t know him but from what I have seen or heard he comes across as self aggrandizing type of guy who embodies a number of the seven sins (not that I’m into the religious concept of sin). That dislike has just been reinforced a little.

Having said that, I do have some respect for the way in which he’s handled the matter. Here’s the clip of his side of the story:

Darren Scott on John Robbie’s show.

A lot of our politicians could learn a lesson in taking responsibility and apologizing when you’re clearly in the wrong. I still think he’s a cock though.