Triumph and Tragedy in South Africa

 

“This government—our government—is worse than the apartheid government.”—Archbishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize.

South African voters are headed to the polls this week for the fourth national election since 1994, when Nelson Mandela was elected president after the end of the apartheid regime.

Their country represents epic history in our lifetimes. After a decades-long struggle against brutal, state-run racial segregation, the black liberation movement emerged victorious in the early 1990s. Led by the transcendent figure of Mandela, South Africa swiftly dismantled the apartheid apparatus and, defying dour predictions of a bloody race war, peacefully transitioned to majority rule. Mandela’s government ushered in pluralistic democracy on a continent long-defined by colonialism and autocracy. State officials established remarkably robust constitutional protections for individual rights.

Black South Africans would finally be afforded the economic and social opportunities they’d been denied for so long.

Or so everyone had hoped.

Two decades later, Mandela’s promise of renewal has largely gone unfulfilled as Mandela’s party, the African National Congress (ANC) has maintained its huge electoral majority. The beautiful dream animating the South African experiment is crumbling amidst ongoing corruption, violence, and failed economic policies. As Nobel Peace Prize recipient Desmond Tutu has said of the current regime, “This government—our government—is worse than the apartheid government.”

“Life After Liberation,” directed and hosted by Rob Montz, details the role played by political monopoly in South Africa’s post-apartheid decline. The documentary shows how the ANC has grown corrupt and complacent—and how widespread resentment of the ruling political class is now fueling the rise of a populist demagogue, Julius Malema of the Economic Freedom Fighters, who is pushing precisely the sort of Mugabeist socialist policies that have ruined so many other African countries.

via Life After Liberation: Triumph and Tragedy in South Africa – YouTube.

The Number “Living in Poverty” Figure is Bogus

I don’t often reference the New york Times, but you need to read this first:

Bleak Portrait of Poverty Is Off the Mark, Experts Say

Sounds like a more accurate and truthful way to do the measuring, right?
Now read this from the census Bureau:

Update on the Supplemental Poverty Measure

Now answer the question:

Who benefits by quoting overstated poverty numbers?

About Those Polls

 

Bradley effect – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Another Day, Another Democrat-Heavy Poll Sample

Poll Farce: Pew Oversamples Democrats to Boost Obama

Tainted Polls? Pew Oversamples Democrats To Boost Obama

Why Charges of Poll ‘Oversampling’ Are Usually Misguided –  New York Times

Quinnipiac Polling’s Peter Brown Tries To Defend Oversampling

Tainted Polls? Pew Oversamples Democrats To Boost Obama

Pew uses D+19 sample

Gallup and Rasmussen are the only 2 polls not oversampling

Partisan Trends in Party Affiliation- Rasmussen Reports™

 

 

RUN. HIDE. FIGHT – Training the Sheep

I’m not being insulting, most people are not wolves nor sheepdogs, for an explanation see the second video. My instinct as a protector led to a career in the military, regretfully cut short, and I avoid gun-free free-fire-for-predator zones whenever it is possible. I think of the sailor that wanted to become a SEAL dying doing the only thing he could do to protect his girl. Of course the sheep have disarmed our military even on their bases due to years of fear over a conscripted  slave military and the sheep’s fear of sheepdogs, witness the Ft. Hood massacre. I was always amused to see European soldiers on civilian trains with their weapons while American soldiers were not allowed to do the same. Even in military convoys, Americans never had ammunition on their persons and ofttimes the weapons were locked up also.

Do you ever wonder why the occupants of Mordor on the Potomac (D.C.)  are so intent on disarming the American Populace? I do, and it leads to some scary thoughts.

 

RUN. HIDE. FIGHT. Surviving an Active Shooter Event – English – YouTube.

 

The Sheepdogs by Russ Vaughn – YouTube.

 

The full essay by LTC  Dave Grossman that was the basis for the poem in the second video may be found here:

On Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs

What Every Student Should Know Before Starting College

I am always amazed that the loudmouths from the sixties’ campuses are now in charge of most universities and are the worst offenders about squelching free speech on campus. Maybe it’s because they’re the ones in charge now?

FIRE’s Essay Contest will award $20,000 in scholarships to high school juniors and seniors this fall! Visit http://www.thefire.org/contest to enter. Deadline Nov. 25, 2012.

Did you know that some colleges and universities restrict student speech rights? Don’t be surprised by campus censorship when you get to college — know before you go! Visit http://www.thefire.org to learn more.

via What Every Student Should Know Before Starting College – YouTube.

Does this sound familiar?

Where have I heard this political platform before?

All citizens must possess equal rights and duties.

The first duty of every citizen must be to work mentally or physically. No individual shall do any work that offends against the interest of the community to the benefit of all.

Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.

We demand the nationalization of all trusts.

We demand profit-sharing in large industries.

We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.

We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class,

We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements

We stand against those who work to the injury of the common welfare.

We will make it possible for every resident to obtain higher education

The State has the duty to help raise the standard of national health by providing healthcare.

We demand the abolition of the regular (volunteer) army and the creation of a national (draft) army.

We demand that there be a legal campaign against those who propagate deliberate political lies and disseminate them through the media.

We demand freedom from all religious faiths in the state

COMMON GOOD BEFORE INDIVIDUAL GOOD

In order to carry out this program we demand: the creation of a strong central authority in the State, the unconditional authority by the political central parliament of the whole State and all its organizations.

I usually observe Godwin’s law, but “When the shoe fits”, throw it.

These platform planks were lifted (with very minor alteration, such as substituting “healthcare” for “maternity care”) from the official platform of the National Socialist German Workers Party. (Nazi Party for those with recent educations)

Do you see any similarities between the Occutard movement and Kristallnacht? I’m afraid I do.

The Great Liberal Lie: Jonah Goldberg on the Left’s War on Words

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Sloganeering was discussed as the way to motivate and control the unthinking, unreasoning mob in Gustav le Bon’s “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind” in 1897 and refined by Edward Bernays’ “Propaganda” in 1928. Josef Goebbels considered these books indispensable to his work for the National Socialists in Germany. Should it be any surprise that American socialists use a tried and dependable method to manipulate their mob?

The Battle of Big Ideas, Part 1: CONSTRAINED vs. UNCONSTRAINED

Before you can build a political house, you have to know what materials you have on hand. In Part 1 of The Battle of Big Ideas, Bill looks at the two visions of Mankind that Thomas Sowell has labeled “Constrained” and “Unconstrained,” and the examples of their twin Revolutions: the Constrained American Revolution and the Unconstrained French Revolution.
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Government School Union Sucess Story

Otherwise known as dumbing down the populace in order to enable politicrats to feed on them while encouraging their ignorance. A few more years of this and they will be eligible for the Occupy Movement. (The latest incarnation of the Hitler Jugend.)

Whatcha wanna bet they can recite all sorts of Malthusian-Luddite fables and fantasies about DDT, anthropogenic global warming, overpopulation, wind power, solar power and peak oil? Of course they won’t be able to tell you who T. R. Malthus or Ned Ludd were or about their actual disproved theories, the successors of which are are the Watermelons’ (Green on the outside Red on the inside) political platform aspiring to lead to an Animal Farm/Bolshevik revolution leading to their desired three class society. (Did you know Bolshevik means “Majority”, which they weren’t? Seems that the Occupy Movement, who aren’t the 99% are taking a page from Lenin’s playbook, nyet?)

The three classes obviously desired
1. Those who rule government
2. Those who work for government
3. Peasants that live off the “benevolence” of government

Censorship in the Ivory Tower: Colleges and Universities are Killing Free Speech

You will be shocked to know what colleges are censoring on campus. First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff from thefire.org talks to Glenn Reynolds about efforts by colleges and universities to kill free speech. Hear what happened when a University of Wisconsin Stout professor put a poster on his door with a quote from the TV show Firefly.

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