Sunday, September 30, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Monday, September 17, 2012
Netanyahu compares bombing Iran to a football game
“You know, they’re in the last 20 yards, and you can’t let them cross that goal line,” Mr. Netanyahu said on the NBC News program “Meet the Press,” displaying his familiarity with American football, another Sunday ritual here. “You can’t let them score a touchdown, because that would have unbelievable consequences, grievous consequences for the peace and security of us all, of the world really.”
Read the full article here.
Read the full article here.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Friday, September 14, 2012
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
"All blacks are victims of racism in the same way all whites benefit from racism"
SHOOT: These (quoted above) are the words of Andile Mngxitama, writing in the 9th September 2012 edition of City Press (Voices, page 25). Mngxitama's position is based on the assumption that, on average, whites in South Africa are wealthier, more often employed and hold many other advantages, and the opposite supposedly applies to blacks, thus blacks (the victims) are incapable of racism.
It's a very strange psychology, especially when one considers the failures of the ANC government, an entity that has been in power for the past 18 years. It means failures almost twenty years after the end of apartheid are still blamed on apartheid, and the troubles facing blacks are exclusively the fault of whites (who are all racists) and who continue to play black people like puppets. Is this the same country where 70% of white voters voted to hand over power in the referendum of 1990? 7 out of 10 people? Mngxitama explanation for blacks failure to perform (is it only in South Africa or Africa as a whole I wonder) is the result of white racism. He says, "basically our (black) leaders are managers of white supremacy, well paid through the tender and ministerial handbook." Well, that explains everything.
It's a fascinating psychology, because it makes white people 100% to blame for the failure of blacks to deliver services to themselves, to make good on election promises, to uplift, employ, educate etc. It also turns blacks into victims, which means they are not accountable for low productivity, or crime, or corruption.
I am sure City Press readers, the black ones, delight in this sort of single minded psychology. Because it means the reason for all their ills are very simple indeed. It's the fault of white people! And the remedy must be even simpler - just take from the thieving, dishonest white and give it to the black man - and justice is served.
Of course Mngxitama does suffer from somewhat single-track thinking. Because, even if he is correct, and black people are servants of white supremacists, and these same black leaders are getting rich at the expense of their own black brothers, and if that is true - who is the most despicable? The black person voted into power, and trusted to represent the interests of citizens, who sells out his countrymen to enrich himself, or the corporation whose business it is do business, to make money?Can a black person in power not choose to be honest, and ethical, or is he like a monkey, or a puppet that has no mind of his own, but simply takes the path of least resistance? Doesn't Nelson Mandela represent the sort of person that stands for something, that puts his country (and countrymen) first. Ironically, Mandela stood for equal human rights, not black rights.
Mngxitama has obviously not experienced what it is like to be a white person in South Africa. This must be because he is a black person. Interestingly, there are a lot of reports of black police offers who prey on innocent people, using intimidation, violence and other forms of corruption. I have experienced this firsthand. The newspapers report these incidents quite often. The fact that these incidents are both black on white and black on black muddy the water in terms of whether it's racism, or just extremely low standards of police officers (and who are, on average, black officers).
It is also worth taking note of a case to test whether the psychology that all blacks are victims of racism and that whites never are is accurate. I hope Mngxitama does not mind looking at an American case scenario.
He does not say whether his philosophy applies only in South Africa, or whether racist whites (and innocent black victims) are a global phenomenon. In any event, if you are a black person and you can't think of a single incident where white people were victims and black people benefited in some way (from racist victimisation), here's a well known case to refresh memories:
Murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom.
The case involved three black men, and a black woman, who car jacked a white couple on date, as they came out of a restaurant. The three men sodomised the white man, before shooting him in the back of the head and setting his body on fire. In the case of his girlfriend, she was raped vaginally, anally and in her mouth. She was beaten on her head, and her body scrubbed with bleach to remove DNA. According to Wikepedia: bleach...was also poured down her throat, in an attempt by her attackers to remove DNA evidence, while Channon was still alive. She was then bound with curtains and strips of bedding, her face covered with a bin liner and her body stashed within five large bin bags, before being placed inside a residential waste disposal unit and covered with sheets. The medical examiner said there was evidence that Channon slowly suffocated to death.
The black woman who was involved in the murder apparently facilitated (that is assisted) the actions of her three black friends. According to Wiki: the woman...Coleman was indicted on 12 counts of felony murder growing out of the rape, robbery, kidnapping, and theft of Christian and Newsom, 1 count of premeditated murder (of Christian only), 1 count of especially aggravated robbery (of Newsom only), 4 counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, 20 counts of aggravated rape, and 2 counts of theft.[7][8] She was convicted and sentenced to 53 years in prison on July 30, 2010. She described her time in Knoxville as "an adventure."
It's a very strange psychology, especially when one considers the failures of the ANC government, an entity that has been in power for the past 18 years. It means failures almost twenty years after the end of apartheid are still blamed on apartheid, and the troubles facing blacks are exclusively the fault of whites (who are all racists) and who continue to play black people like puppets. Is this the same country where 70% of white voters voted to hand over power in the referendum of 1990? 7 out of 10 people? Mngxitama explanation for blacks failure to perform (is it only in South Africa or Africa as a whole I wonder) is the result of white racism. He says, "basically our (black) leaders are managers of white supremacy, well paid through the tender and ministerial handbook." Well, that explains everything.
It's a fascinating psychology, because it makes white people 100% to blame for the failure of blacks to deliver services to themselves, to make good on election promises, to uplift, employ, educate etc. It also turns blacks into victims, which means they are not accountable for low productivity, or crime, or corruption.
I am sure City Press readers, the black ones, delight in this sort of single minded psychology. Because it means the reason for all their ills are very simple indeed. It's the fault of white people! And the remedy must be even simpler - just take from the thieving, dishonest white and give it to the black man - and justice is served.
Of course Mngxitama does suffer from somewhat single-track thinking. Because, even if he is correct, and black people are servants of white supremacists, and these same black leaders are getting rich at the expense of their own black brothers, and if that is true - who is the most despicable? The black person voted into power, and trusted to represent the interests of citizens, who sells out his countrymen to enrich himself, or the corporation whose business it is do business, to make money?Can a black person in power not choose to be honest, and ethical, or is he like a monkey, or a puppet that has no mind of his own, but simply takes the path of least resistance? Doesn't Nelson Mandela represent the sort of person that stands for something, that puts his country (and countrymen) first. Ironically, Mandela stood for equal human rights, not black rights.
Mngxitama has obviously not experienced what it is like to be a white person in South Africa. This must be because he is a black person. Interestingly, there are a lot of reports of black police offers who prey on innocent people, using intimidation, violence and other forms of corruption. I have experienced this firsthand. The newspapers report these incidents quite often. The fact that these incidents are both black on white and black on black muddy the water in terms of whether it's racism, or just extremely low standards of police officers (and who are, on average, black officers).
It is also worth taking note of a case to test whether the psychology that all blacks are victims of racism and that whites never are is accurate. I hope Mngxitama does not mind looking at an American case scenario.
He does not say whether his philosophy applies only in South Africa, or whether racist whites (and innocent black victims) are a global phenomenon. In any event, if you are a black person and you can't think of a single incident where white people were victims and black people benefited in some way (from racist victimisation), here's a well known case to refresh memories:Murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom.
The case involved three black men, and a black woman, who car jacked a white couple on date, as they came out of a restaurant. The three men sodomised the white man, before shooting him in the back of the head and setting his body on fire. In the case of his girlfriend, she was raped vaginally, anally and in her mouth. She was beaten on her head, and her body scrubbed with bleach to remove DNA. According to Wikepedia: bleach...was also poured down her throat, in an attempt by her attackers to remove DNA evidence, while Channon was still alive. She was then bound with curtains and strips of bedding, her face covered with a bin liner and her body stashed within five large bin bags, before being placed inside a residential waste disposal unit and covered with sheets. The medical examiner said there was evidence that Channon slowly suffocated to death.
The black woman who was involved in the murder apparently facilitated (that is assisted) the actions of her three black friends. According to Wiki: the woman...Coleman was indicted on 12 counts of felony murder growing out of the rape, robbery, kidnapping, and theft of Christian and Newsom, 1 count of premeditated murder (of Christian only), 1 count of especially aggravated robbery (of Newsom only), 4 counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, 20 counts of aggravated rape, and 2 counts of theft.[7][8] She was convicted and sentenced to 53 years in prison on July 30, 2010. She described her time in Knoxville as "an adventure."
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Cloud Atlas Extended Trailer #1 (2012)
Cloud Atlas - review
Tom Hanks sports a variety of noses and Hugh Grant gives us his best body-painted cannibal in this wildly over-reaching and not entirely unsuccessful adaptation of the David Mitchell novel
Suck on this ... Tom Hanks and minted Halle Berry in Cloud Atlas
- Cloud Atlas
- Production year: 2012
- Directors: Andy Wachowski, Tom Tykwer
- Cast: Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, Tom Hanks
They tackle the complexity of the novel by introducing two innovations – one surprisingly deft and one absolutely daft. Mitchell's book is a compilation of six separate-but-linked short stories, which run consecutively and range from the troubled Pacific voyage of a 19th century abolitionist to the day-to-day struggles of a small tribe living on post-apocalyptic Hawaii. In between we call in on a genius 1930s composer, an investigative journalist digging into a conspiracy in the oil industry in 1970s California, a pompous book publisher trapped in a modern day nursing home, and a dystopian future where workers are farmed to supply the labour needs of a fast food chain. The three directors have carefully re-arranged the chronology, splicing between the stories based on theme. It's a daring shuffle, but it works. By zipping back and forth across the timeline they're emphasising Mitchell's original message – that the human experience is essentially universal across the ages.
Read the rest.
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
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