I heard a bizarre piece of news this weekend. Apparently a man called Rahman [?] somebody or other has been tried and sentenced to death in Afghanistan. For those who have forgotten, the place was recently 'liberated' from some maniac cutthroat crew known as 'The Taliban' and has supposedly become a newly alleged 'liberal democratic' State.
Rahman's evil deed apparently was to convert from Islam to Christianity.
The Afgonigainians have certainly got a completely different interpretation of 'Liberal Democracy' to that adopted by our own fairly recently liberated turf here in the sunny south, notwithstanding the claims of Lonely Clingon-putative opposition leader-that our beloved government are hardly Liberal Democrats.
We know that in our own newly liberated State all forms of unbelievable criminality are rewarded with gentle treatment, kindness and a gentle pat on the head as if to an aberrant child and no murder goes well punished in the old eye for an eye sense; so it seems curious that this newly democratic State [Afgonigain] should reward its Christian Crusader liberator George [Dubya] Bush by executing those who convert to his particular brand of delusion.
In the old days it was more likely that anyone who didn't convert would be thrown to the lions-The religious freaks who now apparently run Kabul are demanding that Rahman [whatever] be thrown to the 'people' to be 'torn limb from limb'.
Isn't it curious that no matter how thoroughly modern we believe ourselves to be it takes only the tiniest scratch to reveal that barbarian past from which we have come. It was almost ironic that a line from the new futuristic 'life in neo fascist Britain' 'hot' movie on circuit at the moment: 'V for Vengeance', should state that anyone found with a copy of the Koran would be executed.
If our Blogspot hadn't been modified recently so's to prevent any of us naughty bloggers from inserting ye old prophet-eering cartoons onto the Blogspot and arousing the ire of despotic totalitarian mullahs, those artists amongst us could have had a field day with this story. It quite caps, for instance, that equally barbaric notion from Nigeria a couple of years ago that an adulterous [Islamic] woman should be stoned to death. [Perhaps this latter notion was less barbaric than the South African notion idea that a woman who was allegedly raped by a former deputy president should be raped again and again in the witness box as punishment for daring to object].
What do you think this proto-Taliban government in Afghanistan would have done to those who butchered a four year old girl in Lenasia a couple of week as ago? Oh gosh silly question everyone knows Muslims despise females as much as they despise apostates or anyone else who converts from their brand of intoxicating lunacy to someone else's -next thing you know it will be a capital offence in Afgonagain to drive an unauthorised Chinese motor vehicle, because the Chinese don't allow any religious behaviour at all, especially these various cargo cults.
Rumour has it though that Uncle Dubya isn't too upset at the behaviour of his new democratic acolytes-Rahman became a Catholic.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Saturday, March 11, 2006
"Murder most foul"
The role of murder as an [inadvertent]/unintended outcome of State policy.
One is no sooner admiring the orchestrative skill with which we slide from a disturbing razz ma tazz election result into the great Zuma alleged rape headline season than one is brutally reminded, in the week that the movie Tsotsi made its play on the theme of redemption, that we are plunged back into the increasingly murky maelstrom of 'realpolitik'.
Frankly the public excoriation of the young woman accuser in the Zuma alleged rape trial must rank as the most distasteful event of the year so far and reveals all too starkly the inherently feudal nature of our new Afrocentric society. I am increasingly of the opinion that this concept of Ubuntu, or humanness, as my textbook would have it, is merely a carefully camouflaged variation on feudal servitude. Free people do not need to be polite to each other unless they choose to be.
However it is the seemingly random execution of a four year old child that truly shifts the spotlight to a process that has been all to familiar over the past few decades and which seems to have been permitted to slide offstage, as it were.
The strategic murder of people opposing the direction of the State was an all too familiar theme of the old regime. High profile murders of such as those of Steve Biko, Rick Turner, David Webster and a string of others referred to simply as the such and such four or six or whatever, made headlines when they occurred and have rightly been the subject of subsequent post transformation investigation; and were, we now know, part of a wider pattern of murders: that were supposed to have ended with the new order of things.
Nonetheless there have been a rising number of murders over the past few years that also raise questions about the nature of the society that we are in process of becoming.
First off there is the sheer weight of slaughter over the past twelve years. More than a quarter of a million people have died violently since 1994. The alleged civil war in Iraq following the Bush invasion has yet to claim this level of massacre. They sheer fact of the overall difficulties the State has experienced in dealing with violent crime could be interpreted as simply policy-like the silence on Rumbabwe's slide to a completely previously unexplored form of economic development.In amongst the general chaos it is most statistically probable that high profile people will get taken out in the process.
However there are those covert politically aligned deaths that are seemingly random and yet are not-perhaps-that truly tease the consciousness of those who concern themselves with such things...Before you shout 'conspiracy theorist' I am not suggesting conspiracy of the obvious kind but rather the random process typical of something like Chaos theory that amplifies trends and transforms them into movements, and in retrospect converts them into conspiracies whereas they simply manifest certain basic laws, of thermodynamics, as one example for instance.
We have become used to the idea that the province of KwazNat is a place of political assassination over the past two decades and the numbers are possibly in triple figures now. These murders range from the seemingly random shootings of politically associated figures by roadside gunmen, to the wholesale slaughter of entire families in rural hotspots and the direct slaughter of urban figures in their own doorways. There was even an assassination of some floor-crossing politician by an enraged citizen, which most of us applauded notwithstanding the odiousness of the act.
It is rather like the endemic taxi violence as random operatives seek personal advantage through acts of 'enlightened self-interest' by bumping off potential rivals before they themselves are bumped off.
The spotlight moved to the Free State more recently when a prominent political figure was gunned down in his driveway. There was an attempt to pin it on his widow but that seems to have fizzled out, as does the investigation**. Another investigation that seems to have run into a dead end was that of the overweight heavily politically connected Johannesburg Mining figure allegedly shot in a random 'botched' hijacking. [**We pay more attention to things local in our city and that murder was 'out of town' and therefore only of limited appeal so I may have missed the conclusion should there have been one.]
The most recent and certainly one of the more sinister developments is this week's apparently random and motiveless execution of the four-year-old granddaughter of the Judge President of the quaintly named 'Transvaal'.
Now this may of course transpire to be no more than an unfortunate coincidence as a gang of unredemptive 'Tsotsis' make their violent way through their seemingly normal day: jackrolling, raping, looting and pillaging in the new way for which we are globally notorious. Nonetheless it is hard to avoid the thought that a powerful figure has been brutally reminded of his vulnerability.
In another incident this week a politically connected woman was apparently also found murdered. She was found dying from gunshot wounds in her car, and according to the radio report I overheard appeared to have been yet another botched hijacking. Last weekend three members of the ruling party were shot dead in a political assassination in the old Kwaznat.
One is reminded when such events occur, of Lenin's post transformation strategy in the now defunct soviet union when he opened the prisons and cut the murderers loose to wreak random and therefore terrifying, paralysing horror on the citizenry. Stalin's later variation on this was the 'liquidation' of opponents or potential contenders for power: the difference being that we are a democracy and all things are equal, and there is a free market in liquidators.
The sheer fact that it proved impossible to find a judge from the new ruling class to supervise the Zuma alleged rape trial with each proposed candidate carefully recusing himself indicates a disturbing level of 'de facto intimidation'. That the case must now be heard by a member of the former oppressor class who may at best be regarded as one who would discriminate indiscriminately in a court case, plus the violent behaviour of the supporters all point to a re-enflaming of long suppressed political schisms. What is also certain is that within the next decade these leftover jurists from a less than salubrious past will have retired and moved on and have been replaced with persons of a more compliant disposition. These new jurists may well have been pre-conditioned to present verdicts that are politically approved.
When this trend is coupled to proposed legislation aimed at restricting the independence of the judiciary then it is small wonder that the rand is beginning to head off to a less than desirable place, as outsiders begin to clear the decks in preparation for what many are beginning to regard as the 'Zanufication'* of the body politic. [ZANU is the ruling cadre in Rumbabwe: an emerging failed State in Africa. They have functioned for decades as a corporate entity that has assiduously looted the assets of the country they have plagued for decades. Most of their plans were conceived as being in the 'people's interest' and all have now failed miserably [depending on one's point of view] Now they are so desperate for more loot that they have decided to slaughter the golden goose in the interests of short term gain. From their perspective this is an extremely sensible policy; because they will soon offload the colonialist associated oppressors from their midst and will aquire new partners who will be content with a 49% share of the remaining bird. Broadly they have now run out of options and this gives all the rest of the stooges the chance to make one last big hit before dinner's over.]
Back home the ruling party bosses are smugly, and with good cause, counting their wonderful score [from about half of the population]. General incompetence and failure to perform have been reinforced with approval-There is no general incompetence and failure to perform-these are media led fantasies-. the people are happy and content and they are pretty used to waiting.
Nonetheless there is an old Zen koan that states that the moment of one's greatest triumph is simultaneously the moment of ones greatest failure. It is possible that we have now reached that Zen moment.
Having fooled most of the people most of the time the ruling party now have to start fooling everyone all over again and the cracks are opening up in the superstructure. As they destroy their opposition their internal cracks become more apparent-making it ever more difficult to satisfy a widening glut of trough swillers. Will electricy be their Achilles heel? We want no Achilles heels they called back...down with heels.
Cheers.
Absurd prediction of the moment: Come September everyone who isn't already in the ruling party crosses the floor leaving behind them a litany of failed opposition leadership. [Assuming such a metaphor is possible].
Final absurd prediction: Mr Zuma's strategy of plumbing the depths of his accusers sex life may eventually work to his disadvantage. To the extent that it has revealed a pattern of previous rapes, it will allow the judge to compare her emotional responses to those earlier traumas, under cross-examination, with her testimony in regard to her accusation. A high level of congruence between the various states of response would indicate that she is telling the truth.
Cheers
El Bloggo.
One is no sooner admiring the orchestrative skill with which we slide from a disturbing razz ma tazz election result into the great Zuma alleged rape headline season than one is brutally reminded, in the week that the movie Tsotsi made its play on the theme of redemption, that we are plunged back into the increasingly murky maelstrom of 'realpolitik'.
Frankly the public excoriation of the young woman accuser in the Zuma alleged rape trial must rank as the most distasteful event of the year so far and reveals all too starkly the inherently feudal nature of our new Afrocentric society. I am increasingly of the opinion that this concept of Ubuntu, or humanness, as my textbook would have it, is merely a carefully camouflaged variation on feudal servitude. Free people do not need to be polite to each other unless they choose to be.
However it is the seemingly random execution of a four year old child that truly shifts the spotlight to a process that has been all to familiar over the past few decades and which seems to have been permitted to slide offstage, as it were.
The strategic murder of people opposing the direction of the State was an all too familiar theme of the old regime. High profile murders of such as those of Steve Biko, Rick Turner, David Webster and a string of others referred to simply as the such and such four or six or whatever, made headlines when they occurred and have rightly been the subject of subsequent post transformation investigation; and were, we now know, part of a wider pattern of murders: that were supposed to have ended with the new order of things.
Nonetheless there have been a rising number of murders over the past few years that also raise questions about the nature of the society that we are in process of becoming.
First off there is the sheer weight of slaughter over the past twelve years. More than a quarter of a million people have died violently since 1994. The alleged civil war in Iraq following the Bush invasion has yet to claim this level of massacre. They sheer fact of the overall difficulties the State has experienced in dealing with violent crime could be interpreted as simply policy-like the silence on Rumbabwe's slide to a completely previously unexplored form of economic development.In amongst the general chaos it is most statistically probable that high profile people will get taken out in the process.
However there are those covert politically aligned deaths that are seemingly random and yet are not-perhaps-that truly tease the consciousness of those who concern themselves with such things...Before you shout 'conspiracy theorist' I am not suggesting conspiracy of the obvious kind but rather the random process typical of something like Chaos theory that amplifies trends and transforms them into movements, and in retrospect converts them into conspiracies whereas they simply manifest certain basic laws, of thermodynamics, as one example for instance.
We have become used to the idea that the province of KwazNat is a place of political assassination over the past two decades and the numbers are possibly in triple figures now. These murders range from the seemingly random shootings of politically associated figures by roadside gunmen, to the wholesale slaughter of entire families in rural hotspots and the direct slaughter of urban figures in their own doorways. There was even an assassination of some floor-crossing politician by an enraged citizen, which most of us applauded notwithstanding the odiousness of the act.
It is rather like the endemic taxi violence as random operatives seek personal advantage through acts of 'enlightened self-interest' by bumping off potential rivals before they themselves are bumped off.
The spotlight moved to the Free State more recently when a prominent political figure was gunned down in his driveway. There was an attempt to pin it on his widow but that seems to have fizzled out, as does the investigation**. Another investigation that seems to have run into a dead end was that of the overweight heavily politically connected Johannesburg Mining figure allegedly shot in a random 'botched' hijacking. [**We pay more attention to things local in our city and that murder was 'out of town' and therefore only of limited appeal so I may have missed the conclusion should there have been one.]
The most recent and certainly one of the more sinister developments is this week's apparently random and motiveless execution of the four-year-old granddaughter of the Judge President of the quaintly named 'Transvaal'.
Now this may of course transpire to be no more than an unfortunate coincidence as a gang of unredemptive 'Tsotsis' make their violent way through their seemingly normal day: jackrolling, raping, looting and pillaging in the new way for which we are globally notorious. Nonetheless it is hard to avoid the thought that a powerful figure has been brutally reminded of his vulnerability.
In another incident this week a politically connected woman was apparently also found murdered. She was found dying from gunshot wounds in her car, and according to the radio report I overheard appeared to have been yet another botched hijacking. Last weekend three members of the ruling party were shot dead in a political assassination in the old Kwaznat.
One is reminded when such events occur, of Lenin's post transformation strategy in the now defunct soviet union when he opened the prisons and cut the murderers loose to wreak random and therefore terrifying, paralysing horror on the citizenry. Stalin's later variation on this was the 'liquidation' of opponents or potential contenders for power: the difference being that we are a democracy and all things are equal, and there is a free market in liquidators.
The sheer fact that it proved impossible to find a judge from the new ruling class to supervise the Zuma alleged rape trial with each proposed candidate carefully recusing himself indicates a disturbing level of 'de facto intimidation'. That the case must now be heard by a member of the former oppressor class who may at best be regarded as one who would discriminate indiscriminately in a court case, plus the violent behaviour of the supporters all point to a re-enflaming of long suppressed political schisms. What is also certain is that within the next decade these leftover jurists from a less than salubrious past will have retired and moved on and have been replaced with persons of a more compliant disposition. These new jurists may well have been pre-conditioned to present verdicts that are politically approved.
When this trend is coupled to proposed legislation aimed at restricting the independence of the judiciary then it is small wonder that the rand is beginning to head off to a less than desirable place, as outsiders begin to clear the decks in preparation for what many are beginning to regard as the 'Zanufication'* of the body politic. [ZANU is the ruling cadre in Rumbabwe: an emerging failed State in Africa. They have functioned for decades as a corporate entity that has assiduously looted the assets of the country they have plagued for decades. Most of their plans were conceived as being in the 'people's interest' and all have now failed miserably [depending on one's point of view] Now they are so desperate for more loot that they have decided to slaughter the golden goose in the interests of short term gain. From their perspective this is an extremely sensible policy; because they will soon offload the colonialist associated oppressors from their midst and will aquire new partners who will be content with a 49% share of the remaining bird. Broadly they have now run out of options and this gives all the rest of the stooges the chance to make one last big hit before dinner's over.]
Back home the ruling party bosses are smugly, and with good cause, counting their wonderful score [from about half of the population]. General incompetence and failure to perform have been reinforced with approval-There is no general incompetence and failure to perform-these are media led fantasies-. the people are happy and content and they are pretty used to waiting.
Nonetheless there is an old Zen koan that states that the moment of one's greatest triumph is simultaneously the moment of ones greatest failure. It is possible that we have now reached that Zen moment.
Having fooled most of the people most of the time the ruling party now have to start fooling everyone all over again and the cracks are opening up in the superstructure. As they destroy their opposition their internal cracks become more apparent-making it ever more difficult to satisfy a widening glut of trough swillers. Will electricy be their Achilles heel? We want no Achilles heels they called back...down with heels.
Cheers.
Absurd prediction of the moment: Come September everyone who isn't already in the ruling party crosses the floor leaving behind them a litany of failed opposition leadership. [Assuming such a metaphor is possible].
Final absurd prediction: Mr Zuma's strategy of plumbing the depths of his accusers sex life may eventually work to his disadvantage. To the extent that it has revealed a pattern of previous rapes, it will allow the judge to compare her emotional responses to those earlier traumas, under cross-examination, with her testimony in regard to her accusation. A high level of congruence between the various states of response would indicate that she is telling the truth.
Cheers
El Bloggo.
Wednesday, March 8, 2006
Staying liquid
We live in a world without values. The guiding principle of relativity requires that only that which is expedient has value. All else is expendable.
One of the more intriguing trends I have read about over the past period of time concerns the drift away from ownership of anything illiquid on the part of the Mega Corporation. According to reports surfacing on a more regular basis now, large corporations are increasingly divesting themselves of 'hard assets' and staying liquid. Staying liquid with a range of currencies is a full time exercise one imagines, given the sideways volatility of the contemporary investment world.
So it's away with property. Owning property is becoming inconvenient, the cost benefit ratios have apparently begun to pall and so don't own property. That includes land. The people who are buying land may well be increasingly those who intend to use it themselves somehow as opposed to investors looking for options.
The election result was a reality check, which few of us are yet prepared to acknowledge. A government with huge levels of discontent, serious accusations of rising corruption barely checked with a recent barrage of promises is elected unanimously by even those who are most enraged. Wow.
By any standards this is abnormal. And people who move other people's money around appear to have become nervous. The rand is off a tad, and damm, the gold price has sagged as well, but then gold has a limited future doesn't it?
That suggests some selling at the margins, which shifted. Nothing seismic, although the leapfrog trick being pulled this week by The Rozwi clique in upper Rumbabwe, grabbing fifty one percent of the country's mines without paying a cent-Gimme they say- will once again have raised the issue of owning assets that cannot be moved around electronically.
Now obviously one of the basic things you learn in business school these days is that a trend once established is unstoppable until something dramatic happens or it burns itself out. Those are 101 axioms. The most likely probability at the moment is that the hedge fund players offshore who jol with our currency: popping in and out;are putting their money here because they need to cover various short, medium and long positions. Now there are a number of factors starting to pile up and they may not look bad to us because we're inside the web, but to some out there they will move their options to somewhere less dramatic. A place where people are burning tyres in the streets in protest one minute and then going off to vote unanimously for the same government is a cause for confusion. It's unnatural and to people unfamiliar with our curious politics it carries overtones that are suspect.
The finer nuances are not these people's territory anything that pushes the risk is avoidable.
Fortunately however we live in a value free world where the promise of reasonable returns will always entice someone to invest and so the trend having been established must flow on. It is, as the easterners call it: destiny. We shall simply keep changing our investors. Someone somewhere will buy the 49 % that the Rozwi in Rumbabwe will leave to the present owners. Most owners will sell their 49% to some or other nefarious offshore consortium, which would be sensible. When one rights violator does deals with other violators who bleeds? Plus owning 51 % of nothing has a seriously affirming ring to it.
Aagh but they have platinum they say [and so do we] they say and everyone needs platinum don't they that's why the price keeps going up. Rumour has it that this platinum could be replaced with synthetics should the market become hostile. This threat was levelled some years ago when the major players in the platinum business were holding back stock from the market to force the price up.
The world of Quantum physics is advancing by the minute and it is long since now that people have been doing amazing stuff with moving particles smaller than atoms. The manufacture of everything we currently believe to be an essential commodity is limited only by the price. There will be a price of these metals like platinum and oil and gold that will breed forth substitutes and eliminate the market altogether.
A world without values is truly that. All things are possible and all things are expendable.
One of the more intriguing trends I have read about over the past period of time concerns the drift away from ownership of anything illiquid on the part of the Mega Corporation. According to reports surfacing on a more regular basis now, large corporations are increasingly divesting themselves of 'hard assets' and staying liquid. Staying liquid with a range of currencies is a full time exercise one imagines, given the sideways volatility of the contemporary investment world.
So it's away with property. Owning property is becoming inconvenient, the cost benefit ratios have apparently begun to pall and so don't own property. That includes land. The people who are buying land may well be increasingly those who intend to use it themselves somehow as opposed to investors looking for options.
The election result was a reality check, which few of us are yet prepared to acknowledge. A government with huge levels of discontent, serious accusations of rising corruption barely checked with a recent barrage of promises is elected unanimously by even those who are most enraged. Wow.
By any standards this is abnormal. And people who move other people's money around appear to have become nervous. The rand is off a tad, and damm, the gold price has sagged as well, but then gold has a limited future doesn't it?
That suggests some selling at the margins, which shifted. Nothing seismic, although the leapfrog trick being pulled this week by The Rozwi clique in upper Rumbabwe, grabbing fifty one percent of the country's mines without paying a cent-Gimme they say- will once again have raised the issue of owning assets that cannot be moved around electronically.
Now obviously one of the basic things you learn in business school these days is that a trend once established is unstoppable until something dramatic happens or it burns itself out. Those are 101 axioms. The most likely probability at the moment is that the hedge fund players offshore who jol with our currency: popping in and out;are putting their money here because they need to cover various short, medium and long positions. Now there are a number of factors starting to pile up and they may not look bad to us because we're inside the web, but to some out there they will move their options to somewhere less dramatic. A place where people are burning tyres in the streets in protest one minute and then going off to vote unanimously for the same government is a cause for confusion. It's unnatural and to people unfamiliar with our curious politics it carries overtones that are suspect.
The finer nuances are not these people's territory anything that pushes the risk is avoidable.
Fortunately however we live in a value free world where the promise of reasonable returns will always entice someone to invest and so the trend having been established must flow on. It is, as the easterners call it: destiny. We shall simply keep changing our investors. Someone somewhere will buy the 49 % that the Rozwi in Rumbabwe will leave to the present owners. Most owners will sell their 49% to some or other nefarious offshore consortium, which would be sensible. When one rights violator does deals with other violators who bleeds? Plus owning 51 % of nothing has a seriously affirming ring to it.
Aagh but they have platinum they say [and so do we] they say and everyone needs platinum don't they that's why the price keeps going up. Rumour has it that this platinum could be replaced with synthetics should the market become hostile. This threat was levelled some years ago when the major players in the platinum business were holding back stock from the market to force the price up.
The world of Quantum physics is advancing by the minute and it is long since now that people have been doing amazing stuff with moving particles smaller than atoms. The manufacture of everything we currently believe to be an essential commodity is limited only by the price. There will be a price of these metals like platinum and oil and gold that will breed forth substitutes and eliminate the market altogether.
A world without values is truly that. All things are possible and all things are expendable.
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