The Politics Thread

[Vee]

Wow:

 

 

[Khan]

 

In the past, Bill Murray has expressed regret for appearing in a film ("Stripes") where he is handling guns.  Ironically, though, it also happens to be my favorite movie of his.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

South Africa, like many countries including the U.S., is a land of contrasts. An economy that grows in leaps and bounds, with pockets of astonishing poverty.  There is a Black middle class that continues to expand, although the progress has slowed down in recent years, for various reasons.

 

South Africa's political problems (i.e. the ANC vis a vis Jacob Zuma) is what the right-wing media has no doubt affixed themselves to.  Zuma has been expelled as leader of the ANC but in being allowed to stay so long, he has done a lot of damage to the party of Mandela, mainly the reputation and trust the ANC had cultivated with the South African people over decades.

 

Needless to say, South Africa is in a (re)building phase.  Still, people must remember that it's South Africa, not Somalia with its struggle with militants...or Kenya, with its history of bursts of pre/post election ethnic violence. It's not even Nigeria, that has a simmering battle with Boko Haram.  It's not even Rwanda, that has an economy on a decided upswing yet has a president that dabbles in autocratic tendencies at times.  And all countries battle corruption, obviously some (e.g. Nigeria, Russia, etc) more than others.

 

South Africa has a youthful, increasingly highly educated population that has been building a lively arts/entertainment and technology scene for the past decade. 

It has more in common with its neighbor Botswana (which is proving to be more and more of an economic success story-which is why you never hear about it in the Western media) than it does with countries that are derisively referred to as 'failed states'.

 

For sure, South Africa has a lot of challenges that it must take on, like that of the governance/political issues that I mentioned but we should all resist the urge to compare the country to those that have had democracy for centuries (the U.S. is often still referred to as a "young country").  Remember that South Africa only emerged from apartheid in what, 1990-91? 

Of course, if you're living in poverty and squalor any wait is too long.  Just ask any post-Civil Rights POC who is stuck living in any ghetto in the U.S. 

One thing this political crisis with the ANC has brought about is that people now realize that the ANC is no longer the party that Mandela helped build and are now giving serious consideration to other political parties when they cast their votes, especially the youth, which I mentioned before, only grow in numbers.

 

Needless to say, right-wing media is the least likely to paint any balanced, nuanced or even accurate picture of what happens in any African country. Right-wing media can't even be trusted to report the facts of what happens with black people who live in the U.S., let alone a continent away.

 

 

Edited March 22, 2018 by DramatistDreamer

[Juliajms]

 

[MichaelGL]

And H.R. McMaster is outta here.....

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[JaneAusten]

This is the first time I have been seriously terrified since Jan 2017. John Bolton is the worst thing out of a series of awful and bad.

[Khan]

I just hope H.R. Pufnstuf wasn't on the toilet when they broke the news to him.

[Ponds]

God help us all!

[AdelaideCate007]

 

Absolutely not. The right wing media and conservative can not be trusted to have a truthful or nuanced view on South Africa so their views on the subject should be ignored. There's a reason it's gaining no traction in any reputable media. DramatistDreamer already beautifully covered the political and economic changes there and what they're going through in that area. The RW trying to compare South Africa to Rhodesia/Zimbabwe or anywhere else is a false equivalency and clearly racially motivated. 

 

I've said it here before, but I lived in South Africa on and off through a lot of my childhood. I'm a South African citizen, my mother and stepmother were both from there, and a lot of my family still lives there. My sister just moved back there. Right wingers have been pushing this myth of "white genocide" ever since apartheid fell. In almost 30 years, I've never known one person who was a victim of this. I know plenty of people who were victims of violence (which of course South Africa has a problem with) but never anything that was "white genocide". Yes, farm attacks are a big issue across South Africa (and a lot of other African countries as well) but they're not just going after white people. They're going after the farm and the land and it just happens that a lot of farms and land are owned by white Afrikaners. They attack farms own by black people on a regular basis as well. 

 

Also to add about why this how thing is mostly motivated by race and hate, my grandparents own a lodge in Kenya. The farms and land in their area get attacked on a fairly regular basis. This never seems to make it onto the right wingers radar since it doesn't fit their "white genocide" myth.

[Vee]

[Juliajms]

I've never heard of him until the last couple of days. I just saw Nick Kristoff on CNN saying our chances of war went up significantly. Lord help us.

[JaneAusten]

Bolton was all for the war in Iraq and with Cheney pushed it and still considers it a success, despite how we left Iraq and the rest of the middle east. He also is reputed to be one of the architects of the false intelligence info on the WMD lie. Don't believe for a second Trump does not want to be a war president. He just hired the top war monger of the United States next to Cheney.

[DRW50]

 

 

Trump wants to be anything he thinks will make him seem popular or unique. I wonder how all those who insisted he was less of a warmonger than Hillary feel now. I will admit I hoped that might be the case, but I still voted for Hillary, because I just didn't trust it. 

 

Reading about how he wasn't chosen last year because of his mustache, and that Trump is just hiring him because he's pals from cable news - I would like to believe that means he will have no strong influence, but the problem is that Trump is clearly itching to go to war with someone (I'd guess Iran is #1 on the list). 

 

I would say maybe the GOP will finally stand up to him, but we all know how that song ends. 

 

If they do, then they should at least block Pompeo's approval. I doubt they will.

[Vee]

The advantage today is that a lot of people are now longer clouded by the fog of 9/11 and know Bolton's name and history. People see through the neocon [!@#$%^&*] after living through it, and the media is calling Bolton what he is. Will that stop anything, I don't know.

 

I can't wait to hear the contortions the Greenwald/Bernie Left do to justify their past choices re: Clinton with John Bolton riding again.

[YRBB]

Have you guys seen this nutjob (among a sea of nutjobs)??