Climber, speaking of anecdotes and the funny ways of the world,
I have a friend who had participated in a West Point conference on Intelligence and Foreign Policy Development during the Reagan years. Being white, the conference organizers did not want him sitting at the S.African table -lol- so he landed up on the International Narco-trafficking board. He was a Full-bright and being the studious type that he is, he spent weeks in the Library gathering facts.
Before the conference he was a little perplexed as to who was zoomin whom, so when he got there he confronted the CIA about um, certain extra curricular activities. According to him they didn’t want to discuss it and at best weren't too impressed, but they never denied anything, they simply had other things on their mind like whether or not the US should be supporting the Zulu King Gatsha Buthelezi -lol- He told them that this would simply be a waste of time and money. Not that they listened to him mind you, but this was a path they never pursued that seriously.
There is little doubt in my mind that the economic pressures of maintaining the Apartheid State structure in the face of declining global economic support became too much to bear and, human rights aside, is what led largely to the dismantling of the system. Can you imagine for example the financial burden of fighting wars in Angola, Namibia and Mozambique while at the same in the Homeland there had to be 12 of everything, you know, one for whites, one for blacks, one for Indians, one for Coloureds etc etc. That is an exaggeration, but the fact that SA has the most advanced, but still relatively expensive Coal to Oil Plants in the world are testimony to the power of Economic weapons if properly applied. The interstates there are black with white lines, it always struck me as kind of ironic.
In many ways SA had it all - immense physical beauty and ugliness - outdatedly dependant on gold, the regime was left to learn the economically pc lesson - that these days, the most important mineral was black.
As to the suffering in Cuba, the Pope's opinion is that this is caused by material and moral poverty, the roots of which may be found, among other things, in unjust inequalities, in limitations to fundamental freedoms, in despersonalization and the discouragement of individuals, and in oppressive economic measures -- unjust and ethically unacceptable -- imposed from outside the country. Given the elegant timing of life, when the Pope made his speech the White-House sex scandal was just breaking and in the mist of this his comments did not seem to warrant the attention of the media. Unlike Chomsky, at least he has a vision, unworkable as it may be. blythe.org
wrt to Survivor, exactly -lol- My own experience of this kind of thing was an episode when I was in the bush, and the teenage son of the American Consul was chosen to come along for the ride. He brought his own supply of Coke with him, and one day after finishing his drink, casually tossed the empty can into a watering hole, much to the abject horror of our Leader, the honorable Mr. Jim Feely. Jim just looked at him, put a bullet in the breach of his elephant gun and said "well, xxx we're all just going to have to wait here until you fetch the can. There are two ways we can do this, we can wait for the watering hole to dry up or you can roll up your pants and grab it now. The water was an impenetrable murky green, and the area we were in is known to have a healthy crocodile population which I suppose was a stroke of luck really for this terrified guy who went on to become quite a celebrated young American playwright. I think it was a lesson he'll never forget.
it sounds like those hapless celebrities could use the help of some chaps like this (see link), not that they don’t screw up themselves on occasion. They shouldn’t be too hard to find, there’s quite a few of them around. I’m sure the media has a budget for this kind of thing and as the invisible ministry of culture is aware this would provide a wonderful opportunity to recontextualize the perceived character of these fellows, the proud members of a gang that was once known as the Recces. Pronounced reckies (reconnaissance commando) I think wreckees is more to the point.
Madmen on manoeuvres
A book about covert operations during apartheid proves that truth can be stranger than fiction, writes Andrew Donaldson. The photograph they show somehow seems rather apt. suntimes.co.za
As for Chomsky what I find amusing is that he seems every bit a part of the tautology which appears to be his implicit complaint - that Americans think they are good / right, or can do / say whatever they want, by virtue of being American. I’ve never read any of his books and so I don’t see what all the fuss is about. From what I’ve read here though, politically at least, he does seem to be rather fond of Chairman Mao's axiom that "if you can't catch the fish, you can at least drain the sea in which they swim". Perhaps Winston Churchill's opinion, a-pro-pirate if ever there was one, is more appropriate that "In wartime, the Truth is so precious that it should always be surrounded by a bodyguard of Lies."
In any event as to the moral high ground in all of this, Sun Tzu advised that “Land” that would be advantageous to you if you got it and to the opponents if they got it, is called the ‘ground of contention’. As he would say, this is the ground from which the few could overcome the many and the weak could strike the powerful.
btw, that picture in your pro file is awesome, where is that and is one of those mashoogenaz you? |
