Thursday, November 8, 2012

Is South Africa’s New Growth Path capable of creating jobs?



By Political Analysis South Africa.

South Africa has one of the most unequal distributions of wealth in the world. The poor and unemployed are frustrated with their standard of living. Prevalent poverty, unemployment and sub-standard housing have led to people saying “enough is enough,”  prompting the government to respond with a new macroeconomic policy, the New Growth Path.

President Jacob Zuma of South Africa
The significant gap between the rich and the poor is believed to be a result of apartheid era policies. The government, as a means to alleviate this problem, created the New Growth Path (NGP) in late 2010 with the aim of creating 5 million jobs by 2020. The question now arises whether this plan will see any results, and whether such an optimistic target can be accomplished.

Two factors need to be considered: the rate of economic growth, and the rate of employment. The NGP seeks to enhance the economy and create jobs by making it the government’s responsibility to investigate and come up with areas suitable for job creation, within which the government will concentrate on the following areas; mining, agriculture, and manufacturing.

The ANC and the South African Communist Party (SACP) are pleased with the initiative and believe that it will alleviate unemployment by 2020. Some are skeptical, however, suggesting that this framework will benefit the black elite and will disempower the working class to the point of exploitation.

The NGP, which like the now defunct Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) program, encourages tight fiscal control and the targeting of several key sectors to drive economic growth. While GEAR was effective in enforcing strict financial controls, triggering moderate levels of economic growth and checking the country’s budget deficit, the policy was in direct conflict with the some of the country’s more immediate problems; the reduction of poverty and a more equal division of wealth. The fear held by some critics is that the NGP may experience the same fate at the expense of those that need economic growth the most; the poor.

Other similarities between the NGP and GEAR are the provision for direct foreign investment, wage restraints, and increased productivity by cutting costs in businesses. The NGP outlines how the working class of the country has suffered, but critics of the program believe it to embrace methods that further exploitation. Some view the government’s target of five million jobs by 2020 to be unrealistic, especially considering the statistical data.

In order to achieve five million jobs by 2020, South Africa would have needed a growth rate of 9% in 2011, and a constant growth rate of 7.6% until the year 2020. According to the International Monetary Fund, South Africa’s GDP is projected to stay under 4% until 2016, highlighting the unrealistic optimism of the government’s target.

Politics of race: The Coloured voter’s dilemma in the Western Cape



The Western Cape is the only province in South Africa which does not have a majority black population, the ANC’s main support base. This has always been a weak point for the ANC. Even during the presidential term of the widely popular Nelson Mandela, the ANC has never won the Western Cape with an outright majority.

Support for either the Democratic Alliance (DA); previously known as the Democratic Party (DP), or the African National Congress (ANC) has always been unpredictable province until 2009 when the DA secured 51.46% of the vote; representing over 1 million of the almost 2.6 million registered voters. Since then, the ANC, which secured 31.55% of the vote, has tried in vain to entice Coloured voters to vote for them in order to win the province.

ID Leader and Cape Town city mayor, Patricia De Lille
When coloured voters were interviewed during the elections, they stated that they were unhappy with the way the ANC ruled the country. Some even went as far as to say that their quality of life was much better during the apartheid era. Although they did not agree with the Group Areas Act and were very unhappy about being forcibly removed from their homes, they were of the view that at least the apartheid government provided for them.

For them the apartheid era provided them with jobs and they were given houses and would rather have that than the perceivably high unemployment rate and homelessness experienced by a considerable amount of the coloured population In the Western Cape. They also noted that the country was a much safer and attribute the low crime levels experienced during apartheid to the death penalty; a penal code that no longer exists in post-apartheid South Africa.

Many in the coloured community feel that the ANC-led government has over the past 18 years treated them like outcasts, and they invoke classic “we were too black during apartheid and too white under black majority government”, perceived as betrayal of the Coloured person, who, like the black South African fought equally hard during to secured South Africa’s freedom.

Affirmative action is also the Coloured person’s biggest gripe with the ANC. Their chances of being employed are lessened because to their race. They feel that black candidates trump coloured candidates for jobs based purely on the colour of their skin.
The ANC’s popularity in the Western Cape continues to decline due to perceived service delivery failures in predominantly coloured populated areas. There is an increasing feeling among some Coloured people that their concerns their plight is heard and appreciated more by the DA than the ANC.

There is also another group of people feel that the DA-led government in the Western Cape, is also guilty of the same crime as the ANC, in that they, like the ANC only cares about the plight of the coloured people during elections and that in between elections, their struggle is largely ignored. This is evidenced by that fact that most young coloured voters are confused about which party to vote for and stated that both parties did little, if anything, for their communities and, therefore, chose not to vote for either party. If the situation was not confusing enough for the coloured voter, plans are currently underway to facilitate the union between DA and the Independent Democrats (ID) before the country’s next elections in 2014.

The ID is a predominantly coloured-supported party and, with the DA and the ID merging, the DA will most likely retain the province. Beyond this, the move by the ID to join the DA; a mostly white party, may complicate the coloured voter’s dilemma, in that with the ID gone, the coloured voter will yet again have no realistically big enough party that represents coloured interests.

Understanding the business of war



By Gordon Duff
On Monday October 22, Israel captured another boat bound for Gaza in international waters, an act of piracy, and an illegal blockade. Passengers, which include diplomats and parliamentarians were “tasered” and beaten. They are now enjoying Israeli “pirate” hospitality.

The Somali pirates treat their guests better. I have interviewed those held by both and can say this with some authority.

Israeli’s do a lot of spitting and kicking, at least when they have their charges hog-tied and outnumbered.

We have a number of questions for our Israeli friends, questions from 1967, questions about who attacked who, how many Egyptian prisoners were executed in Sinai, how many Americans were murdered on the USS Liberty, why Israeli teams were overheard planning the 1983 Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut, questions only those who ask the hard questions know of.

One IDF sniper team has spread stories around Israel that they killed 400 American troops inside Iraq.

They brag about it constantly. It gets back. We are not deaf.

One day we may have questions for the American officials that knew of this and chose to keep it from the American people.

American counter-intelligence officials intercepted their video transmissions, television of killings of Americans broadcast directly from American made sniper rifles modified with Israeli video and transmitter capabilities.

Israel actually posted it on YouTube, part of Israel’s “Google” operation.

We have their equipment they left behind, fingerprints identify German passport holders, employees rebuilding Iraq with American money and spilling American blood instead.

The Germans are very generous in giving out passports to terrorists.

I have the video and we will be releasing it as intended, Israeli origin, showing the cold-blooded murder of 400 Americans, carefully filmed and edited in Tel Aviv.

Wikileaks had the video for years but was told by Israel not to allow its release. Assange was cheerfully compliant.
Similarly, Israel has one of the lifeboats from the USS Liberty on display, filled with machinegun holes, a trophy of murder, but a reminder that the entire military of Israel given an entire day, bombers, fighters, torpedo boats and submarines could not sink one American ship.

The Captain, William McGonagle, Medal of Honor winner, testified at length that this was an act of war against the United States. He is dead but surviving crewmembers and his record survive.

Therefore, when a car bomb exploded in Beirut, another in Baghdad and another in Damascus, another in Pakistan and one more in Afghanistan, all so close together, Israel made their message clear.

There were more bombings, spreading across Africa, same signature, just like the Church bombing in Alexandria.

Perhaps it is more polite to bomb churches than to paint “Jesus is a monkey” on them as has been done to Christian churches across Israel. This is, at least, far better treatment than Mosques receive.

Nobody asks the hard questions. They get close but never on the right track. The real question is very simple. Why is there always war?

The answer is simple. War has always been a business, it is just that now, it is the “negotiation method of choice” for all other businesses. There would be no world economies, no oil, no minerals, no narcotics, no crime, no terrorism, no weapon, nothing but peaceful people living fulfilling lives.

Nobody wants that, it is considered a “poor business model.”

There have always been armies but two recent trends, the focus on unaccountable “special operations” units, often military arms of multinational political and economic groups above any law or organization and “privatized security,” mercenaries that make wars “invisible” to everyone but the victims.

Complicating the issue further, is destruction of the world’s moral center, where laws meant to defend rights of the individual are now bought and paid for, twisted into “policies” that justify military action based on perceived threats.

Even crazier, there is actually an industry that creates non-existent “perceived threats” on order. If you want a war, simply buy an “intelligence assessment,” results determined in advance, make sure it is subjected to no scrutiny, wind up the press and send out the troops.

The most prevalent methodology for destabilization is the car bomb. Car bombs are actually designed by national governments and have used primitive explosives, military grade demolitions and, when needed, 5th generation fusion devices that can flatten a square kilometer or cause a minor explosion but spread radiation sickness that won’t be detected for years.

Evidence of these weapons has been discovered in Russia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. Oh yes, we do not want to forget, two such weapons were used against the Japanese in 1945.
One of my favorite instances of nuclear car bombs occurred in the city of Rostov in Russia when a postal van with a half-ton capacity flattened three huge apartment blocks. The government reported that the “device” used contained the equivalent of 300 tons of TNT. (Source CNN)

This was one postal van, considering the type of explosive claimed, it would have taken 1,200 postal vans to do the job. It would have been difficult to part that many in an empty one square kilometer parking lot but no questions were asked even though Russian officials very purposefully made it clear they had been “nuked.”

In Oslo, Andrew Berwick, an acclaimed Zionist reactionary exploded a car bomb before killing 77 children with the help of friends in the Norwegian police.

His tiny Opel held a bomb requiring nine 55 gallon barrels to contain. Unreleased footage of the destruction shows a building some distance away with an entire side vaporized.
Similarly, in Fallujah, Iraq, Dr. Chris Busby, while investigating the use of Depleted Uranium, a dangerous cancer causing material widely used by the United States in most of its munitions processes, from bombs and shells to simple rifle bullets, discovered, not signs of DU but of Uranium 235.

America had used fission-based nuclear weapons in Iraq, hard scientific proof, samples of fissionable material has been gathered from the region.

It has also been gathered from the people, their bodies, their hair, and, of course, there is a wealth of evidence and witness testimony that leads to the reasonable conclusion that the United States has used dozens of “nuclear demolitions” and “micro-nukes” throughout the Middle East.

The use of these weapons, along with the cluster bombs and phosphorous weapons used against civilians in Gaza and other regions, certainly Libya, perhaps Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, how many others, we may never know, are officially war crimes and clear violations of the Geneva Convention.

Earlier we began talking about war for profit. A critical aspect of the war in Afghanistan was the prime mover, retaliation against Afghanistan for its supposed involvement in 9/11.

Over a decade later, no training facilities have been found, one poor “plotter” after years of being drugged, brainwashed and tortured is the only “smoking gun” evidence that Israel was not responsible for 9/11.

Give me six months and I could have David Cameron believing he is a parakeet.

No, there is another issue, special operations and privatization. All eliminate the accountability that legitimate armies have.

Since the beginning of time, it has been a battle to keep warfare between armies, maintain discipline and limit looting, rape and troops turning on each other like ravening dogs.

The Afghan armies and police forces, with well over a decade of training and a trillion US dollars spent, not only kill their American allies but also turn their weapons and ammunition over to those they were hired to fight.

America’s military has fared only slightly better, infiltrated by street gangs, military bases around the world are subject dens of murder and rape, life on an American military base can actually be more dangerous than any combat zone.

What has “raised the bar” on the permanent and endemic violence our new form of warfare has brought about has been the cult of secrecy.

The idea that special operations troops are not meant to be the most skilled or intelligent but the most morally flexible, the most easily coerced and, when they “learn too much,” the most easily murdered and cast aside is part of what is never mentioned in training.

We have seen this time and again, as with the coincidences that caused so many Navy SEAL deaths after the disaster at Abbottabad, a helicopter crash and the killing of an unarmed old man, another imaginary death for Osama bin Laden.

Then a day later, 22 Navy SEALS under circumstances considered tactically impossible were supposed to have died in a helicopter crash. History has already erased that, the cover stories were written in advance and the noticeable lack of curiosity and need to avenge these murders has not gone unnoticed.

We count every lie, every drone attack is carefully cataloged, the grief of thousands of families demands it.

We will also ask an accounting. I can only hope the indifference to murdering children that millions of Americans have shown over the past decade will subside and, despite the media barrage of monstrosity, there will be an awakening of freedom, of humanity and even one or two folks actually reading those holy books they own but seldom open.

PA popular resistance claim not genuine



By Ramzy Baroud
Apparently, ‘popular resistance’ has suddenly elevated to become a clash of visions or strategies between the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and its rivals in Gaza, underscoring an existing and deepening rift between various factions and leaderships.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas

Addressing a Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) meeting in Ramallah on July 2011, PA President Mahmoud Abbas sounded as if he had finally reached an earth-shattering conclusion, supposedly inspired by the ‘Arab Spring.’ “In this coming period, we want mass action, organized and coordinated in every place. This is a chance to raise our voices in front of the world and say that we want our rights.” He called on Palestinians to wage “popular resistance,” insisting that it must be “unarmed popular resistance so that nobody misunderstands us.” He made a similar call at the UN General Assembly in September.

It was Abbas’ way of escaping forward. He needed to quell the mounting anger and resentment of his lacking leadership. His message targeted and continues to be aimed at dual audiences: Palestinians, thus the word “resistance” and international, thus ‘non-violence’ and “so that nobody misunderstands us.”
Abbas has little credibility as far as unleashing any form of resistance against Israel. Since its establishment in 1994 as a transitional body that would guide Palestinians towards independence, the PA has turned into an end in itself: dedicated to self-preservation, it means even conspiring with the Israeli government to manage the very occupation that has tormented Palestinians for over 45 years. Indeed, ‘security coordination’ between both sides predicates on the common understanding of silencing any dissent that would imperil the PA standing or how it is perceived by Israel as a security threat.

There is little if any evidence that the PA is leading a sincere ‘mass action, organized and coordinated in every place’. The PA-staged rhetorical revolution however served its purpose, at least for now, as Abbas and his men survived the regional upheaval.

The term, ‘popular resistance’ is still generously infused as if its mere repetition is a key to solving every political dichotomy facing Palestinians. The context in which it is used or manipulated is registering unfavorably among Palestinian factions that have long championed armed struggle and vehemently opposed Oslo and its institutions. Particularly irked by Abbas' version is the Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

When Islamic Jihad Secretary General Ramadan Shallah addressed thousands of supporters in Gaza in celebration of the 31st anniversary of the movement’s founding, he addressed this very issue. He called for a new national strategy, underscoring the failure of the so-called peace process. “The Palestinian project of establishing a state on the 1967 borders through negotiations has obviously failed,” he said.

Of course, he also lashed out at ‘peaceful non-violent resistance, which provided very useful sound bites quoted generously by the media. Interestingly, however, Shallah’s views on non-violent popular resistance were combined with his views on negotiations, thus interpreting the strategy of popular resistance as part and parcel of the PA’s futile hunt for ‘Israeli concessions’. “Nineteen years of failed negotiations have created a crisis which cannot be resolved by insisting on more negotiations, or through non-violent resistance,” he said, according to the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency (October 04).

A third and less factional reading of the popular resistance strategy was offered by the ever-articulate Palestinian activist Dr. Mostafa Barghouti, who was clear on Al Jazeera (October 18) when he defended Palestinians’ rights to resist by all means available, but asserted that popular resistance can be a more effective strategy at achieving political rights.
Obviously, the problem doesn’t exist within the non-violent popular resistance strategy itself, but its political contextualization and misuse by certain parties. When placed within a truly genuine framework aimed at devising a conducive and beneficial strategy for obtaining Palestinian rights, popular-resistance takes on a different look and feel altogether. Moreover, as far as Palestinian history is concerned, the strategy is hardly an alien concept or a defeatist attempt at not being ‘misunderstood’ by western benefactors.

History is rife with evidence. In September 19, 1989, the West Bank town of Beit Sahour led a campaign of popular resistance and civil disobedience that became the stuff of legends. It was an effort that was part of the awe-inspiring and massive mobilization of the First Palestinian Uprising (1987-1993). Numerous attempts failed to break the collective will of Beit Sahour. The Israeli government moved its military in full force, launching ‘the biggest taxation raid in recent history’: occupation forces moved in en masse, and tax collectors worked their magic, confiscating all that they could seize. Many families were left with nothing. Most of the confiscated furniture and other personal belongings were sold at auctions inside Israel. The small town fell under a forty-five day military curfew that started on the night of September 21. Hundreds of Beit Sahour residents were taken to military camps and many remained in prison under various excuses. The Israeli military may have thought it won a decisive battle, but on that day, a star near Bethlehem shone in the night sky of Palestine. It connected past and present inspiring hope that people, despite the many years of military occupation, still had much power. It had even enough power for a small town to vex the leaders of Israel’s political and military establishments.

The story of popular resistance in Palestine is a century old. However, its origins are often dated to 1936, when Palestinians, Muslims and Christians, rebelled against the Zionist colonial drive and the British role in espousing it and laboring to ensure its success. In April 1936, all five Palestinian political parties joined in under the umbrella of the Arab Higher Committee (AHC). That unity was pressing and was a reflection of the general attitude among ordinary Palestinians. A general strike was declared, ushering the start of Palestine’s legendary civil disobedience campaign - as exemplified in its cry of ‘No Taxation without Representation’. The 1936 uprising sent a stern message to the British government that Palestinians were nationally unified and capable of acting as an assertive, self-assured society in ways that could indeed disturb the matrix of British mandatory rule over the country. The British administration in Palestine had thus far discounted the Palestinian demand for independence and paid little attention to their grave concerns about the rising menace of Zionism and its colonial project.

Of course, these are not distant histories. That collective action was hardly a passing phase, but was repeated throughout history, even after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, which institutionalized the Israeli occupation and ruthlessly punished those who dared resist.

The PA in Ramallah should quit utilizing and referencing the notion of ‘popular resistance’ while doing everything in its power to suppress it; and Abbas’ rivals must not associate popular resistance with Oslo and its bankrupt institutions, for history can easily delink that distorted connection. Popular resistance in Palestine continues to exist not because of the Palestinian leadership but despite of it.

Fidel Castro is dying



A message to the first graduating class from the Victoria de Girón Medical Sciences Institute was enough to prompt imperialist propaganda to go into overdrive and news agencies to voraciously launch themselves after the lie. Not only that but, in their cables, they attributed the most unheard of nonsense to the patient.



Fidel Castro
The ABC newspaper in Spain reported that a Venezuelan doctor from an unknown location revealed that Castro had suffered a massive embolism in the right cerebral artery; "I can state that we are not going to see him again in public." The alleged doctor who, if he is, would first abandon his own compatriots, described Castro’s health as "very close to a neural-vegetative state."

While many persons in the world are deceived by information agencies which publish this nonsense - almost all in the hands of the privileged and rich - people believe less and less in them. Nobody likes to be deceived; even the most incorrigible liar expects to be told the truth. 

In April of 1961, everyone believed the information published in the news agencies that the mercenary invaders of Girón or Bay of Pigs, whatever one wants to call it, were approaching Havana, when in fact some of them were fruitlessly trying by boat to reach the yanki warships escorting them.

The peoples are learning and resistance is growing, faced with the crisis of capitalism which is recurring with greater frequency; no lies, repression or new weapons will be able to prevent the collapse of a production system which is increasingly unequal and unjust.

A few days ago, very close to the 50th anniversary of the October Crisis, news agencies pointed to three guilty parties: Kennedy, having recently become the leader of the empire, Khrushchev and Castro. 

Cuba did not have anything to do with nuclear weapons, nor with the unnecessary slaughter of Hiroshima and Nagasaki perpetrated by the president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, thus establishing the tyranny of nuclear weapons. Cuba was defending its right to independence and social justice.

When we accepted Soviet aid in weapons, oil, foodstuffs and other resources, it was to defend ourselves from yanki plans to invade our homeland, subjected to a dirty and bloody war which that capitalist country imposed on us from the very first months, which left thousands of Cubans dead and maimed.

When Khrushchev proposed the installation here of medium range missiles similar to those the United States had in Turkey – far closer to the USSR than Cuba to the United States – as a solidarity necessity, Cuba did not hesitate to agree to such a risk. Our conduct was ethically irreproachable. We will never apologize to anyone for what we did. The fact is that half a century has gone by, and here we still are with our heads held high.

I like to write and I am writing; I like to study and I am studying. There are many tasks in the area of knowledge. For example, never before have the sciences advanced at such an astounding speed.

I stopped publishing "Reflections" because it is definitely not my role to take up pages in our press, dedicated to other tasks which the country requires.

Birds of ill omen! I don’t even remember what a headache is. As evidence of what liars they are, I present them with the photos which accompany this article.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 21, 2012
10:12 a.m.