Have any of you watched a series of "Boardwalk Empire"? It's based on America during the 1920's and 30's when they banned alcohol, and the gangsters who initiated the whole ploy while preying on the religious, average American Joe.
The parallels of this series to me are so poignant living in South Africa, because the ruling elite can be equated to gangsters like Enoch "Nucky" Thompson and Al Capone, and the masses of Americans can be equated to the religious, the rich, the struggling classes and the corrupt police, judicial system and so on. It's like America then is Africa today.
They're brutal, and they're blatant. They fly in the face of adversity. They commit crimes in broad daylight, and somehow end up in parades as hero's of the people.
Bodies pile up, money goes missing, but still they're in power. Still they do as they please, live it up, and go against their promises. Yet still the retarded masses vote for these morons.
Obama promised to pull all the troops from the Middle East when he was campaigning, a year or so later he got the Nobel Peace prize a few months after he sent 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan.
Zuma has wasted billions of Rands on private ventures, has more criminal charges against him other than Mugabe, and yet the poor who have suffered the most under his rule continue to support him.
The DA has kept their nose clean because they've had to. They really haven't stole money, or spent lavishly on parties or squandered any of the big bucks. Anyone with a reasonable mind will agree with this.
However - poverty remains, and the DA has not solved the poverty issue. The DA hides from the poor, and in fact contributes to the very same problem that the ANC are guilty of - except they don't steal money or be corrupt - but they're not solving problems. There is a difference between solving problems and simply maintaining what was there.
I have been involved with charity work for about 17 years now, and I don't see any change for the better in the Western Cape. Almost R200 000 a year we've raised every year and spent on worthy causes hasn't made a scratch let alone a dent. It's almost exactly as it was when I was a kid - it's just been "maintained". No, all you snobs, I'm not talking about the gleaming eye-sore of a stadium and the walk of fanciness, or the new bus lanes, and never ending "improvements" of main arterial roads. I'm talking about Delft, Grassy Park, Du Noon, Elsies Rivier, Gugs, Khayelitsha, Crossroads, Lavender Hill, Cape Flats... to name a very few pits of hell that are within 45 minutes of the city centre. I won't even mention rural areas around dorpies.
Why are they still there? Why is there no improvement in those areas?
To make matters worse, they're expanding. A little known secret are white townships like Reichenbach that are also expanding. Even worse is that there are so many people becoming township material, that the DA is forcibly removing them and placing them into what is called "temporary locations". The problem with these places, for example one of them is called "Blikkiesdorp" (in Delft behind the airport) is that even charity organisation struggle to help them because of red tape.
Because Blikkies is registered as a government "temporary" location no structures are allowed to be built without government permission - that includes, let's say putting in shipping containers that are modified to be used as crèches or training centres etc. People from different areas are thrown in there - whites, coloured and blacks, from very different "poor" backgrounds so they clash. Gangsters take over, young girls resort to promiscuity, drugs and prostitution because they see their hard working elders getting nowhere earning an honest days living. Also, these temporary locations are positioned in the middle of nowhere, near already gang infested areas, away from walking distance of finding work. The government erected what I can only call Nazi tin cans in regimented rows, with painted numbers, and sub standard shack-building - in winter tin shacks leak and are like fridges, in summer the wind blows sand through and you can fry an egg in 5 seconds by flinging it at the tin wall.
Toilets are ripped apart by TIK cretins, waste removal by the government is idiotic - too little, either locked (so you can't put the refuse in) or too small for the amount of waste required. These "temporary locations" (government sanctioned concentration camps) are hidden from the public, except for when there's gang violence - that way the average Joe sitting at home can say "See, the peasants are becoming restless again" in a typically dismissive manner. If only they knew that the government forced them there, and that only a small portion of the 25 000 in places like Blikkiesdorp are corrupt, gangster types. There are just as many good people trying to dig their way out of that sand pit, but nobody writes an article about them.
Why are so many people still in the depths of despair, destitute and unable to crawl out of the hole they were born in? What has the DA done to help these people, where is Helen when they have charitable organisations at the ready to implement projects but politics thwart the plans to do so?
I don't know how "in touch" the average person in SA is with people who are, for a lack of words, "beneath them financially" and perhaps it's to my own detriment that I've come across the brick wall of poverty as a citizen by having personally met these people and tried to help them, that I am jaded by the lack of support from government at large (the DA being in my charitable "turf") and the immensity of it.
If there ever was a moment in politics, when someone could make a difference, and be a people for the people, not just some Mac Donalds takeaway then this would be the time for the DA to actually implement active, sustainable projects instead of trying to shove it all under the carpet.
No more voting for people who are busy f***ing up good people who want to just live a good life, be honest and get by without hurting anyone else, but can be f***ed by a system that assumes they're bad - yet the very people who are bad are the ones who make the rules in the first place, so they can f*** anyone who tries to be honest.
I am not pissing on the DA's parade, but please, if you think Helen is Mother Theresa you're just as stupid as those who think the ANC will rule until Jesus arrives.
No more believing in those who never deliver and enrich themselves. The simple fact is that regardless of who you vote for, your voice is not heard, and you are stupid to vote for anyone.
It is time to boycott government, and put our demands first. For too long we have put our past hurt, racial divide, class and financial status first. Sadly we're yet to have a party that ALL South Africans can vote for that we all trust. The DA is the only party that can stand against the corrupt ANC - but that's not good enough, and most black people won't ever let a white party run this country. We need a new political party, one that we all believe in, and one that actually delivers on it's promises.
If we keep allowing ourselves to be ruled, and keep thinking we're like kids in preschool instead of shareholders of this country, then we can keep expecting crooks and apathetic political parties to keep doing either bugger-all to fix the problems but just maintain what's there (DA) or do what ever they please and get away with fraud (ANC).
Until such time, I abstain from voting.
- news24
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