And that’s spending Hundreds of Millions of Dollars and putting our troops in harms way in a war zone to try to boost Biden’s increasingly poor prospects in Michigan.
Now this is just getting stupid.
Periodic reminder the Gaza Pier is a stunt designed to buy votes in Michigan and to undermine Israel by boosting the false narrative of a Gaza famine. It's costing hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars and endangering the lives of US… https://t.co/GCuVsE7DNF
The only thing more pathetic than them doing this type of “performance art” for votes is the acknowledgement or at least the assumption that their voters are stupid enough to fall for it.
The Biden Admin and whoever is paying them off has been one of the most destructive to America and Americans that I’ve seen in my lifetime, and I lived through the Carter and Johnson years.
I didn’t give much attention to the African Peace Mission to Russia/Ukraine because it had no hope of success but there is one aspect I’d like to note. One of the delegates is President Ramaphosa of South Africa whose country you would call a basket case, if you wanted to insult basket cases that is.
Given the issues of violence, crime, electricity, infrastructure, and an inability of basic services in his country that he either can’t or won’t address it makes perfect sense for him to fly half way around the world to earn brownie points. It’s sort of like Gavin Newsome going after Florida. Much easier than solving problems at home.
Lately South Africa has been in a news a lot, for leading the charge against Israel and claiming it is committing Geocide in Gaza. They’ve gone to the international criminal court and continue to lead the international charge against the Jewish state.
But that still leaves the question why is South Africa, a state that isn’t Muslim or Arab making such a fuss about Gaza when they have no state in it at all.
Well two things come to mind quickly, the first and most important is Iranian money:
The same week that the ANC got its finances in a better state, South Africa brought the genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, according to South Africa’s Daily Maverick news outlet.
“The South African government is the same thing as Hamas. It’s an Iranian proxy, and its role in the war is to fight the ideological and ideas war to stigmatize Jews around the world,” Cronje during an interview on Chai FM Radio.
Iran has been cultivating SA for a while, apparently they’ve been putting those pallets of cash to use.
But the 2nd reason can be found it a story linked by Don Surber today about South Africa that isn’t getting a whole lot of play internationally:
Residents rich and poor have never seen a shortage of this severity. While hot weather has shrunk reservoirs, crumbling infrastructure after decades of neglect is also largely to blame. The public’s frustration is a danger sign for the ruling African National Congress, whose comfortable hold on power since the end of apartheid in the 1990s faces its most serious challenge in an election this year.
A country already famous for its hourslong electricity shortages is now adopting a term called “watershedding” — the practice of going without water, from the term loadshedding, or the practice of going without power.
In 1990 the year that Nelson Mandela was released South Africa’s unemployment rate was at 18.78% doubling the 1980 rate of 9.24%. By the first year of free elections (1994) it was up to 22.89%. There was a sudden drop in the rate in 1995 to 16.71% but by 1997 the rate was back over 20% (20.95%) and since h left office in 1999 through 2010 the rate has averaged 25.76% from a high of 30.41% in (2002) and a low of 22.23% (2007).
The current rate in the 3rd quarter of 2013 according to government stats is 24.7%
That piece was from ten years after I wrote that article the rate is over 32%
Last year linked a piece about the electricidal situation
Besides no airlines, no postal service and no trains, there is a dwindling electricity supply. They have rolling blackouts, euphemistically called “load shedding” which can last as much as 10 hours per day in Cape Town. Johannesburg is worse. People survive by always keeping their thermos flasks filled with hot water, using small gas camping stoves and using rechargeable lanterns for light and a healthy supply of batteries and candles at all times. Food rots in refrigerators so one needs to purchase small amounts of groceries just for a day. Few people can afford to have a generator, let alone the exorbitant cost of diesel fuel. Without electricity there is no viable economy. Retail stores, restaurants, businesses and factories cannot operate. The employees are idle and cannot do their job. As a result they are unable to earn a livelihood. The lack of electricity is a complex topic. In a nutshell, a history of huge financial losses, mismanagement, sabotage and corruption is evident.
Well at least there is equality…of misery:
There have always been people begging on the streets; mostly blacks. Now however, they are joined by ever-increasing white beggars. I did see an entire family including small blond haired children with crude cardboard signs saying “Please help – God bless you” .
According to some reports, over 50% of South Africans live in poverty on less than $2.00 a day. Some have no access to sanitation, water or electricity.
The bottom line is really simple. To solve the problems of Electricity, infrastructure, food and water in South Africa involve having the will to take on the problem of ANC which has been using South Africa as their personal plaything since Mandela left power and perhaps before.
It’s actually the same dynamic that you see today in US cities like New York, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, DC where you have Democrat/Marxist rule for decades. The actual problems of the cities involve ending the gravy train for the connected and that’s just not to be done, much easier to pass a resolution against Israel in Gaza. Keeps the activists happy and the money to the connected flowing.
That’s South Africa who cares if the people starve or die of thirst if the ANC can keep getting Iranian money for going after Israel. That’s what counts to those who rule exploit South Africa
Closing thought: These topics are generally considered VERBOTEN in the MSM because in their mind to speak the truth about South Africa post apartheid is to suggest white minority rule was better. I’ll leave Glenn Reynolds to answer that:
It’s not black rule. Botswana next door is well-run. It’s rule by leftists, which always makes everything suck. And they always use race as an excuse for their failures. You can see that in the deep-Blue parts of the United States.
Murray blasted South Africa, saying, “I always think that for voters in any country, first order of priorities: getting the water clean; getting the roads running; getting the infrastructure working; getting healthcare; getting education. I do think that quite often, in my observation — I’ve covered a lot of countries around the world — quite often in my observation, those first-order priorities, if the government fails at that, it does distraction kinds of things. … I don’t think it’s something of primary importance to the people of South Africa; I don’t think it’s first order priorities for the voters, and I’m suspicious when governments pull international tricks.”
One of the things disadvantages that people in the west have when it comes to understanding what’s going on in Gaza is their lack of knowledge of the structures that exist there. One of these structures are the clans:
Most of these large families are “native” Gazans; as in, they’re not considered 1948 refugees (30 percent of Gazans are labeled “native” – with the Strip being their ancestral origin). Gaza’s clans, such as Dogmosh, Helles, Shawwa, Sweerky, Attallah, Abdel-Aal, Mushtaha, Sager, Abu Amra, and many others, have different forms of power and influence and are prominent in various sectors of Gazan society. They have more money, land, and resources than average families in the coastal enclave, and have had essential roles in governance and political factions. They also tend to have large stockpiles of munitions and arms (not ones used in “resistance” acts against Israel but strictly for internal purposes) that they’ve used in their fights and disputes with others.
This comes from Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib who has a Palestinian American from Gaza has some knowledge of the clans and how they work.
When reports came out that Hamas had executed the head of an important clain in Gaza and that the clan in question has declared open season on members of Hamas over this attack. I suspected this might be big trouble for Hamas but apparently not only have Hamas and the various Clans have been at odds for some time but apparently it was bringing of the clans under control that gave Hamas their popularity:
I remember vividly widespread armed clashes that the Palestinian police were powerless to stop. It was Hamas that reigned in those clans and violently/robustly crushed their thuggery and clipped most of their wings, ensuring almost complete obedience and compliance with the Islamist group’s rule. Part of Hamas’s popularity in Gaza actually stemmed from the group’s ability to force and institute law and order upon clans due to its iron grip that established a monopoly on violence.
To a Sicilian like me it sounds a lot like a mafia turf wars and it was Hamas ruthlessly ending them that gave them and sustains their mandate among those in Gaza. They are playing Tito over and if they go the various clans will try to assert their authority in their own territories.
He seems to think that the clans are not a good alternative to a foreign Arab force taking over. I suspect he knows a lot more about the subject than I do but I don’t see how such a force doesn’t get co-opted by the various clans seeking control over turf and the literally billions that are going to come in to rebuild once the war is over. I suspect you will see the various commanders getting rich by suppressing some Clans and favoring others or if it’s left to the clans it becomes a vast Mafia like territory with each Clan looking for the maximum piece of the pie involving turf wars and the like, either alternative doesn’t sound good for the people of Gaza.
But then given that the alternative is a fanatical Islamic group like Hamas moving in under Iranian control to wage proxy war against Israel if I’m the Jewish state I’m more than happy enough to let the clans have the place and let the Gazans fight with each other over the coming international gravy train as long as they leave Israel alone thus freeing the Jewish state to give Iran’s other proxy Hezbollah their full undivided attention.
On Friday afternoon, just blocks from Chicago’s City Hall, two students–Robert Boston and Monterio Williams–were shot to death on a crowded street outside Innovation High School. It was like a scene from the old Untouchables television show.
Yesterday on X, Chicago Progressive Staffers, which describes itself as a “coalition of progressive staffers from the Mayors [sic] Office and [the] City Council, posted this troubling message. “WOW! Thousands of @ChiPubSchools students are organizing a walk out on Tuesday in support of @AldermanLaSpata & @RossanaFor33’s Ceasefire resolution that’s being voted on Wednesday Jan 31. The youth will always lead us.”
Yes, “The youth will always lead us.” That’s the messaging that was drilled into Mrs. Marathon Pundit when she was a Young Pioneer in the Soviet Union.
Like Washington DC, Chicago is built on onetime swamp land. Think of the Chicago Progressive Staffers as part of the city’s Deep State. As for the two alderpersons mentioned in that X post–Daniel LaSpata and Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez–the sponsors of the Gaza ceasefire resolution, both are members of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Leftists nationwide, nearly to a person, are calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war because Hamas, which attacked the Jewish state on October 7, is losing.
And Gaza ceasefire resolution–or no ceasefire resolution–however Chicago’s City Council votes won’t make a difference. Just as the countless resolutions approved by the City Council condemning communism in Eastern Europe had no effect on America winning the Cold War.
Tuesday of course is a school day in Chicago, so essentially, Chicago Progressive Staffers, this anonymous group of city hall leftists, is cheering on students cutting class.
On the flipside, it’s easy to say that Chicago Public Schools students who play hooky on Tuesday won’t miss much. Not even one-quarter of them are proficient in reading or math at grade level. And nearly half of CPS students missed 18 days of class during the 2021-22 school year.
So, what’s one more day away from school, right?
Chicago might be a better place if the Chicago City Council plays hooky–indefinitely. Last month, Edward Burke, who was a Chicago alderperson for a record 54 years, was convicted on corruption charges. In the last five decades, 38 members of the Chicago City Council have been found guilty of federal crimes, which averages to one aldercritter heading to the House of Many Doors every 16 months.
Perhaps Hamas might reply, “Thanks, but no thanks” if the Chicago City Council’s Gaza ceasefire resolution passes. Hamas deservedly already has a very bad reputation.
But as bad as the Chicago Public Schools system is, its students belong in school on Tuesday. And the Chicago City Council needs work on improving life in the city.
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