Gerald Potash,
Hello again,
Ebrahim Rasool, our disgraced Ambassador returned from America on Sunday to a hero’s welcome. He told the adoring crowd gathered at the airport that he stood by what he had said at that controversial meeting. He then repeated his vile anti-Semitic hatred to them. His audience, many bedecked in kaffiyehs cheered and clapped every sentence. There was even a red carpet. Our two local daily newspapers, run by Iqbal Survé, Cape Times and Argus ran front-page stories on Rasool’s return painting him as a hero and quoting him saying he has absolutely no regrets about his expulsion from the USA at all.
All this after ‘Sleepy’ Cyril asked all to tone things down with regards to this homecoming. It did not help one little bit.
The Times (of London) on Monday reported that the US is considering sanctioning certain SA politicians for first time since apartheid, probably because of Rasool’s anti-America rant.
Leo Brent Bozel 111, a conservative media commentator and the founder of Research Media Centre has been chosen as America’s ambassador to SA. Many of us thought the job would go to Joel Pollak.
Helen Zille believes that Tony Leon, former ambassador to Argentina and former leader of the DA is the obvious choice for the post to Washington to replace Rasool. But other names are also being bandied about and I’m sure Cyril will allow the heat to die before making his selection. Cyril has said the decision is his and his alone to make and he will not be rushed.
This was Brandan’s take on the matter from Monday’s Business Day:
William Saunderson-Meyers’ article in Politicsweb this week was forwarded to me last week by Charlotte and I have already shared it widely. It is a deeply disturbing story of what is going on at UCT and indeed in our country. If you have not yet read it, and would like to, you can click on this link:
Our airforce has only five military operational airplanes (2 Grippens & 3 Hawks) that can fly; 325 are not in a viable condition. That means that 98% of SAAF aircraft are grounded. The SAAF announcement was that 75% of their ‘planes are not operational. Sadly it means that our airforce is only marginally better off than our navy which I believe has only one ship operational.
The ANC tells us the government has no money to restore these vital entities for our defensive capabilities …… but they had very many millions of Rands to take Israel to the ICJ.
This week the Daily Friend had this sad but pertinent cartoon, which is the very real situation that we find ourselves in after 31 years of ANC miss-rule: Weren’t we all excited when we finally Nelson Mandela took over in 1994? These governing cadres owe that man, and all of us, a big apology.
On Friday we celebrated Human Rights Day with a public holiday to remember those activists who were shot dead at Sharpeville. Julius Malema and his EFF cronies used that holiday as an opportunity to sing and dance to “Kill the boer, kill the farmer” in celebrating the day in Soweto. Of course, that made all the TV news channels . It is race-hatred and Marco Rubio has picked it up. He has slammed the government for condoning these actions and has threatened a reaction. ……..Strap yourself in.
Pule Mabe was until quite recently the face of the ANC and an ANC big-shot.. He was their spokesman and we saw and heard from him almost daily. Well, this week we watched him in court. He has been charged fraud, money laundering and corruption with six of his pals. Their trial, on tender irregularities has been postponed until June because some of the co-accused have changed their legal representation.
ActionSA, the party with 6 seats in parliament had a cordial meeting with the ANC on Friday to discuss the passing of the budget. They have now let it be known that they will not support the majority party in their aim of passing the controversial legislation. That will make it even more difficult for the majority party to force its will down our throats.
An important indicator of shifting political tides often comes from by-elections. Recent results in our country show a disturbing trend. In Middelpos, Saldanha Bay MK, Jacob Zuma’s party made a huge statement unseating the ANC in that constituency. MK has now won successive wards in Gauteng and now even in the Western Cape. MK is growing and it seems that not only the ANC is suffering but also the DA has lost ground. Dayton MacKenzie’s party, Patriotic Alliance went up by 6% in Saldanha, the EFF by 2% but the DA slipped from 5% to 1% of the voters who turned out in a very low poll in the Middelpos ward.
In the Northern provinces the ANC seems to be making a come-back. That is also worrying.
Helen Zille speaking to the media at an open meeting in Johannesburg blamed the ANC directly for the lack of water and electricity in the city. A group of PA supporters heckled her, but her response was one of telling them that when the DA were in coalition in running Johannesburg, between 2021 -2023, 150 km of underground pipes were laid to relieve the water issue but since the ANC has taken over, with an incompetent mayor and useless councillors corruption & thievery has taken over. She asked those present to admit to the reality.
From the beginning of April our electricity prices are going up either by 11.35% or by 12.78% and some of us may even have to pay more than that. Either way, we loose. From having the cheapest electricity in the world, the ANC has seen to it that we are now the very most expensive. Oh, some of the cadres in government have done very well for themselves.
While on electricity; Eskom does not have enough capacity for winter. With an increase in demand for power they will need about 20% more capacity. Oh, dear……. there is more load shedding on the horizon.
On Tuesday afternoon I had a catch-up with Charles and Vivienne. We hadn’t seen each other for 6 years so there was lots of catching up to do. And we did. Charles was a few years ahead of me at university in Stellenbosch and Vivienne has a strong Windhoek connection. They have been in Israel for a long time where Charles became the Head of legal affairs for El Al and their views on the war were mostly expected and very, very informative. We spoke non-stop for well over two hours and it wasn’t enough, but it was getting dark and I needed to get back home.
SA has a new world champion. She is Prudence Sekgodiso (the commentator also had trouble with her surname) the new 800m indoor sprint champion. I watched the race on TV and it was thrilling.
The coach and I were on the couch to watch our Stormers beat the Welsh Scarlets but we both think that the score line flattered our boys somewhat. We played with 8 Springboks, it was an away game and we are happy to have come away with a win.
As always,
Gerald
| Email: gpotash1@gmail.com Phone: +27 82 557 5775 |
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With regards to the levant there is a fundamental dystopian view dating back to the south african apartheid era demonstrated by current political commentators, when will honesty and rationality emerge?