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Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

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Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#121

Post by candiodari »

nine_k wrote: post #114
dathinab wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's really not that simple don't forget the reason people voted for the nazis in Germany was not because they believed in their values but because they seemed competent to change things to the better, while all established parties seemed to not be able to do so this (in a roundabout way) then put them in a position where they could size the remaining power by force transition into the power which would later start W…

Yes, the Nazi have built certain things competently, because their predecessors were colossally incompetent. But, AFAICT, they also run on a lot of resentment in the society, from the loss in WWI, crippling sanctions, huge inflation, and the truly incompetent Weimar Republic government. The Nazi found a bunch of enemies: predatory Jewish capitalists, the evil Brits, the insidious Communists. A common enemy always hel…

The Nazi's never won an election, and even that was after a false-flag attack on congress. This would be like a US party receving 37% of the vote, after claiming the other party attacked congress (but really doing it themselves), then having their president appointed after the sitting president first gives up (after the party manages to create enough problems (with constant accusations that they used violence and personal threats to achieve that) that congress puts the president out of power with a vote of no confidence twice in just over a year. But each time the sitting president gets the confidence back from congress after a while.

Then the president essentially challenges the 37% of the vote party to form a government, then dies (ok - THIS one was not the Nazi's doing), and appoints, on his deathbed (against regulations) NOT the vice president, but the leader of the party that managed to vote his government out of office twice. Frankly, he did this out of desperation (well, probably, we don't know).

So no, Hitler got to power through ... uh ... "agressive political maneuvering" (with a lot of violence and killing on the side). NOT through elections. He was never elected. Never even managed to falsify an election.

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#122

Post by landoftheice »

TMWNN wrote: post #108

I recently read a book review that discussed South Africa today. One of the many points it made about the dire state of things is that the air force planes that flew overhead during Mandela's inauguration were, a decade later, completely inoperable.

[dead]

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#123

Post by churchill »

midasuni wrote: post #119
churchill wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever folks like you denigrate 'lawless' libertarian shitholes, it always ends up that the reason such territories are so terrible is because of a government using its monopoly of violence to extract rent from business, either through outright taxation or currency inflation. Yet, every single time, people can't get the irony.

Yes the ANC have a monopoly on violence in South Africa

So SA doesn't qualify as libertarian then.

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#124

Post by ashwagary »

houseatrielah wrote: post #20

Serpentza, a YouTuber from South Africa, did a video on this recently. The money that should have been spent on infrastructure was squandered and the possibility of the electric grid collapsing is real. He posted a screenshot from an app that his parents deal with; it was 12 hours of blackouts, 12 hours of power. Plus the currency is worthless and 50% unemployment leads to very high crime levels. https://www.youtube.…

After viewing dozens of his videos, I get the impression Serpentza is a paid propagandist. Take his claims with a heap of skepticism.

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#125

Post by ashwagary »

mieses wrote: post #117
chmod600 wrote: post #116

The racism of apartheid is a moral abomination while a failed state is not. Kind of strange to think about. Not saying that's wrong; just observing. A failed state is treated more like bad weather something that just happens.

And unlike weather forecasting, communism ending in failure is a 100% certainty. Yet communists somehow are able to take the moral high ground. We have advanced well beyond the middle ages where it was reasonable to hold intellectual and political elites to moral standards.

China kicked out invaders and redistributed their ill gotten lands. Fast forward and they are doing well. The only reason westerners dont like this model is their monopolies and many corrupt entities get destroyed in the process.

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#126

Post by ashwagary »

alephnerd wrote: post #82
opyate wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People vote for the ANC in SA because there isn't an alternative party. I'd say that there is not a _viable_ alternative party, due to fragmentation. The DA has good representation in the Western Cape: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in...

Yep. I meant at a national level there isn't a real alternative.

The EFF seems to be changing that slowly.

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#127

Post by ashwagary »

benj111 wrote: post #94
dotancohen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why even scale anything up? If these peoples have been living and fighting and reproducing successfully for millennia, why do Europeans and Americans think it necessary to get group them into states and force them to form large-scale heterogeneous bodies of law? Does that just make it easier to remove the mineral wealth from the continent?

Very true. Or do they need to develop their own concept of the state, or at the risk of sounding imperialistic, do they need to learn the concept of the nation state? Broadly speaking I would say having structures larger than a tribe is a net benefit. Whatever form that may take.

>Or do they need to develop their own concept of the state, or at the risk of sounding imperialistic, do they need to learn the concept of the nation state?

Western governments need to stop assassinating leaders and toppling democratically elected governments every few years for that to happen. That hasnt stopped and it has a chilling effect, which is the purpose.

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#128

Post by tomjen3 »

ashwagary wrote: post #124
houseatrielah wrote: post #20

Serpentza, a YouTuber from South Africa, did a video on this recently. The money that should have been spent on infrastructure was squandered and the possibility of the electric grid collapsing is real. He posted a screenshot from an app that his parents deal with; it was 12 hours of blackouts, 12 hours of power. Plus the currency is worthless and 50% unemployment leads to very high crime levels. https://www.youtube.…

After viewing dozens of his videos, I get the impression Serpentza is a paid propagandist. Take his claims with a heap of skepticism.

If you are going to post comments like that you need to post evidence, otherwise its just a cheap attempt to poison the waters.

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#129

Post by dathinab »

candiodari wrote: post #121
nine_k wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the Nazi have built certain things competently, because their predecessors were colossally incompetent. But, AFAICT, they also run on a lot of resentment in the society, from the loss in WWI, crippling sanctions, huge inflation, and the truly incompetent Weimar Republic government. The Nazi found a bunch of enemies: predatory Jewish capitalists, the evil Brits, the insidious Communists. A common enemy always hel…

The Nazi's never won an election, and even that was after a false-flag attack on congress. This would be like a US party receving 37% of the vote, after claiming the other party attacked congress (but really doing it themselves), then having their president appointed after the sitting president first gives up (after the party manages to create enough problems (with constant accusations that they used violence and per…

sure I did oversimplify things a lot, well too much

they didn't win the 1932 election and only got 36.77%.

but you can't at all compare it with "US party receving 37%" because it was a fundamental different system. And 37% with a turnout of 86.21% ((first round), 83.45% (second round)) is not low, that is percentage of population wise more votes for Hiter then for Trump in 2016 and slightly less then for Biden in 2020...

This might not have given them direct legal power (they still didn't won the presidential elections), but a lot of implicit influence.

At that point in time the congress of the Weimar Republic was already dysfunctional (actually, not just people complaining it is). And a major reason why Paul von Hindenburg did win the presidential election was due to some groups being seriously worried about Hitler winning.

Important is that P. Hindeburg was not part of any party and many hoped that he would find a way to fix the Weimar Republic.

After this failed, he did hand the power to Hiter on his death bad, yes. But that it was "against regulations" kinda wasn't that relevant as the whole political system was collapsing anyway. What mattered a lot was that Hiter had a quite high number of votes in the 1932 election and support for him had only grown since then, so handing the power to anyone else would likely have even further destabilized the political system potentially leading to a very devastating outcome for Germany. He knew Hitler was dangerous through as far as I understood he did expect other forces to be able to constrain Hitler more and Hitler not going anywhere as far as he did in the end.

Anyway I did oversimplify things to a degree where you could say they where not right. BUT the core idea still stands without so many people voting for Hiter in 1932 he likely would never have been able to take over the power and a good reason why he got so many votes wasn't because people celebrated him hating Jews but because the promises for a better future he made.

> He was never elected. Never even managed to falsify an election.

He didn't really need to.

In 1933 the NSDAP (his party) won (in not so democratic elections) the congress elections, they didn't had an absolute majority but by teaming up with the KSWR they still won which removed any remaining barriers for transitioning the Weimar Republic into a dictatorship and in turn removing any need for falsifying elections outside of PR reasons. (KSWR = mixed party union of conservatives, nationalist, emperor-monarchists and more which had quite a big overlap with the NSDAP and was also promised quite a bit of money).

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#130

Post by kriops »

AlbertCory wrote: post #46
kriops wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That is 100% wrong. Even in the very capital of corruption (in the US, anyway), Chicago, the slogan was "good government is good politics." In other words, doing a good job with the boring stuff is also good for getting elected.

That is simply the definition. A definition can't be wrong as long as it's consistent and not entirely superfluous. Slogans are however factually incorrect all the time, including the one you base your opinion on.
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