I am not sure why JZ wants to gag the media because the media does a pretty good job of gagging itself. Through the selective targeting of the wealthy classes, papers like the Sunday Times, the Argus, and the Mail & Guardian effectively silence themselves.
They don’t speak to the ordinary people of this country. You and me may like to think of ourselves as everyday blokes, the man on the street, but we are not. We have the internet, we have a street, we have a house and a car and all that. I am talking about the guy who walks the street, catches a taxi to work, gets his pay cheque in a manila envelope, has an ID book and not a passport. These are the people who can actually change government’s in this country, these are the people who brought down the last government and they can bring down this government. But the only newspapers aimed at them are hokey tabloids like the Daily Sun and Die Son. Papers that think a story of a headless chicken possessed by demons is more interesting than a government possessed by demons. Even a paper like the Sowetan that does a fairly good job of straddling the middle class and the working class spends most of its energy covering celebrity news and glitzy bling blah.
If the media is going to actually make a dent and fight corruption, it needs to speak to JZ’s voter base. The people who are NOT reading this blog post on their boss’s dime. Tell them why our government is rubbish, talk to them about the corruption that runs through the halls of Parliament. Speaking to people like me and you is like backing the DA. A waste of bloody time.
@ Rose, firstly, in terms of addressing youth unemployment, poverty and inequality, there is only one answer: sustained and shared growth that creates jobs and absorbs unskilled and semi-skilled labour. That’s why the DA’s economic policy prioritises economic growth as the Number 1 goal for South Africa. Decent jobs are the best and true alleviator of poverty, developer of skills and socio-economic empowerment mechanism.
Secondly, in terms of meritocracy, that is a principled position the DA will always uphold. Fitness-for-purpose and striving for excellence should never be compromised. What we need to ensure is that the pool of candidates from which appointments and recruitment are made is diverse and representative which is why the DA emphasises development and education systems as the great leveller so that when black and white graduates compete for jobs, they are more or less equally competitive.
I was one of the fortunate black youth who has received opportunities throughout childhood that enabled me to develop and maximise my potential. I got through high school and university entirely on bursaries (which is what the DA means when we talk of an Opportunity Society – you provide someone with the means to get ahead if their circumstances are constrained but THEY have to work hard and MAKE something of the opportunity) and I was always among the top 10 performers amongst my peers.
Diversity and excellence are not mutually exclusive – in fact their combination produces a synergistically superior result than either one alone could.
Good on you Jabba – keep it up.
I detect hate speech on this blog site which is not being censored so I’m leaving. Have a good life all.
dimwit – if you get this I would really encourage you to elaborate on your claim of hate speech!
“We are forced to resort to media tribunals to deter these tokoloshes from operating without accountability!”
not always easy to spot Rose and it is often a sly throw-away comment such as this (but maybe you think this is acceptable?)
Jabba – the more I read what you have to say, the more I can’t help thinking that you ARE a brainwashed DA propagandist. There’s no harm in that, I suppose, but what it illustrates is that the DA has a Public Relations strategy and the ANC doesn’t. The DA will never be able to match the progressive policies of the ANC, but will always appear strong on these petty platforms populated by DA supporters. The DA clearly has much more support from the media, judging by the half-page photo and article about Zille’s new spokesperson, an Indian female. Why are there no females of colour in her Provincial cabinet?
The current reality of life for South Africans is so heavily biased in favour of white people, that the DA’s superficial plans for achieving equity continue to fall short. If you care about the the future of this country, take your intelligence and work for the ANC, because they are the real power TODAY, and will probably be so for a long time. YOu are wasting your time by working for the DA, they will never have the power the ANC has, and in the mean time, suffering, poverty and miseducation continue.
Dimwit – you are clearly very sensitive to this kind of thing. It is a general comment which never carries much weight in discussion or argument. The really offensive comments are the ones that are aimed at personal integrity or individuals. Best to engage with the person and try and change the way they express themselves and try and get constructive debate going. Remember the old saying – “keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer”. Keeping the lines of communication open is vital – it’s better to know what people are thinking and try and influence them to more constructive thought processes than to turn away don’t you think.
@ black female for socialism – well, aren’t you just an optimistic ray of sunshine! But seriously, I’m fully aware of the DA’s deficiencies in terms of issues such as the WC provincial cabinet. That situation is not about Helen Zille’s racial and gender preferences for the composition of her cabinet but about the constitutional constraints within which she had to make her appointments (ten people, all of whom had to be MPLs in the WC legislature – if she’d been able to appoint anyone from anywhere she would have appointed a more diverse cabinet) and the DA’s provincial candidate list that she had to make her appointments from. And she did offer a provincial cabinet post to a black female COPE MPL who declined.
I must also categorically reject your description of the DA’s policy platform (which is decidely pro-poor) as being “superficial plans” that “fall short”. You clearly haven’t read any of our policies. Unless you can point to specific proposals and measures in the policies that you can argue against, I have to assess your position as being based on false assumptions and ‘brainwashed’ perceptions. This is the link to the DA’s policies for you to read and make an accurate assessment: http://www.da.org.za/our_policies.htm.
black female for socialism – what you say about ANC policy is accurate – it does have the best policies – implementing those policies has become problematic however. And yes, it has the power – too much power – and that is a very big problem and has become a corruptive and corrosive force within the ANC leadership and amongst government officials at all levels. Stating that Jabba should leave the DA and go back to the all powerful ANC is presumptuous and undemocratic – calling him a brain washed propagandist for the DA indicates political immaturity and fanaticism often on display from ANC members when confronted with a Black person who decides to seek other pastures because he or she has grown tired of blatant corruption, lies, crass greed, tenderpreneurs and the big spenders who luxuriate in five star hotels, drink copious amounts the most expensive alcohol, travel business class and generally spend the tax payers money as they please. People who make the often extremely painful decision to look elsewhere are ridiculed, insulted, humiliated and harassed – even abused by ANC cadres. Is that what these ANC members call democracy? Just as Jabba can stay with the ANC and reform it from within, so he (or she) can stay with the DA and reform it from within. RSA needs a strong, principled and determined opposition with sound policies to counter the disproportionate power the ANC has – power that finds its officials treating with contempt the people they were elected to serve. Think, think, think!
Black female for socialism: Have you studied the history of the Soviet Union? Well, it had a great constitution and exemplary polices, but instead it was a ruthless totalitarian dictatorship and this is why it has failed. The very idea of brainwashing was invented and exemplified by them.
So much for the successes of your much admired socialism, that promised an unattainable utopia but delivered only hell. If you study history in general, you will see that all brutal, totalitarian states have eventually failed, except a lot of good people lost their lives…