Why logic falls on Thabo's deaf ears

Why logic falls on Thabo's deaf ears

Scientists in America have uncovered proof for something that pretty much all South Africans – with the exception of Thabo Mbeki and his cabinet – have known for years: when people feel powerful, they ignore new opinions and ideas. The study, by Ohio State University's Richard Petty and Pablo Briñol, reveals that, the more powerful any individual feels, the less likely they are to listen to anything, regardless of the quality of the argument. You don't say.

According to Petty, the research indicates that power, rather than corrupting those who hold it, actually leads people to unquestionably believe their own thoughts. Consequently, despite the fact that anyone can have negative thoughts, those feeling powerful are more likely to act on them without listening to counter opinion. “Powerful people are more likely to act on what they are thinking...without second guessing themselves,” says Petty.

To be fair, you can level the accusation of deafness at just about any government on the planet, but what makes this particularly interesting is what it might say about Mr. President's post-Polokwane interest in “reaching out” to the people in what must be one of the most shameless demonstrations of too little, too late in political history. It seems it took the victory of another man incapable of appreciating the cogency of the arguments for why he may not be fit to govern to clear a bit of the Presidential ear wax. One can only assume that our health minister is either glued to her iPod or is as oblivious to the implications of Polokwane as she seems to be to the reality of the HIV/AIDS situation here....

Read more!

Over the Hillary

Over the Hillary

I'm fed up of reading sexist diatribes vaguely disguised as “analysis” that make all sorts of assumptions about how Hillary Clinton would govern were she to be elected. It's hardly surprising to find that these attacks are almost without exception written by men. When they've finished characterising her as a scheming bitch riding on the coat tails of her husband (it's not sexism because they usually let us know how intelligent they think she is), they more often than not delight in telling us that “surveys show” that the majority of women who are prepared to vote for Hillary do so only because she is a woman.

And I suppose we're expected to accept this entirely without ever examining the possibility that the majority of men who will not vote for her will also be doing that for the same reasons? Never mind the fact that we're somehow casting the fact that women would vote for a woman as evidence of some kind of gender-induced idiocy.

For me, little illustrates the fact that women still face intense prejudice and outright sexism than more than a decade's worth of Hillary-bashing. If you think this is an overly-sensitive way of looking at things, take the example of a recent article in the Financial Mail suggesting that Clinton, with her likely propensity to regulate the irresponsible mavericks who have gotten America into its current financial mess, would represent worse news to any country than our own Jacob Zuma.

Read it again: a man with several wives, a rape trial behind him, corruption charges that just won't go away and the seeming belief that a shower is sufficient protection against HIV transmission is infinitely better news for the world than a woman running the most powerful country on the planet. In fact, the commentator goes on to say that Hillary in charge in SA would be worse than Zuma.

Why? By completely ignoring that fact that, during the Clinton years America's economy expanded at a far greater rate than anything the current incumbent could lay claim to, he's able to “show” us that Hillary=recession. God forbid we should take on board the fact that America's current situation is a consequence of the MEN who are currently in power and have been for the past eight years. And it's funny how the same critics who claim that Hillary overplays the importance of her sharing the Presidential bed are so quick to attribute anything crap about Bill's administration to her....

Whoever you think would represent the best option in the White House, one thing clearly isn't going to change any time soon: the unwritten law stating that you never touch a man's money or interfere with his capacity to make it, regardless of the consequences of that profit. That and the contradiction inherent in stating that economies have “natural” rates of growth if left unfettered – usually made by the same people who are happy to take government intervention when it comes in the form of a tax break or public support. For them.

Hillary might rein in spending and behave; Zuma might not behave, but he's unlikely to fuck with your money. JZ, god love him, might spout the sort of lefty nonsense we're all supposed to associate with Hillary, but that's okay because he's a man and therefore unlikely to actually follow through on his promises. Or, as our friend from FM puts it, he'd be “expected to unintentionally undermine economic prospects”. But as we all know, if he screws up, it'll be the bitches demanding funding for things like community projects, proper healthcare and equitable wealth distribution who will spoil everything for him. Hillary, on the other hand “definitely intends to follow through with her prescriptions”, the evil cow. How dare she outline her manifesto beyond declaring that she's in favour of “change.”

When we were told the world loves a man with a plan and honest advertising, stupid me for thinking the rules applied to humans in general rather than to those with their bumpy bits further south. But if men like UCT's Joel Stern (the FM article writer) are to be believed, it's infinitely scarier to be faced with the prospect of a woman who actually tells you what she'll do if you vote for her than it is to follow the lead of a man with a deeply flawed character and no particular plan in mind at all. But it's okay. He's got balls.

Read more!

You Can't Beat the Feeling

Like many South Africans, I hire a domestic worker to come and help us with the ironing once a week. This morning, as I worked from home, I heard her chuckling away to herself in my living room where, it turned out, she'd just finished a t-shirt belonging to me that reads: Enjoy Corruption: You Can't Beat the Stealing. It sparked an interesting conversation.

Minnie asked if I'd bought the shirt in Ireland. Initially, I thought she'd been reading up on the tribunal circus that continues to follow Taoiseach Bertie Ahern around like the proverbial bad smell. But no: she thought it was a statement from the rest of the world indicating how they viewed South Africa.

She was even more surprised when I told her that the t-shirt would resonate as much in my home country as it does here. She looked at me with disbelief (and no small amount of pleasure) when I told her that we too had a healthy supply of corrupt politicians and officials, all stuffing their pockets as full of cash as possible even as ordinary citizens, becoming accustomed to lying on trolleys in over-crowded hospital corridors are being asked to give even these up because of over-crowding.

“But Ireland is a rich country, no?”

Well yes. If you factor in things like good employment levels and a merciful lack of shack dwellers. But if it's a case study in the shameless waste of resources, mismanagement, arrogance and a complete disregard for the lives of those who for some reason continue to vote for you like sheep you're after, look no further than Ireland. The country where the Prime Minister, about to award himself a generous pay rise (read 38 000 Euros – that's the increase, by the way) and under fire from outraged citizens, pleaded poverty, saying that compared to other leaders in the world, he was “poverty stricken.” They, he told fellow parliamentarians, had things like yachts and posh places to go on holidays, unlike poor Bertie who, it seems, has been forced to go cap-in-hand to property developers in search of envelopes containing “contributions” to keep him going. The nature and size of these contributions is, as we speak, the subject of a Tribunal of Inquiry. Ireland's answer to Jarndyce and Jarndyce, it's been staggering on for years, not least because there's no shortage of public representatives to put under the spotlight.

Depressing as it might be for Irish people at the moment, this kind of news put a smile on at least one face today...

Read more!