Food Shortages Imminent—Is Anybody Listening?
| AR Articles on South Africa |
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| Afrikaner Survival Under Black Rule (May 2004) |
| Black Empowerment (Mar. 2003) |
| South Africa, 1999 (Aug. 1999) |
| South Africa under Black Rule (Jul. 1998) |
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Entitled “A Furious Hunger”, an article in the latest Time magazine paints a sinister picture of a world on the brink of serious food shortages. From Mexico to Pakistan, to Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Mauritania, India and Egypt, food riots have broken out, with violence in the streets, and the looting and burning of government buildings.
This is not only a food issue, it is a security issue, says the director general of the Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, Joachim von Braun. Food prices are not going down—billions of people are buying greater quantities of food, oil prices have increased which have pushed up fertilizer, transport and shipping costs. Then there’s the climate, says Time—freak weather throughout the world has crimped harvests, and the rush to produce bio-fuels to replace oil dependency has resulted in thousands of US farmers now producing maize for fuel instead of for food consumption. Global food stockpiles have dwindled to their lowest point in decades. The world supply of wheat is at its lowest in fifty years, and there’s just five weeks worth of consumption available for the world’s more than six billion people. Food security may soon depend more on availability than affordability. One example: wheat stocks worldwide declined by 11% in 2007.
In South Africa, wheat prices have more than doubled over the past year. Internationally, from 2004 to 2006, wheat prices increased by 34%, maize by 54%, soya oil by 71% and sugar by 75%, while wheat increased again 35% from 2006 to 2007. In a single day in February of this year, wheat prices jumped 25% after Kazakhstan’s government announced plans to restrict exports of its wheat crop for fear there would not be enough for its own population. India and Egypt are also restricting food exports. The United States which provides half the world’s food aid has now decided to halve this amount. It is also talking about cutting exports, as more grains are converted to bio-fuel use.
Many South African farmers would prefer to plant maize instead of wheat as yields are lower for the latter—1,8 to 2 tons per hectare for wheat while maize yields 3 tons or more a hectare. Since 1997/8, there has been a 51% drop in national wheat planting, and South Africa already has to import more than 1,3 millions tons of wheat per annum.
“The systematic deterioration of the profitability of SA agriculture in general, particularly wheat production, is the main reason for the recent relatively large increases in wheat prices” says Neels Ferreira, chairperson of Grain South Africa.
HUNGER IN THE WORLD According to the US Department of Agriculture, there are 849 million hungry people in 70 lower income countries around the world. According to Dr Koos Coetzee, agricultural economist, more than 40% of food deficient people live in sub-Saharan Africa. Dr Coetzee believes that if the South African government persists with its transfer of 30% of South Africa’s productive farmland to subsistence dwellers and/or farmers by 2014, South Africa will have to import food.
South African farmers—less than .01% of the population—can currently produce enough food for local use and export. So wouldn’t it be expected that this sector would be nurtured and cherished and treated with kid gloves by the South African government? Alas, not so. On the contrary, as one South African farmer wrote in Farmer’s Weekly: “One fact is clear to me, Lulama Xingwana (Minister of Land and Agriculture) clearly has it in for the white farming community.”
Is someone going to stop this minister before it’s too late? The policy of handing over productive farms to subsistence dwellers in the main has caused a drop in production as most of these farms are either in ruins or have become squatter camps. Failure stares her in the face but she continues along this path of non-performance. At a recent AgriBEE Showcasing (?) in Cape Town, Minister Xingwana called upon farmers to plant more wheat! She also voiced her concern over the lack of interest among the youth in agriculture!
This of course begs the question as to why young South Africans should farm under the onerous and unfair legislation now crimping farming in this country, the threats of expropriation if farmers do not toe the line with regard to price when a farm has been claimed, and the fact that in some provinces, more than 80% of farms are under claim. Local taxes are demanded of farmers when they receive nothing in return, input costs are sky high, and Department of Agriculture support services are seriously lacking in skills.
One example: there is a severe shortage of state veterinarians—at the end of last year twenty of the possible 38 posts for state vets in the Department of Agriculture’s Directorate for Veterinary Services were vacant. This shortage has had an “immense impact on the red meat industry, especially where controlled diseases such as Brucellosis are concerned”, says Gerhard Schutte, CEO of the Red Meat Producers Association. “We were on the verge of completely eradicating the disease, but a shortage of vets led to a turnabout for the worse”.
South Africa is now doubtful of EU acceptance of its meat and this can also be traced back to certification problems due to a lack of skilled veterinarians. Mr Schutte added that long-standing surveillance programmes of contagious abortions and tuberculosis are not being carried out sufficiently, and this deficiency can be laid at the door of affirmative action, where posts have been earmarked for “designated groups”.
Because of poor administrative talents within the department, those who do apply for posts have to sometimes wait for a year before the position is filled. This affirmative action approach has been going on for years—in March 2006, the Department of Agriculture’s advertisements for posts stipulated that “it is the Department’s intention to promote equity through the filling of all numeric targets as contained in the Employment Equity Plan. To facilitate this process successfully, an indication of race, gender and disability status is required. (Sunday Times 5 March, 2006) In the same edition, a post for a Research Veterinarian was advertised by the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) which declared in the advertisement that it was “a science and technology institution of excellence in South Africa”, and that its operations were “accountable to the Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs”. At the bottom of the advertisement was the crucial phrase “The ARC is an equal opportunity employer”, government speak for “blacks need only apply”.
The Minister speaks with forked tongue, and she is taking South Africa’s food security situation down a one-way street. Warnings are going unheeded, as were warnings about Eskom and current warnings about roads and water pollution. Experts say that the scale of deterioration of South African roads may be on the same level as Eskom—the South African Roads Federation declares that South African roads are “on the brink of collapse because of poor maintenance, bad planning and an exodus of professional engineers.” The lack of foresight seen with the Eskom debacle is playing out in the Departments of Agriculture and other government sectors, while the Minister of Agriculture “is gambling with the future of South Africa” (Business Report February 15, 2008)
She is reported as having remarked she would not mind if the value of farmland in South Africa plummeted, as it would make it easier for the previously disadvantaged to gain access to it. This minister is guilty of food security treason, and her actions do not disprove this statement. She is reckless, power driven and dangerously ignorant. It is time she is removed before we see food riots in the streets of South Africa.
(Posted on March 14, 2008)
Comments
As someone who lived in South Africa for 25 years, the ability of the black African to self-destruct, as opposed to the white and other Africans, is unsurpassed. South Africa will be another Zimabawe in 10 years unless te whites and other sensible races, including intelligent blacks (yes there are some there), do not do something active about it. Most blasks are too dumb to vote for anything other than with emotion and they keep voting in the now proven inept African national Congress, a communist trained mob who bombed and propaganda-ed their way to power almost 15 years ago.
The outlook for SA is not good, but there are millions of white and SA-born Indian hard workers who would welcome assistance to a new country with their children. And they make damn good citizens, loyal and trustworthy, as well as good educational standards.
Posted by Brian Deller at 6:11 PM on March 14
Let them starve, the roads crumble, the power go out, the clinics close, the government turn to a corrupt one-party dictatorship, and the children be raped. Then let them ask for apartheid back, and laugh in their faces.
Posted by Diamed at 6:26 PM on March 14
Overpopulation has been the result of providing food-aid to nations who use the provision to over-breed in a seemingly more food secure environment. The same could be said when they immigrate to a food wealthy nation, but that is for another entry. The U.S. has every vested interest to end this Darwin-denying practice and let survival of the fittest take its toll. We create the pseudo-intellects and good-for-nothings of other nations when we unnecessarily feed their masses. Food is only a method of political/hegemonic influence these days anyhow. Food-aid should have been reserved for emergency use only. If nations would feed their own, on their own, it would really show us what kind of civilization its people are interested in constructing and enjoying. Altruism is great when it benefits your immediate society, because the benefited in turn should also benefit you as the community prospers together.
Posted by ilovemyfirstamendment at 6:33 PM on March 14
Five years time SA will be another Rwanda. The odds are the gold and diamond mines will shut down. When this happens it could be difficult to restart them. Think water filling up shafts and deterioration of unused equipment. I am sure that our elites will want to send them aid;of course they won’t want to pay higher taxes themselves.
Posted by icemann at 6:45 PM on March 14
As South Africa fails, the blame will be placed on Marxism. Marxist philosophy certainly bears some of the blame, but the majority belongs with the black people themselves.
Posted by William Hendershot at 6:54 PM on March 14
“At a recent AgriBEE Showcasing (?) in Cape Town, Minister Xingwana called upon farmers to plant more wheat! She also voiced her concern over the lack of interest among the youth in agriculture!”
This pretty well illustrates the “Black” mentality. First, they undermine and destroy those elements necessary for civilization to survive and to prosper. Next, they issue “orders” for the benefits of civilization to be as they were before. Then, they fall into violent uncontrollable rage because it does not “work”.
It differs little from the “Black” mothers of Los Angeles inciting to riot when their little violent criminal gang banger darlings were being arrested by the cops in a controlled manner. Now that rampaging “Black” violence in the city is completely out of control, and it is they who are caught in the crossfire, they rage because the cops are no longer able to “do something”.
Ronald
Posted by Ronald at 6:59 PM on March 14
The more food you give them, the more babies they make.The more babies they make, the more food that they will need.The more food that they need, the more food Whitey will give them. Do you see a pattern?
Posted by Peejay in Frisco at 8:34 PM on March 14
You can also leave the enviromental whackos partially to blame, as bio fuels compete for crop space with food crops. If petroleum exploration was unhindered to a degree, along with nuclear expansion, our energy issues would lessen a great deal and leave bio fuels for another time.
As it stands, I have absolutely no concern with the famines in africa. They are all self inflicted by the ignorant corrupt marxists in power. Providing food aid to such a corrupt/ignorant country as south africa now only delays Darwins eventual victory.
I used to feel bad when seeing those starving children in the commercials, until I learned that almost all are in such a situation due to their governmental polices. No longer do I care much, callous as it sounds.
Posted by at 8:38 PM on March 14
Hussein obama’s “pastor” claims White America is responsible for all the grinding poverty in the world. Of course this article missed the most important factor in world food distribution.
Posted by Lars at 8:44 PM on March 14
If the non-whites of the world would stop breeding the world to collapse there would be plenty of food and everything else to go around; and if the white world would stop subsidizing this overpopulation by non-whites the world would be a little greener and there would not be so many desert areas. As for South Africa, there is genocide going on against the one group of people that have been feeding the country for centuries, the white farmer. Groups of blacks go to white owned farms, kill the owners, and take over the farm as subsistence farmers, all this with the blessing of the black controlled government. So, in black thinking, take a hugely successful farm which is used to feed massive amounts of people, both black and white, kill whitey because he’s the bad guy here, and turn the area over to blacks who cannot even farm enough to feed their own families because they are totally inept at it; And we wonder why the african nations can’t feed themselves. The black governments in Africa are so racist, and so ineptly stupid, that they kill off and drive out the one group of people who can keep them alive and functioning. Let the blacks starve. They do it to white families in Africa continually. Just ask any boer South African or white Rhodesian. Aren’t both countries just so much better off under black leadership?
Posted by at 9:19 PM on March 14
“As South Africa fails, the blame will be placed on Marxism.”
We just had a paper print that multiculturalism is working fine, and that anyone who says it’s not is evil, with quite a bit of appropriate conviction. Failures can be blamed on anything.
Posted by at 9:42 PM on March 14
Pure rubbish! As prices for food rise, more land with be put BACK under the plow. Today we use only a fraction of the land that was once productive farmland. Put prices up and more will be planted. Push food prices up enough and everyone will have a garden in their back yard (and maybe their front yard too. Ha Ha.)
Yet another good reason to stop the invasion from the Third World countries.
Posted by Memphomaniac at 10:00 PM on March 14
“One fact is clear to me, Lulama Xingwana (Minister of Land and Agriculture) clearly has it in for the white farming community.”
Blacks cannot survive outside of a tribal village environment if left on their own.
The ones in S.A. will starve as Zimbabwe is in the process of doing right now.
It is so cruel of liberals to tell them they are just as able as first worlders then step back and watch them fumble around while their white-built civilizations crumble and their populations starve.
Pretty soon every country in Africa will be just as big a disaster as New Orleans and Detroit.
Posted by w.r. at 11:14 PM on March 14
“The outlook for SA is not good, but there are millions of white and SA-born Indian hard workers who would welcome assistance to a new country with their children. And they make damn good citizens, loyal and trustworthy, as well as good educational standards.”
Posted by Brian Deller at 6:11 PM on March 14
Russia’s population is plumeting. Why the h*ll doesn’t the Russian government open its door to white refugees from sub-Sahara Africa?
Posted by at 11:27 PM on March 14
If we had a leader in the white house instead of that (Swear word), this is how the famine in Africa will handled.
he would blame it on OPEC! Their refusal to pump more oil to bring down the prices is causing the famine. Unless the price goes down to about a $1.00 a gallon , we could not ship food to these people if we wanted to. These are the cold hard facts.
Posted by flyingtiger at 1:28 AM on March 15
It is with the most profound regret that the event the price of oil continues to escalate, there will be food shortages in America too. Bush compounded the problem with his ethanol program a few years ago. As large farms scrambled to switch from wheat to corn to take advantage of this lucrative opportunity, the price of wheat was driven up as a result of supply versus demand. As a result of corn having been artificially inflated, cattle ranchers are unable to keep with their costs and are methodically cashing out.
The tragedy in all this is that ethanol as an alternative fuel source is void of any merit. Asides from its decades of proven uselessness on a wide scale, it requires a disproportionate amount of fossil fuel to merit any reasonable reduction in fuel costs or the use of oil. Had the same funds committed to ethanol instead been directed towards the development of solar and wind energy, this in turn would have resulted in new industry and all the new jobs this could have entailed.
Environmental whacko-s cannot be entirely blamed because it hasn’t been them who have controlled the argument. A classic example is all the time that was wasted in debating ANWAR. In terms of the bottom line, analysis as provided by EIA (Energy Information Agency of the Department of Energy) determined that drilling in that area was going to cost more than it is worth. The same is not true of the Mexican Gulf, the Dakotas, and other mainland states.
That there are not currently more active refineries in the U.S. has been blamed too on environmentalists. That’s convenient because Bush had at one point gone so far as to offer generous subsides for the construction of more refineries and this was rejected by the oil industry. Why? Their analysts determined that there was more money to be made with fewer refineries. So far, their restraint has yielded very handsome rewards.
That there has not been more in the way of development of natural gas and oil can as much be attributed to controlling interests that do not want to see an up rise of smaller, independent production companies. Out of localized economic desperation, this as at least starting to change. So better late than never but keep in mind as the value of the U.S. Dollar continues to set record lows, it will still be the more valued currencies that set the price we pay for fuel.
As for the food shortages now occurring in other countries:
It may not seem fair but if for no other reason than the pragmatic, still wealthier nations have to reconcile that starving people will go to any lengths to make themselves refugees and illegal immigrants and at anywhere they can find a border to cross. My prayers are that this will not be our future.
Posted by at 5:43 AM on March 15
She is reported as having remarked she would not mind if the value of farmland in South Africa plummeted, as it would make it easier for the previously disadvantaged to gain access to it.
*Just a female Mugabe! And what kind of results does she think these disadvantaged Blacks will have on the agriculture, with their lack of training, and experience in farming? Is she foolish and arrogant enough to believe the results will be any different than it has in the now crop barren Zimbabwe? Most of them don’t seem to care, because they will expect Whites allover the West to come rescue them from their own self created miseries.*
Posted by at 7:13 AM on March 15
We spend around 1.2 billion a year in Food Aid - we buy the food from American companies and ship it to the recipient. 65% of the cost is for transportation! I know the government also pays American farmers NOT to grow wheat - a program created to “protect” the wheat market. Obviously the US is very successful at wheat production. Other countries such as Canada have changed their aid programs so that they can purchase food in locales closer to the places they are sending aid, saving on the bulk of the cost - transportation. Most goes to Africa. The purported purpose of Food Aid is supposedly to feed people to give them the “space” to develop characteristics necessary to create their own ability to feed themselves adequately. This idea obviously was developed before functioning societies self-destructed before our eyes. We now have proof that the concept of this development will not happen in Africa. Africa went from functioning under white supervision to being totally dependent on white aid BY THEIR OWN ACTIONS. This is a society that will never be able to develop to feed its own. In the time that an American woman produces 14 descendents, an African woman produces 258 descendents. Over population results in hunger. We understand conservation in nature. We take steps to see that deer don’t overpopulate and decimate whole areas. We would consider it irresponsible to keep providing food to ever increasing numbers.
Posted by at 8:18 AM on March 15
When history is finally written the way most of the White world (most particularly the USA - which was absolutely merciless in its policy of destruction) treated the Afrikaaners, will be seen not only as the terrible crime that is, but also, ironically, having a terrible effect on the standard of living and culture of South African blacks.
Posted by Kenelm Digby at 10:01 AM on March 15
Firstamendment:”Overpopulation has been the result of providing food-aid to nations who use the provision to over-breed in a seemingly more food secure environment.”
Aids drugs need to be stopped immediately also. They hand them out like candy so the infected africans live longer to infect even more people. My worry isn’t about these people as much as AIDS mutating to a more active form or finding a new vector like mosquitos or ticks.
Posted by at 10:36 AM on March 15
I remember seeing the starving African children on TV when I was a child. I felt so sorry for them, extended bellies, and flies all around them. I am now in my 30’s, and on any given day you can still see similar pictures on TV. I am sure 30 years from now, the same images will be available. I can no longer exert sympathy for a people who continue to reproduce without thought to the children that will suffer. There is no good answer to the question of feeding Africa.
Posted by Kellie at 11:37 AM on March 15
So sorry, SA will end up like Zimbabwe did after the white flight. Soon we will see tribal and ethnic cleansing which is inate within the black psyche. The proof in the latter statement is in the situations in Darfur and Somolia right now where the blacks are in the process of self-destruction. Then if whitey tries to help, the natives turn on them. I say let the cards fall where they may and keep our noses out of it.
Posted by at 11:41 AM on March 15
The true horror scenario will be the fate of White South Africans when food shortage reaches a critical mass. Unless White South Africans are able to mount an armed resistance or other nations are willing to intervene on their behalf (fat chance of that) I believe it is likely that Whites will be slaughtered by blacks in an orgy of torture, murder, and cannibalism similar to those committed against the French during the Haitian rebellion.
Posted by at 11:43 AM on March 15
She is reckless, power driven and dangerously ignorant.
This is true of black Africa in general, and although Lulama Xingwana is the name now cited as being responsible for the ever worsening crisis, the responsibility for the plight of starving Africans rests with black Africans themselves … well, OK, with them and the anti-apartheid campaigners …
I mean really, who didn’t know this was how it would all turn out when mindless, contemptibly stupid, politically correct, ovine saps were building useless tent cities like Nelson Mandela Village on the UCLA campus?
Posted by at 2:05 PM on March 15
As South Africa degenerates, we will be subject to more and more refugees from there flooding Western countries. This is the pattern: Africans, left to their own devices, turn their lands into hell holes where war, famine and disease are widespread. Next thing you know, the U.S. is importing thousands of refugees from those places because people feel sorry for them. Then, slowly but surely, those refugees bring about the same blights they fled from into their host countries. They form large underclasses and then white people are blamed for “discrimination” and holding those Africans down. Sometimes this process takes generations. Sometimes it happens quickly. Various factors come into play. One thing we NEVER see, however, is black African communities in the U.S. or Europe becoming beacons of enlightenment, safety, cleanliness and tolerance. If somebody will email me one example of such a community (excluding those propped up by affirmative action) I’ll eat my words.
Posted by jewamongyou at 2:17 PM on March 15
The sooner the world runs out of food the better. Those of us in the Western world may struggle for a while but we will still survive. Meanwhile, the third world of Africa will die off as Western nations have to cut off aid programs in order to feed their own populations. This is just Mother Nature’s way of correcting problems. In the meantime, I would encourage everyone to plow under their backyards and start growing their own food. Not only will you have an extra supply of food when times get tough, you will also save a lot of money and eat healthier. Also, the more fresh produce you grow on your own means the less that you have to buy in the store - which means less need for migrant farmworkers.
Posted by Conrad R. at 2:36 PM on March 15
Whites are beaten and have their farms taken and the world just watched. Where are those hollywood people? I saw on tv where a person had their ranch zoned residential and they couldn,t pay the tax after that. Seems the people who write on these different stories on amren have the right solution, but the governments do the opposite. maranatha
Posted by at 5:58 PM on March 15
This story is total baloney! We need a new plan.
When an African (or Asian) country complains to the USA about food shortages, we send them FARMERS…..not food. Those who want to survive will work with the FARMERS growing the food.
NO MORE FOOD AID FOR ANY COUNTRY.
The image may seem comical of parachuting FARMERS into remote areas to organize food production, but it makes much more sense than sending DOCTORS. (Dead men do not need doctors.)
Want to help that country improve the standard of living of its inhabitants? Send some young people to college to learn AGRICULTURE: soil science, vet medicine, plant disease, farm mechanics, and dozens of other skills. Begin to mechanize agriculture slowly, irrigate, fertilize, import better seed, raise more livestock. Hell, nothing improves the health of a human population like having enough to eat and clean water. Teach farm workers how to keep themselves clean and healthy.
When you get to where you can feed everyone in your own country, you can export your surplus. With the sale of the surplus, you should send more young people to study ENGINEERING, ECONOMICS, and GEOLOGY. Improve all modes of transporation as the opportunity presents itself. Begin to engage in capital formation, establish sound banking, introduce accounting and finance. Establish a reliable system of land ownership and the legal framework to safeguard equity in land. Establish courts that actually work. Record births and deaths. Deliver the mail quickly and efficiently. Build plants for the treatment of waste water and landfills for garbage. Spend public money building the country instead of buying weapons and arms.
(I am sure you get the idea.)
Posted by Memphomaniac at 8:53 PM on March 15
The only news and images about South Africa that most of America gets are ones about “Oprah’s new school”, so they assume everything is just fine.
The upcoming World Cup in 2010 ought to be interesting to watch. The media will be in charge of crafting the image the American public sees.
Posted by at 9:10 PM on March 15
We only need convert all electical generation to Nuclear. No green house gases and the most efficient, clean and safe energy. Can you tell me who has died from Nuclear plants in the US and cmpare that to those who have died in the gas, oil and coal industries?
But, the communist/democrats/liberals HATE white success and will do everything to stop nuclear power.
Then all cars go Hydrogen (produced by these safe and clean Nuclear plants) or electic (again, from these Nuclear plants.) Then we don’t have to buy any oil from the a-rabs. Also, we can put our farmers back in business of growing wheat for cows so we can get our 99 cent burgers and Wendy’s. That is the way.
Posted by LOGIC at 12:06 AM on March 16
Eventually there will be some kind of Malthusian solution to sub-Saharan Africa’s overpopulation problem, but the collateral damage, in the form of “refugees” and cost of foreign aid, will be considerable.
Posted by at 12:07 AM on March 16
Russia’s population is plumeting. Why the h*ll doesn’t the Russian government open its door to white refugees from sub-Sahara Africa?
I guess governments are not white-friendly. Does anyone know if there are other organizations that help white victims? Churches? Charities?
Posted by at 1:04 AM on March 16
The hidden story in all this is that once again a liberal policy, converting grain to ethanol, is the reason for “the crisis.” Get off the ethanol kick, allow drilling off shore and in Alaska and, presto, the crisis disappears. But that would make sense and liberals can’t allow sense…in anything.
Posted by ricpic at 4:28 AM on March 16
The oddest thing about all of this is that the US, with her liberal ideals, has this right in front of her eyes case study about what is goig to happen with her if she continues along her current path.
Posted by at 5:34 AM on March 16
The upcoming World Cup in 2010 ought to be interesting to watch. The media will be in charge of crafting the image the American public sees.
Posted by at 9:10 PM on March 15
Given that SA has the highest murder rate in the world it will be interesting how the press puts a spin on murdered tourists. The headlines may read something like this….
Crazed Tourist causes Black African to fear for his life. Says Black SA later ” I had no choice but to shoot and rob him for his own good!”
Posted by Chuck at 9:29 AM on March 16
I have never understood why it is supposedly tthe responsibility of the west to feed sub-Saharan Africans.
Posted by at 1:23 PM on March 16
“If we had a leader in the white house instead of that (Swear word), this is how the famine in Africa will handled.
he would blame it on OPEC! Their refusal to pump more oil to bring down the prices is causing the famine. Unless the price goes down to about a $1.00 a gallon , we could not ship food to these people if we wanted to. These are the cold hard facts.”
Posted by flyingtiger at 1:28 AM on March 15
OPEC’s tactic of controlling a large supply of a very limited and in-demand resource was invented by White South African Cecil Rhodes (diamonds, De Beers).
Ironic that a scheme that once made South Africa wealthy is now contributing to its regression.
Posted by changing majors at 1:55 PM on March 16
I agree with all the comments above that have been written with forethought and care. My family and I lived in South Africa for 24 years until we escaped in 1999 when I could see that it is going to be another Zimbabwe. I was involved to a certain extent have with the new government appointees at te lower local levels. Not only are the Marxist trained blacks in government destroying the food production chain (land for the blacks), but the new black subsistence farmers who have been given the whites appropriated farms now do not pay any taxes as the older white ones did, in fact quite a high percentage of the annual tax take, so the SA government then starts upping the taxes on the others who do produce, mainly the whites, Indians and some others, including some blacks of course, but when on a recent UK BBC TV programme shot in SA, I was appalled when we were shown a black married yuppie couple with two identical “his and hers” new Lamborghini sports cars, one wonders what is going on. We all know of course as the SA economy gradually grinds to a halt only supported by the mining exports and the gold price has gone up because in part because the mines are not working because of the major power cuts in SA. The affirmative action laws of the last 12 or so years are sapping the economy with mainly inept black people holding jobs at all levels they just cannot do or have the energy to do properly, and many are still getting big bonuses for failing as well.
Much of the ongoing electrical power-station breakdowns are due to poor maintenance (in recent years white technicians were fired for blacks to take the jobs), and the contracts to supply the coal that fires most of them, and it is very easy to mine in SA, it is only about 30 feet below the surface in many areas, but the black contractors who are supposed to transport the coal have not been able to supply antwhere nearly enough so the power-stations run out. Never before heard of. It is all in the SA Press online but a good web-site, if you want to simultaneously laugh and cry at the stupidity there, is www.africancrisis.co.za.
Your Dr Watson was correct when he said he is very worried about the intelligence levels of the blacks in Africa, and more than one black African has agreed with him, in despair.
Now for anyone visiting SA, the ongoing robberies of new visitors who are identified at te airports and then followd by armed gangs to be robbed in their hotels, often in reception or their homes, including diplomatic staff from various countries, and an inquiry is being held (again) into passport, baggage and customs staff at the airports who are thought to be involved in the tip-offs.
Do not rewsist, they have no second thoughts about killing you. Refuse to take off a watch or jewellery they want and they have sharp large knives ready to take the wrist as well.
If history is recorded correctly, Apartheid will be acclaimed as the best way forward that never happened due to the world not looking at the facts, just thinking “poor people, give them their freedom”, to starve and die early while their leaders die of obesity, or to invade the West for sanctuary from their own leaders. And I am not a racist, just a realist. I had black friends in SA in the 1990s, intellectuals who were very worried about the future when the terrorists were finally in government.
Dear God, I hate writing this as I wanted after working damn hard for 25 years in SA, to be settled there, retired now happy in a well run country. Now we are fortunately secure and safe in Spain, but I hate the injustice of it all, especially for the poorer people still stuck in SA. Aparthied was not the horror you were all told and the blacks would have been forced to work to earn their bread especially at the higher levels. Many now, especially in Zimbabwe are very sorry.
Posted by Brian Deller at 2:36 PM on March 16
Farm-jacking is similar to car-jacking. Steal one from a White and use extreme violence. Keep it until it runs out of fuel then strip it of anything useful to sell then abandon the wreckage and go get another. Meanwhile, white volunteers fly out to dig latrines for those too lazy to do it themselves. How come those in charge of land redistribution (wholesale theft) never have any experience whatsoever in farming activities?
Posted by Yorkshireman at 4:41 AM on March 17
It’s a shame that good hearted intelligent and VERY wealthy people like Bill Gates can’t see the forest through the trees when it comes to helping the “poor”. Feed the ignorant and they will just breed more to feed for they are unable to modify their behavior or have any genuine concern for the future thus the next time there is a drought the problem is even worse so unless ones objective is to create an even larger humanitarian disaster in the future, feeding these people is a bad idea unless sterilization is also done. The same is true about AIDS. We know how to prevent AIDS and have known this for decades now so why should we be concerned with those, who of their own free will engage in stupid behaviors that allow them to get it? Should we really be trying to protect people from their own stupidity? Survival of the smartest is what will advance our species as a whole not subsidizing the dumbest. It appears that we are trying to fight human evolution to our own detriment.
Posted by Robert at 9:32 AM on March 17
“I have never understood why it is supposedly tthe responsibility of the west to feed sub-Saharan Africans”
Standard social teaching- the wealth was placed here by G$d, for the use of all. The rich broke into this imaginary warehouse of wealth, and sequestered an unfair share, for their own emolument.
It’z like we stole the southwest from a “land warehouse”- G$d had already built the infrastructure in Aztlan, which we stole.
“You are not making a gift to the poor- you are merely returning that which is rightfully theirs.” Part of Catholic Social Teaching.
Always in the background is zero-sum economics- the gain of one comes at the expense of the other. Imagine ten people in a lifeboat. In that context, there is truly a fixed amount of wealth. One of the passengers in the boat waits until the others are asleep, then reaches into the food store area, and hides extra food. Subsequently, one of the other passengers dies of starvation. HERE, the zero sum is true- the survival of one DID come at the expense of another. To the left, the one stealing the food represents the West, or capitalism…
Posted by Madame Smythe at 11:37 AM on March 17
Much of African food shortages can be attributed to drought and natural causes. But a hefty percentage deserves to be blamed on the mentality of Africans. That despite ample advice and help, these primitives REFUSE to turn from their land-ruining, wasteful agricultural practices and implement changes that would alleviate the problems.
This was highlighted in a series of stories on NPR last hear pertaining to Africa’s chronic problems. Of course we can’t overlook the side-effects of interminable tribal wars that prevent farmers from working their plots, either.
Then there’s the Zimbabwe problem. Zimbabwe was once the breadbasket of a large part of Africa. But that was before Mugabwe established his “enlightened” rule. But such politically distateful truths would be simply too hard for most governments to swallow. So stupidly they continue to pour money and aid into the African hellholes — which has the same effect as placing a bandaid on the stump of a newly-severed limb.
Posted by Fed Up at 2:26 PM on March 17
I oppose any relief effort that does not include a strong emphasis on family planning and job training.
Any effort without those key ingredients WILL end up being at best a wasteful boondoggle and at worst an extension of our welfare state.
Here’s what is done with each:
*job training—>Ever heard of teaching a man to fish instead of just giving him fish? Teach them to do something useful - ANYTHING useful.
*family planning—->Less kids means more food for each. In America that equals more comfort, over there that equals survival.
Posted by Dark-Star at 5:34 PM on March 17
“The more food that they need, the more food Whitey will give them. Do you see a pattern?”
Posted by Peejay in Frisco
……………………….
Yes, and I see more than that. As population soars, and competetion for everything increases, every so often there will be a civil war or natural disaster leaving their country in shambles. Then, Whitey will altruistically import various tribes and ethnic groups over here in order to get them out of harm’s way so they don’t starve or their neighbors don’t kill them (or they don’t kill their neighbors).
We will then have the pleasure of getting acquainted with new neighbors here, an enrichment to our “diverse” rainbow.
Posted by ghw at 11:54 PM on March 18
I’ve read several articles by EXPERTS on Africa — all saying the same thing: Constantly bailing Africans out simply reinforces their DEPENDENCY CULTURE. Making Africans incapable of ever being able to stand on their own.
The ONLY way to help Africa is by NOT HELPING Africa — akin to tough love! Much like raising children. Sometimes you have to be tough with them for their own good.
Posted by Fed Up at 1:00 PM on March 19
Fed Up (1:00 PM on March 19), I believe, also rightly proscribes a fix for our own welfare/entitlement prone (read:DEPENDENCY CULTURE) here in the U.S.
Helping the temporarily destitute is one thing, but who feeds their not-very-useful neighbors without limit?
Posted by ilovemyfirstamendment at 8:38 PM on March 19
Whites should only grow their own food,soon there will be whites only ,problem solved.But you may need to keep guns ready.
Posted by bruce at 6:50 PM on March 26