Letters to the Editor
Taliesan
Published Letters: 942 Editor's Choice: 19
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To understand South Africa, and how this has happened
[Read the article: "I am at the lowest end of all"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You need to look at the following:
First off, South Africa's government is massively incompetent. It is the sort of incompetent that the Republicans can only dream of achieving.
The chief of police is best buds with one of the world's biggest drug dealers. In the cities you can tell who has money by the heights of the walls, who lives in an (Illegally) boomed suburb and how powerful their electric fences are.
And when I say boomed suburb, I mean they have actually fenced off the bulk of the roads going into those suburbs and put a boom across one which has a security guard on it to let the residents in.
The poor bastards in squater camps basically have nothing between them and getting murdered, raped or burnt alive in their sleep.
Jacob Zuma, the leader of the ANC had unprotected sex with a woman he knew to be HIV positive, but figured that taking a shower would take care of it. All of this came out during his rape trial.
He has more wives than he can count and is probably guilty of taking bribes. He is probably going to be the next national president.
The health minister's response to the AIDS crisis was to sing the praises of beatroot. She is a drunken kleptomaniac who abuses her staff.
The national power company, Eskom, had a morritorium on new power plants. Recently it was very surprised to find that it couldn't supply enough power to keep the economy going.
The education sector was host to a strike last year, where the teachers tore up exam papers and assualted students. The nurses behaved worse.
When Oprah Winfrey built a school in South Africa she made distinct efforts to keep the children away from corrupting influences. What she didn't realise is South Africa has an epidemic of teachers raping students.
The reason you haven't heard about this is because South Africa also has an epidemic of rape in general.
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America is at a point where it must make a choice
[Read the article: Rev. Jeremiah Wright isn't the problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And that choice is this: Patriotism or survival.
The patriotic choice is to go with empty rhetoric about how the country is perfect, and thus nothing real needs to be done to ensure its future.
This was the choice of Reagan, of both Bushes, and of every rightwing president. It is the lazy choice, the choice of cheerleaders as opposed to real leaders.
It is the choice of what a lot of Democrats wish they could be. It is the choice that characterises the Republican party. It is the choice that will destroy America in its entirety.
Or you can take the choice of survival. This does not mean voting for Obama, but does mean stilling your emotions and thinking about where you want the country to be.
It means having the balls to accept that America is NOT the greatest country on Earth. It requires accepting that there are real cancers in America's culture, that America has behaved badly, and that it continues to do so with only minimal objections being raised by its largely ignorant and apathetic people.
George W Bush torturing POWs does not come simply from the Republican party, it comes from everything America has been perverted into standing for. The Democrats refusing to enforce the law and call for impeachment measures being taken against George W Bush does not simply come from the Democratic party, it comes from a culture of spinelessness within America itself.
In a world where the vanity of the army is of more account than whether soldiers get shot, where war is fought not over some grievance, but for the sake of saving face, where good is a campaign speech and evil is an administration, America needs to quiet its patriotism and take stock of just what it means to be an American.
That a preacher damns America before a future presidential candidate is of no consequence. America is damned more by its actions, than by the words of Reverand Wright. That Obama has not thrown the Reverand under the bus is meaningless, because that he sees America's flaws actually counts in his favour - you want those flaws fixing do you not?
Being an American should never mean waving the flag and cheering. It should mean working to improve the state of America, it should mean striving your damndest to correct that which is wrong in America, and forever aiming to perfect the union.
That is what being a liberal means, while the conservatives cheer in their empty flag waving, liberals do the hard work of giving America something to cheer about.
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sonofloud
[Read the article: Rev. Jeremiah Wright isn't the problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So basically you are calling Obama a communist religious nut - and revealing your own true colours - Red as a rooster running from the farmer's block.
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Just reading through sonofloud and odog
[Read the article: Rev. Jeremiah Wright isn't the problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why don't you just have done with it and call Obama die rooi end swart gevaar?
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en swart gevaar
[Read the article: Rev. Jeremiah Wright isn't the problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Typo.
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odog11
[Read the article: Rev. Jeremiah Wright isn't the problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I suppose you are at least open about basing your vote on race.
BTB: Zuma is the president of the ANC. Mbeki is still the president of the country.
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blank
[Read the article: Rev. Jeremiah Wright isn't the problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well I suppose if you see nothing wrong with murdering black people you might feel that the Apartheid government had nothing to appologise for, but then the rest of us kind of want to get past this whole "Racism" thing.