RANT: Austerity & Other Nonsense

There is so much talk these days about austerity, austerity, austerity. Governments worldwide are brandishing this word around like financial sabres, ready to cut and thrust at everything and everybody in their wake.

It's been all the talk, nay, all the rage at the G-20 talks in Toronto.

It's all about cut, cut, cut.

And why? Because of the current global financial crisis (read: meltdown), of course. We're all told again and again and again in the media about how bad many developed countries' public finances are and how it is so necessary for austerity measures to be introduced so that the 'deficits' can be brought under control.

It all sounds so utterly convincing - if one hears it enough times (and, boy, don't we just). After all, the finances of a country need to be 'balanced', right?

Wrong.

This current obsession with 'balancing the books' of countries so that debt levels can be somehow 'stabilized' is NOT the only solution to governments around the world. Yet, the way many leaders and 'economic experts' (now there's perhaps the biggest oxymoron of our times...) speak, one would believe that only by slashing away at any public spending are governments going to get out of their current debt spiral.

This austerity obsession, deliriously manic in its 'all-or-nothing' worldview, has taken its grip. And it will not let go. Thus the need to dissect just what all this austerity will actually mean:

• slashed public (read: government) spending on health
• slashed public spending on education
• slashed public spending on infrastructure
• slashed public spending on social services
• slashed public spending on social upliftment programmes
• slashed public spending on single mothers
• slashed public spending on poor children
• slashed public spending on the poor - period
• slashed everything that creates any semblance of a welfare, communitarian state

But there's more. Inevitably, without exception, these austerity measures also mean:

• more selling of public (government-owned) assets
• more privatization, including of public utilities
• more 'open markets' (i.e. to foreign, cheaper imports)
• less trade barriers of any kind - whatsoever
• diminished unionization and union powers
• 'liberalization' of labour laws (as if workers being protected and having minimum rights somehow needs to be 'liberated')
• less restrictions on banks and other financial institutions

Hey, hold on a moment - this all sounds terribly familiar. This sounds just like the type of painful, nation-destroying program (obliquely referred to as 'structural adjustment') that is ALWAYS imposed by the IMF whenever it grants a loan to a country, right? Absolutely. And aren't the IMF and its other Evil Twin, the World Bank, nothing more than the international bank and finance versions of the so-called 'Washington Consensus' - i.e. the wholesale embrace of the Chicago School of Economics and its architect, that most vile economist, Milton Friedman?

Friedman is thankfully dead, but his nihilistic vision of economics is alive and well, i.e. the market always 'knows best', the market should be left completely unregulated, there should be no government interference in the market, etc. That magic 'market' that knows best and will make all of our lives so much better. You know - all that utter neoconservative economic crap that got us into this whole mess in the first place...

The very antithesis of Friedmanite economics is that of the Keynesians, the economic theory that dominated world economics and public financing from the 1930s until Friedman started to rear his ugly, perverse head in the 1970s.

We can thank the brilliant British economist John Maynard Keynes (in the photo) for his brand of 'caring capitalism' economics. Brilliant because the Americans stuck in the nightmare of the Great Depression in the early 1930s can thank Keynes for getting them out of it. The New Deal anyone? Where the hell do people think Franklin D. Roosevelt got the idea to pump money into the American economy with huge public works, thereby creating jobs and new prosperity?

The post-World War II Marshall Plan, not to mention the social welfare-based market economies of Western Europe from 1945 to the 1980s, were entirely Keynesian in theory and practice.

Where the Friedmanite (aka monetarists) cultists dictate that in bad times one should switch off the public spending taps, Keynesians believe that governments should spend, spend, spend. Keynesian theory says that in order to create wealth one must spend money to do so. Pump the economy full of cash, even if it creates more initial public debt.

Friedmanites, cultish to the hilt in their governments-out-of-markets-at-all-times hysteria, say this is madness. Debt is debt and debt is bad, they preach. So, it's slash, slash, slash for them.

Oh, but do make sure that the banks and stock markets remain completely unregulated so that they can run riot like the financial terrorists that some of them wish to be...and plunge us into this crisis all over again.

Yeah, the Friedman approach makes perfect sense.

And so we now live in this surreal and schizophrenic world of contemporary global finance and public spending. On the one hand, governments have pumped huge amounts of public money into the economy. That's Keynesian, whichever way you look at it. Except they've thrown all the money at the speculators and at the rogues (i.e. the banks, investment houses, etc), rather than benefiting the savers and those needing work in the economy. Ummmm, Keynes would not have approved.

On the other hand, governments resolutely refuse to really clamp down on banks, financial institutions on the whole, stock markets, etc. It's all been so wimpish, so piecemeal, so ineffective. And, worse still, now plunged into further debt because of bailing out banks, governments all over now insist on slashing public spending so that they can 'control the public debts'...!!! They simply can't seem to get out of the Friedman horror show that has gripped the world's economic imagination since the 1980s.

Hence the current economic schizophrenia.

It's madness. Just yesterday on the Keiser Report on Russia Today TV, Ellen Brown, who has written the critically acclaimed book "Web of Debt" (which I absolutely must read ASAP), spoke of how ridiculous it was that the new British government have been quoted as saying that they will need to slash spending in order to save the welfare state. She stated that warped logic was akin to "starving the patient even more in order to save the patient." In a word - preposterous.

Governments do NOT need to slash public spending in order to jumpstart ailing and debt-ridden economies. On the contrary - more than ever, they need to inject huge amounts of money into protecting those who save and don't merely speculate and, more importantly, making huge investments in job creation, skills development and other socio-economic programs. Yes, a country will get into more debt. A lot more debt even - without a doubt. Initially, that is. But at least the 'stimulus plan' will be effective in the long run - more jobs actually created, more spending power as a result by all citizens, more sustained growth.

The 1930s New Deal anyone?

AND, most importantly, at least public money will be kept in the public domain for the public good and not handed over to the robber barons just so that they can loudly say NO whenever anyone asks to borrow some of 'their' precious money (which is actually the public's, but anyway)...

Austerity is not inevitable. Austerity is not the only way.

Austerity. It's the 'A' word that should be an 'F' word.

Do you get my point?

RANT: WANTED: Financial Terrorists

This post has been boiling inside me like a volcano for literally months now. You'll soon see why...

Let me say it here, loud and strong: This ongoing global financial crisis has nothing to do with "governments overspending" (the accusations hurled at Greece) or "governments being irresponsible with their debt" (again, the wretched Greece - and ditto at Spain, Portugal and Italy) or "public finances that are too generous and over-exploited by undeserving recipients" (the type of rhetoric coming out of the now-Tory UK) or any other such deceptive doublespeak.

These are just political fluff balls and psychological teargas used by (useless, bought out, corrupt, stupid - take your pick) politicians and economists on a confused and bewildered public. Because folks, the only reason nearly every economy now in 'crisis' with its public finances is in the depths of despair and now swallowing the 'austerity pill' en masse is because PUBLIC MONEY WAS SPENT TO BAIL OUT PRIVATELY OWNED BANKS AND FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS!!!

Starting with the United States last year, and ever since, country after country has been bailing out banks and financial institutions with literally trillions of dollars in PUBLIC MONEY in the demented hope that by giving all this money to these banks and financial terrorists they would somehow start re-lending money to people and get economies circulating money again and recovering.

The very banks and financial institutions that are privately held, unelected and not accountable to the very public whose money has been given over to these corporate swine on a silver platter. Their only concern are their top management and executives making a killing, along with a few rogue traders and other despicable insiders, and perhaps their shareholders - a crowd of people in this context I dub the 'Three Monkeys Crowd' (you know - the monkeys that saw nothing, say nothing and hear nothing).

The very banks and financials institutions that GOT US INTO THIS WHOLE BLOODY MESS WITH THEIR RECKLESS LENDING, BREATHTAKINGLY RECKLESS RISK-TAKING & ASTOUNDING RATES OF LEVERAGED DEBT!!!

And then people wonder why the hell people like me are so bloody angry!!!

And what's happened with all that bail-out money handed over to these undeserving financial terrorists?
Did they open the taps and lend money to the public? NO.
Did they inject new life into economies with all their new money, i.e. public money paid to them for their own reckless and economically suicidal decisions? NO. 
Did nearly all of them still go out and pay their top executives bonuses at the end of 2009 and already this year, even though they were technically insolvent and were using public money to pay these gigantic bonuses to the very financial bosses who got us all into this mess in the first place? YES, BUT OF COURSE - HOW DARE YOU ASK!

These financial bastards must be laughing themselves sick at how they pulled off what is probably the biggest financial con job of the modern era.

So, now governments like Greece, Spain, the UK and many others are scrambling around with all this public debt due to these ginormous payouts to banks. All because they chose to 'save' these reckless financial terrorist organizations masquerading as 'bona fide' going concerns, rather than telling them that the party is OVER, allowing most of these banks to collapse - kaput. After all, doesn't classical capitalism tell us that when a business is no longer viable it should not be allowed to survive?

But, of course, most of these banks and financial institutions have become 'too big to fail'. Again, how the hell is that stupendous logic reconciled with true free market capitalism?

Adam Smith is rolling in his grave.

This is not free, open market capitalism. This is globalized casino capitalism, whereby reckless and frankly dangerous banks and financial institutions now have the power to bring entire economies to their knees because of their own outrageous risk-taking and market manipulating.

 Or, at the very least, they should have chopped up these financial behemoths into smaller, less reckless and HEAVILY REGULATED banks - oh, and fired every bloody conniving or useless financial terrorist (aka senior executives and top brass) in every one of these failed enterprises. And named and shamed every one of them for the financial terrorists that they have been.

They subvert national economies. They wreck national stock markets and currencies. They destabilize the entire planet. These are financial terrorists.

Yet they continue to thrive, like the devious well-heeled cockroaches that they are. Swanning around in their huge limousines, guzzling down haute cuisine and swilling expensive drink at chichi restaurants, living in their swanky (multiple) homes and even having the gall to appear in the media as 'financial pundits' or 'gurus'.

Uh huh.

What makes these men and women in the financial world who have accepted public money for their own reckless, dangerous acts and threaten to destroy countries' economies any less terrorists than the likes of al-Qaeda? Is it because they wear designer suits and expensive watches? Is it because they obtained their MBAs at prestigious universities? Is it because they look 'more like us' than those crazies brandishing AK-47s and suicide bomb vests?

They're not like the rest of us - at all. They live in a stratosphere of disgusting wealth acquisition and inordinate economic power. They are dangerous. They are a threat. They too are the enemy.

And countries are left broke and unable (or unwilling?) to properly control this plague of arrogant, financial terrorists in our midst. Economies shrink, people lose work and homes and dignity, and these entities that 'simply could not fail' continue to fail all of us again and again and again.

My anger - like so many others in Greece and Spain and Romania and Iceland and countless other countries - knows no bounds.

Do you get my point?

RAVE: Viva Portugal!

Yesterday at the World Cup, Italy made me utterly embarrassed to have a name that is so flagrantly Italian! Proud as I am of being un italiano, their performance against New Zealand was the stuff of nightmares and passport changes. Dirty and (s)crappy football the New Zealanders may have played, but the Italians only have themselves to blame for such a pathetic result.

I still think Italy will make it through to the next round, by the way - scraaaaaaaping through, once again...anyway...

I can only say today THANK GOODNESS I'M HALF-PORTUGUESE!!!

Italianissimo my name and surname may indeed be, with my entire paternal side italiano, but whilst my maternal side is decidedly more 'mixed' (with everything from German to French to Danish - and more - thrown in there), it is predominantly Portuguese. I lived in Portugal for a few years, even finishing my high schooling there, had countless holidays in beautiful Lisboa and Cascais, grew up surrounded by Portuguese food, music and language, etc etc.

Enfim, I have claims to my Portuguese heritage. Relief.

Because today Portugal were frankly STUNNING in their 7-0 annihilation of North Korea.

What a display of finesse, of beautiful, flowing and attacking football - and, well, undoubtedly THE performance of any single team in a match in this World Cup thus far.

I even had love, even affection, for Ronaldo today - and that's saying a lot.

North Korea pushovers, huh? Yeah, well, they had tons more possession against the highly fancied Brazilians than they did against Portugal, and Brazil could only muster a 2-1 victory against the plucky Asians in the end.

Portugal deserved all the goals they got. Portugal deserve all the praise they get. They were sublime.

Can they build on the momentum? Are they now one of the true dark horses to take it all the way? Who knows. Frankly, who cares. Today they made their own history and they gave this World Cup ever so much more magic.

PORTUGAL!!!

PORTUGAL!!!

VIVA PORTUGAL!!!

RAVE: Words from Peter Singer

The weekend is upon me and it may be cold but the sun is shining bright, which is great. However, in less than a week the International Whaling Commission (IWC) will be voting on whether to allow whaling once more. The prospect of this is shocking to me. Therefore, it feels only right that I post these beautiful words by noted philosopher and bioethicist, Peter Singer:

"In an earlier stage of our development most human groups held to a tribal ethic. Members of the tribe were protected, but people of other tribes could be robbed or killed as one pleased. Gradually the circle of protection expanded, but as recently as 150 years ago we did not include blacks. So African human beings could be captured, shipped to America, and sold. In Australia white settlers regarded Aborigines as a pest and hunted them down, much as kangaroos are hunted down today. Just as we have progressed beyond the blatantly racist ethic of the era of slavery and colonialism, so we must now progress beyond the speciesist ethic of the era of factory farming, of the use of animals as mere research tools, of whaling, seal hunting, kangaroo slaughter, and the destruction of wilderness. We must take the final step in expanding the circle of ethics."

These words by this brilliant, compassionate man have never resonated more than now...

RANT: The Hypocrisy of Power

Few things enrage me as much as hypocrisy. Ever since I can remember, and even as a child, hypocrisy was something that I can simply could not abide.

A case in point is the appearance yesterday of embattled BP CEO, Tony Hayward, before a congressional hearing on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

As expected, Tony came across the blithering British public schoolboy idiot that he is. All clipped accent and sheepish Hugh Grant-esque demeanour, he tried his hardest to deflect the criticism being hurled at him by the congressmen.

A real twit atwitter.

But that was no surprise. After all, the man has been a PR disaster for the oil giant since the very beginning of this crisis. The oil giant itself has been a disaster.  BP deserves every bit of derision, criticism and all-out anger directed against it - not to mention, dare I hope, continued mounting financial losses.

However, that didn't annoy me half as much as something else, something positively dripping in hypocrisy: the sight of all those pompous, self-righteous congressmen acting all sanctimonious as they attacked Tony.

Are these the same congressmen who belong to a body of legislators who are the most over-lobbied and bought-out politicians of any democracy? Are these the same legislators the vast majority of whom accept huge contributions (read: kickbacks) from the oil lobby, one of the biggest and most powerful in Washingon D.C?

Where has the initiative been by Congress to ensure less dirty, less polluting and more sustainable energy sources for the United States, the largest and most energy-consuming economy in the world? Where was Congress in the oversight of the Mineral Management Services, the much-maligned division of the Department of the Interior that oversees offshore drilling? Nowhere, that's where - they were too busy counting their petrodollar contributions (read: bribes) and turning a convenient blind eye to the fact that oil is dirty, unsustainable and puts American security at even greater risk.

Not to mention the looming uber-monster that is peak oil...

The United States Congress is as much to blame, when all is said and done, for this spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil rig may be all BP, but the lax regulations and double standard on energy policy sits firmly at the front steps of Capitol Hill.

And there they sit, lording it over the BP CEO as if they had no part to play in this whole mess.

What a bloody cheek!

If this isn't hypocrisy at the highest levels, then I have no idea what is.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Seeing Orange

It's World Cup time and with my seeing red because of those infernal and wretched vuvuzelas, I'm now seeing orange. A bevy of thirty-six ladies from the Netherlands dressed in orange, to be exact.

And the skimpy orange miniskirts that got them all arrested.

The whole debacle arose when said thirty-six Dutch beauties wore a certain orange miniskirt ensemble to their Dutch side's match against Denmark. Just after the match all the ladies were promptly arrested by our ever-vigilant South African police.

Their crime? They were supposedly part of some 'ambush marketing campaign' by the Dutch beer company, Bavaria beer. Turns out that their alluring orange attire is somehow 'sneaky' backdoor advertising by the beer company. Of course, the real issue is that one of the official sponsors to this FIFAdom love fest, namely Budweiser, took offence to a rival beer company getting a 'free ride' without having to fork out all those millions in sponsorship fees to the FIFA Mafia in Zurich. 

I also have a sneaking suspicion that another Dutch rival, Heineken, may also have sparked the FIFA-sanctioned arrests, given that Heineken are also affiliated with the FIFA capos via their deal with UEFA. 

FIFA cried foul, stating that this ambush marketing was in defiance of sponsorship money (all to FIFA, of course), trademarks, etc. South African law, uber-capitalist to the hilt, whatever the governing ANC might say about being the 'peoples' party', didn't hesitate to put the ladies in handcuffs given our particularly strong intellectual property laws.

South African law is very harsh (read: uber-capitalist, patriarchal and, ultimately, anti-competition) when it comes to ambush marketing or any other type of 'unfair' marketing or trading practice.

As a South African I'm embarrassed and infuriated. Here we are, yet again, kowtowing to corporatist special interests and the Mafiosi henchmen of the Local Organizing Committee, yes, good ol' FIFA.

This is just plain sour grapes by the likes of Budweiser (and, let me say it again, Heineken) who've spent a fortune paying the protection racket dues (aka 'sponsorship') of the FIFA Mafia, when a much smaller brewer has come along and stolen their thunder - without having spent a cent and without a single one of their logos in view. And, of course, the FIFA Mafia having to protect their racket, benevolent godfathers of the football world that they are.

Yeah, I know, it's all business. And it stinks. Copyright legislation and sponsorship contracts and deals are strangling any initiative for ordinary South Africans to make a decent buck out of this bloody World Cup. And now not even a market-savvy and smart foreign company can try and capitalize by spending less than the big boys - even if not a single one of their own logos or brands are visible in any way, shape or form.

I believe Bavaria beer pulled a similar stunt at the 2006 World Cup in Germany and were thwarted at the last minute by German authorities at the stadium. So, they did it again in 2010, this time probably thinking that they'd get away with it if they didn't show their logos or brand. But they got 'caught out'. What a damn pity - and all power to them for having tried, even if their main goal was to obviously sell more beer of their own.

Now I see pundits on Sky News parroting at how FIFA must protect their trademarks and sponsorship deals, etc. Yeah, right. And where's the free enterprise in all of this overt protectionism of contractual and commercial 'rights'?

It makes me so angry.

I'm ashamed that this gutless host country that I call home for now genuflects with such ease to foreign, corporate interests. That's right, South Africa - show your ass. That's all you're good at doing when it comes to foreign interests that line the pockets of this country's elite and strangle any attempts to not be part of the racket.

I'm ashamed that 36 women who are guests in my country are arrested and treated like common criminals, even if for four hours or so, just because they partook in a game of corporate gamesmanship, all in the name of uber-capitalist, apartheid era legislation that only protects Big Money.

And I'm furious that a bunch of unaccountable and corrupt Zurich-based Mafia in full collusion with transnational corporations, not to mention this country's authorities, see fit to allow this to happen here in this country.

It's an outrage. And the further encroachment of just how much increasing power commercial and transnational entities believe (AND KNOW) they have in a supposedly global market based on 'free enterprise'.

This is not free enterprise. It's not even about the protection of commercial rights. This is genuflection to the highest bidder; the most extreme whoring of the entire market to those with the most money vested and, therefore, the most rights.

This is a warning to us all as to just what lengths corporations will go to protect their (self) interests. It is dangerous precedent.

Do you get my point?

RAVE/ PREDICTIONS: World Cup Hopes

I will keep this one short and I shall keep it brief. It's all to do with which countries I would love to win the World Cup, the one country that I believe will actually win it and those I believe simply won't make it.

First off, sorry Bafana Bafana, you're just not going to make it. The South African guys availed themselves quite well against Mexico in the opening match of the tournament. But this is a team I simply cannot get excited about - their football is simply not world class.

For me, my two favourites have to be the two countries that comprise the majority of my (rather multi-national, rather crazy!) heritage: Italy and Portugal.

Portugal are notorious for being 'chokers' and this is not their strongest squad ever, but at least when they play exciting football, it's great to watch. And never, EVER discount Italia - as so many have been doing prior to this World Cup. Italy has 'no chance', many say. Oh yeah? And just how fancied were they before the 2006 World Cup which they went on to win? Not very much, I can assure you.

Italy are like Germany. You never, ever discount them at this level of football championships.

There are some very fancied teams that many are saying have a very good chance of winning it this time around, all of which I actually disagree with: Netherlands (huge chokers, just like the Portuguese - the Dutch will not win); England (always overrated, just never have what it takes to win in the end, and this year will be no different for the Limeys) and, to a lesser extent, those perennial under-performers, Spain.

This time around, I do think there is a (very) outside chance the Spanish could just go all the way. But for me it's such an outside chance it's not even worth placing a proper bet on. The Spanish just don't convince me, much as I do enjoy their football and style.

Of course, as ever, Brazil have to be one of the favourites and they, just like Italy and Germany, can never ever be discounted. Yes, they could win it. I would be a fool to discount that much raw talent and pedigree of heritage.

This is not the time for an African country to do it. Nor do I foresee any huge shocks like a USA or a Serbia or one of those other 'really dark horses' to make it all the way and win it. It's just not going to happen, methinks.

So who do I actually think is going to win the 2010 World Cup?

ARGENTINA

Yes, Argentina are my bet. I've been saying it for months leading up this World Cup, and I will stand by it: this is the country that has the talent and the oomph to make it all the way and win it.

And I really hope that they do. They play great football (if a bit dirty times, it be said). It has the world's most exciting player at present - Lionel Messi. It's a great country deserving of a triumph like this. I want it for Argentina for what it stands for in Latin America, for the culture it has given the world, for its troubled past, for what it went through with that disgusting bunch of international finance Mafia in 2002, the IMF, and for everything that Argentina is.

Not to mention that there are more of my family name in the telephone book of Buenos Aires than in Italy!

FUERZA ARGENTINA!!!

FORZA ITALIA!!!

FORCA PORTUGAL!!! 

RAVE: BP Bull Busting

I just came across this absolutely brilliant article on the excellent site, Mother Jones. It's an interview between journalist Laura McClure and a mystery satirist who has set up a Twitter profile @BPGlobalPR. His tweets have been mercilessly hurling accusations and revelations at the juggernaut that is the BP PR machine in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill catastrophe.

A PR machine that has, as we all know, been a bloody fiasco.

The 'BP Cares' online campaign (sardonic logo above) is adbusting as it should be - taking aim at irresponsible corporations who wreck the environment and people's lives. Taking aim at those pervasive logos and brands that have become such a blight of modern life.

The interview between McClure and this mystery man is hilarious in that he plays the role of a 'BP PR' person in the Q&A.

Follow the link here: http://motherjones.com/media/2010/06/bp-global-pr-interview

It's irreverent and funny. Enjoy the read and follow this corporate vigilante on Twitter too.

BP, you so had all of this coming to you.

RANT: Cacophony From Hell

Today is the start of the month-long World Cup here in South Africa. It's football at its best. It's flags and colour and great atmosphere. It's an event that I usually look forward to every four years.

Vittorio should be happy.

Vittorio is not.

I cannot remember the last time a momentous occassion has annoyed me more or when I've wanted something so huge and so all-encompassing to just hurry up and finish. So what the hell's the matter with me? I admit a recent and ongoing bout of really bad upper bachache is not helping at all. Amazing how much pain and lack of good sleep can turn one into Irritation Central.

So, yes, I'm not in the best of moods these days. I admit that. But I had to ask myself yesterday and again today why I was so utterly irritated with this whole World Cup malarkey. Surely it couldn't just be a lousy back that is making me feel so grouchy and ready to slap everything in sight, right?

Absolutely right. Because I have figured out what to me has become synonymous with this sporting event in this country and why I am hating it so:

It's noise. And not just any old noise or a combination of noises typical of these sporting events. Oh, no - we should all be so lucky. No, this is a very specific, very distinct noise emanating from South Africa's hellish gift to the world of musical sporting paraphernalia.

This is a noise so ear-splitting, so inharmonious, so utterly revolting it is proof-positive that Lucifer does indeed exist and that this is his diabolical musical instrument of choice.

It's the vuvuzela.

This metre-long or so instrument of hell has been a fixture of South African soccer matches since the 1990s. Soccer fans blow on them for all their worth, decimating anything and everything in its aural path.

And now it is an overwhelming fixture of this World Cup. Heaven help me.

Trust me, there are many who share my hatred for this little-horn-that-should-never-have. And everyone has their own version of what it reminds them of. To me, it sounds like an amorphous cloud of gigantic mosquitoes out of some really horrific sci-fi movie. Here are some other opinions of what the wretched vuvuzela sounds like (and I quote):

- "a groaning, constipated cow in full groan";
- "a demented foghorn"
- "a very badly tuned, super loud French horn"

- "what hell would sound like"

You get the picture.

And it is loud. Oh brother, is it LOUD.

Occupational hygiene issues such as noise-induced hearing loss have been a part of my work for nearly ten years now, so I know a thing or two about how bad excessive noise can be for one's ears. Yet even I was stunned at the decibel readings of this diabolical instrument, as shown on the table below - 127 decibels - even more ear-splitting than a jumbo jet taking off - that is L-O-U-D!!!!!

For more info on just how bad vuvuzelas can be for a person's hearing, follow this link: http://allafrica.com/stories/201006071455.html

Today was hell on Earth for me. Having hardly slept most of the night, I awoke in the early morning to the nearby screeching of vuvuzelas, I take it by little children on their way to a nearby school. Fetching money at a local ATM in my lovely suburb I was accosted by some lunatic in dreadlocks giving it all his worth across the street. I nearly went over to snap his vuvuzela in two, yank on his dreadlocks and deck him. Instead I huffed away, my aching back intensified, my mood darkened.

Then, to compound my misery,  as I drove up to my physiotherapist I saw to my horror that right opposite were two breezy young lasses blowing to their hearts content on the sidewalk to passing cars. It took everything for me not to accelerate my car, mount the sidewalk at full speed and run the bitches over, vuvuzelas and all.

And all around me people honking their horns like mad, flying their South African flags or just grinning inanely, all caught up in this 'magical' moment of patriotic fervour and pride. How touching. Never have I come so close to wanting to set fire to my South African passport. Along with a heap of vuvuzelas, of course.

Much to my delight, I have now read reports online that the vuvuzela could be better at transmitting viruses than shouting or even sneezing! Where the hell is the World Health Organization when you need it?

The vuvuzela is noise personified. Never mind invading one's space - it invades one's very core, one's very soul. My only hope is that so many people from other countries, not to mention players and referees on the pitch, will complain so much about how irritating it is that it simply won't take off after this World Cup or, better still, maybe even be banned FIFA. That would be the first FIFA action I would fully support, nay, celebrate.

But for now I and others must tolerate this noise worthy of a year's supply of Prozac. Or a month-long vacation in the Antarctic, just for the quiet. Oh, the quiet.

It's going to be a very looooooooooong month.

Do you get my point?

RANT: The Almighty BP Shareholder

We have BP to thank for this in the Gulf of Mexico:

And BP feels justified in paying out $10-billion in dividends to its shareholders!!!

This is corporate arrogance at its very, VERY WORST...

Heaven forbid that shareholders don't get their payouts. I say to hell with bloody shareholders if this is the type of company they choose to invest in...

Shame on you BP!

Shame on BP shareholders!

Do you get my point?

NOT the Man of the Day: BP's Tony Hayward

Tut, tut, British Petroleum, you are in trouble, hey?

The massive oil spill creating the tragic environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is ultimately the responsibility of BP. It's their oil rig, leased as it might be from another company, that suffered an explosion in April and subsequent spill that cannot be contained. The U.S. President, government and U.S. regulatory authorities have all pointed the finger directly at BP. Their stock price is down by a third already and the cost of their insurance has reportedly sky-rocketed.

It has been a veritable public relations nightmare for BP.

And they bloody deserve it.

That's what you get for pumping out a dirty, tricky energy source in a difficult and dangerous location without the proper safety mechanisms and response in place. All thanks to having bought favours on Capitol Hill to ensure de facto self-regulation (read: lowers standards) just so that the corporation could make a few more bucks for its shareholders, investors and Board.

Yeah, they all do it - we know that, BP. Thing is, you got caught with your pants down.

And the man who must (and deserves to) take all the flack is BP CEO, Tony Hayward. That's why he has the title, the cache and the caboodles of money that he has.

And, jeepers, the BP Board must be ruing the day they made him CEO. The man has only added to the PR disaster that is the Deepwater Horizon oil spill for them.

Initially, Tony had the temerity to call the spill “relatively tiny”. He, on behalf of BP, even had the gall to state in the first two days that the oil spill would be negligible, even non-existent, beyond the initial spill into the sea from the explosion itself. How wrong and his lot were proven on that one.

On May 17th, already three weeks into the disaster, he still had the nerve to state to the satellite channel, Sky News, that the environmental cost of the spill would be “very, very modest.” Veteran marine biologist Prof. Rick Steiner vehemently reacted, stating that Hayward's statement was, “simply one of the most arrogant, ignorant, callous statements I have ever heard from any corporate CEO during a crisis such as this.”

Just yesterday the New York Daily News called him "the most hated - and the most clueless - man in America."

Ouch!

It gets better.

Hayward was also quoted by Reuters and many other news agencies as saying repeatedly, “I want my life back”. Indeed. As I'm sure do the 11 men who lost their lives with the explosion on the rig. It was a stupendously insensitive statement given these lives lost in the explosion, not to mention the ongoing environmental and socio-economic catastrophe of the spill. He later apologised for his words.

All of this an astounding lack of the most basic tenets of proper disaster-related communication, not to mention corporate governance, by a corporate CEO.

When a company's disaster is creating an environmental and socio-economic disaster of epic proportions, then it is fitting and fair that someone get fingered. It is not enough for us to finger this thing called 'BP'. After all, what the hell is BP but a juristic (legal) 'person', i.e. an entity that is neither tangible nor someone we can shout at or send to jail. BP is frankly made up, a legal and commercial construct.

A person is required to take the fall. That is why the law recognizes that directors are the 'embodiment' of  a corporation. I know, it's another legal construct. But one that does have gravitas. And as the head honcho of all operations, the CEO must take ultimate responsibility for an operational gaffe of these gigantic proportions.

Enter Mr. Hayward.

And that is why it is only fitting and only fair that the person who most 'embodies' the fiasco that is BP should be fingered, held accountable, accused. And that person is Tony Hayward.

RANT: BP & the Hubris of Oil

The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico has resulted in the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history. It is now time that I make my comments on this catastrophe - a catastrophe for the environment, and proof yet again of the hubris that is humanity's addiction to that most dirty energy, oil.

It is on this theme of 'hubris' that I today finished writing a comment on this disaster, at the request of an editor of a magazine for which I write an opinion article every two months. I doubt it will be published and, as such, I am taking the liberty of paraphrasing and, here and there, quoting from the said comment piece right here on the my blog:
  
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the epitome of that most lamentable human downfall: hubris. Hubris is defined as “excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance”.

The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico started from an oil well blow-out from the seabed in the Gulf's Macondo Prospect oil field, resulting in a catastrophic explosion on the BP (British Petroleum) oil rig, Deepwater Horizon on April 20th. The explosion killed 11 platform workers and eventually sank the rig on April 22nd.

The well-head of the BP oil rig was fitted with what is known as a 'blow-out preventer'. It has been stated that the platform “did have a dead man's switch designed to automatically cut the pipe and seal the well...but it was unknown whether the switch was activated.” According to the UK's Observer newspaper, “The rig's blow-out preventer, a fail-safe device fitted at source of the well, did not automatically cut off the oil flow as intended when the explosion occurred. Six attempts to do so have failed to date.” Hence the ongoing massive leaking of crude oil into the Gulf ever since.

It should be noted that certain safety devices for offshore oil rigs are not required in the Gulf of Mexico, even though they are required for offshore rigs by countries like Brazil and Norway. These safety mechanisms had not been deemed 'necessary' by the United States regulators. That most dubious assessment had been made by the Minerals Management Service (MMS), a division of the United States Department of the Interior which oversees and regulates offshore oil drilling. The MMS has a lot to answer for.

Their decision was made in 2003, slap bang in the middle of the George W. Bush administration, well known for being literally in the pocket of the Texan oil and gas industry. It's no coincidence that an oft-made and wry statement by Washington commentators when Baby Bush took over in 2001 was that, “Houston had come to the White House”. Any wonder the decision by the MMS? You do the mathematics.

The controversy over the actual spill rate escalated in the following days and weeks. And with good reason – the more the discharge of oil into the Gulf, the greater the environmental and socio-economic impacts thereof. The spill rate was of critical importance. Yet BP kept playing down the numbers. Estimates by research scientist, Timothy Crone, were that the spill was at least 50 000 barrels (7 900 000 litres) per day. Eugene Chaing, an astrophysicist, put it even higher: up to 100 000 barrels per day (16 000 000 litres)!

Even more galling is that BP has flat-out refused for any independent assessments to be made of the leak at the so-called 'safety valve', on the basis that they were doing everything necessary and possible themselves. However, let's face it, the main reason for this refusal by BP is based on wanting to jealously guard their proprietary rights over the oil field. Once again, private property rights triumph over any collective social and environmental rights that a society may have even in the face of a calamity. And the U.S. government acquiesces to that.

It's outrageous. It beggars belief. It's hubris.

One chilling account from the media was from the US television network, CBS. One of their reporters, Kelly Cobiella, had “tried to visit the beaches in the Gulf of Mexico to report on the disaster. She was met by BP contractors and American Coast Guard officers who threatened her with arrest if she did not leave.” Most astoundingly was the they further reported that, “The Coast Guard officials specified that they were acting under the authority of BP.” Under the authority of BP? Since when does a corporation have jurisdiction over public beaches and local communities being affected by an environmental disaster requiring federal (national) response and assistance?

The environmental impact of this spill is potentially devastating. And growing by the day. Oil, water, fish and other wildlife simply do not co-exist well. Thousands of tons of toxic hydrocarbons from the oil will wreak havoc on marine and coastal ecosystems. The Louisiana and Mississippi coasts are home to some of the most fragile and unique mangrove and wetland ecosystems in the world. Hundreds of different species of bird, marine mammal, fish and other species are at risk in this ecologically very sensitive and biodiverse area. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is already calling it the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

BP has boldly stated that it will compensate all those affected by the spill and that, "We are taking full responsibility for the spill and we will clean it up and where people can present legitimate claims for damages we will honour them. We are going to be very, very aggressive in all of that."

How very big of them.

Time will tell, but do excuse me if I'm rather skeptical of those promises being 'honoured' by BP. My only fervent hope is that local communities take him up on his sentiment and are 'very, very aggressive' when suing the pants off BP in massive, ongoing class action lawsuits, something at which the Americans are the best in the world.

BP needs to be hit where it hurts hardest for any major corporation – in the pocket. To date over a 150 lawsuits have already been filed against BP due to the oil spill. Bless the American people and their hyper-litigious little souls!

By June 1st, BP itself reported that its efforts to contain the spill had cost $990-million. A proverbial drop in the ocean for a multi-billion dollar corporation. The Swiss bank UBS has estimated that the final cost to BP could be up to $12-billion. Again, chump change for such a huge corporation.

Perhaps more reassuringly is that stock analysts predict that BP has lost up to one-third of its stock value (about $67-billion) in less than two months since the catastrophe began and is now more at risk of a hostile takeover. Now that's more like it.

Talk about karma. May their poor luck continue.

Am I being 'anti-business'? Not at all. I am just being anti-gigantic-transnational-corporations-that-think-they-can-cut-corners-and-buy-out-politicians-in-order-to-make-huge-profits. Like here - at the expense of the environment and the socio-economic ramifications of the environmental catastrophe that occurs from drilling an essentially filthy energy source from the seabed. It is that type of gargantuan hubris (read: corporate greed) that I simply cannot abide.
The hubris of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe is everywhere:

It's in the frustrating (in)actions and patronizing words of a huge corporation.

It's in the (in)actions to date of a U.S. government that allowed BP to basically fill in its own reports on offshore oil rig operations and now bays for blood when said poor regulation results in this catastrophe.

It's in the continued denial by many that peak oil, of which I am a firm believer, is hyperbole and nonsense. If nonsense, then why is it that oil drilling is becoming more and more expensive due to being forced to drill in increasingly difficult and technology-intense and risk-intense places? Because we're peaking in our ability to cost-effectively drill oil.

It gets even more scary. On June 2nd Greenpeace and other organizations started reporting on how the United States is seriously considering using a nuclear warhead to seal the BP oil spill. That's right – a nuclear warhead! This goes beyond hubris – it's sheer madness.

Ultimately, it's in our own collective hubris. We are all to blame for this oil spill. Each and every one of us that drive a car or catches a taxi or fly in an airplane are collectively liable for our continued and collective addiction to this dirty and dangerous energy called oil.

Yet again, events have conspired to show us that the extraction and use of oil is not sustainable. As a sustainability consultant, that has always been patently absurd to me. The economic 'payoff' of this dirty energy, once plentiful and now increasingly expensive to extract, does not justify the ultimate environmental and social costs thereof.

Our addiction to oil continues unabated. And a huge, messy slick in the Gulf of Mexico is testimony to the hubris of that.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Mirror Images: Israel & Apartheid South Africa

This is indeed Israel-kicking time on this blog. They've only themselves to blame, quite frankly. Israel's actions against a civilian aid ship in international waters resulting in nine dead were bad enough. The Israeli response in the days thereafter - a curious mixture of self-righteous indignation and outright lies - have made matters even worse.

Israel is out of control.

I contend that it is a mirror image of apartheid South Africa...

It indiscriminately kills politicians and activists it does not like, even in other countries. Apartheid South Africa did just the same.

It condemns anybody that is a 'threat' to it as a 'terrorist', freedom fighter or not. Apartheid South Africa did the same.

It kills, maims and terrorizes an entire population group in the name of 'self-defense'. Apartheid South Africa did the same.

It redraws territory to its liking and in flagrant violation of international law. Apartheid South Africa did the same.

It cordons off areas and forces people of a certain population group within that area. Apartheid South Africa did the same.

It forces all members of a certain population group to carry 'passes' and controls their movement fully on that basis. Apartheid South Africa did the same.

It feeds on the anxieties of the United States and the West within a given geopolitical context and curries their favour. Apartheid South Africa did the same.  

It is a de facto military-police state, whatever its democratic traditions and 'free press' (for some). Apartheid South Africa did the same.

It flaunts international law, knowing it can pretty much get away with it. Apartheid South Africa did the same.
 
The analysis: Israel is an apartheid state.

I lived in apartheid South Africa. Trust me, I know all the signs.

Ultimately, the international community is to blame for the morally corrupt nation that Israel has become. Just as the international community was to blame for allowing the apartheid regime to get away with its amoral policies during the 1950s, 1960s and most of the 1970s. Not to mention those nations that allowed 'sanctions busting' with apartheid South Africa on everything from gold to arms - the likes of the USA, UK and, oh yes, Israel.
 
It was only when the world community finally applied huge pressure on South Africa through sanctions was there the economic and political inevitability that culminated in the release of Nelson Mandela (an 'outright' terrorist according to South Africa for nearly 30 years, by the way) in 1991 and the first truly free elections in the country in 1994. Only sanctions forced the apartheid regime into that inevitability. 
 
And that is precisely why I advocate FULL sanctions against Israel. On everything - economic, sporting and cultural. Israel needs to be isolated and needs to feel the full wrath of international contempt for its ongoing racist and apartheid policies regarding the Palestinians and Palestine. Just as we felt it in South Africa back in the 1980s. 
 
There really is no other alternative. The actions by Israel on that aid ship on May 31st must be the turning point.
 
Sanctions NOW.
 

 
Basta!
 
Do you get my point?

RAVE: As This Too Says It All...

To all those who shout abuse that those of us that criticize Israel are anti-Semitic...

Well, this picture taken of a Jewish protester simply says it all...

Enough said.

RAVE: Says It All...

Tell me if this graffiti on a wall doesn't say it all...?

Enough said.

RANT: Israel - A State of Denial

Israel continues to be pounded from many quarters on the international stage in the aftermath of the raid on an aid ship by Israeli commandos on May 31st. At least nine people on board the ship died as a result of the Israeli actions. In short, Israeli aggression.

As much as it has become normative over the years, I am still astounded at the sheer arrogance and Orwellian double-speak being deployed by Israeli commentators and authorities in their own defense. Their defense of the indefensible is astounding. In TV show after TV show the Israelis comes across as hyper-defensive, forever the 'victim of others, yet curiously very aggressive as well.

And woe betide any commentator or reporter who probes too much or, heaven forbid, disagrees with or challenges the Israeli position. The Israeli response is either that of outraged vitriol or condescending dismisiveness bordering on the smug and patronizing. And the excuses, expressed as 'hard' fact or 'inevitable' truth, come thick and fast. And that's all that they are - excuses. Pathetic ones at that.

The levels of Israeli denial have become gargantuan in scope and hypocrisy.

It would seem that this has become the way of a nation that has become a law unto itself. A nation that conducts its affairs with impunity. A nation out of control within the context of international law. A rogue nation.

Yet again, the United States chooses to respond to Israeli aggression and illegality with words like 'regrets the deaths of..." and "the US trusts Israel to conduct a full investigation". Little wonder that Israel feels so able to act in such an illegal and hyper-aggressive manner, whether the theatre of its aggression be Gaza or Lebanon or the West Bank or, what the hell, even in a luxury hotel in Dubai.

Blessings of America, even if 'tacit', not to mention billions of dollars in aid from said America, and an Arab world too fractured and too incompetent to do anything of worth, and Israel just keeps going on and on and on and on...

The Israelis did not need to board that ship with that much force and aggression. Their actions were overly aggressive and provocative. They acted illegally in international waters. Their blockade of Gaza is illegal under the Geneva Convention. The effective entrapment of 1.5-million people in Gaza is illegal and inhumane.

But let it be said here loud and clear: Israel acts with such impunity and with such arrogance based on a constant barrage of denial and disinformation precisely because the world, in the end, really does very little.

And as long as the world continues to do so little to effectively condemn and rein in Israel, so then will the Israel of today continue to be nothing more than an aggressive apartheid state dressed up as a legitimate democracy.

It's a demented, self-serving and morally schizophrenic lager mentality that reminds me so much of living in apartheid South Africa back in the 1980s...

Do you get my point?

RAVE: Johannesburg Winter Is Back

My first post for this month of June is also a rave on a rather personal note. In short, it's all about winter in Johannesburg.

As an environmental/ sustainability consultant the state of the planet is never far from my mind. And, of course, global warming and climate change loom large in my mind. Always there, always a concern that rattles and unnerves.

I grew up in this large, mad city of Johannesburg and always remember winter as being a time of cold mornings and nights but day times full of blue sky, sunshine and even warm weather. And it was dry, dry, dry. Chapped, cracked lips and sandpaper for skin were the norm. But it was a small price to pay for what was essentially a lovely winter.

For me, it made up for the season I've always hated in this city - summer. Much as some rhapsody about how much they love Johannesburg summers with their huge thunderstorms and lashing rain, I, for one, bloody hate them. And I still do. All that lightning, thunder and crazy maelstrom delights some, but I hate how it breaks up a hot day and just makes summer feel wet and mad. And one could never really plan a full day out in the garden or at the pool during these tempestuous Joburg summers. Hated that.

Which is why when we arrived in Portugal after emigrating there slap bang in the middle of summer at the age of 17, with its endless summer days of blue sky, hot weather and days spent on the beach well into the evening, it was like Nirvana for me. Pure bliss. Ever since, Mediterranean-type summers have been my preference.

So, when I returned to live and work in Johannesburg after 14 years away from the city, I knew I had summer to dread and winter to enjoy. Or so I thought. One winter after another had endless days of grey, miserable weather and...endless rain, even drizzle...what the hell was that?! Last year's winter was no different. Most of the time I felt I was back in Cape Town or even England for winter - NOT what one needs when having to brave this sprawling, crime-ridden, demented city...

And don't even get me started on the string of lousy, totally unpredictable summers we've endured in recent years.

And, of course, always niggling at me was the fact that these changes in the Highveld winter had almost certainly something to do with climate change. It fed into my anxiety about the state of the planet. It made the global feel horribly local. Too real, too quick, too unnerving.

And now this year. For now - and I must touch every bit of wood in touching distance - we have enjoyed a simply splendid Johannesburg winter. The nights and mornings have been chilly, even cold, but the days have been quite warm and, best of all, full of brilliant sunshine against a blue, blue sky. And memories of my childhood come flooding back to me. And all seems a little more normal - at least for now.

Sure, we've had some grey, overcast spells and lousy Capetonian hues to our autumn days thus far, but winter is upon us and, for now (touching all that wood again), it seems it may just be like old times. And somehow that feels oddly reassuring, uplifting even.

I have no doubt that climate change is real. And my mind tells me that the seasons have still changed here in Johannesburg. There's no point in being delusional.

But at least my soul feels good about being dressed once again in winter clothes whilst seeing a blue sky and bright winter sun outside my window.

I'll take that great feeling - however fleeting it may be - and run with it for all its worth.