Ferguson burns, South Africa simmers: Why America is but a matchstick away

Richard Poplak, writing in The Daily Maverick, a South African online daily. He was interviewed on PRI's The World today.

Like America, South Africa is enjoying its post-racial moment. Like America, South Africa’s post-racial moment describes a veneer, an invention of Brand South Africa ad hacks. Barack Obama was installed in the White House on the back of a successful marketing campaign—Hope!—and not because race had ceased to be a factor in American life. His presidency is a testament to the brilliance of his cutting-edge campaign technology, and not the thawing of America’s racial divide. The America he presides over is as segregated as it was during the Jim Crow years, perhaps more so. How do you fix Ferguson? Demilitarize the police? Increase diversity in municipal and state politics? Promote racial dialogue? Good luck with that. The Michael Brown’s of the world are the bottom bricks under a vast and inviolable socio-economic pyramid, and renovating that structure will take energy of great and sustained magnitude.

...

Here’s the link: when power and wealth are unevenly distributed; when “sophisticated”, “liberalized” economies demand winners and losers with no in-betweens; when we pray like faith-blind zealots before a zero-sum covenant; and when historical racial segregation provides a ready-made overclass and underclass, black lives simply don’t matter. The Marikana massacre occurred because black lives don’t matter; Andries Tatane was tenderized on tape because black lives don’t matter; Michael Brown was killed by Darren Wilson because black lives don’t matter; Trayvon Martin was shot by George Zimmerman while brandishing Scittles because black lives don’t matter.

There was an ironic saying going around South Africa in the years after 1994: "A white man's country run by a black man." After 2008, I thought about that same saying in the American context.

I thought a bit as to whether I wanted to screen comments on this post or disable them entirely. Ultimately I decided I didn't need to give myself extra work, so comments are off.

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It only takes a very short period of having cable news inflicted on me to remind me why I am glad that I have never paid a cable bill.

Tony Blair's reputation in Britain is not what it is in America.

The current row over the Save the Children's US branch's award to Tony Blair is a reflection of the difference in reputation the former PM has in the US compared with that in his home country. In America, he's more or less thought of as a loyal friend who brought Britain in to help the United States topple Saddam Hussein, whereas in the UK he's thought of as America's bloody-handed lying stooge who got Britain into a war of America's choosing.

Both of those opinions can be right at the same time, of course.

From http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/save-the-children-staff-furious-over-legacy-award-for-blair-9883094.html:

Save the Children is facing a furious backlash from its own staff for presenting Tony Blair with a “global legacy award”, amid claims the “morally reprehensible” gesture has endangered the charity’s credibility because of continued controversy over the Iraq War.

A glittering ceremony in New York last week saw Mr Blair take the prize for his leadership on international development issues during his time as Prime Minister, but the award has been fiercely opposed by some of the charity’s staff.

Questions of impartiality have also been raised. The charity’s UK chief executive, Justin Forsyth, was a special adviser to Mr Blair for three years, while Jonathan Powell, Mr Blair’s former chief of staff, is currently on its UK board.

A letter signed by almost 200 staff members, which began circulating last weekend, demanded a review of the charity’s decision-making process and insisted on distancing themselves from the prize.

“We consider this award inappropriate and a betrayal to Save the Children’s founding principles and values. Management staff in the region were not consulted about the award and were caught by surprise with this decision,” it said.

Since bringing Britain into the US-led war in Iraq in 2003 despite fierce opposition in parliament and among the public, Mr Blair has been accused of war crimes by peace campaigners. He is expected to be strongly criticised in the report of the Government-appointed Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war, which is due to be published next year.

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A spokeswoman for Save the Children stressed that the award was the decision of the charity’s US arm. “Our staff have strong views on a whole range of issues and people and we respect that diversity of views,” she added.

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An online petition calling for the charity to revoke the award had gathered more than 87,000 signatures. It said many saw Mr Blair “as the cause of the deaths of countless children”.

From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/11254583/Save-the-Children-staff-furious-over-morally-reprehensible-award-for-Tony-Blair.html:

Mr Blair was given the award by the charity’s US branch in recognition of his “leadership on international development”, with particular reference to his work on debt relief and the Make Poverty History campaign at the G8 in 2005.

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There's not much more than an inch of glop* outside. This will probably freeze to something unpleasant overnight. But as far as snowstorms go, it never really got going around here. What's falling now is a misty substance that I'm not sure is even frozen.

We went out a few hours ago. The roads were messy when we went out, but by the time we came back an hour or two later they improved significantly as the rain had washed away some of what had stuck to the ground earlier.

*A technical term, encompassing wet, sloppy mixed precipitation. It can be described as "icky".

ISIS are gold bugs.

Image from Iraqi News.
Prof. Craig Pirrong, in a blog post:

One last gold item. ISIS are gold bugs. They have announced the creation of a currency, based on circulating gold, silver, and copper coins. They really believe the gold bug stuff. They are aficionados of ZH [Zero Hedge] and currency warrior James Rickards (whose mug pops up everywhere, including on mainstream media websites like WaPo, in advertisements for his buy gold, buy a bunker, for the end is nigh book).

I was particularly amused by this:

The gold and silver purchases are strange enough, he said. “But what is striking is how elements of the organization have seized power transmission cables and other copper components,” Obeidi said. The fighters are burning the insulation off the cables and harvesting the copper [to fashion into coins], he said.

So they’ll have metallic coins but no electricity. Which may be OK with them, given how much they want to live a 7th century lifestyle.

This is great news. If a shambolic Iraqi military can’t destroy the Islamic State, economic mismanagement based on wacko gold bug theories might achieve that result instead. I suggest that the CIA carry out a mission to translate Rickards’ Currency Wars into Arabic, and clandestinely distribute it in ISIS-controlled lands. A very cheap, but very effective, form of subversion.