Tag Archive for hypocrisy

01 May 2014
A Contrarian View

Aggravating racism by poking a stick in a festering sore.

Bandage it, don't poke it with a stick

Bandage it, don’t poke it with a stick

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why does North America have such an unhelpful and unhealthy attitude to racism?

The reaction to the comments by Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Stirling’s comments goes beyond ludicrous.

His comments, if they were correctly quoted, were not the most sensible considering many of his team and fans are black. They may have upset many people, but on the long list of serious problems in the world today, no reasonable person can rate them near the top.

However, they were made in a private conversation. One that was not intended to be made public.

For a country that claims to be against racism and for freedom of speech, the escalation of this incident and the resulting punishment of Mr. Stirling borders on the insane.

As a victim of far more serious racism than a derogatory comment in a private conversation, I am appalled at both the hysteria that this incident has generated and the reverse discrimination visited on Mr. Stirling.

For the record, my father was murdered, my mother crippled for life.  Later, I was thrown in a police cell while my farm and all my assets were illegally taken from me by the Zimbabwe government. All because we were white. That is the sort of racism every one should be concerned about.

Do I blame all black people for that? Of course not.

The most irresponsible and malicious actors in this sad saga are the person who “leaked” the conversation to the media, the media channel that publicised it and all those in both public and private office who have used it to make themselves look good.

Here’s why:

It was a private conversation.

Who among us can honestly say that they have never made a derogatory comment about a group of people in a private conversation. I cannot and I don’t think many others can.

How many times do we hear criticism of Democrats, Republicans, Conservatives, Liberals, Bankers, Oil executives, the Rich, the poor, the homeless, Southerners, Newfies, Italians, Germans, Russians or any other nationality?

What about criticism of religions, Christians, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists? Or sports teams, the police, the military?

As a former white resident of Southern Africa, now living in North America, I frequently have to ignore allegations of my obviously “terrible attitude to, and treatment of, black people”.

I know that these comments are made from ignorance by people who have no idea of the real situation in my former countries and who have been subjected to anti South African and anti Rhodesian propaganda for most of their lives.

While I may not like the comments, I understand that people are as free to make them as I am to publish my opinions and Donald Stirling is to express his in a private conversation.

The comments were not illegal

At the time of writing there has been no indication that the comments broke any laws.

Donald Stirling is a wealthy man who may be quite happy to sell his team for the $600 to $700 million it is reported to be worth. It’s poetic justice that he will realise a huge profit on his original $12 million investment if he does sell the team.

It would be supremely ironic if he chose to disband the team, but I doubt if anybody would walk away from that sort of money.

Will he go on the counter attack and sue who ever he can? Again much as I would like to see it, I think the deck is stacked against him.

Unethical manipulation of an owners association

If the man has not committed a crime, it is entirely unethical for the NBA to exert pressure on the owners association to expel him. It is also wrong for him to be expelled from the association and banned for life while he legally owns a team.

This treatment establishes a dangerous precedent akin to Hitler’s persecution of the Jews in the 1930’s. Then it started with smashing shop windows. Now it’s by banning an owner from enjoying free use of his assets.

It establishes other dangerous precedents, underhand methods for sabotaging successful teams, alienating sponsors and supporters, crippling them financially.

It gives unsuccessful businesses the ability to raise charges of racism to unfairly eliminate competitors in the knowledge that even if the charges are completely unfounded, the media will ensure that damage is done.

Other than the reversed shirt incident, it does not appear that any team members have expressed their disapproval by walking away from the team. Their outrage is not sufficient to jeopardise lucrative contracts.

What would the NBA do if the team expressed solidarity with the owner and demanded that he continue as owner?

The USA trumpets the virtues of the free market system. The market should decide Donald Stirling’s fate, not the self-righteous advocates of totalitarianism that seek to control the thoughts and comments of a nation.

The end of free speech

It is an unacceptable use of thought and speech control, the same mob rule mentality that hounded Brendan Eich from his job a few weeks ago has struck another victim.

Who will be next, will it be you because you said something that a politician or someone in the media did not like?

Why this attitude is unhealthy

When a child comes to his or her mother with a minor scratch, she treats it with the appropriate amount of first aid and leaves it to nature and time to heal.

She does not poke it with a stick to make it much worse and then call the media to show the festering wound to the nation.

That’s what the over hyped reaction to incidents like this does, turn a minor scratch into a festering sore.

Like minor scratches, incidents like these should be left alone for time and nature to heal, not used to provoke racial tension and victimize people.

Why should incidents like this provoke such over-reaction? More hysteria than in some countries with histories of interracial conflict?

Is it lingering guilt over slavery? Or guilt over the almost total annihilation of the indigenous populations of North America and their reduction to powerless minorities? Or the success of the politically correct liberal left in dividing the moderate majority and stifling any opinion other than its own.

Be aware, you could be the next victim.

peter-wright

 

 

 

mage courtesy of Stuart Miles /

| 2 comments | Tags: , , , , , ,
20 Nov 2013
A Contrarian View

The Mandela Myth

 

 

Richard Branson recently posted an article about Nelson Mandela’s book on Linked In.

I could not believe that someone as astute as Richard Branson would be taken in by the Mandela Myth, but perhaps he is looking to expand his business in South Africa. Political Correctness? Hypocrisy?

Mandela Myth

South African Protea -source Wikipedia Creative Commons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seemed that my comment might be of interest to readers.

Here is my comment (it exceeded the number of words for a comment, the last 3 paragraphs did not appear in the Linked In version)

As someone who saw the effects of terrorism in both Rhodesia and South Africa at first hand including losing a parent to terrorism in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and being a victim of Mugabe’s brutal farm invasions, I am surprised that a man of your vision and experience is promoting the Mandela myth.

It is a frequently and conveniently overlooked fact that Mandela was convicted and imprisoned for acts of terrorism, not for opposing the South African government. If he had been convicted of the same crimes in the USA or Europe, he would almost certainly have been executed, or still be serving a life sentence.

It is a further fact that approximately double the number of violent deaths have occurred South Africa since Mandela was released from prison in 1992 than in the 44 years from 1948 to that date under the “old” South Africa. Which government was more benign?

I am not sure that the families of those 5000 or so mainly Zulu opponents of Mandela’s ANC who were brutally murdered, many by the burning tyre “necklace” method would agree with your assessment of Mandela.

Before accusing me of being a racist, white supremacist or worse, yes there were aspects of the South African government policies that with hindsight, appear horrendous. Yes the native population could have been treated better in many ways. Yes some white South Africans did terrible things to black South Africans.

However white South Africans did not reduce the indigenous population to a powerless minority through massive European immigration, introduction of diseases, alcohol or casual murder as happened in North America and Australia. South Africa did not practice slavery as did the USA.

It’s very easy to point fingers from the safety of a country in Europe that has not had to deal with the same issues or from a “conquered” country that dealt with them much more harshly, two centuries ago. It’s time that the world starts recognising the contribution white (and other immigrant) South Africans did make to the country and all its people and time to recognise Mandela for what he was.

The world did a huge disservice to all South Africans by imposing sanctions and boycotts, pressuring the country to release Mandela and hand over to a former terrorist group that is proving incapable of managing a sophisticated economy.

By the early 1990’s demographics were changing South Africa and would have continued to do so, allowed to develop and change at its own pace the country would have evolved into a true “Rainbow Nation” and thousands of lives may have been saved.

peter-wright

| One comment | Tags: , , , , , ,
29 Aug 2013
A Contrarian View

Cruising the road to Damascus – at any cost.

via

The leaders of the USA, UK and France seem determined to take “surgical” action in Syria, probably by using precisely targeted cruise missiles.

Why?

In the almost 3 years of the Syrian civil war, over 100 000 people have been killed, large areas of the country reduced to rubble, neighbouring countries burdened with huge waves of refugees. Bombings in Lebanon and Iraq may be a direct result of the conflict. The involvement of Hezbollah and Iran in support of the Syrian government is both worrying and a further complication.

But with all that, the Western powers have been reluctant to get involved in what is still a civil war, an internal problem.

Until this week when 350 people were killed in a chemical warfare bombardment blamed on the Syrian government.

As yet, no convincing evidence that government forces were responsible or conclusions on the exact chemical used have been produced.

Russia and China are predictably vetoing any UN resolutions to use force against the Syrian Government, supporting their argument by allegations that it may have been the Syrian opposition attempting to force an “own goal” on the government.

Any escalation in the conflict increases the threat to our two most important allies in the region, Israel and Turkey,  but a chemical attack in Damascus in itself, does not dramatically increase that threat.

As awful and inexcusable the use of chemical weapons may be, and as much as we might regret the loss of hundreds more lives last week, the threat to the West or world peace has not been increased by these events.

Why then do we want to get involved? Have we not learned the lessons from Iraq? When the justification for the invasion was later found to be false. Or Afghanistan, when having quickly defeated the enemy, we attempted the impossible task of installing democracy in an undemocratic part of the world, lengthened our involvement by years at huge cost. That cost measured in hundreds of our soldier’s lives and billions of dollars and pounds of taxpayers hard-earned cash.

Have we forgotten Egypt where by abandoning an ally, and tacitly supporting a revolution, we ended up with a ruler far more dangerous, another coup and now a country in turmoil with a wrecked economy.

Why then are our leaders so determined to get involved in Syria after a comparatively small increase in casualties?

Is it really because the use of chemical weapons is unacceptable? Large scale killing of civilians is surely unacceptable with any type of weapons.

Is there a bigger threat to Israel, Turkey and perhaps Jordan that we are not being told about?

Is Iran about to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike?

Do President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron just want to irritate the Russians and Chinese?

Or is it once again an example of Western arrogance and hypocrisy, trying to impose our standards on people who march to the beat of a very different drummer?

Before this incident, it looked as if the Assad government was gaining control over larger areas of Syria, perhaps turning the tide and winning the war.  It could be argued that the quickest way to reduce the horrendous casualty rate, stop the destruction of infrastructure and reverse the flood of refugees would be to let the government win the war by what ever means it has at its disposal.

After all we justified dropping atomic bombs on Japan as the best way to end WW11 despite the huge loss of life.

I am not an apologist for Assad, I would be happy to see him removed from power and made to pay for his sins, however deciding on who should rule Syria is a matter for the Syrians not us.

We should beware of assisting in his removal and his replacement by a more anti-Western ruler. We don’t need to risk the lives of our troops in another un-winnable war when that war, disastrous as it may be for Syrians, poses little threat to our own security.

What are your thoughts?

 

peter-wright

| No comments | Tags: , , , ,
09 Aug 2013
A Contrarian View

Now if Zimbabwe had oil …….

Zimbabwean police beat protesters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

via

One of the most evil mass murderers in the world, Robert Mugabe appears to have rigged yet another election and condemned the impoverished and brutalised people of Zimbabwe to a further 5 years of misery – if he lives that long.

There has been enough coverage of the election to establish for those that are interested that there was no chance of this election being “free and fair”. Despite the pontificating of a the leader of hand-picked observers, a former leader of another corrupt and wretched African country and an indecent rush to congratulate Mugabe by his southern neighbour.

Botswana, a recipient of a wave of illegal immigrants forced to flee Zimbabwe by Mugabe’s policies, to its credit, the only country in the region with the moral fibre to call for an independent audit of the election results.

The opposition MDC has challenged the result in court, but with most of the electoral court judges appointed by Mugabe, it’s doubtful that the evidence of voters prevented from voting on a massive scale, voters bussed in from tribal areas to vote in urban, MDC dominated, constituencies and long dead voters voting for Mugabe, will count for much.

The Zimbabwe stock exchange fell by 11% on the first trading day after the results were announced. Another candidate for an appearance at The Hague, Minister of Justice Chinimasa was on TV threatening expropriation of all non-black (and non-party faithful) owned businesses.

A major bank’s shares plunged, most banks announced a freeze on new business loans and the few remaining commercial farmers are again under threat.

What does the rest of the world do? Agonises over Syria, Egypt, Snowden, lack of gay rights in Russia. Passes some mild criticism of Mugabe and does nothing. Where is the outrage that the same countries, people and media expressed about South African Rugby tours for example, which hurt no one? Or about Rhodesia declaring Independence (just like the USA 270 years earlier) to prevent the disaster that has now unfolded?

The disaster in Zimbabwe – and with a ruined economy, 25% of its population fled, no currency of its own, and massive crimes against humanity, it is a disaster, gets almost no attention and less concern from the so-called defenders of democracy – the USA, UK and other Western nations.

Why? Because the West is too ashamed to admit that it sacrificed it’s only two important allies in sub-Saharan  Africa, Rhodesia and South Africa. With mining revenues declining, no oil in either country and the Cape sea route no longer of major strategic importance, the suffering of millions of people and massive human rights abuses can be quietly ignored.

Now if Zimbabwe had oil……….

The hypocrisy of the West and the liberal media is enough to make a saint despair.

 

peter-wright

| No comments | Tags: , , ,
31 Jul 2013
A Contrarian View

More Sickening Politically Correct Hypocrisy.

 

political correctness

 

 

 

 

The following story was recently sent to me as an email, I understand it is being circulated widely.

The email contained a photograph of Antonio West (Santiago), I have not included that photo as I am unsure of its copyright restrictions – unlike many others, I do respect the property rights – including intellectual, of others.

Before including the story in this post, I checked the reports from reputable news sources and it does appear accurate, two black teenagers are awaiting trial for the murder of baby Antonio and the shooting of his mother.

Some media channels are raising as a red flag the allegations that both Antonio’s mother and father were found to have gun shot residue on them. As his mother had been shot herself, that would be understandable. There are possible explanations for residue found on the father but the police are not treating the parents as suspects in the shooting.

The media are also pointing out that the father, Luis Santiago  has been arrested for stalking the mother.

Here is the email with my comments at the end:

——————————————

Hello. Don’t recognize me?

That’s OK; I understand.

My name was Antonio West.

I was the 13-month old child who was shot in the face at point-blank range by two black teens, who were attempting to rob my mother, who was also shot earlier this year.

I think my murder and my mommy’s wounding made the news for maybe a day, and then disappeared.

A Grand Jury of my mommy’s peers from Brunswick, Georgia ruled the black teens who murdered me will not face the death penalty… too bad it was me who got the death sentence from my killers instead, because Mommy didn’t have the money they demanded.

See, my family made the mistake of being white in a 73% non-white neighborhood, but my murder wasn’t ruled a ‘hate crime’.

Oh, and President Obama didn’’t take a single moment to acknowledge my murder.

He couldn’t have any children who could possibly look like me – so why should he care?

I’’m one of the youngest murder victims in our great Nation’s history, but the media didn’’t care to cover the story of my being killed in cold blood.

There isn’t a white equivalent of Al Sharpton, because if there was he would be branded a ‘racist’.

So no one’s rushing to Brunswick, Georgia to demonstrate and demand ‘justice’ for me.

There’s no ‘White Panther’ party, either, to put a bounty on the lives of the two black teens who murdered me.

I have no voice, I have no representation, and unlike those who shot me in the face while I sat innocently in my stroller – I no longer have my life.

Isn’t this a great country?

So while you’re out seeking ‘justice for Trayvon’, please remember to seek ‘justice’ for me.

Tell your friends about me, tell you families, get tee-shirts with my face on them, and make the world pay attention, just like you did for Trayvon.

I won’t hold my breath.

I don’t have to anymore.

———————————

The comparison with the media’s treatment of the George Zimmerman / Trayvon Martin provides a text-book example of liberal hypocrisy, political correctness and media bias.
In this case, very little media coverage, no crucifixion of the shooters in social media, no portrayal of the victim or his family as saints, no clamours for federal intervention and no comment by the president.

Quite the opposite, attempts to show the victim’s family in an unsavoury light and almost no digging into the alleged murderers backgrounds.

George Zimmerman was doing a job he volunteered for, he believed he acted in accordance with the law and in self-defence.

Little Antonio’s mother was minding her own business and was attacked by criminals. There is absolutely no way for her attackers to claim they were acting in accordance with any law or in self-defence.

Liberal hypocrisy certainly knows no bounds. Enough to make you sick and certainly fear for the future of not just America, but all of the Western World.

Our biggest threat is not Al Qaeda, suicide bombers, home-grown or foreign terrorists, it is from the liberal left and their determination to emasculate, and disarm the population, smother all independent thought and impose nanny state control.

To preserve our communities and our countries, to ensure that our children and grandchildren have the opportunity to live in stable societies where freedom is still cherished, we need to use our powers of discernment and stand up to this wave of propaganda.

peter-wright
| No comments | Tags: , , ,