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masquenox @lemmy.ml
Posts 1
Comments 420
Utilities have been lying to us about gas stoves since the 1970s
  • In your opinion where did it go wrong?

    1985... when the National Party decided to commercialise and deregulate everything in the hopes of causing socio-economic chaos in the country - which it did. They, for instance, knew perfectly wll deregulating the taxi industry would cause chaos - they literally commissioned White Papers to research the outcomes - and they did it not in spite of the findings of that research, but because of it.

    Same thing with Eskom - commercialised in 1985, and by 2002 Eskom was disconnecting more households than they were connecting - I literally have the UKZN research papers on my desktop to prove it - because Eskom was now being "run like a business." The outcome we see today shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, but because the media has been lying to us about the root cause of our problems we are all making surprise Pikachu faces while whining about "corruption" and "incompetence."

    The ANC took one look at this state of affairs and went, "Oh, we're fine with this" and they've been doing the bog-standard "living it up while the rich gets richer and the poor get poorer" neoliberal shuffle ever since. Don't get me wrong... the ANC is as corrupt as fuck - but that doesn't make them unique here in South Africa or the rest of the world. But they are not the root cause... it's the socio-economic system that enables this shitfuckery that is.

    What should the government/country do to get out the current crisis?

    We already know how... the same people that now applaud the DA or ActionSA every time their talking heads use the word "privatisation" are the very people who remember (or rather, selectively forgets) how well our public infrastructure worked when they were actually run as public infrastructure and not profit-making "businesses." That's what the country needs to do - reclaim our public infrastructure. But don't expect the snivelling racketeers (whether they be ANC, DA, EFF or any of the parasites squatting in parliament) in our political establishment to push that idea any time soon...

  • Utilities have been lying to us about gas stoves since the 1970s
  • ANC short sightedness

    What ANC short-sightedness? They're doing what all the rich people wanted them to do, aren't they? Running everything "like a business?" I guess South Africans are now seeing for themselves how short-sighted running "everything like a business" was always going to be, huh?

  • *actually PIJ 🤭
  • but the US knew Saddam had chemical weapons

    Yes, I know... the US knew about every gallon of mustard gas and sarin Saddam had - not only did the US provide intelligence to Saddam to specifically help his use of the stuff during the Iran-Iraq War be more effective, they could also literally read almost every damn ciphered communique of the Iraqi army at the highest levels thanks to the fact that Iraq used compromised ciphering machines bought from the CIA front company Crypto AG in Switzerland.

    They knew perfectly well Saddam had destroyed all his stockpiles - if he hadn't, Bush would have never dared to invade Iraq.

  • Do Vietnamese workers have RIGHTS? Labor Law in Vietnam! - Luna Oi!
  • As someone who lives in yet another country (South Africa) where workers has tons of "rights" that are essentially meaningless because of the cozy and utterly corrupt relationship between the self-enriching state apparatchiks, capitalist elites and a "formal" labour union complex that is kept on a tight leash by the first two, I feel this strongly.

  • The French far right's 'outdated' definition of identity
  • When was this nationalist hokum ever in date? Nationality has always been a piss-poor substitute for actual cultural identities... that's the whole reason classical liberal nation states had to be forced onto people through state brutality.

  • Tlaib refuses to apologize for blaming Israel for Gaza hospital blast, attacks Biden
  • but we do owe them an apology once all the information is out.

    No - we don't owe a serial killer an apology if turns out they murdered ninety-nine people instead of a hundred.

    the polite thing to do is apologize for thinking badly of them

    No, there is nothing "polite" about "apologizing" to a genocidal settler-colonialist state.

  • Lemmy active users down, comments steady and posts up
  • They don't bat an eyelid when you accuse Israel of being an Apartheid-state - it's like water flowing off a duck's back. Call Israel a kapo state, however, and they lose their shit. That they can't ignore.

  • Lemmy Support @lemmy.ml masquenox @lemmy.ml

    Is there any progress with the problem of Lemmy not showing context?

    I've been informed that I'm not the only one that has been unable to see the context of the discussions I've been participating in - it pretty much makes having anything other than the most basic conversations impossible. Does anyone know if there has been some progress on this front?

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