Monday, September 22, 2008

The World is Upside Down This Morning


I have a friend who lives in Ohio who has been without water since the hurricane hit Texas. It seems the weather system went all the way to Ohio and knocked out her electricity which runs a pump that supplies her house with water. A hurricane in Ohio? Today that doesn’t really seem that strange.

Yesterday, Thabo Mbeki resigned. There are many things that Thabo Mbeki has done that I’ve questioned. The whole sweet potato/ginger cure for AIDS and his months of silent support for his crazy neighbour Mugabe, for example, but under it all I truly felt he was a man of integrity, though guided by misplaced loyalty in some cases. He is neither self serving nor corrupt. This cannot be said of Jacob Zuma. I fear for a South Africa, and more importantly for me, a Southern Africa, where Zuma and his lunatic friends like ANC Youth League President, Julius Malema, take over. Somehow Mbeki’s departure especially with his recent success in Zimbabwe makes me sad, and not a little bit scared.

This morning I heard that one of my favourite Mail and Guardian columnists John Matshikiza is dead. He died eating a meal alone in a restaurant at the young age of 54. From the obituary I read in The Sunday Times, he led a strange up and down life, disappointed with the greedy path former freedom fighters had chosen to follow, a path that left the people they so bravely fought to free far behind in the dust. Matshikiza was a voice of reason and sly humour, but now he’s gone.

The other bit of madness this morning is that Wall Street is to be socialised while working Americans haemorrhage. Fat cats will walk away free and clear while the average American has sleepless, tortured nights wondering how they will pay their exorbitant healthcare bills, their mortgages, and escalating food and fuel prices. They wonder if they will have a job tomorrow. And still their leaders lie. As the house of cards built by the greed of the rich, defended by the too short lives of young men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and numerous other battlefields, and held up with Chinese money wobbles in the wind, George W is in hiding and John McCain and his Republican Robot have the audacity to tell everyone that the foundations of the economy are sound.

Perhaps it is just another Monday, but this morning the world seems a very precarious and uncertain place.

4 comments:

groovyoldlady said...

I hope for the sake of southern africa that the new leaders will NOT be corrupt. But if they are, you can always move to the States and pay your taxes like a good girl and max out your credit. No worries, someone will bail you out. Hey, a trillion dollars here, a trillion dollars there, no big deal. right?

Lauri said...

Groovy- believe me if I move from here, America will NOT be my next stop. I feel for Americans. I fear what the future holds and now I'm almost believing that no matter who is elected in Novemeber, there may be no way to turn around now.
A trillion seems a make believe number.People shouldn't batter such numbers around, numbers they couldn't count to in their lifetimes. It is unnatural.

Karen said...

Galling and appalling. Why is it our own leaders will not see what everyone else sees? I've been waiting for our economic bubble to burst for quite some time. It NEEDS to pop and be allowed to go back down to normal, but they won't let it.

What really ticks me off is when I see little businesses closing due to the economy and no one able to afford what they sell, and big businesses running themselves into the ground, only to get bailed out. Such is not the case for small business. They, and their customers, suffer.

Right now, Mars is starting to look good...

Lauri said...

Karen, my dear Karen- if you watched the VP debate I'm sure you see that help is on the way. I'm starting to think Sarah Palin was planted by the Obama campaign.