Following on from the article: Contrived Shortages and the New Reality by Texe Marrs (Biophile 23), I have been conscious of contrived scenarios meted out by “authorities” under the mantle of scientific or technically endorsed hyperbole.
And none are closer to home than the HIV-Aids scam, the ESKOM scam and one of my personal favourites - the Zuma sleight-of –hand manoeuvre.
I know the HIV = Aids hypothesis has been covered in Biophile before and it’s a subject I’ve studied over the last decade with growing horror – not at the “spread” of the “pandemic” but rather at the spread of the perception created through the pharmaceutical industry and the media, of this contrived virus and its alleged un-virus like behaviour.
From Robert Gallo’s orchestrated pronouncement to the world of his discovery of the virus related to the AIDS phenomenon in 1984 (later retracted by him although scarcely highlighted by the beneficiaries of the AIDS industry) to the spurious “AIDS test”, that has nothing to do with finding a virus, to the manipulated “infection statistics” and on and on. For the benefit of readers unfamiliar with this mega-billion dollar venture, perhaps an enlightening summary would be Clark Baker’s independent article on the subject entitled HIV, AIDS Gallo’s Egg, viewable here - a quite compelling read.
Being associated with the power industry in this country as a Data Centre infrastructure consultant and solutions architect, I am much closer to the totally unbelievable scenario contrived and spun to the SA public regarding the critical power shortages, under-capacity availability and a whole convoluted chapter on coal that is as impenetrable as it is daft. The coal reserves weren’t soaked by water – they were saturated by bullshit - period.
While it is true that there are serious energy problems in this country, the exercise we’ve just experienced was nothing short of national deception and it was purely and simply about that old mass-manipulator’s trick of problem-reaction-solution. While I regard much of David Icke’s work with a healthy pinch of scepticism (the only way to live, I think), he has the problem-reaction-solution paradigm 100% spot-on.
And another truism is the strategy of containing the truth within the spin being dispensed but masking it so cleverly that it is virtually impossible to discern the fact from the fiction as it all intermingles like a morass of knotted fishing line complete with nasty hooks.
The ESKOM story was about money and a need to hike up the power tariffs substantially. By the supplier’s own admission the billing model it had wheeled into motion decades back was based on erroneous factors and made no proper allowance for realistic maintenance and upgrade costs in this model hence our wonderfully cheap electricity up to that point. With the advent of the emerging mass power consumer and the need for capacity upgrades, costly (previously ignored) maintenance of existing infrastructure as well as the massive salary structure in play within the executive hierarchy of the corporation, ESKOM simply needed more money to do what it does. And what better way to contrive our reliance on power than by making it unavailable or erratically available at best and by launching a countrywide campaign to highlight the crisis in which we found ourselves. Thus the PROBLEM was created.
Phase 2 – REACTION. The public were outraged at the under-capacity, at the inconvenience, at the projected tenure of this problem and over time amid the thundering protests, we eventually acknowledged that perhaps we aught to be using electricity more wisely or simply less of it while it was clear that money had to come from somewhere (read: the taxpayer) to begin the upgrade process. We began to get used to managing our lives around the black-outs, the traffic congestion caused by robot outages, the additional expense of running households off standby generator supplies etc. But this all smacked of third-world infrastructure and the spectre of socio-economic collapse loomed large in our subconscious especially given the unfathomable “foreign policy” our government accorded our troubled northern neighbour. Hell, we didn’t want to go down that road.
Phase 3 – SOLUTION. In a nutshell – ESKOM asked for more money and they had been banging on about a 52% rate increase through the currency of the crisis. We were even more appalled but had now steeled ourselves for some form of increase, praying fervently to the national power regulator (who also works for the same boss as ESKOM by the way) that they would reject this ridiculous increase out of hand. After all it was ESKOM who’d failed to get their business model correct, plan capacity or maintain their systems but who had somehow managed to make a desperate public feel guilty about the way it used electricity as if we were complicit in having created the problem.
Result: a 17% rate increase is announced and we collectively sigh with relief as if we’ve been handed a generator-driven olive branch.
However, if we’d been asked to pay 17% more at the outset of the “crisis”, we’d have been appalled and told ESKOM to take a hike. They’d had a substantial rate increase not that long before the crisis.
So through clever manipulation – we’d been played to feel grateful for a “small” increase in our electricity tariff. Brilliant. Insidious but brilliant.
And how many serious outages have you experienced since the rate increase was accepted and through the high-demand winter months? Interestingly, virtually none.
Summary: we’re probably using electricity more frugally than before, have a little generator on hand just in case (import benefits to government), are paying 17% more for this and the real capacity can now be managed and upgraded with some breathing space. Only – let’s see how well our energy ministry manages the future of this and sustainability in new solutions. I remain sceptical.
Then there’s Jacob Zuma – good old Zuma without whom, Zapiro’s life would be a lot less colourful.
Readers should read Judge Chris Nicholson’s summation of the latest in this saga here
On the face of it – a totally unsurprising outcome and the focus is now squarely shifted from the issue of Zuma’s alleged wrongdoing to the procedural inconsistencies of the NPA and the resultant nullification of the due process.
Regardless of this, it certainly makes one wonder over the smoke & mirrors surrounding the Scorpions when perhaps the media (and indeed ourselves) should have been scrutinising the deeds and doings of the NPA to ensure that the process had no possibility of being thwarted. Nice sleight of hand don’t you think! Orchestrated perhaps or just coincidence?
I said to my wife not long ago that to avoid becoming lumped into the same category as Zim in the eyes of a watching world, the ANC had to be seen to be following the dictates of the constitution and its judiciary and Zuma had to be brought before a judge. However, I went on, he will get off scot-free through some technicality or other! And me with no crystal ball at all!
Anyone who imagined for one moment that Zuma would succumb to the same fate as that scapegoat Shaik is living in a different SA from the one I occupy.
Watch that particular space and don’t be surprised…by anything.
One thing worth considering – he may turn out to be a more moderate president than we think and in the eyes of Africa, I think we’ll get more mileage out of him than Mbeki. Just remember, although publicly he and Mbeki have to be seen as opposing one another, they are not only struggle comrades but co-conspirators/beneficiaries of the arms deal (in my and millions of other South Africans’ view). The ANC will trundle on regardless and the businesses that run the country will prevail. Oh yes, and Zille’s DA will roar like a toothless tiger in the background…
And in conclusion – if a politician is moving his lips he is perhaps being disingenuous to some degree – it simply goes with the territory. And as Mr Marrs illustrates in his article (Biophile 23) the UN seeks to control our means to grow, buy and distribute food – surprise, surprise.
In the same way – Mr Al Gore has been paid to travel the world dispensing another perception contrived for the manipulation of the masses – i.e.Global Warming. Now don’t scream me down, please. I am not saying that we shouldn’t be ecologically more responsible nor that we shouldn’t look to sustainable energy systems and smaller “carbon footprints” but for goodness sake – the Earth has gone through these climatic cycles for millennia and (as with any other scientific debate) there are compelling arguments from both sides of the fence.
What is of substantially more significance is the simple fact that (as with Mbeki and Zuma) Gore and Bush are actually brothers-in-arms and now that the global population (currently being raped by GW and his cronies with the oil price and fossil-fuel based technologies) has accepted that we require a solution to the “crisis” (PROBLEM), this gives the same cabal of manipulators the time and space to establish themselves as the saviours with the managed and phased introduction of hybridised and sustainable technologies in favour of the old stuff at an even higher price than we were paying before. The economy will tick over without any collapse as it gets carefully manoeuvred through the transition.
And we will sit back wondering what the next crisis will be and how much we’re going to pay for it.
Ce’st la vie…
