Quote of the week
[T]he moral point of the matter is never reached by calling what happened by the name of ‘genocide’ or by counting the many millions of victims: extermination of whole peoples had happened before in antiquity, as well as in modern colonization. It is reached only when we realize this happened within the frame of a legal order and that the cornerstone of this ‘new law’ consisted of the command ‘Thou shall kill,’ not thy enemy but innocent people who were not even potentially dangerous, and not for any reason of necessity but, on the contrary, even against all military and other utilitarian calculations. … And these deeds were not committed by outlaws, monsters, or raving sadists, but by the most respected members of respectable society.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil
Corruption is the elite’s way to steal from the poor, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said in Johannesburg on Thursday. “It has become a matter of life and death. Corruption is the biggest threat to the realisation of our dreams,” he told an anti-corruption summit. “Self-enrichment will unravel the fabric of society.” Vavi said up to 20 percent of government procurement was lost to corruption as officials exploited gaps in the system to procure government tenders. “We are facing a nightmare future in South Africa… people are systematically using their power to secure… parts of society.” He said if the current economic system of capitalism continued with the “me first” mentality, it would be difficult to root out corruption. “The culture of me first accumulates and accumulates that one person in this country earns R627 million per year… while workers earn less than R1500 per month,” said Vavi. – Sapa
