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Post by jakaswanga on Dec 22, 2013 14:50:12 GMT 3
FOREWORD: seasons greetings to all! me says comrade Onyango Oloo the digital tyrant of this cyberspace Pyongyang has not been as blood thirsty as that other spoilt brat in the non virtual North Korea, and we the Jukwaa fraternity have been breathing the fertile air of engaging discourse for all it's worth! Folks, let us all join to break Oloo's back with some back-slapping compliments! Now: INTRODUCING THE VASSAL STATE AND THE RELUCTANT RED VICEROY.It was a small statement by a small man talking about big things in a holy place, parliament. It was a statement of fact and truth. It was brief and toneless, straightforward and emotionless, but in its simplicity, it told the whole story: the current fate of the nation in a nutshell. It is a story of profound complexity, a story of rampant historical ramifications. It was an acceptance of the reality of the ‘subsidiarity’ of a ruling class in toto, an event otherwise suicidal elsewhere for a whole elite; therefore, that this act of rare honesty from a governing aristocracy or bureaucracy passed without so much as a ripple, is a definition of a new epoch. --- Deliverance!They have run out of illusions to sell, run out of smokescreens to hoodwink neither themselves nor the public. Run out of tricks which couch various depths of lies in PR palatable consumables. Yet the truth turned out to worth less than a shrug. Death is death, and hysterical denials in tuneful mourning, while good human behaviour, is recognised by veterans for what it is, acts of irrelevance to the pertaining reality, the call of the morgue man.This, is when things are very madongodongo omera. And what am I talking about yawa!?I am talking about the cabinet secretary for transport Engineer Michael Kamau. Addressing parliament after being taken to task on the malafide tendering surrounding the [500 km] Chinese-financed Standard Gauge Railway to be built between Mombasa and Nairobi, the technocrat stated it plain. -----‘ ’We have no option. We just have to accept it.’’ Period. NB: He did not say period, he did not have to. ---(I asked somebody to check the Hansard report for me, but he is demanding money before he comes across, so I am going to press on Jukwaa before I read Engineer Kariuki verbatim. But I am sure he did not say period. He used another word, or gesture, but equally emphatic, like the signature of a pathologist under a death certificate. I will try to argue this point on light note. The point of Kenya transforming into a vassal state to the emperor of China, Xi Jinpin, and the case of the [pretending] reluctant red vice-roy or current local prefect, Liu Guangyuan. For one it is the Xmas season, and two, its full import would be too unpalatable, such that it could defeat our current objectives. That objective being to reveal a certain aspect of reality without pre-judgement. Just a honest look. Like engineer Kamau did in parliament. It is neither good nor bad, it just is. Technocrat reporting. Judgement must wait out there. And this is case far above the station and heads of the Judiciary! CAVEAT: Moving some around other peoples countries, the ferocity with which I seen folks profess their love for their Father- or Motherlands, acclaim their readiness to shed the blood of traitors, quislings and all enemies of the same, have often left me feeling inadequate and ashamed. I have never felt this frenzied desire to kill the whole world in defence of Kenya! (That is the complex of growing up in a lake shared by three countries. Now you fish in Tz, now Ug, now Ke, and the fish is not changing taste! Then you become more loyal to fish than to flags!) But listening to the French sing their famous national anthem, I wondered what was wrong with me and my mild patriotism! Here is a taste of the hymn le Marseillaise. The terrifying historical death knell to every tyrant. The Non negotiable call to arms to reclaim dignity. Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, the best gift of revolutionary France to mankind. Blood thirsty song! The call to fight freedom's corner! And listening to a fascinating blondine giving me a guided tour of the concentration camp at Auschwitz (where storey ovens were built to cremate lorry-loads of Jews) professing that Germany was everything to her, the bad with the good, and that for all their evil, it was love for Germany that motivated the Nazis more than their hate for the Jews, I felt uncertain at my readiness to refer to certain forms of patriotism as demented garbage. ‘’When I sing Deutschland my vaterland uber Alles with my hand in my heart, I aint doing pantomime!’’ She told me, a patriot the level of fire I saw in a Hutu eye. ‘’Bombed to the ground by our current allies, we built it up again from scratch. That is the pain and sacrifice of gone German generations for the future. And if that is what Germany demands of our generation, to get out of the current economic crisis, then be it. But you foreigners in Germany do not want to give her your blood and sweat, and toil and all. That is why I do not trust your lots with German citizenship! You can not sing Deutschland uber alles in der welt, and mean it. No,You poke fun at it, poke fun at its melody, ridicule our regimented mentality which is our work ethic. Foreigners are mere passing visitors when Germany is good. When she goes down, they will leave and laugh at us! But we Germans will stay, and do our all to bring her up again. It is the promise of my blood. Why I am German, forever. A privilege in life and death.’’Every time I come across the consensus in American politics that the President is not attacked [criticised] by another American politician in a foreign country, I wonder why I find that patriotic set a scumburger’s agreement! [When Mitt Romney broke this rule on Obama in Israel, the saying went: fwacka madha is not a mormon, he is a mormoron!]Me? even God by any name is just another geek if I catch him or her or it on the wrong side of reasonable thinking. Wherever I am I will state what I think. Like this week, partly on behalf of God, the Ugandan parliament just passed a law which condemns homosexuals to long prison sentences, then I say, that is a geek of a god they are serving over there, these fish thieves! Yes, for my own purposes I do not take prisoners, nay, not even single sons of gods or sole prophets are good enough hostages; but for the purpose of this argument today, in this paper, I want to be mild, accommodating and all understanding. Living and let live as the saying goes. It is the Xmas season, and I am a kind of Xtian after all. ( And I note with humbled honour the outpouring of commiseration which has fallen upon Njakip upon the chance revelation that he lost his father recently. Jukwaa folk, some of them full breed ardent if not nasty critics of the renegade ICC-phile MOONKI, have set aside that bile to pen heartfelt condolences. That kind of stuff mellows even the insensitive hearts of fellas like Jakaswanga. So I will be a bit tongue in cheek for a while on a key issue of national dignity and not blow a trumpetic echo of Le Marseillaise on the dynamic duo!!) NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE, EVEN OF A PROVISIONAL KIND. ---Have Uhuru and Ruto become quislings ---puppets played by China? [Watch out for lessons from the Ukraine, on the emptiness of a treasury leading to foreign manipulation of local politics] But we are doing Kenya: THE RHETORIC AND THE PRACTICE.After their inauguration, they new kids at Ikulu went around the continent pontificating a new awareness of Pan-African nationalism. A revitalisation of national dignities. They forever professed independence and Raila Amollo Odinga, then considered their chief threat to the extent of being accused plotting a coup, continued to be portrayed as the candidate of of an unnamed imperialist power, plotting to re-colonise Kenya. The narrative and pitch was that Raila was essentially a puppet controlled by remote from abroad. Probably the Trojan horse on errand of his cousin Obama the Potus. A light touch I said, otherwise such a charge is surely high treason. Treason before history, treason before the fates a peoples. (But which word has its meaning in Kenya? Do we not daily ‘’commit outrages’’ against the meaning of concepts. ---Independent judiciary, integrity clause, duly elected …. Free and fair.. …)I am not saying anybody believed the dynamic duo chanting pan-Africanism, ----No, a man like Sassou Nguesso (the Dead* Man) would see them for what they were: Two scared boys shouting BOO at the ICC, and trying to wire-up their nerves to abscond. But there was just enough soar in the wings of DP Ruto (think of the ksh. 100M Hustler Jet episode) which betrayed he believed himself as the new ambassador at large of the new Pan-Africanist congress launched in Nairobi. And he was winged going places with it. But like the other furtive narrative, the one that it was Raila colluding to fix the duo at the ICC courtesy of his other famous cousin (Okambo), ------- a storyline which has since been revealed false with the proof that the fixers of Ruto are embedded within Uhuru’s very house! NAME THEM NAME THEM BUT DO NOT NAIL THEM-------- this Pan-African rhetoric has more than fallen flat and proved itself a hoax. I say this, that the Uhuruto enterprise is already politically bankrupt on that score, taking stock of the implications of our deliverance to China in our total look East policy. A light touch I said. This our deliverance to China could of course turn out to be our blessing in disguise, that is it could very well be our .. well, delayed economic deliverance![ Facing West we failed to industrialise. Left to our own devices we failed too. Now enter China, who knows!?]THE RAILWAY FUNDING THAT SUSPENDED CLAUSES IN THE CONSTITUTION.On a light touch: Constitutions are not holy in Afrika. Many times in the past half a century, many an African woke up to an illiterate staccato over the radio, announcing yet another coup, yes, in the name of the fatherland, there was a soldier struggling to pronounce salvation: ‘’the kontichichiuchon hach been chachpended till further notish!’’ And Lo, there they were, citizens pouring out of their toilet duellings to throng the streets of their cities to celebrate the suspension of their independence constitution!It is not a big deal therefore, considering lived reality, suspending in whole or in part, a legally promulgated constitution that promised to deliver a people from the wretchedness of both oppression and squalor. But still, suspension of the constitution should remain a cause for deep introspection rather than jubilation, regardless of how awful the situation has been. The period of suspension, can turn out to be lawless hell. Light touch, light touch remember! Therefore I tentatively, haltingly and with a measure of trepidation, approach the case of the resigned Engineer Michael Kamau sighing deeply; the Chinese Road and Bridges Company; the partial opinion of AG Githu Muigai;, and the Chinese Exim Bank --with its loan to the tune of +95% the [yearly] budget of Henry Rotich, the finance secretary of the republic of Kenya for the next 20 years of the Uhuruto rule. FOOTNOTE: HENRY ROTICH BLUES:This [SGR] Railway is estimated at a graft-free ksh. 1.2 Trillion in four years. The Total allocation to transport in the year 2013/2014 is ksh. 137 billion. (x4 years approx: 560 billion.). Exim Bank of China alone, is loaning Kenya the equivalent of Rotich’s financial year budget! Deliverance I think.
What do you think the Chinese Central Bank would loan East Afrika?A whole future perhaps? ----{light touch fellas, I said light touch!) [http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-144806/engineer-kamau-should-invite-nis-vet-his-rail-project Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich with Devolution Secretay Anne Waiguru [Photo:Martin Mukangu] I will be back, with a message to ambassador Liu Guangyuan. The reluctant governor apparent. And a short look at Ukraine’s prostitute politics of financial insolvency! West or East! Liu Guangyuan is currently the most important ambassador in Nairobi. And looking at the money, the most important man. To accord him due respect, is that I truth him down. Vice Roy or prefect, delegated by emperor Xi Jinpin court! I suggest you fellow citizens start referring to him as His Revered Majesty. ---Take it from me and engineer Kamau, we have no choice! [light touch, forget not!] Happy holidays!
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Post by b6k on Dec 24, 2013 8:52:47 GMT 3
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Post by mank on Dec 24, 2013 9:16:10 GMT 3
Do you know I started reading this and then got obstructed!
Let me say this ... the entire world looks in that direction; with a reason.
There are those who want not to look this direction or the other, but they too are aware of the tectonic shift that only the damn fool can ignore: they did not want to yield to the alternative side of the compass. So they were left with the digital domain. They created "Bitcoin". Renminibi or Bitcoin, is not West! A mighty battle is in course .. . at the end it is something but the dollar.
$racula
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Post by jakaswanga on Dec 26, 2013 17:16:22 GMT 3
Let us go! THE VASSAL STATE STATES HER DEMANDS! SEASON OF THE BRAVE WHO-RES!Now that I have reasoned, in fact championed the Chinese ambassador to Kenya, currently a Mr. Liu Guangyuan, into the most important man in Nairobi, it is upon others to introduce the nuance whether this is de facto or otherwise. Meanwhile I escalate and state, that the most important person in Nairobi, is of course the most important in the whole region. This means the local sub chiefs within our locality ---- their lesser excellencies whose names I wil not bother to prounounce yet, all will have to know their pay grade under Liu’s auspice, one way or another. And the office of Liu too, will have to rise to the occasion. Quid pro Quo. (But sadly I note how impotent ViceRoy Liu is, confronted with the deepening crisis in the republic of South Sudan. This is a humbling experience, immediately warning of the limits to the magic the Red emperor in far-off Beijin can work in this African ;)Xinjian. A key supplier of her oil. Later more on that) NB: There is of course the bit about the soon-to-be late Superpower known as the United States, a loose end who, tenuously clinging to that [Super-Power] title officially, still will insist on his pound of flesh. In this sandwiched position, a Christian to Ceasar what belongs to Xissor, and to my father what belongs to my father, is the magic formula our puppet sovereign Uhuru Kenyatta may be advised to indulge, every time he is summoned before the controlling powers, bare-assed. We all know the rigmarole; the periodic summons for business as usual, too, to pay tribute, or simply to be misused in turn by the rival prefects for their amusement, as befits power relationships of domination: (this ‘succumbing to ritual abuse’ has to be the case until our sovereign develops a choice, and we can pay the price of a NO! But considering our recent jubilation at the goodies Uhuru and Kidero brought from their state visit to China, I highly doubt we are ready to pay the price of a No anytime soon. Add that to the civil war which has broken out between competing business interests allied to different factions of the Jubilee coalition, as they scavenge for droppings from the Chinese basket, then you know we are totally sold for the moment. The elite is feasting hard! So we gotta repay those huge loans first, Kenya. And ---any takers? what exactly do we have to sell to China to make up the difference!? Because that is the definition of political choice!)MEANWHILE WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MIGHT OF THE WEST? our traditional keepers? Well, time bypassed them.1. Now that we know why Potus Obama, the US congress, and the British parliament chickened out of bombing young Assad’s ass to bits on his alleged abuse or use of chemical weapons in Syria, we know the USA is a dead super power, but falling in slow motion like good Old Rome, taking its time. The USA is as dangerous as a crumbling fort. Take cover if you are sheltering under its portico! 2. The United States has only enough money to rent the elite wholesale, and, in addition, she has the military and diplomatic power to intimidate them into periodic compliance, but she has no money for them to bribe their impoverished population with, by financing massive and grandiose infrastructural programs like China does. Neither does the USA have the patience, and the nerve to commit and risk astronomical sums in loans to radical urban modernisation programs captained by the thieving and notoriously inept bureaucracy’s of Afrika. Reduced to small change jingles during courtship, the West is increasingly a spectator: Yesterday’s man. 3. Watch then run out of South Sudan too now, after Libya. It means their brand of colonialism has become too expensive for them; and the last time I saw, Mighty France was committing 2000 troops to an area the size of France – Azawad cum North Mali, and 500 to an area the size of Spain – CAR, and threatening to cut and run unless somebody came in and picked the bill. Securing an escape airport and a few mining fields is called deployment to prevent genocide on a continental scale! Then you are really out of it. so yes, guys are broke. And it is showing. Obama deployed only 200 troops to Kiir’s sinking Sudan in the face of an unfolding Rwanda-style genocide! That is not an imperial sized intervention. That is less than Mickey Mouse in the house! Merely extra marines to guard American * at the embassy, lest ravaging negroes come swinging their ready clubs, hunting for different coloured game to change diet! NB 2. Having been ripped by her own bankers, the EU and USA politicians are already forced to transfer that burden to their tax-payers, and with China having moved in to form some lucrative mutual deals in the third world, the option of the West on a vicious scale exporting their internal contradictions is limited. In other words, the kind of massive impoverisation regime the IMF and World Bank subjected African countries to in the 80s and 90s ---SAP, which was essentially an extraction of capital from Afrika under the yoke of debt servitude, can no longer be repeated. This is why the banking-triggered recession in the West has been ongoing so long. It majorly has to be sorted out internally, and the political base of their tax-paying class, may just break under the strain. So, easy, easy they go. And long, longer lasts the dip. Double. (PS: Fr ance and Britain thought they could grab Libyan Oil and quickly fund their way out of stagnation by the proceeds of banditry like they did centuries ago with Spanish silver from Latin America when they turned their navies into pirate enterprises, but ALAS, it has proved a not so easy gamble, with Libyan oil fields producing at a loss and more turmoil in the horizons). Iraq with its oil riches has not been any better neither, with Turkey and Iran appearing to be even greater beneficiaries. So we have seen the British Prime Minister Cameron and his London mayor Boris Johnson trooping in line to Beijin, to recognise the new global reality.) ---And for Germany? We have seen her tough Madame in concert with her sadistic finance minister [Wolfgang Schaube) hiking the poorer, bankrupt states of Europe into an iron SM cage, that of an export colony; and she does this through a scorching austerity regime, more like autarky. Things like Greece have become wastelands under this regime ---and you can check the migration rate of her well-educated youth up North. And Portugal? The well-educated young are all in Angola working oil for the Chinese, or in Brazil with Petrobas, or in Macao, or in the gas fields of Timor in the Indonesian archipelago. Portugal yes, only African desperados from the former colonies in Africa –- Mozambique, Angola and Cape Verde, still see a Mecca in her. I assure you Lissabon nowadays is darker than Mombasa, dirtier than Naivasha, dustier than Narok, and more crumbling that Cairo flats built under Mubarak!WHAT IS UP IN UKRAINE?PS: 2. Of late, Merkel has just locked horns with Russia’s Putin over the Ukraine. Ukraine too, must become a German export colony like the PIIGs. The monster must be fed by chicks nearer home. Because Out there far in the wider jungle, the red dragon prowls alert and vicious! And territoriality. Germany's awesome industrial might needs market colonies, so it must create them. Ukraine first, Russia next! What Adolf Hitler could not do with military force, Angela will do with industrial prowess!PS 3: The might of the EU and the USA could not come up with enough money to subsidise or credit Ukraine sufficiently to buy Russian gas at competitive World Market rates, and help her warm herself through the winter [How Ukraine wishes she had kept her nuclear reactors for local power!]. So cold, the blonde and curvy daughters of Julia Timoshenko entered the gaseous but warm embrace of the bear Ivan. Come summer they will think summer time love, and may be face West again. Winter East, Summer West. As the seasons turn in Kiev, so does her love! That of course is also a model for Uhuru Kenyatta and Kenya. A w-hore has enough holes for everybody’s innings, so long they pay. -----There is a love market out there! The price just gotta be right. AND NOW, WHAD DO WE DO WITH THE RED VICEROY LIU, THE PIMP?Ist, What do I want: A prostitute can negotiate for better terms with her pimp. That is a pimp with a head for big economics. A cheap pimp will merely break the jaws of such a headstrong ho because he parasites on total subservience and has no concept of an alternative, better relationship.We are set to find out what goes with Prefect Liu! Pimp General of the East Africa harem on behalf of emperor Xi Jinpin.I want a comfortable relations with China, comfortable in the sense of without illusions. And from the public edicts I have heard him proclaim, the red Viceroy Liu Guangyuan is not of that mode. He, either by design or total historical mis-education, is excelling at hogwash, platitudes and stale representations of reality which can not conform to the dynamic, intense and intimate dalliance as is unfolding between our two countries. And two regions. And continents. That fearsome intensity, in the context of the high stakes in which China can import on Kenya to voluntarily suspend sections of her constitution to accommodate Chinese interests, is what makes me say Liu Guangyuan must size up. He must be who he is, stop hibernating and pretending, stop playing possum, stop playing sleeper like a famous Manchurian candidate, stop living a fake life, and rise up to his responsibilities. Prefect of a province of the empire.A province in turmoil. A ‘’Xinjiang’’, albeit not geographically continuous with the heartland. A colonial governor would be of the Old Mode. But yes, colonial governors were also nation builders of a kind –overseeing large scale programs of infrastructure like Owen Falls Dam and the Uganda Railway, securing them on the cheapest for the multinationals of that period [The IBEA-cos et al]. So : Prefect Liu Guangyuan: Your in-tray sir:
1. The railway tender is coming at a terrible corruption rate. The calculation is that it will cost 40% more per Kilometer due to graft. As a prefect delegated by a country rising to become a super power, if you allow that kind of rot, whether with Chinese money or Kenyan money, then you are total vegetable and away with your from Nairobi. Fwacka geek! The taxpayer stands to lose a whopping Sh110 billion in inflated pricing, according to railway construction costing made available to this publication by Industry experts. The benchmark in this case is the Addis-Djibouti railway whose construction is to complete in 2015. “The unit cost of Mombasa-Nairobi railway is 49.3 percent higher than the unit cost of the 743km Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway,” said a report by one of the Industry experts working at the Ministry of Transport headquarters, Transcom House.” The Nairobi Law Monthly Nairobi Law Monthly [/quote] Wild West days!? Gotta stop. Your home style I suggest: even if as powerful as Bo Xi Lai and the latest [who used to be a politburo member in charge of security -- Zhou Yongkang]. Crack a whip Liu, or resign. That above is not a tender overseen by a rising super power. That is a tender by a rotten country going nowhere. That is Salva Kiir's oily Sudan. 2. That is just for starters. China Rising to world pre-eminence1!? Then it must follow, that her Viceroys in her anointed external provinces must be rising stars too. Kenya is not Siberia or some godforsaken remote corner of the empire where dead careers are exiled and finalised. Kenya must be a hot spot, the passing place for future emperors or those going other top places; a place transformed by ambitious and dynamic talent beyond local comprador comprehension! Miraculous. That is the deal. You catch me, Liu? If I catch you again un-aware of your historical role, I am writing direct to my esteemed emperor Xi Jinpin to get his urinal shit called Liu out of Nairobi. Coz, I wanna go places, and not stay stagnant like some backwater colony in a repeat of history. Believe me Liu, I been long a colonial, long a slave, and I did not like it. ----Nor did your ancestors under either Japan nor the British. So you know the score. Get to work. Fwacka madha yellow geek! Correct that wild-west robbery tender, now. I want to discuss the option of an Industrial Park in East Afrika with you, Liu. The Kind China is building in Bellorusia. You know what am talking about? ----Later, later! First, the waragi season! that is less than the GDP of a bankrupt Greece with a population of South Sudan! Zhou Yongkang, you wanna tell me about him?
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Post by Daktari wa makazi on Dec 27, 2013 12:06:33 GMT 3
Jakaswanga What family are you talking about?
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Post by jakaswanga on Jan 2, 2014 22:03:17 GMT 3
Jakaswanga What family are you talking about? Wolololo! Jesus Christ! I want to post something serious here! where is the administrator to drag away this loose-buttock so that it might do its droppings elsewhere! I need to breathe here and think about the serious matter of the historical re-alignment of Kenya! And by the way, I think I must have answered a similar question on another thread! Are you asking my pardon so that I may give it straight up! NB: I was going to tackle the possible implications of Emperor Xi Jinpin's anti corruption crusade for corrupt practices surrounding the various aspects of the tendering for the (state-owend) EXIM bank financed SGR! Now, I will take it to Viceroy Liu Guangyuan!I will be back here, when the shit stench is gone!
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Post by jakaswanga on May 10, 2014 20:47:17 GMT 3
THE ROLLING CARAVAN OF TRADE COMES TO TOWN: THE TOUCHING LIPS KISS BECOMES A TONGUE PROBE!Li Keqiang Chinese Premier does Nairobiwww.nation.co.ke/news/-/1056/2310158/-/14u64gl/-/index.html Embrace the dragon fellow citizens! wear some fire-proof equipment though. The dragon breathes fire! www.nation.co.ke/news/Li-Keqiang-China-Visit-Diplomacy-Uhuru-Kenyatta/-/1056/2309626/-/jnpfvvz/-/index.html Missing detail I am looking for: Nairobi as a clearing house for Renminbi, or CNY: ( Chinese Yuan). And the beginning of the free trading of the Yuan at Kenya forex bureaus and banks. (NB: I think --I will check for certainty-- it is already so, that in Angola and Congo DRC, IMPEX commuters between China and Afrika just do IT in Yuan and their local (currency). No detour to dollar and Euro first. Not sure, may be the experiment has already hit Nairobi CBD, only I aint been uploaded. www.nation.co.ke/news/africa/China-wants-to-double-trade-with-Africa/-/1066/2305090/-/mv9534z/-/index.html And then we have our AG githu Muigai and fin-sec Henry Rotich caught sneaking a billion plus out of the treasury to pay Anglo-leasing fleecers, claiming Kenya’s international reputation and or credit worthiness would be negatively impacted! And, to top it up, blab bla bla attached and etc etc confiscated!? Why such spinelessness from otherwise would-be level-headed people!? Why such castrated docility before corruption, of top bureaucrats captaining a supposed industrialisation charge!? I can only rationalised these pawns received higher orders from their owners, and decided to obey those fraudulent directives, instead of serving their country to the best of their abilities. Nothing new there. Just like with the late brilliant Saitoti who was in practice but a greedy thief whose tenure at the treasury was national ruin! What was it again that Uhuru Kenyatta came back with from the Brussels conference of last month!? Nothing: he did not even get an appointment with any European leader, let alone the duo Presidents Barroso and Van Rompuy. ---Why does Mr. Kenyatta insist on insulting himself thus, a supplicant in humiliation before Europe!? Aah, the ICC! there they have him by the balls I forgot! With China set to be the biggest economy in the world at the end of this year --(she already is if we believe these things people like Man-K call ''rebase'')--- a well-run Kenya should and would ooze more confidence than the latest crap I have heard from Rotich and Muigai. Yes Ababu Namwamba, you would be right to go for their impeachment! (But my reasoning is different: they have proven themselves mentally feeble, and the national task at hand, requires of a hardier breed)!
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Post by OtishOtish on May 10, 2014 22:05:14 GMT 3
Jakaswanga:
Always read the "fine print".
* For example, the "Sh 880 million establishment of ecological and Wildlife Protection" is actually for the whole of Africa. That's about $10 million, which is far less than the "market value" of all the rhino+elephant horns they get, not to mention the immeasurable wildlife loss to the continent.
* "The Chinese government also pledged support for the repatriation of the Somali refugees residing in Kenya."
- I note that they are rather coy on the exact nature of that support.
* Quite a few MoUs, it seems, with not much that is concrete.
Etc.
Kung Fu seems to be doing quite well out of Kenya:
"According to the Chinese Embassy, Kenya’s exports to China stand at $50 million annually while the country’s imports from the Southeast Asian nation stand at $3.2 billion"
www.nation.co.ke/news/Li-Keqiang-China-Visit-Diplomacy-Uhuru-Kenyatta/-/1056/2309626/-/jnpfvvz/-/index.html
Southeast Asian countries might be alarmed to learn China is now one of them, but we can assure them that Kenyans have neither the authority nor the power to move such a large country a distance of several thousand kilometers to the south ....
Anyways ... I note that even a used-up country like Afghanistan imports more from Kenya that China does ...
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Post by jakaswanga on May 11, 2014 9:08:49 GMT 3
Jakaswanga:
Always read the "fine print".
* For example, the "Sh 880 million establishment of ecological and Wildlife Protection" is actually for the whole of Africa. That's about $10 million, which is far less than the "market value" of all the rhino+elephant horns they get, not to mention the immeasurable wildlife loss to the continent.
* "The Chinese government also pledged support for the repatriation of the Somali refugees residing in Kenya."
- I note that they are rather coy on the exact nature of that support.
* Quite a few MoUs, it seems, with not much that is concrete.
Etc.
Kung Fu seems to be doing quite well out of Kenya:
"According to the Chinese Embassy, Kenya’s exports to China stand at $50 million annually while the country’s imports from the Southeast Asian nation stand at $3.2 billion"
www.nation.co.ke/news/Li-Keqiang-China-Visit-Diplomacy-Uhuru-Kenyatta/-/1056/2309626/-/jnpfvvz/-/index.html
Southeast Asian countries might be alarmed to learn China is now one of them, but we can assure them that Kenyans have neither the authority nor the power to move such a large country a distance of several thousand kilometers to the south ....
Anyways ... I note that even a used-up country like Afghanistan imports more from Kenya that China does ...
You missed this (puke)print in this thread above? That you now tell me of fine print? I will rehash for you! Does the Chinese Premier and his professor wife have heads for big economics, and therefore fain to give their street-hooker Uhuru Kenyatta more leash to forage and moonlight, and keep up appearances of a non-abusive tie? Or are they full-blooded dragons of the old mode, scorch earth predators!? Out to make Kenya a complete satellite economy, 101% dependent? I am waiting for my friend Kagwanja at the Nairobi institute of strategic studies to shed light! I told you … So, Premier Li Keqiang with Presidente Kenyatta: were all cards on the table, or illusions and snake oils were traded both ways? The game of thrones is not for the faint hearted. China is an astitute defender of her national interests, and does not shy away from ruthless power flaunting in her relationships with lesser brothers. –This year alone after annexing a whole stretch of the North and South China seas as their private ponds, they have rammed Vietnamese boats, blockaded Philipino ships, flooded Japanese frigates, strip-searched Indonesian boats and, stone facedly, told Obama to go read the name of those waters –China seas. So no illusions about Kung Fu. They are set overtake the USA as number 1 world economy come January. How about our Hero Kenyatta’s boy? Apart from the pathology he exhibited in roasting Luos in Naivasha for a Mungiki barbecue, and now, in the name of the war on terror, hunting down Somali virgins across the land to sell to Arabs, have you seen any steel worth a WOW for him? ---Treasury )errors may be! Bob Wekesa from South Africa commenting on CCTV. Now go figure! The long road, Premier Li Keqiang here below, from the days Premier Chou en Lai first came on a fact-finding mission.
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Post by OtishOtish on May 11, 2014 16:35:30 GMT 3
According to the African leader's version, this means that China is a great friend and partner for development. Respects sovereignty, independence, and African solutions for African problems.
The Chinese version was given to me by a drunk gentleman in Beijing, as he explained why we will always be behind. According to this version, Africans will always be killing each other and starving. Can't help themselves. Not much to be done about that, and the Chinese are too busy with their own country. As long as the Africans keep getting stuff out of the ground and sending it over, let them be.
So, in the immortal words of one of your great presidents, kazi iendelee.
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Post by b6k on May 23, 2014 20:17:51 GMT 3
According to the African leader's version, this means that China is a great friend and partner for development. Respects sovereignty, independence, and African solutions for African problems. The Chinese version was given to me by a drunk gentleman in Beijing, as he explained why we will always be behind. According to this version, Africans will always be killing each other and starving. Can't help themselves. Not much to be done about that, and the Chinese are too busy with their own country. As long as the Africans keep getting stuff out of the ground and sending it over, let them be. So, in the immortal words of one of your great presidents, kazi iendelee. Otishotish, those with a modicum understanding of history would note that your Chinese "friend's" definition of Africa mirrors the west's depiction of China itself during the Boxer Rebellion days. Boxer, Boko Haram, what the heck. Even your massa's from the west were busy cutting each other's throats in two successive world wars just a couple of generations ago, and for hundreds, nay thousands of years before that. People change, and Africans, eventually, will not be an exception to the rule...
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Post by OtishOtish on May 23, 2014 20:25:14 GMT 3
b6k:
I'm glad to hear that Africans too will change someday; that should bring comfort to the Africans suffering right now. Me myself, given that I have only this one life, I will stay away from that promise of change.
Yes, history, which you describe accurately ... is there any reason why Africans cannot learn from the mistakes of others, or is it part the inevitable "development process" that they must go the same route?
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Post by jakaswanga on May 25, 2014 12:31:11 GMT 3
Does the Chinese Premier and his professor wife have heads for big economics, and therefore fain to give their street-hooker Uhuru Kenyatta more leash to forage and moonlight, and keep up appearances of a non-abusive tie? Or are they full-blooded dragons of the old mode, scorch earth predators!? Out to make Kenya a complete satellite economy, 101% dependent? I am waiting for my friend Kagwanja at the Nairobi institute of strategic studies to shed light!And now my friend, the sage Kagwanja, has spoken some, and those who have ears will hear! www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/Japan-China-Trade-Diplomacy-Kenya/-/440808/2319012/-/aotu8l/-/index.html NB: I am appealing to b6k, to help me read this: This ACTIVE PACIFISM, with, apart from a constitutional reform to allow military deployment overseas, at least 3 tenets of MILITARY EXPANSION, ENHANCEMENT, and then a strengthening of Military pacting with the USA!? how much pacifism is in the cake? It sounds more like a war-mongering Japan to me! laying the architecture for military adventures abroad! This Abe guy, is he not of the Japanese nationalist wing that has declared the war criminals who dismembered Manchuria to be heroes, re-writing the consensus at the end of the world war? It would be like Angela Merkel paying tribute to holocaust perpetrators, in a re-definition of German history of world war 2!
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Post by jakaswanga on May 25, 2014 12:48:24 GMT 3
b6k: I'm glad to hear that Africans too will change someday; that should bring comfort to the Africans suffering right now. Me myself, given that I have only this one life, I will stay away from that promise of change. Yes, history, which you describe accurately ... is there any reason why Africans cannot learn from the mistakes of others, or is it part the inevitable "development process" that they must go the same route? You despair easy Otishotish. Think of the darkest days of slavery in the Caribbean farms. The slaves who held hope for a better tomorrow, dreaming the freedom dreams. What would you have been like, Otish, a neurotic suicide case? or the Whitemaster will be boss forever house negro? or the marons preferring to take their chances out in the jungle as run-aways? coming back to try recruit for guerrilla acts? You despair too easy, amigo. In the struggle, there are periods of defeat, dispersal and even rout, and then we re-visit hope as we tell the tales of men like Spartacus, Zumba of Palmaresh, fellas whose names re-lit the torch of liberation from bondage, and let it shine in the darkest hour of oppression. Paying a heavy price, but keeping our dream alive, passing on the dream silently from mind to mind, parent to child, until free at last shall be bayed by mankind in unison. Do not be a non believer who fell by the road side! Have faith in the african, have faith brother!
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Post by b6k on May 25, 2014 16:42:13 GMT 3
b6k: I'm glad to hear that Africans too will change someday; that should bring comfort to the Africans suffering right now. Me myself, given that I have only this one life, I will stay away from that promise of change. Yes, history, which you describe accurately ... is there any reason why Africans cannot learn from the mistakes of others, or is it part the inevitable "development process" that they must go the same route? Otishotish, the thing about learning is it tends to occur at its own pace, and in its own way. It's all well and good to learn in a leapfrog fashion (much like KE no longer has landlines to speak of as cellular phones have been adopted by the populace at Telkom's expense) but if you want true learning it's best to undergo the experience however horrible it may be. The numerous inter European wars over the ages led to the peace and prosperity that's enjoyed in the EU today. Most Europeans today wouldn't have the stomach to fight a war on their soil, especially when it makes more cents to export such wars to distant lands in the Middle East, DRC, and the likes. I'm often amused by people who believe that everything must be achieved in their lifetime as though everything begins and ends with them. It's good to have dreams and goals for sure, but to dismiss any little progress made because it's not done in the brief period you (we) have on this planet, forgetting that life is a marathon and will continue playing out in your children's lifetime, and their children's lifetimes as well, ad infinitum shows a very myopic view of the human experience...
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Post by b6k on May 25, 2014 17:02:21 GMT 3
NB: I am appealing to b6k, to help me read this: This ACTIVE PACIFISM, with, apart from a constitutional reform to allow military deployment overseas, at least 3 tenets of MILITARY EXPANSION, ENHANCEMENT, and then a strengthening of Military pacting with the USA!? how much pacifism is in the cake? It sounds more like a war-mongering Japan to me! laying the architecture for military adventures abroad! This Abe guy, is he not of the Japanese nationalist wing that has declared the war criminals who dismembered Manchuria to be heroes, re-writing the consensus at the end of the world war? It would be like Angela Merkel paying tribute to holocaust perpetrators, in a re-definition of German history of world war 2! Jakaswanga, other than Prof Kagwanja getting it wrong and claiming Japan has no military (they have a 200,000 plus strong "defense" force) then later in his piece hinting at rearmament reminiscent of Hitler's moves before WWII through this Active Pacifism gig, that's an interesting read. Japan through JICA and other organizations has been very active in KE over the years. I'm sure they do not want their efforts overshadowed by those meddling kids the Chinese. Rest assured the Japanese will get away with their rearmament efforts because they will be allowed to do so by Uncle Sam who shares a common enemy.
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Post by b6k on May 25, 2014 17:06:51 GMT 3
b6k: I'm glad to hear that Africans too will change someday; that should bring comfort to the Africans suffering right now. Me myself, given that I have only this one life, I will stay away from that promise of change. Yes, history, which you describe accurately ... is there any reason why Africans cannot learn from the mistakes of others, or is it part the inevitable "development process" that they must go the same route? You despair easy Otishotish. Think of the darkest days of slavery in the Caribbean farms. The slaves who held hope for a better tomorrow, dreaming the freedom dreams. What would you have been like, Otish, a neurotic suicide case? or the Whitemaster will be boss forever house negro? or the marons preferring to take their chances out in the jungle as run-aways? coming back to try recruit for guerrilla acts? You despair too easy, amigo. In the struggle, there are periods of defeat, dispersal and even rout, and then we re-visit hope as we tell the tales of men like Spartacus, Zumba of Palmaresh, fellas whose names re-lit the torch of liberation from bondage, and let it shine in the darkest hour of oppression. Paying a heavy price, but keeping our dream alive, passing on the dream silently from mind to mind, parent to child, until free at last shall be bayed by mankind in unison. Do not be a non believer who fell by the road side! Have faith in the african, have faith brother! Jakaswanga, well penned. Our oreo brother, Otishotish, has a tendency of taking Afro-pessimist positions that go beyond self loathing. I wouldn't be surprised if he's used Africans May Be Improved (Ambi) products over the years...
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Post by OtishOtish on May 25, 2014 17:51:28 GMT 3
Otishotish, the thing about learning is it tends to occur at its own pace, and in its own way. It's all well and good to learn in a leapfrog fashion (much like KE no longer has landlines to speak of as cellular phones have been adopted by the populace at Telkom's expense) but if you want true learning it's best to undergo the experience however horrible it may be. The numerous inter European wars over the ages led to the peace and prosperity that's enjoyed in the EU today. Most Europeans today wouldn't have the stomach to fight a war on their soil, especially when it makes more cents to export such wars to distant lands in the Middle East, DRC, and the likes. I'm often amused by people who believe that everything must be achieved in their lifetime as though everything begins and ends with them. It's good to have dreams and goals for sure, but to dismiss any little progress made because it's not done in the brief period you (we) have on this planet, forgetting that life is a marathon and will continue playing out in your children's lifetime, and their children's lifetimes as well, ad infinitum shows a very myopic view of the human experience... b6k: I have to admit that I am thoroughly ashamed of my myopic view of human experience. I don't know what came over me to imagine that Africans can learn to govern themselves in the period of one lifetime (e.g. mine). Let me briefly, by way of a lame defense, explain why I tend to make such serious errors. Yes, it is certainly true that "learning tends to occur at its own pace and in its own way". But my limited experience and observation have given me the funny idea that it helps a great deal if people make the effort to learn, learn in a directed manner, and then properly apply what has been learned. I have seen that approach work, which is why I got carried away. Even in governance too, it has been known to work. So, for example, I was recently wondering if the leaders of South Sudan could actually have sat down and said, " how can we avoid the mistakes that nearly all newly-independent African nations have made?" And, then, having come up with some answers, proceed to "implement". But, as you rightly point out, learning tends to occur at its own pace, and in its own way; and I see that the South Sudanese have been vigorously---very vigorously too and perhaps too vigourously---learning at their own pace and in their own way. Why buy into the silly idea that there is anything more useful about History than noting that "X did this, on that date, over here", "Y said that, on the other date, over there", etc. One of the mistakes I tend to make is to look at some countries that got independence at about the same time as many African countries or were just as down-and-out economically. Quite a few, especially in Asia, have really "risen". I often wonder if African countries could learn from them. But learning tends to occur at its own pace and in its own way. Those Asians are probably high-gradient learning curve. Fast learners, whereas Africans prefer their own slow pace. Still, let me give you a concrete example of where I think faster learning is possible and would help a great deal. Take Kenya---Island of Peace in Region of Turmoil, Economic Powerhouse of East Africa, Strong Ally of West in War on Terror, Heading East. Consider then the food situation. Droughts and famines have not been unknown. FEWS regularly gives warnings. Yet things always end up in the same desperate situation, with people eating cats, dogs, tree leaves, etc. Me myself, I think it should be possible to learn from past experience and plan better for contingencies. But one day they will get there---in their own way and at their own pace, right? Dreams? I am too old to have any left. But I think goals are good. Even in governance. Take that dot of a country known as Singapore. 50 years ago, it was desperately poor and being torn apart by corruption and ethnic tensions. The leaders sat down, formulated certain goals and how to deal with those problems, looked at what they could learn from elsewhere .... and off they went. Kenya too has a great goal: Vision 2030, industrialization within 15 years. Given the rate at which any learning seems to be taking place---we won't even bother with the direction of any learning---the goal seems a bit iffy. But, as you correctly point out, learning tends to occur in its own way and at its own pace. And the African pace seems to be that of a snail in first-gear, meandering in this direction and that direction. What is important, though, is that it is in their own way and at their own pace. I have never dismissed any progress, big or small. My position has been that there can be faster progress if there is much greater effort at learning, applying the lessons learned, setting clear goals and plans for how to achieve them, seeing through those plans, etc. But I admit that mine is a very myopic view of the human experience. Progress, like learning, tends to occur in its own way and at its own pace. Anyways ... To show that I have today learned something, and in the spirit of broadening my view of the human experience, I say this: Kazi iendelee. In its own way. At its own pace.
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Post by OtishOtish on May 25, 2014 17:56:04 GMT 3
Jakaswanga, well penned. Our oreo brother, Otishotish, has a tendency of taking Afro-pessimist positions that go beyond self loathing. I wouldn't be surprised if he's used Africans May Be Improved (Ambi) products over the years... b6k: Now, now ... that won't do. You really must put more effort into it: you left out "Uncle Tom", "House N*gger", etc.
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Post by OtishOtish on May 25, 2014 17:59:50 GMT 3
You despair easy Otishotish. Think of the darkest days of slavery in the Caribbean farms. The slaves who held hope for a better tomorrow, dreaming the freedom dreams. What would you have been like, Otish, a neurotic suicide case? or the Whitemaster will be boss forever house negro? or the marons preferring to take their chances out in the jungle as run-aways? coming back to try recruit for guerrilla acts? You despair too easy, amigo. In the struggle, there are periods of defeat, dispersal and even rout, and then we re-visit hope as we tell the tales of men like Spartacus, Zumba of Palmaresh, fellas whose names re-lit the torch of liberation from bondage, and let it shine in the darkest hour of oppression. Paying a heavy price, but keeping our dream alive, passing on the dream silently from mind to mind, parent to child, until free at last shall be bayed by mankind in unison. Do not be a non believer who fell by the road side! Have faith in the african, have faith brother! Jakaswanga: I like the idea---that Africans should consider themselves slaves who will one day be liberated. I won't ask "whose slaves?", but I am happy to note that there has been a First Liberation, a Second Liberation, ... one day there will be a Liberation that really liberates. What would I have? I believe that the African is fully capable of doing much better than he has so far done for himself. Right now, not in some remote, fuzzy future. That is why, for example, I wondered whether people can make a better effort to learn from history and then work to apply whatever they learn. But that was before I learned that learning occurs at its own pace and in its own way.
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Post by jakaswanga on May 25, 2014 22:24:19 GMT 3
b6k: I have to admit that I am thoroughly ashamed of my myopic view of human experience. I don't know what came over me to imagine that Africans can learn to govern themselves in the period of one lifetime (e.g. mine). Let me briefly, by way of a lame defense, explain why I tend to make such serious errors. Yes, it is certainly true that "learning tends to occur at its own pace". But my limited experience and observation have given me the funny idea that it helps a great deal if people make the effort to learn, learn in a directed manner, and then apply the lessons learned. Eloquent and biting sarcastic point taken, but watch out it does not pathologise into a spoilt-brat tantrum. Impatience at the speed of history,is a common affliction, more common and normal than the human cold. It was historically resolved by Lenin in his theory of jumping historical stages. Leninism, is history on the turbo gear, a parachute from feudalism to Socialism, bypassing capitalism. Well, things do happen with TIME-MACHINES, mechanical problems, sabotage, human fallibility and the rest, but I wish to inform you that it is not for lack of trying time travel –learning in a directed manner and then applying the lessons learned--- that we are still lagging behind in our continent. MPLA, FRELIMO, ZANU PF and quite a number of other liberation movements, they all went for this rocket fuel. How about the south Sudanese have decided to have their civil war right at the beginning, instead of hanging out the illusion flag of one nation for some 50 years like most, before collapsing into civil war? They have learnt ethnic tensions will explode some time, and better they have their version of the Hutu-Tutsi wrestling match right now! There is your threatening mental collapse! Wondering if your intelligence and learning curve is inferior to other races –who have really risen in the meantime! yeah, 500 years of slavery can hurt a man’s confidence in himself that much! Convince him of his own inferiority, socialise him into it, which is the significant purpose of colonialism. Render him ever a dependant. Watch it man! For those of us who have been in high classes with all the races of the world and held their own, our self confidence in this score will shock you. We would look at you, doubting Thomases of steep African learning curves, like the Oga- Chief-O would look at AG Githu Muigai of Kenya in that thread you launched, if his polite mask of scorn dropped…. I would refer you to Tom Mboya and Gikonyo Kiano papers. I do the re-organisation, you do the Industrialisation was the agreement between these two. That is the story behind Mboya’s famous 5000 airlifts, to which we thank George Saitoti, William Ochieng’, and Barrack Obama among others. As minister for economic planning, Mboya asked his Agricultural engineering team in the USA, led by a later Dr. Kamau who specialised in the Tennessee valley development authority, to author a master plan for the TANA river Development Authority. It would end hunger in Kambaland and pwani (Kenya then barely having 10 million people!). On returning to Kenya, Kamau was ordered to go work at the CBK, where his first job was to sign for fake projects in a bid to embezzle foreign exchange for Mbiyu and co. He refused, and Kenyatta told him to shut up forever or die. As young students in Nairobi we managed to trace him and look at his copy of the termite eaten work. A genial plan. He had left Kenya and only came back to die. It is called ''kuno'' in dholuo. You have no idea, Otishotish, what lessons Kenyans have learnt from far lands, and tried to implement at home. And you have no idea what it has taken to thwart them! So forgetting your sarcasm a bit, how do you explain that there is evidence of other types of leadership that obviously had another vision? You might want to try some nuance for a change. There is of course terrible disagreements at play, and destination. The argument is a war-zone. He he! Make sure you pass the dreams on to Otish Jnr. but without your sense of bitterness and frustration, nor your self-doubt as to your intelligence relative other races! Singapore is great, but it is an ants colony. It is easier to run a small concentration camp and program every jailbird in it into a model inmate. In Africa you run immediately into civil war building such a conditioned populace, because the other 50 tribes in your country will have none of it, and your army and security forces are quickly reduced to 1 against 50! The white tribes of Africa –the Boers in South Africa and Rhodesia, tried the Singapore way, and indeed made headway so far. But you know how it ended. Young Mugabe had a mind so fearsome, it had to be a tragedy. Down South, all the industrialisation built of Gold and cheap labour was going to be razed to the ground. Even if freedom means Zuma gets a Sultanic Harem at Bill Gates life styles, come it would. And in Algeria, the attempted cultural annexation of that country by the French would precipitate one of the greatest crises in the hierarchy of racialism. You are that ignorant of the situation in Kenya? Or you just prefer to think the Jubilee regime and CORD are Kenya? Have you ever met anybody anywhere who thought history is moving too fast? Aint we all, like wage incomers, always complaining about salaries lagging behind inflation!? Yawa! The old mocking adage that there is no hurry in Africa, you took it serious Otish? Some say the quickness with which Africans want to get rich is the problem! coz there is no magic formula for instantaneous wealth creation. Theft it be!You drown yourself in self-indulgent sarcasm for nothing man. Aluta continua we these sides! We know we are led by thieves. We know that can be changed. But it is a painful slow process in the main. Once in a while there will be a rush forward, a grand-prix charge, but in the main it will be slow and painful. Like Egypt after Mubarak. Like Syria after the revolt against Assad. Like Libya after Gaddaffi. Like Kenya after Moi, Congo after Mobutu. But step by step, day by day, the people change reality. It is not always a pretty sight, mostly barely perceptible, unless one is really interested. Kazi iendelee! The oppressors and their allies say! Aluta continua! The oppressed and their allies say!What was that again? The drunken say in pardon!
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Post by OtishOtish on May 26, 2014 3:46:10 GMT 3
Jakaswanga: First let me congratulate the university types of "hitting the big time". Apparently, the New York Times mentioned the student demos, and it turns out that this could be part of a much larger conspiracy to destabilize Jubilee. According to Kagwanja: www.nation.co.ke/news/Western-conspiracy-to-end-Jubilee-rule/-/1056/2325870/-/11gqxduz/-/index.html(I've given my views of the questionable benefits, if any, to be had from blaming the West for mostly self-inflicted wounds. So I'll leave that one there.) There is your threatening mental collapse! Wondering if your intelligence and learning curve is inferior to other races –who have really risen in the meantime! On the contrary, I don't see any reason to believe that Africans are incapable of learning as fast as anyone else, learning the same things, etc. My question regards why it does not seem to happen as it should, or, if it does, why is not what is learned not applied to the extent that it should. You should therefore consider my statement above in light of an exploration of the proposition---not mine, by the way---that learning happens at its own rate and in its own way. In other words, if we assume that Africans are simply learning at their own rate and in their own, what does that imply? I think you missed the essence of my argument. I am not merely "talking" about learning in that sense. In this case, I would have no reason to doubt that Mr. Kamau had learned something that he wish to make use of in Kenya, and on the basis of what you have written, I would have no reason to fault him. In terms of what I have in mind, I would say that the failure to learn from others occurred with those who thwarted his good plans. (Were they Kenyans?) In fact, despite the colourful terms in which bk6 has described me, I believe that there is a great deal of learning that Africans can do from other Africans, especially when it come to governance. No need to go all the way to Tennessee. I gave specific example of South Sudan because I think they could usefully learn from the history of other African countries that became independent at different times during the 20th century. So far they do not seemed inclined to do so: it seemed obvious that some of the decisions Kiir took not too long ago would inevitably lead to problems, but, learning takes place at its own pace and in its own way, and so some measure of large-scale mayhem appears to have been necessary. This is excellent advice that I very much appreciate. One of the things I especially like about Jukwaa are the nuggets of wisdom that will undoubtedly help me become a better person---free of bitterness and frustration, without self-doubt as to my intelligence relative to other races. But a question: I admit frustration; it's hard not be feel some of that at the sight of so many people suffering because of mindless greed, unchecked hunger for power, sheer bone-headedness, etc. But what am I supposed to be bitter about and why? To the first question: very probably; please enlighten me. To the second: no; but the two seem very prominent and certainly provide the most entertainment: Jubilee lurches about like a fellow who has had too many illicit brews and is trying to find his way home, while CORD is like the drunk who has gone to the toilet to take a piss but can't even manage to find his zipper (or, if he eventually manages to, can't locate his dick). The thieves are elected by the people to represent them, so I am sure it is known. And I am sure that it can be changed, although I have my doubts about the recycling of thieves or the replacement of one set of thieves with another, as happens every 5 years. But, as you say, it is a painful, slow process. My "most pressing issues" are, in the scheme of things, relatively small ones: Is it, for example, necessary that people should routinely die from starvation when it could be avoided? Kenya, for example, is not regularly in the engulfed in a civil war that would make things difficult. This is a very astute observation and probably true; with cost of shrinks these days, I'm glad Jukwaa exists. I really ought to focus my attention to more useful things. Still, I'd say that most forms of self-indulgence---from masturbation, in the privacy and comfort of one's home, to a very public, large-scale "it's those far-away countries that are to blame!"---are not without some (dubious?) sense of satisfaction. Exactly. At own pace, and in own way. It will be interesting to see how Kenya's oppressed choose their next set of oppressors in 2018. Our man, come hell or high water?
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Post by jakaswanga on May 26, 2014 20:39:50 GMT 3
Jakaswanga: First let me congratulate the university types of "hitting the big time". Apparently, the New York Times mentioned the student demos, and it turns out that this could be part of a much larger conspiracy to destabilize Jubilee. According to Kagwanja:www.nation.co.ke/news/Western-conspiracy-to-end-Jubilee-rule/-/1056/2325870/-/11gqxduz/-/index.html(I've given my views of the questionable benefits, if any, to be had from blaming the West for mostly self-inflicted wounds. So I'll leave that one there.) Eh, Otishotish, My friend Prof. Kagwanja has really decided to live dangerously ! You know the Eurobonds whose launch is so important His excellency Uhuru Kenyatta ( who once went berserk calling Raila kerher in public, therefore explicitly putting high premium on his cut manhood,) has folded like a millipede tapped, are firmly under the guidance of an American bank! it looks to me a step in utter idiocy to accuse the USA of plotting empty hotel beds in Amboseli and Masai Mara, while simultaneously entrusting their institutions with the most important cash cow to relieve our budgetary deficits! Good Lord! that is when our necks are really in the noose! Me I was thinking with the Western tourists gone, the overused buttocks of our young girls and boys of the coast can breath a sigh of relief or, so to speak, enjoy a hard-earned period of rest and recovery! --In economics, Mank correct me if I am wrong, few things are ever purely without benefit. Even a genocide is a form of population control! Wacheni mkundu ba batoto betu huko pwani bapumzike kidogo bwana! Al shabab will soon be defeated, and the business back!
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Post by b6k on May 28, 2014 21:01:49 GMT 3
Otishotish, the thing about learning is it tends to occur at its own pace, and in its own way. It's all well and good to learn in a leapfrog fashion (much like KE no longer has landlines to speak of as cellular phones have been adopted by the populace at Telkom's expense) but if you want true learning it's best to undergo the experience however horrible it may be. The numerous inter European wars over the ages led to the peace and prosperity that's enjoyed in the EU today. Most Europeans today wouldn't have the stomach to fight a war on their soil, especially when it makes more cents to export such wars to distant lands in the Middle East, DRC, and the likes. I'm often amused by people who believe that everything must be achieved in their lifetime as though everything begins and ends with them. It's good to have dreams and goals for sure, but to dismiss any little progress made because it's not done in the brief period you (we) have on this planet, forgetting that life is a marathon and will continue playing out in your children's lifetime, and their children's lifetimes as well, ad infinitum shows a very myopic view of the human experience... b6k: I have to admit that I am thoroughly ashamed of my myopic view of human experience. I don't know what came over me to imagine that Africans can learn to govern themselves in the period of one lifetime (e.g. mine). Let me briefly, by way of a lame defense, explain why I tend to make such serious errors. Yes, it is certainly true that "learning tends to occur at its own pace and in its own way". But my limited experience and observation have given me the funny idea that it helps a great deal if people make the effort to learn, learn in a directed manner, and then properly apply what has been learned. I have seen that approach work, which is why I got carried away. Even in governance too, it has been known to work. So, for example, I was recently wondering if the leaders of South Sudan could actually have sat down and said, " how can we avoid the mistakes that nearly all newly-independent African nations have made?" And, then, having come up with some answers, proceed to "implement". But, as you rightly point out, learning tends to occur at its own pace, and in its own way; and I see that the South Sudanese have been vigorously---very vigorously too and perhaps too vigourously---learning at their own pace and in their own way. Why buy into the silly idea that there is anything more useful about History than noting that "X did this, on that date, over here", "Y said that, on the other date, over there", etc. One of the mistakes I tend to make is to look at some countries that got independence at about the same time as many African countries or were just as down-and-out economically. Quite a few, especially in Asia, have really "risen". I often wonder if African countries could learn from them. But learning tends to occur at its own pace and in its own way. Those Asians are probably high-gradient learning curve. Fast learners, whereas Africans prefer their own slow pace. Still, let me give you a concrete example of where I think faster learning is possible and would help a great deal. Take Kenya---Island of Peace in Region of Turmoil, Economic Powerhouse of East Africa, Strong Ally of West in War on Terror, Heading East. Consider then the food situation. Droughts and famines have not been unknown. FEWS regularly gives warnings. Yet things always end up in the same desperate situation, with people eating cats, dogs, tree leaves, etc. Me myself, I think it should be possible to learn from past experience and plan better for contingencies. But one day they will get there---in their own way and at their own pace, right? Dreams? I am too old to have any left. But I think goals are good. Even in governance. Take that dot of a country known as Singapore. 50 years ago, it was desperately poor and being torn apart by corruption and ethnic tensions. The leaders sat down, formulated certain goals and how to deal with those problems, looked at what they could learn from elsewhere .... and off they went. Kenya too has a great goal: Vision 2030, industrialization within 15 years. Given the rate at which any learning seems to be taking place---we won't even bother with the direction of any learning---the goal seems a bit iffy. But, as you correctly point out, learning tends to occur in its own way and at its own pace. And the African pace seems to be that of a snail in first-gear, meandering in this direction and that direction. What is important, though, is that it is in their own way and at their own pace. I have never dismissed any progress, big or small. My position has been that there can be faster progress if there is much greater effort at learning, applying the lessons learned, setting clear goals and plans for how to achieve them, seeing through those plans, etc. But I admit that mine is a very myopic view of the human experience. Progress, like learning, tends to occur in its own way and at its own pace. Anyways ... To show that I have today learned something, and in the spirit of broadening my view of the human experience, I say this: Kazi iendelee. In its own way. At its own pace. Otishotish, much as I would enjoy engaging in a back and forth banter about the possibility of your people (aka Africans) ability "to learn(or not) in a directed manner and then apply what they've learned" as per your "brief" missive, I honestly fail to see the point. Suffice it to say, I would pose a challenge to you. Why don't you, friend Otishotish, take it upon yourself to educate your people (aka Africans) to appreciate the benefits of leap frogging the westerners, Asiatics, and all the rest of the globe? Oops! My bad. I forgot you were engaged in such futile exercises in your "philanthropic" misadventures before the shocking results of the general elections in 2013 convinced you to cut ties with a part of Africa that your ancestors call home, KE, after you discarded your citizenship in a fit of anger fueled by moral indignation Note to Otishotish: Even the sell-out Barry Soerto deemed it fit to soil his feet by treading in the land of his forefathers. If you believe absorbing your female (?)spouse's people a la the biblical Esther is the way to go, then all power to you, mate. It all boils down to who you believe is your daddy. Barry knew his...I hope you know yours...
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Post by b6k on May 28, 2014 21:13:36 GMT 3
Jakaswanga, well penned. Our oreo brother, Otishotish, has a tendency of taking Afro-pessimist positions that go beyond self loathing. I wouldn't be surprised if he's used Africans May Be Improved (Ambi) products over the years... b6k: Now, now ... that won't do. You really must put more effort into it: you left out "Uncle Tom", "House N*gger", etc. Actually, I did not. Jakaswanga already pointed out the options available to you which you somehow glossed over. Let me quote him for you again, as comprehension doesn't seem to be your strong point: 1) A neurotic suicide case 2) A house negro (aka the House N*gger you spout about) 3) A maron, guerilla in the wilderness. So, pray tell, which description best fits your worldview of your former African brethren Otishotish? Truth be told, I tend to think Jakaswanga put an "a" where an "o" ought to be in the word maron...
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