SA Rocks

Cool idea, nice execution. I like it.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Last night I was fortunate enough to be involved in an extremely interesting debate involving the owner of the zasucks blog (I’m still not going to link to that racist blog as I don’t want to promote it on this platform).

Blogs like zasucks helped me start SA Rocks. It’s because of people like those behind these racist and ignorant blogs that I do what I do.

So it was with great intrigue that I was called by 702 talk radio last to sit in on a debate centered around Bert Oosthuizen and the zasucks blog.

The story goes as follows:

Uhuru Guru was arrested this morning at around 06h30 on trumped up charges regarding an alleged offence dating back to 1993. His door was ripped off, his wife was not allowed to make calls, his children’s cell phones were confiscated, his little daughters were were ripped out of their beds, you cannot believe the cruelty!!!!!!!

A massive contingent of police from no less than five different specialist units, ranging from Organised Crime, Cyber crime, vehicle theft, etc; raided his home and confiscated all his computer equipment.

This arrest is motivated ultimately by the State. No doubt it has to do with zasucks.

When they finished the raid, two very grey, shady looking characters sat him down and questioned him about the blog. White, Afrikaans men, to boot.

They were told he would not answer any questions re the blog. They persisted and they were again, rudely this time, told to pack it in.
They then asked him what far right meetings he attended. The answer was none.

Then, shockingly, they started questioning him about no less than Dan Roodt. They were again told no questions about Roodt either.

– source: zasucks blog.

I feel very sorry for Bert’s children and wife who had to be put through that ordeal. I do.

But moreso I am concerned that one man was able to trump up and waste police time on someone like Bert. While these police from 5 different departments were knocking his door down, real criminals were getting away with crimes on people who need protection.

Back to the talk show last night.

I have waited over 3 years to find out and talk with whoever was behind zasucks and I had to wait more than an hour to eventually have my say.

There are a few things that I need to say: Bert Oosthuizen is extremely intelligent. Oosthuizen managed to paint himself in a wonderful light, focusing himself as a victim.

In the entire 90 minutes that I was on 702 the only time the word “racist” was used was when I mentioned. I was extremely frustrated that Bert Oosthuisen was not once called what he and his website are. The appropriate words were avoided like the plague. I had no worries in changing the tone of the debate from one of pat, pat on the back to accusatory.

Bert seems to think that he is a citizen journalist. Let me just say that his delusions of grandeur are absolutely astounding. As a journalist and citizen journalist I am horrified and offended that Oosthuizen can actually consider himself to be a citizen, let alone a journalist in South Africa.

Bert said that he is ashamed to be South African, don’t worry South Africa is ashamed of people like Bert and his readers.

I am not going to get in to Bert’s comments about the media and conspiracy theory that they (yes, the entire media in SA) are out to dupe the Afrikaans public in to thinking there is no crime. In fact, I think crime is probably one of, if not the most, covered topic in SA media.

Oosthuizen seems to think that it’s OK to hate black people but it’s not OK to hate Jewish people. So he moderates the one but not the other on his site. He also claims that his site is not moderated. I’ve personally been moderated on zasucks numerous times.

What of plagiarism, slander, hate speech and inciting of violence? Let’s not get in to that.

He also mentioned that the website can’t be so bad if so many people visit it, well child-porn is massive on the internet and that’s not too good I’d say…

But I digress.

This is an issue that has played on my mind since the inception of SA Rocks years ago. These people still exist in South Africa. It’s shocking, but it’s true. Now, South Africa knows who they are. Clients, work mates, friends, acquaintances all know their names. There is no hiding any more. I think Bert is about to realize that he and his cronies are the exception in SA, not the rule.

Popularity: 15% [?]

This is the sort of comment that I get on a daily basis on this blog:

You’re a self-hating k***** lover, and I hope you enjoy watching your grandmother getting raped by a black AIDS-infested beast you Communist piece of shit..

Yes, this sort of person still exists in society.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Before I continue with this blog, let me add a ‘disclaimer’: I am in no way affiliated with the Democratic Alliance or the ANC and there are aspects of both parties which I like and dislike…

Whilst Helen Zille has certainly not been exempt from hurling the odd insult at the ANC, I was extremely disturbed yesterday to hear ANC Youth Leader Julius Malema refer to Helen Zille as a ‘racist little girl’. Whenever any South African reverts to the tired ‘racist’, ‘colonialist’, and/or ‘imperialist’ tags I feel overwhelmingly irritated as, nine times out of ten, it is a cheap trump card which has no truth in it whatsoever. It is also slightly amusing to hear the terms ‘colonialist and ‘imperialist’ in particular still being bandied about this country when Colonialism normally refers to ‘a period of history from the 15th to the 20th century when people from Europe built colonies on other continents’.

Had Malema perhaps done a little research into Zille’s past, he might have found out that she was a prominent anti-Apartheid activist and that, while working for the Rand Daily Mail in the late 1970′s, she famously uncovered the truth behind the Steve Biko murder, risking her own life in the process. Zille was also a leading member of Black Sash, a white anti-Apartheid and pro women’s rights movement.

I love South Africa and am proud to be South African. I am however tired of the political mud-slinging (which does not exclude the DA and Helen Zille) that seems to be an intrinsic part of our society and I would like to ask all of our leaders to please put aside the filth.

I challenge and encourage South African politicians to engage more in open debate where proverbial points are scored through intellectual prowess and not cheap slander.

Popularity: 5% [?]

It seems as though the incredibly smart, wonderfully tasteful and gently subtle geniuses from the South Africa Sucks blog (now known as zahell.something.or.another) have discovered publicity.

That means that the rest of us have to deal with their racist slurs, genius non-innuendos and flat our bigoted racism while we read quality content. I wont stand for it. I will, and am, doing all that I can to shut down every new domain/blog/website that these people may use. I have been reporting this group of people for a long time and my efforts have occasionally worked. This is why the “website” has had to move numerous times and rename itself. All the while maintaining the same theme, contributors and wonderful approach to plagiarism (they rip off content from every and any source they can and claim it as their own).

But I desperately digress to a topic that riles me and inflames my tongue and fingers as I type.

The point of this post is to tell you about Blogger.com’s interesting approach to me reporting zahell as defamatory and libellous content as well as offensive and hate speech.

After I clicked the “Flag This” button in the header bar of blogger blogs I received this email from the team at Google.

Hi there,

Thank you for your message. Please note that Blogger is a provider of
content creation tools, not a mediator of that content. We allow our users
to create blogs, but we don’t make any claims about the content of these
pages. We strongly believe in freedom of expression, even if a blog
contains unappealing or distasteful content or presents unpopular
viewpoints. We realize this may be frustrating and we regret any
inconvenience this may cause you. Given these facts, and pursuant with
section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act, Blogger does not remove
allegedly defamatory, libelous, or slanderous material from Blogger.com or
BlogSpot.com. In cases where contact information for the author is listed
on the page, we recommend you working directly with this person to have
the content in question removed or changed.

In cases where the author is anonymous, please note that in accordance
with US state and federal law, it is Blogger’s policy to only provide a
user’s contact information pursuant to a valid third party subpoena or
other appropriate legal process.

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team

What a load of rubbish is that? OK wait, don’t answer that because I know the story. They have to cover themselves, they can’t moderate each and every blog, they can’t be held responsible for the content on their platform, they don’t publish these blogs they simply host the software that the people use to publish their own content. Yet all of these are just too simple for me.

Google is a multi-billion dollar corporation and there is no excuse for a message like the above. If you don’t want to take charge of your platform don’t give me the option to report questionable content if you don’t actually intend on acting on my complaint. Rather let me find other means. I am sorely disappointed in their approach and will be looking for other ways to permanently remove the zahell drivel.

Popularity: 6% [?]

I thought this was a no-no?

Thanks go out to the “Curiouser and curiouser” blog for blogging about this because I didn’t watch this one at The Times.

Who in their right mind uses the K-word anymore? I honestly can’t even bring myself to blog it out loud. It’s just not right, in any context at all. And as Curiouser has said, if a white old chum had said the very same sentenced he or she would probably have been lynched by now, literally. We’d have had a massive uprising and call to punishment for the poor sod.

But it’s OK for someone who is black to sit in front of the country’s media and thus public and use the word outright.

Dr Irvin Khoza should be held accountable for his actions. He thinks that it is OK to say “Excuse me for saying this…” Go to hell you narrow-minded nitwit. Using that word does not make you more cosmopolitan and hip with the lowdown times. It makes you a bigot whichever way you look at it. Correct me if I’m wrong, but saying “no offense intended” and then proceed to slam the person in to the ground. Guess what? They took offense.

So without wasting more time ranting, here it goes. Wait for about 1:20min…

Now doesn’t that look great. The LOC for the 2010 World Cup is not only allegedly in-fighting but now are using profanity and racial slurs to defend themselves. Great work.

I thought SA had moved on a wee bit further than this?

Popularity: 3% [?]

I have really been debating this post for months.

I watched this YouTube video a while back and was really torn about posting it on SA Rocks. I have decided to do so simply because today Khaya (who I have blogged about before on SA Rocks) was featured on YouTube’s homepage responding to this racist idiot confused and misguided individual below:

This guy’s anger, ignorance, hatred, passion and violent outlook make me fairly ill. I wont get in to it too much because Khaya’s response is fairly substantial.

Here is Khaya’s response:

And then I found another video from the gem, R3NDI3R, that was posted on YouTube a month before his racist attempt at an SA explanation:

What happened to this twisted individual in the month between the video’s? Whatever it is, I am sorry for his experience but ignorance is not the answer, nor is racism or violence.

I am fairly nervous/interested to see what sort of response this post gathers from SA Rocks readers. I think that the first video is extremely extremist and scares the daylights out of me. The saddest part for me is that now the more than 100 000 viewers of that video think that all white South Africans are racist, violent and pretty silly in general.

What are your thoughts?

UPDATE:

R3ND3IR posted a response to Khaya’s YouTube featured success today. He seems a bit bitter about Khaya’s video and YouTube featuring it on their homepage!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Popular YFM DJ Sanza da Fanatik puts it all on the line in an interview with Carly Wiendberg from The Times. He says that he is all for development but rugby and cricket are terrible when it comes to politics.

Here’s the video:

It seems to me that Sanza is all for politicising sports. I am not so sure if Sanza has hit the spot here.

He states that rugby is all about “boerewors and Klipdrift”. Is this dude blind, deaf or just plain dumb? Can he read or has just chosen to ignore all the talk, debate, discussion on the topic of affirmative action in sports?

Sanza claims that he is a man of principles and that even when he loses he wins. But this dude has missed the point. I believe that AA in sports is much like AA in business, if it is done right then it will work for a period of time. If you are placing worse players or business people in a position for their colour then you have missed the point. The best players and business people need to get the job, Simple.

And on the point of representation, I am interested to know if Soccer is being fairly represented according to our demographics in SA and if white players are being placed in positions for the colour of their skin?

What do you think? Is rugby all Wors and Klippies?

Popularity: 6% [?]