South Africa's Capital City Is About To Run Out Of Water... If Only There Was Someone Who Could Help

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Unfortunately it's a local example of what South Africa is these days- unorganised and unmotivated.
 
Serenity said:
In my opinion this is a blinkered statement; a one sided view that ignores any wrongdoing by the Israelis. How the Israel government is treating the Palestinians is unethical and illegal. I assume you know this and I’m just stating the obvious. Or maybe you deny this, in which case, there’s no arguing with you. I respect that you would have your reasons and that you come from a place of great experience, but I’ll continue to disagree nonetheless.
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LMAO. Are you being serious? How exactly would you characterize the way the Palestinians have treated the Israelis since 1948?
 
Serenity said:
If the Israelis were offering to build a desalination plant for free, and to a schedule that would make a difference, then I could see an argument for the lack of pragmatism. But really, the South African leadership involved just sound hopelessly unprepared, so it matters not who offers to sell them the technology they need. They probably would have ended in the same place.
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so, IF, a free desalination infrastructure, on an advanced time frame were given to SA, then it would have been a pragmatic resolution. But, since the SA government was/is woefully unprepared, it would have made no difference, and thence not been pragmatic. and, Had the SA government been prepared, and bought the infrastructure in time, they probably would have been in the same place. all according to your argument here.

The short answer here is.... no matter what they would have done, per your argument, would have mattered, and all of this is because they are anti-Israel/pro Palestinian. Please expound further, how does the political leaning and a gift never offered, but a business proposition put forth, decry politically motivated genocide by Israel, for both Palestine and SA?

Poor management and planning by the SA government, lack of forethought, and international political concerns being more important than the citizens does not arouse sympathy in me... they saw a water use/needs issue and the 'Palestinian' issue over-rode the needs of the people when technology and a workable remuneration were offered by Israel, but refused. Then they didn't shop anywhere else.

Sympathy for the people, yes. sympathy for the politics and lack of forethought by the SA government, notsomuch.
 
With Jacob Zuma likely to resign in the coming days due to overwhelming and outspoken disdain for his rule, Cyril Ramaphosa and Zuma are working out the terms and conditions required for Zuma to step down (read promises, money, etc). Ramaphosa has historically been a hardline reformist and outspoken against corruption and cronyism in the SA government, so time will only tell whether or not Ramaphosa maintains his promises and actively works towards reforming and fixing the myriad of problems in SA or is full of hot air and does nothing to improve SA as a whole.
 
Serenity said:
You’re demonstrating my point.
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@Serenity -

I have already cautioned you more than once about engaging topics on this site unless you were prepared to back up your thoughts with more than:
Serenity said:
You’re demonstrating my point.
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You are expected to adhere to the same standards as everyone else. In threads like this, that means backing up your statement with more than just a quip. If you think that @CDG is wrong, tell him why. What point is it of yours that he is demonstrating?
 
Serenity said:
You’re demonstrating my point.
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Listen, enough is enough. We are not here to coddle you, or to be whatever you think we should be as a community. We have standards of conduct, and one of those standards is to be able to either intelligently defend your position, or stay quiet. This is a repeated issue with you, and I am tired of it. You can post all the opinions you want, but you will back them up. You will not continue to engage in this passive-aggressive bullshit. If you cannot, or will not, adhere to that, then go away. Do I make myself clear?
 
Ooh-Rah said:
@Serenity -

I have already cautioned you more than once about engaging topics on this site unless you were prepared to back up your thoughts with more than:


You are expected to adhere to the same standards as everyone else. In threads like this, that means backing up your statement with more than just a quip. If you think that @CDG is wrong, tell him why. What point is it of yours that he is demonstrating?
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Ummm, Ooh-Rah, my point is that he is demonstrating my point, and that CDG’s response is clearly only interested in one side. It seemed pointless to engage beyond what I did. I probably should have taken my husband’s advice and ignored his comment.

Besides, what more could I respond without rehashing historical events that has been widely covered. I don’t hate on the Israelis, but I struggle to find it in my heart to see them as the current victims when given their own history, they now oversee the largest open air prison in the world. I find this distressing that it’s allowed to continue, depressing that many don’t seem to care, and I do feel a sense of hopelessness for the Palestinians. I’m not sympathetic of the Palestinians because of politics or ideology. One of my closest friend is a Palestinian who has family and land in Gaza. But I’m not going to put myself out there and make this personal.

@CDG Your reply was mocking and offered nothing for me. If the way I communicate bothers this community, then of course I’ll go away. I can guarantee you that I don’t expect to be coddled.
 
x SF med said:
so, IF, a free desalination infrastructure, on an advanced time frame were given to SA, then it would have been a pragmatic resolution. But, since the SA government was/is woefully unprepared, it would have made no difference, and thence not been pragmatic. and, Had the SA government been prepared, and bought the infrastructure in time, they probably would have been in the same place. all according to your argument here.

The short answer here is.... no matter what they would have done, per your argument, would have mattered, and all of this is because they are anti-Israel/pro Palestinian. Please expound further, how does the political leaning and a gift never offered, but a business proposition put forth, decry politically motivated genocide by Israel, for both Palestine and SA?

Poor management and planning by the SA government, lack of forethought, and international political concerns being more important than the citizens does not arouse sympathy in me... they saw a water use/needs issue and the 'Palestinian' issue over-rode the needs of the people when technology and a workable remuneration were offered by Israel, but refused. Then they didn't shop anywhere else.

Sympathy for the people, yes. sympathy for the politics and lack of forethought by the SA government, notsomuch.
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So I should respond to this too.

We all seem to be in agreement that they’re hopeless. So fair enough there would be no sympathies for their leadership, but people should stop dragging in BDS as the primary reason for all their woes. I think that’s misleading. The issue is that they didn’t shop anywhere else, and that’s on them. They failed their people by not doing their job.
 
Serenity said:
Ummm, Ooh-Rah, my point is that he is demonstrating my point, and that CDG’s response is clearly only interested in one side. It seemed pointless to engage beyond what I did. I probably should have taken my husband’s advice and ignored his comment.

Besides, what more could I respond without rehashing historical events that has been widely covered. I don’t hate on the Israelis, but I struggle to find it in my heart to see them as the current victims when given their own history, they now oversee the largest open air prison in the world. I find this distressing that it’s allowed to continue, depressing that many don’t seem to care, and I do feel a sense of hopelessness for the Palestinians. I’m not sympathetic of the Palestinians because of politics or ideology. One of my closest friend is a Palestinian who has family and land in Gaza. But I’m not going to put myself out there and make this personal.

@CDG Your reply was mocking and offered nothing for me. If the way I communicate bothers this community, then of course I’ll go away. I can guarantee you that I don’t expect to be coddled.
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What my reply offered was a question. You claim the Israelis are oppressing the Palestinians. So, again, how would you characterize the way the Palestinians have treated the Israelis since 1948? Or take it back further. How have they treated the Jewish people since the 1920s?
 
Serenity said:
So I should respond to this too.

We all seem to be in agreement that they’re hopeless. So fair enough there would be no sympathies for their leadership, but people should stop dragging in BDS as the primary reason for all their woes. I think that’s misleading. The issue is that they didn’t shop anywhere else, and that’s on them. They failed their people by not doing their job.
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I said nothing about BDS, nor that as the cause of the woes in SA. Do not put words in my mouth. I dissected the meat of one of your arguments, not any of the other pieces of scrap hanging about. If you agree with my assessment, fine, do not throw up a smokescreen of facts not presented.
 
Maybe Elon Musk can figure a way to hydrate his home country.
 
SA dug it's own hole.

As far as Israeli/Palestinian issues, blame can be leveled at both sides for decades of attacks and reprisals. However, the Syrians, Iraqis, Iranians and in the past the Egyptians, specifically, have sponsored terrorism against Israel in the name of the Palestinian Cause and have preached annihilation of the Jews since 1948. The Israelis have responded, admittedly, sometimes brutally. I am a supporter of Israel. It is, after all, an enlightened democracy, rich in arts, science and education. It's enemies, more often than not, adhere to a set of intolerant values and laws consecrated in 600 AD.
 
OK, a couple of things.

First of all, @Serenity, I retract my earlier statement encouraging you to speak up more. Based on your behavior in this thread, I think it might be better for you to go back to lurking.

You took issue with my statement that the "#1 oppressor of the Palestinians is... the Palestinians." That's totally fine. But instead of offering a well-thought-out counterpoint or simply asking me to explain myself, which I would have been glad to do, you decided to make it personal, describing that part of my post as "blinkered."

Because "blinkered" is not a common term in the US, I looked it up to make sure I understood what it meant:

blink·ered
ˈbliNGkərd/
adjective
  1. (of a horse) wearing blinders.
    • having or showing a limited outlook.
      "a small-minded, blinkered approach"
      synonyms:narrow-minded, inward-looking, parochial, provincial, insular, small-minded, close-minded, shortsighted; More
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Accusing any site member of being small-minded or provincial simply because they disagree with you is not the way this site works. Furthermore, making a statement along the lines of "agree with me or there's no arguing with you" is not how we do things here. That is UNSAT.

I encourage you to re-consider your approach to engaging your fellow members of the site. We have a high tolerance for opposing points of view, as stated and demonstrated many times over the years, but very little patience for ill-informed pot-stirrers who can't engage in critical thinking without denigrating the people with whom they are arguing. I also think you could benefit from a little more situational awareness; in addition to fundamentally misunderstanding the backgrounds and knowledge levels of the people you're engaging with in this thread, I think you totally missed how other site members have been trying to help you out by getting this thread back on track and steering the conversation away from a discussion for which you are clearly ill-prepared and in which you are getting destroyed.

I'd take some time to point out the errors and fallacies in some of the other points you made in this thread, but 1) this is a thread about South Africa, not a detailed discussion of Israel / Palestine, and 2) It's hard for me to take you seriously in a discussion about Israel and Palestine when you didn't even know about BDS. Notwithstanding your sample size of N=1 Palestinian, I don't think you have sufficient knowledge on this subject to engage meaningfully on this topic and to do it in a professional and non-personal manner. Want to prove me wrong about that? Regroup, consider what I said, and re-engage on the new Israel / Palestine thread.

Speaking of which, this thread has veered sharply off of its original topic. Based on the demonstrated level of interest in discussing issues related to Israel and the Palestinian Territories, I started a new thread on that subject. We'll see how long it lasts.

I'm closing this thread down because I think all of the useful discussion about the original topic has been had.
 
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