SA radicals - our hottest new export?

In a recent development in the US, a group calling themselves "Guardians of the free Republics" apparently wants to strip Washington of its ability to tax citizens' income and dismantle the FBI and other federal agencies. The group created a stir recently since a letter to all 50 governors demanding they step down within three days or be removed, contained an implicit threat, triggering an FBI investigation.

What does this have to do with SA? Well, according to Mother Jones the websites for this lunatic militia group (goftr.com and guardiansofthefreerepublics.com) are registered to one Clive Boustred of Soquel, California—a British-educated former SOUTH AFRICAN soldier with an apparent knack for "anti-terrorist warfare". Both the sites and the group seem to have suddenly sprung up about two months ago. The youtube video of one of Clive's interviews, shows an individual in a state of confusion and paranoia. My sympathies are with his recently divorced wife and kids who have to put up with all his BS.

Anyway, the attraction of extremist South Africans to neo-conservative and militia groups around the world is a known fact and perfectly understandable given their apartheid indoctrination, army training and super-size egos. Furthermore, these like minded lunatics make effective use the Internet to advertise their groups with the view of attracting new recruits and are constantly exchanging ideas and strategies on how to propagate their false beliefs to a wider audience.

This unique brand of South African radicalism, courtesy of the previous apartheid regime, parallels the right wing militia groups and the neocons of Republican party in several ways:

1. They both paint the government as utterly corrupt, totally inefficient and morally depraved.

The recent spate of media headlines braying corruption at every level of the ANC, surprisingly turn a blind eye to corruption in our private sector, where fatcats pay themselves obscene bonuses while their companies stock price plummets and hundreds of thousands of workers are retrenched in the process. Our corporate fatcats seem to get a free ride from the media scrutiny. In the US, the necons in the Republican Party are constantly speaking of deregulation to the point that the capitalism itself has been pushed to the edge of the precipice while the fatcats on Wall Street, feed at the trough, paying themselves the biggest bonuses in history! The neocons in SA media, constantly fixate on government corruption to deflect public attention from companies bereft of any conscience, raping SA consumers on a daily basis. The abhorrant practice of price-fixing continues unabated in our economy due to the lack of consumer advocate groups and toothless government watchdog organizations.

2. They both propagate the myth that businesses and the rich pay a disproportional share of tax revenues.

The bulk of our taxes are derived from middle class wage earners and ordinary SA consumers. Big business and the wealthy have always had the best resources to minimize their taxes through planning and exploiting legal and sometimes illegal loopholes. This will ALWAYS be true due to the nature of the complex tax laws and its in democracies. Today in SA, one hears constant rumblings from the previously privileged to use "lifestyle audits" against political opponents, a strategy guaranteed to gut our tax system. Similarly, the "Guardians of the free Republics" in the US advocate abolishing the IRS and other neocon groups like the Tea Parties are well known for their tax protests and undercurrent of racism.

3. They both use the divisive politics of fear and personal attacks to demonize the opposition to win elections and cling to political power at all costs.

The racist element of the DA (Democratic Alliance) leadership with their cohorts in the media, have constantly engaged in personal attacks e.g. against President Zuma and Malema just before the elections and recently again when Malema brought up the issue of nationalization of the mines. Just recently, racist saboteurs used fear extremely effectively to scare of tourists to the FIFA World Cup and the media whipped up a storm both locally and the internationally until FIFA were forced to step in to reign in our OWN local journalists. The neocons in the US, under Karl Rove's masterful ocherstration, have repeatedly used the fear of terrorists attacks and outrageous personal attacks to accomplish the impossible - successfully elect George W Bush for TWO terms. Unfortunately these shortsighted strategies ultimately work against them, since Bush left in his wake a trail of destruction that will take the US decades to get out of.

4. They both vehemently oppose Affirmative Action.

The racist neocons of the US Republican party and the DA have both used the "merit" argument against the SA and US governments attempts at creating employment equity through AA. Civil Rights groups in the US have been instrumental in holding the government and companies accountable for the implementation of AA. Tremendous progress has been made over the years culminating in the election of the first African American President - a watershed moment in US history. In SA however, recent studies have shown that over 90% of CEOs are white, yet the DA still opposes AA! Go figure.

5. They are both Nazi sympathizers to varing degrees.
The far right elements like the AWB (Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging or Afrikaner Resistance Movement), Afrikaner Broederbond etc. here in SA and militia groups in the US, have always had an affinity for Hitler's false belief of racial superiority. Ironically, here in SA, these Nazi sympathesizers are quick to compare themselves to the German Jews or the compare black leaders to Hitler, with the view of portraying themselves as being under assault by the black majority. Some elements in SA media use underhanded techniques like juxtaposing and comparing Hitler with Zuma, Mugabe, Malema to propagate their twisted fear based politics.

Unfortunately, due to the previously privileged's continued denialism, amnesia and refusal to take responsibility for apartheid, racism in SA has will take generations to overcome, but in the meantime, many our homegrown racists are voting with their feet and spreading across the globe since the end of white-AA in SA is imminent. Just like the Canadian government's fiasco in admitting Brandon Huntly, the "white SA refugee" fleeing persecution from "black criminals", the US government however, is also unwittingly allowing this cancer to infiltrate their society by not understanding the unique brand of racism that has been festering in our country for centuries. Like the jihadists, our SA racists are adept at manoeuvring through the bureaucratic morass of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Department of Homeland with the help of militia groups, neocon organizations etc. made much easier through the Internet. By sheer serendipity however, the worldwide recession has in a strange way slowed down this movement since ALL countries have effectively closed their doors on immigration making it more difficult for these sometimes smart and determined radicals to exploit immigration laws to export their unique brand of extremism abroad.

Just like certain tourists and immigrants are subject to additional security clearances based on their nationality, one can only hope that the US government wakes up in time to stem the infiltration, influence and free movement of these undesirables from our shores into their free societies.

Lifestyle audits - have we gone cuckoo?

The recent calls for lifestyle audits from some quarters is troubling. Lifestyle audits is the kind of that cancer that can quickly and silently metastasize through any government and suffocate the vibrancy of a multi-party democracy. The very term "lifestyle audit" is unclear and it also conjures up images of a big brother like monstrosity, feeding on its own citizens until it collapses under the weight of its own bellicosity.

Like other tax agencies around the world, SARS (South African Revenue Services) has a distinct, well defined mandate and vision - its primary task is to collect taxes and and ensure that our tax laws are being enforced equitably. SARS is not an anti-corruption agency to chase after people that "appear" to be breaking the tax laws based on their lifestyle, political affiliations, race or any other arbitrary criteria. There needs to be clear, concrete evidence of violation of our tax laws before SARS "goes after" after any citizen. Anyway, once a case warrants criminal investigation, it really falls into the realm of the law enforcement rather than tax administration.

The dangers of "lifestyle audits" is that its a fuzzy term that becomes nothing more than profiling law abiding citizens based on their appearance of some kind of opulent lifestyle according to the whims of some government bureaucrat who may not like you. So the chances are highly likely that YOU could very well be next! For instance, how many of us fall into one of these potential categories that may trigger a dreaded "lifestyle audit":

• Driving a fancy cars.
• Living in a large mansion.
• Too many trips on a yacht or a private airplane.
• Having a fetish for expensive jewelry, clothing, hats, books, electronic goods etc.
• A taste for expensive cocktails or fancy restaurants.
• Taking too many frequent vacations locally or abroad.
• Having too many kids or sending them to fancy private schools.
• Too many wives...I had to throw this one in. ;-)
• Member of a country club or some other organization.

Anyway, you get the picture. Its pretty easy for some of us to even fall into MORE than one of the above categories.

The objectives of lifestyle audits are equally dubious. Is the intent of the tax administration to maximize the collection of under-reported taxes? If so, lifestyle audits simply penalize citizens that display their wealth while the tax dodgers that hide their wealth in offshore bank accounts are given a free pass. Its a well known fact around the world that the major cases of tax evasion involves corruption politicians, fat cat executives, criminals etc. that make use of elaborate schemes involving complex sham financial transactions by leveraging offshore facilities e.g. unnamed Swiss bank accounts and tax havens, that totally outfox SARS who have no jurisdiction to pursue suspects overseas.

On the other hand, if the objective is to root our corruption, then the mandate of SARS needs to be expanded to include anti-corruption functions. This poses an even bigger risk of concentration of power in a single state institution that sets the stage for bad things to happen - politicization of SARS eventually leads to rampant corruption to the extent that ordinary citizens may rightfully start to feel that they need not pay their fair share of taxes any longer if they disagree with SARS political agenda. A critical mass of tax protesters may lead to a collapse of our tax system, which has huge implications for the social and financial stability of our democracy.

Using the tax system to settle political scores is a dangerous precedent that can be easily abused by ruling elite to conduct character assassinations of any political opponents. Remember, due to the nature of the complexity of tax laws, any tax administrator worth their salt, can uncover, distort and twist facts on ANYONE'S tax return, to make them look unethical, criminal etc. - pick your poison. So rest assured, ALL of us, including our families are exposed to this draconian power of lifestyle audits.

Lifestyle audits have been tried in various democracies especially in times of economic instability where everyone is sensitive to obscene wealth in a climate of financial belt-tightening. However these type of audits have been consistently ditched because of its inherent incompatibility with freedoms enshrined in democratic constitutions. For local organizations and individuals to bray for the injection of lifestyle audits in our democracy is short-sighted and myopic. Lifestyle audits should be kept where it belongs, in movies and police states and the tabloids - it has no place in a free society.