Straight out of the USSR

The DA’s Dean MacPherson hit the nail on the head when he referred to Ebrahim Patel’s clothing regulations as being reminiscent of the 1980s’ Soviet Union. So is the shadowy national command council.

All the lockdown regulations are in the same vein. Make them confusing and complicated so the average citizen, fearful of breaking the law, decides the safest course is to do nothing. Making decisions about what is good for us about smoking, drinking and exercise removes individual rights and thus purpose and initiative.

Perhaps the best example of this new mindset is President Cyril Ramaphosa himself. After the cigarette debacle, he’s no longer in charge but merely part of a grey collective. During his Wednesday “fireside chat”, he desperately tried to be Franklin Roosevelt, but failed miserably.

If he’d given way on cigarettes, exercise and some degree of alcohol sales while making definite statements about getting the nation’s youth back to school, he would have been lauded. But it was a public relations fiasco.

One cannot help wondering whether SAA’s demise is not totally unwelcome to the newly ascendant Marxist cadres. Maybe they see an opportunity to create a state-run monopolistic monstrosity in which ticket prices are fixed by a government committee. Perhaps our Marxist masters have a similar dream for the SA economy. Something that must be destroyed before emerging “pure” from the ashes James Cunningham

Camps Bay