Quote of the week
[T]he moral point of the matter is never reached by calling what happened by the name of ‘genocide’ or by counting the many millions of victims: extermination of whole peoples had happened before in antiquity, as well as in modern colonization. It is reached only when we realize this happened within the frame of a legal order and that the cornerstone of this ‘new law’ consisted of the command ‘Thou shall kill,’ not thy enemy but innocent people who were not even potentially dangerous, and not for any reason of necessity but, on the contrary, even against all military and other utilitarian calculations. … And these deeds were not committed by outlaws, monsters, or raving sadists, but by the most respected members of respectable society.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil
On eskom lies
Eskom has admitted it lied when it defended making payments totalling R1.6bn to Gupta linked financial advisory firm Trillian and global consultancy McKinsey. In June Eskom strongly defended the payments in response to questions posed by Business Day following the release of a damning report into Trillian by advocate Geoff Budlender. At the time Eskom said another global management consultancy, Oliver Wyman, had conducted an external review and concluded that “all payments” were “based on prudent costs incurred and value created”. But on Monday Eskom made an about-turn and conceded this information was false.
