A vote for a “party” frees no one.
“Nothanaza residents in the EC (Eastern Cape) share their
only water source with animals. Taps in the village stopped working 20 years
ago”[ii].
South African (SA) voters are locked out. Rioting by the
marginalised has become the only avenue of expression.
University students and complaining workers who trash what
billions of people would cherish to call their own is different. Sure, it is
complicated, but with them it seems to be about self… me-me!
Which is very ANC.
The ANC chucked democracy
In 1994 the ANC put aside its commitment to the people in
favour of prosperity for the selected few.
Power to continue comes with blind, undiscerning, voter followers.
The more trusting and desperate they are the easier the smoother the politicians’
grand promises.
There are good pockets
Weeks ago in Sol
Plaatje municipality ANC councillors voted with the opposition to try and fix a
bad scene developing in the streets only to be told they faced suspension … because
they went against the PARTY[iii].
That’s typical of events countrywide - DA included.
Throughout SA desperately needed are grassroots developments
like community banks, adult-night-schools, how-to-grow-stuff classes and health
education with-a-free-meal, support the HIV families groups. Instead voters are
conned in agreeing to put their last hopes and dreams into one political party.
Noel Dibakwane’s (of the loose alliance the Organisation for
Democracy and Freedom) warning that “if the (ANC) government doesn’t hear their
cry, they (ANC) will lose power”[iv]
is, regrettably, empty. Lose to who? Just another Party. Parties party for the
party.
And in SA the tiny white middle class has been lumped in
with “white monopoly capital”. They’ve been made irrelevant.
If South Africans choose to live-in-history this attitude is
… sort-of … understandable. But if a future is the goal, the way forward is to keep
as many teachers active as long as you can. It seems the new majority black
middle class are comfortable in their comfort and don’t want to get involved,
to lead, to be in any way paternal. Who then is there to guide the not-so-well-educated
and ill-prepared?
Idiot
I was too young when chosen to tour with the big-boys of the
school 1st XV. First stop Johannesburg. Friday night to ourselves. The coach handed
out pocket money. The young adults went off partying leaving the kid with more money
than I’d ever had at one time in my life. I gorged ice-cream, sweets and fast
food and watched new colour TV until close-down. I was so sick I couldn’t play
in my debut senior rugby game.
Alan Greenspan said a sovereign country can issue as much
money as it likes but it must be used with maturity and an understanding of
building lasting assets.
I proved having limitless money and opportunity will produce
failure among the immature even if they have talent.
The ANC behaves as I, the 15 year old, did.
I became a big-boy. I did learn … so I thought. 40 years later
my mentor Max[v] [vi]…
exasperated … shouted, “Idiot!”
He was as quick to assure me he wasn’t ascribing the modern insult
‘of low intelligence’ to me.
A dangerous idiot
In original usage an idiot is “politically incompetent, unsound
in environmental matters and blind in social judgement,”[vii]
said Max. “Africa wallows in poverty because the current and ex-leaders are
idiots of the same ‘university’ you attended.”
“Like most in Africa you haven’t woken to modern
money-politics. And neither will it do you any good when you do because ‘accountability’
is another word that has been modified.”
There was a time when we thought big business was necessary
to advance the perceived goodness of globalisation, but it proved to be a
failure for like the dinosaurs they don’t fit the ‘people inclusive and environment
protection’ model we need now.
But as much as Max criticised me for being slow to convert
to modern money to promote nation growth and political maturity so too a
powerful few refused point-blank.
They evolved Greed Capitalism which runs on banks and big-businesses
power. The super-rich owners of the system control money-supply, and through it
political parties and ‘their’ politicians decide public policy and practice.
As much as SA generally has felt the whip, as much as the
Guptas were beneficiaries under Zuma so too were a wide range of ANC-fellows
and other businesses[viii].
Under Ramaphosa there’ll be new beneficiaries. The common threads throughout
the white Nationalist era and the ANC’s time is the people get just enough to agree
to ‘sit down and shut up’.
Right now Ramaphosa plans to play directly into his Greed
Capitalist colleagues’ hands by instituting – for example - economy crippling
austerity job-cuts aligned against huge loans for a coal-fired power station[ix]
while hiding reality behind political hype like land-grab.
Those idiot politicians were voted in through the party
system by the voters … us!
Bankers, CEOs: Superior idiots
In ancient Athens those who were politically and socially
aware but who nevertheless chose to be self-centred, concerned with private
wealth and position were also labelled idiots. Today it is even truer: They
know what they’re doing[x]
[xi]
... They’re collectors of money through a process of maximising profits no
matter who or what gets hurt.
To bring on such destruction they ensure they own the
politicians and through them, us … the voting idiots.
We are born laymen
In the richness of the word original public encouragements
we are idiots. We stay idiots until we consciously jettison myth and division
and increasingly take on learning and responsibility to become ‘of the city’ … citizens.
Citizens don’t just believe. Citizens are active: They use
their new state of mind about things real and proven to contribute meaningfully
by doing and challenging for positive change.
Max said those who don’t bother to grasp the basics of the vital
yet simple topic of ‘political-money’ as it affects growing the nation through employment,
budgets and tax and legal and illegal corruption, deserve to live poor … and to
be treated by the politician and businessperson as good for a life in servitude.
49 murders a day, 5000 rapes, 60% youth unemployment
We’re so happy at having a revolutionary government why fuss
about representation?
Things are better: there was no anaesthetic for my grandfather’s
operation and once he was moved to ‘that ward’ in Randfontein that was it.
80 years on we take the ill/hurt/assaulted child to see any of
our well-qualified and dedicated doctors for the best possible chance. But they’re
understaffed, often in poorly equipped units - The best possible chance isn’t
the best.
If politician ‘loses money’ the system seeks forgiveness. If
a doctor doles out disability grants to people who are slowly starving it’s fraud.
Why aren’t we looking at alternatives?[xii]
Do we immediately castigate our MP for not attending to the whole-child that is
SA?
No … and if we did we know the answer would be, “I’ll consult
the party”. Or, you could be labelled “an
enemy of the state”[xiii].
The means via modern money theory is there[xiv]
We have a beautiful country of beautiful people needing only
concerted direction and leadership to get into gear.
We know what to do but aren’t[xv].
Fixing the rhinos, making the Drakensberg safe again for free-spending visitors
or building proper homes for SA’s own refugees would be opportunities if we elected
people who aren’t Max’s idiots.
The party’s faithful
Buying a party or electing a party is the only time the super-wealthy/politically
connected and the super-poor agree.
The poor hope for help, the rich/politician invests for
same-again, and in comes the ANC.
Getting it right
Required is a system where duty, responsibility and
accountably are taken on willing by full-blown Max-defied citizens in two distinctly
separated arenas:
The civil service has to be a career based, hierarchical, professionally
managed organisation of professionals and scientists. Officers must be
empowered to consult and advise across boundaries, to be pro-active in ideas
and strategy.
Politically … how about representatives being chosen from
the community by the community? 10 communities of about 50,000 to a district?
How about authorising the elected 10 together with qualified
civil servants in advisory cum management roles run that district?
How about one of those ten sitting in college of (say) 50 –
60 districts overseeing provincial matters, ensuring home issues and needs won’t
get lost, as happens now in a party free-for-all system?
And what if every province elects (say) ten of their members
to sit on the national body which, with the direct advice of the best brains of
our country, make up our legislative body?
In the end it is you and me
We cannot carry on with boys searching for the next
ice-cream or talk-artists looking for easy money or power posts running a
nation.
We need concerned and mature adults and professionally
qualified specialists to run both the simple requirement of tap in Nothanaza and
our complicated 1st world show of banking/electrics/dune mining and climate change because, as Jared Diamond reminds us,
“The most important thing we need to do is to forget about
there being any single thing that is the most important … (for) … there are a
dozen things, any one of which could do us in”[xvi]
if unattended.
The days of parties of idiots running-ruining countries to
party is over. We need dedication to reformation. We need to change the system.
[i]
George Carlin?
[ii]
FB post by Nwabisa Sese Budaza
[iii]
The irony … “The motion succeeded and Matika was replaced by ANC councillor
Pule Thabane” …
https://mg.co.za/article/2018-07-30-75-schools-closed-in-kimberley-as-violent-protests-pick-up
[iv] https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/national/movement-warns-govt-will-lose-power-if-it-ignores-the-cry
[v] We
met when he approached me while watching a bruising –poorly controlled- game of
u/7 rugby. He was looking for someone to explain things to and I looked
half–intelligent. Annoyed I asked how he came to that conclusion. “You’re
watching not playing.”
[vi] Dr
Max’s forte was (German) language and law before travelling and working
extensively in S/E Asia and India with a short stint in northern eastern Africa
somewhere called his attention to the link between money and poverty, and why
it shouldn’t be as it is, negative.
[vii] We
race to waste finite resources, pursue highest-profits wars which require we
waste finite resources all in the name of many trillions of dollars that end up
idle in tax-havens and irreversible Climate Change.
[viii]
Regiments … the latest … https://amabhungane.org/stories/the-trojan-horse-that-wheeled-r600m-out-of-state-owned-entities/
[ix] “China
Development Bank’s US $2.5 billion credit to complete the state-owned power
company Eskom’s generators at Kusile”… https://www.pambazuka.org/emerging-powers/brics-johannesburg-simultaneously-disappoints-and-threatens
[x] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgR6uaVqWsQ
[xi]
The continuing furore of vehicle omissions cheating is an example. HSBC’s
acceptance of the massive fine for laundering drug-money to me is tacit
acknowledgement the fine is simply a cost of business and bad-luck the millions
of kids/mothers involved.
[xii] https://bhekisisa.org/article/2018-08-13-00-bureaucracy-power-and-grants-when-a-pen-may-be-as-mighty-as-the-scalpel
[xiii]
“My third lesson was that, if you put a “sombre thought” forward to
politicians, you run the risk of being called a “counter-revolutionary”… https://bhekisisa.org/article/2018-08-16-00-lifeesidimeni-and-the-ghosts-of-our-past-its-time-to-decolonise-our-ethics
[xiv] I’ve
published posts of re-aligning our banking, money creation and use, and the
requirement of full employment.
[xv]
Joe Rogan motivate … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sdu_1_A0dcM
[xvi] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IESYMFtLIis&t=921s
