A clever political menouvre

South Africa has provided political theorists with an interesting problem. It is now clear that the State President, and the majority of Parliament members, cannot do ANYTHING unless the ANC agrees. Otherwise, they will simply be fired by the ANC, just as former President Mbeki was fired.

This means that the ANC - a particular type of organisation/ institution - has ultimate legislative control in South Africa. But, then, who - de jure - controls the ANC? (I'll be honest I don't quite know how their organsiational structure works but) my understanding is that the ANC executive committee has ultimate control on the decisions made by the ANC - for example, whether to fire a President or a member of parliament.

So, then, who controls the ANC executive committee. Well - it is run by the members of the committee, including its leader Jacob Zuma.

And who elects this committee - the ordinary rank and file members of the ANC. So, who has ultimate control over the legislature - the rank and file members of the ANC.

This implies that, in order to best influence the legislative branch of Goverment, it is necessary to JOIN THE ANC and be in a position to vote for the next executive committee/ President of the ANC.

Membership is open to all. Go to http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/misc/members.html

If more South Africans join the ANC, those South Africans will have a far greater say in how this nation is actually run then by voting in the national elections. This follows from three simple facts

• FACT 1: It is clear that the ANC would have won this election pretty much regardless of how appalling their past performance was. As such, no matter how much you complain, or whether you vote or note, the ANC will rule. This is likely to be the case in 5 years time as well.
  
• FACT 2: ANC members elect the body that controls the majority members of parliament
• FACT 3: There are far fewer ANC members than national voters. As such, your voice/ vote will carry more weight in an ANC internal election than in a national election (where their are over 20 million voters).

Consider two scneatios.

Scenario 1. All the whites join the ANC
But this would be mean there would be approximately as many black ANC members as white ANC members. This would clearly have a radically effect on power balances in this country. SO WHY NOT JUST DO IT?

Scenario 2. All of South AFrica joins the ANC
Consider the scenario that the whole of RSA joined the ANC. Then, the Mbeki supporters would have had far more support from the people outside the party than the Zuma supports (assuming that the majoirty of non-ANC members were against Zuma). This would have populated the ANC executive committee with more from the non-Zuma camp. Again, radical shift in power.

Now, you might say: "but rather just have your say in the actual elections? Re read the facts above (facts 1,2 and 3). Facts 2 and 3 cannot be denied. They are simply factual observations of current electoral processes. It is on these two facts that my clever political menouveour relies. Fact 1 is more open to debate (it is not absolute like the others). However, fact 1 is almost equally undeniable, and I dont rely on it to prove my clever political menouveour. However, Fact 1 is my motivation for the move.

So to recall why fact 1 is so obvious. The citezenry of this country would have voted the ANC even if Mbeki had be shot with a bullet, and Mandala after him - at least that is my sense. Perhaps that is going to far (is it?). Anyway, regardless of that, the point is the citezenry of this country returned the ANC to power just shy of a 2/3rds majority. They did not punish the ANC for an appauling performance - the FOUR BIGGIES: AIDS, ZIMBABWE, SERVICE DELIVERY and (the most important if you have half a brain) CRIME. There are only three ways to look at the citezenry in this case

• INNOCENCE. They dont know the facts - they are uninformed voters (most liberal)\

• EMOTIONAL. They know the facts, but their emotions gets the better of them as they here the voice ringing in the backround "never again" (apartheid) and think this somehow means they most vote for the liberation movement (this is UNFORGIVEABLE)

• STRATEGIC. They know the facts, they are not emotional, but they are being strategic and rationale regarding their own financial position which perhpas benefits from the ANC's policies of Black Economic Empowerment (that is just disgusting).
• STUPIDITY. OR, they know the facts, they are not emotional, they are not rationale, they are just stupid (I am sure many are).
  

[Be warned. I love the people of this country, all races. This is the country of my birth. End of that discussion.]

One of the architects of the modern political system of which we are apart was John Stuart Mill. Arguably, he was schooled within the utaliterian tradition. He argued that their are no values that a Government should aspire to save the values and wants of its own people. Poetry - in his opinion - was sublime. But that did not mean Government should sponsor it above race car driving, if that is what the citezenry desired. He argued this was the only just sytem. His one caveat was that the citezenry needed to be educated so they could be informed voting decisions.

Our citezenry - for what ever reasons - have made a very poor decision. They should have abondended the ANC in drives and allowed a new political dispensation to take over for 4 years. The ANC could then win the election after that, after their spanking. So, the rest of South Africa should weigh in and vote in the election that counts.

On Susan Boyle

Go listen to this now!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OcQ9A-5noM&feature=related

For the first time in a long time, on television, I saw what beauty was about, British style. If she does not win, we would all lose. Vote for the most beautiful woman on television, Susan Boyle.

On the (typical) Dawkins view that religion is bad and God of Torah is not nice

I suspect many readers have been particularly impressed with these parts of Dawkins's book. It feels like a vindication of the atheist belief system:
hey, look at whats happening in Iraq man: the whole mess up is based on religion. And its not only Iraq, its the entire history of war on the planet; its all always been about religion. Religious systems of belief lead to all sorts of nasty things, including the stifling of a free mind, and hatred amongst different religious sects.

Point 1. Just as Dawkins's rejects the supposed happiness of religious people as good grounds for belief in God, so too do I reject the supposed nastiness of religion as grounds for disbelief in God.

Point 2. As it happens, of course, the idea that religion is the cause for any significant world conflict is false; I should be harsher: indeed, proposing.... is unlearned, and only a true anti-religious idealist would put on glasses which colour the world in these terms. In point of fact, no serious historian has ever posited religion as a major cause for either World War 1, World War 2, Vietnam, etc. To wit, World War 1 was primarily about a colonial struggle for resources (initiated by a "scramble for Africa"), and for economic and military power. The delicate "balance of power" which was woven by a net of international diplomatic agreements finally gave way in 1914 as the assassination of an Eastern European Monarch became the conflict's catalyst. Religion does not feature even as a minor cause. Millions about millions died by virtue of pure human greed. World War 2 is largely seen as an offshoot of the unfinished business of WW1. Sure, Hitler had it in for religious groups and anyone that was not of his race. But that was racial, not religious. The desire for "lebensraum" (living space), the natural evolution of economy based on military investment and expansion, and Hitler's sheer lunacy, are considered the major motivator for the German economic and military expansion into Eastern and then Western Europe [show me a significant historian that says religion was the Major cause]. And the Allies responded not for religion, but because it was in their military, economic and political interests to do so. Now consider Iraq: do you really believe the underlying cause of this conflict is religious? What about oil?

It is far more rational to hold that conflict is inherent in a world of limited resources, rather then that religion is the cause of it. Sometimes, it makes economic rational sense to fight to get what you want. Do apes kill each other for belief systems or for power? Are we different to apes or amoebas in the basic evolutionary forces that cause our actions? Are we, Mr Dawkins? The will to wealth and power is behind the world's conflicts, not religion (the fighting for which has no direct evolutionary payoff). Even in those conflicts in which religion was the surface reason for the war, historians often point out the underlying economic basis for the conflict. Religion is often used as a rallying cry, but if that particular opiate or stimulant is missing, political leaders have found no problem finding others: consider nationalism, capitalist freedom, communism, racism, etc.

Religion is not the cause of all the worlds problems, and even if it were, this is not grounds for rejecting it. Just because all religions conflict does not make all of them wrong. That would be like saying that because all opinions about the origin of the universe conflict all of them are wrong. One religion may be correct. And that religion may still have to fight for its survival.

Point 3. Dawkins discusses in a rather obvious manner the supposed harshness of the God of the Bible. Again, even if God is harsh, even if God instructs man to go to war to wipe out other nations, this does not mean that God does not exist. It only mean that you have a moral problem with God. A point of fact is that we believe, as Torah Jews, that God is the single cause and Creator of all good, and all evil, that has ever existed. We do not give up the space of evil (and death and destruction) and say this is not part of God - that would be to limit the key concept that God is One and the Creator of All. This is a basic tenant. Of course, there are deep subtleties to this concept, and the discussions of the nature of evil, its source in God, man's role, etc span literally thousands upon thousands of text written over thousands of years. Studied, scrutinised, debated, rejected, re-asserted, the Talmud is frightening in its breadth, its thoroughness, its relentless hair splitting logic, and its internal consistency. But, Dawkins has not bothered to read any of this, to understand how Jews have understood the Torah, and the reason for God's creation of evil.

Of course, you might be saying "if such a God exists you would rather die than have anything to do with such God." That is also fine. You can die and have nothing to do with such a God. But what you can't say as a rational thinker is that any of this is grounds for believing whether God exists or not. They are mere character judgement of the (hypothetical) Infinite being; they are not arguments for or against His existence. Moreover, they are unlearned character judgements, and they completely ignore the literature. For these sections of his book, Dawkins gets a miserable fail.

In any event, these sections of Dawkins's book adds not one inch to the debate about whether or not God exists or evolution is true.