The DA’s Free Ride is Ending
Normally, i’d get bashed for mentioning anything remotely wrong with the DA but of late there’s been an interesting slide in local and national mindset. The DA’s free ride is ending which is good for democracy and keeps political parties more in check with honesty (well, i can hope it leads there).
The ANC has very little hope at gaining honest respect whilst COPE is useless, AGANG unproven, Malema a disaster opportunist and the ACDP uncaring for all South Africans – religion is not moral if it divides) but what is amazing, and disturbing, is that the DA, a loud proclaimer of self-righteousness, has chosen the path of all who have failed before them; a disdain for transparency, austerity, dialogue and criticism.
In my Western Cape ‘backyard’ are examples that could be applied to your town, no matter where you are in South Africa.
Oudtshoorn and Plettenberg Bay are economic battlefields littered with politically greedy landmines planted by both the DA and ANC (don’t protest lest you do some Google research first). Knysna hangs on by veneer – hey, let’s forget admitting problems and rather protect our tourist image at all costs! But our image is broken and problems can’t be fixed unless admitted to (yeah, how many times have i said that???). Admitting and repairing benefits the town in the long run. Short term solutions will only sink us nearer our famous estuary.
Knysna is an awesome town with unsurpassed natural splendour – that’s the foundation we need and are lucky enough to have. Find your foundation and build upon it.
Us people are the bricks. People are more important than political parties. The Municipality and the politicians (from all parties) are suppose to ensure that our roof doesn’t leak yet are more concerned with which coat of paint to put on over the old paint (which disturbingly looks a lot like the old paint). And the residents and ratepayers associations are too scared to represent the will of their members fully lest they don’t get a future budget to fix an obsession, no matter how important, with potholes (whites) and loos (non-whites) and the like. The politicians know it so use them as national issues instead of pro-actively fighting deeper issues such as debt, drugs and corruption. Forays against the opposition are worthless unless applied within.
There is strength in numbers – realize it and use it! Voting according to cultural and economic divisions ensure the failed status quo and will only assist in the weakening of our towns and lives. Whereas thinking differently and working together will improve our common desires – food, work, roofs and safety. We don’t want to be “raped and stabbed and shot at” or for our nationalism to be summed up by “proudly South African Woolworth’s ads”. Those are our common subscriptions to the human race. Don’t let the politicians votes for hate allow you to forget it. Don’t let your town, and South Africa, become another African failure that denied its slippery slope until it was too late. Denial and apathy sum destruction.
To remain a popular party you have to listen to popular opinion! How incredibly stupid has the DA been to not learn from the consequences of the ANC’s deaf ear. Instead, the DA skips morality in search of new black votes which come from the same people who failed to correct the pillars of the ANC. Insteady of slow, steady growth, there’s a quick, cupped hand for short-term gain.
Elections are approaching. Start thinking for yourself! Ignore the latest cries from big parties to vote for them because small parties can’t make a difference. Bollocks! What big party ever made a difference that was overall positive for us??? The NP and the ANC were, and are, failures. The DA follows the same route which only ensures that leaders enrich themselves at the expense of the public.
Vote for a difference you will not see in a faraway, newspaper headline but on your street. Vote for leaders in your community who lead by example, whether it be a headmaster, a chairperson of a ratepayer’s association or a priest (rasta, christian, moslem – whatever)…so long as it’s someone honest and responsible who will put your town first rather than listen to the demands from a political party’s head office in a city not yours that’s interested in their national plan for gain instead of yours and your family’s gain.
PS1: As an example of changing mindsets, look at the comment section on one of my blogs, reposted at News24 – www.news24.com/MyNews24/Knysnas-staff-coining-it-20130812.
PS2: I quoted from Menage a Trois’ spoken word, ‘Afterthought’, one of the most powerful and disturbing songs you will hear – which is why it’s a must. Such a pity that the band is no more ’cause there are far too few bands who care about reality anymore. You can download ‘Afterthought’ for free at the bottom of an old blog at www.knysnakeep.org/raped-and-stabbed-and-shot-at.
So the DA gains control of George municipality and next thing all rural properties lose their agricultural rebate overnight and are now subject to a fourfold rates increase, being billed full urban rate even though we receive almost no street services. The DA municipality response is we need money for service delivery. Don’t buy it, they have no plans to service any of the areas they have hiked the rates for!
They’ve done the same in Knysna, targeting communities outside the urban edge that receive minimal service from the Municipality yet charging them lots. The DA’s plan seems to include taking as much money as it can from the shrinking middle class so long as they can. No matter the huge debts our local governments have, the ‘public servants’ ‘ and politicians’ salaries keep on increasing. That’s not a Robin Hood action but rather the DA emulating the greed of the ANC.
Thanks Mike,
Good to know of the broader regionality of this problem and that it really does seem to be rooted in rot that has set into the DA, Rondevlei greetings.
There’s little difference between the constitutions of the DA and the ANC. And with every defector from the ANC, the DA strangely claims a victory whereas i see it as the acceptance of people who had already proven that they could not do the job as well as further undermining of the DA’s morals – it’s become about winning votes no matter the cost. Type in DA searches for Oudtshoorn and Plettenberg Bay and you will find tons that they’re doing wrong. Very frustrating.
Well I have shifted from staunchly supportive of the DA to undecided. Problem is property owners in my area seem to regard the DA as some sort of sacred cow instead of the sinister controlling power they actually are, who have targeted them as a cash cow to be milked with impunity.
I was similar to you. I considered joining the DA 4 years ago and was keen to be a fundraiser for them and a supporter of Knysna. But after their then leader, Richard Dawson, a career politician, could not explain their policies in a Knysna context, i realized that there was fundamentally something wrong with the DA’s approach to Knysna. It is my belief that they are for national politics first and Knysna last.
The DA gained a lot of numbers from the Afrikaans community who felt threatened by the ANC. In reality, that’s a racist decision because they could have chosen to support local, community leaders instead. There are areas of Knysna that will always vote DA because they’re perceived as white. But, ironically, they;re not. They are swelling their ranks with uneducated voters and accepting opportunistic ex-ANC members into their ranks. Further irony is that their conservative supporters have conveniently turned a blind eye to the fact that they’re a liberal party. They are also for big business first and it’s no surprise that they won’t reveal whose funding them.
Anyone actively seeking to become a politician should automatically be precluded from the job.
We just need a better definition and expectation of what a ‘politician’ is.