Code me up, Scotty

People are fed up, up to their necks, with criminals handling bribe money that we couldn’t spend in a lifetime. One after the other, podcasters and analysts are falling into line behind the OHM. They just don’t realise it.

Zille says all government is local. Hello OHM. If it isn’t Rob Hersov “slash government!” (hello again OHM), it is another about schooling, another about health, another about jobs, another about the Electoral Act (hello again OHM, special shoutout to Mandiso Mashego) and many about all of those things. Most pointedly though, is a slow, unavoidable revelation:

we don’t get what we vote for, and we didn’t vote for what he got.

As Ms Zille says. All politics is local. That makes it all the more surprising that the old Town Clerk of old was replaced by nothing. Town Clerk was a respected title. We now have Municipal Managers. Everybody wanted to be a manager. Now we are tripping over them. It would be nice if they Actually Did Manage. I can imagine Ghandi saying:

“Management? That would be a good idea.”

The bottom line is, a switch to local government only will always be a good idea for most things, but it won’t solve everything, because democracy is actually more or less illegal. Councils and parliament have token galleries only for public. We are not meant to participate. They don’t want it. But not only that, the system is against it. People who take time off work to involve themselves in local affairs get fired for not being on the job. Ergo, democracy is practically illegal.

Digitised Dorpsraad

What if national government ruled that mayors must budget and pay for everything discussed in town council, and support opinion and debate as well? Gone are the days of stenographers. Everything is recorded these days, and speech to text is a done deal. AI can read tens of thousands more pages than a human, and summarise a thousand pages in seconds. No more hiding behind printing presses, the Government Printer, waiting for Gazettes. Every dorp in SA can reasonably provide an accurate summary of what is done in town councils, within seconds every day. No more “No comment” or “we will inform you at a later stage”.

If the dorpsraad were paying for information, they could just as well recoup some ad money from retail outlet specials, instead of those high colour newsprint flyers polluting the drains in every dorp. For forty eight weeks every year, an independent could write an editorial. Locals can be interviewed, the youth involved. If town council website can be a replicable template for our 200+ Local Municipalities.

The bottom line though is: until we are allowed to participate by law, democracy is never truly going to happen.

Perhaps the coming, predicted, mass joblessness and Basic Income Grant is the starting point. We can’t be fired for sitting participating in council affairs if we don’t have jobs to be fired from.

Viva Werkeloses, Viva!