Step forward The Green Party of South Africa – it’s your turn to have your manifesto scrutinised by the 6000 miles… election team.
I came into this one rather sceptical, I’ll be honest.
And, it turns out, I had every good reason for that approach.
Some key policies:
What are we doing about crime? Addressing the cause of it.
Changing the hearts and minds of Men by a massive media campaign.
Well now. Why didn’t anyone else think of putting up lots of posters, sending SMSs and having the odd TV ad spot, just basically asking Men not to do crimes? All this time, we’ve been suffering under the tyrannical jackboots of murder, rape, hijacking and robbery, when we could just have asked Men nicely not to do naughty things and it would all have been solved. That’ll work. Said no-one ever.
But that’s not all: the hearts and minds of Men will be easier to change because:
Not eating battery farmed meat will reduce the stress and aggression chemicals regularly eaten inside the meat from battery animals who have lived in fear and stress all their lives.
mmmkay.
And education? What about that?
Making it relevant, by televisions by the best teachers with field trips. Teaching pupils how to teach themselves.
This doesn’t even make sense. The words are all ok, but I think it kind of falls apart in the way that you’ve put them together. And getting kids to teach themselves? Isn’t that what teachers do?
And then could we have some misplaced business science, combined some with age-old, oft-debunked conspiracy theories, please?
TRANSPARENCY IN THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY. Cancer cures already exist, but are withheld from us because they don’t involve chemicals which can be sold at the huge profits the pharmaceutical industry is used to.
Animal research is huge business. It is often far more profitable to be looking for cures than to find them – particularly if the cures turn out to be relatively cheap or naturally available.
Seems legit. Also: aliens, right?
AN END TO BATTERY FARMING: Antibiotics are routinely fed to the animals to prevent them getting sick from living in such crowded conditions. This is creating a new era of super viruses and diseases in humans that are immune to all known antibiotics.
Now, I’m no fan of battery farming, and this starts well, but then goes way off track. I get the idea, sure, but the lack of any sort of accuracy in the second sentence does make me wonder if you actually know what the actual funk you’re going on about. Super viruses, really?
This would also greatly reduce heart attacks – over 50% are related to eating too much animal protein and fat.
I mean, we know this is likely correct, but have you run it past Prof Tim and his concubine?
At present it is possible that most of the food you buy in shops is POISONOUS to your health…
Sweet Jesus. It’s also “possible” that you’ll win the election, but let’s see how that pans out, shall we?
And then… then, these bizarre lines (from the 1990s?). How did this make it in?
To be able to utilise all of our ideas and co-operation when the computer flaw at the turn of the century throws our whole society into chaos, will help our survival . We are pretty certain that all over the world, the mainframes and their sensors scattered throughout the facilities are going to make water, petrol (and through that food), money, sewerage and airline and traffic control not available to us. We need to be ready with all our ideas and co-operation to get through that period as one Nation.
“The computer flaw at the turn of the century”? Is this… was this the Y2K bug that never actually happened?
And yet here they are 20 years on, using a debunked scaremongering theory to try and impose their bizarre thinking on us? There’s enough in those last three lines of their manifesto to keep any sane individual’s X out of the Green Party box.
However, if you want to get in touch with The Green Party of South Africa (NOTE: The website “greensouthafrica.co.za” and “Greens South Africa” on Facebook is not us.), then you can find their address on the website. And yes, it’s in Noordhoek – on the far side of the Lentil Curtain.