Evil, Evil, Evil.

The ANC has put forward what it sees as the answer to “Crimes of need, crimes of greed, and crimes of violence..” which, it says “are produced by the deliberate promotion of a community without moral integrity.”

This fatuous piece of populist moralising is only matched by the sheer gall of their proposed solution; to whit, give the people more religious holidays and they’ll see the error of their godless ways.

The so-called RDP of the Soul

..proposes that the time is now ripe to recognise the multi-religious nature of our society and Constitution by affirming certain Holy Days as Public Holidays, not only of Christians, but of Muslims, Hindus and Jews who represent significant sectors of our population. It is suggested that Christmas and Easter, Eid ul Fitr, Deepavali/Diwali, and Yom Kippur be celebrated.

..and, lest we start to run out of actual working days…

To prevent this from negatively affecting the economy the current practice of adding a Monday when a Public Holiday falls on a Sunday could be abandoned.

Whoop.



Quite apart from the fact that the proposed Christian holidays outnumber the Muslim, Jewish and Hindu holidays by 100%, there is a little matter of inclusiveness which has been either overlooked (stupid but forgiveable) or considered unimportant (bloody evil).



So, African National Congress, O great leaders of this troubled land, what about the Buddhists?

The Rastafarians, Goddess Folk, Pagans, Zoroastrians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, 7thDay Adventists,Scientologists, Atheists and Sikhs?



I’m sure I’ve left some out, but all these religious groups are represented in this country.

Sorry, Atheists.I’ve included you as a ‘religious group’ for convenience only.



I would have thought that the ANC, of all people, would be familiar with that old saying whole hawg or none.

Apparently they’ve fallen in with that other saying, might makes right.


I wonder where they got that one from?




The above piece of nonsense (which caused howls of mirth from most of my nearest and dearest, and howls of outrage from SAPRA, on whose executive board I sit) hove into my view on the same day that this one did.


Social psychologist Brad Bushman of the University of Michigan has

.. spent 20 years studying aggression and violence, especially the impact on human behavior of violence in the media, but most previous research has focused on television and movie violence, not such things as scriptures and texts held sacred by many.

As he says

We hypothesized that exposure to a biblical description of violence would increase aggression more than a secular description of the same violence. We also predicted that aggression would be greater when the violence was sanctioned by God than when it was not sanctioned by God.

Even among nonbelievers, if God says it's OK to retaliate, they are more aggressive. And that's the worry here. When God sanctions aggression, when God says it's OK to retaliate, people use that as justification for their own violent and aggressive behavior.

This exercise in ironically fortuitous news messages has been brought to you by the House of Aquila ka Hecate.