Theos-Talk Archives (October 2008 Message tt00701)

Dear Ramadoss and all,

Let my try to speculate who is behind the change. 

There is general membership upset present in regard to the current 
proposal of the Amendments to the TS Rules and Regulations and 
especially with that one which transfers the privilege to elect the 
TS President from all members of the Society to only those of the 
General Council. The method in which the proposal was submitted is 
considered un-democratic in general and the proposal itself illegal 
by Aryel Sanat who recently evaluated it as change from "true" 
to "representative" democracy.

In "true" democracy voters have the right to directly vote the 
candidates but also to previously nominate them. According to the TS 
Rules and Regulations voters nominate their candidates through their 
representatives (General Secretaries) who should have to consult 
their Governing Bodies (representing members) before submitting 
nominations. Our system was therefore actually already 
half "representative". But as in practice our representatives in 
general didn't consult the membership the General Council has - with 
the change to list the nominators on the ballots (with the change of 
the Rules and Regulations we now heard about) - only formalized this 
actual state of affairs in which they are those who nominate the 
candidates. 

The proposal to transfer the right to elect the President to the 
members of the General Council is therefore only the conclusive act 
of the process of the transfer from the "true" to "representative" 
democracy or rather formalization (as representatives in reality 
usually do not consult membership) of autocracy.

In commenting the actual situation commentators avoid to mention the 
influence of various organizations attached to the Theosophical 
Society which E.E. Wood called religious sects. If we try to 
understand happenings during and after the President elections in the 
light of E.E. Wood's interpretations we could discern that what 
seemed to be only a struggle for power between few persons is 
actually completely immoral struggle between religious sects within 
the Theosophical Society as we (as or even worse as in the case of 
the E.E. Wood candidacy) witnessed in "backstairs" that leaders 
can "rely upon enthusiasts to do all the necessary propaganda among 
the members of the Society all over the world."

Therefore I presume that what seems to be a project of 
disenfranchisement of members from the part of inhomogeneous group of 
General Council's members is probably to great extend unorganized 
final take-over of the Theosophical Society from the part 
of religious sects which leaders agree only on that that they know 
better then members how to lead the Society.

Best regards,
Anton


--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, MKR <mkr777@...> wrote:
>
>  For a long time, in International Elections, the ballots simply 
listed the
> names of candidates. However, in the current election, the 
nominators were
> listed.
> 
> From what I hear, this change was put in place recently by the GC. 
None in
> the general membership know who proposed the change, what were the
> motivations (real and stated) and what were the justifications for 
the
> change. We do not know anything about this change, even though we 
the
> members are the voters have a moral and ethical right to know about 
it.
> 
> Recently while reading about the election manifesto of Ernest Wood 
when he
> ran for the Presidency, I ran into a very interesting statement, 
which is
> given below:
> 
> "The Society has now in force a new system of election of President 
which
> has ultimately resulted from a suggestion made by Dr. Besant. 
Wishing to
> avoid some of the faults of the old method, she wrote: "why should 
not two
> or more names be submitted, and an absolute majority of the votes 
cast be
> sufficient for election?" (The Theosophist, September 1907, page 
882). This
> being so, the fact that she did not use her right to give a 
nomination seems
> to me to show that she desired the members to vote with absolutely 
free
> judgment, not influenced by her as a spiritual teacher."
> 
> If Annie Besant desired the members to vote with absolutely free 
judgment,
> not influenced by her as a spiritual teacher, it makes me wonder 
why the
> members of General Council sought to reverse the long tradition and 
try to
> sway the free judgement of the members. Once we go down the path of
> influencing members, where do we stop? This is the start of horse 
trading.
> 
> MKR
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>