For the Record

Johannesburg Central Branch requested the CU to circulate our agenda for today (10h00, SATAWU offices, 13th floor, Old Mutual Building, 29 Kerk Street, between Loveday and Harrison) and minutes of the previous branch general meeting (BGM). See the link below. This is how we do our business. SACP General Secretary Blade Nzimande addressed the vast crowd assembled in central Johannesburg during last Thursday’s general strike. His notes are linked below, brief and to the point. The strike was soberly reported on the front page of the Business Day, next to a picture of a sea of red-clad workers in Johannesburg’s Beyers Naude Square. Very little attempt was made to disguise the impact of the strike. See link. Only Terry Bell, the struggle-veteran turned labour journalist for Business Report, struck a bum note. On Friday he ignored the previous day’s COSATU-led general strike and instead reeled back to Tuesday’s security-guard march in Cape Town, using his column to attack the marchers. For pictures of the police attack on the marchers, go to the CU web site home page and scroll down. See the link below for Bell’s treacherous report. The capitalist class is organised as the state, which is its executive committee. Below state level there is constant and vicious conflict between bourgeois factions, and shifting pacts and rivalries, which the communists cannot ignore. The working class imposes some minimum standards of behaviour when it is able to do so, such as “innocent until proven guilty.” The bourgeois Business Day on Wednesday went after the capitalist factionalist Mzi Khumalo on their front page in a big way, and again on the following day in their lead editorial column. Both articles are linked below. It is entirely possible that the Business Day could now swing all the way from the Mzi camp right back to Jacob Zuma’s. Stranger things have happened. Meanwhile Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is pursuing mumsy photo-opportunities in Taung, on the edge of the Kalahari Desert - the only part of the country where she can be reasonably sure of not being booed in public. Maybe the Business Day has begun to understand this, and decided they would rather not be stranded on the side of a lame duck. Hugo Chavez spoke for hours in London – and the Londoners loved it! "Oooh, Aaah, Chavez no se va!" See link. Click on these links: SACP Jhb Central Draft Minutes 23 Apr and Agenda 21 May 2006 (555 words) SACP GS to COSATU General Strike, 18 May 2006 (832 words) COSATU one day strike hits mines sector hard, Business Day (593 words) Striker orgy of destruction will exhaust goodwill, Terry Bell, B Rep (787 words) Mzi Khumalo in new BEE share sale dwang, Business Day (998 words) Chavez Takes London, Counterpunch (1756 words)