Scoundrel Time

The front-page article by Simpiwe Piliso of the Sunday Times about the increase in dollar millionaires in South Africa, linked below, is worth reading. It speaks for itself. There is no way to enhance it or summarise it. One must know this situation. The reporter has done a good job, and you will not read such an exposure every day in the bourgeois press. Read it for yourself, and know what is happening to this country. The formation of a black section of the big bourgeoisie is only part of this story, because the great majority of the new millionaires appearing are obviously still white. The answer is not to individualise more artificial black millionaires, but instead to further socialise both production and ownership of the means of production. As for the article on the ANC being a house divided, also linked below; it may be a little over-cooked. Of course the ANC is not a monolith. But what is wrong if branches “take matters into their own hands”? That’s what is called democracy. The reporters Mbhele and Malefane fail to note a very important thing about the Umrabulo article they make so much of in other ways. Namely, that the document proposes a procedure for managing succession that is outside the ANC constitution. That being the case, it is not surprising that Kgalema Motlanthe, the ANC Secretary-General and hence guardian of its constitution, insisted on attribution going to individuals, and not to the ANC as a whole. He had to do that. This article is notable in another way. It takes up a full page of the broadsheet Sunday Times, less the space taken by a quite large photograph and seven small display advertisements. It is an average kind of page. The article is nearly 3000 words long. This gives a good measure of how many words are available on such a page (approximately A2 size), and a baseline from which the number of words in an entire broadsheet newspaper could be calculated. It’s a pleasure and a privilege to be able to relay another of Ron Press’s poems again. Thank you, Comrade. These poems of Ron Press’s are like mental revolutionary half-bricks: handy and powerful. Click on these links: SA millionaire boom, Simpiwe Piliso, Sunday Times (874 words) House divided cripples ANC, Mbele and Malefane, Sunday Times (2887 words) Darkness, by Ron Press (Poem)