Wonga

COSATU has quickly responded to the situation at the WTO talks where it looks like the Imperialists have had a set-back. See the linked statement below. In an article in the Sunday Independent, COSATU GS Zwelinzima Vavi was reportedly scathing of rich nations' "absurd" demands: "It is a vigorous attempt by developed countries to recolonise the developing world," he said. Concerning the single-sex hostels that still survive after so many years of the national democratic revolution, the NUM statement linked below says: “That Implats does not want to convert the single sex hostels into family units in order to avoid these problems can only mean that they think these men are perfect in compounds where they are enclosed like animals.” Concerning the psycho-management techniques used in the cheap-labour super-exploitation zone on the Mexican side of the US border, the linked article below quotes: "They are very distasteful management techniques," says Rosenberg. "And you have to call them that because they are used very methodically.” It seems like the same management logic in South Africa and in Mexico: systematic degradation. Is there such a thing as conspiracy? The word means “breathing together”, or “breathing the same air”. Capitalism works by this kind of breathing of the same air at lunches and dinner parties, horse-race meetings and on golf courses. The higher up you go, the more this is true. There is no such thing as the “hidden hand of the market”. Capitalist big business is done face-to-face in a milieu where everybody knows everybody else. For example, in President Thabo Mbeki’s weekly letter on ANC Today the President relates his pleasant participation in the 30th anniversary celebration of the Black Management Forum and quotes “founder member of the BMF, Reuel Khoza” at some length. This was in the speech in praise of Mandarins. This Reuel Khoza was the Chairman of Eskom and is now in a deal with former Energy Minister Penuell Maduna, who is also a former Justice Minister and is also in business with Bulelani Ngcuka, former head of the NPA/Scorpions and wife of Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who succeeded Penuell Maduna at the Ministry of Energy and is now the Deputy President after her husband had pursued the previous Deputy President, Jacob Zuma, using the NPA/Scorpions, together with Maduna, for at least five years. It would take a book to write up all these relationships. Indeed there are already books, such as “The Wonga Coup”, which do record some of the connections. Perhaps it would be good if there could be a new edition of the old South African publication “Who Owns Who”. See the linked article below for details of the Khoza-Maduna coup on Sasol “worth R1,45bn”. Where did they get all that wonga? Surely not from savings. Not even from a Mandarin’s salary. As a further contribution to the discussion started in the same ANC Today under the heading “The Communist Assault on the Year 1996”, and so as to let Lenin himself straighten out the anonymous writer’s tortuous derivations. See the linked speech of Lenin’s on Political Education from 1920. Click on these links: COSATU on the way forward in the WTO Doha Round (366 words) NUM dispute at Impala Platinum over single sex hostels (331 words) Psycho-Management hits Mexican maquiladoras, Moses, Counterpunch (1014 words) Maduna, Tshwarisano, Sasol seal BEE deal, Reuters, Business Day (123 words) Speech to Political Education Workers Conference, Lenin, 1920 (4019 words)