Morales to visit South Africa - Prensa Latina

Forty-seven years ago, on January 1st, 1959, in the town of Santiago de Cuba, comrade Fidel Castro addressed the people from the balcony of the city hall to declare a new era after a century of struggle for independence and dignity. January 1st is Cuba’s biggest national day of celebration. The same comrade - still up to now President Fidel Castro - has this week welcomed another comrade, Evo Morales, newly elected President of Bolivia, to Cuba (see the linked document). In the article, Prensa Latina announces that Evo Morales will be visiting South Africa! Link (1):

Fidel Castro Welcomes Evo Morales (1 page)

Make it stick

Dear Comrades, The Communist University wishes you a revolutionary New Year! This is the CU Year of the Women. Hence the newly arrived piece herewith - the concluding chapter of Angela Davis’ book on Women, Race and Class. The way forward is still the same as she wrote it, a quarter of a century ago. Yours in struggle. Links (1): 1981, Angela Davis, Women, Race and Class, Chapter 13 (11 pages)

We can work it out

Dear Comrades, Here is the year-end message of the SACP, from our General Secretary, Comrade Dr Blade Nzimande. With equal pleasure I also pass on Cuba’s message of solidarity with Comrade Evo Morales, the new President of Bolivia. You also have the SACP statement on the Matric examination results. Business Day on Wednesday reported a breakthrough agreement on trade with China. It could be really good news, if it can develop into a good long-term bilateral relationship. Links (4): 1. SACP End of the Year Statement and New Year Message (4 pages) 2. Cuba to Evo Morales, With your victory, a new history is born (1 page) 3. SACP Statement on 2005 Matric Results (1 page) 4. SA, China agree to curbs on cheap imports, Business Day (1 page)

You want a revolution

Dear Comrades, In case you are getting bored in this time between Christmas and New Year, here is some good reading. Peter McLaren and his colleague have really laid it down on organic intellectuals and critical pedagogy - which is nothing less than the theory of educating, organising, and mobilising as demanded by the SACP constitution. Secondly, here is another installment in our occasional series of “Revolutionary Classics”, from the first of Karl Marx’s three great books on France. And thirdly, via our Cuban comrades, an update on the baseball situation from the USA. Yours in struggle, Dominic Links (3): 1. 2005, McLaren and Fischman, Gramsci, Freire, Organic Intellectuals, (15 Pages) 2. Marx, Class Struggles in France, Part 1, The Defeat of June, 1848 (12 pages) 3. Bullying Cuba out of the ballpark, Baltimore Sun (2 pages)

Cuba Champions, US evasion

Dear Comrades, The one item today consists of two articles from the New York Times, forwarded to me by a Cuban comrade. The articles are about the baseball tournament that is scheduled to take place in the USA from March 3rd to 20th (i.e. coinciding with the 3rd anniversary of the occupation of Iraq and the world-wide peace activities on that occasion). The US treasury says that the Cubans can’t be paid. The Cubans say: fine, we are amateurs; give the money to the Katrina victims. The Cubans are the world champions in baseball. Read on … Yours in struggle, Dominic Links (1): Cuba Offers to Play Baseball for Katrina Victims, NYT (2 articles, 4 pages)

Year for Peace

Dear Comrades, Maybe it’s a good moment to line up one New Year’s resolution: Make 2006 a year for peace and make March 18th and 19th something to remember forever. The US warmongers are going to try to pull their troops out if they can and rely upon bombing to maintain their coercion over Iraq. The intention is for them to keep their activities out of the public eye. This is what we must work to frustrate. It is not an impossible task. Even such a newspaper as the Washington Post may sometimes assist. See today’s only item, which arrived on Christmas Day. Yours in struggle, Dominic U.S. Airstrikes Take Toll on Civilians, WaPo (4 pages)

Bourgeois Disorder

2005-12-24 Dear Comrades, Here are the most useful chapters of Lenin’s “Left Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder” (as part of our occasional “Revolutionary Classics” series). This book was written as advice to the proletarian parties in bourgeois-democratic countries. Otherwise there is very little news this Christmas Eve, which is as it should be. So let the last word go to a letter-writer with an unusual letter from yesterday’s Business Day Yours wishing you a Happy Christmas! With goodwill to everyone, Dominic Links (1): 1. Lenin, 'Left-Wing Communism', Chapters 1, 2, 4, 6 & 7 (16 pages) 2. Tension in ANC, Phaahla letter, Business Day (1 page)

Bray of Bush

2005 - 12 - 23 Dear Comrades, George Bush II the Small-Minded has banned the Cuban Baseball team from the first international tournament of that game (not the previous “World Series” which was arrogantly confined to the USA and Canada). Dave Zirin the revolutionary sports journalist goes up with a good denunciation in Counterpunch. Wiseman Khuzwayo has the job of fancying up the talk of “BEE coming of age”. If this means it is no longer considered innocent (but rather guilty) then these boosters may be saying something of the truth. At least Cde. Wiseman reports what SACP General Secretary Blade Nzimande had to say on the subject: “an aggressive sponsorship of certain sections of the black middle class by various key financial conglomerates of domestic capital”. Again from Counterpunch, here is a good description of what the plea-bargaining system that is creeping into South African law is really all about, as seen fully-developed in its homeland, the USA. A letter in the Business Day shows how state-monopoly capitalism works at the micro level. The class struggle never stops. Woolworths workers are on strike and COSATU is with them. Yours in struggle,

Dominic Links (5): 1. Bray of Pigs, Bush v Beisbol Cubano, Counterpunch (2 pages) 2. Khuzwayo, BEE Boosterism, Business Report (2 pages) 3. Presumed Guilty, US plea-bargaining system, Roberts, Cpunch (2 pages) 4. Odd bedfellows, firms, police and NPA, Business Day (1 page) 5. Zwelinzima Vavi to join picket line at Woolworths today (1 page)

BEE bailed out, again

2005-12-22 Dear Comrades, Extraordinary measures are being taken to prop up the so-called BEE in South Africa. It seems that the empowered are wanting to take their free money and walk away, leaving companies back where they started with no qualifying black capitalists. Government will now buy them out but continue to certify the companies as BEE. And there is more weirdness. Read the Business Day and Business Report articles. This kind of thing is apt to get released at Christmas time in the hope that nobody notices, or nobody reacts, or people forget. The Business Day’s article on the Hong Kong WTO Ministerial (called the “Doha round”) is gloomy. COSATU’s summary of this event remains the best so far. Just to remind us how far we have to go, Counterpunch has re-published a scorching interview with Jean Ziegler, UN rapporteur on food resources. The Communist University Please look at the attached diagram. This is how the CU is designed to work from now on. It is also a system which other organisations can use. Wikispace, Blogger, and Google Groups are all free services (so long as you can get connected). SACP, YCL and ANC areas and branches and trade union locals and branches can all use this set-up to communicate with their office-bearers and members. Please allow me to realise this system in full for the Communist University by subscribing (free) to our Google Group either by responding to the e-mail invitation you have received, or directly on the Google Group site. Please help me to escape from the chore of copying and pasting to e-mail forms every morning. Questions are welcome. Yours in struggle, Dominic Links (5): 1. Warehousing, government buys BEE stakes, B Day (2 pages) 2. Second raft of BEE codes, thumbs up, B Rep (1 page) 3. Doha round is looking doomed, Njobeni, Business Day (2 pages) 4. Empire of Shame, Ziegler, Counterpunch (3 pages) 5. Communist University Diagram (1 page)

Triumph

2005-12-21 Dear Comrades, The story of Evo Morales’ election victory in Bolivia is not a hard one to understand. It is simple and beautiful. It is a reminder that the tide of liberation is still flowing. Che Guevara died in Bolivia in 1967. Well burrowed, old mole! Google group as distribution system for the Communist University Google have accepted the first hundred or so names into the group but have switched the remaining 300 over to “Invitations”. The good side of this decision is that nobody will be able to complain that they did not get the option to refuse (but the option was already there anyway). The less good side is that I will not easily be able to know who is on which list or to finalise the process for a long time to come – unless you all respond quickly and positively. Please do so as soon as you can. In other words, by trying to save you trouble, Google have put you to the trouble of subscribing to the new list. I must now maintain the old lists and eliminate the names one by one as they appear on the new (Google group) list. It will be a lot more work for me. You can help me by responding positively and quickly. Please do. Please also be patient if you are receiving two versions – inform me and I will eliminate the old one. Just to remind you, the new system works like this: I put the items for the day on the CU wikispace web site. I then compose a message (like the one you are reading now), with links to the articles, and put it on the CU blog. The blog automatically sends one e-mail to the Google group. The group then automatically sends the message on to its list of addresses. People can join and leave the group’s list at will at any time. Members of the group cannot send messages to the group. It is not that kind of group. It is only a relay. This system is the one suggested by Google (Blogger) in their “Help”. I have enough experience of it now to be sure that Google is correct with their advice and that the system works very well. I would recommend it to anyone. Please help make it happen by responding quickly so that the change-over can be completed soon. If you are already receiving messages without attachments, you don’t have to respond. If you have any questions at all, please e-mail me.

Yours in struggle, Dominic

Links (4): 1. We are presidents - Morales, Digital Granma Internacional (1 page) 2. Triumph for Bolivia's candidate of poor, Glaister, Guardian (1 page) 3. MERCOSUR Proud of Bolivian Elections, Prensa Latina (1 page) 4. The challenge in the south - Bolivia, Gott, Guardian (2 pages)

Outcomes

Current News". Register a username and password at Wikispaces (for free) to use the discussion facility there, or go to http://domza.net/ to comment on this message. 2005-12-20 Dear Comrades, Evo Morales has been elected President of Bolivia. A great victory! More about it tomorrow. Herewith is the statement of COSATU on the outcomes of the Hong Kong WTO jamboree, called a Ministerial. The situation is clearer thanks to this statement. The Imperialists did not get all that they wanted but did create a dangerous “back door” for themselves which will have to be watched. Especially significant are COSATU’s remarks about the way forward. The statements of NEDLAC and the FSCC are included for the record and in continuance of the CU tradition of publishing original documents whenever possible. The recognition of the Ugandan Union is a small sample of the huge amount of organising work that has to go on all the time so that the Trade Union movement reproduces itself. Antiwar.com is a libertarian web site opposed to war and the Iraq war in particular. These libertarians are trying to build an international peace front. Let’s hope they succeed. They obviously have a fair bit to learn. When Robert Mugabe turned up at their peace conference they felt compelled to protest. Dr Mahathir was wiser than they were. See the fifth document.

Some of you will be receiving this message through the new channel for the first time (and without attachments for the first time). If you prefer to have attachments, please let me know at dominic.tweedie@gmail.com or by replying to this message (replies come only to me). But I hope most of you will accept it, because it is going to be much faster and better and more convenient like this. If there are any bugs or links that don't work, please also let me know. Yours in struggle, Dominic Links (5): 1. COSATU on outcomes of the WTO Hong Kong Ministerial (2 pages) 2. NEDLAC Dec 16 statement from Hong Kong (1 page) 3. Financial Sector Charter Council Dec 13 statement (2 pages) 4. Ugandan Textile Union Wins Recognition, ITGLWF (1 page) 5. World Peace Forum, Secretariat, Garris, Antiwar, Dec 19 (2 pages)

The Communist University is: A live session scheduled at http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/Communist+University+2006 Education, organisation and mobilisation at http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/ A daily e-mail update. Subscribe at http://groups.google.com/group/Communist-University/ An on-line library of classics and courses at A blog at http://domza.net/ A person you can e-mail: dominic.tweedie@gmail.com